February 15, 2005

Susan, you're right, but the courts disagree.

I still read a lot of computing industry blogs, including one by Susan Bradley, the MVP for Windows SBS. In a recent entry, she was complaining about the amount of crap that is installed and barely working on a new machine.

Unfortunately, the courts believe that Microsoft should not control the entire end user experience at launch. They believe that allowing Microsoft to create an Apple-like experience will kill competition, hence all of the complete and utter shit that gets preinstalled, ranging from a half-dozen "free" ISP offers all the way to spyware preinstalled by the OEM in the interest of increasing their profit margins.

I understand that you want to blame Bill Gates for this mess, but the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the OEM's and the courts. If you're going to blame someone, blame the right person.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure I blame the OEMs and the courts for this at all.

If you offer customers the choice of a "clean install" machine with XP and nothing extra, costing $900, and a "all the extras" machine, with XP and lots of third-party extras preinstalled, which costs $800, which do you think they will choose?

Nothing to stop the OEMs selling a "clean" PC, but it *will* cost the consumer more.

...and how many consumers would buy it?

James