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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."
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.
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
Sure, for very small definitions of anywhere. Anywhere will probably not even include all versions of windows (e.g. win98), and it certainly won't include much of the unix world for the forseeable future.
At least Java is somewhate widely supported on varying platforms. How does .NET even come close?
Don't be fooled, this is more vendor lock-in dressed up in sheep clothing.
XML causes global warming.
Since nobody has any crystal balls, there no way to say for sure that MS has passed its apex. Consider this, though.
Current versions of Microsoft software compete with previous versions.
For example, most of the differences that distinguish Office 97, Office 2000, and Office XP are just small features, none of which are compelling reasons to spend several hundred dollars a copy to upgrade. Probably most upgrading is done out of fear of being incompatible with other Office users, and even this fear is questionable, since despite the moanings about MS playing file format games, Office maintains pretty good backwards compatibility and can save files in Office97 formats.
Windows XP competes with Win95/98/ME. While WinXP is leaps and bounds more stable than the DOS-based Windows OSs, its hardware requirements are much higher as well, which discourages those with lower-end machines from upgrading. Most people are either just used to the instability of the DOS-based junk or don't stress the OS to the point that it's really a problem, so WinXP isn't so compelling.
Microsoft knows that its Office upgrades are offering less and less, so it's trying to switch to a subscription model, which many CEOs and CIOs are balking at.
Microsoft also is trying to diversify by getting into game consoles, but this path has been tough going, and most of MS's dirty tricks don't work so well in the console world.
Further, since MS pays its employees less than the industry average and compensate with employee stock options, MS has to keep its stock value rising at a high rate. Slow expansion or a mostly constant stock value won't do well. The Motley Fool had something on this.
Also, distrust of MS extends beyond just geeks. At the very least, hardly anyone takes the Microsoft name as a sign of quality.
There's no saying that MS won't overcome these problems, but it's not invulnerable, and the next few years, or even the next few months, depending on the outcome of Kotter-Kotelly's verdict, may determine whether MS continues to be the juggernaut that it is.
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
with SQL 2000 at $20,000 per processor that won't change anytime soon
Nice of you to quote the highest possible price per processor. We have SQL Server 7 licensed for two processors, it was expensive, but NOWHERE NEAR $20,000 per proc! I just checked the SQL 2000 licensing. Yeah, $20K per proc for the ENTERPRISE EDITION. This is like on Spaceballs where the guy orders the ship to go at "LUDICROUS SPEED!"
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-$2K).
It's also not really fair to compare it to Linux/Apache/MySQL, as SQL Server 2000 beats MySQL on MANY fronts, including speed and options.
I'm no fan of MS in general, but SQL Server 7 is the best piece of software I've ever used, and I'm sick of the FUD.
I sitll support the paranoid people, because there is always the chance that M$ will extend and extinguish what it has embraced, but with them having submitted everything to ECMA, that's really an outside worry.
Ahh yes... an outside worry. More like even-odds!
Good luck, though.
"And like that
.NET offers "compile once, run anywhere.
.NET bytecode an executable and Java bytecode not? Six of one and half dozen of the other. Anything you can do with one you can do with the other.
Really. And you know this before there was an implementation for more than one operating system how? At least Sun has some motivation to support more than one operating system; there's no particular reason for Microsoft to support more than Windows. I suspect that Microsoft will make sure Unix/Mac implementations exist for PR, and then go ahead with complete disregard for compatibility with them.
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.
Why is
with them having submitted everything to ECMA, that's really an outside worry.
Because Microsoft couldn't twist a standard, or omit important material from a standard or leave a standard vague in certain spots.
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
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!