Comment Re:Why? (Score 1, Insightful) 327
I can't agree with your reasoning. The many computer companies that have lived and died over the years have primarily died because they were producing hardware that could not keep pace with developments in the industry.
Commodore
NeXT died for the same reason. NeXT couldn't keep up with Intel and by the time Jobs caved in and went with his dual-architecture 68K/Intel binary format, it was too late. Also, depending on display-postscript for EVERYTHING was a huge mistake for NeXT and having 15+ year old OS tools for a weird Mach/BSD core that they never really updated messed them up too. I was a developer for the NeXT too.
In modern times, everyone runs on similarly powerful hardware and generally can stay up-to-date on the hardware front. OS makers die from a lack of apps or a lack of ease-of-use. Apple certainly does not suffer from either.
Linux and the BSDs are entirely dependent on a relatively common library of ~20,0000 to 30,000 or so (substantial) open source apps in order to stay relevant, but all suffer from the lack of a cohesive GUI that is powerful and easy to use. KDE, Gnome, the many other little window managers available... none hold a candle to either Apple or Windows. Unfortunately. At least as a consumer machine.
I have no problem running linux or a BSD as my workstation, as long as I am only doing programming or browsing. But if I want to play a *real* game or run *real* photo or video software (not something stupid like gimp which is virtually unusable)... then I have to shift my chair over to my Windows box or my refurbished Mac laptop. For that matter, if I want brainless printing which just works, I have to run it through my Windows box because CUPS is an over-engineered piece of crap that only works well on Macs... certainly not on linux or any of the BSDs.
-Matt