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Microsoft Gives Up on Hailstorm
Dephex Twin writes "According to a NYTimes article: due to lack of 3rd-party support for Microsoft's "Persona" (originally codenamed "Hailstorm"), the company has been forced to dump the project. It seems the companies didn't like having a middleman between them and the consumers. As a person worried about the future with .NET, this is a bit of a relief."
Is it just me or can you just feel that MS's trajectory has passed its apex and is on its way back to earth??
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When people trot out that .Net is an evil system to make everyone turn into Microsoft slaves by turning over our personal records to them, it is a disgusting display of ignorance of what .Net really is.
.Net does not mean that Hailstorm == .Net.
It is a set of services, including web services, that is designed to compete with Java.
Just because Hailstorm was to be implemented as a service of
Please get a clue.
Just like "Bob" became "Clippy," I'm sure this thing will re-surface.
It's like when a dead guy is dumped in the river... he'll float to the surface eventually.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
I thought that Passport and Hailstorm (or Persona) were somehow inter-related. Does this mean they are dropping Passport as well. Passport scares me - so 'Big Brother' of Microsoft!
i understand that MSN uses hailstorm, does that mean that it's reverting to whatever old tech it had? Or are they keeping the old hailstorm?
Photos.
Dude, Michael, you're 10 days late :)
Microsoft was going to open up passport authentication to third-party ID servers via passport, right? Or am i just confused about that? Is that not happening anymore?
Is microsoft abandoning their drive to make Passport the authentication mechanism for *everything*, Starbucks and such, or are they just going to drop the pretense of making it an open system?
>It seems the companies didn't like having a middleman between them and the consumers
Gee, who'd have guessed. Microsoft, the company who's trying to incorporate every possible end-user application into their OS (thus killing the middleware, shareware, and even some commercial software industries) didn't see this coming? They couldn't imagine that other companies might have the same interests in mind? Aside from the obvious consumer objections, it should have been obvious to Microsoft from the get-go that other companies aren't going to trust them to keep track of userdata.
CBDTPA universally rejected and Hailstorm bites the dust. I have to say, today was a good day.
-s
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
MS:0 The rest of us:1
:)
On a more serious note, I don't think this will stop MS from coming out with a version2.0 of this sometime or another. Maybe next thing you know they'll embed it into the OS
Nah. There's lots of things in hailstorm that can be repackaged, reused, remarketed, etc.
Messaging - MS aren't going to give up on that.
Passport and wallet - MS will keep them less integrated for a while and pop them in somewhere else.
Directory services - this can be repackaged in a vendor neutral way.
Woohoo! With this and the represnetitives actually taking notice of people's opinions in reference to the CBDTPA. The tech world is a little better.
Maybe now they'll stop trying to cram Windows Messenger down everyone's throat (signing up gets you a Passport account). If you've used Windows XP you know what I'm talking about.
Even if you give them the benefit of the doubt [*cough*] it seems like they jumped the gun just a bit.
After all they are just now wrapping up the one month security review they started back at the beginning of february. yep, that is still going on.
So this is a case where vaporware was not being bought at all, working against them instead of working for them.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The site would need a disclaimer stating that a portion of your purchase goes directly to Microsoft.
SCO (noun.)- A Slimy Corporate Ogre. Often seeks free money.
"As a person worried about the future with .NET..."
.Net actually is.
.NET for those who have'nt taken the trouble to learn what .NET truly is.
.NET as a whole.
It's kinda sad to see how uninformed some people are about what
It's been a long day in front of the PC so I'm not gonna bother explaining
But, needless to say, it would be a huge mistake to think that this is somehow related to the success or failure of
Microsoft was going to open up passport authentication to third-party ID servers via passport, right?
That was a typo. I meant to say "Microsoft was going to open up passport authentication to third party ID servers via Hailstorm, right?". Stupid me. I assume, hopefully, that everyone worked out what i meant. Sorry!
Back when the Hailstorm idea was first announced ... No business or government agency that I dealt with was even slightly interested.
... Why would anyone want Microsoft to be even more powerful?
:)
When Microsoft announced its requirement as part of future "e-business" and [forced] integration into their Office Suite and Windows workstation licenses the consumers and IT departments went crazy. Nobody liked the idea of giving Microsoft MORE control. After all, running IIS already gives "Hackers" (actually crackers) more than enough control
I can say though... EVERYONE that I know with an MCSE and/or works at a MCSP (MS Cert Solutions Provider) was in support of the Hailstorm idea.
I can't express it enough that I am happy for this failure
Today I hear that the SSSCA/CBDTPA looks like it'll fall flat on its face (this session), and now this bit of news. Baby Satan must be crying.
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Power to the Peaceful
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
And btw, what is the difference between Hailstorm and .NET anyway? I had always thought that they were the same.
Wonder when they will give up on .net?
And wonder what they will move onto then -- paying dividends? Settlements to Sun and class action lawsuit plaintiffs?
The Sun will set on the ignoble empire....
As a person worried about the future with .NET, this is a bit of a relief.
Yes, modular software design with interopable components and standard data storage techniques is an absolute nightmare! Somebody stop them!
What do you expect from a company which is relying on windows?
bash$
Hailstorm fails to put dent in market.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
An "evil, aggressive, monopoly" can't sell stuff to people who don't want it. Will wonders never cease? Nevertheless, I think we need a few more years of litigation followed by government regulation to stop Hailstorm anyway. You know... just in case.
(close captioning for the sarcasm impaired: THAT WAS SARCASM. Thank-you.)
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Don't worry guys, I heard from a good inside source that Operation: CodeBloatHurricane is still in steady development...
------
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Couldn't get it to run on Apache over BSD.
- If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat? - Steven Wright
Only massive government intervention can put an end to this evil domination.
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
I always thought it was peculiar that Microsoft was investigating selling a service rather than a product since they have traditionally been a product based company. Well they are trying it with MSN but I don't think that is such a great idea either. It's not like you get technical support from Microsoft for their products, you get a MCSE from a third party. Personally I would have expected them to offer some type of product that would allow customers to provide this type of functionality by themselves. Maybe Microsoft should stick with their strong point: developing software.
Ha! You think there is nothing to worry about now that the Hailstorm threat has past? As a meteorologist, I assure you that tornadoes pop up after the hail has past!
If MS truly sees the market as being essential to their revenues, they'll just keep going until they borg out the other players. In fact, this is in line with their history of rejected/crappy first releases/attempts.
This isn't exactly the first time Microsoft has chosen to scrap a project that has been so heavily advertised, but it's definitely one of the most prestigious ones they have cancelled.
.NET service that "authenticates users, provides the ability to send alerts, and stores personal information, including contacts, e-mail, calendar, profile, lists, electronic wallet, physical location, document stores, application settings, favorite Web sites, devices owned, and preferences for receiving alerts." (from Microsoft)
.NET is crucial to get penetration on the Big Market, i.e. mission critical business application software.
.NET's, showing off its capabilities. Now it's going to be interesting to see how the industry acceptance for .NET evolves.
Hailstorm/Persona was supposed to be a
I think the key problem for Microsoft is the following (from the article:) "They ran into the reality that many companies don't want any company between them and their customers,"
Bill and Steve are probably a bit surprised, not used to having people say No to them, especially not the big companies that they have started to court now that they have a consumer market monopoly.
Hailstorm/Persona was seen by many as a reference implementation of
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
As a person worried about the future with .NET, this is a bit of a relief
.NET, as has already been pointed out.
.NET? Do you feel that you aren't capable of understanding .NET and will be made redundant? Do you think that a competitor to Java will instantly cause you to keel over an die? Do you feel that .NET is SATAN (by the way, *nix has had SATAN for a while)? What is this worried shit all about?
What does this line have to do with anything? Hailstorm !=
However, I am curious. Why are you worried about the future with
Please mod me offtopic, since this comment has nothing at all to do with the story posted!
What dumping Hailstorm shows is that Microsoft's plan to use Hailstorm to establish the .Net platform was bogus. They need to first get .Net established. Then they can worry about .Net "applications" like Hailstorm.
- adam
Wasn't .NET supposed to give you 'one degree of seperation' according to all the commercials I saw on TV? Wouldn't that mean no middle man?
What?
When did they rename it Persona?
Their lack of credibility has finally caught up with them.
IMHO, Microsoft is incapable of leading any kind of initiative that requires third party support. That would require finding third parties that trust Microsoft -- a dubious proposition indeed.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As a person worried about the future with .NET, this is a bit of a relief.
.NET in its banner ads?
I assume that since this story wasn't rejected, that somehow the editors of Slashdot agree with this sentiment as expressed in the submission.
My question is this: if Slashdot editors really feel this way, then why is Slashdot advertizing Visual Studio
Just curious.
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
.Net allows you to use c and c++ and pointers, so much for sandboxed.
Who do you think had the whole HailStorm idea? Marketing.
You can almost hear the conversation in the meeting
Marketing: "This will be great! People can log in from anywhere!"
Developers: "Yeah, that's technically possible."
Marketing: "Then Go! Go! Go!"
I imagine starting HailStorm and canceling HailStorm were topics of fiery debates inside the Fortress of Microsoft.
Finally a techno Exec probably said "This is stupid. Who is really going to sign up with us? Pay Microsoft to authenticate their users?"
One more thing....Figure out what
It's not that Microsoft's trajectory has necessarily passed its apex, it's that websites like slashdot focus more attention on pointing out Microsoft's missteps. Take ANY large company and put it under the microscope ... and you'll find the exact same thing.
> It's kinda sad to see how uninformed some people are about what .Net actually is.
.NET is that its so undefined that if someone complains, you can always claim he or she is "uninformed about what .NET *really* actually truly is".
/ 03-19hailstorm.asp):
.NET strategy.... So today is a milestone for us... This is what we call a .NET building block service. In fact, it's probably the most important .NET building block service."""
.NET really is: SLOW
The good thing about
Some Quotes from Bill Gates' Speak on Hailstorm (http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/speeches/2001
"""We're excited to have this chance to talk about a key piece of our
My opionion on what
Registration for NY Times articles drives me crazy. Call me a Karma Whore, but here's a RFC: NY Times reg.
For example, registration in this case is username 'dephex' and pass 'microsoft'. Story submitters will please register according to these guidelines when they sumbit stories to
Does this violate the DMCA?
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$tar -xvf
I had used Linux and FreeBSD excusively for about two years - I even once posted a (rejected) Ask Slashdot question entitled "Why Windows," arguing that with the multimedia (mplayer) and browser (pick konq/galeon) support available in Linux, that no one needed Windows.
.NET delivers on all the promises that Sun had made of Java. (M$ has beaten them - intsead of "write once, run anywhere," .NET offers "compile once, run anywhere.")
.NET - M$ has actually embraced industry standards. ASP.NET can be accessed from any client provided you have an HTTP connection. That's the only requirement. I sitll support the paranoid people, because there is always the chance that M$ will extend and extinguish what it has embraced, but with them having submitted everything to ECMA, that's really an outside worry.
My viewpoint has changed radically. I have an XP box now - it's actually a pretty stable OS. And
I still use Linux/Apache/MySQL for all of my servers - and with SQL 2000 at $20,000 per processor that won't change anytime soon - but Windows has gotten more stable. Linus once said that he started Linux because he wanted software that didn't stink...win3.1, win95, and win98 all stink, but 2K and XP are actually pretty nice.
I will probably switch back over to an all OSS setup when Miguel et al finish Mono. That's gonna be sweet, too - imagine the day when you can compile an executable (not java bytecode) on a {Windows, Linux} box and then run that executable on a {Linux, Windows} box.
That's the nice thing about
So now that their competition has gone away, what happens to the Liberty Alliance? Will they stick together, or each go their separate ways creating their own separate identity database schemes?
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
If it's about commerce, Microsoft will not find any financial allies. No one wants to give up even a fraction of their commissions or processing fees - not the banks, not VISA, Mastercard, AMEX. This is also why B2B companies such as Ariba and Commerce One were doomed to fail.
Yup, you are correct. Microsoft has certainly never done anything that required third party support. Nothing at all. Except make the dominant operating system(s). Or the dominant browser. Or the dominant media player.
What really sucks is that I can't read the freaking article until I fill out a form and join for free....and they'll never ever share any information w/anyone...
"Look where we worship" -- Jim Morrison
You go with your bad self, Microsoft! Throw enough shit against the wall and something's bound to stick! LOL!!!
I agree whole heartedly. This stuff almost sounds like a continuation of the pranks last week ;-)
Microsoft understands that it needs to sell something that users are willing to pay $10 or $20 a month for. If an online calendar/address book/data storage/wallet (which is all that .Net My Services ever was) doesn't convince people to hand over the money, they'll find something that will.
.Net My Services may be scaled back, but Passport is becoming more and more visible: Monster and EBay both have it as an option, for example.
Revenue for desktop operating systems is leveling out, so they are looking for the next cash cow. Right now, they appear a little disorganized because they're trying several things at once: Web Services, MSN TV, Pocket PC, and X-Box, to name a few. In particular, they're moving aggressively to expand the MSN brand (by partnering with / buying up ISPs.)
At any rate, Hailstorm is far from gone:
Now where can I exchange my Bill Dollars for dollar bills?
Sorry to blast on you, or respond at all if you're trolling. But your saying that .net is compile once run anywhere....I have not seen anything that did not exist under a different name before. Infact all i've seen is a renamed msn mesanger, and a pop up thing above the time in XP that tells me I have mail in a hotmail account. Of course that popup thing does say .net. BUT what of these, or any other things couldn't or didn't exist before the name .NET??? Sorry if i'm ignorant, but hey provide some links, pictures of applications, names of applications. If that is not possible then MS has not beaten sun anywhere, as you say.
LinuxWorx
Spelling errors are intentional as are gramatical error
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ack! Stop with the rotten fruit already!
"The dead do not shoo-bop-aloo-bah." -- Kai, 'Lexx'
- I'd love to have a single sign-in for web sites.
- I'd love to have my own wish-list for books that I can use at a variety of on-line stores.
- I'd love to be able to have a standard way to share schedules and calendars and set up meetings, parties, etc.
Many of the goals of Hailstorm were good. The problem: ownership. Microsoft may do well selling this to others. I wish they would open the standard and let anyone play. The possibilities of interop are amazing. Keep it all XML. How awesome would that be? Sadly, I'm afraid most companies will lock you in to their system. I'm afraid the only way you'll be able to use Hailstorm is to buy the service from a company or pay Microsoft licensing. I hope I'm wrong.A speech...
I will offer a brief review of notable Microsoft partnerships:
There must be lots of Microsoft-led initiatives that were a smashing success for all parties involved, where standards were adopted and open to all, where everyone lived happily ever after -- I just can't think of any at the moment.
Here's the article text:
.Net strategy. It was intended to permit an individual to keep an online persona independent of his or her desktop computer, supposedly safely stored as part of a vast data repository where there could be easy access to it from any point on the Internet.
.Net software to leverage its brand into a broad range of service businesses.
.Net consultant, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified. Microsoft was unable to persuade either consumer companies or software developers that it had solved all of the privacy and security issues raised by the prospect of keeping personal information in a centralized repository, he said.
.Net operating system.
April 11, 2002
Microsoft Has Shelved Its Internet 'Persona' Service
By JOHN MARKOFF
SAN FRANCISCO, April 10 -- Microsoft (news/quote ) has quietly shelved a consumer information service that was once planned as the centerpiece of the company's foray into the market for tightly linked Web services.
The service, originally code-named Hailstorm and later renamed My Services, was to be the clearest example of the company's ambitious
At the time of the introduction of My Services, Microsoft also proclaimed that it would have a set of prominent partners in areas like finance and travel for the My Services system. However, according to both industry consultants and Microsoft partners, after nine months of intense effort the company was unable to find any partner willing to commit itself to the program.
Industry executives said the caution displayed by consumer giants like American Express (news/quote) and Citigroup (news/quote ) illuminated a bitter tug of war being fought over consumer information by some of the largest financial and information companies.
"They ran into the reality that many companies don't want any company between them and their customers," said David Smith, vice president for Internet services at the Gartner Group (news/quote), a computer industry consulting and research firm.
The lack of interest also indicates that in a variety of industries outside the desktop computer business there remain significant concerns about Microsoft's potential to use its personal computer monopoly and its
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An early signal that the My Services idea was in trouble came last fall at Microsoft's annual developer's conference, attended by more than 6,000 programmers. The sessions on My Services were poorly attended, an attendee said.
"There was incredible customer resistance," said a Microsoft
Microsoft executives acknowledged the shift in strategy and said the company was still contemplating how it would bring out a revised version of the My Services technology. The decision resulted in a relocation of several dozen programmers in December from a consumer products development group run by Robert Muglia to the company's operating systems division.
"We're sort of in the Hegelian synthesis of figuring out where the products go once they've encountered the reality of the marketplace," said Charles Fitzgerald, Microsoft's general manager for platform strategy.
He said part of the decision to back away from a consumer version of My Services was based on industry concerns about who was going to manage customer data. The issue, he asserted, was more of a sticking point within the industry, rather than among consumers.
"We heard a lot of concern about that point from competitors in the industry but very little from our users," he said.
Microsoft is now considering selling My Services to corporations in a traditional package form, rather than as a service. The companies would maintain the data for their own users.
"Frankly selling this stuff to people who build large data centers with our software is not a bad model," Mr. Fitzgerald said.
Microsoft first introduced the Hailstorm services idea at a news conference at its headquarters in Redmond, Wash., in March 2001. At the time, the technology received endorsements from a handful of corporations including American Express, Expedia (news/quote), eBay (news/quote), Click Commerce (news/quote) and Groove Networks.
At the time of the announcement, Microsoft described Hailstorm as a way for a consumer to have a consistent set of services, like e-mail, contacts, a calendar and an electronic "wallet" -- whether sitting at a desk or traveling and using a wireless personal digital assistant.
"Microsoft's `Hailstorm' technologies open exciting new opportunities for us to use the Web in ways never thought of before, helping us to continue to deliver service that is truly unmatched in the industry," Glen Salow, the chief information officer of American Express, said at the time in a statement.
More recently, however, American Express officials have told computer industry executives that they remain concerned about being displaced by Microsoft's brand in such a partnership.
A company spokesman said in a telephone interview today that American Express had intended to endorse the broader notion of integrated Internet services last March, not My Services specifically. He said he did not know if the company had discussions with Microsoft about becoming a My Services repository.
Several industry consultants who work with Microsoft said that the company was now planning to deploy My Services as a software product for corporate computer users some time next year, after the company introduces its
"Enterprise customers were telling Microsoft, `We like this idea but we don't want to be part of this huge public database,' " said Matt Rosoff, an analyst who follows the company at Directions on Microsoft, a market research firm in Kirkland, Wash.
When it was introduced, the Hailstorm plan quickly became a lightning rod for privacy advocates who saw dangers in concentrating vast amounts of personal information in a single repository.
Last fall a coalition of privacy groups complained in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission about the potential risks inherent in Microsoft's collecting personal information from and about several hundred million personal computer users.
My Services also created thorny privacy issues for Microsoft in Europe, because of restrictions on transborder data transfers there. Microsoft has not resolved how personal information stored in one country can be easily transmitted internationally.
and the peasants are starting to figure it out. As for those who say Microsoft is too big to crash, wouldn't that have been said about Quest, Enron, Arthur Andersen, Worldcom, Xerox, etc., etc., not so long ago? Amazing how quickly the world can change.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Comment removed based on user account deletion
DISCLAIMER: I'm a Java developer.
.NET platform. I've read (briefly) the article on ars describing the .NET platform as language and platform agnostic.
.NET? If it's a question of licensing from SUN , fine, where's the bridge? If I have have 1000 EJBs out there, how do I justify adopting a platform with no integration strategy, J# has been brought up before, but without support for J2SE (or J2EE) what's the point?
.NET platform? under what conditions? (platform, usage, etc)
Ok, I've read a few comments both for and against the
My questions are these:
Where is the Java support? If this is truly language agnostic, why is Java not listed in the languages supported by
What exactly is standardized? The CLR or the APIs? How tied am I to the Win32 API for real development. How is mono addressing these issues?
Exactly how many languages have been integrated into the
Obviosly I am biased towards the Java platform. This post is not intended to incite a flame war, I'm just looking for honest answers from developers who have experience in this area.
You can meet the Man there.
Consider: Hailstorm required the cooperation of other companies, who were reluctant for many good reasons to pay for the privilege of placing Microsoft between themselves and their customers. (Customers were also none too thrilled about the idea, either.) There are companies that might find Microsoft's desktop OS monopoly a sufficiently compelling reason to justify such a move, though - companies selling bits (media and software). Only Microsoft has the leverage over desktop users to foist user-hateful "digital rights management" technologies upon them. (I don't just mean technology to prevent copying of "protected" media, but also watermark detection/embedding, etc.)
Given a DRM system integrated sufficiently into the OS, some control over unauthorized data manipulation may be possible - at least, enough to deter most users. The legal billy-club of the DMCA (combined with Microsoft's practically infinite legal budget) is already in place to deter companies or individuals enabling circumvention, and patents are likewise in place to thwart competitors and open-source alternatives. When Microsoft's ubiquitous rollout of DRM is complete, they may be able to play to the paranoia of media companies desperately grasping for something, anything, to tame the very nature of the bit - to make it uncopyable. This again places Microsoft in the revenue stream (and customer data stream), but by offering something more compelling than mere data aggregation.
Their quiet backing of the SSSCA/CBDTPA is only the beginning, I think of this new push. Hailstorm was unappealing to companies and a magnet for criticism, but DRM leverages Microsoft's existing monopoly so I think they'll translate their goal of skimming off every transaction to this arena.
Just MHO,
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
since i am bill gates, i should know what is going on in my company. dont believe anything you hear on this 'grassroots' linux site. Please visit microsoft.com for more information
Come on moderators always mod this guy down Always (and its in bold and italic so you have to)
This person has a pretty obvious fake name that could be confusing to some people (who don't look at member numbers.) Mod this person and all impersonators.
People have been pointing out that Hailstorm/Persona was NOT the bulk of what .NET My Services is, that this isn't as bad a blow to Microsoft as some people are making it out to be. And they're right. Kind of. But I've seen this coming for years. I've known for so long that Microsoft only has so much steam left in it, and this is one of the first signs that it's slowing down.
.NET My Services is the same thing. It's another Microsoft attempt to become the middleman, so to speak; they want to be the one in charge of how everyone works together. Doesn't it seem obvious at this point that technology companies will, sooner or later, go the same path with .NET as online businesses did with Hailstorm?
.NET My Services, so they probably aren't going away in the immediate future. But the technology industry is unpredictable, and it can change incredibly fast sometimes. We may be seeing the first steps towards an era of Microsoft-free computing.
Hailstorm was Microsoft's attempt to become the middleman in a wide range of web transactions. It didn't work, and for a good reason--companies don't like middlemen, especially those as powerful as Microsoft.
When you think about it,
Granted, Microsoft has put a lot more marketing clout behind
If you're new to being fisted you could do worse than choose an expert for your first attempts.
I choose you!
WebTV is Dead. Ultimate TV is dying (yes it is), Hailstorm and XBox are stillborn.
Aren't these all initiatives from this unstoppable bohemoth that is going to take over the world if we don't have the government step in? At this point I'm not convinced that the free market economy wont end up smacking Microsoft like we want the feds to do.
IOW, a common code base with the typical MS attention to security, but maintained by thousands of clueless sysadmins rather than by a single company who at least might see fit to install updates. So instead of a single point of failure, you suddenly have hundreds. Fun!
Free, legal music for iTunes users.
How did this get to +3, Interesting? Fucking wholly anti-MS communist [or capitalist, depending on which serves your current purpose] zealots.
WMP is not the dominant media player. No way, no how. We saw what happened after making Microsoft the dominant operating system and browser. But third parties have finally started to wise up to Microsoft's practices.
.NET, and we'll support you all the way!" The rejection of Hailstorm is more evidence that the industry has learned its lesson.
Years ago, everyone bought their line... "Hey world, come join us and develop for Windows, we'll support you all the way!"
Then we watched while Microsoft systematically identified all the successful third parties building apps on their platform and picked them off.
Now we have Microsoft saying "Hey world, come join us and develop for
Uh...not every MCSE out there.
I was, to be frank, worried about its implications for security. Having Microsoft guard the keys to my bank account is like having the fox guard the hen house.
Nice to see it go. Now .NET can stand or fall on its own merits, not on privacy concerns.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Actually, you're both right.
... Solicitor General John Turnbull
Standard edition M$ SQL Server2K cost US$4999 Enterprise edition costs US$19999/processer or US$11099/client.
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"If a plane is flying into something, and you're in the way, it's bad news"
? As far as I'm concerned, Windows, IE, and WMP were all solo projects based more on ignoring standards than setting them.
Don't know 'bout Windows or WMP, but remember, MS bought IE. They bought Spyglass Mosaic and relabelled it.
Of course, since MS gives away IE for free, I suspect that Spyglass' royalties aren't very much... On the other hand, maybe Spyglass is entitled to a cut of every "integrated" copy of Windows?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Its about tiem thos m$ a$$hole$ get wat they de$erve.
M$ $UCKS!
Based on the spelling of your post, I'd guess that you're probably not old enough to be on the Internet without your parent's supervision.
This is a clear indication that their period of rapid growth is over, possibly for good. (They were a 2-trick pony throughout the 90's, windows and office.)
It is not at all clear that they will have their ability to use their desktop monopoly to propel them into other markets.
I wish them luck, but this ain't a stock to buy if you're looking to get rich. That time is long past.
No, it's not just you. The problem seems to be that MS has tried to expand too quickly at quite an inopportune time. Their attempts at horizontal integration of the entire consumer electronics industry has backfired with the current antitrust issues going on.
.NET and passport ideas, and whether or not these too will fail or just become immensely unpopular. Regardless, the deathly grip they hold on the OS market has yet to see a legitimate adversary, so it will be a long time before we see the complete downfall of Microsoft.
.NET is their priority. They know they have an uphill battle ahead of them, and I know they'll fight it, because losing it will make life extremely difficult for Java.
And this certainly isn't the first time. We all remember when the Interent wasn't something MS was interested in. It wasn't big enough, if I remember Gates's sentiments. Instead, they were going to replace it with MSN, in one of MSN's many reincarnations. How many times did they reinvent MSN, each time diving into a new idea head on, only to find nothing there to grab on to? (Of course, this time, they're just buying out Qwest DSL, so it'll probably work just fine)
The half-assed attempt at a console, also known as the X-Box, is surely just an investment for the future home entertainment systems created by Microsoft, but at the rate they're going there will not be enough cash on hand to take the losses normally associated with selling console systems.
I'm not so sure about this. If there's one thing that we can be sure about, it's that MS is persistant to levels no other business can finance. They've launched programs and fallen on their face more times than most companies could ever hope to afford. Many would say that they've finally gotten Windows right, and it only took them 15 years.
I'm sure MS will get the X-Box right, even if it takes another 15 years, because when they do get it right, they'll have it all. Why bother with Windows on PC's when they can put everything; game console, DVD player, PC, all in one box that they get the revenues from?
It will be interesting to see how successful Microsoft will be with their current networking desires that follow their
.NET will happen, and it will succeed famously, at least in the Windows world. It's simply the next logical step for Windows development, even if we ignore the cross-platform and passport elements. The number of developers and businesses out there that declare anything made by MS to be divine gospel will see to that. Whether or not it's accepted by those that aren't followers of Redmond remains to be seen, I think, and I'm sure it won't come without a fight.
Sun knows fighting
1. Gives Microsoft an even greater control over the market
2. Removes more power from the average user and places it at the mercy of large companies
In my experience people are losing patience with Microsoft. The average person is open to alternatives now, and I'm finding an increasing acceptance of the potential of linux on the desktop. I don't mind if Linux dominates the desktop or not (though I suspect it may) - I just want to be able to chose to use the software I want, without companies forcing you to live according to their culture and lifestyle.
No nation lasts forever - every empire falls. I don't think it would be ever possible for one company or nation to have dominance, over thousands of years they have all failed - and in this case, thankfully, history repeats itself.
Is microsoft abandoning their drive to make Passport the authentication mechanism for *everything*, Starbucks and such, or are they just going to drop the pretense of making it an open system?
.NET MyServices (aka Hailstorm). Passport is an authentication mechanism while .NET MyServices was supposed to be a centralized repository of user information (calendar, preferences, inbox, contacts, bookmarks, etc) which could be queried by various vendors who would receive restricted access to the data based on the user's settings.
.NET MyServices like an inbox, contacts, calendar etc.
.net workalike? Are they still going to?
Passport was a seperate initiative from
Is it possible for people to take the hailstorm protocol, if they so desire, and set up an independent, decentralized hailstorm network that just happens to not be affiliated at all with microsoft?
There are a couple of things to consider here. The first being whether there are any intellectual property(IP) issues, I have no idea about this but wouldn't advice anyone to start something like that without at first ensuring there aren't any patents or anything like that being violated. The second thing is exactly how one would use the technology. Personally when I first saw a Hailstorm presentation last summer I kept on thinking that it may face difficulty in gaining widespread acceptance for exactly the same reasons listed in the article; there was no justification for vendors to give up so much control to user information to a third party. One example touted was the ability to move music preferences from website to website but the question never asked is why Amazon.com [for example] would make it easier for users to grab all their painstakingly entered personal preferences and music ratings to CDNow.com or some other online site. I remember emailing the presenter about my thoughts but couldn't follow up since it happened close to the end of my internship. However, it may work within a closed environment like a corporate intranet but then again MSFT already has Exchange which has a lot of the important functionality that would be provided by
Was GNOME MONO planning on implementing hailstorm as part of their
Gnome is not related to Mono. Miguel De Icaza may have founded both but he no longer maintains any packages for Gnome nor does he do much (if any) active development but instead spends most of his energy on Mono.
As for your question, Mono is not interested in Passport or Hailstorm and went as far as creating a page about it because people kept on getting misconceptions about it.
Disclaimer:This post is my opinion and does not reflect the views, opinions, intentions or strategies of my employer.
it kicked sql servers ass on eweek and pc mags benchmarks. of course all DBA's know benchmarks dont imitate real systems( especially tpc or tcp or whatever the fuck they are).
btw IBM DB2 is $3000 per processor
so you can get APache/linux/DB2 cheaper than the MS solution.
my friend, all empires die eventually.
What does this mean?
"We're sort of in the Hegelian synthesis of figuring out where the products go once they've encountered the reality of the marketplace," said Charles Fitzgerald, Microsoft's general manager for platform strategy.
does that mean i wont be able to order fries from mcdonalds and have it billed to my credit card??? GOD HELP US ALL
The idea of a distributed system composed of services which represent best-of-breed offerings is great on the surface, but the biggest risk of oursourcing portions of your system to a third-party is that you lose control regardless of whatever SLA is in place. All it takes is for one of your services; shipping, CC authorization, content management, etc. to go down to realize just how much a third-party really cares about delivering reliability.
Hailstorm is a decendent of FireFly; a privacy advocates nightmare. The bad from Hailstorm outweighed the good. Having a single point of exposure for personal information represents an immensely dangerous offering. One breach and irrepairable damage could be done. A fragmentary solution distributes data to the point of irrelavency. The intentions of Microsoft, AOL, and Sun to create an Internet ID are logical, buta problem just as easily solved by Gator (which I consider to be crapware).
You may still get your wish. Passport still exists and will continue to exist, as it was not part of Hailstorm/My Services (it was used by Hailstorm, but it was not Hailstorm). For the others, well ... not likely you'll be seeing number 2 any time soon (hey, as others have stated, why would amazon.com want to make it easy for you to move your wishlist over to barnesandnoble.com?). Number 3 is available now, and is called "Exchange". Office.NET will likely have similar services available (for a fee, obviously) when it's released at some point in the future.
I've always loved this funny Bill/Borg icon, but now I'm glad that the contract with the Church(?) expired: From the Persona website:
-Drug free
-Works with your body
-Is 93-95% reliable
-Endorsed by the Church
-No side-effects
HAALELUJIA!!
so what you are saying is that the windows apis == mac apis == linux apis == unix apis== beos apis == solaris apis ==.... wow didn't know that :))
do you still live in a console screen world, or do you simply like to be part of a non-thinking mob.
dare to think.
Heh, as an MCSE I can say that I'm in support of the idea - but I wouldn't trust Microsoft to do it.
But hell - I want a centralised repository for my personal information and email and address book and all that stuff. I already use Yahoo mail to collect my email (with my own domains forwarding to it). I really like being able to easily check my email and get access to info from any web browser and (at the moment) from behind petty well any corporate firewall.
I want what Hailstorm would have offered - but I don't want it from Microsoft.
Remember when Microsoft wanted MSN to be used instead of the Internet? But open solutions and a free market won, albeit with some dominant forces.
I feel somewhat confident that the hackers, developers, vendors, service providers and customers will pick a model that doesn't favor one particular technology or architecture.
I dont think anyone really wants to be locked into "Microsoft World"TM.
Microsoft is running out of steam and is reduced to using marketing and legal teams to push stale products. MS-WindowsXP and Xbox, two products expected to produce revenue and vendor lock-in, are just not actractive to the market.
It probably dies. Microsoft has known since 2000 (when the article below was published) at the latest that MS-Passport cannot be made secure even in theory. There are fatal errors in MS's implementation in additional to the fundamental problems with the basic idea.
Xbox is flopping in Europe and Japan, even without taking into account the long term effects of shipping defective units. If things turn around for Xbox in the U.S. it can live, but Japan is the market that it needs to thrive.
The MS-WindowsXP sales are pretty far below expectations and even these are primarily from the OEMs. Not enough money there either.
.NET? who knows? But until it looks like developers of third party software will be able to work freely with .NET, there'll be no takers. That and there is the added cost of reinventing java and marketing it as C#.
ActiveDirectory? It does seem like it provides most of the functionality of OpenLDAP, but at a higher price and without multiplatform support. Novell's eDirectory does seem a more mature technology from a company with more experience in that area. Now that Novell is part of the "Liberty Alliance", AD is also roadkill.
Lastly, as everyone and their dog has mentioned, the changes between recent versions of MS-Office upgrades just don't justify the expense for most individuals and corporations.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
As a person worried about the future with .NET, this is a bit of a relief. .NET technology, like other projects around the world already do. Nothing more, nothing less.
If you say this, you really don't understand what '.NET' is all about. Why is it so damn hard to just read the damn whatisit page: http://www.microsoft.com/net/defined/?
Hailstorm was a project that would use
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Thank goodness we have atleast a hailstorm replacement in DotGNU
I hope they don't quit working on this just coz MS dumped this idea.
" Freedom Rulez "
This isn't exactly the first time Microsoft has chosen to scrap a project that has been so heavily advertised
Yeah... what ever happened to their "Secure Computing" project?
Seems the number of security advisories relating to Microsoft's products hasn't slowed any since they gave us their commitment to focus on safety ahead of features.
Maybe they just found it all a bit beyond them and quietly canned the idea without telling anyone?
I don't get it. I just don't get it. They spend all this money on getting people to buy 2000, then they turn around and essentially offer what amounts to the Windows 2000 Plus Pack as a new operating system.
There's the prime example of self competition.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
It's my 21st birthday today, and I log on to Slashdot to find
;)
Microsoft Gives Up on Hailstorm
Copyright [CBDTPA] Bill Universally Rejected
Professor Testifies Windows Is Modular, Separable
What wonderful birthday presents! Thanks Slashdot
--
Andy
April 11, 2002
.Net strategy. It was intended to permit an individual to keep an online persona independent of his or her desktop computer, supposedly safely stored as part of a vast data repository where there could be easy access to it from any point on the Internet.
.Net software to leverage its brand into a broad range of service businesses.
.Net consultant, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified. Microsoft was unable to persuade either consumer companies or software developers that it had solved all of the privacy and security issues raised by the prospect of keeping personal information in a centralized repository, he said.
.Net operating system.
Microsoft Has Shelved Its Internet 'Persona' Service
By JOHN MARKOFF
AN FRANCISCO, April 10 -- Microsoft (news/quote) has quietly shelved a consumer information service that was once planned as the centerpiece of the company's foray into the market for tightly linked Web services.
The service, originally code-named Hailstorm and later renamed My Services, was to be the clearest example of the company's ambitious
At the time of the introduction of My Services, Microsoft also proclaimed that it would have a set of prominent partners in areas like finance and travel for the My Services system. However, according to both industry consultants and Microsoft partners, after nine months of intense effort the company was unable to find any partner willing to commit itself to the program.
Industry executives said the caution displayed by consumer giants like American Express (news/quote) and Citigroup (news/quote) illuminated a bitter tug of war being fought over consumer information by some of the largest financial and information companies.
"They ran into the reality that many companies don't want any company between them and their customers," said David Smith, vice president for Internet services at the Gartner Group (news/quote), a computer industry consulting and research firm.
The lack of interest also indicates that in a variety of industries outside the desktop computer business there remain significant concerns about Microsoft's potential to use its personal computer monopoly and its
An early signal that the My Services idea was in trouble came last fall at Microsoft's annual developer's conference, attended by more than 6,000 programmers. The sessions on My Services were poorly attended, an attendee said.
"There was incredible customer resistance," said a Microsoft
Microsoft executives acknowledged the shift in strategy and said the company was still contemplating how it would bring out a revised version of the My Services technology. The decision resulted in a relocation of several dozen programmers in December from a consumer products development group run by Robert Muglia to the company's operating systems division.
"We're sort of in the Hegelian synthesis of figuring out where the products go once they've encountered the reality of the marketplace," said Charles Fitzgerald, Microsoft's general manager for platform strategy.
He said part of the decision to back away from a consumer version of My Services was based on industry concerns about who was going to manage customer data. The issue, he asserted, was more of a sticking point within the industry, rather than among consumers.
"We heard a lot of concern about that point from competitors in the industry but very little from our users," he said.
Microsoft is now considering selling My Services to corporations in a traditional package form, rather than as a service. The companies would maintain the data for their own users.
"Frankly selling this stuff to people who build large data centers with our software is not a bad model," Mr. Fitzgerald said.
Microsoft first introduced the Hailstorm services idea at a news conference at its headquarters in Redmond, Wash., in March 2001. At the time, the technology received endorsements from a handful of corporations including American Express, Expedia (news/quote), eBay (news/quote), Click Commerce (news/quote) and Groove Networks.
At the time of the announcement, Microsoft described Hailstorm as a way for a consumer to have a consistent set of services, like e-mail, contacts, a calendar and an electronic "wallet" -- whether sitting at a desk or traveling and using a wireless personal digital assistant.
"Microsoft's `Hailstorm' technologies open exciting new opportunities for us to use the Web in ways never thought of before, helping us to continue to deliver service that is truly unmatched in the industry," Glen Salow, the chief information officer of American Express, said at the time in a statement.
More recently, however, American Express officials have told computer industry executives that they remain concerned about being displaced by Microsoft's brand in such a partnership.
A company spokesman said in a telephone interview today that American Express had intended to endorse the broader notion of integrated Internet services last March, not My Services specifically. He said he did not know if the company had discussions with Microsoft about becoming a My Services repository.
Several industry consultants who work with Microsoft said that the company was now planning to deploy My Services as a software product for corporate computer users some time next year, after the company introduces its
"Enterprise customers were telling Microsoft, `We like this idea but we don't want to be part of this huge public database,' " said Matt Rosoff, an analyst who follows the company at Directions on Microsoft, a market research firm in Kirkland, Wash.
When it was introduced, the Hailstorm plan quickly became a lightning rod for privacy advocates who saw dangers in concentrating vast amounts of personal information in a single repository.
Last fall a coalition of privacy groups complained in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission about the potential risks inherent in Microsoft's collecting personal information from and about several hundred million personal computer users.
My Services also created thorny privacy issues for Microsoft in Europe, because of restrictions on transborder data transfers there. Microsoft has not resolved how personal information stored in one country can be easily transmitted internationally.
No sig to see here. Move along.
... and now Hailstorm a complete failure! Today's either feel-good day or /. has decided to transform itself into a old-style communist^[dw open source propaganda newspaper! :-)
Hmm... as part of a company that has MSCE's and is (in another division) a MSCP... (broad consulting and solutions company, I run the Unix side of things)
I can tell you: We didn't like Gallstone er, Hailstorm either.
Nobody makes money in an all MS world. Even MS.
Hailstorm, named because it would devestate everything in its path.
Vapourware with a distinct odour.
or, out with the baby, the bathwater, the tub, the plumbing, the plumbers, etc....
or, IT may work just fine for those gnu fangled hobbyists, butt we knead something that costs A LOT, & keeps J. dependeNT on some kind of PayPer LieSense scammage.
Spyglass negotated a % royalty, and of course x% of $0 is $0. Spyglass later sued and settled for $20M or so, which is respectable for a piece of crap like Mosaic. I wouldn't call it a successful partnership.
Look at what he's really saying here:
Thesis: Microsoft products
Antithesis: Marketplace
Says it all, really :-)
Is it just a coincidence that this comes less than a week after MS starts trumpeting about how they've spent the last two and a half months doing security audits of their code?
What, you mean suddenly I don't have to compile my java code in order to run my programs?!? AWESOME!
Get your head out of your behind for a second and think about what you are saying. See that part above that says "run anywhere"? "Anywhere" does not equal just the Intel x86 processor. Also, not all OSes use the same object and linking formats for runnable binaries even if the OSes both run on the same hardware architecture. What is the end result to you, the .Net user? A virtual machine or just-in-time compiler for intermediate bytecode! Funny, that's exactly what many Java implementations do, isn't it?
There is, in fact, a whole separate specification for just the Java Machine itself. That means that, in theory, it would be possible to write a compiler that could take other programming languages as input and output Java Machine bytecode. Wow! Just like .Net! How about that?! Amazing.
Sure, .Net binaries might be able to store pre-compiled versions of those programs for certain targets but that is just a caching problem, and .Net isn't the first system to do something like this. It's not really even a very difficult problem to solve.
I submit that Microsoft is merely re-inventing the wheel with their .Net stuff because Sun wouldn't play ball and let them extend Java any which way they wanted to. Big fat hairy deal. It's just one more standard people will get to choose from. And, as Andrew Tannenbaum said, standards are great because there are so many to choose from!
Short answer, Passport isn't going away any time soon. All their online services rely on it. However, they may be dropping their half-arsed attempts to merge it with Kerberos, a technology that was designed for closed environment LANs, not the internet.
The way i understood it, Hailstorm was a relatively decentralized technology as designed and didn't really DEPEND on microsoft being there to hold it all together. Right? Is it possible for people to take the hailstorm protocol, if they so desire, and set up an independent, decentralized hailstorm network that just happens to not be affiliated at all with microsoft?
No - Hailstorm is largely centralised. MS have always had plans to sell the software that makes it tick to other ID vendors later, but not any time soon, because they were betting on making a lot of money off of hosting the worlds identies. As it stands, Hailstorm is utterly centralised.
To be honest I can't decide whether I'm surprised or not at this. I'd always assumed that Hailstorm was their master plan, the only thing large enough to replace their previously enormous software profits. On the other hand, Hailstorm as it stood was always virtually unworkable.
Was GNOME MONO planning on implementing hailstorm as part of their .net workalike? Are they still going to?
No, they never had any plans to do make anything other than certain parts of the development platform.
thanks -mike
I'd love to have a single sign-in for web sites.
And an easy way to track every web site I visit that requires a sign-in. No thanks. But wait! I could just use the same login and password at every site, right now, and accomplish the same thing! Without a single company knowing everywhere I go!
I'd love to have my own wish-list for books that I can use at a variety of on-line stores.
And once again have a single company know my reading preferences, available to be sold to third parties or given away to a government looking for 'troublemakers'. But wait! I could keep such a list in a...text file! And simply open it whenever I wish to see it while doing some online shopping!
I'd love to be able to have a standard way to share schedules and calendars and set up meetings, parties, etc.
And once again have a single company knowing everywhere I go, who I'm going to meet, who my associates are, how I spend my free time, and so forth. But lo! Check it out! I *already have* such a calendar on my computer, and I can use this thing called 'email' - or even the archaic device known as the 'phone' - to do this very same thing!
Zounds Batman! Looks like Hailstorm doesn't do anything I can't duplicate myself already! And far less intrusively!
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
torvalds = penis
slashdot = penis
penis = general word to describe stuff which is below horrible.
My perception of both peoples' and corporates' feelings about Hailstorm are as follows: ..., the same concerns would apply
- stuff like a single signon everywhere would be great. Ignoring several concerns, it's the right time for such a solution to appear
- the ability for apps to access Hailstorm-like features would be potentially a great leap forward in many ways, both for app developers, their employers and individuals (again, ignoring several concerns)
- individuals don't want to hand over control of their personal information to Microsoft on privacy grounds
- corporates don't want to hand over control of their customer's information to Microsoft on both privacy and competitive grounds
- if a similar solution was offered by Oracle, Sun, IBM,
Is there an opportunity for Open Source to step in and fill in the gap? Suppose an open-source equivalent was made available; would it address a lot of the concerns of both individuals and corporations? Suppose the collected data wasn't stored by anyone specific, but instead was manically encrypted and hosted on something like FreeNet to make it extremely difficult for anyone to collate the data en masse, would that make people more comfortable with having this data floating around the net somewhere?
For the other concerns that exist (and I'm sure there's lots!), can a bunch of existing OpenSource be used together to come up with a solution?
You're right. I should have described IE as a failed partnership, not a solo project -- just more fuel for the fire.
So if gaming consoles are the next big thing, what have Sony, Nintendo and Sega been doing all these years?
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
Um that's it AFAIK
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
I almost feel obligated to anwser this:
SQL Server 2000 is $5K per processor for unlimited client access. If you've only got 5-25 people accessing, it's less than that ($1K-$2K).
Yes, for old-fashioned client-server use. If you want to use your SQL Server for storage of data that's accessible through Internet, which is most of the usage you will see today (I don't know about intranet, though), you are in the 20k$ range, AFAIK.
boky
There is a place for centralization of data, but it is far more likely that with the prolifieration of always-on and broadband type connections that people will user their home desktop as a personal server and repository.
Distributed solutions if this type are begging for software which is easy to configure and maintain, and probides security while possibly providing signed authentication. This keeps keeps personal data at home, which makes most people more comfortable.
there's no replacement for displacement
I'm sorry, but I read this headline as is: Microsoft is going to swallow the world into .NET in one less step.
The fact that Microsoft is repackaging it as more of a "standalone" product. As a Contractor for the Federal Gov't., we run into many places where the Gov't needs to keep "customer" data, whether the customers are citizens or government employees. The fact Microsoft will let the Gov't. (or one of Contractors!) buy, install, and run the software will make it a LOT more useful!
This is actually a great relief. Now we just need the western front to be opened.
The mono project scares me. If linux .NET(mono) was to become anywhere near as successfull as windows .NET then microsoft would whip out some obscure software patent, claiming that everyone running mono is in violation and owns money to microsoft. I kinda see .NET as trojan horse of sorts, once the code get inside a Linux distrubution (RedHat) they can have the lawyers pop and sue themm and get them to stop other .NET and steal there customers.
user: cmdrtaco4
pass: slashdot
Email: postmaster@127.0.0.1 (I signed him up for all their junkmail)
Perhaps M$ lost its Persona-lity?
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
I am no fan of microsoft, but it's good that microsoft is changing it to a standalone package. Though before that happens, I would like to see Microsoft finally describe in full detail exactly how persona fits into the whole webservices picture and set some good guidelines about how to use it. I've read the whitepapers a few times, but I still don't get a crystal clear picture. More like looking for a truck in the morning fog. You see it, but not sure if it's the right truck.
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Whew. I feel much better now. Yeah yeah, kick em while they're down.
Funny thing....in the passport documentation, they had laid out the possibility of the federated model, but it was quite clear from the verbage that that was NOT the way they wanted to go with this. Feeeeels goood.
Did you hear that M$ rep on the article, "Tremindious customer resistance." Sounding more like a borg to me. Customer resistance is futile.
Drat, I think some hoe changed the NYtimes password. Happens every time!
I don't want to register on principle. Why do I have to register for a news site when there are countless others available that don't make me register? Does anyone have a cached copy of the article?
They may have good articles at times, but I don't need them more than they need me (which is 'not at all' anyway).
If you sign up for a free acount, use the e-mail address 'advertising@nytimes.com'.
Microsoft executives acknowledged the shift in strategy and said the company was still contemplating how it would bring out a revised version of the My Services technology. The decision resulted in a relocation of several dozen programmers in December from a consumer products development group run by Robert Muglia to the company's operating systems division.
and not think that they would just embed this directly into the OS?
More recently, however, American Express officials have told computer industry executives that they remain concerned about being displaced by Microsoft's brand in such a partnership.
They're afraid of the monopoly and its corrupt power.
- Sig this!
PC makers had better start worrying. Remember MS's oft-repeated assurances that they would never make a PC? This helped Compaq, Dell, etc. stay complacent, knowing that MS wouldn't wipe out the beige-box market the way they wiped out the keyboard and mouse markets. So the PC makers keep installing Windows rather than pursuing alternatives, and fight about the contracts that kept dual-boot installations out of the market.
Well, now the XBox is out, running Windows -- just a game console, right? But it needs a CD, a DVC, internet connectivity, how about a keyboard? and a monitor connector? Oops, as volume ramps up, and a hacker learns how to install arbitrary software on the thing -- hey, this is cheaper than a Dell! Cool! So XBox volume explodes as people substitute them for PCs. Now that MS is making tons of money off of the XBox, they don't need Dell and company much.
At this point MS can afford to renege on their word, ahem, revise their strategic direction, and explicitly market a PC, called XBox with Productivity Pack or some other cheesy name, in direct competition with their biggest customers.
Finally, MS gets to take over the biggest hardware market.
"We heard a lot of concern about that point from competitors in the industry but very little from our users," he said.
But of course. When was the last time MS listened to their users about anything?
Please stop submitting NYTimes articles, all you geeks should understand that people are already signed-up for enough crap on the net.
"Failure of Windows operating systems is extremely rare. If it happens, it is usually due to operating system file c
I keep hoping that Microsloth will make an even bigger misstep some day. My preference would be to see .Net become the biggest computer fiasco since dBase IV but anything that makes an Ashton-Tate out of the gang at Redmond would please me to no end.
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
"That's one degree of separation!"
And here I thought that was just MS marketing mumbo jumbo.
"They ran into the reality that many companies don't want any company between them and their customers," said David Smith.
Translation:
The companies MS was counting on to implement Hailstorm remembered what happened the last time that a big company (IBM) allowed MS between them & their customers (IBM got crushed marginalized), and decided to actually learn from history instead of repeating the same mistake. We should applaud this.
Contrary to popular opinion, "penis" is actually not that horrible. Just not worth a lot of money.
Pushin' 'n dealin', shovin' 'n stealin'
I'm reminded of Big Brother. Control the language of discourse and you control the content of discourse.
When Smalltalk came out in the 80's nobody knew what a __Class__ was, but it was a mystery and had some prestige, Microsoft adopted it for prestige and marketing BS. Now that we know and understand a bit more, Microsoft is unable to get milage out of using it to spread the fog anymore.
They will now start to misuse another word, __type__, which has a very specific meaning, (an inextensible storage layout and set of internal operands,) and use it to make people forget about encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism and taxonomic organization of code.
In six months they will try to turn back the clock of CompSci discourse to levels not seen since the early seventies, when computers were big expensive, complicated machines ruled by a lab-coated priest hood.
They will be aided in this by the fact that the machine taking up the desktop is more powerful than the machines that took up entire rooms back them.
They may succeed except that the people who handle all the damn money and power don't trust anything but Unix to handle the incredible amount of transactions posted every day.
M$ is okay for the secretaries who just type letters and put together powerpoint obfuscations, but its not for real computing.
Nobody uses anything M$ does on anything important. Just ask Bill Gates "Would you want a pacemaker running on anything M$ has in its arsenal?"
Talk about the "Blue Screen of Death."
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I'm glad to see Hailstorm go. In typical FUD fashion, many critics confused .NET (the larger initiative) with Hailstorm (a "web service" that stored personal information). Now with Hailstorm gone, and .NET still very alive, it will allow people to look at the "bigger" parts of .NET (Hailstorm was an important piece of the web services strategy, but had very little to do with the development platform, aside from the fact that you could call the appropriate Hailstorm classes). Additionally, perhaps people will realize that obviously those that were crying about .NET really didn't know what they were talking about, and should be appropriately ignored in the future.
The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.
APRIL FOOLS !!!
Maybe the corporate world hasn't gotten nearly as dumb as we all thought.
In these financially tight times, you mean MS wants people to pay for an online gaming service PLUS their monthly internet bills? This sounds like a very hailstorm kind of proposition to me especially considering that, for instance, here in Europe one of the biggest media enterprises, Kirch Media, went bankrupt this week. They had one of the largest stakes in Pay-TV but it just didn't take off because with cable and satellite and god knows how many channels to choose from not many were intereseted.
The same applies to MS and it's paid online gaming services: People with PC's can already game all over the net with their internet connection, which is already more flexible than MS' game options will be. Sony might have a similar problem but has especially outside the US better brand recognition since most normal non-computer people don't even know what microsoft is.
This post is about a hundred posts too late, but I still feel that it's worth...posting.
Does any one of you honestly believe that Microsoft, in all of its daemonic grandeur, doesn't know exactly what it's doing?
M$ has some of the greatest (and worst) minds in the world under its wing. The company has survived countless attacks (both physical, i.e. network attacks, and "mental", i.e. media attacks) for over a decade. It's one of the most powerful and influential companies in the world, and at any given moment can leverage enough political pull to accomplish nearly anything it wants to.
Never, ever, EVER think for one SECOND that Microsoft/Evil Gates of Borg isn't doing EXACTLY WHAT IT/HE WANTS. Gates could, quite literally, PURCHASE most of the companies that all of you work for, and then either grind them into the ground or assimilate their workers and wares into the Microsoft Corporation.
Good lord, people...wake up and smell the fscking coffee -> If you don't think that M$/Gates has a bigger plan in mind, you're sorely mistaken. I'm not talking "end of the world", "vast evil empire", or "Skynet", but don't think for a second that Microsoft doesn't know exactly what's going on and is, in fact, PLANNING all of this shit like 5-10 years in advance.
I wouldn't be surprised if more M$ bullshit goes on for the next few months as M$ slowly tries to get the world to think that it's NOT a monopoly:
"Oh no, we can't afford our R&D and our products are slowly becoming replaced by the open source movement...we obviously aren't a monopoly, sir!"
Wake the hell up.
Yes, for old-fashioned client-server use. If you want to use your SQL Server for storage of data that's accessible through Internet, which is most of the usage you will see today (I don't know about intranet, though), you are in the 20k$ range, AFAIK
a sp
You are wrong. $5K per license for SQL Server 2000 standard edition (what most small to medium businesses would use... hell, even large businesses). Read this page:
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/production.
"And like that
...on anything - I'll believe it 20 years down the road. Always keep in mind MS's huge cash hoard - $38 billion by the latest count. * MS, Gates, Ballmer, etc.
Badgeez?! We don' need no steenking badgeez!
My original post has drawn out the M$ supporters!
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=1, Insightful=3, Interesting=1, Overrated=2, Total=7.
They seem to be having a hell of a time explaining how M$ is trustworthy and able to "play well with others", but they have at least demonstrated their presence. Ideally, I would like to get original post to hit +5 despite all the Flamebait and Overrated mods that come from the Redmond fans. I expect even more downmods as soon as their systems reboot. In this case, I actually get a certain amount of enjoyment from all the downmods. Althought it wasn't my original intention, it would be nice to get a few "Trolls". Go ahead, make my day.
"When a stone is thrown into a pack of dogs, the one that is hit will bark."
No one likes their damn accounts, no one likes being tracked, and there are a hell of a lot of other news sites. Please *stop* posting Slashdot articles with links to NYTimes articles. You just encourage them.
May we never see th
"Sun -- Java; enough said"
Too much said. MS was Sun's customer, not partner.
i feel much better now
Bad enough we had to put up with all those bogus posts on April Fools day, but it's been 10 days since and you're still putting these articles up. Wait a minute...this is serious?
Help find a cure for cancer!
All internet based access can be bound to one user/application. So you really only need 1 client access license /application. I have a bunch of SQL2k server running 5 user licenses without ever any issues.
/me checks the date on this article to make sure it isn't 1 April.
Brian
MS has the luxury of being able to dedicated significant resources in new market areas that would cost other companies dearly if they failed.
For example, they missed the emergence of the internet but where capable of recovering by buying their way in.
MS has a history of failed initatives but have been very successful at buying the best-of-breed in a specific market area and quickly dominating that area. They should be forced to compete with the best companies and not allowed to buy them and thereby reducing the competiveness of the market.
This "feature" is not dead, it will just be integrated into the .Net framework. M$ NEVER gives up an idea, just shelves it for rebranding/repackaging.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
While I am glad to see that we won't have this horrible policy shoved down our throats, I would rather have had M$ waste money on it for several years before finally getting a clue.
As long as M$ continues to be light on its feet it will continue to be very diffcult for a smaller rival to wedge its way into the larger markets.
The more you tighten your grip, General Gates, the more software systems will slip through your fingers.
Guys,
MS has some of the best programmers in the world working for them.
They create great things and certainly have created things that more ordinary people have used than anyone who wrote something for Linux has ever written.
MS putting a bullet through MyServices is an example of how quick they are to realize a dumb idea when they create it. Rather than throw good cash after bad they did the right thing...lets go for a walk out back....whack.....next project.
It really is a testament to their success that they can fail so well. Remember Bob?
This is very good news indeed. Hopefully this will be a HUGE lesson for Microsoft in regard on how it treats its conusmers. .NET/Hailstorm from the start was overly sketchy and pretty damn intrusive. Why do we, the people who work hard for our money, be forced to use this garbage? Seriously. Why should it be when everytime someone boots up Money 2002 that you need a Passport to get in? Does Microsoft really have authority to have your money info? Hell no.
Now that Hailstorm is out of the picture, I hope the Xbox is next :)
Have you ever looked at Oracle or DB2 both are far superior database solutions to Microsoft SQL. I say use the right tool for the job, if you don't have tons of users hammering the database all the time MySQL, but for something larger try the big players
ahh, the egg in the basket..
Hailstorm was not a good idea. In a rational world it would fail miserably. I guess this means our world is rational.
The bad thing about playing Tribes2 all the time is the voice binds became a part of your experential doldrums and sift you away like the nothing you remember.
I know that I'm adding this comment far to late to get noticed, but it must be said. I'm certain that the only reason that MS is making this announcment, and certainly the reason that they are making it now is to impress Colleen Kollar-Kotelly -- saying that they are not trying to take over the world, after all.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
I guess they made it more Java-like. Like with the Java 2DAPI, where can I find IDirectDraw::WaitForVerticalRetract()? Where can I find ScrollWindowEx()? The Windows API has neat stuff because MS wanted game developers to switch from DOS to Windows, and key elements are unavailable anywhere else.
They stated that they will drop "My Services" as a Microsoft service, fold the developers into the operating systems division (uh-oh) and roll out software to be used by other companies.
The evil empire is withdrawing the leviathan solution (Hailstorm, er "My Services") in favor of the smallpox solution (sell the software as infrastructure to companies that need this solution). I think fighting smallpox is a lot harder than fighting leviathan.
What would you rather face: a big service being attacked from all sides or an insidious "infrastructure" being implemented in many places at once.
Personally, I would have been far more impressed with something far more elegant, insightful, or amusing.
Even a little golf, ala would have been more interesting.
tlhf - xxx - Obfu Perl sucks, unless it does something new
Aside from the usual Microsoft hating rhetoric, which I am guilty of myself, lets look at what the article is really saying. The concept of a single point of login, payment, and being able to set my consumer preferences is very intruiging to me. But there are the obvious privacy concerns with a large central repository of consumer information. Central to the "infomediation" business model which Hailstorm was trying to accmplish is the concept of trust. I think the central and pivotal question the article raises, is whether there is a fundamental flaw in the business model of "infomediation" or whether people just dont trust Microsoft? Are people willing to trust this kind of information to anyone? I for one dont have a huge problem with it (as long as it is not Microsoft) as long as there are some builtin safeguards and I am receiving what I consider a return on the value of my information. Any thoughts on this?? Sendai-X
I like penis, but then again, I am really SOOOOOOO gay... ;-) Must be why I am falling in love with linux and why I am reading /.
Ronald, r_a_trip@keyaccess.nl
Have they given up Blitzkrieg, too?
So let me get this straight - you want to tie yourself to a particular CPU type and model, but not to an OS? I think I'm glad I'm not one of your clients... well, be prepared for some, er, divergence of your distributed code base in future - Intel might possibly come out with a new CPU, or someone could be running an AMD box, you never know...
You've not installed it on a top-of-the-line Athlon. It goes amazingly fast. If it wasn't Windows (ie: crashy, insecure, patronising, sends reports home) it would be wonderful.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Microsoft uses .NET as a trademark, as in .NET server, .NET messenger etc. This is nothing but a marketing campaign.
.NET framework is a set of technologies for cross-platform (sort of) APIs that allows you to basically code in several .NET compliant languages (C#, C++, J# etc.) and execute the resulting binaries on any .NET compliant machine regardless of architecture.
.NET without actually understanding what it is.
The
Yes this is confusing, and it is leading a lot of people to attack the straw-man of
Jeremy
It's appropriate that you should list the system which Microsoft's accounting system is based. Favourite quote:
Fifty NT boxes per AS/400! And they can all run Java. I'm impressed, how about you? (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I could just use the same login and password at every site, right now, and accomplish the same thing!
Don't we all wish! Only if you come up with some realy obscure/unique user ID that no one else will ever use on any site that you might wish to register on. I mean, come on, the name GreenLight is mine! You wouldn't believe, though, how many sites that I try to register on where my name is already taken by some imposter 8^)
"Send an Instant Karma to me" - Yes
For USD$20k a CPU (or anything near that) I'd be wanting it to hammer the life out of a USD$200 service on every front!
Some of the fronts that MS-SQL doesn't win on are significant. For example, the amount of traffic that sloshes back and forth do do replication is nothing short of amazing. And if you do want to replicate, why, that's another twenty thousand spondoolies (AUD$40k) down the tube, plus hardware.
The next item on my agenda is MySQL. I'd choose PostgreSQL instead. There are no licencing complications which might come back and bite you on the behind later, it's far more feature-complete, and while MySQL often eats it for some of the dirt-simple stuff, MySQL most assuredly won't eat PostgreSQL [more detail] as things get more complicated, that is, for anything noticeably more complex than a weblog.
Finally, and still on the lies-damn-lies-and-statistics track, do you use the actual hardware that Microsoft used to get some TPC wins with? No? In that case, the TPC ratings aren't very useful to you with your `only USD$10k' dual-Xeon server, are they? (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
that perhaps this is just a feint on Microsoft's part, a false admission so to speak, to demonstrate to an uncertain jury (Kollar-Kotelly) that the market itself will resolve some of the outstanding issues regarding Microsoft's current initiatives, and that further action on the part of the Justice Department is not only unwarranted, but may result in further destabilization of the technology sector?
We'll know once the judgement is handed down, of course...
Slashdot is my Mercer Box.
Jeez...slashdotties make accusations about FUD, then they themselves post downright lies.
n .a sp
At least make up lies that are not easily refutable!
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/productio
I guess if you insist your login be 'cool' you might have some problems - but these are all self-inflicted and trivial. Now me, I could use 'maxpublic10568' and be perfectly happy.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
> I want what Hailstorm would have offered - but I don't want it from Microsoft.
I don't want it from anyone until the industry as a whole gets a LOT more serious about security than it has been. The idea that e-commerce websites run IIS and think it's secure enough as-installed is reason enough not to trust them to run any kind of Hailstorm-like plan correctly.
Sybase -- Let's get MS$ to help us with our next-gen database, Sybase System 10!
Stac Electronics -- Well, not a fair addition since they weren't a willing partner; more along the lines of "license this to us for $0, or we'll just include it in the OS anyway and let you sue us."