The Logic Off Topic list

--- In logic-ot@yahoogroups.com, "Oblivian | Bacteria AS" wrote:
> ...
> Anyway you put it, it is never posititive that an OS vendor 
> also makes software. That goes for M$ too of course. 

Oh yes, MS are the stock example!
MSWord development seemed to be ****ed up for years as it drifted 
around in the wash of Microsoft's shifting corporate visions. 
And I thought Visual Basic had had the chance to completely turn the 
software development market upside down, if its development team had 
been allowed to go ahead and turn it into the complete killer cross-
platform development tool it could have been ... but they only seemed 
to support MS operating systems (no Mac version), and didn't 
initially include a compiler (conflict with VC++), and then got 
bogged down as VB got used as a pawn in MS strategy after strategy. 


> Many companies refrain from competetive developing on that 
> particular platform of that spesific software
> when they have to "beat" the actual OS developer. Quite 
> understandable. 

Yep, if you have the code for an incredible new wordpocessor, it's 
probably not worth releasing it for Windows, because most Windows 
people will just continue to buy Microsoft's own MSWord by default.
Partly because MSWord is considered the "standard" Windows WP 
program, partly because it has the MS stamp on it, and partly because 
the buyer knows that if they buy a competing Windows wordprocessor, 
there are going to be question marks over the future of that software 
under Windows (because they are not going to have an easy time 
competing with MS).
So the "safe" option is buying MSWord, despite any deficiencies in 
the product, and because MS don't have to make the app compete too 
hard to keep market share, its development progress has been 
appallingly slow. 
MS probably don't give a damn, it still sells.