cc: fsb@asylum.sf.ca.us, comments@caldera.com
   Date: Mon, 01 May 1995 21:53:32 PDT
   From: Chris Maeda <cmaeda@cs.washington.edu>

   Good luck getting Microsoft Office ported to Caldera.

This is standard business problem that isn't specific to free
software.  Good luck getting Microsoft Office ported to MacOS, or
OS/2, or Unix or ...

      The advantage Caldera has over Win95 or NT or OS/2 is that the
      operating system is free.  If they make a way for hardware
      manufacturers to ship Windows 3.1 && Caldera at the same time at no
      added cost, AND they can convince a few software manufacturers to
      recompile using their toolkit, then they can provide some added value:
      a real operating system with protection between processes and users,
      that is technically superior to Win95 and NT.

   1) A free OS is not worth much, especially when the other vendors are
   cutting prices to get market share.

The PC clone hardware market is cutthroat, there are many competitors,
and the barriers to entry are very low.  Someone WILL ship Caldera
Desktop if there are any serious applications.  And particularly if
Caldera makes it free.

   2) The Caldera advantage has a lot of "if"'s.  The one about convincing
   software vendors to support it seems almost intractable.  How will they
   attack that one?

I dunno, how do you start up any new business?  Capturing just one
percent of the Windows market will make Caldera incredibly rich.  They
don't have to "beat" Microsoft, they just have to get the thin point
of the wedge in.  Caldera's stuff doesn't *have* to be a "Windows
killer", it just has to win a little bit.

   3) NT is technically superior to many Unix implementations (Linux included)
   and has parity with all the rest (eg Solaris and DEC UNIX).  And Microsoft
   has control over which way the technology will evolve (eg Win32 and OLE2).
   Everyone else (eg IBM) is just reacting, and slowly at that.  If you care
   about protection, you can use NT.  If you don't care, then arguments about
   how Linux has protection are unlikely to make you switch from Windows.

Technical superiority can be argued elsewhere (yes, I know I brought
the subject up--that was a mistake).  NT doesn't have any significant
share of the desktop market.  There are likely more Linux machines on
the desktop than NT machines.

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