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Microsoft at the Tipover Point
David Gerard writes "In the wake of Microsoft's first flat quarter, The Inquirer brings us The IT Industry Is Shifting Away From Microsoft - Linux is being taken seriously, Microsoft is not trusted and our favorite monopoly is finding it harder and harder to compete with 'free.'"
it'll take time until Microsoft actually lose money.
I however believe they could develop, then enhance (read: "embrace and extend") their own version of Apache like cnet (before RedHat) did with Stronghold and sell this special Apache/NT...
This would for sure seduce any PHB even though it is not guaranteed to be better than the others ports.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
The editorial points mostly at Microsoft's failed offerings like MSN and Xbox, saying that the 80% profit numbers for Windows and Office can only sustain the failed products as long as Windows and Office remain profitable
Humorously that article on the Inquirer (which is notorious for such factless drivel) repeats an oft stated claiming that only two Microsoft products make money (which is something that is classic in the community -- repetition eventually is presumed to be proof). In reality two Microsoft divisions make money by the truckload, and these divisions comprise all of the business software such as SQL Server, Exchange, etc. Ah well, I still would be saddened if I didn't see that myth repeated verbatim a million more times.
i dont mean to sound like a troll, but this guy seems to have a lot of facts and figures but no indication of where they came from.
Gyrate Dot Org - "Where high-tech meets low-life"
Nobody would like to see MS get a whoopin' like me, but let's be realistic; MS is one of the largest, richest companies in the world. If Gates wanted to, he could by up every Linux company with pocket change (although he might have Justice Dept. attorneys all over him).
The point is, when you have Bahrain's GDP sitting in the bank, that makes one very hard to "tipover." I put a little more credence into what financial analysts are saying than some Inquirer opinion.
And isn't the real battlegound desktops?
I do hope, as the article suggests, that Linux does force some MS price reductions.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
The interesting twist, IIRC, is that Microsoft decided to but a dagger in IBM's back half-way through, and began forking their effort into what would become Windows NT. IBM, on the other hand, failed to market OS/2 and wouldn't even prebundle a computer with OS/2 for fear of reprisal from Microsoft.
Don't get me wrong... OS/2 was a nice operating system, offering many modern amenities (multithreading, windows-like UI, nice development tools if you had the $$$), but it failed because it lacked a killer feature to lure Windows users away... especially after Microsoft took away IBM's license to bundle Windows with OS/2.
Anyone remember OS/2 for Windows?
shudder
Mike Magee must be desperate for page hits: the author of the piece can't even count.
/. extra ad hits.
Microsoft only started breaking out the seven subunits about a year ago. During each of the quarters since then, three units -- not two -- have made money: client, Office, and server and tools. More than that, MSN (you know, the horrible money loser?) made money last quarter, and shows no signs of slowing revenue growth. That's four of seven making money, not two.
The author of the Inquirer piece would like to lump the two OS divisions together, but that makes no sense: F/OSS systems don't compete against the client yet, only against the server and tools segment. Revenue in that segment is growing faster than the segment. That's not being beaten by Linux; it competing solidly, despite a price disadvantage.
Worse, for the author's thesis, the handhelds division is hardly "losing money fast" -- instead, it's losing money at a constant rate, with its revenues more than doubling each year. If current patterns continue, that division will be profitable in the current quarter or the next quarter. That's not clearly going to happen, but it certainly doesn't seem unlikely.
That leaves two divisions not making money: Home and Small business solutions. Those are both new businesses for Microsoft, and they're both businesses where Microsoft expects to lose money for about a decade, just as it did with servers, with MSN, and with handhelds.
But, hey, the story predicts the death of the internet...I mean, the death of Microsoft. SO we've got to front page it to give Magee and
But Netcraft does collaborate it. 67% Apache and rising, 21% Microsoft and falling.
In one sense, the Enquirer article seems correct. In another sense, by not naming the really serious problems with Microsoft products, the article almost praises Microsoft.
For example, "Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP have crippled file systems." The file system cannot copy some of the files that are necessary to the operating system. Microsoft provides no way of making functional backups of its newer operating systems! (Yes I know about Sysprep and NTBackup and third-party methods. Microsoft technical support agrees with my statement.)
Microsoft uses proprietary file formats. You can't reliably work with your intellectual property created with Microsoft products unless you pay Microsoft money!
Microsoft can change the license terms to which you are bound after you have made your purchase and agreed to the terms!
Who was using the more than 60 serious security vulnerabilities found in the last two years in Microsoft products before they were fixed?!!! Foreign governments? Your competitors? Hackers?
Sun seems to be making money off of "reasonably priced."
LOL, Sun, the company that hasn't had a profitable quarter in 3 years, that is showing billion dollar losses every quarter for the last year? They are "making money" no, my friend they are losing and losing badly.
Microsoft doesn't have to or care to get into the text-terminal emulation business, they have NetMeeting and XP's RemoteDesktop.
Windows Media is used by a fair number of people, but yeah, a lot of normal people still use Winamp. Though microsoft always needs a couple tries before are able to dominate a market.
Microsoft doesn't have an answer to Photoshop, but that could easily change at any point.
And the mathematical stuff isn't used by a ton of people, so you could similarly ask why Microsoft doesn't have great MIDI sequencing or circuit layout tools, but microsoft is more interested in software that further their goal of world domination. Or they don't want to get into niche tools, or, I dunno. :)
> Its likely that a group of hackers would crack it, and allow Linux to open the "secure" content, but that would be illegal, which kinda kills the idea of Linux as an OS for the masses...
In the near future we will have two kinds of platforms. One platform will be a fully integrated appliance that runs Windows in DRM-nightmare mode with BIOS lockin. These will be for those who just want a computer to type letters and check e-mail. They will use it like they use their microwave. Microsoft will take care of all updates and security configuration, and they will track your usage and use it for marketing purposes.
The other camp will be composed of business users, hackers, and those curious enough to want to do more with their computer than what the manufacturer tells them to. These people know the importance of firewalls and updated antivirus. The computers they use will not draconian DRM and BIOS locking (at least not in a way that isn't able to be disabled). They will likely be using an OS other than Windows, since Windows will require trusted hardware (except possibly some small business who use their work machines to do little more than they would do at home). This camp will likely run a Unix variant and Mac OS X (assuming Apple doesn't do something really stupid).
You and I will run *nix/OS X at home, and our parents will send us e-mail on their Windows media centers (or better yet, Windows Embedded) that are plugged into their HDTV.
Microsoft's business model has built up around the ever increasing share price, to buy other companies and to woo developers. The share price has increased steadily because the revenue has gone up steadily. The long article describes this in a lot more words.
Revenue can't increase any more. The US market is saturated. Foreign markets can't afford list price or anything close, so Microsoft has condoned piracy up until recently, rightly figuring a stolen copy buys mindshare that a legitimate copy of somebody else's software doesn't. But with all their carping on piracy, and especially with Hollywood screaming about piracy, foreigners have been cracking down on piracy and turning to alternatives like Linux.
That's the cause of the flattening.
Infuriate left and right
You are right - because he missed one important point:
Microsoft is for the first time going to offer dividend on its stock. It's a sure thing that the company no longer is a growth company.
From an investor point of view I think the company is very pricy.
Just saying it like it are.
Then you've never used Interface Builder. I've done GUIs in both VS.Net and Xcode/IB, and I can assure you that the latter is faster, easier and results in far better products in less time.
Of course, it depends on what you mean by "free." IB is free as in beer. But, of course, Visual Studio is neither beer- nor speech- type free.
I wrote that piece because I wanted to. I have a bunch more to write, and some that I have already written. One got slashdotted yesterday in fact. I am under no pressure, deadlines, or quotas, and as far as I know, the Inq doesn't do that. I just happened to have free time, and no news to report, so I did a lot of the stories that I have not had time to do recently.
-Charlie
No IDF keynote link (I didn't want a kiss anyway) but here's an Intel page about EFI:
http://www.intel.com/technology/efi/efi.htm
According to this info, EFI is a replacement for the old PC BIOS standards. For example they have a replacement for VGA called UGA, and it looks like they are improving the expansion card ROM access methods. I certainly agree with the idea of fixing the old broken cruft.
How is MS planning to use EFI to hurt Linux? I don't see anything obviously evil on this page.
Anything sold as a PC that doesn't run Linux properly will get flamed by the techs, will have trouble competing in the market, will have lots of "broken" returned systems, etc.
-- laws are the opinions of politicians --
While I won't argue w/many of the points in the article, there are a number of errors in it. It points to MSN as being one of the money losing groups and says that only two major products make money.
a in.asp?dcn=0001193125-03-080353&nad= or http://biz.yahoo.com/e/031113/msft10-q.html .
Well, MSN recently turned a profit. I guess he never read the SEC 10-Q filings at http://www.edgar-online.com/bin/edgardoc/finSys_m
He also talks about "Then it came out with a 'student and teacher' version of Office..." Err, there have been educational discounts for a LONG time even when I was back in college back in 1992. It's not something new.
While MS's stock is pretty richly valued if you look at the P/E, it isn't terribly high compared to the rest of the S&P 500 or other tech companies.
While there were a variety of word processors before Microsoft Word, its direct ancestor was Bravo on the Xerox Star sytem. One of Bravo's authors was Charles Simonyi who moved from Xerox PARC to Microsoft and became one of the developers of Word. I'm not suggesting that any code was lifted - in fact, I don't think it could have been since Bravo was written in Mesa, which as far as I know never ran on Intel processors - just that Simonyi brought a lot of ideas with him. I used Bravo once or twice and disliked it for some of the same reasons I dislike Word - I hated having to try to position the pointer finely in order to do anything rather than using keystrokes as in Emacs (or for that matter, Wordstar).
I doubt it, at least not yet. If they had 5 quarters in a row that were flat, then maybe. With their cash on hand it will take six to ten years to rid the world of this pestilence. If they are still flat in one year, 5 in a row, I'll start smileing real big, 10 and I dance on the desk.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
That's a laugh; that the people running non-DRM hardware will be locked out of anything!
Many (free) websites already try to lock out anyone who blocks ads. With Trusted Computing you can't see the web content unless the ads are displayed. That alone is enough to take over a big chunk of the free internet.
There are already websites that try to use java script to encrypt content and links to block you from copying images or other content (and lock you out if you aren't running javascript). With Trusted Computing it becomes impossible to copy images, news articles, or any other text.
There are already websites that try to lock out "deep linking". With Trusted Computing "deep linking" is impossible without permission.
As we all know the New York Times website already tries to lock you out unless you register. With Trusted Computing they can enforce the registering process.
There is already software that refuses to install (WinXP and Turbo-Tax for example) unless you install them through the registering / copy protection system. With Trusted Computing they can enforce registration and anti-piracy measures.
Cisco has anounced new routers that supposedly "block viruses and worms". All news sites - including Slashdot - bought the story. What they actually do is check that you are Trusted Computing compliant and then they can check that you are running approved and up-to-date firewall and anti-virus software (or any software at all). If you aren't Trusted Computing compliand, or you aren't running the software they check for, then the router denies you an internet connection. Everyone wants to block viruses and worms, right? These routers must be a good thing, right?
With Trusted Computing websites and ISP's can make YOUR computer to enforce their Terms of Service on you. ISP's can make your computer enforce bandwith-caps. Slashdot can make your computer enforce the various junk-filters and posting rate limits. Heck, Slashdot can direct your computer to track your Karma.
Trusted Computers can provide security for online purchases and protect your creditcard and other info. It will be advertized as supposedly protecting all of your personal information and providing privacy.
Trusted Computing will be hailed as blocking cheating in online games. You already get locked out of many CounterStike games if you aren't running PunkBuster.
Trusted Computing will be touted for fighting spam.
It is being sold for business use, to enforce document policies, things like E-mail that cannot be forwarded. It can also be used to enforce document DESTRUCTION policies, ensuring that all E-mails and memos and other documentaions all gets destroyed after a certain time period. Very handy to eliminate the problem of old embarrassing internal documents from causing trouble in a lawsuit.
And then most obviously pay-websites will all use it to restrict access and pay music services will use it to enforce DRM and movie downloads will use it it to enforce DRM. And naturally some companies like Microsoft will abuse it to lock-in customers.
And then of cource there are countless other things and uses that I can't think up off the top of my head.
It costs $50,000 just to join the Trusted Computing group to TALK about the system. Hundreds of millions of dollars are going into this. Countless companies like IBM are involved. These are not stupid people - they don't throw away massive money on plans that "obviously" can't work. It is a very real threat and it has a very real chance to succede.
Your AOL/INTERNET example may be right - but in reverse. After a few years, if Trusted Computing becomes entrenched, then the "open internet" can become "AOL" surrendering to the Trusted-network.
The only hope to defeat the Trusted Computing inititive is if there is a massive public backlash against it.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
#No. This is not only completely false, but quite inflamatory as well. The banning of partial-birth abortions, which involves sucking the brain out of a living baby who just happens to have its head in the birth canal, specifically allows abortions where the mothers health is at risk. So you are very WRONG.
Actually, the PBA ban that was recently signed by the Prez includes a finding of fact that PBAs are never medically necessary, and as such, the law does not include any exemptions. This was a response to a SCOTUS case which struck down a similar PBA ban in Nebraska which did not include a medical exemption from the ban.
In my completely non-professional opinion, I can't imagine PBAs being medically necessary, but I think the authors of the recent PBA ban were foolish not to include that exemption because of SCOTUS concerns.
"Back" to hard-line communism? The last time people in China felt that they could speak their mind in public, they were assaulted by tanks.
... often.
Horseshit. Every time I have been to China (last time 2000), everybody complains about the government, in public, all the time. The government doesn't care.
China still jails their citizens for the slightest criticism of government policy
Horseshit. Only the really vocal critics are jailed, and generally only if they are published.
The ones treated the worst right now are the Falun Gong people. But interestingly enough, they are not jailed. They are taken to mental hospitals, drugged and 'reverse brainwashed'. Despicable behaviour, but probably no worse than was done in Western societies until about 20-30 years ago.
regularly suppresses religious freedom by putting leaders of congregations in jail.
Yes. They still do that. Wish they did it elsewhere occaisonally too.
Their one-child policy (whatever the perceived need) takes away the fundamental human right of reproduction
All rights are granted by humans. There are no fundamental rights.
requires (REQUIRES!!) abortions in many, many situations.
Actually, it was more like economic pressure than force. Have more than one child and you lose your food coupons (which means you starve). These days prosperity is taking care of the one child policy all by itself in the big cities. In the country, peasants are still having more than one child
pay only the slightest lip service to international law and systematically, institutionally, defy legitimate and reasonable copyright and patent laws
Well, the Chinese invented gunpowder, paper and modern agriculture, so start paying the fuck up already.
Oh did you mean the European version of intellectual property rights where your rights are protected but fuck everyone else?
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