Most of his competitors destroyed themselves. See "In Search Of Stupidity" by Chapman.

Brilliant book. In it, Rick Chapman also states how there were some things MS should have done differently, but the general opinion that MS "killed" competitors' products and was strongly monopolistic is quite wrong.

> we're all worse off as a result

Who is we? Who are you speaking for? Are you speaking for me? Are you speaking for millions of people his foundation and charity work touched?

Step out of your little bubble and leave your childish comments there.

We are the people who end up having to deal with a lack of free choices, a small range of products which are buggy, and DRM bullshit.

As for his foundation and whatnot, it could be said that a fairly large number of people, given the sort of financial resources he has, would help "millions of people". Actually, a lot of extremely wealthy people do use their financial resources to help vast numbers of people. Often, they just make donations instead of creating foundations, since other foundations may already exist to do what they want.

As such, it is quite reasonable to disregard the "millions of people his foundation and charity work have touched", as many others would have done the same in his place.

What DRM bullshit? I thought it was Apple that implemented Palladium?

>As such, it is quite reasonable to disregard the "millions of people his foundation and charity work have touched", as many others would have done the same in his place.

Steve Jobs quote:

>Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he’s more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology

Also, throwing money at charities is far less effective than try to affect change by working full time on it. If money was the solution, the tens of billions given to Africa would've solved the issues.

If you are unfamiliar with Microsoft's role as a major proponent of DRM and generally consumer-hostile device policies, you just haven't been paying attention.

Allowing Vista to play Bluray makes MS a major proponent of DRM? Then so are Google(Widevine acquisition), Mozilla(DRM in HTML5) and Apple. If you're referring to the FUD against Vista DRM, it was debunked long ago. I guess you missed it(read all three parts).

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/everything-youve-read-about-v...

Also, perhaps you believe more FUD against Windows 7's perceived DRM, but it was also debunked.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/02/oh-the... Perhaps you need to read from more varied news sources than just Slashdot, Groklaw and Boycott Novell/Techrights.

And what have you got to say about Palladium implementation by Apple?

> We are the people who end up having to deal with a lack of free choices, a small range of products which are buggy, and DRM bullshit.

What are you dealing with? Get real, you are sitting on HN waiting for your Uber.

Buggy products? Who has bug free products? Name one bug free product from 10 years ago. Is it going to be some half ass Linux desktop distro? The new bi-weekly 'Windows Killer'?

Lack of free choices 10 years ago was completely normal. Using free alternatives in 2000 as a desktop was laughable at best. Even now, in a golden age of OSS where you have tons of cool tools and cheap processing power. Mature projects have issues with finding quality contributors. I'm not talking about a random jQuery plug-in, etc.

Market spoke and it's 100% clear. I was around when there was a 'movement' of getting Linux distros to every office. That was a decade ago and the only viable competitor that made it into the space was Apple. They borrowed some of their base from *BSD. Which is mostly a server workhorse. Ironic.

Why are you bringing up DRM? What does it have to do with Microsoft? Learn about business schematics and history of it.

> As for his foundation and whatnot, it could be said that a fairly large number of people, given the sort of financial resources he has, would help "millions of people".

It's not about raw $ it's about % of wealth and focus. Handing off money to a foundation for a write off is not 'charity work'.

TLDR: You have no idea how different the technology space was 10 years ago. I can say this with extreme confidence.

> Using free alternatives in 2000 as a desktop was laughable at best

I used a combo of Linux & FreeBSD as my desktop OS exclusively from ~2000 to 2005 (when I bought my first mac). For the 4 years prior to that range I only ever booted into Windows to play games.

I agree with you, but you are talking about the philanthropic Bill Gates of today. Colechristensen was referring to the Bill Gates of the 90's with his shady and unethical business practices which led many businesses and new products to failure, which meant that the only internet browser people could use was his own. If browser competition started earlier, we could be much further in the browser development world than we are today.

His charity (while good for the world) doesn't undo the damage he caused when he was CEO of Microsoft.

I'd also question what damage he did as MS CEO that can in any way take away from the good his foundation is doing/has done.

I'm generally opposed to the idea that people can crush others in their pursuit of wealth, and then become "good" now that they are part of the uber-rich (and can afford to just toss money around). It encourages the idea that the ends justify the means.

It's business - you play to the limit of the rules and if you break them then you try your best not to get caught.

MS didn't crush people - it crushed companies. There's a big difference.

> MS didn't crush people - it crushed companies. There's a big difference.

Companies run by robots, I suppose.

No, run by people - as your facetious comment sarcastically points out.

However, it is entirely possible for these people to get another job.

So, because people can "always get another job", you think it's right that Microsoft under Bill Gates (unethically) crushed the companies that they put their time, money and effort into? Man you must be drinking some crazy corporate kool aid

Yes.

A company is not a person, a person is not a company. Attacking one should not be considered the same as attacking another, our entire economic system is based around the abstraction of organization so as to shield people from legal liabilities incurred by simply pursuing trade. You can't have it both ways, to both enjoy the legal benefits of a corporate structure, and then to be able to claim public sympathy when you get beaten in the market.

Corporate personhood is a dangerous legal concept that Americans believe in for unfathomable reasons, and it causes all sorts of ethical problems, particularly legalization of political manipulations that are considered corruption in other parts of the world.

The idea that "it's just business" so it's ok to do anything and everything that you can get away with (up to and including breaking the law) is a harmful idea. "Crushing" other businesses by participating fairly in the market is different than using under-handed tactics to win at all costs ("history is written by the victors," "might makes right" and all that).

Not drinking kool aid - just have a realistic understanding of how business works.

I never said it took away from the good. I said that the damage he caused doesn't disappear because he is doing good.

What damage. How did it impact you.

Well, ms crippled the web as an application development target by freezing ie for somewhere between 5 and 10 years, in order to support their desktop software monopoly. A monopoly that used to cost on the order of $100+ per pc. So they got probably an extra $400 from me.

I think you have a fair point; I've downvoted you purely based on your tone.

Please stop trolling

Hitler liked dogs.