low-end octane2? (was: Re: [rescue] octane question)

[David Passmore]

On Mon, Jan 21, 2002 at 03:47:48PM -0500, Big Endian wrote:
> >On January 21, Big Endian wrote:
> >>  Its a sad day.  But fewer and fewer of the general populace will get
> >>  out of M$ as the years go by.
> >
> >   Are you kidding?  They're taking it on the chin for their security
> >and reliability problems.  Finally.  Apple is selling Macs as fast as
> >they can make them, the latest stats show that 40% of the people
> >buying Macs at the Apple retail stores are first-time Mac users.
> 
> And yet CURRENT mac owners are abandoning the platform for windows. 

Macs have always been too expensive, and they continue to be too expensive,
even the iMac. When you focus on the consumer, you have to remember that for
most consumers price is #1, quality is #2. Some will choose a middle ground.
Does the Mac really have any advantage in quality over a bundled PC like a
Dell that is so profound that consumers will pay $300+ more dollars for it?
If there is, Steve Jobs isn't evangelizing it properly. 

I know the folks on this list are leaps and bounds smarter than your average
Slashdotter, so hopefully I won't be ostracized for what I'm about to say,
because there is truth in it.

In terms of Microsoft, it has won in many markets where there was a company
whose market it was to lose. That's right-- remember Borland? Lotus? DBase?
And now, Netscape?

I won't say that any of these companies lost in a fair fight. In truth,
there is no such thing as a fair fight in business. Microsoft beat Netscape
with a superior product at a time when web browsing and the Internet was a
big selling point for desktops. And yes, it is a superior product-- Netscape
still crashes and hangs all the time. It always has. IE didn't start that
way, of course, but none of Microsoft's products ever do. 

I don't like Microsoft any more than the next guy, and quite frankly, the
prospect of them controlling content on the Internet scares the hell out of
me. But, I'm tired of companies whining that Microsoft is a big monopoly and
that the gov'mint has to help them because Microsoft beat them up. Well,
maybe they should just put on their pajamas and go back to bed. Lots of
these companies had a chance to beat Microsoft in their markets and they
LOST. Look at the Liberty Alliance-- while Sun is busy making alliances and
working out specs, Microsoft has already deployed Passport and signed up
partners like eBay. Sure, Passport may suck now, but it will get better, and
Liberty Alliance will likely never make it off the ground because Passport
will already be there. Fire first, aim later.

I'm also tired of some of my favorite companies sucking at business when
Microsoft is so good at it. A SGI sales rep of mine once lamented what he
called SGI's 'stealth marketing'. Sun has yet to wake up to the fact that
the server business in the future is going to be dominated by load balancers
and cheap, single-function FRUs. Sure, the T1 and X1 are great steps in the
right direction, but they're just not far (cheap) enough for what you're
buying. Their desktop strategy is laughable. I mean, c'mon, GNOME? Who the
hell in their right mind would use something called 'GNOME'? And that comes
to my next point.

Linux apps aimed at consumers have stupid names. Gnome, Gimp, Gnumeric,
Abiword, XMMS, EveryBuddy, Mozilla, Sawfish, among others. I mean,
personally if I see another name play on GNU, I will puke. What average user
would look at the GNOME menu and have a clue what any of these things do?
It's not consistent, and as any (good) UI designer will tell you, clear,
meaningful, consistent naming is the first key to any good interface. This
is a pet peeve.

Could Linux succeed on the desktop? Sure. And here is where I am going to
make likely my most offensive statement: a kernel is just a commodity. If a
kernel supports a certain minimal subset of OS functions, you should be able
to write any kind of application on it. You could take the Linux kernel and
*exactly duplicate* the Windows interface on top of it, if you really wanted
to, and no user could tell the difference. Some enterprising company could
come along, take the Linux kernel and a lot of apps, clean it up, give it a
consistent *nice* interface (I'm sorry, GNOME is ugly), give everything a
nice meaningful name, make it so no user would *ever* have to open a
terminal window, brand the *hell* out of it, and sell it. MacOS X is a great
step in this direction for UNIX, but again, Macs are just too damned
expensive. If you could buy commodity Macs for $500-$700 and run OS X on
them, do you think they would sell? Of course they would. Like fucking
wildfire. Will there ever be a nice, expandable Mac desktop at that price
point? Probably not. While Steve Jobs has vision, he just doesn't have the
right kind of vision.

So what's my point... well, I guess my point really is that while a lot of
companies have great technology, most of them suck at selling to the
consumer, and that nothing will erase the fact that until a company comes
along with the guts to beat Microsoft at their own game, no one ever will.
Microsoft will never give way until their is something cheaper and easier to
go to. 

David