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"Without that standard, the computer industry in the 1990s would have resembled the web today: diverse, vibrant and flowering with abundant innovation, but also

by sdurkin 18y ago

"Without that standard, the computer industry in the 1990s would have resembled the web today: diverse, vibrant and flowering with abundant innovation, but also frequently broken because of the inability of disparate products to make the most basic connections with one another." Wrong. Without Microsoft, the computer industry would have been forced to tackle the issue of interoperability far earlier and more earnestly. If it weren't for this illegal monopoly, computers today would have a vibrant mix of operating systems and technology that would be able to share information seamlessly.

allenbrunson 18y ago
I'm of the opinion that operating systems form a natural monopoly. The average computer user doesn't thrive on diversity. She wants to use whatever her friends use, so they can help her when stuff breaks, they can all share documents easily, etc. I'm not crazy about the stranglehold Microsoft had on the industry for so long. But I think if it hadn't been them, it would have been somebody else.
- thwarted 18y ago
  An operating system monopoly is not necessarily the problem, it's when an operating system monopoly is used to gain a monopoly on applications. In the same way users don't care about diversity, they don't care about operating systems. They care about applications. If Microsoft Office ran on other operating systems AND OPERATED EXACTLY THE SAME WAY (which excludes Microsoft's attempts to have Office and IE on the Mac), then the user could still get help from friends when stuff breaks and share documents. It may have been someone else, but perhaps that someone else would have been about encourages standards and interoperability and not application lock-in.
wallflower 18y ago
Does anyone remember how hard it was to install a printer or SCSI device before Windows?
- edw519 18y ago
  On what? I remember how easy everything was in async environments before everyone needed a full time a windows admin. Just put dumb terminals everywhere and string coax. A printer was just a dumb terminal, too. Everything ran on the server. Oh for the good old days. Never mind, they're back. Except dumb terminals are now "thin clients" and the host is now the "cloud".

by sdurkin 18y ago

allenbrunson 18y ago

I'm of the opinion that operating systems form a natural monopoly. The average computer user doesn't thrive on diversity. She wants to use whatever her friends use, so they can help her when stuff breaks, they can all share documents easily, etc. I'm not crazy about the stranglehold Microsoft had on the industry for so long. But I think if it hadn't been them, it would have been somebody else.

thwarted 18y ago
An operating system monopoly is not necessarily the problem, it's when an operating system monopoly is used to gain a monopoly on applications. In the same way users don't care about diversity, they don't care about operating systems. They care about applications. If Microsoft Office ran on other operating systems AND OPERATED EXACTLY THE SAME WAY (which excludes Microsoft's attempts to have Office and IE on the Mac), then the user could still get help from friends when stuff breaks and share documents. It may have been someone else, but perhaps that someone else would have been about encourages standards and interoperability and not application lock-in.

wallflower 18y ago

Does anyone remember how hard it was to install a printer or SCSI device before Windows?

edw519 18y ago
On what? I remember how easy everything was in async environments before everyone needed a full time a windows admin. Just put dumb terminals everywhere and string coax. A printer was just a dumb terminal, too. Everything ran on the server. Oh for the good old days. Never mind, they're back. Except dumb terminals are now "thin clients" and the host is now the "cloud".