Chapter4: Vendors Are Keeping Too Many Rights

I thought that this cross current was interesting about how large corporations try to stay dominant by keeping other competitors out and having the user buy only their software. I can reflect back to this issue as Microsoft Word and Works fail to save documents with a format that both can read besides rtf format. Saving in Rich Text Format will usually lose some important data/features required for the document. Most computers around campus are installed with Microsoft Word and will only read files that are compatible with it. This is a major problem for freshmen who only have works around exam time because they don't know how to print their papers! On the other side, for programming launguages like java or html, it is universal and can be read through any program that understands the tag that the file is being saved as. This cross current also talks about how you have restrictions on the what you buy. For example it is illegal to make copies of software that you've purchased for back up, but we should retain the right to have a back up copy of it! Also this cross current talks about open-source software and proprietary software. Open source software is freeing your choices and options while properietary software limits you.

1)Microsoft operating systems and office applications dominate the PC software market. what are some advantages and some disadvantages associated with most everyone running the same operating system and applications programs?

The advantages of everyone running the same software programs that everyone else is running is the compatability you have transfering your files onto another computer. It makes it so much easier because you don't have to worry about data being lost whenever you format it to a correct format that another program can read. Also the ability to get technical support from your friends and people who use the program. Also if everyone is using it, it must be a very computer friendly program and easy to use. The disavantage of this would be the compeitition! Letting someone have a monopoly over something is not good because they can controll how much you pay and how often you have to buy it again. It's kind of like saying you have the only marker in the world and it's worth a million bucks but it cost 5 cents to produce. It cost so much because you have the ability to price it at whatever price, because it's the only one and people need it to write on boards. It goes the same way with programs/software. We need programs to run our computers but they can price it as high as they want because they are the only ones who have it.

2)If you were running a large IT operation, which would be more important to you: getting a large discount on the price of the software you were licensing, or having the flexibility to manipulate the same data files with a differnt vendor's software?

I personally would think that having software that has flexibility to manipulate the same data files with differnt vendor's software is more important than buying a cheaper license. Why? because the world is all about communication and if you can't communicate with other(s) well then you might be discontinued from others. Having a cheaper license program is only a good temporary fix, but if you can get a flexible software that manipulates the same data files with differnt vendor's software will save you more money in the long run.