Re: What they're up to

[Gene Gaines <ggaines@generation.net>]

  Mitch,
  
  I question your comparison of Microsoft to AT&T.
  
  As a communications manager, and a competitor, as a user, I
  have had many problems with AT&T.  Let's look at AT&T a few years
  ago when they were a monopoly.  In my view, AT&T remains the most
  service-minded large corporation in the world.  Their innovations
  are legion.  The highest quality products.  The highest quality
  service.  Perfect?  No. 
  
  Microsoft engages in dishonest and illegal business practices.
  They focus on positioning to kill competition, not on innovation,
  not on quality.  Then they wrap their product with a License
  Agreement which essentially disavows any responsibility for meeting
  specifications, for performance, even for merchantability.
  
  During the monopoly years, AT&T focus was on making the highest
  quality network in the world.
  
  Since its encounter with Gary Kildall, Microsoft focus has been on
  body count.
  
  Gene Gaines
  ggaines@generation.net
  
  
  Mitch Stone wrote:
  > 
  > In reply to Daniel Strychalski's message sent 11/26/97 1:55 AM:
  > 
  > >Microsoft products make people look stupid, feel stupid and work stupidly.
  > >Since the firm has the resources to create products that do otherwise, we
  > >must consider the possibility that it has assigned itself a mission quite
  > >different from what we assume or the company claims its mission to be.
  > 
  > >Long before Windows, long before the Mac, many people who lacked any trace
  > >of technical knowledge were going great guns on computers. When I hear BG3
  > >say on Larry King Live, "I used to tell my relatives to stay away from
  > >computers because computers were too hard," and I see software and
  > >documentation obviously designed to flummox people, I get real suspicious
  > >about what Microsoft considers its mission.
  > >
  > An interesting point. The same remarks were made about the phone company,
  > before the breakup of AT&T. Remember the old Lily Tomlin line from
  > Laugh-in? ("We don't have to care, we're the phone company.") The closer
  > Microsoft comes to being a true monopoly, the more they are able to dole
  > out whatever slop the hogs will eat.
  > 
  > >> ....They plainly have the resources to do it right, but insist on
  > >> developing software that only techophiles could really love.
  > >
  > >Well, there are technophiles and there are technophiles. Those easily
  > >dazzled by commercial gimmickry might love Microsoft products. Those
  > >interested in real progress definitely do not.
  > 
  > True, but the vast majority of people are found in neither category. Fact
  > is, most important technology begins as "gimmickry," but eventually
  > becomes essential. I believe there is a strong impulse among technofiles
  > to keep us dependent upon their know-how. Microsoft (a company run by
  > technophiles) is simply offering us a variation on this theme.
  > 
  >    Mitch Stone
  > +---
  >    I think a lot.
  >         -- Bill Gates
  > 
  >    Boycott Microsoft ** http://www.vcnet.com/bms