DemoCoder said:
Well, that's the essence of capitalism. I'm out to sell stuff to benefit myself, not you. However, in order to sell it to you, I need to take your needs into account. If someone else handles your needs better, I go out of business.
And, quite obviously, if someone else can't, you don't. The problem with Microsoft is either that there is no "someone else" (anymore) or Microsoft
doesn't need to compete on quality to eliminate them...we do agree in general on what a monopoly is, right? Perhaps this
quality issue is why people complain. If you don't think quality is a valid reason, we can skip this discussion...
It is often said that open source is about scratching an itch. Open source programmers, by and large, program things that interest them, or program according to their own needs. Rarely will you see any open source project go out and interview end users, run usability experiments, etc.
Do you work for Microsoft? J/k, j/k. In any case, what about Open Source programmers who ARE end users?
In fact, end users are told to RTFM and are considered IDIOTS if they can't use your elite hacker user interface. or worse, they are told to patch the source according to their needs. Frequently, any criticism of a Linux app begins with "well, if it is missing a feature or you find it hard to use, then you can patch it yourself or contribute docs". Try telling that to your grandma who just wants to check her email, not edit /etc/resolv.conf
While couched in terms suitable to a Microsoft executive "interview", you do point out valid problems with the Unix environment in general. Too bad as a result of long past history and recent judicial failure it seems there won't be any competitors in the (Wintel) PC space who
do have the funding to run usability experiments. You know, for that competition stuff you mentioned earlier but haven't quite seemed to connect to Microsoft or monopolies as far as I can tell.
Microsoft is bashed so much and people complain so much about their software, but in most of the important categories of software that people use everyday, they have the best product.
Which categories and what criteria for "best"? I'm suspecting the criteria are going to be related to features Microsoft has direct control over, like inter-operability with other Microsoft products, and that quality is going to tend to place a ways down the list. But maybe they've had lack of competition in the categories you have in mind long enough to have established quality leadership, or bought it from someone else.
Microsoft is only going to stay on top if they keep delivering a better product.
Than what? I thought they had the OS thing all sewn up, and somehow looking at history I thought this gave them an edge in planning and allocating their resources in other areas around what they knew they would do with their OS (and in fact what they did with their OS was favorable to maintaining this edge). But if there is another OS that can compete directly on quality and successfully contends with the simple fact that "everything" is written for Wintel machine and codebase, please mention it.
In areas where they don't deliver the best product: desktop publishing, video, and imaging (Adobe dominates) or financial apps (Intuit), or Databases, Microsoft hasn't been able to crack the market to any large degree.
Ah, competing entrenchments. So you're saying all those other companies are profitable and healthy and retaining market share against Microsoft? I'll take your word for it for now, and so I should blindly (IMO) hope Microsoft doesn't change focus on what they offer for "free" in the future?
Look at DirectX. Microsoft is moving so quickly, that if OpenGL doesn't get moving, they are history. Visual Studio.NET? There is no better Win32 IDE period. Not CodeWarrior, not C++ builder, not Delphi. They don't even come close.
*blink* Aren't those tools where Microsoft dictates the target? Don't they have a bit of an advantage there? Also, am I mistaken, or does Windows XP not ship with OpenGL driver code at all? Is that competing on quality? Or perhaps there was some other reason for that selective omission?
Overall, IMHO, Microsoft has been good for the industry.
Microsoft had done things that have shown benefits. The problem is other things would have shown more benefit,
like competition. Which is really the actual point about capitalism you were making initially, so it is still confusing to me you think it justifies Microsoft's monopoly or makes complaining about it "whining" (nice of you to maintain the high ground, btw).
Yes, they drove alot of commodity products out of the industry (Stac compression, fax software, TCP/IP stacks, media players, etc) but I consider these things to be low level components that should be provided by the OS, just as I have a printer driver.
I do understand your point, and problem is that as the list increases, the quality of the items in the list stops being determined by competition. It is possible to both include the functionality and allow competition to continue (even though Microsoft spent a lot of time in the Antitrust case trying to say this was not the case), it is merely that it was in Microsoft's interest to do only one, and the consumer's interest to do both. The two interests aren't the same thing, and as Microsoft's interests are served more and more you are surprised that consumers complain?
Why should MS, for example, be banned from providing a filesystem with built in compression? Just so end users have to pay $50 to a small company and go thru the hassle of installing and configuring something which shouldn't even be an enduser product?
Mighty blithe in your pronouncement on what should and should not be. Hey, if I'm buying my Server OS, shouldn't database functionality be included? Where is the line drawn, and why is it drawn there today and will be tomorrow?
Many of the same people who whine amount Microsoft including a DVD Player in XP (puts WinDVD/PowerDVD out of business) didn't say a word when Apple included a DVD player built into the operating system.
Since my DVD player software came with my video card and DVD drive, I didn't think to comment on that. Now that you bring it up, it seems a good thing Microsoft is there to allow them not to bother including such, it's not like Microsoft would charge the video card manufacturer and makers of the DVD drive for some sort of "Media Center" driver certification or something similar instead of WinDVD's or PowerDVD's makers prices for packaging...
Again, why should I have to BUY a media player for my computer that came with a DVDROM. Every component needed is a commodity. The look and feel of the UI is just a skin. There is really no need for a third party market in CD/DVD player applets.
I am really curious as to where and why you draw the line. It's strange that we ever had DVD and CD players. It's like at some point there wasn't OS functionality encompassing this. *scratch* Pondering that, and looking to the future, I'd like to know which market segements are immune to this phenomenon....I think games may be as long as Microsoft is limited to the number of "sub-studios" they can attract. What else?
My advice: if you are in an industry which can be commodified very quickly, don't bet your company's future on it. If Microsoft doesn't commodify you, the open source programmers will. (e.g. Apache)
And, again, the problem is that what can be "commodified" is a longer and longer list as time progresses, and that quality is not the deciding factor on whether something is commodified (wouldn't DVD player software makers have to pay Microsoft money to properly utilize some of the planned media features as exposed on Microsoft's OS in any case?). If you don't have a problem with it, that's up to you, but your attempt to even remotely link this to the principle of competition you began this post with seems a failure to me.
