Bill Gates;

What was going through your mind when you and your folks were hovering over the "Black Cauldron" and peered into the "Black Abyss" and conjured up the rediculous price of Windows Vista Ultimate, and for that matter, the rest of the Vista versions?

I spend most of my day using Outlook, Access,and Excel. I don't need a lot of graphics, cute toys, media anything, or bells / whistles; I need a lean, fast OS. Office 2003 under XP even with 2 gig of ram is slower than office97 under NT with 128mb of memory. Why is performance taking a back seat to crap that does nothing?

For Bill G.: Why is Steve Ballmer still CEO of Microsoft?

For Steve J.: Can Time Machine send me back to 2004 so I can buy back those 500 shares of AAPL I sold at $20?

bob,
Something's wrong with your machine to claim that...

Dear Bill Gates:
#1. You do realize MS cannot take on Google, now do you? They're simply more open.
#2. You do realize your software is way too expensive for the provided quality? I don't mean eye candy here, but raw speed.
#3. You do realize that no matter how much money you have, you cannot buy respect? My respect, namely?
#4. You do realize that the mentality behind all that fancy marketing is deprecated? Open your minds. (OPEN!).
#5. You do realize that you can't buy, own or control innovation, neither bind it to the deprecated Windows platform?
#6. You do realize those who need to know do know the real figures behind those sales behind (wow) Vista?
#7. You do realize you will not own, buy, nor control a movement of such scale as open source? Things will change and I expect someone like you to be more ... how should I put it? Open!

Dear Steve Jobs:
#1. You are my idol. Keep up what you are doing, 'cause you have my respect for that. You deliver quality and that's that.

Dear, Mr. Gates,

How do you deal with people that do not understand the ecosystem that underwrites Windows and other Microsoft software? How do changes in the press effect the relationship between engineering and marketing teams at Microsoft?

Dear, Mr. Jobs,

How is Apple going to scale OS X beyond its present state in light of the limitations inherent to MACH opposite multi-core processors and as the industry moves towards a heterogeneous multi-core architecture? Are these limitations behind the delay in shipping Leopard?

Douglas, I had NT 4 Workstation and Office 97 Pro running on a Zenith GT Workstation we had since 96, (32 MBs of RAM, 133 MHz, 1 MB of ATI video memory).

Two words: Screaming Fast! I would say the same for Win95, the OS installs in 8 mins!

As for questions:
Steve:
Cut the BMW/Mercedes market baloney, why can't you just open up OS X to other OEMs, do you want them to beg?

Gates:
Give us a run down of the system specs you are running Vista on and which platform are you using, Vista x86 or x64?

H3, good questions.

Douglas, I had NT 4 Workstation and Office 97 Pro running on a Zenith GT Workstation we had since 96, (32 MBs of RAM, 133 MHz, 1 MB of ATI video memory).

Two words: Screaming Fast! I would say the same for Win95, the OS installs in 8 mins!

As for questions:
Steve:
Cut the BMW/Mercedes market baloney, why can't you just open up OS X to other OEMs, do you want them to beg?

Gates:
Give us a run down of the system specs you are running Vista on and which platform are you using, Vista x86 or x64?

H3, good questions. Joe, I'm glad Jordon won, Blakes beat boxing was annoying the heck out of me. Its a singing competition, not an android testing station.

To Mr. Gates and Ballmer,

How much money is enough? Just how much money do you require to live a good life, at the expense of Windows users? Did you not pass the threshold of good living long ago? That would have been when you could afford to eat a nice steak every night should you decide to do so. You private lake and your 67 million dollar house is not enough? You still need to make more for your personal wealth, why?

Even the courts in Calafornia and Iowa have decided that you are selling windows and office for an inflated monopolistic price. When will you give your users a true price break, and stop being so greedy?

For Mr. Gates:

When is Microsoft going to produce something truly revolutionary? Because Vista isn't it--there's nothing revolutionary in Vista, nothing to actually "wow" us.

Sure, the GUI desktop is more attractive now. But aside from cosmetics, how have you altered the user experience? We're still using the same old, tired WIMP metaphor that Apple introduced to the public in 1984 with the Macintosh.

For Mr. Jobs:

You revolutionized desktop computing in 1984 with the Macintosh, but isn't it time to revolutionize it again? The Mac's 25th anniversary is coming up soon. Will you help us move beyond the same old, 2-D WIMP paradigm?

For Mr. Gates
Why has it taken so long for the component manufaturers like Nvidia, ATI, etc. to get their act together and provide reasonable drivers (of the same quality or better than Windows Xp) so as not to slow Windows Vista down?

Chips, stop asking illiterate questions. The reason why Gates has so much money is simply because he has the majority of shares in the Company. Are you trying to say when MS went public in '87 he should not have kept any shares? Obviously, he believed in his vision and his Company enough to do so.

Microsoft is more than Gates, it hires over 70,000 employees and has a lot of share holders. They all have to be paid. But most of all, they are a business, and they are in the business of making money just like many other competitor such as Apple, Oracle, Sun, Adobe, IBM, Novell, Redhat and Symantec.

Gates has repeated many times, the majority of his fortune will go to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation when he retires from MS full time. He currently has 47 Billion, I don't know how much of it will go to the foundation. If I were in his shoes, I would at least keep back a cool 5 billion for my family with strict guidance for future generations (grand and great kids) how they get access to it.

The point is, he is not obsessed with money like you are. If you have problems purchasing Microsoft products, there are many alternatives out there to choose from for free, proprietary and open: Linux, OS X, Unix. I just don't understand why people hate Microsoft products but still purchase it. And because your Company requires you use it is not an excuse. Mac OS X, Linux and Unix connect to Windows Servers just fine.

Andre Da Costa :

Actually his current wealth is 55 billion not 47. Still thats down a whole lot from the 100 billion that he used to have when the stock was worth more. Ballmers worth is 12 billion. Paul Allen is only the 3rd richest man in the world, forget his wealth, as he no longer works for MS, I believe.

And I don't think its a small point, about their greed. It one think to say you are going to "give it all away." But you know, when you go away, you can't take it with you anyway, so yes, you have to give it away I guess. Now a foundation can be the perfect tax shelter to provide high paying jobs for Gates relatives in the future. Or it can be Gates way of doing good, for that I do not choice to judge the man. But my point was that MS is charging too much for its monopolistic software, and at least two states agree with that.

chips:
you are unbelievable, now you are questioning Mr Gates' giving philosophy. When is he or Microsoft going to be good enough for you? Even Gates' harshest critics will agree that he is on his way to become one of the greatest philanthropist of our time. Grow up and ask some intelligent questions.

Bill, please be patient with me, I've been holding all of this in for awhile.

Why did you release so many versions of Vista and then charge so much for them? Don't you see you've confused your customers needlessly? Didn't anyone say two was enough, a home and a professional/business version and then price them accordingly?

Why do you think students wouldn't benefit from having Outlook (or at least an updated MS Works) in their bundles of Office 2007?

Why was Works abandoned instead of used as a cheaper version of Office for folks who didn't need everything in Office but wanted an integrated application that did some of the same things?

Why does it take so long to fix hardware shortcomings that your customers point out repeatedly as in the Zune and XBox 360? You can't blame those on OEMs since MS is the OEM. Don't you want your customers to be really happy with your products instead of waiting for you to "get around" to improving them?

Why doesn't MS create more hardware instead of blaming their shortcomings on the OEM?

Why doesn't MS use it's partnerships to show the OEMs how to bring more style to the devices and products they create for your software? Mr. Gates, can't you find designers and loan them out to help your OEMs come up with better looking hardware?

Aren't you concerned that your competition consistently comes out with better looking hardware that runs their OS than those that run yours?

Mr. Gates arent you at least concerned when a chip maker is poised to create more stylish devices that will probably use Linux as its OS instead of your software?

Mr. Gates, why is there no advertising from MS that touts the benefits of Windows Mobile, the Tablet PC and UMPC benefits seperate and apart from the little the OEMs do? Coke doesn't wait for the people that make their plastic bottles for them to tell customers how great Coca-Cola is.

Does MS even have a marketing department?

In short, Mr. Gates, when is MS going to wake up and realize the old way of doing things ("We're a software company, not a hardware company" you've been qouted as saying) isn't going to keep customers for to much longer as Apple and Linux (or whatever else is to come)continue to make more aesthetically appealing products and make strides in brand recognition and market share?

Has it not occurred to you Mr. Gates, that the folks behind Ubuntu could put together a cheap PC with off the shelf components, slap Ubuntu on the case, preload it with all the open source software, offer free OS upgrades for life and sell those things like hotcakes? The buyers wouldn't need to understand how to install Linux since it would already be done for them with many free alternatives to all of your products.

No questions for Mr. Jobs, I don't own any Apple products and don't plan to.

Bill Gates and Microsoft have done more to advance the state of PC technology and keep prices down for consumers than anybody. Don't get me wrong Microsoft is a monster, but if Microsoft never existed chances are the few people who would be using PCs would probably be running some crap by IBM and paying through the teeth for it. Microsoft has introduced features(with tons of bloat), improved their products(well feature wise not performance wise) so much that they consistently are putting other companies out of business. Yes it sucks for the competition, but I can't understand why consumers complain so much, this is exactly why small companies can afford low end servers and the software required to do business.

The big complaint I have about the software is bloat.
Bill,
For the love of god could make software lighter and more modular so that those of us who want to can run a lightning fast version of word without all the extra crap?
Did you expect hardware technology to be way ahead of where it is today when you started designing Vista?
Or does Vista require alot more power than what you planned for?
Or was it some kind of conspiracy to make everyone go buy new PCs if they want to run Vista?

Apple was, is, will probably always be a niche OS. It used to have a serious edge in graphics, audio, multimedia, DTP etc... but there is no real difference these days. Granted Apple puts out some great looking OS but that is the only real advantage, Windows has more software and games that you can use without having to dual boot between OSs everytime you wanna switch between activities. This leaves people with no real good reason to choose an Apple OS, unless they are only going to use email and a browser. This means the majority of your customers are loyal zealots, or people who hate Microsoft and are not smart enough to run some flavor of Linux.

Steve,
Are you content with only this very small portion of the market?
If not what do you have planned, other than making another even more super cool looking OS(because frankly that is just not working)?
Do you ever envision a day when Apple will be the dominant OS vendor? Seriously Steve, be honest.

Bill and Steve,
Which one of you would win in a boxing match?

jbomb, the way MS puts many companies out of business is not by constantly improving their products but by enforcing people to use them, by not giving them any choice.
The companies that would represent any competition are faced with two facts: join or die.
If you do not believe me, search for information about the browser wars: Netscape vs Internet Explorer. Netscape lost. They had a far more superior browser than MS, but because MS bound iexplorer to the shell (your default system explorer in windows - that's right), they used the monopoly and wide-spreading of windows to let loose the plague iexplorer is. It was not quality but trickery.

And yes... MS helped spread PCs and helped them evolve. But now it's time for it to let the user choose what it really wants.

Mr Gates; do you have knowledge that no always charity purifies the soul? (furthermore when -for example- 1 million means -for you-like 1 penny -to us-) More important it's the change of attitude.

I am with you Chip. The common folk allow themselves to be impressed by money, forgetting attitudes and behaviour, in other words, they get blinded by gold’s shine so forgetting that examples such as Gandhi and Teresa of Calcutta teach us that the real thing is completely deliver oneself in favour of others. Mr Gates is not acting so, for with one hand wipes out every good thing he is done with the other.

Marco
I think that you are suffering from an "inferiority Complex" mate !
You forget that Microsoft started off in a garage, and I tell you what when people like Bill Gates have such a meteoric rise they never forget where they started from, that's why he started up the Gates Foundation !
He knows ! !
Stop feeling sorry for yourself ! And make the best of what you've got !

Ha!...Mine was a "technical question" because the whole behaviour of MS as monopoly is based in the wrong interpretation of moral values from Mr Gates. and it is time for him to wake up .
Neil you are free to say whatever comes into your mind about me, when I wrote these lines knew there would be a reply. You and all the guys who think the way you do, almost worship MS and Bill Gates, but I do think there has come the time to tell the truth, regardless how heavy toll it takes.

Gentlemen,
Would you please stand next to each other and say "Hello, I'm a Mac." and "And I'm a PC."?
Follow-up question:
Thank you both for making my day. Would you please now do that one more time, and continue improvisationally for sixty seconds? It would make my year...

Gentlemen,
Would you please stand next to each other and say "Hello, I'm a Mac." and "And I'm a PC."?
Follow-up question:
Thank you both for making my day. Would you please now do that one more time, and continue improvisationally for sixty seconds? It would make my year...

good ad6am ! but as I use XP it could be "hello I'm Ma...rco"
(ad6am...what does it stand for?..Perhaps "Mad from 6 am"? I am kidding of course.)
Cheerfully Yours,
Marco

Lets see now, everyone is defending poor ole Bill Gates and his efforts to be a good human being and do something usefull with all his money, which is not a bad thing, if that really is his purpose. And I think ONLY Bill really knows that for sure.

But then I don't see anyone defending Paul Allen the 3rd richest man in the world, or Steve Ballmer the man with 12 billion only. I don't see Steve doing anything with his 12 billion except for Steve?

With these guys, they steal from the poor and give to themselves (the rich) by charging too much for windows. Proven in at least two states courts of law, fact. Agrue with that fact if you can. It makes no difference what M$ and Bill is going to do with the money later on, as they are using their powers of a monopoly to overcharge people now. Could it be this very fact as why there is so much piratacy in the world?

Yes I do have some issues with the way Bill made his money as well, the dirty tricks that are well documented, some even in the courts of law in this country, against other companies.

Bill gave very little to charities until the media gave him a lot of bad press for being a tightwad. And now that he is getting older he wants to clean up his image, with good works for his money. If this is so, this is a good thing, but he should have never been allowed to aquired this much money in the ways he did so.

Thank God for Microsoft! If Apple had the "monopoly" they would be charging 10,000 dollars for the Mac Mini, and $1,290.00 for OS X client. Microsoft brought the GUI to the masses along with cheap computing. Chips, count your blessings.

MS did bring down the cost of computing for the masses...in the 80s and early 90s. Note the past tense.

Today, MS is just plain gouging consumers. Why does Vista Home Premium cost $216 at Best Buy? Why does Vista Ultimate cost $360?

By comparison, Mac OS X costs $117 at Best Buy. And at Novell, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) costs $125 for a three-year subscription. Not to mention Ubuntu and openSUSE which are free.

Also, MS Office Standard 2007 costs $400. That's just the Standard edition. The Professional and Ultimate editions cost much more! If this isn't gouging, then I don't know what is.

Why can MS charge these prices? Because they have a Windows monopoly. Their lock on file formats make it extremely difficult for rival Office suites to compete. And PC vendors are afraid to preload Linux for fear of offending MS.

Dell is pretty gutsy in offering Ubuntu on some of their PCs, but by not offering a price break they may be shooting themselves in the foot. Linux PCs ought to cost less than Windows PCs.

To me, Steve Jobs doesn't have "charisma and style", he has smugness and arrogance.

I suppose you could ask Steve if the iPhone will be the next Newton, and if the Mac's worldwide market share will ever get all the up to 3%. -grin

Andre Da Costa :
Quote;
"Thank God for Microsoft! If Apple had the "monopoly" they would be charging 10,000 dollars for the Mac Mini, and $1,290.00 for OS X client. Microsoft brought the GUI to the masses along with cheap computing. Chips, count your blessings."
-----------------------------------------------
Actually IBM bought cheap computing to the masses Andre. The hardware you are running on is "100% IBM compatable." And I might point out, it would even be cheaper to operate with Linux on it than M$ Windows.
M$ to my knowledge has never made hardware, or in otherwords, computers. How far would cheap computing with M$ have got without a computer to run it on?

Chips, you are wrong again. IBM did not make computing cheap, it was the IBM compatible clones that reverse engineered the IBM BIOS that made computing cheap. I remember a friend telling me his IBM PC he bought in early '82 cost him $5,000 - thats not cheap. The clones eventually competed on price and compatibility since MS-DOS was available to them along with thousands of applications and off the shelf components such as the Intel chipset which the IBM used. Soon, IBM realized they were becoming pressured and saw the PC business becoming less profitable.

Because IBM did not have control of the MS-DOS licensing, they couldn't restrict PC Makers from using it. This my friend is a major part of why Microsoft help to make computing cheap. When other applications such as Excel and Word were released for cheaper competing with brands such as Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect which became available for early version of Windows such as 3.0 this further cemented the platform.

Anyway, how is it cheaper to run Linux on my PC compared to Windows? You can buy a version of Windows and Office and use it forever. Yes, you won't get updates when MS decides to end support but that won't stop me from still being productive. For instance, Office 2007 shares compatibility Office 97 just fine. My brother is doing just fine with his ALR running Win98 and Office 97.

Other things to think about when it comes to choosing Linux: device driver compatibility, ease of use, all of the existing applications for Windows most users own and have invested on Windows. Will those work on Linux, am I guaranteed I can get them to work? You think its just a breeze to install Linux. The reason why Windows continues to increase price over the years, is the value in innovation, Media Center, Tablet PC, Speech and Security richer experiences that users gain when it comes to hardward compatibility to name a few.

If you find it hard to justify the cost of Windows, don't bother with it. Who's stopping you from choosing other platforms?

chips b malroy, nathan and neil.

What else can the richest man in the world do with his wealth? Bill Gates has so much money that the only thing left to do with it is to give it away.

Don't delude yourselves that he gained all that money by being a 'nice guy'. That sort of money is only achievable by being completely ruthless.

I cannot beleive your all so naive to think the richest man in the world is not obsessed by money just because he gives a bit of it away to charity.

And if he had a duty to shareholders like you say, then he has a duty to kull all those loss leaders that Windows and Office are propping up. The ones only exist to kill off competition. That way the shareholders could have greater returns on their shares or Office and Windows could be made cheaper.

I mean - you have to be deluded to even consider the richest man in the world isn't obsessed by money or greed.

Oops. Forgot to add that you can write off charitable donations in your tax returns.

I imagine Bill gets taxed a fair bit. So what is the cost to him to offset that a portion of that tax by diverting it to his charity.

I wonder he gets paid a salary as head of his charity - you do know he is entitled to one!

Consider how many people live on less than a dollar a day.

Now consider that just HALF of Bill Gates personal wealth could double the standard of living for 7,534,246 of those people who have to survive on a dollar a day for the next 10 years.

So lets get things in perspective about his altruism, eh.

William;
Some very good points, but only one point that I would perhaps disagree on, that of what else would he do with all the money but give it away.

1. a foundation while giving money away is set up to be self sustaining almost forever. Its the perfect tax dodge, to get by inheritance taxes. It can be used to (extend the dynasty) provide very high paying jobs to descendants. Now, I am not saying that Bill is doing this, but it is one possibility.

2. An example of a family that made this kind of money (well not this much) would be the Kennedy family. Joe Kennedy was a known bootlegger who made his fortune during that time. One of his sons went on the become the President of the US. Despite what anyone thinks, when is the last time someone without any wealth or power was elected in the US? It doesn't happen.

Andre Da Costa :
Quote;
"Chips, you are wrong again. IBM did not make computing cheap, it was the IBM compatible clones that reverse engineered the IBM BIOS that made computing cheap"
--------------------------------------------------
Reread my post Andre, that is what 100% IBM compatible means. Perhaps not you figured out that "it was the IBM compatible clones that reverse engineered the IBM BIOS that made computing cheap" and not Micro$oft.

M$ has never made computing cheap. I totally agree with Richard when he says since the 90's that M$ has only increased the price of computing due to their monopoly.

Where would we be without M$? Perhaps we would all be using OS/2 or DRDOS. But I do believe Stallman would still have given us a GNU/Linux anyway.

Also Andre, I know you are a M$ Fanboy, after all your website is all about Vista;
http://adacosta.spaces.live.com/

anyone can get the same link just by clicking on andre's name in his posts. So Andre does have vested interests in the profitability of M$, as that is what his website is all about. A lot of bias and that is why.

To Andre Da Costa :
And Andre $399 for Vista Ultimate is not cheap, not when whole computers can now be bought for less than the cost of the M$ operating system. So how you come up with the statement that M$ has made computing cheap is beyond belief.

Quote;
William;
"I mean - you have to be deluded to even consider the richest man in the world isn't obsessed by money or greed."
----------------------------------------------------
Well said sir. Excellent point! That is what Bill has been about all his life, making money, and some of the means that his company, that he controls, have been illegal and dishonest as well.

As far as the "deluded" this would be the M$ Fanboys, who have been brainwashed by the Media that Bill is some sort of Nerd God. The Media is controlled by companies like Time Warner, who employ companies like the RIAA to do their dirty work. I believe with the release of Vista and DRM, that M$ has an agreement with the RIAA and MPAA. These companies and M$ are all in the same rich peoples bed together, is it any wonder why Bill gets such great press?

Of course there are others who support M$ that are really not Fanboys at all, as they have vested interests in the well being of M$. So they are not deluded, but some are perhaps somewhat like salesmen.

Andre Da Costa wrote:

"You can buy a version of Windows and Office and use it forever. Yes, you won't get updates when MS decides to end support but that won't stop me from still being productive."

Um, you can get OpenOffice.org and Linux for free and use them forever, too. *And* you will always get updates for them! There will never be an end of life to their support.

To both Andre and chips, MS helped to make computing cheap by fostering an open and vibrant "ecosystem" for developers. This meant competition, which lowered prices. This meant lower cost of entry for developers and entrepreneurs.

However, over the years MS have also been in conflict with the ecosystem by competing with the very same developers they helped. And after they successfully marginalized their rivals (eg, Lotus, WordPerfect, Borland, etc.), they went on to charge as much as the market will bear for Office and Windows.

Now you can't actually fault MS for charging as much as the market will bear, for this is the essence of the free enterprise system. But to suggest that MS now makes computing affordable is absurd, not when the prices of Office and Windows approach that of the very hardware they run on!

Mac OS X and every flavour of Linux, StarOffice and OpenOffice.org, Google Apps, all manner of applications from the Open Source world...they all cost a fraction of what MS charges for similar products.

I'm not saying everyone should switch away from Windows. If you don't mind spending the big bucks for the convenience of Windows computing, that's fine. But clearly Windows isn't for everyone, at least not any more. People are much more cost-conscious today.

Andre cited driver support, ease of use, and application investment as reasons to stick with Windows. What he failed to cite were security porosity, and the pain of WGA and Product Activation, and the fact that the bug fixing cycle for Windows is generally 18 months or longer, compared to the 3-6 months for Open Source.

Finally, I dispute the implication that the increased value of Windows due to innovation should be reflected in higher prices. With their monopoly control, MS can easily make back their R&D costs with Wal-Mart style pricing. They are simply gouging--charging whatever the market will bear--and just like the oil companies with their obscene profits, MS is acting out of raw naked greed.

My comment is simple, there are lots of people like my self serving this country in the military and struggling to save our homes and our families. I have been trying to refinance to save my home and family but because my home to loan value is too low due to real estate falling short and becasue the military doesn't pay alot I may lose my home. My wife is currently testing for a kidney transplant so she no longer can work either. I wish that I could save everything or at least pay off enough to get even so I am not struggling, I would suggest that everyone who has extra money, help the people in this country to keep their homes and their families. Mr. Gates help from you would be greatly appreciated from many americans and if you would like to help me and my family you can call me at 619 561-3989 or email abh1jjordan@yahoo.com or just come to my home 9731 Winter Gardens Blvd. unit 63 Lakeside Ca. 92040. Any help would be fantastic, not asking for you to buy my home for me just a little help so I can keep it and make my credit better and continue to serve my country that I love. I am dedicated to serving my country and loving my family. Thank you for your concern and possibly your help if you have time for us. Thank you for your time.
Joseph Jordan
San Diego, Ca.

When the hard day gets a little harder, Gin or Bourbon.

Comparisons tend to be an annoyance:
The problem with comparisons are that people in general just see the truth as either white or black, when the truth usually is a sum of greys (a shade of grey) - and the results are just average (the really bad-or good- is rare.)
I mean –for example- the Roman Empire, was it bad or good? in one column, add all the positives - obviously based on real facts, not merely opinions- (example; cultural and economical advances thanks to what is called “Roman Peace”, etc) in other column, add all the negatives (like domination, slavery, disrespect for non-Romans, etc), make one for each year (since reality can be changeable with each passing year), and in the end make a comparison with reality (in this case it would be with history. Now, If I was the analysed, the subject of comparison would be the opinions of a third party), obviously this is not a exact science (yet) but an average helps, you understand.
In my analysis (of technical and social facts) of MS; my results are simple: Ms it’s (oh, surprise) negative in average, but the interesting is that if Ms did not exist, technical advance would’ve been slower, but the social ramifications would’ve been more positive – therefore, MS not existing would have been better for humanity in average.

Sorry, I just read Jordan's comment, and I'm asking
Joe to erase my comment so as to facilitate the reading of his comment.
Thanks.

Joseph Jordan :
I would suggest you would do better by contacting the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, than appealing to Bill on this site. Very much doubts that Bill or for that matter even Steve Ballmer reads these posts. The foundation does provide money for research and help to some countries in Africa, but I don't know if they do anything for those in this country.

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/default.htm

Remember that Bill did nothing for the school headmaster in Russia accused of Piratacy, when he could have intervened and helped him, so to appeal to him personally is probably a waste of time.

Marco;
I suggest that you reconsider your request to erase your comment, as your comment is germane to this discussion. Furthermore, your keen incite is well worth the read. I have enjoyed your posts.

William Gates and Steve Jobs would probably spent most of his time rehershal for any TBC (Technology, Business, Company) questions. I would ask something a little bit personal like how do they define success? are they most happy when working? and what are their future visions for humanity? it's time to look them as human and not some company's CEO (with huge values of shares i believe). I truly believe that Microsoft and Apple wins their current value fair and square. Their outreaching influence is simply because our society and corporations are plagued with ignorance and lack of visions. You can't hate successful people for being successful. They have the same genetic code as you are. The questions is do you have what it takes to be successful? or just spend your days whining why others are far more successful than you are?

Gabriel dude man ... learn some grammar, for the sake of God!

Nice remark on ignorance and lack of vision

Esteemed Gabriel:
Some time ago I wrote :
I think that nobody in this forum resents either microsoft's success or money (nobody for example resents Google's success -on average-) what people resent is the "how", the lack of fair play, the manipulation ,the monopoly, the domineering attitude, the arrogance, the lack of scruples (and the lack of quality too.)
I resent the opportunity missed; 10, 5 years ago MS 3$ suite was sincere, positive, now it merely is opportunist, egoist and negative.
When you are the "King of the Hill" you got duties, Ms forgot it.
Leaving aside the second paragraph, (MS 3$)the whole thing is applicable, just change MS for Mr Gates.

Marco,
How well you write when you say "I think that nobody in this forum resents either Microsoft's success or money (nobody for example resents Google's success -on average-) what people resent is the "how", the lack of fair play, the manipulation ,the monopoly, the domineering attitude, the arrogance, the lack of scruples (and the lack of quality too.)"

In one well worded sentence you have summed up my feelings about MS.

The USA is all about Capitalism and the free market, MS embodies the first one only.

You are correct Chips :"The USA is all about Capitalism and the free market, MS embodies the first one only.". I like USA (on AVERAGE.)I dislike how MS discredits the word capitalism and the free market's values (and yes, I acknowledge that capitalism is a not perfect system.) One more for the "negatives" column of political cost (Due to Ms's attitude, there's an erroneous perception about capitalism.)

Hi Bill and Steve : How do we get eliminate Joe ?

Here's another example of the high cost of Microsoft computing...

Say you're in the market for a new laptop. You go to Dell Canada and choose the Inspiron 6400 with Core 2 Duo processor for $1,109 CDN. This baby has 2GB of memory and 80GB hard drive. It also has 256MB ATI X1400 graphics. The laptop comes with Vista Home Premium.

But because this laptop is a mobile device (vulnerable to theft) and it will contain sensitive data, you want the best security features. In particular, you want BitLocker drive encryption (in case of theft, no one can access your precious data). However, this feature is only available in the Vista Ultimate edition. For this, Dell charges an extra $200.

WTF! Suddenly, you're forking out an extra 20 percent for a feature that damn well should have been included in the Home Premium edition.

Sooner or later, a similar drive encryption feature will be available for both Mac OS X and Linux. And I can promise you right now, they won't charge an extra premium for this feature.

So tell me again how Microsoft makes PC computing cheaper for all of us...

From Chinatown (1974), starring Jack Nicholson:

Jake Gittes: I just want to know what you're worth. Over ten million?
Noah Cross: Oh my, yes.
Jake Gittes: Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford?
Noah Cross: The future, Mr. Gittes, the future.

To Mr. Noah Cross, er, I mean Mr. Bill Gates, why won't you take it easy on us poor consumers and stop gouging us? How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford?

How much money does Microsoft really need to hoard?

Very interesting point Richard (and a very nice quote too).Generally the most sincere response would be POWER and more politic POWER (it produces an effect like drugs for a few and according to foul-talkers like Viagra for some old men.)

Did You Agree When Ballmer Say Fu@# the Government?

I still remember attending an annual MS employee convention for sales and consulting personnel and being shocked to hear keynote speaker Steve Ballmer leading twenty thousand people in a chant to "Fu@# the government, Fu@# the DOJ, Fu@# Janet Reno - we will pay their G#@ damn fines". While thiis may seem far-fetched to most sane people, this is what twenty thousand sales and consulting personnel (all employees of MS) from around the world cheered for.

Were you entertained by this Mr. Gates ?

--Doug Hettinger

Did You Agree When Ballmer Chanted Fu@# the Government w a Large Crowd?

I still remember attending an annual MS employee convention for sales and consulting personnel and being shocked to hear keynote speaker Steve Ballmer leading twenty thousand people in a chant to "Fu@# the government, Fu@# the DOJ, Fu@# Janet Reno - we will pay their G#@ damn fines". While thiis may seem far-fetched to most sane people, this is what twenty thousand sales and consulting personnel (all employees of MS) from around the world cheered for.

Were you entertained by this Mr. Gates ?

--Doug Hettinger

Steve J + Bill G,

1. Why after 25 years, can't you just make a secure operating system that "just operates your system" and "just works"? (leave the feature set to third party developers!!!)

2. How many useless features can you cram onto a DVD before we need to upgrade to blu-ray?

3. Why exactly do I need to waste CPU cycles on having a translucent menubar/taskbar?

Unlike pre-schoolers, I don't drool over your glowing buttons, glass effects and core animation repetitively stating how "this is super cool!".

Steve - thanks for 64bit "top to bottom" computing, it'll definitely increase my productivity.
-nuff said.

.I have 2 xboxes a normal one, it has a bad cd rom. It has the Phillips piece of garbage, that fails to read disks, this phillips has a weak laser. I've been told Xbox wanted me to pay them agian for this repair. So I pay twice for 1 xbox? This deserves a class action suit. I did nothing about the first xbox. So I buy a xbox 360, from day one it told me disk is dirty. It was a brand new disk. Now I have to turn rthe xbox360 on and off like 17 times to get it to play the game. Tonight I try to play halo 3. It took only 9 times to turn on and read the disk. The game started, I saw my start point, than all of a sudden I get disk is dirty. MY Halo3 has not been out of the xbox for 3 days, now the disk is scratched with that circular pattern. I call xbox, they want another 110.00 to repair there faulty workmanship. I have over 1700.00 worth of xbox garbage, between my two systems. Should I pay more, to repair there mistake. I think not. Microsoft are thieves.Not to mention my live account expired they tried my credit card, but it was maxed. I go buy a new 60 dollars live card. It will not work till I pay the outstanding 22 bucks on my credit card, no they will not take it off the 60 dollar live card i bought. So now I have a 60 dollar credit I cant use, until I clear up that 22 dollars via my credit card. What a scam. They deserve every class action suit brought against them. I live in Canada, I'm looking into a class action suit myself,for 10 milion dollars. Microsoft will Pay, MothrFucers that they are.