Robert X. Cringely’s latest column is another anti-Microsoft diatribe. I’m no Microsoft fan, but I find Cringely’s conjectures to be increasingly irritating. In the column, he asserts that every feature in Windows must increase Windows’ market share. That seems highly unlikely to me. He then goes on to say that the reason Microsoft is providing access to raw sockets in Windows XP is so that they can increase market share. Also unlikely. Certainly he doesn’t provide any sound reasoning explaining why access to raw sockets will result in an increase in Microsoft’s market share. He then spins a crazed theory about Microsoft intentionally flooding the market with insecure TPC/IP stacks so that they can justifiably replace TCP/IP with their own, proprietary protocol. Judging from the column, I don’t think he even understands what raw sockets access is, or that for all the power Microsoft has in the market, they don’t have the power to force everyone to use a new protocol. And when does Microsoft plan to implement this scheme, before or after they relocate to another country (to look back on another Cringely prediction)? I’m beginning to think that Robert X. Cringely and Wayne Green need to get together to compare notes.