Two local grocery store chains got into it over this this past year. I believe it went to court, but I'm not sure how it was resolved.
Basically Cub Foods caught Rainbow Foods advertising the exact same items at just slightly lower prices on the same sundays. So Cub planned to advertise bannanas for 34 cents a pound, Rainbow had them for 33.
How was this happening? Someone from one of the printers was leaking this info to the competitors who were then using it to create their own ad.
"And, yes, it would be different if this were Linux, or BSD, or even MacOS. All those operating systems come with companies or communities who take security seriously, and they respect their users enough to not foist insecure features on them."
Really?
Show me the security bulletin on Redhat's website for the issues found in KDE last August.
The sad fact is the Linux support community is even worse than Microsoft. They don't even acknowledge problems even after they've been patched by the development team. Maybe it's just a lack of communication mechanisms, but whatever it is it is bizarre.
"People always bitch at MS for bundling software into their OS, but there's no excuse to not include reasonable packet filter ability in the OS."
Well you've certainly proved one thing. People with certifications can often oversell themselves as experts when they really know very little about the products.
Yes, through the use of the mechanism mentioned by the poster, "Keeping Netscape off the desktop with the threat of higher Windows licensing costs IS."
That case was resolved in the US courts, and now Microsoft is prevented from doing this.
"Sounds like they thought of embedding a VNC client with an 802.11 card into an LCD display. "
No, they embedded a Remote Desktop Connection client into an LCD display with an 802.11 card. In other words, they are using the RDP stuff from Terminal Services.
VNC is a pretty lousy solution for doing remote desktop. It's only saving grace is it is free(as in beer).
Osama bin Laden took responsibility for it in a tape that was found in Afghanistan and broadcast over Al-Jazeera, where he addressed some noted guests at supper and said "I love it when a plan comes together".
This is great, you've learned how to spin an argument.
Not only have you used the cliche "Well they aren't any better either...", you've even taken one step further and declared this weakness as your greatest strength.
Although to be an expert spin-meister you should have blamed this on Microsoft some how. Work on it, get back to us. Maybe we can get you a job at the Whitehouse if the tech market continues to flounder.
Hmm, I supported a homebrew GIS solution developed back in the 1980's that utilized a Hercules graphics card for the text interface and a EGA card for graphics.
There's been multi-monitor cards and drivers available since at least Windows 3.1.
I think the point here, is just that now this is not all that rare and it's incredibly easy to setup without buying expensive custom cards.
Or the contrary question. Is the mention of Linux actually helping Microsoft?
I mean, why exactly do you consider it damage? Isn't the supposed goal of this anti-trust lawsuit to bring about competition? If that competition does exist, then has not the goal been met?
If the goal has been met, then is there any further reason to proceed against Microsoft in a court of law? This is not damaging to Microsoft, it's actually beneficial. At least in terms of lawsuits, even if they may be losing potential marketshare/revenue.
Personally I'm of the belief that the computer world is so large that even a niche player has a substantial revenue potential. This idea that any one company needs to own it all is outdated, just like the auto industry and others. (Although you still see Honda versus Chevy arguments on the internet)
Right now Microsoft primarily only gives away things for free that don't have a market by themselves, but they offer a signifigant enhancement advantage. For instance the browser is a nice add-on for the OS. MSDE is a nice add-on for the Office XP Developer..Net Framework is a nice add-on for the OS, etc.
I don't see them giving away the entire OS, unless they intend on stopping support or further development. The OS line is one of Microsoft's higher overhead divisions once you calculate in the amount of testing and on-going support. I can see them reducing the price, however... Sell something like XP Home for $30-40, just to encourage everybody to buy it and install it. This would reduce cost of support over continuing to have Win9x machines out there.
"And, as we all know, only rich people deserve "luxury" items. "
Deserve?
Nay, can afford.
"Poor people in second and third world countries should just eek out a pitiful, impoverished existence, devoid of even the simple pleasure of seeing a movie. How dare they want more than that from life?"
No, they should seek to improve their lot so that they can afford to buy luxury items. As such rather than wasting time viewing movies, they should instead work another job or train to get a better job.
"That's the point: They are not more important so the people of China, by and large, will be deprived of them if piracy is substantially eliminated."
But you can't be deprived of a luxury item, since it is not something that you need to exist.
Your argument begins and ends with false assumptions.
You seem to be a bit confused here. Netscape released their crappy product when they still had majority marketshare(around 80%). They lost marketshare solely because of the poor quality of the product, not because of any bundling on Microsoft's part. Microsoft had been bundling the browser for years and it made no difference in marketshare.
This is a well established fact that is really beyond dispute and so I'm confused as to why you keep trying to claim the opposite.
Netscape does not have an inherent right to exist as a company if they cannot compete with regards to the quality of their product. This is like saying that automobiles should be outlawed because they are hurting the buggy whip and saddle manufacturers.
Netscape had plenty of cash, they had an IPO that was very hot. The only difference between them and Microsoft is that MS had a more mature development staff and methodology.
"Except for the fact that the licence forbids Redhat(for example) from including it in Linux."
I don't see how you can say this with a straight face.
The Microsoft license is no different then the one MetroX uses, and Redhat shipped with that. Actually this would be a boon to Redhat as it would allow them to offer something in their product which differentiated themselves from the competition, and since it's not licensed under the GPL their competitors couldn't steal it.
"As I understand it this is the exact situation facing the Samba team. They could pay for the information, but the licence forbids them to use it."
No you are confused. The license does not forbid anyone from using it, it just forbids them from giving it away to others. There's a huge distinction here.
The choice the Samba team has made is that they want to give away their stuff. That's fine, but such choices should not be confused for forcing other companies to do the same.
Forbes recently had an article talking about McNealy and essentially questioning many of his business decisions.
He essentially describes McNealy's vision as reactionary. In that there is no vision, he simply reacts to other entities between Microsoft, Linux, Java and so forth.
Sun pursuing a lawsuit against Microsoft would be pretty foolish as that isn't their main problem. They're primarily losing marketshare to other Unix vendors and most notably Linux.
Netscape released the source code to the 4.x browser for free in late 1998, giving us a unique opportunity to view their work.
The Mozilla browser was a complete rewrite from the ground up. Why? Because the Netscape code was a convoluted mess of spaghetti. It was badly designed and hard to enhance or maintain.
The point is, it had nothing to do with Netscape not having enough money to do R&D. It had to do with lousy software.
Microsoft didn't really bundle IE with Windows until the release of Windows 98 in the summer of 1998. While IE 2 did come with NT4, and IE 3 shipped with some OEM versions of Win95, they were insignifigant.
IE 4.x was released in late 1997. Up until this point Microsoft didn't command more than about 10-20% of the market.
After the release of IE4, Microsoft marketshare began to increase. By the end of 1998 they had around 30-40%. At this point Netscape abandoned the browser market, releasing the source to Navigator.
Microsoft then went on to release 4.01, 5.0, 5.01, 5.5, and finally 6.0. With each release their market share increased. They didn't get above 50% until after the release of the 5.0 browser.
"Microsoft started bundling IE with Windows, and shut Netscape out, effectively killing Netscape's marketshare within 18 months."
No, Netscape abandoned the market while they still had majority share.
"This is not some fiction story from the newspaper, and this is not a "what if" from an Economics textbook."
Actually your interpretation is fiction.
"A better product should always succeed in the market. "
The better product did succeed. In this case it was IE 4.0. The Netscape 4.x browser by comparison was quite bad, this was largely due to Netscape getting into a battle over HTML standards, most notably CSS1. Netscape lost, and they tried to quickly shoehorn support for the new standards in, which resulted in unstable HTML rendering.
Go read any of many articles out there on the internet discussing trying to write HTML which renders under Netscape 4.x. The product is pretty much universally hated by web developers.
Slashdot Mirror
"TNG turned out to be a fantastic series"
"Generations is the best TNG movie so far."
Someone has been drinking way too much Jonestown Kool-aid.
First Contact was the best TNG movie. Insurrection was also pretty good. Generations was by far the worst.
Still none of them compares to Star Trek 2, 4 or 6. Even Star Trek 3 was better than any TNG movie.
Two local grocery store chains got into it over this this past year. I believe it went to court, but I'm not sure how it was resolved.
Basically Cub Foods caught Rainbow Foods advertising the exact same items at just slightly lower prices on the same sundays. So Cub planned to advertise bannanas for 34 cents a pound, Rainbow had them for 33.
How was this happening? Someone from one of the printers was leaking this info to the competitors who were then using it to create their own ad.
If I'm a customer and I walk into Best Buy and see morons behaving in the fashion you laid out... It is not the store I'm going to be upset with.
One of the keys of a good protest is to not piss off the people you are trying to convince towards your cause.
Hmm. Sandblad appears to have written up something that says...
"Look, if you take advantage of this security problem reported by someone else, you can cause real damage."
I can see where he might have been confused by Microsoft telling him he hadn't reported a security problem.
"And, yes, it would be different if this were Linux, or BSD, or even MacOS. All those operating systems come with companies or communities who take security seriously, and they respect their users enough to not foist insecure features on them."
Really?
Show me the security bulletin on Redhat's website for the issues found in KDE last August.
The sad fact is the Linux support community is even worse than Microsoft. They don't even acknowledge problems even after they've been patched by the development team. Maybe it's just a lack of communication mechanisms, but whatever it is it is bizarre.
If you want a firewall then buy Firewall-1 from Checkpoint and install it on your Win2k server.
Again, something the original poster claimed didn't exist.
"I am also a certified MCSA"
and then later on...
"People always bitch at MS for bundling software into their OS, but there's no excuse to not include reasonable packet filter ability in the OS."
Well you've certainly proved one thing. People with certifications can often oversell themselves as experts when they really know very little about the products.
Psst... I share the bounty of a simple google search.
Yes, through the use of the mechanism mentioned by the poster, "Keeping Netscape off the desktop with the threat of higher Windows licensing costs IS."
That case was resolved in the US courts, and now Microsoft is prevented from doing this.
"Sounds like they thought of embedding a VNC client with an 802.11 card into an LCD display. "
No, they embedded a Remote Desktop Connection client into an LCD display with an 802.11 card. In other words, they are using the RDP stuff from Terminal Services.
VNC is a pretty lousy solution for doing remote desktop. It's only saving grace is it is free(as in beer).
Internet exposed web servers make up perhaps 10% of the total server market.
I don't see how you can reasonably make any conclusions based on the statistics you just posted.
Osama bin Laden took responsibility for it in a tape that was found in Afghanistan and broadcast over Al-Jazeera, where he addressed some noted guests at supper and said "I love it when a plan comes together".
But it doesn't necessarily mean it was probable.
This is great, you've learned how to spin an argument.
Not only have you used the cliche "Well they aren't any better either...", you've even taken one step further and declared this weakness as your greatest strength.
Although to be an expert spin-meister you should have blamed this on Microsoft some how. Work on it, get back to us. Maybe we can get you a job at the Whitehouse if the tech market continues to flounder.
Except in pre-WWII the Nazis bombed buildings and blamed it on the Jews.
Today groups like Al Qaeda bomb buildings and take full responsibility for it.
The situation is not comparable.
I doubt the shared source implementation of the CLR does any executable caching like the Windows version does.
I thru a HelloWorld benchmark together on my WinXP box and it came back instantaneously the second time I ran it... less than a second the first time.
Hmm, I supported a homebrew GIS solution developed back in the 1980's that utilized a Hercules graphics card for the text interface and a EGA card for graphics.
There's been multi-monitor cards and drivers available since at least Windows 3.1.
I think the point here, is just that now this is not all that rare and it's incredibly easy to setup without buying expensive custom cards.
Or the contrary question. Is the mention of Linux actually helping Microsoft?
I mean, why exactly do you consider it damage? Isn't the supposed goal of this anti-trust lawsuit to bring about competition? If that competition does exist, then has not the goal been met?
If the goal has been met, then is there any further reason to proceed against Microsoft in a court of law? This is not damaging to Microsoft, it's actually beneficial. At least in terms of lawsuits, even if they may be losing potential marketshare/revenue.
Personally I'm of the belief that the computer world is so large that even a niche player has a substantial revenue potential. This idea that any one company needs to own it all is outdated, just like the auto industry and others. (Although you still see Honda versus Chevy arguments on the internet)
Right now Microsoft primarily only gives away things for free that don't have a market by themselves, but they offer a signifigant enhancement advantage. For instance the browser is a nice add-on for the OS. MSDE is a nice add-on for the Office XP Developer. .Net Framework is a nice add-on for the OS, etc.
I don't see them giving away the entire OS, unless they intend on stopping support or further development. The OS line is one of Microsoft's higher overhead divisions once you calculate in the amount of testing and on-going support. I can see them reducing the price, however... Sell something like XP Home for $30-40, just to encourage everybody to buy it and install it. This would reduce cost of support over continuing to have Win9x machines out there.
"And, as we all know, only rich people deserve "luxury" items. "
Deserve?
Nay, can afford.
"Poor people in second and third world countries should just eek out a pitiful, impoverished existence, devoid of even the simple pleasure of seeing a movie. How dare they want more than that from life?"
No, they should seek to improve their lot so that they can afford to buy luxury items. As such rather than wasting time viewing movies, they should instead work another job or train to get a better job.
"That's the point: They are not more important so the people of China, by and large, will be deprived of them if piracy is substantially eliminated."
But you can't be deprived of a luxury item, since it is not something that you need to exist.
Your argument begins and ends with false assumptions.
You seem to be a bit confused here. Netscape released their crappy product when they still had majority marketshare(around 80%). They lost marketshare solely because of the poor quality of the product, not because of any bundling on Microsoft's part. Microsoft had been bundling the browser for years and it made no difference in marketshare.
This is a well established fact that is really beyond dispute and so I'm confused as to why you keep trying to claim the opposite.
Netscape does not have an inherent right to exist as a company if they cannot compete with regards to the quality of their product. This is like saying that automobiles should be outlawed because they are hurting the buggy whip and saddle manufacturers.
Netscape had plenty of cash, they had an IPO that was very hot. The only difference between them and Microsoft is that MS had a more mature development staff and methodology.
"Except for the fact that the licence forbids Redhat(for example) from including it in Linux."
I don't see how you can say this with a straight face.
The Microsoft license is no different then the one MetroX uses, and Redhat shipped with that. Actually this would be a boon to Redhat as it would allow them to offer something in their product which differentiated themselves from the competition, and since it's not licensed under the GPL their competitors couldn't steal it.
"As I understand it this is the exact situation facing the Samba team. They could pay for the information, but the licence forbids them to use it."
No you are confused. The license does not forbid anyone from using it, it just forbids them from giving it away to others. There's a huge distinction here.
The choice the Samba team has made is that they want to give away their stuff. That's fine, but such choices should not be confused for forcing other companies to do the same.
Forbes recently had an article talking about McNealy and essentially questioning many of his business decisions.
He essentially describes McNealy's vision as reactionary. In that there is no vision, he simply reacts to other entities between Microsoft, Linux, Java and so forth.
Sun pursuing a lawsuit against Microsoft would be pretty foolish as that isn't their main problem. They're primarily losing marketshare to other Unix vendors and most notably Linux.
Netscape released the source code to the 4.x browser for free in late 1998, giving us a unique opportunity to view their work.
The Mozilla browser was a complete rewrite from the ground up. Why? Because the Netscape code was a convoluted mess of spaghetti. It was badly designed and hard to enhance or maintain.
The point is, it had nothing to do with Netscape not having enough money to do R&D. It had to do with lousy software.
Microsoft didn't really bundle IE with Windows until the release of Windows 98 in the summer of 1998. While IE 2 did come with NT4, and IE 3 shipped with some OEM versions of Win95, they were insignifigant.
IE 4.x was released in late 1997. Up until this point Microsoft didn't command more than about 10-20% of the market.
After the release of IE4, Microsoft marketshare began to increase. By the end of 1998 they had around 30-40%. At this point Netscape abandoned the browser market, releasing the source to Navigator.
Microsoft then went on to release 4.01, 5.0, 5.01, 5.5, and finally 6.0. With each release their market share increased. They didn't get above 50% until after the release of the 5.0 browser.
"Microsoft started bundling IE with Windows, and shut Netscape out, effectively killing Netscape's marketshare within 18 months."
No, Netscape abandoned the market while they still had majority share.
"This is not some fiction story from the newspaper, and this is not a "what if" from an Economics textbook."
Actually your interpretation is fiction.
"A better product should always succeed in the market. "
The better product did succeed. In this case it was IE 4.0. The Netscape 4.x browser by comparison was quite bad, this was largely due to Netscape getting into a battle over HTML standards, most notably CSS1. Netscape lost, and they tried to quickly shoehorn support for the new standards in, which resulted in unstable HTML rendering.
Go read any of many articles out there on the internet discussing trying to write HTML which renders under Netscape 4.x. The product is pretty much universally hated by web developers.
Windows NT 4.0 ships with IE version 2.0 bundled.
IE 4 was never integrated with Windows 95, it was integrated with Windows 98.