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Gates Admits Stripped Down Windows Possible

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the well-of-course-it-is dept.

ChristTrekker writes "The Financial Times reports that Bill Gates admitted a stripped-down Windows is possible after all." This kinda contradicts a lot of other stuff he's been saying. There's a few bits in the article worth a read.

2 of 619 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The Truth by EvilAlien · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I think his major contention would be that it would be bad for Microsoft's business model to strip Windows down. This shouldn't be surprising, since the whole point of the anti-trust litigation is to attack MS's way of doing business!

    Admitting something can be done is redundant. It is technically possible to do almost anything, but that isn't the point. What should and should not be done, or forced upon a company by Tha Man, is the question here. Stripping down Windows may indeed cripple Microsoft and traumatize the computer industry as Microsoft pundits claim. Or it might not. Whichever view is more convincing to a Judge is what matters here, not the almost limitless potential of technology.

    --
    perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
  2. Re:XP Embedded by pubjames · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You mean the way IE 3 was cheaper and every bit as good as Netscape? Then how IE 4 was light years beyond Netscape, and still free?

    You're kind of making my point yourself. The only way Microsoft could really catch up with Netscape was by giving away a product for free. Sure, they were competing on price - they had to, to survive. The price was zero. Now, imagine they had to do that with all their products. They wouldn't survive long.

    Why don't Dell, HP, Compaq etc. put StarOffice as default on their PCs? I'm sure Sun would love that. Many customers would probably love it too. But Microsoft will do whatever they can to prevent PC manufacturers from doing this. Why? Because otherwise, the decision Joe User has to make is, do I want to keep using StarOffice that came or free on my PC, or do I want to pay $500 to get Microsoft office? You'd quickly find lots of small companies and individual users using StarOffice, and it would begin to take off. That kind of thing must absolutely scare the pants off Microsoft. You can't compete on price when things come for free with a new PC - that's why Microsoft must control that and not the PC manufacturers. Otherwise, MS are fucked.