[H]omer <spam@xxxxxxx> espoused:
> Verily I say unto thee, that Rex Ballard spake thusly:
>
>> 2 years later, Windows 95 was finally released and wasn't really
>> "stable" until the Windows 95B release about 6 months later.
>
> As I recall, 95B was primarily released to support USB. Frankly /no/
> version of Windows is ever particularly stable, in fact the more service
> packs and hotfixes you slap onto Windows, the more unstable it seems to
> become, IME.
>
>> Given Microsoft's past track record, it could take them up to 6 years
>> to fix the problems and come up with a major release or correction
>> to Vista.
>
> IMHO Vista is destined to be a very short-lived release, like WinME,
> quickly brushed under the carpet to save further embarrassment, and
> replaced (in this case) with Windows 7, which will of course Fix
> Everything®.
>
>> Yet the Bush administration thinks that Microsoft should be allowed
>> to profit from it's "Innovaion". Shouldn't other individuals and
>> companies be allowed to profit from their Innovations as well?
>
> Maybe those other companies don't bribe^H^H^H^H^Hcontribute as much
> towards their campaign funds as Microsoft does.
>
>> How many Microsoft "Innovations" are based on the work and efforts of
>> their competitors?
>
> Er ... all of them, since "Microsoft don't develop products, they buy
> products". Microsoft are the masters of assimilation, I don't think they
> even try to deny the fact. They do try to /obfuscate/ the fact, by using
> a rather odd definition of the word "innovate", i.e. "buy", but to a
> company that is little more than a reseller of others' products, I guess
> "buying" is as close to "innovation" as they'll ever get.
>
>> Bill Joy created BSD, yet Microsoft used this technology to keep Sun
>> off corporate desktops. Marc Andreeson created Mosaic, yet Microsoft
>> tried to use that same code - rebranded as Internet Explorer, to
>> drive Netscape, also co-owned by Andreeson, into bankruptcy (easy
>> takeover), and then tried to for AOL to stop upgrading it,
>> effectively killing off the market completely.
>>
>> Other victims include Lotus, WordPerfect, Novell, Borland, Corel,
>> Autodesk, Symantic, Norton, RealMedia, Citrix, and thousands of other
>> companies who have had their innovations stolen from them and
>> included as Microsoft bundleware, driving the original innovators
>> into ruin.
>>
>> For 25 years Microsoft has "ruled the roost" with it's "Iron Fist"
>> killing off competitors, decimating their stocks, often turning
>> $billion companies into small businesses, simply because they have
>> been denied access to the OEM distribution channel.
>
> Ah sorry, I forgot about that /other/ type of "innovation" that they do,
> the classic "boiler-room deal". Yes, they're quite good at bribing
> people too. They haven't lost their touch in that department over the
> years either. Look how well they did bribing people over OOXML recently.
> Not well enough though, apparently.
To be honest, I think that was the first /really big/ sign that
Microsoft's dominance is truly over. They pulled out all the stops,
tried to bribe people in every country in the world, and still failed.
Yup, Microsoft failed. Even /with/ all that money. Their track record
is now p*ss poor:
Vista - disastrous failure - linux & apple growing rapidly
Zune - quiet failure - Apple laughing
Xbox360 - well hyped, but red ring of death and burnt down houses
are very well known - sony/nintendo laughing
Windows mobile - also ran - symbian & linux leading
Silverlight/BBC - disaster, expensive & embarassing
Microsoft search - complete unknown - google laughing
Online hosted Office - disaster - google laughing
In fact, if you think this through very carefully, the last time Microsoft
had any kind of success was with Windows XP/NT5.1, which was really a
minor upgrade from Windows 2000/NT5.
So, their last success was a bunch of patches issued 4 years ago, for a
major OS release 7, almost 8, years ago.
There is positively no way that Microsoft will get away with channel
stuffing again - DSG in the UK has had it's gross margin hit by over 2%
by the inventory which nobody wants, but Microsoft are claiming as
sales.
>
>> Perhaps the OEMs should not be allowed to preinstall ANY software,
>> and should be REQUIRED to include software from all vendors. Or they
>> should be required to install ALL competitors' software.
>
> The unbundling of Windows is a hot topic ATM, and will continue to be
> for as long as I have a voice to yell with. Which reminds me of a little
> side project I've been neglecting (Moooouuuuaha-ha-ha).
>
I think that the market is going to manage it on its own now, but it has
to be said that had it not been for the GPL, then this could never have
happened.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
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