April 26th, 2000

[12:20 PM] A Suggestion For The "MS Problem" by Staff Observer Bill Vlahos from Macintosh, It Just Works!, has a suggestion he shared with us to put an end to the Microsoft Problem once and for all. According to Bill: My remedy to the Microsoft monopoly problem: Have the government stop buying and using Microsoft products for some period of time based on how long they have broken the law. These would include operating systems and applications such as Office and Explorer. This would both punish Microsoft by losing new sales and spur competition. It would have a ripple effect that companies doing business with the government would also need to change. Their monopoly would effectively be broken. Government would get more reliable and secure systems that would cost less in the long run. Of course I would suggest they use Macintosh. After all, It Just Works! Thanks for writing Bill! The Mac Observer Spin: An interesting suggestion. It would be difficult for any government in the US to just stop buying MS products due to the amount of money already invested in Windows, and even DOS. The truth of the matter is that much of the software solutions needed, or at least used, by many governments and their agencies is only available for Windows. To take this idea to a different level though, we would love to see lawsuits against state governments for breach of fiduciary responsibility for using/standardizing on Windows. That would send a few wake up calls through the industry and through the bureaucracies of this country. Please keep in mind that we aren't attorneys and do not know whether such a suit would ever be viable. It's just a fun thought to think of all the IT people in this country who have steered their departments into a Windows dominated or Windows only environment in order to guarantee their own job security squirm a bit. :-) Macintosh, It Just Works!