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IBM & Microsoft Rift
About 30 million of you wrote in to say "This article at ZDnet describes the problems IBM went through when it kept selling OS/2 even after Microsoft asked them to stop
" Essentially, MS quintuplied royalty fees to IBM, when IBM refused to stop selling competing products. This came out in a deposition from IBM execs.
Years ago in the by-gone era (er, 1994-6) of a boy newly inducted into teenhood, I assumed my responsibilities as a civic member of the Kirksville, MO (pop. 17,904) area computer community. I fell in love with this funky, thought-out, multitasking GUI that showed more depth than anything I or my Kirksville-entrapped camarades had ever seen (ie, Windows and MacOS). OS/2 quickly won the race with Windows and DesqView for processor-ticks and mind share thus winning the honor of hosting Kirksville's third one-line BBS, "Society's Forgotten's BBS." Although they now may seem modest at best, I'll admit that I'm more than naustalgic for the countless conversations my friends, some strangers, and I churned out, and that I secretly basked in the faux glory of being custodian to discussions on religion, communism, and OJ Simpson.
/ignorant/ remarks.) The real bad guys were the PC magazines. They loved Windows and superficial beauty, hated OS/2 and artificial character. Their articles were glorifed press releases. They _never_ dared do real journalism. They stepped in no mud, manipulated no dirty characters, and never penetrated the blue walls of computerdom.
Of course, my Dr. Jeckel sysop turned Mr. Hyde on usenet in '95. Evil, dark, inflammatory. Not one step back. Fight the foot soldiers who dare to infiltrate *.os2.advocacy. Remember, though: They are minor pests who have no real power. (Nevermind that I empowered them by dignifying their
Not that anyone would care. If wisdom comes with age, I've changed without aging. Sure, now I've taken classes in media. I read my ojr.org and cjr.org, but I'm now one of a million seventeen year old males, disillusioned with high school and non-Unix operating systems, who runs Linux and obligingly, hopefully turns to slashdot everyday.
What keeps this message from being lost as "Offtopic"? The fact that it's "Flamebait" -- almost a "troll." In the spirit of naustalgia, I revert to my bitterness for ZD publications. More, reading this article aroused in me memories of the ideals of the institution of journalism. Investigative reporting. Finding the bad. Independence from government. Above all, though, reading this article made me wonder sardonically: Where was ZDnet when when Norris heard, "As long as you're shipping competitive products... you will suffer."
1) You can not sell any other operating system without threats and damage from Micros~`
Interesting. Why is it that lots of OEM's do sell other OS's, including Dell and Compaq.
2) You can not add software to that package except under strict scrutany by Micros~1
You cannot *REMOVE* software from a windows installation, you can add anything you like. Lots of OEM's including Toshiba and IBM have been shipping Netscape for years, just not at the expense of removing IE. You also can't alter the boot up sequence.
3) You can not write software that competes with Micros~1 in any way and still sell its OS on your PCs
Well, since IBM is really the only company that both sells commercial software and sells PC's, it's hard to judge based on one case.
1) You can not write software that competes with Micros~1 in any way.
Strange that many companies DO compete with Microsoft, and still stay quite up to date. Intuit for instance.
2) You can not write software for any other operating system and keep up-to-date on Windows.
Strange that Intuit does this. So does Corel. So does IBM (remember, they write more software for NT than anyone else besides MS right now). So does Perforce, Rational, and more companies than I can name.
3) You can not grow your business very large or Micros~1 will see you as a threat.
Strange that Microsoft doesn't see companies like SAP as a threat. They're one of the top selling companies on the market.
4) If Micros~1 decides your market is desirable you should be prepared to exit that market.
Only if you're incompetant and have only managed to stay in business if you have no competition. Clearly, lots of companies compete with Micrsoft and win. Again, Intuit is one. Lotus is another. Microsoft doesn't automatically dominate in every market they enter.
I think the fear and hype surrounding MS as an omnipotent being is what causes them to continue being so successful. They win by image alone, nothing more. It's been proven that if you have a good product, a good marketing department, and are willing to stay on top of things, you CAN beat microsoft.
IBM was never broken up. It was investigated for anti-trust behavior, and I think it even had government monitors installed into the document chain, but it wasn't broken up like AT&T.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I thought I'd add some additional thoughts from inside Big Blue to this interesting conversation.
It should be noted that IBM has no plans to offer a commercial PC OS. This should come as no surprise, given our past failures and recent support of Linux (I think after we handed a big fat layup to M$ and the recent rise of Linux have squished that idea quite nicely).
However, it is also worth noting that IBM has created more than a dozen different OSes during its lifetime (AIX, VM, OS/2, OS/Open, OS/390, OS/400, the list goes on...) . It would be fair to say that we have no real emotional attachment to any one of them, which is why I think we're in a better position to support Linux than Sun or HP, who are clinging to their *NIXes like they're going out of style (- hey, a colloquialism that really fits!). Don't be fooled by their flashy press releases patting Linux on the back; I don't expect to see them really put Linux in the driver's seat for many years. Granted, IBM will probably follow the same road map, but at least we're more used to cutting our losses and switching out OSes than our other workstation buddies.
It is also very true that IBM once attempted to make everything electronic IBM proprietary. That mentality still survives in some areas in IBM, but being that IBM is primarily composed of engineers, most of us are completely sold on IEEE, ITU, and ISO standards. I hear a lot of people shouting vehemently of how IBM is the evil proprietary empire, but I don't think that's a fair assesment anymore.
I work in the Networking Hardware division (Slashdot reader: Networking? I didn't know IBM MADE switches and routers...), and there's only a few products I know of that use proprietary tech, and they are all going end of life. Gone are the glory days of 3270 and 3274. Everything else is purely IEEE and ITU, or else the safety and homologation guys come back and yell at us. All ATM, Ethernet, Token-ring, ISDN, FDDI, and T1/E1 are all our bread and butter now, not proprietary busses.
Anyways, I don't think IBM is worth criticizing anymore for proprietary behavior. We pretty much lost that battle soundly.
Comments welcome.
The opinions I post here have nothing to do with my employer.
All government would need to do is issue an executive order banning the purchase of M$ products with government money and ban the use of any M$ standard by a government agency. Your pal Bill C. has the authority to do this. Our government spends so much on software, it would be a huge fund injection for the competition, and M$ would crumble. Plus, our civil and military service people would get better software.
A computer operating system isn't a natural, unavoidable monopoly like the phone company.
There's an argument that it is something of a "natural monopoly", because of compatibility issues. Once you've spent thousands of dollars on software to run on OS Foo (much of which may be available for that OS only), and once all of your friends and business partners are using Foo, switching to OS Bar can be impractical and expensive, even if Bar has tremendous technical superiority. The quality of the operating system itself is not the only issue.
There is no need to regulate a free market for software unless some companies break the law.
IMHO there is no need to regulate any free market unless it coagulates and becomes un-free, or unless mindless, irresponsible cretinism (a.k.a. free enterprise) in that area is too destructive to be tolerated, as in the case of finance. I mean, if upper management at Pepsico is a bunch of babbling morons, that's okay, because Crystal Pepsi is harmless. By contrast, the securities industry is very heavily regulated because those morons are genuinely dangerous.
Anybody who actually gives a rat's ass about money is a hopeless mental and moral cripple, and can't be trusted with anything important. Pepsi, for example, isn't important. Let 'em do as they please! Are operating systems important? Only in a practical sense, but I guess you could argue that practicality is enough.
Who really cares, anyway?
As for merely breaking the law, that in and of itself doesn't call for regulating the market; it calls for imposing penalties on the guilty party.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --
I read a book called "The Making of Microsoft" , I don't recall who wrote it. It was pro MS of course, but the story about the early days was pretty interesting.
:)
Bill was actually a "hacker" when he was a kid. In fact he got tossed off of some mainframe that he had access to (I think having wealthy parents gave him certain advantages) because he brought the whole system down by hacking something he wasn't supposed to. According to the book he was kind of a rebel, not too differnet from your average computer geek.
It would seem that timing had a lot to do with the success of MS, they were in the right place at the right time. Then they hired some killer marketing people and the rest is history.
It's easy and fun to believe that Bill is the evil anti-christ but it's really not true. It's a shame that he ended up in the software industry and not tupperware industry
ZD actually didn't write the story. It's from Reuters, and this story actually appeared first on Wired.
I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. I am probably not admitted in your jurisdiction. If you need advice on this topic, see a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction.
That said, IBM's version of MS's behavior (assuming the truth of it for the moment) is about as illegal as it gets.
*Having* a monopoly is not illegal, unless you got it in an illegal manner. The original microsoft mnopoly was lawfully acquired by most counts, and owes more to IBM pricing CP/M-86 at four times the price of PC-DOS than to anything Microsoft did.
However, having legally acquired a monopoly, it is illegal to use market power for just about anything. ANd one does not have to be a monopolist to reach this prohibition, but merely to have market power. Here (again, assuming that it is true), they attempted to use a near-monopoly to eliminate a competitor. This creates two great sins against anti-trust law: 1) the use of the power, and 2) it is an *attempt* to monopolize, an offense on its own.
It is possible to make economic arguments that what MS has done is good for the consumer, and that the law *should* permit the alleged behavior. THere have been several of these as op-ed pieces in the wall street journal over the past few months, and generally rely on the notion that microsoft is innovative.
I haven't been persuaded by the arguments, but they can be honestly made. However, that is not what the law *is*. While antitrust law gives the courts far more flexibility than just about any other statutory law, and modern antitrust law acknowledges consumer interest rather than protection of competitors as the ultimate test, the definitions needed to permit the alleged behavior not only bend the meaning of the statutes, but requires that they be outright ignored.
i don't know exactly what antitrust law is like, but this is quite definately a violation of it, right?
:P) Where do you draw the line?
[note: possible trolling ahead]
this brings us to the point of what, exactly, is going to be accomplished by the government attacking microsoft.
It's all very easy to say "split up microsoft", but along what lines? and what would that accomplish, exactly? having three seperate Microsofts would do nothing _except_ confuse consumers,with no benefits.
I think if they cut up MS into an OS company and an applications company, with the OS company not allowed to show any preferential treatment to the app company. The app company could integrate with the OS all they wanted, but it would have to be through open, clearly defined standards, so that Netscape could be integrated into the OS just as easily as MSIE (OpenDoc, anyone..? -_-).. then that would work well. It's hard to claim though that it would help anything Word and Outlook Express to be made by different companies.
But this begs the question of where you draw the line between OS and applications. I think we could all agree that a web browser is an application, but aren't there certain internet-related functions (such as ping, telnet, time servers, etc.. yes, the windows telnet program SUCKS) that really ought to be handled by the OS? If MS wanted to let you mount an FTP server as a hard drive (which is definately innovative, and someting that makes sense) would they no longer be allowed to do that? Where do you draw the line? And what about Windows Media Player? I call WMP an application, and i believe that microsoft ought to bundle RealPlayer and Quicktime with Windows for the sake of their customers. But you could easily argue that WMP _ought_ to be part of the OS. For instance, look at apple's Quicktime, which is more a basic low-level library than a movie display program. If apple wanted to have the Finder use Quicktime for basic low-level bitmap display functions, they could do it very easily. But if MS did something like that, would it be a bad thing? (this is just an example. obviously WMP isn't that sophisticated.
And if certain non-MS products start to get bundled with windows, which ones? Netscape of course, but what about Opera? We could probably say Quicktime and Realplayer ought to be included, but what about Vivoactive? there's no good reason to include vivoactive-- nobody uses it-- but you could argue that if QT and Real get in, so should vivo. This might get messy..
Another thing that would probably work is greatly reducing the power MS has over computer makers-- for instance, allowing them to bundle any non-MS software they want freely, or ship computers with other OSes or no OSes. This is, remember, why Netscape started this lawsuit to begin with.
Is this an option for the government? i don't know antitrust law.
It might be difficult to enforce though unless MS standardized the contracts between different computer makers, and MS wasn't allowed to turn away any buyers. After all if a company starts shipping Linux computers and their windows prices immediately double, it could be very easy to claim this is a coincidence when everyone is paying different prices for windows anyway.
The worst idea from my point of view is forcing MS to open-source its code, since the court is unlikely to take into serious consideration liscensing or future MS operating systems. Also that sets scary precedent. (and now that source code is legally free speech, doesn't MS have a right to withhold it if they want?)
I'm not arguing any one point of view, but i think the government really ought to have a clear idea going in of what exactly they're going to do if they win. Right now they don't seem to be worried about that at all; they'll just deal with it when they come to it, and don't seem aware it's the most important part of the case.
Because there is a very real danger that they'll either set up some kind of wierd precedent that could attack other software companies later, or even worse do some very small insignifigant thing that helps no one. Because if even if the DOJ's final desicion is something unhelpful, they will likely never do anything else to MS because hey, they won the Microsoft case! Their work here is done!
Rememeber, MS is supposedly already supposed to be prohibhited from tying products to the OS, but they do it anyway. this is what this lawsuit's about. if they didn't follow the earlier no-tying agreement, will they keep their promises after this one?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
but I believe if IBM had been allowed to create OS/2 properly and recoupe money for it, that by now OS/2 would be everywhere
Yes, if IBM had been allowed to do what it wanted, we'd all be running OS/2 on our overpriced, slow, and proprietary IBM brand MCA hardware. But the 5250 emulation would be very good.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I wouldn't jump to conclusions until after Microsoft has had a chance to cross-examine the individual.
Uh...this all came out in a deposition TO the Microsoft lawyers.
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Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
a monopoly IS NOT just their line of software. It is all the other communication mediums they are buying. And the communication mediums they are trying to control by "supporting" them with their propriatary software. Microsoft owns or is a joint venture-partnership-partial owner in many companies all around the world. One company trying to the end-all be-all source of information is what we call a monopoly. They are slowly trying to own as many forms of media as they can get their hands on. Cable companies, ISPs, hardware manufacturers, ect., if you dont call this monopolistic then you need to buy a microsoft brand dictionary (soon to be released) and look it up, it's cross referenced with Microsoft and Windows.
Just think about how much the average computer user sees the Microsoft logo. It's everywhere, they see it when they boot up the computer, run a program from the start menu, cuss at it because it crashed. That is alot of free exposure that other companies would normally have to pay for, but since Microsoft can leverage companies into using their products so the users are bombarded with Microsoft. This is one of the main reasons why applications like Access and Excel like to only allow you to view their files in the Microsoft program...unless you want to make a VB (also made by Microsoft) program to run your database or spreadsheet. It's all about increasing exposure so you can never get away from the logo, name, or business image. "Need an answer? look to Microsoft...". Exposure is why Microsoft pressed IBM into getting rid of OS/2. Whenever someone had the ability to choose a non-Microsoft product to put on their workstation or terminal they often would. Microsoft needs to have their OS be pre-installed in new computers, otherwise people wouldn't use it. What i want to see from the government's anti-trust case is for microsoft to be split up into smaller companies, one company should not be able to purchase all of the public's form of communication.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Absolutely true. When IBM created the original "open" PC, it was only open because IBM was trying to get to market quickly so they used off-the-shelf designs. It never occurred to them that someone might clone it (although it certainly occurred to Intel and Microsoft.)
In my opinon, the key event in PC hardware history was in 1987 when Compaq chose to dump the IBM-licenced MCA PCs that they were about to release and instead release the Deskpro/386 with an ISA bus (and to go on and develop the EISA bus). If Compaq had chosen to go MCA, others probably would have followed (including Intel's motherboard division), and ISA would have died out after a few years.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
> 1) You can not sell any other operating system > without threats and damage from Micros~`
>
> Interesting. Why is it that lots of OEM's do sell other OS's, including Dell and Compaq.
When did they start doing that? Compaq just bought Digital so it has a base large enough to require support. Wasn't Compaq threatened to lose its license to Windows because it installed Netscape? Not a very friendly thing for a friendly Micros~1 to do. Compaq is not very close to Micros~1 any more. Recent history too.
> 2) You can not add software to that package except under strict scrutany by Micros~1
>
> You cannot *REMOVE* software from a windows installation, you can add anything you
> like. Lots of OEM's including Toshiba and IBM have been shipping Netscape for years,
> just not at the expense of removing IE. You also can't alter the boot up sequence.
And they pay dearly for installing those products too. They can't put those products icons on the desktop though can they? Customers have to go find those packages instead of having them right up front.
> 3) You can not write software that competes with Micros~1 in any way and still sell its OS on your PCs
>
> Well, since IBM is really the only company that both sells commercial software and sells
> PC's, it's hard to judge based on one case.
HP and Compaq have software divisions but why don't they have anything that competes with Micros~1? Same reason why nobody will stand up againt them in court. Fear. IBM is about the only one willing to stand up and fight and even thought they are making alot of money supporting broken Windows installation/products they are also paying for it. As the current news stories are showing us.
> 1) You can not write software that competes with Micros~1 in any way.
> Strange that many companies DO compete with Microsoft, and still stay quite up to date.
> Intuit for instance.
Funny the government already told Micros~1 to stay away from them and you chose them as your one example.
> 2) You can not write software for any other operating system and keep up-to-date on Windows.
>
> Strange that Intuit does this. So does Corel.
> So does IBM (remember, they write more
> software for NT than anyone else besides MS
> right now). So does Perforce, Rational, and
> more companies than I can name.
There goes Intuit again. Do you really think Corel gets the time of day from Micros~1? They are fighting the good fight with what they have but since MS Office has been bundled with Windows, they don't have much market left. Again, IBM pays for dearly for doing this, they are just big enough to be able to afford it.
> 3) You can not grow your business very large or Micros~1 will see you as a threat.
>
> Strange that Microsoft doesn't see companies
> like SAP as a threat. They're one of the top
> selling companies on the market.
This is a desktop product? We are talking aobut Microsoft's leverage of the desktop here. If they are allowed to continue into the server space, SAP will be attacked the same way others have been.
> 4) If Micros~1 decides your market is desirable you should be prepared to exit that market.
>
> Only if you're incompetant and have only
> managed to stay in business if you have no
> competition. Clearly, lots of companies compete
> with Micrsoft and win. Again, Intuit is one.
> Lotus is another. Microsoft doesn't
> automatically dominate in every market they
> enter.
There is Intuit again.... Lotus has IBMs $$ behind it and they are putting up a good fight. Exchange should be no competition for Notes but look at what it has done so far. Boy it is even at something like rev 6 even though it is only a couple of years old. FUD and Micros~1 is attacking it with MS LookOut by preinstalls in Windows.
Kind a poor case you put up there. The history is there, you just have to be more then 20 years old to have actually seen it happen and be aware of it. Some 15 years of it. IIRC
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
... however, your best comparison, i.e., the telcos, is different. Long-distance telephone service is an open-standards commodity, as is local service provider dial tone. What I mean by this is any company can make a phone (application) that will work with any local service provider and make long distance phone calls regardless of long distance provider. I still have a phone I bought back in 1987 -- it's been through seven locations, two countries, and four states. It worked in all of them -- Talk about application portability.
The fact that it is (damn near) impossible for ACME software to produce a 100% binary compatible Windows clone is why competion is so difficult on the x86 PC platform.
That is why I think that MS-Windows 98 and NT Workstation licensing fees should be set by a PSC. There is no other provider of 100% Win32 compatible operating systems.
Nor could there be. Unless MS GPLs their code. Now there's a solution.
The anti-trust laws are distracting the DoJ from the real problems such as violation of contract & copyright, fraudulent sales of " * software", frivolous patent filing, IP abuse, the problems in the IP system, frivolous lawsuits (e.g. your domain name is my trademark), and I could go on.
This scene is remniscent of the Romans throwing Xians to lions while their empire crumbled.
My suggestions for DoJ:
1) Was Digital v. Seattle-company-Gates-bought-DOS-from ever resolved? Or is Win311,95,98,2K still using cpm?
(and where does the slash go?)
2) MS and IBM co-develop OS, MS pulls out, takes toys home, whose toys?
3) All the patent stuff we all know and hate.
4) If it doesn't comply with the w3c standards is it really a web browser? If I sell you a toaster that frappes bread, is it really a toaster? Is it fraud to sell an operating system that doesn't operate? (ref. If MS built cars)
5) Linux is open source, MS is closed source. How do we know they aren't violating GPL, besides the fact that they haven't got things working yet?
6) All the 1st amendment stuff. Or more importantly the 9th amendment, even if no one ever noticed it.
And one more for the rest of the country:
Why would anyone ever agree to the ridiculous terms of MS licenses? Unless MS held people at gunpoint or ground-zero, the haven't forced anyone to do anything, hence no violation of rights (in this regard), nothing illegal, no case. The real problem is how so many people could be so foolish. Let's start by blaming the schools!
Or maybe we could relax, confident in the value of free software, and go do some programming.
It's funny, because IBM was everything that Microsoft is now back in its heyday. IBM made Microsoft what it is today. This may be a stretch, but IBM and Microsoft fit nicely into the roles of Obi-Wan and Anakin/Vader. IBM takes Microsoft under its wing, supports it and makes it a driving force in the industry. Then Microsoft turns around and bites the hand that feeds it, turning the Dark Side of the monopoly. Now, a much older and still much more experienced IBM is undermining Microsoft yet again, with its support of the new challenger, open-source software. IBM itself is too much of an old, slow behemoth to actually do much to counter Microsoft, but by supporter this new contender, they're encouraging not an anti-Microsoft sentiment, but a more inventive philosophy that is driving the software industry to new ideas and new successes. Even Microsoft is taking heed, even if it is in their own twisted way. Obi-Wan never actually defeated Vader, but he did train the little kid that did.
Star Wars analogy aside, IBM can only be helped by these maneuvers (both past and present). By standing up to Microsoft back then, IBM paid a painful price, but set the stage for others to do the same. Hopefully, Dell and other companies currently trying to work in other (more productive) solutions will be more successful.
The idea I get from this article is be very very wary of conducting business with micros~1. IBM helped 'em out in the beginning, and got totally screwed, as it were. IBM's lawyer Norris was told, "As long as you're shipping competitive products ... you will suffer," by M$, in response to M$'s request that IBM not ship OS/2. It's actually pretty frightening.
Sheesh, it makes one wonder why any company would think of signing any business deal with M$. Maybe it will help out in the beginning, but then it seems you'd be hampered by M$.
Maybe IBM just happened to get the shaft (yeah, and so did Caldera, netscape, and thousands of others)...
What are you talking about? IBM *still* preinstalls OS/2 on commercial computers.
They used to have a duel boot configuration with Windows 3.1 and OS/2 (which booted in to OS/2 by default), but the stopped because the customers were sick of deleting 100 MBs of OS/2 stuff off of every computer. (And the OS/2 customers were probably sick of deleting the Windows stuff.)
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
There are two issues here. The first is that OEM was told by other OEM's that Microsoft wouldn't allow them to ship OS/2. Second, there is the issue of Microsoft coming down on IBM for supporting other technologies.
Issue 1:
Something that everyone seems to forget is that IBM is a competitor to all the other PC OEM's out there.
Tell me, If you were Dell, or Gateway, or Compaq, or whoever. Would you prefer to pay Microsoft, who isn't your competitor for your OS, or would you prefer to line the pockets of your biggest competitor with extra money to help crush you with?
This is a one-sided story. IBM says that this is what they were told by OEM's. But consider this? If you were a PC OEM, and IBM contracted you about shipping their OS. What would you say?
Die! you gravy sucking pig, i'll do nothing to help you!
Or
Well, we'd love to use your OS, but our existing contracts won't allow for it.
Clearly, OEM's didn't want to anger their other Goliath, so they used Micrrosoft as their excuse.
Issue 2:
Again, this is a one-sided issue. We're only hearing what IBM (and even then, one guy inside IBM, not IBM's corporate position on the situation). I wouldn't jump to conclusions until after Microsoft has had a chance to cross-examine the individual. I think it's likely that some of the statements may be retracted and/or modified to reflect both sides. But we'll see.
For microsofts part, they're not completely denying it. They are saying that they did nothing wrong though. And that wil remain to be seen.
What it boils down to though, is that Microsoft did liscense Windows to them, and they did pay a typical OEM price for it, and they continued to support Microsofts competition.
Microsoft aren't fools. They don't want to lose companies like Dell, Compaq or IBM. It would be a huge profit loss for them, and it would start a precedent that they don't want (major OEM's going with a competing OS).
So I think that while MS may threaten a lot, they won't follow through with them. That's the lesson that IBM learned, and the lesson that almost all large OEM's should learn from this.
I think Gene Amdahl coined the phrase "FUD" (for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) to describe the way IBM mainframe salespeople tended to operate, steering customers away from younger upstart companies with arguably superior products (like Amdahl) by using questionable statements which tweaked at underlying user concerns ("Sure Amdahl makes faster machines, but will Amdahl be around as a company tomorrow?")
Also, if I recall correctly, it took action on the part of the US government to induce IBM to behave, and IBM was forced to operate under a series of consent decress starting as early as 1956, which severely limited their ability to preannounce products or tie some combinations of product together, and which had a profound impact on IBM's corporate culture.
Kind of ironic, actually. Microsoft Corporation's very existence might well be largely due to the government's action against one of their predecessors. Had IBM total freedom to do what they wanted, they might've had more incentive to create and bundle their own OS with the first IBM personal computers...
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-Rich (OS/2, Linux, Mac, NT, Solaris, FreeBSD, BeOS, and OS2200 user in Bloomington MN)
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
If the Feds get into the position of regulating MS they will in effect become complicit in MS' various oligopolistic business alliances and monopolies. Bad mistakes --even the honest ones!-- that let MS gain unfair control here or there will be officially whitewashed and covered-up. And, like any large corporation, MS will have a huge, almost veto-like power over who 'regulates' them (remember how they removed Judge Jackson's special counsel-for-technology ?) Meanwhile, like the sea eating away the chalk cliffs of Dover, or a swarm of insatiable locusts on a mulberry bush, the MS litigi-horde (codenamed: ActivePhuX.2000) will be incessantly whining and sniveling in the courts and Senate committee-rooms about the big bad government regulators (whose most cherished ambition will actually be just to become lobbyists for MS in a few years.) In the course of time, you see the erosion of the regulatory agency's power, and simultaneously the erosion of political support for its existence: thus when/as the agency approaches the status of a completely hollow, impotent shell, it's very subversion and ineffectualness becomes an excuse used by those who corrupted and weakened it to get rid of it altogether. By then the constant, concerted drumbeat of criticism in the pre$$ insures that ordinary citizens have long since stopped caring about this issue when the final knife is stuck in. Corporations are legal persons, but unlike real people, they never, ever give up; and they have this shit down to an exact science.
I for one do not want to spend the rest of my life listening to such shite -- break them up or do nothing!
At least if we do nothing this go 'round we will have the option of pouncing on even more egregious criminal acts from Gates & co. in the future and then doing what needs to be done. Regulate them and watch them 'capture' the process in about 5 minutes. Then they will bend it to their will, and have the rhetorical cover of being "reglated" to hide behind.
That IBM couldn't even package their own operating system, OS/2, with their own computers. I recall a little issue that came up during the Windows Refund protests, that customers couldn't get OS/2 bundled with computers even after persistenly requesting it.
They start talking about how popular this bread store is, but why? It's just another franchise right? Well (GET THIS) "it's different because it's open. Those who know marketing share with those who know more about bread machines. If one store needs advertising tips, maybe they trade with another who's figured out a more efficient stocking system..." (a paraphrase, but that was the gist). They were talking about Open Source enterprise!!! Microsoft! I wanted to vomit. You know when someone does something so unbelievably arrogant that it makes you physically ill? This was it.
So after neatly summarizing all the benefits of an open system (whether it's bread or software), they continue to be the world's greatest paragon of obfuscation, monopoly, and proprietary secrets. Can they really be that stupid? Time will tell...
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There is no K5 cabal.
I am not the real rusty.
An operating system is not a public utility - maybe twenty years this was closer to the truth, but certainly not today. Utilities are regulated because they have high capital costs (physical infrastructure, like laying phone lines) when they are created. It's difficult for more than one utility to make money serving a particular market, because of these startup costs. Since this makes them de facto monopolies, they are regulated by the government.
Software is different. There is a capital cost to create it, but the current means of distribution (the Internet, computer stores, etc.) are widely available, so software companies can try to get into any market they feel like. There is no need to regulate a free market for software unless some companies break the law.
This is what the government is alleging in its lawsuit. A computer operating system isn't a natural, unavoidable monopoly like the phone company. Microsoft constructed their artificial monopoly by a number of unethical and possibly illegal marketing, sales, and distribution agreements, many of which are only now coming to light. It may be a temporary inconvenience for the public to have to deal with three or four "Baby Bills", but that is a small price to pay to encourage fair business practices and discourage monopoly-building in the software industry.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
This whole issue is just a repeat of what has happened in many other industries.
:-)
IBM had a hold on the marketplace, and was broken up, with heavy restrictions on their competitiveness. It's only been in the past few years that those restrictions have been lifted. The breakup, for a while killed IBM; but IBM came out stronger than before.
Same deal with AT&T and the 'baby-bell' breakup. Most of the BB's started into new products (often at the expense of consumer-level services, but that's a point for another discussion).
Competition breeds Innovation : just look at how sad the utilities market has been : we used to have Norton Utilites, PC Tools, Mace, some other one that started with a 'B'. Symantec bought up most of them, and now we have the new bloated version.
I read about a proposal to break up Microsoft into O/S Division, Application Division, Consulting/Networks Division (can't remember where). IMHO it would force MS to develop better products because the Applications + Consulting/Networking wouldn't be able to keep paying for the development of O/S's any more.
Hey, if we get really lucky, some exec in the app division will decide to make MSOffice for Linux
I always knew that MS would eventually get called out over their schenanegans over OS/2. The DOJ has hardly touched the tip of the ice berg. MS did a lot of stuff that conviently hurt OS/2 even if you couldn't quite prove that was the intent. Stuff like the changes to a few DLL's in Win 3.11 which just happened to break Windows in OS/2 for Windows. Or the Win 32 API of the week club. Or VxD's. They seemed to go out of their way to make sure stuff wouldn't run on OS/2. They certainly did a good job of it.
Whenever I got into an OEM to purchase a new system, I would like a select list on that page. Order by alpha.
Operating System
BeOS
Linux
Microsoft Windows
OS/2
Productivity
Corel Wordperfect (linux,windows)
Gobe Productive (beos)
Word (windows)
None
Browser
Internet Explorere (win)
Netscape 5.0 (win,beos,os/2,linux)
Opera 3.x (win,beos)
The consumer is king!!!
Posted by Phantom of the Operating Syste:
There are lots of sick, power-hungry people in the world. What separates Bill from the rest is more that he has vision, and is intelligent enough to carry it out.
His vision was to have the microsoft name everywhere. He had a stubborness that only his technology was good..a thumbing of the nose at everyone else's..and especially the technical community which rejected him.
He targeted the people who wrote the checks in companies..the people who made the purchases. Other companies targeted the nerds, but old Bill knew to talk to the PHBs.
What drives him is an unholy mix of love of money and a desire for the common people to love and worship him. I wonder if he despises technical people who don't grasp and worship his technical vision.
-phantom
If Linux continues to chomp at the server market (especially the holy-grail SMB licences), I could see a really cheap/cut-down version of NT/2000 Server aimed at small and midsized businesses. I doubt you'll seem much movement on the Desktop OS licences, though.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
First of all, as a former OS/2 user, I can tell you that OS/2 was (and still is) a remarkably stable and well-engineered product when compared to Microsoft's Windows family. Yes, it has a few weaknesses (and some SERIOUS ones, IMHO), like the Single Input Queue, and the ugly little kludge they ended up implementing in the end to fix it... I agree with anyone who says that Windows 9x/NT's multiple asynchronous message queue is better. But I still found OS/2 to be much more stable and efficient than Windows. I later switched to Windows NT when I saw the writing on the wall that OS/2 was dead (mostly due to a lack of native OS/2 applications). I was figuring that since NT was originally based on the work done on OS/2 at the time, it would be most like OS/2 with regards to stability, etc. But unlike OS/2, I was disappointed to see that NT still crashed more often on me than OS/2 did... And NT took about 3 times longer to boot up than OS/2.
Granted, as a 100% pure Linux user now (I don't even do the dual-boot thing), I think even OS/2 is bloated, inefficient, and buggy compared to other alternatives, but leaving all other technical comparisons aside, let me say that this MS antitrust trial is **NOT** mainly about technical superiorities of one OS battling another one for market dominance. The point I am trying to make here is that yes, there are LOTS of alternatives to Windows, like MacOS, Linux, *BSD, OS/2, etc. Every one of them is arguably superior on the technical front to Windows today. But face it, had Microsoft been competing solely on the basis of the technical merits of their software in the marketplace, they would have been killed LONG ago. I can think of NOTHING more bloated, buggy, unstable, and inefficient that MS products.
It is the ANTI-COMPETITIVE tactics of MS that have resulted in their market share, and the scariest part is that there is evidence that they will now do ANYTHING to maintain their monopoly... Just consider how they DELIBERATELY tried to undermine and fracture the Java platform for example, all because they did not like the idea of "write once, run anywhere..." They saw it as a threat because it might open the door to make other OS's viable if they have software that would run anywhere. THAT is the key to their stranglehold on the OS market: Windows has about 70% or more of the software market running for it, and if it lost that advantage, they would almost surely die, as everyone (okay, even if only half of everyone) flocked to other OS's to get away from the bloated vaporware of MS.
The Internet itself also constitutes a potentially major long-term platform threat to Windows, for much the same reason--it is currently possible for ANYONE, with ANY operating system to surf the web. That is why they spent MILLIONS on developing Internet Explorer, and distributed it for free, and tied it to Windows, and then proclaimed that it would damage Windows if it were removed (which as 98Lite demonstrates, is nothing more than a complete, straight-out LIE). Their ultimate goal is slowly to commoditize the infrastructure, and make the Internet proprietary, so you MUST use Windows to use it. Look at the Halloween Documents if you need proof. Remember this, people.
And also remember, Bill Gates is a sick, demented, power-hungry person, IMHO. I am not saying he is dumb; I think he is one of the SMARTEST people in the world. I seriously admire his knowledge and knack for making intelligent business decisions, too. But face it, when he says things like "I must admit, I find it hard to concentrate lots of resources on trials and things, when the Internet is eroding our power everyday" (quoted from ZDNet, thank you), I think this is a sign of a man who cares only about hanging on to POWER. That is NOT healthy, IMHO.
Please remember this folks. I do not want to be held captive by a company that is willing to LIE to the public, and CHEAT just to maintain a monopoly as Microsoft is doing. That is why I think there is even more serious evil to be seen if this trial does not do something to neutralize the threat. That is why I am an avid Anti-Microsoft advocate, and that is why I think it is necessary to speak up loudly like this for ACTION.
And remember, GO MOZILLA!! It is our single most promising hope of re-gaining the momentum of W3C STANDARDS-compliance.
Maybe, IBM and Microsoft deserve each other. Neither is exactly a saint here.
Recall that OS/2 was originally developed as an attempt by IBM to take the system proprietary again. They were facing severe profit pressures from all those clone makers that MS was selling DOS to. So they contracted MS to write OS/2 for IBM and IBM alone, hoping to leverage their still-dominant brand name to allow higher profits. It's hard to imagine now, but in the context of 1990, DOS and Windows were relatively "open" systems, at least in the sense that they could run on generic hardware.
Today, of course, MS is threatened by a system that has taken openness to the next level.