Why is Microsoft the favorite villain?

[Jeff Matthews]

It's funny how almost everyone loves to take digs at Microsoft as being inferior, monopolistic, corrupt, etc., as if its existence is a stain on a decent society.  Why not Google?

 

Compared to Microsoft, Google is closer to the devil, yet people love Google like a new puppy.  Google is monitoring and storing your every activity.  If a bomb goes off in your neighborhood, won't it be something when they find that a few years ago, you did a search on fertilizer.  "How coincidental!"

 

Put it this way... Google has the actual potential to make anybody a convicted criminal.  They can stream a good number of coincidences and, "Bam!"  You're a psycho!  A murderer!  A pervert!  Whatever "they" want you to be.  

 

That is dangerous. If any big player deserves serious scrutiny and justifies criticism for its very existence, that would be Google.

 

[wvu80]

First it was the railroads (1800's).  Then Standard Oil, US Steel.  Remember the phone company monopoly, AT&T?  Move on to IBM, Exxon, now Microsoft.

 

Google will have their turn.

[oldtimer]

I still have enmity for AT&T.  The first chance I had to stop doing business with them, I took, and I have never given them a dime since.

[Taz]

First it was the railroads (1800's).  Then Standard Oil, US Steel.  Remember the phone company monopoly, AT&T?  Move on to IBM, Exxon, now Microsoft.

 

Google will have their turn.

 

Yep!  We have to have a Villain.  Last week or so it was Chad.  Today it's Microsoft.

[wvu80]

I hope that is light hearted kidding, Chad is in no way a villain. 

[The Dude]

Put it this way... Google has the actual potential to make anybody a convicted criminal.  They can stream a good number of coincidences and, "Bam!"  You're a psycho!  A murderer!  A pervert!  Whatever "they" want you to be.  

 

Makes me wonder if the rumors I have heard about the government teaming up with them to be true.  hmmmm 

[JJkizak]

It's because you have to hit the start button to turn the computer off. It's because you require a new dictionary to navigate properly.

JJK

[Mallette]

Why not Google?

 

I don't get it.  Why would you compare apples and oranges?  My whole living revolves around MS and their ancient architecture and bloat.  Google never enters into it except when I am searching for some new bizarre MS error.

 

Dave

[Fjd]

 

Why not Google?

 

I don't get it.  Why would you compare apples and oranges?  My whole living revolves around MS and their ancient architecture and bloat.  Google never enters into it except when I am searching for some new bizarre MS error.

 

Dave

 

 

 

 

You take a company that is extremely huge, very dominant in everything it tries, a certain high level of arrogance and very opaque to us.  When considering these aspects, I suspect here, the issue may ultimately be in relation to the clash being between the data privacy issues and security issues and how global surveillance programs could be impacted and take a blow or enhanced with this type of "giant" among us.

 

Regarding Microsoft, you know how it goes; the latest fad is around those “very bad and naughty” excel spreadsheets being the key contributors to the credit crisis. Does anyone remember SuperCalc or Lotus?

 

By golly gee, there couldn’t be any corruption, greed, stupidity, or just plain old inadequacy with people on Wall Street, it was a spreadsheet that couldn’t properly rate the “structured finance products” put together by the genius on Wall Street that resulted in AAA ratings. The spreadsheets were the “reason” that as losses started accumulating; the modeling of “leverage” would automatically increase the specific leverage in the portfolio.

 

Is anyone familiar with the “London whale” trading losses of JP Morgan? Of course, an excel spreadsheet screwed up again and caused $6 billion in trading losses for JP Morgan.

 

Blame it on excel rather than outright stupid input assumptions that allowed the risk output data to be understated.  What do we call it with Klipsch speakers? Oh yea, it’s all about the source; crap in, crap out.

 

I’ve had enough fun and a couple of additional quick thoughts on Google before I need to shut down at get to work.

 

I believe that there is already a high level of resentment against Google in Europe.  Didn’t one of the European courts rule last year against Google regarding privacy issues and, upon request, requiring the removal of links to pages containing private information, among other things?

 

I believe that Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon may all be facing various types of scrutiny in Europe that has not happened here.

 

Funny, but I recently re-read George Orwell’s book titled 1984 then it dawned on me that paranoid old George was European…..

 

 

 

 

Edited March 4, 2015 by Fjd

[Mallette]

Does anyone remember SuperCalc or Lotus?

 

Both better programs than Excel (especially SuperCalc) but overrun by the Office juggernaut.  Neither company had a viable office suite so Excel wound up on every corporate machine with Word.  Stealth. 

 

It was, in fact, VisiCalc that created the PC revolution.  Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston invented the spreadsheet that changed the business world and really never made much money from it.  I remember the first time I played with it and was completely amazed at what you could do and with the entire novelty of it.

 

Dave

[Fjd]

 

Does anyone remember SuperCalc or Lotus?

 

Both better programs than Excel (especially SuperCalc) but overrun by the Office juggernaut.  Neither company had a viable office suite so Excel wound up on every corporate machine with Word.  Stealth. 

 

It was, in fact, VisiCalc that created the PC revolution.  Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston invented the spreadsheet that changed the business world and really never made much money from it.  I remember the first time I played with it and was completely amazed at what you could do and with the entire novelty of it.

 

Dave

 

 

 

I remember using VisiCalc and I also remember using some of the first "flat" databases before dBase (of course Microsoft now has this market with "Access" being part of the Office platform).  I wasn't the programmer; however, I remember programming mini reporting applications for our group from the “dot prompt” in dBase. 

 

Do you remember the old “bulletin boards” that could be accessed, read and posted to before programs like Lotus Notes or the world-wide-web internet as we know it?

 

Here are a few more general thoughts for the thread.

 

I suspect that being “overrun by the Office juggernaut” may also be some of the parallels that Jeff was alluding to with his post.  For example, I believe that in the US, “collectively” we tend to have a mind-set of the internet being “good for all” and forget to evaluate “hidden” risks in relation to aspects that we are unaware of, or that we cannot even remotely imagine.  This may be where the Europeans have more of a sense of paranoia that drives them into these aspects before we decide to address them.

 

Think about the risks associated with security breaches that get headlines in the common news.  It is almost daily that I catch something about cyber-attacks over the Internet. 

 

Various names recently associated with those attacks are; malware, computer viruses, attachments to e-mails, among a host of other names; and infiltrate personal systems along with infiltrating persons inside an organization, or persons with access to an organization’s systems that can often include the U.S. government, financial markets, financial institutions, health care records, or any major business that retains customer information and/or proprietary information that someone may deem having value.

 

Given the above, we rarely hear of anyone describing the internet as a “threat” to us, let alone a company like Google being a threat.  When you think about it, Google has so integrated itself deeply into many of our respective lives.  There are other search engines; however, the phrase seems to be "Google it." In addition to the far-reaching “arm” of Google into our lives, Google has generated obscene amounts of cash over the years and, in addition to buying a huge percentage of the fiber-optic underground cable for pennies on the dollar of original capital investment, has been investing heavily into biotechnologies and artificial intelligence technology.

 

While it is easy to rationalize that "it is nice of them to explore areas that lack other funding" and that "somebody has to do it;" we are essentially only "hoping" that these investments are for the “good” of everyone and will result in a more “positive” impact on the world.  However, from another angle, Google will hold all the power and will essentially decide what they believe to be the “positive impact” for the rest of the world and "we" will be relegated to the back of the line with very little actual say in the matter. 

 

Even if it works for most of us, then we need to “hope” Google can ward off any cyber-attacks too…… 

Edited March 4, 2015 by Fjd

[Mallette]

Do you remember the old “bulletin boards” that could be accessed, read and posted to before programs like Lotus Notes or the world-wide-web internet as we know it?

 

Absolutely!  Talk about unmoderated wild west!  Wide open at a time when the word "virus" didn't yet exist and AOL wasn't yet sending out the weekly floppy discs the kept us from having to purchase any. 

 

In the 80s when I was at the National University of Singapore I would communicate with Ron (Lonelobo) via BITNET, the "Because It's Time Network," and immediate predecessor and proving ground for the www.  We accessed via Telnet from a PC.  We could send files and such just fine. 

 

At times, the chat was pretty close to real time. 

 

Almost nobody had any idea that was going on.  BITNET was a spinoff of DARPNET/ARPNET via university and college mainframes. 

 

I suspect that being “overrun by the Office juggernaut” may also be some of the parallels that Jeff was alluding to with his post.

 

Well, I should have phrased that more clearly.   No individual Office program was as good as the competition.  However, it was the easy button for corporate and institutional IT groups to get bundled with Windows.  So, "better" individually lost out to "easy button" bundles that had the advantage tight integration that came with foreknowledge of Windows changes.  A lawsuit ALMOST forced MS to spin off Office in the 90s.  Would have been a very good thing and likely resulted in more choice for us today, if not in OS then at least in programs.

 

Even if it works for most of us, then we need to “hope” Google can ward off any cyber-attacks too……

 

Google went down for a bit less than an hour last week and we were never able to find a hint of what the deal was other than a few "WTF?s" from other users.  Scary.

 

Dave

[Jeff Matthews]

BBS's...  Yes, I remember those, too.  How about the old, dial-up modems we used to transfer?  1200 baud.  Screeeeech..... scruuuuuuunch.... chirp... pick... pat.... deeeeeeeeer.... weeeeeeee.

 

And then, you'd be transferring rather large files of say, 100k, and there would be those old "Block errors" where it appeared to try to re-send the block a few times, but pretty much inevitably, it would fail, and you'd have to start all over again.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Jeff Matthews

[Travis In Austin]

First it was the railroads (1800's).  Then Standard Oil, US Steel.  Remember the phone company monopoly, AT&T?  Move on to IBM, Exxon, now Microsoft.

 

Google will have their turn.

That is all very true, but it was different legal or policy vehicles that effected change. Standard Oil and US Steel by the Sherman Act and TaftTaft-Hartley, AT&T by consumers in court under the Sherman Act, IBM I believe prevailed in court against Memerox and DOJ but entered into consent decrees, and Google can do what it does because of the Patriot Act.

Now it seems that it a more consumer driven backlash. Facebook has gotten heat, and you would think by now that people after reading about the last several murder cases would know that everthing is on your computer, not just google. The web searches found are always the big headline, poison, burying a body, etc. Of course you have the real smart ones that go to public library to be "anonymous" only to be caught on video tape conducting your searches.

I believe Mark mentioned in another thread that the internet, while providing quick useful information, is really just an advertising platform. People think because you use it at home or access it from your home it is private private.

It of course isn't, actually read a user agreement. You are the subject of the most sophisticated market research to date. What you search, how long on each page, what you click, don't click.

We have all see it, you search for Filson Clothing and then for the next month you will go to a page for something totally unrelated and there will be a banner ad for Filson.

I predict Google will have some sort of whistle blower that does them significant damage.

[muel]

Google grabs all this information without people even noticing while people knowingly give it away to Facebook.  Strange but saw it coming over 20 years ago... just considering what people were willing to put in an email 20+ years ago.

 

I watched Zuckerberg and his COO, Sheryl Sandberg in an interview a few years ago.  Their attitude about privacy is frightening!  It is merely whatever THEY decide for you.

[Paducah Home Theater]

Microsoft catches flak because they have done some really shady and strong handed deals, while charging customers a premium, for proprietary software that is typically pretty buggy and can cause lots of grief.  They make people feel screwed over all the time.  

 

Google is largely free and voluntary, are involved in lots of open source stuff that coders love like Angular and Android, plus their stuff just works.  While what they are involved in may be scary, free, voluntary, open source, and reliable is a huge improvement.  

Edited March 4, 2015 by MetropolisLakeOutfitters

[Marvel]

It was, in fact, VisiCalc that created the PC revolution. Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston invented the spreadsheet that changed the business world and really never made much money from it. I remember the first time I played with it and was completely amazed at what you could do and with the entire novelty of it.

Yet Excel will run circles around what it did back then.

 

The yard where I grew up was the size of a football field, until I visited the location a few years ago. It was only about 20 feet to the street, and maybe 60 feet deep. I think your perspective is warped.

 

You only see Google as a search engine, when it is FAR more.

 

Bruce

[Mallette]

Yet Excel will run circles around what it did back then.

 

Where did I say otherwise?  I DID say that SuperCalc was a lot better than Excel when Office took over, and may have mentioned that WP was also much superior to Word at the same time.  In fact, Word still can't do columns.  Jeff mentioned tables...but tables are NOT text columns. 

 

As to VC, for so much of the simple things I want to do I'd love to be able to simply type a formula into a cell like you could with VisiCalc.  Maybe my memory has suffered, but seems like the learning curve for VC was about 5 minutes.  Takes 4 clicks just to fill in a row of sequential dates on Excel.

 

As to Google, I don't see how you can call anything that is totally reliant on the web an OS or even compare it to an OS.   And I am fully aware that they have yet to implement their core mission.  Part of that mission may be to eliminate the use of any OS, but Chrome is no OS, IMHO, and I don't think they intend it to be. 

 

Whether I am right or wrong on the predictions about Google it certainly isn't something likely to overtake Windows or Windows Server in the corporate world in the foreseeable future.  That is where it really doesn't compare.

 

Dave

Edited March 4, 2015 by Mallette

[Paducah Home Theater]

Excel sucked back in the day if you wanted to actually do anything powerful.  In the late 90's and very early 2000's I contracted with some semiconductor companies to store all their chip's data then graph it.  Well, Excel simply couldn't do it.  I had to pay like $500 for Axum software which was a ridiculous price back then especially considering I was a poor college student living in a $2,000 trailer and just did these gigs on the side.  Seriously, think about buying software that costs 25% of your home.  That's what it felt like.  Excel could easily do it now but it was somewhat of a POS back then.  And just think, it had been out 10-12 years at that point and had improved greatly.  

[Mallette]

Excel could easily do it now but it was somewhat of a POS back then.

 

MS was forced to improve it as Office took over. 

 

Dave