pmorris@bbn.com (Phil Morris) (01/30/91)
<eric@snark.thyrsus.com> (Eric S. Raymond) writes: >Four is that UNIX's lock on the general-purpose multi-user market is now secure. >There was never any serious technical challenge from OS/2, but because many >Fortune 500 companies could be conned into overlooking its dependence on the >80x86 line it had a serious psychological impact. Neither DOS nor Windows >can cut it for multi-user use and nothing else has the backing to break into a >maturing market. So UNIX is it. > > Eric S. Raymond = eric@snark.thyrsus.com (mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews) Don't be so sure -- Microsoft now has a fair amount of experience doing all the things that made OS/2 a "competitor" with *nix. All of these things will be quickly migrating into Windows 386(/2?). Overall, Gates sees that his current hot product already has good penetration into the market, so all he needs to do is enhance it appropriately to lock up the market (once again). And just in case he's wrong, Microsoft owns 20% of SCO with options for up to 50% (currently -- could easily just completely buy SCO). I'll continue betting on Gates -- he's hardly ever wrong in his outlook and when he is, he stops the blood flow quickly. And this is reflected in the market, the stop just keeps going up. -Phil Morris -------- Phil Morris (pmorris@dgi0.bbn.com) Disclaimer: ME? I'm only a non-smoking cat; can't believe a word I meow.
DBarker@system-m.phx.bull.com ( Deryk Barker) (01/31/91)
Personally I could live without Microsoft products. They don't seem to understand user interfaces (try using their C compiler after using Turbo C for example). For a decent mult-tasking GUI I'd be looking to Quarterdeck's recently announced Desqview/X, which preserves MS-DOS compatibility, has true multi-tasking (which, I understand, Windows does not) and provides X-Windows support. Byte named it as one of their products of 1990 despite its target release date of 1Q91. Deryk Barker, Jupiter Software, Victoria BC. "Send Lawyers, Guns and Money, Dad, get me out of this!"