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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (56171)	5/29/1998 4:04:00 PM
From: Charles Skeen	Respond to of 186894

OFF-TOPIC To Jacob and Barry and Scarecrow: Re: "when I finally upgrade from Windows 3.1 to Windows 98" I wish I could follow your suggestions re avoiding an upgrade, but unfortunately they are probably not acceptable. And that's my point -- Microsoft has a virtual monopoly on the operating system that most new software is being written for. As a result, I will have to pay a high monopoly price instead of a lower price that would result from a competitive market (see Economics 101). Utility is not the issue here. You could buy a Mac I have tried that, unfortunately. For our other house, my wife and daughter forced me to buy a Mac. This was a great dilemma at the time, because price/performance was so much better for PC models. But when Mac introduced the 5215CD, which had a reasonably large hard disc and a speedier CD-ROM drive (to match comparable PC's), we bit. Later, I found out that Apple took a lot of short-cuts in the design, particularly w.r.t. upgradeability, modem port speed, and other factors. Also, the kinky Mac operating system sometimes crashes 5 times a day or more. Although other, newer Mac systems may have overcome these problems, I feel that I was taken by Apple once, and I am not willing to experiment again. It is very little surprise to me that Apple's market share has been on a continual slide, and it will not be a surprise if they go out of the personal computer business entirely, as a result of the short-sightedness of their management. The only logical course, then, is DON'T BUY IT! As I said, I don't really have a choice. I use WordPerfect instead of Word, Netscape instead of IE, and Quattro Pro instead of Excel. But more and more, I am running into applications that are only written for Windows 95, so I will have to do the upgrade soon. (I do have Excel 4.0 -- the computer came with it, but some applications work in conjuction with Excel, requiring v. 5.0 as a minimum. An example is the expense program in my Palm Pilot. That is another $100-150 to upgrade from 4.0 to 5.0.) You can't think you need it and not think it's worth paying something for. I never said that its not worth $200. I just don't want to pay a monopoly price (just as when I bought my wife a diamond ring, I had to pay the De Beers monopoly price). No hard feelings toward you all. Charlie.