Derek:
>From: Derek Atkins <warlord(_at_)mit(_dot_)edu>
>Subject: Re: Re[2]: Is PGP really more widespread than PEM?
>Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1994 21:12:24 EST
>> I agree with John. Is there anyone from Viacrypt on the list who is
>> willing to share the number of commercial PGP licenses ? Is it
>> anywhere near the number of Apple System 7.5 users ?
>
>No offense, Steve, but these blanket comparrisons are completely
>bogus. You can't compare the number of owners of a product to the
>number of people who use a specific feature of that product!
Einar Stefferud makes a good living out of doing just this, as do a number
of other IETF gurus! Management gurus have done it for years, also.
Pass to the last para, if you wish to avoid soap:-
---------
Take one his recent public pronouncements and catch-phrases designed to ensnare
the undecided in the messaging arena:-
"X.400 is growing linearly, whereas the Internet is growing exponentially" ...
(pause...)
See similar guruland myths about simplicity of design, and complexity
of X.435 responsibility protocol, for example...
Is he comparing like with like?
Or is it a blanket nonsense or otherwise semantic rubbish? like
"low-fat butter" feeding on a fad, and hype?
Is he referring to a feature of X.400 - its suitability for mission
cricitial open messaging in both inter and intra business use, versus
the owners of the Interent (the users!) who have large number of
(contradictory) goals probably undefinable but large and expanding
exponentially!?
Who knows? Its Guru and sales-person talk. However many susceptible
people are being taken in by this reasoning tack. They are denied
real choice, thereby.
But he gets away with it, and IMHO uses such ambiguity to mislead a
large number of people down a path which suits his beliefs, and
presumably his own business goals.
However, good luck to him, and his emulators and partners, and his
satisfied users. Bogus statements passively or actively rubbishing the
competition often aid sales in a commodity market offering only of a
single level of service. How else can one differentiate oneself from n
other identical products or services!?. Especially if there is little
added-value to be offered otherwise.
Back to PEM and PGP - and (more importantly) standards processes for
this market area which is well-expected to explode into a several
billon dollar p.a. industry:-
---------
The whole point of my big picture argument is that PEM should not fall
into this Guru trap. Gurus are happy to scamper around the edges of a
market and obtain personal profits of 100-200K. Large company corporate
investors are not! Let PEM differentiate itself by its quality, and its
commitement to an infrastructure goal which enables realization of the
market. let the market offer multiple qualities and modalities of
service in security and models. Its clear thats what the users of the
world (not just in the US) really want, as Ted states.