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Microsoft Du Jour - Talks, Upgrades, Salaries
Jeff writes: "CNN is reporting 'In a dramatic move, the new judge in the Microsoft case Friday ordered the government and the software maker into five weeks of intensive settlement talks, until Nov. 2.'" Other MS submissions coming in today: USAToday discovers the new upgrade scheme, designed to milk every last cent out of those who've locked themselves into Windows; tech-report.com goes a bit more in depth on the same subject; ZDNet hoists the black flag; MS discusses its plans to control how you compute (by the way, the license agreement for Windows Media Player now allows Microsoft to disable any software on your computer - you do read those license agreements, don't you?); Gates got $666,000 last year but won't have to apply for welfare just yet.
(*shakes from fear realizing that probably a large number of people out there are eating this garbage up as if it were as natural as poop.*)
Go Lakers!
Here's our opportunity....guys...if Linux is ever to be a viable operating system (at least to Corporate America) - it needs to take advantage of this....
CFO's do listen with their wallets...make Linux EASY to use, even at the expense of some of the more configurable options...and secure, and you'll see it become a viable file/web server in the market...I laugh when I hear people griping about MS service packs and a kernel has to be recompiled every week.
Follow the cue of Linux embedded devices...easy for users and admins.
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ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
Please... for the love of God. Document your OS programs as if you were speaking to retards. Make little pretty diagrams. Make installation instructions for the layman. If GUI, then have tooltips. Make a tutorial. Even a flash demo with instructions....
Just document. Any documentation is better than none, but unfortunatly, in OSS none is often what is to be found.
-Kraft
Live and let live
How many of you remember when Scully left Apple and Micheal Spindler was large and in charge?
He stood in front of the assembled masses and said "We are committed to maintaining high shareholder value."
Microsoft is now doing exactly what Apple did. Microsoft is working to maximize its cash flow, and that means taking as much as they can from the pockets of its customers. Doing anything BUT this might subject them to shareholder lawsuits.
Just like IBM once did. And Apple once did. Both companies had a crash and burn phase, and have had a rebuilding phase. Microsoft is now heading to the crash and burn phase. They will eventually rebuild, as they are a cash rich company.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
it's nice to think the market will do to MS what it did to IBM, but you must remember that with IBM viable alternatives which functioned *identically* to IBM's product were available.
with MS there is no 'windows clone' to switch to, the only way that the market could take care of MS is by switching to another product, and right now there is nothing. linux is not what most people need. i doubt it ever will be.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
The truth is, the new upgrading scheme might become a boon for other "movements", including Open Source. IT directors will see the new scheme and make one of two choices:
1.) Follow it, and receive the "discounts" incurred with every 2-year upgrade.
2.) Not purchase anything.
This is different than previous licenses, where "not purchase anything" meant skipping an upgrade cycle. If Microsoft penalizes IT directors for skipping a cycle by charging more for the next cycle, IT directors will simply skip that one too. They aren't stupid. They will wait until they have enough money to purchase the latest and greatest upgrade, and move everyone at that point (at a much longer base than every 2-3 years).
"Locked in" means absolutely nothing. In fact, if this plays out logicially, the opposite will come true.
What you might call 'bias' many others might simply call upholding the law.
That said, Microsoft seems to be simply protecting its file format. They can only affect software that can read protected WMA files (which, at this point, only includes Media Player). It would be silly to assume, especially in a lawsuit-driven atmosphere like copyright infringement, that Microsoft would allow other software to visibly change/take over rights management from the OS. Just think if record companies started getting into a lawsuit war with Microsoft!
Bottom line: it's their file format, not an open one, people. They are free to control it however they wish. If you don't like it, don't use it.
It's just not that simple for most companies.
Back in the mid '90's when larger companies (+500 users) were migrating from either terminals or Netware or both, the options were Win 3 or Apple.
At that point in time MS was not the company it is today. MS was just another vendor. Who new things would end up like this? And now years later it is massively entrenched. (And no Mac OS6 & 7 were not viable on an enterprise desktop).
Today we have more options. Both OSX and Linux are viable alternatives on the desktop. However the key really is an office package that can gracefully handle *eight years* worth of documents, spreadsheets, databases and such. Star/Open Office just isn't quite there yet. What are you going to port the 18472 Access databases floating in you organization to? Apache, PHP and MySQL? C/C++ and MySQL or Oracle? Either way the development costs would be huge.
Spend some time in a 3000+ user environment. Migrating from MS products to another platform is a *massive* undertaking (no to mention the user training issues and costs involved).
From an exec's point of view: I can take it in shorts and play the MS game, it will cost me 10-20% more than it did last year but it things will be pretty much business as usual. Or I can migrate my entire userbase to another less costly and restrictive alternative that at a minimum cost to my IS organization of around 100 hours per user to migrate (including training and document/data conversion).
Now tell me - what are you going to do? Like I said, it's just not that simple.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - BF
So everybody that wants to listen to their CD and transfer the songs to a MP3 player will be able to do so. Those people using Windows and Windows compatable products won't see a need to switch. No big deal. They'll keep using Windows.
A co-worker just had his first encounter with a region coded DVD. Couldn't find it in the US so he bought it from the UK. He wasn't happy that his DVD player wouldn't play the disc but out of the 10 people at the lunch table not a one cared. It was an "oh well" to all of them and nobody was interested when I tried to explain why it happened.
I think the same thing is going to happen with Windows. A bunch of annoyances that just aren't big enough for the average user to give a rip about. (No pun intended.)
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Female Prison Rape in NY
The market may or may not take care of MS, but it didn't take care of IBM without the governments help... ...sort of.
IBM was so wary of antitrust suits they hamstrung themselves. They would have acted very differently if there was no antitrust threat. MS seems to be doing the exact reverse, they seem to be ignoring the whole antitrust thing, and hoping it will go away.
In addtion to the Windows, Office, and Exchange upgrades that Microsoft is trying to make mandatory, they have instituted a similar scheme covering a product over which they have much more control. By "expiring" MCSE certification for hundreds of thousands of users, they are trying to force people to upgrade to Windows 2000 or Windows XP certification. This provides instant revenue from people paying to take tests and buy test prep books, but it also dovetails nicely with the software upgrade scheme.
Forcing MCSE upgrades creates a pool of people qualified to support the new software that companies are forced to purchase. They actually have the leverage to force IT people to learn new software so companies will have people qualified to install and manage the new stuff, thereby removing one of the biggest roadblocks to constant upgrading.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
"There are a lot of (angry) chief information officers out there," says Steven Steinbrecher, CIO for California's Contra Costa County. His 3-year costs will jump to $651 per desktop from $335.
Aren't these costs fairly insignifcant with respect to the costs of actually having the employees? $600 over the course of 3 years isn't much at all, when compared to a minimum wage salary.
Also, I suspect in their outrage, these CIOs are intentionally choosing their worst case scenario to make the situation look worse than it is.
I'm not supporting microsoft here, but it would be nice if you didn't have to consider what OS version / Browser / Linux Distro / Toaster Specification the user had when developing software.
Captain_Frisk
This is really infuriating IT people -- a lot of large companies wait months, or even a couple of years, before doing an OS upgrade, mainly because they need to see if the new version will break anything. As it is, a lot of companies are still using NT4 over Win2K, because they haven't gotten around to upgrading, or because they're waiting for XP. If Microsoft had already instituted their proposed license changes, they would have to pay full price for XP, not just the price for an upgrade.
Ooh, there's a good idea, let's trust Microsoft to decide what "disable" means. The examples you're giving don't actually disable the software -- they just change file associations. While you may be right -- maybe they just mean changing the file associations -- I don't want any software to come bundled with an OS with that kind of clause in the license, because it gives them a blank check to use in the future. And given the legislation they've pushed for, like the UCITA, I wouldn't put it past them.With the deprecation or removal of an API, they can put people out of business, or send companies into bankruptcy.
MSFT has already done that sort of thing already, at least with 3D rendering APIs, and of course, to Netscape.
Industry analysts acknowledge this sort of thing. Go here, and look for the Dan Kuznetsky quote:
.The old Software Publishers Association knew about it. They issued a white paper on the topic. Read pages 12 to 15 of that document for an older view of the problem.
Let Microsoft price itself out of business if they want to.
Frankly, as a personal user of Windows, I can care less whether or not corporate users get sweetheart deals by buying in bulk. Hell, maybe if they paid the same price for Windows XX that I did each upgrade, then maybe the price for everyone else would be less. (then again, maybe not)
Sure Habitat for Humanity could take it in the shorts, but under the new pricing scheme (yeah, it's a scheme) they STILL will pay less than I do.
Here's an idea: Maybe I should incorporate in order to get a better deal out of M$...
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!