[harkyns_castle]

Personally, I'll never forgive them for their practices. They deliberately stifled competition, shafted developers, abused their position, and rubbed it in our faces.

There's no coming back from that, and I'll gladly educate newcomers to IT on their ways.

Let them die. The new CEO could be the second coming, you can't fix that cancerous attitude that is entrenched.

They deserve to become obsolete, at the very least.

[Spooks]

A lot of the people that were there when practices were at their worse are no longer there.

I don't think I would be able to use any form of technology if I was to hold a grudge for every large company that performed some sort of bad practice, with slave labor to privacy issues.

Luckily people that perform these bad practices will eventually get ousted and replaced, that's when I proceed with caution.

[detaro]

Sadly, if you use such rules there are not many big tech companies left that haven't done such things...

[sounds]

False equivalence fallacy.

You can wish Microsoft would die, and still use an iPhone.

In fact, much of Apple's success can be attributed to Microsoft fumbling the mobile revolution. In other words, people who use Apple may be doing so directly because of how much worse Microsoft was -- due to Microsoft spending their limited resources on zero-sum tactics like shafting their developer ecosystem.

Compete or die. (Microsoft seems to act like they have a third alternative, monopolize. They're still immensely profitable so it's understandable that their shareholders are comfortable with their current course.)

[y4mi]

sure, it just makes you an hypocrit.

[sounds]

I personally don't use any iThings. y4mi, do you have concrete examples of what Microsoft has done that has significantly improved end users' ability to run Free Software?

[jinst8gmi]

And continue to do such things... e.g. milking Android handset manufacturers using patents.

[verbin217]

I agree. The world needs more granular incentives.

[Infinitesimus]

Out of curiosity, is it fair to assume you use hardware and software by a source you consider more ethical then? (your classification above rules out Apple and Google as well since they've both done less-than-stellar things )

[harkyns_castle]

I basically do my best yes, whilst having to earn a living in my chosen field. FreeBSD and Linux where I can advocate them.

Part of my current contract is migrating a customer away from SQL Server to Postgres, and it feels good. Automating powershell on aws instances doesn't feel so good, but it's temporary pain.

[WorldWideWayne]

Do you speak badly of Apple and Google whenever possible though? Forget about tech corporations - do you speak out against other non-tech corporations as much as Microsoft or is your hatred especially reserved for them? What kind of computer hardware do you run?

Typically, if someone hates Microsoft, they love either Apple or Google. That's been my experience at least.

[baldfat]

This is my ehtical chart

Apple (Worst Offender but also helped Open Source at times)

Microsoft M$ (Middle of the road with it always depending on who you spoke with at the company)

Google (Most powerful of the three in terms of control over people's lives if they wanted it, but I seriously think they stumble ethically not on purpose. I believe they try to follow, "Don't be evil" as a whole)

[throwawaykf05]

Why is Apple the worst offender? Many would put them above the rest because of their stance on privacy.

> Google... stumble ethically not on purpose.

Stumbling? When they ripped off Sun, they did so with deliberately and with awareness at the highest levels. There are emails revealed during the trial that leave no doubt.

Also, of all the companies engaged in all the smartphone patents wars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone_patent_wars), Google (via Motorola) was the only company that was actually found guilty of abusing patents: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/4-billion-motorol...

Pretty rich coming from a company that accused everyone else of abusing patents.

[baldfat]

> Why is Apple the worst offender? (Top of my head) Lies and more lies (Power PC more Powerful than Intel X86, No malware, no virus, we are the definition of Innovation), Closed Wall Garden, Over Promising and Under Delivering, Patents, The eBook Price Fixing, the Approval Process on iOS, No Competition Hiring Agreement, Amiga Computer was 7 years ahead of the time and Apple lied about it for YEARS, Promising a Color Mac and it would be a simple card upgrade TOOK YEARS, and perhaps the worst of the lot iTunes GUI!!!!.

> When they ripped off Sun

Than why did Sun's CEO congratulate them? Sun also loves to rip off people look at Oracles' Unbreakable Linux AKA Redhat Linux.

I seriously have 30+ years of Apple hatred from before my Amiga days. Amiga community HATED Apple for their business practices and clear lack of innovation. I went to buy a Mac with my dad when released and my dad say the writing on the wall. Lies and more lies and Lisa wasn't more powerful just more expensive and you still sell those?

[DrShephard]

> Google (Most powerful of the three in terms of control over people's lives if they wanted it, but I seriously think they stumble ethically not on purpose. I believe they try to follow, "Don't be evil" as a whole)

How do you explain things like this then?

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-skyhook-emails-2011-5?...

That's exactly what Microsoft is accused of doing.

[baldfat]

Um I read every word. I fail to see the Lighting Bolt ah ha. Yes Google is in the data collection business. They have stated it since day one and in every product they produce. GMail was a GB of space if we get to send you ads.

That they were HUGELY upset that they would lose a data collection stream? Or that they were trying to figure out what to do? Android as a service has requirements or you can make a Fire Phone like Amazon did with the Open Source code of the product doesn't seem like M$.

You can explain what I am missing but the fact that we have Amazon Fire Phone and Fire Tablets all based on a fork of Android seems to kill the implications of these emails.

[_dominic]

Google is way beyond "Don't be evil", just look at the google+ forced integration.

[Karunamon]

Are we really back to calling UI design decisions "evil"? That word used to mean something, and slightly inconveniencing people who use YouTube wasn't covered.

[hga]

On the other hand, Google+ as a project was an aberration, and the guy mostly responsible for it has left the company. My question is, have Vic Gundotra's superiors learned the proper lessons?

That said, the Google+ real names insanity removed all my trust in the company's products at that level, and I'm only now considering doing business with them due to their low cost of cloud storage and trusting them at the technical and operational levels more than Amazon.

[debacle]

Corporations are ships of Theseus.

[ladzoppelin]

But its attitudes like this that drive people toward Ms. Everybody can see that other companies are doing the exact same thing. For example there is actual proof of Apple conspiring to keeping developer's wages low.

[SCHiM]

I don't think that's a fair position to take, fair to yourself that is. The company then is not the same as it is now. Enough time has passed since then and now that it's safe to assume that all the people in important positions have been partly replaced, and I'm sure the majority of those who remain are now in different situations than they were back then.

I think it's wrong to withhold fair consideration for MS products (specifically) just because they did something you think is wrong years ago.

[anon4]

You can't forgive a corporation. Corporations aren't people, they have no conscience, no morals and no ethics. The entire concept of forgiving them, or being angry at them or whatever doesn't make sense. It's like forgiving a lion for eating your brother and thinking it won't eat you. It's a lion. It will eat you when it gets hungry. That is its nature.

[blumkvist]

>Let them die.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

[criddell]

Microsoft isn't going to die, but their enormous influence has eroded nicely. They're a mature, profitable, mostly boring company and I'm okay with that. XBox is pretty hip, but the reset of the company is about as interesting to the general public as Oracle, Cisco, or IBM.

[WorldWideWayne]

Microsoft is as hip and alive as Google is. Google is a boring info-utility to most people. The Xbox is absolutely more cool than anything Google has in their pocket, including Android and self driving car experiments.

[criddell]

> Microsoft is as hip and alive as Google is.

I would probably agree with that.

From a technology point of view, there are things I love about each company. Microsoft's Azure is pretty neat as is Google's Compute Engine. None of that matters to most people though.

[blumkvist]

sigh

[yread]

> cancerous attitude

seriously?

[hga]

Seriously. Microsoft has an unmatched record of screwing pretty much everyone who did business with them, and otherwise abusing their position in the market. Worse than IBM when IBM was in their position.

[outworlder]

Are you sure you didn't mean "Oracle"? As far as I know, Microsoft deals with their business partners fairly. They don't try to negotiate a deal directly with a big customer and bypass their partners, for instance.

[hga]

I'm talking more about "peers" than what I think you're referring to as "partners". E.g. 3Com as I cite elsewhere, Verizon WRT to the Kin, the company they licensed the start of Internet Explorer from (expected royalty payments never materialized when the gave it away for free), the examples go on and on and on.

But I suppose with Balmer the salesman in charge in between Gates and Nadella they'd avoid sales channel betrayals like that.

[ascagnel_]

With regards to the Kin, I think Verizon shafted MS on that one. The device was good for it's time (something with photos and music targeted at teens that didn't have a full web connection), but Verizon forced you to buy a full $30/mo web plan to use those features (this was back when the web options were $30/mo unlimited plans or no web connection at all).

If there was a cheaper connection just for the Kin, it would've done reasonably well as a replacement for the Sidekick.

[hga]

The lateness of the Kin is supposed to be one of the reasons Verizon did that, the market window had passed. It was also only a fraction of what was promised, heck, what Danger and T-Mobile delivered years earlier (as far as I know you're wrong about what it actually delivered at launch vs. what was promised).

Microsoft's database blunder with the Sidekick less than a year before the Kin's release (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sidekick_data_loss) also contributed, I'm sure, at that time few were willing to trust them with their data. It's a testament to how far Microsoft has come that that's apparently changed with Azure.

In this case, I view Verizon as replying in kind. Which is part of my point, when you treat your peers like s*, there are consequences.

[throwawaykf05]

> Microsoft has an unmatched record of screwing pretty much everyone who did business with them

Could you list instances of this? Don't get me wrong, they have been absolute bastards in some cases (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I4i is my go-to example). But keep in mind it is a huge company that has done business with thousands of firms over the past few decades, so to substantiate your point, you would have to produce a pretty big list.

[hga]

While your request is not in principle unreasonable, it's way too much work for me to prove it to your satisfaction, or my satisfaction in a formal, balanced, I'd be willing to publish it way. E.g. I'd forgotten about I4i, despite the prominence of the case.

I'm basically asking you, absent either of us going beyond searches like https://www.google.com/search?q=list+of+microsoft+crimes ^_^, to trust my observations of these businesses since the fall of 1977 when I started in the field. Heck, I was a great fan of Microsoft until NT 3.51 SP2 (and for a while beyond, it was Vista that completed the job). It was a pattern of behavior that became more and more obvious sometime in the late '90s that changed my opinion of the company, capped with their all out illegitimate assault on Linux and FOSS starting in the early '00s. And I of course don't expect you to take my word for it.

I just don't see it in their peers, not even Oracle.

Ah, here's a different angle: name the healthy peers that are willing to work with Microsoft today, beyond what's absolutely required. Yahoo! fails hard on healthy, Mozilla potentially as hard. I don't understand why/how Yahoo! is still in business, but Mozilla sure seems to be in their endgame (one reason I'm avoiding Rust for the time being).

[sounds]

Re: how Yahoo is still in business...

Yahoo made a number of strategic investments which are very profitable.

You could say they are an investment firm with a small tech-sector arm.

[WorldWideWayne]

You're acting like you hate the company just because they screwed their competitors. Do you hate other non-tech companies who screwed their competitors or is your hatred in this category especially reserved for Microsoft?

Do you speak ill of banking corporations as often as you do of Microsoft?

Also, if you run Apple hardware at all do yourself a favor and take a look at all the screwed up shit that Apple has done because that company has always been an asshole to just about every entity that they come into contact with.

[hga]

You're making an awful lot of assumptions here.

I don't hate Microsoft today, and only did during the period they posed an existential threat to Linux/FOSS (and it was a relatively gentle sort of hate, made particularly easy by Vista).

I don't run Apple hardware, never have in my life. In part because I count them as worse to users (well, prior to own goals like Vista and Windows 8), but also because as of late they've been behaving particularly bad. Made that decision in 1987, who knew, avoiding particularly closed ecosystems turned out to be a good idea all around in the long term.

I don't "speak ill of banking corporations" because I don't see, well, any that I can think of offhand in the US, being actively, aggressively evil. Stupid in many cases, for sure, but that's a different thing, and not axiomatically akin to Microsoft's crimes.