[snip]
>It's in the nature of things that standards are resistant to change, but
>that's OK because that is exactly the way a standards should be. The lack
>of popularity of the Apple or Next or Bee or whatever operating system is
>not an example of market failure because in the context of the real world
>they are in fact inferior system. If everything else was equal they would
>be better than Wintel but everything else is not equal. These systems have
>some small technical advantages but that is countered by enormous practical
>disadvantages, they will not operate on the type of computer most people
>have and it will not run billions of dollars worth of popular software that
>took thousands of man years to write. It's perfectly valid to take such
>things into account when deciding what system is really superior. When a
>standard is set it's just not worth going to a new one unless you get an
>astronomical improvement. The market has decided that the Apple or Next or
>Bee is not a huge advance of that type. Maybe the market is wrong but I know
>it has a better understanding of such things than a bunch of hack politicians.
>
Excellent post! I would also add that when people whinge about
'marketing' they forget that included in the price they pay is how much
it cost the company to bring the product to their attention and make it
easy to buy. In fact, when you hear those stories about the poor widdle
company that had a great product but got beaten by the bastards that had
better marketing, what is being blanked out is that, since advertising is
part of the company's job and part of what you actually pay for, the
poor widdle company was just crap at doing its job.
i.e. the physical or conceptual item bought may have been ok, so the
poor widdle company did half their job well, but they didn't do the
other half very well: making it easy for you to buy it, so you knew it
was available and easy to buy when you needed it.
Guru George