Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft: The Next Investigations
Runt-Abu writes: "Some of the UK's top companies (and some of the not-so-top as well but hey...) are questioning Microsoft's policy on pricing. In an open letter to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry several of the top companies voiced concern at the cost of an extra £880m over a typical four-year investment cycle.
No one from Microsoft has commented at this time, given the current state of affairs it's highly likely many companies will not upgrade or seek alternative cheaper solutions." Basically, a large trade group is asking the British Office of Fair Trading (akin to the FTC in the U.S.) to investigate Microsoft's price increases. And Gogl writes: "It appears the attorneys general of 6 more states have voiced concern over Microsoft, particularly regarding the upcoming release of Windows XP. Microsoft and their allies claim that AOL-Time Warner was behind this, which AOL of course denies," pointing also to this piece on Microsoft's changing licensing costs.
I can remember a time when buying Windows was a realtivly painless experience. Over the past several years though I've noticed a steady increase in the price of buying the dratted OS. A hundred bucks for the UPGRADE? Whatever their marketing department is smoking, I'd certainly like some; must be some pretty good stuff.
Bah, I've been questioning their pricing for years and I never got a Slashot cover story.
Nosce te Ipsum
Neil Holloway, Microsoft's UK managing director, told IT directors he could make no changes to the new licensing proposals without specific permission from the company's US headquarters.
Less than a week later, a letter sent to Elite, Imis and Socitm by Microsoft made it plain that the company would not contemplate any changes.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
I've been running Windows XP RC2, and must admit I kind of like it. Since my needs these days (as a working pastor-in-training) run more towards word processing than development and web servers, it does what I need pretty well. However, I looked today at the license costs for it and I'm choking a bit. A single-user home *upgrade* is $99. Home full version is $199, and professional full is $299. None of these are designed for server use, but for individual users.
More interestingly, they appear to be actually planning to enforce licensing through an enforced registration (i.e. if you don't register in 14 days, it won't work.) I've often said that few people would put up with Windows if they had to pay for it. The truth of the matter is that many people do not bother with legal licenses for their home software, so don't get too excited when told the product sucks. I wonder if the high costs and no-pirating-allowed will cost Microsoft the market?
-- Slashdot sucks.
Just for interest: the plural of "attorney general" is "attorneys general", not "attorney generals". The latter would be, I suppose, multiple military commanders with law degrees...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
It's a new product. They can set whatever price (and price policy) they want.
It's up to Microsoft's costumers to decide if it's more cost efficient to upgrade to Windows XP or take any other path (including not-upgrading and stop having support in some years time or start a migration process of some or all systems to other operating systems with different cost structures)
As i see it a more expensive Windows just increases the number of situations in which it's cheaper to migrate/implement to/in another operating system and contract a System Administrator for that OS instead of a Windows System Admin.
It's worth taking a look at the visitor's area of the TIF web site:
http://www.tif.co.uk/
It certainly has an impressive list of members, including certain UK government departments such as the Inland Revenue.
People have been complaining about Microsoft for the past fifteen years or so. Unfortunately, Microsoft products have been of a reasonably good quality, and people like them, so pirating their software has gone on for just about that long as well.
Piracy means that not only the original owner gets to use it, but also a few of his friends. Microsoft may think that's a bad thing, but all it has done is secure their place as *the* operating system, the office suite, the web server, etc., because so many people use it, even if they're not all paying customers. MS would not have its current market share if it were not for piracy.
With these new tactics to extract money from citizens, the only thing they're going to accomplish is that Microsoft will no longer be in the hands of Joe Sixpack, who will then contemplate Linux, BSD, AtheOS, BeOS, or other operating systems that cost less than a few limbs.
In addition, the percentage of the workforce with Microsoft experience will decline; It's easy enough to learn ASP or whatever when you can install it at home, but not so easy when you can't touch it.
They're shooting themselves in the foot, and that's probably a good thing.
Got Rhinos?
Irony: Remember when institutions bought into this myth, that with Microsoft they could standardize on one stable platform? The last laugh is thinking of all these institutions dropping huge $$$ (or £££) on upgrades (not just license fees, but the overhead to "upgrade" all workstations.
I've seen some graphical representations of Windows penetration and W95 still holds a significant chunk. Expect XP to have slow penetration, particularly as institutions are doing a lot of belt tightening. If W95 or W98 works, leave it at that. We just upgraded our workstations from W95 to W98 (btw, I've got a bone to pick with anyone who says W98 is more stable than W95, it BSOD's as often at work as it does on my 2 year old laptop) and it'll be probably a decade before anyone around here sees XP.
IMHO I wouldn't be buying MS stock based upon high anticipated sales of XP. Maybe base it on the acceptance of their XBox or something else.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'm not a big MS fan, but frankly, they're operating in a free market, and it's their right to charge whatever they like. If you think it's too much, don't buy it.
To any business that's become reliant on MS technology, and thinks these price hikes might cost them dearly, I'd say this: This is what Richard Stallman warned you about 20 years ago. If you rely on proprietary software, belonging to a third party, you're putting yourself in a position where that third party has you by the nuts.
In future, leave yourself an escape route: at the very least make sure your business' IT is based on open protocols, and aim to use software which allows you to flit from support suppier to support supplier at will (at present OSS is the only kind of software I can think of which allows this).
If Sun's marketing department are on the ball, there'll be a pallet of StarOffice CD's arriving on their doorstep tomorrow morning.
With XP's new registration process - how is that going to work? Will you still be ABLE to ghost XP machines? WIll users have to handle the registration process on their own after the machine is delivered? God forbid they lose that license certifcate in the process. With previous versions of Windows you simply used Ghostwalker to update the settings and such. But this adds yet another step to an already tedious process.
So does anyone who uses ghost to roll out systems have a plan or idea how they'll handle the onslaught of XP? Symantec has an article that basically says XP is Beta (not anymore!) and they'll have more info after release (none I cqan find) They say they were able to use ghost and ghost walker to clone an XP machine - but again, cloning (ie backing up) a system is one thing, making corporate images you can toss onto new systems is something else entirely... It'll be too bad if Microsofts zeal for $$$ trashes a program that saved countless IT depts thousands of hours in deployment time.
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
Unless you get everybody and his dog to upgrade to it, that will matter little in the grand scheme of things. How many of those millions of people that have Windows that fueled the network effect for Windows and software that runs on it actually HAVE a machine XP will run on? How many will be able to afford to plunk down the cash for one, let alone XP? How many businesses are going to step forward like they did before (realize that W2K's not selling like they planned on it...) and upgrade to this with the much more expensive licensing, etc.
Not a lot, when you think about it.
Microsoft has saturated the market that made them a monopoly- either they need something more compelling than XP and Office 2000 (Which effectively dies on you if the OS thinks your hardware has changed- you have to update your license key and if MS thinks you're cheating, they'll charge you again for that software you paid for the privilege to use...).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Hmmm. Sounds kinda radical. Are you actually saying that as the size and complexity of a system increases, not only does the relative number of defects increase (even if only in a linear fashion; 10 percent of 100 being more than 10 percent of 10) but the amount of work and effort must also increase with the complexity of said system, resulting, in a capatalist system, with greater compensation? Hmmm. Don't think so. Of course complexity increases. People expect their computer to be able to do more out of the box. Five years ago, video playback was a gimmick. Now it's an expectation. Email was an affectation (amoungst the great unwashed, at least.) Now it's a standard communication tool. And so on. Of course you're paying for the 'features;' all the OS is supposed to do is sit between software and hardware; it's a translation layer.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
That's the thing about relgious wars. They rarely interrupt themselves for other religious wars.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Technically, in a free country, no producer really does get to set the price for his product. He can set it at whatever he pleases, but market forces dictate that he should set it as such a point where demand meets supply (ie: the producer is willing to sell X units when they are priced at A, and the consumers are willing to purchase X units at price A). In a monopoly system, because there are no alternatives, the demand curve no longer slopes down as sharply, or in the extreme case, it does not slope down at all. People "need" an operating system, and the lack of viable alternatives forces them to purchase the monopoly's products. As a result, the monopoly can set prices higher than a free market system would allow, because there is no competetive force among producers to bid down the price of the product.
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
Opting out is not a realistic option. While we could remain on Office 97 & NT4/2000 internally forever, our business (as with most businesses) constantly interacts with hundreds of other businesses: partners, clients, and vendors. Unless we can get all of them to stand still on Office, sooner or later, we're going to hit compatibility problems when exchanging documents (and viruses, but that's a different feature). It's a hassle for the business, and it makes us look bad to partners and clients.
Yes, I know that Office XP and Excel XP use file formats that are compatible with Office 97. I don't know that Office 2003 (or whatever it will be called) maintains this compatibility. The way the new MS pricing works, unless you can postpone upgrades for at least four years, it's cheaper to pay up today.
For the same reason, Linux desktops and open source office software are not a realistic option. The business can't afford compatibility problems with third parties. It just isn't worth the risk.
I wonder how expensive MS software has to be, and how onerous their terms have to become, before the MS apologists will acknowledge that MS is, in fact, a monopoly.
That is HUGE. IT budgets already get squeezed to the hilt because execs don't see direct 'added value' But I'd hate to be the CIO having to tell teh CFO his budget just for Microsoft will increase 40% a year compunded on top of normal budget outlays (hardware, staff, etc) Ouch
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
Nah, of course they're not.
Actually you get a bonus when they provide you with a "free" software audit, for which you'll have to cough up the resources. If you don't want to go for their new and improved licensing plan, that is.
This might be a bit costly and it might really drag on your nerves, but at least you're sure to be in full compliance with your license.
Of course, as per your corporate license agreement, they can repeat that ad nauseum, or at least 'til you sign up for the new and improved plan.
No need to thank me
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
yep, the same argument was used by Rochefeller's goons.
"are we forcing you to buy are oil? no, we just have the best product to market as can be shown by how much people buy our product."
yeah right, what ever.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
... of these guys is astounding:
Does anyone else read this statement and think ``You customers have a choice: it's our way or the highway.''
And moving up (with a bullet) in the ranking of my major pet peeves: Not answering the question and/or responding with seemingly randomly selected sentances as exemplified by:
I would like to know how the difficulty in managing software licenses in a company of any size has to do with Microsoft's sales channel threatening customers. Guess I'm just funny that way.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
I hope they keep raising prices. The more they try to squeeze revenue growth out of a mature market, the greater the opportunity for alternative operating systems.
Think if the ketchup analogy that business types talk about. Heinz is the default ketchup brand. Why? Well they stick bunch of well known ingredients into a bottle, put a well known label on it, and sell it for a reasonable price. Sure other brands might be a little cheaper, but not by a whole lot, and Heinz gets to keep their market share even though they aren't doing anything particularly special. It works as long as they don't raise the price too high. If Heinz were, say, double the price of their nearest competitor then people would start to take notice and try the alternatives. Once they got to know some other brands Heinz would have a really hard time winning those customers back.
Likewise with operating systems. For a lot of people nowadays an OS is an OS. You can argue that Linux or MacOS don't have the application base that Windows does, and you'd be right, but they both have enough for a good many people. Most people are just buying the brand and they'll keep doing that as long as MS doesn't screw them too badly.
Unfortunately for MS, their shareholders expect them to magically produce growth rates in the double digits year after year. Employees expect it too, since that's how they make money from stock options. How do you make more money when your product is basically the same and the market is maturing? That's right, you squeeze your existing customer base. (Or you expand into video games and Online services, but that's tough when your competitors are Sony and AOL/Time Warner)
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
I'm not the one in charge of purchasing the Enterprise License Agreements at MyCorporation, but I've read some articles in the Register and elsewhere that indicate that MS has a pricing policy that makes XP cheaper if it is purchased before a specific cut-off date that is looming rapidly. If you upgrade to XP later, subsequent Agreements will be more expensive.
I get the impression, too, that most corporations have been trying all they can to standardize on Win2K and are not interested in hearing about this carrot and stick ploy on XP pricing.
Of course, as time proceeds and our new users buy laptops with XPSP4 and Outlook 2004 that "works best with" XP and clunky with Win2K, our corporate IT support people will be coerced into a position where their wallets will have to crack open a bit wider to do that upgrade or suffer the wrath of users wondering why "we're behind the times".
If it didn't hurt so much financially, it would be pretty funny. Now that MS has dominated the market, the only revenue growth opportunity left to them is to force their customer's to upgrade more frequently!
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I find it interesting that these companies even care. Windows XP offers a few bells and whistles--but it doesn't offer a lot more than Windows 2000. Sure--it offers support for joysticks and heavy-duty gaming. But that doesn't strike me as a compelling new feature causing a corporation to upgrade ("And, uh, this slide shows how we'll be able to use this new version to install Dirk Blasto Space Invader joysticks in all of our CSR workstations to handle irate callers...").
It seems to me that Microsoft isn't just trying to shift the business model from a "purchase" to a "pay-for-use" model, as many have suggested. I think they're also trying to--or will end up being forced into--a business model similar to Intel's. When the next round of microprocessors appears the chips are sold at a premium price--and the product clears the market at that price. As Intel rachets up production it can profitably lower the price, clearing the market of demand at that lower level. The cycle keeps repeating--Intel (and other semiconductor manufacturers) have this down pat.
Microsoft has done similar things in the past. Their Visual Studio 6.0 toolset is, by now, quite long in the tooth. They sold tons in the early days of the product, but sales are considerably lower--so Microsoft offers bundled books and tools, and offers lower prices to resellers, to sell product. In effect they're lowering the price to entice buyers into the market who aren't willing to pay the higher price.
I think we're going to see the same thing with XP. Corporations are simply going to stand pat: why upgrade? All XP gives you is some easily-ignored bells and whistles, and the ability to use joysticks. In order to get corporations to upgrade Microsoft is going to have to make it worth the corporations while--which will almost certainly mean price decreases and less draconian license restrictions.
My largest customer is number 2xx on the Fortune 500. They're just now rolling out Windows 2000 to desktops around the world--and they have shelved plans for even piloting XP. Microsoft wants them to upgrade--but can't make a compelling case for a whopping upgrade expense (plus the cost of actually installing the OS, labor, etc.) in a time of tightly-trimmed budgets and some layoffs. "Hey," said a friend and senior manager, "we just announced we're whacking 200 people. If we spend three million bucks installing XP we're going to have to whack another 40. Is the ability to use a joystick worth those peoples' jobs?"
Last week I attended a seminar that included an impromptu lecture by a highly-regarded economist. One of the key changes in the economy over the past 20 years, as he sees it, is that manufacturers by and large have lost control of their pricing. You don't ship shirts to a department store and tell them what to charge--instead you get a purchase order from Wal-Mart telling you what they're willing to pay. And you deal. The major exception that this economist mentioned was pharmaceutical companies, because they're protected by patents on their products. If your doctor prescribes ButaGlutaMax, you can only get it from one place. An exception he did not mention was software--and I think Microsoft is about to learn this lesson. In a booming economy with a bazillion dot-coms buying PCs, Microsoft sold a lot of OSs. The boom is over, budgets are drying up all over the world, and Microsoft is trying to force through a price increase. I don't think they're going to be able to control their prices this time around.
In the Army it's Sergants Major, not Sergant Majors.
Best Slashdot Co
Microsoft is probably as good an example of capitalist arrogance as any, and an attack on them is probably as good for publicity as anything else, so have they been subject to any terrorist actions (other than cream pie attacks)? How does their "victim of terrorist attacks" status compare to that of other biggies, such as General Electric, General Motors, AOLTimeWarner, etc.?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Its really quite simple. A Windows client seat costs what, a max of $200? Fine.
Your employee makes $10/ hr.
Therefore your proposed free solution has to be good enough to retrain the employees in less than 20 hours.
Cant do it? Then you are in the heap of solutions that were good, but not better.
Well, as an IT manager at a big corporation a few years ago, I can tell you that decisions like these (lagre scale licensing issues and software standards) are made MUCH higher up - the CIOs and their direct reports. The poor IT manager way on down trying to save $$$ in his budget for his small facility often has little choice. Been there, done that. 'Standardization' is a huge buzzword and Microsoft utilizes it to the hilt. If you decide to branch out and go with something different to save money in your budget (that would otehrwise have gone to the central site license group and then straight to Microsoft) you often are viewed as going against the grain, troublemaker, whatever. So unless you BEEN THERE, don't make such foolish statements. Yes, there are PLENTY of Microsoft sheep out there who rather than choosing Microsoft because they BELIEVE it to be better for their situation, choose because its what everyone else does. But also realize that often an IT managers' hands are tied from on high.
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
Price gouging like this is exactly why there has been any move to break up microsoft. Having a virtually complete monopoly of the OS market leaves customers vulnerable to the whimsacle price increases that Billy wants to have to make it to the 100 billion mark. Imagine what happens when they make you pay every year for a subscription fee: you'll be forced to pay whatever price they want to continue the subscription, or you will have no OS at all. And a lot of companies can't make a transition from Windows to MacOS or Linux within days, so companies would be forced to comply. If I had a windows box, I'd keep a version of 2000 around just for this reason.
Businesses should have complete control over their prices. BUT, the ability for microsoft to control the markey and force customers to pay incredible prices is an example of why some type of legal action needs to be taken against Microsoft's anticompetitive practices and help protect consumers and businesses.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
For the same reason, Linux desktops and open source office software are not a realistic option. The business can't afford compatibility problems with third parties. It just isn't worth the risk.
Uhhh, what if the third parties got pissed at the expense of upgrading their software and opted for open source at the same time? No compatability issues then and everybody's happy! Maybe they're having the same compatability concerns that your company is and are feeling compelled to upgrade to preserve compatability with you! Talk to them! Maybe they might be inclined to postpone upgrading or chuck it altogether!
You're using her as bait, Master!
Then don't use their software.
Just try to buy a machine without it pre-installed. Good luck! You ARE forced to buy it if you want/need newer hardware and don't want to build your own.
Karma: Professionally Doomed (mostly affected by inability to keep opinions to self)
As an economist, it is pretty clear what is going on here. If a monopolist wants to maximize current profits, he will always price on an "elastic" portion of the demand curve. In looser language, you maximize profit by raising price until the point where you really are driving some substantial percentage of consumers away. (Why? Because at lower prices, price increases don't cost you much in terms of lost demand and they also reduce your costs.) You can prove a formal version of this mathematically.
However, in the past MS was worried not just about current sales, but also about future sales. This is called "dynamic pricing". MS's attitude toward dynamic pricing is changing because: [i] they have close to 100% share already, [ii] the number of PCs in not increasing as fast (and so future market share is no longer much more attractive relative to current market share) and [iii] the threat of anti-trust regulation makes the future less certain.
Thus, MS is turning to the question of how to squeeze out current profits. This involves driving some customers away in order to raise revenue and lower costs for existing customers.
The opportunity for competitors (including Linux) is obvious. MS may be moving away from dynamic pricing too soon, if there really is a threat to its future market share.
The licensing model that they are using now allows remote deactivation. So once you buy into this one, then they can coerce upgrades and license changes whenever they choose. It is my feeling that any manager who signs onto this should be prosecuted for malfeasance, but this attitude isn't shared or welcomed by the IT management that I work for. I'm not going to agree to the license. I may have to quit over it, but I feel that this is one good way to get oneself sued.
And one of the cute fillips is that they don't need to give any warning before a price increase takes effect. So IT budgets become totally unpredictable. They may decide tomorrow to double their price, and all of the current versions suddenly stop working until you have purchased upgrades. This wouldn't work yet, as they don't have sufficient market penetration for this version, but that's clearly where it's headed. And I'm not going to sign onto it.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
For example, because of all of the companies that had all their key people located in one place at the trade center, and the resulting loss of people and their knowledge, many businesses are probably looking more at how to decentralize to reduce the risk.
There is also the now probable recession, just given the drop in business for the travel and entertainment industries. So many businesses are likely cutting back.
How does this effect Microsoft? Many businesses have reasons, now more than ever, to NOT go through with the Microsoft upgrade program.
And then, there will be the cost efficiency of Linux. Businesses will add up the costs, recognise that the FUD about reducing the cost of business with Microsoft is in fact a financial trap.
Microsoft, if it is smart, may change their policy to extend or eliminate their deadline.
The business enviromnent may have become the wrong time to do a major product launch.
MS may well wind up stampeding customers into the hands of their opponents.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
What a great reason to start writing good software. Software authors are about to be able to get back into the market as people start to look for replacements. Star Office and Word Perfect should be getting their next release polished up for the Christmas Season. It's going to be a good season.
The truth shall set you free!
Because I'd assume the majority of Slashdot readers are the techies...not the PHBs that make decisions like that.
There is now someone I can write to, with reasonable expectations of a good reading. I'm now in the loop instead of an interested mostly-spectator.
Microsoft's situation is interesting, and perhaps a little sad. Their business model appears to have two cornerstones: Aggressive compound growth and fast, frequent shipment of incremental improvements focused on user perception. Besides that, they've until recently been a 'gentle monopoly' to the end user, not taking advantage their power to control prices.
This model has served them well, up until recently. But they've effectively reached the limits of desktop revenue, owning monopolies on the OS and the office applications. They're trying to break into imbedded, server, and game console markets. So far their fast/incremental business model has not helped them get as far into the imbedded or server markets as they'd like, where 'next release' and eye candy simply don't cut it when base functionality is unreliable or insecure.
With Win2k they've made great strides in reliability, but really they're only getting to the base function point. Prior to this, anyone but Microsoft would have been laughed out of the datacenter with most of what they sold.
In imbedded, they've stuck by WinCE in their usual fashion, but I can't see Microsoft playing in any arena where there isn't enough of a display to show the Windows logo.
In penetrating new markets to expand their revenue base, the XBox is probably the most important product they have. But Sony and Nintendo won't give up without a fight, and the timing of the recession is just plain bad for having the most expensive console on the market, no matter how capable.
So with the desktop OS and office market saturated, server and imbedded markets stalled or slow, and not quite ready for console games, in order to continue the revenue curve that is so essential to their invincible appearance, Microsoft had little choice but to ramp up the license terms.
They're between a rock and a hard place.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
But they can do this with the OEMs. What OS will come on the next laptop I buy? It'll be XP. So I need to support it. Then my users will start to want it, and I'll end up fighting with them, like I've done with Office 97 and 2000 and so on and so forth. We upgraded to office 97 because there were so many rogue copies about that the 95 users couldn't work as every tenth document wouldn't open. If I ever want to upgrade my Exchange 5.0 servers, what am I going to do? I can't buy 5.5 licenses any more and 2000 means AD...
;-)
Now, if managment would listen to my plan to let me shoot just a couple of users as an example...
Certainly these changes to MS's model will help alternative OS choices, such as Linux, but it's never a simple matter ot change. This locked-in-ness is a problem.
My theory: I want an OS monopoly, because OS's are not important to me, software is important to me, but I want it to be open source so no-one owns it.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
I mean, really. Are they putting a gun to your head and saying "buy our next round of products or die Scum!"?
Yes, they pretty much are saying that. Details here
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
If you have Win98 + or WinNT 4.xx + then you have at least until the end of June 2002 to make any migration while still having standart support from Microsoft for the not-yet-migrated systems.
This could be a win for Apple. Apple's hardware has always been more expensive than comparable PC hardware, but they bundle the OS. With the OS now priced at half the hardware cost, Macs may look like a viable option. Especially now that Apple finally has a protected-mode OS underneath.
Actually, not to be nitpicky, but the plural of attourney general is attourneys general. Much like the plural of court marshall is courts marshall, rather than court marshalls.
(It makes sense. There's no army of generals, and John Ashcroft probably isn't General caliber. Rather, he is the 'general' attourney for the United States. We he and his friends from the states hang out, they are all attourneys, and all general. Thusly, they are attourneys general.)
It sort of reminds me of the old trick cops use when they want someone to squeal on his buddies:
"You're going to spend a night in jail. Period, end of story. Now, you can either have a nice night alone, in a cell all by yourself, or we can toss you in with the worst vomiting scum we can find. You remember that name yet?"
Only, in this case, they can walk away from the MS trap, if they have the desire and know how.
I use Linux on my servers and on my desktop. I tell people everyday - if you are getting work done now, using Windows, stick with it. Use what works for you. When your computer gets flakey, or you get a new one, or the next round of Windows and Office upgrades hit, talk to me again.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
I converted all my stuff from Win2K/Office to Mandrake 8.0. It took about two months for the total conversion (let me tell you email from damnable Outlook was a pain) but now I'm 100% MS free. Only legacy thing which is a pain is Access. I might add that I purchased VMWare to keep my stuff avail should I need it during the transition.
I'm no longer concerned with licensing, software EULAs, piracy, inability to play particular music formats, or big brother bill. I don't care about service packs breaking my whole machine, web bugs, or spending ridiculous amounts of $$ to keep up with their silly software releases and $$ for software that should be included with the OS.
My current machine will probably last me four years - much longer than if I stayed with the M$/Intel upgrade cycle.
I now purchase software because I feel the development for it is worthwhile (i.e. vmware and mandrake), not because I'm in danger of violating commercial law.
The only way to really stop M$ is to break their pattern of generating revenue. As a collective of consumers, we have this ability. It might take time, but history shows that all monopolies eventually fail. Should our government actually figure out a way to outlaw open source software, then perhaps it is time for me to change my place of residence. Until then, I urge you all to figure out a time and cohesive manner with which you can start refusing to give M$ the $$ they demand.
&J
Ok, Warning, This is post is likely to be flamebait, I am likely to be a troll, and a karma whore, and if thats not enough I'm likely to use profanity. You have been warned.
s for crap, than to quit using crap cold turkey.
I have been using computers for more than half my life, Which is easy when you start when you are nine years old. I started with a TRS 80 running of all things Microsoft Basic. It was loads of fun and I liked it. Later for me it was DOS 4.11 on a 12mhz 286. It was loads of fun and I liked it. Everyone remember when microsoft was a pretty good company in New Mexico?
But Windows... Oh the plauge across the land that which is Windows. Windows 3 wasn't so bad, Considering what it did it was advanced for its time, but I personnaly believed it was one of those things that was never ready for prime time. So why did business dive upon windows like buzzards on a fresh corpse? I don't want to hear that bullshit about it running (or even being compatible with) DOS programs. You don't even want to know how many windows programs break upon moving to a higher version number of windows. Notice how I didn't refer to it as upgrade. Upgrading implies moving forward or progress, but a new version of windows in neither of those. I digress the point here is that Windows 3 was no more compatiable with DOS, than Windows ME is with Windows 98. There are lots of programs written for windows 98 that absolutely refuse to run on windows ME. So backwards compatabilty is a sick joke, and the joke is on all of us. Just enough compatabilty for us to think it is real. Not quite enough to keep us from buying more windows.
I personally am absolutely disgusted with Windows. I have been giving myself a mental beating over that fact that I have written windows programs. To continue supporting this monster is unthinkable. It makes me think of the analogy of primative peoples sacrificing virgins to a horrible demon.
Once a week the villagers would leave a virgin sacrifice tied up outside the demon's cave to keep the demon happy. But what the villagers don't know is that if they stop sacrificing villagers the demon is to fat to go out and do anything about it.
Now I am not saying that microsoft is to fat, but I am saying we don't have to keep feeding out dollars to the behemoth. Honestly what are they going to do if everyone decides that they aren't going to pay for this crap anymore? I personally have made this resolution. I will not give microsoft A single Red Penny of mine.
I am in the process of a Microsoft Purge. While unpleasant at the moment it is an enima that the rest of the computing world could use. Everyone needs to stick a big bottle of penguin juice up their ass and flush all the microcrap away. I am converting all my ASF files to DivX with a hacked version of virtual dub, I am retireing all of my Open Source Visual Basic Projects (I have 4 of them, 3 of which are of a usable quality.) Since learning Pascal I have changed my Language of choice to Kylix (which is cool because the GPL is my license of choice) Oh, and if I hear any of that crap about "Free as in speach Compilers", Fuck off, Be happy I give my code away at all. Kylix is cool, I can develope Linux programs in a manner similar to that of Visual Basic, while contiuning to help the unfortunate souls who have yet to recive their bottles of penguin juice.
Somehow I doubt I will ever give up Microsoft Completely. Thats Ok, though, I can dual boot. I have been doing so for a while. I can continue to use what versions of windows I have bought. I'll probably continue to load windows to play some games, but I will certainly buy no game that requires a version of windows I don't have. Hopefully by that time though Linux versions of games will be more that the dream it seems to be now. My point here is it is far more important to stop handing over your hard earned dollars/pounds/yen/rupees/ruples/franc/marks/euro
Oh my God using that analogy Windows is like Crack. Makes sense though, While using it you are too doped up to know you are paying something designed to keep you paying for it. Ooh look at the pretty logos!
Maybe one day we will all wake up from this bad trip and find ourselves sitting at our terminals in 1973 and decide that thats a vision of the future we don't want. I can almost understand the retaliation against the Hippie movement when I compare it to windows. I could just see it, its the early 90's and all the wise old hackers are terrified because all those young hippie windows users are going unravel the fabic of society. Both the anti-hippies and the anti-windies were both right and wrong, Windows like, the free-love-sex-drugs-peace mentalaty of the 60's have had both positive effects (like promoting peace and computer literacy) and negative effects (like disco, and computer illiteracy.)
I am getting tired of the Linux evangelists in the world who say "Don't like microsoft?, Use Linux!", Its not enough to just say use Linux. You are so preaching to the chior. Its easy to tell people who use Linux to use Linux. Its hard to go out into the world and teach the ignorant masses that there is a better way. If any one of you out there really wants people to stop using windows, then get out there and do something about it. Write Code, Don't try to tear down the applications barrier around windows. Instead, build a bigger applications barrier around linux. Build Good Freindly applications. Build a wall so high and strong that Bill's 120 Billion dollars could never be enough to bring it down. Host LUGNUT [Linux User Group New User Training for the unitiated] meetings. Advertise the LUGNUTs to the general public. Most newspapers list non-profit community events for free. Coordinate them with local civic centers, libraries, colleges and universities, Highschools, and Career advancement institutions. In your spare time at work implement open source versions of your companies systems if only to prove to the suits it can be done economically. Go out into the world and be a Open Source Missionary. Find the heathens and point them towards the light. If you can do none of these things, offer finiacial support to those who do. Send a few dollars in the way of those who run linux learning centers, or donate hardware to those who need it to teach open source. Send a few dollars to the guy who puts in 40 hours a week into Mozilla, or apache, or bind, or send flowers to Linus, and Alan Cox.
I heave bled my heart out for you. Its all I can do. If you want this open source thing to work, you have to work for it. Nothing this good comes easily. You have to work for it.
Moderators, be kind, I speak only the truth, and I seek only the truth.
Slashdot is an anagram for Has Dolts, and I am Dolt number 468543
No customers contacted by CNET News.com said they planned to evaluate alternative applications
There's your answer on the price issue. Companies obviously feel the cost of changing (retraining, losing interoperability with others, etc) is still greater than the cost of paying Microsoft's monopoly prices (soon to be rents). I wonder just how expensive an OS or Office upgrade must get for them to consider a change as being cost effective? Microsoft will raise prices until they find this point (can't really blame them), and apparently they still have some wiggle room, even as high as their prices have become! Only a very small percentage have gotten pissed off enough to change.
The amazing thing is that companies have switched software before (Visicalc -> 123 -> Excel, Harvard Graphics -> Freelance -> Powerpoint, WordStar -> WordPerfect -> Word, etc.) but this time they seem as stubborn as an ox and much more unwilling to change, perhaps because the number of users to retrain is so much higher than in the "old days".
This proves the visionary status of the late Sir Hoyle. Mind you, since it was a disaster novel (he blew up the entire history of humanity at the end), I'm not sure Microsoft would appreciate the parallels.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The poster mnordstr gave some ideas for replacements for office but missed one that I consider very important, WordPerfect. The WordPerfect Suite has been on par with MS for quite a while now. In fact, MS copied the interface from, what was at the time Novell, WordPerfect Suite 6 and Claris Works. And yes, QuattroPro has finally recovered from the beating that it took from Excel 95 and 97. Oh, and they have a Linux version.
Outlook does more than suck at times. It destroys productivity by being an insecure application.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
A lot of comments here complaining about how Win95 is a perfectly reasonable OS and why should anybody waste money on WinXP.
Which seems kind of strange, as these are probably the same people complaining about how Win95 sucks, crashes a lot and requires daily reboots.
But on another point. If you were running Linux would you be content with using kernel versions dating back from 1995? I don't remember what version that would have been, probably early 1.x, but anyway...
One of the reasons I stopped using Linux was because I found it difficult at the time to keep up with all the upgrades needed. I'd find new software but in order to use it my kernel would have to be at some level, and to do that meant upgrading libraries and compilers and such.
While I think one of the compelling things about Windows is the fact that even a 6 year old version of the OS(Win95) can still work with a lot of modern software. The reality is that it is quite painful to try to live solely in that past and the new software with new hardware does give some very compelling features that makes life nice.
I don't maintain a constant upgrade cycle, only when I feel I want to. I have a PIII-850, 768 Megs of RAM and a 30 Gig drive. I run Win2k. I have Office XP. But I still only have Money 2000, having seen no reason to upgrade to either 2001 or 2002 versions.
I don't know. I think a lot of people just like to bitch. Do whatever you feel you need to do, but don't try to convince myself... I can make my own decisions.
Let's do a little thought experiment here. Suppose Microsoft comes out with a wonderful new OS -- Windows Server Unix eXtinguisher -- or known as Windows S.U.X. Suppose that to add value to it, Win-SUX comes bundled with OfficeSUX and a personal finance manager. Furthermore SUX Pro comes bundled with a IIIS 8.0 (Internet Information Infector Service). Along with that, it has an e-commerce application and a built in database server. The consumer version of SUX comes with a free 100 hours of service for MS-SUX-World-Online, and with 10 free SUX-box games. In addition to that, to add even more value, they include a full blown flexible accounting system called Great SUX Pains. [...plus any other category of software where anyone is still making money and has not yet been bought by MS.]
Now, obviously, SUX is a very valuable software product. One box that does everything. It has a lot of additional value over previous generations such as XP. After all, it even includes Office SUX.
Microsoft decides that they'll begin shipping SUX on Jan 1, 2002, and the prices will be as follows.
What do you think?
After all, as you say, Microsoft can set whatever price (and price policy) they want.
Oh, and btw, better upgrade now. Otherwise, you'll have to pay full price on next year's higher prices (because the software has more "value added"). In fact, prices will go up each year. And you better get on the upgrade treadmill today if you don't want to be smacked with full price again.
Steve Monkeyboy was quoted as saying..."Our customers have told us that they like the new SUX-Assurance program. By participating in that program, it gives us assurance that our stock prices will continue to go up each quarter."
It's up to Microsoft's costumers to decide if it's more cost efficient to upgrade to Windows XP or take any other path
Maybe there isn't any other path to take. [This is commonly referred to as a "monopoly".]
After you buy your new Dell, bundled with Win SUX and Office SUX, I'm sure MS will be happy for you to take any other path you want. [You did realize that SUX requires 512 MB of RAM didn't you?]
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Big thing you forgot: Joe Sixpack doesn't choose what OS he runs. He is probably only dimly aware that there is one other choice (linux), and he is uneasy about the Penguin, because the people he knows who run linux are his console jockey friends who always succeed in making him feel inferior by fixing his computer from the DOS prompt, a creature which he is terrified of.
Joe Sixpack got his computer with Windows pre-installed. That was the only option he had, because he bought his computer at Best Buy. Incidentally, he also has 6 months' worth of bills left on MSN service that he wants to get rid of so he can switch to cable modem service. He has seen Best Buy selling copies of Mandrake and Red Hat linux, but is uneasy about getting them - nobody told him that you don't have to uninstall Windows to try linux. He's never read that on the box, because the copies of linux are miles (4 aisles, at least!) away from the shoot-em-up games.
So Joe Sixpack will still use XP. Microsoft will get Dell and Compaq and eMachines to package it with all new computers they make, because Microsoft can. Joe Sixpack will stick to Windows, because he is afraid of linux, and because he has never even heard of BSD, AtheOS, or BeOS. And frankly, none of them meet his needs, anyway - what home user wants an OS without ATAPI support, or a very hardcore Unix? Or an OS that is no longer even being made or supported? Nope, Windows is still the only option for the desktop, and if people go anywhere, they will go to Apple - which is why I evangelize Apple rather than Linux even though I am a linux nerd.
The Register is running a story about an advert - deeply tasteful under present conditions - which MicroSoft are running in the UK. As a matter of interest, is this advert being run in the US? If so, what it the reaction to it?
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
'We think M$ software is too expensive, but we're not prepared to bite the bullet and use an alternative or fund the devlopment of other solutions to our problem.'
With 880 million pounds - almost a billion pounds, well over a billion $US, you could easily afford to pay for a team to write an OfficeXP to Office97 file format converter, even if it meant that team of people had to spend every waking hour for a month figuring it out.
You might even have a few bucks left over, like, ohh, about 879.8 million pounds, absolute worst-case scenario.
With a few of those millions, enough people could be hired to work on OpenOffice, StarOffice, KOffice or the GNOME Office suite to make it, if not a total replacement, at least a workable alternative to Office XP.
This, essentially one-time, investment would save the next 4-year period's 1.2 billion pound bill, as M$ jacks the price up again, since nobody has bothered to get off their fat corporate ass and do something about it.
Its like these companies have voluntarily beached themselves like whales and are letting a giant vulture (i.e. Microsoft) slowly eat their flesh while they slowly die of suffocation in the blistering sun.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Found it...- so ft.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/permission/copyrgt/cop
"Microsoft does allow the downgrading of current versions of retail Microsoft software on a case-by-case basis by special permission, (unless such permission is already granted to you under your Microsoft product End User License Agreement (EULA)). "