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From: horne-scott@cs.yale.edu (Scott Horne)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Microsoft And Friends
Message-ID: <27202@cs.yale.edu>
Date: 10 Nov 90 04:39:13 GMT
References: <4624@gara.une.oz.au>
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In article <4624@gara.une.oz.au> rjacobs@gara.une.oz.au ( ABRI) writes:
<Is it my imagination or not, but every magazine I read has more than
<one article or regular column on a Microsoft product. Several magazines
<have put aside parts of their magazine to be devoted every month to
<Microsoft Word, Windows, OS/2, MSDOS etc (I've even seen one magazine with
<a regular Excel column). Microsoft does have some very good products, but
<the prevalence of specialized articles and columns on these products
<when the excellent products of Microsoft's competitors are either ignored
<or given small recognition concerns me. 

Well, come on.  Almost every PC user uses DOS (or OS/2, but who cares about
*those* people :-) ).  And Windows is very common, too.  So is Word.  (You
see its competing product, WordPerfect, mentioned at least as frequently
in magazines, perhaps more frequently.)

<IMHO the most blatant case of this is the
<promotion of OS/2. This is a product that has been promised for a longtime,
<but fails to deliver the goods. The market share of OS/2 is very small. Yet,
<journals like PC Magazine continue to devote regular columns and special
<feature articles to OS/2. Why does this occur when programs like Unix are 
<virtually ignored.

Because people who use OS/2 *need* the help.  :-)  Seriously, now, it's
because UNIX on PCs is not yet common.  In fact, most PC owners (including
me) can't run UNIX because it's so big.  I don't know why _PC Magazine_
continues to run so many articles on OS/2, though.  Why not write them a
letter?

And I'd hardly say that UNIX on PCs is being "virtually ignored".

>As a multi-tasking operating system Unix on the PC is
<a better program and at a more evolved stage than OS/2.

I agree.  But UNIX is also a lot more expensive, in terms of hardware as well
as software, than OS/2.

<Am I being picky or does Microsoft and Bill Gates have lots of friends
<who are in the sales, marketing, journalism and communication side of
<the computer business and more than willing to help Bill tell us how
<great Microsoft products are?

I think you're failing to realise the importance of Microsoft's products
in the PC world.  No matter what you think about them, they're ubiquitous.
You see other companies' products mentioned when they come out, but things
like MS-DOS are so important that magazines have to keep discussing them.
I seriously doubt that Microsoft is involved in unscrupulous marketing
practices with those magazines.

					--Scott

-- 
Scott Horne                               ...!{harvard,cmcl2,decvax}!yale!horne
horne@cs.Yale.edu      SnailMail:  Box 7196 Yale Station, New Haven, CT   06520
203 436-1817                    Residence:  Rm 1817 Silliman College, Yale Univ
Uneasy lies the head that wears the _gao1 mao4zi_.