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Microsoft Quickies
Yesterday, the court decided to break up Microsoft. Here's a little list of resources and places on the web where you can learn more about it. Microsoft has requested that the ruling be set aside until an appellate court hears its case, read about that on CNN. ZDNet has a big thing on it here, as well as new words from Judge Jackson. The Financial Times site, FT.com, has news and a Ballmer interview here. Here's something from the Washington Post, talking about the possibility of an out-of-court settlement. Enjoy.
I don't quite understand all the fervor I see here. Do you honestly believe that this will open the marketplace to another Operating System any time soon? This does little to address the reasons that Microsoft had a monopoly to begin with.
Microsoft may have bullied illegally into the browser market, but nobody here is screaming, "Yay! We can all get a new browser!" You all seem to be celebrating the death of Windows, admittedly a flawed OS. This won't kill Windows. This probably won't even kill Internet Explorer, at least not for a long time.
Ask yourself: Why is Microsoft so huge? Every other post on Slashdot puts Windows down. Is it the best OS out there? Nope. Second best? Third? Nope. How did it get so big? The easy answer is that Bill FORCED everyone to have it! Yeah! But that's not true. Microsoft is huge not because Windows is the best, but because Windows is popular.
Popularity has a whole different set of rules from competence. If you want to see the difference, look at your workplace politics, and then pick up a copy of "Entertainment Weekly" or some similar magazine. If one of your coworkers goes to jail for drugs, abuses his spouse, and gets divorced six times, he's a loser and nobody wants anything to with him. But if he's a movie star, then it's almost expected and it's okay. Windows works the same way. It's unstable, it's secretive, and it's bloated, which should all be cardinal sins for an OS. But it runs all the cool games, all the neat office tools, and all the multimedia stuff you could want. Plus, you don't need a degree, or even significant experience, to install it correctly. You can't seriously expect people to forget that overnight because it's revealed to be incompetent AND a bully, especially when they already knew it was incompetent and didn't care.
Microsoft Windows will continue to sell as long as it is the best OS for what the majority of computer users use it for: light office work and games. Money talks, majority rules, pick your cliche. It doesn't matter what Windows can't do, because it's the Hollywood OS. Until another OS comes along that can do all this better AND as easily (or nearly so), I don't think anything will change.
I'd like to add that Microsoft is right to claim innovation. Innovation is not invention. Look it up. Innovation is ABOUT stealing others' ideas and using them in a "better" way. And in this business, "better" = "more popular" because that means more money, and money is what business is all about. If MS was able to steal bits and pieces of other companies and make more money than the idea's originator had, then that is, by business definitions, innovation.
This isn't meant to be a particularly pro-Microsoft message. I just don't see why anyone thinks this will change the fact that Microsoft is so ubiquitous.
Comments are welcomed.
He isn't living in reality...
followed by:
Pretty clear to ME who is living in reality in this instance.
======
"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
I think another interesting perspective is that of the great Robert X. Cringely, in the latest edition of the Pulpit. All is spelled out here.
Put simply, he believes that Microsoft lost the trial on purpose: in order to be illegal, a monopoly must be harmful to its consumers, and the DoJ failed to dig up enough evidence to that (such as the "Windows Certified" scam), choosing instead to focus on the damage done to other companies (particularly Netscape). So Microsoft is pretty damned sure it will get Judge Jackson's ruling overturned on the appeals court, all will be back to normal, and at best it'll take a few years for the DoJ to find a new strategy to take them down; in the meantime, Microsoft will be "innovating" a few billion dollars more out of the consumers' pockets.
That's all his opinion, of course. But it looks right on the money. And it does account for the incredible stupidity that the MS lawyers have shown in court...
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
You've got to give them credit -- Microsoft just doesn't give up. Notice that throughout their entire history of legal battles, Microsoft has never *once* even hinted that they may have knowingly broken the law; all along they've played this as if they're innocent martyrs of a corrupt legal system. They're not stupid, and they're not naive. They're doing this because to admit even one iota of guilt makes it that much easier for their legal foes to build a case against them. The longer they play innocent, misrepresent the issues to a gullible public, and keep digging potholes in the path of the legal proceedings, the longer they can continue to do business as usual. They're manipulating United States law as if it were the rules of a game, devoid of moral responsibility, free to be stretched or broken at will as long as Microsoft knows they can cope with the consequences.
My concern, though, is that the two-company split ordered by the court won't do any good. So one company is still in charge of the destiny of Windows, and still has enormous power in the marketplace -- how long will it be before they begin to test the limits imposed on them and find loopholes to worm through, knowing that if they step over the line, the worst they might face is another long, drawn-out court battle until they're reined in again? And the applications company, do you really think they'll bother porting to the tiny Linux market? More likely, Microsoft Office will still have an unassailable dominant position on Windows, Windows will still have an unassailable position in the PC OS market, the Windows OS company will find a way to continue to rule the computer industry through intimidation, and nothing will have changed.
I still believe the right solution would have been to have multiple vendors (fragments of Microsoft, existing companies, or new companies) developing and marketing their own versions of Windows. Only then would Windows be subject to real competition and be forced to become leaner, cheaper, and better, and only then would customers have real choice over what operating system to run on their computer. (Remember that in the business world, Macintosh is still widely looked as as a home computer and a toy, and a lot of people still don't even know what Linux is.)
Perhaps you all recall how Bill decided to reorganize the company around "consumer" and "business" products, ending the division between the operating system and applications groups. This announcement was made not long after the DoJ filed suit against Microsoft, and talk of a breakup began murmuring around the net. The timing was too convenient to be a coincidence in my mind.
And now the judgement is in, and it is an order to split the company along its old lines of organization. I predict that MS will soon complain that the company isn't properly organized to divide the OSes from the Applications without hurting both too much. (But first they have to admit that they lost... they don't even seem to be doing that.)
I can see the fnords!
All that'll happen is that Microsoft will appeal, the DoJ will take it to the Supreme Court, and MS lawyers will plead that their prior appeal, wrt Internet Explorer, set a precident in which the law did not apply to large companies. Some large back-handers later, the Supreme Court will agree and call for an ammendment to the Constitution placing Big Business outside the American Judicial system entirely. The new (Republican) President will concur, and if necessary, force the ammendment through with an Executive Order, which gives the President totalitarian powers.
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)
(A repost of a comment I posted on ZDNet's TalkBack...)
This has nothing to do with Microsoft being a successful and large company. This has nothing to do with Microsoft being a monopoly, per se. It is possible to have a legal monopoly.
This case is about Microsoft illegally using their monopoly to stifle competition. In this specific instance, it is about Microsoft using their monopoly on the desktop OS to stifle competition in the internet browser market.
Microsoft basically spent a billion dollars to develop a very good web browser. This, in and of itself, is not bad. Microsoft then gave this browser away, instead of selling it. Again, this is not bad in and of itself.
Microsoft then started packaging the web browser in every copy of its operating system that it sold. This starts getting into a grayer area. Since Microsoft has an effective monopoly on the desktop OS market, this means that almost everyone buying a new pc or the most up-to-date operating system received a free copy of the web browser. This gave Microsoft an advantage over all other browsers on the market. I dont' think that this is illegal, but it is a gray area.
The illegal part came when Microsoft started threatening PC manufacturers who wanted to install Netscape's browser instead of Microsoft's browser. These threats ran the gamut from prohibitive pricing for Microsoft OS licenses to actually not allowing PC manufacturers to sell Microsoft's OS (which would effectively destroy a PC manufacturers chance to sell PCs). Microsoft also limited what icons PC manufacturers could put on the desktop, what software could be installed, etc. Microsoft used their OS monopoly to dictate to PC manufacturers that only the Microsoft web browser would be installed when the PC shipped. And this is very definitely illegal.
If Microsoft had stuck to legal business practices, there would not be a problem. Microsoft could've continued with their monopoly in a completely legal way. They could've introduced Internet Explorer, but then left it up to PC manufacturers what web browser was installed on new computers. But Microsoft wanted to control the browser market, and used their OS monopoly to make this happen. THIS is what caused the breakup (if it ever happens).
--- Biffster.org
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
I completely agree with you. My friend was pointing out that breaking up MSFT, or punishing them in other ways, may hurt the US economy (this may or may not be true, however). IMHO, this is just all the more reason to stop them before the US economy is even more at their mercy.
If we allow a company that repeatedly broke the law to carry on with business as usual, just for the sole purpose of not damaging our precious economy, then we're entering a very dangerous situation. This would hint that the company, MSFT in this instance, holds within it enough power to alter US legal rulings. This is a scary proposition, in that money and economy hold a higher position then the legislative branch of the government. The law, then, becomes nearly useless. It's one of Murphy's auxiliary rules coming true - The Golden Rule. He who owns the gold makes the rules.
To look from a wider perspective, big change (including economic) usually brings with it some temporary instability and uncertainty, but after the fog clears, it's for the better. For example, look at the US revolution (and no, I'm not comparing the ruling of MSFT to any necessary revolution by the people or anything like that). The colonists, at the price of their comfort and safety, put an end to the British tax and lack of representation by revolting. Sure, things were a mess for awhile, but for the colonists life was much better afterwards.
Just my twopence.
make world, not war
I see NWGS as nothing more than a distraction
/* FIXME: Memory leak. Maybe free ($new_API_name) here? Ah screw it. Tell users to buy more RAM. */
to keep developers in the Microsoft camp.
I used to be a MSDN subscriber and Windows
programmer (forgive me, for I have sinned) so
I know how the game works:
while(1) {
$new_API_name = new GlitzGlamName;
rename($old_API_name, $new_API_name);
hype($new_API_name);
delay($new_API_name);
enforce($new_API_name);
change_spec($new_API_name);
orphan($new_API_name);
$old_API_name = $new_API_name;
}
Same ol' song and dance.
Microsoft burned themselves with their integration
I disagree. I think Microsoft burned themselves with their attitude. If you piss off enough people you will pay for it. That's the thing that gets me. I think that MS could have been the dominant software company without all the nasty things they did. When they got DOS bundled on the IBM... well.. it was pretty much their game to lose at that point.
The fact is that many of these other companies basically shot themselves as much as MS did. Apple refused to compete on price...IBM had no clue how to market OS/2. Netscape imploded while it still had marketshare. Sure MS played a part in their demise... but not all of it
If MS had been a little more politically correct the government would never have gone after them. All they had to do was give a little and it would have saved them more than a lot.
More proof of a Microsoft conspiracy: :)
Office for the Mac is one of their better selling applications. It always makes money, and always sells. One of the big things Bill always held over Apple was taking away Office unless Apple dropped certain lawsuits against MS.
So, stopping development of a very successful product in order to screw over another company is called what? Anyone?
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.