From: paulg@resmel.bhp.com.au (Paul Gallagher)
Subject: Re: Microsoft bashing (was: Re: Some more misconceptions...)
Organization: BHP Research - Melbourne Laboratories, AUSTRALIA
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 11:08:45 GMT

fishe_jh@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Jeffrey H Fischer) writes:

>In article <92246.153543ANDY@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> Andrew T. Robinson <ANDY@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> writes:
>>
>>The level of hubris at MS is apparent in the fact that they no longer
>>seem concerned with producing products that work natively with OS/2.  While
>>...
>>Microsoft products to move to the environment Microsoft chooses--namely,
>>Windows/Windows NT.
>>
>I don't want to get into the middle of this "Microsoft is good/evil"
>debate, but I do want to point out that not supporting existing OS/2
>products could well be profit-maximizing for Microsoft in the long run,
>even if they could make short-term profits today through such support.
>MS may feel that producing OS/2 products will only draw sales away from
>Windows today and NT in the future.  Not only would MS like to see users
>buy MS operating systems (and OS-like software), but they have a
>dominant position in DOS/Windows software which is missing in OS/2
>software, so encouraging purchases of Windows also spurs the sales of
>other MS products.

>The above is not to condone Microsoft's practice, but is just to point
>out that it might not be irrational.

>Jeff

I don't think anyone's saying that MS's behavior is irrational, in fact
it's more "coldly clinical". Given its present size, we have to face the
fact that Microsoft (and many other computer companies for that matter)
is a _business_, no longer a friendly, techo, gee-wizz hacker's haven
of mythical stature. This is a cultural shift that has occured behind
most of our backs, spurred on by massive corporate users. I'm not saying
that its altogether a bad thing that's happened (I work for one of those
big corporate accounts), but we've all got to accept the changing times.

It's interesting to compare our matured-DOS market with the Unix scene
for example. While Unix is very much a corporate product now (as well
as not forgetting its educational roots) it remains very user-driven : 
the esprit-de-corps of the user community is outstanding. With a lot
of fancy footwork and at times almost paranoid quest for open-ness, and
its fair share of historical quirks (such as AT&T's generosity[!] and
the DARPA IP program, and the heroes of GNU), the Unix bods
seem to have managed to get the best of both worlds - hacker's heaven
*and* corporate respectability. 

Us lowly PC users on the other hand have thrown away all our aces and
submitted to heavy-handed bully-boy treatment. We've had the wool pulled
over our eyes - are we really convinced that there's only room for
1? (2?) (3?) operating systems/environments in the PC market? (which is
how many times bigger than the Unix market?). In the wake of IBM's
enlightenment, Microsoft has become the "big blue". Not wanting to
advertise this fact is perhaps the motivation behind MS's new 
pure-as-a-virgin-white packaging (not a spec of blue in sight!)

But back to the issue of Microsoft application support for OS/2. If things
pan out as I expect - that is, OS/2 and Win 3.1 will be major forces
on client machines, while NT will do significant things vs. OS/2 on 
the servers - the OS/2 market will grow and mature, and once the mud
slinging has died down, Microsoft will probably (hopefully) make the
"business" decision that OS/2 is worth porting to.

I hope MS do eventual deem Excel and Word worthy of updating under OS/2 -
the current releases have some irritating faults when run under v2.0.
It seems that MS *love* breaking all the rules they expect the rest of
us to follow (by writing "with" the API, rather than "on top" of it) - the
nett result being that they invariably shoot themselves in the foot.

...ahhh, that feels better now its off my chest... !please be gentle when
responding!

regards,
paulg

     /\/\       Paul Gallagher, PC Support Officer,
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