Hi!

>I think I have a marketing strategy for Squeak. If we look at the market,
>we see a lot of people using Windows. So, why not reuse this? What would
>happen if we would offer Windows to these users across all platforms? I.e.
>it looks like Windows but it is Squeak with a Windows look and feel!
>(Windows is not that bad, I assume quite bright people have thought about
>its user interface and design).

I don't want to stop your enthusiasm, but IMHO it's not the Windows look
and feel but the number of available applications that make people use
Windows. I use Windows just because of the existance of Winword (and a
couple of other tools) but not because of the look (and especially not the
feel). Actually, I always admired the NeXT computer because of its
beautifully designed user interface. Even Be's (mac-like?) GUI or Sun's new
HotMetal java L&F is nicer to look at than Windows. Windows, well, I'm used
to it but I can't say I really like the design. It's functional and
definitely better than Squeak's oldish MVC look ;-) but not my reason
number one. If you want me to use Squeak, implement Java's new look
(including all that powerful new Swing widgets of course ;-)

And there's another problem, I think. I don't believe that you can just
create a GUI which looks like Windows. I don't know Microsoft's exact
policy but I know that Sun wasn't allowed to provide the Windows look for
other platforms than Windows PCs.

>Of course, there remains the problem of the application software. But we
>don't have to think about what is needed. Apparently all what is needed in
>a business environment is an office suite (wordprocessor, spreadsheet,
>agenda, address list and mail) AND some way to access ye olde mainframe
>(3270 link). And of course importcapabilities for reading existing
>documents and so on (considered investments). So, suppose we would develop
>such a suite...

Don't underestimate the amout of work. I really like the idea to have a
(small) office suite available in Smalltalk, but instead of trying to
reimplement (and reinvent) these applications in Smalltalk, another idea
might be more realistic.

I think, somebody already mentioned this idea. If you can combine the
instruction set of Squeak with the instruction set of Java in one VM, it
might be possible to host Java based components in a Squeak image. This
would be interesting for a lot of people, as this would bring Squeak to the
masses (of Java programmers).

>A bigger problem might be supporting games. We shouldn't underestimate
>thepower of games when it comes to deciding which OS people use. It is
>crucial to support games (look at M$ and its DirectX).

That's a very true point. It seems that Windows 95 was truely accepted
after there was a number of games which ran on Windows. Nowadays, most
games need Windows 95 and don't support DOS anymore. And Microsoft's
strategy to add more gaming support to NT is another indication that the
statement is true.


bye
--
Stefan Matthias Aust  //  Are you ready to discover the twilight zone?