Re: OT: Death To Word, Final Word

From: "Kari Eveli" <lexitec@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <xywrite@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 1 May 2012 17:21:38 +0300

>It would be interesting to find out why Word came to dominance (not over 
>XyWrite, but over other comparable editors). My shaky hypothesis is that its 
>due to the herd mentality of bureaucratized corporations. Or is there some 
>feature of word that makes it, for some use, superior to, say, Word Perfect?

WordPerfect did not quite make it to the Windows platform. First versions were 
shaky, MS used better routines in its own software and preached a different 
programming approach to other players trying to port their applications from 
DOS to Windows. If you own the standard, you have a distinct advantage over the 
competition. As Windows became the dominant platform, WordPerfect lost more of 
its corporate appeal (WordPerfect was multiplatform: *nix versions, Mac, Data 
General, OS/2, etc.). 

Classic DOS MS-Word was very good for business correspondence and the like, 
albeit slow and clunky compared to XyWrite. I have used DOS Word from version 2 
onwards. Versions 4 and 5 had great device support, which must be been 
extremely useful as a code base when building up Windows device support. While 
the initial Word for Windows version was not very good, it was better than the 
then market-leading WordPerfect's efforts. The trick was in the interaction 
between the application and the operating system. This proved to be a stumbling 
block for the XyWrite port to Windows, too. Windows development was another 
world and way beyond the scope of many of the old school DOS programmers.

Best regards,

Kari Eveli
LEXITEC Book Publishing (Finland)
lexitec@xxxxxxxxxx

*** Lexitec Online ***
Lexitec in English: http://www.lexitec.fi/english.html
Home page in Finnish: http://www.lexitec.fi/

Re: OT: Death To Word, Final Word

Other related posts: