XPost: comp.os.linux.advocacy   
   From: znu@fake.invalid   
      
   In article ,   
    Chris Ahlstrom  wrote:   
      
   > ZnU wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:   
   >   
   > > In article ,   
   > >  Chris Ahlstrom  wrote:   
   > >   
   > >> Apple's iPad definitely has changed that, and Android is helping seed an   
   > >> even bigger tablet market.  If Microsoft had been ready, they'd be   
   actively   
   > >> co-opting it right now.   
   > >   
   > > I still don't understand how you this "co-opting" works. You seem to   
   > > believe that Microsoft has some ability to introduce products that   
   > > nobody really wants to buy, and force people to buy them anyway. What   
   > > mechanism do they use? And if they have such an ability, why have their   
   > > efforts met with so little success in so many markets (music players,   
   > > online music sales, search engines, smartphones, etc.) over the years?   
   >   
   > ZnU, you should know I am talking about the consumer computer market.   
   >   
   > Nothing more.   
   >   
   > And the history of Microsoft's dominance in this market is quite clear, and   
   > has been litigated at length.   
      
   OK, but this is sort of my point. Netbooks could be co-opted by   
   Microsoft because they were part of the traditional "consumer computer   
   market", as a consequence of just being small, cheap laptops. Windows   
   was appealing on netbooks for all the same reasons it was appealing on   
   slightly larger, more expensive laptops.   
      
   This is not the case with tablets, primarily because touch-based   
   interaction sucks with desktop-style UI, which severely undermines the   
   advantage Windows derives from having a huge installed base of apps.   
   Tablets are in this respect more like smartphones than they are like   
   netbooks -- they can't just be subsumed into Microsoft's desktop   
   monopoly, because unlike netbooks they're actually a different kind of   
   device from traditional laptop/desktop PCs.   
      
   --   
   "The game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to   
   anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it   
   must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll." -- John Maynard Keynes   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)