Now that’s one you don’t hear much about today. Everyone talks about open source and Microsoft’s participation in that or lack thereof (although speaking of flying pigs, the cross platform agent on OpsMgr 2007 R2 is built using open source Pegasus, so they are trying …).
What seems to be forgotten a lot – and I know I had as well – is the fact that one of Microsoft’s bold initiatives beginning in the 1980s is that their operating systems were not tied to a particular hardware vendor. In fact, if Flight Simulator would run on the hardware vendor’s implementation of DOS, the operating system was said to be Microsoft-compatible. If I want to run Windows today, I can go to any of the hardware vendors that offer it on their systems.
Now, compare that to another popular software (and hardware vendor) these days – Apple. The Mac (and the iPhone and iPod) are proprietary. Apple facilitates all aspects of its hardware, and its operating system is preinstalled on all Macs. Apple exclusively produces the hardware, and chooses internal systems, designs, and prices, although they do use some third party components.
Let’s take that to the realm of phones. Apple markets its iPhone exclusively with AT&T. So unless I use AT&T as my mobile phone carrier – which I don’t not currently – I cannot use an iPhone.
Which leads me to a question: Why does Microsoft get bashed but Apple does not? Is it just because Steve Jobs has a great PR department?
