Clever Monkey wrote:
>Elizabeth D Rather wrote:
>
>> Clever Monkey wrote:
>>
>>> First of all, the assumption that one of these is better technology
>>> than the other is specious, at best. Second of all, best technology
>>> in what regard? Are Macs really all that better? I may think so, but
>>> what I'm really saying is that "Macs are better for me, as a working
>>> software engineer and part-time home IT person, and let's face it,
>>> when I switched Linux desktops sucked and Windows 2000 was a
disaster."
>>
>> I can't comment knowledgeably about Emacs vs vi or Lisp vs. Java, but I
>> know a lot about Macs vs PCs. We (FORTH, Inc.) bought our first PCs
>> when they first came out, and had Forth running on them within a few
>> months. That was about 1981. We bought our first Mac in 1984 (also
>> when they first came out), and Macs quickly became our office computer
>> of choice. There was one on every desk, and those doing PC development
>> had one of each. Not only did all of us who used both prefer the Mac,
>> all industry pundits of the time acknowledged its technical
superiority.
>>
>Yes, and I may even agree. But this is not what I am taking umbrage
>with. The issue is that somehow overall market share should reflect
>this success. It does not, and likely never will.
>
>Something as simplistic as "market share" is too narrow to define the
>sort of success, especially recently, that the platform has had. In
>terms of mind share among a highly skilled set of technical users (and,
>some might even say, taste-makers) the platform has succeeded well beyond
>
>I'm saying that using these sorts of simplistic notions of "success" and
>"better" -- essentially setting up false dichotomies -- strike me as
>very weak, which undermines a critical part of their entire argument.
(Re: Models of Software Acceptance: How Winners Win
[ http://dreamsongs.com/Files/AcceptanceModels.pdf
])
It is pretty evident that Apple Corp. would consider low market share
with high mind share to be failure, and would consider high market
share with low mind share to be success. And the paper itself starts
off with the words "Building business success."
BTW, I think that the products described under "Example:" headings
on pages 28-31 make the case far better than the earlier, weaker
examples that you rightfully criticised.
It is interesting trying to answer the questions on pages
52-59 for Forth and seeing if the theory's predictions hold.
--
Guy Macon
<http://www.guymacon.com/>
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