From: Alan Baker on
In article
<cfbabdf0-4b5a-4084-9226-c98c68828da8(a)m1g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>,
hancock4(a)bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> On Oct 22, 11:54�pm, "Daniel W. Rouse Jr."
> <dwrous...(a)nethere.comNOSPAM> wrote:
> > Indeed. But Microsoft Office is usually the popular choice, given that a
> > large userbase often shared word documents, excel spreadsheets, etc.
>
> Question: Word Perfect and Lotus used to have a large user base and
> were almost the 'standard' in industry. What happened that motivated
> companies to spend the money to switch from those to MS-Word and
> Excel? Many people had to convert their doucments or spreadsheets and
> be retrained.

"DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run"...

--
Alan Baker
Vancouver, British Columbia
<http://gallery.me.com/alangbaker/100008/DSCF0162/web.jpg>
From: Alan Baker on
In article <hbsnmn$scf$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>,
Hadron <hadronquark(a)gmail.com> wrote:

> Free Lunch <lunch(a)nofreelunch.us> writes:
>
> > On Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:13:28 -0700 (PDT), hancock4(a)bbs.cpcn.com wrote in
> > misc.transport.road:
> >
> >>On Oct 22, 11:54 pm, "Daniel W. Rouse Jr."
> >><dwrous...(a)nethere.comNOSPAM> wrote:
> >>> Indeed. But Microsoft Office is usually the popular choice, given that a
> >>> large userbase often shared word documents, excel spreadsheets, etc.
> >>
> >>Question: Word Perfect and Lotus used to have a large user base and
> >>were almost the 'standard' in industry. What happened that motivated
> >>companies to spend the money to switch from those to MS-Word and
> >>Excel? Many people had to convert their doucments or spreadsheets and
> >>be retrained.
> >
> > Two things:
> >
> > Microsoft Office, a group of products that worked the same way and
> > worked well in Windows for the price of Word Perfect or Quattro or 1-2-3
> > alone. WP 5.1 was a $500 product 20 years ago.
> >
> > The products worked well because MSFT appears to have allowed their
> > developers advance access to Windows 3(.1) and allowed them to use
> > undocumented features of Windows.
>
> Bullshit. Other companies managed just fine.

Such as...

>
> > Since MSFT had finally gotten Windows
> > to work in 3.1, the strong pressure to stay with high quality, but
> > standalone DOS software like WP 5.1 or Lotus 1-2-3 disappeared and the
> > advantage they had was much smaller in Windows.

--
Alan Baker
Vancouver, British Columbia
<http://gallery.me.com/alangbaker/100008/DSCF0162/web.jpg>
From: Alan Baker on
In article <fvGdnSrazeLOZHzXnZ2dnUVZ_tGdnZ2d(a)posted.palinacquisition>,
"Floyd Rogers" <fbloogyuds(a)hotmail.com> wrote:

> "Free Lunch" <lunch(a)nofreelunch.us> wrote
> > On Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:13:28 -0700 (PDT), hancock4(a)bbs.cpcn.com wrote
> >>On Oct 22, 11:54 pm, "Daniel W. Rouse Jr."
> >><dwrous...(a)nethere.comNOSPAM> wrote:
> >>> Indeed. But Microsoft Office is usually the popular choice, given that a
> >>> large userbase often shared word documents, excel spreadsheets, etc.
> >>
> >>Question: Word Perfect and Lotus used to have a large user base and
> >>were almost the 'standard' in industry. What happened that motivated
> >>companies to spend the money to switch from those to MS-Word and
> >>Excel? Many people had to convert their doucments or spreadsheets and
> >>be retrained.
> >
> > Two things:
> >
> > Microsoft Office, a group of products that worked the same way and
> > worked well in Windows for the price of Word Perfect or Quattro or 1-2-3
> > alone. WP 5.1 was a $500 product 20 years ago.
> >
> > The products worked well because MSFT appears to have allowed their
> > developers advance access to Windows 3(.1) and allowed them to use
> > undocumented features of Windows.
>
> This statement is contrary to the facts: there were only 5 (can't remember
> accurately, but that's +-2) internal APIs used, and they were innocuous
> shortcuts for file open/close/access. They had virtually no performance
> affect, and were made public after they became an issue.
>
> As for timing, outside ISV's had access as early as the internal people.
> Most ISV's that had problems struggled over the difference between
> Windows APIs and the OS/2 APIs that they had been using. The graphics
> and user models were quite different and often affected program structure.

Cites for this?

--
Alan Baker
Vancouver, British Columbia
<http://gallery.me.com/alangbaker/100008/DSCF0162/web.jpg>
From: hancock4 on
On Oct 23, 12:49 pm, N8N <njna...(a)hotmail.com> wrote:

> > Does it support DOS applications?
>
> Hell, Windows doesn't, anymore.

Umm, I run my old DOS stuff all the time under Windows. They call it
"command mode" now, but it works fine.

From: hancock4 on
On Oct 23, 12:57 pm, Alan Baker <alangba...(a)telus.net> wrote:

> > A great many small businesses, when asked if they have a product or
> > service, say "yes" when in fact they have nothing.  The business then
> > rushes out to get the customer what was requested.  The business is
> > obviously taking a big gamble, if it works the gamble usually pays off
> > handsomely and the small business grows quite a bit as a result.
>
> That may be, but in this case, what they rushed out to get was a rip-off
> of someone else's product.

I'm not at all sure I'd call that a "rip off".

That is a fact of business life. A great many people become wealthy
by merely acting as the middleman, connecting a seller and buyer.

For sake of argument, say I need goat's milk. I go to my grocer who
doesn't carry it, but he says he'll get it. He makes phone calls and
gets it. He collects a profit for his work. I benefit by not having
to call around myself to wholesalers or farms, heck I wouldn't know
what farms to call.

IBM didn't know who made PC software, so they asked Gates. Gates did
know and exploited "leveraged" his knowledge.