Comments on: A Wild and Crazy Monopolist … http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080618/a-wild-and-crazy-monopolist/ by John Paczkowski Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:20:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Mac Beach http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080618/a-wild-and-crazy-monopolist/comment-page-1/#comment-1384 Mac Beach Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:15:47 +0000 http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=2570#comment-1384 Didn't Microsoft make copies of Windows available for about $4 to the OLPC project? I figure that pretty much established the wholesale value of the product. I consider the product downright dangerous, and have no desire to have it running on my home network. There is, of course, value in compatibility. China, Brazil, German, other countries and even the US government (and users) would be well served by *simplified*, published standards for reading and writing Windows and Office file formats. If MS can't be quickly convinced to provide such a standard, the world should (and I think will) move onto something else and products such as Google Docs, or OpenOffice will serve as transitional software. Didn’t Microsoft make copies of Windows available for about $4 to the OLPC project?

I figure that pretty much established the wholesale value of the product.

I consider the product downright dangerous, and have no desire to have it running on my home network.

There is, of course, value in compatibility. China, Brazil, German, other countries and even the US government (and users) would be well served by *simplified*, published standards for reading and writing Windows and Office file formats.

If MS can’t be quickly convinced to provide such a standard, the world should (and I think will) move onto something else and products such as Google Docs, or OpenOffice will serve as transitional software.

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