Not dead yet...

[David Gaskill]

On Thu, 26 Aug 1999 08:39:19 -0700, Steve Lamb wrote:

>Thursday, August 26, 1999, 8:03:55 AM, David wrote:
>> Like many other people for whom a computer is essential in their work I
>> need to have access to industry standard applications such as MS Word, 
>> Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Director etc.
>
>    This, however, is the problem.  You do realized that MSWord was not the
>"industry standard" until a few years ago?  Before that was Word Perfect,
>before that WordStar.  I can find quite a few people who find Word utterly
>lacking compared to the previous two.

Steve, 

I am sure you are right but the fact is that many people send me information in 
Word 97 format and I have got to be able to read it. This says nothing about the 
quality of Word as a word processor it just a commercial necessity. (I liked 
Describe ...)

>    Same with Photoshop and others.

Of course it may be that Photoshop and Director will be succeeded as industry 
standards by bigger and better applications in the fullness of time but right now 
they are the industry standards and, so far as I am aware, they will only run on 
Windows and Macintosh.  

>    One doesn't *need* those applications to be productive.  If we did, then
>why aren't we all using the industry standard email client(s) of Outlook and
>Netscape?  :P

I don't think the two things are connected; I need Word because I must be able to 
read and manipulate files written in this format. I don't need Outlook Express 
because I can read e-mails sent by users of that application in PMmail. 

>> Unless an operating system other than Windows or Macintosh achieves a
>> significant market penetration then it simply isn't going to be economic for
>> the manufacturers of these applications to produce versions for it.
>
>    Linux.  Borland is porting Delphi to it with an eye of porting their C++
>platform to it as well.

I'm afraid this is a little over my head; does this mean that the applications we 
have been discussing will become available on this platform? 

>> Problem is that an operating system is unlikely to achieve  significant 
>> market penetration without the major applications being available for it ... 
>
>    Which ignores the other route to the desktop, through the servers.  ;)

Sorry, but you will have to explain this to me. 

David