For all of your who live in Arizona, I have one suggestion. VOTE! If all of the college students who think this is a really stupid idea vote when this state senator comes up for reelection, it would likely spell the end of her political career, and send a message to anyone else with ideas like these. If you don't like it, vote her out of office. Considering the percentage of the populous that actually votes, a large number of college students suddenly getting politically active would likely make a significant difference. Spread the word to students in her district, and do something about it.
This bill sounds like a horrible attempt to keep adults from using resources they pay for to research whatever they please. Internet access in dorms is not a state supplied resource, such as the phone line in the Congresswoman's office. The student pays for tuition and housing. Yes, the state does pay for a portion of the costs, but only for in state students.
The idea of preventing this so called misuse of public resources is a farce. The cost of implementing and managing filtering would likely outweigh any cost savings.
Where does ligitemate student research of medical issues come into play. Who decides what sites should be blocked. The software that's available is meant to block sites that are inappropriate for children. College students are adults! College students are there to learn.
The idea of banning men from visiting women's dorm rooms and vice versa is even more rediculus. What are they going to do about homosexuals? Ban them from the dorms?
I understand filtering internet access in primary and secondary schools. Those students are minors, and the school has a responsibility to make a reasonable attempt to not provide material the parents wouldn't approve of. However, when children become adults, they are supposed to have the right to make decisions for themselves. If mommy and daddy want to have someone watch over their young adults, and make sure they aren't doing anything they don't approve of, there are numerous private schools which provide a more controlled environment. The government should not be stepping in and censoring what adult students can see or do. I understand that pregnancy among freshmen girls is a serious problem, but banning dorm room visitation is an overly draconian solution. At what point do we teach people they are responsible for their actions.
The internet is an exelent source of information of all kinds. These young people should have the chance to form their own opinions and make their own, informed decisions.
Preliminary Injunctions are only granted if there is evidence that the case will likely succeed.
The industry is arguing that people distributing DeCSS are violating copyright law.
A provision of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act forbids distribution of products designed to crack copyright protection schemes, the studios argued.
While it may be true that you can't do much with illicit DVD's right now, the industry was kind of planning on using the format for a while. It won't be long until recordable media will be availble that can handle files of this size, and internet bandwidth will grow over time.
If people really want a Linux DVD player they could work with a licensed vendor to create Linux DVD software. It wouldn't be open source, and you'd have to pay for it, but it would be availble. Instead, we have a crack which is likley illegal in the US at least.
SSA seems to be dying off. Some of the technology seems to be getting integrated into some of the Fibre Channel specs. Most of the Fibre Channel RAID I've dealt with either use SCSI internally, and have a Fibre Channel interface, or use Fibre Channel drives internally.
We had a lot of problems with WD IDE drives in the 4.3 GB range. There's not much like the sound of a drive spindle failing to ruing your day. After having two go out on me within a year, I don't buy WD anymore.
If I own a resteraunt can I just deny a certain class of people let's just say anyone I want from comming in?
In a public place you can't just discriminate against people, but there are rules. Resteraunts can have dress codes. You aren't likely to get served in one without a shirt or shoes for example. There are also rules for conduct. Try dancing on the table in most resteraunts and you'll likely be asked/forced to leave.
USENET has it's own rules. They exhist so that USENET remains usefull for the vast majority of people. Challanges to their right to enforce their rules have already failed, see the FAQ. If your ISP won't play nice and gets UDP'd, then you have an issue with your ISP. Take it up with them. It's their fault you can't access USENET. Don't whine to the thousands of administrators which are just trying to keep USENET usefull for themselfves and their customers. They're only doing what they have to do.
And if you're whining because you're one of the spammers, and you're complaining because you're about to get booted. You've likely violated your service agreement, as well as cost your ISP a significant amount of money (If only the cost of tracking you down and dealing with you). I hope they sue you.
The real problem I see with splitting Microsoft into several Baby Bills is that it's impossible to split up Microsoft's resources into seperate but equal companies. This isn't Ma Bell where there are physical boundries. Microsoft's greatest assets are their employees, and the government can't just tell the employees that they have to work for a specific company. Either you end up with each Baby Bill lacking essential personel with knowledge in certain areas, or one of them gets the good people, or simply hires them from the others. You can't ban the employees from choosing which company they work for, that would be grossly unfair to them. The company which ended up with the key personel would have a huge advantage.
The next problem is that each Baby Bill will "enhance" their products in different ways. This results in both competition and imcompatibilities. This will be a nightmare for consumers who have been blissfully able to simply buy Software that worked on MS Windows in the past. Big corporations will see their IT costs skyrocket, and will react by standardizing on Baby Bell #2's Windows. The Baby Bells don't even have to play nice. They are no longer Monopolies, Antitrust Laws no longer apply. They tie products together and strongarm OEMs to the best of their abilitys as long as they don't try and cooperate in their efforts.
Forcing Microsoft to auction their source to several different companies has even more problems. The government can't just seize Microsoft's property. They have to be given a fair price for what is taken. Who can afford to pay a fair price for the intelectual property of one of the most properous companies in the world. Don't forget, they have to pay cash. You can't do any stock swapping because that would lead to conflicts of interest. Nobody has that kind of money.
Assuming that I'm wrong, and there are three companies which can afford the price and choose to buy the software, you end up with three companies that get millions of lines of source code which they don't understand. Microsoft retains the employees which wrote and understand the code, and now they have even more billions of dollars to dump into development. It's unlikely you'll companies that think that's a viable business plan.
If you're going to split Microsoft up, it has to be along product lines. Yes, this leaves them with Monopolies in both the OS and Productivity Apps. But in reality, it's quite possible that these are natural monopolies. Having a monopoly is not illegal! Microsoft's crime is in how they abused their Monopoly. The punishment needs to address the crime. Splitting Microsoft along product lines helps keep them from forcing OEMs put both Office and and Windows on every PC they sell. Microsoft's licensing policies and prices would also have to be more open and equitable.
Actually behavioral remedies will likely solve the same problems without splitting up Microsoft. They would have to make Microsoft charge OEMs similar prices, or have set volume discounts. They would also have to change Mrosoft's habbit of forcing an OEMs to pay for Windows for every PC they produce wether they load Windows on it or not.
There is a problem that behaviorable remedies won't solve. If you don't split up Microsoft, Office will always be tied to Windows. By tying Office to Windows Microsoft is able to offer innovations they couldn't otherwise add, so it's possible that this isn't such a bad thing for a large percentage of consumers. There is also the issue that the government's case really didn't deal with abuses resulting form Microsoft abusing their monopoly in the application market. Since the case didn't cover it, why is the remedy trying to punish it. I'm not saying the abuses don't exhist, I'm just saying that Microsoft did't receive a trial on those abuses yet, so they shouldn't be punished for them until they get a fair trial.
Actually, moving to Linux seems like an exelent method of gaining 3rd party developers. It also goes a long way toward solving their SDK problem. Another problem is that their product isn't that well known. I see them in stores, but don't hear about them in the press. Moving to Linux should get them a good amount of free marketing. Now if they can deliver a solid, usable product, then they might even grab some market share from Palm in the long run. It'll likely depend on how much software becomes available for it.
I used DR-DOS, and it seemed to be better than MS-DOS. It made better use of memory. But when I went to MS-DOS, to load Window of course, I never really missed it. As things moved to Windows, and squeezing things into 640K became less of an issue, DR-DOS's benefits kind of disappeared in my opinion.
I used DR-DOS, and have to say that it was better than MS-DOS. Although the disk compression software (Stacker) crashed and destroyed the contents of my hard drive, in general it was a better product than DOS. However, for most users, the benefits to DR-DOS just weren't very significant. If a clone product wants to gain significant market share, it has to be significantly better than the product they are cloning. DR-DOS added small features, or bundled free software such as Stacker, but Microsoft was the one who made evloutionary changes. There was nothing in DR-DOS I couldn't easily do without, they never created a product that had enough benefits to grow beyond a niche. When the market changed to a graphical interface, they couldn't compete. If Microsoft did do the things Caldera claims, then it was not only unethical, but pointless.
If DR-DOS would have survived what would be different? Windows has brought us benefits such as printer drivers for the OS/Shell, rather than a different driver for each application. Anyone remember DOS Wordperfect Drivers? How would Plug and Play ever have evloved if Microsoft couldn't control the whole package? Microsoft would just have to make the changes, and DR-DOS would be continuously complaining how unfair it is that the PC platform was evolving, and they weren't in control of it. That's the nature of creating a clone product, you're always playing catchup on the standard features, and trying to add features to distinguish yourselves. As long as the leader in the market doesn't sit still, it's almost impossible to ever be more than a niche.
Netware's licensing scheme is relatively expensive, and the seem to be falling behind on the performance curve. A year ago I would have also complained that Netware servers have serious stability problems, but in our case that problem was solved by replacing the administrators.
When you screw Microsoft it's not just BIll Gates you're screwing. Microsoft is a publicly held company. It's part of most of the Mutual Funds most people can choose from in their 401K plans. So I'd like to point out that a lot of morally lacking people just legally stole money from the retirement funds of millions of individuals. Justify it however you please, taking advantage of this reduces you to the level of an ambulance chaseing lawyer.
They may not do releases as often, or a quickly as you'd like, but they do release the source. If you'd like to write install scripts, jump in and help.
How can you be sure it was a clerical error until you've recovered the package. We are talking about a million dollar prototype. They'd have to take every precaution to make sure the person shipping it didn't do it on purpose, and someone wasn't trying to steal the technology. After they've recovered the prototype, and the whole story is known, it's obvious that it was a clerical error. I doubt it seemed that obvious to Microsoft at the time they called the cops.
Yes, I used computers back then. And I can't say I've seen any improvement now compared to then. We still have a different file format for every word processor, Wordperfect, StarOffice, Applix, AbiWord, Kword, Word 95, Word 97, Word 2000, MS Works. Notice the last four apps? These are all MS apps and yet all incompatible. I don't see how splitting Office into 4 different companies could possibly make it worse then it already is. Instead I see those four companies doing their best to keep current compatibility and to set the standard for others to follow.
After thinking about it a bit more and remembering all the problems I've dealt with regarding Word 95 and Word 97 incompatabilities, I retract my earlier statment that things are in general more compatible now than they were.
This case is all about the consumer. It has nothing to do with Sun, or Linux, or Netscape, or Apple, other then they happen to try to provide innovation that Microsoft denied the consumer.
I dare anyone to deny my conclusions.
I don't disagree that this case is about the consumer, or hold any belief that Microsoft is somehow an innocent victum in all of this. They have harmed consumers, and the government needs to find a remedy.
Maybe I'm just paranoid, but throughout the case the government seemed to be more concerned with how Microsoft harmed competitors than with how they harmed consumers. My concern is that the remedy the government forces apon Microsoft will solve the problem by forcing Microsoft to stop innovating.
If Microsoft loses control of their APIs and can no longer decide how their OS will change and evolve, they will stagnate. Microsoft's OS's will lost the ability to improve their interfaces and APIs. That really doesn't benefit consumers. There are other remedies which will benefit consumers, but now inhibit Microsoft's ability to compete fairly.
If Microsoft has a natural monopoly, should the govenment be trying to break the monopoly, or simply trying to find a way to keep them from using that monopoly power illegally. The answer in an antitrust suit should be whatever is best for consumers. I think that breaking up Microsoft will in the end be painful and expensive for consumers, and likely just make way for a new monopoly. The government needs to keep microsoft form using their power unfairly, and then let the consumer decide what is best for them.
Have you every worked with a "standards group? Standards groups are usually formed by representatives of different companies which have a very diverse set of interests. By the time a standare gets hashed out for anything years often pass, and the result is often a set of features and interfaces which no one is really happy with. For somewhat mature products, standardization works pretty well, but it really hampers innovation.
A stable and consistent interface is great for application developers, but it ties the hands of the OS developers.
Even if you just force Microsoft to publish all of their APIs, they'll spend all of their time and resources in court. Since Microsoft is a monopoly, anything they do which goes against the settlement would result in tripple dammages. It's more profitable for companies to develop software that breaks the APIs and sue that to write software that works. Microsoft wouldn't be able to do anything without getting drug into court.
They change an API so they can implement some new feature. Competitors which used the old API sue.
They quit supporting old API calls they haven't used in years. Competitors which used the old API sue.
A bug gets introduced in an API call as software gets updated (bugs do exhist in software). Competitor screams that Microsoft deliberately made that API call not work and sues.
A competitor uses a API call in a way Microsoft never expected or tested and it doesn't work. Competitor sues.
A competitor writes crappy buggy software, can't find the bugs themselves, blames it on Microsoft, and sues.
There's got to be a solution that helps consumers, not lawyers.
Sorry, but I have to disagree with you. Let me address your reasoning point by point.
1. There will be no more forced bundling on OEM's, which will result in better usuability, and less support problems for consumers. (Here I would note the proper bullets from the FoF, but unfortunately, I don't have them handy:( )
Yes, splitting the company would likely stop the forced bundling, but the government can require Microsoft to stop their bundling process without splitting them up. The government shouldn't force structual changes on a company unless there are clear benefits to the consumer which couldn't be addressed by less drastic measures.
2. Lower prices for consumers. This means that consumers would have more money to spend on other software for their computers. (Again, I'd point out the proper bullet...)
Why would splitting Microsoft necessarily result in lower prices. Windows contains a lot of software which Microsoft licensed from other Vendors. Microsoft pays incredibly low lisencing fees because all the vendors of those technologies are competing to have their software included in Windows. If there are three or four Microsofts, the competion is less fierce, and the licensing fees will be higher. The different Microsofts will try and differentiate their products from each other any way they can and each charge the "revenue maximising price."
3. Better compatibility. Just like cars have a lot of intercompatibility, if Microsoft were broken up, that would, in part force the companies to have compatibility with other products. Right now, if I need to send a document to someone I need to find out what word processor they have, and then try to get it in that format.
Better compatibility? You've got to be kidding me. Did you use a computer in the late 80's when Microsoft had a lot more competion in the Word processor arena? Compatibility was a joke. It's actually much better now. THe different Microsofts will want to differentiate their products from one another. This isn't open source software. The goal of the different Microsofts will be to make the most money for their stockholders. In order to do that they are going to take every oppertunity to say our OS does this and theirs doesn't. Compatibility is a secondary concern. The upside of that is that compatability is often a hinderance to innovation.
4. You get the idea. Splitting up the company will force them to have different practices, thereby benefitting consumers.
Splitting them up will cause them to have different practices, but different isn't always better. I think most people will agree that Microsoft has done some underhanded and illegal practices in the past. I however don't believe that those actions were the determining factors in them acheiving their current monopoly. The average user, and any large IT department doesn't want to deal with multiple OSs. They want to standardize on somthing and use it. Unlees innovations are considerably better, people don't want to spend the time and effort to learn something different. I can say from past experience that supporting multiple OSs is a nighmare for an IT department. The benefits are only worth the costs in a few cases. If there are four versions of Windows, the large corporate IT departments will standardize on one of them for their use. The number of choices will slowly shrink, and one company will end up with most the market share. The only way an underdog can change the market is to have a product which is precieved as exceptionally better, or for the market to change drastically. ie. The web browser becomes the universal interface, or everything goes to wireless, handheld devices.
Another reason I don't like the idea of splitting up Microsoft is the question of who gets the employees? There isn't exactly and unlimited supply of skilled software engineers right now. If you split up the company into four you end up with 1/4 the resources for each to develop the product, which means less innoration, as well and likly less stable products.
Despite all this, I think the justice department and the states will try and split up Microsoft. When it comes down to it, simple remidies which address the actuall problems just aren't going to advance the political careers of the AGs as much as a bold, drastic solution. I don't think the AGs really understand the problem, or know how to solve it. Since they don't know how to solve the problem, they'll do what's politically best for them, and I doubt they'll have any problem finding consultants which will be able to justify whatever they decide to do, that's what many consultants are paid to do, and there's no shortage of people that are good at it.
Before you support the government splitting up Microsoft, think about wether you really like the idea of the government shuffling around the computer industry whenever a bunch of competing companies clash. The government is supposed to be looking after consumers, not helping out competitors because they can't compete, and some of their features are better, and customers should have the benefit of those features (which of course they patented so no one else can use them). Microsoft's done some bad things, but it seems like the government's cures are worse than the disease.
CD's didn't catch on instantly either, but after a year or so the systems became affordable, and people started buying them. DVD audio will start out as an audiophile's toy, but the price will drop, and high quality surround sound audio will be accessable to the masses. Cars will start to come with DVD audio players as standard. The costs of the development of the format/encryprion/hardware will be spread out over millions of units sold. DVD audio is a superior format, and eventually the cost won't be significantly higher than what we pay for CD audio. If you don't think there's any benefit to DVD audio, fine, don't buy a player. Or if you're like me, and it's not important enough to you to purchase until the price goes down, wait.
As for the copy protection, I think it's a waste of the industry's time and resources. Copy protection has been tried many times in the past, and people have always found ways around it. Some of the methods have been legal, others haven't. The software industry has come to the conclusion that the copy protection just isn't worth the effort. Hopefully the recording industry will eventually learn the same lesson, and quit trying to sell me three coppies on every album I buy (home, work, car), even though copyright law allows me to make coppies for my own personal use.
Unfortunately, the recording industry hasn't learned that I'm going to find a way to make a copy for my personal use wether they like it or not, and unless they convince congress to make it illegal, and convince an AG to prosecute me, they're really just wasting their time and money. Their copy protection methods won't significantly slow down large scale pirating operations where there's enough money involved for the criminals to find a efficent way to avoid the protections. They're much better off spending their money lobying the government to find and prosecute those criminals, or hire private investigatiors to find them. They're just wasting their money and continueing the PR nightmare which comes from accusing basically every one of their customers of being a thief. They also haven't seemed to learn that if you reasonably honest people thieves often enough, a lot of them will no longer feel any remorse in stealing from you.
The best solution to companies like this is to not buy their products. The fact that Nintendo is using their chip in their next generation console makes this decision a little harder for some people, but I'm not much for console games anyway.
I have to agree that for most applications using the keyboard is faster than using the mouse once you've gotten past a certain learning curve. However, most Windows Apps allow you to use the keyboard too, although it's often harder to find out what the appropriate keystrokes are.
For a lot of users they perform a lot of tasks occasionally, and for those tasks it's usually faster for them to learn a Windows-like interface. I work with UNIX much less than NT, and I always find it hard to look around and find the right text file to modify to do something in UNIX, but I can usually figure out how to do something in NT, unless I have to directly modify the NT registry. I'd rather search through text files in UNIX (which might even have comments in them if I'm lucky) than screw around in NT's registry.
I still think it's easier for the non-geek to learn to do things in Windows than on *NIX systems, but I also don't have any experience with Linux, and the Window managers I keep hearing are making it much more user friendly.
As long as they are considered a religion, no one will mess with them. The Constitution protects freedom of religion, and Scientology has got a lot of money to spend on lawyers and propoganda.
Writes shouldn't take significantly longer than reads. I work with Fibre Channel, and the throughput numbers I get for raw reads and writes (no file systems) aren't significantly different. If you have a good raid controller, it should be able to keep the drives busy on both reads and writes as long as the file system is writing data in large enough blocks.
Counting how many times a file was downloaded for free is different from counting how many $ people spent to buy the Linux version of the software. Since they aren't comming out at the same exact time it's not ideal, but I doubt there's a more acurate way for them to determine how many people are willing to spend money on a Linux version.
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For all of your who live in Arizona, I have one suggestion. VOTE! If all of the college students who think this is a really stupid idea vote when this state senator comes up for reelection, it would likely spell the end of her political career, and send a message to anyone else with ideas like these. If you don't like it, vote her out of office. Considering the percentage of the populous that actually votes, a large number of college students suddenly getting politically active would likely make a significant difference. Spread the word to students in her district, and do something about it.
This bill sounds like a horrible attempt to keep adults from using resources they pay for to research whatever they please. Internet access in dorms is not a state supplied resource, such as the phone line in the Congresswoman's office. The student pays for tuition and housing. Yes, the state does pay for a portion of the costs, but only for in state students.
The idea of preventing this so called misuse of public resources is a farce. The cost of implementing and managing filtering would likely outweigh any cost savings.
Where does ligitemate student research of medical issues come into play. Who decides what sites should be blocked. The software that's available is meant to block sites that are inappropriate for children. College students are adults! College students are there to learn.
The idea of banning men from visiting women's dorm rooms and vice versa is even more rediculus. What are they going to do about homosexuals? Ban them from the dorms?
I understand filtering internet access in primary and secondary schools. Those students are minors, and the school has a responsibility to make a reasonable attempt to not provide material the parents wouldn't approve of. However, when children become adults, they are supposed to have the right to make decisions for themselves. If mommy and daddy want to have someone watch over their young adults, and make sure they aren't doing anything they don't approve of, there are numerous private schools which provide a more controlled environment. The government should not be stepping in and censoring what adult students can see or do. I understand that pregnancy among freshmen girls is a serious problem, but banning dorm room visitation is an overly draconian solution. At what point do we teach people they are responsible for their actions.
The internet is an exelent source of information of all kinds. These young people should have the chance to form their own opinions and make their own, informed decisions.
Preliminary Injunctions are only granted if there is evidence that the case will likely succeed.
_ hacking_1.html
The industry is arguing that people distributing DeCSS are violating copyright law.
A provision of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act forbids distribution of products designed to crack copyright protection schemes, the studios argued.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000121/tc/dvd
They may not be able to say that it was illegal to create it, but distributing it may be another issue.
While it may be true that you can't do much with illicit DVD's right now, the industry was kind of planning on using the format for a while. It won't be long until recordable media will be availble that can handle files of this size, and internet bandwidth will grow over time.
If people really want a Linux DVD player they could work with a licensed vendor to create Linux DVD software. It wouldn't be open source, and you'd have to pay for it, but it would be availble. Instead, we have a crack which is likley illegal in the US at least.
SSA seems to be dying off. Some of the technology seems to be getting integrated into some of the Fibre Channel specs. Most of the Fibre Channel RAID I've dealt with either use SCSI internally, and have a Fibre Channel interface, or use Fibre Channel drives internally.
We had a lot of problems with WD IDE drives in the 4.3 GB range. There's not much like the sound of a drive spindle failing to ruing your day. After having two go out on me within a year, I don't buy WD anymore.
If I own a resteraunt can I just deny a certain class of people let's just say anyone I want from comming in?
In a public place you can't just discriminate against people, but there are rules. Resteraunts can have dress codes. You aren't likely to get served in one without a shirt or shoes for example. There are also rules for conduct. Try dancing on the table in most resteraunts and you'll likely be asked/forced to leave.
USENET has it's own rules. They exhist so that USENET remains usefull for the vast majority of people. Challanges to their right to enforce their rules have already failed, see the FAQ. If your ISP won't play nice and gets UDP'd, then you have an issue with your ISP. Take it up with them. It's their fault you can't access USENET. Don't whine to the thousands of administrators which are just trying to keep USENET usefull for themselfves and their customers. They're only doing what they have to do.
And if you're whining because you're one of the spammers, and you're complaining because you're about to get booted. You've likely violated your service agreement, as well as cost your ISP a significant amount of money (If only the cost of tracking you down and dealing with you). I hope they sue you.
The real problem I see with splitting Microsoft into several Baby Bills is that it's impossible to split up Microsoft's resources into seperate but equal companies. This isn't Ma Bell where there are physical boundries. Microsoft's greatest assets are their employees, and the government can't just tell the employees that they have to work for a specific company. Either you end up with each Baby Bill lacking essential personel with knowledge in certain areas, or one of them gets the good people, or simply hires them from the others. You can't ban the employees from choosing which company they work for, that would be grossly unfair to them. The company which ended up with the key personel would have a huge advantage.
The next problem is that each Baby Bill will "enhance" their products in different ways. This results in both competition and imcompatibilities. This will be a nightmare for consumers who have been blissfully able to simply buy Software that worked on MS Windows in the past. Big corporations will see their IT costs skyrocket, and will react by standardizing on Baby Bell #2's Windows. The Baby Bells don't even have to play nice. They are no longer Monopolies, Antitrust Laws no longer apply. They tie products together and strongarm OEMs to the best of their abilitys as long as they don't try and cooperate in their efforts.
Forcing Microsoft to auction their source to several different companies has even more problems. The government can't just seize Microsoft's property. They have to be given a fair price for what is taken. Who can afford to pay a fair price for the intelectual property of one of the most properous companies in the world. Don't forget, they have to pay cash. You can't do any stock swapping because that would lead to conflicts of interest. Nobody has that kind of money.
Assuming that I'm wrong, and there are three companies which can afford the price and choose to buy the software, you end up with three companies that get millions of lines of source code which they don't understand. Microsoft retains the employees which wrote and understand the code, and now they have even more billions of dollars to dump into development. It's unlikely you'll companies that think that's a viable business plan.
If you're going to split Microsoft up, it has to be along product lines. Yes, this leaves them with Monopolies in both the OS and Productivity Apps. But in reality, it's quite possible that these are natural monopolies. Having a monopoly is not illegal! Microsoft's crime is in how they abused their Monopoly. The punishment needs to address the crime. Splitting Microsoft along product lines helps keep them from forcing OEMs put both Office and and Windows on every PC they sell. Microsoft's licensing policies and prices would also have to be more open and equitable.
Actually behavioral remedies will likely solve the same problems without splitting up Microsoft. They would have to make Microsoft charge OEMs similar prices, or have set volume discounts. They would also have to change Mrosoft's habbit of forcing an OEMs to pay for Windows for every PC they produce wether they load Windows on it or not.
There is a problem that behaviorable remedies won't solve. If you don't split up Microsoft, Office will always be tied to Windows. By tying Office to Windows Microsoft is able to offer innovations they couldn't otherwise add, so it's possible that this isn't such a bad thing for a large percentage of consumers. There is also the issue that the government's case really didn't deal with abuses resulting form Microsoft abusing their monopoly in the application market. Since the case didn't cover it, why is the remedy trying to punish it. I'm not saying the abuses don't exhist, I'm just saying that Microsoft did't receive a trial on those abuses yet, so they shouldn't be punished for them until they get a fair trial.
Actually, moving to Linux seems like an exelent method of gaining 3rd party developers. It also goes a long way toward solving their SDK problem. Another problem is that their product isn't that well known. I see them in stores, but don't hear about them in the press. Moving to Linux should get them a good amount of free marketing. Now if they can deliver a solid, usable product, then they might even grab some market share from Palm in the long run. It'll likely depend on how much software becomes available for it.
I used DR-DOS, and it seemed to be better than MS-DOS. It made better use of memory. But when I went to MS-DOS, to load Window of course, I never really missed it. As things moved to Windows, and squeezing things into 640K became less of an issue, DR-DOS's benefits kind of disappeared in my opinion.
I used DR-DOS, and have to say that it was better than MS-DOS. Although the disk compression software (Stacker) crashed and destroyed the contents of my hard drive, in general it was a better product than DOS. However, for most users, the benefits to DR-DOS just weren't very significant. If a clone product wants to gain significant market share, it has to be significantly better than the product they are cloning. DR-DOS added small features, or bundled free software such as Stacker, but Microsoft was the one who made evloutionary changes. There was nothing in DR-DOS I couldn't easily do without, they never created a product that had enough benefits to grow beyond a niche. When the market changed to a graphical interface, they couldn't compete. If Microsoft did do the things Caldera claims, then it was not only unethical, but pointless.
If DR-DOS would have survived what would be different? Windows has brought us benefits such as printer drivers for the OS/Shell, rather than a different driver for each application. Anyone remember DOS Wordperfect Drivers? How would Plug and Play ever have evloved if Microsoft couldn't control the whole package? Microsoft would just have to make the changes, and DR-DOS would be continuously complaining how unfair it is that the PC platform was evolving, and they weren't in control of it. That's the nature of creating a clone product, you're always playing catchup on the standard features, and trying to add features to distinguish yourselves. As long as the leader in the market doesn't sit still, it's almost impossible to ever be more than a niche.
Netware's licensing scheme is relatively expensive, and the seem to be falling behind on the performance curve. A year ago I would have also complained that Netware servers have serious stability problems, but in our case that problem was solved by replacing the administrators.
When you screw Microsoft it's not just BIll Gates you're screwing. Microsoft is a publicly held company. It's part of most of the Mutual Funds most people can choose from in their 401K plans. So I'd like to point out that a lot of morally lacking people just legally stole money from the retirement funds of millions of individuals. Justify it however you please, taking advantage of this reduces you to the level of an ambulance chaseing lawyer.
They may not do releases as often, or a quickly as you'd like, but they do release the source. If you'd like to write install scripts, jump in and help.
How can you be sure it was a clerical error until you've recovered the package. We are talking about a million dollar prototype. They'd have to take every precaution to make sure the person shipping it didn't do it on purpose, and someone wasn't trying to steal the technology. After they've recovered the prototype, and the whole story is known, it's obvious that it was a clerical error. I doubt it seemed that obvious to Microsoft at the time they called the cops.
Yes, I used computers back then. And I can't say I've seen any improvement now compared to then. We still have a different file format for every word processor, Wordperfect, StarOffice, Applix, AbiWord, Kword, Word 95, Word 97, Word 2000, MS Works. Notice the last four apps? These are all MS apps and yet all incompatible. I don't see how splitting Office into 4 different companies could possibly make it worse then it already is. Instead I see those four companies doing their best to keep current compatibility and to set the standard for others to follow.
After thinking about it a bit more and remembering all the problems I've dealt with regarding Word 95 and Word 97 incompatabilities, I retract my earlier statment that things are in general more compatible now than they were.
This case is all about the consumer. It has nothing to do with Sun, or Linux, or Netscape, or Apple, other then they happen to try to provide innovation that Microsoft denied the consumer.
I dare anyone to deny my conclusions.
I don't disagree that this case is about the consumer, or hold any belief that Microsoft is somehow an innocent victum in all of this. They have harmed consumers, and the government needs to find a remedy.
Maybe I'm just paranoid, but throughout the case the government seemed to be more concerned with how Microsoft harmed competitors than with how they harmed consumers. My concern is that the remedy the government forces apon Microsoft will solve the problem by forcing Microsoft to stop innovating.
If Microsoft loses control of their APIs and can no longer decide how their OS will change and evolve, they will stagnate. Microsoft's OS's will lost the ability to improve their interfaces and APIs. That really doesn't benefit consumers. There are other remedies which will benefit consumers, but now inhibit Microsoft's ability to compete fairly.
If Microsoft has a natural monopoly, should the govenment be trying to break the monopoly, or simply trying to find a way to keep them from using that monopoly power illegally. The answer in an antitrust suit should be whatever is best for consumers. I think that breaking up Microsoft will in the end be painful and expensive for consumers, and likely just make way for a new monopoly. The government needs to keep microsoft form using their power unfairly, and then let the consumer decide what is best for them.
Have you every worked with a "standards group? Standards groups are usually formed by representatives of different companies which have a very diverse set of interests. By the time a standare gets hashed out for anything years often pass, and the result is often a set of features and interfaces which no one is really happy with. For somewhat mature products, standardization works pretty well, but it really hampers innovation.
A stable and consistent interface is great for application developers, but it ties the hands of the OS developers.
Even if you just force Microsoft to publish all of their APIs, they'll spend all of their time and resources in court. Since Microsoft is a monopoly, anything they do which goes against the settlement would result in tripple dammages. It's more profitable for companies to develop software that breaks the APIs and sue that to write software that works. Microsoft wouldn't be able to do anything without getting drug into court.
They change an API so they can implement some new feature. Competitors which used the old API sue.
They quit supporting old API calls they haven't used in years. Competitors which used the old API sue.
A bug gets introduced in an API call as software gets updated (bugs do exhist in software). Competitor screams that Microsoft deliberately made that API call not work and sues.
A competitor uses a API call in a way Microsoft never expected or tested and it doesn't work. Competitor sues.
A competitor writes crappy buggy software, can't find the bugs themselves, blames it on Microsoft, and sues.
There's got to be a solution that helps consumers, not lawyers.
Sorry, but I have to disagree with you. Let me address your reasoning point by point.
:( )
1. There will be no more forced bundling on OEM's, which will result in better usuability, and less support problems for consumers. (Here I would note the proper bullets from the FoF, but unfortunately, I don't have them handy
Yes, splitting the company would likely stop the forced bundling, but the government can require Microsoft to stop their bundling process without splitting them up. The government shouldn't force structual changes on a company unless there are clear benefits to the consumer which couldn't be addressed by less drastic measures.
2. Lower prices for consumers. This means that consumers would have more money to spend on other software for their computers. (Again, I'd point out the proper bullet...)
Why would splitting Microsoft necessarily result in lower prices. Windows contains a lot of software which Microsoft licensed from other Vendors. Microsoft pays incredibly low lisencing fees because all the vendors of those technologies are competing to have their software included in Windows. If there are three or four Microsofts, the competion is less fierce, and the licensing fees will be higher. The different Microsofts will try and differentiate their products from each other any way they can and each charge the "revenue maximising price."
3. Better compatibility. Just like cars have a lot of intercompatibility, if Microsoft were broken up, that would, in part force the companies to have compatibility with other products. Right now, if I need to send a document to someone I need to find out what word processor they have, and then try to get it in that format.
Better compatibility? You've got to be kidding me. Did you use a computer in the late 80's when Microsoft had a lot more competion in the Word processor arena? Compatibility was a joke. It's actually much better now. THe different Microsofts will want to differentiate their products from one another. This isn't open source software. The goal of the different Microsofts will be to make the most money for their stockholders. In order to do that they are going to take every oppertunity to say our OS does this and theirs doesn't. Compatibility is a secondary concern. The upside of that is that compatability is often a hinderance to innovation.
4. You get the idea. Splitting up the company will force them to have different practices, thereby benefitting consumers.
Splitting them up will cause them to have different practices, but different isn't always better. I think most people will agree that Microsoft has done some underhanded and illegal practices in the past. I however don't believe that those actions were the determining factors in them acheiving their current monopoly. The average user, and any large IT department doesn't want to deal with multiple OSs. They want to standardize on somthing and use it. Unlees innovations are considerably better, people don't want to spend the time and effort to learn something different. I can say from past experience that supporting multiple OSs is a nighmare for an IT department. The benefits are only worth the costs in a few cases. If there are four versions of Windows, the large corporate IT departments will standardize on one of them for their use. The number of choices will slowly shrink, and one company will end up with most the market share. The only way an underdog can change the market is to have a product which is precieved as exceptionally better, or for the market to change drastically. ie. The web browser becomes the universal interface, or everything goes to wireless, handheld devices.
Another reason I don't like the idea of splitting up Microsoft is the question of who gets the employees? There isn't exactly and unlimited supply of skilled software engineers right now. If you split up the company into four you end up with 1/4 the resources for each to develop the product, which means less innoration, as well and likly less stable products.
Despite all this, I think the justice department and the states will try and split up Microsoft. When it comes down to it, simple remidies which address the actuall problems just aren't going to advance the political careers of the AGs as much as a bold, drastic solution. I don't think the AGs really understand the problem, or know how to solve it. Since they don't know how to solve the problem, they'll do what's politically best for them, and I doubt they'll have any problem finding consultants which will be able to justify whatever they decide to do, that's what many consultants are paid to do, and there's no shortage of people that are good at it.
Before you support the government splitting up Microsoft, think about wether you really like the idea of the government shuffling around the computer industry whenever a bunch of competing companies clash. The government is supposed to be looking after consumers, not helping out competitors because they can't compete, and some of their features are better, and customers should have the benefit of those features (which of course they patented so no one else can use them). Microsoft's done some bad things, but it seems like the government's cures are worse than the disease.
CD's didn't catch on instantly either, but after a year or so the systems became affordable, and people started buying them. DVD audio will start out as an audiophile's toy, but the price will drop, and high quality surround sound audio will be accessable to the masses. Cars will start to come with DVD audio players as standard. The costs of the development of the format/encryprion/hardware will be spread out over millions of units sold. DVD audio is a superior format, and eventually the cost won't be significantly higher than what we pay for CD audio. If you don't think there's any benefit to DVD audio, fine, don't buy a player. Or if you're like me, and it's not important enough to you to purchase until the price goes down, wait.
As for the copy protection, I think it's a waste of the industry's time and resources. Copy protection has been tried many times in the past, and people have always found ways around it. Some of the methods have been legal, others haven't. The software industry has come to the conclusion that the copy protection just isn't worth the effort. Hopefully the recording industry will eventually learn the same lesson, and quit trying to sell me three coppies on every album I buy (home, work, car), even though copyright law allows me to make coppies for my own personal use.
Unfortunately, the recording industry hasn't learned that I'm going to find a way to make a copy for my personal use wether they like it or not, and unless they convince congress to make it illegal, and convince an AG to prosecute me, they're really just wasting their time and money. Their copy protection methods won't significantly slow down large scale pirating operations where there's enough money involved for the criminals to find a efficent way to avoid the protections. They're much better off spending their money lobying the government to find and prosecute those criminals, or hire private investigatiors to find them. They're just wasting their money and continueing the PR nightmare which comes from accusing basically every one of their customers of being a thief. They also haven't seemed to learn that if you reasonably honest people thieves often enough, a lot of them will no longer feel any remorse in stealing from you.
The best solution to companies like this is to not buy their products. The fact that Nintendo is using their chip in their next generation console makes this decision a little harder for some people, but I'm not much for console games anyway.
I have to agree that for most applications using the keyboard is faster than using the mouse once you've gotten past a certain learning curve. However, most Windows Apps allow you to use the keyboard too, although it's often harder to find out what the appropriate keystrokes are.
For a lot of users they perform a lot of tasks occasionally, and for those tasks it's usually faster for them to learn a Windows-like interface. I work with UNIX much less than NT, and I always find it hard to look around and find the right text file to modify to do something in UNIX, but I can usually figure out how to do something in NT, unless I have to directly modify the NT registry. I'd rather search through text files in UNIX (which might even have comments in them if I'm lucky) than screw around in NT's registry.
I still think it's easier for the non-geek to learn to do things in Windows than on *NIX systems, but I also don't have any experience with Linux, and the Window managers I keep hearing are making it much more user friendly.
As long as they are considered a religion, no one will mess with them. The Constitution protects freedom of religion, and Scientology has got a lot of money to spend on lawyers and propoganda.
Writes shouldn't take significantly longer than reads. I work with Fibre Channel, and the throughput numbers I get for raw reads and writes (no file systems) aren't significantly different. If you have a good raid controller, it should be able to keep the drives busy on both reads and writes as long as the file system is writing data in large enough blocks.
1.5 gig in 6 min is only a little over 4 MB/s. Something is seriously wrong with that number. A single 1000 rpm drive can sustain 18 - 22 MB/s.
Counting how many times a file was downloaded for free is different from counting how many $ people spent to buy the Linux version of the software. Since they aren't comming out at the same exact time it's not ideal, but I doubt there's a more acurate way for them to determine how many people are willing to spend money on a Linux version.