This e-mail is particularly amusing in light of Bill Gates' book
"The Road Ahead."  I highly recommend reading this book.  He uses small
words and large type, so it goes pretty quick.  I got it on the closeout 
shelf for $2.98.  The wisdom contained therein is awesome.  

Don't worry, I'm not converting, and I'm not a traitor.  "It is wise 
to understand the ways of one's adversary."


George


"David P. Schwartz" wrote:
> 
> Jim wrote:
> 
> > Congress is getting involved in the whole issue, including XP
> >
> > http://www.arizonarepublic.com/arizona/articles/0724microsoft24-ON.html
> >
> > Maybe MS's arrogance is finally gonna hurt them. If you p*ss off enough
> > people to get a couple of US Senators, maybe it is time to learn from past
> > mistakes.
> >
> > Obviously, never one to learn from the past, MS plods ahead, ignoring common
> > sense, good business practices, US law, and logic.  They are proving yet
> > again that the only thing that matters to them is the bottom line.
> 
> Ya gotta wonder ... they say that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.  What MS is doing seems incredibly similar with what
> IBM was doing in the early 70's that got them into such hot water.
> 
> Borland just reported that some 35% of their revenues last quarter came from JBuilder.  Their marketing research says that the use of
> Java has been expanding at an incredibly fast rate this year, and that they don't see much of a drop off in demand of Java-oriented
> development tools over the next several quarters.  The largest growth in their sales has come from large corporations.
> 
> In stark contrast, Microsoft has announced that Java will NOT be supported in their next generation OS.  I guess this is supposed to be
> an enticement to all those corporate customers who'll have to wade through the mine fields MS plants in XP after signing on to long-term
> subscription agreements for an OS that appears to be heading in a direction that's not where they might be going.
> 
> If memory serves, the EC passed some "regulations" in the mid-80's that required all new software and computing systems contracts to be
> POSIX compliant, in defiance of IBM's "proprietary sytems" posturing.  IBM gave 'em the finger and lost billions of dollars in European
> business.  Amdahl and DEC both supported Unix and took lots of IBM's mainframe business in the EC market.   Wasn't it only about a year
> later when IBM announced a new product line (AIX on the RS-6000) that was fully POSIX-compliant that enabled them to resume competing
> for European business?
> 
> -David
> 
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