How To Create Microsoft's AMD?
from the open-the-APIs dept
A good article at Salon pointing out that the AMD/Intel competition has helped to drive innovation and keep Intel honest. So, is there any way to take that lesson and use it in the arguments against Microsoft? The point Scott Rosenberg makes is that the reason AMD can compete with Intel is that (basically) stuff that works with one, works on the other as well. Using that as the basis, then it suggests that the court should force Microsoft to open up the Windows API, which would create a similar situation in operating systems, and take away some of Microsoft's ability to lock in the customer.
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If only it were that easy...
AMD isn't the only one who has done this, there are software emulators and there were as many as 6-7 processor vendors at one point (Rise, Transmeta, Cyrix, National Semi, to name a few)
For Microsoft, its usually just one part of whole that corporations compete with... Netscape for the browser, Java for the development environment, OpenGL competed against DirectX until DirectX finally caught up.
Brandon
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This is a big load of crap
I'm puzzled by people who say Microsoft needs to "open" their API. The damn thing is as open as it can be. What more do they want, the actual source code itself? If the Windows API were a secret, there would be no software for Windows.
And it's not as if there aren't companies striving to be the AMD to Microsoft's Intel. Lindows is one that's been in the news recently. They claim to have built a fairly complete, original implementation of the Windows APIs that is capable of running most Windows applications under a Linux kernel. WINE is an open-source project that does the same thing.
This Salon article disappoints me. The author apparently did very little actual research, relying instead on hearsay and biased opinion.
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