Microsoft Hatred FAQ

[Mike Meyer]

Not Bill Gates <nbg at nbg.invalid> writes:
> steve at REMOVETHIScyber.com.au wrote...
>> On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:35:47 +0000, Not Bill Gates wrote:
>> > Heck, I dunno.  Like you, I don't even really care all that much.  
>> You don't care that innovation in desktop software has been crippled by
>> the actions of the monopoly player Microsoft?
> You need to first prove innovation in desktop software has been 
> crippled, don't you?

MS took desktop software through pretty much the same sequence of
offerings that the mainframe and minicomputer software industry had
been throgh: flat file systems and single-tasking OS's in a command
line environment, adding nested file systems, adding TSRs, adding a
windowing environment, adding true multitasking and finally
multiprocessor systems. This took them what - 20+ years?

While MS was "innovating" by giving us directories, others who had
learned the lessons from mainframe and minicomputer systems were
offering us desktop systems with all those features - and an office
suite that ran in the windowing systems - for a fraction of the price
of anything that was capable of running MS-DOS.

MS managed to kill off or drive into niche markets the companies who
were actually doing innovative work on desktop systems, and it's taken
the desktop software industry two decades to recover from that. I'll
accept that as crippling until a better definition comes along.

   <mike
-- 
Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org>			http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.