Re: OT: Death To Word, Final Word

  • From: J R FOX <jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: xywrite@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:11:57 -0700 (PDT)

--- On Mon, 4/30/12, flash <flash@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 
> WinNT was MS's big leap into the corporate market, the first
> MS OS which
> came in server and client versions. Word came wrapped up in
> the bundle,
> along with PowerPointless (presentations), Excess (tables
> with
> calculations), and Access (db). MS knew they were up against
> corporate
> giants (Novell, IBM) and a vast pre-installed base. MS
> actually _paid_
> customers to dump their Novell servers and install MS-based
> ones. I know
> because I was doing Cisco training at the time, and I
> suddenly saw rows
> and rows of Novell engineers out of work, desperate to get
> retained as
> networkers because they had been chucked out of their server
> departments
> and replaced by MS-trained server engineers. Once
> corporations got
> hooked on the MS OS, they just took the MS-apps (Word, etc.)
> line and
> sinker. Aggressive marketing, not features or functionality,
> triumphed.
> That's my theory anyway.
> 
> <MD FL>
> 

Yes, that squares pretty well with what I remember from that 
period.  You can't underestimate the power of marketing 
muscle and leverage.  Where are nearly all of MicroSquish's 
erstwhile competitors in the basic business apps sector ?  
In the boneyard, that's where.  (Borland, anyone ?)

It has been noted here many times that the basic Menu-laden 
design of Wurgh! was initially tailored to secretaries, 
and office temps in particular.  With that basic product 
design in place, the program's feature set continued 
proliferating like Kudzu.  It was a radically different 
market than the one Xy appealed to, but now it is just 
about the only game in town.  Even the wp in the free 
alternative, Open Office, has basically adopted the Wurgh!-
style design.  What else is there, apart from some techie 
editors and whatever the Linux folks may be using ?  
Or do Mac users have some other options ?


   Jordan

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