On Thu, 2004-01-22 at 10:17, Chris Gehlker wrote:
> On Jan 22, 2004, at 9:18 AM, Craig White wrote:
> 
> > Say what? criticism for Microsoft bashing from me?
> >
> > I think I'm fairly consistent about this - I don't bash Microsoft or
> > Apple - and I see very little difference between them except that
> > Microsoft has the market share and Apple doesn't.
> 
> I just don't agree that Windows XP has attained stability, reliability 
> and security comparable to either Mac or Linux. In the last two days I 
> have dealt with two Windows installations that have been subjected to 
> mysterious slowdowns and crashing. One of these was on one machine out 
> of an office of several identical machines that had never been 
> connected outside the office. I'll be the first to admit that I haven't 
> been rigorous about data collection and that Win 2K was a great 
> improvement over everything that came before but Windows still isn't 
> there yet as far as functionality goes.
> 
> Craig said a lot more in his post that I agree with completely but I 
> want to add a bit of spin. Some commentators here have expressed the 
> notion that it's a shame that business people don't react more strongly 
> to MS's conviction for antitrust violations. I obviously can't post 
> details but a number of my clients have been harassed by regulatory 
> agencies for what were at worst unintentional breaches of some obscure 
> rule. The result was the had to spend a lot of time and pay a lot of 
> money to lawyers to make the problem go away. They note that their 
> competitors  who are more politically connected have somehow avoided 
> these hassles.
> 
> Now Microsoft notoriously avoided politics altogether before the 
> antitrust suit and became a big contributor to both parties during the 
> trial. I think many business people think MS was really prosecuted for 
> being too stingy with campaign contributions and that when they 
> demonstrated that they had learned their lesson further sanctions were 
> unwarranted. I wish there were some clear facts to refute this theory.
---
The conviction on the count(s) of Sherman Act violations seems to be all
the clear fact that you need. We are all subject to the political whims
of the parties that are in power. The current administration gave
Microsoft the equivalent to a get out of jail free card. The previous
administration identified, prosecuted and obtained conviction. Whatever
spin people want to apply to the political winds of change is their
prerogative.

It's not the place nor the time to debate the stablity of Windows XP vs
Windows 2000 professional vs Windows NT Professional vs Windows 98.
Windows XP Professional is the current Microsoft offering that is
intended for the networked office community and a large number of users
find it to be acceptably stable and useful. My own anecdotal
experiences...I've never seen a BSOD on Windows XP Professional. But I
am always careful about migrating applications and hardware from old
systems. Macintosh OS X isn't nearly as stable and when you toss in the
questionable fonts, classic applications etc. from older systems that
the typical Macintosh user wants to carry forward, it's far less stable.

Craig