Slashdot Mirror
Be:Niche or Competitor?
Aaron Tunnell writes
"Once again Microsoft has used Be and BeOS as a answer
for the governments continued attack on the software giant,
Be has had enough and in a public statement
reaffirmed that
it is not marketing nor does it strive to be a Microsoft
replacement, but a niche market product for digital media
creation. It also said that it would like Microsoft to
stop its continued references to Be as a rival to the OS
giant. Read more link "
The honest answer is that from from a technical standpoint, Be is a competitor for Microsoft. While you can state that they cater specifically to the media crowd, that seems a bit like saying that Apple in 1984 catered to the GUI crowd. Be is simply ahead of the times - they occupy a space Microsoft will certainly move their consumer OS (not in terms of media authoring, but in terms of the ability to use more media in apps like games, which is a market that Microsoft covets).
The cynical answer is that Be is nothing more than a catalyst to get the OS market to mature. With nonexistant market share, and press and brainshare moving towards linux, its nearly impossible for them to get much attention these days.
MS is obviously trying to win a PR battle. These arguments should not fool anyone with a decent education. They know they're going to lose, and they're trying to win over Joe Sixpack before the appeals process. MS would have you believe that the only barriers to entry in the OS market is the ability to create an OS. If this were true, Linux would own NT's market share, and BeOS and the like would be on everyones desktop. Based strictly on their merits. But this is not the case.
MS has a couple major things going for them. One of which is that since Windows is the standard desktop OS and most consumers demand it from OEMs, they are able to exert a great deal of influence over those OEMs. The OEMs' profit margins these days are very thin, and everyone knows that they can't sell if they don't preinstall Windows. MS basically tells these OEMs what they should do, or MS will charge them more then their competitors. A couple bucks might not sound like much, but to these OEMs it is a big deal. Like it or not, few people are going to spend money to try installing an operating system on their own with unknown results.
Another advantage is that MS also has control over most of the standard applications. People want and need these applications. It is very hard for competitors because MS doesn't disclose their entire API. In fact, MS does just the opposite. They alter windows in little undisclosed ways to make the competitors products crash and operate slower. Companies like Be may have a superior OS, but they simply don't have the applications yet. Without a significant market share no one is going to develop strong applications for the alternative platforms. Also, without well recognized competitive applications to Office* and the like, there is no competitor who can port their killer app and lend clout to the likes of BeOS.
MS has their competitors by the balls in significant ways. These are just two barriers to entry. If I were the DoJ, I would demand the following:
a) If MS wishes to produce both applications and the operating system that they run on, they should be forced to fully disclose their API and the like. Furthermore, MS should have to pay for a full time arbritation board composed of people who are familiar with the software industry and who have full legal authority to make key decisions. My reasoning for this is simple. I do think government regulation of the software industry could indeed be very harmful. MS can argue this effectively. For example, lets say if the government introduces a new law that seperates software application firms from operating system firms. There is a strong argument that it is neccessary for the operating system firm to produce applications for their OS initially. To both demonstrate the potential of the OS, and to provide atleast some reasonably productive products. My proposal would atleast level the playing field for the most part.
b) That MS be prohibited from using any discriminative pricing amongst OEMs. The argument of economies of scale simply do not apply to such software distribution. The ability to price OEMs differently, with little to no immediate regulation, allows MS to use the stick and carrot approach with OEMs such that the OEMs sell as they wish. This simply can not be allowed. Whatever arguments can be made for such pricing, pales in comparison to the draw backs for society and for the OEMs.
Although this does not address every problem with the beast that is MS. It addresses two of the most significant problems with MS.
From a purely technical standpoint....Be is superior to almost anything out there for the desktop market....sure the Unixs are far more flexable and make far better servers, but when it comes to a pure desktop, Be is as stable as Linux, faster than anythings I've ever seen, and easier to use than even the Macos
None of this matters, if the superior product would have one in the market place, the world would be running OS/2 right now rather than windows.
Be would make a better destop os than any windows products, however I have a feeling that Be calls itself a niche as it is trying to avoid falling under the wanton eyes of Microsoft. But lets fact it, what desktop application would not benefit from the advantages of a mediaOS....basically means it runs stuff faster than hell (no, it is not a good server OS)
I just really with it was open source, not that I think that everything in this world has to be open source, but being open source would solve many of Be's problems, such as lack of HW support and a more active developor community creating and porting software to it. There already is a certain OSS feel to alot of Be software, alot of it is open, however it definetly lacks the vigor of something like Linux...
I'm not sure of the dates, but Be was around long before MS started investing in Apple...I think its atleast acouple years old. Its CEO and founder used to be an Apple bigwig...I dont know about the rest of the people there though.
Brian