Slashdot Mirror
What Would The World Be Like Without Microsoft?
CanadianMikey asks: "The debate with the business side of computing rages on about the validity of Open Source. Is it good or bad? What is the future of computing? Could it have been different, and where will the 21st century take us? Is Microsoft just the big nail that always gets hammered first and will someone step in to take their place when they are finally taken down?
If Microsoft were to close up shop, who do the readers of Slashdot think would be tomorrow's Microsoft? What about the forgotten windows?"
Actually, I think IBM, the original scary tech monopoly, showed us the benefit of standards (abliet mostly hardware standards).
Microsoft just shows us how little we learn from historical mistakes, REGARDING standards. This is the one place where I wouldn't mind a little government intervention, toward an open and efficient standard. They could hardly screw it up worse than it is now.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
As loathe as I am to say it now, Microsoft has actually show us the benefit of "standards".
That's true, but in the absence of a behemoth like Microsoft dictating what a "standard" is we would probably be working with true (ie open) standards rather than simply what Bill declares is Good For You(tm).
I'd like to think that absent a Microsoft-like controlling entity, the continuing mayhem of opposing formats and standards for data and documents would have become so untenable that developers would have been forced towards working together to come up with standards that actually worked. And that were actually supported and were actually standard. This would be simply to ensure that the multitude of word processors (for example) could reliably utilise each other's documents since none would have the market leverage to ignore the others.
This assumes, of course, that not only is there no Microsoft, but that there is no company in a similar position of power.
There is also an Easter Bunny, and I saw Santa yesterday at his summer job at the beach...
Can we shut up about Microsoft already? Damn, every other story is some "anti-M$" drivel. Lets imagine life without these kinds of "discussions", just for one day.
I do not have any affiliation with MS, and have both Linux and MS machines at home.
I know someone will probably mod me down for this, but why does it appear that Slashdot has a tendency to continually bash MS.
I mean at the end of the day, if Windows was really as crap as some people make it out to be, no-one would use it, simple as that. I have used many OSes over the years, W95, WNT, W2K, WXP, W2K3, OS2, Linux, UNIX. I know that they all have their problems, but really, name an OS that doesn't have a problem in it.
Not only that, a computer is very much like a car, if it is not looked after, it will eventually die, be it Linux, Windows, UNIX or MAC OS.
I am not claiming that MS does no bad, but really there is not many large companies out there that have not done something bad at some stage. And there is not one company out there that would not defend themselves the same way that MS has, if they were under attack, be that a legitimate attack or not.
Now, I understand the concerns of the Open Source community, and Linux has come a hell of a long way in recent years (which is why it is starting to be used in the real world now), but do not think for a second that the tables would not be turned if Linux was in MS's position. I do not like SCO's tactics, but if they do prove that Linux has their source code, then you might as well put Linux in the same box as MS, as it would prove that not even the open source community is always the GOOD IT community member it claims to be.
So mod me down if you wish, but really, the MS bashing is starting to get boring.
But to answer you question, someone else would be in their position, with a different name, with it's own bugs, exploits and vulnerabilities (just as every program and OS does), and would probable cop the same bashing that MS does.
Third of Nine.
Well, um, yes.
If IBM went with CP/M in all likly hood they would have retained the rights and we would all be locked into IBM.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Lets not forget that the internet was originally a government project founded on government standards.
Jeremy
Microsoft is an inevitability, just like Neo. Asking what the world be like without microsoft is like asking what the world would be like if WWII never happened.
To answer the question, the world would be exactly the same.. except the software company holding a monopoly on operating systems wouldn't be called "microsoft" it would be called g-soft.. and today you would be asking the question "what would the world be like without g-soft?"
a better question would be why is the microsoft-anomoly inevitable.. that one, I think, is because anything that makes up an integral part of our infrastructure (such as an OS) that isn't yet mandated by government will naturally fall into a monopoly simply because it's convenient.
bite my glorious golden ass.
I think if you really looked, you'd find that the PC's popularity had more to do with the fact that it wasn't locked to one particular manufacturer. Once Compaq clean-roomed their own BIOS and built the first PC compatibles, it wasn't long before half of Taiwain was making motherboards and selling components to white box computer builders. Remember how many computer manufacturers there were and how big Computer Shopper magazine was in the eighties and early nineties? Those guys weren't building computers for people to tinker with, they were building IBM compatibles because the parts were cheaply and easily available. If someone had reverse engineered the Apple MAC ROMs and not been pounded to dust by the Apple Legal Team, we might well all be using Macs today.
The ironic thing is that without two things that IBM would view as absolute disasters - the non-exclusive deal Bill Gates and Microsoft cut with IBM to supply DOS, and the arrival of the "clone" market, the IBM PC line might well have been a commercial failure. But once all the clone makers were pushing "IBM compatible" everywhere you turned, computer manufacturers who kept their designs proprietary simply couldn't get and keep the shelf space/mind share they needed to keep their platforms viable. (With the exception of Apple, of course - having a rabid fan base helps, but as the Amiga folks know, it's not a 100% guarantee of success)
Blogging Weight Loss, Distance Education, and more at verlin.com
It doesn't sound like you do, either. You think buildings would be safer if every builder was allowed to "innovate" their own designs? Do you think the highways would work better if each one was a toll road, allowed to design to their own needs? Do you think it would be better or worse for communications if ATT and Verizon each designed and developed phone technology independently of each other, meaning interoperation didn't happen?
Actually, IINM, there is some historical precedent: the South had different guage of train tracks than the North, and it's part of what led to the cultural divide, which in turn led to the Civil War. Relaying tracks so that troops could be moved was a great burden--but once accomplished, and the standard set, notice how it's been preserved since.
Institutions that purport to operate on a national level, and become part of the national infrastructure, should be standarized so that there are no boundaries of information exchange. On this point I agree with Ashcroft, who said as much when Bush took office. However, I disagree that one company should be in control of that standard; instead, it should be controlled by an open forum. As was the early internet, and it's why it remains as strong as it is and grew to the popularity that it acquired.
Do you think that if Microsoft was in control of the early HTML specifications, or even TCP/IP for that matter, that we'd have the ubiquitious internet now?
--
$tar -xvf
Seriously, though, I have to agree with you that the government is the last place you want programming standards to come out of. Shudder. The technology sector should develop its own standards in cooperation - sure, it leads to a BetaMax versus VHS situation sometimes, but in the end you get general interoperability.
Much as I hate to say it, I don't think that the computer industry would be as far along as it is today without games.
Games have driven the market and the platform of choice has been the PC. Why? Because it was there.
Apple became tied to its hardware/software model, expensive. (And excellent.) The IBM PC clone gained ubiquity by being cheap (And...cheap). Microsoft was in the right place at the right time and kept on the ball in crushing competition and playing bondage with PC manufacturers.
And here go my mod points and karma
I doubt that Linux would be where it is today without the domination of Microsoft.
I would be nice to have the government say something like "OK all you companies, decided on a format for word processor documents and stick to it untill the you issue a new standard after that", but for government to decide the standard its self probably wouldn't be good.
It's actually much simpler than that. The government doesn't need to dictate that a standard be agreed upon... what it can dictate is that "We will only purchase products that read and write open, pubically documented formats by default."
In this case, there doesn't need to be agreement between companies in the form of a standard. But, it brings all the benefits of a standard in that the "popular" products will be well-documented.
- Tony
You could list for days the software companies that went out of business as a result of Microsoft's dominance of the industry, but nothing is more substantive than the fact IMO that Microsoft single-handedly destroyed the entire computer product support industry.
Back in the 80s and early 90s, software companies offered toll-free tech support and were easily contacted to resolve problems. When Windows came along, there were so many incompatibility issues that most of us software publishers found the majority of our tech support resources were going towards fixing Microsoft problems that were inadvertently blamed on our own products. The unstable and chaotic Windows environment, where one il-behaved app or library could screw everything else up, made it a nightmare trying to support even the most simple applications.
Microsoft, single-handedly eradicated the entire product support market by forcing developers to hide or else become pawns in helping microsoft debug its own OS.
I abandoned the desktop market when Windows became dominant. It wasn't worth it trying to develop a useful product for consumers when every new release of an operating system would make your application malfunction and cause all your users to blame you for something that was outside your control.
Thanks Microsoft.
Sir, I have some bad news... the building collapsed and your family is dead.
The good news is: (handing card) Lionel Hutz, Attoney at Law! Sir, today is your lucky day!
Seriously, you'd be hard pressed to find a more unscrupulous group than building developers. Because of the incorporation techniques that they use, getting sued is essentially no problem. They hide behind the corporate veil and just declare bankruptcy for the shell corporation that built that 30 story condo building that now leaks like a sieve. That's if the company hasn't been wound down by the time the problem crops up.
Using tort is completely reactive. The burden on police, fire, hospitals and the legal system itself is only increased because the building has already burnt down. Standards are preventative.
Oh, yeah, I would be talking about the evil empire Apple and how they have a hold on the market.
That's not at all far off from the truth.
Apple intended for quite awhile to own the GUI market and be it's only vendor. They sued various entities and ran some of them out of the market. Because that's just how Apple does things.
When Microsoft came out with Windows, Apple sued Microsoft in the famous 'look-n-feel' lawsuits.
If Microsoft hadn't prevailed in those lawsuits, Apple would own the GUI market and be it's sole vendor.
That would suck bigtime. Microsoft plowed that ground for us. In fact the legal precedent that Microsoft set by fighting that fight for us is what allows people to 'clone' Windows GUI concepts and incorporate them into Linux/Free Software projects.
If Apple were in charge it would suck a hell of a lot more.
---
> > You think buildings would be safer if every builder was allowed
> > to "innovate" their own designs?
> Yes. Before building codes, people built buildings that stood and
> worked properly because if they didn't, they might die.
Bah.
The Great Chicago Fire.
The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire.
Bam, Iran.
the Lisbon earthquake that stars in _Candide_
Left to their own devices, people continually, seemingly irrepressibly
build unsafe houses on beaches, cliffs, floodplains, earthquake faults, mudslide-prone hillsides -- and die in droves in consequence.
Without building codes, 10 X more fatalities in
the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in California.
Wait a minute. Didn't I say that on the other side of the record? I'd better check