🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <01bc026e$bd4f9a20$8f201e26@speedbird>, vin...@shadow.net says...
>
>This guy is an idiot.  The reason people buy microsoft software IS NOT
>becasue it is the only software available.  There is always OS/2 or the
>MACos.  THey do not produce the only office suite, in fact, there is fierce
>competition, however people buy the microsoft product.  Why do you think
>this is?  Quite simply because their products are superior, and that is

I'd like to contend this statement.  I don't think MS makes superior
products, I think they just market their name better.  Take the Windows 95
launch for example, they spent millions just to launch a product that
was playing catchup with OS/2 and MacOS, to this day Windows 95 is
not superior to MacOS or OS/2 Warp, but it is better supported by PC
and peripheral manufacturers.  Why?  Well their licensing deals with PC
makers basically prevents PC makers from bundling any other OS than
Windows and since MS markets themselves so well and everyone involved
with PCs basically knows about MS and Windows it would be safer to
bet on Windows than any other PC OS, the same goes for peripheral makers.

As for, the normal person out there on the street, I'm sure MS and
Windows will be a much more brand recognised name than any other computer
software maker and product, so of course if they're in the market
for an office suite, MS would probably be first on the list simply
because they've heard of them.  Would you buy a product from a company
you've at least heard about or from one you've never heard of before?
Although from what I've heard Office 97 is quite a superior product.
But did I fail to mention that in a lot of computer literature I've read,
especially the ones directed at advicing home computer users, MS also
gets some great publicity, even if the writers usually sound like
they're major experience is in using only MS and windows products.  It's
especially annoying if they try to review a rival OS such as OS/2
and its quite clear (to an OS/2 user) that the reviewer doesn't at least
the same level of experience with OS/2, as they do with Windows.

All of this of course leads to MS and associated products to look
very good indeed, and hence people will generally look for their products.

>what has made them such a large company.  I say congrats microsoft, and

I'd congratulate MS for their marketing, but IMHO I think we'd
be further ahead if MS didn't comtrol the PC Desktop and Office Applications
so strongly.

>paul, quit your bitching and just don't buy from microsoft if it bothers
>you so much.

Well, I don't actually agree with the ideas of the original thread.
I don't use MS products because IMHO they're unstable from revision 
to revision and can require you to have to buy upgrades.  And they're too
restrictive in the platforms they support, they're even dropping
Win 3.1 support these days.

Just the $0.02 worth

Cheers,
Randy