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Microsoft's Worst Enemy: Themselves
KobyBoy writes "Saw this story posted on OSnews this morning. "Microsoft's biggest threat isn't Linux, OpenOffice, or any piece of software at all--its themselves. Over the last eighteen months two distinctly different Microsoft cultures have emerged, often in opposition to each other." You can get the full article at Sudhian Media."
This all comes down to control. What Bill wants, Bill gets, at least within his own company. You can bet your life that if Gates wanted to do something within the company, they'd turn on a dime, just the way they did back in 1995 to support Internet stuff
Microsoft's biggest threat isn't Linux, OpenOffice, or any piece of software at all--its themselves
When a Time Warner executive stated that using PVR technology was stealing, right as AOL Time Warner dumped tons of money into Tivo, should indicate a lot about corporate culture these days.
That Time Warner executive should have been fired. He could have even faced lawsuits by AOL Time Warner stockholders, for directly going against (and possibly reducing value) of the parent company.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Creative destruction anyone?
It puts into words my own feelings about MS that I have not been able to articulate so eloquently. I like Windows 2000, it works and works well (for me). I totally agree that the marketing dweebs will ruin MS's dominance, and drive users to Linux. Linux is still not ready for everyone's PC.....but the day is coming, maybe in Red Hat 10 or Mandrake 11....MS needs to wake up and realize that we don't like being spied on.
That's basically what the author of that article is saying. As of yet, the open source community is not putting out software, or indeed an operating system, that can compete with Microsoft Windows. Until it can do this, it shouldn't expect more users to come flocking to their programs. End of discussion?
The Welkin: Online Music Reviews
Oh, wait, I forgot. The good judge's decision has assured us that Microsoft doesn't really need to change the way the do business all that much because they've promised to be good from now on, cross their crooked little hearts...
...sigh...
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
articles about Microsoft = Bad mean nothing when they're posted on OSS/Linux advocacy sites. When the Wall Street Journal has an editorial from the editor in chief saying that Microsoft is going to destroy the world, that'll mean something
What I find terribly funny, as a non-American, is that similar things are taking place in American society as a whole, the Patriot Act for example, denying people civil rights in order to exercise freedom. I don't understand the complaint that a company is doing things that impose on privacy when it's a common thread in the entire society around it. Linux is counter-culture; I don't think many people would deny that. Once I see America embracing the freedom it so adamantly preaches, I'll understand complaints such as this one.
The problem is that MS is trying to give different customers what they want in the same package. People want security, bam there you go, oh but wait we want flexibility, bam there you go, but oh wait we had to remove some of the security so you could be flexible. vice versa and repeat
While ppl will argue linux gives you both, if you are a computer geek, this isn't a valid solution for the average home user. While linux may be secure enough for them, if purely because linux isn't a target platform for widescale hackers and virus writters, the average person will never make use of the flexibility in linux.
"And you can make kernel modifications as you want them"
"What's a kernel?"
"err well you can download other peoples kernel mods off the internet, compile them and add them to your kernel"
"Uhh What's a compile"?
MS is in the unfortunate position of catering to a large diverse market, and I don't really think there is a unified theory of doing so. I run w2k because it is stable. It may not be as flexible as say XP, but it suffices for me and what I want to do. And I have a win98 parition if a game won't work under 2k.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
This guy's arguments, listed at the bottom of the article, are asinine. To quickly address some of them:
- Microsoft put little more than a CDDB lookup into their player. Since everyone freaked out they've made it very very obvious during the install what gets sent. Take a look at everyone else's player and you'll see they are not trying to take over the world in some sinister plot. And product activation sucks but so does having perhaps the most pirated piece of software in the world so you really can't blame them.
- Microsoft lobbies. Welcome to the united states of america.
- Attacking microsoft because the PCs it donates aren't good enough? Come on! Donations are voluntary and should be welcomed no matter what they are. Don't forget Gates does some serious giving-back. Funny how he forgets to mention this..
I'm tired of reading this poorly thought out crap. People will find any excuse to rag on Microsoft. News flash: it's 2002, not 1992. Microsoft-bashing is getting a little old.
What did you eat today? http://www.atetoday.com/
My own $0.02 is that M$'s hubris will eventually provide the catalyst for their decline and eventual demise.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
"What I am, however, is concerned about how Redmond intends to safeguard my privacy, my right to use an operating system as I see fit, and my rights of fair use. I am, in fact, very concerned."
Then he goes on to say, a paragrah later, "Right now, Linux has yet to offer me any reason why I should go to the monumental hassle of switching and re-training myself to the new OS..."
You must NOT be all that concerned about your privacy, the right to use the OS as you see fit (Click on Agree or Decline after reading the EULA? A thought), or your rights of fair use if you blindly click through the EULA and install their product.
RTFEULA. Worried about all that and still agreeing to MS's EULA and being too lazy to learn an OS that's free from all that just befuddles me.
And since when did learning Linux become a monumental effort? Rocketing into space is a monumental effort. Learning Linux is akin to Bellybutton Lint Removal 101.
How does this crap make the news, anyhow?
Microsoft and the US government are in very similar situations.
Here, we have two extremely powerful entities that are very prone to extend beyond their reasonable range of influence to make everything go exactly the way they want it to.
Both are facing enemies (the US against terrorists, and Microsoft against Linux) that have emerged as a decentralized and nearly attack-proof.
Both have earned a good deal of resentment from the communities which they supposedly serve (MS has people like us constantly bitching while President Bush's approval rating has dropped below 50% this December: and both rightfully so).
Both, despite the great amount of disapproval, appear to be doing nothing to change their situation (except for Bush's recent decision to back down on threats of attacking North Korea, though he intends to push for isolating them economically).
Could a few good leaders in Washington clear this whole mess up? I think so. Now if only such people existed... -sigh-
It is good to see this issue getting more attention. As Microsoft tries to take more intimate control of how we use our computers, the more people they will send into the waiting arms of alternatives like Linux. And as the market for Linux grows, there will be more motivation (and gain) to produce quality alternative applications (office suites, ports of games, etc).
This situation reminds me of Princess Leia's warning to Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars: "The tighter you squeeze, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers..."
I have a customer who is a VP with Microsoft (he makes hardware, not software... For example, he is on the patent for the Strategic Commander). I was recently discussing with him the whole license structure of Office as well as the way MSFT is trying to limit you to 1 or 2 installs per copy of Windows.
He finds the practice to be idiotic and damaging in the long term to the company. He feels that such actions do nothing but jeopardize their position in the market since such moves anger customers enormously, limit their flexibility, and increase their willingness to try alternatives. Sadly, he's just an engineer and not a policy maker.
I admit that I am still plodding along working most of the time in Windows and using Office for word processing and spreadsheets. But all my servers run Linux and I look forward to the day when I can comfortably use Linux as my main OS for ALL work and hopefully MOST of my gaming.
-Michael
Threshold RPG
As funny as that statement is, I'd rather it be modded as insightful, rather than funny.
Imagine, if you will, that CmdrTaco's little icon joke about the Borg is indeed correct. OK, now, imagine that we manage to insert a little bit of autonomy (by college education, for example) into one of the drones. Remember Hugh? Seems OSS has hurt Microsoft in ways that can't be measured quite yet on the balance sheet.
I've always thought that the best way to dismantle a machine is from the inside. Here's more credence to that thought, IMHO. Actually, my first thought when I read the article was "Merry Christmas, Soko - there really is a Windows user with a clue."
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
I think the very idea that someone in the mainstream has gotten the idea that we are anti-business/anti-profit is very BAD, as it constitutes a fundamental misunderstanding of the movement behind free software and the open source development model.
Who in the mainstream is going to align themselves with us, if we give them the impression that we're anarchists and commies?
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
Overpriced? With respect to what measure? Most of the people who use IBM hardware do so because they can't find alternatives that provide the stability and service provided with an IBM solution. When you get me a PC platform where I can hot swap memory modules and CPUs we can talk. Plus make sure that the OS that it's running supports such usage. Self monitoring so that I don't have 75% of my scheduled jobs crashing before I found out CPU 3 has crashed would be nice, too. People who use these machines might find them overpriced if you want to talk MIPS, but most have other, very rational reasons to use these machines.
That is all.
So, you say Microsoft will ultimately destroy itself? Well, la deefreakin' da! What megalitic entity throughout the history of time that's been destroyed hasn't destroyed themselves? See the Roman Empire, the Soviet Union or the Roman Catholic Church for a refresher.
.NET oppressors. If they were getting the juice, they'd be happy as clams.
I just hope I'm not supposed to feel sorry for Bill, Steve and the gang because they're getting some pushback from the Microserfs.
I tend to think the reason we're starting to see dissention up at the Redmond Institute for Wayward Boys is an ecomonic one: in the 80's and 90's, developers at Microsoft were making the same sort of crap/bloat/spy/suck-ware, but the difference was they were making a mint off of it. Now, the fully-vested huge stock options are not there, staff turnover is high, and the cro-magnon managers that drive projects have become more and more unpleasant to work for. I speak from some experience, as a former Microsoftie. So, just like any of us who are feeling more pressure to perform with smaller reward at the end of the day, the geeks out there are starting to bitch and moan.
This happens in bajillions of companies every day, particulalry from the IT infrastructure: just ask IBM'ers off-the-record how happy they are with their company's adherence to J2EE spec's, as an example. But don't get the lofty idea that the programmers at Bill Central are nobly rising up to give an Open-Source pimp-slap to their
And don't fault them for it: it's why they went to M$ to begin with. These are people who are not agonizing over the social and geek-topian ramifications of their work. They've made their peace with that. Now, we can (and will, dammit) harrangue them for being a part of said same awful machine, but that's who they is, folks.
This isn't about technology anymore than it is about macaroni and cheese. This is about moolah. As long as they can put in their 10 hours a day building flight simulation easter eggs into the latest version of FrontPage, they will tolerate the occasional Nazi-esque rally with Ballmer or the (less-occasional) ass-reaming they receive from their managers. It's just as the rewards for such easter egging have been diminishing, the risk for complaining about the coroporate ethos has dimished as well.
Let the flaming begin.
"Don't matter how New Age you get, old age is gonna kick your ass." - Utah Phillips
No that is MS's approach to Innovation (BTW, IBM, Sun, and HP all used it as well). Consider that these companies still manufactuer what are basically soup-up versions of the same thing from 1982: the PC. That is not innovation. They all tweak a little here a little there, but they are basically, the same damn thing. They also pay lip service to saying that they will improve, but they are afraid of hurting their own Bottom Line.
Consider the House market
PC's with wireless make absolutly no sense. The Laptop makes a bit, but only a bit more. Why? becuase they still need to be hooked up to power. Instead, they should offer a ethernet switch with POE that provides 15 watts of power / connection. Does not sound like much until you get too realizing the shear number of devices that can run at that low wattage. Over time, the race would be on to create high speeds, but lower wattage items. So what are some suggestions for items:
I find it amazing how hard it is for companies to innovate now. They are so afraid until somebody else has done. BTW, I have been trying to get IBM and HP to look at these ideas (and others). It is very difficult to get through there levels of marketeers. What is sad, is that I have worked for both. If it is hard for me, I can not imagine what it is like for others.
From others, I have heard that MS is far easier to work with on getting things off the ground. It's just that they will screw you shortly.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You realize, Nostradamus, that at the current rate that Linux is chipping away at Microsoft, your predictions will come true...in roughly the year 2050. At which time, are you telling me Linux is still going to be the major player? I doubt even Linus would make that guess. The market is flooded with Windows boxes and we're in a recession. Think people are eager to switch to something else, even if its free? That means buying books, buying manuals, buying friends who know this stuff dinner.
The "war" such as it is has been lost, for a long time. Evolution is the only thing that's gonna stop M$, and it will. But if you're waiting for the giant Asteroid to wipe them off them map, good luck. Look at how long cockroaches have survived.
"Don't matter how New Age you get, old age is gonna kick your ass." - Utah Phillips
No no no! There is no UNLESS. There is just NO, it won't win. I know this sucks to admit. Listen, I'm a Mac person: I'm well acquainted with the bitter taste of having a 3rd-rate, bug-ridden piece of bloatware being a standard. But move past it.
Let me tell you, Bill Gates is SO beyond thinking about the desktop. It's the advantage of having oodles of cash, you see, but he's already targeting emerging markets (tablets, wireless, etc).
The battle, she is over. And it wasn't even much of a fight. And if the tech community stays mired in the "we're better, how come they won't notice that?" conversation, M$ will run right past us all and own the next big thing.
Stop trying to re-do what Microsoft has already undone. Think of what else is out there to do, change the whole paradim, not the perception.
"Don't matter how New Age you get, old age is gonna kick your ass." - Utah Phillips
First off, all this talk about "Microsoft Technology" is a farce. From the very beginning when Bill Gates weaseled his earliest software licenses from real coders, Microsoft was more a marketing machine than a development company. It amuses me that anyone ever thought of them differently. The company's modus operandi hasn't changed one bit since day one: take other peoples' technology and leverage it for your own gain and garner as much control over the environment as possible.
The saddest part of all this is the new generation of "programmers" who don't really seem to understand that stability and performance have NEVER been platform or hardware dependent. The new breed of developers as well as users has been conditioned to accept failure and mediocre performance as the status quo. Microsoft, Oracle, and other companies have shifted their business model to exploit the instability of their own products to create entirely new (support) industries from which to profit. It's like they're selling you tainted food and offering health insurance at the same time.
With few exceptions, Microsoft puts out crap. They don't even spray it with perfume any more.. The computing public has learned to enjoy the taste of crap, and they'll serve you a bigger pile of crap each season and you'll love it. What else are you going to do?
I would really like to see OSS take over, and I do my part, but I see an increasingly lazy, uneducated and unmotivated public that is becoming more and more difficult to reason with. I am at a loss how to knock some sense into the public without an ad budget of less than many millions of dollars. Welcome to the new millennium. It looks like it will have to get much worse before it gets better.
This is a little offtopic, but it is at the bottom, so nobody will read it anyways.
I look at the tech industry, that I am preparing to enter, and I see my life ahead of me as a great gamble. I have to pick what platform to develop for, who to develop for, and where to develop at. All of these choices will seriously affect my life, my earning value, and the future of my family. This is scary! Five years ago, I was still in high school. If someone asked me then what platform I would develop on I would say, "The newest Win32 of course!" In a perfect world I would have wanted to work for my MS. Now though, there is no guarantee. I honestly believe linux is the future of computing, but I have no idea what business model is best to use with it! OSS is new territory in the business world. The GPL is a big question mark! I am pretty damn good at poker, but I don't enjoy the prospect of gambling with my life. Oh well, here it comes.