Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : MSFT Internet Explorer vs. NSCP Navigator -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (19291)	5/18/1998 11:43:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Respond to of 24154

U.S. and States Sue Microsoft nytimes.com All the news that's fit to print here. "The evidence we gathered during our extensive investigation demonstrates that Microsoft uses these predatory and exclusionary practices not to help consumers but to make sure that Microsoft can crush its competitors," Klein said. Standard Microsoft business practice, of course. What's wrong with that, anyway. And who says Microsoft doesn't help consumers? It's still selling them the original retail Windows95. It's what the customers want! But have no fear, the friends of Bill are rallying to his defense. "The Justice Department is demanding that it get to decide what Microsoft consumers see on their computer screens. The next thing you know, Justice will want to dictate to supermarkets which breakfast cereals must appear on each shelf," said Dick Armey, a Texas Republican and the House of Representatives majority leader. That's Dick "Breath" Armey, a true Libertarian. As long as you stick to the propertarian interpretation, don't get into those pesky civil liberty type things. "Consumers make the best decisions for themselves when these kinds of marketing decisions are left to the private sector," he said. That's why retail Windows95 was the best selling software title, up to a few months ago, even when those stupid OEMs were turning down Bill's generous offer to let them ship it too. Cheers, Dan.

To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (19291)	5/18/1998 11:46:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24154

Before Windows and Internet, There Was Ethernet nytimes.com An amusing sidebar to the NYT article. John Markoff talking to old Bob Metcalfe, whose infoworld pieces I've noted here from time to time. But compared with Windows, which Microsoft holds in a vise-like grip, Ethernet is technology that followed a different, communal path. And it is a course that some experts say may still be worth emulating, if the industry is going to be driven by innovation rather than by the sort of infighting that now finds Microsoft under threat of antitrust suits over its use of its Windows operating system standard as a proprietary tool both to control markets and to leverage its way into new ones. On top of that, Sun Microsystems is battling Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard over control of Sun's Java programming language. . . . But unlike Windows (or Java, or you name the software standard and somebody is probably jealously squabbling over it), Ethernet was developed by a company that quickly ceded it to the larger computing industry. And in contrast to a proprietary industry standard like Windows, which Microsoft controls, Ethernet has always been what software engineers call an open system -- one with a common technical core around which any company could create its own complementary products. "Bill Gates, et al, have usurped the term 'open,"' Metcalfe said. "But Ethernet has remained pure; it is a true open standard." Ah, open, anybody remember that little ongoing debate? War is peace, ignorance is strength, Windows is open. Posted way too much on that one, now the Microphiles still throw it out on occasion, but it's hard to work up more than sarcasm anymore, in that context, as in so many others. Hi Sal. Bastardized enough for you? Cheers, Dan.