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What's Wrong with Microsoft

What's wrong with Microsoft? Here are some of the many complaints detailed in short:

• Microsoft charges computer sellers for copies of Windows that were never sold. Microsoft charges computer sellers for Windows by the number of PCs sold. Thus, even if the buyer requests an operating system other than Windows, the seller still has to pay Microsoft for a copy of Windows, even if Windows is never sold to the customer.

• Microsoft bundled what should have been MSDOS 7 and Windows 4 together and called it Windows 95. This claim forces MSDOS clones out of the market by fooling people into believing that a DOS clone can't be used with Windows 95.

• Microsoft routinely announces new products and projects false (early) release dates to make customers wait for Microsoft products yet to be released. This vaporware methodology goes back even to the creation of MS-DOS: at the time that Bill Gates promised MS-DOS to IBM for the IBM PC, it did not exist in any form whatsoever. Contrast this to Digital Research's CP/M, which not only existed but had a long history in the computer world.

• Microsoft creates code in their operating systems to cause false and misleading errors when running with clones such as DRDOS 7. This is done by looking for Microsoft identifiers in the code, and if they are not there, then a completely false, erroneous, and meaningless error message is displayed, giving the user the idea that the clone product is incompatible (when it is in fact compatible).

• Microsoft creates secret links between MSDOS and Windows and then protects them as trade secrets, forcing Windows clones and DOS clones to be incompatible. When Windows makes use of one of these secret calls to MSDOS, it works fine. The same call would fail under DRDOS; however, if it does not fail, then Microsoft sues on the basis of stealing of trade secrets. Therefore (from Microsoft's perspective), for Windows to function on a DOS clone, "trade secrets" must be compromised.

• Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer with Windows 98 for the purpose of shutting Netscape out of the market. When Internet Explorer comes pre-installed and operational with Windows 98, why switch? This flies in the face of free competition amongst all the players and violates antitrust laws.

• Microsoft violated their agreement with Sun by making their implementation of Java incompatible with the Java standard. Microsoft introduced incompatibilities in their implementation of Java (a language designed specifically to be independent of the machine it was running on) - incompatibilities which could potentially prevent certain Java programs from running under anything other than Windows.

• Microsoft products often contain many bugs at release time. Windows 1.0, MSDOS v4.00, and Word v6.0 come to mind. The last two had to be upgraded almost immediately due to the large number of bugs in them. In fact, because of the fiasco that was MSDOS v4.00, MSDOS v5.0 was described as the most widely tested software product in history. Perhaps Microsoft can improve.