Time to stand up to Microsoft
As usual, the product can be broken down into consumer and business variants. Arrogance XP Home Edition says that your computing experience will be made less pleasant because the operating system will turn itself off if you change your computer too much, at which point you'll have to go begging to Microsoft to be allowed to use it some more. This is because us users have been wicked children for many years, denying Microsoft its just rewards by pirating its software--why, the company's been at death's door from our leeching. Now we can't do that, but by way of recompense and to celebrate its enhanced revenues Microsoft will charge us a bit more than last time. And if we don't like that? Microsoft acts in a way that suggests it couldn't care less.
But that's nothing compared to Microsoft Arrogance XP Professional Edition--a full-strength version, and then some. From October 1st, corporate licence holders will upgrade when Microsoft tells them to, not when they want. They either pay an annual fee for a two-year maintenance contract, or pay list price for upgrades. Or they don't have a license--and don't think that Microsoft has any compunction about letting people know about the consequences there. Just to make it an offer you can't refuse, existing options, which included a four-year upgrade cycle, have been withdrawn--people who were on that will pay between 68 and 107 percent more than before, according to the Gartner Group.
Of course, businesses are furious. But the company is unmoved, saying that everyone has choice and that the changes help people get "the latest and greatest from Microsoft in a predictable way." Perhaps people didn't find it difficult in the past to get upgrades when they wanted them, but Microsoft isn't listening. It doesn't have to listen.
Microsoft's relationship to its users is that of the blue whale to krill. Our only purpose is to breed, feed and get squeezed against its giant tongue until every last drop of money is released. There was a slight diminution in the aggressive, monopolistic feeding frenzy last year when, let us not forget, the company was found guilty of abusing its position. Now that Bush is in power, Microsoft is right back in those fertile Antarctic waters. Not only does it act in a way that suggests it doesn't care about the cries of pain from its customers, it barely registers that such cries exist. Now it has 90 percent of the corporate market, it will hunt its users to extinction before it notices anything wrong.
There are alternatives, which in a healthy capitalistic marketplace deserve exploration. A consortium of companies who pay most to Microsoft could fund an open-source development project to take Linux and turn it and its applications into a true replacement for Windows and Office. They know what they want, it would cost less to make such a package than it does to subscribe to Uncle Bill's club, and they'd end up having control of their own business-critical software for a change. The lock-in factor, where the pain of changing software is greater than the pain of paying the Microsoft ransom, would be reduced because the people writing the alternative would have the migration uppermost from design day one.
But there is another option. Companies, like individuals, have the power to disobey. An embargo of Microsoft products, of buying them, licensing them, paying fees due or any other action that puts money in Microsoft's bank account, would do the trick. Of course, Microsoft would withdraw support--as if anyone would notice--and could take some people to law, but even the mighty behemoth couldn't drag everyone through the courts. And what if the US Justice Department was in on the boycott? Unthinkable--until you think it. Of course, once .Net is in place MS will potentially have to tools to turn off your software at a moment's notice. Nice idea, huh?
People don't like being held hostage. They don't like being treated like bulk foodstuff. They don't like having their costs doubled during hard times, and they don't like a key and monopoly supplier acting in a way that suggests it is being economical with the truth. Microsoft will remain the invincible bully for just as long as we continue to let ourselves believe it. But time is running out.