From: furballs@sequent.com (Paul Penrod)
Subject: Re: FCC will proclaim Microsoft is run by Communists! :)
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 21:16:00 GMT

In article <1hvl3mINN1ss@network.ucsd.edu> mbk@gibbs.ucsd.edu (Matt Kennel) writes:
>bai@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Dov Bai-MSI Visitor) writes:
>: From a programmer's point of view there is no real separation between 
>: applications & system software. Almost every application involve
>: some interaction with the system or system calls. This separation 
>: exists only in the mind of the FTC.
>

This presumes of course, that you consider Windows an OS. In fact,
ALL commercial applications that I have seen and/ritten have to
interact with the systems and systems calls. This is a fact of
life, even for UNIX. So your point about separation is groundless.
There is a distinction between what constitutes an application and
what contitutes an OS. That was a thread argued to death long
before your postings started appearing here.

>Imagine flying this past the marketing director: "What's the big deal
>about needing kernel patches for the application?  From a programmer's
>point of view there is no real separation between applications and
>system software?"
>

The marketing director would probably be dumb enough to buy off on
that statement too. :)

>There is only ONE operating system, created by ONE company, which can
>conceivably run MANY different applications.  (But that may be changing.)
>
>It's to Microsoft's advantage to put more and more "applications" features
>in their operating systems, thereby precluding others from future competition
>in those areas.  (Unix vendors didn't do that since they have this
>"comittement" to the codex of Unix code from either Berkeley or AT&T)
>
>Consider all the "multimedia extensions" and 'database features'.
>
>Microsoft Application developers can ASK for inside information about
>OS calls that others have to figure out from reverse engineering, which
>of course, may change in future versions.
>
>They can see the source code and look how the OS calls really work, in
>contrast to believing the documentation.  I can't believe anybody with
>any real experience would consider this a minor triviality, especially
>considering the increasing complexity of new operating systems.  (Apple
>could conceivably have done the same thing, but they spun their applications
>group off)
>
>But that's not the real danger.  MS Applications can find about plans and
>request specific features that they need in the future that will best aid
>their business plans.  Everybody else has to wait and see what MS decides to
>dole out.
>
>Don't you see from a business point of view this makes an ENORMOUS difference?
>Especially when being "big and first" often establishes the "accepted standard"
>around which everyone else must conform for the sake of compatbilitity?
>

That is a valid point. The race usually goes to whose first, not
necessarilly the best. But that is not an Iron clad rule in an
established market place. If the application is really that good,
then you will see it appear in many different forms. For example,
Borland sent Lotus scrambling to their lawyers because they cam
into the market and whacked off a large part of it, due to better
pricing and a superior product. IT does not always happen that way,
but the odds are that once you become king of the hill, your
established standard will be improved upon over time and become the
shifting target you have to hit, right along with your competition.

>: Now, when entrepreneurs start
>: the game, they usually have some long-term goals. They dont know 
>: ahead of time that some government committee is going to enter into
>: the picture later on and arbitrarily change the rules. If that
>: occurs too much in new areas they will simply not start to play 
>: the game.
>
>Replace government committee with MS and that's a good example of what's
>starting to happen with application developers.  They know that there is
>NO place for the large profit-making mainstream applications outside
>Microsoft.
>
>Consider the PenPoint computer.  Clearly enormously superior to anything
>mainstream (objectoriented OS, etc.) but it will be killed by
>Pen Windows.  (does it exist even?)
>
>: 
>: >Jeff Sicherman
>: >up the net without a .sig
>: 
>: Dov
>
>--
>-Matt Kennel  		mbk@inls1.ucsd.edu
>-Institute for Nonlinear Science, University of California, San Diego
>-*** AD: Archive for nonlinear dynamics papers & programs: FTP to
>-***     lyapunov.ucsd.edu, username "anonymous".

I tend to disagree about PenPoint. They were among the first,
therfore the competition looks an awful lot like them. Microsoft
PenWindows carries quite a few of their concepts. I don't think
they will die off; maybe bought up by some other company.


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