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Is Windows Worth $45?
bgelb writes "This article from the Wall Street Journal questions whether Microsoft really innovates enough to justify the enormous amount of money (nearly 10% of the cost of every PC!) it takes from consumers each year. Hard drive and chip makers innovate constantly, but what about Microsoft?"
...does that mean I should pay less money each year for a QT license if they don't release a bunch of new features? ;)
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Not sure about the math, but last I checked, Windows cost a lot more than $45.00. Then again, if it only cost $45... as in I could go to the computer store and buy it for $45.00... then perhaps it would be worth it. Then I could take the money I normally have to spend on Windows and use it to buy VMWare instead (vs finding keys for it on astalavista.com) and then I could still have my Linux system with my Windows via VMware config all for a more *reasonable* price.
This post is a sarcastic attempt at irony and humor and not meant to be an admission of guilt for software piracy that would lead to the BSA knocking on my door.
The only thing necessary for Micro$oft to triumph is for a few good programmers to do nothing". North County Computers
I'd say Windows would be worth using if THEY paid ME. And, seeing as how I'm a sysadmin at work, I guess they kindof are.
Still, it'd be nice if I could get our company migrated to Linux or at leat Mac OS X.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Usually I would be the first in line to bash Microsoft, as would the vast majority of the slashdot group.
However, I do have to give them credit for Microsoft XP, being the best thing they have done in a long time, and for allowing me to use a form of Windows that can actually have a nice interface if you tweak with it a bit.
And for making a Windows that is easier to install, and doesnt crash quite so often, as Win98, WinMe, Win95, ad nauseum did.
So basically Microsoft needs to just wait, work on Longhorn, make it stable and release it once it is completely finished, with much much more stability and Bill Gates will just have to wait before becoming a quadro-gonzo-bobillionaire.
Post apocalyptic gaming goodness
Closing line of article >> "Of course, Microsoft's research group is still young, and its best years may still be ahead. They had better be. PC taxpayers might start rebelling."
Might start?
I am pretty sure that the trend of "OS-less" or free *nix preinstalled PCs is not going to lessen. I have bought many, many "mini-pcs" based on the micro-atx form factor over the years to use as a distributed server grid in some of my colocation cages to control Lucent MAX-TNT servers. They came with some noname distro of linux... and were cheap as dirt and worked just fine.
With more big name PC vendors taking this approach.. It will be very interesting to see *just how many* consumers really want Windows when the choice is put in their hands.
Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves? -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
What do you mean by "pirate"?
Is this the Microsoft definition that says that since I don't have a license for each and every CPU that I am "casually pirating" their software?
That's just dumb. I have bought Windoze many times in many different ways ranging from the Microsoft tax to computer shows to computer software stores... if I use windows on 4 machines and I have 3 licenses why should I be given this highly inflamatory label as a pirate? Once it gets through my door I should be able to use it as I please just as any other form of "Intelectual Property."
Wow.. fair use really must be dead as the corp guys said...
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
I'm posting this as an AC for obvious reasons...
Dell pays $4 for a license to WindowsXP home and $11 for a license to WindowsXP Professional. They have to pay this fee for every CPU*Computer they sell, regardless of what O/S it ships with. Those massive 64-way machines cost us^H^Hthem $256 in Windows licenses even if we^H^Hthey ship them with Linux.
what are they supposed to do- release feature patches every month the same way that hardware makers release revised editions and incremental models? Would you trust a microsoft patch which upgrades the filesystem? I'm not talking about a new media player or email client but some patch to the actual OS.
;)) so at least the whole system has been tested to be compatible with itself. If everyone else has a similar attitude then I guess the best we can do is wait the 1-3 years between versions and be grateful for what we get. One thing microsoft doesn't need is more pressure to rush their software to market.
I would rather wait for a new OS version than add another card to the teetering tower (ok, XP ain't *that* unstable
Build your own website - full service homepage system your m
I recently was on the hunt to purchase a laptop. I had no use for Windows as Linux suits all my needs. I went immidetly to the pro-Linux shops: HP, IBM, Dell.
I was very disapointed to find out that not ONE of the vendors would sell me a laptop without an operating system. ESPECIALLY IBM! I eventually gave up and went with my first choice which was IBM.
I guess my point is, sometimes you don't have a choice. You're stuck paying the MS tax.
Daniel
To everyone who's saying that the 45$ price is way out of touch with reality... READ CAREFULLY... The 45$ is what the WSJ is guessing that the computer manufacturers (eg: HP/Dell/Gateway) pay microsoft due to custom liscencing agreements. We may not be able to buy windows for 45$, but the computer makers wouldnt stand being charged full retail price when they use so much in terms of volume. Read carefully the article and the subtleties you will soon understand.
Not a chance its that high since their preinstallation members can get it for $70 in quantities of 10. An OEM is probably paying around $40, I think that 45 is a very reasonable guess
Some consumers have choices - most do not.
The article speaks of computers purchased through major distributors, such as Dell, or HP. These computers (and in fact most bundled machines) come with a windows license whether you use it or not.
Sure, a user can choose to un-install their "complimentary" copy of windows and install Linux instead - however that does not mean that they did not pay Microsoft for what they didn't want.
I build my own machines, like many other people here. And I strongly advocate doing the same to most of the people that I meet - but it is not an option for everybody. For the other people, they have to buy a bundle, and thus have to buy windows.
$45? Yeah ... It's worth that much to me. Easily. It lets me run the apps I need. $45 isn't really all that much. Heck, that's like one semi-nice dinner without wine.
Or "mayhaps" you should have bought a PC from one of the myriad dealers who sell them without Windows ?
Most people say "I can't buy a PC without Windows", but what they mean is "I can't buy a Dell without Windows".
This is the most on-target article on the subject I've seen in a long time. The only thing he didn't emphasize enough is that there is a deference between software research and hardware research. The sort of research that Intel does CAN'T be done by small companies or people working at home (for the most part). Intel, IBM, AMD and a very few other companies have the capital to do these kind of hardware innovations, and they may be helped a bit by government funded universities etc.
Software research can be done at all levels, by individuals, small companies, groups of individual working together. There is, and always will be Open Source software. I can't forsee there ever being an "Open" architecture CPU, that could be manufactured on a small scale (it would be a great thing if there was though!).
Microsoft's day are numbered unless they find a new business model. I don't hate them, love them, or feel sorry for them, thats just the way it is. A free economy will eventually favor value. It moves at a snails pace sometimes, particularly when impeded by monopoly practices and governmental indifference. But one way or another things will change, and anyone or anything who blocks that change will find themselves bypassed or submerged.
The article "does the math" that I'm sure even Bill Gates is capable of following. I just don't' think Microsoft has figured out how to respond yet. The stock market will punish them until they offer a response, and this article wouldn't be appearing in the WSJ if that were not the case.
Regardless if you like them or not, weither they need your money or not and weither you have pity or not for MicroSoft, no software developer should be punished by pirating their work.
If you dont support MS, then fine. Don't buy their product. But using their product (pirated or otherwise rented where legal), you're just indirectly supporting them by telling your friends and relations that it's OK to send you MS -formated documents (Word, XCell etc). You're not accomplishing much, in a show of disapproving their products or business model, by using their products.
The best protest you can make is categorically not using their stuff, and returning send documents to the sender and asking them to save it as an open format (RTF or PDF to name just two).
I don't use any MS product--even those that came with my Macs (including but not limited to Explorer) for this precise reason. For those very rare occasion where I simply can't escape it, I resort to an open source product that can read or convert said documents.
Act, on your beliefs.
I can afford Windows, but I still choose Linux. Why would I want to pay for an inferior, insecure product when I can get Linux for free?
Microsoft's OS design gives us only the menu-centric launching interface starting with Windows 95. It did one thing that the Mac OS hadn't (and still doesn't, being icon-centric in navigation of apps)--allow a quick way to launch an application.
Slowly, Microsoft added OS features that allowed plug-and-play hardware detection, and peer-to-peer networking. That's about all I can think of from the OS level. Again, nothing fancy--the Macintosh hardware was doing this since 1986 with the Mac Plus.
The Office suite was a nice integration of packages, however I don't know if that qualifies as innovation per se.
Has Microsoft matched its software pace to the rest of the computer industry pace? No.
SECURITY: While all other operating systems and hardware have presented and adapted new techniques to keep bad guys out with greater ease and reliability, Microsoft has merely patched and patched, foregoing any true complete redesign of any of their products for tighter security. A quick way to fix this would be to drop the W32 architecture as their primary architecture, pick up a Linux distro (they're free!), then have a new OS that runs UNIX apps, has UNIX-style security, yet can still run W32 apps. Remember that MS bought the Virtual PC emulation software, which is a much better WINE than WINE? (Mac users can testify to this). Running the flawed Windows in a virtual machine can isolate any malware inside the environment in the same way that Mac users run Windows in their version of VPC. That way any infections stay there, unable to affect the UNIX OS that runs the virtual machine.
PHILOSOPHY: Microsoft has never learned the KISS principle. Their software is too bloated with features that the designers thought people wanted without keeping focused on what was only needed. This bloat extends into the OS and its millions of code and all apps. Also, Microsoft is a "Not Invented Here" company that stifles competition (read: inspiration) that encourages new ideas and products. MS would have never dreamt of the hyperlinking browser--and they might have bought it up before CERN could get the idea out and buried it in a file cabinet if they thought about it.
I can go on and on, but I bet that others have a few more ideas that support what little I've said.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
Yes, to me, it is worth it.
/home folder on that device, and check for its presence at boot, never worked. I never did get that working -- and that's not even kernel hacking.
I'll admit that I'm a bit biased and didn't pay $45, or even $75 or $275 for my licenses of Windows -- I got them through Microsoft for Partners professional discounts, which gets me them for approximately $30/license (Professional) but there's so much more stuff in there that it's closer to about $6/license.
I'm not a new computer user. I've been using PCs, and the Windows architecture, for 14 years now -- since right around 1990, and Windows 3.1. I still, at this point, find Linux too difficult for me.
Case study:
Booting a *LIVE CD* distribution of Linux, it was impossible for me to make it detect my USB Mass Storage device. Then the autoconf script to place a
Then, fed up, I went on AIM (gAIM) to ask a friend who'd had similar experience. When signing back on with a Windows client later in the day -- my buddy lists were completely rearranged, groups were created with copies of people, and a handful of names were missing, for no apparent reason whatsoever. gAIM messed it up.
I'd love to use Linux, but I'm afraid to honestly, becuase of the fact that I don't know a thing about how to use it, and it doesn't seem to want to be used itself. I'll just stick to administrating Windows networks. Anything I've wanted to do so far, I've been able to do under Windows. That includes running Unix-only scientific tools - thank god for Cygwin.
I would rather pay to purchase a copy of a linux distro and support an open source cooperative than pay to purchase a liscence for a microsoft product and put another gold toilet in the Gates' House.
If more people felt the same way then maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't have to put up with another IE popup asking us if we want to enhance some random body part......
That really is my homepage, no kidding.
Actually, if windows xp home was available for a mere $45, it'd be a steal. the $45, i guess, represents what the OEM pays for it, not the price that consumers pay for a boxed copy. nonetheless, even $100 ain't bad. let's review;
red hat enterprise liunx workstation starts @ $179.00.
mac os x is $129.00.
i know there are free (beer) variations of linux and bsd, but you don't get much support. i know everyone rags on MS for the extent of their support, but let's face it, they do still support their software. MS just recently ended support for windows 98. windows 98, people. six years of downloadable updates.
when you grab the cheapie pc @ best buy for $400 that comes pre-loaded w/ win xp home, i don't care if emachines is paying $4, $40, or $400 to microsoft. i know i'm getting a pc w/ a legal os, and i'll get support for several years.
is MS evil?
sure.
is $45 too much to pay for an OS?
no way.
IBM, too, is famous for its research, and it has five Nobel Prizes to show for its work.
:-)
Just wait until the government in Sweden gets a nice deal on Windows and Bill Gates will have his Nobel Price too!
(If you don't believe, compare it with the deal the government in the UK got and that he immediatly after it got knighted
bash$
I'm wondering personally, what is the cost an OEM customer (Dell/Gateway/etc.) actually pays for Windows XP Home?
I've asked Dell before what discount they could give me if I wanted a Laptop with no OS installed, and the answer was "none." When I tried to get them to elaborate on it, I wasn't really met with a positive response in any way.
It seems almost as if users really don't "pay for" Windows XP Home, which is $99 retail, but rather they are rewarded with a free copy (or at least super cheap copies) simply because they are helping maintain the MS Monopoly.
This is where the vast majority of Windows based PCs come from: large OEMs.
Personally, I believe a more fair price would be $50 for home and $100 for pro. MS may even get more people to upgrade from 2000 or 98/ME with those prices.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
It's also morally wrong to use your "Intellectual Property" as a sword and not a shield... and it's also morally wrong to use your "I.P." to fleese every nickel out of someone for a product that has already legally paid for. If YOU are in favor of the GPL you will already know that the reason it even exists.
The GPL has neither one of these problem, thank you. I have paid for windows, and, for your information, I have a legal association with a university with an extended site license so EVERY copy I have is legal and I can run it where I want... LEGALLY.
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
I purchased alot of SUN hardware when I was an admin at a university here. Heres what you do -- call Dell, get some quotes, and then call sun tell them you were looking at dell, and magically the sun hardware you wanted is 40% cheaper. The largest system I bought, list was about 180k, I was very proud of having landed the hardware at about 107 grand IIRC, and I said to a friend of mine, "hey, I just got us almost 50% off on this deal." His reply, "You should ask them to raise the prices so we get an even better discount."
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
I have legal licenses for windows 3.1/dos 6.22, windows95, windows 98, windows 2000, and windows xp. That being said, I have 4 computers running win2k. Every time I have bought a new computer, it has come with the latest windows, why can't I just use the same OS if I stop using my old computer? I think I have paid the microsoft tax far to many times and have gotten very little. WIN95 crashed all the time, and XP would freeze at least once a day. I recently picked up a powerbook, and I am very impressed with OS X. I hadn't used a mac in years, and there has been some really innovation there. Windows hasn't changed much since WIN95. I think my next desktop is going to be a G5
sorry 'bout the mess...
That's not really the same thing though. By pirating Windows, you're simply choosing not to support MS. On the other hand, using GPL'd code in a commercial, closed source product involves making money off of other people's work. If you made copies of Windows on CDRs and sold those out on the street, that would be a bit more comparable to breaking the GPL.
The US computer market must be a lot different to the market in Australia. Here, there seems to be a mom & pop computer store on every corner, and because we're so close to SE Asia the parts come in really, really cheap.
The local papers are stuffed with ads for cheap PCs, and if you ask for 'no Windows' they'll happily delete it from the price. It might be different in the Eastern States (Sydney, Melbourne) where the large US firms have a presence, but Perth, Western Australia is a tech buyers paradise. (If I order from Dell they'd have to ship it 2000+ miles.)
It's as competitive as hell in these shops, they even charge 2% on top if you choose to pay by credit card instead of cash, since the merchant fees are higher than their margins. (I should know, I was a salesman in one of these places for 3 years in the late 80's. I'll never forget my first sight of a '386 PC)
So - do you have thousands of these little stores all over the US, or are you completely beholden to the big guys? I always wonder about it whenever I see 'OEM do this' and 'OEM do that' in US articles on Windows vs Linux.
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
That's how it works with everyone. I needed to buy a Dell server once. They only one they had that they would spec with the hardware I wanted was a job that had lots of unnecessary shit, like support for 4 processors. So I faxed the quote to Gateway along with what I wanted. Gateway was happy to design me one with the same specs, but not all the extra shit for a grand less. This then went back to Dell with a note that I'd buy it if they didn't do better. Turns out Dell COULD actually accomadate my needs with a lesser server and get everything I wanted in it, and at about $300 less than Gateway.
It's also interesting how nice Microsoft is to us where I now work. It's a university engineering department and as such has lots of UNIX in additon to Windows. MS gives us excellent terms on all their software, with compilers and the like being free provided they are used for research only.
Likewise Sun is very competitve price wise as both IBM and Dell have been frequent to point out how they could not only meet our Windows needs, but our Solaris needs too, and one system can run both OSes.
It is simply the way of a capatalism.
Windows 98 is still supported by Microsoft, but its six years old. Most software that old you probably wouldn't be able to find, let alone get it for dirt cheap. Yet I could walk into Staples or related and find 98SE Upgrade still for $80. How would you choose that over a similar price XP? I decided to look around at prices for Windows 95 since its no longer supported. One site had it for $40. Unbelieveable. I know the OS is intregal part of a computer system, but sheesh.
Take copyright and turn it around...
Right to copy.
Copyrights are rights granted to copy something... and copying it into your mind by reading it doesn't qualify. This is why we get all into talking about fair use etc. What constitutes copying? Partial copying, quoting with attribution, backup copy for personal use?
Anyone know what the default copyright's are? Are all rights reserved by default? What rights are granted by not explicitely stating what the right to copy is.
And in closing, I think copying a slashdot comment will more likely get you bitch-slapped than sued... but that's just my two cents.
Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
A better example is the middle scroll button. I saw them working in Taiwan mice about 3-4yrs before MS made them. Special drivers so you could scroll in ALL apps. When MS came out with theirs, the scroll only worked in its NEW office and IE programs. They couldn't even retrofit the functionality into its basic windows widgets despite owning the OS.
I never see the flippant attitude here towards the GPL as I see towards M$ EULAs. Just imagine people saying, "I have the code, I can do what I want with it, even distribute binary only!" and the uproar begins.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Dear Dell,
I wish to purchase 10,000 Optiplex computers for my Fortune 500 company. I don't want Windows on these systems. I want them to be shipped with blank hard drives. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Julius Dithers
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
uncouple PC's from the operating system. Maybe that's the remedy the justice department missed. When people go into Best Buy they have to buy the PC and OS separately, then BB installs it for them.
That won't do anything to punish Microsoft, but it will do a lot to hurt the computer manufacturers. Microsoft is NOT the ones preinstalling Windows on these systems. It's the manufacturers at the request of the consumers.
But it would still make a great government solution to the problem: harm the people you're trying to help. Dell isn't at fault, but the new regulation is going to hurt Dell. And your small mom and pop down the street isn't at fault, but they're the ones who are going to catch holy heck when they're not allowed to install Windows for grandma.
Or what about Apple? Why should they be forbidden from installing their own OS on their own hardware, when they're not even involved in this petty dispute?
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Exactly, if MS really wanted to compete, rather than bludgeon its way into dominance, it could really put the screws to companies such as Red Hat, Madrake, etc, by offering the "premium" product at the same, or perhaps even slightly lower, retail price.
But if you go back and read those earliest interviews with BG it's pretty easy to discern that even while a small upstart with no visible future MS has never been about competeing, or even making a profit. It has always been about dominance and control, a "how dare they" attitude to the rest of the world in general, while holding itself aloof and inviolable from any outside influence. This is why MS is hated, and has always been hated, since long before they were even big enough to be an annoying pimple on the ass of the computer industry.
Now that they are an abscess on the industry it's time they learned to play by the rules, or get lanced.
KFG
In reality MS is like McDonalds...McDs invents the burgers and puts up marketing, but other people pay to put up and run stores eeking out a living selling burgers. In reality MS only has several thousand customers...Or think of an oil refinery...they sell gas to stations..not You and I. because of that they're allowed to "hide" their tactics behind contract law unlike your local cable or energy company which sells to US directly...and is held accountable for every dime!!!
With the Apple, IBM, Next or Be equivalents we would be considerably FARTHER than we are today.
I'm not supporting the current state of Microsoft Windows, but Microsoft DOS had a critical role in the development of the modern PCs. We all owe it a lot.
Prior to MS DOS, every operating system was sold by a hardware manufacturer, and they wouldn't sell the OS without a computer. But Microsoft changed that. With MS DOS, it was possible for computers from two different manufacturers to run the same application without porting or recompiling.
MS DOS allowed Compaq to clone the IBM PC, which introduced real price competetion into the world of PC hardware, and eventually gave us the fast cheap machines we all use.
If IBM hadn't sub-contracted out their OS work to another company, computer technology wouldn't have advanced nearly as fast. (That company didn't necessarily have to be Microsoft, anyone could've done it, but Bill Gates lucked out)
Worse, from a purely selfish perspective, there's no choice in the matter for anyone (not just Joe Sixpack) when it comes to laptops. Sure, there are a few Windows-less brands out there, but even with Windows they're cheaper (presumably due to economies of scale) than the alternative.
I recently bought a laptop with a a 60 gig disk, 512 MB ram, Athlon 2400+, 54g wireless, and other goodies... but also WinXP... for $1k. Could I have gotten a comparable machine without Windows for, say, ~$950, or even $1k? Not that I could find.
do you understand the concept of flamebait?
in this case it is the TRUTH, not flamebait.
if it were about linux, it would be a LIE, and hence intended merely to piss people off.
get a freaking clue, dipshit.
Prior to MS DOS, every operating system was sold by a hardware manufacturer, and they wouldn't sell the OS without a computer.
What about BSD?
I wish Apple would release MAC OS X for x86 crowd!! That would be the winner!!
With CP/M, it was possible for computers from two different manufacturers to run the same application without porting or recompiling.
CP/M was a product of DEC, IIRC, and ran on several of the early 8086 and Z80-based computers.
MSDOS would only run on in IBM-compatable PC, so portability of the applications under it is a fairly shallow point.
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
Nobody will sell me a brand laptop (Dell, Sony, etc.) without Windows on it. I don't want Windows on it. I never plan on using it. I am forced to buy something I ethically don't want to, to get something I need. I don't want to be forced to pay the MS tax.
Isn't this anticompetitiveness? Why is nobody picking this up as an antitrust case?
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm prefixing this strongly, because it's important that people understand my position. I abhor Microsoft's practices, and detest their muscling around of other companies. Heck, Microsoft became a success due to what could be construed as Corporate Theft.
Now, that being said, I believe in the importance of stating valid arguments against Microsoft. There are many, MANY valid arguments that can be made against them, but the argument above is (sadly) not one of them.
When it comes to Operating Systems, especially ones that end users count on, innovation is detracting. A typical end user wants something predicatble, and above all, something that they don't have to reinstall, upgrade, or pay for in often occurring intervals.
The hardware industry gets away with innovation because they can appeal to 2 select groups of users that doesn't mind having to pay at closer intervals than the mainstream: gamers and high-end businesses. And through them, it filters down to the masses who are convinced by their zealousness that buying a new computer is good (when, most of the time, it's not needed).
Operating Systems don't have that luxury. How many things can one add to an operating system before A) You run out of things or B) You run out of things that won't put you into the realm of Monopolizing (for example, take the integrated Web Browser debate). Add those up, and it's hard to come up with reasons to innovate in the OS world.
Now some OSes are inclined to be more innovative. By design (and cost, if you consider that distributions can be downloaded for free), Linux can position themselves to be innovative, and often is. More reason to use them. But for Operating Systems that cost money, and already run the risk of Monopolization, it's just not a good idea.
-Vendal Thornheart
If Microsoft charges less, they face the "anti-monopoly" crowd. If they charge more, they face the "ripping-off-the-world" crowd. Microsoft doesnt have much choice in the matter, so they just keep the prices they have.
Isn't it obvious?
Microsoft research is no more than a patent factory - no more, no less.
They hire away talents so that they a) doesn't work for the competition. b) can expand on MS's strategic patent portfolio but not, as the article rightly points out, to actually produce anything usable.
What a shame!
Sure they were personal computers. Do you really think IBM invented the personal computer? They got on the bandwagon. However, once IBM started selling PCs, more businesses took notice and took the PC seriously.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Well said. I have NEVER seen any company pirate anything in 8 years of working in a small computer repair business. Certainly a few people took software home with them to use on home computers, but the company DID NOT KNOW.
I think the problems here are with younger people who do not have money to buy music and software, but if they ever come up with anything worth selling, their minds will very quickly change about copyright/patents and intellectual property in general.
If there is no money to be made in software because you can't sell it, don't expect products like Autocad to be made available outside large companies who will write their own "trade secrets".
I think some people have lost the plot. They expect free software, but won't spend a second to contribute, then whine about lack of features.
Is MS WINDOWS worth $45 dollars? I don't know where you can get it that cheap, I paid over US$200 for a Win2k upgrade. If it wasn't for Counterstrike, this dual processor baby would be running FreeBSD and taking a back seat to a Mac.
Why the focus on innovation? It costs a lot just to maintain the rest of the business, support, documentation, etc. I mean, if you want to make this argument about $45 for innovation, then we're being ripped off on most things we do in society that cost us money and have no innovation. To me it seems that $45 is actually not bad for the cost and complexity that goes into buying something like Windows.
The point is really: is it a _mandatory_ $45 hidden into the cost of an OEM'd PC; or is it an _optional_ $45 along side other operating systems
CP/M was a product of DEC, IIRC, and ran on several of the early 8086 and Z80-based computers.
MSDOS would only run on in IBM-compatable PC, so portability of the applications under it is a fairly shallow point.
Well firstly CP/M was a product of Digital Research, a different company than Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Also in the beginning PC's weren't that compatible. They could put the video memory at a totally different location. You'd run MSDOS on those PC's, while only hardware-compatible PC's could run IBM's PCDOS. Usually the BIOS was so different that a lot of software didn't run. Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.0 was a good compatibility test then.
Many of those early XT's had 768 KB of memory, and with CGA graphics you could use it all with MS-DOS. The 640 KB limit was because the EGA card put its video memory at A0000. The '640K is enough' quote is from an IBM engineer, not from Microsoft.
Anyone that's right-dragged a file in Win2k has probably seen the odd alpha-blending that Windows does. For those that aren't subjected to a dose of Microsoft at work, what it does it take the filename you've right-held on, invert the background (like normal selection in Win98) and then - this is the bit that gets me - alpha-blends it away from the point at which the mouse pointer "holds" the filename. And not just horizontally either, we're talking a full-on 2D alpha-blend. Ironically, I think it's supposed to make it look pretty, but with long filenames it tends to make the end furthest from the pointer unreadable.
Is Microsoft just adding twiddly bits and calling it innovation?
biopowered.co.uk - catalytically cracking triglycerides for home automotive use since 2008. Just say no to big oil!
I do sell intellectual property, and in many cases, don't particular care if it gets used by unlicensed people. Those who need exposure, will do anything to get it (starving artist syndrome).
What keeps me using purchased microsoft product, however attractive those eastern european CD knockoffs are, is the assurance I'm getting virus/trojan free software. For me, that's worth the $200-300 price tag.
It is extreamly unlikely that a software EULA would stand up in court anyway. As said, they simply cannot prove that you accepted it, a condition that is required for any suit under contract law. (It is possible to get windows installed without even seeing it! Just delete/rename/edit the file containing the EULA.)