<in reply to:> I realized after I sent that I worded my post poorly. I do believe MS has an unfair monopoly and probably got there with the help of some illegal practices.
But I don't think MS having more knowledge of the workings of Windows is necessarily unfair. If they use that knowledge to shut out competition or do clearly malicious things, then that's definitely a problem. If they use that advantage to create better programs than what their competition is making, that's fine with me. MS wasn't just handed Windows. Illegal activity aside, it took them a lot to become the monster they are today. If they're willing to take that risk, then I see no problems with them gaining some benefits from the reward. If they did get where they are illegally, then that's a separate issue. It's possible to become successful legally. That success would have required just as much risk, and should have just as much reward. Matt If that were the case, and forcing everyone to use the API while they embed everything they write into the OS is acceptable.. Then no company other then M$ can write a better app for windows then M$ M$ is adding stuff into the OS all the time to cut our their competition, thinks like Office2000 and XP, Mediaplayer, Internet Explorer, and all the new "freebie" thrills you get with XP, can't be competed with for speed because regardless of how got the competing app is, it has to use the windows API and as such can never compete for speed and integration with M$'s own apps. The result being something like this: Why download Mozilla if IE is faster? Why download Staroffice if Office2000 does it all faster? (apart from the price which is sad if its the only factor in Staroffices favour.) Why download ICQ when MSN messanger is faster? and so on and so forth... by including their applications in the OS, (read NOT free, they up the price on each OS to pay for the new "free" apps they include so they are NOT free.) XP is about 3 or 4 times the cost win95 was when it came out, possibly more. All I wish to say is that the reason the US Judge wanted to split M$ into two or more companies was to split the OS off from the rest of their offerings. So that the application M$ would be on even ground with everyone else writing software so that we continue to have lots of competing software companies out there developing software for the windows platform. Do you really want M$ to be the only company developing apps for windows? Do you think the pricing would stay the same if they were the only ones? (I'd be suprised if when it happens, the price of M$ software didn't double.) 1. Prices are where they are now from competition, IE would never have been a free download were it not for Netscape. 2. If M$ were the only show in town, software would be alot buggier, because with no competition around, M$ would have no competing versions to make them look bad. Just some thoughts to dwell on. :-) rgds Frank _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
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