<strong>Well I'm glad our attorney general's office doesn't feel that way about whether or not people break the law. Oh wait...</strong><hr></blockquote>
It seems to me there are too many people who prefer to bury thier heads in the sand because it's easier to live with the status quo instead of defending one's rights.
Belle, Microsoft lied, cheated, connived, fooled, and a million of other adjectives, any company that chose to stand in their way with a better product or bigger marketshare. If there's one company that was stupid, it was IBM who allowed a bunch of fools to sign the original deal with Microsoft. Every other company since then was blind to the fact Microsoft only chose to work with them to steal their ideas and technologies. Microsoft has for a longtime behaved no differently than the Mafia has. Their monopoly has allowed them [Microsoft] to make "an offer you can't refuse". I just wonder what offer they made to the DOJ.
One more thing Belle: even if Microsoft had been fined 10 billion dollars to compensate all the companies they destroyed, they would still be a monopoly! At least, the DOJ would have sent Gates and company a clear message of shape up or you're going to get a major spanking!
We've seen this coming for about 18 months now. I've had time to come to terms with this. It just pads my cynicism. Remember, trying is the first step to failure.
<strong>It seems to me there are too many people who prefer to bury thier heads in the sand because it's easier to live with the status quo instead of defending one's rights.
Belle, Microsoft lied, cheated, connived, fooled, and a million of other adjectives, any company that chose to stand in their way with a better product or bigger marketshare. If there's one company that was stupid, it was IBM who allowed a bunch of fools to sign the original deal with Microsoft. Every other company since then was blind to the fact Microsoft only chose to work with them to steal their ideas and technologies. Microsoft has for a longtime behaved no differently than the Mafia has. Their monopoly has allowed them [Microsoft] to make "an offer you can't refuse". I just wonder what offer they made to the DOJ.
One more thing Belle: even if Microsoft had been fined 10 billion dollars to compensate all the companies they destroyed, they would still be a monopoly! At least, the DOJ would have sent Gates and company a clear message of shape up or you're going to get a major spanking!
I would also blame IBM for their hardware development into the IBM-PC for using chips and parts that can be found anywhere with an ineffective security chip (the BIOS) in the hopes they can control their microcomputer market share. Once MS got into software and hardware makers clone IBM-PCs legally, IBM has created a monster. As much as I use to like their OS/2, I lost faith on IBM in their landmark in the microcomputer industry until they helped Apple make the PowerPC CPUs.
I would also blame specifically to former Apple execs John Sculley and Jean-Louis Gausse in fooling around in Apple's monumental works for not licensing the MacOS and foolhardingly sign an agreement allowing MS to continue making Windows. I would give a spit into those two for this.
Until the whole world does something, I'm at least boycotting in buying MS products because of this. I would love to see MS broken into 10 companies and watch a live broadcast of Gates, Ballmer and the MS execs serving the prison food cafeteria and denied to use anything electronical.
[quote] I think this ruling proves that the sun is setting on M$. As well, with the state of the economy, there is no way the Bush's government is going to punish a giant. Everyone predicted this when Bush was elected.
People are leaving for Linux in DROVES. Companies with excess of 40 000 seats are switching to a platform wich is superior in almost every respect and FREE. There is no way M$ can compete. They can't even afford to give African schools free software. By the time this 5 year deal is over, M$ will have lost at least 1/2 of it's market share. <hr></blockquote>
Linux sucks. From Joe Sixpack's perspective. Linux isn't a desktop OS and likely never will be. It sucks compared to OS X so why cheerlead it? I don't get this mentality, and I also like playing Devil's Advocate sometimes. People in general seem to have this blind faith in Linux. Why? It's just another open source UNIX. It isn't even that good! And Linux IS a competitor to Apple even if software for it runs on OS X. Apple SELLS OS X, and Linux PCs are in very direct competition as well, or at least that's where they are aimed.
Even if I wasn't a socialist and Mac user I'd still have to say, this ruling is fubar. FUBAR. Is the US DoJ even going to ask M$ for the money back that American taxpayers spent on this trial?
FUBAR. I knew it was coming but still... How come this isn't all over the media? This is really ridiculous, it dwarfs Enron. Microsoft will become so big it will eventually just buy Apple. I hope the European Union actually does something. If I was from another country I'd be afraid too. Hopefully the EU will make M$ pay for the trial?
<strong>It seems to me there are too many people who prefer to bury thier heads in the sand because it's easier to live with the status quo instead of defending one's rights.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Your rights to what, exactly? A world free from corruption?
[quote]<strong>Belle, Microsoft lied, cheated, connived, fooled, and a million of other adjectives, any company that chose to stand in their way with a better product or bigger marketshare. If there's one company that was stupid, it was IBM who allowed a bunch of fools to sign the original deal with Microsoft. Every other company since then was blind to the fact Microsoft only chose to work with them to steal their ideas and technologies.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think this proves my point that for me, a computer user who wants better, more innovative tools than are currently available, the problem doesn't lie with Microsoft, but the myriad companies that were foolish, and see fit to blame Microsoft for their failings.
[quote]<strong>Microsoft has for a longtime behaved no differently than the Mafia has. Their monopoly has allowed them [Microsoft] to make "an offer you can't refuse". I just wonder what offer they made to the DOJ.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, Microsoft regularly assassinate rivals in the street, plant car bombs, and intimidate staff at Apple Stores by sending in heavies with baseball bats. So apparently Microsoft made "an offer you can't refuse" to computer manufacturers whereby they had to make Windows the default install to be allowed to sell Office. These manufacturers, each worth billions themselves, said "Duh, okay, we'll sign," when they could quite easily have said "Screw you" and found or developed an alternative.
90%, possibly more, of people here are happy to say "Windows is a piece of ****." If that's so, surely it wouldn't have been too hard for someone to provide an alternative? Jeez, Apple had the first mass market GUI, it had Visicalc, and yet Microsoft now reigns. Whose fault is that?
[quote]<strong>One more thing Belle: even if Microsoft had been fined 10 billion dollars to compensate all the companies they destroyed, they would still be a monopoly! At least, the DOJ would have sent Gates and company a clear message of shape up or you're going to get a major spanking!</strong><hr></blockquote>
So what? It's called a monopoly because there's no competition, right? There's no competition because a) Microsoft was malicious, and b) because there are no innovative alternatives. I don't care about a). Punishing Microsoft because it was malicious gets me nowhere. Given billions of Microsoft's money to Netscape and Sun gets me nowhere. Developers truly innovating and then being strong and refusing to sell out to Microsoft for an easy buck (like Burst, Inc.) gets me somewhere.
That all may be true, Belle, insofar as what it does for you. I just don't like convicted monopolists walking off with a hand slapping, since it reinforces the message that there is nothing that can't be done to the American consumer.
I also think your worldview is a bit utopic--the idea that the pure force of innovation can defeat anything. You may never get a chance to test your theory if the variables get locked down by giant corporations.
Comments
<strong>Well I'm glad our attorney general's office doesn't feel that way about whether or not people break the law. Oh wait...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Belle, Microsoft lied, cheated, connived, fooled, and a million of other adjectives, any company that chose to stand in their way with a better product or bigger marketshare. If there's one company that was stupid, it was IBM who allowed a bunch of fools to sign the original deal with Microsoft. Every other company since then was blind to the fact Microsoft only chose to work with them to steal their ideas and technologies. Microsoft has for a longtime behaved no differently than the Mafia has. Their monopoly has allowed them [Microsoft] to make "an offer you can't refuse". I just wonder what offer they made to the DOJ.
One more thing Belle: even if Microsoft had been fined 10 billion dollars to compensate all the companies they destroyed, they would still be a monopoly! At least, the DOJ would have sent Gates and company a clear message of shape up or you're going to get a major spanking!
[ 11-04-2002: Message edited by: DVD_Junkie ]</p>
<strong>It seems to me there are too many people who prefer to bury thier heads in the sand because it's easier to live with the status quo instead of defending one's rights.
Belle, Microsoft lied, cheated, connived, fooled, and a million of other adjectives, any company that chose to stand in their way with a better product or bigger marketshare. If there's one company that was stupid, it was IBM who allowed a bunch of fools to sign the original deal with Microsoft. Every other company since then was blind to the fact Microsoft only chose to work with them to steal their ideas and technologies. Microsoft has for a longtime behaved no differently than the Mafia has. Their monopoly has allowed them [Microsoft] to make "an offer you can't refuse". I just wonder what offer they made to the DOJ.
One more thing Belle: even if Microsoft had been fined 10 billion dollars to compensate all the companies they destroyed, they would still be a monopoly! At least, the DOJ would have sent Gates and company a clear message of shape up or you're going to get a major spanking!
[ 11-04-2002: Message edited by: DVD_Junkie ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
I would also blame IBM for their hardware development into the IBM-PC for using chips and parts that can be found anywhere with an ineffective security chip (the BIOS) in the hopes they can control their microcomputer market share. Once MS got into software and hardware makers clone IBM-PCs legally, IBM has created a monster. As much as I use to like their OS/2, I lost faith on IBM in their landmark in the microcomputer industry until they helped Apple make the PowerPC CPUs.
I would also blame specifically to former Apple execs John Sculley and Jean-Louis Gausse in fooling around in Apple's monumental works for not licensing the MacOS and foolhardingly sign an agreement allowing MS to continue making Windows. I would give a spit into those two for this.
Until the whole world does something, I'm at least boycotting in buying MS products because of this. I would love to see MS broken into 10 companies and watch a live broadcast of Gates, Ballmer and the MS execs serving the prison food cafeteria and denied to use anything electronical.
[ 11-04-2002: Message edited by: Commodore Sinclair ]</p>
People are leaving for Linux in DROVES. Companies with excess of 40 000 seats are switching to a platform wich is superior in almost every respect and FREE. There is no way M$ can compete. They can't even afford to give African schools free software. By the time this 5 year deal is over, M$ will have lost at least 1/2 of it's market share. <hr></blockquote>
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
Yeah right.
Linux sucks. From Joe Sixpack's perspective. Linux isn't a desktop OS and likely never will be. It sucks compared to OS X so why cheerlead it? I don't get this mentality, and I also like playing Devil's Advocate sometimes. People in general seem to have this blind faith in Linux. Why? It's just another open source UNIX. It isn't even that good! And Linux IS a competitor to Apple even if software for it runs on OS X. Apple SELLS OS X, and Linux PCs are in very direct competition as well, or at least that's where they are aimed.
Even if I wasn't a socialist and Mac user I'd still have to say, this ruling is fubar. FUBAR. Is the US DoJ even going to ask M$ for the money back that American taxpayers spent on this trial?
FUBAR. I knew it was coming but still... How come this isn't all over the media? This is really ridiculous, it dwarfs Enron. Microsoft will become so big it will eventually just buy Apple. I hope the European Union actually does something. If I was from another country I'd be afraid too. Hopefully the EU will make M$ pay for the trial?
<strong>It seems to me there are too many people who prefer to bury thier heads in the sand because it's easier to live with the status quo instead of defending one's rights.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Your rights to what, exactly? A world free from corruption?
[quote]<strong>Belle, Microsoft lied, cheated, connived, fooled, and a million of other adjectives, any company that chose to stand in their way with a better product or bigger marketshare. If there's one company that was stupid, it was IBM who allowed a bunch of fools to sign the original deal with Microsoft. Every other company since then was blind to the fact Microsoft only chose to work with them to steal their ideas and technologies.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think this proves my point that for me, a computer user who wants better, more innovative tools than are currently available, the problem doesn't lie with Microsoft, but the myriad companies that were foolish, and see fit to blame Microsoft for their failings.
[quote]<strong>Microsoft has for a longtime behaved no differently than the Mafia has. Their monopoly has allowed them [Microsoft] to make "an offer you can't refuse". I just wonder what offer they made to the DOJ.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, Microsoft regularly assassinate rivals in the street, plant car bombs, and intimidate staff at Apple Stores by sending in heavies with baseball bats. So apparently Microsoft made "an offer you can't refuse" to computer manufacturers whereby they had to make Windows the default install to be allowed to sell Office. These manufacturers, each worth billions themselves, said "Duh, okay, we'll sign," when they could quite easily have said "Screw you" and found or developed an alternative.
90%, possibly more, of people here are happy to say "Windows is a piece of ****." If that's so, surely it wouldn't have been too hard for someone to provide an alternative? Jeez, Apple had the first mass market GUI, it had Visicalc, and yet Microsoft now reigns. Whose fault is that?
[quote]<strong>One more thing Belle: even if Microsoft had been fined 10 billion dollars to compensate all the companies they destroyed, they would still be a monopoly! At least, the DOJ would have sent Gates and company a clear message of shape up or you're going to get a major spanking!</strong><hr></blockquote>
So what? It's called a monopoly because there's no competition, right? There's no competition because a) Microsoft was malicious, and b) because there are no innovative alternatives. I don't care about a). Punishing Microsoft because it was malicious gets me nowhere. Given billions of Microsoft's money to Netscape and Sun gets me nowhere. Developers truly innovating and then being strong and refusing to sell out to Microsoft for an easy buck (like Burst, Inc.) gets me somewhere.
I also think your worldview is a bit utopic--the idea that the pure force of innovation can defeat anything. You may never get a chance to test your theory if the variables get locked down by giant corporations.
No Linux is not UNIX,very UNIX like,but not UNIX.It doesn't suck,but you're right it's not a good desktop OS,and OS X is better.