Two-Card Monti (re: Microsoft settlement)

Wall Street Journal ^ | March 25, 2004 | Editorial

[OESY]

Check this out: Yesterday Europe's antitrust czar, Mario Monti, ordered Microsoft to offer a version of its Windows operating system without the currently included Windows Media Player, which allows computers to play music, movies and the like. Oh, the commission also fined Microsoft $612 million for "bundling" Media Player into Windows. But that's not the weird part.

[stylin_geek]

Your argument is ridiculous and you know it. There are plenty of closed architecture computers out there.

For example, we run an Alpha Mainframe where I work. The OpenVMS OS and the system hardware are completely owned and controlled by HP. It was our choice to buy the system. We bought it because we wanted extreme reliability and stability.

Do you understand? IT WAS OUR CHOICE TO PURCHASE THE SYSTEM. Likewise, you seem to think if you want something, you have the right to buy it, completely on your terms, even if the government has to get involved to tell the manufacturer to how to design the product to what you think are "fair" market standards.

[snooker]

Unfortunately your ridiculous argument doesn't fly. None of the computers you mentioned had a 95% share of the total market there was plenty of room for everyone.

Taking down MS is a good thing.

[stylin_geek]

Read my post again, I didn't claim that Microsoft warrantied anything. However, you claim that Microsft is being unfair, because they changed their code, and therefore an application would no longer run. Like I said, you are the one who thought Microsoft should be responsible to make sure other code should run with their OS.

Oh, I see, yes, manufactures have standards they have agreed on....did they do it under government coercion? What is with you people and your blind hatred of Microsoft? You will allow other companies the benefit of a doubt, but when it comes to Microsoft, the amount of unreasoning rage is amazing. In fact, it closely resembles the rage some Democrats have against President Bush.

I'm tired of this, I've said before, you don't like it, don't buy Microsoft. No one has forced you to buy Microsoft yet you act like someone put a gun to your head and made you.

[stylin_geek]

Oh, I see. You think Microsft should have the government go after them because they are to big. Like I said, you don't like Microsoft, don't buy Microsoft.

I might add, did Linux start because everyone has to buy Microsoft?

Your unreasoning rage against Microsoft is very similar to the rage some Democrats have against President Bush. Completely laughable, and completely obvious.

I like the way your mind is completely closed. You've made up your mind Microsoft is bad (funny, that is what the mainstream press has been saying for years. I guess in this instance you buy into what they say)

[cyborg]

That's what they said about phone companies and look at the hell it is now. Even right where I live people INSISTED LILCO was this horrible monopoly. Now electricity rates are higher than ever.

You would not have this attitude about Microsoft if you were its CEO. Unless you were a whiny little crybaby competitor who couldn't compete.

[mikegi]

Every lawyer knows that Microsoft is loaded with cash and they want some of it. Some of the companies you mention amount to a single person who is supported by legal companies whose sole purpose is to get a settlement from MSFT.

Anyway, do you want to know how many of these claims arise? Probably not, but I'll explain anyway so that others may be more informed. Inside Microsoft there are thousands of developers writing official products. They also write experimental code to meet a need they see. At the same time, the product managers decide to evaluate an outside company's product to see if it should be included in msft's products. So, a evaluation meeting occurs with the outside company and it may be attended by the developer working on his own inside project (he's included in the meeting because he's interested in the concept). After the meeting, the developer tells management that he has something equivalent to the outside company and convinces management to fully "productize" his code. Bingo, instant lawsuit. The outside company now claims that it "opened the kimono" to Microsoft and msft stole their code/concept.

Also, I noticed that none of your examples are actually stolen "code", they're all supposedly stolen concepts. I thought you had fallen for the anti-msft scammer Schulman(?) who made the amazing discovery that MSFT had "stolen" code directly from Apple's QT. He had disassembled code from both products and found similar sequences. That incompetent bozo had actually discovered standard initialization code **provided by ATI to all developers** that allows semi-linear direct addressing to their chip's memory. If you disassemble drivers on any OS you'll find similar sequences of code. None of it was "stolen".

[mikegi]

It wasn't too long ago that you got all the APIs and a free license from MS in your MSDN subscription. It was on;y after MS decided they could use the APIs as a lockout that the problem began.

You do understand the difference between private/internal APIs and public APIs, right? There's a big difference. One has to be documented, more robust, and carries compatibility issues. I think that msft actually turned some internal APIs into public APIs in error. For example, many of the shell APIs are quirky and inconsistent and should have remained private. In addition, there are tons more internal APIs that aren't public. There are internal APIs between GDI and the truetype font rasterizer. Should those be made public, too?

[BushCountry]

Nobody can say what just said with a with a straight face. Stacker's technology was stolen. Apples interface was stolen during a co-operative agreement. The MS DOS concept and functions were stolen from CP/M which at the time of agreement with IBM, Microsoft only product was a BASIC Compiler for CP/M machines. Microsoft Office products were copied from WordPerfect and Lotus to a tee. Then they modified their API's to hinder the performance of these competitors.

Every single software product that Microsoft ever produced was stolen or directly mimic another existing product that was better in both quality and preformance from Internet Browsing to Word processing. I can not think of a leading edge or creative product that Microsoft developed on it's own or that was not an almost direct copy of an existing product. Once again, they are a pox on technology innovation!

[stylin_geek]

By the way, when I called your argument ridiculous, I came up with a cogent reply.

However, you labeled my argument ridiculous, yet did nothing to refute what I said, other than "Microsoft is to big." Talk about ridiculous arguments. In fact, this tactic is right out of DU. Perhaps you are a leftist at heart?