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Time:
13:43 EST/18:43 GMT | News Source:
News.com |
Posted By: Byron Hinson |
In the past few months, three announcements have aroused cries from Microsoft critics that the company is attempting to undermine competitors by leaving specific functionality out of Windows XP. In July, Microsoft announced that it would not include a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) as part of XP. In August, the focus moved to the lack of support for Netscape-style plug-ins in Internet Explorer 6.0 and to features in Windows Media Player 8 that would not be available on operating systems other than Windows XP.
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#1 By
1845 (207.173.73.201)
at
11/6/2001 2:14:05 PM
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If they are an illegal monopoly, it's about time they acted like one. :-)
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#2 By
531 (12.23.169.137)
at
11/6/2001 2:24:45 PM
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A rather well written article...
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#3 By
2062 (63.227.89.182)
at
11/6/2001 4:40:08 PM
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every day news.com writes an anti-microsoft article. Ive decided to stop going there, it's just a tabloid website. Enough is enough, if you dont like microsoft go use linux.
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#4 By
2332 (129.21.145.80)
at
11/6/2001 5:37:47 PM
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#6 - on the contrary... activewin itself has far less bias than most sites I have seen, including news.com.
Activewin almost always posts any and every bit of news about Microsoft that comes around, unlike news.com which writes/posts stories that are directed to be anti-Microsoft. (ZDnet/News.com both have an anti-Microsoft agenda... this has been confirmed by insiders that Paul over at wininformant.com knows.)
Sites like Slashdot, who also "gather" news from other sites, tend to only post the anti-Microsoft stories. I can't tell you how many times Slashdot has posted a story about Microsoft that was plainly false or misleading, and when I (and many others) submit the real deal, they ignore it.
Activewin, on the other hand, tends to post anything they see - pro or anti-Microsoft. That's one reason I come here so much.
As for the people that post comments, you're correct, most are at the very least slightly biased in a pro-Microsoft sense. Overall, however, most frequent posters are fair in their assesments.
I, for one, try to be as fair as possible. I like Microsoft, but not because somebody told me to. If they do something bad (and they have) I call them on it. When they do good, I give them credit.
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#5 By
116 (66.68.170.138)
at
11/6/2001 5:40:45 PM
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Thank you RMD very well put.
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#6 By
135 (209.180.28.6)
at
11/6/2001 6:53:47 PM
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Actually #11. Nine states would be concluding this trial by signing the settlement. Whereas nine states not signing it would be maintaining the status quo... i.e. keep the trial going with no end in site.
#9. Well put.
I would just like to add that my comments generally come out much more strongly Pro-Microsoft than my actual feelings on the issue. This is because I am an acknowledged troll. Meaning, if the general sentiment of a group is rabid anti-Microsoft... I'll play the opposite hand to keep the discussion balanced. Even though Activewin has a large pro-MS stance, for now I do the pro-MS side because there are just so many lucious Linux trolls reading it's fun!
At work where most everybody is extremely pro-Microsoft I tend to take more of an anti-Microsoft stance. Although admittedly not completely because most of the really good anti-MS stances involve conspiracy theories and I don't do well believing in those.
But for example, there are a number of MS products which I do not like, so I don't recommend them. I guess perhaps a key difference here is that I also don't view Microsoft just in terms of all their bad products, but instead all their good products.
Like for instance I don't care about Bob, I never bought Bob, and I don't intend on buying Bob. But how many times do you see an anti-MS person raving about that product? Nearly always. How many of them actual bought it... Zero.
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#7 By
135 (209.180.28.6)
at
11/6/2001 6:54:45 PM
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BTW, I submitted this one to activewin as well and we'll see if it gets a headline, but another great article:
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20011101.html
"Microsoft's C# Language Might Be the Death of Java, but Sun's the One to Blame"
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#8 By
2332 (129.21.145.80)
at
11/6/2001 7:27:29 PM
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#14 - interesting perspective.
These are news sites. The responsibility of these news sites it to provide unbiased information. (Not including their editorials, which, ironically, are the only good things about ZDNet.)
They (by they, I mean almost every tech news site out there), however, select only certain information to present, and leave a lot of other stuff out. Of course, that's their job! They are supposed to provide their readers with a "snapshot" of sorts of important information. The problem with many of these sites (specifically, ZDNet, CNet, and Slashdot) is that they have a directive - right from management - to select only stories that show Microsoft in a bad light.
They present this information under the ruse of it being impartial reporters (well, not Slashdot... they've never really pretended to be impartial), when, in fact, they are very partial and are provided specfically to further an agenda.
Case in point: ZDNet and CNet (and Slashdot, but why bother talking about them...?) all post stories about Novell claiming that Active Directory has a serious security flaw. Ok, so far so good... that's important news.
After some investigation, Microsoft does a press release explaining that Novell was ignorant of how to use Active Directory, and in fact, there was no security flaw. (They forgot to remove a user as an owner in an ACL, and didn't understand why they still had access. Assuming this was a bug, they published it as a security flaw - yet another reason to use Novell, they said.)
Novell removed the information from their site, realizing they were in error. Interestingly, they never apologized in anyway. (Funny, if it were the other way around, Novell would have sued the hell out of Microsoft for defamation... in fact, they did... over a different issue - and a much more silly issue at that.)
Did CNet or ZDNet post the information about the previous story being incorrect? Nope. Not a word. It wasn't until two weeks later that they added a note to the original article with a link to another article that explained it was false. If they were concerned about providing news, not anti-ms propaganda, they would have posted the Microsoft rebuttal the very next day.
THAT is what I object to. Activewin certainly doesn't do that. Neither does WinInformant.com, or even Shacknews.com. (Although the Shack is certainly anti-MS in many ways, they don't hide information when it's pro-MS.)
Perhaps all this negativity toward Microsoft results because too few people care about the truth, or too few people have access to the truth, because sites like Slashdot, CNet, and ZDNet are all misinforming them and they don't even know it.
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#9 By
3 (62.253.128.4)
at
11/6/2001 7:41:41 PM
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#8 - despite what a number "regular" readers think...we're not Microsoft bias - if there is news to post, be it good or bad we post it full stop...Just because we're a Microsoft news site doesn't mean we agree/like everything they do.
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#10 By
2332 (129.21.145.80)
at
11/6/2001 8:20:11 PM
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#16 - obviously, you missed my point.
The case I provided is an example of an extremely common occurance.
You say that Wininformant is biased? You think Paul "eats from Gates' ass"? You obviously don't read what he writes very often. He is about as "real" as anybody gets, and he bashes Microsoft when they deserve it.
His last article about the ruling (which was linked to by ActiveWin) shows exactly how impartial he is.
"Let's not confuse some of this stuff. Slashdot, ActiveWin, Wininformant are NOT technology news sites the way eWeek, Interactive Week, Tech Review, CNET, ZDNet, et al are. "
I disagree. While Slashdot, ActiveWin, and Wininformant typically don't write their own stuff, they are still sources for news, and what they chose to display drastically affects people's opinions and perspectives about things.
"But where's the motivation of CNET or ZDNET to be anti-MS? Explain it. Explain how they make money or more money off of being negative to MS."
What's their motivation not to be anti-MS? If the managment personally dislikes Microsoft, they can promote an anti-MS agenda through their managment of the site. That's exactly what they do. How does this cost them money in anyway? The whole planet seems to be anti-MS these days, and telling people what they want to hear draws them to the site.
"My point is: whether or not you like it, if you like MS, you like a company that almost everyone has at least some beef against. People are interested in these flaws and concerns and read them, want to read them. It's not going to change until they do."
Again, you miss MY point. I would surmise that MANY people rely on sites like CNet, ZDNet, and Slashdot for almost all their tech news. If those sites are promoting an agenda, the people that read those sites will tend to think the way they think, and thereby further promote that agenda.
People should be given as unbiased a story as possible, and they should THINK FOR THEMSELVES. That's what Activewin does, and that's why I defend it.
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#11 By
2332 (129.21.145.80)
at
11/6/2001 8:21:18 PM
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#18 - don't forget that MS bought Great Plains Software, a direct competitor to SAP. It's not a big surprise SAP doesn't want to integrate technology from a directly competeing company into their own products. :-)
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#12 By
2332 (129.21.145.80)
at
11/6/2001 8:58:21 PM
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#21, 21, 23...
Your Apple story is a good point, but ignores the fact that the article states in the first few lines that Apple has patched it. It would be silly to say "iTunes bug patched" when nobody knew about the bug yet.
Paul T. was making a joke. Good job a taking quotes out of context though. You ignore the article I mention, and focus on his always funny weekly tidbits. You aren't Christian are you? I could have a field day with the Bible. :-)
They are biased by directive at ZDNet/Cnet. Paul knows people who work there, and they let him know all the juicy details. Sure, he could be lying... but I don't think he is.
Great Plains definitly had something to do with it, although I think you're probably right... it wasn't the only reason. After all, .NET is still in beta, and SAP wanted to get movin'.
As far as catering to a particular crowd... perhaps. But unlike Slashdot, ActiveWin and WinInformant post the good AND the bad. ActiveWin and WinInformant are sites that focus on Microsoft issues, not Microsoft propaganda as you suggest. Slashdot is all about propaganda, all the time.
This post was edited by RMD on Tuesday, November 06, 2001 at 20:58.
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#13 By
135 (208.50.201.48)
at
11/6/2001 9:21:27 PM
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Back in 1999 SAP announced they were moving from Oracle as their internal development database platform to SQL Server 7.0.
Then just this past year they announced that DB/2 would be the internal development database platform... on IBM, Sun and Linux platforms.
Still today, mySAP.com runs on Windows 2000, SQL 2000, etc.... It's actually another company called TopTier that they purchased earlier this year. We use the product internally where I work, so I'm somewhat familiar with it.
The only thing that's clear as far as who SAP is against, it's Oracle. But then that's because every year Larry Ellison comes out and proclaims he is going to bury SAP and Seibel systems. That was the primary motivating factor for SAP moving off Oracle for internal development.
Everything RMD said was correct.
Oh, #21. Can you name more than 11 Opera users? I'm just curious. :-)
Even Lynx has a bigger share of the browser market.
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#14 By
135 (208.50.201.48)
at
11/6/2001 9:23:36 PM
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#25. Slashdot can stay up?
You haven't been reading /. for very long. It only started to get stable after VA Linux bought them out last year and dumped about a $1mil into infrastructure improvements. Back when it was a hobbyist site it was down about 30% of the time.
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#15 By
135 (208.50.201.48)
at
11/6/2001 10:28:56 PM
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#28. I'm #2322 on /. Been reading it since 1997 when it first started. It used to go down all the time, like I said... And still occasionally has major problems with their crappy mysql database.(They've even admitted they have to reboot the mysql boxes periodically...)
You are also making too big of a deal about the SAP thing. You're acting like a illegal monopoly thinking any tiny decision is a crushing blow against Microsoft.
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#16 By
2 (128.118.101.146)
at
11/7/2001 12:29:19 AM
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We try to be unbiased, but we do stay within our focus. When we search for MS news, we search good or bad, it doesn't matter. News is news. Regarding the uptime of this site - we are close to fully transferring our server to our new one. Then this site will always be up. (as the IP already is).
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#17 By
2332 (129.21.145.80)
at
11/7/2001 3:13:50 AM
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#25 - I wasn't suggesting that they work it into the title of the article (you were), I was suggesting they at least post a follow up article explaining to people that the original article wasn't true.
I still hear people say that Active Directory has a huge security hole, all thanks to that article, or rather, the fact they never posted Microsoft's rebuttle in a place anybody would see it.
Second, if you're Christian, I can offend you. ;-) j/k... *cough*... I only brough that up because you, like in many religious arguments, took quotes out of context.
As for Paul and his sources, I don't pretend to be able to verify his claims... I only say that they fit the facts known, and I have no reason to think he his lying. If you have some evidence that anything Paul has said is a lie, please let us know...
As for Slashdot staying up... perhaps recently, but it used to be down once a day, every day.
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