Tracking down this thread has been kind of fun, in a trivial way. I
volunteered a couple of years in a Boston homeless shelter, and
so not much I see here is new. Kind of a reminder. But one thing
that I saw here did catch my notice: the comment about trapdoors
in Windows.
I was listening to a lecture from a security professional at MIT.
After the talk we had the usual Q&A, and someone asked about
the trapdoors in Windows.
"You don't need those," was the reply, followed by several chuckles
around the room.
Cheers -- Martha Adams
"Rex Ballard" <rex.ballard@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1154968801.762997.246640@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Martha Adams wrote:
>> I have a comparatively world-shaking idea for Microsoft to
>> think about. Namely, a change in their marketing
>> emphasis. It is,
>
> Let's see. You want to tell a company run by two of the richest men
> in
> the world (Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer) how they should change the
> marketing strategy that has enabled them to maintain a 98% lock on
> their market and expand that lock into over a dozen other markets.
>
> If you were Martha STUART, they might be willing to listen. But if
> you
> really expect them to change their marketing strategy, under anything
> other than a court order, you are living in fantasy.
>
> You're idea would be world-shaking for Microsoft, it would be like the
> San Francisco Earthquake. It would shake things up so badly that an
> etire infrastructure would collapse, and the secondary damage would be
> like the fires that burned the buildings after they fell down, and
> then
> shutting down the damage countrol would be like losing the water, the
> way they did during the "big quake".
>
>> "Your files and programs, your data and your work, are
>> safe in our OS environment.
>
> Which means that they would have to admit, publicly, in a national ad
> campaign, that none of these files and programs were safe in the first
> place. We all know that they are not safe, and we even know why. We
> know that Microsoft has left "back doors" open, and these are the
> doors
> through which not only Microsoft, but numerous hackers and spyware
> services gain access. You are proposing that Microsoft admit to those
> back doors, and then say "trust me", after admitting that they aren't
> trustworthy.
>
> I'm not holding my breath.
>
>> We will not intrude into your property
>
> Again, not only are they admitting that they have been intruding into
> your property, but they are also promising to give up access to a
> critical strategic source of information which enables them to
> identify
> new and growing markets, and expand their monopoly control into those
> markets, before the competition gets the chance to form a beach head.
>
> Again, I'm not holding my breath.
>
>> nor will we throw up roadblocks to your doing
>> your work in our OS, however you feel you need to do it."
>
> Microsoft has been spending over $4 billion/year for 15 years to keep
> you from knowing about critical competitor products, to keep you from
> using competitor products such as WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, Corel
> Draw,
> Lotus Notes, Netscape Communicator, and RealMedia Player, and now you
> want them to not only admit they exist, but you even want them to
> admit
> that they have been throwing up roadblocks to those applications, and
> that they are willing to let you use those products, or freely
> downloaded OpenOffice or StarOffice, rather than the Office, Project,
> Visio, IE, and other applications which are pivotal to as much as 70%
> of their revenue?
>
> I think you'd probably have to win a conviction sentencing Steve and
> Bill to at least 50 years in federal prison before they would consider
> that one.
>
>> This is my try at a worldshaking proposal, and I think it's
>> pretty good. Cheers -- Martha Adams
>
> I think it's a fabulous Idea, but then again, I'm a hard core
> penuinista who would love nothing more than to see Linux Machines on
> the store shelves right next to Windows machines (Windows wouldn't
> stand a chance in a side-by-side comparison), and watch Microsoft's OS
> market share erode to around 40-45% of the total market.
>
> I'd love nothing better than to see Microsofts "Office Suite" share
> drop to 40% as well.
>
> But something tells me that the folks at Microsoft would like these ad
> campaign ideas about as much as they like the Mac OS/X ads.
>
> Still, it is fun to enjoy the fantasy for a few minutes.
>
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