For Microsoft lovers and haters alike, I highly recommend the Findings of Fact. Don't let its length scare you. It's surprisingly easy to read, and is full of interesting information.
This document is a mixture of my personal experiences with Microsoft products and a summary of the Findings of Fact document. It is probably longer than you might like, but then again the issues here are not simple. If you learned everything you know about Microsoft from TV news (or even a newspaper), then you probably don't have any idea what's going on.
Unless I cite a source for what I say, you should assume that I am stating an opinion.
If you're one of those people who admires Bill Gates because he's a shining example of the American dream and singlehandedly created the PC industry (in other words, if evil that occurs outside of your field of vision doesn't bother you), then I recommend that you click the Back button on your Internet Exploiter browser, because we're just going to annoy each other if you continue.
The truth of the matter is that it was IBM, not Microsoft, that gave the computing industry the big boost by introducing the first reasonably serious, reasonably affordable personal computing platform, and then (unlike Apple, which has all of the ruthlessness of Microsoft, but considerably less strategic acumen) allowing others to invest in the technology, and thereby become committed to its success.
...And before all of you Macheads out there start bawling about how Microsoft stole the idea for Windows from Apple, let's get our history straight: The basic technologies of Windows/Mac (i.e. menu-driven, icons, mouse, high-resolution graphics) were first demonstrated in 1973 by Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center in a concept product called Alto. The commercial product, called Star, was too late (1981, the same year MS-DOS was introduced) and too expensive ($16,595) to be commercially successful.
Q: If you hate Windows so much, why don't you just quit bitching and use some other operating system??
A: Perhaps you haven't heard: Microsoft is a monopoly. I don't jettison Microsoft for the same reason I wouldn't abandon gasoline as an automobile fuel. Sure, I theoretically could drive a diesel or an electric, but because so few people are using those technologies, they are underdeveloped. For this reason, I'd have to worry about range and recharging/finding fuel, and the purchase/maintenance/operation costs would be highercost. ...In short, defying the marketplace is easy to talk about, much harder to do. Note that this does not mean that Gasoline is in any way inherently superior to other fuel technologies, nor does it mean that I owe a debt of gratitude to the oil companies or OPEC. They just happened to be in the right place at the right time, just like Microsoft.
I hate Microsoft, but not quite enough to tell my employer that I refuse to do my job, stop playing the games I enjoy, and stop using my scanner, video capture card, digital camera, removable disks, and the dozens of programs and thousands of files I have that are usable only on Microsoft systems. This situation was not my choice. It is precisely my lack of choice that created it.
Q: I've heard a few sound bites, but I haven't made the effort to understand the accusations against Microsoft. Therefore, the only possible explanation for Richard's hatred of Microsoft is that he's insane. Why is Richard insane?
A: In spite of the fact that most of Microsoft's products are ideas (or even code) stolen from others, they really stink. (Every idea that I can think of that Microsoft apparently did come up with is a major abomination -- take the Registry for instance. What a monstrosity!) They've taken these ideas (the stolen and the bad alike) and implemented them very poorly -- and they've used every dirty trick in the book to destroy those who have tried to build better products. It's enough to make anybody crazy! If you're not outraged, you don't understand what's going on.
Q: How can you say that Microsoft's products stink when so many people use them and like them?
A: "WWE" (World Wrestling Entertainment) is pretty popular, too. All that proves is that there's a sucker born every minute.
Here's a quick summary of how Microsoft software sucks: It is is simply WRONG for an operating system to:
For longer than there has been such a thing as "Windows", I have been a software engineer. During that time, I can't even begin to guess how many thousands of hours of my time have been wasted rebooting over and over, fixinghide systems that I have accidentally broken by committing such ordinary "abuses" as installing new software, fixing hide systems that have broken all by themselves, or trying to figure out how to get DOS or Windows do routine things that can be accomplished in seconds on other operating systems. Windows stinks.
Q: Microsoft is very successful. I suppose you're mad about that, too, Richard.
A: Microsoft isn't merely "successful." Microsoft has a monopoly that began when it was handed to them on a silver platter by IBM, and has been defended ever since through the use of bribery (mostly targeting shareholders of would-be competitors), extortion, and the financial version of murder. (I can almost see Bill Gates now: "You heard me! Whack 'em!!")
How can Microsoft's current dominance be explained? Is Microsoft's software better than Apple's? Perhaps the Windows line offers features that Apple has chosen not to implement in their Mac OS, but if your idea of "better" has anything to do with reliability, maintainabilty, or usability, the obvious answer is NO. So why is Microsoft's market share so much larger?
The answer is found in a chicken-and-egg phenomenon described by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia as the Applications Barrier to Entry. Most computer software is created to run on a single, specific operating system. Software written for Windows does not run on Linux or a Macintosh unless it is specifically (and at great cost) converted for use on that system. Software developers generally do not perform these costly conversions unless they have some reason to think that they will be able to sell a large number of copies of the converted software. This suppresses the supply of software for less popular operating systems. This lack of software in turn limits the appeal of the operating system: People are reluctant to buy computer systems that lack a large number of available applications and peripherals, and people are reluctant to develop applications and peripherals for computer systems that lack a large user base. It is thus very difficult to introduce a new operating system because you cannot attract users without developers, and you cannot attract developers without users.
Aggravating the Applications Barrier to Entry is a positive network effect: Windows has such a huge market share that it is a) far easier to find workers that know it and b) far more likely that files created under it will be usable by others that one might want to share files with. This, of course, makes other operating systems even less attractive to users, thus suppressing developer interest in these systems and enhancing the effect.
Apple, the only company that ever really had (past tense) a chance to compete with Microsoft, still suffers from this barrier today, largely because they insist on scaring software developers off by maintaining such strict control over them, and scaring hardware developers off by suing them out of existence.
Note that neither of these things means that Microsoft software is in any way "better" (or even "as good") as software from other companies! The reasons for Microsoft's dominance are TOTALLY UNRELATED to the features or quality of their products.
Most of Microsoft's crimes have been perpetrated with the goal of defending the Applications Barrier to Entry...
Why should the Government (or anybody else, except perhaps Netscape) care if people use Microsoft Internet Exploiter rather than Netscape Navigator as their web browser?
It would have been unfortunate for a true innovator such as Netscape to have been crushedcrush by Microsoft even if all that was lost was one company and one product. Unfortunately, the so-called "Browser War" never really had anything at all to do with browsers. It was really all about the Applications Barrier to Entry. And because Microsoft won this war, many, many companies and products were crushed before they were even created.
Microsoft went after Netscape so aggressively (as described later) because the Navigator product contains something called Java. Java is a software product, created by Sun Microsystems, that is intended to transform the entire process of creating software by permitting developers to "Write Once, Run Anywhere." Unlike most software, Java programs don't talk directly to the operating system. Instead, they talk to a Java "Runtime Environment" that exists in the same form on multiple operating systems -- meaning that software developed for Java can run without conversion on any computer that has a Java Runtime Environment on it.
Recall that the Applications Barrier to Entry depends upon developers' reluctance to spend money converting software to unpopular operating systems. Microsoft HATES Java, because it threatens to make it simple to run one program on any computer -- even if that computer (gasp!) doesn't have Windows on it.
Netscape isn't the only "Middleware" vendor that suffered at Microsoft's hand. Read the Findings of Fact (p39) to see how Microsoft went after other software vendors:
...in a 1996 presentation to the firm’s executive committee, the Microsoft executive in charge of OEM licensing reported that piracy continued to be the main competition to the company’s operating system products.And:
One of the ways Microsoft combats piracy is by advising OEMs that they will be charged a higher price for Windows unless they drastically limit the number of PCs that they sell without an operating system pre-installed. In 1998, all major OEMs agreed to this restriction. Naturally, it is hard to sell a pirated copy of Windows to a consumer who has already received a legal copy included in the price of his new PC system. Thus, Microsoft is able to effectively contain, if not extinguish, the illegal secondary market for its operating-system products. So even though Microsoft is more concerned about piracy than it is about other firms’ operating system products, the company’s pricing is not substantially constrained by the need to reduce the incentives for consumers to acquire their copies of Windows illegally.In other words, it's essentially impossible to buy a brand-name Intel-compatible computer without paying for a copy of Windows.
cost The mere fact that Microsoft knows better than to make Windows so outrageously expensive that it crushes demand for PCs does not mean that Microsoft deserves credit for the low cost of PCs. Microsoft has very little to do with the fact that you can buy a PC for $500.
registry My pick for Microsoft's most shocking technical abomination to date (beating out even the long-obsolete but still widely used Dynamically Linked Library) is the System Registry. In Windows 3.1, if an application became corrupted, you had a fighting chance to understand and modify its plain-text configuration, contained in individual .INI files, or you could simply delete the application and its configuration. In contrast, all of Win9x/NT/2000's thousands of configuration settings for all programs and the OS are mashed together into a pair encoded files called the System Registry. If you're a post-3.11 Windows user, you know what happens if even the tiniest little glitch finds its way into either one of these global files: They are so amazingly huge, intricate and arcane that you have essentially no hope of repairing, removing, or even locating the incorrect portions. Instead, you are forced to re-install Windows and all of your applications. And you can never really delete an application. There are always cryptically-labeled bits of it forever scattered around the Registry (and, of course, in your system directory), slowing down your system, confusing future installs, making the Registry even more difficult to understand, and just generally screwing things up. Why has Microsoft done this? Because they stink, that's why. Look at it from their perspective: Microsoft could spend money to make Windows stable and easy to use, but why on earth would they do that when they can instead send Microsoft University, Microsoft Press, Microsoft support services, Microsoft Certified Solution Providers, Microsoft Technet, and so on to pick the pockets of their unfortunate users?
best There are some versions of Windows 95 that, as they are installing Internet Exploiter on your system against your will, will indicate that it is adjusting "Personalized Settings." Excuse me?? How can anything that comes on a CD-ROM from Redmond and is aggressively done against my wishes said to be in any way "personalized?!?"
control Two examples out of a million: Windows users, how many times have you been asked a question that ended with the choices "No," "Yes," and "Yes to all" -- and the 'recommended' answer is "No"? ...If the recommended answer is "No," the why the heck isn't "No to all" one of the choices?!? Because Microsoft products stink, that's why. And why is it that when one is installing an application or driver and files are being drawn from multiple sources (various directories on disk, CD, diskette), each time Windows draws a file from one source, it forgets about all of the others? Why can't Windows go back and forth between the Windows CD and a diskette without having to be told several times where each one is? Because Microsoft products stink, that's why.
hide ...While trying in vain to uncover vital diagnostic information that is hidden by Microsoft because they're afraid it might "confuse" me. ...or cut into their support revenues.
crush In 1998, Americal Online (AOL) announced its acquisition of Netscape. Don't kid yourself: Even though the Navigator browser still exists, this was not a good thing for Netscape. AOL bought the remains of a ruined company with a decent but nonetheless worthless product.