The Old Chestnut - Again

[Richard Gaskin]

Dan Shafer wrote:
> On Nov 26, 2005, at 12:34 PM, David Bovill wrote:
> 
>> No-one has managed to do this with software components yet. My view  
>> is that due to the technology and community involved in the  
>> Revolution environment - RunRev are uniquely placed to pull such a  
>> trick off. Whether anyone agrees with me on that is another question.
>
> I have given up on this dream. In the 70's and 80's, several  companies 
> tried -- with true object-oriented platforms such as  Smalltalk and Java 
> -- to create viable third-party marketplaces for  software components, 
> to no avail. I think it's an unattainable  objective, for reasons that 
> are far too complex to go into on this  forum.

There is one exception:  components for Microsoft's Visual Basic.  As of 
five years ago the aftermarket for VB was estimated at more than $400 
million.

Of course, anyone intimately familiar with Microsoft can describe the 
underhanded shennanigans Microsoft pulled to get that market going (oh, 
the stories I've heard).

Among companies operating in any above-board fashion, there are indeed 
few examples.  Once upon a time Fourth World was the leading externals 
distributor for SuperCard -- even before SuperCard's troubles under 
Allegiant, selling components is just not an easy business to be in. 
It's a low-margin, high-support proposition.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
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