Article: Document or else

[Gene Kim-Eng]

I can.  In fact, when I was a kid that's exactly the way it was with 
mobile/car
phones.  You connected to a "mobile operator," gave the operator the number
and it was dialed for you.  As a result of the inconvenience and higher 
cost,
mobile/car phones were as scarce as hen's teeth because few thought it worth
the cost or inconvenience that came with owning one.  We've seen the same
thing with cars; just look that the market penetration of diesel passenger 
cars
compared to gas powered ones, and the extreme rarity on the roads of
cars powered by propane and biodiesel (used cooking oil), despite the fact
that any common gas-powered vehicle can be converted to run on these
alternative fuels.  However, we don't see MS and other sofware companies
experiencing similar barriers to acceptance by paying customers.

Gene Kim-Eng



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Johnson, Tom" <TJohnson at starcutter.com>
To: "Katie Kearns" <katie.kearns at gmail.com>; "List,Techwriter" 
<techwr-l at lists.techwr-l.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 11:44 AM
Subject: RE: Article: Document or else


One of the rubs comes when you have to buy a particular product because 
someone else is locked into a proprietary format and you want to do work for 
them.

Can you imagine if cellular companies each had a different protocol and you 
had to carry a Verizon cell phone to talk to your friends with Verizon 
phones and a different "Sprint phone" to talk to your friends subscribing to 
Sprint? Or worse, since you brought cars into the debate, what if your 
automobile required a certain brand of gasoline? I'm sure you wouldn't mind 
hunting down a Shell gas station every time you need gas.