"It's the applications, stupid!" At least that's how one senior IBM executive explained the looming failure of OS/2 Warp 3. The year was 1995, and I was a young technical marketing consultant under contract to the Software Solutions Group. We were discussing the "how's and why's" of Microsoft success on the desktop. SWS/PSP had only recently dumped its ISV program (in retrospect, a really, really bad move) and t “It’s the applications, stupid!”At least that’s how one senior IBM executive explained the looming failure of OS/2 Warp 3. The year was 1995, and I was a young technical marketing consultant under contract to the Software Solutions Group. We were discussing the “how’s and why’s” of Microsoft success on the desktop. SWS/PSP had only recently dumped its ISV program (in retrospect, a really, really bad move) and those of us on the inside were watching with mixed emotions as the tide of Windows application dominance slowly rose around us.Of the many lessons I took away from that experience, by far the most compelling was this: An operating system is only as good as the applications that run on it. Combine that with the old saw, “you get what you pay for,” and you begin to appreciate why a thriving, commercial, 3rd-party development community is essential to building a lasting presence in the marketplace. Without it, you get something like, well, Ubuntu. Yes, Ubuntu ships with applications. And yes, you can download whole bit buckets full of additional ones from the various repositories. However, quantity rarely yields quality, and in the case of Ubuntu’s application library (and that of Linux in general), the quality often falls well below the standards that most PC (or even Mac) customers have come to expect.“What about OpenOffice?”, you say, “and Firefox?”OpenOffice doesn’t really count since its origins are commercial and transcend even the earliest permutations of Linux (I was running demos back during my IBM days, when it was still called StarOffice and hailed from a little company in Germany). So, too, can Firefox’s origins be traced back to a well-funded commercial venture (Netscape). In fact, most of the “showcase” applications for Ubuntu (and Linux in general) are nothing more than poor cousins to commercial variants on other platforms. And free or not, nobody wants to take “bug-eyed cousin Mel” to the high school dance. As for the rest: GIMP? It’s like Photoshop on acid – with a UI from the same guys who brought you “vi” (i.e. the text editor, not the rare tropical disease).F-Spot? My wife jokes that, like me, they’re still “off by one letter.” Totem Player? Evolution? Gnome itself? All low-quality knock-offs with enough quirks to turn “The Hof” bald.In fact, the same can be said of the myriad “but what about…” alternatives that I’m sure I’ll get flamed over in the next few weeks. Quantity doesn’t equal quality. And when you’re up against an entrenched commercial player with a massive 3rd party ecosystem, “good enough” rarely is.Trivia Time: Can anyone guess where IBM got the idea for the whole OS/2 “Warp” campaign? I’ll give you a hint: It involved too much sun (the Personal Software Products division was still based in Boca at the time), too little sleep (gads, that Cuban coffee is STRONG) and a conveniently misplaced copy of the “Star Fleet Technical Manual.” Trust me on this one. I was there. Next up: Epilogue (Nothing ‘bout Me) Software DevelopmentSmall and Medium Business