WHY I HATE MICROSOFT


NOTE: This file is not much more than the late-night ramblings of an Architecture student. Please do not take it too seriously!


Love and Hate. I maintain a love-hate relationship with Microsoft. I am a DOS man and always have been; but I became involved in computers before Microsoft and Bill Gates were seen as the "messiah" of computing. I grew to love DOS and all of its intricacies. This new thing called "Windows" was a buggy program that crashed more often than I could cope with. I naturally avoided it like the plague.

Persistence Pays Off. But Bill Gates and his empire kept plugging away. And, eventually, they came up with a concoction that worked -- most of the time, anyway. It even came pre-installed on the new computer I bought... which is probably the only way I would ever willingly get a copy of it. I would experimentally probe into the depths of Windows 3.0, exploring its little niches, crashing my computer more often than not. The only thing I really found Windows useful for was Paintbrush and Solitaire.

So, I Keep To DOS. All of the programs that I regularly used were through DOS. And almost everything was keyboard-based -- a feature I enjoyed because I hate to switch between the keyboard and the mouse. (As a side note, I have also used Apple and Macintosh computers. In fact, an Apple II was the first computer I regularly used. This is not to say, however, that I necessarily like Macintosh. I find the platform very useful but, alas, the reliance on a mouse for simple functions is quite annoying and very inconvenient.)

Chicago...? And then this thing dubbed "Chicago" appeared on the horizon at Microsoft. "It will replace Windows!" was the shout in the biz. But, alas, it became what we know it as today -- Windows 95. To me, Windows 95 is nothing more than a cheap knock-off of the Macintosh OS. Only, Microsoft didn't come up with something that was as easy or as fun to use. In fact, Microsoft seems to have developed a monster operating system that is, in reality, pure crap.

What Is This Sh!t? Windows 95 was supposed to be as user friendly as the Mac OS. Heh. Heh. Riiiiiiight. And for my next trick I will place my head in the mouth of a lion which has not eaten in a month. Puh-leaze. Windows 95 is about as user friendly as a rattlesnake. A close friend of mine installed it on his system and then had to run four different shell programs just so Windows 95 would recognize the fact that he had a hard disk!

Pre-installation Doesn't Help. Having Windows 95 pre-installed on your system doesn't seem to help. Adding more memory doesn't either. Another friend bought a brand-new computer -- a Pentium 133 with a gig hard drive and sixteen megabytes of RAM. He expected Windows 95 -- which, by box specs, is supposed to operate on a 386 with 4 MB RAM -- to have worked beautifully. Did it? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Of course not. It crashes more often than a cymbal in a marching band! What of those 16 MB of RAM? Windows 95 takes most of them with it. Enjoy!

I Can Survive...? I could live with(out) Windows 95 by simply avoiding it like the plague. (That sure sounds familiar...) And so, I erroneously believed, the only contact I would have with Microsoft would be through Windows 3.1 as I used Netscape. You see, after coming to college I discovered what the "internet" really was -- and so Netscape became a manditory element in my electronic repetoire. Reluctantly, I would load Windows 3.1 for the sole purpose of using my "network information tools."

World Wide Wonders. I travelled everywhere with Netscape. It became the one and only browser for everything from html to newsgroups. That old rusty program called Mosaic was abysmal, and lynx was... well... a text-only browser. Only Netscape was really up-to-date with graphics manipulation in html code. At first I though Netscape, as popular and successful as it was, must be owned by Microsoft. But no! Finally, some niche in the computing world that Microsoft didn't dominate!

WAIT! It Gets Better.... Then I heard the unspeakable. Microsoft had released its own internet browser -- the "Microsoft Internet Explorer." Timed oh-so-coincidentally with Netscape's release of the Netscape Navigator 2.0. And Microsoft -- not to be outdone by its competition -- even introduced a couple of new html elements (background sound and scrolling text marquees).

Humph. Naturally, there was (and still is) no real competition. Netscape has been and will continue to be the leader in web-browser technology. I only wish Microsoft would step back and realize this. But, of course, Microsoft is too damn greedy to let any electronic market niche go unmolested by its presence.

Ah, Finally... And so we reach the definitive reason behind my hatred of Microsoft: greed. Instead of allowing other companies to grow and develop in markets unmolested, Microsoft seems to feel an intense need to go around sticking its fingers in places they don't belong. Netscape has a dominating market share in internet browsers; Microsoft doesn't belong there. One of my friends told me of a case in which Microsoft bought out a thriving software firm and gutted it simply to gain control over some kind of font-development technology.

Conclusion. Microsoft is, IMHO, a scummy corporation of greed. I used to defend Microsoft's position whenever it was sued under the antitrust laws. I would argue that in some cases a monopoly was required to maintain standards. But Microsoft seems to want its monopoly to extend to all of computing, not just operating systems and word processors. Now, instead of defending Microsoft, I tend to attack it. Instead of arguing that their monopoly is a necessary evil, I just say:

LET THE BASTARDS HANG


Questions? Comments? Email me.



M S E D G R T   2 A 2 A E - D I -   D F L   E S Q   D F H   E T C
-=*aLL NeW CooL iS aLWaYS THe RuLe aT [http://www-scf.usc.edu/~ellars]*=- 

13 APRIL 1996