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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mozek who wrote (8296)	6/4/1998 5:38:00 PM
From: cheryl williamson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

mozek, After the book was published, none, as long as the developer read the book or hacked MS-DOS. Before the book, the internal multi-tasking calls plus others that were never published by MSFT. I'm not sure you get the point. If the vendor doesn't properly document the OS, which MSFT did not do with MS-DOS, there is no reliable way to write applications to the OS that will take advantage of all its capabilities. I don't think I have to explain to you why that is. Why would an OS vendor keep the information secret, mozek??? What possible purpose would it serve, other than to enhance its place in the application market.

To: mozek who wrote (8296)	6/7/1998 12:14:00 PM
From: dumbmoney	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

My question still remains. Do you know of any specific API that was exploited by a Microsoft application to the detriment of any third party application? In my years of systems development both outside and inside of Microsoft, I have heard this complaint many times, but I have yet to learn of any specific example. Microsoft is more "secretive" about some things then I would like, but the irony is that the secrets are totally irrelevent to the kind of user-level app (word processor, browser, etc) that the people making this charge know and care about. The undocumented stuff is of much more interest to people developing device drivers, who of course are not in competition with Microsoft. So in short the implication that there is something sinister here is nonsense.