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Old 5th March 2004 | 05:20
  #16 (permalink)  
Mac the Knife

Plastic PPRuNer
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Joined: Sep 2000
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From: Rochechouart, France
I doubt whether Gates would agree with you, but never mind. Personally I'm sure that he is a lovely man, kind to dogs and old ladies and a family paragon. With wealth that no-one could spend in a thousand lifetimes to give some of it away to good causes is a reasonable thing to do, particularly if you are not much loved (Carnegie, Getty, Rockefeller etc.).

However, unlike Oracle/IBM/Novell/SuSe MS is a company which has been convicted of monopolistic and antitrust practices and basically escaped with a slap on the wrist. Similar cases are ongoing against MS in the EU and Japan.

On April 3, 2000, in a two-part decision, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled in Washington, D.C. that Microsoft's dominance of the personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly, and that it used its power against competitors in ways that stifled innovation and harmed consumers (the "findings of fact") - http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm.

I think it's nice that you believe in a benevolent Microsoft who feel that the freedom to innovate applies to everyone and who able to determine your best interests and administer them impartially.

I am afraid that on the evidence I am not able to believe this and like many others am deeply suspicious of MS's motives for anything. If MS do not like this then they have only themselves to blame.

I don't hate MS and I recognise the coherence that they brought to the emerging market of the '80's. But there is plenty of room in this world for everyone and their operating systems and software. I find MS stubborn insistence that they be the only one both pathological and harmful to us all.
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