4 ms·

Much like countries, it doesn't necessarily make sense to treat companies like people when it comes to reputation. You shouldn't hold a grudge against a country

Much like countries, it doesn't necessarily make sense to treat companies like people when it comes to reputation. You shouldn't hold a grudge against a country forever, many of the people inside of it may have disagreed with its actions and more importantly the leadership could be completely different now. Similalrly, if most of the employees at Microsoft today are different than in the 90s and the leadership is completely different, then what really has the reputation, their article of incorporation? Mind you, for all I know most of Microsoft is still "old Microsoft", I'm just saying it can't really be as simple as attributing actions of the past to whatever happens to be there today.

jacquesm 12y ago
This is absolutely true but even in the present Microsoft has anything but clean hands: http://euobserver.com/political/125868 http://euobserver.com/political/125868 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures http://www.networkworld.com/article/2466540/software/munich-reverses-course-may-ditch-linux-for-microsoft.html http://www.networkworld.com/article/2466540/software/munich-... And on and on.
- freehunter 12y ago
  >"a bribery scandal involving distributors selling Microsoft products" I'm not sure Best Buy reflects that poorly on Microsoft. >"They reportedly have raised over $5.5 billion from many large companies including Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Nokia, Apple, Google, Yahoo, American Express, Adobe, SAP, Nvidia, and eBay, plus investment firms such as Stanford, Hewlett Foundation, Mayo Clinic, and Charles River Ventures." Again, doesn't reflect that poorly on Microsoft. >Munich reverses course, may ditch Linux for Microsoft Is a software sales company supposed to not sell software? That's what they do. How does that reflect poorly on them?
- deeviant 12y ago
  Right, but would own an Apple product? That's terrible, they exploit horrible treatment of rightless Chinese wage-slaves. Would you use a google product? They are double-faced went in come to net neutrality, only putting their weight on points that promote their own benefit. They also buy up tons of extremely innovative start-ups, then suffocate them under the weight of their glacial bureaucracy and pedantic squabbling. I could go on all day.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    I'm sure you could go on all day but this thread is about microsoft. Apple's products are not welcome here because of their walled garden approach and Google has done far worse than making a faux-pas in the net neutrality debate. Agreed on the buying up innovative start-ups and then killing them off, that's really bad and acqui-hires are hurting all start-ups.
    - m_mueller 12y ago
      Im curious, can you really get by without MS, Google and Apple? No LLVM based products for you? No Webkit? No CUPS? No V8? If you do use some of these projects, where's the difference from an Open Sourced .NET?
      - jacquesm 12y ago
        I get by without MS and Apple just fine (as I wrote elsewhere, I do still have an elderly Mac here that is sometimes used for compatibility testing but I don't even remember when I started it up last and it currently isn't even plugged in). As for Google, that's the hard one to avoid. Adsense/Adwords is easy, youtube is hard (plenty of video content is only available on youtube), google search is still better than duckduckgo (and I'm really sorry about that, but I'm rooting for Gabriel to achieve parity some day even if that's an uphill battle), and I use Google docs for a few spreadsheets that I need to be able to access remotely. My mail is on my own server, web stuff is classical 'LAMP', I don't use webkit, don't use V8 and I don't think I have an instance of CUPS here that is actually configured to do real work but it's possible that I'm missing a machine clever enough to auto-configue. Other hardware is Dell, Synology (which has CUPS on board but it's not in use) and a variety of smaller fry. It's really not all that hard to keep the big companies out of your life, one of these days I'll find a way to get rid of google completely. The most frequently used closed source product I have is Varicad (but they have a nasty little gotcha that I recently found out about so they're on the way out) and another is adobe acrobat reader (the linux version). Oh, and the Nvidia binary drivers for the graphics card in this box.
        12y ago
- tzs 12y ago
  What in the third reference was intended to show unclean hands?
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    MS coincidentially moved their headquarters to Muenchen. http://www.eversheds.com/global/en/what/articles/index.page?ArticleID=en/global/germany/en/Microsoft-Deutschland-GmbH-relocates-its-headquarters http://www.eversheds.com/global/en/what/articles/index.page?... Of course that has absolutely nothing to do with Muenchen switching back to MS.
    - guardian5x 12y ago
      It is not decided, if Muenchen switches back or not. Afaik they just want to evaluate the IT systems.
- throwawaykf05 12y ago
  1. Regarding the 1st link - Speaking from experience, if you do business in certain (primarily third-world) countries, bribery is the norm. It's as natural there as lobbying is in the US. 2. Regarding the 2nd link - MS has no control over IV's business, unless you have evidence otherwise. And that too, it's "unclean" only to the extent that you believe patents are evil, which is unfortunately an all-too-common view around here. 3. Regarding the 3rd link - see 1.
jfoster 12y ago
Even with a complete changing of personnel, factors (eg. business model) could necessitate certain behaviours. For example, every person inside present day Google could be replaced, but the behaviour of learning more about their users in order to more precisely target them with advertising wouldn't change unless they actively tried to reinvent the company. That said, I do think Microsoft are actively trying to reinvent themselves.
mercurial 12y ago
> Much like countries, it doesn't necessarily make sense to treat companies like people when it comes to reputation. You shouldn't hold a grudge against a country forever, many of the people inside of it may have disagreed with its actions and more importantly the leadership could be completely different now. Sure, but it really depends on what and how much. Microsoft made their fortune by being ethically bankrupt and breaking the law. If the Mafia decided to reform today and go legit, it would be a long hard slough before anybody would actually trust them. And if they kept extortion as a side business, it would make it very hard to believe anything they have to say, regardless of the amount of money they give to charity.
- tiedemann 12y ago
  "Microsoft made their fortune by being ethically bankrupt and breaking the law". Much like most of todays rich countries including US, EU, Russia and China.
AlisdairO 12y ago
I recognise the sense in what you're saying, but I tend towards treating corporations much like I treat people with regard to reputation. The reason for that is that I want companies to have to think seriously about how it will hurt them long-term before they trade off that reputation. I don't want it to be an optimal business strategy to be evil to maximise growth, and then become nice once evil no longer pays off. Holding a grudge longer than might seem strictly logical is my way of pushing in that direction :-).

jacquesm 12y ago

This is absolutely true but even in the present Microsoft has anything but clean hands: http://euobserver.com/political/125868 http://euobserver.com/political/125868 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures http://www.networkworld.com/article/2466540/software/munich-reverses-course-may-ditch-linux-for-microsoft.html http://www.networkworld.com/article/2466540/software/munich-... And on and on.

freehunter 12y ago
>"a bribery scandal involving distributors selling Microsoft products" I'm not sure Best Buy reflects that poorly on Microsoft. >"They reportedly have raised over $5.5 billion from many large companies including Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Nokia, Apple, Google, Yahoo, American Express, Adobe, SAP, Nvidia, and eBay, plus investment firms such as Stanford, Hewlett Foundation, Mayo Clinic, and Charles River Ventures." Again, doesn't reflect that poorly on Microsoft. >Munich reverses course, may ditch Linux for Microsoft Is a software sales company supposed to not sell software? That's what they do. How does that reflect poorly on them?
deeviant 12y ago
Right, but would own an Apple product? That's terrible, they exploit horrible treatment of rightless Chinese wage-slaves. Would you use a google product? They are double-faced went in come to net neutrality, only putting their weight on points that promote their own benefit. They also buy up tons of extremely innovative start-ups, then suffocate them under the weight of their glacial bureaucracy and pedantic squabbling. I could go on all day.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  I'm sure you could go on all day but this thread is about microsoft. Apple's products are not welcome here because of their walled garden approach and Google has done far worse than making a faux-pas in the net neutrality debate. Agreed on the buying up innovative start-ups and then killing them off, that's really bad and acqui-hires are hurting all start-ups.
  - m_mueller 12y ago
    Im curious, can you really get by without MS, Google and Apple? No LLVM based products for you? No Webkit? No CUPS? No V8? If you do use some of these projects, where's the difference from an Open Sourced .NET?
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      I get by without MS and Apple just fine (as I wrote elsewhere, I do still have an elderly Mac here that is sometimes used for compatibility testing but I don't even remember when I started it up last and it currently isn't even plugged in). As for Google, that's the hard one to avoid. Adsense/Adwords is easy, youtube is hard (plenty of video content is only available on youtube), google search is still better than duckduckgo (and I'm really sorry about that, but I'm rooting for Gabriel to achieve parity some day even if that's an uphill battle), and I use Google docs for a few spreadsheets that I need to be able to access remotely. My mail is on my own server, web stuff is classical 'LAMP', I don't use webkit, don't use V8 and I don't think I have an instance of CUPS here that is actually configured to do real work but it's possible that I'm missing a machine clever enough to auto-configue. Other hardware is Dell, Synology (which has CUPS on board but it's not in use) and a variety of smaller fry. It's really not all that hard to keep the big companies out of your life, one of these days I'll find a way to get rid of google completely. The most frequently used closed source product I have is Varicad (but they have a nasty little gotcha that I recently found out about so they're on the way out) and another is adobe acrobat reader (the linux version). Oh, and the Nvidia binary drivers for the graphics card in this box.
      - 12y ago
tzs 12y ago
What in the third reference was intended to show unclean hands?
- jacquesm 12y ago
  MS coincidentially moved their headquarters to Muenchen. http://www.eversheds.com/global/en/what/articles/index.page?ArticleID=en/global/germany/en/Microsoft-Deutschland-GmbH-relocates-its-headquarters http://www.eversheds.com/global/en/what/articles/index.page?... Of course that has absolutely nothing to do with Muenchen switching back to MS.
  - guardian5x 12y ago
    It is not decided, if Muenchen switches back or not. Afaik they just want to evaluate the IT systems.
throwawaykf05 12y ago
1. Regarding the 1st link - Speaking from experience, if you do business in certain (primarily third-world) countries, bribery is the norm. It's as natural there as lobbying is in the US. 2. Regarding the 2nd link - MS has no control over IV's business, unless you have evidence otherwise. And that too, it's "unclean" only to the extent that you believe patents are evil, which is unfortunately an all-too-common view around here. 3. Regarding the 3rd link - see 1.

jfoster 12y ago

Even with a complete changing of personnel, factors (eg. business model) could necessitate certain behaviours. For example, every person inside present day Google could be replaced, but the behaviour of learning more about their users in order to more precisely target them with advertising wouldn't change unless they actively tried to reinvent the company. That said, I do think Microsoft are actively trying to reinvent themselves.

mercurial 12y ago

> Much like countries, it doesn't necessarily make sense to treat companies like people when it comes to reputation. You shouldn't hold a grudge against a country forever, many of the people inside of it may have disagreed with its actions and more importantly the leadership could be completely different now. Sure, but it really depends on what and how much. Microsoft made their fortune by being ethically bankrupt and breaking the law. If the Mafia decided to reform today and go legit, it would be a long hard slough before anybody would actually trust them. And if they kept extortion as a side business, it would make it very hard to believe anything they have to say, regardless of the amount of money they give to charity.

tiedemann 12y ago
"Microsoft made their fortune by being ethically bankrupt and breaking the law". Much like most of todays rich countries including US, EU, Russia and China.

AlisdairO 12y ago

I recognise the sense in what you're saying, but I tend towards treating corporations much like I treat people with regard to reputation. The reason for that is that I want companies to have to think seriously about how it will hurt them long-term before they trade off that reputation. I don't want it to be an optimal business strategy to be evil to maximise growth, and then become nice once evil no longer pays off. Holding a grudge longer than might seem strictly logical is my way of pushing in that direction :-).