Windows XP: The big lie

In response to the June 24 column by News.com's Joe Wilcox, "Win XP: To upgrade or not to upgrade?":

Is anyone in the tech press listening to themselves? If the title of the piece didn't have "Win XP" in the title, I'd think Joe Wilcox was talking about the second coming. Microsoft is bundling (yet again) utilities that we do not need integrated into the operating system (personal firewall, CD-R software) and calling it "what the consumer wants."

Who is this mysterious consumer, and why can't normal consumers who are at least a little technical answer Microsoft's mysterious "surveys"? The truth is, most people have already bought third-party utilities to do the things the OS should not do. Why are we being forced to buy an operating system that contains extras we cannot remove? (Remember Windows Moviemaker? It takes some work to get that little piece of junk uninstalled.)

Isn't Microsoft fighting for its corporate life in federal appeals court for just the things we are seeing in XP? Windows Media Player is trying to force the average user off the MP3 format so Microsoft can get yet more monopolistic, closed standards. If you don't think that is what they are doing, you are either not paying attention or you want less of a choice.

Either way, you are playing right into the hands of Bill Gates.

Frankly, XP's draconian licensing, coupled with yet more bundling, makes Microsoft a company I do not want to support. I am not a Linux zealot who believes Microsoft should die and disappear, but I do not think abuse of monopoly power right under the nose of the government while the company is appealing the ruling stating it is a monopoly is very ethical.

As for subscriptions, I am opposed to the operating system being a subscription. It should not fall under the umbrella of "delivered services," as Microsoft would lead you to believe. If Bill Gates wants to try to charge for Office once a year or once a session, be my guest. I will switch to StarOffice faster than Steve Ballmer can say "open source is a cancer."

You will be surprised come fall when XP doesn't fly off the shelf, just like Office XP is gathering dust.

James F. Taylor Jr.
Greenville, Texas