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Is Microsoft Money Crushing Microsoft?
JoshuaDFranklin writes "The latest Seattle Weekly has an article by a former Microsoft project manager titled Microsoft's Sacred Cash Cow. It argues that Microsoft, addicted to its Windows and Office revenue, is stifling innovation within the company: 'new, better ideas that would take business away from Windows or Office don't really have a chance at Microsoft.' Apple, in contrast, has embraced Open Source and is delivering a better consumer experience." Update: 06/06 21:24 GMT by T : Sorry, it's a dupe.
Can I get paid to be a Slashdot editor? I'll only dupe half as much as the others and I come cheap!
Microsoft never innovated BEFORE they had money. They don't innovate NOW. They just don't innovate. It's not part of their corporate culture. They wait for other people to (1) invent things and (2) prove them to be profitable, and then they move in and sell them. Sometimes they look for people who might potentially be a threat later (Netscape) and they throw money at putting them out of business. But this is all they have ever done. Talking about their Windows/Office revenue streams "stifling" innovation is silly; there's nothing there to stifle.
... and a pretty badly written, incoherent, biased, and decidedly uninformed story too, to be honest.
The guy may well have worked at MS once, but it didn't take long for him to become a Born Again Mac User.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Much as I like a good MS bashing session, haven't we seen this before, kind of recently as well?
For example Microsoft money is not going to take away money from office or windows. I'm not sure what the author is suggesting here. Will xbox sales decrease windows revenue? It sounds like a non-problem. All I can see is that all the money goes to windows/office first and what's left over goes to other products. In which case that's just economics...why throw most of your money into a gamble?
:(){
They changed the Matrix, all watch out!
It's kind of science-fictiony, but I believe when they go to work, the Slashdot editors are put in darkened rooms where they can't see, hear, or talk to anyone about anything. They're not permitted to look at previous stories -- heck, they barely know what Slashdot looks like. It's more of a slavery under a cult than a profession.
I mean, what other way to explain the fact that stories get repeated again and again?
Yes, but will you be smart enough to dupe only the articles that make Microsoft look bad?
It's the bias that pays.
Microsoft has never been big on technical innovation (although when it comes to licensing and marketing, they've come up with some new tricks). They've done a few new things here and there, but their time-tested strategy is to let other companies do the pioneering research and develop markets, and then either buy those companies and/or steamroller them and take the market. They don't take risks because they don't need to.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Yup, from three days ago.
Try out this other website, kuro5hin.org. Have you ever heard of it? It's neat. Instead of "editors", the community votes in stories. This neatly prevents the "duplicate stories" problem, because the community votes down EVERYTHING, thus ensuring dupes are not possible because nothing's ever posted to dupe.
You should give it a try.
No, you read it here.
http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
the fact that apple delivers a better costumer experience has much more to do with vertical integration (hardware + OS + drivers + application) rather than the fact that they embrace open source.
what open source did for apple was that they could provide a whole bunch of services in a compatible, attractive fashion that would have been very costly to develop. M$ doesn't really need that, they have their own services (web server, file server, databases etc) already.
....at least this iteration of the article had a catchier headline. We'll see how next week's will stack up.
Yes, Darwin as a UNIX platform is open-sourced. But honestly, can you really say that Apple has "embraced open-source" anything without cracking a smile?
Last I checked, they were the one of the largest proponents of proprietary software/hardware. Granted, they have let up a little bit in releasing development tools for packages like iTunes. But all the same, that's a long ways from embracing free and open source code.
Also, Apple tends to lean HARD on Microsoft for office tools. In that vein, can you really say Apple has diverged from the path Microsoft set? I'd argue no.
If the shoe fits, wear it. If the software sells, sell it. But you can only fix up and re-sell the same shoe brand before the customers start wanting something different.
I know nothing
Apple depends on other vendors for some of the products on their platform, and they still do things that aren't open source, therefore they have not embraced open source?
Perhaps Apple has embraced open source in those areas and only in those areas where they believe it is to their advantage? This seems like a good idea to me, and it leads to a situation that benefits both the open source community and Apple.
I am willing to take the burden of any money they feel is crushing them. $100, $1 million, $1 billion. Whatever amount they need to be free of, I will take it. It will be a struggle, I am sure, but it is the least I can do.
wee, what part of it makes it crash?
yeah i had to try it, now back in opera, reading source.
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
Posted by michael on 03/06/04 13:13
from the watch-out-for-cacodemon-bob dept.
I know I read that last week and I swear the link was on here...
I could have sworn this was a "on fark 2 days ago" story, not a dupe.
I was in a store yesterday and saw an Apple computer for $799 with a builtin 17" LCD display. Those monitors usually cost over $400 so the marginal cost of the iMac was less than $399. I haven't owned a Mac in over 10 years mostly because of price but the difference between PC and Mac is becoming close enough that I think I will try one out next time I purchase.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
"Funny.. deja vu"
"What was that?"
"Nothing, I just saw an article on Slashdot, and then I an article just like it again."
"Was it the same article?"
"Could've been, yeah."
"Deja vu is when something changes in the Matrix."
"Oh no, the way is blocked..."
"...and there are Penguins coming after us!"
-- n
Microsoft never innovates or popularizes a single idea!
Hang on while I go install KDE with a taskbar, start menu, integrated filesystem/net browser, Mono, etc....
"Sufferin' succotash."
The lack of innovation at Microsoft is because they still don't "get it".
All over the world, businesses, universities and government agencies are switching away from Windows, usually to Linux. But Microsoft continues to believe that the only problem is a lack of FUD.
So Microsoft invests millions of dollars in FUD machines (SCO, the Alexis de Toqueville Institute, etc...) and continues on, business as usual.
Publically owned companies are often judged by their profits, as a percentage. Windows and Office have massive profit margins, thanks to their now-minimal upkeep costs. New ventures, on the other hand, would decrease profits because they would have a high investment cost. It's irrelevant that in the long run they will increase profits, because investors are a bunch of gullible sheep who lack the ability to think in the long-term.
Microsoft was not the first to either invent or implement the start menu, the integrated file system / net browser, or the safety-checked bytecode-based API. In fact with all of these they were literally years and years behind other commercially successful implementations.
Now that you mention it, Microsoft may well have been the first to use the task bar window switching concept. Well, bravo Microsoft! Too bad it isn't a terribly good concept. And come to think of it, it isn't one that many linux/unix GUIs actually use.
The fact that KDE was even later with some concepts than Microsoft does not make Microsoft creative. Last I checked KDE was a very small-scale project struggling just to stay alive. I don't see anyone promoting them as harbringers of innovation, making your attack on them really something of a straw man.
how he magically copied his files from his old MS system to his new Mac. (Despite the fact that he gets to bloviate on this topic a second time.) He sure made it sound like it would be an impossible task going from old Windows (98?) machine to new Windows (XP?) machine.
Have you Meta Moderated t
"Apple, in contrast, has embraced Open Source and is delivering a better consumer experience."
Yes, MacOS can even interface with alien technologies and introduce a virus into the alien technologies to save the Earth!
Vote for Pedro
"But in the first five minutes on my new Mac, I was surfing the Internet, sending e-mail, and ripping a CD. OS X has been a breath of badly needed fresh air after Windows."
You rate your entire OS of the 5-minute out of box experience!? You can get the same effect by changing shampoo...
Recall in recent memory how IBM held on to the mainframe business (S/360 derived products) in the face of small systems products nearly sinking the company.
... From lightbulb to number 200 on the Fortune 500, to out of business in 30 years!
My own former employer, Amdahl, held on, right along with the IBM company to that same cash cow model. Amdahl was not as resilient as IBM and now is gone.
I got mine. You get yours.
Serious question. I could have sworn Taco said subscribers would be aiding in the editorial process...
We get dupes just as before, at an alarmingly increasing rate.
"Sufferin' succotash."
The OSX core that's OSS'd isn't really that important, or had that much of an impact on the OSS world as a whole. There are a few decent Kernels out there that people are free to use, and work fine. I mean we're not seeing RedHat/Darwin or anything like that yet.
When Apple Opens Aqua, or iTunes/iMove/etc. Then you might be able to claim they've embraced it. Until then, they're just using OSS as a tool, same as many other companies. Microsoft on the other hand is trying as hard as they can, and coming off rather insane (just listen to their GPL == teh eval rants).
----
Anyway, the premise of this story is rather laughable. What sane company would "innovate" their way out of the products that actually make them the most money. It would be suicidal, and the stockholders would kick your ass to the curb (or sue you if they couldn't). Also, those products allow Microsoft to peruse innovation in other areas, which they wouldn't be able to if they didn't have the cash.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
blah, it's not in the page, i bet it's the url, which would mean there's a bug in the url loader. :P
well at least it's just explorer it crashes hope it doesn't do anything but crash it eh
anyway, i'll go tinfoil myself, and come up with something funny to send to those hotmail users.
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
Then why are they so wildly, unprecedentedly successful both in terms of installed base and money?
Seems to me they certainly got something right.
Leave aside for a second the problems with the content, check the grammer: it is "Microsoft's money crushing Microsoft", NOT "Microsoft Money crushing Microsoft" -- or do you think it is their Quicken ripoff that is sinking the company ?
Apple, in contrast, has embraced Open Source and is delivering a better consumer experience."
What is up with you people and Apple?!!
My God! Give it a rest.... Please. You're killing us here!
I can't get away from the Apple worship even if I block apple stories. It's everyway.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Apple. But Apple is just another Corporation who's goal, as with all other corporations is to, *gasp*, maximize profits for its shareholders.
Ironically Sun ( http://sunsource.net ) and IBM has done orders of magnitude more for Open source than Apple. And at least Sun gets beaten up everyday here. Apple though is worshipped to the point that it is frickin' nauseating to the rest of us.
Come on guys, fanboys just aint cool.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
First of all, it's a dupe about a non-innovative company. Ironic. Secondly, there's so many comments saying the same thing, that it's a dupe. So, dupe story about a company that copy their ideas, is commented by dupe comments.
This makes a lot of sense. Microsoft hasn't innovated anything for years, if at all. After crushing its competitors (Netscape, WordPerfect, etc.), Microsoft hasn't really made any viable updates to its software. Take Windows for example. The first few versions of Windows were bad and it didn't take until Windows 3.0 until Microsoft finally made it usable enough for developers to develop on it. Windows 95 was probably at Windows's peak. It's interface was very usable, didn't really get in the way, and had a lot of developers.
But then, Windows's quality deteriorated beginning with Windows 98, when Microsoft integrated Internet Explorer as a means to kill Netscape (and when Windows now had a 95% market share). However, as many people on this board know, integrating a browser to an operating system causes all sorts of problems, and Windows has gone downhill ever since. Windows XP, for example, is more stable than Windows 95/98, but it suffers from more worms than those operating systems, it's "eye candy" (if that's what you call it) is really an eye sore, and the interface gets in the way (compare the Find dialog in Windows 95/98 to the Find command in Windows XP, you'll see a difference). Ditto for Office, last time I checked, Clippy is still there. Microsoft Word has a lot of other annoyances (ever tried outlining there? It's a pain).
Now, look at Apple. Apple has made a lot of innovations within its whole lifetime. It was the first to bring the graphical user interface to the secretary's desk (Apple Lisa and Apple Macintosh). Apple has made a lot of innovations that make many processes very easy (for example, in the old days, all you needed to do to network two Macs together was to connect a printer cable to each other, and then use Chooser to share files. No network configuration or anything. Try that on an old PC.). Finally, Apple took UNIX and fused the Mac OS with UNIX to make, after a long process that includes NeXT and Rhapsody, to create Mac OS X. Mac OS X is the only UNIX-based operating system where it is so easy for a non-geek to use without much difficulty, yet the UNIX pro could access the core using a few mouse clicks.
Apple could be considered one of the masters of usability. The operating system never gets in the way of your work, you control the computer. This is different from the Microsoft approach, which is the computer controls what you do. This is exactly why Apple hasn't came out with something annoying like Clippy or that dog in the Find box in Windows XP.
Microsoft needs to do something drastic with Windows and Office. Microsoft needs to start innovating, make Windows and Office user-friendly again, and finally make a stable version of Windows. Windows doesn't need a UNIX core (Microsoft spent tons of money on NT; besides, Microsoft adopting a UNIX core wouldn't be innovation), but Windows should be stable enough to use on a regular basis without any problems. Microsoft should also fix many of its other applications, such as the rapidly deteriorating and antiquated Internet Explorer, and not integrate the browser with the operating system. Isn't it about time that Microsoft should learn that integrating a browser with an operating system causes instability within the operating system? It's like, whenever Microsoft finally takes control of something, they sit on their couches, raise the prices, and the quality of their applications deteriorate with each and every new release. Microsoft needs to innovate fast here, and improve its products.
> Microsoft never innovated BEFORE they had money.
You hit it right on the head.
Is Microsoft Money Crushing Microsoft?
No, it's crushing me and everyone else who wants innovation, artistry and quality.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Everyone has a "right to profit".
However, a "perfect market" limits profits to near zero. With no barriers to entry in a business, which is a lot like "neglecting friction", competition will force prices down toward costs.
A 100% markup is only possible if the barriers to entry in the field are high, which they are in this case.
However, the barriers to entry are falling also. Once the OS or Office suite, or whatever are "good enough", the impetus for upgrades evaporate. At that point, competing products have a chance to catch up to the target of "good enough".
Microsoft is suffering from "good enough" now. As are hardware makers. Most people don't use much, if any, more capabiity than was available in computers/software in 2000. Microsoft is dependent on people buying a new computer (and, implied, a new OS and Office suite) every couple of years. This was a workable model until the computers got "good enough", and has been suffering since then.
MS aggreed to contiune developing Office if Apple would give half ownership to MS.
Half ownership of what?
The terms of the 2000 deal were (1) Apple dropped their IP infringement suits against Microsoft; (2) Microsoft formed the Mac Business Unit and made a committment to four years of native OS X Office updates; (3) Apple signed an "IP cross licensing" agreement basically removing their ability to sue Microsoft for IP concerns; and (4) Microsoft purchased a large block of non-voting Apple stock, which they later sold all of at a profit.
What are you referring to?
100% agree with Kunte, the pro-Apple kowtowing is a pathetic joke. Apple deserves respect for their marketing and packaging, and for presenting a great alternative to the Microsoft hegemony/monopoly. But they do essentially NOTHING to support open source, have they released much of their proprietary code? They are using the 'steal-me-please' BSD stuff, just as Microsoft has, really they are not -that- much better. Being better than MS (yes, Apple actually DOES innovate on occasion!) does not make them gods. So cut out this religious shit already.
This claim needs to be laid to rest. Brent Spiner (the long-haired "mad scientist") had been studying the alien tech under wraps in Area 51 since the late 40's ("we don't get out much"), so Jeff Goldbloom had a head start in figuring out how the hack the alien net.
He was paraphrasing the article.
But they do essentially NOTHING to support open source, have they released much of their proprietary code?
Yes. Apple has been continually backporting the improvements that they make in Darwin and feeding them back into the FreeBSD project.
They still haven't done anything to open source anything GUI, but I don't see why they're any under obligation to do so.
Yes, I can honestly say that Apple has embraced open-source.
Apple's Web Kit is the only way that KHTML would have be on millions of Macs and PCs. Additionally, Apple commits changes back to the KHTML project. It's entirely symbiotic. Apple gets to use it in iTunes and Safari, and KDE gets the changes.
Apple's Darwin Streaming Server is the OSS port of their QuickTime Streaming Server. Apple even provides binaries for Red Hat and Solaris. It is trivial to port.
Apple was the first to throw major support behind zeroconf, an open networking standard, and provide libraries under OSS licenses to enable wide adoption.
Apple employs Jordan Hubbard, a major contributer. Apple also puts out Darwin with Jordan's help.
They do more if you're willing to look.
If that's the brand new price it's an eMac, and they're not LCD, they're CRTs
Not a bad CRT as CRTs go, but still a CRT.
It's Bill Gates and his corporate culture of 24-year-old computer-history illiterates.
I saw a line recently that said, "The only thing of value passing through a politician's mind is a bullet."
Same applies to Bill.
Get rid of Gates and his toadies like Ballmer and Microsoft might use its 56 billion in cash to amount to something.
As it stands, Longhorn is going to be a disaster and Linux is going to destroy Windows within the next ten or fifteen years - even though Linux really only has one major advantage - it's being worked on by people who at least care a little - people with at least some personal motivation - and it's cheap.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I'm no apple fan, but here's the brillance of their switch from the old legacy operating system (os9) to their new, quasi-open source system (osX):
1. They now have a super-computer ranked within the top 5 fastest systems in the world. Before osX, they weren't even on the list.
2. They have a true multi-user operating system that has 30 + years of R&D behind it. Unlike Windows which began as a game-playing, home-using OS and has been modified into something it was never designed to be. Talk about baggage and cruft... all for what???
3. Apple are leveraging the horde of BSD utils and devel skills out there. This saves them tons of money and gives them favor with the OSS crowds. One could argue that BSD isn't true open-source... RMS and other FSF/GNU proponents certainly would. In short, Apple isn't trying to be a big, altruistic company with true open-source (ie GNU/GPL) code, and they've never claimed to be trying to do that.
Microsoft could learn a lesson or two from Apple on this... Hell, MS used BSD code in their tcp/ip stack. But, look how long it's taking MS to bring out Longhorn (their next gen OS). They'll be years behind when they finally come to market with it... we as consumers will see plenty of their old, historic OS in the mean time... XP reloaded anyone???
"If you can measure what you speak of and express it by a number, you know something about your subject; but if you cannot measure it, your knowledge is meager and unsatisfactory."
lets see,
Movies (repeats,sequels)
Software/Games (text editors, repeats, sequels)
Music (covers, pop, linkin park/eminem/puff daddy syndrome)
Radio (consolidation)
TV (consolidation, reality tv)
how much longer can this continue 10 years ? 50 ? 100 ?
and they thought it would last for ever
I know this is offtopic, but these pictures are HILARIOUS and must be seen to be believed!
:) (NSFW)
Day after party
You actually had valid points eventhough I disagreed with them up until:
"...yes, Apple actually DOES innovate on occasion!"
Occasion? Are you kidding? Try every couple of 4-8 weeks. If not hardware, then software, if not software then delivery or distribution, if not delivery or distribution, then something completely off the wall comes out.
You took the context of the article wrong too. It said Apple has embraced open source - and it was referring to the fact that Microsoft is fighting it. That has no connotations that Apple is open source itself.
The article I believe means that Apple continues to produce award winning applications like iLife: iTunes, iPhoto, GarageBand, iDVD, iMovie - while Microsoft just puts mediocre apps like Movie Creator and claims it's a value.
The article is essentially saying that Microsoft is so focused on apps that AREN'T selling computers and Apple IS!!
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Microsoft was not the first to either invent or implement the start menu, the integrated file system / net browser, or the safety-checked bytecode-based API. In fact with all of these they were literally years and years behind other commercially successful implementations.
That might be true, but lately I'm actually starting to see some signs of innovation and creative thinking coming from MS. The new "pop-up blocking" technology in Internet Explorer is a very good example.
We can't judge a company by only one of the things it does. MacOS X is not licensed under a license approved by the Open Source Initiative. Parts of that operating system are proprietary. Darwin may entirely be licensed under an open source license, but the convenience and features people associate with MacOS X are not found in Darwin.
Furthermore, it's no accident that Apple has "embraced open source" because the open source movement's philosophy and criteria for license acceptance was crafted to cater to business.
Digital Citizen
I the mid 80s I was working at Microsoft and a certain Gates anecdote sticks in my mind. I was sitting in the company cafeteria eating a PB&J when I was joined by Bill and someone else, already in conversation. If you remember, the Ollie North scandal was big then, and Ronald Reagan had just finished saying "I don't recall" for 3 days straight to Congress.
The other person was saying to Bill, "so, if you woke up one day and discovered you were gay, who would your boyfriend be?" Various hunky idols were tossed out, but Bill was obviously uncomfortable with the topic.
Then I said, "I would go out with Ronald Reagan. Because if I woke up straight the next day, he wouldn't remember a thing !"
I thought of that conversation when I saw Bill's deposition on TV.
with their excess revenue problem. Just send a little over here, I'll give it a good home!
M$ is not innovating because they are throwing
more and more people into fixing bugs and jury
rigging the piece of crap called Microsoft
Windows, and trying desperately to ship Longhorn on
schedule. There simply isn't enough manpower to
spend on innovation. No matter how many billions
they have, they simply can't hope the match the
developer manpower of the Open Source community.
You seem to be implying that Microsoft doesn't spend money on new projects and ventures, but they do. I don't know what numbers he used to make the comparison, but at TechEd Steve Balmer said that Microsoft's budget on R&D each year is second only to Pfizer's. I believe MS spends tens of billions of dollars annually on research.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
What's the point in releasing innovative products when you've got the entire market stitched up? I bet they've got a whole raft of secret uber projects just waiting to soak up any unsuspected change in status. They're a company in it to make money, so of course they play their cards close to their chest.
Yeah right, FUD bitch.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
The likely next step for Google is to offer its customers remote storage space, a virtual hard drive on which to store all of your files, share them with friends and colleagues, and access them from anywhere.
Reifman suggests that Microsoft's salvation lies in signing up portions of the Windows user base for services (20 million x $19.95), but they've already been beaten to the punch on this one. Check out Novell's Virtual Office. Not only can you do these things with virtual office but you control the information because it's hosted on your own servers. This was the failing that Reifman pointed out for Microsoft's Passport service. Evidently Novell has learned from Gate's mistakes.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
But how could their own check-balancing software be crushing them? I mean, I know Quicken is better, but...
I do not know what you regard as "new" and "innovative", not to speak of "technology". The iCab Browser I am posting this with does
use that "new", "innovative" "technology" since 1998/1999.
Mh... a typical MS-burlesque, isnt it?
>I'm actually starting to see some signs of innovation and creative
>thinking coming from MS. The new "pop-up blocking" technology in
>Internet Explorer is a very good example.
SELECT editor_id, count(article_id)
/. editors?
FROM articles
WHERE dupe = 1
GROUP BY editor_id;
Are there any dupe statistics for
And the dupe award goes to... T?
Search and games.
Microsoft never innovates or popularizes a single idea!
Way to misrepresent the grandparent's point by adding "popularizes" to that statement. You are changing the terms of the argument.
Hang on while I go install KDE with a taskbar, start menu, integrated filesystem/net browser, Mono, etc....
So your real point is that KDE (et al) is copying Microsoft. Mono ports .NET which is mostly a Java re-hash without the cross platform compatability. MS got to design it's languages with plenty of data on Java's strengths, weaknesses, and position in the market before they made their move.
The Start Menu is little more than the Apple menu on a Mac. It looks a bit different and it is on the taskbar instead of a menu on the desktop. The basic idea is the same, though.
As for the "integrated filesystem/net browser," if it even is an innovation, it's terrible. It adds virtually zero useful functionality and exposes my operating system to all sorts of hacks.
The taskbar had been around in various forms before MS made it a part of Windows.
This isn't an anti-Microsoft post. I'm not terribly anti-Microsoft. They make some good products that I use every day. The grandparent is correct, though. MS, despite all of its money and coding talent, is never the first mover on a new technology. They wait for an implementation of an idea to hit the market, assess its viability, and then use it if they see fit. This is actually quite good business sense. There is no first mover advantage anymore (if there ever was one). The first mover invariably makes mistakes and exposes inherent design flaws in their products, exposing them to competition from newer competitors in their market space. I'm surprised that more big corporations have not figured this out.
While thinking philosophically, we see problems in places where there are none. -Wittgenstein
The ability to log in to all our favorite Web sites with one password.
.NET interface. Personally, I'm not to keen on regular backups to a storage site on the Internet. I'll backup to a spare hard drive sitting in front of me, thank you.
It's called Passport.
Spam blocking for our e-mail accounts.
Hotmail does this (and does it well). Outlook 2003 does this.
Calendar sharing with colleagues and friends to schedule meetings.
Uh, how many years has scheduling been a part of Outlook?
Automatic address book updates for all our contacts.
See previous.
A virtual hard drive on the Internet for sharing files, photos, and music with our friends and access to these files via the Internet while traveling anywhere in the world.
Isn't that what a website is? I'm certain MSN provides this.
Synchronization of our Internet bookmarks across all our computers.
The Files and Settings Transfer Wizard lets you transfer whatever you want.
Online profiles of personal information that we could choose to share with Web sites and social networks.
Again, Passport. When Longhorn is released, this will be an even more prominent feature.
Regular backup of files to a storage site on the Internet.
Just wait and see how everything will be net-enabled when Longhorn hits with its entirely
Regular application and system- security updates.
For a while there it was quite often, but it's been a couple of months now since Windows Update alerted me to anything critical. I consider that a good thing.
One-step migration of files and programs to a new computer.
Again, it's called Files and Settings Transfer Wizard. This guy is supposed to have worked at Microsoft? It was one of Windows XP's new major features, specifically intended to do just what he described.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Good joke. fine.
/. culture, the "obligatory XYZ quote" types of jokes mostly involve some lines that have *actually* been said by the XYZ character (or in the XYZ show/movie/story etc) and which now apply to the current situation at hand strikingly well in therir original form with insignificant modifications (such as exchange several words or concepts).
/. culture.
But may I ask what's so "obligatory" about it?
As much I know about the true
But what you are doing here, while admitedly still a good joke, is writing a whole new dialog based on a Matrix scene with whole new settings and concepts. So IMNSHO, it shouldn't be titled "Obligatory".
Please, let's be responsible and let's preserve the Original Taste of the
Windows's quality deteriorated beginning with Windows 98
IMO, DOS-based Windoze wasn't ready for prime time until W98SE.
No previous versions should have ever been released--and of course, by then NT was out, so the GUI+DOS crap should have never have seen the light of day anyway.
[The bad shit really started] when Microsoft integrated Internet Explorer as a means to kill Netscape
No argument here.
gewg_
What is up with you people and Apple?!! ... My God! Give it a rest.... Please. You're killing us here! ... I can't get away from the Apple worship even if I block apple stories. ... Apple though is worshipped to the point that it is frickin' nauseating to the rest of us.
I'm getting tired of such accusations. Realizing that someone else does something better than Microsoft does it does not make someone a fanboy. Only a M$ fanboy would think something like that. Had you read the article you might have noticed that the former Softie's main point was that he liked his Mac more than M$. The author is not a fanboy for noticing and the submitter is not a fanboy for paraphrasing the author.
It's not hard to beat the M$ experience, even for a traditional commercial software vendor. The author gives a list of unforgivable Microsoft performace issues, from Word woes to daily crashes with XP. His general impression is that M$ was getting so bad that he could not get his work done anymore. The author then lists some really neat goodies that the Mac gave him, all without technical difficulties. The opinion looked reasonable to me.
So why would anyone use the article as a chance to say nasty things about Apple? Oh yeah, looking at your latest journal entry, we see that you think you are a troll with style,
Shout-outs to 'Reminiscent Troll'. Tried to copy and adapt your trolling style a bit.
No style points, Toby.
Apple has enough sense to actually design interfaces, use GCC, X and other free and open software. They have done that and made a better end user experience that Microsoft can and made money. Kinda sucks for Microsoft to be beaten that way, but that's what happens when you get all wrapped up in your own presumed greatness and become your own biggest fanboy.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I'm a .NET developer. 3 1/2 years ago I made the move from VC++/MFC to .NET (got one of the early betas), mainly C# and VB.NET. Since today, I've never been a "fan" of Microsoft, I just used their product since there was no alternative.
.NET - MS really supports their developers (as you can imagine ;). But now I see, how fast everything goes, how IT changes. Of course I've got a parallel Linux installation on my Windows box since several years and I think I'm using it 50/50 of the time I'm using my home PC. I've been using Linux since Kernel 0.98, I received it on some 5 1/4 floppies some 10 years ago. So I'm no one who just jumps on the train because its "hip".
.NET. Ok - I love the technical implementation of .NET, the strength of VS.NET and #develop - I think Java still needs some things that .NET has today.
...
Up to now.
When I was moving from VC++/MFC, there was no Eclipse plattform, it just begun. The only Java IDE that would have been appropriate for the project I'm now working on was JBuilder - but we didn't have got enough money to equip a whole team of developers with JBuilder Pro 'cause JBuilder is *really* expensive.
And 3 years ago, there also wasn't OpenOffice, Samba 3.0 or Ximian Evolution. All the really good productivity-tools have reached a usable state right now - and also our customers still fully rely on MS products. So what would you have done ?
So we decided to got the MS way with
If I read articles like *this one*, I don't think I will have a future as developer when staying only at
But I'm not convinced that MS can keep going like this - especially if Sun open-sources Java
I think I will make the move over to Linux/OSS - I'm tired to be named a "Microsoft idiot", "closed-source-asshole" or something like that. I'm not responsible for what their doing. All I want to do is write *good*, *user-friendly* and *stable* software.
I've trained myself really hard the last couple of years, eating up as much books on OOP-in-depth-theory, database optimization etc. and so on.
But what I'm REALLY EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED ABOUT IS THE FOLLOWING : When people who just have started learning Java after they own a computer since 2 years treat ME LIKE AN IDIOT - especially me who has a really critical relationship to MS.
This arrogance, this absolute male-specific boastful talk - that's hurting me really, because I know that I'm doing my best in database & OOP-design and I think I'm writing good code.
Recently a friend had the hard drive of his thinkpad crash. Faced with a considerable delay on a replacement IBM drive (seems they are replacing a lot of drives), He asked me if I could do anything about it. I said I'd install linux on a flash drive and mount it on his system. He asked if I could fit linux on the drive and my other friend noted that you could install linux on a Zippo lighter.
Well a few hours later we had the 182 MB SLAX distibution up on his thinkpad and he's overjoyed with the functionality. Once we score a 1 GB drive we're putting a compressed Knoppix distro on.
The point of thos story is that when a free as in beer and speech mini live-cd distro of open source gives you the majority of XP's vaunted capability we are approaching a tipping point.
In a similar vein, my Zippo lighter friend is seriously considering using the Quantian Live CD distro for teaching his college courses.
My third friend runs a mini-ITX system with WiFi I built for Christmas. Just to illustrate the point about the thinkpad I booted the SLAX distro on her system. It installed flawlessly and she couldn't find any difference from the Win 2k on the hard drive for her purposes.
So fast forward to 1-2 years from now when nano-itx PCs with Knoppix burnt into ROM sell for $99 in bubble packs in Target and Wal Mart. Where does M$ stand then?
Are Slashdot dupes crushing Slashdot?
This month's issue of Scientific American has a lengthly article on Microsoft's research division including an interview with Bill Gates. Its general conclusion is that Microsoft has one of the biggest pure computer science research labs ever. Apparently they have wooed some big names in the CS field to do research for their unit. It even likens what they are doing to the work Xerox PARC did back in the early 80s that ended up being the foundation for modern computing.
I rather trust Scientific American, so blame them instead of me...
what other way to explain the fact that stories get repeated again and again?
Did you ever think that some stories might be so good you'd want to tell them twice? A guy who spent 8 years working for the Soft telling it like it is. I was a little dissappointed to see that yet another Softie has not decided to publish a well reasoned criticism of M$ bugs contrasted with the smooth and professional operation of any other platform. Never the less, it made my day to see it again. Could be a mistake, who cares?
A nasty little Microsoft Apologist, like you bear a grudge against Slashdot? No, say it ain't so! Did you run out of bad things to say about Apple while begging people to not hate M$ from your last go at this story. I mean, why else would you berate Slashdot itself for a known and easily ignored problem?
Slashdot ... It's more of a slavery under a cult than a profession.
I doubt it, but even if it is you still won't get fired for saying something nice about Apple.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If Open Source is such a perfect model (as many here proclaim it to be), then won't it naturally be the best way for a corporation to maximize its profits?
Open Source (and especially Free Software) advocates do serious damage to their cause when they conflate maximizing profit with evil intentions, and proclaim open source as some sort of cure.
IMHO, the BSD license is used by programmers who want to see their implementation used in the widest possible applications, because they believe that progress comes from standing on the shoulders of giants (and they wouldn't mind being one of those giants.)
Apple has offered plenty of open source back to the community. Rendezvous, Open Directrory, Core Foundation, HFS, IOKit.
But these things are offered specifically instead of all their software creations because the adoption of these things as the foundation for other people's products will help Apple... and help maximize Apple's profits.
Don't think for a moment that IBM and Sun approach the issue even the slightest bit differently.
-pmb
Awwwwww, sounds like someone's jealous that they don't have a mac :'(
Ya...i always wanted a computer that looked like those Unisys computers from the 80's...
We can be sure they also spend plenty of money trolling Slashdot and other BBS. They have been Astroturfing forever and will always do it. There's more to their efforts than paying people to skate around New York City in tacky butterfly suits and gum up the world with MSN stickers.
Microsoft's whole business model fails in a free software world. They are a vendor. They package free and non-free software into their own little system and sell it non-free. They use BSD when they feel like it, but they have sworn to be leaches by never entering a "market" before it is "mature". M$'s worst nightmare is to be surrounded by other companies who can not only package the same software better than they can, but who also make new software and want it to reach the end user finely packaged and free. It's already happened. As the former softie points out, Microsoft's work is markedly inferior, even to other non-free software. Stuff like Fedora, Knoppix, Mepis and other Linux distributions that replace everything Microsoft does must be giving Bill Gates a heart attack.
FUD is a delaying tactic and the weapon is the US Government and bogus laws. Microsoft is hoping to use DRM and the DMCA to make it legally impossible for others to compete on commodity hardware. I doubt hardware vendors will go along with it, because such schemes would give Microsoft too much power, but the intent is there. Perversely enough, the worse Microsoft makes the end user's experience of viruses, malware and the like, the faster they will get bad laws passed.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Its greed.
"don't rock the money boat.. we don't want to risk changing the working formula" " suck every dime out of the saps we call customers"
Anything that deviates from that goal the slightest is discarded
.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
What of all the great developments of Xerox PARC did Xerox bring to market?
The question is whether innovation produced by Microsoft researchers' admittedly-brilliant people in the labs is permitted to become innovative new products. Innovation is by it's nature disruptive.
With a 95% monopoly they could hardly help popularising things. We're talking about innovation. They have never *innovated*. In fact, "Microsoft innovation" is a running joke in the IT industry. It's almost an oxymoron.
I mean, search Google for Microsoft and innovation, surely an MS site will be top of the list explaining everything they have invented? No, instead the top sites list things which other people invented but people assume came from Microsoft.
Deleted
When the best a MS apologizer can do when faced with Microsoft's failures is try to pull out "uh well Linux is even worser!!"
Guess what, Linux isn't the only competitor Microsoft has ever had.
Microsoft's cash itself is the problem! A good part of Microsoft's assets are its immense pile of $56 billion in cash.
In the good old days of Windows 3.1 to Windows 95, Microsoft had a return on equity of over 40% and a growth rate to match. It was the darling of the growth stock investor. It couldn't miss!
But now, with cash of about $56 billion, earning about a couple per cent per year in interest, their overall return on equity is more like 11 per cent. Remember again that a good percentage of their assets are cash. In plain words, as a growth stock it's a dog!
But maybe it is a value stock, then? Well, remember that they have over 10 billion shares outstanding! Yes, that's only a little over $5 cash per share. Believe it or else, Microsoft could declare a special one-time dividend of only a little over $5 per share and their cash is (poof) gone.
So the point really is, what is the point?
If they try to develop a new, gee whiz product, how could it hope to add even a little bit to that huge cash pile, so why bother? And the cash pile limits the return on equity anyway, so why bother?
If they give back the cash to shareholders, it's only $5 per share, so why bother?
And if they give the cash back to shareholders just to raise the return on equity, how can they be sure that this will take them back to the good old days of Windows 95, to the days of people not knowing what an OS was, but lining up at the crack of dawn to buy one! So why bother?
And I bet that you can think of who would be the main beneficiary of such a dividend, can't you? And do they need the cash? So why bother?
P.S.
This is almost a text-book lesson on why a company can't sustain a return on equity or a growth rate of over about 20 per cent per year for very long!
I am not quite sure what this guy is talking about. I haven't rebooted my home pc running WinXP since the last power outage, which was several months ago. I use most of the products he mentions, including outlook as well as a host of others. I've never had to reboot because of any one application.
My work PC gets rebooted maybe once in two weeks, mostly because I am debugging a memory leak or something like that.
>>Whenever I bullet a line of text, every line in the document gets a bullet.
So, he should have attended the training seminar while at MS. But seriously, what is he talking about?
I don't think you'll qualify, since you managed to have your words all spelled correctly.
"...but will you be smart enough to dupe only the articles that make Microsoft look bad? It's the bias that pays." - Sad but true.
-- Note to liberals, yes please flee to Canada.
We always say microsoft has not innovated. WHat does that mean?
It means that what they have chosen to release into the public, to market, has not been innovative.. and has often been mediocre. We don't really respect them for it at all, right?
That doesn't mean that internally there is no innovation.. microsoft has a LOT of good programmers, and developers, and so-on... not everyone at microsoft is an MCSE know-it-all.. many are very talented, learned people.
Given that, and given some examples that slip through (like Office for the mac.. it's actually quite a bit nicer than the windows version)... you can see that they are capable of producing good software that plays nice.
The question is whether, as a company, they will choose to market such software.
If most of their solid income is from corporate windows workstation & server licensing... a model that requires lock-in and a fairly closed minded development model to continue generating revenue from... then they will naturally persue that over, say, writing good mac software that everyone likes, yet making far less money.
The problem, in short, is that they make the most money from their sleaziest practices...
Only six zillion more /. dupe's to go to catch up to the Microsoft advertising dupe's. We're on track!
---
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
He's using sarcasm to make the point that what MS is just now trotting out has in fact existed in several places for several years. And that that's innovation, Microsoft style.
KDE/Gnome are no more inovative than Microsoft. They try to clone Microsofts feel in all their apps to make switching easier, instead of creating a new way of doing things. On a few things, KDE/Gnome make it much more difficult, such as interface iconsistencies, and confusing, highly nested system settings, most all of which are text based, with no icons. The problem with KDE/Gnome, is they try to stick as close to a CLI interface as possible within the GUI, useing text instead of icons.
No, but off the top of my head in the past two weeks or so Timothy has duped 4 or 5 times more than all the others combined.
Come on timmy, is everything all right there in tim land?
You can talk to us. We'll listen.
Microsoft innovated patenting the double click ;)
You have NO brain. If open source doesn't make money, then why are so many companies behind it? IBM, HP, and Sun, just to name a few. And why are so many countries pushing it? Japan, China, and Germany, just to name a few.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I finally get it! It turns out that the "June 2-8" dateline on the Seattle Weekly article is supposed to be a direction to /. editors as to when they should post the story on the frontpage. So far they've been doing a bang-up job.
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
I suppose the block put on Microsoft purchasing Quicken has been working... One popular little $20 program, yet it is bringing down the entire company.
Let's see... IBM, HP and Sun generate a lot of their revenue from consulting. MS also does consulting. Take a look as MS's share of the Windows consulting market vs all others. Now take a look at linux. It's not about opening the source it's about opening up the consulting market.
By the way if anyone from Coke or Pepsi is reading this. Please send me a copy of your cola recipes. I would like to compare the two and come up with my own recipe. What do you mean no? What about open source? Oh yeah - Open source only makes sense to companies whose primary souce of revenue isn't generated by their I.P.
HAHA.. No innovation?! Obviously You have never tryed this brilliant piece of software
and now Tom with the weather...
Opensource lends itself to services based products and hardware tie-ins. Look at IBM and Apple. They are good examples.
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
One could argue that IBM is addicted to its mainframe revenue. They charge some hefty fees for maintenance and support of those monolithic relics. Any software company that is more than 10 yeras old has some sort of 'cash cow' which provides steady income. If you dont like that then buy newer technology, nobody is forcing anyone to buy anything. You cannot blame the crack cocaine dealer simply because he sells you what you need.
If you don't know what you're talking about.
Apple has been consistently feeding improvements back upstream to the two open source projects they've heavily borrowed from, FreeBSD and KHTML, in the form of no-strings-attached patches. As a result both products have been at least to some degree improved. I don't exactly call that "no compensation".
Gee, once again no brain. "Open source only makes sense to companies whose primary source of revenue isn't generated by their I.P." I guess you don't know that IBM is probably the LARGEST source of IP on this planet! It has more patents than God.
Secondly, there is no IP associated with Coke's recipe. Recipes cannot be copyrighted or patented. Thus, your analogy fails.
And worse of all you ADMIT that open source can make companies money!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Microsoft has Kajiya and Blinn, two of the biggest names in computer graphics. At times I've seen some good stuff at SIGGRAPH from them. However, that's been dropping off over the past few years. The only marginally significant contribution from Microsoft last year was a fairly obvious way of laying out Wang tiles for large textures.
Also, I've noticed that Blinn and Kajiya lack an entourage at SIGGRAPH. There was a time when if they projected an image of Blinn at SIGGRAPH, everybody cheered. Not any more.
Some other great Microsoft innovations:
* A bold new method of shutting down a PC--After all, it's completely logical that the first step in the shutdown process should be to click the "Start" button.
* The system registry--because everybody system needs a single point of failure stored in an opaque, obsfucated, hidden file accessible only through special utilities. You have the choice of getting lost in a giant tree of settings of a "friendly" user interface, with no "undo" button and the ability to cause your machine to stop booting. Alternatively, you can export to text, edit the file and re-import the fatal mistakes when you are done. Brilliant!
* Integrating the GUI (and later the web browser) so tightly with the OS that the OS cannot fully function without them. After all, it's very important to sqeeze the best performance possible out of the graphics system so you can have richly animated menu appearance effects and have the contents of the windows adjust as you drag and resize. That's especially important on a server where the administrator can be watching the screen a whole five percent of the time it's on right?
Given Microsoft's business plan, their corporate structure, and their top management, how would you suggest that they go about releasing any of the results of this research to the real world.
Wouldn't they have to shoot themselves in the foot to do so, in one way or the other? What happens when the research results make present Microsoft products look like the cheap crap that they really are?
Do you really believe that Microsoft's extremely conservative top management would take the necessary risk? Remember that top management is backed up by dozens or hundreds of equally conservative "Microsoft millionaires" who like working on a "campus" with little demand on their capabilities!
Microsoft has billions of dollars to waste. What usually happens in such circumstances?
P.S.
Horrible example: What happens if this new crew builds the ultimate OS with all the gimmicks known to computer science and Chaiman Bill demands that it must keep, in every way, the "look and feel of Windows", e.g., all file path names must begin with C:, D:, etc.?
I hear Longhorn will have the ability to send viruses to aliens. However the aliens will also have to run Longhorn or it won't work.
Given that, and given some examples that slip through (like Office for the mac.. it's actually quite a bit nicer than the windows version)... you can see that they are capable of producing good software that plays nice.
Microsoft is actually quite smart. If they actually wrote good software all the time, then they'd be screwed. Because they would have made great software, so great that they can't think of any way to innovate it. No. Microsoft actively chooses to make mediocre software, that way they can make the next update just a little bit better for hardly any effort.
I can't stand the way that KDE and most (if not all) Linux apps handle task-bar-like functionality. For example....if I click on a window that belongs to the Gimp, only that one window is made active. The Gimp is an app, and an app usually consists of a collection of windows, palettes, etc - when I activate an app, ALL of the associated windows should be brought forward, not just the one. The way it is now, I have to fish each window out of the pile separately, and that is a pain.
Micrsoft being crushed by the weight of their own money. I pictured the final demise as the buildings are crushed under the billions of quarters falling from the sky until it reaches the full value of the company.
I think, what the guy above you meant is that Open Source makes sense to companies that are looking to commoditize products popularized by OSS.
For instance, it is in IBM's interest to commoditize functions such as Operating systems and web servers because they sell a lot of middleware on top of these products. Note that they are not participating in any OSS application server projects.
If this is so, then why is OpenOffice even more mediocre?
Yes, Apple's strategy is a good one in principle: they are leaving the commodity software development up to open source and they are adding value to it with brand-specific software development.
The trouble with Apple is that they are probably drawing the line in the wrong place. Apple seems to seriously believe that there is value in Quartz and Cocoa and they are spending a lot of engineering effort on it. But, in reality, there are no graphics capabilities in Quartz that aren't present in modern X11 systems, and an Objective-C based toolkit is merely a burden these days. You could easily create a GUI that looked and felt just like Aqua on top of X11, and ran faster to boot.
That leaves me wondering: is Apple doing this deliberately? Maybe they do want to "own the platform" after all, not for technical reasons but for the same reasons as Microsoft and Sun: to control it and entangle their developers in proprietary APIs. Maybe Apple figured out that you don't have to be 100% proprietary in order to have a captive audience, 50% proprietary is enough. Or can they really be so confused that they think Quartz and Cocoa add value to the platform? And how "open source" are the open source components of OS X anyway--I don't mean legally, but I mean in terms of development--Darwin isn't exactly a hot, widely used open source project.
Altogether, it's unclear to me that Apple really has changed so much. They are, of course, under no obligation to use an open source desktop or open source toolkits, but as long as they don't, they are still delivering a proprietary system with all the consequences that that entails; in particular, if you develop for the Macintosh GUI, your software will not run on any other platform without a lot of porting efforts.
if I click on a window that belongs to the Gimp, only that one window is made active. The Gimp is an app, and an app usually consists of a collection of windows, palettes, etc - when I activate an app, ALL of the associated windows should be brought forward, not just the one.
Right-click the GIMP windows (you are running a KDE that groups all windows from one app together, right?) select "MOve all to Desktop->pick an empty desktop". Now when you want to bring the GIMP to the front, click on the desktop on which it sits.
I tend to have the GIMP on 2, Blender on 1, and Mozilla, a terminal, and a few odds and ends on 3, while I'm doing graphical work. And I go ahead and let KDE put all applications on all desktops in the process bar so I don't have to remember which desktop each app is on, I can just click on *any* GIMP window and KDE'll automatically take me to the whole GIMP.
Like what I said? You might like my music
And that isn't even a "feature" of KDE. That has to do with the way The Gimp was written. And in my opinion is something that needs to be fixed.
The Farewell Tour II
Isn't Bills strategy of selling once written
SW to millions of users and getting rich by that
process sounding like another scam ? It probably
is.
I was just thinking about this the other day.
Why is it that a corporation worth ~100 billion dollars is apparently unable to come out with an OS as stable and smooth as one written by some bozo from Finland?
I think the answer must lie in short-term profit motivation.
There are now finally things about Microsoft OSs that aren't horrendously bad. XP and NT now have uptimes measured in weeks and maybe more if you don't actually use the machines for anything.
But the degree of suckitude that does exist there is just utterly staggering. Look at the command shell for gods' sake. I guess they are tailoring the OS to a very narrow set of procedures needed for business and recreational computing, and not much more.
I don't know what's to come for Microsoft. They're beginning to get that surrounded feel-- they'll have their niches, but now with Apple and IBM both supporting Unix, it's starting to look like the Cathedral and the Bazaar.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
Yeah, and companies make money at that. Which contradicts his point that there is no money is open source. And one last thing, HP, Sun, and IBM all put money into open source development. So you're wrong about that too.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Most people aren't server admins ;)
Nonsense, Microsoft is a singular here in the UK too.
Except that in the UK people say, "Microsoft are coming out with a new version of Windows in 2005." It still jars my delicate American sensibilities whenever I listen to the BBC.
I am subjected to the British flavour of English every day, from the time I leave my flat and take the lift to my office, to when the cleaner comes to empty the bin and I return home to watch the telly with my bird. While some Americans think Britishish is brill, I still fancy American English.
Let's not forget that the mouse, the internet, the GUI, the hypertext were not inventions of Apple.
In fact, any real innovation (i.e. to invent something that does not exist before) came out of individuals. The most important ones are Doug Engelbart, inventor of mouse/gui/hypertext (1968) and Tim Burners Lee, inventor of the web.
Zerox is also an important innovator for 'inventing' the document metaphor in computers. Apple has paid attention to them before Liza / Mac.
there's nothing new under the sun.
Spending on research does not make a company an innovator any more than going to church makes a person religious. Innovation involves making bets on the new and untried research. You may have a ton of research behind you but if you don't have the balls to use it to make something new that will actually be used by someone, then you aren't innovating, you're wanking, paying lip service at the altar of innovation, as much as a hypocrite showing up at church faithfully every Sunday while failing to apply his faith in daily life.
From the article, that's exactly what they're doing. Further, their ENTIRE history from day one shows them to be parasites who wait for someone with a good idea they can pounce on just as it's becoming big.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
I don't think I ever suggested that open source could not be profitable and I don't think the original poster did either. I was answering your question as to why, I believe, so many companies choose to support it or not to support it. Open source may or may not make sense depending on a company's business model. Corporation that support opens source do it for the same reason that other corporations choose not to - money. Oh yeah and the countries that support open source do it for the same reason - money, it's a TOC decision.
Oh, and the cola analogy stands. I guarantee if Coke thought they could be more profitable selling the ingredient to Coke, or whatever, rather than cola itself, while protecting their market share, they would open up their recipe in a second.
I also look forward to your critic of my writing, once you are done marking my post please raise your head and take a look at the big picture. Things may appear blurry at first as your eyes adjust.
Pictures on the site linked to aren't funny at all, and can be believed without being seen.
Microsoft was the first to do a majority of things cheaply on a configurable platform that 3rd party customers could assemble, sell and ship.
I remember meeting Michael Dell in 1985 when he was running his company (not called Dell yet) out of the back of a strip mall in Austin. He was next door to an R/C hobby shop and his mother worked the cash register (I wonder what she is doing now). At that time he was 1 of literally 1000s of small, independent PC makers. Proprietary computer makers could not compete then and still can't.
Linux isn't proprietary, but something like this needs to happen for Linux. For me and for most people, I think applications are still the main reason for using windows. At work, I am agnostic and have used mostly non-MS systems. At home, I want to play Total War, print digital photos and surf the web. Linux can do two of those. If it could do all three, I'd switch with out a second thought.
The original poster sarcastically wrote "Yea, OpenSource is a huge money maker.... Great business model."
Sarcasim is defined as "remarks that mean the opposite of what they seem to say and are intended to mock or deride."
The opposite of what he wrote is, "OpenSource loses money.... Terrible business model."
That certainly sounds to me like he's suggesting that "open source could not be profitable."
And I've been thinking about your Coke analogy. Since Coke cola has absolutely no IP protection, it IS open source, as anyone can take the recipe, sell it, modify it, and come up with something new. Thus, Coke has made billions working on an open source model! Thanks for proving my point!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Alzheimers starts earlier than you think. He was priobably in the early stages during that testimony.
Yes, but you can shoot the dealer if he gives you a bad fix.
Not so with these corps.
Wow, reading through some of the treads, there's lots of anti-MS sentiment, (apple too). What I think is often forgotten is that not everyone is a Nerd, and that many would not be able to use a computer if not for some of the technical changes by Microsoft and Apple (i could care less who started what first, or who is more open-source friendly). My family uses a system with XP on it. I'm quite impressed with the changes that are in this version. The fact that things like Explorer or their media player stifle external competition is obvious, but it does make things easier. I really hate Real Audio and it's stupid upgrades and plugins that I never seem to have. I can see a real value for simplicity on a computer system, and perhaps Apple or Linux offer a comparable alternative.
Go Canucks!!
Microsoft was the first to do a majority of things cheaply on a configurable platform that 3rd party customers could assemble, sell and ship.
Microsoft "wrote" an operating system, they didn't make the entire industry. They provided MS-DOS to IBM who made the computers that were "cheap" and configurable, that 3rd party customers could assemble, sell, and ship.
I just wanted to clarify this so no one read your post and thought Microsoft was the sole entrepreneur of the microcomputer industry.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
The disease runs in my family and as I get older, I find less and less 'humor' in the jokes.