Bart Eppenauer, Microsoft’s chief patent guy, in an interview with The Verge: “We believe our patent laws have served the country very well.” Loosely translated, this reads: “This system that gives me my six-figure income and is a fine anti-competitive tool for my company have served me and my company well, the damage to the industry be damned.”
Please, tell us how you really feel.
Don’t buy their products = they go bankrupt = problem solved
I don’t speak Idealistisch. I only speak Cynic.
Like.
How EXACTLY is this idealistic? Remember Vista? Remember how they sank nearly a billion bucks trying to sell it and it bombed HARD?
You CAN affect a large corp like MSFT, if we geeks get together and say “It sucks!” then all those around us don’t buy, and that is that. Look at the figures MSFT was “bragging” about with Win 8, they spent 2 BILLION in ads and sold 4 MILLION in licenses, that is $500 for every $40 sale…yeah, great job MSFT, way to wash the stink of Vista down the drain!
So YES Mr Holwerda we CAN make a large corp like MSFT take notice. No we won’t get anybody to switch to Linux, because lets face it there is serious issues with that OS that the devs won’t fix, but we can at least force a company like MSFT to change course, because no customers equals no money.
As I understand it, Vista sold better than XP, in a given timescale. It didn’t bomb in terms of sales, just critically. Of course the PC market was much bigger then when XP was launched, and when you’re an effective monopoly, it’s easy to sell stuff regardless of whether it’s any good or not.
It would be great if geeks could affect how everyday customers make their computer buying decisions, but we can’t. It’s mostly fashion driven now, and even if you could dissuade a user from getting Windows 8 or whatever, what is he going to get instead? GNU/Linux/GNOME may be fun for you, but it’s not much fun for the average user. The Mac is an excellent alternative, but not everyone wants one, or wants to pay what it costs.
The Microsoft monopoly, like it or not, worked. It got rid of any viable competition. If you want people to consider alternatives, those alternatives need to exist, and for the typical user, they barely do. Only the Mac can really get the average user, but that relies on them wanting one, and wanting to pay for one.
Not even KDE then? The interface isn’t drastically different for users than Windows.
KDE is more fashionable and appealing than Windows. Also, most users aren’t driven by fashion contrary to your idea, but by network effects and market penetration. I.e. they use what’s preinstalled without second thought – and that’s Windows in the vast majority of cases.
Edited 2012-11-08 18:29 UTC
The Microsoft monopoly did not work, it only worked for the monopolist. All the crippled desktop computers back in the 1990s and early 2000s, how did that help the average consumer? There are millions of people who are sick and tired of Microsoft windows, and they want an alternative, but every retail store sells only windows, why is that?
Microsoft’s power is a combination of the network effect and the unjust copyright system. It’s the copyright laws that make Microsoft a monopoly. Microsoft’s main revenue is the licensing deals they have with their oem partners. Without copyright law backing them up they wouldn’t be able to sell windows as a license, nor wouldn’t they be able to prevent anyone from forking their software (windows and office).
Simply put there is too much copyright, and computers and copyright/patents are incompatible. When you put a copyright on software it creates monopolies like Microsoft. It creates the mess that we are in today.
Who gets hurt the most by the Microsoft monopoly? The average consumer, they don’t see choices like you see in other industries (automobiles and televisions for example), they don’t see any other alternatives, all they see is crippled desktops with windows pre-installed.
Edited 2012-11-09 09:29 UTC
Sorry friend but the numbers? they be lies, LIES I tell you! Yoy see what they did, to keep Ballmer from looking like a loser, was count EVERY SALE as a Vista sale, even when they were loaded with XP from the factory. They did this by saying it was just “using the downgrade option” instead of what it actually was, people going out of their way NOT to buy it.
And don’t underestimate the power of us geeks. Who fixes the machines? Who tells them what works and what don’t? the geeks, that’s who. hell i had the nurse at my checkup the other day going “You’re the tech guy, right? Listen I need a new laptop and my girls are wanting tech for Xmas and I need some advice” and I of course warned her away from Win 8 and told her where to get a nice Win 7 laptop.
As for Linux…sigh, until Torvalds accepts reality, which is a couple of dozen devs just can’t provide any kind of quality control on tens of thousands of drivers with Linus and friends constantly futzing with the internals Linux is simply not fit for purpose on the desktop. Joe and Sally Average will NOT do forum hunts, mess with CLI fixes, or put up with drivers breaking every time they have to do the upgrade tango, it just won’t be tolerated. like it or not you can take an XP or Vista RTM, install all the drivers, and those drivers will STILL WORK no matter how many patches and service packs are applied. tying the drivers to the kernel was stupid back in the day and its insanity now, there is no way the devs can keep up, the math simply doesn’t work.
As if it were that easy.
It seriously is that easy.
So I take it you’ve researched all the websites you visit and made sure they didn’t run Windows servers? You’ve never played an Xbox game?
Play PC games. Boycott Xbox.
Uhuh, and what operating system will you be playing PC games on?
* I love people and their Whack-a-Mole problem solving skills. The older guys in my office use the term “bubble in the carpet”. It is a feature of any oversimplistic solution.
Linux
And so you buy games from Valve/Steam.
A company that must make games for Windows because it would be stupid to limit themselves to just one market while another big one is there to be exploited.
Nope, actually I don’t use Steam because of their DRM approach. I prefer GOG if anything, because they have strong DRM free stance. Many Windows games run just fine on Linux these days with Wine. And more native Linux games come out. Gaming situation on Linux is much better than before.
Edited 2012-11-08 05:28 UTC
You’re still supporting companies that end up buying Microsoft things to test on, and thus completely eliminating any effect of your attempted boycott.
If you’re buying a Windows game and running it on Wine, all the game company is going to see is that their Windows game is getting sales, leading to more investment in Microsoft products.
The moles you are whacking are creating bubbles in the carpet.
You can build any kind of indirection back to Microsoft. That’s not your responsibility. Direct support however is a personal choice which has no justification for those who criticize Microsoft, but buy their Windows, Xbox & Co.
Edited 2012-11-08 05:46 UTC
It’s not your responsibility, but the claim was that the transition between boycott and collapse was “that easy”.
It’s not easy. Boycotts don’t work any more. Most large tech companies are so intertwined with one another that boycotting does not work.
The only thing that seems to actually work is if boards of directors hire drop-in CEOs and they rip the guts out of a company in order to boost share price.
The world is not only Valve. Many not-too-demanding windows games can be played happily on Linux.
Even some very demanding, if they aren’t DX 11 or something.
It is easy to reduce the footprint of Microsoft and Apple products in your life at the very least. You may not be able to remove them completely but I have switched to Linux and Android and don’t feel the need for MS or Apple Products for most for what I do. I use Windows occasionally at work. Thats it
How do you avoid buying products that are created by companies that licenses Microsoft (or Apple or Samsung or etc) “IP”?
What is he smoking? Or he has megalomania since he equates Microsoft with the country?
Oh, and of course this classic always comes to mind when I see this kind of talk:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/microsoft-patents-ones-zeroes,599/
Edited 2012-11-07 22:39 UTC
…right now if you have an invention that’s filed at the USPTO and in five or six or ten different offices around the world the same examination is being done over and over again. That work needs to be shared, and steps are being taken in that direction.
No thanks, save it for your own country.
Really, you believe that? How can anyone even remotely believe that software patents have done anything to help, the only thing they do is prevent innovation and create another revenue stream for lazy companies that actually filed for a patent for things that are so obvious.
Of course it has helped! The billions US companies get in uneaned income from licensing BS is about all that is keeping the country afloat.
The so called “Free Trade Agreements” the US has forced on a lot of countries around the world is all about blocking commerce unless some US company gets a cut.
Patents and such are not going away any time ever. The US economy would sink like the Titanic and for the same reasons.
Economy only benefits from more open market and more competition. Monopolists don’t benefit as much as they want to though. Equating monopolistic benefits with the whole economy is completely false.
If anything, US economy and technological advancement will only benefit from serious patent law overhaul (in the right direction).
See https://defendinnovation.org
Edited 2012-11-08 05:31 UTC
…Is this news item remotely interesting at all…? he’s disqualified from the outset….
Seriously, Thom, if you want to portrait the wrongdoings of the american (and global) patent system, stop RANTING FGS! I see more and more of these news items, news that are ONLY published because you use it to get a load of your chest!
IF you want true constructive criticism, please at least let the guy speak, hes been in the system for many years! He MIGHT put a different spin on whatever reasons there might be to keep the current system.
Grow up! i read less and less from osnews these days, because it gets boring and rather tedious to be confronted by the very same attitude your actually trying to confront (..I think), and about 1/3 of all news items contains these dragged-in-from-obscure-parts-of-it-scene-because-im-pissed-off-items.
Mind you, i’m not trying to slack you off!
In good faith,
MadGabZ
Edited 2012-11-08 08:34 UTC
It appears that for every Lord Macbeth (Steve Ballmer) there is conniving Lady Macbeth (Bart Eppenauer) working behind the scenes telling Lord Macbeth that it’ll help them but in reality they’re lining their own pocket.
Patents serve them well. In the same way a crutch serves someone with a broken leg.