radical revamping of techpubs

[Chris Borokowski]

My inference is that hardware would not have been standardized without
Microsoft or some other aggressive, unifying business entity.

I've actually had good luck with PCs, but I've been a Mac user since
1984 and an Apple user for four years before that, a UNIX user about
the same length of time, and have built my own machines for close to
fifteen years now. Buy Intel motherboards :) and try again.

--- Ron Miller <ronsmiller at comcast.net> wrote:

> Your inference suggests that hardware would have stayed expensive  
> without Microsoft. I don't buy that. In my view, hardware would have 
> dropped regardless because the price of the components dropped over  
> time, completely independent from the PC's relationship to Microsoft.
>  
> In fact, I would maintain that competition in the OS/Office  
> productivity space in the 90s would have eventually resulted in  
> making these items commodities, which would have reduced the overall 
> cost of ownership dramatically. Proof of this is the number of free  
> office productivity and operating systems that have developed in  
> today's more open environment. These products would have developed  
> sooner had Microsoft not been allowed to artificially control pricing
> and the market.
> 
> I would agree that there it would have created a more difficult  
> environment for us as tech writer to produce documentation, but  I  
> have the feeling it would have worked itself out, just as it has with
> browser-based help that works regardless of the operating system in  
> place.  As for Apple, people continue to buy the product in spite of 
> its higher price because it isn't a one for one comparison. There is 
> a quality factor, ease of use and stability that I've yet to see  
> matched in a PC. And I speak as someone who is relatively recent Mac 
> owner, but has used PCs since 1985
> 
> Ron
> 
> Ron Miller
> Freelance Technology Writing Since 1988
> Contributing Editor, EContent Magazine
> 
> email: ronsmiller at ronsmiller.com
> blog: http://byronmiller.typepad.com
> web: http://www.ronsmiller.com
> 
> Winner of the 2006 and 2007 Apex Award for Publication Excellence/ 
> Feature Writing
> 
> 
> 
> On Oct 19, 2007, at 2:50 PM, Chris Borokowski wrote:
> 
> > I'm somewhat thankful they did, as the result was a standardization
> of
> > hardware that allows $500 to buy a better quality machine than a
> $1500
> > Macintosh or $2500 custom UNIX. Sometimes aggression in business
> can
> > produce very fortunate results for us little people.
> >
> > --- Ron Miller <ronsmiller at comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> >> In my view, the only reason Windows has dominated personal
> computing
> >> is because Microsoft bullied hardware company into selling its
> >> products. It told computer manufacturers throughout the 90s when
> it
> >> built its domination to either use only Windows or to have to pay
> >> more for each copy if they didn't.
> >
> > http://technical-writing.dionysius.com/
> > technical writing | consulting | development
> >
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