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Goddammit arcade http://ur1.ca/c3bce
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@fortecadenza It is so easy to make another anti-Microsoft joke here that I'm not even going to bother. I'm way over my monthly quota.
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@omni You know, Microsoft's not as bad as anyone anti-microsoft says it is. Windows 8, yeah, that's why I haven't upgraded, and maybe Vista was a disgrace, but I really like Windows 7. Also compatibility. WINE can't emulate everything.
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@zeldatra "Compatibility" is a hell of an excuse to run software which is purposely incompatible with a lot of things. Also, Microsoft IS quite bad. Developing a standard (.docx) and not following it yourself so others who do are incompatible with your products? Check. Forcing a monopoly by bundling software to forcefully take others out of business? Check. Releasing low-quality products? Check. (Does anyone remember Windows ME? Where you could press X at the login prompt and log in as Administrator? Yeah, that.) Going for low-quality temporary solutions? Check. (Pre-installed antivirus in Windows 8 instead of just making the system safer) Being hypocritical liars? Check. (Anti-Linux FUD campaign where they talk about Ubuntu being bad for having a lot of updates, and then praising Windows for always being up-to-date). Oh, if only I could find my list of things Microsoft does that warrants them being called a terrible company, I would need SO MUCH MORE than 1000 characters.
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@omni ...What? That didn't make sense. .docx is native to Windows, how would that be incompatible?
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@omni And all the rest of the stuff you said doesn't make them a terrible company. It makes them good business men.
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@zeldatra .docx is an OOXML format by Microsoft, released as an Open Standard. They released the specifications, so that everyone following that would be compatible, but then implemented it themselves differently. Because Microsoft Office still has the largest market share, this allows them to call all others incompatible, while they are the ones not following their own standard. The first Microsoft Office version which DOES support their OWN standard properly, instead of having a wrong implementation is the 2013 version.
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@omni "forcing a monopoly" pahaha what
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@zeldatra You call being a complete jerk and dealing nothing but low blows being "good businesspeople", I call it "being a terrible company". I guess that's merely a different way of seeing the same facts.
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@redenchilada Internet Explorer was bundled with Microsoft Windows for the sole reason of getting Netscape out of business, which they succeeded in. There are more examples, but that one is the clearest.
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@omni This isn't a kickball game on the playground. "Being a complete jerk" means absolutely nothing in the world of business.
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@omni That's just part of selling to customers. The average computer user won't know how to get a browser if one doesn't come installed. They didn't put anything in the OS to stop people from installing Netscape if they so chose.
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@redenchilada The sole reason it was bundled is to thrive Netscape out of business. We have seen this behaviour often enough. Microsoft only bundles something with Windows for free if they try to drive someone out of business. In other cases, they ask money for it. You can't say that "bundling it is selling" because they don't make any money for bundling it, and if that would be the whole point then why isn't Microsoft Office bundled with Windows?
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@omni Bad choice of words. My point was: If Microsoft wanted to make money from Internet Explorer, why didn't they sell it? The only reason they had to include Internet Explorer in Windows was to get rid of Netscape. They had practically complete market dominance and getting Netscape to die only means loss for Netscape, no profit for Microsoft.
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@omni They do, in fact, bundle the parts of Office that people use on a regular basis (AKA Word) with Windows. The simple matter of the fact is, there are certain things people expect to be able to do with their new computron box, and if they can't do it, they're going to complain about it being worthless. It'd be idiotic not to bundle a web browser with it, and if you're doing that, why not include your own?
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@omni You got a bum copy, then. Because I've been using a bundled copy of Office for years.
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@redenchilada Back in those days, it wasn't so normal, and there weren't really alternatives you could go for. The only thing you did was go to the shop and buy Netscape.
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@omni Plus, competition is a simple part of business. If driving competitors out of business helps your bottom line, the smart thing to do is drive your competitors out of business. You can't expect a company as large as Microsoft, which has to answer to shareholders at the end of the month, to do things any other way.
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@zeldatra Ah, okay, that makes more sense. I better hope this that version of Word FINALLY supports their own standards, and a fair amount of the official standards, but I have a feeling that it won't, as usual.
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@zeldatra If you use Microsoft Office on both, that argument is worthless. I'm still having trouble opening .docx files without losing the complete layout in LibreOffice (which DOES support the official implementation completely) and Microsoft Office, at least version 2007, doesn't support .odt and similar formats properly.
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@omni I use Microsoft Office on one computer and OpenOffice on another. They both work fine.
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@omni So, they killed a monopoly with a new one. I seen no problem in that.
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@nerthos They abused their market position to do it, and they merely did it to hurt another company, instead of making profit for themselves. If they would've done it to make more money, that would be way more understandable than if they would do it just for the sake of killing off another company, which is what they did.
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@omni Seriously, you're basing a world-wide corporation with hundreds of thousands of employees, multiply that for their userbase, on their moral standards? Welcome to real life.
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@zeldatra You're justifying being a jerk for no reason, while it does not even help yourself at all but only damages others, by the fact that they're big? That's definitely more silly than what I am doing.
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@omni I'm not justifying it. I'm just saying "being a jerk" has less than zero meaning in the real world.
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@omni Here's a handy bit of information for you: competitors damage your bottom line. If someone out there is putting out a product that rivals yours, there will be some people using it. Even if that doesn't result in direct monetary loss, the loss of market control and of influence will eventually lead to monetary loss. The morality of the whole situation is questionable, yes, but morals don't bring the cash in. Business sense does, and the two are (regardless of what some people like to say) completely different things.
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@omni >Implying market competition isn't just like the jungle
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@zeldatra Okay, so that means we should just allow them? So, if I show up at your front door with five other people, it should be fine if I kick you together with them? Because I am bigger than you? There's nothing wrong with that? That something happens often does not mean it is right, and does not mean we should just let it happen without trying to fight against it.
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@redenchilada Internet Explorer was made AFTER Netscape. The Netscape guys were not rivalling a Microsoft product AT ALL.
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@omni So that means Microsoft saw a market and decided to swoop in on it. Those kinds of things happen all the time in big business. It brings the money in. Are the ethics questionable? Certainly. But "unfair advantage" and "market leverage" are just part of business. In fact, this whole argument seems to be an issue of free software vs big business, and the two are about as wildly incompatible as you can get. They have completely different goals, necessitating completely different motives with completely different moral compasses.
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@redenchilada Netscape was not free software at the time, that only happened after they lost to Internet Explorer, where they donated the code to the Mozilla Foundation, and we all know the greatness that brought upon us. (Positive, of course, Mozilla Firefox is a great product and Mozilla's quick support for new technologies helps our web move forward at amazing speeds.) I'm not sure if we can talk about "seeing a market" when you give your product away for free, as they still do. If they really saw a market in browsers, why didn't they just sell Internet Explorer for a lower price than Netscape?
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@omni I ain't saying Firefox isn't fantastic, man, if I had it my way it'd be the only browser in use. The argument about a market stems from the idea that Microsoft was likely trying to reduce competition by squashing the browser market before it became a big thing. Of course, now it's just gone free, shooting that hope in the foot, but more control over the software people use always seems like a good idea as a business.
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@redenchilada I understand trying to squash the market before it became big, because the Internet would've obviously seemed like a cool thing, but why for free? Wouldn't it have been way more logical to just be cheaper than Netscape? They could've gotten a lot more money with that, while still harming Netscape a lot (seeing as Netscape Navigator, their browser, was their only product, Netscape wouldn't be able to financially afford going all that cheap).
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@widget I only now noticed Netscape Navigator was cross-platform compatible. That makes it more logical to behave like this. I still consider them jerks, though, as their greed is damaging our complete IT system, but I do understand the decision now.
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@omni Let me try to explain with an analogy; imagine you're electronically-illiterate and you want a radio in your car. In scenario A, you get a car with no radio and you have two choices of radio to purchase in the store. Since you're spending extra on the radio anyway, might as well go all-out and get the more expensive one, right? More expensive obviously == better features, which is a better use of money! (remember, technologically-illiterate) But in scenario B, the car you got comes with a free radio, and the one at the store would cost extra. The one at the store may be better, but if what you have comes with a stereo already, why spend extra? Thus, bundling the radio in for free means it gets more market share, which means the more expensive addon radio won't last as long.
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@redenchilada I guess that makes sense, but I still don't see why Microsoft wouldn't at least try to make more money then. Though, honestly, I often buy cheaper alternatives because they are cheaper and I am sure I'm not the only one who does this. I wouldn't spend more money on another piece of software which practically does the same, and Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator did practically do the same. So, if Microsoft would've sold Internet Explorer for a lower price than Netscape Navigator, assuming I would be living in those days, I would've most likely bought Internet Explorer instead of Netscape Navigator.
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@omni But consider how many technologically-illerate folk nowadays will buy the most expensive computer because "the cheaper one is probably worse".
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@redenchilada Well, this is true, and I guess the huge sales of Microsoft Office somewhat show that the same is the case for software. Oh well.
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@omni Though, what if they made it more expensive and exploited that pattern of thought to make lods of emone? :o
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