Re: Base64 string save to binary file
"Tommy" wrote:
If 2% (btw, the subjective stat on this page is 3.4% as off
April 2008) of your market, then why is support Linux popular if
its only 0.34%
I am not sure about Linux popularity, BTW. A couple of years ago
there was a lot of Linux hype how it will replace Windows very
soon etc.. However, since then I cannot recall any major progress
in the matter. Linux has very specific niche and unles one targets
this niche on purpose, nobody cares about Linux.
Win2K's share shrinks every day into non-existence.
And look at XP, which is 79% of the market place, according to
your angle that Microsoft discontinue it, do you honestly
believe that will be the case for the rest of the world?
MS won't discontinue it soon. This assumption is totally
unsubstantial. Moreover, thanks to the huge market share of WinXP
some MS products that were initially intended for newer OS'es
later were redesigned to run on XP SP2. (For example, IE7. IE8 was
designed with XP in mind from the beginning.)
If you have a WIN32 product line, where the only difference is
BASE64, you would be foolish to lock out a potential market of
users to depend on a technology that does not exist on certain
systems.
Agreed.
Now if you said aupport a WIN2K ONLY FEATURE, then I would agree
with you there. It doesn't pay to lock yourself to an old OS
only.
Win2K is not merely an old OS. It is an old OS that vanishes with
every passing day.
For the most part, its decision of
- Roll your own libary
- Use a 3rd party library
- Or depend on MS offering it.
The machine is the same. The only thing that has changed is
your dependency on MS.
However, the options are not equivalent. Every option has its
price. There always is a tradeoff between available R&D resources
and potentional revenues you can get for product features.
Supporting Win2K just doesn't justify the effort anymore for the
majority of products.
Alex