"Every-body wants to rule the world" - Tears for Fears song, late '80s
I'm sure we've all had fantasies about what we'd do if we ruled the world, if we really ran everything around here. We could live in a fancy house and drive that Mercedes SL600 we always wanted ... have our private chef ... oh, how fun and glorious life would be.
But you don't need to rule the world to do those things, you don't need to be the richest person or even the 500th richest person to do that. And to be the very richest person of all, Bill Gates, you have to have a very special goal in mind.
Windows for Everything.
Windows for big companies, Windows for single individuals, Toaster Windows, Coffee Maker Windows, Windows for Cars and Windows for Airplanes. Yes, Gates' vision is really that grand, his scope that immense.
Pretty soon, the only way you'll be able to escape Windows is if you're dead.
And, considering Windows' reliability, isn't that just a little terrifying?
In the beginning, nobody would write Windows programs anyway.
As a result, Microsoft had to write them, just as the first Macintosh software was created by Apple.
Once people started writing software for Windows, it was discovered that there were some undocumented system calls and routines that were regularly used by Microsoft programmers, but that were not broadcast to the outside world.
In theory, undocumented calls make sense; Microsoft might want to experiment with a feature without committing yourself to a situation where thousands of developers around the world would count on its continued existance.
In practice, credible allegations were made by many developers that use of these calls gave Microsoft programmers a significant competitive advantages, making their software run smoother and faster than competitors'.
Books such as 'Undocumented Windows' and 'Undocumented DOS' explore this complaint in depth, and explain the controversial calls in detail. As a result, the advantage to Microsoft developers has been reduced, but the bitterness this has left in some people's mouths lingers on.
Microsoft has claimed that a "chinese wall" has been erected between members of different development teams, making it impossible for in-house developers to take advantage of the undocumented calls. I find this impossible to believe, especially since the undocumented calls have clearly been used by Microsoft's programmers in applications like Word or Excel.
There doesn't seem to be much question that people who have been steeped in the Windows culture are going to be best at programming under Windows. As a result, Microsoft's near monopoly on large Windows software packages is likely to continue.
Up until about six months ago, Microsoft gave extremely high quantity discounts to computer makers who would put DOS and Windows on every machine they sold, even if (say) OS/2 or Linux was going to be put on it. This made it easy to determine how many DOS licenses would be needed; just count the machines as they went out the door. However, it also gave dealers a hefty incentive not to load any other operating system on their machines.
Microsoft has supposedly discontinued this practice after a consent decree from the Justice Department, but I believe they still give significant quantity discounts. Same practice, different name?
Next section: What can be done to resist the monopoly?