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Windows Marketing Executive Doug Miller
Doug Miller is Director of Competitive Strategy in Microsoft's Windows
Server Marketing Group. Doug is responsible for a team within Microsoft
focused on competitive strategy and enterprise interoperability
products. He's been spotted at Linux shows. He uses vi. He was a Unix guy for many years. His previous company, Softway Systems, was acquired by Microsoft in 1999. What are you going to ask him today? Up to you, but one question per post, please. We'll send Doug 10 of the highest-moderated questions and post his answers next week.
What are the chances Microsoft will someday opensource Windows? The phenomenal growth in Opensourced software must have been noticed by Microsoft by now ;-)
Seriously, as consumers become accustomed to getting more for less, and as they become "pickier" in what they use, opensource has a great advantage, in that it has morality "built in" to the software. So many Linux users do so for ethical reasons (it sure ain't for the 3D gaming).
Do you think Microsoft will see the need to follow suit and open the code? Many people, including myself, will not use something that's not open - if only for peace of mind (knowing that nothing is happening behind our backs, so to speak).
And this addresses one of Microsoft's biggest problems; the bad reputation. You could cure the bad PR problem forever by taking the step into opensource.
Just my two cents.
Bitterman
As a related question regarding IE (although this is probably not his area so he will probably cop out) why is there no version of IE for Linux when Linux is demonstratably more popular as a desktop platform than either Solaris or HPUX? How does Microsoft justify this when you claim to be "customer driven"?
Hands up who has UID 31337 or maybe even better 1337?
Oooh! Posting from Linux for the first time in a year...
Isn't unix great: One question, 5 completely different answers.
2) The Kerberos support is standards-compliant. The protocol specifies a vendor-specific field, and Microsoft puts all vendor-specific information in that field, as the standard specifies. Information about their use of that field and interoperability concerns is available on their website.
I'd like to see where the information exactly is. If you are talking about the info mentioned in the slashdot article, I'd like you to read this comment
Is Microsoft planning on having their own Linux distribution ?
note: can == "know" in old Scottish
Actually it's "ken", and it's still slang today ("I dinnae ken" == "I don't know").
And in terms of why you would care, I don't think you would today - but if it takes off as MS hopes, you'll end up being locked out of services unless you're using an MS client (no change there then).
-dair
Do you think we will ever get to a point where I can write a program on FabGroovyOS and happily run it on GroovyFabOS? Java promised this, but there seems to be a lot of friction within the java community which is as dispair-inducing as the vi/emacs, Atari/Amiga, PC/Mac flame-wars...
The holy grail seems to always be _almost_ within our grasp, only to be snatched away by the evil "detail gremlins"...
Jim Allchin.
said something to the effect that copylefting software (GNU, open-source, GPL, Free Software, you know the deal) is harmful.
He said:
In later clarifications, he claimed that he really only meant the GPL, and really only in the context of tax-supported, government-developed software. In other words, tax-paying American companies should be allowed to release proprietary versions of any software developed with tax money.
That issue has been flogged thoroughly elsewhere.
As a parting off-topic shot: Microsoft pays no taxes, so Allchin's claim that tax-paying companies should be allowed to co-op taxpayer-funded code doesn't apply to Microsoft anyway. Put that in your tax-loophole pipe and smoke it.
--Patrick
When will Microsoft ditch it's spamlist, and convert to full verfied opt-in, while sending out "We nuked this spammer on our network" for your MSN dialup services? Taking these steps will go a long way towards making Microsoft's reputation belivable.
--
WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
1) It's "Kerberos."
2) The Kerberos support is standards-compliant. The protocol specifies a vendor-specific field, and Microsoft puts all vendor-specific information in that field, as the standard specifies. Information about their use of that field and interoperability concerns is available on their website.
3) IE is very W3C compliant. Not 100%, but for a long time it was the most compliant browser in common use. It's been much better than Netscape 4.x for a long time, and Netscape is only recently catching up with the newer builds of Mozilla (and Opera is pretty good these days too).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
My question is, "Why?"
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Considering the misinformation coming from *both* sides of the Linux/MS-Windows debate (the general "Windows Sux" vs "open source is UnAmerican"), how can the two operating systems co-exist?
Do you ever see a time when Linux and MS-Windows will be judged on merit, rather than hype and propoganda? Or is does Microsoft consider this a true "war," with a winner and a loser?
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
The general category for such software is "malware".
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Xenu loves you!
I've often been curious about the source of the semantic games that Microsoft plays in the course of marketing and public relations. I don't think I need to elaborate on the sense in which you use the word "innovation". Another example is the word "standard", which was redefined from "a shared measurement for interoperability" to mean "a secret measurement made ubiquitous through the force of monopoly." There are others, but I'm more interested in how you feel about bending language in the course of doing your job. Are you even conscious of doing it?
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
Welcome to Slashdot.
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That only scratches the surface but the idea behind Web services is to create an Internet where it's easy to combine services from different vendors/suppliers to create your own Web applications.
This actually sounds useful. What open source alternatives are there that provide similar functionality? Does anybody know of a good web page that suggests open source alternatives for each of the different aspects of .NET? I could use this for a project that I'm working on right now, but I need software that is cross-platform (and not in Microsoft's definition of the term "cross-platform" - I want to run it on OpenBSD). I could also use a .NET comparison page to link to from my Microsoft Alternatives page which is in desperate need of updating.
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Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
Wow... if this is true, then right here we have the answer to the major activation key issue: what happens when your hardware changes (which the key is based on) and you need to re-activate. I guess the short one is, it won't happen. This combined with the wild rumours that XP may not be user installable on custom built machines (at least the consumer versions) and we have a problem on our hands.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
The scary part is that this was moderated up to 5!!!
Okay, fess up--a lot of the recent news we've been hearing out of Microsoft is carefully designed to sway public opinion, isn't it? It seems a bit odd that you, charged with competitive strategies, would make such a bold statement as "Linux is going down," then not long afterward another of your co-workers decided to go on a crusade against government projects using the GNU Public License. If that was the intent, the Slashdot-reading public performed admirably. Among non-Linux users, I've noted a definite negative attitude toward Linux and Linux users recently.
Also, would you care to comment on such issues as astroturfing?
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
While they are all evil corps and orgs, the MPAA is who was responsiable for the DeCSS genie.
There has been some recent talk of porting .net to Linux (Mr. Balmer I believe). Is this going to be a serious effort, or the joke that the UNIX port of is (i.e. several generations out of date)? Would it be a MSFT effort, or out-sourced?
That should have been:
.net to Linux (Mr. Balmer I believe). Is this going to be a serious effort, or the joke that the UNIX port of Internet Explorer is (i.e. several generations out of date)? Would it be a MSFT effort, or out-sourced?
There has been some recent talk of porting
Why ask a marketing guy anything? I can read press releases as well as the next guy. Are you honestly able to say anything that isn't strictly party line?
A Marketer went into the barbers for a haircut. "Certainly, sir," said the barber, "But you will have to take your Personal Stereo off." "No, No," said the marketer, and fled to another barber, who said the same thing. Finally the marketer found a barber who would cut his hair without taking the headphone off. As the barber chopped and scissored, the marketer fell asleep. The barber gently removed the headphones; the marketer slumped and breathed more shallowly and then, died. The barber heard a gentle noise coming from the headset. He picked it up and listened: "Breathe in, Breathe out, Breathe in, Breathe out."
Life is like an egg better scrambled than fried. -- Ken Sawatari
I think this would be an interesting question to round off the interview:
In recent months, we've heard a number of Microsoft executives giving off mixed signals about various issues: for example, you guys can't seem to agree whether Linux is a threat or not. Some might say that this shows that MS is not as paranoid about its press relations as is, say, Apple, but personally I get the impression that the views expressed may have been tailored towards their respective audiences.
With this in mind, can I ask:
This question baits Microsoft with a presupposition that isn't even true. Take a look at the survey itself, and you'll see that while Apache numbers continue to outgrow MS numbers, MS actually holds a dominant position on SSL sites within the US. Now, given that a good percentage of the total web traffic is concentrated in the US and that most companies worth a damn have SSL sites, and you'll see that MS isn't hurting as bad as just a simple look at the first graph might tell you.
The thing none of those graphs show you is a relationship between hit rates and server usage. I'd be willing to bet that a good 60% (probably more) of those Apache servers are just people like me who run Apache at home for a small personal web server. I work for a managed hosting company, and more people request IIS than do Apache, although we generally use Apache more because we feel it's better (that's part of sales, though).
IIS is not struggling. It's gaining ground and acceptance in the corporate world, and when you pit a Wintel enterprise-class web solution against a Unix-based enterprise-class web solution (note I said "enterprise-class" which I don't feel Linux can really handle yet), they're actually rather competitive.
I'd rather see non-BS questions coming from the Slashdot community rather than questions that twist and manipulate facts to put the interviewee in a bad position before he even answers.
Bah, wish I could mod this up. CowbertPrime is right.
"It is still an interesting question as to why they originally released it "
It's really only an interesting question if you have a corncob shoved up your rear end.
Honestly, I can't think of any reason why one would continually berate a company for something they did a year ago that was subsequently fixed.
What kind of Microsoft shill are you?
Seriously, this is the first time I've ever seen someone at slashdot actually verify something before posting it.
Way to go!
You're confusing C# with .Net.
.Net than just the common language runtime engine.
There's a lot more to
A good chunk of the core is the interoperability present with web services. Which has nothing at all to do with Java.
As far as I've seen, Sun only recently discovered this was a great idea and jumped on board. That was shortly after Microsoft, IBM and the others announced the idea.
Giving Java credit for something Java didn't do seems odd.
Ok, now that's not true...
From everything I've heard, Microsoft is dead serious about adhering to standards. Honestly, they've already done a very good job at adhering to standards over the past several years.
:)
As far as who is first... Keep in mind that everything new is old.
Most of what Sun created was done elsewhere by others. Even the web is just a new shell over the old mainframe terminal methods... ok, so it's got pretty pictures instead of just text.
Yeah right, remote objects over RMI versus remote objects over DCOM. Entirely dissimilar.
Now SOAP on the other hand is a completely different paradigm, which you obviously know little about.
No here we have a situation of a lot of people with corncobs stuck up their rear ends.
Microsoft didn't modify the standard, they followed it exactly to the letter. The fact that the Kerberos authors now say "oops, I guess we hadn't thought anybody would use that field" says nothing about standards compliance.
The Kerberos implemention of Microsoft's does interoperate with Unix implementations.
I know, because I have Unix machines in my home lab authenticating to a Win2k domain controller, the whole 'single signon' realized.
As far as Microsoft declaring war, keep in mind that the swarm of corncob laden assholes declared war on Microsoft first in full force by spreading lies about Microsoft standards compliance and interoperability. So I don't know how you could possibly take the moral high road on that one.
And like I said before, the only people who remotely cared about how Microsoft responded were those same corncob challenged individuals.
Yes, SOAP is an extension of XML-RPC.
As far as your other babble... Interesting, but entirely wrong.
Well of course 'Web Services' can be tacked onto Java. That's sort of the whole point.
Sigh, you obviously don't understand the platform independence aspect of SOAP.
Java with RMI isn't platform independent, it's just a whole new platform.
Whatever.
I'm certainly familiar with The Open Group. I used to admin a number of OSF/1 boxes back in the early 90's.
I did a quick search looking for such a discussion, but couldn't find it. I assume this must have been used at sometime within DCE or something? Interesting.
Ahh, found an article that mentions it.
3 -1 999.html?nf
http://www.nwfusion.com/archive/1999/75257_09-1
Yep, the field is also used in DCE, exactly like Microsoft uses it. And exactly like Microsoft, the information on how the field was used has been open and published.
So it does seem that the corncob regiment is a bit questionable in their outrage.
Well, considering your posting record, I'd have to say the only person brainwashed is yourself.
:(
You appear to have at tendency to go off on topics you know little about towing the Linux anti-Microsoft line. This just happened to be another such case.
Malcontent says "We are BORG! Resistance is FUTILE!"
Why doesn't Microsoft port over SQL Server to Linux?
Why is MSFT support SAP (Secure Audio Path)?
What benefit does this tech provide the consumer?
Microsoft representatives are often talking about innovation and it is well known in the developer communities that Microsoft often seeks to "embrace and extend" certain technologies. Examples include Kerberos and Java (although I'm sure there are others.)
Many readers/posters on Slashdot like to joke about this philosophy calling it instead "embrace and extinguish" because it seems that Microsoft, in their "extending" a particular technology, also make it incompatible with the originating technology. This "extending", coupled with Microsofts huge (some would say monopolistic) presence in the marketplace, places the original technology in jeopardy.
In another interoperability area, the SAMBA software suite has encountered more than a bit of difficulty in making it easier for Unix and Unix-like OS's to interoperate with Windows.
My question:
Since your focus at Microsoft seems to be the interoperability of your products with others, could you explain Microsoft's reluctance to "play fair" and adhere to existing standards?
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
Moderators, please do not let this question through.
Aside from the obvious linguistic snafu (the word "candor" is not fitting here, "inviting manner" is not really applicable when you answer), there are some PR/political concerns here.
A cheap point for Doug Miller is "we don't consider ourselves enemies of the devoted good folks in the open source community". In fact, he would then strenghten an earlier PR stunt by Microsoft labelling the Linus & Co "Robin Hood and his diciples of the Sherwood Forest". Not to mention that even thinking of "enemies" here is extremely childish.
Second, using loaded descriptions like "struggling marketshare" about IIS requires some backup - backup that does not exist. IIS is not struggling by any accounts. Despite its many security flaws, it has a solid foothold in a space that's fairly new to Microsoft. No doubt he would refer to Microsoft's many other products with a similar beginning - Microsoft Money, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Internet Explorer, even Microsoft Windows had low market shares during the first couple of releases.
Folks, please let us give questions in a neutral tone.
In the face of competition from open source operating systems like Linux and *BSD, Apple chose to reuse and enhance existing OSS software. With hardware prices spiralling down to sub-basement levels, shouldn't Microsoft consider scrapping win32 and adopt one of the freely available operating systems? Won't the economics of the Operating System market force Microsoft to search for cheaper ways to deliver its software services?
You haven't seen the vi lovers home page have you?
They already thought of this, I'm sure.
.Net to let people pay to use Word over the Internet from MSN.
Consider what tends to get done with computers in non-geek households: Games, light word processing, finances, Web browsing, email, listening to mp3s, watching movies.
Well, MS is going to start blocking off the ability to listen to any old mp3, so let's discard that.
Combine three MS projects, and you'll have the answer. XBox as the platform, and to provide the games, WebTV to provide internet usage, and
XBox - at the very least the 2nd or 3rd revision - is being aimed at taking over the console market and replacing WebTV. It may later move into the TiVO videorecording market as well, but the first two are good for a start.
Sure, Emachines or whoever could use Linux, but that'll harm them in the market, as users automatically want Windows, which ends up being one of the costliest items in the ultra low margin computer. MS has no such problems, and can even screw with the licensing of Windows to the $400 market to help keep XBox viable until it can support itself.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Current copyright law has certain interesting provisions. For instance there are statutory exceptions that permit users who have legally obtained software to install and run it, and to back it up, without the necessity of agreeing to a license.
Fair Use provisions both encoded in law by Congress and recognized by the Courts prior to and regardless of Congress' opinion on the matter permit users to buy, sell and trade software as desired, as well as discuss and review it.
Yet programmers are still entitled to copyrights on their software - the copyrights simply don't expand into those areas, not at all.
With this in mind, how do you justify MS's draconian EULAs for single-user software? The laws discussed above negate any need for them to protect either party, after all. Additionally, how do you justify the upcoming licensing scheme that will tie installations closely to hardware, again given that MS would be just as protected under the law if it had no licensing at all. Why is it desirable? If you don't think it's desirable, what specifically are you doing within MS to get rid of these practices?
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
- imaginary beings
- uninterested in journalistic integrity
- doomed to repeat history (see also "Mozilla doesn't support XML", revisionist history*)
- all of the above
*: ZD, instead of publishing a retraction, performed an Orwellian edit to the column, changing "XML" to the unqualified statement "key web technologies". They also removed all but one TalkBack post pointing out the error, although, to be fair, most of it was hair-trigger flameage.We're not scare-mongering/This is really happening - Radiohead
This sig intentionally left blank.
Well, that's an easy question. Microsoft has largely ignored piracy for as long as it benefitted them. Now that they have already established monopoly in OS and Office, and the PC market is not growing at the pace it used to, Microsoft needs to find some way to squeeze more revenues, and it does so by going after casual copying. But I am interested in how the MS guy will spin it.
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If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Easy... :%s/[ctrl-v][enter]//g
Shadus
Regardless of whether MS is going to make a Linux distribution or not, if there was going to be such a thing then what differentiators would there be in it? Would it have ties to MS technologies? Would it have a Windows look and feel?
Since you are obviously interested in gaining a competative advantage for Microsoft, what you you hoping to learn from this question and answer session?
I like the psycho-girlfriend link on Jacks HTTP server.
--
"In the land of the brave and the free, we defend our freedom with the GNU GPL."
"You're gonna need a bigger boat." - Chief Brody
Please tell us what
nobody seems to know.
Nobody seems to be able to provide a link that has information that is certified. Microsoft says a lot about it, but its all fluff.
Why does Microsoft keep creating new operating systems instead of improving one of them? With so many Microsoft platforms out there, the level of "this API is not implemented" errors makes you guys a royal pain to develop for. With your operating system revenue-streams being protected by your having cornered the office-suite market, it seems like this could be avoided(also good for folks like me who run Linux partly because I can't afford to buy a new license every time you write a new OS).
--- The reclining dragon deeply fears the blue pool's clarity.
What is the thinking behind limiting Windows XP Server to two domain controllers per Active Directory forest? How will this impact the product's competitive position?
See http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/17907.htmltable (Linux, Java, whatever), he could blow
Microsoft away. I am not sure whether that is
true, for the following reason:
Businesses don't select things on technical
merit, they do it on usefulness to them. On
usefulness grounds, there is no choice but
MS, because you need to interoperate with the
huge MS installed base out there; using Linux
will compromise this, as the interoperability
with MS solutions is substandard, not least
because MS keeps moving the goalposts for the
Office file formats, SMB, Kerberos, what have
you.
As a business, is it possible to break the
Microsoft lock, given the interoperability
issues with MS's huge installed base?
You could tell me the sky is blue and the earth is round and I'd have to take it with a grain of salt. I'm sorry but your veracity management problem is of your own doing.
As a system administrator living in a corporate world I find myself supporting users who need to have MS Office. I would *LOVE* to support them on a Linux Desktop instead of a Windows desktop but I can't since MS Office doesn't go there (yet). I would *LOVE* to pay Microsoft $$ to get office on my linux desktops. When am I going to be able to do that?
Think about it for a second... would Ford Motor Co. going out of business harm the U.S. economy? Probably. Are they a monopoly? No.
Your question doesn't really make sense.
Yes, but a Porche has sex. Let's not underestimate the value of sex.
http://www.copyleft.net/item.phtml?dynamic=1&page= product_1051_front.phtml
What's that like, going from Unix to Windows? I mean, used to drive a Porche, but now I have a Razor scooter, so I can sympathize.
-Waldo
As best as I recall Athlon was clean room built from the ground up, so there are no royalties to Intel for the Athlon/Duron chips. I do recall AMD paying royalties for their 586 line of chips. I searched all over, but did not find anything pertaining to royalties to Intel and the Athlon. The only thing I could find was this quote:
t e1 2.html
"In December 1995, the Company signed a five-year, comprehensive cross-license agreement with Intel. The cross-license is royalty-bearing for the Company's products that use certain Intel technologies. The Company is required to pay Intel minimum nonrefundable royalties through 2000."
Which is available at:
http://www.amd.com/about/investor/1999annual/no
Correct me if you have another source.
Microsoft has never officially denied the halloween memos. Would you care to comment? More specifically: -Were the halloween memos written by Microsoft em ployees? -Has the "Embrace and Exstinguish" policy been a strong policy within Microsoft in the past? -Is the "Embrace and Extinguish" policy currently a strong policy within Microsoft?
Doug, Do you read slashdot regularly? Could you give us your opinion on the value of continuing worldwide conversations like the one the occurs on slashdot everyday. Do you ever post anonymously on slashdot? But most importantly, what do you type when you visit slashdot? www.slashdot.com www.slashdot.org/ www.slashdot.org/. http://www.slashdot.com/ http://www.slashdot.org/. www.slashdot.org. http://www.slashdot.com./. slashdot.com slashdot.org http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:slashdot.org/ +slashdot&hl=en
It's pretty much beyond a doubt now that linux has a larger desktop user base than Macintosh. This makes Linux the second most common desktop OS after Windows. Do you know why Microsoft has not released ANY applications for Linux? Or why Microsoft hasn't even ANNOUNCED the intention to port applications for Linux. There is certainly demand for it. Survey's show that this is one thing users really want on Linux. The only reason that I have been able to come up with is that Microsoft is trying to protect it's desktop OS? I'm willing to be proven wrong. However, the only excuse I've heard from Microsoft so far is that there isn't demand for MS apps under Linux. If Microsoft is still claiming that this is the case, could you point me to some hard evidence like independent (not independent like Mindcraft) user survey's that prove the demand is smaller than the demand for MS apps on Macintosh. Thanks
Microsoft is CONSTANTLY claiming that the company is a leading innovator in the software industry. I think most readers of slashdot believe that Microsoft is not so much of an innovator as an integrator; an integrator that only integrates well with its own products. My question is: Can you give me the evidence of three major software products that originated soley at Microsoft. By originating soley I mean: - the product was not modeled on another companies or organization's product (i.e. Windows, IE, IIS, etc) - the product wasn't the result of a purchase of another company, product or technology (Front Page, DOS, etc)
Doug, I have question that is of extreme importance to the Linux community. I think you are in the best position to give a good answer to the question. The question is: What does Linux need in order to beat Windows on the desktop? Likewise, what does Linux need in order to continue beating Windows in the Enterprise. Please be specific. If you think that Linux needs to be better technically, which areas should be targetted? If you think Linux needs better marketing to succeed, do you think there is any way that the Linux community can match Microsoft's juggernaut of a marketing machine. If you think that Linux needs to be pre-installed, do you think there is any way that the community can convince OEM's to make Linux an option? If you think that Linux needs more applications, are you in a position with influence over Microsoft's decision to port applications to Linux?
How will Microsoft guarantee the privacy and security of documents that are no longer created and stored locally on the client?
I'll put is straight on the line:
Can you ever see Microsoft applications like Office, Visio, and Project being ported to Linux, and why or why not?
FM
Frank W. Miller
With the recent release of MacOS X what are your reactions to it and what plans do you have to compete with a truly user-friendly desktop OS combined with the stability of a UNIX backend?
--neutrino
History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion-i.e. none to speak of. - Lazarus Long
.NET is a platform on which to build Web services...
.NET) using SOAP and UDDI and then you can leverage those services through your site/application very easily.
What is a Web service?
Let's say you are a travel agent and you want to build a Web site with online booking capability. Do you want to re-invent the wheel and implement the booking system yourself? Nope.
A Web service provider can expose their system (programmed using
That only scratches the surface but the idea behind Web services is to create an Internet where it's easy to combine services from different vendors/suppliers to create your own Web applications.
.NET consists of a CLR (Common Language Runtime), several languages (C#, C++, VB, etc...) that support it and a large set of frameworks based on COM.
.NET is an interesting vision, though I doubt the technology will live up to all it's expectations.
-Hunter
RateVegas.com - Vegas Reviews
I'm sorry if you don't like "technobabble" but .Net is just a bunch of existing technologies repackaged with a few new ones as a platform to create Web sites/services/applications.
.Net enabled apps/sites will allow you easier access to stuff you want because it will be easier for developers to create great sites. Total integration between handhelds / desktops / the Web, that kind of crap.
.Net.
Microsoft will tell you that from an end user point of view
.Net is a direct response to Sun/Java/J2EE. Microsoft essentially took Windows DNA and added a new language and the CLR to create
-Hunter
RateVegas.com - Vegas Reviews
If MicroSoft has a whole team devoted to interoperability, why was I only able to achieve any level of interoperability through Samba?
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
True, it is *now* freely available. It is still an interesting question as to why they originally released it with the silly click-through license and then sent a C&D to /. to get it yanked.
It is not a surprise that, after it was widely published and the click-through license was easily averted that they decided to go ahead and publish it after all. If only others (RIAA) were as clueful to give up when the genie (DeCSS) got out of the bottle.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
How often do you post on slashdot, and do you identify yourself as an MS employee when you do?
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
D'oh. The RIAA's task is to realize that the MP3 genie is out of the bottle.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
It's not like this is the first time MS ever took a standard and modified it with the hopes of killing the competition. That's what makes the question interesting. Here we have a case where MS went out of it's way to take a standard and keep others from working with it (while under investigation for anti-trust violations, no less). As an answer to the criticism, they released a document that virtually declared war on anyone that tried to *use* it. After it was widely distributed and unable to stop, they threatened legal action against those that published it. After realizing that they couldn't stop it, they quietly gave up supressing it.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Softway Systems made a UNIX-branded subsystem for NT, so he is probably running same version Unix version of ?vi? as quite a few of you are.
He got bought out by Microsoft, and the product is currently available as Microsoft Interix (http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/interix/).
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The fact that the Kerberos authors now say "oops, I guess we hadn't thought anybody would use that field" says nothing about standards compliance.
Actually, it's my understanding that The Open Group (you know, the guys who own the UNIX brandname) used that field for the exact same purpose as Microsoft (to hold authorization information) some years ago.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The PC* standards are primarily driven by Microsoft.
Of course they've been widely ignored before (for example, making parallel/serial "optional" before USB support shipped for NT). But they do serve to provide cover for OEMs to do certain things, such as get rid of ISA slots.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
If you are looking for a history lesson, I think he was sort of dancing around the point about the 286. Turns out this was a braindamaged processor, but was insanely popular in the PC AT (1984) and IBM and their subcontractor Microsoft committed to shipping a next gen OS for it. This move politically kiboshed Microsoft's original plan which was to replace DOS with UNIX/XENIX.
This OS was OS/2 1.0, which shipped in 1987 as a 16-bit 286-specific OS to an enormous amount of hype, but unfortunately was already obsolete because i386 machines were already on the market from Compaq and others. It also put the dampers on IBM's big PS/2 Microchannel rollout, because IBM wouldn't ship a i386 CPU, and this led to the impression that the market leader was falling behind and sigificantly tarnished the sell of MCA as an advanced solution.
Anyway, the dumping of XENIX for OS/2, and the later (1990) IBM-Microsoft divorce (primarly over OS/2 development and marketing issues) set back the state of PC operating systems by a number of years. Meanwhile, Windows 3, which was always supposed to be a half-assed stopgap solution, got popular, and still to this day most PCs ship a direct decendant (WinME).
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
How does the ninth post, and the first that wasn't a troll, rudundant?
You say you want a revolution....
We keep hearing rumours that Microsoft will eventually be coming out with this or that for Linux, but on the flip side, Microsoft PR has some very negative things to say about Linux. What I am wondering, is there any truth to the rumours, and given the recent announcement that Microsoft will be developing a product with Transmeta, will we be seeing Microsoft put a kinder face towards Linux?
You say you want a revolution....
Microsoft continues to integrate the services provided on it's platform. There are many forms to this, such as IE and Media Player integration into the OS, and integration between client and server - which will become much more prevelant with .NET. With this continued integration users are continually being pushed further into making a clean choice between The Microsoft Platform of Integrated Services/Software vs. Everyone Else. When I look into the future I see two separate computing worlds. I see Windows users working with .NET servers and Active Directory, playing encrypted WMA files, surfing IE enhanced web sites, and using Outlook to email Word files to other Exchange users. I see Linux (etc) users working with to Linux servers and CORBA, playing MP3/OGG files, surfing W3C standard web sites, and using Evolution to email other SMTP users. In some sense, the above can be viewed as the Closed vs Open communities.
My question is, do you see this polarization of the user community? Does Microsoft worry that faced with a "this" vs. "that" decision more countries like China and Mexico will choose "that"? And if they choose "that" Microsoft will be so far down it's integrated (or innovative as they call it) path that turning around at that point will be impossible? And possibly lead to the ultimate demise of the company?
If users buy into the Microsoft platform as MS would like, it would necessarily lead to a computing environment built entirely on MS technology. Ignoring the technical advantages and disadvantages to the respective platforms... computing is becoming an ever more pervasive part of our lives, and in that respect we are just getting started (think Jetsons). How do you personally feel about the foundations for mankind's (and your children's) future society being owned and managed by one single for-profit "closed" company? Do you think other peoples answers to this will have bearing on the "this" vs "that" choice of platform?
Thank You.
Now that Digital, the Alliance, and OpenVMS are all historical footnotes, is there a similar (successor) plan -- using, for instance, Compaq's "big iron" (the wildfire boxes in particular) and Tru64 Unix in place of OpenVMS?
MOO;IANAL.
MOO;IANAL.
There used to be a picture linked here.
:s/^V^M$//g
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Or we'll just spend the money elsewhere. I chaised the tail of MS OS updates because the hardware improvements needed to get the most out of them were beneficial for other software, and the hardware was cheap relative to the performance increases I was experiencing.
But if I need to make the nut on $200 OS updates every six months to stay somewhat current, it's going to start to cut into what I spend my money on otherwise -- ski trips, woodworking stuff, and all the other expensive things I do. I may decide that those things are more benficial than some minor change in the Windows start menu.
I haven't seen too many developments in technology (consumer applications) for the consumer to get excited about. How is Microsoft Windows XP going to inspire the excitement that Microsoft Windows 95 did? The pc has been around a long time now. The Tablet PC that Bill Gates demonstrated at Comdex looks pretty impressive. I would put it in the webpad class of devices. I have used various pdas and I have checked out the specs on a lot of the webpad prototypes that various companies have developed. For me, the devices are all missing something, ethernet. Some of them use wireless 802.11b which is fine. But connectivity is expensive, especially from a consumer point of view. I would buy a webpad class device right now if they would include ethernet as a built in feature. LCD screens are very expensive still. How does Microsoft intend to create tablet pcs with attractive feature sets and yet keep the cost low enough for people to buy?
Microsoft was reported over a year ago to be one of only a very few companies publically supporting UCITA. How could this support be justified?
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
When deciding how to "compete against Linux", how does Microsoft's marketing strategy take this into account?
--
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
And just how much is a soul going for these days? ;^)
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
It could be argued that Microsoft's software has, since the early stages of Windows, simplified its user interface to the point of "condescending" to the user. Windows 95 introduced us to "My Computer" and "My Documents," referring to elements of the operating system as a child might refer to his posessions ("mine, mine.") Windows 98 introduced a stern, almost parental warning that must be clicked through before the user may view to contents of his or her system folder -- etc.
This simplification must be a lucrative marketing strategy for Microsoft in a world where AOL's user base continues to grow, and more and more end users would prefer to own a computer that requires less computer knowledge. On the other hand, Windows NT caters to the business market where UI simplification usually means lack of control over the OS in the best case and lack of OS security in the worst case.
I'm curious to know what conflict, if any, this dual-mindedness causes within Microsoft, and how, if at all, it makes life more difficult for Microsoft marketers like yourself.
What do YOU run at home?
Ignorance is the root of all evil.
Balmer recently said that Microsoft.NET will interoperate on multiple platforms, including MacOS X and Linux to name a few. How do you suppose that this will be technically possible? Will Microsoft bring Internet Explorer to Linux or will they create Netscape 6 / Mozilla plugins for what will run Microsoft.NET.
Furthermore, how will it be marketed? I have learned that consumers typically do not take well to products that are turned into services. From the consumers standpoint they were able to own Microsoft Office, however with .NET it will follow a service bureau model instead.
Just for kicks I will throw out the 27 million dollar question, what is your opinion concerning the future of Linux in the server / desktop / small devices markets? Do you think that it has been successful, what (of the Linux market) would you improve if you could?
-Why did Microsoft choose to support Perl? .Net framework?
-What are the latest developments with the support for Perl in Visual Studio and the
-Can we expect alot of proprietary enhancements and extensions?
-Will we be able to develop code in a Windows IDE for use on a Unix (like) environment?
-How does your marketing team distinguish Perl from Visual Basic?
-Any thoughts on support for a mod_perl like embedded interpreter for IIS?
Do you see Linux as a threat to Microsoft?
11.0010010000111111011010101000100010000101101000
for information on what Wine is (for a microsoft person who is probably not familiar with it!), go to www.winehq.com.
in 'vi' how to I ^M
get rid of all these^M
pesky DOS line-feed^M
characters^M
^Z
Are you free to speak honestly ?
How do you feel about the claims that C# is simply Microsoft's answer to Java? As a programmer, why should I choose C# over Java or C++?
Pah! Flaimbait and karma whoring! No matter how much you'd like to bitch, WAKE UP ZEALOT! IE supports way more of the w3c standard than any version of netscape.
Of course I'm gonna cop it one way or the other for this post, but I had to get it off my chest.
Flame retardent suit: on. Spelling checker: off
--Gfunk
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Softway Systems Interix software was one of the tools that made NT reasonably manageable. When Microsoft bought out your company 1 1/2 years ago, I feared that they would bury it and/or render it useless.
Looking at the latest version of MS Interix, I feel that I was justified in my concerns. No real improvements have been made, and a number of usefull tools have been removed (vi, for example).
How do you respond to Microsoft's predatory aquisition of OpenNT, and it's eventual castration? Is this the type of innovation that we can expect as Microsoft strives to create "great software"?
Oh I'm about to fall of my chair. This is so funny.
Well he is touted as the great innovator. I'd just like to know what he innovates.
I've often wanted to meet Bill just to ask him this. Does Bill contribute any code to any of Microsoft's products? If yes, how much?
What this will do is clutter the desktop (the physical one), which is always the one thing I hated about Macs. The drive was external. The floppy was exteral. The CD was external. The modem was external. You have a dozen things plugged in, and they consume more space, and more power, than they would have had the computer case been a little bit bigger.
Plus, how the hell are you supposed to keep the system quiet when there's a dozen little fans spinning away cooling all those external devices.
If you want to make it modular, make it internally modular. Here's where the modem plugs directly onto the motherboard, and it's this big, with the connectors in exactly this spot. Boom, it snaps on like adding RAM.
Building more into the motherboard is nice, but when built-in components fail, it's more expensive. Modularity = Low Price.
If all this is a beef against device drivers (which I recall MS as claiming was the single biggest source of problems), then have higher device driver standards.
I concede that the desktop is beginning to become cluttered. Not my choice. However, the new fascination with externalizing everything (like the iPaq's modem) in a large case is frustrating.
Your motherboard may come with a built-in modem. Why can't you replace it with a modem made by a different manufacturer? Or the built-in NIC? Or the built-in sound card. Swap that cheapo 16-bit soundcard for something more powerful. If the onboard (insert component here) fails, why do you have to junk the entire motherboard?
If we want to get PC's to be smaller, we need to get something smaller than the PCI or AGP bus. MicroATX, FlexATX and MiniNLX aren't small enough.
My (small) company creates web-based applications and delivers them as an ASP. We use Linux, Apache, MySQL and Perl or PHP (LAMP), and we're happy with the results. Our software costs approach zero, and we don't have to worry about per-seat or per-server licensing.
On occasion, a feature we need is missing from the LAMP toolset. This feature is available in a Microsoft product, and we think about switching. However, when we look at the economics of the situation, we find a way to work around our "need" for the feature.
I'm no Linux zealot -- I've been in this business for 15 years, and I've used (and been happy with) Microsoft products. But, as a small software shop, the business decision to use LAMP instead of Windows 2000, IIS, SQL Server and ASP seems like a no-brainer.
My question: How does Microsoft compete with LAMP in this kind of environment?
I would strongly suggest people read Microsoft's OEM guidelines before believing this. Slashdot received a submission of this early this morning, and I downloaded and read said guidelines from MS's web site. Microsoft has some suggestions for an "Easy PC", a sort of IMac for the PC world - it should have bright colors, interesting designs, no confusing upgradability, etc. etc. It is clear from reading the specifications that there is no intent for ALL PCs to be "Easy PCs" - this would be just for certain product lines intended for new PC owners.
So, ZDNet is full of shit. At best they are poor readers. At worst they are intentionally confusing these guidelines for the Easy PC with all of the other guidelines (in the same document) for regular desktops, servers, etc., none of which say anything about expansion cards except for notes like "All expansion slots in the system are accessible for users to insert cards" (that's a direct quote from the general system guide, by the way).
There are plenty of things going on in the hardware world that people need to be concerned about. Copy protection is being built in at a very basic level. But in this particular case, ZDNet is entirely wrong.
Microsoft has a reputation for not playing well with others, both for having closed networking/internet protocols and for making incompatible versions of open protocols. Do you think Microsoft deserves this reputation? What is Microsoft's position on open and compatible protocols? What is Microsoft's position on reverse engineering efforts of its closed protocols?
How do you sleep with yourself at night?
it aint that hard to belive, because its true. do some reasearch at arstechnic, and they have an article about it
it does both, it generates it the first time to get a base line, and to get yhe key from MS. Then at boot time it is generated again, and compared to the onle from the install, if it differs by more than X than, whamo. no more OS....not to say it deletes it sellf, you just have to call MS to get a fix for it.
The CLI-loving Linux people soak themselves in ill-tempered advocacy that does nothing more than irritate people like you. Do you distance the old UNIX-y you from the new Windows-y you -- or do you have the maturity to see a computer as a tool and the OS choice is a wash in the environment of your work. (In other words, what kind of computer and OS do you boot at home?)
In terms of user experience, the Windows 2000 command prompt is the only part of windows that is not competive with UNIX-based operating systems. Does Microsoft have any plans to improve the command shell in future versions of windows?
Download a fast DirectX Tetris Clone [276 k]
Microsoft has a long standing history of using proprietary lock-in as its main means of remaining competitive in the marketplace, rather than relying on technical merits or superior service. Even now as Microsoft claims to be embracing open standards we see moves such as pollution of standards (kerberos) to lock in clients to a single-vendor server solution, and Hailstorm/Passport which would require every user of .NET services to store their purchasing history on Microsoft servers.
This business model is equivalent to auto makers building cars that only ran on gasoline purchased from them.
Can you give us any proof that Microsoft is moving away from this antiquated model, and address how a customer could choose a different vendor in the two cases mentioned.
why not? he didnt even post it with a +1 bonus. it seems pretty fair to me. plus it is much more thought out than:
-why are you an asshole.
-why does ms suck.
-is bill the infamous reciever poseing at goatse.cx.
-etc.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
How do you plan to ensure that SOAP interoperability happens?
.NET adoption.
Without it, we will be left with a balkanization between MS-oriented engineers building SOAP apps and others building XML-RPC apps. Surely it is in MS's best interests to make SOAP the popular standard, as this should help drive
There are currently 39 non-compatible SOAP implementations (and growing...) - how will you embrace or reject or integrate those efforts?
Cheers!
Dear Doug:
...
...
There are quite a few companies porting software that used to be Mac-only, Windows-only (or Those Two-only) to Linux, and some others porting SW that used to be aimed exclusively at other *nixen.
Since MS provides the most ubiquitous office software around in the form of Office (and for those who did not purchase The Executive Version of this Record, MS Works), and is not against porting to other platforms -- at least to the Mac OS -- don't you see a potential cash cow in the growing Linux desktop market?
And as you no doubt know, but are perhaps happy about!;) there are certain "stumbling block" applications which some people who would prefer a UNIX/workalike stick to MS OSes in order to use. (MS Project, for instance.) Any thought to porting these (and keeping the customer of the big-ticket software) rather than waiting for a good-enough Free replacement to emerge. They will, in time
So my title is somewhat facetious, since I don't expect MS to anytime soon open its source code to those things, but selling is another thing. RMS (and I) would prefer a free office suite, and generally Free code . And office suites and other Free software, already good, is getting steadily better. But a lot of businesses would probably be happy to pay you for Office. They already do, after all;)
Is it a matter of developer time? (I'm sure partlly), or is it mostly / primarily a matter of corporate strategy *not* to provide equivalent apps to a non-MS OS? (Apple certainly has that sort of strategy, and they make some very pretty software.)
While there are a lot of versions of Linux (GNU/Linux), and I've heard that as a reason for companies not developing for it, it seems like a rather weak excuse.
Of course, when MS starts selling Office for Linux (and we've all heard the rumors of the port, which you are free to be mum on and confirm or loudly deny;) ) I will eat a small chocolate hat
Cheers,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Marketing
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
I'm no Doug Miller but here're my 2 cents
The change between windows ME/2k and XP can be compared to the drastic change between 3.1 and 95/98. In the same way that the internet(IE) became more integerated with the interface in 95/98 and files(documents) and not programs became more important, in windows XP, (multi)media and Windows Media Player are integrated in a large way into the interface. Documents are no longer the stars - it's the media that make up these documents. MSN Explorer is also more or less integrated into the interface and i think you can see some integration with passport as well.
I guess that would be a pretty large list of changes to the standard 2k/ME interface
What about .Net is different in this regard, over the long haul?
.Net will be any different?
And why should anyone believe that
In reality, it has done more to estabish Microsoft as a standard than it has to reduce revenue. Why the change?
Or, even stranger, to how much of a degree will reducing home-user piracy hurt Microsoft? I think that if all home users actually had to spend $200 for an OS and $500 for Office, he or she would start thinking very seriously about less-expensive alternatives.
Given MS's dominant position in the marketplace, why should MS stockholders support a board of directors that allows the creation of a team that aids companies using MS _competitor's_ products?
At this point, doesn't it make sense to make the competition come to you?
After not having paid attention to windows at all for 2 years, a friend recently demoed Win2k for be and showed me screen shots from XP. I was impressed at the increase in visual as well as technical quality of the OS. Do you see this development as a natural evolution from Win98 or have you been influenced by the superior technical quality of Linux and/or the innovative works of the major GUI players in the *NIX world (ie. KDE/GNOME/Ximian)?
On a side note, do you believe that microsoft will ever be able to establish a community like that of Linux users? I'm thinking in terms of helpfulness, knowledge - or is the Linux community strengthened by the number of techies that have adopted the system? Is it at all possibly to rally such a community without going open source?
Unable to read configuration file '/bigassraid/htdig//conf/14229.conf'
Geocrawler error message.
MS is now running commercials stating that the SQL server database "plays nice with others". OTOH MS provides no technology to connect to SQL server from any other OS.
I can connect to an Oracle, DB/2, postgres, mysql, sybase server from any operating system using just about any language I can imagine but the only mechanism ms provides for SQL server are windows only.
War is necrophilia.
More importantly will it pursue copy protection with the same vigor in all countries? Will MS work to prevent people in china, africa, south america, middle east or will it let the North american and European consumers subsidize the widespread piracy in third world countries.
How can MS justify it's anti piracy efforts in the US and Europe when it does nothing to preven piracy in other parts of the world.
War is necrophilia.
So where are the API specs for native access to SQL server? I imagine if it was published the freetds or PHP folks would be thrilled. Instead they are trying to reverse engineer something that MS keeps changing.
War is necrophilia.
There is nothing you can't do with a one button mouse that you can do with a two button mouse, if your have good enough programmers.
War is necrophilia.
Two wrong make a right?
War is necrophilia.
Notice the "extend" part. MS extends specs and leverages their monopoly to cripple competitors. Your comments are an excellant example of how MS does things. In both the HTML and kerberos the "embrace and extend" crippled competitors products.
MS gives lip service to interoperability but like everything else coming out of their mouths it's a big fat lie. People interested in interop would not hide their implementation spec.
War is necrophilia.
You my friend are truly stupid if you can't connect my post with my sig. Go ahead and think for a few second more.
War is necrophilia.
TDS as released by sybase is published. TDS as implemented by MS is not (and no they are not the same).
War is necrophilia.
MS is now running commercials stating that the SQL server database "plays nice with others". OTOH MS has no JDBC drivers, UNIX ODBC drivers or any other tool to connect to a SQL server from a unix environment. MS also does not support the Freetds project which attempts this. In fact MS is moving away from TDS which will render this project useless.
What exactly does MS mean by "plays nice with others?". What does "interoperability" mean to you and to MS. Does MS plan on providing JDBC drivers for any of it's databases.
War is necrophilia.
No, about one and a half would be okay for me . 64 megs of ram is decent as well.
Juln
Agreed. Why would MS consider that desirable, other than to prevent people from noticing Plug-n-Pray failures?
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
1. What has been the hardest thing for you to deal with from a marketing perspective? The DOJ trial, or something else? What do you think the next difficult thing is that's coming up?
2. Do you view Windows as a competitor to Linux? :)
How did you feel when you were acquired by Microsoft? Would you prefer to be back using Unix, or are you happy where you are now?
Visit the
Hello
I am amazed that Microsoft still holds a dominant position, while other OSs with greater features (uptime, scalabilty, remote access etc) with lower costs (about $20 for a FreeBSD or slackware CD vs over $400 for a Win2K license). The obvious differece is marketing -- in which Microsoft plays songs that contain lyrics like "It makes a grown man cry" and (something like -- I don't know any latin) 'The confused are damned to hell'
So, how do you do it?
How do you sleep at night?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Actually, they sort of already did- M$ did something with a UNIX flavor, called XENIX before the whole BASIC/DOS horrorshow that we're stuck with today.
There's a *real* question for anyone at M$- considering the present popularity of *NIX and the fact that as of Saturday, Microsoft is the *only* major OS vendor that doesn't have a bash, what in the HECK prompted them to abandon XENIX and go on to something that has proven over time to be infinitely less useable for everything but games?
Okay, this is more tech than marketing, but I'd still like to see a straight answer. How, exactly, is .NET any different than, say, opening Telnet and running a remote session on a server? Aside from the fact that it seems more fractionalized and has a GUI, and potential users will have to pay money to use it, of course.
//c to an SGI, it's available for practically every platform and works exactly the same across the board. It is an established fact that for some weird reason, M$ products for the Macintosh are far superior to those for their own OS, and they support nothing else. .NET seems like an attempt by M$ to recoup their most immediate loss- the web making operating systems irrelevant- by relying on it to tie the end user into the Microsoft feifdom even further. Stating that .NET services will be available for Linux while at the same time raining FUD down on the less educated about the same OS? Giving me a shot at bogging down OSX even further? What is the point of all this, and if Microsoft is betting the farm on it and everybody says "fuck off", what then?
/. users have. Point of fact is that I have everything I need from Microsoft, and no plans at all to upgrade any of it because I have no money and what I have works very well. .NET gives me no incentive to upgrade, and every possible reason to stick with older software - who thought of this, and who forgot to do the market research?
I can run Telnet on just about everything - from an Apple
Also, how do you intend to sell the idea of "subscription" software to people that have become progressively disatisfied as the version numbers creep upward? The only product I've used that seems to keep getting better is Internet Explorer- Outlook is still poorly designed, Word became useless [without a custom install and forty minutes of tweaking] after version 5, and... well, we all know the negative view of the Microsoft operating environments that most
If you'd listed an email, I'd tell you directly- I'm thoroughly amazed to get a reply to one of my posts that isn't either a flame or a "Yeah!" - I really appreciate the history lesson, as XENIX information has proven very difficult to find. The economics and technology of the time, thanks to your perspective, makes the relative non-existance of XENIX easier to understand.
And you're right- most people don't want bash. Or a command prompt at all- though it would be nice to use the bar in Windows and the Explorer-wannabe window managers to execute bash commands. It's sad to see that Microsoft's vastly inferior UI is "the" UI experience for so many, when the MacOS does it so much better.... likewise the experience between DOS and the UNIX shells.
The ZDNet article you linked to states it is a set of "guidelines and recommendations for PC manufacturers... Some of the items I've listed are requirements and others are mere recommendations or best practices." While Microsoft may for some reason want you to not be able to upgrade your components, there is nothing to indicate it is a requirement and not just a recommendation, and the overall ridiculousness of it implies to me that it is more likely to be a recommendation than a requirement (though I wouldn't put anything past MS).
Just an example: the GUI was a great concept, and though Microsoft didn't actually invent it they built it into their OS with great success.
I see nothing wrong there. Anyone building something new, or improving something will look for proved and well working concepts to include, and for new concepts just emerging to consider. It's how a software product stays at the edge of technology: looking at what the competition is doing and trying to make it better.
My question is, what new concepts (in competing software products) do you deem worthy of considering and why?
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
I think this question should be asked to all of the /. interviewees because I think it is interesting how *intelligent* people respond to this question. Which license do you think does the most to further innovation: BSD or GPL? Please feel free to answer both as a regular person and as a Microsoft employee and please expound if there is a difference between your view and the views of a Microsoft employee. One would think that Microsoft, as a successful commercial entity, would support the BSD license.
Yes or no???
The ability to run applications on an Unix server from an NT desktop would be great for people like me who need to run Windows in order to be able to read MSWord enclosures in my email whilst also running graphical applications on the departmental numbercruncher. The third party tools to do this are expensive and flakey. Surely an X11 server is something that should be part of any default graphical OS ?
The quality of applications that come bundled with the various incarnations of MSWindows is noticeably poorer where these are apps intended to provide connectivity to other OSs <i>c.f.</i> MSTelnet, hyperterminal & command line ftp.
Isn't this omission of quality connectivity tools a blatant example of how Microsoft is using its monopoly on the desktop to mike life difficult for people who want to connect to a robust multi-user OS ?
Microsoft's stock has gone down almost 50% from highs of a year ago, and while not going into the toilet like many of the Nasdaq stocks, this performance would give any young programmer pause to think if MS is such a great opportunity after all.
What would you tell the CIO of a fortune 500 company about Microsoft's strategies for keeping good people, and continuing to turn out product?
"You can't have everything. Where would you keep it?" -- Steven Wright
Vi sux..it's too user friendly. Sed and ed.
How often has a producer of a good thats in high demand refused to sell it to consumers?
How long did it take from the sale of the VCR's to the movie studio's selling prerecorded cassetts?
How long did it take from the sale of the magnetic audio tape to citizens before the RIAA started selling prerecorded tapes by the bucket?
Thus, why is this situation different? Why would the movie studio's or music publishers NOT rush out to sell this new market?
Is Microsoft looking at implementing an OS based on BSD (because of it's license) - or looking to implement some of the features that unix/linux people like to use?
How is Mr Gates coping with not being able
to buy out the Open Source community?
I mean it must be hard to have awesome software
sitting around that you can't buy!
Nevrar
One thing that has bothered me for many years now, is the windows update site.
This is a multi-part question, but all about one topic.
1. Why is it that in over three years of using said update site on hundreds of combinations of hardware and software is it that I have *never* seen "driver updates" available. This one-source-for-driver-updates feature was a HUGE idea, and one I have continued to try, and *never* had work. I see that it is in Windows XP as well, and yet.. it still doesnt show any "updated" drivers.
2. How do you feel about the "incremental updates" patent recently released by Symantec, in relation to windowsupdate?
3. Why can't I tell the site that I dont want to see the listing of some 30 foreign languages!?
Thanks for your time and responses.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
What are the current, and future opinions at Microsoft about Copy Protection at the hardware level?
:)
If a spec is developed that has TRUE hardware-industry support, would Microsoft utilize it in its software, would it ignore such abilities, or would it give consumers the right to check a box to turn it on or off?
(And if you choose the check option, what would the default be)
Thanks for your time.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
i was using the term virus loosely to describe all code that is both secret and malicious.
my bad. i would have clarified, but i was trying to keep it short.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
i'm well aware of the fact that he wasn't at microsoft then. i still want his opinion. companys have legends and secrets.
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What happens when you outlaw guns
Dude, you have the most bad-ass user #
/., like the retard that i was/am) but i don't want to give up the user #.
I got it completely by accident. I've always actually wanted to switch to a handle, rather than a fragment of my real name (which i used when i first signed on to
plus, if i start to use a different name, the moderators who hate me will have to learn to seek me out yet again under a new name, and that wouldn't be fair to them.
if you want to see a cool user #, check out the guy with 66666. He still posts.
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What happens when you outlaw guns
Dear Doug,
I'm pleased to learn that you use "vi". When will the Windows ME port of "vi" become available?
Thanks for your input!
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
Dear Doug, could you clear something up for me once and for all?
9 d. htm
Was the "AARD detection code" bug a true self-modifying virus, intentionally planted by Microsoft? And if not, how did self-modifying, XOR encrypted code get into Windows?
Here's the link to the AARD code:
http://www.ddj.com/articles/1993/9309/9309d/930
Thanks for your reply! Microsoft's years of silence on this have really had me wondering whether MS really unleashed a stealth virus on its users. Please tell us they didn't!
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
Dear Doug,
Much of Microsoft's strategy in the past has involved embracing a standard, and then changing it in such a way that specific interoperabilities (specifically, MS client to non-MS server) are disabled.
Some examples of protocols that have been adapted in this manner are HTML, SSL and Kerberos.
Which protocols, in the future, do you intend to apply this paradigm to?
Thanks for your input!
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
How prevelant is Linux usage and how contributive is it toward Microsoft's product creations?
At what point in your career did you realize that your end goal was to become a turncoat?
Please moderate the above post down - I think the answer is obvious and other questions are more pertinent.
For a consumer, SAP means they can actually acquire music from big name label artists and listen to it digitally.
Currently, one can do so, but only if
a) They purchase the entire CD (rather than a few select tracks). This is legal in non DMCA states although the music industry wouldn't have you believe so.
b) You steal the track from someone else over the net. This is illegal in the opinion of lawmakers and most people, and morally wrong in my own opinion.
SAP has the support of the record companies of the artists that have the most people listening to them.
When SAP is implemented, I can get the latest Aerosmith track without having to buy the whole album, and with it being legal.
Yeah, sure. How many bytes per sec you can do with that? vim, sed, ed, car, cdr.
--
--- Sueños del Sur - a webcomic about four young siblings
Anyone else notice when you abbreviate his title, it's Windows ME :)
-------------------
arcane for life
he probably uses vigor.
--
One more drink, and I'll move on. --Dave Matthews Band
Dear Mr. Miller, Microsoft's strategy of "Embrace and Extend", its clear opposition to interoperability (except among its own products), and its strategy of virtually-forced upgrades, are aspects of the company's corporate behavior that users and developers alike (including those of Microsoft products) find odious and despicable. These behaviors started waaay back with early MS-DOS, and persist essentially unchanged today.
If there ever was a time that Microsoft actually NEEDED to behave this way in order to achieve market share, it is long past, and that strategy no longer serves any worthwhile purpose. If Microsoft were a "good corporate citizen", it would still be, and would likely remain, the largest software firm in the world.
Why, then, does Microsoft persist in obstructing real interoperability when that obstruction is of marginal benefit if any, and is there any prospect of this behavior genuinely being changed?
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Everyone knows that Microsoft is notorious for "embracing" technologies. After developing J2EE products for quite some time, I decided to look into .NET. After a short look through this article:t ips/comtips.asp t ips/comtipsfig07.gif
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/1200/com
I realized just home much Microsoft has "embraced" J2EE. With some things being glaring duplications:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/1200/com
How does Microsoft get away with such "embracing"?
Jason
Being in marketing or working for Microsoft?
Someone you trust is one of us.
Never mind that Netscape was the first to fork the HTML specs (blink, anyone?)
--
OliverWillis.Com
OliverWillis.Com
An Operative with an Agenda
-----------------------
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
I'd like to help you on this one but I can't.
I haven't even seen the movie.
So here's the question: have you ever been really passionate about computers and software? Have you ever gotten up in the middle of the night, thinking not "we're going to make a ton of money", but "this product is so cool it's going to change everything." And if you have, isn't Microsoft going to make you sell your soul?
--
314-15-9265
how bad does it actually suck to work for the "Evil Empire"?
E.
-
-
This Post has been brought to you by the letter "E".
There's a general perception in the community that Microsoft is a master at spreading FUD about competing products and companies. Why should we consider your answers to these questions as credible, honest answers -- and not "more of the same"?
...and thus a higher customer-base for MS products???
Your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
In re-reading my post I see how the following phrase could be interpreted as an attack: "Do you consciously set out to eliminate all competition...". It was not meant as such. Perhaps I should have said "Is there a conscious effort to eliminate competition from the market".
Thanks
-drin
I regularly see published diatribes about the monopolistic attitudes inside Microsoft and the "crush 'em" competitive strategies used by the company to dominate markets (not to mention the DOJ case and subsequent initial ruling...).
Can you give us some insight into how you (personally and as a Microsoft-employeed individual) approach the generation of a competitive strategy when entering a new market? Do you consciously set out to eliminate all competition, or is there a deeper, broader, more long-term strategy at work?
-drin
Disclaimer: I use Debian. I love it. I will use it soon on my Amiga 3000 once I get it going (my A1200 is the desktop running OS3.9). Windows crashes while I'm writing emails. That's been my experience. Now that I've exposed my own bias...
I think the IE argument for breaking up the company is bullshit. IE is called IE because if you told consumers it was one of the object libraries that coordinate everything, you'd never get them to get a copy. In consumerland object oriented design is not in the dictionary, so you guys called it IE. I used to agree w/ the DOJ until I understood IE. In fact, ironically I learned about it from a talk Miguel de Icaza gave regarding bonobo the CORBA core for GNOME.
Don't get me wrong, I think MS pulled a few tricks I seriously disagree with which are grounds for some action against it. For example, the way it acquired DirectX by buying out one of three cooperating companies and leaving the others in the dust, or that little thing between Bill Gates and Jay Walker and his patent think tank Walker Digital. Can't say I like Jay Walker either but I digress.
That aside, what is your opinion of an independent
group that provided tech information that could be applied quickly and reliably to legal cases so that the courts keep up with the times. They could trust the source rather than spending years coordinating what amounts to in court computer science classes for jurors. Would Microsoft sponsor such a project?
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I was replying to someone claiming to be Doug Miller our interview guest.
Even if Windows didn't crash I would have left. The fact is, the windows user community doesn't want innovation, and whatever innovation they do want they're scared (not unsatisfied) if it isn't Microsoft doing it.
Things that turned me away:
1. Microsoft makes the best software, so just buy Microsoft okay before we the Windows users have a nervous breakdown and we start shooting people. Just fucking buy Microsoft you communist!
2. Microsoft sucks but they own everything so what's the point? Just be a man, and buy their shit and their stock. Their stock always goes up.
You argue like a little girl, you linux commie!
I can't say whether it was the little girl in me or the commie (which is kind of ironic cuz I grew up in a communist state and I can tell you it sucks ass) who made the decision, but I realized you simply can't make money in the Windows world regardless what your product is if you compete with Microsoft products. It isn't Microsoft who sees you as a threat, Bill Gates has money to burn and frankly I wish him well. Windows zealots are the ones who are threeatened by you. They're the ones who will snipe and flame if you even try to get near them.
So I left. I've found a similar case w/ linux users but most of them are too busy coding to be a menace. And most linux zealots mature into civilized citizens eventually.
3. I looked at the net and all I could see was AOLers who never had a cause to fight for in their lives buying all sorts of tools to make the Net behave. I just couldn't stand to see that. So I needed to support a group that could grow which didn't think that way.
I tried BeOS, that didn't work at the time. I tried Linux and I was on the net within a few hours. And the rest is history. Now if the Amiga works I'll be so happy.
I can run AmigaOS, Linux, NetBSD, AROS, Amiga Unix, Windows, MacOS, and MorphOS on it.
I can put a G4, an Alpha, a PPC, a MIPS, a Celeron, a 68K, and a Sparc in it at the same time and run software on all of those CPUs at the same time.
The machine was built 7 years ago!
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
What kind of research have you conducted to find out what consumers want from Windows?
All I seem to hear is that your customers want these "innovations" (incompatible protocols, activeX, etc...) I know that if you asked most people on this list what they wanted, Windows would be a completely different product.
--WooooHoooo--
Are you feeling ok mentally? Working at Microsoft has to be tough. Are you ever required to do anything you or other people might consider extremely unethical in your job?
Mod this one up. It's the most succint way to address the ethical issues -- let the other nine questions be more specific stuff.
Yeah but by leaving it open ended you can get him to respond to what he sees as the strongest ethical criticisms. Of course he can duck any question or just leave it out of the responses.
I think it would be interesting to see what issue he associates with "not sleeping well".
Thanks!
Doug
ÕÕ
Now that you and Softway are part of MS when is Internix going to be bunded with Win XP and made to exec Linux binaries?
The mirror is bordered with stock options - lots of them.
Wow! A slashdot editor researching an anti-Microsoft article before posting it!
Sarcasm aside, thanks for the research and the information. Someone please mod parent post up.
Mmmm.. Donuts
This question fails to understand the simple truth that descisions made by MSFT are made primarily to support a business strategy, not for technical reasons, not for consumer benefit, for _business strategy_. Once you understand that the history of MSFT is much more understandable.
What are you talking about?
Are you on crack? The guy is in marketing. Why would he have been in a development meeting?
Considering your position within Microsoft, will you be able to give your own personal honest answers to these questions, or will your answers need to be 'approved' by management?
wouldn't it make sense that if his answers must be 'approved by management' that the 'management approved' answer to this question would be 'Of course I'm giving you my honest opinion.'?
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
And exactly who's using that? The total would probably be 1/100th or less than the number of apache users, while nearly all winblows lusers are running the famously secure and stable IIS.
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
The VFS under Unix-like OSs provides a good way to use multiple devices transparently. Are there any plans to implement such a mechanism into any of Microsoft's products? More generally, are there plans to migrate the Windows methodologies closer to the Unix methodologies? Would you personally like to see this happen?
With the recent announcement of Windows XP Blade as a low-cost, drop-in-and go web server, it's obvious that Microsoft is trying to regain some of the ground that it has lost in the web server arena. My question is will this version of XP be tied to IIS, or will users have a choice to use Apache? And if so, how will Microsoft lure away exsisting Linux/Apache users to use the XP/Apache platform, given how dedicated Linux users tend to be?
--- Rectum?! Damn near killed em'! - Confucius
I work as an engineer at an enterprise software company who has just made what they consider a strategic move into providing application availability software for the MS platform. With software to help monitor and diagnose problems in Windows, SQL Server and Exchange, we're betting that big companies are going to start viewing their MS investments to be as critical as their Unix and Mainframe platforms over the next few years. In short, we're betting you'll be a success.
This move, in what has been a very Unix company until now, started an internal debate over the viability of MS as a 24x7 platform. That quickly became external as many clients began to echo these concerns with comments like, "I don't need monitoring for my MS boxes because I just reboot whenever I have a problem and it goes away." How would you answer the change that MS is not ready to be a 24x7 platform?
we speak the way we breathe --Fugazi
MS just went along for the ride. MS was in the right place at the right time, that's all.
Really? I thought Microsoft was successful because of their business practices. Now you say it's just luck? You'd better give Judge Jackson a call, and explain this revelation to him so he knows that he should reverse his decision on the antitrust suit!
The subject was supposed to be:
"Loosening the Golden Ring from Microsoft's fist?"
English is not my native language, but it's the only language I know.
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
Who's the ass that goes around moderating these as "overrated" after they've dropped off from /. visibility!
/.?
/. front page?
Does Microsoft have some shills at
Doesn't this coward moderator have the balls to do this while it's still on the
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
Anyway, I believe Intel's got parts of their x86 instruction set patented -- if you implement those instructions, you pay Intel.
You are correct that the old license agreement ended last year, and AMD is not currently paying Intel. The problem is: they have not yet negotiated a new agreement:
source
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
When Compaq (later followed by others) loosened the Golden Ring from IBM's grasp by reverse engineering their proprietary bios, the Open Hardware PC platform revolution was ignited. Motherboards, memory, adapter cards, etc... could be made by anybody; hardware innovation increased at a rapid pace, and prices plummeted.
That left only two proprietary pieces atop the Open Hardware PC: the Intel CPU and the Microsoft OS.
Intel's been loosing ground, especially with clone maker AMD (but, AMD still has to pay Intel royalties for every clone processor).
The OS, though, has proven tough to emulate. Not only does it reach the pinnacle of complexity (where chaos kicks in), but any emulator must chase Microsoft's tail: the emulation will be worthless come Microsoft's next OS patch (i.e. the DRDOS settlement).
Ballmer has recently stated that he thinks Linux is Microsoft's biggest potential competitor.
Could Open Source be a revolution similar to the PC Open Hardware
revolution of the early 80's, bringing true competition and innovation to PC software, or is Ballmer's statement just a ruse?
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
I would think someone in charge of "interoperability" at Microsoft would be akin to the guy at the NRA whose job it is to promote new gun control legislation.
Software has traditionally been a 1-player game: the "proprietary lock-in" (using proprietary formats, protocols, and standards to assure incompatibility) captures customers in the vendors grasp. It's not just Microsoft's game, the Unix vendors play too (not as well). Once a customer is hooked, they have to stay with that vendor; switching software risks loosing old data, and requires a steep/expensive learning curve. As if once you bought a Ford, you'd always have to buy a Ford (or have to completely relearn how to drive on a totally new road system). Open Source has the promise to allow true competition in software, not allowing any vendors' proprietary protocols, standards, or formats (at least with the foundation of the distribution).
This "interoperability" could be an attempt to show the Justice Department that Microsoft is committed to competition.
Then again, it could a ruse to throw the Justice Department off your trail.
When I think of other "interoperability" attempts at Microsoft (i.e. Posix and Streams compliance), it was really a bait-and-switch tactic: Microsoft produced half-baked software in order to lure unix-based customers with the promise of NT compatibility. Once the customers were committed, they found that the "compatibility" was nonexistent, and they had to hurriedly switch to Microsoft proprietary API's in order to cover their poor decision to switch to Microsoft.
So, are you:
making Microsoft look like it promotes competition, or,
part of the bait-and-switch team?
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
My question is this: Most Slashdot readers have been around long enough to have witnessed some of what has been referred to as Microsoft's "Embrace and Extinguish" strategy.
With .Net, Microsoft is pushing the idea that Microsoft technologies will play well with others. In the past "interoperability" at Microsoft has seemed to mean, "we'll make our products work with yours just long enough that we can match your featureset then bury you with marketing and add many new features that only work in a homogeneous Microsoft environment."
What about .Net is different in this regard, over the long haul?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Given that Microsoft now supports Win3.1, Win95, Win98, WinNT, Win2000 in its various flavors, WinCE, EmbeddedCE, and probably other OSes I'm not even aware of, how do you intend to differentiate these OSes in a way that doesn't confuse people?
To me it looks like these days Microsoft is doing what Proctor and Gamble has been doing for years - competing with its own brands against its own brands. It's hard not to chuckle when I see an ad comparing Win2k performance to WinNT performance. It's just like those "more whitening power" ads for Tide, but there are actual numbers behind the claims, and they don't make NT look very good at all.
My understanding is that at companies like P&G, separate brands are handled as separate profit centers - small companies inside larger companies, competing against each other. But Tide doesn't have to be interoperable with Clorox - you buy one, or you buy the other.
How do you think MS will deal with this going forward?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
It's almost (but not as bad) as asking the Honda salesman if he thinks Toyota should "borrow" the design of Honda's VTEC. Not only are you asking the wrong person, but any answer he gives, in this case, is just another guys opinion.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Is windows planning any major GUI changes in the future (as happened between Windows 3.x and Windows 95)?
Got Rhinos?
Do you think that Linux will ever have a successful, user-friendly GUI interface? Windows' success comes mainly from the fact that people can understand it and are familiar with it; Should Linux "borrow" Microsoft's GUI ideas (as Microsoft borrowed them from Apple, who borrowed them from Xerox), or instead continue down the established path of Linux GUIs?
Got Rhinos?
What are your thoughts about the "Microsoft Breakup Theory?" Is it really going to happen? If so, what will the future look like?
Got Rhinos?
How has Microsoft's marketing strategies evolved over the years? How have the software market, competition, and social trends affected how Windows is packaged, advertised and sold?
Got Rhinos?
Since media interpretations of the "unholy contract" vary so widely, it would be nice to get information from someone who's undergone the dark ritual.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Streamripper
this is my sig.
Of course you can't parse that. Much like a Klansmen can't parse the idea of a "black scientist". You are a bigot, of the dilbert variety, a snobbish moron who thinks that OS choice has *any* significant bearing on the quality of a human being. Please, eat shit and die.
Bill Gates is now the richest man in the world by a wide margin. That article you posted is very old, and now obsolete.
What's the perfect PC for the "experiences" promised by Microsoft's forthcoming Windows XP operating system? That's one of the topics Microsoft is talking about with hardware developers here at the company's annual Windows Hardware and Engineering Conference, which ends today. Some of the items I've listed are requirements and others are mere recommendations or best practices; for simplicity's sake, I have made no distinction between them. I think you have spent 10 paragraphs explaining what Editor Coursey thinks, not Microsoft. Read the damn story. No need for long-windedness
What would life be without homegrown tomatoes?
Is it seen as a threat, an advantage or as no competition for Windows at all? After all one could still say: "Wine is hard to install, many programs do not run properly, you mostly can't use the latest and greatest programs on it..." (And, yes friends, I do know about Codeweavers and Transgaming...)
[--- PGP key and more on http://www.root42.de ---]
Do you think this is a good strategy? The way I see it, most people who know little about computers will ask someone technical for advice, and if MS abandons the techies, the techies won't recommend MS products, will they?
--
PaxTech
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
Well, they *don't manage windows*. They provide a desktop environment like taskbar, desktop icons, automounters, control panels etc.
... "what the hell were you thinking?" Going from unix to windows must be like going from a Ferrari to a tricycle.
It's Linux, damnit! Pay no attention to renaming attempts by self-aggrandizing blowhards.
Interoperability, in Microsoft-speak, usually means "Embrace, Extend, Exterminate". Is Microsoft repudiating this ugly practice?
It's Linux, damnit! Pay no attention to renaming attempts by self-aggrandizing blowhards.
Why are you answering questions from such an anti-Microsoft publication? If you say anything pro-linux you get fired and if you say anything pro-Microsoft, the crowd hates you.
-- no sig
For some reason, I thought this article said April 28, 2001... I know, I know...
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
William Gates III is, no doubt, the most hated figure among geeks and at the same time can be revered and honored by the press/media for the innovations of the last two decades. While his popularity is dubious or at least dichotomous, his fame and fortune are unquestionable. My question is: What's it like working with the second richest man in the world? What's he like as a person? (man behind the mogul, as it were) Any personal anecdotes that you feel obliged to share? What does Mr. Gates really think of Open Source etc...?
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
Have you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist party? Also, why is it that Microsoft feels that it is not neccessary to have an MCP for Windows ME (because XP is shipping so soon), yet it IS neccessary to ship the OS?
Interix is an interesting product that, since being acquired by Microsoft, has recently become much cheaper. So far, so good...
Unfortunately, the Microsoft marketing on this product is 'a great way to ease your transition from Unix to Windows'. Having been down the 'From one source to many' road with the Win32 cross-development kit for the Macintosh, I am reluctant to trust Microsoft enough to use this product.
To those of us who would like to use Interix to allow us to support our Unix applications on NT/W2K as 'just another flavor of unix', can you give us definite assurance 'from the top' that this product will be supported indefinitely?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
What kind of anti-competitive marketing strategies does Microsoft employ to stifle competition and perpetuate the dominance of Microsoft in the market?
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
I know every soul has a price and going from unix to working with Microsoft, what was the price of your soul?
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
This is off topic and I'm probably feeding a troll, but no I don't think Gladiator deserved Best Pictures. I was hoping Crouching Tiger would win, but I knew it wouldn't. Out of the nominated movies, I think Crouching Tiger was the best and deserved to win.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
Hypothetically, if Microsoft was working on it's own version of Linux, how would Microsoft market it to the public?
Would they emphasize compatibility with Windows or would they try to make it stand on it's own merits or what other strategies would be used?
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
Since the Linux community suffers from poor to no marketing, what advice would you give to the Linux community to improve their marketing? Keep in mind that the Linux community does not have unlimitied marketing funds what would be the most effect ways to market Linux to the public?
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
Over the years, MS has been labeled in many ways -- the one that keeps coming back over and over again is "The Evil Empire".
My question is two folds:
1) what, if anything, must MS do (or is it already doing so) that would show to the world that it is not an "Evil Empire" and
2) how is it going to do so (assuming it will) and yet see that its bottom-line is meet.
No, I am not interested in a PR campaign -- doing so is a short term solution.
---------------
Sig
abbr.
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
Ripe for Conspiracy-thought... Convenience buys more marketshare (and thus $$$), and lack of security can be patched up by business contracts with security providers (Symantec, etc.) which provides even more revenue.
Due to bundling, there is no viable alternative to Outlook Express for the lemming PC-user (if it works, why fix it), there is no serious potential loss of marketshare by these security holes (and besides the Evil Hackers can always be blamed ;-)
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I know that Windows 2000, and supposedly XP support the ability of a user to use a remote terminal; enabling a user to run programs, etc. from a remote computer.
This is useful, of course. My question is this: As far as I'm aware, the Windows strategy is incompatible with X-Windows, with no sort of interoperability. I'm sure there are good reasons that this was done, but I still wonder: Why re-invent the wheel?
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
What does Microsoft perceive as its' greatest
strength against Linux in the server market?
What does Microsoft perceive as the greatest
weakness of Linux in the server market?
Every OS has a place. I don't dispute that MS wants to be the the popular OS. But why must MS engage in business tactics that do not give the consumer choice?
Since you are the "Server Marketing Guy" at Microsoft, and not the director of corporate strategies, as so many people seem to think, here are a few questions that you might be able to answer. :-)
In what situations have you found that Microsoft Windows NT/2000 servers preform better on similiar hardware than Linux/Unix/BSD systems? What situations do Unix servers work better?
Doh!
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
So the real question is, "Do you feel Slashdot is becoming more like the Microsoft world?"
I'm expecting a couple of mod downs on THIS posting! Flamebait! Offtopic! Redundant!!!
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
- Embrace
- Extend
- Extinguish
?-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Add interactive help and you have eliminated a bunch of IT jobs that currently exist only due to the fact that reinstalls are a common occurrence ...
Amazing magic tricks
As an example, I'd single out (though it is by no means the only example) Microsoft Outlook. The inclusion of active code (scripts, ActiveX controls) in what was formerly static data (SMTP email) combined with defaulting to the least secure configuration (opening and running emails without user intervention) left the door wide open for the Melissa virus and its desendants. What happened here?
Good God, man! You're asking this of a marketroid?!
--
Hello M. Miller,
.NET, interoperability was a mean word to Microsoft. Is Apache constant leadership situation in web server market a consequence of this addedum to Microsoft dictionnary ?
.NET interoperability, because people will think "Hey, this thing runs everywhere, but better on Microsoft !", like they think about Apache/*nix ?
Before
I mean, do you plan to take market shares back with the
I'm still waiting for my "I survived service pack #2" t-shirt. Do you know when they will be shipping?
--Richard
When I see Gates saying "all Microsoft software will be rented in ten years", I see IT managers scheduling exit strategies from Microsoft products. Clearly, a services model benefits Microsoft, but do you really think corporate America will go for it?
Where has Linux got Windows beat and what do you do to deal with those issues?
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
Do you regularly read slashdot.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
Well Considering UDDI is actually a implmentation of SOAP and the protocol is totally open... Your application can easily interface with the Universal Description Discovery and Integration of business for the web ;)
Basically UDDI (from a end developer stand point) large database which has data about a company (yours if you publish it to the db) which allows you to publish what kind of web services you make available and what kind of services these are, enough so that you can programmatically interface with said systems based totally on a UDDI session *IF* you already know how to talk with xyz webservice which literally can be anything.
UDDI is backed up (IMO: as a kind of showcase of what SOAP can do) And as such it is backed up by Microsoft, IBM, and several other notable and large companies.
It is a way to show the world what kind of things a web service can do and is a first step in moving everything to a webservice.
Strategically making the integration of webservices easier makes them more viable and attrative to bigger companies.
So microsoft and everyone getting behind UDDI makes perfect sense.
the CLR May someday make it to Unix, but the whole thing about SOAP etc is that its totally open.
Jeremy
I don't know about GNOME, but KDE includes it's very own wm..
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome."
Some of their so called "user-friendly" features are really crap (why should I trash my diskette when I only wants to eject it?).
Select the disk and then choose File | Put Away (why would you eject a disk? to put it away)or (under OS 8 or later) Special | Eject Disk. Or (also under OS 8 or later) just control+click the disk and choose Eject the same way it's done on Windows (especially under NT, which likes to lock drives while they're mounted). Either way, the disk is unmounted and ejected from the drive. The "trash can" method works only because of a mistake in Mac OS 1 that has been kept in 2-9 for backward compatibility.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Um, please point me to some docs on where iis runs in kernel mode, didnt know inetinfo.exe was actually a kernel mode driver? Because I have killed it many times without having to reboot, oh maybey you didnt know that Task manager cant kill a service process because its running under a different security context(see kill.exe from the NT resource kit, or handelex form www.sysinternals.com)
The GDI was moved into kernel space as a consicious decision in NT 4, it used to be in user space in 3.51, but Microsoft realized they could not get the performance needed (see X windows) unless it was moved. Perhaps it would have been nice to be able to choose that on the server, although it probably would have complicated driver development quite a bit, besides they do have embedded versions if you really want a headless server.
What exactly was your motivation from moving from the Unix to the Windows world? Was it simply driven by money, or did you think that Microsoft was doing bigger and better things?
So how the fuck come do I have to reboot my W2000 machine every time Netscape starts acting wierd, like skipping login buttons on web pages?
Oracle and unix guy.
Remember, this is in the context of someone saying how great and stable W2K is. So what you've missed is the obvious question - why is rebooting required to fix a memory leak in a user app? I want to be clear on this, so I'll belabor the point - logging off doesn't help. The problem is much, much more obvious if the system is up for a week. This is a W2K memory leak problem, which is made much more obvious by the bloaterific Netscape. I'm sure if someone wanted to, they could write a program with notated memory usage to demonstrate this. But since we are making questions for an MS marketing person, I would much prefer to see someone get in his face about it. OK?
As if anyone will read this at this point.
Oracle and unix guy.
I agree with your first paragraph, too many /. ers take this way to personal. It's one thing to disagree, but to have your life revolve around what MS does (or doesn't do?) Well, lets just say it's not for me.
I would like to comment on the second part of your post. The part about the impending US recession. There is no impending US recession(or at least no proof). Stock prices (and the stock market in general) is NOT a measurement of how the economy is doing, but more of a measurement of speculation. Right now, speculation is low.
Factors that make up a recession are unemployment (4.2% and steady), GDP (yearly growth is about 4%, still too high from an economists point of view in relation to a developed economy), inflation (the evil "I" word, but that has been kept very low >5%, probably closer to 3% after we get better numbers for the year)
Other things to consider is the number of jobs that the economy is creating vs. new layoffs. If you look at the difference, it has been constantly higher the last 4-5 years (that's why McD's workers get $8 an hour, labor shortage)
Remember, economist are famous for predicting the last 10 out of 2 recessions. In other words, they cry wolf often, probably to get attention and feel wanted.
Disclaimer-This isn't a personal attack. I'm venting more than anything else. I'm sick of hearing the MSNBC reports ("the sky is falling!") and the CNN-fn reports ("put your money in bonds and gold")
The advances that these projects have been making is incredible. And at the same time differences between these projects is amazing. So what is Microsoft's evaluation of the situation. What does Microsoft think of KDE vs GNOME, in terms of the consequences for Microsoft and Linux?
Thanks Doug! Here's to an entertaining answer.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
that would be really cool if they did a unix port and all of the .net stuff. just think they could have it installed in:
/usr/local/.net , /$HOME/.net , /etc/.net , /.net
.NET stuff from m$."
i can just see it know:
"So did you install that
"i think so?! i just can't seem to find it"
the average number of Blue Screen of Death you get every day?
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Je t'aime Stéphanie
Instead of that obscure unfriendly archaic vi?
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Je t'aime Stéphanie
Do you think it's reasonnable?
(sorry, me type too fast)
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Je t'aime Stéphanie
Rhetorical questions don't count.
--
Je t'aime Stéphanie
1) One word : Ebay
2) So what is it then?
--
Je t'aime Stéphanie
still talk to you?
--
Je t'aime Stéphanie
And if yes, what are your general impressions about the quality of programming happening in there?
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Je t'aime Stéphanie
Do you it's reasonnable?
--
Je t'aime Stéphanie
What's wrong with consistent version scheme?
--
Je t'aime Stéphanie
I'm replying to my own message, but what the hell. Katz never seems to reply to *any* messages, so I'm merely compensating for lack for lack of Katzian input on this -- oh so very! -- proletarian message boards.
To my diatribe above, I would add this: the upshot to the "secure box" will be a complex (but legal! very, very legal!) matrix of agreements between Microsoft and various marketers in which MS pledges to give data generating by the secure box running Windows XP 2002.
The secure box will be the first, truly *low-cost* PC because it will be subisidized by money-hungry marketers desperate for data. (All of it encrypted, of course.) You think the anon TIVO data is bad, just wait until some cypherpunk decrypts the data stream to the markets that will be coming out of the ass of the secure box 24/7.
*This* will be the first salvo of the new privacy wars. And this will get ugly: MS will have popped its last gasp with the secure box. The fact that their encrypted marketing stream will be decrypted will be the beginning of the end for Microsoft.
The second thing I'll add is this: that all of this -- the secure box, the decrypting of the encrypted 24/7 marketing stream -- will herald the *true* computer revolution. And everything will start over. Fresh. It'll be like the TRS-80 Model I 4K Level I all over again.
The only thing all this is leading to -- and, no, it won't be in my lifetime -- is a computer rennaissance. It might be a revolution -- or, yeah, I suppose it might be a counter-revolution.
But what'll happen is that MS secure box running Windows XP 2002 will be so fucking secure that it will turn into a granite cube. (I'm serious. Maybe not granite -- but it'll turn from a "computer" into a "cube". Not the Mac cubes. I mean, it'll be so secure that it'll -- physically -- even be stripped of any identifying mark.)
And then people will start talking about computers again -- as if they'd forgotten about computers in the first place.
(I say this jokingly -- the idea of the granite cube -- but it would seem to me that at some point technology evolves so much that it actually starts regressing. And it will be after a full-scale regression that people will, once again, start talking about computers. They'll understand that something has happened -- that the secure box turning into the granite cube -- and has taken us full course. And, then, FINALLY! -- the computer revolution will begin.)
Well, there's two ways to interpret this "no access" policy.
The first is that it's not a requirement of WinXP per se but is instead a recommendation for builders like Dell and Gateway: that the ideal, low-cost, affordable "WinXP" box should be an all-in-one solution. As has been pointed out, this is probably good news for Dell and Gateway since obsolecence will happen much, much faster.
So it's not so much an ex cathedra pronouncement as it is a goal: make the box in such a way so that the user will get X months out of it and not worry about having to muss and fuss with video cards, sound cards, and nics. (I imagine this is way MS will spin it. They'll say that this "no-access" policy is actually a thing that their basic users have been wanting for a long time: "Hey, all we want is a low-cost computer to browse the web. We don't want to have to worry about added a sound card."
Moreover, the sentence here says that *end-users* won't have access. The alternate way of spinning this is that MS here is trying to throw some business over to those wonderful Best Buy tech wizards. Maybe MS is looking to create a series of "Authorized Service Centers" -- Best Buy, for example -- that can install all the sound-cards that the user wants. But, dammit, if you break this "seal" then you null-and-void your warranty. (Because, as you'll note, there are "no user servicable parts" inside.)
Obviously, this is a way to keep the WinXP experience "pure" -- sorta the same way that Apple tried to keep the "Macintosh" experience pure (at least in the early days) and, say, the way that TIVO attempts to deter folks from tinkering. (Obviously it hasn't worked in the case of Apple or TIVO, but that's never the point with these kinds of corporate dictums.)
THe second -- and certainly more sinister -- view is that this is the first murmur of the "secure box." MS is working on the "secure box" and it could be that their in the beginning stages of "molding the customer experience" away from the do-it-yourself box of today to the "all-in-one" box of the future -- complete with the RIAA, MPAA, and NSA (for crypto) stamps of approval.
I'm *sure* that MS is in fairly intense negotiations with the RIAA and MPAA (and probably the NSA, too) to begin crafting the specs of the secure box that will be most probably be released in 2002/2003. Signed drivers only, no analog outputs, secure video and audio paths.
My theory is that they'll position this as the "consumer box". Windows XP 2002 (or whatever it will be called) will only work on the "secure box". Authorized service centers will appear that will service the box. The "professional box" will be the computer that we're using now, but if you want to run Windows on it, you'll need the "professional" version of Windows XP 2002 which will be prohibitively expensive for the ordinary consumer. (It will probably cost more than the hardware itself and be subject to hefty licensing restrictions. In fact, MS might only offer Windows XP 2002 in some sort of corporate multi-pack. You will not be able to purchase 1 copy of Windows XP 2002 Professional.)
They'll also make sure that whatever new browser they release -- IE 7.0 -- will only run on the customer or pro versions of XP 2002. Users who continue to use Win2000 or WinME will find themselves unable to browse sites "optimized for IE 7.0". (MS will implement some wacky signing/bizarre crypto that forces non-MS browsers to either upgrade to the 'secure path' or stop browsing.)
Now here's the kicker. I'm almost positive this is what will happen within the next 12 months:
Ballmer -- around the time of the XBOX release -- plans to leverage the "complexity" of Linux (a blatant falsehood, but it will be something that we'll hear more of once we start hearing about Windows XP 2002 -- the "Next Generation of Net") and will force ordinary users to choose between the all-in-one MS "secure box" or the more "complex" Linux option. Ballmer won't denigrate Linux, but he'll gradually shift his spin to indicate that, yeah, Linux is an option. It will always be an option. But we at MS have the monopoly on the low-cost, easy-to-use compute r-- our secure PC running XP 2002. Sure, go ahead and get Linux. But why? It's complex, unwiedly, and cannot be easily supported. (Again, all of this isn't true, but this is the direction of future FUD: complexity. There might also be a salvo of FUD -- and this is trickier -- which will focus on the "legality" of the secure PC running XP 2002. Copyright violators will be targetted, and part of the allure of the secure MS pc will be that it will be the "legal" choice. Mom's and Dad's: don't worry that that your kids will get arrested. Get a secure PC and we guarantee that they'll be safe. This will tie into MS's positioning of themselves as a friendlier, "family" option.)
It will be interesting to see how XBOX fits into the scheme here, but my guess will be that somehow it will be the "satellite" PC -- the main PC in the home will be the secure box running XP 2002 with some sort of secure datapath going to and from the XBOX which will -- in two years -- turn into a dumb terminal since most homes will have several XBOXen, all of which will communicate with the secure-box.
(JOKE!): How can you sleep at night? ;)
"Mary had a crypto key, she kept it in escrow, and everything that Mary said, the Feds were sure to know."
Actually Win2k isn't too bad. As a software developer I have used Win2k for over year now and it has only blue screened once. I do tend push the machine quite a bit, so I have to say that micrsoft is slowly getting there act together. I used to be like most slashdotters and be competely anti-microsoft but recently I am starting to change my mind. My question is, What is Microsoft doing to ensure that it software is of good quality and does't slip back to it old ways.
- He's under an NDA that will more than likely prohibit him from answering certain questions about Microsoft's future plans.
- He's a marketing guy, not a developer.
I'm seeing a lot of questions getting modded up to 4 or 5 that he probably can't answer for one or both of the reasons listed above.Should a company's obligation to protect its competitive advantage come at the expense of the quality of their end product? I could argue both sides of the issue, as I'm sure you also could, but I have not come to a conclusion. Any thoughts?
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Hey, go install CygWin. It'll work :)
You might not get the X windows stuff, but you'll get the CLI.
Coming from your *nix background and seeing the resurgence of *nix via OSX and Linux the MS bashing should get frothier than ever;
Does this concern you?
---
This
Are there future plans for providing a *NIX-style interface (i.e., shell and appropriate tools)?
I know such things are available (MKS Toolkit, Cygwin) and popular, but one can't rely on them being present. There have been rumors that various public domain TCP/IP stuff found its way into Windows--how about pdksh (the public domain Korn shell). Besides, it would help you at MS keep up--people are using grep grep and sed from MacOS X!
What do your peers at Microsoft think of your participation of this interview with Slashdot?
Daniel
Do your answers to the questions posed in this interview represent solely your personal opionion? If not, how much are they a reflection of the opinions of your Microsoft peers, and/or official policy? Thanks.
Daniel
In a society where it is quite chic to be a Microsoft-hater, how do you deal with the ill-informed, naive, wannabe [insert OS of choice] zealots?
The people I am referring to are the folks who will try to argue about how much they think Microsoft sucks when they really are just rehashing things they have heard or read somewhere. They have no real experience or knowledge to share, yet they command a lot of attention.
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
Did Bill ever have to call a COM object from C++?
Krispy Cream is people
So why did you turn to the dark side?
What is your take on Microsoft's "corporate culture" versus that of other companies you have worked with? Does it resemble the all powerful Empire of Star Wars that oh-so-many Slashdotters seem to believe in - or is it just another company with all the action items, BS initiatives, and corporate doublespeak that we have all come to know and love? (Note: feel free to present your own alternative answer to the choices - should you feel compelled to do so).
Thanks for your time,
Jay
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
Ok Doug you got your moment in time, to tell us all about .NET. Give us, your best marketing
on why any of us would even care to use .NET
How does Wine development fit in with Windows development? Is it seen as a threat or as an advantage?
What, for example, if a person was trying to debuy a possible hardware problem and was switching out cards. I have a hard time believing that even MS would do something like this.
The system does not allow end-user access to expansion bus cards. This means users will no longer routinely open their PCs to add peripherals.
If true, this is really mind-blowing. I imagine the big system makers would probably love this, as it could help accelerate the upgrade cycle. The consolidation in the add-on hardware business (nVidia and ATI on the video side, Creative on the audio side) may be such that the major hardware manufacturers don't mind too much -- given that they would expect to get the bulk of the OEM contracts. Of course, this has obvious potential problems for Linux and other non-MS OSes.
I also note that there is a requirement the BIOS display no message on start-up -- which obviously would thwart the aspirations of Phoenix and the like (or the OEMs) to splash something in front of users' faces before the MS logo comes up.
I hope someone at the DOJ knows about this.
What Linux features do think could/should be incorporated into Windows?
Now, with Windows and Office XP, it looks as though Microsoft is finally going to make it difficult for the home user to copy the software. Do you really think home user piracy is damaging to Microsofts' business? In reality, it has done more to estabish Microsoft as a standard than it has to reduce revenue. Why the change?
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Microsoft recently announced that .Net would provide support for Linux and Unix servers. How will your group present this given the intergration problems and lack of standard support in the past. (i.e. The non standard use of Kerebose, the lack of W3C conformance in IE, etc.)
People mistake usability and putyness too much. There are many window managers for X that emulate a windows or mac environment, but the ones that really succeed are the ones that are more efficient and usable, like gnome and kde. So if you really want something to look like windows or the mac, start workin on one of these projects, dont ask microsoft or apple to do it for you, cause look what happens.
because the course of Microsoft development is determined by the marketing dept.
Do you think development on IE was really determined by developers saying, "let's build a better browser?" or by marketers saying, let's drive Netscape out of business because they are a threat to our desktop monopoly. Here's how we'll do it."
On the other hand, I think a lot of companies develop based on the mandates their marketing departments give them: make it Java, XML, and middleware compliant! Oh yeah, and future proof for the information superhighway...
Be ot or bot ne ot, taht is the nestquoi.
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
Please ponder for a moment this controversy.
Why did Microsoft make a proprietary version of Kerberos?
Why did Microsoft threaten Slashdot? Did you experience any hard feelings when arranging this interview? Is this an attempt to butter up Slashdot?
Does your personal opinion vary from the Microsoft party line? Care to share it?
~~ What's stopping you?
I always wondered -- are there any pieces of Open-Source software (BSD licensed software for example) used inside Microsoft software, specifically Windows? Is there a Microsoft policy regarding use of such software?
-Tal
"Ars Gratia Artis"... When will we see that on a Metalica T-shirt?
Funny? Maybe..
Overrated? Probably..
Offtopic? Most definately NOT.
(In case you're wondering, this message is Offtopic).
wishus
---
Where do *you* want to go today?
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Moreover, Jon Postel himself, the author of SMTP, waxes enthusiastic in his book, "Closing the Book on Electronic Mail," about how a friend at Bell Labs sent him email that, when Postel opened it, automatically connected to another host, downloaded multimedia files, and played a song for him.
It's a bit naive to imagine that Microsoft figured out this active content stuff all by themselves. Here they were simply implementing what lots of Unix folks had done long before Windows had a built-in TCP/IP stack, much less IE or Outlook!
In the wake of the recent developments in the area of standard, will Microsoft open their interfaces - both to and from the public?
I'd like to elaborate on this: while Microsoft published most of its basic interfaces (like Windows API), it does not publish the more intricate workings, for example Windows NT's interal API, various network protocols, filesystems, authentication and so on. They could be published to the great relief of the people who are forced (or like) to use both Microsoft and Linux at the same time.
It is also possible for Microsoft to make its own operating system more flexible, so it could be made more interoperable by third parties. A possible example is making GTK (Linux UI library; the foundation of GNOME) apps run natively on Windows without having to rewrite significant parts of them.
At one point, the site had a description of something to the effect: "from within Microsoft, there is a section of computers that turn on to the familiar tone and icon of the friendly Mac."
My question is, is there a Linuxtopia somewhere in Microsoft we don't know about?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
This might have something to do with the hardware "monitoring" feature of the install program, and how it takes a snapshot of the system. Perhaps moving expansion card around screws it up?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Do you feel Windows is becoming more like the Unix world in recent years (in terms of protected memory, process management, etc.), or is the Unix world becoming more like Windows (in terms of usability, graphical interfaces, etc.)?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
We know the spiel with the marketers, but from within Microsoft do the programmers view OSes like Linux and FreeBSD as a bonefide competitor to the Windows platform, or a tool to help improve the platform? Is the GPL'd source code ever looked at and used with some modifications?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Reports from WinHec (such as this story from the Register) speculate on Blade as being the up and coming Linux killer from MS. Blade servers are intended to be cheap, slam-in-and-go boxes that Web hosting operations can just peel off the roll (almost) and shove in whenever they need more server capacity. Web Servers are a core market for Linux. What can you say as far as the long term MS corporate strategy in this regard (i.e. regarding Linux)?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
IMHO Microsoft has usually limited it's interoperability products to competitors who have had marketshare worthy of notice, for example Novell (the Netware Gateway). Once the competitor drops off the radar so does Microsoft's product, even though there may still be a significant number of users for the legacy systems.
This implies that Microsoft's strategy is driven by market share rather than some bigger world view or longer time horizon planning. Could you comment on that?
It also seems that Microsoft responds to the market demand with new features, rather than fixing and tuning what is already on offer. From my point of view this has resulted in bloatware that makes a fast machine look slow, lots of troublesome Service Packs, and support facilities that can be a little light-on. Do Microsoft plan on changing that approach any time soon?
In the country of the blynd...
Estimated soul price is around $150.000 on a yearly bases.
l ers&itemid=8377883923432&increase_bid=$10.000
:
Any bid increasing with $10.000 will be accepted according to standard soul-sellers community standards.
Make your bid at http://www.ebay.com/?action=bid&itemtype=soul_sel
Final bidding date 1 april 2001
End Campaign
sig.
ActiveX error '874834d2342344433423423425sdfe234'
vinylat33
Hi. Will Microsoft donate money and skills to help 3'rd world-countries minimizing the increasing gap that does exists between us living in the so called western world and "them", in terms of infrastructure (the Internet), hardware/software?
Mr. Gates has donated alot of money to WHO to do research and to buy vaccine for the 3'rd world. Maby MS could do the same when it comes to IT?
regards Claus Guttesen
One question that was recently asked of U.S. Representative Rick Boucher (see story) that I think is important here is 'Just who is answering these questions?'
Are you an independent thinker? or do you have to run everthing by Bill before you get back to us?
Blarf.
Why would you subject yourself to the rabid zealotry and hateful accusations of the Slashdot crowd, who are more interested in vilifying the company you work for than listening to what you have to say? Not that they'll believe you're telling the truth if they do listen.
-Poot
well then he must be a god.
So how does it feel to be Billy boy's little b1tch?
What plans does MSFT have regarding the shape and color of the Windows start menu button?
What about 3D depth and the floating tooltip visualization technology?
Probably by realising that MS brought computing to the masses, creating thousands of jobs in the process
Bzzzzzt. The Internet brought computing to the masses, the Internet and cheap hardware drove the home PC craze of the 90's, MS just went along for the ride. MS was in the right place at the right time, that's all. If anyone tried to bring computing to the masses it was Apple back in the 80's. They at least made an effort to try to make computers more people friendly. It took MS until...what...the year 2000 to catch up (arguably) with the Mac interfaces of the 80's...
Are we having reading comprehension problems... you smary little retard.
They used Windows to surf the net because it was there, not because it was driving the home PC revolution you dolt. The Internet gave the common folk a compelling reason to buy a PC, so they could look at all the stuff on the web, so they could send emails to aunt Bessy. Nobody ran to the store to buy a PC because of this great MS windows tool, it just so happens that they got Windows on their computers because that was the only choice... Now fuck off you moronic twit.
You sir, as as dumb as a wall. Yes your parents bought a cheap PC in the late 80's/early 90's but they were in the minority. My parents bought a commodore 64 in 1982, so what. I didn't say there were no computers sold until 1994. you need to look at the percentage of households had a PC in 1990 versus today? The numbers are not even remotely close.
Once again I will restate my original point that the driving force behind the home PC revolution was the Internet and cheap hardware. The fact that windows was on it is meaningless. If not windows it would have been OS/2 or CP/M or whatever. Windows did not drive the home pc revolution. They went along for the ride. Now if your closed little peanut brain can understand that... I am not bashing MS, nor am I saying anything bad about them, I am merely stating from a historical point of view what happened. Jesus fuck, you windows zealots have to be the fucking worst kind of zealot.
Sigh...Nowhere did I say it was *luck* nowhere did I state anything bad about MS or their software or their business practices.
Once again I will restate my original claim..sigh... I'll try to make it simple...
The driving force behind the PC revolution was the Internet and cheap hardware. The internet was the compelling reason for Mr. or Mrs Schmoe to buy a PC. Meanwhile the prices on hardware started coming down so that you could get a cheap PC for much less than a grand. So we have this killer app, the internet, and we have PC's that are less than a grand. The fact that those PC's came pre-loaded with Windows had nothing to do with it. If all the computers had been preloaded with OS/2 the same thing would have happened. Thus I claim that the Intenet and cheap hardware were the driving force behind the PC revolution. Thank you.
Bah... it's just impossible to actually make a point amongst all the defensive paranoia that exists here. There is a huge difference in the number of PC's sold in 1990 and in 1995+. A huge difference. There is a huge difference in the whole PC industry today when compared to 1990. I didn't say that MS did nothing but hang about and wait for business to take off. I said and I'll stick behind it, the Internet was the killer app that drove the PC revolution.
A small percentage of people in the 80's and early 90's were buying home pc's for writing a letter or to use a spreadsheet, or maybe even to play games, but that number pales in comparison when you look at the number of people who bought a pc in 1994+ to surf the net, send email, etc. That is my claim. That was when the real PC revolution happened. That fact that MS was preloaded on those PC's meant nothing to the people who were buying those PC's. Sure Bill Gates understood the dynamics of the market, and undercutting the competition pricewise but that is beside the point with regards to the "revolution" Note the difference here is why a few people bought PC's in 1992 (letters, spreadsheets) and why billions bought them in 1998 (www, email). I mean you might as well say that Edison drove the home PC revolution because he invented the light bulb. It's silly.
According to those statistics the sales of PC's in 1990 was ~24 million, the sales of PC's in 2000 was ~124 million. I would say that supports my claim fairly well.
You have missed my point completely. It's okay though, you are pretty much a reflection of the sad state of slashdot these days. My point had nothing to do with Linux by the way, why do you mention it?
I barely got my parents to successfully use Windows.
That certainly goes along with my claim. My claim was that it was the Internet and cheap hardware that drove the home PC revolution and Windows had nothing to do with it. If those PC's had OS/2 or CP/M or whatever people would have bought them just the same. People bought them mainly to surf the net and send email. Period. I honestly think that no PC is "user friendly" to a non computer type person and you have backed me up with your personal testimony. You parents could have just as easily learned OS/2 as they learned Windows, I assure you. The growth rate of sales is interesting but meaningless because you are selling into a different market today. The early adopters were mainly the hobbyist, people buying today are people just like your parents, five times as many people according to thise stats.
Without the Internet explosion who is to say that the growth rate would not have been flat for the past 5 or 10 years... I really don't understand why you would assume I am bashing Windows by making such a claim. Perhaps you are lacking in reading comprehension skills...
Have you ever taken part in a meeting where there has been discusison of *breaking* an interface or an API to reduce interoperability or backwards compatability with other products?
What do you like most/least working at Microsoft?
--
Correct me if I am wrong -- but it seems to me that Microsoft's interoperability is often one way. For example, Win2k has inbuilt functionality to query LDAP, but limits what ADS will return to LDAP queries. The same is true of Kerberos. The net result is that in a mixed environment, MS servers will tend to push out non-MS servers.
Is this just paranoia on my part -- or do marketing considerations _really_ outweigh technical ones in Microsoft?
Biju Chacko
Bangalore -- India
"Rowe's Rule: The odds are five to six that the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train."
Question:
Do you think that continuing to make windows products more "user friendly" by dumbing them down you will end up with (ahem) less and less technically capable users?
--
no sig.
How do you sleep at night?
I mean, what's the guy going to say: "We'll match any price"?
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Being in charge of Enterprise Interoperability products you must be aware of the (some say deliberate) incompatibilities that Microsoft introduced into the Kerberos protocol. Why were these changes made and is there any intention of rectifying them at Microsoft?
Slashdot: Proof that a million monkeys at a million typewriters can create a masterpiece
Recently I came across the GORILLA.BAS and NIBBLES.BAS QuickBASIC games from the DOS days. I used to play those as a boy, and had great fun with such simple games.
When I tried to run them under yabasic and pbasic, two BASIC interpreters for UNIX. Lo and behold, I was greeted with incompatibilities. Not in the mode for porting these old games, I tabled them, until I came across Microsoft VisualBASIC 5 Control Creation Edition. I tried to run them, and was again greeted with incompatibilities.
yabasic and pbasic didn't surprise me. Microsoft has long been known for their "embrace and extend" strategy, so I didn't expect old QuickBASIC programs to work with these UNIX interpreters.
However, I was quite shocked and disappointed that VB 5 wouldn't run these. It seems that in addition to embrace and extend, Microsoft has developed an "obsolete and cripple" strategy for moving old apps of the market.
What is Microsoft's response to my anger and disappointment that they have taken a language which has been around longer than Microsoft's flagship product, and mutilated it so I can't run my boyhood games? Do they really think that this sort of behavior is even acceptable?
It is my belief (many share this belief) that the only reason Microsoft dominates the market is because the general computing public is too stupid to reject them.
A new year calls for a new signature.
Your assumption is that the customer is stupid and will be duped by the closed box. But, if it doesn't sell and open boxes do then they'll drop it for awhile. If it sells and people like it then maybe there's a market there and companies should make them. But there will always be people who will want the open box and companies that will want to make money by selling them. Free markets work!
I guess ZDNet is not above above a troll or two to generate hits :)
I'd guess that this was strongly encouraged by the manufacturers, to decrease customer service costs, and by hardware people, to increase USB & Firewire sales.
Most users don't want to fiddle with the innards of their computer. If upgrading to a new drive, peripheral, etc. is merely a matter of plugging in USB cable, then life is easier for consumer, and service costs for manufacturer go down. (I've experienced this recently with a USB printer and scanner. When it works, it's very nice.)
As for large corporate installations, this has the potential to cut costs a great deal. The tech people would not need to hassle with opening up cases; instead, just plug cord in, insert driver disk, and job done.
as for the hardcore tweakers, well, they don't buy XP certified PCs from Dell anyway; they build it themselves, so they wouldn't be affected.
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D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
Interesting...haven't gotten the (-1, Flamebait) before. (But I should have realized that asking timely questions about significant current events that could impact the future of our economic/political/judicial systems was equivalent to trolling :)
FWIW, I am genuinely interested in whether Microsoft is taking any notice of the DOJ case, or if it's just business as usual. As the largest, and arguably, most influential companies in the US (if not world), I think it's extremely interesting to know how/if legal proceedings against the company filter down to the work process & ethic of the employees.
But that's just me.
-----
D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
In what ways, if any, has the DOJ anti-trust case affected Microsoft's "competitive strategies", as well as the work towards "interoperability"?
-----
D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
It's where I work =)
e-speak is open source.
http://www.espeak.net
It's not currently, shall we say, polished to a glowing shine, but it's out there. It's goal and intent is to allow e-services (web being a superset of this. PDAs, cell phones, cars, and other devices could be serviced as well as PCs) in which 'composition' and 'mediation' can occur between services from different vendors or suppliers.
It currently runs on HPUX, Red Hat Linux, and Windows NT. It's known to have been compiled to run on Win2k, Madrake, and Debian, but those aren't supported.
It's cross platform nature is due to it's being written in Java, though there are XML, Python, and C interfaces (some are a little dusty)
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
... but what enhancements to Linux, Gnome, KDE, or other open source SW would worry MS the most?
What's a sig?
How could you?! :-)
Just 'sh' for a shell, no vi, just 'ed' for editing. UUCP only for networking. But current Linux command line users would feel (suprisingly) at home on it.
The 8086 variant never panned out (IBM PC announced ~Jan '81 and all but killed it) but it was available for 68000 and PDP&LSI/11.
Tandy/RS sold a TRS Model 16 that used a 68000 running Xenix.
At the time, it was said that they sold the most commercial versions of Unix. Yes, Radio Shack. I think that's 'cuz they sold a bunch to Citibank.
The actual distro was done by HCR in Toronto in late 1980. My company (well, me...) jumped all over HCR when I hunted down the impending release
and got the first release one week before MS got theirs, making us the first company to sell Unix commercially in the US outside of Bell Labs.
You can find our little ad ("MSD") in the back of Byte ~Dec. '80.
We ran it on LSI/11s with 256k(!) of RAM and a huge 80lb Shugart 20Mb disk and two 8" floppies. (you could boot it and run/swap from the floppies, but 'twas slow)
We sold systems with 6 VT-100's a DecWriter and 300 baud modem attached and it all ran pretty well. (considering)
I still have that 1st 9track tape reel but nothing to mount it on. Probably all bit-rotted. There's the ancient history lesson for today.
- and don't forget to play tranquility at www.tqworld.com
Please tell me how to get past the roadblock of can't sell unusuitable to the task software, and can't return damaged software. (it was installed and registered, so it was proven it was readable once)
The truth shall set you free!
interoperable ... of course
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
Those two concepts - interoperability and competitive strategy - seem difficult to conciliate. What can the developers expect to make their work the most interopereable possible ?
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
Does all your base are belong to us? What you say?
http://www.shacknews.com/funk.y?id=1005531
ZDNet are totally out to lunch.
If Be or RedHat or whoever else really wants to beat MS, they have to play this same game. And those OEMs have to be willing to put these OS's on computers that are actually SEEN at stores such as BestBuy or CompUSA or Sears, or where ever Joe User goes to buy his computer
The unfortunate thing is that Best Buy or "CompUSA or Sears, etc will only place machines Joe User wants to buy on public display, as doing otherwise is a complete waste of space. Joe User doesn't want to buy a Linux box, or a Be box, or a FreeBSD box; he wants something that's simple and easy to use, works reasonably reliably and increases his productivity while also entertaining him: Windows.
Macs are too expensive for most users. Linux et al require too much learning and tweaking, and still can't do most desktop things... what alternative exists?
Microsoft, more so with Windows 2000 than in the past, seems to be trying to sell to the enterprise market. Linux seems to be making inroads faster into the enterprise market space than Windows 2000 is. One indication of this acceptance is the deployment rate for Apache Webservers. There are other indications that Linux is gaining acceptance in the enterprise software market. What can Microsoft do to make their software more "enterprise friendly" and how concerned is Microsoft about the seeming popularity of Linux as an enterprise solution?
--
Onorio Catenacci
--
"And that's the world in a nutshell -- an appropriate receptacle."
--
"And that's the world in a nutshell -- an appropriate receptacle."
-- Stan Dunn
I'm sorry, I can't parse that, it's such an oxymoron.
I'd like to know what moron was responsible for MS Bob
[Just Shut Up and Do What I say]
Recently I ran into a problem with IIS because although it claimed to support the W3C Extended Log File format, Microsoft "forgot" to make it extendable as both the name implies and as written into the specification. I was told by the $250 support call that I made that because the specification didn't include a provision for implementation, it was "supportd" only by writing either an ISAPI filter or COM logging module. It needs to be noted that no specification includes provisions for implementation, just the rules that must be adhered to in order to claim compatability or support for. Imagine my surprise when the development tools needed to enable the "supported" feature did not come bundled with IIS, (i.e.,, VC++). By using the Microsoft support engineer's logic, providing someone with VC++ constitutes support for the HTTP 1.1 protocol (RFC 2616) as well. Why even waste time developing IIS? Apache and Netscape both require a 3 word modification to config file to accomplish what I needed to do. Something that can be completed by any novice adminstrator. IIS, on the other hand, requires several thousands of lines of code to be written and compiled by a software engineer with a toolkit not bundled with the product? How does this qualify as a supported feature? For a feature to be supported, from my perspective, the line is drawn when someone with administrative priveleges or less can make a parameter change with a config file or utility. Requiring a software engineer to write compilable code with an unbundled software development kit does not constitute support. Now Microsoft wants me to pay their professional services group to write the code necessary to make IIS compatible with the specification the product literature already claims it is. Is it any wonder why so many tech savvy people despise working with Microsoft server tools? What is Microsoft doing to change this perception? Please comment...
The new "Blue Screen of Death" marketing campaign has to be one of the best yet. MicroSoft is nothing if not shameless. Spinning the lost productivity of your previous product as a reason to by the next has to be.. let's just say you guys big big kahuna's. Are there any plans to use other bugs and flaws in Windows 95/98 as marketing gimmicks? The new operating systems promise relief from "DLL Hell". It seems to me a clever Advertising guy could spin this into something useful.
Still, that's the difference between probable and definite; though this may not be certain, it very well could happen, and Microsoft has the resources to enforce it.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Agreed. But still, I've seen iMac owners asking if they can upgrade the hard drive or the video card. They wanted better, and Apple's disdain for expansion prevented them from getting better.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
The system does not allow end-user access to expansion bus cards. This means users will no longer routinely open their PCs to add peripherals.
What Microsoft wants is for every WinXP PC to have four USB ports and at least two IEEE-1394 ports (one on notebooks). Essentially, this means that Microsoft wants to discourage users from undertaking major upgrades. Of course, there will never be IEEE-1394 video cards, and the best and fastest drives connect to either IDE or SCSI on the inside of the system. For all hardcore computer users/builders, this is outright blasphemy and a threat to the user's right to augment his/her system with new and more powerful devices.
Needless to say, I'll be sticking with Windows 2000, since there's no such draconian hardware policy embedded in the OS. Either Doug Miller will have some serious explaining to do, or he'll have to continue with Microsoft's current plan of marketing XP to the newbies and yuppies who can't tell IDE from AGP.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
[grin] i bought lnux in jan 2000 at around 100 and sold it at 130..of course, this was an intraday gain..i would've never held it longer than that..where is it currently at?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, go into business for themselves.
What exactly is .NET from a user point of view and why should I care about it as a OS X user?
Burn Hollywood Burn
If Microsoft offered to pay you the amount of money that they are paying him, you would denounce linux in a second and be pro microsoft so long as you worked there.
It's true, it's true - Kurt Angle
mchud
Did you ever own a Commodore 64?
This may seem a bit odd, but does Microsoft truly care that people have the perception that it's evil (especially here)? Does Microsoft really, truly, care that a large portion of the technology community loathes its every move and, if so, what type of "image-enhancing" programs do you see Microsoft pursuing to end this bias? Admittedly, Microsoft has had some predatory business practices through its history - really though, you can't name a reasonably large cooperation that doesn't. I thought that as someone who would probably fall into the Microsoft-bashing crowd were it not for your job at Microsoft, you might have an interesting perspective on this. Personally, I could care less what Microsoft has done up to this point as it has put out some pretty incredible software and has never gone to the point of actually being the sole choice for any purpose - there has always been an alternative to Microsoft software in every area.
What are really the secretesses of Microsoft employees?
Can ppl working at microsoft really tell their true situation without getting fired?
And can you really answers truthfully to these questions ?
All generalizations are false
How honestly were you able to answer the above questions given the fact that you signed a very restrictive NDA? And will Bill be angry?
I mean, what makes the most money for MS? Not Windows. It's office. I would buy a linux version of MSOffice. Just wish MS would see this.
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
It is also the one area where they should be punished. Level the playing field. Then see who goes the farthest.
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
This would be a great pickup for linux. Screw OpenOffice, GnomeOffice and KOffice. Give me MSOffice or WPOffice (with MSOffice extension support). I would PAY for this product.
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
Considering your position within Microsoft, will you be able to give your own personal honest answers to these questions, or will your answers need to be 'approved' by management?
I think we (/.) already know the answer to this one, but it'd be good to hear the official response up front so we know where these answers really come from.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
Sure they will make it work less good on Linux then on XP and they will make it r00t runable only for some dull reason with a kernel patch ? so your system will crash every 48 days ?
I have seen this before keeping the good API's for them self to make better Applications so that MS could produce better Office Suits or was that just in my dreams ?
Seeming that you are a *nix geek like most of us here, what do you think of OSX by Apple? Because it is backed by an open sourced OS, does Micro$oft see this as a threat?
---> suck it
What do you think the challenges are in convincing the public that it's safe to store all of their personal and financial information online (note that this is a challenge for all companies that are trying to convince consumers that it's safe, but given the high profile security holes in MSFT products in the past few years I suspect there are more hurdles to overcome) and how do you think MSFT will be able to address them?
this is getting old and so are you
blog
Are there any talks of having classes taught at universities based on window's *source* tree? Even SUBSYSTEMS of the whole operating system would be of enormous benefit to those like me who aren't fanatical about their OS, but need to be able to understand it really well to do my work effectively and gain knowledge from lines of C faster then from lines of english.
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
Hi Doug,
What was your job in your previous company? Were you doing development work back then or were you doing marketing? And since you have moved from a smaller company with a single primary product to a huge corporation with much diversified products and services, what type of adaptations have you made and how hard was the transition?
Well i know i am only supposed to ask one question. But without the answers to the first two questions, i have a feeling that i would find your answers to other questions posted to you meaningless or not particularly useful for me. Personally i am really interested in the third question because in my young career i have only worked in one big (3000 people :P) consulting company.
Ricky
I daresay anyone desiring to take potshots at MS ought to first try to support the breadth and depth of hardware and software that 'Doze does. So take a bow, MS, while standing knee-deep in the blood of your competitors.
MS might continue to float Apple via MS Office for the sake of anti-trust appearances. My question is, what similar strategies will MS pursue as the Open Source movement matures and fields office suites as robust for the casual user as MS Office?
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
We've seen the memo from Bill Gates on Linux, the webpages comparing Linux and NT on Microsoft's website. Is .NET Microsoft's answer to Linux? Or, is there going to ever be a 'Microsoft Linux'? Either of these would have serious implications to the Open Source community.
-Cliff Spradlin
OK,
- B
--
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
OK,
- B
--
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
--
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
As an example, I'd single out (though it is by no means the only example) Microsoft Outlook. The inclusion of active code (scripts, ActiveX controls) in what was formerly static data (SMTP email) combined with defaulting to the least secure configuration (opening and running emails without user intervention) left the door wide open for the Melissa virus and its desendants. What happened here?
OK,
- B
--
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
Why doesn't MS develop a Win2K, and/or .Net integrated distro of Linux, and embrace it whole-heartedly? I have some great uses planned for Linux, but poor interoperability is preventing this. I am prepared to use BOTH products.
I know Linux *appears* to be a competing OS, but eventually even MS will need to play fair and admit that MS isn't the only game in town. MS has as much to gain from Linux as it does to lose; it all depends on attitude.
A smarter approach is for MS to develop a cooperative attitude (as hard as that may sound considering all the water under the bridge.)
How about I ask nicely... Pleeeeaaaasssse drop the typical MS stance of arrogance.
One very clear trend I've noticed with Windows is when it progresses, it looks more and more like a Unix OS. Many things like Scrollbar for the Command Prompt and Home directory in the root C: drive are just a small fraction of the similarities one can find, but what I thought was most interesting was WindowsCE's removal of drive letters and (surprise) making everything on the filesystem relative to root (\ in Windows).
I wonder if these changes are done to simulate a Unix environment, or are these just improvements for Windows which mimic Unix because it was done right the first time?
In what ways should Windows become more like the *NIXes?
In what ways should the *NIXes become more like Windows?
The only thing that we learn from history is that nobody learns anything from history.
Why does MS encourage simple hardware for XP? Simple! Consumers want PCs to drop in price, but MS likes to raise the price and system requirements of Windows, so to give consumers the price they want, MS tells PC makers to use low-performance hardware.
Why should XP users tolerate Microsoft deciding what's good for them?
Are you a mole for linux? Will you sneak a kernel or two into the next distro, a Trojan if you will, and automatically install linux onto everyone's machine and then take over the world?
Thanks for your time!
I have long been a fan of Excel on the Macintosh -- since its earliest days, in fact. I miss the sort of cooperative tone the future held for us all in those days.
In your view, how can Microsoft and *nix/xBSD communities work together to make the brightest future for all of us?
-B...
I remember a while ago, (forgive me if I don't have a quote) Microsoft expressing it's views against Napster's file sharing. That's not surprising, most people I have talked agreed that sharing copyrighted matirial it is wrong, and oppose it on a moral basis, but do it nonetheless. Anyway, how do you explain the built-in ability to do so in WinMP? (There is an options to allow "Internet Sites" access to you "Media Library.") Is this not the type of 'File Sharing' Microsoft openly spoke out against?
"Ummmm..."
When you're bitter and irritable, do you shoot off at the mouth like this guy?
careful how you use the word "embrace" :)
As a side note, I really like a uniform text viewing/editing so that I don't have to think about what commands are available in _this particular app_ to do basic commands that I do all day long. For example, at work I use Outlook for mail, but have to fight with the editor to do simple things. I also use DevStudio, which has a different editor (and can be kinda spawned externally to another editor). Interesting enough many people that I know use DevStudio as a _text editor_ because it has some of the above meantioned features.
$man microsoft
Crowded elevator smell different to midget. -Chinese Proverb
$man microsoft
Crowded elevator smell different to midget. -Chinese Proverb
-Security
-User Control
-Look and Feel (pick the one you know best: KDE, GNOME, etc.)
-Stability
-Power
-Ease of Use
-Speed
-Value
$man microsoft
Crowded elevator smell different to midget. -Chinese Proverb
The core issue of operating systems in the 21st Century is no doubt going to be one of usability. With more and more common users entering the market and no machines shipping with instruction manuals, intuitive interfaces are incredibly important to a consumer OS. GNU Linux, for all its stability and power, has nowhere near the ease of use of Windows or MacOS. However, it's getting better -- a friend of mine hooked his mother up with a copy running off kernel 2.4 that boots quickly into GNOME and has everything organized simple as a netappliance. GNU Linux interfaces are incredibly varied and skinnable, and it won't be long until superstable windowing systems are available for free to rival Windows.
.net when local machines are more than powerful enough to perform every task that's need of them and studies show that roughly 40% of web interfaces are confusing to the average user?
My question is this: what are you at Redmond doing to enhance the usability of your GUI in the face of these GNU Linux based net appliances and an ever improving Mac OS? And how can you support a network based application strategy like
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Back in Oct. of 1999, Microsoft posted an article entitled "Linux Myths" (http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/nts/news/msnw/L inuxMyths.asp). In this article, much was said about NT security versus Linux security and the opinion stated was that NT was far more secure than Linux.
.... understand.... Linux. Does this article still hold true in Microsoft's eyes given the proliferation of Linux adopters and supporters in the IT industry?
Given the number of patches released in response to exploits found (and very often implemented by real world hackers/crackers/script kiddies) involving the Windows NT OS (as well as Microsoft products for NT), does Microsoft still hold the opinion that their product(s), and in particular their server platform, is more secure? Even in light of the ever-increasing security features implemented in Linux in the intervening period? Even in light of the continued exploitation of Microsoft platforms?
The article further implies a lower TCO and cites the re-training of engineers to
Thanks for having the guts to jump in this shark pit.
- I am made of meat.
...he embraced the dictators, he shook the bloody hand of the man who ordered the massacre of Tiananmen Square. Bill has stated that big business and human rights should have no connection with each other. In all honesty, how can you take his money? How can you work for such a man?
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
...and embraced the dictators, he shook the bloody hand of the man who ordered the massacre of Tiananmen Square.
He has stated that there should be no connection between business practices and human rights.
My question is: how can you, in good conscience, work for him? How can you take his money?
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
How do you feel about the contradiction created by Mr. Anchillin's remarks conserning Open-Source and it's destruction of Intellectual property and that of Microsoft changeing it's liscenceing rights more than 4 times in three years. My point bieng, The leagel aspect of switch hitting your own clients, while pummeling the underdog. All the while Microsoft claiming Ignorance. Also, Linux is currently compatible with over 10 diffrent fs's and recognizes a plethora of partitions. Do you fell that windows could benifit from adding such a feature? (I do.) Thanks :)
Being a Linux user for only a little while I have noticed that it lacks two things: a consistent, easy to use graphical interface, and a powerful, interoperable "Office suite" set of software that is being used in the workplace. What work is being done to port Microsoft Office to Linux/*nix while maintaining cross platform interoperability, since that has been one of Microsoft's most successful software pieces to date?
How does Microsoft assess the needs of their consumers?
Every comment I read about copyright protection at the OS level, product activation via the web or a phone call to a central place and many other ideas MS claims to be "what the consumer wants" seems to indicate that such ideas are hated by most consumers, so how it comes that is what we want?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Why should I believe that .NET or MS SQL will play nice after the Java affair, after C# (poor VB old timers), after having to dump text files from a MS SQL Server because I can't talk to it with an standard query tool or after wishing I could see a Windows desktop remotely?
PS: (3rd party software does not count, we are talking about what MS does to enhance interoperatibility).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I'd like to ask Doug (and/or Mr. Miller) why oh why is W2K much, much slower than Open or free BSD when juggling extremely large amounts of data. The experiment may be done with like if not the same equipment with the same data going through the same processing. Windows always comes up last.., and I mean way last.
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
With .NET on the horizon, how will users be assured that their data is secured, in the applications that are being user on .NET...what if I am working on a very important PPT presentaion on .NET, and I need to show it in 15 minutes...and all of the sudden I lose my internet connection, or .NET goes down, and I am unable to complete it. What then does the user do? It just seems silly to me to have everything on .NET...I can't see going on the internet to do a Word dosument...
"Look where we worship" -- Jim Morrison
Is a catchphrase often used here on /. to describe the illogical anger that some open source/free software folks feel towards anyone who pays for software.
My multi-thread question is this: Do the vehement anti-microsoft views of much of the Linux/free software/slashdot community (some of which are displayed by the juvenille posts in this question-asking thread) affect how MS deals with *nix?
Does it impede getting things done?
I read an article (which I can't find) in salon that talked about a server showdown between Linux and MS, I don't remember the specifics, but the Linux folks were apparently acting like children and baiting, compliaining and generally maligning the MS employees.
How does this sort of behaviour affect how MS deals with the Linux people?
Brant
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
I know this may seem as a trivial question, but why are we not seeing an Internet Explorer for Solaris x86 platform? Is Internet Explorer for Solaris Sparc written with something other then high level C[++] programming that would be [arguably] incompatible on the x86 platforms? Is there a small chance we'll ever see IE for x86 Solaris? Furthermore, doesn't this current state of Solaris IE availability seem uncomplimentary to the image of a company already blasted for taking strenous efforts to maintain such a tight grip on the x86 platform/market?
mwtr / THIS SIG HAS BEEN PRAYED OVER AND MAY BE USED AS A POINT OF CONTACT (ACTS 19:12)
Will .NET be an open platform (as in Open Specification, Open Source)? How so, how not?
There are many software (and even hardware) developers out there who would like to develope for a promising platform, but will only be discouraged by proprietary or undisclosed specifications.
My question is more directed to your clustering and reliability solutions like the new Application Center 2000 for the Windows 2000 Server series. One of the competitive advantages that Linux has leveraged is that you can purchase a bunch of cheap commodity personal computers and string them together in a Beowulf cluster configuration to create a high performance solution, replacing the older paradigm of large, central mainframes and supercomputers. Companies like Google have definitely profited and proved that such solutions, that used to only be found in academia, can be extremely valuable. The open source nature of Linux also allows for the kernel and other things in the OS to be customized to make the perfect nodes for a cluster. What is Microsoft's answer to this area of the server market? How does Microsoft plan to add more value to their clustering products to be more competitive with Linux's faimed clusters? Do you see this as a situation where Microsoft might possibly open the source to server customers to allow them to tweak their cluster configurations?
My question is more directed to your clustering and reliability solutions like the new Application Center 2000 for the Windows 2000 Server series. One of the competitive advantages that Linux has leveraged is that you can purchase a bunch of cheap commodity personal computers and string them together in a Beowulf cluster configuration to create a high performance solution, replacing the older paradigm of large, central mainframes and supercomputers. Companies like Google have definitely profited and proved that such solutions, that used to only be found in academia, can be extremely valuable. More and more it seems like Microsoft is moving towards bringing clustering and load balancing to the Windows 2000 server product line while adding the Microsoft trademarks of usability and simple administration. How does Microsoft plan to push usability and simple administration in the areas of advanced clustering solutions, and where do you see Microsoft going in the future in bringing more complex reliability solutions such as warm state fail-over like that in Sun Cluster 3.0 to the Windows server world?
most computer users have no idea how much a non-upgrade purchase of windows or office costs. most of these people are buying their computer with windows and office already installed. if they had to install anything themselves, they would never have gotten a computer.
slashdoters may find this hard to believe, but many people do not even have a basic understanding of how to use computers.
they are not interested in spending the time it takes to become a proficient computer user. much less be interested in installing anything that is not brand-name (corporate) software. chances are good that they won't even be able to install it if they have to press more than "next" and "yes" buttons.
as soon as these information appliances come out, i predict they will be widely recieved by this group. they have purchased a $1000- $2500 machine to use email and browse the web when a $200- $500 machine would have done the job.
Bored with your projects?
Try Einsteinium
How does MS's overseas marketing strategy differ from its American efforts, and why?
McDonalds or Burger King?
and they charge you for a new key.. if you upgrade the mobo ram and chip all at once, which is VERY common, then you have to pay for a new license.
1) Does microsoft plan to continue to lie about what its code does?
2) When is microsoft going to hire some qa guys and release a product that contains post-beta functionality the first go round?
3) When is microsoft going to adhere to standards instead of trying to re-define standards to prevent others from interfacing with their software?
4) When is microsoft going to stop obfuscating simple administrative and programing interfaces?
5) When is microsoft going to stop entering a market, establishing themselves, and then eliminate the competition by making their os 'dependent' on the product?
After ms has done these things, I might be interested in what you have to say, and even *gasp* your products.
-CrackElf
"Blake is an idealist, Jenna. He cannot afford to think." - Kerr Avon, Star One, Blakes 7
Hello,
Thank you for taking your time to come into what must surely look like a lion's den from your perspective. Microsoft's strength is in building products with a very good user interface. Sure, there are quirks, but overall MS is the standard that others are trying to reach.
On the technical side, however, there are some implementations that are.. well, inelegant. For example, windows clients seem to be very chatty and put out a lot of unnecessary communication on the network. Password encryption and implementations have been spotty. Open standards such as kerberos and others do not seem to be adhered to.
How come there is this perceived disparity? Can you comment on the structures in place on how software is tested and developed? What kind of balance do you have to achieve when looking at the interface and what is happening under the hood?
From Dictionary.com:
"candor (kndr) n.
Frankness or sincerity of expression; openness. Freedom from prejudice; impartiality.
[Middle English from Old French from Latin from candre, to shine; see kand- in Indo-European Roots.] "
Now, Microsoft is not exactly known for being open or forthcoming when it comes to their products and business practices, and I think it's quite respectable for Mr. Miller to agree to do the interview in the first place. Especially considering the large number of blind anti-MS bigots and flame warriors that read Slashdot. Regardless of his responses, the fact that he's even speaking to "the enemy" is a positive step.
Slashdot: Open Source, Closed Minds.
And now my question:
Mr. Miller, a quick trip to Netcraft's site shows that Microsoft's IIS is struggling for marketshare among web servers. Considering that corporations and businesses are a large source of Microsoft's revenue, I was wondering what Microsoft has in store in the future to help entice more business customers into using Microsoft's own products. I must admit that I'm impressed with Win2K's stability and uptime, but what else does Microsoft have in store for it's users that would justify spending several thousand dollars on a Microsoft based infrastructure as opposed to a quite capable free alternative?
Slashdot: Open Source, Closed Minds.
Did the Borg implants hurt as they were inserted into your brain?
Will you promise me that you will not partake in selling your code to our government agencies thereby shifting the funding model from the consumer market to a tax payer subsidized one.
--It's all vaporware until it ships.
I can never quite figure out why people keep working for Microsoft. Do you believe that Microsoft actually makes worthwhile technical contributions or innovations? Do you think it is liked very much by customers? Don't you have enough money by now to retire? Or are you just waiting for your stock options to become worth something again? Even if you believe in Microsoft's mission, wouldn't you rather be in a smaller company again?
I wonder why microsoft doesnt just leave all that stuff turned off by default. If a user *must* have that stuff, they should have to turn it on themselves. I doubt those features would be popular if a user turning them on had to click on a warning stating that they were enabling the primary method of viruses to infect their box
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
When this was posted up I saw the words "Microsoft" and "Interoperability" in the same paragraph. I thought it was a typo and so when I came back to my screen 10 minutes later and it was still there, I decided to take a look.
One of the quotes on the page linked to here states "One of the great things about Windows 2000 is that it works so well in a mixed environment". Although Win2K might be better than previous versions, I'm having problems swallowing the attitude that is sitting behind the words on this page in a smugly ironic manner.
MSFT have evidently spent a great deal of time on making Win2K sit and play nicely in a non-MS environment. I ask myself, why didn't they just follow the standards tracks in the first place. Why did they feel they had to "add" to the RFCs? Why did they spend so much time money and effort in hiring developers that would produce software that would not interoperate with non-MS code?
My question then is this - has Microsoft come to the realisation that they don't own this industry and are going to have to start towing the RFC and standards track line, or will they continue to try and "innovate" and "expand" protocols, services and functions that the rest of the world do just fine?
This might read as a flame/troll, but I can assure you my intent is honest. I don't like what MS have done to a lot of things. The only good thing about NT that I ever liked was the TCP/IP stack, and that had been stolen from BSD 4.4 so I get rather ticked off when I'm told that there in an interoperability department at MSFT.
This line intentionally left here to annoy you.
As for large corporate installations, this has the potential to cut costs a great deal. The tech people would not need to hassle with opening up cases; instead, just plug cord in, insert driver disk, and job done.
Has anyone had any experience with peripherals "disappearing" in these kind of situations? It's hard for an entire PC to go missing, but an external hard drive is definitely briefcase-able.
I'd like to think that such things don't happen, but...
Is there any truth to the rumors that Bill strides though the halls of Microsoft in a black cloak and a helmet saying "Linus, I am your father" and occasionally strangling the odd employee? If so, have you ever had enough guts to tell him that ancient weapons and hokey religions are no match for shiny new source code at your side?
Can we ever hope to see microsoft compete fairly in the near future? Is mud-slinging the only way for microsoft to "convince" its potential customers to buy their products?
Here's a link to the article I'm referencing, and following is the excerpt that caught my attention.
d ows.idg/index.html
According to this, at least, it seems the 'full license' would be affected too.
Thanks,
Phoenix_SEC
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/ptech/03/27/next.win
Microsoft's stepped-up copy protection may prompt even more howls from users, however. During installation, Windows Product Activation will scan your system's hardware and create a "fingerprint" that you'll be required to transmit to Microsoft, along with the unique product key, within 30 days of installation.
If you alter enough of the system's characteristics recorded in this fingerprint -- by upgrading video, storage, and other components, for example -- you may have to call Microsoft and convince a representative that you're not a software pirate before you can use the system again. The feature's main purpose, of course, is to prevent people from installing a single copy of XP on multiple computers, something determined crackers will surely view as a challenge.
I don't recall saying anything about paying for a new license, but just to clarify...
My point is that MS is keeping a very tight leash on where you install their OS, and in doing so will be inconveniencing users.
I see it as quite similar to the 'copy protection' schemes that will disallow playing audio cd's from your computer - they will cut back on piracy from certain groups, but the cost to the average consumer is incredible.
As a side note, I slept through the reading comprehension of the ACT, and part of the SAT English =).
Phoenix_SEC
Doug, I was reading a review of Windows XP today, and came across some interesting information on the new licensing scheme. From what I read, the XP will use the current hardware configuration to generate an id string (I believe they called it a fingerprint), which you then tell Microsoft, over the phone, to get the license key for your machine. In an end-user environment (especially laptops), configurations change constantly, and thus the user would be calling in regularly to get a new key.
At the same time, several OS developers (e.g., Apple, various Linux distributions) are moving in a very different direction by open-sourcing their operating systems.
How do you feel this difference in policy will affect Microsoft in terms of new computer purchases (e.g., choosing a different OS - even a previous version of Windows) and upgrades to existing systems?
Thanks in advance,
Phoenix_SEC
What are the odds of microsoft releasing all the DirectX and Windows API specs1 into public domain or adopting another standard (or *nix compatability layer)? While it might have some detrimental impact on short-term revenue on the OS front, in the long term you would see more and more small to medium sized businesses adopting various microsoft products to mix and match them with those of other operating systems, such as visual basic or microsoft access running on Linux. While not all-powerful, their quick development capabilities are somewhat lacking in linux and these two products, in paticular, would be purchased en masse.
~Cannis.
"I want to work for the NSA but my History grade
keeps bringing down my GPA, I guess I'll work
in Silicon Valley instead."
"Of course I speak multiple languages, I know C++ AND Perl." "Spanish?!? Spanish? I don't need no stinking Spanish."
Sponsoring the next backstreet boys tour would look all the little girls or the world in to using windows for life and make the tiny boppers beg they're parents to buy them the "backstreet boy millennium millennium edition of window????? oh god what have I said no please don't sponsor them.
With Microsoft being the large uber-corporation that it is, it's been rather difficult getting a straight answer on Microsoft's position on Linux. One executive says one thing, another says something different, and it's difficult to gague who is really speaking for the company. How does Microsoft really feel about the development and acceptance of GNU/Linux?
If Linux/Free software in general is no real threat, why bother with this interview?
Well, my question is simple, why work for the beast? You seem like someone who's been rooting (no pun intended) for the underdog for many years, is this an attempt to take down/improve the system from the inside, can you explain some of the logic involved in moving to such an environment?_ ______
___________________________________
Take comfort in your ignorance.
__________________________________________
Take comfort in your ignorance.
Grandmaster Plague
What is Microsoft doing to address backdoor TCP/IP access to Windows machines? BackOrifice and others caught many offguard, and they were benign in nature, relative to the havock that COULD have been unleashed by script kiddie type hackers. Is the approach just "Make windows 9x windows NT?"
Also, know of any Microsoft OS plans that will support Intel Itanium architecture? Is microsoft prepared for 64 bit processors, if/when they get here?
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
I mean, holy hell, this is SLASHDOT. You're like a deer with a bullseye painted on your ass.
What operating systems do you use personally and for how long?
Don't you think the copyprotection on the future Whistler(tm) will weaken Microsoft's firm lead in the OS market?
I for one believe that the vast majority of the people using the different Windows(tm) OS's haven't payed for their license. If Microsoft hinders the posibility to install a pirated copy of Windows(tm), Linux is getting more and more userfriendly and Wine has project aimed at allowing people to play DirectX(tm) compatible games under Linux - I for one does not see any reason to use MS OS's and Microsoft's products any more. This would in turn lead to Microsoft loosing ground. It is obvious that the OS leads way for the application the user will use. If you loose ground in the OS competition you loose ground in all the other areas too.
--
/John Sjolander, project manager Contribio
When designing and developing NT, Microsoft had a wonderful chance to provide a new generation OS capable of replacing UNIX. All they needed to do in that respect was to: 1. introduce a reasonably complete POSIX/XPG/BSD/Linux set of system calls 2. Provide most of the UNIX command line utilities including *sh/sed/awk etc. 3. Provide a simple no-frills X server (or better still native X support) 4. MAYBE provide a set of X/Xt/Motif libraries This would have made the new system immediately positioned as an instant UNIX replacement bringing the best of both worlds (UNIX compatibility and corporate backing by Microsoft). However, this haven't happended. Instead only a restrictive POSIX personality was provided and none of the UNIX programs. Why did this happen? One would argue that most of the items above can be purchased separately from third-party companies. yet this is not the same as a one-package ready-to-use OS from one company.
- Introduce a reasonably complete POSIX/XPG/BSD/Linux set of system calls
- Provide most of the UNIX command line utilities including *sh/sed/awk etc.
- Provide a simple no-frills X server (or better still native X support)
- MAYBE provide a set of X/Xt/Motif libraries
This would have made the new system immediately positioned as an instant UNIX replacement bringing the best of both worlds (UNIX compatibility and corporate backing by Microsoft).However, this hasn't happended. Instead only a restrictive POSIX personality was provided and none of the UNIX programs. Why did this happen? One would argue that most of the items above can be purchased separately from third-party companies. yet this is not the same as a one-package ready-to-use OS from one company.
What is your name?
What is your quest?
What is the average airspeed of an unladden swallow?
-
sean
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
yea, listen, I am sorry, but I am still laughing. (with tears in my eyes)
when I read this I though of *sucking freebsd through my 9600baud modem on my i386, 6 years ago*
seriously,
Why does windows 98/NT/whatever have to be so bloaded? I mean...we all know that "graphically oriented" OSs/desktops like windows need more disk space and faster processors and more video memory. But this Windows XP thing, with 64Mb (I believe it is) recommended video memory, looks to me like it has some serious gas problems.
which leads me to my question:
lately I have just noticed that vendors such as Intel do keep turning the clockspeeds up but what about actually advancing in technology?
never pet a burning dog
If (or more likely when) content protection finally makes it into Windows, does MS have any plans to allow end users to protect their own data -- for privacy -- or will the tools necessary to create protected files only be available to big corporations or others with lots of money/clout?
-- Your mother uses Emacs.
...how a non-Windows system can gain access to Active Directory entirely through standard protocols, to add/change/delete global policies such as IPsec policies, or secure parameters like administrator passwords?
Mr. Miller, what do you think of Microsoft pricing model? Admittedly, a lot of R&D goes into Windows, Office, and other product development, but when you consider what you are asking a private user to pay for Office 2000, do you ever consider the fact that you are pricing yourself out of the stratosphere? Microsoft continues to state that it is losing billions a year on software piracy, but all its doing is taking the amount of pirated copies times an average retail price and a number of 5 billion is reached. Many private citizens cannot afford the hundreds of dollars to buy a fully licensed version and if they didn't get the illegal versions, they simply wouldn't use the software. However, if Office 2000 was price at a much more reasonable level wouldn't you think that the motive to pirate would erased? After all, I would rather sell a product to ten people at $20.00 a copy than one person at $200.00.