MS fined yet again

[GunMonkey]

The term monopoly: In Economics, monopoly (also "Pure monopoly") is a persistent situation where there is only one provider of a product or service in a particular market.
Quoted from Wikipedia

So based on what you said in the above most businesses are monopolies.
Most companies or at least the good ones control every facet of an item's construction.

Are you suggesting that MS is the only provider of OS's in the world? I certainly hope not.

Lets take your analogy of GM. GM does make cars, yes, and owns several other companies now. Make certain you see the difference. They own other companies. This means they get a cut of the action, not the whole pie. Furthermore, GM uses non-GM parts. Tires, carbs, brake pads, seats, etc. GM does not have a monopoly, because you can go up to GM and say "hey, I'd like to make some rims for you." If it works out, they may order some. You keep your business and they keep theirs.

MS, on the other hand, creates all their products in house. If you want to present MS with a proposal for software, they either buy the rights to be the sole distributors, or tell you to keep walking. What company made bit locker? What company made aero? what company made netbios? The entire product is created by MS, without paying a dime to another company.

The same exact thing happened to Xerox, who funded PARC and discovered most of the technologies we take for granted today, without ever capitalizing on them. Yet the government hit Xerox with anti-trust suits and almost deep-sixed PARC.

In all honesty, people are doing it to themselves. They want a system that works. They want something with a button that says "do" and the computer reads their mind and does it. Windows is about as close to that as you can get.

But why complain about it? Use Linux and be happy. Its not right to drag MS down, simply because it is at the top. The best method of running a crooked company out of town, is to refuse to buy from it. Yet people groan, and complain about windows all the way to the store to buy it, complain and whine all the way to their computers, and complain while its installing.

If the EU is so adamant about using only openoffice, then why are they using windows instead of linux? We've already established that it is cross platform. Also, its development is headed by Sun Microsystems, which is based in Santa Clara, California.

So again, what has MS done to upset the EU so much, that an entire alliance of nations would sue a company in Redmond, WA?

[Thorn]

If I remember correctly m$ got to where they were by stealing from other people in the first place. You think anyone at m$ wrote the disk operating system? You think m$ came up with the idea of a windowed GUI? I'm certain there is a lot more to add to that list of what they stole and turned into a profit.

You might what to check your facts before making accusations.

MS-DOS initially was developed as a joint product between IBM and Microsoft and had two names: PC-DOS and MS-DOS. PC-DOS/MS-DOS was hardly the first operating system for microcomputers. It wasn't even the second or the third. It was just one of many similar systems that were available all competing for a share of the OS market for microcomputers (not just PCs) in the 1970's and 1980's. PC-DOS and MS-DOS looked similar to CP/M-86 which was derived from CP/M, but had a major difference that MS and IBM came up with, the File Allocation Table. CP/M was arguably the first microcomputer OS, although it borrowed extensively from several mini-computer operating systems developed by Digital Equipment Co. in the 1960's and the 1970's. (e.g. RSTS/E for DEC's PDP-11 mini-computer.)

The GUI as we know it today (icons, windows, moving and clicking with a mouse, etc., etc.) was invented at SRI and then Xerox's PARC in the late 1960's and early 1970's. The roots of GUIs go back to about 1945. A guy by the name of Jobs then brought in a lot PARC people for GUI development as Job's company (Apple) was a creating a new computer called the Lisa. The Lisa flopped, but the idea of the GUI did catch on. Apple released refined GUIs on several other machines, up to and including the MacIntosh Model 1. From that initial Mac on out, Apple used the GUI exclusively.

IBM and Microsoft then decided to develop their own GUI, and get rid of PC-DOS and MS-DOS. The new product was called OS/2 and was released in 1987. About 1990, MS and IBM ended their partnership on GUI development. IBM retained the OS/2 operating system, while MS developed Windows 1 and 2. MS eventually released Windows 3 to the public.

Now someone else is trying to do the same thing to them and you turn your back on an open source alternative? I hope openoffice gets everything and provides us with a free alternative so that the people who don't have a couple hundred dollars to blow on a stupid text editing program or something that can read the spreadsheets that are sent to them with things like work schedules.

So let's see if I have this right... MS should be forced to release things like source code they developed, just so the products should be free for people who don't want to buy those products?

That seems to be an awful like stealing. If someone can't afford to buy it, they should do without it.

Even if MS had stolen the products as you claim -which is demonstratively false-, how is it right to release the code to a third party? By any normal application of law, any relief for wrongdoing should go to the original program developers or the heirs, not a third party.

As to 'turning my back on an open source alternative', you misunderstand me. Personally, I use a lot of open source products. Some of them, such as BackTrack, I love (just as I love some MS products). Others are pure crap (also, just like some MS products), and if I never use them again, it will be too soon (ditto on the bad MS programs). It's just that in my opinion, no government should ever screw around with markets, and that ideas such as "monopolies" are little more that governments trying to exert control over things that they should never get near, such as economics and markets. So it's not turning my back on open source, it's that I'm very uncomfortable with any government sticking their noses into areas they don't belong.

[theprez98]

Thorn, tell us how you really feel!

[streaker69]

You might what to check your facts before making accusations.

MS-DOS initially was developed as a joint product between IBM and Microsoft and had two names: PC-DOS and MS-DOS. PC-DOS/MS-DOS was hardly the first operating system for microcomputers. It wasn't even the second or the third. It was just one of many similar systems that were available all competing for a share of the OS market for microcomputers (not just PCs) in the 1970's and 1980's. PC-DOS and MS-DOS looked similar to CP/M-86 which was derived from CP/M, but had a major difference that MS and IBM came up with, the File Allocation Table. CP/M was arguably the first microcomputer OS, although it borrowed extensively from several mini-computer operating systems developed by Digital Equipment Co. in the 1960's and the 1970's. (e.g. RSTS/E for DEC's PDP-11 mini-computer.)

If I recall correctly, the Apple ][e and the Apple ][c could either be booted up with PC-DOS or Pro-DOS. The PC-DOS being the MS version of course, and the Pro-DOS being the Apple version. I think many of the early games were on PC-DOS disks and the programming stuff was on Pro-DOS. Many an hour I spent in the computer lab learning more than the teacher knew. Those early computers were really cool, before I graduated I had written an entire Oscilloscope program that fit on a 360k floppy for the Apple ][e in the physics lab. It was able to graph heart rate and breathing rate to a continual graphing display on the screen. I think the entire program was around 500 lines of Apple Basic.

[Barry]

If I recall correctly, the Apple ][e and the Apple ][c could either be booted up with PC-DOS or Pro-DOS. The PC-DOS being the MS version of course, and the Pro-DOS being the Apple version. I think many of the early games were on PC-DOS disks and the programming stuff was on Pro-DOS. Many an hour I spent in the computer lab learning more than the teacher knew. Those early computers were really cool, before I graduated I had written an entire Oscilloscope program that fit on a 360k floppy for the Apple ][e in the physics lab. It was able to graph heart rate and breathing rate to a continual graphing display on the screen. I think the entire program was around 500 lines of Apple Basic.

Damn!! I thought you just used Apples as door stops!!


Oh and @ GunMonkey, MS has never owned any part of Apple.

[Thorn]

Thorn, tell us how you really feel!

<shrug>The post I responded to had a lot of emotion and a lot of fiction. The facts are well known, and easily checked. (And I know I'm going to take some ribbing for being the old fart again, since I do remember a lot of this, but it is easy to check the facts before posting something that comes across as ignorant or misinformed.) MS as a company isn't something I can get real worked up about one way or another, but if someone is going to make accusations about alleged criminal acts, then they should have their facts straight. As we talked about on stage a couple of weeks ago, one of the things I learned to do in my prior career was separate facts from a lot of fiction.

As to this whole thread, the topic for me hasn't been about MS getting the fines per se, but the fact of governments going after businesses, and in the process hurting the very heart of the economy. It doesn't matter if it's MS or GM, but when businesses that are finally getting big enough to tell whole governments to "screw off!" it's a good thing.

[Andy90]

...when businesses that are finally getting big enough to tell whole governments to "screw off!" it's a good thing.

I honestly don't want this to come acoss like a flame, but you hope that board members, people hell-bent on profit, become more powerful and ultimately become unanswerable to people that are there to at least try and serve the public and best interest?

[Barry]

I honestly don't want this to come acoss like a flame, but you hope that board members, people hell-bent on profit, become more powerful and ultimately become unanswerable to people that are there to at least try and serve the public and best interest?

I'd have to say at least 75% of politicians aren't in it for the public's best interest. Those same board members, are hell bent on turning a profit, still have to put out a good product. Otherwise no one will buy it. As much as I hate to say it, Windows is a pretty good product. I mean come on, it will run on damn near anything. It might not be as stable as something like a good unix, or linux based machine, but look at what it has to support. Literally hundreds of thousands of different components. I know several people who only reboot their windows machine for software updates. Sure Microsoft may have done some shady things in the past, what company hasn't? I'm really surprised Google hasn't come under as much fire as Microsoft. They're just as big of a company, and slowly making more and more products.

[streaker69]

I'd have to say at least 75% of politicians aren't in it for the public's best interest. Those same board members, are hell bent on turning a profit, still have to put out a good product. Otherwise no one will buy it. As much as I hate to say it, Windows is a pretty good product. I mean come on, it will run on damn near anything. It might not be as stable as something like a good unix, or linux based machine, but look at what it has to support. Literally hundreds of thousands of different components. I know several people who only reboot their windows machine for software updates. Sure Microsoft may have done some shady things in the past, what company hasn't? I'm really surprised Google hasn't come under as much fire as Microsoft. They're just as big of a company, and slowly making more and more products.

Actually WinXP is probably the most stable desktop OS that MS has ever produced, Win2k3 is incredibly stable as a server platform. It's very seldom that I ever reboot my servers at work other than just when they get their updates. I have OIT's at the plant that will run for months before they get rebooted and they don't have any issues.

Although the longest running OS that I've seen personally was a Novell Netware 3.12 MPR machine that when I was there to replace it with a Cisco router had been up and running for 1700+ days. When we put in the Cisco router, we actually left it there turned on, just for giggles so we could see how long it would keep running.

Oh, if you haven't been following much of the news lately, Google has been put under the microscope lately, and they're starting to take flak for 'doing evil'.

[Andy90]

I'd have to say at least 75% of politicians aren't in it for the public's best interest. Those same board members, are hell bent on turning a profit, still have to put out a good product. Otherwise no one will buy it. As much as I hate to say it, Windows is a pretty good product. I mean come on, it will run on damn near anything. It might not be as stable as something like a good unix, or linux based machine, but look at what it has to support. Literally hundreds of thousands of different components. I know several people who only reboot their windows machine for software updates. Sure Microsoft may have done some shady things in the past, what company hasn't? I'm really surprised Google hasn't come under as much fire as Microsoft. They're just as big of a company, and slowly making more and more products.

I agree, MS has AD and Exchange, linux has nothing even close, and even a few other things, I don't mean to batter windows much, more Microsoft and its actions/ethics.

The thing that strikes me about politicians, is that yes they are looking after them self, but i also half believe they are closer to half ok than 25%. I work in a council and deal with Councillors, ok they are not really up to scratch, but they mean well and as stupid as this sounds it relieves me a little. I just see board members as scum, prob just me but I do.

@Barry 'In the past' - its still doing it!

@Barry 'I know several people who only reboot their windows machine for software updates' - our IT supports around 40-50 servers, a number of the (windows) machines have to be rebooted on a weekly basis as they crash into a pulp, the backups (ie proxy) we use are linux based, they havent been rebooted in years, we are not talking about the odd server here.

To clear up im not bashing windows (except vista, in my (albeit little) experience is laughable) but MS, I just see/read/hear too many bad things, yes this can be put down to bad journalism/things being exhagerated.... but you don't see smoke without a fire (or something like that lol)