Re: Microsoft Monopoly [Re: 7 Questions To Ask A Laptop Salesman]

BillW50 wrote:
In news:JCK0l.18$ZO2.11@xxxxxxxxxxxxx,
John Doue typed on Sat, 13 Dec 2008 08:45:29 GMT:
BillW50 wrote:

snip

Actually I am showing the other side which is almost never told. ;)
Are you so sure ? :=)

Hi John! Well I am pretty sure anyway. ;)

Gates did have a vision others did not have (especially IBM), nobody
disputes that. But since you have a good memory, remember how MS
killed Netscape,
Cannot say that I do!

Actually you said that and not me. That was you quoting yourself.

incorporated Stacker (knew that software?) into MS
Dos just because it had not been smart enough to create this
software, and appropriated so many ideas from others who did not
have the means to protect with an armada of lawyers?
No! Stacker had stolen the MS code to hook into the OS. Then MS then
stolen Stackers code. Don't attack somebody and don't expect them to
not to fight back.
Again, I am not in a position to be the referee here. The only thing I
know for sure is that MS did everything to keep secret decisive
portions of its OS. So, may be it is the story of the goose and the
egg.

This is indeed true! And MS applications does have an advantage since the programmers also has the source code to the OS. But you can have access to the source code too (like IBM had) if you sign a license agreement with them. Lots of third party developers already do this. The people who are crying are the ones who wants to know the secrets for free. That is like asking to borrow somone elses credit card. :)

If MS put money in Apple, do you honestly think it was out of sheer
generosity?
They were both kids who dropped out of college and were fighting the
big boys at IBM. Later Apple turned into a back stabber. Apple would
stab their own mother if they had a chance.
Don't know about that but it looks like you have an evangelist view of
B. Gates.

I don't think so. Just stating the facts. We would be far worse with somebody else, I am sure of it. At least everybody I have seen so far anyway. :)

When MS invested in WordPerfect, do you thing it was to
promote WP against Word?
Word Perfect had stolen the word processor market away from
WordStar, which should have done in Word Perfect in every way.
Bill, there, please. WP was a the time a much much better product. I
know first hand here. And it was only natural that WP killed Wordstar.

Well I don't know about that. As I still have WordStar installed and I gave up on Word Perfect many moons ago. Some call Word Perfect as Word Imperfect. As I tend to agree. It just wasn't all that good or user friendly as WordStar was. I mean the WordStar diamond layout was far easier to learn than WP use of function keys and that damn template you had to throw on your keyboard. And if you didn't have an IBM keyboard, it probably wouldn't fit either.

The problem then is two fold: first WP did not see Windows prevailing
as it did, and then, when it realized it, it lacked focus (remember
WP 6.1 for Dos; quite a technical feat, but wasted ressources), and
then, it was hurt, like so many software editors, that Windows code
key parts remained secret.

Every version of WP changed the function keys around. Not good! WordStar sort of cheated for WordStar for Windows. As they already laid off their programmers (thanks to WP) and they didn't know Windows anyway. So they bought a word processor for Windows from some company and renamed it as WordStar for Windows. I hated it as it wasn't anything like WordStar at all. But some loved it and they still use it to this very day. There are two forums still active with old users and sometimes a new user would pop in from time to time. And they still compare WordStar for Windows 2 to the latest version of Word to this very day.

Granted, WP managers lacked vision, then Novell, then Corel. But WP
today, still has a strong edge over Word because of the famous reveal
codes which make formatting so much clearer and understandable. But a
good basis for a product cannot alleviate the lack of management
leadership and I fully agree here.

I agree except for famous reveal codes part. As I thought this is what killed Word Perfect. You needed this feature in WP because WP automatically put in hidden codes while you were typing. Hard to figure out when you delete something that all of the sudden the formatting also went to hell as well. That is until you reveal WP hidden mess of things and then learned why. I'm sorry, but WYSIWYG is far more user friendly and why WP making life very difficult had to go.

snip
MS software has always been a bargain (and IE4 was better than
Netscape and was free). If you rather pay $495 for a piece of 50
dollar software from somebody else, be my guest.
This a very offensive point of view. You know full well that IE was
free only to kill Netscape, and because MS could afford such a
predator behavior

Maybe, but lots of other MS products are also free. Media Player is a good example. Movie Maker is another. And Netscape also claimed when IE became free (I paid for IEv1 lol) that they could give Netscape for free too. As most of their income came from other non-browser sales. So what's the problem?

The problem was Netscape was lying! They really needed sales of their browser to survive. In my view, MS isn't responsible since Netscape said it was okay that IE was free. This leaves MS off of the hook. Netscape hung themselves because they were stupid and they lied all of the time. And stupid people who lie all of the time don't get my business. Nor should they get anybody else's business either as they will just screw you anyway.

The ball stopped rolling first with Millenium and then, for good,
after XP; and it looks like 7 will be very short on actual
innovations, innovations that will make our life easier. Vista has
been a major major failure. MS did not see coming Google, nor
Yahoo. MS just has full coffers and is now trying to buy what it
was not smart enough to create and could not put its hands on.
This is how things work when you are not a monopoly. Why people
claim they are just baffles me. MS doesn't have a gun to my head
(nor anybody's else either) and says I must buy Windows ME or Vista.
That isn't so at all and I don't own those products either. If I
don't like them, I don't buy them. End of story.
No, Bill, this is not correct. You know as well as me, and probably
better, the pressure MS puts on computer manufacters who try not put
Windows on their machine. Your statement is simplistic, since for most
buyers, they have no choice of OS. So basically, whenever you buy a
computer, you pay for Windows, like it or not and those who try to
claim they refuse to use face a very difficult journey to get some
money back. This is hardly disputable.

No John... this is how business works! I don't dispute it because everybody does it. Coke, Pepsi, Lays, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and on and on. You would have a point if it was only Microsoft, but it isn't. It is virtually everybody operates this way.

Don't you remember when IBM first broke up with Microsoft and IBM refused to sell any PCs with Windows installed on them? Remember what happened? IBM PC sales plummeted. IBM had to change their policy very quickly. But even still, IBM sales never really recovered.

There are lots of other companies that sold computers without Windows. I even at one time said I would fill any orders of a thousand or more PCs without Windows (it wasn't worth my time for less). The problem is they just don't sell. Very few people are willing to buy computers without Windows. Rather they mostly want Windows installed or the computer is worthless to them. This is how it really works.

As for the EU, what I bunch of bozos. I sure like to sue and hang
their necks. You know what those clowns did? They claimed that
Microsoft was a monopoly and made MS to sell Windows without the
Media Player and charged MS like 1/2 billion dollars. And you know
what? This special version was available and only about 1800 ever
wanted a copy of it. So it cost us consumers about 500 million
dollars for this nonsense. The EU are nothing more than corrupt
bloody thieves, no question about it. They saw an easy way to steal
our money and they had taken it. Remember MS passes their cost (just
like any other company) on to us consumers.
I am not sure the specifics of the EU case were really valid, but
still, can you really argue that the case of software editors who saw
their products killed by MS integrating a pale copy into the OS is
not valid?

Look when the EU had stolen 1/2 billion dollars from the consumers, this is really wrong and why the people who are responsible isn't in jail tells me the whole system is corrupt. This is point one.

As for the pale copy part. Here is how I see it. If MS did this in the first place, the company couldn't give their product away in the first place. Secondly, they played on a weak spot in the MS OS and improved on it. If they do it well, they make lots of money and most of them do.

Now when MS comes out with their version (remember WordStar owned the word processor market and there was nobody else and then WP had stolen it away by lying to consumers and you think this is great), and it does the job the consumers wants, then they win. If the other company does a better job and the consumers want this instead, they win. This is how business works.

I for one am very disappointed nobody has managed to make a user
friendly OS out of Linux. Linux would have needed someone with some
(and only some) of the qualities of Bill Gates. Then, our lives
today really might be different.
There have been many OS! The problem is making a user friendly OS
isn't easy and the only ones who has made it work on the PC at least
has been MS. The door is open for anybody else to do so. Problem is,
nobody can as of yet.
That is my biggest regret

Others have tried and I believe Apple has come the closest. Unfortunately it requires a high priced Apple BIOS. :)

No offense meant, of course!
None taken and hopefully neither have you. ;)
None at all, I have learnt to appreciate your knowledge and respect
your views, even when they differ from mines. I consider you a cyber
friend with whom I share a lot, passion, interests, age (!) and
living in the middle of nowhere, except for the fact I have wired
broadband!
Regards

Same here John. :) I have DSL only because my rural road was wired and none of the others were (no cable out here either). Why I don't know why my road was picked (oldest wiring maybe and they rewired it)? But it is only 384kb which sure beats dialup (I'm 7 miles away from the switching station and it is a miracle it works at all). So I can't complain too much. ;)


Hi Bill,

Just some points.

- Yes, indeed, learning how to use WP up to version 5.1 (the best ever) was challenging at the beginning because of those short cuts (which did not change much up to version 5.1). I know, I was an instructor for some time of 5.1. So the learning curve was a little intimidating at first, but once the initial fears went away, people loved the cleanliness of WP and it power. That was lost after 5.1, no denying.

- Regarding the reveal codes, I can tell that there, your knowledge is lacking: in WP, you always know why a given paragraph or word look as it looks. Granted, if the reveal don't show on your screen, deleting can change the formatting unpredictable, but it is instantly restored by undeleting (so far, no difference with Word, ok) but then, you can immediately tell why that happened by looking at the reveal codes. This is where the important difference is. In Word, it is often *totally* impossible to tell why the formatting changes. I know first hand, it is my work horse as a translator. In some cases, to restore the formatting after a change I need to make to the text, I need to resort to very clumsy work-arounds.

Granted, I am not the ultimate expert, but, if I refrain from saying *I state facts* (I try to leave room for facts no to be exactly the way I want them to be ...:=)), it is difficult to deny that formatting is one the weak points of Word. Even with CrossEyes (know it? it does help), understanding why changes happen in Word often remains a mystery.

- For the rest of your points, well, according to you, it boils down to every business and activity behaving in a more or less predatory way the way you see it and seem to consider "normal". Well, what is happening those days tend to show that indeed, lots of people, at *all levels*, behave without scrupules. If this is indeed true, it is a sorry state of affairs, and the price we will pay and have started paying will be enormous, far beyond what we imagine today.

I believe that companies which behave a minimum of honesty, respect and dignity stand a better chance, if they are expertly managed, to survive than predators.

If you are right, I do not belong to this way of doing business and I want no part in it. I want to believe that what goes up goes down. Quite some years ago, phone equalled ATT. Eventually, it got broken up. Of course, today, few people realize they pay Windows each time they buy a machine, when they could buy a stand-alone version and move it from machine to machine, legally. Or more simply, a legal structure should allow them to transfer their licence to a new machine equipped with Windows. They get robbed blind, and people have come to think this is normal. It is not!

You may consider this is the way things work in all respects, well, it should be that way and although I cannot do much more than voicing my dislike and refusing to go that route when I can, I still try and do not consider this is a normal state of affairs.

Believe me, I am not an idealistic, I am very pragmatic, but the way things evolve today irritates me a lot!

But this kind of thing are best discussed around cups of coffee or a glass of beer!

Best regards
--
John Doue
.

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