Sean, On 15/04/2008, Sean DALY <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Michael, that's easy: I would judge you on your actions. For my part, > many (that would be MANY) moons ago I was a journalist for a Windows > magazine and later, purchased over a quarter of a million dollars in > Microsoft licences; in both ways I helped build their monopolies. I > can't even say I didn't know there was cheating back then; I saw the > first conclusive proof of undocumented system calls by Excel in 1993. > Back then, I thought it was great that IBM's stranglehold on the > industry was being challenged and that unfair competition was not too > high a price to pay for a common platform.
I remember going to a MSDN developer conference many years ago and one Microsoft guy got up on stage and told the audience that there was no point in developing a word processor or spreadsheet application because Microsoft had and anyone else tried to they would not get any help from Microsoft, indeed they would get quite the reverse. Also, I negotiated the contract between corporate BT and WordPerfect, many moons ago. WordPerfect was used thoughout the corporation, so this was quite a big deal. And then, along comes Microsoft, and as part of the deal to create the first version of "The Microsoft Network" (using X25!) to go with the new product, Windows 95, BT got 'given' a corporate licence for Word and Excel. So, the next minute, Word and Excel are 'corporate standards', MANADTORY corproate standards. Once this was embeeded into the coroporation, Microsoft decided that TCP/IP was the way ahead, dropped the (rubbish, incidentally) X25 network solution, got thier TCP/IP from elsewhere. Guess what - no more free Word or Excel for BT. But as an embedded corporate standard, BT had no choice to keep on paying for it, over and over and over again. I saw them do the same thing again when I was working for a company that had bought up Yorkshire Electricity and Southern Electricity (it was going to be called YES.co.uk) and Microsoft were so thick in there (along with people from KPMG who were Microsoft house-trained) that there was no way we could launch the customer's product because the Microsoft solution - Commerce Server - was not actually able to do what was required. That disappeared under the Enron rock. Microsoft and Enron were thick as thieves. People at Microsoft are used to distrust and resentment, although > generally speaking they ascribe that to jealousy of success and not > Microsoft's actions. For many years working against standards for > commercial gain was just the way things were done unless there was > mutual recognition that more opportunities would come from standards > support. Remember IPX/SPX? Oh yes, IPX/SPX was fast, very secure and reliable. I remember how a little company called > Adobe got the idea to distribute a free reader for their portable > document format (one of four in the market at that time) from a > smaller and fiercer competitor taking market share, Farallon. Adobe > won that war and buried Farallon, but it took them many years to seek > ISO standardisation for PDF and the world is better off for it. (Of > course, Microsoft can't stand it, they won't support PDF and they want > to attack Adobe with Windows-only XPS. So much for Microsoft > interoperability.) Microsoft have been playing this game for years. Microsoft goes after everyone else's ideas and product and copies them, converts all their data into their own format and then sues anyone else who does the same. (Example: early version of Word had 'help for WordPerfect users' and read WordPerfect files, and used an undocumented file format to save the files and used undocumented system calls to make Word run fast and WordPerfect for Windows was hampered by the strange, slow official GUI calls). Windows (and MacOS and X/Windows) are both copies of the operating system from the Xerox Star - you wouldn't think so, would you? When Mr. Huggers says he is proud of his work at Microsoft which > included blocking open standards, concerns about conflict of interest > are justified. Those concerns can be allayed by promoting open > standards. Of course, that means dropping Windows Media (which means > dropping Microsoft DRM). Indeed, the BBC has signed a 'memorandum of understanding' with Microsoft. http://www.ukfree.tv/fullstory.php?storyid=1107051166 Can a former executive promoting Windows > Media be reasonably expected to reverse a decision to use Windows > Media? A product that, let us remind ourselves that Microsoft is STILL being fined £2,400,000 A DAY for bundling this product with XP. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7266629.stm The BBC should not be associating itself with a company that has been fined by the EU $1,400,000,000 in my very humble opinion. I say give him the benefit of the doubt, but for how long? It would appear that Microsoft can play a waiting game. There is still no download support for iPlayer outside of Windows. Of course not, dispite their being very clear and obvious soutions to sort it out, it is not in the interests of Microsoft. So, they will stall until the other party wilts because they have the cash to do that. Microsoft is not a virtual monopoly, it is an ACTUAL monopoly. What will he propose? No one is better positioned than he to enlarge > WM Player's usefulness by negotiating Dirac support in WM Player, > either natively, in a branded player, or as a standalone codec > installer. > > > Sean. > - > Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please > visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. > Unofficial > list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
