Whether it's ugly or beautiful, naughty or nice, good or evil, when a product gains that kind of momentum and enlists that many users on its side, software developers had better start paying attention to it. This makes getting caught out without a Windows version of your program just about the worst possible thing that can happen to a DOS application vendor these days. All of the dynamics that made the Macintosh market so special, that made Macintosh users so unwilling to consider any alternative, are now being ignited by Windows in a market ten times larger. A community of users ten times the size of the Macintosh, Amiga, Sun, and NeXT user base combined is now beginning to discover, albeit in a cruder way, what possessed people to buy those other systems. You don't have to predict the future to see the Windows phenomenon, you need only open your eyes.
Users can make their own icons and customise their systems that way.
Proud of their artistry, many users upload their spiffiest new icons to CompuServe and other networks so others can share them. The last time I looked there were, sitting on CompuServe, a total of 1.3 megabytes of Windows icons ready to download. A market ten times the size means ten times the money to be made by application vendors, and if that weren't incentive enough, it's a market that, with each installation, displaces a raw DOS machine. All of these limitations are, however, scheduled to be remedied over the next two years. Given the importance of Windows to Microsoft's strategy and the resources they commit to such projects, Windows buyers can be reasonably confident the schedule will be met.