We all hate Microsoft…

By pachi | Jun 1, 2008

We all hate Microsoft. Few hate because windows hangs too often, others because its slow, and others because its not open source, and others because of its monopolistic “evil” behaviour and others because its rich, and many others because everybody around them hates it. Whatever the reason is, we all simply hate it. But, if we look at the history, we realise if not Microsoft, it could have been much worse.

On its way to success, Microsoft derooted a lot of companies, the major ones that were shook are Apple and IBM. In a way, it is good for the world that Microsoft won over these 2 companies…

Apple makes brilliant innovative products, no doubt about that. The mac, ipod are just too brilliant. But also, apple makes proprietary products just like Microsoft. If not PC, mac would have become the industry standard. We all would have been using mac instead of PCs. Unlike PCs, where the hardware uses open architecture, hardware being manufactured by n different manufacturers assembled together and runs the software produced by some other company, the mac uses a closed hardware architecture, no one other than apple can produce macs and even the software that runs on it is by apple. This does both good and bad. As Apple itself does both - hardware and software, we can expect a better product. But what closed architecture also does is, it keeps the 3rd party computer manufacturers from entering the market. There wouldn’t be dell, compaq etc. There would be Apple, and only apple. The computer industry would have been monopolised more than we can ever imagine. There wouldn’t be any option in the market. Apple would be much bigger than microsoft and more than that, it would have more power to control the industry. With such monopoly we can only guess how worse it would have been.

When IBM decided to make PCs, good for us they chose open architecture(thanks to apple, for pressurising IBM) and built the PCs using 3rd party products. And when it came to operating system, they chose 3 software vendors of which microsoft was one of them. Microsoft bought QDOS(quick and dirty operating system) and made it compatible with PCs.1000s of programs were written on Windows(dos) making it the preferable operating system. Thanks to Bill Gates, the exclusivity of the OS was not given to IBM. When Dell, Compaq and other manufacturers came up with their own version of computers, which were compatible with IBM’s Pcs, they were able to bundle windows with it and sell. Thus making windows the industry standard. And here again had the exclusivity was given to IBM, there would have been 100s of operating systems in the market and would have all sorts of compatibility problem.

Microsoft did indeed play robin-hood, saving the world from worse, even though unintentionally. But after the browser wars of late 1990’s, it started to take the “evil” image. I’m completely against such act, but again it isn’t microsoft alone that is doing this - crushing the competition. Any company with muscle power have done similar acts. Of late even the “do no evil” company - google, launched open social in its attempt to kill facebook apps, unsuccessful till now. Big companies use their muscle power in marketing their new products in an attempt to kill the competition(read small companies). Whether we like it or not, it is the part of any business to use its resources to win over the competition. I really dont get what are we are blaming when we say microsoft is “evil”, are we saying because it uses its muscle power to kill the competition or because it was successful in doing so.

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32 Comments so far

Madhusudan.C.S June 1, 2008 1:18 am

Hi Prashath,
A very nice article and nice inside thoughts on what really happened, and would have happened if it was not Micro$oft. I totally agree in what you have said and Micro$oft did in early 80s. It just suppressed the growth of Apple, and did not give exclusivity to IBM, added to this before all these happened, it had even do this funny job of accepting the agreement for bundling DOS with IBM’s PCs before it had DOS, i.e before it bought QDOS as you have said. Its all part of the business strategies and there is nothing wrong in it. Indeed, BBS(Beg Borrow Steal) theory is the first lesson thought to any business man. Also as you said Google is also doing a lot of things to put itself in a monopolising position, including starting its own alternative to Wikipedia called Knol, though Google itself supports Wikipedia(kinda attacking from behind).

But I dont quite agree with what M$ is doing now, like lobbying ISO for getting its formats the ISO standards and giving wrong information to people about their products and many such things. M$ was not an 80s’ evil, but its definitely 2000s’ evil. Just a thought. What do you say?
Ajay Kumar K.S. June 1, 2008 12:15 pm

Is Microsoft actually a monopoly? No, they are not. They don’t force you to buy their products, they are not the only company out there, and even though they are the
most used, people do have many other choices.

Who makes you buy a product? No company makes you buy their products. If any company made you buy a product of theirs it would be bad business, and no one would buy from them. Nobody is holding a gun to your head saying ,“ Buy my product or I will blow your head off.” If anyone did do that they would be put in jail. If you buy from another company, your computer will not explode; in fact the only company that does Operating systems used to be very hard to learn. There are many
other companies that do force people to buy their products. Compaq, and even then the computer wont explode it just will not work.

Microsoft is not a monopoly; the problem is that most people are just too lazy to look for another company.
Other companies that do force you to buy their products aren’t widely used in a home situation.

So, anyone who claims Microsoft is a monopoly needs to take a look at the facts. The reason they aren’t used at home very much is because nobody likes to be pressured into something. It’s not fair to Microsoft especially, but it is also unfair to the people because if you hurt the company, it hurts the customers. Microsoft makes the easiest operating system to use on a PC, and that is what makes it popular. A lot of people think that they have to upgrade to a different product or their computer will not work. Any upgrade you have to buy is just a preference that is not needed. If people actually tried to find other products it wouldn’t take them very long at all. Having people that have little or no knowledge about computers and computer products, besides turning them on or installing something, is like putting a child the age of five on a jury.
pachi June 3, 2008 3:14 pm

@ madhusudan
lobbying ISO for getting its formats accepted as the ISO standards… this is just mushing for their products to be accepted… i dont think there is anything wrong in doing so. they were just selling their product.
Coming to think of it, i feel its more perception we have towards microsoft and other BIG companies… whenever they do anything we give extra attention towards them and we feel they are over doing, even if they are not…
Can you please write more on microsoft giving wrong information.

@Ajay
I think you got confused between monopoly and dictatorship. What I meant by monopoly is having a majority market share(90+%) and having exclusive control over it.
Of course there are other, in fact lats of OS, but when everyone are around you are using windows and windows application, you dont want to be using linux or solaris alone.
HAhah June 4, 2008 10:20 pm

So where is the code for all their proprietory formats…?? Hun ?? No documentation or specification available ??

DirectX, MS Office, Active Directory, IIS, IE, Exchange, MSSQL…whats all this binary garbage that is slapped on to consumers.

Microsoft exist only to serve itself.

All competing technology are open source - even if they dont have billions of dollars in their pocket for development.

OpenGL
ODF
LDAP
Apache
Firefox
Postfix/Exim/Sendmail, etc.
MySQL, Postgres, etc.

Why do they have to keep attacking free and open source software and undermine its credibility.

Microsoft exist to serve itself.
iampriteshdesai June 19, 2008 8:54 pm

Brilliant article!!!
I did like Bill Gates as all Indians did as a kid in the 90’s. But like him less now. But of late I really hate Apple and its playboy Steve Jobs. He sucks! And goes round cock boy claiming to make better products. All iTunes Quicktime, Safari suck. If Apple had been allowed to dominate we would have no thing like internet as we know to day. I hate their bullsh*t propirtary things.
paresh June 30, 2008 6:07 pm

nice article.

pareshs last blog post..First Indian to achieve Doctorate in Vastushastra…..
theg July 5, 2008 10:26 am

@pachi,
I think you are not really aware of what the extent of Microsoft’s “lobbying” was for ISO. Apparently ensuring that OOXML becomes an ISO standard is a matter of national security and BIS does not care about it. This is what M$ told the Indian Govt. That is not right.

@Ajay
Have you heard of the M$ tax? An OEM pays M$ some x amount of cash for *every* system he sells, not just systems having Windows running on it. IOW, the OEM is forced to sell Windows. Where is the matter of choice? And considering the ubiquity of windows, its very hard for any OEM to stand up and say “NO!”
Avinash July 10, 2008 6:49 pm

Hi Pachi,

I have to say its a brilliant article. It opens up a brand new perspective about the economics that could have been if it were not to be M$.

The MS of 2000s is doing what it can do best - Display Muscle Power. The open Source option doesnt seem to be burning MS yet. But with IBM backing it up and recenlty announced support options for IBM Symphony product suite may tilt the balance a little.

At the same time, as you had said, there is no reason to blame MS. Their moves would be in accordance with the maturity of the software industry. Just imagine the number of vendors offering applications in the eighties and compare it with that of today. We have a plethora of products in the offing with enraged vigour in innovation. In such a competitive scenario anyone in MS place would press all the buttons to keep their market alive. Or it could have been worse if it were to be an apple in MS’s place. For once, we can say - Thank God its Microsoft!
Lindsay September 23, 2008 5:13 am

As a software engineer with 27 years experience using computers, I hate Microsoft because it has a tendency to make hard working people who have to use it look incompetent. I try to avoid all MS products like the plague because working with it is a non-deterministic experience, like walking on thin ice. Development tends to go fairly predictably and smoothly until we have to integrate some MS piece of crap into it.

This the fifth day I have spent trying to integrate some very simple piece of MS into our application. The rest of our product is open source and runs fine. The MS component gives absolutely useless diagnostic information and is just intractable.

After many such experiences, I can’t help but harbour resentment for MS.
Venture November 10, 2008 11:54 pm

@theg
>> Have you heard of the M$ tax? An OEM pays M$ some x amount of cash for *every* system he sells, not just systems having Windows running on it. IOW, the OEM is forced to sell Windows. Where is the matter of choice? And considering the ubiquity of windows, its very hard for any OEM to stand up and say “NO!” >>

It’s even harder for an OEM to say “no” to his finance people. “Windows times copies wanted” is more expensive (even with unused copies) than “Windows times all production.” “And considering the ubiquity of windows” that is what OEMs want anyway.

Such terms are not rare. Next time you see a car consider why things like its radios and also its tires are often made by the same company.
Hell_Killer_SS December 16, 2008 3:28 am

What is DirectX why use big lousy driver directx software instead of direct hardware access!?!!!. Why I use low performance high speed cpu with low speed bus and low performance expensive fake hardwares?! sound card, tv card, display card, modem these hardwares don’t have hardware encoder/decoder/accelerators only lousy software based.

I hate Microsoft’s softwares because they don’t know real hardwares. They don’t have knowledge.They are unqualified software makers they are only work for money using every cheats.
Microsoft is complete stupid also total crap!. Really lousy big size Huge Time Wasting Microsoft Operating System!.
I don’t wanna use Windows Operating System. I wanna use my own Operating System. Or other total hardware based Operating System.
Hell_Killer_SS January 8, 2009 10:40 am

Enough is enough. Now I start making my own operating system. Decompiling and reverse engineering. Because evil microsoft completely blocking all real hardware datasheets.
My life is totally freezed since 1999 almost 10 years!!!. Because I believed in microsoft. Oh what a horroble naive mistake of my mine.

Yes of course I been using internet ten years. Every time I afraid when connect to internet because full of messy advertisements and full of stinky butts and ugly porn sites!. I never seeing such horroble pictures and movies.
What a miserable people and search engines. When I one(any) mistaking word typed to that search engines then easily fall in to horroble porn sites. Who is behind that… I know all… basically it’s microsoft’s fault and microsoft directly supporting them.

I hate mongolia. I hate morons. I hate mad people. I hate microsoft.
I hate all this circled chained M(s) mongolia-morons-madbadpeople-microsoft thease Ms are totally ruining my entire life. But they never escape from me they will pay to me.
Why I deeply hate mongolia! Because mongolian government is total crap. I don’t undersand them why they are so stupid and so ugly. Why they can’t do any simple things they are many people!. They can only one thing it’s “lying everyday” even they forever saying “Chinges khan” where are that great Chinges khan where! where!!!. If Nostradamus’s words true then that person could be me. If then.. I first destroy mongolia (sounds weirdo but I will) then heavily punish microsoft then build a perfect world.(If you laugh at me then you cry forever) I’m alone I can do everything. I’m self educated person. No one teached me, no one helped me. I don’t have mongolian passport. I never wish because I don’t wanna be mongolian citizen. I don’t have any bank account. I don’t have a money. Because I deeply hate mongolia. I don’t wanna work for them.
Thanks to god I’m still young and virgin and beautiful and powerful mind. Just like in the freezer. If were not then I kill myself.
Sayan March 12, 2009 10:41 pm

1) “There would be Apple, and only apple.” - I don’t think so - such monopoly would have invited lawsuits which would have eventually caused Apple’s disintegration (like AT&T’s in 1984).

2) About the reason why Windows rules the market even though Mac is better (visually at least), watch “Pirates of Silicon Valley” and you will know

3) I personally think that had Bill Gates and Steve Jobs not been there, the computer would not have become personal. IBM did come up with the first PC in early 80s but the creators of the dinosaur mainframes simply did not have the vision that was required to take the personal computing industry to its present level.
Sayan March 12, 2009 10:50 pm

one of the posts said “All competing technology are open source - even if they dont have billions of dollars in their pocket for development.” - don’t you think the two parts of your sentence have a cause-effect relationship?
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used rv for sale August 18, 2009 7:36 pm

Please also hate MIcrosoft because they make users go through hell like when the own a legal version of windows and the genuine tihng pop up and wont let you fucken to anything !
used rv for sale August 18, 2009 7:38 pm

it also took alot more processing power and system memory to run then windows XP, which caused the computer to run slower. Any computer with 1 gb of ram or less would really be effected by this.
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Also windows put in several security setting to be automatically on. Such as the user account control, which is something they got from macs, some of these features didn’t allow programs to run that ran fine in windows XP.
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[...] We all hate Microsoft… [...]
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The historical development of computers demonstrates that the introduction and sustenance of market players, such as Microsoft and intel, is a consequence of the open architacture and outsourcing strategy adapted by IBM.
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Back in the late 1980’s, IBM attempted to close their architecture and regain the market share that they had lost to competitors because of their previous open architecture. They lost ground because they were a huge, slow moving company and other startups were faster to market and could operate with less cost.
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