Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

OS X and Windows Vista...some random thoughts...

IJ Reilly said:
This document is over 100 pages long, and reads as quite an indictment of the way the company does business, from how they strong-arm OEMs to the use of illegal product tying to defeat competitors.
Click to expand...
The practice of strong-arming the OEMs (the basis for the antitrust suits from other OS manufactures like Be, Caldera, IBM, Novell) was a lame move on Microsoft's part, and I'm glad they got their pants sued off over it.

I'm confused about the product tying. So it was illegal for Microsoft to include a browser and a media player with Windows because that was anti-competitive to companies like Netscape and Real Audio (whose products require Microsoft's OS to run, so how exactly are they competiting with Microsoft?)

And since Microsoft is being sued currently in the EU for bundling, ... maybe it still is illegal.

So how does Apple get away with product tying Safari and Quicktime with OS X? Or all of the Linux distributions that come with a browser and media player?
 
aristobrat said:
Interesting Wikipedia article on this issue. So in 1993, Microsoft was found to have unwillingly infringed on the patents of a company that had stolen technology from Microsoft. Nice.
Click to expand...

Yes, the Stac case was kind of weird, but Microsoft did come out on the losing end. It was just the first of many times, which is why I mentioned it. Much more interesting and germane is the entire DR-DOS affair. Microsoft pulled some really interesting stunts to get rid of that competitor, including trying to make it look like Windows 3.x was incompatible, though in reality, it wasn't.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Microsoft pulled some really interesting stunts to get rid of that competitor, including trying to make it look like Windows 3.x was incompatible, though in reality, it wasn't.
Click to expand...
Ack, were you a beta tester for MS products back then? I'm guessing since that feature doesn't appear to have made it to the final version of Windows 3.x, ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-DOS
[Microsoft] inserted code into the beta version of Windows 3.1 to return a non-fatal error message if it detected a non-Microsoft DOS. With the detection code disabled (or if the user canceled the error message), Windows ran perfectly under DR-DOS. This code was removed from final release of Windows 3.1 and all subsequent versions, however.
Click to expand...

Pretty cool that people have screen shots from back then!
http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=1030/ddj9309d/19930274.htm
 
LOL. So by dropping the "Q", DOS = Dirty Operating System? :eek: :D

I've never really read much about Microsoft's anti-competitive tactics, so this has been an interesting learning experience for me today.
 
aristobrat said:
The practice of strong-arming the OEMs (the basis for the antitrust suits from other OS manufactures like Be, Caldera, IBM, Novell) was a lame move on Microsoft's part, and I'm glad they got their pants sued off over it.

I'm confused about the product tying. So it was illegal for Microsoft to include a browser and a media player with Windows because that was anti-competitive to companies like Netscape and Real Audio (whose products require Microsoft's OS to run, so how exactly are they competiting with Microsoft?)

And since Microsoft is being sued currently in the EU for bundling, ... maybe it still is illegal.

So how does Apple get away with product tying Safari and Quicktime with OS X? Or all of the Linux distributions that come with a browser and media player?
Click to expand...

It's a question of markets. Apple is not in its own market. If they were, then by definition they'd have a 100% market share, which is obviously ridiculous. If a company has a large enough share of the market to control who gets to compete in that market, then this is called "market power." It's not illegal to have market power, but it is illegal to use it to manipulate the market to the detriment of competitors. This is what Microsoft does, time and again.

Not surprisingly, Apple is now being accused of antitrust violations in the music download business. Because of their huge market share, they arguably have market power there -- so they'd better be very careful about how they use it. They can't do anything that would prevent others from entering or fairly competing with them in that market.
 
aristobrat said:
Ack, were you a beta tester for MS products back then? I'm guessing since that feature doesn't appear to have made it to the final version of Windows 3.x, ...
Click to expand...

Yes, I know it didn't. It was apparently intended to put beta testers on notice that Win 3 might not work with DR-DOS, to create a negative buzz. It's an early example of FUD. Actually, I was more referring to how they eliminated DR-DOS as an OEM option, especially in Europe where it was pretty popular during the '80s. They essentially told the largest PC maker in Europe that they could do business with Digital Research or they could do business with Microsoft, but not both.
 
Daveway said:
Today is the day.

Bill Gates will unveil the final "mysterious" new user interface for Vista at his CES keynote.
Click to expand...
The Dock. LOL Waiting for him to drop the bombshell that Vista will be UNIX based. W00t! LOL :p
 
aristobrat said:
LOL. So by dropping the "Q", DOS = Dirty Operating System? :eek: :D

I've never really read much about Microsoft's anti-competitive tactics, so this has been an interesting learning experience for me today.
Click to expand...
heh basically yes. Although Microsoft and IBM preferred to call it Disk Operating System. :p
 
Daveway said:
Today is the day.

Bill Gates will unveil the final "mysterious" new user interface for Vista at his CES keynote.
Click to expand...

Yaawwwn. Sorry, not enough sleep last night. I should watch Bill's presentation -- always a reliable soporific.
 
Randall said:
heh basically yes. Although Microsoft and IBM preferred to call it Disk Operating System. :p
Click to expand...

In fairness, Microsoft wasn't able to simply drop in Q-DOS and make it play with IBM's hardware. It required a lot of work. The point I'd make is that without Q-DOS, Microsoft hasn't got a prayer of meeting their obligations to IBM to produce the PC operating system. These guys were very, very lucky in those days. Very.

BTW, as a matter of trivia interest, the product was known as PC-DOS as it was bundled by IBM with the IBM-PC, and as MS-DOS when it was licensed to the PC cloners after 1983.
 
IJ Reilly said:
In fairness, Microsoft wasn't able to simply drop in Q-DOS and make it play with IBM's hardware. It required a lot of work. The point I'd make is that without Q-DOS, Microsoft hasn't got a prayer of meeting their obligations to IBM to produce the PC operating system. These guys were very, very lucky in those days. Very.

BTW, as a matter of trivia interest, the product was known as PC-DOS as it was bundled by IBM with the IBM-PC, and as MS-DOS when it was licensed to the PC cloners after 1983.
Click to expand...

You could say that they were lucky. You could also say that they were brilliant in their use of existing technology to make a HUGE deal with a large company. In my experience, there are always those individuals that come up with great ideas, but have little ability to carry the project out to the masses. Gates and Ballmer along with Allen and others used the best technology at their disposal to come up with something that met and exceeded industry needs. From there, every iteration was a phenomenal success. Those who consider Microsoft a bunch of evil geeks are do not understand the business savvy that those people possesed. Apple made one mistake after another and ended up the sore loser. Dont continue to hold the torch for them just because Jobs has had some AMAZING luck himself. Let's face it. The ipod was not his idea. It, in fact, came from consultants working at IBM. They were the ones responsible for the end-to-end vision of a computer+online music store+device. They were the ones who recognized Apple as a small time player and "safe" test bed for which to try this idea. Quite frankly, at the time, Apple was actually quite desperate, and the ipod did nothing for them for quite a long time. it wasnt until the ipod was released to windows that Apple started shoveling buckets of cash back into their corporate doorways...
 
qtip919 said:
You could say that they were lucky. You could also say that they were brilliant in their use of existing technology to make a HUGE deal with a large company.
Click to expand...

The problem with your reasoning is, Microsoft made their commitment to IBM to produce the OS for the PC before they had the "existing technology." They'd have been in very deep poop with IBM if they hadn't found and bought Q-DOS, if only because they had absolutely zero experience developing operating systems and IBM was moving very quickly on Project Chess. So yes, it was a huge stroke of luck -- one of many. The next one was PC cloning, which dropped the "masses" you think Microsoft went to so much trouble to woo right into their laps.
 
IJ Reilly said:
The problem with your reasoning is, Microsoft made their commitment to IBM to produce the OS for the PC before they had the "existing technology." They'd have been in very deep poop with IBM if they hadn't found and bought Q-DOS, if only because they had absolutely zero experience developing operating systems and IBM was moving very quickly on Project Chess. So yes, it was a huge stroke of luck -- one of many. The next one was PC cloning, which dropped the "masses" you think Microsoft went to so much trouble to woo right into their laps.
Click to expand...

I highly doubt the validity of that rumor. The fact is that Q-DOS was developed by a seattle based company, and guess where Bill Gates resides and always resided.

Q-DOS was not revolutionary, it was a natural progression. Much of what Q-DOS was doing was what most people in the development world during that time were asking for. So, do you really think that Gates and company who were in the THICK of everything in the development world at that time had no idea what was happening with Q-DOS?

Its much more realistic to imagine a scenario in which Gates and co., placed a gamble on something that could have gone south on them.

Now, if you call actions like that "luck"...welcome to the world of business. Soft bets and speculation are both as much of a part of our economy as Orange trees and Ford cars and trucks. You bet on things that have a chance to succeed. Otherwise you wouldnt call them bets.

And again, as far as making it sound like Microsoft has consistently just rolled the dice and has been sitting in a 20 year string of bad luck makes you look like just the sort of person I like to whip in Poker...

you: wow, you are sooo lucky
me: thanks for the watch, now hand over that wallet

<end good natured ribbing>
 
belvdr said:
I only use XP for Flight Simulator 2004.
Click to expand...


Same here... Windows XP is just a means for me to get to FS2004, fly my PMDG 747 and 737, log my hours on airseatac.com and turn the computer back off when finished.

For everything else, including serious work, I go to my Mac. The iLife applications are far superior than anything that can be found on windows. The level of interaction between those apps is awesome.

The rest of the family has Windows XP. My mom wants to switch but she has pool blueprints that she needs to draw daily. The Pooldraw program requires Visio. Hopefully there will be a way to move her over to a Mac. I wonder how well Visio will run on VPC.
 
AvSRoCkCO1067 said:
Alright, so earlier today I installed Vista...here are my thoughts

First of all, I entered the wrong code in during the installation process - therefore, I was stuck with Longhorn Server rather than the Client edition. There was no 'undo' opportunity throughout the entire process, so I had to wait another 2 hours before I could even reinstall Vista Client edition
Click to expand...

This is a classic post.

You download a pirated copy of a BETA release of Vista, enter the wrong pirated key, and then have the gall to complain about vista?

Wow. You sir, are thinking different.
 
qtip919 said:
I highly doubt the validity of that rumor. The fact is that Q-DOS was developed by a seattle based company, and guess where Bill Gates resides and always resided.

Q-DOS was not revolutionary, it was a natural progression. Much of what Q-DOS was doing was what most people in the development world during that time were asking for. So, do you really think that Gates and company who were in the THICK of everything in the development world at that time had no idea what was happening with Q-DOS?

Its much more realistic to imagine a scenario in which Gates and co., placed a gamble on something that could have gone south on them.

Now, if you call actions like that "luck"...welcome to the world of business. Soft bets and speculation are both as much of a part of our economy as Orange trees and Ford cars and trucks. You bet on things that have a chance to succeed. Otherwise you wouldnt call them bets.

And again, as far as making it sound like Microsoft has consistently just rolled the dice and has been sitting in a 20 year string of bad luck makes you look like just the sort of person I like to whip in Poker...

you: wow, you are sooo lucky
me: thanks for the watch, now hand over that wallet

<end good natured ribbing>
Click to expand...

Not sure what part of this you think is a rumor. I'm getting my information from books such as "Hard Drive" by Wallace and Erickson -- the definitive telling, IMO. Checking this source again: Seattle Computer begin selling 86-QDOS (its real full name) in the Fall of 1980. Essentially, it was a 16-bit CP/M clone. Gates & Co. would certainly have been aware of this, as SC asked Microsoft to port Microsoft software to 86-QDOS shortly after it was completed. Said Tim Paterson (the author of QDOS), "That's when they found out we had it."

Microsoft was at that very moment being pressured by IBM to tell them when they could deliver an OS for the PC. Quoting again from "Hard Drive:"

Up until then, Microsoft had been unsure what it was going to do about obtaining an operating system. ... IBM did not have the time to develop an operating system within the 12-month deadline set by its corporate brass. Neither did Microsoft, at least not if it had to start from scratch. ... Gates would later say that obtaining Seattle Computer's operating system saved Microsoft about one year of work. (p. 185)
Click to expand...

So, IOW, without Seattle Computer, Microsoft cannot meet IBM's needs, and IBM goes elsewhere. You can see how fortuitous this all was for Microsoft.

Gates is a great gambler -- I'll give him that (in fact he was a notorious poker player at Harvard). But the IBM gamble was a make-or-break, and he basically had no cards until the very last draw.

Cloning was an even bigger stroke of luck. Without cloning, Microsoft has only one customer for DOS, IBM. A good customer, but only the one. A couple years later, thanks to Compaq, that all changed.

I'd rather be lucky than good, any day. ;)
 
IJ Reilly said:
Not sure what part of this you think is a rumor. I'm getting my information from books such as "Hard Drive" by Wallace and Erickson -- the definitive telling, IMO. Checking this source again: Seattle Computer begin selling 86-QDOS (its real full name) in the Fall of 1980. Essentially, it was a 16-bit CP/M clone. Gates & Co. would certainly have been aware of this, as SC asked Microsoft to port Microsoft software to 86-QDOS shortly after it was completed. Said Tim Paterson (the author of QDOS), "That's when they found out we had it."

Microsoft was at that very moment being pressured by IBM to tell them when they could deliver an OS for the PC. Quoting again from "Hard Drive:"



So, IOW, without Seattle Computer, Microsoft cannot meet IBM's needs, and IBM goes elsewhere. You can see how fortuitous this all was for Microsoft.

Gates is a great gambler -- I'll give him that (in fact he was a notorious poker player at Harvard). But the IBM gamble was a make-or-break, and he basically had no cards until the very last draw.

Cloning was an even bigger stroke of luck. Without cloning, Microsoft has only one customer for DOS, IBM. A good customer, but only the one. A couple years later, thanks to Compaq, that all changed.

I'd rather be lucky than good, any day. ;)
Click to expand...

Gates is and was an incredible Chess player as well...
 
qtip919 said:
Oh my word...

people get so wrapped up in constant uptime out of their computer, and we are all acting like children when we brag about our uptime vs. Windows uptime

just so you know, I have been running Windows media center for about 2 1/2 weeks straight, and this computer is undergoing constant load...

In fact, I often play games on it while my wife is logged in checking her mail, my son is watching a recorded TV show, and another show is being recorded in the background...

Now THATS multitasking. I would love to see a mac handle all of those tasks, but sadly that is not happening right now. I tried to do 3 out of 4 above on a Powermac to see what would happen to the performance, and I couldnt even get the game to Load...
Click to expand...
That's odd because I just was playing splinter cell on my dual 2.5 PM....with music playing in itunes in the background, a movie playing with mplayer, mail running, safari running, and garageband running, oh and unreal tournament 2004 running. I don't think that the multi-tasking ability of OS X should be questioned.
 
iloveosxp said:
This is a classic post.

You download a pirated copy of a BETA release of Vista, enter the wrong pirated key, and then have the gall to complain about vista?

Wow. You sir, are thinking different.
Click to expand...

Excuse me? Please, please, where did I mention that it was pirated? No, sir, you are thinking wrongly.

For build 5270 (i.e. the December CTP, which is given to thousands of people) you are given two codes. The code you enter determines whether you install the client or server Longhorn operating system. For everyone.

It's just dumb - it's not like that's going to happen in the future, however, as they'll be selling the server edition seperately from the client edition.

I wrote that rather lengthly review to answer a number of questions in this thread. To be honest, I would've rather not installed Vista - but a number of people appreciated my review. You, obviously, couldn't stand it. I apologize.
 
AvSRoCkCO1067 said:
Excuse me? Please, please, where did I mention that it was pirated? No, sir, you are thinking wrongly.

For build 5270 (i.e. the December CTP, which is given to thousands of people) you are given two codes. The code you enter determines whether you install the client or server Longhorn operating system. For everyone.

It's just dumb - it's not like that's going to happen in the future, however, as they'll be selling the server edition seperately from the client edition.

I wrote that rather lengthly review to answer a number of questions in this thread. To be honest, I would've rather not installed Vista - but a number of people appreciated my review. You, obviously, couldn't stand it. I apologize.
Click to expand...

I am sorry. I didn't realize you were a part of the Microsoft Beta team. Knowing your young age, and being a recent "switcher", I assumed you were not a legaly chosen beta tester for Vista. If you don't mind, i'd love to call you out on this. Can you please explain to me the steps it took you to become chosen? Not everyone who applies is chosen. What are your credentials? Can you enlighten me to your background with Ms. products and knowledge?
 
For what it's worth, anyone with a MSDN subscription (a fairly common thing to find in decent sized companies) can download the Vista "Technology Previews" -- you don't have to be a "beta tester", nor do you need to know anything about MS products, although the fact that he got a "technology preview" successfully installed should say enough about his skills. :)
 
aristobrat said:
For what it's worth, anyone with a MSDN subscription (a fairly common thing to find in decent sized companies) can download the Vista "Technology Previews" -- you don't have to be a "beta tester", nor do you need to know anything about MS products, although the fact that he got a "technology preview" successfully installed should say enough about his skills. :)
Click to expand...

You believe a 17 year old works for a large company and is an MSDN subscriber, or better yet, a beta tester? I may be a new poster here, but I have been around forums for the better part of the last decade. I find it extremely hard to believe that A) he is an MSDN subscriber or B) he is a beta tester.

Regardless. Millions of people have downloaded the CTP copies. My only point was that he has no right to complain about something I believe he did not legally obtain. Its like those people who downloaded disc images of 10.4 to run PearPC on their Intel Boxes, only to complain about some sort of functionality of OS X that they dont like. They have no right in doing so.

If he can prove to me how he "legally" obtained December CTP, I will gladly insert foot into mouth and offer my sincerest apologies.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back