Does anyone remember what it was like in 1984 or So?? When you walked into your local computer store (It was very Small) and looked at the Timex, Atari, Commdore, Apple, IBM, Coleco, Radio Shack (Im forgetting some)... Remember the software you looked at???? IT WAS ALL DIFFERENT! You wanted a certain spreadsheet, but it was only made for APPLE. You wanted a game, but it was only on C64. I wont even get into the peripherals! My Atari disk Drive was $500 for a 360K 5.25" Floppy!

While people constantly complain about MS having a Monopoly, I remember
the days when there were too many O/S's for the Software companies
to make a quality product. We used to have to write to software companies
to get a version of their product for our OS.

Sorry... I like the Monopoly... It offers me a simplicity in my
life that the old way didn't offer. I especially dont feel bad when
I can look back at my Business Week's from the early 80's and
see how all these other companies (The Above Mentioned) screwed
up their chance at being where MS is today.

Just my Opinion of course...


>Well there are a lot of companies out there who are looking for an out from the MS monopoly in the OS desktop. Although Unix has been out there it never made it to the desktop because it was just too expensive on any platform. Now Linux, which is practically free (about $39.95) is building a groundswell. The groundswell is mainly coming from the Unix crowd who feel they are left out but also from companies who want to kick MS in the butt.
>
>All Linux needs is a decent visual desktop and a visual programming language to get developers moving. There are already Office suites including WP.
>
>I think given a year's time we are going to see Linux as an alternative desktop for certain solutions.
>
>Costas