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Xref: sserve comp.unix.bsd:8307 comp.unix.solaris:622 Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.solaris Subject: Re: Solaris 1.1 vs. Solaris 2.0 (BSD vs AT&T) Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.hawaii.edu!ames!think.com!unixland!rmkhome!rmk From: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly) Organization: The Man With Ten Cats Date: Sat, 28 Nov 1992 04:42:53 GMT Reply-To: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly) Message-ID: <9211272343.02@rmkhome.UUCP> References: <BxLz6x.EL7@cs.uiuc.edu> <1992Nov13.232053.7061@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu> <1992Nov16.075931@eklektix.com> <id.U_0V.SJ3@ferranti.com> <22947@venera.isi.edu> <1992Nov26.114204.9783@fasttech.com> Lines: 44 In article <1992Nov26.114204.9783@fasttech.com> zeke@fasttech.com (Bohdan Tashchuk) writes: >In <22947@venera.isi.edu> allard@isi.edu (Dennis Allard) writes: > >>Unix has the following going for it. > > [ ... deleted ... ] > >>A prediction. UNIX will not die. If anything, the existence of NT >>will educate more people about operating systems and cause an increase >>in the number of systems capable of supporting Unix. This will be a >>boon for Unix. > >There is one serious flaw in what you say. > >You can bet the last dollar you have that when NT is released it will have a >high degree of support for DOS and Windows binaries. Of course, because otherwise it would be useless. >Unless Unix matches this, then the path-of-least-resistance for DOS and >Windoze users will be NT. While I've heard a lot of marketing BS that some >versions of Unix will eventually support Windows 3.1 binaries, I've yet to >see proof. > >And until it does, Unix will be completely IRRELEVANT to Windoze users. > >People aren't going to scrap their huge investment in DOS and Windoze programs >just to pay 10x the $$$ for inferior Unix versions of their applications. And they probably won't scrap Windows 3.x, which was included in the price of the system that they bought, just to buy another OS that looks, for all practical purposes, to the casual user, just like their cuurent OS. Especially when they also have to again upgrade their ram and disk space to do it. >Finally, $Bill Gates is a very smart businessman. He may well want to kill >OS/2 so badly that he will price NT below $200. And if he does, look out. So it's not features and usefulness that drive the pc clone software market, but marketing and price, and ability to run current applications. -- Rick Kelly rmk@rmkhome.UUCP unixland!rmkhome!rmk rmk@frog.UUCP