Talk:Microsoft/Archive 1

(Untitled discussion)
The features of Microsoft software that helped it gain the market share it now enjoys: IBM contract that required every PC owner to pay for a copy of MS-DOS Public belief that everyone else uses MS-Windows and therefore they must if they wish to be able to share documents or ask advice I think it is vital to mention the Microsoft antitrust case, the Microsoft software piracy (and resulting damage & document loses by customers), the Microsoft efforts to prevent IBM publishing software & fixes it had legal rights to, and Microsoft efforts to outlaw public domain and free softwares.


 * Be bold in editing Wikipedia! Just don't take it too far and make the Microsoft article an archive of everything they have been accused of. That would be POV. - Mark 14:01, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

"Microsoft has been convicted by a USA court for abusing its monopoly in the desktop operating systems market in the same country. See: Microsoft antitrust case"


 * Can anyone expand on this? It seems out of place. Why is this important?


 * Talking about Microsoft without talking about its desktop OS monopoly makes no sense. --Taw


 * I can see that, and I can also see why the court case was important, but they were originally thrown together a bit, without explanation. Or maybe it was just not enough use of white space. :-)


 * Many people contends that there are other monopolies. But MS has been considered guilty of _abusing_ its monopoly position by a court.

213.253.39.xxx wrote: "The .NET initiative is a major effort by Microsoft to ease the development of applications which use the Internet, in order to leverage their current monopoly on desktop PC software into a similar monopoly on the Internet." Could you show me where Microsoft claims this is the reason why they started .NET?--branko


 * Why is it relevant what Microsoft claims? They have been found guilty of claiming all sorts of things that aren't true, and deliberately expanding their monopoly.  I think that statement stands as a fair statement of fact.  And, they're succeeding, as GNOME is supposedly adopting .NET as well...!


 * It is relevant, because we cannot look into their heads. If you claim that "X's goal is to do Y", you can only know this for sure if X has told this to you.


 * If you claim that "X's goal is to do Y" and Y is some fearful thing, you are spreading FUD.


 * However, the current wording ("Critics point out that [...]") is much better. --branko

I do not understand this part of the text:
 * as well as to facilitate installation problems

Surely MS do not want to facilitate installation problems?

This article is a little too long on hearsay and short on facts. I'm surprised Microsoft wasn't spelled with a '$'. If the author wanted to criticize Microsoft, there's no shortage of objective data out there, yet we get drivel like this one-sentence paragraph:

"Even in these early days, Microsoft was accused of following the maxim "DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run"

Who exactly made this accusation? How was it substantiated, etc. Without more substance this article isn't much better than the endless other anti-MS rants out there.

01/06/02 If you need insperation for the articel about Microsoft read [this]. The are 2 long letters but very, very interesting. --- User:giskart

Yes, the letters are interesting, but what we need is a balanced, NPOV article, not just the typical open source perspective. I guess I have something else for my to do list... --Stephen Gilbert

Frankly, I'm a bit shocked. I've spent the last couple of weeks being hugely impressed with Wikipedia and have become a great fan of the concept, the community and the work being done here. The quality of articles is generally fantastic. Then I see this piece, and for such a high-profile topic I'm surprised how such a strong anti-MS bias has been allowed to emerge. Sentences such as this in the "Hardware" section:

"In late 2001, envying the multi-billion dollar game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo, Microsoft released its own proprietary game console called Xbox. "

Ignoring the fact that "envying the..." is a touch too negative (you could say that about any competitor of any other company) the "proprietary game console" statement suggests they've gone against the grain and done something totally of their own devising which doesn't fit in with the 'standard' that exists between the other console manufacturers. Excuse me? Does that mean Sony, Sega and Nintendo aren't proprietary all of a sudden? Do Nintendo games work on Sega, and vice versa?

Come on folks. I realise Microsoft aren't the most cherished company on the face of the planet (and I'm certainly not about to sing their praises), but this is supposed to be an encyclopedia. NPOV and all that...


 * How's it now?
 * In late 2001, Microsoft entered the multi-billion dollar market for proprietary game consoles, dominated by Sony and Nintendo, with the release of the Xbox.
 * --Brion 15:05 Sep 4, 2002 (PDT)

I'd like to see more pro-Microsoft points of view being expressed in this article. Unfortunately, I am unable to do so myself. -- Anon.

Ok, I've done some re-writing and re-organizing, but there's still a lot of work to be done. I know that most of us are free software/open source types, but this article is really embarrassing. The "Microsoft vs. free software" mentality needs to be put in perspective, and perhaps in its own article. Give the Neutral point of view another read, and then help me. --Stephen Gilbert 03:43 Sep 19, 2002 (UTC)

I did some edits, mostly cleaning up the prose, bulletizing lists, and moving some stuff around. But as others have noted, this badly needs NPOVing (particularly the monopoly section), and general reorganization. Also, the prose needs more cleaning up, but I got tired halfway through. --k.lee

It seems there are too many "rubbish" articles in Wikipedia related to Microsoft: Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Xbox. Do we need different articles for different Microsoft products?!! If I recommand that those articles be deleted, will there anyone agree with me? -- Wshun

If somebody really wants to know about Microsoft products, just direct them to the Microsoft homepage or the Microsoft article. Similarly for Sony PlayStation, Nintento GameCube, Sun Solaris,..... I don't think that an encyclopedia should cover as many commercial products as possible.Wshun

We're quite against deleting useful information here. The articles on Microsoft produts are informative; why do you want to get rid of them? A company's page is not the best place to get unbiased information about a product. -- Stephen Gilbert 12:40 Oct 21, 2002 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a rubbish article: if a topic of discourse interests somebody, and that somebody can write a good encyclopedic article about it, then that's just what it is: a good encyclopedic article. Just because something does not interest you, does not mean it should be taken out. branko

If someone wants to know about the Xbox, they don't necessarily want to know all about Microsoft. And the Microsoft page will get quite unwieldy, as will the others. It's best if they can be mentioned in passing on the page on the producer, then discussed in more depth in their own article. --Sam

The first link in the links to places other than Microsoft, seems to point to "www.trustworthycomputing.com" or something like that, but goes instead to a Google search page! What's up with that link?

Here is the diff that introduced that weirdness. Either a clueless, or a very subtle vandal. I'll update the link. k.lee

''I don't think it's either. That's a genuine site, intended to ridicule Microsoft's 'Trustworthy Computing' initiative by running that Google search. I'm going to delete it anyway, as it's not really appropriate for the article.''

I've moved the "Other sites" link section here. These are almost all news articles that are negative towards Microsoft and/or positive toward Free software. Wikipedia isn't a news report; some of these could be re-incorporated, but we'll need some balance. Not everyone thinks open source is wonderful and Microsoft is evil. -- Stephen Gilbert 16:39 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

Other sites


 * Allegations of Microsoft financial impropriety
 * Criticism of Microsoft business practices by Novell
 * Interview with Steve Ballmer
 * Why Free Software's Long Run TCO must be lower
 * Reports on Microsoft's alleged plans to remove backwards compatibility
 * Trade press speculation as to Microsoft's plans
 * News story: Microsoft to make concessions ahead of final antitrust settlement
 * Opensecrets.org page on political lobbying
 * Reuters story: Microsoft Says Linux on Desktops Would Hurt Growth

Shouldn't "Microsoft vs. Free Software" be "Microsoft vs. Free Software and Open Source". The general public is more familiar with "Open Source" than with Capital Letters "Free Software", and are likely to think that "Free Software" means "free as in 'free beer'". -- Khym Chanur

Microsoft logo: appropriate here?
I commented out the code displaying the Microsoft logo entered several days ago by another user. It reeks to me of advertising. Do any other users share my views? -- Viajero 13:20, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * There are other companies that have their logos in the wikipedia pages, like Sony, Philips, IBM, etc. I don't think it's advertising, it's just the symbol associated with the company.

I agree with the above. Advertising is more like including: "Microsoft has a range of products for all your business needs. For more information, see http://www.microsoft.com/ or contact your local reseller." Now, the issue of whether or not we should include fair use images is another matter... -- Stephen Gilbert 05:40, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I personally think it is well advertising; why should commercial companies pay so much money to put their logos everywhere? When the reputation of a company is big enough, she doesn't need to add text any more; the presence of her logo is enough to keep in touch with our minds. I am shocked about the presence of advertising on wikipedia Hémant 19:14, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The following notes were floating junk in the main article; delete them from here when you find a place to put them.

Misc notes to be re-integrated with the article
August 5, 2002: Microsoft has announced that it is to make some concessions towards the proposed final settlement of its antitrust case ahead of the judge's verdict. However, these "concessions" have been widely criticised as inadequate or even as a deliberate attempt to create an impression of compliance without providing useful information.

A legal action won by Timeline Inc. vs Microsoft, disproving the theory that Microsoft customers are protected against patent claims by third parties - The Register, February 20, 2003,

Microsoft's policies on software licence transfer and extra payments required, their objections when Kmart divested its Bluelight.com internet service provider, etc., April 04, 2003;

"Microsoft to dump Windows" is unfounded anti-MS propaganda
I'm no MS fan but there's a section on the Microsoft page that's really quite ridiculous:

>Microsoft to dump Windows?

>There is speculation that Microsoft may be using .NET and Longhorn as a way of dumping the Windows operating system. Microsoft has retired a flagship operating system before, by retiring MS-DOS in favor of Windows.

After Microsoft officially discontinued support for DOS (in 1994) their main desktop operating systems (i.e. not Windows NT) all still relied on the DOS kernel (e.g. Windows 95, 98, ME).

Microsoft has actually only completely abandoned DOS recently with Windows XP, which uses the NT kernel. It is highly implausible that Microsoft would abandon the operating system they have tried so hard to become mainstream over the last decade immediately after its most successful incarnation.

Longhorn will almost certainly be an extension of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

>...replace the old Win32 platform...

This is the platform which is used by all software developers (directly or indirectly) for Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 systems. It is updated with every release, including the most recent one (Windows Server 2003) as a trip to MSDN would reveal.

I'm not going to edit this page without seeing other views on the matter as no doubt it would cause controversy. But much of the content is less than objective.

Markcollinsx 04:42, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * As no one has posted a reply I have modified the relevant paragraph and given it the name "The Future of Windows" Markcollinsx 03:53, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

"Microsoft Corporation is the largest private sector computer software producer in the world."


 * Easy to claim, but is it true? And largest in what respect? A few years back, IBM's profits on software alone were greater than Microsoft's entire turnover, or so I was led to believe. However, I wouldn't know where to start to check whether this is true today. Any ideas? TimR 04:23, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Hmmm. Well, I belive that IBM makes a lot of money of off support contracts, especially for mainframe stuff. I don't know if you'd count mainframe software, and support for it, in a comparison to Microsoft; probably just Comercial Off-The-Shelf Software (COTS) is considered.  And is IBM ever hired to develop in-house software that's used by other companies?  There's a lot of money in that, but that probably doesn't enter into the comparison either, since it's not COTS. -- Khym Chanur 04:30, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC)


 * Interesting. I'll quite happily own up that my 'information', correct or not, is a quite old, er, maybe eight or nine years. It was the sort of fact which you think "Oh, that's interesting," and then file away for future reference. It looks as if 'services' is indeed a huge factor. Way back then, IBM was pre-"Global Services" and I guess things were pretty much 'hardware' or 'software'. According to their Consolidated Financial Statements, last year IBM earned $81,186 million, including $36,360 million from 'Global Services' and $13,074 million from 'Software'. In the same year, Microsoft's total income was $31,375, according to its income statements (although it's not that easy comparing the summaries, as they work on different calendars). This puts the two company sizes into perspective (however it doesn't actually back up my remembered 'statistic').


 * So can we safely say "Microsoft Corporation is the largest private sector computer software producer in the world."? I'm not convinced. IBM is a substantial private sector software producer, and is considerably larger than Microsoft, at least in revenue terms. How about "Microsoft Corporation is the world's largest computer software company."? I'm still not quite happy with that (as IBM can still be considered a software company, even though it does other things as well), but I can't phrase it any better just at the moment. Any suggestions? TimR 20:58, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Moved To Do list from bottom of article:

To do:
 * (To be written) Microsoft anticompetitive practices
 * Microsoft music service to be introduced in 2004

Note there is a section listing lawsuits concerning anticompetitivity already. Also I think it would be better to put 'To Do' lists on the talk page so that at any point an article is at least properly presented even if it doesn't cover every relevant point (except for stubs which this article is not). Markcollinsx 14:08, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)

APPALLED and UNJUST
I'm appalled at the utter unfairness in this article on Microsoft.

i added a disclaimer at the top: "(Disclaimer: This page is created by mostly OpenSource advocates who dislike Microsoft.)"

but that got pulled within an hour by a sys admin. (and he also annihilated the consolidation of links at bottom, but leaving one pro-microsoft link i added at the bottom)

The fact remains, that the vast majority of wikipedia users are OpenSource or unix fans, and a good portion of them are de facto Microsoft haters.

The effect of this article is that an outsider who came to read this page will came away thinking Microsoft being a henious criminal. It is implied and suggested in the way the article is put together, and the choice of content.

The plethora of links at the bottom is ridiculous. Most are just there to indicate how henious Microsoft are. Even several parody sites are included.

I thought that a user-contributed info center like wikipedia has come of age, but i guess until it is not dominated by pro OpenSource computing geeks, a certain good portion of articles will be heavily partial. (in the Microsoft article case, outright defamation that is close to legally binding, and probably would get sued if not for the fact that MS a large corporation that almost always attract enemies.) From a theory's vantage, a free project like this that relies solely on philanthropy ultimately suffers from lack of exterior forces to keep it on track.

If i were to make further contribution to this page, i'm sure it's gonna break out into edit war.

My practical suggestion for our problem here is: If you hate Microsoft (you know who you are), you should not edit this page.

I do not hate Microsoft, nor do i like them. (I do hate OpenSource fanatics)

P0lyglut 04:37, 2003 Nov 27 (UTC)


 * I quite agree, as I've said above. However, adding a disclaimer which guesses at who wrote the article and why is not helpful. The usual disclaimer is: The neutrality of this page is disputed. However, given that no one seems to be arguing that the Microsoft article is neutral, the disclaimer is unnecessary at this time. By the way, it no one used "sysadmin" powers to remove your disclaimer; it was just a fellow editor.


 * Summing up, the thing to do would be to fix the article.Avoid accusatory disclaimers and you should be fine. -- Stephen Gilbert 10:55, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * thanks for the tip. I'm quite new heer. Xah P0lyglut 11:01, 2003 Nov 30 (UTC)


 * My practical suggestion for our problem here is: If you hate Microsoft (you know who you are), you should not edit this page. - just a passing comment: I think this isn't a good thing. If one hates Microsoft and cannot write NPOV then that person shouldn't edit, but someone who hates Microsft can often add a different side to the view. Theres my 2c for the evening :) Dysprosia 11:03, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

from article
This needs to be extensively edited for neutrality:

- It has always been the same strategy: &quot;Copy and destroy&quot;. They look for good, leading software from other companies and just make a very similar one, usually giving it free with their star product: the Windows operating system. So, the other companies cannot compete, and Microsoft gets the de facto monopoly of star applications. Microsoft produces real &quot;killer applications&quot;: Their goal is to become the de facto monopoly of computer software. As they are getting closer each time to this, they are becoming very dangerous, since they can do whatever they want with their customers, having no other alternative to choose. For example, once they got the de facto monopoly of Internet browsers with the &quot;free&quot; Internet Explorer, they just attacker their main competitor in software development tools: Sun Java by taking the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) off their Internet Explorer 6. If you tried to run a Java applet, you were asked to download a very old JVM. The only way to get Java working properly was to download it from Sun site, and most users just do not know anything about it. If their monopoly keeps growing they could also rise their prices, stop giving free aplications, etc.
 * MS-DOS -&gt; Digital DR-DOS Killer
 * Windows 95, 98, Me, XP,... -&gt; Apple Mac Killer
 * Windows NT, Windows Server -&gt; OS-2, Novell and Unix MacroKiller
 * Office -&gt; Wordperfect, Lotus, Dbase Killer
 * Internet Explorer -&gt; Netscape Killer (free)
 * Windows Media -&gt; Quicktime and Real Media Killer (free)
 * Messenger -&gt; ICQ, AOL AIM, Yahoo Messenger Killer (free)
 * MSN -&gt; Yahoo! Killer
 * .NET -&gt; Sun Java Killer
 * -- Viajero 17:09, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The link * Microsoft Hatred, essay by Xah Lee, 2002. was added by User:P0lyglut - Xah Lee.

Is it appropriate for Wikipedians to add links to their own essays (and point of view) to articles? Dysprosia 08:36, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * the question should be whether that article is appropriate, not whether the one who added it is also the author. Xah P0lyglut 08:45, 2003 Dec 1 (UTC)


 * It's nothing against your article, Xah, it's just I don't know whether adding an external link which is authored by a contributor is a conflicting with NPOV policy or not. Dysprosia 09:59, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * Not just that, it is also just a usenet post. There are millions of those, and only a very few are actually notable (eg. Torvalds' Linux announcement post to comp.os.minix) I don't see how someone's personal little essay on the subject should be worthy of inclusion as an external reference on wikipedia. --snoyes 18:13, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm making a large rewrite of this article. It will be posted within few hours.

The rewrite largely consists reducing many anti-Microsoft passages.

In my opinion, this artcile needs more input from those who are knowledgable in social sciences including: economics, finance, accounting, business, business (and business history and law)...

Linux & OpenSource proponents, please refrain from reverting my edits right away. Please use good judgement, and perhaps let it sit for a while. I'm not into edit-wars. So, this will be my last edit on this article for the moment.

It's out of my place, but i heartily recommend this book to computing geeks: Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell. It is not your-average economics book. A more descriptive title would be "Common misconceptions in economics". If you read just one non-tech-geek books, make this the one. The book does not talk about Software nor mention Microsoft at all. But it has changed my views on many important topics related to OpenSource and Microsoft.

Xah P0lyglut 22:33, 2003 Dec 4 (UTC)


 * Xah P0lyglut, well done. I suggest the Anti-Microsoft topics be put together in a new page and when it is NPOV enough that page can be linked to from this one.


 * Mark Hurd 09:43, 7 Dec 2003

Here's the text that was commented out before that I have removed completely to keep under the 32kb limit:

< ! - - The previous revision mentions the following: Microsoft is notable for a number of reasons:
 * it is one of the most dramatic examples of network externality in economics
 * it exercises a de-facto monopoly in PC operating systems and office software
 * it has made its founders among the richest people in the world
 * it has the largest market capitalization of any publicly-traded company
 * it is subject to many accusations of anti-competitive practices.

The section from previous version is largely irrelevant. Almost any large company are "notable for those reasons." The network externality is a jargon problem. Just about any popular company suffers from the so called "network externality" by economic specialists. The "monopoly" charaterization is questionable, and someone has wrote a very good account of it in the body of the article. (monopoly is different from dominance. Otherwise, we might as well say Linux is a monopoly in OpenSource OSes. The point about making founders rich, is applicable to just about all CEOs and founders of successful companies. The point about largest capitalization is factually false. (check on Wal-mart, exxon, GM, Ford, blue cross, citigroup, GE, time warner, usps...). The point about "subject to many accusations of anti-competitive practices" is probably not worthy of mention here. It is mentioned in the article. Historically speaking, most hugely successful corporation are all under anti-competitive law suits or government investigations. For example, IBM, A&P Grocery, Morton Salt Company, Standard Oil Company, Pan American. Some of these lost their dominance position or went bankrupt.

- - >


 * Mark Hurd 22:47, 20 Dec 2003

Oh dear: what a load of PR bullshit has just been added to this entry. Cross-application compatibility? Microsoft? What planet was that press release written on. Microsoft apps are notorious for inter-version incompatibilities. (Which is no accident, of course, it's quite possibly the best lever they have to encourage frequent upgrades.) Good God, most versions of Microsoft Works and Microsoft Word can't even open each other's files correctly!

I'm not going to try to fix that stuff tonight, but it certinly needs a major reality injection. Tannin 13:58, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * In the context of the rest of the page it's rather bold, I'll agree. But each of those qualities have been a direct reason for consumers to choose Microsoft software over their competitors.


 * I'm thinking of Excel vs 1-2-3; Internet Explorer vs Netscape; Office vs AmiPro vs WordPerfect, etc.


 * Yes, Microsoft has completely 'forgotten' some of these qualities some of the time, but you notice these failure because how much the qualities are important.


 * Mark Hurd 00:38, 21 Dec 2003 (ACDT)


 * I'm sorry, Mark, but you'll need to flesh out what you mean by "Excel vs 1-2-3; Internet Explorer vs Netscape; Office vs AmiPro vs WordPerfect" a little more before I can get your drift. Are you saying that (e.g.) Excel reads Quattro files better than Quattro reads Excel files? Or the reverse of that? Or something completely different? (Or is your meaning perfectly clear but I'm too stupid with lack of sleep to understand it? - I'm going to fix that particular possibility right now. Bedtime!) Tannin 14:22, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * PS: one thing we need to be really, really careful with when it comes to MS (or the computer industry in general, come to that) - and that is to distinguish between marketing & mass-market perceptions on the one hand, and objective, demonstrable realities on the other - and to remember that both are vitally important, and that it is critical to be clear which of the two we are talking about at any particular time. Bed! Tannin

Hi! The only biased part of this article is the section "The future". It is implied that "the future" of Microsoft is to be creamed by the Open Source movement. This section should be titled something like "Competitors", and OSS, Apple, Sun, etc should be discussed as competitors to Microsoft's desktop OS dominance. It should also be mentioned that Linux IS an Open Source based operating system, as some readers might not make the connection. User:Connelly

I have removed the sentence "Microsoft is also a controversial company." from the introduction. Although I can see why this was added, it is awkwardly phrased and as such doesn't really add much to the article. If anyone can think of a better way of indicating the sentiment (in an NPOV way) in the introduction, it would probably be a good idea, but I'm not sure how to put it. - IMSoP 16:38, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I am not perfectly sure either, but placing it in its software industry/computer universe context might do it. Microsoft might seem controversial to somebody working in this domain or holding a white collar job but on the global scale Microsoft is relatively unknown. Even in industrialised countries most individuals never or rarely hear about Microsoft since their uses of computers is limited to applications like ATM machines or industrial control systems where the name of the OS usually does not appear on any of the screens. For this 90% (or more)of the world population there are a lot more companies that are controversial, from Benetton to Pepsi Cola. So, "Microsoft is a controversial company within the software industry" would ring true to me but I am not sure about the phrasing. AlainV 19:07, 2004 Jan 31 (UTC)

Business Organization
Microsoft recently reorganized its 7 business units into 3. This section needs new attention.

JesterWiki 09:16, 26 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Done :) Ryan Norton T 00:34, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Structure cleanup
I saw a point from someone about being bold in edits... so I went out on a ledge and tried to structure this page better. * Got rid of linux/opensource since its discussed in the controversy page
 * Get rid of some nasty rumors, like "Gates was rumored to have chanted things like "DOS isn't done till Lotus won't run" as the teams developed DOS and Excel."
 * Changed the structure a bit to match the IBM page
 * Moved Microsofts Future section to current business activities and adjusted appropriately
 * other misc cleanups

Please feel free to edit any of this if you feel it is wrong... but please keep it NPOV. Thanks

RN 24 July 2005

OK, as you can see I did some more work here... I moved the criticism section to see also among other things. I really think its a lot better now... A little short now, however... some facts and trivia and projects would be REALLY neat (like what about the deal they are doing with the govt to do with vehicals or something?  Anyway...). There still are some POV issues in the history section (also somehow the last sentence in the OS/2 to Windows section doesn't seem to fit [the bit about the windows kernel].

Anyway, hope you like my edits

--RN 07:46, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Bias issues
These pages seem extremely biased... here some suggestions -

Monopoly/Legal issues/Linux Open Source etc. should really all be merged with controversy - as they all are pretty much controversy. Not only that but they should really be moved to seperate pages...

On the Legal Issues side, I'd really like to see a lot more on why the Thomas Penfield Jackson suit was reversed.... it barely dwells on the idea by stating that they proposed a settlement with the justice department (WHAT settlement?).

Maybe Linux etc. should be mentioned more from a historical perspective like they are on the AppleComputer page and not in a headline... RN


 * What are you refering to about Apple Computer ? There doesn't seem to be a single occurence of the word "linux" in this article... Rama 07:32, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Why Linux is mentioned at all in a Microsoft article boggles the mind, save that crap for the Linux page or a separate article --Rain 00:36, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks go to those who cleaned the page up a bit... I still think the linux part should be incorporated into a yearly history thing like the Apple Computer page or just removed. Basically just making this so its more like the Linux page for instance - which is pretty much nothing but praise... here its very much the opposite in my respects...  OT but I also did a cleanup of this page so that the headings are correct for the TOC and the TOC goes at the top -- RN 04:58, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Link to common criticisms?
Shouldn't there be a link to Common criticisms of Microsoft in the "See Also" section?


 * No, because it's already linked from Controversy, above. - Brian Kendig 21:57, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)