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Ask yourself: what would Bill Gates do?

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Re: Ask yourself: what would Bill Gates do?

#41

Post by tanzam75 »

acheron wrote: post #16
rbanffy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monopoly abuse and other anticompetitive actions that ultimately inflated prices. Why do you think the DoJ got involved?

The DOJ "got involved" because Microsoft didn't want to play the lobbying game, so the government decided to teach them a lesson. http://washingtonexaminer.com/carney-how-hatch-forced-micros...

Well, they learned their lesson. Microsoft is now a prolific spender on DC lobbying. In the tech world, they are matched only by Google.

Bill Gates used to be a Congressional page, and his father was a lawyer. So I'm surprised he had such a naive viewpoint of the justice system. He ought to have known that it was more political than that.

The irony is that Bill Gates, a staunch Democrat, was hounded by the Clinton DOJ. It ended up being the Bush administration that rescued his company by terminating the lawsuit and signing that consent decree.

Re: Ask yourself: what would Bill Gates do?

#42

Post by tanzam75 »

rbanffy wrote: post #40
recoiledsnake wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Microsoft only licensed an OS, much like Digital Research licensed CP/M, to every computer manufacturer that wanted to distribute it You say "only" as if the OS weren't a critical part of running a computer and that Microsoft specially included a clause in their agreement with IBM to be able to license to other manufacturers. >Their advantage was that PC-DOS was bundled with every PC and that was enough to create cr…

> You say "only" as if the OS weren't a critical part of running a computer An OS is a critical piece of software, but the PC was also offered with CP/M-86 (IIRC, for a price DR considered suicidal) > You say as if that was a chance happening and not a deliberate and very insightful strategy Demanding non-exclusive contract was, in fact, brilliant. That single move turned Microsoft from a small niche software company…

Suppose that there was no Microsoft. Who would have taken its place? DR was charing $240 for CP/M 86 -- the same amount it charged for CP/M on other platforms. At the same time, Microsoft was charging $40 for DOS. The other option on the IBM PC was UCSD p-system, which was fatally crippled by the overhead of the interpretation layer -- we didn't yet have JIT.

Or perhaps you think that a system not backed by IBM would have found success. In other words, multiple companies duking it out with incompatible OSes. How often does that work out?

I submit that the most likely scenario would've been a duopoly -- Apple with the home and education market, IBM with the business market.

Re: Ask yourself: what would Bill Gates do?

#43

Post by tanzam75 »

cooldeal wrote: post #15
adventured wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did Microsoft harm society?

By commoditizing PCs by licensing to Compaq and setting off a pricing war among OEMs leading to lower prices and massive uptake of PCs. By releasing a free browser when Netscape used to charge people for access to the World Wide Web (however when Google does the same thing with Android using their search profits and killing RIM/Nokia by dumping a free product, it's a good thing). And by releasing a better browser tha…

> Or something, I don't know. Linus says it best though:

That's a very interesting read, especially with Microsoft's recent adoption of Git in its development tools. (Visual Studio and Team Foundation)

After all, Git was started by Linus, and even LibGit2 (which Microsoft is using) includes some of his original code. So in effect, Microsoft is now shipping code written by Linus. But then, Linus is also shipping code written by Microsoft. So they're even.

When you ignore the ideology and concentrate on engineering, good things can happen.

Re: Ask yourself: what would Bill Gates do?

#44

Post by rbanffy »

tanzam75 wrote: post #42
rbanffy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You say "only" as if the OS weren't a critical part of running a computer An OS is a critical piece of software, but the PC was also offered with CP/M-86 (IIRC, for a price DR considered suicidal) > You say as if that was a chance happening and not a deliberate and very insightful strategy Demanding non-exclusive contract was, in fact, brilliant. That single move turned Microsoft from a small niche software company…

Suppose that there was no Microsoft. Who would have taken its place? DR was charing $240 for CP/M 86 -- the same amount it charged for CP/M on other platforms. At the same time, Microsoft was charging $40 for DOS. The other option on the IBM PC was UCSD p-system, which was fatally crippled by the overhead of the interpretation layer -- we didn't yet have JIT. Or perhaps you think that a system not backed by IBM would…

> Suppose that there was no Microsoft. Who would have taken its place?

Why would a single company take its place?

> DR was charing $240 for CP/M 86 -- the same amount it charged for CP/M on other platforms.

I remember the price was for the IBM-PC bundle and that DR was uncomfortable with it. I also remember CP/M came bundled with many Z-80-based computers of the time - there was not enough hardware standardization to allow shrink-wrapped cross-platform operating systems to exist.

> The other option on the IBM PC was UCSD p-system, which was fatally crippled by the overhead of the interpretation layer

UCSD p-system was cross-platform, at least.

> -- we didn't yet have JIT.

Or maybe we would have one by the late 80's

> multiple companies duking it out with incompatible OSes. How often does that work out?

We don't have enough data to make any accurate predictions. I suppose we may have arrived at a set of basic compatible APIs, much like POSIX, that allowed software designed for it to run on many different computers.

> I submit that the most likely scenario would've been a duopoly -- Apple with the home and education market, IBM with the business market.

And Commodore and Atari sharing the home/gaming market in the US, Acorn and Sinclair in the UK. Commodore would possibly own TV and special effects. 68K (or ARM) based 32-bit boxes would be considered basic home machines and the average person would have access to preemptive multitasking in the mid 80's.

Re: Ask yourself: what would Bill Gates do?

#45

Post by hallomac2013 »

derefr wrote: post #37
hallomac2013 wrote: post #27

If being dark lord of the evil empire is what you want, you would follow in his steps. Beware of the jedi order that is 'us' though.

Let's put that another way: if you're not afraid of being seen as the dark lord of an evil empire in order to get what you want (which, in Gates' case, seems to be "billions of dollars to solve the most important problems the world has to offer") then you should follow in his footsteps. In other words, if you have world-changing vision, and want to succeed on a truly massive scale, you probably have to Think Like A S…

If you are destroying a part of the world to fix another, you are not good. You may be evil even. Because you are selfishly choosing the part to fix, in expense of the part you destroy. If you are good, you should do no evil, or at least strive to.

Re: Ask yourself: what would Bill Gates do?

#46

Post by snogglethorpe »

davidjgraph wrote: post #2

"I know most of you can't stand the guy" Really? I thought people took objection to Microsoft but generally thought of him as an intelligent, charismatic and, more recently, very generous man.

> but generally thought of him as an intelligent, charismatic and, more recently, very generous man.

Er, Bill Gates is definitely a smart guy, but he's never been known as charismatic, or even nice. His reputation at MS was pretty nasty. [I'm talking about his "inside" reputation, to employees; his "outside" reputation tended to be conflated with that of MS (this is very different, for instance, than Steve Jobs, who left a pretty strong impression even on the general public).]

Of course, he's doubtless mellowed with age and with his new post-business role.

Re: Ask yourself: what would Bill Gates do?

#47

Post by yuhong »

rbanffy wrote: post #44
tanzam75 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose that there was no Microsoft. Who would have taken its place? DR was charing $240 for CP/M 86 -- the same amount it charged for CP/M on other platforms. At the same time, Microsoft was charging $40 for DOS. The other option on the IBM PC was UCSD p-system, which was fatally crippled by the overhead of the interpretation layer -- we didn't yet have JIT. Or perhaps you think that a system not backed by IBM would…

> Suppose that there was no Microsoft. Who would have taken its place? Why would a single company take its place? > DR was charing $240 for CP/M 86 -- the same amount it charged for CP/M on other platforms. I remember the price was for the IBM-PC bundle and that DR was uncomfortable with it. I also remember CP/M came bundled with many Z-80-based computers of the time - there was not enough hardware standardization to…

Yea, my favorite topic is the MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco: http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2012/12/about-ms-os2-20-fiasco-...
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