| We probably found out for less money than Microsoft that the key to the netpc
is the software, not the hardware.
While it wasn't as accessible, everything that the large company system managers
liked about the Multia was included with Windows NT 4.0. And Win95. If you
are deploying more than several hundred PCs, then you want to study the
Resource Guide and implement all the central management features buried on
the CDROM.
We would be able to deliver the hardware and software for an instant on Multia
and so on before Microsoft and the hardware vendors could, but even a year
earlier would be a year after Microsoft's implementation would have been
presented in great detail and would have appeared in pieces in various betas
and SDKs.
For an example, think about PCMCIA. We sold an add on for desktops starting
3-4 years ago and stopped when most notebooks included them standard. But
Microsoft still hasn't delivered the functionality that they promised around
the time we started selling the add-on option. (The company whose option we
resold went out of business.)
Another example is USB. The system vendors who were shipping it a year ago
based on Microsoft delivering it a year ago have stopped shipping it because
software won't arrive until next year.
Ditto advanced power management.
All of these things would be critical to the hardware side of Multia.
And we would have to implement the software and give it to Microsoft
concurrent with shipping and then work the politics with Microsoft so
that we didn't have to do too much rework after Microsoft finally ships
to keep last years customers happy.
Microsoft doesn't talk about much of anything having to do with notebooks.
Consequently when we make the lightest, thinest notebook and then give it
to Bill Gates, we get a boost from Microsoft that costs them no market
direction control.
Bill Gates responding to Larry Ellison would slam any Multia product no
matter how hard Gates tried to avoid doing it.
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