Solution for Microsoft

[BrandonSk]

First of all i don't understand all of the US laws but I just came up with an idea for Microsoft's case.
WHY DON'T THEY MOVE THE COMPANY TO A DIFFERENT COUNTRY?
I think with the amount of money they make any other country would like to have them as a tax payers. Then in the US they could just keep on setting up new branches with "different" names to get around.

Well, what do you think?

PS: On the other hand I agree that what they've done wasn't fair. But the stronger wins and we could use some standards in this industry but with 100's of different companies it is hard to make standards.

[HarryW]

It's a shame that the prevailing standard is rarely the best product really, it's usually the one produced by the company with the most financial muscle and the best business tactics.

yeah, but the reason they are so powerful is providing good software that people keep on buying.

for example, Word, and WordPerfect are competitors, when comparing they come close, but I would rather buy word, its a little better IMO.

[Sophtware]

It's sad that my gov. used the US constituion like they did..
I mean thats the whole reason the gov. broke microsoft up in the first place..the money thing, when it was actually in place too stop big corporation from taking over our country.


Also in reply to Brandon hahaha companies have done that name trick already.... the telephone companies did it..
And am not sure if Standard Oil did it as well..
also the US railroads were broke apart.



It is true that the most known product isnt always the best product.



See ya.

[alex_read]

Denniswren,

a little better???!?!?! not putting too fine a point on it (as I curse MS each day when the os crashes), but you think the competitors are coming close with their operating systems?

Office has been the leader for years, even if MS split tommorow it would take others 3-4 years to come close to that level! Plus, the others don't let you edit & customize in vba.

Personally, I hope this blows over, if MS go down, will we see an IBM VB?

[dimava]

if microsoft brake up, then I think the window thing will invest alot of money, on making there operating system crash free, dont they ever use On Error Goto Error Messsage
also, if microsoft does brake up, they will share all there new technolies with each other, and it might be even worse for the market, becuase the windows section will be putting in more free micrsoft programs that the microsoft software company make, so the internet explrirer woun't be a problem, and stuff

[HarryW]

Well personally I prefer Corel WordPerfect for it's better drawing tools.

I know they produce all these products that work together, and that's really good, that's the benefit of standard products, like AutoCAD, and 3D Studio, they are all industry standards, so their file types are supported by other software. If other companies had the money MS has, they could make all this software too, and I believe they could make a better product for less money.

How much do you pay for an office product? Take that figure and subtract the cost of support you reckon the average customer would need. Then subtract the fraction of development costs that you are paying for, and bulk packaging and distribution costs. I bet you've still got at least 50% of what you paid left. This is the profit margin. It's huge.

I don't use WordPerfect, I use Word. This is because I know I can take a Word file just about anywhere and I can read it on someone's computer. That is the benefit of standard products, but I'd rather it was WordPerfect.

[BrandonSk]

Well, I think that all of us have quite same opinion. You like other products but at the end you stick with Microsoft. Let me give you another comparison. There is a company in Czeck republic called Software602 and they have a office package (they give it for free) but that's not the point. They have a package you have to pay for and it costs 7500 Slovak crowns which is about 170 dollars. BUT, in that package you've got a complete solution for a small or medium business starting with network sharing and office programs, shared internet and ranging to things like own e-mail server, www server, on-line shop, firewall etc. I don't know but stuff like that from MS would be over 1000 dollars. Guess what. I still have an MS Office installed for pretty much the same reasons others mentioned above. I know people who got the other software because it is MS Office compatible (rather I should write "compatible").
Anyway lets get back to the philosofical level. We all agree that the standards are good. What I am concered about is that in the speed the technology is being developped the world could get destroy not because of the war but because the whole thing we rely on breaks down (I know, saying Windows would save sounds funny). So at this stage it would perhaps be good to have somebody backing the whole thing up even at the cost of hiding the source code and the know-how. Anyway, I still think that Microsoft will be only strengten and it will be the users ending up to pay more because of twice as many people you would have to support at two different companies.