Unfairness to MS

I know they dump shit on us, but... why should they get sued for not releasing documentation and whatnot for technology they develop? Does the U.S.A say to Russia "Hey, we made nukes, you want some?" -- or does Russia sue the U.S for having them?

If third party companies are loosing sales because Microsoft are developing better technology then thats their problem. Its not that hard to create something more new and innovative than Microsoft is it, they should care less about profits and more about the consumer. The whole Antitrust thing is absurd and illogical. Much like Draconus.

My 2c.

Agreed. The ways people are bending this antitrust stuff are going to come back later and bite us all in the ass.

It's funny now, but just wait until these completely over-used laws, coupled with the wonders of bureaucracy and common-law, affect a company that nobody minds.

Edit:
Hm... Riddick...
Wow, they turned off the censor!
(Yep, I must be blind or something).

It's most assuredly not because Microsoft are developing better technology. Microsoft don't develop new technology - they buy it.

Why? It is in the interest of a free market to prevent or limit the spread of a single monopolistic company. When a government allowsw companies to incorporate, thereby protecting them from financial liability, it doesn't seem unfair for the government to require said companies to refrain from abusing that protection.

No they aren't. Antitrust laws only apply to monopolies.

I wonder why people need to defent Microsoft at all times too - surely, if they care so much about their reputation, they would do something about it?
I don't see them crying all the way to the bank either..

Antitrust laws only apply to companies that people don't like.

> I wonder why people need to defent Microsoft at all times too

I've always wondered why so many more people feel the need to bash them. Not about the obviously anti-competitive things MS does, but read the comments on every article (1) at www.news.com about MS and the very first talkback post can be summed up as "MS Sucks".

(1) - I've read about a hundred articles from there on MS and every one I can remember had this happen.

Microsoft has the best development IDEs and debuggers. There's nothing else that even comes close. And they're free.

Dunno if this rumour is true, but I heard something about MS asking/paying Adobe to make Photoshop run slower on Mac. Naturally with the intention to draw ppl towards Windows. (not that I care about that, btw)

That wouldn't be in Adobes interests.

Unless MS compensates them, it *is* in MS's interests! And MS has oodles o' money to compensate Adobe.

Just because you say it, doesn't make it so.

Not by any stretch of the words meaning.

Money isn't in Adobes interest? Since when?

Just because you say his saying it doesent make it so doesn't make it so that his saying it make it not so. :)

As far as I have seen, Microsoft's IDEs and debuggers are way ahead of anything else (and I know for a fact that my opinion is not in the minority). I'm using it now, and like it better than any IDE I have ever come across.

It makes sense that there will be some who don't like the Visual Studio IDE (as personal preference can vary greatly), but for the large majority, the Visual Studio IDE leads to higher productivity due it's extreme ease of use.

However, I know you wouldn't say that for no reason, so if you can think of an IDE even remotely better, please let me know.


How do you come by that? Visual Studio 2005 Express is FREE, with absolutely no "fine print". You can download it. Free. You can use it as long as you want, for anything you want. Free. If this isn't free, then nothing is.

However, if you mean it's not open source, that's true. And if you mean it could be an advertising scheme to get more people to buy the Professional edition, that's probably true too. But the fact remains: VS Express is free.

The visual studio tools are like drug dealers giving out free samples.
It ties you to the platform because they use .NET

That's a little biased, isn't it? I hardly think you can compare .NET to drugs.

.NET is just a big library of useful functions. Of course, .NET is not cross-platform (and I don't use it at all, even though I use Visual C++ 2005), but that's something the developer has to consider when choosing what libraries to use (please do not get "library" this mixed up with "IDE" or "compiler"!)

What about Blitz3D's trial? It definitely got many of us "tied" to game programming. But you don't compare that to a drug sample, do you?

Seriously, any programming language will tie you to something (GCC, Visual C++, Borland C++, etc.), it simply depends on what you prefer being tied to. Some people prefer keeping away from .NET due to it's non cross-platform nature, while others are less interested in porting to mac/linux, and that's fine with me.

Good point, I've never thought about it like that!

Dabz

[EDIT] Just read Johns post, which he has a point too! ;)

Leiden, you should have posted a link to a relevant article, cause i (and i suspect others) don't really know what you're talking about.

last time MS got sued it was over, oh i don't know, they get sued so often... hmm, look at this:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=microsoft+sued&meta=

also, look at this:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=apple+sued&meta=

i guess that being sued is part and parcel of being a big corporation.

That's true. Please feel free to prove my assertion wrong.


Since you didn't explain yourself, as per usual, I have to assume that this is some sort of reference to the fact that .NET locks you into the Windows platform and such. And while Mono makes that assertion untrue to an extent, I'll have to assume that's what you meant. If it isn't, please expand a little on what you're saying.

I'm writing Windows software so I don't care about that. If someone is looking for the most powerful development environment available for the Windows platform, Microsoft is providing it.

For free.


Selling off their dominant position on the Mac platform for a few bucks from Microsoft would be fiscally insane. Unless Adobe is retarded, the plan stated above would be very much not in their interests.

I'm using it now too. I would switch to Eclipse if I could. The debugger might be nice, I couldn't say, I don't really use it.

The Visual Studio IDE leads to higher productivity than using NotePad (or MaxIDE) if you know exactly what you want, and get it right the first time (or are too stubborn to realise your initial design might have been flawed. If your customer requests changes (you're doing that whole agile "pay as you go" thing) then Visual Studio is going to give you nightmares, and going to cost you a fortune as you pay engineers weeks worth of salery to manually do tasks that could be trivially automated.

Read the EULA again. There's plenty of fine print.

True. The .Net platform isn't addictive, nor does using it get you high. But it certainly has all the negative effects. :o>

You cannot prove an opinion wrong that is not based on facts.

So your assertation is that Visual Studio Express is a more powerful developer environment than proper Visual Studio? Well while the Express version has less useless crap (like no web services for starters), I seriously doubt that the majoprity of VS users would support your assertation. Hey I prefer the Express Version too personally. That doesn't make it the most powerful.

Who said anything about a few bucks? Microsoft have already demonstrates that they are willing to spend billions of dollars to anihilate their competitors (Netscape, Java, the PS2 and the iPod off the top of my head). Why wouldn't they spend a fraction of that on wiping out their last real threat in their main market segment.

I disagree. Due to .net there is mono and due to mono there's unity and due to unity there's on-/offline and crossplatform 3d for taumel...hooray M$!

By the way they've released 1.2 http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page

Slowing down Photoshop on Macs is going to eliminate ... who? Apple? That's so far out of the realm of reality it's not even worth discussing.

As for the rest of your reply ... I can't go any further into this thread, sorry. You're not providing any arguments, just standard Microsoft ranting. You'll need to provide some clear examples/evidence of what you're saying before I'll get involved again.

From what I'm seeing you don't use the debugger, you can't figure out the help system, and you'd clearly be happier using a text editor than the IDE. I don't see where to go from here.

Mac has always been the 'creative computer' according to Macoids, when PC's entered those same realms ppl started moving towards the PC. Mac obviously can't stand that, so they bought Emagic (makers of Logic, a sequencer) and discontinued the PC line (even tho 90% of the codecore was crossplatform). I guess it's fairly logical that companies wish to 'shanghai' potential customers into their realms Apple "tried" so with Emagic (ppl just moved to Sonar or Cubase :P), and M$ tries the same with Adobe..

I'm not sure how you came to this conclusion. Just recently I had to redesign an entire portion of my engine in the Visual Studio IDE (file/class/etc. structure) due to more demanding needs, and I it couldn't have been easier, thanks to Visual Studio's IDE.

I don't even want to think about how hard it would be if I used another editor. I won't go on about all the features that made my restructuring so easy, but I could if you want.


You're right, there's plenty of fine print. But none of it cripples your ability to use it as if it was a paid for product. You can publish your programs made with it, commercially or otherwise. That's what I meant by no "fine print".


I honestly haven't used .Net, so you probably are absolutely right. However, I've never heard of these "negative effects" before, so I would appreciate it if you could list some of them.


I can "prove an assertion wrong". Provided that it is wrong, of course.


I don't think so. I think he's saying:
1. Microsoft provides the most powerful development environment for windows (Visual Studio IDE).
2. Microsoft provides an express version of the Visual Studio IDE for free.
3. The express version of the Visual Studio IDE is still more powerful than any other windows IDE on the market

Please feel free to prove any of those assertions wrong with any evidence you may have.

Relevant articles would be:

http://www.networkcomputing.com/showitem.jhtml?docid=1507colpreston

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4552214.stm

I reckon it sucks. Why do you think the European Commission is suing Microsoft so much? Its because of Money. I bet they sit around a table and look for something to sue them for.

Notibly:
"Hey, Microsoft is forcing users to use their media player instead of competitions. Lets sue them and make them make a special windows with no media player bundled".

Thats absolutely suckful. Thats like saying McAffe should use AVG's virus kernel because its unfair. Lame, lame, lame.

Currently it is only a question of time until MS gets pissed by this kind of behavior from different directions and definitely will start to get fairness.

For example: MS gets ass kicked for Media Player beeing part of Windows and for providing Internet Explorer as part of the installation.

Yet, neither free Linux Distributions got sued for that when providing their browsers (for example all KDE based for providing their K... basing stuff which is file browser and explorer in one as IE is).

Nor got Apple so far sued for deliverying QuickTime and iTunes, which indeed breaks the same rules (if you want to call them like that) which are enforced against Microsoft all over the world. Apple delivers the same stuff as MS if not even more (they bundle in other applications MS does not and which cut down 3rd party sales), so why hasn't anyone sued Apple yet?

..hehehe..now I know why MS rulez ..:)

Well for one I think its money. Apple isn't that big, iPods are doing well, but as for size compared to Microsoft its small. I guess groups like the European Commission (who aren't actually doing it for any europeans by the way) can get a larger cut.

Its easier to get money from companies that have enough of it. Even when the way you are getting it isn't exactly fair. You have an excellent point btw Dreamora.

So it's established, then. The only reason to disike Microsoft is because of a vast multinational conspiracy.

God. Someone get a hose and wash the retarded out of this thread.

Why are you all arguing against anti-trust laws? They benifit you as a consumer and protect you from companies that really care about one thing: You working just to pay them and nothing more.

I agree with Flameduck here. I don't need to justify why, there are plenty of reasons. For those who know their history, they can understand why they are in place and can thank our stars they are there.

I've noticed an increase in pro-MS attitudes after Xbox and especially Xbox360 launch.
Do these gamers feel that MS bashing is hitting to close for comfort?

Get this - Microsoft doesn't need to be defended by consumers in a variety of internet forums. They've got the market share with Windows to almost automatically get a firm foothold in anything else they throw money at.
People use Windows because it suits their needs and because it has everything you could want from an OS.

Does this mean they can go about business as they please? no, it means they must show more responsibility - hence the anti-trust lawsuits.

If you know your history, you'll remember why Microsoft tacked IE into the Windows core - to win the web-war against Netscape.
Who's to say they won't do it again to other competing software solutions?

>I know they dump shit on us, but... why should they get
>sued for not releasing documentation and whatnot for
>technology they develop?

The problem with capitalism is that any company that has a virtual monopoly can bypass the free market, effectively limiting or eliminating choice.

>If third party companies are loosing sales because
>Microsoft are developing better technology then thats
>their problem.

It's not about better technology, but about using profits from one market where M$ holds a monopoly to offer applications in another market for free.

This bypasses the free market, by creating an eternal sellers market. The seller has no competition and can thus set the price that he wants. This is bad for the consumer, because he has to pay more for the same product.

>Its not that hard to create something more new and
>innovative than Microsoft is it, they should care less
>about profits and more about the consumer.

If you have a product which is better, how do you make money selling it if everybody already gets the M$ product for free. The answer of course is, 'you don't!'. Nobody will buy your product no matter what it can do, if they can get a similar product for free.

>The whole Antitrust thing is absurd and illogical. Much
>like Draconus.

Actually it's very logical.

The free market is based on competition, where the seller will sell at the highest price the consumer is prepared to pay. The consumer get's the cheapest product possible.

If there is only one seller, the consumer must pay what the seller asks, and the seller will want the highest price possible, leading to the consumer getting the most expensive product possible.

>For example: MS gets ass kicked for Media Player beeing
>part of Windows and for providing Internet Explorer as
>part of the installation.

The problem is that M$ has a virtual monopoly is the consumer OS business. when M$ began to include browsers and media players, there were many such proprietary products available to the consumer. Today, noone would think to buy a browser or a mediaplayer, because they come with the os for free.

>Yet, neither free Linux Distributions got sued for that
>when providing their browsers

M$ is a monopoly, whereas no Linux distro holds a monopoly.

>Nor got Apple so far sued for deliverying QuickTime and
>iTunes, which indeed breaks the same rules

Apple does not hold a monopoly in that market, which means that it doesn't break any 'rules'.

>so why hasn't anyone sued Apple yet?

Since Apple is not a monopoly it isn't breaking the 'rules'.


I have to say that I am shocked by the lack of knowledge and understanding that people have of this subject. A subject which is usually covered in most industrialized societies basic education. They are paying extra because of the M$ monopoly, and yet they don't see the cause and effect. It reminds me of the old socialdemocrat joke, about the capitalist selling the very rope he was about to be hanged with.


Andy

Andy said what I meant - he's just better at writing it down :D

When something is successful they get a lot of perks, and its just tough for the rest I guess.

Unless your is some kind of nanny state like the UK, where the government pays $1200 a month for 6 months for any mother that has a baby, and rewards the lazy and incompetent at the expense of everyone else.

It's no surprise to me when I see the companies that whine the most about MS are the crappy ones with inferior products that shouldn't even be sold in the first place.

They have a monopoly in the operating system market, with a ~90% market share.

They extend this monopoly into the application market by using hidden/unpublished API calls in the operating system to give their own applications a headstart by allowing them to speed up certain operations, or to bypass certain OS restrictions. Those 'features' make it very difficult for other application vendors to create software on par with what microsoft can do themselves. Disclosing these API's would level the playing field.

This wouldn't be an issue if they didn't have a monopoly in the operating system market -- but they do, so they have to abide by additional rules that their competition doesn't. Those rules do exist for a reason, after all.

Well how do you think they gained that monopoly. By jumping on a good idea and developing it. Spending time, money, investing in something that could have been a flop (risk). Why should competition get a piece of the cake when they didnt do any of the foundation that is Windows.

Sony are/was/dunno the number one console on this planet, when Microsoft decided to make the XBox did they go to Sony and say "Hey, you have a monopoly in the console market, you need to give us documentation and all your research so we can make better consoles than you".

You think thats fair? You realise that if Microsoft decided to withdraw their software from the market (you only are borrowing Windows, you dont actually own it) then the world would be pretty screwed. Thats a good idea of how much we actually need Microsoft. Suing them and forcing them to hand out technology to other companies would basically cripple them in a sense. Id rather have one good copy of Windows then 10 useless ones to choose from.

Necessity breeds innovation.
If Microsoft stopped shipping their OS to Europe, we'd be forced to make our own OS, and it would ultimately become a major competition to Windows, which in turn would cripple Microsofts stranglehold.

Microsoft isn't the only brain in the world, capable of developing a good OS.
They like buying up or invest heavily into its competitors (Apple, Novell).

>Well how do you think they gained that monopoly.

By engaging in anti competitive behavior and buying up the competitors.

>By jumping on a good idea and developing it.

Nope.

>Spending time, money, investing in something that could
>have been a flop (risk).

There's no risk when you lock out your competitors at the source(PC's), and then use your monopoly to kill them off and spread into other markets.

>Why should competition get a piece of the cake when they
>didnt do any of the foundation that is Windows.

It's not about the competition, but about the consumer. Any company exists to make money. If a the company can set the price of a product unilaterally, then it will set the price at the highest possible level, meaning that you and I will pay a hundred times more than we would have to if the free market was working.

>Sony are/was/dunno the number one console on this planet,
>when Microsoft decided to make the XBox did they go to
>Sony and say "Hey, you have a monopoly in the console
>market, you need to give us documentation and all your
>research so we can make better consoles than you".

You are confusing the subjects involved. Equal access does not mean equal control. Microsoft is not being told to hand over it's docs and research, but to reveal the full documentation So that the competitors can have equal access to the OS.

>You think thats fair?

Of course it is! When you have a monopoly in a market, you are not allowed to abuse that monopoly by keeping secrets enabling you to make better products for the OS.

>You realise that if Microsoft decided to withdraw their
>software from the market then the world would be pretty
>screwed.

No, actually that would lead to a new age of innovation, with hundreds of competing products being developed.

>Thats a good idea of how much we actually need Microsoft.
>Suing them and forcing them to hand out technology to
>other companies would basically cripple them in a sense.

It has never been about getting M$ to hand over their technology, but about enabling everyone to compete in the market for Windows applications.

>Id rather have one good copy of Windows then 10 useless
>ones to choose from.

That's how things were in the USSR. Because innovation and development was monopolized by the state, there was no real way to break out and bring a product to market. The result was an incredible wealth of innovation, but a serious lack of research and development that could benefit the consumer.

It's really not about M$, the competitors, innovation or even good or bad products. It's about maintaining a functioning free market, and that can only be done by ensuring competition.

Andy

As far as I know MS hve been accused several time of unfair behaviours
It is not just a matter of being better than other competitors, which of course is not a crime
Just an example which happened to me some time ago and I supposed to some other people ,too
I uploaded the last Direct x editions
Well the installation software removed OpenGL from my hard disk
Is it a fair behaviour ?

If you buy a medz you want to know whats in it. and that it has ben tested.

If you buy a car you want the tiers from the old one match and you want to be able to fuel from another gastation than BP.

Problem is Computers are so new for laywers Computers dont have physical limmits. Its creats realy strange things in the law.

I gues some time in future. there will be good standard for this stuff. But i gues about 10.000 years from now :=)

Sorry, Bottom line is still:
"Anti-trust laws are good, it keeps companies like M$ decent".

They can have their money, hell I will give them plenty over the next 30 years, but I want them to be honest about it, I want to be able to use 3rd party stuff on my Windows based PC, I want to have the choice. Without Anti-trust laws and the lawsuits against them, I wouldn't have a choice, I would be required to own a pc, and it would be required to run only M$ products.

How they gained that monopoly? Where to start...

They were at the right place at the right time. IBM was looking for an OS for their newly created PC. MS showed them a product called 'QDos' (Quick-and-dirty-Operating-System), which they actually didn't own, and sold it to IBM. Only after IBM bit, MS paid $10K to the original creator for the rights. The creator had no idea IBM was interested in it, or what Microsoft had already done.

IBM didn't see the value in the software at the time, they thought hardware was where it was at... so they allowed MS to keep the copyright to QDOS, which was polished slightly and released as MS-DOS.

then the IBM clones appeared, and for compatibility sake they also required MS DOS.

MS started supplying the OEM's with cheap(er) copies of the OS, in exchange for an exclusive license. That meant that the manufacturer wasn't allowed to sell any other OS other than microsoft's, or they would lose the special pricing.

Fast forward two decades, and mix in more of the same concerning microsoft windows.

Tens of millions of computers are sold a year, and pretty much all of them are locked into the MS OS. just a couple of years ago, a company like Dell wouldn't *dream* of selling you a PC without windows, because just selling *one* PC that way meant that their cost of windows would tripple for each PC sold for breach of contract. So they didn't, and the status-quo of MS as the default OS simply continued.

Only recently the various anti-trust lawsuits have loosened this a little so a company can offer Linux and the likes as well... But unfortunately meanwhile the 90% windows penetration in the market makes it near impossible for any competition to have a fair shot at anything.

Microsoft's monopoly is *not* build on a 'good idea' and 'good software'. It's empire is founded on deception (That little QDos stunt they pulled), lock-in of customer data in proprietary fileformats, great marketing, and being just good enough for people not complain too loudly.

And as far as that 'just good enough' is concerned: Microsoft doesn't want their software to be the end-all greatest software possible. They want their software to be better enough than the previous version to entice people to upgrade, but not good enough that they can't be sold another update two years later. Microsoft's biggest competitor today is Microsoft two years ago. They just want to sell you the next incremental upgrade. Nothing more, nothing less.

Don't get me wrong, microsoft has made plenty of pretty decent products over the years (Win2000, winXP, Office 2003). They have also made some abyssmally bad programs like WindowsME, Microsoft Bob, etc... But the bottom line is that their monopoly is NOT build on merrit, it's build on being in the right place at the right time, having a great marketing department, and kneeing others in the crotch if they were standing where MS wanted to be.

At this point in time, Microsoft *has* no risk. Thanks to the de-facto monopoly and lock-in contracts, they can create a steaming pile of crap and still push millions of copies of it (windows ME, anyone?). Windows vista is around the corner, and I guarantee you that it won't be long until you can't buy a computer with anything other than vista pre-installed at any of the major vendors.

The current antitrust lawsuits are long overdue.

I'm not against Anti Trust laws.

But if they are enforced, they shouldn't be enforced only against the large companies but against anyone, no mather if they can sue 500 millions or only 1 million.

There are good points here, why MS had to be sued.
But most of those points can be enforced against Apple for example as well.

With the newest version on Intel, Apple removed the source, so their apps are able to use internal knowledge for their own best. As well, Apple ships a browser and a media player, killing any potential seller of the same upfront.
And just to make that clear: Unless recently, Apple had a nearly 100% monopoly, as they were on PPC consumer market, which noone else touched even with a 10 feet pole, so all those "they have no monopoly blabla" is massively wrong.

Now they are on Intel and X86 and due to that within a real competition and we will see how it turns out. (for example the yearly upgrade fee for minor features / stuff that could be added through SP, or rewrites due to missing planning upfront)


PS: On the browser point: I will never pay for a browser and did never, no mather if it was better or not. Nor am I willing to pay for a media player. Both is part of a multimedia OS and thus has to be present or the OS is just broken. So calling that monopoly missuse is at best bs.
I still have the choice, even if they are present on my system. But without both, I'm doomed, as there is no way to download a different browser without having a browser upfront, right? :P

They are not enforced against large companies. They only apply to monopolies (regardless of company size). A small company with a monopoly is also subject to anti-trust laws. Apple is not a monopoly, thus they are not subject to anti-trust laws.

Apple has met resistance in Scandinavia (which I know of) because of their Itunes + Ipod connection.
So, don't say Apple haven't been touching some thin monopoly lines.

> IBM didn't see the value in the software at the time, they thought hardware was where it was at...

Two points.

1 - IBM full well wanted to keep the OS for itself, but they had just gotten sued by the US government for monopolistic practices and lost.

2 - At that time there were plenty of other computer systems being sold, up till the nineties when the home computer (Amiga, C64, Apple, etc) died out.

[EDIT] bonus third point.
Bill Gates told IBM to go to another OS person, only when that person declined did he sell IBM the OS.

>But if they are enforced, they shouldn't be enforced only
>against the large companies but against anyone, no mather
>if they can sue 500 millions or only 1 million.

Generally, monopolies are large companies, which makes it seem like 'special treatment' for large companies.

>There are good points here, why MS had to be sued.
>But most of those points can be enforced against Apple for
>example as well.

Apple is not a monopoly.

>With the newest version on Intel, Apple removed the
>source, so their apps are able to use internal knowledge
>for their own best.

Apple is not a monopoly.

>As well, Apple ships a browser and a media player, killing
>any potential seller of the same upfront.

Apple is not a monopoly.

>And just to make that clear: Unless recently, Apple had a
>nearly 100% monopoly, as they were on PPC consumer market,
>which noone else touched even with a 10 feet pole, so all
>those "they have no monopoly blabla" is massively wrong.

Actually, ford has consistently had a larger marketshare in the PPC market than Apple.

>PS: On the browser point: I will never pay for a browser
>and did never, no mather if it was better or not. Nor am I
>willing to pay for a media player. Both is part of a
>multimedia OS and thus has to be present or the OS is just
>broken. So calling that monopoly missuse is at best bs.

That was not always the case. First Windows was added to DOS, killing the GUI market. Then browsers were added to Windows and the browsermarket was killed. Then the mediaplayer was added killing the mediaplayer market.

When you use a monopoly in one market to offer free products in another, effectively killing the other market, is is monopoly abuse. It's not a question of opinion.

>I still have the choice, even if they are present on my
>system. But without both, I'm doomed, as there is no way
>to download a different browser without having a browser
>upfront, right? :P

If M$ offers a free browser with every copy of Windows, financed with the profits from the OS market or office suite market, then you don't really have a choice. Where M$ can fund development of their browser by selling Office products or operating systems, the competitors only have their browser income to fund browser development. The result is that every other proprietary vendor goes bankrupt.

If you still don't understand why using profits from a market where you hold a monopoly to fund development of a product in another market that you give away, is a problem, then I don't know how to explain it.


Andy

Yes. Ironic that Microsoft would never have been able to acheive it's monopoly if it hadn't been for anti-trust laws.

All you Microsoft fanboys should be glad we have anti-trust laws, or you'd all be running OS/2.

>All you Microsoft fanboys should be glad we have anti-
>trust laws, or you'd all be running OS/2.

Which might not have been such a bad deal afterall.


Andy

Because they have legally been declared a monopoly, and monopolys are required to play by a different set of rules.


It's not better technology. Microsoft are merely abusing their monopoly position to push their own technologies.


No, but it's another story trying to promote it when you're up against a monopoly.


It depends what you think is more important - profit for a monopoly, or a level playing field for consumers.

Hardcore capitalists no doubt feel Microsoft have been hard done by, but I'm not a hardcore capitalist, and I feel Microsoft's heavy handed business practices have hurt consumers a lot - and continue to do so.

Hear, hear!

Andy: I think you don't see the problem.
Any anywhere successfull company actually cross finances their R&D and similar. Microsoft just has grown that big, that they can over finance and thus invest in any branch of their "sector" what others can't

That might be seen as a missuse. On the other side, for the costumers this "missuse" has played out quite well.

We have a choice on browsers and media players and that for free.
Linux has grown up from freaky OS to something usefull (at least partly. unless the heads behind it agree on some standardisation etc for "main stream linux") and all the like.

all this hadn't happened with what happened on the windows side for the last years.

...Compared to what?

If anything, Microsoft is stiffling innovation in the IT field, not promoting it. Their way or the highway.

The real issue for me is progress, and that is why I am in favour of a level playing field.

You need to nurture independant thought for a successful society. You can't farm thinking as it does not cross pollinate well IMHO.

I might be cutting to the chase but you need the independants in order for everyone to progress, and this is why anti-monopoly laws are so good and should be cherished.

>Andy: I think you don't see the problem.

I disagree.

>Any anywhere successfull company actually cross finances
>their R&D and similar.

To some extent, yes. However, if they do not hold monopoly status then it's usually no problem.

>Microsoft just has grown that big, that they can over
>finance and thus invest in any branch of their "sector"
>what others can't

Crossfinancing isn't the problem. Being a monopoly AND crossfinancing is a problem.

>that might be seen as a missuse.

It is abuse!

>On the other side, for the costumers this "missuse" has
>played out quite well.

No, when there is no money to be made in a market, there will be no innovation in that market, which is a bad thing for consumers.

>We have a choice on browsers and media players and that
>for free.

But there is no real market for proprietary browsers or players. Free doesn't always mean gratis. If Windows did not have a monopoly, it's pretty certain that it would be cheaper.


Andy

Microsoft do not invest any money in R&D.

Think about it, Microsoft has done alot more good for computers than any other 3rd party company has.

Without Microsoft's Internet Explorer we'd be paying $100 for Netscape, Mozilla would have a monthly usage fee, and Opera would have been sued by the European Commision for having tabbed browsing before any other Browser.

The european commision would have declared bankruptcy and as a last ditch effort try to sue Opera for the fourteenth time and Opera would have withdrawn from the market.

MacOS would still be at version 7 and Intel would have bought out amd as there would be no Intel-Clone support in MacOS for any propietry processing units.

nVidia and ATi would no exist, there would be no market for 3D graphics and everything would be raycasted. Doom and Quake would reign prominent online and internet connections would only be 300 - 9600 baud. We would all be using America Online.

Free media players would no exist. Winamp would be sold for ridiculous amounts and the free version would only let you burn FLOPPIES at 1x, and play the first 20 octaves from your favourite Midi's. Visualizations would be constructed with ASCII characters. iTunes would only exist in small computer labs that condone the usage of Warez and small government agencies that use MacOS instead of OS/2. OS/2 would be mainstream and OSPlayer would dominate the free market with its Midi and Wav audio support.

Bluetooth would be called Bluegums and WAN's would only exist in universities.

We have alot to thank Microsoft for. If the european commision didnt pick on them then it would probably try to squeeze the non-existant cents from Apple. Apple would no longer exist and Linux would have a 200 page license preventing private use.

April Fools! Except for the April part.

@Leiden: Funny! :D (I hope that was your intention)

>We have alot to thank Microsoft for.

Are you Steve Balmer or something??

Yeah it was Ashmantle, I think some people took the topic too seriously and it needed to be lightened up before people started throwing rocks.

Can you elaborate or back that up with some links? That's ridiculously inaccurate.

I think I read earlier today that Steve Balmer said they spend around 6 billion dollars each year on R&D.
I could possibly be in the same "we invented linux" speech..

Well they probably spent 6 billion acquiring other peoples R&D.

Nope. Please hang up and try your irrational lash out again.

I find it odd that you require other people to provide links to support their statements, but fail to live up to that same standard. Not practising what you preach?

[a http://news.com.com/Microsoft+buys+photo+management+tool+maker/2100-1014_3-6088522.html]Your[/a] ignorance is staggering. When participating in discussions, it's a bonus if you know what you're talking about.

Hurrah for the anti-MS'ers! Come to my house for tea and biscuits!

hehe, so according to Flameduck, the $6 billion "R&D" money is really "purchase technology" money.

We'll probably never know for sure though, unless you're a major shareholder with insight into the companys' inner workings.

If MS wasn't in the #1 spot with a 90% hold on PC's, someone else would be. And it would be just the same, except instead of bashing Microsoft and Windows people would be bashing the most recent MacOS, Linux, or whatever claimed the throne. Oh, of course the majority of users wouldn't really care, as long as it worked.

Given that the majority (90% > I'm sure) of PC users are not developers, not power users, and not particularly interested in how a computer works but just that it does work and that all the software on the shelf at the local store will work on their machine, we will never see anything even resembling an even divide of the market share. Not in the home PC market.

> I find it odd that you require other people to provide links to support their statements, but fail to live up to that same standard.

You were the one making the wild claims, OOPs, silly me - anything bad said about MS is by definition not a wild claim. My humble apologies.