Re: what if microsoft disobeyed the breakup?

From: phil osborn (philosborn@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Jun 25 2000 - 01:29:30 MDT


>From: "John Clark" <jonkc@worldnet.att.net>
>Subject: Re: what if microsoft disobeyed the breakup?
>Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 12:56:54 -0400
>
> phil osborn <philosborn@hotmail.com> Wrote:
>
> >The fact is that Windows is a really lousy product in comparison to
>other
> >products out there,
>
>I'll tell you a product that's really lousy, Be. You can't do anything with
>it because
>nothing is written for it, it's like a beautiful house with no plumbing of
>furniture.
>Someday that might change and there would be as much stuff for it as
>windows,
>but by then somebody would have written a completely new operating system
>and academics would be complaining how inelegant Be is. The most popular
>operating system will never be the newest or the one that uses the most
>advanced technology.

Curious how Be was supposed to be the OS to save Mac. The entire Mac user
community was convinced of this. MacWorld even gave away beta versions on
its cover CD. Suddenly Jobs is brought in with the much-inferior NeXT OS.
Immediately thereafter, Bill Gates suddenly invests a bunch of money - $150
million, if memory serves - in Apple...
>
> >MS has managed to capture its market has been through criminal
>behavior
> > - e.g., it's attempted stealing of Stacker for DOS 6.0
>
>Is that the best you could come up with? Microsoft got into trouble because
> they violated
>Stackers "look and feel", the only thing dumber is the patent on business
>plans or
>Amazons patent on one click shopping. Anyway, I hope you're not saying that
>Microsoft
>is where it is today because of disk compression, dose anybody even use
>that shit anymore?
>
MS, as I recall, had a joint venture with Stacker to produce the compression
system for DOS 6.0. After working closely with the Stacker engineers for
some time, suddenly MS cancelled the deal and then released 6.0 with "their"
compression software.
Stacker sued successfully, claiming they could prove that the code was
directly stolen, and ultimately accepting $120 million settlement from MS.
Meanwhile, the user community was up in arms, as it turned out that Stacker
had apparently not quite trusted MS from the start, and had not given them
the entire solution. Thus, thousands or perhaps millions of businesses
suddenly found themselves losing entire hard drives as the incomplete MS
compression system started failing without warning.
MS had to then release an upgrade - 6.1 or something - with the corrected
verion of the compression system, after costing their users hundreds of
millions of dollars in losses, very likely, based on the reports of the
time.
> >MS is a corporation, a legal child of the state, that sells bigtime
>to state entities.
>
>Of course Microsoft sells to the state, it makes an important product and
>sells to everybody,
>but to claim that the reason for their success is unfair favorable
>treatment by government is
>nuts. Name me a company that has less to do with the military or relays
>less on government
>contracts than Microsoft.
>
I'm sure there are thousands of such companies, but in the MS case, the
state involvement seems very clear.

> John K Clark jonkc@att.net
>
>
>
>

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