How has the virus affected you directly?

[LogGrad98]

As i have worked as an IT support person since '94 i would say that the we could also blame the other companies too, which produced inferior products and customers/IT persons who chose better product for their needs (although it is not a customer's responsibility to keep hardware or software manufacturer profitable). IMHO it is not MS fault, that Wordperfect, Netware 4.0, Netscape, Borland (Paradox and Quattro Pro) etc etc were not as good for the customers as MS products. My last Netware experience ended around 2003 when i upgraded a customer server from Netware 3.12 to Windows 2000 - i am pretty sure the customer is not missing Novell products at all. Although i was skeptic at the beginning when i switched from MS DOS based Pegasus e-mail client to Outlook-Exchange around '99 or 2000 i am not missing that software.

Wordperfect was far superior to word. Most of those you list were superior to the MS equivalents. You need to research MS business practices and why the company was broken up to fully understand what I said. It has nothing to do with wordperfect, which is still around by the way, and everything to do with computer manufacturers and other ancillary businesses. Gates' practices were predatory and ultimately deemed illegal, to the point where the government stepped in and forced the company to restructure.

 

[LogGrad98]

I agree with you.

On my experience when the customer had to write a document and was able to choose between Wordperfect for DOS (version 5.0?) vs MS Word 2.0 or even 6.0, then you can 3 times guess (but 2 won't count ) what software was the chosen one. Plus the printer driver support of Windows 3.1 vs DOS or OS/2 based application.
Actually at the start of my career until '98 Netware was the main server OS i had to learn and support. With Windows NT 4.0 there was no turning back.
While competition is ruthless i would say that both Novell and Wordperfect (as i read now from Wikipedia - it was an Orem based company?) can only blame themselves that they hired the personnel who did the decisions they made.

You touched on the key aspect: choice. MS eliminated choice by illegally structuring contracts and bundling their products so they were the only choice many many people even had.

 

[Gameface]

You touched on the key aspect: choice. MS eliminated choice by illegally structuring contracts and bundling their products so they were the only choice many many people even had.

They were often the free choice vs having to buy the superior product. Wordperfect was head and shoulders better than word in the early 90s. It was not close.

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[Cptgrnlngs22]

I heard on the radio that computer chips are not being produced enough so automobile production had to stop at some factories.

Btw, I look forward to these issues being blamed on Biden and the radical left socialists.

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Don’t you know that’s the wonderful world we live in? Doesn’t matter what party is in office the other party and it’s supporters won’t rest for 4 years trying to make the other side look bad.


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[Cptgrnlngs22]

I own a drywall company in Utah and I have been so busy you wouldn’t even think there was a pandemic. Pricing on material has gone up though a little.


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[Gameface]

I own a drywall company in Utah and I have been so busy you wouldn’t even think there was a pandemic. Pricing on material has gone up though a little.


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I can completely understand why a drywall company wouldn't be very hard hit by the pandemic.

Try working in intensive care and you'll know there is a pandemic.

Try running a local brewpub and you'll know there is a pandemic.

I mean, I make yogurt. What pandemic, amiright?

 

[lauriandres]

They were often the free choice vs having to buy the superior product. Wordperfect was head and shoulders better than word in the early 90s. It was not close.

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Yes i know it was popular and probably technically better until Word 6.0 came out. I did all my university related documents with Word.
However i would say that at least in Estonia Wordperfect was kind of disappeared at the end of the century. Maybe even around '97 when MS Office 97 arrived. And of course Netware (which was still in use on some locations around 2005) was also eliminated by both Windows NT 4.0 and widespread use of Linux.

 

[Gameface]

Yes i know it was popular and probably technically better until Word 6.0 came out. I did all my university related documents with Word.
However i would say that at least in Estonia Wordperfect was kind of disappeared at the end of the century. Maybe even around '97 when MS Office 97 arrived. And of course Netware (which was still in use on some locations around 2005) was also eliminated by both Windows NT 4.0 and widespread use of Linux.

Yeah, Microsoft's anticompetitive efforts had paid off by then. They destroyed WordPerfect not by making a better product, but by systematically destroying any avenue of profitability WordPerfect had. Once WordPerfect no longer made any money and had shrinking market share to Microsoft's then free products (which were a loss for Microsoft) WordPerfect could no longer innovate in a meaningful way and eventually Word became a better product.

You can't divorce that evolution from Microsoft's anti-competitive practices. It was intensely deliberate and expertly executed. They put their sights on WordPerfect and went for the kill. It worked. My most favorite non-game program in my teen years died. I will never forget what Microsoft did to WordPerfect.

 

[Gameface]

I should say, after dropping out of high school I went back to an "alternative education" high school. It was the best thing for me ever. It was the school for pregnant girls, homeless kids, and stupid *** entitled drop-outs like me.

At that school I became the senior editor of the school's award winning literary magazine and the school's newspaper. So yeah, in a school of dropouts I ran the newspaper and literary magazine. But the reason the magazine was award winning was because of the staff advisor. He eventually went on to become a professor at the U of U. He is published multiple times, an award winning writer. I learned that he would soon die while listening to my local NPR station. His name is Jeff Metcalf. He and Mr. Gentry, my 7th grade English and Vocabulary teacher, have been the strongest and most influential teachers in my life, save my elementary ALP teacher. Ms. Adamson. Anyway, long story medium length, I used WordPerfect a lot in the early to mid 90s. I also used MS Word in that time frame as well, as little as possible. I loved WordPerfect. Loved it.

I watched Microsoft destroy it. It wasn't on the merits. It was on market share, where MS added Word as a free part of Windows, but if you wanted WordPerfect you had to buy it separately and Microsoft would intentionally make driver support difficult. Once WordPerfect was effectively killed MS Office became a commercial product. I think a spreadsheet program died in the scuffle as well, but I didn't use and love that program like I did WordPerfect, so that's not the part I noticed.

 

[LogGrad98]

I should say, after dropping out of high school I went back to an "alternative education" high school. It was the best thing for me ever. It was the school for pregnant girls, homeless kids, and stupid *** entitled drop-outs like me.

At that school I became the senior editor of the school's award winning literary magazine and the school's newspaper. So yeah, in a school of dropouts I ran the newspaper and literary magazine. But the reason the magazine was award winning was because of the staff advisor. He eventually went on to become a professor at the U of U. He is published multiple times, an award winning writer. I learned that he would soon die while listening to my local NPR station. He has died. His name was Jeff Metcalf. He and Mr. Gentry, my 7th grade English and Vocabulary teacher, have been the strongest and most influential teachers in my life, save my elementary ALP teacher. Ms. Adamson. Anyway, long story medium length, I used WordPerfect a lot in the early to mid 90s. I also used MS Word in that time frame as well, as little as possible. I loved WordPerfect. Loved it.

I watched Microsoft destroy it. It wasn't on the merits. It was on market share, where MS added Word as a free part of Windows, but if you wanted WordPerfect you had to buy it separately and Microsoft would intentionally make driver support difficult. Once WordPerfect was effectively killed MS Office became a commercial product. I think a spreadsheet program died in the scuffle as well, but I didn't use and love that program like I did WordPerfect, so that's not the part I noticed.

This was kind of my experience as well, but in the business world.

The good thing is Corel purchased WordPerfect, and the attendant suite of office apps, and they are alive and well today. I used WP defiantly into the mid-2000's when it started to be corrupted trying to be a Word clone, which is really what made it a worse product. Up until then it was hands-down better than Word. More intuitive, easier to use, more powerful, etc. Once they started to try to copy Word, to hopefully sway people in the business world who only knew Word because MS made sure that was all they used, then the product went downhill. Same thing happened with their spreadsheet, Quattro Pro, which was so much better than Excel it wasn't funny, made Excel feel like a crappy knock-off. Until they started to change QP to make it more like Excel so people would feel comfortable using it when all they knew was Excel through their work.

I have used CorelDraw for well over 2 decades now, since version 2.0 on the earliest versions of Windows, doing graphic design and layout for my dad's business (he is a printer - this kind of thing completely changed the nature of his business), and I have kept a working copy of WP and QP on my computer for years, until maybe 6-7 years ago when it just wasn't worth it any more. Really sad actually as that suite was so much better than the MS Office suite.

Also, aside from all this Gates kept computer manufacturers in line by requiring them to sign deals that restricted them to MS products if they wanted to be able to offer Windows as an operating system. This included a requirement that OEMs had to sell all machines with Windows pre-installed, so they couldn't sell them even without an OS so people could install their own, or they would get sued. Many who tried to buck this system just got sued into oblivion. There are more stories like this than you care to mention.

Gates' money was earned on the corpses of fallen companies he wiped out building his empire. I am very happy with what he is doing with his wealth now, but this guy is anything but a saint.

 

[lauriandres]

I watched Microsoft destroy it. It wasn't on the merits. It was on market share, where MS added Word as a free part of Windows, but if you wanted WordPerfect you had to buy it separately and Microsoft would intentionally make driver support difficult. Once WordPerfect was effectively killed MS Office became a commercial product. I think a spreadsheet program died in the scuffle as well, but I didn't use and love that program like I did WordPerfect, so that's not the part I noticed.

if that is not a fake news then i should go back to school again; when was full version of MS Word included with the Windows license? Win 95 included Wordpad and you were able to purchase MS Works which included a lite Word kind of program?
During the MSDOS period printer manufacturers had to anyway make drivers to different programs, because DOS did not included a unified layer for printing?

 

[lauriandres]

Also, aside from all this Gates kept computer manufacturers in line by requiring them to sign deals that restricted them to MS products if they wanted to be able to offer Windows as an operating system. This included a requirement that OEMs had to sell all machines with Windows pre-installed, so they couldn't sell them even without an OS so people could install their own, or they would get sued. Many who tried to buck this system just got sued into oblivion. There are more stories like this than you care to mention.

IMHO that statement is again kind of fake news. I guess HP, Compaq, Digital, AST, Gateway etc had freedom to either accept MS conditions or not. I guess that with "yes" they also got MUCH better prices than ordinary tiny companies. Our tiny company was perfectly OK to sell selfassembled computers and was free to include either MS product license, OS/2 or some other operating system a la Linux. I do not remember the exact prices, but MS DOS 6.1 was in similar price than it was in USA at that time (about 70 USD?) and MS Windows 3.1 maybe 100 USD? Of course, we sold probably only about 200 computer per year; company was founded in 1991 and we sold our 1000th computer in the beginning of 1996.