
Bill Gates sums up Microsoft's abusive history - fogus
http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2009/11/04/microsoft-history
======
aik
How is this example any different than putting tons of effort into keeping
other devices from making use of iTunes to transfer music? Or only allowing
your OS to run on the hardware you choose? etc.

I don't agree with any of this of course. But anyway, Microsoft has changed
since this time, haven't they? I hope so.

~~~
chrischen
Because palm isn't supposed to identify itself as an iPod. And it would
actually _take_ effort to support other devices, not the other way around.

As for the OS thing, Apple isn't dominating enough of the market for people to
care.

Microsoft has _not_ changed. Read my comment on the xbox. As long as they
benefit from proprietarity, they will try to undermine anything not theirs.
It's because proprietarity opens up various strategies _besides_ just
improving a product, which is usually the hardest way to gain market. It
allows you to take advantage of exclusivity and your existing powers (market
share).

~~~
shpxnvz
_And it would actually take effort to support other devices_

Except that Apple is expending effort specifically to break efforts at
compatibility. It appears to me that they are intentionally preventing
competition, and as a long time Apple customer that upsets me.

 _Apple isn't dominating enough of the market for people to care_

Claiming that bad behavior is okay so long as you only hurt a few people is a
pretty weak argument. I own three Apple computers, have spent a boatload of
money with them and as a customer _I_ care about how they conduct themselves
as a company.

~~~
chrischen
You're absolutely right. It is anti-competitive and anti-open in this case.

No I don't mean it's okay. I'm simply stating why there isn't a fuss about
Apple.

~~~
shpxnvz
Sorry if I misunderstood your argument.

I don't disagree that Apple seems to get away with quite a bit. I imagine it's
also because people like to think of them as the scrappy underdog who just
does what's necessary to keep up with MS. The shame of it is that it's got to
be easier to change ingrained anti-competitive corporate mentality before a
company gets big enough that the mass protests start.

~~~
chrischen
Like I said, as long as companies are invested in proprietary end-user
products, they will try to take advantage of it to some degree.

The only way to fight it is to endorse open source _free_ software but
unfortunately on the consumer side it's not really gaining traction.

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loup-vaillant
Looks like an excerpt from the Halloween documents, which, as a whole, are
much more incriminating.

<http://catb.org/~esr/halloween/>

~~~
coliveira
except that these documents were not written by BG.

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dpcan
I may not understand law very well, but why isn't Apple getting sued for anti-
trust, or monopoly type practices? They seem to keep EVERYTHING closed and
proprietary.

Why the double standard?

~~~
mseebach
Anti-trust is about avoiding the negative consequences of monopolies, not
forcing things to be open. Apple isn't anywhere near a monopoly, except maybe
once in the iTunes/iPod sphere, but opened up by removing the iTunes DRM.

~~~
jamesbressi
That may be one of the best short and thorough answers I have seen when
explaining anti-trust. Thanks for that.

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gxs
In their position, you would do the exact same thing: protect your market
share.

The burden isn't on Microsoft to play nice; the burden is on you to come up
with a better product and unseat them.

Sure, they make it difficult, but I will reference you to the success of Apple
and Google alone as indicators that it can be done. Firefox is another
example. *sp

------
JoeAltmaier
Its the great American Pastime to throw mud at the big guy - hurray for the
common man! Boo to Big Oil, or Big Software or whatever. Remember Bill was one
of us. Perhaps his biggest issue is, he didn't change gears when he went from
Entrepreneur to The Man. Keep that in mind, Next Big Winner Guy.

~~~
rbanffy
"Bill was one of us"

No. He was never one of us. I think it is safe to assume folks here have high
ethical standards, something he has repeatedly shown to lack. High ethical
standards cost money, cost business and market share. It's not easy to keep
them, but, I am sure most of us here do it regardless of the cost to the
business, for not doing so has a much higher cost in out consciousness.

When you command a group, be it a company, a department or a bunch of kids,
people will do what you want them to do and do whatever your behavior and
apparent standards enable them to. If you are ruthless and have little regard
for law or quality of your products, so will your team. If you are willing to
break the law, they will do it for you. Many times out of loyalty.

As a leader, it is nothing but your duty to take full responsibility for the
acts of your people for you are the one who enabled them.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I think he was. Ruthless in competition, shipping product on time with bugs,
commanding loyalty -all laudable when you are a tiny company. Even breaking
the law is relative - what Bill does became illegal only when Microsoft became
a giant. Its not monopolistic practice unless you dominate the market.

------
chrischen
They do this with their xbox division too, often buying out exclusivity or
paying to _dumb_ down products (so that ps3 version don't get any
enhancements) and various other ways to artificially improve their product
instead of truly innovating.

~~~
eru
Sources?

~~~
chrischen
GTAIV exclusive content <http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3160380>

They're also paying for CoD4:MW2 exclusives.

~~~
roc
How is paying for exclusive content any worse or different than first party
games in general?

Do you have a source for that 'dumb down' claim? Because that practice would
actually support your assertion.

~~~
chrischen
Because buying exclusive content is one way to artificially enhance the Xbox's
value.

First party games are different from buying exclusive content because making a
first party game does _not take additional effort_ to benefit the first party.
Buying exclusive content is going out of their way to devalue the
competition's product without directly improving their own product.

To be honest I can't find the source of the 'dumb down' claim, so it might be
a bad memory. From what I can remember, the memory was associated with GTA IV,
but I think it might have just been the Xbox forcing GTA IV to be dumbed down
to one disc simply because of the technically inferior capabilities of the
Xbox (and not because of Microsoft coercion).

~~~
roc
Kinda like how the PS2 'forced' GTA III to be dumbed-down to run on its
inferior hardware? C'mon. Developers write to the platforms they can sell on.
That's not a sign of some malicious intent on the part of the platform owner.

And I'm still not buying your argument about exclusive DLC vs First Party
games. Buying and maintaining first-party studios takes a hell of a lot of
effort. And the entire goal of those titles is to increase the value of your
platform (relatively decreasing the value of your competitors). It's the same
thing. The only difference is that buying exclusive content for a
multiplatform game is far, far cheaper and much less risky in this day and
age.

~~~
chrischen
I don't mean to say that the fact that xbox is technically inferior is some
evil strategy.

Buying a developer so that they can make something exclusive is no different
from buying exclusives. It is somewhat anti-competitive. If Sony does this,
I'm pretty sure it's much less than Microsoft.

Buying a company after after they release a hit is different from
commissioning a company to make a big hit. The former is not promoting
innovation.

------
greyman
I don't want to defend MS, and yes, proprietary formats are evil. But as I
remember, every big company did it that way, it was just the understanding at
that time.

~~~
gaius
_proprietary formats are evil._

Microsoft's "proprietary" formats are just the in-memory COM/OLE objects
representing your document serialized onto the disk. They change in every
release because the code changes. It's not a conspiracy (and you have a very
odd definition of "evil").

~~~
cia_plant
It _is_ a conspiracy, as has been proven in court more than once.

------
arjunb
Keep in mind: this quote is from 10 years ago.

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timothychung
Well, at least Billy is helping the poor in third world countries. :-)

------
bshock
Try googling "Microsoft" and "theft."

~~~
tome
Yes, what?

------
nazgulnarsil
government causes this with laws that allow microsoft to sue people that
create workarounds. telling people what they can do with your product after
they purchase it is silly. why blame MS for simply following the incentives to
make money?

~~~
alttab
Government causes this? Or does government allow this?

To think Microsoft was sitting on a huge pile of money without lobbying with
some of it would be naive at best.

~~~
idm
...and yet, until the 1990s, Microsoft invested almost nothing in lobbying and
political campaigns. Once the antitrust case entered the equation, Microsoft
rapidly became interested in influencing government.

<http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=d000000115>

1996 contributions: $251,474

1998 contributions: $1,364,821

2000 contributions: $4,628,893

~~~
alttab
Props to you good sir for getting concrete numbers.

While 4 million isn't a lot considering how much they made during those years,
it certainly shouldn't surprise anyone. Plus, that's the money that went on
the books - not the all expenses paid vacations and under the table proverbial
hand jobs.

Some would say that lobbying is necessary for the government to know what its
people needs - but then again they listen to the LOBBYISTS and not the people
who write senators letters. Flawed argument. What a concept.

