John Doe writes:

You don't represent the vast majority of personal computer users.
Your last assertion does not follow.

Traditionally most PCs have been used in business, not at home, so
most PC users have even more expensive software installed than I do.
It's true that those who are at home may not have as much, especially
when you consider how much they've probably pirated.

Like browsing the Internet. If Microsoft hadn't gotten into trouble
for destroying Netscape Navigator, we might be paying for Internet
Explorer too.

Microsoft didn't destroy Netscape. Netscape was almost unbelievably
poorly managed. It was self-destructing without Microsoft's help.
Read the story of Netscape; it's amazing.

I would just repeat my prior statement about the operating system
and office applications. I don't know where you got the idea those
were a small share of the applications market.

They are a small percentage of the applications available. I don't
even have Office on my computer; it's too bloated and expensive, and I
haven't found a use for it.

Microsoft can buy any programmers it needs.

Programmers that are both good at programming and experts in a
specific applications field and are superb systems analysts are
scarce, at any price. And you need lots and lots of them to build new
applications. Additionally, you need a complete chain of command that
understands the business, not just programmers and analysts.

Windows integration helps. New users are going to use what's there.

Yes. Microsoft did it, and others did not.

I agree that Microsoft produces decent software for its own use and
sells it to the rest of us. But competition is usually a better way
to innovation.

There _is_ competition, but it's not very good. Borland was another
case of bad management, even when they were beating Microsoft.

In fact, in many cases, it's not that Microsoft made the right
decisions so much as the competition consistently made the wrong
decisions.

There have been resounding Microsoft failures, such as the oft-cited
Microsoft Bob, but also things like Photo Draw 2000, which was a joke
(Image Composer, which MS had bought earlier, was much better, but MS
still abandoned it, thinking it could rewrite something superior from
scratch--MS was wrong).

Microsoft still has a hard time with database servers, since it knows
nothing about database production environments. The same handicap
keeps it behind the curve in the server market as well.

What Microsoft does, it does well. But it really has a hard time
learning new things.

Not in the personal computer operating system market.

From the Mac to Windows. From MS-DOS to Windows. From CP/M to
MS-DOS. And so on.

Granted, the greater the inertia, the slower the change.

Switching operating systems would be massively expensive and require
lots of coordination between consumers and programmers. Maybe if
everyone were desperate and had powerful political/media help.

Well, right now, everyone is happy with Microsoft Windows, except for
a handful of whining geeks who want to change things. The average
business or home user, though, gets everything he needs from Windows,
and has no reason whatsoever to change. In fact, a sudden change
would be bad for consumers, not good, no matter how much it might
please the geeks.

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