From: Eric Strobel (fyzycyst_at_comcast.net)
Date: Sat Apr 17 2004 - 19:21:48 PDT
On Saturday, April 17, 2004, at 01:20 PM, Joel M. Sciamma wrote:
> Market share is still a critical element in attracting developers and
> standards to your platform. We used to argue that most car
> manufacturers
> would kill for the 10% market share that Apple used to have. Now it's
> down
> to 2.5% and one wonders what is considered viable - 1%? 0.1%? We have
> seen
> the inability of QuickTime to make any impression due to this.
>
Anyone that actually makes business decisions (like deciding on
starting a new software development) based on market share, rather than
installed base, deserves to go bankrupt. The number has absolutely no
bearing whatsoever on making a business case for how many copies you'll
sell. It doesn't tell you how many potential customers you have
available to sell to. Installed base is what matters, pure and simple.
You don't sell software to a market share percentage, you sell to an
installed base.
Of course, we're not talking about a business decision, but rather
malware. And on that topic there's a lot of psychology involved.
Wanting to take the mighty Bill Gates down a notch or two, avenging
MS's continued dissing of Linux, wanting to strike fear in the heart of
corporate America, all that. Plus, even though Windows is far harder
to program for, that's way more than outweighed by all the available
vulnerabilities, leaving Windows as the path of least resistance.
BTW, I'm puzzled by your statement regarding QuickTime, which besides
being universal on the Mac side, has significant penetration on the
Windows side.
- Eric.
-- Eric Strobel (fyzycyst_at_NOSPAM^mailaps.org) ===================================================================== If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat??? ===================================================================== -- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
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