On Oct 22, 7:41 am, Roy Schestowitz <newsgro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> Windows Vista - Review
> Windows shocker: 67% would buy XP over Vista
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Is Windows Vista the biggest PR failure in Microsoft's history? I don't
> | remember the criticism being this bad a year after XP was launched...
> `----
Actually this wouldn't be the worst. Remember that when Windows NT
3.1 came out, almost 90% chose Windows 3.1 instead of Windows NT 3.1
or Windows 3.5 during that first year period. That was in mid 1993,
and the market response was so bad that Bill Gates very quickly
announced "Chicago" and said it would be out within a year. 2 years
later, Windows 95 was finally released and wasn't really "stable"
until the Windows 95B release about 6 months later.
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.
Microsoft released Windows 1.0 shortly after the Mac, yet it wasn't as
functional or stable as the Mac until Windows 95. Microsoft announced
that NT would be a "better Unix than Unix" in 1992, and didn't deliver
Windows 2000 until almost may of 2000, almost 8 years later. Vista
was supposed to be Microsoft's answer to Linux when XP failed to
impress in 2001. Vista still can't deliver the combination of
stability, security, efficiency, performance, and flexibility of Linux
releases available in 2001, let alone all of the new functionality
provided by newer and better OSS applications, Linux applications, and
collaboration tools.
Yet Microsoft still uses it's iron fisted contracts to keep OEMs like
HP, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer, and Gateway from offering the
flexibility and capability of Linux-enhanced PCs. They still prevent
these OEMs from publishing ads and promotional material that list
Linux and Windows compatibility in the same document. Even when Linux
is included with the motherboard, Microsoft prevents the OEMs from
shipping the Linux distribution along with the preinstalled Windows
machine. The OEMs are not even allowed to honor the warrantees of
hardware sold with Windows and converted to the same versions of Linux
sold to corporate customers who do order Linux machines in quantity.
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? How
many Microsoft "Innovations" are based on the work and efforts of
their competitors? 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. 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 amusing thing is that there would be those who say "The courts or
government shouldn't regulate or mandate OEM PC configuration", and
yet this is exactly what the Bush administration has done by allowing
Microsoft to continue to engage in flagrant violations of the court
settlement simply because the two votes chosen by Microsoft on the
technical committee can outvote the person who actually attempts to
represent competitors and consumers. The compliance officer seems to
be doing nothing. Microsoft's contracts have become even MORE
exclusionary and MORE restrictive against competitors, even though the
court had ordered Microsoft to stop interfering with ANY attempts by
OEMs to ship Linux on their PCs.
The technology is now available for OEMs to ship machines that can run
Windows and Linux equally well, and even at the same time. There is
no technical reason for the OEMs to NOT ship both Linux and Windows
images on the same machine. Microsoft's illegal use of exclusionary
contracts to prevent this are a direct violation of the court order
signed in 2001. Microsoft has defied nearly every element of the
court order since that time, with the Bush administration guarding
it's flanks.
Microsoft was ordered to stop using it's monopoly power to extend it's
monopoly into other markets, yet they have now attempted to use
bundleware to expand theri monopoly of the OEM channel into Music,
Video and Movies, AntiVirus, Remote Access, and Firewalls/security.
In each of these areas, suitable competition was available, and had
access to the OEM channel, and was driven from the OEM channel by
Microsoft's exclusionary contracts and illegal bundling of
applications as "Operating System Enhancements".
Microsoft was ordered to publish their protocols in a manner which
promoted competition. Instead, Microsoft has merely added proprietary
extensions to break SAMBA, LDAP, and other widely accepted standards,
then put these "enhancements" into Nondiscloure and License agreements
that expressly forbid their use in anything but Windows client
software and Windows server software.
Microsoft has subverted graphics standards, attempting to impose
exclusionary contracts preventing the makers of DirectX video card
makers from creating software that would make these cards compatible
with Linux and it's OpenGL compatible software. Compatibility
licenses for Windows were made available, but only for applications
written to run on Microsoft Windows.
Microsoft has also attempted to subvert and hijack other standards
such as SATA, 802.11g and 802.11n, the SAN protocol used in the SC101
storage controller, and other SAN protocols, and numerous other formal
and informal agreements designed to exclude competitors including
Linux, OS/X, Solaris, UnixWare, and the various BSD based systems.
Microsoft even successfully induced SCO into filing a lawsuit which
they knew was fraudulent, as an attempt to sow Fear, Uncertainty, and
Doubt, for the express purpose of preventing companies from adopting
Linux when Windows XP popularity was beginning to Falter.
Microsoft even ignored previous settlements with the FTC and DOJ
related to the use of Vapor-Ware for the purpose of fraudulently
misleading the OEMs and corporate customers into believing that
Longhorn would have all ofthe best features of Linux and would be
available as early as 2004. The product delivered in 2007 barely
delivered 20% of the promised features and functionality.
Keep in mind that since the settlement, Microsoft has collected $60
billion/year in profits and revenues based on their ability to
continue to engage in illegal activities, that's nearly $500 BILLION
in illegal benefit, as a direct result of being allowed to openly defy
the courts with the Bush Administration's blessing.
But then again, this is peanuts compared to the illegal activities of
Halliburton, Blackwater, General Dynamics, and United Technologies,
most of which are still going on with full administration approval.
> http://wannabegeek.org/content/view/86526/
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