Re: no Java in XP Windows

Responses in line.

> > How do you explain the success of ms office? It is not bundled with the
> os, ms charges a premium for it, and yet it outsells all of its
competitors.
>
> Initially, when MS Office had no market penetration at all, MS shipped it
> for free bundled with the OS. Now, I could suppose that they just ate the
> cost of that, but somehow the company managed to make money. I suppose
they
> were just lucky enough to have all that extra income from Windows.
>
> As a result, many users didn't see a need to invest in an opposing suite
> when they already had a free one with their system.

And as my customers told me, they needed to standardize, since each new
release would not be compatible with the current release of the competitor's
product. That worked both directions, i.e. MS Word could not import the
latest Wordperfect document. Since they had to pick one, stick with the free
one -- even if it's not better, it's good enough. How many bells and
whistles do most businesses need?


> > In regard to access to api's ...
> > 1. After reading the Andrew Shulman books on windows internals, I dont
see
> why the techniques he uses to disassemble the api calls could not have
been
> used by lotus and wp.
>
> Well, I am not sure what method was used by WP to demonstrate the problem
> they were having. Originally, I believe they concentrated on developing
> their own product without worrying that their application's reliability
was
> being sabotaged by the OS vendor.
>
> But do you really think this should be necessary? I mean, if I want to
sell
> a product on an AS/400, wouldn't I feel a little cheated if I discovered
> that the guys developing Code/400 were given a set of internals and APIs
> that I was not?
>
> > 2. Did big users of windows, like say citibank, not get the correct api
> documentation either?  I doubt it. And I also doubt that the developers at
> lotus and wp were fooled. I think only their lawyers say so.
>
> Well, perhaps. I wasn't there.
>
> > 3. all the windows api's are calls to functions in dll's. Lotus and wp
> could have written their own versions of the api's that they suspected of
> being bogus. No?
>
> Certainly, but that would of course happen after they reached the point
> where they figured there was some reason to suspect they were being
cheated.

Not to mention that if they did decide to rewrite hundreds of dll's, how
long would that take? I doubt that MS would wait for them to finish before
releasing their apps.

Regards,
Peter Dow
Dow Software Services, Inc.
909 425-0194 voice
909 425-0196 fax


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