Microsoft anti-trust

[Dr Unne]

The European Union is apparently starting their anti-trust case against MS. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=4912020 for an article. Particularly amusing to me is this:

To back that up, the decision quotes from an internal memo sent to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on February 21, 1997 by C++ general manager Aaron Contorer, a software expert.

"There is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system," he wrote Gates.

"It is this switching cost that has given customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO, our lack of a sexy version at times...

"It would be so much work to move over that they hope we just improve Windows rather than force them to move," he said.

I don't use Windows very much / at all if I can help it, and I'm hoping they're punished severely. Biggest bunch of shysters there ever was. Does anyone else follow this kind of story, or care about it?

[Yamaneko]

Seems like Microsoft's mentality is: If it isn't illegal, keep doing, despite being wrong and hurting the common person.

They need to pay, yes. Because of them almost everyone I know is an ignorant computer user. They expect nothing more than what MS puts in front of them

That's why I'm switching over to Linux and fast as I can and only using Windows for gaming.

[Dr Unne]

Actually their philosophy is "Do whatever we want, even if it IS illegal, because paying a few fines and having our wrists slapped doesn't matter when our illegal practices earn us billions of dollars a year".

[Yamaneko]

$589.9 million is still a decent amount of money for them, I think.

[Dr Unne]

It's a drop in the bucket. They make billions of dollars a year. If you can spend $500 million paying off the government fines, and then make $40 billion a year, it's not punishment.

[The Captain]

Sort of ironic that in the early 20th century, our President Teedy Roosevelt, was attempting to destroy every monopoly he could. Yet, about 100 years later they still exist. It's the conundrum of capitalism. Monopolies form and are sometimes allowed to endure despite the seemingly worldwide hatred of them. Hopefully, this forces MC to play by the rules a bit more, or play by them at all for that matter.

Take care all.

[Shadow Nexus]

Oh, well, I use a Mac, because I find Windows to be quite a poor operating system, full of bugs and open holes for hackers.

As for that, well, what can you expect of them? I remember that Aute poem that said "in the times to come we can expect Windows to be the logotype of the planet", and well...thats more or less what Microsoft represents to me. It's just another awful multinational, but looking at it on the bright side, their extreme capitalism is far more ethical than the one practiced by Nike, Coca-Cola or McDonald's. You probably know what Nike and McDonald's do, as for Coca-Cola, it gives money to paramilitar groups in Colombia and does not allow unions to protect their workers. And Rover...and...OK, I shut up.

[Burtsplurt]

I started losing respect for Microsoft a long time ago, but I've only learned about alternative operating systems in the past couple of years. And I know something about computers. I guess people that have little/no knowledge just assume that it's Windows or nothing.

I tried to break away from Windows with Mandrake Linux, but I didn't like it (and, to be fair, I kind of messed it up...). I've got Gentoo installed now, but I haven't got around to installling anything but the basic system (and that took me three days - I kept on messing things up!).

[Shadow Nexus]

The good thing about Windows is that you can play Final Fantasy XI

(Cause you know, paying 100$ for the PS2 game+ Hard drive and 50$ for the modem and...whatever for the keyboard....)