Re: [colorforth] DOES> How is colorForth different from other Forths?

[Mark Slicker <maslicke@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

First of two parts. [ off-topic ]

On Sat, 24 Jan 2004, Samuel A. Falvo II wrote:

> On Saturday 24 January 2004 02:10 pm, Mark Slicker wrote:
> > Are you saying Microsoft would have a greater level of success with a
> > goverment break up? How do you support that?
>
> Absolutely.  The operating system vendor would be in competition with
> other OS vendors, but since windows is already the de facto OS of
> choice, they'd hardly have any serious threat of competition (except
> from Linux).  Still, their revenue stream would depend EXCLUSIVELY on
> sales of OS and closely-related products; ergo, competition from Linux,
> BSD, et. al. would necessarily FORCE them to improve their OS and would
> make them more agile to respond to customer requests.  Ditto for the
> Office suite company, and the Visual C++ company, et. al.
>
> Right now, the failures of one department of the company is made up for
> by the overwhelming success of another.  You think the Windows dept. is
> earning Microsoft money right now?  No way.  It is the .NET department,
> and it's "software as a service" and "yearly fee" pricing structure that
> is making the company the most money right now.  Office is probably the
> biggest money maker overall, being available for both Windows and MacOS,
> and $700 for 5-user licenses at nearly every company (literally!) in
> this country.  10- and 20-user licenses are even more expensive, AND,
> they need to be renewed yearly.  Oh, speaking of renewing licenses,
> let's not forget the BSA, Microsoft's gansta thug legal
> department-turned-company.  They regularly rake in more income for
> Microsoft than probably all of Windows sales combined, just from legal
> settlements.  MSDN subscriptions is another source of revenue.  Oh, and
> let's not forget the $1K+ per MCSE test (c'mon, you know you'll pay for
> more than just one test per year if you're truely in the business
> professionally) you'll take to receive your yearly certifications.
> Ergo, Microsoft doesn't give two (*#&$s about whether Windows is good
> quality or not, about whether Word actually addresses the issues
> *ROUTINELY* raised by professional writers year after year after year
> (which it doesn't; just ask a professional writer), etc.  Microsoft
> doesn't care, because it knows that it can just place products wherever,
> and if they fail, that's OK, because .NET or MSDN subscriptions will be
> able to fill the gap.
>
> This isn't rocket science, and anyone with a library card can do the same
> amount of research that I have for my college classes last semester.
> Monopolies suck ass, not only for the customer, but for the company as
> well.  The only thing it doesn't suck for is the CEO and a few members
> of the board.  Everybody else gets royally screwed, and they don't even
> know it.

It is good for the share holders. That is what I meant by success. You
seem to to take success as having better products. Maybe an
Applications/OS break up would do that, maybe not. If seperate companies
could possibly yeild greater profits, why would they not do this?

Where do you get the statisic that Windows generates no revenue? Or are
you changing the subject by saying it is the new licensing method which
generates the revenue?

>
> > This is due to developments beyond their control, a competitior that
> > has trancended the Microsoft mode of production. This is not due to
> > some unexplained law of monopolistic corporations.
>
> No, this is not true.  Forget for the moment that Linux even exists.
> Forget about BSD.  Forget about MacOS.
>
> Customers are **PISSED** at Microsoft.  These customers are the same ones
> that would normally swear by MS even just two years ago.  They don't
> like the EULA that XP ships with, and they don't like the corporate
> lock-in that is happening.  They don't like the system-supported
> spyware, nor do they like push-advertising on their desktop every
> *#$&ing time they turn on the box.  Windows XP might be oh-so-sweet for
> the cutsie mom-and-pop couple aged 65 or over, who can't tell a mouse
> from a sewing machine pedal.  But for real, honest to goodness users,
> college professors to MIS departments of multi-billion dollar companies
> alike, all are despising Microsoft as I type this.  I also note that
> Microsoft still regularly uses Unix-based servers internal to the
> company for their mission-critical stuff.  Every now and again, news of
> this even leaks out.
>
> Fact is, if Linux hadn't arrived, something else would have taken its
> place, perhaps MacOS.  But evidence is showing that it is immaterial of
> Linux; in fact, 90% of Windows users who are now expressing dissent with
> the philosophy that Microsoft is taking are people who formerly didn't
> even know Linux existed, or if they did, have had such wildly incorrect
> preconceptions about it that they may as well have never had known about
> it.
>
> Note: all of this is based empirically on a combination of collegiate
> research and on real, hands-on, commercial consulting I have undertaken
> over the past 5 years.
>

Have you produced a report of any kind? The problem with MacOS is that
it is exclusive to a different set of hardware. There are not many who
have the resources to challenge Microsoft on the Intel platform, to
actually provide a real alternative. All the problems you mention can be
addressed by Microsoft, and they certainly would if this would quell an
all out revolt. Microsoft has at least announced pop-up blocking, and
security improvements.

> > Once people are imersered in this new phenomenon of freely openly
> > developed software, and this freely developed software is intergral
> > part of production and governace, there will be no going back to one
> > company (or two) controlling all furture developments.
>
> People used to be immersed in such an environment before Microsoft came
> along.

Nonsense, the computing world of the 1960's is not the computing world of
today. There was no collaborative software development on the scale seen
today.

>  Clearly, this utopian view isn't realistic.

It is not utopian, it is the reality of what is happening.

>  Another monopoly
> can come along.  They need only strike the right impulse to purchase,
> then exploit the instinctual human trait of laziness (code to our API,
> and your code will be super-portable!).

Anything can happen, however historically the tendency is to adopt more
and more efficient methods of production. This is the core of the logic
that governs capitalism.

One company can not compete with the responsiveness and collective
benefits of freely developed software.

Mark

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