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It's hard to argue that the man who was the world’s richest for decades could have somehow done better for himself or his shareholders, or the world at large.
by andreyf 18y ago
It's hard to argue that the man who was the world’s richest for decades could have somehow done better for himself or his shareholders, or the world at large.
Easy - if he had pushed Microsoft to release an open standard instead of .doc, .xls, et cetra, he would have done better for the world at large by leaving a competitive market for office products.
Another - if he had insisted IE6 were standards-compliant and open source, he could have saved companies in web development a whole lot of time and money, and done a lot more good for the world at large.
In the long run, this would also have been great for MS shareholders, as the short-term gains of dominating the office and web browser markets are offset by the long-term damage to the MS brand.
- mattmaroon 18y agoLol. There aren't short term gains for dominating Office. There are billions of dollars per year for decades. Creating a competitive market would be the worst thing he could have done for himself and his shareholders (though probably a good thing for the world).
- andreyf 18y agoCreating a competitive market would be the worst thing he could have done for himself and his shareholders (though probably a good thing for the world). That would be a great argument for legally enforcing (certain) software be F/OSS...
- mattmaroon 18y agoWell, maybe enforcing that once a proprietary standard creates a huge market and then nearly monopolizes it. I'm certainly not arguing in favor of monopolies.