RE: When is a Windows network not a Windows network

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Booth Martin
>
> Now I am even more confused... He would buy and set up this
> little $500 box
> just so he can flip the A/B switch and run Windows to use IE to visit the
> sites of the web writers that love the Microsoft-exclusive
> features??????  Then, after being properly awed, he'd flip the A/B switch
> back to his real life and business?  Is this any basis for a
> business model?

Yes.  I hate to comment on this because people start throwing sarcastic
comments like this around, which really degrades the entire conversation,
but let me try to isolate my point from your sarcasm: you CAN have a Windows
machine on a non-Windows network.  That's all I said.

If, in your business, certain functions are better done with Windows (for
example, surfing certain websites like IBM's InfoCenter, which was the
original ssue here), then you have to decide whether the $500 makes sense.

There is a BUSINESS DECISION to be made here - is it better for my business
to spend $500 for a Windows workstation or not?  The point is that it's not
very expensive, and it doesn't take down your network.

It's not impossible, nor even difficult, to have IE in your network.  So if
you come to me and tell me I have to spend an additional $50,000 in
development in order to make my product Netscape compatible, just because
YOU won't spend $500 to make your network IE compatible, then I think you
might be able to guess what I'm going to decide.

This is the real issue, boiled down to the true business decisions, platform
bias, bigotry and sarcasm stripped away.  Someone who requires me to be
Netscape compatible is saying, in effect, that they want me to spend
thousands of dollars because they don't want to spend hundreds.

Joe