🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <01bc026e$bd4f9a20$8f201e26@speedbird>,
Vining <vin...@shadow.net> wrote:
> MACos.  THey do not produce the only office suite, in fact, there is fierce
> competition, however people buy the microsoft product.  Why do you think
> this is?

Piracy, a deliberate lack of standards, and Gatesing the competition.

Some people buy Microsoft operating systems so they can bring home software
from the office, then they buy them at work because it's what they're used
to. Some people buy it because their kids want them to, because that way
they can run pirated games, then they buy Microsoft at the office because
it's what they're used to. Some people buy them so they can run copies of
their games from home at work.

Most people buy Microsoft applications because they're the only ones that
can reliably read and write Microsoft file formats. And of course they can
read and write other people's file formats, because they don't have tight
restrictions on who can understand their formats.

And finally, when they have Microsoft applications, they buy Microsoft
operating systems to run those applications because the applications are
jiggered to run less effectively on other people's operating systems. This
has been documented... internally in Microsoft they call it Gatesing the
competition.

Now you can argue that these are all legitimate practices, that keeping
interfaces and protocols secret is a legitimate way of gaining a competitive
advantage. But it hurts *everyone*, because it keeps people from being able
to write software that interoperates cleanly, and because it restricts
competition. Whether or not Bill Gates is evil or just excersizing his
fiduciary duties to the stockholders with no concern for other values is
beside the point... the computer industry *needs* to have this roadblock
removed.

-- 

             The Reverend Peter da Silva, ULC, COQO, BOFH.

                  Har du kramat din varg, idag? `-_-'