I suggest the post answers the age-old question of why Microsoft doesn't just create a perfect word processor or spread sheet and then stop updating it. Frustrating users to spur them to upgrade creates the only possible revenue model for a company like Microsoft. There aren't enough "next big things" coming down the pike to guarantee them their billions, nor is there any guarantee those NBTs would be developed at Microsoft. Far better to make crappy software that gets incrementally better over a multi-year upgrade cycle. They nearly always end up with a great product, but meanwhile you have been the ideal evergreen customer. The losers? The impatient, the computer phobes, the outside innovators, the competitors, and the bottom line of every company that has suffered needless tech support expenses. It's the dirty little secret of Apple-based companies that they don't have much in the way of endless help desk and tech support staff that many PC-based firms require. Linux servers share the low maintenance characteristics of Apple computers.

Win2K is actually a pretty good system. Beat teh pants off MacOS9 at teh time (compare like to like, people).

I have had to reboot my Windows (NT, 2K) computer once in the past 5 years--Netscape was the culprit. As it is for many systems. I have never seen a bad win2K machine. Likewise, I love the new Mac, but it offers no compelling advantage over a good PC system.

I would guess that the error is in hardware, and a bad bit of ram is ruining what ought to be a good user experience.

As for Macs sharing low operating cost--what data backs this up? Macs are typically used by a more expert user base--take a similar userbase for PC's, and you find similar results. Apples to apples, remember.

I have seen good linux, mac, and windows machines. And bad of all three as well. Those who denigrate one or the other are most often the least experienced. And in the end, the most common errors are from users, or in IT-speak, PEBKAC.

B

In my experience, Windows 2000 has been more reliable than NT, but only after I increased system RAM and upgraded or removed some software applications that worked fine on NT. When Windows 2000 warns during installation of an application that it may not work properly, you'd better believe it.

Roach's new laptop may have hardware problems.

In the last couple of months I've been using a Linux desktop more and more. . .

An application shouldn't cause the operating system to crash. I can't think of one time that's happened in the years I've been using various flavors of Unix. True, the newer Microsoft OSes are great improvements over the old ones, but I still don't see anything approaching the Unix level of stability.

I think that Brad DeLong should visit Jane Galt's site. She presents a compelling argument that Apple is in deep trouble because its machines are so weak. The high end users are virtually forced to opt for a pc--and there is little profit to be made on the lower end offerings.

I’ve worked on PCs since the days of DOS 6.0. Mr. Roach’s technical support department may be “loyal and dedicated”, but it is also inadequate. They should have provided him with a replacement laptop during the past four months. Windows NT and 2000, unlike Windows 9x, do not require daily rebooting. I’ve seen W2K running on servers for a year or more without crashing. It may be hardware, as B and Lehr suggest, but non-compliant drivers can cause crashes too. Of course Linux is more reliable and produces better error messages, but sometimes you need to be able to share files with people using Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. See Prof. DeLong’s “Demand Economies of Scale” blog entry. PEBKAC means “problem exists between the keyboard and the chair”, which is the most common reason a rigorous backup scheme is necessary.

I can barely take the comment by "B" seriously. Mainly because of the multiple instances of 'teh' for 'the', but also outrageous generalizations and laughable statements like "I have never seen a bad win2k machine" - try working as a system admin for 400 win2k servers and you might change your mind.

But most people in the field of system administration view windows servers with contempt, for all the hassles and headache that goes with even a well tuned and configured installation. (For instance some settings can only be made through the GUI - and on a huge install, that is a lot of clicking per server even after you've loaded your disk image and ran your scripts to patch the week's latest security vulnerability). Of course that's server side, with people who are paid to keep up on the bugs, flaws, work-arounds, and best practices. Your average person, who wants to treat their computer the same way they would their car, is totally screwed.

The problem is personal computers are less like an appliance that works until hardware fails and more like a family member who is repeatedly sick and constantly in need of medical check ups (the role of the nurse going the the friend/family member who works in IT to some degree). And contrary to what 'B' says, the more someone knows about computers and their support and administration, the more one denigrates them. The difference being those of us who make a job of administration are informed by experience and study in our contempt of various computer operating systems and applications.

vsa, who uses linux at home but recommends friends and family get macs for ease of use and ease of troubleshooting. (And yes, I have worked for years administering various unix and windows machines, the later up through win2k)

ps. Curtiss makes a good point, he also must have also encountered what is an unknown to mac and windows users, being able to upgrade or patch your OS without rebooting (and in the process killing and restarting any services the machine may be providing. Certainly when you want stability, security, and an OS which can run from low to high end servers, the answer will be a flavor of unix.

Alright, now that I seem to have some experts here... I have been suffering from Windows' so-called "operating systems" (OS) for a long time. At home, I have what they call "Windows ME" and that is the cruelest joke I've ever come across. I've used OS's on any computer system you can imagine (incl. a Cray T3E parallel supercomputer) and I'm more willing than ever to state that Microsoft's OS's are the worst.
Now, the question for the economics experts out here: How is it possible that a company with such a shoddy product was able to get a monopoly? My naive answer is "deception and nasty business tricks" but that can't be it, or can it? I mean, if any company which produces refrigerators, say, has a product where you have to unplug the thing and then re-plug it every day for it to work... That company wouldn't survive a single quarter! If this question is too trivial for you experts here maybe somebody can send me email with a link or some short explanation. Thanks a bunch!

PS: Last November, at some dinner I happened to sit next to somebody who is very high up in Microsoft's hierarchy. I learned two things. First,that person claimed "we have quality control at Microsoft". That's VERY hard to believe but I swear, I'm not making this up. And the other thing I learned is that when people at MS get fired they're being "retired". When he used the word "retired" I couldn't help but saying that that was what they call killing an androids in the novel which they used for the movie Blade Runner. I never saw the actual movie but friends of mine told me the word is used in it, too.

As an aside, Mac OS X is a Unix-based OS (and you can patch it without rebooting.) Programs crash all the time and it doesn't bring down the OS. I am really an enthusiast (evangelist, if you like). I have sysadmin'ed Unices and windows (starting at 3.1) and DOS machines, and, well the Apple "just works". No driver problems, no crashing, do everything from the command line if you want, X-windows (yeah, I really am a geek) with Unix permissioning and security underlying the whole bit. Technically, it blows the doors off of anything else I have used. (I even installed Windows XP as a Virtual PC on my Powerbook, so I can use Windows inside of OS X, if I have to).

I don't know why folks love Apple so much.
(a) Their machines are overpriced.
(b) Their OS's up to (but not including) X were a joke.
(c) AFAIK, Apple's software is just as proprietary as Microsoft's.
(d) Many users don't find the Apple user interface any more intuitive than the Windows one. Like the bizzare notion (no longer in use, I assume) that dragging the disk icon to the trash ejects it---the obvious semantic should be "erase the disk".

Not that I like Bill Gates or anything...

Apple will survive because that's what Apple does - it survives. I first started reading well-argued articles about the imminent doom of Apple back in 1985. 18 years later, they're still around, while almost every one of their competitors has crashed and burned. Atari? Commodore? How many PCs did Texas Instruments make last year? How many PCs did IBM make last year? How many clone companies have come and gone? Where are the Northgates, Packard-Bells, and AST Research machines of yesteryear? Whither Micron and Gateway?

It's more likely that Sun and HP/Compaq will fade over the next few years than Apple - to the infinite consternation of the people who continue to make quarterly predictions of Apple's imminent collapse.

I'm not sure why Brad would want the headache of jumping into the most divise sectarian debate of the 20th _and_ 21st centuries, but that's his problem, not mine. Comments:

B - there is ample data backing up the contention that Macs are lower IT burdens than PCs; a famous example is the Macs (Pluses or Classics, as I recall - rather primitive machines) that the Health Administration (whatever the govt agency is called up there) of Canada distributed to thousands of doctors' offices to keep records. Something like 2000 computers, sent to 2000 offices in the early '90s, were administered by exactly 1 IT employee. An extereme example, perhaps, but one that fueled the long-standing theory that IT Dept. promotion of Wintel systems is a job-saving device as surely as any union work regs.

I'm not going to bother going to Jane's site, but I'm not sure that any laptop user (for instance) can _rationally_ justify going to PCs from a Mac. The current generation of Powerbooks are 2 years old, and still are untouched by the competition as a package (features, speed, battery life, screen, physical stability).

Apples are overpriced in the same sense that Mercedes - or Toyotas - are overpriced. Yes, one can get a functioning sedan for $15,000. But what kind of a fool would claim that a Hyundai is a Honda, or a Mercury a Mercedes? This isn't snobbery (or not facile snobbery, anyway). Americans (and I am one) are loathe to admit it, but Design Counts. It's been over 4 years since Apple introduces a minitower unit that could be effortlessly opened while running; Dell, despite trying, has _still_ not accomplished this. SJF may not think this sort of thing is worth money, but many of us do.
The old joke, actually, was that Windows 95=Mac '84. Not sure how SJF thinks that the object of that joke was Apple.
I'm not sure how to calculate the degree of proprietary-ness. In the world of construction systems, it's related to whether or not one needs to buy every element from one company to get things to work. If only out of necessity, this has not been a problem with Macs for years and years. Macs had plug and play before Windows even claimed it, and even then it was years before Windows actually _achieved_ it (if they have).
Finally, I'll agree on a point. It is absolutely true that, for basic OS procedures, the GUIs of Mac & Windows are essentially equivalent at this point. but for the first 10 years, it was absolutely not the case. I started on DOS in the 80s, went to school with Macs, then started in an office that ran Win3.5. I was staggered. I couldn't believe that such an ineffectual beast of a program had any market share. Windows 95 probably got PCs to about 95% of the intuitiveness for everday tasks. But to suggest that the race was always close is kind of comical. Windows was able to catch up because simple, elegant design isn't that distant a target; it still took them over 10 years to hit it.

Anyway, I'm not running OSX yet. I work almost daily in both environments, and it's not light & day. But boy, I'm almost never impressed by a PC/MS activity the way that I'm often impressed by Apple (and non-Apple, Mac-based) products. Even the 6th grade social studies version of economic discussion explains why: monopolies have little or no incentive to optimise. Apple is driven to excell; MS is driven to maintain market share.

One of my favorite lessons from CS Lewis is that if one aims for an appropriate target, the lesser targets come with it (eg, be good in God's eyes, be good in men's eyes). Unfortunately, that lesson doesn't seem to have played out in this arena.

Cripes: "divisive"

I don't want to get into any religious arguments here, but speaking as someone who used to install NT systems for banks like Morgan Stanley, Roach's problem is that his IT department are dropping the ball. Unwinnable anecdotal arguments aside (the Macs I've administered have crashed more regularly than any other system except First Call's SCO servers), a Win2K system that crashes every day has serious problems that should have been fixed months ago.

When you call the help desk -- and I have done so all too many times to remember -- that’s always the first thing they suggest. Once I asked them why. The answer -- "I don’t know but it works more often than not.

Mr. Roach appears to have encountered an unusually well informed technician on the Microsoft "help" desk.

I have been using Linux ("Debian/GNU Linux" that is) for the past 5 years.And I am not going to back to Windows, because it is just ludicrous to maintain a monopoly and pay for a system that is crap anyway. Linux and other Unices (incl. MacOS X) are definitely worth the money.

Perhaps Ms. Galt is not a very good Mac administrator. No one I know in the business (I'm a pure customer, no computer smarts) says what she says.

>[Jane Galt] presents a compelling argument that Apple is in deep trouble because its machines are so weak. The high end users are virtually forced to opt for a pc

I work with a ton of high end users-- art directors, photo retouchers, video editors, etc. They are forced to opt for a pc-- IF they have to do testing of a website on multiple platforms, say. But they create on a Mac, to a man or a woman. There's not a word of truth to her claim in my circle. I honestly can't think of anyone I know in a creative field (defined liberally) who CHOOSES to do most of their work on a Windows PC. (Several years ago, I knew a graphic designer who programmed in VRML, an obscure 3-D language that was only PC. That's about it.)

Supposedly these are the very folks who should be benefiting from those fast Intel chips for things like video compression, yet the more they have to use Windows for this and that, the more they agree that Windows is like some awful Bulgarian imitation of an American product, too full of functional clunkinesses and aesthetic sins and work-slowing irritations to be taken seriously. (Read Lileks this week for a good account of how a PC program tackles something new like video editing that Apple got right first time out of the box. Stephen King has never written anything so terrifying.)

Maybe somewhere Jane Galt is correct, although I'm perplexed where outside of an accounting department that would be; in my experience (which spans a goodly number of creative fields), PCs are a barely tolerated, mostly despised ethnic minority. And everybody lusts after Apple's latest toys the instant they're announced.

It's been over 4 years since Apple introduces a minitower unit that could be effortlessly opened while running; Dell, despite trying, has _still_ not accomplished this. SJF may not think this sort of thing is worth money, but many of us do.

And this is relevant because...?

The old joke, actually, was that Windows 95=Mac '84. Not sure how SJF thinks that the object of that joke was Apple. Apple's OS was a joke until X because it didn't have multitasking (read: preemptive multitasking) until X. Not that MS's track record in this regard is all that good. Multitasking is a core feature of a modern OS. The fact that Apple didn't have it until it threw its OS out the window and replaced it with a flavor of UNIX speaks volumes.

Macs are only overpriced in terms of CPU power. If you ignore that, they can compare pretty well to comparatively
equipped Intel boxes.

Apple's main problem is that, once again, Motorola
is failing to keep up. Jobs got hammered by that
when he was running NeXT, and he's getting it
again. So the CPU that Macs run on tops out
at a measly 1.25 GHz, and you pay a premium
for that.

If Apple can get Motorola and IBM in gear, and get
PowerPC performance up, they'll be in better shape.
(I don't have much confidence of this.)

Alternately, they could switch to an Intel-compatible
architecture. That wouldn't be very difficult, except
for the problem of how to run older, pre-OS X Mac
software. The lower, Unixy levels of OS X are already
available from Apple in a form that runs on Intel.
(OS X is based on the NeXT OS, which ran on
four CPU architectures, including Intel, so the
staff has already done cross-platform ports.)

Personally, I find it pathetic that Apple is selling
a dual-1 GHz Mac for $2,500, when you can buy
a 2 GHz PIV PC for $499. And dual-processor laptops
aren't really an option, leaving Powerbooks at
an even greater disadvantage.

(I don't buy the fluff about Macs being faster than
PCs. That only applies in certain specially optimized
cases, which don't help me at all. Apple's Mail
program, and their iCal program are so slow they
need a shot of L-Dopa. That isn't helped *at all*
by the special CPU instructions that speed up
video compression and similar special tasks.)

I'd like to see Apple switch to Intel or AMD. At least
then Apple wouldn't fall behind in performance,
and Apple would get the lower CPU prices. And
maybe I could get a 2GHz Mac for somewhere around
$499, instead of five times that much.

Joerg posed an interesting question about how Microsoft could succeed with such lousy software. Books have been written to discuss this, but since this is Brad's site, I thought a quick lesson in capitalism with a digression to labor economics (with respect to JRoth's excellent post) would be appropriate.

Apple's Mac was innovative and spectacular right out of the box, but it was a crippled machine. A single floppy disk and no hard drive capability often meant frustrating disk swapping. Because of Apple's insistence on proprietary control of both hardware and software, innovation in drives and other hardware proceeded only as fast as Apple engineers could push it. Microsoft, on the other hand, with a boost from IBM's monopoloy-inspired court order to be nice to small companies, had the keys to the family car, MS-DOS was PC-DOS, and every kid on the block could build a machine running the same OS that IBM, at that time a major force in PCs, was making. That "every kid on the block" represented massive intellectual energy and entrepreneurship. Everybody wanted to make floppy controllers and hard disks and monitors and video cards. The resulting incompatibilities drove administrators crazy, but innovation and competition drove prices far beneath what Apple could manage with its in-house engineers, brilliant as they were.

At the same time, JRoth's suggestion about IT departments welcoming complex systems came into play. Why on earth would an IT manager recommend a product with high capital costs, Macintosh, when he could recommend a low-budget PC that looked like a good deal but gave the IT manager the excuse to ramp up his budget and staff. This process continues to this day with Microsoft's massive investment in creating certified Microsoft Network Engineers, Trainers, etc. Will these vast numbers of people who are now firmly attached to Microsoft's teat ever recommend a Macintosh? I didn't think so either.

Apple had a shot when Windows was still 3.1 to open itself up to more cooperation with hardware and software developers and chose not to. That's why they're now at 5% market share, but with a solid 5% that probably will outlast HP's computer division. The moral of the story. Crap can win if enough people can make a living selling, fixing, and updating it. As Deep Throat once said, "Follow the money!".

"And this is relevant because...?"

Because not long ago I popped mine open, installed a new Pioneer Superdrive, and then installed a G4 processor which would allow me to use said drive to make DVDs, which I immediately learned how to do using Apple's incredibly intuitive software for same. Then I took my old DVD-R drive and tried to install it in my wife's Dell PC, and after wrestling with it for an hour tried to make it run, but there weren't the right drivers (as far as I could tell) and I finally had to beat it open again to take it out and reinstall the old CD drive, and then had to find the drivers for that again because it could no longer recognize the drive it CAME with.

Guess which one seems speedier, not to mention more advanced, to me?

I strongly recommend that everybody either reads the transcript ( http://www.pbs.org/nerds/transcript.html ) or views Robert Cringeley’s TV series, “The Revenge of the Nerds.” I recall particularly the former Apple employee who bluntly asserted that his company desired to earn a 40% profit on its products---and Bill Gates was satisfied with 15%! Apple’s short term greed is solely responsible for its current predicament. It is indeed weird to observe die hard Liberals being defensive about a company that cared little about its customers, and was only interested in maximizing its profits.

Bill Gates is the savior of the poor who could not afford Apple’s higher prices. I have in the past rightfully criticized Gates for monopolistic practices, but the man also deserves a lot of credit for making this a better world for everyone.

>>The fact that Apple didn't have it until it threw its OS out the window and replaced it with a flavor of UNIX speaks volumes.<<

Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?

Mike G wrote, I finally had to beat it open again to take it out and reinstall the old CD drive, and then had to find the drivers for that again because it could no longer recognize the drive it CAME with.

Didja ever think of just leaving it open instead of closing it, playing with it, then reopening it?

Jon H wrote, Personally, I find it pathetic that Apple is selling
a dual-1 GHz Mac for $2,500, when you can buy
a 2 GHz PIV PC for $499. This is exactly the kind of thing I'm thinking.

Dave Roberts wrote, Because of Apple's insistence on proprietary control of both hardware and software, innovation in drives and other hardware proceeded only as fast as Apple engineers could push it. Amen!

Re the immediately preceding post by David Thomson: Dave, I'd heard the profit margin was something like 50%. That's another thing---Apple is a greedy company just like any other. As Seinfeld would say, "Not that there's anything wrong with that," but Apple afficianados seem oblivious to this.

But hey, Dave, I'm a liberal, and I despise Apple!

Re DT's comments on Bill Gates, he's a mixed bag. I don't think one can really say that the world is a better place overall because of the way he pushed his products. IMHO the industry would be far better off if most software had to adhere to open standards, the PC became commoditized and could be had for < $400 (which seems to be happening, though there's an absurdly large market for PC's in the $1500 range), and rent-seeking in the OS and basic desktop markets ended (through market action).

OTOH, Gates got a bum rap when people compared his rate of giving away his fortune to Carnegies, because AFAIK the comparisons weren't being made at the same point in their lifespans. And when Gates *did* decide to give away his money, it was for things like vaccination in Africa.

Finally, there once was an account in the popular press about a meeting of computer industry kingpins as to how they could help extremely destitute places in, say, Africa. A lot of the people were talking about using computer/networking related ideas to help. Bill Gates' response was, come on, these people need running water, not computers. My thought at the time was (a) this guy has a better moral sense, (b) the other guys are a bunch of imbeciles---no wonder why Gates (for better or worse) beat their pants off.

"Didja ever think of just leaving it open instead of closing it, playing with it, then reopening it?"

Ah, the Windows mentality in a nutshell: the problem is always with the user, not the company that made it so hard to use.

I thought David Thomson was serious until that hilarious Onion-like comment about Bill Gates saving the poor. (So that's why home users have to buy full price individual copies of XP!)

Mike G wrote, Ah, the Windows mentality in a nutshell: the problem is always with the user, not the company that made it so hard to use.

So the fact that Apple didn't have a computer with a modern operating system until OS X was the fault of users, not the company?

"I thought David Thomson was serious until that hilarious Onion-like comment about Bill Gates saving the poor. (So that's why home users have to buy full price individual copies of XP!)"

I do not contend that Bill Gates directly attempted to help the poor. Nonetheless, the lower prices of his offerings compared to Apple opened the door to the computer age of those with less than affluent means. Apple was primarily the option for those possessing advanced degrees behind their name and earning big bucks.

The Open Source model was not sufficient during the time Microsoft and Apple began releasing their lines of goods. The folks comprising this social milieu are among the techie elite who do not hesitate to spend long hours working on their computers. Alas, the unwashed masses demand user friendliness before embracing a new technology. Financial remuneration greatly motivated the computer pioneers. The Open Source might be the wave of the long term future. However, we must first resolve the issues on how best to reward the creators of these new products.

"So the fact that Apple didn't have a computer with a modern operating system until OS X was the fault of users, not the company?"

By what standard is this "contention" a fact? OS 9, 8, 7, 6.7.1 and who knows what all had features which made them "cutting edge" at the time. Windows XP, ME, 2000, NT, 98. 95 and 3.1 also had features which occasionally bested Apple in this or that. Both systems also had liabilities compared to today, as XP and OS X undoubtedly will to the systems of 2006 and 2026. In many ways we're still in the model T phase of computing, having to get under our cars and crank far too often. It is silly to invent a meaningless term such as "modern" (by definition surely the two best-selling operating systems in the market at any given moment are "modern") and then define it in such a narrow way that it supposedly supports your point about the superiority of one over the other. (But at least the Mac has a hood you can actually open...) Considering that the desktop metaphor was integral to Mac OS from years ago, but simply a graphic shell over ancient old MS-DOS until recently, that would seem to give the "modern" title to Apple for most if not all of the last 10-15 years, but again... who says it means anything?

"Nonetheless, the lower prices of his offerings compared to Apple opened the door to the computer age of those with less than affluent means."

Ah, but the lower price has never been of HIS offerings. He's always kept the price of Windows and other MS products high, while the manufacturers who licensed Windows fought a vicious battle to the lowest possible price. (Notice how Office still officially costs $500 or so, even though it's now easy to buy an "educational" version for $199.) Giving him credit for the lower costs of PCs is like giving the record labels credit for the lower cost of stereos when in fact they've held prices steady and even raised them, as manufacturing costs have plummeted.

“Ah, but the lower price has never been of HIS offerings. He's always kept the price of Windows and other MS products high, while the manufacturers who licensed Windows fought a vicious battle to the lowest possible price”

This is not entirely correct. Bill Gates made the conscious decision to lower the price of Microsoft’s software enough to win over the masses. He knew that in the long run this would ensure Microsoft’s dominance. Gates my not have been altruistically motivated. Regardless, his efforts have indeed enriched all of us. Of course, isn’t this what Adam Smith predicted would likely occur in his “Wealth of Nations?”

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

//
[...]
Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?
//

Well, inasmuch I can know, it is basically what they did with NT, which is the antecessor of W 2000, and W XP. While a new OS, it was designed along the lines of DEC VMS and the POSIX specifications.That was one cause of incompatibility with W 3.1 and W 95 and their offsprings.(another one is that they did not want to invest in a good emulator for the old applications in the new OS, because the biggest competitor to Microsoft is its installed base)

DSW

I guess Antoni couldn't find the control-alt-delete when he needed it.

DT said "Apple was primarily the option for those possessing advanced degrees behind their name and earning big bucks." To my utter and complete delight, the vast majority of people I trained on the Macintosh in the mid to late eighties and early nineties were the former secretaries and assistants who had been delegated by clueless bosses to learn spreadsheets and word processing and database manipulation. The Mac made learning how to use multiple applications simple since Apple enforced conformity among all the developers, and the ease of use of the Mac made this first cadre of office workers into the boss-replacers they were always capable of becoming. The bosses, mainly men, had never learned to type and had always disdained people with that skill. The subordinates, primarily women, were already running most of the tasks of their offices, and the Mac skills boosted them to capabilities that made them obvious candidates for promotions and greater responsibility.

If David Thompson thinks "possessing advanced degrees behind their name and earning big bucks" describes early Mac users, he is sadly mistaken. Macs were "computers for the rest of us" then and now.

It was not a question of locked machine, but I suspect a mismatch of protocols, I'm using mozilla on a linux system, and it was not apparent that may answer was being re-sent. Let this be another test, and accept my excuses for any inconveniences that may bring. Now if I could delete my redundant posts...

DSW

Mike G wrote, By what standard is this "contention" a fact? and It is silly to invent a meaningless term such as "modern" (by definition surely the two best-selling operating systems in the market at any given moment are "modern") and then define it in such a narrow way that it supposedly supports your point about the superiority of one over the other.

It's not an arbitrary definition. Any true operating system, at least since the early 1980s, must have certain features. One of these features is a scheduling process, which controls which processes are using the CPU. AFAIK, Apple OS didn't have this crucial feature until OS X.

If Apple's OS's were so great, why did they throw them out the window (no pun intended) when they adopted OS X?

You also seem to misunderstand my argument. I'm no great fan of Microsoft's operating systems. They were a complete joke until Windows 95, which still pretty much sucked. Windows NT 4.0 was the first MS OS that was at all stable, and I think that any large organization that uses MS software for their most important operations oughta have their heads examined.

That being said, Apple wasn't very good either. Sure, for single users they were better than Wintel, until just a few years ago (especially for e.g. installing software, which used to be a real pain in the *** on Wintel). That argument no longer washes, and as other posters have pointed out, you pay a real premium to get a Mac.

"Any true operating system, at least since the early 1980s, must have certain features."

So I guess 100 million people were using fake operating systems.

I think your definition of a true operating system is "a computer not for the rest of you."

DeLong:
"Should Microsoft throw out Windows and replace it with a flavor of UNIX on top of which it builds proprietary device-driver-recognizers, media suites, et cetera? Would that make life better?"

That is essentially what Cringley suggests in his latest column.

What Lies Beneath
"I was exchanging e-mail recently with my friend Mike Class, SJ, who is associate dean of the Graduate School at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mike, who is a Jesuit priest and therefore naturally drawn to the whole idea of conversion, wants Microsoft to build its next version of Windows on top of Linux. And you know, it actually makes some sense!"

Well, several points. First, if I were in charge of Apple, I'd be positioning OS X as the platform for Unix development. No matter what they say about Gnome or whatever, Unix is still waiting for the developer tools to bring it into the mainstream progammer orbit. Apple did that with Hypercard. Then they blew it, and Bill G ran past them with tools like Visual Basic and later Visual Studio. OK, there are Unix geeks who swear that eight windows open with different emacs shells beats one integrated IDE (with syntax highlighting, object class tree, etc.), but frankly, for 99% of the code out there, I doubt it. I find that most GUI tools on Linux/Gnome just don't work right: the interfaces are not responsive. IMHO, this blows. So, real coders use command-line? Some people probably thought for years that real cars should be started with a crank. Second, CPU speed comparisons are very misleading. And third, having had to support computer-phobics for over ten years, I can say that Mac OS wins. All versions of them. But W2K and XP are closer.

BTW, I'm working on a Win2K laptop (quite stable too).

Mike G,

You still haven't answered my challenge: if MacOS (through 9) was so great, why did Apple discard it when building X?

I reckon that the motivation of Apple, when switching to a BSD variant of Unix, was that in this way it would tap on the vast arsenal of Unix applications, both commercials and free or open source.In this way they can concentrate on the aspects where they lead, consistency of UI and very low-level, otherwise, each time they have to go to a new processor they would have to re-do the whole system. Unix variants on the other hand have little dependence on hardware peculiarity, so they can migrate from one type of hardware to the next in a clean fashion

DSW

Stephen J. Fromm:

Why do you think this is such a profound or damning question? After all, Windows finally abandoned MS-DOS, too. Mac OS was a great thing for years when Linus wasn't even a gleam in Mrs. Torvalds' eye. More power to Apple for being willing to scrap it (and so many things) when the time came to make a major jump. It's one of their competitive strengths, the willingness to simply kiss things (floppy drives, SCSI ports, etc.) goodbye.

Even Henry Ford decided to finally make something other than the Model T. That its time finally passed doesn't mean the Model T wasn't "insanely great" in its time, or FOR its time.

Nobody has sufficiently addressed Jane Galt’s point that Apple can no longer compete for those requiring powerful machines. I am personally using a low end Apple computer, but my needs are relatively modest. Surfing the internet, word processing, and listening to compact discs, is not a true test for a computer. How can Apple survive in the long run if the power users must reluctantly opt for the more powerful pc? Who will create the advanced processing chips that will help Apple compete? The real profits are earned by selling the power machines, not the wimpier models that I'm likely to purchase.

1) How can Apple survive in the long run if the power users must reluctantly opt for the more powerful pc?

Show me some who are and then we can consider this question. There are few things more intensive (out of typical pc tasks) than photo retouching and video editing, and both are Mac dominated. Maybe there's more to it than raw processor speed.

2) Who will create the advanced processing chips that will help Apple compete?

Well, let's see. IBM already makes one contender widely expected to turn up in new Macs this summer, while Apple has an in-house group that creates a parallel Intel version of everything. How will Microsoft compete when Apple has speed parity and such an overwhelming advantage in user experience?

"How will Microsoft compete when Apple has speed parity and such an overwhelming advantage in user experience?"

I hope you are right. We are all better off if Bill Gates is forced to compete for business. It is my guess that we will know for sure by 2005. The next few years are critical to Apple.