11 ms·

AFAIK Angular is part of Google. But a quite decent improvement from the era when the company bribed government officials to purchase bulk licences for pupils

by aries1980 10y ago

AFAIK Angular is part of Google. But a quite decent improvement from the era when the company bribed government officials to purchase bulk licences for pupils and govn't, distorting the job market. This is a less harmful Microsoft than it was 5-10-20 years ago.

oblio 10y ago
It still has split personality, unfortunately. You can't turn such a huge company 100% around in such a short time.
- tracker1 10y ago
  that's no different from any company with more than 10K employees, one group won't necessarily be aligned to all the others... The developer and azure areas of MS have definitely been leaning in the pro-floss side of things... Windows and Office, not so much, who knows wrt XBox, they seem to flip-flop on indee support.
crdoconnor 10y ago
>But a quite decent improvement from the era when the company bribed government officials to purchase bulk licences for pupils and govn't, distorting the job market IIRC they're still doing that. In India I think? >This is a less harmful Microsoft than it was 5-10-20 years ago. The key to that is Microsoft being far less powerful than it was 5-10 years ago. Where MS can throw it's weight around, it still does. The aftermath of the DOJ case is probably as much as responsible for that as the competition which ended up marginalizing them.
- kleim 10y ago
  > IIRC they're still doing that. In India I think? They still do this in France and they are being sued for this. Actually this is in today's French headlines.
- aries1980 10y ago
  >>But a quite decent improvement from the era when the company bribed government officials to purchase bulk licences for pupils and govn't, distorting the job market > IIRC they're still doing that. In India I think? I wasn't aware of this. At least the IT textbooks in my home country write about “text processor” and “spreadsheet tool” and not explicitly MS Word or Excel. The programming classes don't require MS Visual Studio project files to be submitted either. In 2008 Hungary paid $162M for the “Clean Software Programme” for 3 years. In 2011 it became $54M for an other 3 years, in 2014 it was reduced to $2.8M. I don't hear stories any more about their legal bullying team called BSA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSA_(The_Software_Alliance) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSA_(The_Software_Alliance) which with members of the local police they appeared time to time at business offices asking the for proof of purchase. Even they had no search warrant, they used a psychological terror with the presence of the police to threaten the businesses. This is one of their ads from the past http://img.index.hu/cikkepek/0101/tech/bsaplakat2.jpg http://img.index.hu/cikkepek/0101/tech/bsaplakat2.jpg It says: “Don't use illegal software! _Users_ of illegal software can sentenced to 2-5 years. _Have you been inspected today?_
rmc 10y ago
> a quite decent improvement from the era when Or the era of "Linux is a cancer" http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_cancer/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_c...
- bad_user 10y ago
  Yeah, now they're just engaging in racketeering against Linux and Android using their patents.
  - baldfat 10y ago
    This isn't 2001. Most Microsoft shops in my area are now at least 25% Linux these days on Azure.
    - toolz 10y ago
      What does that have to do with their racketeering?
      - baldfat 10y ago
        What are they racketeering is going on now? People confuse Steve Ballmer with present Microsoft. They don't do the patent wars anymore.
  - golfer 10y ago
    The "Scroogled" era wasn't that long ago either. Unbelievably embarrassing. Nor the stealing of Google's search results. I'm not ready to bless Microsoft yet.
    - wmccullough 10y ago
      How long do they have to pay for their past mistakes before they've done enough to placate people?

oblio 10y ago

It still has split personality, unfortunately. You can't turn such a huge company 100% around in such a short time.

tracker1 10y ago
that's no different from any company with more than 10K employees, one group won't necessarily be aligned to all the others... The developer and azure areas of MS have definitely been leaning in the pro-floss side of things... Windows and Office, not so much, who knows wrt XBox, they seem to flip-flop on indee support.

crdoconnor 10y ago

>But a quite decent improvement from the era when the company bribed government officials to purchase bulk licences for pupils and govn't, distorting the job market IIRC they're still doing that. In India I think? >This is a less harmful Microsoft than it was 5-10-20 years ago. The key to that is Microsoft being far less powerful than it was 5-10 years ago. Where MS can throw it's weight around, it still does. The aftermath of the DOJ case is probably as much as responsible for that as the competition which ended up marginalizing them.

kleim 10y ago
> IIRC they're still doing that. In India I think? They still do this in France and they are being sued for this. Actually this is in today's French headlines.
aries1980 10y ago
>>But a quite decent improvement from the era when the company bribed government officials to purchase bulk licences for pupils and govn't, distorting the job market > IIRC they're still doing that. In India I think? I wasn't aware of this. At least the IT textbooks in my home country write about “text processor” and “spreadsheet tool” and not explicitly MS Word or Excel. The programming classes don't require MS Visual Studio project files to be submitted either. In 2008 Hungary paid $162M for the “Clean Software Programme” for 3 years. In 2011 it became $54M for an other 3 years, in 2014 it was reduced to $2.8M. I don't hear stories any more about their legal bullying team called BSA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSA_(The_Software_Alliance) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSA_(The_Software_Alliance) which with members of the local police they appeared time to time at business offices asking the for proof of purchase. Even they had no search warrant, they used a psychological terror with the presence of the police to threaten the businesses. This is one of their ads from the past http://img.index.hu/cikkepek/0101/tech/bsaplakat2.jpg http://img.index.hu/cikkepek/0101/tech/bsaplakat2.jpg It says: “Don't use illegal software! _Users_ of illegal software can sentenced to 2-5 years. _Have you been inspected today?_

rmc 10y ago

> a quite decent improvement from the era when Or the era of "Linux is a cancer" http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_cancer/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_c...

bad_user 10y ago
Yeah, now they're just engaging in racketeering against Linux and Android using their patents.
- baldfat 10y ago
  This isn't 2001. Most Microsoft shops in my area are now at least 25% Linux these days on Azure.
  - toolz 10y ago
    What does that have to do with their racketeering?
    - baldfat 10y ago
      What are they racketeering is going on now? People confuse Steve Ballmer with present Microsoft. They don't do the patent wars anymore.
- golfer 10y ago
  The "Scroogled" era wasn't that long ago either. Unbelievably embarrassing. Nor the stealing of Google's search results. I'm not ready to bless Microsoft yet.
  - wmccullough 10y ago
    How long do they have to pay for their past mistakes before they've done enough to placate people?