Microsoft to buy Macromedia? (ZOMBIE THREAD)

[stickyblue]

i havent read the article yet but

ms to buy macromedia

hmmmm


good looking crashes ?

vector animated boot up screens ?

windows MX ?

hehe

[nose]

I just read the article and all I can say is that I hope that this is not going to happen. A few quotes:

"A Microsoft acquisition of Macromedia would inevitably see Flash, and Macromedia's other cross-platform tools, tailored purely for Windows and .NET."

I think that will be the beginning of the end of Flash. Its strenght is its cross-platform availability. And what the **** with that .NET? I still don't know what it excactly is, and i think a lot more people with me.

"Macromedia partners include IBM and Sun Microsystems Inc."

I have this sense of feeling that Sun won't cooperate with Microsoft.....

Once again, I hope this ain't gonna happen. Macromedia creates great tools, and I think that's going to end when Microsoft buys the hole of them.

[bentllama]

My fingers are crossed it happens...

:applause:

[the_real_cabal]

what the fu** ?!? microsoft the evil empire will buyout the whole software industry ( including applications and games ) ... someone has to stop such a company !

[flipnap]

M$ is the living definition of what happens to a man and a company when money isnt enough.. greed feeds on itselfs and this is what happens.. this is a very scary string of events that im sure will lead to the little microsoft insignia over the bar codes on the back of our hands....

[dark_lotus]

Well you could say that one Microsoft Day.net i'll be walking down the Microsoft Street.net and to purchase a Microsoft Apple iBook.net and i'll think to myself something is wrong.net

[johnlanier]

Originally posted by nose
I think that will be the beginning of the end of Flash. Its strenght is its cross-platform availability. And what the **** with that .NET? I still don't know what it excactly is, and i think a lot more people with me.


Last month I read stuff on NET as a future for 3D software on http://www.manticorelabs.com/oi/dotnet.html. The last part I understood but not the first stuff. Did sound cool and cross platform too.

JoLa

[Gentle Fury]

well, this is the same as apple going and buying all the software up and making it only apple compliant.....what is going to happen is Apple and MS will own everything and the only way you will be able to do anything is to own both machines.....then both companys are happy and the public suffers......yippee

well i guess the really good thing about all this is......if Apple and MS are fighting for the rights to all software......people and developers will finally start to see Linux as a viable platform, and will hopefully be built up to eventually topple both giants........but only in a perfect world would all software be a part of GNU and easily updated and fixed and made to advance by anyone in the world........its all about the $$$$$$ has nothing to do with advancement of technology!

GO LINUX!!!!!

GNU FOREVER!!!

[jrsunshine]

I cannot let this rediculousness go on without a comment. I realize many on this list are from other countries and share world, political, and religious views different than my own, but... you guys are most certainly biting the hand that feeds you.

The linux crowd has had a lot on their side, but have not taken over as the most virtuous and pure solution on the planet. The fact that linux and other movements persist on taking money out of the equation will almost always spell their continued doom.

People who produce a good or service cannot continue to offer it for free just for the good of all mankind. Even tools we as CG artists use that were at one time free enevitably had to give into the fact that money is necessary to survive.

People who had MS are jeleous. I don't care that MS makes obscene profits because it is their very existence that makes my skills and talents viable. Without innovation from MS and others, we would not have the great tools and the desktop media production possibilities we have today.

MS success is good for us all whether we like it or not. It would be disappointing if they bought Macromedia just to kill flash, but what if they were doing it for more nobel purposes. Who knows, but throwing the MS out with the bath water is a bad idea.

Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

Roy

[Sieb]

Without innovation from MS and others, we would not have the great tools and the desktop media production possibilities we have today.

Amen to that. I hate MS as much as the next guy, but I still pay my dues because without MS, we wouldn't be here today talking on this forum. Apple proves that one company can't controll all aspects of "a computer" and win, and MS proves that you can't controll all aspects of "computing" and win..

I converted all of our webservers over to linux as well as a bunch of workstations. Mainly because of the insane licensing, If I didn't have to pay for windows each time someone pressed a key, I would think differently. As for MS buying everything under the sun (except Sun itself, ha, pun..), its just stupid, but capitalistic (GASP! America capitalistic?! NO!!). Buy up all your competitors and you have no compitition to worry about. The day when all aspects of computing are controlled by MS is the day I move to Madagascar. But MS will fall under its weight someday, and we will all pay the price. If MS was to one day fall, the tech sector of the market would cese to exist.

MS knows what its doing, it knows how to play the game..

But buying your enemy only brings them closer..

[Per-Anders]

but m$ don't feed us, in fact most of teh technology that they've "invented" is in fact straight out stolen (apple is equally good at stealing others ideas and claiming them for themselves). m$ is not innovation driven.

the idea of m$ buying macromedia is troublesome. firstly with macromedia out of the equation in the apple market that owuld leave adobe free reign to charge what teh hell it wanted for it's web products on the apple range (should it contiune to develop here)... worse still if they don't continue to develop for apple, then there's every chance that a m$ backed macromedia could in fact put a great deal of pressure on adobe in these fields, and that would kill of competition. i can see that m$ would seel macromedia product at very low prices until the competition had gone, then would have free reign to bring up teh prices for everyone... a worst case scenario adobe could go under as an indirect result of a m$ takeover of macromedia.

further to this .net is just a ****ing trojan virus... all your information personal and otherwise collected,collated on a central database system. currently we are assured that no-one, not even microsoft could gain access to this information, well that's bunk. you don't build a database without being able to see and control it's content. .net is the technology the RIAA would so love to back.

moreover m$ buying up web tech companies is going to be a serious blow to the linux community. over 50% of web servers are Apache running on Linux.

so that's a lot of bad stuff... though personally on a moral level .net is by far the worst thing here... .net integration (they watch every aspect of your machine... notice how office is all .net compliant "for your convenience" of course :thumbsdow

so what good could come out of this as far as i can see it? well, softimage certainly were given scope to grow when they were under m$... of course they still produced something that was compliant with teh microsoft idealogy of software reease... i.e. totally buggy, unstable, in need of many many service packs.. and o course the paid for update which would of course fix tha last well known problem,... only to add it's own set of problems and bloat out teh software beyond recognition... however Si got lucky, they mostly got a hell of a lot of funds to really research and really work on a lot of aspects of the software. avid of course helped si become useable.

macromedia could get similar benefits. however there could be a nice blending of packages or throwing out of other packages in a buyout situation. take director for instance it's not changed in ages, it's very expensive, m$ probably sees director as competitoin to powerpoint. what's going ot happen there? quite probably parts of director will be brought into powerpoint, there will be a powerpoint pro release, and a standard release. the pro with the director parts. no more director... (i'm being very jaded agains't m$ here).

m$ or apple buying out software houses is bad bad bad. ok m$ doesn't actually produce the hardware, but it's anticompetitive... all i wonder is... is there no monopolies and mergers commission in the US?

on the positive side of things... at least Sun managed to win :)

[CTRL+X]

MS Buying up Macromedia has less to say about the dominating, omni present, greedy MS and more to say about Macromedia, You can't buy what isn't up for sale in the first place. Macromedia has had problems prehaps, the board of the company wanted results prehaps,,,, anyways Macromedia had the world wide web by the tail, they could have dominated and prospered in that arena,,, the question here that I would want to read about is why they failed to capitalize and secure that market,,,, and what went so wrong that they needed to hang a "for sale" sign on thier door... thats the real story.


keep wavin':wavey:

[Gentle Fury]

Originally posted by CTRL+X
MS Buying up Macromedia has less to say about the dominating, omni present, greedy MS and more to say about Macromedia, You can't buy what isn't up for sale in the first place. Macromedia has had problems prehaps, the board of the company wanted results prehaps,,,, anyways Macromedia had the world wide web by the tail, they could have dominated and prospered in that arena,,, the question here that I would want to read about is why they failed to capitalize and secure that market,,,, and what went so wrong that they needed to hang a "for sale" sign on thier door... thats the real story.


keep wavin':wavey:

well, that goes under then "Everyone has a price" ideal.

A company doesnt have to have a For Sale sign up for someone like apple or MS to come along and write a BIG FAT figure and wave it in someones face.

If the price is right one can buy just about anything that isnt for sale!!

[jrsunshine]

I just wish someone would step up and take an honest approach to this argument. Typing "M$" is way too easy for someone who doesn't have the cash MS does.

Let's look at the big greedy evil empire SONY. Why don't we say "$ONY" when we refer to them. They have products in just about every category in home entertainment. They practically stole the Video Game market from under Nintendo and SEGA. Undercut the pricing and played hardball with developers.

So... who's the evil monopoly. Is it both or just MS or just Sony?

We need to be more even handed in this debate.

Look, I am no MS evangelist, but I know where my bread is buttered. I don't use MS Office. I use Open Office. It's a great product and I love using it. I don't pay a dime for it, but it could go away tomorrow cause no one has to pay for it.

MS office on the other hand has capital behind it and an installed base to drive updates and provide the money necessary to keep it alive.

Simply discarding MS is very short sighted.

My personal opinion is people hate the fact that they are so successful. If your favorite 3D app company was as successful, would you be calling them greedy and power hungry. No way, cause you know that if your 3D app wins out and survives, its good for you. The same is true of computing in general with MS.

When MS wins... we win.

Roy

[Gentle Fury]

Originally posted by jrsunshine
I just wish someone would step up and take an honest approach to this argument. Typing "M$" is way too easy for someone who doesn't have the cash MS does.

Let's look at the big greedy evil empire SONY. Why don't we say "$ONY" when we refer to them. They have products in just about every category in home entertainment. They practically stole the Video Game market from under Nintendo and SEGA. Undercut the pricing and played hardball with developers.

So... who's the evil monopoly. Is it both or just MS or just Sony?

We need to be more even handed in this debate.

Look, I am no MS evangelist, but I know where my bread is buttered. I don't use MS Office. I use Open Office. It's a great product and I love using it. I don't pay a dime for it, but it could go away tomorrow cause no one has to pay for it.

MS office on the other hand has capital behind it and an installed base to drive updates and provide the money necessary to keep it alive.

Simply discarding MS is very short sighted.

My personal opinion is people hate the fact that they are so successful. If your favorite 3D app company was as successful, would you be calling them greedy and power hungry. No way, cause you know that if your 3D app wins out and survives, its good for you. The same is true of computing in general with MS.

When MS wins... we win.

Roy

Nope its not because they are so successful........ever hear anyone on here saying how horrible Pixar is........or how greedy New Line is for making so much money off LOTR??

nope

Pixar is one of the most successful new animation studios ever......people still love them, because they are doing what they should be doing........true, steve jobs has become CEO now, but it still hasnt seemed to affect them......and as long as they keep on crankin out the blockbusters they wont have to resort to harvesting technology to be #1

This is why people hate MS and Apple.......they do just that!! They harvest technology and then instead of improving upon it they make a half assed attempt at making another version which requires tons of patches and fixes.....or they install info gathering software into it to find out what demographic you fit into without you knowledge or consent (oh sure you could read EVERY sentance of EVERY agreement you click yes on, but that would take years!).

This is why people dislike them......saying people hate them because they are successful is like saying Oh, you only hate the people that flew those planes into the world trade center because they successfully did it!!

no, its because we hate their motives and the spiral of ill fate that arises from them existing and continuing to gain power as when you get that rich money no longer means anything its all about how much power you have!!!!

I'm sorry, but i for one have seen more inovations (that eventually become the property of said companies) come from universitys like MIT and individual research groups then from MS and Apple combined!!!!

Yes, you may all believe that research without pay has no future but I think you are WRONG.........the people working on open source software are working on small parts of it and are spanning across millions of enthusiasts across the world instead of just a small team of programmers in one company.......and they are doing it FOR technology!!!!! NOT to get a paycheck!!!!

When MS and Apple release their newest software it is to gain more power in the market, which in turn brings in money........the programmers are there to make a paycheck....and as long as problems exist in the software they will continue to have a job......so you really think there is incentive in that to make a good product???? no way! you make a half assed buggy product that basically does what it should, then you make 10 service packs and repair updates for it........programmers keep getting paid, nothing moves forward (with the exception of annoying paper clip looking avatars that pop up and tell you what a dumbass you are for not clicking the buttons the way the program intends you to!) and people continue to praise the glory that is The Coorporation!

Think back......honestly, how much NEW technology has come from the Big Coorporations as opposed to Universities and Small Research Groups????????

Im sure you will see the scales are rather tipped.

[Michael Chen]

Is this some kind of game that Microsoft is playing? (just an opinion)

[jrsunshine]

This can go on forever.

Your cup is half empty.

My cup is half full.

You seem to distrust one and trust another.

I want to believe that MS programmers are trying to innovate as much as Pixar animators are trying to innovate.

We all can have our opinions.

And don't kid youself.... Pixar only survives if their films go big at the box office.

Money is the driving force here whether you want to believe it or not.

And, I think it is great that the open source crowd is doing it for the love of technology. I think it is great. Just don't try to take my Windows XP away. I would rather have XP over anything linux any day.

Linux is still a techies OS. It is not ready for the average user by any stretch of the imagination. Even the great builds of comercial linux don't even compare.

Here's an example: I set up my wireless home network in about 10 minutes on Windows XP. I would bet money that the average user would not even be able to get it working on Linux.

like I said.... we could go on forever

Roy

[Per-Anders]

no one shoudl jstu disgard their microsoft products, i only use m$ cos it's quicker to type :) however they have brought themselves ino a monopoly situation. sony still has copmetition in various realms... (thank god), microsoft though is unchecked. in fact if they were to be split apart now it would adversely affect the US economy to such a degree, that in fact, no-one is willing to deal with microsoft and fix the problems therein.

a lot of my problems with microsoft come from the poor quality of their products. they're bloated, crash frequently, slow... desperately slow, feature rich in terms of taking control away from the user, great for secretaries and their bosses, but if you have to use these packages professionally ever then you soon realise what a pain these features are, feature poor in terms of practicality and interface design. as for innovation, well, every good feature in any other package is taken, but then implemented badly. it's just amazing how poor microsoft software is, pure lowest common denominator, or rather, "what can we get away with". the packages help people to work poorly.

then their attitude towards platforms and technologies other than microsoft's hardly engenders them to the world in general. at least sony allow the people who make games for their console to work on other platforms too. microsoft either buys or refuses to use. sun had to take them to court to get them to use java in their technology. then there's microsofts lack of compatability with modern web standards, the crippleware versions of their products that they release on the macintosh platform, the refusal to use standards on any platform (and implement their own poorer versions that have a couple of neater features, but then make it so that in order to use that you have to use microsoft kit... sorry miccrosoft do not use fair business tactics, they act with generl impunity, poepple think that microsoft is the only option, and as long as poeple think that way then microsoft will be the only option, and certainly not through merit. these are some of the reasons why microsoft is bad news.

of course i'll have a chip on my shoulder about microsoft having had to use their software, and in particular microsoft powerpoint as a conference operator for a while... (need driven only by the fact that the businessmen would get their secretaries to create their slides in powerpoint which i would then have to completely re-do.. mostly in photoshop... they never seemed to work out that it would be better to just send a script, but apparently the slides always stayed the same and the script chagnged right up till the last minute... which is why so many of them went up on stage and the first thing they said was "err...", dumbasses), enjoying teh lack of such commonplace features as keyboard shortcuts to ungroup (or evne having the keyboard shortcut written next to the menu item), menu's at both the top and bottom of teh screen, as well as micro menu's everywhere, total lack of font control including basic things such as kerning, clipart (don't get me started on the subject of microsoft clipart), the whole graphing package and total lack of power there, lack of transparency until xp, lack of any decent animation control till xp, drag & drop functionality severly impared by lack of integration between the various office apps, terrible table control and layout, autoindentation and autocapitalisation that needed to be overrided for any real control, lack of antialiasinga on rotate objects, and text, gradient control or lack thereof, the whole mspaint interface thing they've got going on, inability to handle full screen mpg on all but the fastest PC's with the highest end graphics cards, mpg layering issues, quicktime layering issues, in fact anything to do with video and these packages is a joke, colour calibration (where is it?), colour pallette system and colour picker system in general, lack of decent print options, lack of ability to handle swatch data, strangely dropping certain file formats between versions, lack of version parity on different platforms, inability to animate transparency, slowness of animation effects, lack of cross compatability in certain core areas of the application suite, virtually non-existant export functionality, where implemented absolutely beyond sub par... even after you use "Silk" on exported stuff.

Microsoft makes the lowest common denominator software. They don't innovate, they emmulate, and badly at that... but beccause microsoft is large, well known, can advertise fast, poeple don't get to hear o the original packages or apps, only that microsoft has implemented this great new technology (badly).

That is why i have a chip on my shoulder about microsoft products. And that's why i think it would be a terrible thing if they got their hands on anyone elses products... especially macromedia... just think, with microsofts software coding ability and macromedias manuals... a marriage surely made in hell.

[jrsunshine]

On Sony...
One word: Square
Another word: QTA Vice City.

There's blame all the way around. Let's not provide saint status for Sony.

The competition has always had their chance. Look at Borland; they could have been the leader in development tools. But.. they chose to make it tough to write for Windows. Look at them now, now they are begging to be in the fray. They had the better tools versus MS. Because of their arrogance, they lost. Now they are a has been company try to fight with smaller companies for market share.

I think companies refuse to dance with the devil and that is what causes their downfall. Face it. MS owns the PC market. If you wanna dance you must accept that fact first.

Roy

[DaliFan]

I do not think Microsoft or Apple should be allowed to buy Macromedia. The fact is though that it has to be for sell. What can you do?

[CTRL+X]

Hate comes from fear, fear starts when there is mis-understanding, and mis-understanding always starts in ignorance.

We don't hate Pixar even though they generate profits because it takes no intellegence to understand what they produce. we hate MS because we don't understand the technology that goes into it. since we don't understand it we fear that we can be violated by intrusions of privacy and such other rumors of the omni present big brother, and since we feel insignificant in our abillity to understand the technology it takes to protect our systems and privacy, we chose to hate and dis-trust because it is easier to do that then it is to educate oneself and become confident in our ability to use the technology that is available.

It is the same kinda of double standard I see with peoples perception of millionaires...... it amazes me how much they love thier super rich Icons of hollywood and the sports arenas, but they loathe anyone who sweats and works thier ass off to get a business off the ground... they love thier quarter backs because they see them earn their money,,, but a business owner MUST be an ass if hes just as rich, he must be a liar, he must have screwed someone to get rich.... its quite comicle

[Gentle Fury]

Originally posted by CTRL+X
Hate comes from fear, fear starts when there is mis-understanding, and mis-understanding always starts in ignorance.

We don't hate Pixar even though they generate profits because it takes no intellegence to understand what they produce. we hate MS because we don't understand the technology that goes into it. since we don't understand it we fear that we can be violated by intrusions of privacy and such other rumors of the omni present big brother, and since we feel insignificant in our abillity to understand the technology it takes to protect our systems and privacy, we chose to hate and dis-trust because it is easier to do that then it is to educate oneself and become confident in our ability to use the technology that is available.

It is the same kinda of double standard I see with peoples perception of millionaires...... it amazes me how much they love thier super rich Icons of hollywood and the sports arenas, but they loathe anyone who sweats and works thier ass off to get a business off the ground... they love thier quarter backs because they see them earn their money,,, but a business owner MUST be an ass if hes just as rich, he must be a liar, he must have screwed someone to get rich.... its quite comicle


i think that whole post was quite comical, as it makes no sense in reality at all.......are you trying to say we are all a bunch of morons that like Pixar because we can sit back and let the spittle run down our shirts as we watch the pretty pictures.....but hate MS because we cant figure it out..........i so dumb, i not know how windows work.............come on..........i think you are just argueing for the sake of arguing now!

[CTRL+X]

I never said morons, nor did I say anyone was stupid,

Nor do I argue on this board, to what end?

I just do not understand why people get so upset when MS buys out a failing company, or, buys out a competitor, that’s good business sense, it is a normal cycle, if business where nature, it is akin to survival of the fittest. Profit is everything, share holders demand it, profit fuels R and D, it supplies jobs etc etc

What I was trying to say before is I just see allot of perpetual rumoring, rumoring that just seems to get repeated over and over, and most often it is by people that do not understand how business works, or they do not understand how to use the technology at hand to its full potential so instead they like to bring down to their level what they do not understand so they fear it less. It is easy to get a mob mentality going over something you fear, that’s all I have seen over this whole MS issue.

But that is just my opinion.....

[DaliFan]

I think neither should buy is because they will stiffle and disrupt the creation that is going on. I mean come on! It has nothing to do with hate. If you want to run all MS stuff and no other company can even get started then ok. Macromedia products are WIDELY used and MS knows this. They can tie it all into MS stuff and once again cut off a choice to use something other then MS on windows. Windows is a OS and that is fine with me. I am using it (dual boot Linux, win for games). But this getting into such a wide range of sectors is scary. It has nothing to do with "understanding" and everything to do with logic. MS are not dumb. They know exactly who to go after and when. The problem is having the most sold OS is not close to enough. They want to make their own products and KILL off the competition (Java, etc infinity). That is bad and dangerous for all.

They want to control the computer market as a whole and force consumers to follow a path that THEY choose. It is so obvious. This is coming from someone using windows since 3.1 and on up. Look how many GOOD dead companies that have been buried. From small mom and pops to percieved industry giants.

Activation, Net, what next

I feel the same way about Apple btw. Microsoft is just bigger and has more power. They each have the same goal though. I do not hate Microsoft. Yet I do not smile at a Microsoft future. Especially with what they are trying to do with NET and activation. Be careful what one might ask for.

[flipnap]

some people around here think its fine and dandy whats happening.. there are even some people who share the "M$ butters my bread and i dont bite the hand that feeds me" mentality.. dont you really mean the hands that chain you... look, yeah, companies need to make money, thats what they do... look around your office next time you are at work and imagine that you'll not be getting a paycheck again.. its pretty ridiculous to keep throwing the money thing around, the point is moot.. As far as Apple and M$ is concerned, yeah you may not like what Apples doing but don't even start to compare the two.. i challange anyone who has ever sat down and read the whole Antitrust case and how M$ behaved, their mannerisms, their testimonies and how they kept getting caught in lie after lie (something they are apparently very bad at) it would convulse your stomache worse than this

http://www.ntk.net/media/dancemonkeyboy.mpg

... trust me, you very quickly forget about software and it becomes about a more sinister beast.. what M$ is up to is very bad indeed. head for the hills..............................

[jrsunshine]

If the point is moot, why do you and all the other critics continue to refer to Microsoft as 'M$'. Either the money issue is moot or it is not. Which is it?

Roy

[flipnap]

their name is Microsoft? Seriously though, im not a critic anymore than you are for calling the grass green.. sorry but M$ is the Evil Empire and no-one can tell me otherwise, not after what i read and witnessed during the anti-trust case.. my feelings about that company and what they are doing run deep.. im not just some guy who hates windows; i can see through it all and when a company wants to track every keystroke you make.. well, it makes me want to make... like i said, head for the hills....

[jrsunshine]

I understand. We are all entitled. Care to share some of those choice sections of the anit-trust case? Share the one's which influence your opinion of MS the most.

Thanks,
Roy

[flipnap]

feb 4, 1999... M$ was attemtping to show a video of how windows 98 crashed all the time if they removed explorer.. the tape they showed was a hack, and a poorly done one at that.. here is an excerpt for their second attempt to correct the problem (i.e. lie).. at one point the mouse cursor jumped position at a frame hack... there are around million other sickening and disturbing things about the antitrust case but dont take my word for it, it's all out there.. in fact, Wired magazine printed a 65 page article detailing most of it.. it was a very sickening article and i thought for sure this would expose them for what they really are but I guess having that much money really buys a lot more than cars and houses these days.....

"WASHINGTON -- A Microsoft demonstration of the government's prototype browser removal program for the Windows 98 operating system was revideotaped without a hitch and was expected to be played in federal court Thursday afternoon.

A Microsoft official said the 70-minute exhibit will "verify and validate all the steps shown on the original video" -- a video that had editing flaws so severe and questionable that the judge in the company's antitrust case Wednesday called it "very troubling."

The tape was originally intended to show that using a program written by Princeton University computer scientist Edward Felten to remove Internet Explorer browser functionality from Windows 98 cripples the OS"

Microsoft lies all the time, it's part of their construct.. here's another point in case...

http://aroundcny.com/technofile/texts/tec102002.html

[Gentle Fury]

Originally posted by CTRL+X
I just do not understand why people get so upset when MS buys out a failing company, or, buys out a competitor, that’s good business sense, it is a normal cycle, if business where nature, it is akin to survival of the fittest. Profit is everything, share holders demand it, profit fuels R and D, it supplies jobs etc etc

Yes, unfortunatly in the coorporate world profit IS everything.....but my point was, in terms of true innovation and advancement of techonology it has been the NON-PROFIT groups that have had the most impact......then the money/power hunger giants of industry steal/buy said technology make more money gain more power and leave the little guys that are the reason for such advancement in the dust!!

The history of any advancement has suffered the same fate.....the first usable electric automobile being bought by GM only to be distroyed......the fabled energy maker that used hydrogen molecules in water in a cold fusion process. Hell its rumored even that the original version of DOS was written by someone else.

This is how its been since the dawn of time......someone wthout backing brings about progress and a bigger fish with money swallows it up.....sometimes the little guy gets rich out of the deal, sometimes they get screwed, sometimes they get dead....but in the end, big coorporations have not really provided very much.......with the exception of IBM their research teams are actually getting us somewhere :)

[DaliFan]

MS has way more market share, money, power then Apple. However, if you think apple would not be trying to do the same...

my point is they both need to let companies grow and not try to take control of them by pressure or buying

the course is in action anyway so I doubt it will change

[Per-Anders]

no company should be allowed to get that big.

trouble with r&d of course is that it requires collateral. if a company (that's floated) has excess collateral then obviously it becomes the target of some scrutiny and can be deemed ripe for a takeover bid. one of the reasons for lack of any real development directly by large companies such as microsoft.

what's worrying is that it's the user who looses out in this.

imagine if all your web content was controlled and delivered by aol... you could only book flights with the companies that were partnered with aol etc... it would be like having QVC.net and unfortunately this is exactly what microsoft has said they're going ot do for us with .net. Your internet experience is going ot be totally controlled by microsoft (they've publicly stated this more or less). all information about you and your activity on your computer held by them, what you can and can't see controlled by them... imagine only being able to go to warner cinemas... this. That's why "free" is the way people will go. When you can't afford to pay as much "protection money" as the largest company to microsoft, so that your website will come up as their suggested choice... or even appear on the list. Microsoft want total control of the web. .net is in a way their way of getting this and putting the stake through the heart of Time/Warner/Aol. Free will be the way people go, what alternative will there be? It's subversive. But then microsoft it seems want to be big brother, watching over each and every one of us, and all our daily moves... just think what control they will have come homewide bluetooth.

If you think I'm scaremongering then you really haven't been to half the telecommunications conferences i have. The telecommunications companies hate the web. Cos they don't have total control over it. Because they can screw the users for more money if they direct every user through the pipe. Microsoft is no fool, they want the same. Some of the ideas I've seen have been very scary, some of this stuff is showing up now... take a close look at the new Yahoo/Pacbell DSL service offering... seems like any other on the surface of it. Except they want you to use their browsing system, they're rerouting you through their local pipeline... thus you "avoid all that nasty stuff that you really wouldnt be interested in anyway", seems innocent enough till you start to think exactly what control and what power this gives them (every log for every action you make... imagine if companies were to be able to check up on what kinds of sites you visited before hiring you... it's been suggested at these conferences).

Dali you're right, any company that got as big as Microsoft would be doing the same, Apple, IBM, anyone... they run businesses, not charities. Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any section of the US government that is effective at dealing with monopolies apart from in terms of the "Thankyou kindly for this donation sir".

Anyhow, enough doom and gloom. It might never happen :)

[CTRL+X]

I see your points. the thing with MS, as with all small business' that became big business, that became monopolies here in america through out our history, have been left to pave the way, the american rail road is an example, left to run rampant through the west, forced people off thier propertieis, stole deeds, even some were murdered who fought back, great profits were made, fortunes won, great family wealth for a few, wealth that exists to this day for thier descendants ..... but the thing is is that MS did pave the way through inovation or theft and litigation, they were the right people at the right place at the right time in history. and they did what they had to, and they did what was needed to get this new frontier of personal computing off the ground. american govt will force it to break up eventually, just as they did with the rail road and the phone company etc etc. and the parts that it breaks up into will have to compete on the open market with others, and others will come along and offer choice,, that is the way it has always been.

[DaliFan]

I agree .. any company would

MS however has the power and is for sure making steps to do it.

It IS scary

[dark_lotus]

Without innovation from MS and others, we would not have the great tools and the desktop media production possibilities we have today.

Microsoft hasn't innovated anything. They've practically copied Apple in terms of Windows, right down to the next Windows being based on UNIX.

If Microsoft didn't have such a large grasp and influence, there would be more competition, which would drive more innovation and we wouldn't be 5 years behind where we could've been. So really as much as you think todays software is wonderfull, without competition, they don't need to make a superior product in order to keep people buying it.

As for Sony, they didn't steal other peoples ideas to break into the industry. Nintendo asked them to co-develop the Playstation, and Nintendo pulled out at the last minute, so sony decided to market it anyway.

What they generated was a superior product. They innovated and created competition.

Where as Microsoft just built a PC and marketed it as a video game console, then bought out companies to make games for it.

Just to throw a different Perspective on it, lets take a look at the Pharmacutical Industry.

A company such as gsk (who make Panadol) spend most of their profits in research and development to make newer drugs. If you take a look at some smaller companies, (alphapharm) what they do is steal this r&d, and use it to make the same product that does the same thing.

What Microsoft is doing is just stealing what other people have done, and marketing it as something else.

(Windows Movie Maker, Recycle Bin, Start Bar, etc )

Have you seen the new product that MS are using to try and compete with Photoshop? Its truley sad.

[fal$eProfit]

Here is the press release http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/adobeandmacromedia.html
I seriously doubt that adobe is going to sell its macromedia products to microsoft right after they bought it being that it puts them on a super monoply with the soon to be new flash PDF's.

[erilaz]

Here is the press release http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/adobeandmacromedia.html
I seriously doubt that adobe is going to sell its macromedia products to microsoft right after they bought it being that it puts them on a super monoply with the soon to be new flash PDF's.

Um... the Microsoft aquisition rumour is ancient (2002). Why did you bring it up? It's been known for some time now that Adobe aquired Macromedia.:)

[fal$eProfit]

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=277122

My bad about posting. I didn't see that it was from 2002 when I put the post down. It was at the top of the forum for some reason and I didn't check the date.

[Equinoxx]

holy zombie thread resurrection batman : :eek:

[tozz]

Sweetness... Was reading the posts and thinking "wtf" then I saw the dates, funny :D

[smoothoperator]

tozz same here, i was just going to post...wtf...didnt Adobe pick up MM?

In the end though...guess who's going to pick up adobe? Apple. I'd put money on it.

[Dija]

Microsoft hasn't innovated anything. They've practically copied Apple in terms of Windows, right down to the next Windows being based on UNIX.


If true, there´s nothing wrong about Microsoft basing the new windows on UNIX. And both apple and microsoft copied the desktop metaphor from the Xerox Parc.

EDIT: By the way, Microsoft had an UNIX based operating system in the begining of 80´s and it was called Xenix. It was used internally at Microsoft up to 1992. Look http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix

[Signal2Noise]

HOLY THREAD RESURRECTION, BATMAN! :eek:

[TetraLynx]

OKay something is wierd here cause Adobe still has something on their site about the acquisitiono of MM. http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/adobeandmacromedia.htmlI know there was a probe into that purchase but I never heard anything about it

kw

edit:: Sorry I just saw that I reposted what someone so kindly put up a few spaces up. Sorry :)

[TetraLynx]

Never mind someone already beat me to the punch. Sorry. ::lol::

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