Looking for Answers

Microsoft defines the computer experience.

Think about that one.

Imagine not having a computer. Why in the world would you ever get one?

Worms. Spam. Trojans that take over your machine when you visit a web site. Virus'. Add to that the continuous maintenance required to keep a box running and connected.

Why? This is a real issue. A family member recently travelled to europe and eastern canada, staying with friends and acquaintances. Only one person had net access and computer at home. Why should they?

I don't think Microsoft is evil. They are in business, looking after their interests. They and their customers are short sighted. The computer industry creates natural monopolies, and Microsoft, though shrewd moves and good timing, came out on top. They don't need to worry about security, they own the market.

All I want is to be able to have some choice.

Derek

Why are Microsoft so popular, or why have they been so in the past? To me this is not a difficult question to answer.

In the past, (a fair few years ago now) the users of a number of other operating systems/formats (the Amiga and the UNIXes, primarily) believed and made themselves out to be vastly superior to the rest of the human race. Elitism was a real problem. Granted, the UNIXes in particular genuinely were technically a lot better, but the attitude of "If you don't understand it, you don't have the right to use a computer in the first place," did not help expand computer use beyond specialised areas, nor did it help those few hapless individuals back then who were not technically minded or of above-average intelligence, but who were still forced for whatever reason to use a computer.
Enter Microsoft. They were a company with the now oft-quoted philosophy of, "a computer on every desk and in every home." Granted, it may well have been their philosophy mainly for monopolistic reasons, but it was still very different from the exclusive attitudes which prevailed among users of other systems at the time. The major contrast is that UNIX operating systems make the assumption that the person at the keyboard is a) intelligent, b) willing to invest time solving problems, and c) most likely has some degree of technical knowledge already, and proceed on that basis. Windows' philosophy on the other hand is that the person using it either a) is relatively unintelligent, or b) *is* reasonably intelligent, but has no desire to go to the effort of using whatever brains they might have. Windows' subsequent popularity is in my mind direct evidence of the validity of this philosophy.

Windows is the McDonald's of software. It is technologically monumentally inferior to any other operating system in existence, but it is quick to use, convenient, is generally very aesthetically pleasing on a superficial level, and above all is designed with the idea in mind that the person using it has the desire to exert the least possible amount of effort (intellectual or otherwise) in order to accomplish a given task.

Despite how disparaging that assessment of Windows might have sounded, the fact that it gave the layperson the ability to use a computer in earlier years was an extremely positive and important thing. When you have a group of starving children, if easily digestible junk food is the only thing on the menu, it will at least allow the children in question to survive, and is therefore desirable until a more nutritious alternative is available. I believe Microsoft's popularity is now waning, and will continue to wane. The reason for this is that initially, their entire reason for popularity was that they allowed people a way of using computers which was easy but at the same time technically very deficient. At the time, for non-technical people Microsoft were the only alternative, and so Windows' insecurity, instability and unreliability was something that simply had to be endured. Now that other operating systems which are excellent technically are reaching levels where they are also as easy to use as Windows itself, non-technical users no longer need to settle for Microsoft simply because the alternatives are too difficult for them. They can finally have an operating system which is not only easy enough for them to use, but which has a far greater level of stability than anything Microsoft can give them...They have the opportunity to have the best of both worlds.

The explanation for what microsoft products improve or are 'good'is very simple. When microsoft has had significant competition it has competed on features, price and quality. As soon as the competition was eliminated all significant improvement stopped. This explains excel (quite good because of lotus), IE (improved until netscape became insignificant) etc.

This is why the MS monopoly has been so damaging it has stagnated development and led to a much lower levelof quality than would have been the case without it.

What I have noticed that most users do not know and do not care about what OS they are using. Mainly because the see their PC and OS as one.

E.g. they asociate the MSIE icon (E) with "the Internet" unaware of the fact that they are using only a small part of the Internet.

These users do not install new OS's (not Linux, not other versions of Windows). How to target them, is difficult. The installation of the OS must extremely simple and it must provide for an immediate usable interface with high additional value over their current OS. For them to even concidering installing a new OS.

The other group of potential users are most companies. MS has a strong hold in these due to various reasons. One of them is the fear of no support when using open source.

I know you never claimed to be providing a balanced a story but let's face it Microsoft has in fact done unlawful things (bad, evil, etc) and hardly seem reformed. An important reason people continue to use Microsoft because MS has an effective monopoly for many products, thus, there is often no other reasonable choice. All in all I'm sure if there were real choice a significant number of MS customers would pick other products simply due to their unlawful behavior. I know I would. I am quite disappointed that our government (US) has not delt with this monopoly in the same manner it delt with the steel, oil, and telephone monopolies of the past. In the end it probably won't matter as GNU/Linux is on it's way to becoming the new universal standard.

Doc,
You are stating the obvious point that "Pure EVIL can not exist". It's final evil act is to destroy itself.
Microsoft's rise to monopoly, was at least in part due to unclean government procurement policies (that still exist). Where for the first time in US history a contractors proprietary, royalty bearing, undisclosed, trade secreted, product was made the standard.
Imagine if the government did the same thing when television came to be. Where the NTSC was allowed to be a proprietary, royalty bearing, undisclosed, trade secreted, format. We would still be fighting the richest man in the world, but his name would be Sarnoff instead of Gates.
You can easily make these connections.
Your defense of the rank and file MS employees who have never been the issue. Is a waste of both of our time. You might, in the future, save this articles kind of rationalizations for a more appropriate venue. Like giving your free hand something to do when your knickers are around your ankles.

I think it has to do with the developers. Users, just use stuff. Yes they have investment on software, but developers have the largest investment on a platform.

When some external reason forces you to change, then you change. I have a friend who here in my country was informed that the BSA was going to visit his company, he did not want to pay, so he changed to Linux. he is a business man, not a techie. He tells me that so many options are confusing. Shapiro and varian talk about his phenomena on its book Information Rules, not with technology.

Choice, consumers get confused with choice.

Maybe it has to do with the economic concept of "path dependency", it is good enough , so why change.

Marketing is one explanation. May be is evil, but some products like Coca Cola, use marketing, Tobacco companie suse it. You know, Cola beberages are not good to your health but a lot of people drink them anyway. Tobacco in some countries still is very popular.

It is veri easy to hava access to a WIndows based machine. You go to Office Max, Office Depot, and you get it.

It is a Phenomena of information based products, if you do not have it you are different, and even people likes to be different they do not want to be so different.

Other has to do with piracy, may be software companies are against it, but it is a good marketing practice in less developed countries.

My wife uses Windows (she used to be a Macintosh User), but where she works (a University BTW) they standarized on Windows platform.

So may be it is just an economic reason. Standarization.Scale economies. And at the end it is what makes succesful the Windows platform.

I think many companie suse it because of Information Asimettrics. You don