Re: www.microsoft.com sure needs a lot of silicon

In
<<Pine.SGI.3.96.970427131232.24726B-100000_at_earth_systems.monterey.edu>>,

joseph <coughlan_at_earth_systems.monterey.edu> wrote:

>FALSE. Win3.0 was shipped in the monopolisitic and anti-competitive
>preload agreements that the DOJ stopped. Everyone was given Win3.0 with
>their PC because the COST OF DOS with Win3.0 was LESS than just shipping
>DOS.
        FALSE... Having just checked the 28-May-1991 (exactly one year after the introduction of Win 3.0), and found several PC vendors which were not pre-loading Win 3.0. And those that did, usually had a few models which didn't (the very low end and the very high end), which would run counter to your notion that it was cheaper to preload both, And many of those that preload both Window & DOS, were loading DOS 4.x, which Microsoft didn't own (IBM did)

        What the DOJ stopped (circa 1994), the MS practice of licensing MSDOS cheaper "per cpu" than "per copy".

>>It
>> wasn't until 3.1 came out that any real applications started to hit the
>> market (almost 2 years later and just prior to the release of OS/2 2.0).
 

>FALSE. It tooks years after 1992 for Win3.1 specific applications to
>arrive. Great applications like AMI PRO were a 3.0 application. ( I even
>found the win386 version of AMI PRO useful as a WYSIWYG application).
>Functional and powerfull apps arrived for win3.0 and most of these
>powerful apps were compatible with 3.0 long after win3.1 shiped. Win3.1
>was characterized, correctly, as a bug fix release.

        FALSE --- Actually, you two are arguing different points. The original statement was that demand for (and supply of) Windows application didn't appear until 1992. You countered that there were many Windows 3.0 compatible programs, but didn't say when. Going back to the 1991 issue I cited above, of the 15 database programs reviewed, only 3 were Windows apps. Your statement is essentially true, but irrelevant. The supply of Win 3.1 apps was delayed for some months, due to MS delay in getting the 3.1 SDK out to developers. It didn't ship till about 2 months after Win 3.1 itself did. (I recall, because I had dozens of users crying for Win 3.1 versions of my programs back then...) So, the original statement is correct -- "It's wasn't until 3.1 came out that any real applications stated to hit the market" (the fact that they were Win 3.0 compatible isn't important)

>Factually the only big winners MS has are the ones they preload. Office
>and Win95.

        Plus it's programming language, "Home" products, CDROMs, books etc. And preloads of Office aren't that common, most people get it through retail purchases. And Win95 has been in the top 5 for retail sales for 18 months straight now --- It would be a success without any preloads at all.

>WinNT is still second class to OS/2 in marketshare.

        Yes, but only since IBM started marketing it as a consumer product, putting it in competition with Win95. WinNT Server outsells OS/2 Server.                  

       Truth,
       James