[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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