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[Bodhesatva]

Legend11 said:
I agree. Microsoft still lets people who have illegal copies of their software download security updates. Not many other companies can say the same about people using their software illegally. Also Microsoft goes after spammers, virus writers, phishers, and other types of low lifes who make life hell for many good people. Instead of the constant attacks on them maybe people should cut them a little slack.

I laugh at how some people think they're somehow evil for having a monopoly, many other companies have acted in the same way and never got the same flack that Microsoft has. Apple tried to monopolize online music with the success of it's ipod brand and I never heard the same hate towards them that some people direct at Microsoft. Even Nintendo used to make third parties sign agreements not to make games for other systems yet you never hear of any of the same kind of hate directed at them.

Add to that the billions that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given around the world to the very less fortunate. I'm curious besides Bill and Warren Buffet name other heads of businesses that have given billions like that.

Anyways if you want to hate, well go ahead but maybe you should stop and think about what you're hating and why.

This needs to be restated: Bill Gates has donated more money to official charities (who knows who donated what to general good causes) than any other human in history.

To me, I think lots of people view Microsoft the way they view Wal-Mart. Other than a few union/pay issues (which aren't as big a deal as many make them out to be), Wal-Mart really doesn't do anything wrong. They don't evade taxes or gouge consumers; they simply are really, really, really, ruthlessley efficient at expanding and shutting out competitors. That's precisely what a company is supposed to do, of course -- compete, and win. It's just that Wal-Mart is so good at, it's suffocating, and that bothers people. For good reasons, perhaps, as there are good indications that Wal-Mart is bad for the country as a whole -- but that doesn't make Wal-Mart immoral.

Microsoft is the same way: they don't engage in any shady business deals, they don't behave in unseemly ways, and Bill Gates does seem, by and large, to be a pretty good guy. MS doesn't engage in unfair business practices. They are just incredibly, ruthlessly efficient at dominating markets.

It's the same reason people love to hate the Yankees (I'm a Cardinals fan, soi I don't like them either). Yes, the Yankees are a symbol of the monetary inequities in baseball. But they aren't doing anything wrong; they are playing by the rules -- both financial rules and the technical rules of the game itself -- and doing an incredibly good job at it. If you want to blame anything, blame those rules, not the team.