LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Robert Mibus <mibus@bigpond.com>
  To  : <adam.smith@sageautomation.com>
  Date: 20 Jan 2003 20:19:40 +1030

RE: An interesting article :-)

> No, but Microsoft had the perfect opportunity to get rid of the Windows
> 98 branch with Windows XP.  Did you see a Windows 2000 "Home" edition?
IMHO they did - most of my friends with recentish computers have XP.
(Even when the computer came with 98/ME). Admittedly it is XP Pro most
of the time.

> Windows 2000 was still seen by many as the "Professional" operating
> system for some reason, rather than the one best used for home.  Having
> really crappy legacy support was also a major downfall, and it still is.
IMHO that's what led to not being a 'home' OS. A number of games and
older apps just didnt work.

> When it was released, Windows XP could have brought together Windows 98
> users with Windows 2000 users if they'd wanted, but they decided not to
> to do that.  They decided to create two identical products, and then
> seperate them down the middle by changing some end-user features, giving
> it a new login screen and reducing its price.  Looks to me like Windows
> XP Home is the next step in the '98' stream, and Windows XP Pro is the
> 'NT' stream still going strong.  I'd say the stream goes something like
> this
Again, XP Home is the 9x stream only in sales. What's wrong with a "Home
desktop", "Workstation" and "Server" differentiation? They all have
different aims, given reasonable pricing differences I figure it's all
fair enough. (Besides, the pricing only affects people who buy Windows
not, say, Linux ;-)

> They could be doing this on purpose, so that if their Palladium garbage
> makes it to the commercial desktop, we'll probably see the one client
> and one server from now on.  Until Unix undermines Microsoft of course
> :-)
"One client / One server" is what they've been pushing since... well,
forever I think ;-)

> It's obvious their development path went down two ways, and although
> their technology is now all NT-based, they are still targeting a Windows
> 98 market.  This chart represents the releases.  To me at least, Windows
> XP Home is the 'next step' in Windows 98's foulness, even though it's of
> NT-design.
I don't know, everyone I know has Pro not Home :D


> 		    MS-DOS
> 			|
>  		Windows  3.11
> 		|		|
>   Windows 95		Windows NT 3.5
NT 3.5 was never built from 3.11, it was a totally seperate O/S from the
start. (It was going to be a brand-new OS/2 actually!)

> 		|		|
>   Windows 98		Windows NT 4.0
> 		|		|
>   Windows Me		Windows 2000 Professional
> 		|		|
>   WinXP Home------------Windows XP Professional
> 		\		/
> 		  \	    /
>                 \   /
>                  \ /
> 			|
> 		   WINDOWS 
> 		   PALLADIUM

You missed Lindows ;-)

> They could be doing this on purpose, so that if their Palladium garbage
> makes it to the commercial desktop, we'll probably see the one client
> and one server from now on.  Until Unix undermines Microsoft of course
> :-)
Again, that's been their aim the whole time. (Not the Unix bit of course
;-)

Advogato had an article recently, with some great stuff:
http://advogato.org/article/596.html

> Adam
mibus

-- 
Robert Mibus <mibus@bigpond.com>

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