Replies to omni, page 20
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@omni Apparently
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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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@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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@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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@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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@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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@omni Data security's a concern to some people, yeah, but that paranoid attitude makes it hard to take its other (valid) points seriously.
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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 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 "This OS has an optional feature to search the internet HOW TERRIBLE." "Allowing people to set default preferences instead of asking every time is SO TERRIBLE." This entire article is hilarious
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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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@omni I use Microsoft Office on one computer and OpenOffice on another. They both work fine.
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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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@omni You got a bum copy, then. Because I've been using a bundled copy of Office for years.
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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 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 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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@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 "forcing a monopoly" pahaha what
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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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@omni ...What? That didn't make sense. .docx is native to Windows, how would that be incompatible?
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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.
