Re: Pirates of Silicon Valley

["Robert R. Dell" <robertdell@sprintmail.com>]

Steve Mentzer wrote:

> >
> >Ahem... "quality" on Microsoft products is non existant. Microsoft software is
> >poorly written and bug filled - so much so that it is has been seriously
> questioned
> >whether or not the bugs were purposely put into their programs to keep people
> >upgrading.
>
>  That's funny that you mention this. **EVERY DAY** I use office 97, a whole
> slew of microsoft programming tools (Visual C++ v6.0, Visual Basic 6.0, Visual
> J++), back-end application suites like Microsoft Transaction Server, SQL Server
> 6.5, Microsoft Message Queue etc etc etc...

I personally use Office 98 (the Mac version of Office 97) every day almost and even though it's the best system out there, I still think it's poorly written and has lots of bugs.  I don't write HTML in Office anymore as it's extremely hard to open up a text file and just look at it in text mode by default. It always wants to view the page as an HTML page not the source.  That's being a bit too smart and buggy for my standards.

>
>
> And while I do find an occasional quirk, the programs are far from being "bug
> filled". Well, they aren't any buggier than other application suites available.
>
> As far as Microsoft "forcing upgrades". That is simply not true. If a major bug
> is found in any microsoft product, a patch or service pack is always released,
> and it is almost always free.
>
> >The average person does not have a choice when it comes to an OS; 95% of
> >all software is written for Windows - so if you or your company needs a
> >particular
> >piece of software in most cases you have to buy Windows.

I just checked the latest stats and according to http://www.opensource.org/ the windows users comprise 57% of the market share with LINUX bringing up the slack real fast.

>
>
> Blame this one directly at me. I don't write software for the Mac, nor will I
> ever. Microsoft supports the developers and the developers write the software.
> Are you saying that microsoft is at fault for making my job as a developer
> easier????
>
> Lets turn on the time-machine-looking-glass and take a gander at the
> differences between Microsoft and Apple.
>
>         1 -     Apple never introduced a viable developer program.
>                 (APDA DOES NOT COUNT)
>                 Their development tools were ridiculously expensive.

I agree here.  Apple wanting $500.00 investment for a developer and the only thing we got was APDA where we STILL had to pay top dollar for tools....  You ever wonder why software gets pirated?  Put the software out there for the general public for 30 bucks and most likely nobody will pirate it and you'll get more sales than the people that pay $1000.00+ for it.

>
>         2 -     Microsoft gave away SDK's, DDK's.
>                 (unlike apple, where you had to beg steve jobs for attention).

Apple does NOW but a little late don't you think?

>
>         3 -     Borland (who never made a Mac compatible compiler)
>                 practically gave away compilers to students.

Borland DId make a compiler once for the Mac but that was a time when I was still using the Apple // and didn't care about the Mac.

>
>         4 -     Microsoft adapted an object oriented API for windows
>                 programming. They standardized it. It made C/C++ windows
>                 programming 100x easier (for standard gui apps).

I hate to burst your bubble but the Mac has always been object orientated from day one and the standards that were out in 1984 are still used today but expanded upon to add new features.

>
>         5 -     Microsoft developed an easy to use, accessible language
>                 for the power programmer AND the average savvy joe.
>                 It is called Visual Basic.
>                 Windows TOOK OFF when VB started gaining ground.
>                 Good or bad, 75% of my development today is in VB.
>
> >Microsoft has even bought
> >software companies to insure that the software would not be written for any
> >other
> >platform.

>
>         Really, like who?

Hmmm Fox for example?  Sure Microsoft came out with FoxPro for the Macintosh but it was already about to come out for the Mac at the time Microsoft bought Fox.  Look for the latest FoxPro for the Mac and you'll have the exact same version and software that was published the first time Microsoft put their name brand on it.  They enhanced the Windows version dramaticly but never did a thing for the Mac version leaving the windows version considerably better than the Mac version.

>
>
> >They have monopolized the software market - and you will end up the
> >loser. Technological advancements are sacrificed for the sake of backwards
> >compatibility and to keep Microsoft's hefty monopoly in place.  And
> incidentally,
> >Microsoft has just now got around to putting features into their OS that Mac's
> >have
> >had since the mid 80's.
>
> And apple **just** put a feature in the MacOS that Microsoft Windows NT has had
> for years.... It's called "pre-emptive multitasking".
>
> Don't even get me started on memory protection and address spaces...
>
> Bottom line: The MacOS has lagged behind technically for YEARS. A good GUI
> doesn't make a better OS. If that was the case, then linux should be considered
> to be a big pile of donkey dung.
>
> >Bundling Internet explorer with Win 98 is a prime example of how Microsoft is
> >attempting to crush any competition and shove their software down your throat.
> >They
> >are even putting that crap on Mac's now. Internet explorer comes already
> installed
> >on most computers and if you try to run Netscape it causes it to crash in some
> >instances - coincidence?
>
> What a load of crap. Nag messages, yes. Making IE the default browser
> automatically ... yes. But saying that IE can indiscriminately kill Netscape
> while running is absurd.

Well, he's right. It took me a while to axe all the Microsoft stuff and isolate them from Netscape so I can use Netscape as my default browser and even now, netscape periodicly crashes (and it never crashed on my 9500 without all the microsoft stuff).  The bottom line is the Microsoft items conflict with Netscape's items and sometimes cause a system crash causing a reboot.  I had to put the Microsoft items into a shared folder for microsoft items and tell all microsoft apps where to find the items but they DID modify the actual system file (something like modifying the ibmio.sys and msdos.sys files in your PC) and I can't get rid of that.  If you use nothing but Microsoft stuff, you'll be fine but go to any other vendor for any application and you are in trouble and risk a system crash.

I put Microsoft along the same grounds as Caere (vendor of Omnipage Pro) because the technical support people wanted me to eliminate a crash by turning off all extensions with the extensions manager and then turn on only the scanner and omnipage pro extensions for using their software, something I refuse to do so I have a very expensive software wasted.  It's like saying "Our software works just fine without that CD driver and network drivers installed so remove them to run our software because the problem is in them" and all other apps work just fine with the drivers installed.

>
>
> Netscrape crashes fine all by itself... that is why I use IE.
>
> >And removing Internet explorer is no easy task for novice
> >users.
> >
>
> Seeing how the explorer and folder browsers contain instances of IE4, it seems
> stupid to remove it in the first place.

You're talking Windows only Steve.  The Mac isn't like that.  We have no explorer like you have in Windows but before you say anything, our operating system doesn't NEED anything like that because it's all built-in.

>
>
> >That's the thing - there isn't any competition. Microsoft destroys or buys out
> >any
> >company if there is even a hint that they might be a competitor. They don't
> >play
> >"fair"; and by that I mean they break the law - as this current anti-monopoly
> >lawsuit the Government has filed against them will show. Remember what
> >happened to
> >Standard Oil and Rockefeller?
> >
>
> Names please.....
>
> or are you just repeating the standard media hype....
>
> I thought so...

One name I mentioned was Fox.  Microsoft didn't invent VB, they BOUGHT it and then enhanced it.  They attempted to create a JAVA machine that simply won't work on Netscape's browser but Sun Microsystems nailed them for the violation of license so Microsoft had to revert it to standard.  Their flight sim game that comes free with Windows wasn't a Microsoft original, it was BOUGHT (and don't ask me for names from soooo long ago).  Microsoft Chat is licensed from Mirabilis.  Microsoft Mail is licensed from Sendmail.  Microsoft Movie player (or whatever it's called now) is technology that was stolen from Apple's Quicktime software and they paid the price when Jobs got Apple back (or vice versa) in a publicly recorded court fight.  Am I just repeating media hype still? I could go on but the separation between Microsoft's items and other corporation's items are very well disguised.  Word itself was sold to Microsoft at one time when it was nothing but a text editor and Excel was sold to
Microsoft when it was a cheap (and I don't mean cheap by price, I mean cheap quality) copy of Lotus.  Microsoft had the funds at those times (and still now) to put a few thousand programmers on a purchased project and convert it to something that looks just like Microsoft original and severely enhanced.

Working with a project you already have (even if you have to rewrite it from scratch) is much easier than coming up with your own ideas.  Name me a few Microsoft ORIGINAL ideas.  NT is an abortion between Unix and Windows 9x (not saying it isn't good but is a good mixture that still needs a lot of fine tuning).