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To: Charles Hughes who wrote (11032)	6/6/1998 6:50:00 AM
From: SemiBull	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14631

<< And if you don't do OK on NT in the future you won't do at all.>> Chaz, Is this a prediction of the death of UNIX or where the growth is near term? I am wondering once Merced gets out, why won't UNIX dominate as an OS in the mid to high (maybe low) end? Is it your belief that NT 5.0 (etc.) will actually steal the mid to high end market from UNIX (whatever versions you want, including LINUX for example) even with MS' reputation for buggy s/w? Thanks in advance....SemiBull

To: Charles Hughes who wrote (11032)	6/6/1998 12:27:00 PM
From: Rick Kawala	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14631

> Giving the software away at first and charging later is now an > established paradigm for hit software. From Doom to Netscape > to C++. I wish they'd truly given it away, though. In their press release (http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/980604/informix_2.html), they say that the licenses are only good for 6 months, thereby blunting the impact of the original offer. Now it's just a widely-disseminated trial version. They should give it away free in perpetuity, and charge only for upgrades (which anyone who starts using the soft- ware in a commercial way will inevitably buy) and for user seats (after 6 months or so). Get it in the hands of university instruc- tors and their students (worked for UNIX) and try to get mind- share. Those people weren't going to pay for it anyway, so it wouldn't hurt revenues. Seed the Java community too, where the database versions of IDEs often go for a grand or more. Rick