🚀 go-pugleaf

"Pete Tisserand" <NoSpamMan@byproduct.org> wrote in message
news:ydhuvIyNtV5F-pn2-2deo8Z7dWvrd@ppp11.blackbox1-mfs.netaxs.com...
> On Sun, 18 Jan 3900 19:14:49, zeppelin <zeppelin@gte.net> wrote:
>
> > Timur, I have had the pleasure of dealing with mr Pierre on other OS/2
sound
> > issues (MMpack etc) and can only say that if (y'all) elect to publish
> > drivers for Creative PCI cards that can only help the OS/2 situation
> > (bunches and bunches,.... not to underestimate)
> >
> > I'd pay a fair price in a heartbeat.
>
> Yes, I would too! Gladly, I might add!
>
> > Perhaps I misunderstand your intent, but since there are NO O/2 drivers
for
> > Creative PCI cards how would this be anti- competitive or suicidal?
> <snip>
>
>
> > > It is, kinda.  TBS said they would look into writing a driver, but
time
> > > constraints from other projects would be an issue.  Everything else is
> > > true, though.  Theta Band Software has a "no-compete" business model.
> > > They don't release software that competes with other software.  In the
> > > OS/2 market, releasing a product that competes with another product is
> > > suicide.
>
> I still don't understand THAT. Yeah, i've only picked up the thread,
> but in my mind COMPETITION is what business is all about!

Nope, making money by providing products or services that the market wants
is what business is all about.  If you can't sell enough to recover your
development costs you lose money.  And like it or not, the market for OS/2
add-ons is a niche market.

Developing device drivers commercially costs money--you have to pay the
developers.  If you're making it a commercial product, while you can use the
Linux code to help figure out how the device works, then you need to
clean-room engineer your product, which adds cost, otherwise you run the
risk of the GPL being enforced against you.

So any company developing third-party device drivers for OS/2 is running a
risk--they're gambling that there are enough OS/2 users out there who are
using the device they will be supporting and who will purchase their driver
to defray the development costs.  If two companies come up with a driver for
the same device, then odds are that at least one and probably both are going
to lose their development cost or some portion thereof.  That market is just
plain not large enough to support multiple players.

> Too many developers insist on riding the Windoze bandwagon, despite
> it's faults, rather than paying any attention to competition.

They are paying attention to competition--they'd rather have small slice of
huge market than a big slice of a tiny one.  Perhaps you mean they are
ignoring niche markets?

> One only has to look at the netscape/explorer debacle to see where MS
> is going. Do they think MS will happily leave them alone?

Depends on what they are doing.  If Microsoft percieves something as a
mainstream market, something that the majority of computers are going to
have installed in one form or another, then they'll go after it.  If it's a
niche market, they tend to leave it alone.  That's why they have a word
processor but not a page composition program (don't say Publisher--it's a
toy) or a font generator or a video editor or a Modula compiler or an APL
interpreter or a CAD program.  Microsoft can't do everything at once--they
go after what they percieve as the high-profit targets.  If someone uncovers
a new major market then Microsoft will likely try to tap it, but they won't
know it's a major market until whoever discovered it has sold enough into it
to identify it as such, at which point that company has made a good pile for
its investors.

--

---

--- John

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