Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft: The Gatekeeper of the Internet
jeffy124 writes "C|net News.com is embarking on a seven day comprehensive report on how Microsoft is moving themselves into position to be The Gatekeeper Of The Internet through Windows XP. The first installment explains the basics of how this is going to happen: Reminders that last for days encouraging users to sign up for Passport, and how Windows will evenutally resemble services like AOL."
I think that is very optimistic considering the public's history with MS. MS products have repeated proven themselves to be very vulnerable to security breaches and yet there is little consumer backlash. Having the dominant position in the marketplace makes it very difficult for the ordinary user to switch away from MS regardless of any security problems.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach him to eat and he will fish forever.
I don't understand Slashdot. Not everything Microsoft does is evil. Hell, I want them to be the gatekeepers of the internet. I find that worrying about things like personal freedom, privacy, and security tax my little mind too much. So I'd rather have a corporation deal with that for me.
Also, my mother still picks out my clothing for me. Decisions like this worry me so much.
Wouldn't it have made more sense for Slashdot to wait for the entire 7 day series to be written and link to it all than to link to the first two articles? What's going to happen now, is Slashdot going to provide a link to each installment daily or revisit the story in a week when all 7 articles have been printed?
BEST QUOTE FROM THE ARTICLE "If successful, Microsoft could challenge AOL Time Warner and other media giants for control of the Internet and entirely new industries"
Basically, C|Net is admitting that AOL already practically owns the Internet and Micro$oft is trying to give them a run for their money. I usually don't support Micro$oft but I'd rather there was some competition to AOL's increasingly massive control of how, where and when most people access the 'net and what they see.
Microsoft is in a funny position. Many of the things they do (not all) have a solid basis in user needs or wants. Honestly, I would be/is a lot simpler to have the internet and all its related services (web, mail, chat, identification etc.) integrated seamlessly into the OS so that any application can easily access those services. That's the tech side of Microsoft: they are doing some good. BUT As most people here would agree, their business practices range from sucking to disasterous. Basically, this dichotomy boils down to the issue of "does the end justify the means?" Most people do not think so, and our legal code is set up that way. In fact, if you really get down to it, most of our society is based on the idea that the means justify the end. (That is a whole other discussion...) Microsoft being a gatekeeper to the internet is both a business decision and a technical decision. For many people, it is a way to provide useful services for their operating system and applications. Therefore people will buy it, corporations will buy it (not all of course). But as time goes on, there will be more and more pressure on Microsoft from a legal perspective... because undoubtably, they will not clean up their act on the "means" side of things.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
Okay, a breach would damage their rep a little, and some people would stop using the service, but I think the majorty would just accept the failure as a temporary glitch and continue to use their services.
Tom.
Oh arse
By ensuring a Windows-only "internet" they are granting freedom to Linux users and people saavy enough not to play along...
I was happy enough with the BBS culture of 10 - 15 years ago - I will be happy to see all of those morons gone. If you can't figure out that you don't need Windows, I'm not sure that I want to know you...
Good riddance to them - For a while, it was as if the football team had joined the A/V club and now they're being shepherded out of the room - let them go... Maybe I'll get less spam and fewer Code Red attacks...
Obviously Somewhat Embittered,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
That word, right there, scares the bejeebies out of me.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Okay, we have the beautiful open-source coders, all out there trying to catch up and offer the same (or equivalent) stuff for other platforms, but it'll be a hard struggle. Picture a nice file-sharing system that all Windows users use. Nice. Along comes Mr Open-Source, who says "Hey, I'd like to get in on this action", but find that he can't because to do so would require him to illegally decrypt something. I don't know what, but if I was MS, I'd find a way to make using their services from a non-Windows platform illegal - and I don't think it'd be very hard to do so...
Tom.
Oh arse
Of course Bill & Co. are trying to take over the Internet - they get paid to make as much money as possible for thier shareholders, and the best way to do that for them at this point is to commandeer as much of the Internet as possible. I certainly don't like it either, but it's the reality of a company being too sucessful in a Capitalist economy. Bill Gates is not Satan, he's just a really successful player in the Business Game - he's a symptom, not a disease.
Until we can convince the unwashed masses that the Internet can be a force for world change of the benevolent kind and is not just for businesses and pr0n, crap like this will continue. If it's not Gates, look out for Elliston and/or McNealy - any one of them would co-opt the Internet in a second, given the chance.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
The point is not that the technically adept will possibly somehow be denied access to the Internet (which wouldn't happen for a whole slew of technical reasons), but that Micrsoft will get an unfair headstart on those who aren't technically minded. Your 'average user' may not know that you don't need Passport to use the Internet under Windows XP. But if he/she gets constant reminder messages for days suggesting to them that they get a Passport account, then they may start thinking "if I don't get a Passport account, I may be missing out on something (ie. may not be getting the "best" services)". Especially if, as the article suggests Microsoft might starting including "features" in XP that may only be accessed with a Passport account. Those who know enough about computers will know how to set up their systems under XP using their own software and Internet access. But it's the 'average user', who doesn't know these things, that it's going to most affect.
In this case, education will the key. If people know that they can use XP just fine without a Passport account, then they may be less likely to sign up for one in future (hey, it's yet one more password to memorise). That is, unless MS doesn't in future require users to have such accounts to use key features of the operating system. It's bad enough that it's compulsory to register your copy of Windows XP (otherwise it stops functioning). To say nothing of the fact that even in the face of an (once) impending antitrust suit by the Department of Justice, MS are continuing to "bundle" products and services to their operating systems more tightly than ever.
----------
When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend.
xcuse me, but how does this apply to those of us who don't use windows? are we going to be pushed off of the 'net?
To some extent we already have been. If I made my machine at home boot directly into the Linux partition, my wife would kill me. Not because she cares about operating systems, but because there are a good many mail order sites that do things that either don't work without Internet Explorer (I'm thinking of ActiveX scripting and such) or don't render properly under Mozilla, because the web designers didn't care.
Sure, this is the fault of the companies that design sites like this. But when 95% of all online purchases are made from Windows machines, then from a business point of view it doesn't make sense to worry about the other 1%. How many Linux users are going to buy clothes from L.L. Bean or Chadwick's?
I wouldn't mind Microsoft resembling AOL. It's their right to try and do so. But the big difference with AOL is that with AOL i at least have a choice in signing up.
MS provides an operating system. Fine. MS provides technology for the internet. Reasonable... better than loose products like in the 3.x days. (trumpet winsock etc..). MS providing security. Bad. Given their trackrecord it would be an outright disaster. MS providing content (MSN). Evil. I want to be able to view any kind of content. Not MS controlled. Who is to say that when MS gets a big stranglehold on the Net they won't start censoring content provided by others. If MS doesn't want people to find out about bugs they just block the sites that provide such information.
Basicly MS tries to not only control the Internet on a technologie side. They can (and most likeliy will) also try to control the content. Power corrupts.. whatever kind of power it is.
And when i have almost no control on which provider or technology i want...
Joe Sixpack will probably just click on the yes button, not knowing they give away their freedom and privacy.
I wish that wasn't insightful, but it's true. :( Stupid real world, not working the way it theoretically should...
Isn't it clear? Microsoft knows they want a subscription buisiness model, but they don't know yet what customers will pay for. I've got news for Microsoft, consumers don't pay for anything very easily. Look at all the failed dot bombs: People like free stuff, when the model switches to a payment model, most customers drop it like a bad habit. I used to work in retail, trust me when I say most people are cheap. I admit, I am.
Do you think for a minute Napster will survive as a subscription service? No way!
How about software? Forget about it!
Now factor in a recessonary world economy, and guess what.....HailStorm, XP, and all the software subscription based models are doomed to fail.
You know what really really makes me mad? The fact that the whole fucking world is talking crap about privacy, people dump shit on the government for taking their privacy, security cameras invade privacy and what else the "people" talk about. And under there noses is a company (let's call them Microsoft) that sells them an OS that they'll install, presents them with a nice dialog and asks if the user wants to create a passport.
.NET and will require your passport to get to your safely stored creditcard informatation...
.GNU something simular to .NET but with privacy in mind...
PEOPLE WILL create those things... and people WILL use them and in a short while there is a company that has your Creditcard number, expiration date, all your favorite files, knows your surfing habits, knows who your friends are, knows what you like to buy, can present you with "special offers"
I've been preacing this ever since I heard about the passport thing, and passport is pretty old now.... PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO HEAR AND DON'T WANT TO KNOW as long as they can get their daily dose of minesweeper....
And we, the geeks, have seen this coming for quite some time now, but (as always with microsoft) by the time the people know what hit them, it's too late to turn back, all e-commerse sites will be
The world makes me sick, and most of all these ignorant people that don't seem to care about this kind of privacy.
But what can we do? Well since I hope there are some more talented writers than myself here, write a column for your (local) newspaper... convince people... THIS IS IMPORTANT
and for all the techies: check out
end rant
Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity
Nate
-- Watch the REAL Jon Katz.
Since c|net started this on Oct. 17th, the 2nd installment is available also.
m l
You can read it here: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-201-7502765-0.ht
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
Microsoft Announces New VP of Internet Operations
.Net OccultXP(TM) program.
Redmond, WA - Microsoft, in what is being regarded as a bold move, has hired Vince Glortho, Keymaster of Gozer the Gozarian as Vice President in Charge of Keeping the Internet Gateway.
This move is viewed as pivotal for Microsoft's
In related news, rumor has it that Larry Ellison is pursuing a Papal endorsement of all Oracle products as a way to counter Microsoft's new initiatives.
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
I'm sick and tired of "Where do you want to go today?" It'll be sweet when they replace that:
Bill Gates, uncombed and speaking an octave below his normal voice: "Are you the keymaster?"
I was thinking, why should I buy XP?
.......... I want to get an OS for productivity! not to be advertised to!
For one thing I know, there is activation. If there is a moderate change to the system, you have to reactivate--this is very bas in my case because I change hardware out almost every week.
I thought once that a laptop could be better to run XP, because the hardware doesn't really change. But then I remember a story of a guy on a plane, hooks up his spare laptop battery or something, and had to reactivate, which was impossible. Wierd.
I could buy the corporate XP version which has no activation...but why should I pay more because Microsoft cripples its products.
Then heres a look at another angle. This articles shows how Microsoft wants XP to be the gateway to their MSN service (in the future the entire internet)
Or alternatively, because the Mozilla developers don't care.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
So I tried using Windows XP a little a few weeks ago.. I quickly went back to, umm, er, '98 after experiencing DNS trouble with my ISP while using it..
But in the day or two of using it I had an application error spawn a process that sent system information INCLUDING personal information like REGISTRATION and whatever NAME you had in the appropriate field. I didnt even have a choice! Well -- you have a choice if you are at the machine when the error occurs. After a minute or so it sends it anyway.
It would be cool if I got a call from a tech support expert with an automatically open trouble ticket, but no.. That isnt what its for.. Its for taking personal information, matching it with your network location, and using it to whatever purpose they desire.
Pretty F***ing sneaky.
AmbientBlue
"All around me still remains, the ambient blue I thought I'd passed."
...why don't we just break through the Windows?
This space left intentionally blank.
I have a mental image of Microsoft as a huge giant, running ahead of the IT pack at top speed. It's moving faster than ever before and most people think it is still easily winning the race. "Look, it's going faster and faster!" But what they don't notice is that it is stumbling forward, waving it's arms trying to stay stable, and at any moment could fall flat on its face.
.NET strategy is complex. Technically it might be, but strategicly it's not. The strategy is simple - try to get as much customer 'lock-in' as possible as quickly as possible. To do this, they need to get everyone moving to XP as soon as they can - which I believe is one of the main reasons they've changed their licensing model. Companies that update their software only every three or four years - for instance, companies using Windows 2000 but probably won't do a complete update until 2003 or 2004 - are customers that Microsoft might loose unless they get them locked-in before then.
I predict this will happen within about three years, perhaps even sooner. Remember when IBM stumbled, in about 1993? Well, when Microsoft does it, it's gonna be a whole lot worse. The reasons are simple. The majority of its profits come from basically two product lines - its operating systems and its office suite. Both of these are under threat from free products. Sure, they're not as good as Microsoft products, yet. But they're improving at an increadible rate - anyone who has assessed Linux for desktop use a couple of years ago, and has done the same recently, will agree with that. One day soon its going to be really hard for a CTO of a small or medium sized company to justify buying Microsoft rather than using a free, similar product.
People say Microsoft's
One of the biggest mistakes that Microsoft has made recently is to make their software more expensive for exactly those businesses they need to get on board quickest - the companies that only upgrade every three to four years. It's exactly those customers that are most likely to move to Linux, and Microsoft has just given them much more motivation to do so. And when they start to move, the development momentum of Linux will increase even more, and larger enterprises won't be far behind. This process is I believe probably more noticable in 'the rest of the world' before it becomes very evident in the USA.
Microsoft is in many ways a pre-Internet company. The internet has caused changes to the way software is developed and distributed. There is nothing Microsoft can do about this. It's demise is inevitable, the only question is when.
Code to standard, not to browser. If it doesn't display, it's the browser's fault.
funny munging
Ok, I know how everyone here hates marketing, I don't like it either. But for most of the people in this world they only listen to marketing, not factual intelligent reports or people. These people need all their information given to them, they can't go out and search for reports. How many people do you think will read this Cnet article if it's not email/icqed to them by a friend?
Most people have never heard about Linux until a few reports started popping up here and there on the news. I have had relatives email me news articles about Linux because they think it's some new and interesting thing. Usually I've already read about the topic months ago but they are just getting around to hearing about it because it was just shown to them by a local newspaper or on TV.
We need to start giving people more information about Linux and Open Source projects and their goals. We need to inform people about how their information and freedom is going to be controlled if they don't stop it. If we just sit back and keep denying that we need to announce these things to the world and keep trying to feel safe in our little groups, then MS will keep shoveling out how great it and it's products are and people will keep handing their money and freedom over to them.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
OK, so it's not foolproof. SHe didn't think that that plaid suit & plaid shirt went together, but , really, they did!
hawk
With the price of broadband getting cheaper (or more accepted), and as M$ chokes off compatibility to the services on the Internet, why not make a shareable translation system which will keep other systems compatible.
I recommend a co-op of sorts. A group bands together to get one (1) copy of a M$ product, a server. Someone in the group w/ broadband can run the server as a proxy whose sole job is to proxy web services and translate them to/from RFC standards on the fly. All members surf through the proxy. They can use whatever browser they want. The whole system SHOULD be Lynx compatible.
I mention the M$ product because the M$ standards will most likely be already installed and useable. A custom application can be coded to leverage the new "standards" and translate them as needed. Just buying the one copy puts less money into M$ pockets than every user buying a copy of an M$ operating system.
Disclaimer: These are just thoughts. A spark of an idea if you will. I'm sure there will be AC responses describing any flaws in it.
People have been saying that for 3 years or more. Remenber when win2000 was supposed to be a disaster due to code size & complexity?
Microsoft is in many ways a pre-Internet company. The internet has caused changes to the way software is developed and distributed. There is nothing Microsoft can do about this.
Microsoft would like to be a post-internet company and they are working hard on it. That is, each time when you fire up Microsoft office, it will make a Microsoft connection to a Microsoft server so that you can sign on to Microsoft passport, get out your Microsoft wallet and make a Micropayment into Microsoft's not-exactly-micro account. (Integrating passport into applications is mentioned in the article). This is what they can do about it.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Given that people are now getting conditioned to MS using these 'reminders' to get people to sign into things, not really being aware of what that entails, I'm just waiting for the XP specific virus that comes up with the 'confirmation' reminder, or similar, that asks the user to re-send their details and password as confirmation of the account.
Bingo, how to compromise the financial security of about 50% of the net in one easy sweep.
Of course, MS could head this off by educating users not to keep clicking buttons, but then, they'd start understanding just why they don't need all the Windows add on garbage, and stay with what they have...
Instead, it's easier to let the users risk their money to let MS make a buck, than let MS lose potential revenue by educating people as to what is really going on...
It's my redneck background, I guess - Back in high school, we used to get drunk, drive around in in pickup trucks and shoot at mailboxes and stopsigns and other inanimate objects. This is kind of the same thing... :-)
I know I occasionally cross the line between Linux advocate and Linux asshole, but it's a very fine line. I think of the cost of Windows (NT/2000/XP) and I can't help but think that I could spend that money buying something other than software. Sure, I could install illegally, like many people, but I get a kick out of supporting the efforts of people who actually think that writing software is *cool*. People who write software to fit the needs of themselves, not the needs of their marketing department.
If, as you say, you are trying to help me, take a moment to examine your own motives. Why do you oppose the free software movement? Do you feel inadequate because you never got the hang of 'tar -zxvf'? Did you install Slackware a few years ago and never manage to get 'X' working? Take another look.
Yes, as you said, I probably think too much about free software, but doing so has afforded me a good life - freedom to do what I want, where I want, when I want, regardless of what the MSCE drones are handed down from Redmond.
Enjoy your life, I will enjoy mine.
Cheers,
Jim
-- My Weblog.
Thought: Microsoft as Gatekeeper... well, everyone already knows worms can tunnel under a gate, how fitting.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
the story mentions something about ie6
automatically directing the user to msn's search
engine when they get a 404 - is this true? If so,
isn't it a bit presumptuous on their part? 404
responses can after all be used to help people
find whatever they were actually looking for on a
site, and redirecting them would prevent this.
Isn't this pretty much the same issue as the
Smart Tags thing?
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
I still give too much credit to your typical slashdot reader - maybe you enjoy flipping between your WebTV and your Saturday Night Live too much to contribute intelligently to this conversation.
Go ahead, flame me - I've got Karma to burn, but all I really proposed that there is an internet that has always existed *in spite* of the commercial offerings of AOL/TW/DoJ/MS-Disney. Don't believe me? Go on IRC and talk to the developers of the latest and greatest Linux software - browse sites like this one.
Listen - You have basically two options:
1.) Contribute
2.) Be ignored
Take your pick...
Cheers,
Jim
-- My Weblog.
Until open source realizes this, they'll never make headway.
Many have realized this, but it's a case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't"
If free software follows spec and not Microsoft, then IE takes the cake because it can handle more of the code that's actually found in the wild and users might not understand the details, but they will notice this fact.
If free software follows Microsoft and not spec, then IE takes the cake because we've effectively handed the standards process to Microsoft and they'll do whatever they damn well please with it.
The only real solution is to convince web developers to develop sites to spec, and yes, in many cases that is a very steep uphill battle.
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
This is the attitude. You'd rather have a little badge from the W3C that proves it's "not your fault", than have your users able to view half the Web. You don't care.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
From this bit -
.Net My Services, Microsoft envisions offering consumers and businesses a consistent set of information and services to any devices, whether they be personal computers, handheld devices or cellular phones--often at a cost to the receiver, the provider or both.
Mission: Domination of the Internet
In the second through sixth attempts to connect to the Net, Windows XP will implore consumers to sign up for something called Passport--an identification technology that, in many ways, is a key to Microsoft's future.
Maybe that shows how reluctant people will be to sign up as is not compelling enough for them to sign up at the 1st opportunity.
If Microsoft is successful, Windows XP will eventually resemble an online service like America Online, which runs on top of Windows and other operating systems. That would allow consumers to bypass AOL and other rivals altogether, essentially turning Windows into a one-stop destination that combines AOL-like services with easy access to Microsoft desktop products such as Word and Excel.
I can't ever see M$ ever running anything on a platform other than Windows. As for combining with AOL like services, well AOL has been doing that for many many years, M$ is far behind in the game, and remember AOL has ~30million users against a total Net population of >600million, having a 5% global market share is not what I would call stunning.
Through HailStorm, recently renamed
Anyone remember "Windows everywhere"? Or the cliams that COM would be running on a large number of platorms? They failed and this will too, as I said above M$ will only do this on Windows, it might licence someone to do a half asses port like with COM and use that to claim cross platform capability.
Many people would welcome the convenience of a reasonably secure mechanism that would instantly find whomever and whatever they were looking for online while allowing them to use various sites and services with a single password entered only once.
Oh yes, I and millions of others really want to hand over my credit card and other details to a reasonably secure system, just like I want to be running ISS and get hit with CR or Nimda. Of course Passport will store more than just CC details so expect there to be cases of identity theft, can you imagine tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of people having to cope with having their identities stolen and used in fraudulent activities? How much might this cost the economies of the world? More than the WTC bombing? Ten times more?
In an interview with CNET News.com this summer, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates adamantly defended his company's right to evolve Windows with new features to meet market demand. "Our customers do want us to make Windows richer and more reliable," he said. "So Microsoft's commitment is to add features that customers want. If we can't add any features, then what is Windows?"
Gates questioned why AOL has not received as much criticism as Microsoft for bundling products and services. "Has AOL ever added any new features to their products?" he asked rhetorically. "They have dominant market share of all their stuff. They actually added features? Unbelievable! Who are these people adding features? What's going on here? Well, what's going on is that the PC industry is the most competitive industry that has ever been in terms of software availability and advances."
As above, AOL only has a small proportion of all Net users ~5% whereas Windows runs on ~90% of all computers, nice straw man there Bill.
Other Windows XP testers complained that the operating system's graphical appearance, which resembles that of MSN Explorer, looked like a cartoon.
Elmer FUD or Mr. Magoo?
Yet this kind of apparent contradiction is nothing new to Microsoft, which has long operated on the Darwinian assumption that the fittest of products will survive--as long as they are part of the Windows family.
Dinosaur fails to predict meteor strike / extinction, News at 11.
"It reminds me of the old story about how to boil a frog," he said. "If you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will immediately jump out. But if you put a frog in a pot of warm water and slowly raise the temperature until the water boils, you have frog soup.
"Consumers aren't going to be thrown into a kettle of boiling water from the get-go, but rather enticed into an inviting, lukewarm bath, and then the temperature will be slowly raised over several release cycles."
I doubt the same tactic will work with Penguins though.
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
The way I figure, this isn't all that unusual unless you are a non-M$ user.
:)
For instance, take "Quicken" Ever notice how it encourages you to connect to the internet, get an id at www.quicken.com, tells you all about Quicken loans, etc etc etc.
Then AOL, they send a cd to your house every month, spread crap all over your desktop if you use thier messengers etc etc etc.
Then the x10 camera popups. It goes on and on, and its a side effect of capitalism and marketing.
Credit card companies send you envelops full of ads. You get spam directed toward your emails.
And it works, because its annoying...its works, because people will sign up for passport, people will upgrade to XP.
But luckily there's plenty of people who won't, for different reasons. That's what's so great FREE as in No $$ software, it takes the marketing out...so no big need to advertise (although it isn't stomped out completely, since people always want recognition or a link to thier site, or continued recognition through all future developments (thank goodness all licensing isn't like that))
I'm not saying its a great thing---but hey paying for cable and still getting commercials isn't FAIR either---try petitioning you local big business congressman on that
I need a TiVo for my car. Pause live traffic now.
Suppose you want to steal someone's identity, credit card info, bank statements, ad nauseum. Passport is the IDEAL way of doing this and one does not even have to involve directly attacking the servers. For instance see the following site:
http://www.passport.com@www%2elinuxdoc%2eorg...
Because that URI is standards compliant, it will work in any browser. Furthermore, any of the letters in the hostname can also be substituted using the %hex hex notation. So call me paranoid when I see this as being a great benefit to computer criminals...
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Oh yes, I and millions of others really want to hand over my credit card and other details to a reasonably secure system, just like I want to be running ISS and get hit with CR or Nimda. Of course Passport will store more than just CC details so expect there to be cases of identity theft, can you imagine tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of people having to cope with having their identities stolen and used in fraudulent activities? How much might this cost the economies of the world? More than the WTC bombing? Ten times more?
A system like Passport is only as secure as:
1: the users (can they be tricked into giving up their credentials?)
2: The users' computers (Can the cookies be stolen?)
But with that already in place, the fact that all the information is IN ONE PLACE means that the incentive to attack and breech it is greater than it ever has been in the past. Dot GNU resolves this problem but does not resolve the above two issues will remain unresolved.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
MS products have repeated proven themselves to be very vulnerable to security breaches and yet there is little consumer backlash. Having the dominant position in the marketplace makes it very difficult for the ordinary user to switch away from MS regardless of any security problems.
Add to that the fact that when most average users have problems with their computers, they blame the computer maker, not Microsoft. I don't know how many times I've had friends tell me that "This Compaq is a piece of crap, next time I'm buying Dell", or "The HD on this Dell just grinds, I should have baught that Sony Viao", etc, when most of the time it's not the hardware, it's the OS that's screwed things up for them.
Obviously, like the above poster said, it's because most average users don't think of there being any other option for an OS, so they blame things where they do have an option: The maker of the hardware.
I'm sure some others have thought of this, but I want to see if /.ers in general might agree with this theory.
Before the open, take all comers internet rose from the DARPA labs to worldwide prominence, all previous efforts at such a wide-spanning network were controlled, pay at the gate affairs that had always planned to remain strictly private. We all remember the early days of AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy, MSN, etc. The idea of a free, open network that anyone can get on & use at relatively low cost is anathema to companies like AOL is and MS wants to be, whose bread & butter consists of (or is seen to be consisting of in the future) running networks. As long as the internet remains an open system where anyone can get on & protocols are laid out for all to see, it's going to be a threat to their business. What's needed above all in their eyes is some sort of control of the exchange of information, of how business is conducted, and how money changes hands so they can create and maintain an ongoing revenue stream, making this free network profitable for them since their owned networks & software are fast meeting obsolesence. They wish to be the Visa / MC of the net, only more. They want to interject themselves as a middleman between consumer & retailer and between friends & strangers, between you and information itself, collecting micro or perhaps not so micro payments along the way. In this light, AOL & MS aren't evil as much as they're both cut-throat competitors fighting over which of them is going to eat our lunch.
The problem is, of course, that it's OUR lunch! The internet isn't an MS or AOL invention, it's OUR invention as much, if not more, than it is theirs. Our government funded companies and academics to invent this beautiful thing, and they're looking hard for a way to use software to make it their own.
How can we stop this? I'm not sure.
Perhaps we should seek laws mandating all standards & protocols for internet communication be open, so that no company may control the exchange of information. I'm not sure. But no company should have even partial control of how anyone else uses the internet.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
It's nice to insist that Microsoft will always win, but you also need a dose of reality. It isn't simply that Microsoft is fighting it out with fellow software developers like Sun, or that they are trying to force people into a highly proprietary version of e-business that IS NOT PROVEN TO WORK using software that has been an enormous reliability headache (Peter Principle for software?)... though this by itself would be a strong argument that they are going to fail.
The trouble is, the degree of control and influence they are seeking puts them in a dominant position to actual governments. They want to be able to shut you off if you haven't paid your bills no matter _who_ you are- and there are people out there who do not define themselves as 'consumers' or take such threats lightly. For instance, the military- if not the US military, then that of other countries. Not to mention the EU taking a very dim view of XP and .NET in general- not to mention the fact that they are consistently losing in the US courts and betting everything on the somewhat strange notion that, if only they delay and commit greater and greater crimes as fast as they possibly can, by the time they are to be punished they will be more powerful than the government and will have to be let go.
That's very childish: governments don't take challenges to their power lightly.
So: I contradict you. .NET _cannot_ win, except in a vacuum with certain set rules (that MS has infinite money, that the ground rules everywhere in the world are totally unrestricted Chicago School free-market capitalism, that there can be no reaction to their aggression except economic reactions). And _none_ of those rules even apply! Microsoft burns through horrible sums of money and there's no telling how much they _really_ have- even they might not know. They're not honest people, why would you trust them to tell you the true state of their resources? They're faced with situations all over the world that defy Chicago School capitalism, even in the USA. And they have already been targeted with anthrax mailings- clearly not everyone in the world is prepared to just 'compete in the free market' with them, after all this talk of war on Microsoft it seems at least somebody out there is identifying them (and not unreasonably) with Western Capitalism, and launching terror attacks on them specifically.
The problem here is hubris: it's better if .NET _does_ fail, and I mean better for Microsoft. It would do them enormous damage, but they'd be able to re-adjust, as IBM did when they were in Microsoft's position. Pursuing their expansion strategy to the uttermost limit only guarantees a harder fall.