Microsoft had been convicted on pretty much all counts and was facing the prospect of some pretty grim (and effective) remedies.
This is the classic incorrect version of the story parroted by fools who get their information from Slashdot posts. In reality, the appeals court threw out much of the judgement againt Microsoft:
The D.C. Circuit remanded the case for consideration of a proper remedy for "drastically altered scope of liability"
they would do the next best thing and surrender via "a settlement".
The Clinton administration repeatedly tried to settle the case, and the Gore adminisration would have done likewise. Bush probably did go a little easier than the democrats would have however. I am absolutely not a Bush defender, just fighting against moronic conspiracy theories put forward by ignorant people.
Has the State involvement in this issue achieved anything?
Mainly restrictions on MS's behavior with OEMs:
+ Dell and other OEMs can now load up their machines with RealPlayer, Firefox, Googlebar, etc without worrying about losing their Windows contract. + You can buy Linux or other alt-OS machines from major OEMs -- these were very scarse before the trial. + In theory, all OEMs have the same pricing, so MS can't threaten them with removing the special dicounts.
That's not very much, but it hits on the core issue of MS's monopoly strategy by preventing them "cutting off the airsupply" to non-MS software.
You can change the shell in Windows simply by altering a registry key. (it is HCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell). In fact, up unti XP, Windows shipped with two shells (Explorer and Program Manager).
A policy, I would maintain, that came about as a direct result of keeping up with Apple, who dazzled people with their easy-open G3 tower back in the day.)
You're confusing things. Screws started to disappear years before the G3 (even from Macs). IBM sold many screwless PS/2 machines. My Mac LC had no screws. The Hinged door thing, OTOH, has been copied somewhat by Dell and others.
At least around here, the announcers tend to say things like "You are listening to National Public Radio [Callsign]. Up next is Marketplace." It is an understandable mistake.
Meanwhile back in the real world, my non-technical friend was complaining about her iMac G5 being "slow".
I suppose one could stick a few hundred bucks worth of memory and disk into an iBook G3 and *maybe* get a decent user experience out of it But IMO anyone used to a faster computer would not find these machines acceptable for anything more than light websurfing, especially in the usual configurations.
Very few OEM PCs use screws anymore. Latches and Doors are pretty much standard. I don't disagree with your assertation about "haX0rs", but I do believe that Apple wanted to make it more difficult for Joe Mac to use non-Apple RAM in the things.
as the two Mac models available in 1985 were both available for under $3000 USD
1985 was the failed "computer for everyone" period. After cheap Macs failed to sell, Apple moved the systems upmarket with the Mac II. These were intentionally very expensive (because they were very much better than PCs).
I think if you look at the history over all, Apple has never had a consistant policy about competing with PCs on price. Sometimes they have (Performas, original iMac, original iBook), and they've sold a lot of machines. Othertimes they haven't (recent G4 period).
I'd be willing to bet that Samba doesn't allow more than one computer to have the same file open at a time, for one thing, while some other distributed filesystem would.
Samba supports the standard PC distributed record locking used by Novell/IBM/Microsoft/etc since the beginning of time. (Think shared Access DBs.)
Um, Apple WAS the early PC market, and you built it yourself.
There has always been "commodity component" PCs based on the Altair 8080/S-100 Bus design that predated any Apple or IBM. The IBM PC didn't create this market, it only helped standardize it. Modularity is the bedrock foundation of the PC Market going back to even it's hacker roots.
Aside from trivialities about the Apple I, Apple has always been involved in the "whole widget" side of the business (practically inventing it), and not the commodity component side. At least not until this year when they've basically embrased the demon of the standard Intel motherboard.
Am I the only one who can't understand why newfound "Intel Apple fans" are the only ones thrilled about running Windows ?!?
By coming out with BootCamp, "Big Brother" said it's OK to run Windows, so the Happy Citizens are just expressing their united glee at the Great Leader's wisdom and tolerance.
If BootCamp were to disappear, running Windows would return to ThoughtCrime status, and all mention of this period would be deleted from the Mac history books, much like the PowerMac 6100/DOS has been relegated to trival obscurity.
(I know it's flamebait, no need to mod me as such.)
I'm not denying that UE sells, but I question if Apple has even defined UE correctly for the long-term trends in the market. Compatibility is part of the User Experience.
For example, just carrying a cellphone is a better "user experience" than having both cellphone + iPod. iTMS? Better buy a special Cingular cellphone or live with the poorer UE. [Of course the cell companies are even bigger bastards than Apple about this stuff.]
How about your car? Wouldn't it be better to just push a button and transfer all your music to your BMW directly from your PC? That's the future. But Apple's UE is to take the iPod and plug it into the car. In this case the iPod is the obsolete "Electric Motor" and iTMS popularity is possibly restricting the better UE.
I think it's inevitable that the iPod/Mac analogy will play out over time, where Apple defined UE in terms of the desktop with the Mac and forgot all about UE in terms of the network.
> Really? So you use Safari to browse your filesystem, huh?
Do you actually think one uses IE to browse their hard drive, HUH? Well, you are incorrect. Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer are two different programs integrated on the component level using libraries.
> Microsoft tends to take the opposite approach. Outlook does contacts, calendar and mail. Explorer does...everything?
You're confusing things. The fact that Outlook does 8 things is an application design issue, not a technical issue with how the OS is put together. Groupware customers want "all in one". Maybe you don't, but who cares.
Your response is just petulant nitpicking and ignores the facts in my orignal post. One can't easily replace Spotlight with a different search program. You can't replace Apple's address book with MS Office's and expect it to work. These are not easily replacable components, they are all designed to be tied together.
even the g3 run better than my athlon xp 3000 with windows
Statements like this are so off the wall, they really tell you nothing more than "I've Drank the Kook-Aid!!" The reality is that the vast majority of 3Ghz PC users would find an old G3 iBook to be unacceptably sluggish and difficult to use.
For iTMS, I think this electric motor analogy stinks -- For the same reason that comparing pirating MP3s is not the same as stealing CDs from the store. Mossberg is arguing that the user-experience factors outweigh the (potential) network factors. Electric motor are used the way they are for cost reasons, not user experience.
It's all just software, there's no physical restriction which confines you to the "end-to-end" model. Apple's Good User Experience and Apple's Closed DRM Format are mutually exclusive IMO. In fact Apple is going with a closed format because they know that UE can't sell forever and eventually there's going to be "good enough" alternatives eventually.
I don't really care about iTMS, because for most people music is cheap and disposable. But keep in mind that right now people have two digital music players (PC and iPod), and iTMS seems like a great idea. In the near future, your Car/Phone/TV/HD-DVD/Microwave/etc will all play digital music, and people are going want the network effects more than the user-experience.
Your post seems very off-base, so much so, I wonder if you even use a Macintosh.
From the user interface, Apple does not provide any way to remove or replace [Dashboard|Finder|Spotlight|Dock]. Yes, there's hacks to change these things, but similar things exist on Windows as well. All of this is very tightly integrated from the User's POV and not "removeable and replaceable".
On a technical level [Dashboard|Finder|Spotlight|Safari|Dock] are very integrated into system libraries and share a lot of code. Just like [IE|Explorer|Outlook|ActiveDesktop] on Windows. If there's any significant architectural difference between how IE works on Windows and how Safari works on OS X, I'd like to hear about it.
Very romanticized, but check your watch, it's not 1994 anymore. The "community" is now mostly a community of corporate interests, and that is where virtually all of the substantial Linux development is going on.
The main reason RedHat can make money is that they can develop, integrate, and support features much faster than the community distros can. And that tends to game the development processes in favor of the payware folks.
Sure -- system level features (NPTL, SELinux) tend to show up in RedHat years before Debian. For a lot of Linux development, the community distros are "downstream" from the commercial ones.
Slashdot Mirror
This is the classic incorrect version of the story parroted by fools who get their information from Slashdot posts. In reality, the appeals court threw out much of the judgement againt Microsoft:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_antitrust_
they would do the next best thing and surrender via "a settlement".
The Clinton administration repeatedly tried to settle the case, and the Gore adminisration would have done likewise. Bush probably did go a little easier than the democrats would have however. I am absolutely not a Bush defender, just fighting against moronic conspiracy theories put forward by ignorant people.
Has the State involvement in this issue achieved anything?
Mainly restrictions on MS's behavior with OEMs:
+ Dell and other OEMs can now load up their machines with RealPlayer, Firefox, Googlebar, etc without worrying about losing their Windows contract.
+ You can buy Linux or other alt-OS machines from major OEMs -- these were very scarse before the trial.
+ In theory, all OEMs have the same pricing, so MS can't threaten them with removing the special dicounts.
That's not very much, but it hits on the core issue of MS's monopoly strategy by preventing them "cutting off the airsupply" to non-MS software.
It's doable, much more so than in Windows.
You can change the shell in Windows simply by altering a registry key. (it is HCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell). In fact, up unti XP, Windows shipped with two shells (Explorer and Program Manager).
For my public radio station, you are wrong.
And neither is trying to draw any conclusions about Apple based on the Apple I.
A policy, I would maintain, that came about as a direct result of keeping up with Apple, who dazzled people with their easy-open G3 tower back in the day.)
You're confusing things. Screws started to disappear years before the G3 (even from Macs). IBM sold many screwless PS/2 machines. My Mac LC had no screws. The Hinged door thing, OTOH, has been copied somewhat by Dell and others.
Sounds like you're too busy wackin it to the Apple logo to understand the point.
At least around here, the announcers tend to say things like "You are listening to National Public Radio [Callsign]. Up next is Marketplace." It is an understandable mistake.
It's UNIX Method #528 -- Having a bad User Interface.
Meanwhile back in the real world, my non-technical friend was complaining about her iMac G5 being "slow".
I suppose one could stick a few hundred bucks worth of memory and disk into an iBook G3 and *maybe* get a decent user experience out of it But IMO anyone used to a faster computer would not find these machines acceptable for anything more than light websurfing, especially in the usual configurations.
Very few OEM PCs use screws anymore. Latches and Doors are pretty much standard. I don't disagree with your assertation about "haX0rs", but I do believe that Apple wanted to make it more difficult for Joe Mac to use non-Apple RAM in the things.
as the two Mac models available in 1985 were both available for under $3000 USD
1985 was the failed "computer for everyone" period. After cheap Macs failed to sell, Apple moved the systems upmarket with the Mac II. These were intentionally very expensive (because they were very much better than PCs).
I think if you look at the history over all, Apple has never had a consistant policy about competing with PCs on price. Sometimes they have (Performas, original iMac, original iBook), and they've sold a lot of machines. Othertimes they haven't (recent G4 period).
I'd be willing to bet that Samba doesn't allow more than one computer to have the same file open at a time, for one thing, while some other distributed filesystem would.
Samba supports the standard PC distributed record locking used by Novell/IBM/Microsoft/etc since the beginning of time. (Think shared Access DBs.)
Um, Apple WAS the early PC market, and you built it yourself.
There has always been "commodity component" PCs based on the Altair 8080/S-100 Bus design that predated any Apple or IBM. The IBM PC didn't create this market, it only helped standardize it. Modularity is the bedrock foundation of the PC Market going back to even it's hacker roots.
Aside from trivialities about the Apple I, Apple has always been involved in the "whole widget" side of the business (practically inventing it), and not the commodity component side. At least not until this year when they've basically embrased the demon of the standard Intel motherboard.
Am I the only one who can't understand why newfound "Intel Apple fans" are the only ones thrilled about running Windows ?!?
By coming out with BootCamp, "Big Brother" said it's OK to run Windows, so the Happy Citizens are just expressing their united glee at the Great Leader's wisdom and tolerance.
If BootCamp were to disappear, running Windows would return to ThoughtCrime status, and all mention of this period would be deleted from the Mac history books, much like the PowerMac 6100/DOS has been relegated to trival obscurity.
(I know it's flamebait, no need to mod me as such.)
I'm not denying that UE sells, but I question if Apple has even defined UE correctly for the long-term trends in the market. Compatibility is part of the User Experience.
For example, just carrying a cellphone is a better "user experience" than having both cellphone + iPod. iTMS? Better buy a special Cingular cellphone or live with the poorer UE. [Of course the cell companies are even bigger bastards than Apple about this stuff.]
How about your car? Wouldn't it be better to just push a button and transfer all your music to your BMW directly from your PC? That's the future. But Apple's UE is to take the iPod and plug it into the car. In this case the iPod is the obsolete "Electric Motor" and iTMS popularity is possibly restricting the better UE.
I think it's inevitable that the iPod/Mac analogy will play out over time, where Apple defined UE in terms of the desktop with the Mac and forgot all about UE in terms of the network.
> Really? So you use Safari to browse your filesystem, huh?
Do you actually think one uses IE to browse their hard drive, HUH? Well, you are incorrect. Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer are two different programs integrated on the component level using libraries.
> Microsoft tends to take the opposite approach. Outlook does contacts, calendar and mail. Explorer does...everything?
You're confusing things. The fact that Outlook does 8 things is an application design issue, not a technical issue with how the OS is put together. Groupware customers want "all in one". Maybe you don't, but who cares.
Your response is just petulant nitpicking and ignores the facts in my orignal post. One can't easily replace Spotlight with a different search program. You can't replace Apple's address book with MS Office's and expect it to work. These are not easily replacable components, they are all designed to be tied together.
At no extra cost, Apple could have made the Mini serviceable without tools. It might not be difficult, but Apple intentionally didn't make it easy.
even the g3 run better than my athlon xp 3000 with windows
Statements like this are so off the wall, they really tell you nothing more than "I've Drank the Kook-Aid!!" The reality is that the vast majority of 3Ghz PC users would find an old G3 iBook to be unacceptably sluggish and difficult to use.
For iTMS, I think this electric motor analogy stinks -- For the same reason that comparing pirating MP3s is not the same as stealing CDs from the store. Mossberg is arguing that the user-experience factors outweigh the (potential) network factors. Electric motor are used the way they are for cost reasons, not user experience.
It's all just software, there's no physical restriction which confines you to the "end-to-end" model. Apple's Good User Experience and Apple's Closed DRM Format are mutually exclusive IMO. In fact Apple is going with a closed format because they know that UE can't sell forever and eventually there's going to be "good enough" alternatives eventually.
I don't really care about iTMS, because for most people music is cheap and disposable. But keep in mind that right now people have two digital music players (PC and iPod), and iTMS seems like a great idea. In the near future, your Car/Phone/TV/HD-DVD/Microwave/etc will all play digital music, and people are going want the network effects more than the user-experience.
Your post seems very off-base, so much so, I wonder if you even use a Macintosh.
From the user interface, Apple does not provide any way to remove or replace [Dashboard|Finder|Spotlight|Dock]. Yes, there's hacks to change these things, but similar things exist on Windows as well. All of this is very tightly integrated from the User's POV and not "removeable and replaceable".
On a technical level [Dashboard|Finder|Spotlight|Safari|Dock] are very integrated into system libraries and share a lot of code. Just like [IE|Explorer|Outlook|ActiveDesktop] on Windows. If there's any significant architectural difference between how IE works on Windows and how Safari works on OS X, I'd like to hear about it.
Hey it's not every day I get called both a Microsoft Stooge and a Linux Kumbahya Zealot. I must be doing something right :)
Very romanticized, but check your watch, it's not 1994 anymore. The "community" is now mostly a community of corporate interests, and that is where virtually all of the substantial Linux development is going on.
The main reason RedHat can make money is that they can develop, integrate, and support features much faster than the community distros can. And that tends to game the development processes in favor of the payware folks.
Sure -- system level features (NPTL, SELinux) tend to show up in RedHat years before Debian. For a lot of Linux development, the community distros are "downstream" from the commercial ones.
Wait -- HTML3.2 is better than CSS for "down-level" browsers? We were lied to!