Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard_Rahl
Consoles, Iphones, etc. will never be open. The majority of the (financial) power companies like MS, Apple, Sony etc. posess, is formed by keeping consumers in a stranglehold of "consumeterror". Like a certain Windows update, disallowing people with edition 200x (don't know exact version) of Office to use certain old Office file types (like the 97/200/XP edition of the .doc file). Big electronics/IT companies try to "force" us do buy and treat products as they want us to. That is why I will never buy a console (again), because in merely 3 years I have to buy a new one again. While in case of a pc, you simply make a "start" that is as good as possible (especially when it comnes to the mobo and cpu) and upgrade when necessary. And a pc offers much more then a console, since the possibillities aren't so limited  . |
Having a closed down environment for your product isn't necessarily a bad thing, but not having an open environment next to it kills innovation. The damage caused by allowing Windows to gain a market share of 98% for example is bigger then we can imagine. Just look at what Opera, Safari and Firefox did for the safety of web browsers when compared to Internet explorer. IE7 has become a almost direct copy of FF because their improvements started to attract people to other browsers then those provided with Windows.
Operating systems would have been way faster and more reliable if more competition actually existed. That's mainly what killed innovation and made the job for hackers way more easier, thus creating the millions of security issues that lead to more closed products right now.
My parents for example only look at their mail, check the net for the news and places like ebay and the site of their granddaughter and that's it. I made them a simple silent pc for 400 Euro, slapped Mandriva Linux on it and put just 4 large symbols on the desktop. Documents, Internet, Mail and Skype (they use it to say goodnight to my little daughter with their webcam from time to time). It's all they needed and with that simple locked down environment they couldn't be happier.
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