[Ti] Apple's True Market Share!

[Mike Stanley]

Winmodems, which were originally known as "controller-less" modems, don't
really seem to me to be "optimizing" hardware for a particular operating
system.

I was doing dial-up support when those first hit the market and over the
time when they first became popular, and while it is true that they were
designed to allow software (in this case Windows) make use of them, I don't
think the goal was to "optimize" for any particular OS - it was to reduce
the cost of the modem to next to nothing and thus reduce the cost of
machines they were sold in by a decent bit.  When real modems were still
selling for $100 or more I remember seeing these things on special at
CompUSA for $5-$15 - just get people in the store.  I also remember having
to tell a whole bunch of people with low-end machines that the reason their
internet access was so slow was because they were running these pieces of
junk winmodems on P166 machines or worse.

I just don't think it is fair (or especially accurate) to claim winmodems as
a sort of conspiracy between hardware makers (in this case modem
manufacturers) and Microsoft.  The modem companies dropped their cost on
part of their product line tremendously and targeted it at the largest group
of users possible.  That they didn't also produce Linux drivers for them may
show they're lazy at worst - or more likely smart business people - why
write drivers for such a tiny (in their opinion) portion of the market -
especially when that section proves every day that it can come up with its
own?



----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Olson" <chris at astcomm.net>
To: "PowerBook G4 Titanium List" <Titanium at lists.themacintoshguy.com>
Sent: Friday, December 13, 2002 9:19 AM
Subject: Re: [Ti] Apple's True Market Share!


> the field.  After this, I will be sure to send anybody your way for help
> with the unix drivers for all the winmodems I and many other people
> never been able to get to work with anything but windows.  Just one
> small example of how hardware is optimized for a particular operating
> system.