P.S. I still can't dual boot android on my iPhone, so why is Apple any better? Apple is a closed system, more so than Microsoft.
P.P.S. I love Apple and Microsoft.
MS is not a nice company. But they've maneuvered themselves into a position where they are no longer dominant, and are having to compete on technology. So they certainly seem nice enough now (and they did in the early 80's too). But I don't trust them; the culture is broken and evil.
(Edit, because some of the responses are conflating the issues: to be clear, I don't think Apple is a "nice company" either. But their position and dominance today isn't nearly as damaging as MS's was in the 90's. I worried for a while that it would be, maybe 2 years ago, but the truth is iOS has very robust competition, and is actually losing market share slowly. I'm not worried. Let Apple be evil as long as it's within their own universe and not affecting the market.)
When Netscape was killed, Unix users lost the ability to use much of the web, because everyone started writing to IE only. And the reason that happened was because MS leveraged their windows monopoly illegally. I note you didn't have a reply to this bit. :)
Cutting a sweetheart, loss-leader deal with AOL to replace the browser with their own? Isn't that pretty similar to what Google is doing with Firefox to the tune of a couple hundred million a year? (And something that Microsoft has been banned from doing with their own proprietary browser?)
They refused to update Java -- Apple refuses to even allow Flash, which is elsewise standard on something like 97% of computers.
'Pushing IE4 as a part of OS updates' -- wait, they're not supposed to promote their own software (notwithstanding the business with uninstalling Netscape, that was indeed evil).
Trying to kill off the web? Okay, at this point you've lost it.
Stop seeing things in purely black and white.
What's the loss leader in this analogy? Google makes money off both Chrome and Firefox.
>They refused to update Java -- Apple refuses to even allow Flash, which is elsewise standard on something like 97% of computers.
I'd agree that this is exactly the same thing. Apple is hoping to replicate Microsoft's success, forcing businesses to choose which platform they develop for so that they can chase their competitors out of the market due to a dearth of choices.
And you realize there's an important difference between "promoting one's own software" and deliberately installing (and making default) a free (!) equivalent to your biggest competitor's software on every single one of your monopoly-sized installed base?
True, but that still doesn't let Microsoft off the hook. "Everybody else is doing it," is about as good of a defense as "I was just following orders".
Oh come on. If you're going to argue here, at least have your facts straight. The Google deal with FF is only about the default search engine and homepage. Most people switch their homepage to something else anyways. And all the major search engine plugins ship with FF; it's just that Google is the default one. (Did MS ship Netscape with Windows?)
Also, it's not "loss leader" for Google, unless you have radically redefined the meaning of "loss". Google makes a ton of money from FF searches; it just chooses to share a portion of the proceeds with Mozilla. Microsoft has deeper pockets than Google, and there's nothing preventing MS from buying out FF's search bar, _given_ that they have lots of money.
> Apple refuses to even allow Flash, which is elsewise standard on something like 97% of computers.
.... and responsible for 97% of the malware out there. I, for one, am glad Apple took this stand. It allowed for HTML5 to blossom.
That's a fantasy. Microsoft still dominates their core market (the Office Suite) and they also dominate the enterprise server market. There's really nothing that can match Exchange + ActiveDirectory for ease of use and setup, both on the end-user side and on the admin side. Google Apps is nice, but it's got some shortcomings, and you can't host it on your own hardware.
However, if we're talking about Secure Boot in Windows RT or Firefox on Windows RT, suddenly it's Microsoft trying to kill off Linux and Firefox in Windows 8/RT with their utter dominance of computing.
And what boggles the mind is that it's many of the exact same posters making both these arguments.
So yes, MS still "dominates" their own shrinking niche. But they are no longer able to leverage that to control other parts of the market. So they're not the threat they once were, even if they're still as evil.
Shouldn't they at least get the benefit of the doubt?
(yes, I was around in the '90s and hated MS with a passion)
They would get the benefit of the doubt, if they changed their ways.
But their boot lockdown requirements for Win8/ARM and patent blackmail against handset producers indicate that they haven't.
So, no, they don't even get the benefit of the doubt.
Did those updates break Netscape? And it had nothing to do with Netscape self destructing with a failed rewrite, right? http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html
IE was simple the better browser at the time. I remember using Netscape 4 and then IE was just better and they kept iterating really fast(that seems to be MS' mantra, come in late and iterate fast, see Word, Excel, Powerpoint, XBox, etc and even the big fish Windows(remember the first few versions before Windows 3.11 for Workgroups?). Of course there are some failures like Bing and Zune but you can't blame them for not trying.
>t was about cutting a sweetheart, loss-leader deal with AOL to replace the browser in the biggest ISP in the world
You mean like Google's loss leader Android which they put on the market for free by using money from their search dominance resulting in killing WebOS, RIM, Nokia and almost everyone else except Apple?
>And after achieving market dominance in browsers, it was about sitting on the technology for years, providing minimal updates and no standards work while competing browsers struggled vainly to move the technology forward (all done to try to kill off the "web" as a platform, of course
There is a grain in truth to what you say, but I believe it was primarily for two reasons. Netscape dying off, and browser releases tied to OS versions(maybe because of the antitrust trial where they claimed they were related). Since Vista got delayed and they hit the reset button the middle, IE7 got really delayed, and of course they didn't want to spend a whole bunch of money and effort to release an interim version, just like Apple doesn't really care about web apps right now or replacing Flash with HTML5(Jobs' blog pont rant about Flash on iOS promised much more and proper HTML5 support is still sorely lacking in iOS) since it is simply not a priority for Apple.
>MS is not a nice company. But they've maneuvered themselves into a position where they are no longer dominant, and are having to compete on technology. So they certainly seem nice enough now (and they did in the early 80's too). But I don't trust them; the culture is broken and evil.
If Apple had their way(which now they seem to be doing), Firefox wouldn't even exist, so there's nothing left to kill. Look at their 30% cut of services provided to iOS users and how it killed many apps and their MFN rule(no service can provide a lower rate for other platforms if it wants to use in app purchasing).
In these conversations(like in Mozilla's blog posts about Firefox on Windows RT etc.), I frequently see that Apple is the elephant in the room that no wants to even mention in passing since it undermines their point.
> You mean like Google's loss leader Android which they put on the market for free by using money from their search dominance resulting in killing WebOS, RIM, Nokia and almost everyone else except Apple?
Android is open source. I can build it, run it, change it and ship it all by myself for whatever I want. So yes: I make a moral exception here. (edit: cooldeal, stop flaming. I'm running CM9 built from source, with my own modifications, on my very own phone. That passes the test. Trying to equate not-as-open-as-I'd-like-it-to-be behavior on Google's part with Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior in the 90's is just plain insane. Stop it.)
I wept for Netscape because its fall broke web browsing on all platforms other than windows (that's the "damage to the market" part -- I didn't and still don't give a crap about Netscape, Inc.)
I shed no tears for RIM or Nokia, sorry. WebOS was open and good (but the market has spoken and prefers Android), so maybe HP gets a misty eye or two.
You mean the same Android that all development happens behind closed doors without taking in any patches except for the kernel and one or a few OEMs get sweetheart early access deals from Google? When the device is sold into the market, Google throws a bunch of code over the wall, and everyone including other small OEMs with no sweetheart deals and Cyanogen mod are left to scramble in a mad rush to support their phones and tablets, drivers and software. Ever wonder why it takes such a long time for new Android OS updates? Of course, all this is explicitly designed to favor their Nexus devics over other Android OEMs. Look at how Motorola, HTC etc. are doing in their financial statements. Motorola is at a loss (and got taken over by Google), HTC's profits are plunging and LG is not going good either.
Remember there was no source for Honeycomb at all which hurt Cyanogen mod for tablets and smaller tablet makers had to do with Gingerbread, a phone OS?
Even iOS, Windows Phone and Windows release beta versions etc. for the ecosystem to get ready for new versions.
>I shed no tears for RIM or Nokia, sorry. WebOS was open and good (but the market has spoken and prefers Android), so maybe HP gets a misty eye or two
So when Google does essentially the same thing as others, the market has spoken about WebOS/Meego/Maemo, but when it's MS, the market hasn't spoken about Word Perfect, Lotus Notes, Open Office, Netscape etc. etc. and it was all because of them dumping loss leaders on the market or manipulation?
Very interesting that you don't want to talk about Apple, or compare it's "evilness" to Microsoft. Nor was I expecting you to. That usually is the case in these type of conversations. The elephant in the room has grown a second tail and still no one wants to even acknowledge its existence in these type of stories and comments.
Not quite the same thing, when Android is Open Source and available for use by anyone. Now, granted, Google don't do as good a job as they could at doing real community oriented, participatory development of Android... but nonetheless, the source is available and it could be forked and developed by a Google competitor...
http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/android-tablet-discussio...
The Netscape rewrite was like the Titanic snapping in two. By that point, the ship had, for all practical purposes, sunk.
I wouldn't really say it's knee-jerk. Microsoft have earned my mistrust with their demonstrated pattern of past behavior. Believe me, I've been a Microsoft critic going back to the early/mid 90's, so this isn't a recent thing.
And, regardless of whether that's true or not, they're still pitching proprietary, closed-source, locked-down crap that I, for one, have zero interest in.
Given a choice between "stuff" that I can't open up, poke around in, take apart, modify, rebuild, etc., and "stuff" that I have complete control over, why would I want the former?
P.S. I still can't dual boot android on my iPhone, so why is Apple any better?
They're not. F%!# Apple, as far as I'm concerned. :-)
Apple is a closed system, more so than Microsoft.
Yes, and? F%!# Apple AND Microsoft, as far as I'm concerned.
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for the MS employees that they get to use git instead of svn/perforce/whatev...
I'm really having trouble crying any tears of sympathy here. When you behave in a harmful and unacceptable manner, you have to be on your best behavior for a long time before people can trust you again. That's just how it works.
>P.S. I still can't dual boot android on my iPhone, so why is Apple any better? Apple is a closed system, more so than Microsoft.
Who said anything about Apple? Why do people always bring up Apple when anyone says something bad about Microsoft? Yes, Apple is hurting the software world with their practices. That has no bearing on whether Microsoft is too.
Microsoft worked very hard to earn their hatred, and they absolutely deserve being shunned by the entire development community. I really wish this company would completely go away.