On Thu, 03 Jul 2003 03:19:07 GMT, DTJ <
[email protected]> wrote:
>>Mac people said "must be a hardware issue"... like that excused
>>the fact that Mac's *do* crash, even though Mac people claim they
>>don't.
>
>More likely a software issue.
Probably. Anytime you can crash the OS it's probably a software
issue. Applications should be isolated such that they can't crash
the OS. Mac people could never admit to that though.
>Here is where I take issue. I used to support MS no matter what. No
>longer. However, the companies that claim MS is unfair are
>complaining because MS is better at producing competitive products.
>There is no monopoly, certainly no illegal one, unless you use your
>clout in the market to reduce competition AND THEN use the reduced
>competition to increase profits. >MS has never done this.
I'm not talking about those complaints. MS ordered hardware vendors
to sell their OS, and only their OS, on their systems. If you want(ed)
to sell Windows on a PC you had to agree to install only windows.
That was clearly illegal under US law. Also, although not quite as
crystal clear, is that MS as a vendor of both the application and
OS was keeping things secret about the OS that they were taking
advantage of in their applications - that is also illegal. The
list goes on, those are two major issues.
>However, there incessant desire to have my system under their control
>is an issue of contention.
I agree. I still us 98 and win2k instead of XP because of this.
Frankly, with rare exception, I don't see any "improvements"
in XP other than those that are there for MS.
>Netscape continues to whine about how
>they lost market share for the product they gave away freely from the
>day it was introduced, to a product that MS gives away freely - and
>how that is unfair that MS does what they do!
Wrong issue. The issue again owning the OS and the application, then
installing your own application. MS has an unfair advantage when it
comes to grabbing the browser. The browser itself is not really an
issue for me. However, MS is trying to force it's proprietary features
and "MS standards" on the Internet via its browser. Active-X, MS
HTML and CSS interpretations, XML, the list goes on. Their move to
grab the browser market has nothing to do with the free browser,
it's about the tie in to other products, standards, and the desktop
products.
>the product themselves, but because Symantec sells it at a reasonable
>rate that allows MS to concentrate on producing other quality
>(depending on your view...) products and not on creating a new mouse
>trap that does exactly what the old one does.
Right idea, wrong company. This is the business of MS.
XP does exactly what Win2K does. There are some minor enhancements
that could have been called a service pack or a .1 release. Win2003
server is even worse in comparison to Win2000 - it's a service pack
for Active Server and a rebuild of a lame web server. It cost you
$1200 or so for this "service pack".
WHen it comes to applications,
I've yet to see any real "improvements" in MS Office, Front Page,
etc, in the last several releases. The only real changes were in
the way the products integrate with each other and the Internet.
That's all part of the MS OD-Application-Internet power grab.
>Sun, netscape, AOL and a multitude of other companies have chosen to
>compete in the courts, and the result is that consumers lose. That is
>not the fault of MS.
Consumers would win with some competition and with MS conforming to
laws that were passed to avoid one company being able to dictate
what the marketplace would do.
Take a look at the Java issue with Sun: MS licenses it and makes
proprietary extensions to it. Sun sues since this violates both the
liscense and main purpose of Java - programs that operate across
platforms. MS says "we won't play anymore"and removes Java support.
Why does it matter if MS has Java support ? Because at the same
time they are dictating what browser 80% of users will use simply
by making it the one that shows up on the desktop when you boot
up the first time - the OS uncompetitive advantage. Why does MS
care about (not) including Java ? because if they can't make it
proprietary, they can't draw developers and users into their
proprietary fold. Proprietary is their direction, every day, every
way.
You need to look at the global issues and goals of MS to understand
how these "little" issues add up to the big picture of squashing
the competition through any means, legal or illegal.
Bob
