kennywtelejazz
 
I thought that in the real world any gigantic company that puts out a product that the consumer simply does not care for or want, at least in my mind or so  i thought ….
that they would have to abide by that fact and accordingly  adjust themselves to providing something the customer really wants ?…if they want to stay in bizznez ..
Yes ? NO ?  
Kenny

That paradigm only applies when a company is not a monopoly. When a company can dictate to over 90% of the personal computers on earth what they will be running, they do not have to care. The cost of switching millions and millions of computers and all of the software they run to a new OS is simply not an available option.
 
People tend to think that monopoly is a deliberate manipulation of the market and affects mainly price, but an effective monopoly also de-couples the expected consumer input from the decisions of the monopolist. Even if Microsoft had not engaged in a wide array of anticompetitive practices, it would still be able to maintain its power just from the installed user base. If they want you to use their cloud services, which provide them with valuable information about how you use your/their systems, or rent you their software by the month, instead of selling a perpetual license effectively limited by end of support, they are going to be able to do that whether you like it or not.
 
Cakewalk, and other application providers are more or less forced to toe the line as well. So if you want to run Windows based applications at full speed with reasonable stability, you are not only going to need Windows, you are going to need the Windows that Microsoft wants you to need.

Nothing Kenny. I don't see a problem either. If you don't want to have your DAW on the net I don't see why you think it is required. 

slartabartfast
... If they want you to use their cloud services, which provide them with valuable information about how you use your/their systems, or rent you their software by the month, instead of selling a perpetual license effectively limited by end of support, they are going to be able to do that whether you like it or not.
 

Gods, that's depressing.  But true.  Maybe it's time for Sonar and LINUX.
 

MS tells me my non-touch 27" monitor should look and feel like a 9" tablet. Except physically 3x bigger. More better access to Pinterest, I guess. Oh, and there's that ribbon thing that I'm still pissed about (long story). Meanwhile, Apple tells me my RAM should be soldered to the motherboard, so "better overpay upfront for our overpriced modules"... and May the Lord Almighty help you when you find out 18 months later when somebody on a interweb forum tells you that you should have maxed the RAM out to begin with in order to run ABC and XYZ on the same laptop. Infinite wisdom all around. Though I do love my various Win 7 boxes and 2011 MacBook Pros... Who knows, in the future I just may end up running some version of OSX on a cheap windows PC (i.e., PC hardware without a Mac logo) if we keep going down this path. I want what I want, I know what I want, and this ain't it.

slartabartfast

kennywtelejazz
 
I thought that in the real world any gigantic company that puts out a product that the consumer simply does not care for or want, at least in my mind or so  i thought ….
that they would have to abide by that fact and accordingly  adjust themselves to providing something the customer really wants ?…if they want to stay in bizznez ..
Yes ? NO ?  
Kenny

That paradigm only applies when a company is not a monopoly. When a company can dictate to over 90% of the personal computers on earth what they will be running, they do not have to care. The cost of switching millions and millions of computers and all of the software they run to a new OS is simply not an available option.
 
People tend to think that monopoly is a deliberate manipulation of the market and affects mainly price, but an effective monopoly also de-couples the expected consumer input from the decisions of the monopolist. Even if Microsoft had not engaged in a wide array of anticompetitive practices, it would still be able to maintain its power just from the installed user base. If they want you to use their cloud services, which provide them with valuable information about how you use your/their systems, or rent you their software by the month, instead of selling a perpetual license effectively limited by end of support, they are going to be able to do that whether you like it or not.
 
Cakewalk, and other application providers are more or less forced to toe the line as well. So if you want to run Windows based applications at full speed with reasonable stability, you are not only going to need Windows, you are going to need the Windows that Microsoft wants you to need.

Hello startabartfast , 
 
I sincerly appreciate that you posted this and I marked it helpful ….
you have  amply demonstrated to me that you are a very smart person  
you were able to concisely address to me what I was having a hard time accepting and putting into a useable working perspective that I could live with and accept as a useable compromise ….
 
I find absolutely  no consolation or comfort in the fact that Cakewalk, and other application providers are more or less forced to toe the line …...
 
if ever there was a time where I needed to choose my words very wisely …this would be it
 
thank you for taking the time to post what you did , 
 
Kenny

Tell me about any globalist monopoly that isn't sucking the life out of anything. In M$s defence their software is much more reliable than in the past. Their patches do improve stability. Their release pattern is generally one step backwards followed by two steps forwards. M$ is increasingly worried about their relevance hence they are taking risks and panic measures. From a software development perspective having more baseline versions is extremely sensible.

CakeAlexS
Tell me about any globalist monopoly that isn't sucking the life out of anything. In M$s defence their software is much more reliable than in the past. Their patches do improve stability. Their release pattern is generally one step backwards followed by two steps forwards. M$ is increasingly worried about their relevance hence they are taking risks and panic measures. From a software development perspective having more baseline versions is extremely sensible.

Tell me about any universally adopted technology that has not improved in stability or usability since 1975.
 
Another hidden cost of monopoly, is that it frees the monopolist from the demand to make major efforts to improve the product. Undoubtedly Microsoft has improved their operating systems, but we will never know how much more they could have done if they had to make improvements in order to compete. We can certainly guess that security issues that plagued them for decades, and were only addressed when the predation of the malware industry threatened to drive serious users to alternatives, would have come sooner if alternatives had been available.
 
I think that they are a great deal less interested in loss of relevance, than they are envious of the profits and stock valuation of competitors such as Apple, which has always been a hardware company and only done software to make their own stuff run. Apple envy has brought us the Surface, and a hope to monopolize operating systems for iPhone competitors. Both of these efforts have resulted in the clumsy Modern/Metro interface. In an effort to manipulate users too lazy to learn a new GUI to buy MS hardware and MS clients phones they forced a unified interface on the workplace computer users, who were much better served by less "user friendly" interfaces.

So they sit back in envy and do nothing because they are big and wealthy? I don't think so.

They are simply driven by market share and changing technology fashions. Even MS or Apple realise they are dead if they don't listen to their customers or take risks and innovate, it may take them a while to do it right but in the end they do (or they will die). You just have to look at research in motion for a classic example of this. RIM and their phones became irrelevant. MS is extremely frightened of becoming irrelevant otherwise they would not have released Win8 with metro etc. Time will tell if they were right or not, they certainly got it wrong first time around (half baked because they were far too late in the game,they did exactly the same when people started using the internet but got there in the end).

OS2
 
 

Right on! :)