Quote:
Originally Posted by rcentros
If you've never used WordStar, fine. But don't start with these patronizing psychological profiles when you really don't have a clue why people liked (and still like) WordStar.
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Whoa.
I'm not profiling anybody and certainly not anybody *today*.
I'm reporting well-documented facts from the early 80's when corporate IT was wrestling with issues of training, file conversions,printer drivers, and what not.
It was all over INFOWORLD, COMPUTERWORLD, PC WEEK etc.
Getting regular users up to speed was a big issue, which is where the training industry sprung from, and then getting them to switch was a bigger one as the crown of "category king" switched from one product to another. Line managers and IT had big fights over it: one side fretted over wasted time and effort retraining and the other over the costs and issues arising from supporting pockets of oddball and "deprecated" products.
That stuff *happened*.
I saw it happen and I saw it dealt with.
And the way it was dealt with was "everybody" settling on MS Office as the standard--whichover Word Oerfect, over DEC, over IBM, over Wang--which is why Office today has so much sticking power even in the face of free. We hear all sorts of anecdotes of this place or that switching to google or Open Office or what not. And it happens. But what happens most often is that IT departments stick with Office and as their companies grow, so does Office use. IT departments are absurdly conservative because they remember what things were like when they weren't.
Corporate cultures have looonggg memories.
(And apparently so does GRRM.)
