If you find this article informative and worthwhile, please support my work by donating if you can.

logo    Bill Gates-Knight in Tarnished Armor


Whenever I start my Compaq Presario, I'm greeted with a Windows copyright notice 1981-2001. That means that Microsoft has been working on this operating system for at least 25 years and hasn't gotten it right yet. Shortly after I purchased this computer, I had to start downloading and installing patchesoh, excuse me, service packs. Service Pak 1 was supposed to plug the security holes in my version of Windows XP. Shortly thereafter, I had to download and install Service Pak 2 in order to plug the security holes in Service Pak 1. Now theres Security Pak 3. I downloaded it, but it will not install. The failure message tells me to send a message to support by clicking a displayed link and that a service technician would respond within 48 hours. That message was sent at least 2 weeks ago, but no response has ever arrived. Perhaps this service desk has been offshored to Timbuktu!

So think about it. Microsoft has been making fortunes selling houses with broken windows and un-lockable back doors. Amazing!

I don't know how many employees Microsoft pays, but I know of millions who not only work for free, they pay Microsoft for the privilege. What? Yes, think about it. How much time have you spent downloading and installing patches? Remember, time is money, and Internet access is not free. You see, we are all unpaid Microsoft technicians. Add to this what you have spent buying applications to exterminate the vermin that sneaks through the back doors. No wonder Bill Gates is the richest man in America. I wonder just how rich he would if he had to reimburse all of us for our expenses and pay us just the minimum wage for our time.

What would you do if you went to a clothier and bought a suit or dress for several hundred dollars only to discover later that some of the seams were not sewn tightly. And when you returned it to the store, the clerk handed you a needle and a spool of thread and told you to fix it yourself. Would you smile graciously and say, thank you, or would you be mad as hell? Yet that is exactly what Microsoft does all the time. The soul of Phineas Taylor Barnum is dancing on his grave.

Bill Gates is a phenomenon. He makes the Robber Barons of the nineteenth century and the gangsters of the Roaring Twenties look like veritable Papal saints. He is an unrecognized magician of genius. While sitting in Redmond, he can pull the wool over the eyes of millions of people world-wide. He could probably triple his fortune if he took his act to Las Vegas as a replacement for Siegfried and Roy.

Yet we admire this man. He is role-model for businessmen everywhere. We extol his charity even as he puts his name to the aphorism, philanthropists give away what they should be giving back. Oh, how we love him, and oh, how we hate doing it. (3/3/2005)