🚀 go-pugleaf

| Well, depends on what functionality you mean.  If it looks like UNIX,
| it's UNIX --- if not, its not.  It's the total package I'm interested
| in, personally.  As for market share...

I can [somewhat] agree with the above statement, but
there is another side to that coin that must be
considered.  You're saying (and please do correct me
if I'm wrong) that:  "The UNIX feel has come to symbolize
power in an OS, and I want to keep that look so that I
can be at home with my system."  Certainly, there is
NOTHING wrong with that.  Everyone wants their familiar
OS and UI.  But I try to also consider that there are many,
many DOS and Windows users, and NT will provide them their
same happy, comfortable interface, while giving the underlying
OS some real horsepower.  Is there anything so terribly wrong
with that?  I imagine that I'll get 10,000 pieces of mail saying
that NeXTSTEP is better than the DOS/Win31 UI, and thus Microsoft
is making a mistake with NT.  Please refrain, though, because
I like NeXTSTEP, too, though there are 10,000,000 people who
might think differently out there.

| Well, UNFORTUNATELY it probably will gain enormous market share.  This
| is a truly sad thing, IMHO.  Fact is, NT at this point is vapor --- nobody
| can do more than speculate on what it can do and how well until it starts
| shipping "for real".  Until proven otherwise, I'll assume that, like all
| of Microsoft's other products, it's going to be crippled with minimal
| functionality. ;)  BUT let's not encourage NeXT, one of the few companies
| well poised to compete for that desktop market, to can its product, jump
| camp, and effectively give Microsoft a tremendous value-add for free!!!

First of all, you *really* need to define what "vapor" is if you're
going to reference products in relation to it.  If you mean that
"vapor" is a product that has been announced, but is not yet
being distributed to the general public in a release form, then
yes (listen to the Microsoft employee say this :-), NT is vapor.
HOWEVER, if you mean that "vapor" implies that the product is not
available in any way-shape-or-form, and/or that is currently provides
no functionality that it intends, then you are 100% dead wrong.  You
can get a developers' pre-release TODAY for $69, which includes a
microkernel-based OS, pre-emptive multitasking, fully 32-bit, with
a Windows 3.1 UI.  Plus, the
same CD has support for both MIPS and Intel, with a C/C++ compiler,
and 7600 pgs of online docs.  I don't mean to advertise here; thats
not my intent.  I just don't think that anyone who calls something
like NT "vapor" without defining what they mean should go withoug
rebuttal.

-Jeff Henshaw
jhenshaw@microsoft.com

not a microsoft spokesperson.