Far from helping the economy, Microsoft has harmed it. It has reduced competition in the computer industry, which means fewer jobs and higher prices.
On the contrary, Microsoft *created* the (boxed) software industry. All other software makers exist because Microsoft created a market where there was none before. (Now, arguably, if Bill Gates hadn't done it, someone else would have later on. But there's no reason to believe that 'somebody else' would have done anything differently.)
It has a long history of pushing for H1B visa increases intended to reduce the average wage of skilled tech workers.
Microsoft is one of the highest paying companies in Washington State. And H1B Visa workers are paid at the exact same scale as others with the same job title. If they're trying to reduce the average wage of skilled tech workers, they're doing a godawful job of it.
The reason Microsoft is a big fan of the H1B visa program is that it's otherwise virtually impossible to get skilled technical staff in Washington. Microsoft and all the other tech companies in the area, combined with the mediocre Universities, have completely drained the talent market. (I can assure you; it takes us 9 months+ to find entry-level Javascript/SQL positions. It's crazy.)
Why when there are so many people out of work are they STILL pushing H1B visas?
Because the people out of work can't write software and, frequently, the H1B applicants can. If you live in Washington, and you have even basic IT skills, you can find a job. I don't know where you live, but job markets are different in different areas (shocker!)
Also, Microsoft is an abnormally profitable company. That comes from somewhere. For every dollar that Microsoft makes in profit, that could have been $0.25 ~~ $0.30 to a normally profitable company.
Sounds like it comes from your ass.
Which means, because of Microsoft's monopoly, we have one business employing fewer people instead of 3 or 4 business of roughly the same size employing 3 or 4 times that number of people.
Wait, what? Who's "we"? Are you talking about business automation? You've totally lost me here.
Microsoft should be broken up by the government as an anti-competitive monopoly.
I'd much rather see some other company write better software than they do and compete on an even keel.
Can't you remember our discussions? How a monopolist breaking standards hurts us all?
I thought they were bullshit then, too.
Standards bodies are so fucking slow, if we relied on them for all progress, we'd still be loading programs into computers with DIP switches. All the modifications that Netscape and IE made to the "standard" were for the benefit of their customers, and to get a competitive advantage over each other. They weren't done as some evil maniacal plot as destroy the browser market, they were done to help people solve problems.
"Convicted monopolist" isn't a legal status, it's just something loudmouth Slashdotters like to repeat all the time.
Microsoft has settled (as far as I am aware) all past legal actions; yes they're a "convicted monopolist" just like I'm a "convicted speeder" by paying my traffic tickets. But that term means pretty much jack for any future motions.
But I doubt if it's cheaper than non-N version. (Could some people in EU tell me?)
Nobody can tell you, because nobody bought it. The court was 100% dead-wrong in thinking that customers wanted to buy a copy of Windows without Media Player, and made Microsoft go through the expensive boondoggle of creating it for no reason at all.
Those examples aren't equivalent at all. Tons of third-party software (this means: not made by Microsoft), as high as 75% or more, relies on IE's libraries in Windows. Windows itself has subsystems that would simply not work at all without the IE libraries in place-- for example the entire Help system.
The best you'll get, in ANY modern OS, is removing the small.exe that provides the browser UI around the libraries. And you can do that in Windows right now, if you like. Anything more would destroy Windows; it simply wouldn't work at all. (Of course, some of those third-party programs try to call IE specifically instead of your default browser, in that case you're fucked.)
This is the same case with, for example, Apple. If you removed the Safari application, everything else would still work without too much trouble. If you removed the shared library that actually renders the HTML, everything would break.
This needs to be understood by anybody debating the issue. When you say "remove IE" you need to define what you mean.
That hasn't been true in YEARS. XP has never had that clause, for example, and it came out in 2001. Update your knowledge, please.
If OEMs don't add a second browser, that's because they don't DECIDE to add a second browser. If Opera is suing anybody, they should be suing Dell, HP, Lenovo, ASUS, etc for not bundling in alternative browsers. (Of course, that lawsuit would be bullshit as well, and they know it. It's easier to go with the big bad Microsoft that everybody hates.)
Since multiple software packages that ship with Windows (notably the help system) require the DLL, you're arguing that Microsoft should enter some kind of infinite loop of following regulations--
"We can't ship the DLL with Windows. But the Help application in Windows requires the DLL so we can ship it as part of that package. But we can't ship the DLL with Windows. "
Seriously, please think about your potential solution for more than 5 nanoseconds before typing it up, and it might be a bit more practical.
WTF? So the first time a user decided to do this and, say, Unreal Tournament breaks, they're supposed to send the support ticket to Firefox or Chrome? That makes no sense at all, how would the user even know to blame anybody other than Microsoft for it?
Look, when Unreal Tournament is using IE to display news items, it doesn't have a gigantic icon on it that says "THIS CONTENT IS DISPLAYED BY YOUR DEFAULT WEB BROWSER, IF IT IS NOT DISPLAYED COMPLAIN TO THE MAKER OF YOUR DEFAULT WEB BROWSER", nor should it. But that's exactly what your solution would require.
So, you're saying that Microsoft should be punished because their OEMs have the tendency to avoid installing additional browsers, even though they're perfectly capable of it?
Is there any doubt that a HTML viewer is a standard component in *any* modern OS intended for customer use? The worst thing Microsoft did in this arena is beat the curve and made it a standard component of their OS before everybody else did.
Here's the flamebait part, mod accordingly: I'm sorry that the EU was woefully unprepared for the computer revolution, and has no OS or major software makers to call its own. But that was their strategic decision, and they'll just have to freakin' cope with it. Microsoft is big in the EU, because no local company was meeting their software needs.
But hey, we're all upset we have no local OS company! Let's sue MS over and over again for moronic things!! And we have hardly any local credit processing companies, let's sue VISA and Mastercard!
Is this seriously what the EU is for? It's pathetic and ridiculous.
Yah, there are other companies that make USB TV receivers, but they either: 1) Are huge and don't include a built-in antenna, so you have to make them even huger by adding an antenna 2) Cost more than twice as much. (I have a Pinnacle one that cost $110 only last month. And it still has no built-in antenna, although it does ok reception-wise.)
You've never been shipped the wrong product? Seriously.
Just a couple weeks ago I was shipped the "Special Edition" of Prince of Persia instead of the normal standard edition I'd ordered. (Didn't get charged the extra $20, so I win!) I haven't personally had Dell ship me the wrong product, but, hell, mistakes are made by every company.
Well, even if the hardware was the same, I'd blame the drivers. On Windows, lots of networking equipment has crummy drivers coded by companies that really don't care that work, but with much higher latency and bandwidth than the hardware is capable of.
I actually get better performance off the USB wifi card in my desktop than the PCI one built-in, because the PCI one has lousy drivers and the USB one has good drivers.
No it's not. I happen to believe that *all* people, regardless of their capabilities, should be able to use every feature of *all* modern inventions with little to no training. That includes computers, telephones, bread makers, their VCRs, whatever. You call that ridiculous, I call it noble.
Without knowing what they are using Word for, why do you assume OpenOffice can take on all its tasks? For example, the school might have exercises or tests in Word that require the use of Word's form functionality, which OpenOffice-- well, kind of pretends works correctly, although it doesn't. Similarly, it might make use of password-protected Word files which OpenOffice can't use. Or hell, maybe they just want her to use OneNote, which won't work in Linux.
Geeks think that OpenOffice is as good as Office because Geeks, by and large, don't use office-type applications. It's a night and day difference in the real world.
That's still calling them idiots, it's just a slightly more subtle way: "you're an implied idiot because I know what the capabilities of X are and you don't."
I've used Verizon DSL my entire life, and I've never had to use a program to generate a login/password. I've always just plugged my computer/router/whatever into their DSL modem, and it worked just fine.
(I think at one point I did create a username online, so I could get updates when there were rate changes, technical issues, etc, but I've never actually checked that email account and I highly doubt I have the password anymore. And in any case, I did that online so I was already using the DSL.)
Mr. Furious: Seems there was a little controversy there regarding your father's death. The Bowler: Yes, the police said he fell down an elevator shaft. Onto some bullets. The Blue Raja: You know, I've always suspected a bit of foul play there. The Bowler: As have I.
It's kind of like the Seattle city government... no matter how many times the people vote for something (building a new stadium, funding a monorail line, not replacing the Alaskan Way viaduct with a tunnel) the city basically says, "oh? Oh well, do it anyway."
Slashdot Mirror
Far from helping the economy, Microsoft has harmed it. It has reduced competition in the computer industry, which means fewer jobs and higher prices.
On the contrary, Microsoft *created* the (boxed) software industry. All other software makers exist because Microsoft created a market where there was none before. (Now, arguably, if Bill Gates hadn't done it, someone else would have later on. But there's no reason to believe that 'somebody else' would have done anything differently.)
It has a long history of pushing for H1B visa increases intended to reduce the average wage of skilled tech workers.
Microsoft is one of the highest paying companies in Washington State. And H1B Visa workers are paid at the exact same scale as others with the same job title. If they're trying to reduce the average wage of skilled tech workers, they're doing a godawful job of it.
The reason Microsoft is a big fan of the H1B visa program is that it's otherwise virtually impossible to get skilled technical staff in Washington. Microsoft and all the other tech companies in the area, combined with the mediocre Universities, have completely drained the talent market. (I can assure you; it takes us 9 months+ to find entry-level Javascript/SQL positions. It's crazy.)
Why when there are so many people out of work are they STILL pushing H1B visas?
Because the people out of work can't write software and, frequently, the H1B applicants can. If you live in Washington, and you have even basic IT skills, you can find a job. I don't know where you live, but job markets are different in different areas (shocker!)
Also, Microsoft is an abnormally profitable company. That comes from somewhere. For every dollar that Microsoft makes in profit, that could have been $0.25 ~~ $0.30 to a normally profitable company.
Sounds like it comes from your ass.
Which means, because of Microsoft's monopoly, we have one business employing fewer people instead of 3 or 4 business of roughly the same size employing 3 or 4 times that number of people.
Wait, what? Who's "we"? Are you talking about business automation? You've totally lost me here.
Microsoft should be broken up by the government as an anti-competitive monopoly.
I'd much rather see some other company write better software than they do and compete on an even keel.
Can't you remember our discussions? How a monopolist breaking standards hurts us all?
I thought they were bullshit then, too.
Standards bodies are so fucking slow, if we relied on them for all progress, we'd still be loading programs into computers with DIP switches. All the modifications that Netscape and IE made to the "standard" were for the benefit of their customers, and to get a competitive advantage over each other. They weren't done as some evil maniacal plot as destroy the browser market, they were done to help people solve problems.
"Convicted monopolist" isn't a legal status, it's just something loudmouth Slashdotters like to repeat all the time.
Microsoft has settled (as far as I am aware) all past legal actions; yes they're a "convicted monopolist" just like I'm a "convicted speeder" by paying my traffic tickets. But that term means pretty much jack for any future motions.
But I doubt if it's cheaper than non-N version. (Could some people in EU tell me?)
Nobody can tell you, because nobody bought it. The court was 100% dead-wrong in thinking that customers wanted to buy a copy of Windows without Media Player, and made Microsoft go through the expensive boondoggle of creating it for no reason at all.
Those examples aren't equivalent at all. Tons of third-party software (this means: not made by Microsoft), as high as 75% or more, relies on IE's libraries in Windows. Windows itself has subsystems that would simply not work at all without the IE libraries in place-- for example the entire Help system.
The best you'll get, in ANY modern OS, is removing the small .exe that provides the browser UI around the libraries. And you can do that in Windows right now, if you like. Anything more would destroy Windows; it simply wouldn't work at all. (Of course, some of those third-party programs try to call IE specifically instead of your default browser, in that case you're fucked.)
This is the same case with, for example, Apple. If you removed the Safari application, everything else would still work without too much trouble. If you removed the shared library that actually renders the HTML, everything would break.
This needs to be understood by anybody debating the issue. When you say "remove IE" you need to define what you mean.
Type ftp.mozilla.com into a regular explorer window and see what happens.
But then you're using IE and you've entered into a Moebius-strip of conflicting regulations!! GASP!
You are referring to... what, exactly? Windows? IE? Opera? Just random venting off-topic?
That hasn't been true in YEARS. XP has never had that clause, for example, and it came out in 2001. Update your knowledge, please.
If OEMs don't add a second browser, that's because they don't DECIDE to add a second browser. If Opera is suing anybody, they should be suing Dell, HP, Lenovo, ASUS, etc for not bundling in alternative browsers. (Of course, that lawsuit would be bullshit as well, and they know it. It's easier to go with the big bad Microsoft that everybody hates.)
Since multiple software packages that ship with Windows (notably the help system) require the DLL, you're arguing that Microsoft should enter some kind of infinite loop of following regulations--
"We can't ship the DLL with Windows. But the Help application in Windows requires the DLL so we can ship it as part of that package. But we can't ship the DLL with Windows. "
Seriously, please think about your potential solution for more than 5 nanoseconds before typing it up, and it might be a bit more practical.
WTF? So the first time a user decided to do this and, say, Unreal Tournament breaks, they're supposed to send the support ticket to Firefox or Chrome? That makes no sense at all, how would the user even know to blame anybody other than Microsoft for it?
Look, when Unreal Tournament is using IE to display news items, it doesn't have a gigantic icon on it that says "THIS CONTENT IS DISPLAYED BY YOUR DEFAULT WEB BROWSER, IF IT IS NOT DISPLAYED COMPLAIN TO THE MAKER OF YOUR DEFAULT WEB BROWSER", nor should it. But that's exactly what your solution would require.
And... that is wrong... why?
So, you're saying that Microsoft should be punished because their OEMs have the tendency to avoid installing additional browsers, even though they're perfectly capable of it?
This sounds like a valid course of action to you?
This is EU anti-Americanism bullshit at its best.
Is there any doubt that a HTML viewer is a standard component in *any* modern OS intended for customer use? The worst thing Microsoft did in this arena is beat the curve and made it a standard component of their OS before everybody else did.
Here's the flamebait part, mod accordingly: I'm sorry that the EU was woefully unprepared for the computer revolution, and has no OS or major software makers to call its own. But that was their strategic decision, and they'll just have to freakin' cope with it. Microsoft is big in the EU, because no local company was meeting their software needs.
But hey, we're all upset we have no local OS company! Let's sue MS over and over again for moronic things!! And we have hardly any local credit processing companies, let's sue VISA and Mastercard!
Is this seriously what the EU is for? It's pathetic and ridiculous.
Hm, I'm pretty sure in the original that Ein was alive. Maybe my memory's fuzzy though...
She probably realized it when she turned it on, duh. Where does anything say anything about reading a shipping order?
Yah, there are other companies that make USB TV receivers, but they either:
1) Are huge and don't include a built-in antenna, so you have to make them even huger by adding an antenna
2) Cost more than twice as much. (I have a Pinnacle one that cost $110 only last month. And it still has no built-in antenna, although it does ok reception-wise.)
When was the last time you got excited about a new Dell product offering?
Last friday:
http://www.liliputing.com/2009/01/dell-launches-usb-tv-tuner-for-inspiron-mini-family.html
You've never been shipped the wrong product? Seriously.
Just a couple weeks ago I was shipped the "Special Edition" of Prince of Persia instead of the normal standard edition I'd ordered. (Didn't get charged the extra $20, so I win!) I haven't personally had Dell ship me the wrong product, but, hell, mistakes are made by every company.
Nice anti-American troll. But this research comes from Switzerland. Idiot.
Well, even if the hardware was the same, I'd blame the drivers. On Windows, lots of networking equipment has crummy drivers coded by companies that really don't care that work, but with much higher latency and bandwidth than the hardware is capable of.
I actually get better performance off the USB wifi card in my desktop than the PCI one built-in, because the PCI one has lousy drivers and the USB one has good drivers.
No it's not. I happen to believe that *all* people, regardless of their capabilities, should be able to use every feature of *all* modern inventions with little to no training. That includes computers, telephones, bread makers, their VCRs, whatever. You call that ridiculous, I call it noble.
Without knowing what they are using Word for, why do you assume OpenOffice can take on all its tasks? For example, the school might have exercises or tests in Word that require the use of Word's form functionality, which OpenOffice-- well, kind of pretends works correctly, although it doesn't. Similarly, it might make use of password-protected Word files which OpenOffice can't use. Or hell, maybe they just want her to use OneNote, which won't work in Linux.
Geeks think that OpenOffice is as good as Office because Geeks, by and large, don't use office-type applications. It's a night and day difference in the real world.
That's still calling them idiots, it's just a slightly more subtle way: "you're an implied idiot because I know what the capabilities of X are and you don't."
I've used Verizon DSL my entire life, and I've never had to use a program to generate a login/password. I've always just plugged my computer/router/whatever into their DSL modem, and it worked just fine.
(I think at one point I did create a username online, so I could get updates when there were rate changes, technical issues, etc, but I've never actually checked that email account and I highly doubt I have the password anymore. And in any case, I did that online so I was already using the DSL.)
Obligatory Mystery Men:
Mr. Furious: Seems there was a little controversy there regarding your father's death.
The Bowler: Yes, the police said he fell down an elevator shaft. Onto some bullets.
The Blue Raja: You know, I've always suspected a bit of foul play there.
The Bowler: As have I.
It's kind of like the Seattle city government... no matter how many times the people vote for something (building a new stadium, funding a monorail line, not replacing the Alaskan Way viaduct with a tunnel) the city basically says, "oh? Oh well, do it anyway."
I can understand where they're coming from.