Why I was wrong about Microsoft

The H ^ | 4 April 2011 | Glyn Moody

[ShadowAce]

[ShadowAce]

I have yet to investigate it. I keep hearing conflicting reports.

[ShadowAce]

Oops. Wrong thread.

[Dr. Sivana]

To give you an idea how far I go back with Microsoft, let's just say I remember the occasion when I was given a personal demo of a hot new product that Microsoft was about to launch – a graphical spreadsheet for the Macintosh, later known as Excel.

I would have been impressed if he said "Multiplan." I don't go back that far, but I did right about the "forthcoming" MSX home computing software standard and the MS-BASIC featured on the Spectravideo SV-318/328 (1983). Those were the days.

[Dr. Sivana]

oops! right = write

[Texas Fossil]

Thanks for the post.

Nothing about what he described surprises me. I think Microsoft understands that the “improvements” to recent copies of their core product “MS Office” are very superficial and almost no users find them useful. At the same time the down economy, cost of software upgrades and availability of Open Source equivalents (loose term) make their market position less secure.

I have been using Linux of some flavor since the release of Redhat 5.0 That is a while back.

TF

[ShadowAce]

I can almost remember the days when BG wrote his infamous message about free software in the '70s. My first computer was a TRS-80 in 1977, so I've been following the industry for over 30 years now.

I've watched MS grow up, and now I believe I'm watching its decline. We'll see.

[FroggyTheGremlim]

"on Microsoft's part that it can no longer compete on technology"

Oh, please, Glyn Moody. Microsoft was never able to compete on technology.

I remember the "OS Wars" back in the 90's. OS/2 was a far superior Operating System in terms of efficiency, performance, stability, reliability and security, to any version of Windows.

On technological grounds, OS/2 could have wiped the floor with Windows.

But Microsoft, Gates, Ballmer and the rest of those thieves used every method of FUD available. And they proceeded to invent all kinds of new FUD techniques.

You, Glyn Moody, and your cronies in the media, swallowed all the FUD Microsoft fed you. You went to the elaborate parties in Redmond; you sat up and begged for scraps from the MS "announcement" and product launch teams; you took the MS spin and destroyed OS/2 and its great technology.

But you also destroyed the careers of many OS/2 developers and implementers. I know from personal experience.

You and the rest of your media whores got your pieces of silver from Gates and Ballmer. Now you're feeling regrets?

Go hang yourself.

[Dr. Sivana]

The “TRaSh-80” Model I was not a bad computer. It largely suffered from Radio Shack’s image as being to low grade for real techies (though I grew up with those red P-Box kits.)

The MS Basic (that Gates did for a flat $10,000, his biggest mistake early on) was very good (Level 2 incarnation, at least. I believe that Tandy made the right trade-off when they went with a 65 character line rather than cheesy TV tube 32-40 char color. Lower case should have been built-in.

I couldn’t afford one of those, but a friend had a job programming one at home, and we got to play Flying Saucers and Invasion Force ... oh the wasted hours.

[ShadowAce]

Microsoft was never able to compete on technology.

I can think of only one piece of tech that MS actually innovated.

And now Bob is dead.

[ShadowAce]

...oh the wasted hours.

Took me 21 minutes to CLOAD Adventure and Zork--before I could even start to play it.

[Dr. Sivana]

OS/2 was a far superior Operating System in terms of efficiency, performance, stability, reliability and security, to any version of Windows.

Microsoft co-wrote OS/2. They also talked IBM into going 16 bit in the first iteration on behalf of all of those '286 boxes still around. This made IBM's 32-bit Microchannel pretty useless.

You are of course right about Microsoft undermining OS/2 in order to make a breach for Windows. IBM, however, is not some little start-up, and they themselves were (and are) ambivalent about desktop computing. They had the means to fight back, they apparently were lacking either the will and/or the brains to do it.

It didn't help that the first true PS/2 boxes (Models 50 and 80) were garbage.

[FroggyTheGremlim]

No doubt IBM was grossly incompetent in the Personal Computer arena.

But I was trying to emphasize the media's effects. They were highly biased toward Microsoft then.

I suspected that the PC media folks identified closely with Gates - he was, after all, one of them. He didn't wear suits or ties. But the "Blue Meanies" at IBM did. Heck, they even had IBM songs back then.

Of course, Gates and Ballmer played the media like violins.

Anyway, my main point was that the PC media did NOT report on the technological issues. They reported based on their feelings.

It's the same as the political media. They report on their bias, not the true issues.

We lose in both cases, politically and technologically, we get stuck with the media's droppings. We deserve better than that!

Whatever do they teach in Journalist Schools?

[for-q-clinton]

You heard me right. If a company overseas uses a pirated version of Excel, let's say, keeping track of how many parts it has shipped or whatever, and then sends some parts to General Motors or any large company to incorporate into the finished product, Microsoft can sue *not the overseas supplier* but General Motors, for unfair competition. Actually that's a pretty good idea not just for Microsoft but other things as well. It's a good way to get FAIR trade with China. Companies will be less likely to use China as an outsourcer while these issues exist so this force chinese companies to clean up their act.

[Brookhaven]

It’s not hard to figure out what is going on here. Microsoft’s core product line—end user operating systems—is fracturing, and they don’t have any way to stop it.

The move is to web services. A central web server that supplies content to a web browser. In that model, it doesn’t matter what operating system the user is running—as long as it is running a browser (or other program) that interacts with the web server in a standard way.

Microsoft has never dominated the backend (server side). Unix has always been the big dog there.

This is all part of a bigger move of getting away from personal computers, and moving to “personal devices”. Devices where it won’t matter what OS you run.

[longtermmemmory]

microsoft envisions computing as a utility fee where you have to pay per month to compute.

this is also why they are pushing the absurdity of the cloud.

the cloud system seems one big NO SALE.

[thulldud]

On technological grounds, OS/2 could have wiped the floor with Windows.

I had a boss who used to say something like, "OS/2? That's 'half an operating system.'"

And I believed him. Until, lemme see, 1996, when somebody gave me a copy of OS/2 (red spine) and I loaded it up.

I wasn't sure whether I would rather spit or just go blind. OS/2 was so much better than Windows in every way: Presentation Manager actually responded to the state of the objects represented on the screen, the API was clean and sensible, and, given enough RAM (which I had) the multitasking was clean and smooth.

And then IBM stopped development. Grrr...I still have several copies of OS/2 around, including one unopened full-pack, which I can't bring myself to throw out.

Of course, I use Linux now, and for years had a Microsoft-free home.

[Still Thinking]

To give you an idea how far I go back with Microsoft, let's just say I remember the occasion when I was given a personal demo of a hot new product that Microsoft was about to launch – a graphical spreadsheet for the Macintosh, later known as Excel.

I remember getting a demo version of Excel that would run straight on DOS but had the same GUI as early Windows Excel versions. I think they were trying to sell the concept of Windows as well as the apps themselves to DOS users. I hated VisiCalc and Lotus and actually used the demo version as my standard work spreadsheet.

[Dr. Sivana]

But I was trying to emphasize the media's effects. They were highly biased toward Microsoft then.

A lot of us were. When IBM came out with the PS/2, IBM was charging hefty fees for MCA and I believe even VGA and PS/2, and they charged an enormous amount for these sturdy boxes with sturdy power supplies that were slower and clunkier than the ISA (later EISA) counterparts.

Microsoft, to us, had no hardware dog in the game (mice and 286 add-in cards don't count), and opened up a practical OS to the world. First it started with the quasi-compatible MS-DOS boxes (Columbia, Eagle, DEC, Sanyo) and then the true compatibles (Compaq, PC's Limited, Leading Edge, Gateway, Tandon, etc.) then scores of mobo manufacturers and a huge DIY industry reflected by the 800 page tabloid sized Computer Shopper.

In those days, the $80 for DOS seemed like a bargain when a decent home built rig with even a '286 would run $1,500 or more. When Microsoft sold Windows 2.0 (or Windows 286, even though it ran fine on my 8088-10) for $40 to students, I rushed and got me a copy. For comparison, a cheap hard drive (ST-225, 20 MB) was $250, a color monitor $350 and up, memory was hundreds per MEGABYTE.

At the time, we had no idea that MS would take their DOS hegemony and parlay it into application hegemony. Remember, in those days, PC spreadsheets were Lotus 1-2-3. Databases were dBase III+ and (non MS) Fox Base, Word Processing was Wordstar, then Multimate, then WordPerfect. The closest thing to an "office" product was Symphony and Framework. In that world, the DOS world, Microsoft wasn't much of a threat. Except for Excel, Microsoft applications were okay, and there, but were not considered best of breed (e.g. DOS Word) and even utilities were the domain of other companies like Quarterdeck and Borland.

I would make the case that Microsoft was the good guys in the DOS days, because IBM would have kept their stuff closed and expensive. The rest of us (who could afford neither Macs nor true IBMs) would have wound up with Kaypros running CPM, Atari STs, Amigas and pirated IBM clones. The Unix folks STILL would not have gotten their act together, and the other *nixes could not have flourished without a sorta non-proprietary hardware platform (x86) to work off of. The price of commercial grade software would have stayed high longer.