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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rusty Johnson who wrote (10119)	6/11/1998 12:49:00 AM
From: QwikSand	Respond to of 64865

Thank you for the enjoyable Byte article. It was indeed a very good layman's explanation of why PC's don't work. The author could have discussed one more major factor: open hardware and software architectures (at the system level, not the application level) lead to combinatorial explosions of possible system configurations. The two largest banes of the PC are the removable cover and the bus slot (things that Wintel-ites are trying to eliminate and will one day). Neither OEM's, nor third-party hardware manufacturers, nor software developers including Microsoft, can even dream of certifying their products exhaustively with every possible aftermarket configuration...just because they can't count that high. The combination of removable covers and rapid technology cycles in both hardware and software just about guarantees you a configuration-based crash-fest eventually. OEM's like Sun and Apple who keep tighter control over their hardware and system software content (not total control, but tighter control) are less vulnerable to instability based solely on configuration combinatorics. Open architectures drive huge markets, but they are definitely double-edged. Which is better for users: freedom of choice or freedom from choice? The answer's not the same at all times and places. Ask the college student whose Word locks up on the last page of a 20-page paper the night before it's due, but the day after they put in a new sound card. Ask the DOJ. Regards, --QwikSand