What is the
problem with Microsoft?
In today's world of computing you come
across the name Microsoft wherever you look. Many people even
consider Microsoft and computers to be equivalent. But if you
take a closer look, you will see that Microsoft's contribution to
computer science is not worth mentioning and in most cases rather
negative. Unfortunately the public seems to be very poorly
informed, even in the press you constantly read about the amazing
innovations and the genius of Microsoft. In the following I am
going to explain with some examples why this picture is not only
totally wrong, but also very dangerous.
(last updated: 20-May-1998)
Table Of Contents
I. Products
In general Microsoft software
is superior to their components' products only in one aspect:
marketing. I ask you to name one single innovation that
originated from Microsoft. Features in Microsoft's software are
in most cases ideas which have been taken from other companies,
or they can be seen as a try to improve certain parts of a
program which Microsoft apparently was not able to make better.
As a result you get bloated, buggy, and slow programs.
Examples for the
implementation of other companies' ideas can already be found at
things as elementary as the GUI (Graphical User Interface) of
Windows. Just take a look at the windows of the NeXTStep
operating system, e.g. at the buttons to close such a window. You
will be really surprised. But even in detail concepts show up
that have simply been stolen by Microsoft. It seems like they
neither have the ability to innovate nor do they have the
appropriate technology. To prove that you should take a look at a
so-called WAV-file and compare it to a file format called IFF
(Interchange File Format) which has been developed by Electronic
Arts and Commodore for the Amiga computer. The only real
difference is the marker stored in the first four (!) bytes.
Those who dare to take a look
at the announced new features of Windows NT 5.0, which still has
to be released at the time I write this, will recognize that
these revolutionary and innovative abilities could be found in
Unix-systems for decades. User Quotas? Accessing devices without
the use of C:, D: etc.? Mounting filesystems into an existing
directory tree? Multiuser-support? Redirecting the output of a
program to another computer? Yawn!
Even tries to improve evident
weaknesses are related to as an innovation never seen before.
Let's take the Long File Names which has been introduced together
with Windows 95. Now it is possible to give your files names that
are longer than eight characters, to which file names were
limited in earlier versions of DOS and Windows. This limitation
has its origins in the operating system CP/M. In their enthusiasm
people tend to forget that there is effectively no other
operating system with similar limitations. AmigaOS, MacOS, IBM
OS/2 (native), unixoid systems (e.g. Linux) are examples for
systems which have simply never known any sick problems like
that. Furthermore, new programs, especially designed for Windows
95, are necessary to make use of long file names, old software
can still only use short file names. Windows has quite a job to
do to let both worlds co-exist.
Microsoft has not really made
the use of computers simpler. There are two possibilities to make
the use of any device easier. Normally you would improve the
interface between man and the machine, i.e. to think of an easy
possibility to access all functions of a device. Microsoft tends
to choose a second way. Windows appears easy to work with mostly
due to the fact that Microsoft does not let you control your own
computer. Why does Windows start the program ScanDisk after
formatting a disk without asking?
What happens when you boot up your windows computer? You get a
nice picture, but you have no clue what Windows actually does. In
earlier times the output of every single command was printed on
the screen to let you observe the process. Nowadays you have to
trust Windows blindly. Whenever something does not work you can
do nothing but guess what is wrong again. The user is totally
dependant on Microsoft.
That brings me to a point.
Nobody would try to drive a car without having had some lessons
and having taken a look into the manual. But almost everybody
expects to be able to work with a computer instantly. You cannot
deny the customer's guilt in the effectively non-existent
knowledge about technical issues.
II. Marketing and
Methods
This really makes you wonder
what are the reasons for Microsoft's success, which is an obvious
contradiction to the quality of their products. Even the
aggressive marketing does not explain that phenomenon
sufficiently. Microsoft is well-known for their dubious practices
they use to preserve their enormous power.
A common strategy is the
manipulation of established standards to tie the users even
closer to Microsoft. An example is Java, a programming language
developed by Sun. Java makes it possible to code programs which
can be run on any computer regardless of the operating system.
This is an advantage not to be under-estimated when talking about
the internet, except for Microsoft, because Java makes you
independent of Windows. Every program is written specifically for
a certain operating system. That means programs written for
Windows or Macintosh only run on Windows or a Macintosh
respectively. (There a so-called emulators to run programs of
various platforms on a computer, but that is another story.) But
Java uses an interpreter to translate programs (written in Java)
for the computer you use, which makes the programs
platform-independent, i.e. they can be run on any computer.
Microsoft's reaction was the release of a Java development
toolkit which makes is possible to use windows-specific features
in your programs. If you use these features your programs will
run on Windows only, which is contradictory to the intention of
the Java developers. But from Microsoft's point of view it has
the positive effect of forcing the users to use Windows.
Another example of their
methods is that they give away programs for free. The average
user could be happy about this, but we are talking about
Microsoft: "dumping", i.e. giving something away at a
loss, is illegal. This is obviously not a problem for Microsoft.
In the past lawsuits against Microsoft have been proven to be
ineffective thanks to the their power - and their lawyers. The
bad thing about dumping is that other companies may be dependant
on the sale of their products, while Microsoft can give them away
for free because of the big money they make in other areas.
Microsoft can easily ruin their competitors that way.
The Internet Explorer is such
a product. Even many Internet Service Providers use the Internet
Explorer as their standard browser, "persuaded" by
Microsoft. Netscape Navigator is no longer been offered by most
ISPs, or you can get it optionally only. In one case Microsoft
forced an ISP to sign a contract which said he must not inform
his customers about the existence of browsers other than the
Microsoft Internet Explorer and remove all links to and logos of
other companies who offer similar products.
There are sites on the internet, not only in the Microsoft-owned
MSN, which will not let you pass with the offer to download the
Microsoft Internet Explorer if you use Netscape Navigator. But
that is only half of the story. The Internet Explorer 4.0 shows
Microsoft's unmatched ability to innovate. Tries to access the
homepage of Netscape, the only competitor left when it comes to
web browsers, is blocked. You will only get some confusing error
messages - none of which is true. Microsoft Frontpage, a program
to create and edit HTML-Files, on which every single web page on
the Internet is based, even manipulates existing files without
asking in a way that parts of them are no longer readable with
Netscape Navigator. In most other branches of the industry no-one
would accept this, but when it comes to Microsoft, that's okay...
With the release of the successor of Windows 95 the problem with
non-Microsoft internet browsers will be gone - the Internet
Explorer is going to be part of the operating system without a
possibility to remove.
This reminds me of Microsoft's argumentation that the Internet
Explorer would be part of Windows, similar to the many utilities
installed together with Windows 95. I would like somebody to
explain why the Internet Explorer is not only sold seperately as
a standalone product, but is also available for other platforms
such as the Apple Macintosh. Well, I'm waiting for a new version
of notepad; perhaps there will be a version for MacOS soon?
Microsoft often uses a method
similar to dumping, where you try to prevent customers from
buying your competitor's products by telling them of the great
features and possibilities of their own product. But - that
product does not exist. Windows 95 is an example for that
tactics. A long time before the release you were able to learn
about the superior abilities of the unborn child. They changed
the release date quite a few times, finally Windows 95 saw the
light of day one year too late. Remember what you have been told
these days? A newly designed operating system? No underlying
MS-DOS? Pre-emptive multitasking? Little memory requirements?
Most of these promises were not exactly true or simply dirty
lies. But nobody seems to care about that...
The most important internet
products are part of Windows since the release of Windows 95B.
The "advantage" is clear. Why should anybody care to
get Netscape's Navigator if the Internet Explorer is already
installed on their computers, bundled with Windows 95?
While installing Windows 95 you can choose which components
should be installed on your computer even if they occupy some
lousy kbytes only. That is not true for the Internet Explorer -
there is no way to prevent this piece of software from being
installed. You will not even know about this because the internet
software is not even shown in the list of the components of
Windows.
Microsoft tries to tell you what to do. Many users obviously are
not aware about the existence of programs they have never heard
of before on their very own computer.
To the time IBM had some
success with their own operating system called OS/2, you could
see a typical behaviour. A well-known german discounter started
to ship their computer systems with OS/2 preinstalled, instead of
Windows. Microsoft threatened to refuse to sell them Windows if
they continued even to advertise OS/2. Only Windows should be
installed on PCs. It is not a surprise that there has been no
sign of OS/2 since then.
Even employees of Compaq and Gateway 2000 "confirmed in
sworn deposition testimony" that Microsoft made the shipping
of Windows dependent of the removal of Netscape Navigator in
favor of Microsoft's Internet Explorer in one case and the sale
of other Microsoft products in another.
Microsoft thought of a new way
to increase their profits with Windows NT, the "bigger
brother" of Windows 95. There are two versions of Windows
NT: Windows NT Workstation for the "average" user, and
Windows NT Server for the use in networks. NT Workstation lacks
some of the features and is somewhat slower then NT Server.
Microsoft tries to explain that with optimizations and internal
improvement of Windows NT Server. O'Reilly and Associates took
both versions apart and analysed them. They discovered that the
only difference between the two versions of Windows NT can be
found in two (!) entries of the so-called registry, which holds
configuration data. These entries have been encoded by Microsoft
with quite some effort to hide their existence. If you change
these entries in NT Workstation, it will show all features of NT
Server, behave exactly like it, even the differences in speed are
gone. That is no big surprise - the system files of both versions
are exactly the same.
Microsoft sells one product for two totally different prices (NT
Server costs about three times as much as NT Workstation) and
tries to tell people, Windows NT Server would be totally
different than NT Workstation. To achieve this they manipulate,
not to say castrate NT Workstation to make the stupid customer
buy the more expensive NT Server.
I would prefer not to comment
on Microsoft's rather undemocratic attitude. So I let the vice
president of Microsoft do this job.
After Pacific Bell signed a contract with Netscape, CEO David
Dorman received a phone call from Microsoft's executive vice
president, Steve Ballmer, who began with the words: "You're
either a friend or a foe, and you're an enemy now."
III. Espionage and
Hidden Features
Even in early version of
MS-DOS you can find "undocumented API calls". It is an
operating system's task to provide functions applications can use
to work with files, communicate with periphery and much more.
There were - and still are - functions which have not been
documented, but still are quite important. Because Microsoft
sells operating systems as well as applications there is an
unjustified advantage for Microsoft, who can use these functions
while their competitors are not able to take these "short
cuts".
Many Microsoft products, most
famous Microsoft Office, change your system without telling you
about it. In most cases you get to know that not until another
program refuses to work. When Windows 95 was released there have
been enormous problems with programs giving you access to America
Online or CompuServe. They could not be used anymore, because
Microsoft thought it would be cool to alter a certain file
(winsock) these programs are dependant on. It certainly was pure
coincidence that Microsoft's own Online-Service MSN was
introduced at the same time, with the programs necessary to use
it integrated in Windows 95.
To the time of Windows 3 there
was a clone of MS-DOS named DR-DOS. Unfortunately Windows would
not install when DR-DOS was used instead of MS-DOS. Did that mean
DR-DOS was not fully compatible with MS-DOS? Pretty soon it
became public that Microsoft programmed a routine that would
refuse the installation if a competitor's operating system was
found.
If you had OS/2 installed on your system, it would not work any
longer after an installation of MS-DOS 6. According to Microsoft
there was no way to avoid this, but strangely enough MS-DOS or
Windows would still work after an installation of a competitor's
operating system.
It is not really nice to spy
on users, which seems to be the only purpose of the
"registration wizard" that can be found in Windows 95.
I have to tell first that when using a program you have to
"register". To do so you send a postcard to Microsoft
which says you have just acquired a certain program. It has to be
doubted what the registration is really good for, because
Microsoft gets to know your address that way, God knows what they
can do with it. In my opinion there is no other reason than to
get this data - or have you ever told an author that you bought a
book of him?
It is now possible to register Windows 95 with a call at
Microsoft, i.e. using your modem. The computer then transmits all
necessary data directly to them - and much more. Your hard disk
drive will be scanned and the existence of certain programs will
be transmitted to Microsoft. When it became public Microsoft
tried to justify this with the possibility to inform users about
updates (newer versions of a program). But that does not explain
why the registration wizard looks for non-Microsoft products and
even software for children and games, which obviously cannot be
updated. (An analysis of how the registration wizard works is
available to me.) The only explanation I have is that Microsoft
tries to create profiles of users, since you can derive that
information from the scan of a hard disk. Most people certainly
cannot imagine the abuse possible with that data.
But there is even another
possibility for Microsoft to spy out data. You write your
programs in form of commands, which is called the sourcecode.
This code is compiled by a special program, i.e. transformed into
numbers readable by the microprocessor only. The original
sourcecode cannot be derived from these numbers (trivially),
which should be the normal thing; no baker would be happy about
the possibility to get his recipe from the cake he sells. But
exactly this is what Microsoft did. The compiled sources written
in a programming language called "Visual Basic" contain
information with which it is possible to regenerate the
sourcecode. This got public not until respective programs left
the buildings of Microsoft by accident. Microsoft is able to get
the sourcecode - and with that the corresponding know-how - of
other companies.
Microsoft expects the
developers of graphic adapters to have their drivers (software
that make the use of certain hardware possible in a computer
system) certified by them. To do so they want to have a look at
the sourcecode of these programs. The reason apparently is not to
make sure the drivers work correctly, but to obtain other
companies' secrets, since you can expect the developers of
hardware to know what they do. Obviously you cannot expect that
from the market leader in software. Where else can you find an
industry where one company can be that arrogant and make
manufacturers of accessories tell them their secrets?
IV. Errors and
Lies
Error #1: MS-DOS is an
ingenious invention of Bill Gates
What most people do not know: MS-DOS was not done by Gates, it
was not even done by Microsoft. When IBM looked for an operating
system for their IBM PC in the early 1980s, they planned to use
one of Digital Research. But in the end they asked Microsoft, who
did not have any operating system by then. So Microsoft simply
bought a product from another company. This system was called
QDOS - Quick And Dirty Operating System - the name says all you
have to know about it. MS-DOS, the standard for the upcoming
decade, originated from that piece of junk. Microsoft acquired an
enormous power without actually doing anything. The only
intelligent move was to "license" MS-DOS to IBM instead
of selling it. (even today you do not buy a product according to
Microsoft - you merely license it) Microsoft still had all rights
on "their" system and licensed it to companies that
cloned the IBM PC. Even Windows is partly based on this original
MS-DOS and contains every single part that has been added to it
since 1981.
Error #2: Microsoft has
innovative products and the latest technologies
As mentioned before most "innovations" of Microsoft
originate from products which have been around for a long time.
The idea to work with a computer with the help of a graphical
user interface, for example, was first thought of by Xerox PARC.
GUIs have later been implemented on the Apple Macintosh, the
Commodore Amiga, the Atari ST, just to name some of them. These
interfaces could be found everywhere at a time when Microsoft
still thought MS-DOS was state of the art.
In most cases the only thing Microsoft does is to bring their own
products to the level of their competitors'. Internet software,
for example, was not available from Microsoft for a long time and
hence computer users used non-Microsoft software. When this
market changed from a meaningless branch to the market of the
future, Microsoft released their own software and made it
available for free (see above). Netscape was the pioneer of the
internet to a time when Microsoft considered internet users to be
a group of idiots. But now Microsoft has obtained a respectable
market share and the average user does not know about the
background, obviously due to the manipulative marketing which is
typical for Microsoft. Today Microsoft is associated with the
growing importance of world wide computer networks, forgetting
that they never contributed to anything of it. On the contrary:
think about the release of proprietary technologies such as
ActiveX or the manipulation of Java to expand their monopoly to
the world of the internet.
V. Personal Notes
I really do not understand why
people accept the fact that one single company controls most of
today's computer technology. I do neither understand why many
people have the goal to establish ONE single computer
architecture respectively ONE single operating system. You often
hear about the necessity to use a windows-based system to run
programs that require Windows, but that is just a lame excuse.
There (still) is a wide variety of different systems. For every
kind of program you can find a similar one that runs on the
architecture of your choice. Common programs such as word
processors, spread sheets, data bases etc. are available on every
system you can think of anyway.
Many people consider Windows
to be a standard, but when you take a closer look you will see a
major difference between the nature of standards and Windows.
Standards do not belong to certain companies and can be found in
a vast variety of implementations. The rights on Windows,
however, belong to Microsoft, and the only operating which is
capable of running programms written for Windows is Windows
itself. That means Windows cannot be a standard, it is a monopoly
at best.
Microsoft tends to point out
that it does not have a monopoly and that competition can be
found everywhere. Now let's have a look at hardware. The price
for some hardware components drop up to 50% or even more in only
one year. In many cases you can't even purchase a product, let's
say, three years after it was introduced to the market. I chose
three years as an example because Windows 95 is roughly three
years old by now (at the time this text was written). You will
see that the price of Windows 95 has not dropped by a single cent
since then. Well, this has to be the healthy competition...
The argument of being urged to
use file formats of so-called standard software (e.g. Microsoft
Office) is neither a reason to run Windows, since most of the
competitor's software available can read and/or write these
files. And given the case you are not dependant on these file
formats, you will find many programs that existed long before
supposedly superior graphical user interfaces have been
established. By using these programs you can solve your problems
much easier and with better results in many cases, for example
with LaTeX.
This is another example of Microsoft trying to tie users to the
company by establishing proprietary interfaces (in this case file
formats). Another stupid and dangerous argument is to use
Microsoft's products because their software is often used and can
be found everywhere. It is very easy not to think, but to do what
everybody else does, to do what you are told, isn't it?
Talking about file formats
brings me to another point. With the new version of Microsoft
Office (Office 97 - containing Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook
and eventually Access), a new file format was introduced, which
is not compatible with older formats, i.e. files written with
Office 97 cannot be read with older versions of Office. In my
opinion this was done out of markting reasons only, because if
you want to read the new files you will have to buy Office 97. It
is not a problem to create a file format that can be expanded for
the new features of future programs. The above mentioned
Interchange File Format, which was developed for the Commodore
Amiga computer, makes it possible for programs to read the files
of newer versions even if the file format has been dramatically
enhanced. There are different methods to achieve this and various
implementions can be found today. Another hint for the
correctness of the above theory is the fact that since Microsoft
does not hesitate to take ideas of other people and integrate
them into their own products, which has been done when they used
the IFF technology in the the file format of WAV-files, the
existence of these possibilities should be well known.
Another thing worth mentioning
is the existence of a video on the Windows 95-CD which shows the
names of all beta testers. In this video a song has been used
that was originally a so-called Module and has been converted by
Microsoft, apparently without permission. This song is a remix of
"Enjoy the silence" with the name "Enjoy the
violence". Coincidence?
The combination of the first
three aspects (products, marketing and methods, espionage) shows
the danger of Microsoft's power. The fixation on Microsoft is
even less understandable due to the possibility to use
non-Microsoft products. Perhaps that does not match some people's
idea of convenience (so-called "Mitläufer"). After
some time they will see that they do not have an advantage by
using Microsoft's inferior products. As long as competitors still
exist you should have a look at their software. It normally makes
promises come true Microsoft was not able to keep.
There are other reasons for
the omnipresence of Microsoft's products. It happens quite often
that the use of alternatives is not even considered, regardless
of the suggestions of experts in a company. This is not solely
due to Microsoft's marketing. In many cases chairmen of companies
are contacted and manipulated by Microsoft employees. Once this
company declares to cooperate, the removal of all non-Microsoft
products will be forced.
What possibilities do we have
to overcome the current situation? The easiest way would be not
to use Microsoft products any more, but that does not seem to be
easily possible because of the goal of many people to reduce
everything to one single truth. It is quite difficult to find a
solution that ends the dominance of Microsoft without denying the
further existence of Windows. Nevertheless I want to introduce
two possibilities.
First you could split Microsoft into several tiny companies, one
of which continues the development of Windows, one takes care of
application programs, and yet another one sells hardware.
Considering the monopoly Microsoft has established, this solution
sounds quite reasonable. Yet there are major disadvantages. You
cannot make sure the companies really work independantly of each
other, and since they are led by the same persons as before, you
cannot expect them to overcome their aggressive and immoral
methods.
Another possibility very likely cannot be done, but yet seems to
be the most promising. Microsoft should give up all rights on
Windows. The further development should be done by an
independant, non-profit organization with the help of experts,
considering the needs of users. In this case Windows could be
established as a standard, since it is no longer controlled by
single persons or groups. The only disadvantage of this solution
can be seen in the vast amount of technical deficiencies of
Windows. It should be easier to develop a new system from scratch
than to try to overcome the problems of Windows.
Just to mention it, there already is an operating system that
matches all the requirements mentioned above and which even is
technically very advanced: Linux.
At last I have to say a word
about the press. You often read about Microsoft's new and
fascinating achievements which has been brought to the people by
Bill Gates' infinite kindliness. In 1997, I read about the
upcoming Windows 98 which is the successor of Windows 95. It
said: "Microsoft develops new operating system". Since
the new version of Windows has been enhanced by some new device
drivers and a somewhat changed look only, it is not only not a
new operating system, it does not even deserve a new name.
In most magazines specialized on computing you can find a
pro-Microsoft-propaganda which even people with a clubfoot would
be proud of. You can do nothing but ask how editors are able to
write such a nonsense without blushing. And since general
magazines tend to be even more biassed there is no way to call
these articles objective either.
The only hope is that people will recognize what is going on. In
general, not only in this special case, it is not acceptable that
any human or group tries to establish their ideology as the only
one accepted with methods that are immoral at best, illegal at
worst.
Appendix A: Quotes
If Microsoft had been the
innovative company that it calls itself, it would have taken the
opportunity to take a radical leap beyond the Mac, instead of
producing a feeble, me-too implementation.
- DOUGLAS ADAMS, Author, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The idea that Bill Gates has
appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers
out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that
it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into
it in the first place.
- DOUGLAS ADAMS, Author, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
I feel as if I am fighting
Microsoft for the right to use my own computer efficiently.
- STEWART ALSOP, Fortune Magazine
Every single thing that
Microsoft says and does is designed to protect their monopoly.
- ALAN BARATZ, President, Sun JavaSoft Division
Windows 95 is so bad, I hardly
know where to start.
- JESSE BERST
Microsoft's ability and
willingness to control proprietary standards that span the
world's computing resources is in fact dangerous.
- JOHN BLACKFORD, Editor, Computer Shopper
Microsoft does not innovate.
It buys, imitates, or steals. It makes things difficult for
software developers, and thus eventually for users.
- RICHARD BRANDSHAFT, San Jose Mercury-News
Microsoft, I think, is
fundamentally an evil company.
- JAMES H. CLARK
Wahr ist daß es ihm [Bill
Gates] nichts ausmacht, ohne Würde zu gewinnen. Ein Sieg ist
immer noch ein Sieg.
- ROBERT X. CRINGELY, "Die Jungs vom Silicon
Valley", ECON Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, 1993
'Wir wollen das
Software-Geschäft monopolisieren', sagte Gates in den späten
70er Jahren immer wieder. In den 80er Jahren deutete er dies auch
gerne an, aber da hatte Microsoft schon PR-Leute und Anwälte
angeheuert, die ihrem jungen Vorsitzenden zuflüsterten, daß der
Begriff im offiziellen Vokabular des Unternehmertums eher
verpönt war.
- ROBERT X. CRINGELY, "Die Jungs vom Silicon
Valley", ECON Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, 1993
Microsoft wurde eine Art
Kultstätte. Unerfahrene Leute wurden eingestellt und
quasi-religiös indoktriniert [...] So schuf Microsoft eine
systemimmanente Heldenverehrung, und Bill Gates' Wille
infiltrierte alle Lebensbereiche seiner Angestellten, sogar
derjenigen, die ihn noch nicht einmal kennengelernt hatten. Für
Kim Il Sung funktionierte es in Nordkorea, also funktionierte es
auch in den östlichen Vororten von Seattle.
- ROBERT X. CRINGELY, "Die Jungs vom Silicon
Valley", ECON Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, 1993
Die Leute bei Microsoft
glauben auch mit Vorliebe, daß ihre Produkte auf dem neuesten
Stand der Technik sind. Wenn man anderer Meinung wäre, würde
man ja Chairman Bill angreifen, und sowas tut man nicht. Es ist
einfacher, die Realität zu verzerren.
- ROBERT X. CRINGELY, "Die Jungs vom Silicon
Valley", ECON Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, 1993
There is a fantasy in Redmond
that Microsoft products are innovative, but this is based
entirely on a peculiar confusion of the words
"innovative" and "successful." Microsoft
products are successful -- they make a lot of money -- but that
doesn't make them innovative, or even particularly good.
- ROBERT X. CRINGELY
The problem (and the genius)
regarding Microsoft's products is bloat. Microsoft's penchant for
producing overweight code is not an accident. It's the business
model for the company. ...
While [bloatware has] made Bill Gates the world's richest guy,
it's made life miserable for people who have to use these
computers and expect them to run without crashing or dying.
- JOHN DVORAK, PC Magazine
If you say something he
doesn't like, he yells at you.
- BRONWYN FRYER, Information Strategy, about Bill Gates
In a manner that would have
left the robber barons of the late 19th century gaping in
absolute awe, Microsoft is approaching something unprecedented: a
monopoly that could well own the choke points of tomorrow's
commerce and communications.
- DAN GILLMOR, San Jose Mercury News Computing Editor
This is very Borg-like.
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
- SAMUEL GOODHOPE, Texas Attorney General's office
Most curious is the desire to
standardize on one OS and one CPU architecture. Depending on a
single company for all future OS innovation and on another for
all future CPU innovation would be tragic for an industry driven
by technology.
- TOM R. HALFHILL, Sr. Editor, BYTE Magazine
Microsoft now has the ability
to virtually annihilate any competitive product it wants by
bringing it into the next version of Windows. There's evidence
that they are aggressively seeking to extend that monopoly to the
Internet, and policy-makers have to be concerned about it.
- ORRIN HATCH, U.S. Senator and Chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Committee
[...] Microsoft has taken a
perfectly good standard, broken it, and then told us that we have
to buy expensive programs that support the broken interface
rather than use the free ones that come with all operating
systems in the world except Microsoft operating systems.
- ALLEN HOLUB, Programmer and Columnist
Microsoft does not like
negative or even objective press coverage and they have a
tendency to be a bully about it. If something appears that they
don't like, they have the ability to punish the publication.
- BOB INGLE, President, Knight-Ridder New Media
My view of Microsoft is that
they had two goals in the last 10 years: to copy the Macintosh
and to copy Lotus' success in the applications business. And they
accomplished those goals. Now, they're kind of lost. I've told
Bill that I think it's in Microsoft's best interest if NeXT
becomes successful because we'll give him something to copy for
the rest of this decade.
- STEVE JOBS
I still think that tens of
millions of PC owners needlessly use a computer that is far less
good than it should be.
- STEVE JOBS
[Bill Gates] definitely scares
me. He embodies the very cultural and economic forces that have
transformed American mass media from the freest and most diverse
in the world to among the most cautious, greedy, and useless.
- JON KATZ, Hotwired
Oil and water. Fried eggs and
chocolate sauce. Amanda Vanstone and human compassion. Microsoft
and open standards. Can you spot what all these pairings have in
common? Yes, none of them actually belong together.
- ANGUS KIDMAN, APC News Editor
When Microsoft announces
future technology plans, product feature sets or (heaven help us)
release dates, I laugh out loud. Its reputation for sudden
changes of plan, vapourware frenzies, total contradiction and
frantic scrambling around the facts is unsurpassed in the modern
computing world.
- ANGUS KIDMAN, APC News Editor
Microsoft und der große
Vorsitzende Gates als Herrscher über die Medien, ihre Inhalte
und ihre Finanzen - eine Horrorvorstellung, die angesichts der
internen Struktur von Microsoft das Informationsministerium in
Orwells Staat von 1984 wie einen Hort der Demokratie erscheinen
lassen.
- JÜRGEN KURI, Redakteur, c't Magazin
To hear Microsoft tell it,
you'd think the Computer Age had changed the rules of commerce.
Microsoft Chairman and CEO Bill Gates has argued that the
government is trying to structure an industry it knows little
about. This is nonsense. What Gates is attempting is as old as
the efforts to monopolize the steel, rail, oil, and telephone
industries in the robber baron era.
- ROBERT KUTTNER, Business Week
Every time you turn on your
new car, you're turning on 20 microprocessors. Every time you use
an ATM, you're using a computer. Every time I use a settop box or
game machine, I'm using a computer. The only computer you don't
know how to work is your Microsoft computer, right?
- SCOTT McNEALY, CEO, Sun Microsystems
I am convinced that if General
Motors could eliminate [Microsoft] Office from their entire
company, they could get the 1999 cars out next year at half price
- SCOTT McNEALY, CEO, Sun Microsystems
If one company dominates
everything, it's dangerous. You kill innovation and you lose the
capacity to create alternatives. Ultimately, that isn't good for
the consumer or the country.
- SAMUEL MILLER, U.S. Justice Department
I don't think that the world
needs another market dominated by Microsoft. I have enormous
respect for the company, but I really get nervous about markets
where one vendor has such power.
- GEOFFREY MOORE, Marketing Guru
I think anybody who is savvy
about this market knows that Microsoft is getting away with stuff
it probably shouldn't get away with.
- GEOFFREY MOORE, Marketing Guru
What we'll all end up doing if
Netscape doesn't play better is we will have instantiated the
Microsoft Network. We'll just call it the Internet.
- GEOFFREY MOORE, Marketing Guru
Appeasement, said Winston
Churchill, consists of being nice to a crocodile in the hope that
he will eat you last. At the moment, the biggest crocodile in the
world is Microsoft, and everybody is busy sucking up to it.
- JOHN NAUGHTON, the London Observer
'[S]trategic partnerships' are
means to a single end: to enable Microsoft to learn enough about
particular businesses eventually to dominate them.
- JOHN NAUGHTON, the London Observer
[Microsoft] is the fox that
takes you across the river and then eats you.
- PETE PETERSON, Former Executive, WordPerfect
I'm not one of those who think
Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever
met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an interpreter.
- NICHOLAS PETRELEY, Sr. Editor, InfoWorld
The best thing about Windows
95, of course, is the mountains of software designed specifically
for it. There are programs to compress memory, recover a damaged
registry, remove the heaps of unneeded files Windows accumulates,
tune sluggish performance, and undo a few of the many problems
that can occur when installing new software, to mention but a
few. There is even software designed to intercept system faults
to improve your chances of saving your work before you have to
reboot.
- NICHOLAS PETRELEY, Sr. Editor, InfoWorld
Microsoft has gotten so big
that it can put out a Preview that will install itself without
checking first to see if it has expired. The message here is that
Microsoft's time is worth more than yours.... no start-up company
could get away with being that arrogant.
- JERRY POURNELLE, Byte Magazine
Microsoft is trying to sell us
crack, and the first taste is free. But what's it going to mean
when we're addicted to this?
- LEIF QUAKEMAN, The Netly News
Microsoft now is in 40 percent
of American households. If they can somehow insert themselves in
as a piece of infrastructure in the next generation of
televisions, they could go to 100 percent penetration of American
households and eventually the world.
- BARRY RANDALL, Analyst, Dain Bosworth
Stop Microsoft through
government antitrust enforcement now or say goodbye to new
products and the openness of the Internet. Gates will own
everything, and collect a fee on every imaginable product and
service in cyberspace from home finance to a virtual visit to the
Louvre. And forget about getting these products and services
someplace else. Competitors won't exist.
- GARY REBACK, Antitrust attorney
They [Microsoft] are trying to
use an existing monopoly to retard introduction of new
technology.
- GARY REBACK, Antitrust attorney
Suppose you made a desktop
application like a spreadsheet and all of a sudden Microsoft were
to call you one day and say "you know, we've just decided
we're not gonna give you the information necessary to let you
write a product that runs on top of our operating system. On top
of our desktop."
I mean, what would you do? You go, you look at the room, you
stare at the ceiling? What would you do, call me, file a lawsuit?
You're a little company, come on.
- GARY REBACK, Antitrust attorney
When people understand what
Microsoft is up to, they're outraged.
- TIM O'REILLY, President, O'Reilly & Associates
Forcing PC manufacturers to
take one Microsoft product as a condition of buying a monopoly
product like Windows 95 is not only a violation of the court
order, but it's plain wrong.
- JANET RENO, Attorney General
Microsoft is unlawfully taking
advantage of its Windows monopoly to protect and extend that
monopoly.
- JANET RENO, Attorney General
People who are truly donating
to charity don't give money away with the agreement that
recipients will spend it on their own company's products.
- PAUL RICKARD, The Microsoft Boycott Campaign
You'll read that Bill Gates
envisioned it all, which is a crock. he didn't invision any of
it. Nobody did.
- ED ROBERTS, Gates' First Boss
[Paul] Allen was easy to work
with, but Gates acted like a spoiled kid, which is what he was.
- ED ROBERTS, Gates' First Boss
At some point, some palooka is
going to tell you that you should use MS products because they're
an "industry standard." This is roughly equivalent to
teenagers telling each other to smoke or do drugs because
"everybody's doing it."
- JOHN "The Gneech" ROBEY
Microsoft's biggest and most
dangerous contribution to the software industry may be the degree
to which it has lowered user expectations.
- ESTHER SCHINDLER, OS/2 Magazine
[Microsoft is] a potential
threat to our nation's economic well-being.
- STANLEY SPORKIN, Judge
[Bill Gates] not only wants to
win, but he wants to kill the competition. He wants to bury the
wounded.
- JAMES WALLACE, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Dilbert would use Unix because
it is a rock solid OS with thousands of academic and business
hours in its development and improvement. Dilbert's pointy haired
boss would make Dilbert use Windows because Microsoft told him
that he would save money and get a free t-shirt.
- NATHAN WINKLER
Word97: An EMPTY file saved in
Word97 format occupies 60928 Bytes. The same file saved in the
backward compatible Word95 (or better known as Word 7.0) format
is sligthly larger: 2 079 932 bytes. Any comment is
superfluous...
- c't MAGAZINE, April, 1997
We finally finished installing
the new servers. For performance reasons, we decided to drop
Microsoft Windows NT and return to Unix again. We did this while
we were still on the temporary server and even that machine which
was a Pentium-90 with only 32mb RAM out-performed the NT Server
that was a Pentium-200MMX with 96mb RAM. Needless to say, if we
were not sure about the move before then, we were afterwards.
- GAME SITES NETWORK WEB SITE NEWS, 11-22-1997
[...] IBM was a benevolent
dictatorship. Microsoft is just a dictatorship
- technology consultant, anonymous
Appendix B: no
comment
Ensuring that we leverage
Windows. I don't understand how IE is going to win. The current
path is simply to copy everything that Netscape does packaging
and product wise. [...] My conclusion is that we must leverage
Windows more. Treating IE as just an add-on to Windows which is
cross-platform [is] losing our biggest advantage -- Windows
marketshare. We should dedicate a cross group team to come up
with ways to leverage Windows technically more.
- JIM ALLCHIN, a top Microsoft executive, in an internal
document entitled "Concerns For Our Future"
You're either a friend or a
foe, and you're an enemy now.
- STEVE BALLMER, executive vice president, Microsoft, to
Pacific Bell CEO David Dorman after Pacific Bell chose Netscape's
Web software over Microsoft's.
What do you mean by that? You
don´t know what you are talking about.
- BILL GATES on a press conference to a question implying that
maybe Microsoft on the desktop is not the answer to everything.
There are people who don't
like capitalism, and there are people who don't like PCs, but
there's no one who likes the PC who doesn't like Microsoft.
- BILL GATES
We are a great software
company.... That's the only image anyone should have of us.
- BILL GATES
There won't be anything we
won't say to people to try and convince them that our way is the
way to go.
- BILL GATES
It's possible, you can never
know, that the universe exists only for me.
- BILL GATES
If you can't make it good, at
least make it look good.
- BILL GATES
640K ought to be enough for
anybody.
- BILL GATES, 1981
[...] the best way to prepare
[to be a programmer] is to write programs, and to study great
programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to
the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out
listings of their operating system.
- BILL GATES
Wir hatten solche Browser als
Teil von Windows angekündigt, bevor Netscape überhaupt
existierte. Schon die erste Ausgabe von Windows 95 enthielt einen
Browser.
- BILL GATES
[Notiz: Wie man sich leicht überzeugen kann, besaß Win95 in
der ersten Version keinen Browser, dieser wurde erst mit
"Plus!" eingeführt. - Ed.]
Focus: "But there
are bugs in any version which people would really like to have
fixed."
Gates: "No! There are no significant bugs in our
released software that any significant number of users want
fixed. [...] Maybe you're not using it properly."
- FOCUS MAGAZINE, 10/23/95
The idea that people know what
they want is wrong.
- LAURA JENNINGS, Vice President, Microsoft Network
One World. One Web. One
Program.
- MICROSOFT, Internet Explorer 4 ad
We need your fax number in
order to respect your wishes not to receive unsolicited faxes.
- MICROSOFT Web Page