Larry Page: Microsoft has a history of doing bad stuff. | Hacker News Reader

Larry Page: Microsoft has a history of doing bad stuff.

usatoday.com

8 pointsideas1017 comments

Microsoft has a long history of evil. I think most of us can agree on that. Google doesn't have any history to speak of. Google went from a search company with no money to an ad-farmer with billions almost overnight.

Companies, especially public ones, go for the bottom line. Which means making a profit.

Google makes money from advertising. Not web-based office apps, navigation or moon-charts. What we really have to wonder about is 'what is Google planning?'.

My guess is that Google has a two-fold strategy. One is pushing open standards - because that is the environment they thrive in. Hence the summers of code, etc. Two is going after infrastructure in the last-mile. Google is a third-party in most transactions and they are vulnerable to factors like regulation and telcos blackmailing them for access (or traffic prioritization).

Google is making a profit and is flush with cash right now, but sooner or later they will have to make more money than they do now or watch the stock price go down.

And preventing that will mean being less nice. Or slightly evil. Slippery slope and all that..

Google will be just as evil....give them another 5-10 years

Fair point, particularly since Microsoft didn't start out evil -- it was in fact Apple that tried to sue Microsoft into oblivion before Windows took over the computing world... back when Apple was a $4 billion-dollar behemoth and MS was an upstart.

We shouldn't forget how Microsoft obtained the monopolistic power that it later abused...

I agree about the separation of power... but holding someone's past against them isn't fair (and a company is technically a person)

"holding someone's past against them isn't fair"

Huh? Are you in some kind of time warp or something?

No other entity in the tech world has done more to stifle innovation and hold others back in the past 30 years than Microsoft.

Their tactics are well known by those who bother to keep abreast of such things. They have consistently violated every known concept of fair and legal business practice. They have built and protected what should be an illegal monopoly with loss leading pricing, backroom deals, blackmail, cheating, stealing IP, and hostage taking in the enterprise.

Since they can't compete with quality products, they have always responded to competitive threats with armies of lawyers and lobbyists to change laws, change verdicts, or simply overwhelm others with mountains of legal briefs in order to "wait them out".

Not fair?

Anyone competing against Microsoft without being aware of their past is an either a pollyanna or an idiot. Either way, they'll lose.

preach it, brother.

after watching microsoft bully their way through the tech world for years, i'd finally had enough around 1998 or so. my first stop was beos, where i stayed for a couple of years, until be went out of business. i've been a mac user since then.

I agree with edw159. A past is the only thing one can hold against someone else. A damaged reputation is one of the prices for being evil. Grudges have a basis.

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