• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Are you a Microsoft Developer? If so, you've been PAWNED!!!

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.
I got news for you, if you think the business place is like that only at MS your mistaken. Personally I don't think there is anything wrong with his comments, they wern't derogatory. Look in the work place their is a heirarchy and this guy was describing the role of someone further down the line, I don't see the big deal. The people that really feak out over stuff like this are the one's with the real problem in my book.
 
the sad thing is, in the grand scheme of things we are all pawns of the universal overlord... even microsoft

However, unethical activity in the business world should not be tolerated. If the emails show that microsoft is doing something unethical, I think that we would be better to say it is wrong instead of saying it is okay just because lots of businesses do it. It should not be acceptable for corporations to make unethical choices. I don't know if calling developers pawns could really be considered unethical.

Besides, if a pawn can make it across the board to the other side they get to choose to be any other piece.

I think that microsoft has to be very careful with this because if they are caught doing something severely unethical, it may cause alot of people to lose thier trust in them. Up until now microsoft has not done anything that is clearly unethical; however, they have been known to do lots and lots of annoying things.
 
Last edited:
What part about hiding the usable internal API's from outside developers while foisting the complicated bloated ones on them would be ethical?

This would be analagous to buying a pickup truck from say GM with the intention of pulling a trailer. If you buy a non-GM trailer, you get a hitch that is more expensive and likely to disengage and crash the trailer. If you get the GM trailer, you get to use the special-SECRET internal company hitch which is less expensive and will keep your trailer connected to your pickup.

This is how microsoft won the office application wars. They urged outside developers to use their flawed API's which made their apps prone to bad performance and crashing, while internal developers got to use the good stuff.

THAT is exactly what they got CAUGHT doing and is why they are trying to settle all of the states' anti-trust claims with bunches of cash without having to admit wrong doing.
 
What does this have to do with the original story? When you get right down to it you have all the stupid lawyers sitting around thinking why sue the little guy with no money when you can sue big evil MS and their huge bank account, it's simple economics. MS has done alot of good, and the Gates Foundation is really going for a global impact. Show me that level of concern in the majority of other large companies.
 
El<(')>Maxi said:
What does this have to do with the original story?
Click to expand...

Other evidence presented last week included an internal Microsoft memo from Oct. 18, 1991, entitled "Excel brainstorm group." Brad Silverberg, then-head of Windows development, wrote "I'd be glad to help tilt Lotus into the death spiral. I could do it Friday afternoon, but not Saturday. I could do it pretty much any time the following week."

Lotus Development Corp.'s 1-2-3 was the dominant spreadsheet program on Microsoft's DOS operating system in the 1980s, but it lost ground to Excel on the Windows operating system.

Alepin, a former chief technology officer at Fujitsu Software Corp. and currently a San Francisco-based adviser for high-tech law firm, Morrison Foerster LLP, testified that 1-2-3's eventual demise was caused in part by Microsoft encouraging Lotus' programmers to use Windows application programming interfaces (API). Microsoft Excel's own developers had already decided those same APIs "were not worthwhile using because they were complicated," he said. "They used large amounts of memory. They were slower than other ways of doing it."

Alternative APIs, Alepin testified, "were not provided to Lotus and to other companies like Samna [maker of Ami, a GUI-based word processor later bought by Lotus, that was released a year before Word for Windows 1.0]."
Click to expand...

Perhaps you should actually READ the story before commenting upon it. This is just a suggestion to help ward off possible inferences that you might be a shill for M$.
 
Heh, here's something interesting: the website appears to be hosted on Google servers.

Perhaps you should actually READ the story before commenting upon it
Click to expand...
I can understand why he didn't see that part you mentioned. It was on the second page; I also missed it until you mentioned it.
 
amazon10x said:
Heh, here's something interesting: the website appears to be hosted on Google servers.
Click to expand...

The link you gave is live, but all the sub-links are giving me "502 Server Error."

If those are transcripts, they will be long and onerous to read--let alone find much interesting. I'm sure there would be some good morsels in the transcripts, but someone would have to read through all the boring formalities to find them.
 
I just managed to get one of the "Media Links" to work. It was a download link for a .pdf that was two or three pages long. The one I got seemed to be a summary of events for a particular day.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

M
Windows 7 due late 2009/early 2010
2
Replies
37
Views
2K
I.M.O.G.
I.M.O.G.
M
Windows 7 Beta due in 2 months.
Replies
5
Views
659
Oroka Sempai
Oroka Sempai
M
Vista NOT so "Capable" after all...
2 3 4 5
Replies
97
Views
4K
Archer0915
Archer0915
M
Ubuntu making it easier to play DVDs and Windows audio files
Replies
0
Views
622
mbigna
M
M
Purdue developing mini phase change unit.
Replies
7
Views
1K
someone1029
someone1029
Back