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0 pointssmacktoward9y ago0 comments

That was IBM's strategy for killing Windows with OS/2 -- shipping OS/2 with extremely robust support for running Windows applications right alongside OS/2 ones. The marketing people pitched it as "a better Windows than Windows."

It didn't work; third party developers saw that a Windows app could serve both the Windows and OS/2 markets and focused all their energy on their Windows app, usually not bothering to write an OS/2 version at all. The result was that Windows' big moat -- its application library -- actually got deeper. IBM's big plan to kill Windows ended up cementing its position as a dominant platform.

0 pointssmacktoward9y ago0 comments

0 comments

5 comments · 3 top-level

DavidFlint9y ago· 2 in thread

They were both growing rapidly in a brand new market. What I am proposing is a solution for low budget OS to have ANY chance against duopoly. If Mozilla would allow painless wrapping Android apps, I bet their platform would be in a different place now. I remember my non-technical friends saying they like Mozilla for price etc, but they won't get it as there is no apps.

fabrice_d9y ago

I don't think you're right. What killed FxOS was not a lack of wrapper to run Android apps (we actually got one that worked).

What makes or break a Mobile OS is the availability of the key apps for the market you're going after: whatsapp, FB, Twitter, etc. (that varies based on the region).

detaro9y ago

> What killed FxOS was not a lack of wrapper to run Android apps (we actually got one that worked).

Was that ever released? I saw it on Mozilla employees' dev phones, but nowhere else.

1 more reply

iamnotlarry9y ago

This is a classic lesson. Firefox OS tried to invert it. You could run FxOS apps on Android devices. And Windows devices. And Linux devices.

MS is doing somewhat the IBM thing with their Linux for Windows. I've been curious to see if that would have the same result for them that it had for IBM.

gcb09y ago

didn't work because Microsoft noticed it and played them perfectly well. getting away with the only rewrite windows ever got (nt) for free.

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