From: lmalloy@abacus.bates.edu (Laura G. Malloy)
Subject: Re: Bill Gates:  What a weenie...
Organization: Bates College, Lewiston, Maine
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 19:38:42 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.071443.16490@zooid.guild.org> Mark Kovarski <kovarski@zooid.guild.org> writes:
>>> [A childish diatribe full of personal attacks deleted]
>>
>>Well, that does it for Mr. Kovarski -- he's the first one to earn his very
>>own spot in my comp.os.os2.advocacy kill file.  Maybe he won't care, but
>>at least it'll increase the signal-to-noise ratio in this group for me.
>>
>>[ \tom haapanen    "i don't even know what street canada is on" -- al capone ]
>
>
>Interesting, indeed. I believe you were the person who send me several
>"hate" mail messages a few weeks ago.
>
>First of all, and most users will not know this. You are a Waterloo
>student. Mr. Gates invests a lot of money into Waterloo since he
>recruits many Waterloo students from there. Furthermore, some of the
>users in your University are very obsessed with the idea that 
>Microsoft buys their minds as well. No offense, I've been there and
>I know how it works.

Uh-oh, a conspiracy theory in the making!   

>
>let me ask all Microsoft fanatics a question. Microsoft, as many of you
>know, has recently introduced a news product called "Access." 
>Microsoft claimed that this product went throught tremendous testing
>and that it took over 6 years (Yes, 6 years) to develop. This is
>the same story as with Windows NT, Windows, WFW etc. I have spoken to
>one network administrator who was running the product and testing it
>when it was released. As it turns out, and pointed out by other users
>on Compuserve (Check, if you don't believe me) that the products is
>_very_ unstable, crashes, and there are many people questioning the
>truth about Microsoft's statement about its testing. May I remind you,
>the same song appeared when WFW was released which as well has many
>problems. Could you please explain to me, looking at the history of
>Microsoft products, how much do you believe about NT's beta-stage
>program and the user base testing it. Please, no numbers as it only
>proves that someone can count. Numerous time Microsoft has thrown
>numbers around which are _VERY_ questionable.
>

Uh, maybe it was Jimmy Hoffa's fault?  (Gotta go see that film now!)
No, it must have been the CIA that assasinated Access!  I'm sure they'll
get NT as well!
 
Seriously, while the claim 'in development for six years' sure sounds
fanciful (probably means: "We tried one project, abandoned it, started
to buy a dbase company, dropped that, and finally got around to doing
Access -- all in six years!"), there are two things to note.  First, some
people are using Access with few if any problems, so it may not be as
buggy as you would have us believe.  Second, if bugginess is so
important, what about OS/2?  The service pack wasn't just to add a goody
or two to the OS.  IOW, everyone makes software with bugs.  The trick is
to get rid of them as quickly as possible.  I don't assume the worst of
IBM just because it took me three days to install OS/2 2.0 (fortunately,
it came off a lot faster than that!) and get it working; indeed, I look
forward to trying version 2.1, which I hope they get right this time.  I
hate to break it to you, but Microsoft is not the Devil incarnate.

Joseph T. Malloy / WB2RBA / jmalloy@hamilton.edu
Associate Professor of German
Hamilton College   
Clinton, New York
 
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy