Dan,
Your post is filled with so many baseless accusations and mistakes that if I weren't in the mood to vent a bit, I'd ignore it. Instead, I'll just answer your points 1 by 1 with the truth. I'm sure you'll think I'm another conspiring ganster pretending to be an innocent nerd, but who cares. No need for you to respond, and please don't be offended if I never reply to you again.
1) Microsoft's released the fastest, most compatible (ran more std applets than Netscape), and most secure Java implementation on the market in IE 3.0. Although we licensed Java from Sun to ensure compatibility, we wrote Microsoft's VM ourselves from scratch, and were the first company to integrate digital signing and compressed downloading which was later copied. We are committed to maintaining our lead as the best platform for Java. Our next version will leave others even further behind technologically, and, if you believe Netscape, will be in the only major browser to support Java Beans (hey that's supposed to be standard isn't it?)
2) The developers we've hired from Borland came of their own free will. Since Borland was one of the companies working with us on some of our development efforts (believe it or not), we had no motive for attacking them as a business. We'd also be fools to turn away premium talent when it comes our way.
3) DimensionX was a premier Java development company. If you look back through the press since the release of IE 3.0, you'll see time and again that DimensionX publicly endorsed Microsoft's Java as the best in the industry. Their web site uses our compression technology for download and has since we responded to their request to accellerate its development. We licensed their technology months ago, and I'm quite confident it will be incorporated into our products in the near future.
4) We are constantly scrutinized by the press, but I can't speak more to this issue since I'm not in marketing.
5) I suppose you'd rather pay?
6) Marketing promotion. Not only legal, but seems to be a pretty smart move to me.
7) Where's your evidence. I don't believe this for a second unless it was written by someone who Microsoft made a mistake in hiring. In the almost 5 years I've been there, I haven't seen anything like this ever.
8) I don't believe it. I have no first hand knowledge of this case, but I have never seen anyone copying other company's code at Microsoft. If anyone in my group did, they'd be fired.
9) You're repeating yourself.
10) I know what happened here, and our compression was developed entirely at Microsoft. This was a patent case, and a non-technical jury decided that our algorithms, although developed independently, may have been similar to those of Stac.
I'm done venting now, and found this quite therapeutic. Thanks for the inane catalyst.
Good luck,
Mike |
