[geeks] Subject: Re: Microsoft Surface...

[Phil Stracchino]

Doug McLaren wrote:
> Microsoft has done some pretty remarkable things over the years.  And
> so has Apple.  And both have done some pretty underwhelming things
> over the years as well.

I still say Apple's "one button mouse, single global menu-bar" metaphor
is complete and absolute crap.  I don't give a damn what their
"usability experts" say.  Their usability experts apparently don't use
computers the same way I do.  One size does not fit all.

> As for Microsoft deliberately making their products aren't compatible
> with competitor's products, that's really only true for a small subset
> of their rather large product lines -- and I'm not even sure it's
> really been *proven* rather than just theorized anyways.

There are cases which are rather damning.  Like, for instance, MS
Frontpage producing invalid HTML, which MSIE "just happened" to render
in the way that Frontpage intended (though not in a manner compliant
with the HTML spec).  There's also been several times that Microsoft has
made changes in Office file formats which had no apparent purpose other
than to break other office suites' successfully reverse-engineered
import filters.  And then there's the Microsoft products which would
check to see if you were running DR-DOS, and if so, refuse to start
because DR-DOS was "incompatible" ...  yet if you hacked the MS
executable to bypass the OS check, it would run *perfectly*.

> For example, this Microsoft optical mouse I'm using rocks.  And it was
> only like $15.  Which products did they go out of their way to make it
> not work with?  Not sure -- the same model certainly works fine on my
> Mac.

Microsoft doesn't have the option of imposing a physically or
electrically different USB connector.  </devil's-advocate>

-- 
 It's not the years, it's the mileage.
 Phil Stracchino              phil.stracchino at speakeasy.net
 Renaissance Man, Unix generalist, Perl hacker, Free Stater
 Landline: 603-429-0220                Mobile: 603-320-5438