Slashdot Mirror
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
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?
Yeah, but I didn't get around to reading the comments after I read the original article, so thanks slashdot!
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Yes, but check THIS out!
** A Sketch a Week **
http://www.sketchplease.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
Posted by michael on 03/06/04 13:13
from the watch-out-for-cacodemon-bob dept.
"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."
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.
"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.
Then why are they so wildly, unprecedentedly successful both in terms of installed base and money?
Seems to me they certainly got something right.
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
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.
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.
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."
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!
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.
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.
Enough is enough. How many dupes of "this story is a dupe" do we really need?
Oh, wait, then we wouldn't be hypocrites. Sorry.
If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
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?
This headline is improper: it should be "Microsoft's money" not "Microsoft Money."
The article never mentions the financial software anywhere. They do talk about Microsoft's cash on hand.
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.
So your running a basically unpached XP box..... and your calling the guy who wrote this less than inteligent?
I am that much more enlightened and proportionally disillusioned
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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