From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <9e0dd08a5bd8022ad8760b54e360128d@coraid.com> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications? From: Brantley Coile Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 10:33:57 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Topicbox-Message-UUID: 04644af8-eace-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 To be more serious than probably required, here are my thoughts on the question of `Plan 9 killer apps.' The term killer app is somewhat misleading in that when we hear it we tend to think about the product not the user of the product. The term really means that there are groups of people who can use the benefits of that product over others, giving the product a competive advantage. The classic example is the Apple MacIntosh. It was lost as long as it was meant to replace the IBM PC, but as soon as folks at Apple realised that there were people in companies who need to work with typesetting and got the word out to them that the Mac was very good at desktop publishing, the Mac was a hit. This discussion has been indirectly doing that in talking about features, all of which, I think, are good ones. It seems to me, however, a better question would be who can benefit most from the unique features of Plan 9. Or, to put it another way, Who are the users and what are the benefits of Plan 9 features to them that they couldn't get any where else. Brantley Coile www.coraid.com