Slashdot Mirror
For Microsoft, Market Dominance Isn't Enough
chemstar writes "Last summer Orlando Ayala, then the top sales executive at Microsoft Corp., sent an e-mail titled 'Microsoft Confidential' to senior managers laying out a strategy to dissuade governments across the globe from choosing cheaper alternatives to the ubiquitous Windows operating system. Ayala's e-mail told executives that if a deal involving governments or large institutions looked doomed, they were authorized to draw from a special internal fund to offer software at a steep discount, or free, if necessary. Steve Ballmer, the Microsoft chief executive, was sent a copy of the e-mail.
The memo, which focused on system software for desktop computers, specifically targeted Linux, a still small but emerging competitor. "Under NO circumstances lose against Linux," Ayala said." Perhaps that's because, as roomisigloomis writes, "Seems that MS' licensing practices are working against the company," pointing out this article which "suggests that open source, Linux and other software is actively being sought."
How can BSD be dying when it has a mascot like this?! Linux needs to get its act together if it's going to compete with the kind of hot chicks and gorgeous babes that BSD has to offer!
You just can't take Linux seriously when its fronted by losers like these. You Linux groupies need to find some sexy girls like her! I mean just look at this girl! Doesn't she make you hard? I know this little hottie floats my boat! This guy looks like he is about to cream his pants standing next to such a fox. As you can see, no man can resist this sexy little cock teaser. Even this old bearded Unix guru is apparently unable to take his eyes off her!
Join the campaign for more cute open source babes today!
I hate to make this comparison, but...
Taking control of Europe was not enough for Hittler. He wanted to control the entire world. What we have with MS, is very much the same thing. A trillion dollars is no longer enough to feed all the hungry piranhas, and that's not what it's all about either. It's the recognition and the power that comes with being "an executive at Microsoft"..
Basically, this is no longer just about an operating system. This is about a way of life. MS is deeply entrenched in many other business, and we don't even notice. While we're watching them twirl their left fist at us, their right hand is getting ready to slap us in the face.
I only hope that we're waking up to this fact early enough...
---
Death is only a state of mind.
Only it doesn't leave you much time to think about anything else.
So, if you want to have Microsoft software for free, you know what to do!
My karma ran over your dogma
It's not the price, really. Corporations and governments are willing to pay the price of Windows to ensure that they have support and stability. But the licensing of Windows -- product activation and the like -- are what's really kicking Microsoft's teeth in. Consumers are willing to overlook a lot, but not things that actively make their life harder, for no personal gain for them.
To want to beat out the competition.
Many large corporations drive prices down to crush the little guy.
--------
Free your mind.
I hate Microsoft as much as the next geek, but really, what do we expect from a company? Companies aim to make as much money as possible -- excluding not-for-profit & charitables -- so why should anyone be surprised that they do anything within their power to make their software as widespread as possible?
It seems to me that every time there is a posting about something else MS does, it's the same old stuff: they want more market share, just like everyone else. That's it, it should be expected by now.
Keep in mind that I am not excusing them for any unethical practices, just something that nags at me.
Maybe the EU should look into dumping charges against MS, if they offer to give it away for "free"...
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
As the chair of my neighborhood gardenclub, we have been considering implementing a new server rack with either Win3k and MSSQL to track the movment and eating habits of chinch bugs. Given our modest budget, it currently looks as though we will have to forgo using MS products in favor of OSS/FS alternatives. Can I have my free software now?
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
How dare a company try to increase its profits and make more money?! How dare a business try to best its competitors in the marketplace?!
I for one am disgusted and only hope that this evil is vanquished!
jack's bicycle is music to my ears
Any company with a bussness stratagy that has the words "at all costs" in it really has some f'ed up company heads. I mean think about it microsoft wants everyone on there systems cause everyone knows there is no such thing as "fre windows" especially with some of the newer business plans microsoft has been tossing around. Here ends the rambling; It is miss spelled? i dont care.
Everyday You see me is the worst day of my life -Office Space
Isn't this illegal? Here we have a convicted monopoly selling it's products at a loss to shut out a smaller competitor. Isn't that illegal?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
After a while, we discovered that we were only being used as a tool of negotiation to get lower prices for WinCE licensing... it seems that using Linux as a disuasve weapon was effective. It seemed that they would do anything not to lose to Linux
I'm shocked. Shocked!
a special internal fund to offer software at a steep discount, or free, if necessary
What about the support, source code, DRM crud? Sorry, but when MS says "Free" you have to look for the fine print.
Trolling is a art,
This memo demonstrates an important shift in their strategy: they are now in a position where they are competing against Linux on thedesktop, having lost many key battles on the server side. This means that, despite religious crusades and many rifts in the Open Source community, the competition between such projects as KDE, GNOME, and XFree86 has produced better products that are now able to compete on a level playing field with the Windows XP desktop. We know this only because Microsoft said so itself.
Eight years ago when I first started running Linux, I knew it wasn't ready for the desktop. During the internet gold rush of the late 1990s I knew it still wasn't ready for the desktop. But today it is. There is no turning back now - unless Microsoft manages to lock us out of our PCs they will have no chance to reverse the tide, and Windows will lose in the end.
Of course, if MS had charged them full price, they'd be pilloried for contributing to the "digital divide."
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Random Businessman 1: "We're doomed! Only a miracle can save us now!"
Hysterical Woman: "We need Linux! Tux, where are you?? Save us!"
Random Businessman 2: "Look! Up there!"
cut to shot of Tux, soaring above city. Tux looks down, smiles and waves
Chorus of Schoolchildren: "Tux!!!!"
Yes kids, tune in next week when Tux saves the world from the evil clutches of Microsoft yet again ...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Yeah, but the uniforms of the Microsoft soldiers have patches, and more patches, and even more layers of patches... and you can still see their underwear through the holes left behind.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
If I recall correctly here in Canada at least it's illegal to sell your product below cost with the purpose of driving your competitors out of buisness. Now this is also traditionally very hard to prove expecially when you take annual licensing costs and support into the equation, and I guess the competitors would have to be some of the distro vendors (Redhat, Mandrake, etc.). Do other nations (US and European nations) have similar laws that might come into play here?
I stole this Sig
So now one of the US's foremost companies is going to try and squeeze other countries to use their system? Other countries can do little about our government's arrogance, but they sure can do something about Microsoft's!
Besides which, investing in open source allows them to grow their own in house experts to learn and take care of the software.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
While I still haven't figured out why I should be outraged that Microsoft's sales force, you know, sells stuff, that bit made me laugh. Like this guy is James Bond, successfully impersonating a consultant. I've worked the KDE booth at Linux conferences, alongside teenagers who know even less about the IT business than I do -- Steve Ballmer himself could walk up to the booth and unless he was sweating and screaming, "Developers! Developers!" no one would recognize him.
I mean, do Microsoft sales people have horns and a tail? Why would anyone doubt him?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Seems to me the business/government market has clung to MS for the sole purposes of familiarity and ease of support. Hire any MCSE off the street and you have qualified support personell. Have a problem, call up Redmund and tell them about it.
Windows has kept essentially the same for the past few years, minus a few "enhancements" (a.k.a. extra features not many people need). This facilitates people turning their heads towards more customizeable software, where a kernel can be compiled for any given specific purpose, and only the required software runs.
Aside from the incredibly cheap software itself, the unmatched compatibility-for-purpose, and customizability make Open Source a very viable solution for previously proprietary, overpriced, "as is out of box" software. And as potential support people and developers materialize out of the mould, it's getting more and more serious consideration.
It's just plain sick of Microsoft that they would consider just giving their multi-thousand dollar software away simply to keep market share. Wonder how that would make me feel, if I were a business owner. Knowing I paid $2,500 for an enterprise server, when a friend of mine's business gets it free just so they remain a Microsoft customer. Really would make me consider the alternatives all the more, for fear of getting played like a fiddle by the monster of dominance.
Actually, the greatest irony about it all is that these ads help support Slashdot -- a public forum known for its big share of people that don't support MS. So I say take the ad money, smile, say thank you, and walk away.
Copyright © 2003 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
For Microsoft, market dominance doesn't seem enough
Thomas Fuller/IHT International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
Discounts for biggest users are aimed at keeping software rivals at bay
BRUSSELS More than 90 percent of the world's personal computers run on Microsoft software. For Orlando Ayala, that was not enough.
Last summer, Ayala, then the top sales executive at Microsoft Corp., sent an e-mail titled "Microsoft Confidential" to senior managers laying out a strategy to dissuade governments across the globe from choosing cheaper alternatives to the ubiquitous Windows operating system.
Ayala's e-mail told executives that if a deal involving governments or large institutions looked doomed, they were authorized to draw from a special internal fund to offer software at a steep discount, or free, if necessary. Steve Ballmer, the Microsoft chief executive, was sent a copy of the e-mail.
The memo, which focused on system software for desktop computers, specifically targeted Linux, a still small but emerging competitor. "Under NO circumstances lose against Linux," Ayala said.
This memo as well as other e-mails and internal Microsoft documents obtained by the International Herald Tribune offer a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a company with so much cash - $43.4 billion, as of December - that it can aggressively discount its products in a bid to protect its huge market share amid the wreckage of the technology sector.
The documents show the muscle that the world's largest software company is prepared to use to protect its dominance, including a relatively benign form of corporate spying and discounts to capture "big plays" - a Microsoft term for deals involving the world's biggest clients.
Yet these sales tactics also come with risks. The covert intelligence gathering - including one case where a Microsoft employee attended a Linux trade show pretending to be a consultant to an elementary school - raises questions about whether Microsoft has pulled back from the aggressive business practices that got it into so much trouble with antitrust regulators in the 1990s.
Perhaps more importantly, certain discounts may run afoul of European market regulators, who are currently investigating claims that Microsoft violated antitrust laws.
Discounting is a normal corporate practice. But under European law, companies that hold a dominant market position, such as Microsoft, are prohibited from offering discounts that are designed to block competitors from the market.
Microsoft has been concerned with the legality of its discounts in the past, at one point consulting a London law firm on a specific discount plan.
But in an interview Wednesday, the chairman of Microsoft operations in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, Jean-Philippe Courtois, defended the use of the special fund described in Ayala's e-mail, saying it was part of a strategy to be "competitive" and "relevant" in the market for big government and educational deals.
"Linux is obviously a key competitor," Courtois said. Rivals use similar tactics, he said.
Sun Microsystems Inc., for example, "is giving away StarOffice to basically governments and schools," he said. The suite of programs runs on both Windows and Linux systems.
Courtois also said Microsoft sometimes gave away software to "very low income countries." He cited a program where Microsoft donated software in South Africa and helped train teachers to use it.
Ayala's memo says the discounting fund could be used for "developed and developing countries" but says an "initial focus" was being put on Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, India and China.
In his e-mail, Ayala focused on governments and large institutions. A separate memo obtained by the IHT shows a discounting program for corporate customers worldwide. Two days after Ayala sent his memo, Mike Sinneck, head of Microsoft's services depa
And those are the steps of the passive resistence:
2. ridicularize - they ridicularize the resistence as if it would avoid more people to join the movement
3. worry - they worry and notice that it is really a problem, but it could be easily avoided.
4. fight - they fight against the resistence with all its power.
5. lose - they lose the battle and assumes that they must live with the new reality.
That's the way it has always worked, from Gandhi to Luther King. All we need to do is keep living our lives with Linux (and FreeSoftware).
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
You're assuming that the "cause" of slashdot is to promot Linux, or to counter Microsoft.
The stated "cause" of Slashdot is right there under it's icon, on every page.
"News for Nerds. Stuff that matters."
The direct "cause" of Slashdot (and OSDN and all of it's pretties) is money. It may have been different at one point, like when it was first started, and even until it became part of OSDN. But now, it is a business. They make business decisions.
Just like Linux advocates who work for Microsoft...their personal desire to see Linux "win" doesn't change the fact that the company they work for is in it for the money.
Ho-hum...
_lpp
The reason that Microsoft is concerned about governments is that they know that governments have the power to set de-facto standards. If a business partner sends me an unreadable document I can probably work something out with him or her. If the government demands that any electronic communication be in a particular format, that's the format that you use. What's more, nearly everyone has at least some business contact with the government. If a government switches to StarOffice/OpenOffice then you can bet that within a few years StarOffice formats will be the standard in that particular country for almost everything. It won't matter that it some ways OpenOffice isn't as good as MS Word, because it is definitely "good enough," the price is right, and it is the format that you need to use to communicate with the government.
Large institutions are a similar deal. If your University demands that you turn in your assignments in Microsoft Office formats, then you don't use WordPerfect or OpenWriter (or if you do you make sure to double check the formatting with MS Office before actually turning the assignment in. Likewise, if you supply parts to Ford Motor Company and they require that documents you submit be in MS Word format, then you don't use something else.
Microsoft can't afford to lose these big accounts. If they do their entire monopoly will start to unravel around them. It is far better business for Microsoft to give away software to these key accounts than to lose them to the competition.
Competition is a good thing for both Microsoft and OSS.
OSS causes Microsoft to lower its prices so people can afford it.
Microsoft gives "inspiration" for OSS developers to "catch up" and provide more features.
OSS will also do its own innovation for Microsoft to emulate.
IT makes everything more efficient and out standard of living goes up.
Everybody wins.
Also, most of us can easily imagine Microsoft salespeople approaching cash-poor, needy, developing nation government ministers with their "The first ones free" pitch, only to come back later when the government has set up some mission critical application and announcing "Time to pay the piper" .
Looks like Microsoft has lost all fear of the anti-trust implications of their actions.
I have to blame our dear president. I don't think he'd allow the Microsoft anti-trust case to go forward no matter how damning the evidence.
I like some of Bush's decisions, but he really sold out when he told DOJ's trust-busters to dismiss the Microsoft case. It was such a strong case too...
Bush has lost my 2004 vote over this alone.
But in this case the corporation in question has a monopoly - traditionally, they should be required to play by different rules than corporations which do not.
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
Da Blog
You can't bid lower than zero! Even if Microsoft gives their software away for free, you still have to figure in the time and money you'll have to spend dealing with VBS bugs, SQL Server bugs, DRM bugs--oops, that's a feature--and so on.
I don't think this strategy is anticompetitive, since Linux is free (beer); but I also don't think it will be all that helpful for Microsoft, even in the short term.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
As a goon in the network brute squad for an enormous and paranoid company, I'm gonna say: How come all of these high level memos get out? Ok granted they've been able to keep their source code contained, but executive memos like this should be at approximitly the same sensitivity level. I could, if I were petty, ask why we should trust security and operation processes from a company that seems either not know what they are, or at least how to follow them. The information in the memo is not a great suprise to any market observer, but it could be, as experessed in other comments, legally damning.
Spyder
So what's the surprise about this? Given the recent SEC filing, there's no surprise.
A significant step will be if MS decides that Linux is enough of a presence in the low-end server market (the one they're desperately trying to enter so there is some genuine growth of the company) that they decide to forgo the double leveraging strategy of tying products like SQL server, Exchange, and perhaps some parts of .NET so tightly to Windows. You know, like come out with a Linux version of these products to gain market share for them? If Linux keeps growing, then this will happen some day.
Secondly, the variable pricing strategy of Windows and affiliated software has already been in effect overseas: it's considered so damn expensive that illicit copies are endemic. Another way of viewing it is that people willing to pay zero dollars but pay the hidden cost of enduring the risk of running illicit MS software (what that risk really costs is a matter for insurance actuaries).
Those warez users have already made their own decision, with MS out of the loop, about the discount they want and what they are willing to pay for.
Furthermore, if MS clamps down tightly on "piracy" via more sophisticated technical measures, then they may end up losing this base of warez customer that just might possibly in the future begin sending money towards Redmond after they've become addicted to MS ware.
It's all very strange.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Microsoft is dead, they just haven't smelled themselves lately...hasn't anyone told Big Steve that it is impossible to compete with FREE?
$42.3bUS (or whatever)...wow, that's a lot of money, but not even close to enough to compete, in the long run, with OSS. It's inevitable that MS closed-loop model will go the way of the Wooly Mammoth. Linux is the disruptive technology that will bring Microsoft to its knees.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
Ceren was 17 1/2 at the time those pics were shot (by me), and that was February 2000. So she's 20 now. Quite legal.
s.j.
http://studiousjew.blogspot.com
These products are "free" like cocaine is "free". Free for the first buy. Free for the second buy. Free as long as it takes for you to be completely addicted and dependent -- then it's a leg and an arm.
MS will not continue giving it's products away for zero cost to anyone. They will do so long enough to ensure dependency, then charge full price. If they kept on giving it away at zero cost, they'd go out of business, despite everyone using their products. That's obviously not what they want. Their plan is obviously to make governments and citizens dependent on MS software using mechanisms like the Word incompatability fiasco.
At the very least, all government agencies should require that the formats in which they store information are completely OPEN and FREELY AVAILABLE for anyone to implement.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
...watching the last Dinosaurs do everything in thier power to draw down the asteroids.
These guys are *so* missing the point that they can't even comprehend the big picture.
Well, here it is, MS-boyz. Not that it will help.
*Everything* that you hold dear about the way your company is. That's the secret. That's the gimmick.
It's not pricing that's driving organizations to OS en masse.
It's not security that's giving them your current and former customers motivation to migrate.
It's not a desire to contro thier own destinies that has governments around the globe cheering "free the source" and "All GNUs is good GNUs"
It's not the fact that your entire customer base is at, or just below the threshold of "having been put through too pain and oppression (YES!! OPRRESSION is the word!!) just from ONE vendor."
It isn't that the companys leadership is severley out of touch with the needs and sentiment of the marketplace.
It isn't that we are entering a new era when companies such as yours simply can not compete against volunteer services (i.e. Open Source / Free Software programmer-teams)
Here's the secret.
It's all of that.
The platonic archetypical Form, the essence, the very nature of software megacorp is the problem. You are losing because of WHO YOU ARE, not because of any one thing you are doing.
If you can make the change, transform your enterprise completely, great. You will still be around 10 yrs from now. Of course, you'll be just another OS/FS programmer-team, albeit a large one. And hey, a lot of us would welcome you.
But as you are, you're a dinosaur. And the more you try to be a dinosaur, the sooner you'll pull down those asteroids.
So go on. Fiddle with the licenses some more. Give your software away to anyone who suggests they're tinking of migrating to Linux/ free software. Spew more lies, obfuscation, FUD, and marketspeak into the public's ear. "Embrace extend, and extinguish" to your heart's content.
We'll raise a toast to your valiant struggle and determination to fight to the very last. It's not much as virtues go, but if it's all you got, use it.
And after the toast, we'll log back on and make some more changes to our software, publish them, and wait for feedback from our Users.
The Users know the difference between a friend and a predator.
The Users Know.
The Users Know.
In the 70's, there was a phenomenon known as, IIRC, the $30,000 coffee mug.
Essentially what happened was Hitachi was offering a much cheaper alternative to one of IBM's mainframe products, and when Hitachi salesman came by to give their bids, they'd give managers a mug with a Hitachi logo on it.Managers soon discovered that if they had this mug on their desk when the IBM saleman came in, said IBM salesman would lower the price of the competing product by $30,000. Hence the $30,000 coffee mug.
We all know what happened to IBM's market leading position shortly after this. And now Microsoft is on the same path.
In fact, it looks like they're quite desperate. In Ghandi's "first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win", we're clearly well into the "they fight you stage".
"Then you win" is not far behind...
Follow the adventures of the new wandering jews
The Norwegian government resigned last year from their deal with Microsoft for delivering software to the whole administration to look at alternatives. Linux was mentioned as one of the possible ways to go.
Last week Steve Ballmer visited to have a meeting with the Minister of Administration. The most published result from the talk was that the government get disclosure of the source code. And probably, according to this, got an opportunity to renegotiate for a better deal.
Just an example. But what it means is that Linux and Open Source gives (large) organizations a hand in negotiating price and conditions with Microsoft. I'm not sure if that means anything to the Open Source Movement at all.
I'm not even sure if that's good for Open Source. Expensive and closed Microsoft is good for OSS, because that means Linux et al is where to go for open systems. If large corporations (in Norway, the government, military and one large corporation now has access to Microsofts source code) can get to the insides, that means a lot of resources that could go to the public good is kept locked up by MS anyway.
So we started a policy that banned XP for "security reasons" and made a sweet deal with Red Hat. Unless you had a valid reason to use an XP product, you used Win2K or Linux. Linux meant that we could use older machines on our server farms and pay virtually nothing because, funny enough, Red Hat gave us a site license for support. Not that we use it (or need to) very much.
Suddenly, Microsoft "produced" a disk with Product activation disabled (sort of, it's kind of complicated), but claimed all kinds of voodoo like it had a copy protection so complex, we couldn't burn a new one from the master... even sector-by-sector copying. Bollocks. You could use any XP disk, just as long as you followed the directions MS gave us for the "master CD." Now we have a lot of the CDs all over the place, with a site key (and no, I won't give it to you, use Linux and be free) and the "process" to make it work legally by our contract. It took them two years to backpedal that far.
It's weird, because for so long, Windows was essentially "free" (although, not legally) because until WinXP, more than half the people I knew had "borrowed" an OS CD from "somewhere." Microsoft knew that (I mean, come on), and like a drug pusher, made sure the buyer was hooked before they started charging (my proof is how they made MSIE a dominant browser over Netscape). But it's not that easy anymore. Linux desktops are getting better and better, and while Windows is easier to use for the most part, it's lack of flexibility, anti-customer anticompetitive stance, and their brazen arrogance in the field is really dulling their blade.
But in this case, I can't fault them for trying to give away freebies, I mean, trade shows do that all the time. But what we should really be wary of is when they get politics involved, and claim stuff like DeCSS is proof that Linux should be banned in the US or something equally as stupid to us techies, but is all greek to your average politician who could be $wayed by $ome other thing$...
__________________________________________________
www. - where else can you get blogged to death?
What support? MS requires you to PAY for technical support. Their web-site is extremely user-unfriendly, a real PITA to get useful information out of. In the end, if you want support for Microsoft software, you pay for it in the form of a Full-time Employee who supports your network, or by buying "Per Incident" support from MS.
What stability? There's a new "Security Patch" issued every two days that must be thoroughly tested to insure that it doesn't bring the entire office down in flames. (See story about Win 2k/XP patch from last month that made even the fastest machines crawl.)
While OSS doesn't eliminate the need to hire an FTE to support your network, it does drastically reduce your licensing expenses. In our office we just build the cost of licenses for MS software in the price of any PC we buy because otherwise the departments would bitch a blue streak about how much "extra" all that "Included" software costs them. (I know this because we used to break it down for them, and three times annually some manager would pitch a bitch about how "IT Should Be Paying For My Licensing Costs".)
Who did what now?
Disclaimer: I'm an IT consultant for a small business using Access as its only DB.
I've currently got a project that is easily 2 months overdue because of stupid bugs in Access. The worst is this one: if one of the databases becomes corrupted, all of the databases which synchronize with that DB will become corrupted as well. I've actually witnessed databases losing records during a synchronize because some stupid jerk of a programmer at MS thought that the good thing to do would be to delete records to make the tables match. So instead of the good copy filling in missing records in the bad copy, just the opposite happens - good records get deleted from the good copy, and now both copies are bad.
At this point, it simply doesn't matter if Microsoft gives its software away - consultants like myself are going to charge you so much for working with their bit-trash that you won't be reaping any savings. Honestly, there's a reason why I charge more for MS support, and it's not because I'm greedy, but rather, because I recognize the headaches that it presents to the average developer.
Quite frankly, I'm getting sick and tired of explaining to my customers that the reason why they're losing thousands of dollars a day in downtime and lost data is precisely because they chose to use Microsoft software. Get clue! - Microsoft does not care what happens to your data; they've already got your money, stupid! .
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
On the licensing front, it's more like the mask is off. M$'s recent licensing was every bit as bad as the "zealots" and other free software advocates have said it would be all along. The Next Generation looks even worse than all but the most paranoid visions could predict. There, bare faced, is the power hungry monster we all worried about. It's not easy to force that on forgien governments and others who have considered things.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
... if you're in a position to help increase Linux' piece of the market, use it! I recently started a new job at a company running virtually all MS kit, but soon realised they were far from happy about the cost of renewing licenses and keeping tag of all their paperwork to prove they'd bought everything.
;-)
;-) I've never tried the Linux exchange alternatives, but I'd be interested to hear of anyone who's done this...
There was a glimmer of hope though, a couple of rack-mount linux boxes sitting idle. It was obvious that someone had attempted to set up some services at some point, but given up I presume so they were mostly badly configured or just plain broken. So I set to work in my (brief periods of) spare time. Samba, named, squid, apache, dhcpd, PHP, MySQL, iptables and some other bits and bobs later and just about everyone was impressed at how well they intgrated with the rest of the network. They actually make it much easier to manage the hundreds of Win98/2K PCs in use around the place! In fact, all server replacements/upgrades and additions will now be Linux boxes (currently changing all printing servers over too). I'm no hairy-chinned guru; so if I can manage this, I'm sure plenty of others (especially here) could take some time out to do some good
The only hurdle is Exchange, although I'm sure the management would be thrilled to find a "Free" replacement without the quota limits (the version in use has a limit on the amount of disk space that can be used for mail storage, apparently you can pay more for a version with the FILESIZE_LIMIT=xxx constant set to -1
Can't see the desktops changing over to KDE or Gnome, since the software just isn't available for our needs, but in the server room, MS is simply an innefficient and unnecessary expense.
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Cool! Now throw in some comedy, action, music, sex, plot and special effects in accordance with the formula and we have a box office hit!
Let's call it Firebird.
At first glance, this looks like an egregious violation of most anti-trust laws. But digging a little deeper, one must consider that 'Linux', although a competitor of sorts', is not monetarily infringed by Microsoft's actions. 'Linux' doesn't lose revenue by Microsoft taking 'Linux' marketshare. IANAL, but I think anti-trust infringement requires either competitors or customers harmed, generally monetarily for an valid infraction to noted.
Now if RedHat, a competitor who could be monetarily harmed, were to complain, Microsoft could be held in violation of anti-trust laws
They at least know Linux IS a threat to them. This has been said 1,000,000 here so I won't go further but another point I will make is that you would think the same Government in the USA that may be getting free software from Microsoft due to the competition of Linux would also say Microsoft is not a threat. It proves, once again, that competition is good and I cannot believe the government would not try and give technoligies every advantage such as Linux more help by seeing MS is a monopoly, considering THEY may get free software out of it.
Not to mention, if MS can afford to give away their software for free, there has to be some anti-trust involved here. I though there were laws stopping a huge company from selling their products at a loss, or even free, to stop the competiton?
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Some say this is dumping -- selling their product below cost just to push out a smaller competitor. Sure, it fits that definition, but Microsoft is lowering its price to that of a competitor who is also selling below cost. Alan Cox's labor alone probably ads up to more than a penny on the two debian machines I have right now which would be two more pennies than I spent on their software. (Aside, if each of us sent Alan a penny for each of our servers, how much money would he have?)
Some are calling this just another unfair tactic, losing money to maintain marketshare. Well, maybe it is, but isn't that what M$ is doing with the XBox? Rumor has it that Sony did it with the PS2 at least when it came out. Numerous other business models do this as well. Maybe Microsoft is turning to a business model where the software is free (under certain circumstances) and they earn their money on the support calls and Must Consult Someone Else certifications? Isn't that the business model all the free software people advocate?
I don't like Microsoft's history or how they do business, but I'm racking my brains here to find a way that they're evil and my favorite business OS, Linux, is good. All I'm coming up with is either ways to kill Linux accidently or ways that this is a legit thing to do.
Perhaps there's something to do with how the prices are different? Can it be proven discriminatory, or is it along the same lines as airline seat price differences?
The best I have is that foreign governments can prohibit or tariff Microsoft OS imports that are under priced because they're being dumped-- when and only when they have local developers working on Linux and consider that flavor to be domestic. Much like the US is doing (illegally due to WTO agreements) with steel.
Microsoft was evil, in my opinion, when they released IE for free against Netscape's paid-for product. Why is free as in beer Linux good when it's apparently forcing Microsoft to give their OS away for free? Aside from brand hatred of Microsoft, why do I want Linux to succeed? Simply because I can and have modified the source code (but that gets back to it being Free as in libre which I think should stay out of this argument).
If it's reasonable to cast licensing paranoia aside for a moment, Microsoft appears to be offering those who cannot afford their software the ability to get upgrades for free without having to pay for migrating proprietary code to the Linux platform. If I replaced "Microsoft" with another business name, that would be A Good Thing.
Can we write a law that refers to the Microsoft business entity specifically and prohibits them from "selling" their product at a loss as punishment for prior practices?
In theory? No. If it leads to greater profits, or prevents the loss of a market or large customer (give the product, sell the service/support/maintenance, etc etc) then, arguably, it's fiduciary misconduct NOT to do it.
On the other hand, speaking from experience, watching my company's stock go from 40 bucks to 10, in an afternoon, now less than 1, STRICTLY because the shareholders didn't like the 'we're investing our profits in R&D so we can show EVEN GREATER profits a year down the road,' you're right.
The stock market suffers from what I like to call Human Game Player syndrome; at some point, somebody stoppped playing the game, and started playing the rules, and now the system itself is useless.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
They're protecting their market position in the face of a potential competitor. I wonder how many Vacuum Tube manufacturers scoffed at the transistor when it first came out. Where are they now? Micro$oft is correctly seeing Linux as a threat to their long term OS dominance. Their product may not be too great, but neither was VHS compared to Beta and where is Beta these days? M$ knows how to market...and maybe the OS/Linux community needs to learn how to also!
I believe in the long run (the very long run) Microsoft will be forced to become purely a services company. Software will eventually only have "use value" and no longer fake "sale value" as Eric S. Raymond puts it. As a services company they may survive, but not without strong competition from even the little guys. They know that if they can no longer convince people to buy their software they will have to sell themselves out for services, which they know will bring a far lower revenue stream and inability to become a monopoly.
Developers: We can use your help.
We're in the middle of a nasty registered-mail war with them about licencing of software.
As a result, more and more of us are moving to Linux (developers can run whatever they want on their machines, so long as they get the job done). No licencing hassles, and no software-asset-management hassles.
I see a restraining order in your future
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Ok granted they've been able to keep their source code contained, but executive memos like this should be at approximitly the same sensitivity level.
Every time someone successfully breaks into the source code repository at Microsoft, their brains melt. It's a very effective strategy - the source code equivalent of the Medusa. Only specially trained MS developers can bear to look at the code for any length of time and even then, the constant barage of marketing material renders them useless fairly quickly. Those developers who can't stay the course end up as Soylent Green for the canteen.
Why do they need to draw from a special
internal fund to give their products
away for free?
Ansi's and stupid tricks!
- Your Name
- Your Email Address
- Your Phone Number
- Your Gender
- Your Birthdate
You need this, so that you can login to the open licenses website and aquire your serial numbers. You need to repeat this activity for every new open license that you buy. It's WORSE than the damn license activation in Windows. In addition, I've noticed that you now need to license individual services in Windows Server 2003 (specifically, the Terminal Services service), and then you get to use your Passport account to add "client access licenses" to it. It's no wonder that people are beginning to choose Linux, where you only need to install XFree86-Server and go to work, and never have to worry about having too many clients accessing it at the same time...The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
The British were not willing to kill unarmed Indians forever.
Americans were not willing to see blacks attacked with police dogs and fire hoses forever.
Germans had no problem with killing and enslaving the "lesser races", and did so till they ran out of bullets.
Soviets had no problem with putting "dissidents" into concentration camps in Siberia, and did so till it was no longer economically viable.
In the specific scenarios covered by this story, Microsoft isn't dumping the price below the competition. It is merely lowering the price to the same level as the competition, which makes sense.
;-)
Hmm.. compete with Linux on the basis of... price?
Pretty soon, I'm sure we'll see Linux offered for free, too, in a retaliatory move certain to enrage Redmond.
Oracle and SUN didn't crush Dr Dos, and other competitors by writing there apps to not run on competitive OS's. They didn't crush the competition in the courts to suppress the new technologies, so they could remain dominant. They didn't buy competitive companies so they could bury the technology, to eliminate the compitition. They didn't give away they're software, so that competitors couldn't stay in business (netscape for example) They didn't buy judges and polititions to win cases in court. Any evidence of this is buried, so we'll never see it of course. They didn't use embrace and extend policies to corrupt and distroy open standards, which would have kept the technologies open for all platforms. Have you ever seen directx run on a Linux HP or sun computer?
I'm not going to tell anyone that Oracle or Sun are Perfect. But they didn't break every law in the book, and hire the best lawyers in the business to get them off the hook.
Yes, microsoft gets slammed on Slashdot, etc. But they've earned it!
I take no responsibility for what I say. Even though I'm never wrong
All they are doing is matching the price of the software they are competing against, how is that dumping exactly ?
Just remember to take off your suspenders and at least trim your beard...
-Zipwow
(seemed fitting while we're throwing around sterotypes)
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
We should publish this in as many places as possible so that noone make a fair deal with M$ after all now as an IT manager you know if you want 90% off all your windows licenses just tell the M$ sales rep that you are seriously considering swiching to linux or *BSD for all your desktops and servers. This is great M$ either looses money hand over fist handing out free copies of their software or they have to give up this anti-competitive strategy. Either way they just lost this little battle.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
is more than just NT 4. There's also NT3.51, that only I seem to remember. 2000 is really NT5, and XP is really NT5.1.
Software installation kicks ass in Linux. My debian boxes can get all the software it needs online. A single command (or three clicks in gnome-apt) can install/remove nearly any program I know of. If you mean installation of commercial programs, Microsoft seems to have the advantage because of autorun(a security hazard) and not having broken binary compatbility (in theory, try running a V4W app in NT5).
Put the source onto disc with a Makefile and an optional tcl/tk installer. It'll work a decade from now.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
(sigh) Once again, somebody fails to recognize the segregation of editorial and advertising content. No biggie. It's just one of the fundamental principles of publishing. Hypothetical analogy follows:
Every issue, Car & Driver takes a moment to remind everybody that the Pontiac Aztek is the Ugliest Car On The Planet. Yet Pontiac doesn't seem to have a problem with buying a 4-page spread promoting the new Grand Prix.
Now, let's say General Motors has a hissy fit and withdraws their advertising from the magazine. The obvious message is "You won't get our advertising dollars..." with a thinly veiled "...unless you start writing good reviews of Pontiacs" in the fine print. Car & Driver is left with two choices. Either capitulate, praise the Aztek as the pinnacle of American design, and ruin their credibility for some filthy lucre; or tell GM "Bugger off. Chrysler wants that spread for a Pacifica ad." Either way, GM is screwed, because they're either denying themselves marketing opportunities in a key demographic, or they'll have to start paying for good reviews.
OK, now let's turn the scenario around. Say C&D refuses GM advertising because their cars suck. Who in the industry is going to try to buy space in C&D now? What's the point, if the ads can be refused on a whim? Now, C&D is screwed. Their ad space will become so devalued, the magazine will probably have to shut down, unless they can get by on ads for "magic" oil additives and gadgets that create turbulent air flow in manifolds designed for laminar flow.
Either way, somebody gets screwed. The only way to keep both parties happy is to keep editorial and advertising away from each other. Pontiac can still promote the Grand Prix, and C&D can still ridicule the Aztek, and neither interferes with the others' privilege to do so.
This is one of the few things Slashdot gets right. Microsoft gets the eyeballs of a large, diverse congregation of geeks, the Anyone But Microsoft crowd gets one more reason to add their two cents, and Michael gets to keep his job. See? Everybody's happy!
This sig intentionally left blank.
Until now, that is. While helping my 16-year-old son (also an avid Slashdot reader) do research for a term paper on technology and journalism, I stumbled across some information that made me change my views about Slashdot completely. In a nutshell: Slashdot, and more accurately, its parent company VA Software, has deep and mutually influential ties to the Microsoft Corporation. In fact, Slashdot's own editors are paid (albeit indirectly) out of the coffers of Microsoft.
Yes. It's hard to believe. At first I couldn't believe it. But a few simple Google searches and 45 minutes' research on Lexis-Nexis (as well as a couple of phone calls to a friend of mine at the SEC) revealed the following:
At first I was more amused than shocked; I mean, the technology industry is notoriously incestuous and its leaders, even those who are in competition, often sit on the same boards and are members of the same organizations. So what if a few board members of Slashdot's parent company are also directors of a company funded by Microsoft? Well, it gets more interesting.
As it turns out, in May of 1999, VA Software submitted to the SEC Form 5506-D, Application for Direct Non-Ownership Subsidization. This is the form that a corporation will submit to the SEC when it wants to directly fund a subsidiary from its own parent corporation. (It's basically a tax shelter for companies with a lot of subsidiaries) The application was approved in July 1999. The applicant name? OSDN. In other words, Form 5506-D basically eliminated the middleman between OSDN and Murberry-Slocomb. Following the money, I now saw that OSDN was being funded directly from an infusion of captal that Murberry-Slocomb has receved from Microsoft!
Weird. I know. But what does this all mean? Honestly I have no idea. I'm not the custodian of any privileged information. A look at VA Software's web site and a Google search is all anyone needs to find the same information that I found. Are Slashdot's staff being paid through Microsoft? I sincerely hope not. But the facts are there and it sure looks like it. More importantly, what does this mean for the future of Slashdot? Can any grain of objectivity or journalistic ethics be preserved? What happens when the company you are bashing, nay, the very company that you preach the loudest against, Microsoft, is the same company that signs your paycheck? Could there be a deeper link still? Who knows. As far as I'm concerned, I'll never look at Slashdot the same way, ever again.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I agree, the USGOV basically thwarted the judgement of brighter minds and capitulated...now M$ publishes its own money. Short of M$ being shoved out, like Germany did to Scientology, M$ is going to show up to play no matter what.
However, unless there's some kind of "ABSOLUTELY NO ALTERNATIVES" clause, we can still encourage the deployment of adjacent alternatives on both the desktop and the server space. You can bet that it's something that's happening in areas where a corp. or gov. has been given software from M$ because you're not going to put WinXP/2k3 server on a p2-350, which is still a good desktop for business under Linux...the newer M$ software still requires newer hardware; which is why a gift from M$ is rarely the gift it sounds like. When they say they are "purely a software company", they seem to leave out other key departments like "Driving computer industry", "Licensing enforcement (BSA)", and "Buying up the Competition".
What would be interesting is if anyone has information about what kind of restrictions are placed upon the recipients of Free M$ products. That would be the kind of juicy stuff that M$ would absolutely go apeshit over if it ever saw the light of day. I'm sure some governments would be interested in terms and conditions too.
It's one thing to seem benificent and an entirely different thing to bait and entrap. The real thing we should fear is the complacency of people who no longer need to strive for a good solution when the one handed to them is good-enough. And then, when they decide to roll their own solution they run into the true boundaries of the questionable gift (I wonder what M$ calls their server-cabinet inspectors..."Local Sales Reps?").
Even in the face of crushing famine and drought and starvation people in Africa saw through the efforts of the USGOV and Monsanto to proliferate low-to-no-cost GM seeds which would lock up the surviors in a no-win situation where they wouldn't be able to grow their own food from the harvest--and due to cross-pollination with unmodified crops everyone would suddenly come under Monsanto licensing and inspections. In many ways, (Free) M$ products are much the same thing...only you can't eat them...they eat you when M$ comes to harvest anything you've done to help yourself using their FREE kit. I can almost feel a "In Soviet Russia..." comment in there somewhere.
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
Lost amongst all of the discussion about Microsoft's tactics is a realization that this kind of story may vanish in six to nine months, when Microsoft's Rights Management Server begins selling (and is used by Microsoft itself, no doubt).
Microsoft's RMS, in conjunction with Outlook, would prevent emails from being forwarded or printed by individuals who had not been preapproved by the sender. (And methods like "Print Screen" don't work, either.) Obviously, this becaomes even harder to crack once Palladium/NGSCB takes effect in 2005.
It was interesting listening to the NGSCB presentations at WinHEC. All I heard were MS employees describing how NGSCB would prevent company secrets from being leaked. Given the context of this story, is that a good or bad thing?
For many administrations, the political point of Free Software is clear: no vendor lock-in, spurn local economy and so on. While this works quite well in places like Germany at all levels within the administration, in other areas, where the "Free Software Fever" has only caught partial areas of interest, M$ is doing just what it says in the memo. For example, in Peru.
Last week, Steve Ballmer was in Spain. which some of you might know spurned the Linex Linux distribution (in Spanish), proposed a small autonomous community (a bit like a state, for the benefit of American Slashdot readers :D), which is now being deployed in other autonomouse communities, as seen here.
Steve Ballmer was giving Free Software a bollocing, saying that it was a waste of time and so on. I didn't see the story in /., but it was covered in both Barrapunto (the Spanish-speaking /.), and in some other blogs. Ballmer offered the Spanish government 25 M EUR worth of software (by that, read Windows/Office licenses) for education.
Clearly, M$ is seeing that local efforts can be thwarted by giving 500000US$ (in the case of Peru), or 25M ? (in the case of Spain) worth of licenses. The aim is to stop the local movements spreading, as it is seen in Spain (where other regions are taking interest in Linex) to a national level. In Germany, as the push comes from the top (or so it seems), these techniques don't work.
We'll see where all this leds us to in a few years, tho'...
Don't get me started on the people who use "accountability" in the same sentence as "MS software" ...
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
improving the quality is. Or would have been, if they had listened to me over the years ago every time I was asked what new feature I wanted to see in Windows. Without exception, my answer was always "None, just make what's there work right!"
I am done with Windows now. I was a dyed-in-the- wool Windows advocate for years. It took many, many mistakes on Microsoft's part to drive me away, but they did it.
Case in point: until the beginning of this year my home network was exclusively Microsoft. My server ran NT 4.0 with Small Business Server on top for printer/file sharing, sharing FAX services over 1 phone line and Internet access over another. I had as many as 7 workstations, all running Win95/98SE and, at the end, one running win2k (don't ask, I consult, develop hardware and software, write technical documentation, have a son that MUST run the latest games AND they're my toys).
Starting in January, my network hides behind a Linux firewall/router. The SBS server is down until I can replace the OS with some flavor of Linux. This is the result of of two things: signing onto my server one day and finding an advertisement on the desktop and endless, endless hassles with MS's proprietary proxy server protocols while trying to develop embedded web stuff.
There is now one Linux workstation, any new workstations will be Linux and there will be no XP workstations! This is a result of one weekend playing with the new "improved" XP desktop and looking at the traffic thru my server to the Internet while that XP station was running (tell me why in hell XP has to phone home when I open a help file?).
My primary concerns are now security and usability. All of the software I mentioned above was purchased; cost or the threat of an MS audit was not the problem. In the last 4 months I patched the Linux on my firewall/router once. Any guesses how times I patched NT or the many services that make up SBS in the four months preceding that? I don't remember myself but I do remember checking once per week and never, not once, NOT having to download a patch for some MS piece of software.
Free is not enough! Pay more than lip service to security and quality issues, quit invading my system for personal information just because I purchased your software, start thinking about MY rights instead of Hollywood's and get rid of the ever-fancier eye candy on each new release of your desktop (I got work to do, damnit!). Then maybe I will consider Microsoft software again.