any bill gates lovers here?

[Hank Fletcher]

And Apple is any better? They used to be lawsuit central, probably still are.

I'm a PC user, and no Apple fan (they just don't have any products that appeal to me), but it's good to know that there's at least some competition, whether it's in the legal or marketing spheres.

What I don't like is the idea of a large company using its resources to research and develop, and then patent and protect, innovative developments with no intention to share or even to immediately market them. Think about it: Microsoft hedges its bets, and makes half-assed R&D efforts in just about as many areas as it can, with no better reason to patent a poor product other than to establish a tenuous precedence for Microsoft being the originator of the new product. It doesn't matter that the product was poorly designed and did not at the time consider the context of the immediate market - Microsoft can afford to argue, and win, its case in court. Can the one-off, innovative entrepreneur compete in court against Microsoft?

 

[ikalogic]

I'm a PC user, and no Apple fan (they just don't have any products that appeal to me), but it's good to know that there's at least some competition, whether it's in the legal or marketing spheres.

What I don't like is the idea of a large company using its resources to research and develop, and then patent and protect, innovative developments with no intention to share or even to immediately market them. Think about it: Microsoft hedges its bets, and makes half-assed R&D efforts in just about as many areas as it can, with no better reason to patent a poor product other than to establish a tenuous precedence for Microsoft being the originator of the new product. It doesn't matter that the product was poorly designed and did not at the time consider the context of the immediate market - Microsoft can afford to argue, and win, its case in court. Can the one-off, innovative entrepreneur compete in court against Microsoft?

no.. the poor guy usually losses everything!

 

[Marks256]

...which is exactly why i use linux!

 

[3v0]

When a corporation becomes as large, and wealthy, as MS it can pervert laws and people. This is hardly unique to MS. It is the sort of thing I rant about when we start talking governments.

The problem is much larger then MS bad behavior. It is a general threat.

 

[ikalogic]

When a corporation becomes as large, and wealthy, as MS it can pervert laws and people. This is hardly unique to MS. It is the sort of thing I rant about when we start talking governments.

The problem is much larger then MS bad behavior. It is a general threat.

yes i truly believe it is..

There is a point where MS cannot be compared to any other corporations or organization.. it is the fact that MS is responsible for retarding the software development field, making it what it is now.. in other words, I am sure that if MS didn't exist, the software industry would be unimaginably more developed than now..

bottom line, bill gates didn't do anything illegal.. he just bought a 'science' and prevented anybody from developing it.. but in a very indirect way

 

[jpanhalt]

bottom line, bill gates didn't do anything illegal.. he just bought a 'science' and prevented anybody from developing it.. but in a very indirect way

That's arguable! Check out the 2002 anti-trust case brought by the US Department of Justice against MS. The case was brought before that, but settled in 2002, as I recall.

MS, through its very good attorneys, was able to make the US government back down. MS got a mild slap on the wrist, if that, for its illegal activities and monopolistic practices.

John

 

[3v0]

yes i truly believe it is..

There is a point where MS cannot be compared to any other corporations or organization.. it is the fact that MS is responsible for retarding the software development field, making it what it is now.. in other words, I am sure that if MS didn't exist, the software industry would be unimaginably more developed than now..

The first perhaps worst blow was when IBM went with intel instead of Motorola for the original PC.

I am not sure how much better off we would be without MS. If another company managed to corner the market we would be in a similar place. If that did not happen we would have several flavors of software that did not play together. Any software developer can tell you what a pain it is to develop for multiple platforms. It would take time to make all the flavors play nice and that would retard development too.

Backwards compatibility has always been a big selling point at MS. As a sales tool it is great. People love it. However it is a major impediment to technology advancement .

In spite of the actions of their legal department and management there are a lot of regular people at MS trying to do a good job. It is a big ship and it takes a lot of room to change direction.

 

[jpanhalt]

In spite of the actions of their legal department and management there are a lot of regular people at MS trying to do a good job. It is a big ship and it takes a lot of room to change direction.

There is no question about that in my mind. In fact, I just recently switched from WordPerfect to Word. I had been a loyal WP user since before ver. 5.0 (DOS). But, even MS's service is better than Corel, in my experience.

The anti-trust claim had little to do with market share per se. It had to do with monopolistic and anti-competitive practices. The linking of products, such as Microsoft I.E. with Windows, so that other products (e.g., Netscape) could not be used is illegal. That practice is a management decision and was probably made at the highest level, because everyone in any sort of business knows it is illegal.

In no way did I intend my comment to reflect negatively on the thousands of good workers at Microsoft.

John