oh come now... in most cases software doesn't last long enough for it to be designed like something that does. technology moves too quickly for any company to invest time into writing perfect code. all these people who write about extreme software quality are the same people who get fired for making a project run late, very late. i don't know how many projects that i have been involved in, in one way or another, that were killed by the people who come in and say "let's design (and redesign) the whole thing to make it perfect, maybe we can even use the latest whiz-bang methodology i read about in the latest software engineering book". i still deal with people who get upset if something isn't perfectly designed documented and critiqued by a committee. maybe this kind of thing will make sense in the future when Moore's Law is repealed and there's a static technology base on which to engineer something that will last decades. but that senario is not within anyone's lifetimes.
right now its all about time to market. microsoft knows this and profits by it. few other companies do hence they fail.
When I said "hit" I meant overall, not just its for 3 months of life. Now, there's a massive cult following to Blade Runner only rivaled by Star Trek overall and Star Wars.
It just isn't a good Star Trek movie. Try to watch it without preconceived notions of what Star Trek is and just watch it as a really good sci-fi movie. This movie probably would have become as big a hit as Blade Runner had it used a completely different setting and characters and not been called Star Trek
Run a single, small ad in the one Industry magazine that targets your market best. Run it every month without missing a month, even if you need to not pay yourself. This pays off is subtle ways. Mainly by keeping your brand in the customers radar even if they don't know who you are or need your services right away.
Run adds on mailing lists. For the same reason above.
Exhibit at a single trade show where ever it goes in your target market geographical location. Do this even if you go with a card table and a laptop.
Talk to as many people about your product as possible. Find evangelists and nurture them. Kiss their ass until your lips are numb.
Avoid PR until you can't deal with the external requests from the press. Don't use PR to get TO the press use them to HERD the press.
Don't bother doing any of the above if your product isn't a whole lot better then your comptetion. The above will only work if you have a killer offering, if not, get a PR firm now and blow all your money on fooling the masses into buying your crappy product.
quit crying and pay your dues!! what do you expect? i'd hate to have you on my team in a few years...
me: your assignment is to code this dialog box
you: but why can't i work on the core routines?
me: because you don't have enough experience
you: whaaahhhh...
Whine whine whine "I hate ads", "Ads suck" blah blah blah. OK then why doesn't everyone who hates ads send a few bucks to every web site they use? Why not also send some money to the TV stations you watch and the radio stations you listen to. Oh yeah, pay more for the bus you ride and the magazines you read. Oh you dont want to do that? Does that suck? Then shut up and deal with the advertising. Find something more usefull to bitch about.
I dunno, maybe this is reaching too far into the future but why doesn't the FCC try to move voice over to IPv6 with a practiaclly infinite set of "numbers"? Yeah this would take some time but a transition is indeed possible. Give everyone an address rather then a phone number. Make it something like a social security number that everyone gets at birth, then later if you need a second or third one just apply for one and get it. Then where ever you go, plug in your address to the given "phone" and get your calls, e-mail etc? OK, yeah the address will be longer then a current phone number but thats what DNS is for. In the short term, a current 3-3-4 phone number could be the "domain" and for the long term a regional drill down address locator system could be put in place with "bookmarks". If someone wants a cute domain for their address they can pay for it at a given market price for the requested domain. Otherwise, the domain could be look something like this. rickreynolds.562ashbury.sanfrancisco.ca.us
This way we can phase out the current POTS system over 20 or so years rather then put more patches on top of patches.
Earthlink Tech support must hire McDonalds drop outs, I'm telling you. I've yet to speak with someone with a three digit IQ over there. Most of them don't even know how to use their computer or even know how to read.
Case
We had one guy from Earthlink support apply to work at my company. I posed a VERY common ISP customer scenario, "When I was downloading my e-mail, my computer crashed and now after I reboot and reconnect, my mail program is telling me my password is incorrect". This guy looked at me with a blank stare then said he would ask them customer to retype their password, then check their DNS, then look for proxies, etc. then if that didn't work he would tell the customer to reinstall system software and reinstall the mail client. WRONG!! I asked him if he ever heard of a "popper". Again dumbfounded. At that point I thanked him for his time and kicked him out.
Case
One of our Flowpoint routers got fried (common occurance with the Flowpoints). I called tech support and told them about it. At the time the DSLAM was down and the "tech" said he couldn't help me because of the DSLAM. I said my problem had nothing to do with the DSLAM. "Well sir, I need to ping your router to perform some tests and I can't right now" was the response, this after informing him that the whole unit is fried and is not working at all. "I'm sorry sir, I have to test the unit from here". Ok so I gave up and waited until the DSLAM was back up. This time I call and the new "tech" says I have to turn the unit on because he can't ping it. "No shit, its dead, and by the way the switch is in the on position". "Is the unit plugged in sir?". Nothing sank in. After bout 15 minutes of this the guy finnaly believed me. He said he would schedule a truck roll for me but could not tell me when. I'd get an e-mail from Covad with the time. A day or two later with no e-mails from Covad I called back. "They'll be out tomorrow between 8:00 and 12:00". I wasn't all that pleased because I don't usually get in until 10 but at least someone was comming out. Next day at 12:01, no one shows. I called back and the "tech" tells me there was no order and they don't know why the last idiot told me there was. Then whole thing started again. "Is the unit plugged in? I can't ping it". After screaming I get transfered to the "supervisor". He assures me that he just scheduled a truckroll for two days from now but can't give me a time and said I should call back tomorrow for a time" Next day I call. "Sorry dir I don't see a record of any order, Is the unit plugged in?" More screaming and yet another supervisor pass and now I have yet another appointment for 3 days from now. Third time was the charm because the guy showed and told me that this was the fifth flowpoint he's replaced today and its a know issue that that particular model has problems. This whole farce took two weeks.
Case
I dont know what I was thinking but I ordered Earthlink DSL for my home. I ordered on October 2nd, got a welcome pack three weeks later and then heard nothing. Two weeks ago, I called and they said that PacBell had to come out and fiddle with something and to call back by Novemeber 27th if nothing happened. On the 27th I called and got some dimwit who didn't have a clue as to how to use their computer and admited it, I told them the Burgerking was hiring then hung up and tried again. The second "tech" wasn't that much better. She was able to use her computer, she found my account but said that there was no order open at all. She gave me the main corporate number and told me to call them. Of course they routed me right back into tech support but it was the wrong desk. The "tech" there fould my account and found my order but would NOT help me because I "dialed" the wrong number. Third time I called back the first number got another idiot who was able to find my account and order but told me that she couldn't tell me when they'd come out. Now supposedly they'll be out next Wednesday between 8 and 12. I can't wait to see the "tech" that comes out then.
Bwah ha hahaha Thats what happens with open source. Crap, bloat and sloth. To many cooks spoil the soup (or something like that). Not to mention rogue whiny brat "programmers" who just HAVE to add yet another a useless, yet COOL feature.
Open Source is dead. Long Live capitalistic software development.
Go ahead, lower the score to -1 googolplex. you know I'm right but just can't face it.
Quit Whining and go make a few million dollars so you can buy the assholes who
tormented you in school. Boo fuckn Hoo... I got spat on kicked and otherwise mistreated.
Now I just love flying home to see one of the assholes who now works at a gas station where I fill
up my rented Ferrari or Range Rover or Lotus.
OK, so far everyone's looking at this from a geek's perspective (there's nothing wrong with this of course). With this in mind lets look back to 1984. If you took the entire group of computer users then you'd find that over 90% of the users were geeks. Geeks like power, am I right? The Mac was not powerful at all and was a pain to use actually, that is if you wanted to poke around the system and peek into the OS (the older geeks will get the pun there). Not too many geeks took to the Mac. The other 10% did and brought many new people. Over time the ratio of geeks to non-geeks went to about 8:1 then 7:1 now its somewhere around 1:20. This is primarily due to the concepts expressed in the original Mac (and Alto etc) that was brought to the mainstream. Of course that ratio was not that same as the ratio of Macs to Windows. There was still a need for non-geeks to learn some geeky things to get stuff done so the middle of the ratio is kind of gray. The people who didn't want to learn anything geeky went to the Mac and the ones who capitulated went to Windows (many kicking a screaming)
Although Windows 95 through 2000 looks like a Mac its still a lot more powerful then a Mac. Many aspects of it are "techie". Windows has a good balance of ease of use and power. This is great for the geeks and the almost geeks of today's ratio. X and newer GUI's for *nix are now closing in on the balance of power and ease of use of Windows but are still a lot more powerful then easy to use which is why it's users are closer to the geek side. No other OS/GUI, including Eazel, is really moving to the targeted ease of use at the expense of power like the Mac OS..
Many people like pretty pictures. For an example of this, look at popular magazines like People, Time, etc. Compare those to the "more powerful" Economist, Scientific American etc.. You can get a whole lot more useful information from The Economist then Time but a whole lot more people like Time. Again, Time has a good balance of easy reading with useful information. Its all about pretty pictures and ease of use. With this in mind lets look at Max OS X. As the user ratio moves to 1:100, 1:1000 etc.power will be a lot less important then ease of use. Windows, X, Gnome etc are great for us geeks. We like power. OS X is great for everyone else. There's a lot of everyone else. I do believe that X is a watershed OS. Will it dominate? Probably not. But the concepts expressed in it will take hold and change the way many "normal" people see computing.
Not too many geeks took to the Mac. The other 10% did and brought many new people. Over time the ratio of geeks to non-geeks went to about 8:1 then 7:1 now its somewhere around 1:5. With this in mind lets look at the current situation with todays OS's. Altough Windows 95 on up looks like a Mac its still a more powerful then Mac. May aspects of it are "techie". X and newer GUI's for *nix are closing in on the balance of power and ease of use of Windows. None are really moving to the targeted ease of use at at
I prefer to hire engineers who never attended college or left early. I think college warps you. Too much theory. Every engineer I know with a BS or worse MS are so into the latest thing without thought to its real world applications. I've had people coming in to interview wondering why anyone want's to proram with C/C++ anymore since Java is sooo much better.
OK, so I'm probably the only devil's advocate here but I can see why the MPAA has their skivvies in a bunch. As it stands now, recording off analog cable provides a decent to poor quality recording. With digital, the recording will be exactly what you get in the stores (with the commercials and lack of fuckshitasswipedickweed etc.) On HBO etc. it will produce an exact copy.
As long as the MPAA doesn't try to ban analog recording I have no problem whatsoever with the prevention of digital recording. This is what MPAA is after.
There's a lot of people who produce these videos aka "content" that need to get paid. Its business. Without business there would be nothing...
If they're AP, they should have enough Calculus/Algebra etc. to create a Doom like reality engine. Now if I was given that assignment in highschool I'd probably fail everything else just to finish that! But that's me.
Anyone working to build the future needs to read the Alvin Tofler books; Future Shock and Third Wave. They were written, I believe, in the early 70's and are dead on to what's happening now...
How long did you develop for the Macintosh? What did you try to write? How much time did you spend learning the system, and how much depth did you go into?
I did a whole lot of work on MacPPP 2.5 and FreePPP, PPP Menu, Internet Setup Monkey , Gearbox, I was a SE at Apple (twice), Adobe, Netscape, etc. etc. etc. I've spent years in Macsbug and Jasik deep in the system. I got my first Mac in 1995. Do I qualify as someone who is knowlegeable about the MacOS? So... from in-depth knowledge of the MacOS, I still sat that without full preemption, memory protection, etc. Software on a Mac cannot out perform software on a real OS. I guess you actually believed those smoke and mirror demos at WWDC that pit Photoshop on a ultra overclocked Mac that will never ship next to a crappy PC out of the box.
OK, so lets look at this from a slightly different perspective... Government is slow, bloated and basically filled with the kind of people you probably wouldn't want over for dinner. What has the US government given to you? Think about it... Are you getting your money's worth? If not, can you easily drop your current government and go with another one? Do governments have to compete for your tax dollar? No No No and No. Government is the world's greatest monopoly. There is no choice. If you consider your individual vote a choice, you didn't pay much attention in Civics class. You're stuck with your government. There's no customer service number to call if the pot hole you hit everyday to and from work isn't getting fixed. Oh sure, you can call your "representative" in the appropriate legislative body but the most you'll get out of that is a letter in the mail and a deluge of campaign solicitations around election time. Corporations, no matter how big, have to compete for your dollar. You do have a choice. Granted, some choices are the lesser of evils, and "switching" can sometimes be onerous, eg. telephone company (don't discount cellular providers) but never the less there is choice and a "customer service line". So what about the mom and pops driven out by Wal-Mart and Home Depots etc.? This is basic survival of the fittest, pure Darwinism. Its a fact of life. If the only supplier of say, electronic components in your area is a tiny mom and pop operation and Jameco wants to open a mega-store in your area would you want the mom and pop store "protected" or would you welcome Jameco with open arms and pitch a tent to be the first person in the store after it opens?
I can see the marketing pubes on this one sitting in a room thinking "Hmm OK, who the hell is going to want this?" and somenoone pipes up saying, "Hey lets sell it to the grossly overpaid geek community. They'll buy one at our outrageous price, play with it for a week or two then put it with their Newton, BeBox, and other such useless crap they tend to collect."
Slashdot Mirror
Its too late for Palm. They stagnated. Microsoft caught up. Where have I heard this before...? Wasn't some Cupertino fruit company involved? Hmmmmmm.
oh come now... in most cases software doesn't last long enough for it to be designed like something that does. technology moves too quickly for any company to invest time into writing perfect code. all these people who write about extreme software quality are the same people who get fired for making a project run late, very late. i don't know how many projects that i have been involved in, in one way or another, that were killed by the people who come in and say "let's design (and redesign) the whole thing to make it perfect, maybe we can even use the latest whiz-bang methodology i read about in the latest software engineering book". i still deal with people who get upset if something isn't perfectly designed documented and critiqued by a committee. maybe this kind of thing will make sense in the future when Moore's Law is repealed and there's a static technology base on which to engineer something that will last decades. but that senario is not within anyone's lifetimes.
right now its all about time to market. microsoft knows this and profits by it. few other companies do hence they fail.
Homeworld from Sierra (relic) has a really good 3D manipulation UI.
When I said "hit" I meant overall, not just its for 3 months of life. Now, there's a massive cult following to Blade Runner only rivaled by Star Trek overall and Star Wars.
It just isn't a good Star Trek movie. Try to watch it without preconceived notions of what Star Trek is and just watch it as a really good sci-fi movie. This movie probably would have become as big a hit as Blade Runner had it used a completely different setting and characters and not been called Star Trek
Here's what my company did/does.
Run a single, small ad in the one Industry magazine that targets your market best. Run it every month without missing a month, even if you need to not pay yourself. This pays off is subtle ways. Mainly by keeping your brand in the customers radar even if they don't know who you are or need your services right away.
Run adds on mailing lists. For the same reason above.
Exhibit at a single trade show where ever it goes in your target market geographical location. Do this even if you go with a card table and a laptop.
Talk to as many people about your product as possible. Find evangelists and nurture them. Kiss their ass until your lips are numb.
Avoid PR until you can't deal with the external requests from the press. Don't use PR to get TO the press use them to HERD the press.
Don't bother doing any of the above if your product isn't a whole lot better then your comptetion. The above will only work if you have a killer offering, if not, get a PR firm now and blow all your money on fooling the masses into buying your crappy product.
Richard Reynolds
http://www.rockstar.com
quit crying and pay your dues!! what do you expect? i'd hate to have you on my team in a few years... me: your assignment is to code this dialog box you: but why can't i work on the core routines? me: because you don't have enough experience you: whaaahhhh...
It is indeed a clean personal hovercraft type vehicle. I'd love to see how the implemented the "breaks" on it.
You must be one of those people Alvin Tofler told us about... Wow, and to think you lurk in a place like Slashdot.
Whine whine whine "I hate ads", "Ads suck" blah blah blah. OK then why doesn't everyone who hates ads send a few bucks to every web site they use? Why not also send some money to the TV stations you watch and the radio stations you listen to. Oh yeah, pay more for the bus you ride and the magazines you read. Oh you dont want to do that? Does that suck? Then shut up and deal with the advertising. Find something more usefull to bitch about.
Go ahead, set the score to -1 googolplex.
I dunno, maybe this is reaching too far into the future but why doesn't the FCC try to move voice over to IPv6 with a practiaclly infinite set of "numbers"? Yeah this would take some time but a transition is indeed possible. Give everyone an address rather then a phone number. Make it something like a social security number that everyone gets at birth, then later if you need a second or third one just apply for one and get it. Then where ever you go, plug in your address to the given "phone" and get your calls, e-mail etc? OK, yeah the address will be longer then a current phone number but thats what DNS is for. In the short term, a current 3-3-4 phone number could be the "domain" and for the long term a regional drill down address locator system could be put in place with "bookmarks". If someone wants a cute domain for their address they can pay for it at a given market price for the requested domain. Otherwise, the domain could be look something like this. rickreynolds.562ashbury.sanfrancisco.ca.us
This way we can phase out the current POTS system over 20 or so years rather then put more patches on top of patches.
Earthlink Tech support must hire McDonalds drop outs, I'm telling you. I've yet to speak with someone with a three digit IQ over there. Most of them don't even know how to use their computer or even know how to read.
Case
We had one guy from Earthlink support apply to work at my company. I posed a VERY common ISP customer scenario, "When I was downloading my e-mail, my computer crashed and now after I reboot and reconnect, my mail program is telling me my password is incorrect". This guy looked at me with a blank stare then said he would ask them customer to retype their password, then check their DNS, then look for proxies, etc. then if that didn't work he would tell the customer to reinstall system software and reinstall the mail client. WRONG!! I asked him if he ever heard of a "popper". Again dumbfounded. At that point I thanked him for his time and kicked him out.
Case
One of our Flowpoint routers got fried (common occurance with the Flowpoints). I called tech support and told them about it. At the time the DSLAM was down and the "tech" said he couldn't help me because of the DSLAM. I said my problem had nothing to do with the DSLAM. "Well sir, I need to ping your router to perform some tests and I can't right now" was the response, this after informing him that the whole unit is fried and is not working at all. "I'm sorry sir, I have to test the unit from here". Ok so I gave up and waited until the DSLAM was back up. This time I call and the new "tech" says I have to turn the unit on because he can't ping it. "No shit, its dead, and by the way the switch is in the on position". "Is the unit plugged in sir?". Nothing sank in. After bout 15 minutes of this the guy finnaly believed me. He said he would schedule a truck roll for me but could not tell me when. I'd get an e-mail from Covad with the time. A day or two later with no e-mails from Covad I called back. "They'll be out tomorrow between 8:00 and 12:00". I wasn't all that pleased because I don't usually get in until 10 but at least someone was comming out. Next day at 12:01, no one shows. I called back and the "tech" tells me there was no order and they don't know why the last idiot told me there was. Then whole thing started again. "Is the unit plugged in? I can't ping it". After screaming I get transfered to the "supervisor". He assures me that he just scheduled a truckroll for two days from now but can't give me a time and said I should call back tomorrow for a time" Next day I call. "Sorry dir I don't see a record of any order, Is the unit plugged in?" More screaming and yet another supervisor pass and now I have yet another appointment for 3 days from now. Third time was the charm because the guy showed and told me that this was the fifth flowpoint he's replaced today and its a know issue that that particular model has problems. This whole farce took two weeks.
Case
I dont know what I was thinking but I ordered Earthlink DSL for my home. I ordered on October 2nd, got a welcome pack three weeks later and then heard nothing. Two weeks ago, I called and they said that PacBell had to come out and fiddle with something and to call back by Novemeber 27th if nothing happened. On the 27th I called and got some dimwit who didn't have a clue as to how to use their computer and admited it, I told them the Burgerking was hiring then hung up and tried again. The second "tech" wasn't that much better. She was able to use her computer, she found my account but said that there was no order open at all. She gave me the main corporate number and told me to call them. Of course they routed me right back into tech support but it was the wrong desk. The "tech" there fould my account and found my order but would NOT help me because I "dialed" the wrong number. Third time I called back the first number got another idiot who was able to find my account and order but told me that she couldn't tell me when they'd come out. Now supposedly they'll be out next Wednesday between 8 and 12. I can't wait to see the "tech" that comes out then.
Bwah ha hahaha
Thats what happens with open source. Crap, bloat and sloth. To many cooks spoil the soup (or something like that). Not to mention rogue whiny brat "programmers" who just HAVE to add yet another a useless, yet COOL feature.
Open Source is dead. Long Live capitalistic software development.
Go ahead, lower the score to -1 googolplex. you know I'm right but just can't face it.
Quit Whining and go make a few million dollars so you can buy the assholes who tormented you in school. Boo fuckn Hoo... I got spat on kicked and otherwise mistreated. Now I just love flying home to see one of the assholes who now works at a gas station where I fill up my rented Ferrari or Range Rover or Lotus.
The best revenge is living well
OK, so far everyone's looking at this from a geek's perspective (there's nothing wrong with this of course). With this in mind lets look back to 1984. If you took the entire group of computer users then you'd find that over 90% of the users were geeks. Geeks like power, am I right? The Mac was not powerful at all and was a pain to use actually, that is if you wanted to poke around the system and peek into the OS (the older geeks will get the pun there). Not too many geeks took to the Mac. The other 10% did and brought many new people. Over time the ratio of geeks to non-geeks went to about 8:1 then 7:1 now its somewhere around 1:20. This is primarily due to the concepts expressed in the original Mac (and Alto etc) that was brought to the mainstream. Of course that ratio was not that same as the ratio of Macs to Windows. There was still a need for non-geeks to learn some geeky things to get stuff done so the middle of the ratio is kind of gray. The people who didn't want to learn anything geeky went to the Mac and the ones who capitulated went to Windows (many kicking a screaming)
Although Windows 95 through 2000 looks like a Mac its still a lot more powerful then a Mac. Many aspects of it are "techie". Windows has a good balance of ease of use and power. This is great for the geeks and the almost geeks of today's ratio. X and newer GUI's for *nix are now closing in on the balance of power and ease of use of Windows but are still a lot more powerful then easy to use which is why it's users are closer to the geek side. No other OS/GUI, including Eazel, is really moving to the targeted ease of use at the expense of power like the Mac OS..
Many people like pretty pictures. For an example of this, look at popular magazines like People, Time, etc. Compare those to the "more powerful" Economist, Scientific American etc.. You can get a whole lot more useful information from The Economist then Time but a whole lot more people like Time. Again, Time has a good balance of easy reading with useful information. Its all about pretty pictures and ease of use. With this in mind lets look at Max OS X. As the user ratio moves to 1:100, 1:1000 etc.power will be a lot less important then ease of use. Windows, X, Gnome etc are great for us geeks. We like power. OS X is great for everyone else. There's a lot of everyone else. I do believe that X is a watershed OS. Will it dominate? Probably not. But the concepts expressed in it will take hold and change the way many "normal" people see computing.
Not too many geeks took to the Mac. The other 10% did and brought many new people. Over time the ratio of geeks to non-geeks went to about 8:1 then 7:1 now its somewhere around 1:5. With this in mind lets look at the current situation with todays OS's. Altough Windows 95 on up looks like a Mac its still a more powerful then Mac. May aspects of it are "techie". X and newer GUI's for *nix are closing in on the balance of power and ease of use of Windows. None are really moving to the targeted ease of use at atI prefer to hire engineers who never attended college or left early. I think college warps you. Too much theory. Every engineer I know with a BS or worse MS are so into the latest thing without thought to its real world applications. I've had people coming in to interview wondering why anyone want's to proram with C/C++ anymore since Java is sooo much better.
OK, so I'm probably the only devil's advocate here but I can see why the MPAA has their skivvies in a bunch. As it stands now, recording off analog cable provides a decent to poor quality recording. With digital, the recording will be exactly what you get in the stores (with the commercials and lack of fuckshitasswipedickweed etc.) On HBO etc. it will produce an exact copy. As long as the MPAA doesn't try to ban analog recording I have no problem whatsoever with the prevention of digital recording. This is what MPAA is after. There's a lot of people who produce these videos aka "content" that need to get paid. Its business. Without business there would be nothing...
If they're AP, they should have enough Calculus/Algebra etc. to create a Doom like reality engine. Now if I was given that assignment in highschool I'd probably fail everything else just to finish that! But that's me.
Anyone working to build the future needs to read the Alvin Tofler books; Future Shock and Third Wave. They were written, I believe, in the early 70's and are dead on to what's happening now...
How long did you develop for the Macintosh? What did you try to write? How much time did you spend learning the system, and how much depth did you go into?
I did a whole lot of work on MacPPP 2.5 and FreePPP, PPP Menu, Internet Setup Monkey , Gearbox, I was a SE at Apple (twice), Adobe, Netscape, etc. etc. etc. I've spent years in Macsbug and Jasik deep in the system. I got my first Mac in 1995. Do I qualify as someone who is knowlegeable about the MacOS? So... from in-depth knowledge of the MacOS, I still sat that without full preemption, memory protection, etc. Software on a Mac cannot out perform software on a real OS. I guess you actually believed those smoke and mirror demos at WWDC that pit Photoshop on a ultra overclocked Mac that will never ship next to a crappy PC out of the box.
OK, so lets look at this from a slightly different perspective... Government is slow, bloated and basically filled with the kind of people you probably wouldn't want over for dinner. What has the US government given to you? Think about it... Are you getting your money's worth? If not, can you easily drop your current government and go with another one? Do governments have to compete for your tax dollar? No No No and No. Government is the world's greatest monopoly. There is no choice. If you consider your individual vote a choice, you didn't pay much attention in Civics class. You're stuck with your government. There's no customer service number to call if the pot hole you hit everyday to and from work isn't getting fixed. Oh sure, you can call your "representative" in the appropriate legislative body but the most you'll get out of that is a letter in the mail and a deluge of campaign solicitations around election time. Corporations, no matter how big, have to compete for your dollar. You do have a choice. Granted, some choices are the lesser of evils, and "switching" can sometimes be onerous, eg. telephone company (don't discount cellular providers) but never the less there is choice and a "customer service line". So what about the mom and pops driven out by Wal-Mart and Home Depots etc.? This is basic survival of the fittest, pure Darwinism. Its a fact of life. If the only supplier of say, electronic components in your area is a tiny mom and pop operation and Jameco wants to open a mega-store in your area would you want the mom and pop store "protected" or would you welcome Jameco with open arms and pitch a tent to be the first person in the store after it opens?
I can see the marketing pubes on this one sitting in a room thinking "Hmm OK, who the hell is going to want this?" and somenoone pipes up saying, "Hey lets sell it to the grossly overpaid geek community. They'll buy one at our outrageous price, play with it for a week or two then put it with their Newton, BeBox, and other such useless crap they tend to collect."