Thanks, Steves Issues Beyond Palo Alto, posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Dec 21, 2008 at 6:17 pm Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online
A few years ago, two young men carefully toggled a program into a little box of components - as they finished up someone tripped over an extension cord so they had to toggle in the program yet again, then they held a radio next to the device where it picked up rf signals that made a sound like "Fool on the Hill."
Today I downloaded a dozen Christmas songs in less time than it would have taken to drive to a music store.
Posted by Gary, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on Dec 21, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Walter,
Great post!
If it were not for the entrepreneurial spirit, allowed and encouraged by free market capitalism, the world would still be trying to figure out how to split a very small pie among an ever increasing number of people. The two Steves are an example of how to expand the pie.
Posted by Outside Observer, a resident of another community, on Dec 21, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Now, over 25 years later Apple still tries to keep to the philosophy of it's founders. At least relative to Microsoft. Microsoft's beginnings were in the purchase of the DOS Operating System, and then predatory business practices to build a monopoly based on the most defective consumer products ever made.
One has to wonder where the technology would be if Gates never bought DOS, or Clinton was successful in breaking the Microsoft monopoly.
My thinking is that it would be much more advanced than what we have now. Unix-derived O/S's would predominate. Without Microsoft's buy and kill philosophy for any software they weren't able to develop, software offerings would be much more sophisticated and feature-filled than they are today.
O/S development and competition would be based on real features, and efficiency. Not on glitzy useless window dressing and relocating the core components, then packaging all that as a "new" O/S. Case in point for the last decade. Is there anything in Vista you didn't have in Win98 that is worth the additional cost, resources, and pathetic performance?
Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Dec 22, 2008 at 7:04 am Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online
I also remember when Bill Gates appeared before a Homebrew Computer Club and said if we wanted him to continue developing software we needed to stop stealing it.
Posted by Outside Observer, a resident of another community, on Dec 22, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Walter,
Interesting comment about Bill Gates early days.
Today, piracy of Microsoft products is rampant in Asia. It's basically ignored by Microsoft, and many say it's encouraged. Why? It continues the monopoly when 3rd world Asia can't afford the Microsoft products.
More importantly, all the Chinese, Indian and Vietnamese kids coming out of school with IT degrees would push Microsoft out of local markets, and Linux in. And shortly to follow would be the USA.
Lets hope Obama has better luck breaking the Microsoft monopoly than Clinton did. . . .
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A few years ago, two young men carefully toggled a program into a little box of components - as they finished up someone tripped over an extension cord so they had to toggle in the program yet again, then they held a radio next to the device where it picked up rf signals that made a sound like "Fool on the Hill."
