Microsoft

[Ask For More]

Also Microsoft holds back software advancements because they refused to release the Source Code for Windows until they were forced too. This basically meant that people found it impossible to develop working programs for windows because they had no idea what windows programming was based on, and hence lots of programs crashing on windows all the time. Mysteriously, microsoft programs would also crash on windows, which kinda defeats the whole logic of witholding the source code in the first place...

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Re: Learn something new every day

What and Who are Microsoft's competitors if I may ask?

MS pretty much owns the OS market, although they are worried about Linux (which no one really owns, but a number of companies sell). Their competitors in the OS department include Sun (Solaris and Sun OS - both Unix variants), IBM (AIX - a Unix variant), Hewlett-Packard (HP-UX) and so on. MS used to sell their own version (Xenix - they bought SCO Xenix), but I don't they have sold any OS except Windoze for some time.

In the application product department there are a lot more direct competitors, but MS pretty much owns most of the office suite market for word processors and spreadsheets, although for high end word processing (DTP) there are some serious competitors such as Adobe with FrameMaker and Pagemaker. For database stuff there is a wide variation depending on the needs of the user/programmer.

For development systems there is Symantec, Borland, IBM and so on, but a lot of people use MS DevStudio for the simple fact that it is a very good system.

MS does make good, often superior products - it is interesting that they feel the need to shove their products down people's throats with their exclusionary marketing tactics.

 

[Spinaroonie]

A Mysteriously, microsoft programs would also crash on windows, which kinda defeats the whole logic of witholding the source code in the first place...

The reason for this is that MS programs are allowed to make changes to the system setup. Deep changes. Upsetting changes. Other programs start looking for things that have been changed and hang.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Re: Re: Learn something new every day

Every software publisher in existance. MS has a bad little habit of seeing when a new company announces a groundbreaking technology or something innovative, they will announce that they have been working on the exact same thing for months! (Just don't ask them how it works or what it does) Then the new company's capital dries up cos' most VC's don't like to compete against MS and the company dies.

It is called FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) and IBM used to do it too. Most people are wise to MS doing this, especially when it is something that MS had no interest in before, and really hasn't done any work on it. An example is C-Sharp and .NET; the MS attempt to kill Java by announcing competing tech. It really isn't working though; most people recognize that C-Sharp and .NET are vaporware, and even if MS does come through, they will be years behind what Java offers now.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

The reason for this is that MS programs are allowed to make changes to the system setup. Deep changes. Upsetting changes. Other programs start looking for things that have been changed and hang.

Not really; the reason is that MS programmers would not follow their own rules for well behaved programs under Windoze, and sometimes they would even use shortcuts into the OS to get better performance. When something in the OS changed, then the app would break because that shortcut wasn't there anymore. Companies used to make a lot of money publishing books called "Undocumented DOS" (I've got that book sitting on my shelf) so others could do the same thing.

Nowadays, most software, including MS software is well behaved in this regard - it just makes sense to program according to the rules as it results in higher quality.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Also Microsoft holds back software advancements because they refused to release the Source Code for Windows until they were forced too. This basically meant that people found it impossible to develop working programs for windows because they had no idea what windows programming was based on, and hence lots of programs crashing on windows all the time. Mysteriously, microsoft programs would also crash on windows, which kinda defeats the whole logic of witholding the source code in the first place...

Actually, MS almost never releases source code; they release binaries. But the effect was essentially the same.

MS would only release binaries and documentation to those who played along with them. If you are on their shit list forget about getting an early release to work with. Many companies do this, but it is really bad when MS does it because so many companies write for their platform.

With Java, this becomes much less of an issue; Java doesn't really care what OS or computer it runs on - it has a Virtual Machine to insulate it from such changes. This is why MS hates it; finally people can write software that runs on any OS, and people can buy apps for whatever OS they want, whether it be Windoze, MacOS or some variant of Unix. Java sets the world free.