[WaltC]

Originally Posted by Chalnoth

Did I ever say "just Microsoft?" You're the one that's crediting Microsoft with the standard platform we have today, not me.

I don't see what relevance this has to anything. Nothing exists in a vaccum.

OK, then--glad to stand corrected. But I have to say that your comments about Microsoft didn't seem to include anybody else as I read them. Glad to see you realize Microsoft has plenty of voluntary company in terms of its business strategies.

Does this make Microsoft have any less of a monopoly? Or make Microsoft's dominance any better for the consumer? As far as I can see, Walt, your arguments all have missed the point completely.

If you acknowledge that man does not compute by Microsoft alone, then you acknowledge that Microsoft simply doesn't have the kind of monopoly you fictionalize.

C'mon, Walt, you could at least argue the point. Is Microsoft a monopoly or isn't it? Is this bad for the consumer or isn't it? How Microsoft got to where it is today affects neither of these.

Above you state that you realize Microsoft doesn't act alone in the marketplace--but then you persist in labeling the company as if it did. I think you really need to make up your mind...

[Chalnoth]

Walt, Microsoft operating with other companies that produce other hardware and software doesn't give it any less of a monopoly in the Operating System market.

[DemoCoder]

Standard Oil wasn't 100% self sufficient either, they dependened on products and services by others. No man or company is an island. The definition of Monopoly does not require a company to be an island unto itself.

[ANova]

Originally Posted by scificube

If MS gave away every cent it had it would only still make a very small dent in the whole situation as it is now and furthermore would solve absolutely nothing with respect to how things will still be in the future.

Poor countries will remain poor and ever dependent upon others if they are not developed to the point at which they can do for themselves. Such a task is well out of the reach of MS and is a task they are ill equipped to perform.

I agree with you in general, but I don't agree with the above. Some $40 billion will go a long way and yes it will take alot more to get the entire world going but that does not mean you shouldn't even try. If you don't the problem surely will never be solved.

Originally Posted by WaltC

So, it's Microsoft's fault that companies like Apple and Commodore, at a time before Windows existed and the entire x86 hardware world market was a flyspeck, chose not to license the cloning of their hardware--which in turn would have dramatically increased sales and circulations of their respective OS's? I cannot see how that situation could possibly have anything at all to do with Microsoft's decision to support x86 when nobody else wanted to. It just seems so convenient to sit back and blame the judgmental failures of all of these other companies on Microsoft. Their lapses of vision were their own, entirely.

Bill Gates is a good business man, I'll give him that, but it still does not change the fact that they are a monopoly no matter how you try to justify it. Nor does it change their attitude when it comes to how they get that money.

If Microsoft was a real monopoly in the sense it is often said to be then "sitting still" would be the very thing Microsoft excels in, but obviously, such is not the case at all, is it? Microsoft's competitors loathe the company exactly because it is so vigorously competitive and is perpetually seeking to improve its products and services. Such conduct rubs against the grain of many tech companies--who merely want to *quit* development, hang out a sign that says, "We've arrived!" and rake in the dough in perpetuity. Microsoft makes that kind of complacency improssible for them and that's why they loathe the company as they do.

Microsoft has never sat still? Is that why they haven't touched IE for years now, until Mozilla debuted Firefox. Is that why they've sat on Win XP for years now as well? I think they have milked it quite a bit. And yet Longhorn is still a mess when looking at the beta 1 build imo; despite some four or more years of supposed development, it's been delayed consistently, features such as WinFX have been removed entirely to be added later in a service pack, etc.

[DemoCoder]

There was a time when Apple was the #1 seller of computers in the US. They sat on their asses for years, expecting a copyright lawsuit to protect them from Win95, rather than pouring resources to finish Copland, or "Pink" As a result, they almost died as a company. But they are back, and Mac OS X (esp Tiger) is one of the most amazing implementations of Unix, let alone, OS I have seen.

Apple has delivered on promises than MS has been bragging about for years, like integrated searching into the filesystem. Did anyone care to download Windows Vista Beta? This is what MS thinks will go up against Tiger and Panther? I was woefully unimpressed by the new UI.

MS has had *FIVE YEARS* to fix their CSS/CSS2 bugs in the browser.

I question that MS's monopoly is good for even MS as a company. MS is being challenged on the server side by Linux, but desktop wise, they run mostly unopposed -- until now -- Apple is starting to get critical mass/mindshare now, and the move to Intel CPUs may be the beginning of a new era of competition.

But the fact that Apple is making a comeback still doesn't change MS's monopoly status. It isn't that monopolies will last forever, it's that during their reign, the market may be stuck in a non-optimal position, until eventually, some disruptive technology or event starts the ball rolling again.

[scificube]

Anova:

Do you have any idea how much money has been donated over the years to poor countries by the U.S. government alone? much less the world's governments...and then the world's humanitarian organizations...

No. Money is not in itself the solution and I still hold firmly it never will be. Unless that money goes to rectify to core problems with poor societies vs. address the symptoms that money is wasted.

I also never said we should do nothing, especially when those symptoms I mentioned earlier equate to human lives.

I am simply pointing out that mere redistribution of wealth will not fix things...only temporarily stop the bleeding if that.

The real solution is not to take money for rich and give to the poor, but to raise the overall standard of living for the less wealthy so high extra money has little value beyond one's children not having to work. As long as a gap exists between the standard of living for different groups of people the existence of poor and wealthy people is secure for the same amount of time. Even if everyone were brought to the middle those who have the facilities and know how to accumulate wealth will soon do so again by draining it from those who do not and those very same will once again become the poor.

I also see no fairness in this. Should AOL be forced to lower it's prices or give more to the poor simply because it can? Hollywood? Walmart? McDonald's? There are many who could do more but do not...not just MS. I caution from quickly answering yes as well...as you are included. You can give more than you do as well. Compared to the truly poor in the world you are wildly rich. Are you a bad person because you elected to buy a computer vs. give that same money to some poor 3rd world family? You don't need steak...you could make due with rice and fish...you don't need to wear nikes...you don't need to shower everyday... Why are you so different from MS in this respect?

This is beside the point I am trying to make so I'm going to stop.

[Chalnoth]

Originally Posted by scificube

I am simply pointing out that mere redistribution of wealth will not fix things...only temporarily stop the bleeding if that.

Perhaps, but concentration of wealth is definitely a bad thing for the economy as a whole. I don't think that Microsoft having the wealth it does is really related to the plight of poorer nations, but I do feel that if that wealth was not with Microsoft (and also not in the hands of some other select few), then it would be distributed among a much larger base of people, which would, in the end, mean more money for consumers. Given that it's a consumer-driven economy that we live in, more money in the hands of consumers is much better than having large amounts concentrated in one place.

Now, I don't think it makes sense to directly deal with the wealth, but rather the means of accumulating vast amounts of it. The reason that Microsoft has accumulated so much wealth is because Microsoft has a monopoly. Fix that, and you fix the wealth concentration (or, at least, some of it...).

[volt]

And what does Mickey Dees have to do with DX10? :P

[ANova]

..

[Neeyik]

Thread locked because it stopped being a discussion about WGF 2.0 long ago.