[Am-info] Re: adopting alternative OSes

[Mitch Stone]

On Sunday, April 27, 2003, at 05:04 PM, Erick Andrews wrote:

> (And I doubt Apple was much less unscathed, but managed to
> survive with a captured market, controlled the hardware too, visibly 
> took some
> of Gates' "investment", and danced to the musical-chairs management 
> tune till
> Jobs came back.  All in all, Apple has so far survived).

I'm not sure what you are driving at here, but if you mean to imply 
that Apple's market is any more "captured" then any other product 
market, then clearly you are wrong.

As for the "investment," I thought we all knew this history and would 
not need to go over it time and again.

> My point is that "corporations" do not make long term, committed 
> decisions.
> Expedient power plays of real people inside the corporations are the 
> order,
> most often externally influenced.  These people do have names.

If that is the case, then what is good for the goose is equally good 
for the gander. Microsoft is a corporation too and no more or less 
subject to corporate politics and foibles then any other. We're not 
disputing whether IBM made poor decisions. If we're disputing anything 
it's whether they did so out of normal, ordinary corporate myopia or 
some other, presumably nefarious, thing.

You've made as good a case as I for garden variety stupidity. They 
coulda, and they shouda, but they didn't. It wouldn't be the first time.

   -----------
   Mitch Stone
   mitch@accidentalexpert.com

   In America you can go on the air and kid the politicians, and
   the politicians can go on the air and kid the people.
   -- Groucho Marx