4 ms·

The author seems to revolve his article around MS software running manufacturing, ambulances, etc. This is only true in the most literal sense possible. The sof

by RyanZAG 13y ago

The author seems to revolve his article around MS software running manufacturing, ambulances, etc. This is only true in the most literal sense possible. The software that runs these industries just happens to be written upon an MS platform due to a number of unfortunate market incidences that forced other OS players out of the game for less than technical reasons. This trend is now rapidly reversing and new software being written for these industries today is now moving towards Linux instead. Microsoft never did any of these industries any favors - they just managed to capture the market and extract a tax for a number of years. That is why the public does not like them. When they have to fight with Windows to log into their laptop and wait 20 minutes while it does so (Windows Vista?), they blame Microsoft. Microsoft's technical inabilities and millions of man hours wasted patching and rebooting their OS comes at the cost of most of the world's population being less than impressed by Microsoft and those who work there. This whole post is written merely as a rebuttal to the widely publicized article about how Microsoft is telling lies about Bing. The rebuttal itself comes down to "he's lying, not us!" and "we don't track the results from the Bing It On challenge". Both positions are pathetic as the Yale article has no reason to lie, and the only reason a company would not track results is because the results are obviously unfavorable and so they cooked up their own favorable ones. You want to know why nobody respects Microsoft? Because Microsoft employees post articles like this which are so far from reality it leaves you wondering how they drive to work.

gum_ina_package 13y ago
I think you're forgetting that when the software systems powering manufacturing, ambulances, etc. was first being deployed MS was the best solution out there. The problem was that corporations didn't upgrade their tools and MS was forced to support aging, obsolete, and insecure technology. They didn't innovate for several years, and we're now seeing the market correct itself as businesses turn towards Linux powered solutions which seem to reside in the cloud. As far as MS lying about Bing, if you read the author's other post defending the Bing it on Challenge, he rebukes Ayres point-by-point.
- nitrogen 13y ago
  I think you're forgetting that when the software systems powering manufacturing, ambulances, etc. was first being deployed MS was the best solution out there. I think you're forgetting a huge amount of computing history with that single sentence. Acorn, Commodore, Atari, Apple, others just in the consumer PC market. Sun, SGI, NeXT, DEC, others in the workstation market. That also doesn't consider purpose-built hardware already doing things that PCs eventually took over.
berntb 13y ago
>>The software that runs these industries just happens to be written upon an MS platform due to a number of unfortunate market incidences that forced other OS players out of the game for less than technical reasons. It should also be noted that Microsoft was condemned for criminal monopolist strategies in a court of law for those "market incidences".
mattwallaert 13y ago
First, nobody at Microsoft posted an article. I answered a question on Quora, before the Yale incident even occurred. Quora reached out and asked if they could publish on Forbes, which I said was fine. I updated to add the Yale example, which has already been discussed on HN, so I don't rehash, but please note nobody has ever suggested Yale lied. I've suggested they did not great science, which is very much not the same thing. The statement "Microsoft never did any of these industries any favors" seems to be exactly what I'm talking about. Can you honestly say that you think, in the many years that Microsoft have been producing some incredibly popular software that powers much of what makes modern business productive, that the company has done absolutely no good for anyone? If that's your actual belief, I don't even know how to discuss this with you, as it just seems transparently to be untrue. What is the alternative that you think would have powered this revolution? Nobody is going "damn, that cotton gin forced out all those sickle makers, they really hurt society". Bringing advancements to market has helped human society immensely; how do you see the enhancements Microsoft has brought differently?
- RyanZAG 13y ago
  Again, Microsoft never brought any advances to those industries. They provided a platform (closely identical to those offered by numerous alternatives) on which the real software that made these advancements was hosted on. Your argument is the same as saying that Ford is responsible for nuclear power because their trucks deliver the fuel to the plants. If there was no Ford, then Toyota trucks could deliver the same fuel with no noticeable differences to anyone or the industry. Same for Windows and plant controller software that runs on it. So if you agree that Ford did not do the nuclear industry any favours, you must accept that Microsoft did not do the manufacturing industry any favours. Both companies simply got a nice income for providing a necessary but widely available resource. Saying Microsoft is the one bringing the advancements is just silly.
  - mattwallaert 13y ago
    I honestly don't know how to reply to that kind of argument, in that it feels like the evidence both overwhelming and widely available that Microsoft has, in fact, provided innovation. Look at the sheer number of patents the company holds; we can debate patent law until the end of days, but in the meantime, it is worth looking at the things that Microsoft brought to market. And then look at Microsoft Research, which produces literally thousands of peer-reviewed academic papers every year, dealing with numerous advancements in technology. Ford is an interesting example. Arguably, without Ford's advancements in manufacturing, automation, and mass industrialization, we don't get the modern car, which unquestionably has made nuclear power possible. In a very Civilization way, you can't get to nuclear power without modern transportation. So what you seem to be suggesting is a counterfactual world where some other software (let's say Apples, for argument's sake) rose to prominence instead of Microsoft. It is possible that they might also have done an amazing job of putting a PC on every desk. But we have no way of knowing that and what we do know, in the reality in which we currently live, that Microsoft did an excellent job of pushing computing out of the lab and into the home. And there seems to me to be decent evidence that we'll continue to make those sort of innovations that push technology forward. While you're welcome to call me "silly", I think saying that Microsoft has introduced absolutely no advancements to the marketplace is silly. So maybe we simply can't come to a place of agreement because we're not working from the same set of facts?

by RyanZAG 13y ago

gum_ina_package 13y ago

I think you're forgetting that when the software systems powering manufacturing, ambulances, etc. was first being deployed MS was the best solution out there. The problem was that corporations didn't upgrade their tools and MS was forced to support aging, obsolete, and insecure technology. They didn't innovate for several years, and we're now seeing the market correct itself as businesses turn towards Linux powered solutions which seem to reside in the cloud. As far as MS lying about Bing, if you read the author's other post defending the Bing it on Challenge, he rebukes Ayres point-by-point.

nitrogen 13y ago
I think you're forgetting that when the software systems powering manufacturing, ambulances, etc. was first being deployed MS was the best solution out there. I think you're forgetting a huge amount of computing history with that single sentence. Acorn, Commodore, Atari, Apple, others just in the consumer PC market. Sun, SGI, NeXT, DEC, others in the workstation market. That also doesn't consider purpose-built hardware already doing things that PCs eventually took over.

berntb 13y ago

>>The software that runs these industries just happens to be written upon an MS platform due to a number of unfortunate market incidences that forced other OS players out of the game for less than technical reasons. It should also be noted that Microsoft was condemned for criminal monopolist strategies in a court of law for those "market incidences".

mattwallaert 13y ago

First, nobody at Microsoft posted an article. I answered a question on Quora, before the Yale incident even occurred. Quora reached out and asked if they could publish on Forbes, which I said was fine. I updated to add the Yale example, which has already been discussed on HN, so I don't rehash, but please note nobody has ever suggested Yale lied. I've suggested they did not great science, which is very much not the same thing. The statement "Microsoft never did any of these industries any favors" seems to be exactly what I'm talking about. Can you honestly say that you think, in the many years that Microsoft have been producing some incredibly popular software that powers much of what makes modern business productive, that the company has done absolutely no good for anyone? If that's your actual belief, I don't even know how to discuss this with you, as it just seems transparently to be untrue. What is the alternative that you think would have powered this revolution? Nobody is going "damn, that cotton gin forced out all those sickle makers, they really hurt society". Bringing advancements to market has helped human society immensely; how do you see the enhancements Microsoft has brought differently?

RyanZAG 13y ago
Again, Microsoft never brought any advances to those industries. They provided a platform (closely identical to those offered by numerous alternatives) on which the real software that made these advancements was hosted on. Your argument is the same as saying that Ford is responsible for nuclear power because their trucks deliver the fuel to the plants. If there was no Ford, then Toyota trucks could deliver the same fuel with no noticeable differences to anyone or the industry. Same for Windows and plant controller software that runs on it. So if you agree that Ford did not do the nuclear industry any favours, you must accept that Microsoft did not do the manufacturing industry any favours. Both companies simply got a nice income for providing a necessary but widely available resource. Saying Microsoft is the one bringing the advancements is just silly.
- mattwallaert 13y ago
  I honestly don't know how to reply to that kind of argument, in that it feels like the evidence both overwhelming and widely available that Microsoft has, in fact, provided innovation. Look at the sheer number of patents the company holds; we can debate patent law until the end of days, but in the meantime, it is worth looking at the things that Microsoft brought to market. And then look at Microsoft Research, which produces literally thousands of peer-reviewed academic papers every year, dealing with numerous advancements in technology. Ford is an interesting example. Arguably, without Ford's advancements in manufacturing, automation, and mass industrialization, we don't get the modern car, which unquestionably has made nuclear power possible. In a very Civilization way, you can't get to nuclear power without modern transportation. So what you seem to be suggesting is a counterfactual world where some other software (let's say Apples, for argument's sake) rose to prominence instead of Microsoft. It is possible that they might also have done an amazing job of putting a PC on every desk. But we have no way of knowing that and what we do know, in the reality in which we currently live, that Microsoft did an excellent job of pushing computing out of the lab and into the home. And there seems to me to be decent evidence that we'll continue to make those sort of innovations that push technology forward. While you're welcome to call me "silly", I think saying that Microsoft has introduced absolutely no advancements to the marketplace is silly. So maybe we simply can't come to a place of agreement because we're not working from the same set of facts?