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: Reginald Middleton who wrote (21864)	12/1/1998 10:05:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Respond to of 24154

Depends where you set your baseline, eh, Reggie? And the context, of course. When was there a Visual Studio to begin with? Doesn't Microsoft make Visual C++? Cheers, Dan.

To: Reginald Middleton who wrote (21864)	12/1/1998 3:02:00 PM
From: Charles Hughes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

>>> Visual Studio 6.0 and Office 2000 represent a nearly 70% drop in prices <<< Well this is a change of subject from the price of the OS. I note this because it is the OS they have the strongest monopoly in, and it is there that we are examining their behaviour. Still, I'll bite. Visual Studio functionality didn't exist as a separate product until recently. If one continues to do what one probably has always done, buy C++ with the Studio functionality, the prices look different. One might add that they seem to force you to buy and install a big chunk of Visual Basic code now just to get C++ installed. This being, AFAIK, because Visual Basic is a proprietary language they are pushing, and C++ is largely standardized. They do other proprietary tricks as well, like dropping programming support for older versions of their OS, so that programmers become unwilling accomplices in pushing people to upgrade their computers just by not having tools to also support the older OS. This causes people to spend billions of dollars on new computers they really don't need. You won't of course hear the hardware guys squawking about that in court. (Borland still includes the Win 3.1 target in outputs from their latest compiler.) This approach porks up the total package so much that it makes it impossible to download some fixes. At one point I was faced with a 100 meg download to get a few fixes in visual C++. Why? I guess it costs money to figure out what in that pile of 'integrated' DLLs I might need to fix a particular bug. It ain't cheap, either. What's left of their competitors price their compilers about the same, without the volume that MSFT has. Also, I would like to mention that one is now forced from time to time to buy a 'subscription' or some other marketing gimmic from them for the C++ compiler. The last time I did this it cost 4 or 5 hundred bucks. Whereas individual yearly upgrades had been about 99 dollars. They collected my money in advance for a three-version subscription, sent me the first version immediately, sent me the second not long after, then nothing. A year and a half of complaining later, they sent everyone refund checks for 100 dollars, rather than send the third installment (for win 98) of the compiler. No real explanation, no real reason, no apology. They just held a hundred bucks from maybe .5 million to a million subscribers for a long time (interest money, where are you?) Also, the hundred dollar refund was inadequate on the face of it. Then they forced everyone into this 'studio' business, again upsetting the regular, 'inexpensive' upgrade cycle we had been used to traditionally, and hoped to be in now, of less than $100 a year. Add to this the fact that you have to be on the developer program to get proper support to use the C++ tool. That's another 500 bucks a year. (This is OK if you need the other stuff the developer program gives you.) Some of this stuff they may give you - if you make a habit of flying to their $1000 seminars once in a while. Then there is the pay-by-the-minute support 900 number, where you get to spend at least ten minutes talking to some moron before he decides you need to talk to someone who knows something. For more money. That also is something one used to get for free from MSFT. So your past, one time cost of 500 bucks for a compiler and support, with an expectation of regular incremental improvements at a fair low price, and lots of OS API programming help, has turned into the same expense or more per year. With less convenience and honesty. There's no class action suit on that subscription, and no government action, because of the fear of them. And of course, programmers can't afford to sue MSFT. >>> Or have you forgot the days of $595 Wordperfect and Dbase. Well, no. But in those days these kinds of products were still pretty new and the programmers who made these products were still employed. There were costs. No so many costs now, as the changes to the products are mostly marketing gimmicks to force you to buy the same thing again, or have your files be incompatible. It doesn't take that many programmers to do that. And since the competitors are all dead or dying, you can get away with that. Cheers, Chaz