
#REDIRECT Microsoft
#REDIRECT Microsoft
''' Microsoft Corporation, headquartered in Redmond, Washington, Washington, United States, was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Microsoft is the world's largest software company with over 50,000 employees in various countries as of May 2004. Microsoft develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for various computing devices. Its most popular products are the Microsoft Windows operating system and Microsoft Office families of products, each of which has achieved near ubiquity in the desktop computer market. The company's aggressive business practices led to several governmental investigations, including a 1998 United States v. Microsoft that found Microsoft to have illegally used its monopoly to defeat its competitors. Through appeals and negotiated settlements, Microsoft mitigated the adverse effects of this ruling on its operations and financial status. Microsoft's mission statement is "to enable people and businesses to realize their full potential." ==History== ''Main article: History of Microsoft Windows'' "Micro-soft" was a software company founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell BASIC programming language interpreter (computer software)s for the Altair 8800, which was manufactured by their former Albuquerque-based employer Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems. The name "Micro-soft" (short for microcomputer software) was used by Gates in a letter to Allen for the first time on November 29, 1975. "Microsoft", without a hyphen, became a registered trademark on November 26, 1976. Microsoft's second product was its Fortran compiler for CP/M, released in August 1977. The third was the MS COBOL compiler (for CP/M), released in April 1978. ===MS-DOS=== Microsoft's key moment came when International Business Machines was planning to enter the personal computer market with its IBM Personal Computer (PC), which was released on August 12, 1981. IBM first approached Microsoft about its BASIC and asked them for an operating system. Since Microsoft did not have an OS, they suggested CP/M from Digital Research. IBM then approached Digital Research for a version of CP/M and spoke to Gary Kildall's wife Dorothy. IBM representatives wanted Dorothy to sign their standard non-disclosure agreement, which Dorothy considered overly burdensome. IBM then returned to talk to Microsoft. Microsoft licensed a cloned design of CP/M called QDOS, from Tim Paterson's Seattle Computer Products in order to sell it to IBM as the standard operating system for the IBM PC. Microsoft subsequently purchased all rights to QDOS for $50,000, and renamed it MS-DOS (for Microsoft Disk Operating System). Later, IBM discovered that Gates' operating system could have infringement problems with CP/M, contacted Kildall, and in exchange for a promise not to sue, made an agreement that CP/M would be sold along with IBMDOS when the IBM PC was released. The price set by IBM for CP/M was $250 and for MSDOS/PCDOS it was $40. MSDOS/PCDOS outsold CP/M many times over, eventually becoming the standard. In contracting with IBM, however, Microsoft had retained the rights to license the software to other computer vendors as MS-DOS. The early 1980s saw a flood of IBM PC clones, and Microsoft was quick to use its position to dominate the operating system market. By marketing MS-DOS aggressively to manufacturers of IBM-PC clones, Microsoft gained unprecedented visibility in the microcomputer industry, even rivaling IBM. ===Going public=== In February 1986 Microsoft relocated to Redmond, Washington. One month later the company went public raising $61 million at $21.00 per share (by the end of the trading day the price had risen to $28). ===OS/2 to Windows=== In the late 1980s, Microsoft and IBM partnered in the development of a more advanced operating system, OS/2. The operating system was marketed in connection with a new hardware design, the PS/2, that was proprietary and secret to IBM. In 1989 Microsoft announced at Comdex that the 1991 release of Windows 3.0 would be the last version of Windows. Over the next few years Microsoft continued to issue statements of direction that developers outside Microsoft interpreted to mean that OS/2 was the platform of the future, and Windows merely a temporary stopgap that would be limited to low-end systems. On May 16 1991 Bill Gates announced to Microsoft employees that the OS/2 partnership was over and Microsoft would henceforth focus its platform efforts on Windows and the Windows NT kernel. In the ensuing years OS/2 fell to the side and Windows became the favored PC platform. This switch in direction was unexpected. Developers that had ignored Windows and committed most of their resources to OS/2, believing they were following Microsoft's direction, were taken by surprise. Some felt that Microsoft had engaged in deliberate misdirection, and the move was frequently referred to within the industry as "the head-fake." During the transition from MS-DOS to Windows, Microsoft gained ground on application software competitors such as WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3. In some cases, early versions of Microsoft software were inferior to their competition, but later versions improved and eventually overwhelmed their competitors. The best example of this is probably that of WordPerfect, which in the early 1990s appeared to have an unassailable dominance over the PC word processor market but eventually found itself in a distant second place. Microsoft, now highly profitable, diversified into a wide variety of software products including: *The Microsoft Windows series of operating systems *Compilers and interpreters for programming languages *Word processors, spreadsheets and other software in the office suite === Corporate logo === In 1987, Microsoft adopted their current logo, the so-called "Pacman Logo" designed by Scott Baker. According to the March 1987 ''Computer Reseller News Magazine'', "The new logo, in Helvetica italic typeface, has a slash between the "o" and "s" to emphasize the "soft" part of the name and convey motion and speed." Employees ran a campaign to save the old logo, which was green, in all uppercase, and featured a fanciful letter O nicknamed the ''blibbet'', but it was nevertheless discarded. ==Products and organization== Microsoft sells a wide range of software products. Many of these products were developed internally, such as Microsoft Basic. Some products were acquired and rebranding by Microsoft for distribution, including Microsoft Project, a project management package; Visio, a charting package; DoubleSpace; Virtual PC, acquired from Connectix; and MS-DOS itself, the basis for the company's success. Many of these have seen continued development by Microsoft. In April 2002, Microsoft reorganized into seven core business units, each with its own financial reporting to delegate responsibility and more closely track the performance of each unit. [http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/articles/business.asp] These business units are: *''Windows Client'' (managing the Windows client, server, and embedded operating systems) *''Information Worker'' (managing the office software products) *''Microsoft Business Solutions'' (managing the business services and process applications) *''Server and Tools'' (managing developer tools and integrated server software) *''Mobile and Embedded Devices'' (managing palmtop and phone devices) *''MSN'' (managing web-based services) *''Home and Entertainment'' (managing consumer hardware and software, gaming and Xbox division) There also is a Macintosh Business Unit which makes Microsoft the largest developer of Apple Macintosh software outside of Apple Computer itself. ===Windows Client group=== Microsoft's flagship product is the Windows operating system. It has been produced in many versions including Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Almost all IBM PC compatible personal computers are sold with Windows pre-installed. ''(See History of Microsoft Windows.)'' Microsoft integrated the Internet Explorer web browser and the Outlook Express email client into Windows. The act of integrating Internet Explorer with Windows helped to defeat Netscape Communications Corporation's rival product Netscape Communicator, and formed the central point of the United States v. Microsoft case brought by the United States government in 1998. ===Information Worker group=== Microsoft Office is the company's line of office software. It includes Microsoft Word (a word processor), Microsoft Access (a personal relational database application), Microsoft Excel (a spreadsheet program), Microsoft Outlook (Windows-only collaborative software, frequently used with the Microsoft Exchange Server server), Microsoft PowerPoint (presentation software) and Microsoft FrontPage, a WYSIWYG HTML editor. With the release of Office 2003, a number of other products were brought under the Office banner, including Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Project, Microsoft MapPoint, Microsoft InfoPath, Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft OneNote. Microsoft also produces Microsoft Office for Apple Macintosh computers, which includes the Mac-only Microsoft Entourage instead of Outlook. As with many common and popular software products third-party developers have created applications that allow the Microsoft Office Suite of applications to be run on previously unsupported operating systems. Such operating systems include Linux, and Sun Microsystems' Solaris Operating Environment. Like Windows, Office has grown to dominant share in many markets. ===Microsoft Business Solutions group=== The Business Solutions Group was created in April 2001 with the acquisitions of Great Plains (Microsoft). Subsequently, Navision was acquired to provide a similar entry into the European market. (The acquisition resulted in the planned release during the week of 18 October 2004 of Microsoft Navision.) The Business Solutions group focuses on developing financial and business management software for companies. ===Server and Tools group=== Microsoft Visual Studio is the company's set of programming tools and compilers. It is GUI oriented and links easily with the Windows APIs, but must be specially configured if used with non-Microsoft libraries. The current version is Visual Studio .NET 2003. Microsoft also offers a suite of server software, called Windows Server System. Windows Server 2003, an operating system for network servers, is the core of the Windows Server System line. Systems Management Server is a collections of tools that provide remote control, patch management, software distribution, and hardware/software inventory. The Microsoft .NET initiative is an important marketing initiative by Microsoft, covering a number of different technologies. Microsoft's definition of .NET continues to emerge over time. As of 2004, .NET encompasses: *Easing the development of Microsoft Windows-based applications that use the Internet, through use of a new Microsoft communications system called Indigo; *Correcting some problems previously introduced by Microsoft's DLL design, which made it difficult to manage and install multiple versions of complex software packages on the same system (see DLL-hell); *Providing a more consistent development platform for all Windows applications (see Common Language Infrastructure, also known as CLI) It was previously believed that .NET would also include a login and authentication system that could be shared among different websites and .NET programs. This functionality was previously codenamed "Microsoft Hailstorm" and is related to the Microsoft Passport service. ===Mobile and Embedded Devices group=== Microsoft has attempted to expand the powerful Windows brand into many other markets, with products such as Windows CE for Personal Digital Assistants and its "Windows powered" Smartphone products. Microsoft initially entered the Mobile market through Windows CE for handheld devices which today has developed into Windows Mobile 2003. Microsoft works with companies such as HP, Motorola and Dell in providing the operating system for these devices and reference designs. Microsoft recently moved the embedded group and the mobile group under one team. The embedded group focus is on devices where the OS may not directly be visible to the end-user, e.g. appliances and cars. The company also bought WebTV (subsequently renamed MSN TV), a television-based internet appliance. Mobile Devices group is the only Microsoft group losing money. Due to vast profits in other groups, Microsoft can continue to sell Windows CE with unprofitable prices to gain market share from smaller embedded OS vendors like PalmSource,Symbian,QNX,Wind River Systems. ===MSN group=== In the mid-1990s, Microsoft began to expand its product line into the computer network computer world. It launched its online service MSN (Microsoft Network) on August 24, 1995 as a direct competitor to AOL. MSN became an umbrella service for all of Microsoft's online services. In 1996, Microsoft and NBC, an United States broadcasting network, created MSNBC, a combined 24-hour news television channel and online news service. Microsoft owned the online magazine [http://www.slate.com Slate] until December 21, 2004, when it was then acquired by ''The Washington Post''. At the end of 1997, Microsoft acquired Hotmail, the first and most popular webmail service. It was rebranded MSN Hotmail and was used as a platform to boost Microsoft Passport, a universal login service. .NET Messenger Service, an instant messaging client, was introduced in 1999 to compete with the popular AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). ===Home and Entertainment group=== Microsoft sells computer games that run on Windows PCs, including titles such as Age of Empires and the Microsoft Flight Simulator series. They also produce a line of reference works, which include encyclopedias and atlas (cartography)es, under the name Microsoft Encarta. Microsoft Zone hosts free-, premium- and retail games where players can compete against each other and in tourneys. Microsoft entered the multi-billion dollar game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo in late 2001, with the release of the Xbox. Currently the console ranks second only to Sony's PlayStation 2 in market share in the United States. Microsoft develops and publishes its own video games for this gaming console, and in addition, "third party" Xbox video game publishers such as Electronic Arts and Activision can pay a license fee to publish games for the system. The Xbox is widely regarded as one of the most powerful game consoles currently available. Microsoft intends to release a successor to the Xbox, the Xbox 360, which they plan on integrating with Windows Longhorn and Windows Media Center to make it an entertainment hub, rather than just a videogame console. Microsoft also sold a set-top Digital Video Recorder (DVR) called the UltimateTV which allowed users to record up to 35 hours of television programming from direct to home satellite television provider DirecTV. UltimateTV has since been discontinued, with DirecTV instead opting to market DVRs from TiVo Inc. ===Other offerings=== The product which allowed Microsoft to generate its enormous wealth was the MS-DOS operating system. All versions of Windows prior to Windows NT (for business systems) and Windows XP (for business and home systems) were based on an MS-DOS foundation. Microsoft Bob, a program manager add-on for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, was short-lived and widely ridiculed in the press. In the early 1980s, in cooperation with a large number of companies, Microsoft created a home computer system named MSX. It became fairly popular in Japan and Europe, but the IBM PC became increasingly dominant through the late 1980s and the early 1990s, bringing an end to the MSX and many other systems like it. Microsoft has launched the Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (formerly known as the Palladium operating system, also known as Trusted Computing) as its solution to computer insecurity. Opponents have characterized it as another exercise in entrenching and extending Microsoft's dominance, effectively allowing the company to control all uses of PC technology. In particular, they have accused Microsoft of using it as a way to combat the emergence of free software#Free Speech definition. Microsoft has established a set of certification programs to recognize individuals who have expertise in their products and solutions. Similar to offerings from Cisco, Sun, IBM and Oracle, these tests are designed to identify a minimal set of proficiency in a specific role, which can include developers ("Microsoft Certified Solution Developer" MCSD), system/network analysts ("Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer" MCSE), trainers ("Microsoft Certified Trainers" MCT) and administrators ("Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator" MCSA). Microsoft also produces a number of computing related hardware products including computer mouse, Computer keyboards, joysticks, and, until mid-2003, gamepads and other game controllers. On February 19 2003, Microsoft purchased the virtual machine solutions of privately held Connectix, a leading provider of virtualization software for Windows- and Macintosh-based computing. Microsoft purchased the following products and technologies: Virtual PC for Windows (now called Microsoft Virtual PC), Virtual PC for Mac and Virtual Server. Microsoft also brought on board key members and developers from the Connectix team to continue development of these products. Microsoft have continued development of all three of these virtual machine solutions from Connectix and have since released updated versions of Virtual PC for both the Windows and the Mac platforms. [http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc] ==Business culture== ===The software developer=== Microsoft has often been described as having a developer-centric business culture. A great deal of time and money is spent each year on recruiting young university-trained software developers who meet very exacting criteria, and on keeping them in the company. For example, while many software companies often place an entry level software developer in a cubicle desk within a large office space filled with other cubicles, Microsoft assigns a private or semi-private closed office to every developer or pair of developers. In addition, key decisionmakers at every level are either developers or former developers. In a sense, the software developers at Microsoft are considered the "stars" of the company in the same way that sales staff at IBM are considered the "stars" of their company. This culture is reflected in their hiring process -- the "Microsoft Interview" is notorious for off-the-wall questions such as "Why is a manhole cover round?" and is a process often mimicked in other organizations. Note that, although they were once ubiquitous, recently fewer interviewers have been using this type of question. ==="Eating our own dog food"=== Within Microsoft the expression eat one's own dog food is used to describe the policy of using Microsoft products inside the company. It is most often applied to pre-release and beta versions of software. ===Long-term wariness=== Microsoft fosters a general attitude of long term strategic wariness in its managers, who are expected to be ready for any challenge from the competition or the market. In this frame of mind, being the largest software company in the world is not seen as a form of safety or a guarantee of future success; for instance, future competitors could rise from other industries, or computer hardware companies could try to become less dependent on Microsoft, or consumers could decide not to upgrade their software as often. Microsoft requires its managers to maintain vigilance and sustain a dynamic expansion in new markets. Microsoft takes security as a very serious issue. If it did not secure its software and hardware secrets successfully (such as the source code to software) then it could stand to lose its market position. The Microsoft Security System is therefore very complex. ==Diversity== Microsoft was named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers in 2004 by ''Working Mothers'' magazine. They have a mandatory training program to encourage tolerance of diversity. ==Monopoly and legal issues== In the 1990s, Microsoft adopted exclusionary licensing under which PC manufacturers were required to pay for an MS-DOS license even when the system shipped with an alternative operating system. It also used allegedly predatory tactics to price its competitors out of the market, and competitors claimed that Microsoft erected technical barriers to make it appear that competing products did not work on its operating system [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/longterm/microsoft/stories/1993/launch082193.htm]. An investigation by the United States Department of Justice on August 21, 1993 resulted in an opinion stating that this behavior was illegal; in a consent decree issued on July 15, 1994, Microsoft agreed to a deal in which, among other things, it would not "tie" other Microsoft products into its operating system. After bundling the Internet Explorer web browser into its Windows operating system in the late 1990s and acquiring a dominant share in the web browser market, an United States v. Microsoft was brought against Microsoft. In a controversial ruling by judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, the company was convicted for violating its earlier consent decree and abusing its monopoly in the desktop operating systems market. The "findings of fact" during the antitrust case established that Microsoft has a monopoly in the PC desktop operating systems market: :III.34. ''Viewed together, three main facts indicate that Microsoft enjoys monopoly power. First, Microsoft's share of the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems is extremely large and stable. Second, Microsoft's dominant market share is protected by a high barrier to entry. Third, and largely as a result of that barrier, Microsoft's customers lack a commercially viable alternative to Windows.'' [http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm] The findings of fact goes on to explain the nature of the "barrier to entry": ''The fact that there is a multitude of people using Windows makes the product more attractive to consumers. The large installed base ... impels ISVs (independent software vendors) to write applications first and foremost to Windows, thereby ensuring a large body of applications from which consumers can choose. The large body of applications thus reinforces demand for Windows, augmenting Microsoft's dominant position and thereby perpetuating ISV incentives to write applications principally for Windows. ... The small or non-existent market share of an aspiring competitor makes it prohibitively expensive for the aspirant to develop its PC operating system into an acceptable substitute for Windows.'' (III.39–40) The proposed remedy (dividing Microsoft into two companies) was overturned on appeal, and Microsoft has since reached a settlement with the Department of Justice and some of the states which brought suit against it. Meanwhile, several class-action lawsuits filed after the conviction are still pending. In early 2002, Microsoft proposed to settle the private lawsuits by donating $1 billion USD in money, software, services, and training, including Windows licenses and refurbished PCs, to about 12,500 underprivileged public schools. This was seen by some as a potential windfall for Microsoft, not only in educating schoolchildren on Microsoft solutions but also in collecting additional license fees if the schools ever wanted to upgrade. After protests from Apple Computer, which feared further loss of its educational market share, a federal judge rejected the proposed settlement. [http://news.com.com/2100-1001-808241.html] In 2003–2004, the European Commission investigated the bundling of media player software into Windows, a practice which rivals complained was destroying the market for their own products. Negotiations between Microsoft and the Commission broke down in March 2004, and the company was subsequently handed down a record fine of €497 million ($613 million) for its breaches of EU competition law. The ruling is subject to appeal in the European courts. Separate investigations into alleged abuses of the server market were also ongoing at the same time. On December 22, 2004, the European Court decided that the measures imposed on Microsoft by the European Commission would not be delayed, as was requested by Microsoft while waiting for the appeal. Microsoft will thus have to pay the €497 million fine, ship versions of Windows without Windows Media Player, and license many of the protocols used in Microsoft's products to developers in countries within the European Economic Area. In March 2004, during a consumer class-action lawsuit in Minnesota, internal documents subpoenaed from Microsoft revealed that the company had violated nondisclosure agreements seven years earlier in obtaining business plans from Go Corporation, using them to develop and announce a competing product named PenWindows, and convincing Intel to reduce its investment in Go. After Go was purchased by AT&T and Go's tablet-based computing efforts were shelved, PenWindows development was dropped [http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0324-02.htm] [http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/25/0429224&tid=109]. In May 2004, a class-action lawsuit accused Microsoft of overcharging customers in the state of California. The company settled the case for $1.1 billion USD. A California court ordered Microsoft to pay an additional $258 million USD in legal fees (including over $3,000 per hour for the lead attorney in the case, more than $2,000 per hour for colleagues, and in excess of $1,000 per hour for administrative work). A Microsoft attorney responded, "Somebody ends up paying for this. These large fee awards get passed on to consumers." [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3715375.stm]. The total bill for legal fees was later reduced to just over $112 million USD. [http://itmatters.com.ph/news/news_09202004d.html] Because of the structure of the settlement, the law firm which sued Microsoft may end up getting more money from the company than California consumers and schools, the beneficiaries of the settlement. In July 2004, Japan's Fair Trade Commission warned Microsoft to remove a provision from its licensing contracts whereby PC makers would not be allowed to file patent infringement suits if future versions of Windows add features similar to their own technology. Microsoft plans to appeal the warning. Microsoft has fought legal battles against: *Apple Computer, which accused Microsoft of stealing QuickTime code and using it in Windows Media Player. *Be Incorporated, which accused Microsoft of exclusionary and anticompetitive behavior intended to drive Be out of the market. [http://www.beincorporated.com/press/pressreleases/02-02-19_msft_complaint.html] Be even offered to license its BeOS operating system for free to any PC vendors who would ship it pre-installed, but the vendors declined due to fears of pricing retaliation from Microsoft: by raising the price of Microsoft Windows for one particular PC vendor, Microsoft could price that vendor's PCs out of the market. *Burst.com, which claims that Microsoft stole Burst's patented technology for delivering high speed streaming sound and video content on the internet. Also at issue in the case is a 35 week period of missing emails in the evidence Microsoft handed over to Burst which was discovered by Burst.com's lawyers. Burst accuses Microsoft of crafting a 30 day email deletion policy specifically to cover up illegal activity. [http://www.burst.com/new/newsevents/chairltr112004.htm] [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/24/allchin_destroy_email_claim/] *SCO Group, which accused Microsoft of having modified Windows 3.1 so that it would not run on DR DOS 6 although there was no technical reason for it not to work. [http://www.maxframe.com/DR/Info/fullstory/factrel.html] The encrypted code that Microsoft added to five otherwise unrelated Microsoft programs in order to prevent the functioning of DR DOS can be found here [http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=1030/ddj9309d/9309d.htm], in pseudocode and assembler. The article describes error messages given to users of a pre-release beta version of Windows 3.1. According to the article, the version of Windows 3.1 sold to the public was able to run under DR DOS. *Netscape Communications Corporation *Opera (web browser), which accused Microsoft of intentionally making its MSN service incompatible with the Opera browser on several occasions. *Sendo, which accused Microsoft of terminating their partnership so it could steal Sendo's technology to use in Windows Smartphone 2002. [http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=6905] *Spyglass, which licensed its browser to Microsoft in return for a percentage of each sale; Microsoft turned the browser into Internet Explorer and bundled it with Windows; Spyglass sued for deception. *Stac Electronics, which accused Microsoft of stealing its data compression code and using it in MS-DOS 6. [http://www.base.com/software-patents/articles/stac.html] *Sun Microsystems, which held Microsoft in violation of contract for including a modified version of Java in Microsoft Windows; Microsoft responded by abandoning Java. *WordPerfect On October 1, 2004, at an appearance at the Computer History Museum in northern California, Bill Gates was asked about a possible threat from Linux and was quoted as replying: ''"Microsoft has had competitors in the past. It's a good thing we have museums to document this stuff."'' [http://forbes.com/philanthropy/2004/10/04/cz_ec_1004gates.html] In 2004, Microsoft began to file applications for patents related to XML Parsing and Word Processing with various patent offices worldwide http://xml.coverpages.org/ni2004-01-27-a.html. These patents create legal barriers for competing desktop word-processing applications, such as OpenOffice.org, to access Microsoft Word data stored in the XML format. ==Linux and open source== In recent years Linux has become an increasingly popular server operating system, particularly for the low-margin, price-sensitive hosting market, and it has begun to make inroads to the desktop market. Wal-Mart now sells several cheap consumer PCs running various different Linux distributions, including Xandros, Linare and Linspire (formerly known as Lindows, renamed after a trademark challenge from Microsoft), which are all versions of Linux made to look and work like Microsoft Windows. Recently, several governmental users have announced the conversion of their desktop computers from Windows to Linux, including the countries of Brazil and Venezuela, the city of Munich, Germany; and France's Ministry of Equipment and Transport. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has stated that Linux is a "tough competitive force... It's non-traditional, it's free software#Free Speech definition and it's cheap. We have to educate people why what they pay for [our offerings] is more than offset by the value we deliver. We used to be the cheap guys. We were cheaper than Novell, cheaper than Oracle. We can't do that with this one." (Reported in CRN.com, June 17, 2002) Microsoft has been using various channels on the web and in popular media to fight the open source movement, usually with the help of think-tank organizations funded by Microsoft. One of their main claims is that the GNU General Public License license (the copyright license that Linux and much open-source software is released under) is a viral license that threatens intellectual property. They also argue that open source software is less secure, more expensive, and more attractive to terrorists than proprietary software. Supporters of open source assert that Microsoft's tactics amount to a campaign of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt). [http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107_2-1007997.html]. Microsoft has also facilitated a legal attack on Linux companies by licensing Unix from The SCO Group [http://www.opensource.org/halloween/halloween10.html]. SCO, which is currently SCO-Linux controversies, claims that IBM devalued the SCO operating system by taking SCO proprietary code and releasing it as part of Linux. Some have argued that Microsoft purchased these licenses not with intent of using them, but rather to subsidize the lawsuits and thereby weaken their primary x86 operating system competition. In November 2004, Ballmer stated that Linux violates more than 228 software patents and that "someday, for all countries that are entering the World Trade Organization, somebody will come and look for money owing to the rights for that intellectual property. ... We think our software is far more secure than open-source software. It is more secure because we stand behind it, we fixed it, because we built it. Nobody ever knows who built open-source software." [http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=582&e=2&u=/nm/20041118/wr_nm/asia_tech_microsoft_dc] He provided no details on which patents have been violated, nor did he mention the patent lawsuits currently facing Microsoft. [http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1661094,00.asp] Microsoft later issued a statement saying that Ballmer was citing a study written by a risk-management company. The author of the study responded by saying that his study found 283 potential patent violations in Linux, but that such allegations are a long way from a court finding merit in them, and that proprietary software is at equal or greater legal risk. [http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1729908,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594] Microsoft has begun to take measures to limit the use of its products under the open-source Wine (software) emulator on Linux: *After Wine was updated to support Visual FoxPro, thereby providing an inexpensive platform from which to run database applications, Microsoft claimed that it is a violation of the Visual FoxPro software license to use Visual FoxPro run-time applications on any platform other than a genuine Microsoft Windows installation. [http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6869] *Microsoft has implemented a "Windows Genuine Advantage" program which validates a user's operating system before allowing him to download any patches for Microsoft software. WGA blocks Wine users from being able to obtain patches for Microsoft Office. [http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39188944,00.htm] Microsoft has announced that WGA's block of Wine is specific and intentional; this marks the first time Microsoft has publicly mentioned Wine. [http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39189180,00.htm] Meanwhile, Microsoft has placed three projects under an open source license: the [http://sourceforge.net/projects/wix Windows Installer XML (WiX) toolset], the [http://sourceforge.net/projects/wtl/ Windows Template Library (WTL)] and FlexWiki. ==Controversy== ''Main article: Common criticisms of Microsoft'' Microsoft has been the focus of much controversy in the computer industry, especially since the 1980s. Among the more frequently criticized areas are: *Ease of use: Microsoft has been accused of allowing the user interface of its products to become inconsistent and overly complicated, requiring interactive "Wizard (software)s" to function as an extra layer between the user and the interface. This violates the anti-modality principles of early user interface design (the principle that the user should be forced to do one particular thing as little as possible). *Security: Microsoft products (such as Internet Explorer) are seen as overly vulnerable to computer viruses and malicious attacks, both for the simple reason of monoculture, and because of design decisions which often value ease of use over security. *Business practices: Microsoft is believed to engage in unfair and anticompetitive business tactics. The findings-of-fact from a federal antitrust case have affirmed this, and Microsoft has lost other lawsuits in which competitors accused it of stealing code, making Microsoft operating systems incompatible with their products or using predatory pricing and licensing tactics. *Total cost of ownership (TCO): Microsoft software is seen by some as more expensive to purchase, use and maintain than competitors' software. *Restrictive EULA on certain software development products that prevents users from releasing their code under the GNU GPL *Usage of Digital Rights Management ==Microsoft's future== The next version of Windows in development is codenamed Windows Longhorn, which is an extension of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Planned features include better user interaction with devices (such as media players) and an enhanced user interface called "Aero"[http://msdn.microsoft.com/longhorn/understanding/ux/]. Longhorn was planned to ship during 2003, but has since slipped to 2006. Microsoft may attempt to parlay its current success in desktop operating systems into new markets such as media players, server software, handheld devices, in-dash car devices, Web services, video games and search engines. Microsoft is attempting to establish PCs running Windows XP Media Center Edition as home entertainment hubs, and is considering moving towards a licensing subscription model. Microsoft's current revenue model depends on users buying upgrades on a periodic basis; however, this is proving increasingly difficult due to many users continuing usage of outdated-yet-"good-enough" packages of Microsoft's software. With a subscription basis, users would pay an annual fee for use of Microsoft's software. Recent managerial comments from Microsoft suggest that Microsoft is attempting to move up-market by positioning its products as "high value" rather than "low cost". Steve Ballmer said in 2002, "We are actually having to learn how to say, 'We may have a high price on this one, but look at the additional value and how that value actually leads to a lower cost of ownership despite the fact that our price may be higher.'" (Reported in ''VARbusiness'', July 15, 2002). Amid concerns from investors that Microsoft will not be capable of sustaining its historical growth rates, Microsoft announced in July 2004 its intention to implement a $30 billion stock repurchase plan over the next 4 years. Microsoft also paid a special one-time dividend in December 2004 that returned $32 billion to Microsoft stockholders, the largest payout by any company in history. Jean-François Susbielle 2005 novel, ''La morsure du dragon'', describes how the United States might respond if China banned Microsoft. ==See also== *History of Microsoft Windows *List of assets owned by Microsoft Corporation *List of companies acquired by Microsoft Corporation *Microsoft tax *MSDN *SCO v. IBM ==External links== *[http://www.microsoft.com/ Official website] *[http://www.msn.com/ MSN (Microsoft Network)] *[http://encarta.msn.com/ Encarta online site] '''Microsoft's Redmond campus maps''' *[http://www.microsoft.com/careers/mslife/locations/images/campus_map.jpg Main Campus] *[http://www.microsoft.com/careers/mslife/locations/images/west_campus.jpg West Campus] *[http://www.microsoft.com/careers/mslife/locations/images/north_campus.jpg North Campus] ===Articles=== *[http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v21n2/friedman.html March/April 1999 - ''The Business Community's Suicidal Impulse'' by Milton Friedman] (includes criticism of the antitrust case against Microsoft) *[http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24068 Free Market Predators vs. Well-meaning Reformers] *[http://xml.coverpages.org/ni2004-01-27-a.html Microsoft Files for Patents Related to XML Parsing and Word Processing] *[http://microsoft.toddverbeek.com/ "Just Say No to Microsoft"] ===Data=== *[http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/14/14120.html Yahoo! - Microsoft Corporation Company Profile] ===Audio=== *[http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9803/03/gates.full/ Microsoft CEO before the US Congress] ===Video=== *[http://story.news.yahoo.com/fc?tmpl=fc&cid=34&lp=3&ll=b3&pg=1&mod=video&in=tech&cat=microsoft_antitrust Yahoo! News - Full Coverage - Microsoft Antitrust] Microsoft Fortune 500 companies bs:Microsoft hi:माईक्रोसॉफ्ट simple:Microsoft th:ไมโครซอฟท์ zh-min-nan:Microsoft
''Prior text can be seen at Talk:Microsoft/History_as_of_2004_Jan_31'' ---- These pages seem extremely biased... here some suggestions - Monopoly/Legal issues/Linux Open Source etc. should really all be merged with controversy - as they all are pretty much controversy. Not only that but they should really be moved to seperate pages... On the Legal Issues side, I'd really like to see a lot more on why the Thomas Penfield Jackson suit was reversed.... it barely dwells on the idea by stating that they proposed a settlement with the justice department (WHAT settlement?). Maybe Linux etc. should be mentioned more from a historical perspective like they are on the AppleComputer page and not in a headline... User:RN : What are you refering to about Apple Computer ? There doesn't seem to be a single occurence of the word "linux" in this article... User:Rama 07:32, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC) :: Why Linux is mentioned at all in a Microsoft article boggles the mind, save that crap for the Linux page or a separate article --User:Bryan986 00:36, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) ---- Shouldn't there be a link to Common criticisms of Microsoft in the "See Also" section? :No, because it's already linked from ''Controversy'', above. - User:Brian Kendig 21:57, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC) ---- Could someone explain to me how on earth the statement "Microsoft has been using FUD..." is supposed to be NPOV? :Because it is demonstrably true that Microsoft has been using FUD to fight the open source movement. As the article states, Microsoft has asserted that the GPL threatens intellectual property, and that open source software is less secure, more expensive, and more attractive to terrorists than proprietary software is. Microsoft itself uses the term in the Halloween documents. The marketing tactics are not so much to advertise Microsoft as they are to drive people away from open source software. What part of this do you disagree with? - User:Brian Kendig 18:57, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC) ::I disagree with no part of it whatsoever, but whether I agree with a statement or not is not the point when it comes to whether it is appropriate for an entry in an encyclopaedia. I just had a look at the FUD entry and it seems to me to be clearly perjorative - see this part especially: "By spreading questionable information about the drawbacks of less well-known products, an established company can discourage decision-makers from choosing those products over its wares, regardless of the relative technical merits." It follows that by claiming Microsoft is using it we are casting them in a negative light and therefore we need to state clearly who believes that. As the authors of the entry we are not allowed to hold that position ourselves, regardless of how demonstrably true or not we might believe it to be. Much as the entry about Adolf Hitler isn't allowed to say "Hitler was an evil man". Instead we say what Hitler did and let the facts speak for themselves. :::I agree that FUD is an inherently POV term. What constitutes FUD is subjective, so it can't be "demonstrably true" whether or not Microsoft has used it. I also believe that they've used FUD, but that's just my belief. You can't prove that someone is using "fear, uncertainty and doubt" - three very subjective emotions - to further an argument. I think the phrase should say "Microsoft's critics accuse..." or something like that, with a citation. User:Rhobite 21:29, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC) ::::"Microsoft has been using various channels on the Internet and in popular media [citation?] to fight the open source movement, claiming (with the help of think-tank organizations funded by Microsoft) that the GPL is a "viral license" which threatens intellectual property and that open source software is less secure, more expensive, and more attractive to terrorists than proprietary software is. However, critics say [citation goes here] that Microsoft's claims are merely FUD." Clearly an imperfect edit which is why I'm loath to make any changes to the article as is without more discussion, but that proposal conveys the gist of an entry I would not object to. :::::Wikipedia:Be bold! Although it appears so at times, the philosophy here isn't "all talk and no action." I think that edit is good, go for it. But don't be surprised when someone else makes it even better. User:Rhobite 22:17, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC) *I don't have any dog in this particular fight but if that's what FUD means (I'd never heard of it before) then I would say that it most ''certainly'' is NPOV -- how could anyone possibly deny that it isn't? I suppose that it could be qualified, as usual, in the article by writing: "Some people (or Many observers) believe that Microsoft has been using FUD etc....) In any case, I think that "FUD" is a slangy term that should ''not'' be used in this context. User:Hayford Peirce 19:18, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC) ::The term "FUD" has been in use for thirty years now; I'd say it's well-established and safe to use, especially in a technological context. And I don't think qualifying it is necessary here - it describes a specific kind of marketing tactic which is unarguably in use by the company in question; cushioning it would be like saying "Some people believe that Bill Clinton was impeached..." - User:Brian Kendig 20:20, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC) :::I don't agree. Impeachment is a procedural matter, while fear, uncertainty and doubt are emotions. User:Rhobite 21:29, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC) :::Impeachment is also a strictly ''factual'' matter -- one can go back through the archives of the New York Times, for instance, and find articles and photographs of the ongoing process in the Congress. "Fear, doubt, and uncertainy" are ''subjective'' terms for the most part. Fear obviously exists as an emotion, but one man's fear is another man's non-fear, or scorn, or laughter, or disdain. I don't think an encyl. article should use such a subjective term, nor do I think it should use such a techie, slangie, term. FUD may have existed for 30 years in narrow confirms of certain tech circles, but it is ''certainly'' not in general use. Ask yourself, for instance, if your 70-year-old grannie with a degree in English from Radcliffe who has written travel articles for the Nat. Geo. would know what the hell you were talking about if she clicked on the Microsoft article. I sincerely doubt it.... User:Hayford Peirce 22:30, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC) I still disagree. I believe that FUD is a proven and not uncommon marketing tactic (it refers not to the emotions themselves, but to the attempt to trigger these emotions), and I believe that it can easily be shown that Microsoft has created advertisements (and funded advertising and studies) which state or imply that Bad Things will happen to people who use open source software. However, I'm willing to go along with the majority opinion here. All I ask is that instead of saying ''"Microsoft claims that open source software is less secure, more expensive, and more attractive to terrorists; however, critics say that Microsoft's claims are merely FUD"'' that instead you say something like ''"... more attractive to terrorists; this kind of misinformation is known as FUD."'' If you want a better background on the history of Microsoft and FUD, do a Google search on it; it returns almost 95,000 hits (and another 30,000 in Google Groups). [http://www.google.com/search?q=microsoft+fud&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8] - User:Brian Kendig 03:12, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC) :Now you suggest the article describe Microsoft's claims as "misinformation" - this is even more of a blatant opinion than calling it "FUD" without qualifiers is. With due respect Brian, you're obviously letting your personal opinion on this issue badly cloud your understanding of the principles of NPOV. ::I apologize if it seems I'm letting any personal opinion bias this - in my perspective, I'm trying to make sure the article calls a spade a spade, and doesn't wander into POV by declining to call something what it is. Microsoft has been ''notorious'' over the past two decades for its use of FUD, and trying to trivialize this in the article would be misrepresenting reality. Specific to open source: when a Microsoft-funded thinktank claims that the spread of open source software will make it easier for terrorists to hack into US computer networks [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/06/04/open_source_invites_terrorism_study/], or that using any GPL'ed code in a classified government software project would require the government to publish the entire source code of its project [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/06/10/msfunded_think_tank_propagates_opensource/], I honestly don't see how this could be called anything other than misinformation. Is this not FUD? - User:Brian Kendig 05:10, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC) : In my opinion this is NPOV because Microsoft decribe their campaign as "spreading FUD" in their own documents (which Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer have personally confirmed to be accurate). IMO `FUD' is not slangy; but the alternative word, `terrorism', could be used (although unfortunately it has started to gain connotations with killing--as opposed to just FUD--in recent years). :-User:Joeblakesley [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Joeblakesley (c)]user_talk:joeblakesley 20:06, 2005 Jan 15 (UTC) Following the advice of user User:Rhobite above I have made my suggested edit. As a cite for the FUD claim I've provided a link to what I think is a good rebuttal of Microsoft anti-Linux FUD from Bruce Perens. I'm not sure that this is the ''ideal'' link for the purpose however, so would be interested to see if someone else has a better one that could be put there instead. ---- I would have expected this edit of the article ''131.107.3.85 (Talk) (Removed misleading comments about mismatched dlls and lack of memory protection)'' to have been accompanied here by an explanation of why the comments are considered ''misleading''. I do not think they were and the anonymous culling of them is annoying. I think they could have been improved - but cut? No. User:Psb777 23:08, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC) :Well, I'm certainly not ''surprised'' that there was no commentary here - remember that an anonymous edit is 99% surely a new user, who wouldn't know "better". As for whether the text should have been removed, let's start discussing - for posterity, here are the removed paragraphs: ::Microsoft software makes heavy use of software re-use. Whereas this provides some advantages it also leads to complex interdependencies between software packages. Installing one package can break another where they use incompatible versions of the same DLL, for example. ''Similar problems exist in other operating systems also e.g. Linux.'' ::Microsoft operating systems do not protect the data memory or even the program memory of one process from being overwritten by another process. This can mean, for example, that crashing the Microsoft web browser can also crash the operating system GUI. ::: Evidently, the person who wrote that parent comment has no idea what they are on about. User:Ta bu shi da yu :The first is completely redundant, since it is true of just about every (reasonably large) Operating System under the sun, whether made by Microsoft or not; I completely agree with its deletion. The second may have ''some'' merit, I suppose, if it could be reworded to be more technically correct - ''which'' Microsoft OSes have this problem? ''To what extent'' is this different from other OSes? For that matter, to what extent is it ''true''? - User:IMSoP 23:42, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC) ::I came here to comment on the same subject. I put a note at Talk:131.107.3.85. I think the DLL issue should be mentioned, perhaps something along the lines of "Like other operating systems, Microsoft Windows supports software re-use. Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs) are sometimes replaced, which can result in compatibility issues. Recent versions of Microsoft Windows support methods for avoiding these problems". However, I think this would be more appropriate for the Microsoft Windows article. ::As for protecting the memory, they do. The specific problem with Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer is that they share the same code, so crashing one often crashes the other. ::User:Scott McNay 03:59, 2004 Feb 17 (UTC) Sharing the same code does not cause two processes to interfere on other operating systems. On Linux a serious memory management kernel bug would be required to have that effect. The reason the failure of one process can affect another on (certain versions of?) Windows is because of (a) a lack of inter-process memory protection and (b) a lack of protection of the "text segment" (i.e. the code in memory) from being overwritten by a process. I think also these comments should be removed to Microsoft Windows - I should have done that rather than try to improve the incorrect statements I replaced. All we need here is a mention of certain weaknesses and strengths in Windows and to provide a link. User:Psb777 07:46, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC) :Agree that technical strengths and weaknesses of Windows a) should be discussed, b) in the article about Windows rather than Microsoft. I do feel that "DLL hell" (a phrase which, in typical Microsoft fashion, Microsoft itself has begun to use in its marketing--in order to praise their own resolution of a self-inflicted and avoidable problem), ''even if'' similar problems exist in other OSes (Apple classic OS extension conflicts, anyone?). "DLL hell" was a salient feature of the Microsoft Windows user experience during the 1990s and deserves a short, suitably NPOV discussion. :Microsoft software has a characteristic "flavor" to it, even if the flavor represents only a relatively small departure from general contemporary practice, and, to the extent this can be done while maintaining an NPOV, this should be discussed. Nobody would blink twice at a statement that Mahler tends to write long symphonies that include choral segments. Nobody would waste time saying "Well, everyone else does too, that's just normal for modern symphonies, look at Beethoven." "Yeah, but Beethoven's symphonies aren't THAT long. Even the Ninth fits on a single CD." "That's only because Sony designed the CD to fit the Ninth." "Bloat, that's what it is. These younger programmers think nothing of wasting score real estate. The old-timers like Haydn could write a fully functional symphony with less than a 15-minute runtime. Now it takes seven times as long to get the job done. All the advances in high-speed metronomes are being negated by utterly inefficient composers..." User:Dpbsmith 13:37, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC) ::The problem with this analogy is that you're likening the creation of an operating system to art. While to some extent I believe that engineering is an art, in this case the analogy is a little stretched. Most people would agree on what an operating system is, and what duties it should perform. That being the case, the number of possible engineering solutions is limited, and however it is tackled, the end result will be, by and large, a similar feature set, executed in a similar amount of space with similar performance. For example, most OS's of the Linux/Unix/BSD/Mac OS X type turn in similar performances on the same hardware, and offer similar features, while retaining their individual "flavours". If an OS turns up that is well outside these expected parameters, one has to ask whether that's simply because it was executed differently - in other words, a consequence of its artists' quirks, or whether in fact, the engineering is flawed. User:GRAHAMUK 22:31, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC) Just to clarify what I was saying about Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer, go open My Computer, and type a URL into the address bar. Or open IE and type "C:\" into the address bar. The point is that it's a single process with multiple threads; if one thread causes a problem for the main module, all the windows opened by the process are gone, whether they're Windows Explorer windows or Internet Explorer windows. (This seems to be dependent upon the settings in Windows Explorer). I agree that Windows discussions shouldn't be in Microsoft aricle, except for business issues. User:Scott McNay 03:44, 2004 Feb 18 (UTC) You've properly identified another reason I was ignoring why a screw up (to use a technical term) in one window affects other windows: They are being managed by different threads of the same process. There is no inter-thread memory protection and so one thread can overwrite the data of another. (This is a Linux problem with threads also.) Also the in-memory text segment shared by the threads can be corrupted by one thread because (some versions of?) MS Windows does not protect the text segment. (Linux does not have that problem.) "Threads are an abomination" is a worthy title for another article. File under "Religion". MS Windows is not good at starting new processes - it's very expensive - out of necessity threads are used. Linux/Unix rightly (righteously!) mostly uses different processes for different tasks rather than using threads. Amen. User:Psb777 06:36, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) ---- I don't get how Microsoft is better at backwards-compatibility than other software companies. Don't they intentionally break MSWord's file format to force people to upgrade? Apparently, even their webpage doesn't render properly in older versions of IE... User:Paullusmagnus 22:26, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC) ---- You are right, many purely software companies are better than MS at the task of some backwards compatibility. Yet MS is better at backwards compatibility than those combined hardware-OS producers which have come up with new hardware and OS systems which break totally or in an irregular fashion with their previous offerings. I come from a field (librarianship) where the biggest computer maker in the world has been cursed mightily by systems librarians over more than 30 years (this goes back to before the birth of MS and stretches on today) because of incompatibility over time, and other aggravations. Somebody has put in a date of 1986 as a break-off point. I am not sure of that but I will not contest it. The partial incompatibility aspect makes any discussion diffcult and gives a convoluted encyclopedia article. User:AlainV 04:14, 2004 Mar 4 (UTC) ---- Why is the February 2004 link not working? ---- "(Microsoft is about on par with other large technology companies for acquisitions)" Is this true? I wonder what exactly this means. If it's something like acquisitions/profit, then that's not much evidence that Microsoft innovates at all. It's such a vague statement that I have removed it. ---- I have the feeling that this article is not entirely un-biased :). Ofcourse there should be information about the 'bad' side of Microsoft - I simply loved the 'public perception' part, it was like reading a history book 100 years from now (unless M$ will get world domination :)). However, sometimes I think it is a bit overdone, even though I'm no particular Microsoft-lover myself. The 'the future' section for example starts out with putting up quite a case for open source software, and I do not think that is what this topic is about. It is difficult, I understand, to find a good balance between pro-Microsoft and anti-Microsoft, but I think it's balancing a bit towards the latter. Not nessecarily bad, on the other hand I'm not sure if that's good either. User:Grauw 16:56, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC) ---- That "Microsoft and SCO v. IBM" text I removed... If someone wants it back desperately, I think it's best to just put an external link to the story on the Halloween documents page. User:Grauw 00:58, 6 May 2004 (UTC) : I think the SCO thing could be mentioned in a sentence or two rather than completely eliminated, eh? User:Krupo 01:00, 6 May 2004 (UTC) :: I agree. The details of SCO's financing through Baystar/Microsoft is not a significant part of Microsoft's business history to warrant a separate heading. Perhaps a link under see also. User:Zsweden :::Should get a mention in a section. The para I put in on think tank funding should probably go in the same section - User:David Gerard 13:44, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC) :::Looks good to me Zsweden... Any reader would rather be interested in a global story about the Microsoft cases than an elaboration on one such specific case. After all, if you put one in, why not the others too. I guess that maybe I was a bit too rash (but hey, it's a Wiki :)), but this is good. If someone wants specific details, he/she can now look it up in its dedicated Wikipedia entry. User:Grauw 00:04, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC) ::::I am thinking about creating a "legal challenges" heading and including the monopoly/antitrust and an index to other lawsuits? I agree with previous comments that the legal aspects are an important part of Microsoft and could be very interesting if we could have an informed debate about some of Microsoft's practices and maybe relate these to specific cases. User:Zsweden 02:40, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC) I want to get some feedback on these ideas to improve the structure of the article before I make any edits: * Merging the security discussion and security problems area * Re-organizing the products part according to the 7 divisions of Microsoft. There is for example no mention of the Business Solutions part of Microsoft. * Re-writing the future of Microsoft based on the business plans of the company. See for example [http://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/sample/DOMIS/update/2003/09sep/0903sbpff.htm] * Moving the current future which focuses on Linux to "Major Competitors" User:Zsweden I have started making some edits to improve the structure of the page as noted above. User:Zsweden 19:20, 31 May 2004 (UTC) :Structure is good. How consistently have they kept things to the seven divisions? - User:David Gerard 13:44, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC) ::Not sure if this answers your question, but my impression is that since it is both a financial and an organizational structure that is imposed by the 7 divisions: ::* Each product needs to be clearly identified to a division at any given time. However, things move around from time to time to reflect the strategy of the company, for example the embedded group was just moved into the mobile group to bring the initiatives closer. ::* Also, part of MSFT strategy has always been to get groups to work closely (a.k.a integrated innovation) so there is co-operation both on marketing and development aspects. User:Zsweden 00:30, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC) Under "Eating our own dog food": ''Within Microsoft the expression "eating our own dog food" is used to describe the policy of using Microsoft products inside the company. It can be very difficult for management, support staff, and even software developers to get permission to use software from Microsoft competitors. This policy is explained by the desire to make sure Microsoft employees are familiar with Microsoft products. One of the effects of this policy is to push the development of products which software developers find useful for their immediate needs, regardless of the perceived needs of the general market.'' I'm removing "this policy is explained by the desire..." because I don't know what Microsoft's actual explanation of the policy is. And about the policy pushing development of products for the developers' immediate needs instead of the needs of the general market, does anyone know of any specific examples where this has happened? If not, then that sentence should also be removed. User:Brian Kendig 12:58, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC) == dead link == the microsith.com link is dead - I'll remove it but I'm leaving this comment here in case it was a temporary server 'outage' --User:Krupo 01:00, 6 May 2004 (UTC) In cases like that, commenting out the HTML with <!-- --> is useful - User:David Gerard 13:44, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC) =="Ease of use"== I dispute the section of the article which touts Microsoft's ease of use as a revolutionary concept or as one which continues to this day. Yes, I think the common interface, backwards compatibility, and interconnectedness helped Microsoft in its early years, but these days such things are common. In this day and age, Microsoft is being widely criticized for having a user interface which is inconsistent and overly complicated, requiring an additional layer of "wizards" to handle it. Countless books (such as "Windows for Dummies") and web sites (such as Annoyances.org) are dedicated to helping people make sense of Microsoft interface confusion. I think it's silly and POV to say that ''Microsoft's position ... can be completely traced to better serving the customer needs'' because it's well known that its position has MUCH to do with predatory practices and FUD. I also dispute the section which begins ''Critics claim that the apparent simplicity of the products...'' because I don't know anyone who's used Microsoft software for very long and would still say that it has "apparent simplicity." I think this section of the article is POV and needs some serious balancing. User:Brian Kendig 03:51, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC) Yes, the section reads more like a praise from an MS Web page, but I disagree about balancing. What it really needs is grounding. Just why is the MS Windows interface so easier and/or simple than the Amiga one or some of the implementations of Unix based ones like QNX Photon? And in what particular aspects. In a controversy filled article like this one all gneralisations should have some form of contact with real happenings on a screen. User:AlainV 09:32, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC) ==Break up the article== At 37KB, I think this article is way too long. What would y'all say to breaking it into "Microsoft" (focusing only on the company and its products) and "Microsoft controversy" (focusing on the legal battles and the public perception)? User:Brian Kendig 05:47, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC) :Could do with a better title. (No, nothing springs to mind ...) The main article would need a few-paragraph summary of the larger article, of course. - User:David Gerard 11:05, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC) ::I support breaking up the article. Regarding what to move out. I vote: :: * Move out "Advantages and Disadvantages": which collect a lot of the opinions in the article under one main heading. :: * Move out Monopoly: United States v. Microsoft is a good article which overlaps a lot with the Monopoly section. :: * Re-write/Move "The future": It is less about Microsoft's roadmap than various opinions on Linux vs. Windows which be moved out. :: * Move out Public Perception: It will be a great intro to the new article. Microsoft Controversy" sounds good to me as a new title. ::I agree with David about having a short summary of the new articles in the main Microsoft article and linking to the longer pieces. User:Zsweden 13:51, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC) :::Okay, I created Microsoft controversy and moved a bunch of stuff from this article over there. Please have a look at it, and edit both articles as necessary. I know there should be more references from Microsoft to Microsoft controversy, and perhaps some of the information in the latter should be moved or copied back to the former. User:Brian Kendig 17:15, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC) ==Do Microsoft programmers really "eat their own dog food?"== Although this statement is frequently made, I wonder how much truth there is in it. I was puzzled by some problems and limitations with Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, and with its apparently lack of continuing development, with few recent updates. I've given up on ever getting branches and the merge feature to work in a reasonable way. On asking around and doing some Web searches, a frequent "explanation" is that ClearCase is the predominant source management tool used within Microsoft and that Visual SourceSafe is ''not,'' in fact, used much. I don't work for Microsoft so I can't say whether or not this is true and, if true, I don't know whether it's an anomaly. User:Dpbsmith 01:00, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC) : I believe Sourcesafe is one of only a few exceptions to the "dog food" policy. I've heard that most products do get used internally, such as Office betas, Windows, and even Visual Studio. I read an excellent blog entry by an employee explaining the issue with using SourceSafe (it's completely inadequate). I couldn't find the blog but it confirmed that most products do get used internally, with betas spreading out to less technical users as testing progresses. User:Rhobite 01:06, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC) :Sourcesafe is the primary exception - mainly because we all know it's worthless. The source control tools used by Microsoft are proprietary (and unfortunately rather antiquated). Dogfooding is a big deal though; we're strongly encouraged to dogfood just about every office application and service pack we could reasonably use on a daily basis, and to upgrade to cutting edge versions constantly, mainly as a method for improving quality. User:Dcoetzee 21:27, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC) Kevin Schofield keeps a list of MS employees with blogs. He calls it the blogroll. It is on the right hand column on his blog site here : http://radio.weblogs.com/0133184/ . Up to now all the MS blogs I have read confirm this canine nourishment method. Personally though I find most blogs repetitive and boring and much prefer reading the best of the books that come out now and then on the topic of MS and the best of the many business periodical articles that deal with its internal workings. And all these paper sources also confirm the continuation of their dog food practice, most of the time. User:AlainV 04:14, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC) ==Financial information== I'm looking for financial info about the company, and more specifically: * How much of the company's income comes from sales of Windows and Office? * What is the profit rate for Windows and Office? User:Guaka 00:14, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC) ---- ==Linux swipe== ''"Microsoft's future in the world marketplace is closely tied to the future of the open source software development model in the long term, and to the future of several products of that open source model in the short term. Two of those products, the GNU/Linux operating system and the OpenOffice.org office suite, directly compete with two of Microsoft's most popular products, the Windows operating system and the Office application suite. These products threaten Microsoft's current dominance of the operating system and office suite mark" '' I think that this statement sways from the truth, and if anyone else comes along in accordance they should delete the paragraph. Linux has already had at least one other swipe at Microsoft in the article. I doubt any pragmatic statistics would back up the claims of "directly compete" and "threat Microsoft's current dominance". User:Alterego 11:39 PM GMT+1 7/12/2004 Update: Deleted. == More on the above == I deleted much bias out of this article. If you need an example of how to write an unbiased article about a large business please see IBM. See also NPOV. See also Common criticisms of Microsoft For the compare view of the changes i've made see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Microsoft&diff=0&oldid=4600851 ---- *If you're gonna say flatly that a court found Microsoft guilty of anti-trust monopolies, then you also have to tell something about the outcome and whether this finding is relevant or not. For instance, if you write about the old Standard Oil Company, it isn't enough to write: "Standard Oil was found guilty of illegal monopolies. Period. End of statement. New Paragraph." You have to add something like: "As a result of this judgment, Standard Oil was broken up into 12 competing units, Standard Oil of New York, Standard Oil of New Jersey, Standard Oil of California. Etc. etc." The same with an article about Philip Morris. You could write: "Philip Morris has been found guilty of many offenses involving the sale of cigarettes and has been ordered to pay hundreds of billions of dollars." That's true, of course. But what you have to add is that many of these judgments have been subsequently reduced, or completely thrown out, or are under appeal, and that up to this point Philip Morris has not paid any of these hundreds of billions. The same is true with Microsoft. Sure, the court in Baltimore found them guilty -- but Microsoft then appealed and a lot of Motz's judgment was thrown out. Microsoft then negotiated settlements with the Justice Department and most of the states. To the satisfaction of Microsoft. Have you noticed today that because they have negotiated successful settlements that they now feel that they can pay out $35 billion dollars in a one-time dividend to its stockholders, the largest payout in corporate history? I'm not saying that future judgments against Microsoft may not affect its operation -- I'm just saying that a bald statement about them being guilty of something isn't enough. Many large companies, in fact most of them, are constantly in lawsuits with one person or another, or one government agency or another. They pay fines from time to time. Or change their way of doing business. But it's not enough just to say about them that they were found guilty of something. You gotta tell the reader what the consequences of this were.User:Hayford Peirce 17:21, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC) ::I agree with this. The Bush DOJ made it clear that they didn't want to continue aggressive litigation and most states went along with this. The antitrust settlements haven't really affected Microsoft's business although they have placed restrictions on Microsoft's software, mostly the ability to use other software than what's bundled with Windows. User:Rhobite 17:26, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC) *The lead article on page 1 of today's New York Times was the Microsoft dividend. Later in the article they go on to say, paraphrasing Microsoft's general counsel, I believe: "On June 30, a federal appeals court handed Microsoft a convincing victory in ending its domestic antitrust problems, upholding the settlement the company reached with the government two years ago." *New para in the story: "The company has also resolved three-quarters of the state class-actions file, Mr. Smith said. The company's appeal of a $603 million fine the European Commission imposed in March is still pending, 'but at least we have a better sense of the known risk,' Mr. Connors said."User:Hayford Peirce 18:19, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC) Your reasoning persuaded me that some mention of the legal outcome is needed in this article's first paragraph, if we're going to be mentioning the legal issues at all. I reworded it slightly - I don't feel we need a detailed explanation of the legal outcomes right there in the first paragraph; I hope my edit suffices. - User:Brian Kendig 20:44, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC) **That looks fine to me.User:Hayford Peirce 21:25, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC) ---- Regarding the deletion of the paragraph concerning MicroSoft products -- I think it contains important information and should be maintained but rewritten. It *is* important info to say that Word replaced WordPerfect as the dominant wordprocessor, etc. (I myself have used WordPerfect for 19 years now and hate Word, not to mention Windows, but facts are facts). The paragraph could easily be rewritten with no trace of POV.User:Hayford Peirce 19:00, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC) :I made an attempt to do so; I removed the first sentence (''Some of these products were successful, and some were not.'') and moved the last (about Microsoft Bob) to "Other offerings." - User:Brian Kendig 20:44, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC) **Looks good to me.User:Hayford Peirce 21:25, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC) == history: apple == I think the history section lacks mentions to apple. It was a important aspect of how the GUI was copyed form apple (who in turn copied form xerox parc) user avsa (too lazy to log) :Also too lazy to check the facts. As this is discussed on History of the Graphical User Interface I'll leave it to you to read up and get a clue. Oh I forgot, you're lazy. In that case, I'll say it here; Apple didn't copy the GUI from PARC.User:GRAHAMUK 06:13, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC) == Longhorn == ''Was initially to ship in 2003, but slipped to 2006'' less like a slip and more like a little sprint (or 10 of them) User:Ilyanep— Ilγαηερ">User:Ilyanep (Tαlκ)">User talk:Ilyanep 05:37, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC) == the era of "open computing,"' the free exchange of digital information that has defined the personal computer industry, is ending == Maybe [http://www.dotgnu.org/danger.html this quote] should be put somewhere on this page? :: User:Paul Pogonyshev 15:28, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC) ==Stock options== [http://www.fool.com/portfolios/rulemaker/2000/rulemaker000217.htm] I think an even more interesting topic on this company that is seriously needed is the effect of stock options on Microsoft profitability. Yeah, i know some people would like to claim options are not expenses, but then nobody try to explain where the options receipients receive their money from. An updated article can be found here [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/27/microsoft_fy2005q2_earnings/] and here [http://www.msversus.org/node/76] == US centric == "For example, while many software companies often place an entry level software developer in a cubicle desk within a large office space filled with other cubicles, Microsoft assigns a private or semi-private closed office to every developer or pair of developers. In addition, key decisionmakers at every level are either developers or former developers." This only applies to the US. In Europe it is nothing special to have seperated rooms. "Microsoft takes security as a very serious issue. If it did not secure its software and hardware secrets successfully (such as the source code to software) then it could stand to lose its market position. The Microsoft Security System is therefore very complex." Security is a big issue and a hot top in regards MS products. It was been widely criticised for security problems. The above statement doesn't seem to reflect that very well and sounds almost like a press release from MS "Diversity Microsoft was named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers in 2004 by Working Mothers magazine." This again doesn't make any sense at all in the context of the article. I don't understand why it is where it is, or why it is there at all. == Unbalanced POV that needs clean up in Controversy seciton == The following POV paragraph at the bottom of the controversy section needs to be balanced by including pro anti trust citations/quotations. POV phrases such as "It is held by many" need to be cleaned up. Any assumed collusion before 2000 between the government and microsoft foes would not excuse illegal activity would it? Is Milton Friedman even notable/relevant these days? There seems to be a large potential for clean up in this paragraph. What does everyone think? :''There are also critics of the antitrust proceedings against Microsoft, which they believe to be an unjustified assault on a business who held a large market share merely by outcompeting its rivals. It is held by many that the case against Microsoft was the result of collusion between government and Microsoft's competitors in an attempt to gain an unfair advantage by thwarting the free market through government coercion. Nobel economist Milton Friedman believes that the antitrust case against Microsoft sets a dangerous precedent that foreshadows increased government regulation of what was formerly an industry that was relatively free of "government intrusion" and that technological progress in the industry will be impeded as a result. Friedman, moreover, says that antitrust laws do more harm than good and should not exist.'' User:Zen-master User talk:Zen-master 22:44, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC) I agree that for such a contentious article, "held by many" should only be used if we have data about how many hold it. I'd change it to "They hold ...", which also avoids the passive voice. As for the question how relevant Milton Friedman is, I would say that this should be discussed on his article. Interested readers can judge this for themselves. The beauty of Wikipedia is that this information is only a mouse click away.
User:SebastianHelm 23:45, 2005 Feb 17 (UTC) :I meant the question of Friedman's relevance in the context of asking why there is so much of his information/quotations included in the *summary* section for *controversies*? That section is basically listing the alleged controversies in very NPOV fashion but then denounces the anti trust controversy in very POV fashion using friedman. It seems as if at some point specific details on microsoft's controversies were moved to a daughter article while a lengthy POV paragraph where friedman is used to "denounce" the anti-trust controversy is allowed to remain in the controversies *summary* section. It does not make sense to me, that Friedman paragraph needs a lot more NPOV balance or it should be removed entirely as uncleanupable in my opinion. There may also be a need to expand on some other recent Microsoft criticisms and controversies among other things, though the list that is there currently does a good job and a good job at NPOV. User:Zen-master User talk:Zen-master 23:55, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC) :: I see. I agree that this paragraph should be moved to the appropriate article. As for how NPOV the current text is: Currently, the overview only talks of lost lawsuits. I don't know much about it, but if Microsoft won any lawsuits, this should be given fair mention in both articles.
User:SebastianHelm 00:23, 2005 Feb 18 (UTC) == Falsifiability == User:The Anome added the following line to the ''The future of Microsoft'' section, "It has also been speculated that Microsoft may be using security concerns to drive users to upgrade their systems, by only making some security fixes available on their latest operating systems." Does non-verifiable speculation belong in a Wikipedia article? I don't think so. It may be a fact that there is a speculation; however, it is not a fact that Microsoft uses security concerns to drive sales. In addition, the entire ''The future of Microsoft'' section does not belong because the future is inherently unconfirmed. The future can only be forecasted. The future cannot be foreseen. Other issues for responsible editors to look into is the usage of terms such as "improvement". In the aforementioned section, it is stated that Windows Longhorn "will be an extension of, and improvement on, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003." We cannot be certain that Windows Longhorn is indeed and improvement of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003; however, we can be somewhat certain about what Microsoft plans for Windows Longhorn. Watch out for this. User:Adraeus 17:01, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC) :I removed the line saying that Microsoft makes some security fixes only available on the latest operating systems. :* First of all, it's not true. Microsoft makes security fixes available on all operating systems which it currently supports. For example, updates are frequently made available for Windows 2000, despite it having long since been superseded by Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. :* Additionally, such a claim doesn't belong in the paragraph about the annual fee subscription licenses. :If the person who added this assertion to the article means to point out that older operating systems (such as Windows 98) are no longer supported, then that's a separate issue. Someone reverted my deletion and added to the statement: ''... by making some security fixes, such as the forthcoming IE7 web browser update, only available...'' but that's also incorrect; IE7 is not a security fix. If I'm wrong, and there are security fixes which are ''not'' made available to some operating systems which Microsoft currently supports, then let's point them out in the article. - User:Brian Kendig 22:52, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) ::If IE7 is not a security fix, why are Microsoft enthusiastically promoting it as such? For example, as in this statement by one W. Gates: [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/15/gates_rsa_2005/] -- User:The Anome 19:04, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC) :::What statement? I followed your link and there was absolutely nothing to suggest that IE7 is a "security fix" at all. IE7 is a whole new update, much like Office 2003 is an updated version of Office. -- User:Smoothy 10:48, April 4, 2005 (BST) == Market cap == What was the peak market cap of this company? This page ([http://evan.quuxuum.org/bgnw.html]) say that Bill's initial ownership share (11,142,000 shares, 50, 60% ?) was worth $384 billion when the stock was worth $119.75 (according to Yahoo! $119.94 during ) in December of 1999 ([http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=MSFT&a=02&b=13&c=1986&d=02&e=27&f=2000&g=d]). The close on 30-Dec-99 was $117.12 which split adjusted is $51.99.--User:Jerryseinfeld 21:01, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC) :According to their 2000 annual report, Microsoft had 5.28B shares outstanding (remember this is before the 2:1 split in 2003). At a peak price of $119.75, their market cap would have been $632.28 billion. I'm not sure where that $384B figure comes from, but Bill Gates has sold a significant number of shares. I believe he owns about a tenth of the company now. User:Rhobite 22:31, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC) == wikipedia has m$'s attention == As seen in this article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnforms/html/winforms11162004.asp :Don't be too surprised — I've barely met anyone at MS who doesn't know about Wikipedia, and I've seen plenty of citations internally. Wikipedia is ubiquitous. User:Dcoetzee 21:02, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC) == Sign image to use == I took a photo of a fancy Microsoft sign (''see right'') and was wondering if it could fit into this article somehow. Could someone insert it in an appropriate place if so? Maybe a section about the campus. Thanks. User:Dcoetzee 21:06, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC) == Vole? == A number of people appear to refer to Microsoft as "The Vole" and sometimes also refer to "Vole Hill, Redmond" as a pointer to Microsoft. Finding such occurrances is easy, but I can't find any reference to where this phrase arose or what the rationale is for it. (I suspect it started with www.theinquirer.net as that's where I've seen in most - but why?) == Logo Guidelines == Hey all, came across this URL describing limitations on how the Microsoft logo can be used: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/trademarks/corplogo.asp These don't seem to make an allowance for informational purposes. Whether all these rules can be enforced in law, or will be, is another matter. I think we should keep it on the page — we certainly aren't using it maliciously and if nothing else we have OCILLA. Nevertheless, I was thinking we might avoid some of their wrath if we at least include the attribution notice somewhere: ''Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation'' (as if this weren't entirely obvious) 17:34, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC) :Corporations can't prevent the use of their logos for informational purposes. Wikipedia's use of logos falls under fair use and is completely legal. User:Rhobite 17:37, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC) :As someone who creates identity guidelines professionally, I say ignore those guidelines. They're not for us. User:Adraeus 18:13, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC) == Speaking of logo history... == ...an hysterically funny and, I ''think'', unintentional diagram appeared in the OS/2 manual circa OS/2 1.3. It was in the promotional-drool-executive-overview section that showed how wonderful OS/2 was. It was supposed to show something about how beautifully the parts of the system worked together. If I recall the configuration correctly, it showed a pair of meshed circular gears and a long, single worm gear driven by a crank. The worm gear was positioned so that it meshed with both circular gears at the same time, attempting them both in the same direction, while the two circular gears, being meshed, were constrained to turn in opposite direction. In other words, the system was jammed and it would have been impossible to turn the crank or get anything in the system to operate. User:Dpbsmith User_talk:dpbsmith 20:33, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC) Anyone have a copy of this? I'd really like to see it. == Lawsuit? == The racial discrimination lawsuit against Microsoft [http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/microsoft/msdiscrmclactacmplt.pdf] made big headlines at the time [http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-4352837.html] [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1098683.stm], but I'm not sure if it was ever settled or dismissed. Does anyone have more information on this? User:ElBenevolente 01:40, 18 May 2005 (UTC) *I don't know the answer to tht, but I've been looking to add information on the Vizcaino suit at some point. User:SchmuckyTheCat 07:44, 18 May 2005 (UTC) == My damn link... === I put a link to [http://www2.thorrune.net/articles/microsoft this article] on here, and it was removed without reasoning, then added it again ant yet again it was removed. I wanna know why you can't have it there, and why any of the other articles are more worth the sapce? They came first or something? User:ThorRune 15:17, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC) == Wikipedia:Microsoft notice board == Note: to start this off I'm posting this to a few Microsoft articles. I have kicked this off as I think we can do a lot better on many of our Microsoft related articles. Windows XP is just one example of a whole bunch of people getting together to fix up issues of NPOV, fact and verifiability of an article. I think that no matter whether you like Microsoft or not that we could definitely do with a review of: a) the articles that we already have, and b) the articles that we ''should'' have in Wikipedia! - User:Ta bu shi da yu 02:06, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
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Microsoft
''' Microsoft Corporation, headquartered in Redmond, Washington, Washington, United States, was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Microsoft is the world's largest software company with over 50,000 employees in various countries as of May 2004. Microsoft develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for various computing devices. Its most popular products are the Microsoft Windows operating system and Microsoft Office families of products, each of which has achieved near ubiquity in the desktop computer market. The company's aggressive business practices led to several governmental investigations, including a 1998 United States v. Microsoft that found Microsoft to have illegally used its monopoly to defeat its competitors. Through appeals and negotiated settlements, Microsoft mitigated the adverse effects of this ruling on its operations and financial status. Microsoft's mission statement is "to enable people and businesses to realize their full potential." ==History== ''Main article: History of Microsoft Windows'' "Micro-soft" was a software company founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell BASIC programming language interpreter (computer software)s for the Altair 8800, which was manufactured by their former Albuquerque-based employer Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems. The name "Micro-soft" (short for microcomputer software) was used by Gates in a letter to Allen for the first time on November 29, 1975. "Microsoft", without a hyphen, became a registered trademark on November 26, 1976. Microsoft's second product was its Fortran compiler for CP/M, released in August 1977. The third was the MS COBOL compiler (for CP/M), released in April 1978. ===MS-DOS=== Microsoft's key moment came when International Business Machines was planning to enter the personal computer market with its IBM Personal Computer (PC), which was released on August 12, 1981. IBM first approached Microsoft about its BASIC and asked them for an operating system. Since Microsoft did not have an OS, they suggested CP/M from Digital Research. IBM then approached Digital Research for a version of CP/M and spoke to Gary Kildall's wife Dorothy. IBM representatives wanted Dorothy to sign their standard non-disclosure agreement, which Dorothy considered overly burdensome. IBM then returned to talk to Microsoft. Microsoft licensed a cloned design of CP/M called QDOS, from Tim Paterson's Seattle Computer Products in order to sell it to IBM as the standard operating system for the IBM PC. Microsoft subsequently purchased all rights to QDOS for $50,000, and renamed it MS-DOS (for Microsoft Disk Operating System). Later, IBM discovered that Gates' operating system could have infringement problems with CP/M, contacted Kildall, and in exchange for a promise not to sue, made an agreement that CP/M would be sold along with IBMDOS when the IBM PC was released. The price set by IBM for CP/M was $250 and for MSDOS/PCDOS it was $40. MSDOS/PCDOS outsold CP/M many times over, eventually becoming the standard. In contracting with IBM, however, Microsoft had retained the rights to license the software to other computer vendors as MS-DOS. The early 1980s saw a flood of IBM PC clones, and Microsoft was quick to use its position to dominate the operating system market. By marketing MS-DOS aggressively to manufacturers of IBM-PC clones, Microsoft gained unprecedented visibility in the microcomputer industry, even rivaling IBM. ===Going public=== In February 1986 Microsoft relocated to Redmond, Washington. One month later the company went public raising $61 million at $21.00 per share (by the end of the trading day the price had risen to $28). ===OS/2 to Windows=== In the late 1980s, Microsoft and IBM partnered in the development of a more advanced operating system, OS/2. The operating system was marketed in connection with a new hardware design, the PS/2, that was proprietary and secret to IBM. In 1989 Microsoft announced at Comdex that the 1991 release of Windows 3.0 would be the last version of Windows. Over the next few years Microsoft continued to issue statements of direction that developers outside Microsoft interpreted to mean that OS/2 was the platform of the future, and Windows merely a temporary stopgap that would be limited to low-end systems. On May 16 1991 Bill Gates announced to Microsoft employees that the OS/2 partnership was over and Microsoft would henceforth focus its platform efforts on Windows and the Windows NT kernel. In the ensuing years OS/2 fell to the side and Windows became the favored PC platform. This switch in direction was unexpected. Developers that had ignored Windows and committed most of their resources to OS/2, believing they were following Microsoft's direction, were taken by surprise. Some felt that Microsoft had engaged in deliberate misdirection, and the move was frequently referred to within the industry as "the head-fake." During the transition from MS-DOS to Windows, Microsoft gained ground on application software competitors such as WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3. In some cases, early versions of Microsoft software were inferior to their competition, but later versions improved and eventually overwhelmed their competitors. The best example of this is probably that of WordPerfect, which in the early 1990s appeared to have an unassailable dominance over the PC word processor market but eventually found itself in a distant second place. Microsoft, now highly profitable, diversified into a wide variety of software products including: *The Microsoft Windows series of operating systems *Compilers and interpreters for programming languages *Word processors, spreadsheets and other software in the office suite === Corporate logo === In 1987, Microsoft adopted their current logo, the so-called "Pacman Logo" designed by Scott Baker. According to the March 1987 ''Computer Reseller News Magazine'', "The new logo, in Helvetica italic typeface, has a slash between the "o" and "s" to emphasize the "soft" part of the name and convey motion and speed." Employees ran a campaign to save the old logo, which was green, in all uppercase, and featured a fanciful letter O nicknamed the ''blibbet'', but it was nevertheless discarded. ==Products and organization== Microsoft sells a wide range of software products. Many of these products were developed internally, such as Microsoft Basic. Some products were acquired and rebranding by Microsoft for distribution, including Microsoft Project, a project management package; Visio, a charting package; DoubleSpace; Virtual PC, acquired from Connectix; and MS-DOS itself, the basis for the company's success. Many of these have seen continued development by Microsoft. In April 2002, Microsoft reorganized into seven core business units, each with its own financial reporting to delegate responsibility and more closely track the performance of each unit. [http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/articles/business.asp] These business units are: *''Windows Client'' (managing the Windows client, server, and embedded operating systems) *''Information Worker'' (managing the office software products) *''Microsoft Business Solutions'' (managing the business services and process applications) *''Server and Tools'' (managing developer tools and integrated server software) *''Mobile and Embedded Devices'' (managing palmtop and phone devices) *''MSN'' (managing web-based services) *''Home and Entertainment'' (managing consumer hardware and software, gaming and Xbox division) There also is a Macintosh Business Unit which makes Microsoft the largest developer of Apple Macintosh software outside of Apple Computer itself. ===Windows Client group=== Microsoft's flagship product is the Windows operating system. It has been produced in many versions including Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Almost all IBM PC compatible personal computers are sold with Windows pre-installed. ''(See History of Microsoft Windows.)'' Microsoft integrated the Internet Explorer web browser and the Outlook Express email client into Windows. The act of integrating Internet Explorer with Windows helped to defeat Netscape Communications Corporation's rival product Netscape Communicator, and formed the central point of the United States v. Microsoft case brought by the United States government in 1998. ===Information Worker group=== Microsoft Office is the company's line of office software. It includes Microsoft Word (a word processor), Microsoft Access (a personal relational database application), Microsoft Excel (a spreadsheet program), Microsoft Outlook (Windows-only collaborative software, frequently used with the Microsoft Exchange Server server), Microsoft PowerPoint (presentation software) and Microsoft FrontPage, a WYSIWYG HTML editor. With the release of Office 2003, a number of other products were brought under the Office banner, including Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Project, Microsoft MapPoint, Microsoft InfoPath, Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft OneNote. Microsoft also produces Microsoft Office for Apple Macintosh computers, which includes the Mac-only Microsoft Entourage instead of Outlook. As with many common and popular software products third-party developers have created applications that allow the Microsoft Office Suite of applications to be run on previously unsupported operating systems. Such operating systems include Linux, and Sun Microsystems' Solaris Operating Environment. Like Windows, Office has grown to dominant share in many markets. ===Microsoft Business Solutions group=== The Business Solutions Group was created in April 2001 with the acquisitions of Great Plains (Microsoft). Subsequently, Navision was acquired to provide a similar entry into the European market. (The acquisition resulted in the planned release during the week of 18 October 2004 of Microsoft Navision.) The Business Solutions group focuses on developing financial and business management software for companies. ===Server and Tools group=== Microsoft Visual Studio is the company's set of programming tools and compilers. It is GUI oriented and links easily with the Windows APIs, but must be specially configured if used with non-Microsoft libraries. The current version is Visual Studio .NET 2003. Microsoft also offers a suite of server software, called Windows Server System. Windows Server 2003, an operating system for network servers, is the core of the Windows Server System line. Systems Management Server is a collections of tools that provide remote control, patch management, software distribution, and hardware/software inventory. The Microsoft .NET initiative is an important marketing initiative by Microsoft, covering a number of different technologies. Microsoft's definition of .NET continues to emerge over time. As of 2004, .NET encompasses: *Easing the development of Microsoft Windows-based applications that use the Internet, through use of a new Microsoft communications system called Indigo; *Correcting some problems previously introduced by Microsoft's DLL design, which made it difficult to manage and install multiple versions of complex software packages on the same system (see DLL-hell); *Providing a more consistent development platform for all Windows applications (see Common Language Infrastructure, also known as CLI) It was previously believed that .NET would also include a login and authentication system that could be shared among different websites and .NET programs. This functionality was previously codenamed "Microsoft Hailstorm" and is related to the Microsoft Passport service. ===Mobile and Embedded Devices group=== Microsoft has attempted to expand the powerful Windows brand into many other markets, with products such as Windows CE for Personal Digital Assistants and its "Windows powered" Smartphone products. Microsoft initially entered the Mobile market through Windows CE for handheld devices which today has developed into Windows Mobile 2003. Microsoft works with companies such as HP, Motorola and Dell in providing the operating system for these devices and reference designs. Microsoft recently moved the embedded group and the mobile group under one team. The embedded group focus is on devices where the OS may not directly be visible to the end-user, e.g. appliances and cars. The company also bought WebTV (subsequently renamed MSN TV), a television-based internet appliance. Mobile Devices group is the only Microsoft group losing money. Due to vast profits in other groups, Microsoft can continue to sell Windows CE with unprofitable prices to gain market share from smaller embedded OS vendors like PalmSource,Symbian,QNX,Wind River Systems. ===MSN group=== In the mid-1990s, Microsoft began to expand its product line into the computer network computer world. It launched its online service MSN (Microsoft Network) on August 24, 1995 as a direct competitor to AOL. MSN became an umbrella service for all of Microsoft's online services. In 1996, Microsoft and NBC, an United States broadcasting network, created MSNBC, a combined 24-hour news television channel and online news service. Microsoft owned the online magazine [http://www.slate.com Slate] until December 21, 2004, when it was then acquired by ''The Washington Post''. At the end of 1997, Microsoft acquired Hotmail, the first and most popular webmail service. It was rebranded MSN Hotmail and was used as a platform to boost Microsoft Passport, a universal login service. .NET Messenger Service, an instant messaging client, was introduced in 1999 to compete with the popular AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). ===Home and Entertainment group=== Microsoft sells computer games that run on Windows PCs, including titles such as Age of Empires and the Microsoft Flight Simulator series. They also produce a line of reference works, which include encyclopedias and atlas (cartography)es, under the name Microsoft Encarta. Microsoft Zone hosts free-, premium- and retail games where players can compete against each other and in tourneys. Microsoft entered the multi-billion dollar game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo in late 2001, with the release of the Xbox. Currently the console ranks second only to Sony's PlayStation 2 in market share in the United States. Microsoft develops and publishes its own video games for this gaming console, and in addition, "third party" Xbox video game publishers such as Electronic Arts and Activision can pay a license fee to publish games for the system. The Xbox is widely regarded as one of the most powerful game consoles currently available. Microsoft intends to release a successor to the Xbox, the Xbox 360, which they plan on integrating with Windows Longhorn and Windows Media Center to make it an entertainment hub, rather than just a videogame console. Microsoft also sold a set-top Digital Video Recorder (DVR) called the UltimateTV which allowed users to record up to 35 hours of television programming from direct to home satellite television provider DirecTV. UltimateTV has since been discontinued, with DirecTV instead opting to market DVRs from TiVo Inc. ===Other offerings=== The product which allowed Microsoft to generate its enormous wealth was the MS-DOS operating system. All versions of Windows prior to Windows NT (for business systems) and Windows XP (for business and home systems) were based on an MS-DOS foundation. Microsoft Bob, a program manager add-on for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, was short-lived and widely ridiculed in the press. In the early 1980s, in cooperation with a large number of companies, Microsoft created a home computer system named MSX. It became fairly popular in Japan and Europe, but the IBM PC became increasingly dominant through the late 1980s and the early 1990s, bringing an end to the MSX and many other systems like it. Microsoft has launched the Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (formerly known as the Palladium operating system, also known as Trusted Computing) as its solution to computer insecurity. Opponents have characterized it as another exercise in entrenching and extending Microsoft's dominance, effectively allowing the company to control all uses of PC technology. In particular, they have accused Microsoft of using it as a way to combat the emergence of free software#Free Speech definition. Microsoft has established a set of certification programs to recognize individuals who have expertise in their products and solutions. Similar to offerings from Cisco, Sun, IBM and Oracle, these tests are designed to identify a minimal set of proficiency in a specific role, which can include developers ("Microsoft Certified Solution Developer" MCSD), system/network analysts ("Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer" MCSE), trainers ("Microsoft Certified Trainers" MCT) and administrators ("Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator" MCSA). Microsoft also produces a number of computing related hardware products including computer mouse, Computer keyboards, joysticks, and, until mid-2003, gamepads and other game controllers. On February 19 2003, Microsoft purchased the virtual machine solutions of privately held Connectix, a leading provider of virtualization software for Windows- and Macintosh-based computing. Microsoft purchased the following products and technologies: Virtual PC for Windows (now called Microsoft Virtual PC), Virtual PC for Mac and Virtual Server. Microsoft also brought on board key members and developers from the Connectix team to continue development of these products. Microsoft have continued development of all three of these virtual machine solutions from Connectix and have since released updated versions of Virtual PC for both the Windows and the Mac platforms. [http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc] ==Business culture== ===The software developer=== Microsoft has often been described as having a developer-centric business culture. A great deal of time and money is spent each year on recruiting young university-trained software developers who meet very exacting criteria, and on keeping them in the company. For example, while many software companies often place an entry level software developer in a cubicle desk within a large office space filled with other cubicles, Microsoft assigns a private or semi-private closed office to every developer or pair of developers. In addition, key decisionmakers at every level are either developers or former developers. In a sense, the software developers at Microsoft are considered the "stars" of the company in the same way that sales staff at IBM are considered the "stars" of their company. This culture is reflected in their hiring process -- the "Microsoft Interview" is notorious for off-the-wall questions such as "Why is a manhole cover round?" and is a process often mimicked in other organizations. Note that, although they were once ubiquitous, recently fewer interviewers have been using this type of question. ==="Eating our own dog food"=== Within Microsoft the expression eat one's own dog food is used to describe the policy of using Microsoft products inside the company. It is most often applied to pre-release and beta versions of software. ===Long-term wariness=== Microsoft fosters a general attitude of long term strategic wariness in its managers, who are expected to be ready for any challenge from the competition or the market. In this frame of mind, being the largest software company in the world is not seen as a form of safety or a guarantee of future success; for instance, future competitors could rise from other industries, or computer hardware companies could try to become less dependent on Microsoft, or consumers could decide not to upgrade their software as often. Microsoft requires its managers to maintain vigilance and sustain a dynamic expansion in new markets. Microsoft takes security as a very serious issue. If it did not secure its software and hardware secrets successfully (such as the source code to software) then it could stand to lose its market position. The Microsoft Security System is therefore very complex. ==Diversity== Microsoft was named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers in 2004 by ''Working Mothers'' magazine. They have a mandatory training program to encourage tolerance of diversity. ==Monopoly and legal issues== In the 1990s, Microsoft adopted exclusionary licensing under which PC manufacturers were required to pay for an MS-DOS license even when the system shipped with an alternative operating system. It also used allegedly predatory tactics to price its competitors out of the market, and competitors claimed that Microsoft erected technical barriers to make it appear that competing products did not work on its operating system [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/longterm/microsoft/stories/1993/launch082193.htm]. An investigation by the United States Department of Justice on August 21, 1993 resulted in an opinion stating that this behavior was illegal; in a consent decree issued on July 15, 1994, Microsoft agreed to a deal in which, among other things, it would not "tie" other Microsoft products into its operating system. After bundling the Internet Explorer web browser into its Windows operating system in the late 1990s and acquiring a dominant share in the web browser market, an United States v. Microsoft was brought against Microsoft. In a controversial ruling by judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, the company was convicted for violating its earlier consent decree and abusing its monopoly in the desktop operating systems market. The "findings of fact" during the antitrust case established that Microsoft has a monopoly in the PC desktop operating systems market: :III.34. ''Viewed together, three main facts indicate that Microsoft enjoys monopoly power. First, Microsoft's share of the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems is extremely large and stable. Second, Microsoft's dominant market share is protected by a high barrier to entry. Third, and largely as a result of that barrier, Microsoft's customers lack a commercially viable alternative to Windows.'' [http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm] The findings of fact goes on to explain the nature of the "barrier to entry": ''The fact that there is a multitude of people using Windows makes the product more attractive to consumers. The large installed base ... impels ISVs (independent software vendors) to write applications first and foremost to Windows, thereby ensuring a large body of applications from which consumers can choose. The large body of applications thus reinforces demand for Windows, augmenting Microsoft's dominant position and thereby perpetuating ISV incentives to write applications principally for Windows. ... The small or non-existent market share of an aspiring competitor makes it prohibitively expensive for the aspirant to develop its PC operating system into an acceptable substitute for Windows.'' (III.39–40) The proposed remedy (dividing Microsoft into two companies) was overturned on appeal, and Microsoft has since reached a settlement with the Department of Justice and some of the states which brought suit against it. Meanwhile, several class-action lawsuits filed after the conviction are still pending. In early 2002, Microsoft proposed to settle the private lawsuits by donating $1 billion USD in money, software, services, and training, including Windows licenses and refurbished PCs, to about 12,500 underprivileged public schools. This was seen by some as a potential windfall for Microsoft, not only in educating schoolchildren on Microsoft solutions but also in collecting additional license fees if the schools ever wanted to upgrade. After protests from Apple Computer, which feared further loss of its educational market share, a federal judge rejected the proposed settlement. [http://news.com.com/2100-1001-808241.html] In 2003–2004, the European Commission investigated the bundling of media player software into Windows, a practice which rivals complained was destroying the market for their own products. Negotiations between Microsoft and the Commission broke down in March 2004, and the company was subsequently handed down a record fine of €497 million ($613 million) for its breaches of EU competition law. The ruling is subject to appeal in the European courts. Separate investigations into alleged abuses of the server market were also ongoing at the same time. On December 22, 2004, the European Court decided that the measures imposed on Microsoft by the European Commission would not be delayed, as was requested by Microsoft while waiting for the appeal. Microsoft will thus have to pay the €497 million fine, ship versions of Windows without Windows Media Player, and license many of the protocols used in Microsoft's products to developers in countries within the European Economic Area. In March 2004, during a consumer class-action lawsuit in Minnesota, internal documents subpoenaed from Microsoft revealed that the company had violated nondisclosure agreements seven years earlier in obtaining business plans from Go Corporation, using them to develop and announce a competing product named PenWindows, and convincing Intel to reduce its investment in Go. After Go was purchased by AT&T and Go's tablet-based computing efforts were shelved, PenWindows development was dropped [http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0324-02.htm] [http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/25/0429224&tid=109]. In May 2004, a class-action lawsuit accused Microsoft of overcharging customers in the state of California. The company settled the case for $1.1 billion USD. A California court ordered Microsoft to pay an additional $258 million USD in legal fees (including over $3,000 per hour for the lead attorney in the case, more than $2,000 per hour for colleagues, and in excess of $1,000 per hour for administrative work). A Microsoft attorney responded, "Somebody ends up paying for this. These large fee awards get passed on to consumers." [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3715375.stm]. The total bill for legal fees was later reduced to just over $112 million USD. [http://itmatters.com.ph/news/news_09202004d.html] Because of the structure of the settlement, the law firm which sued Microsoft may end up getting more money from the company than California consumers and schools, the beneficiaries of the settlement. In July 2004, Japan's Fair Trade Commission warned Microsoft to remove a provision from its licensing contracts whereby PC makers would not be allowed to file patent infringement suits if future versions of Windows add features similar to their own technology. Microsoft plans to appeal the warning. Microsoft has fought legal battles against: *Apple Computer, which accused Microsoft of stealing QuickTime code and using it in Windows Media Player. *Be Incorporated, which accused Microsoft of exclusionary and anticompetitive behavior intended to drive Be out of the market. [http://www.beincorporated.com/press/pressreleases/02-02-19_msft_complaint.html] Be even offered to license its BeOS operating system for free to any PC vendors who would ship it pre-installed, but the vendors declined due to fears of pricing retaliation from Microsoft: by raising the price of Microsoft Windows for one particular PC vendor, Microsoft could price that vendor's PCs out of the market. *Burst.com, which claims that Microsoft stole Burst's patented technology for delivering high speed streaming sound and video content on the internet. Also at issue in the case is a 35 week period of missing emails in the evidence Microsoft handed over to Burst which was discovered by Burst.com's lawyers. Burst accuses Microsoft of crafting a 30 day email deletion policy specifically to cover up illegal activity. [http://www.burst.com/new/newsevents/chairltr112004.htm] [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/24/allchin_destroy_email_claim/] *SCO Group, which accused Microsoft of having modified Windows 3.1 so that it would not run on DR DOS 6 although there was no technical reason for it not to work. [http://www.maxframe.com/DR/Info/fullstory/factrel.html] The encrypted code that Microsoft added to five otherwise unrelated Microsoft programs in order to prevent the functioning of DR DOS can be found here [http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=1030/ddj9309d/9309d.htm], in pseudocode and assembler. The article describes error messages given to users of a pre-release beta version of Windows 3.1. According to the article, the version of Windows 3.1 sold to the public was able to run under DR DOS. *Netscape Communications Corporation *Opera (web browser), which accused Microsoft of intentionally making its MSN service incompatible with the Opera browser on several occasions. *Sendo, which accused Microsoft of terminating their partnership so it could steal Sendo's technology to use in Windows Smartphone 2002. [http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=6905] *Spyglass, which licensed its browser to Microsoft in return for a percentage of each sale; Microsoft turned the browser into Internet Explorer and bundled it with Windows; Spyglass sued for deception. *Stac Electronics, which accused Microsoft of stealing its data compression code and using it in MS-DOS 6. [http://www.base.com/software-patents/articles/stac.html] *Sun Microsystems, which held Microsoft in violation of contract for including a modified version of Java in Microsoft Windows; Microsoft responded by abandoning Java. *WordPerfect On October 1, 2004, at an appearance at the Computer History Museum in northern California, Bill Gates was asked about a possible threat from Linux and was quoted as replying: ''"Microsoft has had competitors in the past. It's a good thing we have museums to document this stuff."'' [http://forbes.com/philanthropy/2004/10/04/cz_ec_1004gates.html] In 2004, Microsoft began to file applications for patents related to XML Parsing and Word Processing with various patent offices worldwide http://xml.coverpages.org/ni2004-01-27-a.html. These patents create legal barriers for competing desktop word-processing applications, such as OpenOffice.org, to access Microsoft Word data stored in the XML format. ==Linux and open source== In recent years Linux has become an increasingly popular server operating system, particularly for the low-margin, price-sensitive hosting market, and it has begun to make inroads to the desktop market. Wal-Mart now sells several cheap consumer PCs running various different Linux distributions, including Xandros, Linare and Linspire (formerly known as Lindows, renamed after a trademark challenge from Microsoft), which are all versions of Linux made to look and work like Microsoft Windows. Recently, several governmental users have announced the conversion of their desktop computers from Windows to Linux, including the countries of Brazil and Venezuela, the city of Munich, Germany; and France's Ministry of Equipment and Transport. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has stated that Linux is a "tough competitive force... It's non-traditional, it's free software#Free Speech definition and it's cheap. We have to educate people why what they pay for [our offerings] is more than offset by the value we deliver. We used to be the cheap guys. We were cheaper than Novell, cheaper than Oracle. We can't do that with this one." (Reported in CRN.com, June 17, 2002) Microsoft has been using various channels on the web and in popular media to fight the open source movement, usually with the help of think-tank organizations funded by Microsoft. One of their main claims is that the GNU General Public License license (the copyright license that Linux and much open-source software is released under) is a viral license that threatens intellectual property. They also argue that open source software is less secure, more expensive, and more attractive to terrorists than proprietary software. Supporters of open source assert that Microsoft's tactics amount to a campaign of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt). [http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107_2-1007997.html]. Microsoft has also facilitated a legal attack on Linux companies by licensing Unix from The SCO Group [http://www.opensource.org/halloween/halloween10.html]. SCO, which is currently SCO-Linux controversies, claims that IBM devalued the SCO operating system by taking SCO proprietary code and releasing it as part of Linux. Some have argued that Microsoft purchased these licenses not with intent of using them, but rather to subsidize the lawsuits and thereby weaken their primary x86 operating system competition. In November 2004, Ballmer stated that Linux violates more than 228 software patents and that "someday, for all countries that are entering the World Trade Organization, somebody will come and look for money owing to the rights for that intellectual property. ... We think our software is far more secure than open-source software. It is more secure because we stand behind it, we fixed it, because we built it. Nobody ever knows who built open-source software." [http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=582&e=2&u=/nm/20041118/wr_nm/asia_tech_microsoft_dc] He provided no details on which patents have been violated, nor did he mention the patent lawsuits currently facing Microsoft. [http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1661094,00.asp] Microsoft later issued a statement saying that Ballmer was citing a study written by a risk-management company. The author of the study responded by saying that his study found 283 potential patent violations in Linux, but that such allegations are a long way from a court finding merit in them, and that proprietary software is at equal or greater legal risk. [http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1729908,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594] Microsoft has begun to take measures to limit the use of its products under the open-source Wine (software) emulator on Linux: *After Wine was updated to support Visual FoxPro, thereby providing an inexpensive platform from which to run database applications, Microsoft claimed that it is a violation of the Visual FoxPro software license to use Visual FoxPro run-time applications on any platform other than a genuine Microsoft Windows installation. [http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6869] *Microsoft has implemented a "Windows Genuine Advantage" program which validates a user's operating system before allowing him to download any patches for Microsoft software. WGA blocks Wine users from being able to obtain patches for Microsoft Office. [http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39188944,00.htm] Microsoft has announced that WGA's block of Wine is specific and intentional; this marks the first time Microsoft has publicly mentioned Wine. [http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39189180,00.htm] Meanwhile, Microsoft has placed three projects under an open source license: the [http://sourceforge.net/projects/wix Windows Installer XML (WiX) toolset], the [http://sourceforge.net/projects/wtl/ Windows Template Library (WTL)] and FlexWiki. ==Controversy== ''Main article: Common criticisms of Microsoft'' Microsoft has been the focus of much controversy in the computer industry, especially since the 1980s. Among the more frequently criticized areas are: *Ease of use: Microsoft has been accused of allowing the user interface of its products to become inconsistent and overly complicated, requiring interactive "Wizard (software)s" to function as an extra layer between the user and the interface. This violates the anti-modality principles of early user interface design (the principle that the user should be forced to do one particular thing as little as possible). *Security: Microsoft products (such as Internet Explorer) are seen as overly vulnerable to computer viruses and malicious attacks, both for the simple reason of monoculture, and because of design decisions which often value ease of use over security. *Business practices: Microsoft is believed to engage in unfair and anticompetitive business tactics. The findings-of-fact from a federal antitrust case have affirmed this, and Microsoft has lost other lawsuits in which competitors accused it of stealing code, making Microsoft operating systems incompatible with their products or using predatory pricing and licensing tactics. *Total cost of ownership (TCO): Microsoft software is seen by some as more expensive to purchase, use and maintain than competitors' software. *Restrictive EULA on certain software development products that prevents users from releasing their code under the GNU GPL *Usage of Digital Rights Management ==Microsoft's future== The next version of Windows in development is codenamed Windows Longhorn, which is an extension of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Planned features include better user interaction with devices (such as media players) and an enhanced user interface called "Aero"[http://msdn.microsoft.com/longhorn/understanding/ux/]. Longhorn was planned to ship during 2003, but has since slipped to 2006. Microsoft may attempt to parlay its current success in desktop operating systems into new markets such as media players, server software, handheld devices, in-dash car devices, Web services, video games and search engines. Microsoft is attempting to establish PCs running Windows XP Media Center Edition as home entertainment hubs, and is considering moving towards a licensing subscription model. Microsoft's current revenue model depends on users buying upgrades on a periodic basis; however, this is proving increasingly difficult due to many users continuing usage of outdated-yet-"good-enough" packages of Microsoft's software. With a subscription basis, users would pay an annual fee for use of Microsoft's software. Recent managerial comments from Microsoft suggest that Microsoft is attempting to move up-market by positioning its products as "high value" rather than "low cost". Steve Ballmer said in 2002, "We are actually having to learn how to say, 'We may have a high price on this one, but look at the additional value and how that value actually leads to a lower cost of ownership despite the fact that our price may be higher.'" (Reported in ''VARbusiness'', July 15, 2002). Amid concerns from investors that Microsoft will not be capable of sustaining its historical growth rates, Microsoft announced in July 2004 its intention to implement a $30 billion stock repurchase plan over the next 4 years. Microsoft also paid a special one-time dividend in December 2004 that returned $32 billion to Microsoft stockholders, the largest payout by any company in history. Jean-François Susbielle 2005 novel, ''La morsure du dragon'', describes how the United States might respond if China banned Microsoft. ==See also== *History of Microsoft Windows *List of assets owned by Microsoft Corporation *List of companies acquired by Microsoft Corporation *Microsoft tax *MSDN *SCO v. IBM ==External links== *[http://www.microsoft.com/ Official website] *[http://www.msn.com/ MSN (Microsoft Network)] *[http://encarta.msn.com/ Encarta online site] '''Microsoft's Redmond campus maps''' *[http://www.microsoft.com/careers/mslife/locations/images/campus_map.jpg Main Campus] *[http://www.microsoft.com/careers/mslife/locations/images/west_campus.jpg West Campus] *[http://www.microsoft.com/careers/mslife/locations/images/north_campus.jpg North Campus] ===Articles=== *[http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v21n2/friedman.html March/April 1999 - ''The Business Community's Suicidal Impulse'' by Milton Friedman] (includes criticism of the antitrust case against Microsoft) *[http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24068 Free Market Predators vs. Well-meaning Reformers] *[http://xml.coverpages.org/ni2004-01-27-a.html Microsoft Files for Patents Related to XML Parsing and Word Processing] *[http://microsoft.toddverbeek.com/ "Just Say No to Microsoft"] ===Data=== *[http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/14/14120.html Yahoo! - Microsoft Corporation Company Profile] ===Audio=== *[http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9803/03/gates.full/ Microsoft CEO before the US Congress] ===Video=== *[http://story.news.yahoo.com/fc?tmpl=fc&cid=34&lp=3&ll=b3&pg=1&mod=video&in=tech&cat=microsoft_antitrust Yahoo! News - Full Coverage - Microsoft Antitrust] Microsoft Fortune 500 companies bs:Microsoft hi:माईक्रोसॉफ्ट simple:Microsoft th:ไมโครซอฟท์ zh-min-nan:Microsoft
Microsoft
''Prior text can be seen at Talk:Microsoft/History_as_of_2004_Jan_31'' ---- These pages seem extremely biased... here some suggestions - Monopoly/Legal issues/Linux Open Source etc. should really all be merged with controversy - as they all are pretty much controversy. Not only that but they should really be moved to seperate pages... On the Legal Issues side, I'd really like to see a lot more on why the Thomas Penfield Jackson suit was reversed.... it barely dwells on the idea by stating that they proposed a settlement with the justice department (WHAT settlement?). Maybe Linux etc. should be mentioned more from a historical perspective like they are on the AppleComputer page and not in a headline... User:RN : What are you refering to about Apple Computer ? There doesn't seem to be a single occurence of the word "linux" in this article... User:Rama 07:32, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC) :: Why Linux is mentioned at all in a Microsoft article boggles the mind, save that crap for the Linux page or a separate article --User:Bryan986 00:36, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) ---- Shouldn't there be a link to Common criticisms of Microsoft in the "See Also" section? :No, because it's already linked from ''Controversy'', above. - User:Brian Kendig 21:57, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC) ---- Could someone explain to me how on earth the statement "Microsoft has been using FUD..." is supposed to be NPOV? :Because it is demonstrably true that Microsoft has been using FUD to fight the open source movement. As the article states, Microsoft has asserted that the GPL threatens intellectual property, and that open source software is less secure, more expensive, and more attractive to terrorists than proprietary software is. Microsoft itself uses the term in the Halloween documents. The marketing tactics are not so much to advertise Microsoft as they are to drive people away from open source software. What part of this do you disagree with? - User:Brian Kendig 18:57, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC) ::I disagree with no part of it whatsoever, but whether I agree with a statement or not is not the point when it comes to whether it is appropriate for an entry in an encyclopaedia. I just had a look at the FUD entry and it seems to me to be clearly perjorative - see this part especially: "By spreading questionable information about the drawbacks of less well-known products, an established company can discourage decision-makers from choosing those products over its wares, regardless of the relative technical merits." It follows that by claiming Microsoft is using it we are casting them in a negative light and therefore we need to state clearly who believes that. As the authors of the entry we are not allowed to hold that position ourselves, regardless of how demonstrably true or not we might believe it to be. Much as the entry about Adolf Hitler isn't allowed to say "Hitler was an evil man". Instead we say what Hitler did and let the facts speak for themselves. :::I agree that FUD is an inherently POV term. What constitutes FUD is subjective, so it can't be "demonstrably true" whether or not Microsoft has used it. I also believe that they've used FUD, but that's just my belief. You can't prove that someone is using "fear, uncertainty and doubt" - three very subjective emotions - to further an argument. I think the phrase should say "Microsoft's critics accuse..." or something like that, with a citation. User:Rhobite 21:29, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC) ::::"Microsoft has been using various channels on the Internet and in popular media [citation?] to fight the open source movement, claiming (with the help of think-tank organizations funded by Microsoft) that the GPL is a "viral license" which threatens intellectual property and that open source software is less secure, more expensive, and more attractive to terrorists than proprietary software is. However, critics say [citation goes here] that Microsoft's claims are merely FUD." Clearly an imperfect edit which is why I'm loath to make any changes to the article as is without more discussion, but that proposal conveys the gist of an entry I would not object to. :::::Wikipedia:Be bold! Although it appears so at times, the philosophy here isn't "all talk and no action." I think that edit is good, go for it. But don't be surprised when someone else makes it even better. User:Rhobite 22:17, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC) *I don't have any dog in this particular fight but if that's what FUD means (I'd never heard of it before) then I would say that it most ''certainly'' is NPOV -- how could anyone possibly deny that it isn't? I suppose that it could be qualified, as usual, in the article by writing: "Some people (or Many observers) believe that Microsoft has been using FUD etc....) In any case, I think that "FUD" is a slangy term that should ''not'' be used in this context. User:Hayford Peirce 19:18, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC) ::The term "FUD" has been in use for thirty years now; I'd say it's well-established and safe to use, especially in a technological context. And I don't think qualifying it is necessary here - it describes a specific kind of marketing tactic which is unarguably in use by the company in question; cushioning it would be like saying "Some people believe that Bill Clinton was impeached..." - User:Brian Kendig 20:20, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC) :::I don't agree. Impeachment is a procedural matter, while fear, uncertainty and doubt are emotions. User:Rhobite 21:29, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC) :::Impeachment is also a strictly ''factual'' matter -- one can go back through the archives of the New York Times, for instance, and find articles and photographs of the ongoing process in the Congress. "Fear, doubt, and uncertainy" are ''subjective'' terms for the most part. Fear obviously exists as an emotion, but one man's fear is another man's non-fear, or scorn, or laughter, or disdain. I don't think an encyl. article should use such a subjective term, nor do I think it should use such a techie, slangie, term. FUD may have existed for 30 years in narrow confirms of certain tech circles, but it is ''certainly'' not in general use. Ask yourself, for instance, if your 70-year-old grannie with a degree in English from Radcliffe who has written travel articles for the Nat. Geo. would know what the hell you were talking about if she clicked on the Microsoft article. I sincerely doubt it.... User:Hayford Peirce 22:30, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC) I still disagree. I believe that FUD is a proven and not uncommon marketing tactic (it refers not to the emotions themselves, but to the attempt to trigger these emotions), and I believe that it can easily be shown that Microsoft has created advertisements (and funded advertising and studies) which state or imply that Bad Things will happen to people who use open source software. However, I'm willing to go along with the majority opinion here. All I ask is that instead of saying ''"Microsoft claims that open source software is less secure, more expensive, and more attractive to terrorists; however, critics say that Microsoft's claims are merely FUD"'' that instead you say something like ''"... more attractive to terrorists; this kind of misinformation is known as FUD."'' If you want a better background on the history of Microsoft and FUD, do a Google search on it; it returns almost 95,000 hits (and another 30,000 in Google Groups). [http://www.google.com/search?q=microsoft+fud&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8] - User:Brian Kendig 03:12, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC) :Now you suggest the article describe Microsoft's claims as "misinformation" - this is even more of a blatant opinion than calling it "FUD" without qualifiers is. With due respect Brian, you're obviously letting your personal opinion on this issue badly cloud your understanding of the principles of NPOV. ::I apologize if it seems I'm letting any personal opinion bias this - in my perspective, I'm trying to make sure the article calls a spade a spade, and doesn't wander into POV by declining to call something what it is. Microsoft has been ''notorious'' over the past two decades for its use of FUD, and trying to trivialize this in the article would be misrepresenting reality. Specific to open source: when a Microsoft-funded thinktank claims that the spread of open source software will make it easier for terrorists to hack into US computer networks [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/06/04/open_source_invites_terrorism_study/], or that using any GPL'ed code in a classified government software project would require the government to publish the entire source code of its project [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/06/10/msfunded_think_tank_propagates_opensource/], I honestly don't see how this could be called anything other than misinformation. Is this not FUD? - User:Brian Kendig 05:10, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC) : In my opinion this is NPOV because Microsoft decribe their campaign as "spreading FUD" in their own documents (which Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer have personally confirmed to be accurate). IMO `FUD' is not slangy; but the alternative word, `terrorism', could be used (although unfortunately it has started to gain connotations with killing--as opposed to just FUD--in recent years). :-User:Joeblakesley [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Joeblakesley (c)]user_talk:joeblakesley 20:06, 2005 Jan 15 (UTC) Following the advice of user User:Rhobite above I have made my suggested edit. As a cite for the FUD claim I've provided a link to what I think is a good rebuttal of Microsoft anti-Linux FUD from Bruce Perens. I'm not sure that this is the ''ideal'' link for the purpose however, so would be interested to see if someone else has a better one that could be put there instead. ---- I would have expected this edit of the article ''131.107.3.85 (Talk) (Removed misleading comments about mismatched dlls and lack of memory protection)'' to have been accompanied here by an explanation of why the comments are considered ''misleading''. I do not think they were and the anonymous culling of them is annoying. I think they could have been improved - but cut? No. User:Psb777 23:08, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC) :Well, I'm certainly not ''surprised'' that there was no commentary here - remember that an anonymous edit is 99% surely a new user, who wouldn't know "better". As for whether the text should have been removed, let's start discussing - for posterity, here are the removed paragraphs: ::Microsoft software makes heavy use of software re-use. Whereas this provides some advantages it also leads to complex interdependencies between software packages. Installing one package can break another where they use incompatible versions of the same DLL, for example. ''Similar problems exist in other operating systems also e.g. Linux.'' ::Microsoft operating systems do not protect the data memory or even the program memory of one process from being overwritten by another process. This can mean, for example, that crashing the Microsoft web browser can also crash the operating system GUI. ::: Evidently, the person who wrote that parent comment has no idea what they are on about. User:Ta bu shi da yu :The first is completely redundant, since it is true of just about every (reasonably large) Operating System under the sun, whether made by Microsoft or not; I completely agree with its deletion. The second may have ''some'' merit, I suppose, if it could be reworded to be more technically correct - ''which'' Microsoft OSes have this problem? ''To what extent'' is this different from other OSes? For that matter, to what extent is it ''true''? - User:IMSoP 23:42, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC) ::I came here to comment on the same subject. I put a note at Talk:131.107.3.85. I think the DLL issue should be mentioned, perhaps something along the lines of "Like other operating systems, Microsoft Windows supports software re-use. Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs) are sometimes replaced, which can result in compatibility issues. Recent versions of Microsoft Windows support methods for avoiding these problems". However, I think this would be more appropriate for the Microsoft Windows article. ::As for protecting the memory, they do. The specific problem with Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer is that they share the same code, so crashing one often crashes the other. ::User:Scott McNay 03:59, 2004 Feb 17 (UTC) Sharing the same code does not cause two processes to interfere on other operating systems. On Linux a serious memory management kernel bug would be required to have that effect. The reason the failure of one process can affect another on (certain versions of?) Windows is because of (a) a lack of inter-process memory protection and (b) a lack of protection of the "text segment" (i.e. the code in memory) from being overwritten by a process. I think also these comments should be removed to Microsoft Windows - I should have done that rather than try to improve the incorrect statements I replaced. All we need here is a mention of certain weaknesses and strengths in Windows and to provide a link. User:Psb777 07:46, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC) :Agree that technical strengths and weaknesses of Windows a) should be discussed, b) in the article about Windows rather than Microsoft. I do feel that "DLL hell" (a phrase which, in typical Microsoft fashion, Microsoft itself has begun to use in its marketing--in order to praise their own resolution of a self-inflicted and avoidable problem), ''even if'' similar problems exist in other OSes (Apple classic OS extension conflicts, anyone?). "DLL hell" was a salient feature of the Microsoft Windows user experience during the 1990s and deserves a short, suitably NPOV discussion. :Microsoft software has a characteristic "flavor" to it, even if the flavor represents only a relatively small departure from general contemporary practice, and, to the extent this can be done while maintaining an NPOV, this should be discussed. Nobody would blink twice at a statement that Mahler tends to write long symphonies that include choral segments. Nobody would waste time saying "Well, everyone else does too, that's just normal for modern symphonies, look at Beethoven." "Yeah, but Beethoven's symphonies aren't THAT long. Even the Ninth fits on a single CD." "That's only because Sony designed the CD to fit the Ninth." "Bloat, that's what it is. These younger programmers think nothing of wasting score real estate. The old-timers like Haydn could write a fully functional symphony with less than a 15-minute runtime. Now it takes seven times as long to get the job done. All the advances in high-speed metronomes are being negated by utterly inefficient composers..." User:Dpbsmith 13:37, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC) ::The problem with this analogy is that you're likening the creation of an operating system to art. While to some extent I believe that engineering is an art, in this case the analogy is a little stretched. Most people would agree on what an operating system is, and what duties it should perform. That being the case, the number of possible engineering solutions is limited, and however it is tackled, the end result will be, by and large, a similar feature set, executed in a similar amount of space with similar performance. For example, most OS's of the Linux/Unix/BSD/Mac OS X type turn in similar performances on the same hardware, and offer similar features, while retaining their individual "flavours". If an OS turns up that is well outside these expected parameters, one has to ask whether that's simply because it was executed differently - in other words, a consequence of its artists' quirks, or whether in fact, the engineering is flawed. User:GRAHAMUK 22:31, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC) Just to clarify what I was saying about Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer, go open My Computer, and type a URL into the address bar. Or open IE and type "C:\" into the address bar. The point is that it's a single process with multiple threads; if one thread causes a problem for the main module, all the windows opened by the process are gone, whether they're Windows Explorer windows or Internet Explorer windows. (This seems to be dependent upon the settings in Windows Explorer). I agree that Windows discussions shouldn't be in Microsoft aricle, except for business issues. User:Scott McNay 03:44, 2004 Feb 18 (UTC) You've properly identified another reason I was ignoring why a screw up (to use a technical term) in one window affects other windows: They are being managed by different threads of the same process. There is no inter-thread memory protection and so one thread can overwrite the data of another. (This is a Linux problem with threads also.) Also the in-memory text segment shared by the threads can be corrupted by one thread because (some versions of?) MS Windows does not protect the text segment. (Linux does not have that problem.) "Threads are an abomination" is a worthy title for another article. File under "Religion". MS Windows is not good at starting new processes - it's very expensive - out of necessity threads are used. Linux/Unix rightly (righteously!) mostly uses different processes for different tasks rather than using threads. Amen. User:Psb777 06:36, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC) ---- I don't get how Microsoft is better at backwards-compatibility than other software companies. Don't they intentionally break MSWord's file format to force people to upgrade? Apparently, even their webpage doesn't render properly in older versions of IE... User:Paullusmagnus 22:26, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC) ---- You are right, many purely software companies are better than MS at the task of some backwards compatibility. Yet MS is better at backwards compatibility than those combined hardware-OS producers which have come up with new hardware and OS systems which break totally or in an irregular fashion with their previous offerings. I come from a field (librarianship) where the biggest computer maker in the world has been cursed mightily by systems librarians over more than 30 years (this goes back to before the birth of MS and stretches on today) because of incompatibility over time, and other aggravations. Somebody has put in a date of 1986 as a break-off point. I am not sure of that but I will not contest it. The partial incompatibility aspect makes any discussion diffcult and gives a convoluted encyclopedia article. User:AlainV 04:14, 2004 Mar 4 (UTC) ---- Why is the February 2004 link not working? ---- "(Microsoft is about on par with other large technology companies for acquisitions)" Is this true? I wonder what exactly this means. If it's something like acquisitions/profit, then that's not much evidence that Microsoft innovates at all. It's such a vague statement that I have removed it. ---- I have the feeling that this article is not entirely un-biased :). Ofcourse there should be information about the 'bad' side of Microsoft - I simply loved the 'public perception' part, it was like reading a history book 100 years from now (unless M$ will get world domination :)). However, sometimes I think it is a bit overdone, even though I'm no particular Microsoft-lover myself. The 'the future' section for example starts out with putting up quite a case for open source software, and I do not think that is what this topic is about. It is difficult, I understand, to find a good balance between pro-Microsoft and anti-Microsoft, but I think it's balancing a bit towards the latter. Not nessecarily bad, on the other hand I'm not sure if that's good either. User:Grauw 16:56, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC) ---- That "Microsoft and SCO v. IBM" text I removed... If someone wants it back desperately, I think it's best to just put an external link to the story on the Halloween documents page. User:Grauw 00:58, 6 May 2004 (UTC) : I think the SCO thing could be mentioned in a sentence or two rather than completely eliminated, eh? User:Krupo 01:00, 6 May 2004 (UTC) :: I agree. The details of SCO's financing through Baystar/Microsoft is not a significant part of Microsoft's business history to warrant a separate heading. Perhaps a link under see also. User:Zsweden :::Should get a mention in a section. The para I put in on think tank funding should probably go in the same section - User:David Gerard 13:44, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC) :::Looks good to me Zsweden... Any reader would rather be interested in a global story about the Microsoft cases than an elaboration on one such specific case. After all, if you put one in, why not the others too. I guess that maybe I was a bit too rash (but hey, it's a Wiki :)), but this is good. If someone wants specific details, he/she can now look it up in its dedicated Wikipedia entry. User:Grauw 00:04, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC) ::::I am thinking about creating a "legal challenges" heading and including the monopoly/antitrust and an index to other lawsuits? I agree with previous comments that the legal aspects are an important part of Microsoft and could be very interesting if we could have an informed debate about some of Microsoft's practices and maybe relate these to specific cases. User:Zsweden 02:40, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC) I want to get some feedback on these ideas to improve the structure of the article before I make any edits: * Merging the security discussion and security problems area * Re-organizing the products part according to the 7 divisions of Microsoft. There is for example no mention of the Business Solutions part of Microsoft. * Re-writing the future of Microsoft based on the business plans of the company. See for example [http://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/sample/DOMIS/update/2003/09sep/0903sbpff.htm] * Moving the current future which focuses on Linux to "Major Competitors" User:Zsweden I have started making some edits to improve the structure of the page as noted above. User:Zsweden 19:20, 31 May 2004 (UTC) :Structure is good. How consistently have they kept things to the seven divisions? - User:David Gerard 13:44, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC) ::Not sure if this answers your question, but my impression is that since it is both a financial and an organizational structure that is imposed by the 7 divisions: ::* Each product needs to be clearly identified to a division at any given time. However, things move around from time to time to reflect the strategy of the company, for example the embedded group was just moved into the mobile group to bring the initiatives closer. ::* Also, part of MSFT strategy has always been to get groups to work closely (a.k.a integrated innovation) so there is co-operation both on marketing and development aspects. User:Zsweden 00:30, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC) Under "Eating our own dog food": ''Within Microsoft the expression "eating our own dog food" is used to describe the policy of using Microsoft products inside the company. It can be very difficult for management, support staff, and even software developers to get permission to use software from Microsoft competitors. This policy is explained by the desire to make sure Microsoft employees are familiar with Microsoft products. One of the effects of this policy is to push the development of products which software developers find useful for their immediate needs, regardless of the perceived needs of the general market.'' I'm removing "this policy is explained by the desire..." because I don't know what Microsoft's actual explanation of the policy is. And about the policy pushing development of products for the developers' immediate needs instead of the needs of the general market, does anyone know of any specific examples where this has happened? If not, then that sentence should also be removed. User:Brian Kendig 12:58, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC) == dead link == the microsith.com link is dead - I'll remove it but I'm leaving this comment here in case it was a temporary server 'outage' --User:Krupo 01:00, 6 May 2004 (UTC) In cases like that, commenting out the HTML with <!-- --> is useful - User:David Gerard 13:44, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC) =="Ease of use"== I dispute the section of the article which touts Microsoft's ease of use as a revolutionary concept or as one which continues to this day. Yes, I think the common interface, backwards compatibility, and interconnectedness helped Microsoft in its early years, but these days such things are common. In this day and age, Microsoft is being widely criticized for having a user interface which is inconsistent and overly complicated, requiring an additional layer of "wizards" to handle it. Countless books (such as "Windows for Dummies") and web sites (such as Annoyances.org) are dedicated to helping people make sense of Microsoft interface confusion. I think it's silly and POV to say that ''Microsoft's position ... can be completely traced to better serving the customer needs'' because it's well known that its position has MUCH to do with predatory practices and FUD. I also dispute the section which begins ''Critics claim that the apparent simplicity of the products...'' because I don't know anyone who's used Microsoft software for very long and would still say that it has "apparent simplicity." I think this section of the article is POV and needs some serious balancing. User:Brian Kendig 03:51, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC) Yes, the section reads more like a praise from an MS Web page, but I disagree about balancing. What it really needs is grounding. Just why is the MS Windows interface so easier and/or simple than the Amiga one or some of the implementations of Unix based ones like QNX Photon? And in what particular aspects. In a controversy filled article like this one all gneralisations should have some form of contact with real happenings on a screen. User:AlainV 09:32, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC) ==Break up the article== At 37KB, I think this article is way too long. What would y'all say to breaking it into "Microsoft" (focusing only on the company and its products) and "Microsoft controversy" (focusing on the legal battles and the public perception)? User:Brian Kendig 05:47, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC) :Could do with a better title. (No, nothing springs to mind ...) The main article would need a few-paragraph summary of the larger article, of course. - User:David Gerard 11:05, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC) ::I support breaking up the article. Regarding what to move out. I vote: :: * Move out "Advantages and Disadvantages": which collect a lot of the opinions in the article under one main heading. :: * Move out Monopoly: United States v. Microsoft is a good article which overlaps a lot with the Monopoly section. :: * Re-write/Move "The future": It is less about Microsoft's roadmap than various opinions on Linux vs. Windows which be moved out. :: * Move out Public Perception: It will be a great intro to the new article. Microsoft Controversy" sounds good to me as a new title. ::I agree with David about having a short summary of the new articles in the main Microsoft article and linking to the longer pieces. User:Zsweden 13:51, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC) :::Okay, I created Microsoft controversy and moved a bunch of stuff from this article over there. Please have a look at it, and edit both articles as necessary. I know there should be more references from Microsoft to Microsoft controversy, and perhaps some of the information in the latter should be moved or copied back to the former. User:Brian Kendig 17:15, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC) ==Do Microsoft programmers really "eat their own dog food?"== Although this statement is frequently made, I wonder how much truth there is in it. I was puzzled by some problems and limitations with Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, and with its apparently lack of continuing development, with few recent updates. I've given up on ever getting branches and the merge feature to work in a reasonable way. On asking around and doing some Web searches, a frequent "explanation" is that ClearCase is the predominant source management tool used within Microsoft and that Visual SourceSafe is ''not,'' in fact, used much. I don't work for Microsoft so I can't say whether or not this is true and, if true, I don't know whether it's an anomaly. User:Dpbsmith 01:00, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC) : I believe Sourcesafe is one of only a few exceptions to the "dog food" policy. I've heard that most products do get used internally, such as Office betas, Windows, and even Visual Studio. I read an excellent blog entry by an employee explaining the issue with using SourceSafe (it's completely inadequate). I couldn't find the blog but it confirmed that most products do get used internally, with betas spreading out to less technical users as testing progresses. User:Rhobite 01:06, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC) :Sourcesafe is the primary exception - mainly because we all know it's worthless. The source control tools used by Microsoft are proprietary (and unfortunately rather antiquated). Dogfooding is a big deal though; we're strongly encouraged to dogfood just about every office application and service pack we could reasonably use on a daily basis, and to upgrade to cutting edge versions constantly, mainly as a method for improving quality. User:Dcoetzee 21:27, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC) Kevin Schofield keeps a list of MS employees with blogs. He calls it the blogroll. It is on the right hand column on his blog site here : http://radio.weblogs.com/0133184/ . Up to now all the MS blogs I have read confirm this canine nourishment method. Personally though I find most blogs repetitive and boring and much prefer reading the best of the books that come out now and then on the topic of MS and the best of the many business periodical articles that deal with its internal workings. And all these paper sources also confirm the continuation of their dog food practice, most of the time. User:AlainV 04:14, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC) ==Financial information== I'm looking for financial info about the company, and more specifically: * How much of the company's income comes from sales of Windows and Office? * What is the profit rate for Windows and Office? User:Guaka 00:14, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC) ---- ==Linux swipe== ''"Microsoft's future in the world marketplace is closely tied to the future of the open source software development model in the long term, and to the future of several products of that open source model in the short term. Two of those products, the GNU/Linux operating system and the OpenOffice.org office suite, directly compete with two of Microsoft's most popular products, the Windows operating system and the Office application suite. These products threaten Microsoft's current dominance of the operating system and office suite mark" '' I think that this statement sways from the truth, and if anyone else comes along in accordance they should delete the paragraph. Linux has already had at least one other swipe at Microsoft in the article. I doubt any pragmatic statistics would back up the claims of "directly compete" and "threat Microsoft's current dominance". User:Alterego 11:39 PM GMT+1 7/12/2004 Update: Deleted. == More on the above == I deleted much bias out of this article. If you need an example of how to write an unbiased article about a large business please see IBM. See also NPOV. See also Common criticisms of Microsoft For the compare view of the changes i've made see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Microsoft&diff=0&oldid=4600851 ---- *If you're gonna say flatly that a court found Microsoft guilty of anti-trust monopolies, then you also have to tell something about the outcome and whether this finding is relevant or not. For instance, if you write about the old Standard Oil Company, it isn't enough to write: "Standard Oil was found guilty of illegal monopolies. Period. End of statement. New Paragraph." You have to add something like: "As a result of this judgment, Standard Oil was broken up into 12 competing units, Standard Oil of New York, Standard Oil of New Jersey, Standard Oil of California. Etc. etc." The same with an article about Philip Morris. You could write: "Philip Morris has been found guilty of many offenses involving the sale of cigarettes and has been ordered to pay hundreds of billions of dollars." That's true, of course. But what you have to add is that many of these judgments have been subsequently reduced, or completely thrown out, or are under appeal, and that up to this point Philip Morris has not paid any of these hundreds of billions. The same is true with Microsoft. Sure, the court in Baltimore found them guilty -- but Microsoft then appealed and a lot of Motz's judgment was thrown out. Microsoft then negotiated settlements with the Justice Department and most of the states. To the satisfaction of Microsoft. Have you noticed today that because they have negotiated successful settlements that they now feel that they can pay out $35 billion dollars in a one-time dividend to its stockholders, the largest payout in corporate history? I'm not saying that future judgments against Microsoft may not affect its operation -- I'm just saying that a bald statement about them being guilty of something isn't enough. Many large companies, in fact most of them, are constantly in lawsuits with one person or another, or one government agency or another. They pay fines from time to time. Or change their way of doing business. But it's not enough just to say about them that they were found guilty of something. You gotta tell the reader what the consequences of this were.User:Hayford Peirce 17:21, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC) ::I agree with this. The Bush DOJ made it clear that they didn't want to continue aggressive litigation and most states went along with this. The antitrust settlements haven't really affected Microsoft's business although they have placed restrictions on Microsoft's software, mostly the ability to use other software than what's bundled with Windows. User:Rhobite 17:26, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC) *The lead article on page 1 of today's New York Times was the Microsoft dividend. Later in the article they go on to say, paraphrasing Microsoft's general counsel, I believe: "On June 30, a federal appeals court handed Microsoft a convincing victory in ending its domestic antitrust problems, upholding the settlement the company reached with the government two years ago." *New para in the story: "The company has also resolved three-quarters of the state class-actions file, Mr. Smith said. The company's appeal of a $603 million fine the European Commission imposed in March is still pending, 'but at least we have a better sense of the known risk,' Mr. Connors said."User:Hayford Peirce 18:19, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC) Your reasoning persuaded me that some mention of the legal outcome is needed in this article's first paragraph, if we're going to be mentioning the legal issues at all. I reworded it slightly - I don't feel we need a detailed explanation of the legal outcomes right there in the first paragraph; I hope my edit suffices. - User:Brian Kendig 20:44, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC) **That looks fine to me.User:Hayford Peirce 21:25, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC) ---- Regarding the deletion of the paragraph concerning MicroSoft products -- I think it contains important information and should be maintained but rewritten. It *is* important info to say that Word replaced WordPerfect as the dominant wordprocessor, etc. (I myself have used WordPerfect for 19 years now and hate Word, not to mention Windows, but facts are facts). The paragraph could easily be rewritten with no trace of POV.User:Hayford Peirce 19:00, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC) :I made an attempt to do so; I removed the first sentence (''Some of these products were successful, and some were not.'') and moved the last (about Microsoft Bob) to "Other offerings." - User:Brian Kendig 20:44, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC) **Looks good to me.User:Hayford Peirce 21:25, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC) == history: apple == I think the history section lacks mentions to apple. It was a important aspect of how the GUI was copyed form apple (who in turn copied form xerox parc) user avsa (too lazy to log) :Also too lazy to check the facts. As this is discussed on History of the Graphical User Interface I'll leave it to you to read up and get a clue. Oh I forgot, you're lazy. In that case, I'll say it here; Apple didn't copy the GUI from PARC.User:GRAHAMUK 06:13, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC) == Longhorn == ''Was initially to ship in 2003, but slipped to 2006'' less like a slip and more like a little sprint (or 10 of them) User:Ilyanep— Ilγαηερ">User:Ilyanep (Tαlκ)">User talk:Ilyanep 05:37, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC) == the era of "open computing,"' the free exchange of digital information that has defined the personal computer industry, is ending == Maybe [http://www.dotgnu.org/danger.html this quote] should be put somewhere on this page? :: User:Paul Pogonyshev 15:28, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC) ==Stock options== [http://www.fool.com/portfolios/rulemaker/2000/rulemaker000217.htm] I think an even more interesting topic on this company that is seriously needed is the effect of stock options on Microsoft profitability. Yeah, i know some people would like to claim options are not expenses, but then nobody try to explain where the options receipients receive their money from. An updated article can be found here [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/27/microsoft_fy2005q2_earnings/] and here [http://www.msversus.org/node/76] == US centric == "For example, while many software companies often place an entry level software developer in a cubicle desk within a large office space filled with other cubicles, Microsoft assigns a private or semi-private closed office to every developer or pair of developers. In addition, key decisionmakers at every level are either developers or former developers." This only applies to the US. In Europe it is nothing special to have seperated rooms. "Microsoft takes security as a very serious issue. If it did not secure its software and hardware secrets successfully (such as the source code to software) then it could stand to lose its market position. The Microsoft Security System is therefore very complex." Security is a big issue and a hot top in regards MS products. It was been widely criticised for security problems. The above statement doesn't seem to reflect that very well and sounds almost like a press release from MS "Diversity Microsoft was named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers in 2004 by Working Mothers magazine." This again doesn't make any sense at all in the context of the article. I don't understand why it is where it is, or why it is there at all. == Unbalanced POV that needs clean up in Controversy seciton == The following POV paragraph at the bottom of the controversy section needs to be balanced by including pro anti trust citations/quotations. POV phrases such as "It is held by many" need to be cleaned up. Any assumed collusion before 2000 between the government and microsoft foes would not excuse illegal activity would it? Is Milton Friedman even notable/relevant these days? There seems to be a large potential for clean up in this paragraph. What does everyone think? :''There are also critics of the antitrust proceedings against Microsoft, which they believe to be an unjustified assault on a business who held a large market share merely by outcompeting its rivals. It is held by many that the case against Microsoft was the result of collusion between government and Microsoft's competitors in an attempt to gain an unfair advantage by thwarting the free market through government coercion. Nobel economist Milton Friedman believes that the antitrust case against Microsoft sets a dangerous precedent that foreshadows increased government regulation of what was formerly an industry that was relatively free of "government intrusion" and that technological progress in the industry will be impeded as a result. Friedman, moreover, says that antitrust laws do more harm than good and should not exist.'' User:Zen-master User talk:Zen-master 22:44, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC) I agree that for such a contentious article, "held by many" should only be used if we have data about how many hold it. I'd change it to "They hold ...", which also avoids the passive voice. As for the question how relevant Milton Friedman is, I would say that this should be discussed on his article. Interested readers can judge this for themselves. The beauty of Wikipedia is that this information is only a mouse click away.
User:SebastianHelm 23:45, 2005 Feb 17 (UTC) :I meant the question of Friedman's relevance in the context of asking why there is so much of his information/quotations included in the *summary* section for *controversies*? That section is basically listing the alleged controversies in very NPOV fashion but then denounces the anti trust controversy in very POV fashion using friedman. It seems as if at some point specific details on microsoft's controversies were moved to a daughter article while a lengthy POV paragraph where friedman is used to "denounce" the anti-trust controversy is allowed to remain in the controversies *summary* section. It does not make sense to me, that Friedman paragraph needs a lot more NPOV balance or it should be removed entirely as uncleanupable in my opinion. There may also be a need to expand on some other recent Microsoft criticisms and controversies among other things, though the list that is there currently does a good job and a good job at NPOV. User:Zen-master User talk:Zen-master 23:55, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC) :: I see. I agree that this paragraph should be moved to the appropriate article. As for how NPOV the current text is: Currently, the overview only talks of lost lawsuits. I don't know much about it, but if Microsoft won any lawsuits, this should be given fair mention in both articles.
User:SebastianHelm 00:23, 2005 Feb 18 (UTC) == Falsifiability == User:The Anome added the following line to the ''The future of Microsoft'' section, "It has also been speculated that Microsoft may be using security concerns to drive users to upgrade their systems, by only making some security fixes available on their latest operating systems." Does non-verifiable speculation belong in a Wikipedia article? I don't think so. It may be a fact that there is a speculation; however, it is not a fact that Microsoft uses security concerns to drive sales. In addition, the entire ''The future of Microsoft'' section does not belong because the future is inherently unconfirmed. The future can only be forecasted. The future cannot be foreseen. Other issues for responsible editors to look into is the usage of terms such as "improvement". In the aforementioned section, it is stated that Windows Longhorn "will be an extension of, and improvement on, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003." We cannot be certain that Windows Longhorn is indeed and improvement of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003; however, we can be somewhat certain about what Microsoft plans for Windows Longhorn. Watch out for this. User:Adraeus 17:01, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC) :I removed the line saying that Microsoft makes some security fixes only available on the latest operating systems. :* First of all, it's not true. Microsoft makes security fixes available on all operating systems which it currently supports. For example, updates are frequently made available for Windows 2000, despite it having long since been superseded by Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. :* Additionally, such a claim doesn't belong in the paragraph about the annual fee subscription licenses. :If the person who added this assertion to the article means to point out that older operating systems (such as Windows 98) are no longer supported, then that's a separate issue. Someone reverted my deletion and added to the statement: ''... by making some security fixes, such as the forthcoming IE7 web browser update, only available...'' but that's also incorrect; IE7 is not a security fix. If I'm wrong, and there are security fixes which are ''not'' made available to some operating systems which Microsoft currently supports, then let's point them out in the article. - User:Brian Kendig 22:52, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) ::If IE7 is not a security fix, why are Microsoft enthusiastically promoting it as such? For example, as in this statement by one W. Gates: [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/15/gates_rsa_2005/] -- User:The Anome 19:04, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC) :::What statement? I followed your link and there was absolutely nothing to suggest that IE7 is a "security fix" at all. IE7 is a whole new update, much like Office 2003 is an updated version of Office. -- User:Smoothy 10:48, April 4, 2005 (BST) == Market cap == What was the peak market cap of this company? This page ([http://evan.quuxuum.org/bgnw.html]) say that Bill's initial ownership share (11,142,000 shares, 50, 60% ?) was worth $384 billion when the stock was worth $119.75 (according to Yahoo! $119.94 during ) in December of 1999 ([http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=MSFT&a=02&b=13&c=1986&d=02&e=27&f=2000&g=d]). The close on 30-Dec-99 was $117.12 which split adjusted is $51.99.--User:Jerryseinfeld 21:01, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC) :According to their 2000 annual report, Microsoft had 5.28B shares outstanding (remember this is before the 2:1 split in 2003). At a peak price of $119.75, their market cap would have been $632.28 billion. I'm not sure where that $384B figure comes from, but Bill Gates has sold a significant number of shares. I believe he owns about a tenth of the company now. User:Rhobite 22:31, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC) == wikipedia has m$'s attention == As seen in this article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnforms/html/winforms11162004.asp :Don't be too surprised — I've barely met anyone at MS who doesn't know about Wikipedia, and I've seen plenty of citations internally. Wikipedia is ubiquitous. User:Dcoetzee 21:02, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC) == Sign image to use == I took a photo of a fancy Microsoft sign (''see right'') and was wondering if it could fit into this article somehow. Could someone insert it in an appropriate place if so? Maybe a section about the campus. Thanks. User:Dcoetzee 21:06, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC) == Vole? == A number of people appear to refer to Microsoft as "The Vole" and sometimes also refer to "Vole Hill, Redmond" as a pointer to Microsoft. Finding such occurrances is easy, but I can't find any reference to where this phrase arose or what the rationale is for it. (I suspect it started with www.theinquirer.net as that's where I've seen in most - but why?) == Logo Guidelines == Hey all, came across this URL describing limitations on how the Microsoft logo can be used: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/trademarks/corplogo.asp These don't seem to make an allowance for informational purposes. Whether all these rules can be enforced in law, or will be, is another matter. I think we should keep it on the page — we certainly aren't using it maliciously and if nothing else we have OCILLA. Nevertheless, I was thinking we might avoid some of their wrath if we at least include the attribution notice somewhere: ''Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation'' (as if this weren't entirely obvious) 17:34, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC) :Corporations can't prevent the use of their logos for informational purposes. Wikipedia's use of logos falls under fair use and is completely legal. User:Rhobite 17:37, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC) :As someone who creates identity guidelines professionally, I say ignore those guidelines. They're not for us. User:Adraeus 18:13, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC) == Speaking of logo history... == ...an hysterically funny and, I ''think'', unintentional diagram appeared in the OS/2 manual circa OS/2 1.3. It was in the promotional-drool-executive-overview section that showed how wonderful OS/2 was. It was supposed to show something about how beautifully the parts of the system worked together. If I recall the configuration correctly, it showed a pair of meshed circular gears and a long, single worm gear driven by a crank. The worm gear was positioned so that it meshed with both circular gears at the same time, attempting them both in the same direction, while the two circular gears, being meshed, were constrained to turn in opposite direction. In other words, the system was jammed and it would have been impossible to turn the crank or get anything in the system to operate. User:Dpbsmith User_talk:dpbsmith 20:33, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC) Anyone have a copy of this? I'd really like to see it. == Lawsuit? == The racial discrimination lawsuit against Microsoft [http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/microsoft/msdiscrmclactacmplt.pdf] made big headlines at the time [http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-4352837.html] [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1098683.stm], but I'm not sure if it was ever settled or dismissed. Does anyone have more information on this? User:ElBenevolente 01:40, 18 May 2005 (UTC) *I don't know the answer to tht, but I've been looking to add information on the Vizcaino suit at some point. User:SchmuckyTheCat 07:44, 18 May 2005 (UTC) == My damn link... === I put a link to [http://www2.thorrune.net/articles/microsoft this article] on here, and it was removed without reasoning, then added it again ant yet again it was removed. I wanna know why you can't have it there, and why any of the other articles are more worth the sapce? They came first or something? User:ThorRune 15:17, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC) == Wikipedia:Microsoft notice board == Note: to start this off I'm posting this to a few Microsoft articles. I have kicked this off as I think we can do a lot better on many of our Microsoft related articles. Windows XP is just one example of a whole bunch of people getting together to fix up issues of NPOV, fact and verifiability of an article. I think that no matter whether you like Microsoft or not that we could definitely do with a review of: a) the articles that we already have, and b) the articles that we ''should'' have in Wikipedia! - User:Ta bu shi da yu 02:06, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Microsoft
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