Tom,

Agree, except for the bit below. I don't think that you'll actually find a company that went out of business because it made such a good product that it lasted forever and nobody needed another. Because, while that might even be true (one is enough forever) there is the factor that everyone will want one. Everyone is an awfully BIG number, even if counted only in households. In addition, people will buy their next product (different from first, like first a washer, then a range) because of their reputation. In other words, they'd have it "made in the shade".

To this point MS seems to have turned expected and acceptable product quality standards on their head. They appear to have found the formula to making "sizzle" the coveted ingredient, the steak remaining a distant illusion. Now that computers (and so Windows) are permeating society it will be interesting to see if the customers will allow that to continue.

This, by the way, is indirectly the reason behind why I feel strongly that MS' strategy (a very long list of sub-products ultimately required to make a (future, especially) application run) is going to fail. There will be far too many permutations and combinations of release levels (and service packs) for each product - even within a shop (especially a large one) - and their collective unreliability will make the application impossible to successfully deploy throughout a company. Even a string of say 12 (sub)products each with a reliabllity of 98% yields far too low of an application uptime to be reasonable.

Regards,

jim N


SNIP
>
>Perhaps it is a bit like products that work well, and last for years. Companies that make reliable products have been known to go out of business. Who needs a new one, if the old one is great?
>