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iPod Most Popular Music Player on Microsoft Campus
bblazer writes "Wired is running an article about how despite the displeasure of management, the iPod is the most popular music player on the Microsoft campus. The article states that 80% of those who have digital music players have an iPod. Employees have even started using different headphones to be a bit more stealthy about it."
I wonder if he'll make an attempt to buy Apple, and say it's his idea... It's like Coke employees drinking Pepsi.
"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
I wonder if Microsoft employees use a disproportionately large number of MACs, or are more likely to be Firefox users. I mean, fast food workers never want to eat where they have worked, and people who work at many factories refuse to buy products from that factory. Maybe they feel hatred towards their employer.
The Microsoft employee's open letter to Bill Gates almost made me choke. In case you haven't read it, let me paraphrase: "How do we make an iPod killer?" he asks rhetorically. "First we must harness the blogosphere!" he answers. "Then we'll design the interface by committee. Synergize, baby."
Anyway, I found it interesting how clearly the note reveals (what seems to be) Microsoft's general thought process. Never lead, always follow. I mean, how pathetic is this sort of blatant, shameless me-tooism? While innovators like Apple are trying to build the future, Microsoft employees like this guy are trying desperately to catch up... and they still can't figure out how.
Just my two cents from an Apple fanboy. Flame on...
With SD Cards reaching 1GB in size, why don't people just use PDA's for music? A mystery or just an impending trend?
My Linux - (L)ove (I)s (N)ever (U)tterly eXPensive
The iPod is the most popular digital music player. It's fairly like that if you take any subset of the population that the iPod will also be their most popular player.
Employees have even started using different headphones to be a bit more stealthy about it.
Could be, or maybe they just don't want to get mugged. White iPod headphone do a great job of saying "I've got an expensive, easy to steal piece of electronics on me."
Also, iPod headphones suck. after half an hour my ears started hurting with the old ones.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Can you imagine people using the most popular product of it's kind?? I bet many of them drive HONDAS too!!!! What will Bill do?? Micorsoft doesn't compete with Apples Ipod, why would anyone at Microsoft care?
So a Microsoft manager is comparing their own products to mind-altering substances? I won't dispute that!
Quick! Put that thing away!
Happiness is like peeing yourself. Everybody can see it but only you can feel its warmth.
Of course, Microsoft's software is used by dozens of competing music players from manufacturers like Creative Technology, Rio and Sony. Its Windows Media Audio, or WMA, format is supported by several online music stores, including Napster, Musicmatch and Wal-Mart.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Good god, this old chestnut again.
Microsoft bought a small amount of non-voting stock in Apple some time ago as part of a deal that kept IE and Office on the Mac platform.
Microsoft has long since sold those shares, at a fair profit I might add.
Microsoft doesn't own any part of Apple at present.
Here you have it folks. Not everyone at Microsoft is hatching ill-conceived ideas; apparently it's only the Management.
MS has an unsecured network for test projects - a little bird told me that when launching iTunes on this unsecured network (from within the MS campus) you can see dozens, if not hundreds of shared iTunes libraries--all being shared by Rendezvous.
I actually work for Microsoft (gasp! and I also read Slashdot!). My cube-mate owns an iPod. I remember the week after MSN Music was launched, he took his iPod with him into the cafeteria. He was waiting in line to grab his lunch and noticed that people kept cutting in front of him in line. He couldn't figure out what the heck was going on until he realized the people cutting in front were all from the music division. They had seen the white earphones and were "punishing" him for going with the competitor.
Sometimes people can be very petty here.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
A 40Gb writable device that easily attaches to one's computer.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Perhaps there are a few employees that are sneaking in Knoppix CDs disguised as AOL disks.
At my work, we are not allowed to use company resources for personal use. This includes playing audio CDs on our computers, playing digital audio on our workstations, etc. So a portable player is a good solution. I should probably not be posting to slashdot either...hmmm.
The way Steve looked at it, this iPod was your birthright. He'd be damned if any of the slopes were gonna get their greasy yellow hands on his boy's birthright. So he hid it in the one place he knew he could hide something: his ass. Five long months, he wore this iPod up his ass and disguised himself on the Microsoft campus. Then when he left because of dysentery, he gave me the iPod. I hid this uncomfortable piece of metal up my ass for two more months. Then, after seven months, I was sent home to my family. And now, little man, I give the iPod to you.
Make sure the wire coming out of the headphone jack is not too thick. Sometimes it hurts but I can tell you that once you use iPod, you will never go back.
With apologies to Mr.Tarantino
Free XBox, PS2
Robert Scoble--one of the people mentioned in the article--has already written about it. "Personally there's no way that 80% of our employees own an MP3 player. I don't know what world that source is living in, but it's not the one I live in... the story is a non-starter. I know a lot of Apple employees who play Halo 2 too. Is that a story?"
Ed Bott has some good comments too: "Now read the story. Read it carefully.... Note that the entire thingis based on an interview with one "high-level [Microsoft] manager who asked to remain anonymous." From this one source, we are able to calculate with confidence that 16,000 employees at Microsoft's Redmond campus own iPods... taking an offhand remark from an unknown source (who may or may not have a hidden agenda and who may or may not know what he's talking about) and extrapolating it to the entire campus is just silly...
One thing they teach you in Journalism 101 is that when you have a single anonymous source, you don't have a story. That's still true."
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
"Microsoft bought a small amount of non-voting stock in Apple some time ago as part of a deal that kept IE and Office on the Mac platform.
Microsoft has long since sold those shares, at a fair profit I might add."
Actually, Microsoft 'bought' the nonvoting stock to prevent Steve Jobs from suing their ass over blatent rips of Quicktime that was brought to his attention while Owner / CEO of NeXT. It meant nothing to him at the time because he was a scorned man, having been fired by the company he started several years earlier. Once NeXT was bought up and he was brought on as a 'consultant', he was once again in a position to care about Apple's goings-on and layed it on the line with Bill that Microsoft was going to be sued and even at their weakest, Apple had several billion in the bank (and to this day, in a much more liquid form than Microsoft).
As such, it was deemed that Microsoft would save face by 'investing' almost a billion in nonvoting stock that should have by all means been worthless after a few years with Apple's then track record, but at the same time, no one expected SJ to make a return as he had (most expected at the time, he'd transition NeXT to Apple and go to the next little 'big thing' he had planned). This also helped in the rublings of the Antitrust suit in Microsoft's advantage.
Microsoft was never supposed to make any money, but it nearly doubled their investment by the time they cashed out.
I got this info from one of the higher ups at Apple at a conference about the time of the investment...but as I'm posting as an AC, you should take this with a grain of salt.
"Hey! You with the iPod, put it away right now!"
"Yes sir, sorry sir."
"Ok, just make sure it never happens again. Wait a minute... is that Knoppix running on your workstation?!? Bill, for the last time..."
And I highly doubt anyone on this team would cut in line at the cafe because someone had an iPod. Many of us have iPods and other players. We don't discriminate.
Because all my music is on my portable. I am not permitted to have my music collection on my work system. A DVD would work, but I would still need 4 of them, and I'm too lazy to switch. I have my iPod on me anyway, I just get here and drop it into the dock. Plus, I don't lose my music when I reboot with a newly-built kernel. :-)
Why the hell would they use Macs?
Everyone needs a role model.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
I work for a small group in Sony. At least half the group has iPods. I'm the only non-iPod user that I know of. I have an iRiver.
This is pretty sad as unlike Microsoft, we actually MAKE a player and get a substantial employee discount.
(Posted anonymously for obvious reasons.)
And this may come as a surprise to you, but some people there even like to play sports and stay in shape! Not everyone there is a stereotypical
EVERYDAY IS CATURDAY
The link in the article that the manager pointed employees to, http://experiencemore, doesn't seem to resolve to anything here - I wonder if that's an internal site, and what is on it? Or perhaps they just messed up the URL.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And I suppose the Mac version of Office is developed on Windows machines and never tested?
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Anyone who's been on the campus knows what I'm talking about...
On campus, you gotta eat the dog food. Its the only dog food in town. No one else makes dog food. If they did, its five years old.
In the data visualization group, Java was a currio. One member has Java books on his shelf dating back to 1997. That's the last time it was interesting, because its not the company dog food.
So... why is it an issue? Because the blinders are comming off. All that propaganda that the boys and girls are told about the company being the only company, and the only one that does cool things, is starting to look like its passed through a reality distortion filter.
Is there a reason why the bungie guys play golf facing towards the main parking lot?
I remember when Wang had the ad "Wang: the chink in IBM's armor."
How about "Apple: in the ear on Microsoft's eve."
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
At another "campus," seeing that would have provoked a positive ton of good-natured ribbing. The person with the iPod would have given some back, and in the end maybe the music division would have gotten a(nother) quick sense of why even an MS employee could have made that choice. Might have resulted in an actual competitive advantage for the eventual MS product.
Oh barf. Who fucking cares? If the original scenario actually happened you know what I would have done? Walked away. You know why? Because I just don't get involved in the petty little bullshit that goes on with workplace drama.
If Suzy is banging Mark after work who the fuck cares? If Amy is wearing the same clothes as Jenny but only less expensive versions I just don't care.
Stupid, petty, childish, work-place drama exists everywhere. There's no need to whine about it online and there's certainly no need to bring it up on Slashdot just because it has MSFT, Apple, and iPod contained in the story.
Use whatever fucking MP3 player you like. Drive whatever car you want. Fuck whoever you want to fuck. Keep your mouths shut about what other people do unless it has some direct impact on your fucking job.
Wow, couldn't use your real name? What's the matter Ballmer? Were you afraid that somebody would castigate you for it? Eh, MonkeyBoy? :P
Back when I used to work at Motorola in Schaumburg, the CEO sent out a company-wide email saying how he was displeased at the number of employees seen with Nokia and other non-Motorola phones. So he offered free Motorola phones to the first 1,000 employees that responded and urged the rest to buy a Motorola.
He was especially pissed at the salesmen, trying to sign the big carriers to promote Motorola phones, who had Nokia's hanging from their belt! Makes sense for the visible people I guess.
The most popular portable music player in the world is the most popular portable music player on Microsoft's campus?! How is that possible?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
So, uh, speaking as a Microsoft employee who does own an iPod and does use different headphones... when I got my iPod Mini (back when they were downright impossible to acquire), coworkers were always stopping by saying "Oh, you got one of those, they're so cool" and asking to try it out and stuff. I started using different headphones because the ones they came with, while nice, didn't do a very good job blocking out external sound. I've never gotten crap for using one.
I don't know where you people get the idea that everyone here drinks the Kool-Aid. We make Office for Mac, remember? People talk about their Macs at home all the time, make fun of MSN Search for sucking, listen to music on their iPods, run FireFox, and play Nintendo / Sony video games. It's not a cult
As for the guy that was using his iPod in the cafeteria, what the hell? It's lunch. Go with some friends. Talk. Socialize. Maybe people were cutting in front of him because he looks like a freakin' dork listening to music while buying food.
I don't think Apple does much innovation of that kind anymore. They seem to have taken another track to the typical "lead, follow, or..." paradigm: taking something that exists, and making it cool. Did they invent the portable music player? No, they made it cool and really usable.
Also, just to nitpick: TiVo supplies DirecTV's PVRs. I think TiVo is here to stay. But I realize you could have picked 1000 other examples that supported your thesis.
shows the power of demand-driven bottom-up interest in digital music players versus the top-down directives from a supplier (i.e., marketing initiatives from the corporate office). the most successful marketing campaigns mix top-down from the supplier and the bottom-up from the consumer of course. in this case, microsoft is out of that product loop with their own employees.
And the posters above who claim that microsoft is not competing with Apple, you're wrong. In a narrow sense, it's true that Microsoft does not sell a portable music device. In a larger sense, Microsoft IS competing with Apple when it comes to digital consumer entertainment platforms.
That is why Microsfot has spent more than a year denigrating the iPod and promoting its "open" audio format and associated MP3 players. This is why microsoft has been pushing "http://www.digitaljoy.com/" at CES.
Just because Microsoft does not manufacture Intel hardware, are you going to say Microsoft doesn't compete with Apple b/c Apple sells computers? Sheesh!
Robert Scoble--one of the people mentioned in the article--has already written about it. "Personally there's no way that 80% of our employees own an MP3 player. I don't know what world that source is living in, but it's not the one I live in...
... Elton John ...[and] Shania Twain to work on designing an entirely new player from the ground up." link
He went on to state, "Personally there's no way that 80% of our employees use more than 640k of ram. I don't know what world that source is living in, but it's not the one I live in..."
Because, after all, if someone at Microsoft doesn't recognise people's usage patterns and habits, it can't be true.
Remember, this is the same guy who stated, "3) Pay whatever big money it'll take to get
I don't know what world he lives in. I don't think I want to. I do know they'd have fabulous, sequined and ruffled, faux 17th century french MP3 players with a disneyfied country theme. Kind of like Euro Disney, when you think about it. That's enough to tell me I don't want to live there.
Just because a source contradicts the original, it doesn't make it a good one.
Could it be ... could it be you've come up with a worthwhile reason why we have patents?
Breakfast served all day!
Rudeboy, you are my hero. I put that sig on a few days ago when the grammer nazis were driving me nuts. I thought it was simple, yet nobody grasps it. Do I need to reword it? I am sick of people worrying more about spelling than content. I do not have perfect spelling, and I make mistakes. I post here searching for someone to discuss/debate with, yet all I run into is idiots. Should I mention that I have a teaching degree (that always draws out the grammar psychos)?
Unlike you, Microsoft knows the full power of Group Policies, and how the entire network can be configured to deny installation of external devices. Resorting to imperfect physical security would only annoy employees while failing to protect against cursory concealment techniques.
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
There are some good reasons for this. First of all, it's the rationale that justifies things like web and e-mail filtering, restricting employees from installing spyware, etc. Basically, it's not your computer. It's the business's computer, and they can do with it as they please.
Now, how severely enforced this policy is is a different matter. I've uninstalled spyware and deleted pirated software/music from computers. I've even deleted large portions of legal mp3 collections when a user complained that their computer was "broken", and it turned out their 40 GB hard drive was filled with 35 GB of music. I've filtered out inappropriate web sites and viewed user e-mail without explicit permission from that user. I would usually warn the user, but if it's not feasible, I don't feel that I've wronged them by doing these things.
Why? Bottom line: it's not your computer. If you don't want your mp3 collection deleted, don't put it on the company's computer. If you don't want me to be able to read your e-mail, don't use the company's e-mail. If you don't want me to know what you look at online, don't use the company's internet connection. I tell everyone this upfront, too.
Well, you'll never get a job at CBS with THAT attitude, young man!
If they won't do that, then shut up and let the employees use what they want. And maybe try to actually innovate and create a product with an experience that will draw them back.
Brent J. Nordquist N0BJN
As a Coke employee, if I brought a pepsi product to work (say as part of my brown bag lunch), it's looked down on pretty harshly. It's almost to the point of being grounds for termination. It's not just a can of pepsi soda, but any of Pepsi's brands (chips, snacks, fruit juices etc...).
MSFT doesn't fire people for wearing iPODs...
I think I'm obligated by fate to respond to your post. See I work at Coke and my last job was at Microsoft :D
It is definately a career limiting move to use a Pepsi product at Coke as it should be. Everyone knows better so it's not an issue. It's a very cutthroat rivalry and just like you won't find an Eagles player wearing a Patriots jersey, you won't find a Coke employee holding a can of Pepsi.
As for iPods at Microsoft.. I call bullshit on the whole article. MS doesn't give a crap if people use iPods. The guys there are the most technology saavy group you'll find anywhere. The iPod has a natural appeal to them. Employee happiness is a huge priority for MS and it helps them retain great talent. They won't jeopardize it over something silly like that.
So Shenanigans on that article!
It's a competing product becuase MS licenses the .wma stuff to third parties to put into their MP3 players.
It's also a competing product becuase MS has the MSN Music Store -- and guess what. It doesn't work with Apple's iPod.
bork bork bork!
A little image I fixed up in photoshop :)
Here
Yes but maybe Microsoft understands that one of the tools to competion is understanding why your opponents are ahead.
This is a joke, right? In Microsoft's entire history, their responses to a competitive threat are:
1. Buy 'em out.
2. Stomp 'em out.
There's nothing in there about "understanding"; all problems are nails, and they've got a sledgehammer.
What's really pissing off MS right now is that none of these tactics will work w/r/t Apple and the iPod.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
I was curious, so I looked up the 10-Q for Apple in summer of 1997..
Even though they were struggling (year over year), they still had over $1 billion in cash assets, $212 in short term investments, $1.2 billion in A/R .. this compared to around $1.9 billion total current liabilities.
Granted, compared to the latest 10-Q you can see they are definitely more financial secure right now.. but at the time, I don't think they necessarily needed the cash infusion to stay afloat -- they still had quite a bit of flex room.
A microsoft recruiter came by my school a couple days ago showing off some new digital media player toy that that microsoft came up with. When students started comparing it to the iPod, he admitted that we should probably just get Ipods if we didnt' care about pictures or music.
Hikery.net - The best hiking site ever. Made by yours truly.
Because, Cayenne- actually, can I just call you CAY? Because, CAY, a nickname for something, such as "Mac" for "Macintosh" is just a nickname, not an acronym, and with all capitals, readers think it actually is one; when people see me call you CAY, they'll thing it's something like "Computer-Adept Youth", rather than your name.
Clarity really is important, particularly in text communications.
-T
GM encourages their employees to ask for non-GM cars when renting so as to check out the competition. You steal ideas where you can find them.
One part of the article mentions Bellingham, WA:
"iPod shipments to Apple's nearby store in Bellingham."
But another part mentions the Bell Square mall:
"the gal at the Bellevue Square Apple Store"
If you know your Washington geography, you know that the Bell Square mall is in Bellvue, right next to Redmond. However, Bellingham is 2 hours to the north, near the Canadian border.
At first I could not figure out why all the Softies were driving all the way up to Bellingham to get their iPods, but this looks like a mistake in the article itself. This does not mean that the whole article is wrong, but just this part.
The iPod headphones scream yuppie. I know people who have been mugged for wearing them; if they've got an iPod, and don't mind showing the world how hip and tech-conscious they are, who knows what more expensive gadgetry they have on them?
/Owns an iPod, loves it, is scared/too embarassed to wear the headphones.
That your desire for a tasty burrito is stronger than your concern over being Coke's bitch every moment of your life.
- Jasen.
... Is that the smart co will see this and say 'how do we make our own dogfood better than this?', then go out and do it.
The dumb co will see this and put out a memo telling folks it's a CLM.
Gosh, I wonder which way this will go?
(And yes, I know M$ doesn't build the player hardware, but they _could_.. I mean, they build good HW (xbox, kynds, mice, joysticks)...)
That was you!?
Coke and Pepsi compete. Microsoft and Apple don't really compete. Microsoft makes software, Apple makes hardware. True, the PC is viewed as MS domain, but MS doesn't actually manufacture the hardware. On this specific topic, MS doesn't have a product to compete with the Ipod. Sure, .wma is the format that MS would like to see adopted as the standard format for media content, but they aren't actually selling content in that format.
MS even makes software for Apple computers. This would be akin to Coke making drink holders for Pepsi products if the analogy held true.
When I worked at MS, I used to get a kick out of wearing an imac shirt I got from an apple vendor a couple of years ago. Most people wouldn't give it second notice, but every now and then, a clueless drone would make a comment. Now if I showed up with wearing a 'Linux Roxorz MS Boxorz!' shirt, I'm sure that would raise a few eyebrows....
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Sigh... we've been through this before
Apple demanded $1.2 billion from Microsoft for alleged patent infringements...
The negotiations that resulted led to a strategic agreement between the two companies in August 1997, one part of which called for Microsoft to invest $150 million in Apple and for Apple to install Microsoft's Internet Explorer as the default Web browser for its customers... As part of his videotaped deposition, however, Microsoft Chairman and CEO Bill Gates testified repeatedly that his primary goal was to resolve the patent issues with Apple and obtain a patent cross license.
Straight from the horse's mouth.
I've disabled and even removed CD drives from machines. Usually, it's because I was making a kiosk that would sit in a public place. However, I can remember one instance where the employee kept loading games onto his machine (ones that could be run after copying, without an install, so locking down permissions didn't help).
The guy complained his computer was slow and getting errors, and it turned out to be a bunch of games running in the background. When we told him to close his games, he complained to his supervisor that we wouldn't "fix" his computer, and we explained to the supervisor that he was playing games. Rather than fire the guy outright, the supervisor asked us if we could keep him from playing games. I disabled his CD drive.
So all I'm saying is, having worked in IT but not knowing the specifics of this situation, I can't completely rule out the possibility that there's a reasonable (non-draconian) explanation as to why they wouldn't allow employees to use their computers for playing music.
Haha. Very funny. Sorry, not a fair comparison.
What Apple came up with was a high-capacity affordable music player with an interface that no one has betterted, to date, along with a weight/form/design factor that sits in an optimal tradeoff zone. They also championed a tight integration into a general music suite (as opposed to a separate tool that works on files).
Oh yeah, and then Apple built the music store into the same client that plays the music, organizes the music, and syncs your iPod. So far only iTMS and MusicMatch even try to do this as more than a token gesture, and it's hard to argue for MusicMatch over iTMS.
If that's not enough to make it an "innovation" then I don't know what is. Did carriage builders complain that the automobiel was really their invention, just without the engine and obedient steering?
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
I was intern at Microsoft in Summer 2003. At the end of the summer, my group bought me a 15GB iPod, and it was paid for with the group's morale budget.
I don't think this is a big deal on campus, and I suspect most people replace their headphones because the ones that come with the iPod aren't all that great.
Paul "The Microsoft's Whipping Boy" Thurrott sez:
"Hide The Truth, Here Comes Leander Kahney
Leander Kahney is a reporter for Wired News. I've been doing a little research into him lately, after being hugely disappointed with his book "Cult of Mac," which is a collection of his Mac-oriented Wired articles. The problem? Kahney's not into facts. Instead, he likes to sprinkle his articles with anecdotal evidence and quotes from a single source, which he then sells as facts. No big deal, right? I mean, that's what most bloggers, tech new aggregator sites, and Mac news sites do too. Sure. But the problem is that Kahney writes for Wired. And thus, he is representing a respected source. That is, people believe this crap."
Read more @: http://www.internet-nexus.com/
Honestly, who in the right mind would want to believe Paul Thurrott?
Has Paul Thurrott even realized that he is the Rush Limbaugh of Microsoft?
Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday October 23, @11:20AM
.78" thick 6.5 ounces. 5 GB HDD, 10 hr battery life, charged via FireWire. Works as a firewire drive as well. Works in conjunctions with iTunes 2. Here are Live updates". No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
from the well-thats-not-very-exciting dept.
The BrownFury writes "At an invitation only event Apple has released their new MP3 player called the iPod. iPod is the size of a deck of cards. 2.4" wide by 4" tall by
First iPod article on slashdot.
Bullshit. Those crappy white headphones that come with it suck balls and you should only use them if you think the iPod is a status symbol rather than a solid device. People aren't using other headphones to hide the fact that they're using an iPod. They're using other headphones because the white ones suck ass.
They hurt and if you have to take them out - which, being a portable device you probably will frequently - they have to be held onto or something so they don't flop to the ground. Get a set of headphones that have some sort of connection between the two earpieces so they can be quickly hung around your neck and then replaced just easily.
Newsflash Apple, people's ear canals aren't round.
I prefer Sony MDR-A44L's over anything but currently it costs half as much to have another pair shipped (mine finally broke after 5 years of abuse) as it does for the headphones themselves. Like $15 headphones with $7 shipping. grrrrr
My second favorite pair is are these Yamaha studio-like ones that are remarkably light and comfortable enough to wear for 8+ hours (as are the MDRs), but with a 6' cord. However they are basically like a pair of ear muffs they can make your head too hot in a hot room (my office is).
I miss my MDRs.
Question everything
" Microsoft needs pretend competition. Rather than let the "alternative types" go off the the uncontrollable Linux, Bill Gates can contain them in the Apple world."
It's true. It's like when I used to play Civilisation a lot, I used to play it with the goal of making the highest population (number of citizens) I could possibly make, which basically meant wiping out all the other nations and planting cities on every possible square of land.
But here's the thing, if you wiped out all your competitors completely then it was game over, much like it would be for Microsoft and their tenuous anti-trust situation. So what I would do would be to leave one enemy city alive (usually on a tiny single square sized island and stick a few battleships next to it to keep it totally isolated. That way you can keep playing the game and build up your massive mono-culture and the competition doesn't bother you much but is just enough to stop the game from continuing.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"