Re: Realtime/embedded project to help with employment.

["Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca>]

"Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message news:3F3CD913.2040706@noplace.com...
> Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote:
> > I don't think the reason for their current MONOPOLY, makes much
> > difference now. Because they enjoy this current advantage, they
> > are likely to for the forseeable future, unless they bungle it
> > themselves, or something else becomes a serious choice for most
> > consumers (Linux/Mac?)
> >
>
> Just remember that there was once a company called "IBM" that pretty
> much had a stranglehold on the computer market. It was "IBM" vs "A bunch
> of insignificant 'also ran' companies". How the mighty have fallen?

I haven't forgotten that ;-)

> Goliath vs some little guy with a slingshot? Don't expect that Micro$oft
> has a permanent grip on the OS market. All it takes is a couple of guys
> in a garage with a better idea and a lot of determination and you could
> see Micro$oft reduced to a "partner" in the market rather than the
> definer of the market.
>
> MDC

I do believe that M$ will fall someday. But I believe that it will
take a combination of their own undoing and an aggressively funded
and brilliant execution to bring it about, if done commercially. No
garage effort "idea" is going to be enough to do it (remember the
'Mythical Man Month?' -- it takes 9 times the effort to bring a
product from a garage skunkworks to the quadrant where systems
fit together, and it is a product).

But the most promising turn of events IMHO is coming from Open
Software, where they cannot compete. This is my prediction:

- The day is coming when operating system software will be a
  commodity offering (free, or nearly so). The focus will shift
  from competing platforms (today) to competing application
  support and services.

This is already starting to happen in the UNIX world. All major
UNIX vendors have in some way embraced Linux -- even Sun). Eventually,
organizations will not want to pay for the O/S. Hence, hardware
vendors will move to a minimal Linux (say) support team, and
their teams will then compete on application software.

So the day may come when all (or most) UNIX vendors offer Linux
instead of Solaris, HPUX, Iris etc. They'll focus on the more
interesting pieces above the O/S. Another sign of this is the
general lack of extensive O/S research going on these days.

If Open development finally delivers a GUI interface that can
compete with M$, with the necessary apps and admin tools to
go with it, then M$ too may fall prey to this effect someday.

In my mind, it is now just a matter of picking the year in the
prediction. That's where my crystal ball fails me ;-)

-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg