What do you call the likes of SQL Server(apart from half-arsed that is), Exchange Server, the fact that here in the UK two High street Banks run the cash machines on NT??
I'd call it two banks making poor choices...
First, I didn't say that MS didn't try to offer enterprise class software, only that they certainly aren't running away with that market. There's nothing like Oracle or even Sybase or Informix as competition to MS in the word-processing market, for example. As far as email goes, I'm way too familiar with Microsoft Exchange (since it's MU's email "solution", at least for the moment...)
I really think Babar has a point here. I'm not sure I totally agree with the whole neo-luddite "computer's haven't really gained anyone anything" (which isn't a particularly accurate paraphrase anyway) sentiment.
Indeed, computers have gained most people an immense amount, more than most of them can imagine. And I'm not (seriously) suggesting that office software is completely useless. MS Word is a perfectly serviceable, if rather byzantine, text editor. But I am suggesting that much of its perceived value comes from the fact that people like to use it, not from the fact that people get much more done with it. Heck, I'm all in favor of entertainment, or else why would I be posting to slashdot?
I think personal computers have made a number of things possible: desktop publishing and (more recently video). But these could also be shoehorned into "entertainment".
Yes, but these are primarily means to produce entertainment, not obtain it. The reason why desktop publishing was such a huge success was that it really, really did replace an outmoded technology, and it lead to a better separation of concerns between mock-up/design and the raw, gritty details of printing and binding and such. Plus, you know desktop publishing software is there for more than entertainment value because real businesses whose main product is printed material rely on the software. I suspect (but I'm less sure) that desktop video will have a similar effect in the video production industry.
Now, there's a funny thing going on here: the market for producing books and videos isn't nearly as large as the market for playing (with) them, so we can predict from the "Microsoft is primarily an entertainment company" thesis that MS won't worry too much about those niches. Sure enough, they really haven't. There's no "real" MS equivalent to PageMaker or Quark. [MS Publisher is basically the family/entertainment toy version.] Now, web browsers, on the other hand...
Re:Sorry Guys. (Score:2)
First, I didn't say that MS didn't try to offer enterprise class software, only that they certainly aren't running away with that market. There's nothing like Oracle or even Sybase or Informix as competition to MS in the word-processing market, for example. As far as email goes, I'm way too familiar with Microsoft Exchange (since it's MU's email "solution", at least for the moment...)
Indeed, computers have gained most people an immense amount, more than most of them can imagine. And I'm not (seriously) suggesting that office software is completely useless. MS Word is a perfectly serviceable, if rather byzantine, text editor. But I am suggesting that much of its perceived value comes from the fact that people like to use it, not from the fact that people get much more done with it. Heck, I'm all in favor of entertainment, or else why would I be posting to slashdot?
Yes, but these are primarily means to produce entertainment, not obtain it. The reason why desktop publishing was such a huge success was that it really, really did replace an outmoded technology, and it lead to a better separation of concerns between mock-up/design and the raw, gritty details of printing and binding and such. Plus, you know desktop publishing software is there for more than entertainment value because real businesses whose main product is printed material rely on the software. I suspect (but I'm less sure) that desktop video will have a similar effect in the video production industry.
Now, there's a funny thing going on here: the market for producing books and videos isn't nearly as large as the market for playing (with) them, so we can predict from the "Microsoft is primarily an entertainment company" thesis that MS won't worry too much about those niches. Sure enough, they really haven't. There's no "real" MS equivalent to PageMaker or Quark. [MS Publisher is basically the family/entertainment toy version.] Now, web browsers, on the other hand...