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Former Windows Chief on Microsoft Vs. Open-Source
prostoalex writes "Brad Silverberg, former chief of Microsoft Windows division, who left the company in 1999, is being interviewed by the Milestone Group, on Microsoft specifically, and the software venture capital world in general (Silverberg is currently working as managing partner for Ignition Partners). He provides an interesting viewpoint on Microsoft's understanding of open source: 'I don't think they have figured that out yet, I think that is clear. They are struggling with not so much open source, per se, but rather they are no longer the low price solution. In the past Microsoft was the low cost solution and Microsoft was then competing and attacking expensive proprietary systems from below. Now for the first time the tables are turned and it's Microsoft that's being attacked from below by a lower price solution. Microsoft needs to figure out how it can demonstrate better TCO to justify its higher prices. Another aspect to that, which is an area I think Microsoft is also struggling with, which is when you are as successful and dominant as they are, how do you continue to foster that ecosystem? What really propelled Microsoft Windows success was an ecosystem that they created that allowed other people to benefit from your success. Actually your success was really a side effect or byproduct of their own success.'"
They are Harvard B School way of saying "Most of this shit is out of our control and we frankly don't have a clue on how to address it. So let's call it all organic economics"
I don't think they have figured that out yet, I think that is clear. They are struggling with not so much open source, per se, but rather they are no longer the low price solution.
Was Microsoft *ever* the low price solution? I'm sure I'm not the only one who laughed at the whole "they haven't figure that out yet" part. They haven't figured *anything* out yet. That's why we got rid of the feudal system -- because government, on all levels (including corporate management) should be for the people, by the people. My point is that Microsoft, being ruled by King Gates, is behind the times while they are trying to be ahead of the times. They are a working paradox. Open Source is to Closed Source, as Hive Societies are to Kingdoms; one clearly is better than the other and I think we can all agree which one it is.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Microsoft is likely to agressively start publishing TCO comparisons in various media outlets. Like all statistics, TCO numbers can be fudged too, but most customers will still believe whatever numbers are pushed to them. Open Source folks need to go out there also and start publishing their cost ownership numbers, with real life examples.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I am tired of reading about "total cost of ownership". It is a made-up concept that is used as part of the FUD campaign.
There are damn few large businesses that can handle a large change, let alone a fundamental change. Those that survive change (GE, e.g.) are generally so massive that they can lose some divisions' whole business model and carry on.
"But all your emitter and collector are belong to me!"
this is someone microsoft WILL listen to, given his former position, and change their strategy to better accomodate for the changing market nowadays.
he said that the tables have turned since microsoft was attacking the more expensive proprietary solutions corporations...maybe its a cycle and eventually we will see linux on top with something new attacking it from below...?
That is certainly true, but there's also a pscyhological dynamic as well. In the past (up until 1995) to some degree Microsoft was seen in two ways - the underdog (compared to the still-seen-as-evil IBM) and the platform of geeky freeware tinkerers. You used to have entire cottage industries that catered to the nerd contingent (eg JPSoft) of people who would sit at home
and -on thier dos computers- see what they could contruct on their own and how they could push the performance of their 386sx computers.
So, not only does Microsoft suffer from signifigantly higher TCO, but they also have lost any sort of "outsider" aka geek cred that they may have had pre-1995.
I believe that this, along with the ill-will from Microsoft's more famous stumblings (eg, crushing netscape) have gone a long way to erode any kind of good will that computer users may have once had for them.
Actually, the reverse is true. By and large over the last 11 years -starting with the assimilation of disk compression and one or two symantec technologies- Microsoft has built their success on the successful deployment of third party technologies. The pattern has typically been that a signifigant technology will get a small foothold on the windows platform, and then when it starts to look promising, MS will either buy it out (in the case of many of its' office products) or clone it and make the original redundant (as was the case with netscape).
So, yes, they 'allowed' other players to grow on their platform, but I think it was more a matter of fattening them up for the kill!
"Microsoft needs to figure out how it can demonstrate better TCO to justify its higher prices."
By funding more objective "studies", no doubt?
Silverberg says, "In the past Microsoft was the low cost solution and Microsoft was then competing and attacking expensive proprietary systems from below."
In the realm of personal computers, I do not think this observation is accurate at all. Microsoft's approach was not to compete on price in the normal sense of the word. Rather, Microsoft's approach was to bundle applications with the operating system. Since these applications and utilities were thus already "paid for" (or included for "free" in people's minds), people had less incentive to buy competing applications, even though the competing applications were often better.
I think the distinction is important. If a particular application becomes popoular, Microsoft just rolls a copy of it into the OS, thereby gutting the market for that application. How many people buy Eudora anymore? Or Netscape? Or Trumpet Winsock? This is not the same thing as competing on price.
I think it case could be made that very few people actually benefited from Microsoft's success that weren't inside of Microsoft. Yeah sure, a few developers here and there who made some apps, but most of them were then bought up by Microsoft (see: Visio). I think Microsoft is struggling, because for the first time they're having to actually sell their software on its merits. The customer has real choices. They can use Open Office that costs them nothing, or they can spend alot of money on Microsoft Office. Microsoft has to convince those people who use 1% of their products functionality that the product is worth the cost. As free or low cost alternatives come of age, that argument gets harder.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Why do people act as if Microsoft's ship is sinking? Is MS not GAINING in the server market? I could swear it was. Is MS not DOMINATING the desktop market? I could swear it was. Have I suddenly awoken in the fabled "Year of Linux"?
The only market MS seems to be slipping in is the web browser market. Even there, with 2(+?) years of doing nothing to improve their browser, they dominate the market.
Microsoft, the (one time) king of software, believes it's own BS. The fact of the matter is, whatever the kids (high school and college) use is where the industry is going. Forget TCO and stuff like this. Back in the days of Windows 3.1, you could easily make the installation disks, and give them to your school mates and buddies, and so all the local kids had a copy. Sure, Apple was in the schools, but kids couldn't afford Apple (Macintosh) OS, so people stayed with Microsoft. Well, hello XP and such, where each and every user has to register.. kids can't get their hands on it and pass it around and such anymore. Enter Linux... :)
In my opinion, Linux is going to win because kids can get it cheap, College students can get it cheap, and it is the kids that drives the next wave of OS's, not the price or TCO.
Why Not? - Because they are no longer meeting all IT needs, in fact they are basically the problem. Security is more important today.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
This article is basically what people here on Slashdot have already said ad nauseum. Microsoft is struggling to compete with something free, and Microsoft is struggling to compete with itself. I already knew that from countless discussions on the subject beforehand.
Microsoft has expanded into many markets that they didn't need to. There is nothing wrong with that, and it is even pragmatic, but it is not conducive toward encouraging others to prosper with you. The truth is that Microsoft has merely allowed others to live. It's easier to let Adobe exist than to build a competitor to Photoshop, but Microsoft has the resources to do it.
Look at how with Longhorn they're systematically attacking Macromedia by going after Flash and Shockwave. They're already trying to demolish Dreamweaver and if they take out Flash, Shockwave and Dreamweaver then Macromedia will be at best a shadow of its former self.
The problem with Microsoft's attitude of "only the paranoid survive" is that it causes companies to see competitors where they don't really exist. Netscape didn't compete with Microsoft and a business agreement with Netscape probably would have worked better. Same thing with Java. Microsoft should have worked hard to be "the best Java platform provider, period." If Microsoft did that then no one would want to run Java on any OS other than Windows because anything else would be second rate.
The only thing Microsoft needs now is an answer to IBM Global Services. Unfortunately they're too busy attacking the trees to realize that the forest is moving in to kill them. Linux is just a few trees in the greater non-Microsoft forest that IBM GS is the vanguard of. The stronger they get, the weaker Microsoft's position gets, and IBM is playing hardball with Microsoft here.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
There is a lot of emotion and a lot of psychology in the market and I think we are starting to see some of that again. We are encouraged that the market is growing warmer, but it is not time to throw caution to the wind.
Oh, that's good to hear. I just need my advisor to tell me when it is time to throw caution to the wind.
Wheeeee!!
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
I think that MSFT has in fact figured this out, and that's why they devote so much technology and marketing talent into Windows as a development platform.
Say what you will about Windows as an operating system, but the application development toolchain is really, really slick.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
Let's not forget that Windows was also running on commodity hardware. In the early years, it wasn't "Windows" - it was Mac or PC. People were buying a platform with all the advantages of commodity hardware; price, selection, customization, etc. The PC platform had considerable draw from the market. It was able to provide value to customers that previous proprietary computing products lacked. And in the end, the commodity platform "won".
That's not to say Microsoft didn't do a good job with supporting developers. They did better than Apple in many ways. But in those days, that simply ensured that "Killer App Version 2.0" was available for the "PC" as well as other platforms.
The real success for Windows was in it's being the catalyst for commoditization of the hardware market. And then riding the ensuing wave.
Now we're facing a possible next wave in IT; commoditization of the OS. Microsoft would clearly have issues with this. And they would rather fight it than try and ride this one too (or at least not start paddling for it until the very last minute). It's interesting to see that one notable who was plowed under by the earlier wave is now trying to set up to ride this one; IBM.
As long as Windows continues to be preloaded on a majority of machines, Windows will continue to sell (duh) and some of their apps will continue to sell.
On another note...
Ha! I remember a sentence in 'Undocumented DOS' so many years ago: "Your product may be a DLL in the next version of Windows." So the developers are finally wising up, eh? About fucking time.Bill Gates as The Dark Lord (aka Sauron)
Microsoft Corp as Mordor
Balmer, et al as The Nine
Linus Torvalds as Elrond
RMS as Gandalf
Tux as Frodo
Microsoft Windows (TM) as The One Ring
and Darl McBride as Gollum
Sorry, just thought of the parallelism while I was R'ing TFA.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
And not because IBM built mainframes...
In the IBM fight, Microsoft controlled the architecture and that is where all the leverage is. They controlled the architecture and IBM was powerless to stop them.
In my opinion, this as a struggle of Open Source vs. Microsoft architecture/ideology more than a TCO struggle. Microsoft does not clearly control the architecture, they do not have the leverage, and they are stuggling with it.
While all this talk about who's got the lower TCO, who has more problems with security, and who has the better technologies, one can easily forget one fact. The "OS Wars" come down to one thing: How well does Linux/Windows/Apple/Other attract the average user? I personally know a guy who purchased a computer based on the fact that the store demo machine had the "Silver" skin selected...he claimed that he disliked the other computer's version of Windows XP (the other box he was looking at had "Luna" selected.) To the average person, the two most important things are: 1) Does the machine work? and 2) How does it look?
Linux far surpasses Windows in regard to the first question, yet that is overshadowed by Microsoft's UI. True, they make a ton of compromises in security, reliability, and ease of development, but at least they attract users that way. I actually dislike Microsoft, but I am willing to admit that they have found a very effective way onto the drives of millions...
While the OSS choices may be better in most ways, a flashy interface is by far the best at attracting a new user...
The real litigious bastards...
If MSFT really wanted to latch on to the future they would buy Yahoo, Google or Ebay. The era of anyone really caring that much about a document editor (enough tp pay gobs of cash for it) are over.
I'm no business expert on any level, but I could give Microsoft a few pointers here and now that would turn things around for them. They would mostly consist of "listening to customers". Instead of trying to squeeze every last penny out of people, and spending a lot on bloated features, and crappy piracy workarounds, they might be better off dabbling in open source -- in a way that benefits ALL their users. Their "Shared source" initiative is worth bugger all to me, and probably not much more to their corperate users. Maybe if they setup and funded a system to allow users to contribute something into Windows (maybe open a few bits of source, maybe setup a serious user-comment/idea/request system... whatever), they would not only benefit from the open-source model, but also gain HUGE karma from everyone.
Perhaps if they open-sourced IE or MSN messenger and setup a community SourceForge-style project, overseen by MS staff. That would get people involved, and probably advance their software (which makes basically zero profit -- the little apps like IE, that is).
I recall not long ago /. posted a story on how spoiled we are because linux distros include EVERYTHING we need to start working, no more installing office since it's already there, no more downloading tweaking apps and a plethora of adittional goodies to make something work as we like, vi is all you need eiaehiaehiaheiaheiae
Lets see M$ bundle Office, ms chat, outlook, visio and more into windows for 50 bucks! heheh
Better yet, tell a windows moron to fix windows with notepad.exe heauheuaheuaehuaehuahe
Microsoft:
1980: "Every house should have its own MS OS home-computer"
1990: "Every house should have its own MS OS home-computer, and every company should have our server system"
2000: "Every house should have its own MS OS home-computer, every company should have our server system, and every large-scale company should replace their existing UNIX systems with our stuff"
Linux:
2000: "Every company have our server system, and every large-scale company are replacing their existing UNIX systems with our stuff. Now how about this thought: Shouldnt every house have its own Linux home-computer?"
Linux is allready there at all levels, except for the average home-computer.
I respect your opinion on the matter, and for many people it does make a great deal of sense, but I see it differently.
I use OSS/Free Software when it's the best tool for the job. Right now I'm using Opera on Windows XP, but my servers run Linux.
OSS being cheaper($$$) than propriatary software is just one aspect of it being better in certain situations. As much as is possible, I leave my religion and politics out of my professional life.
For RMS and the like Free Software could be called a religion, the belief that Free Software is always better can be argued for convincingly. But ideology isn't a good way to convert new users.
People don't like being preached at. Standing on a soapbox browbeating people will get you fewer converts.
To me, this is never a battle driven by competition leading to lower prices. Rather, it has always been the ideologies involved.
I think that people like you, and people like me can and should work together on this. Lower prices is what prompted me to get my feet wet, so to speak, and that lead me to learn more about the OSS/Free Software philosophy. Use the lower price advantage to get people interested. Once they begin to listen to what you have to say, you can share the ideology without seeming like you're preaching or browbeating them.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Have falling sales due to open source? How about changing your 95% profit margin to a 50% profit margin?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
So just go to your school's bookstore and get the student editions of Office, Windows XP, Visual Studio, etc.
Home users can generally make do with Works to type up their letters home and keep track of their recipies.
The full Office suite is so pricey because it targets professional users. I remember when Word, Access, Excel, etc were seperate applications. But all the corporate demand was for the Office bundle.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
This "forced" revenue stream continued until just recently when some companies started preloading Linux. MS no longer controls the forced upgrade market. If they stop supporting their older systems now, the 'big' users will start investigating other lower cost operating systems. MS is threatened by Linux because people do not like to be controlled and basically extorted.
I believe you are incorrect. Both Netscape and Java were deadly competitors to Microsoft and, by their philosophy, nothing was to be spared in crushing these companies.
Netscape presented the vision of making the operating system irrelevant. Let's look at two of the most popular software products of the last few years: Google and Amazon. Yes, these are software products and each is completely platform agnostic. When I use Google or Amazon on Linux running Firefox, I get the exact same user experience as I get on Windows using IE. If this trend had continued, with the browser and its associated control of the user interface firmly in the hands of Netscape, Microsoft's monopoly position as the operating system of choice would have been lost.
Java was a danger due to a similar argument. Windows is popular because the most popular applications run on it. If Java delivered on its promise of platform independence, a whole new class of killer applications could have arose that were independant of the operating system. Microsoft would then no longer be the operating system of choice. Worse, it would not be the choice for the developers making new killer apps.
Killing Netscape and Java were not paranoid manoevers, they were carefully considered and rational defenses of one of Microsoft's two core strengths, the Operating System. Combined with the other strength: Office, Microsoft presents a huge barrier to entry for anyone attempting to wrest monopoly control over desktop computers from Microsoft.
The problem for Microsoft is they took out the companies, not the ideas. By the time they noticed, the idea of a universal browser was too well entrenched to go away. They have not yet succeeded in converting the Internet to a Microsoft only product (despite the best efforts of ActiveX and IIS).
Building a better Java is not an answer. At some point, the competitors would catch up to a standard such as a language, then how could Microsoft compete? Add features? To Sun's language?
And what happens when someone reimplements 80% of Office in Java? And suppose this new version runs just as nicely on Windows as, say, Mac? What's to keep people on Windows then?
No, these companies had to die. Nothing else would defend Microsoft's monopoly. That they attacked these companies is unfortunate, but part of our system of business. That they did so by exploiting their monopoly position is illegal and should have got them more severly punished.
The smart thing they did was see that the GUI would take off. They then got Steve to sign off on them using it. They they made it hard to impossible for competitors to match them by not giving them all of the hooks needed in Windows. They used additional monopolistic tactics as well (as found in Federal court). Given the overall cost to the company, it is clear that crimem in this case, does pay. The only product which they managed to sell which was superior for its time was Microsoft Office which benefited from both the head start on the GUI and from inside operating system information.
Microsoft should have worked hard to be "the best Java platform provider, period."
Microsoft's Java support was pretty damn good. It just wan't what Sun wanted.
Microsoft may be in the dominant position today, but in these "barometer markets," open source software is making tremendous gains.
I believe the developer market is one such "barometer market."
Raj Against the Machine! http://social-butterfly.appspot.com/
...by doing what Apple did: Build your wimpy OS on top of something strong, like BSD, Linux, or some other flavor of *NIX.
I keep saying this and I am surprised that MS is not going that route somehow. I thought for sure that this Longhorn project would be some sort of MS implementation of *NIX. (Not Xenix).
We all know MS can do it if they wanted. We also know they like to copy Apple (Look at WIN 95)....it makes so much sense, from MS' perspective, I cannot fathom why MS doesn't build it's next version of Windows on top of BSD, Linux, or some other *NIX variant.
Microsoft never put RTFM on technet!
I beg to differ on this. M$ have had different solutions depending on who you talk to. At one time and to some extent now, it is the FUD plus TCO studies.
The other solution will be seen in the several service packs which I am sure will break comatibility in the name of security fixes. Just wait for LongHorn. There will be very very tight integration between applications that for cities like Newham, which decided to go the M$ route it will be very expensive to jump ship. We shall also see more donations to schools and non profit organizations in order to get generous tax refunds from the tax man.
It should be known that a man with nothing to lose is a very dengerous man. Once it dawns to M$ that Linux and OSS is really unstoppable, M$ will do all the desperate things in order to stay relevant. The price of the office suite will fall. At this point, M$ will see that there is nothing to lose.
I'd like to bring M$ down if I could. One of the ways we have to promote is to emphasize the FREEDOM and NOTcost alone that OSS brings to the table. Apart from the few ppoints I have suggested, what would you do if you were in M$ feet and you see the Linux train coming after you with no chance of ever stopping? I mean, you cannot buy them and it is very diffcult to compete with them since they are not that much profit minded. M$ knows Linux will not go away.
this article alluded to evolution I cant help think of microsoft as the archosour postosuchus and the various linuxes/bsd's as coelophysis competing for space in the late triassic (220 million years ago) as shown in the bbc's walking with dinosaurs. The fight for users is hotting up with the nimble carnivorous open source systems eating away at application space and users.
the fact they (MS) dont get it doesn't really surprise anyone. I don't think MS is worried so much about the techno~weenies for example who can download the source to mozilla and add some extra functionality and charge a client... they just miss milking the mum/pop operations and business who are experimenting with the zero cost option (or minimal cost compared to MS) desktop linux. Then trying out the office replacement (open office), the visio replacement (dia), the browser replacement (mozilla flavours) and the other applications that compete in linuxland.
you just have to look at distrowatch rank to guess at the usage patterns (increasing desktop usage?).
one of the greatest threats I've seen to MS is the innovative knoppix, mandrake move (and others) playable CD's that allow users to get a taste for linux without installing. who says linux is not innovating? I've yet to see a comparable windows product to counter this.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
In helping make hardware a commodity, they were pushing OS to become a commodity; when the OS costs more than the hardware it's running on, you know something is seriously wrong.
I don't understand your statement about IBM, Linux, and Microsoft. IBM is playing hardball, yes. They just happen to be using a Linux bat to do so. IBM Global Services is just an Enterprise oriented service that can provide IT Support, Training, and hardware to large corporations. No where are they trying to attack the home and smaller markets.
Linux is attacking the home market right up to the enterprise market. Last time I checked (and I may be wrong here) there are more Linux servers on the internet than anything else. All running open source software.
If you asked me, IBM and Microsoft are both playing in a Linux forest; no, an OSS forest. Something even bigger than Linux.
Linux gets easier and easier to use every day, and it remains OSS and free. Everything else seems to get more complex and expensive.
One final comment. Microsoft does not let Adobe exist; Adobe is built on a Mac market, not a PC market. The same goes for Macromedia. Microsoft could hurt both companies, true, but not kill them; not by a long shot.
nt = no text
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
When they were real rivals, you couldn't cheat on Netware user licenses, but you could on NT.
You obviously remember the decline of Wordperfect in the early 90's, so you must have been around for the decline of NetWare in the mid 90's. You probably remember that Novell pretty much owned the server market with NetWare 3.
Then Novell released NetWare 4. Because it was bundled with NDS (which not everyone wanted), it was late, buggy, unstable, and expensive. I remember much of this firsthand because I was working for a company that developed software which used NDS at the time. The amount of defects in the DS APIs in those early days was unbelievable. I literally spent six months or more of my career doing nothing but implementing workarounds for Novell APIs that did not work as advertised.
When you add to this the fact that NetWare 4 did not have native TCP/IP support, it spelled the end of Novell's dominance. NetWare did not get native TCP/IP support until version 5 shipped, which was late '97 or early '98, IIRC.
Novell's problem was that they did not listen to their customers, plain and simple. Had they added native TCP/IP support in version 4 and NDS in version 5, (and taken the time to make it stable) things might have been different.
Maybe there is a project of this type already out there, but I've never seen it.
We could come up with a list of criteria to compare like:
Anyone have any additional items?
Find coupons in Greeley
1991: Wow, Linux is fun to hack. I just want to build an OS for myself.
1994: Wow, Linux is still fun to hack. I just want to build an OS for myself and a few thousand friends.
1997: Wow, Linux is still fun to hack. And people are taking this stuff seriously. I'm glad I built it from the ground up with security/efficiency/stability in mind.
I more or less agree with what you posted about Linux in the year 2000. But let's not forget Linux's roots.
Raj Against the Machine! http://social-butterfly.appspot.com/
I think it's hilarious that this is being modded as a Troll. Maybe one of you moderators who marked it as such could explain? It's relevant, it's factual, it's a likely response from Redmond based on past history.
If you simply don't like the side of the fence I'm on (or anyone else's, regardless of topic) then I suggest you read the Moderator's Guidelines: Do not let your opinions factor in. Try to be impartial about this. Simply disagreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it down.
"Microsoft's Java support was pretty damn good. It just wan't what Sun wanted."
Well, it wasn't what _anyone_ other than Microsoft wanted. That is, by default with with no warnings, it was very easy for your Java would become Windows-dependent, undermining the fundamental value of Java.
Microsoft could have done all of the innovative things (e.g. calling OS-specific COM objects and other routines easily, nice fast JVM) that they did with their JVM and runtime _without_ violating their Java license, simply by placing their OS-specific enhancements outside of the java.* class heirarchy, by warning developers when they were generating non-portable code, and by supporting all of Java properly. But MS decided that it was more important to try to tie Java developers to Windows than it was to honor the Java license (or, of course, to provide what Java developers wanted).
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
i disagree. you are thinking to much horizontal market (i.e. netscape, wordperfect etc.)
;) (and ask yourself why you won't find such software for linux desktops..
where people really benefit from the microsoft monoply is the vertical market, software for solicitors, craftsman, real estate firms etc. you still can make a lot of bugs with (mostly badly written) software for very specific professional groups because you write it for windows and everyone has windows. think visual basic
PAT
SEO Test: TIGI und SEBASTIAN - Online Shop - V
"you still can make a lot of bugs" - nice pun :))
i meant "bucks" of course..
PAT
SEO Test: TIGI und SEBASTIAN - Online Shop - V
I figured out what was wrong. I just switched to hard thresholds, after never using them before, so the post he was replying to was not visible to me. That's what happened. Ooops.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
In terms of adoption, it's not the ideologies of the developers that matter so much as those of the users, except when they differ to such a degree as to be incompatible.
Users want something that gets the job done that costs as little as possible. Generally speaking they could give a shit if it's open source or not, if it's Free Software or not.
To the user, this is a battle over prices, driven by competition. If Microsoft gives them Office, they probably won't bother with OpenOffice.org, due to the immense momentum of MS Office. However, that's not going to happen, so Microsoft has to resort to lies - they sure aren't depending on their technical superiority. They, like we, know that would be fruitless.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
helpful as ever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCO
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I disagree. The small and medium business customers I work with don't know or care about the ideology, and their eyes glaze over if I wander too far from "how much will it cost and how long will it take."
/., but most of the business world doesn't care one bit about the platform wars. From their perspective, they have to pay _someone_, and the only time altruism has any impact is if you offer to do it for free.
It may be blasphemous here on
I think the bottom line is that Microsoft originally suceeded on it's merits, making (or buying) better software that filled a niche. The problem is that in the last 5 years, Microsoft has been relying on its momentum... Selling products by being the almost the only OEM OS software (barring Mac), bundling software with Windows to lock down a market (IE, Outlook Express, and slowly but surely, Windows Media Player), and resorting to compatability gimics (Office). Microsoft got so big they were able to use their momentum and ignore the software to a large extent. And now with other, better solution such as Firefox, Linux, OpenOffice, etc, Microsoft is starting to slip. They have to go back to doing what got them up there in the first place. After all, that's what Apple did. The lost momentum and were unable to coast on their previous success so they made OS X and focused on design/styling and now the much anticipated "Death of Apple(TM)" seems a long way away.
Microsoft does not let Adobe exist; Adobe is built on a Mac market, not a PC market. The same goes for Macromedia.
this is untrue. apple's position is weakening because Adobe etc. are producing less and less products for Apple, new features are getting introduced on Windows first, etc. Take a look at the Dreamweaver feature list and note how much is Windows-only.
These words have server a lot of people well and it should serve MS well to.
;)or whatever they want to name it and linux (The kernel that rules the x86 ;)). :(), misc apps.
:D.
As many here have said, Linux won't go away.
So if MS can't make Linux go away they should simply become like IBM. With there power they could really influence the Open Source community in any direction they want.
The first step is to port Office to linux(it's already working on mac os X, so that wouldn't be to hard to port). Then you make a killer GUI that will smash Apple's aqua to bits and finaly stopping all those switchers from the x86.
The important thing is to keep people on the x86 with office, Space GUI(space is cold and dark you know , gotta keep there old image
Then when they are the employers of 90% of the linux kernel coders (which they surely will be).
Now they have the power to control the way linux moves.
Becuse they employ the mayority of the kernel and surely most of the developers to X and all the other important liberaries.
Now they can optimize the whole system for there killer GUI, office, smb(Don't remember the real name of the protocol
And they can become the biggest distro
Ofcourse they have to do this slowly, phase out windows first in the server area then in the coperate area and last the homes.
They have to understand that there kernel is CRAP and would cost more money to develop to a better kernel then linux then to use the linux kernel.
Remember, there are som really great minds employed by MS. They just need to let them lose.
God,root what's the difference? I read slashdot, there for I errr... am stupid?
Unfortunately they're too busy attacking the trees to realize that the forest is moving in to kill them.
If you are attacking trees, and/or a forest is moving in for a kill you are in much bigger trouble. It's time to get your ass OUT of that Stephen King movie.
To what?
Easy: a Hardware company. One that implements Linux.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
No one needs to reimplement Office in Java for Office to run on the Mac. A Mac-native version of Office has been available for years, and by many accounts the Mac version is actually superior to the Windows version.
Despite this, most folks stay on Windows. Sigh.
Money isn't made up?
passing on the potato pitch?
The vast majority of computer users find windows complicated and confusing. They find open source alternatives equally complicated and confusing, so its no big deal. This bullshit about linux being too hard to install, and too hard to do this and that is a non-issue, its too hard to the 3% of people who want to be technical but aren't. People who are technical are fine, and people who aren't technical don't know what an OS is, and have never and will never install one. They can't install windows, so why should you expect them to install linux?
The problems are their PCs are shipped with windows, and their applications are windows-only. These are the only two hurdles to making an impact on the desktop market, regardless of wether you are open source or not. People need it to be already installed because they can't do it themselves, and they need to be able to know when they buy software at a store, it will work. Both are hard problems to solve because you need market share to justify people shipping PCs with your OS and porting apps to your OS. But you can't get marketshare without apps and people shipping PCs with your OS. So you end up like BeOS.
Competitors without deep pockets can easily have their share prices shoved into a terminal downwspiral through skilful manipulation and with the Bush regime regulators whistling happily with their backs turned the perpetrators may even rub insult to injury and take over the victim at a massive discount, like when MS handed Corel to Paul Allen's investment joint to be brought back in line under new private owners.
Unless someone like the NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer gets to kick the campaign-contribution-friendly Ashcroft out of DOJ and starts looking into the manipulation of competition via financial markets, the robber baron era is far from over.
Luckily OSS doesn't absolutely depend on corporate "ownership" of development and it can therefore withstand financial attacks without irreparable damage. Red Hat's recent restating of books showcased yet another way OSS companies can be attacked en masse by eager legal firms. But surely no god-fearing MS affiliate would be associated with those people...?
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Begun this TCO was has.
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Sorry, I meant "war".
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Linux's weakest link is still the lack of a good integrated development environment and good RAD (rapid application development tools).
Don't give me that 'code everything in vim' crap either. Have you ever tried to write a seriously large application in C++ before?
I worked in the server division for a tier 1 hardware company for 8 years. I thought that TCO was a gimic that the marketing group came up with to justify our higher hardware costs.
If I were in a shop with 5 servers that never failed, I might agree with your viewpoint.
I now work in an environment that has servers in the 10's of thousands. TCO is VERY real.
Ballpark numbers, a server that costs me $10k to purchase, may cost me $1k a month to run, not counting bandwidth. That $1k a month cost inludes power, cooling, admin overhead, tech overhead, etc.
Over the four year life of the server, that means that 20% of the servers cost was in aquisition, and the server costs me $50,000 over the lifetime of the server. I am more interested in saving that back end cost of $40,000 than I am in the $10k. Knock $1k off that server price, not interested. Making sure that my techs never have to go out to the floor to change a part in 4 years, you have my attention.
I would expect anyone who works in a large IT organization should know this. I am suprised by the amount of folks that do not.
Exposure to Linux makes one out of every fifteen people break out in itchy yellow-greenish sores.
It's true! I've even heard Linux people boast about their sores. However, for some reason they always insist they're open sores.
Well, it wasn't what _anyone_ other than Microsoft wanted. That is, by default with with no warnings, it was very easy for your Java would become Windows-dependent, undermining the fundamental value of Java.
Don't be so arrogant and assume that your view represents the view of everyone else.
There are plenty of developers out there who don't work for Microsoft but develop only on Windows platform. Many of them prefer only developing their products to one unified platform -- Windows.
quote from beginning of the article:
"Their challenge is to induce more upgrades. "
HAHAHAHAHAHA! "induce" which means "lead -> to"
Not make a better product that people will clamor for because it's so great, not actually impart any information of value, nope-"lead" the lulling herds "to" yet another very loosely put *upgrade* so they can make a lot of money for not much work if any. Brainwashing in other words. And where brainwashing doesn't work, just strongarm the vendors or payoff for some legislation or some other shady deal like patenting anything they can think of - just about anything but actually make a decent product for a fair price and compete *honestly*, nope, they have to "induce" an upgrade! HAHAHAHA!
I got a better plan for MS, just like the US did in 'nam, declare victory, go home! Why don't they just call it a night cowboy and retire with their huge boatload of cash? Why are they still flogging this whole deal? Mass hallucinations? What are they trying to prove now, besides thinking they can suck in another generation of suckers, which is just not going to happen. this is 2004, not 1994, people are just not that naieve and stupid any longer. Paying thousands of dollars over the years for stuff THAT IS STILL BROKEN has gotten , real, real old to this "the masses" guy. They should just go out of business, just close up shop, say sayonarrah, go home, play golf, fly around in jets and ride in limos, swap trophy wives around, go buy a big island someplace call it microsoftabania or something and just sit around the beach with a lot of bikinis flitting about while they sip mai-tais.
How much more freeking money do they need for what they did 10-15 years ago? It's gotten into the ludicrous stage with them boys, it's laughable.
Here's a clue to them boys at redmond, who have slipped into advance megalomania, none of them are old enough to remember this. When I was a kid I had a couple of studebakers, they were so-so cars, semi good in their day, they sold quite a few and made a lot of cash. Their day came AND WENT. What they did was close up shop while they still had a little jingle jangle money stashed away and a little common sense and dignity intact. It was the honorable and smart thing to do. Microsoft could do the same thing, just accept the fact they rode the whirlwind for a long time, made money like no one ever before did, big huge giant glitteriing piles of it, boatloads, truckloads, bank fulls, just huge unfathomable amounts in a short time, and they STIL got a lot of it, but it's time to just read the handwritng on the wall, just like Studebaker did, and RETIRE while you still got the cash and at least some shreds of dignity left. Don't be like those poker lusers who ride a hot streak up to a big pile, then gradually watch it dwindle to nothing by morning, get out while you still got the pile and before insanity and greed make you lose it.
When you got entire nations telling you to F-off, take that as a *clue* that the party is over.
Brad Silverberg is close to realizing the truth, and yet he doesn't quite say it:
... Now that Microsoft has expanded into so many different areas there is reluctance from some developers to continue to invest in a Microsoft platform because they wonder how do they build a business? How does it become their business and not Microsoft's business?"
"Another aspect to that, which is an area I think Microsoft is also struggling with, which is when you are as successful and dominant as they are, how do you continue to foster that ecosystem? What really propelled Microsoft Windows success was an ecosystem that they created that allowed other people to benefit from your success.
This is what OSS is doing for companies -- like my current company: If we have a need, we can grab an OSS project that gets us halfway there. Then, the contributions we make, we give back to the community. The licensing of the product through the LGPL is much easier to deal with and cheaper than finding some proprietary vendor, and we don't have to get on our knees and beg for the source code to adapt it to our use.
Microsoft's problem is that they benefitted from a culture, which has now changed. You can't change a culture back. Neither Silverberg nor Microsoft have yet figured out that they cannot compete with OSS and win. They can only embrace it.
When they bought the cool Outlook searching tool Lookout it looks as though they bought into some open source components as well.
Well, it wasn't what _anyone_ other than Microsoft wanted.
This simply isn't true. Windows developers wanted something better than VB/VC -- something Sun still hasn't given them after many years.
> your success was really a side effect or byproduct of their own success
that's why its called 'the collective'...
"Cue the prancing sweaty stinking monkey boy and the "Developers, Developers, Developers" rant."
cued...
The Adult Happy Meal - "I'm lovin' it!"
Apple Macintosh shipped in 1984. Microsoft Windows was announced in 1983 but Windows 1.0 shipped in 1985.
Certainly Raskin begun the work on the Macintosh (and the GUI that the Lisa too then inherited) many years prior to 1984, but Apple didn't announce until the machine was ready to ship. (And it's much a matter of taste whether Win 1.0 ever was "ready to ship"...)
The Look & Feel lawsuit was Apple suing Microsoft, not the other way around...
SCO has never proved a case besides if they do the code that has the section in will have to be removed. This is a common ruling. Note no payment will change hands.
This is a Thread from SCO but before SCO can do this they will have to prove.
Number 1 that they did not put the code in the linux code base ie one of there staff.
Number 2 that someone did not put the code in the linux code base to attack linux ie the person would be 100% liable for all damages.
Number 3 that people were using code when it was known past all knollage that it was stolen.
Number 4 that linux was not a registed UNIX at some point in it history and aquired the sections under the trade for standard compad(Opps it was just linux has not payed to be tested due to rapid development)
Number 5 That they hold the UNIX right of use(what is highly fort about due to the BSD case ie Novel lost the UNIX rights all bar about 3 files in that case so how could they sell it to SCO)ie Novel sold them what they own not the rights because they did no own them at the time SCO did not check what Novel owned verry bad management. This is a counter suit due to claims of ownership of a brand name they don't own payment could be required to pay this ie 1499 for a linux licence same amount for the miss use of UNIX brand name.
And the Final thing that tops it all off is that the programmer that developed the overlaping section did not place it in linux due to the fact we now have a fight over IP ownership that is well over due ie Does a Programmer still own is own IP when working for a company if so perfectly legal to submit it to linux if not perfectly illegal. And the programmer is lible either way linux is not.
Basicly linux can be ruled able to use X section of code so it would have to be removed payment for use of code is like saying someone has bought a stolen car in good faith and sould be charged with stealing it ie nop they did not steal it. They only commit a crime once it is proven that it is stolen and are not prepared to return it ie stop using it. Same applys here SCO has failed to prove that the section they own so no case until no payment until. Ie SCO is basicly breaking the law and sould prove it first then by the rules of GPL the code would have to be removed ie keep to the law without paying a cent. All infected versions would have to have the code deleted normal ruling is 30 days to return stole goods without charge. All you need is a freebsd backup plan and you will be fine.
Now they have picked them self because if they lose they are stuffed Novel ruling payment to a OpenSource group is not done in cash but in source code and patents plus cash if enought source code and patents cannot be found ie there assets gone in one hit. Reason for payment damage of linux good name nothing to do with the theif
Despite this, most folks stay on Windows. Sigh.
That's because a move to Mac would mean a more severe lock-in than staying with Windows. Think about it: Less choice of hardware, less choice of software (although some very good software!), higher cost. No, this doesn't attract me. Apple has even bigger claws to keep you in their paws than Microsoft. I have no doubt they would behave exactly the same in Microsoft's position, so it's not an alternative.
So, Linux or the BSDs are the future.
TCO is not bogus. It is a real concept that has practical business meaning.
The problem is that it is *extremely* possible for malicious people to creatively define TCO -- there are an undefined set of inputs involved, and by choosing them appropriately and making favorable assumptions, you can almost always present your product as less expensive. For example, one vendor of snowshovels might have shovels that, when scraped against asphalt, release a chemical that tend to stunt slightly plant growth in the summer. They don't consider growth stunting to be an issue, so they don't include it in their TCO analysis when comparing their shovels to their competitor's shovels. A competitor might include it *and* include the most expensive estimate they can find from a landscaper to restore normal growth height (which might involve massaging each blade of grass and singing Native American love songs to it). They then might creatively disguise this value in an "misc. associated costs" value with a long list of small associated costs.
Yes, TCO is how non-free vendors attack Linux -- there isn't much else that they can fight with, when their competitor has a sticker price of $0. Try asking what TCO is on *any* set of competing products from *any* vendors -- you'll frequently get absolutely ridiculous numbers. If the TCO savings projected by consultants and vendors was remotely realistic, every Fortune 500 would have negative costs.
Just because TCO can be horribly abused, however, does not mean that it is not a valid business concept.
May we never see th
Actually your success was a side effect of their own success if they decided to buy your company, rather than your competitor.
*That* is why I like Linux. Linux is fun. Well put.
:-)
It's not just the fun that you get when you have a witty and skilled tech writer, nor is it the fun of a video game.
Linux is just plain fun to use, to hack on, to code for, and to set up systems with.
It was made by a lot of people that were having a terrible amount of *fun* making something, and that kind of attitude just pervades everything. It doesn't have a musty pervasive sense of marketing, of lies about TCO and ROI, of a carefully-maintained-and-pristine image. The people that made Linux felt that it was okay to criticize parts of Linux -- and even in public! The people that made Microsoft's products aren't supposed to publically criticize those products *even if there is a legitimate technical issue that should be brought up* because otherwise the marketers will get cranky and their boss will come down on them. Linux is trying out new ideas, about drinking beer, and about letting *everyone* into the game, no matter how poor. Linux is about doing neat things *because they're cool*. The fact that Linux saves money is just a neat side effect. It's really nice to use something that was made to be *fun*!
Linux doesn't have "issues addressed by critical security updates" all bundled up in tight little black boxes. When someone screws up in the Linux world, there is a BUG and it needs to be fixed, and people talk about exactly *why* it doesn't work. Often, whole sections of Linux get ripped out and replaced, because someone has some ideas that they want to try out, and when they implemented it, they discovered that indeed, their ideas really *did* work much better than the original code. Linux complies to lots of standards, but Linus and friends are also open about saying "this standard is stupid and broken, and this is why, and damned if we'll support it". With Microsoft, if they go to the effort of supporting a standard, it's a checkbox somewhere. It's used to sell Windows to a customer somewhere where someone involved in the purchasing process decided that that checkbox was a good idea.
In the Linux world, there are no gods. Everyone's feet are made of clay. Some people have acquired fame for what they've done, but there are no "official Linux developers" that are the only people that know how Linux works, or "Most Valued Professionals", or "Linux Developer Network Members". Everyone has to earn respect the hard way; not by marketing themselves impressively at a job interview to become a developer, but by contributing impressive work repeatedly. That's a fundamental degree of honesty that I just do not sense in the Windows world.
I like Linux.
May we never see th
> I think you're behind the times, kid.
Do you call everyone kid? That really rubs me the wrong way. You must work for Microsoft, according to Dogbert's rules of management.
MS Word has always been better than Wordperfect. Those boneheads at Corel couldn't figure out how to design a system if their life depended on it. Why do you think they've been teetering on the brink of corporate destruction for so long? They keep coming back to the edge by sheer luck and by financial injections, but it's only a matter of time. And that's why you must work for Microsoft.
> Hive Societies may be "better" idealistically, but historically have never really worked beyond a certain population level.
There has never been a hive society on Earth that wasn't insectoid. You would have to be connected to everyone else 100% of the time for that to happen. Open Source is like the hive design, because there is no leadership beyond that of mere conceptual collaboration; it's a flat architecture where everyone serves the better interest of the whole.
> I think we can safely assume Open Source isn't going to revolutionize the proletariat's desktop any time soon.
This sounds like Bill Gates' comment regarding onboard memory. I think I'll have to remember this so I can laugh about it when MS declares bankruptcy in 2010.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I leave my religion and politics out of my professional life
I always find this interesting.
When you leave your "religion"[1] out of your professional life, does this mean that if your "religion" says it's wrong to lie, but your profession requires you to lie, eg to make that sale or close that deal, that you will do what your profession requires?
I'm not trying to flame, I just want to clarify where people are at with this.
[1] I'm using the term "religion" for any belief system or value system, regardless of whether any deity is involved with said beliefs or values.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
Actually, CUPS is the print subsystem for OS X and it works really well there (in that I've not had it fail from under me). I'm not so sure CUPS needs work as CUPS badly needs better administrative tools!! Even on OS X I find the printer dialogue to be the least polished aspect of the whole system.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yeah, but most kids these days are interested in computers for one reason: games. And as long as all games will be released on the windows platform (including cracked versons of Windows XP), kids will keep on using windows.
But with the advent of the XBox, you hardly need a PC for games at all - since just about any game a kid would care to play will probably be out for the XBox first.
Microsoft is potentially cannibalizing thier own future market with the XBox, in that the one advantage PC's had (games) is quickly becoming an non-advanatge and freeing people to use Linux, or buy an Apple, or just use new forms of dumb terminals.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Say what you will about Windows as an operating system, but the application development toolchain is really, really slick.
Slick-looking, yes. But I have to say that any project of any size invariably has to ditch all of the features of the GUI, which ends up being an impediment.
I would say that Microsoft is very good at elevating any project quickly into mediocraty - and then keeping it there.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That's a silly approach. The only sensible way of attacking a problem is formulating your research question, and to seek the answer with an open mind.
Go ahead, compare TCO's. Don't forget ROI, by the way. But first and foremost, seek a valid answer. Make sure it's well-founded.
Of course MS is unbearibly expensive, once you count the cost of security, the costs of lock-in, tie-in and the loss of data due to data captured in closed mystery formats. Still, if you seek a particular answer only, you're not interested in the issue anyway. Make it relavant if you are.
"The (nearly) Whole Microsoft Catalog - A constantly updated list of what they own." at the now-inactive "Boycott Microsoft" website, at http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/catalog/index .shtml
(oh, and also The Microsoft "Hall of Innovation" at http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/innovation.sh tml
Is it really ok for a predatory monopolist to attack a viable business alternative by whatever means possible? Compete on price, features, security and such is a ok but what they are doing now cant be all be dandy?
Most offenses they do is ok in isolated incidents but if you add them all up, can you show intended harm?
How much does a patent cost and is it time that we start patenting things to to have a war chest? There isnt like there is a lack of brilliant new ideas that have come out of open source projects.
Is it possible to start a fund that owns these patents? In short, how the heck do one protect itself from a litigous bastard like SCO and Microsoft? Even if youre innocent you still have to spend millions of $ and plenty of time.
The patent system is utterly broken if it can be used to squash competitors. He who patents the most obvious patents win.
I sure hope someone in the EU reads this memo and gets a clue or else we will have the same broken system in the EU.
Not having it would give us a great advantage over the US. If else it will be the asian and far east that will do most prograss in software and computers while we argue about who "invented" the 1 and 0!
HTTP/1.1 400
Microsoft's problem is explained in Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma with some possible ways out of the dilemma with last fall's The Innovator's Solution by Christensen and Raynor.
;-)
Microsoft's biggest problem is that it has paid attention to its customers for the past 20 years. This has propelled its products into solutions that are far too complex, too expensive, and way more than what the only new customers need.
They try to attack new customers but they keep dragging all the Windows baggage along, because _they_listen_to_their_customers_ but the people they need to pay attention to are not their customers.
Talk to a Windows customer and say "what do you want in a cell phone so can make money selling software for cell phones". It is no surprise that the answer will be "Windows".
But ask the cell phone developer and his answer is "easy to integrate, really cheap royalty, etc." Gee, why can't Microsoft win any cell phone design-ins
Microsoft tried to go up against Sony, an established player in the game box market with a windows platform. Talking with their customers, this had to be a winning solution. Hmmm, it wasn't a winner.... Why was that? Hmmm, it turns out that 99.999% of the people buying game boxes didn't care that it ran windows.
In fact, the biggest problem that Microsoft has is the people who want the xbox to run Linux. Hmmm, why don't they listen to those customers??? Has the day of losing billions to gain market share really gone?
Games are fun, but todays teens are more interested in communication. I.M., email, etc... then thay are n games.
I would wager the DoomIII will be a big seller. I will also bet that the number of kids playing doomIII will be dwarfed by the number of kids using I.M.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"Home users can generally make do with Works to type up their letters home and keep track of their recipies.":
no good, most home users need to do work at home. That means having at home what the company has.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"There are plenty of developers out there who don't work for Microsoft but develop only on Windows platform. Many of them prefer only developing their products to one unified platform -- Windows."
There are two separate issues here:
1) Being able to take advantage of Windows-specific functionality. This is a good thing.
2) Being able to write portable app's. This is also a good thing.
Keep in mind that that these are two separate issues. MS could easily have provided all of their Windows-specific enhancements without breaking the Java API's, giving developers the ability to choose their target platform.
What MS did that wasn't in the interests of either developers or end users was to try to eliminate the option of making portable Java app's, by breaking the Java API's.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
Five, years ago the MS dev tools were pretty damn good, but now they are looking very long in the tooth. There is no automated refactoring support, for example.
The MS tool developers have become complacent. They know that the vast majority of developers on Windows never try other systems, never try other languages and never try other tools. MS knows that Windows developers will continue to lap up whatever MS releases, thinking it is as good as it gets, and that they can therefore cut back on tool development and just bundle more and more wizards which do little to help projects beyond the quick-hack phase.
Here's one thing Postgres lacks: table space management. You can arrange to put you index files on one filesystem, and your data files on another. This is a good thing for performance.
But in Postgres, you can't create a table or index and specify where you want the backing file to go. You have to create it, then halt the database, move the files over, adjust the config, and start the db again. This does not scale. And remember, it is only in recent versions of Pg that let you ALTER COLUMN. That's a vital feature for 24x7x365 operations.
And then there's the issue of partitioning tables across different devices. I don't think that's doable in any way today with Pg. But hey, it's a great DB other than that. I know people using it with tables containing 60 billion records and it runs just fine.
Linux has grown because of the ecosystem (or community, if you like) around it.
...
Microsoft is doing just fine now and in the near future. But maybe OSS has hit the ecosystem of the ISVs around MS harder than it has hit MS, and it has certainly hit the ecosystems of the trad. Unix makers: SGI, Sun, HP, SCO
Since I'm getting a refresher course on my PhD in financial econometrics allow me to point out that what I said was 'ecosystems are bullshit' not 'economics is bullshit' Ecosystems are an awful attempt to 'organically' model complex systems w/o really understanding how they work. Their basic premise is like an AI system where you backtrack some interval of behavior and then try to plot it forward while taking checkpoints everyonce in a while to insure you're taking care of all the autoregressive variable which will insure you can prove you were right all along.
I was unwilling to turn my trusty PC into a Linux box, so he popped in a CD with Knoppix, on it, rebooted, and voila -- instant Linux. Knoppix is a free version of Linux that you can boot directly from a CD, available free for downloading and then burning onto CD.
then
I was surprised at how simple it was to install and get up to speed on Linux. And the desktop has some nice touches that Windows could learn from. The applications didn't win me over, though. In fact, when it comes to Linux on the desktop, I don't get the point, really. Yes, the desktop is pretty, but I was expecting more than a pretty face. On the desktop, Linux may be more stable than Windows, but with Windows XP, I haven't had problems with Windows crashes. I'm a long-time shareware fan, and there's far more useful and easily available shareware available for Windows than Linux. And given that we live in a Windows-centric world, it just seems like too much labor and work to try and live in desktop Linux.
seems windows users still want to pay for the convenience of MS tools.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
When you leave your "religion"[1] out of your professional life, does this mean that if your "religion" says it's wrong to lie, but your profession requires you to lie, eg to make that sale or close that deal, that you will do what your profession requires?
No, it means that I even though my ethics are not for sale, I do not preach to others.
I was required to lie as a part of the last job I had (before I became self employed) and I refused. The short of it is this, I worked for a compant called Precision Response Corporation (PRC) and we were not permitted to tell our customers when the computers were down or malfunctioning, we were told we had to tell them that "My computer is updating" and that they will need to call back in. I refused to lie, for any reason. My job was threatened, I told them that if they wanted to fire me for refusing to lie, I wouldn't have a problem collecting unemployment. A part of the reason why I was hired was because of my ethics, I won't lie to my boss, I won't steal from my boss, I won't lie to a customer, I won't steal from a customer. My ethics are not for sale. At the end of the day, they would look a lot worse in the eyes of the public than I would to my next potential employer.
They pretty much dropped the issue, but when the next round of layoffs came, I was one of the people to get the ax.
I have no regrets about my decision to stick to my principles.
At the same time though, I didn't try to convince anyone else that it was wrong to submit to managerial pressure and lie to customers.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Since you are so honest, your posts are probably worth reading, so I've added you to my friends list (since I browse at +3 or +4 and I don't want to miss your posts).
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.