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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
Well, it didn't take a supreme court order to split Microsoft in two.
Of course Microsoft is their own worst enemy. Who else would allow IIS or Outlook - a security hole which masquerades as an e-mail client - to be some of their flagship products?
The security holes are even more annoying than the damned animated paperclip.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Well, this proves it. Microsoft is everyone's worst enemy
Disco Stu was talkin' to you.
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.
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
If we can get one half to sue the other half, we will have something.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
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/
IBM sure ain't dead ...
Revenues last quarter:
- Microsoft:
- IBM:
Interestingly, IBM made more GROSS PROFIT the last quarter ($8,094,000,000) than Microsoft's total revenues.$7,746,000,000
$20,592,000,00
Contrary to popular belief, IBM, not Microsoft, is the worlds' largest software company. IBM just happens to bundle a computer with many of their offerings.
Did you read the same article as I did???
The point of the article had very little to do with the merits of OS software. He was merely stating the fact that he himself had very little experience with Linux.
The point of the article was that, no matter how good or bad your product is, or how firmly entrenched you monopoly may be, if you piss off your customers long enough, you will eventually strangle yourself to death.
Or, to put it another way, "The bigger they are, the harder they fall..."
Your Servant, B. Baggins
What if this type of thinking begins to really penetrate MS's customer base? If Joe User (think of all of your friends and family who use you as their technical support hotline) starts to believe that Microsoft is taking them to the cleaners - not just believe it, but become convinced of the fact - and is willing to make the jump to an alternative OS, what then? What if the tools to make the switch are easy enough for anyone's grandparents to freely obtain and use? (Today, most of these kinds of users don't even know how to locate an ISO, let alone download & burn it! I'm also assuming they don't want to pay for the software from a vendor or store)
What would MS do if their customer base starts to erode noticeably? Will we see more "Satanic" actions to lock in their customers, or will MS respond in a way that will benefit the overall user community?
Perhaps this would be a good followup "Ask Slashdot", but I'd love to see people's thoughts on this.
-Lokatana
"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?
So which is it? I administer a nice big AD domain on w2k servers and I personally am insulted that Microsoft is doing their best to convince my administrators as well as others that Windows administration can be done by a non-expert. How long before CFOs believe this and wonder why they are paying for all of these expensive personnel down in IT? It's bad enough they don't understand the complexity of our jobs, now Microsoft is telling them it doesn't require an "expert" to administer Windows servers. :-(
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-
Well IBM makes boatloads of cash, thats for sure, but I wouldn't call them just a software company. Like Sun they make their cash off of services and support for overpriced hardware. MS is pretty much all software, and has a market cap more than twice that of IBM, which is why they are the worlds largest software company. Plus Im not sure where you got your profit numbers, but on Quicken a different story is painted:
MSFT:
Revenue - $7,746,000
Net Income - $2,726, 000
IBM:
Revenue - $19,821,000
Net Income - $1,694,000
And also from Quicken:
What is Net Income?
The amount of a company's total sales (revenue) remaining after subtracting all of its costs, in a given period of time (also referred to as "net earnings"). This very important figure (literally the source of the term "the bottom line" for where you find it on an income statement) is the best measure of the current operating state of a company.
People think Microsoft is the answer. Microsoft is just the question, "No" is the answer.
This author is dead on. The IT graveyard of invincible vendors is wide and deep, and without an exception I can think of the killing blows were always self-inflicted: Micro-Channel Architecture, Word Perfect 5.0 for Windows, Unix-Ware, and on and on and on.
I watch this board closely to try to gauge perception. (I watch lots of other things too, because everything has some inherent bias, borg toon anyone?) I want to know where the industry is headed. In the past I've felt the pain of backing the wrong technology and after many years have come to appreciate such an error's effect on my families ability to do things they enjoy, like eat and sleep inside.
For the last several years the food on my table has come from a deep knowledge of many of Microsoft's products. At the end of the day, I really don't care what tools I used to create a new system. What I care about is that I can do what I love (design and build software) for someone who appreciates the effort enough to pay me a decent sum of money.
I view many of the arguments on this site with mild amusement (open vs. closed source) as the ravings of modern-day hippies or the very young. Unfortunately, I am constrained by certain requirements in my life and I doubt very much that my wife or my children would care about free-as-in-speech vs. free-as-in-beer, and as such care much more about the bottom-line than high-minded principals, no matter how appealing.
That said, I am starting to study and use Linux and other offerings of this community. Some of it is very impressive and some of it, I must say, is promising but primitive crap. I do not believe that the movement will overthrow Microsoft on its own merit. I do believe that Microsoft is creating enough incentive for the market to make this a commercially viable alternative.
The PS2's were awesome and reliable machines. They were probably worth the additional price. But, by the time IBM really tried to strong-arm the market, the IT buying community was pissed off enough that the platform's relative merits meant nothing. I believe that OS/2 was equally affected by this, although it's terrible setup procedure hurt it as well. Microsoft is today's IBM. I hope they get their heads out of their asses soon, but they'd better do it quickly.
Microsoft's managers by the standards by which people in that field judge success are superb.
What do I mean by that? If you judge Microsoft's management by the universal business scorecard - money - then no one can argue that they are doing a bad job.
From a technical viewpoint Microsoft's managers are clueless idiots, from an ethical standpoint they are amoral cretins who barely qualify as human; but from a business standpoint - the company has made a lot of money on their watch.
In reality Microsoft's management is a lot like a defensive lineman who gets a pass stuck in his face guard - then stumbles blindly into the end zone to score a game winning touchdown; they were in the right place at the right time - every thing else was pure dumb luck.
Of course, Microsoft's management believes that their brilliant business decisions are responsible for Microsoft's success; but then I have already written about their technical judgment.
Ummmm.... yea. The other point of the article, interestingly enough, is that Microsoft doesn't seem to get it. In fact, it seems to be a pretty common trait among large corporations that a large fraction of their top level executives seem to get so wrapped up in themselves that they don't seem to be able to comprehend simple relationships like this. They have been so successful wringing every last cent out of their customers that they don't even notice when they start to flee in droves, and when they do notice, they respond by simply turning up the pressure, which in turn, accelerates the hemoraging
Your Servant, B. Baggins
Hruska couldn't be more accurate. In my past 5+ years as a contractor working mostly at Microsoft, I've definitely seen the internal character of the place becoming less geek-centered and more suit-centered. Recently there was a poster on the wall exhorting people to save the company money by remembering that the free beverages are for consumption at work only. When you have administrative people busying themselves with that type of "hall monitor" behavior, you are also going to see things like junk-computer disposal disguised as charity, advertising disguised as customer feedback, and lawyer-driven software design.
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
If you think that Microsoft's $40 Billion is an impressive number calculate what Bill Gates would lose personally if Microsoft's stock lost half of its value.
His fortune is less tied to MS than you might think. Gates has diversified his holdings over the past several years and as of Sept. 9th of this year only held 11.6% of the company's stock. I believe his current net holdings are worth $43 billion. MSFT has 5,346,449,872 shares as of Sept. 30th, and it closed on that day at $43.74. On that day, MS stock was worth $223 billion, and he held only $27 billion in MS stock. If he lost half that, he'd go from $43 billion to $29.5 billion (ignoring the fact that an MS crash would take down the whole market). Boo hoo. He'd still have over 100 times what he was worth back in 1986.
Of course, this in no way invalidates your argument which is 100% correct. MS is a very stock price-obsessed company, and a lot of mutual funds invest so much money into it because it's preceived as a stable growth company. A major Enron-like shake-up like Bill Parish has been hoping for would devistate the market as badly as Enron's did. MS's business personnel are wholy obsessed with keeping this growth stable, and it's been well documented that MS uses tricky accounting to smooth losses from one quarter to the next by storing up money from good quarters and counting it as "earnings" later.
Incidentally, the Bill Gates Net Worth Page is an amusing collection of statistics and extrapolations about his wealth, though its data is a little out of date. It shows things like how long he could buy off every major official in the government (if he stopped earning money), how fast you'd have to go picking up dollar bills from end to end to earn money as fast as he has since MS went public (35+ MPH), and how if he can maintain his current rate of growth per year (over 35%!), he'll be a trillionaire by 2014.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I have come to the conclusion that wether Microsoft survives or not doesnt bother me a piss. One part of me would most gladly see the Borg go down in agony. The other part looks at his nice linux desktop wich does everything he did in windows and much better and feels a state of nirvana. As long as i have my linux and no one tries to destroy it i couldnt give less sh*t about windows. We need to stop looking at what Microsoft is doing and do our own stuff.
They are hurt if linux makes a success, we shouldnt care less if Microsoft do. Lets focus at linux and let Microsoft play in their own little pond by themselves.
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