So Many Mouths to Feed

Sometimes I don’t feel like my commentary on the state of Microsoft technology is miscarry but sometimes after I read the sarcastic and often derogatory posts of some people I begin to wonder if some people don’t understand the concept of a business. As a small business owner I understand the need to generate revenue in order to sustain the lifestyle I enjoy and also the lives of the people that work for me. Although I would love to be able to just give things away to my grateful customers they understand that the services I provided are worth the money. Similarly I do not show these people how to steal from my partners so that they can save a few dollars.

MSN 8, the new version of Microsoft’s popular internet access product, adds a considerable number of valuable features that I will most certainly use. I haven’t used a dial up connection since 1993 but I have used hotmail for almost as long. When MSN Explorer was released I installed it so that my parents and little sister could browse the internet more easily. At the time both these products provided valuable services for free and I was grateful but when I was offered the opportunity to receive greater storage for what I consider a low price, I was happy to pay for the service.

I feel the same way about MSN 8. If it offers to me services that my family or I will find useful I will be happy to pay for it. In fact, getting things I like is the reason I work to get money anyway. Some of the services that I am particularly interested in is the content filtering Microsoft has indicated would be part of the software. It will be nice to know that the actual web client will do the filtering instead of the poor job that some other content filtering software does. And before you start commenting on the violation of these blocked sites freedom of speech, remind me why my 11 year old sister needs access to pornography and instructions on how to make drugs from nutmeg and banana peels.

People’s reaction to the Media Center version of XP also confuses me at times. Microsoft has stated that copyrighted material will be secured by a digital rights management system to prevent unauthorized distribution. In order to even get content owners to consider releasing content in a digital format technology companies have had to convince them that their content would still be profit generating. Consumers who complain about this security are, for the most part, not the ones who buy movies or music anyway. It’s true that secure digital content is not currently as easy to let someone borrow or to transfer to another device as physical mediums are, but it will be eventually. By getting people to use and pay for digital content we create a reason for more to be released and for systems that allow legal loaning, borrowing and renting to created.

While I’m still on my soap box I should probably mention the feared trusted computer initiative, called Palladium, which Microsoft has currently been working on. Trusted computing is not a way to lock your computer down so that you can’t access legal media you have recorded. Its focus is in fact not on copyrighted material at all. The main focus of this technological initiative is to create a secure connection between hardware and software so that the problems we currently encounter with low quality chipsets and malicious computer programs will be easier to control, track and identify before a fatal error has occurred.

People seem to have a tendency to criticize Microsoft for securing their products from unauthorized use and making the computer environment more attractive to people who sustain there families off of ideas instead of physical products. Although I agree that Microsoft products don’t always work the way they should, I challenge anyone to show me a machine that never breaks down or a piece of software that can’t be crashed by inappropriate use. Over the next few years Microsoft will make it possible for us to do things that we’ve only dreamed of. In the end I’d rather pay them for their services than have no services available to me.

As always I appreciate your comments and your point of view so please comment below. All I ask is that if you disagree with my article or the comments of others you find an intelligent, straightforward and anti-inflammatory way of getting your point across. This is a hotly debated topic but your responses mean nothing if all they do is insult someone.

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