[Sussex] Noob

[Geoffrey Teale]

On Tue, 2005-02-01 at 09:57 +0000, Steve Dobson wrote:
> As it happens I use Gnome, but that it because I think the eye candy
> is better than KDE - personal preference nothing more.  As I don't program
> to either there is not technical input to the preference.  If I want to
> write a GUI app I use Java.


Now that is just sick and wrong ;-)  .. only joking...

> When E17 hit the streets I'll give that a go, because I'm a fan of 
> Enlightenment - but E16 is getting a bit dated now.

I've played around with e17's betas and so far they are not even
functional beyond showing a couple of windows.  The underlying libraries
though are very interesting and quite simple to code in - not as elegant
as some solutions but clean.

> I can't see Sony stopping downloads to Microsoft proprietary software
> while Microsoft has such a large market share.  

They have almost no market share in music and video downloads at DVD
quality.  This is open territory.  Sony have learnt the hard way what
happens when you leverage availability of media (remember Betamax and
their attempts so far at digital music players).  Notably Sony have been
very vocal in the last few weeks about where they've been doing wrong
with digital media.

Remember Sony owns the biggest record company in the world and the
biggest film studio.  Their power lies in the combination of what they
can provide and what they can withhold, not in their ability to compete
technologically speaking.

Nobody is suggesting that Sony wouldn't make their software available on
Windows (hell, they sell Vaio's by the bucket load) - but rather they
wouldn't provide content to competitors.   This isn't a new strategy -
several record companies are very picky about where they put their music
for download.  The only company with enough market share to get pretty
much cross-the-board support is Apple with iTunes.

As it stands right now Apple owns this market thanks to iPod and iTunes
- miniMac is an attempt to cement their foothold and get an early
footing on the DVD over IP market (yes, it really _is_ coming).  Notice
how within a week of miniMac's launch Apple was already announcing price
drops (this is likely to becomes very aggressive other the next 12
months).

> That would be bad for
> revenue.  

So is selling PS2's for less than they cost to make, if you look at it
in isolation.  Think strategically.  These companies aren't looking for
a 20% share of a market - they want to be in charge of 70-80% of it,
that's the prize, that's what will keep Microsoft or Sony (or Google or
Apple) at the top of the pile and grow their revenues over the next
decade. 

> Even if they offer an alternate app to view/listen/whatever
> are they going to take the chance that customers are going to install
> more software (even if free) just to use Sony content?   

How many people still install QuickTime on windows... loads, how many
people still install realplayer - loads, how many people install Java -
more than is sensible.  This despite Microsoft's best efforts to
leverage it's monopoly and the relative lack of technical knowledge of
the average home user.

The truth is people will install all the software they need to see what
they want to see and hear what they want to hear.  If one vendor can
provide a lot more content than their competitors (enough that people
don't think anything significant is missing), and they are all doing it
on a subscription basis, people are going to eventually all end up using
the provider with the most content.  Sony are already ahead on that
front, as are Apple (because they own the music market share) - none of
that has anything to do with what Microsoft do software wise.

> How many web
> sites have you clicked on by because they told you to "upgrade" to IE?

Many.  To the extent that I go out of my way to boycott sites that do
and let the owners know that I am encouraging my friends not to use
them.

On the subject on sites that only work in IE.  I should point out that
my wife used to use a site that only worked correctly on Netscape 4 on
Solaris (http://www.mailorder-beads.co.uk) - they've now fixed it (works
on Linux) but apparently people using IE5.5 and later are still having
problems :-).

It's rare, but it happens :-)

-- 
Geoffrey Teale <gteale at cmedltd.com>
Cmed Technology