From: philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara)
Subject: Re: FCC will proclaim Microsoft is run by Communists! : )
Date: 01 Jan 93 19:09:53 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <1992Dec31.203639.15808@grebyn.com> mfraioli@grebyn.com (Marc Fraioli) writes:
>In article <1992Dec31.052018.5365@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:
>>In article <8240@lib.tmc.edu> jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
>>>>     Only if you're a paranoid.  Why is it easier to ascribe the
>>>>incompatibilities to some nefarious (and utterly without evidence)
>>>>plot by Microsoft than to a bug in a competing product?  Bugs
>>>>happen all the time - nefarious plots that no one can produce
>>>>any substantiation for only happen in the Weekly World News,
>>>>alt.conspiracy, and the minds of certain Microsoft bashers.
>>>
>>>If "bugs happen all the time", then why was MS positively eager to work out
>>>incompatibilities with Windows 3.1 with _everyone_but_DR_???
>>
>>     Windows applications help to sell Windows.  DR-DOS does not.
>>Seems pretty obvious to me.
>>
>Not to me.  Some people use DR-DOS.  Fine, so Microsoft lost a sale of
>MS-DOS to those people.  But MS can still potentially sell those people
>a copy of Windows, provided that it works.  So it seems to me that it
>would be in Microsoft's interest to make Windows work with DR-DOS, if
>all they were looking at was the success of Windows.

     You're missing the point.  People generally buy system software
because it will help them run the applications they want.  So,
User X sees a copy of 1-2-3 for Windows, and says "Wow, I sure would
like to run that."  So User X goes out and buys a copy of Windows,
and a copy of 1-2-3.  Microsoft is happy that User X bought Windows,
and he bought it because of a non-MS application.  It's in Microsoft's
best interests to make sure that those applications work on Windows,
and work well, or at least to assist the ISVs in the process.
     DR-DOS doesn't offer this benefit.  It is therefore irrelevant
to the success of Windows.  If User X owns DR-DOS, and wants to
run 1-2-3 for Windows, then he buys Windows and 1-2-3.  If it
doesn't run on DR-DOS, then he can always go out and buy MS-DOS,
or complain to Digitial Research that their product doesn't
work properly.  Having him complain to Microsoft about it is
ludicrous.


>  But if you
>consider it from the perspective that MS believes that EVERYONE wants
>Windows, then preventing it from running on DR-DOS makes sense, as it
>should sell more MS-DOS, again assuming that every buyer of any version
>of DOS intends to buy Windows already.

    Once again, the fact that Windows didn't initially run on DR-DOS
doesn't mean that there were intentional changes made to the code to
make it not run.  DR-DOS didn't provide perfect MS-DOS emulation
in this case - this is a bug in DR-DOS, not something sinister
in Windows.


>  This, of course, leaves us with
>two potential explanations.  I don't pretend to know which is valid.  We
>can all have our suspicions/opinions, but no one outside of MS really
>knows.

     True.  But lack of knowledge has never stopped discussion on
this newsgroup.

				-Phil

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phil Lafornara         				1 Microsoft Way         
philipla@microsoft.com				Redmond, WA 98052-6399 
Note:  Microsoft doesn't even _know_ that these are my opinions. So there.
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy