Slimberg, what are these fix it utilities that Bill sells? Name ONE of them.

I didnt think so.
You are a moron.

Just face it, Bill Gates is gangstah. You want to be him, you envy him or you would not allow him to anger you so much. Anyone that would pie Billy also has a sexual crush on him and that is an issue you will have to deal with in therapy. The dude took a rinky dink OS he bought from some dumba** and turned it into a friggin empire. You dont get to be the richest man in the world by being a punkass b****. You may be able to buy the pie to throw in bills face, but he could pay to have every bit of the elements that make that type of pie destroyed and also pay to have you genetically converted into a living pie. There are a lot of things I may not like about certain aspects of Microsoft, but you have to admire Billy for what he has achieved.

Ha ha ha ha!

Can I bring something, like maybe a pie? Oops, just noticed I'm not the first with the pie thing. Okay, how about some of Bush's pretzels?

but meating a mega geek in Seattle Washington isn't my idea of a dream vacation or anything.

can i meet his wife?

I already met her. (I gave her herpies)

oh yes,i would like to meet bill and show him how my laptop runs so well with linux (xandros) and my 2- desktops at home (mandriva).And the linux servers and desktops (suse linux) at work.(the servers have been up 289 days without a reboot).

Heh I wasnt trying to be a smart ass. Really it would be interesting to meet Bill Gates. I just cant see geting all excited about it or anything. Now if it was a trip to meat Gates in Hawaii or something that would be a diffrent matter :)

that's right, there's no point to getting so emotional and excited about meeting bill gates.
it is better if he add "meeting bill gates and get a US$5000 worth PC+Software that will crash at most twice a year"

a have a windows 98 first edition that is runing since 1 december 98 and it still running it serves as a telefonic music that is runing mp3 to the phone central. and it never crashed

His wife isn't cute. She's an executive. :(

no sexual solicitation online please. and unlike other escort services you may have encountered online, this contest is to MEET Bill Gates, not MEAT him.

microsoft's turned into mcdonalds. come meet bill mcdonald at your local pc store. microsoft's done it's job of bringing computers to the masses, but it's made a mess, and offering one healthy meal won't fix it. It's now time for some others to clean up their mess.

id take the chance the PIE his a** again...

I'd like to congratulate him for being a brilliant business man, and a great innovator. Too many people criticize Microsoft and Gates for being a monopolist and having a lack of innovation, but the truth is simple--

He's created a business that sells more software than any other business we know. He's created a company with incredible name-brand recognition. He's created a business that is always contributing to the economy and job market.

And although many people claim he's no innovator because most products are "copies" rather than new creative products, I argue that he is an innovator because he takes ideas, makes them better, and markets and bundles them in a way that is useful to a lot of people. I argue that he's an innovator for building a company that is successful.

Failure is not an option for Gates or Microsoft-- where they start to fail, they back out, regroup, and try again with another approach. Most companies fail, and then blame someone else for their failure...

HOW CAN I AM ENTER THE CONTESTS

You can try reading the article again.

This time, try going aAll the way to the end.

I would agree, however he has used illegal means to gain his status which eliminates my ability to respect him as a business man.

I understand that business is ruthless, I make my living in that same world. There are ethical and moral boundries that businesses are required to follow. They have been found guilty of not conducting business within those boundries, so I am forced to conclude that he is not a good business person. Breaking the law is not good business practice, just look at worldcom and enron as examples which are very similar to some of Microsoft's own practices.

Grass roots letters from dead people, intentionally causing compatability problems with their software (DR-DOS), blending seperate products to crush competition (Netscape, REAL, etc), Lying to a grand jury (Bill Gates, Monopoly hearing), releasing a hacked product to "prove" that removing a browser causes the OS to break (monopoly hearings), Sending cereal boxes to your competitors customers implying that your competitor is going out of business (Novell), I Can go on but it's really pointless if you still respect him / them after reading those. ;-)

They can be a good company, and they are headed in the right direction TODAY however, you can't say that he is a good business man. He was in the right place at the right time and had a lot of money following him. ;-)

i wanna pie him cuz he makes products that have faults and mess up specifically so he can markey fix-it utilities...

that ish aint fair.. i hate him for that cuz he knows good and damn well what he's doing

well it'd be very nice if you could manage and create a software that has easily 50,000+ lines of code and make sure there aren't ANY faults in it at all. it's just like using a closet door (well kinda :p) sometimes they work very well, but other times you just wanna kick them down when they won't slide open correctly.

try Mac OS X for example... its a bigger (in data size) OS than windows, has a s***load of more features, and more advanced features... what i'm currently using daily on my powerbook here, there'll be at least another year or so till i'll get anything likewise on my desktop pc, basically when longhorn gets released...

if you really want to make something good, you can... microsoft's stragegy is to make something that works, barely, with a lot of bugs, crashes and whatnot... then a year or three or whatever later, release a new windows which fixes most of the problems in the previous one, but at the same time, introduce a s***load more new features, which have the same kinda bugs, and problems that the other features which were just fixed had previously, forcing everyone to constantly having to buy the latest, just so their machine will crash and ****up slightly less...

i'm not saying Apple are ubergods or anything, just saying their doing a hell of a lot of a better job at creation their OS than Microsoft so far has with windows... the old myth that Macs are just good for graphics, is utterly not true anymore, their great for everything (except .net development or other Windows only crap)... there's equivelents of almost all windows programs for the mac, and normally, the mac program does a better job than the windows one... i hardly EVER touch my pc anymore since i got my powerbook in may last year, i don't need to, my mac just constantly works, and i can do everything on it...

that was my 1st thought... do we get to see him pie'd again? :) MUhahahahahah

I think it's a matter of structure. MS can't totally rectify past mistakes without starting completely over. And since most people want backward-compatibility, it would be more difficult to just start from scratch, especially for such a large number of systems to take into account of.

Hmm, odd... my OS installs work just fine, rarely crash (and even then, only because of hardware fault or through some fault of my own), and never even hiccups despite the fact I reboot monthly at best (only for Windows Update and maintenance including ChkDsk and Defrag)... Sure I have to patch regularly to stay ahead of exploits (which exist for everything these days), but big deal... Automatic Updates saves me the hassle by installing them for me.

On the other hand, I keep my PC virus and spyware free because I am competent enough to read what I'm installing and clicking on when I'm online, and I don't install things from vendors I don't trust (AOL, Real, any form of P2P software), so I get the results I expect.

I think your view is a bit skewed. Microsoft does an excellent job of building OSes. Apple *might* do a slightly better job of eliminating bugs because they develop their OS for a much smaller scale of hardware, which they themselves make. Until Tiger came out there were NOT more features on the mac, on panther there were no more default features than on Windows anything. And in what way does Microsoft force anyone to do anything? I do agree with GoodThings2Life though, My PC has crashed once and it was my fault. I've actually tried to get my pc to crash and it hasnt done much except slow way down. And you can develop .Net on Linux and OSX. Check out www.mono-project.com

Hit the nail on the head with that one.

You are right, but very narrow minded. You cannot dazzle us with this. It is business, dirty as it may be, and is common practice. It was there software, they can do what they want with it. You have the opportunity to either buy it or not.

He has not done anything more than what the car manufacturers did not too long ago. It is what Intel, Zerox, and IBM have been doing for years also. It is what Oil producers are doing and what will continue to happen. Business. Those that make these decisions are making the most money and if these opportunities were to present themselve to you, you would make similar decisions. The only reason you are attacking Gates is because his dirty laundry has been dragged about the media for years. Well, he is still making more money than us all. His products are still on top and some people hate it. Why, because they are not on top.

IMO . . . they make a great product and the internet would be a vast empty space without them. People like yourself would have nothing to complain about(or find another target). There are a majority of sites devoted to either aiding MS or attacking them. If you take these away, you are left with Commercials and Porn.

MS products are found in more businesses and homes worldwide. I hear of the growing popularity of alternative software out there(firefox, linux, apple)but their use of the statistics is and attempt at marketing their product. Though their is a growing use of alternative software, it is funny to hear in these forums that these very same people(who throw stones at MS) have a computer with their software on it. Often 2-3 PC's(some with Linux and with MS) They either are a programmer or technician that is supporting them in some fashion. (hypocritical) MS even makes their software(office suite) for these very same platforms. Why, because the market asks for them.

It doesn't bother me to have to download patches/fixes from their website. It would bother me if they didn't offer it and wanted to charge for them. It is good business practice that makes sense, and they are listening to their customers.

You are entitled to your opinion. All of us are, but stop taking these forums down the road to MS bashing. We all can read and watch the TV News, but will still buy the products they sell. Those that don't are on their own. You can educate them if you will. MS bashing has nothing to do with this story.

I just can't believe all discussions on BetaNews turn out to be MS and non-MS fanboy flames...
I personally rather use Linux or other Open Source Software, but MS Windows is just something you got to have, because the masses use it.

The guy who posted this is working at a pre-k level, excuse his idiocy.

Did you see the bottom line? I'm not bashing them, stating the facts is not bashing. ;-)

removed

fewt . . . I don't know you or wish to debate you or belittle you, but if you read your first and last lines, you will see that it is negative and bashing him. I too, was merely stating the facts and feel though some business decisions will not be liked by everyone, it is still business and done by many. You can't get ahead in this world without stepping on a few toes and landmines.

Stepping on toes and land mines are far different from what was done. Look at Enron and Worldcom as examples of some of the very same things that Microsoft has done.

Illegal activity . . . nothing new. I know what they do and have done. These days, it is just the difference between whom is caught and not. Public humiliation only helps in hiding it better next time. It isn't going to stop.

So, MS, Enron, and Worldcom got their hands slapped. Some went to jail, but did it stop the corruption that is going on - no. Is what MS did the same and Enron and Worldcom - no. Will it stop - no. You take MS way to personally, due to your bias of the software on a different level.

You don't like it and I don't like it, the point I am trying to make is that it is being done . . . by more than just MS/Bill Gates.