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Praill
May 25th, 2007, 04:47 PM
Seriously. I've just spent all day reading about the DRM/TC zealot tearing through the United States, even at the parlimentary level, threatening to heavily govern and ruin the digital age.

I remember back in the day (pre NT kernel) when MS were the good guys. Windows 9x was very open, customizable, top of the line, and just a good experience.

Then XP came out which took away ALOT of the users power and even disabled simple (and fundamental) operations like customizing your desktop unless you paid for a "plus" package.

Now, Vista has just lost its mind and gone completely over the edge.

The worst part is DRM/TC on the parlimentary level stands to make it ILLEGAL to run FLOSS software (ubuntu).
This stuff blows my mind.

mips
May 25th, 2007, 05:40 PM
The evil stems from greed. The objective of any company is to make a profit. Shareholders demand return on investment. In order to maximise profit they argue that they have to protect their product/content.

To 'protect' their product they turn to DRM and the likes. This also leads to vendor lock in so they stop you moving to another product/player etc.

I actually think DRM is counter productive and you are shooting yourself in the foot. Instead of using DRM and alienating legit customers they could do away with DRM and drop their prices. Make things more affordable and sell more due to reduced pricing.

dca
May 25th, 2007, 05:49 PM
Windows itself is problematic. The only semi-decent OS they released was 2000 (on an enterprise level). In a way their outrageous price for the OS is somewhat justified. Do you know how much moneys go out from every Vista/XP purchase to pay for licensing? Licensing on MP3 compatibility, DVD codecs (for the new Vista, 'cuz we all the know old ones didn't support it w/o Cyberlink), possible patent cross-licensing on other people(s) goodies being embedded in Media Player and other apps... Oh, and not to mention the ridiculous amounts (billions and billions and billions) paid on R&D when the only result of that was???

Lucifiel
May 25th, 2007, 05:54 PM
MS was good in the 90s??! O_o;;

Well, I'd say that they had already been practising unsavoury behaviour right from the beginning of the founding of Microsoft. It takes years for a scandal to build up and leak, so what's happening now are the consequences.

mips
May 25th, 2007, 05:56 PM
Windows itself is problematic. The only semi-decent OS they released was 2000 (on an enterprise level). In a way their outrageous price for the OS is somewhat justified. Do you know how much moneys go out from every Vista/XP purchase to pay for licensing? Licensing on MP3 compatibility, DVD codecs (for the new Vista, 'cuz we all the know old ones didn't support it w/o Cyberlink), possible patent cross-licensing on other people(s) goodies being embedded in Media Player and other apps... Oh, and not to mention the ridiculous amounts (billions and billions and billions) paid on R&D when the only result of that was???

Thats another very valid reason. If only they adopted completely open standards (as in the source is also open) then it would be a win win for the consumer & MS. But MS is also to blame as they are more than happy to develop new standards and patent them just to license to other parties again. Wicket cycle if you ask me and I don't believe companies are striving for interoperability.

DoctorMO
May 25th, 2007, 06:02 PM
A lack of moral principles. people seem to willing to give up their souls for greed; I won't be havin' with any of that.

FuturePilot
May 25th, 2007, 06:56 PM
Money:twisted:

starcraft.man
May 25th, 2007, 07:05 PM
All of the above reasons seem right to me. I think in MS's case and a lot of others, once they reach a certain size/state and become as large as MS a few things naturally occur. Firstly, MS is so big thats its become disorganized and compartmentalized (one branch doesn't talk to other) and I imagine difficult to control. I suppose the biggest thing that happens is MS believes that it is so big and powerful that it no longer needs to innovate and enable its users, rather it can bully them into submission and sell them any product they like.

Some people just aren't technical and don't realize that Vista is a downgrade from XP(what with its limitations and failings). I don't see this being resolved any time soon though, its systemic of the entire system. Companies like Enron and MS aren't the corporate exception, their the ideal of the system, they just got caught or in MS case, exposed and still alive. The epitome of capitalism if you will, they certainly don't represent the best solution for people in general, rather those at the top.

Companies haven't just been evil lately, they've always been that way.

muguwmp67
May 25th, 2007, 07:26 PM
I think this is an issue of investing and pleasing stockholders. In the 90's people started speculating in large numbers instead of buying stocks and holding them.. Because of this companies are under an incredible amount of pressure to increase their earnings projections each quarter, and meet those earnings. I've worked for smaller publicly traded companies, and each quarter they go crazy trying to increase their reportable earnings.

Today a company is penalized if they say they are going to earn .15 a share and end up reporting .12. So they shift revenue (legally or illegally) to prevent this, and make up the difference. What does this do? Simple, it starts them .03 in the hole for the next quarter, causing them to go through the same shenanigans each quarter, until eventually the whole house of cards falls down, if they stop growing.

This pressure forces companies to make short term decisions to increase revenues (and in Enron and Computer Associates, the illegal appearance of revenue) I think that most companies would be much more responsible if they were allowed to manage themselves without consideration of short-term fluctuations in stock prices. Its not good for organizations involved, and definitely not good for our country/economy.

Microsoft is not immune to this pressure either. 50 years ago, a company with the reserves microsoft has would give a large portion of their earnings back as dividends. Investors don't like dividends because of the taxes attached to them, and want the stock price to increase instead. With their market saturation, microsoft cannot grow by leaps and bounds anymore, so they resort to less consumer friendly strategies (i.e Evil) to increase their hold.

Adamant1988
May 25th, 2007, 07:29 PM
Seriously. I've just spent all day reading about the DRM/TC zealot tearing through the United States, even at the parlimentary level, threatening to heavily govern and ruin the digital age.

I remember back in the day (pre NT kernel) when MS were the good guys. Windows 9x was very open, customizable, top of the line, and just a good experience.

Then XP came out which took away ALOT of the users power and even disabled simple (and fundamental) operations like customizing your desktop unless you paid for a "plus" package.

Now, Vista has just lost its mind and gone completely over the edge.

The worst part is DRM/TC on the parlimentary level stands to make it ILLEGAL to run FLOSS software (ubuntu).
This stuff blows my mind.

Why do big companies turn evil? Well, not all of them do, but it's a matter of perspective. Microsoft doesn't think it's doing anything wrong by continuing to protect itself, in fact quite the opposite. Microsoft might argue that they're creating thousands on thousands of jobs (which, in reality, they are) and that what bodes hell for them bodes hell for those people who have built their jobs and services on the back of Microsoft.

As for DRM, I'm not sure what companies stances on it are. The basic idea behind it is, information can be duplicated, but that's not what companies want. See, a lot of these companies were created back when Music was a physical product and wasn't easy to copy, and that's what these companies want to treat music as today, but they can't. It's the same thing as Software.

The pricing structure of these companies is based on supply/demand. The problem with ANYTHING digital is that the supply is completely infinite. A single copy of an .mp3 leaking, a movie being recorded, etc. can be spread to EVERY SINGLE PERSON on the planet with access to the internet. Obviously if the supply is infinite then the price will drop dramatically, to the point that it's free, this is what DRM and other digital restrictions on software and music were designed to prevent.

Again, these companies are trying to protect themselves and see no wrong in it. These companies need to be looking for other ways to make their software profitable, and their music profitable that play nicely with the digital age.

For software:
There are options out there, and we'll see those being utilized. For companies that continue to wish to treat their software like a physical product.. they'll actually start installing it on physical media that it can't be separated from. We might see entire operating systems running from flash drives, perhaps just applications like Microsoft Office will be available on a flash drive and run from it, on any computer, anywhere. It'll be interesting to see what happens here.

For music, and movies, I think they'll focus more on merchandising. For music, band merchandise and shows will be the way to go.. GIVE the music away and these things will sell more. For movies.. Rentals will still be good business, but again, I think merchandising and showings of movies will be what really makes the difference.


I think this is an issue of investing and pleasing stockholders. In the 90's people started speculating in large numbers instead of buying stocks and holding them.. Because of this companies are under an incredible amount of pressure to increase their earnings projections each quarter, and meet those earnings. I've worked for smaller publicly traded companies, and each quarter they go crazy trying to increase their reportable earnings.

Today a company is penalized if they say they are going to earn .15 a share and end up reporting .12. So they shift revenue (legally or illegally) to prevent this, and make up the difference. What does this do? Simple, it starts them .03 in the hole for the next quarter, causing them to go through the same shenanigans each quarter, until eventually the whole house of cards falls down, if they stop growing.

This pressure forces companies to make short term decisions to increase revenues (and in Enron and Computer Associates, the illegal appearance of revenue) I think that most companies would be much more responsible if they were allowed to manage themselves without consideration of short-term fluctuations in stock prices. Its not good for organizations involved, and definitely not good for our country/economy.

Microsoft is not immune to this pressure either. 50 years ago, a company with the reserves microsoft has would give a large portion of their earnings back as dividends. Investors don't like dividends because of the taxes attached to them, and want the stock price to increase instead. With their market saturation, microsoft cannot grow by leaps and bounds anymore, so they resort to less consumer friendly strategies (i.e Evil) to increase their hold.

This is also true. When companies become about pleasing investors more than doing what they set out to do, bad things happen. Nothing you said here was wrong and I agree completely that this is part of it.

juxtaposed
May 25th, 2007, 07:40 PM
It's capitalism.

Everything is for money. They make an OS, they design it around maximizing profit.

You can get a product that tries to be the best product out there in a corporate setting, but when the corporation gets too big, it's practically iimpossible.

Adamant1988
May 25th, 2007, 07:43 PM
It's capitalism.

Everything is for money. They make an OS, they design it around maximizing profit.

You can get a product that tries to be the best product out there in a corporate setting, but when the corporation gets too big, it's practically iimpossible.

Well, no, that really depends. See, what Microsoft did was incredibly stupid because they, well, sold out to investors. I find that companies that give their stock to employees first, capitalistic asses second, are typically good companies. When you give your employees the stock first, typically the people with the real vision for the company remain in control, rather than the people with hungry wallets.

Capitalism is a good system, so long as people who are out to abuse it are not enabled to do so by companies.

JAPrufrock
May 26th, 2007, 01:03 AM
Companies that have monopolistic control over markets are harmful to societies. The more control they have, the worse they are, and the more harm they do. MS is one of the most powerful monopolies in the world. Therefore, MS is _________________ (fill in the blank).

amphet
May 26th, 2007, 01:15 AM
in most cases money changes people

DoctorMO
May 26th, 2007, 01:25 AM
Capitalism is a good system, so long as people who are out to abuse it are not enabled to do so by companies.

Abusive capitalism is what we have come to regard as capitalism. real capitalism is an ideal that needs checks and balances. one of the first things I'd do if in charge would be to rule out anyone involved in the government from holding stock, investing, owning or otherwise being involved in a business other than that professionally involved in (i.e doctor)


in most cases money changes people

If only most people would wake up and realise that money isn't real. just like a 3D cube on 2D paper it's an allusion (some say delusion) of the society that only works if everyone believes in it. If you don't believe money is important it doesn't have that much value and your able to ask for more from others in order to do anything. which is why I don't believe people should have to pay to survive; it warps the ability of self control.

sonny
May 26th, 2007, 01:31 AM
It's the power... they are so hungry of power that they'll do anything to get more power.

Bloodfen Razormaw
May 26th, 2007, 02:37 AM
I remember back in the day (pre NT kernel) when MS were the good guys. Windows 9x was very open, customizable, top of the line, and just a good experience.

Then XP came out which took away ALOT of the users power and even disabled simple (and fundamental) operations like customizing your desktop unless you paid for a "plus" package.
Is this a troll or are you just drunk?


Why Do Big Companies Turn Evil?
Who says they always do? Microsoft is a single company, not "companies." One example does not make a trend. Take a look at Sun. It produces one hell of an awesome free software operating system, puts tons of work into free software projects, uses a standardized specification for its hardware (yes, there's even a free software SPARC project), does a great deal of work to reduce the environmental impact of server machines, puts a lot of investment into communities all over the world, provides patent protection to the free software community, and was rated by Ethisphere Magazine as the most ethical IT company. Not every company has to be especially evil. Plenty of them get by, just being normal, capitalist evil.

Tundro Walker
May 26th, 2007, 02:51 AM
Companies that start small are started by a person (or people) that want to provide a good service or product, and profit from it secondarily. The larger a company gets, the more MBA business type folks get involved, and the priorities shift to profit first, service/product second, sometimes going so far as to providing worse service/product just to reap more profit.

The boon to capitalism is that it lets people "vote" with their dollars, but the fatal flaw in it is that ultimately it pushes for greed. When companies that have lots of control get greedy (usually for more power or money), it can get nasty...


Rockefeller oil
Carnegie steel
Microsoft
DRM

samjh
May 26th, 2007, 03:00 AM
Companies tend to shift their focus from their consumers to their shareholders when ownership changes from private/family ownership to institutional share-holding.

At its roots, there is nothing really wrong with that. A business is both legally and morally obliged to return maximum profits to its owners/share holders.

The problem is when those profits are earned at the expense of consumers. Typically this is the case with "cash cows". Every large business will have a cash cow - a long-term product that has dominant market share. In Microsoft's product line, its cash cow is Windows. Once a product becomes a cash cow, investment in the product decreases while pressure to retain revenue increases, so improvements to the product tend to be badly judged or superficial. We see this with Vista.

When consumers get bad products, they turn elsewhere. Then the company's cash cow begins to lose revenue or return less income compared to the investment put in. Then they are forced to innovate again. The cycle continues until the market changes so that the cash cow is no longer worth keeping in the product line.

Dr. C
May 26th, 2007, 03:19 AM
Companies turn evil regardless of size when they have a monopoly in the marketplace. They no longer have to develop a better, cheaper product or service since they are no longer subject to the discipline of the marketplace.

Capitalism works best when there is strong competition in the marketplace, take competition away and it suffers from the same fate as the state monopolies of the former Soviet block.

By the way Carnegie Steel, Rockefeller Oil and Microsoft are perfect examples of monopolies in their day, so was IBM for most of the 20th century.

jimrz
May 26th, 2007, 03:25 AM
A lack of moral principles. people seem to willing to give up their souls for greed; I won't be havin' with any of that.

Certainly true, but there is more to it than that. Big corporations have no soul and, in today's "you're only as good as your last set of (heavily doctored) numbers" neither are they capable of taking any approach based upon what will be best in the long term. This applies equally whether considering the outcome for the corporation itself or for the general well being. It is bad enough when this is happening in the software industry, but far worse in many other sectors where the same applies and the results are potentially far more disasterous. Further, at least in this country, this same mentality has infected and basically taken away our political system.