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Microsoft Encouraging OEMs to Beautify Computers
Grooves writes "Microsoft has shipped a 'Vista Industrial Design Toolkit' to PC manufacturers, meant to
encourage them to design computers that are more visually appealing. From the article: 'From color palettes to suggestions about how the power and reset buttons should appear, the kit basically describes Microsoft's vision of what a Vista PC should look like. The look features accelerated curves and purposeful contrast, among other qualities.' The report goes on to say that Microsoft wants 'PCs to be objects of pure desire.' Sound familiar? It's hard to see budget-conscious OEMs stepping up to this."
lose (verb): to not win
loose (adjective): slack, not tight
Come on, guys. English isn't *that* hard to get right.
"Skill shows through where genius wears thin." -Wittgenstein || Religion: uniting aviation and architecture.
If that's you're only reason, why don't you buy a Mac and use Bootcamp to install Windows on it? Have the best of both worlds.
You seem to be saying that Microsoft got 95% of the market by leveraging their market dominance in an "illegal" way.
They were convicted of using their dominant market share (gained via IBM's entry into the PC business back when Apple and Commodore were the top dogs) to maintain their current market share. The question was, "Why does MS have 95%....", not, "How did they get it?"
Microsoft got dominant because they road on the the coat-tails of the dominant computer force of the time (IBM). They maintained their dominance through unethical behavior (the whole DR-DOS thing, followed up through Netscape, etc).
The "illegal anti-trust" activities are only "illegal" and "anti-trust" once you already have dominant marketshare, which they achieved by providing superior value (in conjunction with the hardware vendors) to the consumers.
I thought the question was about how Microsoft has 95% share today (which they don't, any longer), rather than how they got it? In that case, the GP poster is correct.
But, 'superior value?' Not by any real metric I've ever seen. Microsoft gained market dominance with IBM. Once Compaq cloned the hardware, Microsoft made exclusive distribution deals with them (Compaq just needed an OS). Every big manufacturer of computers went to Microsoft for the OS, because Microsoft was the only game in town.
When DR-DOS started picking up market share because it provided superior value, Microsoft basically told the computer sellers, "If you want to ship MS-DOS, you can't give the consumer the choice of DR-DOS." Later, when MS-Windows finally took off (with MS-Windows 3.1), this restriction had some serious teeth. Later, they used similar "deals" with the distributors to lock out WordPerfect and WordPerfect Office, which provided superior value to MS-Office.
This whole scenerio has been repeated several times in the course of Microsoft's rise to dominance. It was their one way of locking out competition.
There was never one time when Microsoft offered "superior value." There was a time when they had an exclusive deal with IBM (the 800-pound gorilla of the day), because IBM as a corporation didn't take the PC market seriously. By the time the PC took off, Microsoft was already firmly entrenched in the distribution channels, whether it was IBM or Compaq or Gateway. Then it turned out that IBM could eventually produce a superior operating system (OS/2), but didn't know how to market it. Gah! Idiots!
Microsoft ended up where they were because the hardware was a superior value proposition, and they worked it so that they were the only software that could get sold on that hardware. Microsoft worked hard to keep competitors out of their distribution chains. They have been so convicted in several countries, not just the US.
So again, the GP post was correct.
In conclusion, I'd say that Microsoft has hindered progress, not helped it. By locking out competition, Microsoft has been a regulatory force on the industry, pushing their goals on everyone else. And, near as I can tell, they've done this with never once providing "superior value."
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.