>Of course, some company had to go and break that rule... That's right,
>there are now LinModems as well. Do yourself a favor and avoid them.
>There are better things for a CPU to be doing than the work of a $.50
>part on a modem.
I'm not so sure this a good long term strategy. I agree that using a
$200 CPU to replace a .50 chip is pretty stupid, but some of the DSP
based software modems are very robust at call management in the MS
windows environment.
At the risk of flames, let's think about the discussion that was raging
through here a few weeks ago about browsers. I made a strong point that
the browser and email client were crucial for maintaining a desktop
presence. I'll be willing to stick my neck on the line and make a
similar statement that the same is true for telephony applications. And
there are surly others I haven't thought through yet, all of which will
be "crucial" to the long term success of Mandrake as a desktop.
But how can they all be "the one crucial app" you ask. Well, they're not
all the "single" crucial application (but I think the browser is
probably most important user application). The crucial application is
the whole system. If we think about an automobile for a minute I'll
explain.
In an automobile the user expects to be able to use the "entire" package
upon delivery. But no individual piece of the package is suitable to the
drivers purpose, only the entire package. No automobile salesperson
would think of trying to get me to settle for only an engine or only a
transmission or only tires. None of those individual components is
sufficient to meet my transportation needs. Likewise, no salesperson is
going to try to convince me to accept a vehicle without an engine or
without a transmission or without tires. Each of those components is
necessary for the package to function as intended.
These are the analogous parts for the browser and email client. Like it
or not, most of the millions of PCs which will be sold this holiday
season are for people to surf the net and exchange email. Neither is
sufficient; both are necessary. Period. That's life. Get over it.
Now, lets go back to the automobile. As I'm standing on the lot looking
at the various items for sale, I notice that some of them have cute
little map lights and rear window defrosters. I decide I like those
touches, and I'm swayed by emotion rather than logic. The truth is I
almost never need the cute little map light and the rear window
defroster, but I buy then anyway. (OK they're crucial for some drivers,
but not most.)
The call management functions of a WinModem will be available to about
90% of those PCs sold this year, and almost nobody will ever use them.
I've personally bought 5-6 computers/modems with all that stuff in the
past few years and never turned any of it on. But I would guess that 10%
of the people who buy the stuff try to use the call management
functions, and perhaps 5% of the people who try it actually continue to
use it. So, in the long run, lets assume that 0.5% of the users actually
find the call management function useful, and everybody else abandons
it. So, do we say, "Well, nobody uses it in the long run, so we'll leave
it out." Or do we acknowledge that, "Despite that fact almost nobody is
going to use this, it's a major selling point on the front end. So we
need it, or we'll be shut out."
Now, let's finally consider one more totally unnecessary option
available on modern automobiles. Back in the 1920's Cadillac developed
an "electric starter" for their vehicles. At that time it was an extreme
luxury. These days, however, you cannot buy a production automobile
without an electric starter. And if we started the "Mandrake Automobile
Company" making cars without electric starters we'd go out of business
fast. Even if we made astonishingly beautiful vehicles with map lights
and rear window defrosters, ordinary people will still flock to the
"inferior competitors" who have those convenient electric starters
instead of a crank.
Well, the electric starter is the installer routines. And, while it's
true that Mandrake may be a far technically superior and elegant choice
to many of the other Linux distributions, and to that "other" OS, it's a
bitch for Grandpa to get set up compared to taking an HP Brio with Win98
preinstalled out of the box from Wal-Mart. If anyone wants to help with
that aspect, I'd suggest that it's probably the most crucial hurdle to
overcome. (There is a group named SEUL - Simple End User Linux,
www.seul.org, but I don't much about them.)
So, I've ranted enough. More OT comments?
MB
