California sues Microsoft for antitrust...again

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Not once but twice

MS changed the Win32 Specs. The first change that is mentioned above is the Win32c to Win32s. prior to the release of Win95, MS changed the Win32s specification again (but kept the same name). This was another attempt to break compatability with OS/2 but mostly managed to break compatability on Windows with nearly 50% of 16-bit windows programs (MS stats says "over 40% of 16-bit applications may have a few issues" while most developers estimate 53%).

OS/2 at this time had no issues running 16-bit apps (in the 16-bit VDM) and known problems with three 32 bit apps (including Photo Shop Pro which lost certain features.)

With the release of Win95, A new Win32 spec was released making any native Win95 application incompatible with OS/2. Again, this move by MS broke more old apps with Win95 forcing customer upgrades of software along with Hardware.

MS also made deals with HW vendors for Win Only HW that required MS drivers. WinModems, WinFM cords, WinTV cards, WinVideo cards (for software video codecs, forcing out Indeo by Intel which was platform independent hardware solution).

Yes, and My OS/2 Warp 3 was more secure from breaches, immune to viruses, faster FS (HPFS) not prone to fragmentation, better virtual memorry management (and memory management overall), more stable, easier to program in, far more versatile and more capable out of the box.

My computer was upgraded several times by me at this time so I had to buy (or in my case, get from IBM Jamaica as a part of their free training program) and install my own OS at the time and not get stuck with Windows. Most vendors will sell you a "clean" PC but not at reduced cost reflecting a non-OS sale. So yes, why buy your own if it 'came' with one?

The Windows Pre-Installed program was found to be illegal and ended but by then MS had killed OS/2 and claimed through their illegal practices almost all of the desktop market. They then forced OS and apps upgrades by always breaking backward compatibility. By making themselves out to be the de facto standard for office suites and never fully supporting import/export to other suites and by giving oout free new products to Edu/non-profit organizations, they forced people to upgrade Office to be compatible with the new office those orgs used and then to upgrade their OS so as to be able to install the new apps.

Posted by: The King's Servant   Posted on: 08/30/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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