[opendtv] Re: I'm starting to feel sorry for, and worry about, Apple

  • From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2010 18:37:07 -0500

Craig Birkmaier wrote:

> And there was software for the Mac that did not exist for the PC.
> So what?

The PC was an open platform. Anyone could write software for it, and anyone 
could build the hardware. So the business community latched onto that, because 
it solved the problems they had.

The Mac, instead, was this little toy, with an 11" monochrome screen, 
all-in-one funny little guy, and only the software made available from Apple. 
Defintely a computer only for special applications.

> When I bought my first Mac in 1984, the FIRST application I bought for
> it was Microsoft Word.

The business community in the early days went to all sorts of different 
software packages, Craig. They did not go to Microsoft generally, except for 
the operating system. Microsoft didn't even have a built-in web browser at 
first.

> And all of these were decimated by Office, BEFORE Windows 95.

Eventually, sure, but meanwhile Apple had lost the opportunity, simply because 
they were this walled garden that sold these odd little computers for the 
evangelists. And they are still operating that way. That's why they do well 
with kids and with non-business related applicances. With those few odd 
exceptions you keep bringing up.

> Don't get hung up on the term Windows - it's just a marketing term.
> MS DOS has been at the core of Microsoft's juggernaut.

The dynamic was this: through Windows 2, Windows was a poor excuses at creating 
a shell over which one could run multiuple DOS applications at the same time. 
Windows 3 was slightly better, in that it didn't crash as consistently.

All of the Winodws variants so far had had to rely on third party networking, 
and networking was becoming very important. That's why they crashed all the 
time.

Windows 3.11 introduced networking (Windows for Workgroups), and improved 
things a lot, but still it was a shell over DOS.

Windows 95 was when the DOS underpinnings were invisible, if not totally gone 
(they were totally gone in the pro-oriented WinNT of that same era), *and* when 
Windows-only applications started to take over completely. The DOS applications 
disappeared from businesses. Only games continued to be DOS, for awhile longer.

Apple lost out with business and industry because they insist on being a walled 
garden. I'm not the only person who naturally steers away from walled gardens.

Bert
 
 
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