Re: Supporting MS, or not

[Milton Ponson <level.seven@setarnet.aw>]

Christopher Pall wrote:
> 
> > I started my own publishing company and later added web content
> > publishing.
> >
> > This is the market Gates has NOT yet cornered and never will.
> > Content publishing is platform and system independent.
> 
> I don't see how this is. How is anything to do with PC's safe from Gates? When Gates'
> owns the browser, he'll decide the new standards for content distribution and creation in
> the same way he's done with applications. Of course, he could spread himself too thin...
> (IBM, AT&T, Great Britain, Hudson Bay Company)
> 
> > Remember the old motto of the Star Trek series, "to seek out new
> > frontiers, to boldly go where no man has gone before".
> >
> > Gates has never created a new market, he has always followed suit.
> >
> 
> We'd all like to start doing things differently. I agree with you, I'd like to start
> anew. And I think I will. (I am at least going to give it an effort) But I'm not going to
> run into another business and draw another line in the sand and wait for Bill to come and
> try and cross it. I drew the line, Bill crossed it, and now, we tango.

PCs will have to share market share with new types of user equipment.
What Gates DOES not control is the use of the 6,000 plus languages that
exist on earth.
Only recently companies like AccentSoft and much earlier Corel
(WordPerfect) started targeting smaller languages.

You can control software and to an extent hardware, but not all
languages on earth, and thus not all content publishing.

Remember that most of these small language groups represent peoples and
national or ethnic minorities that have never known fair trade and thus
are less inclined to have the likes of Bill Gates come and preach the
gospel of M$.

The combination of satcom internet access, thin clients, small footprint
OSes and foreign language content publishing is going to be tough on
Gates.

Who almost owns the foreign language expertise in the USA?
Try Utah, home of WordPerfect and home of the Mormon religion.

Most discussions on this list deal with technical issues.

I think there are a lot more real issues out there at the micro level of
life.

There are hundreds of millions of potential users in the developing
countries that will be able to make a quantum leap very soon.

That's why it did not surprise me one bit that the company developing
the Opera browser is Norwegian and I expect many more new companies to
follow suit.

As Gates and M$ expand in ever more vertical and horizontal markets they
will eventually run into so many societal factors (technology transfer
inhibiting factors traceable to culture, race, nationality, religion
etc.) that like most global telecom companies they will have to spend
ever increasing amounts of money on the upkeep of staff that will have
to monitor these factors and try to tackle them.

Which means an exponential increase in friction points.
Teledesic alone will cost millions more than expected because of this.
So they will have to learn to deal fair and square and compete.
Once they do, and they are forced to drop their current tactics, the end
is near.

Milton Ponson