Is Apple eviler than Microsoft?

I'm not sure I ever heard anyone describe behavior attributed to Microsoft that could really be called 'evil'.


Microsoft and Nickleback have one thing in common: all the cool kids 'hate' them.

 

I listened to it just a few days back - at the very least it is a good way to spend an hour. I have a love/hate relationship with This American Life - in my opinion it produces both the best and worst radio - a show is either amazing or terrible, not much else.

On a semi-related note - Ira Glass was on this week's Savage Love as a co-host - it was a real hoot to hear a completely different side of him.

As to your question about Apple v. Microsoft - I do not think so - I think that just about any big corporation these days are pulling the same sort of shady thing - if you manufacture anything it is likely done in the same sort of factories under similar conditions. The only difference is how successful and how public the products are on the consumer side, something that Apple is just spot-on with these days.

 

It's outrageous to treat Apple as the bandit here. Nearly every manufactured product you own was built under conditions such as that in China.

Why should we demand different of Apple than Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, Dell, HP, and a looooong list of others?

 

They have a long history of using their stranglehold on DOS and Windows to crush the competition - that is why the Justice Dept got so involved with them. Back to the first big thing that Microsoft did - PC-DOS - there are stories that there was a whole lot of double dealing.

Microsoft has a long history of being a complete corporate bully - the difference is that they were screwing over companies and not consumers.

Go back to the 90's and I would bet that there are a whole lot of people who described Microsoft as evil.

 

Yeah--- that's true.

Many of the 'Microsoft sucks' comments have their roots in the same sort of thing: complaints about behaviors that nearly every that can afford it company engages in.

I guess the one thing in this case is that Apple is successful enough that they have whole factory towns that are dedicated to their stuff specifically. Makes it easier to point at the problem when you put it all in one gated community.

 

Whats even more important... Foxcon, probably the worst abuser out there, produces 90% of the electronics we use. Simply put, companies are forced to go with them for a few reasons. First, they have the ability/knowledge/skill that's needed. Second, they have the manpower that's needed. Third, they have amazing turnaround time when needed (there's a story out there about when Apple switched the first iPhone from a plastic face to a glass face... they got the manufacturing plants turned around in just a few days, and were at full production capability in two weeks. That's incredible turn around for a huge change. You couldn't see something like that here in the US.

All that said, it does appear that Apple is trying to improve conditions over there, although it's slow. Foxcon knows there's no one else Apple can switch to overnight, so Apple can't really force Foxcon into changing. That said, Apple has started branching out to other manufacturers, and hopefully, given time, Foxcon's competition will grow to the point that companies can switch when needed, and then conditions can really start to improve. Until then, there's nothing our American companies can do.

 

I built an IT career during the 90s. I'm aware of the things people said about Microsoft. However, I really feel like most of the things attributed to Microsoft fall well short of 'evil'. And those that fall closer to 'evil' are behaviors that can be attributed to just about any company of that size, including Apple.

And if you recall the results of the DOJ involvement the end result was... pretty much nothing of significance.

Lots of people call Microsoft 'evil' and lots of people say Nickleback doesn't play music. But just because people say it doesn't make it true.

 

I take it you've never actually used any Microsoft products?

 

I'm afraid that joke was worn out in the 90s.

 

It depends on what you call "Evil."
I listen to TAL regularly, when I'm not engrossed in some novel I catch many of the NPR/PRI podcasts. I'll give the podcast a tumble sometime.

I'm not a really bid fan of Apple products...in fact I've owned exactly one. Somebody gave me an i-thingy (Nanno IIRC) a while back, and since it wouldn't play nice with WMA I had no use for it. I was forced to use some Mac machines back when the government signed all of my paychecks, and lets just say that this made me a dedicated Linux driver for a while.
Finally...I was forced to choose between another i-thing and a droid when I graduated to slate phones. Hmmmmm.....lemme think about this.....

OK, so that's my history with Apples. There's NO DOUBT that they've been foundational in the development of several industries. Podcasts are proof of that. So are slate phones and tablets. However (comma!) this coolness comes at a price. You have to do things Apples way, or you have to wait for the technologies to trickle down to the rest of the industry.

I came across a stat in a NYT article (not a trusted source to be sure) where Apple wrings more profit per employee than any other major corporation in the world. By a lot.
To be sure, they're one of the most profitable, if not THE most profitable companies on the planet.
Does this make them evil???
I guess that depends on how they go about it. If you have a bunch of Apple stock, or you're a devotee of technological progress maybe they're not.
If you're a low skilled, uneducated worker in China and you have the choice of working a 12-hour shift for very low wages or not eating or sleeping indoors, then they might not be too evil either. After all...many of today's Apple employees will crank out kids that take advantage of being able to go to school, and better themselves and their communities.
That's a lot easier to do when you're employed---even at humble wages.

I find it highly amusing that many of the 'anit-establishment' Wall Street haters out there wouldn't drive a PC or a Droid unless you held a gun to their heads, but hey.....
I have no axe to grind with Apple, even if I choose to buy 'lesser' products.

Apple is successful......just like Microsoft was.

 

Lets keep in mind that a majority of those workers in China aren't Apple employees. They're employed by Foxcon and other manufacturers who act as suppliers for Apple.

 

This becomes a fragile argument. If a company knowingly contracts with supplier, are they or are they not responsible for the conduct of that supplier? Volumes have been written on similar issues.

Tom

 

The following is something that I remembered from way back when - I just googled it and pasted it below - now that Gates has left Microsoft and become a philanthropist and dropped largely out of the public eye perhaps public opinion had changed, but Gates was a pretty hated guy back when he was in charge - same would go double for Balmer when he was #2 - I think now that pity and annoyance has outweighed the hatred for him though.

The real name of "the" Bill Gates is William Henry Gates III. Nowadays he is known as Bill Gates (III), where "III" means the order of third (3rd.)
By converting the letters of his current name to the ASCII-values and adding his (III), you get the following:

B 66
I 73
L 76
L 76
G 71
A 65
T 84
E 69
S 83
+ 3
--------------
666 !!
Some might ask, "How did Bill Gates get so powerful?" Coincidence? Or just the beginning of mankind's ultimate and total enslavement???

Before you decide, consider the following:

M S - D O S 6 . 2 1
77+83+45+68+79+83+32+54+46+50+49 = 666

W I N D O W S 9 5
87+73+78+68+79+87+83+57+53+1 = 666
Coincidence? You decide...

 

Microsoft is evil, not because of their manufacturing or anti-competitiveness, which all big companies do, but because they choose to market sub-standard software full of security holes which most computer users are not savvy enough to close up with the myriad necessary third-party anti-everything programs, leading to millions of computers captured and tied to bot-nets, distributing spam and enabling all sorts of computer crime.

Were it not for Microsoft, the internet would be a much safer place than it is.

As for the exploitation of Chinese (and other third-world) labor, this only happens because Americans prefer to buy cheap imports over American-made products. If Americans gave a damn about third-world working conditions and refused to buy cheap imports, there would be far fewer sweatshops in China. (Whether that would be good or bad for the Chinese workers is another matter.)

 

American corporation sponsored jobs outside the US is not evil per se, if the workers have a choice whether to take the work. Examples of evil work are the quasi-slave banana plantations of Dole in the Phillipines, or the Belgian Rubber plantations of the 19th century where they cut of the hands of people who refused to climb the trees.

Much closer to evil are the US corps who set up factories outside the US in order to pollute without hindrance. The US auto manufacturers in Mexico are a good example.

---
As for MS, it was a scumbag company because it abused its monopoly position for decades. Personal computing became cheap enough for poor people, but the cost was stifled innovation and poor quality. Is that a reasonable trade-off ? I'd say yes if you are poor, and no if you have money to buy a superior product but cannot because of MS.

 

In the 1990's, if you worked really hard and created really innovative new software of any kind, Microsoft would copy it and run you out of business. Period.

 

Funny timing - this ad was released by Microsoft in the last couple of days - the gist of it is that their privacy policies are less intrusive than Google's. Not really evil, more like the negative/attack ads going on in the current political race.

 

If that isn't the truth. If they couldn't copy outright, they would form a partnership with you until they had all of your intellectual property in-house. After that, they would end the partnership and introduce their own product using the acquired IP. Been there, done that.

Tom