Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Responds to Leaked Memo
AbbeyRoad writes "CNN, has a
story on Microsoft's response the
internal memo previous leaked:
"Microsoft believes many of its efforts to market its products against Linux and open source are backfiring, according to a memo posted on the Internet. ... Microsoft declined to comment on the authenticity of the memo, and did not answer when asked if it believes its marketing against Linux and open source has been effective. ... Microsoft spokesman Jon Murchinson said: ''The document in question seems to suggest that the basis for evaluating products has been long-term customer value, and that's something we agree with. I think our marketing is geared toward that issue, toward long-term customer value.'' ""
long-term customer value
With the new licenses, the value increases every upgrade!
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
"I will see you back here next year, for a debate on our Halloween VIII memo, now in development." he proceeded to add.
Sources indicate that next year's halloween memo will require 20Gig for a full install, but will be available as a "web-service" for a small subscription fee.
Are you on drug(s)?!! Why not?
They are dependant on the marketing and business schemes and not the quality of their product. If the above isn't working then they better become concerned.
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
Why not ? Is it SO bad for them to publicly acknowledge Linux (an other OSOS) as competition ?
That is the important thing here, that acknowledgement, cos all measures (legal) to gain market over your competition are ok.
It's clear to me that, much like most modern elections, the second is indeed the case. Rather than attempting to promote Linux and Open Source as worthwhile competitors, Slashdot and its parent company insist on attacking Microsoft. This attack has multiple fronts: Apple, Linux, and BSD are all praised.
The clear bias is seen in the promotion of Apple: Apple is every bit as proprietary as Microsoft, even going so far as to monopolize their hardware market and filing numerous lawsuits to combat those attempting to mimic their 'look and feel', something that even Microsoft does not attempt to do.
I propose that this site state its purpose: does it exist to provide news, or is it merely attempting to blast Microsoft in a selfish, childish, jealous manner?
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
''The document in question seems to suggest that the basis for evaluating products has been long-term customer value, and that's something we agree with. I think our marketing is geared toward that issue, toward long-term customer value.''
hmm.. marketing and product development are two VERY different things, no?
Microsoft would be sent to gulag.
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
They are going to argue that they are cheaper than a free operating systems with relatively few major security holes compared. Kind of reminds me of that stereotypical phyiscs professor who just throws terms into equations and whatnot.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
... or is this article not about Microsoft responding to the leaked memo at all, but rather posting the cnn version about the fact that there is a leaked memo...
>>Top Microsoft executives have said open source is a "cancer."
Damn! I almost caught that as a matrix quote. I so wish they would have said "virus" haha
-Foxxz
That was supposed to be: .... toward long-term shareholder value.
And this is the company considering charging extra for security?
or is that long term customer security?
And just how long will that term be? Will it end when any given user is sick of A)The Blue Screen? B)Having to call Tech Support like clockwork? C)That nasty green Start Button starts making them a little seasick (like it does me)? or D)When they discover Linux (after it has been made into a viable desktop OS for everyone)?
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
Really, is the Microsoft memo so different from this and similar documents?
Organizations refine their marketing all the time. And incidentally, Linux and open source in general is the #1 threat to Microsoft... and also to Sun. I don't doubt there is a similar pro-Solaris, pro-SPARC, anti-Linux, anti-Intel memo within Sun's sales organization.
I wonder how Palladium is supposed to stop cut-n-paste though...
A CNN story and a Slashdot article about 39 words of vapid marketspeak from some random Microsoft employee.
Martin Brooks / Slayer99 #linux / UIN 2178117
Gee, I always thought name-calling would be a sure way to win over customers. There's no way it could possibly backfire and cause consumers to look at other options, of course not. If company A appears scared shitless of company B, there's no way company A's customers would take a closer look at B's product, right? No way, won't happen.
Legal arguments on the other hand still could cause damage. Support the EFF today!
Um, you mean, so we can pay for that OS upgrade every 2 years and patch it every few days? That kind of long-term value??? Puhleeze. I have friends who are STILL running Slackware linux in almost the SAME config they installed back in '94. Show me someone who's still running Win3.1...and getting any decent use of it.
gates: so, that Switch thing misfired?... how did they figure it out?
PRguy_In_cape: dunno boss, looks like we shouldnt be using clip art.
gates: damn, we need something out to get us into slashdot again...
PRguy_IN_cape: should i release that internal memo?
gates: i love slashdot.
Maybe Microsoft would have better luck in their campaign against Linux if they systematically vandalized the whole of NYC with Pro-MS/Anti-Linux stickers.
They've never that before, right? It's bound to work and probably won't cost them more than $50 or $60 in fines.
ah, glorious spinola. may wee have another few terabytes please. thanks in advance.
meanwhile, we're nearly speechless over having been found to be one of the "Top 10 Companies of 2002"(tm) , on fuddle's search thingy.
long live the hobbyist whiners et AL.
Viva La Revolucione(tm)
Hungry? Eat your WinXP.
--
Signature deleted by lameness filter.
Micrsoft?
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
Translation: I wasn't aware of this memo existing because I'm just a PR Weasel, and totally out of the loop, but just in case this is a real memo then I'd better praise it before I'm selling French Fries.
Seriously though - if it wasn't authentic, they would have vehemently denied it was authentic in a way to discredit Eric Raymond.
Does anyone else find it funny that Raymond won't release the source for this internal memo?
Well, over all, the Microsoft answer was rather hollow. The entire Halloween document was dedicated to the effectiveness of Microsoft's campaign against FOSS, namely Linux. Yet, they gave no definative answer about it. They went further to decline comment on the document's validity itself. All they really did was vaguely agree that the writer, whoever it may be, understood their marketing schemes. What a pointless article. But I do enjoy the MS bashing, let's keep it up friends.
"I think our marketing is geared toward that issue, toward long-term customer value."
Now if only their PRODUCTS were geared towards long-term customer value, maybe they would be having more success.
I think our marketing is geared toward that issue, toward long-term customer value.
Well, I can't comment on the marketing, but the products certainly are. In the long-term, I put a lot of "value" into MS products once I as a customer have become dependent of them (think Exchange server and upgrade costs).
my
M$ declined to comment, damnit. That's not a response, that's evasion...
The comment they made has zero really to do with the actual memo itself, and goes on some OJ-Defense-Teamesque Red Herring that is avoiding the entire case at hand.
It's really simple actually:
1) Avoid the subject, and show the world how great you are by not letting them see how bad you are (Security through Obscurity)
2) ????
3) Profit.
Something tells me they're just going to continue munching on their foot till they bite themselves in the ass here.
Karma: Non-Heinous
Yes. But not before leaked Memo Responds to Microsoft.
"Rather than attempting to promote Linux and Open Source as worthwhile competitors, Slashdot and its parent company insist on attacking Microsoft."
/.
You are implying that VA Software created the memo and leaked it to CNN?
It would seem that the article was written by a bona fide news source, and that it is onl;y being echoed here.
Fact is, the battle for market supremacy in the server room and on the desktop is of paramount importance to most of the readers of
Fact is, Microsoft itself created this "bad news."
You imply it is cowardly to post these articles rather than extol the virtues of the competition. Hmmm, I daresay that you are being cowardly for attacking the messenger rather than the message.
"Apple is every bit as proprietary as Microsoft, even going so far as to monopolize their hardware market and filing numerous lawsuits to combat those attempting to mimic their 'look and feel', something that even Microsoft does not attempt to do."
The most famous suit was the one against Windows, and Microsoft.
They lost, BTW.
"I propose that this site state its purpose"
I think they do.
Look upward at the banner at the top of the screen.
It says "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters."
I fail to see how this memo fails to qualify as exactly that.
Those running slashdot are more devoted to trying to find flaws in their 'enemy' than promoting the virtues of their cause.
'tis true, for we may look like penguins but we have the hearts of warriors.
I propose that this site state its purpose: does it exist to provide news, or is it merely attempting to blast Microsoft in a selfish, childish, jealous manner?
'tis both, a shrine for wisdom and quiet reflection, and oftentimes a site of banter and merriment.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
I'm just curious. Let's say MS finds an IP "violation" in the Linux kernel, in some fairly core area. Which of these do they have the right to sue, and who would they most likely sue?
1. Linus.
2. Developers who wrote IP violating code.
3. Red Hat / SuSE / Debian / Mandrake / other distros.
4. Companies selling Linux-based devices e.g. Tivo.
5. Companies deploying Linux in their workplaces.
6. Cowboyneal.
Basically what I'm asking here is this: If Linux were found to be in violation of someone's (MS's) IP, would it be illegal to sell/distribute Linux or just to "consume" it?
Or these "memos" leak a bit too easily ? Almost sounds like part of Microsoft tactic :)
...that MS is more and more treated like some political institution rather than a company? E.g., the U.S. v. MS posed the two almost as equivalent entities. I can't imagine all this chatter about "leaked" memos from IBM or Adobe or Apple. Bill Gates is the potentate, MS the Empire, and so on -- at least as this is made out. Maybe Linus Torvald is Martin Luther?
The paradigm is unique to the industry I think.
First, Slashdot does not seem to favor any particular OS. It favors most UNIX-based operating systems, and Apple's OS X fits under this category.
Admittedly, Apple is quite proprietary. However, it has not attempted to crush the open-source movement, and currently has an open-source kernel.
News overview:
2 Most recent articles: were both about Microsoft
16 Articles before that: were NOT about Microsoft
The link in the summary seems to point to the wrong memo. Here's the correct one.
I think Slashdot should either ditch the Borg bill (maybe *gasp* a Microsoft logo), or mock up the open source mascots in a similar fashion. I find it fairly hard to take a story seriously when the topic icon shows a pretty blatant bias against said company.
slashdot!=valid HTML
I'm not saying you're wrong. But they'd increase the page hits a lot more by drifting into sex topics ... maybe. It'd be nice if little incremental stories like this were posted without opportunity for comment.
But, hey, it's not like rehashing the same arguments for 1001th time is a statistically significant increase from 1000, right?
Can we start a long-overdue thread on "which OS, on which platform, is best?"
It's just a joke man. Lighten up and pull that stick out of your ass.
Microsoft believes many of its efforts to market its products against Linux and open source are backfiring
The way I see it, the greatest strength of free software is that the people involved have not traditionally been greedy in their pursuits. Conversely, greed is Microsoft's achilles heel. Even if stroking the egos of those involved in open software is unintentional, the movement will most likely fail if the community acquires a lust for something other than making high-quality software available to all, without discrimination.
That being said, I ask why we care (within reason) about what Microsoft says about Linux, be it good or bad?
"People with opinions just go around bothering one another." -The Buddha
Free as in Speech; free as in beer; free as in Herpes.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
No, that's what billg really looks like ever since the pie incident... notice he looks a bit fatter in recent years - that's the makeup fx covering it all up.
must... stay... awake...
i agree
;)
they should use that butterfly dude from the commercial
what a great mascot that would be
he could be flinging himself in front of a penguin or something in order to protect us from the evils of linux
And in other news, Microsoft STILL runs some of its servers on FreeBSD, Linux. Check out http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=a147.ms. a.microsoft.com
and
http://www.netcraft.com/whats/?host=ad.law10.hotma il.com
for info. (see how they try to secure this information by obscuring it down a few layers? How Effective!)
MS using linux is like Senator Joseph McCarthy carrying around The Communist Manifesto with him.
Really, I might believe one of these, maybe even 2 or 3, but 7? Come on...where are these coming from, and what are their motivations? Are these really leaked? or are these deliberate misinformation?
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
by reading our strategy against open source software you, the developer, agree to not use gpl'ed tools against the beast, 'er microsoft, inc.
It comes down to a matter of perspective. M$ is attempting to make as much money as possible. That is their basic business goal. If they can get people to use an inferior product by market dominance than they will do so. Especially if such a tactic is cheaper (and thereby more profitable).
What about Linux? Since it is open source its free, so its goal, by definition, cannot be to make as much money as possible. So the goal of the open source use of linux is to make the best operating system possible.
Regardless then, of what M$ may do, Linux will continue on. Its proponents and those who utilize it will not simply stop using it because M$ hires another class of marketers, they don't care. It will continue to be refined, it will continue to be free, there will still be those attempting to make money off of it, but it will remain, at its core, an effort to do something right.
It is my humble belief, therefore, that M$ will not be able to ever rid itself of Linux. It is fighting a war with itself. Linux is not fighting a war of survival with M$ it is merely attmepting to improve itself. M$ must continue to make money and Linux, as a free workable OS, is a threat to that. M$, however, is not a threat to Linux.
My $.02
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Even more fun, just reading it is considered accepting it.
If Halloween VII makes the Commercial News Network, this can only be a good thing. This is good pub for Linux, for Open Source. MS obviously is not even acknowledging this memo, so it's probably authentic. They obviously understand now that Linux or OSS-bashing doesn't work-- perhaps they think that if they don't draw too much attention to OSS, it will fade from public attention. They've been trying to win the developer community with .NET, too. It is just a strategy to lock organizations into Windows. Love him or hate him, you have to admit that ESR has done a big service to OSS by publishing the Halloween Documents.
Always look on the briight side of life! (whistle, whistle)
"The document in question seems to suggest that the basis for evaluating products has been long-term customer value, and that's something we agree with. I think our marketing is geared toward that issue, toward long-term customer value."
And now that they have their marketing all fixed up to be a long-term customer value, they're ready to address the long term value of their products -- please stand by for Bill Gates to announce Microsoft's "Value Computing" initiative.
Oh Microsoft, you don't get it, let me count the ways.
Bad-mouthing Linux doesn't work. It fails because people _like_ Linux, and Linux _works_. What else can you say? Trying to tell people that a free operating system has a higher cost of ownership than their product which costs hundreds or thousands of dollars makes Microsoft look foolish. Arguing that "you'll need to pay people to maintain it" is almost laughable.
Microsoft, the life cycle of your products is deplorable. It used to be that businesses were willing to cede that due to hardware advances, they'd have to replace office PCs every 3-5 years. That's no longer the case. The office staff will hardly tell a difference between a Celeron 800 and the new Pentium 4 machines. So, businesses are finally going to get some realistic life out of the investment. However, Microsoft still wants to maintain the same life cycle of their operating systems. Even worse, if you don't fit into their upgrade schedule, you have security problems that are likely to be unresolved as your version of their OS retires. Microsoft, people are understanding that the insecurities of your operating system _work in your favor_ to promote the obscenely short life-cycles of your product.
Microsoft fails to understand that their money grab in licensing changes, their unmitigated gall at calling their customers thieves via the BSA and many other ways of annoying the IT managers through-out the world has -- Microsoft, get ready for the clue here --
_alienated customers_!
That's right. Microsoft, take a long hard look at the likes of large monopolistic phone companies and see why people will opt for something that's not necessarily better, but tolerable in order to eliminate the intolerable dealings with Microsoft.
You obviously have not been to Redmond in a while; no self-respecting engineer would have a location like "cublicle 35A." After the Enlightenment of 1996, Joe Blow would have a designation such as "Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct to Unimatrix Zero-One."
/. has its own spin on Microsoft, refer to the slash icon accompanying its stories. I'm sure they realize everyone is just kidding around.
/.?
If anyone doubts (!)
How many Microsoft employees do you think belong to or lurk
(When I did visit the "campus" a while ago, the private offices [with doors!] looked pretty comfy, though there was bit of a stale smell in the air.)
Like someone said about TV
"the product is not the programmes but the viewers"
so customer value can refer to the value of the customer not of the Microsoft product line
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
To state the obvious, Sun isn't Microsoft. Microsoft is a convicted, predatory monopolist. They have the money and the power to completely ruin OSS, as soon as they figure out how to do it. Don't think they aren't trying.
OSS isn't a company they can buy. It is difficult to sqaush something that is intangible and revolutionary. This is interesting to me because I love OSS, GNU/Linux in particular. I don't want to see it go away, and I want to know what Microsoft thinks about it, and what their strategies are. I want everyone else to know this too, especially the people who are able to fight against Microsoft.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I wonder how Palladium is supposed to stop cut-n-paste though
If you cut from a trusted application, you will only be able to paste to another trusted application, and only if the document you are cutting from allows pasting.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Excellent advice... all my competition, there is no future in IT, choose a different field. Also all you guys out there dating cute girls, you really don't want to do that either.
I find it rather ironic that this message thread in my browser just happens to have an advertisement for Microsoft Studio .NET
There goes their marketing against Linux back-firing again.
come on fhqwhgads
Nearest deep pocket is the rule of thumb in any civil suit.
In this case, they wouldn't be after money - they'd be after an injunction.
MS would gladly forgo any monetary consideration if they could just set Linux devel back by a year or so - while Linus, et al are forced to rewrite a huge swath of code and RedHat, Suse, et al are prevented from shipping product.
While I'm sure they'd be happy to win some of RedHat's pile of cash, it's small potatoes to MS.
Textbooks and Open Educational Resources
A quality product? AT home my wife has a new HP pavilion with XP on it. It requires a reboot every day, otherwise, it just starts flaking out. I'm personally surprised how bad XP is. For the first time, the spouse unit is wondering if I can show here how to run things on my Linux box, so she won't lose her work as much. *That's* how bad Windows XP is!
What does Microsoft expect when they are practically advertising for Linux.
;)
You have a lot of companies that are blissfully ignorant of Linux and then Microsoft comes to them and assures them that they are much much better than Linux and that those companies needn't bother even looking at Linux as an option.
All Microsoft is doing by claiming they are infinately superior to Linux is getting companies to examine the potential use of Linux who wouldn't have otherwise.
In other words, they are advertising for Linux, isn't that nice of them
Our greatest enemy is neither a single man, nor is it a nation, it is, as it has always been, our own greed.
I know this is total flame bait, but I have to bite.
Tis iste exists for the same reason MS exists, and the same reason any other commercial venture exists.
The exist to MAKE MONEY.
How do they make money? PAGE HITS.
What brings in page hits? ENCITEFUL ARTICLES.
All major news outlets know this. Newspapers could care less if you are informed. They want you to read their paper/watch their tv show/whatever to pay attention to their ads. If they can prove that a lot of people are reading/watching/listening they can charge more for their ads.
With the web is almost the same, but you get paid by the click throughs.
How do you increase the average click through/user? YOU DON'T.
So how do you increase your click throughs? GET MORE PAGE HITS.
How do you get people to hit more pages? BY PISSING THEM OFF, SCARING THEM, or telling them something they really want to hear (re-read the first two options if you need ideas on what people really want to hear).
This is the basic strategy of all news media, and slashdot is no different. They aren't promoting MS bashing, the readers are. They just cater to the readers.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like +5 funny outranks +5 insightful. Some sense of poetic rather than prosaic.
I think Microsoft is using "long-term customer value" in the sense of long-term value from a herd of sheep. They are referring to the value *from* their customers rather than the value *to* their customers.
jesus christ, didn't i read this exact article last week??
TechWeb: Microsoft memo questions anti-Linux efforts
By Mitch Wagner
(InternetWeek)
Friday, November 8, 2002 Posted: 12:51 PM EST (1751 GMT)
yep, i sure did.
Is it just me or does it seem to be awefully coincidental that these "major" leaks of MS material always seem to come from the same pile of hubris.
Same timing (obviously, but what's wrong with leaking a memo in April, lets get creative here) and apparently the same source. Hhhhhmmmmmmm.
They certainly are fun to read but I'm beginning to get suspicious and if you aren't then you should.
Especially this one. Since when does MS or any other company write such a document and let it be viewed by anyone but the top corporate folks.
Stuff like that isn't casually, or otherwise, presented outside of pretty close circles. Let's get real.
It certainly could have been written by a MS person but it would have been a lower level person that somehow managed to fly underneath the corporate radar.
Assuming it is real, which I have a hard time believing, if I were the person leaking it I would be very afraid because you can rest assured that Gates and Balmer would like to do some very nasty things to that person.
My damn dimes worth!
If it's real, at least. If it's fake, it's a very well done fake. I doubt we'll see a confession from MS that this was real.
95 Kernel arguments? Yikes!!!
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Not for money: There is not much monetary value to gain from MS suing anyone in particular.
Not for technical advantage: There is hardly anything from MS that can be regarded as technilcally superior.
Sue for PR: The strongest reason would be to sue for PR. Look at all the lawsuits, most of the time the biggest fanfare is when you see headlines XXX, Co. sues YYY, Inc. And usually the result (which ever way it goes, unless the settlement is an enormous sum) of the lawsuit is normally treated with less fanfare, especially if the defendent is found innocent. People in general remember the lawsuit, but not the result. That way you can tarnish the image of the defendent, unless the defendent spends a significant amount of resources to publicize its innocent. With that in mind, MS will probably sue the most visible symbol of linux, Red Hat, or sue the top 10 linux distros. Just to tarnish linux's image, create FUD in customers' (small) minds. MS doesn't have to win--just need to create enough FUD.
Cheers,
e.
My Red Hat linux box got hacked within a month of (re)setting it up. The version was about a year old, so in all likelihood someone used a script to find a known exploit. That is my fault, but the reality is linux can be hacked, too.
What kind of bastard pledges 20 million fo HIV/AIDS research in India. Black hearted crook.
Micro$oft's beloved palladium would have solved their leaky memmos.. admittedly it would probably mean more leaky software, but still...
Hey - maybe they leaked it on purposes so they can say "Ha! See-- told you we need to controll ALL documents a computer produces!"
1) See story about Microsoft. 2) Post it to Slashdot. 3) ???? 4) Profit!!
Dawn of the Dead
I'd like to know how that factors into Digital Restrictions Management and Palladium.
One big reason is that whatever Microsoft says is highly likely to be part of a PR campaign designed to sway government/legislators into outlawing (in fact or in effect) open source, via means such as the DMCA, patents on "trusted" (*gag*) platforms, and governmental contracts and policies. Sometimes such campaigns are squarely aimed at government officials (taking the form of lobbying) and sometimes such campaigns are targeted at "everyday folk"... partly in the hopes that the public will adopt linux more slowly, but perhaps more geared toward allowing legislators to read statistics suggesting they won't take a hit at the polls if they were to do something anti-linux.
.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Free/Opensource software is really pretty immortal as a movement and product. Microsoft could keep people from using it but not from developing it. Their efforts to do just that, as the article says, have mixed results for them at best.
If Microsoft really wants to compete with Linux they'll release the source to Windows. Eventually I think they'll do just that but not until they think they've pumped every dime out of Windows they can. Having Windows opensourced would of course benefit their competition also but as with most OSS projects the original owner of the code carries the big stick. Everyone else is free to split their own trees.. resell.. etc but if the original owner is selling it themselves then they'll get 90% of the business. Also they'll have a better chance at selling their apps, hardware, and support.
I believe that is one reason Linus does not sell a Linux dist. RedHat is not the first Linux dist but it's been doing it a long time and has had the most solid business of the different dists so it usually gets a large majority of the business.. but does not corner the market because Linus doesn't work for them.
Microsoft may bully some countries, the US included, into a protection racket for their software but in doing so would probably cause a backlash from many businesses.. even those currently using Microsoft products. Companies may like Microsoft software but having their choice forcible removed would give them reason to turn against Microsoft the company. So really I can't see DRM and such as a real stick for Microsoft to beat Linux up with.
So look for M$ OpenWindows one of these days. Microsoft is slow to pick up on trends but once they grasp the way the wind is blowing they play the game well. You can't compete with the community that makes your software and the community that uses your software when there is an alternative. They'll have to change their business model to stay in business but once having done so they'll no doubt execute the change better than most others and probably come out stronger for the change.
They'll probably follow a MacOS path of porting Windows to FreeBSD with some semi-open UI layer though my guess would be they'll be more likely to use KDE/Gnome as their base than start from scratch. Then they'll keep the applications commercial as long as they can.. slowly releasing layers of source as those layers are no longer profitable. I think Office will follow not to long after Windows as OSS because competition is strong there. That is one reason for their current XML push for file formats. I think they'll focus on the entertainment and business markets. Games have little direct OSS competition because large portions of them are more art than code. Games have a somwhat short profit lifetime so even if an OSS alternative comes out eventually Microsoft would have earned the profits from the game already. Vertical business apps just aren't very fun so most OSS devers don't make them. A few businesses release their own but usually they don't want to release anything that gives them a wedge over their competition.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
And this is why Microsoft does an admirable job of constantly trying to redefine TCO :-) Metrics metrics metrics.. charts and graphs and buzz words and suits and happy cyber enabled lap top PHB wanna be geeks doing IT strategy by Gartner reports... Hell, even Gartner has backed off their yellow a*s Microsoft propoganda campaigns.. perhaps they are taking note of whats been happening to the wall street think tank analysts types?? Maybe.. could be. Is Microsoft too big to fail? JP Morgan? I guess we'll see...
If you compare the initial purchase price of Microsoft versus Linux, Microsoft is multiple times more expensive. But, if you only look at the long term costs the difference may not be that great. Assuming you do not update all the time that is.
That does not mean that millions can not be saved on day one.
Even if you are a single individual "not buying" Microsoft can save thousands on day one. But, some fools do spend thousands when no spending at all is required.
NexuSys - Linux support by the best
"Messages that criticize OSS, Linux & the (general public license) are NOT effective,..."
Forced upgrades are a bad idea to start with.
Just today Oracle is taking some real heat for dropping support on old applications software. The reason is simple. Corporations want to upgrade when they want to upgrade and not at any other time.
Microsoft's pitch to pay a lot and upgrade often only assumes the expenses remain high relative to Linux.
And, having the source code available means that customers can even support themselves long after a company stops doing so. Anyone can maintain their version of Linux as long as they wish. Microsoft screws everyone by forcing the upgrade, making it too expensive not to upgrade or simply dropping support for older versions.
Open source brings with it some very real advantages over the long haul. With Linux you can upgrade every 6 months or so if you are so inclined. (And, many are.) Or, you can hold off until the need justifies the upgrade and you are good and ready. (And, again many corporations would prefer that.)
To bad that Microsoft forces higher prices whether or not you upgrade frequently. Frequent upgrades may sound better at times but that process comes with additional costs too mitigating and savings permitted by Microsoft.
The industry is better off the quicker Microsoft goes away.
NexuSys - Linux support by the best
Quoth the article:
"'Uh oh,' he writes. 'I have to wonder if 'concrete actions' is code for 'massive #@%!$ing lawsuits'."
What the hell is "#@%!$ing" supposed to mean? Too many letters to be code for "fucking lawsuits". Could it be "annoying lawsuits"? Any ideas?
...here's the link.
I want to be alone with the sandwich
Umm... to anyone trying to get through to the article: the bit about Microsoft's responce is pretty much just the sentence that /. quoted. The rest is commentary on the memo.
I work as a tech for schools and educational institutions. For many of these, they are still using windows 95. There are some 98 machines, but licenses are limited so the 95's tend to be prominent anywhere outside of a lab.
Trying to deal with an OS which is no longer supported by the vendor, or many software/hardware manufacturers, is just plain ugly. While I never liked 95, the cost of licensing 100+ machines just tends to be a bit prohibitive, when hardware, etc is also very expensive.
And it's not just licensing the OS, but accepting all the terms of the license agreements. We don't want to sell our souls to MS (or any other big corp) to save a few bucks. Thus, we are looking at alternatives, and open source becomes increasingly tempting solution, even though we know many will not be happy with such a changover into unfamiliar areas.
The point is, you're right. There is quite sparse "long-term" customer value, unless there are a lot of "long-term" payments being made. This isn't to say that everything should be free, or dirt cheap, but it shouldn't be as painful as it tends to be when done in bulk.
You also have to consider system requirements, and how much they have hiked for OS to OS. XP needs RAM, 2K isn't so bad but it can be a RAM pig too. Unfortunately linux desktops also tend to wallow in the mud unless fed something over 64MB as well (Gnome on RH8 runs, very slow in loading apps though), but at least you don't have to buy an OS and hardware too.
...the Haloween document is only available on the XBox.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Forced upgrades are a bad idea to start with.
Tell it to Steve Jobs.
In the long term, customers are valuable to Microsoft.
That's what he said, after all. If you choose to interpret that as meaning that Microsoft aims to bring value to customers, that's your choice.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I don't think Linux is a real threat to Microsoft yet. The only reason it is garnering any attention at all is because it is the ONLY threat they have had. Microsoft could still keep Windows closed source, and still maintain a huge market share. Right now, they are a monopoly on the desktop. If they lose 1/2 of their customers to some kind of GNU/Linux alternative, they would still have about 50% of the market! Ask any other company if they would like to have 50% of the desktop market, and see what they say.
MS has, what, 42 billion in the bank? They have no reason to open the source to Windows, they have an extremely strong foothold in the market. They would give away the OS before they would ever open the source. But I really doubt that will happen either, they didn't just magically get that 42 B in the bank, they got it from selling software. They could cut their prices in half, and still make money on it.
If the economy rebounds, uh I mean WHEN the economy rebounds ;-) there will be less incentive for companies to look to OSS. Right now, people are going to it because of the cost savings. Hopefully they will stick with it, but all those companies who are Windows-centric will still be Windows-centric, and will have forgotten about the mention of OSS. It will be business as usual. I am sure MS is counting on this to happen. They have enough money to wait it out. They could operate with ZERO revenue for about 1.5 years without running out of money. That is power. They aren't worried about GNU/Linux. The good thing is, *knock wood*, it doesn't matter because there isn't anything they can do about it.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
That anyone actually considers this thing authentic.
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
OTOH it's unrealistic to expect any business to support an old product indefinitely - the cost of providing support rises continuously, whereas the revenue from new product will fall unless customers can be persuaded to upgrade. In a commercial environment a large part of that burdon has to be born by customers and third party support shops, or the vendor dies and everybody is worse off. (As much damage as Microsoft have done and will no doubt continue to do, a Microsoft forced to be competetive would be better than no Microsoft at all.)
This is my World Wide Web of Whatever
Who said the company has to support the old product?
I fully understand that closed proprietary systems require that the company either support it or no one can. But, open source systems are very different.
If your company focused upon RedHat 5.2, your company could support that version indefinately if it wanted to. And, if you wanted to actually run an OS for 5 years or more without an expensive and time consuming upgrade process you could do so.
Oracle has a choice now to simply release the source code for their old applications and let some of their customers support themselves if they want to. There would be nothing wrong with that.
And, there would be nothing wrong with Microsoft doing the same for Win95 or DOS 6.22 for that matter. Assuming some customers still run that crap.
If anything, Linux has clearly demonstrated that closed source is an option not a requirement. And, opening the source offers a number of key advantages that can add significant value to the corporate customer. With Linux (and other open source products), corporations can actually define and impliment a 5 year IT plan. And, most importantly expect to carry it out as long as that plan makes sense to them. With forced upgrades that is not possible.
And, because of that more corporations will drop the proprietary products and go with those that permit such planning. It makes all the sense in the world.
Notwithstanding the above, any one customer may feel that 2-3 years in it makes sense to replace the old 5 year plan with a new one. But, that would be driven by true advances in technology not the need for the mfg to make bigger bank deposits.
The Microsoft solution is looking worse every day of the week.
NexuSys - Linux support by the best
This strategy has been huge for Microsoft, and won them some big dollars -- I'm thinking of the release of windows 95 -- but once you start marketing your OS in this way, you almost *have* to introduce big changes every couple years so you can market those.
Side note: That is what scares the bejabbers out of me w.r.t. Apple. Now that they've picked the case form factor as one of their major selling points, they're essentially *committed* to coming up with a revolutionary exterior design every few years. That's hard to keep up.
Disclaimer: These are just my silly ideas.
[1] Another pain in the butt factor is the compromises they've had to make to maintain backwards-compatibility. This is a mixed blessing, but I don't see any way out of it so I don't complain too hard.
They are a threat but they are not seriously hurting Microsoft yet.. but.. Linux is a force which they can't easily buy or destroy. In roughly a decade Linux has caught up with and in many ways surpassed Windows as an OS. It is already hurting Microsoft in ther server area and KDE and Gnome and the Linux OS itself are improving ease of use issues constantly. They aren't yet as polished as Windows but they are evolving much faster. There will come a point when they reach and exceed Windows as an OS on the desktop as well as the server. At that point Linux will begin to seriously hurt their sales of Windows OS and eventually it will become unprofitable to sell the OS as development will cost more than is earned in sales. There are advantages to having your own OS though so they won't want to give that up.. so the obvious solution is to give away the OS and let the community develop it while staying the #1 company to distribute the OS.
Also it would probably destroy Microsoft if they lost 50% of their customers. Investor confidence would sour, more attention would be drawn to Linux, more uses would switch.. causing a nasty little negative spiral. If I'm not mistaken I believe Microsoft is one of those companies that somewhat cooks their books (not illegal but problematic).. if their stock takes a serious plunge all that becomes a problem for them.
Giving away the OS without the source wouldn't help them. They'd stop their income from the OS but still have the development cost. No, I think they'll release the source and keep selling the OS. The only alternative I can see them taking is to sell off the OS but I think they get to much benefit from controlling the OS to risk taking that route.
They got 42 billion in the bank from years without real competition. Competition will make them stronger but it might shake them a lot first.
Oh the economy will rebound but I doubt that will effect the adoption of OSS much. Microsoft changing their licensing to be less insane might help slow the adoption of OSS. As long as Microsoft is treating their own customers badly the adoption of OSS will go on. Even if they stopped scaring managers though OSS would still be creaping in from the bottom up because a good majority of geeks like OSS. They build it, they use it, it does what they want. It's gained enough ground now that it won't easily be stuff down some hole.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I work at Microsoft. Trust me when I say that NO person of any level of strategic importance at our company sends e-mails that are anywhere near as lowly as the unprofessional, butchered, pigeon-English "leaked memo" reported on The Register.
Even if you swallow for a second the incredible claim that this memo was real, the question is, "So what?" Yes, Microsoft is a competitive company. No, we don't like to lose contracts to competitors, regardless of who they are. No, there's nothing illegal or unethical about any of the measures described in the "memo" as suggested actions for Microsoft marketing folk to take.
Slashdot should rename itself for accuracy: "SlashDot - News for the Paranoid, Semi-True Stories Designed to Get your Dander"
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Except of course, that I'd have to pirate it and mom is really not too much into games.
Sorry, I don't buy into this. The only thing that the GPL prevents is stealing the code. As a user the GPL is a non-issue. Where precisely does the GPL restrict me? In addition I don't have to grant RMS a license to fuck with my system when I download a security fix for media player.
What pisses me more off with windows then quality issues with Win2K is Microsofts tendency to take away my control of my computer and turning it into a dumbed down AOL style cable tv DRM hassled cable TV compliant box.
And a fine job too. Even though we are in disagrement regarding licensing issues...
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I can't find the article... What happened?
People seem to think that the blanket phrase, "I only work here," absolves
them utterly from any moral obligation in terms of the public -- but this
was precisely Eichmann's excuse for his job in the concentration camps.
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