Talk:Microsoft/Archive 6

message: :Overall, I found this to be a well written article, thanks to everyone for their hard work.  One request: can we get some other pictures besides the numerous shots of various MS campuses?  That motif got old by the second one.  I know we need some pictures and what we need may be hard to come by.  I recommend replacing most of those campus entrance pictures with some good old fashioned screen shots of the various programs and/or their splash screens.  I think program screen shots would allow for a better reader connection to the article. "Oh yeah! I used that one in college!"  For example, I literally shuddered when I saw the blue screen of death picture. Saw a lot of that screen in years gone by.  Looking for more of a "Oh yeah!" than a "Who cares." The trouble, I am guessing, is finding said pics.  I will take a look around.  Would appreciate it if anybody can post ones they may have or find.  Thoughts? Am I off base here?Thepearl 15:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, that was really hard. Nearly every screen shot I was looking for already exists on Wikipedia in various sub articles.  Can we reuse pictures from these pictures?  My thoughts, replace at least a 3 (of the 6) campus photos with some screen shots. Perhaps in a progression for comparison: ex. Windows 3.0 next to Windows 98 next to XP? And also a pic of the current Board of Directors? I know layouts are sacred, so I won't make any changes without some consensus.  Thepearl 15:56, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I totally agree! I was scrolling down the page, and I'm like, who cares what the Microsoft Timbuktoo Whatever Center looks like? The current photos tell us very little about Microsoft, other than that they like big, shiny buildings, rather than telling us about their big shiny Operating Systems, etc. I think what might make sense is to replace and add some images in the article, then at the bottom, put a bunch of pictures, like this (scroll to the bottom). Also, maybe an updated photo of the Redmond place, instead of an acient one? Anyone who lives in Washington? Anyhow, if no one goes ahead and adds anything, I will make some changes when I get the chance, unless someone objects to this. --Tech Nerd 03:23, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: People may want to check out this page This has all of the screenshots of Microsoft Windows that are on Wikipedia, so it could be helpful for finding images if we ever when we add and/or change images on this page. --Tech Nerd 22:24, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

text: OK, I added four screenshots - Windows 98, XP, Vista, Office 2007. Add other images, folks! --Tech Nerd 01:57, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pictures and such 

message: However, obviously its appearance on the main page has caused the stock to tank over 2%. You guys have got to watch your incredible influence. User:thechosenone021 18:28, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Really nice Article 

message: In the article the reference Chen, Raymond, "What about BOZOSLIVEHERE and TABTHETEXTOUTFORWIMPS?", The Old New Thing, 16 October 2003. Is used to assert that the office team was reverse engineering windows calls.  Now I've read the article & it looks like what he's saying is that 3rd Parties were doing the reverse engineering not MS insiders - I'd change it but I think we need more concensus.  Thoughts?
Megamanic 09:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah. To be honest what is there now is really filling up the article - at the least I'd like to trim it down to a single sentence (something like "Novell alledged XXX in a suit which is also alluded to by XXX from Microsoft Press"). RN 19:49, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree, it does clog up that section, however this controversy is central to the story of the rise of the MS apps division.  Maybe it needs to be in a different section - linked to by this section.  I'm old enough to remember the massive disappointment when Wordperfect for Windows came out - I was a huge WP fan in DOS days but Word just blew it away in the Windows arena.  Same with Lotus 123.  It's hard to believe two big companies (and they were huge circa 1990) could so comprehensively drop the ball and produce sucky Windows versions of their apps without some external cause, and as BOZOSLIVEHERE points out people were reverse engineering the APIs because there wasn't any comprehensive documentation - stuff which Maguire clearly indicates that Microsoft Apps team members had access to by talking to the graphic library leads.  It's therefore not unreasonable to conclude that MS was leveraging its O/S division's primacy in order to give Apps a head start as Novell will be asserting in court... Megamanic 02:02, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

text: but internal sources at Microsoft assert that the Office team did not have access to the Windows source code at the time, and relied on reverse engineering instead.  Although this assertion is debunked by no lesser source than a Microsoft insider writing for Microsoft Press which includes numerous examples of internal communication and requests between different teams inside Microsoft - access that developers from other companies simply would not have had.
RN 23:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverse engineering & unfair advantage 

message: Apart from the famous company, there is also the term "microsoft" in William Gibson's "Neuromancer". Seeing as this book is considered cyberpunk classics, I think it's worth having its little article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Yvu (talk • contribs) .
:Neuromancer references that term. SchmuckyTheCat 16:16, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The term "microsoft" 

message: This massive article now officially has no marked uncited statements.  Yay!  Doogie2K (talk) 17:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the citation there! Yeah, I fact-checked this thing several times, but I do see that I missed the mention about it being the most "widely used" OS along with the not-so-precise reference about the Office defense. Also, I forgot to mention the early Microsoft Basic stuff. All good points. :) RN 01:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I can really only take credit for the GameSpot citations.  Wikifairies must have fixed the rest. :) Doogie2K (talk) 23:31, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  No more uncited statements! 

message: Didnt Microsoft sue this guy named Mike Rowe and his company MickRowSoft for supposedly stealing the Microsoft name then stop sueing him and give him an xbox and games and supposedly now there taking over his company ? - Matt Husdon
:At first I thought, that's ridiculous. But, it's true: http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/01/26/mikerowesoft.settle.ap/ Deco 01:06, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  MikeRoweSoft 

message: It appears the logo is back to the worst possible -- a very low quality svg image which reveals bulges and distortions when viewed at a larger size and also appears to be missing the (R) sign requested by microsoft. I once replaced this with an accurate vector edition of the logo extracted directly from a microsoft pdf poster, but it was later believed that this was a copyright violation, and the svg was rendered as png, which was then used. Now it seems we're back to square one.
SVG is a great, flexible image format and I, as well as Wikipedia, encourage its usage, but please, let's put quality first. Let's either make it the accurate svg or the accurate png but not this inaccurate, what appears to be software traced from a low-resolution raster image, svg. I can upload either of the accurate logos. Acdx 21:42, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The png one is back now. ---Majestic- 21:59, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you very much. Acdx 10:50, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not the logo again? 

message: Criticisms should not be segregated into their own section or article but dispersed throughout an article according to our NPOV policy. Criticism of Microsoft should be integrated into this article accordingly. 72.60.227.118 17:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Incorrect.  Read the POV fork guideline for the "Criticism of..." section(s).  As long as a summary and link to the criticism article is provided in the main article and rebutting material is allowed in the criticism article, then by current guidelines, there is no need for the merge (especially given the considerable size and limited overlap of both articles independently).  There is discussion of "criticism articles" and a suggested guideline at Wikipedia:Criticism and you're welcome to argue violation of WP:NPOV on the Criticism of Microsoft article independent of your merge request, but since your basis for discussing the merge is that existence of a criticism article is NPOV and current guidelines allow for it (and discussion of the new policy to remove criticism articles is beginning to move towards keeping them to help isolate opinion from fact), your merge request is ill-advised.  ju66l3r 18:09, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, to be honest ideally wikipedia could do that. However, the fact is that there is SOOOO much information that it is basically impossible to do it all in one article - and right now things look really good, especially compared to pretty much every other article. One thing we could do is rename "Criticism of Microsoft" "Microsoft controversies" if that is less POV.  However, as stated, it is basically impossible to merge the two together - they are already way past the usual length limits on their own. If someone does manage to do this it would be pretty neat, but keep in mind this is a featured article and that is a good article - and you risk loosing the quality of both if you were to do so. DEFINATELY work on it in userspace and get consensus before trying to put here. So, no merge for now I say. RN 20:18, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. It's common to name pages that have criticisms of something "Criticism of *". I don't see how a page title that shows the content will contain criticism is POV, it's just a good description of the content. POV = Microsoft has bad software (or Microsoft has bad software because of X). NPOV = John Doe, a student at MIT has stated that Microsoft has bad software because of X. -AlexJohnc3 My Talk Page 19:52, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Err, I wasn't saying it was POV - just a suggestion to stave off requests like this. Some do frown upon criticism articles/sections and prefer them to be inline with the rest of the article(s), so if possible to make all camps happy that would be ideal :). It certainly isn't my personal opinion though, and as it is right now I don't really see a problem - the criticism article itself is NPOV in tone but lacks Microsoft's response to most of the criticisms. Especially a merge would probably destroy both articles so I would of course oppose it strongly.  RN 22:55, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

text: There's too much text in this article for a merger to be feasible.   -/- Warren 01:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, way too much content and is an adequate article on its own. Mambo Jambo 12:15, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger proposal 

message: This was removed by someone mid-july:
:Employees of Microsoft are expected to be comfortable with ambiguity in that they may not, for example, know with any degree of certainty when a product will ship, what it will be called, or what features will be included. Managers at Microsoft are expected to have a general attitude of long-term strategic wariness, to be ready for any challenge from the competition or the market, and to keep in mind that being the largest software company in the world is not seen as a form of safety or a guarantee of future success. For instance, future competitors could rise from other industries, or computer hardware companies could try to become less dependent on Microsoft, or consumers could decide not to upgrade their software as often.
I admit it drags on/advertish... so just noting it for now. RN 11:29, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed MS business culture paragraph 

message: The page has recently faced vandalism. Someone please verify which is the better version. Thanks. --Bhadani 14:08, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The version without vandalism is better. Pat Berry 16:49, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: Could someone add information about the early use of the mouse by microsoft, how they were the first major group to use it.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Robert1991 (talk • contribs) 09:47, 9 October 2006  (UTC)
:Please define what you mean by "major group" and "use". And explain why that information belongs here instead of in the mouse (computing) article. Pat Berry 16:49, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add Info 

message: shouldent M$ redirect here and not a page about symbol subsitution in writing??Shinigami Josh 08:47, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  redirect 

message: Sorry if this post is wrong or I missed a detail, I don't do this often, I'm not familar with it.
I read an article on this elsewhere, but Wikipedia doesn't have any information on it, I was going to try and request an article for this  since the Virtualization standard(Rather big news seen here ) was added, and I think that makes it worthy of some kind of notice, but then I wondered if it deserved it's own article or perhaps should it be edited into the Microsoft one, thoughts?--Revrant 07:20, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Microsoft Open Specification Promise? 

message: This is a blog i.e. wononova.com not a news site, it should be categorised as such.
Geneticflyer 14:19, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  in external links wononova.com should be moved to blogs 

message: zdnet article here: . MS plans to help Novell's Suse linux! 70.111.218.254 21:58, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: First they will cooperate then they will screw them over and out. If you don't learn from history you are doomed to repeat it. Electron9 20:21, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Novell's Suse Linux and MS 

message: Hey guys, there must really be a good reason for banning the above logo on da wikipedia.
If we cant use it then which one r we gonna use? ? --Walter Humala 
|wanna Talk? 05:15, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  microsost (tm) 

message: I shortened the page, but I think there should be a history section. Don't know what to say, though.Cjcamilla 02:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Microsoft Page Smaller 

message: HEY!!
LOOK AT THE LOGO!
User ArgMachine from Spanish Wikipedia
*190.48.199.190 00:33, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, what about it? —The Great Llamamoo? 00:40, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  HEY!!! 

message: Could somebody please break up the introductory paragraph of this article into several separate paragraphs? As it is right now it's very cluttered and difficult to read. 68.52.242.229 19:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Layout 

message: The opening line says "Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKSE: 4338) is a multinational computer technology corporation with global annual revenue of US$44.28 billion" -- BILLION, yet the side info bar about Microsoft has its revenue, operating income, and net income as MILLION. Which is the correct one? I vote billion!
: No mistake - the numbers in infobox show thousands of millions - which is the same as billions. Wikiolap 03:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  There must be a mistake 

message: Upon reading the criticism section, which by its very nature is not NPOV, I can't help but think that criticism of Microsoft products belongs on pages related to those products, other than in a very generic sense of there being criticism on those products. Legitimate criticism in this article seems to me to be more related to Microsoft corporate criticism. Anyone agree? 12.207.87.61 02:18, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the Criticism section is overblown. There is already a special article dedicated to it, so just a link to it should be enough. Just like there is simply a link to History of Microsoft under the History section. So unless somebody opposes it, I propose to make Criticism and History to be consistent. Wikiolap 07:11, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

text: It's been 5 days with no comments on this issue. I will wait for couple days more, and if then there are no more comments, I will have to conclude that there is an agreement. Wikiolap 00:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  OK - it is done now. Wikiolap 00:41, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism 

message: Regarding this line in the intro:
'Microsoft utilized the firm of Preston Gates and Ellis who employed Abramoff, a lobiest now associated with the culture of corruption within the Bush administration.'
There is so much wrong with this:
1) Is it relevant that the law firm employed Abramoff? There doesn't appear to be any clear connection between MS and Abramoff
2) Is it true? Abramoff was more of a congressional scandal; his ties to the Bush administration were pretty weak.
3) Is it POV? Obviously, someone is trying to make a political point here. The "culture of corruption" here is a pretty POV stance.
I'm removing the comments about Abramoff. Jsrduck 19:26, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Abramoff? 

message: I reverted the article back to about November 25, before people came along and demolished half the article.  Look, if you're interested in applying Wikipedia:Summary style article size reductions to the article, that's fine, but please don't leave behind entirely empty sections.  This is not the correct way of doing summary style, and in this case of this article – which as a Featured Article is supposed to represent Wikipedia's very best work – is completely unacceptable. I've restored some of the other changes made between November 25 and now, but not all of them.   -/- Warren 00:24, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, someone had split the article into sub articles, they just didn't do a good job at it. This article does need the two sub articles, History of Microsoft and Microsoft Product Divisions, however, because it is rather long. Someone just needs to write a good summary for the two sections. Dustinr88 07:29, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Aye.  It's not an easy task... whoever takes it on will have to ensure that no multiply-used references are broken.   -/- Warren 07:39, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I was the person to make the huge change, and I think it was a great idea, since it was tagged for being too long. I agree that someone whould make a summary for both sections, but all info should have its own article.68.194.46.192 22:17, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverted back a month 

message: When several sections were splitted into sub-articles, I was considering requesting a Featured Article review. Fortunately, they were restored.
However, two sections - "Microsoft.com" and "Microsoft in fiction" - seem to be superflous. Should they be removed?
--J.L.W.S. The Special One 15:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should the "Microsoft.com" and "Microsoft in fiction" sections be removed? 

message: Seeing Microsoft has recently changed their slogan to "Your Potential. Our Passion.", wouldn't it be helpful to change the logo with the new slogan?
:Image:Microsoft logo YPOP.gif
'Image:Microsoft logo YPOP.gif' may be used as a example.
Does anyone agree?
--Extranet (Talk | Contribs) 10:34, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would be inclined to say “no,” simply because on Microsoft’s front page they have the two items separated.  Also, on most of their pages, the Microsoft® logo appears alone, without the trademarked slogan. Mike Trausch (fd0man, Talk Page) 04:45, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your opinion. If I get one more opposing comment, I will ask a administrator to delete the image. Thanks. --Extranet (Talk | Contribs) 02:16, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Definite no from me per WP:LOGO which states "Logos that contain slogans should be omitted in favour of equivalent logos that do not." Alexj2002 19:20, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Strong Oppose: A logo is a logo and a slogan is a slogan. Both are separate entities. Ishmael Rufus 04:45, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Logo for 'Microsoft' Article? 

message: Notice "Microsoft COPULATION" instead of "Microsoft Corporation" and other dubious "information" :D —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.185.125.137 (talk) 00:04, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  vandalism cleanup needed? 

message: Under co-founder and executive chairmain in the infobox Salman Mohamed shows up. Im certain this is meant to be Bill Gates. However Bill Gates is the name under the code. Why is this happening.
-Vmantva
That was just vandalism; it seems to have been fixed now. | AndonicO Talk · Sign Here 16:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  infobox cleaunp needed?