At the very least just tell us how it looks!

Someone deep inside the corporate bowels of Microsoft had to sit at the round table with the 'suits' and convince them that a new Flight program can make money. This would be an insightful person that has seen payware developers still making money on FSX and FS9. I do believe Microsoft is targeting the aftermarket profits. Does that make them the bad guy? Frankly speaking, I think that they have the right to pursue profits and capitalize on software that they paid money to produce. We have the right to to choose otherwise because there are alternatives out there. I hope you all get the beta opportunity and after beta is over come back and tell us what you really think. That way some of us won't feel so hoodwinked and will be more informed before purchasing Flight.

Microsoft has a large market share in operating systems, but they are not a monopoly. Beside Apple/Macintosh, there is a Linux, and AS400, etc.
Use Bing, er, I mean Google, if you want a list. 

There are two sides to the issue though. Microsoft's business tactics to ensure its place, but on the other side is the markets need for standardization. Most businesses use MS Windows and its variants because everyone else does.

If you think if it as part of the infrastructure, businesses and corporations choosing MS just make sense. Just like the plumbing and the electrical in the building, one OS platform is more practical.

If I have specialized plumbing, then all my employee restrooms will have to have customized toilets and sinks. If I choose to have DC electric in my building, every device will have to be specialized, or I buy transformers for everything. If I allow every employee to have different OS's then I need to spend an extra boat load on integration software.

As for the suggestion that every piece of software that they release is buggy, well, that's a matter of opinion.  I used to use MS Money. Was a good little program. Liked it a lot. MS Streets and Trips, and its variant Map Point is a great tool. MS Office is a beast, but its the standard. Even Mac users like it. Personally I use Open Office, because I don't want to pay for Office at home.

But the dirty secret in the software industry is that ALL SOFTWARE has bugs. Old arcade games would crash, or lock up. NASA has had programming bugs on space probes. There are no exceptions.

And sometimes they put off those fixes for later versions all together.

Its a matter of balance between profit and man hours to fix absolutely everything. It cannot be done.


And if MS tried, they would NEVER make money on the MS Flight Sim series, so they would never try in the first place.

BrandonF wrote on Dec 4^th, 2011 at 10:42pm:


I will go away as soon as it will be declared publicly that this forum is a M$-funded site or more or less direct offshoot and it's expressly forbidden to talk against the Big Boss. Up until then, I don't see the reason to go away.


BrandonF wrote on Dec 4^th, 2011 at 10:42pm:


Was I talking about the "goodness" of Flight?

Please. Do. Not. Try. To. Change. The. Subject.


drtomkat wrote on Dec 6^th, 2011 at 8:49am:


Two answers to your two assertions:

1) It's not hate, it's weariness. I am getting thin and all too widespread over M$'s shark market techniques. I just might leave the boat for another if Flight reveals itself to be all it's feared (especially the Apple-inspired closed market part... a blasphemy in other words, and I will not stand around blasphemers).

2) The last thing I want is followers. If I had them, I would feel sorry for myself having to think for a bunch of others as well for myself.


Quote:


And this is the likely excuse we were all waiting it got out. A little like saying that in a hypothetical world of murderers, becoming yourself the TOP murderer is the best way to make things better for all the world and gain the right to go to heaven.

Look, you don't like Microsoft. We get it. I don't think anyone here is trying to convince you to like them. But this site has a fan base that uses this product series. So using every post to bash the publisher gets a little weary. And wild accusations, like being a front for Microsoft, is a little crazy.

As illustration: Why would they use a site as a front that gives away FREE downloads in the form of planes and scenery. This site has done that for years.

If this site was an MS front, some bean counter at MS would have found a way to make uber-bucks off of it several years ago.

Further, why would we have portions of the site that talk about other companies products? See the pages in The Cage. Or a new forum on Flight Gear. And what about IL Sturmovik? You think MS would allow that on their sites?

I know American's are prone to conspiracy theories. Is that a problem over there too?

Quote:


No.

You (as in singular, given I speak to YOU who moved this accusation, and not to OTHERS) do not quite get it, even if you THINK you do. Did you ever hear me talking trash of Windows (Vista aside, which received ALL the success it deserved)? Of Office? Of Whatever Else Have You?

I do not dislike M$, or I would be using Linux right now.

What I dislike, and here the word "dislike" magically becomes an euphemism, is that M$ is, with Flight especially, striving to become one step more Apple-like, with the never denied voices of closed market for add-ons and still no words about freeware.

Apple... now THAT is something for which my hatred is blackest than a politician's heart. No words I know in English nor other language can aptly convey the depth of my loathing for Apple... for what M$ is trying to become like.

Apple I hate. Not M$.

If I talk bad of M$, here and elsewhere, is in my own way to convey that not all M$ are happy at whatever they do and choose. I will NOT become one with the majority, if said majority is allowing for something I despise to happen with a printed smile on their photocopied faces. So I try. I try to desperately discourage M$ to become like the think I hate for real.

When M$ will be like Apple, THEN AND NOT BEFORE, I will hate M$...

And they're really putting themselves behind this wretched intent. And I really am NOT happy with it.

Even if my words are desperate at best and have less than zero chance to succeed moving them to step away from that accursed path... with this attempt at least in the end I WILL be justified to feel hate for something that was good in its own way, and had WANTED DESPERATELY to mimicry THE WORST and become EVEN WORSE.

And, should that happen, I will be not a bit happy in the end, let me tell you.

I still hope, though. A proverb hereabout says that Hope is the last thing to die... I just hope it won't die howling in despair.

And with this I don't want to talk about it anymore.

Any tendancy to try to keep apps/addons 'in house' is a big mistake.  Short term success maybe but will be long term failure once the 'masses' get over the novelty factor ... 

One reason I also avoid Apple. (brilliant in many ways but I never buy into any controlled marketplace product as it restricts choice and is very unhealthy for a society)

Will wait 'n see about the Amazon Kindle .... but they'll bow to pressure as they have good connection with the market.

Let's really ... really .. hope MSFlight does not try to go down the 'in house' route where addons are controlled in any way by them  ...

FS thrived to record breaking levels ONLY because it could be openly and freely added to .. Yes we now live in a different world in many ways ... but the essential is still there ...