OfNoConsequence

Will Adobe Scream 'Anti-Competitive' in the Face of a Microsoft Attack?

On Dec 17 10:22 AM Srdjan Popovic wrote:

--> The problem with Microsoft was that the programs were bundled with operating system and pre-installed for users, who did not have the right to choose not to install them...

The interesting contrast to this thought is that for every one person who doesn't want Windows Media Player or Internet Explorer bundled with Windows, there are at least an equal amount (if not more) who DO want them bundled.

Real lost so much user base because their player was crap, pure and simple. If their product was worth installing and didn't load your computer up with all kinds of crap (they truly became the AOL of media players) then they wouldn't have lost their user base. I used to use Real Player and what they did to my computer made me swear off them forever.

Lastly, Silverlight is an "opt-In" package, you have to download it to get it. On Windows Update it's an optional package, not a critical update. In that respect it's just like Adobe Flash.

With regard to NetFlix using Silverlight for it's player, their own Customer Support people are saying "it just works". Which is what the customers actually want. Something that "just works".

Google Trying to Get Advertisers to Lobby D.C. in Favor of Yahoo Deal

I think all lobbying should be illegal, no matter who's being petitioned to do what. All lobbying does is get politicians into the pocket of corporations with big bucks who have an agenda. It never serves the good of the individual citizen of the US.

Microsoft's Six Year Wagon Rut

Oh, and one more thing. This is in regard to saying consumers having to spend $100 on newer hardware just so they can get Windows Vista on their older box are being driven to Apple.

In this day and age of disposable income no longer being as available as it once was, what makes you think that those same penny pinching consumers who balk at spending $300 for hardware and a a newer OS are joyfully going to spend $1200 for the least expensive iMac?

Microsoft's Six Year Wagon Rut

Gino it's people like you that perpetuate a bad story. Here's an example: UAC, that much maligned feature of Windows that Apple took great pleasure in saying prevents you from doing anything.

The truth is that if an application is correctly created, the user will see this prompt when they install the application. Once. When the user runs the application, they won't see these "elevation" prompts. Again, this is for applications that are correctly created.
Same holds true for installation of these programs. The user should only see one elevation prompt at setup time. The user approves, and setup gets a free pass to do what it needs to do.

The exception? Oh, that would be iTunes. When I installed iTunes on Vista using Apple's installer I got THREE separate elevation requests. Seems to me that Apple didn't do the right thing for the customer with regard to iTunes on Vista. Yet even Apple wants to blame Microsoft for this. And a thought occurs to me, perhaps Apple WANTED this kind of bad experience, knowing full well that it would be distasteful.

Another example of perpetuating bad information: Vista should operate exactly like Windows XP on older hardware. Vista is a more robust operating system and has more profound requirements, so older hardware from six or seven years ago just won't be up to up to spec for Vista, and the hardware manufacturers were more interested in selling NEW hardware so chose not to create Vista compatible drivers for that old hardware. Yet again, this is Microsoft's fault, right?

Wake up and smell the coffee people, hardware manufacturers create new capabilities into hardware and want to sell it, so they make older hardware obsolete by no longer supporting it.

And it's not an obligation of Microsoft or within Microsoft's power to dictate to these hardware manufacturers what they must support in the form of current drivers for latest operating systems. That kind of dictatorship would be a violation of those very same anti-trust regulations that stopped Microsoft from some other unfair business practices. You can't have it both ways.

Vista is Vista and XP is XP. They are both Windows Versions, one is older and established and the other is newer and suspect *JUST LIKE* Windows XP was when it first came out. Now the originally hated and incompatible XP is the much loved and stable XP and Vista is the new hated and incompatible intruder. Change is the only constant in the software world. You want to live in the past then you can. Nobody said you HAVE to upgrade your eight year old computer to Vista. You just don't want to have to get new hardware. Even I'm not that stupid.