The Satanic Beast that is Microsoft

I am constantly amazed how little the general public knows about Microsoft and their business practices. While most people have a general feeling that Microsoft is "evil," and some even have their own Microsoft horror-stories to share, it's amazing the lengths gone to in order to cater to Microsoft.

The Bush administration caved like a wet baby and put in place judges who all but patted Microsoft on the back after Judge Jackson ruled Microsoft a monopoly and ordered Microsoft to be broken up into two divisions. Bush's administration is to blame, if the Clinton administration continued in power I have no doubt Microsoft would be two companies today.

Speaking of conquering and dividing, many, many moons ago, Lotus corporation had more revenue coming in from Lotus 1-2-3 than Microsoft did from all of its divisions; the reason why, Lotus concentrated on the PC platform while Microsoft was attempting to cater to many platforms. How did Microsoft defeat Lotus? One tactic was to insert code into Microsoft DOS that caused Lotus 1-2-3 to break down; this is documented evidence in the book Hard Drive. Microsoft has also in the past created undocumented API's which it used to gain a speed advantage over competitors like Lotus on the Windows platform. And who can forget Microsoft inserting code into versions of Windows which sent back information about people's systems to Microsoft; it might not seem like much, but what happens when Microsoft starts sending back your banking information, or information about your latest business transactions?

What amazes me the most is that Microsoft has been completely forgiven for stealing Apple's ideas and technology. A lot of people are under the mistaken impression that Microsoft got their idea for Microsoft Windows from Xerox; that impression simply is not true, even if Microsoft now repeats that it is. Years ago Microsoft was one of the many Apple architecture developers. Microsoft had ported parts of its Office product to Apple systems. As a big developer Microsoft had access to early model Apple machines, and when Microsoft first saw the Macintosh they were blown away, and started working on Windows based on ideas from the Macintosh. Now, many of the ideas Microsoft implemented in Windows 1.0 were different from the Macintosh, but Windows was still a derivitive product of Apple's operating system, a fact Microsoft even acknowledged in an agreement they signed with Apple. Apple was cornered, sales of Apple computers were sluggish, and Microsoft was threatening to pull its product line from the Macintosh if Apple continued to push its lawsuit. The agreement basically said Microsoft would continue developing its products for the Macintosh, and acknowledged that Windows was based on Apple ideas, and in turn Apple dropped their lawsuit and would give Microsoft unfettered access to their technology at that point. A lot of Apple employees were extremely ticked off that Apple caved so easily.

That's the monster that is Microsoft, sly, unforgiving, and a partner who will rob you blind.