running Linux at work with Windows apps

[bscott at ntisys.com]

On Tue, 12 Nov 2002, at 5:28pm, sconce at in-spec-inc.com wrote:
> Put another way, if there is a need continuing into the future to keep up
> with proprietary produccts VMWare may be a better choice.  Win4Lin's
> design target is more tightly focused.  Remember, for instance, that
> Win4Lin's support has always been limited to the DOS-based versions of the
> software formerly known as Windows.

  My thought -- okay, my unfounded speculation is that getting WinNT/2000/XP
to run under Win4Lin/Merge should be possible.  Win95/98/ME try to ignore
DOS once loaded, so the VM provided by Merge has to be reasonably complete
already.  It might just be a matter of tweaks and device drivers.

  As for the question of "Should they?", I think the potential market for
such emulation environments is good for the foreseeable future.  Microsoft
is going to be around for a long time (remember, there are companies still
running software written for IBM mainframes designed in the 1960s!).  Even
if everyone decides to move to Linux tomorrow, it will take awhile for all
that legacy code to die off.  Personally, I think adoption of Linux will
continue to be a gradual affair -- not a stampede -- giving products like
Win4Lin and VMware a steady stream of new customers for some time to come.

-- 
Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
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