TR Forums

End User wrote:

clone wrote:

p.s. Apple made PC's cool to a few ppl, it was MS that introduced PC's to the masses.

And it is Samsung that is taking PC's into the future.

How so? Sure, they assemble cell phones, but so do many other companies. Back a few years ago it was RIM taking phones to the future. Then it was Apple. Now it's Samsung. In a few years it will probably be another company.

And PC's (personal computers) is actually a declining market so I'm not sure where your argument is. If you meant computing in general (people being able to access their data, communicate with others, play games, share pictures and so on), then there is certainly not one "company" (in your argument, Samsung) that is leading to this. Rather, a multitude of factors such as "the cloud" (people no longer needing physical hard drives), tablets (of which Samsung is a major player, but so is Amazon and Apple), Android (powering the devices that Samsung uses) and even browsers (being able to play games (UT3) in the browsers and thus not needing big towers). Without Android, Samsung would be making WINDOWS devices as Apple certainly wouldn't let Samsung launch a iOS device.

Samsung makes the devices, but they don't have a part to play in the cloud, the OS, or browsers. So I don't know what you're trying to say here.

End User wrote:

Sargent Duck wrote:

No more so than what Princess Diana or Mother Teresa have done.

This keeps getting worse.

How so?

Sargent Duck wrote:

Nothing. I was just highlighting how silly your "tyranny" argument of WIndows and Office is.

This may surprise you but many people view the dominance of Microsoft as a hindrance.

Sargent Duck wrote:

End User wrote:

Sargent Duck wrote:

No more so than what Princess Diana or Mother Teresa have done.

This keeps getting worse.

How so?

Exactly.

Sargent Duck wrote:

And PC's (personal computers) is actually a declining market so I'm not sure where your argument is.

The personal computer market is expanding. Smartphones and tablets are personal computers. It is the traditional personal computer manufacturers and Microsoft who are losing market share. Imagine what this info would look like if you factored in iOS and Android smartphones.

End User wrote:

Sargent Duck wrote:

Nothing. I was just highlighting how silly your "tyranny" argument of WIndows and Office is.

This may surprise you but many people view the dominance of Microsoft as a hindrance.

If you're referring to the fact that Microsoft possibly stifled change with their business practices, then just look at other companies in the industry. Apple? A true beacon of light in that regards, doing their best to stifle innovation by suing every company that "dares" to have rounded corners on a competing product. Intel? how about those sweet deals they gave to Dell forcing AMD to pick up the scraps of the other computer manufactures. Those two companies have hindered the industry just as much as Windows and Office. And what's the competition? Linux which STILL can't get their act together and Lotus Symphony? *snicker*

The title of this thread is "If Bill Gates died, how would the world remember him?" and NOT "If Microsoft went bankrupt, how would the world remember it?" Thus bringing up the argument that Microsoft products hinder the industry is going off topic and should probably have a new thread created for further discussion.

End User wrote:

Sargent Duck wrote:

End User wrote:

This keeps getting worse.

How so?

Exactly.

I guess?

You make a statement "this keeps getting worse" but fail to say how it's getting worse. So I'm a little lost here and am not sure what you're trying to say.

End User wrote:

Sargent Duck wrote:

And PC's (personal computers) is actually a declining market so I'm not sure where your argument is.

The personal computer market is expanding. Smartphones and tablets are personal computers. It is the traditional personal computer manufacturers and Microsoft who are losing market share.

I've always taken PC's to mean desktop computers and mobile devices (phones/tablets) as separate, so this argument would come down to a mis-communication between us. But in the interest of not splitting hairs and focusing on the original topic (Bill Gates), then yes, PC's = smartphones and tablets.

I think this has split off sufficiently to become a topic for a new thread.

.

What do you mean by "if"?
Is there any doubt that he will die someday?

After Bill Gates dies would be the only time to comment on his life since he is still adding to his accomplishments.
Who knows what he has yet to do?

End User wrote:

Sargent Duck wrote:

Nothing. I was just highlighting how silly your "tyranny" argument of WIndows and Office is.

This may surprise you but many people view the dominance of Microsoft as a hindrance.

They might, but they probably shouldn't. When Microsoft was one of many people vying to be a major player in the OS market, there was plenty of competition and fragmentation. Back in those days, Apple was around and pretty strong in education with their Campbell's soup label thing, but were pretty expensive. The C64 was a great platform, but the C128 was pretty stagnant. The later Amigas were amazing, but failed to gain market share like they needed due primarily to simple mismanagement.

Truth be told, the only OS company that didn't suffer from mismanagement was MS and NeXTOS (Job's baby after he was forced out of Apple). IBM pretty much quit the OS side of things. Lotus and WordPerfect dominated the scene for Spreadsheets and Word Processing, respectively. Corel and Broderbound owned the graphic editing and production. Then Lotus released Lotus Notes in the late 80's, but it had some definite issues. MS released Office in 1990, IIRC, which combined Word, Excel, and Power Point, and worked pretty well together.

Before MS integrated networking in Windows for Workgroups 3.11, the options were.... shall we say minimal? We had Novell (which truly revolutionized networking from a mainframe system with dumb terminals to really bring us into modern networking), which was quite the pain to administer. For home users, the good old modem (14.4k or 28.8k) was usually the fastest mode of transferring files. The steps taken in Win95 and more importantly, Win98SE brought networking in-house.

If you want to blame anyone for MS's rise from relative obscurity to l'enfant terrible, blame IBM. By outsourcing its OS to MS, it allowed an OS company without hardware to flourish.

Linux still suffers from what it has always suffered from: fragmentation and a lack of will by software developers to annoint a distribution as the sole distro.

If MS, and by extension Bill Gates, could allow PC's to standardize and avoid becoming what Linux has become, then I for one will be eternally grateful for the impact of Bill Gates.

Did companies borrow (steal) from other's IP? Yes. It happened all the time. Do I hate Bill Gates for managing MS into a successful company? Not really. Did he discourage others from taking parts of his business? Yep. But most companies in dominant positions do so (see... well, everyone). But to me, his post-MS career is simply amazing and will be the legacy that should be remembered, but will not be remembered first.

End User wrote:

Sargent Duck wrote:

And PC's (personal computers) is actually a declining market so I'm not sure where your argument is.

The personal computer market is expanding. Smartphones and tablets are personal computers. It is the traditional personal computer manufacturers and Microsoft who are losing market share. Imagine what this info would look like if you factored in iOS and Android smartphones.

Smart phones and tablets are nice toys.
But at some point, most people put on their big boy pants and get real work done on a Microsoft Windows PC.

TheEmrys wrote:

Linux still suffers from what it has always suffered from: fragmentation and a lack of will by software developers to annoint a distribution as the sole distro.

*nix based platforms (Android/iOS/OS X) are now the most successful and profitable platforms on the market.

danny e. wrote:

Smart phones and tablets are nice toys.
But at some point, most people put on their big boy pants and get real work done on a Microsoft Windows PC.

Please tell that to Facebook, Google, Apple etc.

End User wrote:

danny e. wrote:

Smart phones and tablets are nice toys.
But at some point, most people put on their big boy pants and get real work done on a Microsoft Windows PC.

Please tell that to Facebook, Google, Apple etc.

Why should I tell them? They already know. That's why they entered the toy market and not the desktop market.
I was just letting you know because it appeared that you didn't know yet.

I am glad to see you including facebook in the list as it makes me think maybe you're just playing along. Since adding them in the list is like tossing in Farmville into a list of "serious" games... so I'm assuming you're just having a laugh.

End User troll level: Master

danny e. wrote:

End User wrote:

danny e. wrote:

Smart phones and tablets are nice toys.
But at some point, most people put on their big boy pants and get real work done on a Microsoft Windows PC.

Please tell that to Facebook, Google, Apple etc.

Why should I tell them? They already know. That's why they entered the toy market and not the desktop market.
I was just letting you know because it appeared that you didn't know yet.

I am glad to see you including facebook in the list as it makes me think maybe you're just playing along. Since adding them in the list is like tossing in Farmville into a list of "serious" games... so I'm assuming you're just having a laugh.

Sigh. Internally! Google and Facebook appear to use Open Source solutions at the core of their operations while Apple is using solutions from themselves, IBM and Oracle. On the desktop side Apple (who more than doubled Microsofts revenue for the past quarter), obviously, uses OS X and Google is platform independent. Zuckerburg uses OS X. The CEO of Tumbler who just sold his company for $1 Billion uses OS X. To suggest the only Windows/Microsoft allows you to "get real work done" is simply childish.

13 years ago I would have agreed with you. I was Windows/Microsoft centric back then. Linux/OS X/mobile and web apps are todays reality for me. Windows is treated like an app now (VM) for those tools that bizarrely refuse to become cross platform (vSphere Client). At home the only use I have for a "Microsoft Windows PC" is for gaming.

EsotericLord wrote:

End User troll level: Master

I reply to those that need to be replied to.

.

danny e. wrote:

Smart phones and tablets are nice toys.
But at some point, most people put on their big boy pants and get real work done on a Microsoft Windows PC.

To be fair there's a lot of casual users for whom computing is not Serious Business, they can get by just fine with a tablet. The future tech landscape is going to be very fragmented, but it'll be based on use cases rather than just platforms so it won't be like what we had in the 80s.

Also, new thread time for the Windows/Linux/Mac/mobile melee and whether post-2001 Microsoft has helped or harmed the industry.

.

"And it is Samsung that is taking PC's into the future."

Sure...

Any samsung accomplishment to back that up ?

Only AFTER apple made tablets popular did Samsung decide to copy apple success.
Does Samsung make any decent OS for PC, workstation, tablet or phones? no, no, no and no

What did samsung do beside copy other company like Sony & Apple in the past decade ?

And in term of 'silicon' Samsung is trailing Intel and other firm by many years.

Samsung expertise is just in low price manufacturing.
Take a formula from a competitor, copy it (legally or illegally) and make it cheaper after its a proven success. Low risk, with all the benefits.

Samsung could vanish tomorrow, the tech world would evolve all the same pace.

I cant say the same if Intel, Google, and yes, even Apple would vanish.

.

Monopol/philanthrop/ist

From Decameron's first story:

Ser Cepparello, more commonly known as Ciapelletto, a notoriously wicked man, travels on a business to Burgundy, a region he is unknown in, as a favor to Musciatto Franzesi. Once there, he soon falls terminally ill. The two Florentine brothers who were housing him during his stay bring a friar from a nearby convent to hear his confession and give him his last rites. Ciappelletto proceeds to tell the friar lies about his life that make him seem very pure, while pretending to cringe over venial sins. He is completely believed by the friar, who preaches a sermon on his life after he passes away. The townspeople who hear the sermon believe that he was a holy man and revere him as a saint long after Ciapelletto died.

Bill Gates, Andrew Carnegie, or John D. Rockefeller could easily pass for a modern Ciapelletto.

heinsj24 wrote:

From Decameron's first story:

Ser Cepparello, more commonly known as Ciapelletto, a notoriously wicked man, travels on a business to Burgundy, a region he is unknown in, as a favor to Musciatto Franzesi. Once there, he soon falls terminally ill. The two Florentine brothers who were housing him during his stay bring a friar from a nearby convent to hear his confession and give him his last rites. Ciappelletto proceeds to tell the friar lies about his life that make him seem very pure, while pretending to cringe over venial sins. He is completely believed by the friar, who preaches a sermon on his life after he passes away. The townspeople who hear the sermon believe that he was a holy man and revere him as a saint long after Ciapelletto died.

Bill Gates, Andrew Carnegie, or John D. Rockefeller could easily pass for a modern Ciapelletto.

Please, tell me all the wicked things Bill Gates has done. All the orphans he's created, all the people he's killed, all the women he's raped, all the trees he's cut down, all the villages he forced relocated, all the illegal drugs that he's smuggled, all the kidnapping he's done, all the arms dealings he's done, all the torturing and mutilating that he's done, all the serial murders he's committed, all the prostitution rings he's created, all the human trafficking he's done, all the villages he's burned, all the oil spills he's spilt, all the child pornography he's created, all the senior citizen scams he's created, all the horrible, ghastly things he's done. Please tell me.

Sargent Duck wrote:

Please, tell me all the wicked things Bill Gates has done. All the orphans he's created, all the people he's killed, all the women he's raped, all the trees he's cut down, all the villages he forced relocated, all the illegal drugs that he's smuggled, all the kidnapping he's done, all the arms dealings he's done, all the torturing and mutilating that he's done, all the serial murders he's committed, all the prostitution rings he's created, all the human trafficking he's done, all the villages he's burned, all the oil spills he's spilt, all the child pornography he's created, all the senior citizen scams he's created, all the horrible, ghastly things he's done. Please tell me.

Are you saying Bill Gate's is not as ruthless as competitor as Rockefeller or Carnegie? He certainly is and it is well documented throughout his history from Altair BASIC, through monopolistic bundling deals. Unlike Rockefeller or Carnegie, he probably never had anyone killed directly or indirectly through his orders, but Bill Gates was a modern robber-baron.

We forgive him.

Because, he helped provide the power of computing to the practically everyone in the world and made it easier for them as time progressed. Others who have done as much for the average person as Gates has would probably include Ford, Edison, Westinghouse and Bell - guess what... They weren't saints, either. Pasteur - maybe; not these guys.

Funny - half the evils pointed out above did get a lot easier to perpetrate thanks to Bill Gates and Microsoft.

heinsj24 wrote:

... Bill Gates was a modern robber-baron.

I don't think you know what the robber-barons actually did. Bill Gates did nothing even remotely like they did, other than take over an industry.

sschaem wrote:

You measure value in the sacrifice you made for others, Bill gates has not made ANY sacrifices in his entire life.
But he did ruined many people with questionable practices. Thats the true Bill Gates legacy.

I'd say improving the lives of millions of people living in terrible conditions with almost no hope of improving is more important than doing shady things against a few multinational companies to have lower profits.

"The one who took a byte out of Apple, and beat cancer."

Too soon?