Nuke Redmond!

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Mon Jan 15 22:23:58 2001

Please see comments embedded below.

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Tinker" <jtinker_at_coin.org>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, January 15, 2001 8:28 PM
Subject: Re: Nuke Redmond!


>
>
> Richard Erlacher wrote:
>
> > So ... aren't there things that you want? You certainly can't blame MS,
as
> > a corporate entity, for doing what it does in order to get what it
wants,
> > can you? Why do you think you should make what MS wants YOUR problem?
They
> > haven't done that. You have.
>
> I just don't get why you are so into defending a company that engages in
> vicious, predatory and generally uncivil behavior. It is obvious that
Microsoft
> has violated what many people consider norms of decent behavior, even as
applied
> to corporations. That they have violated the spirit of the law seems
fairly
> clear by now, but we're not sure what is going to be done about it.
>
> Why not let these criticisms air, and stand on their own merits? The best
you
> seem to be able to answer is that other companies are as devious. I don't
deny
> that, but I fail to understand why it is being offered as a justification.
It is
> not a justification, although it might be an explaination. However I don't
think
> folks on this list need explainations about it. People are pissed, not
> bewildered. I think we should expect companies to be decent, and should be
> outraged, to some degree, when they are not.
>
It's because, not only are other companies as devious, in fact ALL other
surviving companies are, in their way, as devious, but that's what they're
SUPPOSED to be.
>
> I agree generally with the observations you have made about putting ones
money
> where ones mouth is. I just don't understand your defense of what seems to
me to
> be indefensible behavior. Are you opposed to making moral or ethical
arguments,
> per se? When you suggest that nothing a corporation does to "get what it
wants"
> can be blameworthy, you seem to take such a position.
>
I don't mind rational and balanced arguments based on facts and not
folklore. In general, however, it's not up to the corporation to do
anything an individual wouldn't, i.e. the corporation is no more bound to
base its actions on altruistic motives than you and I. The decision-makers
have a fiduciary responsibility to produce value for their owners. Most
companies do that by providing goods or services. I've read a lot of "I
don't like Microsoft ..." but I haven't seen any realistic positive
constructs.

The fact of the matter is that Microsoft is in a unique position in the
market because they proceeded, initially, to do what no one else brought
off. They produced an operating system AND a set of what most folks find to
be a highly useful set of office automation and communication applications
that people buy in great quantity. It's possible that some of their
strategizing might have gone off the deep end a mite, but, unlike General
Motors, Ford, or Firestone, they've killed no one and mad little effort to
prevent people from knowing it. Nobody's been killed as a result of buying
a software suite that cost a week's pay every month, crashed and caused
their customer to die. Unlike the auto industry, Microsoft has actually
improved things for most of its customers, has taken relatively little of
their money, made computers and computing a household thing where it was
only for the nerds a couple of decades ago, and if they endeaver to kill and
eat their competitors, that's really what they're paid to do.
>
Received on Mon Jan 15 2001 - 22:23:58 GMT