From: eric@tantalus.nrl.navy.mil (Eric Youngdale) Subject: Re: Linux beoming a real choice? Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1993 20:24:43 GMT
In article <1993Jun10.125257.18809@texhrc.uucp> pyeatt@Texaco.com (Larry D. Pyeatt) writes:
>In article <C8D1K5.73q@jti.com>, richb@jti.com (Rich Braun) writes:
>|> keith@ksmith.com (Keith Smith) writes:
>|> >In fact SCO has more *ix out than all the other UNIX'es _combined_ ...
>|>
>|> But that doesn't say much. Unix appears to be fading in the face of
>|> new operating systems. If as someone else suggested in this thread
>|> SCO has sold < 1 million copies of its Unix products, total, then the
>|> number of people using SCO's products today is roughly equal to the
>|> number of additional people who will be starting to use Microsoft
>|> Windows 3.1 next month.
>
>Not quite true. One copy of SCO can support 10 or more users. You
>are comparing apples and oranges.
There are a couple of other points. First of all, for every licensed
copy of windows there are N unlicensed (i.e. pirate) copies. MS does not like
to talk about this very much, but nonetheless, you have to admit that it is
going on. Presumably people would not bother to install and configure Windows
if they did not need it or want it in the first place.
Secondly, application software for unix, be it SCO or SVr4 is generally
more expensive (sometimes much more expensive) than similar applications for
Windows. I do not know why - perhaps they assume that unix people can afford
to pay more, but I think that the main reason is that the development costs can
be amortized over a much larger volume of sales.
-Eric
-- "When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a lawyer."