Text 1631, 233 rader
Skriven 2006-06-03 22:54:00 av Robert E Starr JR (2077.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Atheists: America's m
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  * * * This message was from Carl to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.m * * *   
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"Josh Hill" <usereplyto@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:nfh482pbp6knf8cvfdpjkh2g5qju85827c@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 3 Jun 2006 21:59:16 +0000 (UTC), "Carl" <cengman7@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Josh Hill" <usereplyto@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>news:qqr3821ualm6smqro3k4cqso85i6tbv0t0@4ax.com...
>>> On Sat, 3 Jun 2006 13:12:42 +0000 (UTC), Paul Harper <paul@harper.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>On Sat, 3 Jun 2006 12:37:40 +0000 (UTC), "John W. Kennedy"
>>>><jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Carl wrote:
>>>>>> "John W. Kennedy" <jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote in message
>>>>>> news:yI7gg.3677$n91.1519@fe09.lga...
>>>>>>> Carl wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Yeah, Gates has been too busy giving $29 Billion to charities and
>>>>>>>> trying
>>>>>>>> to bring medicines to third world countries.  I can see where you'd
>>>>>>>> be
>>>>>>>> looking for a 666  birthmark. :)
>>>>>>> Bill Gates has, almost single-handedly, brought the entire software
>>>>>>> industry to a screeching halt. He has ruined the careers of 
>>>>>>> thousands,
>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>> he has done it by repeated criminal acts, and by a completely lack 
>>>>>>> of
>>>>>>> personal and business ethics.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Nonsense.
>>>>>
>>>>>Absolute truth. I've been in the business for over 40 years, and the
>>>>>last ten have been absolutely stagnant.
>>>>
>>>>And I've been in it for 27 years and I have never been busier or so
>>>>well compensated (and no, I don't work for Microsoft, or any software
>>>>company for that matter).
>>>>
>>>>Have you considered the stagnation might be a rather more... local...
>>>>problem?
>>>
>>> It isn't. Internet Explorer is an excellent example. When Netscape is
>>> in business, the two companies released product after product, each
>>> with loads of new features. But the moment Microsoft had succeeded at
>>> driving Netscape out of business, they stopped all development.

Yup, they drove a company that was giving away its product outr of business.
A company that was funded by an ouotrageously overpriced IPO during the
height of the internet bubble.

Also, you want to talk about taking credit for others work, consider 
Andresson.

Then again... So what?


>>> Not
>>> only did they not develop or more likely steal (since I've never seen
>>> them actually invent anything) any new features and technologies, they
>>> ignored the new ones that appeared, such as tabbed browsing and RSS.
>>> They even announced that Internet Explorer was a "mature technology"
>>> that required no improvements.

So what?  A browser was never what they considered core technology.  They
got into the business in response to a perceived threat that they were going 
to
be left behind.  When they considered the threat gone, they went back to
their core business.  Until very recently, users thought it was good enough 
too.

It gave Firefox and others the chance to catch up.  It took a long time for 
Firefox
to be released and most people weren't (and still aren't) screaming that IE 
is
horrible.


>>
>>Why do you assume that MS is in the business of making a better browser 
>>for
>>the sake of making a better browser?


>> There are hooks such that others
>>made add-ins that would do new things and MS encouraged it.
>
> Only because it had no competitive significance.

This is so completely wrong you have no idea.  If you wrote Windows software 
for a living you would know better.

Microsofts puts hooks into almost everything it writes.  You can automate 
Excel, Word, Powerpoint, Outlook, IE, and Windows itself.  Almost every 
piece of software MS makes can be programmed to by developers.  You can 
embed a browser into your own app in 20 minutes (literally...I did).

Microsoft gives more code away than you have a clue about.  They make huge 
amounts of documentation available to anyone (free).  They give out SDKs, 
and now they give away a light (express) version of their compilers for 
free.

They encourage writing add ons. In fact, with their IDE they have a code 
wizard that will generate the framework and most of the code for an add-in 
that works with Excel, word, or the IDE itself (I've written some of those 
too).

Even if you don't want to automate Excel, word, etc...you can pass data 
dynamically with DDE or RTD.  Do you have even thew slightest inkling of how 
many people do this?

Josh, in this instance you don't know what your talking about.  There is a 
*** huge *** advantage for them to do this.


>
>>If MS tries to make an OS (one of its core businesses) withmore features,
>>they get slammed as being anti-competitive.
>
> What they get criticized for is bundling apps and calling them part of
> the OS to put competitors out of business. That they also get
> criticized for failing to make improvements to their piece of crap
> operating systems that don't improve the bottom line is well, right,
> and inevitable.
>
>> If they decide not to add
>>features
>>to a non-core product, they're considered evil for that too.
>
> Features aren't bundled apps. It's a pretty fair assessment.

>
>>Quite a set of standards that have been set up. Damned if they do,
>>damned if they don't.
>
> They're damned if they break the law, and all the evidence -- the
> memos, court decision after court decision here and abroad -- says
> that they have, repeatedly.
>
> And lately the judge says they're conforming to the judgement.
They paid their fines, they're within the court appointed bounds.
Get over it.


> They're criminals, pure and simple, who bully their competitors.
So does Apple.  So does IBM.  So does Sun.
So do unions.

<snip...decade old news>
>
>>> Then, when Firefox became popular, MS suddenly woke up and announced a
>>> new version of IE. And so it goes in area after area. No one would
>>> even dream of building a better word processor or spreadsheet now,
>>> because they know that MS would use its monopoly position to drive
>>> them out of business.
>>
>>OpenOffice is trying.  They have a ways to go, but they also have a lot
>>of MS hating people that are a ready to go for them.
>
> A tiny percentage, because it's very difficult to use anything but MS
> software.

Garbage.  You can...tonight...download a free OS (one of several HUNDRED 
Linux distributions) and also download Open Office, FireFox, Thunderbird and 
others for free and have at it.

I will grant you that to configure Linux can be trying sometimes, depending 
on your hardware and the distribution...but you can't blame MS for that.

>>> Software improvements have been left to niche
>>> companies and public groups like Mozilla.
>>
>>That's great!  It allows the companies that are good at innovation to do 
>>it.
>>So?
>
> I said "niche." We need major apps, not just little shareware apps and
> shady file sharing protocols.

Josh...See the list above. On top of that you can get one of several free 
SQL databases such as FreeSQL or MySQL.  You can get all of the above 
software (except Linux of course) to run on Windows too.  Most Linux 
devotees claim that is all 80% of all users ever need.

You also seem to ignore that there is a HUGE amount of software written for 
the Windows platform that is tailered for business.  Almost all of this is 
not written by MS.  If all you notice is little niche apps that run on 
Windows besides Office, you're not looking very hard.

>
>>> Even Apple survived only because Microsoft found it legally
>>> convenient to maintain the fiction of competition while it was being
>>> prosecuted.
>>
>>Yeah, those poor Apple people that decided they were going to close the
>>platform and keep hardware prices high.
>>
>>Apple wass a victim of itself as much as anything else.
>
> They made many other mistakes as well, e.g. putting resources into the
> Newton instead of a multitasking OS. But that has no bearing on
> Microsoft's behavior.

It has a bearing on their survival (which is the topic that you brought up). 
Microsoft had no reason to go hard after Apple because
for many years Microsoft made  muich more money on Apple software than Apple 
did.  Apple has always (rather stupidly) considered itself a hardware 
company.

Carl

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion,  butcher 
a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet,
balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, 
give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a newproblem, 
pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die 
gallantly.

Specialization is for insects."

Lazarus Long (Robert Heinlein).
                                                    
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