Arthur Fuller
fuller.artful at gmail.com
Tue Sep 10 18:35:33 CDT 2013
Jim, Like you, I do not despise Microsoft, and have made a living developing apps in that framework. Over the years I have turned from a purely-Access developer into an Office-integration developer, i.e. one who combines Word and Excel and Access and even PowerPoint into a seamless app. That said, I have grown oh so tired of this approach, and find that I am almost always in Ubuntu Linux, nd when I need to revisit Windows I go there via a VirtualBox VM. The only reasons I do this are to support old Access apps and to put more time into mastering Alpha Anywhere. Aside from those, my heart is in Ubuntu. On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 2:12 PM, Jim Lawrence <accessd at shaw.ca> wrote: > Microsoft for many years played it safe. > > Safe, in that it did not get invested heavily in commodity market (selling > hardware). It has done well with the XBox but so far its latest ventures > can not be said to have been that successful. > > In the late seventies and early eighties, I worked exclusively with the > two largest computer companies in the world. IBM and DEC (VAX). DEC made > the first 64bit PC computer and our office bought one for only 15K...a UNIX > box. For a short time, while in my own business, I even sold Compac > computers (I even sold AST). In the mid-nineties DEC crashed, was sold off > to Compac which followed suit shortly after. Even today I still find that > amazing...amazing that a company, originally so large and successful (with > an excellent virtual OS) should just crash, burn and then disappear. > > In the following link, the article draws close comparisons between > Microsoft and DEC and the author feels a note of caution should be > seriously observed. IMHO, Microsoft should be taking some serious courses > and learning lessons from recent history. > > > http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9242253/Decline_of_Digital_Equipment_offers_lessons_for_Microsoft > > Aside: Do not get me wrong; I do not dislike Microsoft, in fact they have > been very very good to me, but I truly believe that Steve Balmer was the > worse thing that could have happen to MS and the damage he has done to the > company may have not run its full course, yet. I still believe Microsoft > will survive all this but it is going to be a bumpy ride. > > Jim > _______________________________________________ > dba-Tech mailing list > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > -- Arthur