Does Windows cost Microsoft opportunities? - SD Times: Software Development News

Does Windows cost Microsoft opportunities?

By David Worthington

March 17, 2010 —
The evolution of the .NET Framework has won new users to the platform, and drawn its share of criticism from those who think Microsoft’s stewardship has often been off-target.

Among the critics is Novell vice president Miguel de Icaza, who said .NET's focus on Windows has come at the expense of opportunities for Microsoft, and its desire to guard its intellectual property is an impediment on the platform.

"Microsoft has shot the .NET ecosystem in the foot because of the constant threat of patent infringement that they have cast on the ecosystem," he said.

Apparently, that melodramatic proclaimer of outrageously twisted opinion, Linus Torvalds, thinks anyone who criticises Microsoft for their unethical (and even criminal) behaviour, is suffering some kind of "disease" (although he fails to specify). I, however, will specify the disease that fuels Torvalds' hatred of Microsoft critics ... it's called "pragmatism".

Globalisation Institute

Policy Briefing

Unbundling Microsoft Windows
by Alex Singleton

Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for Competition, has suggested that in a competitive market there should be "a significant drop in market share" for Microsoft Windows, highlighting her frustration that the operating system market does not seem to foster competitive spirits. "Recent years have certainly seen innovation in high technology markets," Ms Kroes says, "but largely in areas that Microsoft does not control."

Thus far, the Commission has concentrated its antitrust action on Microsoft's server products and on the bundling of Windows Media Player with Windows. The Commission's success on 17 September 2007 in the European Court of First Instance, which upheld its antitrust action against Microsoft, will embolden the Commission's resolve on competition matters.

The Vole sticks the knife in to yet another Halo "partner" ... oh my!

It's hard to believe that any developer making a game based on Halo could be shut down for financial reasons, but that's the fate awaiting Dallas-based Ensemble Studios.

Microsoft, which owns Ensemble, recently told the successful, well-regarded maker of strategy games that it will be shuttered after its newest game, Halo Wars, is finished in a few months.

Bruce Shelley, a high-profile designer at Ensemble, said on his official blog that when Microsoft delivered the bad news earlier this month, "Everyone at our studio was shocked."

First Microsoft mugs Bungie then kicks them out onto the street, and now this.

Maybe it would be a good idea for games devs to simply avoid Halo, since it seems to be as cursed as the infamous Xbox 360 itself, and its equally infamous Xbox Live service.

It hasn't exactly been a great year for the Vole, what with losing 90 Billion Dollars in the first half of the year, then another 24 Billion - in just 2 weeks - recently. Let's not even get started about their 40 Billion dollar stock buyback.

Of course, thanks to Microsoft, it's not exactly a great year for Halo developers either ... nor its fans.

But it may turn out to be the best year ever for those who want to see the end of Microsoft's reign of terror, as they pillaged and plundered their way through the IT industry, with their gangster mentality and racketeering operations. At this rate, the Vole's days of plundering may soon come to an abrupt end, and finally the industry can flourish with competition coexisting in relative harmony and parity, in a Free Market economy, rather than the Vole's current monopoly.

I live in hope.

And it's only the beginning of the second half of 2008!

Another 90 Billion down the pan, and there won't be a Microsoft much longer.

WOOT!

Bloomberg.com: Exclusive

Microsoft, the biggest software maker, has lost about $90 billion in market value this year as Ballmer vacillated on Yahoo and failed to show how he would crack Google Inc.'s dominance of Internet advertising.

Microsoft is quickly shaping up to be the next SCO.