PULP
Stuff that doesn't suck
Stuff that really sucks
Opinions on Stuff that Matters

Why People Hate Microsoft
(don't forget to read the caveats!)
Updated November 1998

There seems to be a LOT of people that really hate Microsoft these days.  They claim that Bill Gates is the Devil, that Microsoft is evil, that Microsoft is out to control the world, etc.  Has anyone ever written WHY people might hate Microsoft?   I think not.  So here are my opinions:

1. Microsoft is a very successful company, and many people can’t deal with someone else’s success.  If you are top of the world, many people hope that something will happen so you aren't as successful, and you will be a loser like them.
   
2. They are jealous that Bill Gates has billions of dollars and they don’t .   Some people call this "Bill Envy".  CEOs of many software companies are guilty of this.    
   
3. They are a politician, and they are pissed that Microsoft doesn’t really give a shit about politics (and until recently, rarely contributed to anyone’s campaign) and Microsoft is going to be one of the companies that helps define what the future will be like for our children. Politicians think they know better than the technologists. But in general, politicians are another group of people that can be categorized as "dumb ass, boneheads". That is why they are in politics, and not working for a company that has to be competitive and actually make money or else their children don't eat. If politicians are going to lead our children into the future, then our children turn out to be a bunch of whiney, argumentative, wife cheating, mean spirited, and always "spin doctoring" their mistakes into how good they are. Would you rather your kids grow up and possess:
   
           the mental capabilities of:Clinton/Newt/Dornan/Gore/Klein/Lewsinsky
                                                   OR
           the mental abilities of Gates/Jobs/Case/Grove/Dell/Winblad
   
   Conclusion: Politicians CANNOT lead our country, because it would be the end of western civilization as we know it.  We might as well nuke ourselves if the politicians are going to lead us.  Instead,  it will be the technologists who have the vision and will lead America into the 21^st century.
   
4. They are a politician, and are pissed that the companies in their state made dumb business decisions that affect their tax base, and are blaming the fault on "monopoly practices by Microsoft" (example: UTAH. Need I say more?)
   
5. They are mad because they made the really stupid mistake of buying stock in companies that compete with Microsoft in hopes that they would get rich quick, and those companies they invested in responded by making some REALLY DUMB business decisions that caused people to lose their life’s savings because they decided they could bet against Bill and win. Want examples? (Remember again, is my personal opinion, and does not reflect the opinion of any past, present, or future employer). Can you say people who bought Netscape stock at the IPO for $58+ or when it tripled in price, and now are losing their ass on it? (Update: August 1999.  Since then, AOL bought out Netscape, and saved those people who bought the Netscape stock.)Hey, Microsoft can’t help it if you can’t understand how the software industry works and you place horribly bad bets with your retirement money on companies dreaming to be ‘The Next Microsoft".  Perhaps you should put your money in a mutual fund, or let a professional money manager manage your retirement funds.  Because obviously these people have no clue.
   
   Examples of companies/thought processes that are exceptionally faulty:
   
   Network Computers
   Larry Ellison, Netscape, etc said said a few years back that Network Computers running Java were going to crush the Personal Computer. The Network Computer is an incredible failure. It was so bad, that the NC magazine (headed by the same guy that supported OS/2 and the OS/2 magazine) folded. And then the guy had the nerve to say that the failure was because the NC got bad press from reporters, which killed it off. The reason why the NC failed was pretty simple in my opinion. It sucked, provided no benefit, was expensive, didn’t work, AND NO ONE BOUGHT IT. People aren’t stupid, they don’t buy shit that don’t work. The guy who headed up the OS/2 and NC magazines is 0 for 2 in picking technology. His latest pick is Java, and he heads up a Java magazine. What do you infer from that?
   
   Oracle
   Oracle saying three years ago the Personal Computer is dead. (I think something like 100 million PCs will be shipped this year). Oracle spent a lot of time and money on the NC. It was a waste of valuable development effort.  In the meantime, companies that dedicated themselves to the PC, such as Dell and Compaq, are making big bucks because THEY realized that the PC ain't dead, and it ain't gonna be dead anytime soon.
   
   Corel
   Corel betting on running a Java Suite of office applications. They said they were going to come out and kick Microsoft’s ass with a Java suite of Office applications that would run anywhere. The concept is, write an application once in Java, and then have the same spreadsheet/word processor/etc run on Windows, Mac, Unix, NC, etc. Since they only have to write one version of a spreadsheet/word processory that runs everywhere, they were going to be the "Next Microsoft". But it turns out that Corel’s office suite was a failure, another waste of development effort. Too slow, too buggy, didn’t run anywhere decently. 
   
   Netscape
   The press (in general, another bunch of idiots that don’t understand technology, but they still choose to write their incorrect opinions on stuff they don’t understand) a few years back called Netscape the "Next Microsoft."  (If they didn’t say it explicitly, they at least implied it in their articles.) Someone quoted the folks at Netscape a while back (1995?) saying that Netscape was going to reduce Microsoft Windows to a series of device drivers. In other words, all a person needed Windows for was the tens of thousands of device drivers for displays, scanners, printers, network cards, mice, sound boards, disk drives, etc, and nothing else. There essentially wouldn’t be a need for applications like Word and Excel, everything will be run off the server using Java apps and a thin client. Microsoft would then be run out of business, because no one would buy applications that ran on top of Windows anymore. This is the equivalent of a 13 year old kid white boy going up to Mike Tyson, spitting in his face and throwing dog shit on his shoes, saying, "Mikey, I am going to kick your ass so bad when I grow up, you are going to be nothing, you are be washed up." What would Tyson do in this situation? He would beat the living shit out of the 13 year kid on the spot. Which is what Microsoft basically did to Netscape. Netscape also spent valuable development cycles writing their "Javagator", which was going to a total cross platform browser that they would write once, and have it run on every platform known to man since it was written in Java. But it also was a tremendous failure, like the Corel Office Suite for Java, it was SLOW, it really wouldn’t work cross platform as planned, etc. So about a year later they quietly gave up on the "Javagator". Now Netscape is whining about how they can’t compete against Microsoft.  With business plans like "Javagator", no wonder they can't compete with the whiz kids from Redmond.

Apple Computer
I don’t think I need to elaborate on their poor business decisions. Everyone knows their horrible business decisions. I used to be a Mac bigot back in the late 1980’s. Until I compared it to Microsoft’s bigger vision for the future. Latest act of ultimate stupidity from Apple: In court last week, Apple claimed that Microsoft "sabotaged" Quicktime so it couldn’t run correctly on Windows. After the Microsoft developers looked at their court filings and the video tape evidence that Apple presented last week, Microsoft developers kindly debugged what Apple did wrong in writing their Netscape Plugin for Quicktime, since Apple didn’t follow Netscape’s instructions properly on how to write the application. (Can you say RTFM?) And Microsoft also kindly posted the fix to the Internet for Apple's code, so Apple customers could download it. Which was good, because if Microsoft gave the fix to Apple to post, Apple would probably botch up the code again and Apple customer would still be pissed that Quicktime wasn’t working properly on Windows. My question is, "So does that mean the Apple guy in court committed perjury by accusing Microsoft of sabotaging Quicktime, when it fact it was a software programming error by Apple employees?" Will he apologize publicly?  Or will he still insist that Bill Gates is out to sabotage him?  You will notice that the press folks covering the trial didn't report a lot about this, because THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND how stupid Apple was in this case.  Read more about how STUPID Apple programmers were at http://msdn.microsoft.com/developer/news/quicktime.htm.