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[David Gaskill]

On Mon, 13 Dec 1999 12:37:00 +1000 (EST), John Angelico wrote:

>On Sun, 12 Dec 1999 00:01:40, David Gaskill wrote:
>
>>
>>Microsoft would not have achieved this dominance if their products were the load of 
>>rubbish that some suggest and, like it or not, in many areas of computing Microsoft 
>>do now set the standards. 
>
>David I think that your logic here is a little questionable...
>
>Quality does not guarantee success, ergo mediocrity can still succeed
>despite itself. And I haven't even started on corporate (im)morality
>and media managed conspiracy... :)

John, 

I promised myself that I would end my involvement in this discussion at the end of  the 
weekend - another broken promise ... 

I didn't say that Microsoft software was of outstanding quality - I just said it wasn't a 
load of rubbish and it seems to me that this is self-evidently true. The vast majority of 
PCs connected to the Internet use Microsoft software. If the software was not at least 
competent it is hard to see that the Internet would have grown as fast or become as all 
pervasive as it has. 

To take just one example; Outlook Express is a perfectly good mail client. Tens of 
millions use it and it meets their requirements perfectly adequately. I wouldn't be 
subscribing to this mailing list if I didn't think PMmail was, at least for my purposes, a 
significantly better product but that is not to say that Outlook Express is of poor quality. 

Any company that becomes the dominant in its field is bound to attract a lot of criticism 
not least because many resent the reduced choice that is the consequence of such 
dominance. 

I use a Microsoft operating system (NT) and I find it to be stable and robust. I use a 
fair number of Microsoft applications; some of them are  very good, some of them are 
not so good but none of them are rubbish. 

All organisations, not just corporations, that achieve a dominant position are accused, 
rightly or wrongly, of the misuse of the power that such dominance brings. This is as 
true of Microsoft as it was of the Roman Empire - draw what comparisons you will ... 

David