Comments on: Disruptive technologies http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2006/04/25/disruptive-technologies/ Dave Neary's view of the world Sun, 11 Dec 2011 14:17:21 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Claus Schwarm http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2006/04/25/disruptive-technologies/comment-page-1/#comment-196 Claus Schwarm Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2006/04/25/disruptive-technologies/#comment-196 I disagree: GNOME shouldn't be a little bit more like Howard Stern.<p/>If you spend 8 hours a day with an old Motif application to calculate a chemical reaction you don't mind much about the innovation withing the desktop. If you spend most of your time with a strange KDE application to compose a song, you don't need an innovative desktop.<p/>Users only care about content and the means to process the content -- they need up-to-date applications, not a desktop that mistakes "being different" for "being disruptive". I disagree: GNOME shouldn’t be a little bit more like Howard Stern.

If you spend 8 hours a day with an old Motif application to calculate a chemical reaction you don’t mind much about the innovation withing the desktop. If you spend most of your time with a strange KDE application to compose a song, you don’t need an innovative desktop.

Users only care about content and the means to process the content — they need up-to-date applications, not a desktop that mistakes “being different” for “being disruptive”.

]]> By: Calum Benson http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2006/04/25/disruptive-technologies/comment-page-1/#comment-197 Calum Benson Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2006/04/25/disruptive-technologies/#comment-197 Well, I did specify StarOffice rather than OpenOffice :) When Sun bought StarDivision, the product and its user base was already mature, so it didn't really get the option to start from scratch (although StarDivision themselves did, of course). I don't know off-hand how many customers have paid Sun for StarOffice, but there's no doubt it brings in significant money, and it would take brave man to mess with a flagship product. (I don't deny that part of being disruptive involves making those brave decisions, but that's always harder with boards and shareholders to keep happy.)<p/>There's no disputing that Firefox has done amazingly well, although on the face of it the technology itself doesn't seem especially disruptive-- it's just one of many decent web browsers out there these days, neither the best nor the worst IMHO. It's probably more the community that's done the disrupting in Firefox's case, which is cool too. Well, I did specify StarOffice rather than OpenOffice :) When Sun bought StarDivision, the product and its user base was already mature, so it didn’t really get the option to start from scratch (although StarDivision themselves did, of course). I don’t know off-hand how many customers have paid Sun for StarOffice, but there’s no doubt it brings in significant money, and it would take brave man to mess with a flagship product. (I don’t deny that part of being disruptive involves making those brave decisions, but that’s always harder with boards and shareholders to keep happy.)

There’s no disputing that Firefox has done amazingly well, although on the face of it the technology itself doesn’t seem especially disruptive– it’s just one of many decent web browsers out there these days, neither the best nor the worst IMHO. It’s probably more the community that’s done the disrupting in Firefox’s case, which is cool too.

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