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Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!solace!nntp.uio.no!news.cais.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.sprintlink.net!new-news.sprintlink.net!news1!not-for-mail From: root@dyson.iquest.net (John S. Dyson) Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX) X-Nntp-Posting-Host: dyson.iquest.net Message-ID: <4l5k51$3fg@dyson.iquest.net> Sender: news@iquest.net (News Admin) Organization: John S. Dyson's Machine References: <4ki055$60l@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <tporczykDpqKHL.7vG@netcom.com> <DpsKyx.1Jo@catzen.gun.de> <4ku2n2$sqa@alfrothul.uchicago.edu> Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1996 14:38:25 GMT Lines: 41 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:21833 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:712 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3349 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3191 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:17741 comp.os.linux.advocacy:46387 In article <4ku2n2$sqa@alfrothul.uchicago.edu>, C. Chan <chan@alfrothul.uchicago.edu> wrote: >In article <DpsKyx.1Jo@catzen.gun.de>, >Scot W. Stevenson <scot@catzen.gun.de> wrote: >>Hello Tony, >> >>> > Windows NT has too heavy a footprint (and price) for the desktop. >> >>> Actually, Windows NT workstation is only $295. >> >>(Laugh) Yeah, which is just about $295 over my budget...remember, there >>are a bunch of students over here, too... >> >Our University has a Microsoft site discount, so NT 3.51 workstation >is only around $150. Still about $150 more than I want to pay for it. > >There are commercial spreadsheets for Linux, check out WingZ and XQuad (the >latter can read Excel 4 sheets). And there is WordPerfect from Caldera >coming soon. The makers of XQuad also have a DTP program called Xclamation. >They cost money, but a little startup like X4U has to make a living somehow. >Check out ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/office/X4u for a demo. > In the real commercial world however, the above are non-starters where you almost need Word-6 and now Word-7 compatibility. The file format is complex and not public. Again, the vast majority of desktop workstations in business are going to stay Windows->Win95->WinNT, sadly. Any statement that says Linux might be 50% faster than NT on networking isn't going to convince the business community that Linux is the way to go, esp. if they cannot run the applications that they WANT to run. The businesses have already trained their staff on Windows applications. BTW, the above applications run nicely and quickly on FreeBSD (I have used Linux WingZ on FreeBSD myself), and they are great for isolated individuals or groups of individuals. Bottom line, even standards bodies are using Microsoft Word file distributions for prelim documents :-(. When I want to see the latest ATA spec, I have to run NT (I run NT & FreeBSD) to print it out. John dyson@freebsd.org