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New Antitrust Complaint Filed Against Microsoft
jimboid and others wrote in about a new antitrust complaint filed against Microsoft in the European Union, concerning Windows XP (all previous litigation has concerned earlier versions of Windows). The BBC and Sydney Morning Herald have articles about the complaint.
Yup. Everybody would be locked into a very expensive proprietary software AND hardware format. Personally, I'm pretty happy about being able to use any old computer that I can pick up for $50 and slap W2K on it.
Maybe it's time for them to disinvest now. Do not wait until the verdict, try to anticipate a bit! In any case, it's an interesting question to ask at the next all-staff meeting: "Does our pension fund follow a sound investment strategy? Or are they still heavily invested in Micro$oft?"
While a small position in Micro$oft stock would still be defendable, any excessively large holding should be avoided. Or would you like to lose half of your pension, just because Billy Boy got some nice spanking from Mario...
As for your remark about linux: If you do not like the browser, media player or any other software package coming with your distro you can remove it and install something you do like without having to fear you would break something else. Furthermore, if you do not want any of these tools at all just roll your own linux distro. Try that with Windows......
./ belief, it is possible to not use any of the default MS bundled software. download mozilla, aim, aol, realplayer, star office, and video editing software of your choice and shut the hell up. just because it's "bundled" does not force you to use it. just imagine - in the amount of time it took for all these complaints about how "evil" MS is, you could have downloaded all this stuff, installed it, and set it to default.
./'s are not the majority. we are a minorty. most people really don't care.
despite popular
anyone want to place bets on the word processor used to write this complaint? i wonder why they would use word... maybe it's the best thing available right now? if you don't think it's fair, go right ahead and write a better office package. i'll buy it - i promise.
now let's think about the majority of the world's pc users. take my parents, grandparents, parents-in-law, my brother, sister-in-law, guy next door, etc. realize that most people don't give a shit what OS they have - they just want it to be easy to use. they want to buy a $600 pc from (insert favorite OEM here), plug it into AC power, turn it on, play solitare. they really don't care that it comes with IE - they use AOL to browse because they don't even know that it's possible to browse outside of their AOL window. hell, (insert favorite OEM here) even installs AOL and gives them 6 free months service - they don't even have to worry about that! all they care about is that their favorite apps have a shortcut on the desktop - this way they don't have to know jack about how the machine is set up.
it's kind of funny to me - i've heard these "non-tech" people complain that no "real" office package comes free with windows and they're pissed that they have to go buy office. so now we have people complaining about "too much" being bundled while others are complaining about "not enough" being bundled. it's just a matter of opinion.
for all you idealists that think the entire world should run some linux distro, you need to get a clue. think - how long did it take for you to become totally comfortable with linux? not everyone cares enough to deal with the learning curve associated with linux. could you imagine your grandmother compiling scsi emulation into her kernel to get her cdrw drive working?
Wave upon wave of demented avengers March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream