No choice is the easy path

Story: Comment of the DayTotal Replies: 2
Author Content
cjcox

Oct 04, 2005
8:02 AM EDT
Unfortunately, having no freedoms is actually the easier path. People, for whatever reason, actually like being enslaved. You don't have to think, you don't have to make many decisions, you don't have to support those few decisions... it's just easier.

And Dell certainly wants to make our lives "easier".. one platform (Dell)... one OS (Windows). Surely the world will be a better place with Dell's one world vision!!

It's part of their "Keep It Simple, Stupid!" (note the location of the comma) campaign.
mariuz

Oct 04, 2005
10:59 PM EDT
don't foget the one cpu from phrase "one cpu one windows=wintel" they use only intel processors
PaulFerris

Oct 05, 2005
12:43 AM EDT
I think in general that there has been (of late) more choice of processor than O/S. And I agree with cjcox -- less choice unfortunately, makes the world simpler. Microsoft has often clouded the intellectual landscape around this issue by parroting in public that they had simplified the business world, and that this was a good thing.

Was it?

Do they have any way of showing us an alternate reality for PC software where application APIs were actually cross-platform and businesses were harmed by that fact?

The obvious problem is that I don't have a leg to stand on in the defense of the situation I'm proposing: Lot's of choice of vendor but an API that allows someone to write the application once that will run across multiple operating systems.

Before you say "That's Linux", ponder the fact that if OS/X makes it into the fray in sizable numbers, an app will potentially need 3 rewrites to make it to all three choices: Linux / Windows / Mac OS/X.

We don't have all the answers here, Mr Ferris, you may be saying -- and I do not, indeed, have all the answers.

What I do know is that neither argument has a leg to stand upon in a market where competition has been shelved in favor of shady business practices. We don't need to look very far to see that businesses have indeed been harmed by shoddy software quality (it is almost a synonym for Microsoft) and bad security practices. They continue to pay for the same software, multiple times -- because they literally have no choice of vendor.

So, that simpler world may make picking it off the shelf a very fast process indeed -- but the beer is going to taste horrible after a while.

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