Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft 'under attack' On All Fronts
khujifig writes "The Beeb are carrying a story looking at the challenges facing Microsoft in the next few years.
This includes a brief description of the M.Home (sans Clippy) which the Beeb describes as "a far cry from real life", and a discussion of the next few years competition for Microsoft. They go on to highlight Linux, OpenOffice.org, the GIMP and Firefox (which Gates himself has used: "I played around with it a bit, but it's just another browser, and IE [Microsoft's Internet Explorer] is better,"), and look Apple in relation to Longhorn. Not as bad a read as I was expecting. Their summary: Microsoft is under 'attack' on all fronts, and either needs to innovate or die. "Why use Microsoft if you have a broadband connection and combine Firefox with powerful web services like Google's Gmail?."" It should be said, tho', that articles like this have been written about MSFT for a long time - and there's still billions in their war-chest.
Quite the pro OSS piece... To answer the question posed in the summary, "Why use Microsoft if you have a broadband connection and combine Firefox with powerful web services like Google's Gmail?" Because there is more to the world than just the web and e-mail.
Which Microsoft product "The Gimp" is supposed to attack? Paintbrush?
I thought The Gimp was Adobe Photoshop concurrent, and AFAIK, Adobe has not yet been bought by MS.
... that had things like tabbed browsing and live bookmarks a year before ie 7. psh
Most of the small businesses out there want support for a product even if they never use it. They want to know it's there. They also want to know that it's going to be supported by the same people for a long time. Think of it as security.
This isn't about which is the better product... it's about which one will get the project done AND be supported if shit hits the fan.
Support does NOT mean Forums or RTFM. They want real people. The fact is most people are not IT people. They just want it to work and forget about it. If it breaks they want someone to call to get it working again.
The same is for large companies except in the fact that they want support of future innovations. You are institituting a large scale database project... you are using My-SQL... something goes wrong... what do you do? Post in a forum, email a friend...
Same situation you are using MS-SQL, you can call tech support and bam get an answer or at least a much more educated idea.
I'm dissing open source. It's awesome and I think it keeps innovation alive and is always an alternative. But without the support... you aren't going to get the backing you might want.
Google GMail doesn't seem like a serious threat to Exchange. Postfix, yes, but a third-party service which reads your email...no.
Microsoft is under 'attack' on all fronts, and either needs to inovate or die.
Microsoft is about likely to go under as IBM, they may take a hit now and again, they they always come out fighting.. Look atthe X-Box, they had no real console based experenice before, yet they managed to give Sony a good fight, even debuting a year after Sony... I expect that the new version of IE will have everything that FF has, and more...it's just how MS does things...
I have always looked at MS as a big mean dog...you really don't want to mess with them, and you really really don't want to back them in a corner..
Please don't talk this as pro-MS, it's more of a pro-reality statement
Microsoft will never die, its far too rich now to disappear completely, it may have diversify like IBM. If they have enough money to throw at the XBox project without blinking an eye then they will eventually find something that is profitable. They may never make the kind of dosh they have from Windows and Office but while they can afford to hire the best talent they are virtually guaranteed to stay in business.
I think Microsoft is in the weakest position it's been in in a long time. Their new OS has been delayed. Their browser is full of holes. VB 6 developers are not moving to .net like they hoped. Their new OS will contain a lot of DRM that nobody wants. Mac and Linux are both making inroads. This is a prime time to get people to switch to something else.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Honestly having 90% + market share is to much for any company. People are starting to realize that there are tools better fitted for their own needs. So Microsoft is not always the answer. It is not saying that microsoft products are perfect or they are utterly crap. But there are some jobs better fit by microsoft products and other fitted with other products. Now that consumers are getting use to downloading application for free and reading reviews on other products. The 90% stranglehold that microosft have is leaving. Windows is no longer considered a part of the computer. IE is not the Internet. As general knowlege grows the less stranglehold Microsoft will have. It is much like the drop in prices for our geekly services. Back in the 80s and 90s we were getting premium pay for simple jobs such as swapping drives or running backups even the Title "Computer Operator" was considered a high tech job, but as more people got use to computers many of the simple jobs are now done by people in accounting or marketing, or the janator is doing it. Just because it is common knowlege. Why was the mainfraim replaced with PCs because they were cheper and fast enough to get the work done. The same is happening with Microsoft. Will Microsoft die, Probably not but there market share will probably drop to 25-40% and still be the #1 software company. When people look at linux or apple and see a 2%-10% market share. They say it is low. But with all the competition out there 3% market share is pritty damn good.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Because of corporate image. Microsoft realizes that Firefox is at least a worthy competitor to IE, but it would look absolutely terrible for the company if their very famous captain came out and said 'Well, what do ya know...our competitor's product IS better.'
The real issue is not outside influences but internal meltdown and customers who fail to see the need to upgrade. Longhorn will be competing with XP and little, if any, of the new features Longhorn provides have any benefit to "normal" users.
Meanwhile Office is already very hard to push.
And the future isn't the PC, for end user computing. The switch to mobile is already well under way, and that's a platform Microsoft doesn't own.
there is more to the world than just the web and e-mail
Not to the vast majority of computer users. Most people I know think that the Web and the Internet are the same thing.
The computer using experience for most is: email, web surfing (this includes shopping on eBay) and gaming.
Digital photography is starting to push into that list more and more, but let's face it, Picassa is a great app and the price is right!
For some users there is not more to using a computer than web and e-mail. For example, my parents rarely use their computer for anything other than the two.
That being said, one of the main advantages to Windows is that when my parents have a problem with their computer there are many people they can ask to help fix the problem (although they unfortunately normally turn to me). Now, how many people can you turn to for tech support on a Linux box? In some situations many, but overall far more people would not have anyone to turn to.
As long as this stays the same Microsoft will still retain its hold on the market.
Mr Gates told me, and challenged my assertion that Firefox's 'market share' is growing rapidly.
"So much software gets downloaded all the time, but do people actually use it?" he argued.
And I have to say that software gets [forcefully] purchased all the time as well. Heck, I can remember buying dozens of computers -- ranging from desktops made into back-office quasi-servers to full blown workgroup type servers. To get each and every one of those machines the Windows tax had to be paid (at the time). I'm sure those machines are counted in Microsoft's totals for market share as well.
They still run Linux to this day.
Heck, I can count now HUNDREDS of computers that I'm responsible for that all originally legally ran Windows. Care to guess which Linux distro I used on them? Sad -- but a lot of those installs showed up as only one (1) [bittorrent] download...
Mr. Gate's arguments don't and won't fly for too much longer. Microsoft days are numbers -- and yes, I am ready to sell-short their stock when the day(s) come. Might as well make money on their misery -- they certainly have on mine.
I've been a Firefox user for a while. The main reason? Firefox has had stuff built into its browser Microsoft STILL doesn't have. Before the XP SPs, IE didn't have built in popup blocking. What a fucking throwback.
The only thing IE has over IE (which probably won't last too long) is some, just some, websites aren't viewed properly in Firefox as they were designed for IE.
What disgusts me the most about Microsoft is they have so much potential and so many resources, yet they squander it and believe their own hype. Back in the day, when Gates saw Netscape as a threat, he beefed up Internet Explorer and Windows and kicked Netscape's ass, deservedly so. Once he eliminated the threat, he simply abandoned IE where we've had fundamentally the same browser since the 90s. MS sees a threat, beefs up to fight it, wins, and then abandons it to starve to death.
Once OpenOffice picks up more steam (namely complete interoperability with all Office suites), you can guarantee free Office-lite from MS to combat them and a better Office suite. If OpenOffice is defeated, we'll have the same MS Office until 2010.
Microsoft is under 'attack' on all fronts, and either needs to inovate or die.
Isn't it like that for every company in this domain? I mean, there are a lot of them who just copy, but those who work well and make big bucks, usually its the law : Inovate or die
I wouldn't mind you in my head, if you weren't so clearly mad -Lews Therin Telamon
As bad as Microsoft has become over the years, they were needed at the time ( some odd 15 years ago or so ).
We needed their marketing power to jumpstart the PC market, as the more talented companies like Apple just weren't going to do it.
Forcing a pseudo standard via their monopolistic practices is what brought us to this point, and I don't think we would have advanced as far as we have if we still had 20 companies running around catering to hobbyists or niche markets..
However, the need for this has passed. Its time for the giant to step aside and let the rest of us get back to work. They if course will not go down with to a long and expensive fight. But their time has come and gone, its just a matter of how long will they keep flapping around like a beached whale before they concede to reality.
( A similar thing is just now starting to happen in the 'entertainment industry' as well )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The biggest problem with Firefox at the moment is that these features aren't well-advertised and you have to do a lot of googling to find documentation on the more esoteric stuff. Once corporate IT types get a feel for what you can do with firefox, I suspect IE usage will plummet.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
(oh, and i have no real problem with slashdot rendering in Firefox)
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
At the end of this movie, Steve Jobs says to Bill Gates, "We're better than you," to which Gates replies, "You just don't get it... That doesn't matter!" This still holds true today. It doesn't make any difference if Microsoft has no imagination or invention because the mass of consumption and forces of conformity give them room to sit back and relax. While others need to innovate, MS only needs to assure their customers that the stolen ideas will come a few months later. (Or years later.)
Did you compare the number of security holes on each browser that allowed remote access to the system? Yes, we see Mozilla/Firefox bugs all the time, but they are fixed quicked, and far less severe. I do believe the last "bug" in Firefox/Moz that gave system access was actually do to a bug with Windows shell extensions, and the developers still went out of their way to work around it so people wouldnt be affected.
Secondly it does come with my box - not as a 4 Mb download I have to make afterwards.
The fact that it comes with the OS is not a reason that makes it better than other browsers.
(That said, I understand the "conveniently located" thing, and the fact that if some browser weren't included things would be worse--unless you want to distribute by CD, BBS, or FTP or something.)
R.Mo
Name a company that can seriously put all of there resources together and pose a serious threat to Microsoft?
The problem with Microsoft is that they've become too big and they have way too many products.
There's not a single company who can fight with Microsoft. But all of them are fighting with them: Sony, Nintendo (xbox), Linux, mac os x, solaris (windows), mysql, postgresql, oracle, IBM DB2 (ms sql), firefox, opera (ie), google, yahoo (search engine, MSN), openoffice (office)
Microsoft just can't win. After having 95%+ of market share in desktops they need to search a way to grow even more to satisfy the stock buyers, so they fight in every market. And they can fight against a single or a few companies, but not against the whole IT industry
This is a popular misconception.
Long before their bank-balance reached zero, investors would be dumping MS shares on the market in order to get rid of them. The prices of the shares would drop, the value of the company would drop and, in turn, so would that bank balance even more.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Where's the reference to Microsoft as a ``beleaguered'' company?
Any post that doesn't bend over and get buggered by the phallic symbol that is Linux will by default be moded Troll/FlameBait.
On the other hand, to be moded +5 Insightful just post something like 'Linux does this much better than M$ Windows' (Topic agnostic comment)
Is Slashdot really overrun only by morons who think that Linux is beyond reproach? For gods sake people Windows and Linux have great S/W written for them.
And look, I didn't even prefix my post with something like 'I use Linux but...'
Mods, do your stuff to me.
If it wasn't MSFT, it would be IBM. Or Novell. Or Lotus. Or ... Google. Any company whose business model is like MS', whose products are like MS', is going to come under "attack" from the market. For "attack", read: "Educated consumers switching to a better product". This is not zealotry, this is years of MS growing crusty, expensive and bloated. Sound like IBM In the 80s? MS is going to have to adapt, like any other organism, or it will be replaced by faster and more efficient organisms (companies).
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Perhaps in the not-too-distant future there will be some tool out there that will ensure 100% compatibility and transferability of proprietary systems to open solutions. Sure, there are jumps and fits today in that direction, but we are not at that magical point yet.
To that end, it really is Microsoft's challenge to 'innovate' enough to stay ahead of the Linux pack while not biting off so much that the product never ships (aka Longhorn).
the fact that 95% of all programs run under XP and no others
wtf?!? Did you just pull this right out of your ass. First off, XP is less than 4 years old(Oct 2001). That is an extremely brave statement to say considering that almost every application can run on previous versions of Windows and today we have virtual machines to run any OS anywhere as well. But... what applications do you really need that have no replacement?
Games... You got every OS on that one, but console gaming is clearly an alternative.
Office... OpenOffice, and you can run MS Office on OS X.
Video Editing... several open source projects and Apple has all but destroyed Adobe's Premiere.
Image Editing... several multi-platform apps
Audio... iTunes/Quicktime/Real Player/Media Player... all multi-platform, some more than others
Browser... several multi-platform apps.
Chatting... several multi-platform apps.
So exactly what programs can you not live without? I think you are exaggerating.
Most users don't take the time to explore their browser. Firefox out of the box is nothing special. Firefox with a few extensions and some tweaks to its settings (Especially enabling http pipelining) is hot stuff.
Which is exactly why most users still use IE over Firefox. Most users are just that, users . They don't want to spend hours tweaking their computer out of the box. They want to open up their PC, turn it on, and check email, write papers, do what they have to do without worrying about any of the functions, "under the hood,..." in the same way that when you drive a car, most drivers just want to turn the key and drive, not worrying about stuff under the hood. Unfortunately, what they (and Microsoft) fail to realize is that, computers are a lot more like cars; left with maintenance unattended, they will eventually become useless.
Like many Windows users, you seem to forget that OSS != Linux.
You can run Windows and happily install Firefox, GAIM, OpenOffice, The Gimp and a host of other OSS applications on Windows.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Gates' IE might be better than FireFox. Because Gates' intranet is built (presumably) for IE-feature applications. And, most importantly, because his intranet is secured by a huge staff of people with some of the latest IE bug reports. That unique bubble is keeping Gates, and his minions, out of touch with the security nightmares his products create for his customers.
MS has long been kept ahead by its huge external developer program. But IE bugs can't be addressed by those developers, because the source is secret. Ironically, that integration between app developers and the market is OSS' true strength. Exactly where MS has made its greatest success. Will Gates finally starve up in his ivory silicon tower?
--
make install -not war
to play 99% of the games out there you need windows.
Funny, my PlayStation plays games just fine, and it doesn't run Windows.
Software Wars
The average person who doesn't self-identify as a nerd doesn't moan about Microsoft sucking. Look at their total market share. Sure it might slip a few percentage points here and there, but it's still huge, which shows that the majority of people still buy their products. Claims that they've "lost their midshare" are ridiculous when you consider that there's no other OS that even comes close in terms of market share.
Bash Microsoft all you want, but don't underestimate them.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Microsoft is going to die because there is better technology out there? That's a newsflash. There has always been better technology. DOS and Windows were never better than Mac OS. DEC had great technology. That didn't stop them from dieing. If technology was the driver for a company's success we would all be running Xerox software.
Mac ownership = installed user base... don't have figures on that but in the late 90's it was around 50 million.
Market share means percentage of what's being sold, a useful figure for projecting influence and company health, but it's generally confused with 'how many Macs are out there being used' -- especially by trade press.
The long service life of Macs adds significantly to the installed user base. I'd like to see more reliable recent figures, if anyone knows where I can find them.
These stats are part of an overall climate of FUD, the fog of commercial war; the stats on media player usage are equally confusing.
Damn those pesky terrorists
shows that the majority of people still buy their products
I would suggest that the majority of people buy a computer which has MS products pre-installed. Very few people actually go out and buy MS products.
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I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
Is X-Box going to displace Sony in the console space?
Are the (current) minority of Linux servers and desktops going to be running Windows anytime soon?
Is MS Office going to be able to compete when applications move even more web-based and Adobe/Macromedia are sat there waiting?
Is MS going to be able to displace Apple iPod and iTunes from the music player market?
On the "gadget" front, no-one can decide yet whether they want Pocket PCs with or without cameras and mobile phones. Symbian is there already, some embedded Linux is there also, Windows Mobile is a player but this market hasn't settled yet.
Add to that, OSS apps are making small bites into the Windows desktop - Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.
Historically, Microsoft has survived through constant expansion but the areas it's now trying to expand into have those "immovable boulders" already sat there.
MS won't die through shrinkage, it'll die through lack of expansion because the moment that happens, the shareholders and investors will leave in their droves.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
No, he meant "better for me because it's under my control". He's right about that of course.
And that's also one of his biggest problems. He doesn't see any way of making profits through collaboration, but only through total control.
This is why he wasn't able to do the obvious thing of throwing out the Windoze kernel and replacing it with a FOSS one, even if it were BSD. Loss of total control (he'd end up playing catch-up, which doesn't worry the more sane Jobs in the slightest) is anathema to him.
For one, slashdot renders properly in IE. Secondly it does come with my box - not as a 4 Mb download I have to make afterwards.
Just so you know, the ability to render badly formatted pages "correctly" is _not_ a good thing, because it promotes bad coding. Regarding the download thing... just add together how much mbs of updates have you patched your base IE6 since winXPvanilla. Oh, you don't know ? That's one more point against it in my world. But the point is, even IE7 won't have near as good standards compliance as Safari, Firefox or Konqueror has already. I have more reasons if someone wants to listen. For example the extentions I use with Firefox (e.g. adblock, targetalert, send referer, gmail notify, etc.) make it so much better than IE has ever been.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Name a company that can seriously put all of there resources together and pose a serious threat to Microsoft?
Google.
And you meant 'their'.
It doesn't take hours, just a few minutes, less than 5 to get the themes and set the configuration the way I like
Now. When you first started, it probably did take hours. No one starts in computers all-knowing.
I know non computer savy folks who once pointed to these options were ecstatic to use them.
Exactly the point. Most users will NOT dig into the available options. They are too afraid of breaking something.
Look at the latest offerings from MS. They all have an option for turning off least used menu options (personalized menus). This hides large numbers of menu items. So the user uses a few things (ie: bold, italics), and does not even know that you can have small-caps (or what small-caps even means).
So having an average user go to a search engine, type in the correct search phrase, sift through the thousands of returns to locate an obscurely named plug-in, install it, set it up, well.....
And don't tell me about the plug-in sites. YOU know what they are, user's do not.
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I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
it was once said "noone ever got fired for buying IBM".
IBM were arrogant, dictated prices, killed off 3rd party compatibility and used FUD to defend themselves. IBM dominated the computer business, so much so that their personal computer system, based on the 8088, was able to defeat the many rivals which were much more sophisticated. Many people despised IBM, and people loved Microsoft for as the latter offered the freedom and flexibility people wanted.
IBM fell from grace, and Microsoft rose up as the Good Guys.
Microsoft are now arrogant, dominate the market, kill third party products off using undocumented APIs + patents + incompatibilities caused by random patching changes. People despise Microsoft's attitude.
Meanwhile, IBM have embraced OpenSource and are often seen as the Good Guys.
People think Microsoft are unstoppable... but will they collapse under their own legacies? Will another organisation take their place and dominate, and could that be Apple (IMHO not) or IBM (IMHO not). Can Sun Microsystems return from the dead with Solaris on x86?
Personally, I can't wait till the antique architecture and 8088-compatibility legacy of the x86 dies forever. The PowerPC architecture is sweet; Sun's sparc is not bad at all. Arm is almost too primitive (ideal for handhelds). Alpha has been killed by HPaq. It's an exciting time to be an observer, and I'm glad I'm not betting the farm on which computing platform and OS will be the next king!
then you're not making sense.
"If an admin isn't skilled enough to run linux, then they shouldn't be in charge of *any* system. They are not qualified regardless of their years of experience or degree/certificates"
But they're NOT ADMINS. They're HOME USERS. Do you think all home users should have to pay an admin to come in and setup their machine, much like you might have to pay an electrician to come in and do your wiring before you turn on a light?
Hang on. This isn't actually that bad an idea...!
Sorry, in this instance, the egg needs to come before the chicken. We need linux ports of popular games before gamers can make the switch completely.
Until the droves are playing Counterstrike, Half Life 2, World of Warcraft, Everquest #, on linux, linux will not be considered a gamers OS.
And don't even get me started on the driver support for Linux. Gaming hardware companies need to give Linux more attention before game developers start developing for linux.
ID software, perhaps you've heard of them, understands this principle and releases both binaries with their games. They don't do this just for the cool factor. ID understands what's up.
Perhaps one of the most damaging moves for games being developed for Linux was the release of the xbox. This has locked a lot of developers looking to get in on the console cash cow to developing with Microsoft's DirectX. If you're slated to release something on the xbox and PC at the same time, no game developer is going to make a seperate open GL port when they are already using directX.
Anyone who really decides to be honest with themselves will have to admit that the "support" of most commercial products is dismal. Usually you end up reinstalling something, which doesn't give you a CLUE as to what was wrong, or why it happened. And to top it all off, you get to PAY for this "support" in many situations.
You can purchase the same kind of support from several Linux vendors, as others have pointed out. I haven't had any experience yet with the Linux vendors, but I can only hope they're more competent.
More along the lines of: GIMP::Photoshop New Military Technology::Tired old civilian technology Photoshop is ok, but GIMP is better. Have you ever even used it? The interface is a bit rough around the edges, less so these days than the past, but it has an enourmous amount of power behind it.
How do you figure?
Photoshop is the compilation of years of work, hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D, and -- most importantly -- over 15 years of industry feedback and exposure. Adobe has crafted Photoshop to fit real world needs, based on input from people who actually use it in a professional setting.
Indeed, at this point, it's impossible to say which has more influence: industry over Photoshop, or Photoshop over industry.
The GIMP, while an admirable effort -- and certainly one worth continuing -- is nowhere NEAR ready to take a place on the professional stage. Just the lack of native CMYK support alone is enough to render it useless for pretty much every company, individual graphic designer, and photographer I can think of.
Saying that the GIMP's interface "is a bit rough around the edges" exposes you as an enthusiast, but probably not a professional user (that is, one who earns his living off of graphic design). The difference between a good, familiar interface and a rough, unfamiliar interface can translate into massive ammounts of lost time. At this point, after 15 years, the Photoshop interface has become something of a standard; when you open a graphic design program you expect certain hotkeys to do certain things, certain menus to be in certain places, and certain tools to work certain ways. Everything that deviates from those expectations translates into lost time. The GIMP is rife with breaks from the "standard" interface.
I know that slashdot is hardly the place for Adobe users, but uninformed "our OSS product is better because it's free" thinking is bad for all of us. I'd love to be able to replace Photoshop with the GIMP some day, and maybe I will. But if people really believe that the GIMP is a viable replacement for Photoshop today, I fear that day will never come.
-F.
student of animation and the fine arts
The computer using experience for most is: email, web surfing (this includes shopping on eBay) and gaming.
Your post mostly refers to home users.
What about word processing and other office applications, which is the #2 application in my office (after Email/Outlook)?
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
You're spot on. I started out using PS 2.0 and the interface is what keeps me from using GIMP. I've tried, but I really don't want to devote the time needed to make the switch. Free is nice, but my time isn't free.
Defecation occurs.
Microsoft has real problems and here is why - they approach the market reactively, "innovating" by relying on surveys, focus groups, market analysis, whatever you want to call it. To sum it up -
if (no complaint)
stick to status quo
else
fix complaint
The problem is that complaints are usually symptoms of larger problems, and by tacking on simple fixes, Microsoft usually just ends up with a convoluted framework for whatever product they happen to be fixing.
Your average joe doesn't understand the potential of new technology, he is just reacting to the new-fangled features you just put in. This is why technology design by survey fails miserably. You need someone who fully understands what is at the edge of current technology, and who can creatively apply it in ways that enhance the average joe's life. I don't get the impression that Ballmer gets this idea. In fact, I have heard through the grapevine that the problem is ingrained in Microsoft company culture, and no one challenges it, because the company is conservatively micro-managed from the top.
Microsoft gets away with this model because the average joe is unaware of innovative concepts while they are new, before Microsoft has copied them. But the software remains clunky, akin to cars of the old days, where you cranked the thing up by hand and put up with the smell, noise, and the breakdowns - because there was still a tangible benefit. People thought this was the nature of cars back then, and accepted it because they couldn't see any better. Better engineering will eventually make computer systems easier to use and more reliable, analagous to what the Japanese did to the auto industry. Aside from good design the Japanese automakers popularized the use of statistics to test their components to make sure the performed reliably, carefully revising materials and design based on what worked, rather than going with the what was most available on the market. The computer industry could use that same sense of perfection, followed through with design by people who understand both people and the techonology, and of course lots of unit testing.
Microsoft hasn't re-invented itself as management would like shareholders to think, it has only re-hashed itself into something superficially better in order to avoid any more slip. Until the old guard leaves, that isn't likely to happen. This can be witnessed in the company's financials - growth continues, but is slowing in a growing market, despite a monopoly. If you want to make some dough, invest in some Apple stock and watch Microsoft sink in the long run - since it is pretty clear that they will be sticking to their guns with Ballmer. I've never owned a Mac but I've used a few and I see them as the next best thing, especially with the affordable mini model out, a good architecture to boot, and style that drops Microsoft right on its ass.
Well.......
RMS had a nice job at a nice enterprise, and a great product he could sell (Emacs, yeah, laugh), and he did sell it.
He was in a much better position that Bill Gates at the time.
He could have had some dollars.
He wanted freedom, not power. Well, freedom _is_ power, but is a much nicer power, because it's power to all the users, and not just to some guy.
Of course, I believe RMS does want recognition, or even fame, but if he wanted _power_, there would be no point in copyleft.
GNU is used by lots of people throughout the world, and he has even less power than Linus!!
But that's not accidental, the GPL warrants that!
Maybe it's just me, but I really disagree with that. The ability to render badly formatted pages indicates a flexibility to produce output from poorly written code. Most of the world doesn't care about 110% compliant HTML, it cares about being able to see the webpage they've requested.
Most people just don't care about the code behind the window.
The world according to SComps
But you did end it with: ;-)
"Mods, do your stuff to me"
which is even more guaranteed to get you a good score. I really wish the mods would just mod people who ask for it down. They ARE asking for it after all, why not oblige?
Hmmm.. A package that would allow Linux to run Win32 binaries? So, something that's not an emulator, but translates application's system calls from Win32 libraries to Linux libraries? I've even got a great recursive acronym for it! WINE is Not an Emulator!
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
No, the don't believe their own hype.
They just realize that:
So, web development is Microsoft's worst enemy as it removes the lock-in Microsoft currently has in corporations (a hell of a lot of apps which would have been developed as Win32-apps 10 years ago are now develped as Web apps)
Therefore, the better browsers are, the worse it is for Microsoft.
Yes, the only reason MS built IE was to kill Netscape. After Netscape was dead, IE became a liability because the better IE (or any other browser) is, the more attractive web development becomes compared to pure-Microsoft Win32 development.
I would say microsoft is attacking everywhere. They are leveraging money and monopoloy into new markets all the time. Yeah there is some competition nipping at their heels, but it is hard to stand in the way of an unchecked monopoly with a huge wad of cash.
PDAs/Smartphones: They keep respinning this and getting better and getting more market share. Any prediction when they hit #1?
Game Consoles/SW: Jan 2007: It is not out of the question to consider that Xbox2 will be the number one gaming console in North America. MS will probably also be a significant publisher (having bought out a pile of gaming companies)
Next Gen DVD: Microsoft had its own compression format placed as one of the mandatory codecs in both formats..
The list could probably go on an on, but anwhere money is being made in large amount MS will be there and eventually will be a significant if not dominant player.
Under-estimate them at your folly.
Gates, from TFA: "I played around with it a bit, but it's just another browser, and IE [Microsoft's Internet Explorer] is better,"
How? I mean really. I can't think of one thing it does better. (And please don't bother replying about Active X, even as a joke.)
"So much software gets downloaded all the time, but do people actually use it?"
Just keep telling yourself that. I don't know anyone who has downloaded it, installed it, and NOT continued to use it.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
I mean, that is supposed to be the entire idea of capitalism: competition. No?
I suppose that msft has monopolized the desktop for so long, that the very idea of msft having to compete like a normal company is considered peculiar.
Couldn't have said it better.
The same goes for music. There's a reason none of the FOSS apps have made any major dent in the pro audio world, and that is that workflow and polish are actually really important there.
Go look at Cakewalk Sonar. They did a major upgrade last year from 3.x to 4.x. What were the major selling points?
* Better integration with video
* Surround sound mixing support
* Workflow improvements like track folders, "birds eye" views of projects and so on.
Nothing from the FOSS side of the fence can touch the first two features, and as for workflow... don't even think about it. What they're improving, FOSS hasn't even got near to thinking about yet.
Which is why, as a music professional, I still buy proprietary software.
You don't need Microsoft to do word processing.
Yes, I do. All my clients send me documents in either Excel or Word format. If I can't read them properly, or mess them up making edits and sending them back, it's at least embarassing.
Sure, mis-matched versions of Office can cause problems - but then I can say "well, sorry about that, but I used the right software - could you send it again please? Maybe try saving it as an older version, say Word 97?". If I use OO.o and it messes it up, it's my fault.
Not fair, perhaps, but that's the way it works in business a lot of the time. Thankfully, I don't have to deal with that sort of crap very often.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
"I played around with it a bit, but it's just another browser, and IE [Microsoft's Internet Explorer] is better."
This, my friends, is only the latest reinforcement of the axiom "Bill Gates, a purported uber-nerd, continues to be out of touch with respect to the future of technology."
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist