Microsoft Dominance

[mujahid7ia]

Why is M$ so dominant in the software marrket today? Why does its mediocre OS control the market? It can't just be marketing...

[Craig Tucker]

People (in general) like to stick with what they know.

[tgpo]

Why is M$ so dominant in the software marrket today? Why does its mediocre OS control the market? It can't just be marketing...

Because they force you to use it. They include their software as "features" to their OS and claim they can't remove it without hurting the OS.

[flaninacupboard]

in a way having a single "normal" opertaing system is a great benefit - it allows the masses to sit down and use any computer they are likely to come across. try getting your average online shopper to install and run a game on cd from MSDOS. even getting them to do it with a GUI on a MAC or flavour of Linux would be a challenge.

Wouldn't it be confusing if every car you got in worked a different way? say a ford had a joystick control, a mercedes had a steering wheel but no pedals, you control speed with switches on the wheel, and a toyota you had a laptop style touchpad, and BMW went for a tank style dual slider control. now while everyone could drive ther own car very well, and every car manufacturer would get their control system to work perfectly with their car - interoperability would be a bitch. so instead they all use a broadly similar system that drivers are comfortable with. ok, it's not the best solution - but it's whats evolved over a few decades and what everyone is comfortable with. windows is pretty much the same in my opnion.

[tgpo]

windows is pretty much the same in my opnion.

I dunno.

In a car If I lose control of my vehicle it crashes

In Windows it crashes for me and I have no control

[flaninacupboard]

ho and indeed ho.

to be honest, since upgrading to 2000 and XP i have seen only one BSOD, and that was when my hard drive failed - so not really an OS fault.

[Faustus]

ho and indeed ho.

to be honest, since upgrading to 2000 and XP i have seen only one BSOD, and that was when my hard drive failed - so not really an OS fault.

Ah yes but remember in XP there ARE no blue screens. Just restarts to hide them. The its not like was said above, most OSs "drive" the same. But they all do not have the same way to roll down the windows (hand, electric, stuck) and the AC/Heat controls are not always the same. Nor is the radio.

[housepig]

a combination of reasons - good marketing, the ubiquity of clones that will run the software (I've never owned a Mac, partially because I couldn't afford one - with PC's, I have my choice of any generic machine).

add to it the ability to buy out and assimilate popular 3rd party programs, and marketing deals with resellers structured in such a way that it makes it incredibly cheap to bundle Windows with your brand of machine, but also locks you out of offering any competing OS...

[flaninacupboard]

alright then, i'll rephrase

Since upgrtading to 2K and XP i've no critical errors. occasionly a program will dump out and i'll get the stupid "send error report" thing, but the system itself continues to work.

But they all do not have the same way to roll down the windows (hand, electric, stuck) and the AC/Heat controls are not always the same. Nor is the radio.

I agree, but the cars themselves are fundamentally the same from a users perspective - this is not so when comparing windows to dos - or even a mac. in different flvours of windows you access programs in a different way (program manager versus start menu) but it's still windows. wheras you sit down at a mac, try to copy a file to a new location and then realise you can't right click anything (last time i checked macs only have one mouse button - i may be wrong) added to which you can't always grab a piece of mac software and know it will work on your machine - you're pretty safe to do that with windows.

[pacmania_2001]

Why is Microsoft so dominant?

Smart business and marketing tactics as well as alot of luck.

[BobV]

There is a huge advantage in dealing only with what is popular. I know, I bought a batamax.

[flaninacupboard]

you think you got burned?! i bought a CED player!

[g_shocker182]

Capitalism.



Anywho, Microsoft has about $50 billion. Just lying around. Thought you'd like to know.

[WeedVender]

Its true.. people stick to what they know...

Ask someone from another country what is a Playstation and an Xbox... Imediately they would know what a Ps or Ps2 is but not an XBox... people stick to what they know... even parents who buy most of the consoles for their kids will say Nintendo.. Microsoft... Sony....
I know.. Playstation. or Nintendo... ive heard those 2 before.. same thing happened to my cousin's dad...

[hech54]

I truly understand the need and god given right to bash Microsoft.....what I DONT understand is how people(or countries for that matter) are allowed to sue Microsoft for making money(alot of money) at what they DO. They make and sell software...period. Becoming a "monopoly" is the pinnacle of achievement to most companies just starting out....it is what they strive for.
Who is sueing Walmart for being a monopoly? Those morons are everywhere? How about McDonalds....they are even MORE everywhere than Walmart.
I was in Saltzburg(Salzburg), Austria last year....it is nothing but a series of BEAUTIFUL town squares all linked together by quaint little passageways and little cobblestone roads. I arrive in the "main" square next to the church and in front of this beautiful castle up on the hill and what do I see in that main square?....a freaking McDonalds.

[pacmania_2001]

McDonalds doesn't have a 90%+ market share of the fast food industry though does it?

I'm just playing devil's advocate, I'm against most of the government intervention into Microsoft.

[housepig]

hech -

if McDonald's was the only fast food joint in town, and they did it not by being the best or most competitive, but by making secret deals with the township to block Burger King, Taco Bell, et al, from coming into town, would that be fair?

[hech54]

hech -

if McDonald's was the only fast food joint in town, and they did it not by being the best or most competitive, but by making secret deals with the township to block Burger King, Taco Bell, et al, from coming into town, would that be fair?

NOW your are talking.....

......about Home Depot....

[Capmaster]

you think you got burned?! i bought a CED player!

Anyone here ever own or even try a DAT deck? One of the early RIAA casualties.

[housepig]

Anyone here ever own or even try a DAT deck? One of the early RIAA casualties.

yep... it's more cost effective for me to try and find a use for it than take a bath and sell it for 10% of what I paid for it...

[Roundabout]

Anyone here ever own or even try a DAT deck? One of the early RIAA casualties.

Yep, still got two of them, both Sony, but both were free. Got some blank tapes that have never been unwrapped, too. As soon as I figure out how to digitally transfer some of the Fleetwood Mac demo tapes I have off of them (rare, unreleased stuff I got years ago, and copied to DAT as I had no better way at the time to preserve them) I will get rid of the players. One is a TCD-D7 (portable DAT) that I used to despise repairing, nightmare just to disassemble it. I kept a repair manual and an extra one for parts, so when the working one dies I'll have parts to fix it with.

They killed off DAT by including SCMS (serial copy management system, an early archaic form of DRM) and the endless lawsuits from the RIAA. But we still seemed to get in just enough for repair to be a major headache. The early machines weren't too bad but the later models were plain junk. They all ate tapes like there was no tomorrow, and most had constant problems with rewinding and FF. I always tried to escape fixing them when I could.

Hell, I've still got a nice working Reel to Reel unit laying about, anyone want to buy one?

[pacmania_2001]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040324/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_microsoft&cid=509&ncid=716

Kind of ironic that the EU is sanctioning Microsoft for being a monopoly when it itself practices some very monopolistic practices. Sounds like the EU has decided to jump on the Microsoft bashing band wagon to make themselves some easy money.

It's also a worrying trend that I've noticed (might just be me) that socialist governments seem to be gaining more power in the world today.

[Capmaster]

Hell, I've still got a nice working Reel to Reel unit laying about, anyone want to buy one?

Is it an Ampex?

Sounds like the EU has decided to jump on the Microsoft bashing band wagon to make themselves some easy money.

It's way past the point of getting old. When you're the biggest and baddest kid on the block someone's always taking potshots at you. True they're no angels, but I don't see the same level of scrutiny aimed at other, even less-ethical corporations until fairly recently. Microsoft is just a big target. True, their OS isn't perfect, but every time some whiney-baby has ANY trouble with his OS (because he's a noob and didn't read the instructions) it's always Microsoft's fault :P

[VCDHunter]

It's also a worrying trend that I've noticed (might just be me) that socialist governments seem to be gaining more power in the world today.

Really ? Given the shit state of the world after capitalist management I'd love to see some more in power, trouble is we don't have that many.

[pacmania_2001]

Capitalism may not be perfect but its better than socialism.

It's not capitalism that has mismanaged the state of the world either in my opinion, more the misguided government interventions.

[VCDHunter]

Capitalism may not be perfect but its better than socialism.

It's not capitalism that has mismanaged the state of the world either in my opinion, more the misguided government interventions.

I know you didn't mean that to be funny but thanks anyway.

This, as has been mentioned before, is unfortunately not the place for these kind of discussions.

[alenhard]

Microsoft is obviously a beast when it comes to squashing the competition.

But nothing, NOTHING can stop WalMart. It's the most powerful company of all time. If you can ever keep a WalMart out of your town, do whatever it takes! They offer the best prices, eliminate the little guy, and then have no restraints when they want to raise prices.

[flaninacupboard]

except it costs the little guy hardly anything to set up, wheras it costs walmart tens or hundreds of thousands.

[BobV]

Really ? Given the shit state of the world after capitalist management I'd love to see some more in power, trouble is we don't have that many.

Really??? – but this is not the place for such discussions

[alenhard]

except it costs the little guy hardly anything to set up, wheras it costs walmart tens or hundreds of thousands.

True, but their pockets are so deep that it's hardly a drop in the bucket.