* Posts by jbh001

1 publicly visible post • joined 23 Jan 2008

Microsoft tries to CTRL-W WordPerfect lawsuit again

jbh001

Do we need a history lesson?

WP got it's marketshare by providing a better product than the competition.

MS crushed WP by:

1. Forcing Word to be bundled on new PCs.

2. Practically giving Word away (I remember seeing versions for $35 at the time).

3. Using undocumented APIs that made MS's products fast, while providing competitors alternate APIs that were as agile as molasses.

Novell had the misfortune to be the one holding the bag when MS struck. MS used tactic #2 against Netscape, Lotus 123, Real Player, and QuickTime. They succeeded because they had a captive audience due to the OS. Tactic #2 hasn't been as useful against PlayStation and Nintendo (i.e. xbox), or against the iPod (i.e. Zune). They tried it against Adobe on the font front, but Adobe had enough resources to draw a stalemate (i.e. OpenType) instead of getting defeated.

As for language localizations, my version of WP 11 allows me to select US-English, UK-English, Canadian-English, and Australian-English. Why do you say that this localization hasn't been available since version 5.1/5.2?