Path: csiph.com!au2pb.net!feeder.erje.net!1.eu.feeder.erje.net!newsfeed.fsmpi.rwth-aachen.de!newsfeed.straub-nv.de!news-2.dfn.de!news.dfn.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail
From: Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.misc
Subject: Re: [Poll] Computing favorities
Date: 24 Aug 2015 09:16:59 GMT
Organization: Piglet's Pickles & Preserves
Lines: 32
Message-ID: <d405obFeaa7U2@mid.individual.net>
References: <d3ub9qFujsU1@mid.individual.net> <mrd13k$12h$1@speranza.aioe.org> <862181686462048382.178035peter_flass-yahoo.com@news.eternal-september.org> <mrd66a$fii$1@speranza.aioe.org> <876145d6qr.fsf@bsb.me.uk>
Reply-To: usenet@huge.org.uk
X-Trace: individual.net nP8/k0mxQBf3/05SZ7KxqgPd4cn/2cVO8Uqq24tPzxQi7F5rNt
Cancel-Lock: sha1:+OZ+sTnZ+kxAp5zMHN2HjF0sEpQ=
X-No-Archive: Yes
X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett
User-Agent: slrn/1.0.1 (Linux)
Xref: csiph.com alt.folklore.computers:150267 comp.misc:8473

On 2015-08-23, Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> wrote:
> Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> writes:
><snip>
>> You were [not] forced to buy MS products.
>
> No, *I* wasn't, but that I'm technically experienced and prepared to
> make a fuss about it, and even I find it hard to buy a computer without
> buying software I don't need.
>
>> There is no doubt that MS was
>> agressive, more than say Bell or AT&T? Look at the bigger picture. Why
>> were they able to sell software or services. SUN copied Microsoft office
>> for example.

BTW, Word is (or at least was) a straight port of the Xerox Document
Editor from the Star Workstation. Charles Simonyi wrote both of them.

>> I am not saying MS wasn't predatory. The question is why did people
>> buy their products?
>
> Huge numbers had no idea they were buying it at all.  They either bought
> a Mac and could not read the documents the boss sent at the weekend, or
> they bought a "PC" and could.  In neither case was buying the software a
> conscious act, let alone a choice.

Spot on.


-- 
Today is Sweetmorn, the 17th day of Bureaucracy in the YOLD 3181
                  I don't have an attitude problem.
    If you have a problem with my attitude, that's your problem.