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I used to work for SGI, twice. I was with them during their 2 biggest shakeups in their history, in the late 90's. Even though everybody new that the ship was sinking people enjoyed working there. I'm not saying they treated people great, but better than most.

They have since shut down their office in Calgary and their ship is still sinking. But people still enjoy working there.

Maybe that's their problem. I recommend they treat people like crap to sell more hardware.

It is off-topic but Walmart exercises a very significant amount of pressure on the record/movie industries to release edited versions. Remember that Walmart is the largest company in the US (by revenue) and the biggest music retailer. They are the reason that the music industry releases two of every sensitive album. While they don't prevent Freedom of Speech they do their best to inhibit it.

Yep its number 175 according to this

People hate Microsoft

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. etc., etc. You're wrong.

Red Hat is one of the fastest growing companies in America

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Sorry to make you look so incredibly wrong, but you posted first. I just couldn't let that fly. By the way, what planet do you live on, exactly?

People hate Microsoft

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. etc., etc. You're wrong.

Red Hat is one of the fastest growing companies in America

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Sorry to make you look so incredibly wrong, but you posted first. I just couldn't let that fly. By the way, what planet do you live on, exactly?

People hate Microsoft

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. etc., etc. You're wrong.

Red Hat is one of the fastest growing companies in America

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Sorry to make you look so incredibly wrong, but you posted first. I just couldn't let that fly. By the way, what planet do you live on, exactly?

Back the actual question, nobody is claiming that 19 year olds are subhuman. The claim is that they are inexperienced. You are right that "young" and "inexperienced" are non-synonymous. But one is a proper subset of the other, pretty much by definition.

Saying young people are inexperienced isn't maligning their character. It is akin to saying black people are poor. An unfortunate and to-be-mended, but nonetheless entirely factual circumstance.

Oprah is money. Fortune magazine says of O that it's "by some measures the most successful magazine startup ever" (source).

The cases you cite are interesting, but Oprah is money. She knows her audience and her business--or I am grossly misinformed.

Instead, if we take the for example the 500 biggest companies in the world - I would like to get a hunch on: what is their view on Open Source, what Open source related activities do they have going on (are they researching, do they have existing projects based on open source), what other companies are these activities linked to.

Forbid American Corporations?

What a stupid idea. This is just the sort of failed concept that was tried with all other sorts of technologies, be it NC Lathes (sold to the Russians by Toshiba), strong crypto (is the US the only country with good mathematicians) or chemical weapons technologies (sold to Iraq by German companies).

With the Chinese graduating twice as many engineers as the US, what makes you think they can't do this themselves??

'Anything you can make for $100, we can make for $40,'

I heard Olin King, former CEO of SCI Systems, Inc., say something to that effect about 25 years ago - and they made it to the Fortune 500 on just that kind of attitude.

Unfortunately, there were no karaoke hostesses in Huntsville, AL., at that time.

Read the Fortune article here.

Thanks, George Bush!

Yes, and no.

It's hard to argue that something sucks when it's free and being compared to something that's not free.

However, I'd use photoshop anyday over gimp, based on the interface alone, without even going into the capabilities.
The photoshop palette windows (or whatever they're called) are fantastic, easy to use, useful. The menu system isn't convoluted. It looks like the rest of the operating system. It looks like one app, with a common workspace.
Gimp - it looks like a bad port of a worse linux interface. Come on, use windows menus and styles. It doesn't seem like one application, with all of the different windows, most of which are useless. Don't tell me it's a Linux app, if you want it to be better than photoshop, we have to go with the app that uses the same OS as photoshop.

Then there's the text editing capabilities. You can do so much more in PS 6 with text than in Gimp - balloon, scrunch, drop shadow with a click, outline, gradient overlay, pattern overlay, inner shadow, etc. In gimp, well, you can resize text.

And don't display articles about professionals using gimp over photoshop that are from sourceforge and gnomedesktop. That's equivilant to a link to a slashdot editorial proclaiming how popular linux is. Go out and buy a graphics art design magazine at borders. They talk about photoshop and nothing else, because it is the industry standard. There is nothing in the graphics art world that needs doing that photoshop does not do that gimp does. Gimp has a selection of the features that make photoshop great, implemented poorly.

Here are some links to professionals that use photoshop (and I trust these people more than some dude on gnomedesktop): popular photography imaging insider Mac World Mag Fortune Magazine Fotophile.

Gimp is not, and never was intended to be a photoshop replacement. I'm not saying it's a bad program. Actually, for being free, it's very nice. But don't compare it to photoshop. If you think gimp is better than photoshop, you've never done any graphics art design.

~Will

The $1.5 Billion in revenue isn't particularly impressive since Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (the babies from Full House) had $500 million in revenue JUST LAST YEAR and are on track for another $1 billion next year
(Fortune article).

The $1.5 Billion in revenue isn't particularly impressive since Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (the babies from Full House) had $500 million in revenue JUST LAST YEAR and are on track for another $1 billion next year
(Fortune article).

As per The Stones. They know where the real money is.

Check out the Global 500

Fortune Magazine lists Microsoft as one of the best companies in the world to work for.

Patrick Naughton, 37
Then: Infoseek
Now: Software development
This former Infoseek EVP pleaded guilty in 2000 to crossing state lines with the intent to have sex with a minor he met in an Internet chat room. To avoid jail time, he agreed to help the FBI develop software programs to catch Internet pedophiles and other sexual predators.

... here

I would best most of those CEO's don't live in high crime areas

[This was a joke to the moderator challenged]

Microsoft is the 72nd largest company in America and the 175th largest company in the world.

Microsoft is the 72nd largest company in America and the 175th largest company in the world.

Apple's Steve Jobs got last year's mightiest pay package, valued by FORTUNE at $381 million. (For the purposes of calculating his 2000 package, we have valued his monstrous options grant at one-third the exercise price of the shares optioned. And, of course, we've included the $90 million Gulfstream the Apple board gave him.) How big is that? The last time the public got furious over CEO pay was in 1992, when reports of huge numbers for 1991 sparked a flurry of reform efforts. Yet the 14 highest-paid CEOs then, including such legendary mega-earners as Coca-Cola's Roberto Goizueta, Philip Morris' Hamish Maxwell, GE's Welch, and ITT's Rand Araskog, together earned less than Steve Jobs did last year all by himself (even without the plane!). Yes, it's true that Jobs has paid himself only $1 a year since he returned to Apple as CEO in 1997. And, yes, he deserves to be rewarded--handsomely--for bringing Apple back from the dead. But still ...

I must agree with you regarding "campaign contributions" and MS's control of "our" goverment. A quote from a good artile in fortune this spring.

And Microsoft and its employees gave a whopping 4.6 million to federal candidates and parties, Republican and Democrat alike, in the 2000 election--more money than any other company but AT&T and more than double that of its biggest rival, AOL Time Warner...

I don't see Microsoft "squashing Dell." Dell ranks about 20 places above Microsoft on the Fortune 500. The worst Microsoft could do is pull the really cushy agreement that Dell has and make Dell pay full OEM price. Dell would have to raise its price a little and maybe lose some customers but not be squashed.

On my campus:

1) Buy people, rival firm has a product you need to sabotage... well hire their best brains so it turns out shit... and you get the product as well.

Our company is rated as one of the 50 best companies to work for by its own employees.

2) Have a clipboard, 99% of companies and people in those companies will not query a suit with a clipboard. This gives you the ability to walk into any areas saying you are doing a "Time and motion" study for the new Quality Iniative. Or do an "assets" audit and take away servers for "verification" that aren't on the "official register".

Our facility, though comprising over 300 people, functions as a closely knit team. Nobody unknown to us gets past the lobby, clipboard or not.

3) Buy the people

Our company is rated as one of the 50 best companies to work for by its own employees.

4) Have someone join as a graduate, or even as a more senior person. Sure it violates their contract, but just pay them the cash.

Our company is rated as one of the 50 best companies to work for by its own employees.

5) Supply the network upgrade at low low prices via a subsiduary, then ensure they can be "remotely administered as part of the outsourcing and support deal".

We manage all our networks internally. An "outsourcing and support deal" would be laughable.

6) Buy the people

Our company is rated as one of the 50 best companies to work for by its own employees.

7) Walk into PC support, ask for a backup of your server from date X put onto new server Y. Or even better just get the required files burnt onto CD. Sure you have to fake the paper work, but that isn't hard.

All of our change requests are managed electronically. To "fake the paperwork", you'd need access to a logged-in system, an acccount on the change management system, and you'd have to show up the next morning to represent your request at the daily change control meeting. Also, we manage our own backups. Nobody unkown to us would ever request one.

All of these will be more effective than hiring script kiddies.

None of these would be any more effective than hiring script kiddies. (Funny story: just this week a script kiddie was caught pounding one of our IPs. Security tracked him down and printed out a desist request on a printer on the kid's network. The attacks stopped a few minutes later.)

On my campus:

1) Buy people, rival firm has a product you need to sabotage... well hire their best brains so it turns out shit... and you get the product as well.

Our company is rated as one of the 50 best companies to work for by its own employees.

2) Have a clipboard, 99% of companies and people in those companies will not query a suit with a clipboard. This gives you the ability to walk into any areas saying you are doing a "Time and motion" study for the new Quality Iniative. Or do an "assets" audit and take away servers for "verification" that aren't on the "official register".

Our facility, though comprising over 300 people, functions as a closely knit team. Nobody unknown to us gets past the lobby, clipboard or not.

3) Buy the people

Our company is rated as one of the 50 best companies to work for by its own employees.

4) Have someone join as a graduate, or even as a more senior person. Sure it violates their contract, but just pay them the cash.

Our company is rated as one of the 50 best companies to work for by its own employees.

5) Supply the network upgrade at low low prices via a subsiduary, then ensure they can be "remotely administered as part of the outsourcing and support deal".

We manage all our networks internally. An "outsourcing and support deal" would be laughable.

6) Buy the people

Our company is rated as one of the 50 best companies to work for by its own employees.

7) Walk into PC support, ask for a backup of your server from date X put onto new server Y. Or even better just get the required files burnt onto CD. Sure you have to fake the paper work, but that isn't hard.

All of our change requests are managed electronically. To "fake the paperwork", you'd need access to a logged-in system, an acccount on the change management system, and you'd have to show up the next morning to represent your request at the daily change control meeting. Also, we manage our own backups. Nobody unkown to us would ever request one.

All of these will be more effective than hiring script kiddies.

None of these would be any more effective than hiring script kiddies. (Funny story: just this week a script kiddie was caught pounding one of our IPs. Security tracked him down and printed out a desist request on a printer on the kid's network. The attacks stopped a few minutes later.)

On my campus:

1) Buy people, rival firm has a product you need to sabotage... well hire their best brains so it turns out shit... and you get the product as well.

Our company is rated as one of the 50 best companies to work for by its own employees.

2) Have a clipboard, 99% of companies and people in those companies will not query a suit with a clipboard. This gives you the ability to walk into any areas saying you are doing a "Time and motion" study for the new Quality Iniative. Or do an "assets" audit and take away servers for "verification" that aren't on the "official register".

Our facility, though comprising over 300 people, functions as a closely knit team. Nobody unknown to us gets past the lobby, clipboard or not.

3) Buy the people

Our company is rated as one of the 50 best companies to work for by its own employees.

4) Have someone join as a graduate, or even as a more senior person. Sure it violates their contract, but just pay them the cash.

Our company is rated as one of the 50 best companies to work for by its own employees.

5) Supply the network upgrade at low low prices via a subsiduary, then ensure they can be "remotely administered as part of the outsourcing and support deal".

We manage all our networks internally. An "outsourcing and support deal" would be laughable.

6) Buy the people

Our company is rated as one of the 50 best companies to work for by its own employees.

7) Walk into PC support, ask for a backup of your server from date X put onto new server Y. Or even better just get the required files burnt onto CD. Sure you have to fake the paper work, but that isn't hard.

All of our change requests are managed electronically. To "fake the paperwork", you'd need access to a logged-in system, an acccount on the change management system, and you'd have to show up the next morning to represent your request at the daily change control meeting. Also, we manage our own backups. Nobody unkown to us would ever request one.

All of these will be more effective than hiring script kiddies.

None of these would be any more effective than hiring script kiddies. (Funny story: just this week a script kiddie was caught pounding one of our IPs. Security tracked him down and printed out a desist request on a printer on the kid's network. The attacks stopped a few minutes later.)

On my campus:

1) Buy people, rival firm has a product you need to sabotage... well hire their best brains so it turns out shit... and you get the product as well.

Our company is rated as one of the 50 best companies to work for by its own employees.

2) Have a clipboard, 99% of companies and people in those companies will not query a suit with a clipboard. This gives you the ability to walk into any areas saying you are doing a "Time and motion" study for the new Quality Iniative. Or do an "assets" audit and take away servers for "verification" that aren't on the "official register".

Our facility, though comprising over 300 people, functions as a closely knit team. Nobody unknown to us gets past the lobby, clipboard or not.

3) Buy the people

Our company is rated as one of the 50 best companies to work for by its own employees.

4) Have someone join as a graduate, or even as a more senior person. Sure it violates their contract, but just pay them the cash.

Our company is rated as one of the 50 best companies to work for by its own employees.

5) Supply the network upgrade at low low prices via a subsiduary, then ensure they can be "remotely administered as part of the outsourcing and support deal".

We manage all our networks internally. An "outsourcing and support deal" would be laughable.

6) Buy the people

Our company is rated as one of the 50 best companies to work for by its own employees.

7) Walk into PC support, ask for a backup of your server from date X put onto new server Y. Or even better just get the required files burnt onto CD. Sure you have to fake the paper work, but that isn't hard.

All of our change requests are managed electronically. To "fake the paperwork", you'd need access to a logged-in system, an acccount on the change management system, and you'd have to show up the next morning to represent your request at the daily change control meeting. Also, we manage our own backups. Nobody unkown to us would ever request one.

All of these will be more effective than hiring script kiddies.

None of these would be any more effective than hiring script kiddies. (Funny story: just this week a script kiddie was caught pounding one of our IPs. Security tracked him down and printed out a desist request on a printer on the kid's network. The attacks stopped a few minutes later.)

There is exactly one example of a lobbying group that is extremely powerful that takes in ZERO contributions from industry (and is entirely dependant upon small contributions from millions of everyday joes), and is wildly successfull to the point of having directly changed the results of hundreds if not thousands of elections, including the presidency. Granted, that power is so awsome because the members of the organization care passionaly so about their issue -- but also because that passion is backed up by $$$ contributions, not to mention folks that try to convince their neighbors, co-workers, and friends on how to vote in every election from the local level on up. Are open source advocates as passionate? The mere mention of "NRA" causes politicions to quake in their boots. How to politicions feel when someone mentions "open source?" Confused?

I also suspect that Walmart's license negotiations with Microsoft may be more difficult in the future....

Not that Wal-Mart is any sort of "Mecca High-Technologique", but Microsoft needs Wal-Mart a LOT more than Wal-Mart needs Microsoft. Why?

Check this out.

Yup, that's right. Wal-Mart is FIRST in the world with annual revenues of $219 billion. Microsoft was 175th with revenues of $25 billion.

Ladies and germs, that's an order of magnitude difference in revenue.

Also, notice that the difference between Wal-Mart and #2 (Exxon-Mobil) is $28 billion, which is also > MS revenue. The truth is that Microsoft is "big", but Wal-Mart redfines "biggest". In the accompanying Fortune article, they point out that $220 bil is more than any company ever made in a year. Ever.

This is important because among the long list of gripes people levy against Wal-Mart is their notoriously cutthroat approach to strong-arming manfacturers and distibutors. They dictate what, how, when, where and how much. Unless you own your own country where you can lock them out, you pretty much do what they want or give up the opportunity to have your products sold off their shelves.

Think about it this way. If MS sold eveything they made direct thru Wal-Mart, they would only provide about 10% of Wal-Mart's revenue, and that's at high margins Wal-Mart wouldn't be willing to pay.

WM: "You want to charge us *how much* for WinXP Home Edition? BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! That's, like, a 90% markup over your per-unit costs! You'll take $10 a copy and like it or go elsewhere and take your stupid X-boxen with you.

The two questions to which I wasn't able to find answers while typing this are: what are the top ten US Computer System Retailers (# of units/year) and is Wal-Mart one of them?

Anyone know?

Of course, the real reason Wal-Mart is doing this is because they can.

It's Sam's way of thumbing his nose at Bill.

They withdrew shortly after the standards were being seriously discussed, but (allegedly) not before suggesting certain methods of doing things... which as it turns out they have patents on.

Actually, to my knowledge, nobody has ever alleged that Rambus tried to steer JEDEC towards Rambus-patented technologies. Instead, Rambus remained silent while technologies were being discussed at JEDEC meetings that could infringe on its patents and even amended its patent applications to cover things being discussed at JEDEC meetings. In addition, Rambus didn't bail out of JEDEC until 1996, when its first SDRAM-applicable patents were finally issued.

At one point during a JEDEC meeting, Rambus was asked point-blank if it had any patents pertaining to "two-bank designs." Rambus's representative merely shook his head no. Rambus actually had patent applications pending regarding two-bank designs and the representative who was asked about it knew this. Rambus later attempted to defend its silence on the topic by saying it believed it only needed to disclose patents that had already been issued, not pending ones. JEDEC's president says that Rambus is the only JEDEC member ever to misinterpret the patent rules in this way.

For anybody looking to read the whole unseemly story of Rambus and its unparalleled greed, Fortune Magazine has the definitive article on the subject.

The SEC's criticism is not based on whether or not this practice increases shareholder value. It's based on the theory that shareholders should have accurate information in order to make intelligent choices. Using reserves in this way allows companies to hide problems and mislead investors. Fortune magazine has an excellent article entitled, "Lies, Damned Lies, and Managed Earnings" which discusses the SEC crackdown on the practice.

Vivendi is teaming up with Maverick Records, MP3.com, RollingStone.com, GetMusic.com and MP4.com

Software development--particularly business software development--isn't about computer "science" or "engineering." It is about communication--communication amongst your team, communication with the computer, and communication through the computer with the end user. Communication is the key.

In hiring offshore developers you face substantially more complex challenges than you do working with a telecommuter. People who telecommute have established relationships with their employer--so they already know the implications of the tone of your voice, and what you mean when you preface your sentence with "I don't mean to be rude, but...." An offshore development team doesn't know that--you don't have the kind of relationship, based on trust, common bonds, and plain old time, that are necessary to make a team work.

There is a simple way to deal with that problem. It is called an airplane ticket. You go to them, or they (all of them) come to you--naturally that means you're the one on the plane. You can find a whole range of airfares, and a whole range of hotel prices, and a whole range of expenses involved in traveling literally halfway around the world. And unless your project is huge, you'll blow any conceivable cost savings on the travel.

You have other options
One (warning: self-serving promo coming) is to outsource to a consulting firm. They'll charge you a fee--but at the end of the project they will go away. You don't have any overhead costs, you don't have any headcount, and you don't have costs for machines and toolsets that you no longer need.

Another option is to consider outsourcing to an "offshore" country that is considerably easier to get to. If you're in the United States, you might look very carefully at consulting firms in Canada: the Canadian exchange rate makes tech workers up north very attractive. And Canadian "offshore" development avoids a lot of the problems with outsourcing to the Indian subcontinent: Canadian firms are (mostly) on the same time zones as U.S. firms; Canadians and Americans share a common language--most of the time; and Canadians and Americans share a common cultural heritage (most of the time). In general Canadians are more polite than Americans, more funny than Americans, and perhaps more serious about their work than a lot of Americans.

Believe it or not, sometimes outsourcing deals don't work out....
An old dictum of business law says that you don't need a contract when everybody is making money. You only need the contract when things go bad. That's true--and that's why you'll need a solid contract before you start any project with any outsourcing firm. It is a lot easier to find legal help with contracts between U.S. and Canadian firms than it is to find legal help with contracts between U.S. firms and Indian firms. And--(look for articles on this subject in Fortune or The Wall Street Journal) the legal climate in India is not as stable as you'll find in developed countries. Long before Enron hit the headlines with its accounting problems, Enron was embroiled in a long-term dispute (see this BBC article, for instance) with the government of India. There are all kinds of charges and counter-charges, but many in the West have viewed the debacle as proof that in India contracts are not nearly as ironclad as we view them to be. If it comes to it, it is substantially easier to litigate in Canada than in India.

Bottom line:

• There is lots of outsourcing talent here in the U.S., and your total project cost with a small consulting firm can be surprisingly affordable.
• There is loads of talent in Canada where time zones, language, culture, and ease of travel are not problems.
• The costs of outsourcing to the Indian subcontinent include a lot of travel, a fair bit of legal and contractual complexity, and a potentially ugly downside in the event of a project failure.

That is probably because Wal-Mart, number one on the fortune 500 with $220
Billion (with a B) in annual revenue (compared to Microsoft which is 72nd with
$25 Billion), has successfully used predatory pricing to drive out of business
all of the small mom-n-pop businesses and most of their larger competitors.

It is interesting to note that No.1 Wal-Mart made profits
of $6.671 Billion (with a B!), against No. 72 Microsoft profits of
$7.346 Billion. This shows that Wal-Mart's revenue model is based on reach
(likely obtained by driving out small mom-n-pop businesses as you pointed out), while Microsoft is a monopoly milking profits from its market share. I wonder why they are so admired?

That is probably because Wal-Mart, number one on the fortune 500 with $220
Billion (with a B) in annual revenue (compared to Microsoft which is 72nd with
$25 Billion), has successfully used predatory pricing to drive out of business
all of the small mom-n-pop businesses and most of their larger competitors.

It is interesting to note that No.1 Wal-Mart made profits
of $6.671 Billion (with a B!), against No. 72 Microsoft profits of
$7.346 Billion. This shows that Wal-Mart's revenue model is based on reach
(likely obtained by driving out small mom-n-pop businesses as you pointed out), while Microsoft is a monopoly milking profits from its market share. I wonder why they are so admired?

That is probably because Wal-Mart, number one on the fortune 500 with $220
Billion (with a B) in annual revenue (compared to Microsoft which is 72nd with
$25 Billion), has successfully used predatory pricing to drive out of business
all of the small mom-n-pop businesses and most of their larger competitors.

It is interesting to note that No.1 Wal-Mart made profits
of $6.671 Billion (with a B!), against No. 72 Microsoft profits of
$7.346 Billion. This shows that Wal-Mart's revenue model is based on reach
(likely obtained by driving out small mom-n-pop businesses as you pointed out), while Microsoft is a monopoly milking profits from its market share. I wonder why they are so admired?

According to such liberal news sources as the Wall Street Journal (who have been covering the executive pay structure over the last month), and Fortune, it's the executive pay, bonuses granted during down cycle, and options which make up more than half of their payscale that are the cause of this.

Should web designers (content) be making $60K? Probably not. Should web database designers be making $100K? Probably. Media people usually make low dollars - around $30K to $40K, traditionally, while techie types are worth their weight in gold.

But so long as the execs are trying to justify their inordinate pay increases, they'll try to squeeze it out of the profitable areas of the company, and loot the company.

But what do I know, I own tens of thousands of direct shares in over 40 companies and have been investing for more than 2 decades ...

-

--- Steve Jobs on Design ---

Fortune Magazine: What has always distinguished the products of the
companies you've led is the design aesthetic. Is your obsession with design
an inborn instinct or what?

Steve Jobs: We don't have good language to talk about this kind of thing.
In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating.
It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be
further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a
man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers
of the product or service. The iMac is not just the colour or translucence or
the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible
consumer computer in which each element plays together.

On our latest iMac, I was adamant that we get rid of the fan, because it is
much more pleasant to work on a computer that doesn't drone all the time.
That was not just "Steve's decision" to pull out the fan; it required an
enormous engineering effort to figure out how to manage power better and do
a better job of thermal conduction through the machine. That is the furthest
thing from veneer. It was at the core of the product the day we started.

This is what customers pay us for--to sweat all these details so it's easy
and pleasant for them to use our computers. We're supposed to be really good
at this. That doesn't mean we don't listen to customers, but it's hard for
them to tell you what they want when they've never seen anything remotely
like it.

fortune - january 24, 2000

regards,
john penner

Now we know why Passport is getting pushed:

"How Microsoft Conquered Washington"
http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol . html&doc_id=207250, courtesy of FARK.com

Getting scarier...

And yes, Fortune is part of AOLTW - no mention of their lobbying efforts or anti-M$ bias.

- CX

Well, if we're going by revenue:

Microsoft: $25,296M

Sun: $18,250M

IBM: $85,866M

So, with a little math (25296/18250) its actually 1.4 times smaller, while MS is 3.4 times smaller than IBM.

Microsoft resembles IBM, not Enron.

Microsoft resembles the IBM of old in size and market dominance but not in weaknesses. IBM's fall came about because its core business was undermined by microprocessors. Despite open source, Microsoft faces no such threat. It is continuing to enhance and expand its product line and adapt to new trends as they arise.

But I do not believe that they are going to be number one for more than a few more years

And who will replace them? There's no single company that can duplicate Microsoft's complete product line, certainly not in a few years. One can imagine a number of vendors replacing individual products but could any of them, or instance, exterminate Word the way Word exterminated WordPerfect?

The history of business is one of industrial giants falling and even disappearing altogether. Presumably Microsoft's turn will come as well. However, consider General Electric. It was one of the original Dow Jones Industrials over a hundred years ago and it is still there today. Like Microsoft, it glommed onto a fundamental industry (electricity) and rode out the ups and downs of the business cycles, diversified, and marketed itself well.

When you look at Microsoft's strengths (astute management, large cash reserves, overwhelming market dominance, diverse product line, brandname recognition) and the fact its market is still growing, it's hard to imagine it losing its number one spot in our lifetime. The most likely scenario is that it will use its huge cash reserve to diversity like GE and become even bigger, although perhaps not as a software vendor.

Not to pick nits, but MS isn't even close to being the richest company in the world. At least, not in terms of revenues...and a judgement of wealth based on stock value vs. stock outstanding is, in MS's case, grossly inaccurate due to their "stock options as salary" scam.

Uh, not exactly. Here's some companies and their annual revenues (in $millions) from the Fortune 500 list (2000 data).

Intl. Business Machines: 88,396.0. Compaq: 42,383.0. Dell Computer: 31,888.0. Walt Disney: 25,402.0. Microsoft: 22,956.0. Viacom: 20043.7. Cisco Systems: 18,928.0. Sun Microsystems: 15,721.0. Gateway: 9,600.6. Apple Computer: 7,983.0. America Online: 6,886.0. Clear Channel Communications: 5,345.3 (okay, they're RIAA, but same diff). USA Networks: 4621.2. MGM: 1237.4. (And then there's Sony, who are on both sides of the fence-- they make consumer hardware/devices, video games, and movies/music) Sony: 66,158.4.

More likely movies and TV stuff is a lot more visible than simply selling computer parts. And the majority the sense of these proposals on Valenti's part is aimed at consumer grade stuff, arguably not the largest profit sector for IBM or Compaq.

Here's the correct link to the Fortune article - in essence, AOLTW saw $155 billion in market cap evaporate after the merger.

http://www.fortune.com/articles/2002/magazine/2002 0204/206105.html

AOL isn't in the best financial shape right now - the merger with Time Warner didn't work out as well as planned, and they're going to have huge losses this year. I'm guessing the thinking here is that if they can reach a huge out-of-court settlement with MS, it'll help them get back in the black. After all, Netscape's not good for much else anymore...

It justhappens that the single largest opponent of Open Source and the GPL is also the single largest corporation(I don't have to say the name of the Beast, do I?).

It's Vivendi Universal these days. According to Fortune, Vivendi Universal is #91 with $38,628.3 million in annual revenue. Royal Philips Electronics is #107 with $34,990.8 million.