Re: OSX on Intel Could Destroy Microsoft
- From: ZnU <znu@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 00:00:01 -0500
In article <BFAB64F4.3B98%orthocross@xxxxxxx>,
Donald <orthocross@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 11/24/05 9:38 AM, in article
> znu-183925.12383824112005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "ZnU" <znu@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
> > In article <mr-E547CE.18191423112005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Sandman
> > <mr@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >> In article <znu-B4DE42.08510323112005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, ZnU
> >> <znu@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>
> >>>>>> I don't see that. If Apple truly wanted to invest in stealing
> >>>>>> market share from Microsoft (which they may not really want to
> >>>>>> do, profit margins are higher if they stay out of the
> >>>>>> commodity swimming pool for the most part), they'd either
> >>>>>> develop their own office suite, or put their own people and/or
> >>>>>> funding into a native Cocoa version of OpenOffice and perhaps
> >>>>>> Thunderbird, including "moron user" support for direct
> >>>>>> importation of PST files. Of course, that's already possible
> >>>>>> w/thunderbird, but you have to jump through a few hoops to do
> >>>>>> it. Hell, Apple Mail won't even do it, so let's not pretend
> >>>>>> they have expended any serious effort at stealing MS
> >>>>>> customers. Probably for fear of making MS stop supporting
> >>>>>> Office and friends on the Mac in the meantime.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> The fact is, many Windows (and OS X) Office users use Microsoft
> >>>>> Office because it includes Outlook.
> >>>>>
> >>>> A /lot/ of people are switching away from Outlook to
> >>>> Thunderbird, because it does most of the good things Outlook
> >>>> does and more, while removing some of the evil parts, not to
> >>>> mention being much faster, particularly with large mailboxes.
> >>>>
> >>> The next generation of web-based tools in this market could
> >>> finish off Outlook/Exchange for good. Take a look at Joyent, for
> >>> instance: http://www.joyent.com/
> >>>
> >> (So you're a Daring Fireball reader, ey? :)
> >>
> >>> Mail, contacts, calendaring and file sharing in one integrated
> >>> web-based interface, that takes advantage of JavaScript not as a
> >>> gimmick, but to actually make the UI more usable. You can access
> >>> everything from any modern browser (or even IE 6 <g>).
> >>>
> >> But, and I even recall you saying this, Web UI *SUCKS*. Web UI's
> >> are good for things where there is no alternative - like online
> >> banking or web communities. But hotmail.com can't compete with
> >> Mail.app UI-wise.
> >>
> >> The first problem with Web UI is that it is totally inconsistent
> >> with the UI the user supposedly is used to - the operating system
> >> UI. Drag'n'drop doesn't work. There is no menu bar. You can't
> >> really interact with your hard drive and so on.
> >>
> >> The Web platform is *great* for collaboration. I have developed
> >> and is selling a similar system as Joyent, with a project
> >> management interface with filesharing, calendar, contacts, todo's,
> >> gantt charts and so on. But the UI is always a web browser sub-UI
> >> which just sucks.
> >>
> >> And with javascript and CSS you could do amazing things like
> >> grabbing a timeline in a gantt chart and move it like you would in
> >> a regular app - but (*cough* IE *cough*) messes this up
> >> completely, since you can't rely on the end experience - you have
> >> to have fallback routines.
> >>
> >> Let me give an example - these videos are old, but this is a
> >> function I've built in Atlas - my CMS system:
> >>
> >> http://jonas.eklundh.com/texter/read.php?id=44134
> >>
> >> My system for moving and resizing images tied to articles:
> >> http://jonas.eklundh.com/bilder/articlefiles/moveandresize.mp4
> >>
> >> My system for uploading images to a article:
> >> http://jonas.eklundh.com/bilder/articlefiles/upload.mp4
> >>
> >> You'll not get much closer than this with regards to drag'n'drop
> >> using Web UI (apart from the upload drop target, which is a java
> >> applet in my case).
> >>
> >> With a native UI, the images would have a frame with grab handles,
> >> text would reflow automatically when I drag images around and so
> >> on.
> >>
> >> The above is compatible with IE though.
> >>
> > Looking at Joyent, it looks a lot more usable, honestly, than
> > Outlook. Mostly because it's just a lot simpler; Outlook is an
> > overly complex maze of menus and dialogs that most people barely
> > have a clue how to use.
> >
>
> But many people like the complexity of Microsoft applications, and
> purchase them by the billions, as long-proven by the Marketplace. I
> don't understand why Mac Fanatics keep overlooking this fact.
Because it's total nonsense. I see the way regular people use these
complex Microsoft applications, and almost nobody significantly
scratches the surface. Consumers use these apps because they're the de
facto standards. They're the de facto standards because Microsoft
leveraged its OS monopoly into a monopoly over office software, and
locked users in with proprietary file formats.
The reason the apps are so complex is not because such complexity was
demanded by a significant fraction of the user base, but for two
entirely different reasons.
1) Once there weren't any more sales to make by converting people from
the competition or significantly growing the market, Microsoft realized
the way to keep making money was *upgrades*. And new features sell
upgrades, even if most people don't really use them. As a result,
instead of defining a reasonable scope for its products, Microsoft's
view is that more is always better. They never say "This is what a word
processor should do" and stop -- they just add more and more and more.
2) Microsoft wasn't want to leave niches where competitors can get a
toe-hold. So, let's say Word didn't have features for managing really
long documents (which most people never use it for). Well, that would
create a viable market for a product designed to manage long documents.
That product could then start encroaching into Word's market. You fix
this by adding some minimal level of long document support to Word --
now people will figure they've already got Word, and it does what they
need (though maybe it's not great at it), so why buy something else?
Bingo. No room for anyone else to squeeze in. Repeat this for several
dozen features that aren't used by more than 1% of MS Office's user
base, and you see how you end up with an office suite that takes up a
gigabyte of hard drive space.
Compare all of this wilt the way a company like 37signals functions.
They've got a web-based project manager called Basecamp that's
explicitly designed for small teams. It doesn't have a lot of features
that other project management apps have, and 37signals has no intention
of adding them. Why? Because adding a lot of stuff that was unnecessary
to the task of organizing small teams would make the product *worse* for
that specific purpose. 37signals doesn't care about point 1) above,
because the software is sold as a hosted application, so they get
ongoing revenue without needing to bloat the app with new features, and
they don't care about 2) because they're not interested in monopolizing
project management.
This is the new model.
[snip]
> "Simplicity" is something Mac users prefer, I take it. It is not
> what many Windows users want. They want more options and methods,
> not fewer.
>
> Get ready for a change in the Web, my friend. Because Microsoft is
> going online big-time when they start renting their applications
> (including Office) as Web services rather than programs you buy in a
> shop. They have already started with Outlook Online. This will
> start a torrent of other applications moving to the Web, and off the
> HD.
And I think Microsoft will not find much success in this market, because
most users don't want such apps (see above), and the web is not well
suited to such apps.
With Microsoft's latest round of 'platform' technologies, it's obvious
they see the web as broken, because it doesn't allow for huge, complex
apps, and they're trying to 'fix' it. This is a disaster in the making.
> > This is a *good* thing. There are very few tasks which actually
> > benefit from such complexity. The cutting edge of web app
> > development today seems to embrace the Unix philosophy of building
> > small, specialized tools that perform narrow tasks very well, and
> > integrate well with other such tools.
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------
> > -----
>
> When you refer to the "cutting edge", you are really referring to OS
> X and Unix, not Windows. However, this use of the appellative
> "cutting edge" has nothing to do with the Windows world, which
> comprises the greatest majority of computer users on the Web.
I'm not referring to OS X at all. These new web technologies are
OS-Independent. Mostly, we're dealing with open source infrastructure on
the server end, and browsers that implement web standards of the client
end.
You keep trying to bring this back to OS X vs. Windows. It's not about
that, and the fact that it's not about that is one of my major points.
This is a new model for applications, that allows developers and users
alike to shed some of the baggage accumulated in the last 20 years of
GUI desktop application development.
[snip]
--
"It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get
them out of harm's way."
-- George W. Bush in Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005
.
- References:
- OSX on Intel Could Destroy Microsoft
- From: Mojo
- Re: OSX on Intel Could Destroy Microsoft
- From: MartinKess
- Re: OSX on Intel Could Destroy Microsoft
- From: Lefty Bigfoot
- Re: OSX on Intel Could Destroy Microsoft
- From: Lefty Bigfoot
- Re: OSX on Intel Could Destroy Microsoft
- From: Sandman
- Re: OSX on Intel Could Destroy Microsoft
- From: ZnU
- Re: OSX on Intel Could Destroy Microsoft
- From: Donald
- OSX on Intel Could Destroy Microsoft
- Prev by Date: Re: How did the Mac Jihad miss this?
- Next by Date: Re: wow... Dell suddenly sees reality, Apple next?
- Previous by thread: Re: OSX on Intel Could Destroy Microsoft
- Next by thread: Re: OSX on Intel Could Destroy Microsoft
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
