B_starinvestor
Experimental Member
Thanks. I had no idea.
Look dude, Jobs is a gazillionaire. Don't act like he is a lowly 'normal' person. Word Perfect got its ass kicked fair and square, too.
B_VinylBoy
Sexy Member
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2007
- Posts
- 10,363
- Media
- 0
- Likes
- 68
- Points
- 123
- Location
- Boston, MA / New York, NY
- Sexuality
- 90% Gay, 10% Straight
- Gender
- Male
He wasn't when the whole thing started. Watch "The Pirates Of Silicone Alley" one evening.
As for WordPerfect? Once Windows took over, anything that was computerized pretty much had no choice but to fall in line. Gates made a Microsoft version of every single popular program out there and because of its popularity, Gates then tried to push to make their rules standardized. Everyone was happy to just roll over and take it... that is, until the internet exploded. Thank God for geeks and Open Source!
But now I'm just being a nerd.
justasimpleguy
Legendary Member
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2009
- Posts
- 444
- Media
- 36
- Likes
- 1,200
- Points
- 273
- Location
- Alabama (United States)
- Sexuality
- 99% Straight, 1% Gay
- Gender
- Male
I don't think Star knows much about computers and programming. All we know is that he loves money more than his mother.
B_VinylBoy
Sexy Member
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2007
- Posts
- 10,363
- Media
- 0
- Likes
- 68
- Points
- 123
- Location
- Boston, MA / New York, NY
- Sexuality
- 90% Gay, 10% Straight
- Gender
- Male
LOL... I just realized I typed Silicone instead of Silicon.
That movie title would be something completely different... and probably part of the "Girls Gone Wild" series. :biggrin:
That movie title would be something completely different... and probably part of the "Girls Gone Wild" series. :biggrin:
Fair and square? Is that another Orwellian right wing phrase?
A Long History of Anti-Competitive Behavior
Beginning in 1994, Microsoft launched an anticompetitive campaign to extinguish WordPerfect, an office productivity application owned by Novell and competing with Microsoft's Office suite. Office productivity applications (including word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications) are one of the most important groups of applications and contribute substantially to the applications barrier to entry protecting Microsoft's operating system monopoly.
When Microsoft began this campaign, WordPerfect enjoyed widespread popularity. In order to eliminate its competitor, Microsoft withheld crucial technical information about Windows, going so far as to extend the Windows API, the set of commands a program uses to communicate with the operating system, to ensure that WordPerfect did not work smoothly with Microsoft's monopoly operating system. 45 Microsoft also used its monopoly power to control industry standards, thus requiring WordPerfect to implement proprietary technology or risk incompatibility with Windows.46 And it excluded WordPerfect from the major channels of distribution for office productivity applications.47 For example, Microsoft forbade OEMs from pre-installing Novell products and gave discounts for refusing to sell other developers' office productivity applications.48 As part of Microsoft's strategy to eliminate Novell, "[a] top Microsoft executive wrote that Microsoft should 'smile' at Novell, falsely signifying Microsoft's willingness to help the two companies' common customers integrate their various products,
2010- Mission Accomplished.When Microsoft began this campaign, WordPerfect enjoyed widespread popularity. In order to eliminate its competitor, Microsoft withheld crucial technical information about Windows, going so far as to extend the Windows API, the set of commands a program uses to communicate with the operating system, to ensure that WordPerfect did not work smoothly with Microsoft's monopoly operating system. 45 Microsoft also used its monopoly power to control industry standards, thus requiring WordPerfect to implement proprietary technology or risk incompatibility with Windows.46 And it excluded WordPerfect from the major channels of distribution for office productivity applications.47 For example, Microsoft forbade OEMs from pre-installing Novell products and gave discounts for refusing to sell other developers' office productivity applications.48 As part of Microsoft's strategy to eliminate Novell, "[a] top Microsoft executive wrote that Microsoft should 'smile' at Novell, falsely signifying Microsoft's willingness to help the two companies' common customers integrate their various products,
D_Tully Tunnelrat
Experimental Member
LOL... I just realized I typed Silicone instead of Silicon.
That movie title would be something completely different... and probably part of the "Girls Gone Wild" series. :biggrin:
Very funny! What is on your mind VB?
BTW - if you are into the tales of the Valley, Silicon (no e) Valley, Jobs actually took the idea of a graphical user interface: the Mac OS, from Xerox PARC. He studied their (GUI) interface in 1979, before launching the Mac. One of the Xerox alumni started Adobe.
Charles Geschke - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Do look into that Murray Hill, Inc. campaign, it's wickedly funny to run a corporation for public office. I am curious to see how many votes they get, or if they win. Talk about the consequences of a SC decision.
B_VinylBoy
Sexy Member
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2007
- Posts
- 10,363
- Media
- 0
- Likes
- 68
- Points
- 123
- Location
- Boston, MA / New York, NY
- Sexuality
- 90% Gay, 10% Straight
- Gender
- Male
To elaborate on sargon20's post, and this is coming from personal experience.
Microsoft was notorious for intentionally making their applications sub-par on other platforms in order to encourage the sale of their operating system. I distinctively remember a version of a Microsoft mail program that was released on the Macintosh platform where you couldn't even drag & drop items. It wasn't a glitch... it was actually not in the code! The outrage that sparked from there was astounding, considering that Macintosh was one of the very first platforms that brought the whole idea of "drag & drop" to the world of home computing.
Internet Explorer was another one of their prize possessions that never seemed to be right on other platforms. At the time this started becoming the platform of choice for web browsing in the 90s, Netscape was falling behind with the changes happening in other internet technologies such as Java/Javascript. They had refused to upgrade their browsers to the latest standards, and IE came into the real adhering to the new protocols. It caught on like wildfire, especially since they were releasing the web browser for free. Before that, some companies actually tried to charge people up to $30 to buy a full version of a web browser. They eventually made Internet Explorer for other computing platforms and it quickly became the standard. That's when Microsoft started creating their own tags to help "influence" the development of websites. Up to this day, there are still plenty of HTML tags out there that only will work on IE. Many of them over time have been depreciated with the evolving of HTML and other web coding languages. Basically, Microsoft had its eyes on the internet and wanted to control it the same way it controlled the PC market. They really tried to push that agenda with Microsoft Frontpage, which was one of the very first WYSIWYG web design programs that made designing a website similar to designing a brochure in Illustrator. Frontpage was an absolute mess for obvious reasons, and it didn't help matters that the other platforms and web browsers didn't work too well with it. The final straw came when ISPs had to run actual Frontpage Servers in conjunction with their own server gear in order to make sure pages designed in Frontpage ran properly.
In many ways, Microsoft exposed themselves as being too greedy. It wasn't enough that they managed to create an "operating system" which in reality wasn't anything but a computer program that ran in DOS to simulate an actual OS. It wasn't enough that other companies who made actual PC hardware just rolled over and allowed their systems to be useless without Windows on it. Now they wanted to control the internet. Luckily for us, standards keep pushing forward very quickly in this world and with the emerging of advanced coding languages, Flash and other technologies, there was simply nothing Microsoft could do but keep up.
While I'm still geeking out... does anyone remember when Microsoft stopped making Internet Explorer for the Macintosh? Apparently, Mac wanted to make their own browser as an alternative to IE for users to have. IE, although a standard on the Mac platform, had its obvious issues with speed and other web technologies. So, they created Safari. Before this, Mac & Windows (I think) had a deal for IE to be the premiere browser on every Mac system. Once Apple released Safari, the good folks at Microsoft got angry and eventually stopped making updated versions of IE. PC users have been able to use IE all this time and I think the latest version is 8 (with test drives for 9 lurking about). The last version that existed for a Mac was 5.
AOL is also just as guilty, but that's a completely different story. One that I may get into one day when a Political thread goes completely amuck and I can embrace some inner geekdom. :biggrin:
Microsoft was notorious for intentionally making their applications sub-par on other platforms in order to encourage the sale of their operating system. I distinctively remember a version of a Microsoft mail program that was released on the Macintosh platform where you couldn't even drag & drop items. It wasn't a glitch... it was actually not in the code! The outrage that sparked from there was astounding, considering that Macintosh was one of the very first platforms that brought the whole idea of "drag & drop" to the world of home computing.
Internet Explorer was another one of their prize possessions that never seemed to be right on other platforms. At the time this started becoming the platform of choice for web browsing in the 90s, Netscape was falling behind with the changes happening in other internet technologies such as Java/Javascript. They had refused to upgrade their browsers to the latest standards, and IE came into the real adhering to the new protocols. It caught on like wildfire, especially since they were releasing the web browser for free. Before that, some companies actually tried to charge people up to $30 to buy a full version of a web browser. They eventually made Internet Explorer for other computing platforms and it quickly became the standard. That's when Microsoft started creating their own tags to help "influence" the development of websites. Up to this day, there are still plenty of HTML tags out there that only will work on IE. Many of them over time have been depreciated with the evolving of HTML and other web coding languages. Basically, Microsoft had its eyes on the internet and wanted to control it the same way it controlled the PC market. They really tried to push that agenda with Microsoft Frontpage, which was one of the very first WYSIWYG web design programs that made designing a website similar to designing a brochure in Illustrator. Frontpage was an absolute mess for obvious reasons, and it didn't help matters that the other platforms and web browsers didn't work too well with it. The final straw came when ISPs had to run actual Frontpage Servers in conjunction with their own server gear in order to make sure pages designed in Frontpage ran properly.
In many ways, Microsoft exposed themselves as being too greedy. It wasn't enough that they managed to create an "operating system" which in reality wasn't anything but a computer program that ran in DOS to simulate an actual OS. It wasn't enough that other companies who made actual PC hardware just rolled over and allowed their systems to be useless without Windows on it. Now they wanted to control the internet. Luckily for us, standards keep pushing forward very quickly in this world and with the emerging of advanced coding languages, Flash and other technologies, there was simply nothing Microsoft could do but keep up.
While I'm still geeking out... does anyone remember when Microsoft stopped making Internet Explorer for the Macintosh? Apparently, Mac wanted to make their own browser as an alternative to IE for users to have. IE, although a standard on the Mac platform, had its obvious issues with speed and other web technologies. So, they created Safari. Before this, Mac & Windows (I think) had a deal for IE to be the premiere browser on every Mac system. Once Apple released Safari, the good folks at Microsoft got angry and eventually stopped making updated versions of IE. PC users have been able to use IE all this time and I think the latest version is 8 (with test drives for 9 lurking about). The last version that existed for a Mac was 5.
AOL is also just as guilty, but that's a completely different story. One that I may get into one day when a Political thread goes completely amuck and I can embrace some inner geekdom. :biggrin: