I used to hate PC clones and revere Genuine IBM(tm) systems. To me, a company that makes a copy of something and sell it is just, well, less than human, an entity without a soul.
I feel that way about StarOffice. I respect their competence and wonder about the effort they put into making every aspect of their software look and feel like Office. But I feel they don't have a soul, their software is but a mindless copy of the market leader.
Now, it doesn't have much to do with the user interface. I don't mind KDE because there are a lot of nice improvements, a lot of cool touches that make the interface theirs. But StarOffice is a mindless copy of Microsoft Office. It's like letting the Borg into your Linux Box.
There's just something about it that gives me the creeps.
So I run GoBe Productive on the BeOS, which I love because it isn't a copy of anything. Now if I could just use it to read Office(tm) documents, I'd be happy.
Incidentally, I still don't think much of clones. Not a popular sentiment around here, but... well, imitations aren't my cup of tea. Maybe that's why I still prefer Irix to Linux? More likely, it's those godawful fonts. If Microsoft Office for Linux put half-decent fonts into the OS without the current incomprehensible hassle, I might even get it.
Except for one problem: Microsoft's fonts aren't so hot either.
It's pretty sobering to see how tightly controlled radio really is. Check out Broadcast Architecture to learn the soulless truth.
Curiously enough, my favourite radio station is a Broadcast Architecture product, but the methodology with which it was developed scares me a little. Unfortunately, it's where I have to go for my favourite music, which is modern jazz instrumentals a la Keiko Matsui.
Look at your Windows computer (if you have the great misfortune of having one, of course).
What software is on it?
I'll tell you what software is on mine.
Microsoft FoxPro, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access. Do you see a pattern here?
At least with Linux or Be, third-party developers have a fighting chance. In the last couple of years, Windows has changed from an open platform to one that's proprietary in all but name. Third-party applications? Bah! Who even uses them anymore?
Microsoft is bound to lose developer mindshare in this type of situation. After all, 0% of 100,000,000 computers is still, well, zero.
might help you understand why things developed the way they did.
In 1994, when I got my amazing.com domain name, there were a lot of restrictions placed on names by the contract between Network Solutions and the government. At least in theory, every name was sort of like a grant proposal, and you had to justify the reason for your request. So Network solutions had the perfect right to turn down your request after a formal approval procedure.
Some vestiges of this system existed when the fees were introduced for domain names. Since NSI had a theoretical duty to say Yes or No to your request, it was natural to not charge for names (and thus not enter into a binding commitment to provide one) until they had manually reviewed your application. For example, the.net and.org domain names were intended only for ISPs and non-commercial organizations. So in theory, if a commercial entity tried to get a.org domain name, NSI was supposed to bounce back the application.
Now, of course, anyone can register any name they like, as long as it's not yet in use. So the old idea of an "application" and limiting use of the old net and org domain names is considered obsolete. Thus, the logic of now charging for domain names up front; there's no reason to deny your application; there's no reason to even look at it.
To tell the truth, I'm surprised it took them this long to make the change.
However, in a nutshell, as long as you eventually intended to get a domain name, this change won't affect you much. You had to pay for it before, you still have to pay for it now. Only the mode is different.
Incidentally, at least here in California, debit cards are supplied free as part of your checking account. So if you have any kind of checking account, you have something fully capable of paying a NSI bill.
I fell for a girl in a big way over the net, and I still have the letters she sent me (and the copies of the ones I sent her).
Although my relationship with the girl never advanced beyond email, the fact that relationships are created between people in faraway places eventually gives tons of money to the phone company and postal service, because there's nothing more personal than a delivered gift and even a phone call works far better than typed words.
Of course any letter I sent anyone will be typed on the computer. No human being on this planet could ever, ever read my handwriting. Sorry.
I think most people/do/ want a single-family detached home instead of a massive apartment or condo complex where people are packed together like ants.
Those who rail against suburbia have some valid points, but I see more anti-suburbia negativity than I see positive advocacy of the alternative. I suspect this is because the alternative is unpalateable to many.
I think the negative things people attribute to suburbia are at least partially created by our own fears. We have somehow been trained to fear other people instead of loving them. I think if we were trained to love, suburbia would be a friendly place. But since we're trained to fear, suburbia becomes cold and sterile. Packing a lot of people in one place isn't going to fix society. Look what happened to high-rise housing for the poor - they were such horrid places to live they were abandoned or blown up.
(I will admit that I hate the kind of suburb where the laws of the subdivision don't allow you to change one brick of the house you supposedly own. But that's not a characteristic of suburbia itself - check out the Hollywood Hills and you'll see single family detached homes, each one unique).
To use the net successfully, you have to do two things: read and write. I know that we have all kinds of pretty pictures now, but if you want to communicate or find stuff, reading and writing are vital.
The most popular medium in the country is television, because it doesn't require any form of thinking. You don't need to read to understand TV; you just need to watch and listen. A bestselling book attracts less than a million readers; a popular TV series attracts 50-100 million viewers. I think this gives you an idea of the disparity between people who like to read (natural net users) and those who like to watch (people who may never master the net).
I'm not sure what, if anything can be done about this. My gut feeling is that only sharp people are going to put the effort it takes to use the net. And I don't think people who aren't sharp will ever be more than a peripheral part of net culture.
But frankly, so what? People who aren't smart enough to use the net aren't going to do well with all those new jobs anyway.
Of course I've always been a bit of an elitist, personally. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong.
I'm muddling through the idea of buying a house here in Southern California. For anyone curious about the market, you might like to visit David's Dream House. And if you don't live in Los Angeles, it might be worth a laugh or two.
Christopher Alexander et al are the authors. Fascinating book, but you might be better off starting at his overview, A Timeless Way of Building. Visit Amazon for them, there are some interesting reviews there, too.
I found both books to be compelling reading - I was a little surprised the quality of writing was so high.
The sad truth is that the massive bookstores bring us more choice and selection than ever. The main reason I don't buy something when I venture into a bookstore is that it doesn't have something I feel in the mood for. The bigger the bookstore, the more likely they are to have something I want at the time.
It doesn't have anything to do with price; it has to do with selection. And this, of course, is also why "Earth's Biggest Bookstore" is so successful.
I can certainly be made to feel sad about the decline of independents, even though the bookstore mentioned in the LA Reader as the epitome of these problems is still in business. It happens that bookstore, Midnight Special in Santa Monica, was able to retain its niche of leftist books, especially since leftists feel like they are Doing the Right Thing by supporting it.
I think one of the biggest things B&N, Borders and Amazon have done is to increase the number of readers, and increase the number of times I and others can go to a bookstore and find an interesting book we haven't read before. In my view, that's a great service, and that's why I love the big stores.
I've done Windows development, and I think the platform's an ugly mess. So naturally I give my support to people who have the good taste to agree with me. It's a lot like the environmentalist who would rather buy from an environmentally responsible company; I don't like seeing the web polluted with Windows servers.
In addition, Barnes & Noble raised my ire by suing Amazon over the "Earth's Biggest Bookstore" slogan. Tacky, tacky B&N. I don't forget things like that, and I don't want to deal with the type of person who would pursue such a suit. The suit, of course, was dropped after massive protests from people who felt the same way, but it's still a substantial drag on B&N's image for me.
The way I always order from Amazon is simple: I find about $ 100-200 worth of books that I want to buy, get a 30% discount on them, punch the order button and walk away a happy man. For ordering expensive or hard-to-find books, like Christopher Alexander's stuff, it's perfect.
But I gotta tell you, a 10-12% discount just doesn't thrill me compared to the fun of wandering into a consumer electronics store, looking at the pretty products in their boxes, and grabbing the one I want right then and there.
I will admit that there's something unsettling about suddenly seeing books shoved into second place. This is probably even more true if you're a published author like Jon, and even more so if you've been on the Amazon bestseller list.
Still, this is one Jon Katz piece that I think should have been longer. I'd like to see more of his reasoning behind why this is so unsettling to him. But it doesn't strike me as a truly seminal shift; the books are still there on their virtual shelves, the customer reviews are still there. As far as I can tell, all is well. I'd like to hear a more detailed reason for his turning on Jeff Bezos and pals.
Personally, I would never, ever order a book from fatbrain.com or barnesandnoble.com - they use Windows servers, and I refuse to support companies that use Windows when there are alternatives. Amazon, of course, uses Digital Unix.
D
PS But maybe something did change. I copied and pasted that URL into my review twice and both times it didn't work. Bizarre! I wonder what's going on. ----
What people are objecting to is the "one size fits all" solution advocated by the author. He's saying that to make Linux easy to use, we have to dump all the diversity power users love.
No matter what he says, it's not going to happen; in order to make it so, there would have to be only one distribution, only one window manager. Since we don't have a secret police to send Enlightenment, Gnome and AfterStep users into the gulag, well, we'll always have choice. Sorry.
I don't know much about Bush, but Gore's wife Tipper is extremely active in pro-censorship organizations - I believe she was behind the "Parental Advisory" labels on CDs.
Aside from that, Gore's rabidly anti-technology book Earth in the Balance is required reading before making up your mind about him.
D
----
Re:Instinctive libertarian knee-jerking on Slashdo
on
UN Proposes Email Tax
·
· Score: 2
I suppose he is a Web Century or so behind the times in terminology, but that doesn't affect the accuracy of his arguments nor the quality of his expression, both of which I thought were high.
When I moved to Los Angeles in 1983, I didn't have much money. So I lived in a cruddy slum-class building in Venice. Members of the underclass are very much interested in the con, very much interested in working as little as they can, and very keen on consuming as many illegal drugs as humanly possible. You really have to see this up close to understand the original poster's comment. I have developed a theory that the closer to the poor you are, the less you sympathise with them. I was close to the poor for a number of years, and that's cured me of any charitable impulses I might have had. The poor that I saw fully deserved to be poor.
I don't think this is exclusively a racial thing; it's cultural. Whether black or brown or white or purple, people with underclass attitudes act in underclass ways. True, more blacks have this attitude than whites, but the problem is more universal than most people want to think - and the solutions are personal and have nothing to do with the acts of other groups.
Perhaps it's wistful thinking on my part, but I noticed something that felt almost like shame in their putting NT dead last in their list. This is especially odd in view of their heavy promotion of the VWS as being a NT-only system.
Remember when the implication of their press releases was that NT was a major part of their roadmap and eventually every SGI machine worth mentioning would run NT? I must admit to being scared half to death by that one.
Now if we could just figure out a way to get more useful client software for Linux on the VWS, I might be persuaded to buy one... I'm sure it would do a nice job running Enlightenment:-).
D
(Proud owner of a used Indigo2 Extreme, on which this message was typed).
I suspect the real problem with E for most people (including myself) is that to get the "full eye candy effect" you have to run it at 1280x1024 with 24-bit colour. As it happens, on ordinary machines this is quite slow - not because of E, but because 1280x1024 in 24-bit colour requires a ton of bashing bits around. In my experience, you can "solve" this problem by downshifting to 1280x1024 at 8-bit colour, or 1024x768 at 24-bit colour. The only problem with this is that then you just don't get the full effect, which is why you run E in the first place.
As a result, I haven't run E in some time, even though I like and admire E and its developers. Instead, I run 4DWM on my old SGI, which serves my needs very well and is quite a bit less expensive than a dual Pentium III/500.
Overall, my sense is that E's reputation as a pig is undeserved, unless you count the "need" to run high resolutions and colour depths that come with the experience.
After looking at the state of Gnome (nearly impossible to get working) and KDE (bland Windows clone - well done if that's what you want, but not exactly what should propel us into the 21st Century), I know exactly why Raster and Mandrake are doing what they are.
I've seen the screenshots and I think they look really cool. I'll probably try E again when I get a dual Pentium III/500 like they have.
Everyone who owns a computer less than a year or two old has Internet Explorer on it, and most of those people probably use it. That's what I was saying.
I don't doubt that many programs embed Internet Explorer - I had an application where I did myself, and it is remarkably easy to do. But I don't think the bulk of users browse the web with HomeSite, Notes or Quicken.
That seems like an odd reason for its success. The fact that they bundle it with every personal computer sold in the world seems like a more likely one.
Slashdot Mirror
Nice story. Had me fooled for a few seconds.
D
----
I used to hate PC clones and revere Genuine IBM(tm) systems. To me, a company that makes a copy of something and sell it is just, well, less than human, an entity without a soul.
... well, imitations aren't my cup of tea. Maybe that's why I still prefer Irix to Linux? More likely, it's those godawful fonts. If Microsoft Office for Linux put half-decent fonts into the OS without the current incomprehensible hassle, I might even get it.
I feel that way about StarOffice. I respect their competence and wonder about the effort they put into making every aspect of their software look and feel like Office. But I feel they don't have a soul, their software is but a mindless copy of the market leader.
Now, it doesn't have much to do with the user interface. I don't mind KDE because there are a lot of nice improvements, a lot of cool touches that make the interface theirs. But StarOffice is a mindless copy of Microsoft Office. It's like letting the Borg into your Linux Box.
There's just something about it that gives me the creeps.
So I run GoBe Productive on the BeOS, which I love because it isn't a copy of anything. Now if I could just use it to read Office(tm) documents, I'd be happy.
Incidentally, I still don't think much of clones. Not a popular sentiment around here, but
Except for one problem: Microsoft's fonts aren't so hot either.
Forget it.
D
----
It's pretty sobering to see how tightly controlled radio really is. Check out Broadcast Architecture to learn the soulless truth.
Curiously enough, my favourite radio station is a Broadcast Architecture product, but the methodology with which it was developed scares me a little. Unfortunately, it's where I have to go for my favourite music, which is modern jazz instrumentals a la Keiko Matsui.
D
----
Look at your Windows computer (if you have the great misfortune of having one, of course).
What software is on it?
I'll tell you what software is on mine.
Microsoft FoxPro, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access. Do you see a pattern here?
At least with Linux or Be, third-party developers have a fighting chance. In the last couple of years, Windows has changed from an open platform to one that's proprietary in all but name. Third-party applications? Bah! Who even uses them anymore?
Microsoft is bound to lose developer mindshare in this type of situation. After all, 0% of 100,000,000 computers is still, well, zero.
D
----
might help you understand why things developed the way they did.
.net and .org domain names were intended only for ISPs and non-commercial organizations. So in theory, if a commercial entity tried to get a .org domain name, NSI was supposed to bounce back the application.
In 1994, when I got my amazing.com domain name, there were a lot of restrictions placed on names by the contract between Network Solutions and the government. At least in theory, every name was sort of like a grant proposal, and you had to justify the reason for your request. So Network solutions had the perfect right to turn down your request after a formal approval procedure.
Some vestiges of this system existed when the fees were introduced for domain names. Since NSI had a theoretical duty to say Yes or No to your request, it was natural to not charge for names (and thus not enter into a binding commitment to provide one) until they had manually reviewed your application. For example, the
Now, of course, anyone can register any name they like, as long as it's not yet in use. So the old idea of an "application" and limiting use of the old net and org domain names is considered obsolete. Thus, the logic of now charging for domain names up front; there's no reason to deny your application; there's no reason to even look at it.
To tell the truth, I'm surprised it took them this long to make the change.
However, in a nutshell, as long as you eventually intended to get a domain name, this change won't affect you much. You had to pay for it before, you still have to pay for it now. Only the mode is different.
Incidentally, at least here in California, debit cards are supplied free as part of your checking account. So if you have any kind of checking account, you have something fully capable of paying a NSI bill.
D
----
I fell for a girl in a big way over the net, and I still have the letters she sent me (and the copies of the ones I sent her).
Although my relationship with the girl never advanced beyond email, the fact that relationships are created between people in faraway places eventually gives tons of money to the phone company and postal service, because there's nothing more personal than a delivered gift and even a phone call works far better than typed words.
Of course any letter I sent anyone will be typed on the computer. No human being on this planet could ever, ever read my handwriting. Sorry.
D
----
I think most people /do/ want a single-family detached home instead of a massive apartment or condo complex where people are packed together like ants.
Those who rail against suburbia have some valid points, but I see more anti-suburbia negativity than I see positive advocacy of the alternative. I suspect this is because the alternative is unpalateable to many.
I think the negative things people attribute to suburbia are at least partially created by our own fears. We have somehow been trained to fear other people instead of loving them. I think if we were trained to love, suburbia would be a friendly place. But since we're trained to fear, suburbia becomes cold and sterile. Packing a lot of people in one place isn't going to fix society. Look what happened to high-rise housing for the poor - they were such horrid places to live they were abandoned or blown up.
(I will admit that I hate the kind of suburb where the laws of the subdivision don't allow you to change one brick of the house you supposedly own. But that's not a characteristic of suburbia itself - check out the Hollywood Hills and you'll see single family detached homes, each one unique).
D
----
To use the net successfully, you have to do two things: read and write. I know that we have all kinds of pretty pictures now, but if you want to communicate or find stuff, reading and writing are vital.
The most popular medium in the country is television, because it doesn't require any form of thinking. You don't need to read to understand TV; you just need to watch and listen. A bestselling book attracts less than a million readers; a popular TV series attracts 50-100 million viewers. I think this gives you an idea of the disparity between people who like to read (natural net users) and those who like to watch (people who may never master the net).
I'm not sure what, if anything can be done about this. My gut feeling is that only sharp people are going to put the effort it takes to use the net. And I don't think people who aren't sharp will ever be more than a peripheral part of net culture.
But frankly, so what? People who aren't smart enough to use the net aren't going to do well with all those new jobs anyway.
Of course I've always been a bit of an elitist, personally. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong.
D
----
Here are the corrected ones:
:-(
http://www.amazing.com/david/dream-house/ - David's Dream House
http://www.bhere.com/ruins/ - Fabulous Ruins of Detroit.
Sorry
D
----
Here are the corrected ones:
:-(
http://www.amazing.com/david/dream-house/ - David's Dream House
http://www.behere.com/ruins/ - Fabulous Ruins of Detroit.
Sorry
D
----
I'm muddling through the idea of buying a house here in Southern California. For anyone curious about the market, you might like to visit David's Dream House. And if you don't live in Los Angeles, it might be worth a laugh or two.
As a nice contrast to this, may I recommend The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit?
D
----
Christopher Alexander et al are the authors. Fascinating book, but you might be better off starting at his overview, A Timeless Way of Building. Visit Amazon for them, there are some interesting reviews there, too.
I found both books to be compelling reading - I was a little surprised the quality of writing was so high.
D
----
The sad truth is that the massive bookstores bring us more choice and selection than ever. The main reason I don't buy something when I venture into a bookstore is that it doesn't have something I feel in the mood for. The bigger the bookstore, the more likely they are to have something I want at the time.
It doesn't have anything to do with price; it has to do with selection. And this, of course, is also why "Earth's Biggest Bookstore" is so successful.
I can certainly be made to feel sad about the decline of independents, even though the bookstore mentioned in the LA Reader as the epitome of these problems is still in business. It happens that bookstore, Midnight Special in Santa Monica, was able to retain its niche of leftist books, especially since leftists feel like they are Doing the Right Thing by supporting it.
I think one of the biggest things B&N, Borders and Amazon have done is to increase the number of readers, and increase the number of times I and others can go to a bookstore and find an interesting book we haven't read before. In my view, that's a great service, and that's why I love the big stores.
D
----
I just needed to go to amazon.com to look up the reviews on a book, and what do you think I saw?
--
We'll be right back!
We're sorry, but our Books, Music, Video, Toys, and Electronics stores are closed temporarily.
We expect to be back soon.
--
Oops.
Maybe Jon Katz is right?
:-(
D
----
I've done Windows development, and I think the platform's an ugly mess. So naturally I give my support to people who have the good taste to agree with me. It's a lot like the environmentalist who would rather buy from an environmentally responsible company; I don't like seeing the web polluted with Windows servers.
In addition, Barnes & Noble raised my ire by suing Amazon over the "Earth's Biggest Bookstore" slogan. Tacky, tacky B&N. I don't forget things like that, and I don't want to deal with the type of person who would pursue such a suit. The suit, of course, was dropped after massive protests from people who felt the same way, but it's still a substantial drag on B&N's image for me.
D
----
The way I always order from Amazon is simple: I find about $ 100-200 worth of books that I want to buy, get a 30% discount on them, punch the order button and walk away a happy man. For ordering expensive or hard-to-find books, like Christopher Alexander's stuff, it's perfect.
But I gotta tell you, a 10-12% discount just doesn't thrill me compared to the fun of wandering into a consumer electronics store, looking at the pretty products in their boxes, and grabbing the one I want right then and there.
I will admit that there's something unsettling about suddenly seeing books shoved into second place. This is probably even more true if you're a published author like Jon, and even more so if you've been on the Amazon bestseller list.
Still, this is one Jon Katz piece that I think should have been longer. I'd like to see more of his reasoning behind why this is so unsettling to him. But it doesn't strike me as a truly seminal shift; the books are still there on their virtual shelves, the customer reviews are still there. As far as I can tell, all is well. I'd like to hear a more detailed reason for his turning on Jeff Bezos and pals.
Personally, I would never, ever order a book from fatbrain.com or barnesandnoble.com - they use Windows servers, and I refuse to support companies that use Windows when there are alternatives. Amazon, of course, uses Digital Unix.
D
PS But maybe something did change. I copied and pasted that URL into my review twice and both times it didn't work. Bizarre! I wonder what's going on.
----
What people are objecting to is the "one size fits all" solution advocated by the author. He's saying that to make Linux easy to use, we have to dump all the diversity power users love.
No matter what he says, it's not going to happen; in order to make it so, there would have to be only one distribution, only one window manager. Since we don't have a secret police to send Enlightenment, Gnome and AfterStep users into the gulag, well, we'll always have choice. Sorry.
D
----
I don't know much about Bush, but Gore's wife Tipper is extremely active in pro-censorship organizations - I believe she was behind the "Parental Advisory" labels on CDs.
Aside from that, Gore's rabidly anti-technology book Earth in the Balance is required reading before making up your mind about him.
D
----
I suppose he is a Web Century or so behind the times in terminology, but that doesn't affect the accuracy of his arguments nor the quality of his expression, both of which I thought were high.
When I moved to Los Angeles in 1983, I didn't have much money. So I lived in a cruddy slum-class building in Venice. Members of the underclass are very much interested in the con, very much interested in working as little as they can, and very keen on consuming as many illegal drugs as humanly possible. You really have to see this up close to understand the original poster's comment. I have developed a theory that the closer to the poor you are, the less you sympathise with them. I was close to the poor for a number of years, and that's cured me of any charitable impulses I might have had. The poor that I saw fully deserved to be poor.
I don't think this is exclusively a racial thing; it's cultural. Whether black or brown or white or purple, people with underclass attitudes act in underclass ways. True, more blacks have this attitude than whites, but the problem is more universal than most people want to think - and the solutions are personal and have nothing to do with the acts of other groups.
D
----
Perhaps it's wistful thinking on my part, but I noticed something that felt almost like shame in their putting NT dead last in their list. This is especially odd in view of their heavy promotion of the VWS as being a NT-only system.
... I'm sure it would do a nice job running Enlightenment :-).
Remember when the implication of their press releases was that NT was a major part of their roadmap and eventually every SGI machine worth mentioning would run NT? I must admit to being scared half to death by that one.
Now if we could just figure out a way to get more useful client software for Linux on the VWS, I might be persuaded to buy one
D
(Proud owner of a used Indigo2 Extreme, on which this message was typed).
----
I suspect the real problem with E for most people (including myself) is that to get the "full eye candy effect" you have to run it at 1280x1024 with 24-bit colour. As it happens, on ordinary machines this is quite slow - not because of E, but because 1280x1024 in 24-bit colour requires a ton of bashing bits around. In my experience, you can "solve" this problem by downshifting to 1280x1024 at 8-bit colour, or 1024x768 at 24-bit colour. The only problem with this is that then you just don't get the full effect, which is why you run E in the first place.
As a result, I haven't run E in some time, even though I like and admire E and its developers. Instead, I run 4DWM on my old SGI, which serves my needs very well and is quite a bit less expensive than a dual Pentium III/500.
Overall, my sense is that E's reputation as a pig is undeserved, unless you count the "need" to run high resolutions and colour depths that come with the experience.
D
----
After looking at the state of Gnome (nearly impossible to get working) and KDE (bland Windows clone - well done if that's what you want, but not exactly what should propel us into the 21st Century), I know exactly why Raster and Mandrake are doing what they are.
I've seen the screenshots and I think they look really cool. I'll probably try E again when I get a dual Pentium III/500 like they have.
D
----
Everyone who owns a computer less than a year or two old has Internet Explorer on it, and most of those people probably use it. That's what I was saying.
I don't doubt that many programs embed Internet Explorer - I had an application where I did myself, and it is remarkably easy to do. But I don't think the bulk of users browse the web with HomeSite, Notes or Quicken.
D
----
Microsoft is always afraid. Read any book about the MS business philosophy, and you'll see that it's embedded deep in their collective psyche.
This is why they respond as they do to competition - not out of strength, but out of fear.
D
----
That seems like an odd reason for its success. The fact that they bundle it with every personal computer sold in the world seems like a more likely one.
D
----