>> Movements toward standardization are fraught with >> risk. Standardization forced VHS vs the superior >> BETA because those with superior market clout had >> their way. > > ------------ REPLY FOLLOWS ------------ > > This canard needs to be put to rest once and for all. > > The market makes choices based on many factors, not just some > supposed "superiority". For example, the Apple computer folks have > bragged on the superiority of Macs for years, yet actual customers > avoid them in droves, even IT professionals. > > If Beta had really been better in the overall picture, we'd have all bought > it. > > Bill, W6WRT
Nonsense, people buy inferior products all the time based on price, availability, and popularity. The *history* is that those pushing the VHS standard outnumbered Sony's allies thus the VHS standard won in the consumer marketplace. Where quality mattered, the professional broadcast industry, they used BETA. Consumers rarely do their technical homework. Another example is that I suspected the source for the cheap computer hardware SAMS was selling when they were first growing. I would see CD drives and other components for sale there really cheap. I went online and started to read the reviews and in every case the models SAMS was selling to gullible non-technical consumers were the models informed computer folks had rejected as inferior. As for Apple vs MS vs Linux. Each has its strengths, Apple has always been the most user friendly and the more graphics-optimized, MS has always been the best marketed, and Linux the most powerful for the user to customize. Apple was poorly marketed and managed and almost failed until they hired a Pepsi exec. to fix things. Apple used more costly proprietary hardware and their OS was often not backwards compatible from release to release, yet they have continued to grow because they fill a need that MS does not -- same as BETA vs VHS. Informed consumers, rare, are not lemmings. Linux is a fragmented community lacking the shared marketing, market clout, and shared core apps of the others. It is amazing that Linux does so well keeping up with the others under the circumstances. Given the billion dollar advantage MS has over its competition it is pitiful how hard they have to work to interfere with their competition to defend their market share. There is nothing MS does that Apple and Linux cannot do better with fewer resources. So much for people buying the best -- they don't even know what the best is! -- Thanks! & 73, doc, KD4E ... somewhere in FL URL: bibleseven (dot) com Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to Telnet://cluster.dynalias.org Other areas of interest: The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol (band plan policy discussion) Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
