Ballmer, Gates on Microsoft's Future

RoadFever writes: "At the Microsoft shareholders meeting, CEO Ballmer acknowledged they may have a popularity bug. "We understand, based upon the fact that our industry didn't rally to support us, that we need to change the way we interact and relate to our industry," Ballmer said. There's a summary article in the Seattle Times and more stuff on the Microsoft investor relations page. Will words translate to action? Well, the company might want to start by toning down the habit of taking credit for every innovation: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines," Gates said." The question-and-answer session near the end of the meeting has the most juicy quotes.

Comments

innovation?

[jxa00]

just like MS DOS was theirs??

The Internet...

[bytes256]

So wait...did Al Gore or Bill Gates invent the internet?

Re:The Internet...

[famazza]

It makes me remember when Mr. Gates said that internet is too dumb to be successful.

Tell me do you remember?

It also remembers me when Mr. Gates stole Pen-Computing technology from a young-innocent-guy who thought he could trust a company like Microsoft

Yep, there are lots of stories about these things.

Re:The Internet...

[scheming daemons]

So wait...did Al Gore or Bill Gates invent the internet?

Neither. But Gore had a lot more to do with it's growth and development than Gates did.

In the 80s, as a Senator, Gore at least knew what the Internet was...and helped provide funding to the NSF that helped speed up its development.

Bill Gates didn't even know the Internet existed until 1995.

Re:The Internet...

[dhogaza]

And, when Gore's quote is read in content, that's *all* he was claiming credit for. Helping secure funding because he understood the potential at a time when very few politicians had a clue about it.

The fact that Gore let crap like this slide, making him a laughingstock, is one example which helps to demonstrate that he was utterly incompetent during the Presidential campaign.

Re:The Internet...

[iapetus]

From an interview with Herman Hauser, of Acorn:

Q: Do you lie awake at night worrying that you'll be first again, but that someone else will make the money?
A: No [...] I often tell the story that Bill gates was trying to sell me MS-DOS in the early 80s and I had to say "Bill, we can't possibly take such a retrograde step, because our operating system really is an operating system and has many features that MS-DOS doesn't have. [...] schoolboy can type 'I am Johnny' into one of our computers and be logged on through the network to a local fileserver. They can use the same commands to get files down from the server that they've learned with a floppy disk." And Bill's answer to that was, "What's a network?"

Driving people to open source

[90XDoubleSide]

"Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines,"

So wat he's saying is that the mass adoption of their inflexible software has driven people to create open products that will meet their needs, or am I misinterpreting him ? ;)

Re:Driving people to open source

[Ami Ganguli]

I was trying to figure this one out myself. My best guess is that thinks Open Source requires commodity hardware, and figures that Microsoft helped to create the commodity PC platform.

I'll grant that MS helped to create the PC (although it wasn't entirely their doing by any means - Intel and IBM certainly had a role to play), I'm at a loss as to why this would be relavent to Open Source. Free/Open Source software tends to be much more cross-platform than proprietary stuff, so it's a pretty bizarre statement.

Could it be that Bill still doesn't get this whole Free Software thing? Can he really be that clueless about the non-Wintel universe?

Re:Driving people to open source

[91degrees]

What he seems to be saying is that Linux can't run on an Apple Mac or an Archimedes.

Surely one of the main reasons for open source is because there is such a diversity of similar but not identical hardware, having the source code means you can probably get it to run.

In fact, he was talking complete and utter crap. The PC is the least standard platform available. the only parts that are consistent are the CPU instruction set (which is hardly relevent since virtually everything is written in C and can be recompiled), and the VGA registers - which are now pretty much obsolete and used only as a fallback. There are at least a dozen different types of network hardware, a vast number of sound cards, a quite a lot of different quirks in the motherboards. Identical? Like hell!

Re:Driving people to open source

[Exedore]

So wat he's saying is that the mass adoption of their inflexible software has driven people to create open products that will meet their needs, or am I misinterpreting him ? ;)

Yeah, that's kinda like Osama bin Laden patting himself on the back for doing his part to beef up airport security.

Re:Driving people to open source

[Null_Packet]

I think what Bill is saying is that he feels the Open Source movement is riding on the coat-tails of Microsoft's success. I think he is implying that Microsoft broke ground and created a standards-based system of software (Office, Windows, etc) and the Open Source movement is using some of his original ideas and yet claiming to be at odds with MS.

As far as Bill being clueless- remember any large Corporation's PR stuff is like a big card game. Bill and Co. are very, very smart no matter how evil they may or may not be. Don't think for a second that Bill hasn't thought through the whole OSS movement.

Re:Driving people to open source

[haruharaharu]

standards-based system of software (Office, Windows, etc)

Something in this sentence does not beling.

Re:Driving people to open source

[flacco]

I think what Bill is saying is that he feels the Open Source movement is riding on the coat-tails of Microsoft's success.

That is exactly what he's saying. What astoundingly large cajones on that filthy bastard. He must have his Armani trousers specially fitted.

If OSS rides on the coat-tails of anything, it's the global collaboration that the Internet makes possible - and we all know how large a role Microsoft played in that.

Re:Driving people to open source

[Elwood P Dowd]

Yes, yes he can be very clueless about how other people think. He doesn't understand why people are upset with his company. He doesn't understand why people might not like his product. Some people have suggested that he seems a little autistic.

Fortunately for him, he has done a number of things to overcome these issues. He's usually burried the people that don't like his company, and improved his product so that most people like it.

Re:Driving people to open source

[dcavanaugh]

I agree with your statement on commodity hardware, although I think Bill was trying to portray OSS as an imitation of Microsoft. As you say, it's a bizarre statement.

As most people would agree, it was the Internet that commoditized network service protocols, and OSS that built on that base to offer true cross-platform compatibility. Bill's products discourage the use of non-Intel processors, whereas OSS works on just about anything.

Of course, Bill neglects to mention that Microsoft was slow to adopt the Internet, at a time when OSS was already there. Who is imitating who?

When I hear Bill take credit for industry standardization it's like having Osama bin Laden take credit for world peace or Al Gore inventing the Internet.

Re:Driving people to open source

[taniwha]

You failed the SAT analogies thingy didn't you .... he didn't compare Gates to bin Laden - he compared a real statement by Gates to one that bin Laden might have made in some parallel universe and then tried to point out that both would be equally absurd

You then totally misread his posting and used it as an excuse to attack "linux zealots" - maybe you come from that parallel universe

Re:Driving people to open source

[cworley]

What Gate's is saying is that he invented Open Source by opening the PC bios; which started the PC hardware revolution.

Until this admission, Compaq had been credited with clean-room reverse-engineering the PC bios. IBM had outsourced the CPU and OS thinking that control over the proprietary BIOS gave them comntrol over manufacture of the system.

Since Gates signed many NDA's with IBM, I wonder if this admission might get him into any trouble.

Anyway, a more complete quote:

"really the reason that you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines, and the bios of that should be open to everybody to use, and all the extensibility should be there." -- Bill Gates

Re:Driving people to open source

[Jetifi]

You said:

[BillG said:] "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines,"

So wat he's saying is that the mass adoption of their inflexible software has driven people to create open products that will meet their needs, or am I misinterpreting him ? ;)

Yes, you are misinterpreting him. What he is referring to is the wide availability of standards-based hardware due to the Microsoft-Intel alliance that, like it or not, brought computing out of the hobbyist and into the business world. They accomplished this despite their crappy software (compare: Macintosh), and probably because IBM fudged the attempted hardware-monopoly thing.

The emergence of Linux as a (cool)UNIX-like OS that runs on consumer hardware then lead to the explosion of interest in all things Open Source. Of course, the FSF and the GPL was around way before Open Source, so Gates knows his terminology here.

So, despite the contempt people have for Microsoft, you have them (and Intel, and IBM(for fucking up)) to thank for the cheap (relatively speaking) x86 hardware that Linux runs so happily on.

Take a look at In the beginning was the command line, by Neal Stephenson, for another take on the matter.

Re:Driving people to open source

[Wolfstar]

No, what he's saying is that if it wasn't for him and his drive to convince IBM that they should let people make PC clones, Linux would never have happened, and the FSF would most likely still be twiddling it's thumbs looking for a decent kernel to run their not-Unix. Which is true.

Boy, I can see the flamethrowers firing up now.

I hate to tell you folks, but while the man's no saint, Gates does not spend every waking moment trying to twist words and warp minds. If it was NOT for the fact that Microsoft didn't want to rely solely on IBM for a hardware platform and PUSHED them to say, "Hey, this hardware's gotta be opened up so others can duplicate and we can get a competitive free market going", then Linux wouldn't exist. Why? Linus sat down to write a UNIX kernel for his 386. Not his Mac, not is SparcStation, his 386. Other people ported it to other platforms after he set the foundation on x86.

While you're pondering that, try grasping that Linus would've had a hell of a hard time doing it without Richard Stallman and gcc.

So, to borrow a line from an essay by Neal Stephenson, which I highly recommend to anyone as a good perspective on the OS Wars and how they came about (The essay is In the Beginning was the Command Line);

"Microsoft refused to go into the hardware business, insisted on making its software run on hardware that anyone could build, and thereby created the market conditions that allowed hardware prices to plummet. In trying to understand the Linux phenomenon, then, we have to look not to a single innovator but to a sort of bizarre Trinity: Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, and Bill Gates. Take away any of these three and Linux would not exist. "

THAT is what Bill Gates was saying, perhaps laid out in terms that you can read without seeing a corporate spin on it.

Life's rough, but without Bill Gates and Microsoft, there would have been nothing for Linux to be built on.

Re:Driving people to open source

[gorilla]

No, what he's saying is that if it wasn't for him and his drive to convince IBM that they should let people make PC clones, Linux would never have happened,

Except it's wrong. Before PC clones there were CP/M S100 boxes. If Compaq hadn't cloned the IBM, then CP/M wouldn't have died.

Re:Driving people to open source

[Znork]

I hate to tell you, but Gates and the MS execs actually do spend every waking moment trying to invent new lies and twist words and warp minds. They are pathologically incapable of uttering anything but lies.

This statement by Gates is also yet another lie. Linux (as well as several other operating systems) runs on other hardware, and had Linus not had a PC he would have had another (cheaper, more powerful) platform to work on. Linux, BSD, hurd, whatever, we'd have the same thing today if Gates was retroactively aborted from history. He barely had anything to do even with the PC revolution; if he hadnt stolen QDOS, someone else would have sold IBM an OS, and considering people bought PC's because they were from IBM it would have gone the same, or a similar, way. And likely, without a dominant company with a severly mentally disturbed leader and leadership, we would have a far more healthy computer industry.

Re:Driving people to open source

[jmccay]

Not to mention that Open Source as a culture has it's roots predating Microsoft as a company. All the way bac to those early Unix days.

Re:Driving people to open source

[Jetifi]

I think we can thank our lucky stars that MS wasn't at all involved in the hardware side of things :-)

To elaborate, when the first IBM PC came out, there was a choice of some UNIX-alike, which was bundled at price+x, and there was DOS, which was at price+x-y, where y was enough to make most people choose DOS. On top of that, MS courted developers, and (I think) ended up with the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet app.

You're right - hypothetically, other companies could have taken the place of MS - but they didn't :-)

Re:Driving people to open source

[The Man]

Obviously Mr. Gates has no knowledge of the origins of Free Software, or would like people to think he has none. The earliest Free Software ran on various minis and very early micros, most of which are long since dead. The earliest Free Software to carry the name generally ran on SunOS and the LISP machines at MIT. The FSF was founded in 1983, not before the PC, it's true, but certainly before the advent of widespread clones and standardization, to say nothing of a *popular* platform for home computing at all. Free Software as a concept predates Microsoft by years, and as a name predates any meaningful market in standardized computers. About the closest thing you had at the time to standardized, consistent software was BSD.

Conclusion: This claim is utter rubbish. There's no way that anyone who follows the industry as well as Mr. Gates can be so ignorant, so presumably he just likes to boast. Ignore him for the arrogant fool he is.

Re:Driving people to open source

[elmegil]

Obviously Bill doesn't realize that open source software, while not having that name per se, goes back well before Windows was a glint in his eye.

Re:Driving people to open source

[Roblimo]

And do not forget the DoJ, which made it hard for IBM to maintain its PC hardware monopoly. I'm sure Gates and Ballmer remember that, and realize that the same could happen to them if, for some reason, the current President and AG suddenly decided to act like public servants instead of Microsoft employees.

- Robin

Re:Driving people to open source

[Jason Earl]

I believe you mean 'cojones.' 'Cajones' is Spanish for either 'large boxes' or 'coffins' depending on the context. Unless, of course you think that Bill Gates has some coffins stashed in his Armani trousers, in which case, you are certainly right, he must have one heck of a tailor.

That being said, Bill Gates neatly overlooks the fact that Free Unix got it's start providing commodity software for decidely proprietary midrange computers like the DEC VAX. Unix came late to the commodity hardware party. Commoditization is something that happens, Microsoft did it to the hardware makers, and now Linux and the Internet is doing it to Microsoft.

The OS is becoming a commodity.

Re:Driving people to open source

[schlach]

Yes, yes he can be very clueless about how other people think. He doesn't understand why people are upset with his company. He doesn't understand why people might not like his product. Some people have suggested that he seems a little autistic.

Who does that remind you of? ;)

"Smithers, are they booing me?"
"No...uh, they're saying, 'Boo-urns! Boo-urns!'"

Re:Driving people to open source

[xmedar]

You forgot the most incredible bit-

Gates said there's a role for free software alongside commercial software,

After all the M$ FUD, the Halloween documents, the Mindcraft study etc etc now they accept open source as legit.. I think I am going to open a bottle of very expensive champagne... as Ghandi once famously said "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"

Re:Driving people to open source

[xmedar]

Actually as I recall it was really Compaq that was responsible for pushing the IBM cloned BIOS / machines and thus opening the market for all the other clone manufacturers. I still have some computer mags from that time, and they are choc full of Compaq ads pushing their clones as much as they could. So if I were dishing out credit for the PC market of today, I'd say 1) IBM for creating the XT 2) Compaq for pushing the clone market 3) Intel for selling 8088s/8086s to all and sundry 4) all those that helped create the killer apps of the day (shoutouts to the Visicalc guys) 5) the fab production people for making Moore's law possible... and MS somewhere near the end as Bill did insist on that fscking stupid 640K limit.

Re:Driving people to open source

[Error27]

I think he means that Microsoft created the PC as we know it today. It doesn't so much matter to him that the computers are the same but that people have them at all.

Without computers then there would be no programmers and no users, right?

This statement completely ignores the fact that there were other computers available besides the PC. Apple was really big and there were Tandys and Comadores.

I know that most people interpret his statement as claiming that Microsoft created standards, that's a part of what he is say, but mostly he is claiming that Microsoft created computers. It's not the first time Bill Gates has said something like that.

You may or may not agree with his statement. :P

Re:Driving people to open source

[Andrewkov]

I think we can thank our lucky stars that MS wasn't at all involved in the hardware side of things

Wrong! The best things to ever come out of Microsoft are their mice, keyboards and joysticks. They should stick to hardware and forget about software entirely!!

Re:Driving people to open source

[Elwood P Dowd]

If, by "US" you mean "North and South America, Europe, Australia, most of Asia and Africa," then yes, that's funny parallel.

Re:Driving people to open source

[Guy Harris]

I think he is implying that Microsoft broke ground and created a standards-based system of software (Office, Windows, etc) and the Open Source movement is using some of his original ideas and yet claiming to be at odds with MS.

I don't, because what the shareholder meeting transcript quotes Gates as saying is

MR. GATES: Let me start out, really the reason that you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines, and the bios of that should be open to everybody to use, and all the extensibility should be there. And so it was very predictable that once we had gotten the PC going, and going and gotten hundreds of millions of machines out there, that it had always been sort of free software and the universities would flourish and there would be more of that.

which sure seems to me, at least, as if he's talking about the PC hardware platform.

I.e., it sounds more like what the person to whom you replied was saying than what you're saying.

Now, whether the PC became a mass-market platform because Microsoft "came in" and decreed that it should be open and standard is another matter. I think early versions of MS-DOS, at least, could run on x86 machines that weren't "IBM PC-compatible", and did run on some (I think the DEC Rainbow wasn't PC-compatible but did run DOS); it may have been that a bunch of applications, not all of which were from Microsoft (who I don't think were the dominant application vendor for DOS in the early days), which required "IBM-compatible" hardware.

Re:Driving people to open source

[jfunk]

The best things to ever come out of Microsoft are their mice, keyboards and joysticks.

You do realise that they don't actually make that stuff, right?

It's outsourced.

Re:Driving people to open source

[j-pimp]

Why would he do that if he didn't think there was going to be other companies selling 8086-based machines?
Perhaps that wa part of the forsight, but he probally just wanted to lock IBM into Microsoft so they would be forced to use Microsoft.

Re:Driving people to open source

[Gordonjcp]

Nobody reverse engineered the PC BIOS. I've got a copy of an XT service manual, circa 1982, with all the BIOS code right there in the back. Big long printout of it. All the circuit diagrams too, for the computer itself, keyboard, monitor, expansion cards, and even the printer. IIRC it's even got the circuit diagram for the floppy drive!

The PC manual was (if I remember correctly) much the same.

Re:Driving people to open source

[mpe]

Not to mention that Open Source as a culture has it's roots predating Microsoft as a company. All the way bac to those early Unix days.

Indeed probably considerably before that...

DUH!!!

[ackthpt]

We understand, based upon the fact that our industry didn't rally to support us, that we need to change the way we interact and relate to our industry," Ballmer said.

Like they haven't already killed off a lot of competitors, knifed in the back a lot of partners, and set their sights on other industries, which BTW could be customers of partners and competitors? The problem with being an 357.142851428 Kg. gorilla is, you can sit anywhere you like, but after you've done so, who's willing to be their friend and stick their neck out for you? Even some things PR can't fix.

Popularity bug?

[DrCode]

He's right on that. A local radio station has been running the following spoof of an XP commercial every morning:

(Madonna music in background)
Q: With XP, can I burn CD's?
A: Yes, you can.
Q: Can I send email?
A: Yes, you can.
Q: Can I create an internet virus?
A: Yes, you can.
Q: Can I download female-on-female animal porn?
A: Yes, you can.
Q: Can I install XP myself without help?
A: Not f***in' likely!

Re:Popularity bug?

[Anonymous Coward]

...no distribution of Linux has ever succesfully installed on my box!

Maybe if you open the box and take the computer out...

Juicy Excerpt

[Goronguer]

QUESTION: It appears to me that the open source movement is gaining momentum, and as I understand it the key to success of a software product involves efficiently building an ecosystem of developers and users, resellers, and so forth. Doesn't the open source model a more efficient paradigm for building such a community around your products, and isn't perhaps Microsoft maybe on the wrong side of that trend of long-term?

MR. GATES: Let me start out, really the reason that you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines, and the bios of that should be open to everybody to use, and all the extensibility should be there. And so it was very predictable that once we had gotten the PC going, and going and gotten hundreds of millions of machines out there, that it had always been sort of free software and the universities would flourish and there would be more of that. We certainly accept free software as part of the software ecosystem. In fact, there's a very virtuous cycle where people do free things, some people find that adequate, sometimes companies will take that work and turn it into commercial products, those companies will hire people, pay taxes. And so you see the free software and the commercial software existing together.

There is a particular approach that breaks the cycle called the GPL that is not worth getting into today, but I don't think there is much awareness about how so-called free software foundations designed that to break that cycle.

In terms of getting people excited about software and building communities around them, yes, that is a key to success. Nobody has done that more effectively than we have with Windows. Are there ways that we can do that better? Are there aspects of this where we're actually learning from all our different competitors out there? I think it's fair to say yes.

In the pre-software vision is that there would be no jobs in the software industry, there would be no testers, no engineers, no taxes paid, or anything of that notion. So I certainly don't agree with the full sort of free software foundation view that there should be no jobs in this area, and that the kind of commercial advances and risk taking that we've been able to do you can't get that, you can't get things like speech recognition on a tablet computer coming out of that kind of a paradigm. You can get things that follow along, you can get some smaller software, and so we embraced the idea of the free software paradigm and the commercial software paradigm moving forward in really a self-reinforcing way.

MR. BALLMER: I just want to add one thing, echo what Bill said, but encourage you to go to our web site. If there's a key learning for us, we can't have free software, it's kind of inconsistent with the goals of most people in the room. We recognize it, it probably doesn't fit in most of these people's mind's eye, so we're not going to embrace that. But there is something about the way the community works to support itself which is brilliant, and which we've done many good things, but we think we've seen some good things sort of in the Linux, et cetera, world, and I encourage you to go up to Microsoft.com and check out our community areas. It's an area where we have sort of massively mobilized. It's still in the early phases, but we are massively mobilizing to try to stimulate communities, support communities, and really, if you will, borrow one from their playbook.

Re:Juicy Excerpt

[(void*)]

MR. GATES: Let me start out, really the reason that you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines, and the bios of that should be open to everybody to use, and all the extensibility should be there. And so it was very predictable that once we had gotten the PC going, and going and gotten hundreds of millions of machines out there, that it had always been sort of free software and the universities would flourish and there would be more of that.

Here Bill Gates shows how much of a politician he is, and how MS hasn't really changed, however it wants to spin things. MS by itself was never the key driving force for the standardization of BIOS, and the millions of PC Clones. For that, IBM's blindspot, Compaq's reverse-engineering of the BIOS, the Taiwanese Motherboard manufacturers all shared part of the responsibility. MS never really drove the market in this direction, unless you consider anticompetitive OEM licensing deals as a Good Thing. Is MS taking credit for this?

As universities taking and buying up cheaper alternatives to the workstation, you can directly blame their tightening budgets, and the market-unaware Unix vendors for that.

Re:Juicy Excerpt

[wfrp01]

I am just amazed that these titans of high technology are barely able to speak the english language.

Re:Juicy Excerpt

[pubjames]

This is so funny. These guys really don't get it at all, do they? Dangerous for them.

In the pre-software vision is that there would be no jobs in the software industry, there would be no testers, no engineers, no taxes paid, or anything of that notion.

Well Bill, all of those things can still exist under an open source model, but it's a different model to yours. Can't you see that?

If there's a key learning for us, we can't have free software,

So, Steve, you're saying you're older and wiser than IBM? Than HP? Than Compaq, Sun, Dell, Intel and all the other companies that are contributing to the Open Source community and releaseing code under the GPL? I think not. They get it, you don't.

It's still in the early phases, but we are massively mobilizing to try to stimulate communities, support communities, and really, if you will, borrow one from their playbook.

Can anyone point me to any evidence of this? Really? I've honestly tried to find it. Are there disussion boards where developers can openly discuss Microsoft technologies, and MS engineers will chip in with comments? I've looked for that, couldn't find it.

The clock is ticking Steve, Bill. Let me spell it out for you: YOU DON'T GET IT! If you don't get it soon, you're going to slowly die. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

Re:Juicy Excerpt

[JeffL]

we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines, and the bios of that should be open to everybody to use

I kind of see what BG is saying here, that the free software movement couldn't have taken off without open, commodity hardware. This is wrong. The free software movement, as it came out of RMS and the MIT AI lab was a direct response to proprietary, closed hardware and software. The free software movement grew out of the tradition of open access to software and tools on very non-standard mini computer hardware.

In the early 80s when the FSF was founded, it was not clear yet that the IBM PC would be such a dominant force in the computing world. Commodity home machines aren't even mentioned in RMS's initial announcement. In fact, he is talking about replacing the system on very expensive, practically custom built machines, which were only found in universities and big businesses.

Sure, the pervasiveness of computing has been a major boost for free software, but this is a base rate issue (i.e., there are x free software users out of n*x computer users).

Pay a g**d damn dividend.

[FatRatBastard]

Forget all the anti-trust stuff and "we don't play well with other" crap for a minute. In terms of "investment relations" what MS needs to do is pay out a god damn dividend. They're sitting on a pile of cash, and the days of constant double digit growth are behind them. They are going to have to face up to the fact that they are a grown, mature company and their stock price is going to act accordingly.

That's what's driving their licensing debacle, BSA audits, etc. They've hit the wall in terms of market penitration on the desktop, they never achieved the "slam dunk/home run" domination of the server market they thought they would (not to mention where they do dominate there-- small print, file, web servers they've got linux/BSD nipping at their heels) and the X-box is going to put a hit on revenues for the next few years even if its a runaway success. Other than Web Sevices, which at best are a few years away, they have no room for massive growth.

So, if the stockprice ain't going up all that much they better start paying out on all that cash they're sitting on, or some investers are going to be none too happy.

(then again, I'm a code jockey, what the f**k do I know about finance)

Re:Pay a g**d damn dividend.

[acroyear]

They are going to have to face up to the fact that they are a grown, mature company

Uh...M$ is many things, but they're aren't mature yet...they're still a company that's being run by teenage geeks who are enacting their competitive revenge against all the jocks whoever put them down in grade school and high school, or are still trying to shove their attitude to their parents that, "hey, i can do this my own damn way and don't have to follow your rules anymore."

M$ is going to act like immature little teenagers sticking their collective middle fingers to any form of authority for as long as those two are still in charge of the company.

Re:Pay a g**d damn dividend.

[FatRatBastard]

Companies that pay dividends are essentially saying "we can't think of anything better to do with this cash we've generated

Well, afaik MS can't think of anything better either. They're just sitting on a mountain of cash. So, if they're not going to do anything better with it then the investors should get it. An investor only invests to make money. MS is no longer on the rapid upward growth they were. That's not a bad reflection on them, they've just become "big." They're a big, extablished company, and their stock price is going to reflect that from now on. I'd wager the days of its valuaton doubling every 18 months or so are GONE. So, if I've got $$$ in MS, and their growth is at a pedestrian level (and thus their stock price) AND they're just sitting on a mountain of cash, then they better a) use that cash to rekindle double digit growth (which at their size ain't going to last too long anyway) or b) start handing it over.

Re:Pay a g**d damn dividend.

[cirby]

This is so amazingly wrong that it's hard to believe someone typed it.

The whole point of owning shares in a company is to get dividends (i.e., cash payouts) for your investment. The silly idea that the company will keep growing so much that the stock price will go up indefinitely is bent, and is the reason so many dotcoms died.

Re:Pay a g**d damn dividend.

[FatRatBastard]

Ah.. I didn't realize this. Very interesting. Does anyone know how much buyback MS does on an annual basis?

Re:Pay a g**d damn dividend.

[spencerogden]

The _point_ of womeone own shares is to own a part of the company. What is good for the company is good for the shareholder. If what is good for the company (including share holders) is giving out dividens, then so be it. If the managers think they have a better idea, then so be it. Berkshire Hathaway thinks they have better ways to spend money than dividends, and I think most of their shareholders agree that they are doing the right thing with _their_ money.

Re:Pay a g**d damn dividend.

[rudedog]

There's not a single dollar in the country that isn't taxed twice and more. That's a myth used by people to who want to rationalize why they don't want to pay a certain tax (i.e., taxable dividends, estate taxes, etc.).

Whenever I give a tip to a waitress, that money has been "taxed twice". Or should one of us not be paying taxes on that money?

Re:Pay a g**d damn dividend.

[Happy Monkey]

What is good for the company is good for the shareholder.

How is this true, unless the shareholder gets some of the profit? The promise of perpetual stock price growth? The only way you can make money on that is to become less of an owner of that company.

If the managers think they have a better idea, then so be it.

Do you mean 'shareholders' when you say 'managers'? The shareholders are the owners.

Berkshire Hathaway thinks they have better ways to spend money than dividends, and I think most of their shareholders agree that they are doing the right thing with _their_ money.

Of course, the shareholders have the right to make whatever decisions they think best, but it's likely that dividends will become the primary value in a stock again.

Re:Pay a g**d damn dividend.

[humphreybogus]

I'm not much of a code jockey, but I know a bit about finance, having worked as an investment banker and venture capitalist.

1. Paying a dividend is not required by the IRS, the SEC or any federal law, as far as I know.

2. Paying a dividend exposes your money to double taxation: the standard corporate rate (paid at the time the profit was earned), and then your personal tax rate (including city, state, and federal). This is money out of your pocket as much as Bill's.

3. Whether Bill Gates ownes 25% of MSFT is irrelevant to the decision to pay a dividend. If I own one share, I'd rather receive the full value of my 1/# shares ownership of Microsoft's cash assets, rather than shave off an additional percentage to go to the government. Paying more taxes is not in the interest of Microsoft's shareholders, no matter how large their holdings. If anything, more stock held by management is a good thing--it aligns the incentives of the managers with the incentives of the stockholders. In a company where the management owns very little of the shares, you are far more likely to see decisions made that sell out shareholders (the owners) to the benefit of the current management (with foolhardy acquisitions, for example). This is a classic problem in economics, and it's why you rarely see small, owner-managed companies being as stupid with their money as large companies often are.

4. If Microsoft can't find profitable uses for the cash, it should buy back its stock. That, as one poster wisely pointed out, will increase the value of each share, as the same pie is divided by a smaller number of shares. Besides, the value of the cash on hand increases the book value of a single share of Microsoft--in other words, each share of ownership now entitles you to your proportional share of each additional dollar in MSFT's bank account, a gain in value that cost you nothing.

5. For most stockholders, the capital gains tax rate is lower (often far lower) than the personal income tax rate. As a result, you'd rather get paid back for your investment in Microsoft in stock price appreciation than tax-affected cash.

6. People buy equities (shares of stock) because they represent a future stream of cash flows generated from a business. In this way, buying the stock of a business is no different than buying a bond: both represent a stream of future payments, and the price you pay now depends on the magnitude, frequency, and likelihood of those payments. Thus, buying the stock of a company that doesn't pay dividends is like buying a zero-coupon bond (a bond that doesn't pay periodic interest, but that reaches full face value at maturity). The net result is that market adjusts the price you paid for the stock or bond to account for the nature of the payouts. Instead of valuing the stream of cash payments you receive in the form of dividends, you value the discounted cash flows that Microsoft retains.

But Microsoft shouldn't just sock away money in a money market account. If it can't find opportunities that offer a greater rate of return than a money market account or bonds (both vehicles which are available to individual stockholders as well), then it should buy back stock. (Technically, the rate-of-return hurdle for new lines of business or new acquisitions should be Microsoft's cost of capital, the rate at which it can "borrow" money from the capital markets.)

I hope that helps.

Give credit where due

[NewIntellectual]

Microsoft was founded in/around *1975* at a time when nobody thought there was a market for PC software. Some of the Marxists-in-training who regularly snipe at Microsoft were probably not even born then. A standard, cheap Intel platform that can run e.g. Linux exists because of Microsoft software driven custumer mass demand for PCs. It's very "in" to be a Microsoft basher, but try looking at reality sometime.

Re:Give credit where due

[cduffy]

Uhh, what?

While MS may have been *founded* in '75, the first product they made which acted as a significant force towards unifying the PC market was DOS (and later Windows), so any prior history was frankly irrelevant. The number of BASIC interpreters available on the market makes theirs really quite insignificant as a history-altering force.

The IBM PC predated Windows, and if Microsoft hadn't made MS-DOS, IBM would have simply licensed a different operating system. Perhaps if it weren't for Windows something like OS/2 or Desqview would have taken off, but the end result would have been the same -- a single dominating platform.

However, open source (much more than closed development) doesn't need a single dominating platform to thrive. I say this as someone working for an embedded systems company -- supporting Linux means we can take advantage of the ports done by entities motivated by their own internal needs rather than only those the marketing and engineering folks at OS Vendor, Inc. decide to support.

Thus, unless you're able to provide further evidence, I can't really see any reason to find your argument supportable.

Re:Give credit where due

[90XDoubleSide]

Microsoft was founded in/around *1975* at a time when nobody thought there was a market for PC software.

Is it just me or was Visicalc the killer app that drove mass adoption of consumer PCs? Thank them for the use of computers in the office and in homes, along with games and the human friendly hardware ideas implemented by Woz. And after that the desktop publishing revolution drove creative professionals to adopt computers, thank Adobe. You can argue that MS software creates standardization and makes PCs cheaper, but that is a very weak argument because of how the ridiculous prices they can set for their software through their monopoly powers (don't argue that point, it has been proven in court) inflates the price of PCs. It seems to me that YOUR computer history starts in the 80s, when MS was a real force and not yet another developer.

I am not a MS basher, I use Office 10 and it is a good product. I don't conisder it innovative or great however, and it didn't drive my computer purchase; programs from companies that innovate, not standardize, did that.

Re:Give credit where due

[ichimunki]

Um. In 1975 there really were no PCs to speak of (and when I say PC I use it to mean "personal computer" not "IBM PC compatible clone"). That might be part of the reason. And when machines like the Apple II and the Commodore 64 and that TI one and that Atari one started making their way into homes and schools and offices in the later 70's, there was *plenty* of non-MS software to be had.

As far as Microsoft being responsible for the standard platform, what a crock. For a long while the OS on a machine was hardly considered a key feature and no one much cared if they typed DIR or LOAD"$",8; LIST to see what files were on a disk. I suppose those with more hacker instinct leaned to the Apple, with it's modifiable DOS and more open architecture.

In fact, it was Apple with their first editions of Mac OS (and earlier prototypes) that really put the OS in the forefront on PCs. Prior to that the OS was a very small set of command line tools that really didn't do much other than provide a way to (maybe) write some BASIC, manage filesystems, and load/run applications. You found your applications you wanted to run and then you bought a computer that could run them, or you bought a computer suited to a certain type of applications. And yes, MS did write a lot of that early software, even for non-Intel platforms, but even without MS most everything would have happened. Sorry.

So if you're done with the ad hominem attacks, you can prove that you *were* born before 1975, because your little history lesson is sorely lacking.

Re:Give credit where due

[DrSpin]

Nobody? You must be kidding. I worked for a software house at the time. For a whole year, no software house released ANY software, because they were all reserving every programmer for when they had to port their new products to the IBM PC.

Anybody who knew anything KNEW the PC would be HUGE. Go back and read Byte Magazine or Dr Dobbs Journal.

Before MS, you always got the source code when you paid for software. (Well from DEC or IBM, anyway.)

And there was a big free software community eg DECUS the DEC user group. I still have DECUS tapes with Free software on. Including the ORIGINAL COLOSSAL CAVE Adventure game. (I ported a later, better, version to FreeBSD.)

And a Pascal compiler.AFAICR, Even Richard Stallman was around.

MS Stuffed the industry, and shafted the customer.

Free Software, and mass machines were around before MS. The scale was smaller, but then, lots of us were smaller.

Re:Give credit where due

[cascadefx]

Microsoft was founded in/around *1975* at a time when nobody thought there was a market for PC software. Some of the Marxists-in-training who regularly snipe at Microsoft were probably not even born then.

Actually, I believe Richard Stallman was born by then and he created the Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project... and probably the whole idea of Free Software. Also, he started working on Free Software on Sun hardware and not not PCs, so that kind of shoots your argument down a little. He wrote emacs (a free software product) in 1974 before Microsoft was even founded.

Heck, Microsoft wasn't even working on Operating Systems until the emergence of commodity PCs (thanks to IBM for mistakenly creating the commodity PC market) in the early eighties. MSDOS 1.0 (which Microsoft didn't write and instead bought off of someone else) wasn't released until 1981. The GNU project to create a free version of Unix was founded in 1984. The same year the Microsoft finally got around to stealing the idea of a GUI OS from Apple (who in turn stole it from Xerox Parc... which ended up giving it to Apple for... ahem... free ).

So...what was your point again?

While it is "in," among the Microsoft faithful, to be an Open Source basher, you should try looking at reality sometime.

Re:Give credit where due

[hearingaid]

It's true that Microsoft was one of the early microcomputer developers: AFAIK their first contract was for Altair BASIC.

However, it wasn't M$ that created consumer mass demand for PCs: It was Woz and Jobs, with their little Apple ][. That was the first consumer computer, not the PC.

M$ does have a lot to do with the triumph of Intel. But those of us who remember the 4004 are not certain this is a good thing.

Re:Give credit where due

[Sloppy]

A real Randroid wouldn't defend Microsoft. Bill Gates too much resembles Peter Keating.

Re:Give credit where due

[cascadefx]

he absolutely did not have the foresight to anticipate the PC revolution. And Gates did and decided to get rich off of it.

Actually, he did anticipate the PC/software revolution and decided (for himself) that he had moral qualms with charging people outlandish sums of manoey for software. The FSF was created to enable people through technology, no matter what their economic status was.

Just some thoughts

Gates invented Open Source

[Pinball Wizard]

Gates also took some credit for the genesis of open-source software. He said Microsoft made it possible by standardizing computers: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines," he said.

Why, he's the Al Gore of Open Source!

Wrong again

[M_Talon]

Gates said: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines"

No, the reason you see open source is because people want the ability to customize code to their own personal needs without having to license said code from a monolithic company known for overcharging. Mr. Gates needs get rid of the god complex. Open source has nothing to do with identical desktops and everything to do with control of the code. This statement is just more overgrandizing and makes him look even more out of touch with the industry than he already is.

Re:Wrong again

[FatRatBastard]

Yeah, I was wondering exactly how and IBM mainframe was the same platform as a StrongArm PDA :)

Weren't these the folks who took credit for TrueType fonts? Who now claim they were hip to the internet back in 95 when they were really banking on CDRom subscriptions and a closed MSN?

And when the hell did MS demand an open platform? In the history of the PC I remember I don't recall MS being in the design meetings with the IBM guys.

I often wonder if those boneheads actually believe their PR.

Re:Wrong again

[blair1q]

You almost got it, but you're thinking passive and you're thinking it has to do with feature changes.

The reason you see open source is that without open source you don't get a port of some code to your computer.

Being able to customize its features is just a bonus.

Open source is a collective term for all the code that's ever been released by someone who developed it on one machine and was asked to port it to another and said no, if you want it, you do it. Or more often was asked "you know, I'd really like to run your menu-driven pizza builder there but I have an Amygdala21 with a 9-bit Fahnestock busk, can I get your code and see if I can hack some diffs into it?"

Emacs, Gnu, X11, Perl, rogue, etc., etc2., etc2.034.3, etc.

A monolithic market with a single architecture and OS would not at all support open source. It would ensure that closed-source would be a viable business model, since you would know that your code's market was every computer in the world.

But computers were designed to be programmed by humans, and it was only a matter of time before someone more human than Microsoft created an API for an Intel microprocessor that didn't make Bill Gates Even More The Richest Man On Earth Again This Year.

So when Bill said he created open source, he wasn't just being stupid or obfuscatory, he was stating the diametric opposite of the truth.

--Blair

Developers!

[Tackhead]

Q: And Mr. Ballmer, what do you think about...
A: Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!

Q: Uh, never mind... please stop dancing around, Mr. Ballmer, and for god's sake, man, use some fuckin' anti-perspirant!

Re:Developers!

[ThatComputerGuy]

Blatant whoring link here for both of the videos.

I take no responsibility for any emotional damage you suffer from these videos.

Re:Developers!

[Fjord]

For those who don't get it. (I'm gonna be /.'ed. Oh well.)

Popularity bug?

[91degrees]

Surely he means popularity "feature"!

Ballmer sums it up...

[Rice-Pudding]

"Second, we know we need to continue to focus in on our relationship with our customers. This is an area where we need to be ever vigilant. Certainly, as Bill talked about, we have opportunities for improvement in security, in virus protection, in the way we license and sell our products, and the reminders on that are always in front of us." --Steve Ballmer

I think this pretty much sums up a lot of what is wrong with Microsoft:
1) Security
2) The way they license and sell products.

At least they are realizing that market opinion is starting to go against them, and are trying to change this. I don't love Microsoft, but if they started to change their licensing tactics, I would be more inclined to buy their products.

Re:Ballmer sums it up...

[tb3]

No, no, no; you've got to learn to read between the lines in these things. "Opportunities" means "un-tapped revenue streams". What Ballmer means is that they'll soon be selling 'Security Manager' to secure your IIS Server, and 'Virus Manager' to keep viruses off your IIS Server, and 'Licence Manager' to make sure your MS software is all properly licenced.

Freedom to Innovate Network

[Christopher Whitt]

Since everybody's posting juicy bits, here's one I like.

When asked what members of the Freedom to innovate network can do to help Microsoft now that the trial is winding down. Did that sound like a planted question or what?! And they didn't answer the question at all. They just said the FTIN is a lobby organization that's been useful to us, so join the FTIN!

I had a good laugh anyway...

QUESTION: Thank you. My name is Bonnie Johnson, and my question to you is, you started the Freedom to Innovate Network, and now that we've gotten quite far with the lawsuit, how are you going to bring that forward, and how can we, the people that belong to that network, help?

MR. NEUKOM: Yes. The network is a very vital organization, it's open for new members and we invite more activity from existing members. We are constantly supplying information and it is designed to be a grassroots organization of people of open-minded goodwill who are interested in bringing to the attention of public decision makers useful information and help them make sensible decisions in a way that would be constructive for high-technology industries, particularly information technology. So, we thank all of you who are members, we invite you all to consider being members, and that network provides a vital source of information that helps bring about decisions that help us as an industry innovate and grow and serve our customers.

Yup, give credit to IBM

[sterno]

The PC platform that Gates is touting was created by IBM, not Microsoft. Sure, Microsoft software was running on all of them but what made it appealing was the low costs of the hardware which came about by IBM's rather loose licensing policies. It took a very long time for the PC to become vaguely usable, but it remained cheap and ubiquitous which is why it eventually came to dominate.

But Microsoft's position in that domination was, at best, an accident. They were in the right place at the right time and did a good job of screwing IBM. Credit to them for that, but not much else.

Re:Yup, give credit to IBM

[IntlHarvester]

IBM didn't even invent the Intel-based 'clone'. They were absurdly common before IBM entered the market, complete with BIOSes and MS BASIC, only with 8080s (or Z80s) instead of the 8088, and CP/M instead of MS-DOS.
<overstatement>
The only thing that IBM really did for the industry was standardize the disk drive, making sneakernet possible.
</overstatement>

If not IBM, then probably somebody else (Intel?) would have gotten all the hardware details standardized. The industry's been fine since IBM dropped out of the picture in the 80s.

Microsoft was positioned in the right place. If there was no IBM PC, Microsoft would probably still dominate the industry in 2001. Extending into micro applications was a no brainer for them. Trying to control the API is a no brainer from there.

Anyway, they aren't directly responsible, but their spot sure wasn't accidential.

Re:Yup, give credit to IBM

[cworley]

>IBM didn't even invent the Intel-based 'clone'.

They invented the "original".

IBM outsourced the CPU from Intel, the OS from MS, but they could control all systems sales by holding the BIOS as their IP. That was their secret weapon to control the market, and it blew up in their face when Compaq reverse engineered the BIOS (although, Gates seems to be taking credit for that, now).

Reverse engineering the BIOS ignited the PC hardware revolution. With this single event, anybody could make motherboards and adapters that were compatible with the IBM PC. The PC hardware competition has not been a proble since.

The OS and CPU were the only proprietary elements left atop an open platform. Both companies still abuse that monopoly position.

Re:Yup, give credit to IBM

[IntlHarvester]

Nope, the IBM PC wasn't "original" at all. It was nothing more than a gussied up S-100 machine with a big name brand on it and a retail display at Sears.

Reverse engineering the PC was just the shortcut to hardware standardization that the existing industry badly needed. IBM's control of the market proved to be a temporary phenomenon as MCA proved.

Re:Yup, give credit to IBM

[Error27]

>>what made it appealing was the low costs of the hardware which came about by IBM's rather loose licensing policies.

A nit to pick. The first PC's were way more expensive than comparable Apple computers at the time.

PC's caught on because of IBM's name brand and marketing. They weren't cheap.

They got cheaper after compaq cloned them, though.

Re:Yup, give credit to IBM

[cworley]

>Nope

Yup. While there were many systems available at the time, the BIOS personalized and made proprietary the mainboard. The other boards available were not 100% compatible, until the BIOS was reverse engineered. Try running DOS software on an S-100... it doesn't work.

While a BIOS is simple to reverse engineer when compared to a CPU or an OS, it was not a trivial task.

The history is well known and well documented throughout the computer industry: IBM thought it could control the systems sales by holding the BIOS proprietary. Compaq reverse engineered the BIOS and ended IBM's lock on the PC hardware, and ignited the PC hardware revolution from which Intel and MS have obtained their monopolies.

Re:Yup, give credit to IBM

[cworley]

> If by "DOS Software" you meant CP/M software

I think the difference can be understood in the history of two men:

Gary Kildall, writer of CP/M, committed suicide.

Bill Gates, buyer of QDOS, is now the richest man in the world.

IBM PC platform compatibility was very important, and made a big difference, as shown in the lives of these two men.

----

Women?

[Schwamm]

In the Q&A portion near the end, I thought it was interesting how two different people (both women, I believe) brought up the topic of the number of women on the board. Apparently 1/23 isn't a good enough number for them.

Re:Women?

[haruharaharu]

Apparently 1/23 isn't a good enough number for them.

Well, for whatever reason, software is currently dominated by men. GE, on the other hand, has 3 women out of 17 people on their board

Just one thought

[jd]

I don't know if it's "normal business practice", but I have never seen such artistic dancing around the questions.

If you were to distill the -essence- of what was said (especially on women on the Board and in the company), you'd end up with exactly nothing. Sure, they may be concerned about this, or feel strongly about that. I'll allow for that possibility. But feelings don't equate to action. They're just feelings, the same as "happy" and "sad".

Even the sweeping apparently-grandiose statements made wrt "Open Source" and "Free Software" really reduce to nil. Sure, they may have been a factor in the popularity of "Open Source". But there are probably as many coders inspired by a rainbow, or a fascinating geological formation.

In short, I have to give credit for an amazing non-statement, which said exactly nothing and offered nothing. However, the credit has a value of $0.00.

Re:Just one thought

[Bearpaw]

I don't know if it's "normal business practice", but I have never seen such artistic dancing around the questions.

Well, it seems to be a fairly typical example of CorpSpeak to me. If they're true to form, most of their effort will go into trying to change their image rather than into making any substantive changes.

Re:Just one thought

[llywrch]

> I don't know if it's "normal business practice", but I have never seen such artistic dancing around the questions.

Naw, this is just middling. Not that I have any love for billg, but I have seen worse:

In spring of 2000, the company I worked for declared chapter 11 bankrupcy. The next day there was an all-hands meeting with the CEO. It took three different people asking ever more pointedly the question ``Is the stock we own in this corporation now worthless?" before he would provide a yes or no answer. And he said it with a look on his face as if he had just been forced to admit he, indeed had sexual relations with the family dog.

And I'm sure there are even more horrific stories out there about the obsfucation TPHBTB[1] practice on their minions.

Geoff

[1]TPHBTB == The Pointed Haired Powers That Be

Q&A: Open source, women, and China

[WillSeattle]

Yes, the Q&A was quite revealing. I think the open source question appeared to be basically ignored, politely.

The issue of women execs was also something you could tell they weren't going to address, which is very strange, in that most of Bill Gates foundation work has focussed on educating women and providing contraceptive measures for women in third-world countries.

As to China, this again was something that didn't seem to be that interesting to the execs.

Very disappointing responses, overall. One related news item in the Seattle P-I business section today noted that many MSFT employees have picked up their purchases of stock recently.

Does this mean we're nearing the bottom of the market, or that they know something we don't?

-

That's not a publicity bug...

[ThatComputerGuy]

I'm sure Ballmer does not have a "publicity" bug-- it looks more like ebola or something, and he's not afraid to go out in public with it.

TGFM

[Tim]

"And so it was very predictable that once we had gotten the PC going, and going and gotten hundreds of millions of machines out there, that it had always been sort of free software and the universities would flourish and there would be more of that."

I, for one, am glad that Microsoft came along. After all, what would we do without the universities?

How is this Juicy?

[NineNine]

How is this juicy? Gates and Ballmer have been asked by the people who own their company and all of the intellectual property if they have any plans of giving it all away for free. They said essentially "no", because then there'd be no business to speak of and all of your investments would be worthless. This is pretty damn basic. How is this "juicy"??

Re:How is this Juicy?

[lcypher]

"How is this juicy? Gates and Ballmer have been asked by the people who own their company and all of the intellectual property if they have any plans of giving it all away for free. They said essentially "no", because then there'd be no business to speak of and all of your investments would be worthless."

From the transcript: "As in prior years, we have the company store here in an adjoining room, so that you have an opportunity to go in and purchase Microsoft products."

But I thought they OWNED the company? They have to purchase products that were the fruit of intellectual property that they OWN?

Did you happen to read the "owners" question? It seemed they thought the open-source model was better, and that Microsoft was "maybe on the wrong side of that trend of long-term?" Seems juicy to me.

Where is the logic?

[mystery_bowler]

I think I'd have to hear more of an explanation about that credit-taking statement. As it stands, it doesn't make any sense.

I mean, sure, open source might not even be an issue if companies like MS weren't hell-bent on performing in monopolistic ways. But him saying MS is responsible for the open source movement is like saying the Romans who persecuted the early Christians should have credit for it's spread.

Gates: "Well, shareholders, I know the world thinks I'm an evil son-of-a-bitch, but if I wasn't an evil son-of-a-bitch, there wouldn't be this great open source movement going on!"

Gorism?

[mickeyreznor]

Gates also took some credit for the genesis of open-source software. He said Microsoft made it possible by standardizing computers: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines," he said.

Wow, thanks for the info Bill. I didn't know you guys did hardware! And open source was your creation? Really! Did you invent the internet also, or was Al Gore lying to us?

Why there is no g**d damn dividend.

[WillSeattle]

In answer to the question of why MSFT doesn't pay a "g**d damn dividend", it's pretty simple.

Look, MSFT is a shell company, one that permits Bill and Paul and a few other major shareholders to buy other companies. By maximizing the capital growth and having no dividends, they reduce their effective tax rate to 8 to 10 percent. Then they sell off a few shares and pay the 5 year capital gains tax on them, or sell the high purchase shares and keep the low purchase shares, thus getting a capital loss.

That's why there's no dividend.

Until MSFT becomes more like GE, where no single shareholder owns more than 20 percent of the stock, this will never change.

This is their way of avoiding taxes. People like me buy a mix of stocks - some dividend and some non-dividend - we use the non-dividend stock to go long on capital gains and thus reduce our tax hit (realized income) and use the dividends from the other stock (or bonds, PERQs, SPARQs, money market) to provide enough cash flow for expenses.

Thus we pay less tax than the working poor do. My realized income is very small. And so is Bill's and Paul's.

Unless you change the tax system, we'll keep doing things like that. There is no incentive to realize earned income, under the current system.

-

Re:Why there is no g**d damn dividend.

[FatRatBastard]

The lynchpin to all of this is, of course, the ever rising price of their stock. As long as folks' stock prices were rising no one cared that MS issued new stock like Charmin issues toilet paper. And there in lies the rub.

Once the price of the stock no longer goes up and levels off its a whole new ballgame. Those institutional investers are going to want to see some return on investment. MS has a killer revenue source due to their entrenchment of Windows/MSOffice. But stock price is corrolated with growth, and there's stagnation in the market where MS dominates. If the stock price also stagnates then large investors are going to demand a piece of the revenue pie (in the form of dividends) or are going to get the hell out of dodge.

Re:Why there is no g**d damn dividend.

[Tupper]

If the stock price also stagnates then large investors are going to demand a piece of the revenue pie (in the form of dividends)

No. Dividends are inefficent tax wise. A better run no-growth company will often buy back stock. This will have the same effect: money from the company is redistributed to stock holders. Only that money is taxed at the lower capital gains rate.

This strategy also has the side effect of increasing the value of the corporate officers' stock options.

Re:Why there is no g**d damn dividend.

[dazed-n-confused]

WillSeattle wrote:

Until MSFT becomes more like GE, where no single shareholder owns more than 20 percent of the stock, this will never change.

This is their way of avoiding taxes.

No, that can't be right. In the minutes of the meeting, billg explicitly complains about the free software movement (which is amusingly typo'd in the official transcript):

In the pre-software vision is that there would be no jobs in the software industry, there would be no testers, no engineers, no taxes paid, or anything of that notion.

So remember, kids: Microsoft pays its taxes; the free software movement doesn't!

Re:Why there is no g**d damn dividend.

[FFFish]

What would happen if there was a lawsuit to force MS to pay its taxes?

I'm sure what it's doing is wholly legal. So what if there were a class-action suit, on behalf of all the taxpayers of the USA, that claims that the loopholes must be sealed off, and that MS must pay taxes?

Not sure there's anything in this idea, but let's see what sort of holes can be poked in it...

Interesting question:

[psyclone]

QUESTION: Is there a way that shareholders can get more information about [what effort is there to ensure that Microsoft is complying with its own business practice standards, and compliance policies]?

MR. BALLMER: We don't have a published document. But, I feel very good about where we are, there are no violations, none known to any of the executive management team, and I feel like we're in very good touch.

Microsoft has grown so large, even it's shareholders want to know if there are checks and balances within the company. Anyone have information on what other companies do for compliance of their own standards?

You forgot the What If part of it.

[SyntheticTruth]

Ya know, I do agree with you to a point: MS did push/prode some for of standards on personal computers back in the day. The merits of their system (I hated DOS then too) can be debated elsewhere.

Now, that said...

What if there had never been Microsoft? What if Bill Gates had decided to sell insurance and then get into designing role-playing games instead?

Would we not have PC's today? Would we still be in the 70's era of computers?

I highly doubt it. Somehow, we would have stilled ended up with PCs today, probably just with another OS and such. (Like OS Warp or even a true desktop *nix, who knows?)

So, arguing that MS is responsible for where we are today is kinda pointless and giving them lots of credit for it is just as so. They were in the right place, pushed the right buttons, and did so at the right time. Nothing more.

Re:BWAHH HAHHAHA.......

[the_2nd_coming]

you dumb ass, people were not buying MS windows, they were buying a computer that ran software they wanted. you can replace DOS/win3.1/win95 with any other OS and folks would still have bought the damn computers. god I hate the morons who can not understand that.

Bill's Right

[gdyas]

Gates also took some credit for the genesis of open-source software. He said Microsoft made it possible by standardizing
computers: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's
identical with millions and millions of machines," he said.

Well Bill, you're right. You are the reason for open-source software. Just not for the reasons you think you are.

Dick.

They have to care.

[mindstrm]

They don't care if a few people disagree with them.. but when a great many devleopers start NOT supporting microsoft, and not sayin "Gee, this is great new stuff you've given the world".. microsoft sees problems on the horizon.

Microsoft invented the PC?

[astrosmash]

MR. GATES: Let me start out, really the reason that you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines, and the bios of that should be open to everybody to use, and all the extensibility should be there.

So, is Bill "Stop stealing from me" Gates now saying that his company is responsible for the open architecture of the IBM PC, and therefore open source in general?

How very droll.

Arrogance

[tuxlove]

Gates and Ballmer exude pure arrogance in the way they take credit for everything from the BIOS to free software. The victor is the one who writes history, eh? Good thing they're not the victor yet, and their attempts at writing the history books come off as lies.

Gee, I didn't know Gates was responsible for all that free software I used to use back in the CPM days before M$ even existed. Even the stuff I wrote too! Thank you, Bill Gates! Without you, I wouldn't exist today!

Microsoft wants to destroy Open Source!!

[mosch]

An actual Ballmer quote:

If there's a key learning for us, we can't have free software, it's kind of inconsistent with the goals of most people in the room. We recognize it, it probably doesn't fit in most of these people's mind's eye, so we're not going to embrace that.

More proof that we need to mobilize the power that is slashdot to write more GPL software. I love the BSD license as much as anybody, but it's obvious that Microsoft will hijack BSD licensed software, and use it for their own negative purposes.

Come on people, what GPL projects have you contributed to? File a bug report, write a patch, help with the documentation, write a HOWTO, anything. Help make Linux strong!

Re:Microsoft wants to destroy Open Source!!

[Mad Marlin]

... More proof that we need to mobilize the power that is slashdot to write more GPL software. I love the BSD license as much as anybody, but it's obvious that Microsoft will hijack BSD licensed software, and use it for their own negative purposes ...

The perfect example of this is how Microsoft hijacked the TCP/IP stack from BSD. However, I argue that this is a good thing. If they just take the code verbatim, then it most likely is going to be very compatible with everything else, unless they specifically go out of their way to break compatability. Notice that Microsoft is not planning to introduce a new .TCP/IP#, their use of the BSD code has shifted the issue to other things. They won't release any improvements back to the community, but they won't go out of their way to break a working system either.

Take the primary example used by most people against the BSD licence, that of Microsoft `stealing' an entire BSD system (whether FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, or whatever) and releasing it as their operating system. I argue that this would be a good thing, both for Microsoft and for everybody else, although I seriously doubt that it would ever happen. A few people who work on the BSD stuff would be annoyed, but most would not mind, only the Linux crowd would raise a real stink about it. Think about it: Apple is doing it (MacOS-X) and all that is going to do is help the BSD software community. Sure, OS-X has a lot of unnecessary differences from any standard BSD, but nothing that isn't just a matter of minor re-configuration, small shell scripts, and carefully placed symbolic links. If Microsoft were to release Windows-X, or MS-BSD, or whatever stupid name their marketing division thought up, while they would make a lot of stupid changes just to be different, it would still fundamentally be a BSD system at its heart, and that would be a good thing for Microsoft, a good thing for the purchasers of Microsoft software, and a good thing for the BSD community.

The BSD license is not about insuring that oh-so-evil Bill Gates finally gets his company destroyed. It is not about insuring that I can read the source code to every single piece of software on the planet. It is not about world domination. It is about insuring that quality, compatible systems exist everywhere.

Re:Microsoft wants to destroy Open Source!!

[AME]

"Hijacked" is the wrong word, anyway. It suggests that Microsoft forcably overtook the TCP/IP stack that was formerly BSD's and so BSD no longer had one, which is of course not true.

What MS did was used the code as a part of their own, at no cost to BSD. This is perfectly acceptable by the BSD license, and Microsoft should not be seen as having wronged anyone for doing it (which is what the word 'hijacked' wrongly suggests). Microsoft, for its part, probably did everybody a favor by not trying to write it themselves. We can thank our lucky stars for that.

To see this another way, ask a Free Software enthusiast about "pirated software" and get ready for an earful about how software can be copied freely and so "pirated" is the wrong word...

Future of MS

[briggsb]

Here's a different look at Microsoft's future.

Mennonite church?

[matt[0]]

QUESTION: Hello. My name is Charles Eng, and I'm representing Seattle Mennonite Church, also a Microsoft shareholder. My question is a follow up on the shareholder's resolution. What ongoing effort is there to ensure that Microsoft is complying with its own Microsoft business practice standards, and compliance policies. Is there an annual report on that?

I don't know a whole lot about Mennonite churches, but isn't this a little liberal for them?

Re:Mennonite church?

[Eccles]

I am a Mennonite, and a church owning stock at all probably suprises me more than a church owning MSFT....

It doesn't surprise me. Own one share, and you're a shareholder. You can then shake things up a little at these meetings by asking the questions the rest of the money-focussed shareholders would shy away from like it was 10-day-old roadkill. (Or these days, an envelope filled with white powder.)

No Mor Mr. Nice Microsoft

[MaxwellsSilverHammer]

"We understand, based upon the fact that our industry didn't rally to support us, that we need to change the way we interact and relate to our industry."

Translation: "No more Mr. Nice Microsoft. From now on we will use stronger threats."

Unamerican?

[Eryq]

So if Microsoft is responsible for Open Source, and Open Source (by their own accusations) is Unamerican, then isn't Gates really taking credit for a great deal of Unamerican Activity?

Hmmm, you know, this IS a time of war. Maybe the new Ashcroft HUAC would be interested...

Ultimate summary

[Ogerman]

"MR. BALLMER: I just want to add one thing, echo what Bill said, but encourage you to go to our web site. If there's a key learning for us, we can't have free software, it's kind of inconsistent with the goals of most people in the room. We recognize it, it probably doesn't fit in most of these people's mind's eye, so we're not going to embrace that."

It's quite simple really. They tell shareholders what they want to hear and their shareholders don't want to hear about free software.. Yet! I've said it a hundred times: the free software revolution is in its infancy. When the 'critical mass' of OSS code base is reached, which is inevitable, Microsoft is going to have to innovate or die. Free and proprietary software are not complementary and they will not peacefully co-exist for much longer.

Ominous: Gates mentions "TAXES" twice

[flacco]

I think Gates & Co. is exploring the tactic of making open source work taxable. True, no money changes hands - but you owe taxes on barter transactions. If you look at it just right (i.e. from the perspective of a politician who's just had a big wad of cash stuffed up his ass), you could see open source work as a large amorphous blob of untaxed barter transactions.

I don't think this holds any water whatsoever but it might serve as the thread of a pretext to unravel the warm snug cozy wool poncho we all call open source. There are several dozen ways you spin this to make it look like those damnable hackers and terrorists aren't paying their taxes like everyone else has to.

"The power to tax is the power to destroy." - Some dude whose quote I haven't given much thought to until recently

Yep, that was the only computer.

[Mike Schiraldi]

Yep, while all this was going on, Apple was just sitting on their hands. Commodore, too. And the TRS-80. Atari, too. Microsoft was the only one who saw a future in the home computer market.

Wow, he admitted it.

[Erris]

In fact, there's a very virtuous cycle where people do free things, some people find that adequate, sometimes companies will take that work and turn it into commercial products, those companies will hire people, pay taxes.

"All your base are belong to us". Amazing! He's addmitted that he thinks his company should be free to exploit the labor of others without compensation and be the only conduit of that free effort in any "adequate" form. This does not do much for my view of M$. I'm waiting for anything M$ that is the equal of Debian, Red Hat or OpenBSD, and therefore adequate.

It's the blind leading the blind. Bill, where is your mind?

Microsoft didn't "make" MS-DOS...

[cirby]

They bought it from the guy who did. If Microsoft hadn't existed, IBM would have bought it directly from Gary Kildall, or used the real deal (CP/M, which was what DOS was inspired by), or any of a number of other operating systems that were easily available in the 1980 time frame.

All Microsoft did was the same thing they always did... sold something that someone else invented after sticking their name on it.

Re:There really is credit due, but...

[dinotrac]

Microsoft has had a significant hand in creating a common PC platform, and their biggest "contribution" came first.

That contribution? Convincing IBM to license PC-DOS on a non-exclusive basis. That left Microsoft free to sell MS-DOS to clone makers.

With the same OS available, only the BIOS needed cloning in order to produce IBM compatible machines.

No noble intentions, but a very powerful coup.

Boy, they *do* take credit for everything!

[Tim]

"And so it was very predictable that once we had gotten the PC going, and going and gotten hundreds of millions of machines out there, that it had always been sort of free software and the universities would flourish and there would be more of that."

Bill's right. We should be nicer to Microsoft. The universities are flourishing, fer chrissakes!!

Re:Im so tired of Capitalism

[Dr. Awktagon]

Microsoft doesn't represent capitalism, at least not the kind of free-market capitalism that benefits society. They are so large and entrenched and benefited by government laws (copyright), they are basically some kind of quasi-authoritative government of their own. Copyright basically allows them to enforce arbitrary unsigned contracts (kinda like when congress passes a law, hey if you don't like it move out of the country. Hey if you don't like microsoft's licenses, don't buy any computers.). They spread propaganda, they send thugs (BSA) to enforce their laws (licenses). The broken balance between property rights and freedom is evident in Microsoft. All they need now is a police force!

Give credit to those who reverse engineered...

[ostiguy]

the pc bios. If you think IBM is some paragon of open and cheap systems, I have a 80lb, MCA bus only IBM PS/2 model 80 to sell you, that originally retailed for at least 6k, IIRC, maybe 8k. IBM was forced downwards pricewise by those who figured out the pc bios and made clones. IBM tried to avoid that with proprietary foolishness - MCA, and it damn near killed them (that among a shopping list of bad decisions in the late 80s).

ostiguy

Re:Knifed in the back?

[Ami Ganguli]

There are lots of small examples: Borland, Netscape, Intel (when they tried to produce media software or something like that), pretty much every PC manufacturer. But the really big obvious one is IBM with OS/2.

Microsoft started working on OS/2 with IBM. Then they essentially sabotaged the project while working on NT behind the scenes. By the time IBM figured out what was going on and took over the development on their own, it was too late.

I have a sneaking suspician that IBM's conversion to the Linux religion is partially due to bitter IBM execs who finally see a chance to settle an old score with Microsoft.

Interesting since M$ paid no taxes...

[bubbha]

Did I not read on this site that M$ paid no federal taxes last year? Maybe Bill could help out Uncle Sam a little and pay his fair share..or under a Republican administration is his fair share zero!!!!

Re:Interesting since M$ paid no taxes...

[night_flyer]

psssssssst.... Clinton was in office last year...

Hard to install? Hah!

[Redline]

XP has one of the easiest installations I've ever seen, and no distribution of Linux has ever succesfully installed on my box!

Are you sure you don't have it backwards? For me installing Mandrake 8.1 or RedHat 7.2 is like a warm and pleasant dream. I honestly believe a total Linux newbie could manage it.

When I protestingly installed XP on a friend's machine last week (me: "I don't wanna touch Windows, I'm a Linux geek!" him: "But I want it *professionally* installed!") I was floored by the requisite 3 reboots and by major portions of the install being in text mode. It brought back a dusty old memory of installing NT4 before I discovered the Goodness of the Penguin.

No modern Linux distro would be caught with such a clunky setup. It would *immediately* be flamed for being too hard to install. I think it is time to have the "Linux is hard to install" FUD declared obsolete. Anyone who can install XP can certainly install a current Linux distro.

Re:Hard to install? Hah!

[styopa]

No modern Linux distro would be caught with such a clunky setup. It would *immediately* be flamed for being too hard to install.

Actually, Debian still has a rather pathetic installation program. They are working on it, but it still wasn't there for Potato. One thing I must say about installing Debian though, after dealing with Mandrake 7 and RedHat 7.1 installations, I found that Debian was much more flexable during the installation. Of course that is part of what makes it so hard and considered a poor design.

Re:Hard to install? Hah!

[epukinsk]

I have four words for you:

breadth of device support

-Erik

Does "we" include Bill Gates?

[BigBir3d]

"We understand, based upon the fact that our industry didn't rally to support us, that we need to change the way we interact and relate to our industry," Ballmer said.

Billy is Afraid of the GPL!!

[DG]

Take a gander at this excerpt: (emphasis added)

MR. GATES: Let me start out, really the reason that you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines, and the bios of that should be open to everybody to use, and all the extensibility should be there. And so it was very predictable that once we had gotten the PC going, and going and gotten hundreds of millions of machines out there, that it had always been sort of free software and the universities would flourish and there would be more of that. We certainly accept free software as part of the software ecosystem. In fact, there's a very virtuous cycle where people do free things, some people find that adequate, sometimes companies will take that work and turn it into commercial products, those companies will hire people, pay taxes. And so you see the free software and the commercial software existing together.

There is a particular approach that breaks the cycle called the GPL that is not worth getting into today, but I don't think there is much awareness about how so-called free software foundations designed that to break that cycle

In terms of getting people excited about software and building communities around them, yes, that is a key to success. Nobody has done that more effectively than we have with Windows. Are there ways that we can do that better? Are there aspects of this where we're actually learning from all our different competitors out there? I think it's fair to say yes.

In the free-software vision is that there would be no jobs in the software industry, there would be no testers, no engineers, no taxes paid, or anything of that notion. So I certainly don't agree with the full sort of free software foundation view that there should be no jobs in this area, and that the kind of commercial advances and risk taking that we've been able to do you can't get that, you can't get things like speech recognition on a tablet computer coming out of that kind of a paradigm. You can get things that follow along, you can get some smaller software, and so we embraced the idea of the free software paradigm and the commercial software paradigm moving forward in really a self-reinforcing way.

Sounds like ol' Billy has seen his doom coming, and it's the GPL!

Take a good hard look at that rambling morass of a quote, and you see the strategy (and the enormous depth of self-delusion) that will be driving Microsoft forward. Free-as-in-Beer, Good! Free-as-in-Speech, Bad!

In Bill's world, Free Software is fine as a toy, an interim solution, and educational tool, but it takes a company to turn it into something useful! Nothing good ever comes out of the commons!

Except, of course, the "Microsoft Commons". Funny, when was the last time community work became part of Microsoft, except by force?

And gee, where have we seen this attitude before?

How about in the actions of every tin-pot political dictator who tried to buy off the goodwill of his oppressed subjects with free goodies! The barbarians are howling at the Gates, and Bill is offering Microsoft's shareholders bread and circuses!

Funny thing Bill, those dictators don't have much of a track record....

Stallman (for all his faults and foibles) is the Martin Luther of the information age, and bill is the Pope. Quick - who can name the Pope who was in service when Luther nailed his manifesto to the door of the cathedral?

Me neither.

Re:Billy is Afraid of the GPL!!

[WolfWithoutAClause]

>We certainly accept free software as part of the software ecosystem. In fact, there's a
>very virtuous cycle where people do free things, some people find that adequate, sometimes companies will take that work and
>turn it into commercial products, those companies will hire people, pay taxes. And so you see the free software and the
>commercial software existing together.

I'm sure that Bill Gates thinks the idea of selling software he obtained that was written by the sweat of people that he doesn't have to pay is extremely virtuous. But let's put that to one side for the moment.

He also seems to be implying to politicians that they should outlaw the GPL licence so that Microsoft can steal open source software and charge for it, and pay more taxes- this would be a good thing- right?

Of course the fact that this would allow him to sack quite a lot of Microsoft and would end up reducing the taxes that he pays.

>In the free-software vision is that there would be no jobs in the software industry, there would be no testers, no engineers, no
>taxes paid, or anything of that notion. So I certainly don't agree with the full sort of free software foundation view that there
>should be no jobs in this area, and that the kind of commercial advances and risk taking that we've been able to do you can't
>get that, you can't get things like speech recognition on a tablet computer coming out of that kind of a paradigm.

Actually, this is extremely not clear. There's nothing to stop companies financing software that they need for their business and paying for it; and having the software remain open source. After all if one company has the software that it needs, it doesn't mean that its competitor can even use the same software that they use; and to the extent that their competitors can; they both benefit, and each can end up contributing improvements back.

That's where IBM is coming from- the fact that their main competitors SUN and Micro$oft can't use Linux much doesn't hurt.

New Windows "Community"

[Kiaser Zohsay]

and I encourage you to go up to Microsoft.com and check out our community areas. It's an area where we have sort of massively mobilized. It's still in the early phases, but we are massively mobilizing to try to stimulate communities, support communities, and really, if you will, borrow one from their playbook.

I can see it now... Microsoft meets Slashdot... Microdot, news for sheep, stuff that we think matters

Re:New Windows "Community"

[Camel Pilot]

Naa you need something will a little more zing - how about.

News for sheep, stuff that stinks

Broadband penetration - nit pick Gates figures

[Christopher Whitt]

Yeah, this is nit picky...

I don't know where Gates gets his figures, but Google tells me that Canada is up there with South Korea with penetrations of around 40-50%. This neat page of summary stats shows Denmark and Sweden at around 14% and I suspect many Scandinavian and other European countries are on par with the US's 11% broadband penetration rate. Sounds to me like the US is fighting for fifth at best. Articles at Newsbytes, and Broadband week both refer to a study by eMarketer that seems to says similar things.

An older report by the Strategis Group referred to in this CNN article names Australia, Canada, The Netherlands, Singapore, and Sweden as likely to lead broadband penetration.

QUESTION: Hi. You talked about broadband and that it was at about 10 percent of households, and that brings to mind streaming media, and I would appreciate it if one of you could address the various aspects of streaming media with regard to where Microsoft is right now compared to its competitor, and where it's expected to be with respect to its competitor in, say, nine months, and then how streaming media plays out in terms of the lawsuit, what kinds of ramifications might be expected.

MR. GATES: ...The second area, the video area, is the tougher of the two, because that really does require this high speed connection. And most people at work have high speed connections. So you can take a little news clip or video conference, and use that quite easily. In the U.S., as I mentioned, only 10 percent of homes have broadband. Actually, in Korea it's 40 percent of homes, but the U.S. is close to being second among broadband penetration. We'd like to see that go up. Of course, the key element of that is that the price has to come down somewhat from the $50 a month in order to see the wider spread usage.

Re:Broadband penetration - nit pick Gates figures

[Guy Harris]

I don't know where Gates gets his figures, but Google [google.com] tells me that Canada is up there with South Korea with penetrations of around 40-50%. This neat page of summary stats [internet.com] shows Denmark and Sweden at around 14% and I suspect many Scandinavian and other European countries are on par with the US's 11% broadband penetration rate. Sounds to me like the US is fighting for fifth at best.

A (PDF) OECD report on "The Development of Broadband Access in OECD Countries" has, on page 8, a graph of "Broadband penetration in OECD countries, June 2001", showing the US in fourth place, behind Korea (way ahead of everybody else, with 14 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants), Canada (6/100), and Sweden (~4.3/100). The Netherlands appears to be epsilon below the US, and following it are Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Iceland, Luxembourg, Germany, Japan, and various others (see the graph for the full list).

Presumably the 40-50% figures are something other than percentages of the inhabitants, for example percentages of Internet users.

Google can tell you lots of things, depending on what page you found; you didn't indicate which page it found, nor did you indicate what you searched for. A search for "broadband penetration" found a Newsbytes article from October 4, 2001, saying that South Korea has 95% of home Internet users connected with broadband, Hong Kong with 53%, Taiwan with 35%, and Singapore with 24%, but only 5% in Australia and 4% in New Zealand. It says that a separate study shows 17.5% in the US.

An older report by the Strategis Group referred to in this CNN article names Australia, Canada, The Netherlands, Singapore, and Sweden as likely to lead broadband penetration.

To be precise, it says

The report, "International High-Speed Access: The Residential Marketplace 1999," said that less than 1 percent of the world's households use broadband Internet access. It predicts that combined DSL and cable modem penetration of total households will reach 10 to 30 percent by 2003 in several markets, including Australia, Canada, The Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden, and the US.

Re:Bill Gates on the usefulness of open source

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Actually its worse than that. That bit about paying taxes is trying to throw a line to politicians to change the law so that GPL is no longer legally binding on Microsoft; that way they can extend and embrace Linux, charge as much as they do for Windows, and sack lots of their development staff...

Of course there's the inconvenient fact that they would end up paying less taxes that way... but perhaps your average politician won't notice.

I've always disliked Gates, but here he is so unbelievably slimy.

A kinder gentler (insert entity here)

[Dutchmaan]

Didn't work before...won't work now. Restraint in the use of power is certainly more difficult for nations than for companies. Actions will speak louder than words for most people when it comes down to it.

Internet virus?

[SecurityGuy]

There are no internet viruses. That's Microsoftese for MSTDs (MicroSoft Transmitted Diseases). These "internet viruses" are, for me, nothing more than academic interest as I watch them bounce harmlessly off software which isn't both bug ridden and misfeatured to the point that any script kiddie can run their code on your box.

Repeat after me. MSTDs. Lets get it to catch on. Just imagine how pissed Bill will be. :)

Re:Internet virus?

[einhverfr]

There are no internet viruses. That's Microsoftese for MSTDs (MicroSoft Transmitted Diseases). These "internet viruses" are, for me, nothing more than academic interest as I watch them bounce harmlessly off software which isn't both bug ridden and misfeatured to the point that any script kiddie can run their code on your box.

Too bad you never heard of the Morris Worm!

I suppose you think that SendMail and BIND are that much more secure? They have the same security flaw that IIS has-- it is not easy for them to have permissions other than root!

MS DOES have a Virus problem-- I noticed this back when Concept came out, as did, I am sure, a whole lot of others. It has taken them several years to admit this though. However, open source does not NECESSARILY mean more secure. It just means that single security problems can be more rapidly patched. However, an insecurely designed program is inherently insecure.

A precursor

[Monthenor]

These days I'm more worried about the possibility of Time Warner/America OnLine buying out the rest of Amazon.com than MS pulling PR moves. I believe TW'AOLzon is referenced somewhere as a Great Old One.

But all this shareholder crap is just a smoke screen for the coming .NET takeover. Don't let down your guard!! My CS buddies and I were at UIUC (sponsored by M$ this year) and we *still* aren't sure what .NET is. I half-jokingly believe that MS doesn't actually *have* .NET specs created yet. They fed the parameters for what .NET was supposed to be into XML and gave it a database of all current programming languages. It's parsing their "strategy" right now. After giving it a cup of really strong hot tea, of course ;)

what has microsoft learned?

[atomic brainslide]

first, Mr. Ballmer says: "The last three years, the period of the lawsuits, people ask us what we've learned. From the lawsuit itself, I don't know exactly how to answer that question from time to time..."

and shortly afterwards: "We need to expand the range of companies, bigger companies, established companies that we have relationships with, in the telecommunications industry, in the media industry..."

i thought that if they were a monopoly that they were not allowed to do precisely this type of thing. indeed, it would appear that Mr. Ballmer hasn't learned anything from the law suits.

MS wants us to pay taxes

[BroadbandBradley]

that's all, free software means no sales tax, and gosh our government really needs those tax dollars. I see it so clearly now, MS is just being good for the ecconomy.

What about NETBSD, GCC and LINUX?

[mr_don't]

Even if Gates meant that commodity PC architecture was helped out by Microsoft's monopoly practices, that wouldn't explain why kernel development projects like NetBSD and Linux have developers who attempt to port to every CPU architecture imaginable!

Delusional Bill

[EMIce]

"In fact, there's a very virtuous cycle where people do free things, some people find that adequate, sometimes companies will take that work and turn it into commercial products, those companies will hire people, pay taxes. And so you see the free software and the commercial software existing together.

There is a particular approach that breaks the cycle called the GPL that is not worth getting into today, but I don't think there is much awareness about how so-called free software foundations designed that to break that cycle."

Bill is implying that GPL is an affront to the American system by saying companies hire people and pay taxes, as if something is wrong with GPL because it doesn't. The American system is for capitalism, but also for free speech and thus the open exchange of ideas. We need to strike a *balance*, not just put down anything non-capitalistic in nature. This line of thinking is simple minded and would be ludicrous if it weren't so dangerous.

He says GPL was "designed" to break the cycle where people develop free software then enhanced commercial software is developed on that free base. This shows again shows Bill is a bit delusional, I don't get the impression that GPL was created to destroy business, but to protect from exploitation the systems that hard working volounteers have built. Bill's cycle sounds awefully familiar:

A company develops innovative software, Microsoft borrows it, and then runs them out of business.

Microsoft borrows kerberos, "extends it", and makes renders it non-interoperable with existing implementations.

Numerous other examples can be cited. *shrug* I think Bill will need some therapy before we see any honest attempts at change.

Re:Delusional Bill

[Chris Johnson]

Yes, absolutely. To him nothing is of any worth to anyone unless _he_ can take a cut of it- it's a really odd viewpoint to consider that people should not be allowed to make software and retain control over what's done with it! That's what the GPL is (I use it myself): making software and having some control over what's done with it. "You will take, develop, and expand this software of mine under _these_ conditions or not at all".

It's more than a little revealing that Bill Gates finds this deeply inequitable. If we are not allowed to develop software that is our own according to him, are we allowed to have it? Are we allowed to have money? To go around un-watched and un-monitored? You know you have a problem when such a powerful guy views you essentially as a serf. We don't get to have property (at least not intellectual property under the GPL by our own choice)- we ARE property, to him.

We're just snotty, disobedient, ill-behaved property ;) Bill Gates has yet to figure out how to bring us into line. At least there's more of us than there is of him- and he can get let go for monopolistic crimes, and he can probably get let off even for attempting IP terrorism (how? easy- put in moles into key Free software projects, and try to sneak in bugs faster than people can identify and object to them. I never said it would work _well_...) ...but he is very unlikely to get the government to revoke people's right to author software and license it under whatever terms they please, no matter how much he argues that it's against national security. That's pretty basic, and he's objecting to some pretty foundation stuff there.

He'd better just get used to causing as much damage as he can while being let go by the courts, because that is as much as he can reasonably accomplish. Of course, this is what he's been doing all along, and it's done MS some public relations damage, but he really had better keep on doing it because nothing else will work.

Microsoft and Open Source

[einhverfr]

I think that Microsoft HAS been the seminal power behind open source in a very strange and obscure way. So yes, Microsoft IS the reason that Open Source as a movement is able to compete today. People will disagree with me saying "Look at GNU. It is designed to be a UNIX killer, not a Windows killer. Look at Linux's effect on UNIX. It is not about Windows at all!"

However, let us look at the economics for a moment. Microsoft is a company with very little technical innovation but one world-shattering contribution-- the introduction of a multi-vendor OS manufacturer. This really does not seem like much but it really is. Microsoft's contribution really HAS resulted in lower prices for the consumer because they were able to help more companies sell their products hence spreading more of the cost of development around rather than letting it land on a comparitively few customers. This has allowed many more people to use computers because they can now afford to do so.

The ubiquity of the computer which really IS Microsoft's legacy is the driving factor of Open Source and Free Software because it allows a much greater number of developers to work on projects. Open Source has an economy of scale too. Would Linux have existed if Linus had not been able to afford a 386?

BUT: Open source then takes Microsoft's edge and makes it sustainable. It is a market innovation which beats Microsoft's market innovation. In this war, Microsoft cannot win.

Re:Knifed in the back?

[ethereal]

Not to mention the gran-daddy of all the knifings, DR-DOS and Windows 3.1, which is a fully-documented conspiracy complete with encrypted code. Face it - Microsoft is just as dirty as they're made out to be, and only rarely do they allow the same sort of thing to happen to them.

People say "well, Money hasn't won" or "Real still exists" or "AOL is going strong" but what you don't see is that these are monopolizations in progress. Microsoft owns the PC platform - short of government action there is no way that Real, Quicken/Intuit, or even AOL are going to survive once Microsoft really starts hooking things into Windows XP++. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better, because Microsoft owns the platform and after the DOJ capitulation, the whole industry knows it.

Rhetorically impressive, most impressive

[kannen]

You have to admire the man's rhetorical skills. He says its not worth getting into what the GPL is, but in so doing, he implies that the GPL is a mysterious, evil force that is going to keep people from making money. Gates states that the normal business cycle is one in which companies hire people and pay taxes. But the GPL tries to break that, so now you won't be able to feed your family and there won't be any tax money to pay for public schools and neighborhood patrols. Its a terribly insidious idea that the he has planted into peoples heads, and yet he avoids making a single factual statement about the GPL.

It occurs to me that maybe he should run for public office. His debate skills are most impressive. But then he'd probably find some way to oust the Chancellor, hunt down all the Jedi, and disband the Imperial Senate. (Can't you just see Ballmer jumping up and down in Vader's outfit? Tee hee hee.)

Re:er...

[flacco]

is it just me, or do the photos in the microsoft meeting website show everybody there as being hideously ugly?

*laugh!* - I was going to say it looked like an undertaker's convention...

Re:BWAHH HAHHAHA.......

[the_2nd_coming]

WTF does that have to do with bills little thought that he created the computer?

The Open Source comments

[shanek]

From the meeting transcript:

Let me start out, really the reason that you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines,

This is laughably wrong. RMS made the GPL and the Free Software movement in the early 80s, when Gates was still piddling around with DOS and saying that 640K should be enough for anybody. The actual movement started even earlier; the concept of open source predated commercial software.

In fact, there's a very virtuous cycle where people do free things, some people find that adequate, sometimes companies will take that work and turn it into commercial products, those companies will hire people, pay taxes. And so you see the free software and the commercial software existing together. There is a particular approach that breaks the cycle called the GPL

Gates apparently doesn't know what a "cycle" is. A cycle, by definition, has to link back up again with its origins, in this case, free software. Microsoft breaks the cycle by incorporating open source code into, for example, its TCP/IP stack. The GPL restores the cycle by requiring developers to give their changes back to the community.

In the pre-software vision is that there would be no jobs in the software industry, there would be no testers, no engineers, no taxes paid, or anything of that notion.

Tell that to Red Hat.

Here's a telling quote from Ballmer:

If there's a key learning for us, we can't have free software, it's kind of inconsistent with the goals of most people in the room.

In other words, Microsoft is against freedom in software. Remember, we're talking free speech, not free beer. So all this stuff about "Freedom to Innovate" is nothing more than a thinly veiled apologetic for Microsoft's business practices.

Re:Knifed in the back?

[IntlHarvester]

Or you could argue that IBM sabotaged OS/2 by insisting that it run on the 286-based PC AT, whereas Microsoft was smart enough to build a 32-bit portable OS with some hardware abstraction.

Going up against IBM took balls, you have to admit that -- most at the time thought MS didn't have a chance, even if they were secretly rooting for them. (If I were Gates, I would have sold out to IBM and retired to an island somewhere.) Then count the ways that IBM sabotaged the OS/2 effort themselves - pricing, PS/2 debacle, missing the boat on client-server, etc.

Considering that OS/2 almost exclusively sold as a client OS, marketing Linux-based servers is a doubtful revenge. IBM sees the bigger picture (slow W2K services sales, opportunity to sell WebSphere and DB2 to different customers, and the current pointlessness of the desktop OS space.).

Full quote:

[uigrad_2000]

But there is something about the way the community works to support itself which is brilliant, and which we've done many good things, but we think we've seen some good things sort of in the Linux, et cetera, world, and I encourage you to go up to Microsoft.com and check out our community areas.

And, of course, the quote's not complete. I snipped a bunch too.

But this is what stood out to me. Bill Gates himself has now called slashdot "brilliant"! He could, of course, be talking about newsgroups. If you've spent much time there, you know the linux groups are much more friendly than the groups full of MS apologists. The truth is that people who write software, and give it away for free are friendly!

Once I was working on writing a driver for a network card on microcontroller hardware. I wrote to Alan Cox, to ask for help. My work had nothing to do with GNU or linux, but guess what.... He responded, and told me exactly what I needed to know! I doubt Ballmer would do that!

MS may try to copy our developer model, but it will never work. People in a corporate atmosphere cannot harness the full power of cooperation, because it's not in their nature.

Maybe what really happened was this...

[opkool]

I interpret what really happened in this other way:

BALLMER: After 20 years of backstabing, copying other's innovations, playing Mafia-games with IT companies, abusing our consumers and stealing children's bubblegum, we have gotten a slap on the wrist by the DoJ. Surely this means something.

GATES: If I might add a few words...

BALLMER:, Sure, Bill, go on.

GATES: Our impressive innovation Laboratories -MS-iLabs , (c) (R) - show that actualy being nice to customers can help selling our product...

AUDIENCE: (gasps, mutted comments of surprise, a few horror screams)

BALLMER: Be quiet back there! It is true! You can get the results in ExcelXP format at dubya-dubya-dubya-microsoft-dot-com-slash-ilabs-sl ash-results

GATES: In fact, in a demo-test carried over at Poukeespie-upon-Avon (Yorkshire, UK) with a cautive population, we discovered that WindowsXP-SE was being bought by people that had no history of verbal-and-phisycal abuse by part of our marketing representatives.

SOMEONE IN THE AUDIENCE: Don't you think that having both legs not-broken could help? I mean, last year, in the ASF file that you showed us about training methods for Microsoft Certified Marketing Representatives , they were being trained in "MS-Leg-Breaking-As-A-Buying-Stimulous 101". Maybe we should change this module to "MS-**ARM-TWISTING**-As-A-Buying-Stimulous 101" instead of playing nice...

AUDIENCE: Yeah! yeah! that sounds more sensible!

GATES: Please! Calm down! I personally worked with the MS-iLabs environment definition and I can assure you that the results are true!

AUDIENCE: but... but.... We Want Blood! We Want Blood! We Want Blood!

CATS: All Your Base Are Belong To Us!

CATS: Make Your Time!

BILL: HAHAHAHA

BALMER: Take Off Every ZiggyXP!!!!

Re:Such Bullshit

[Eccles]

Great, go ahead, Pal. Do what ya need to do. Leap around the stage, waving your arms, spitting, screaming: "I love this COMPANY! I love this company!"

He didn't shout "Shareholders shareholders shareholders ...", did he? Woulda made for another funny vidclip...

Re:/boggle

[Grishnakh]

I seriously doubt it. The worse MS treats consumers, they more they'll love them. It's like women who seek out abusive husbands because their self-confidence is so low that they think the guy is actually doing them a favor. If another guy comes along and treats the woman nicely, they think the guy has something wrong with him.

Human Rights Abuse - Microsoft Complicit

[Grail]

The things that bothers me the most from the minutes of this shareholder meeting? The fact that only 8.9% of Microsoft shares (how many shareholders is that?) agreed that Microsoft should avoid engaging in deals with the Chinese Government that would result in further human rights abuses by the Chinese Government.

The attitude at the meeting seemed to me to be that "as long as we make a buck, we don't care."

The reason there is open source ...

[Kaz Kylheku]

have nothing to do with Windows, and they predate it. For example, the reason there is Linux is because people wanted a free clone of their favorite environment, which obviously wasn't Windows, and because they wanted to engage in fun hacking. That environment they wanted to clone wasn't seriously buggy or unstable; the motivation wasn't that the world needed a ``crash proof'' operating system. Only that it could use a free one.

The results have had the unexpected benefit of providing an alternative to users who are not happy with Windows for whatever reason. That there are such users, and that some of them are loud Microsoft bashers is entirely Microsoft's fault, and has nothing to do with the free software.

Gates is trying to promote the view that free software is only reaction to ``big, bad'' Microsoft, and therefore the motivation behind this software is not legitimate outside of the context of Microsoft. By extension, it's not legitimate in the context of a ``kinder, gentler'' Microsoft either.

When I started using Linux, it was because it could connect to the Internet and support multiple logged in users. At that time, Windows had no credible protocol stack for connecting to the Internet, and still cannot support multiple users today. Windows was so beneath consideration in 1992 that it wasn't even on the mental radar of any hacker. Though it has improved, the predominant consumer version still remains an unstable, unreliable crock that can't be trusted with any application needing more than a solid half a day of uptime. The industrial version of Windows is better in that regard, but that's completely besides the point. To the early adopters, Linux had to prove that it worked as well as, say, SunOS. Or reasonably well to be used in many of the same ways. Not that it crashed less than Windows; who with a clue would have been impressed with that?

So given the state of Windows when some of this free software was germinating, to call it a reaction to Windows is pathetically laughable at best. Or it would be pathetically laughable if uttered by some Anonmous Coward on Slashdot. But someone like Gates must be treated seriously; when he says so, it is a blatant, dangerous lie.

My take on this quote...

[Cutriss]

"...we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines, and the bios of that should be open to everybody to use..."

Genesis 1:3

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Geez, Billy...Get the fuck off your high-horse. It's our turn to play God...

"I invented open source"

[closedpegasus]

Gates also took some credit for the genesis of open-source software. He said Microsoft made it possible by standardizing computers: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines," he said.

hrmmmm...sounds like a certain former vice president I know...

But actually when you think about it, the reason Microsoft is in its position of dominance today is because they decided to open their APIs to software developers and concentrate on compatibility, as opposed to Apple, who kept all their secrets tightly held. It was the reason for Apple's eventual demise. In the last few years, however, Microsoft has gone the other direction...closing things up and making them "Microsoft Only". No wonder nobody likes them anymore...

Bill Gates is right, in a way...

[The Breeze]

Disclaimer: Yes, Microsoft sucks.

However, many Linux developers will admit something - Microsoft made the proliferation of cheap, cloned hardware economically feasable.

This in turn increased the pool of potential Linux developers.

It wasn't MS's intention, but that was the effect. Leave it to Bill to claim credit for a totally unintentional by-product of his company's sucess...

Re:Bill Gates is right, in a way...

[Znork]

Nope, not even that. IBM did the cheap, cloned hardware feasible through their own actions, and Compaq helped them along by doing the actual work. MS had nothing to do with it, had it not been them it would have been someone else. People bought the platform from IBM because, well, it was IBM.

Not to mention there was plenty of other cheaper, better hardware around at the time.

Gates is wrong about homogeneity

[SpringRevolt]

Gates: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines,"

This is not true. The real reason was that GNU software (which comprises a substantial part of what some people call "open source") was (and is) designed to be ported to a variety of systems (in fact, it is the most ported software). All it took was a POSIX complient kernel/library to provide the whole system. It had nothing to do with the homogeneity of systems, but with the skill of the program authors to provide the ability of the operating system to be ported to many kernels (such as the wonderful Linux, obviously).

No, he's right.

[Erris]

M$ installs are more difficult. Red Hat and Debian are both much easier. Assides from reboot issues, the one or two install disks have ALL the software and drivers you might need. When you are finished with the W2k, 98, XP, ME install you are left with typical M$ half functionality. You will then be goaded to buy expensive comercial junk that M$ will own or break. When you are finished with a Linux install you are left with a system that does what you want it to and can easily be expanded.

The largest problem with Linux installs comes from Windoze bassed intentional hardware obfuscasion. There may be 100s network cards bassed on NE 2000 that can be run by a single driver, for example. M$ makes you have the specific brand name driver to work the $10 ass pain. Sound hardware is even worse. Free software avoids this as nothing is hidden. The information is on the web now, and more companies will be dumping that little M$ flag for the sake of honest development.

My problems have been few with Linux. Either a driver is available and it works or it's not. With M$, it was only a matter of time before something would break the registry and devices failed.

Friends don't help friends install M$ trash.

Re:taste the irony

[Happy Monkey]

Every bug fix will introduce two or more new bugs?

Re:Is anyone else here impressed?

[Happy Monkey]

And ruthlessly crushes any "opposition," whether or not it actually represents a threat, and with no consideration given to morality over self interest.

Re:I feel bad for MS Shareholders

[Happy Monkey]

Windows might be the most sold software but the amount of windows users who paid for the software is around 30%, I'd wager.
Deliberately, at least.

Re:Im so tired of Capitalism

[spongman]

what you are advocating is anarchy, not capitalism. there's a subtle difference: laws.

Re:Semantics?

[Malcontent]

"I think the attack on your intelligence was warranted."

Especially since he missed your point entirely.

Only for some

[Bastian]

I agree that control of the code has a lot to do with open source, but I think that Bill is hitting on the reasons why OSS has become popular rather than te reasons why it exists at all.

The GNU project started in 1983 - after the first MS operating system, but long before Microsoft because the industry-dominating force it is right now. Bill surely knows this, and from that alone he can't claim any responsibility for the ideological roots of Open Source.

He's either talking about kids like me, who got into OSS to be different. I'm staying with open source for many other reasons, but if it weren't for the fact that Linux is the only way to try something different in a world where the only choices are Windows or MacOS (contrast with the days of MS-DOS, CP/M, Apples, Amigas, c64s, Spectrums, etc.) And before anyone jumps up and down shouting "BSD! BeOS!," sit down. The fact of life is, most people hear about Linux long before they hear about anything else.

If he's not talking about that, he's talking about the open source movement realizing just how powerful of a force standardization is. No, we don't all use the same OS or hardware platform, but overall, most of us are still using the same stuff - a POSIX operating system, X, KDE or Gnome, StarOffice or KOffice, and so on. POSIX and X aside, I don't think that anyone can tell me that most OSS projects don't at times steal heavily from "industry standard" software. Like a post further up said, we're riding on MS's coattails. And that's what is making the movement grow, too - when showing people what Linux can do, I generally have to show them that it can be just like Windows, hence why even though I usually use WindowMaker for my desktop and console-jockey around, when I'm showing someone else my computer, I generally show them WindowMaker, but also a Gnome desktop I keep around and let them see something that's more akin to what they are used to, with Drag 'n Drop and dekstop integration and registered file types and all that jazz that MS originally brought to the PC.

I like this stinker from Bill

[kindbud]

So I certainly don't agree with the full sort of free software foundation view that there should be no jobs in this area, and that the kind of commercial advances and risk taking that we've been able to do you can't get that, you can't get things like speech recognition on a tablet computer coming out of that kind of a paradigm.

Putting aside the absurd claim that free software advocates think no one should be employed as a programmer (have you stopped laughing yet?), there's a reason that a speech recognition tablet wouldn't be seen coming out of a free software project.

Free software developers write stuff they find useful. Who needs a tablet computer with speech recognition? For that matter, who needs speech recognition? There are a few people who need it, usually because of a disability. But these are people who probably cannot grasp a tablet computer in their hands. Those who need a tablet computer are in need of portability. They are probably using it outdoors, or in a factory, or other noisy environments where speech recognition is problematic at best, and pointless for most applications.

And do I really need to cite the example of Microsoft Bob? There was some pointless software, if there ever was any. No free software writer would spend two minutes on something like that, well maybe two minutes if he planned to release it as a joke. But that's all.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Ominous: Gates mentions "TAXES" twice

[ansible]

While this is an interesting idea (equating OSS with barter, and thereby taxable), I'm not too worried about it.

IANAL, but with barter, there is a specific exchange of goods that could have used money instead. With OSS, I am giving you the right to use some program, but there is nothing explicit in the license agreement that says you must give me something back.

This is not actual barter, ergo not taxable.

I'd be more worried about IP issues and proprietary, patented protocols than this.

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[account_deleted]

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My favorite part

[MrResistor]

Ms. Gibbons, regarding a shareholder resolution which would require MS to be careful about human rights abuse in China:

We have three concerns about Microsoft's China operations, labor rights problems, human rights problems, the sale of technology that may help Chinese government suppress dissent. First, as many of you know, China has terrible labor rights and human rights problems, common forms of labor rights abuse include physical abuse, forced labor, child labor, improper deductions from wages, and dangerous working conditions. The Chinese government does not enforce labor laws, therefore, Microsoft must undertake special measures to ensure its employees and subcontracted employees are not suffering labor rights abuses, and we have no evidence that Microsoft is adequately addressing these problems.

...

If Microsoft wants to do business in China where human rights and labor rights are freely abused, it must take action to avoid complicity in these serious abuses.

As shareholders you should be concerned if Microsoft or suppliers are violating labor rights in China, if Microsoft does not seek to protect employees who are arrested and tortured for religious practices or union activities, or if Microsoft software is used to suppress dissent.

...

Mr. Belluzo's response:

Thank you, Ms. Gibbons. Well, the board recommends a vote against this proposal, believing that it is not necessary. In 1991 the company adopted the Microsoft Corporation business practice standards and compliance policy, to ensure compliance with the laws of the countries in which we operate. In addition, Microsoft already maintains strong policies designed to promote a healthy environment, prohibit harassment, and prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, age, gender, or national origin.

Huh?

What exactly does that mean? Microsoft follows the labour laws of a country infamous for abuse of labour and human rights? Are we meant to be reassured by this? It's nice to know that Microsoft promotes a healthy work environment, but that doesn't address Ms. Gibbons' concerns in the slightest.

Anyway, I also have a new most hated buzzword, and that is "massively mobilizing". I think it's even worse than "going forward". It's a good thing they aren't massively mobilizing going forward, or I might have to take my sniper skills into meatspace.

And my final thought on the whole thing; these are some of the RICHEST MEN IN THE WORLD! Why can't they GET DECENT FSCKING HAIRCUTS?!?

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If OSS Ran Only on Intel HW, He Could Make a Case

[namespan]

If Bill thinks that homgeneity brought about open source software, then it's only because he hasn't bothered to use anything other than an intel box for a couple of years. Or he's following the advice of Joseph Goebels.

Open source software runs across any number of platforms, hardware and software. My experience is that non-intel versions of Linux sometimes lag a little bit, but other than that, platform often has little to do with it.

Case in point: my Powerbook G3 laptop running Apache, MySQL, and PHP on OS X (previous to release of public beta, sortof running LinuxPPC). No, I'm not running the binaries apple distributed with their system (don't think they did distribute MySQL binaries at first)... I downloaded OS X patches offered by open source developers and ended up making one or two patches myself -- which are no longer needed because the above will now configure/make "out of the box" thanks to open source developers. Open source developers not using Bill's homogenous platform.

But then again, watching microsoft make ridiculous claims of their own virtues in face of obvious contradictions is not really shocking anymore. It's long become obvious they belong to the Goebel's school of public relations thought.

Surprise! Gates doesn't get OpenSource future!

[slashbrent]

While the article had many blundering answers from Gates & Ballmer(C)(TM), and i'm sure most have been picked apart already (450 posts!), one that caught my one was the following...
This is from the 3rd "GATES:" section from the bottom of the page:

So I certainly don't agree with the full sort of free software foundation view that there should be no jobs in this area, and that the kind of commercial advances and risk taking that we've been able to do you can't get that, you can't get things like speech recognition on a tablet computer coming out of that kind of a paradigm.

First of all, let me say... APPLE!!! ever heard of Darwin, that would be the Open Source, fuh-ree version of Mac OS X? - a mighty fine OS if you've ever taken 5 minutes to sit and enjoy it...
and Second Of All, are you implying that university professors and post-docs aren't churning out amazing, GPL'ed advances in Computer Science, like maybe those fabulous molecular modeling apps, or create neat creations like the CAVE with the help of Government and industry and not have to be a vertically integrated illegal monopoly? No Way!!! Say its not so...

Whatever what really matters is that the whole paradigm of CS changed in a matter of 3 years, and the genie is out of the bottle. Linux and Open Source apps will thrive forever now that enough people came on board and we have the attention of everyone who can spell programming.. next its Corporate America/World (my Fortune 100 company has Linux/OpenSource programs running in every corner of the buildings, and they're only picking up steam)..
then it's time to kick Bill's ass and demand a refund for a lifetime of low-grade, shitty software!

They killed my computer.. you bastards!!!

Not recouping losses

[einhverfr]

Recoup losses is not their current plan, I don't think, because there have never been any losses.

Rather, squeezing as much money as they can (like all corporations do) is one think, the other being trying to cope with a sluggish PC market. Economy of scale, folks. But this is our advantage. We are NOT tied to new product sales but rather by demand for new features. We are directly paid by our customers for the value that we create, and this will, I think, win over all.

Microsoft DOES deserve some credit here

[einhverfr]

That IBM PC would be much more expensive if Microsoft was not also able to sell Compaq DOS at the same time as they were selling it to IBM. In this way, they were able to lower their cost per unit sold and help to generate more sales. IBM and Compaq deserve some credit but so does Microsoft.

Bad for your health???

[swordgeek]

Why is it that every time I read a quote from Gates, Ballmer, or Mundie that I get heartburn?

Lying evil sacks of shit. They deserve to end up as winos living on the street.

Secure Application Design

[einhverfr]

Getting off-topic, but worth discussing anyway.

I run Qmail. And Bind 9.x (behind a firewall, talking only with my ISP's DNS server), though if I were running a production server, I would have chrooted it.

Qmail (and to a lesser extent Postfix) shows what good design can do to product security (also see Apache here). BIND and IIS are examples of poor security design. It comes down to the following security idea: minimal permissions. Does BIND really need root permissions to do anything except bind to port 53? Why not have a controller process and a worker process, where the worker does not have root permission? In essence, these programs are not policed by the OS (with the exception of the chroot) so any incident is a serious compromise.

Qmail and Apache run with minimal permissions. So a break-in into these programs is unlikely to be very interesting...

Do you trust your software? I don't. that is why I like limited permissions.

Unfortunately, MS does trust theirs...

And broadband for all.

[MulluskO]

The second area, the video area, is the tougher of the two, because that really does require this high speed connection. And most people at work have high speed connections. So you can take a little news clip or video conference, and use that quite easily. In the U.S., as I mentioned, only 10 percent of homes have broadband. Actually, in Korea it's 40 percent of homes, but the U.S. is close to being second among broadband penetration. We'd like to see that go up. Of course, the key element of that is that the price has to come down somewhat from the $50 a month in order to see the wider spread usage.

I'm glad that inexpensive broadband is a part of Microsft's plan for us. I'm not sure what Gates and friends plan to do in order to lower broadband prices, aside from just wait, and let supply and demand do it's thing, but they seem to be moving in a direction in which they are becomming more and more dependant upon broadband.

So what should open-source developers do? Provide an alternative that doesn't rely upon high-speed internet access. I think Microsoft has really overestimated the future poularity of this broadband trend, and when they shift their focus away from people that cna't afford to spend $50 dollars a month on internet service, those poor and/or thrifty millions will find a more sensibly priced alternative. A free alternative!

Or maybe he is just a liar.

[Malcontent]

I am trying to remember when the last time I read anything bill said that did not contain at least one lie in it. You I can't. If am MS executive hasn't lied to 10 people by lunch he will get fired. I am convinced of that.

Martin Luther

[DG]

Luther was a pretty screwed up individual.

And Stallman isn't? :)

I actually have very little opinion one way or the other on Mr. Martin Luther as an individual or on his beliefs - I'm an Athiest myself.

But his effects on the Christian religion are profound and undenible.

Pre Martin Luther, Christianity was a monolithic, monopolistic, autocratic entity - and the analogy of the Catholic Church => Microsoft is very compelling.

Post Martin Luther, the Catholic Church no longer held a monopoly on Christianity, and was greatly reduced in power and influence.

So Luther => Stallman from that perspective.

I'll swear

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

Pay a g**d damn dividend

I don't have your sophisticated breeding, so I'll say it openly: "good".

Software as Art

[KurdtX]

In many ways, software can be accurately compared to art. If you don't see it, try focusing more on the process than the product. Essentially, both attract highly trained professionals to train (code/learn a routine) for a task (product/performance) that few can do. While you can say that about many things, few match at so many levels.

The point I'm trying to express is free software is essentially equivalent to street performances - you can pay if you want, and some are doing it to showcase their skills to be hired for more prestigious jobs. There are also the large-scale productions that require hundreds and large bankrolls - I'm sure you can see where I'm going. What this means is that there is a future both for closed source and open source software to co-exist, and neither is likely to wipe the other out. I'm sure you can see that some people will only go to opera performances, while others would prefer to walk around and check out the street scene.

Software is often as subjective as art, some people like windows, some macs, some like OSs they make themselves. Try convincing someone that some piece of software (take a game) is the best software on earth. You may find those who agree with you, but also those who think you've been staring at the monitor too long. And one last note: artists have been arguing for centuries that all art should be free for the public to enjoy, subsidized by the government. Perhaps we should try.

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Re:were you fed paint chips as a child?

[anshil]

Well, ever heard of MS-DOS? That DID make the PC-clones ubiquitous.

Well MS-DOS itself was not a break through reason, it was actually a pretty lousy CP/M clone. It was originally called QDOS Quick & Dirty Operating System, and was actually not even developed by billy's microsoft. IBM wanted microsoft to write a UNIX clone since MSDOS 1.0 they itched long enough so ms wrote MSDOS 2.0 more UNIX like. With standard file handles, pipes, etc. They continued and continued to itch microsoft to write a UNIX OS for their platform, but did they ever get it? So it's no surprise IBM chooses today linux for their servers, it's like a christmas present, they suddendly get for free what they've invested millions into ms before.

My personal opinion is that one of the main reasons the PC broke through beside all it's competitors is the fact the software and hardware was provided by different compinies. You're not forced to a special software if buying a PC, that's what the people liked about the PC, people choose the freedom. From my theory the second main reason is the ISA bus, also a new freedom brought to people which they grasped fast. If you buy a computer from company A it has a standard bus allowing you to but extentions from other companies into it. That times by far not so self evident freedom we're used to today.

The only difference is that Windows developers don't get religious about it. They develop software for MS. Period. There's no need for grassroots support for the largest software company in the world.

Oh they do, they just usually don't hang around at places like this. I know people developing under with MSVC++, Visual Basic, J++, and they always very pestered by the fact that I've choosen to use linux. They fear it, because they do not know it, or want to learn, at every opinion they nitpick on linux, and also tell things about unix/linux that were true maybe 1995, but by far no longer today. I do not pick on them or suggest them to switch, (Okay I just snicker every time they're hit by email virus again, or sit togehter and complain about the win API, about stability, about wrong documentation, etc.... )