[Reader-list] .Net / Hailstorm Initiative

[Menso Heus]

On Sat, Jul 07, 2001 at 01:21:02AM +0530, Jaswinder Singh Kohli wrote:

> Bye
> BTW very interesting discussion
> on business practices

I was in a skateshop today (inline skates) and figured that it could
be compared with the desktop OS situation.

Five years ago, when I first started skating, there were basically only
2 brands that really mattered: Roces and Bauer. They also had relatively
high prices, but any cheap ones sucked, didn't allow you to change the
wheels and do other maintenance, etc. 
Thus, one could argue that those two controlled the market, not because
they didn't allow anyone else in, but because they offered a superiour 
product.

Last year I picked up skating again and bought Roces skates because I 
was still in my 'those are the best' mode that originated four years 
earlier. Today, I discovered that they are still very good, but that 
the top brand list has switched from Roces and Bauer to Roces, Bauer, 
K2, Salomon and Rollerblade. 

Now, is this because Bauer and Roces started to suck? No. It's because
other companies looked at what the market wanted and pulled up the 
quality of their product to a level on which it would be able to compete
with the current market leaders.

In the desktop software market, or any market for that matter, I have 
faith that this is the natural way the market works. Thus, Microsoft 
might be the only big player on the market right now when it comes to 
desktop OS's like Bauer and Roces were with skates, but when the quality
of other desktop OS's will live up to market expectations, this will
change.

There, my last comment in this discussion :)

Menso

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