On 11/5/05, michael hast <evylrobot19@cox.net> wrote:
This is very true. My original point here was not to get into some
> essoterric OT discussion, but to make the point that industry-driven
> corporate consumerism will not allow a perfect product. Personally, I
> don't like "products" as such. That's my biggest gripe with M$. It is
> not about making a quality product for it's customers, it is about
> making money for the giant that it is.
This is what the American way of life (i.e. capitalism) is all about.
Philanthropy nowadays is more to see your company's name in the paper than
any deep-rooted sense of "giving back to the community". I am not one to
judge motives, but if you really want to do some good in your community (as
a business), don't let anyone know about it (i.e. news media outlets) and
just do it.
I very much doubt that Bill
> Gates has anything to do with it. Just as in the automotive industry,
> mass-produced cabinetry, electronics, government, or anything else
> produced on a corporate level, the product released is the end of a
> battle in the beaurocracy between the designers, engineers, marketers,
> politicians and anyone else who can justify needing their two cents in
> there. Their arguements are petty and short-sighted as is evident in
> the end product. I would give some better examples of this, but I don't
> really know where to start. I really can't think of many
> end-user-products that I don't have complaints about that could have
> been easily corrected if they had been designed and built by individuals
> instead of committees that couldn't agree and so had to compramise at
> the expense of the consumer. This is why I personally like the
> functionality of open-source software. If you don't like it, change
> it. On top of that, it is not so profit-driven. I realize that a lot
> of it is still, but due to the nature of the GPL, software is written
> more for functionality than for enterprise. As far as M$ is concerned,
> it doesn't really matter how GOOD the product is as long as they can
> market it, and the fact of the matter is that ANYTHING can be marketed.
> (Remember pet-rocks?) This is why I very much doubt that we will see an
> amazing new product come out of the giant. The tiger cannot change his
> stripes, and the more things change, the more they stay the same
> ultimately.
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