| Wednesday, June 22, 2005 |
11:54 - Only Gates could go to China
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1119229511.shtml
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You know, it's funny: people like me who have traditionally decried Microsoft and their products for reasons having to do with the products themselves and the injustice of superior competitors being crushed under the hubristic treads of the Redmond Behemoth have, to a large extent, grown weary of the fight and stopped belaboring the point. Part of it, these days, is that what with Apple going to Intel processors and Macs becoming more like PCs with every passing year, there seems to be less stylistic purity to defend, somehow; but part of it is also that Apple seems to be doing just fine without our help, and so is Linux. Their futures—both in doubt five years ago—now seem all but assured, as geeks far and wide now treat not just Linux but Mac OS X as the great shining beacons of computing excellence; Apple is no longer a pariah, but a champion, and Linux is no longer a subversive and snotty embarrassment to the corporate software giants, but the stuff of big-iron infrastructure. There seems little point in bashing Microsoft from a technological standpoint anymore: it's all been done. Longhorn delayed indefinitely: yadda yadda. Viruses: duh, we know. Click "Start" to shut down the computer: yawn. And in any case, those people who invoked Microsoft's free-market right to compete in any way they could, to secure the computing market to itself by whatever means necessary as directed by their stockholders, certainly had a point. Not a pretty one, but a point nonetheless.
But now, what's interesting is that in light of these new revelations about Microsoft being in bed with the Chinese government, happily taking part in China's censorship of words like "freedom" and "democracy" if it means opening up a whole new market of potential MSN subscribers, there's a new front from which Microsoft is being attacked—and it's the same people doing it who used to defend Microsoft on free-market grounds. After all, Microsoft is betraying the very free-market principles that justified its existence in a lot of people's minds throughout the endless pointless monopoly trials and whenever anyone raised the Mac or Linux banners or laughed at Bill Gates getting shot in the South Park movie or played xbill on their campus X11 clusters. To say nothing of undermining the principles of liberty that the company's home country stands for, principles that are espoused loudly by Microsoft's usual long-time champions. No wonder such people feel righteously indignant.
Microsoft must really, really be hurting, is all I can say. They know which side their bread is buttered. If they're willing to sell out the people who have been defending them all this time, by betraying the principles under which those people defended them, then Microsoft must have no clearer a roadmap to future profit than IBM apparently did for the PowerPC.
UPDATE: Kenny B. says:
While they're at it, Microsoft should go ahead and ban the words free enterprise, capitalism, profit, etc.
Of course, some would argue that they have already banned the word "competition" with some success here.
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Brian Tiemann
