[pmmail-list] [OT] MS-Bashing vs fairness was Digest (07/25/2003 09:01) (#2003-569)

[John Angelico]

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 09:02:01 -0400, brandonk@blueprintsoftwareworks.com
wrote:

Hi Tim

>
>Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 09:33:39 -0700
>From: "Tim Roberts" <timr@probo.com>
>Subject: Re: [pmmail-list] Browsers was Digest (07/24/2003 09:01) (#2003-568)
>
>On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 00:08:55 +1000 (AEST), John Angelico wrote:
>>
>>>IE is deader than Netscape, unless you follow the Windows upgrade cycle.
>>
>>aka "supplier lock-in"
>
>And how is that any different than Opera or PMMail?  Both of those are closed 
>products from a single supplier.
>
>It's fun to bash Microsoft, but let's be fair.

OK, I'll be fair, but serious, and hopefully back up my statements.

[Soapbox mode: ON] 
Assertion: MS operates a totalitarian business and software development
model.
It works along the following lines:
a) do as little as necessary to give the customer the apparent
functionality desired
b) patch or add on as errors, problems, issues and shortcomings emerge, and
do not consider backwards compatibility unless forced to do so by customer
demand (NB: this infers that MS never rebuilds a product from the ground
up. I suspect that Excel never included any Multiplan code)
c) crush competition by all means, particularly foul means including
buy-and-shutdown if the competitive product is clearly in advance of the MS
version (eg Citrix WinFrame, Connectix Virtual PC) 
d) embrace, extend and extinguish companion products to ensure spreading
market dominance (eg. Navision & Great Plains in accounting, various
utiliities which were gradually swallowed up by DOS)
e) having achieved dominance, change whatever is in the public arena (eg.
file formats) to retain dominance over remaining competitors (Word,
HTML/browsers, now XML) Netscape fell because they tried to compete by
playing the same nasty game of bending standards. Mozilla and Opera don't.
NS has learned it's costly lesson - probably too late.
f) if dominance cannot be achieved, pollute public and common standards to
bend them towards MS over time (eg. Java, C#, TCP/IP, SQL?)
g) lock customers into a file format, grab the keys and charge for them on
a pseudo-rental basis (Licencing 6 plus public pronouncements, maybe ODBC) 
Caveat: I am not so sure how much MS has done in the database arena, as I
am inferring from external symptoms only.

Other suppliers also offering closed source products simply don't operate
on a totalitarian model. Even the big boys like Larry Ellison at Oracle and
Scott McNealy at Sun, and even IBM as former monopolist (who's operations
and attitudes I distrusted in the 70s) has now reformed with the "help" of
two Justice Dept consent decrees, accepting a multi-supplier world in which
it cannot dominate. However, none of these businesses are small or think
small. They simply have different corporate cultures to MS. 

ISVs likewise don't assume they are destined for market dominance, just
that they have an idea for a better mousetrap that they believe customers
will like. And they are willing to try finding enough customers to pay for
the idea so they can make a living. 

They are more likely to accept the principle that public standards are
intended to maintain the concept of a level playing field (I know it
doesn't necessarily happen in practice), that other competitors are allowed
to live and earn their profits for supplying different products, and that
consumers have genuine choice. 

The amazing thing about PMMail is that despite a lack of development on the
OS/2 side, it remains "almost-competitive" with other software. MS and
others have caught up now but those of us who used it from v1.53 days have
enjoyed those features all that time. It represents designing/programming
for the longer term, with robust structures and built-from-the-ground-up
quality (not perfect but pretty solid nevertheless).

I suggest the same general point is true of OS/2 as a platform and probably
the Mac too - Win XP is still catching up in some areas. OS/2 is not
necessarily any more secure because of some divine right of IBM
programming, but because better attention was paid to quality coding in the
first place. For a virus writer to succeed in an attack on an OS/2 system,
s/he would need to build a set of advanced skills which would be readily
employable in the "legitimate" OS/2 arena. Thus there is no need to bother
wasting time on vandalism when one could be paid handsomely for doing good
work. By contrast, the software philosophy of Windows is "wide open to
attack" and wait for problems to show up. Thus even minimally skilled
vandals can achieve an impact and obtain notoriety, so they attack.

The same kind of platform comparison applies over longer periods. In the
early 70s, I was using a mainframe OS which already had device
independence, full file version control, disk-based filestore concepts,
hierarchical directory structures, multi-user online processing, extensive
memory management with fully variable job partitioning, hot-swapping of
hardware (aka blade servers these days, used to be called passive
back-planes). It used to reside on a 5Mb Drum store and manage a 96Kb core
memory machine with a daily throughput of 1000 jobs. That OS had one
feature which still has not made it to micros: temporary workfiles. It was
not an IBM OS, and the only other OS that came near it was Burroughs. 

The computer industry (and mostly MS) needs to restore its thinking to that
of the "regular" engineers. The motor trade does not operate on a 3 year
obsolescence cycle, but something like 20+ years (ask an auto engineer
about "computed all-time requirement" factors for spare parts). Dams,
bridges and roads are built to last 50 or 100 years. Houses offices and
factories are expected to remain standing even if construction methods
improve and styles change. 
[Soapbox mode: OFF]

The sad thing about MS-bashing: so much of it is true. All that talent
employed there...such potential


Best regards
John Angelico
OS/2 SIG
os-2@melbpc.org.au or talldad@kepl.com.au
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