Microsoft

If you still are a microsoft fan please have a look in this article:

Microsoft
Bloat
· CNN has a good article which explains why bloat is such a bad thing. Unneeded features make products more cumbersome to use and the addition of new features often sacrifices the performance (and sometimes the integrity) of older features. Why not stick with an older version of the product then? Two reasons: 1) you only get customer support if you stay current and 2) if you need to work with other people using the same program older versions are often incompatible with newer versions, so if anybody is using the newest version then everybody must upgrade.
· "The Bloatware Debate" is a technical discussion of how two separate people dissected one particular Microsoft program and found out, to their shock, that it was over 2,000% larger than it should have been. It would appear from this discussion that the cumbersome size of Microsoft programs is due not only to the continually growing clutter of useless features but it is also due to careless programming (perhaps to an even larger degree).
Perpetual Upgrading
· When Netscape was the dominant web browser, Microsoft made a huge push to get people and organizations to move to Internet Explorer. How did Microsoft reward its customers that made the effort to switch? It released subsequent versions of Internet Explorer and related products which encouraged web publishers to write web pages that would only work with the latest versions of Internet Explorer. It only took a few short years for the main page of Microsoft's own website, http://www.microsoft.com/ , to stop working properly with the early versions of Internet Explorer which it pushed an unprecedented amount to get people to install. References: [Screenshot of http://www.microsoft.com/ breaking IE 4 with HTTP/1.1 support on November 11, 2002]
Microsoft also left these same people that helped Internet Explorer gain the majority market share in the lurch by providing delinquent support for Internet Explorer 5.0 shortly after its release. Internet Explorer 5.01 SP2 was released in June 19, 2001. In December 13, 2001 when Microsoft released a critical security upgrade for Internet Explorer, only versions 5.5 and higher were supported (a patch was finally issued for IE 5.01 nearly 2 months later on February 11, 2002, but as of this writing all early versions of IE appear to have been abandoned as they still have no patches). So customers had a choice to make: stay with the version of Internet Explorer they had already invested the time into deploying and worry (rightly so) about having their computers hacked for an unknown amount of time (which turned out to be a lengthy 2 months), or invest more time to upgrade to the latest version again, even though they may have just upgraded 6 months earlier and they may have no need for any new features. To top it all off, even if they did decide to upgrade, the upgrade was reported to be buggy. References: [Bugginess of Upgrade] [Register Article on Patch] [Slashdot Article on Patch] [Microsoft's Dec 13, 2001 Patch] [Microsoft's Feb 12, 2002 Patch For IE 5]
· Perpetually upgrading has the obvious cost associated with it of new licenses for the new versions, but there are are many additional hidden costs. For a good example of how the costs of upgrading can balloon to much more than the obvious licensing costs, read about all the problems that ensued when one company made the decision to upgrade their Microsoft software. In addition to the costs of the new licenses, newer hardware ended up being required, support problems increased (and support costs money), and there was always the looming cost of losing face with upper management because the next necessitated upgrade to come from Microsoft came so quick on the heels of the first upgrade that it made the initial upgrade appear ill-timed and a pointless cost. Finally, a good illustration is given of how one upgrade can set off a chain of many other required (and costly) upgrades because Microsoft's software is so "integrated".
Hostile treatment of customers
· One example of Microsoft's hostility to its existing customers came in September, 2000. Microsoft demanded that the Virginia Beach government account for all copies of Microsoft software that were in use within the government and provide proof of purchase for each product. The reason? "Nick Psyhogeos, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney for Microsoft, said the firm has found that government agencies sometimes inadvertently acquire counterfeit software." There was no mention of a reason why this particular city government was singled out - they were not investigated because of something which they did to arouse suspicion, but simply because they were a large organization that Microsoft hoped they could frighten more money out of. The city was presumed guilty until proven innocent and this cost the tax payers a great deal of money as the city reassigned 25 percent of its technical work force to work specifically on the task of generating the information demanded by Microsoft. [Pilot Online Article (Dead)] [Pilot Online Article Mirror]
· Microsoft has recently added "features" to its software in order to prevent unlicensed use, and users are already crying out at the negative effect this has had on usability and reliability. [KMFMS Article] [ZDNet Article]
· David Coursey from ZDNet has written about his personal experience of being deprived of the use of his legally licensed Microsoft software at the worst possible time because of Microsoft's over-zealous "anti-piracy" measures.
Predatory Practices
· At the time of its publication, "The (Nearly) Whole Microsoft Catalog" was a fairly complete list of all the companies and products that Microsoft has swallowed with its ever increasing appetite for total market domination. [Catalog (via archive.org)]
· Yes, Microsoft royally screwed over Spyglass by licensing their code and then turning around and giving it away for free. This obviously made it a lot more difficult for Spyglass to sell other licenses since their potential customers could just embed Internet Explorer for free. Not only did Microsoft destroy Spyglass' existing market, but Spyglass also accused Microsoft of not paying the required royalties on the code that they licensed. Spyglass has since been relegated to a niche market, and it is interesting to note that they don't even mention Internet Explorer as one of their accomplishments in their showcase. [Bloomberg Article] [Spyglass Press Release (dead)] [Spyglass Showcase (dead)]
· Microsoft forced major internet web site operators to agree not to promote Netscape Navigator and to forego any business relations with Netscape if they wanted featured placement on the Windows desktop. Yes, you read that correctly - Microsoft didn't just ask for preferential placement of it's own products, it demanded that its competitor's products not be promoted at all. So the next time you hear Microsoft say that they are for consumer choice be aware that they are lying through their teeth. [CNET Article (via archive.org)]
· Even the mighty Compaq feared Microsoft and curtailed business relationships with Go Corp and Netscape under pressure from Microsoft. [ZDNet Article (via archive.org)]
· Why don't you see any computer vendors offering to sell computers that have Windows and some other operating system installed (this is referred to as a dual-boot system)? Considering that many non-Windows operating systems, such as Linux, are free and have excellent, free tools that would be useful to certain types of people (for example, engineering students), you would think that many OEM's would jump at this chance to differentiate the computers they offer. However, the fact of the matter is that they can't because the contract that they have which Microsoft allegedly forbids them from offering a non-Windows operating system as a boot option. (This contract is not available for the public to read because it is classified as a "trade secret" - Microsoft has gone to great lengths to keep its strongarm tactics hidden from the public.) [Byte Article (dead)] [Author's Mirror]
· In November of 1998 Blue Mountain Arts, a company which allows people to send electronic greeting cards, discovered that two separate Microsoft products, WebTV and Outlook Express (which is part of Internet Explorer), had recently begun to automatically delete greeting cards from Blue Mountain Arts. Blue Mountain Arts was an established company in the market for electronic greeting cards and, not surprisingly, at the time that their cards started being automatically deleted by Microsoft products, Microsoft was just beginning the process of entering the same market with their own electronic greeting cards service. Using their tried and tested tactics, Microsoft used their existing products in unrelated markets (WebTV and Outlook Express) to make it look like the competition in the new market was broken, thereby making Microsoft's own greeting card offering appear more reliable. Blue Mountain Arts sued Microsoft because of this and the judge acknowledged the predatory nature of Microsoft's actions by granting a preliminary injunction against Microsoft. References: [Chronology of Trial] [ZDNet Article] [internetnews.com Article]

Bugs, bugs, and more bugs
· System administrators who have had experience with other operating systems know that Windows is a nightmare to maintain. For a taste of what these people must suffer through read this insightful usenet posting by one frustrated sys admin. He describes some inexplicable problems that crop up in Windows and the vastly inadequate support that Microsoft provides when they arise. Especially interesting to note is the catch-22 that Microsoft puts its users in by refusing to give technical support when the user follows the instructions in Microsoft's own "knowledge base". Despite Microsoft's persistent efforts to portray their products as reliable and free from bugs that are worth caring about, their own internal documentation suggests that the story is quite different in reality. In a very rare moment of openness and honesty, Microsoft has published on its own website an article which serves as a full admission of guilt that Microsoft makes a practice of releasing incredibly bug-ridden software and that this has adversely affected customers in a "horrible" way. The author is very harsh on what was released as the production version of Internet Explorer and also strongly alludes that software at Microsoft is frequently shipped under strong protests from its developers as to its lack of fitness. (Although they are not mentioned by name, it is clear that the browsers the article refers to are Internet Explorer and Netscape.) Don't expect this article to stay on the Microsoft website for long now that we are linking to it - read it while you still can. If it is no longer available by the time you get to it, you can search for it under the title of "When Is Software Ready? Ship It Anyway!" by author Victor Stone, dated March 29, 1999. References: [MSDN Article]