Time to regulate the software industry?

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I have confidence that the market is self-regulating.: Example: fully 30% of the Windows XP installs among my small-business clients are now broken, largely due to malware and buggy device drivers. They don't have in-house IT staff, nor the time or interest or expertise to debug the issues themselves (nor an interest in doubling the original cost of the machine to pay an outside technician to attempt to fix things). The solution: some have gone back to older versions of Windows (Win2K in particular is still very popular), some have replaced Windows boxes with Macs or installed Linux/BSD, others have completely ditched the PC for a PDA or a smart phone (I understand that this in endemic among the younger generation in Japan and Korea). Hence, a sort of natural selection of the fittest is taking place, as future Windows purchases have been nipped in the bud, so to speak, and the Windows line is essentially going extinct for these business owners. A line of software which appears to be unfit for survival under current conditions is suffering (what was it I read--near the end of XP's product life and yet a huge chunk of Windows users never upgraded?) and alternative "life forms" (fit products) are surviving to carry on.

This also happens to other products as well. Anybody remember the fiasco when Roxio took over Easy CD Creator and the world went into an uproar because essentially the product (version 5 if I recall) didn't work for a large proportion of the users? Well, since that time every CD/DVD burner I've purchased myself or for someone else has come with the competing Nero product. It's pretty much ubiquitous now. The Roxio product still exists but has been left in the dust by the number of Nero installs. It appears to be headed for extinction.

It may be painful in the transition, but the Natural Selection of the Market (if left to do its own thing without government or big business interference) will dictate that buggy software will go extinct, to be replaced by fitter products. If the software causes security problems for the user (for whatever reason), that's certainly perceived as being unfit by the average user and they'll look at alternatives. The average user doesn't have any product loyalty or agenda (or really any particular devotion their PC, to be blunt about it). They just want it to work. If it doesn't, its on to Option B. Option B may be very painful to one software/hardware vendor or another, but that's how natural selection operates--dispassionately and without prejudice but also without mercy.

At least, that's my observation after 25 years of buying software.; Posted by: Yen_z Posted on: 02/17/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use