[geeks] Microsoft Surface...

[William Kirkland]

Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 11:36:07 -0500
From: Doug McLaren <dougmc at frenzied.us>
Subject: Re: [geeks] Microsoft Surface...


 > On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 01:20:49PM -0700, William Kirkland wrote:
 >
 > |  > Wow.  Those are some remarkably broad brushes you're painting
 > |  > Microsoft and Apple with.
 > |
 > | Yes, I did ... and similar to another discussion on this board,  
I too
 > | feel that profiling is appropriate. Including it's use when  
comparing
 > | the ethics and products a company produces especially the how ...
 > |
 > | Microsoft tends to acquire a company with a particular piece of
 > | technology they find interesting.
 >
 > Is there anything wrong with that?  Seems to be business as usual,
 > though often it does stifle the company being acquired.  But on the
 > other hand, many companies are built with the express intention of
 > being acquired -- because it's either that or an IPO that makes it's
 > founders immediate millions.

Yes and no. If all they do is acquire and market, yes ... though even  
Microsoft is not there, they just tend to acquire more and invent/ 
develop less than most.


 > | Apple tends to invent and design.
 >
 > Apple acquires too.  Remember NeXT?

You are thinking too much in absolutes, yes Apple also acquires, they  
also tend to invent and develop new products from ideas, not already  
being produced. (again, only as a reference, more so than does  
Microsoft).

 > Pretty much everything that ever gets released as a product, somebody
 > else did it before, or did something that lead up to it before.  But
 > if Microsoft releases some new product, people go `oh, X did that
 > years ago!' ... but if Apple were to do the same thing, people would
 > go `look what Apple did!  They innovate!'

True! when did Microsoft word allow for one to use multiple columns  
using wusiwug gui? or allow images to be inserted into their documents?

 > | Sun also has a much better tendency to invent rather than acquire
 > | technology.
 >
 > Sun acquires companies too.

nfs, java ... I'll go research more after you provide some examples  
of what Microsoft has done.

 > Microsoft is just much bigger than Apple and Sun, so they do it more.

... and almost no real inventions an innovations. They should be  
doing more of that too, then Apple and Sun combined if we follow your  
logic.

oh, let's credit Microsoft where they are due ... perpetual upgrade  
expenses. I acquired upgrades to my Mac OS from 1.1 through 7.0  
without expense and legitimately.

 > (It's funny when I find myself in the position of being a Microsoft
 > apologist.  Usually I'm bashing Microsoft -- but when I do, I prefer
 > to bash them for things they really should be bashed for -- and
 > there's plenty of these without making things up or bashing for
 > irrelevant things.)

 > |  > Microsoft has done some pretty remarkable things over the  
years.  And
 > |  > so has Apple.  And both have done some pretty underwhelming  
things
 > |  > over the years as well.

You apparently insist that I provide examples, wheres yours?

 > | Yes, they have marketed well. You are proof of that.

... and you have yet again reiterated that Microsoft has developed  
what? Your only real argument is that they have marketed and sold  
better than Apple, and Sun ... that is not an indication of concepts  
or ideas being developed or designed.

 > If you ask me, Apple is the king of marketing, not Microsoft -- and
 > they do it for a lot less money.  Nothing wrong with that either.

Still, Apple has introduced new technologies much more often than  
Microsoft, and yes they have drastically different business models.

 > Still, don't confuse me with a Microsoft fanboy.  The only thing I  
use
 > Microsoft software for is playing games, and that's only because the
 > alternatives are a lot more trouble.  (Though as I've said, I'm  
pretty
 > happy with some of their hardware.)

Why not? You have not provided any real world examples ... do you  
have some vapor ware to present?

 > Really, I'm very resistant to marketing of all sorts.  Personally,  
I'm
 > far more interested in evaluating things based on it's merits, rather
 > than it's marketing or the actions of it's fanboys.

Doubtful, but I have no way to obtain appropriate information to make  
a judgement, so will concede this point. You are resistant to marketing.

 > |  > As for Microsoft deliberately making their products aren't
 > |  > compatible with competitor's products, that's really only true
 > |  > for a small subset of their rather large product lines -- and  
I'm
 > |  > not even sure it's really been *proven* rather than just
 > |  > theorized anyways.
 > |
 > | Others have already posted a partial list of things Microsoft has
 > | done to "help" technology along ...

Good reference ... I can make the identical claim about any company.

 > Yes, people have talked about a small number of Microsoft products
 > where were not compatible with the competitors, and of course it was
 > deliberately done to squash the competition, because it was  
Microsoft!

Which ones were not?

 > (I'm sure there's a few logical fallacies in there.  Of course, I've
 > sort of done a straw man, so perhaps it evens out.)

Logical fallacies, my ass, a uni-cycle has better support.

 > | and I may have missed it, but I did not notice anything indicating
 > | the great leaps backward Microsoft attempted with Microsoft Java
 > | ... as I recall the first paragraph of the java specification
 > | REQUIRED that the code be cross platform compatible, yet  
Microsoft's
 > | implementation would not run on any platform except another
 > | Microsoft platform.

 > Huh?

 > The java code itself is supposed to be cross platform.  The JRE  
itself
 > doesn't have to be cross platform.

But Microsoft's first attempts at jave would not allow any code  
generated using the Microsoft SDK to work on any platform other than  
a Microsoft platform.

 > | I think that qualifies as deliberate ...

 > So you're saying that Microsoft was trying to squash it's competitors
 > by not releasing a JRE for the Mac?  (or Sun, Linux, or for Amigas,
 > etc.)

Microsoft was not compliant with the specification for java. The  
specification did not require that any vendor provide a JRE for  
another's OS, only that the code created would run on all vendor's  
JRE. Microsoft's did not.

 > IBM didn't release a BeOS version of their JRE either that I'm aware
 > of.  So was IBM deliberately trying to squash BeOS?

not relevant.

 > | Maybe you would rather talk about the lame gui that Microsoft
 > | uses ...

 > Boy, this is becoming quite a rant.  And you're preaching to the
 > choir.

only because you did not provide anything resembling support for your  
claims.

 > My point was NOT that all Microsoft software is great.  It was that
 > not everything that comes out of Redmond sucks, which seems to be the
 > position of many people on this list.  Another point is that not
 > everything Microsoft does is bad.

I did not say that everything Microsoft does is bad either. I did  
generalize, because you left no real examples.

 > | While I do not know off hand who first developed an optical mouse,
 > | the first ones I saw were out long before Microsoft thought of an
 > | optical mouse.

 > So what?  I recall using Sun optical mice (the ones that required a
 > special pad) decades ago, and I doubt they invented it either.

me too, what has Microsoft brought to the innovation table? (there  
had been statements previously discussing if Microsoft had invented  
an optical mouse).

 > I didn't say that Microsoft invented the optical mouse.  I said that
 > the ones they sell (at least the basic one) are really good quality
 > and are really reasonably priced as well.  In short, they rock.

ok, then I recalled that incorrectly. Even so, you have acknowledged  
that Microsoft did not invent an optical mouse ... so what did  
Microsoft invent?

 > I had a Microsoft z80 card for my Apple ][+ at one point.  It rocked
 > too, letting me use Turbo Pascal!  (At least I think it was Turbo
 > Pascal that it let me run.)

 > Apple mice are pretty, oh so sexy.  But most are one button?  Still?
 > (In their defense, MacOS X supports other mice seamlessly.)

Yep, I use a 3-button mouse on my Mac, so that I may more easily  
access the X11 features. (I do not care for the Apple GUI either)

 > | Oh, what about SCSI ... that was such a nice decision to go with
 > | IDE ... today, we are still limited to two disk drives on each bus.
 > | Microsoft chose IDE

 > Wait ... Microsoft chose IDE?

YES, they did! specifically because their competitor was using SCSI.

 > [ sarcasm imminent ]

 > Was this for the Microsoft PC?

 > I guess Microsoft chose the 8088 (x86) for their PC over the  
obviously
 > superior 680x0 as well?  The fools!

Yes to both. [ no sarcasm ] the Motorola family of processors were at  
least 6 months ahead of the intel at the time. Though even with a  
slower clock cycle on the Motorola line, more real computations could  
be performed (due partly to the much larger addressing modes of the  
processor, and higher quantity of registers).

 > [ sarcasm subsiding somewhat ]

 > Are you confusing IBM with Microsoft?  And IDE came along a while
 > after the IBM PC -- the first ones had no hard drives at all, then  
MFM
 > and then RLL drives, then ESDI.  Then IDE and SCSI came out, not  
sure.
 > which came out first, but SCSI was generally faster, but cost several
 > times as much, especially when considering how much cheaper an IDE
 > controller was than a SCSI controller.  Perhaps THAT is why IDE won?

IDE won because there were more units made, which lowered the cost.  
This was driven by Microsoft and their exclusionary tactics.

 > (Perhaps IDE and SCSI came out before ESDI?  Not sure.  Either way,
 > ESDI, MFM, RLL, IDE, SCSI and probably others were all competing at
 > one point, and we know how that turned out.  But I really don't think
 > we can blame that on Microsoft.)

 > | because Apple was suggesting SCSI.

 > For the record, Microsoft OSs have always supported SCSI.  Perhaps
 > they required that the SCSI card vendor make their own drivers, but
 > they were available and generally worked.

"Always" is pretty absolute. ... but NO!

 > | *IF* Microsoft would have shifted when they saw their decision  
to be
 > | less than optimal, we could have 256 devices on one SCSI bus,
 > | including the use of multiple computers on that same bus.

 > Now Microsoft is to blame for shortcomings in the SCSI specification?

No, for the avoidance of SCSI, which could easily have been brought  
down in cost with additional units.

 > Perhaps Microsoft was the second gunman on the grassy knoll too?

If I am to believe all of your unsupported claims, why should I not  
also believe this one too?

-- 
Doug McLaren, dougmc at frenzied.us
Which is worse:  Ignorance or Apathy?  Who knows?  Who cares?

--
bill.kirkland at gmail.com