What is #Microsoft actually good at? Going thru their key products, it is clear they don't create new paradigms, they make often buggy implementations of ideas from other people: #BASIC #MSDOS #Windows #Word #Excel #browser #Bing #Cloud #dotnet. One thing they are clearly good is building a #monopoly. So it seems what they are good at is seeing good ideas, "embrace and extend" to control it, then building monopoly profiteering.
@eighthave You're saying his foundation is a tax avoidance scheme that allows him to buy advantage for himself?
@punklawyer I wouldn't say that. I think his foundation has given money to some things that are actually good and useful, like the vaccination campaigns. But at the same time, he's using it as a way to promote things he's invested in. Lots of wealthy people operate this way. His foundation does still operate with monopoly mentality, e.g. their way to run vaccination is the "right way", and the only way which they will fund. Like they work against patent-free vaccines:
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/06/03/bill-gates-almost-single-handedly-derailed-plan-could-have-led-peoples-vaccine
@indyradio I don't have DMs in Mastodon, I choose this instance because it does not have them. Email and Matrix are good.
Many of their products have been good, but have stagnated under the NEETs and H-1Bs they hire these days.
@eighthave I have no love for microsoft, but I would argue that their only actual good product is actually excel.
My personal pet peeve is people using excel when they really shouldn't (which is most of the time), but the flexibility of excel, and how relatively easy it is to learn, it's an impressive piece of software.
@eighthave of course it just started as a ripoff of lotus123
@mvgorcum the spreadsheet started with #VisiCalc, it was the "killer app" that made Apple computers take off at the beginning. Then Lotus 1-2-3 did the same for the IBM PC. Then there was Excel. Sometimes Microsoft makes good software. That is not what makes them so dominant. Their skill at deploying monopoly-building tactics is. Microsoft bought Lotus, for example, while continuing to make Excel.
Now given that this strategy was conceived and driven by #BillGates, I see no way he can be trusted to do anything but the same in any of his endeavors. That is his clear track record over decades. His "charity" work is also driven my #monopoly mentality, and often directly tied to his investments. Like he's investing in #nuclear and giving "charity" money to promote it as a solution to #ClimateChange .