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.

Comments

Now more then ever...Linux must be standardized

[ruebarb]

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.

Re:Now more then ever...Linux must be standardized

[Soko]

I agree. How about we start small, first?

Habitat for Humanity is considering the free Linux operating system. But because Microsoft is so dominant, it will be difficult for firms to switch. Windows runs 92% of PCs. Its Office software has better than a 90% market share, Gartner says.

Habitat For Humanity is a fairly high profile organisation. If we help them to convert, they can help the devlopers to make Linux useable by the general populace. We also help a charity - big karma points in the public eye, big negative karma for Microsoft since they're stomping on a respected and established charity in the name of big $.

How about "Linux4Charity.org" - and pry any charity addicted to the MS Office crack out of Redmond's heavy hands? I bet RedHat, Mandrake, IBM and a few other of the better corporate citizens would love to help, too.

Soko

Just document

[Kraft]

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.

your glut of faith disturbs me...

[ebbv]

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

The words "locked in"...

[SilentChris]

... are a bit of a misnomer. No one is knocking down your IT department's door, demanding money and thrusting a CD in your hand. They don't break your kneecaps if you don't upgrade to Windows XP Super Hyper Edition in 5 years.

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.

Re:Extracts from the media player license agreemen

[SilentChris]

You're missing one critical aspect: Digital Rights Management specifically refers to protected WMA files. They don't reference unprotected WMA files, and they certainly don't mention any other format like MP3 or OGG.

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.

Re:The don't buy it for chrissakes!

[Jack Auf]

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.

Upgrade path for MCSE

[L-Train8]

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.