Linux Adoption Barriers 3264

How interesting, you've provided close to the content of the memo - adjusting to the Internet was required. As Gates himself said:

"Like the PC, the Internet is a tidal wave. It will wash over the computer industry and many others, watering those who don't learn to swim in its waves... We know that the future of the company rests in part on how well we can adapt to a compebreastive environment changed by the Internet... Only some of the companies laying bets on the Internet will be winners. But companies that bet against the Internet will be losers."

What's interesting is that, in your *other* response to this message, which you apparently thought you hadn't sent, you

Apparently you went and looked, found it didn't support your argument at all, and decided to try to discount it.

Again, to summarize: TCP-IP won against other competing network technologies *in spite of* active marketing by network vendors, because it made too much sense for end users. Microsoft didn't pick TCP-IP and byt that process annoint it the winner - Microsoft went to TCP-IP because they had to or else they'd have lost big. Gates certainly thought so.

Not that you'd ever, y'know, try to actually *argue* or *dispute* the point. Indeed, when I point out a historical case when a technology won against determined corporate opposition for precisely those reasons, you first try to deny that it happened, and then when your case is undermined by the very people you're trying to support, you say "it hardly matters" without actually trying to address any of the actual points.

Apparently you considered this (avoiding the point entirely) better than trying to address the point, as in your other response, you said:

...when, of course, my point was that marketing does not *always* win the day.

-- Sincerely,

Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317

"I regularly see an entire morning's work... get blipped away forever to the Planet of Lost Data. Needless to say, I use Microsoft Windows." - Dave Barry