Microsoft Issues..

We intend to open an International forum seeking corporate discussion on the microsoft issues detailed below.
One of the possible outcomes of that forum is splitting Microsoft into two bodies. With strict oversight imposed on an Operating Systems and Languages division.

The issues can be summarized as follows..
Microsoft has become "Too Big to Fail"..
Tens of Millions of businesses depend on microsofts good behavior..  A bad decision from microsoft can destroy their business. We contend that millions of IT manager associated with medium sized business know full-well the disaster that would befall their clients if microsoft "stuffs up"..  In their minds, there is no doubt that microsoft is "too big to fail". (That allegation will be confirmed by the survey.)
With the Banking mega-corporations, we learned the hard way that allowing private corporations to become "Too big to fail" is an absolutely foolish mistake!
Even if the Mega-banks had behaved wisely and prudently - it is still unacceptable to leave that much power in private hands..
There is NOTHING ILLEGAL about private corporations taking enormous risks or making tragic decisions. It is not illegal for them to fail and to bring down everyone who depends on them.
Good Governance and 'hind-sight' simply demands that society does not EVER again allow private bodies to become "Too big to fail". [see more on 'Too big to fail']

Even if microsoft behaves wisely and prudently - it is still unacceptable to leave that much power in private hands.. and, we are alleging that microsoft has NOT behaved wisely and prudently..

As an example, the VS Group members who wrote the VSoft Business System have spent millions of dollars developing a massive business system that was to be freely distributed to tens of thousands of college graduate co-ops world-wide.. The whole project depends on the support of Colleges worldwide - Eg. Graduates in Boston need the support of Colleges in Boston. (the Australian group can't manage those logistics.)
This 15 year project was started in the premium microsoft language of the day (VB3-5-6).  Now, nearing completion, microsoft has withdrawn support for that language, and, as a direct consequence, the colleges - who were originally very enthusiastic - have now withdrawn support.  Microsoft (and the millions of software providers using VB6) agree there is nothing wrong with the software.  Microsoft suggests that they can continue selling it for a few more years..  But the PERCEPTION is that it is no longer viable - and, with microsofts withdrawal of support, customers (and colleges) are justified in rejecting the software.
This is a very cruel decision adversely affecting millions of software developers and as mentioned above, is NOT a "Wise and Prudent" decision.

Millions of software developers have been impacted by this myopic decision. Many have protested and signed petitions - all to no avail. Microsoft is ignoring the plight of this huge sector of their 'wholesaler' base and the perhaps tens of millions of their corporate customers.

The issues in more detail..

It takes (on average)15 years to write the millions of lines of code in a medium sized business system. Yet microsoft does not want to support their development products for 15 years..
Consequently, partway through a 20 year development project, microsoft is withdrawing support for the platform and suggests you re-write the project to suit their next platform!  That would be tolerable if there was a simple upgrade path - but there isn't, the old platform is NOT compatible with the new one!!  A re-write would therefore take years and provide NO improvement to the business system!
To make matters worse, the massive size of the new platform effectively prevents over half the world from downloading it! (see below)

Issue 1 - The VB6 to VB7 compatibility disaster..

Microsoft is withdrawing support for one of the most widely used corporate programming languages on the planet. (affectionately known as VB6 - used by millions of system developers.) They are replacing it with VB(7) but sadly, VB(7) is not compatible with VB6..
There are millions of systems written in VB6 that a million businesses depend on. Many of them with over a million lines of code. The corporate world has invested billions of dollars in VB6 code.
Upgrading a programming language every so often is fine, but obviously there must be a simple upgrade/conversion path. The changes in VB(7) were so dramatic that many massive VB6 programs are not convertible and need to be significantly re-written! - This is absolutely unprecedented in the history of programming! (see **Technical notes** below)

Another stunning problem is the size difference with VB7 (VB.Net)
We are expecting over a million user downloads of the VSoft business system into India. (and maybe 30 million 'just curious' downloads.)
At current Indian download speeds, the VB6 VSoft will download in 15 minutes.. With a VB7 version of VSoft, that time would be 4 hours.. With India's copper lines and noisy telephone exchanges - the regular 'dropouts' would make that size download impossible!
Effectively, microsoft has prevented us from selling to 80% of the worlds small businesses. (At least until the Win.7 OS is widely adopted in those areas in a few years time.  Many of these areas only upgraded to XP a few years ago - They won't upgrade again until their PC dies in 3 to 5 years.)

Issue 2 - The VISTA disaster..

A corporate PC that freezes ('crashes') during a transaction can temporarily shutdown an entire accounts department.
It is standard knowledge that ALL operating systems (not just Microsofts) take 10 years to perfect and will be likely to 'crash' and have compatibility issues for the first 3-5 years.  That is the main reason corporate users should NEVER switch to an operating system less than 4 years old. At the moment (2010), there are NO operating systems available that are at least 4 years old.. XP is being withheld.. Vista is gone.. Win.7 has a few years to go.. This represents a clear breach of duty to corporate users. (Private users don't have hundreds of old custom written applications that they depend on daily - they can safely switch at year 2. Corporate users usually wait for Service Pack 2 or about year 4.)
This 2009 Quote from a PC Supplier..
Most Corporate Users are currently using Windows XP as their operating system (OS) - But, many of them only changed over to XP in 2006 (in its 5th year). Even then, that change over cost large users millions of dollars! All their support technicians needed to re-learn their trade and come to grips with a hundred new bugs and a hundred incompatibilities with drivers and inherited utilities. Most of them are only now, in 2009, able to relax with XP. Obviously, the corporate world should be able to expect another six years of OS stability before they have to go through all that cost and impost again. That would require XP to be sold and supported up till 2015. The withdrawal of XP in 2008 was a stunningly irresponsible decision considering that XP wasn't considered corporately stable (unlikely to crash) until 2007.

An OS that is likely to freeze is only one of the problems..
Many corporations have $100,000 worth of old software that works perfectly and would do so for another 10 years if microsoft would leave well enough alone. However, this "old" software won't work with the new OS!  These corporations can't just "stay with XP" because, as new workstations are required, they are only available with the new OS!

The following warning, issued with the VSoft system, illustrates the problem..
This same warning has been issued with every change of operating system since Win.3.1.
Quote..
VSoft will probably not be compatible with (Windows XX) for a year or two.
Even though VSoft is 100% microsoft, it is based on a thousand microsoft sub-components that may not work properly for several years. With every new OS (operating system) since 3.1 we have had to wait several years before that OS became compatible with VSoft. We never have to modify VSoft, we just wait till it works again. We don't expect Win.XX to be any different.
The fact that MS can take a few years to get a new OS compatible with its own older software components is one of the main reason most medium to large businesses NEVER adopt a new OS before its third year or until Service Pack 2.

The main reason corporations hold back on upgrading is that every new OS "crashes" badly for the first few years - And every time a workstation crashes during a data-transaction, the system administrator needs to be notified (or called in at great expense) It was only a few years ago that XP was considered "stable".
Microsoft has conceded that this is a major problem and is now allowing users to apply new Win.7 licenses to re-installations of XP.
End of quote..

These two issues (two of many) are obviously a case of untrustworthy governance and represents a clear "Systemic Risk" to the business community.

We intend to open an International forum seeking corporate discussion on these issues. Some of the possible outcomes are..
* Forcing microsoft to offer a "Product Recall" on all Vista PCs.. This would include a free upgrade to Win.7 or XP performed by local PC shops at microsofts expense. (If Vista was a Toyota, this would have been done long ago.) Vista users were not given a choice - they were forced to upgrade to a new model that is now widely described as a disaster!
* Splitting Microsoft into two bodies. With strict oversight imposed on the OS & Languages division.
* Nationalizing the ("Too Big to Fail") OS and Languages divisions of Microsoft.
[see more on 'Too big to fail']

**Technical notes**..
Ref.. "The changes in VB(7) were so dramatic that the massive VB6 programs are not convertible and need to be significantly re-written."
"Experts Exchange" has one of the largest collection of VB advisers on the planet. The consensus at Experts Exchange is that projects that utilize the full complexity of VB6 cannot be converted to VB.NET and need to be rewritten.
The greatest incompatibility for us is the loss of the 'GoTo+Return' (GoSub) container. We have tens of thousands of those containers, some that process over 300 variables. 15 years ago, the GoSub was the only way to handle that many variables in a Sub/Function without a global data structure (and back then, those structures had bugs with memory loss.) The standard college teaching then was "If a sub-section of code is only ever called by one procedure, then use a Gosub. Don't make it a Function unless it is called by more than one procedure.
The re-writing of those GoSubs would take several man-years! And for what purpose? NONE of the thousands of functions that this software provides for the user will be improved by this re-write! The users are perfectly happy with it the way it is!
Also, why abandon the GoSub? Every programing language on earth (except microsofts) uses them.

Quote from one large VB6 developer - complaining about the cost of upgrading to VB7..
"The cost of converting and testing seven hundred applications is enormous. At the end of which ruinously expensive process, your business applications do exactly the same – no more or less – than they did before."

Quote from a popular IT magazine..
"Microsoft can really stick it to you when they change the game and you have no alternative. (Or an unattractive one.) Which they did with the move from VB6 to VB7. Here they had a thriving language with millions of users and they made significant changes that broke compatibility. Cries of outrage were heard from around the community. But did it do any good? Not that I’m aware of."

Quote from DevX.com (a site dedicated to software application development)
"(microsofts Mr. Zoufaly) says that a migration (from VB6 to VB7) should progress at an average rate of just 7,000 to 10,000 lines of code per week. Therefore, a 1 million-line VB6 application will take 100 weeks - two years - to upgrade."

Note.. Our 90+ policy articles are all in the 'peer review' stage.. [more..]