From: bill.stewart@pobox.com
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 11:20:37 -0700 (PDT)
To: attila <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: Re: saving the world from a cancerous monopoly
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980629113011.281C-100000@hun.org>
Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19980629095745.009bbae0@popd.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 11:31 AM 6/29/98 +0000, attila wrote:
>	there is only one _sane_ course of action against M$:
>	divestiture  --before Gates becomes the Hydra.  [...]
>	the real issue is not the 90% of the OS market, it is the
>	95% (expected to grow to 98% before 2000) of the office s/w.
>	the office software, available _only_ on M$ platforms 
>	creates a self-perpetuating juggernaut: no other OS can
>	even begin to make market penetraton without the key
>	product (office s/w) --and people are not willing to
>	learn a new application-- that's just human nature.

Attlia - you'd probably enjoy reading
	"Barbarians Led By Bill Gates",
a recent book by some MS ex-insiders on how MS became what it is.
Windows 3.0, for instance, wasn't supposed to muscle out OS/2,
but the developers of Word/Excel/Powerpoint (which they originally
wrote for the Macintosh) got better development/porting support 
from the small group of developers on the low-status backwater
leftover Windoze team than from the high-profile IBM OS/2 partnership,
and Win3.0 was ready to ship when they were, unlike the upcoming
insanely great next version of OS/2.  When it sold a million copies
in a few months, Gates had to deal with it, and suddenly Windows
became a strategic product again, and gradually OS/2 became the leftover.

>	is using his cash cow, swollen by gouging the consumer, to

Gates has only gouged consumers by selling us crap which we buy,
either because we need compatibility with other users of their products,
or because we work for big companies who have centralized decision-
making droids who buy it.  

Better than Gates tells my corporate droids what to buy than Janet Reno,
Louis Freeh, or FCCmeister Kennard.  Not only do they have even less taste,
but they'd solve the problem by taking a long time to do the spec,
which wouldn't have enough details to interoperate with anything except the
National Information Infrastructure Data Entry Escrow Protocol.

Personally, I disliked WordPerfect immensely
(though I last used it back when it and MSWord were character-based),
and Word has acquired enough features to be about as flaky and 
unpredictable as WP was back then.  Excel is friendly, and I don't use s
preadsheets enough to prefer something else.  Powerpoint reeks,
and the integration between Word and Powerpoint reeks badly.

>	acquire _significant_ interests in industries which use
>	computers: cable networks, cellular networks, satellite 
>	networks, etc. and related industries dependent on 
>	communications: news (MSNBC), television, productions, 

Good for him - would you rather he spent the money acquiring 
other parts of the software industry or Seattle real estate?
He also spent a pile of money trying to outflank the Internet with MSN,
and lost badly.  Are you still running Microsoft BoB?


				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639