This is a huge problem. Mandrake has reported in their newsletter that
many times they have been on the verge of a big deal and then M$ jumps
in to screw it up. I know years ago even before the advent of Linux
that I was told that M$ had so much money that the situation was very
scary. They had the financial power to easily buy off politicians. I
put a lot of the blame on Apple because Apple refused to license their
system to anyone else and that's really what killed any competition
within the OS market for many years.
The thing of it is companies have been buying their way into markets
from the beginning of time. Coca-Cola always made sure their soft drink
was sold at sporting events and so forth. Steinway paid artists to play
their pianos on the concert stage. So this isn't all that unusual or
even unfair, but it's very clear that M$ is a monopoly out of control.
I consider it my civic duty to not use any M$ product when there is a
viable alternative.
I noticed that the complete WordPerfect 8 Suite for Windows is on sale
in a boxed set for $39.00 at the local computer store. For anyone
actually using M$ Word, I would urge them to give WP a try because it
really is a superior word processor.
Warren Togami wrote:
"Bill Gates flew down to Mexico, and they announced a donation of $30
million dollars ... and Linux was dropped," de Icaza said.
