[ale] petition

[Geoffrey]

We should really terminate this thread....

Benjamin Dixon wrote:

> How have they destroyed companies any differently then all the other
> companies out there would like to see their competition annihilated?

Because they are a G* D* monopoly.  Different rules apply here.

> Lest
> we forget, most people are not in business to make great products, they
> are in business to make money.

Absolutely true.

> Besides, some would argue that MS
> *created*, not destroyed, the consumer OS market (ie. desktops)

Well they're wrong.  It's often difficult for people to see what the 
future could have been like, because they're so stuck in the present.

> Whether
> they are good at software design is totally irrelevant in the most obvious
> way, they are the market leader.

They are the market leader, because there is no choice.  MOST companies 
that are not good at building their product, wither and die.  Only a 
monopoly can continue to grow at such astounding rates with such poor 
products.

> 
>>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.

You are truly confused if you think that Microsoft has anything to do 
with creating a consumer driven market.  I continue to blame M$ for the 
problems with file formats, since they are the ones that continue to 
hide their formats and change them from one release to the next.  To the 
extent that one version of their own product can't properly handle the 
previous.

> 
> 
>>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.

Well, she's still on 95 and I expect that she'll shortly outgrow the 
gaming and then she'll no longer require a dual boot.

> 
> 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.


This is where you are so misguided.  Microsoft does not compete.

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.

Exactly why I maintain they should have to publish their document 
formats rather then their OS source.

> 
> 
>>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
> 
> 
> 


-- 
Until later: Geoffrey		esoteric at 3times25.net

"...the system (Microsoft passport) carries significant risks to users that
are not made adequately clear in the technical documentation available."
- David P. Kormann and Aviel D. Rubin, AT&T Labs - Research
- http://www.avirubin.com/passport.html


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