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Survey Says 63% of Americans Like MS the Way It Is
Sami writes "Americans for Technology Leadership (ATL) has released the results of their Nationwide Technology Survey (in PDF). It seems that the majority of Americans (63%) think that breaking up Microsoft would be a mistake. Guess who is one of the Founding Members of ATL."
Probably the 63% of americans that have never owned a computer
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
How many of these people ever used a computer.
We already know they can skew surveys in whatever way they see fit. Let's just hope this is taken as one more manipulative move by MSFT and not as the truth.
Ha! That's the refrigerator calling the toaster white.
Criminalize spam and telemarketing!
Is anyone else tired of Microsoft paid or founded companies releasing poll data and benchmarks that are in their favor? Shouldn't it be illegal to post results in such a bias? I dunno, this stuff is just sorta sad that people let this keep happening. It should be fraud. Who knows.
A significant proportion of Americans think that Canada is in the USA. And if you ask the right questions, you'll get the answers you want to hear. Polls like this are just about worthless.
The average person probably isn't bothered about whether or not microsoft has a monopoly. Not at the moment anyway, and they probably believe that Microsoft is responsible for the technology they use, and a great innovater. It's amazing what the marketing dollar can achieve.
Microsoft is all over the place. That doesn't mean they might have manipulated the data from this survey (ok, so they have a history of doing so ;).
I think the results stem from the fact that many people don't see how a break-up would be a good thing. MS would still be MS if broken in a couple of pieces. People just want an OS and software that doesn't require them to learn that scary computer stuff.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
99.9% of statistics are unrelated to the real world
Sparkes
*** www.linuxuk.co.uk relaunches 1 Mar 2000 ***
blog and junk
more due to the fact that these people aren't aware of anything else. You really think the general public are that aware of what really goes on ??? if so, then get a clue :P
Ok guys, let's not /. these poor systems that have to run a webserver and keep their NT from crashing to a DOS prompt as well.
Alternate download location click here
Absolutely classic.
70% of all statistics are made up on the spot ;^)
signal, noise, to me it's all the same.
it's amazing to me that mikkkrosoft can pull
stunts like this without losing credibility with
the rest of the world. forward this to your IT
folks who still have any respect for bilbo of
the gatespeople and his flock of PR demons, if
they haven't lost any trust they had, then your
next point of business should be having them
removed from their position..
imagine ford making a dummy little company to
make a fake survey that said most americans love
their ford automobiles most of all, and don't
want any research into fuel cells, electric/gas
hybrids, etc. etc.
they would be crucified.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
"The survey was conducted January 20 through January 23, 2000. A total of 1124 registered employees of Microsoft (476 Democrats/417 Republicans /231 Independents) were interviewed nationwide by telephone. All stated they vote regularly in general elections. Those interviewed were selected from a randomly generated list of telephone numbers." It helps to be a careful listener.
--
Stop calling me human.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
60% of LinuxOne users would choose LinuxOne again; the other 2 have already been eliminated.
90% of Americans, when confronted with recordings of their conversations think that the NSA is doing an excellent job.<BR><BR>
77% of gays in the military think that Don't ask, Don't tell protects their privacy; they have been dismissed.<BR><BR>
95% of slashdotters have never actually seen hot grits
<BR><BR>
Surveys brought to you by MindFuckCraft and associates; funding by Micro-VA-AndoverLinuxSoftOne
<BR><BR>
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
It's time for some of us to wake up and realize that the rest of the world does not always think the same way the Slashdot community does.
If the results had come from a Linux company and indicated that 75% of Americans wanted Microsoft to be broken up into Baby Bills, would anyone be spouting claims of bias?
Powers&8^]
As soon as I mentioned this article to a friend he likened it to the abused wife syndrom.
People don't like what microsoft is doing, but they're afraid of what will happen if they try to leave...
that was 63% of the people who worked for Microsoft. After all, they are a founding member.
The only thing this survey proves is that 63% of Americans can barely use Windows, and the only computer brand names they know about are Microsoft and Gateway.
Wrapping up a purported leadership strategy based on what the lowest common denominator managed to say yes or no to is pretty flawed.
I'd bet a majority of Americans don't have even the slightest *clue* as to what this whole situation is about. It's probably about as relevant as surveying Americans on the situation in Kosovo. So, once again, screw the polls.....
Apparently Microsoft likes themselves just the way they are.
The survey is interesting, but the questions don't apply. I mean, "Microsoft's freedom to innovate"? They have that freedom, I'm just waiting for them to *use* it.
Also, half of America isn't really following the MS Trial. I'd be more interested in the opinions of the half that is... (Slashdot?)
Of course, the Republicans are favoring the big business, and the Democrats tend not to, with the Independents in the middle. But what else is new, eh?
Also, the implication that the DOJ would end up *increasing* the prices of Microsoft software is ludicrous. Microsoft does a fine job all by themselves, they aren't going to get any help in that department.
The argument for strong competitors was biased, considering they didn't state the argument *against* strong competitors: Microsoft currently owns the x86 operating system business. Those are the facts, look up the percentages. This might be starting to change, but it hasn't changed enough yet. Basically, Microsoft doesn't have enough competition where it counts, and it's not because their products are technically superior, either.
...and I guarantee you, 63% of Americans also don't know how to use those darn PDF thingies...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
That's why they replied things like those... The vast majority of "ordinary people" who used computers never had to simply think about the possible options it has to offer... And that vast majority like to have only one choice : Having more than one implies that you can make a wrong pick...
Really man, who among you would not like to work there. So what if they don't share source. Just think of the technology you could get involved in. Cutting edge user unfriendlyness! You all hate users anyway, it's required of you. Admit it!
A recent statistical report shows that statistics is the leading cause of statistics! Film at 11!
Perhaps the results are what they are because people have an innate fear of the unknown. Whatever it is, Micrrosofft does have the dominant OS, and many people are satisfied with it. Personally I dislike Microsoft, but I can see what people are thinking: it's not all that stable, but I can get what I need done.
Since this has worked for them in the past, and they _don't_know_ what would happen if M$ was broken up, they probably feel that breaking the company up is a little like trying to fix something that isn't broken. At least that's how I think I would feel if I were the average Windows user.
I've learned to take every survey and benchmark associated with Microsoft Corporation with a grain of salt. With that whole NT/Linux fiasco a while back regarding performance of servers, I remember MS helping the surveyors to "prove" that NT was a better server OS than Linux. Looks like a possibly similar situation here....
Mike Liska, Electrical Engineering Technology and Computer Engineering Technology Undergrad, Purdue University.
Sorry, but much as I hate Microsoft, I also hate the idea of a Governement breaking up a company purely because 90% of computer users are stupid enough to believe their FUD.
I'm also enough of a romantic to believe that eventually Microsoft will collapse from the weight of trying to keep Windows backwardly compatible, and at the same time copying all the new features that everyone else will invent.
The real problem here is fear of change. It's built into humans. Most people I come across are happy and comfortable in their Microsoft niche, or so they think. You know, Windows crashes every once in a while, I don't mind paying $200 for an upgrade, etc. I've seen this everywhere. Many people respect Microsoft just because it's in the position that it is, not for anything else. That's why the story didn't surprise me. People are afraid to get out of their Microsoft habitat.
Sheepdot: Open Source good, Closed Source baaaaaaad!
The surveys also said McCain would beat Bush in New Hampshire by only one or two points.
-John
This is a funny read! Perhaps it should be offered up with the humor icon.
My favorite bits:
"72% (of Americans) would oppose government regulations that would result in higher prices."
"A similar majority (59%)say that increase (sic) regulation and litigation will have a negative effect on high technology industry's ability to innovate and bring new products to the marketplace."
Shocking!
In an unrelated survey released today 98% of Americans agreed that rape is "A bad thing".
At least try to disguise the propaganda a little.
20% have trouble finding power switch of a computer.
20% are absolutely certain that their computers are manufactured by MS.
3% of Americans like MS the way it is.
actually its 84.2% of all stats are mae up on the spot:) Actually this probably isn't a bias survey at all. AS much as we all hate to say it there are some people out there who like microsoft complete. These people don't want to take the time to learn all commands, and apps that systems like linux have to offer but since windows is so easy to use for what the majority of the country does(type papers and surf the net) they give up haveing a stable system(not to mention they constently use or the ctrl+alt+Delete buttons :)) and go with windows. Yes it hurts us all but the truth is pain.
I mean what a great company, all thier software is free for download, they put the serial numbers all over the web, if some how the ftp sites are busy you can just burn a copy from a friend! I think they have been learning from linux(free software).
Keep in mind that more than 63% of the general population just wants a computer that will do basic tasks and play games. And since Microsoft has such huge market share, it's all they know. If you thought that breaking up this company would hurt your game playing and word processing, wouldn't you be against it?
People are just being surveyed without all the information.
Addlepated - punk & metal
That's a higher percentage than it took to elect Bill Clinton President. Both times.
All this survey means is that MS is able to portray itself as a good company to the average joe. The ever popular Mom OS for people has be considered Windows- and people think they understand that "easy" concept of Windows. Your average joe just accepts the crashes and bugs because he experience does not make him expect more.
Of course, the survey is really showing how many people think a successful company is a good company. These are the people that Linus talks about being negative towards Linux because it is free. People just go to a store and see that all the computers have Windows on them and they go to your average computer lab and see more Windows then they think that Windows has to be pretty good.
You would be surprised how many people out ther do not realize that there is life past MS. When I mention to people that I do not prefer Windows they look at me ask is I am using somekind of MS DOS. Your average dude does not care so much about the software as long as it kinda works. Besides, we are kinda living in a backwards world today because people are blaming things on those "dumb computers" but they do not know the problem so it is always generalizd.
Real men dump cores! Read my journal, I am neat.
The thing you have to keep in mind is that the vast majority of people have experience with only Intel machines. Of that population, the majority fall into one of two camps:
1) Used to use DOS, now uses Windows. Next to DOS, Windows is an improvement, at least for your average wordprocessing / spreadsheet cranking / internet surfing user.
2) Has only used Windows. Since they have no experience with other operating systems, they just sorta figure computers are expected to crash on a regular basis. In this case the user is sorta like a baby duck - the first thing they see imprints on them. And Bill Gates spent a lot of time and effort insuring those baby ducks saw Windows (very shrewd of him).
In light of this, I'm surprised the number is so low. I guess I overestimated the average user's tolerance for crap.
To paraphrase another poster: "even if a thousand people say a stupid thing, it's still a stupid thing."
I think the results stem from the fact that many people don't see how a break-up would be a good thing.
:) ), less than half the audience knew that "Where Do You Want To Go Today?" was Microsoft's slogan. (Given the choice of IBM, Dell, Compaq or Microsoft.) (The contestant had to burn his "ask the audience" lifeline on this seemingly easy question)
I don't think that most consumers are quite that saavy. In fact, on last night's "Who Wants to Be A Derrier...err...Millionaire?" (hey, I leave the TV on for noise while I code
Nay, I think that consumers just either don't know enough about it or they just don't care.
My journal has hot
that when microsoft was found guilty, the nation
was shocked. "they're a monopoly?" the average joe cried as his blinked his drunk eyes that were bloodshot from watching too much "greed" and "wwf"
Picturing that Family Fued guy going "Survey Says...!", under the topic of Favourite Global Corporate Empires?
Does this matter to anyone? Who cares what the public thinks about Microsoft. This is the same American public that pays $1 for 20 ounces of bottled French water simply because it's French. Don't tell me you mistaked the public for having a clue. There are far worse tradgedies - you know, like the beautiful woman who always goes back to her abusive boyfriend. Ultimately, everyone gets the OS that they deserve, and most Americans don't deserve anything better than Microsoft.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
One Hundred Percent
Wants to see Bill Gates get hit
By another pie
Of course! don't you guys get it? the people is right! if we leave Microsoft as it is, it will collapse of its own weight!!! I say don't touch microsoft, let them rot in one piece. After all, they've managed to get in as much trouble without help!
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
A large portion of the /. population is, while often educated and knowledgeable, extremely narrowminded and biased.
The only reason I'm interested in keeping MS in one piece is that maybe, just maybe, they'll be ble to do less damage this way. "Broken up," they might actually free up more capital, still work in sync together, and make a greater mess than MS already have.
Keep in mind, that I am NOT disputing the fact that MS is largely responsible for the permiation of computers into our society -- I just think that they've laid a foundation that we now have to tear out and re-lay.
Don't you think it's time to start communicating?
Well, there's massaging the data and massaging the questions. Not that MS would have been able to get "Do you think the government should impose extreme penalties to break Microsoft's "supposed" monopoly?" on the quiz, but no doubt they could slant the questions so as to make people view the proposed governmental action in a negative light. Add to that the fact that 90% of people don't really know or care about "scary computer stuff," and you get that people aren't likely, on the whole, to want to break MS up. Add to that that many people own stock (or know and care for someone who owns stock) in MS and thus have self-interested reasons not to want to see MS broken up (not, of course, that a breakup of MS entails their stock would devalue, but as long as they believe it's likely, they'll have the motivation).
Moreover: since when do we take polls on technical questions anyhow? ("63% of people say the sun is five million miles from earth") The degree of harm caused by MS is a matter to be decided by looking at evidence most people (including, I bet, you and me) don't really know that much about. So the poll results don't seem all that meaningful anyhow.
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
In other news, MPAA is helping consumers by preventing copyright violations, SDMI is useful for consumer and music artists alike, and rich corporations are found to be the least arrogant of all commercial entities.
Yeah, and next we'll see cloned bulls from cloned bulls. Sure.
A scare campaign is the easiest campaign on earth to run- especially about things most people don't understand - computers, economics & law.
If that is the best MS can do they really need to worry.
1. Should the US Government be allowed to have total control over companies?
(Typical answer: No)
2. Should organisations be punished for being successful?
(Typical answer: No)
3. Should Microsoft be split up?
If you answer no to the other two, then you sound stupid saying yes to the third. Therefore most people say no. Publish only the answer to the third question and you have the result you want
(Okay, so Yes PM did it so much better, but thats because they had skilled script writers)
Break up Microsoft!
Give Bill Gates a new career --
Hot Sex - One Dollar!
Go grab the PDF file, and read for yourself how loaded these questions are. Here's a quick sample:
<RANT> Most regulations are not designed to specifically slow down technical innovation. How do we know a priori that a given regulation will slow down innovation? Sure, a regulation could be designed to do that specifically, but in most cases, regulations are meant to stimulate and guide industry, while curtailing harmful practices that hurt everyone in the long run. This question begs the person being asked to oppose this particular form of regulation (regulate to slow down innovation), and then tacitly extends the answer to cover all possible forms of regulation.</RANT>
*sigh*
Alot of the questions are of this form. Go read it.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
The site is inflamatory to say the least. After looking at the list of questions, it appears to my paranoid mind that the whole thing was meant to subtley fan the fears of 'guvment meddlin' in our affairs. As a consequence, all 1124 respondents were played like a fine violin, and so will a lot more people who read this 'report'. Unfortunately, the questions don't touch on the real issues, which are the brutal methods that Microsoft used to attain market dominance and thus get itself into this pickle in the first place. But them that controls the questions control the outcome to their own ends, not to the ends of truth.
I mean ... why not? Microsoft may have done a lot of immoral things but you have to admit that they've done quite a bit right ... probably enough to let them garner the said 63%:
... at least not until now.
1) They've seemed to satisfy the techs and upgrade kiddies by supplying a lot of innovation (albeit bulky and mostly unnecessary) in their products. I remember a time when I used to use Windows and I'd always try to be the first to have the latest OS or application in school.
2) Their GUI does make it pretty easy for people to use compared to the UN*X of yesteryear, and their competition (Mac, NeXTSTEP, etc.), which are arguably better, were prohibitively expensive.
3) They've used their knowledge of the internal workings of their OS and a lot of feedback from users to leverage their apps and worked hard on making their products aesthetically attractive (I mean compare IE5's widgets to Navigator's). To a majority of American's (and people in general), these are what matter.
So it's entirely possible and probable that they do rate that much because there's not much competition that offers all of the above
Personally, I don't care if a lot of people don't use the OS and system of my choice (unless it's someone at management who decides what a company uses), but if I did, I'd make sure I'd have the proper munition before trying to convince people to see things differently. Right now, I don't think I'd be able to satisfy that 63% of American's with what Linux (my personal choice) has to offer, which is why I'm so anxious for companies to accelerate their development of apps and software for it.
They ask questions like:
"If you knew the DOJ was proposing a regulation that would end up increasing the cost of software to consumers, would you support it?"
Duh, ummm would you like to pay more for something or less?
And the question they use to get thier 63% figure: "If you knew that the Department of Justice was proposing a regulation that would give the government the power to decide how to design parts of Microsoft's software, would you support or oppose the regulation?"
Umm, would you like lawyers to make software for you or Micro$oft?
The questions they ask are obviously loaded and looking for specific answers, the only thing that makes me upset about it is that the soundbite on CNN will "63% of Americans don't want government regulation of Microsoft". Ignoring the souce, and ignoring the actual questions.
Since the voting rate in *national* elections (which tends to get the highest percentage of eligible voters voting of any level of government) is around 60% (IIRC), we can conclude either that:
Just a thought =)
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
Whats the point in splitting MS, then they'd just have 2 (or however many) monopolies. The obvious answer is that they need to free their file formats and APIs I dont know exactly how that would work, I guess an impartial 3rd party would look after it, take requests for extensions to the standards (from microsoft or whoever).
This would give any company who wanted to play against microsoft an equal footing (well apart from the time up to when the request for change was committed). Microsoft would have to compete on which software the user prefers rather than having them tied in by competitors products not working with 90-odd% of other computers out there.
Has the DOJ considered this? Found it flawed?
-----------------------------------
-----------------------------------
D BREAK - CONT repeats
I would like to see the same questions asked to Linux and Mac users about there systems. I don't think the numbers would be shocking, it would be the differance between the percents of MS and everyone else. It means something when MS is 30% behind other OSs in user loyalty/enjoyment. There is only so much MS can FUDge.
def. Monopoly - A market that exists with only one vendor and barriers such that no other vendors may enter. Other companies have NO PROBLEM entering the market. Microsoft is the PREDOMINANT software vendor - not a monopolist. They are here for a reason, although not for long (break up or not, MS is going down). The only other company that could hang in the consumer market right now is Apple and they screw their customers all the time. With all the stock market madness right now, Linux is just beginning to see the kind of financial backing that it needs to replace Windows. Give it two years - Linux will replace Windows (and all their other MS apps - unless the giant bows and starts to support the free OS). The taste will be much sweeter if Microsoft is left as a whole.
More
Look at the "interviews" he does at times.
Ok he he only choses stupid answers, but
those are the mindless apes that answer in
such surveys, too.
Americans I have met, I am from Europe, are
either bright, very bright, or ultra stupid.
"Yeh we need those spy satellites over Europe
our own people are too stupid ye know"
Three easy steps:
- Grab the PDF file.
- Read it.
- Decide for yourself.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
Just reading through a few of the top level posts on this topic, it's pretty astounding to see the arrogance displayed here. People immediately dismissing the survey because they think most americans don't know what's going on or don't use a computer. It's like you think your fellow americans are a bunch of stupid sheep and only the elite like you can possibly understand how evil Microsoft is and why it needs to be destroyed.
Question 1: STATEMENT: Increased government regulation and litigation of the Technology industry will lead to consumers paying higher prices.
Loaded question number one. Litigation => lawyers. Higher costs are inevitable in this scenario, and not surprisingly, over half the respondents thought this was the case. Had they bothered to separate regulation from litigation it's not so clear what the answer would be.
Question 2: Do you think increased government regulation, including the regulation of software design, will have a negative or positive effect on the high tech industry and companies, like Microsoft, to innovate and bring new products to consumers?
This is another interesting slant. Regulation of software design? Wow. Just load those questions with negative impact - the idea of regulating software 'design' would have the whole of Slashdot up in arms faster than a DVD case. Funnily enough, over half the respondants felt this was a bad thing too.
Question 3: The U.S. Justice Department is currently suing Microsoft. How closely are you following the trial - very closely, somewhat closely, or not closely at all?
Now this is an interesting question. And the answer is very revealing - only 5% of the respondants were paying close attention to the trial. So this survey, even given it's headline claim of 63% Americans thought that breaking up MS was a bad thing, actually managed to pick a group of people who were split between having occassionally heard of the MS vs DOJ case and those who haven't followed the case at all.
I could go on. Most of the questions are too loaded to be worth discussing. If you are planning on spending money on a real survey, just remember that you must not lead the interviewee by loading up your questions one way. I would also suggest asking questions in random order. Once you find someone leaning one way at the start of a questionnaire, people tend to follow that path. So, had the questionnaire started with:
Question: If there were more alternatives to the Microsoft Windows platform available to you at lower cost, would you be interested?
... and ...
Question: If the MS vs DOJ trial results in Microsoft being broken up and you end up having a wider choice of quality software for your computer as a result of the increased competition in the software market, would you be interested?
... the results might just have been different :-)
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
I see a lot of comments here about how "this is clearly biased" or "nobody knows anything about MS, that's why".
These comments seem to imply that this number represents good news for MS. On the contrary. If the methodology can be trusted (more about which below) this survey says that one third of *all Americans* think MS is NOT doing a good job. As widespread as Linux is getting, it sure doesn't encompass 1/3 of the US yet. So some of these people are non-techies and/or techies who run an MS OS.
If the survey is biased, the case is even worse. Survey bias would imply that even by stacking the numbers MS couldn't come up with more than 2 people out of 3 who like them. That's pretty bad.
--
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63% of Americans not as smart as they look. Seriously folks, that doesn't mean a whole lot, people fall for marketing all the time. And a good percent of those people probaly don't know much about the industy. Would you interview a cross-section of America about auto-racing?
--Nothing is impossible to the man who doesn't have to do it himself.--
Open Source, Open Standards, Open Minds
So, are we really going to let the ATL tell us what America wants when they only asked 1,124 registered voters? Does the ATL know the current population? Please do not let 1,124 people speak for the country. Also, since Windows is used around the world perhaps the survey should have also included people from other countries. It seems the ATL went at this from an angle that would only have helped Microsoft. No one is trying to prevent technology progress by puninshing Microsoft. They are only trying to make a bully play fair. There is a big difference.
It wouldn't surprise me if something like that could form between a company and it's customers, under the sorts of conditions Microsoft has developed.
Certainly, the kinds of responses that are being reported by people shifting away from Microsoft (eg: SGI, IBM and the NSA) are far more dramatic and sudden than you would expect from just changing one program on a machine holding thousands. But it's -exactly- the sort of response you could expect from people who have experienced traumatic bonding.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Clearly, this was scientifically designed to get the desired answer. It's well known that things like word choices, associating things that don't necessarily go together, using hot-button words, and question order will skew the results of the following questions.
What's the very first question that they ask?
STATEMENT: Increased government regulation and litigation of the
Technology industry will lead to consumers paying higher prices.
Right off the bat, they are trying to color the results of the rest of the survey. They are trying to get the respondent in the mindset of thingking about frivolous lawsuits and intrusive regulation. Furthermore, everyone knows its more sophisticated to be a cynic, so they crafted the question to take advantage of that.
What if we crafted the question so the cynical position was on the other side of the fence? What if they asked this, more or less equivalent question:
STATEMENT: If the government reduces its efforts to stop abuse of monopoly power in the technology industry, then the technology industry will pass its savings on to consumers.
Really, these two questions are asking pretty much the same thing, but putting a different light on the question.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Surprise surprise. A newsbit is released where someone doesn't bash Microsoft, and they're automaticly labeled by Slashdot as sellouts and fakers.
Of course if they released a survey making Linux look "leet" then they would be praised for singing the holy truth.
Please, give me a break, get a clue. Not everyone sees the world black and white like you. If you wish to report news, at least make an attempt to do so in a mildly unbiased manner. Post an article, write a summary about it, but don't include idiotic comments to herd readers into one particular direction.
Unless of course you believe Slashdot readers are incapable of forming their own opinion.
Open source. Closed minds. We are Slashdot.
Microsoft stuff isn't all that bad.
How many of you will have a Microsoft Mouse/Intellimouse?
How many of you have a Microsoft Keyboard?
How many of you use Microsoft Office?
Not all Microsoft stuff is bad, but most of you don't want to admit it.
I'm not saying that all of their stuff is good, but some of the hardware they make is pretty good at the moment.
i.e.
Microsoft Sidewinder Joystick
Microsoft Intellimouse
Microsoft Force Feedback wheel
Microsoft Office is also the best office package available on any system.
I just feel a lot of people on Slahsdot just don't want to admit that some of their stuff is any good, even if they are using it.
- Do you agree or disagree with Increased government regulation and litigation of the Technology industry will lead to consumers paying higher prices. First question, sets the tone of the survey.
- Do you think increased government regulation, including the regulation of software design, will have a negative or positive effect on the high tech industry and companies, like Microsoft, to innovate and bring new products to consumers? Second sentence, and the associative principles have now set in that technology == microsoft. Further, this is about innovation and consumer interest.
- third question finally asks whether the respondents are following the Microsoft trial. All I'll note here is that there are only three choices - very closely, somewhat closely and not at all - and that "not at all" is 44% for the population as a whole. I wonder what would have happened if they'd added the fourth choice between somewhat and none to get a balanced Leikert scale?
- As you may know, the case impacts consumers. Some people say that Microsoft has repeatedly benefited consumers with its products. Others say Microsoft's business practices have hurt consumers. Which side do you agree with more? The earlier questions have biased the respondents to support Microsoft. Please remember how many of these people are following the case "somewhat closely" or better.
- And my favorite, a sequence of questions which all use this format: The Department of Justice is deciding what, if any, regulations to pursue against Microsoft. If you knew that the Department of Justice was proposing a regulation that would end up increasing the cost of software to consumers, would you support or oppose the regulation? Would you strongly (support/oppose) it or (support/oppose) it somewhat? Notice the amazing jump from the DoJ considering any regulations to the assumption that any such will raise the cost. And, of course, the sudden switch to 4 choice Leikert scales.
The sad thing is, this is a typical survey. The results obtained are almost certainly true. the bias is in the question design. Somewhat like requiring a server test between NT, Linux and FreeBSD which requires all the workstations be Win9x.OR I WILL DO THE BRUCE LEE STOMP ON YOU
The order and tone of the questions was indeed
put such as to get people to object to the break-up. Given that all questions on page 7
and bottom of page 6 are based on iffy assumptions the answer to those are less than meaningful.
Also, a cross-classification of "closely following" the trial with the "support/oppose
breakup" questions would be rather interesting.
I'm don't understand how you turned 1124 registered voters into 1124 registered employees of MSFT but I do understand that such senseless zealotry is probably not healthy. If I ever started hallucinating and seeing the word Microsoft in every pro-MSFT article I read I'd go see a doctor before the talking penguins come and get me.
That said why is anybody on slashdot surprised? American voters are the same people who voted in a suspected criminal (whitewater) , known philanderer and liar into a second term of presidency. American voters gave Clinton the highest approval rating in 6 years when it turned out he had been lying about a sexual indiscretion as well as obstructing justice to prevent the disclosure of said indiscretion. This is the same group of people that surveys have shown [a significant portion i.e. over 25%] have difficulty understanding the entire contents of the average newspaper (even though newspapers are written at a 6th grade level) and cannot properly fill out a job application due to lack of understanding. This group of people are the ones who have come to take it for granted that computers crash, consider linux users as geeks and freaks with a major case of sour grapes and believe BillG is the reason they are on the Internet (after all without MSFT there would be no Windows(tm) or Internet Explorer(tm) and everyone one knows you need them to get on the web).
My suggestion to slashdot readers is to calm down and realize that the average citizen actually believes ads, marketing and spin thus just because you are informed or intelligent enough to seperate the fact from the BS does not mean everyone else can or does.
Breaking up Microsoft, sounds good on the outside, but is it on the inside?
Think about it. MS used to grind competitors into the ground. There's no GEM Works, or, well pretty much no Novell, no DOS, no nothing.
Yet Open Source and Linux are all people talk about these days, and Linux is growing more rapidly than any other OS. What was the last number, 24.3% of servers? not a bad number I think.
I don't think we'd be where we are now with the open source movement if MS was not the juggernaut it appears to be....
So I say leave em alone.
Not only is M$ a founding member of this org, but it is also a member of some of the orgs that are listed as "founding members". or the members are big M$ customers.
P AGE=Introduction.asp
see the following links:
http://www.actonline.org/about/good_company.asp
http://www.claritycnslt.com/About/frameset.asp?
there are probably more. I dont have time to look it all up.
The difference between Theory and Practice is greater in Practice than in Theory.
The pool will become somewhat less valuable to Microsoft when the news breaks that 90% of that 63% followed up their affirmation of MS with the comment "Yeah, it's good, but not as cool as Seventeen. Their articles are,like, the best."
Interesting that that particular statistic should be brought up - the percentage of people who did want MS broken up was 21% - the same as in Slashdot's poll.
Funny that two polls biased in completely different directions should agree on something....
QUESTION: The Department of Justice is deciding what, if any, regulations to
pursue against Microsoft. If you knew that the Department of Justice was
proposing a regulation that would end up increasing the cost of software to
consumers, would you support or oppose the regulation? Would you strongly
(support/oppose) it or (support/oppose) it somewhat?
Of course I'll strongly oppose regulations that mean higher prices, but what evidence is there that any regulations the DOJ is dreaming up will increase the cost? I mean, I hate to be anti-MS because I believe that they do have a product that is useful for some people (granted, it'd be more useful if they put more time into killing the bugs they have rather than introducing useless gadgets with more bugs), but with questions like this it's just too easy to hate them!
Addlepated - punk & metal
I agree.
If someone phoned me up and asked me these questions, they are so long I would have forgotten the beginning before they got to the end, so I wouldn't know which way to answer, even if I had an opinion.
See what I mean?
threadeds blog
I'm wondering if they were broken up if they could do underhanded things between companies? I think they probably can and would.
At least right now they are know quanity but if they were broke up what would their potential be?
I'm sure sure which is better, a large lumbering giant or three smaller ones that might try to tag-team you.
I think that either way we need some type of watchdogs in place internally to keep Microsoft in check. If they are forced to play by the rules then the market will chose the winners and I don't think it will be Microsoft unless they make some big changes.
476 Dems +
417 Reps +
231 Indies =
1124 Total
417/1124 * 100% = ~37.1%
100%-37.1%= 62.9%!
Coincidence?!?
67% of Americans like MS as it is.
/. is probably the top-most technically savvy 1%-10% of the online community. We see these issues from a different perspective than most 'computer users', and certainly different than most Americans.
More than that do not understand technology any farther than they can throw a 21" monitor. It intimidates them, and makes their couch-potato heads hurt. So if a single company were to keep them safe from all dem goddanged teknikal details then that would be just honkey-dorey..
You'd probably get similar numbers if you asked if MS and AOL should merge.
We have to remember that the readership on
67% of Americans like MS as it is. Jerry Springer is the most popular day-time talk show. Coincidence? I think not!
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
You've obviously never worked in Tech Support, helped a family member install software, or tried to explain to someone how a computer works. 90% of people (not necessarily Americans) don't know jack about computers, 5% think they know everything about computers, and the other 5% eventually find their way to Slashdot.
_______
I just wish I could c:\format Internet
One big, slow-moving, dull-witted target is all I ever want them to be.
For those of you who have read the article ( What's that in the back ? - I think I see one person who did ) - it's pretty apparent that thw way the questions were asked it was designed to elicit this type of response. Some of the questions made referance to a Microsoft statement in the beginning, ie: Some believe Microsoft should be broken up... Would you support a Goverkment agency having oversite over Technology type stuff.... The two are not necessarily related. Mentioning Micro$oft only serves to support later questions that deal directly with Microsoft.
Why isn't there any abstractive cut-and-dried rules on how to evaluate how weighted, mis-leading a quiz or survey is so that that figure could then be legislated into having to be mentioned anytime the results are? The survey is accurate within 3% doesn't cut it....
Aah, Media people - Willing to byte at anything. Aah, Publicists - willing to give anything.
There's a gorilla from Manilla whose a fella that stinks of vanilla and has salmonella.
This is manipulation done with very little finesse by amateurs:
"QUESTION: As you may know, the case impacts consumers. Some people say that Microsoft has repeatedly benefited consumers with its products. Others say Microsoft s business practices have hurt consumers. Which side do you agree with more?"
So you're askin people two questions at the same time: Do you think that MS _products_ has been beneficial to the average consumer or do you think that MS _business practices_ has hurt the consumer? Well, since most people see a fairly userfriendly GUI everytime they start their Window 9X they'll say that MS _products_ has made it easierf for them to use a computer - which probably IS true.
The problem is, that the survey concludes that 60% of Americans think that MS _business practices_ have benefited the consumer - a question that has never been asked! I think that this manipulation could have been done more elegantly, to put it mildly...
44% is not following the trial at all - no wonder that they might think that breaking up a company is too extreme - leaving only 19% with at least some knowledge of the case on Microsoft's side...
Quote:"Americans (59%) think that that there is sufficient competition in the high technology industry."
No - they don't. Well, at least they haven't been asked - but they have been asked wther they think that AOL/Time Warner, Sony, Sun, Apple and IBM are strong competitors to MS or not. You ask people a leading question like that and you get exactly the answer you're looking for - actually 59% is surprisingly low. Sony being a strong competitor to MS?...well...*smile*...
Bottom line: I don't know wether this test has been bought or not, but the MS-related results spans from "no surprise" (create a government agency to regulate MS) to "manipulated!" (product vs. business practice) and cannot be regarded as part of a fair survey.
Just my $0.02
Anders
So I am not surprised that a bunch of part-time users don't feel harmed. They have their WIMP interface and their PowerPoint and they think they've got it made. They don't appreciate problems like software bloat and embrace-and-extend strategies.
The media have done a nice job of speculating about an MS breakup, but they have done a poor job of explaining what MS has done wrong. Are you really surprised a majority don't support major penalties?
After reading the poll beginning to end, I have no choice but to conclude the poll was not-so-subtly biased in Microsoft's favor.
Example:
First, this question mistates the issues at hand by mixing Microsoft's products with Microsoft's business practices. I can approve of their products (I rather enjoy Microsoft's Flight Simulator) while being utterly abhored by their business practices (as I am), yet this question makes the two items inseparable. And because most Americans have familiarity with MS products (and little else) and almost _no_ familiarity with MS's predatory business practices, this question amounts to asking "Have you benefitted from MS software?". One top of that inherent bias, they spin things further by using the word "repeatedly" on the pro side, implying that more people hold this view, thereby subtly tapping into the bandwagon effect.Another example:
With this question, they essentially provide the (specious) argument supporting the idea that MS has strong competition (which in certain markets they do, largely from the companies listed), while ignoring the fact that MS has a strong lock on the desktop OS market. Anyway, by including an argument to support one side of the issue (however baseless), they blatantly bias the poll toward that opinion.In short, this poll radiates bogusity.
-- WhiskeyJack
Other examples are the government ban on thaladomide, the closing of love canal, the unwarranted declaration of war upon peacefull Germany in 1939, and banning those xray machines in shoe stores that people used to use to look at their feet thru their shoes.
thanks for setting /. straight.
note 2 I'll try to be impartial here (wrt the survey))
Here is the survey:
"Regulation" and "ligitation" will most likely be percieved as bad things just as "Higher prices" It is very likely that the respondant will link the two Government regulation of software design is not exacly what the monopoly case is about is it? I'll just note this for now. Tricky one. But the two are *not* mutually exclusive. I benefit from Windows, even though I might be hurt by MS business practices. This is a valid question. Keep in mind, though that 44% said that they did not follow the case at all Duh! Mesa want chepa missosoft thingyThat question is bogus. Ditto How many slashdotters would want government code in windows? Again, Who wants more bureaucracy? Why did they not mention GM as well?
To summarize: That survey said *nothing*
Also they fail to say wether knowledge of the case had any impact. And just calling registered voters creates a bias too (even if that probably does not matter here).
I actually *tried* not to be partial here, but that was one of the most crappy surveys I'vs seen (and i've seen some)
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Then I took a deep breath, downloaded the PDF file, and decided to read for myself the questions that were asked and the corresponding responses. Questions like...
If you knew that the DoJ was proposing a regulation that would end up increasing the cost of software to consumers, would you support or oppose it?
Not surprisingly, 72% either strongly or moderately oppose having to pay more money for their software. The survey later asks about the DoJ "slowing the pace of technological innovation". If that isn't MS spin doctoring, then I don't know what is.
Often you should trust your gut reaction (i.e. Microsoft biased the report). It's usually correct. But don't take my word for it. Read it yourself.
If popular opinion rule, we would still have slavery, Jim Crow Laws and the civil rights movement would have been for nothing.
Furfu!
Stephan
Another Founding Member (tm) of the ATL is a political lobby group called the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT). Care to guess who is also a member of *that* organization?
Microsoft tainted the results!
Microsoft bought the results!
The world it out to destroy linux!
Bill gates watches me as I sleep!
I am one of the lone gunman!
...and that's why I read slashdot
Dr Fgets Strikes again!
Given the obvious (timing, founders, etc.) this survey tells ME that 63% of MS wants MS to stay the same. Anyone else find it a bit humorous that an obviously loaded poll gets only 63%? I guess the argument can be made that if they steered it to something like 85%, it'd be obvious to even my sister, but still....I'm still holding out hope that the instability of this crap is causing grief at high enough levels that the typical clueless purse-string holder is opening his/her eyes....I was at one company wher I got the CFO online, he launched some durn MS product, and he sat and played with the friggin paper-clip for HOURS. Isn't it a shame that sort of thing is frequently the reason people buy this crap?
mas cerveza, por favor politically incorrect stu
And that guy who ate human body parts.. what was his name..
he probably helped an old lady across the street once..
The fact that Microsoft is even involved in the assosiation doing this poll is evidence enough to me. But wasnt this poll on microsoft.com at first? Then i suppose every MCSE have been there and all employees and relatives too. It would be fun to know exactly how many people answered the question and how many of them who was non Ms related. But the bottom issue is, breake the law, get punished. If the law is bad, change it but not when a big company begs for it AFTER they screwed up.
Yas, most people like MS the way it is. The average American does not understand all of what MS has done in the past to get were it is now, and remember that MS caters to the computer ignorant. In a simeler poll after the break-up of AT&T most people(around 70% I think) said thay were happy with AT&T.
no
..another important statistic. That approximately 72% of all Americans are complete idiots when it comes to technology.
em
The average person will believe on faith any statement attributed to a scientist, a recent study showed.
Scientists reported that 93% of those surveyed believed all statements prefaced with "Scientists say", "Studies show", "Other findings include", or "According to recent research". According to this research, even when very few details of the study are given, and no controls are mentioned, 43% of respondents believe any random statistic given.
Among their other findings, these scientists have concluded that the gullibility effect is increased if unrelated vague future applications are presented. "A direct quote from someone involved in the project also has a measurable impact" said Dr. J. J. Charfman, leader of this effort. Dr. Charfman further added that a note of dissent from a random other party with no obvious qualifications actually increased the gullibility effect, contrary to expectations.
However, not all agree with Dr. Charfman's findings. "This research drastically overestimates the number of people who can read, and therefore the number of people who will be affected by reading articles of the type mentioned" pointed out Dr. C. Rackpot.
Dr. Charfman and his group believe that therapy based on their research could one day lead to a cure for cancer.
{From SegFault archives}
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I took this poll. I posted about it on /. at the time, but noone believed me, and claimed I was spreading FUD.. That's okay, I probably would have said the same thing.
Anyway, someone called me at my house and asked these exact questions (plus a lot more). But what strikes me as odd is that these results claim to have been taken on January 20-23, 2000. When someone running a survey asking me these exact same questions, it was well before that. Still in 1999, as a matter of fact.
So, I'm forced to wonder. Did they just do enough surveys until they got the results they wanted? I'm not entirely sure the same people called me as conducted this survey, but the questions are _exactly_ the same.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Who would you rather
See turned to stone: Jon Katz, or
CmdrTaco?
Well, how about the barriers against entry which Microsoft created? MS used secret OS calls in its own spreadsheet, creating barriers for other spreadsheets. MS altered MS-Windows to complain about DR-DOS, creating a barrier against using DR-DOS. MS repeatedly alters file formats, creating barriers for compatible applications (even barriers for past customers, forcing them to update and buy new versions).
Hey boys and girls, Microsoft is offering it's latest version of their consumer OS, called Windows Me (for Windows Millenium Edition).
How dare they compare themselves to me! I'm not a useless, afunctional load of code. I work.
Check it out at C/Net
I wonder what the responses would be to this type of questioning:
"I'm going to read a statement and I want you to tell me whether you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree or strongly disagree"
Statement: Increased competition in the technology industry will lead to better products and consumers paying lower prices.
Question: Do you think that increased competition will have a negative or positive effect on high tech companies to bring reliable high quality products to consumers?
Question: Some people say Microsoft has stifled competition with it's business practices. Other people say that consumers benefit from the reliability of their products. Which do you agree with more?
Question: The Department of Justice is deciding what, if any, regulations to pursue against Microsoft. If you knew that the Department of Justice was proposing a regulation that would increase competition in the software industry, would you support or oppose it?
Question: If you knew that the Department of Justice was proposing a regulation that would reduce restrictive business practices, would you support or oppose the regulation?
.
.
.
Whenever I see her mouth on TV, I lose my appetite.
I don't think the numbers are off that much, and I'd actually theink the 63% number would be on the low side. No matter how stable Linux may be, the average consumer wants ease of use. If their computer crashes now and then, they're not going to switch to Linux to avaid that. Why? Because the average person probably couldn't even get common apps downloaded, let alone setup for Linux. Everyone here knows that slashdot is dominated by Linux users, so I'm not surprised by all of the posts here. I consider myself to be quite good with computers, but even I have found it almost impossible to get Linux running. Some Windows stuff s just as hard, but then you can call tech support (which I actually found to be knowledgable at MS), and they can help you out. There is no such thing for linux (unless you BUY redhat). The closest thing is newsgorups, or discussion borads, but is could take days or weeks for someone to respond to a post. Besides that, Linux has hardly any apps for comsumers. Corel is doing a good job bringing in the office suite, but let's face it, lots of people are used to MS Office, and have tons of files in MS formats. If you expect those people to scrap those files to move to a possibly more stable OS, you're sadly mistaken! As for the doom of Windows, I could actually see Linux being doomed. With all fo the new technoligies that Linux is trying to incorporate (new garphics system, new kernel, more apps), I think Linux is going to get less and less stable. Then, if companies start writing drivers for their products, it could get worse! It would be nice to have drivers, but the drivers that these guys write are the main cause of Windows stability. I can't believe that their Linux variants will be any more stable! Just my 2 cents on the topic! P.S., who do you think funds the Anti-MS surveys? Linux people!!! Are you surprised the MS funds Pro-MS survery? You shouldn't be!
Who think they know everything often find their way here, too... in fact, they are the very ones who moderate based on unfounded opinions on stories they know nothing about. (-2; Offtopic Flamebait).
But really, the 5% who think they know what they are doing are just as likely to be the ones who don't turn on the printer...
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
The bit about the newspapers is a good comment and rather scary, but lemme ask you this: who would you have voted in rather than Clinton? Yeah, he sucks, but Dole? Kemp? Bush? Blech.
It's the conservatives, and the hidden conservative mentality in `new liberalism', that are ruining this fscking country. Americans for Tech Leadership is a conservative association affiliated not only with Micro$hit but also the Heritage foundation - READ THE PAGE.
Americans for tech WHAT? Leadership itself is a crock of shit. Leaders are born as people with no ability to acquire technical OR intellectual clue, bred as politicians and businessjerks and then unleashed on the world in their mad power grabs. This country is NOT a meritocracy; in college admissions, leadership (and political connections) is often valued as much as academic ability, which is a complete crock. (HOW did GW Bush get into Yale? BillG into Hahvahd?)
The way to stop Americans' disrespect of geeks and Linux hackers is to stop the worship of idiots like BillG that have so much success because they have so little else. Stop the worship of leadership - in the media, in our schools (how many resume padding honor clubs were there at YOUR high school?), everywhere. Evaluate people on their ability, not on their bullshit. Tell politicians they need to make intelligent decisions, that their stupid organizational skills aren't going to keep them in office, and that the successful economy is a false facade over what remains a very ignorant society.
Sort of. It has far reaching powers, but instead of the top officials (politicians) obeying the every command of shareholders, they are at least somewhat influenced by the interests of everyday people. More so by corporate interests and unified special interest groups who have far more weight to shove around than Joe Idunnoshitabout Politics. The fact people aren't outraged politicians focus on like 3 pretty meaningless issues, but mainly on the method of campaigning more than anything, should say a lot. Or the fact the US only has two very similar parties represented in the congress.
Anyway, back to my point. I think there's a lot of distrust among Americans toward their government because it has proved itself untrustworthy. Who wants to pay more taxes when the only visible programs that benefits from our tax money are poorly funded? A lot of our tax money ends up leaving our hands and communities and goes into areas we would likely not consent to (military, corporate subsidies, lots of sneaky shifting of money). Many countries in Western Europe pay rather high taxes, but it doesn't matter that much because the funds go back into the communities, the city and so on...if most of the tax money went off into some special area that benefits no one in the actual communities, they probably wouldn't like that much at all. And would likely be very untrustworthy of taxes and their own government, even if they had no clue what a big chunk of the money was being used on (because like i said, people seem to only see the visible which is things like public schools which are just horribly funded and ignored).
Big government is a government that is far reaching...with heavily funded secret projects, agencies clouded in secrecy (FBI, CIA, NSA, etc.), massive military power, etc. What people are wrongly looking for as a fear of big government is the more humane things the government can be used for. "Oh my god, how dare they help the homeless people and those on the verge of homelessness!!! I don't want my money going there. Put it somewhere useful like buying more multi million dollar jet fighters and aiding armies in South American countries!" "Fine, we'll put an end to big government (muwhahaha) and move more of your tax money to more important things >:)"
Okay, this is going to come out sounding like elitist flamebait, but I don't care. I'm sick and tired of people posing loaded questions to other people who don't have the necessary intellectual capital to be able to meaningfully answer the questions in the first place.
I remember reading somewhere that 30 or 40-some percent of Americans believe that the entire universe was poofed into existence by an omnipotent diety no more than 10,000 years ago in pretty much its current state (never minding things like dinosaurs, distant galaxies, etc.) I think that we should keep this in mind before attempting to assign any meaning to the results of this survey (or indeed, any other survey.) Surveying "average Americans" about technology is like surveying kindergarteners to find out where the best grad schools are at.
You may now moderate me into the ground.
From the msft site:
--------------------
The 27% piracy rate in the United States costs the economy 130,000 jobs per year.
Software piracy costs the U.S. economy $5.3 billion in lost wages and nearly $1 billion in lost tax revenue.
Software piracy costs the U.S. distribution channel over $500 million in lost revenue.
-1997 study by Nathan and Associates
---------------------------
No alter ego today
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
According to a poll I did on about 45 billion braincells in the East hemisphere of my skull, 99.9% of them don't like Microsoft at all. The remaining 0.1% disappeared in the effort of thinking.
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
In Germany they have a saying,
"Never trust a statistic you havent forged
yourself"
Linux is not controlled by one corporation. It's a community project with many corporate players. It doesn't have the power itself to dominate markets, force companies to do what it wants, etc. Since it by itself is an OS created by a loose network of many many people with no hierarchy of control.
As far as what individual companies do (those who distribute it and add a few touches to their particular "version") that's a whole different thing. Even still, since it's open, no one will ever have to depend on a single company. If the company decides to "close source" their "version" they're basically breaking many contracts and will no longer be truly part of the Linux "network."
The responses to the question, "The U.S. Justice Department is currently suing Microsoft. How closely are you following the trial - very closely, somewhat closely, or not closely at all?" went as follows:
5% said that they were following it closely.
51% said they were somewhat following it.
44% said that they didn't follow it at all.
Ok, if you're not following it or only partly following it, how do you know if a breakup is too extreme a punishment? If the populace is ignorant of the details, why should saying that 65% of them are against the breakup have any relavence whatsoever?
And the breakdowns on the answers- why the breakdowns by pollitical party affiliation?
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
They are not just founding memebers of the ATL but also the Assocation for Competitive Technology, a founding group of the ATL! Double Dipping! Also it's supported by the Clarity Group whcih if you look at their web site is enamored wiht Microsoft. Some of these groups have an obvious vested interest in keep Microsoft together, how can we believe this poll then? I wonder why there hasn't been a truly impartial poll, one with no finacial support to groups doing the poll, about whether Microsoft should break up. Perhaps the answer would be unsavory?
The next remark is false. The previous remark is true.
Survey says 63% of Americans are Dumb as a Sack of Hammers.
Seriously folks, with the stats on things like highschool graduation, college acceptance, etc, do you really care what 63% of americans think?
Do you ever wonder why this is a Republic and not a direct democracy? I believe the words were "Your people, sir, are a great beast"
Heck, I'm almost willing to help fund a survey to call thousands of lonely housewives and ask them if, in their opinion, should the American People have to pay to bail us out of our national debt, or should the US Government have to pay for it?
On a more relivant note, does anybody have access to historical data re: the AT&T breakup? Did they pull any stunts like this?
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
Of course, 100% of statistics are wrong, unless they say that a majority of people prefer Linux to Windows...
As Mr. Z's comment points out, the survey questions were of the unfair "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" variety.
Back in the spring of 1998 Microsoft attempted to orchestrate a "Grassroots" movement, in which they staged a phony letter writing campaign to the press. Here's a little article about the incident, from the Detroit News, "Microsoft may try to orchestrate grassroots support":
"...The Los Angeles Times, in an article Friday, disclosed plans for a media strategy that includes opinion pieces and letters to the editor that appear to be local testimonials but are written by Microsoft's publicity machine..."
"...The documents reported by the Los Angeles Times, some labeled as draft copies and carrying [MS Spokesman] Shaw's name, stated that the media blitz was "geared to generating leverageable tools for the company's state-based lobbyists" and positive press clippings that "state political consultants can use to bolster the case..."
I'll bet this latest survey will be used as part of their "Freedom to Innovate" program. Here's a little quote from that page:
"...Contact Your Elected Officials Think your public officials need to hear from real consumers about Microsoft and the industry? Send them an e-message..."
"...We formed the Freedom to Innovate Network (FIN) as a response to the overwhelming amount of correspondence we received from around the U.S. and overseas regarding the trial with the Department of Justice and other public policy issues. The FIN is a non-partisan, grassroots network of citizens and businesses who have a stake in the success of Microsoft and the high-tech industry..."
So let's all do as they suggest, and "Contact Your Elected Officials" and let them "hear from real consumers about Microsoft and the industry." And then let's see just exactly what our congressmen think of MS's tactics.
Clinton lied in court. $90,000. Not quite "cleared".
B-grade actors?!? How dare you.
I'll have you know William Shatner is one of Canada's finest Shakespearean actors. So was Lorne Green.
Dammit.
Even if this is mostly a retorical question, don't you think that 63% is a bit too small ? I mean since the survey was practically conducted by MS ? Couldn't this actually mean that the average american citizen doesn't really care what will happen with MS ? After all, what's the difference between MS and GS (as in gigasoft) - it's just a name.
...when did that happen?
I work at the US EPA Region 10 in downtown Seattle. Except for the fact that we're running Windows 95 (and there's been some rumormongering about a Linux thin client here pretty soon...) there isn't a single wide-deployed MS product around here.
We're using Wordperfect and Lotus Smartsuite for our office apps, Lotus Notes R5 (Gag! Choke! Urk!) for our groupware (Have you ever had to use Notes R5 for e-mail? It almost makes me want to use Outlook! It's THAT bad!) and Netscape 4.5 is our official browser. Oh, and we're using Novell for our network.
We do some spot licensing of MS products for people who are constantly getting MS-formatted documents, but for the most part, we're forced down to non-MS products - and thankfully so.
InThane
Ok,
I need to address one of these questions...
QUESTION: The U.S. Justice Department is currently suing Microsoft. How Closeley are you following the trial?
44% of the respondants are NOT FOLLOWING THE TRIAL AT ALL. I ask, are they making any sort of informed answers to the other questions if this is the case? ONLY 4% claimed to be following the trial closely. Breaking things down by political philosophy is one way to do a poll, (and it does add a little insight as to the parties beliefs of business) but it really doesn't tell us anything else. This following closely, somewhat, or not at all would have been a better gauge. I'd like to make some statements about the other questions:
QUESTION: Recent press reports suggest that the Justice Department will seek to break-up Microsoft into separate companies. Do you favor effors by the government to break-up Microsoft, or do you think a penalty like break-up would be too extreme given what you know about the case?
HELLO! as I stated before 44% of the respondants hadn't a clue. They have basicall y said, that they are unaware of the facts. If I were unaware of any facts on that trial, I garountee I would side against the government... for the most part I view them as more corrupt and greedy than most corps, so of course I'll go easy. Plus, what is our big interaction with the us government? TAXES... thats what we know them for, and especially during this part of the year... Even Microsoft doesn't crash enough to iritate people more than taxes. Plus, all these pricing questions are extreemely misleading. Lets not forget that a lot of people didn't buy Win98 because they knew that Win2K would be eventually coming out. Most of those people I bet haven't counted on the sticker shock that that is going to cause. (as if we ever thought Microsoft wouldn't release a Win2K when Win95 came out, I mean come on... 2K is marketing on its own... look at Ginsu).
I mean folks... christ... what does this say if this is used as part of Microsoft's apeal and actually holds up... that as americans, we are truly dumb.
God Bless the Europeans and Ausies for not having to participate in this crap... I haven't met one that is truly as clueless as we are yet.
You say you want a revolution?
Although Microsoft is a native-born American citizen, it is younger than 35 years old and if elected it will be unable to serve. Its Regent, Bill Gates, is expected to act on its behalf until it becomes legal President.
Now there's an idea - you don't get directly involved in lobbying on your own behalf - you support a bunch of other groups and let them lobby for you?
The media, the laywer, and the people running the country are obsessed with below average.
1) The survey questions were formulated to elicit responses that produced the resulting numbers
2) The public at large knows little about Microsoft's business practices or the DOJ suit agains MS
3) The public at large knows so little about technology that their opinions about it bear the same weight that their relative benefits for new prescription drugs might
4) Large corporations are centers of lots of money and ambition, and tend to do stuff to further the wealth and ambitions of their owners/employees
5) MS is a large corporations and tends do lots of PR work which is shady and underhanded to further it's own ends
Let's talk about something more interesting now.
I particularly liked how many of the questions seemed to come from the assumption that anything that the DoJ does that might change how Microsoft does business is somehow going to cost comsumers more money. What proof exists that this would happen? Well, of course there's the additional cost of the lawyers that Microsoft'll have to hire to ensure that they're in compliance with those heinous regulations. And you know it's going to cost Microsoft a ton of money to design (actually it might jut be that they'll need to introduce an actual design phase into their software process (wink)) software that plays nice with other vendor's software.
Really, this is just more Microsoft FUD designed to turn public opinion against the DoJ. (``You know, Bill, we could raise prices and make consumers believe that those additional costs are directly due to the government's case against us. Those sheep'll believe anything.'')
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
There is nothing wrong with fact. To deny this is a problem (or even exists) is even worse. People might get touchy on this due to some bit (or overwhelming) patriotism or think what you're saying implies Americans are genetically inferior to whoever.
It's just bad teaching. You have the choice of poorly funded public schools or Christian based private schools which aren't much different, just stricter and more attention focused to each student. Discussion of The Big Bang Theory (among others) doesn't even really occur until you reach highschool level Physics. Even then due to the overwhelming amount of stuff that needs to be taught in an entry level Physics class, discussion of this is most likely a paragraph in a book or 15 words of notes.
This isn't the only area. Then you have to remember many of these kids are growing up with parents who have strong religious beliefs and obedience and try to force that on their children (so they don't go to hell!!) without much resistance of course, since the kids don't know any better nor have the resources to challenge their beliefs. And the cycle continues. And it's more than just religion. Any sort of blind obedience, whether it's to a single nation, race, sex, political party, system of social order, whatever is often passed on over and over.
What was it that Benjamin Disraeli (already then!) used to complain about? Oh yes:
--
``Plus ça change, plus ça reste la même chose.''
Yes..yes.. I know i am going to get flamed for this one...but here is, in my opinion, the reason why Windows succeeds currently. It this the same reason that everyone complains about it on here. It is very simple and intuitive for the common person. People can easily sit down at a computer and, perhaps with a little help, understand what is going on in Windows and pick up how to use it much quicker than Linux. The normal person does not understand Linux and would get lost. You have to recognize that the normal user of Linux is much more computer-oriented than the normal user of Windows. All of the Microsoft Office products are very simple to use and produce quality results. Could this be done better with other products? Definitely. However, the simplicity of Word, Excel, Access (for what it does, it makes things very simple and easy to pick up) cause it to be so widely accepted. I think the fact that all of the Office products and Windows run so intertwined with one another is beneficial to users and has helped create much more opportunities for home users and especially for business users.
Steve
ok...you can flame me now.
But even more damning is the lack of need for the ATL. Couldn't most, if not all, of the ATL's main goals fit withen the charter of the Business Software Alliance or the Software & Information Industry Association? So, why aren't we seeing a survey from the BSA? Or at least a responce from the BSA? If more of us email the BSA about this then maybe we can get an unbias survey conducted.
It is funny how easily this report was dismissed as BS by /.'s biased reporters. So what if MS was a founder? Why is it when someone starts talking true about the shortcomings of Linux that everyone is so eager to flame/discredit/disbelieve something that is true? Sure the shortcomings can be fixed, but that is the point - the shortcomings need to be fixed. What company wants to invest the time and money to do this? What company wants to rely on a bunch of weekend Codewarriors to hack out the code in a timely manner?
I think breaking up MS could put a nail in Linux's coffin. Take one big shark that can't move all that fast, break it up into a bunch of little pihranna's (sp?) and you'll see competition alright. You now have a bunch of other smaller companies creating closely integrated business solutions. You also have a bunch of small companies stealing ideas and creating their own standards. It will be utter chaos, but no - no one in the Linux/Open source community will believe this. Nothing could possibly be better than Linux and open source (sarcasm).
(I'm the AC that wrote the post you responded to.)
Religion is not a problem per se. I know plenty of people who would call themselves religious from a variety of backgrounds (Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc.) that have absolutely no problem with evolution or the Big Bang or an Earth/universe that are billions of years old. (As a side note, when the Big Bang theory was introduced, it was primarily atheists and Eastern philosophers/scientists who objected to it, because it suggested that the universe had a beginning, and they thought that that suggested "divine intervention".) Religious fundamentalism, on the other hand, is a problem, and a pretty big one at that.
The core of the problem is that most Americans seem to be pretty darn ignorant. I speak with a fair degree of experience, because I am one. Religious fundamentalism is one of the reasons, but it's not the only one. Another one might be a sense of overwhelming apathy in a period of unprecedented prosperity. Things are good, the markets are booming, so why not skate through junior college and make decent money running a hotel or something like that? Education standards here are shockingly low because educators have no compelling reason to strive to teach all of their students to excel. In the late 1950s, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the American education system was given a rude wake-up call, and as a result, science education got a much-needed booster shot so that our children were prepared to compete with "the Russkies."
Where is the Sputnik of today?
Of course, the classic loaded question is:
Have you stopped beating your wife yet?
( ) Yes
( ) No
Some people say Microsoft has strong competition - AOL/TW, IBM, Sony, Sun & Apple ---- could be reworded to read "If you wanted to buy an open hardware system such as an IBM compatible PC, do you feel you have a choice of operating system software to run on it?"
( ) yes
( ) no
( ) oh, I just use whatever the 'experts' tell me to!
No alter ego today
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
A year ago, it might have been fine for the government to break up MS, however, since the AOL-Time Warner Merger, I'm not sure this is such a good idea.
If the government breaks MS up, AOL-Time Warner will rise to the occasion and take their place as the "evil empire monopoly". They will use their overflowing coffers to produce software and buy software companies, and they will use their newfound Time Warner cable customers as a means by which to distribute their software.
Microsoft, having been broken up, will not be allowed to compete, leaving AOL-Time Warner as the only game in town. People will complain, the government will take action, break up AOL-Time Warner and another monopoly will rise in its place.
Government interference in business creates monopolies; it does not promote competition.
the small business survival commitee is part of that organization.
Microsoft has often been guilty of locking the doors of entry to small business. =(
-I go to Rice, so figure out my email address
... if the questions are as loaded as that. It means that at least 37% of the people polled have a strong enough negative opinion to answer "no" in spite of the large bias of the question. That means that with a bit of two-sided reporting, there's probably a big majority in *favour* of MS being split up.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
... except that Microsoft still hasn't learned the art of being subtle in playing politics--probably because they have such contept for anyone outside the Redmond campus.
I get these sorts of surveys all the time. They're used to manipulate politicians--or at least the stupid ones, as any politician with the IQ of a house plant knows these sorts of surveys are always loaded.
But typical questions on the surveys I get are things like "should Americans keep their God given right to bare arms as was granted to us by our Founding Fathers, or should the government take their cue from athiest God-hating communist countries and take our rights away." (Gun Control) Or "should Women have control over their reproductive selves or should government be able to inprison women for attempting to control their fate in light of an unwanted pregnancy?" (Abortion).
These sorts of questionares are always loaded, and it's not a supprise that Microsoft is trying to play the same game. Too bad they're too arrogant to play it well.
You know, I wouldn't be surprised if this survey were totally fair and the results were as accurate as the best surverys are (I know it's neither, but hear me out here). That's part of the biggest problem, not necessarily with M$, but with computing in general today: people don't know what's going on.
MS has always been good at hiding the things they're really doing. You'd be surprised at just how few people really understand the issue (most Slashdotters do, I realize, but we're a comparatively tiny minority). The DOJ trials have helped raise awareness (I know several people who thought before the trial that I was just taking things a bit too far when I tried to explain about M$, but now they're quite firmly on our side). But they're not enough, what with Microsoft (who's in this for personal gain) and many Objectivists (most of whom don't yet seem to realize that the things M$ has done actually go against their philosophy, not in agreement with it) spreading FUD.
In the end, the only real way to fight M$ will be education (it's odd, just how many things can only be fought by that). That's also where the problem comes in; convicing people that Microsoft really isn't everything it claims to be is not an easy task. But I'd say it has to be done. It's hard to believe that a company that's only ever produced one decent program (Excel) and one decent hardware innovation (the mouse wheel, if that was even their idea to start with; I don't know) has risen to power. But if you don't know just how bad their software really is, or where the rest of their so-called "innovations" really came from, then it becomed easier, and that's what needs to change.
Yup, that's a problem with "democracy." The majority on whatever issues will always win out no matter how sane it is. The Republic is only a step away from this problem though. It's still majoritarianian, it's just the middle man makes the decisions the majority wants and then some. The pick and choose method of politics (multiple choice) is completly flawed anyway you slice it.
Is there better alternatives? Perhaps, consensus works very well, but obviously the structure of a "country" would have to reworked for consesus based decision making to work. Consensus wouldn't work to handle all of the jobs of a central government like the US. It'd have to be decentralized into very many small networks.
Consensus involves a group of interested people involved with a specific job or area or interest sitting around and discussing the actual issues among themselves and coming up with the best proposed route to take with what's being discussed. The only majoritarian aspect of this is outrageously fringe participants could be ignored just because their views on the subject could just not be reasonable whatsoever.
And it's unlikely a nonhierachal group of people are going to persue things that are not in their best interests. This would also require a sort of set of rules as well. Just to make sure that any decisions made do not give more power to certain people over others.
I found it very interesting that, even though only Microsoft employees were polled (hey, it's in the findings, as cited in earlier posts), 37% of them agreed that the company should be somehow punished or compromised. Let me clarify that: It's odd that only 63% of respondents felt that their bread and butter should not be diminished in some way.
If there's any truth to these stats (and I personally don't think there is; it is a blatant push poll after all), I'd be very afraid if I were Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer. A sizeable number of my employees wouldn't object in principle to the compromising of my empire.
Any thoughts?
-----
".sig,
I'm definitely not opposed to people having spiritual beliefs and personal practices related to those.
The first person who responded worded it much better. A sort of invasive, strict, extreme, pushy aspect a particular similar minded group of people also claiming interest in the same religion is more accurate to what I meant. It's definitely not the religion(s) itself, it's just people whi take things way too far, which isn't exactly the fault of the religion.
Sorry about the confusion.
Most hacker-types are utterly convinced of their mental superiority over the rest of humanity. They confuse computing skill with true intelligence and assume anyone that does not see things as they do must be mentally deficient. Many seem to have a problem understanding that Microsoft software functions perfectly well for 99% of the population. It seems to offend them somehow that so much of the population does not care to convert to their techno-religion and wage crusades against the great heretic Microsoft. Hackers are a small, insular and elitist sub-culture that needs to see that the whole world does not share their ideals.
The first question on page 5 is a false dilemma, both options can be true. ("Some people say that MS has repeatedly benefited consumers with its products. Others say MS's business practices have hurt consumers. Which side do you agree with?") Since 95% of the respondents have only a limited experience to base their opinion, they're likely to think that since Windows and Office work fine for them, MS has help consumers.
Although the "break-up" question is better in that it is not a false dilemma, but the number of repondants that are clueless (95%) remained the same. Given the general cluelessness, it's not surprising that most people would rather take less invasive action.
Walter Lippmann's classic Public Opinion specifically talks about the problem of relying on public opinion when the public doesn't really have a grasp of the situation. It doesn't matter that 63% of people don't want MS broken up since 95% of the public doesn't understand the issues involved.
Not only is M$ a founding member of ATL itself, but they're behind some of the other ATL members too, e.g., ACT. They're heavily involved in others, e.g., Clarity.
There's more (but I don't think I can stomach any more right-wing conservative propaganda. Yikes.
-- This
Hrmmm. I wonder who they polled. because it seems quit odd that the majority of people can be so oblivious to the obvious. It just doesn't make any sense. - AzidBurn -
There is no surer way to ruin a good conversation than to contaminate it with the facts. - Cecil Adams
READ THE SURVEY!!! jeez-o-pizza they repeatedly set the surveyee up!!!! Let me quote from one: "QUESTION: As you may know, the case impacts consumers. Some people say that Microsoft has repeatedly ***benefited consumers with its products***. Others say Microsoft's ***business practices*** have hurt consumers. Which side do you agree with more?" NOTE - some say their PRODUCTS benefit, some say their PRACTICES benefit. BLATANT bait and switch. Set the question up talking about one thing, then phrase the available answers so it sounds like you're only answering to one. (Only choices were "hurt consumer" "help consumer"). errrrrrr I can't wait until I can get going at work so I don't have to use this crap ANYWHERE!!
mas cerveza, por favor politically incorrect stu
You have to punish them where it hurts:
1. Billions of dollars (eg, 50% of cash reserves during 10 years) in fines. [Of course, this money shouldn't be stupidly spent as the gvt always does]
2. Mandate M$ and all major insider stockholders to disvest from any other non-negligeable participations in other companies.
This is even more important. Otherwise, you don't have a choice: you're always tangled into (unsuspectedly) giving some of your few bucks to rich people that made it in an unescrupolous way.
The survey has questions asking for approval/disapproval of DOJ remedies, given that the DOJ remedies would slow down innovation and increase cost. I have copied two of the survey questions below. What would happen if the questions asked whether or not voters would approve of the DOJ remedies, given that the remedies would accelerate innovation and decrease cost? QUESTION: If you knew that the Department of Justice was proposing a regulation that would end up slowing the pace of technological innovation, would you support or oppose the regulation? Would you strongly (support/oppose) it or (support/oppose) it somewhat? QUESTION: The Department of Justice is deciding what, if any, regulations to pursue against Microsoft. If you knew that the Department of Justice was proposing a regulation that would end up increasing the cost of software to consumers, would you support or oppose the regulation? Would you strongly (support/oppose) it or (support/oppose) it somewhat?
Does any one remember the phone company break up. Look at how much money they (AT&T) made from that . Does anybody seriously belive Microsoft didn't look at that example and see this as a model for even larger profits in the 21 century. "Those who fail to remember the mistakes of history are destined to repeat them"
The survey has questions asking for approval/disapproval of DOJ remedies, given that the DOJ remedies would slow down innovation and increase cost. I have copied two of the survey questions below.
What would happen if the questions asked whether or not voters would approve of the DOJ remedies, given that the remedies would accelerate innovation and decrease cost?
QUESTION: If you knew that the Department of Justice was proposing a
regulation that would end up slowing the pace of technological innovation, would
you support or oppose the regulation? Would you strongly (support/oppose) it
or (support/oppose) it somewhat?
QUESTION: The Department of Justice is deciding what, if any, regulations to
pursue against Microsoft. If you knew that the Department of Justice was
proposing a regulation that would end up increasing the cost of software to
consumers, would you support or oppose the regulation? Would you strongly
(support/oppose) it or (support/oppose) it somewhat?
You're forgetting to comment on the certain style that the questions are presented in:
"Some say that Bill Gates is a pedophile, that he routinely eats spotted owls for breakfast, that he doubleparks on busy streets, that he doesn't give generous tips, that he keeps all his money in a so-called 'money bin' and swims through it like Scrooge MacDuck, that he doesn't call his mother, that he keeps his children in the basement for medical experiments, and that he advocates the violent overthrow of the American government in favor of a New International World Order where he, as fuhrer, reigns over the newly enslaved American populace. Others say he doesn't do those things. What do you think?"
You really can't get much more leading than some of the questions here. People who don't know any better usually choose the side with more words and more clauses. It's human-nature == stupidity.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
rtt
hey guys, why don't you start posting the browser used when people make posts so we can see how many MS weenies use IE to view slashdot and make their proMS comments.... Just a question .....
It is simple my friend.
slashdot.org is a Linux news site, and so linux oriented news is the major thing reported here. Of course, it would be nice if the nuevo-wealthy maintainers of this site would practice some unbiassed journalism. By that I mean not focusing on anti-MS news and ignoring anything about Linux that is slightly negative.
And before trolls start with the "Slashdot isn't all about Linux", I suggest you read some of the press releases by andover.net and va linux as well as some of the details regarding slashdot.org in the andover SEC filings.
It's like you think your fellow americans are a bunch of stupid sheep and only the elite like you can possibly understand how evil Microsoft is and why it needs to be destroyed.
.. DING DING DING BINGO .. Vanna, tell him what he's won!
bell rings
OK, I'm replying to my own post. Call me crazy. How in god's name was my previous post interpreted as flamebait? All points were valid, I presented both sides of an arguement, and stated my opinion (and the fact that it was just my opinion!). Argh!
Or was it just because I was responding to a post that was (justifiably) considered to be flamebait? Either way, it makes little sense to me.
noah
--frustrated!
blah blah blah
Yep, that's about how long it is taking for them to finally take care of MS.
Would you really trust the results, or would you have doubts?
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
75 % of all slashdot moderation occurs randomly
slashdot sucks because:
1) too many people say the same thing over and over, usually in lessening degrees of clarity.
2) too few people are interested in having actual converstation as opposed to an eristic flamewar/jokefest
3) the stories are rigged to produce above mentioned flamewars/jokefests
4) any discussion of the problems with slashdot is always offtopic/troll/flamebait
5) any "rules" for conducting the discussion are ignored my %50 percent of the people
6) The moderation is careless, and obviously often performed without reading the comments all the way through.
If this were usenet, we'd have started another group by now.
***So forget the government. When's the last time they did the right thing? Let's see this battle out to the end. Take the man on and beat him. That's what a free market is all about.****
So what planet are you from. The whole point of the trial is that MS is a monopoly. It's pretty tough to have a free market when their is a monopoly already entrenched.
The only thing worse than a linux zealot is a dim wit Microsoft zealot.
My father-in-law loves Bill Gates. He knows almost nothing about Microsoft, the case, or computers in general. But he'll tell you to your face that Bill Gates is a great man because of all of the money he's made. My wife and I tell him that drug dealers make lots of money too, but it doesn't change his way of thinking. It's sad but there's lots of other people who think just like him. Bias or not, the survey results don't surprise me. I just hope that the government will enforce the law.
ever notice how he always.........pauses for effect? Apart from N'Sync and the various other obnoxious 'bands' with no talent, the pause thing has to be one of the most annoying things in the world!
It could be that people don't care if Microsoft has a "Monopoly" on PCs any more than they care if Apple has a monopoly on Macs or Sun has a monopoly on Sparcs. Right thinking people will be more concerned that everyone plays by the same rules and I doubt that "you can't sell OS's and Apps" is going to be a rule that IBM, Sun and Apple can live with or should have to.
am I the only person who doesn't see how the AOL/Netscape merger nullifies the DOJ case?
I mean, what's the idea: that the merger erases any past wrongdoings on Microsoft's part? Since when? If they broke the law, they broke the law. End of story. Any behavior on Netscape's part after the fact doesn't change what happened.
ie, if Peter robs Paul, and then Paul dies naturally, can Peter have the robbery charges dismissed just because they "aren't relevant in light of new circumstances" ???
Not in this country....
Nate
-- Watch the REAL Jon Katz.
I can't, for the life of me, figure out why this is flamebait. Maybe because the title says "More bullshit from Slashdot" and the dumbass moderator automaticaly dumped on it. Shame, shame
This doesn't surprise me, and not because I'm cynical about the U.S. population or MS propaganda.
.
But there is a 'problem' with human intuition. People can only see what is, and they rarely consider what could be. People tend not to think economically, the think like accountants; they fail to consider opportunity costs.
Consider the claim that war is good for business. This is probably true if your business is munitions or reconstruction or if it relies on slave labor. But what really happens is that resources are reallocated to compensate for losses. This reallocation appears like a great boon to the economy as a whole because people do no think of for what those resources could have been used if there had not been a war.
That example isn't really analagous to MS, but the principle is the same. People see that MS has made life better in some way. They do not see how much better it could have been otherwise. If the only historical fact that you change is the existence of MS without considering the effects of that absence, we are better of with MS than without it.
So these results are probably true - i.e., people really believe what is reported. (I've had people ask me, knowing that I dislike MS, why MS is being persecuted for doing a good thing.) Are they right? That's another issue.
Microsoft has been a good thing in some ways. They've also been a bad thing in some ways. On the level of accounting, I think MS has been good (as I indicated above). I suspect that a consideration of economic costs puts society in the red, but I really can't be certain because I simply don't know enough.
Ever notice . .
Microsoft and its allies assume everyone is stupid.
Someone, I figure this is directly related.
Cheers,
linux...better???
you mean shitty hardware support,
a horrible gui,
no X-standards(too many distros),
linux is no competition with MS, and it probably never will be (BEOS will come first),
not to mention a community of hostile supporters that "think" they are smarter, and cut "newbies" down at every turn. It reminds me of the IRC scene with "w@rez","31337 hacking",and "script kiddies".
unless something changes soon, linux will always be one step behind commercial companies like Micro$oft.
and one last thing...linux supporters REFUSE to believe there is anything wrong with their OS. if there was 100 security flaws with linux, nothing would be said....but when there 1 or 2 flaws in a m$ product, it's big news in the slashdot community.
speech is also never free, one of the things you claim to be fighting for.
have a nice day
(rimj0b)
I think we're getting bogged down with the idea of MS manipulating this poll. Do I think they did, hell yes. Why, because they have such a history of doing so.
However, lets face it, as far as the vast majority of people are concerned, Bill Gates invented the internet, the mouse, and the GUI. There's still a vast number of people that haven't used a computer, or who are just learning to use one. Their 1st exposure to all of the above is probably through Windows. As far as these people are concerned, MS is an innovative company that's being victimized by Government interference.
This isn't to say that these people are unintelligent, it's just that they don't know the background. They don't know that pretty much every thing that MS has ever come out with has either been stolen, copied, or bought from someone else. They are simply uninformed about MS's history. Plus, they've gotten huge ammounts of MS marketting fed to them. Remember that win95 ad that shows the pointer opening up the icon "the internet" and then it comes up with the window, "welcome to the internet"? If you didn't know any better, you would have thought that the internet came with win95.
Lets face it, the majority of people just don't know the background and can't be relied upon for a poll like this.
This is not like Ma Bell. To truely introduce competition, I believe MS should be forced to release the .h or specs for EVERY function in Windows until there IS competition again.
The problem with raw numbers is they really tell very little about how one has arrived at the result. Ignoring that communication is often less about words than an inflection of voice or even a close association with a negative word, a closer inspection is needed. Most of the questions on the survey were suppositions that put the DOJ in a bad light. Many questions were roughly "Would you support breaking up MS if software prices went up?", "If a new law against MS slowed the pace of innovation would you support it?", "Do you think that software design should be government regulated?". These are not objective questions and mixing statistics with such manipulations is as meaningless as multiplying data gleaned from a yard stick with data from an electron microscope ( significant digits?). Validity in test design is a sought after prize in real research but is an enemy to the charlatan. Not one question referenced the findings of fact or presented a negative supposition against Microsoft. An equivalent question in another direction would be "If Microsoft defrauds consumers would you want a suitable remedy?" . P.T. Barnum rides again.
Take a close look at the photo of the girl in front of the computer and the photo of the mouse. That there's Apple equipment, folks. Maybe ATL believes in innovation after all.
IBM clones out sold Apples with DOS against MacOS. Drone it all you want but open hardware at the time had much more of an impact than the GUI. Netscape brought people out in droves as much as Windows did. Intel had nothing to do with it either I suppose.
Everyone who is even considering whether the consumer would be better off if Microsoft is regulated/broken up/forced to open source windows is completely missing the point. Microsoft should be allowed to develop, license, and market it's products in any way it pleases(*) NOT because it is what is best for the consumer, but because of the precident it would set. Whether it is best for the consumers is irrelevant. It is probably the case that forcing Microsoft to open source windows would have a positive short term effect on consumers. But imagine software 5 years from now. No one will be interested in writing software that needs to be extremely widely used to be useful. Look at Acrobat, Real Player, ICQ -- all of these need to be widely used before they are of significant benefit to the consumer (what use was it to the first person to get on ICQ?). If Microsoft is punished for succeeding at what everyone else tried to do, people will be more reluctant to enter these markets.
It's similar to someone suggesting forcing biotech companies to sell their drugs at a reasonable price. In the short term it sounds like a good idea, but in the long term all it means is that you aren't going to have any new drugs.
The United States heavily taxes what are called "Windfall Profits", which just means really high returns on investment. Never mind that someone may have invested in 10 extremely risky businesses, 9 of them went belly-up, and only one returned "windfall profits". The effect is that even if the expected return given the risk is really good, people won't make the investment, because in the 1 in 100 chance the company does make money, it will all be taken in the form of taxes.
Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. And once the government starts thinking it needs to keep an eye on software developers, you can kiss innovation and profits goodbye.
--Kevin
* I said "any way it pleases", but I would exclude a few clearly monopolistic practices: prohibiting computer manufacturers from including non-microsoft software (Word Perfect installed on a Windows machine, some computers sold with linux instead) as a condition of their licensing; and also tying of sales in a way that putting one product (e.g. windows) on a computer is more expense if you don't also put another product on the computer (e.g. IIS).
Polls like this are just stupid. 86% of Americans would call for the banning of water - Yup, H20.
Just call it DiHydrogen Monoxide and the lynch mobs will be on the streets screaming for blood.
So lets not get too caught up in a stupid poll.
Deleted
Yes, and 63% of Americans saw Elvis last year. So what? This is the "wishing makes it so" implicit in all polling and reporting on polls. Quite apart from the fact that this is a "study" from the lobbying organization that Microsoft founded when it began having Justice Department problems, there is the basic fact that what a large cross-section of America thinks about anything probably has no connection with the truth.
You see, the question of whether or not breaking up Microsoft would be "good" or "bad" is an unanswerable question. Two people you ask will not only have a different idea of what is "good," but will also have totally different levels of knowledge about the issues behind the question.
Taking a complex question and putting a precise-seeming number on doesn't mean a damned thing.
I remember a poll during the Gulf War that reported something like "72% of Americans approve of Bush's handling of the Gulf Crisis." My reaction was, who the hell cares? More interesting would have been a series of poll results:
What percentage of:
Mothers of American Soldiers
American Military Leaders
Iraqui citizens
Iraqui Military Leaders
Kuwaiti citizens
Kuwaiti Military Leaders
Families of Killed American Soldiers
Oil company executives
VFW members
etc.
approved of Bush's handling of the Gulf Crisis?
I would bet you would get radically different numbers. When you try to reduce a complex question to a single simple number, it looks like information, but it is not.
As a student of history, I would have to say that the question of whether the Gulf War was a "good" thing or not will be open for quite some time.
I'm not taking a position here, I tend to think all the parties involved did what they felt they had to do for reasons that seemed good at the time. You can't ask them to do anything more than that. But that 72% approval number doesn't mean a thing. Futhermore, if the number had been 12% or 85% it would not have changed anything about the real effect of the war on the people, the region, or the outcome (except to the extent that the American government must respond to the popular will -- the war would not have happened in quite the same way if the American people were so against it that it would have brought down the government).
In fact, my parenthesized point is perhaps the central point. We are so used to polls affecting decisions that we now mistake our collective will as collective power. The problem is that if 87% of Americans don't believe in gravity, we still remain earthbound. Some things are not governed by the popular will.
Some things are only influenced by the popular will.
Some things are totally determined by the popular will.
Until we learn to tell these cases apart, we will continue to over-simplify, misunderstand, and make poor decisions.
Wishing does not always make it so.
One question reveals that significantly more Democrats would support a government regulation even if it meant that technological innovation would be slowed. In other words, Democrats are more likely to agree with the unabomber that technology is bad, and they are more likely to think that the government would never make a regulation if it were harmful.
Another question reveals that significantly more Democrats would want to see Microsoft regulated even if it meant they would have to pay more for software. In other words Democrats are more likely to prefer to see everyone equally poor than to see a world where everyone is wealthy but some are much more wealthy than others.
that 83.79523% of all the surveys state their results with completely unwarranted claims of precision ...
Right now my opinion is that the break up the DOJ is considering wouldn't work. I've seen lots of other posts that talk about this idea. Here is my two cents.
When the government broke up AT&T there was "immediate" competition. Each newly created company had one thing to do. Try and get market share as fast as possible. This meant they had to be better at serving the customers than any of the other companies.
From what I understand, they want to break up M$ into 3-4 companies. A OS company, a office/other M$ product company, etc. This simply won't work. These areas of M$ probably already act as their own entities. If they are going to break it up they need to create competition. They should split the company into competing OS divisions. Each company would get the current version and code for Win2000, CE, etc. It would then be their job to survive by pleaseing the customers in whatever way possible. (price, quality, etc)
The Office products and game products, and internet crap has to be dealt with as well. I haven't given much thought to that though. They could probably remain as one company. It is the OS after all that gives M$ leverage to pull the unethical crap they have pulled.
Look at how slashdot mininterprets the poll information, the poll says that 63% of Americans believe that breaking up Microsoft is too extreme. I am not so sure that it is either, but in any case this is definately not the same as the slashdot headline that "Survey Says 63% of Americans Like MS the Way It Is." Hopefully other newspapers won't report it like this. (Of course with only 5% of the population paying close attention to the anti-trust trial, I don't think it matters too much).
>There is no such thing for linux (unless you BUY redhat).
;) ) consider yourself quite good with computers. Well, 'nuff said.
You mean MS 'stuff' is comparable in price ? Excellent. I'll have the following OS/s and pay when I want some phone support. 1 desktop OS with office suite, 1 server with everything I could ever want to do on the damn thing. I'd also appreciate a decent effort at security and openness instead of running away with hands covering ass from the vendor.
>I consider myself to be quite good with computers, but even I have found it almost impossible to get Linux running.
In other words it wasn't easy the first time and you had to RTFM. If I put someone who'd never used win9x or even win3.1 and asked them to install it I'm very sure they'd have troubles too.
Every day I use it I find myself wondering how a product so fault-ridden can actually _ship_ and have so many people using it with so little complaint. Credit where credit's due MS have done a LOT to get IT where it is today. So have a lot of other companies who aren't as anti-competition as MS have shown themselves to be.
>Because the average person probably couldn't >even get common apps downloaded, let alone setup >for Linux.
The average person has trouble doing that on windows. I'd hate to be an 'average person' (such as yourself I imagine) in a situation where there are software and hardware errors and conflicts. I cringe when I hear the common "there was a problem with my hard drive so I rang and they told me to reformat" . Screw that.
>It would be nice to have drivers, but the >drivers that these guys write are the main cause >of Windows stability. I can't believe that their >Linux variants will be any more stable!
Err... what ? I'm not even going to make an attempt at this one. I'm sorry to say I believe you have serious issues you'd best sort through with a trained professional.
Seriously though, if you're a pro-MS user and consider yourself quite good with computers I dunno what your definition of average. It makes me uneasy inside and prone to liver failure.
You're right about the ease of use thing. But something that's notoriously unstable isn't a good thing. When I feel safe in linux and genuinely unsure of when explorer.exe is going to shit itself next something's up. When a company's got to get affiliates to write shit surveys that would fail high school maths due to leading questions that father who doesn't (want to) know a thing about computers or MS says is misleading they lose more respect they never had.
But when MS avocates such as yourself (and I'm sorry readers for stooping to personal attacks but it's just so easy
63 % of americans (or any other country probably) also have no idea of what the implications of Microsoft's business practices have been/could be.
Sure they like it just the way it is.. it doesn't concern them.
99% of informed technical people who have 5+ years of experience in the network computing environment, and who are skilled at more platforms than just MS Windows do *not* like the way MS works at all.
I eat hot grits for breakfast
Hey, how about 'Stockhold syndrom'? Ever heard of that one? A kidnapped forms the attachment with his/her kidnapper? Note that this is mostly kidnapped who gets attached. As to kidnapper, he doesn't give a fscking sh*t. This will be a bit closer to the situation we're discussing. Cheers,
If Microsoft is broken up into Operating Systems, Applications, Hardware etc. this will not change market share at all. Windows will still be the dominant OS. Office will still be the dominant office suite.
It would benefit the industry much more to make Microsoft release full documentation of all the obscured, hidden, and secret APIs, protocols and file formats they use to maintain superiority in the software industry, so fully compatible alternatives may be developed.
Of course, if Microsoft could be broken up _and_ forced to release documentation, that'd be even better.
-Joe
There may indeed not be much "marketing intelligence" here, but before you lose your patience totally please consider these points. Slashdot is not a marketing forum, nor are we advertising products here. This is not the "official" voice of the linux community. We are engaged in discussion, about as close to a "sit in a bar-restaurant-cafe-whatever talking session" as you will get on the internet. Effectively you have wandered into the back room where programmers and system administrators sit discussing things which to most people (myself included) would be just slightly more comprehensible than lawyerspeak. If you want to appeal to new users and address marketing issues, the more prominent sites like linux.org, linuxnewbie.org, and many other sites, as well as some of the major companies spring up behind Linux, would likely be more friendly to marketing considerations. Marketing is normally something done by commercial organizations interested in increasing sales, and thus profits. Linux, please remember, was written by geeks for geeks. It is becoming more user friendly, but that will take time. Marketing will be a question companies like Redhat will face, eventually. The coding and hard core user community, who you largely address, has no real interest in educating the general public. (Although they are often excellent when asked in other forums for technical help.) They are interested in creating good software. "Selling" linux, as far as the crowd here is concerned, is not a huge issue. Two different mindframes.
(Oh, by the way. Considering the astronomical size and scope of the help which has been given freely by the community on countless email lists, as well as the free nature of the vast majority of Linux software itself, don't be too surprised that free advice is not a new phenomena to the people here. Which is not to indicate that it is not appreciated. I myself found the viewpoint of an experience commercial marketer rather interesting, and certainly something we will have to come to terms with sooner or later. And please don't be turned off by overly strong or rude comments. That sort of thing is inevitable, espically when in the heart of geekdom. That vocal minority exists wherever you go in a democracy, and here is no different. Just ignore the rude comments and flame, and with luck you may get some intelligent responses as well. Considering Slashdot itself is at no cost, what do we have to lose?"
...who watched my brother's family suffer while companies left his database infrastructure for MS-based DB products. Guess what? Even though my bro proved cases of client record corruption under MS, the companies still chose MS to get out from under the UNIX license fees. he was out of work for months when the company collapsed. I admit some of the UNIX license fees (sco, sun, ultrix, etc.) were ridiculous, tho. But client data corruption? how much does $25K save a $40B company?
my own experience is similar. companies choosing to leave UNIX for MS cuz they can avoid exhorbant license fees. SCO? $$$K a year. The (unnamed) company I was was contracting for replaced ONE sco server with TEN nt servers. It was easier to train people on, but checkpoints failed *way* more often, requiring a lot of people to do weekend'ers and overnight'ers. Do they take all that $$ into account?
I hate MS. I always have, from the days they screwed Gary Kildall (RIP), through the days they screwed IBM, and the days they screwed Novell, through the days they screwed Borland, through the day they screwed my former employer, who abondoned UNIX to become a "Microsoft Certified Provider".
I watched my company's profits climb incredibly for two years, to the present, when they can't sell shit for fertilizer. I left long before, though. I do UNIX now, and would rather sell burgers than touch the putrid dogshit than embidies every MS product.
I wrote s/w under NT for two years. I tried to be a "believer", but every MS rep I talked to, and every "upgrade" that broke everything either left me with my skin crawling (from the obvious lies), or in the case of the latter, left me pining for the days of "Stable Unix". Yes, I'll say it again -- STABLE UNIX.
That company is nearly dead now. They watched the most complained about NT bugs (ole stream errors) persist for over a year with no programmers assigned, or status returned. Even a fading company like INFORMIX treated our bug reports better.
Did I tell you that our contract with MS was reminescent of the early railroad days of California? MS required we give them the right to entry of our premises, 365/7/24, for examination of all of our P&L accounting, all s/w licensing, etc. Note that from that point on, we had every MS license paid, but only ONE copy each of Borland products, shared among 50+ developers. Wow, how suprising.
MS fucked me, my family, and my friends with an inferior product for a low price, for 15 years. I've only met two MS developers (out of about 30) that deserve respect. The rest were whores, for the greatest pimp the world has ever seen, BILL GATES. He took what the taxpayers developed (for billions of dollars -- computer science/Unix/open GL), or apple INNOVATED, wrapped in in his own glitzy crap/renamed it, and fleeced the globe.
Everyone, please consider what i've said, and think about researching how MS fucks/has fucked competitors, the global population, and individuals. Consider feeling the way I do -- that to use, touch, or even see a machine using a BILLGATES/MS product, means you need a long shower afterwards.
I know I'm not alone in this. Sometimes I wonder how many other people hope that one of two things happen:
1) DOJ breaks up MS forever, and ends their monopolistic practices. they fade into the limelight.
2) America starts a program for Elementary Schools -- "How to be a Sniper". In this class, everyone learns to shoot long range with high powered sniper rifles. All targets have a full color pic of BILL GATES.
sorry for the hate, but too many have suffered for me to remain quiet.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Heh, I guess "Given enough eyeballs, all [lies] are shallow."
I actually like Microsoft. I think they need a lil spanking and open up specs for things like MS Word (oops.. there went your stranglehold on the market, I know I know it takes more than that.. but with that you can just write superior software and it will show.) and made to play a LITTLE more fairly. But no dont break them up or anything. Microsoft does a LOT of positive things most people never even hear about. MS Backs a LOT of standards, good stuff that really NEEDS to be backed by someone as big as MS so that other companies are pressured to use it and not go proprietary. HELLO! Thats GOOD. Sure it benefits MS but it helps us out a lot.. a Prime example is ANSI XJ12. Certain companies have a STRANGLE hold on Data transfer of Insurance companies data. They use a proprietary format that can differ so much its not even a fucking standard. Its just plain out FURUSTRATING to write systems that span multiple systems and deal with all the fscking different systems out there. Oh did I mention this is all over old 2400 baud modems??? ANSI XJ12 solves all the problems (all net based..woohoo) and MS among other companies sit on its board which pushes things like this through. A lot of companies are bad but Ill take the MS dominated world over the *nix desktop/Sun Piece of shit net terminal world and day.
Sorry.. its been a long fucking day writing text parsing routines in VB.. Im allowed to be a little shitty.
JA
Ya ecer watched Plummer act Shakespearean rings around Shatner in The Undiscovered Country :)
.. that they have done something wrong when "the screen goes blue" or when they get "one of those windows telling them they've done something illegal".
Having that kind fo attitude is exactly why Linux is not going to become a consumer O/S. Instead of trying to make Linux better for the consumer, everyone spends their time flaming Pro-MS posts. Sorry, but that just gives you guys less and less credability.
In my mind [rigged survey] == [crap]
From a professional point of view that just means that survey institutes gets an even worse name. That means that friends of mine in that business who actually try to do honest surveys, will have a harder time competing with those that are not.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Quake is a game. Religion is intended to be serious, and seriously taken, and precisely a guide for persons' actions. When your sacred book, suppossed to be the word of God himself, mandates the killing of witches, homosexuals, adulterers and those who work on Sabbath (to name just a few), the very least that can be said is that your religion is not to be credited if you don't kill such people. So, it is not the same, and you can blame a religion in certain circumstances.