I swear to tell the truth,

[Alex Snow]

Actually, I find your posts very interesting.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cecil H. Whitley" <cwhitley at ec.rr.com>
To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 9:10 AM
Subject: Re: I swear to tell the truth,


> Okay, my blood pressure is back down and my brain has re-engaged.  If you
> will bear with me for one more post I will let the subject go.  I feel it
> necessary to clear up the record and post what M.S. has done for me.
>
> 1.  Active-x
> With this lovely extension to web content M.S. has made it possible for me
> to spread viruses simply by having preview message turned on in outlook
> (shouldn't that be look out?).  Simply by cursoring down or up to an
> specially constructed email it will automatically launch it's code and
> possibly send to all entries in my addressbook.
>
> 2.  M.S. java vm
> No swing library.  No true accessibility.  Most of the "text" applets
> somehow write directly to the screen and "clickable" areas are not
reported
> any differently than just plain text, if it can be called that.
> 3.  M.S. proxy
> Where do I start in describing this wonderfull product?  GUI based
> configuration and control.  It's MICROSOFT which means you get all the
> support you buy.  Lots of third-party stuff you can buy to address it's
> limitations.  Contrast with squid, free and persons who make their living
> selling support take the time to answer your questions at no charge, it's
> configured with a text file and reports it's health through a webpage that
> uses very standard html.
> 4.  Policy editor
> CPU goes critical (or something) acts as if I poured concrete into the
case.
> Makes one very good boat anchor.
> 5.  MMC (Microsoft management console)
> Not too bad, makes heavy use of msaa (sure it does), uses standard
controls
> (sure it does).  It is usable, but that doesn't make it pleasant.
> 6.  Undocumented interfaces, standards and other misc.
> For years M.S. used undocumented interfaces in order to implement fancier
> appearance for it's products than was available to other companies through
> the "standard" interfaces.  The most notable effect of this was to make
> developers use to making "custom" methods of presentation so that they
could
> compete appearance wise with M.S. products.  In fact, for many years the
> only thing standard about M.S. standards was that M.S. did not use them.
> This practice appears to be continuing.
> 7.  M.S. TTS
> Awesome!  They certainly broke the budget on this one!  It has speech
> quality almost as good as my old echo pc.  Did they find a copy of
monologue
> (no offense to monologue's programmer intended) on a 5 1/4" diskette
> somewhere and dust it off and include it?
> 8.  Business practices
> In a word, monopolistic.  If the screen reader market was worth their
notice
> freedom scientific and others would be singing a lot different tune.
> Remember Netscape?  Soon it will be remember Real Networks?  Driving your
> competition out of business really spurs inovation, they have to
inovatively
> create new employment for themselves.  If you're in a market segment that
> isn't really profitable, such as access technology they'll let you
continue
> doing business unharrassed, as long as you sing their tune.  Why should
they
> spend their resources if they can throw an api or two your way and have
you
> run with it from there so that they can claim compliance with laws such as
> section 508?  Well, we developed MSAA, it's not our fault that it hasn't
> caught on.....  Oh, and one question, if you're doing things just like
other
> access developers, where's the inovation, where's the potential for growth
> and improvement, and finally what truly distinguishes your product from
your
> competition's?  The keys you press to get a particular result?
>
> I would like to thank the list for allowing me this opportunity to rant.
I
> do apologize, I realize this post has nothing to do with either speakup or
> linux in general and is therefore a waste of resources better spent for
> their original purpose.
>
> Once again, Thanks.
>
> Cecil H. Whitley
>
>
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