Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's Future
cyberkine writes: "The Economist has an interesting article on Microsoft's technology strategies that ends with a very astute comparison with IBM's downfall and resurrection in the wake of its own antitrust battles. 'Microsoft's biggest underlying fear is that it will become like IBM - --a company that still has a strong business but no longer sets computing standards.'"
"oh darn"
not even close ....
- AnoMymous Coward.
ps: I laugh at your incompetance.
Obviously, neither have you. While it's nice to bash MS for crashing, I've actually had decent uptime from it - 3 weeks and counting so far, amazing for a MS product.
I thought that Micro$oft's fear was not being able to take over the internet in the next 5 years? I guess he'll have to arm wrestle AOL's Steve Case for the title. My 2 cents.
My Doctor prescribed daily nasal saline irrigation, hehe
OSS ranked along side AOL in the battle against Microsoft. Interesting, if not frightening.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
How low your standards have become. 3 weeks is not a decent uptime.
I've actually had decent uptime from it - 3 weeks and counting so far, amazing for a MS product.
3 weeks... bwahahahahahahahahah
he said "and counting."
....
... decent . Definitely what i'd consider "stable" ... the only time it gets shut off is when *I* make a mistake ...
i've yet to crash winXP
on the other hand, i've got a win2k box that's been up for about 9 weeks at the moment, even though it's typically used about 15 hours a day as a "desktop" box
... no company has ever managed to set standards forever... while microsoft sets standards in userfriendlyness (maybe they do), they still lack standards in securtiy.
".Sig Stealer" was here
hi folx... just thinking of ms going the same way as ibm did! we would have microsoft supporting linux, developing software for linux and so on... funny thought ;(
greets,
mueslix
include a factor for raw, Orwellian fear that their need for continuous expansion triggers in the more conscious corners of the market? Will the resulting negative feedback from the marketplace prove far more devastating than any beating with the Sherman Anti-Trust stick?
.Net will virally market themselves.
MS has market diffusion through the OEM deals. So XP and
But Linux never looked so good. Thanks for the left-handed Linux campaingn, Billy G.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
the only time it gets shut off is when *I* make a mistake ...
Like when you install a software patch and have to reboot for the changes to "take effect"?
There's a difference between the two, though. IBM knew when to give up trying to be the center of the universe. I don't think Gates and company are capable of suppressing their egos to the degree necessary.
Society is full of people who want to have their legacy, and want to be "men of destiny." These are people who want to be the kinds of cultural icons that live on forever. IBM thankfully didn't have too many of them at the helm. That meant that they didn't have individual egos looking for their places in the sun at the expense of the rest of the company and the world at large. In plain English, that meant that when the world changed and IBM ceased to be the alpha male, they made that transition.
Microsoft isn't in quite the same positon. They don't control any major hardware that the rest of the world needs. While they have a number of products of varying quality, they don't control anything completely indispensable. The reason for their control is their position.
Problem: The value of a position changes with time. Microsoft can learn when they've picked the wrong fight, maybe. That kind of perception means they can back away and stay alive.
Not with Gates, etc. at the helm. Even the most ardent MS/Gates-supporter would have to agree: whatever virtues Gates has, humility is not one of them. Gates really wants his legacy and his place in the history books, and Microsoft is a means to that end. Just like Bill Clinton spending his last year desperately seeking a legacy, just like RMS who wants the entire English language prefaced with GNU/, Gates wants to be a man of destiny.
That means that he sees Microsoft as being a vehicle, and not much more. I doubt that he even cares about the profits. And that means that he'll take the company into some really bad fights to support his own self-image. Even if the company's survival depended on his walking away.
(Yes, I bash MS and Gates a lot. That being said, if they released an open-source Word for KDE, I'd buy it. Possibly even at retail.)
I have a Sparc at home with an uptime of 180 days, and counting. My workstation here at work was up for 120 days until a power outage, the same reason for the last reboot. The longest a box I admin was up was 670 days, until that had to be powered off because of work in the datacentre. So yes, if you are impressed by 9 weeks then your standards have been set too low.
There are boxes in my shop with uptimes of years.
Mainframe admins strive for DECADES of uptime.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Has Microsoft ever actually set any computing standards? IBM did: the punched card, half-inch magnetic tape, and the entire PC architecture, among others. It was a self-confident company that wasn't afraid of competitors building products that implemented standards it had set. (I'm not suggesting it competed fairly, ethically or even legally, BTW.)
.net into standards. But I can't think of any accepted standard of which you can say, "Microsoft created that standard and gave it to the community".
But Microsoft? It's contributed to standards initiated by others. It's tried to detract from standards initiated by others (Java). It's currently trying to make C# and
That is why Microsoft has always sold its operating system cheaply and has done everything to make life easy for programmers.
Obviously not someone who is familiar with the joys of COM - especially pre-ATL. Also, not someone who ever spent weeks trying to get that new shiny feature of NT4, DCOM, working only to find out that it never worked at all (RPC layer broken) until SP3. Not someone who has ever tried to produce a system which runs perfectly on all Win32s. If he means "made life easy for VB programmers", then maybe - but I wouldn't dignify them with the name "programmer".
I could rant for hours about specific instances, but I wont.
This sig made only from recycled ASCII
Microsoft is not exactly like IBM. IBM's market was in business whereas Microsoft's market combines both business and consumer. IBM sold hardware as well as software. Microsoft sells only software (unless you count those stupid mice and keyboards). IBM sold huge mainframes for huge price that requires months of sales work to get the dotted line signed. Microsoft products can be grabbed in retail stores. That doesn't necessarily mean Microsoft won't run out of steam with its flattening markets, but the mechanisms and potentials will certainly be different than they were with IBM. IBM didn't have a lot of options it could so easily move into. Microsoft has some more, and is more diverse than IBM ever was in a market that can buy things on a whim. So don't count on what happened to IBM necessarily happening to Microsoft. Maybe it will, or maybe it won't.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
From the article:
The more users it has, the more developers will write applications for it, which in turn attracts more users, and so on. That is why Microsoft has always sold its operating system cheaply and has done everything to make life easy for programmers.
Since when has Windows been considered cheap?? What is the source on this?? Windows hasn't dropped in price since 3.1 came out, and its only been getting more expensive since then. Just look at the retail tag for WinXP!
Also, since when are buggy DLLs and undocumented DCOM features considering "making life easy" for programmers? If anything, the Windows API is buggy, confusing, and mind-numbing.
This article is a wee bit too positive, in my opinion.
This reminds me of a poll I saw at www.systemlogic.net:
:(
> Which OS company will create the most used operating system by 2020?
>
> Linux
> Microsoft
> Other
Microsoft was in the lead at the time too.
metric
Although microsoft is "giving" away software and "adopting open standards" they are also as tried to point out before, harvesting user information. I believe that that is the key to their (upcoming) success. As soon as Microsoft has a base in user-authenication (their passport system) that's when it doesn't matter anymore that they use XML, SOAP, .NET whatever. .NET functionality but I'll bet your life that there's not going to be a way to get around passport, and in that way microsoft has secured it's position again. And this time in the worst possible way, it holds your personal information hostage in your personal passport.
It might be possible for other OSses to use most of the
Isn't it true, that when installing windows XP you are promted to create a passport? I wonder why nobody sued for that, my guess is that (once again) microsoft is pulling a stunt that nobody will see coming until it's too late... frozen
Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity
Sorry man, you can't use the crashing argument anymore.
I've been using XP for several weeks, not to mention the XP betas I've been using for months and crashes have NOT even been an issue.
Also my Win2k box which serves as a dedicated router and firewall has been up for months at time...the only time it shuts down itself down is when the power goes out for longer than 5 minutes.
I am not quite sure when Microsoft ever "innovated". As far as I remember, every consecutive release of Windows is ALWAYS 30-35% faster than the previous release, and 70-75% faster than the one before that. Windows ALWAYS has better multitasking than the previous version. Did you know your computing experience is also more "fun" every time you upgrade. Same goes for Office. When's the last time they introduced a truly useful new feature? Aside from introducing a useless feature then killing it (him) before the general public to raise hype.
My point is, I just don't get Microsoft. They don't DO ANYTHING. They are a multi-billion dollar corporation that adds bells an whistles to a leaky boat, then resells it for $300 a pop. If you want to talk about the progress Microsoft has been making, I would not call it "innovation". All Microsoft innovation has ever been is gradually making something work better than previous releases when it should have worked right before it hit store shelves. The improvements to their flag ship products are somewhat analagous to improvements on yearly versions of Encarta!
Are they headed the way of the dinosaur? I think I'd get a resounding 'yes' from the Slashdot community, but is this thinking right? After five years of "innovation", people still get suckered into their marketing hoopla and nonsense, thinking that every new version of Windows is a revolution in the making. No, I don't think MS is doomed to the fate we all hope it will fall into. So long as they keep using pictures of people filled with joy because they use Windows, they'll convince the general population.
*ugh* Sorry, just needed to rant a bit here. MS are just ridiculous, and it's pitiful how millions of people worldwide can follow them like sheep. I can't stand it anymore
Why bother.
Some of IBM's basic research (eg. superconductivity and nanotechnology) may produce enormous returns, and have already made the world a better place , but won't be pulling in the money for that immediately. Their earlier research helped make them the big company that they've been for decades. Xerox gave us the PC and workstation desktop environment as research, and not a product in development.
If MS dedicates some effort towards published research (remember, product development is only called "research" if it makes the tax man happy, and real reseach can be done outside a university) that will add to the global knowledge base and may mean that the "next big thing" is owned by them. After all, flouride was added to toothpaste after a company that had a waste disposal problem with it funded a lot of research to find out what it could be used for, and some of it paid off spectacularly. You never know what can be done until you try.
But was it better than Katz?
Nearly everything Microsoft has done was glorified what Apple has allready set into place. All starting with the GUI. sure, Apple can't take credit for ever little thing, but where do you think you got your 'point and click' interface from? Or standardized CD ROMs? Who got USB popular, or FireWire the DV standard? Microsoft has alot of weight to through around, but inovation comes elsewhere.
However, in this case, Microsoft seems to be the inovator, for recently Apple faught with them (and others) to keep open standards with the web. Inovateve or not, i dont like where this 'myServices' could be leading. Knowing Microsofts past, this could turn the 'net to a nasty place. Or turn other companies into martyr's in the web, like Apple has been for platfroms.
(Customer walks into bank)
LOAN OFFICER: "So, Mr. Customer, what's your business plan?"
CUSTOMER: "Well, see, I'm going to compete with a multi-billion dollar Japanese company by building a product that will lose $2 billion over the next three years, then break even, hopefully."
LOAN OFFICER: "Sounds great! We'll finance whatever you need."
(Customer walks into bank in the real world)
LOAN OFFICER: "So, Mr. Customer, what's your business plan?"
CUSTOMER: "Well, see, we need a small loan to help expand our business. We saved our nickels and dimes, ate soup and drove 15-year old cars for three years and built this product and generated some sales, but now we want to make the product better with more features and perhaps get some part-time employees."
LOAN OFFICER: "Sounds great! Naturally, you'll need cash exceeding the value of the loan as collateral deposited here at our bank in our lowest-interest account, platinum-lined credit that rings softly in a light breeze, 12 references, a 50-page annotated business plan, three years of financials audited by a big-six accounting firm, an autobiography, two full-time sources of secondary income, oh, and real estate, LOTS of real estate... financial projections for five years showing sustainable 20% weekly growth with full supporting documentation, a large portfolio of blue-chip equity holdings and nice fat juicy municipal bonds, three co-signers and a silver partridge in a golden pear tree, and please fill out this 40 page application. Your loan will be reviewed by the committee at the next meeting in... four months."
CUSTOMER: "But we'll be out of business by then!"
LOAN OFFICER: "Have a nice day!"
Writers must meet deadlines. The often are not given the time to learn everything they need to know. So, they string together some nice-sounding phrases. Sometimes, for a few sentences in a row, they sound like they understand the subject. Then they say something that shows they don't really:
That is why Microsoft has always sold its operating system cheaply and has done everything to make life easy for programmers.
"Make life easy" as in artificial limits on resources in Windows 95, 98, and ME. Later this,
Microsoft will continue to be a kinder giant, predicts Rick Sherlund of Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, if only because "the whole world is watching".
He called Microsoft kind. Oh yeah. They probably both have Microsoft stock they would like to sell at less of a loss.
Then this:
It does not help Microsoft's credibility that its new-found faith in openness does not seem to apply to Windows itself.
Whoops, not kind. More "kindness":
Microsoft's concept of openness is reminiscent of a funnel: easy to get into, but hard to get out of. Visual Studio
Sometimes writers just use their imagination:
To convince the world that it will henceforth compete on the quality of its products alone, Microsoft must do something more radical. One possibility would be to accept the kind of antitrust settlement that would clearly signal a shift.
What should be the Response to Violence?
Bush's education improvements were
I was actually at a dinner party the other night here in Seattle and was able to chat with a high level IT manager for Microsoft...It was pretty interesting to talk to him about where Microsoft is headed from the business perspective: He said basically that Windows XP should be on every computer in the world, no exceptions. When I asked him about the implications of NSA backdoors for other countries governments, he didn't even give an inch. (but said that other OS's can take a small part of the percentage, so long as it remains "very small").
.NET services in the pretty near future...They live in a reality where they believe everybody has a buttload of money to spend on "web services" and software liscenses, and as soon as they open the floodgates its just gonna come pouring in!
Anyway, the wierd thing I learned from this guy was that the upper management at Microsoft actually plans to be collecting revenue from basically every computer user in the world through liscenses and
anyway, I'm not religious, I use Microsoft stuff all the time. More power to them. But its just not gonna happen...Microsoft has had its glory days, and now I am starting to see the seeds of the computer world "moving on". People simply don't have the cash or interest now that the Internet boom is gone to pretend that they are gonna get rich by installing XP server for their company. Those days are gone, now people want the basic functionality they need at the lowest possible prices.
-The art of programming is the pursuit of absolute simplicity.
to the United Subsidieries of the United Coportation of Microsoft. And to the rules of the EULA, for which I agree to never pirate or copy any intellectual property, I Company, under Corporation, for which privacy fails, and laws abound, for lawyers.
-Daily morning speech for employees
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Sorry man, you can't use the crashing argument anymore.
Yeah I pretty much have to agree with this guy. The only problems I've had with using XP is when I installed hardware drivers for some of my hardware that doens't have XP drivers yet...
I also like the fact that I can finally install software, change network settings, etc... all without rebooting... something I've been use to doing in *nix for years.
All things considered I think XP's a pretty decent OS for general Desktop use. Games, web surfing, e-mail, media, instant messaging, etc...
I still think Linux is unbeatable as a server.
MS-DOS does not count....
karma capped
My Windows 98 box has been up for 4 hours.
Everything Microsoft ever did since the very beginning was steal ideas from other people and companies and market them as their own. Ask Tim Paterson, Gary Kildall, Apple, Stac Electronics, or Spyglass. They very nearly got away with this with Java, but Sun was watchful, and now, what they're doing with C# and .NET is basically a reinvention of what Java already is. It makes me wonder if the bigwigs inside Microsoft ever had an original thought in their own heads.
Difference here is, IBM actually did set computing standards in its time. They actually did innovate a lot of things in a big way. And they had the humility to accept that while they could remain powerful and influential, they could not remain the force that drove the computing revolution.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
I don't know that it's so amazing... we've got Oracle on an NT4 box at work that has run without a crash (and only two shutdowns for datacenter ops) for just under 4 years. Its longest stretch without a shutdown on it was over 2 years. Our best time on a Linux box is measured in weeks...and it's -always- been a crash, not a shutdown.
As much bitching as I see here on slashdot, Oracle on NT is exceedingly stable (as long as you're not doing anything else on the machine).
This is actually true journalism. Reporting the facts as they see them without taking a position per se. As such it paints a grim but realistic picture of the future of computing.
It shows two roads ahead instead of just the one BG sees through his (obviously worn out) glasses.
One road is that where Microsoft gets new leadership because BG steps down in time. Down that road lies an IBM-like future for Microsoft with plenty of opportunities and a more 'normal' growth pattern for the company.
The other road is the one where BG isn't willing or capable of stepping down and Microsoft will go on with it's current practices. The writer doesn't really predict what might happen but has a swing at it by saying (between the lines) that revenue-growth may not be able to keep up it's march forward.
The bottom line is that if your PHB isn't _real_ dimwitted _and_ has an idea of economics (I know it might be too much to ask but still) he may get this. The fact that it reads "The Economist" on top should at least help a bit.
Karma? What's that again?
Karma? What's that again?
SLASHDOLT: Indrema's gonna RuLeZ!
ESR: Microsoft's stock is going to go into a death spiral in the first quarter of 2001. Oh yeah, and VA Linux RuLeZ, I think I'll join the board and get $41 million worth of stock options!
--
chahast AT pangaea FOO dhs FOO org
s/FOO/dot
"I hope you die" (C) Bloodhound Gang.
Microsoft has caused more pain then all of my relatives all together.
Leonid Mamtchenkov
I was amused by the notion that for Microsoft to follow in the footsteps of IBM, as a company that no longer sets standards, would somehow be the bad scenario. Well, things could have been worse for IBM. They had a near-death experience in about 1993. Sure, they had inertia, it could have taken them decades to finally fade away (a la Control Data, Unisaurus, DEC, and many others), but that they revitalized themselves rather than fade away is thanks to having reinvented the company (including their first-ever layoffs, just to pick one example). The best reference I could quickly find was an article from Business Week, which seems to capture the essential points.
The significance for Microsoft? Well it is pretty early to start pondering a post-Microsoft era and I'm not sure I see any signs of collapse in the various cracks which appear around the sides of the empire. But if a collapse does come, it could be more catastrophic than you'd think.
For now? no microsft will NOT go the way of the dinosaur and as long as things keep on going the way they are going now, they won't for a long time.
One of the mayor problems is that, a LOT of people still think that computers and windows is one and the same thing, they think that reading your email consists of using outlook/outlook express, that writing a letter is done in Word etc. They don't know there are alternatives, this is (luckily) beginning to change, because even main stream computer magazines are beginning to show some interest in alternatives.
Still, on the internet terms like "Computer virusses" or "Macro virusses" and the like are still pretty deceptive they should (ofcourse) be called "Windows virusses" and "Microsoft Office virusses" as long as those differences are not clear to the main public... the problem persists
so, for now, no... I think Microsoft will stay exactly where it is...
Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity
..Cardboard boxes don't count either.
"So there he is, risen from the dead. Like that fella, E. T." - Father Ted Crilly
Sounds like the perfect article for a bunch of zealots who worship a outdated clone of a 30-year old OS to criticize another company's creativity and vent their jealousies. *Checks previous posts* Yep, I was right again!
Yeah, Microsoft's ridiculous all right, must suck for them to have gotten their software on 90% of the world's computers and to be one of the most successful companies in history. Would you mind putting this in perspective and telling us what you've done with your life and what your qualifications are? Got a job?
The most difficult thing about XP are shedding the survival habits that I have learnt in previous versions of Windows. Normally, when I'm finished doing something, I'll restart out of habit to reclaim speed. I haven't learnt not to yet :(
That is a lie, it hasn't been 4 years since they announced finding a bug that caused a crash every 49 days in all windows products.
A weekly reboot that is schedualled is still down time.
You have a linux server that crashes? Is it running the latest version of the kernel version? And will you please post the oops to this list?
That is funny. Windows is faster each release you say. Well maybe you have upgraded your computer for each new release, something that each new version of Windows needs. XP is the best example.
See, 'case while the latter example is only a little exagerated, the former is pure fiction. In this case the "bank customer" already _has_ the 2 bil, in cash & exandable as hell. The fact that they got it from an unrelated monopoly & are using those proceeds to attempt to buy into snother one is despicable, but not for the rason you offered.
Being a recent convert to Linux I have to see that for front end desktops windows has the edge for now.
The problem is that Linux has reached the 90% syndrome, that is Linux has 90% of the features required for it to be a front end desktop. As we all know it takes 90% of the development time for these final 10% of features. KDE and GNOME are almost ready, Star Office 6.0 will be a competitor for Microsoft office in a few months. Microsoft have always taken existing technology and made it easy to use (legal and moral issues aside). Would you teach your mother Linux or Windows.
Linux is a tool that now can be used in specific requirements in a back office role and for obtaining a cheap UNIX environment where required. It is not ready for the desktop yet (for technical people yes, for ordinary computer phobic users no). The problem is with the Open Source and most Linux companies cannot make money from their products (just look at what can be achieved with Star Office when a large company does get behind Linux).
With Windows 2000 and XP we have finally got rid of that huge mess the 9X product line gave us, and I am considering upgrading (but only to the PRO version and not until XP SP1).
Issues such as Microsoft FUD and support issues for Linux have now been resolved. Based simply on the products Windows has the edge in a few areas for now. Give it another year and I feel Linux will be able to compete (when things like Star Office, Mozilla, and many other projects finally hit a 1.0 release).
I use Linux and Solaris at work and I want to see Linux succeed.
The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head
What exactly do IBM do these days anyway? It's like when you're a kid and your father say's "When I was a lad... etc etc.."
"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story..."
Would you mind putting this in perspective and telling us what you've done with your life and what your qualifications are? Got a job?
.NET will remove ownership and possession of data and software from the users. These technologies will become the defacto standard simply because Microsoft has 90% of the world's computers under their control. What if someone else or another group of people have a viable idea or set of ideas that might actually be better than the MS way? They don't stand a chance. What you call success I call tyrrany. Hitler was very successful too. Is your name on the facist ballot (of course, that's your choice) by chance? Put things into perspective yet?
I can't resist feeding this troll. I am still in school, attending college as a computer science major. I write open source software, but probably nothing that matters to you. I believe in freedom of choice, regardless of the forum. Microsoft doesn't like freedom, they want everyone to be locked into their way of doing things. They are the opposite of democracy, and even if the US isn't perfect, it's still better than what Microsoft offers. Clarify on the comparison? With Microsoft's power over the Internet, information, and how people use computers, they have a tight grip on how they can control our society. This grip is getting stronger. Passport will require users in large groups to authenticate through them.
I know it's hard, but try to consider the big picture in the long run for a change. Not just that your icons get cool shadows or your menus fade in when you click them. Consider that Microsoft are an entity that really does present the possibility of a "Big Brother" (not to be confused with the misunderstood Orwellian sense) insofar as they can and will control (as well as grant control to other monied interests... RIAA, MPAA, etc.) the information that is the lifeblood of our information driven society.
I guess the only thing I can really say about people who don't understand the danger of absolute power in the hands of a few is this: Get out of my country, you swine. Blood has been shed to acquire the freedom we all take for granted today, and anyone who thinks we should just ignore the right to choices and let whatever great ruling entity exists tell us what to do doesn't deserve what we've got in America.
(There goes my karma for speaking my mind.)
Why bother.
My home box, which is currently booting 5 os's has uptime measured in _hours_. If a box isn't 100% dedicated to some "real time" task, uptime isn't worth dick. Get over it.
MS is worried that it won't be setting computing standards ? But it _never_ _ever_ has. Its forte has been ignoring standards and setting out on its own. Its problem now with the concept of the pervasive web and pervasive computing is that its #1 reason for this succeeding, its OS is not longer going to be ubiquidous.
IBM failed because they didn't see the PC revolution, MS have seen the pervasive web, and are trying to get onto it, but their problem is that by its very nature its a non-MS world. Where IBM missed the bandwagon the issue here is that MS want to get onto the one that it has previously tried to blow off the rails. Will Nokia, Ericsson, Siemens, IBM, HP, Sun allow MS to join their tea party.
Hopefully not. But there is no accounting for CEO stupidity. MS have to undergo a culture change, their adoption of XML and SOAP looked good, until they haven't implemented the SOAP stuff to the SOAP standard yet (and they are on the bloody standards body!). That underlying aim of embrace, extend, extinguish was fine while they controlled the OS, but with internet aware consumer devices the bar of quality, reliability and interoperability has been raised.
To quote my wife "So people accept that Microsoft write crap code, and even blame themselves for problems, thats the reason I gave up using the PC"
Its true my wife uses the PC very rarely for a bit of browsing and email... but there is no way she would put up with a mobile phone that hangs.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I don't say that, dimwit, Microsoft say that. By your words, that means that, say, Windows 95 is 36% faster than Windows 95. Well, because one machine was newer than the other. :P
At first glance, the graph titled 'Redmond Blues' looks like it's showing a decline in Microsoft's earnings. However, the real numbers are quite the opposite - the graph shows how many percent increase the earnings have had since last year, and it is of cours natural for the curve to fall (since an $2.5 billion increase from $25b is only 10%, while an $2.5 billion increase from $6 is almost 60%).
But somehow they have warped the statistics (intentionally?) to make the curves more grim.
To their defense, it is stated clearly in the text of the article, but the subtle difference between text and graphics might be hard to spot.(Especially since it's easier to think up a conclusion from a curve than a paragraph of text)
That is a lie, that 49 day crash was only for Win95 and Win98
microsoft has no future, this explains why they want to know where you go today.
And a 32bit candy colored OS is? Microsoft wishes it could be IBM... But will probably choke on it's own delusion
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
Cool, I was afraid I was at the wrong web site, then I saw your comparison of Microsoft to the Nazis, and I knew I was back at good ol' Slashdot.
A telling moment for me happened when I was watching 'south park' the movie. When a cartoon Bill Gates got shot and everyone in the theater laughed, I knew Microsoft's days were numbered.
You cannot screw the customer over time and again and get away with it.
I wouldn't have thought Microsoft would have underlying anything. Whilst they keep their source code very much closed-source, their business practices, fears and strategies are so damn obvious that anyone knows their next move and why. .NET, although there is a chance they might have failed this time! I know plenty of Windows 2000 users who are happy with that and have clearly said they're not going to upgrade, this will be beneficial in resisting .NET.
They pretty much repeat a pattern. Set their own standards that stray from other standards so that competition falls behind and they dominate the market. Then when competition starts to catch up on their standards, they create new standards to ensure their market domination. Lots of users upgrade to their latest product because their previous one is bug-ridden. The users then start using some of the new features in that product and hence competition starts losing ground. For example, Microsoft's latest evil is
I just thought it was kinda obvious what Microsoft's tactics are. They stay in business by setting standards and obviously they'd be very scared of losing that advantage.
A great article though, as it goes into much greater detail.
Our network switch says it has been up for 49566 days.
You can say a lot of bad things about old hardware, but then, back in 1865, they knew how to make strong and reliable equipment.
But Microsoft? It's contributed to standards initiated by others. It's tried to detract from standards initiated by others (Java).
Java is not a standard unless your criteria for being a standard is simply that it is used by a lot of people. If that's the case then Microsoft has created lots of standards from COM to the Word file format to UDDI to their XML schema proposal that was rejected by the W3C but was embraced by most of industry.
If you're talking about standards in the strict sense of the Word then I can think of SOAP and C# and the CLI (in progress) but then again I haven't paid much attention to what Microsoft does until quite recently.
I really recommend that you save your post. Once you've been out in the real world for a few years you'll understand how silly and naive that whole good/evil/black/white thing you've got going on right now is. Trust me, you'll have a good laugh at it.
Oh well, I guess it's a refreshing switch from the usual Slashdotter in heavy denial trying every so hard to convince us that Microsoft is irrelevant.
By the time you get to this post, you know all about IBM's near death experience of the early 90s. .. It was far lest costly for them to just toss out a few options and let users go along with them.
.. which is why, in the recent slump, they've managed to stay relatively strong despite losses.
.. IBM's a company that services everything... not just AIX running on RS/6000s or Aptivas or Thinkpads. IBM is huge on supporting and partnering with its competition as well. Global Services has a larger NT support team than microsofts! They support sun too.
.. they seem very pigheaded about continuing on the same route.
Its true, IBM set standards.. and a lot of them. But did you know that IBM still puts out more patents than any other corporation in the world (per year)?
They're still a company that innovates.
What they realized was that instead of innovating and then trying to force that upon users
The moved from the manufacturing industry to a service industry
The thing is
Anyway.. what's the point of all of this?
IBM changed its philosophy to diversify.
I don't see microsoft going down that road. Even though they're strategy is failing (or is at leasted doomed to)
If they stay on the track they're on, they'll spiral down just like IBM almost did.
Imran Ahmed, Linux Inthuziast
-----------
"I like to dissect women. Did you know I'm totally insane?"
Yeah, I'm frustrated. I know this is all very silly because it really is just an uphill battle against the masses. This battle can't be won. I've heard for years from all sorts of people that idealism dies with age. It's true. I gotta give up this fight and let the bad guy win eventually. Blah.
Why bother.
I think people have a basic misunderstanding about Microsoft. They think:
Microsoft makes lots of money. Therefore it must be a good, strong company.
However, I believe if you ignore the profits, Microsoft is actually a very weak company. Crazy point of view? My logic:
Ignore for a moment the size of Microsoft's profits, and look at where they come from. A hugely disproportionate amount come from Microsoft Office. It's worth thinking about this a moment - despite Microsoft's multiheaded and complex strategy at the moment, a significant proportion of its profits come from a product the functionality of which isn't that difficult to copy. A bunch of people in their spare time have put together software that has much of the same functionality. Sun has a nearly equivalent product that they are giving away for free. Is MS Office really a sound basis for a strong company? Similarly with its operating systems - Linux is an increasingly tough competitor, and it's free. Much of it was originally developed by a bunch of students and enthusiasts (absolutely no disrespect intendended).
Now look at IBM. Increasingly its profits come from providing complex bespoke services at enterprise level to global companies. It also creates hardware, from breakthough advances at the molecular level to the worlds fastest supercomputers. Try copying that.
Bill Gates says he doesn't want Microsoft to become another IBM. I say, Microsoft is a pathetic company in comparision.
It is still in very early development, so I wouldn't suggest you go out and run it (except for purposes of testing and debugging), but if you are looking for a worthy project to contribute to, consider this one.
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
Even granted the fact that Microsoft is gaining ground in technical side of the aspect(less crashing) , they are loosing it more rapidly in the feedom and privacy arena, which until a month ago was becoming ever increasingly important to the average Joe.
:)) A project I was working on for windows involving TAPI and Mail Merging in particular was twice as hard as it should have been. At one point I contemplated merging manually into HTML or postscript. Did you know that office quietly truncates SQL queries from the COM interface of mail merge to 512 bytes over 2 seperate 256 byte fields?? Also take a look at TAPI sometime; in order to fully use it properly, you must convelude your code such that you are ashamed to have written it.
Microsoft is not friendly to developers as the artical suggests. There will always be people like Adobe that have to rewrite their applications for other operating systems, and they will suffer from Microsoft's unwillingness to cooperate. The things 3rd party developers must worry about are sometimes as menial as how windows doesn't handle fonts the same as a Mac, to the enevitability that the X-Box won't support OpenGL out of the box. (NVidia's version aside, also, I'm sure someone will play XBill on it in a week
On the other side of things:
OSS can't compete:
The one thing that I notice about all of open source software is the complete lack of good documentation. I don't know about many people on here, but if you've worked with MSDN, then you know that something is definately missing from OSS documentation. No, man doesn't count. There is a lot of documentation on how to use various tools, but its very hard to even find out how to create a window in X without using SDL or GGI. You can't expect a relatively new programmer to grep 1G of source to understand all the API calls to create a graphical version of FTP that takes all of a day to write in VB or Borland Builder/Delphi for windows. The OSS community could make things much more enticing for new developers by giving them a standard that if the software follows it is gauranteed to run on any distrabution without a headache (Quake3 is an excellent example, ID doesn't want to make another version of their software for linux due to tech support issues) Sun does the same for Java and the numbers speak for them, not by users choice, but the convenience to developers. Linux is also prohibitive in the fact that it almost certainly requires hardware manufacturers to release more to the community than windows does, or pay developers to maintain the drivers functionality with every OS change (NVidia chooses to do their own driver, and I can tell they struggle... Promise tries as well, but the SCSI driver code base changes with almost every revisionof the kernel). The result is very poor hardware support, even with IBM's help.
But, then again, OSS software maight get a bit of a kick from the commercial entities:
Microsoft's success or failure might lie in the hands of Apple. Apple's ability to make a stable, secure, OSS underlying OS that is easy for the average person to use, easy for the average programmer to make inexpensive or free software for, and easy for coorperations to adopt without loosing functionality or money, is a variable that still gives me hope that I won't have to run XP on anything but a test bed. Macs are more expensive because of the proprietary nature of the hardware, but if they release a X86 version of the GUI, then they would have much more market. Most of the software I have to use Windows for has a Mac counterpart. Mac OS's reign in compatibility with itself. Also many companies have a few macs and are open to experimentation with them.
The bottom line is: With Bush as president, MS is pretty much given free reign to be as monopolistic and anti-privacy as they wish. Votes tallied with MS Election.NET next term?
Karma Clown
Given Microsoft's propensity to dictate to the rest of the industry, it seems peculiar to bash Microsoft for their lack of standard setting. So, I'll assume your question meant to exclude Microsoft's de facto "standards" (such as the ever popular MS Word file format).
Well, surprisingly enough, the answer is, Yes, Microsoft has set good (that is, open) standards.
Off the top of my head I can think of RTF (Rich Text Format), SMB, and DHCP. That last one's a pretty good example, since even in pure UNIX shops it's all but eradicated bootp.
--b9
From what I remember, IBM invented SMB, though MS contributed a lot to it shortly thereafter (would have been 1987). Also, the "goodness" of this standard is debatable. ;-)
As for RTF -- ugly!!!
That leaves DHCP
they are a multi billion dollar corporation. EOM
Yes, the Windows API is a de facto standard controlled by Microsoft and not a "de jure" standard controlled by a "benevolent" organization, but it is a standard.
When 95% of the world's for-profit makers of end-user software want to write code, it is code for the Windows API. To me, that's a standard.
Has anyone disected the Xbox far enough to determine if and how it could be used to run a Linux OS?
:) at $299, it could make a nice Xterminal/thin client too. The possibilities are all out there waiting. Just 'cause MS is on the label is no reason to poo-pooh the hardware is it? I happen to like the MS Elite keyboard... the stupid internet keyboards can go the way of the fecal matter though.
I think hacking Xbox into a Linux box in iOpenner fashion might make a few MS executives blink!
Anyway... just a thought... anyone doing this already? Is there any web site to show?
Shouldn't the article here be moderated down as flamebait?
I've had posts moderated down for less.
There is a big difference, though: on Linux, you get the source. That means that, unlike Windows, you never get stuck on a project. With the source, you can usually code a workaround, recompile the library and link statically, or fix the bug. You aren't dependent on anyone's release cycle and you don't have to pay for the privilege of having a bug fixed that you yourself reported. Microsoft has actually attempted to help out developers in similar ways with partial source releases, but it just doesn't work out the same way in practice.
What that all amounts to in practice is that Windows does end up being a lot more expensive to buy, a lot more expensive to maintain, and a lot less reliable in practice than open source systems. And the fact that Windows is a kitchen sink of functionality, with much more interdependency than other systems, only compounds the problem.
...such as the ever popular MS Word file format...
Wah?
How so? Well, look at their taxes. They don't pay any tax on profit because they report no profit.
How? They claim the value of stock options used to pay employees as expense. Between that and cash outlays, they are losing money, and have been for years.
When they claim profit to their shareholders, and for the stock markets in general, they don't count the stock options they give out as anything. IOW, they would report the exact same profits if their employees' pay was cut to only their cash salaries. IOW, if they paid their employees entirely in stock options, they would report no spending on employees, exactly as if it was all-volunteer labor.
MS does have (or has had) a positive cash inflow, but only because they are constantly creating new stock and selling it, diluting existing shares to create the illusion of profit.
The stock market is not a source of investment for them, but primary revenue.
It works exactly like a Ponzi scheme: early investors are paid off with later investments. Unsurprisingly, like any cash pyramid, it showed exponential growth, roughly doubling in value every year.
This has broken down, though. Forget technical competition, they are on the edge of a financial collapse. They are being supported by the wishful thinking of their employees, who still think the stock will resume its growth, and so are willing to accept stock options as pay. Once they insist on payment in cash, MS will not be able to show even a fraudulent profit, and the company will come crashing down.
The question is what will come crashing down with them...
I read many people saying that M$ did not establish any standard, well, I think it depends on what you mean by standard.
Just think a minute : What is the "standard" text document type you will get from any teacher / friend / etc. ?
PDF? No, because the guy doesn't have time to spend on making a PDF, and you might need to edit the document (and you don't have any PDF editor).
HTML ? Erk, no, especially if there are graphics or other special objects in it.
So what?
.DOC of course. I'm not talking about all the *nix geeks here, but of "mister everybody" who simply doesn't know that there exists other types of documents !
In people's mind, if you send a text (report, article) you send a Microsoft Office Word (whatever the version) document.
And of course, school teachers teach students how to use Word, in many enterprises this is the standard file type for procedures, reports, etc !
How do you want people to think that there is better standards than .doc when they keep using it all day long?
And of course, that's the same with Excel and Powerpoint. And your (windosian) friends (if you have some :) ) don't care if you can't read this macro-filled .xls file, because they think you are a strange user and they use the standard.
Maybe M$ doesn't make real standards, but they surely do "people's standards".
theefer
On your comment about he hardware companys and the device drivers... Companies not releasing hardware specs to the community is the #1 reason that device support in linux is lacking. I honestly have never seen the huge deal most hardware companies have with exposing the interfaces with their products? Surely if they have some "top secret" IP, that for some unknown reason they didn't patent, it wouldn't be exposed by simply knowing he calls to interface with the operating system???
Am I totally off track here? Why do companies try so hard to protect IP that they should already have legal protection over? If NVidia has patents on its 3D accellerator design (which I am sure they do), then why do they have to continue to obfuscate it by not releasing hardware specs so poeple can write OSS drivers?
In answer to this: I teach English at a university in Thailand. At our teachers' meeting last week, the (new) French professor said he needs a french copy of windows so that he can actually TYPE in French. How long will this take? I don't know. I happen to have a copy of DEMOLinux from a friend (I remember him complaing that StarOffice is in French) so the next day I brought is in and booted his computer with is. Except for being slow as sap, he was excited. Today I installed Mandrake 8.0 (French stock market, right?) and he watched and helped me translate the french so that I could do the install correctly. Checked the boot directly into his user box and reboot. He is typing in KWord (the ONLY thing he is interested in) and printing from his HP695C. The point is -- I am an English teacher and he is a French teacher who told me up front that he knows next-to-nothing about computers, but when we booted into linux and I opened KWord for him, I wanted to show him how to handle the files (slightly different than Windows,eh?). He said, "No problem. It's looks just like Windows." I did virtually NO training with this guy, but let him know I will be happy to help him. My summary -- I think we're not THAT far behind on the desktop for Joe user.
Put identity in the browser.
Years ago I thought I knew computers. Then, in a very short period, the hardware I was accustomed to became obsolete, and the software outdated. I managed to adapt, but learnt a lesson: no platform lasts forever. Make sure that whatever knowledge you have is also relevant to the next platform.
Many people I meet seem to think computer equals PC, and operating system equals microsoft. The Intel/Microsoft platform becoming as obsolete as, say, punched cards, does not strike them as relevant or even possible. Having used PC's all their lives, they assume PC's will be there forever. It is my personal opinion these people will be in for a shock at least once during their lifetime. They have never seen the industry shift to a new platform in their lives, and are quite unprepared for such an event.
Yes, I started off using punched cards on a mainframe. But I have not forgotten the lesson I learnt then: no platform lasts forever. And while I use Intel/Microsoft in daily life, I try to be prepared when the next change occurs. I play a bit with non-Microsoft operating systems, and keep abreast of non-Intel processor architectures.
Please accept whatever platform is market-dominant right now, but make sure that when change occurs - and it will occur at least once in your lifetime - you are fully prepared to move on.
Nuff said.
The problem for Microsoft is it is too heavy handed on owning the OS.
With Linux we all own it, provided we respect it and others.
Microsoft is a phenomenon of the consumer society, it is adequate enough, like a popular brand of hamburgers, but is it cuisine?
Some good comes from the process, but this goodness is a reaction to it, not caused by it.
This company still wants to own everything, can it reform? can it work with others and play fairly?
It is in Microsoft's hands. The courts may set heavy controls, but they won't breathe life into the company. Consumerism is passive, the company is dominant. Linux requires involvement, and to me that is the difference.
The FBI, the Americal oil cartel the Bush family , etc all have a lot to be gained from Windows being the ubiqutous standard, and it all stems from things like Federal Corruption. There is no point having spying software if some renegades choose to use a secure system that DOESN'T include back-doors to allow the governement to monitor its sheep. Do you think you have a choice? Just how much money do you have anyway? Hopefully more than the Oil cartel, the pharmecutical drug cartel, the Bush family ...
Oh yeah. One last thing: you'd better have some pretty freakin big guns.
IBM was the computer company from the end of WW II until the late seventies. They got a good racket^H^H^H^H^Hbussiness going with punch cards and card machines and then early computers.
The IBM anti-trust trouble started in the sixties and the goverment finally dropped its suit in '82. Read the story of IBM and Ahmdal to see how IBM did not play nice.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Slow down...it's not about a legacy for Gates.
It's about software.
Gates has a vision for how he sees the future of computing and not suprisingly in involves lots of Microsoft software. It's not about his legacy or increasing his fortune...I really don't think he cares. He loves his company and he wants it to be profitable and succesful and he'll make decisions that (he thinks) will make that happen.
Gates knows that he'll be remembered, but frankly he doesn't care.
Let the flame begin.
A speech...
The DHCP protocol specification, and the first implementation were not written by microsoft, or in cooperation with microsoft.
As for SMB, i think that DEC Pathworks, and IBM LanManager both predate microsoft's SMB implementation.
This is so true. After all, you wouldn't want to make things too complicated for those poor Mac users. Put another button on that mouse and they'd go all to pieces :)
In other words, Microsoft fears becoming what it has done to others. Microsoft fears KARMA, the cosmic "get back", Justice, poetic or otherwise....
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
It doesn't matter if someone releases a better, cheaper, more elegamt office suite. It doesn't even matter if Micros~1 Office only works half the time. What matters is that no one can create a .doc file without Microsoft's say-so - and if someone manages to do it, all Microsoft has to do is twiddle a bit somewhere and make the new .doc XP (tm) incompatible with the old one. They can do this because users have NO CHOICE but to use .doc for all their memos and what not - .doc is the de facto standard.
You can argue all you like that, if the users don't like .doc, they should be using postscript or latex or whatever. Unfortunately, just like the original article said, almost everyone in the world uses .doc (and .xls and .ppt and...). This means that if you want to communicate with other people, you have to play by Microsoft's rules.
What MS is trying to do (ok, actually, they have pretty much done it) right now is to do the same thing for every single piece of information that they did for text documents, spreadsheets, slide shows, etc. They want to utterly and completely control the format in which this information travels. This is the danger of .net, and I fear that, this time, Linux cannot win. Microsoft can force XP (with .net in it) down the throats of its immense user base at any time it chooses to do so. Linux has no such user base, and, therefore, Linux is powerless to set standards which control the information.
>|<*:=
No shit ...
How much do your mainframes cost ?
Sorry, this is probably -1 offtopic, but I just want to say, this was a great article - very concise, and almost completely unbiased. It would have been an excellent article, if it weren't for the weasely "% increase, not actual value" graph.
>|<*:=
One day just like so many other insane companies that people support.
Down with Gasoline.
Down with Waste.
Down with Bill.
One day the only corporations that will succeed are the ones that help people. The ones that do something with their billions other than advertise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_c
Is there a computer that I could buy that doesn't need an OS?
"You said Windows 98 would be faster, more efficient, and give us better access to the Internet."
"It does."...BLAM!!
It wasn't just "rich guy syndrome". Everyone laughed because almost everybody who has to use a computer at work has had to tolerate Window's idiosyncracies.
'Microsoft's biggest underlying fear is that it will become like IBM - --a company that still has a strong business but no longer sets computing standards.'"
Good. I like MS much better in that sense. Leave the standards to committees such as IETF, IEEE, ITU, ANSI, and other similar bodies.
--- RFC 1149 Compliant.
If the truth be known, Windows will never be a completely bug-free and stable OS. Sure, it may come close, but it's never going to be perfect. And this isn't because of the natural human nature of programmers, either. I'm not talking about minor/very small bugs - but rather bugs that are at least rather annoying.
Why? It makes perfect sense as a corporation to release a product that is perpetually "almost there" as far as QA is concerned (especially if they charge for upgrades.) Simply put, if Microsoft can create an image of, "Dangit, we ALMOST had all the bugs out... maybe next time!" to its customers, then those customers are probably going to purchase the next release of Windows in hopes that those bugs are fixed. Of course, fix those bugs, but make sure to add some sort of new stuff (features, eye candy, etc.) that have a few bugs, so that the same cycle repeats itself.
Why woulod they do this? Think about it this way... If WinXP turned out to be a completely stable, bug-free version, and taking into consideration their track record of being rather buggy at times, would you upgrade past WinXP? If you're like a lot of people, probably not. I know several people who have told me already that they are 95% happy with their Win98, and will NOT ugprade past Win98 for fear that the new versions may be buggier. I am sure a lot of people have that same general feeling, and if they ever got their hands on a "good" version, they'd stick with it.
I will give them this much - creating the "Bother, we THOUGHT we had all the bugs out!!! But, we'll get it next time around!" look to all its customers has seemed to keep them on the upgrade track rather well. :) Question is, how long before the customers catch on?
Microsoft may not be quite as important in the future, but they're in no danger of crashing. How many other companies do you know that could lay off 99% of their employees (they still need the guys running the CD press and the shrinkwrap machine) without feeling a revenue drop for a year? They've got enough unearned revenue in the form of CDs waiting to be pressed and sold at "discount prices" to cushion any fall they take.
Also, the nice thing about ditching all those stock options to employees is that it spreads out the impact of the fall. If Microsoft stock takes a plunge, Bill Gates feels it and Joe Cubicle feels it, but the company accountants just realize they can't issue any new stock for a while, and that's the end of it for them.
Just remember one thing - Microsoft considers VB their most important development platform, to quote them "The Cobol of the 90s"
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
You can't "cash in stocks," you can only sell them. Sometimes companies buy back their own stock, but they aren't required to in any way. Nobody has to buy stock, if they don't want to, that's why the price can drop effectively to nothing and why the stock market is so risky.
Stock in a company gives you a claim on dividends distributed, and on a portion of the company's holdings if it is dissolved, but those are the only direct claims on company holdings. Note that both of these are actions the company may take, but doesn't have to any more than it has to buy back stock. IIRC, MS has never paid dividends, it certainly hasn't in the last decade or so.
Power is generational. It will be a while before we have a repeat the 80's. In '83 everyone my age disliked IBM, while those my fathers age were IBM heads. I disliked IBM beacuse they were bullies (or so my dad said). Thus, for me everything IBM was tainted. Microsoft, a small little company was on the other hand, very cool. They made DOS, had a Basic interpreter, etc. Another kickn' company was Borland, who made SideKick a very nifty personal organizer and a Pascal compiler.
Anyway, I don't have children, but people younger than me think that Microsofties are a bunch of bullies (or so I tell them). And rather than investing our attention in another company, I think we may have collectively learned our lesson. We are investing our time in open source software that is publically owned.
It took over two decades for Microsoft to catch up to IBM ('75-'95). I think it is fair to give open source a fair shake ('85-'2005). Sometime soon the pendilum will swing away from Microsoft and towards the next monopoly. Guided not by technology decisions, but by personal choice not to support the bullies. This time the monopoly holders will be the public, through licenses like the GPL.
Any large corporation based on the sales of intellectual property is bound to have a rough time of the next ten years. Widespread pirating of music, software, and now even pharmaceuticals occurs all over the world, in some cases with the support of governments in power. It can't be stopped, and it won't be stopped.
IBM has this thought out. Their revenues going forward are more and more service-based. That's something you just can't steal.
Microsoft shouldn't be afraid of becoming IBM. They should be afraid of not becoming IBM.
Was just thinking Msft might like to have a monopoly like AT&T had on phones - you never did actually 'own' the phone, you had to LEASE it (just like you don't OWN Word etc, just buy licenses to use) and while they were good, rugged, tough handsets that were automatically maintained by the telco, they did make a great cash flow out of those monthy lease payments.
My folks have had the same phone on the wall for about 40 years now, and they've probably paid for it 10 times over by now.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Come to think about it, microsoft is realy setting the stage for a lot of the computer technology of today and the future. Dam with the garbage that microsoft comes out with, dam people run for your lives, we are in trouble >:)=-
my 2 cents plus 2 more
*nix took top honors, according to the experts. Windows didn't even show up by itself until #4, so *nix took or shared the top 3. Hmm. Go figure. But this is from those kooks at SANS, why would I believe them?
People have been throwing around "linux on the desktop is dead" for a while now, since eazel's demise, and dell's withdrawl from that market, etc etc.
.NET. IBM is trying add the linux sail to its huge sea ship. And HP/Compaq are so lost they have crossed eachother's event horison with mutual destruction almost assured!.
The real story is that The Desktop is Dead. Not just the linux desktop, but all desktops -- as a source of driving revenue in the IT sector. WIth the advent of $400 pc's, the desktop just isn't what it used to be. Microsoft's tax as a percentage of PC revenue has skyrocketed -- an unstable trend if I've ever seen one.
Joe user may be buying desktops in 5 years, but if they cost less than $300, chances are it wont have windows, and chances are it wont have intel or IBM. The desktop just wont be a lucrative revenue source in the years to come. Lets face it and move on. Microsoft is trying to ensare the internet in
Let me just confirm that the sound that you are hearing is, in fact, thousands of Macintosh users laughing.
How were you able to coordinate every single mac user in the world to laugh at the same time? Wow, truly a superior platform.
Do they train you guys to have that attitude, or just screen you before you're allowed to purchase?
This is a yes and no issue. Yes M$ might end up with a strangle hold on alot of businesses and individuals, however, what you must understand is that by creating bottlenecks innovation and creativity are held back, therefore those that choose an M$ "solution" will start to fall behind and might even die off in the face of competitors who do not have the same restrictions. I hope M$ keeps doing as it always does, and those who choose to go that route might be up for the Darwin Award in a decade or so. To sum up in the words of one of the characters in Jurassic Park "Life will always find a way".
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
this doesn't mean OSS is a direct threat to MS as a whole. MS' biggest issue with OSS is not that OSS is, or has the potential to be, a creator of vast and large quantities of the top shelf software, but rather that OSS threatens their growth in the server software arena. By creating software that "just" gets the job done, with a minimum of hassle, software like Linux and Apache can take a huge bite out of NT and ISS's profitability. Put simply, MS is realizing that the same economics and influences that lead from mainframes to Unix (proprietary) to NT, can also lead from NT to Linux (or rather Unix to Linux).
OSS isn't going to be fighting a line-by-line feature war with MS. If it does, it'll probably lose, MS has far more resources to throw at it. OSS's best chance to take a bite out of Microsoft is to go the other route: make software that can be purchased, deployed, and supported for far less. This means Linux should focus on things like bullet proof installation processes, automated installations, etc. Then it needs someone like Redhat or SuSe to effectively market it.
"The Cobol of the 90s"
Crap! Ripped of again! I've been calling it that for five years.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
I've been saying this for years now. Microsquash is not a technology company, it's a marketing company. I remember hearing a story (urban legend?) about someone who went out and bought windows 95, got it home, unwrapped it and called back the store and asked "what do I do with it?", they said, you install it on your computer. "I don't have a computer." It's not about the next greatest operating system, or the next greatest 'go faster', it's about convincing you that you really need it when you don't. It's about shame. (Oh God, the jones just got a new computer with XP and we're still running 98 on this PIII, we gotta go to best buy and upgrade!).
A good friend will help you move. A really good friend will help you move a body.
When tracking the sincerity of a corporation, watch the flow of money.
Patents are not free, especially once you start involving corporate lawyers. The mere fact that IBM is getting patents says that they are willing to spend money on them, and therefore that they are a priority.
One of the biggest problems in a big corporation is making measurments. They tend to do well at the things they can effectively measure, and often poorly at the things they can't. Patents are being used as a measure of innovation, and to that extent IBM is shown as valuing innovation.
Your point that patents do not necessarily represent innovation is certainly valid. But can you think of a better measurment that can be implemented across a multinational corportation. Plus, at the very least, there is some linkage between patents and innovation. Even if there are some stupid ones in there, there are good ones, too.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
G, D, R...
They do the research. I promise you, they do know what the Hell is going on.
That's what they say before every crash.
That model broke down with the end of their exponential growth. Look at the ten years before that.
Their price stopped going up last year, almost crashed this year, and recovered for the moment. Now it is their terminal phase, where they are sacrificing all long-term hope to continue reporting short-term profit, while the bosses sell of their stock.
What they fear is that they will no longer be able to force their own "standards" down your throat. This could be a Good Thing (tm). If Microsoft gets to the point where they are no longer able to force you into their playing field, and they are forced to follow open standards, I would have no problem with them. Case in point that was mentioned is IBM. They're no longer evil (mostly), and they are quite productive in a good way these days.
Yes, the Windows API is a de facto standard controlled by Microsoft and not a "de jure" standard controlled by a "benevolent" organization, but it is a standard.
No, if it was a standard, it could be implemented by someone else. (as in: complete specs would be available, and implementable by a third party.)
POSIX is a standard.
Make Your Friends Jealous. Order Today.
:)
I think you hit the nail on the head.
Why bother.
No, you've got to grow up, join the real world and realise that the line you've been fed by Slashdot about Microsoft being "evil" is utterly ridiculous. Once you've done that, then you can talk to adults about software development.
Ah, I get it. "Growing up" and joining the "real world" about software development is basically entering into the propaganda that we have to pay for something that should be free and of dismal quality. We can talk about "software development" on a platform where you can't even have the source. Yes, this is certainly maturation over open source ideals. What a fool I have been to think that I can get some magnetic signals on a disk for free all these years! How stupid I have been to expect that software have a sufficient level of quality!
Why bother.
They're electronic ego-opinion indicators.
Such as the lack of peripherals. But as noted by at least one person before me, the killer port for Xbox isn't linux, it's Apache.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
Gates has won.
The current Microsoft development release (.NET) will be the last. It's not in Microsoft's interest to release development tools to producers of products not owned by and giving profit to Microsoft.
In the future, if companies want to develop software for their business needs, they will go to their local Microsoft office, who will send a consulting team in to assess requirements, code the software, and charge a nice fee. This process will appeal to managers who do not want to have the overhead of keeping developers on staff. Oh, and Microsoft will retain all rights to the product, of course; if it is commercially valuable they will sell it elsewhere. It's the old mainframe business model from the sixties once again - remember that's the environment Gates grew up with.
As for home software - what is left of it - forget it. There's very little remaining that isn't Microsoft or doesn't have Microsoft competition. For example, my former employer had a nice little niche market with $20 million/year in revenue. So, of course, Microsoft decided to move in. Guess who's still in business.
I also expect Microsoft to move into PC hardware very soon. Sometime next year they will buy some well-known but cash-starved PC distributor (Gateway?), or retool the game-machine plants in Mexico to produce PC boxes. Given the current administration's attitude toward antitrust, they will get away with it - especially if Microsoft can justify their moves as aiding the national war effort by increasing business efficiency.
It is a STANDARD because people USE IT. Complete specs are often available for DE JURE standards, but not necessarily for DE FACTO standards.
It's a great tool for what it's meant for: rapid application development for small businesses where the software will be run on a windows pc and used by someone who wants to do all their work in windows forms. It's very very quick, and there are a lot of developers who know it. It's a good choice for internal company apps.
Some people have such glorified ideas of what a 'programmer' is. You give detailed instructions to a machine. If you spend a week writing beautiful code you cost your company 5x. If you spend a day writing ugly code you cost your company 1x. If both programs meet the functional requirements, the company that encourages spending one day will survive better. I have nothing against beautiful code, but I have nothing against utilitarian functional code either.
...And probably cast by it as well.
Professional programmers must meet the needs of their clients. Am I going to tell the marketing guys that I want to write the app they need to run only on *nix boxes? When they don't know what that is? Or am I going to give them VB forms and pop-up dialogues and a self-installing package?
Programmer-friendly doesn't really matter does it? Unless you're coding for fun.
No competition has hurt the consumer. Microsoft products are too expensive because of this lack of competition.
this obviously needs to be factored into any discussion of 'expense'.
training is very expensive.
training our marketing people on linux would probably exceed the GNP by a fair margin.
give them their windows forms, it is honestly cheaper.
linux or any *nix is only cheaper if your client is trained in how to use it. if your app will be used by data entry clerks, spending a lot of time training them in how to use a *nix is not cost justified.
as they use internet explorer and microsoft
office.
(linux user laughing)
And the Xbox is probably only the beginning: a sort of Trojan horse to establish a platform for digital entertainment, in the words of Richard Doherty, president of the Envisioneering Group, a market-research firm. (quote from article.)
;)
Finally some recognition of the security potential of Microsoft products
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
This was effectively due to a huge passive pay cut for MS staff. MS gave stock options as part of the pay, they were not worth anything, so they couldn't be used for deductions. MS becomes briefly profitable on broken promises.
Essentially, these people worked for money that they expected, but which didn't materialize. They will not hold those employees for long without either raising salaries or their stock options becoming worthwhile again.
Economically if not technically. When they came into business, the software market was dominated by hardware manufacturers, who were content to sell a few small copies of their software at high prices (this is still the way proprietary UNIX works, BTW). Microsoft's innovation centered around the idea that a vendor-inspecific software manufacturer could lower prices and still make higher profits for everyone. They were very successful in this way. Of course this is not to condone their actions at maintaining their monopoly once they had attained it, but they gained it fair and square.
I tend to think that this economic innovation by Microsoft has made the PC as ubiquitous as it is today. Not because of homogeneity in OS, but rather because of falling costs (don't believe me? price out an RS/6000 workstation). So open source software really would not be where it is if it was not for Microsoft's economic innovation. So, unlike many open source advocates, I do not hate Microsoft, but rather too think it is time to move on...
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
w0000t!
Aw shit....
This is very true, and it's getting worse for M$, a recession looks set to help and bizarely the normal cost reduction should be good for the Open Source/Free Software.
m ic rosoft
:)
:)
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/011022/06/earns-
This problem is going to cause M$ sever problems; The M$ share price will fall, they will cut investment, the share price will fall more, they will lose their 'famous names' the shares will fall further, it is a vicious feed back loop, before long the Microsoft Empire will be shadow of it's former self, like IBM in the 80's. We'll probably be really proud of our selves, "I defeated M$" we'll say, but it will have a hollow ring. We'll know in our hearts and minds that they where defeated by their own greed, lies and stupidity and not by Open Source/Free Software.
However there is another way. I've been thinking about an idea for some time, waiting for the right moment, I happen to think that the time is soon, very soon. We'll be able to say "I [we] defeated M$" and it will be true. We take the Open Source approach, we help, help the share price fall that is. A little short here, a little put there, however we approach it on an open source scale, on the grounds that many bucks will make short work of M$
We short M$ on global scale.
http://www.fool.com/FoolFAQ/FoolFAQ0033.htm
Not only will we get to engineer the fall of Microsoft, we'll prove that open source community can make money, the delious irony of it
Which brings me to one final question, is it ethical for an Open Source/Free Software advocate to make money from M$ stock?
£$%^& ethics this is [Capitalism|Justice|Victory].
The master paused for a moment, held up his hand and said
"Natalie Portman"
At this moment, the zen student was enlightened.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
That is why Microsoft has always sold its operating system cheaply and has done everything to make life easy for programmers.
It's been a long number of years since I've attempted to develop
any sort of software with MS tools/APIs, because every experience
I had was miserable compared to alternatives. The only positive
experiences I've ever had developing for DOS or Windows were because of Borland.
I'm a programmer and part of my beef with Microsoft is that if they
have their way, I'll have little choice but to use their tools and do things their way. Of course, that might be good... it'd provide suffecient incentive for me to become a subsistence farmer or luthier or anti-trust economist and lead a simpler life.
And the OS is cheap? Hardly.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
IBM no longer sets computing standards, yet they're currently involved in the design and production of the fastest supercomputer EVER built.
Blue Gene is a whole new standard in speed.
WTF is wrong with this guy?
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
"... in order to assure its long-term growth, it is moving into new markets, mainly digital entertainment, enterprise software and web services."
Oct 20th 2031 | SAN FRANCISCO
What are you talking about? Please locate any occurence of "Microsoft" in Section 5 of the below document:
RFC1541
okay, i agree with you mostly, but you are wrong on the the last point.
c in g.html
while it seems like the plot is misleading, it is growth rate, and the change in it that account for most of the valuation of a stock. and as we all know, microsoft is much more concerned about 'MSFT' (their ticker symbol, for the financially disinclined) than about software...
for some extracurricular reading, try:
http://stocksense.com/valuation.html
http://www.isp-planet.com/research/notes_on_pri
the second is briefer, the first more detailed. i am not a broker and there are many different pricing models for different types of businesses, but it's fair to say that the graphs was not misleading.
A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
Hi, them!
You are going to laugh, but back in the days (good ole DOS days, not even Win 3.xx), the extention .DOC indicated a plain text ASCII file. The first time I openend a .DOC with a texteditor and got gibberisch on my screen I was actually wondering what happened. ;-)
Oh, well, must be evolution
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I am a volunteer documentation writer. I write fluent English and am well-versed in DocBook. I have tried unsuccessfully to contribute documentation to various Open Source projects.
Open Source developers treat documentation writers as a step below script kiddies. (Because we don't write code?) My contributions to various projects have been blown off or ignored. There's no respect there.
Documentation is treated as something secondary. IMHO, documentation should be kept up-to-date and in sync with coding efforts. Maybe we would have more documentation if writers were treated with respect and as an important part of the team.
HA! They didn't make switches 49,566 days ago!!
Apparently MS has 10% of their market capitalization worth of cash on hand. 20% is more realistic
I'm talking about internal apps.
If you're already an employee, there are probably 100 ways you can steal from the company, crash machines, give out passwords etc.
VB is not for making programs to distribute outside of a company. I think it's not well suited for that at all, though I know some people do use it for that. It is a rapid application development tool for little custom jobs.
IBM had to change because the market refused to be dictated to any longer. The current market has reached this point with Microsoft. Microsoft is too big to just go away, so it will change (unwillingly). It will be interesting to see how this occurs, and how much damage they do (to all and sundry) while thrashing gracelessly through their transition.
Also, why does anyone assume that BG actually has a say about anything that happens at MS. The man is a meat puppet who stepped in it. To attribute extraordinary marketing (after all that IS what MS is all about, that and control) insight and wisdom to someone who ripped off CPM and just happened to have heavy duty business connections through family is a bit much for me.
Why does a Bill Gates need to exist? Good question, what do you think?
'Leveraging' seems to many of us to be clear abuse of monopoly power. It isn't established in case law however. This is a big issue in their cases.
Imagine what if, in the future, IBM patents block some area that Microsoft is interested in. Since Microsoft has less patents, Gates could lobby against software patents, knowing that others have more to lose.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
>grep 1G of source to understand all the API
>calls to create a graphical version of FTP that
>takes all of a day to write in VB or Borland
>Builder/Delphi for windows.
You're comparing developing with raw Xlib against high level Windows toolkits. It's pretty trivial to develop your hypothetical FTP app for Linux in hours, not days, using KDevelop, Glade.... or Borland Kylix, if you're the commercial kind. No grep required, though running through the beautiful tutorial complete with screen shots that comes with Qt might give you a leg up.
And don't talk to me about MSDN documentation until you've tried to write to any new, hot API of theirs, e.g. a custom Exchange app using their much-vaunted "Web Storage System". That experience really opened my eyes to just how good I have it when I develop for free platforms.
"> ...such as the ever popular MS Word file format...
Wah?"
OK, so substitute "ever demanded" and you get the idea. Popular it may not be, but it certainly manages to make the 'must have' list of folks looking to switch from Windows to something else.
Microsoft's deepest fear is that they not only will become "like IBM" but that they will become like ~5 per cent of IBM or less!
In its hey day IBM was a true giant. In data processing they did it all. They had a complete line of hardware, from entry level business computers to high end scientific computers. All their hardware came complete with system software, suited to the particular hardware (hint to Microsoft). At the slightest suggestion they would offer all kinds of application software. In addition to this, if a data processing accessory was available, IBM had a competing model. Does anybody remember IBM typewriters and IBM card punches, collaters, readers etc? The fearful business man could buy 100% IBM. Everyone agreed on one thing about the old IBM. They were the very best at reassuring Mr. Average Businessman about "how wonderful it would all be".
The real clincher was IBM's research department, which was involved in all of computing science. Their output was alleged to be stupendous, and it was claimed that they had reams of patents that they hadn't even used yet. Does anybody remember the Josephson Junction? It was claimed that IBM's marketing department was much more conservative than the rest of the company. They were extremely reluctant to build a new product until the were certain that it would be accepted by customers and that it would never undercut existing IBM products.
How does Microsoft stand up to this IBM "standard"? The answer is that Microsoft is their monopoly, they are little more! And never forget that this monopoly was handed to Microsoft, on a silver platter, by IBM.
Microsoft's monopoly consists of software only, for one class of computer and for one class of CPU within that class of computer. Compared to IBM their product depth is tiny. In Microsoft's other product lines they could be considered a dilletante at best, usually a money loser. Their media efforts are often in joint ventures. Is this an attempt to avoid the hard decisions? Their efforts in the area of hardware are things like mice, etc. and now Xbox. Xbox is a typical Microsoft me-too product, copying Sony and many others.
Microsoft's research department appears to be a small thin shadow of IBM's huge research department. To me Microsoft's research department looks like a giant, expensive perk and maybe a tax break. It appears to be a strange combination of a very narrow focus on computer software and a dabbling in just about everything under the sun with no focus at all.
If Microsoft's monopoly is taken away, what will be left?
Micro$oft didn't SET any standards....it just made it nearly impossible to consider alternatives. In other words, M$ may have become a standard, but only by default.
Companies like Macromedia (Flash), Adobe (Photoshop), and Corel (Painter) SET standards - these companies produce software, that while not without their problems, is quite innovative.
Ha ha ha!
I believe that Microsoft is already worse than IBM when Big Blue was at the height of its power and arrogance. If Microsoft needs to worry about anything, it's ``How can we get ourselves out of the mess we're in?''. I can't see how they're going to fix their situation any time soon. Partly because they are run by a group of people who seem to be megalomaniacs and their company's size prevents them from seeing their actions as having any downside. And, unfortunately for them, they've gotten so big that it'll be pretty difficult to change directions quickly (corporate inertia?). IBM's direction took a heck of a long time to change and so will Microsoft's. Normal folks as well as most businesses will probably find it far easier to change than will MS. I think we're just beginning to see a backlash against Microsoft that is similar to that seen by IBM back in the mid-80s and, IMHO, it couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch. Wonder how long it'll take them to react.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Microsoft does do Research, as a matter of fact I worked their for a while. MS Research uses about two buildings filled with people that handle about 30 projects at a time. It's a rather large effort, however I have yet to have seen much use from it.
Some things get in commercial apps that you don't see, like a programming language/concept called 'IP' or intentional programming was used in Outlook, but unless you we're a developer on the team you wouldn't know about it. Allegiance a online space combat RTS was a pet project of MS Research's lead man Rick Rashid, developed entirely at MS Research and went commercial, Allegiance was actually a very good game, but got little to no commercial success.
-Jon
this is my sig.
I was watching TechTV during the Backstreet Boys segment of the Concert for New York and they were doing a special on MS's "House of the Future". I'm sure we've all heard Bill Gates rather (or is that downright?) stupid idea of networking a TV to a Clothes Dryer so that the TV will tell you when your clothes are done. I suppose it's too much to hear the big loud buzzer or just go back after the amount of time you set the timer for, but they now have what could be the most annoying idea ever. Apparently they want to have a microwave that has a barcode reader. You have to scan all your products and the microwave connect to the internet and automatically sets the time to cook the item. Is it just me or is that the stupidest idea ever?! Is it really that difficult to read the label and type a three digit number? Are we not supposed to eat if the network goes down?
I for one hope MS dies long before it sets our living standards, or I might just have to move out of my house into a wigwam.
There's also a post at slashcode.com.
My interface uses a proprietary, but "free as in beer" resource. spellchecker.net. I hear that the new beta version of slash uses ispell - but with a considerably less friendly UI. Joseph Elwell.
Microsoft could be laid low by certain changes in accounting rules or legislation.
Think of how Microsoft's picture would change if the cost of options had to be expensed immediately. Warren Buffett, among others, has gone on record as supporting this idea. This means that salary expense, now paid by stock options, would appear on the profit statement as a negative entry. Poof, Microsoft's profit is gone.
The tax people could also disallow the tax break Microsoft gets that involves options.
Of course, this would also affect most high-tech companies. The whole sector operates much like a pyramid scheme. If you want to invest here, get in very early and get out before the whole pyramid collapses.
People don't have the money to be spending for operating systems and licenses. The fact is that they will find a way to buy into this new fad. Companies will incorporate it. Chances are I'll get a job fixing this new software as will many other unemployed programmers and technicians. The obvious solution is only inconvienant because businesses are unwilling to learn the proper way and best way. Unix, specifically Free Unix, is the best solution. What it ammounts to is a 69 mustang with a 351 under the hood and a Toyota Camery. Sure the Camery has Airconditioning and the best technology has to offer but the mustang will leave that piece of shit in the carbon vapors burnt from the unleaded fuel it emmits. bye
I'm just surprised your workers have been stoking it's furnace continuously for that long.
Think about it. The SSSCA outlaws ALL SOFTWARE which processes or displays data absent of a government approved security system. So the following program would be illegal to sell, import, etc.
#include
int main (){
printf ("Hello World!\n");
return 0;
}
So think about it. Would Microsoft would have to also pay to train all their programmers from scratch because offering source code for "Hello World" applications would then be banned... I say that "Hello World" certainly is the data that the printf is sending to stdout...
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The thread started about vb, and people dissing vb as a programming language. vb means vb. if you want to talk about vb script, say vb script. clear enough?
Again, I feel that strongly typed object oriented programming leads to the problems you describe above. So does highly 'optimized' code. Basic, clear syntax works best, even when it's not the most efficient. Take Moore's law into account when you worry about efficiency or speed, the hardware guys will continue cranking up the numbers.
VB is quick to write, and quick to re-write. Same with perl, python, and tcl. Scripting builds on powerful components. Similarly, VB uses the powerful windows api functions that Microsoft exposes. Toss in an instance of IE. Toss in menu bars for file operations. Toss in a button to print. Powerful functions that are easily implemented by the coder.
What is doing it 'the right way'? Defining classes and inheritance? Overloading functions? No. The right way is to write simple code, well commented and documented that any schlub of a programmer can read and modify. Don't compactify 10 lines of code into one 'just because you can'. Optimize for maintainability first, not cleanliness or even speed. PCs are disposable, and after 20 - 30 months of use whatever box is running your code will be replaced with one that's twice as fast. Do you think you can make such a big speed difference in your code? Would the expense of making the effort be worth it to your company? I didn't used to think like this. But my co-worker and I have spent so much time reverse engineering the code of the crazy genius russian coder who used to work here that any advantages he thought he was getting in his ever further 'optimizing' the code were far outweighed by the costs. He did it 'right' the first time, and his code was highly optimized for the exact situation we faced at the time. Detangling the lists of arrays afterwards to make slight changes took soooo long.
I don't think short-term gains have to have long-term costs. A lot of apps are almost disposable. Again, this is from a very business oriented point of view. If I were doing advanced cryptography research I would not have this point of view. But business apps?
"We want this event to help remind the world that New York still represents strength and determination" - Bill Gates
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" - Samuel Johnson
Linux advocates are in a no Win situation
Um, IBM still makes big standards in almost every area of the market. If you mean standardizing hacks for speed-to-market purposes then IBM still does those too, so whatever "Economist."
Microsoft haven't set ANY standards! They just rip them off other companies/people.
-- main(s){printf(s="main(s){printf(s=%c%s%c,34,s,34
Goddammit - myths like this get perpetuated until they gain the patina of the truth - but please make it stop!
.net) and then claim to be the standard bearer thanks to sheer mass.
This bunch of me-too hacks makes 1960s Japan look like innovators.
They simply lie in wait - for the DOS (QDOS . MSDOS) , for the GUI (Mac > Win), for the browser (pick one > IE) for cross platform execution (Oak/Java >
Boo-freaking-hoo. They deserve what they get.
When an otherwise brilliant person like Myhrvold ends up being just another shill for Bill - it's just sad. Nathan, Alan Kay, Danny Hillis and Ray Kurzweil should be holed up in a think tank for a few quarters - untethered to any one vendor - and be told not to come out until they have a shipping turnkey system... And hey - Nathan could cook for everyone, Ray could supply the entertainment.
But fer chrissake INNOVATE! I gotta lie down.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Is Microsoft's policy any different than what IBM, Apple, Sun and the like have practiced over the years ? Home made PCs start appearing, Apple starts making its IIes and eventually turns a big quid out of them. IBM pricks up its ears and enters into the market because it sees Apple is making buckets of money and the small fry (ie Sinclair, BBC, Prime, etc) are withering. Apple is steamrolled into a marginal player. HP, IBM, Compaq, Dell, et al conquer a market started by smaller operations. M$ thrives because the pc market becomes stereotyped making it easier to write software for it. What of Sun ? Doesn't Sun fight like hell to keep its market share ?
At the moment, Sony, Nintendo etc have colonised the game machine market. Microsoft wants that, so it will sell below cost for years, hijack games developers, create new "standards" to undermine its competitors. Similarly with.NET.
On the desktop front, one observation, people have finally stopped buying new pcs every couple of years. The public has woken up to the fact that most new software runs fine on older machines, that the cost benefit of updating annually is over rated. Thats where Microsoft is going to take a hosing. Why buy a new machine just to run XP, especially as Win2k runs, according to reports, even faster most applications ? I really need a 2Gig processor and a bigger hard drive, more RAM,etc to run Word slower on XP than it does on Win2k.
The war on abstract nouns
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
If you're writing an app that will be used mainly on one type of computer, say a pc, write it for that first. And VB is very easy to use for pc apps.
If you NEED to write an app that's usable by any system, you need to write a web app. That's actually mainly what I do, but web apps are slow in comparison to any kind of compiled code, and are unsuitable for many business applications. But they use accepted standards, have a really long useful life, and can be accessed from Macs, Linux boxes, PCs, etc.
You say not to try to predict the future. Yet that's what you're knocking yourself for not doing. Oftentimes the stuff I write ends up not used, or being quickly abandoned because of changing business relationships. Or someone decides to rearchitect a whole department and the entire way of doing business changes. In those cases, programs are dropped or have to be re-written from scratch. Although if you have good stored procs and some good useful functions you can re-use those pieces. If your department has changed the way it does business, then yes the app needs to be rewritten. If you haven't changed the way you do business, why can't you make minor modifications?
What was your primary market? A technology department using it for complicated stuff? You say it's a large and involved program. VB is best suited for quick business apps, though it can extend somewhat. Did you make much use of ActiveX controls? To encapsulate functionality so you can use those pieces later? Or is it all in one giant main()? Writing 'components' in any language encourages code re-use. Writing monolithic blocks always discourages code re-use. I don't think the use of VB really affects that much.
VB isn't VBScript. VBScript is a subset of Visual Basic for Applications.
.exe files :)
They're two separate issues, VBScripts are risky because of the way they're attached to emails, and there mainly because of Microsoft's default settings in Outlook.
What are you using VBScript for? You could probably port the code to a VB program. I think the only things VBScript has that aren't available in VB are the Execute and Eval functions. And you must add a reference to VBScript regular expressions if you want to use the RegExp object. Otherwise it would be a straight copy.
I think you're safe in assuming your IT department won't decide to universally block
No way.
If you want universal interoperability write a web app.
Java never lived up to this claim.
why spend time coding for 3 platforms if it's only going to run on one? if your program is only going to run on a pc, there is no easier way to include a lot of windows functionality than to write in VB.
now of course it sucks that microsoft doesn't expose all those functions easily to outside languages, but c'est la microsoft.
My company was 'locked into' microsoft technology from the very beginning. Like most are. Yes there are some Sun boxes for the web servers and databases, but people have PCs at their desks. That is NOT going to change. The only alternative to being locked into Microsoft technology for my company would be for my company to cease to exist as it does today.
You say they work flawlessly when you copy them? Tell me, are the boxes both running the Sun JVM? Would it work so flawlessly if one were using the Microsoft JVM? The same code won't run the same on different JVM's. So if you want the same code to work the same you need to do minor re-writes to accomodate the different JVM's. Or the alternative is only supporting one JVM, which it sounds like you do if this works flawlessly for you. Java is not the solution to the world's problems. It's C++ the way C++ should have been structured - but minus its speed.
Notice how the article says:"And Microsoft will sell the Xbox for only $299, well below its component costs. Before breaking even in 2005, the Xbox business will lose $2 billion, ... "
...
If Linux users start purchasing these units in large quantities to run Linux on them, as they should because of the power/price ratio, MS will definitely have lost much more than 2 billion since it expects to recoup that 2 billion by selling games
N.B.: The Xbox runs a plain old intel processor. There is, therefore, no reason for it not to be able to run Linux.
Microsoft has a future that includes more than massive lawsuits?
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