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	Rex Ballard - Director of Electronic Distribution
	Standard & Poor's/McGraw-Hill
	Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect
	the Management of the McGraw-Hill Companies.
	http://cnj.digex.net/~rballard


On Fri, 5 Jul 1996, Josh Stern wrote:

> In article  you write:
> 
> >There is one group of users who will be fanatically devoted to NT, those
> >who have never tried a modern version of Unix or Linux (with X11/R6).
> >
> >Ignorance was once defined by a wise man as contempt prior to
> >investigation.  I've tried both, I prefer Linux.
> >
> >Anyone who has tried both want to take their stand for NT?
> 
> I'm a Linux fan, but I bet you will get a bunch of takers
> for this.  The thing is, what they prefer is NT + $2500
> of commercial software to Linux + freebies.  When a lot
> more commercial software becomes available for Linux,
> then I think it will be hard to find people who prefer
> NT + $n of commercial software to Linux + freebies + $n
> of commercial software.

It's actually been a bit interesting.  Several software publishers are now
issuing commercial software, along with a "complimentary" Linux
distribution.  Flagship makes a clipper work-alike that sells for $200 and
comes with a complimentary Slackware Distribution.

There is also an abundance of corporate site-licenseable share-ware.
Single-user rates are "voluntary $30-50", corporate rates are "All you can
eat $2000-$5000/year compulsery".  The thinking is, individual users on
home computers generally don't want to spend lots of money on personal
software.  Corporate users don't like to have to endure 5-30 day delays
from the time the P.O. is filled out to the time the "Shrink Wrapped Box"
is delivered.  If a small publishing house can sell $5000/year
subscriptions to 200 businesses world-wide, there is suddenly a sufficient
revenue base to sustain the maintenance and enhancement cycle.  It isn't
terribly different from the way Microsoft deals with Hardware
Manufacturers.

> - Josh

	Rex



From rballard@cnj.digex.net Tue Jul  9 15:11:45 1996
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