[AT] OT - Windows XP - Thanks

[charlie hill]

John,  I don't think your comments contradict what I said to any degree and 
I
agree with you that the entire market/technology is changing rapidly.  Just
this morning I saw an ad for an Android powered personal computer.
It comes with no monitor or keyboard.  It's just a little case about the 
size of
a notebook computer hard drive.   It uses most any kind of monitor available
and USB or Bluetooth keyboards.   Cost....... $89.00.

I am an appraiser and it has only been in the last 10 years or so (if that 
long)
that there was any sort of serious appraisal software written for MAC.
It just wasn't MAC's market and they didn't care about it until market 
demand
drove them to it.  It was only when MAC's were adapted to run Windows that
appraisal software was available for MAC.  Even today, almost all appraisers
run MS based computers, notebooks or tablets.

Your reply seemed to imply that I was attacking MAC and I made it clear that 
I was not.
I was merely defending Microsoft.  I've been using Microsoft products since 
the days of
DOS and I've never directly paid them one red cent.   On the other hand I've 
never been
forced to buy a computer from them so that I could run their software 
either.

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: John Slavin
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2014 2:05 PM
To: AT at lists.antique-tractor.com
Subject: Re: [AT] OT - Windows XP - Thanks

> I'm not a MAC hater
> either but they are designed for graphics applications.
>
> Charlie

Hmm.  Back in 1984 or so when the Mac was introduced, you could certainly 
say that because the alternative was DOS which was text based.  I've tried 
to stay out of this discussion, but I guess I've reached my breaking point.

I'd say now that every piece of software is designed for graphics 
applications in one way or another.  While it might be correct to say that 
some "specialized" software is not put on the Mac, that doesn't apply to 
most of us.  An awful lot of business, uses Microsoft Office and Excel. 
There have been Mac versions of those for years. So most businesses will run 
fine on Macs.  Even the suite that Apple makes, Pages and Numbers import and 
export to Office and Excel files.  In my law practice I've used Pages and 
Numbers and not the real MS Office suite and interact with Windows users 
daily.

Moreover, you can't just limit the numbers of Apple computers to Mac 
machines.  There is major shift underway where a lot of functions are 
transitioning to handheld devices, including tablets and phones. Make no 
mistake, these ARE computers and in total, they outsell MS computers.  Apple 
devices alone, are expected to outsell Windows devices this year.  I run 
trials from my iPad nearly every day and don't even take a traditional 
computer.  I have pictures and exhibits in software designed for the iPad 
for use exclusively in trials.  I present them through Airplay to an AppleTV 
connected to a large screen TV or projector.  I would say 2/3 or more of the 
attorneys in my town do just that.  I have a database on my ipad that syncs 
to my office computer.  I annotate recents cases so that the summaries are 
at my fingertips.

There is another alternative that's afoot right now too.  Google has the 
chrome web brower and quite a bit of stuff is running through their browser. 
Most significantly is Google Docs, another alternative to the MS Suite. 
Everything is run through the cloud.  And chromebooks are cheap.

Even Apple has a similar alternative to cloud based computing.  If you have 
any Apple device, as a result, you to have an Apple ID. With that AppleID, 
you can access icloud and run Apple's suite of Pages, Numbers, Keynote, 
right within your web browser.  You can do that on any machine with a web 
brower, including Windows machines and chromebooks.  Any document you create 
can be exported directly to Microsoft word versions.

And even the specialized software market has changed.  At one time, in order 
to do research I had to use a Windows emulator on my mac because the cases 
would come monthly on a CD that would only run on a Windows machine with 
proprietary Windows sofware.  ALL research now is done online through a web 
browser. It's totally machine agnostic.  And that's true of the vast 
majority of legal tools.  In fact, I can't think of a single resource that 
would require a Windows machine.

I frankly don't see how MS can maintain it's current model.  Apple's OS is 
now free.  Google OS is free.    I just read the other day that the rumor is 
that MS is going to release a cheap version of their OS, and they just a few 
weeks ago released a cheap version for cheap machine OEMs. Moreoever, an 
awful lot of the software development is occurring in the iOS and Android 
sphrere.  I predict that at some point in the near future, MS operating 
system model is going to collapse.  Undoubtably, they will remain strong in 
the server OS business and in business services, and for the forseeable 
future in Office suite business (although that's under attack).  It would 
not surprise me if in the near future nearly all personal devices run on 
Android, iOS/Mac or some flavor of Linux.

John
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