Who cares?
Well, everyone who uses a computer should, particularly if we consider what might have happened if Microsoft hadn’t abused their market power. When a monopolist abuses their power, customers all lose, because they don’t get to enjoy the more rapid improvements that robust competition provides. It’s one of the key reasons we think competition is a good thing.
[...] But lastly, and this is the big one for me, we might not have a monoculture of operating system on the Internet with such a poor security model.
[...] Imagine a world where Symantec didn’t exist, because viruses weren’t so easy to write and spread to all the world’s computers. Imagine a world where spam didn’t constitute 90% of all email because it wasn’t so easy to take over a PC and turn it into a botnet zombie. Imagine not having to do impromptu tech-support for family members who accidentally installed a bunch of spyware.
[...]Imagine all the time and money that has been, and continues to be, spent on fixing all of the issues that a better security model 10-15 years ago might have avoided.
In Summary
Microsoft have made (or bought) some excellent products, as they continue to do. There are many wise, capable, and perfectly reasonable people who work there, what with it being a big company and all. This is not a company that is an unrestrained force for evil in the world.
However.
Microsoft have a history of abusing market dominance in order to exclude competitors. Many of the top management running the company at the time are still there, running the company today.
Perhaps there will be no repeat performances, but there are very good reasons for greeting rhetoric from Microsoft regarding their openness with some scepticism.
Inflammatory headline aside, let me be clear that I don’t hate Microsoft. But I can understand why there are those who do.
