[ale] petition

[Benjamin Dixon]

If I recall correctly, Visicalc seemed to have broken into the market and
the Apple was later supported by Microsoft products such as Excel.

On Fri, 15 Feb 2002, Mike Millson wrote:

> You must be kidding about M$ creating the consumer desktop market. Apple did
> that.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Benjamin Dixon [mailto:beatle at arches.uga.edu]
> Sent: Friday, February 15, 2002 9:24 AM
> To: Geoffrey
> Cc: ALE
> Subject: Re: [ale] petition
> 
> 
> On Fri, 15 Feb 2002, Geoffrey wrote:
> >
> > Benjamin Dixon wrote:
> > > As scary as MS and the thought of anything MS on linux is, these
> comments
> > > are just as frightening. While MS may have been cunning in their
> > > questionably legal marketing manuevers, let's face it, they've played
> the
> > > business game the best of anyone. Their code, no matter how evil, is not
> > > a random occurrence but is the product Microsoft's investment in time
> and
> > > money to create a product. If they don't want you to see the gears,
> thats
> > > their decision. Its their code, they should be able to do what they want
> > > with it no matter how much of a "threat" they pose.
> >
> > You are just plain wrong.  They have broken the law, therefore different
> > rules apply.  They have destroyed companies, and along with them peoples
> > livelyhoods.  It would be different if they were just very good at
> > software design, but they are not.  They have destroyed the OS market
> > with there illegal dealings.  Just as a convicted felon loses some
> > rights, so must Microsoft.
> 
> How have they destroyed companies any differently then all the other
> companies out there would like to see their competition annihilated? Lest
> we forget, most people are not in business to make great products, they
> are in business to make money. Besides, some would argue that MS
> *created*, not destroyed, the consumer OS market (ie. desktops) Whether
> they are good at software design is totally irrelevant in the most obvious
> way, they are the market leader. I'm not even sure convicted felons are
> forced to give up their intellectual property rights. Granted, a
> mega-monopoly is distinct from a felon by definition anyway.
> 
> > Ultimately its the
> > > people who continue to buy into their monopoly that are causing the
> > > problem.
> >
> > That's easily said, but the fact that they are so imbedded makes it
> > impossible.  More companies would go out of business if they just flat
> > out quit using M$ products.  Customers would complain, there would be a
> > huge cost in converting existing M$ formatted files to some other format.
> 
> Customers would complain? Oh my! You mean this is a consumer-driven
> market? Shame on Microsoft! I agree there is a huge cost in converting all
> those damn Word documents and Excel spreadsheets to some reasonable open
> format. Blame management for those decisions, not MS.
> 
> >
> > If you're worried about nefarious things going on inside the code
> > > that you don't know about, which is undoubtably the case, don't buy
> their
> > > products for linux, windows, or any other operating system.
> >
> > Some folks don't have a choice.  And I, will not deny my 10 year
> > daughter the opportunity to play games that are only windows based.
> 
> Not denying your daughter the "opportunity to play games that are only
> windows based" is indeed a choice you make. The problem is, its a choice
> people are willing to make to support MS.
> 
> I guess the point is, yes MS has achieved monopoly status, which is pretty
> much the victory condition for the game. Because of that, they're gonna be
> penalized, apparently to the point of opening up their products to outside
> review. Surely this is great for the competition, you get the government
> to take apart your primary competitor for you. The thing linux and all of
> open source has going for it is that MS can't buy it up like they do
> everything else and this is why they're threatened by it. It would be a
> far greater victory for the open source movement if instead of taking what
> the government can get out of MS, we leveraged this advantage.
> 
> > It's not black and white.
> 
> Which is unfortunate. But MS seems to realize that their strategy is not
> going to work too much longer. They still have a tight grip on the desktop
> market but it seems the growth potential of that market is capped. How
> much stuff can you possibly add to an OS before you can't add enough major
> features that its marketable as different from your previous release?
> 
> Ben
> 
> 
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> 
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Today's Random Quote--------------------------------------

 Most people don't need a great deal of love nearly so much as
they need a steady supply.

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