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Gates on Spyware and OS Competition
Ant writes "CNET's News.com has an article that says Microsoft plans to offer its own anti-spyware software." prostoalex writes "Both OsNews and InfoWorld talk about Bill Gates' speech at the Computer History Museum in California. Gates is noting that Linux is taking over, and claims that 10 years forward Linux and Windows will be the only OSs left in the market."
It would make sense for Microsoft to make an anti-spyware product, after all, they should (but may not) know the most about how to protect Windows from spyware. I would also think that given the sheer amount of brainpower that they could apply to the task that they would put forth a good product. But, they have not been known as innovaters in the application world (I know, some would say in the OS world as well). Anyway, I wonder how the other folks who make and sell (or give away) anti-spyware software will react to the 800lb gorilla's entrance into their domain?
http://www.busyweather.com/
Gee Bill, what about Mac OS? Considering how good that OS is these days, not to mention the Mac hardware, you probably shouldn't turn your back on it in a dark alley. I think it'll be here 10 years from now.
Is Bill telling his employees in the Mac Business Unit that all their hard work is going to be for nothing? Is he planning on shutting down the MacBU, an that's why he's saying Mac OS won't be around?
man, that's really f-ed up. Maybe the Windows Office team are getting jealous of how good the Mac version of Office is getting and are planning on burning the MacBU to the ground...
Why spend the man power fixing his faulty product when you can use 1/2 the time time and just create a bandaid fix!!
Gates is noting that Linux is taking over, and claims that 10 years forward Linux and Windows will be the only OSs left in the market.
The only thing I see is in the OsNews article where Bill Gates is quoted to say "fast forward 10 years, the two leading OS technologies will be Linux and Windows." But "leading" is very different from "only". Nowhere does it say all other OSs will disappear.
prostoalex, YOU must substantiate your statement NOW. Or are you spreading more anti-MS FUD??
If MS just a bit disclose the hidden places of OS to the very owners of OS/PC, spyware will be immediately found and killed. Just make those HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Run keys and other obscure parts more open and clear to users. Make non-technologically-competitive pieces of OS components open source. Don't lie to your own consumers.
There is no OS per se, on critical systems. Most are embedded devices running proprietary code, and usually just enough to perform the function they were designed to do.
When you hear reports of computer troubles at nuclear plants, it's more likely to be SoBig.x trashing the mail server, than slammer causing a SCRAM.
Is it just me, or does this sound like a revenue service waiting to happen?
I submit that Microsoft will only judge as spyware products which either install themselves without explicit permission, or products which are not owned by companies who pay Microsoft.
I hate to be so cynical, but I've been burned by too many Microsoft "features" [in recent memory: IE upgrades only available to XP users, and a Windows ME setup CD refusing to install to a FAT16 partition formatted by its own boot disk] to believe much of what they say.
Just my $0.02 USD.
It's only an insult if it's not true.
Rather than look at how the crap gets installed and dealing with THAT, let's talk about software to remove the crap AFTER it gets installed.
Here's some advice, Bill. It's easier to prevent the stuff from being installed then it is to clean up all the millions of variations that will be out there.
Not to mention this will be another DAILY download update along with:
#1. Security updates
#2. Anti-virus signatures
Gates makes the point, which is correct, that UNIX is losing marketshare, not Windows. If anything, scientists/network admins are moving to a combination of Linux and Mac just because UNIX-creators (*cough* Sun *cough*) haven't innovated in years.
The battle for desktop supremacy, however, is already won. I like the fact that I can run UNIX apps on my iBook, but I just built a tower for Windows. There's just too much breadth of software to shift away from the platform. MS has also come up with some good stuff recently (.NET, which in some cases is what Java should've been) that cement their hold.
Also, one would think UNIX refugees coming to Mac would boost the platform on the desktop. Not happening. I think people are finally settling on the fact that UNIX is a rock-solid server, but that doesn't necessarily make it a great desktop. Whether it's Windows or some other windowing system that wins the crown, I'm not sure, but classic UNIX is pretty much finished.
The problem is, most software is PC(x86) or Macintosh(OSX) compatible. However, PC means x86 machine with Windows, and Macintosh means PPC machine with OSX. x86 OSX would have the same problem that plagues Linux n00bs: Linux compatible could mean x86, PPC, IA64, ARM, SH3, etc. Having always thought of their computer being a Windows PC or a Mac, and know running Linux, they wonder why PackageX-PS2.rpm won't run on their computer.
Another problem would be that there are differences between the architectures enough that source code may require changes before it will execute correctly. There would be no software that would run on your x86 OSX machine. Companies would most likely need to port their applications before OSX-x86 would be useful.
This might be secretly happening right now. NDA companies that develop major products for your OS and have them start porting. Don't let the MBU know or their might be an in company leak.
Yet more proof (not that more was needed) that Slashdot is a fucking ridiculous joke. The only thing this site is worth is trolling a bunch of socially retarded dipshits.
Too bad microsoft will probobly just charge spyware companies a fee to have their crap not get blocked.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
Evil intentions though he may have, Gates isn't an idiot. He may not like it, but he can see that SCO has made a complete cock-up of its anti-Linux scam.
You can pretty much spin this as "see even Bill Gates says Linux will be around ten years from now".
This should give pointy hair bosses pause in claiming that Linux is just too risky.
What a huge step to be so publicly recognized as the most prominent threat to MS for an OS that is not controlled by any one cooperation.
In the end it will be inevitable that an OS becomes a commodity. MS tries to fight hard against this by building up the OS to do everything short of singing and dancing for you but I don't think that will save them in the long run.
10 years forward Linux and Windows will be the only OSs left in the market
What a politically contrived statement. He can't say "only windows" (read monopoly), so their must be at least 1 other OS, and people would laugh if an open source operating system wasn't included.
Now all of a sudden he takes the wind out of the sails of the Linux zealots, and appears all controversial. Yep... in 10 years it there will be Windows and *nix, just like today.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=1144882004
The above link has three pertinant quotes.
"Microsoft's fortunes grew with personal computers or, more specifically, supplying the software for what used to be called "IBM-compatible PCs". It is easy to forget that 20 years ago there were a number of standards competing for dominance. (Of the others, only Apple survives.)"
"Google knows it cannot remain just a search engine company, because that leaves it vulnerable if someone else comes along and does it better. That is why it keeps adding services. The best publicised has been its proposed e-mail service, Gmail, which has upset privacy activists because it will include advertising based on the content of the e-mails. But it is likely to prove extremely popular because it will make searching through e-mail much easier and quicker, and because it offers a gigabyte of storage. For most users, that means they will never have to delete another e-mail. "
"But Microsoft is vulnerable if a competitor shifts the focus away from the PC and on to the internet. And we all know the company most capable of that."
Take that all to the extreme - If network centric computing and a company like google go to the logical conclusion of their efforts, subsuming encyclopedia software (remember encarta?), email, games and eventually word processing and other applications into an always on, globally available internet technology that would free you from not just your desktop but from even needing a permanent computer of your own, wouldn't the most logical thing to beat be problems with privacy?
After all, if you can eliminate "spying" on a distributed system like that, then you've aready eliminated spyware as a matter of course (maybe by using thin clients and making all the intelligence and security reside in the server and communication layers).
Gates said Microsoft will offer software to detect malicious applications and that the company will keep it up-to-date on an ongoing basis.
Now the only question is what Microsoft feels to be a good update schedule for their anti-malware software. Are we going to see once a month release cycles that detect spyware that has been out for six months the way they wait six months to release patches for known vulnerabilites on Windows Update?
$ whatis themeaningoflife
themeaningoflife: not found
A free one and a non-free one. What they're called, who knows. The free one will successively drive out the non-free one, though.
" If Apple ever releases a PC version of OSX, M$ is screwed. But that won't happen now, will it?"
This sems to be a common wet dream amoungst x86 PC users (you never hear Apple users lusting after a x86 machine). I recommend you buy an Apple and just get it over with. You'll be happier. Apple will be happier. The only ones who wouldn't be happy is those with a heavy investment in all things x86.
Yeah, and Symmantec and McAffee are secretly making all the computer viruses so they can sell anti-virus software.
Sounds like you need to get your tinfoil hat resized again.
Don't you think they should improve their operating system's security before they sell additional anti-spyware software? This just seems like another way to coax more money out of consumers..
uhuh. which is why microsoft is opening up the source code to windows to said countries (like china).
backdoors don't work too well if the target can see them.
Um, that's not why you'd be modded troll.
OS's make their real money (except for MS's) after it is put into maintence mode.
For me to buy this, I'm going to have to see some concrete examples. Got any links?
Seems like Solaris has made money for Sun without being in maintenance mode. Same for MS. Same for Red Hat, Wind River, QNX, Palm, IBM (who have made more money and lost more money on operating systems than just about anybody), etc...
I have nothing to back up my statements other than vague assertions but then you haven't presented anything other than vague assertions either, so I reckon that's fair.
>It is a well known fact that all versions of MS-Windows
>have backdoors built in, allowing US spy agencies to
>heck into, do something funny, and/or sabortage the
>"enemy system"
Uh. It's not a fact, well-known or not. It's speculation promoted by the paranoid masses.
Stop being a tard.
Look at the problems with powerbook displays and iBook logic boards. Apple CAN'T compete on price so they HAVE to slash QUALITY to get even CLOSE.
:(
I own and admin a shitload of macs- ranging from a quadra 650 to G5s. The only macs I have that have BROKEN are one of the two G4s I admin, thirteen of the fifteen iMacs I admin, and BOTH of the G5s I admin (one blew a hard drive, the other the logic board and video card).
All my beige Macs are rock motherhumping solid. Never had a problem with any of them, ever. This candy colored aluminum crap, on the other hand, is- at BEST- consumer grade.
From the article (emphasis mine):
Wasn't it supposed to be Linux that kills jobs?
There are two kinds of people who complain about MS. Those with somekind of hatred towards MS for whatever reason and those who of us who are tired of the constant delays, promised features that are moved to the next version and just plain shoddy code.
It is like with IE, geezus MS how long is it going to take to get proper PNG support. Or with AMD, exactly what is taking so long to get 64bit support out? Linux and BSD got it now for ages, are opensource developers really that much better and more motivated?
The list goes on, Longhorn? The next big thing? Well not really, features and improvements are being dropped left right and center until what is left over is still just another point upgrade and not the much needed rewrite that windows needs.
If I need something done and you do it without being asked then I will be gratefull. If I ask you to do something and you do it then I will thank you. If I have to keep nagging you for years to do something and then finally you do it in a half-assed way then I am going to think your a fucking asshole.
Get married and you will find that this is pretty normal human behaviour.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It is a well known fact that all versions of MS-Windows have backdoors built in, allowing US spy agencies to heck into, do something funny, and/or sabortage the "enemy system".
Listen to yourself, you sound like an idiot. I know Microsoft Windows code is closed-source. But here's a fundmental fact that nobody understands- it's open-source to every employee working under windows in Microsoft. That's about 14000+ employees mind you, and they belong to every nationality you can think of, even those you can't spell. Maybe their livelyhood depends on them keeping quiet, but I'm sure you are the one spreading FUD around.
Stop scaring the people. Stop this nonsense. I'm surprised you didn't find a place for terrorists in your comment somewhere.
Yea. I know.
Well... here is something else that people say:
a) Windows should provide it because it's their responsibility to be secure
b) Windows bundling anti-spyware software puts anti-spyware folks out of business because no one will buy it because the bundled is too easy to just use it.
So... yet another case where Microsoft will be damned if they do it and damned if they don't. I'm sure it will be feed for all the "M$" bashers no matter which way it goes.
In ten years time, I predict Windows will be just a bad memory.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
the Mac OS will be code-named after. I mean - there's only so many cats. Next one's Tiger and we're doing about 1 per year, that's 10 more cats!!
Lessee... Lion, um - Leopard, Cougar, Gepard... uh.. Thundercat?
Jobs better hope for divine intervention.
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
There's nothing that someone who has been working at a large company worries about more than a bunch of new fresh, stubborn, idealistic faces who is willing to devote all their time to work coming in and taking over. That's true even in the existing system.
Microsoft is a very large company. It has an established hierarchy, and people who have worked for years to reach their positions, and now have guaranteed status. They're concerned about someone walking in and taking what they've spent a long time getting and rely on.
Linux is a loose network of some of the most devoted-to-work people, who want to stir things up and change the world, even if it results in a lot less money for them. It is a hypercompetitive meritocracy -- you can't work up any type of "status" that you can live off for years (well, maybe if you work at IBM).
Microsoft/Linux is just another example of a neverending struggle. It's just a little more blatant than most.
May we never see th
... and study ... because if there's anybody who knows about spyware, and has LOTS of access to it ...
'cause Tab is really helpful in Photoshop....
______ This mind intentionally left blank.
The problem you analogize is a direct result of an illegal monopoly. It is not THAT M$ drags its heels, it's that M$ CAN drag its heels and still extract a premium from the market. This is a key difference between monopoly and free market.
It's not that they do evil, but that they are in a position to do evil without consequence as a monopoly. There is no material reward for them to play nice, because material rewards flow ONLY from maintaining the monopoly. An employee who figures out a way to make it harder to defect from M$ deserves a promotion, but an employee who figures out a way to ease the customer's experience is just eccentric, irrelevant to the actual business of making money.
This is distinctly different from a free market where easing a customer's experience improves customer loyalty and increases the likelihood that you'll make a profit.
The only way you can help M$ to do a better job is to bring them back into the free market by breaking their monopoly. Don't buy computers with M$ products pre-installed. Don't let your boss do so. Make sacrifices to break the monopoly and your children will inherit a better computing experience.
1- 14K+ employees workin in the OS? I don't think so.
2- 14K+ employees can read and understand the code? Again I don't think so.
2- With only two or three hackers working in the compiler(s) is enough to make a backdoor that is not visible in the source, and present in every OS.
in 2014 we will be running Windows XP, SP7.
Seriously, they are having problems writing Windows for AMD64. While open source OSs chug along. Will linx run on mainframes? It already does. Will windows run on mainframes? It probably will never make it. As long as there is a spectrum of hardware Windows with its sloppy architecture, coding and design will be locked into to the low end of the market. billg is out of touch, or just plain doing market speak (same thing really).
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I can see the reason why they prefer you not let Windows know. It could be possible for a virus to check on this (through Windows) to see if NAV is running or not. Knowing if NAV is running would be helpful. Not knowing leaves the virus writer guessing.
"All the darkness in the world can not quench the light of one small candle."
very few employees actually see ALL the source code for windows.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
From the OSNews article:
As to how Microsoft is going to beat Linux according to Gates, it seems to be via its software's value, rather than the price. Bill Gates is trying to create software that needs little maintainance and little support. By doing so, he hopes to cut down the number of IT administrators needed on companies (a good admin costs overall up to $200,000 per year for a given company here in the Bay Area, for example). On the other hand, Linux rivals (e.g. Red Hat) are making money primarily by support calls and require capable administrators. Gates hopes to elliminate this need.
Someone has already created software that needs little maintenance and support. It's called Mac OS X (frankly, even the old Mac OS was much more reliable compared to then-current incarnations of Windows). Corporate IT departments ignored it, partly because it required the purchase of new hardware, but mostly because it makes having a large IT staff superflous-- and IT managers like the empires they build and the power they wield over an organization that depends on rickety shit like Windows that always needs an army of admins to keep it running.
Anyone who has admin'd a mixed network of decent size will tell you that the number of Windows problems they saw dwarfed the number of Mac problems, even when the Macs were years old and the PCs were brand-new, and even when the Macs outnumbered the Windows machines. I've seen it myself. At my last job, the company went from being an all-Mac shop to running Windows everywhere but in the design studio. For a period of time when it was all-Mac, I was the sole admin of over 100 machines and my biggest problem was finding a good book to read between help calls. As soon as some 98 and NT machines landed on users' desks, we needed to add two more people to the IT staff and we could still barely keep up.
Even if it's coming from Microsoft (and that's making the hefty assumption that they can actually produce a Windows that is low-maintenance), I have a hard time believing that these corporate IT guys will willingly buy something that will effectively lessen their power within the corporation.
~Philly
Also everything is not text based, try doing some Cad work. You can do it with only the keyboard, but then the person standing behind you will be silently screaming MOUSE, dammit, MOUSE! MOUSE to the line and Click it!
Yes but millions of other people look at the open source code. It just has be caught by one person and it's over. In fact every patch gets posted on the listserves.
evil is as evil does