--- premstud@vsnl.com wrote:
i think some people hate to admit it that how much ever blame windows they continue to support it in some way or the other either using some product or creating some
applications for it
and by the way seeing the success of windows worldwide, i dont think u can call that failure. remember unix was there in the market for so many years
The maximum number of pc penetration in the world is thanks to windows.That is a fact.
Sorry, Prem, you've got another think coming. The most important factor responsible for the spread of Microsoft operating systems was not Microsoft, but rather, IBM. The PC was introduced some time in the early eighties (1982, IIRC). Till that time, the 8 bit machines ruled, and CP/M was king. CP/M was an 8 bit OS written for Z80 based microcomputers, and it was so ubiquitous that even Apple, which had is own OS (AppleDOS) for its 6502 architecture, was forced to provide CP/M compatibility through an aftermarket Z80 plug-in board. The spread of CP/M was responsible for Apple's conceding a lot of market share to both CP/M based machines as well as cheap Apple II imitators from the far east, sold under such names as "Orange" and "Tangerine".
The great thing about the Apple was not its design or even CPU, because, (1) the 6502 was decidedly inferior to competing microprocessors, and (2) a whole lot of Apple II's actually ran CP/M. These factors made Apple decide to move away from the open designs of Steve Woczniak when the time came to usher in the next (16 bit) generation of Apple computers, starting with the ill-fated Lisa (1983?) and the original Macintosh.
However, when IBM entered the market with their PC, they made a design decision that would affect the future of computing for all time to come. They opened up the design of their PC to all comers, so much so that the PC reference manuals even published complete cirucitry details amd ROM BIOS source listings. This factor, coupled with the CP/M compatible API of PC-DOS (yes, the very same MS-DOS of today), rendered the PC a very attractive backward-compatible development in the microcomputer world as opposed to the closed-box nature of the Apple Macintosh. Never mind that the Mac had a GUI OS as against the PC's command line interface - although the Mac was (and is) arguably a technically superior product, the PC has always won because of its open architecture and API.
The open architecture meant that a lot of people could produce competing products to IBM's, thus allowing the free interplay of market forces to drive down prices to a level which everyone could afford - just like the old days of open-architecture Apple II's, S-100 bus machines and Z80/ CP/M systems. Apple chose to lock up its designs and architecture, and paid the price for it in a meagre market share.
Also, PC-DOS was a reasonably stable system (I've used it from v. 1.1 onwards), and worked well within its single-user/ single tasking limitations. Thus, Microsoft was able to establish a beachhead in the microcomputer market because of the hardware. By the time a usable version of Windows was released (3.0), Microsoft had conquered the PC OS market, simply because there was no alternative. There actually was a CP/M produced for the PC, called CP/M-86 (later renamed DR DOS for Digital Research DOS0, by Digital Research, the owners of the original 8 bit CP/M. Actually IBM had originally sought to use CP/M-86 as the default PC operating system, but difficulties with Gary Kildall, owner of Digital Research, led to their backing Microsoft, who did not even have an OS to offer at that time (when they got the contract, they bought a readymade OS called 86-DOS from a company called Seattle Computer, hired its creator Tim Paterson to code for them, renamed it PC-DOS and sold it to IBM).
Thus, the "success" of Microsoft OS'es is by default - not because of the technical superiority of the product. As Microsoft grew larger and richer, they created a marketing machine that ensured that no competitors were allowed to succeed against Microsoft - neither DR-DOS, nor OS/2. Incidentally, everyone who has used OS/2 will agree that it is a far superior product to Windows. Microsoft has attained its present preeminent position as a microcomputer OS vendor not by merit, but rather by an absolutely fortuitous combination of circumstances, hype, obfuscation, marketing, money and plain old skullduggery.
And there was no Linux - or free BSD - around at the time to challenge Microsoft.
I hope this helps clear your misconceptions about Windows. And if you'd like to learn a little more about the various issues with Windows in terms of programming ease, stability, reliability, etc., just become a low-level Windows programmer - you'll learn to curse it PDQ!
Regards,
Krishnan
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