Not dead yet...

[Steve Lamb]

Friday, August 27, 1999, 2:27:26 AM, David wrote:
> "Dear Mr Customer,

> Thank you for your e-mail  with the Word 97 attachment which I understand 
> contains the specification of the work you would like us to carry out for you. 
> Unfortunately we only accept orders written in ASCII so I am afraid you are 
> going to have to take your business elsewhere" 

   You bet'cha.  Work specifications don't need to be in Word '97.  How hard
it is to describe work in words?

> "Dear Mr Customer,

> Thank you for your e-mail  with the Word 97 attachment containing the 
> specification of the work you would like us to carry out for you.Unfortunately 
> we am not able  to respond in Word 97 format so you will find our response in 
> ASCII below. The 17 attachments to this e-mail contain the necessary  
> drawings, specifications, tables and illustrations and I expect you will be able to 
> sort out to which bit of the ASCII text they refer." 

    Funny, you could make it one text file.  Here's my take on it.

"Dear Mr. Customer,

    I am making the pointless and idiotic assumption that you are using
Windows and have actually bought Word in the recent past.  Here is an
attachment in a proprietary format which, if you do not have Windows and Word,
you will have to spend approximately $300 to obtain just to communicate with
me.  Sorry for the inconvenience, but clearly if you do not kiss Bill's ring
you are so backwards that we do not want to do business with you."

    Or.

"Dear Mr. Customer,

    See attached .pdf for the complete specification we have proposed.  If you
do not have a reader for pbf, please go to
<http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html> for a free reader
from Adobe."

    Readers are available for Win95, Win98, WinNT, Mac(bin/hqx), Linux, AIX,
SunOS, Solaris, Solaris x86, SGI IRIX, HP-UX, Digial Unix, OS/2 Warp.  The
Linux reader works quite well under FreeBSD's Linux emulation so FreeBSD is
also on that list.

    Of course, that is assuming whatever is being said really *needs* to be
expressed in multiple, colored fonts.  Most things don't.  One could also use
HTML which is an open standard.

> That may well be so but nevertheless they are the industry standards and for
> commercial reasons I must be able to use them .  

    No, you must not.  Photoshop works on open or well known graphic
standards.  I seriously doubt you *need* it.

>>    Hmmm, mmmm...  But you don't get all the cutsey features that go along
>>with it.  And let's not forget the people who send in HTML which Lookout
>>happily parses.

> I'm not sure what point you are making here. 

    You are aware that Outlook is not just an email client, right?  :P

> What I was trying to say was that I can read anything produced by Outlook 
> Express in PMmail, (hey, look - on topic!). Outlook Express  does not embody 
> unique formats, (which can become standards) the way that Word and 
> Photoshop do. 

    *Cough*  Try again.  Why do you think Exchange servers get used in
the corporate so much?  Because Outlook, with Exchange, gives a lot of foofie
features.  I think quite a few people on this list can attest to that.

> It seems to me however that it is a long step from one company considering
> porting a compiler to a platform and that platform becoming sufficiently
> widely used to make it worthwhile for the manufacturers of a major
> applications to produce versions for that platform.

    Then you should really open your eyes and try reading something other than
from MS, er, ZD.  Borland is just the latest in a long line of companies that
have shown interest in Linux.  The fact that Borland is porting its
development tools to Linux means that people can concurrently develop for both
platforms.  That is a big win.

    A lot of computer manufacturers are now shipping Windows.  Quite a few are
dropping support for Windows in favor of Linux on several platforms.

    There are estimates of the install base of Linux being larger than that of
Mac.

    Microsoft has formed a group just to study and attempt to counteract
Linux.

    The #1 selling OS in Japan is Turbo Linux with 24% of the market.  It is
beating sales of Win98 and WinNT combined.

    Oracle recently created a Linux devision.

    Corel (you *DO* remember Corel, right?) is making its own distribution of
Linux based on the Debian distribution.

    Lotus is going to Linux.

    This year alone one company has already gone public which has made its
sole business Linux (Red Hat) and another is strongly rumored to be going
public soon (VA Systems).

    Lotus, Corel, IBM, Borland, Compaq, SGI, SUN.  These are not small names
in the computer industry.  All are backing Linux in one form or another.  I
could list more, but why bother?  I just suggest tracking /. for a few weeks
and you'll see what is happening.

> I understand that Linux already has a healthy share of the server market but
> I don't see any signs of "the suits" abandoning Microsoft operating systems.

    You aren't looking hard enough.

http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,40621,00.html

> It could be that a one-day that Microsoft will lose its dominant position in
> the way that IBM lost out of the clones but Bill shows no signs of making
> the kind of mistakes that IBM did.

    Which isn't to say he isn't making his own mistakes.  He's made plenty and
it is only getting worse.


-- 
         Steve C. Lamb         | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
         ICQ: 5107343          | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
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