Slashdot Mirror
What's Microsoft Up To?
So, today's one of those days when every bit of news is dominated by Microsoft. To spare you six different stories about the Borg, we'll assimilate them all into this one. You have seen the stupid Passport hole in an earlier story; also the iLoo, although that hasn't stopped you from submitting stories about it, oh no. New news: a report paid for by Microsoft shows that Windows is a better server than Red Hat. A class-action suit has been filed charging that MSN and Best Buy combined to scam customers. The WINHEC conference is ongoing - Steve Ballmer says DRM is an opportunity, not a prison, the Xbox is going to be your home communications center, Wired talks about how hardware will be changed to imprison users, and once you're locked in to Microsoft you get to pay more each year. An article describes why user desktops are locked down. Oh, and here's another on DRM, just because.
Whatever Miiiiicrosoft wants..
Miiiicrosoft gets...
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
...although that hasn't stopped you from submitting stories about it, oh no
:)
We know you're easily tricked
Is WINHEC where you go if you're darned for all eternity after pirating windows?
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
"You have seen the stupid Passport hole in an earlier story; also the iLoo, although that hasn't stopped you from submitting stories about it, oh no."
;)
With all due respect, it never stopped you posting stories about them either
Henry
i don't do sigs. oops.
Is Slashdot running out of news?
I dont think "there has been lots of news about MS in Slashdot" counts as news.
6 months ago everything you heard from MS was about tablet PC's and how they were going revolutionize everyone's computing experience. Maybe MS figured out that not everyone wants to use a stylus with their computer or has a need to work standing up? I wouldn't mind having stylus functionality on my ultraportable laptop screen but the idea that tablets are going to create a whole new mainstream sector of computing is far fetched.
Anyone see this new Microsoft robot crawling their websites? It's apparently legitimate, or at least acknowledged by Microsoft. Competition for Google?
Google doesn't index user sigs, so stop trying to "Google Bomb" with them.
to the iLoo?
The writing stylings of michael in this story are truely childish. This is the most juvenile thing written.
If you want to attack Microsoft, this is the worst possible way to do it. You give Linux users a bad name with your elementary school-kid attitude and childish commentary.
I've seen bad stuff 'added' to submitters text, but this has to be the WORST I've ever seen on slashdot EVER.
Of course, I will be modded to -1 by a childish moderator with unlimited points, but I hope I'm not the only one that feels this way.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
From another CNN article released yesterday, Gates says this of DRM:
"Consumers shouldn't be worried that Microsoft Corp.'s new security technology will wrest control of their PCs and give it to media companies, Bill Gates said this week. They can always choose not to use it, he said."
Holy poopy-poop, that's misleading. People are going to read this and think "they" means "them." As in "the consumer can always choose not to use it." It, of course, doesn't. It means the creators of the content. And there goes fair use. And while I'm on it, can someone who is a lawyer tell me if we have a right to fair use or is it merely a thing that we've enjoyed because copyright holders couldn't ever get such a firm grip on it enough to effectively control it?
But anyway, back to the issue. In the same article further down, we see:
"Gates said the format of digital content is up to their creators, and Microsoft is only providing a platform on which record labels and movie studios -- as well as others -- can build."
This is a fairly reasonable argument, not so different from the people who run Kazaa saying "hey, we're just an indexer, blame the end-user." Perhaps Microsoft isn't culpable here, either. What they're creating here is a valid tool, one that can allow people a strong form of encryption. The blame for the abuse of that tool, I think, does not rightfull belong in Microsoft's lap.
You might correctly argue that MS is doing this knowing full well that abuse is going to occur and stands to profit from it. Again, Napster et al. We cannot play both sides of the fence here.
My
Limekiller
Hmm... let me see if I can make this argument valid...
:P
Cost:
Windows: Expensive (especially if you count licenses)
RedHat: You either pay or don't (download). It's Linux.
Support:
Windows: Support costs you hell a lot of money
RedHat: If you can't afford to pay RedHat, it's Linux for God's sake. There're thousands of people on the net willing to help you.
Documentation:
Windows: None
RedHat: It's Linux, damn it. RTFM
Source code:
Windows: None
RedHat: It's Linux. You get the source code.
Patches:
Windows: Waiting for patches if Microsoft has the time and mood to fix it. Service packs come out once in a blue moon.
RedHat: It's Linux. Thousands of people have access to the source code. Bug fixes come out rapidly.
Hmm.... Windows is better than RedHat?
...they're running SAMBA. For balance I think they should test Windows 2003 throughput of NFS.
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
So, this is pretty crappy if it's true. I can understand the BB employees putting a free CD in your bag. I can understand them scanning it for inventory purposes. but to then charge a monthly fee? that's ridiculous. someone will be fired for that stunt.
Microsoft pays for a test that shows that Windows 2003 is twice as fast. That's nice. But not very productive.
I see nothing in the report that they had a Red Hat guru optimize the Red Hat server. It is easy to get the results you want. If I don't see proof that Red Hat was configured by a Red Hat guru, as I am sure that Windows 2003 was optimized by a Microsoft guru, then the tests are bunk.
-Brent
287th Rule of Acquisition, "DRM is an opportunity, not a prison."
Proof.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
put any person in the position of the high management in a company in the same position as Microsoft and they're going to start doing things like this in the persuit of profit. It is not corruption in that they go each morning thinking "what bad things can I do today" like how a psychopath would, but a self-delusional and untimately self-defeating cultistic denial of the effects of their actions in the name of "just business" or "creating great new products" or some such justification.
It would be easy to give some thing about "capitalism being the problem", but human nature is the problem when people are in a system whereby those in positions of authority are being constantly goaded to do the wrong thing whilst what they do is being portrayed by the social system as being right - the same thing happened in the USSR.
And while you o Slashdotters complain about Microsoft, the mass of open source programmers have much the same self-delusional corruption in relation to computing in a different form. You delude yourself into wasting resource by upgrading as you attach your personal worth to the number of mhz of your computer, you spend all your programming time in the pursuit of self-centred 'fun', etc. I know there are exceptions among you, as there are in some businesses, but take the beam out of your own eye before taking absolutist positions of moral authority over the likes of Microsoft.
Now I'll be the first to note that the man should have paid closer attention to his receipt, but this is definitely not uncommon at many Best Buys.
The Best Buy corporation likes to make a marketting bullet point about how their salespeople are not paid commissions and therefore aren't going to pressure you into sales you don't need. However, they conveniently forget to mention that the sales records of these employees are carefully tracked and while they don't get the positive re-enforcement of a commission income, they get plenty of negative re-enforcement for failing to push MSN, Netflix, service plans or anything else the corporate HQ wants customers to buy into.
Besides seeing such happen as a customer, I worked myself at a Best Buy for an entire eight hours in their computer department a year back and watched one the saleskids first try to push the MSN subscription on a customer who refused it the eight times it was asked, and then had it put on his credit card by the worker anyways.
When I asked the sales manager about the legality of this he merely muttered something about it being the customer's responsibility to keep track of their receipt and that he rewarded such agressive tactics.
I quit that job right then and there.
More horror stories for those look for an entertaining, though depressing read.
For those that haven't read the MSN scam ariticle, let me summarize it. A guy bought some stuff at Best Buy and paid with a debit card. The check out person scanned an MSN CD and dropped it in the bag as well, saying the scanning was for inventory purposes. The debit info is sent to MS who then starts billing the customer's debit card for MSN service. Now that is a shitty deal. That would be like having a car dealer send your credit card or bank account info to a local garage, AAA, OnStar, and the LoJack folks for you and they all start billing you automagically. I hope he wins. This suit certainly has merit IMHO. I hope he doesn't back out on the suit and doesn't settle. Best of luck to him.
It's no wonder that there is a community of Linux-bashers out there. Michael and the rest of the Slashdot editor cabal spew their little anti-MS tantrums on the front page and expect to be taken seriously. I challenge anyone who would even consider modding this post as -1 to *respond first*. Really, I'm waiting to hear from any slashdotter that *isn't* ashamed at Michael's rantings.
It's called chmod!
Slow down there, cowboy. Wait till Stallman comes out with GNU/DLM - Digital Lefts Management
getSexySig();
Because the test was commissioned and paid for by Microsoft. They knew the results before they paid for the test - the test was ordered in such a way as to make the results a forgone conclusion.
If you were going to contruct a biased test of Linux vs. Microsoft, wanting Linux to prove better - you'd choose products and tests that would favor Linux... just as Microsoft did here. Take a native protocol to Microsoft and stack it up against a re-implementation on another operating system... sounds pretty weighted against Linux to me.
Of course there are lots of ways to make an unbiased performance comparison - such as using multiple protocols, etc... but why would Microsoft pay for that? I'm not saying that either system was better or worse than the other - just that this particular test doesn't prove anything except that Microsoft know how to spec a test so that their products appear faster.
-- "Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?"
I suppose if you try and bypass DRM, the DMCA will provide you an opportunity to go to prison.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
No, eternal damnation is reserved for those who pay money for Windows and hence support evil. Duh.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Microsoft commissioned VeriTest, a
A computer without Microsoft is like ice cream without ketchup.
Seems that Windows has somewhat more advanced controls here.
Okay, so it is rather redundant to say, but any benchmarking / testing paid for by a party is pretty much guaranteed to be biased in favor of that party.
Anyway, what is up with all the (ONLY 3?) testing systems being PIII Xeons? Where are the AMD chips for comparison? Sounds like Microsoft made sure the systems and benchmarks were very thoroughly optimized in their favor.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
Found this, and was quite amused. Perhaps its going to be spookily accurate?
Not necessarily, again, in a "typical" setting where a machine is being used as a file server, the overwhelming odds are that the clients are Windoze based. So while it may be "biased", it probably better reflects reality.
You left out this interview with Steve Ballmer. I demand satisfaction!
OLPC Australia
They disabled last access time updating under windows. They didn't under Linux. This is enough to account for these differences, I suspect.
...With regard to IT's (real!) need to lock down desktops...
We need a new definition of OS stability.
Today, "stability" basically refers to the ability of an OS to run without crashing _in the absense of configuration changes_.
In the real world, there are ongoing needs to install new software, apply patches, updates, etc.
In a system that had proper modular design, it should be possible to install something new or change a legitimate setting without feeling that you're playing Russian Roulette.
CERTAINLY it should be possible to install vendor-recommended updates with a high level of confidence that it's not going to break something.
Remember all that stuff a few years back, that implied that the problem with stability was that people weren't keeping their systems properly updated and that "self-healing" systems would fix that? Well, now, we all but have them, and, in fact, it's made things worse.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I like
- posting
- reading articles
- reading posts
- thinking about posts
But there is too much here in this article that covers a lot of different ground. I think I'll give this topic a break and read a book today during my break.(It's like last couple of
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
That's so... 1996. This is one of the tactics Novell tried to use to keep corporations from replacing NetWare with NT. What Novell found out is that no one cared about file server performance. As long as the performance was "good enough" and Windows had more gizmos, they were screwed.
Of course, this is just one part of Microsoft's strategy against Linux and OSS. But I'm pretty sure that this salvo will fall on deaf ears.
the no
I saw this comment on LWN yesterday, pointing out that they were comparing the PEAK throughput. Windows 2003 may have a higher number for this, but it's the overall throughput that really matters.
Does Bill Gates use a Tablet PC? No, he uses a yellow pad of paper. ( Jon Udell's blob, Ron Howard's blog)
Its so horrible to see a company like this doing dirty business everywhere, getting sued like mad, and yet, their stock is UP!!!!!
But no, this company is not a monopoly at all.
Get paid to code OSS
From what they say in the wired article I can see DRM being extremely dangerous. If you can sign an email, making it only viewable by the intended recipient and stopping them from print/forwarding/saving, then you could very easily mount a campaign of e-stalking, sendingv vulgar and/or threatening emails and the person receiving them unable to remove them or forward them to anybody who can help.
And while I'm on it, can someone who is a lawyer tell me if we have a right to fair use or is it merely a thing that we've enjoyed because copyright holders couldn't ever get such a firm grip on it enough to effectively control it?
I am a lawyer. I am not completely sure on this issue, as I have not had a lot of time to research it. It appears as though the issue is split. Some courts refer to fair use as a right, some as a privelege.
Fair use is provided by statute, not the Constitution:
107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include --
1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
The Supreme Court has described it as follows: "Any individual may reproduce a copyrighted work for a 'fair use'; the copyright owner does not possess the exclusive right to such a use." Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 433, 78 L. Ed. 2d 574, 104 S. Ct. 774 (1984).
I don't think the issue has been presented to the courts in this manner (there haven't been many copy protection schemes for thinks like books, e.g., they aren't printed on red paper to stop photcopying). I would say that a court would hodl a content producer can use DRM, but if you hack the DRM, thus allowing you to make copies, you can make copies for various fair uses. However, the hacking itself (i.e, bypassing the DRM) may be illegal under the DMCA. This probably trumps the fair use right (remember, its source is statutory -- not constitutional) in that if you can't make copies legally, you can't exercise your fair use right/privilege.
Alas... the problem is that the various statutes are either out of date (e.g., Copyright Act) or responses to an uncertain environment, goaded by lobbyists (e.g., DMCA).
D'oh -- the stuff that buys me beer! Ray -- the guy who sells me beer!
I hope for your sake you are kidding.
You are talking of two totally different kinds of lockdown features.
Windows lockdown is locking the customer to one perticular vendor (windows in this case), and forcing them to upgrade and pay more and more money every year.
The KDE 3.2 lockdown features are for locking certain aspects of KDE from the users by administrators. Typical application would be kikos where you want multiple users to use the applications but not change the configurations.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
Now having said all this, I'm not surprised, I've been reading performance comparisons for 25 years and strangely enough, the sponsoring company's hardware/software/operating systems always seem to come out on top. This started with comparing the 8086 to the 68000 and has continued on to the present day.
The important/best thing about the review is that it states very clearly at the top that the test was sponsored by Microsoft.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
I thought it was "GNUs for HURDs."
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
So their stock price is up ~20% over the last five years? Is that supposed to be bad?
They also set up the servers with one NIC for each CPU. The uniprocessor box had one ethernet card, while the 8-way box had eight ethernet cards. If I remember, this is similar to the Mindcraft tests, where they tested file and web serving performance on systems having four ethernet adapters. I wouldn't call this a normal real-world configuration.
Maybe there are some cases where a fileserver is connected to several separate ethernet networks, but in my mind, that's an unusual configuration. I wonder if it's a contrived test, designed to exploit a difference between the Linux and Windows kernel, especially in handling multi-cpu / multi-NIC machines.
Perhaps Windows gets a larger boost than Linux from CPU affinity, especially on the chosen hardware (e.g. the IRQs from each ethernet card are dedicated to a specific CPU). There may be some room for improvement. It might even be that Linux doesn't fully support the chipset or APIC on that particular server, and therefore can't make the same optimization.
Redmond, WA: In an unprecedented press briefing Friday, Microsoft Corporation announced its intention to establish itself as a sovereign nation. While only sketchy details have been released so far, it has emerged that Microsoft's Chief Software Architect and President Elect Bill Gates has purchased a small archipelago off the coast of Cuba. The company's Seattle headquarters are to be dismantled and transported there immediately by boat.
Microsoft CEO and Foreign Minister Steve Ballmer said, "This transformation marks the beginning of a new era for Microsoft. Becoming an independent nation will allow us to streamline our operations beyond what has previously been possible. Besides, our net yearly revenue already exceeds the GDP of 60% of the world's other countries, and we employ approximately as many people as live in Greenland. Plus, we didn't have to think very hard to come up with a flag."
Attorney General Brad Smith was quick to point out that, since so many of the laws passed into US statute have been heavily influenced by Microsoft, the transformation of the Legal department into the new Department of Justice would be relatively straightforward.
Environmental groups were dismayed by the sale of the North Atlantic islands, which they say contain some of the last remaining habitats of the Paralouatta Varonai monkey. Microsoft Environment Minister Ken DiPietro insisted that "every effort" would be made to safeguard the wellbeing of the primates, although he sought to play down rumours that some might be offered jobs in the country's Department of Trustworthy Computing.
Construction work has already begun on the smallest island of the complex, where a village of eleven mud huts has been erected. This will house the Departments of Software Testing, Quality Assurance and Customer Service. The remaining 95% of the landmass will house the Departments of Justice, the Treasury and the Department of Marketing and Tourism.
The move has caused widespread concern among industry analysts, many of whom are predicting severe economic repercussions. A spokesperson said, "Many people [at] Microsoft are of the opinion that we have been carrying the whole US economy for some time now. Well, as of today, that's no longer our problem."
It seems that the incorporation of an armed defence force does not figure in Microsoft's plan. Intelligence sources suspect that the country may be content with the strategic advantage they already have, by virtue of posessing a back door into the computer systems of almost every government in the world.
When asked about the potential perception of Microsoft's actions as anti-American, Ballmer said, "[that] is preposterous. All of our subjects will be offered dual nationality, and may retain their US passport in addition to their new Microsoft Passports and other documentation." Examination of the EULA for Windows XP Service Pack 2 reveals an extra clause allowing Microsoft to "upgrade" users in other countries to Microsoft citizenship automatically.
These sigs are more interesting tha
$ setfacl -h ... ... ... ...
usage:
setfacl [-r] -f aclfile file
setfacl [-r] -d acl_entries file
setfacl [-r] -m acl_entries file
setfacl [-r] -s acl_entries file
Also available for linux
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
I used to work for Best Buy. We were given the whole deal about getting out as many MSN disks as we could. The thing about that is, MSN kicks back a good amount of money for each free account that someone signs up for. Whether or not it's the 30 free days, 2 months, or 9months (or whatever). Heres what happens. Say a customer buys a computer at Best Buy, they automatically get 6 free months (if they pay with a credit card or major debit). If the customer doesn't sign on and activate that account, they never get billed. However, even if they sign on just once, even for just 30 seconds, they have to call and cancel the account.
Now, if a customer signs up for the 30 day free trial, yes they have to give a creditcard number, but they have to call and cancel the account even if they don't sign on. I had that problem but I called MSN and got this resolved and my money refunded immediately.
Now, the problem is that some bestbuy clerks don't bother to tell the customers this. I've had customers outright refuse the msn and i said that's fine and just don't go through with ringing it up. I always mentioned it to all the customers I talked to, and if they just didn't want it, I never scanned it. This class action probably won't work, but I hope this guy gets his money back.
Anyway that's my piece!
But hey, at least VeriTest was honest enough to put that fact (that the test was paid for my MSFT) right up front, unlike the Mindcraft back in 1999.
... I would be just as sceptical of the result if Red Hat had paid for the study and the result had shown RH parity or superiority to WinServer2k3. Frankly, the only time I think these comparison tests have much credibility is when BOTH the test sponsor AND the testing lab are independent of the vendors of all products tested (as in Mitre's various test studies for various government agencies).
The subtitle ("Test report prepared under contract from Microsoft") definitely makes me think, "Take these results with a very LARGE grain of salt." Don't get me wrong
utter rubbish
We could all switch.
But it does. I can't get any kind of power management support to work. I'm recompiling the kernel right now with another crap-shoot of settings that might make it suspend properly. The userland desktop apps are garbage. Half the hardware on the shelves is either not supported, or half-way supported.
Either deal with the hassles of linux, or deal with the hassles of windows. One will cost you time and features, the other money.
Life's a bitch. Let's get over it, shall we?
BTW, RedHat ain't exactly gods gift to corporate america either.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
[Just to be clear, this is the Wired article talking aobut Longhorn]
"This is scary stuff," said a developer who asked that his name be withheld. "I could see a lot of people sticking with their old computers, operating systems and media players to avoid all this permission crap. Any geek who does use Windows is going to stick with Windows 2000; most of them are already not thrilled with XP anyway."
Mmm hmm...yea. The same thing was said about Internet Explorer 4.0 & Windows 98 (just substitute the words "web browser integration" in for "permission", and it should bring back memories). No one was going to upgrade because no one wanted their internet integrated into the operating system. But whoever was saying such a thing didn't think about this key issue:
The average joe does not care, let alone know about integrating a web browser into an OS. It doesn't matter if the nerd police showed up on the opening day of Windows 98 to tell people how evil it was.
Joe wants a new computer with all the new bells and whistles. If Longhorn says that "it will make the internet come alive with all sorts of new technologies...all you need is Longhorn", then so be it, Joe's going to get Longhorn, because the internet is "cool".
I only skimmed the "benchmark" document, but I immediately saw a couple of fundamental flaws in their methods.
o nb ridge_microsoft.asp
_ 02 -06-27.asp?visitor=X
3 16 1
2 80 1
First, they said they conducted each test twice to ensure the "repeatability" and "accuracy." First of all, running a test only twice in no way gives you enough data to claim accuracy. Second of all, "repeatability" is meaningless in terms of determining statistically significant results. The terms you want to claim are *reliability* and *validity*, not accuracy and repeatability.
Simply averaging the results of two tests is idiotic in terms of sound scientific methods. That's the kind of testing I would expect from a grade school chemistry experiment, not an expensive "commissioned" test of a real-life installed system of this kind of complexity.
The other thing they said, which directly contradicts what they said in the main highlights in the beginning of the report, is that "Our investigation showed that, with some minor tweaks, the default configuration values set for SAMBA generated the best overall performance in our configuration." I'm not sure if this means just their linux configuration, or if they tuned linux and discovered that it was faster and just published the slower non-tweaked numbers.
Here are some interesting URLs that help to reveal the obvious conflict of interest here:
http://www.etestinglabs.com/about/news/press/li
http://www.etestinglabs.com/about/news/press/pr
These two show how LionBridge, the parent company of VeriTest, has a long-standing and EXTREMELY lucrative contract with MicroSoft.
http://boston.internet.com/news/article.php/137
http://boston.internet.com/news/article.php/148
Here's some more interesting info:
Fidelity Management and Research Co. is Microsoft's top institutional shareholder, and is LionBridge's 6th largest institutional shareholder.
Barclays Global Investors Int'l is #2 for Microsoft and #9 for LionBridge.
Morgan Stanley Investment Mgmt is #13 for Microsoft and #3 for LionBridge.
State Street is #3 for MicroSoft, #8 for LionBridge.
So, the top 3 institutional shareholders of Microsoft own a very significant chunk of LionBridge, which shows lots of common interest between the two.
I could probably go on, but this should be enough..
VA Software, Red Hat
You were saying?
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
Take a native protocol to Microsoft and stack it up against a re-implementation on another operating system... sounds pretty weighted against Linux to me.
I just realized: does this mean Microsoft officially recognizes Samba as legitimate competition?
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Is Microsoft working on supporting PNG in Internet Explorer? This is the single most significant feature that other browsers have over IE, from a web developer's viewpoint.
Too bad we can't mark stories as flamebait/trolling. This would be a prime example. Bye bye michael-submitted stories.
Quote: "Any government department is quite at liberty to run only Windows 2000 server. There's nothing forcing them to upgrade to Server 2003," [Microsoft senior consultant Alex Balcanquall] said.
Translation: We haven't quite figured out how to break compatibility yet... but we should have that ready for SP1.
I take drugs seriously.
Don't they also keep saying its not a bug its a feature???
"I'm not a procrastinator, I'm temporally challenged"
"There are no hacker infidels in Hotmail. Never!"
... stupid, silly. All I ask is check yourself. Do not in fact repeat their lies."
... They have started throwing those emails, but they are not emails, they are booby traps to kill the children."
"My feelings - as usual - we will kill them all"
"Our initial assessment is that they will all die"
"I blame Slashdot - they are marketing for the Linux kernel!"
"God will roast their stomachs in hell at the hands of Microsoft."
"They're coming to surrender or be burned in their computerr rooms."
"No I am not scared, and neither should you be!"
"Be assured. Passport is safe, protected"
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!"
"We are not afraid of the hackers. Allah has condemned them. They are stupid. They are stupid" (dramatic pause) "and they are condemned."
"The hackers, they always depend on a method what I call
"I can say, and I am responsible for what I am saying, that they have started to commit suicide under the walls of Hotmail. We will encourage them to commit suicide more quickly."
"I can assure you that those villains will recognize, will discover in appropriate time in the future how stupid they are and how they are pretending things which have never taken place."
"The authority of the Microsoft... issued a warning to the civilian population not to pick up any of those Linux Distrobutions because they are booby traps," he said, adding that Hackers were "immoral mercenaries" and "criminals" for such behavior.
"I am not talking about the American people and the British people," he said. "I am talking about Hackers.
"We have them surrounded in their computer rooms"
"Muhammad Faisal Rauf Danka is all about lies! All he tells is lies, lies and more lies!"
"I have detailed information about the situation...which completely proves that what they allege are illusions . . . They lie every day."
"Lying is forbidden in Microsoft. Microsoft lawyers will tolerate nothing but truthfulness as they are men of great honor and integrity. Everyone is encouraged to speak freely of the truths evidenced in their eyes and hearts."
"Now even the Hacker command is under siege. We are hitting it from the north, east, south and west. We chase them here and they chase us there. But at the end we are the people who are laying siege to them. And it is not them who are besieging us."
Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf
Microsoft Information Minister
:)(smile)
I'd like to see a comparison between Windows and Linux for video encoding. Recently I've been getting over 30 fps encoding MPEG4 with transcode on Linux. I was getting just over 20 fps on Windows. But that wasn't anything close to a comparison, just an observation.
I'd like to see how these performance features they've added to Win2k3 makes it faster than Linux at performing disk I/O with a loaded CPU or two.
One test I performed last night was kinda cool. Linux can stream 4 720x480 MPEG4/ogg ogm videos over a 100mbps net at the same time with xine. Watching 4 episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation at the same time can be a most humorous experience.
In times past, Linux (or *BSD) plus Samba has outperformed MS-Windows on the same hardware. This is quite important, and the reason this test was commissioned.
Secondly, note that no real test results were provided; the report merely states that MS-Windows provided a higher *peak* throughput. Please realize that real-world performance does not rely on peak throughput as much as it relies on aggregate *sustained* throughput.
It could be that Samba still knocks the socks off MS-Windows in that more-important category. But, until some legitimate benchmarks are run, Microsoft will continue to pay for FUD.
BTW: several quibbles with testing methodology. First, no optimisations were done to the Linux box (no noatime option on the filesystem mount, for instance). Second, they didn't test against an optimized kernel (which is fair, I guess, as most people will stick with a stock install; however, most people won't do those MS-Windows tweaks, either). Finally, this was tested against an aging 2.4 kernel, and not against either the newer 2.4 kernel, or against any of the later 2.5 builds. With the SMP, low-latency, and I/O buffs in the new 2.5 series, I imagine the outcome would be quite different.
But, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Steve Ballmer says DRM is an opportunity, not a prison
I think he meant to say that DRM is an opportunity to BE imprisoned.
Below are some actual Star Trek quotes by and about the borg, Just replace borg with M$, Locutus with Balmer, and Ship with PC -- and you have a pretty good description of M$.
Why is it that so many things in Star Trek come true?
I can only hope that we overcome the M$ levithan, like in ST
"Rights management technologies alone cannot solve all digital piracy and confidentiality problems, but they are a crucial part of the many efforts Microsoft is making toward Trustworthy Computing. For the technology industry, rights management offers exciting new business prospects. Software and hardware developers can enhance their products and generate new revenues by offering rights management capabilities with their applications, devices and peripherals.
We're excited about partnering with a wide range of content owners, authors and industry vendors on these crucial technologies, particularly as broadband continues to expand the opportunities for delivering digital media content worldwide, and as rights management is recognized by businesses large and small as an opportunity to protect copyrights, confidentiality and personal privacy while promoting innovation, creating opportunity and empowering customers."
in English....
"This.... is a shit sandwich. You are going to eat this. You can put mustard on it, you can even cut it in half and eat it in two pieces. But you are going to eat it."
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
From the Ballmer email:
Intranet content. A manager with a toy manufacturing company uses its enterprise information portal to see year-over-year sales data on screen. The company has confidence in posting this sensitive information because specific usage restrictions have been applied to it. The manager gets the information she needs, conveniently, but because she cannot print, copy or paste it, sensitive sales data are protected from inadvertent (or deliberate) sharing with a competitor.
Email communications. A senior partner in an accounting firm needs to send email to his partners with a confidential contract proposal attached. Besides specifying who may read the proposal and that they may not copy, paste or edit the information, he specifies that the email itself cannot be forwarded. The recipients' email and word processing applications transparently enforce these policies. All partners worry less about information leaks that might damage ongoing negotiations.
These are some ridiculously stupid executives, unless Outlook is also going to "transparently" enforce policies of not copying it down onto paper and then typing it into a different email message. Or, gates-forbid, someone *snail-mails* the written text.
Oh, I forget, this is where Microsoft FBI XP (tm) starts enforcing policies. Seriously, version control is one thing, but restricting people from copying and pasting as a confidentiality measure would ONLY make sense to pointy-haired bosses.
If you read the actual doc, it says Windows is a better CIFS server than RedHat. Very different conclusion than the very broad "Windows is a better server than Red Hat".
New Redmond City, Microsoft archipelago: Only a few hours after the independance of Microsoft and the forging of their own sovereign nation, a coalition of warships and aircraft proceeded to assault and harass the Microsoft archipelago near the coast of Cuba.
"It [the attack] was overwhelming! Dozens of warships of various sizes, hundreds of aircraft, missiles, bombs... It was simply devastating!" remarked a 32 year old marine biologist, working on Cuba near the Microsoft archipelago. "On the horizon you can still see flashes and sometimes you hear the low rumble of a heavy impact or explosion. A large cloud has been rising shortly after the attack started! What's going on here anyways!?"
The US denies all responsibility for the attack, claiming the majority of US forces are hunting down three camels and an ageing donkey in Iraq who are suspected to be carrying weapons of mass destruction. However, European, Russian, Chinese and Japanese foreign ministeries have been eerily silent during the initial hours of the attack, giving no official response, despite the fact massive military movements have been reported prior to the attack.
At about 18:03 GMT, 6 hours after the first reports of the attack, a joint press-conference by European, Russian, Chinese and Japanese military and diplomatic staff in London shed some light on the recent events. "Starting at about 11:30 Greenwich mean time, our [the coalition] forces have begun their assault on the Microsoft archipelago. The Royal Navy, along with a large task force of warships from the Scandinavian peninsula have initiated a shore bombardment, backed by about 70 russian bombers based on Cuba. After about 30 minutes of intense fire, a combined assault force consisting of units from the German Wehrmacht and the Chinese People's Army have landed on all of the islands in the archipelago." as was stated by Alexander Ivanov, spokesman for the coalition. "Our forces have achieved a full and decisive victory over the Microsoft Republican Guard. About 1500 people have been taken prisoner, 30.000 reported dead by the initial bombardment. The captives will be taken to Japan and various European countries for questioning."
Concerns were raised in the UN general assembly as to why no declaration of war was sent prior to any hostile acts. These concerns were quickly dismissed as a declaration of war has been sent after all, but put on hold by Microsoft Support who then demanded a 'pay per incident' charge from the diplomatic staff. Refusal to pay for delivering a declaration of war caused Microsoft to ignore the declaration of war along with 21.894 other recent user complaints.
President George W Bush jr. has been unavailable for comment, searching for the Microsoft archipelago on a 1968 roadmap of Oregon instead.
Hate me!
Here's a simple guidline: If it's not human readable and it does not alow "fair use" as described by US code, then it does not desrve US Government copyright protection. Why should the government protect things which will never enlarge the public domain and take such a toll on the useful arts? If a company wants to make money by by publications that don't conform to the intent or purpose of copyright laws, they should go it alone and rely on their repulsive technology. What's not copyrightable should not be protected by DMCA so all's fair.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
What is this, the week of micheal? I'm tired of seeing his non-stop articles day after day and his little side editorials he likes to slip in.
I guess I just don't agree with the man on a moral level...see my sig. But it seems he likes to start shit and then play victim. I've noticed that since the first Longhorn article, which spawned wild discussions, they're trying to keep up the page hits with continuous Microsoft coverage because it baits the Slashbots who love to jump on any opportunity to post Microsoft conspiracies and type dollar signs in the company's name. It's trite. As someone posted elsewhere, Windows reports less annual bugs than Linux, but reading Slashdot's front page, you would get a completely opposite impression. That's why you have all these Slashbots who act as if it is proven fact that Linux is more secure and has few bugs, simply because their worldview is taken from the front pages of Slashdot. It creates an anti-Microsoft bias in everyone which isn't based in fact, but instead is based on Slashdot headlines!
I feel there is a clear agenda at work to post Microsoft flamebait and get page hits.
"Sufferin' succotash."
"Second of all, "repeatability" is meaningless in terms of determining statistically significant results."
I believe you are confusing social science with physical science. Benchmarking a computer system is a physical science, the system should behave in a deterministic fashion provided you have properly identified all inputs.
It's like measuring the length of a 2x4. You do so twice, solely to verify your results. You don't need to sample the lengths of many 2x4's to understand the pattern of behavior which applies to the length of a 2x4.
"I could probably go on, but this should be enough.."
Since the methodology used to conduct the benchmark has been published, the only legitimate complaint you can make is to reproduce the benchmark and show exactly how they misconfigured the system.
What I see in your post is idle speculation. The attempt to claim conflict of interest may have relevance only if there has been a history of conflict of interest influencing test results in the past. Unfortunately for the sake of your argument that has not been the case.
This brings up another very good question about the testing techniques: why was only Red Hat compared? Is that the "most common" distro used on servers? Or just the one most likely to look bad when file transfer times are compared?
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
Whoa, I can't wait to play around with THAT baby. YEAH! Who said Windows doesn't let you take a look under the hood?
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
..initial impression of the article as a "joe consumer" is, that with this new machine/OS hybrid, "stuff" I would normally be doing is going to be a lot more expensive. Third party apps will have to be microsoft approved to even run on your machine, or the machine won't run correctly or at all if you insist on trying, probably phone home and report on you as well. Massive and expensive catch 22 there. I am assuming that validation will cost app developers serious folding scratch, so there won't be as many freebies or shareware being developed. Media and content providers will be forced to choose, basically from cost, "do we code for this new stuff, or abandon the market, or code for both styles of internet and try to pass the costs on, or what?". There will be MANY conversations along those lines.
I could EASILY see that joe average, in addition to his internet account costs, could rack up 100 clams a month or more in various fees just to "do stuff" with his computer, almost a pay as you use a byte concept, and not be able to do what they are accustomed to doing now. the spooky part is, how much will this be tied into new laws? It could get way out of hand, and quickly.
And I'm sure this won't be classified as a monopoly by most pro MS marketing people or enthusiasts, and government will have a committee study it, forever.
Uhh, we need internet version 2, and yesterday, or the net is just going to be another cable TV monopoly deal. I sorta thought that would happen anyway, to be honest, I figured eventually you would just get one whopper bill a month, and "the net" would be more along "somebody's net you pay access to", sort of like telephony is now, package deals, the rest off limites unless you pay "more". An "AOL with a license to print laws and money" type of deal.
Hey! Still kinda nice to be enjoying the wild, wild west days of the internet, yes?
In addition, note that the performance of Windows 2003 server varied a whole lot depending on the number of users, processors, etc. while the Linux boxes stayed relatively steady and relatively consistent.
/etc/fstab, as you allude to in your message.
That tells me that Linux is really the better performer and the only reason its running slower is some artificial performance limitation, like the absence of setting the 'noatime' directive in the mount options in
Also, what file system was in use? I don't have Red Hat Advanced Server 2.1, but I'll bet it installs ext3 by default, rather than the higher performance reiserfs or xfs. Now, I wouldn't install xfs, it's too unstable, but reiserfs has good performance along with rock-solid reliability on 2.4.18 and later. ext3 is slllloooowwww.. mostly because it journals metadata *and* data, while reiserfs only journals metadata and uses B* trees.
My journal has hot
arent you doing that already?
[sorry it was a cheap slab]
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
The same is true for RedHat. There are also hundreds of books written for both. I don't think documentation is an issue you can compare. You espessially can't say windows has "none".
Hardly need support for windows? I don't think so. Since the article is talking about it from a server point of view, so will we. Windows servers are a pain, with many flaws and much to learn to make them even work somewhat well. Sure, they HAVE one-click wizards and such, but when do those ever work flawlessly?
As a linux user, I find setting up the simplest things on linux fairly simple. In fact, setting up some very complex things can be fairly simple. When I first started with linux, some things were very difficult. I've paid $0 for support for linux, and know I'm decently knowledgable.
I've bought books for windows, and setup a few networks, and I still can't get everything working the way I want to. I still have mysterious problems on the network, like someone's account will suddenly not be able to run wordperfect on one particular machine without crashing (but it works fine on any other machine, or with any other accounts), and I can find no explaination. And the people that have been using MS products for years have no explanation.
Your last question here is particuarly interesting. There's a trend in the linux - and OSS, in fact - world to create highly configurable software. This means there's lots of options. Which sometimes means that there's a lot to figure out to get it to work the way you want. The difference here is that you - the user - decides how to make the program work the way you want, instead of the program telling you how to work because that's the only thing it can do.
Microsoft DOES in fact release a lot of patches. If you subscribe to HotFix or whatever they call it, you happen to get more of them and a bit faster, but thats a moot point. The big issue is that linux patches will say exactly what they fix, and possibly even more importantly, include source code. Microsoft patches typically are "Security Update - fixes flaw in program XXX that could allow an attacker to take control of your computer". I'd swear every patch says the same thing. :)
Anyways, a lot of admins are reluctant or slow to apply MS patches. And with good reason, it's a well known fact that often patches will break other things, or cause other unpredicable behaviour. I don't know where you work, but applying a fix to prevent someone from doing some strange non-likely hack to your SQL server that also
Speak before you think
Strictly speaking a rather large flaw was found in the testing protocols. Now he is going out on a limb with: "This is enough to account for these differences, I suspect." He's bang on with: "They disabled last access time updating under windows. They didn't under Linux."
No, he can't say from that Windows and Linux have equivalent performance under those circumstances. However, neither can MS use these results to confirm Windows superiority. Disabling access time updating is known to be a large optimization for those who can do without it. If that methodology is typical of this study then it's likely that the claimed results are utterly worthless for any conclusion whatsoever.
After a quick read of the study, I have the following question(s):
Isn't this more of a test of Samba on RedHat, than RedHat itself? When you talk filesharing on a Windows network, that's pretty much what you're limited to, isn't it?
I mean, if you want a good comparison test, why don't you see how Windows Server 2003 does as an NFS file server? (I know, NFS isn't the best, but I think you get my drift).
Never mind the fact that Microsoft doesn't exactly share their network file sharing protocol with the Samba guys who, if I recall correctly, have mostly reverse engineered things. What's to stop Microsoft from tweaking the protocol to their advantage in a new release, then quickly testing it against a version of Samba uses an older non-optimal protocol?
I nominate Bill Gate$ as the new "Homeland Security Minister of Information, Love and DRM Czar"
All Hail Gates! All Hail Redmond! Long live Micro$oft!!
Billg's rsponse to a query about whether the combination of Athena , Palladium and the like
o ry/RTGAM .20030507.gtgatesmay7/BNPrint/Technology/?mainhub= GT
will prevent 3rd party software from running
on this new Windows architecture tells all.
from
http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/st
ome critics and competitors have raised concerns that the technology could be used to reinforce Microsoft's dominance.
Secure documents created in Microsoft Office, for instance, could be unusable on other operating systems or with other office productivity suites.
In the interview, Mr. Gates said it's up to other companies to ensure interoperability.
"I don't know what's going to be capable there. I don't do the software on those systems," he said. "I don't hold the keys. If they do the implementation, then it's like saying they have the same features as every other thing we do in Windows. It's up to them."
Just like at the DOJ testimony , poor Bill he
don't know "nuthin".
...to something that's been going on since there have been "tinkerers" and "the public."
There have always been, and always will be, Those who Know (how to tinker) and Those who Do Not Know (and, in many cases, don't seem to want to know) how to work with computer innards, or solder, or build electronic kits, or even design their own stuff. It's all different levels of the same bar.
An example; Joe and Jane Consumer are thrilled to death about being able to send E-mail with pictures of the kids to granny, but they don't have Clue One about the processes involved, nor do they want one. They're under the belief that any such details are far too messy or complex for their comprehension, even though Joe may have a Ph.d in Astrophysics and Jane in Mathematics.
Belief is a very powerful thing. Far more so than people realize. If you truly believe, in mind and spirit, that something is too tough or too complex for you to learn or do, you will not be able to learn or do it, no matter how hard you try, until you completely shed the belief that is holding you back. That's not easy to do either, because a belief that takes root is just as hard to get rid of as a bad infestation of weeds.
As another example, there are those who have at least a basic understanding of computers and networks (I'm talking the SysAdmins and network techs of the world), but that don't have Clue One about the most basic electrical or electronic principles, or how the very hardware they maintain is put together. Mention Ohm's Law to such people, and you would likely get as blank a stare as if you'd said "The Internet uses TCP/IP protocols" to Joe and Jane. These same admins and techs are just as likely to burn themselves with a soldering iron as they would be to use it right.
There's another tier. Those who take electronics seriously enough to really learn how to work with it, or that know enough about construction practices to be able to design and build a useful circuit, or modify something else to suit their purposes. And there are tiers above that, for those that are (or were, in times past) pioneers in the sciences (Tesla, Marconi, Bell, etc.)
My point is simple; It all boils down to how much you choose to teach yourself about the world we share, and the tools we use in it. The more you choose to learn, the easier a time you'll have working with those same tools. A high IQ, a dexterous touch, or other physical and mental gifts can help, but you never know what you're truly capable of until you push your OWN limits -- hard!
If you want to be led around by the nose, and don't mind paying for the privilege, then anything Microsoft puts out, hardware or software, will be a good match.
If you would rather be doing the leading, of yourself or others, then you need to learn enough about the hardware and/or software you're working with to do something more sophisticated than click a mouse. Period. Learning may not be easy, or fun (most of the time), but the rewards are usually well worth the effort.
It's all the same dance, folks. It's just a question of whether you want to be a dancer or a musician (or somewhere in between).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
/. readers are smart enough to figure out that MS is trying to do is to make computers inobtrusive and pervasive within the home and office.
MS should be thanked for pushing the usability envelope as far as it has since most competetors (including open source) are striving for a MS like interface/functionality in their software packages.
1. The CPU/Motherboard/video/network should be in a non-upgradable box.
2. The OS/application programs should be on a CD-R or download on demand Java applets. This includes a build manager which lets you add/remove packages to the base installation, burn it on CD-R, and then boot up with that OS on a user machine.
3. Data storage should be on an external USB enclosure type hard disk or flash card
This greatly lowers the total IT cost by:
1. Swap out a CPU unit to upgrade a machine/fix a broken one without having to recreate the data
2. OS upgrades are easy as booting off a new CD-R
3. The total cost of such a box would be very low
4. The IT orginization could include any extra software packages required on the CD-R or on the network drive
5. The cost of software would be much lower than a MS OS and MS Office license
Knoppix and a CD-ROM bootable Linux from Scratch will be the ancestors of this.
You mean to tell me that Windows is better at serving files over it's own proprietary network protocol than Linux. Gee, I would've thought that a reverse engineered implementation of the SMB protocol would've been much faster!
Newsflash!!! "Linux is a better file server than Windows (when using a non-Windows network file-serving protocol, i.e. NFS)"
In all seriousness, though, I haven't had a chance to test Windows 2003, but all the tests I've done on 98, NT and 2000 show that Samba is much faster at serving up files than Windows. I wonder if they've changed the SMB protocol (yet again).
If you can read German, look here
Or, summarised in English:
1st No updates of RedHat Advanced Server.
2nd No new Samba version.
3rd No new kswapd (should especially speed up performance under high load).
4th Original Samba version got difficulties, used even older ones, but did not ask RedHat for any help.
5th Tuning of Windows using Registry-Key "Disablelastaccess", but did not use corresponding mount-Option "noatime" for the used ext3 file system.
6th ext3 uses a much more sophisticated journaling of the file system, but they did not set the mount option "data=writeback" to have similar conditions.
7th Very old LinUX kernel (over one year old, with known limits of this kernel for high load environments - do you remember all these 2.4.xy problems because of the virtual memory!?).
8th Redhat provides solutions to the most of the described problems, but they did not use these updates or that help.
9th They did not really try to tune Samba and used mostly the default settings.
I could testify in that court case, should the plaintiff see fit to contact me.
I was set up with a paper trail, and terminated from Best Buy, after refusing to sign up people for MSN without their knowledge.
I worked there during high school.
I worked in computers, and then appliances. I refused to stuff an MSN cd in some old man's bag who didn't even have a PC. It's just wrong.
Boycott Best Buy. There are dozens of other *HORRIBLE* things that they do that they call "Best Practices", because they're not part of the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) they're not "company policy", thus they just deny it.
These "Best Practices" are store/department written, so they'll never get caught.
I have pushed carts to pay my insurance in high school, I would much rather do something like that, than provide a mechanism for things so morally wrong.
Mod this up so maybe slashdot choosing to use another retailer can make a difference!
A class-action suit has been filed charging that MSN and Best Buy combined to scam customers.
/. Damn I wish I had held out for that GF3.
When I think of best buy and MSN, I think back to 1998 when MSN accidentally left a legal loophole in their marketing plan.
I can't find the story now, but MSN and BB had a promotion going where if you signed up for the MSN service, you got $400 store credit. This was legal in every state EXCEPT california. The San Jose Mercury ran a big story about it, which basically explained the law was created to stop car lots from forcing people to use a certain insurance carrier in exchange for a few dollars knocked off the sticker price.
Well, me and my co-workers took a long lunch that day, headed down to best buy and got our free $400 dollars. Everyone but me bought stuff on the spot, I was smart enough to turn my store credit into gift checks.
Those gift checks sat in my wallet for some time, I was waiting for the latest greatest nvidia card. My wife knew they were in there, and her constant nagging broke down all my defenses until I caved in and let her use them for our new TV.
Unfortunately I spend most of my time in front of this sun monitor tapping away at
The Samba team got a hold of this about a week ago. These benchmarks are a little off.
For instance, they're comparing Win2k3 vs. Samba 2.2.7. We're rather close to the 3.0 release of Samba and the 2.2 base hasn't really been worked on in a long time.
Moreover, RHAS is actually slightly older than RH8.0 (a lot older than RH9.0). That's why the one benchmark with all three systems showed RH8 beating RHAS. I believe that RHAS didn't ship the O(1) scheduler.
I've also heard claims that the real reason behind the difference in throughput was the poor software raid used in the benchmark machines. Had a supported hardware RAID been used, things would have been pretty different.
Not to mention the "tuning" done to the two systems. The socket buffers were tweaked and the file descriptors increased on the linux side while a bunch of strange registry options were set on the Windows side. There could have been a lot more tuning done on the linux side to improve performance.
Of course, what would you expect from a study commissioned by Microsoft. What someone should do is let the Samba team set up a machine and some Microsoft folks set up another machine. Then we'll see who outperforms who.
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
Microsoft has been adamant that the Xbox is and will remain a gaming platform. Period. The knee-jerk reaction to news of additional capabilities, such as voice and music, is "The Xboxes aren't selling as game consoles, so they're trying other applications in hopes of selling more boxes."
This doesn't make much sense when one considers that Microsoft loses money on every Xbox. The bill of materials is $400-$500, and they retail for $200. That difference can't be made up on volume. This business model is to lose money on the consoles but make it back (and then some) on the games, much like the razor/blade model. Games are high-margin products, especially those created in-house, and I would think that the Xbox business case is dependent upon preserving those margins. So pushing the Xbox as an enabler of low-margin services doesn't make much sense. Let's look at those mentioned...
Voice
Sure, Xbox Live voice quality is pretty good. Since Xbox Live requires broadband, it's not tough to obtain toll quality. But why would they want to? There are many reasons why voice over IP hasn't taken off (customers don't want to be tethered to their PCs, long distance is already cheap -- you'd better not be paying more than $0.05/minute for interstate calls), and to my knowledge Xbox Live doesn't have the billing capabilities required for voice services. The article states that Microsoft would move the chat capability to the Xbox Live dashboard, which implies the requirement of an Xbox Live subscription. It's unlikely that this feature would convince consumers to subscribe to Xbox Live. Microsoft would also need VOIP-PSTN gateways, so their customers can call people who don't use an Xbox. Telephone service is complicated. Maybe Microsoft would partner with a company such as Vonage, but they certainly aren't the easiest to work with.
Music
A neat capability, much like the QCast Tuner for the PlayStation 2. Consumers have shown little willingness to pay for this, however, as they're accustomed to free players. Service like Rhapsody and pressplay would undoubtedly benefit from freedom from the shackles of the PC, but their revenue shares are micenuts compared with Microsoft's costs. Given the current crop of LAN-to-stereo bridges, like the AudioTron and the SimpleFi, the Xbox does stand out, but this advantage may be gone in a few months when the likes of Linksys launch its low-cost device.
Movies
One of the reasons for Movielink's slow start is the simple fact that most consumers prefer to watch movies on their TVs, not their PCs. This problem is defeated with the Xbox in the mix, as it enables high-quality video output to the TV. Perhaps Microsoft plans to download the top 3-4 pay per view movies to the Xbox hard drive each night (Movielink movies are 500-600MB each, so they would easily fit on the 8-9GB Xbox HDD), so when the consumer chooses a popular movie playback begins immediately. The margins on this business are low, too. And Microsoft will compete with existing TV-based PPV and Video on Demand, which is slowly rolling out to cable systems. This makes a tough market even tougher.
Summary
Low margin + low penetration services will not lift the Xbox to profitability. Great games will. Strong Xbox Live games will give customers a reason to pay $9.95 a month for the service. Hopefully the EA/AOL exclusivity deal will end soon, so Xbox can benefit from good sports titles. Until the games improve, Microsoft is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. They have the cash to be patient, however.
Disclaimer: I work fo