Bryant University standardizes on Linux 13388

An artificial issue. Beta testers for Win3.1 had to agree to use MS-DOS exclusively as part of the qualifications for being a beta tester. The AARD test was to ensure that there were no false negatives from the test code. It displayed a hex code to be reported to the beta test manager during the Win3.1 beta install process, nothing more. No one ever reported anything during the beta test, the code was discovered a year or so later after the product release. It never had any effect whatsoever on DR-DOS sales.

Part of 1 and it never happened. MS discussed it, but decided not to do it.

MS picked a course of action that made the browser forever free, as in beer. Lowering prices is not such a dirty trick unless you are a compebreastor hoping to rip off the public.

OEMs were disallowed removing IE. As a part of an otherwise legitimate exclusivity arrangement, they were not allowed to show competing logos, after all, they were being paid to be partners on an exclusive basis, just like Coke and Pepsi have deals with fast food and other restaurants. The amount of exclusive dealing in effect did not violate anbreastrust laws. Judge Jackson ruled that to be the case.

The WinInetAPIs were distributed as part of IE. That made sense in those days and even makes sense today. Linux distributions offer a lot of APIs that are provided by non-kernel applications. If you want to use them, you have to install the application. Windows guarantees the presence of these APIs and for the WinInetAPIs, that means that IE needed to be installed.

Seems like another tempest in a teapot, ghost. MS puts their Windows together with their DOS and adds a bunch of new 32-bit glue to make the Win95 package. What else are they going to do? They can hardly make DR-DOS provide all the new interfaces and hope to synchronize them with the rest of the package. I think the main issue here is that MS wrote Windows themselves and made it work with the DOS that they wrote themselves. Why shouldn't they be allowed to come up with a new product by themselves? The courts agreed to that, BTW.

They want to make it more attractive to the buyer to stick with all MS software. I think that everyone else does the same thing, it is just that no one else does it as well.

This was one of exclusivity deals. MS offered a lower price for DOS to OEMs that would agree to only offer DOS on all the machines in some specified product line. That was a lower price to the the OEM which should translate to either a higher profit for the OEM or a lower price to the end user or both. Again, the dirty trick is offering a lower price.

IBM didn't want Windows on the street at all, since it competed with OS-2 and they gave MS an ultimatim, too. It is hard to find fault with MS for choosing to oppose Big Blue in the market. Who else is going to stand up to them?

???

The Java extensions that touched off the brougha were never documented, BTW. All they did was allow java developers to get access to Windows system settings for color and such. BFD.

If IE is non-standard, that is not a requirment that anyone else follow unless they want to duplicate the feature.

MS tries to offer things that people will continue to want to buy. Pure and simple.