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This article presents very thorough and interesting historical/technical background on Microsoft's OS and its conflict with Linux...
1 posted on 01/06/2003 4:00:44 AM PST by chilepepper
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To: chilepepper
IBM came out with a very good 32-bit OS with a good 32-bit presentation manager in 92 and the first time Microsoft even had a competing product was with version 4 of Win NT in the summer of 96. Windows should have been buried and dead by that time. Instead, OS2 had been ignored to death by that time. Msoft had told every software developer in America that if they wrote code for OS2, they'd be out of the loop and never have the info necessary to write for 32-bit windows WHEN it came out, and they ALL caved. The problem as I see it is that the next time the United States has to wait four years for Bill Gates to catch up, it might be Japan Inc. or somebody else that catches up...
2 posted on 01/06/2003 4:09:23 AM PST by merak
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To: chilepepper
in an almost quixotic fashion

I resemble that remark!

Actually, I think this article puts it mildly.

Am beginning to think there's a special spot reserved in a very hot place for those upper leaders involved with a fraction of Redmond's infuriating fiendishness.

3 posted on 01/06/2003 4:24:26 AM PST by Quix
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To: chilepepper
the mandatory bundling of Windows with new computer equipment

Funny, I can go online right now and order a computer sans operating system. This is an old axe he's grinding here, worn dull.

5 posted on 01/06/2003 4:34:55 AM PST by RogueIsland
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To: chilepepper
Businesses compete. Some businesses are more successful (profitable) than others. Some products take off. Some don't.

If Microsoft breaks the law, they should be prosecuted. I believe there was a trial ... but I do not recall too much wrong-doing being proven.

If the government passes legislation to benefit Microsoft, than that is un-American. I believe there was a trial ... in which the US government tried to punish Microsoft.

The way I see it, Microsoft competes, within the letter of the law, and trounces all opponents. But the opponents are still out there, so that all the Microsoft haters can use the opposing software, if they wish. Why cry about that?
I'm a UNIX guy. But people who hate Microsoft really irk me. Businesses which follow the law should be allowed to thrive if the marketplace delivers profits to the business.

That's capitalism. I'm a conservative. Do the math.

10 posted on 01/06/2003 5:34:17 AM PST by ClearCase_guy
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To: chilepepper
Does anybody remember a month-or-so ago that Bill Gates announced that he (or was it Microsoft?) was donating hundreds of millions of dollars to India to fight AIDS - and then a couple of days later India announced that their government was standardizing on Linux?

Obvious political bribery going on there it seemed to me.

Given the fact that Linux won out on that one, I can't help but wonder of those hundreds of millions will ever materialize(?)

13 posted on 01/06/2003 5:56:27 AM PST by The Duke
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To: chilepepper
Microsoft does NOT have a monopoly! There is competition; it is just that few want to go the road less traveled and get an Apple product. If Apple and others properly advertised their products they just might become bigger players. Instead, Apple decided not to advertise much, but rather to lobby governments and schools to buy their products. Their marketing stratigy was sound in the begining when computers were too expensive for many homes. However, when the PC boom really hit, they didn't gear up for the new market. Is this Gate's fault?


MARK A SITY
http://www.logic101.net/
16 posted on 01/06/2003 6:12:16 AM PST by logic101.net
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To: chilepepper
Why hate Microsoft? If it isn't your cup of tea, you can buy Apple, Linux, Palm, whatever. Crikey, you can get Linux desktop software with Star Office FOR FREE these days, and if that isn't competition I don't know what is.

Microsoft will always have competitors. It is funny how their competitive efforts get described as "anti competitive". Sun, Oracle, and the rest of them are still in business. IBM is still a massive competitor to MS in the several arenas.

It's like criticising Wal-Mart for shutting down mom-and-pop shops. Wal-Mart does a better job because of their scale.

There ARE companies that successfully compete with MS. They are Adobe, Intuit, Macromedia, the list goes on and on. Significantly, they don't spend nearly as much money as Sun and Oracle on litigation, instead they focus on making great products.

There are plenty of areas to compete with MS. The fight for mobile device software is still wide open. It is up to other companies to successfully compete in this arena.
22 posted on 01/06/2003 6:35:05 AM PST by thisiskubrick
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To: chilepepper
What these young whippersnappers don't remember about computer history is that before all the good liberals hated Microsoft, they hated IBM. When I started in this field in 1965, IBM produced all the building-sized mainframe computers, the only kind that existed, used in the US. When you leased an IBM mainframe (it was very dificult to actually buy one) you were required to run IBM software on it. Computers and their software cost so much, even to rent, that only governments, insurance companies and universities had them.

Naturally, everyone knew that this situation had to be an Evil Monopoly. A huge antitrust suit was cranked up, costing the taxpayers a vast fortune, employing generations of lawyers as it plodded through the courts. Guess what? IBM's "monopoly" evaporated as soon as a new generation of lower-cost "minicomputers" came onto the market and began offering small amounts of computer power at prices that medium sized businesses could afford. Amdahl/Fujitsu cloned the IBM mainframe and began to skim the cream off the mainframe market. By the late Seventies, the microprocessor and integrated circuit had made it possible for small startups like Altair to introduce early personal computers. One of these startups, Apple Corp., introduced a model that became the most popular of its time. IBM, already a shruken remnant of its old self, observed Apple's success and introduced its PC design. Aha, said all the pundits: IBM is "copying" Apple by giving the market what it wants, "embracing and extending" so that it could re-establish its lost "monopoly".

The threat of an IBM monopoly on PC's evaporated once again as dozens of small manufacturers cloned the IBM design. Like Linus Torvalds today, young Bill Gates stepped in bto produce software that would break any incipient IBM monopoly in that area too.

And the rest, as the liberals would have us forget, was history.

27 posted on 01/06/2003 7:03:00 AM PST by BlazingArizona
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To: chilepepper
Defense of Monopolistic practices is *not* a conservative position.

Period.

These concepts are not new. Monopolistic practices are 'uncapitalistic', and 'assaults on the free market'.

Those claiming otherwise here just show how far FR has fallen, and how 'collectivists' have so twisted the language to claim that they are conservatives.

MS did not 'win', they were convicted of the economic equivilant of assault and murder. They are now under a serious anti-trust agreement and are facing tens of billions of dollars in additional penalties as the 140+ private lawsuits based on the conviction move forward.

Words and truth clearly mean nothing to those willing to defend MS's criminal behavior.

They lost, but claim victory. They ignore the evidence, and claim innocence.

This is almost as entertaining as watching Saddam declare victory, and claim innocence!

It's funny, clearly the MS-only workers have plenty of time to spin their MS FUD here, while we Java developers are up to our eyeballs in new work!

I "hate" MS because they use coercion, fraud, purposeful breach of contract and other illegal means to attack the free market. As a free-market conservative, I am against attacks on the free market.

And to defend these illegal, monopolistic practices is certainly *not* a conservative position. You can't completely redefine economics just for your purposes!!!

Well, you can, but don't be too surprised when people laugh at you . . .

52 posted on 01/06/2003 11:23:59 AM PST by Dominic Harr
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To: chilepepper
Bump for later.
54 posted on 01/06/2003 12:23:10 PM PST by Question_Assumptions
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To: rdb3; unix; oc-flyfish
bump
76 posted on 01/07/2003 6:57:27 AM PST by stainlessbanner
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To: chilepepper
A "formal" look? How can a biased flame article be "formal"?
125 posted on 01/08/2003 5:20:15 PM PST by PatrioticAmerican
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