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Bill Gates Takes the Stand In WordPerfect Trial
Hugh Pickens writes "Remember WorldPerfect? Bill Gates took the witness stand to defend his company against a $1 billion antitrust lawsuit that claims Microsoft duped Novell into thinking he would include WordPerfect in the new Windows system, then backed out because he feared it was too good. Gates testified Monday that Microsoft was racing to put out Windows 95 when he dropped technical features that would no longer support the rival's word processor. He said that in making the decision about the code, he was concerned not about Novell but about one element of the program that could have caused computers to crash. That code, technically known as 'name space extensions,' had to do with the display of folders and files. Novell attorney Jeff Johnson concedes that Microsoft was under no legal obligation to provide advance access to Windows 95 so Novell could prepare a compatible version but contends that Microsoft enticed Novell to work on a version, only to withdraw support months before Windows 95 hit the market. 'We got stabbed in the back.'"
Apple has a long an glorious history of competing with their developers. I use Windows all the time and frankly, I just don't see features that are included for free in Windows which are not actually OS related things.
1) You can think of the After Dark/Screen Saver thing
Screen savers were going to be part of Windows someday... AfterDark could have adapted their executables to fit into the API... get over it.
2) You can think of Winzip
Unzipping is easy in stock windows... still need a third part app for zipping.
3) You can think of Nero
The crappy, limited CD/DVD burning that is part of Windows is pretty bare bones. Though, if you think Microsoft should have left it out... so be it. Frankly, it's a mute point now anyway as CD/DVD is dead.
4) You can think of media players
Um... yeh, cause people actually use Windows Media player
5) You can think of video and DVD editors
Just don't.
6) You can think of mail programs
Yeh... Windows Live Mail sucks less than many these days... took 15 years.
7) You can think of web browsers
If people still use IE... kudos to them... man... those people really have endurance.
8) Antivirus tools
Really? You think Microsoft shouldn't put their own in as standard when nearly all the 3rd party antivirus tools are as bad as the viruses themselves? Twice in the past month or two I got infected by Norton Security Scan from programs I installed. I actually convinced my wife's IT boss at her company to switch 800 computers in their organization from Symantec to Microsoft's tools because you can't trust a company that behaves like that. McAfee is nearly as bad these days... Adobe makes it an opt out instead of opt-in option.
Yeh... pretty much covered all the programs that are included with Windows... if you want more, you'll have to pay for them. So what are you actually getting at?
Oh... you probably mean that Linux distros are better... you know the ones that have about 60 different clones of every program ever commercially produced.