[openbeos] Re: Name suggestion
- From: Nathan Kelley <phyax@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenBeOS Discussion <openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 10:28:36 +1000
To OpenBeOS Discussion <openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> subscribers,
From: <m.jacob@xxxxxx>,
At the end of the day it's a question of money and even with a free
license the cost for an OEM doesn't justify the effort. Consumers don't
want anything except Windows unless they are power users or geeks and
both don't fall into the mainstream market of all OEMs. Setting up
niche products is far to expensive (just think opf all the QA required
due to the diversity of hardware) and in addition margins are already
pretty low. I don't even start to speak about MS contracts ...
This is a matter of strategy. Developers want to see the seats before
porting, and OEMs want to see the packages before switching offerings.
Chicken and egg question, of course.
Fortunately, we know the way out starts with developers. Microsoft, for
all their faults, has looked after their developers very well. You'll
find plenty of developers swear by the Visual- series, by the support
they've received from Microsoft, and by the money they've made
distributing for Windows.
Apple has taken the right approach with MacOS X, by revamping ADC (Apple
Developer Connection), providing development tools for free, and
encouraging organisations that port to MacOS X, or that implement MacOS
X solutions for their customers. This approach has already started
paying off for Apple.
Now, this question doesn't really involve the OpenBeOS team, other than
creating a quality OS that developers will be interested in developing
for, and creating accurate, comprehensive documentation. Providing a
good IDE, providing comprehensive resources for developers to
collaborate/seek help/get advice/get the latest news, providing
support & incentives to said developers, and so forth is the provenance
of others.
Just forget the bundling idea ... it's not an option for Palm and it
will
never be for anybody else.
So, the competition should all pack their bags and go home? Windows (or
whatever follows) will be pre-installed on all mainstream OEM boxes
forever and ever amen? Windows APIs/metrics/concepts/etc to be the
standard for everything forever and ever amen? As if!
I don't believe that, and I don't think anyone else here does either.
Yes, it's true NOW. It wasn't true a decade ago, and it may not be true
a decade from now.
Further, while that's true now in first- and second-world
English-speaking countries, many other countries are looking at
open-standards, and in many cases open-source, as mandatory for their
government operations. If you're a business in one of those countries,
will you be using what happens to be trendy in the US at the moment, or
what your own government's using? I can guarantee it's not the first
option. Article on this?
<http://news.com.com/2100-1001-272299.html>
Unfortunately, the broader point of not having true competition is quite
true. For the moment, most consumers will flatly refuse to have multiple
platforms, because it makes computing too complex for them. This
situation can only be resolved with time, and alternatives. I believe
that OpenBeOS is positioned to be one such alternative.
Cheers, Nathan.
________________________________________________
Nathan "Phyax" Kelley
email | phyax@xxxxxxxxxx, phyax@xxxxxxx
icq | 4618849
yahoo | phyax
________________________________________________
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