21 May
1998
21 May
'98
2:51 p.m.
Sure the DOS license was a big initial push, but to say
it was solely
responsible for the success of Microsoft is like saying the Model T is
responsible for Ford having the best selling vehicle in America today.
Exactly. It's kind of like how scientists can associate one thing with
another, such as "Salt increases people's chances of having a heart attack,
therefore having little/no salt reduces it". It's not true; see if ANY
living being can go without salt. If DOJ's going to punish MS, the LEAST
they could to would be to get their facts strait.
Microsoft was a development products company, not an OS
company. When I
got
here in 1988, I remember seeing a revenue pie chart at
the company meeting.
We were at around 60-70% revenue from development products like C++ &
FORTRAN, with a big slice from apps like Word & Multiplan, and DOS revenue
was a tiny slice. In a decade where everything had to be written directly
to the hardware to get any speed out of the 8088, you can hardly say that
the DOS license had much to do with the success of the dev products.
I think that you'll agree with me when I say that revenues arn't everything,
and in some cases, anything. Take Internet Explorer, for example. I'd
imagine that the product (which, BTW, is an excellent browser) doesn't make
much, if any money, due to the fact that the only way you pay for it is $5
for a CD or $30 or whatever for Internet Explorer Plus. But still, IE makes
up between 30-50% of the browser wars.
Our first, all time most successful Windows app, Excel,
that nuked the
Lotus
1-2-3 monopoly through ease of use and customer demand
alone, was _ported
from the Macintosh_. How exactly could we have leveraged our ownership of
Windows to make Excel successful when it wasn't even written for Windows?
Exactly. MS shouldn't be punished for making good desisions or good luck.
Now, the ONLY thing that would actually call for an anti-trust hearing would
be if the Gov't offered MS money for something. DOJ really doesn't know
what they're talking about once they get to computers. That judge was happy
to see the IE logo off his computer!!! The disputed files still existed.
If IBM endorsing & bundling an OS makes it a
monopoly, why is OS/2 dead?
IBM... now, I don't think that they're guilty, but they call for anti-trust
hearings. They make their own hard drives, OS's, chips (x86 and otherwise),
PC's, mainframes.... talk about BUNDLING...
A good point, which I think needs to be made is that the PC industry has
reached an odd point. It's at an area where products can be hyped enough
for a idiot with some cash to want to get a PC for a couple of reasons. For
instance, someone was talking to their sister and was asking me for help on
the Internet, and he was concerned that her sister's Mac wasn't a Pentium.
All he knew was how the Pentium was hyped. PowerPC was not, except for a
3-6 month Motorola campaign. Seriously, I happen to kind of like Windows.
It's pretty easy to use. Now, due to Autoplay in Windows 95, I can get even
the most BASIC to install a program. Needless to say, that's something that
has considerably lowered my phone bill. ;-)
Kai
Don't worry. We're mostly geeks on
this list, meaning we want the
Government to stay in it's own territory. Hey... anyone think about
launching anti-trust hearings against the government/IRS??? They're
monopolies....
BTW, what exactly do you do at Microsoft????
Ciao,
Tim D. Hotze