Re: info center search. III.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Leif Svalgaard" <leif@leif.org>
To: <midrange-l@midrange.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2002 1:16 PM
Subject: Re: info center search. III.


> From: Dr Syd Nicholson <sydnic@ccs400.com>
> > The fact that MS with IE won the browser war does not help those who do
> > not, for whatever reason, use Windows.
>
> Studies show again and again that the QWERTY-keyboard is about
> the worst there is. The Dvorak keyboard is far better: fewer errors,
> higher typing rate, less training, etc. Yet the better product has no
> chance against the QWERTY.

Sure, it's better if you ignore economics.

An established base of hundreds of millions of people who are trained in
using the QWERTY keyboard, plus hundreds of millions of keyboards in use.

> > The only way MS can be made to produce a real, stable, reliable OS is
> >  if it gets some serious competition.
>
> It HAD some (think of OS/2) but even IBM had to throw in the towel.

Isn't NT/2000/XP Microsoft's grandson of their version of the OS/2 code?

The reasons OS/2 failed was that IBM got greedy (like Apple) and tried
to force board makers into a royalty-paying arrangement with MicroChannel
and
the PS/2.

> M$ has enough money to BUY any serious competitor. How about $10B
> cash? That would stop anybody. The only way is to make any vendor
> of software liable for damages as all other products (e.g. cars, tires,
> tobacco, asbestos, ...). The notion that Linux will take over the desktop
> is wishful thinking (I wish it too). It is like with OS/2: every year we
hear
> that it is just about ready to take off, and it never did.

Again, economics. thousands of interface boards with drivers, hundreds of
thousands or millions of programs, millions of programmers, hundreds of
millions of trained users.

Simple solution - make a version of Linux that runs Windows boards, drivers,
and software natively.

Brad Jensen