How Microsoft Could Embrace Linux

securitas writes "In a commentary and analysis piece, BusinessWeek technology editor Alex Salkever discusses how Microsoft can embrace Linux, and asks the question, 'Considering Redmond's slim odds of conquering developing nations, why not offer them a low-cost Linux version of Office?' Salkever explains that 'Microsoft faces increasing competition in both PC operating systems and in desktop applications' which are its core businesses, while corporate customers would likely adopt Microsoft Linux products." (Read more below.)

"He goes on to cite the governments of Paris, Munich, Brazil, Peru, China, Korea, and Japan which are all embracing open source software to varying degrees. Meanwhile, when they choose Microsoft software, fast-growing emerging markets like China and India opt for pirated copies. Salkever explains that the concerns for customers like these are the 'relatively high price of Microsoft software' and the 'concerns about buying proprietary software to run critical government operations.' Finally he points to recent moves by Sun and IBM to leave the commoditized software and hardware business behind, writing 'When the world's largest and most respected IT consultancy draws a clear bead on your crown jewels, it's time to mount a bold counterattack.'"

Comments

Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[phantasma6]

why not offer them a low-cost Linux version of Office?

why would any linux user use MS Office, especially when they have to pay for it?

considering heaps of people use OpenOffice.org and the like on Windows, I really don't see many people using MS Office under linux.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[1000101]

Just because you don't pay for OpenOffice.org doesn't mean nobody does

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Elektrance]

I think there would be a market for this. Consider an IT department that is transistioning to Linux. If they can use Microsoft Office on Linux, there is one less area to re-train the users, saving the business money and time. That is of course assuming that the cost of the Office liscenses is less than the cost of training all your users.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't compile Office, so geeks are not interested. I think Microsoft tries to attract all the n00bs who only download pre-compiled binaries of the programs.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[julesh]

It _would_ help persuade management to switch. "Can we still use Word?" "Yes."

Of course, this ignores (a) the existence of Crossover Office, which I understand is capable of running Word virtually flawlessly, and (b) the fact that MS wouldn't do it because they know that they'd lose -- the number of people switching to Linux because of the availability of office would cut directly into their Windows revenues, and probably into some of their other application-based revenues also.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[meringuoid]

I have a whole lot of VBA written in Office. I could redo it all in OOo, but it's probably not worth my time if Microsoft's price for Linux Office is reasonable.

From what I heard, it's Office that's the real cash cow anyway, not Windows. Why shouldn't they?

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[phantasma6]

true, but I meant that you were under no obligation to pay for it (as in, it's legally free to use)

(btw, if I had money free (ie, not a student) I would happily donate to some OSS projects, such as OO.o)

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[giampy]

I can think of many reasons why one would like to use it,

100% compatibility with the other 95% of office users is one ...

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[lachlan76]

But the difference is that you don't have to if you don't want to. Besides, in a developing country, do you think that they will want to pay the faceless corporation or the little people who make open source?

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Sogol]

if I had money free (ie, not a student) I would happily donate to some OSS projects

I used to say that when I was a student. Now I have a family to support....

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[!the!bad!fish!]

why would any linux user use MS Office

There are some things that just don't work on other word processor. :-)

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a different vision: Why in JHC's name would a multi-billion dollars company write software for a different operating system? If they did that, that would be the beginning of the end...

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Anonymous Coward]

And c) the article is talking about the developing world which probably doesn't have a large installed user base for Word.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux with MS Office would be like eating chocolate cake with mustard. Yuck. Phthewy. Bleh.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah sure.. like it was on the Mac or on other mswindows versions

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[giampy]

> the number of people switching to Linux
> because of the availability of office
> would cut directly into their Windows revenues

that is very true, but on the other hand, in the long term, if linux prevails microsoft can survive only by porting its apps over linux.

not an easy decision though ...

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[smittyoneeach]

python drives COM objects nicely

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[samjam]

I used to say it as a student, then as married.

then when I started working independantly and still hadn't starved I thought I'd better put my money where my mouth was.

I joined EFF and GNU and I donate to beg-ware software, as they are generous, I be generous back.

Sam

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[mirko]

Face it : Geeks are not a significant part of the workforce.
Most of my colleagues would actually rather use Microsoft products because it'd ease their transition.

BTW, Microsoft confidence in this market might be related to BEA (WebLogic)'s success which could bring their commercial apps to Linux.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[byolinux]

Free Software is NOT about price!

I would hope nobody would want Office for GNU/Linux because it wouldn't be free software, and they value their freedoms.

Price isn't an issue. Some people pay for copies of OpenOffice.org, some download it, some would probably pay more for a nice printed manual.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[write_with_numbers]

I hope that MS does make office for Linux.

It would be a big waste of their money and we could start a movement to make sure that instead of buying it everyone who feels they have to run Office could just WINE the Windows version.

Do you think if we try really hard we could get MS to bankrupt themselves writing code for Linux? I just want it to happen for the irony factor.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[GreatDrok]

Since when does having a copy of MS Office guarantee 100% compatibility with other MS Office users? I have Office X on my Mac and it can't successfully share files with the PC version. Fonts and formatting get minced so I don't see any reason why a Linux version would be any different. I can run Office under Linux using Crossover and it is pretty good but none of the MS Office formats should be used if you want to preserve and share your documents, the 'format' just isn't good enough. OpenOffice files transfer much better between Windows, Linux and MacOS X.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Elektrance]

You are correct, Free Software has nothing to do with Price (beer) but about liberty.

However, I think you are missing the point. For IT managers, Linux & F/OSS are all about Price. This is why more and more government IT departments are threating to go to Linux, and my Microsoft is doing everything but giving away its first-born to keep them on Windows & Office.

The billion dollar question is if Linux will capture a significant enough percentage of the market share to warrant selling MS Office for it. The author believes that this market already exists in developing countries, but is being filled largely by pirated MS software. If this is the case, then for MS there is some sense in getting $30 a seat for MS office for linux, instead of nothing for a pirated copy of XP & Office.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[timmyf2371]

why would any linux user use MS Office, especially when they have to pay for it?

Because in my experience as a user, MS Office offers more useful features, is faster, and is less buggy than Open Office.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[adrianoc]

Microsoft is too good of a "business" for that to ever happen. :)

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[byolinux]

I don't think we should be interested in marketshare though.

The goal is freedom, not marketshare. If we can get more people to understand and use free software, then we're doing good.

The GNU/Linux community should eschew the use of any non-free software. It is against the ideas on which the community was founded.

Free Operating System with proprietary software seems stupid to me. It will hurt the community, and should be avoided.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Sparkle]

Ah but the instability!

Know what this reminds me of? Bruce Bastian assured a bunch of us years ago that new WordPerfect product for the Mac would rock. Fine I got it and tried it. Until that day I had never seen a Mac crash. The product got about an hour and one support call before it went back to its maker.

If WordPerfect could crash an otherwise rock solid Mac, what to you think M$ can do for linux!

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[SpaceLifeForm]

I can imagine however, that MS Office on Linux would require an emulation/compatibility layer of software that could make your points moot.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[pebs]

Microsoft would offer a low-cost Windows + Office way before they ever create Office for Linux.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[FlutterVertigo(gmail]

l[placed here to keep it near the top - hopefully]

I have been told - on good word, the abstract code layer under .net was designed & written such that it could be written in a "long Microsoft weekend" (which I would interpret to be two or four calendar weeks as a conservative value).

Microsoft's problems right now have nothing to do with whether they'll write code for Linux. It has to do with the fact they don't comprehend the concepts of "Free", "Open Source", etc. (here's a good example, but it's not Microsoft. During a PHB^10 strategy meeting, the word "rip" came up. Eisner was almost ready to pop a vein, wondering how any company could support such a philosophy. He thought "rip" meant "ripoff" (as in some street lingo).

Back to Microsoft. WHGIII[1] & company waited....waited...and waited until Bill went away to his two week sohjourn to watch squirrels, swat mousquitoes, and read. And he realized they were on the brink of missing the bus "Internet" (and screwing the pooch) - those of us already online[2] watched as they finally came online. The funny thing is, when it came to using the method(s) for beta software & discussions, they used Compu$erve instead of saving everyone's money and using usenet and FTP. They might have thought it more convenient for Microsoft because they just finished a big contract with Compu$erve.
Pop Quiz Hotshot: What happens when Microsoft works hand-in-hand or as a project lead with a new technology or one which needs revamping?
If you answered "They mysteriously create an isomorphic version." Pat yourself on your back, high enough you can enjoy it.[3] While Microsoft is pushing all of their support through Compu$erve, MSN was being developed.

Back to the purpose of this post. One other major oversight: XML.
So now, Microsoft's lifeblood is money, money, money. And when they need it, they pass the hat. Moving from 98 to XP. We need more time and more cash to come in during that time. Let's create SE, more cash, create ME.
Microsoft just can't figure out why people are so fascinated by writing code for free when they could be getting paid for it. (see Eisner at Disney) Unless and until they figure this out, they're chasing their tails, periodically stopping to file a patent[4,5] or two, feeling the walls closing in on them.
[1] William Henry Gates 3rd
[2] The phrase I've coined has always been "The World's Biggest Secret Club" - about the only way most people heard about it was if they were on it.
[3] My Latin teacher in high school used this phrase all the time.
[4]"Someday, we'll find Microsoft has patented the alphabet and we'll have to pay royalties every time we use our keyboards."
[5]I just can't see why they've filed some of the patents they have and others which are due: could you imagine one requiring software to be sold if it's for business practices?

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[betelgeuse68]

Because people have business to conduct with the mainstream, that is why. There are lots of people who aren not interested in compiling LINUX kernels and/or engaging in the proclivities of slashdotters. That's life, that's reality. Or said another way, MS Office has become the lingua franca of business documents. I have had cases where when I sent PDFs I was asked "What's this? I don't know how to open it, can you send an MS Word document please." I've done so when I KNEW for a fact the recipient had no reason to modify my document. The idea was to dampen the need for Word one bite at a time, at least that was my thinking. The world is a very different place than my panache to see something else take root, e.g., OpenOffice or the use of PDFs when editing is not necesary.

C'est la vie,
-M

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Anonymous Coward]

especially when they have to pay for it?

Why does everybody make the assumption that the only problem with Microsoft Office is the price?

There are a lot of things that make it more attractive to pay for Open Office than to pay for MS Office, even if they both cost the same!
1. MS simply cannot resist dinking with their proprietary standard formats, causing forced upgrades on their schedule and leading to untold wasted hours reformatting docs and spreadsheets.
2. Stupid design decisions have made MS Office another sinkhole of security issues. Who'd a' thunk it: viruses distributed with your documents and spreadsheets.
3. Stupid design decisions have also made MS's proprietary format a source of leakage of company data. When you send a Word doc or xls file, what else are you sending with it?

Now, you know I am going to get flamed here with a lotta of comments about how easy it is to fix this or that, but the truth of the matter is, the average users out there do not do these things. Witness the recent SCO doc file posted to the Webb where poeple used the holes in MS's format to pick up company names that SCO considered and did not sue.

So there are a whole lotta reasons to use OO, and only one has to do with price!

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[p.rican]

why would any linux user use MS Office, especially when they have to pay for it?

For the same reason that I prefer purchasing boxed sets of distributions with printed docs instead of downloading iso's....convenience

considering heaps of people use OpenOffice.org and the like on Windows, I really don't see many people using MS Office under linux.

It just may make it easier to convince the PHB to give linux on the desktop a try without having to deal with minor document incompatabilities.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[FlutterVertigo(gmail]

Office is the cash cow. Office produces 1/3 of their profit. Not sales, but profit.

This is why there was a story here on /. several weeks ago pointing out that a lot of good ideas which have to be round-filed because the overall contribution of two vital sources (time, people) would interfer with things such as Office. Unless and until something mysteriously is left on their doorstep, they're kind of wearing golden handcuffs.

What's interestingly is this week's Barrons'...the cover shows a picture of Gates peeking through a candy store's window.
"Time to Grow Up: After paying its hue divident, Microsoft will no longer be the kid in the candy store. But, even in middle age, Bill Gates' company has impressive growth ropects. Why the stop could jump 25%"
It requires a subscription to get to the story (which I don't have - I only get it when there's something good in it)

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[tomknight]

Is this a troll?

Tom.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[peatbakke]

Because, aside from a few geeks scattered around the world, most people are interested in applications, and very, very few actually care about the operating system. A vast majority of users think that Windows came "free" with their computer anyway.

Also, a lot of Linux users are more than willing to pay for the ability to run a Unix with Microsoft (and Adobe) products. The significant number of OS X users who came from the Unix camp are a testament to that.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Elektrance]

Unfortunately, this decision (although I personally believe it will never be made) has little to do with the GNU/Linux community. If MS decides to make Office for Linux, all the community can do is not use it.

However, this will not stop a company interested in lowering IT costs, and remaining on Office.

Most companies are not interested in F/OSS as a political ideal, but as a means to an end. As such, they are going to use any combination of proprietary & open software that they are comfortable with using, and lowers the bottom line.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[orzetto]

Why shouldn't they?

Because they would be exposed to competition in office suites. If I write an excellent office suite for Windows, and somehow have a real chance to take on MSOffice, all they have to do is wait for the next deadly Windows worm, release a patch that everybody will have to install, and attach it something that will make my program crash; then blame me for my poor programming.

In Windows they own the house, in Linux they would be guests. Windows/Office is a powerful combination, and it makes no sense to break it. Rather, they will give discounts on Windows, give away software (typically to schools), or tolerate piracy as in China, so that when the market gets rich they can start some enforcing.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[joeykiller]

Free Software is NOT about price!

In may not be about price in spirit, but I think it'd be wrong to downplay the fact that in many cases the price (FREE as in beer) is one of the major reasons for switching to open source solutions.

In 1999 my company started using FreeBSD on Intel hardware, and just a few months later we started using Linux on Intel based web servers in addition to Solaris based servers. We had used both SGI and Sun hardware and OS-es before, but saw that switching was a cost effective thing to do.

Linux and FreeBSD was similar enough to proprietary unices so that our staff's skills was relevant even after switching. At the same time would save a lot of money when we had to add and upgrade hardware. Quite simply, choosing open source software enabled us to grow even on a very limited hardware and software budget.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[msh104]

Or using linux components to make windows cheaper. microsoft already used the bsd tcp/ip stack once, what would stop them from that kind of stuff, again and again. windows will not stop as an operating system any time soon, even if nobody would buy there software, they still have enough money to live on for the next 200 years...

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[hendridm]

Their whole system is built around integration - the more Microsoft you use, the more "pleasant" it's supposed to be. Exchange with Active Directory and SQL Back End, IIS for the web server, etc. If they make their products interoperate with competitor's technologies, they lose this sales tool.

We ran into this problem when we were looking to buy a new web server. The director actualyl gave me a choice on what was loaded on it. Although my last employer was a Linux shop, this place is Microsoft/Novell. As much as I love all things Linux on the server, we eventually decided to put Windows on it because a) we didn't want a third environment (Windows, Novell, Linux), b) most of our department expertise is Windows/Novell, c) Many of our apps are written in ASP, and although it wouldn't have been out of the question to rewrite them or use an emulator in the short term, it was a drawback.

I wouldn't doubt, however, that the major reason our director (is generally against free software) was okay with Linux is because Novell is backing it now, which is a good thing.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[diersing]

The same people who NEED to exchange MS Office docs without dealing with the compatibility issues of OO (read the same people, who buy Office on the Mac despite OO being available). The painful fact of the matter is MS still makes the best and most easy to use office solution and depending on the price, I'm sure there are tons of people who'd happily pay $15 to not deal with learning a new office suite.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[deimtee]

I don't think we should be interested in marketshare though.
If we can get more people to understand and use free software, then we're doing good.

Is it just my screwy way of looking at things or are these two statements in direct opposition ?

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[byolinux]

Mind share and market share are different things.

So, no.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Chipaca]

But the difference is that you don't have to if you don't want to. Besides, in a developing country, do you think that they will want to pay the faceless corporation or the little people who make open source?

in Argentina, at least, the answer is: whichever bribes better.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[DaHat]

You just hit the nail on the head with that one!

MS Office is probably one of the most OS dependant applications there is, porting it to ANY OS would be a nightmare I'd expect. Even with some compatibility layer below, the likelihood of something breaking and support headaches would keep such an endeavor from occurring as the potential market just isn't there.

Given the choice between loosing potential sales to piracy or investing large sums of money in a porting project with a low probability of commercial success... I'd pick the piracy and make my next version that much harder to pirate!

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[ScuzzMonkey]

They don't own Mac OS, yet Office for Mac dominates the Mac office productivity software market. I don't see that not running Office over Windows has hurt them any there.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have had cases where when I sent PDFs I was asked "What's this? I don't know how to open it, can you send an MS Word document please."

I had that happen too and that immediately marked them as a place I don't want to work for!

PDF's are not high tech. There are sites all over the web that distribute docs in PDF. The IRS distributes tax forms in PDF. Most governemnt publications are PDF.

If the moron you are sending your resume to can't understand how to use anything but word docs, it is definitely not someone you want reviewing your resume. Pass it up to someone smarter and go back to playing Solitaire!

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Undertaker43017]

Office on Windows is platform dependant, but I use Office X on OS X and it works flawlessly and is not platform dependant, except for the Carbon integration.

Office X wasn't my first choice but unforunately it ended up being the only real choice since, at the time, OpenOffice was woefully behind for OS X and requires you to run X11, which ends up being like an emulation layer on OS X.

It seems if they can do such a nice job on Office X (I personally think it is 100% better than the Windows version of Office), then doing a native port to Linux shouldn't be that hard.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[westlake]

And c) the article is talking about the developing world which probably doesn't have a large installed user base for Word.

I'd say that if you have trade or professional contacts in the first world or are among the educated elite, the decison makers, in the third world, you probably have used Word.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[nelsonal]

It's actually more like half, windows is the other half (if you pull Windows out from Server & Tools I'd be surprised if that made any money either). While MSN now makes a bit of money, most of their other businesses are either breakeven (CE business solutions) or retching cash (Home and Entertainment). The windows and office division together produce more than the total company operating profit.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[zooblethorpe]

Crossover Office ... is capable of running Word virtually flawlessly

Not quite. I'm a translator, and I'm stuck using Win2K under VMWare in part because Crossover cannot offer me the Japanese functionality needed. That and the obscure hoops to jump through to get Shift-JIS filename compatibility under Linux. But even given legible filenames, Crossover chokes when it comes to setting Office up with international UI options.

Just my ¥2...

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[DaHat]

and is not platform dependant, except for the Carbon integration

That you know of...

then doing a native port to Linux shouldn't be that hard.

See previous statement.

Have you ever ported anything more complicated than HelloWorld.c from one platform to another? For that matter... are you a coder?

When it comes to porting, let me teach you 4 important words: "Porting is a Pain!", or maybe another 4 "It is NEVER easy!".

Yes... in theory it'd be easy to port say... Office X to Linux because both MacOS and Linux have similar *nix systems... however the differences between them will drive you nuts even if you plan for it from the start... something I doubt Office X was built with in mind.

Hell, I'm still working to backport a wxWidgets based application to work under Red Hat 6.2 (works fine under 7.3, 8, 9, Suse, Mandrake and Windows (95-XP)... just not RH6.2 (which is required)).

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially when M$ Office is significantly faster than OOo in Windows. I don't know the results would be same if M$Office existed on GNU/Linux.

Even if you consider the features in OOo, most of them are an overkill.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[BrokenHalo]

[4]"Someday, we'll find Microsoft has patented the alphabet and we'll have to pay royalties every time we use our keyboards."

Sssshhh. Don't put ideas into their heads, you fool...

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Donny Smith]

I used to say it as a student, then as married, then as divorced.

Then I found a new young girlfriend and now I have less money then I was a student...

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure it's due to crossplatform issues and not crossversion issues? Different versions of Word are notorious for playing badly with each other.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Jaywalk]

why would any linux user use MS Office, especially when they have to pay for it?

Because they have ten years of archived documents in various MS formats (including VB automations) which require MS Office to make them all work. The value of those documents far outweighs the cost of MS Office.

Which is why MS won't make a Linux version of office any time soon. If there was a Linux version of Office, one of the major roadblocks that holds corporations back from adopting Linux would be gone as well. If you can get all your old documents to run on cheaper Linux boxes than on Windows, there is little reason to keep upgrading both Office and Windows. MS would also lose the whole "cost of training" argument if there was a Linux version of Office. Your average user needs training to use the office suite, not the OS.

If Microsoft ever makes a Linux version of Office, it will mean that they have accepted that Linux is replacing Windows and they have decided to surrender their OS monopoly in order to extend the life of their Office monopoly. But Windows is currently far too pervasive to make that calculation make sense.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Undertaker43017]

I am a coder, and have done extensive porting, my first job was keeping ports running for ~2 million lines of C++ code, on VMS, AIX, SunOS 4.x, HP-UX, Irix and Ultrix. This was back when C++ wasn't standardized, DEC barely had a C++ compiler for either VMS or Ultrix and it seemed like every vendor had a different version of the ARM in front of them. ;)

Having that experience I understand how to write platform indepedant code and whenever I work on any project that requires support for multiple platforms, I make sure every developer on that team stays away from platform dependant features. Any platform dependant aspects, like GUI's, are kept very isolated from the business and database logic (and yes I write database indepedant code as well), so that they can be dealt with easily.

Does MS practice this approach? Doubtful. I understand though that the Office X team is a separate team at MS, and that Office X is not so much a port as a total rewrite of the Office product, which makes some sense since there are features in Office X which are not in the Windows version. If MS were to take this approach and dedicated a new team to build an Office for Linux, I think they could succeed quite well.

The bigger difference is that Mac users still don't mind paying for a product, Linux users have never cared for paying for a product...

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[OwnedByTwoCats]

A whole bunch of companies would look at the cost of MS-Windows licenses, and look at the cost of Office-for-MS-Windows and Office-for-Linux, and choose to eliminate MS-Windows and its associated expenses.

If Office-for-Linux is less than Office-for-MS-Windows, as the article implied, the incentive for the switch-out of MS-Windows would be even greater.

Another incentive to ditch MS-Windows is viruses, worms and trojans.

Microsoft would lose a lot of revenue, very quickly, if they did this. The only way they might consider such a scheme, is if they believe they are losing both MS-Windows and MS-Office revenue streams. Then they might jettison MS-Windows revenues (but not say they were doing this), and try and preserve some fraction of MS-Office revenues.

Andersen Windows don't require security updates, or reinstallation, or expensive upgrades.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[BrokenHalo]

100% compatibility doesn't happen anyway. If I take a Word doc I've produced on any particular machine, the likelihood is very low that it will look the same on another winbloze machine.

Personally, I prefer to create my documents with OpenOffice (or sometimes LyX), and if I have to make them available online to other users, I export them to pdf.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[orzetto]

Don't own, but remember they bought $150 millions in Apple shares in 1997.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[einhverfr]

However, I think you are missing the point. For IT managers, Linux & F/OSS are all about Price. This is why more and more government IT departments are threating to go to Linux, and my Microsoft is doing everything but giving away its first-born to keep them on Windows & Office.

For too many IT managers you are right. However, I have run into a number of really bright managers (IT and otherwise) who see F/OSS as strategically important for reasons other than price. These reasons include:

1) Support for open standards.

2) Multivendor support

3) Flexibility of deployment (re: freedom).

This third issue is significant because it allows the business to be more agile in its IT deployments. Think about it. With PostgreSQL, I can roll out a pilot program and wait a year to decide whether to cancel it or expand it, all without any license procurement. This means less beurocracy, and better business tools.

IME, most IT managers which are concerned about cost will buy Microsoft software if they can budget it. The IT managers see open standards and freedom as strategic (and practical as opposed to moral) values will go with Linux wherever they can.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[cdemon6]

Yes, but what about your next project? Buy another license for MS products or use the stuff already present (for free) on your linux box?

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Errtu76]

Support. Not to say MS support is great, but it's there, it's guaranteed, and it's an insurance for a company that they won't end up with a product that they can't use. If you have a company, wouldn't you rather put your money in a product that has an official support channel rather than unofficial means of (trying to get) support?

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[drsquare]

Hi RMS!

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[HeyLaughingBoy]

why would any linux user use MS Office, especially when they have to pay for it?

Because they may want the combination of an extremely stable OS, coupled with a very popular office suite? There are many reasons, but the heart of your question is the unspoken assumption that Linux users don't want to pay for software.

I think you're wrong. Using myself as an example: right now I'm in the market for another digital camera. Since my home desktop PC runs Linux, unless I want to use my wife's XP machine every time I need to get images off the camera, I have to start by finding out which cameras have Linux support then I can look at specs and reviews to see what good cameras fit my budget!

I would happily pay for a Linux version of whatever Windows software the camera maker supplies so I wouldn't have to go through this process. Instead, I think in the end I'll just get a camera I like assuming I'll use my wife's PC to access the pix and if it turns out to have gphoto2 support, that's just icing on the cake.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Melantha_Bacchae]

The shares were part of a deal to give Jobs some capital to get Apple back on its feet after a nasty fall. The deal also included Office on the Mac in exchange for IE on the Mac as the default browser. Microsoft was trying to prop up Apple as a competitor to get the DOJ of its back.

The deal has since expired, and the shares were dumped on the market in the Fall of 2000 (contributing to Apple's nasty trip that presaged the crash of the PC industry a few days later). Apple has since recovered (more quickly than the rest of the industry, and with hardly any layoffs).

Safari, based on open source KHTML goodness, is now the default browser on the Mac. Since MS tacked its recent acquisition, Virtual PC, onto Office for Mac, they are having trouble getting the full product released.

The "marriage" is over, much to the dismay of clueless pundits. With the success of iTunes, the iTunes Music Store, and the iPod, Apple is laughing all the way to the bank. ;)

With Office import/export capability in AppleWorks, ThinkFree Office, and OpenOffice being ported, we won't be needing MS Office for much longer.

Microsoft free Macs are wonderful. I know, I own one. So is Linux, for that matter.

So, what was it that we needed Microsoft for? Oh yeah, that headache and sick stomach feeling I get every time I try to use, let alone program, Windows. :b

"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it."
Miyasaka, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
Sure we can. Trick MS into embracing and extending Godzilla, he'll stick his head down MS's throat, and nuke it.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Kurgol]

>Or using linux components to make windows cheaper.
>microsoft already used the bsd TCP/IP stack once,
>what would stop them from that kind of stuff, again
>and again.

The GPL is what stops them using linux components to make windows cheaper. The BSD licence is what allows them to use the BSD tcp/ip stack. Though I don't think Microsoft is ethically challenged by stealing code, I think they would be more likley to buy someone with the technology they wanted rather than "infect" windows with any "viral" code...

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Fred_A]

I can't wait to see the resulting mess when Windows-1252 encoded filenames and ugly font substitution crap start flooding the Linux machines...
"Oh and KB article 342355523 says you have to chmod -R 777 /usr/local/bin/MSOffice/* or it won't run".

Wasn't it great when MS last did it's last Unix thing with the server side FrontPage extensions ? Remember the headaches getting that crud to work with the NCSA server ?

I know I'm not installing stuff from them on any Unix machine outside of a sandbox. The few customers I have which require complete Office compatibility and who are still willing to make the leap to a Linux desktop get to buy Crossover Office. Works fine and doesn't bork the machine too much. The rest are happy with OOo which works as advertized.

It might not be as bad as I expect it to be but I've been stung before... (that is if they ever release anything for Linux which I doubt they ever will).

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[SphericalCrusher]

True. The only time I ever have to use it is when I'm at school. But depending on how good my friendship is with the teacher, I sometimes install OpenOffice on my computer, just because I don't want to have to deal with the bulkiness of MS Office.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[zod1025]

all digital cameras I've ever head of work just fine in linux, with the usb-storage driver. Worst case is you pop out the memory card and plug it into a reader on your linux box.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[matth]

Er... I install OpenOffice on all machines that I format for friends. Much better then that junk WordPerfuncted... or whatever it is. One of them once said to me (I was at his house), what is this? I said "it's word, or like it anyway, works just like it". Within a matter of minutes he was using is happily, even shortcuts which he told me are "just like Microsoft Office" so he could use them very easily. Sorry but "open office doesn't work the same as microsoft office" just doesn't cut it.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[msh104]

correction.... windows stole NOTHING bye using the bsd stack, it was perfectly legal for them to use that software that way.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[HeyLaughingBoy]

I had one cheap one (don't remember the brand) that didn't. Also as I've been researching this week, I'm finding people complaining that some of the cameras I was considering either don't work at all or not all features are supported.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Colazar]

As an accountant, I can tell you that there isn't another spreadsheet program that can compare to Excel. I ended up buying Office for my Mac, just so I could do spreadsheets on my own time.

I use Appleworks for word processing, but Escel is the king.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Anonymous Coward]

wow! you are so far ahead of me!

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[bigredradio]

Until Open Office is ready for real business use, I would use it. I currently use MS Office with Crossover Office on my Linux Desktop. The reason is that even though you can write a nice letter and create a simple document in OO, you cannot do more sophisticated tasks such as indexes, bookmarks, etc and export directly to PDF with the bookmarks in tact.

To me, this is the same argument between photoshop and gimp. If you are a novice and only do a little work in the application, it seems just as good. If you are a power user on the application, you clearly see the differences.

Most software for the Linux desktop is good for basic/intermediate use. When it comes to power use, most (not all) software lacks behind the commercial counterpart.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Sanga]

Considering how their different versions do not play well together, it would be a grand feat if the port to a different OS retains the exact quirks and features that it has on windows.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[GreatDrok]

That is really the same issue, the Office format files are not a good solution as different versions of office can't reliably read each others files. I have Office 2K on my XP box and Office X on my Mac. The fact that I can't reliably share files between the two versions is a major issue. I recently wrote a document on my Mac and noticed when loaded into Office 2K that the text in a table was minced. I fixed it on the PC and saved the file again with no other changes. Once loaded into the Mac again the table still looked fine so I figured I was OK. It was only when I printed the 40 or so page doc that I noticed that Office on the PC had gone and changed every occurence of courier font to arial and wrecked the formatting. I would never see this sort of issue with OpenOffice and that is largely down to OOo file formats being well understood and documented. I doubt even MS knows exactly what their 'formats' are.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[spasm]

My employer (University of California, San Francisco) has the legacy problem of a) paper forms not available digitally; and b) digital forms only available in Word/Excel format which work badly if at all in OpenOffice. The forms are all admin-type things for HR and purchasing etc.

Like many workplaces, to deal with legacy paper forms we have a single old typewriter tucked in a corner. Early last year we added a single old Pentium I with Windows 98 and Office 97 to the 'legacy corner' so we could continue to deal painlessly with the last of the legacy closed-format documents.

Works for us.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[TheLittleJetson]

yeah, i dont think they could make a linux office simply because of how reliant on windows the current office is. look at how office is on the mac: it's a completely different product, that addresses the same needs. adding a linux version would not be a simple port, it would be a totally new program. is this really worth doing, in a land of openoffice, koffice, and those who dont use an office suite simply to spite microsoft? :-P

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[AstroDrabb]

The majority of your post was insightful, until you stated:

The bigger difference is that Mac users still don't mind paying for a product, Linux users have never cared for paying for a product...

Where do you come up with that crap? The majority of Linux users are not using Linux for a desktop, but a server. The majority of those companies using Linux as a server are paying for 24/7 support such as from Red Hat/SuSE and paying for server applications. At least this is how it has been at the three fortune 500 companies I have worked at. Running Oracle, DB2, SAP, PeopleSoft and other applications that are far from cheap.

The real issue with commercial software on Linux is, does it add value or features that I do not have from current F/OSS software. For the majority of the $5 - $50 "shareware" crap on MS windows, the answer would be _no_. However, there are plenty of professional, top-notch closed/proprietary applications only available under MS Windows that would do just as well on Linux if Linux has a large desktop market share.

I know a bunch of non-technical Linux users would love quality applications that made some hard task eaiser. For example, imagine if there were an easy to use firewall app for Linux such as Kerio Personal Firewal, or Sygate pro for the average, non-techy Linux user (the best and easiest I have found is FireStarter. How about a nice, easy to use DVD/Media player that doesn't require you to download Win32 DLL's and place them in /usr/lib/win32 (MPlayer, Xine) to be able to play current media? There is a market for commercial Linux applications. Those applications won't have the same easy ride under MS windows, they will have to add value/features not available in current F/OSS offerings to compete.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[spitzak]

I don't think they would blatently sabotage your software like that. If they wanted to a more likely attack would be to modify Word so that the saved files are no longer read correctly by your softwar. The other common attack was to add something to Windows that Word can call that makes it work better or faster (but this is probably impossible for a word processor nowadays).

The whole point of the article is silly. Microsoft would have a much easier time releasing a "cheap windows+office" combination than trying to make a Linux release.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Minna Kirai]

With the success of iTunes, the iTunes Music Store, and the iPod, Apple is laughing all the way to the bank. ;)

Uhm, that's basically just one interconnected product there. And since iPod+iTunes is now the most profitable part of Apple, it's hard to justify them remaining an unprofitable computer company with a small sideline in consumer audio.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[1DarkZen]

A little off-topic, but doesn't Linux support any card readers? Who cares if the camera supports Linux if you can find a card reader that is supported under Linux.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[sadler121]

Disclamer: I don't have Office for the Mac.

Though on the other hand, Office is currently ported to OS X, which would make it a hellva lot easier to port to linux, because of OS X being based off of BSD Unix.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Anonymous Coward]

No wonder they don't want to release the file formats for Word or excel, and sue everybody who even attempts to decypher them.

Yeah, I know. There are ALREADY conversion tools, etc. But haven't you wondered why is there already a new version of Office that comes with every new version of windows?

They say it's to provide "new features".
But it's a lie. It's to modify and twist their file formats so the competition can't sant with the frequent changes.

(Hmmm I just wonder what would happen in 100 years when there are 100 different file formats for Microsoft Word. *shudders* :-S oh man, I'll have NIGHTMARES tonight!)

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Undertaker43017]

Sorry, should have said in my own experience...

I work with mostly small to medium sized companies that use Linux (as servers and desktops), because it's free and the software, they require to run their business, is free. Their opinion is if they have to pay for it, they might as well buy MS.

Ultimately if Linux users will pay for software depends on the Linux user, certainly the ones I work with would not pay $200+ for an Office suite or any desktop application, of course they also won't be buying Mac's anytime soon.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

The bigger difference is that Mac users still don't mind paying for a product, Linux users have never cared for paying for a product...

I've got news for you: most computer users would prefer not to pay for anything. It's mainly corporations that by stuff like office.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[Juanvaldes]

I don't know how many times this must be said but no, Office on the Mac will not help moving Office to Linux. It is built on the carbon API which is the old mac toolbox.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[orzetto]

I don't think they would blatently sabotage your software like that.

Think again, they did that already to others.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[AstroDrabb]

I work with mostly small to medium sized companies that use Linux (as servers and desktops), because it's free

That is a valid reason, and I am sure has some weight in a decision for some companies/users.

Their opinion is if they have to pay for it, they might as well buy MS.

Why is that? What if they have to pay $150 - $200 per users for WinXP Pro vs $30 for SuSE? Also, with Linux you can buy _one_ copy and install it on as many boxes as you want, you cannot do that with MS Software.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[timpaton]

why would any linux user use MS Office, especially when they have to pay for it?

I would.

My wife is not a geek, but she has used MS Office, at a very high level, for many years. Those 95% of features that 5% of users use? - she's that 5%.

Whenever I make mutterings about switching over to Linux, her first question is "does it run Office?".

She doesn't want to start from scratch learning OpenOffice.org. And that's her prerogative.

In my household, Linux's "killer ap" will be MS Office. Not "an office package that is largely but not entirely file-compatible with MS Office"...the real deal, with functionality and interface the same as the real deal.

You may as well ask "why would any WINDOWS user use MS Office, especially when they have to pay for it". People do. People prefer it. People will pay money for it.

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[aztracker1]

I dunno, I wouldn't mind if MS came up with a gtk based interface, and version of office for linux.. I would be one of the first in line to use it.. maybe that is just be.. but the desktop interface is probably my biggest gripe, allong with audio support, and user apps coming in 3rd.. OOo is nice, but I still like office 2k better...

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[HogynCymraeg]

How ironic then that the report released yesterday warned of "future compatibility issues" with using FOSS!

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[anactofgod]

Actually, wrt the much bally-hooed stock purchase by Microsoft, that was mostly a PR stunt by both sides to show the public that Microsoft was committed to the Apple market. While $150M is nothing to sneeze at, it didn't amount to much more than a symbolic financial prop for Apple, since Apple had, if I remember correctly, $4+ BILLION in its warchest at the time.

Most more important is that Jobs got the two things out of the deal that Apple really needed - the continued support of the worlds largest software developer, and the ability to sell the story that Macs will be able to work along side PCs in any environment. Gates got the one thing that MS really needed - the abililty to show the DOJ that MS was enlightened enough to play nice with competitors, inspite of its monopoly position.

You can be sure, though, that Gates and company did that only after doing the calculus that showed that benefits outweighted the detriments.

BTW, I use OpenOffice on my Macs, but those Apple developers at MS know their stuff. The Office on the Mac is a beaut, and has historically been a lot better than the POS that is sold to WIndows customers. Too bad it costs so damned much.

---anactofgod---

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[rtb61]

Most people would have (past tense). Microsoft in activly pursuing the course it has over the last few years (toy, cancer, virus, SCO and not to mention zealots) has done a lot of damage to the concept of putting MS Office on Linuz (destroyed trust and offended many decision makers).

It might get a slim chance to do one last version of Office on Linux and do some respectable numbers (the longer it waits the more unlikely success becomes), but it's short term thinking over the last few years has made that somewhat unlikely. It looks to be following Lotus etc. down the same path doing to little to late. I choose my software, will I miss not having MS Office on Linux - shit no (I'm a penguinista not a zealot ;-)).

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it?

[TheLittleJetson]

it's not a port. it's a separate product.

New Office Version

[Anonymous Coward]

If the new Office is not something like this:
bash# cd Office-3.5b/src
bash# make
I'm not interested...

Re:New Office Version

[maxwell demon]

No problem:

bash# cd Office-3.5b/src
bash# ./configure --cd-key=0815-4711-MSFT-XY42-XXX0
Testing if the system is running a Microsoft approved kernel ... OK
Testing if the Microsoft Linux TCP extensions are activated ... OK
Testing if the Microsoft Registration Daemon is running ... OK
Testing if the Microsoft Registry Daemon is running ... OK
Testing if we are connected to the Internet ... OK
Checking the CD Key ... OK
Checking for acceptance of EULA ...

End User License Agreement (EULA)

[... MS legalese skipped ...]

To accept this EULA, please type in "I Accept": I Accept
Checking for acceptance of EULA ... OK
Checking version and key with Microsoft Registratrion Daemon ...
Please wait while connecting to Microsoft Registration Server ...
License accepted.
Checking version and key with Microsoft Registratrion Daemon ... OK
Creating makefile ... DONE
bash# make
./decrypt --keyserver keys.microsoft.com ../office
bash# make install
cp -a ../office /opt
regedit office.reg
bash#

Re:New Office Version

[Randall Hamilton]

Heh. Did you copy/paste that from Fedora's Install? :)

Re:New Office Version

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Installing MS software as root? You're a brave, brave man..

Re:New Office Version

[sparkz]

I think you'd find that the EULA would come first ;-)

That would be a wise move

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that such an innovating company like Microsoft can perpetuate its dominance of the home PC market by leveraging off the enormous technology vault offered by Linux.

MS has shown in the past that it is willing to integrate the leading technologies in the market within its products. For instance, the import of Wordperfect document in MS Word lead to a great migration of users from one office suite to another. Support for TCP/IP in Windows 3.11 revolutionized the computer industry and lead to the wide acceptance of the Internet by the common folk.

I for one welcome that move by Microsoft to bring Linux into its fold. It can offer nmap, ipchains and Konqueror in the service pack for XP which would allow all business user to increase their productivity.

Which is nice.

Re:That would be a wise move

[Lethyos]

Support for TCP/IP in Windows 3.11

Are you implying that Microsoft provided this? If so, that is not correct. The product you're thinking of that brought TCP/IP to to Windows 3.x is Trumpet Winsock.

Re:That would be a wise move

[HBI]

Actually you are incorrect, it was available for Windows for Workgroups 3.11. It wasn't a dialup stack, it was for NICs. The primary reason for its existence was for those who were only running TCP/IP on their networks, so that they could use the WFW clients for SMB networking over IP, which was supported in the versions of NT available at that time, as well as LanMan.

You can still find a copy on an old install CD of NT 4 as well as 3.51 in the CLIENTS directory.

Re:That would be a wise move

[ecc0]

No. Microsoft did provide TCP/IP for Windows 3.11 for Workgroups. It didn't have PPP or dialer software, which Trumpet Winsock provided... But again, Microsoft provided the same starting with MS Internet Explorer 5.0 (which isn't really relevant though.)

Re:That would be a wise move

[ncaHammer]

You forgeting something, WordPerfect had a very large share in the market, while Linux is not the dominant OS in the desktop market.
Second MS is marching to the Longhorn release and such a move only distraction can offer inside MS and to its customers
And last i fail to see what 0ff1ce bloatware can offer to a linux user

Re:That would be a wise move

[Lethyos]

Thanks for the corrections from the two peer posts! :-)

Wh make a Linux Office version

[Anonymous Coward]

When you can make MSLinux?

Re:Wh make a Linux Office version

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an interesting 3rd alternative. If MS views it as strictly a business decision, then they decide based on the anticipated profits of each choice:

1) No quarter given -- slightly eroding desktop OS market, rapidly eroding server market, office applications slightly eroded by OO.

2) Office on Linux - increases the losses in OS, but cuts OO off at the knees (I would probably switch, I miss Word).

3) MSLinux, embrace and extend - Office only runs on MSLinux because of proprietary libraries, for example. OO runs on competing distributions. A free-for-all ensues. Note that MSLinux would still be GPL and free to copy, but the library license would prevent you from running Office on other distributions. MS would wipe out the other distributions overnight and gain control of Linux.

Re:Wh make a Linux Office version

[Lodragandraoidh]

Actually it will be called 'Lindows', as Microsoft now has the rights to that name after the settlement with Linspire (formerly Lindows).

Re:Wh make a Linux Office version

[JohnGalt00]

MSLinux, embrace and extend ...[snip] MS would wipe out the other distributions overnight and gain control of Linux.

That's highly unlikely that MS would gain control of linux because they port Office. The beauty of the GPL is that MS can't effect Linux in any way short of patent lawsuits. They can kill the commerical distributions (Red Hat, Suse), but everyone still has access to their code. They can't hurt Debian and Gentoo financially because they both essentially work for free.

The only real chance MS has is patent lawsuits, and initiating those is just admiting defeat, because they signal that MS has no better way to compete with Linux. Linux is a real challenge for MS because its the first threat they've faced that they can't throw money at.

Re:Wh make a Linux Office version

[vericgar]

They could gain control of it, if as the grandparent said, they create proprietary libs that is only on thier linux... if those libs aren't bundled against any of the other libs on the system (very ineffecient, but possible I believe) or only against LGPL libs (whichs allows linking against without sharing the source of the binary that's linking against it) and has Office depend on these libs, then as companies move to Linux and want to keep Office, they will be forced to use MS Linux, or deal with Crossover Office (or similiar solutions) - which MS might go after because it would interfere with thier market.

Re:Wh make a Linux Office version

[JohnGalt00]

They could easily keep Office as an MSLinux only deal. However, keeping Office as MSLinux only is very different from "gain[ing] control of Linux." Linux users have survived more than ten years without Office, what makes you think Microsoft would suddenly gain control or destroy all linux distributions because they port Office?

Er, OpenOffice

[DrStrangeLug]

If people have already decided to go for a linux OS then finding a good open source office suite to go with it is no problem at all. I think the time for MS to try to gain a foothold in the linux application market was about 2 years ago and they missed it.

Re:Er, OpenOffice

[Clansman]

Finding an 'OK' office suite is fine but finding one that completely replicates the entire functionality of MS Office (especially macros, pivot tables etc) is not that easy. The current options are either much slower or as fast but with half the features.

Now it's true that most people dont' use most features but, in any reasonably sized organisation, there will be enough people doing important work using these extra features that will make the transition require like for like feature replacement.

Someone mentioned Crossover Office from Codeweavers. This is an excellent product as it runs Word and Excel perfectly and much faster than Oopen Office on any platform. If MS produced a native version, it would save me having to pay extra for Crossover.

Re:Er, OpenOffice

[tomknight]

Look especially at the amount of time and money some companies spend in developing MSAccess databases. They won't want to port those to a free alternative....

Tom.

Re:Er, OpenOffice

[One Childish N00b]

There will always be a way for MS to gain a foothold in the Linux application market so long as the Linux alternatives lack functionality that businesses rely on.

Until conversion to Linux from Windows is just a case of installing the OS and office suite and everything just works (including VBA compatibility and all the other Microsoft-only features businesses use), then Microsoft will always be able to gain a foothold in the Linux app market - it just depends when they decide to do it.

Re:Er, OpenOffice

[Captain Bonzo]

I think the time for MS to try to gain a foothold in the linux application market was about 2 years ago and they missed it.

I thought the time for MS to try to gain a foothold in the Internet was about 1995, but they missed it.

Apart from their first, say, 10 years, Microsoft have been consistantly late to the party, but have still managed to dominate. I think they've missed a great opportunity, but they're not out of time yet.

If MS were not so proud...

[otisg]

I would venture to say that if Microsoft were smart and if they could lose some of their stubborn pride, they would adopt a UNIX kernel the way Apple did.

Before that move, Apple's Mac OSes were a joke - constantly crashing, freezing, etc. They integrated BSD kernel and built their pretty UI and nice apps on top. Good move by Steve Jobs. Apple lost nothing. This is the real reason why MacOS is so popular among the 'computer owners elite' today.

Microsoft could do the same and really hurt all of their competition whose existence is based on the fragility of various/all Windows versions.

Of course, MS could also just make their own Linux distro (MS Linux), make it better than RedHat and 100% free. That's an easy way to get all other Linux distro companies out of business. With their thick bank accounts holding over 30 billion USD, they could offer it for free for a looong looong time. On the other hand, that's Linux distro companies' bread and butter.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

- if they could lose some of their stubborn pride, they would adopt a UNIX kernel
- Apple's Mac OSes were a joke
- MS could also just make their own Linux distro (MS Linux), make it better than RedHat and 100% free.

+5 Funny!

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

NT has an OpenVMS kernel and it is free from freezing and crashing just fine, at least to the same level as Unix is concerned. Kernel panics and blue screens are synonymous, except that blue screens at least, by default, dump memory, explain the problem and then reboot so that I don't have to drive into work on a Saturday in order to reset a RedHat server. And frankly, aside you retards, who gives a flying fuck what the kernel is?

Microsoft had already commented on Office for Linux. In order for it to work they would have to feel that Linux's market would be willing to pay for such a product (and judging by the current comments they are not) and that there would need to be some standardization of UI. Microsoft runs a business, not a charity. They will provide their software on platforms that make sense to them.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[acvh]

For desktop use XP is as reliable as Linux. Comparing it to OS 9 is off base.

MS controls 100% of the market that they want to, the businesses that pay for software. Why change?

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[kawaichan]

Dude, where have you been for the past year?

Microsoft had released its own version of linux, called
MS Linux in November of 2003!!!!

Seems like nobody is using it though :(

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, MS could also just make their own Linux distro (MS Linux), make it better than RedHat and 100% free. That's an easy way to get all other Linux distro companies out of business.

and how long before someone brings an antitrust lawsuit against them?

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac OS X doesn't use any BSD kernel its still the same Mach kernel I think, they just used all the apps from BSD. Still much better than the previous Mac OSes tho.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean I can remove Linux and install WindowsXP on my P3-300MHz with 128Mo of RAM, and still expect a fast and reliable OS?

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Twylite]

Thank you for displaying your profound lack of knowledge of MS operating systems.

The kernel behind Windows 2000/2003 is as solid as Linux. Crashes are almost without exception the result of third party device drivers. The perceived frailty of MS is (a) a hangover from the Win95/98/Me crap and (b) because of the UI and application communication layers, not the kernel.

As a developer I get to see the side of Windows and Linux that many don't -- low level interfaces to system functionality. And many aspects of Windows, from a developer perspective, are ahread of *nix.

The Win32 threading and synchronisation models are ridiculously powerful compared to *nix, which is precisely what makes it so hard to port a lot of Win32-based software to other platforms. The fact that you can't do a simple operation like "wait for a mutex to be released or a socket to become readable" deserves to be a joke about legacy operating systems, not a persistent reality. At least BSD's kqueue comes close.

There are many other places in which the *nix kernels show their age compared to the design of Win32 (not to mention MS's ability to maintain a consistent API over 10 years of product developments). 30 year old technology may be "mature", but its not always The Right Thing To Do for the future.

So try to get the facts before you succumb to FUD about the state of computing -- from MS or FLOSS.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, MS could also just make their own Linux distro (MS Linux), make it better than RedHat and 100% free. That's an easy way to get all other Linux distro companies out of business. With their thick bank accounts holding over 30 billion USD, they could offer it for free for a looong looong time.

That's also an easy way to get sued. Firstly by the DOJ for such a blatantly anticompetitive action, and secondly, by their shareholders who are legally entitled to expect the Microsoft directors to do whatever is in their power to make them money.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally agree, this step has been so obvious for the past 2 years!

All they have to do is use a standard BSD kernel, even Darwin, sponser 10-20 BSD developers, to ensure that BSD kernels/drivers keep up with modern hardware and features, and produce

XP GUI desktop
XP Compatibilty libraries
DOSShell

Apple did this work very quickly, I'm sure microsoft, with a bit of help from Codeweavers could do this in months!.

At this, point everyone could enjoy scalable OS, that consumes resources in a controlled manner, less prone to viruses/worms etc

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[martin-boundary]

What are you, nuts? Why the hell would MS do such a thing? There's only downsides, from their point of view: switch to MS Linux, and overnight you forsake the biggest software trove on earth. You lose all your developers, who have been trained in the quirks of dos/win32/.net/etc. You lose all your products, make your documentation/knowledge base irrelevant.

And what do you get in return? Higher security, plus a steep learning curve for your developers, the need to reconquer the whole market from scratch, the need to compete on equal terms with everybody. Meanwhile, you lose your old market at an accelerated rate, since nobody's going to continue investing in windows if you're now pushing Linux fulltime.

Don't forget that Apple is a hardware company, with a tiny market share and were on their way out, so taking the huge risk they took was still much less risky than if MS did the same thing.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Idaho]

Before [moving to OS X with a UNIX/BSD kernel], Apple's Mac OSes were a joke - constantly crashing, freezing, etc.

Microsoft could do the same and really hurt all of their competition whose existence is based on the fragility of various/all Windows versions.

Hate to break it to you, but the Windows kernel has not been particularly fragile/constantly crashing/freezing since, let's say, Windows 2000, which was (IIRC) released in 1999, so your comment is like 5 years outdated <insert standard comment about slashdot, nerds and caves here>.

There are many parts in Windows that are causing a lot of problems right now (IE, Outlook, whatever else you can come up with), but the kernel is not the part where I'd look for problems in Windows - so suggesting to replace it doesn't make any sense, IMHO.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[CarrionBird]

Reliable, but it does have security problems. OS9 is more like Win 9x than any NT based system. Some people won't leave it though.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[lachlan76]

or a socket to become readable

Ummmm.......what about select?
$ man 2 select
explains it, or am I missing something here?

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[jimicus]

MS controls 100% of the market that they want to, the businesses that pay for software. Why change?

RTFA. I think the author is saying "...but with a number of high-profile government rollouts, it's only a matter of time before that changes".

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

NT 3.5/3.51 were rock solid, but they had to put the graphics layer back into kernel space in NT4 as the performance wasn't great when done in user space.

So NT4 was ok, but was a little shakey while they ironed things out.

2000 is NT 5 and XP NT 5.1.

The NT Kernels and the NT security model are infact great, it's just that there is still a hangover of people writing bad drivers and software that requires you to be admin to use it.
(eg HP Scanners last I checked).

Linux is ok, but ACL isn't in common use yet and tbh sure windows has many many problems but that isn't due to the kernel, just crap, mainly legacy or compatability, apps

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[paulbd]

there is no POSIX call to wait on a mutex *AND* a change in the state of a file descriptor. you can't wait on different kinds of events at all (semaphores, file descriptors, mutexes, signals). its bad.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

Aha! But, it is still just as incompatible with everything non-Microsoft as the "old Windows" and is therefore worthless!

And it seems to be just as friendly to virus writers as the "old Windows", not to mention all its security holes, back-doors, worms that we keep hearing about every other day! The news flash of the last few days is, "Viruses attack search engines!". In fact, we keep hearing about new viruses that only attack Win2000 or XP because, what a surprise, they attack the "new features"!

P.S.

I mean "old Windows" in the sense defined by Microsoft when they say, "All of our old crap is so unspeakably horrible that you just HAVE to upgrade to our equally incompatible new crap!".

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[otisg]

$249.99? Are they kidding?

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[winchester]

The Win32 threading and synchronisation models are ridiculously powerful compared to *nix, which is precisely what makes it so hard to port a lot of Win32-based software to other platforms.

Absolutely. Can you say CreateRemoteThread()?? Can you say global memory space? Indeed, ridiculously powerful to exploit for malicious software!

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[minus9]

NT has an OpenVMS kernel

No it doesn't it has a Windows NT Kernel.

Kernel panics and blue screens are synonymous

I have at least half a dozen servers and workstations here with uptime over a year, I doubt many people running NT can say the same.

so that I don't have to drive into work on a Saturday in order to reset a RedHat server

Then tell it to reboot on a kernel panic "man sysctl"

And frankly, aside you retards, who gives a flying fuck what the kernel is?

People who don't want to work Saturdays?

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

Condition variables (available under any half decent implementation of Pthreads Posix standard) give you just that kind of ability.

Granted you don't have the ability to set up asynchronous callbacks to be called when something does happen to your mutex/socket.

Before someone points out that a call to select() will tell you when data becomes available for reading, the important distinction is that in the asynchronous callback model in Win32 you get told when and don't have to hang around waiting for it to happen. Obviously you could simulate something along the same lines by having a select() in a single thread notify you (or do a callback) when data is available but in Win32 this takes almost no effort on your part.

If doing communication based software that has to actually be cross platform (and your stuck with C++ for some reason) then ACE is your saviour.

It is a bit unfair criticising the features of the Pthreads model vs the Win32 model - as with everything Microsoft they only had to make it work on one platform theirs ! Portability and real cross platform applicability does come at a cost.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[steinnes]

Yeah, that was a really good move for apple. I recently read in a history of Mac OS X, that it is in fact just the latest "NeXT Step" platform.

NeXT Step was from the start (according to the document I read) a BSD like system built on a Mach microkernel, and with a windowing system on top of the BSD.

So what happens is that Jobs is forced out of Apple, he starts NeXT, returns to apple a few years later, and uses the stuff he started at NeXT, thus effectively Steve Jobs never stopped working towards a better Mac! :-)

Too bad (or not?) that Microsoft's top executives have historically lacked the vision and drive exhibited by Apple (most notably Jobs maybe?), but compensated for lack of vision with ruthless business tactics?

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Tony-A]

The kernel behind Windows 2000/2003 is as solid as Linux. Crashes are almost without exception the result of third party device drivers.

or Microsoft Office or Microsoft Internet Explorer or Microsoft Print Spooling or gizmo happy Macromedia.

Year+ uptimes on NT4 Server. And no I wouldn't call it stable.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[esarjeant]

They did, it was called Xenix.

A free MS-Linux offering isn't a bad idea, but Microsoft would have to first demonstrate a profit channel for other products on Linux.

For example, if they could show a market for MS Office for Linux then it would make sense to expand further onto this platform. In all honesty, the presence of MS on Linux is immaterial, open source is still going to change the way we work with computers. The only detriment it would have is MS will emerge as irrelavant within the next decade, not an insignificant problem but also not one which open source should remain concerned about.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Geoff-with-a-G]

It's not pride, it's wisdom. First of all, as for changing their kernel to Unix, there's many things wrong with that plan. First off, as Twylite points out below, the latest NT kernels aren't less stable than Unix. There are several reason to choose Linux over 2000/2003 for a production server, but stability isn't one of them. You're right, Mac OS before X was unstable, as were Windows 3, 95, 98, and ME. Win 2000 and 2003 aren't.

Secondly, if they were to change their kernel to a Unix flavor, all of a sudden the most important code in their entire company would be code that almost none of their best programmers were familiar with, and it would break compatibility with almost all of their existing code. The time spent playing catch-up to something like that could cripple even a company as dominant as Microsoft.

As for porting Office to Linux, the only gain would be sales. It's not like there's all these Linux users out there who would be seduced by Office into switching to a Windows OS. If there's any switching, it will be in the opposite direction. As for the sales themselves, they would be insignificantly small. Linux and other Unix flavors are doing very well in the server market, but miserably in the desktop market. Office is for the desktop market, not the server. Look at the size of the Linux desktop market (already we're talking small). Now cut that down to the fraction who are willing to pay anything for an Office suite when they could get a free alternative. Now cut that down to the slice who would use a closed-source MS Office suite when they could use an open, standards-compliant alternative. Multiply this tiny slice of users by the suggested reduced price of MS Office for Linux, and you have the amount to be gained from this proposed port. Can you possibly argue that this tiny number outweighs the cost of porting it, combined with the incentive you create for MS Office users to switch to Linux?

Microsoft knows exactly what they're doing. The reason they aren't switching to Unix or porting Office to Linux is because they're both bad ideas, not because of stubborn pride.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[steinnes]

I don't know how to edit (if it's possible) so here is a little update.

I am aware of the NT kernels roots (David Cutler, and a team of ex-DEQ engineers), however if I remember correctly Microsoft imposed a few crippling prerequisites to the design of the NT kernel, which supposedly to this date, are it's biggest flaws. But in all other respects, it's one of the most modern and best kernels available.

Also, alot of the instability exhibited by windows machines, can be credited to the decision to have the GUI run in kernel space (or similar, corrections are welcome, I'm not a low-level guru ;-), to speed things up (and yes, the GUI in MS Windows is very zippy compared to the latest KDE or Gnome, IMO.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[ookaze]

What ??!!! STraw men and red herrings !!!

Stop spreading such lies. Each one of your sentence seems unfinished to spread half truths.
Well, I suppose you know the Windows kernel pretty well. But it is NOT as solid as Linux, at best, it is as solid as the PART of Linux that deals with the same hardware and functionality. Windows still does not scale as well as Linux, even with threads
on a single processor. It fails also faster under heavy load.

And you are switching easy (and bloatty) API with "ahead of *nix" too. You misinterpret 1 call of an easy API which is equivalent to 4 or 5 different calls on *nix. You make the mistake of thinking "easy to program" = "kernel ahead". That is just not true. You can "wait for a mutex to be released or a socket to become readable" on *nix. It is harder to program, because you have to actually know what you are doing, to know the theory. So, you have a better scaling than on Windows, but it is harder to program, that I agree. That does not make the Win NT kernel more powerful. Most professors would tell you such a complicated API should never go into a kernel, especially on these topics of parallelism and concurrency. This is better left in user space, and you have several libraries that implements this for you on Linux if you need them.

Perhaps *nix are showing their age, perhaps POSIX is showing its age, but saying that Linux is showing its age (compared to Win 2000, or even Win 2003) is nonsense.
BTW, you change the subject from Linux to *nix in your post, I suppose it was done on purpose to spread more FUD.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[captain_macosx]

Well maybe I do not know that much about the windows kernel but I do know how much of a security nightmare Windows is. Why does internet explorer have so many security wholes that allow the hosts file to be changed, active X controls to be run that change the operating system's TCP/IP stack, and damage explorer making it impossible to view the file structure graphically. If you've had to fix any of these problems you'd move to a different OS! In XP fixing the damaged TCP/IP stack is even worse because it cannot be uninstalled from the OS so that a clean version can be installed. Sometimes forcing a windows reinstall! It doesn't matter how good the kernel is when the OS has so many other holes.

Oh yeah and the local security policy editor. Why do I have to enable guest has local logon so I can remotely access a machine not bound to a domain?

Windows has a horrible security structure! That's why UNIX is better!

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Gumshoe]

Before someone points out that a call to select() will tell you when data becomes available for reading, the important distinction is that in the asynchronous callback model in Win32 you get told when and don't have to hang around waiting for it to happen.

I've never even seen Windows for about 10 years let alone know anything about the kernel so I may have misunderstood your point, but what you're describing sounds suspiciously like the asynchronous I/O model specified in Posix.1 of all places. The aio_* functions return immediately and generate a signal if requested, when the I/O has been completed. It's similar to the non-blocking I/O model that everyone knows about but despite the name, non-blocking operations do occasionally block, the aio_* model never blocks.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm. "I know stuff you don't. Whatever your experiences are, they have nothing to do with reality. Your system sucks, mine rocks."

Nice argument. My crappy little Gnu/linux box and all this lousy free software still seem to be running a _LOT_ smoother than any version of XP I've had to try to do the same things on (or discovered I can't readily do the same things on). Sans constant unpatchable exploits (inability to safely use the web), crashes (kernel or otherwise), insane UI (yeah, I said it), and general need for constant handholding and babysitting. But lowly non-developer that I am, I guess I don't know nothin'.

Keep putting out that code for Windows, maybe some day that killer app will show up and I'll switch back.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Gumshoe]

There's no individual POSIX call to do that, true. But using the asynchronous I/O model specified in Posix.1 you can do away with blocking waits completely and just employ a signal handler. It's not that bad. In fact, it's pretty good.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[maximilln]

Huh?

The perceived frailty of MS is ... (b) because of the UI and application communication layers, not the kernel
...
the design of Win32 (not to mention MS's ability to maintain a consistent API over 10 years of product developments)

That's not much of a consistent API if it's a major contributor to the perceived frailty of Windows.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[wawannem]

In XP fixing the damaged TCP/IP stack is even worse because it cannot be uninstalled from the OS so that a clean version can be installed. Sometimes forcing a windows reinstall! It doesn't matter how good the kernel is when the OS has so many other holes.

This is a common misconception, there is a very easy way:

`netsh int ip reset [log_file_name]`

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

into work on a Saturday in order to reset a RedHat server.

Funny, I have an assload of Linux on production servers and have never had to drive to work on a Saturday to reset ANYTHING.

Ever consider for a minute that maybe you just don't know what the hell you're doing? And for the record, VMS has and always will suck. Sorry, it's an inbred piece of DEC legacy shit and that's that. Unix being the mongrel that it is has definitely lost pedigree and picked up light years of flexibility in the process.

And yeah, I ran VMS from the late 80's till the early 90's.

Oh yeah, and I just love those server patches that'll kill functionality on a windows server.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Twylite]

Win32 has blocking, non-blocking and asynchronous modes of IO. But where it really shines is the integration between IO and scheduling (from a developer perspective).

The call WaitForMultipleObjects allows you to wait on any number of objects, for any or all of them to be signalled. Each object can be a thread, an IO resource (file, socket, pipe), a synchronisation primitive (mutex, event, semaphore), etc.

The other point of integration is Completion Ports. You can provide worker threads and asynchronous callback functions (to be invoked in the worker threads) to any IO operation.

POSIX AIO provides most of the functionality (with regard to IO) that one can desire (Completion ports are cute and offer a lot of potential for performance, but you can do an equivalent job with kqueue/poll/devpoll and/or aio). But POSIX AIO doesn't offer developers control over the integration between the scheduler and IO.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[unmuzzled and mean]

They could achieve the same much more effectively be producing their own fully functional .NET environment for the more popular target platforms. Then all their next generation products would potentially be able to run.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

Before someone points out that a call to select() will tell you when data becomes available for reading, the important distinction is that in the asynchronous callback model in Win32 you get told when and don't have to hang around waiting for it to happen.

How is this different from poll(), since select() is now depreciated anyway.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[hundalz]

Of course, MS could also just make their own Linux distro (MS Linux)...

They did it here

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

"that it is in fact just the latest "NeXT Step" platform. "

Uhhh..no.

Dumb people like to try to sound smart by making such claims though.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[mosschops]

The perceived frailty of MS is (a) a hangover from the Win95/98/Me crap and (b) because of the UI and application communication layers, not the kernel.

What about the current inability to cancel create requests in the kernel? That's responsible for a lot of application-level hangs, without involving 3rd-party drivers. You also end up with unkillable processes - not just Unix-like zombie processes, but multi-megabyte monsters that won't go away. In such situations Shutdown is merely a wishful request, and even W2K/XP will struggle to complete it with hung applications.

And many aspects of Windows, from a developer perspective, are ahread of *nix.

Such as? I've been coding for Windows for 10 years, and I still yearn for the simpler and more powerful approach of Unix coding (which is mainly in my spare time at present). From a coder's point of view, the only thing Windows has going for it is Visual Studio, which is still much nicer than KDevelop. The new Visual Studio 2005 Beta is very sluggish, so I hope they've not ruined it.

I had the misfortune to be working on a file-system driver under Windows last year, and it's beyond a joke. Writing even a simple new filesystem requires spending thousands of dollars on the MS IFS kit, and it's far from easy from there. It's a complete spaghetti of interactions between your driver and the cache manager + OS, with many subtle pitfalls. Why else could OSR charge $50K for a driver framework kit just to aid development?? Did I mention that a file-system driver for 9x/Me is completely different from NT/W2K/XP? Now compare this to the simplicity of the VFS layer Unix, and weep...

Windows seems to go out of its way to make everything complicated, just for the sake of it. I'm pleased to see the push for .NET and Web Services is going "so well", as it's another step down the road to hell.

30 year old technology may be "mature", but its not always The Right Thing To Do for the future.

If it works well, why change it? As a coder I'd rather work with a tried an tested system. With Windows I seem to too much time testing on and coding round the subtle differences between different versions of Windows than , and I'm sure Longhorn is going to be yet another version to include.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Bert64]

What's interesting to note however...
The kernel that you talk about, was mostly stolen from DEC..
The UI and application layers were microsoft's own code bolted on top...
The original kernel was a microkernel architecture where device drivers shouldn't have been able to drop the whole system, microsoft screwed that up by allowing drivers to be loaded into kernel space.
The stable parts of windows were stolen, the unstable parts were their own code.. Tells you something about the quality of their development process. The same thing applies to a lot of their other products, the more stable ones were bought/stolen from elsewhere.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Bert64]

kde and gnome are just massively bloated and sluggish.. they try to do too much and be too fancy..
Windowmaker is very snappy here, and there are many other lightweight window managers.. Infact this machine is noticeably more responsive with windowmaker than xp.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Ambassador Kosh]

When running 1-2 apps at a time I find that windows 2000 and windows XP often are a little faster then kde 3.2 on debian sid. However under kde I rarely run less then 15 apps at a time and my normal usage is about 30 apps and zope(web app server) with about a 800M db loaded for devel and tests and I have found once I get more then 4-5 apps open at a time that my linux system performs far more smoothly then windows 2000 or xp does. Overall the more loaded the system the better linux does by comparison. The worse is when running db tests that keep the system pegged for hours but interactivity is still very good on the linux box. Overall my experience with windows 2000 and windows xp under extended high loads has been horrible. I find if something can keep disk io peaked with random access reads/writes, use all available ram and cpu and use just a little swap after a few hours any windows version will just lock up and die but I can leave my linux boxes doing that for months without any issues.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[bit01]

wait for a mutex to be released or a socket to become readable

And there speaks a programmer who has been ill educated by the MSWindows environment. There are dozens of events that a program may need to wait on, everything from mutexes to sockets to GUI callbacks to USB events to power fails to signals to virtual memory events to whatever. To have a special call to wait on only two of them is stupid, precisely the sort of nonsense you expect to see in the MSWindows environment, rather than consistently solving the general problem with powerful, general purpose tools like threads and asynchronous IO. Related to the above, programmers who like the MSWindows kitchen sink API frequently have a poor idea of what a race condition is and how to avoid them, a large part of why MSWindows and MSWindows applications are so flaky. The Unix/Linux API isn't particularly clean either but it's a lot cleaner architecturally.

---

It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[OmniVector]

there are many reasons to go with a freebsd based kernel over that of say win32's. it's tough to base something's worth on just the face value (API). a freebsd core has other key advantages. it lets you focus on application development, and occasional security maintenance rather than kernel implementation. you basically get, for free, the efforts of all the freebsd kernel developers. another perk is that also comes with the freebsd userland utilities (ls, mv, etc). great. now you don't have to implement those. now you're also freed from kernel documentation. you're freed from security patching (unless you find the freebsd community isn't patching quickly enough which right now is not the case). you get free POSIX compliance. you get an out-of-the-box ready environment for the majority of POSIX compliant unix software.

the advantage of leveraging a pre-existing base lets you focus more on what users really want now a days -- applications. and quite frankly all the things i just mentioned don't really matter to the vast majority of computer users. however from a business perspective, anything that allows me to spend less $$$ on kernel R&D and maintenance, and more $$$ on making windows a better overall environment is really just a win-win situation. nevermind all the other advantages that come with embracing a *nix environment like the hoards of unix people adopting, and supporting unix utilities on your system (see fink, darwinports, and now gentoo macos), things like nfs, etc. what apple did was more than just a smart move.. it was brilliant. it was almost like a phoenix rebirth of the tech industry, as now allllllll the unix people who've been clamoring for years saying "Hey look at me. we're better than proprietary" have finally made a voice. and who knows. if you're a decent programmer, maybe one day your name will appear in apple's file system in one of the unix header files, or man pages of a utility you wrote, getting distributed to millions of users.

it's not the performance or design of the kernel that's the reason to switch. it's simply the Right Thing to do. so why won't microsoft do it? last i remember, windows is last OS that isn't based off a unix derivative.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[16K Ram Pack]

I can't stand the whole rewriting the world on Windows every so often. I even noticed something about file sorting on XP today that I swear was different on previous versions. I didn't ask MS to change it, and yet they have.

I worked for a decade on COBOL on mainframe and by the end of it, my coding was just natural. I hardly had to think about how to do it, just do it. I didn't need an MSDN to look something up, because it never changed (or if it did, it was incremental).

Sometimes, people should consider the cost of the change process over the perceived benefits.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Twylite]

So here's a programming challange for you. Create a function that takes a mutex, a file/socket handle and a timeout as parameters, and returns when the first of (mutex available, IO readabe, timeout occurred) happens.

Oh, and don't do something like userland polling. This has to prove that the scheduler can wake a thread under those conditions, not that you can sit in a busy loop checking the environment.

Hint: you can't do it. The IO waiting primitives provided by the kernel (select, poll, /dev/poll, blocking and non-blocking IO, etc) are completely divorced from the synchronisation primitives that are available. But don't believe me ... ask Google about WaitForMultipleObjects unix.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so fast, Gumbie. Before you start dis'ing 30 year old technology, remember that VAX/VMS started in 1975, and was released in 1977. It's almost as old as Unix. One of the best things about programming for VMS was the asynchronous I/O. Unix couldn't hold a candle to VMS I/O -- still can't. Although, as you point out kqueue comes close, albeit 20+ years late.

BTW, it's that same async I/O technology from VMS that made its way into Windows NT, when David Cutler left Digital Equipment Corp for Microsoft in 1988.

I would also take another exception to what you've said about Windows 2000/2003 being as solid as Linux: I use both on a daily basis. Windows 2000/XP/2003 sit on a stock Dell platforms, running industry standard comercial apps. RedHat/Fedora/Mandrake Linux platforms are a mishmash of parts and bits. MTBF is about 90 days for Windows and 180+ days for Linux.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

Showing its age ... or More Mature ? ....

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

"If doing communication based software that has to actually be cross platform (and your stuck with C++ for some reason) then ACE is your saviour. "

I've used this before, and very nice it is too, although for recent development we avoided it due to not wishing to have yet another dependency.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Twylite]

Sorry fuckwit, but I learned multithreading and most of my programming skills on FreeBSD and Linux. At some point you have to use your ridiculously fucking power general purpose threads and asynchronous IO to solve a problem rather than just mentally masturbating about it on Slashdot, and in some instance that problem might just be that you need to resume processing once either a mutex is available or a socket is readable. If you every studied software engineering you'd probably even think about abstracting that particlar problem as a function if you use it more than once. But guess what? You can't solve that problem on Linux, because it doesn't have the kernel primitives to facilitate waiting on IO and synchronisation events simultaneously. So take a flying fuck off a short pier, get a clue what you're talking about before you sprout your shit, and perhaps you may want to read some books on why developers who know a fuckload more than you do think that the Win32 threading and synchronisation model is more powerful for application development than anything available in the *nix world.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[captain_macosx]

stack dump doesn't always work!

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does internet explorer have so many security wholes that allow the hosts file to be changed, active X controls to be run that change the operating system's TCP/IP stack

Run Mozilla as "root" on a Linux system and you've got potentially the same problems.

This is mainly an issue of multi-user security (used by both Windows and Linux) not fitting well on single user desktop boxes. And that MS defaults everyone to Administrator rights.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Bert64]

So NT4 was effectively beta software which they were ironing bugs out of... It's unacceptable to charge money for beta quality software

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right...the kernel of Win2000/XP is stable. At least it would be if MS would stop bolting on crap like IE, mandatory GUIs (can't run even a server without it), and a sprinkling of services that run in kernel-mode.

The base kernel (inspired by VMS by the way) is fine, but the crap added to it makes it less stable in a server environment. In my opinion its fine for desktop use.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you do have to sit around and wait for it to happen: Windows Sockets generate messages that you read from the message queue. It's just that you can wait for many more types of events than select(3) or poll(3) allow.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[spitzak]

in Win32 you get told when and don't have to hang around waiting for it to happen

Huh? As far as I know you have to call WaitForMultipleObjects or a similar function. This is identical to select() or poll(), and the calling thread is "waiting around for it to happen".

The only alternative is to have the system actually spawn threads when events happen (not sure if any systems have tried this) or the Unix signal method where a call to the function is pretty much forced onto the stack of an existing thread (this is pretty much a mess as anybody programming signals will tell you).

While they did some things right like having the exit of other threads and condition flags be waited for by the same call (on Unix I have to make pipes just so a thread can tell another that something is happening, which is silly since the thread object exists), they also did some wrong stuff, such as making it impossible to wait for stdin/out and popen() and a number of other Unix-style interfaces. This seems to be a deliberate attempt to make portability difficult, as I don't know why else they would do this.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Foolhardy]

From the MSDN page describing Create Remote Thread:

hProcess
[in] Handle to the process in which the thread is to be created. The handle must have the PROCESS_CREATE_THREAD, PROCESS_QUERY_INFORMATION, PROCESS_VM_OPERATION, PROCESS_VM_WRITE, and PROCESS_VM_READ access rights.

It's not insecure because you need the proper access rights first. This function is quite useful for debuggers.
Same thing applies to ReadProcessMemory and WriteProcessMemory.

What are you talking about 'global memory space'? Each process has its own address space (its own set of page tables). The only global memory is kernel memory, and it's not accessible from user mode. Shared memory is accomplished through section objects; no section object is connected to every process (except for system libraries, and those are read-only).

What is the UNIX equivalent to an IoCompletionPort?

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is an article about unkillable processes, and why.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[greenhide]

I would venture to say that if Microsoft were smart and if they could lose some of their stubborn pride, they would adopt a UNIX kernel the way Apple did.


Apple is a computer company. Even though I think its computers are only OK, the software it has is really, really cool. But the software they offer only runs on their machine.

Apparently, they have a version of OS X for x86's, but they haven't released it. It certainly would sell in the millions -- a user-friendly Unix based, secure and stable OS? It'd be very popular!

And yet, they haven't released it.

Is it because they're morons.

No, it's because they're a computer company. The one control they have is that only their computers can run their software. That makes their computers appealing.

I mean, there are some people out there who would go for an Apple because of its unique design and styling. But they'd be idiots. No, paradoxically, what makes Apple computers sell is the software it offers for free.

Microsoft's bread and butter is their OS. If they started offering MS Office for Linux -- which, if they were going for full compatibility, would be effectively impossible, because Office integrates things like COM objects, VisualBasic, etc. in ways which pull heavily on the OS's system -- that would kill their OS sales.

For this very reason, it would also be a bad idea for them to make a flavor of Windows running on a UNIX kernel. Most of the security issues aren't in the Windows kernel, they're in all the services running on top of the kernel. And every existing piece of software has been written to take advantage of these services, which is why in general Windows software, when running on a decent machine, is very, very fast. I haven't taken to OpenOffice much because it takes forever for it to load on my machine (granted, it's X-windows on a Mac, which I may not have tweaked correctly yet). But Office on Windows, even a relatively old machine, loads very quickly. The disadvantage, of course, is that almost every Microsoft application -- Office, Outlook, etc. -- has opened security holes to the OS because of its strong coupling with the underlying OS, and because of the huge level of control Microsoft decided to give to documents opened within Office and other applications. These strengths can be used for good -- meaning you can make what looks like an application but is really just an Excel spreadsheet or Access database, or for evil.

Okay, I'm rambling, but my point is the author of this article is an idiot. Unless Microsoft wants to go through the kind of upheavals that IBM went through (although perhaps on a bigger scale), and completely redefine its core business, then it can go ahead and do so. But it seems to be doing fine as an OS and software company, and that's where it's going to stay. Allaying itself with the Open Source movement can only hurt, not help, the company.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[The Conductor]

Oh, and don't do something like userland polling.

Why not? The purpose of programming is not to prove some esoteric point about API elegance, but to solve a problem. If a loop that sits there and spins on a bit does the job (whatever its performance faults, it certainly is portable), then that may be better than some non-portable API call.

Elsehere in this discussion, others have described near-equivalent ways to implement this functionality in Posix, to which you have countered that Win32 threading intgrates process scheduling & I/O in a way that is not easily duplicated in Posix. So far, that integration is the only reason I have seen to put wake-up-on-some-combination in the kernel space.

In the end it boils down to a trade-off in performance/ease-of-programming (by writing it into the kernel) vs. portability/security/determinisitc-behavior (by pushing it out to userland). Win32 favors the former while Posix favors the latter, at least on this narrow issue. Which way is "better" is something about which reasonable people can disagree.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[tchernobog]

wait for a mutex to be released or a socket to become readable
I though "pthread_mutex_lock" did that by default with "fast" mutexes, but I ain't an experienced programmer, so I may be wrong. I tried getting a grasp on those 1024-characters-long API call names from MicroSoft, and I was really glad that *n?xes provided me simple _system calls_ (which MS does _not_ provide, since the developers can use only the APIs). Now I really find me at ease with *nix, and every time I use windows or I have to write more than 5 lines of win32 code it gets on my nerves and I would like to smash the keyboard on the wall.

There are many other places in which the *nix kernels show their age compared to the design of Win32
I can admit that some implementations are a little aged, but not bad: the standard library is fast and does its work neatly. The Linux 2.6 scheduler is surely a good improvement from th 2.4 series, and seems better than MS' one.
Anyway, I find MS libraries too chaotic. But when we speak about kernels, the win32 kernel and the event-driven idea behind everything windows-like aren't really good, nor new. Why, else, people would use *nix kernels for critical applications, such as servers? The only thing interesting about the win32 approach is the HAL. Everything else is just (bad, imho) habit: you think that using already prebuilt APIs would speed your work, but for me it is only laziness. It's like cooking yourself a steak or eating an hamburger in a fast food: the latter is faster, but not necessarily better. Anyway, it's clear that while you cook your steak you could carbonize the meat, or put too salt in it. However, if you did it right, the result usually is worth the effort.
There's, I believe, little I couldn't do in twenty times more readable code in *nix, than in Windows. And when it comes to write libraries (speaking of .dll), doing it in win32 is a pain (who have tried knows about entry points and so on) compared to *nix (libtoolize is everything you need).

(not to mention MS's ability to maintain a consistent API over 10 years of product developments).
Well, the *nix system calls quite never change, and they're fast. K.I.S.S.
Keeping some APIs static for 10 yrs means also keeping backwards compatibility with some old or "slow" functions. And more code you write more bugs you can potentially generate. So I don't really see the point of having a lot of APIs you'll never use instead of a hundred syscalls and then you use another library (for example, STL). If you want a thousand functions, pick up a library like, who knows, GTK+. It's in userland and fully extendible. Don't you like it? Change it.
A lot of only-windows programmers I spoke with (15/20-yrs experienced) said they were moving away to win32 native calls because they found they were slower and their programs occupied more memory than expected (from 20% to 40%).

30 year old technology may be "mature", but its not always The Right Thing To Do for the future.

Well, nor it's Microsoft way, I guess, with their full monolithic kernel (that's why installing a driver means reboot) and their false object-oriented programming (where are hereditariety and polimorphism while speaking of APIs' manipulated objects?). If you read some Tanenbaum's books, you see what a mess windows have become just to keep backwards compatibility. And don't say threads and processes are made better in windows. Putting a forked process at the same level of his father, for example, is an idea abandoned by two decades by modern operating systems.

We could discuss if Zeta is a better OS than Linux, BSD better than Darwin, or so on for hours. But one thing is the kernel, and one thing are the tools gave to developers for a platform. *nix problem, right now, is XFree86. Let's hope that X.Org moves in the right direction...

I'm not an expert, anyway, so don't flame me... just polite talk.

Why do you call it HANDLE? It's a (void*)!
CreateProcess : 10 parameters
pthread_create : 4 parameters

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[black mariah]

Infact this machine is noticeably more responsive with windowmaker than xp.

I would seriously hope so. You're comparing a modern desktop enviroment with all the graphical bells and whistles (XP) to a window manager that is, to be blunt, way fucking ugly. I've used Windowmaker, I like Windowmaker, but your comments are just fucking stupid.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

With Windows I seem to too much time testing on and coding round the subtle differences between different versions of Windows than , and I'm sure Longhorn is going to be yet another version to include.

That's exactly the way Microsoft wants it. If coders are too busy making changes to keep up with Windows, they aren't innovating. Innovation is something that Microsoft wants to keep to itself.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[neil.orourke]

How on earth did this get modded "Informative"??

The kernel that you talk about, was mostly stolen from DEC

Stolen from DEC? A quick search on the net (or even here on /.) will tell you the truth: Dave Cutler was sitting at his desk at DEC West, pissed as all hell that DEC cancelled the new Prism computers that would run Mica, his new VAX-Compatible OS. Bill Gates hears of this, and offers Cutler and anyone else from his lab a job at MS writing a next-gen OS/2 (which later becamse Windows NT after the MS/IBM split). Of course NT would look like something from DEC - but remember that DEC had the source code to NT from quite early in the piece (they did the original Alpha port) and either chose not to sue or saw that there was nothing they could sue for.

The UI and application layers were microsoft's own code bolted on top

It was rewritten for NT from the ground up.

The original kernel was a microkernel architecture where device drivers shouldn't have been able to drop the whole system, microsoft screwed that up by allowing drivers to be loaded into kernel space

You do have a fair point here. Under NT 3.1 - 3.51, drivers operated in user space. They took a performance hit for that, but until (say) Win2k SP2, NT 3.51 was the most stable Windows out there. Moving the drivers into kernel space caused quite a bit of angst in the trade press, but for the most part it seems to have survived.

There's a comment elsewhere that the greatest flaw in Windows today is not being able to abort a kernel call, and it's a fair comment.

So your final summary sentence come across as nothing more that a nasty slur, hardly worthy of +4, Informative.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Foolhardy]

I tried getting a grasp on those 1024-characters-long API call names from MicroSoft, and I was really glad that *n?xes provided me simple _system calls_ (which MS does _not_ provide, since the developers can use only the APIs).

I agree that the names can get a little long, but at least they are descriptive. If you had never heard of freopen before, could you tell what it does without looking it up (from just the name)? How about SetStdHandle?
No, the system call interface isn't documented by MS. Yes, that sucks. There are alternative sources that do document the native API (the system call interface).

Anyway, I find MS libraries too chaotic. But when we speak about kernels, the win32 kernel and the event-driven idea behind everything windows-like aren't really good, nor new. Why, else, people would use *nix kernels for critical applications, such as servers? The only thing interesting about the win32 approach is the HAL. Everything else is just (bad, imho) habit: you think that using already prebuilt APIs would speed your work, but for me it is only laziness.

Chaotic? The win32 api maintains source-level compatibility (that's all POSIX offers) with win16 since Windows 1.0, and binary compatibility with win16 binaries by use of a virtual machine. Could I hope to run a binary created in a Linux 1.0 era environment on the newest stable environment? How about a kernel module? You can load drivers from NT3.1 (first release of NT) in WS2003. Windows developers have gone to great lengths to maintain stability and compatibility in their APIs. You are lucky if the next release of the GNU C runtime doesn't have breaking changes requiring code modifications.
The reason behind this is that customers get really mad and tend to not buy upgrades when the next version of your product breaks their existing apps; custom business apps that have long lost the source code and developer support.

What do you have against the concept of asyncronous IO? You wouldn't want all the hardware busses in your computer to behave syncronously.
I see it as a question of balance between a generic solution and a specific solution. When UNIX uses a filesystem to access almost everything and treats as many things as files, that is a generic solution. Generic solutions are more consistent and usually simpler, but don't handle variations and unique situations well.
Anyways, if an application would be best served by handling something in a special way and the operating system is willing to participate, where is the harm in letting them do it? Asyncronous IO doesn't work for everything but when it does, syncronous IO really looks ugly.

Keeping some APIs static for 10 yrs means also keeping backwards compatibility with some old or "slow" functions. And more code you write more bugs you can potentially generate. So I don't really see the point of having a lot of APIs you'll never use instead of a hundred syscalls and then you use another library (for example, STL). If you want a thousand functions, pick up a library like, who knows, GTK+. It's in userland and fully extendible. Don't you like it? Change it.

Or you could keep the old APIs and get people to use new ones that work better. I'm confused; you said Microsoft APIs were too chaotic, but now they're static..?
In Windows, the system call interface is the native API, exported in ntdll.dll (look for the Nt* functions). Win32 sits on top of that, as a big runtime library that provides compatibility, graphics and user interface controls. Many win32 functions are thin wrappers to native functions: CreateThread (from win32) just calls NtCreateThread (a syscall). XP sp1 has 285 syscalls. Linux 2.6.7 appears to have 268.

Change it, as in create (yet another, I'm sure) fork of whatever project,

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Bert64]

Actually, DEC did sue them, and won, the reason there was an Alpha port of NT atall was part of the settlement.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[VitaminB52]

not to mention MS's ability to maintain a consistent API over 10 years of product developments

Well, sometimes they just put a new and improved API next to the old API. This way old applications can still use the old API, and new applications can start to use the new and improved API.
The old API is still there for 'backward compatibility' reasons.
Including, in a new Windows versions, both the old and the new API isn't IMHO the same as 'maintain a consistent API over 10 years' - the new API isn't consistent with the old one.

The kernel behind Windows 2000/2003 is as solid as Linux. Crashes are almost without exception the result of third party device drivers.

The story for XP looks like to be a bit different. It crashed dozens of times on my new PC, and it wasn't a driver problem - only one program was crashing XP, other programs didn't do that and were using the same drivers. Buggy apps can still take XP down with ease (btw: problem was 'solved' by upgrading the app - and I write 'solved' because a buggy app should never take down the OS).
And I've never ever had a Linux crash.

Re:If MS were not so proud...

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if you have a spare $20 to bring it to 256MB. Then you will be just fine. You can turn off some graphical polish if you want, to make the interface totally snappy. And I would recommend something other than IE, like say Opera.

If you don't have the $20 then definitely stick with Gentoo or whatever the fuck you third world subsistence farmers use. Although at this point you have a decent shot at finding the extra 128MB in a computer that has been abandoned on the street, so that's another frugal possibility for you.

They would like to embrace it allright.

[Anonymous Coward]

Much the same way the embraced Novell...
"No we add these services to SUPPORT novell"

.... 3 years later ...

"These services are for helping people upgrading to Windows"

Of course not

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would Micro$oft make the Linux platform more appealing by creating apps for it?

Re:Of course not

[AndyRobinson]

Because the majority - about 75% - of revenue comes from desktop software.

Assuming that the increasing trend towards using Linux on the Desktop continues there is going to come a time when there is more money to be made by selling Linux users MS Office than trying to keep everyone locked into Windows. Given the availability of Open Office et al there's a definite case to be made for doing that sooner rather than later - giving users the option now before they've properly tried Open Office is better than trying to win them back later.

I can't actually see it happening, but that's mainly because of the personalities involved and the internal politics at MS. Can you see our dear friend Mr Gates being able to let go of his vision of world run by Windows?

Having said that, though, you could make exactly the same arguments for and against MS Office for the Mac, which the last time I checked was available from all good computer stores...

Re:Of course not

[svallarian]

Because their OS takes way too much time and resources to develop?

And doesn't seem to be revolutionary when it comes out...i mean we haven't seen any real innovation since windows 2000.

Steven V.

Re:Of course not

[Carewolf]

Because sooner or later they will be forced to by a anti-trust settlement.

Because they have already been convicted of misusing their monopoly and thereby indirectly of having a monopoly with the special anti-trust rules that goes with it, they need to prove that _not_ releasing Office for Linux is a sound business decision for the Office part of Microsoft, and just for the company as a whole. If Linux gets enough desktop-installations they will be unable to prove that, and forced to make the Linux release.

Re:Of course not

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would Micro$oft make the Linux platform more appealing by creating apps for it?

For the same reasons they make Office for Mac?

Re:Of course not

[Anonymous Coward]

AndyRobinson : "Assuming that the increasing trend towards using Linux on the Desktop continues there is going to come a time when there is more money to be made by selling Linux users MS Office than trying to keep everyone locked into Windows"

# 1, there is NO increasing trend towards using Linux on the desktop going on, with Windows accounting for a staggering 96% of the world's desktop OS, higher than 5 years ago, and Linux for a measly 1%!
Meanwhile Microsoft's Information Worker (Microsoft Office) division put in a very solid 23% growth in profits in the last quarter, and an even more impressive 33% growth in profits in that same quarter.
Sure doesn't appear like Microsoft needs any income from Office on Linux does it?
Especially since the open source community are cheapskates and don't really believe in paying for anything anyway!

And # 2, Mac hardware will always be considerably more expensive than Windows hardware anyway, so Microsoft is not really threatened by Macs. So Microsoft can continue to make Office for Macs with little to fear.

Too logical a proposition

[Rengi_Neer]

It would probably make good business sense to do that, but given the 'dog-eat-dog' culture of that grand corporation, I doubt if that will ever happen. I believe the fear is that it will encourage the user base in developed nations to give Linux a try. In any case, it won't make it to Debian mirrors if the oh-so-pure purists are considering dumping Mozilla. MS Office for Linux would make them pop a few essential capillaries in that small space between their deaf ears, but I am sure than Linspire, and maybe Lycoris would be happy to include it in their distros.

Embrace

[__aahlyu4518]

and extend

Re:Embrace

[peterprior]

.....your middle finger...

They won't !

[jalet]

They won't embrace it, because they can't extend and extinguish it as they have done for other software.

Thanks for the most part to RMS and the GNU GPL.

Re:They won't !

[ggvaidya]

Yeah, and icebergs couldn't sink the Titanic either.

Re:They won't !

[maxwell demon]

Yeah, and icebergs couldn't sink the Titanic either.

That's true. If there hadn't been all that water around and especially below the Titanic, it would not have sunk despite of the icebergs.

Why?

[MrHanky]

Why is it that an editor of BusinessWeek has no clue about business? If Microsoft embraced Linux by selling a low cost version of Office for it, migrating to Linux would be even easier --> no money for Windows, less money for Office.

With no MS Office for Linux, migrating is a lot harder. OOo works fine for most people (better in my experience, but my experience probably differs), but in some cases you just simply need the original, which means you also need Windows (or Crossover Office).

It really is as simple as that. Office isn't just MS's biggest cash cow, it's also their most important selection of proprietary file formats.

Re:Why?

[secondsun]

Because in 2000 Microsoft was broken up by the justice department into an Operating Systens unit and an applications unit.

Oh wait sorry, the yellow header sent me into my happy space where the world was fair and McCain was president.

Re:Why?

[unmuzzled and mean]

The point is that they release a Linux version to capture the Office users of developing nations who choose to use Linux as a cheap alternative to Windows. So the growth market of a percentage of the billion Chinese and the billion Indians means say 800 million more users. If they all use Linux then that is 800 million lost OS and Office sales.

By selling them 800 million copies of Light Linux MS Office they at least get some share of the 800 million new users.

Re:Why?

[16K Ram Pack]

But the whole thing I see is raising interoperability using MS standards. You can't move off Windows if you want MS Office, so you keep buying Windows and everything else Microsoft.

Then there's the whole "this functionality doesn't work with old versions". So, to use product x fully you have to upgrade product y as well.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

It makes no sense for Microsoft to continue to develop operating systems

I guess they should hire you as thier Business Strategist then huh? Friggin moron. You even bolded that statement. If you want people to take you seriously you have to talk seriously.... Crap talk doesn't make you smarter

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Crap talk doesn't make you smarter

But it works so well for trolling....

The article doesn't think things through

[hcdejong]

It lists two reasons people are moving to Linux/OpenOffice, but doesn't address either of them.
Quote: In November, 2003, the government of Brazil ordered its agencies to use Linux and other open-source software as much as possible. A month later, Israel's Commerce Ministry announced a decision to migrate to OpenOffice, an open-source desktop suite that runs on Linux and Apple's (AAPL ) OS X system, as well as on Windows. The city governments of Paris and Munich both announced their intention to switch to Linux and open-source applications. In Peru, a state legislature nearly passed a law banning the use of proprietary software by government agencies. And the governments of China, Korea, and Japan have announced an alliance to promote open-source software.
All of these organisations are switching because they don't want to use proprietary software. Providing a Linux version of MS Office won't solve this, as there's no chance in hell MS will release it as OSS.
So that's one of the concerns the article mentions, but leaves unaddressed.
Second is the price. Why would MS offer Office for Linux for a low price, when it can just offer existing products (Windows XP plus Office) for a low price, ensuring a lock-in that wouldn't occur with Office/Linux?

Re:The article doesn't think things through

[Anonymous Coward]

In November, 2003, the government of Brazil ... All of these organisations are switching because they don't want to use proprietary software.

No. They are choosing the lowest cost option. OSS is not the motivator. Free as in beer is the motivator. If Windows were free they'd be all over it.

Re:The article doesn't think things through

[Thing 1]

All of these organisations are switching because they don't want to use proprietary software.

That makes sense. But from the blurb:

Meanwhile, when they choose Microsoft software, fast-growing emerging markets like China and India opt for pirated copies. Salkever explains that the concerns for customers like these are the 'relatively high price of Microsoft software' and the 'concerns about buying proprietary software to run critical government operations.'

So China and India are opting for pirated copies because they're concerned about using proprietary software? That just doesn't make sense. If I was concerned about using proprietary software then it doesn't matter whether I pay for it or not; I'd run OpenOffice instead.

Re:The article doesn't think things through

[mallardtheduck]

Red Hat and Suse Linux are free, in the sense that you can buy one copy or borrow a copy and make as many installs as you wish, I'm sure if you looked hard enough, you would be able to find the .iso images available for download somewhere. All of this 'copying' is perfectly fine and legal in the linux world.

And TCO? Take a government department with 1500 PC's. Suse linux: buy Suse 9.1 Proffessional for $89.95 and install on all PC's.
Windows: Volume licencing for XP is around about $100 per unit. That makes $150000. Plus Windows Server licencing, MS Office licencing, etc.
Of course you probably have to pay your Linux admin staff more than your Windows MSCE staff, but I doubt you would pay them an extra $10000 each (assuming 10-15 staff) more.

Re:The article doesn't think things through

[Anonymous Coward]

I have seen solid , very well researched TCO studies from practically every single IT consulting firm out there including Gartner, Dataquest and nearly everybody else, and in every single case, independent studies have continued to confirm Windows TCO far better than that f Linux!
Your little back of the napkin arithmetic simply won't wash. Its useful only for wiping your hand after eating. LOL!
That's's about it.
As for Red Hat ,Suse etc ec, of course they are charging huge sums for the use of their Linux software. In fact Red Ht only recently tightened the terms of the use of their software yet again, making them even more expensive than Windows in some cases. If I remember correctly, there was a big debate right here a slashdot about hat very issue.
That airy fairy nirvana free love world that you are living in simply has nothing to do with the hard cold facts of Red Hat trying to make their numbers and stoke up their stock prices.
In fact, so keen is Red hat to stoke up their stock price that they are currently under investigation by the SEC for fiddling their figures!
So much for free love!!
Plus of course in practically every developing country, Windows is for al practical purposes every bit as free as Linux. I don't remember the last time any of my pals back in Africa actually paid for their copy of Windows or Office.Same thing is happening in India, China, Vietnam , Indonesia, Philippines, etc etc.
Consumers simply go out and get themselves pirated copies of Windows and simply use it with no fear of any repercussions whatsoever.1
Since Windows has all the applications they need(including all the kick ass games) an Linux doesn't even come close to doing that, why exactly will they be usithe user unfriendly, , inadequate device driver, user unfriendly Linux again?

Re:The article doesn't think things through

[mallardtheduck]

Were these "independant" studies funded by Microsoft?
We all know that "independant" studies always agree with the entity that funds them...

Re:The article doesn't think things through

[khallow]

Plus its not the cost of the software CD, its the total cost of ownership, and Windows wins every tme in that space!

The TCO doesn't automatically favor Windows or Linux. I find the TCO for me favors Linux and I've worked in places where Windows was favored (Linux didn't support the necessary applications and they wanted to standardize). I think part of the strategy here is that by making these large government customers Linux-only, they'll drive down TCO costs for Linux. Maybe boost the business of their local Linux vendors too.

Re:The article doesn't think things through

[16K Ram Pack]

I think there's also three factors in these government contracts (and I'm not defending MS).

If you buy MS software, you are exporting some of your expenditure. Use OSS, and nearly all the spending can be made on local consultancy firms.

Governments like to have control over their data in many ways.

Governments don't have to worry about file formats. They don't bid for contracts from people. They are always the buyer, and therefore can dictate the formats. This could be important. In future, government departments may start saying to companies that they want contracts in Open Office format.

Re:The article doesn't think things through

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been lots of independent studies NOT funded by Microsoft on the Windows vs LinuxTCO debate. Windows still wins hands down!
You don't have a leg to stand on dude!

Re:The article doesn't think things through

[Frit Mock]

The author of the article just didn't get the difference between free as in beer and free as in freedom.
That's why the whole article from the first line to the last one is just rubbish!

Micro$oft and Linux ???

[phreakv6]

You must be kidding ! The reason why Linux rocks is cause its OPEN.If Microsoft makes office for linux,will it be open ?? And of course its not gonna be free.I dont think it will click.It will rather suck with their awkwark development cycles and business practices.

Re:Micro$oft and Linux ???

[jimicus]

If Microsoft makes office for linux,will it be open ??

Of course not. But what the article fails to realise is that it can never happen, and the reasons are actually pretty simple.

Microsoft are probably the ONLY company on the planet with a business model based on selling something which literally EVERYONE with a computer wants, yet they will not customise. Other companies either offer software development services & solutions (cf. IBM), hardware (cf. Sun, IBM) or cater for a specific market (rather than "Everyone", cf. Intuit).

I would postulate that this therefore puts the operating system (and, in the advent of truly Open file formats, potentially quite a bit of basic productivity software) in the "commodity" market. Provided they all talk to each other properly, who cares if it's Microsoft's product?

But Microsoft care. They've built a $30billion company up, primarily on the strength of these two products. Nothing else they have comes close to raising that level of hard cash. And now, something which they can't crush has the potential to greatly reduce the money Windows & Office brings in.

So, back to the original point - there's no way on Earth Microsoft can do something which might encourage people to look at Linux. If a company is prepared to stop paying the Windows tax, they might be equally prepared to stop paying the Office tax in a few years if replacing Windows turns out to be easy enough.

boxed versions

[Anonymous Coward]

they could by linux boxes and hug them, that is the only way :)

I've wondered this myself.

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the biggest problems MS has, is it's lack of security in it's products - most notably Outlook. It would make sence for them to produce a similar version for Linux. All those worms and email viruses could then affect Linux ( or at least to user account level / not root ) as well. MS could at least then say it's not only Windows that has such security issues.

A missed opportunity I think.

every time

[__aahlyu4518]

Every year at least once an acticle appears about a rumour or someone proposing that MS should or will release an MS-Office 4 Linux. So far I haven't seen anything. It's just like waiting for Doom 3...

ehm

HEEEEELPPP

Re:every time

[peterprior]

Don't forget Doom3 has Gone Gold! :D
Duke Nukem Forever however, seems to be taking.. well.. forever., or maybe thats the whole point.. hmm..

I'd love to see X11 support

[dave-tx]

If I could pick one feature to add to Windows, I'd add the ability to redirect displays from a remote *nix server to my Windows box.

Of course, going the other direction would be nice, too.

Re:I'd love to see X11 support

[zyche]

In reverse? Like this?

Re:I'd love to see X11 support

[RWerp]

It's there all the time, only not from Microsoft. X11 servers for Windows exist.

Re:I'd love to see X11 support

[smoyer]

Just one word ... cygwin. It leaves my boss with the appearance that I'm using M$.

Re:I'd love to see X11 support

[littlefoo]

"Of course, going the other direction would be nice, too."

That's already there for Unix clients -> Windows servers running terminal services, via rdesktop (http://www.rdesktop.org and the project site at Sourceforge). Admittedly that terminal services caveat may be a gating issue for a home network, but for many networks it's not a problem. Rdesktop is quick, light and works a charm in my experience.

Re:I'd love to see X11 support

[jovetoo]

Install cygwin and install their X server. Wish granted.

Re:I'd love to see X11 support

[Anonymous Coward]

err... This already exists in both directions, supplied by many sw companies...

Re:I'd love to see X11 support

[laejoh]

VNC does the trick as well. Found out today on my machine from work. Terminal Services I can't install so I opted for vnc. Got it working in a minute. Only had to install the xvncviewer on my linux box and entered the gates of Moria once more.

Re:I'd love to see X11 support

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Services for Unix (free download, from Microsoft) includes an X server and adds initd, cron, etc... to the already existing Windows NT subsystems.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/default.asp

I'm trying to "port" apps from Cygwin to SFU at home, and for the most part, there's no problem at all doing so.

M$ on linux

[Sarastrobert]

It would be nice but I think there is too much speaking against it.

First of all I don't think it would be an easy port to make considering how M$likes to intermingle it's OS with it's applications. Office is bound to be using alot of OS specific API's, com objects etc... If the main selling opportunity would be low priced copies to the third world, then maybe they don't think it is worth the cost.

Thirdly I think it would be to much an admittance of defeat for M$ to aknowledge Linux that way.

Re:M$ on linux

[hot_Karls_bad_cavern]

"First of all I don't think it would be an easy port to make considering how M$likes to intermingle it's OS with it's applications."

While part of that is true, i'd like to bring to your attention the nice, shiny boxes that hold MS Office for OSX.

Re:M$ on linux

[Anonymous Coward]

> While part of that is true, i'd like to bring to your attention the nice, shiny boxes that hold MS Office for OSX.

If I recall correctly, the OSX and Windows versions of Office are developed by different teams using different codebases.
Nonetheless, it would be much easier porting X.Office to Linux than Office XP.

Re:M$ on linux

[Monkey-Man2000]

I think I've heard that as well, but Crossover Office have shown that MS Office can successfully be run under Linux. And relatively painlessly by my understanding. If MS did put out a port of Office (big if), I would expect that they would try to license the Crossover Office technology from Codeweavers or buy them.

Re:M$ on linux

[Anonymous Coward]

They wouldn't even need to license Crossover Office. They could just help the Wine project support their (doubtlessly dumbed-down) Linux version of their Office products, and distribute copies with their CD. The could even go back to when Wine was Apache/X/MIT licensed (I forget exactly which variation was used), and then MicroSoft could make the compatability layer completely closed source.

Re:M$ on linux

[RahoulB]

Office for Mac still includes a port of VB and a full COM interoperability layer so big chunks of it can work the same across both platforms

Need a split

[sridhar.g]

If MicroSoft Need to do this, First they need to restructure Company.
Split OS division from Desktop applications division, give freedom for strategic decision, keep competition between both.
Probably App division will take this step ;)..
For now who ever suggest, I dont think MS will look for this..

Re:Need a split

[peterprior]

Isn't that what the DOJ ruling wanted them to do, causing MS to bleat on about how it would "impact the ability to develop quality, integrated products for customers". Yeah. Right.

If MS wants to move into low-cost software

[Anonymous Coward]

They should just buy that division off sun, and simply sell ".NET Desktop" machines with low cost, less fully-featured versions of Windows running Office. Maybe strip down the latest directx support so people cant use them for everything MS wants them to buy full versions of Windows for.

Not enough guts

[smoyer]

I don't think that any of the Microsoft executives actually have the nerve to push this idea through the company, board of directors and take the short-term stock price problems. In fact, I don't think they have the nerve to SUGGEST it.

Re:argh! my eyes

[Ralph Yarro]

Congrats on the new section, but the color scheme is killing my eyes.

Color scheme looks okay to me, nowhere near as bad as the Games ones but I'm wondering whether they really have enough Italian readers to justify a special 'it' section.

MS Linux

[Cronopios]

Oh, I thought Microsoft was already distributing MS Linux!

Do you mean that MS will not invade Cuba as stated there?

why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would they offer a low cost version of Office for Linux? Why not just offer a low cost version of Windows? That's what they actually have been doing. It means they don't need to port products to Linux, they don't encourage adoption of a rival, and it doesn't hurt their profit because they can slice up the market quite efficiently anyway - in fact it might even decrease piracy.

Fails to accomodate one small thing ...

[torpor]

... Microsoft know that x86/PC-based computing, as a 'significant factor' in computing use among general populations, isn't necessarily as viable, nor as guaranteed as everyone assumes.

Thus, the investment in alternative-platform/embedded computing. XBox.

The way Microsoft will 'embrace' Linux is by becoming a Hardware Company. They certainly have the cash to do it, and they certainly have the cash to compete with other hardware companies.

What they 'need' is a decent operating system code-base that they can use to truly dominate cross-platform embedded-computing application development...

Look around you. You use more non-x86 computing platforms than you realize. x86 is the one thats sucking all your attention, though ...

it would be their death

[Cheeze]

They only make money off of their OS and office suite. If they offered a low-cost office suite, no one would need the expensive operating system or expensive office suite. Who really wants to pay $750 for Longhorn, and then pay another few hundred for an Office suite? Then, 5 years down the road, have to upgrade again because MS stops offering bug fixes. Multiply that by 500 workstations and you have a large budget that you're basically giving MS. That probably funds upgrades to calc.exe and clock.exe.

Re:it would be their death

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that people are so stupid to think that they upgraded their OS then they HAVE to upgrade their office suite???

Office 97 is 100% functional and great. and only fools are paying the long dollar to upgrade.
I know of many offices that they are running their Office 97 installs (retail CD's) on the brand new XP computers they bought.

funny, how that horribly old and outdated office suite still works perfectly for writing letters, making spreadsheets and presentations....

fools upgrade for the sake of upgrading.

This is probably *bad* for Microsoft...

[McCall]

There are really three scenarios here:

You want a low cost, or free, system.
- In which case you use Linux and OpenOffice.org both of which are already proven products.

You want a UNIX based system as your using legacy UNIX products, but need Microsoft Office.
- In which case you use MacOS X and Microsoft Office.

You need Microsoft Office for office productivity and compatibility with other products.
- In which case is the $100 for a Microsoft Windows license really an issue?

I agree developing nations should find better and cheaper ways of doing things, but doing the same things a different way just for the sake of it doesn't seem justified to me!

They like to make everyone carry the price

[corvair2k1]

Really, I think that Microsoft would rather dump Office than have a 'low-price' version being marketed. There are thousands of features that most people don't know how to use, and Micorosft probably wouldn't want to invest in those features if they didn't have everybody paying for it.

This is a rather moot point really.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is rather comical to say the least. And while I will most likly be marked down for stating the truth, or not bothering to create an account to post my view once a year, Take this for what you will.

The desktop market is what...at least 75% dominated by microsoft? linux has taken what...8 years to cut into it 10%? This translate into a few pennies less per day the company makes..on just one of it's fronts. I am sure people would love to dream of the day *nix is on equal ground in the desktop market as windows, it is simply not going to happen in the next 10 years minimum.

Why you ask? driver support for new, exotic hardware. Gaming support(DX9 ring a bell?). propritory drivers and software to power those drivers. software users have been using for years and years. All of these are things linux could "do" per se..or any other *nix. just not now. The turnaround rate to get new drivers, software, and ports made is simply too long to be useful. and that is a simple, painful fact when it comes to desktops.

As for corperate resources using linux in a widescale deployment..There are just too few companies that are willing to try that. Why? It takes time for hundreds or thousands of people to "relearn" how to use thier computer. remember that most of the work force in the world had "windows for dummies" to get them employed years ago? Companies do not want to take the time, or the money training the entire staff..for such a change. it would end up costing the same, if not more, then windows products. Not to mention the time lost in the process..That in itself could cost far, far more then the liecences. This is just another simple fact that people tend to turn a blind eye to.

And before the zealots start, I am a unix sys admin..have been for 8 years now. Please do not start with the whole "blah blah blah LINUX R00LZ blah" rant, Because it serves no point. Direct that energy to making drivers and supporting hardware and ports.

Either way. Microsoft really has nothing to fear from Apple or Linux...or unix either in the desktop market. Even if Apple and linux combined have 40% of the desktop market..that translates to what..only 100 billion a year in revenue for microsoft off windows? Please.

--nitedog

Re:This is a rather moot point really.

[minus9]

Perhaps you would care to provide us with a list of this exotic hardware which is commonly used in a business setting and has no Linux drivers. I don't think DirectX9 video cards are particularly heavily utilised in office (The flight sim easter egg works fine with software rendering).

Re:This is a rather moot point really.

[Randall Hamilton]

Personally, Does it really matter what version of Directx is being used? X supports excatly none of them. Exotic hardware? hell, dazzle, cheapo soundcards, cheapo network cards, hardware based video encoding cards...for confrencing, etc. Personally, I consider "desktop" to be a machine that can do literally everything. a "server" should do one thing, and one thing well. Run well coded deamons with nothing else impacting the machine, so that it may serve requests in top form. IE apache, postgresql, you get the idea. a workstation? well, that is what most businesses need. A machine that does not really require massive software support, or a cross between a server and a desktop. Workstations are the "grey" area between the two. a Desktop, on the otherhand....needs to do it all. Play all games. Run all software. Take any hardware you throw at it. Hence, in the "Desktop" market, linux has a long long way to go. taking a few years to port games...not supporting random hardware..lenghty and buggy ports of common applications....All of this adds up.

Re:This is a rather moot point really.

[Zakabog]

The desktop market is what...at least 75% dominated by microsoft? linux has taken what...8 years to cut into it 10%? This translate into a few pennies less per day the company makes..on just one of it's fronts. I am sure people would love to dream of the day *nix is on equal ground in the desktop market as windows, it is simply not going to happen in the next 10 years minimum.

Except that now more and more hardware/software is supporting linux. When I started using linux I had to have such specific hardware, nothing seemed to work and it was really annoying to do anything in. Now I just go to Fry's and figure, hey that probably works in linux, generally it does (unless it's like a winmodem or something.)

Why you ask? driver support for new, exotic hardware. Gaming support(DX9 ring a bell?). propritory drivers and software to power those drivers. software users have been using for years and years. All of these are things linux could "do" per se..or any other *nix. just not now. The turnaround rate to get new drivers, software, and ports made is simply too long to be useful. and that is a simple, painful fact when it comes to desktops.

What do you mean by exotic hardware? I just bought a NVidia 6800 GT, the linux driver was right on nvidia's website. When I checked for the windows driver, it didn't support the card yet (does now though.) My friend has a 64 bit athlon, linux support has been out for a loooooooooong time, is there even a 64 bit windows version out yet? Or do you mean exotic as in worked in windows 95 and older, well that stuff usually doesn't work in windows xp, much better chance that someone bought the hardware a long time ago and wrote a driver for linux support. Gaming support(OpenGL ring a bell?) UT2K3 and 2K4 are both written for DirectX and were both ported to OpenGL, Doom 3 and every other game from ID Software will be OpenGL and will have linux support, half-life 2 probably won't have linux support as I see valve moving farther and father from linux (not that they were moving closer, just that half-life no longer works in linux thanks to all the new features they added to it that were totally useless and unecessary.) Most other new games will probably follow in Epic's and ID Software's footsteps and have linux support, if not there's always wine (ps, UT has come with the linux installer right on the disk, and a lot of my new hardware has too, most of the drivers are available the day I buy the hardware so what wait till drivers or software are you talking about?)

As for corperate resources using linux in a widescale deployment..There are just too few companies that are willing to try that. Why? It takes time for hundreds or thousands of people to "relearn" how to use thier computer. remember that most of the work force in the world had "windows for dummies" to get them employed years ago? Companies do not want to take the time, or the money training the entire staff..for such a change. it would end up costing the same, if not more, then windows products. Not to mention the time lost in the process..That in itself could cost far, far more then the liecences. This is just another simple fact that people tend to turn a blind eye to.


I dunno I wouldn't call my sister or her boyfriend linux zealots, they're like your everyday AOL users, but she sat down at my desk constantly, always able to find her way around (afterstep, which actually amazed me, but I have icons on Wharf). She knew the two icons she wanted (mozilla and gaim) and she used them just like she'd use IE or AIM in windows. I don't think it'd be that hard to tell people "Uhhh just click this icon to go into open office, it's just like microsoft office."


And before the zealots start, I am a unix sys admin..have been for 8 years now. Please do not start with the whole "blah blah blah LINUX R00LZ blah" rant, Because it serves no point. Direct that energy to making drivers and supporting hardware and ports.

And before the bashers start,

Re:This is a rather moot point really.

[minus9]

I see. Where I work the ability to run the latest games is a low priority. My machine here has the cheapest and crapiest soundcard and network card imaginable, DirectX is not supported because it is a Microsoft technology and for some reason they aren't too keen on supporting Linux. Having said that apparently FarCry works fine under WineX. Don't ask me what they consider "fine" though, I haven't personally tried it.

Re:This is a rather moot point really.

[Randall Hamilton]

Except that now more and more hardware/software is supporting linux. When I started using linux I had to have such specific hardware, nothing seemed to work and it was really annoying to do anything in. Now I just go to Fry's and figure, hey that probably works in linux, generally it does (unless it's like a winmodem or something.)

The key here, as usual, is the word "generally". I have to TRY to find hardware that is incomatable with win2k these days.

Gaming support(OpenGL ring a bell?) UT2K3 and 2K4 are both written for DirectX and were both ported to OpenGL, Doom 3 and every other game from ID Software will be OpenGL and will have linux support, half-life 2 probably won't have linux support as I see valve moving farther and father from linux (not that they were moving closer, just that half-life no longer works in linux thanks to all the new features they added to it that were totally useless and unecessary.) Most other new games will probably follow in Epic's and ID Software's footsteps and have linux support, if not there's always wine (ps, UT has come with the linux installer right on the disk, and a lot of my new hardware has too, most of the drivers are available the day I buy the hardware so what wait till drivers or software are you talking about?)

You have GOT to be joking...if you are comparing the feeble OpenGL performance on Linux to windows. One popular game finally releases an on-disk linux installer, and now "everything" is compatable? please. everquest? planetside? anarchy-online? the sims? star wars galaxies? city of hero's? world of warcraft? Don't make me laugh.

Of course, I am sure you will point out that john doe over at www.reallycrappybetasoftware.com has a hacked up linux binary, and even tho it is still super-alpha-beta software, we should all format our gaming machines.

How naive.

I dunno I wouldn't call my sister or her boyfriend linux zealots, they're like your everyday AOL users, but she sat down at my desk constantly, always able to find her way around (afterstep, which actually amazed me, but I have icons on Wharf). She knew the two icons she wanted (mozilla and gaim) and she used them just like she'd use IE or AIM in windows. I don't think it'd be that hard to tell people "Uhhh just click this icon to go into open office, it's just like microsoft office."

Excellent. I personally do not know the Icon for gaim, but I am glad that it is easily recognizable to first time users. For your next test, have your mother and father sit down and pop out a word document, Or possibly your grandmother. Because that is what most of the workforce in office jobs are. 40 to 70 year olds that needed a good deal of training to use windows 95 when it came out, and would cost money and time to do it again for linux. What about when the system crashes and cannot autofsck? Holy hell, what would grandma do then? Or perhaps grandma wants to share pictures of the family, and turns on an anonymous FTPD on the machine without first checking for patches? Hello remote root compromise, my name is timmy. Let's play!

Just wondering but where else does microsoft get money from if not their desktop market? I thought they got shitloads of money from OEMs that are locked into using Microsoft on every new computer they make, Microsoft is not the king of the server market, their browser is only for their desktop (meaning they'd have no real market advantage if much less people used it), they're losing money on their console, I believe the ISP is making no money either, their search engine isn't dominating, I'm pretty sure the only thing that microsoft is dominating is the desktop market, well there's the office suite, but if 40% of the people weren't using windows, they're probably using open office. I could be wrong though. Anyway, if MS was down to 60% of the desktop market I could see them as being totally fscked, I don't see this happening in the near future, but if it did Microsoft would have to think up some new ideas, like

Re:This is a rather moot point really.

[DeusExMalex]

ahh... the old "no games" and "too hard (read: too lazy) to learn" arguments... but what you're not realizing is that moms & pops aren't necessarily all incompotent geriatrics who happily open up their systems to threats, delete the kernel, etc. not all people age 15+ are incapable of learning something new. either way, operating systems change over time - longhorn will be different from xp, xp is different from 2000, etc, etc. there's no way around that. giving the "i don't want to learn anything new" argument means you just won't have anything up-to-date, regardless of which flavor you choose (linux, windows, mac). the point is: some people (regardless of age) are happy to try new things; some people (regardless of age) are too stubborn|lazy|uninformed to try new things.
as for "no games" - if you really need evercrack, WoW, CoH, etc, you can suck it up and dual-boot. there's no need to live in windows because you want to play an MMO. and before anyone goes & says "not everyone has the know-how to dual boot!!!111", most distro's automatically set it up now. granted, you have to know that windows is pissy and has to be resized to the first partition, but that isn't anything that can't be found after a .42-second google. and if you're installing an OS on your own, chances are that you already know something about partitions - if you don't, then chances are you're having someone who does help/walk you through it.
anything else?

Re:This is a rather moot point really.

[Zakabog]

The key here, as usual, is the word "generally". I have to TRY to find hardware that is incomatable with win2k these days.

Generally as in there's more than a 50/50 chance I find hardware with linux support. There's a 1 in 3 chance the hardware has linux drivers on the install discs (unless it's a network device, the chance goes way up then.)

You have GOT to be joking...if you are comparing the feeble OpenGL performance on Linux to windows. please. everquest? planetside? anarchy-online? the sims? star wars galaxies? city of hero's? world of warcraft? Don't make me laugh.

What do you mean the feable OpenGL performance? OpenGL performs better in linux for most things than it does in windows (heck when I was playing half-life in linux it ran better than it did in windows, same stuff for Quake 2, 3, RTCW, and I imagine Doom 3 when it's finally out.)

One popular game finally releases an on-disk linux installer, and now "everything" is compatable?

Any popular game including an installer for linux AND windows in the same box is a very good start. Most other games have installers you can download, or linux versions you can buy. Also, I never said "everything" was compatible, but a lot of new popular games will follow the habbit and release linux binaries, it's a huge step towards a game friendly linux desktop.

everquest? planetside? anarchy-online? the sims? star wars galaxies? city of hero's? world of warcraft? Don't make me laugh.



The Sims works flawlessly in linux (they even sell a linux version), Everquest has a 4, Star Wars Galaxies has a 4 City of Heroes has a 4, Planetside, Anarchy-Online, and World of Warcraft don't work, but more than half the games you mentioned work in linux, they do require the transgaming version of wine (winex or something, might have changed since the last time I checked) which is not free, but the games still work.

Excellent. I personally do not know the Icon for gaim, but I am glad that it is easily recognizable to first time users. For your next test, have your mother and father sit down and pop out a word document, Or possibly your grandmother. Because that is what most of the workforce in office jobs are. 40 to 70 year olds that needed a good deal of training to use windows 95 when it came out, and would cost money and time to do it again for linux. What about when the system crashes and cannot autofsck? Holy hell, what would grandma do then? Or perhaps grandma wants to share pictures of the family, and turns on an anonymous FTPD on the machine without first checking for patches? Hello remote root compromise, my name is timmy. Let's play!

How about my friends mother? Somehow you mentioned all the people in my family who have no idea how to use a computer (although it'd be just as easy to train them in linux as windows since both would be a fresh start.) My friend's mother uses Office at work and when my friend and I installed linux on his second computer (the one she uses when he's playing games) she had no difficulty using Open Office. What about when the system crashes and cannot auto fsck? She calls the company sysadmin, he tells her what to type, she types it, problem solved. Obviously she knows how to follow directions and type, she learned how to use the computer, the rest is just applying skills she already knows. If it happens a lot (and it most likely won't) she'll learn the stuff. I taught my aunt how to change her desktop color depth, which is actually quite hard because there are no on screen instructions to follow, just a lot of memorizing the clicks. With the fsck, the instructions are on your screen already. And what if grandma want's to share pictures and turns on anonymous ftpd? Grandma doesn't know what the hell a ftpd is so why would she turn it on? There is no "WHOOPS! I slipped and accidentall

"an innovating company like Microsoft"?!?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're either a very subtle troll, or you've been paid for a lame astroturfing effort.

Or maybe you're being sarcastic.

Because saying "an innovating company like Microsoft" should raise all kinds of alarms about veracity...

Revival of the Xenix ?

[Gopal.V]

Microsoft did have its own Unix clone waaay back called Xenix. It is now better known as the "SCO Unix" (-insert-star-wars-analogy-here)...

Microsoft gains the same things it gained when it shipped Internet Explorer for Mac OS a few years back..

Bollocks

[tobybuk]

This guy is an arse hole. Why on earth would MS want to stop people having to by Windows to run office? Office draws people to Windows like nothing else - period.

MS would only do this if they had real competition for their office suite and people were moving to Linux at such a rate that Windows was being sidelined.

Wake up people - it aint happening!

Funny thing about the english language

[MadFarmAnimalz]

That word, embrace. It is more flexible than I had initially thought. And it took an article title like this to demonstrate this.

We could, for example, begin using it in lieu of opposites and still retain the original meaning, like if we were talking about the Boston Embracer. Or this warm and fuzzy story about cooperation, understanding, and symbiosis between man and pet.

With this new meaning-neutral language which we here at /. have pioneered, all I can say is, thank you Microsoft for the wonderful product you are kind enough to allow me to buy from you.

Re:If MS were not so proud...or bound by lawsuit

[Oddly_Drac]

"MS could also just make their own Linux distro"

They are banned from doing such after they got dragged through the courts against Caldera.

who has the porting date pool?

[Anonymous Coward]

the penny pinchers would buy it at $30 $40 and the author is right corporate is going to keep on with XP and what not for a long time, the peons in the cubes and call centers are getting striped linux now. As long as they can keep their file formats to them self's it make perfect sense, a little something is better than a whole lot of nothing.

The search for new markets

[tmk]

Microsoft knows about the danger for its core business. Bill Gates invested his money in gold mines and huge content data bases. But what can MS do?

Microsoft has to find new markets. They brought into the PDA market, the TV market, the search business. They could attack comptetitors very successful with billions of dollars, but by that they destroyed the markets. After MS has destroyed a market they had to find new ways to generate profits again. But in most cases this was not successful yet.

Re:The search for new markets

[jamesmrankinjr]

They could attack comptetitors very successful with billions of dollars, but by that they destroyed the markets. After MS has destroyed a market they had to find new ways to generate profits again. But in most cases this was not successful yet.

I suggest those with mod points mod parent up. I haven't heard this point made quite so clearly before.

If MS takes over a market by dumping, customers will expect product prices to be free or at least selling below cost. It is then quite difficult to raise prices again. Witness the difficulty (but not impossibility) of having a successful content-for-pay website after so many free sites were developed during the .com boom.

So MS is left owning a market they can't profit from. Race to the bottom.

Peace be with you,
-jimbo

That would be an admission that Windows is crap.

[geo_2677]

If MS support Linux for any Desktop applications then it would be an admission that Linux is certainly better than MS windows. Would they like to kill their own baby? I doubt.
Then would a linux distribution coming from MS be as reliable as the ones coming from say RedHat or Suse.? When MS is not able to manage it own windows releases properly (news of SP breaking compatibily or applications is not uncommon) can it swallow its ego and cooperate with Open Source developers? And more importantly, will Open Source developers be keen to support MS especially when MS has been trying to stifle Open source development spreading all kinds of FUD about open source.

Enhanced Office for Linux

[Observador]

The author talks about a "stripped-down version of Office for Linux targeted at emerging markets"

And though it is actually a great idea...

Instead, who not get an "enhanced" Office for said markets?

"Enhanced" being some multimedia creation capability (think PowerPointMovie&Sound), make a better Image Composer part of the suite along with FrontPage, offer Frontpage extensions for apache running on Linux and while you're at it, make said extensions able to compile asp pages. Get it running out of the box with minimum user intervention complete with personal web site. Stick in a little drm and user information gathering by the side...

Mind you this is not for the slashdot crowd, but those "emerging markets"... handled well could make DRM ubiquitous and Office the defacto standard for the next ten years...

God, I hope they don't have a clue...

Re:Enhanced Office for Linux

[mallardtheduck]

FrontPage extensions for Linux/Apache are already available here.
and ASP for linux is available (in a limited form) here.

Shameless Businessweek shills for Linux!!

[Anonymous Coward]

So what's new? Businessweek shills for Linux yet again!Why don't these clowns change their name to Linuxweek and be done with it? Then at least the reading public will know up front what they are in for when they spend their hard earned money buying the shameless Businessweek.
This is one of the most brain dead ideas I ever heard of.
I come from Africa, which is about the poorest continent on the planet, and yet everyone who has a computer in my own country that I know of is using Windows (which comes pre-installed on nearly ALL computers there) plus a pirated copy of Microsoft Office.
Every single bank, insurance company, government department I have seen in my own and other African countries in West Africa is using Microsoft office running Windows
Where does this guy come up with his idea that Microsoft is struggling in developing countries nonsense from?
For his information, Brazil is NOT equal to all developing countries. The current Brazilian government is rabidly anti-American, having recently introduced laws for take mug shots and fingerprints of all American visitors.
As for the pathetic French and Germans going for Linux for political anti-American reasons,the less said about them, the better, apart from the fact that spitting on Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France, just because he's kicking the sorry butts of French and German cyclists is disgusting, dirty pathetic behavior, and another low, even for these the French and Germans !

Even in China, the second biggest PC market on the planet, Microsoft continues to rule on desktops AND servers, in spite of government efforts to steer people to Linux. After all, its easy enough to buy a pirated copy of Windows AND office for pennies by just walking down the local street market, and Chinese consumers, like consumers in the rest of the world continue to vote their pirated CD's for Windows over the "free" Linux.
This piece of self-serving Linux propaganda by Businessweek represents pretty much what we have come t0 expect from this fast deteriorating tabloid business rag. Its nothing but a mouthpiece and propaganda organ for Linux.
Microsoft will of course reject this moronic suggestion of bringing out Microsoft Office on Linux out of hand, and treat it with the contempt it deserves!

Re:Shameless Businessweek shills for Linux!!

[minus9]

The Businessweek shills are probably getting multi-million dollar kickbacks from those super rich Debian and Gentoo developers.

Re:Shameless Businessweek shills for Linux!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Its will be more correct to say Businessweek is simply following the normal course of the liberal media : Trash everything American (especially Microsoft) and shill for the anti-American French and Germans and other loony left European crazies, whenever you can, while attacking president Bush at every opportunity.
Nothing new in all that.

Re:Shameless Businessweek shills for Linux!!

[minus9]

[kev@redhat1 kev]$ lynx -source http://businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2004 /tc20040726_9378_tc120.htm |grep -i bush |wc -l
0

Nope, can't see any mention of Bush in there. Details of your Germano-French conspiracy also seemed strangely absent.

They are out to get you though, it's clear if you read between the lines . I can hear them whispering about you right now.

Re:Shameless Businessweek shills for Linux!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I never said they mentioned President Bush in that article. I merely said this article is consistent with the liberal media, including Businessweek, having this tendency to trash everything American (especially Microsoft), trash President Bush, and shill for looney left Euro-crazies like the French and Germans. I stand by that assertion.
Read what I wrote again dude, before you start screaming Michael Moore propaganda again, will you?

Re:Shameless Businessweek shills for Linux!!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny. Now, my 2 cents:
I buy and work with linux because it's within my budget. I have Windows 3.1, 95 and 98, XP, also MSDOS, but had to pay for them. (thousands, also got PC's thrown in). Windows goes everywhere, except XP, that goes only where it is now. So, I have lots of '98 installations, and had lots of MSDOS installs once. Also, lots of 3.1's. Only one XP.
Linux? It's everywhere at my house. Every box has 1 or more. Loads of fun, and I get to work with it too, not with Microsoft code, however.
Here's the love of my computer life:
http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/gettin g_start ed. html

(fix the spaces to go to the url)

Re:Shameless Businessweek shills for Linux!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Linux? It's everywhere at my house. Every box has 1 or more. Loads of fun, and I get to work with it too, not with Microsoft code, however"

Your point being?
Typical Linux brainless drivel.
Listen dude, who cares if you have Linux in your lil basement or your kitchen and bedroom?
Bottom line is, over 96% of the world's computer users are using Microsoft Windows, even in very poor and underdeveloped countries (because most computer users in poor countries and even some rich countries simply pirate Windows and Office and install them n their computers).
That's what counts.
It is of no relevance whatsoever that some open source fanatic sleeps with a Linux cd in his bed instead of getting himself a woman like normal folks.
So feel free to go on eating, breathing and sleeping Linux, ok? The rest of humanity (over 96%) will continue to enjoy using Microsoft Windows. :)

Microsoft will never offer linux software

[matdodgson]

To do so they would be admitting that Windows is on the way out and they'd never do that. While they have Windows they control everything else in the software market - they will never give that up under any circumstances.

The sad fact is that the desktop market is owned by Microsoft and this will never change. Corporations, who are ultimately the ones that decide on standards through their software purchasing habits, are more interested in playing it safe. Most corporate IT decision makers are more like politicians in their laziness and inaction - they're more interested in their pay packet and their reputation.

The smart corporations have seen the way MS react to the threat of a Linux deployment and will start their own. It is clear that the threat of a large scale Linux deployment is a way to reduce MS software licensing costs. Unfortunately most corporations do not follow through on the deployment.

In any case it's much easier to sack IT people in western countries and rehire them in India than to retrain your entire work force to use a different OS. I mean how many people who ring the help desk would even notice the difference?

</rant>

Re:Microsoft will never offer linux software

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

the desktop market is owned by Microsoft and this will never change

Right, just like how the computer industry as a whole is still dominated by IBM.

good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

despite how much spin /. tries putting on it, linux is still a very small percentage of desktop users; why should microsoft bother putting out a version of office for linux? how about the linux developers getting the windows version of office to run on linux?

Man I thought I was bitter and twisted...

[matdodgson]

This rant takes the prize bro...

Re:Man I thought I was bitter and twisted...

[Anonymous Coward]

You were right the first time. You ARE indeed bitter and twisted! :)
Your no point, but stupid comment just proved it.
And.. you are no bro of mine.

I've got an idea...

[DieByWire]

Split Microsoft into two companies, one for the OS and one for apps. Then the apps company could do what's best for it without having to protect the Windows monopoly.

I'll tell the justice department. They'll love it!

The rich irony of it all

[rinkjustice]

Microsoft has argued Linux is insecure and vulnerable to attack because the source code is readily available, yet a significant factor for government agencies not adopting Microsoft is concerns about it being proprietary software! Many governments don't want to rely on Microsoft - go figure!

Windows 95 or Me anyone?

Lending credibility ...

[Herschel Cohen]

to Linux. That's is the crux of MS's problem.

It is the unpredictability of the entire market response that would give their management waking nightmares. It is a concern that has more than a bit of merit.

At this juncture they have the hopes of locking in much of the industrialized (really formally would be more accurate) via local laws and trade agreements combined with a new operating system that locks down a greater proportion of users. A columnist just risks his/her reputation, those managing risk their current (and future) comfort should they guess wrong if they plan to stay with a company. While there have been many cases of teams that arrive gut the company and run before the bills come due, I do not see that as the drive for most of those in power at MS.

The idea has its attraction for us, but the view is very different within looking outward.

According to me,

[hviezda14]

Microsoft will not release MS Office for Linux. MS is earning money from Windows and other products around it. But if there will be MS Office for Linux, people will need MS less than today, because there will be no problem with document compatibility, and users will have less reasons to stay with MS Windows - that means less money to Redmond company. That's why I think it's not realistic.

Sure, why not, go ahead -- IF . . .

[nusratt]

1. It's completely OS.
2. It's completely interoperable with the non-Linux versions (i.e., document transportability)
3. It's guaranteed to keep step with changes in non-Linux versions, with respect to #1, #2, security, and all other maintenance.
4. MSFT publicly promises that the above conditions will be in perpetuity, to avoid any "get 'em addicted, then cut them off" tricks.

WTF??

[t_allardyce]

Why the fuck would anyone need a 'stripped down' cheap version of microsoft office for linux when there are already free (and open) versions that are much better? Thats like offering a cheap stripped down aid package when the red cross is giving theirs away free? WTF is this guy smoking, and no of course i didnt RTFM, i barely even ready any posts!

Office Plus Linux, Nightmare?

[blueZhift]

I used to joke with some former coworkers about the Microsoft Linux distribution. They of course thought it was just a joke, but the truth of the matter is that if MS did come out with a version of Office for Linux and even a whole MS blessed Linux distribution, it would be a total nightmare for their competition. Why? Simple, it would solve a lot of the antitrust related problems they've had recently and it could even help them deal effectively with any defections caused by security concerns. If Office existed on Linux natively, then many businesses wouldn't even look at alternative office suites at all because Office is the defacto standard now. Moving to Linux would be easy and whichever distros MS recommended would become the preferred ones.

Ultimately, Microsoft is about making money (as any business), if Linux Office can bring the bucks and remove some headaches, don't be surprised if it comes. And about that MS distribution of Linux. Well, don't be too surprised if such a thing already exist internally at Microsoft. I'm sure plenty of their research people (and others) may have rolled their own Linux distros for research or personal use. There may even be dirty ports of Office on Linux already in existence.

Yeah, MS has a lot of pride but you can't spend that at the store. I suspect that one reason they're planning to give a big chunk of their cash pile to shareholders is to get a little hungrier again as a company. They've grow a little fat and lazy in middle age, so a little trim might give them an edge. That is, by reducing their safety net, maybe it can spark something in their corporate mentality to truly innovate rather than just buying other companies with ideas. Who knows, it'll be interesting to watch in any case.

Re:Office Plus Linux, Nightmare?

[narcc]

I used to joke with some former coworkers about the Microsoft Linux distribution.

Would the Microsoft Linux distro be called (in the HP tradition) MSUX?

Re:argh! my eyes

[maxwell demon]

I'm wondering whether they really have enough Italian readers to justify a special 'it' section.

You misunderstand. It's "it" like "he" or "she". So it's a section about things.

mod parent up!

[Anonymous Coward]

If MS support Linux for any Desktop applications then it would be an admission that Linux is certainly better than MS windows

If that doesn't warrant a "+1 funny" then I don't know what does.

Re:mod parent up!

[Randall Hamilton]

Please don't confuse "preference" with "user base". Microsoft own's the desktop market completly. It is not even a question of Microsoft admiting linux is "better". the WORLD is saying Microsoft is better. It sucks, but that is a simple truth for you.

Do one better: Give it away

[Vexler]

Note that the article points out that being in the position to dictate file formats and to control the flow of data is far stronger than what Redmond envisions now. I would say that if they really want to tighten their grip on the global market, they can do one better and stop thinking of "products" as their cash cow and start thinking of "services". Back in the days when the software cost was a small fraction of a PC, they could get away with it. But in light of a study a few years ago that indicated that they could slash prices across the board by 90% (yes, that is EVERYTHING) and still make money, and in light of the fact that price erosion of PCs has commoditized the market, they must shift their direction to providing software services (i.e. customized solutions for businesses). It doesn't really go against their overall strategy (in fact, you hear faint echoes of it in the ".NET" framework), but they have to adapt quickly to lock steps with Linux and other open-source initiatives.

Windows+X

[Erwos]

If Microsoft would simply integrate an X-server into Windows, I'd be satisfied with that. Still gotta buy the Windows and Office, yet I'm not actually forced to _use_ Windows. Sounds fair enough.

Wouldn't solve the games issue, but then again, even the X servers that Linux has don't have indirect rendering capabilities. Too bad...

-Erwos

Re:Windows+X

[JKR]

In the meantime the Cygwin X server works well for me. It has normal (entire x desktop in one huge window) and root (X and Win32 windows mixed) modes, with a special window manager for the latter. There's an experimental GLX accelerated build as well.

Jon.

MS already has a plan... cheap & stripped down

[HighOrbit]

MS has already figured some of this out and it wasn't by adopting linux or porting to linux. Look what they did in Thailand. They build a one-language (i.e. country specific) stripped down version of XP and sold it for cheap. They did this specifically to keep Linux out. If they did it in Thailand, they could do it in Brazil, India, China...etc. It's just a matter of how much money they will make on licensing the traditional way versus licensing the stripped down version.

Secondly, Windows and Office are mutually supporting monopolies that are enhanced by the "net effect". You run Office because its the standard on Windows and you run Windows because you need Office. And everyone else you share files with run Office and Windows, so that reinforces the matter. If any cracks appear in that ediface, the whole thing more or less collaspes. MS will never chance that. MS could afford to make Office for Mac because Mac never a threat because it costs more than a PC, so it never challenged MS's model of being the low-cost solution. But Linux *is* a threat. Linux is cheaper and it has the potential to eat Microsoft's lunch in MS's native environment (i.e. low-end workstations, PCs, and servers), so they will never give it an opening.

Better Interoperability

[csguy314]

Discussion of offering big MS apps for linux or switching to a linux kernel is all moot. It's not going to happen. What MS could do is just improve interoperability with Linux and *NIX apps in general.
They aren't going to remove all possible migration to other OSs. What they can do, however, is make it easy for those that migrate to interact with others that have not migrated. Or rather to allow people to only migrate portions of their systems, portions they think could benefit from using Linux, and maintain Windows for those who just like Windows; even to the point of allowing Windows clients to more easily connect to services on a Linux server.
There's a lot to be said for allowing variety while maintaing functionality.

Uh huh

[sp67]

And they'll release it about the same time that Jobs releases OS X for Intel...

with the right trade laws, M$ can conquer all

[edgarde]

Considering Redmond's slim odds of conquering developing nations

Don't count on it. Monsanto ... uh I mean Microsoft ... can muster lots of support for such a campaign.

The United States forbids poor countries from making generic versions of antiretroviral drugs for AIDS treatment. Given the limited financial resources involved, this will certainly cost lives.

Monsanto Company is suing farmers for re-using seed where patented genes have been found, whether said farmers wanted them or not.

How will software be any different? Countries developed enough to need office suites will be signing trade agreements with the United States. Undoubtedly there will be intellectual property conditions.

Re:with the right trade laws, M$ can conquer all

[Anonymous Coward]

"Considering Redmond's slim odds of conquering developing nations"

Rubbish!
There is not a single developing nation out there, repeat not a single developing nation out there (inculding the huge Chinese PC market), where Windows does not ALREADY dominate the desktop software market as at today.
What exactly is this Businessweek guy smoking?

One word: "sovereignty"

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the author's (Businessweek's) reasoning is flawed in that the direct cost is a factor yes but the indirect cost is much higher. When your mission critical data is in a proprietary format (such as MS-Office documents) you are, in effect, leasing your data from the sotware provider. When your data is in an open format (such as OpenOffice or StarOffice documents) you own your data and are using the software as a means to an end or a service.

Considering closed source software, one could wonder about backdoors and and espionnage (industrial or other).

Why would a governement (including that of the US) or business entrust its mission critical documents to a foreign private corporation? It's beyond me... Open formats and a preference for open source makes perfect sense to me.

Microsoft already has embraced linux

[tinkertank]

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/office2004/o ffice2004.aspx?pid=office2004

Re:Microsoft already has embraced linux

[Mistah Blue]

Ummmm... MacOS X is NOT Linux.

Re:Microsoft already has embraced linux

[tinkertank]

why? because the ported BSD to the PowerPC architecture and built a USABLE GUI for it? i'm afraid it's basically the same thing, buddy. as close as fedora or redhat or any other distro.... :)

Microsoft Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

'Considering Redmond's slim odds of conquering developing nations, why not offer them a low-cost Linux version of Office?' Salkever explains that 'Microsoft faces increasing competition in both PC operating systems and in desktop applications' which are its core businesses, while corporate customers would likely adopt Microsoft Linux products."

Actually it would not be out of Microsoft's character to come out with it's very own distro of Linux. Think about how many other things Microsoft has borrowed from others:

Windows from Xerox
TCP/IP from Digital
Open source for DNS, mail, pop3, imap etc.
Word processing (take your pick)
SQL from IBM
DLL from shared libraries
HTTP Browser from Netscape
Compiler technology from various
Java "lock in" look alike from Sun
IIS is a poor implimentation of NCSA

Microsoft will continue to milk the profits, but will switch to a Linux sooner or later...

Microsoft Linux 2005
Closed systems built on open source

Stupid commentary

[Anonymous Coward]

Why wouldn't they just offer a low cost version of Office/Windows?

Eben Moglen says they say they won't

[Knuckles]

At the Wizards of OS conference this year, Eben Moglen told several long stories aside from the official talks. One of them was about when he had a meeting with MS's strategy group that deals with Free Software. He said that after a long fruitless discussion, he simply asked (paraphrased), "why the heck don't you just GPL Windows? Make it clear that you are serious by getting somebody on the board we trust. Give him a big share package, so that it is clear you can't back out easily. And then play by the rules. Nobody would say anything against you, you would be just a normal citizen. With your money and manpower, you could decide in which direction Free Software moves, and nobody would have a problem with it. People would still buy Windows from you - and on top you could still offer proprietary stuff, while getting rid of all the negative press."
To which the MS guys, with a serious voice and without a moment's hesitation, only replied, "this we will never do"

Re:Eben Moglen says they say they won't

[oneandoneis2]

why the heck don't you just GPL Windows?

What does GPLing their software have to do with it? There's nothing to stop them releasing a Linux version of Office that's every bit as closed as the Windows version.

After so many "OSS is bad!" releases from MS, there's no way they could backtrack and open their own code with any credibility. But that doesn't prevent them releasing closed software for Linux if they decided they wanted to, surely?

Re:Eben Moglen says they say they won't

[Knuckles]

Yeah, I realized that what I wrote has nothing to to with the story after I had posted. :)

Re:Eben Moglen says they say they won't

[michael_cain]

To which the MS guys, with a serious voice and without a moment's hesitation, only replied, "this we will never do"

Of course not. Basic company policy is still set by Bill Gates, who wrote the Open Letter to Hobbyists in 1976. That letter set the direction for Microsoft -- sell lots of copies of proprietary software -- that made him the richest man in the world. Any change in that direction will have to come from Bill himself, and the odds of that seem to range from slim to none.

Re:Eben Moglen says they say they won't

[pappy97]

The thing is that Bill Gates needs to change his views if he wants to keep that market share. More and more entities are out to kill the MS share. Everyone is gunning for MS.

By the time MS is dying because of this anti-MS sentiment, it will be too late for him to salvage MS.

That's why MS should adapt to this open source movement by fighting fire with fire. One good idea is open source windows, but keep all the software is closed source.

Another is to build a good *NIX based OS like OS X. That way everyone gets a stable OS, and MS can still sell its closed source software, like Office, etc.

I think people will ease up, and perhaps embrace MS if they made changes to their OS (either open source it OR go to a *NIX based system). It's not like they have to open source office, or a game like Age of Empires (I think that's MS?).

Just open source windows OR go to a stable *NIX based system.

MS people, however, don't ever think the *NIX and Open Source revolutions will ever put a huge dent in their market share, so they will do as they do now until they crash and burn. I guess that is the MS way.

Astroturf

[germinatoras]

So, how do you like working for Microsoft? Do they still have free sodas in the lounge?

You made a pro-Microsoft post that got modded +5 on Slashdot of all places -- you'll probably get a big raise at your next performance review.

Microsoft could probably open source Office,

[Zapdos]

and not suffer in the least.
I bet you would have to kill a goat to get it to compile with gcc.

Yea, slashdot them !

[RedLaggedTeut]

*click*

Seriously, why play brain-pool for BillGee and give him any potentially good ideas ?

Of course MS could sell linux software too, but no camp will be enthusiastic about it. We want to see a battle, not a process of assimilation(literally). Woot! fight

Common sense also says they would not do it.

[Randall Hamilton]

GPL Windows? That has to be the most idiotic question ever posted to them. I mean really..How many "real" companies...fortune 100..hell, fortune 1000 companies, live with GPL code as thier main product? I can help you count. 0. none. nadda. zilch. If you have to ask why, never leave that naive state of mind you currently have...since the real world will most likly scare you the second you do.

Re:Common sense also says they would not do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Red-Hat ?

Re:Common sense also says they would not do it.

[Knuckles]

Hm, it was not a question. And personally I think that he is right. MS is not a "real" company. No "real" company makes, what, 40% profit on their products, and has 95% of the market cornered

Re:Common sense also says they would not do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the company that is doing so poorly that they now have TWO shareholder lawsuits on their hands?

Hahaha.... you funny.

They can't do it in India

[Gopal.V]

> If they did it in Thailand, they could do it in India

India has such a HUGE variety of languages that almost 100% of computer users know English and are often unwilling to use PC's in their native language. (I belong to this category). A Hindi version of WinXP would suck totally ... in the market and everywhere.

I was involved with a bit of work on Pango rendere r for my mother tongue ... the unicode renderer was fairly easy to handle - but the translation was a horror . Imagine translating Abort :) Look at all the scripts available in Indic languages , and that's just the first grid. You might realize why India reads , writes and speaks english.

It ain't easy, it ain't viable ... but a blind eye towards home-piracy and a watchful eye on corporate licensing has been MS's ploy in India.

How about software industries?

[KD5YPT]

Especially games! We need much more BETTER game companies who're willing to dedicate themselves into good softwares for Linux. Valve already done that for OSS, other industry should start doing so. Maybe once OSS competition starts getting stiff, the software industry in general would start competing against OSS in a more or less friendly manner. Hopefully...

Why not IE on Linux?

[zsau]

While Microsoft are writing for Linux, why not Internet Explorer for Linux? They can intergrate it into the kernel and we can get all the benefits of Windows!

The short answer...

[TamMan2000]

Office is the only reason for lots of people to stay on windows.

How Microsoft Could Embrace Linux....

[marinebane]

I'm wouldnt trust any motive of Microsoft's that involves linux.
Something tells me i'm going to look up one day and see the Sword of Damocles dangling right above my neck.

Oh yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally impossible to do it on any other platform...

http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-11-1998/jw -1 1-toolbox.html

Not that it's POSIX, but you'd think this was exclusive to Win32.

You know, IIRC from basic OS class, waiting on two different resources is a good way to deadlock yourself.

Re:Oh yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Deadlock? You could use one thread to wait on and handle all events. You can't deadlock a single-threaded app.
BTW: Java isn't an operating system. Or a kernel. So it can't be nearly as efficent.

Re:Oh yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

sure you can, it's called a hang.

the way that it was done in java can be done the same way with POSIX calls. it's not hard.

What I really want to know..

[multipartmixed]

..is why the Microsoft-supplied OpenGL screen saver on my Compaq PC (installed by Compaq, no less) keeps crashing? You know, the one gives the date and time in a cool spinny font.

Without fail, *every* morning I have come to work in the last five years, that stupid thing has either crashed repeatedly or hung the box outright.

This is a real pain, because the power button on the Compaq wore out years ago, it doesn't have an auto-power-on option in the BIOS, and it didn't ship with a reset switch (or a place for one on the mobo). I have to jump the freakin' power switch pins with a goddamn nickel.

Maybe I should just short the power-please signal on the ATX power supply connector and be done with it.

Re:What I really want to know..

[matlhDam]

Or you could change screen savers.

Re:What I really want to know..

[Konowl]

Without fail, *every* morning I have come to work in the last five years, that stupid thing has either crashed repeatedly or hung the box outright.

Well.... I'd take the easy way out and turn off the screensaver.... ;)

It's not Windows, it's OFFICE!

[Ktistec Machine]

Microsoft's stranglehold on many organizations (including the University where I work) is not based on its operating system, it's based on MS Office. THE issue is whether or not people can exchange files. Training issues involved in using a different user interface are secondary, and minor.

This is the mechanism by which MS can keep Apple in check. At any time, Apple knows that MS can stop providing Office for the Mac, neatly pulling the plug on any problematic growth in Mac user share.

If Microsoft cares about keeping Windows on desktops, it would be utterly foolish to release a version of Office for Linux. Unlike OSX, Linux is free, removing one of the barriers to acceptance. If Office were available for Linux, corporate types (and Universities) would very quickly embrace Linux as the desktop standard. It's a no-brainer.

Re:It's not Windows, it's OFFICE!

[polyp2000]

While I agree with you to some extent. M$Office "is" available for linux, you just have to use an intermediary program called "Wine" for best results though Codeweavers works exceptionally.

Id be interested to know if any large universities or colleges deploy wine on any scale

Re:It's not Windows, it's OFFICE!

[Mistah Blue]

Codeweavers uses Wine, and is the way to go if you don't want to hack on Wine.

Re:It's not Windows, it's OFFICE!

[The One and Only]

I've read someplace that Microsoft makes more money on Office:mac per unit anyway. If that's true, if Apple's market share grows and the same proportion of Mac users use MS Office, Microsoft will make more money.

Amusing!

[polyp2000]

It must be said that while I and many others have been using Linux for several years. Reading an industry analyst suggest that Microsoft write a linux version of Office for sale in developing coutries makes it ever more apparent that the Linux and Open Source phenomena is a ball that is just going to keep on rolling and gathering pace.

I can remember only a couple of years ago linux was a word used by techies and geeks alone. Reading articles in PC magazines was rare and more often than not they were put to one side implying that linux was just a toy and it'll never take off. From where im standing opinions are changing, and those very same people are now "getting it"...

Roll on the next few years baby, we are witnessing the beginnings of a real revolution.

Nick...

Why?

[gillbates]

Why does Microsoft insist on selling Windows? It has more security holes than swiss cheese. It welcomes viruses with open arms.

The operating system has become a commodity. Why would MS develop an OS, when they could build a very good, closed source desktop, on top of Linux? They'd save themselves the headache of constant patching and maintaining an every larger, ever more-unmaintainable code base.

There's nothing in the GPL which states you can't distribute a closed source app with a GPL'd one. Granted, if you improve GPL'd software, you must provide the source. But if your software merely runs on top of Linux, you have no such obligation.

Microsoft has already shown that its strength is not in reliability, nor security. The fundamental selling point for MS software is ease of use - which, in spite of /. protest, is still much better than their FOSS counterparts - at least for the average person. It makes no sense for Microsoft to continue to develop operating systems when they are so much better at office and game applications. Money spent on the OS is simply wasted. No one runs Windows because they like it - they do it because they can't run anything else. Every hour MS spends debugging Windows is an hour that would have been better spent actually creating a revenue-producing product.

not too beneficent

[fatmanone]

having MS developing for linux will make things worst as they will eventualy try to impose their corporate standard in the linux world, as in, who knows, custom libraries that are incompatible with the standard ones, ect
offtopic here, i would like to suggest to use linux on a rock solid machine, with win XP installed in vmware; i used it, it was great; games were not playable though, but hey, i had the stability of linux

Porting = Validating Linux

[MadX]

As the subject points out, I doubt whether they would consider it, as this would then validate Linux as a worthy competitor to windows. I am sure that they have the resources to do it, but they won't - until they are brought kicking and screaming into releasing programs for Linux by a giant customer who is moving ALL their desktops away from windows for whatever reason.

Same Problem People Accuse Mono Of Having

[Master of Transhuman]

If you support your competitor, you're legitimizing them.

In the case of Mono, Linux doesn't have much choice. You either interoperate or it's a harder uphill battle to get adopted by people using the dominant software.

In the case of MS, there's no benefit to them to offer Office for Linux. They're already the dominant OS, and to offer Office on Linux would merely increase Linux's encroachment on the desktop. Sales would probably be too low to justify such a risk.

Office sales are dependent on the fact that MS OS's dominate on the desktop - and conversely, MS OS's dominate on the desktop because people are trained to use Office which only runs on those OS's (and the Mac which was never a factor).

It's a nonsense concept. Bill Gates is an asshole but he's not that stupid.

Don't hold your breath waiting for MS Office on Linux.

Bzzzzzt...... Windows Services for UNIX

[crimoid]

Microsoft will embrace Linux by adding Linux support to Windows Services for UNIX or some other Linux compatibility layer. Thats the extent to which Microsoft will embrace Linux. No ports of Office, SQL or any other Microsoft product - with the possible exception of IE.

But what would we do about all the flying PIGS?

[mrnick]

Yeah, when pigs FLY!

I mean realy? I get upset when a bird does his business on my car!

Nick

Of sockets, mutex and performance

[tjwhaynes]

The Win32 threading and synchronisation models are ridiculously powerful compared to *nix, which is precisely what makes it so hard to port a lot of Win32-based software to other platforms. The fact that you can't do a simple operation like "wait for a mutex to be released or a socket to become readable" deserves to be a joke about legacy operating systems, not a persistent reality. At least BSD's kqueue comes close.

If that is true, then it's a shame that the performance of the Win32 sockets are so meagre compared to the Linux implementation. Take a look at this article on Developerworks. Maybe you can spot the changes required to close the performance gap between Windows and Linux (Linux running about 2 and a half times faster on the same machine).

And I think I'll take you to task for your blind assertion that "you can't do a simple operation like "wait for a mutex to be released or a socket to become readable" on a Unix platform. If you call pthread_mutex_lock in 'fast' mode it simply waits for the mutex to be released and will pick up as soon as the mutex becomes available. And there are plenty of other options around. It's also totally trivial to write a spin-check to check the TCP status of a socket.

Cheers,
Toby Haynes

Re:Of sockets, mutex and performance

[Twylite]

Power doesn't always equate to performance. In most tests Win32 comes in 5-10% slower on throughput. On the other hand Win32 has long had pretty good scalability (via completion ports) that was never available to *nix based servers using select() (or even poll() , but kqueue and /dev/poll make a big difference).

The Developerworks article tests Win32 against *nix using BSD-style socket calls. That's slightly unfair, because its an emulated API on Win32 but native on Linux. Still, it doesn't account for the speed differences.

My explanation of that test would be that Win32 has a fair scheduler (round-robin thread-level scheduling for all threads at the same priority) -- so even if a thread has a history of being busy it will be interrupted to give other threads a turn. Back in 2001 the Linux scheduler was not nearly that fair (although its never been as bad as the Solaris scheduler, which routinely blocks out historically idle processes when others are under heavy IO load).

You also miss the point about the wait operation. Spin checks in user land suck processing time from other threads/processes, and can compromise system responsiveness and performance. The only way to wait for either a mutex or a socket from one thread is to sit in a loop polling them. Its a similar story if you want to wait for any one of several mutexes -- poll. Win32 provides a kernel-level synchronisation primitive that will only wake your thread when the appropriate condition(s) hold.

Re:Of sockets, mutex and performance

[spitzak]

I think the original poster meant "wait for both a mutex to be released or a socket to become readable, returning which ever one comes first." Posix+pthreads does not offer this ability. Only solution I know of is to use a pipe between the threads, and though that has the advantage of being a communication medium as well, I kind of distrust how much overhead it has.

I feel that Linux could clobber any Windows API advantages quite easily by adding "fds" that are easily created for any other kernel object, such as a thread or mutex. All these do is provide another thing to send to poll(), you cannot read/write data to most of them. The advantage of these fd's over pipes is that they hopefully are very tiny, perhaps requiring zero extra data over the object itself, and they "close" when the object they are connected to is destroyed.

Also poll() has to be replaced with a /dev/poll or other arrangement that does not require extreme overhead on each call. I would also like to see a libc-level "call this when x happens" and "wait for the next thing to happen" interface, right now these are tied into the GUI or other toolkits, making it impossible to interoperate.

Re:Of sockets, mutex and performance

[captaineo]

FreeBSD's kqueue/kevent system would be a good model for this. It handles all the traditional UNIX events (file descriptors, signals, child processes, etc) in a single blocking call.

(IMHO asynchronous signal delivery was a mistake and should have been replaced by some kind of file descriptor event)

Ouch!

[matdodgson]

Man you gotta grow a sense of humour...

Microsoft loves to embrace...

[Bobo_DaClown]

Microsoft Business Model: Extend Embrace Exterminate

Re:argh! my eyes

[Anonymous Coward]

Try slashdot in light mode. Nice. I use it all the time.

Re:If OSS weren't so proud we'd have our COM.

[gd23ka]

Yes.. You're right. David Cutler's kernel is slightly more modern than the Linux/Unix design, but it has a few severe drawbacks:

The kernel behind Windows 2000/2003 is as solid as Linux.

The NT-Kernel is about as solid as the Linux kernel (most of the time it's accelerated 3D drivers that trash both systems). The real question today is, is it as solidly secure as Linux is?? I say it isn't because it has only received scant review outside of Microsoft.

The Win32 threading and synchronisation models are ridiculously powerful compared to *nix, which is precisely what makes it so hard to port a lot of Win32-based software to other platforms. The fact that you can't do a simple operation like "wait for a mutex to be released or a socket to become readable" deserves to be a joke about legacy operating systems, not a persistent reality. At least BSD's kqueue comes close.

Most apps don't need that in the first place and btw, waiting with select() call on a socket works just fine for me, I can poll and I can block on a socket so what more do I want :-). What makes porting Windows-apps extremely painful is mostly all the GUI stuff which has to be redone from scratch if it was written using native Windows calls.

There are many other places in which the *nix kernels show their age compared to the design of Win32 (not to mention MS's ability to maintain a consistent API over 10 years of product developments). 30 year old technology may be "mature", but its not always The Right Thing To Do for the future. So let's see... guess what I agree with you that there are a lot of things in the NT-Kernel that would be cool to have in Linux.. (and a lot in the overall Linux/BSD/Unix codebase Microsoft stole without giving credit and violating licenses)... but we don't really need it to accomplish our mission.

The real battleground is now definitely in userspace and not anymore in kernelspace. If you ask me what we absolutely need is to adopt a standard in userspace like Microsoft did with COM, their Component Object Model which allows their applications to integrate with another.

We use kParts in KDE, Corba/Bonobo in Gnome, UNO in OOo, XPCOM in Mozilla but a Mozilla-XPCOM component can not be inserted into a kParts container like kMail nor a UNO OOo swriter container. Our components can't really talk to each other like theirs can. If we could offer the same kind of integration, Microsoft calls it OLE, where you could fire up OOo writer and edit an embedded gnumerics spreadsheet, right-click on it and send it on it's way using kmail... If we could do that then we would kick Microsoft's butt on the desktop just as bad as we kicked them out of the server arena.

Too bad that every major OSS project has to invent their own Component Architecture.

Microsoft is already halfway there

[Anonymous Coward]

Since Microsoft already ported Office to OS X which is unix based, so they are already halfway there in getting the product ported to linux.

Re:Microsoft supporting linux?.... just no

[FallenAzrael]

...look at it this way: They can continue their stranglehold on the operating system market with the people who don't know there is a linux, or they can advertise the existence and support a competing product. If they're worried about the piracy of Office that was mentioned, creating a version for linux won't help that at all. In addition, they couldn't even reach the large number of gentoo users due to the fact that gentoo requires you to compile from the source code. The move that was suggested, while I agree it might be great for some things like getting offices to switch to linux, but if you look at it, releasing software like that is really not in Microsoft's best intrest--it's just not cost effective.

Red Hat used to have the same feature

[Donny Smith]

> ..is why the Microsoft-supplied OpenGL screen saver on my Compaq PC (installed by Compaq, no less) keeps crashing? You know, the one gives the date and time in a cool spinny font.

I believe RH used to have the same feature in version 6.x - screen saver would by default be on, so if one installed X Windows, the sucker would sometimes freeze the system or start eating 99% of CPU.

In your case perhaps it's graphics card driver or its onboard RAM... Or power saving mode (if it's on)?
Why do you run that screen saver anwyay?

embrace? how about cooperate

[fikx]

I thougth back in the early '90s that MS WIndows should have been written as a window manager for X instead of a standalone. I still think that. But, they just gotta do it themselves instead of using what works.

Windows for Linux

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

Why can't microsoft just write a GUI that runs on top of linux. Then they can still sell Windows on EITHER platform and tout the ability of Windows to run anywhere.

Windows now runs on the Linux operating system, for only $99 you can experience both the user friendliness of Windows and the customizability o f Linux.

Further, we now offer OfficeWL (windows linux), to make your integration easier than ever.

I'm not a programmer, so I don't know the intricacies of this. There may be a AntiTrust problem, but then again they are not creating an OS just a GUI.

Re:Windows for Linux

[Cnik70]

And now Linux users can experience a BSOD for the low low price of $99 :P

Wouldn't happen

[pchasco]

If there were a low cost linux version, then businesses wouldn't have any reason to use Windows.

Slippery slope

[TimButterfield]

Microsoft is at the top of a slippery slope they do not want to slide down. The distribution of MS Office for Linux would encourage the use of Linux. They want to avoid that at all costs. Consider the following:

• Competition from linux servers - This is already here and impacts os, db, web, mail, etc.
• Footsteps towards linux desktop - This is already starting with POS apps, some businesses switching or trying it, geeks using it and non-geeks getting exposed to it.
• MS releases Office for linux - eventually(?)
• Migration to linux desktop speeds up - Windows market further erodes, impacting other Windows desktop software, even games.
• Once on linux desktop, use of other linux apps increases - if they are already on linux, they will at least look at OpenOffice.

MS is not in the software service business. They are primarily in the commodity software business. The use of linux reduces the cost of commodity software, which directly attacks MS's bottom line. They must deter, postpone, delay any movement in that direction for as long as possible. Eventually, they will be pushed over the edge in spite of their best efforts. Then it becomes a matter of how long they can stay afloat and if they can provide sufficient innovation to survive long term.

Consider two bell curves, one inverted from the other. MS is starting down the desktop slope. Linux is starting up the desktop slope. MS does not want to continue that trend. Release of any software for linux at this stage cannot help MS slow that trend and will likely have the opposite effect.

One step further: MS Linux...

[Thimble]

MS Linux bundled with a compatible MS Office makes more sense...

Re:One step further: MS Linux...

[pappy97]

Exactly. If MS puts out their own brand of Linux, they could kill the open-source movement. Too bad (For them) that they don't have any business people who understand how to fight fire with fire.

Re:Microsoft supporting linux?.... just no

[meringuoid]

In addition, they couldn't even reach the large number of gentoo users due to the fact that gentoo requires you to compile from the source code.

Two issues with this:

1: Large number of Gentoo users?

2: Requires you to compile from source? I seem to remember getting binaries when I emerge'd my nVidia drivers, Unreal Tournament Linux port and Real Player (yes, yes... I know better now.)

Examples?

[arafel]

>in some instance that problem might just be that
>you need to resume processing once either a mutex
>is available or a socket is readable.

An example situation being...?

Re:Examples?

[Twylite]

Imagine a server in which you have a thread for accepting input from sockets, several processing threads (for various stages of processing), and one for sending output to sockets. These threads communicate by means of queues, access to which is controlled by a mutex. Aside: there are often dozens of processing threads in this sort of architecture, and processing ranges from sub-second to a minute or more

Now consider the output thread. It needs to wait on the mutexes of several queues and know when sockets (that have had their buffers filled) become writable.

Just waiting on multiple mutexes is a problem under *nix, but it can be avoided by reducing the number of mutexes and increasing the opportunity for lock contention.

Let me point out that if you are designing a system, knowing that it is targetting a *nix-style threading model, then you can avoid these problems. But the Win32 model allows a more straightforward approach (without sacrificing performance), and, if you already have a Win32 program using the functionality of that model, its a complete bitch to port to *nix.

Shooting themselves in the foot

[phishtrader]

While I'd like to see MS come out with a version of Office for Linux, I don't think we'll see it as long as the applications and OS lines are under the banner of the same company.

MS still doesn't quite know what to do with the emerging markets of Asia and the more undeveloped nations. Most of their potential customers in those countries are happy using pirated versions of MS software and don't have the cash nor the hardware to run the latest offerings from Redmond.

The author of the article is positing that for many in developing nations, the Office on Linux could be an attractively affordable solution. Couple a low or no-cost linux desktop OS with a version of Office on Linux and MS should be able to make some in roads in new markets that can't afford their current offerings.

Unfortunately for MS, their products are already in those nations in the form of pirated software. But, will customers in those countries be willing to pay for products they're using for free now? I'm guessing no.

What would be curious is to see if MS could keep such a product out of the North American and European markets. At this time, one of the major bars for many organizations in migrating to Linux on the desktop is their investment in Office. While there are alternatives to MS Office, none of them are perfect.

A Linux version of Office could help many companies decide to migrate to Linux. Once those companies are on Linux many of MS's products will look a lot less attractive. Also, once they've taken the plunge with Linux how many will dump Office in favor of an Open Source alternative such as OpenOffice.org?

Think about it...

[docwebhead]

Of all the "Big" operating systems vendors, how many are planning a ground-up rewrite in the next few years?

How many need one?

MS would do well to grab a version of Linux and build Longhorn around it. But they won't.

Re:If OSS weren't so proud we'd have our COM.

[Twylite]

OMG you're insane! I mean I stood up for Windows on Slashdot, but you're standing up for COM!? Please move away and hand me some extra asbestos ;)

In terms of security your comments about review are certainly accurate. OTOH MS does have role-based security build into the kernel, which Linux doesn't. I would be inclined to say that the MS kernel has the potential to be more secure than Linux, but probably isn't at the moment. This comment doesn't extend beyond the kernel!

In terms of synchronisation, a popular architecture on Win32 is a sequence of producers and consumers (each producer consuming from the one before it) using queues to communicate. It is a highly scalable architecture, and can be very efficient if each "stage" in the line is served by multiple worker threads. Although there are several approaches to implementation, two are of concern for Win32-Unix portability:

(1) Having a mutex per producer reduced lock contention, but this assumes that a consumer can wait on multiple mutexes.

(2) You can have all IO handled by a single thread, or all input handled by one thread and all output handled by another. There are some nice reasons involving performance and abstraction that you may want to do the former, but it is only possible if you can wait on sockets and the mutexes for the producer queues (they have finished processing and want to send output). In fact just an output thread can face this problem if it has to wait for producer queues or for sockets to become writable.

Actually I completely agree with you about the need for a userspace standard like COM but ... well, done right ;)

Shortsighted and silly article.

[eadint]

I hope that MS never ports office to Linux. that would be a disaster. i use office on a mac and its really crappy and unstable. I'm hopping that apple will resurrect apple-works and integrate a more comprehensive groupware server and client. or at least corel will bring back their office in the spirit of their original product. The problem is not that Linux needs an MS office the problem is that 90% of the people equate MS word with word processing. if a third format that is universal is used than it wouldn't matter what you use for your word processor. I would welcome a proprietary paid for product that has the functionality of office but runs great on Linux. our community needs to stop chasing MS's tail and start making software that makes MS chase our tail.

No No No...

[testadicazzo]

Slim odds of conquering developign nations? My tukus!

Compromise, adapting to the realities of business world and adapting to social pressures? That's unamerican!

C'mon Microsoft, instead of shelling out all that money to your investors, let's see use that money productively. Hire a mercenary company, buy some tanks and fighter planes, and let the new age of corporate warfare begin! Then when you've established a military Junta you sure as hell won't have to worry about getting the police to enforce your copyright law! And talk about monopolistic power!

C'mon, let's see some freedom to innovate!

Office for Linux? who'd use it?-RealBASIC.

[Anonymous Coward]

"python drives COM objects nicely"

Someone did an article awhile back. RealBASIC is an excellent cross-platform tool for the migrating VB programmer.

I have a better idea

[jswalter9]

Longhorn should have a BSD core. It would eliminate lots of effort on the Microsoft side. They could focus on the application layer like Apple has, and since Mono is well under way, they could simply use the mono stack - again, eliminating lots of effort. Hell, they could probably release longhorn next year.

How Microsoft Could Embrace Linux....Ideas.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually MS is "embracing" Linux as it were, not with their code, but with their ideas. Binary drivers...OK. Sloppy coding...OK. MONO...OK. Marketshare mentality...OK. The kitchen sink approach...OK. ONE to rule them all...OK. Code you can watch. Ideas however are harder to defend. Remember the booing and hissing with Debians decision about firmware? Back in the old days everyone would have understood why and approved. Not now.

Re:Do one better: Give it away

[Idarubicin]

But in light of a study a few years ago that indicated that they could slash prices across the board by 90% (yes, that is EVERYTHING) and still make money,

De Beers could slash the price of diamonds almost as much be releasing some of their stockpile and ceasing to manipulate the market--and still make a generous amount of money.

But they would rather make a lot of money. From a business standpoint, it's tough to argue with that....

Sure, they'll probably have to revise their revenue model at some point, but that's still years away. Who's to say that they don't have a group working on Linux ports of their core applications, and a strategy in the wings to deal with a change in the market? For now, they're understandably loathe to a) sell a cheaper version of their flagship cash cow, and b) make it easier for users to dispense with Microsoft's other cash cow.

Nothing is keeping them from dying as is.

[twitter]

Who really wants to pay $750 for Longhorn, and then pay another few hundred for an Office suite?

No one does. Because they can get better performance for less money they will.

Sooner or later, Microsoft is going to die. They can jump on Linux and die later or ignore the next big thing and die sooner. Their favorite option three is to finish their DRM legal work and nationalize software.

Re:Nothing is keeping them from dying as is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sooner or later you're going to die, you petulant zealot! Is this what you want your life's legacy to be? Your funeral will be attended by few, and the ones who remember you at all will have this conversation:

"At least twitter lived such a long life."

"Yes, well, he never ventured outside so he was never exposed to the dangers of the real world. However he was morbidly obese and spent his days and nights in his parents' basement, masturbating into the open drive bay of his GNU/Linux computer, depositing his semen into his only true friend."

"I know, and unfortunately his life's only legacy is a long history of paranoid loony rantings about 'Micro$oft' on a defunct web site called Slashdot. Unfortunately, due to its reliance on amateurish computer platforms such as Linux and MySQL, Slashdot crashed horribly in late 2004 and all of twitter's writings were lost."

"He descended into a life of despondency, and for the last few terrible years of his life he was bedridden in his parents' basement. His paranoid ravings that 'Bill is trying to poison my water! I'm too close to the truth! I want to believe!' could be heard emanating from miles away.

"Look now, they're lowering his casket along with his semen-encrusted GNU/Linux box, his only true lover."

Re:Nothing is keeping them from dying as is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sooner or later Stallman is going to die. Who's dick are you going to start sucking then? Linus'? Or maybe by then you might be desperate enough to suck your own, so you will have surgery to have a few ribs taken out? Either way, you should rott in hell.

Coz they'll give linux a boost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft will not port Office to linux since it will give them legitimacy to compete with Windows. Salkever failed to notice (as usual, how can he be a tech writer??) that Microsoft business consists of monopolies supporting each others. Windows furthers the IE monopoly and IE renders best on Windows. Windows extends the Office monopoly and again, Office works best on Windows. What would you think will happen if Microsoft ever has to compete solely on the merit of their softwares? (No, competitors' blunders do not count)

If MS ever writes Office:linux, they won't be able to confine it to developing countries, unless they want another lawsuit. Now, the one of the arguments against linux on office desktop will be scratched off. linux already handles web sites and email quite well. Put Office on it and let CFOs drool at the prospect of cheap computing. It will jeopardize Windows monopoly, and subsequently IE monopoly.

It could kill the main MS Office

[blugeoned]

Windows with the free Services for Unix could run the cheaper version just as well as Linux.

If that happened, they would lose a significant revenue source.

Re:It could kill the main MS Office

[Kazoo the Clown]

If that happened, they would lose a significant revenue source.

What revenue source? The MS Windows app market is saturated, they need someplace to go where it's not. Linux is exactly that place, and MS has a significant edge as their Office products are considerably more mature than the OSS equivalents.

MS can't make any more money off the OS-- primarily because even if they gave theirs away for free they'd still be losing market share to Linux-- it's not about cost, it's about quality. On the other hand, MS Office is a solid, well designed suite that is in a good position to out-compete the OSS suite, at least initially, which is all they will need-- to establish a compatibility framework that third parties will want to tie into, and can lock users into MS even on the Linux platform. Linux is a HUGE market opportunity for MS, don't expect them to pass it up...

Re:It could kill the main MS Office

[blugeoned]

What revenue source?

Enterprise Agreements for one. The company I am working at pays millions of dollars a year for a MS bulk licensing agreement. If a MS backed alternative came out, we would probably negotiate down our agreement.

The main place this will hurt is when the next version of Office (2005?) comes out. MS's revenue stream (and to some degree - their stock price) is based on getting people to upgrade perfectly good products (or as close as MS can get) for something very similar, though with some new feature and current support cycle. If they offered a truly competitive version for less money, I know a lot of people (this company included) who will try to make it work in place of the more expensive suite.

OT: President McCain

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that McCain was easilly more electable then Bush. If McCain had won the Republican nomination, it would have been a landslide victory (I know no Democrat who would have voted for Gore over McCain) in 2000, we wouldn't have a Facist as our chief law enforcement officer, and we wouldn't have invented false causus belli to preemptively invade Iraq.

Sadly, a true populist (like McCain, Bradley, or Dean) can't make it through the current nomination process due to the entrenched special interests. I expect this century will see a third party (which actually represents the people) will supplant one of the Repub-ocratic parties, and it will use MeetUp, MoveOn, or some other Internet-enabled process to do it.

Virtually impossible

[Fuzzums]

My guess is that Office uses several undocumented / unknown systemhooks. These would have to be rooted out and recoded.

This would require a lot of $$$, so it's not going to happen.

Exactly.

[Kiyooka]

They've just gone on an anti-OSS parade and flung mud about the dangers of Linux. They're strategy right now is to discredit Linux and make it seem like an immature unreliable hack. If they create an actual application for it, they've suddenly legitimized it. It's like saying indirectly that Linux is "Microsoft Approved".

Even if most of their money comes from Office, on the global stage, Microsoft is one of the greatest powers only because they control the OS. Lose that, and they will definitely fade into oblivion as people start to experiment with Linux and other OSS.

I'm not that smart but even I could think of this. I think this writer wrote this story just to appear on Slashdot! : P

Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? - Corporate

[Anonymous Coward]

The corporate world might consider MS Word on Linux. One example would be a company wanting to migrate off an MS OS but also has too much invested into Word documents to make a change. Even though OO exists, it is not 100% compatible and in the future, it may be illegal to reverse engineer MS file formats.

Re:If OSS weren't so proud we'd have our COM.

[mvdwege]

MS does have role-based security build into the kernel, which Linux doesn't.

Nope, sorry.

Look here: a complete RBAC system with Mandatory Acces Controls.

And before you start about the many warnings about its experimental nature, that is only valid if you get it from the source. The version that is currently integrated in the stable production kernel is just that: stable and production ready.

Mart

And cue up Rod Serling voicing over...

[cmdrwhitewolf]

"No comment here, no comment at all. We only wanted to introduce you to one of
our very special corporations, Microsoft, who conducts business in a place
called Seattle in a place that used to be United States of America, land of the free, home of the brave.
And if by some strange coincidence you should run across their software on Linux,
you had best think only good thoughts. Anything less than that is handled
at your own risk, because if you do encounter Microsoft software in your Linux PC
you can be sure of one thing: you have entered the Twilight Zone."

How about mediaplayer for Linux?

[walterbyrd]

I'd use it. IMO multimedia for linux absolutely sucks.

I'm not here to bash linux. I'm using debian/sarge right now. But I also use windows on the same machine. When it comes to multimedia, there is no comparison, windows wins in a slam-dunk.

no thanks

[Cnik70]

my os is fine without M$. OpenOffice works just as good as Office, and Mplayer works just as well as windows media player (and without the drm crap). Why would I, or and Linux user want M$ garbage on out systems?

Will never happen

[Lisandro]

As other posters said, it will never happen, even if Microsoft finds there's a viable market for it. The reason? Because it legitimates Linux as a viable alternative in the eyes of their consumers.
On the server market it's a whole different story, but Linux is (still) not a real threat to the Windows dominance in the desktop - why bother? It would do more harm than good to them.

Why MS will never embrace Linux..

[Ogerman]

Desktop platform choice is driven primarily by the applications that all users need, not the more specialized ones. I think the simplicity of this fact escapes most folks in the Open Source community.

It currently works like this:
1.) All users need an office suite.
2.) MS Office dominates due to file format lock-in, feature richness, and overall polish.
3.) MS Office runs natively on Windows and MacOS.
4.) Windows or MacOS are chosen for the platform, but Windows is cheaper due to the hardware.
5.) Most other software is written for Windows since it is the most popular platform for running the office software that all people need.

I don't know how much more blatantly obvious it can be, but the key to open source on the desktop is a perfected, feature rich, and highly-polished OpenOffice that is a near drop-in replacement for MS Office. MS will never provide us with Office for Linux because it would give us a new means to embrace and extend.

As for perfecting OpenOffice, if we can collectively pull this off, the situation will look like this:
1.) Companies switch to OpenOffice on Windows to save big bucks. (Office costs more than Windows, so it is the first to go)
2.) With OpenOffice proven, many desktops are now immediate candidates for Linux, another cost savings. Some conversion begins. More system integrators ship with Linux and OpenOffice by default.
3.) Demand for Linux business software (including proprietary) spikes because it is the cheaper desktop platform and meets the base needs. Porting efforts begin en masse.
4.) Widespread adoption of Linux desktops brings widespread public exposure to all the other great F/OSS that has been developed over the years. A snowball effect occurs.
5.) Open Source soon dominates the software industry.

OK, so that all sounds great, but how do we actually make this happen ASAP? I see two options at this point. We raise money to either 1.) hire a dedicated group of full-time OpenOffice developers or 2.) buy one of the proprietary MS Office clones, which may be superior to OO at this point, and set it free. This is, of course, in addition to continued community development. Think of it this way: it only took 7 weeks to raise 100k EU to buy Blender from NaN and turn it open source. Blender was a relatively obscure project, and high-end 3D modeling software is hardly something that everyone needs. How many millions could we quickly raise in a fundraising effort for an office suite? What are we waiting for?

Xenix? Lindows!

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft now owns the Lindows trademark, guess what they'll do with it.

Why this won't happen

[serutan]

Take one look at the way the veins stand out on Steve Ballmer's neck when he talks about OSS, and you know there's just no way in hell this is going to happen no matter how much sense it might make.

I expect it's in process...

[Kazoo the Clown]

I mean, come on, Longhorn should be called "Longshot." It's a big red-herring so that when Office for Linux comes out everyone will be surprised and think it a brilliant move, rather than an obvious one.

Longhorn is a huge risk. On the other hand, Office is a sure thing. Microsoft Office is what made MS's fortune, not Windows. Noone bought their PC because it ran Windows, they bought it because they could write letters and create business documents on it. And Office is actually a fairly stable product, unlike Windows. MS would be doing themselves a BIG favor by getting rid of major headaches if they dumped the OS biz and dived in with both feet into the transportable apps biz, and a Windows compatibility layer that runs on Linux that's more compatible than Wine.

Just what do you think .NET is about, if not creating an OS-independent framework with which to provide the apps people actually buy computers for? Noone is upgrading Windows anyway, as the old versions work "good enough" for most people, why waste time developing a new OS product noone wants or needs, and that has to compete with open source?

Bill Gates may be somewhat myopic, but I seriously doubt he's all that myopic...

Why not? this is why.

[CAIMLAS]

Why not? Because the strength of MS in the future will not rely on the software itself, but the restrictions built within the software. Want to watch a DVD? Great, you've got to own a product with an MS-based operating system, as it's the only thing that has the proper DRM functionality. Etc.

I dont see this happening

[Anonymous Coward]

I highly doubt that Microsoft will offer a Linux version of office. If Microsoft were to create a Linux version, there would be one less reason for some businesses to stay with the Windows operating system. From this, even if only a percentage of their coporate clients do change over, Microsoft will lose millions in licensing fees.

I just cant see Microsoft taking the risk of loosing all of the client machines to Linux right now. Now if a lot of the corporations start switching to Linux (for desktop clients) before any Linux version of office is released, then it would be another story, but that hasnt happened, yet.

Re:MS already has a plan... cheap & stripped d

[pappy97]

"MS has already figured some of this out and it wasn't by adopting linux or porting to linux. Look what they did in Thailand. They build a one-language (i.e. country specific) stripped down version of XP and sold it for cheap. They did this specifically to keep Linux out. If they did it in Thailand, they could do it in Brazil, India, China...etc. It's just a matter of how much money they will make on licensing the traditional way versus licensing the stripped down version."

Okay...but this doesn't explain why MS won't slash prices of Windows XP HERE in the USA...why won't they?

As many have said in this thread and threads in the past, if MS dropped the retail price of XP (Home) to $39.95 and perhaps XP Pro to $69.95, that would certainly stop many windows users from even trying to learn anything about any *NIX-based OS. That would kill the "Linux for mainstream idiots (read: Mandrake, j/k)" movement. Joe Schmo would never EVER think of buying a Wal-mart.com pc with a OS he's never heard of (Sun Java Desktop), if the same computer on wal-mart.com, only with WinXP, costs $40 more. He's say "Hmmm...just 40 bucks more and no hassles of linux because I am a computer dummy"

Even if MS won't embrace Linux, they know that dropping the price of XP can kill the linux market. They do this in the third-world, but why not here? Do they REALLY think that people will pay more than a $100 for an OS for years and years to come?

As John Stossel would say, "Give me a break."

Only 1 way

[Barumpus]

The only way Microsoft will embrace Linux is money, and that company has enough of that sitting in a bank.

IO Redistribution

[IBitOBear]

For years on Solaris using POSIX Threads I did the following:

[ASIDE: You can't do this under the current pthreads linux implementation in the 2.4 kernel, but you might be able to under 2.6, I havn't checked.]

From the main thread, before you make your frist pthread_create calll, for any given signal (e.g. SIGIO and SIGALRM) install a no-op signal handler, that is one that just returns, and that is not set to resume (e.g. that will cause the errno=EINTR response. Then block/mask that signal.

Make a thread-safe list-of-structures abstraction.

Now, for each such signal make a single thread to act as the "real handler" and use sigwait in that thread to "really catch" the signal.

Other threads then register callbacks, wakeups, etc on the list-of-structures.

Different signals may take different details for optimization and accuracy. (Redistributing SIGALRM is the easiest.)

If you use C++ you can basically make the list-of-structures indistinguisable from an OS service.

I also usually make SIGUSR1 restartable and SIGUSR2 nonrestartable so that I can use pthread_kill() to forward signal indications and interrupt blocking calls.

It isn't actually all that tough to mix threads and signals and callbacks if you plan for it from the get-go.

Re:If OSS weren't so proud we'd have our COM.

[gd23ka]

Cool. I wonder how far along reactos, an effort to clone NT4 is with this :-) Incidentally this is a very cool project and they've completed about 70% of the kernel and most of the userspace is taken from the Wine Project.

Btw... You wanted to wait on mutexes with Linux... Well you can! Kernels >= 2.5.7 have the sys_futex call that wakes up everyone waiting on the value of a certain address to change.

BTW... if you really wanted to show off some really basic VMS features Linux does not (yet) have then how about NT-APCs (Asynchronous System Traps as they're called in VMS) which is code in userspace of the process that initiated the IO that is called when that IO operation has completed. I doubt a lot of apps use them, however.

There are probably a zillion facilities one OS has that another lacks. Take IBM MVS / OS/390 /zOS jobs for example. A job in IBM's mainframe OS is a sequence of processes that run in sequence and parallel and the OS takes care of synchronizing them, connect them to the resources (datasets, network resources, etc.) they need and make sure that they run in the correct sequence and wait up on each other.

However there is one thing where the Linux-kernel is ahead and that's where it counts: It's a free highly featured enterprise-ready opensource production quality kernel under constant public review. No kernel-feature can make up for that

Now to get ahead of Microsoft in userspace, yes... I could even live with the OSS community adopting Microsoft DCOM. We already did in a way with Mozilla XPCOM.

mslinux-not-so-far-fetched dept.? WTF?

[Pan T. Hose]

Old news: MS Linux: Shipping in November 2003.

Odd, that unresembles my experience

[ishmaelflood]

I use Excel. I have tried to use OO, for quite a large project. There is no way I could switch across without spending MONTHS rewriting and revalidating old spreadsheets. I could not do this in reality because the OO spreadsheet does not handle my large complex worksheets in a stable fashion , its graphs do not provide sufficient functionality, and its scripting language is (so far as I can determine) poorly documented, at best, for a noob.

OO is not a competitor for Office, it is a competitor for Word with a non compatible spreadsheet thrown in.

So you haven't transferred Office users to OO, you have transferred Word users across.

Re:Odd, that unresembles my experience

[macjohn]

Almost all the applications of Excel in my office are to make lists or to put stuff in a table with rows and columns. Ive even seen people use a calculator to add up a row of numbers in a spreadsheet so they could type in the total.

I now have 6 machines running Linux and OO,. They are used by volunteers that need a web browser, a word-compatible processor, and a way to open excel files so they can type stuff into lists. They often barely notice they aren't on windoze.

Only big headaches I run into are microsofts inscrutable file sharing and how the hell to unmount a floppy.

i think MS office is unnecessary for 90% of its users. The other 10% can pay the MS price.

"Virtually"

[ishmaelflood]

How would you define "virtually flawlessly" in a business context?

How does the lost time encompassed in the weasel word "virtually" compare with the trivial cost (in a businees sense) of Office?

Re:"Virtually"

[innocent_white_lamb]

How does the lost time encompassed in the weasel word "virtually" compare with the trivial cost (in a businees sense) of Office?

How does the lost time encompassed in the weasel words "trivial cost" compare with the time and expense involved in license management, Windows/Office system administraton, patch management and installation, inventory control and the cost and time lost in performance of an audit on demand?

Well I suppose

[ishmaelflood]

that's one way to reduce your employment options.

I'd bear two things in mind:

(1) complying with arbitrary requests is part of many interview processes and even jobs

(2) Just because some HR dude is a moron doesn't tell you much about the rest of the organisation. I get worried when I see the morons at the top of the tree, not the botom.

Re:Well I suppose

[Anonymous Coward]

(1) complying with arbitrary requests is part of many interview processes and even jobs

Not for an interview for a job I want. These are silly games and I generally just refuse to play. And, yes, I have spent some significant time out of work. I find my tolerance for games goes up as the bank accounts go down :)

(2) Just because some HR dude is a moron doesn't tell you much about the rest of the organisation. I get worried when I see the morons at the top of the tree, not the botom.

"First-rate managers hire first-rate people while second-rate managers hire third-rate people." If you find this kind of bullshit at the bottom, it probably does tell you something about the rest of the organization.

OFF1C3

[PhatCobra]

yes, this would be cool... and there are alot of reasons why this would be good; however, those are also probably all reasons that might scare microsoft away from doing such a thing. microsoft software would be nice, but i don't think it's really the last piece in the linux-desktop-pc puzzle.

Speaking of codeweavers

[Anonymous Coward]

How would you like to have your tight little vagina pounded into a sloppy wet mess by the Living Incarnation of Pure Evil?

You know where to find me...

Re:MS already has a plan... cheap & stripped d

[HighOrbit]

You have some good points, but the reason MS won't drop the price in developed countries like USA and Europe is because they figure they make more money on full-priced sales than they loose to Linux. You can bet your bottom dollar that MS does market and pricing research to find out which price will generate sales of a particular volumn. They have decided that higher prices will bring them more profit than the higher volumn (and with 95-98% of the desktop market already, they couldn't get much more volumn anyway). About the only market left (in developed countries) where MS might make up more sales with lower prices is in the server space. And they are already starting to pursue the stripped down strategy there with their "Web Edition" of Window Server2003 (at $399 for web edition vs $999 for standard version).

So let me think about this a momment

[Orion Blastar]

Despite the uncounted viruses, trojans, adware, spyware, and other malware infections that happen every week, no almost every day now, and the fact that Windows has security holes so big that you could fly a Space Shuttle through them, and that Windows reliability is so bad that many companies have to reboot servers at least once or more a day, you are telling me that none of that matters? Microsoft, apparently, can take a crap in a box, label it "Windows" and then sell it to 75% of the market because they bundle it with the PCs sold, and use their monopoly to bundle IE, Media Player, and other goodies to shut out competition, and none of this matters because Linux is slowly gaining marketshare? That Linux does not use DirectX, or support sub-standard hardware (with poor quality control), or use bleeding edge hardware (not because the Linux community won't write drivers, but the hardware company refuses to release technical details so the Linux community can write those drivers for the state of the art hardware, because Microsoft signed an exclusive deal with SATA hard drive makers, and other bleding edge hardware companies to not release Linux drivers or technical specs to write Linux drivers), that none of this matters?

That Microsoft is so scared of Linux now, that they have a "Linux: Get The Facts" website and advertise it in almost every magazine and newspaper that I read now? Yet to you, that does not matter.

I say to you, bullsh*t! Linux marketshare doubles every year. Linspire (nee Lindows) and Xandros make more user friendly Linux versions, and KNOPPIX and other Live Linux CD distros still continue to gain marketshare and convert people to Linux. In fact, due to the nature that Linux is distributed, the Linux marketshare is under-rated, and may be higher due to the dual-boot nature of LILO and GRUB. You can record a Linux sale, but you cannot record someone getting a KNOPPIX CD ISO via Bit Torrent for free, etc. So if only Linux sales are recorded, and file sharing distributes Linux as well, there may be more Linux users out there than you know.

Microsoft is a dinosaur, they cannot innovate anymore, so they have to compete and/or buy technology to improve their products. Microsoft having 75% marketshare, can no longer promise the growth that they used to promise to their investors. Each new Windows operating system and each new software package from Microsoft requires new and more expensive hardware to run it on. There are a ton of people out there that have machines that cannot run Windows 2000, XP, or even Longhorn when it comes out. They also cannot afford to upgrade their software. Yet Microsoft puts out technology and encourages firms to not support anything less than Windows 2000. Case in point, Napster and iTunes won't run on 95 or 98.

So basically these people are screwed, right? Either buy new hardware with the new OS, or suffer for not being able to run the latest and greatest from Microsoft? Well I say give Microsoft the middle finger and download a KNOPPIX CD and try it out. Use QPart to repartition your hard drive, and use "KNOPPIX-INSTALL" to install a copy of KNOPPIX to your hard drive and dual boot. Or try another Linux flavor. It is cheaper than buying a $500 machine and then $300 worth of MS-Office software.

Even if you don't want to try Linux, keep 95, 98 and try Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, OpenOffice.Org, and other open source software available for Windows.

Face facts, there are more older systems out there, than there are newer systems. Microsoft is cutting their own throats by refusing to support the older hardware. Soon Windows Longhorn will require such powerful hardware that those $500 el cheapo systems will not be powerful enough for it. You'll be looking at the more expensive $800 to $2000 systems.

Re:I love experts

[Anonymous Coward]

My favourite slashdot posts are always the ones that start "Dude, I'm a pro and know far more about this than the rest of you". What follows is always comedy bullshit

My favorites are the ones that tell someone they're full of shit without attempting to explain why.