Re: Pirates of Silicon Valley

[Mike <moose@rocknet.net.au>]

David wrote:

> I would like to take issue with some of your points....
>
> > Bruce Baker (Bruce.Baker@juge.com) wrote:
> > : I didn't see this movie but people who poopoo Bill Gates are missing a lot.
> > : Gates obviously does a lot of things right or his company wouldn't be where
> it
> > : is.  This is the pure and simple fact.  Now you may not like the man, or you
> > : may be jealous of the man and his wealth.  But the fact is he has kept
> quality
> > : very high and he has satisfied his customers.   Otherwise people would have
> > : bought other software.  Now they may not have a choice about operating
> systems,
> > : but they do on software.
>
> How can you say that Gates has kept quality very high...... Win98 was a
> 2000+ bug fix of Win95 and Win2k a 5000 Bug fix of Win98. That's very  high
> quality????? You are easily pleased.

Micro$oft have been tending to keep the quality of their products very high -
especially the last few years, and they are getting better all the time.  Don't
forget that Micro$ofts first release is usually a "test the water", the second
release is usually more serious, and the third release is the highly polished
product.  They have done this with loads of products - Windows, Word, Excel, etc.

> The whole point of the objections to Gates and his philosphy is that quality
> DOESN'T matter to him, numbers do, especially if they have the "$" in front.

I think this statement is stupid.  He has more money than he could spend in a
hundred lifetimes.  Gates is extremely worried about quality and recognition.

> You have to bear in mind that a very high proportion of computer users, Mac
> and PC do not play with their systems and will use whatever defaults are set
> for them in the factory. Hence most will use Internet Explorer as it is the
> default browser in Windows.

This is true.  Don't forget that many PC users are also secretaries, admin, etc
staff, who could not be classed expert - and would not ever want to be an expert -
no matter what PC, MAC, etc system you put in front of them.

> However for the more advanced user, the beauty of the MacOS is the ease of
> use and the simplicity of customization.

The beauty of Windows 9x is just that as well - the speed, the extreme ease of use,
and the awesome power.  You love MAC OS, I love Windows 9x.  Both are great OS's and
both have their loyal followers.

> On a Wintel system it is nigh-on
> impossible to know what was installed with any application. Whilst it is
> true that later versions of the MacOS tend to get bloated, this can be
> avoided with prudent installations, and it is only Microsoft programs that
> drop all sorts of crap in the system folder without an installer log file so
> you can find it all later. In general, all the parts of an installation are
> placed with an application in its folder. I was asked by someone why there
> isn't and uninstaller bundled with the MacOS, and when I showed that that
> all you have to do to delete a program from the machine was to delete its
> folder and it preferences, they were amazed.

I do *not* agree with you.

Ever heard of CleanSweep ?

There are loads of programs that monitor installation of software on Wintel and can
fully monitor and delete even the very few sneaky remaining programs - some of the
few remaining as you say these are Microsoft's own programs - that do not produce
install logs and offer an "Uninstall" icon.  Although, Microsoft is really picking
up the trend of producing install logs and offering unistall icons for all its
programs.

Most programs I have installed over the past few years put everything in their own
folder - they don't sneak stuff into the Windows or System directories.  Deletion of
these on the PC is - as you say for the MAC - as easy as deleting their folder.


> Gates' organization first of all conned the Seattle company out of their
> operating system, and then stole the MacOS. When Jobs & Co went to Xerox, it
> was all open and above board,

No it wasn't.  They snuck back to Apple, and the next day returned with a whole
bunch of Apple programmers, who then snuck off to write a GUI.  To make it seem like
it was "above board" they also hired away a bunch of the staff who had worked on the
GUI at Xerox.

There was nothing about board about Apple developing the GUI - they stole it plain
and simple - they never paid Xerox one cent for using Xerox's ideas or copying their
GUI.

> and the level of development of the Xerox
> system was hardly at an advanced stage.

Who says ?

> They could not for instance have
> more than one window open at a time, and had to fake it for the demo. So it
> not really a fair comparison. I did see the movie on Father's Day, and am
> sure glad that neither Jobs nor Gates is my Father. Neither is a nice
> person, but in my opinion, based on what I have read and observed over the
> years, Gates is little more than a crook, and at least Jobs has a streak of
> genius in him.

Jobs sure does have vision - nobody can argue with that.  It is just a shame he
always has to bang on like a religious freak to try and brain wash people into
buying his kit.  Remember the first MAC ads which made out that all PC users were
IBM drones ?  He seems to try and make everything into a some sort of holy war.

And, apparently it works and it is still working, as many MAC heads still seem to be
swallowing at least some this crap, as is evidenced by with some of the really brain
dead arguments I see around here.

Gates has vision also, but he does seem to do it by watching waves and paddling hard
to catch them after they have already got big or gone by.

> Just my 2 cents.

Heh !  Just mine.

Mike O'Malley