Linked by David Adams on Mon 4th Oct 2010 19:32 UTC, submitted by Idefix
Once upon a time, operating systems used to matter a lot; they defined what a computer could and couldn't do... Today, there's only one operating system: Unix (okay, there are two, but we'll get to that). This is why I contend that the OS doesn't matter - or that we need to take another look at the word's content, at what we mean when we say 'Operating System'.
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RE[3]: Once upon time...
by tylerdurden on Tue 5th Oct 2010 19:29
in reply to "RE[2]: Once upon time..."
Member since:2009-03-17
Yeah, he was so "ahead of his time" that BeOS did not even bothered to have a proper networking stack even for its "internet appliance" OS iteration. Sounds more like jumping the shark to me.
The whole BeIA was an attempt at staying afloat by throwing a bowl of spaghetti to the wall and seeing what stuck. I would't call that as being "ahead of one's time" but rather an act of desperation.
Specially if you consider that Be spent a significant deal of effort into their BeFS, touting their filesystem as one of their main value propositions. Only to end up targeting the BeIA platform towards basically diskless clients. Brilliant!
Edited 2010-10-05 19:32 UTC
RE[4]: Once upon time...
by r_a_trip on Wed 6th Oct 2010 10:13
in reply to "RE[3]: Once upon time..."
Member since:2005-07-06
tylerdurden, maybe Be wasn't ready technically to deliver an Internet Appliance platform, but that doesn't take away the fact that back then the Internet, as a platform, hadn't arrived either.
Of course it was a last ditch effort, that is what "bet the farm" alludes to. You back a strategy which could sink you, if it doesn't pan out. The desktop market proved to be unassailable and providing an Internet appliance platform was too soon, so yeah, Be sunk.
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Member since:
2005-07-06
Of course MS had an iron grip on the market back then and that didn't help things, but ultimately JLG bet the farm on becoming an Internet Appliance developer with BeIA and that backfired. JLG was just too far ahead of his time. No one had broadband and Facebook addiction wasn't invented yet.