[Ham-Computers] Frustration with MS

[Karty, Steven]

I agree with Duane that both Microsoft and Bill Gates are good.  The US
Justice Department used to attack AT&T every ten years just for fun, until
AT&T got tired of playing that game and agreed to be dismembered.  That
resulted in higher residential telephone rates and poorer service for us
all.  AT&T used to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in
telecommunications services each year for free to the US Federal Government,
but that all ended with the breakup.  Bell Labs was a National asset that
used to do a lot of research for free for the US Federal Government, but all
that also ended with the breakup.  We are all paying much higher Federal
Income Taxes to compensate for these higher costs.  Western Electric used to
manufacture all of the telephone equipment for the Bell System in the US,
but now almost everything is imported from foreign countries.  Have you
bothered looking at the junk they call telephones now?  All of the phones
are imported and they break the first time you drop them more than one inch.
You could throw the old Western Electric phones out of a one story window
and they'd still work fine (and wouldn't even be scratched - if they fell in
the dirt).  The old Western Electric phones were virtually immune to high RF
fields, even at commercial 50 KW transmitter sites.  Do you think that the
new phones will work in the same area with just a 100-Watt transmitter?  Now
that there is no Bell System, the US Justice Department has turned its
attention to Microsoft.  But if they break up Microsoft, foreign firms will
come in and take Microsoft's place.  Does anyone really believe that that
will help the US?  If the US Justice Department doesn't like some feature in
some foreign software, or if they think that the foreign firms are being
anti-competitive, do you think that the foreign companies will care?  Why
would we want to hobble Microsoft and let their business be gobbled up by a
bunch of foreign companies?  Just how would that help any of us?  

If we were really serious about stopping corruption, collusion, and
anti-competitiveness, we'd all ask the US Justice Department to get off of
Microsoft's back and thoroughly investigate the oil companies instead.  

73, Steven - N5SK   

-----Original Message-----
From: Duane Fischer, W8DBF 
To: Preston Graham; Computers (or other) used for amateur radio,
communications,  or experimenting
Sent: 5/31/2004 7:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Ham-Computers] Frustration with MS

One thing all of us need to remember here. I get tired of people picking
on Mr.Bill Gates. Good, bad or otherwise, remember - He made it possible for
us to have home computers in many many ways. Had he not been there, what we
have today would very likely not exist.	
	
We can no more fault him than we can the Japanese for killing us off in
the electronics market. After all, Bell Labs invented the transistor and we
let the Japanese have it! We invented the VCR and let them have it. So what
should we expect? We gave them the technology and they used it better than
we did! We have nobody to blame except ourselves. 	
	
Mr. Gates has done one heck of a lot of good things for the computer
industry, keep that in mind. He saw a market, he filled it and he made a lot
of money in doing so. Many others have done the same. Apple would have died
had Bill Gates not created competition for them, which made Apple better and
they survived. So whether you like Mr. Gates or not, get off his back. We
have all benefited because of him, even if we do not want to admit it.	
	
Duane W8DBF