Windows Vs Other Operarting Systems

[Ulf Dittmer]

Originally posted by Arvind Birla:
I' not even getting into their innovativeness here with regards to GUI, TCP/IP etc.

As explained above, GUIs do not originate with Microsoft. And much of what they did come up with in the early years was inspired by MacOS (like MacOS was inspired by Xerox).
TCP/IP, of course, was developed when DOS (much less Windows) didn't even exist.

I'm convinced had it not been for Microsoft, the internet wouldn't even exist as we know it today.

The Arpanet predates Microsoft by years, TCP/IP has Unix roots, and the WWW was developed on Unix. Where does Microsoft fit into the picture?

[Pat Farrell]

Originally posted by Arvind Birla:
I' not even getting into their innovativeness here with regards to GUI, TCP/IP etc. I'm convinced had it not been for Microsoft, the internet wouldn't even exist as we know it today.

M$ stole GUIs from Apple who stole it from Xerox. Xerox had it in 1980, Apple in 1984. You could claim that Windows 386 had a GUI, in 1988, but it was essentially useless. Windows 3.0 came out in May 1990. Windows had no traction before then.

Microsoft ignored TCP/IP for ages. They thought networking was competing with Novell NetWare. NT, which was released in 1993, was directly aimed at NetWare. There was no mass-market TCP/IP from Microsoft until Win95.

There was zero innovation by Microsoft in the things you claim.
[ June 05, 2008: Message edited by: fred rosenberger ]

[Bear Bibeault]

Originally posted by Cameron Wallace McKenzie:
... and would love to see Linux dominate, but until Linux can be used by my Mom without a problem

If you s/Linux/Unix/, OS X is a great Unix implementation that anyone's mom can use.

[Bear Bibeault]

Originally posted by Arvind Birla:
had it not been for Microsoft, the internet wouldn't even exist as we know it today.

Hahahahahaha.

Sorry, I literally laughed out loud at that one. For years, Microsoft fought the Internet. Luckily, it had little effect.

Please study history before making pronouncements that don't match reality.
[ June 05, 2008: Message edited by: Bear Bibeault ]

[Devesh H Rao]

Originally posted by fred rosenberger:

MS has also been known to push the competition aside. For a while, when you bought a PC, Microsoft messenger came pre-installed. Microsoft forced other IM services, such as Yahoo's or AOL's, to pay Microsoft a FEE to have their IM client pre-installed on the desktop.

[ June 05, 2008: Message edited by: fred rosenberger ]

But is that not what business is all about, having captured a market why would anyone allow anyone else a free ride. I do not understand the whole philosophy of MS forced others, if the others were so against MS why the %*#$ did they let MS get the market share in the first place.

And as Cameron has so rightly pointed out, windows is(was) the choice if someone with less than a PHD in CS was to use pc's in those times...

[marc weber]

Originally posted by Arvind Birla:
...Windows? It bought down the cost of ownership of a PC manifold. It made it accessible to the masses. Something all OS vendors failed in doing. Just the tech centric ecosystem put in place by Microsoft may have raised entire nations out of poverty. I' not even getting into their innovativeness here with regards to GUI, TCP/IP etc. I'm convinced had it not been for Microsoft, the internet wouldn't even exist as we know it today.

Are you making all this up? Or did you misinterpret a satiric article?

[Devesh H Rao]

Originally posted by fred rosenberger:

you are probably correct. but how do you know that it wouldn't be BETTER without Microsoft?

I agree with arvind regarding the internet landscape... and as far as knowing it would'nt be better without microsoft part, fred, would you also be able to say with the same amount of conviction that anyone who beat MS in the game in the 90's would not have been equally monopolistic.

Note: Google, the much touted MS challenger is getting there. No one complains about google placing ads based on the mail content in gmail but MS gets the flack for security issues :roll:

[Pat Farrell]

Originally posted by Devesh H Rao:
if the others were so against MS why the %*#$ did they let MS get the market share in the first place.

M$ won because business needed Word, Excel and Powerpoint. And because things like VisualBasic, Gupta, PowerBuilder, etc. made it easy to make small to medium sized applications work like Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Once M$ stopped fighting the Internet, then businesses also needed IE.

Today, its more obvious, Office is $400, Windows is $100. Where does M$ get most of their revenue and profit? Office.

Right now, Mac's OS-X has amazing traction. They are getting something like 20% of the over $1000 laptop market. Up from 2% not long ago. OS-X shows the world how good a Unix-based OS can be, how user friendly, robust and secure. I recommend OS-X to all of my non-geek friends.

[Devesh H Rao]

Originally posted by Bear Bibeault:

For years, Microsoft fought the Internet. Luckily, it had little effect.


[ June 05, 2008: Message edited by: Bear Bibeault ]

Does it not speak for the agility of MS to play catch up, from playing the devil's advocate to again being at the forefront deserves credit and i guess you cannot deny MS the tenacity to stay at the top of the game even after being the most hated corporation from the super geeks.

LOL there is a joke regarding geeks coding for MS applications on their mac's (by the way that is a joke please do not ask me for proof as i do not know if any exist).

[Pat Farrell]

Originally posted by Devesh H Rao:
MS gets the flack for security issues

M$ deserves flack for security, or more properly lack thereof. It was designed in to NT, and NT is the basis of all Windows since W2K. When NT was designed, the target was friendly office LANs, replacing Netware with NT. There was ZERO internet support then.

In that friendly, closed environment, it made sense to send data and programs around the LAN. What is criminal, is that they did not fix it when the world changed, and all the machines got onto the Internet. Most of the malware in the world is enabled by M$'s design decisions made in 1993.

Corporations spend a fortune on firewalls, ineffective security suites, and IT time fixing screwed up computers, and it is directly Microsoft's decisions that cause and enable it. I'm stunned that corporate IT folks tolerate it, its insanely expensive and crushes productivity.

[Cameron Wallace McKenzie]

It bought down the cost of ownership of a PC manifold.

IBM and Apple certainly did their best to keep prices high. Knock offs and a 'cheap' OS did help bring the computer to many homes. Apple still prices their computers very much outside of what most average homes can afford. I don't think a computer world run by Apple and IBM would be any more egalitarian than the one currently dominated by M$. It might be more user friendly, but like the iPhone and the iPod, only more user friendly for those that can pay the extra money to buy them.

A Mercedes vs. Hyundai argument, I guess.

-Cameron McKenzie

[Satish Chilukuri]

Originally posted by Devesh H Rao:


fred, would you also be able to say with the same amount of conviction that anyone who beat MS in the game in the 90's would not have been equally monopolistic.

In that case we would have been cursing that company . One thing to note here is that at the time MS was gaining monopoly, Linux was coming around pretty decently. Had there not been a MS monopoly, there would have been a good chance for Linux to become a strong contender in the home computing market. And since it is licensed under GPL, it would have been very difficult for someone to monopolize it.

Does it not speak for the agility of MS to play catch up, from playing the devil's advocate to again being at the forefront deserves credit

I think it speaks more of the amount of money (and as a result, power) MS has. Embrace, extend and "Innovate"

and i guess you cannot deny MS the tenacity to stay at the top of the game even after being the most hated corporation from the super geeks.

When MS came into picture, the super geeks were rooting for it. It was the underdog and IBM was the 800 pound gorilla.

[Pat Farrell]

Originally posted by Satish Chilukuri:
Had there not been a MS monopoly, there would have been a good chance for Linux to become a strong contender in the home computing market.

I think you have your time lines confused. Win3.0 was 1990, at the time IBM's OS/2 was the only competitor in the Intel PC space. There were others, Minux, SCO, apple, and maybe Amiga. And Stallman had his ever stillborn GNU/Hurd

Linux started in 1991. It didn't get any traction until 1995 or so, and it was pretty crude well past that. Fedora Core 1 was 2003.

When MS came into picture, the super geeks were rooting for it. It was the underdog and IBM was the 800 pound gorilla.

Not the super geeks, they likes Solaris or HP/UX. But you are correct that a lot of geeks much preferred Windows to OS/2 for semi-religious grounds. At the time, M$ was far less evil than IBM.

[Sri Anand]

Only difference is Microsoft reaches out every one, Linux may be excellent choice for a computer geek, a ordinary user may not know what to do with it.
For an ordinary user, Memory and performance may be minor things or he will not care if the computer is serving his purpuse, its a simple fact. Others have not been able to come up with a simple user freindly and scalable OS. Microsoft survives with so many defects because its usable by ordinary people,If there is an issue microsoft will fix it and people can/will have to wait because there is no other product for them

One important aspect is microsoft has captured so much market and for some one coming new to market and compete microsoft in cost effective way isnt going to be easy. Unless its going to be a brilliant and simple invention

[ June 05, 2008: Message edited by: Raghunandan Mamidala ]
[ June 05, 2008: Message edited by: Raghunandan Mamidala ]

[Bear Bibeault]

Originally posted by Raghunandan Mamidala:
Others have not been able to come up with a simple user freindly and scalable OS.

You've never used OS X, have you?

[Sri Anand]

I have used only windows and Linux

[Bear Bibeault]

Then how can you make the claim that you did? It's like saying, "only Ford has made cars that handle well" when all you have ever driven is Fords and perhaps a Yugo.

[Jelle Klap]

Originally posted by Bear Bibeault:

You've never used OS X, have you?

Ah yes.
Mac users.

[Bear Bibeault]

Originally posted by Jelle Klap:

Mac users People with a broad knowledge of operating systems

Fixed your post.

[Nickolas Case]

A Mercedes vs. Hyundai argument

Is exactly all this is. Of course there are better "Mercedes" OS's out there. But roughly (read: complete guess) 70-80% of the population can only afford Hyundai's...

[Bear Bibeault]

Originally posted by Nickolas Case:
70-80% of the population can only afford Hyundai's...

I miss your point. Linux is free, and OS X is cheaper than Windows. (And don't even try to bring up the "Macs are too expensive' fallacy).

[Nickolas Case]

Yet what would it cost to get a PC with unix on it?

[Bear Bibeault]

Originally posted by Nickolas Case:
Yet what would it cost to get a PC with unix on it?

The cost of the PC. Again, what's your point?

I assumed from your post that you were saying that people use Windows because they can't afford anything else. On which I call bull-doody. Windows is the one of the most expensive general operating systems around, and that's not even counting lost productivity and TCO.

If you were inferring something else, you haven't made that clear.

[Nickolas Case]

I think it is all about perception. I just shopped for PC's with unix on it. Not much selection. But I can run to the local store and buy a PC with windows no problem. Here is where the comparison to Mercedes vs. Hyundai and MS vs. everything else starts to part. A Mercedes is a world renowned auto thus known to be worth the extra price. Whereas the "Mercedes" OS though not much more, or even the same price, is not very well known outside the IT community. But the "Hyundai" is. So most people still go with what they know and are used to.

[Bear Bibeault]

Originally posted by Nickolas Case:
I think it is all about perception. I just shopped for PC's with unix on it.

See earlier in this thread regarding underhanded business practices.

In any case, easy availability is not the same as affordability.

A Mercedes is a world renowned auto thus known to be worth the extra price.

Again this is where your analogy is breaking down unless you think Mercedes are less expensive than Hyundais.

[Pat Farrell]

Originally posted by Nickolas Case:
cost to get a PC with unix on it?

Unix? Don't you mean Linux? There is a difference.

Ubuntu is free. Free to download, free to modify. If you ask, they will mail to you, free, a CD containing it.

There is no cost to using Linux.

Unix is different, and very few folks use it. There are legal arguments about how much of Unix may or may not be in assorted other *nix, from SuSe to BSD to HP-UX.

Oh yeah, *BSD are all free too. They are not Linux, either.

[Pat Farrell]

Originally posted by Ulf Dittmer:
TCP/IP has Unix roots, and the WWW was developed on Unix.

Actually, TCP/IP has Tenex and Multics roots. Unix was a late comer to the party. But Unix was there pretty early in the party.

the WWW was developed on Unix.

This is probably true, don't know if Solaris counts as Unix. In the early 1990s, there were a lot of vendors of Unix systems, SGI, Sun, HP, even Data General.

[Pat Farrell]

Originally posted by Nickolas Case:
A Mercedes is a world renowned auto thus known to be worth the extra price.

In Germany, Mercedes are used as taxis. They are not nearly as "special" as the marketing/branding folks have claimed and a lot of American yuppies think. They are nice, and very expensive. Whether or not they are worth the extra expense is a personal question.

But you don't seem to be grounding your argument well. Linux is free. Its hard to argue about price when something is free.

[Nickolas Case]

Originally posted by Bear Bibeault:
Again this is where your analogy is breaking down unless you think Mercedes are less expensive than Hyundais.

I am not sure what you mean by this? I concede the analogy was a bad one in hindsight, but where did you get the impression I think Mercedes are cheaper than hyundai's?


In any case, affordability and availability do have an impact on pc purchasing though. Would you search far and wide for something you know little about when you can go down the street and purchase something comparable for a comparable price?


Pat, I was reffering to unix as unix and windows are the only OS I have dealt with. I know there are a myriad of *nix's out there, all free.
Many OS's are free but the price of the PC is no less cheaper with the free OS's


Yes, a german car is used as a german taxi. And corect me if I am wrong, but they don't have heated leather seats, GPS nav's and the other bells and whistles they are known for here in the States. Or do they?

[Nicholas Jordan]

Originally posted by Nickolas Case:
Is exactly all this is. Of course there are better "Mercedes" OS's out there. But roughly (read: complete guess) 70-80% of the population can only afford Hyundai's...

Linux may be obtained for $39.95 at the mall. You buy the book - the os comes for free in the back of the book. M$ will cost oh, $198 - maybe $250 or something ~ I am sure a NT-Server probably costs 500-600. With just a little more skill than what I have, you could write a server in Java for free. The server that comes with the development kit has SSLEngine. To create a HTTPS server you just read and do what it says.

Every night ( on TV ) we watch a parade of shows, the style of which is 'Criminal Minds' - and there is supposed to be decent forensics. If that's forensics, then water is not wet and gold cannot be sold.

[Bear Bibeault]

Originally posted by Nickolas Case:
I am not sure what you mean by this? I concede the analogy was a bad one in hindsight ...

Your analogy would only work if Mercedes were more expensive than Hyundais.

In any case, affordability and availability do have an impact on pc purchasing though

But the discussion is not primarily about PCs, but about Windows -- which is the most expensive of the consumer systems. Even more so if you count TCO.

Granted, it's impossible to totally separate hardware from software in this discussion because, as you have noted, it's practically impossible to buy PC hardware without being forced to also pay for Windows. Again, see previous discussion on shady business practices.

Would you search far and wide...

Ubuntu/Linux is just a download away. And if you want the most usable and consumer friendly unix implementation ever, Macs are available anywhere apple.com or amazon.com deliver.

Many OS's are free but the price of the PC is no less cheaper with the free OS's

Again, the discussion is about Windows, not PC hardware.
[ June 05, 2008: Message edited by: Bear Bibeault ]

[Cameron Wallace McKenzie]

Originally posted by Bear Bibeault:
(And don't even try to bring up the "Macs are too expensive' fallacy).

Wasn't it the availability of cheap PC knockoffs with an inexpensive Windows OS that was practically the death of Macs and true IBM PCs?

Total cost of ownership (TCO) always makes me laugh. When I worked at IBM, cheaper TCO is what we always sold to customers when we were three times more expensive than our competitors.

Apple has always prided themselves on charging as much as they could for their 'superior' product, which brought about the ill-fated 'Mercedes' comment, the idea being that people are willing to pay more to get something that is marketed as being better.

The really nice thing about buying Apple products is that every once in a while, Apple gains a conscience, and feel guilty about how much they overcharge their customers, and sometimes, they even give you a $200 voucher for the Apple store.

-Cameron McKenzie
[ June 05, 2008: Message edited by: Cameron Wallace McKenzie ]

[marc weber]

Originally posted by Cameron Wallace McKenzie:
... Apple has always prided themselves on charging as much as they could...

What's your basis for that?

[Cameron Wallace McKenzie]

The $600 iPhone..er...I mean the $400 iPhone.....

Hey, I'm a shareholder, so I'm not complaining.

Apple understands their place in the market, and they charge accordingly.



-Cameron McKenzie
[ June 05, 2008: Message edited by: Cameron Wallace McKenzie ]

[Pat Farrell]

Originally posted by marc weber:
What's your basis for that?

Actually, any sane business charges as high a price as possible all the time.
That does not mean that they are over (or under) charging.

[Pat Farrell]

Originally posted by Nickolas Case:[QB]Many OS's are free but the price of the PC is no less cheaper with the free OS's

And have you asked why? Is it because Windows is worth zero?
Or is it possibly because Microsoft's license terms don't reduce the cost to the vendor (aka manufacturer) if they leave out the Windows license.

There is a big cost to the vendor just to have two models of a computer, even if all the hardware is identical. They need two part numbers, two labels on the box. There are chances to put the right part in the wrong box, or make mistakes in the shipping and/or invoicing department.

There is nearly zero profit margin in selling 99% of the PCs in the world.
Why do vendors include all the crapware? Because they are paid to install it, and it may be *all* of their profit.

Yes, a german car is used as a german taxi. And corect me if I am wrong, but they don't have heated leather seats, GPS nav's and the other bells and whistles they are known for here in the States. Or do they?

The Mercedes taxis don't have the fancy bells and whistles. But they are the same car, chassis, engine, etc.

You can get overpriced seats, GPS, etc. on cheap cars. It doesn't make them high quality.

[Bear Bibeault]

Originally posted by Cameron Wallace McKenzie:
Wasn't it the availability of cheap PC knockoffs with an inexpensive Windows OS that was practically the death of Macs...

No. Inept management and an antiquated OS almost sealed Apple's fate in the 90's. Now that both of those situations are well behind, Apple is doing just fine. More than fine.

Total cost of ownership (TCO) always makes me laugh.

Just because you were able to bilk customers doesn't make TCO an invalid concept.

Apple has always prided themselves on charging as much as they could for their 'superior' product

Just saying it doesn't make it true. And just because Apple doesn't make a cheap-as-dirt disposble PC doesn't make their lineup overpriced. Many price comparisons have concluded, especially at the higher end, that Macs fare very favorably, even surpass, comparable machines from Dell and the like when a fair comparison is made.

Each of us chooses where to spend our money based on what we feel is the best tool. And for me, and many like me, OS X is hands-down the best consumer OS available.

And I'm not trying to convert anyone here, just pointed out how the statement "no one else has made a better OS than Windows" was so much bunk.

[Pat Farrell]

Originally posted by Bear Bibeault:
No. Inept management and an antiquated OS almost sealed Apple's fate in the 90's

Absolutely. They had no clue what they were selling. No idea what the "brand" meant.

Now they know: great design, very good usability, robust, good support. Priced higher than cheap stuff, but not much (if any) more expensive than serious systems (Lenovo's business laptop line costs about what the Apples do. Lenovo's cheap stuff is much cheaper, but its not in the same league)

You can get good money for appealing to the cool.

At least PCs are moving away from the beige box. But they have a long way to go to be stylish.

Jobs may be a tyrant, but he has a vision, and makes it happen

[Bear Bibeault]

Originally posted by Pat Farrell:
Absolutely. They had no clue what they were selling. No idea what the "brand" meant.

Exactly. Up until the advent of the iMac and OS X put Apple back on the map, I had been convinced that Apple was in a death spiral that they could not possibly pull themselves out of.

I remember laughing when I saw the first iMac. Good thing I'm in engineering instead of marketing.

[Doug Slattery]

It seems to be getting a little warm in here. In fact, I have some ketchup for those who have put their foot in their mouth so it will taste better .

I'd like to comment in a different perspective as a developer. As a user, I find MS to be a toy, dare I say. Way back when, I was really surprised when NT took off as a server and had a substantial following. Really though, it simply provided file, print and some hokey email solution in a successful attempt to squash Novell, which as a former CNE, imho Netware was a far superior product as a server. I've used Macs some, but they've never tried as far as I know to be a server. Macs really shine in professional software such as desktop publishing and audio/video editing and production. Windows, and even DOS has a very popular track record having broken a very fundamental of an operating system: An error or fault in an application will not cause the OS to crash. I have yet to see this happen on any *nix or Mac system.

Onward to my point. I'll exclude Java because it's cross platform and a moot point, not to mention it also holds your hand so to speak. I'll also exclude Macs since I don't have first hand development experience. I've written a *LOT* of code on many versions of Windows and *nix. I've also done gui coding in Win32 and X11/Motif. Even though MS has this nice fluffy ide, I still hands down prefer coding to *nix. Just give me vi, a compiler and dbx, dbxtra or gdb and I'm a happy camper. Why? Because it keeps you disciplined to Know Your Code. Ide's make developing easier, but tend to make you complacent and maybe even sloppy.

This is coming from an old school geeky low level guy.

Oh yeah, someone once told me that after they learned Unix, they thought it was what an OS should be. May I be so bold to say that it is the OS for real men.

Aloha,
Doug

-- Nothing is impossible if I'mPossible