on 5/2/00 3:49 AM, George Reisman wrote:

>> The meaning of the government’s proposal to break
>> Microsoft into two separate companies, the one
>> confined to producing Windows, the other confined
>> to producing application software, is that one or
>> the other of these two major branches of personal
>> computer software is to be closed to the productive
>> genius of America’s most successful software
>> innovator: Bill Gates.
Oh, please. While my proximity to Redmond perhaps softens my dislike of
Microsoft products somewhat, it's an historical fact that Gates *bought*
MS-DOS from some shlump down in Federal Way for something like $50,000.
Later he appropriated Apple's interface for Windows, and even then it was a
dud for several iterations of the product cycle, until Windows 95 came out.

His efforts to compete head to head have hardly demonstrated his programming
acumen. I don't know if Microsoft Money even exists anymore, but after
getting his clock cleaned by Quicken year after year, his next step was to
try to buy it outright. That was stopped by the courts on antitrust grounds.

Gates may be many things, but an innovative programmer he's definitely not.
-- 
Tresy Kilbourne
Seattle WA
"The Clinton-haters and their friends in the media are like a cargo cult:
they keep expecting something to fall from the sky, and years of
disappointment never seem to awaken any doubt." - Joe Conason