From: mark@taylor.uucp (Mark A. Davis) Subject: Re: Linux beoming a real choice? Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1993 12:52:04 GMT
eric@tantalus.nrl.navy.mil (Eric Youngdale) writes:
>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.
> Presumably people would not bother to install and configure Windows
>if they did not need it or want it in the first place.
Usually the reason it is installed is to simply run some piece of software...
> 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.
Yes, that is usually true, and yes it is mostly because of supply and demand.
But also consider that a lot of the Unix software does not cost more for
using it multi-user. MS-"windows" is not multiuser, and therefore the one
license can only support one user. Besides, I don't mind buying ten floating
licenses at double the MS-"DOS/MS-"windows" prices when those ten will support
100 users on a multiuser system (although it IS annoying when talking about
single-user Unix machines).
But lots of companies are working on this. For example: WordPerfect has
set their retail prices the same for Unix and MS-"stuff", even though the
MS-"stuff" probably acts as a subsidy to the Unix side. Same is true for
several other large players (and to them I say "keep up the good work).
>-Eric
>--
>"When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he
>found himself changed in his bed into a lawyer."
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