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Thursday 13 November 2008

Stupid, inane and utterly purile.

Is how I see articles such as this from the BBC. No-one can argue with the fact that the Microsoft family of operating systems dominate the desktop but do we really need the near on worshiping proffered in that article? The BBC, in that article, has clearly moved from a review to advertisment in clear breech of their own ethics standards. I make no bones about the fact that I pimp a Linux based operating system at any and all times to anyone willing to listen so when I read that link the red light in my head came on. It is so wrong on so many levels is ceases to be funny how the BBC continually cow-tow to Microsoft at every opertunity as well as spending unknown millions of the U.K. peoples monies ponied up via the license fee on Microsoft operating systems when instead they could save millions by using an alternative like a Linux or UNIX based operating system.

When reading any article on the BBC that has any level of technological bent one can be assured of a giggle or two as the wrter clearly has no real clue about that which he/she is writing about. Many, almost classical, gems have come via the keyboard of the BBC's computer technology writers. The gems may go down well with your average Joe and Jane but for us who are more technologically gifted (having been around computers since 1974 and having had my own at home since 1980 I have picked up a few things like the correct terminology to use. This level of competence utterly fails as far as the vast majority of BBC technology writers go). Without fail, time and time again the authors show their complete lack of technological expertise. How these people get jobs on such a high profile web based news outlet only those who employ them really know. For such as myself I cannot figure it out.

In that article above there is no mention of how Microsoft the company is a tried and convicted criminal. Nor how Microsoft effectively stole their first release of MSDOS all those years ago. Nor how they reneged on deal after deal in their quest for desktop domination. Nor how release after release of each and every one of their operating systems has contained bits and pieces that where assimilated, reworked, then spat out to become part of the Microsoft operating system of the time. Nor how they made deals with hardware manufactures to ensure that Microsoft Windows  demanded ever better  computers on which it ran. Thereby giving both the hardware manufacturers and Microsoft much revenue in clear breech of anti-competitive laws around the world. Microsoft has been proven to have  done much harm during their tenure as the premier operating system creator. Microsoft have  done much wrong and broken many laws around the world over the last 15 or so years and in many parts of the world are now paying the price for those wrongdoings. In some parts of the world Microsoft is losing its formerly powerful grip on the desktop as Goverment after Goverment the world over tells their people to use alternatives such as a Linux based operating system and within the walls of power in those countries there too they are using a Linux based operating system.

None of that was mentioned in that article though. Oh no. Not a word of it as the BBC once again laid its belly bare for all to see as Microsoft tickled its soft underside.

Being as I am a staunch advocate of free standards and the Linux based operating system I see Microsoft as the daemon company that it is. Is it really too much to ask that the BBC editors do the same or at the very least tell it like it is. All the information about Microsoft practases is out there on the Internet so once again the BBC has no excuses. In this, and many other instances, the BBC has shown who is the tail and who is the dog.

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