More Microsoft class-action documents on Web

TalkBack 6 of 17:

Next »

« Previous

• Thread View
• Flat View

Obviously YOU didn't read the article closely enough

A MICROSOFT employee trying to convince Warren Buffet to buy in said point-blank in his message traffic that the markup is 90%. This did not come from ZDNet or Teen Beat, but from MS itself.

This is also being reported by the "legitimate" news feeders and the trade sites. All say the same thing.

Problem is, the software really has not improved over the years. Changing a few icons and tying applications together so tightly as to make them worse than a Gordian Knot is not an improvement.

The pricing hasn't gotten better, either. Prices do not drop when no one buys a particular piece of software. The company simply drops that particular product and vault the code. Then they recycle the CDs for another product run. What's already in the stores gets dumped into the discount bin with no support implied.

An upgrade for most Microsoft software still costs more than other companies's full stand-alones. Enterprise licensing is an excuse to get money that wouldn't be paid any other way.

I don't know about your IT department, but ours won't touch a "new" MS product without some masochists taking it into a back room to test the h#ll out of it for 6 months, wait for the inevitable patches and then test some more. We can't afford to lose our data to some "undocumented feature" that a pimply-faced kid at Redmond forgot to remove before release.

Over-priced? I think so! I don't use much of the MS product line at home, beyond the OS which I had to seriously tweak to get rid of the cr@p I don't need or want. I don't buy into the MS "gotta have it" line. I use a lot of third-party, freeware and open source software. At least I know that my stuff won't crash and burn. I also know that DRM issues won't hijack my intellectual property (REALLY read the ever-changing MS EULA and you will know what I mean).

I only wish they were suing in my state.

Posted by: AbsolutelyNot   Posted on: 03/18/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

Alert moderator to an offensive message

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

SponsoredWhite Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads

• The Impact of Virtualization Software on Operating Environments VMware Today's use of virtualization technology allows IT professionals to ... Download Now
• The True Costs of Virtual Server Solutions VMware In an economic environment that is repeatedly heralding the message "do ... Download Now
• Why Isn't Server Virtualization Saving Us More? A Few Small Changes May Dramatically Increase Your Efficiency VMware Companies have rapidly adopted server virtualization over the past few ... Download Now