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To: Andy Thomas who wrote (19078)	5/14/1998 10:20:00 PM
From: nommedeguerre	Respond to of 24154

Andy, >>how about the simple fact of having a command line available inside of a graphical environment?...was/is this easy to get to on a mac? What would I do with a command-line on my Mac? The only time I have used the command-line on my Windows machine has been to run DOS games or more commonly, to do the reboot/reinstall/reformat on the retail version of Win95. Windows does not exactly come with alot of command-line utilities and nobody writes apps for DOS anymore. >>how about the idea of low-cost, high-volume, professionally supported software? Borland was the first to do this actually. >>let's face it... windows combines the best elements of unix and mac... Windows combines the base elements of UNIX and the MacOS but leaves out the advanced features which is probably what is delaying NT 5.0. In the end NT will have to do everything that UNIX does to meet the needs of the UNIX world, which means a UNIX clone with a different Windowing application interface. Just ask the Hotmail crowd about scaleability. WindowsNT (OEM version anyways) seems very stable and just yesterday I ran a test which performed 22 million context switches on it. It is good enough for most apps but it is not a leader by any means. Why Microsoft does not just make a NT Lite instead of Win98 is beyond me. "...why can't everyone just get to work?" Too many have browser designer on their resume and as we all know, nobody is paying for development of that product anymore. Cheers, Norm

To: Andy Thomas who wrote (19078)	5/14/1998 11:51:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Andy, here is what I posted a bit over a year ago, from Business Week, 4/27/97, URL and everything, accessible after free registration. From WHY THE FASTEST CHIP DIDN'T WIN businessweek.com "Still, the future of Alpha--and Digital--increasingly depended on NT. And Digital's relationship with Microsoft was growing more complex. In mid-1993, Digital engineers looking into early versions of NT noticed that some portions of the program bore a striking resemblance to an advanced operating system called Mica that Digital had developed, but canceled in 1988. Mica was the brainchild of Dave Cutler, a former Digital software star who joined Microsoft in 1988 and was now the chief architect of NT. Palmer decided that Digital had a legal claim against Microsoft. But, insiders say, instead of filing suit, Palmer chose to use the threat of legal action to spur Microsoft into improving Alpha's prospects. Microsoft execs won't comment, saying it concerns legal matters. Oops, I can't resist an ironic aside from the present: Bwaaaahahahahahaha! Microsoft execs have been really reticent about discussing legal matters lately. We must be free to innovate! By hook or crook! Back to our regularly scheduled program. . . Still, Palmer's gambit appears to have worked. By the spring of 1995 the two companies hammered out details of a broad agreement for Digital to provide NT network installation services for Microsoft. Announced with great fanfare by Digital in August, 1995, the alliance included payments by Microsoft estimated at $65 million to $100 million to help train Digital NT technicians. So no, Cutler didn't steal VMS code, there was a lot of VAX assembler there, maybe some BLISS. Yes, DEC might have sued, they chose a different course, still a significant amount of money was apparently involved. Another one of those things casting an ironic light on the sanctity of intellectual property law versus the horrible injustice of antitrust. Reggie will no doubt tell us BW just made the story up to sell advertising. And, as I usually say, it's not that big a deal, the Mica code probably was never going to be used for anything by DEC, and there's probably not much of it around in NT anymore, either. Just another part of standard Microsoft business practice, that's all. As to the rest of your list, pretty debatable, I'll leave it at that. Cheers, Dan.

To: Andy Thomas who wrote (19078)	5/15/1998 12:21:00 AM
From: Justin Banks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Andy - Getting back to original things... how about the fact the Microsoft was the first major pc house to run good beta test programs? Good lord, man, are you mad? how about the simple fact of having a command line available inside of a graphical environment?... was/is this easy to get to on a mac? You call dos a command line? You need a serious education. also, how about all of the products which they purchase... and continually make better... VB, softimage, frontpage... on and on... If you think soft is a good product, or has gotten better since MSFT aquisition, you need to take a real good hard look @ Maya. ...why can't everyone just get to work? Every day, man, every day. -justinb