Timothy R.Butler wrote:
That's why 3rd party vendors (e.g. Symantec, Powerquest, etc.) are not worried that MS keeps adding features to Windows. The default
If those guys don't fear Microsoft, then they get what they deserve. However, first they should talk to Novell, Corel, Lotus, Netscape, Sun, Apple, Intuit, Palm, Be, Oracle, Digital Research, Quarterdeck, Geo, Real, Roxio, WordStar, and many more. Also should I mention those that gave up and sold out to Microsoft? AutoMap, Fox Systems (I think that was the name), Visio... All of these companies are either currently in nasty wars with, or have lost such wars with Microsoft (even if their products were better).
If a company does nothing to ensure their market share, like Novell did, they get what they get. Business is about making money. Novell was making money hand over fist and got lazy, MS simply took advantage of their stupidity. As for the others, some like GEO never had a chance. Vendors never supported GEO. It was far more stable than Windows 3.0 which came out about the same time. Netscape? Blame that crap, Communicator for their loss. 3.03 was rock solid, rather than build on the good, they decided to bloat. Digital Research had the best DOS out there. Novell acquired them and ruined the product. In fact most of the companies listed above have no one to blame but themselves. Intuit stands out in that it is fighting for its life and doing quite well, I may add. Sun? Oracle? I don't think they worry too much about MS. They have other battles to worry about.
And even more importantly, most of them lost by resting on the laurels while Microsoft slowly drained their marketshare...
-Tim
Which is why I like Linux's chances so much more than any company listed above. Linux developers are constantly developing new and improved softwares. From a laughable "Geek" only OS to a robust and full featured OS in ten years mostly done by a large and somewhat disorganized community, is remarkable.