...

Not to be mean, but pretty much everything you wrote is the opposite of reality...

Windows acts like a standard, except that only one company gets income from it. If you want to benefit from that 90% you have to buy Windows and only Windows. If you decide to go for the other 10%, you will not be able to use many software products, but only some created by companies that decided to cover that 10% too.

Yes. And where is the problem here ? You're free to travel using a horse drawn carriage instead of a car. But if you do, don't complain you can't use the highway.

Windows is indeed a de-facto standard. And that is not only good for Microsoft, it is also good for developers and it is good for end users. Developers can target one single standard and trustworthy platform backed by one of the largest software companies in the world. End users can trust the Windows and Microsoft brands, they will get higher quality software certified to run on their OS without confusion (counter-example would be the 100 billion incompatible Linux distros) and they will get the look and feel they are comfortable with.

In fact, I am very happy that an organization like Microsoft owns this standard. They are a reliable, open and developer friendly company. On the two other ends of the spectrum are Apple, with their consumer-centric but extremely closed and developer-unfriendly environments. And then there is the open source alternative that is a complete mess of randomly glued together pieces of code of highly varying quality, dubious licenses and without any type of commercial accountability. So yep, feels quite good in the middle with Microsoft.

If we refer strictly to PCs, most games "require Windows". If you want to play a specific game for PC then you must buy Windows. If Microsoft decides to make more money, they will release a new version of Windows, developers will be forced to release products to comply with the new "mood" and the end-user will have to pay the new Microsoft "tax".

Microsoft is the only OS developer that literally bends over backwards to provide full backwards compatibility for basically any type of technology they have ever released. Want to target Win32, MFC or DX9 while developing on Windows 7 ? No problem, the same binary will run perfectly on anything from the latest Windows (and even on not yet released future versions !) back to the more than 10 year old XP. Try that with OSX or *gasp* Linux...

"[color="#1C2837"]Statistics say 9 of 10 computers run Windows. The other OS you listed (including Linux) are part of that 10%. By simple logic that means 9 of 10 software products are designed for Windows."
[color="#1C2837"][color="#000000"]
[color="#1C2837"]I typed up an explanation of why the logic is depressingly defective but I realized that it may reflect a neurological problem, such that you would not understand the explanation.[size="4"] [color="#1C2837"]I really do not mean to be snide here, but this is just not right in a very fundamental way.
[color="#1C2837"][color="#000000"][color="#1C2837"][size=2]
[color="#1C2837"]Due to past experiences, I would suggest that if you were not on mind-altering drugs when you came up with this statement, you should see a mental health professional.

[quote name='frob' timestamp='1311100403' post='4837551']<br />[quote name='LeChuckIsBack' timestamp='1311091797' post='4837466']<br />I was thinking how unlawful most corporations are today, especially Microsoft with their Windows operation system. There should be a standard for operation systems applicable to all types of machines, instead of having a complete monopoly by one company, this way any company could create as many operation systems as they like, it wouldn't matter, all software in the world would still run on all of them and people will not be forced to buy a specific one just because there's no other way.<br />

<br /><br />No, the current process is VERY lawful.<br /><br />

<br />1. you can't buy and use a computer without buying Windows, that is if you want to have access to all big software out there;<br />2. you can't succeed in making a competing operation system, because there would be no applications available to make it of any use<br />3. you can't make an operation system that would be compatible with Windows because of all patents and copyrights they own (making the .exe proprietary is obviously a monopoly maneuver)<br />[/quote]<br />1. Your post itself and followups list counterexamples. The claim ignores the very existence of MacOS, iOS, Android, Unix (with hundreds of variants like Linux and BSD), and more. It is trivial to buy a home computer without buying windows, just point your web browser to a store like TigerDirect. I suppose you could try some circular logic, and define &quot;all big software out there&quot; in terms of a circular reference to the software that runs on windows, so the big software that runs of windows is the big software out there. But that would just be your own invalid argument. <br />2. Again, false. Your post itself lists counterexamples of competition. What you describe is a &quot;network effect&quot;. Yes the network effect does increase value, but it does not happen in the absolute terms of hyperbole that you state.<br />3. Again, false. Your post itself contains counterexamples such as Mono. You dismiss it as not being legal, yet lawyers who actually understand the law do not share your assertion. Many people can do it, and it has been done many times before, it is happening in markets across the board today, and new competitors will certainly appear in the future.<br /><br />

a standard to operation systems is really required to be enforced (among other things) if the laws of free market are to be respected, how can no one care about this? Shouldn't be US a model of democracy and free market to the world?[/quote]<br />For real? &quot;I want to create a free market by requiring and enforcing a single standard&quot;. That is the exact opposite of a free market.<br /><br />

Also, taking common names and trade marking them is a true spit in the face of the whole world, how can one take names like Windows, Apple, Orange etc and get away with it? And Android and Droid are reqistered names wtf? ... <br />[/quote]<br />This is simple trademark law. You can go back to pre-historic times where ranchers branded their animals and other craftsmen created marks to indicate their source. Stonecutters used quarry marks and potters introduced glaze marks that are still helping archaeologists discover trade patterns and discover the cultures that died off thousands of years ago.<br /><br />The &quot;true spit in the face of the whole world&quot; has been around for thousands of years. Somehow cultures have thrived during those thousands of years despite the cumbersomeness of trademark.<br /><br />

No wonder the whole economy is so fucked up, if people will keep doing this shit it will be the end of the world for sure.[/quote]<br />Yes, the world will end for sure. It is absolutely going to happen eventually.<br /><br />But probably not from this.<br />[/quote]<br /><br /><br />

Statistics say 9 of 10 computers run Windows. The other OS you listed (including Linux) are part of that 10%. By simple logic that means 9 of 10 software products are designed for Windows.

Windows acts like a standard, except that only one company gets income from it. If you want to benefit from that 90% you have to buy Windows and only Windows. If you decide to go for the other 10%, you will not be able to use many software products, but only some created by companies that decided to cover that 10% too.

If we refer strictly to PCs, most games "require Windows". If you want to play a specific game for PC then you must buy Windows. If Microsoft decides to make more money, they will release a new version of Windows, developers will be forced to release products to comply with the new "mood" and the end-user will have to pay the new Microsoft "tax".

If this isn't a shameless monopoly then what is it? If this is called free market, then how would you define freedom? "I am free to kill the little fishes because I'm the big fish?" Is that absolute freedom or is it just crime?

Imposing standards doesn't mean killing free market, but en contraire, free market needs to be regulated so no abuse can unbalance it. And standards are not just imposed by someone, but they are the result of complex negotiations and analysis from many parties. When the technology evolves so does the standard.

Is the free market broken if there is a C++ standard? It is not, there are many compilers to choose from and they all follow the same standard, some are free, some offer super duper features for which you must pay, but there is the freedom of choice. Why would that be different for operation systems?

The current global economy status is the direct result of such abuses, and millions of people are suffering and will suffer even more in the following years. If this isn't a way to hell then I wonder where will it lead.
[/quote]

The only problem with Microsofts position is:
1) Piracy , Competing with price is hard when various shady sources offer the popular choice for free.
2) The lack of visible choice, (If i step into a local computer store to buy a laptop they all got Windows + a bunch of other more or less useless software pre-installed, Apple computers are usually available in their own stores and buying a laptop without an OS pretty much requires that you visit a specialist webshop).

Both are hard to solve in a way that isn't bad for the customers or extremely unfair towards Microsoft, requiring that the cost of bundled software is listed and possibly refundable might be a solution. (But how does one tell what the price of a bundle is when no manufacturer has to pay full price for the bundled software and even get payed to include some of the adware/trialware ? should it apply to Apple aswell (All they sell is upgrades so how much does their OS really cost ?) should the software that runs on my TV be treated the same way ?)

As for the comparison with C++ being standardized we actually allready have OS Standards, POSIX is a commonly supported one, LSB is another, Requiring all OSs to follow the same standard however would be like requiring all programming languages to follow the same standard which they don't, my C++ compiler won't compile my SML code and demanding such a thing would destroy innovation (having to get every addition to an OS approved by a standards commitee before you can ship it would be an extreme pain and allowing extensions to be added freely would result in the situation we got with POSIX and LSB today, most OS manufacturers support the standards but application developers use all the new shiny things that aren't in the standards which means you still don't get compatibility), We also got standardized virtual platforms such as Microsofts CLI and Java (both however require non standard extensions if you wish to use modern technology) and standardized graphics libraries (OpenGL) which also suffers from the same problem (Standardization is slow and non standard extensions aren't always universally supported)

When developing for Linux the LSB is definitly a bit of a problem as while it does guarantee binary compatiblity across distributions and also forward compatibility with future versions it does restrict what you can and cannot do quite alot.

Im no expert but something tells me that most of what the OP has stated just isnt true.

How is having Windows own the OS market not a "free market"? If you can bring a team together and write a better OS, Im sure yours would become a standard... and nothing is stopping you from doing this. I think youre missing what a free market actually is. Anyone is absolutely free to compete, theres just a big chance youll fail at doing a better job; and that's not Microsofts fault.

How is having Windows own the OS market not a "free market"? If you can bring a team together and write a better OS, Im sure yours would become a standard...

Because it's not always that simple, it's not a black or white situation. We don't have a truly free market. We have a regulated free market economy, where the amount of regulation varies from one country to the other. Truly unregulated markets would lead to complete corpocracies as every company will strive for full market domination and abuse their positions of power to eliminate competition in unfair or illegal ways. In our regulated free market economy, we have antitrust laws to prevent this. Microsoft has certainly violated competition laws on several occasions, but so have many (most ? all ?) multinational companies to some degree, and not only in the software sector.

Anyone who thinks that a superior product will automatically lead to market domination has no idea about how economics work. Brand recognition is much, much more important than product quality. Thinking that you can commercially outperform Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Walmart, ExxonMobile, Vivendi and co by putting a better product on the market would be entirely delusional, unless you have the same amount of financial resources to invest into marketing. But this is not really the fault of our "free" market, it's an inherent property of our Western style consumer driven societies. Which would lead to an entirely different discussion.

"[color="#1C2837"]Brand recognition is much, much more important than ..."

[color="#1C2837"]Brands come and go. Tech history is littered with dead brands, and so are the markets that Sony, Walmart and Microsoft reside in.

[color="#1C2837"]I think your post (#12) sums up perfectly well what Windows is about (I "liked" it, especially the last paragraph). Those things have a big impact on it even to users who wouldn't know what you're talking about.

[color="#1C2837"]So [color="#1C2837"]I would instead suggest that anyone thinking they can topple it with a "better product" has a naive idea of what the product is and what people want.[color="#000000"] I[color="#1C2837"]f Microsoft failed to deliver on a compatible, pervasive, developer-friendly, "better is the enemy of good" commodity system, than they could join 3Dfx, SGI, 1990s Apple and others who thought their "brand" had magical powers. All the marketing in the world could go stuff itself.
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[color="#1C2837"]Indeed they ran into this with Vista, but as it happened the product that did meet people's needs well was another, older version of Windows and they were smart enough to get back on the ball.

[color="#1C2837"]On a final note - and I'm not accusing you of this - every time I've ever heard someone defend a product's prospects by pointing to brand powers, it's a sign of impending doom.

On a final note - and I'm not accusing you of this - every time I've ever heard someone defend a product's prospects by pointing to brand powers, it's a sign of impending doom.

Global brands are unbelievably valuable. Sometimes a single brand name can make over 75% of the entire value of a company. Take a look at the Interbrand 2010 top 100 brand list (Interbrand is the worlds largest brand analytics company).

The value of the "Microsoft" brand is estimated at about $61 billion. Yes, just the name. The Google brand is just below at about $43bn.

For mass consumer goods (and MS products like Windows fit this category), brand is everything. Products rise and fall with their brands. Second comes price. Quality comes maybe third, probably lower. The average consumer wouldn't have a clue on how to judge the quality of an OS. Heck, he probably doesn't even know what on OS is to begin with.

Why did Linux fail on the mass market ? Besides the technical issues, which are both over the head and irrelevant for Joe Average who just wants to do basic home office work, pirate movies and download porn, Linux has an unbeatable price point. Yet, it failed miserably. Why ? Because it failed to establish brand recognition. No one knows Linux. Everybody knows Microsoft, Apple or Google. Why are iPod, iPhone and friends so incredibly successful despite being technically mediocre ? Brand.

Everyone I know has tried Linux, including some non-techies. It's stuck with none of them. Tons of people both know what it is, tried it, and tossed it. I used it for several years and I can see why, though I won't discuss it here.

"[color="#1C2837"]Why are iPod, iPhone and friends so incredibly successful despite being technically mediocre ? Brand. "

[color="#1C2837"]The brand was pulled from Apple's rear - a company with a tarnished reputation till pretty recently - in pretty short order and the tech specs are not something one would give a rat's rear about in the first place. They're a red herring. The success of the product is simply more complicated that tech specs of marketing and is something Apple has taken very seriously on all fronts.

[color="#1C2837"]"[color="#1C2837"]Products rise and fall with their brands."

[color="#1C2837"]Brands fall with products and business strategies all the time. I can't fathom how anyone has missed it in action.

[color="#1C2837"]"[color="#1C2837"]The average consumer wouldn't have a clue on how to judge the quality of an OS."

[color="#1C2837"]He knows if it does what he wants or not, and it is non-trivial to put it lightly to make something that fills the need that Windows does. Microsoft takes it very seriously for a reason.

"[color="#1C2837"]Why are iPod, iPhone and friends so incredibly successful despite being technically mediocre ? Brand. "

[color="#1C2837"]The brand was pulled from Apple's rear - a company with a tarnished reputation till pretty recently - in pretty short order and the tech specs are not something one would give a rat's rear about in the first place. They're a red herring. The success of the product is more complicated than that and are something Apple has taken very seriously.

I would say Apple's continued success is very much the fault of their brand. The start of their resurrection was something different, however.