Skip to main content

Objectionable lesson in monopolies

This Korean article is a short, sharp lesson in what happens when you allow Microsoft to stealth their way into control of your systems:

According to Naver, the country’s largest portal site, more than 98 percent of its users were using Internet Explorer (IE) as of late last year. However, OneStat, a Dutch web monitoring company, said that almost 20 percent of Internet users in the U.S. and Western Europe are not using IE. More than 15 percent of Internet users in the world are also using software other than IE when using the Internet.

This means that Korea’s dependency on Microsoft is uniquely high. Experts say that this is because functions, such as Internet banking, the online issuance of civil affairs documents, and online games, are not conducted on web browsers other than IE.

Kim Jeong-hyeon, vice president of Apple Korea, said, “When Microsoft announced last year that it would end support for Windows 98, the Korean government had to visit Microsoft’s headquarters and beg for continued support,” criticizing, “If we ignore users of other software, the monopolistic influence and arrogance of Microsoft in the Korean market will be aggravated.”

The government is also aware of the problem. Last June, the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs decided to include “web standardization” in its assessment criteria regarding public organization homepages. That was a measure aimed to make public services, such as the online issuance of civil affairs documents, possible without having to use a certain company’s software.

It hardly needs spelling out, but because certain leaders seem to be unduly thick when it comes to such issues:

If you don’t constantly go out of your way to guard against them leading you by the nose, you will wind up begging at Microsoft’s doorstep too.

Microsoft have become a problem, like cane toads or prickly pear. An individual plant (website or workstation) is not a problem, but taken together, they’re a plague.

I hope that’s clear enough? (-:

Also, count me as another vote for bailing out of the AUS-US FTA. What do we have to do to organise a referendum or whatever?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

new life for an old (FTX) PSU, improved life for one human

the LEDs on this 5m strip happen to emit light centred on a red that does unexpectedly helpful things to (and surprisingly deeply within) a human routinely exposed to it. it has been soldered to a Molex connector, plugged into a TFX power supply from a (retired: the MoBo is cactus) Small Form Factor PC, the assorted PSU connectors (and loose end from the strip) have been taped over. the LED strip cost $10.24 including postage, the rest cost $0, the PSU is running at 12½% of capacity, consumes less power than a laptop plug-pack despite running a fan. trial runs begin today.
Post a Comment
Read more

every-application-is-part-of-a-toolkit at work

I have a LibreOffice Impress slideshow that I wish to turn into a narrated video. 1. export the slideshow as PNG images (if that is partially broken — as at now — at higher resolutions, Export Directly as PDF then use ‘pdftoppm’ (from the poppler-utils package) to do the same). 2. write a small C program (63 lines including comments) to display those images one at a time, writing a config file entry for Imagination (default transition: ‘cross fade’) based on when the image-viewer application (‘display,’ from the GraphicsMagick suite) is closed on each one; run that, read each image aloud, then close each image in turn. 3. run ‘Imagination’ over the config file to produce a silent MP4 video with the correct timings. 4. run ‘Audacity’ to record speech while using ‘SMPlayer’ to display the silent video, then export that recording as a WAV file. 4a. optionally, use ‘TiMIDIty’ to convert a non-copyright-encumbered MIDI tune to WAV, then import that and blend it with the speech (as a quiet b...
1 comment
Read more

boundaries

pushing the actual boundaries of the physical (not extremes, the boundaries themselves) can often remove barriers not otherwise perceived. one can then often resolve an issue itself, rather than merely stonewalling at the physical consequences of the issue.
Post a Comment
Read more