Putting squeak in business.

Chris Muller afunkyobject at yahoo.com
Mon Nov 17 18:35:16 UTC 2003


> My own experience with squeak is that it only needs a decient
> web-browser and a usable word-processor as well as a few layout fixups
> to be ready for prime-time... 

I think the path to commercial success with Squeak on the large-scale you are
thinking is to use Squeak to lead, not follow.  Attempting to imitate
"web-browsing" and "word-processing" with Squeak would be a public-relations
"death" for Squeak.  How would you possibly sell it?  Lower-cost alone just
wouldn't cut it, IMHO.

I'm content to let MS wallow in the costly mess that is those legacy
"applications" (wp'ing and wb'ing).  Meanwhile, I'm trying to use Squeak to
build something entirely new and different in terms of what is in the
commercial mainstream.  Morphic is key, but an interface to launch people into
the legacy apps as well access to the XML representations of their document
"objects" would certainly help with their transition.

I truly believe there is a huge market of less-technical people who *want* to
wield the computer without having to rely so much on tech-savvy people..  It's
just that, they don't have an accessible tool other than "Excel" that they
understand that also doesn't close them in.

I like to think of Squeak as "tool-builder" and any end-user "products" I
create with it will have entirely different names; e.g., I won't be calling
them "Squeak".  A "Powered by Squeak" annotation could be helpful, though.

I could want nothing more than for you and others to have commercial success
using Squeak.  Please keep us posted.

Regards,
  Chris



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