I'd be willing to bet that the number of "careers and even lives that have been ruined by Microsoft's ruthless oppression" is vastly outnumbered by the number of people who are gainfully employed every day using Microsoft products to get their job done.
That's 90-plus percent of the computer-using world.
You may not like their products, but many, many, MANY companies and individuals make their living thanks to MS.
Put another way, how many lives and companies have been destroyed because they couldn't make any money building and supporting open source software?
The cost of mass-producing software isn't where the real costs are... the costs are incurred in project managers, programmers, marketroids, QA and the like. The cost of making memory chips, etc., I assure you, has gone down preciptiously.
As far as the cost of Word, etc. You should probably find a different place to shop...
Buy.com has Word 2000, Works, Money, Encarta, Streets and Trips and Picture It for $89. To look at that and say that software prices haven't fallen is to live in deep denial.
This is untrue. MS has raised prices, both relative to the cost of the entire system and in absolute dollars. Or are you going to tell me that MS DOS 2.0 cost the same as Windows 2000 in both constant and inflated dollars?
You're absolutely wrong... MS-DOS + Windows 3.X costs about the same as Windows 2000 and more than Windows 98/Me. There were no increases in cost from Windows 3.1 --> Windows 95 --> Windows 98 --> Windows Me. Windows 2000 is a whole different code base anyway.
Before you consider that an absurd comparison, compare the cost of hard drive space or CPU speed or graphics cards over time. Somehow it's expected that the hard drives and CPUs get cheaper as they do more, but the OS doesn't?
That's an easy one... the cost of manufacturing hardware has dropped dramatically... the cost of producing memory, hard drives, you name it, has gone down considerably. The cost of good programmers, however, has gone up. That's why you don't see the difference in cost.
MS has raised prices as they've gained a monopoly, and only an apologist or someone who is completely ignorant of economics couldn't see that.
That's just not true. Six years ago, the cost of Word and Wordperfect was some $350. Today, you can get Word, Works, Streets and Trips and Encarta for less than $100. Office is around $300 for a new copy and less for an upgrade.
Give me an example where MS has gained a "monopoly" (though many, many people on this site seem to have found another option) and raised prices. The instances where prices have been raised are very few and far between.
I hardly think we need to throw a pity party (or a bake sale) for either Sony or Nintendo. They've gotten by just fine over the past ten years, squelching their share of better technologies in the process.
This is one of those rare contests where each competitor is equally crafty and rich. Seems likely that the consumer will be the ultimate benefactor (since none of the three consoles are likely to die out anytime soon like cash-strapped Sega's Dreamcast).
I don't think it's unlikely they'll supply an MP3 player... hell, Windows Media Player will play MP3s now; it just won't encode them (without a third party encoder).
I'd be very surprised if they don't supply the ability to play MP3s, just to satiate consumer demand, though I'm sure WMA is the "preferred" codec. Heck, it's a better codec anyway, but that's for a different discussion.:-)
Not that I'm the world's biggest fan of WMA, but if someone was recording songs for his own use, and can get better sound quality than MP3 at a much lower bitrate, what's the incentive to use MP3 at all?
And I'm not talking about any kind of cockamamie "one day they'll show up at your door and tell you that you need a license key" talk... I mean technically. If WMA is smaller and sounds better (and is supported by most audio players and CD writing software), what's so wrong with it?
So I'm not sure I get the point... what does selling/giving away their browser have to do with selling their server software? If they really don't care whose client was accessing the server, what difference does it make? And they still sell server software, so if they don't care about the money from the clients, what are we talking about?
As for the OEM issue, that's an adjustment I guess they had to make, but we're not talking about the difference between their business surviving and not surviving there.
Fact is, Netscape created the situation (giving away the browser) that ultimately they blamed on MS. If they had a good, slim, up-to-date browser (a la Opera), they could still sell it. They don't, so they can't.
Think: if not for Microsoft, it would still today be realistic to charge money for a web browser.
It's easy to forget that people had stopped paying for Netscape LONG before IE became a freebie. Of the millions of Netscape downloads before IE 3 (the first viable version of that browser), I'd be willing to bet that the percentage of those copies of Navigator actually purchased and paid for was in the single digits. The browser was never a viable revenue stream for Netscape (though, ironically, it seems to be for Opera).
Besides, if the open source model really works, Netscape should be able to make a superior, more bug-free version faster, give it away for free, and charge for the support and/or distribution media.
The 128 Megs "required" is Apple's term, probably because, as you said, you need 128 megs to run Classic.
So, yes, if you have no desire to run Word, Excel, Photoshop, Illustrator or any of the other pieces of software that make owning a computer worthwhile, you can squeak by on 64MB.
In what dimension are you paying $700 for Office Professional? Staples has it for somewhere around $179 (that's 9 months worth of Red Hat bugfixes... which do you think is the better deal).
As for the "_thousands of bugs_", it's the most bug-free office suite on the market. Maybe that's not saying a lot, but it's saying something.
Err... have you ever *seen* Active Desktop? This is _exactly_ like Active Desktop. Who cares about the technology used to deliver it -- if it's XML, CDF or whatever is irrelevant. My point is, if what you want is live Web pages and headlines floating in individual windows on your desktop, Active Desktop had it years ago and it sucked. I was never worried about ActiveX controls "bashing" my machine... I just never see my desktop b/c it's covered with windows all day (like most people, I presume).
So my question should be: how is this technology any more useful than Active Desktop?
I can't really figure out how RSS is much different from MS's now-defunct Active Desktop. Same principle: Java or HTML windows with headlines from various sits (CNet, ESPN) that updated throughout the day?
What's the big innovation here? Most of the world realized this was a stupid idea two years ago.
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I'd be willing to bet that the number of "careers and even lives that have been ruined by Microsoft's ruthless oppression" is vastly outnumbered by the number of people who are gainfully employed every day using Microsoft products to get their job done.
That's 90-plus percent of the computer-using world.
You may not like their products, but many, many, MANY companies and individuals make their living thanks to MS.
Put another way, how many lives and companies have been destroyed because they couldn't make any money building and supporting open source software?
As far as the cost of Word, etc. You should probably find a different place to shop... Buy.com has Word 2000, Works, Money, Encarta, Streets and Trips and Picture It for $89. To look at that and say that software prices haven't fallen is to live in deep denial.
You're absolutely wrong... MS-DOS + Windows 3.X costs about the same as Windows 2000 and more than Windows 98/Me. There were no increases in cost from Windows 3.1 --> Windows 95 --> Windows 98 --> Windows Me. Windows 2000 is a whole different code base anyway.
Before you consider that an absurd comparison, compare the cost of hard drive space or CPU speed or graphics cards over time. Somehow it's expected that the hard drives and CPUs get cheaper as they do more, but the OS doesn't?
That's an easy one... the cost of manufacturing hardware has dropped dramatically... the cost of producing memory, hard drives, you name it, has gone down considerably. The cost of good programmers, however, has gone up. That's why you don't see the difference in cost.
MS has raised prices as they've gained a monopoly, and only an apologist or someone who is completely ignorant of economics couldn't see that.
That's just not true. Six years ago, the cost of Word and Wordperfect was some $350. Today, you can get Word, Works, Streets and Trips and Encarta for less than $100. Office is around $300 for a new copy and less for an upgrade.
Give me an example where MS has gained a "monopoly" (though many, many people on this site seem to have found another option) and raised prices. The instances where prices have been raised are very few and far between.
Do the Pepsi challenge: 160kbps MP3 vs. 160kbps WMA file... I'll take the WMA almost every time. Point at any sites you want, but I trust my ears.
This is one of those rare contests where each competitor is equally crafty and rich. Seems likely that the consumer will be the ultimate benefactor (since none of the three consoles are likely to die out anytime soon like cash-strapped Sega's Dreamcast).
I'd be very surprised if they don't supply the ability to play MP3s, just to satiate consumer demand, though I'm sure WMA is the "preferred" codec. Heck, it's a better codec anyway, but that's for a different discussion. :-)
Win2k can use type one fonts just fine with no third-party type manager. Just drop them in the fonts folder. Do your research, chief.
Not that I'm the world's biggest fan of WMA, but if someone was recording songs for his own use, and can get better sound quality than MP3 at a much lower bitrate, what's the incentive to use MP3 at all?
And I'm not talking about any kind of cockamamie "one day they'll show up at your door and tell you that you need a license key" talk... I mean technically. If WMA is smaller and sounds better (and is supported by most audio players and CD writing software), what's so wrong with it?
As for the OEM issue, that's an adjustment I guess they had to make, but we're not talking about the difference between their business surviving and not surviving there.
Fact is, Netscape created the situation (giving away the browser) that ultimately they blamed on MS. If they had a good, slim, up-to-date browser (a la Opera), they could still sell it. They don't, so they can't.
It's easy to forget that people had stopped paying for Netscape LONG before IE became a freebie. Of the millions of Netscape downloads before IE 3 (the first viable version of that browser), I'd be willing to bet that the percentage of those copies of Navigator actually purchased and paid for was in the single digits. The browser was never a viable revenue stream for Netscape (though, ironically, it seems to be for Opera).
Besides, if the open source model really works, Netscape should be able to make a superior, more bug-free version faster, give it away for free, and charge for the support and/or distribution media.
Right?
The 128 Megs "required" is Apple's term, probably because, as you said, you need 128 megs to run Classic.
So, yes, if you have no desire to run Word, Excel, Photoshop, Illustrator or any of the other pieces of software that make owning a computer worthwhile, you can squeak by on 64MB.
To actually use the thing, you do need 128MB.
In what dimension are you paying $700 for Office Professional? Staples has it for somewhere around $179 (that's 9 months worth of Red Hat bugfixes... which do you think is the better deal).
As for the "_thousands of bugs_", it's the most bug-free office suite on the market. Maybe that's not saying a lot, but it's saying something.
Err... have you ever *seen* Active Desktop? This is _exactly_ like Active Desktop. Who cares about the technology used to deliver it -- if it's XML, CDF or whatever is irrelevant. My point is, if what you want is live Web pages and headlines floating in individual windows on your desktop, Active Desktop had it years ago and it sucked. I was never worried about ActiveX controls "bashing" my machine... I just never see my desktop b/c it's covered with windows all day (like most people, I presume). So my question should be: how is this technology any more useful than Active Desktop?
I can't really figure out how RSS is much different from MS's now-defunct Active Desktop. Same principle: Java or HTML windows with headlines from various sits (CNet, ESPN) that updated throughout the day?
What's the big innovation here? Most of the world realized this was a stupid idea two years ago.