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

[Steve Pacenka]

David Passmore <dpassmor at sneakers.org> wrote:

> 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.


Unfortunately MS has also addicted the marketplace to their applications, and 
no one has been able to interoperate with them very well.  (Sun's StarOffice 
goes a long way, but it is not perfect at reading and writing the proprietary 
MS file formats.)


> 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.

Gates has the vision for Apple -- MS Office for OS/X and MacOS.  Many systems 
sold by Apple fill in Microsoft's pockets too.  The money is in the apps.  
Tiny marginal cost of making another copy, people willing to pay $200-500 per 
seat.  That margin pays for a lot of marketing.

I don't see Apple making a dent in Wintel.  However it is nice to have them 
still around.


> 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. 

Marketing and mindshare, agreed.

Microsoft supplanted IBM as the big infosystems monopolist by exploiting a change in the market from few-big computers to many-little computers.  Perhaps market changes will do in Microsoft, or at least push them out of the limelight.

Two market changes that MS is trying to get into are digital media and digital moneyflow.  Perhaps AOL Time Warner and the banks will adapt rapidly enough to keep MS out.  The power of sit-and-watch-while-we-brainwash is profound; ATW knows how to do this and also knows the regulatory structure.  (MS has done poorly in government relations.)  The banks and other money people already know the enormous power of tapping big flows of money with little fees for services, and again it is a very regulated system that MS is trying to break into.

Pretty profound for [rescue], I'd say.

-- SP