A plan by Japan, China and South Korea to develop an operating system alternative to Microsoft's Windows software could raise concerns over fair competition, Microsoft said Friday.
Japan, the world's second-largest economy, made a proposal at an Asian economic summit this week to build an inexpensive and trustworthy open-source operating system that would be based on a system such as Linux, which can be copied and modified freely. "We'd like to see the market decide who the winners are in the software industry," said Tom Robertson, Microsoft's Tokyo-based director for government affairs in Asia. Microsoft prefers competition between software applications to be determined in the free markets rather than by government agencies. "Governments should not be in the position to decide who the winners are," Robertson said.
Robertson said Microsoft, the world's No. 1 software maker, had a "direct and open line of communication" with Japan's government over software security, standards and development. Japan's computer and consumer hardware industries--which include global heavyweights Sony, Matsushita Electric and NEC--have long searched for an alternative to Windows, which they contend gives the Redmond, Wash.-based software company too much control over the personal computer industry. Japanese media have reported that the government would spend 1 billion yen ($86 million) on the project and endorse an open-source forum Japan's electronics makers set up.
News source: C|Net News.com
Japan, the world's second-largest economy, made a proposal at an Asian economic summit this week to build an inexpensive and trustworthy open-source operating system that would be based on a system such as Linux, which can be copied and modified freely. "We'd like to see the market decide who the winners are in the software industry," said Tom Robertson, Microsoft's Tokyo-based director for government affairs in Asia. Microsoft prefers competition between software applications to be determined in the free markets rather than by government agencies. "Governments should not be in the position to decide who the winners are," Robertson said.
Robertson said Microsoft, the world's No. 1 software maker, had a "direct and open line of communication" with Japan's government over software security, standards and development. Japan's computer and consumer hardware industries--which include global heavyweights Sony, Matsushita Electric and NEC--have long searched for an alternative to Windows, which they contend gives the Redmond, Wash.-based software company too much control over the personal computer industry. Japanese media have reported that the government would spend 1 billion yen ($86 million) on the project and endorse an open-source forum Japan's electronics makers set up.
News source: C|Net News.com
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mo·nop·o·ly A company or group having exclusive control over a commercial activity.
MS don't have complete control over a commercial activity so by defenition, they're fair and they are not a monopoly.
I dunno... I used to live in Communist country (it used to have a Communist government). I dunno. I guess I can see a thing or two as I saw it with my own eyes before.
They do have a point. It is up to business to decide, not the government? What kind of competition can exist if OS is government-dictated? Let's say that few years down the road, some "X" OS comes out, a brand new thing, better than MS and Linux combined but hey - they have a government mandated OS... yeah, that would be good for them right?
All I am saying - I would be very carefull to be happy about government taking control over things... it might look cool now, or bold, or whatever you call it - but don't bet on it being the best thing.
Last edited by 922 on 05 Sep 2003 - 22:42
It isn't going to be dictated or mandated... The governments are simply funding research and development to improve an OS that may or may not be used by government.
The money from the fund is going to companies like Fujitsu, Sharp, Toshiba, Mitsubishi and others.
but you do know, nowadays government is also a business. they do business with private sectors. private sectors also earn profits from their government projects.
so what is the difference? government can't do the same thing?
Microsoft is dead-on here. The market (that is, consumers) should have full and free choice over which products they decide to use. And that goes for corporations, governments, and home Users. Microsoft designs software for end-Users. If consumers don't think their software is the best to use they should decide to use something else...not a government policy that is against Microsoft simply because they have been overwhelmingly successful.
-You can piece together a computer that has no operating system pre-installed?
-You can also replace your exisitng hard drive (all by yourself!) and install any operating system you want?
-That it is easy to run a computer completely free of Microsoft software?
-Virtually any PC manufacturer will install an operating system of choice if requested?
-There is no monopoly because, by sheer definition, the consumer would have only one choice. Consumers have many choices including Macintosh hardware, software, and "linux", just to name a few.
-There are Users out there who never run Microsoft software or hardware and are completely satisifed with their computer?
-Microsoft's considerable market share is a direct and exclusive result of the consumer's choosing to purchase and install Microsoft operating systems? All marketing and contracts aside, if consuemrs didn't want Windows they never would have bought or used it. Guess what? They did
It's not up to Microsoft to release this so-called choke hold; it's up to its competitors. And as far as I can tell, they don't seem very interested in doing so.
figured you would be around. so you plan to move to this new os?
Your "other choices" pros and cons:
MAC:
+ User Friendly
- Expensive Hardware (find me a sub $400 Mac that isn't used)
- Slow Software Support by 3rd party vendors
- Only runs on Apple's Hardware (hard to "piece together a machine" as mentioned above)
LINUX:
- Not user friendly (yet, Mandrake and RedHat are gettin close)
+- Tons of free software, if ya know where to look
+ Runs on any hardware
- Almost Zero Marketing (show me a TV ad for Mandrake)
WINDOWS:
+Cheap (installed on most PCs in shop due to anti-competitive incentives to PC makers)
+It's Everywhere (because its cheap and some people just dont know they have a choice)
+Relatively user friendly
-Buggy and chock full o' security holes
-Buggy and chock full o' security holes
I've gotten just as many security updates through RedHat Update for my Linux server as I have for my Windows installation. So to be fair that minus has to be in both places..
Linux = Kernel.
Redhat = Distribution.
In the last 6 months I've installed 4 updates on my SuSE Linux Enterprise Servers that were marked critical flaws. None of which were remotely exploitable. All were local root compromise that require local access to your computer to be effective.
The magic words open source, they must give MS heads nightmares.
If you look at many of those that have went up against MS in some way cash was the weapon used to take them out. In some way cash flow was attacked, no profit no existence.
Enter open source, there is not cash flow to attack, no one company to focus on. Now an OS could get many millions to be created as a real alternative as open source. Just the thought of it must make them pass out.
Not to mention it is out side the USA so they have much less pull to deal with such a decision.
MS is somewhat of a monopoly in some areas of the business of selling their OS. For example, say you want to buy a laptop from DELL, you don't have the options like you would when building a desktop computer. And most home computers sold by DELL comes with MS Windows included in the price, you don't have the linux option. So part of what you pay for the DELL laptop will go to MS, even if you install linux on it afterward. And remember, if you run linux instead of windows, DELL will not provide support for Linux, so you lose the customer support that you also paid for. This is why MS is somewhat a monopoly, because DELL probably has a contract with them to bundle Windows with every laptop sold, whether the customers want it or not is irrevelant.
As for the asian governerment OS project, I'm all for it just because I want to see what it looks like, dont you??
Also, there is a reason why they support their systems with Windows instead of Linux more. One thing, Windows supports more hardware. Second, 99.x% of their desktop and laptop sales are Windows and NOT Linux. And third, because if you seriously decided to put Linux on your Desktop or Laptop and are not smart enough to troubleshoot the system yourself, god have mercy on your soul.
All they are doing is contributing money to developing it and if they do develop Linux they are bound to release the code by the GPL which in turn can be sold by distributors etc which in turn make money and develop code ... "The cycle of Linux"
Why does it have to be based on any system why cant they just start from scratch. Forget Unix Linux Window BeOs and all the rest just start from scratch then maybe it would be a good OS
how are they NOT playing fair! just because they arn't doing anything that is forwardly fair, doesn't mean that it's not fair! it's neither!
Last edited by 34837 on 06 Sep 2003 - 17:16
Schools have no option but to teach ms, because their job is to prepare students for a career, and that career will involve ms products on a microsoft os, because that is the standard, for better or worse. 90% of pcs run ms office on ms windows, and that's even higher in the corporate world.
A school teaching students how to use OpenOffice running on Mandrake?
And do you know how long that would last?
Their first graduate class would file a class suit against the school for making them unemployable. And then it's back to ms office on ms windows.
Saying it's as simple as "well just choose another one!" is pretty naive.
Sure, you can slap together a nice home-brew machine running, say, freebsd and whatever non-ms software takes your fancy - but step outside, and you're options suddenly disappear. It's MS or ... it's MS.
If that's not a monopoly, then what is?
As for the government-control big brother fear mongers - did you not read the words "open source" ? The source code is freely available to anyone and everyone to see and modify. Read Orwell. Big brother cannot hide in open source.
Schools DO have a choice, and my High school is completely Macintosh. Although my Vocational school was completely MS, although they have an unlimited lisence from MS where they can have any software from MS and as many copies as they want.
It IS as simple as choosing. People don't choose otherwise though, because Windows is the superior OS. It "feels" better then the rest.
The ONLY reason the Linux software will be open source is because it HAS to be. Being based off of software that is already open source, you can not release it not open source.
Microsoft has a consumer monopoly. It's not because there is no competition, it's because consumers want their products more.
How well have ANY Linux based OS's been adopted in the marketplace? They are making a wrong choice to base it off of Linux, and it will end up just being another flavor after it is developed. Especially when developed off shore, it will have a lot of English bugs, I feel.
Just wait till you get your latest error, written in Chinese.
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