Re: ``Nothing like a monopoly to get investors to cheer youon''

[Sujal Shah <sujal@worldnet.att.net>]

I disagree with this assertion for pretty-much one reason:  BeOS, Linux,
BSD, Irix, MacOS X, etc. are not all competing for the same mindshare,
at least not as I understand it.

Linux, BSD, Solaris compete for the lower-to-midsize market for servers,
competing with NT.  HP/UX, AIX, Solaris, maybe IRIX, Ultrix, and the
other "big iron" *nix's, compete for the higher, higher end of the
market for servers.

BeOS and MacOS X, and maybe the Amiga OS will compete for the desktop
space in particular areas, Be with heavy=duty multimedia capabilities,
and MacOS X with similar (but IMO weaker) multimedia capability,
focusing on graphics, layout, etc.  Along with these guys will be IRIX,
and some (very little) BSD and Linux for the rendering tasks (though Be
looks to be strong there).

My point is that Operating Systems are not all the same, nor are they
all competing for the same space, in many cases.  I wouldn't ever
consider Be to be a competitor for Linux or HP/UX because people don't
use the things for the same purposes.  Be has stated from the outset
that they're not trying to create a general use OS, but one focused on
Multimedia (and let me tell you, the performance doing Multimedia tasks
makes Windows, Linux, and the Mac look like rank amateurs, little
baby-OS's).

MacOS, AmigaOS, Windows are definitely all in the same category because
they're aiming to make a general-purpose OS.  Linux could be considered,
but the hype it's getting is NOT as a general user operating system. 
It's getting hyped (and getting apps) mostly for its usability as an
NT/general purpose server replacement.

Sujal

Brett Glass wrote:
> 
> At 10:27 PM 11/7/98 -0500, Charles Behney wrote:
> 
> >Wall Street loves a Sure Thing. How can you make Linux a darling of stock
> >analysts?
> 
> I don't know. However, Linux may (inadvertently) make Microsoft MORE
> of a darling of stock analysts. Why? Because Linux will prevent any new
> commercial operating system -- such as BeOS -- from being able to compete
> with Microsoft's offerings. Linux will compete with them for developer
> mindshare, for sales, and for capital. The result: Microsoft's position
> as the ONLY viable commercial option will -- perversely -- be strengthened.
> Linux will kill off potential competition for it.
> 
> --Brett

-- 
------ Sujal Shah ---- sujal@worldnet.att.net

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