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Microsoft to stop bundling Media Player (pg. 7)
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| Your Mother |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
I love it. People are using the word "monopoly" like "terrorism" - i.e. to mean whatever the hell they want it to mean while still giving their arguments some sort of moral weight.
Microsoft isn't a MONOPOLY in the OS industry. We have the Mac OS, BeOS, Solaris, Sun OS, UNIX, Minix, Redhat Linux, Slackware Linux, Debian Linux, a hundred other kinds of Linux, VMS/OpenVMS, PROS, THEOS, AIX, Irix, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, EROS, GNU Hurd, DR-DOS, Netware, SkyOS... for a more complete list see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_operating_systems.
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Do you always take the definition from Websters dictionary to heart? How about the opinion of the justice who heard the case:
"Microsoft enjoys so much power in the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems that if it wished to exercise this power solely in terms of price, it could charge a price for Windows substantially above that which could be charged in a competitive market," Jackson wrote.
"Moreover, it could do so for a significant period of time without losing Microsoft's day in courtan unacceptable amount of business to competitors," he added. "In other words, Microsoft enjoys monopoly power in the relevant market."
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-232565.html?legacy=cnet
Here's another of the gazillion articles that make you look like a fool:
http://www.bbcworld.com/content/cli...666&co_pageid=2
"In one way or another Microsoft has faced accusations it's abused its monopoly for over ten years. After four tortuous years of various legal battles, in November 1999 Judge Thomas Jackson ruled that Microsoft held monopoly power with Windows and that it used that power to "harm consumers, computer makers and other companies". He proposed splitting it in half."
"In June 2000, an appeals court overturned the split, but supported the monopoly ruling. Five months later Microsoft settles with the US Department of Justice - agreeing to release bits of its code and allowing computer makers the right to choose which of its products they load onto their machines."
Checkmate.
-Your Mother |
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| rabbitjoker |
| quote: | Originally posted by LoCa
Good points there :D |
Did you even read what St_Andrew said?
They are not good points - they are falsehoods.
NO! You do not have to buy Windows to get WMP, MSN or IE. WMP, MSN and IE are available free of charge. |
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| Durafei |
| quote: | | What it all comes down to is punishing success. No matter how much you hate Microsoft (and trust me, I DO NOT LIKE MICROSOFT), it is not only immoral but economically disastrous to punish success. |
I don't see how this ruling is "economically disastrous" at all. If anything, prior rulings against Microsoft have been economically stimulating for companies like Sun, AOL and probably some others.
Also, I did mention earlier that you might be right from the legal standpoint.. But from the "greater good" standpoint I support this ruling. And in this case, greater good is more important than Microsoft's RIGHT to earn a few more billion dollars. |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by Your Mother
Checkmate. |
Best part of the whole post, except maybe for the childish name-calling. You really don't even care to hear the counterargument do you? You just assume that anything you say is final, and that one line proves it. What a waste of time debating with you.
Let me make this clear. You're taking words from U.S. justices who ruled on a COMPLETELY different case. I wrote many posts ago in this thread that Microsoft exercised some very disturbing business practices, particularly with regards to their APIs and some other OS issues.
Nonetheless, of all people to quote, you quoted JUDGE JACKSON as a reference. The same Jackson that called Bill Gates a "Napoleon" in the industry, the same Napoleon who murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people. I'm sure you think he is an "impartial" source on this, don't you? :rolleyes: Do your homework, Jackson is one of the most Liberal judges in history!
| quote: | Originally posted by Durafei
I don't see how this ruling is "economically disastrous" at all. If anything, prior rulings against Microsoft have been economically stimulating for companies like Sun, AOL and probably some others. |
Wow, talk about missing the point. Economically disastrous is speaking on an ECONOMIC scale - not a COMPANY scale. This is the same hackneyed argument used for welfare - that it's somehow going to "stimulate" the economy by helping out people who have no money to invest in their lives. The problem is, you reward loss and punish success, which on a large scale removes any practical incentive for hard work and innovation.
I mean look at Sun and AOL. Yeah, I'll bet the antitrust ruling gave them great "stimulation". And what new innovations have they come up with since then? I'll tell you what - SQUAT.
| quote: | | Also, I did mention earlier that you might be right from the legal standpoint.. But from the "greater good" standpoint I support this ruling. And in this case, greater good is more important than Microsoft's RIGHT to earn a few more billion dollars. |
*sigh*
What if Microsoft was a tiny company and we were talking about a few thousand dollars instead of a few billion? Would that make a difference? Ah, good old hatred of the rich and bourgeoise. :rolleyes:
Now who says communism died with the Soviets. It's still alive and well right here in Canada!! |
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| dEsidEL |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
Best part of the whole post, except maybe
Now who says communism died with the Soviets. It's still alive and well right here in Canada!! |
dayum rite .. esp. in Scarborough .. mainlanders everywhere!!
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| TheVrk |
a windows media player,
WINAMP is the only way to go:D |
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| Durafei |
| quote: | | I mean look at Sun and AOL. Yeah, I'll bet the antitrust ruling gave them great "stimulation". And what new innovations have they come up with since then? I'll tell you what - SQUAT |
Hm.. Sun is releasing JDK 1.5 just today. I actually just heard a talk yesterday by 2 of the guys who implemented most of the new features, and I'll tell you - it looks impressive :D And then of course there is all this work on EJB 3.0 etc.
Speaking of innovations.. What innovations has Microsoft come up with in the past 20 years?? I'll tell you what - SQUAT :D Those 2 billions dollars are much better of in somebody else's hands, since otherwise Microsoft would've done with them exactly what they did with IE in the past 3 years - NOTHING.
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What if Microsoft was a tiny company and we were talking about a few thousand dollars instead of a few billion? Would that make a difference? Ah, good old hatred of the rich and bourgeoise
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The difference between you and me here is that I don't think that communism is evil at all. I believe the idea is excellent, but unfortunately impractical.. But I certainly don't think that communism, as an idea is evil. |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by rabbitjoker
Did you even read what St_Andrew said? |
I don't think so. It seems easy for people to let their emotions take them through this debate. They don't like Microsoft, so they'll nod their heads to any arguments against them.
I don't like Microsoft either, contrary to what a lot of people are probably going to assume by reading my posts. I hate the company. I hate their designed-for-simpletons methodology. I hate their "cost-effective" alpha and beta testing system. I hate their "cost-convenient" and "regression-testing" bug fixing system. I hate just about everything about them and the way they work. But that still doesn't mean they're acting (a) illegally or (b) somehow against the "greater good".
No, I don't like M$ - I just choose not to let emotions get in the way of rational thought.
P.S. LOL Emery, I don't have to go up there, I can just go to the Guv on a Saturday night to see that! ;) |
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| Durafei |
| quote: | | Wow, talk about missing the point. Economically disastrous is speaking on an ECONOMIC scale - not a COMPANY scale. This is the same hackneyed argument used for welfare - that it's somehow going to "stimulate" the economy by helping out people who have no money to invest in their lives |
Again.. see my earlier post.. If MS didn't pay that money to those companies, that cash would've just been sitting in MS's bank account doing nothing. Other companies, the ones more innovative than MS(which isn't innovative at all), can do soo much more with that money - thus simulating the economy further, and forcing MS to come up with better products as well.. How is this NOT economically stimulating? |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by Durafei
Again.. see my earlier post.. If MS didn't pay that money to those companies, that cash would've just been sitting in MS's bank account doing nothing. Other companies, the ones more innovative than MS(which isn't innovative at all), can do soo much more with that money - thus simulating the economy further, and forcing MS to come up with better products as well.. How is this NOT economically stimulating? |
Microsoft didn't force those companies to sell their products. Those companies obviously did what they felt was in their best interests. Who are you to say where that money would have gone under different circumstances?
Have you stopped to consider that the prospect of selling out to a big company like Microsoft *IS* a motivation for innovation? For anyone who has an idea but not enough money or manpower to market it, selling the idea to someone else is the only way to profit from it. The relationship here is symbiotic, and Microsoft is not by a longshot the only company which has thrived by acquiring other companies and products.
It goes against all common sense to try and stimulate the economy by regulating an industry. Regulations equal red tape, and red tape by definition is prohibitive and lowers productivity. Low productivity = bad news for the economy.
For all its monopoly power, MS has accomplished some pretty wild innovation with .NET. Despite its initial tiness, even I have to admit that it's a pretty impressive accomplishment, integrating platform development with web development and whatnot. |
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| Durafei |
| quote: | | For all its monopoly power, MS has accomplished some pretty wild innovation with .NET. Despite its initial tiness, even I have to admit that it's a pretty impressive accomplishment, integrating platform development with web development and whatnot. |
There is NOTHING, and I mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING innovative about .NET. Everything in .NET has been invented by somebody else years ago. All Microsoft did was implement it well(I gotta give them credit here, they usually implement stuff well)
As far as .NET supporting multiple languages, Joel Spolsky had a good article about it on his www.joelonsoftware.com:
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Why do developers choose one programming language over another for a given task?
Sometimes I choose raw C when I need blazing speed.
When I want something that will run on Windows with as small a distribution as possible, I often choose C++ with MFC statically linked.
When we need a GUI that will run on Mac, Windows, and Linux, a common choice is Java (although the GUI will not be perfect, it will work.)
For rapid GUI development and really smooth UIs, I like Visual Basic, but I know that I'm going to have to pay the price in the size of the distributable and the fact that I'll be locked into Windows.
For a command-line tool that must run on any UNIX machine and doesn't need to be fast, perl is a good choice.
If you have to run inside a web browser, JavaScript is the really the only choice. In a SQL stored procedure, you usually get to choose between one vendor's proprietary SQL derivative or go home.
What's the Point?
But I hardly ever choose a language based on syntax. Yeah, I prefer the {}; languages (C/C++/C#/Java). And I have lots of opinions as to what makes a "good" syntax. But I wouldn't accept a 20 MB runtime just to get semicolons.
Which makes me wonder a bit about .NET's cross-language strategy. The idea is, choose any language you want, there are zillions, and they all work the same way.
VB.NET and C#.NET are virtually identical except for tiny syntactic differences. And other languages that want to be part of the .NET world need to support at least a core set of features and types or they won't be able to Play Well With Others. But how do I develop a UNIX command line utility in .NET? How do I develop a tiny Windows EXE in less than 16K in .NET?
It seems like .NET gives us a "choice" of languages precisely where we couldn't care less about it -- in the syntax.
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| quote: |
For anyone who has an idea but not enough money or manpower to market it, selling the idea to someone else is the only way to profit from it.
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When Google started out, Larry and Sergey only had an idea and an algorithm. They didn't have much money. They went around and asked people for money. They got it. They never sold their idea to anyone.
Why did they succeed? Because at the time, Microsoft, and nobody else realized how much money can be made from search advertisement. If they did, I bet ya Google would not exist now. |
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| Your Mother |
| quote: | Originally posted by Durafei
There is NOTHING, and I mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING innovative about .NET. Everything in .NET has been invented by somebody else years ago. All Microsoft did was implement it well(I gotta give them credit here, they usually implement stuff well)
As far as .NET supporting multiple languages, Joel Spolsky had a good article about it on his www.joelonsoftware.com:
When Google started out, Larry and Sergey only had an idea and an algorithm. They didn't have much money. They went around and asked people for money. They got it. They never sold their idea to anyone.
Why did they succeed? Because at the time, Microsoft, and nobody else realized how much money can be made from search advertisement. If they did, I bet ya Google would not exist now. |
great post dude and right on the money. I know one things for sure, if the google founders had started looking for funding in 2000 instead of earlier, they might not be around today.
-Your Mother |
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