From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Subject: Re: Some more misconceptions regarding OS/2 and NT
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 19:53:12 GMT

In <1992Aug20.161527.4784@microsoft.com> gregde@microsoft.com (Greg Demichillie) writes:

>In article <1992Aug17.202626.18076@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>>In <1992Aug14.173031.4014@microsoft.com> gregde@microsoft.com (Greg Demichillie) writes:
>>
>>>In article <1992Aug13.213845.3007@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>>>>It's not a matter of 'not needing money'.  It's a matter of needing a
>>>>CD-ROM. 
>>
>>>I know of many places that will happily exchange the former for the latter :=)
>>
>>So do I, but I, personally, have better things to do with my money
>>than blow it on something I don't want or need, simply because
>>Microsoft thinks I ought to.  I suspect that the company also has
>>better things to do with its money, although I certainly wouldn't

>It is a gross simplification to say that MS put the NT SDK on CD-ROM
>just for the hell of it.  And remember, we aren't just talking about
>the operating system, the CD includes NT for i386 and MIPS architectures
>as well as a complete SDK and development tools for both..  Even if 
>the MIPS stuff was split out you are looking at many, many floppy 
>disks (even assuming 50% compression to floppies.).  There is certainly 
>no way we could sell it for $69 if it included that many floppies.  

Oh, I don't think they did it 'just for the hell of it'.  I think that
FROM THEIR VIEWPOINT they had good reasons.  I just don't think the
concept of 'users' entered into the decision.  And it is that
attitude, which seems so prevalent in MS thinking, that I object to.

[And yes, I complain about that kind of thinking when other companies
do it, too.]

>>>Seriously, operating systems and developement systems are getting so big
>>>and so complex that the cost of goods for distributing them on floppies
>>>is getting out of hand.  MS isn't the first to go the CD-ROM route. Look
>>>at NeXT, Sun and Apple.  They are all using CD-ROM as the preferred
>>>means of distrubution.  
>>
>>Yes, they are.  The key word is 'preferred'.  You can still get things
>>on other media.
>>
>>[Note that this isn't strictly true with Sun; the operating system, at
>>least, is ONLY available pre-installed or on CD-ROM.]

>I don't know if any decisions have been made regarding final distribution
>of the OS, but for the SDK at least I don't think the CD-ROM choice
>was unreasonable.

I don't think it was unreasonable from the standpoint of MICROSOFT.  I
just think it was a bit unreasonable in its expectations for users.

>>>If you don't want to have everyone in your
>>>company have CD-ROMS, buy one CD-ROM and multiple copies of the SDK and
>>>then have the one person copy from the CD-ROM to your network.  
>>
>>In other words, we get to reinforce the old MIS paradigm, where 'mere
>>users' can't reinstall their own machines if something goes wrong
>>(because they don't have media that they can put in their machine).

>No, you missed my point.  You have one person copy the contents of the
>CD to the network and each person can then install from the net to
>their own machine.  No MIS guru needed, just someone to type "xcopy."

Who controls the CD drive?  We have a big network here, and I
personally don't know of any CD drives hanging off of it (not to say
there aren't any, just that I don't know of any).  It also makes an
assumption about just how big a 'developer' is.  


-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.