Microsoft: The Best in the Business Essay -- Computers Software Techno

Microsoft: The Best in the Business As humans evolved over thousands of years, we continue to develop tools and technologies that help us thrive. Without the ability to try new ideas that can and do lead to new technologies, our existence would have dwindled long ago. The minute new technologies are discovered and incorporated into the lives of the general public, people are already attempting to improve them. For example, scientists took the wheel and combined it with a open-top container, producing the cart. Add an engine and a car is invented, then add a radio, AC, and leather seats and, voila, the modern car is formed. Most companies that create a product that effectively join two technologies are given high approval ratings from society in the form of sales. However, in our newest field of technology, computers, some companies have reputations of being "evil" and "unethical" for combining two or more computer technologies. These companies have been creating and buying software that makes their product easier to use by the average user. This seems like a good and ethical business practice, but many feel that companies that are doing this, like Microsoft, are unfairly combining a separate software technology with their original product, which practically forces the average user to use it. Is it wrong for Microsoft to make software that combines two or more different software technologies that either forces or highly suggests to its customers, who are often times computer illiterate, to use the combined piece of software over another? What if Microsoft's goal is to help consumers with complicated computing: what about their practices are unethical or wrong? Could the method of morphing technologies be an unethical proc... ... May 10th 2001 <http://home.att.net/~wbazzini/MS-Ethics.html> IEEE-CS/ACM "Software Engineering code of ethics and professional practice" Posted 1999 <http://www.computer.org/tab/seprof/code.htm> Adam D. Thierer Heritage Foundadion "The Department of Justice's Unjustifiable Inquisition of Microsoft" Posted November 12, 1997 <http://www.heritage.org/library/categories/regulation/fyi162.html> The Ayn Rand Institute "The Microsoft Defense Site" Posted October 26 1998 <http://microsoft.aynrand.org/> 2) 6)Ralph Nader and James Love, le Monde Diplomatique "What to do about Microsoft" November 1997 <http://mondediplo.com/1997/11/nader.html> 1) Microsoft Corp. "What we do" January 29 2002 <http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/> 4) Dell Corp. "Mission Statement" 1999-2002 <http://www.dell.com/us/en/gen/corporate/vision_mission.htm>