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Microsoft At Middle Age
gordyf writes "The Seattle Times has an interesting article concerning Microsoft's current position in the market. It describes how its customers and parners are reacting to its heavy-handed tactics, and how 'you can point to Linux being one of the major drivers for this decade.' An interesting read."
For those interested , it's a weeklong "series" in the SeattleTimes.
are we there yet?!?!
...creating new software to entice people to buy more powerful computers
That just about says it right there.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I tend to see Mac OS X being more of a driver than Linux in the future. Mac OS X is a single OS, as opposed to a set of OSes that may or may not work together. Also, OS X also has the backing of a long established company that will probably be around in the foreseeable future. OS X is also a BSD, which is a much better OS than Linux. Lastly, Apple is adopting a less proprietary model and much of the operating system is open source, so many of the benefits of a completely open source OS are there too.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm sick of hearing zealots spout crap like "Wait until DRM is in, then everyone will tell MS to shove it!"
MS is a superpower. If they told everyone they plan on cornering the stock market, and taking over the world, people STILL would be buying their product. Face it people, if there is going to be a change, it will happen slowly.
I'm not saying Linux is bad, or that there is no way it will ever take over MS, I'm just saying don't expect it to happen overnight (or in the next 5 years, for that matter).
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Turn the number backwards, subtract 1957 - the year DEC was founded. The number is now 21777.
Subtract 7491 from the number - this is the year Aleister Crowley paid a longer visit to hell, written backwards. It gives 14286.
Multiply the number by 002 - this is the symbol of greed, from right to left. It gives 28572.
Turn the number backwards, divide by 6 - the smallest perfect number. The number is now 4597.
Turn the number backwards, and add 1927 - the year Fidel Castro was born. The number is now 9881.
This number, read from right to left, is 1889, or the year Adolf Hitler was born.
No further questions. QED.
By home-improvement, I hope he means replacing that NT cluster he has running everything with a more reliable system. I figure he's got to be sick of getting locked out of the john at 3 AM by a system crash...
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
From the article:
Gates said he plans to retire "somewhere in my late 50s" but will probably remain associated with the company, perhaps in an advisory capacity, a role he described as "ongoing support."
So when will he be EOL-ed?
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
The little blurb at the side tells us that Mr. Gates' net worth is a bit over $50 billion. That's a lot of money, in fact, I've read estimates of the cost of constructing a small moon colony that run below that.
So think about this: if you had the chance to liquidate most of your assets, and then finance a moon colony how could you say no? Oh I'm sure there are more humanitarian things he could do with that money, but he isn't really doing that either. But come on, Bill, a *moon colony* you could do it!
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
How is an article that focuses on many other things and mentions Linux two times fodder for the peanut gallery again?
I can see it now....
Linux is an OS (or more specifically a kernel) not a driver.
These articles make me sad. I mean, think about it. Doesn't Bill Gates seem like the type of guy you could kick back and watch LotR with? Seriously, he seems like your standard cool dork guy. I wonder how he could have ever sold out like that...
Oh yeah, the billions of dollars he's worth. I'd sell out too for some of that kinda loot. If someone gave me just $1 billion* I'd spend the rest of my life convincing people how cool Microsoft is.
*=obviously, I'm just kidding. My price would definately only be around the $1 million mark
After many legal battles over Microsoft's monopoly - the court rules that to pay the fines to the US government Microsoft has to be sold to them. It then becomes part of the State. The end. :)
Video Game cheats, hints a
all your base belong to us
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
This computing age has Linux as a device-driver ;-)
"It describes how its customers and parners are reacting to its heavy-handed tactics..."
So.. what'd they do? Research gunpowder? Build more villagers?
but great influence. Mac OS will only run on boxes from Apple, whereas Linux/BSD runs on those Dell, IBM, and HP machines, too. Linux could kill Microsoft; Apple can't. The most Apple can do is take a few market share points from Windows as people upgrade from PCs to Macs.
As with most other things, the media makes a bigger deal out of him. He is just an employee of the company like all the others, his job description just invloves more leadership.
From the article:
Then there's the widely held notion among critics that Microsoft is essentially unchanged after its antitrust settlement with the federal government. Earlier this month, competitors alleged in a complaint to the European Union that the company is still using its monopoly on PC operating systems to shoulder into new markets.
...
Customers are less likely to praise the company's software than to gripe about its prices, aggressive sales tactics and stranglehold on their machines even as it changes its practices as a result of the antitrust case.
It doesn't sound like MS has changed much at all. Or am I missing something?
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
well, bloody hell... ive got my mod points and i want a "die you grammar nazi" mod
i sell illegal drugs
I think Microsoft has somthing to do with this article and the *timing* of their adware they placed an inch below the story...
I need to point my finger at someone. Is it slashdot that holds its own ads or is it the Open Source Developers Network (OSDN) that serves the ads? If I remember corectly, isn't the OSDN a subsidiary (owned) by VA Software (NASDAQ: LNUX)? This is sad, if VA calls this their business model: throwing banners at anyone, for small money. VA should have stayed in the desktop and server market, or at least enter into the notebook market with portable thin terminals, just as DEC first entered into the market with thin terminals and mainframes. Realistically, who would want a laptop-like computer, boots linuxBIOS into a Linux, with a lean XFree86 4.3, with your RADEON 9000, no harddrive; just the basics in portability; somewhat like a PDA with a large pretty screen and infinite expansion capabilities that don't limit you to embedded dirtware? Or is that what Microsoft plans to do with their "Tablet PC"? Damn I despise shitty software companies throwing their monopoly money around in markets where their product is the dead worst yet is found everywhere.
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
Microsoft will undoubtedly continue to be a strong corporation for as long as Bill G is actively involved in the management. He's very agressive, but his killer intelligence is even more impressive.
Microsoft and Linux are taking small amounts of market share away from each other, but both are winning big at the expense of proprietary UNIX systems. Microsoft continues to look for ways to get more money from existing customers, but they back away from schemes that don't work. They also expand market share by improving products; new Windows operating systems on IA64 (and on x86-64 when it is available) and better management features mean that Windows is going upscale.
At the same time, they are expanding into new markets. Although the XBOX is losing money, it is a new platform from a new player in its market. Sony wants to push the PS3 as a PC replacement, but it won't happen. PC capabilities are increasing faster than a system that isn't updated for several years can, and the XBOX2 will continue the XBOX tradition of being technically superior to the competition.
Microsoft is expanding into other promising segments as well. Small and embedded devices (phones, VCRs, tablet PCs, cars) form a key part of the future plans.
Anyway, my point isn't to worship Microsoft. Just to point out that their business is exceptionally well run and well positioned for the future. Those are facts you would normally miss reading Slashdot.
the end of his life?
Linux needs a MUCH better graphical interface (anti-aliased fonts, copy-cut-paste between applications) a decent program manager (Pray for Autopackage), and better hardware support. Oh, the day the RTFM mentality is laid to rest will be a BIG step forward for open source.
On the other hand, Microsoft needs to become better for security, stability, and development. Losing all the annoying bells and whistles (ala, the default installation of XP) would be a plus.
The real question is, which one will happen first.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
If 27 is middle age, then I guess it's about time for me to buy a flashy new car and have an affair.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
But the court findings that Microsoft violated antitrust law revealed the company's harsh side, and today it's distrusted by rivals and even partners.
Most people who've watched the story can already guess this.
What's this Submit thingy do?
In competitors, agreed.
"In a sense, despite the market climate, everything, we need to be even more committed to charging in and helping out and building products in areas where we don't compete today ... because that's what's really in the best interest of the customers," Ballmer said.
The last thing I want is for MS to be in new markets. They have a tendancy to move in to a market, play 'fairly', and manage to use Windows to kill everyone in the market.
The problem here is that they don't really make great products. They make mediocre products that 'look nice,' but nothing that's really spectacular. Shouldn't they be dedicating more of their time towards creating an OS that is not a security risk, and not in expansion to other markets?
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
If you add the ASCII values of the letters "BILLGATES" plus 3 (for Bill Gates III), you get the number of the beast:
Will I retire or break 10K?
unfortunately microsoft have always had the habit of promising much and doing nothing.
look at intel, they also dominate the CPU market, but they introduced hyperthreading to the mass market, now they are trying to make wireless lan a standard. in comparison, the latest major two innovations microsoft made (kinda) was ripping off mac os's user interface in windows95, and using the NT kernel on desktop computer (yaay, a stable os, what a great breakthrough)
atleast we get to read another interview with bill gates, and again he leaves the impression that he is simply a geek living his dream.
ah well, let's hope that in his view of the future some good news comes from microsoft, for a change, and they start using all that money and influence for something useful, instead using it to control the computer market, as we saw today as microsoft didn't bring out the opteron version of windows.
Hostes alienigieni me abduxerunt. Qui annus est?
Free software will be around as long as there are gullible, bored, wealthy college kids to do the work. But to say they're losing ground is ridiculous. There's still nothing on the market other than possible OSX that compares to Win 2K/XP for value. Nothing is even close.
IMHO, this just highlites whats really going on in the US economey now days. Companies with big revenue streams like MS (and even RIAA members) are in effect forbidden from investing in the next generation technology with the highest growth rates like Linux (and p2p) because they cut into this revenue. Magnify this by millions of other companies and industries and you have a real economic problem - that will not be solved nicely. With trillions at stake, don't be supprised if all hell breaks loose.
I love this bit:
... because that's what's really in the best interest of the customers," Ballmer said.
The company is trying to adopt a more paternal role. It's using its vast resources to help the ailing PC industry in new ways.
So, Microsoft's press pack for lazy journalists says that MS is now a mature grown-up company. Lazy journalist writes that MS has changed for the better.
Argh. And don't you just hate MS doublespeak!:
"[..]we need to be even more committed to charging in and helping out and building products in areas where we don't compete today
Steve. Please. Drop the bullshit. You need to move into other markets to maintain your current revenue growth. It is not because "that's what's really in the best interest of the customers".
Do you think Microsofties say these things to themselves so many times that they end up believing them? It's kind of like a bizarre cult. I chatted to some friends of friends the other day who work at Microsoft. I was ruminating on the facts surronding OSS. They just flipped. They couldn't believe that I could be so stupid as to think that OSS was ever going to get anywhere. MS calls OSS people "zealots", but believe me, you wouldn't believe how fanatical and brain-washed some Microsofties are.
Rant over and out.
From the article: ..."
"In addition to creating new software to entice people to buy more powerful computers
So Microsoft is writing slow, bloated code on purpose to make us buy faster machines?
"...the responsibility we have to be excellent in our products, to be excellent with our customers..."
And to party on, dude!!
======================================
Writers get in shape by pumping irony.
"In a sense, despite the market climate, everything, we need to be even more committed to charging in and helping out and building products in areas where we don't compete today ... because that's what's really in the best interest of the customers," Ballmer said.
Riiiight. Does Ballmer seriously think that any one would believe that Microsoft is serving the best interest of the customers, vs. those of Microsoft itself? Of course the real reason for wanting to "help out" (ie, dominate) untapped markets is solidify Microsoft's monopoly position, and become the heavy fist over the entire tech field.
"Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion." - Democritus
I am from Seattle and I can tell you that is pretty much how both major papers there treat Boeing, Microsoft and other big employers in the area. (Actually they are a little meaner to Boeing since the company bailed on Seattle for their corporate headquarters.) When you carry a big chunk of the local economy you get the VIP treatment just about everywhere.
I suspect many other large cities with a few big companies work the same.
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
And wipe out the rest of the linuxes once and
for all.
If any of you teenage Linux-boppers remember,
Microsoft actually used to have Xenix that
ran on Intel hardware back in the day.
MS could easily finish off the likes of Sun, IBM and HP.
I'm basing this on my experience writing a contact form that thwarts spam. It has (optional) client side verification of the fields based on regular expressions. (The same regular expressions are then used again on the server, the client side stuff just makes it fail fast.) When a web browser thinks it supports JavaScript, but doesn't do it well enough this runs into problems. I keep finding browsers that like the regular expressions I use.
If you are using an uncommon browser, I would appretiate the testing. Please go to my contact page and fill out a valid email address but no subject or message. If your browser works correctly, you should not get an error about the email address. Then send me the results. (If you do have problems, disable JavaScript first.)
Just for the hell of it, the other day I typed 'Windows' into Google. I got (about) 57,600,000 results.
Then I typed 'Linux'. I got (about) 53,700,000 results.
Now, one could write a whole book on how unscientific those statistics are, but it was still interesting to see a (damned near) 1:1 ratio. I had anticipated something more like 5:1
Sigs are bad for your health.
God help us when they go through the teen years and start experimenting with drugs and plotting to kill us.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Everytime I see an article like this on /. I can just see all the *nix zealots sharpening their axes.
:)
It's a bloody spectacle, usually filled with much name calling and even more personal attacks on Bill Gates. Eh, hell with em, I guess if you are that bloody rich you should be able to BUY thick skin
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
It could finally make it easy for people to search and find all sorts of files -contacts, printers, documents, programs, photos
*cough* mac *cough* unix *cough* *cough* (I am having a cold)
were into interactive TV super, super early
Actually the first digital setup-box I got in the 90's was running a mac-a-like system.
*cough* super gqy Al *cough* (q can be an a sometimes)
(yes this can be compared with sex)
I love linux and have been using it for 8+ years. That being said I'll never run linux on my desktop again (well never's a long time, so change that to the forseeable future). I have a G4 Tower w/22" Cinema Display and it runs Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Acrobat (full), ... flawlessly. And I can connect to all my linux servers via ssh/sftp/scp when necessary.
Linux is an excellent server platform but until Linux is as intuitive and slick as OS X, I will buy $3000 laptops running OS X.
Productivity relates to how much work you get done on each system. Linux requires a significant amount of work to be a decent desktop machine. OS X requires a default install to be the best desktop machine. If Apple does a better job of getting all their server admin tools gui based for OS X server (and Oracle gets out of RC2) I'll be purchasing a XServe to compare to my Linux and Solaris setups.
Oh and saying "I like and use OS X, but it's not competition for Linux. It's a good OS, and has it's places, but it's no threat to Linux or MS." is completely off base. There are actually more people switching from Unix (like myself) based OSes to OS X than Windows users.
Gates is confident the software his company is developing today will put Microsoft further ahead and perhaps pull the entire economy out of its slump.
Talk about delusions of grandeur. Perhaps Mr. Gates is unaware of the steel, oil, drug, agriculture, etc. industries that can get along just fine without the latest release of Windows.
So basically we have a local reporter who went to lunch with Bill and asked him a set of pre-approved questions. Questions that were most likely reviewed, answered and rehearsed by Ballmer and some handlers. Then it's presented as an article, but it's really a puff piece about how MS and their amazing innovations will bring the tech sector, and in turn the whole economy out of it's slump by convincing everyone to upgrade? And we get a chance to humanize Bill a little more, but we'll mention the anti-trust thing and some competitors to keep the "street cred" high. What a joke, is this really the state of the press today?
Microsoft doesn't have a guaranteed powerbase. Many companies will eventually come to the conclusion that freedom from BSA audits and the like means more than TCO. I bet most companies would rather have that peace of mind that cheap software if they had to choose one over the other.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
ah, but there is, you ignorant linux user.
Hostes alienigieni me abduxerunt. Qui annus est?
They would then pleasure me 10 or more hours of the day, 10 at a time.
*LOL* you cracked me there (I only wish where?)
(yes this can be compared with sex)
At age 27 (well actually 28-29) I did just that... bought a flashy car and had an affair. That cost me so dearly that I was financially unable to fulfill one of my biggest lifelong dreams: getting my pilot's certificate and my own small airplane, until my late 30's.
Believe me, flying is much more fun that *any* flashy car, and it's about equally as much fun as sex. Lasts a lot longer too.
instead of evil!
here:
'Yes, it will be common sense that your music is digital and you don't use CDs. It will be common sense that you can correspond with your doctor and ask him questions electronically. It will be common sense that if you go to a meeting that's recorded digitally
is a great opportunity to do just that. if companies like MS would help this process along, rather than hindering it with unrealistic DRM schemes, we'd all be better off, IMO.
What really happened is he decided to promote himself to demigod, rather than be limited by the title CEO.
But more seriously. I love linux, wouldn't have anything else for a server; web, file, database, what have you. But when it comes to the desktop? Am I alone in the world who thinks that Windows is better for productivity?
In the desktop world, I swear all linux distros have a common motto, "Let's do everything that's already been done in the way of productivity applications, but, just not quite as good, and maybe it'll crash a bit, and takes some tweaking to even get running, but, but, it's not Windows!"
Yes, Microsoft uses nasty tactics to corner the markets, promote their product, run their world domination program, but you know what, their products work. What I would like to see is them focusing less on "more new features" and improve the ones they already have.
I think the real question is not whether Microsoft is good or evil, but rather, does the good MS produces balance the evil of the company?
Gates talks excitedly about putting together software he thinks may change the world.
Microsoft's greatest contribution to the computing landscape is not software. There is nothing particularly innovative or inspired about anything they have ever written. I'm not saying it's bad software, just that there's very little that they have done that wasn't preceded by other less successful counterparts.
Microsoft's great contribution is their business method. Ensure customer loyalty by ensnaring them with de-facto proprietary standards. They aren't the only ones playing this game, but they are far and away the best at it.
Microsoft's business model, not their software (or their service, for that matter), is responsible for their success. Those who believe shareholder value at any cost is the ultimate objective can be very happy. On the other hand, those who believe customer loyalty should be earned, rather than enforced by patents, copyrights, licensing and killing off the competition are mortified.
I don't know anyone who is delighted to use Microsoft products. I know a lot of people who feel they have no choice. Given the option to use a truly viable alternative, they would. I don't myself see such an alternative available today. However, I do think the writing is on the wall. And when the tide turns, it will be like a dam bursting.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
Mid-Life Crisis
Symptoms
During his 40's, if a man or women has been hard-working, the fruits of their labors-a home and family, material possessions-will probably surround them. Then, before anything dramatic happens, small nagging doubts may appear, perhaps followed by a series of dramatic, apparently irrational events leading up to great change. During it all, men and women ask themselves questions such as: Is this all there is? Am I a failure? Symptoms and behaviors during mid-life crisis can range from mild to severe, including:
- boredom and exhaustion, or frantic energy
--> MS will start releasing more and more software (like a new OS every other year)
- self-questioning
--> media will be flooded with samples of internal MS e-mails warning of Linux supremacy
- daydreaming
-->MS will start promising that US Government will write digital rights management into the constitution
- irritability, unexpected anger
--> MS will increasingly blast Linux and compare it to communism and anti-capitalism
- acting on alcohol, drug, food, or other compulsions
--> MS "campus" will turn into a real campus as in "Animal House"
- greatly decreased or increased sexual desire
--> MS will increasingly want to "interface" with non PC devices like handhelds, toasters, fridges, phones, etc...
- sexual affairs, especially with someone much younger
--> MS will court
- greatly decreased or increased ambition.
--> MS will counter sue all the continental USA on made up grounds... after all a week offense is a much better then a great defense.
from:
Men's Health
You will have to pry my proprietary software $$$ from my cold dead hands!
He has enough money to afford the extended support contract that MS offers.
-Charlie
On all fours, naked, in front of a mirror, the one-eyed custard shooter in hand.
It will be common sense that if you go to a meeting that's recorded digitally ... you can go back and get that information."
Um, excuse me Bill, but isn't this what Palladium and Trusted Computing(TM) are supposed to eliminate? You can no longer go back and get that information unless your DRM module allows you to. Which means that basically the author, your employer, or Microsoft, can lock you out of your own data.
Something just occurred to me regarding DRM. Once Microsoft has succeeded in entrenching DRM in the PC marketplace, what is to keep them from charging their customers royalties for every Office document they view? The technology is there - Microsoft Office could encrypt your documents, and refuse to read them after a specified period of time, unless you bought an upgrade. I can see it now - it would be sold as "Legacy Support Services - with a simple upgrade, you'll be able to view documents created 2 or more years ago!..."
With the advent of MSDOS, people began paying for what they used to get for free. How long will it be before people expect to send Microsoft money every time they view documents created with Microsoft software? How long will it be before Microsoft charges developers royalties for every copy of a program that runs on Windows? Think it can't happen? Think Palladium and Trusted Computing.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
You're possibly correct, but I still have my doubts. Apple took too long to get the product to market, and then when they did, they released 10.0.x and 10.1.x versions, both of which were really litle more than glorified beta releases. They've finally got something of quality with the 10.2.x version - but it's a year later....
Apple will almost certainly be around for a long time to come, but they're a niche player. Even if you consider their products vastly superior, you're talking about something analogous to "Rolls Royce vs. Ford" in the car industry. Most people would say a Rolls is a better car than a Ford product, yet you see very few Rolls Royces driving around town.
The problem is, Apple isn't equivalent to Rolls Royce in the minds of well over 50% of the population. Instead, many view them as a "has been" or a "wanna-be" computer maker. Granted, these are usually the same folks who haven't really sat down at a new Mac and used it long enough to give it a chance. Nonetheless, perception is 9/10th's of reality - and Apple has a lot of perception to change.
You can even buy systems pre-loaded with Linux through Wal-Mart, but not a new Mac with OSX.
If Apple wanted to really become a "driver" of new technologies, they probably should have kept the options available for clone-makers to build Mac compatibles. It appears, though, they still view all of their software and OS products as tools/leverage to sell people their hardware. They don't really want to see anyone running their code on systems not assembled by them.
It seemed to me like the author did his or her very best top find some amount of good in all of Microsoft's evils and shortcomings. This sounded more like an expansive, carefully crafted PR statement then a real piece of journalism.
I for one certainly do not feel that MS is at middle age. Their products are still making huge profits. Windows and Office especially are very profitable. Even their hardware is making money for the company. Bill on the other hand.. is middle-aged.
Furthermore I expect to see great things for him after he retires. He is a bright guy and is doing great things with his fortune for the betterment of human kind. The Gates foundation is almost ten years old, and has given away so much money to find cures for diseases, and poverty. To those that take issue with Gates Foundation giving PCs with Windows to third World Countries, would you expect him to give Macs?
My prediction: In fifty years junior high school kids will be learning about the Gate's vaccine for Malaria. (named after the benefactor for the research)
what? what I thought we were in the trust tree in the nest, were we not?
who in the hell needs a gui for server based tools?
you aren't one of those mouse clicking solu....
(cat post |grep linux)
ah, nevermind.
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
I suppose that means that the X-Box is MS's way of trying to stay "hip" and "with it", even though its "hips" are about to need replacing and the only time it gets "it" anymore it needs Viagra.
=)
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
Yeah, of the board of directors.
And he owns 11% of the company. You can't be much more in charge than that (especially in a company with a market cap of a bazillion gazillion dollars)
Yes, it's a blog. Sorry if that offends you.
"He now spends two-thirds of his time working on products...a line of futuristic watches unveiled last month ...."
Does anyone know anything about these watches?
I like the idea behind Timex's pager watch but they are a pain in the a$$ to use. I wonder if it's possible for Microsoft to actually improve something.
I believe this is a good indication of split from how Bill Gates sees the world and how the rest of the world sees itself. The problem is a touch of reality. One where the business is not technology but the use of technology for business. An area that MS seems to fail at way too often, given their scope. Instead, their success tends to be from the hard work of developers outside of the products themselves.
... you can go back and get that information."
From the article:
"...It will be common sense that you can correspond with your doctor and ask him questions electronically. It will be common sense that if you go to a meeting that's recorded digitally
It is not common sense. My doctor does not correspond electronically for two reasons. He is busy and he gains no revenue from it. Doctor's do not sit in their office waiting for someone to show up.(Try to see your doctor the same day you call). As for recording digitally that again is economically available today, but it fails to meet a wide business need. Instead, I call up Jane and ask "Was that two foobars or three you wanted?" I don't go to the archives and pull the video. Perhaps it is just his lawyers talking, in which case the video will expire in 30 days and be self destructive.
as for
If it works as planned, an airline would be able to update a passenger's on-line calendar if a flight were delayed, while notifying the passenger of the change with an e-mail and a phone message. One goal is to create a standard format so that data could be read by whatever device the passenger uses.
Again, a solution looking for a problem. Since a flight is not legally "late" until it does not push off, do you really expect an airline to send you an email in the morning?
As for a standard message format, they could have that today. They selected to remain proprietary, no one is holding a gun to their head. Let's see support for a universal open document standard and we would all be happy.(Well, except MS.)
"In addition to creating new software to entice people to buy more powerful computers, Microsoft is designing new types of computers, encouraging PC makers to build them."
Yes, the do this and not for the business' that is using it. Who wanted to go to an OS who's base requirements were four or five times the previous release? Hardware makers. Do I like having a 2.0ghz chip and a gig of memory for compiles? You bet. Does business appreciate needing to update an entire administration pool to run W2k and XP? Not even a little.
and finally, the "lost leader" thrown in to later claim "everyone knew it was coming:"
One key feature is expected to be a new file-storage system for better organizing things stored on a Windows-based PC. It could finally make it easy for people to search and find all sorts of files -- contacts, printers, documents, programs, photos -- with a single search tool.
Sadly, almost no one in the mainstream recognizes this for what it is. A shutout of other devices, services and software. I predict this is going to be a 100% legally encased product that will prevent or impede anything from interacting that is not MS. Anyone (i.e. SAMBA) trying to engineer a solution can look to DCMA for guidence. Nothing more complicated than that.
As it is based on BSD Unix, OS X is already rather portable. And there is ample evidence that Apple has a backup plan to bring OS X to the X86 architecture, if need be. Their hardware practices have moved from using custom chips in pre-system 8 towards standardized architectures. The only real distinction these days from the rest of the market is their choice of the PowerPC processor. For now I think they're intent on perfecting OS X on controlled apple hardware, but they may very well go for the Intel box market in the future when the time is right.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
"Every year, we're just getting the computer to be a better and better tool," he said, "and that's why we pick a time frame like the end of the decade where we say, 'Yes, it will be common sense that your music is digital and you don't use CDs. It will be common sense that you can correspond with your doctor and ask him questions electronically. It will be common sense that if you go to a meeting that's recorded digitally ... you can go back and get that information."
What? What is he talking about? This paragraph doesnt make any sense, i think he is just spewing out jargon to make himsdelf look cool in 2003....
kaens.blogspot.com
The 47-year-old Microsoft chairman has a good idea about when he'll be retiring, he enjoys driving his daughter to school, and he has a home-improvement project he wants to get to one of these days.
But first he has a few things to get done at the office, such as build Microsoft's software platform for the next era of computing and reinvigorate the sluggish computer industry along the way.
With the enthusiasm of a science student working on a killer project, Gates talks excitedly about putting together software he thinks may change the world."
Four paragraphs and not a mention of what the article has to do with. This is why most Slashdot readers don't read the articles. What a waste of time.
--
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." - Homer Simpson [1F10]
old news for some, i'm sure, but this snippet is interesting:
a new version of Windows code-named Longhorn. One key feature is expected to be a new file-storage system for better organizing things stored on a Windows-based PC. It could finally make it easy for people to search and find all sorts of files -- contacts, printers, documents, programs, photos -- with a single search tool.
wonder if it's anything like non-HFS systems, like this?
I do run Win2K and Office2k on an older machine...a P200 MMX with 128 MB ram and 2.1 GB disk. It runs fine. Take out even 16 meg of memory though, and forget it. I would try to run it with 256 meg of memory, but the board is so old it only supports 4 32MB simms. YMMV, though.
Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.
IBM thought they could dictate the new *standard*. .NET, License 6, and other MS BS look more and more like an MCA kind of thing.
Their arrogance cost them dearly.
Palladium,
I think that within 2 years there will be a mass exodus from Microsoft by developers, OEMs, large and small business sites, and finally, even home computer users.
May you live in interesting times, Mr. Gates.
1000 SlashDot sigs
"It's kind of like a bizarre cult."
The majority of $ these people have is caught up in MS stock. From what I hear, with out the stock options, these people make a lot less than everyone else. So you really do need to treat them like they are in a cult, or they WILL flip out on you.
I know a guy who works for Dell and does nothing but sell MS licenses. I never mention the 'L' word around him, but I do occassionally ask him how business is going.
The great thing about being into OSS is that you can walk around in T-shirts advertising the fact, or you can pretend to be a super-hero in disguise. Me, being a corp drone, prefer the later and only trust my true identity with people I truly trust;)
For what it is worth, I enjoyed hearing about your experience, as I have always wondered just how this guy I know would react if I confronted him with a few well known market trends (I think he is made completely of commission;).
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Video Recorders are made to to one thing. Computer do many different things. What we are seeing here in the computer market is the realization that one OS does'NT fit all. Graphic Designers prefer Macs. Linux is making an impact in the server market. Macs are great as small servers and for music . . .
There will always be room for OS's that only have a 5% or 3% share. The question is can a computer manufacturer survive with only a small share of the market. So far Mac has been able to do so.
Well, historically, it seems to me MS usually fails when they stray too far from new products related to their core software/OS products.
Let's see... We have that Microsoft Phone they sold. I never saw too many people using that. They failed miserably with the partnership with Clarion to build Windows CE based car stereos. (Not too many Clarion Joyrides in people's cars, are there?) Then they bought all those satellites for broadband, and that didn't seem to pan out. The X-Box hasn't been real profitable for them either, even if it sold a lot of units. MSN is still a big question-mark, but AOL was kicking their butt last time I paid attention to it. Either way, they're selling a product that's largely irrelevant - because Internet is quickly becoming all about broadband connections. That means your local cable company or telco is your ISP, not Microsoft.
So sure, Microsoft would love to get their hands into as many markets as possible. That's what any successful business should be striving for, at least in the backs of their minds. Fact is, they're not good at everything, and having the most money to throw around doesn't guarantee success.
"I'm not an economist, but I think sometime in the next five years you'll see that turn around," he said. "And I think the advances we're making this year and next year will be part of the reason that will turn around ... the extra productivity and efficiency that Web services and the new form factors, simpler forms of communication will bring will help drive that productivity."
I can't believe it. Ok, well, actually I can. How much sheer arrogance does it take for Gates to claim that the economy will recover when, and only when, Microsoft "innovations" make it possible?
This is the kind of thing that makes me want to just reach through the screen and choke the living sh*t out of Gates. He's a megalomaniac evil businessman posing as a lovable geek. And people buy it.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Microsoft will be at old age, thus helping the viagra market!
Thanks a lot. Now I can't get rid of this image of Steve Ballmer doing a happy dance in a Viagra commercial.
Free software will be around as long as there are gullible, bored, wealthy college kids ...
Kind of like porn, then?
And I wouldn't necessarily call Microsoft big and unflexible. They are at least trying to drive growth in new areas, from Tablet PC's to the Media PC to their enterprise initiatives like CRM and Data Center management. To their credit, they are taking the (ill-gotten) gains from their OS monopoly and are using that to fund R&D to take on new challenges.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Good lord who cares about bill gates he makes continualy buggy software in a company tring to take over the world. there are other more interesting companys out there . . .
The file system planned for Longhorn is the next way of killing competition. It'll do for the disk what Word did to the document.
You mean to say that Linux doesn't do that now? Gee, I must be using the wrong distro or something...
Also, I think MS had it right with Win2K; XP is also quite stable, but as you mentioned, it is also incredibly annoying by default.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Right. Sure. Go back to masturbating over your extensive child porn collection, NineNuts.
Microsoft also wants to provide a consistent, predictable experience for people who use its software on various devices.
I take it they mean it will crash once a day...
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Two words: Microsoft Bob
Looks like you missed the line where he said "but they back away from schemes that don't work."
Ted: Be excellent to each other.
Bill: Party on, dudes.
Then I guess the XP look is like their getting a sports car? But I guess they reverted too far, the style looks more like Playskool...
Seriously though, It in many ways seems that they may have reached a peak and are falling from it. The 2000 products I think were the pinnacle in the professional world. Even though XP has a 'professional' edition, businesses seem to not really care about it.
Business people aren't excited about it if for no other reason than there being no 'XP Server'. While this has no technical merit, suits like to see consistancy, and feel that the best match for '2000 Servers' are '2000 Workstations', even if not always true. Plus, the new default look doesn't give an impression of 'professional', and the arrangement of the new start menu and desktop configuration can annoy them to no end. Yes all these things can be changed, but in first impressions, it really makes suits doubt the platform.
For IT people, they see that XP added shiny round windows and.... ummm..... that's just about it. They know it is an incremental update with few non-cosmetic feature enhancements. They know that while it offers little to no practical benefit, it at the same time will forever be slightly less tested and proven than Windows 2000 with all their respective updates. Additionally, though pretty efficient, the new graphics have some impact on performance, and at times the impact can be drastic if your video card isn't perfect.
Legal departments that bother to look at MS EULAs know to be scared more and more with every revision. MS is really trying to push their ground more and more, and they really haven't been giving back anything.
XP was a great thing to home users, finally going to the 2000 core for that segment. I would say XP could be the peak for the home segment, but I know full well that the home segment will buy up pretty, shiny, useless improvements endlessly. I think MS knows that too and is moving more and more into that segment (XBox, Tablets, Media Center..)
Windows 2000 offered a great deal of improvement over NT4 (mainly AD, but other stuff too). Windows XP offers next to nothing. Looking at the upcoming Windows 2003 release, there isn't that much to be excited about. Their revolutionary filesystem is the *only* feature I see that anyone cares much about, and I'm not sure how the market will ultimately view the feature.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
There's been little difference between Windows and Linux and OS X, especially since XP was released. They're all variations on a theme. Linux is cleaner if you're writing command line applications, but it's just as messy as Windows if you're using KDE or Gnome or, good heavens, xlib.
.net. Once that is done, then the Win32 underpinnings can be changed, then removed, and then .net will be the OS. As much as I hate to say it, that will be a huge win in reducing the complexity of the system.
But things are changing on the Windows side. Microsoft is poised to deprecate the entire Win32 API in favor of
Microsoft is a lot more like the United States than the tobacco industry. Like the US, it thinks that it knows better than everyone else what's best for everyone else.
At least the tobacco industry finally admits to selling a harmful product. Microsoft, the lone superpower, even when directed by a recognized authority, like the DOJ, or the UN, does what it wants anyway, to bring about it's own agenda, at the cost of everyone else.
This isn't meant as flamebait or as a troll. I just find the parallels striking.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Too much slashdot i guess.
rm -rf /home/leia
"Every year, we're just getting the computer to be a better and better tool,"[Gates] said
Right. Microsoft steals technology from Apple, buys out companies who have become the standard in their industry, and drives the rest out of their market by bundling a bad copy of their software with Windows. They tout badly integrated features instead of making a clean program. Microsoft are the innovators: they always come up with a new way to grab market share without pushing the envelope.
Humor for Geeks, Stuff that Doesn't Matter
In the long run, we're all dead.
has replaced that idiotic "real time stock quotes" example that was used over, and over, and over to illustrate the capibilites of .Net as the most out of place example of advanced technology.
Nothing like being called a dipshit for making a mistake.
You had to work as slavs in feudal work camps while pestilence, war, famine, and death encroaches everywhere and the populace is blind to the teachings of a corrupt chruch. I wonder if Microsoft has any similar ideas on restricting us.
My personal observations support the "google" theory: linux exploit 343,000 results and windows exploit 445,000 results Ill be your stasistic to day!
It takes lot for the old M$ to do moves now. Look at windoze from Windoze NT 4.0 to Windows XP in the last 10 years ...well they are some suddle changes to gui but it is still buggy and virus prone.
Look at linux how it has grown in the last 10 years.
It has better GUI than windoze XP and million times stable abd secure than windoze. Further more it is enterprise ready. Linux is also going into handheld and embedded systems. Linux futrure look bright.
What about Darwin? you get the meat of OS X just no pretty GUI yet. and i say yet because i personally believe it would be a tremendously smart move for Apple to release a PC version of OS X. honestly if i could have dual athlons running os x i dont think i would leave the house
No, that's the 'Happy Monkey Dance'. By the way, don't pet his happy monkey, it may spit at you.
Every new release messes around with file formats, so that everyone HAS to upgrade, since the software (Office, in this case) doesn't degrade gracefully when confronted w. documents written by newer versions.
End result = forced upgrades w/o any improvement in "the user experience"
On another side, here's a quote from the article:
Microsoft also wants to provide a consistent, predictable experience for people who use its software on various devices.
I'm sure that if they ever decide to release their own version of linux, it will BSOD just so that you can continue to have that "predictable experience" :-)
That is a lot of yellow 500 dollar bills.
And no, he doesn't give money to charity, Melinda does. He never gave shit to anybody till he got married. Bill is not a nice guy, he's an evil nerd who does not like people. You know the type I'm talking about. The guy that got picked on so much, he grows up to hate everyone and becomes a mad scientist who creates a super-bomb to blow up the world. How else would you explain MFC and win32?
Linus Torvalds is a "cool geek". He sees the value in others and shares for "fellowship of the geeks" factor. He's not out to rule the world and take the whole pie, he just wants a piece for himself and a little comfort.
Bill hates you, the world, and himself and wants your bank account, that's all he cares about. He wants to rule all electronic devices, and he's not afraid to kill people or companies to get his way. He's the Sauron of technology. Don't villify the bastard.
"It's got Unix roots. Unix has had historic strength, but at the end of the day, I'm quite sure we can out-innovate and deliver sort of a better solution than the work of a bunch of uncoordinated hobbyists."
There is one thing you failed to mention: You can't recompile the windows kernel to make it smaller.
I regularly tune and recompile my linux kernels to support the specific hardware I have on my eclectic assortment of old boxes (P100s etc..). This fine tuning makes the kernel run quicker, and allows me to lower the disk and memory footprint. (P.S. I burn CDs that contain these unique kernels as recovery disks - so no worries on catastrophic failures). You don't have to live with a bloated 'one size fits all' distribution if you don't want to under linux. Not so for windows (unless you pay a price of course).
I have all of this flexibility in Linux for free. Windows can't beat that.
It is a big deal for me. I demand quality over quantity and glitz. Windows does not deliver.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
In the recent CPU overview article, they tested 65 CPUs all with WinXP. It runs just fine on an P1 100, but it needs some RAM (TH put 512MB into the machine - ok, maybe its hard to find a mobo which supports both P1 and 512MB RAM).
I think you're right, but I think it is for different reasons. I agree that within ten years, there won't be any more 200.00 consumer operating systems... But I think there also won't be any 2000.00 gamer PCs, or, well, pretty much *anything* expensive.
;)
See, I think our culture (I mean, U.S. culture, but the phenomenon is reaching out to the rest of the world) is entering a nasty feedback loop. First, corporations try to maximize profits by laying everyone off and outsourcing everything outsourceable. All the laid-off ex-middle-class workers try to find jobs, but only a fraction do, and those generally take lower pay because the market's flooded with competition. The rest ultimately either end up giving up, and not even bothering to find work, or working in dead-end wage-slave jobs (think "service economy"). Less money in the economy means less spent on consumer goods, which means a less confident stock market and lower corporate profits. They respond with more layoffs, making the situation worse. The feedback loop feeds off itself as long as there are still workers that can be laid off, or at least, as long as corporations are run the way they are currently.
So, what happens when the only people still working at corporations are the suits running them, and virtually EVERYTHING has been outsourced around the world to the lowest bidder?
* People naturally end up scaling down their expectations. They start trying to live within their means, because *they have no other choice*.
* Product lines get forced into scaling down, to a "just good enough" cheap-and-dirty version which people will actually buy. New, small companies form which produce cheap local knockoffs of tools and gear, and they achieve modest success. Economies end up becoming more local as a result. Hint: there might be an opportunity here. For instance, when people can't afford to buy the latest HP or Compaq, you might be able to sell them a custom built gamer PC if you can find the parts on inexpensive web-catalog sites.
* The whole culture starts to scale down into a grey-market, local co-op, sort of thing. Everything gets smaller, cheaper, more efficient. SUVs morph into small, gas-electric hybrids... Six bedroom houses become harder to sell, and are displaced from the market by townhouses and bungaloes (cheaper to heat, lower taxes, etc).
I see EVERTHING becoming smaller, cheaper, purchased over the web on the cheap, and very, very low-key. And, getting back to O/S'es, when everyone ends up getting everything on the cheap over the web or from a local shop, downloads of Debian become the norm, instead of that 200.00 MS Windows XP license... People will say, "200.00 for a CD? Are you nuts? I can get a bicycle, a computer, some new shoes, new clothes, the entire run of Outlaw Star, and a bunch of software suites for that." Then they'll take their 200.00 to ebay, and do it just for spite.
That, as they say, will be that. Ah, Bill, we barely knew ye...
Just my theory. Feel free to shred it.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Utter rubbish. Office 2003 will offer usability improvements while keeping the old file formats along with the option to use XML. No one is forcing you to upgrade.
Oh, and BSOD jokes are so 1996. Newer Windows versions like 2000 and XP run as stable as Linux, if not more stable.
"Slashdot - the one place on the internet where guys brag about how small it is." - that IT girl
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Every new release messes around with file formats
.xls or .doc files with Office XP at home that opened up and worked fine with Office 98 at work. And when they upgraded my work PC to Office 2000, there was not a single problem with any of the hundreds of Office files that were written by Office 98, inlcluding Project, Powerpoint, Excel, and Word documents.
...
What hole did you pull this out of? I've written
I'm sure that if they ever decide to release their own version of linux, it will BSOD
Sorry, this arguement just doesn't work any more. While you have been busy recompiling your kernel to get your sound card to work, Microsoft has transformed a fairly unstable OS (Win 95) into a rock solid platform (Win XP). I have yet to get a BSOD with either Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Thats nearly 3 years without a system crash.
We here are actually undoing all the 'pretties' that XP offers, both due to user shock coming from NT, and that it uses LOADS of resources JUST to be pretty..
They should have stopped with 2000...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This was seriously getting on my nerves.
So, we have learned that the writer of the article has no idea that the problem with M$ is its paternalistic attitude. We also learned that M$ wants to get a stranglehold on hardware and hardware companies so that they can exclude all other Operating Systems and that the "average stupid Joe" won't say a thing as long as he can watch his baby films on a big screen powered by the criminal monopolist. I learned that not only is there one sucker born every minute but they are exactly what is wrong with the world's freedom. To sum it up, this proves that there always will be enough stupid M-F's in the world to keep Billy's home renovations going at a good pace.
Great, does this mean microsoft will be tooling around in a flashy car, trying to buyout software half its' age, and generally making an ass of itself trying to be cool? Plus it's only a matter of time before the hairplugs come into the picture.... oh wait.. maybe the software equivilent would be service packs.... All in all nothing terribly shocking in this article - they're trying to be seen in a more "parental" and less "evil overlord" type of role, they're changing tactics to adapt to a new environment (Things are quite different from how they were 10 years ago, and I don't think anyone out there can predict what the marketplace will be like in another 10 years in either the corporate OR the consumer aspect. All I really picked up from reading it was a really horrible mental image of a corporation deciding gold chains and a shirt open to the waist should be the new "in thing" (All of a sudden IBM's former draconian dress code looks good! :)
I've written .xls or .doc files with Office XP at home that opened up and worked fine with Office 98 at work.
Bull****.
WTF? How was this rated interesting? Your whole post seemed to be "After stuff is number one, it falls to a lower position". Well, no shit- what's it gonna be, number 0?
Uhh, there is no 'Office 98' dumb ass. You'd think MS astroturfers would no some shit about MS.
If XP is so stable, why were the major vendors all offering downgrade CDs with every new computer sold to business? Because XP was, and still is, a "real piece" not suitable for business users.
As for Office 2003 "offering usability improvements", this is the same old song and dance we've heard since the early '80's and Windows 3.0.
Anyway, if BSOD jokes are so '96, how come I've seen them in '98, ME, 2000, and XP? The only way to make Windows stable is to remove either the power cord or the end user.
Does this mean that Microsoft will go all out and start reinventing DOS just to try to get back into touch with its inner child, or will it finally keel over from a massive heart attack?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If you were running Office 98, you weren't running Windows. Office 98 is/was a Mac-only product. So maybe that's why why you didn't BSOD :-)
Hey, what does a pasty-white geek like yourself know about astroturf? I'll bet you don't even know what it is.
Q:
If XP is so stable, why were the major vendors all offering downgrade CDs with every new computer sold to business?
A:
They aren't. My company (around 80,000 employees) is in the process of upgrading everybody to XP from 2k.
Anyway, if BSOD jokes are so '96, how come I've seen them in '98, ME, 2000, and XP? The only way to make Windows stable is to remove either the power cord or the end user.
In 3 years I have seen exactly 1 blue screen in Windows 2000 and 1 blue screen in Windows XP, and BOTH times were because of a new device driver I downloaded was clearly misbehaiving. That is no worse than using the new beta Nvidia drivers in Linux.
And to pre-emptively deflect your next argument:
#1. I rarely reboot (once very 6 weeks tops, usually not because of any crash or failure, and it takes 45 seconds for the full reboot)
#2. I actively install and remove new software that I am trying, so my software config is pretty dynamic
#3. Unlike you, I interact with females
I think in your case it's time remove the end user. I haven't had any problems ever with my 98, 2000, or XP machine. I'm a power user, I don't just use it as it comes, so don't pull that garbage on me either. Perhaps you're too stupid to be using a computer? Just get up and walk away.
"Bill, I think, (has) touched on it eloquently and well, which is the responsibility we have to be excellent in our products, to be excellent with our customers, to be a leader in how we think about these hard problems like security, like privacy, like reliability or like delivering innovation into the industry and being a responsible partner."
I thought it was very interesting to see his views are more responsible and agreeable than what we have given M$ credit for. Perhaps he is a new breed of Microsoft employees who see the faults of other M$ products and is trying to break that mold.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
After seeing your comment I had to see it for myself to believe it. How dismissive! Is that guy living in the bizarro world?
Why is it that the surviving computer companies are run by people born in the 1950s and 1960s- Apple, MicroSoft, Sun, etc.? People born in the 1970s and 1980s had fabulous opportunities during the venture capital golden age of the 1990s, but for the most part blew it. There are a few surviors like Yahoo, Google, Red Hat, but nothing as dynamic as the boomer companies. What is the reason? Business and social immaturity? TEchnological immaturity?
Just my theory. Feel free to shred it. ;)
You asked for it.
See, I think our culture (I mean, U.S. culture, but the phenomenon is reaching out to the rest of the world) is entering a nasty feedback loop. First, corporations try to maximize profits by laying everyone off and outsourcing everything outsourceable.
Ah, there you go. Two faults right there.
"The West" can (and should) be thought of as a single civilization, stretching throughout almost all of the world and dating back to, oh, sometime shortly after the fall of Rome. So it's not a "cultural" problem--rather, the problem--if it exists--is a civilizational one.
Now, as for the other: Not all CEOs respond the same way, and even those that DO use layoffs to cut costs will hit a floor where they simply can't cut anyone else. Plus, a CEO who loses money again and again will be fired, and probably replaced by a ambitious (ex) middle-class employee who will hire on more and more and do what it takes to boost employee morale again.
Oh, one more thing:
For instance, when people can't afford to buy the latest HP or Compaq, you might be able to sell them a custom built gamer PC if you can find the parts on inexpensive web-catalog sites.
HP, Dell, etc. exist because they can take direct advantage of the same economy of scale that those catalog sites do. If push comes to shove, expect the OEMs to produce their own dirt-cheap models to adapt to the changing market.
Corporate America is _very_ efficient at what it does; unless you change the rules of the game, you can expect American Capitalism to continue "forever."
Well, that's a nice theory, but try looking through a macroeconomics text some time. Markets work, and over time will fix themselves, right now we (the USA) are stuck in between waiting for something to happen (i.e. go to war or not). For now we must ride out the downturn in the economy, but things will pick back up, just look at the historical evidence.
Windows vs Linux vs OSX vs whatever will play out for it's own reasons, price is only one factor. Personally I'd love to see Linux gain market share on the desktop, but that remains to be seen.
Amen to that. It always slays me when people go on and on about how proprietary programs are just as configurable as anything open scource. I keep having to point out to them that with OSS, even the configurability is configurable!
Dyolf Knip
Essentially, he has been at it since the fall of communism and over the years has probably equalled the Bill and Melissa fund.
See my journal, I write things there
... and be excellent to each other. My name is Ted Theodore Logan, and this is Bill S. Preston, esq. Party on dudes!
"Verbing weirds language." -- Calvin
Yeah, these headline misreading posts NEVER get old...
For cost constrained software -- i.e., software whose development is limited by cost -- this is true. This happens to most software developed solely by companies, which _must_ do a *good enough* job. There is little sense in trimming an application when it is cheaper (to the developer!)to make users pay for bigger iron.
OTOH, volunteer-developed software (even by companies) is not cost constrained (or it may be, but to a lesser extent). Improving an application doesn't require much additional money. Maybe the only important limiting factor here is time. I believe that's what they meant by "free software already starts bankrupt".
In this case, the general rule might be: initial versions of any feature are bloated but get perfected as time passes and the application as a whole can even get smaller, leaner and faster. Most free software, provided it is not abandoned, falls in this category (e.g., Mozilla & sons, Gnome, KDE, Openoffice.org).
Many things about proprietary software are way different in collaborative software. BTW, this could work for Microsoft -- but profits would have to be divided, too, of course... a difficult issue, at best.
That's why they're losing, from an economic point of view. There are other reasons, of course.
In MS own hometown The Seattle times doesn't use any MS products to host.. http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=seattlet imes.nwsource.com
First, IMHO, "the West" is just a model, and not a perfect one, btw.
India fits in "the West" at times, and doesn't at other occasions.
I agree with you that new ventures will come up, but not only to compete with existing companies -- they will provide new products and services, too. Diversity increases. That's the way more people could be hired, when each category shrinks.
Capitalism will continue forever, I concede... but will change. The guy to whom you responded was meaning something along these lines, I guess, not that capitalism would be extinct.
WinXP supports many langugages and input methods, right out of the box, and includes atleast one font for each language. This was definitely a very impressive point for me. I'm not sure if this is equally easier with Win2k, though I never tried (because I didn't know then).
I used IME under 2000 fine. Strangely enough, the options I used under 2k boxes are greyed out on the one XP machine I have access to. In any event that was present before...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
To me, this is a solution to a problem that barely exists on true multi-user OS's. I generally have no problem finding my files on a Linux/Unix system because they're all organized as I like in my home directory. On a Windows PC, files are mixed with every other user's under one of the "My xxxx" directories, or stored somewhere in the application's area. And since there's no 'owner' of a file, it's difficult to tell whether a given file is mine.
As I'm approaching 50, I'm totally flattered to be referred to as a 'college kid'.
Amongst pilots who *really* knew him and his skills, he was only a marginally skilled pilot who bought way too much aircraft than he could handle with his limted experience and skills. Of course, all you ever heard in the media was "he was a good pilot" since no one will publicly "dis" him but unfortunately the results speak for themselves. I say "Darwin Award", and since I'm a pilot myself, I'm knocking on wood while I say this.
Do you mean to tell me that Microsoft sucks ass and always has?
Say it isn't so!
thanks.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No one else seems to have picked up on this quote:
"...We were into small devices way before they really became mainstream..."
WTF? Psion were doing handhelds before MS even did Windows. The Palm was sucessful (and seen as a threat to MS) before Windows CE 1.0 made it to market. Meanwhile Nokia/Symbian rule the cellphone world while MS struggle to get anybody to actually use 'Smartphone 2002'. Just what sort of small device could be be talking about because there are none that I can think of that MS were 'into' first.
So tell me, how come Bill can claim to have been into 'small devices before anybody else'? And why do people let statements like that go unchallenged?
There are numerous paper guilty of it. It about time these kinds of paper call themselves by their true nature. How about "Seattle Slut daily" or "place your add here times."
People in manufacturing, aircraft design, the pharmaceutical business, etc. don't give a rat's ass about Microsoft or .net or any of that crap. Their work is highly specialized and directed. It's focused on budgets, schedules, resources...not happy rounded-corner windows.
If Gates wants to help the economy, why is he shoving expensive useless upgrades down everyones's throats.
It took a while, but I think businnes has gotten the message on Microsoft. This last upgrade fiasco was it. With 45 Billion in the bank and software on our desktops that is functionally equivalent to Windows 95 I think everyone now knows the story.
I want to be alone with the sandwich
Something interesting: In a sidebar of this article it is mentioned that his annual income is three quarters of a million, while his net worth is a sliver over $52 billion.
As a matter of perspective, consider a man whose net worth is $50,000 gets paid a little over 70 cents per annum. That is the ratio of net worth vs. income for Uncle Bill.
Several posters have been complaining about Bill's lack of Windows response towards Linux. Here is your answer, but don't flame me, flame the proof or logic.
.Net, DRM, and Office 11 are all designed to keep you within Windows.
It's not that Bill Gates doesn't care about linux, he just doesn't know how to compete with it. If you read his biography you will find he is one of the most competitive people alive. He loves to win, sometimes at any cost. It's just a challenge to him.
Bill is confused about linux. He can't compete on price. He definitely cannot compete with the model (open source). Linux scales better than windows from small embedded computers up to the big iron. He can't use his past exclusive contracts with the computer makers to stop the linux distribution channel (like he did with OS/2, Dr DOS, GEOS, etc.). KDE/GNOME/OpenOffice will soon be a transparent replacement for Explorer and MS Office.
I think we have already seen Bill's decision regarding linux (right or wrong). Lock the customer into using windows until Microsoft finds another revenue stream to replace it. Passport,
Your computer and the O/S may be a commodity, your data isn't. Your pictures, spreadsheets, logs, documents, Music, etc. needs to belong to Microsoft and they know this.
Enjoy.
It's just the normal noises in here.
Well, I don't think that markets don't work; what I think is that the balance of activity is going to start leaning towards localized markets rather than corporate, national ones. Not in the sense that we won't have supermarkets or car manufacturers anymore, because obviously there are some things that corporations do that private individuals cannot (although, I do think that many individuals will continue to restore OLD cars, and buy locally-grown food instead of the grocery-store stuff). But in realms where corporations don't enjoy any special advantages, or where they're producing things that people consider nonessential (read: luxury items) I think they're going to get walloped.
By the way, it's extremely rude to tell someone to go read a textbook. Condescending, even. I took Macroeconomics in college just like you did, and I listened to everything that was said. Unlike you, apparently, I took a lot of it with a grain of salt.
I agree with you, though, that "Things will pick back up". But, I suspect we have very different ideas of HOW they will pick up.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Except that in windows you only load the drivers you need for your hardware, it's not as monolotic as Linux. It's stupid to force the user to recompile the kernel to save him from loading the drivers he doesn't need.
I have Win2K running on a 133 Pentium laptop with 32MB of ram and also on a P200 with 96MB of ram.
Runs great on the P200. Not so great on the 133. It may be possible to get XP on those systems but I havn't tried.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Planesdragon said: "Ah, there you go. Two faults right there."
No; you misunderstood me. Fault number one, in which you claimed that the phenomenon was a civilisational one instead of a cultural one, was no fault of mine -- you completely misapprehend the situation. It is in fact a cultural one. Our civilization is made up of many cultures, not just one. And, over the past thousand years, it has changed time and time again, going from a purely agrarian, barter-based economy, through a feudal stage, through the rise of a merchant class, the creation of a monetary system, a renaissance and an industrial revolution... Your comment that it is a single civilization dating back to the Romans is simply incorrect. If you want to get down to brass tacks, our current system of capitalism is an artifact of the industrial revolution, and thus only about 150 years old. The more nasty pieces of the current state of affairs were crafted in the seventies and eighties, so they're only thirty years old! So my first "fault" is no fault at all.
My second "fault" as you claim is in not giving CEO's enough credit. To this I say, "balderdash" (try it, it's fun: "BALDERDASH". Every time I say it I think of Baron Munchausen. Come on, just say it once...). BALDERDASH. Man, I like the sound of that... But, on to my point:
CEOs are not necessarily evil. I agree with your point that some might even have redeeming qualities. However, I disagree with your conclusion. A CEO is a slave to his board of directors, and in turn, to his stockholders. If he tries to improve employee morale instead of increasing his bottom line, he could get sued, fired, or hollered at by the board. Also I might point out that in the example you used, when one CEO had blown a bunch of money and gotten himself fired, the younger CEO you suggested would be hired wouldn't be hanging around being friendly to the staff. Far from it. He would be cracking the whip and chopping heads, because the board would want him to make up the money the previous guy lost and the easiest way to cut costs is to cut staff and increase the workload of the remainder. If you look at it honestly, this is EXACTLY what's been happening during this downturn at just about every company out there.
But, just in case you think I'm against all things company and business, I should point out that I am all for smaller, privately owned companies. They're good for local areas, and they're good for individuals. Why? Because they're owned by individual people, not faceless masses of stockholders. When everyone in the company knows the boss, and everyone is part of the same team, the whole dynamic changes. I'm not saying that all small businessmen are saints, far from it. But it's possible to find a small businessman who actually cares about his people, and work for HIM. A private owner isn't trapped by a board of directors. If he wants to take a slight hit during a tough year, and not fire people, he can without getting sued or fired. If he wants to help out someone on his staff, he can do so. And, in return, if his staff treats him well, he knows who's doing a good job and what's being done.
When I complain about corporatism, I am not complaining about companies. I am complaining about giant, faceless multinational companies to whom an individual employee is a number on a balance sheet, to be laid off if the market is soft or outsourced to improve a quarterly figure.
Anyway, you watch. People are going to get fed up with corporate bullshit and they're going to start to live more locally. Things are going to get interesting. There'll still be corporations; car companies, large manufacturers, supermarket chains... But, there'll be a lot more local business balancing things out.
It's just my opinion. We'll see what happens.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
You'd be hardpressed to make up any of that time you lost compiling for 24+ hours on your P100 by any incremental speed updates you gain later on. Very hardpressed. Think about it, seriuosly.
Of course he's looking into Windows Media Center, Tablet PC, PocketPC, X-box,etc. They ran the windows desktop market into the ground. People use Windows because their company uses Windows and because their school uses Windows. So that's what they want to see when they buy a PC. The buy wants what he already knows, and that doesn't have to be Windows, just whatever is at work and school. Now that they have successfully gouged businesses into a revolt, and those businesses now have a cost effective alternative (gnu-linux), they need to seriously be concerned about losing the Work and School market. And if they lose that, they also lose the desktop home PC.
Not to mention the 25% of people that don't want or need a PC at home that Microsoft can't get their hooks into.
Did you see that picture of Bill Gates? Arg! Gasp!
;-)
Even worse: It had a button beneath it saying: "Enlarge". AAAAAAA! The horror!
*Takes a pill and kick up the telephone*
Mr. Shrink, I think I need to get back to my happy place!
In addition to that, the NT/2000/XP kernel is pre-emptable, and portions of it which run at a lower interrupt request level than the memory manager (and can therefore be interrupted by the memory manager) are pageable. This means kernel-mode code can be interrupted to do more important things, and parts of the kernel that aren't being used can be paged out of RAM to the disk.
The Linux kernel, on the other hand, is neither pre-emptable nor pageable, so low-priority code running in kernel mode can't be interrupted by more important things, and unused kernel-mode code will always eat up RAM, even if it's never touched, or is only used once (e.g. startup code).
The NT kernel is very modular, and is able to dynamically configure itself with very fine granularity. The reason Windows is so big is all of the services (try running 'net start' in a CMD window on a Windows XP machine some time), which are just normal user-mode processes that do various things. Experienced NT users are able to reduce the memory footprint considerably by tuning these.
Hehe...that's old Marxist dogma; basically said that eventually capitalism would selfdistruct in that way and lead to communism. Uh-huh, like that's happened. We're just in a depresion right now, but the figures show that these recesions always end up at a higher plateau than before. What makes you think this one is any different?
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
May the source be with you Dad!
Wow... I've never though of recompilation of the kernel as a good thing.
Wait, I still don't.
By and large, I'd say atleast 75% of the GNU/Linux users I know abhor recompiling the kernel. Especially because of two things:
1. New Hardware requires a rebuild frequently.
2. The "Help" function has the worst documentation possible. I'd be willing to rewrite the exceptionally shitty help dialogues if I could ever figure out what the F they were.
386? 4Mb? Bleah. You win.
I once installed Windows 95 on the 33Mhz 486 card that lived in my ARM6 RISC OS system. It was only allocated 7 of the 8Mb RAM in the machine, as I had to leave some for RISC OS to play with. It wasn't *too* awful, as I recall, but an extra 32Mb did help.
1. When I throw together an old box (I thought I mentioned most of what I have are old p100s...maybe I didn't) I tune the kernel specifically for it and then leave it alone. It probably runs this way for 3 or more years (who 'upgrades' a p100 for cryin' out loud...?). When I build a machine for a specific purpose I get what I need and put it together - and that is how it stays for long periods of time. If you are upgrading your hardware 'frequently', then you must have more money than sense. Recompilation is a good thing, you are just used to be getting fed the 'dog food' so much you think its filet mignon.
2. Your second statement is pure FUD. Having used both windows and linux for many years now, there is no contest: Linux documentation is infinitely more useful than anything I have seen from Microsoft. With Linux documentation I get everything I need to install, configure, and maintain a system - as well as a wealth of information on the web via the Linux Documentation Project or directly from the application developers in most cases. All the basic unix commands are documented via man pages (simply type 'man ' in a command line shell, and you will get a concise listing that helps you specify the parameter list, as well as explains how the application works). Linux documentation runs the gamut, I will admit that; but, by and large, it is more useful. Microsoft documentation is written for an 8th grader, and is not useful for anything more difficult than changing your screen colors; I don't particularly care for Microsoft's paternal "We know what is best for you" attitude which shows everytime I try to find anything useful from a technical standpoint.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Free software. Free as in free speech, not as in free beer. That software which is free as in speech usually also is free as in beer doesn't make them in any ways dependent...
It shouldn't be that hard to memorize...
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
On a P100 (back in the day) it only took 4 hours to recompile the kernel.
Now, I recompile on a faster machine with all of the settings tweaked for the machine I am compiling for. Then I move the binary over.
As for speed - most kernels that ship (except for Mandrake - that may have changed ) are set up to only use the least common denominator 80386 chipset commands. One of the best things you can do for a P100 is to make the kernel take advantage of the 80586 (pentium) command set. Additionally, its not all about speed as much as it is about saving space in ram - particularly on an old machine with little memory. If you are using one of these old machines as part of a cluster, or as a group of servers that have specific jobs, then the small speed and memory enhancements will add up over time.
Finally, I have more than one machine, so I can dedicate one machine to recompilation, while I continue work on another - its a little known concept called multi-tasking, and people can do it too.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
A CEO is a slave to his board of directors, and in turn, to his stockholders. If he tries to improve employee morale instead of increasing his bottom line, he could get sued, fired, or hollered at by the board. Also I might point out that in the example you used, when one CEO had blown a bunch of money and gotten himself fired, the younger CEO you suggested would be hired wouldn't be hanging around being friendly to the staff. Far from it. He would be cracking the whip and chopping heads, because the board would want him to make up the money the previous guy lost and the easiest way to cut costs is to cut staff and increase the workload of the remainder
/.'er. But, like I said in the last post, until we change the rules, we can expect them to continue as-is.
That's too harsh. While some CEOs would do it, if it causes a downward spiral we'd have corrective measures to increase morale. Happier workers work better, and any CEO worth his MBA knows this. And the good ones--the ones that deserve those huge, outrageous salaries--know that getting the staff to the ideal level and getting them highly motivated is the best way to have a profitable business.
But it's possible to find a small businessman who actually cares about his people, and work for HIM. A private owner isn't trapped by a board of directors. If he wants to take a slight hit during a tough year, and not fire people, he can without getting sued or fired. If he wants to help out someone on his staff, he can do so. And, in return, if his staff treats him well, he knows who's doing a good job and what's being done.
Actually, you can find as many CEOs of major corporations who care about the staff as you can small businessmen. Smart Boards realize this, find CEOs who do this, and essentially let them work. The biggest difference between a CEO of a major corp and a small business owner is that the CEO is playing with someone else's money, so often is more careful with the long-term results than the small businessman is.
Don't get me wrong--I'm as virulent a hater of corporate personhood as the next
(A historical note: Modern corporations are, AFAIK, descended from Renaissance-era shipping companies, where several speculators would pool their funds to finance a profitable sea voyage to India or Asia. And this is a good thing for CEOs who don't stand up to their boards to know, as well.)
Even in this case, since Iraq is not a NATO member, NATO has no obligation to defend it by attacking the US. Per Article V - the one the US called on after 9/11, NATO members are obligated to provide defense to each other - not to check each other's aggression toward non-members.
This is all a big, fat, hairy, stinky mess.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Actually, that is a misnomer. Linux is not just a monolithic kernel, it is a hybrid kernel that while containing monolithic structures, also allows the dynamic loading of drivers as needed. You also mention how much 'time' is spent configuring a linux box versus tuning an NT or XP machine to get the same functionality (doubtful - but will give you that for the sake of argument) - it takes me about 15 minutes to run through the linux kernel script and start the compile...after that my time is my own while the machine does all the work. After I have a new kernel it takes about 2 minutes to put it in place and set up the hooks in Lilo to load it. On the other hand, taking a microsoft kernel and configuring it can take several days...and god help you if you corrupt the registry in the process.
.NET - a particular problem I would think for government and businesses that deal with secret/proprietary information - and you have a perponderance of issues that I frankly, don't want to deal with in my operating system.
The real test is how stable a system is. I have linux machines - that have had the kernel rebuilt btw - that have been running constantly for 6 months or more. I have rarely seen a Windows box with an uptime of greater than a few weeks, and those that are simply don't do any real work.
Throw on top of that all of the cost associated with maintaining Windows liscenses, and all of the spyware that is built into XP and
If you are fine with all of those limitations - that is alright. However, don't try to feed me dog food and call it filet mignon. Each operating system has its uses. For technically savvy users - like most of the slashdot community - the selection criteria is clear, in mission critical environments I would take Linux over any Microsoft product hands down.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
[laughing] I'm reminded of how we used to tune DOS so as to load just exactly what we wanted, how we wanted it, for best efficiency in speed and hardware use.. the problem, of course, was that for DOS to be efficient, we HAD to do this. Sounds like you do too. :)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
That's kind of interesting, about the shipping companies. However, I still think our modern mass-production oriented society mostly evolved in the industrial revolution. Perhaps the problem isn't with the corporation per se, but rather with the modern approach to managing resources.
As far as CEOs go, I'll grant you the point you made is a fair one. Given that they're human, it may only be natural that at least some will behave well and show loyalty to their staff... Perhaps I'm a little jaded. Nevertheless, I'd still rather work for a small business.
I'm not sure if I actually hate "corporate personhood"; I think with me, it's more a matter of feeling that the current trend towards globalism is destructive and will eventually act as a limiting factor to corporate expansion for the reasons I mentioned. I see the current corporate and global structure as being like a gigantic, mushrooming amoeba. It eats, and eats, and grows, and grows, spreading all over the world, right? But eventually, the amount of material inside the amoeba is great enough that internal pressure is greater than the strength of the amoeba's surface and it pops. Then all the other little amoebas go about their business, eating up all the scraps that have been blown all over. So for a while we continue to have huge megacorporations, but eventually their reach exceeds their grasp and they fall, leaving behind all the smaller corporations that arose in their colossal shadow.
Kind of a neat idea, isn't it? Of course, I don't think the big corps will totally die off, I just think their influence will be reduced. There'll be room for small, local players in other words, and local economies will reemerge.
Maybe it's a little utopian, but I think there's a really solid chance of this occurring. I think the early stages are already happening around the country.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Depends on what you mean. "Having to rebuild the kernel" could definitely be a bad thing. I'm probably the only person in my entire extended family who could do it. "Being able to rebuild the kernel if I want to" is about the single most useful feature an operating system could possibly have.
Dyolf Knip
I said nothing about communism. What I described was small businesses working together locally, to provide services or goods cheaply, and people bartering between themselves for services and goods they can't afford to buy directly. Sounds more like a modified version of capitalism to me.
I'm a hippie, not a commie.
Having said that, Marx got one thing right: modern history HAS been about the conflict between the owners of the means of production and the workers who do the actual producing. What I disagree with is his conclusion. I think he could have saved a whole lot of trouble by pursuing a Management/Union structure, and going for a balance of power between worker and owner. Collectivising everything eliminates all motivation and makes life a pointless masturbatory experience.
My ideal is a balanced mixture between large and small businesses, with more individual participation in commerce. Again, this is not communism.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Yeah, I too, would love to see a PC version of OSX. Unfortunately, I really don't think Apple has any intention of doing so. (Well, maybe if Jobs left the company?)
While it might be a "tremendously smart" move to port OSX for PC, it would also be a tremendous change in focus for Apple. Suddenly, there would be almost no reason to buy one of their desktop computers anymore. (Honestly, who would pay a slightly premium price to get a system that's running well under 2Ghz - or a sum total of less than 3Ghz even in a dual-processor configuration? )
Now, given the problem of making decent profit margins on computer hardware nowdays - perhaps it would be fine for Apple to get out of that business and focus on being an OS/apps developer, a la Microsoft.
I just don't think they're ready.
Microsoft is balding. Microsoft just bought a new sports car. Microsoft just got a divorce. Microsoft was spotted in the movie 'American Beauty'. Any other "Middle age" jokes? Jokes about Camelot do not count.
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
The astronomer Francesco Sizi, a contemporary of Galileo, argues that
Jupiter can have no satellites:
There are seven windows in the head, two nostrils, two ears, two
eyes, and a mouth; so in the heavens there are two favorable stars, two
unpropitious, two luminaries, and Mercury alone undecided and indifferent.
From which and many other similar phenomena of nature such as the seven
metals, etc., which it were tedious to enumerate, we gather that the number
of planets is necessarily seven. [...]
Moreover, the satellites are invisible to the naked eye and
therefore can have no influence on the earth and therefore would be useless
and therefore do not exist.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...