Ballmer: 'We'll catch Google'

An anonymous reader writes "Steve Ballmer was all about honesty when briefing partners in Sydney yesterday. Microsoft CEO's confessed the software giant's .Net strategy has come to a standstill, says he's accepted SQL Server's shortcomings and vowed to keep fighting search giant Google."

Comments

Microsoft is now irrelevent

[AKAImBatman]

"Take for instance the Siebel database. Now I've never used that interface. But I'd love to go to it and say 'who is the account manager for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia?'," Ballmer told the partners.

I can say one thing for sure. He's DEFINITELY never used the Siebel interface! ;-)

This article honestly sounds like Ballmer was getting a bit beat up by Microsoft's partners and shareholders. They've basically gotten him to admit that .NET is .NOT, Microsoft can't even search its own desktop (Quote: "It's important for people who search a corporate network,"), and that SQL Server development has ground to a halt (ceding victory to Oracle). He then goes on to make a set of pathetic promises ("In the next six months, we'll catch Google in terms of relevancy," and, 'This may be addressed in the next release [of SQL Server] in 18 months, Ballmer said, but conceded he "really didn't know",' and, "Government has really been pushing for stronger interoperability. We can't support open source, but we can support interoperability,") and say that Microsoft will never give up the fight.

I'm sorry, but Ballmer has effectively admitted that Microsoft is now irrelevent. He's trying to grip at pavement by muttering about interop and standards compliance. This is an amazingly similar situation to the introduction of Netscape Navigator. Microsoft almost missed the boat then, but managed to throw enough resources, money, and outright theft behind capturing the browser market. Microsoft's best attempts today only come out as a pathetic whimper. No super-search engine, no desktop search, nothing. If Ballmer was smart, he'd get his boys to activate the existing Databasse File System in NTFS, then use it to push Google and Apple away from the Desktop. Once solid in that area, they should tie it into their online search engine, thus using their desktop monopoly against their competitors.

On the bright side, I am quite glad that Microsoft isn't that good anymore. At the very least, they have to watch where they step with the justice department looking over their shoulders. :-)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[C. Mattix]

No. He isn't admitting that MS is irrelevent. He is admiting that MS is losing in places, hence has competition, hence is not a monopoly. MS NEEDS to look like they are losing a bit, because when they were winning everything (in the eyes of many people) they were getting attacked.

Saying things like that are a calculated gamble, words like that can send stock prices down, so there has to be a reason for it. "Honesty" aside, it is business.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

and that SQL Server development has ground to a halt (ceding victory to Oracle).

Show me the quote where it says that SQL Server development has ground to a halt and Oracle has won.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Dukael_Mikakis]

Not quite irrelevant.

Perhaps not right now on the forefront, but if there's any company that can quickly push themselves into relevancy it would be Google and then Microsoft. Even Oracle with all of their megalomaniacal acquisitions can't quite push themselves into the application software market.

I'm not an MS fan by any measure but keep in mind they still dominate the OS market and even if our user environment can eventually be run by web apps, we'll still need an OS to get there. (Though many workplaces don't bother to upgrade their Windows versions with new releases)

While here Ballmer doesn't seem to be convincing anybody of MS's relevance, I wouldn't underestimate MS. They've shown that they can be moderately relevant in many markets if they throw enough cash at their project (and cash they do have). The X-Box, for example.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Otter]

Prediction:

Five years from now, after Apple and Google have taken their shots, the open-source people have copied whichever they decide to copy and Microsoft has wheeled out their metadata/search combo -- we'll be exactly where we are now. Users who know how to use directories will continue to do so; everyone else will be dumping everything into the default documents location and unable to find anything.

Desktop search is the voice recognition of the new century. It will sort of work, but never well enough to make it worth relying upon.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

Another partner complained of SQL Server's lack of spatial storage capabilities, saying the database was being beaten by Oracle.

This may be addressed in the next release [of SQL Server] in 18 months, Ballmer said, but conceded he "really didn't know". he didn't say it exactly...

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

Your hat looks just like mine!

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[AKAImBatman]

Saying things like that are a calculated gamble, words like that can send stock prices down, so there has to be a reason for it. "Honesty" aside, it is business.

If that's true, then the gamble requires that Microsoft have something up their sleeve to help them have a "fighting comeback" in the marketplace. The problem is that Microsoft has never been very good about keeping their mouth shut about future developments. Which means that the only thing in their pipeline right now is Longhorn. Now just about every feature that could actually let Microsoft compete is getting stripped out of Longhorn, thus leaving them with nothing more than a few whiz-bang features.

Ballmer may really believe that Longhorn is going to take the world by storm, but my gut feeling is that Microsoft is doomed to irrelevency. Longhorn will be more of the same, with no acknowlegement of the paradigm shifts Apple is pushing onto the desktop and Google is pushing into Internet apps. The result will be that Microsoft will begin losing their desktop dominance to Apple and their Internet dominance to Google/FireFox, which will leave Microsoft in the position of having to become a cross-platform application provider, again.

Personally, I think that's a good thing. ;-)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

+5 Biased

+5 Evil Is Everywhere

+5 Scapegoating

+5 Libel

There needs to be a slashdot feature that lets the user change the moderation labels, as it's all relative to the moderator groupthink present here. I have yet to see a +5 Funny that was actually slightly humorous.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Iriel]

I see the business in Ballmer's statement, but this is a PR gamble much unlike those of yore. Usually, to keep people from screaming about monopolies, Micro$oft has typically put on the happy face of friendship and embraced opponents with open arms in the face of oncoming cameras and recorders. This is the first time I've ever heard them say (albiet, in business terms) "We fucked up" in any given market. Usually, they redirect the issue as if it's 'back in further development' and that the competition is simply 'good' and go on to the newest big and bold plan. This is a curious first for them. I'm not sure whether to be relieved or frightened at what it may portend.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[C. Mattix]

MS is to big to become "irrelevent." Many people said the same thing about IBM, and they haven't. Their role in the industry has changed, people no longer call PC's (IBM compatible), but they are still here and large. That is what I see eventually happening with Microsoft. There are way to many smart people working for them to go away. I'll be curious to see how the Intel/Apple thing goes. That could change things, but at this stage in the game I see MS sticking around for quite a long time.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[AKAImBatman]

Desktop search is the voice recognition of the new century. It will sort of work, but never well enough to make it worth relying upon.

A nice prediction, except for one problem: Apple users are already using Desktop Search. It's here now, it works, and it's much loved by users. Same thing with Google Web Apps. GMail, GMaps, and Google Search are all here today, all much loved by users, and all wiping the deck with competitors.

Voice Rec was one of those things that we always saw coming, but never saw the reality of. (Although it has gotten into niche applications like voice dialing.) The threats to Microsoft, OTOH, are already banging at the gates (ha ha) and are threatening Microsoft's bottom line. Unless Apple's and Google's growth were to abruptly stop tomorrow, even conservative projections don't look good for Microsoft.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

WTF? +4 Insightful? Try Spotlight on OSX, dumbass.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[interiot]

Desktop search is the voice recognition of the new century. It will sort of work, but never well enough to make it worth relying upon.

What's the primary way that the core information on the internet is accessed right now? Is it via neatly organizing things into directories (eg. Yahoo, DMOZ)? Or is it by brute-force search (eg. Google)?

That's right, there is no organization. Same philosophy as GMail... don't organize it, search it instead.

Yeah, an omniscient organizer, or a full-fledged semantic web, would both be better than raw search. But for now, we have search, and people have had many years to become familiar with it. Google isn't a newfangled doodad.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[ahdeoz]

What he should do is throw as much resources as they can at beating Seibel. Right there is thier ripest competitor, though they think of them as an ally. The desktop is still microsoft's and the word processor is what keeps them their, but those big government projects switching to Linux would be immediately halted if Microsoft could put out a good CRM, which Siebel is not, but PHBs like the name, and they'd like a Microsoft solution, and it would save SQL server (and give them much more revenue) and provide a use for .NET -- rich client business applications, something that java and html can't compete with. Once developers can buy a skeleton CRM & inventory management program for their small business for a thousand dollars (plus the cost of windows server, plus sql server, plus .net studio, plus client licenses, then a 10 employee company can scale up to a huge enterprise.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[C. Mattix]

Very offtopic, but an interesting thought exercise.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[serutan]

I'll go one step farther and answer Ballmer's question:
"Does anyone here really believe search is going to look like it does now in 10 years?," he asked attendees.

Your personal computer is a thumbnail-size device built into a piece of jewelry or implanted in your body, running GoogleOS. You ask it any question, as you would ask a human assistant who knows everything, and you either hear the answer through a voice in your head or are just aware of the information as if you had remembered it yourself.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Moofie]

Think "non-dominant" instead of "irrelevant". And if they're not dominant, they can be irrelevant TO ME. Sure, MS isn't going away, but I'll be very glad when they're not driving the market anymore.

I'm going to go play with Google Earth some more.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[imr]

Any news about cairo?

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[JudicatorX]

Microsoft is becoming irrelevent in the same way that IBM is irrelevent. They've both got a lot of money and power, yes, but their drive in the market has falled behind: they've got no ability to really innovate like the newer players in the game.

Not that I'm saying this is a unique thing: it's cyclic. Early on, MS was a power-player too.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[JudicatorX]

... the difference being that the CEO of the United States of America *has* hair...

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[letxa2000]

From the article:

"Take for instance the Siebel database. Now I've never used that interface. But I'd love to go to it and say 'who is the account manager for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia?'," Ballmer told the partners. Microsoft's vision for search would eventually make such data discoverable, without using the [actual] application.

Ooohh, ahhh. Talk about "innovation." Palm OS has been doing that since at least, what, 1999 or so?

Amazing... give Windows a few more years and it'll catch up with Palm OS. :)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[ecko3437]

How do you know Longhorn doesn't have a bunch of cool, unannounced features? How do you know that a lot of what was taken out wont be put back in? You can call me crazy, but Monad wasn't supposed to be put in. It was supposed to take 7 years to develop, according to slashsdot, and now they've got a beta release.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[nizo]

I can't wait for Longhorn to come out; I have several Windows 2000 machines at work that I want to upgrade to XP, but right now it is too expensive. Hurry up with Longhorn already!

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[tolkienfan]

No. He isn't admitting that MS is irrelevent. He is admiting that MS is losing in places, hence has competition, hence is not a monopoly. MS NEEDS to look like they are losing a bit, because when they were winning everything (in the eyes of many people) they were getting attacked.

Saying things like that are a calculated gamble, words like that can send stock prices down, so there has to be a reason for it. "Honesty" aside, it is business.

Microsoft may be losing ground in some areas - like the browser market (some sites are already showing almost 50% firefox - way to go!), but that is far from not being a monopoly in a legal sense.

Microsoft will continue to be scrutinized until long after they can actually prove they are no longer a monopoly.

This is a big PR campaign. But it's not aimed at the justice department or the EU.

This is aimed at business partners. It becomes clear that Microsoft partners are not willing to be pushed around like they used to be.
And customers are waking up to the dangers of the monopoly - vendor lockin and interoperability have had lots of press recently.

This is great news - when their customers and business partners are pushing for change, then Microsoft might start to listen.

Of course - even after I've seen it, I still won't believe it. This is Microsoft!

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[morgan_greywolf]

Why are so many Slashdot users in love with Apple?

Do you think only Apple has Desktop Search? Google, Copernic and many others have Desktop Search also. And there were rumours not too long ago about Ask Jeeves open sourcing its Desktop Search.

And it's not as if lack of a desktop search technology is going to make Microsoft irrelevant. The fact is that Microsoft has code, right now today, to make desktop search happen on Longhorn. If desktop search becomes a killer app for Apple or others (and believe me, it hasn't yet...no one sees floods of people flocking to Apple or some other platform just to get desktop search), Microsoft has the resources to make it part of Longhorn or release it as a separate application...and if it becomes important enough, they will.

I'm no big fan of Microsoft, but you've seriously got to take off the Apple fanboi Aqua-colored glasses.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

MS can add a Google-sized company every year, and, at that rate, experience less than 6% annual growth. In terms of assets and market, this is a BIG company. MS is not GM. More like GE.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[laxian]

Nice try, budding futurist pundit.

I use it heavily now! I got jealous of my friends with OS X Tiger and installed Microsoft's Desktop Search, which currently blows Google's offering out of the water. It's basically the only good way I've ever seen to look through my huge MP3 collection.

And so you don't think I'm some MS flunkie, I can't wait to see Google come at MS Desktop Search with the upgrade equivalent of a devastating counter-punch.

"Desktop Searching", like AJAX is something that has long been possible but is only now just appearing. It's also something everyone with more than 500MB of storage needs, where Voice Recognition was and is gimmicky, a huge pain to setup, and largely useless.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Skim123]

Agreed, when reading the parent post I was thinking, "Hook, line, and sinker!!"

Anyone who's in the .NET space knows that .NET is not .NOT and knows that SQL Server development isn't stalled, etc., etc.

Yes, Microsoft's search blows compared to Google's, but to say, "MS IS IRRELEVANT" is pretty far from the truth. (If irrelevancy equals tens of billions of dollars in profit per quarter, I'll take irrelevancy any day of the week.)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Have Blue]

Spoken like someone who's never used Spotlight. Make no mistake- desktop search will change the way computers are used.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[16K Ram Pack]

IBM shifted what they did and became primarily a services company. They were always hot at dealing with clients in a sales situation, and having worked with them, they are professional.

The problem for Microsoft is where to go. They'll be able to defend the desktop for a while, but there's a possible snowball effect going to occur. The more people switch, the more Linux hardware/software/games, the more people can switch.

They don't have much of a services division, they don't really do hardware. Their software isn't generally sold as "we'll send engineers in to install it".

The big danger for them that I perceive is webapps. I am seeing more and more development going on that is internal webapps. Companies are writing stuff for internal use to operate through a browser. Even if that's in ASP.NET (and you write it to be compliant), you've decoupled the desktop and server. Companies don't have to do much rewriting of applications to then switch desktops to Mac/Linux.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[drsquare]

Microsoft are only dominant on desktop computers, not really anywhere else. This last bit is the most vulnerable to Apple, and maybe Linux if it gets its act together.

In the server world Microsoft is just another player. Google has the search engine market wrapped up. IE is on the downfall thanks to Firefox, and doesn't really bring Microsoft any revenue anyway. Exchange servers? Maybe, but that's small fry to Microsoft, and will disappear when Windows crashes out of the server market.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[penix1]

"I can't wait for Longhorn to come out; I have several Windows 2000 machines at work that I want to upgrade to XP, but right now it is too expensive. Hurry up with Longhorn already!"

And you think the price is going to come down with the release of Foghorn...Er...Leghorn....Whatever?

Have I got a deal for you then.....

It's a nice bridge in NY!

B.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

Desktop search is the voice recognition of the new century. It will sort of work, but never well enough to make it worth relying upon.

I've got the Mac OS X Tiger OS. The search doesn't just sort of work, it just works. It doesn't make any sense to make a prediction that's already wrong while you're making it.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's important for people who search a corporate network,"

Now, I thought that Microsoft products can already search a corporate network quite effectively.

That "I Love You" feature that everybody talked about a few years ago seemed to be able to find other compu....uhh...oh, wait, never mind.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Desktop search is the voice recognition of the new century. It will sort of work, but never well enough to make it worth relying upon.

Hmm, I have relied upon it about a dozen times so far today. So you may want to revise your estimate of "never" to a month or so ago. I keep everything on my machine organized into a pretty intricate directory tree that is great for finding things but it is not perfect. First it is easier to add multiple meta-tags than it is to create multiple shortcuts and directories and secondly because it is just more convenient to hit a quick key sequence to launch apps and documents and network locations than it is to browse a directory. I can launch any application using my traditional directories with a single click, but I rarely do so anymore because I can remember the names of most programs I want to run and it is faster to cmd-space, type a couple letters, down arrow, and enter than it is to even get to applications even when I have their locations memorized.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

so it is going be goliath vs... goliath?

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[gr8_phk]

" MS is to big to become "irrelevent."... ...at this stage in the game I see MS sticking around for quite a long time."

Sure, Novell was still around when they decided to go the Linux route. I wouldn't have called them "relevant" at that point though - at least not in the way one thinks of MS today. BTW, my employer still uses Groupwise and some other Novell stuff. It takes a long time for something to go away completely, but that's doesn't mean it's still "relevant". SCO is still around too :-) For me personally, MS is already irrelevant - they have nothing to offer that I can't get a GPLed (read free in this context) equivalent for.

Relevance is probably an S-curve function of market share and MS is just not to the steep part yet.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[AKAImBatman]

Why are so many Slashdot users in love with Apple?

Why are so many users in love with Google? Why does everyone prefer Unix servers over Windows servers?

The answer is that it Just Works(TM). Apple has made Mac OS X an extremely pleasent environment to use with little things like Alt-TAB through applications, then Alt-` through an application's windows. These little things add up into a much nicer user environment.

Same thing with the Desktop search. Google, Jeeves, MS Indexed Find, and other search technologies just don't compare to Spotlight. Spotlight digs into the file and generates all the meta-data automatically. From that meta-data, it then generates indexes that make the search lightening fast. And it does it all without compromising system integrity, system security, or finding "ghost" files.

Honestly, if you haven't used an Apple, consider getting one or borrowing one. After just a little bit of everyday use, I think you'll find what everyone is raving about. :-)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Kineticabstract]

Heh.

According to Google, Peter Ulm is the Microsoft account manager for Commonwealth Bank.

http://www.google.com/search?biw=1272&hl=en&q=micr osoft+who+is+the+account+manager+for+the+Commonwea lth+Bank+of+Australia&btnG=Google+Search/

Google knows all. Who needs a M$ solution?

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[drsquare]

How do you know Longhorn doesn't have a bunch of cool, unannounced features?

Because if they had any, Microsoft would have marketed the shit out of them. You don't increase your sales by releasing disappointing screenshots and announcing to the world your new operating system won't have anything special. Microsoft are clued in when it comes to marketing, if they had anything to crow about you wouldn't be able to hear yourself think for the noise.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

Two things. I'm going to say that you are right and MS won't become irrelevent in our lifetimes. That and misusing to is too irritating.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[LifesABeach]

Something is not right here...

The convicted of Redmond are currently pushing SQL Server 2005, and Windows Server 2003, and Visual Studio 2005. Granted, there is still the same old functionality of old products, there is some new stuff that should have the likes of Crystal Reports, and Rational Rose investors starting to think its time to sell short.

If its "creativeness" that has this hack worried; I do not understand this either. Nothing new has come out of Redmond in years. These people buy new ideas, then apply them to the windows product; And as public record can show, sometimes without the inventors permission.

I just wondering, does this guy want some cheese with is wine?

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you really should shut off the karma bonus when you post your mac zealot rants. The rest of us don't fucking care.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[MindStalker]

Many people said the same thing about IBM, and they haven't.
Seriously?
If IBM dropped of the face of the planet, would it..
A) Cause an economic downturn as people can't get their work done without IBMs support.
B) Stop the development of many major project that are anticipating IBMs next move, and trying to be ready to meet the world with complimentary products.
C) Leave a lot of IBM employees out of work.

I'm voting for C!

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[dhasenan]

And you think the hardware can handle Longhorn at a reasonable rate? How optimistic.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Clockwurk]

On my mac, I have a picture file called "war.jpg". Spotlight never finds it. Ever. It finds all other pictures in the folder, but no the one I'm looking for.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[zymano]

http://www.reactos.com/en/content/view/full/62

Maybe if more had supported this project then gamers and others dependent on windows only software would have switched.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[MindStalker]

I think its a matter of why buy XP now then turn around and buy Longhorn in a year or so. When I can wait it out and just buy Longhorn.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[TRIEventHorizon]

god, with a user id that low, you must be older than the wheel!

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Why were you reading a response to a posting about google and apple searching if you didn't want to read about apple searching? Go home troll.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[16K Ram Pack]

Thing is, desktop search by Google and Copernic means that desktop search in Longhorn is less of a "killer app".

To be honest, other than OEM sales, I don't see Longhorn being a big seller.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[16K Ram Pack]

Ironically, voice recognition is one of the things that Gates keeps talking up.

I know a lot of people with boxed versions of voice recognition, and no-one who uses it.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[16K Ram Pack]

Voice Rec arrived too late. By the time it came, we'd adapted to use mice and keyboards.

If it had arrived in the mid-80s, it would probably be the primary UI for many people.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

Sir, please look up the meanings of the words "to" and "too". You will find that they are quite different. Thanks.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[jimmypw]

If what you say is on track; that is awsomme. IMVHO although it is Microsoft and they more or less demand that everything goes their way and no other, I would love for MS to make cross platform applications. A lot of people may be reading this now and say sh**ing fu**ing microsoft, screwing everthing up for the rest of us. Lets be honest, if it wasnt for microsoft, computers would be in a communist stoneage. There would still be amazing applications but assuming they were open source most people wouldnt have a clue how to use them.

In short they need to pull themselvs out of their own a** hole, take a step back and think to themselvs... "if we make software for all of these other operating ststems too we could push our profit margins through the roof." but then why do they want to do that while they have double dominance of both desktop and server software.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[hey!]

Ballmer may really believe that Longhorn is going to take the world by storm, but my gut feeling is that Microsoft is doomed to irrelevency

The way it was doomed to irrelevancy becuse the Internet was going to become the platform?

Longhorn will be more of the same, with no acknowlegement of the paradigm shifts Apple is pushing onto the desktop and Google is pushing into Internet apps

Microsoft is a weird schizo kind of company. In its core business, it destroy all rivals because it is not tech driven -- it's driven by pragmatism. Competitors waste time money and effort trying to steal Microsoft's cash cow, but the barn is so well managed that they can only look at it from the outside, actually from a trailer park in the next county, where their perpetual motion driven milking machines are doomed to decay into rust.

On the other hand, Microsoft has plenty of Rube Goldberg plans of its own, for things like music subscription services and the like, that are totally tech driven and completely people unsaavy. And they have money to spend on these things. It's like they've corralled all those dangerous geek impulses in a safe area well removed from the barn. It's dreadfully inefficent to spend your time on these things, but sustained compound growth covers a multitude of sins.

That's all in the past though. The thing though that may doom them is coping with maturity. The change they need is not technological, it's cultural. There is no prospect of tech adoption driven growth like they had in the 80s and 90s, where customers needed desktop systems literally by the truckload, and MS could provide software which while never particularly good, was good enough and the cheapest way to equip entire corporate divisions at a time.

(1) It is precisely becuase MS was NOT innovative that customers turned to them. Peple had a big transformation to manage, didn't want anything fancy or expensive to get in the way, and tolerated all kinds of technical, aesthetic and cultural deficiencies along the way. In this situation, it was the rate of technological adoption that mattered more than anything else. Finesse was not required or particularly appreciated.

(2)That problem is obsolete, so MS's corporate culture is obsolete. Notice Google's motto. Bad boys with attitude aren't wanted or admired by MS's customer base.

(3) A tech oriented make-over of MS based on innovation is a fantasy. An infantile fantasy: the kind that you're supposed to grow out of. They have a great business now, they just need to update it for the needs of 2005 instead of the needs of 1985.

(4) To do this, they need to become their customer's best friend, not the devil you know. People now have more time to be skeptical and demanding than they used to.

(5) Ambition is fine in a top dog manager, but it can't go naked. Gates's testy, irritable drive for world domination does not fit the bill, nor does Ballmer's outsized, sweaty antics. Somebody a bit more suave would be nice. Appointing a European might be a good move, not because Europeans are smarter than us, but because it would signal a new, outward looking perspective.

You can see good things and bad things about Ballmer's attitude here. You can't say they're not self-critical. The question is -- are they asking the right questions?

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[S.O.B.]

I think you're confusing relevance with visibility. IBM may not be a visible as they once were but they are relevant. There are a lot of things IBM does and services they offer that companies depend on for their day to day survival.

For example, IBM is one of the largest IT outsourcers and if they fell off the face of the planet there are a lot of companies that would have little or no IT area to speak of. Try getting a bank balance when the mainframe your account data sits on no longer exists. That's what I call relevant.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[ncmusic]

A) Cause an economic downturn as people can't get their work done without IBMs support.

There might be a bank or two that stops functioning.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[idsofmarch]

Tell that to a T. Rex.
It will take a while, and Microsoft can reverse this trend, but their corporate culture seems opposed to real underlying change and has put far too much faith in Longhorn.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

When you're ontop, you become a target...

(& that's easy enough to do + take 'pot shots' @ MS & Mr. Ballmer, isn't it? Anyone can be the critic, quite ANOTHER to be the cook, eh?)

Taking shots @ MS, easy!

Especially with a HUGELY diversified product line like MS has. The only company that even comes CLOSE here? IBM imo!

Now, on DB engines:

SQLServer will either prove itself up to snuff/par vs. DB/2 &/or Oracle this round, or MS will just have to further improve upon it is all to match them feature for feature (or, hopefully, exceed them).

Don't EVER count MS out of a game, they're one HELL of a player... to put it in mundane terms.

AND, SQLServer's not bad mind you, it works, but doesn't scale as well as DB/2 or Oracle do & on other platforms (AIX, Linux, Unix, etc.)... but it works & IS widely used. And, imo, it's EASIER to setup & manage SQLServer than the others.

Ease of use? It's what's made MS great... sometimes, that 'ease of use' & wizardy/dumbed-down interface makes you pay a price, but you usually CAN get "low-level" & under that wizardy skin & 'do it yourself' too. It's NOT impossible.

HOWEVER, on/about .NET - I'm NOT nuts about it. For performance reasons more than anything vs. other tools.

I think the entire .NET thing's there so that folks who are not exactly 'machine language/assembler coding level' ready, can code first of all, & so that other platforms can be made to interoperate with MS stuff easier, this is the RIGHT idea...

BUT, mostly, it's there to make things easier/simpler is all.

It works, and does do things easier in many ways...

BOTTOM-LINE though, speaking as a developer myself?

1 thing I do not like about it: TOO SLOW!

The performance of those .net interpreted apps is NOT up there with std. single .exe code... no questions asked. Sure, VB had the same initial complaints & today's fast hardware make up for it as far as human senses can tell... but, tell that to ms/ns speed timer profiling program performance between say, Delphi & VB, & there IS a huge diff. in performance... build time? Same really: BOTH are "RAD" tools!

If .NET were a great performer though?

They'd be writing the LongHorn OS in it, rather than using proven performers like C/C++ &/or Assembler specific to a platform.

Everything has its place though, even .NET... but, winning the "hearts & minds" of developers, which MS via the Win32 was able to do, but with .NET this round?

Oh, it'll get the 'noobs', & VB + Java crowd, but strictly speaking for myself, who am more into C/C++ &/or Delphi?

Not if I can help it. Oh, I'd use it if I was told to on the job, of course, you do what you're told... but, for my own work for instance?

No way - I'll stick with the performers like Delphi especially. I take pride in my work & want it to be the BEST it can be, right off the bat, by using what may be a more difficult language, but faster performer, everytime.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[danheskett]

Why does everyone prefer Unix servers over Windows servers?
What groupthink colored world are you living in?

Look, get out. Unix is popular, but so is Windows on the server. Really, really popular. In terms of traditional Unix, Windows outsells all variants. In terms of Linux it's hard to tell how many installs there are, but if you look around at Netcraft, you'll see that 30-40% of sites use IIS. What does that mean? Million of IIS servers, each at close $1K or more a whack.

This whole thread is silly. It's almost like MS annouced they were going bankrupt.

And, as far as Spotlight goes, it's good and works good, but it's not exactly the be all. And it's not all that unique.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[cshark]

IF Ballmer was smart, he would see a lot of things:

1. That it's never a good idea to be incredibly aggressive, and then back off. It just feeds the monkey boy persona everyone thinks of when they think Ballmer. I would say Ballmer himself, and Microsoft as a whole have some pretty serious PR issues. A good start: stop being such an ass. Calmly answer inquiries and questions the way any other professional CEO would.

2. By paying close attention to your competition, you are giving them the home team advantage. You're bringing the fight to their home. When it comes to things like Search, Microsoft has never done well, and they are by contrast... an upstart. Instead, focus on your product for a change. You want to talk about innovation? Freaking innovate for a change. Everyone's open to something better. If you can produce the best product possible, people will come. Ms has a lot of strengths. Usability tends to be one of them. Why not exploit that?

3. What a Siebel database is.

4. Google does not need to be caught. This is a market that Microsoft has already dismissed as "non innovative" and boring. Even in his comments, he said that no innovation ever happens in search. Have you used Google Earth Mr. Ballmer? My god man. If you believe there's no innovation to be had, then why even bother? It's like saying, "Yeah, I know my product is going to suck, but this other guy over there sucks even more but thinks he doesn't."

As far as giving up the fight... well, this is a fight they gave up long ago when yahoo won the first round of Search Engine wars. Ms's search engine was never a priority until Google showed that you can make money without annoying people. Yet Ms still don't seem to get that aspect of it. And it shows, the Microsoft MSN search engine is loud annoying, and produces crap search results ala Lycos, circa 1996.

To this day they haven't even been able to come close to what Google is doing, and they know it. Given their performance in this sector, there's no reason they should even be involved in it in the first place. They need to cut their losses and focus on real money makers like Xbox Royalties, Enterprise Apps, Databases, Smart Phones, and Mice.

5. Interoperability? What exactly does interoperability mean if you can't support Open Source? What IS supported? Also, if Microsoft can't support Open Source, then why have they released Open Source applications for Windows XP, Server03, and .Net? It seems the only logical conclusion that can be derived from Ballmer's statements is that Interoperability doesn't actually mean anything, and that it's his way of getting people to just shut up.

6. The real threat to Microsoft isn't Linux, it's KDE and GNOME. If Ballmer was smart, he would understand this, and that the OS itself is far less relevant to the consumer than the desktop environment which the consumer considers to be the OS. A move to BSD or Linux like Apple did would cement that and make them virtually unstoppable in this market for many years to come. Yet, they don't seem worried about any of that. That's what gets me.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Winkhorst]

"MS is too big to become "irrelevent."

That's what they thought about the railroads.... And, come to think of it, the bronze sword industry. It got the point where you couldn't give away a bronze sword.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[deaddrunk]

Yeh yeh Microsoft invented the desktop. If it wasn't for their brilliance we'd all be stuck with real crap like, I dunno, Apple Macs or Amigas

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[metamatic]

...and that SQL Server development has ground to a halt (ceding victory to Oracle)

You mis-spelled IBM :-)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[AKAImBatman]

What groupthink colored world are you living in?

Unix, not Linux. GroupThink(TM) says that Unix is inferior to the great and wise Linux. (Excuse me while I hurl here.)

Most well trained admins prefer a Unix server box over a Windows server box. Unfortunately, Windows servers were dictated by managers and MSCEs (i.e. People who thought Microsoft was "cool", but really didn't know what the hell they were doing.) I'm willing to bet that part of the reason that Linux has caught on in the server arena is because it's close enough to a true Unix, yet "cool" enough at the moment to get accepted. :-)

My point still stands, though. Mac OS X has a lot of little "nice" things that add up to a completely "nice" Desktop. That's why people like them. It's not just the Jobs Reality Distortion Field. Or if it is, he's managed to make it permanent this time. ;-)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[TorKlingberg]

What is it with slashdot and Apple? Apple's marketshare might rise a little but there is no way Microsoft will "lose their desktop dominance to Apple"

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[robertjw]

IBM shifted what they did and became primarily a services company. They were always hot at dealing with clients in a sales situation, and having worked with them, they are professional.

Exactly, IBM has re-invented itself many times since it's origin in 1888. They have proved that they can adjust with the market and remain viable. Microsoft, OTOH, is a one hit wonder. They were in the right place at the right time to achieve desktop dominance, everything else has either played off of that, or not done very well.

Everyone talks about Microsoft's cash reserves, market dominance and compares them to GE. Microsoft is not GE. They may have the cash of a big company, but they are trapped in a particular market. If they lose their desktop dominance, they are going to be in big trouble fast.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[caferace]

In terms of Linux it's hard to tell how many installs there are, but if you look around at Netcraft, you'll see that 30-40% of sites use IIS.

Ummm, nope. It's at 20.26 percent, and consistently falling.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Uhhhh... They had wheels in 1964!

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when do Unix servers "Just Work"?

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

"Don't EVER count MS out of a game, they're one HELL of a player."

Yes, Hell describes them perfectly. I'm talking about their EULA. No matter how good any of their products are, it is always brought down by their EULA. If your computer is more than an appliance to you, then how can anybody find their EULA accetable I wonder. Fair Use Act, what's that?

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[JackCroww]

From Windows 3.1 onward:
Alt-Tab - cycles through running applications
Ctl-Tab - cycles through currrent applications windows/documents
Adding shift to both above combinations cycles backwards.

Lots of those little things in OS X were blatantly stolen from Windows, which, I admit, is ironic, as much of Windows was stolen from Apple.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[tshak]

I can say one thing for sure. He's DEFINITELY never used the Siebel interface! ;-)

He claimed he hasn't, but I wouldn't be surprised if he has considering that Microsoft is Siebel's biggest installation (AFAIK).

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I know a lot of people with boxed versions of voice recognition, and no-one who uses it.

Right about 1995, using built-in/shipped with the OS software, I connected my machine to the internet, downloaded my mail, and had my computer read my new messages aloud to me, all without getting out of bed and walking the whole 10 feet to the computer. I did it using the voice recognition system that shipped with an old version of MacOS.

That said, voice recognition is limited by the fact that it is not good enough. I have yet to see a voice recognition system that automatically filters out music and other sounds being emitted by the computer before processing input. I have yet to see voice recognition that is good enough to distinguish multiple users from one another. I have yet to see voice recognition that can filter out recurring background noise.

Without these features voice recognition is next to useless if you are listening to music or audio of another sort, if multiple people are working in the same room, or if the environment is one with a medium amount of background noise. Even with the above features, it is still slower than typing.

The ideal uses for voice recognition are the ones shown in sci-fi films and television; input into a computer, while you are not in front of a keyboard. It is ideal for casual use and for small tasks where you do not want to sit down and do real work.

Who wouldn't want to come home and say, "lights" to turn on the lights in a room. Who wouldn't want to be able to say, "computer: remember these dimensions for the bookshelf, twelve inches by four feet and one inch by seven feet and two point five inches." Who would not want to be able to perform simple queries of stored data. It's not ideal for writing or programming or playing games, but it is great for the tasks I mentioned, if only it would evolve to be a little bit better. It is very doable and I'm sure it will happen eventually.

In summary, for once I agree with gates. I think voice recognition has a place as a daily computer input format. I don't think it will ever be the dominant one, but it does have it's place.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[16K Ram Pack]

The cash reserves are irrelevant because it's not just about it sustaining operating cost.

Microsoft are a company with stockholders. Let's say that the company delivers no profit, no dividend and no stock price growth.

As a stockholder, would you be happy that you'd made no money and they had a massive cash reserve sitting there? Of course not. You'd do one of two things - demand a slice of the cash or take your shares elsewhere.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[AKAImBatman]

Ctl-Tab - cycles through currrent applications windows/documents

I think you may be confused. I just tried that on my Windows XP machine. It worked in Mozilla (switching each tab), but it failed miserably for every other program I tried.

Alt-Tab - cycles through running applications

Alt-Tab cycles through every open Window, not every open Application. Again, I think you're confused.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[jasongetsdown]

Personally, I think that's a good thing. ;-)

It certainly is. It has been mentioned before on Slashdot (I can't recall the link, but it was the last time talk of the death of M$ came up) but Microsoft has the recources and brains to create high quality software, they just don't (usually). They are far too caught up in being some kind of cultural juggernaut. Now that others (apple, google) have shown that they can be much more savvy without the overwhelming bloat I believe they may indeed be on their way, not to irrelivance, but out of OS dominance. I think the best we can hope for is that microsoft will start developing crossplatform apps that perform the way they are capable of making them perform. Apps like the Office suite are actually pretty good software. The UI is pretty good, they have become better at making it intuitive and placing features where they are likely to be used and it does everything you could need it to do. With little prior knowledge of Excel I am able to open a complex spreadsheet and take advantage of perhaps half of its features. so please, PLEASE GOD, let M$ get out of the OS business and into the software business.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[bored]

The answer is that it Just Works(TM). Apple has made Mac OS X an extremely pleasent environment to use with little things like Alt-TAB through applications, then Alt-` through an application's windows/tabs. These little things add up into a much nicer user environment. M$ strayed from it around the 98/W2k timeframe when they declared an end to MDI applications, instead claming that each document should have its own top level window. Hence the foot dragging to add tabbed browsing to IE, and the evil word behavior. Previous versions of word defaulted to MDI you can turn this back on by disabing the "windows in taskbar option". The big hoopla over tabbed browsing is yet another case of MDI's resurgence.

I think you need a better example, windows has since 3.0 (maybe longer) the standard where alt-command works on the global application space while ctrl-command works on the application space. Very few people know this, but its true. For example, Alt-f4 closes the application, ctrl-f4 closes the window. Alt-Tab cycles through applications, ctrl-tab cycles through the current applications windows.

I will agree with you though that as far as 'unix' goes OS-X is light years beyond any other 'unix' desktop. When i'm using linux one of the reasons I use KDE almost exclusivly is because they have tranditionally done a better job keeping application keystrokes consitant. While OS-X is _VERY_ nice any its pretty i'm not so sure about the keyboard usability. I can use a windows box without a mouse, i can't do that on a mac, maybe thats because i'm just not smart enough to know all the hotkeys.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay, I love my Mac. And M$$ is evil or something. I'm so cool I call Bill Gates "gates," and don't even bother to capitalize. Boy I sure do wish Apple would make an anal dildo with a firewire port. Firewire is Apple, so firewire is cool. Anal dildos are cool too.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[coronaride]

Amen and Amen...what the hell does .NOT mean? are we talking about deployment of .net applications? future development of the .net framework? anyone who's seen what's due out in .net 2.0 knows that there is some seriously cool stuff. and as far as deployment goes - while i'm not too sure about windows applications, web applications and web services are taking off like crazy. Just look at one of the most busiest websites in the world: dell.com. They're using ASP.NET. That's not 'stalling'...buy any standards..

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[AKAImBatman]

I think you need a better example, windows has since 3.0 (maybe longer) the standard where alt-command works on the global application space while ctrl-command works on the application space.

As I just told another user, it doesn't work. There may be a "standard" at the application level, but there's nothing at the OS level that makes Ctrl-Tab work. In addition, Alt-Tab tabs through EVERY window, which can be quite tedious when you have a lot of them up. :-)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[NAACPsupporter]

if you were to say "Apple is now irrelevant" you would get -1 flamebait... but saying microsoft is, you you get +4 interesting... I guess we will all defend Microsoft when they are as small as apple.. (in terms of marketshare)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[danheskett]

Most well trained admins prefer a Unix server box over a Windows server box.
Unsubstantiated conjecture. Most *you* know.

Windows servers were dictated by managers and MSCEs
Unsubstantiated conjecture. Most *you* know.

The fact is that Windows Server outsells Unix. You claiming that it's a fluke, and all of those people are idiots and all the Unix users are saints is silly.


I am not dissing on APple.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Skim123]

Just look at one of the most busiest websites in the world: dell.com. They're using ASP.NET. That's not 'stalling'...buy any standards

Yeah, ASP.NET is really the crown jewels of .NET. There are a lot of big sites using ASP.NET (Dell.com, as you menion, Match.com, Buy.com, and many others... all the marketing jazz can be found here.

And ASP.NET 2.0 has some serious improvements over 1.x (and will still outshine the WinForms side of .NET in this next release and likely years to come)...

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[infochuck]

If irrelevancy equals tens of billions of dollars in profit per quarter, I'll take irrelevancy any day of the week.

Back to business school for you, young man. Look closely at their reports/balance sheets. Much of their 'profit' is manufactured via excessive amounts of stock options. Read: they cook the books. Now, strictly speaking, MS's book-cooking is technically legal, and nowhere near Enron's enormity, but, nonetheless, their profit figures are statistical lies.

Look into it: you'll see what I mean; Microsoft frequently loses money, but they use creative accounting to increase earnings.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[jp10558]

But is Apple really competing with MS on the desktop? They still are holding to their "our hardware only" mantra, and as such, are holding themselves out of the mass market.

Until they are selling via Dell, HP, eMachines and to enthusiasts building their own, I don't see them doing much to MS aside from providing ideas that MS can copy.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

It makes sense (to look like they are not doing well) only when he's talking to the general public to give that impression to create the perception of healthy competition - not when talking to his business partners. Business partners are usually a sharp bunch, even if they are somewhat under MS's thumb.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Graymalkin]

I can use a windows box without a mouse, i can't do that on a mac, maybe thats because i'm just not smart enough to look up all the hotkeys.

You can pretty easily get around OSX without a mouse. Control + F2 highlights the Apple Menu and thus the whole menubar. Control + F3 highlights the Dock. If you turn on Mouse Keys you can just move the mouse around with the keyboard, just like you can in Windows. Instead of listing a bunch of keyboard shortcuts look them up on Apple's KBase.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Fahrvergnuugen]

Alt-Tab (its actually command tab) didn't come into its own on OSX until 10.3 (IIRC, could be 10.2) when they introduced the bezel style application switcher. In fact, in the early days of OSX, command tab was incredibly frustrating because it wasn't like windows. You couldn't alt-shift-tab to go backwards, and you couldn't cycle through all of the applications. Apple finally gave in and made it behave more like Windows.

Where OSX pulls ahead is that you can command-tab to a program and while still holding down command, press q (or h or whatever). This lets you quit applications without switching to them.

This is just one example of course, these little gems are hidden all over OSX - if you have full keyboard access turned on. Why its not turned on by default is beyond me, but anyway: System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts -> All Controls radio button. You can navigate 90% of the OS without a mouse, but there are some inconsistencies that drive users crazy (like dialogue boxes that don't have full keyboard access).

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Mage Inq.]

Too bad Google Earth runs only on Windoze. :(

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Mage Inq.]

Where can I get my free bronze sword? Sounds like an interesting piece of wall decor. :)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[badasscat]

Microsoft is becoming irrelevent in the same way that IBM is irrelevent.

For Christ's sake, people, it's spelled "irrelevant." Once is a typo, over and over like this and I feel the need to educate. (But please - "dependent" and "independent" are still spelled with e's... this is another pet peeve of mine here.)

As for MS, the problem is even if none of the things Ballmer mentions comes to pass, they've still got Windows and Office. And that's where they make all their money anyway.

Who other than developers really even knows what .net is? Who really cares? Nobody... but those same people who couldn't even tell you what .net is supposed to do (if they've heard of it at all) are still using Windows PC's running MS Office. MS still gets paid.

This is a company that's hugely profitable with billions in the bank despite their high-profile foundering. You'd think from the stories posted here (Longhorn delays, .net foibles, database problems) that this is a company on its way to being delisted off the stock market and run into bankruptcy. The truth is, at the very worst they're on cruise control right now, and they're on cruise control at 80mph when their competitors are all struggling to hit 60 at full throttle.

To digress only slightly, I will say that I find myself constantly questioning the importance of desktop search in the first place... if MS screws this up, I really doubt anyone other than Slashdot readers are going to care. I say that as someone who's writing this right now on a dual-G5 PowerMac running Tiger. A plain old file search is all I think most people want or need. (Yeah, I know, and "640k oughta be enough for anybody", but I just find desktop search as it's being talked about right now to be a pretty unnatural and non-intuitive way of finding stuff. Give me a file name box and wildcard support and I can find pretty much anything on my computer in about fifteen seconds.)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[SerpentMage]

Hmmm, lets see:
Digital, Wang, Compaq, Unisys, Cray, Honeywell, Burroughs, Control Data, NCR, Sperry, and XEROX.

Some of these companies still exist, but they are irrelevant in the computer industry. Even many of those companies that still exist (eg HP) they are not relevant in the computer industry. There is only one company from that era that is still relevant, and that is IBM. Why? They swallowed their pride and changed tack. The IBM from the 70's is not the IBM of 2000's.

Frankly, Microsoft does not have this ability. They do not want to accept the new rules of the software industry. While one can argue on the merits of Open Source, the matter of the fact is that Open Source is like globalization in that you cannot stop it. It is here, and it is part of our reality. So you need to deal with it, not avoid it, or pretend that their software is that much better.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[AKAImBatman]

Alt-Tab (its actually command tab) didn't come into its own on OSX until 10.3 (IIRC, could be 10.2)

10.2. I'm terribly lazy about upgrading. ;-)

when they introduced the bezel style application switcher.

You mean a popup window of sorts? In 10.2, the dock would highlight the app. Works fine. Including the Shift for backwards. What tends to frustrate users is the misunderstanding of how Cmd+Tabbing works. They think that it's supposed to work like Windows with every window selected. Instead, it switches between applications, then you hit CMD+` to switch between the windows of the application. Microsoft Windows has nothing quite like this little feature. Oh, and if it has been removed from 10.4, I'm gonna be pretty pissed.

but there are some inconsistencies that drive users crazy (like dialogue boxes that don't have full keyboard access).

Indeed. One would expect the arrows/tab and enter keys to work, but often they don't. That is one of my pet peeves.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[bored]

There may be a "standard" at the application level, but there's nothing at the OS level that makes Ctrl-Tab work.

Depends on your definition of application level and os level, but all the standard built in components in the GUI toolkit behave that way. And the win32 api knows enough about components to post the correct WM_messages to the appropriate message queue for a lot of events. I've found applications where people tried to disable the ctrl-c/v paste option (for entering serial numbers etc) but they didn't know about ctrl/shift-insert. The base components behave correctly as long as people don't fsck them up they continue to work properly. Granted a lot of custom components people wrote to do funky things, thankfully they are realitivly rare. I don't think i've ever used an MDI application that doesn't support ctrl-tab properly. Besides is there anything in the mac os that enfoces behavior for a custom component? I doubt it. Even then some of the behavior is just WM_messages, like the scroll bars for example. M$ didn't have to rewrite every application when they added the scroll wheel because the mouse just posted WM_SCROLL messages to the window the mouse was over. Normally these messages would be comming from the GDI in response to scrollbar clicks. This is an example of something that still doesn't work properly in KDE/Gnome because there isn't a standard "scroll up/down" message in X.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[mdecarle]

Actually this would be an excellent marketing stunt.

1. announce a lot of wonderful new core(!) systems (WinFS?)
2. put them in alpha versions and show screenshots
3. develop backwards compatible wrapper around the new core
4. de-announce all new core systems one by one
5. bring out beta version where the wrapper is the only option
6. bring out the new OS and surprise everyone with all the previously announced features.
7. ???
8. Profit!

Added bonus: When all this is going on, mystify everything even more by suddenly announcing other new features (Monad?) to go in.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Winkhorst]

You'll need a shovel and a permit from the Egyptian government.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Chalex]

Actually, MSN Search gives you the same first result.

http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=microsoft+who +is+the+account+manager+for+the+Commonwealth+Bank+ of+Australia&FORM=QBHP

I love Google Search, but you need competition to keep them honest.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[bored]

Alt-Tab tabs through EVERY window, which can be quite tedious when you have a lot of them up.

I screwed up posting the original comment, but I tried to point that out, I think you are confusing the short lived idea that everything should be SDI with the system behavior, that is why you have 100 diffrent IE and word windows. Ctrl-tab doesn't work in these cases because M$ tried to make it look like there are 100 diffrent applications open when in reality there are 2. IE doesn't have a tabbed version (aka MDI) but word does. Turn it on and you will discover that alt-tab works better and ctrl-tab switches through your word docs. Then they tried to fix the problem of people complaining about cluttered task bars by grouping the tasks by the owning application. All this just to come in a full circle and conclude that MDI didn't completly suck. Some applications just work better that way.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[s1234d]

Just like how we were told M$ will stop spam, I guess.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[AKAImBatman]

Your description makes it sound like it should work. But it doesn't. If I switch to Windows Explorer in Windows, I can't Ctrl+Tab to the next Explorer window. It just doesn't work. I can Alt-Tab my way across the different Explorer windows though, even though they're all the same application.

On OS X, I can CMD-Tab until Finder is selected. This is much faster, because it's by application and not the individual window. When I get to Finder, I can then hit CMD-` until I reach the Finder window I want. The difference in time to find the correct window is:

Windows: O(W)
Mac OS X: O(A + AW - 1)

Where W is the total number of windows open, A is the total number of unique applications open, and AW is the number of windows per unique application. O(W) is worst case. i.e. We may have to switch through every window in the system before finding the correct one. O(A + AW - 1) is far better, because you tend to only have a few applications open, but many windows per app. The worst case in this instance is that there is one window per application.

Using my current XP desktop as a common case, I find that I have 10 applications with an average of 3 windows per application. That gives an O(W) worst case of about 10*3 or 30 switches. Using O(A + AW - 1), however, I get a worst case of 10 + 3 - 1, or 12 switches. The OS X method is 60% faster!

Is that a bit clearer?

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[ProfKyne]

I can use a windows box without a mouse, i can't do that on a mac, maybe thats because i'm just not smart enough to know all the hotkeys.

It's not as hard as you think - Macs have voice-recognition out of the box.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Dan Ost]

How big does Apple's desktop share have to be before commercial software
developers finally decide that they can't ignore that portion of the market?

Once that point has been reached, Microsoft's dominance will disappear. This
isn't to say that they won't still have the majority of desktops, but they
will no longer control the desktop as they have in the past.

Just my opinion.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Moofie]

Agreed. Once the Mac client comes out, Google can go ahead and run for God and they've got my vote.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[bored]

There may be a "standard" at the application level,

The Windows UI guidelines also say that ctrl-tab and ctrl-f6 switch windows (the ctrl-f6 is historical).

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnwue/html/ch10g.asp

Switching Between MDI Child Windows
For MDI child windows, apply common mouse conventions for activating and switching between primary windows. The recommended keyboard shortcuts for switching between child windows are CTRL+F6 and CTRL+TAB (and SHIFT+ modified combinations to move backwards). On the menu bar of the parent window, include a Window menu with commands for switching between child windows and managing or arranging the windows within the MDI parent window, such as Tile or Cascade.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[kpaul]

Better double check apostrophe usage while you're at it.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[zerocool^]

Not to mention.. They've announced that there will be XYZ feature in longhorn, and then announced that they're not going to be able to get it done in time. Most notably, the database driven filesystem - that would have been a nice, next-gen feature (in 2004). Now, not only are they falling into the current times, and destined to fall behind the times, if they announce that they'll add it into longhorn later, people will think it's buggy and incomplete.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Mage Inq.]

This reminds me of the Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony.

And where's the Linux version? Or a Java version?

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Bert64]

Yeah, any non cross platform app is free promotion for the platform it runs on.. Why are google promoting their competitors?

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Moofie]

Linux...hmm. I've heard of that.

Java? You're kidding, right?

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[AKAImBatman]

Switching Between MDI Child Windows

Well, there's your problem. I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT MDI. I'm talking about switching between application, then windows per application. :-)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not XHTML compliant you know.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

Your very annoying, what with you're pedantry and all.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Nevyn]

What groupthink colored world are you living in?

Look, get out. Unix is popular, but so is Windows on the server. Really, really popular. [...] if you look around at Netcraft, you'll see that 30-40% of sites use IIS

That depends, if you look at the front end web servers and the non-critical DB apps. ... sure run whatever is the easy short term solution. So both Windows and Linux look good in terms of unit volume. But look behind those, and it's all s390s and "Traditional Unix" on the backend ... no sane person is running their main DB accounting servers on anything else (excepting, possibly, Red Hat and Microsoft).

Sure, this could just be my opinion ... but I work for a Linux company, and I'm not saying Linux has taken over in this space ... and as a personal observation every single large company I've walked into has had a couple of "large" (think 64 CPUs) Unix boxes that ran whatever was the "core" part of their business, mainly because it's been that way for the last 10 years and noone is stupid enough to want to change anything.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm voting for C!

So am I and MS employees should take note...

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[oGMo]

The fact is that Windows Server outsells Unix.

If so it's only because you need about 20 Windows servers to 1 unix server.

:-)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[skiman1979]

While it's true that CTRL+TAB and ALT+TAB work for OS and application respectively in Windows, I for one, find ALT+TAB and ALT+` more user friendly. Just keep your thumb on ALT and the TAB and ` keys are right next to each other. Seems an easier move than moving your thumb between ctrl and alt. :)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[aengblom]

Desktop search is the voice recognition of the new century. It will sort of work, but never well enough to make it worth relying upon.

Uh, desktop search already works. It saves me hours every week. Using just directories is like maintaining a card catalog. Helpful, but limited and time consuming. Desktop search means I have access to every book's index with less work.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Saucepan]

Java? You're kidding, right?

I don't know if the GP was kidding or not, but there's nothing that far-fetched about the idea of a Java version of Google Earth. In fact it'd probably work fine through OpenGL, albeit less smoothly than the native client.

Java has improved a lot since 1997. In particular it has had accelerated 3d support for a while now. If you have a recent version of Java installed you can play a 3d Java MMORPG right now just by clicking here. (I'm not endorsing the quality of this particular MMORPG, which I was able to confuse badly just by moving the mouse wheel, but it does illustrate my point about Java 3d support.)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[jamesmrankinjr]

They need to cut their losses and focus on real money makers like Xbox Royalties, Enterprise Apps, Databases, Smart Phones, and Mice.

I suggest they should stick with their true competency and focus just on the Mice.

Peace be with you,
-jimbo

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[not-enough-info]

And before you make any judgement on Expose... First might I suggest getting a nice mouse (I like my logitech media mouse and my mx1000) and USB Overdrive. Set a thumb switch to expose and another to show desktop.

thumb)show desktop
click-hold)grab item
thumb-hold)show all windows
thumb-release)bring specific window to front
click-release)you've just put a picture in your email.
(it's even easier from iPhoto)

Now before you counter, first realize that this is all with one hand in less than one second. This is not an exageration.

Yes I can do the same on my windows xp box, but it takes me no less than 3 seconds and requires much, much, much more clicking (or trips to the keyboard to copy/paste). And yes, I have an mx1000 for the xp box as well. Not only that, but it isn't as obvious as grabbing a file and dropping it on the window you summon with a single action.

Throw in spotlight.
cmd-space) find a file fast
drag)universal drag and drop is actually universal
expose)there's the email window now
drop)you've just attached a picture from 3 years ago that you though you might've had but weren't sure.

I can't do this in my windows box because I can't freaking find the file. And in the odd chance that I do find the file, it takes me freaking forever to find where ever the hell it is in the file system to attach.

This is evolutionary. And I hope Microsoft goes the way of the dodo.

I can use a windows box without a mouse, i can't do that on a mac, maybe thats because i'm just not smart enough to know all the hotkeys.

True enough, it's not enabled by default. However, it doesn't take too much to enable it in the system prefs. Once doing that, you can get to the menubar/dock/justaboutanything with ctrl-F2/F3/F4... and then use arrow keys to move around. You can even enable system-wide tab/arrow between controls/elements (spacebar will click). And if you can't find that, you can turn on mousekeys and use the num-pad to move your mouse cursor around.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Mage Inq.]

I was not kidding about a Java client application. Java's come a long way in the past decade. Truly cross platform and usable desktop applications would be a refreshing reality. Take a look at Eclipse and Azureus for real world examples.

AFAIK, there aren't as many client side Java application developers as client side application developers, whether it's on Windoze, Linux, Mac OS, etc.

If someone could write a excellent graphic intensive Java application (e.g. a game) to showcase Java's viability as a desktop platform, it would help address this developer adoption problem.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[BrainSurgeon]

Who would you be happy to see drive the market? Apple? Google? If they ever do drive the market, what would make them any different than MS? Once the market is theirs, they will push their own proprietary technology to keep a hold of it. This is nothing new through out all of human history....Once you have control keep it at any cost.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[NickFortune]

Umm... irrelevant to whom? And for what purpose?

I'm no microsoft fan, and for Ballmer to be pushed into even these admissions suggests considerable rot below the surface.

But irrelevant? Even if MS are completely up the creek san paddle, they're still going to be very relevant to anyone with a significant investment in MS software.

At least for as long as it takes them to migrate to linux, anyway.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[electroniceric]

The WinFS idea went way beyond desktop search. as I understood it, the idea was to make every filesystem a self-tagging database that could basically interoperate with other filesystem/databases.

This would head in the direction of a grand unified filesystem, which any corporation with document management issues would dream of (imagine being able to manage document revision control across a whole slew of desktops), or search to see when someone in your workgroup last wrote on subject X. It's turned out to be total vaporware of course, but the idea is definitely bigger than you give it credit for.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Surt]

While bronze swords have fallen by the way side, our (US) economy would suffer a serious disruption if the railrounds were to vanish.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[kaffiene]

That was one of the most insightful comments I have ever seen about M$, not just on /. (which might be damning with faint praise :o) but anywhere.

Good work.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

Best. Analogies. Ever.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[electroniceric]

Excellent post overall. You are dead right that Microsoft has at their main market the basic tech needs of most enterprises. However, I do have to take issue with the following two points:

(3) A tech oriented make-over of MS based on innovation is a fantasy. An infantile fantasy: the kind that you're supposed to grow out of. They have a great business now, they just need to update it for the needs of 2005 instead of the needs of 1985.

(4) To do this, they need to become their customer's best friend, not the devil you know. People now have more time to be skeptical and demanding than they used to.

Yes and no. Absolutely, MS should not stake its future on some high-profile solves-all-the-worlds-problems technology, because their client base - corporate IT - will be the last to adopt this.

However, Microsoft's two core products are a one-time-only sale, and despite all their efforts to shepherd people into "Value Upgrade New Plus Value" plans, people only want to pay once for the same product. So far they've been able to slip 1 license per new computer in by demanding the sellers include it, but it won't be long before hardware vendors and corporate IT figure out how to come to terms and simply re-use existing Windows & Office licenses and cut MS out. This means MS needs to deliver something substantially different in order for people to buy again. Which takes us back to developing some kind of new technology. Merely getting more customer enthusiasm won't change that.

Some of it is plain bad luck. For example, they chose to view DRM as an integrated unit comprising both personal and corporate channels, when in fact buyers want very different approaches to DRM in those channels. Not to mention that the privacy and data control concerns are hitting public conciousness about 2 years after MS got into DRM. From here it doesn't really look like their visions of data privacy and control match up that well with what the market will need. The business consequences of your sales strategy escaping your corpnet pale in comparison with 5M customer profiles and credit card numbers making the nightly news because some sysadmin made a mistake or went home early. Perhaps if their DRM push had come at a better time, they would have gotten the product mix better and locked up the market early.

Some of it is baggage. Any tech company that lived through the 90's spent a fortune trying to plan for the content sales market (AOL-Time Warner anyone?). Google had the good fortune to approach content from a purely meta-level, like radio or TV, so they skip right by the difficult problem of how to make money actually producing and owning the content. Google is pretty close to immune to who owns the content - their plan is just to index it for searching, and cash in on corporate America's marketing budget as the content moves by.

I wouldn't rule out Microsoft getting into that business - over the years they've done pretty well as a second entrant into the market. Look for some kind of hooks for that in Longhorn.

But to rephrase your point 3, they need to stop swinging for the wall tech-wise, because that's a guaranteed strikeout.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Wazukkithemaster]

Maybe this story is relevant. a recent installment of Game Informer claimed that they had "Microsoft's Secret Weapon!" on the front cover. I thought to myself "hmmm... what are the odds that Game Informer knows what Microsoft's 'Secret Weapon' is?". I'm sure that somewhere in some lab at Microsoft's headquarters they have convinced themselves that they have the Google/Apple/Linux killer in the works and they aren't talking about it. well... they must have conviced themselves of something because they dont seem to have much going on right now. P.S. Microsoft IS Love. Just to let you know

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[cshark]

I agree, their mice are good, and very compatible with Linux. I make sure to use Microsoft mice on all of my Linux boxes. You can cut the irony with a stick.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

it'll be just like the roman empire.
It fell under it's own weight, becoming too big to defend while still attacking on all fronts.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[mattkinabrewmindspri]

Just watch. Once they gain enough marketshare and make enough money to cover the switch to being a software company, they will sell a Mac OS that can run on generic hardware.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[jcr]

It's basically the only good way I've ever seen to look through my huge MP3 collection.

Umm, why don't you use iTunes, like everybody else?

-jcr

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are so many users in love with Google? Why does everyone prefer Unix servers over Windows servers?

The Unix and Windows server bit is a bad comparison. Because put it simply, Unix doesnt "just work" bar OSX, Unix is tinker hell (or heaven depending on how much you like tinkering)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[SamQ]

I think in love with Apple is a bit of a overstatement. The 'horn-blowing' of some slashdot audience is a result of using something that does what it says on the tin. Which is rare in IT; usually the customer/user ends up helping the vendor with the R&D of the given product (whilst being charged for it!). I hate to admit it but M$ and Linux on the Desktop could learn a hell of a lot from Apple (as long as they don't sacrifice the substance for style, like they did with XP {and by the sound of it, Longhorn}). Desktop Search may be just a fad, unless you're a photographer/journalist with hundreds of Gigabytes of photos/article. Knowing M$, they're probably find some way to make the app as security risk... (duck!)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[njyoder]

Wow, you just made a whole bunch of highly speculative claims. First of all, Microsoft never claimed .NET had anything to do with search engines, so that's a ridiculous thing to say. .NET is just a general purpose programming framework and is not restricted to anything specific.

Second of all, SQL server is still in very active development. You even quote Ballmer saying something about integrating a new feature into it, so it makes no sense to say that the development has been ground to a halt.

SQL server is still considered a fairly good DB server, even among anti-MS zealots. It's not as good as Oracle, but then again no DB servers are. Following that logic, we'd have to throw all other DB servers out the window, including OSS ones. Of course, when one realizes that SQL server is a lot cheaper than Oracle's, you realize that that argument fades.

Also, Microsoft is far,far too big to suddenly become irrelevent. What you're saying doesn't make sense since your own example shows that it's still possible for them to catch up. Microsft was years behind Netscape, but then later managed to completely clobber them. Microsoft has such a large amount of money and resources that it is *insane* to suggest thatt hey can't keep up. It's all an issue of how the higher-ups decide to spend the money.

Plus this "catching up" stuff is nonsense, it implies that everything has to be reinvented from scratch. That'd be like suggesting that if you aren't already great at super string theory, you have to start over and reinvent classical physics, relativity and quantum physics from scratch.

Of course, we do have this thing called knowledge now which we build on top of. People already know how to do these things now, it's just a matter of having people do the necessary self-education and then building on top of that.

Really, Google's search algorithms are grossly overrated in terms of how secret and complex they are. People seem to forget that Google's algorithm was publically published as part of a PhD thesis, so all the basic concepts are out there. There are also sites outlining a very good guess at what the *exact* current PageRank algorithm used by Google is, minus some tweaking which can be done by anyone through trial and error.

That algorithm can be described in terms of a one line equation giving the rank for a given page. This is not to say that it's bad, it's to say that the information about it is publically known and now can be easily duplicated.

And similar algorithms HAVE been duplicated, they just haven't received press since google is now this giant behemoth and people only really care about the first to do it. AllTheWeb.com, for example, has a comparable algorithm, their indices just aren't as large. There are also third generation search engines out there which aren't quite as popular since they focus more on categorical searching and less on ranking algorithms (see teoma/askjeeves and clusty).

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Cal Paterson]

Why don't you just use playlists, like everyone else.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[RoLi]

but if you look around at Netcraft, you'll see that 30-40% of sites use IIS

That was a couple of years ago. Now it's about 20%.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Kineticabstract]

True.

Not as funny, though :)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[FireBreathingDog]

This bridge you speak of...tell me more!

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[T-Ranger]

Well, see, the thing is that IBM was always a "services" company. For all practical purposes, no one ever bought IBM mainframes, and earlier technology like electromechanical punch card stuff. It was all leased/rented with hefty service contracts, with technical support (real support - custom developement) comming from one place: IBM. I remember reading (which is not to say I believe) that IBM once consitered giving (well, lending) hardware to customers and making money by selling punch cards!

The IBM PC was basicly the first ever IBM hardware you could just go out and pay cash for. OS/2 was basicly the first ever software from IBM you could go out and pay cash for. And once Compaq broke the BIOS, Im willing to bet that 80% of IBM PC related sales went to coporate customers. For that matter, untill Compaq started selling PCs at a reasonable price, the unbathed masses were buying cheaper, more powerfull, Apples, Commodores and what not.. with 80% of IBM PCs going to coporate, or at least small business, customers.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

"They've basically gotten him to admit that .NET is .NOT" "SQL Server development has ground to a halt " "Microsoft will lose their desktop dominance to Apple" HAHHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAAHHAH AHAHHAHHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAA HHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAAHHAHAHAH...I like reading /. replies to articles like this just for comments like that. They make me laugh so hard that they make the experience of weeding through the idiotic comments by OSS fanatics who know absloutely nothing about the BUSINESS of software totally worth it.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

Spellchecker, it's YOU with the problem - the rest of us have the intelligence to realize:

1.) Not everyone uses their thesaurus & spellchecker in their word processor to post on forums

2.) The rest of us appear to be able to draw the author's meaning via the context in which it is used.

3.) Posts on forums are NOT termpapers, resumes, or legal documents.

Grow up, act your age, develop your intelligence & post something useful and relevant to the discussion.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[hermank]

Good points!

For point 4, I think MS is doing good in entering console and gaming market. MS can work harder on this and gain more market/mind share.

For point 5, I agree another slashdoter, who point out that all MS need to do is stick with open stands. They dont need to open source their code. It IS REALLY ANNOYING that even their own products cannot be compatible with each other. This just turns users away in a long run. If MS embraces open standards, MS can get some clever developers (they have alot of them) and even build killer apps that can out place big names in open source space and people will still be happy (of course, dont put high price tag on it). MS can have more growth if it can pull his resource from 'embrace, extend and destory' stuff to truely innovating things.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[rtb61]

I would like to see the customers drive the market (linux an operating system by customers for customers), and there is nothing new in any paritcular entity controlling the market for a period of time and with microsoft that time is on the wain (and just like human history no one has ever failed to have autocratic control wrested away from them).

How come Australia gets the flunky, bog balls instead of the Master of the beast himself (you get the feeling that ballmer is only there to take some of the flack off Gates who is trying to polish up his image for immortality), this sort of marketing has all become so tiresome and irrelevant just like microsoft.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Skim123]

I admit that comparing revenue with 'relevency' is not what I meant to say. I actually did spend a few minutes trying to come up with a good analogy and then said, 'fuck it, gotta get back to work,' and just used that lame line.

What I was trying to convey was how search was just a very small piece of Microsoft as a whole, and an even smaller portion of the revenue pie. I tried to think up an analogy that would illustrate that just because a company is 'losing' in a small sector, but remains healthy in other, more vital sectors, hardly makes said company 'irrelevent.'

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[bladesjester]

Not to mention that a lot of the travel in Europe is done via trains.

I love the "I don't think about it, so it doesn't matter" mentality.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Sj0]

The problem is, there's nothing that java contributes that using cross-platform compatible APIs and cross-compiling to get multiple binaries can't do on it's own.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[SeventyBang]

There's something which you're overlooking in Ballmer's talk over the previous weeks; actually, months: He refers to Google as a one-trick pony: a search engine. He never [involuntarily] makes reference to any of Google's [other] efforts or how Microsoft matches against any of them.

Strategically, that may not be such a bad idea as the only references you hear *most* - outside of the technical arena and many inside the tech world who don't pay attention to what's going on - is Google's search engine. I know the techies can snipe and say it makes him look foolish or ignorant, but for the most part, they aren't the ones signing the checks to pay the bills. When I showed my mom the Maps.Google site, she almost freaked because she was accustomed to the sharp, jagged lines in things such as MapQuest. The zoom is mind-bending. I love to "crawl" cross the map by picking a point, double-clicking to put it to the center, repeat. It makes it fun to travel along a road|highway|railroad track to see what's along the way which we wouldn't ordinarily see on the ground. She was also stunned to be able to search for pictures. Not that big a deal to lot of people, but it was to her.

One of the other nice things I enjoy is watching the progression of projects from Google Labs to services & public availability. Yes, Microsoft has Microsoft Research (thanks to Nathan Myrvold [1]), but it seems most of their work appears in future products by extracting pieces.

[1] Original Microsoft CTO, founder of Microsoft Research. Ph.D. Recently added JD, specializing in patent law. Now searching for patents to purchse for strategic marketing positioning.


"You can't outdevelop Microsoft, but you can outinvent them."
-Nathan Myrvold. MIT's Technology Review (cover), May 2004.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[serveblunted]

the only thing Microsoft have up their sleeve is a thieving hand. From their beginnings of a hastily cobbled together (stolen) OS to appease IBM to their supposed new innovations contained in Longhorn (2004 anybody?) they have never innovated anything except to invent then redefine the concept of technological plagiarism. In a world without fences who needs Gates? Specially now we all got Jobs!

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[glorinc]

Hmmm, curious choice, considering the large number of global companies that have major portions of their core business still running on mainframes -- manufacturers, banks, airlines, governments, etc.

I think 'A' would be more likely.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone could write a excellent graphic intensive Java application (e.g. a game) to showcase Java's viability as a desktop platform, it would help address this developer adoption problem.

Like Puzzle Pirates?

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[danheskett]

I looked into it; and I was not accurate. The thing to note is that the actual number of boxen is going up just not as fast as apache.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[drsmithy]

Longhorn will be more of the same, with no acknowlegement of the paradigm shifts Apple [...]

What "paradigm shifts" ? OS X is nice and all, but it's hardly doing anything revolutionary.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[drsmithy]

Apple has made Mac OS X an extremely pleasent environment to use with little things like Alt-TAB through applications, then Alt-` through an application's windows. These little things add up into a much nicer user environment.

Interesting you pick something I consider to be one of the most frustrating and inefficient aspects of the OS X UI...

Honestly, if you haven't used an Apple, consider getting one or borrowing one. After just a little bit of everyday use, I think you'll find what everyone is raving about. :-)

I own a Mac. It's nice, but it's hardly the second coming. There are still a lot of areas Apple needs to improve (like the interactive responsiveness).

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[drsmithy]

Most well trained admins prefer a Unix server box over a Windows server box.

"Well trained admins" use whatever platform best suits the task at hand. In some places (like my old job) this is predominantly Windows. In some places (like my new job) this is predominantly unix.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[MartinB]

No, I wouldn't have thought so.

Much of MS's current crop of communications is targeted at stockholders, and the name of the game there is expectation management. *Nothing* puts your shareprice in the toilet like unexpected bad news.

So all publically listed companies pre-warn of potential bad news a long way ahead of the actual announcement, with the hope that the real information will provoke the reaction "Oh, it's not so bad as we'd feared" which can often give a positive boost to the price.

You can bet your bottom that MS *will* market the shit out of Longhorn and such features it has (or can be perceived to have by consumers - these may be entirely surface level cool without being actually significant) much closer to launch.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Mage Inq.]

It seems cross platform applications are also small in number. Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, Apache, etc. are all good cross platform non-Java applications, but such multi platform supported applications also seem rare in number. And personally I prefer the Java language over C/C++ for development, and I'm sure many others do as well.

Google could've done either with Google Earth, but they decided not to for whatever reason.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[BrainSurgeon]

linux an operating system by customers for customers

What a bunch of crap!! Linux is a bunch of elitist assholes who pick and choose what goes into the OS, NOT THE CUSTOMERS, then say everything else sucks because they didn't get to pick what goes in the other stuff!!!

And all you linux supporters say the world is hazed my MS marketing? So sad!

its not going to work

[bigwavejas]

Folks..

It's not gonna work. Why you ask???

Because he failed to fire off this attack at Google with the passion and ferociousness ROAR!!! (Look Ma I'm a Lion) of some of his past over-the-top WWF wrestler/ MS superhero assaults like Windows 1.0 release http://www.dataflo.net/~mpurintun/videos/microsoft _Ceo.wmv or (Get on your feet) http://www.danzfamily.com/videos/videos05/dancemon keyboy.mpeg I suggest he get back on track with some hardcore dancing and screaming, maybe a body suplex or two where he's GUARANTEED success!! ...or a brain explosion. (We can only pray for the latter.)

Re:its not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

"or a brain explosion."

That'd be a truly microscopic spectaculum.

Re:its not going to work

[ConceptJunkie]

Because he failed to fire off this attack at Google with the passion and ferociousness ROAR!!! ... I suggest he get back on track with some hardcore dancing and screaming...

So, in other words, he needs to lead Microsoft like Howard Dean leads the Democrats?

Re:its not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

"or a brain explosion."

That'd be a truly microscopic spectaculum.

Not to mention the damage to the surrounding rectal tissue...

Re:its not going to work

[mshmgi]

Wow. And I thought Howard Dean was nuts.

Ballmer should be runing the DNC :)

Re:its not going to work

[dstewart]

It *could* work, if only they had more developers.

Developers developers developers.

And more cowbell.

Re:its not going to work

[fanblade]

I can't believe I've never seen the video of him yelling to that dance music. Thanks for the links.

That man should never be allowed to yell in public. Ever.

Re:its not going to work

[topper24hours]

I love it when lame-ass polital jokes that don't fit get put in Slashdot. Probably drawing a comparison between Hitler, Bush, and Gates would be easier since they all had this Messiah-iac lunatic thing going on. But when Bush came out LAST NIGHT and said in his speech many times that 9/11 and the Iraq war were linked... ummm OK I can see why you are picking a Democrat to bash on instead. It's just like starting a game on 'Nightmare' instead of 'Easy' right, you love a challenge?

Re:its not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

And I thought Howard Dean was nuts.

Then clearly, thinking is not your "thing". Blindly swallowing hyperbole and supporting dangerous nuts sounds more like your style.

Re:its not going to work

[Atzanteol]

A bit sensitive are we?

I believe he was comparing Balmers past screams and such to the Howard Dean scream.

Re:its not going to work

[topper24hours]

My humble and sincere apologies then. I guess we have enough dividers with idiots like Karl Rove coming out and saying on national television that Democrats wanted to offer therapy to terrorists after 9/11! I mean, I guess that kind of stuff puts me a little on the defensive. Nothing personal (unless you are one of those freaks who thinks WDMS exist in Iraq). ;)

Re:its not going to work

[ConceptJunkie]

Dude, take a rage dump.

If you can't see the obvious comparison, you simply aren't trying very hard. You can make a joke about a politician without it being an attack you know. Maybe it was a lame joke, but it wasn't a rant, which is how you responded. You are exactly what's wrong with politics, not because you are against Bush, just because your commentary is idiotic.

Of course, knowing your type, if I'd make a joke about the President, you'd probably be singing my praises.

Re:its not going to work

[Snocone]

Er, Messr. Rove stated an objective truth -- the moveon.org team *did* do exactly what he said they did. This is provable by looking up the full page newspaper ads they took out.

If you think that stating a provable, objective truth is "divisive" ... well, the division is between those that admit facts, and those that don't. Guess we know which side you're on now!

Re:its not going to work

[topper24hours]

You could joke about your president if you want. I personally don't find it funny. I made jokes before the election. I tend to find things more amusing that don't have to do with my future and that of my children being fucked by some greedy assholes. Our liberties being stripped to protect us from imaginary terrorists, corporate thieves like Ken Lay walking free, Head Start and other educational programs cut drastically, a ridiculous debt for a war that makes not a single member of the US safer, disastrous environmental laws, and no work towards self sufficiency from foreign oil whatsoever. If you have a joke that can bring me levity in spite of that let's hear it! Otherwise, when we're talking about Google on Slashdot STFU about Democrat bashing or I will bring it. You got NO room to speak... I'm tired of sycophant individuals spewing off and ruining my techie conversations on Slashdot. Remember, YOU started this not me. I was happy discussing M$ vs. Google minus the political jibes.

Re:its not going to work

[topper24hours]

Hmmm.... so the speech said "Some people over @ moveon.org said this..." NO! It said - "The Liberals wanted to offer therapy to out attackers". See, lumping everybody together like that is kind of like bigotry. It's like the difference between saying "All Slashdotters talk straight out of their asses and prove other people's points with their extreme stupidity" (false) and saying "Snocone talks straight out of his ass and proves other people's points with his extreme stupidity(true). The context of who I include in my statement changes the meaning so check your text again and study long...

Re:its not going to work

[ConceptJunkie]

Dude: Raaaaaaaage duuuuummmmmppp!

No one is ruining anything on /. for you but yourself.

Re:its not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Our liberties being stripped to protect us from imaginary terrorists
Like the Father/Son Duo they caught in California a couple of weeks ago.

corporate thieves like Ken Lay walking free
Trial is not over yet.

Head Start and other educational programs cut drastically,
Your kids education is up to you. Not the government. My kids are in gifted/pre-colledge programs because I spend my time and teach them beyond what is required by the public school. Not the government. Your kids will obviously be in the foodstamp line relying on government assistance.

a ridiculous debt for a war that makes not a single member of the US safer
We were going to fight a war in Iraq sooner or later. Just because your clueless when it comes to geo-politics, don't assume others are.

disastrous environmental laws
Name one?

and no work towards self sufficiency from foreign oil whatsoever.
We are trying to drill in ANWAR now, but cry babies like you are preventing it.

STFU about Democrat bashing or I will bring it.
Bring what? Your stupidity or your hatred? The combination of both makes you a danger to the rest of us.

Re:its not going to work

[topper24hours]

Heh... and an Anonymous Coward steps up. How shocking! Well I hope your kids do good in "colledge", I've never heard of it. But, due to the shit school systems in our country I have had my 3 sons in private school for the last 7 years and guess what... you were right about the other part too! My family DID at one point receive food stamps when we were both in college (not to be confused w/ colledge). I don't feel guilty about it at all and it only amuses me that there are fucktards out there like you who think that is a slam. Also, I will not Google search for you how bad we've backslid in environmental laws since your dickhead took office. Feel free to have one of your little pre-colledge geniuses that you've taught yourself (LMAO) explain to you how it works. You may wish to explain to them how Cowardice is un-American and Anonymity is a terrorist's friend while you're bonding Mr. Anonymous Coward.

Re:its not going to work

[Snocone]

It's like the difference between saying "All Slashdotters talk straight out of their asses and prove other people's points with their extreme stupidity" (false)

Unfortunately, your argument breaks down at that point, since that is indeed true to within a 98% confidence interval or so.

It wouldn't make any sense if you picked a better example either. Nothing could ever be stated anywhere outside the field of mathematics (and some parts of that would have trouble!) if nothing could be stated without the implicit understanding that there are always exceptions. Statistics formalizes this inherent understanding -- which, apparently, you were insufficiently socialized when growing up, since you display an utter cluelessness about how people interact in the real world -- with the notion of 'confidence intervals' for a particular outcome. Let us apply that here. What do you think the percentage of self-professed "liberals" that hold that sentiment is? My guess is it's better than 85%, therefore "true" is a reasonable description. What's your guess? If it's different than mine, what makes yours better?

Re:its not going to work

[killjoe]

I think the problem here is that republitards are by and large murderous bunch. Whether it's dragging niggers behind their pickup trucks, blowing up buildings, setting churches on fire, shooting abortion doctors or simply killing tens of thousands of iraqis for fun and profit.

Being a murderous bunch they obviously see their enemies (democrats) as being opposite of them. Republitards see murder and killing as the first and only choice of action so they presume that democrats never want to kill and are overly kind and sensitive.

It's a weird psychology but I never heard of an abortion doctor advocating the murder of preachers or a democrat crucifying a homosexual.

Re:its not going to work

[topper24hours]

If I'm understanding correctly you are asking me what I believe is the % of Democrats or liberal Republicans that actually wanted to console our enemies and offer therapy to terrorists immediately after 9/11. Ummm... my guess, maybe 0-1% at most if anybody had considered this at all. I mean seriously, we all pulled together as a country at that time IIRC. Then your president abused all of that patriotism and support he had by letting Osama go and going after Saddam instead, the patriot act, etc. I'm not sure what point you were trying to make, but if you believe that 85% of Liberals want to console our enemies, Christ do I feel sorry for you. Oh, and please don't breed. Thanks!

Re:its not going to work

[Snocone]

"if you believe that 85% of Liberals want to console our enemies, Christ do I feel sorry for you."

Hey, I read democraticunderground.com, dailykos.com, indymedia.com, and a wide variety of other sites which I think most people would classify along with the foregoing as "liberal"... ... and what I read there indicates that 85% is LOW, if anything. I don't know where you get 0-1% from, but it's not corroborated by the sentiments expressed constantly on those sites and their ilk.

Oh, and please don't breed. Thanks!

Heh. You are _way_ late with that advice, my friend. In general though, that brings up another point: The demographics of those who vote liberal indicate that liberalness is a self-correcting aberration, unless people like you start getting real busy right soon. Check it out, it's rather interesting. Try stevesailer.com, for instance, ""Affordable Family Formation"--The Neglected Key To GOP's Future".

Re:its not going to work

[topper24hours]

You found even one person willing to say "I want to offer therapy to our enemies"? I call Bullshit! I'm a liberal, I hang out w/ liberals, I know many, many liberals. It is beyond my imagination that even one of them would want to "offer therapy" to our enemies. Most of us want to do CRAZY shit w/ tax dollars like spend it here in America on education. Just admit it - Karl Rove is a fucked up liar that said that to purposely be devisive and draw more hate to Democrats. But OK, you keep on believing that all DEmocrats love terrorist and want to fund their pscho-therapy (sounds like you could use some, although neither I nor any Democrats I know would be willing to foot the bill w/ tax dollars were it up to us as long as you can afford it yourself).

Re:its not going to work

[Snocone]

You know, friend, you can dance around all you like; but you can't get past the truth, not with me.

This is what Karl Rove said:

"in the wake of 9/11, liberals believed it was time to submit a petition. I am not joking. Submitting a petition is precisely what Moveon.org did. It was a petition imploring the powers that be" to "use moderation and restraint in responding to the terrorist attacks against the United States."

This statement is factually correct. It is provable. It describes full page newspaper ads.

So you can dance around and you can whine, but the cold hard facts will always remain the same: That statement is true. And that's the bottom line, as they say.

Unless you have some way to prove that the above statement is factually incorrect, your defensive whininess is of no effectiveness, so you might as well save it.

Re:its not going to work

[Snocone]

Just admit it - Karl Rove is a fucked up liar

If "fucked up liar" is how you spell "stater of provable fact", sure, as posted previously, but another thing occurred to me before I go away and leave the field to you --

that said that to purposely be devisive[sic] and draw more hate to Democrats.

Indeed. Now, some nine days or so before this Rovian statement, Dr. Dean made a statement to the effect that Republicans "have never worked a day in their lives". Do you think that is a provably true statement? Do you think that it differs qualitatively in either accuracy or intent than the statement of Messr. Rove's that you take such heartfelt issue with? Personally, I see the two statements as pretty much equivalent. If you don't -- and I'd say ascribing any veracity to Dr. Dean's statement would be a lot more difficult, so you're going to have to be *very* creative to convince me otherwise -- why all this vitriol for Mr. Rove and none for Dr. Dean? Looks to me like they're both politicians, doing what politicians do.

Anyhow, it's off home for me now, so take the last word here friend to make yourself feel good, but don't expect any more replies, I'll graciously concede in advance that whatever you prattle on about next is unanswerably correct. Good work there, son!

Re:its not going to work

[topper24hours]

OK you dipshit I'll call your bluff. First let me describe my research. I did not go to any leftist source or anything, I merely typed in "Karl Rove" to Google News. This is some info I garnished from the 2nd hit on the page (I didn't have the heart to quote from the 1st hit entitled: "Even Karl Rove's Lies Can't Save President Bush Now "). See? I't's true, we liberals are kinder and gentler! OK, so this article had the slightly less scornful title: "Rove's 9/11 political game: Strategy or insanity?" and it quoted Rove as saying "Conservatives saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and prepared for war, Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers". I don't know anything about this petition comment you are suddenly throwing in here. We haven't discussed that at all in our banter thus far, so let's just stick with the one comment shall we? I don't want to have to accuse you of some type of 'bait and switch' arguing technique. Sheesh, you Republicans! At any rate this is the one comment that he is being admonished for. I'm sorry if somehow by giving this exact quote and saying it is bullshit I led you to believe I was saying some totally obscure other quote of his was bullshit. Truthfully, I guess I overestimated your intelligence by some magnitude. It won't happen again. So, in a nutshell: If you Google for recent news about Karl Rove every single article will show this exact quote and none (that I could find, anyway) will reference your quote that you pulled out of your ass. Also, you once again allow for the phrase "Liberals" to mean "a few folks over at MoveOn.org" at you and Karl's whim I'm guessing... I don't quite understand your stance there. At any rate, I strongly believe that most liberals would have liked to see maybe just enough restraint to you know, like maybe go into the right country, attack the right people something like that. To you that seems crazy. A sheep like you will follow your president in to the wrong war/wrong country any day of the week in the name of patriotism! You don't need to think, they'll tell you what to filter out from what you hear and what to believe and you with your pathetically weak mind will be more than happy to go to bat for them, sticking up for their atrocities to any nay-sayer on the internet who might have a problem with their policies. I imagine you'd have done well as a young lad in the Nazi party... you could have used your incredible skills at justification to forgive yourself probably any action whatsoever. So, keep sticking up for Karl and George all you want and wedging your head tightly up your own ass - in the end you are the only one the worse for it!

Re:its not going to work

[Snocone]

OK you dipshit

Heh. OK, I lied in my last one, I'm back, but this is a bit too funny.

Point 1: Your idea of reasoned discourse is to include gratuitous vulgarity, unlike your opponent? This, friend, demonstrates a lot about you. And it's not something that any objective observer would find pleasant ... or useful.

I'll call your bluff ... If you Google for recent news about Karl Rove every single article will show this exact quote and none (that I could find, anyway) will reference your quote that you pulled out of your ass.

My source is the New York Sun: http://www.nysun.com/article/16003

Here's the first full transcript I found in Google: http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/rove.php

Point 2: What I said was -- in fact -- completely correct, as you would know if you had bothered to actually find the complete text which is under discussion. You did not, you found it easier to throw around baseless blather and vulgarity. Now, let's see. I have links to the full unedited source; you have "nyaa nyaa nyaa pulled out of your ass".

Good work there, son.

Truthfully, I guess I overestimated your intelligence by some magnitude.

Well, one of us is demonstrating a lack of intelligence, that's quite true. If I knew any objective observers that could be bothered to give a flying hoot, I'd ask them: "Here's my statements of fact, with links to the full unedited source. Here's topper24hours, with no facts and throwing vulgarities right and left. Which of these demonstrates more intelligence to you?"

Somehow, I suspect the results would displease you.

A sheep like you will follow your president

Point of fact: I don't have a president. I have a Prime Minister. As you'd know if you followed the URL under my name, but I suppose there's no reason to assume you'd bother to actually do any research to verify your assumptions, given how embarrassingly poor your research skills on the exact facts the debate turns on are.

So, keep sticking up for Karl and George all you want and wedging your head tightly up your own ass - in the end you are the only one the worse for it!

How so? Granted I've probably lost a good 45 minutes of work time in these exchanges, but hey, it's been reasonably entertaining for free, probably more so than _War of the Worlds_ last night and I paid $12 for that. I'll be in a rather better mood laughing whenever I think about the dumbass on Slashdot who descended into incoherent vulgarity when I conclusively demonstrated him wrong for oh probably most of the day now, so I think I'm rather the better for it!

Re:its not going to work

[topper24hours]

Ok... I don't know what else to say! I am right. You are wrong. Game Over. It is kind of cute I guess all of your floundering, but I am growing weary. I looked even more and while Rove may have said that - that is NOT the quote he is being attacked over. That is why it has NO bearing on this conversation whatsoever. He probably said this morning "Looks like a nice day today" and wasn't lying. I never said everything out of his mouth was a lie, just one quote! Your answer was to say "Oh, you quoted him lying? Ok, well I'll give you a different quote where he was telling the truth". Ummm... it doesn't work like that. I am sorry that you do live in Canada, you'd fit in well in Oklahoma. BTW, we were discussing a quote by Rove, not where you live, so why would I care where you live? I suppose if we ever decide to make you guys a state Karl will be happy to know that the Repo brainwashing spread up there as well and they can count on your support. Also, down here the word dipship is a fairly minor insult and usually doesn't receive the kind of silly, fake shock and disbelief that you feigned. Especially considering that you TRULY are a dipshit! ps. sorry to hear War of the Worlds wasn't any good. I suggest Fantastic Four, coming out on the 8th.

Re:its not going to work

[Snocone]

sorry to hear War of the Worlds wasn't any good.

Oh, it was pretty good as far as the effects went, and they were moderately faithful to the source material. I just was completely unimpressed by the whole hysterical kidette/bratty teenager story arc they made up to have some reason to put Tom Cruise in it.

Re:its not going to work

[mshmgi]

Spoken like a true "Anonymous Coward" :)

"We'll catch Google"

[badmammajamma]

ROFLMAO

Damn that's good comedy. It's like a Ford Taurus saying it's gonna catch a Ferrari.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[pizzaman100]

More like a Ford Expedition - and some of the way is off road.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[ProfaneBaby]

Well, if you're slipping into irrelevancy as your OS gets delayed and your dev platforms get ignored because of your (previously mentioned) OS delays, what do you do?

Do you stand around and say "We screwed up, please ignore us forever" or "We're coming back to the top! Really, we promise".

He owes it to his shareholders to at least pretend like they're fixing the problems, when really the biggest problem is that they can't seem to release relevant software on schedule with the desired features. Perhaps the biggest problem for MS is that the new competition has spread their talent far too thin, that they're working on too many projects at once, can't finish any of them, and are suffering tremendously because of it.

It's unfortunate, indeed, that some of the BEST ideas to come out of Redmond still haven't seen the light of day.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[kryptx]

They've had dozens of chances to overcome that problem and repeatedly they just contribute to it. What's funny is that they have thousands of genuinely great ideas; they just half-ass the delivery. It happens every time.

It's too bad, really; I wish we had a true software giant that regularly produced reliable, feature-rich software packages.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[kilocomp]

No, they need to have search results that are better than Googles. I can honestly say I would use Microsoft's search engine if it gave me better results than anyone else. Use the best tool for the job.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[space_dude_27]

LOL It's like IE saying it's going to catch Netscape!

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like a Ford Taurus saying it's gonna catch a Ferrari.

More like an overstuffed mobile home being towed down the road by a huge smoke-belching tow-truck, with a broken axle and a beat up Yugo hitched to its rear, 15 suitcases on the roof, 6 bicycles barely hanging on a rack, leaking oil, screen door flapping in the breeze, read-faced driver shaking his fist at the Ferrari that cruised by in a nano-second and yelling "I'm gonna catch ya as soon as I git this thing fixed! You jes wait!"

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Jeff Hornby]

I don't know where you live but I see a lot more Ford Taurus' on the road than Ferraris. I'd rather have the Taurus' market share any day.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Anonymous Coward]

I drive a Taurus, you insensitive clod.

Actually, the Taurus has a larger gas tank. So eventually, the Taurus will catch up and pass the Ferrari, provided the race is only on one tank of gas.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Anonymous Coward]

So on the first turn it will roll over and have its gas tank explode?

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[RingDev]

A Ford Taurus with a 2 billion dollar budget will catch a Ferrari. -Rick

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[GoldMace]

But what if it is a NASCAR Ford Taurus with a NASCAR driver and the Ferrari is driven by some ordinary guy that can't drive it...

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[RavenSlay3r]

No it's not. it's like Tonka-Trucks parent company saying "we're gonna catch ferrari". Sure there's lots of money in the Ferrari market, but not if you DON"T MAKE SPORTS CARS to begin with!

Microsoft - makes SOFTWARE
Google - ORGANIZES and SEARCHES the worlds INFORMATION

Why are they trying to "catch-up" to someone they shouldn't even be competeing with?

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Gzip Christ]

It's like a Ford Taurus saying it's gonna catch a Ferrari.

Or it's like a tortoise saying that it's going to catch a hare. This is the type of thing people said back when Microsoft decided to seriously compete with Netscape. Internet Explorer at the time was a vastly inferior product and Netscape had something like 90+% market share. There's no way Microsoft could catch up, right?

Of course, everybody knows that Microsoft did catch up by improving Internet Explorer to the point that it was good enough, leveraging its Operating System monopoly to make it dramatically easier to start using IE than Netscape (by bundling it), and using predatory, negative pricing subsidized by their OS monopoly to kill Netscape's revenue source. Sure, it didn't help that Netscape Communicator grew fat and bloated and that Netscape failed to release a 5.0 product in a timely manner, but Microsoft may have won anyway. Watch for Microsoft to try similar shenanigans in its effort to catch up with Google. Godspeed Google - give the bastards a run for their money.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[bushidocoder]

The thing is, Microsoft isn't a Ford Taurus - its a 747. And you can bet your ass it'll outrun the Ferrari and go places the Ferrari couldn't dream of, if only the pilot could manage to get the thing off the ground.

btw, a Ferrari F430 Spider gets an average of 13 miles per gallon with a 25.1 gallon tank. A Ford Taurus gets 24mpg with an 18 gallon tank. No one disputes the Ferrari would kick the Taurus' ass for the first 326 miles, but depending how long the race is, the tortoise might just win in the end.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Desco]

Why can't they just co-exist and play nice with Google, rather than insist that they have to compete and overcome Google!? Google is in markets that MS traditionally is NOT in (that is until they saw Google making money in those markets)... Yesh...

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[RavenSlay3r]

I'm not sure about the "good idea" part. Pretty much every major product they've ever rolled out, they found, bought, borrowed, stole or otherwise aquired. They have yet to prove themselves on the innovation side too!

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Anonymous Coward]

More like a mercury mistake

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Ravatar]

No, it'll accidentally crush the ferrari with its massive user.. i mean wheel base.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent!

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[joshdick]

That's hardly a concern in a market. Do you like your car manufacturer and the companies that make your clothes? Unless you're interested in cars or fashion, the answer may well be 'no'. Likewise it is with most people and their software companies. They don't care who makes it so long as it works, which for them means much less than for us.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[kryptx]

I guess I didn't mean to say that I thought they were innovative; I just think that their complete suite of products would be incredibly (and probably uniquely) powerful and/or useful if they were properly developed.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[PantsWearer]

Why are they trying to "catch-up" to someone they shouldn't even be competeing with?

Because to Microsoft, everyone is a competitor, no matter what industry the company is in. Sure, they hit the tech related areas sooner than others, but they seem to have all the bases covered.

They didn't have a game console, so they made one. They needed a hit on said console, so they bought a company to make one for them. They didn't have anything to compete in the dial up area, so MSN was created. If you go back far enough, you'll see they've done the same thing with databases, etc. There is nowhere that they won't compete. Hell, they're even selling movie ideas to Hollywood, so they're getting into content creation.

Frankly, I'm surprised they haven't started a record label or making MSToasters, which really won't burn the toast when version 2.0 comes out.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Shadow Wrought]

I think if you ask around a bit you'll find that people are ardent supporters of various car companies. There are entire Ford families and Chevy families that won't even think of using something else. Add the legions of Honda, Saturn, and Toyota faithful and you really can extend the anology.

In this case, however, most people I know genuinely like Google and genuinely dislike MS. YMMV but to me that describes a barrier which MS must overcome before it can overtake Google.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[soft_guy]

More like a Ford Expedition saying its going to catch a hellicopter in a race around a group of islands.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Rufus88]

He didn't say it was like Ford catching Ferrari. He said it was like a Ford catching a Ferrari. But you knew that. Troll.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[soft_guy]

Yeah, but considering the financial state of Ford, I'd rather have Ferrari's profits.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but how many Tauruses need to be sold to make the same amount as selling one Ferrari?

> Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?

So, you are new here.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[ZoomieDood]

I think the problem is that the pressure is mounting inside Microsoft to find successful products and everyone is afraid that their product will fail and they'll be blamed for contributing to Microsoft's current/future failures.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely different analogy. MS controls the OS -- not the web. Thx for playing.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[joshdick]

I think you're forgetting that the people you describe are car enthusiasts. Most people are not software enthusiasts; therefore, they're likely to continue to use whatever's easiest or cheapest for them.

Not only do many people neglect to compare software before buying -- many don't even know there are alternatives.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[homerules]

So why are they not used in 12 and 24hour races?

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Flaming Cowpie]

It's "joe six-pack" comments that like, that made Microsoft. People who accept mediocrity instead of aspiring to something better - that's the mentality that Microsoft sells into.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[topper24hours]

The parent is right. I mean I wouldn't ditch Windows that readily because they've got me pretty entrenched (you know w/ my HL2 and all!) but I do resent MS and won't switch to their web search or desktop search even if it does become marginally better than Google. It wouls literally have to be twice as good to even tempt me. I mean, I seem to be able to find info on the web now w/ Google pretty OK... so what could MS possibly offer me - 2 or 3 links that Google didn't find? Hmmm... I could probably live w/ out them.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[topper24hours]

I agree that people will use what's cheaper. Wow, that sure is irrelevant in this conversation! Search is free from both companies. So, people will use what everybody else is using. Unless the phrase changes from "I'm going to Google that when I get home..." to "I'm going to MSN search that when I get home" then people will continue using Google to do their Googling. Point #2 - It is amusing that people are saying that only geeks would use Google because if MSN search gets easier to use people will flock to that. Well, wake up! Only geeks are AWARE of a search engine war. You think grannie can even contemplate that there are meetings upon meetings and strategy behind this?

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Anonymous Coward]

-1 Off Topic:

Ford DID catch Ferrari in the 60's with Ford's GT40.
So, it CAN be done.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Silicon Jedi]

You can't talk to me that way!
You can't talk to me that way!
I'm a very important person at work.
I am a District Manager!
People are afraid of me.
I driv a Dodge Stratus!

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Anonymous Coward]

way to not catch the humor and disingenuously subvert the analogy.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[ad0gg]

MSN search engine has grabbed 12% of the market since it released 8 months ago. Mean while google is at 48% down from its all time high of 78% back in 2001. Its only a matter of time.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[DJGreg]

You forgot to mention Grandma and her rocker strapped onto the roof...

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[DJGreg]

Seeing how Google has been doing thus far in the market, I'd hardly say that they are being driven around the track buy "some ordinary guy".

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[robertjw]

A Ford Taurus with a 2 billion dollar budget will catch a Ferrari. -Rick

Probably not, because deep down it's just a Taurus built by Ford. I think that's the whole point of the comparison. Google is the Ferrari of search engines. They specialize in search engines and have a tradition of successful search engines (like Ferrari does in racing). Microsoft is the Ford of the software industry. Microsoft builds cheap, crappy software (cars) and trys to fill the software needs of the whole spectrum of consumers. It's difficult for a generalized company to compete on quality and performance against a company that specifically focuses on one goal.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, I believe the guys driving the NASCAR Taurus cars (750+ HP) would have something to say about that.

Or the Taurus funny car (3000+ HP).

With enough money anything can beat anything else. Microsoft has a lot of money.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Anonymous Coward]

" MS controls the OS"

I think more accurately would be "dominates the desktop OS". You know, that area of computer use dominated by people who know next to nothing about computer science.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[cybersaga]

The biggest problem is that they can't seem to release relevant software on schedule with the desired features.

This is the biggest difference between Microsoft and Google. Google doesn't announce it's developments years in advance. Thus, there's no rush, no pressure, and you can never be behind schedule. They also can't break any promises since there weren't any made to begin with.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[mrchaotica]

Because Microsoft's business model is based on lock-in and totalitarian control of the user. If there's anything that the user doesn't need Microsoft for, then they feel threatened.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Jose-S]

ROFLMAO

Hopefully Google doesn't underestimate them as much. It would be foolish. MS specializes in catching up and making small improvements on what they are copying. They lose their sleep thinking of ways to break their competition. They study their opponents very carefully, probably even personally. It only takes them half the time to catch up than it did to develop the original product.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[deanoaz]

>>A Ford Taurus with a 2 billion dollar budget will catch a Ferrari. -Rick

>Probably not, because deep down it's just a Taurus built by Ford.

With a 2 billion dollar budget it makes no difference if you start with a skateboard, the job can get done. You hire Carroll Shelby (or a younger incarnation) to design another 'Ferrari Killer' and stick the Taurus grille and nameplate on it somewhere.

This speaks to the fact that Microsoft has the money and the talent to do things nobody expects them to succeed at. Remember how Bill Gates said everyone would be using Windows for everything back when (1.x, 2.x) nobody wanted to use it for anything?

It probably only really matters how much they want to do it. If they are willing to be laughed at for years and spend unlimited sums in the process they can certainly do it. If the bottom line returns are important in the shorter term, they may not.

"Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month."
- Wernher Von Braun

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[robertjw]

With a 2 billion dollar budget it makes no difference if you start with a skateboard, the job can get done. You hire Carroll Shelby (or a younger incarnation) to design another 'Ferrari Killer' and stick the Taurus grille and nameplate on it somewhere.

Ahh... but, as your Von Braun quote at the bottom of your post insinuates, sometimes adding resources doesn't produce. A 2 billion dollar budget does not guarantee the success of any project. History is littered with projects that have had exorbinant amounts of money thrown at them and still failed. That's exactly the situation Microsoft is in. They have tried the 'throw money at the problem' approach before. Sometimes they win(IE, MS Office), sometimes they lose (IIS, SQL Server, Windows Me). A bigger budget does not always correlate to a better product.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a break. Dev platforms getting ignored? Just how far detached from reality ARE you?

Don't take my word for it... Do a search on your favorite job board for C# or .NET vs. PHP or Linux. Go ahead... let me know what you find.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Anonymous Coward]

What's funny is that they have thousands of genuinely great ideas; they just half-ass the delivery. It happens every time.

Microsoft is like a cheap Taiwanese toy factory. They see the genuinely great idea idea in the market and come up with a half-assed knock-off. For every Transformer there's a Convert-a-bot and for every Stacker, there's a DoubleSpace.

Their real problem is that, in their efforts to maintain double-digit growth in a single-digit market, they've eaten the entire ecosystem. Literally the only companies left in that ecosystem that could satisfy MS's appetite for a day are EA and Symantec. Even if they could fill EA's shoes or stand up to the legal beating they would leave themselves open to by replacing Symantec, how long would they stay on top after that? Are people really going to stick with MS just to play Age of Empires or Warfield 1944?

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Anonymous Coward]

> They have to first overcome the problem
> that people like Google and don't like MS.

If Google becomes as dominant as MS is today, don't worry, loads of people will hate them. People root for the underdog, which Google won't be for very long if their growth continues.

Look at perpetual underdogs and their fans. Why do you think there are rabid Apple fans? Or how about rabid Chicago Cubs fans even after they come in last place year after year for 100 years?

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[bcuriel]

Actually, it's just /.ers and tech geeks who love Google and don't like MS. Most people don't give a rat's ass about either and use whatever tool is at hand.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[joshdick]

That's precisely the problem. Once MS integrates a sufficiently capable search engine into IE and Windows, grannie will just use that, because that's where MS's Search button takes her.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Anonymous Coward]

good analogy but to say IIS and SQL are examples of it not working is a poor joke, SQL is the fastest growing enterprise DB product and is over a billion dollar a year business for them. IIS is now one of the best web servers on the market, IIS5 sucked, IIS6 sings very nicely indeed.

Re:"We'll catch Google"

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of that statistic may be that Yahoo! stopped using Google search sometime in 2003 (later/sooner?).

Peter Principle.

[jcr]

If there was ever a clear-cut example of someone in over his head, it's Ballmer. If he hadn't been BG's college buddy, he'd be running a Denny's restaurant somewhere.

-jcr

Re:Peter Principle.

[jbuilder]

Hey only in America can you go from me BG's office manager to the CEO...

And his rise to power is more an example of the Dilbert Principle http://www.aquecorp.com/vincent/humor/dilbert.prin ciple.html than anything else.

Re:Peter Principle.

[gowen]

That's not really the Peter Principle, though, is it? He hasn't been promoted from his position of competence, because he has never held a position in which he was demonstrably competent.

It's more a case of the "promoting your mates over those better qualified is rarely a good thing" principle.

Re:Peter Principle.

[jcr]

Hmm... Good point.

-jcr

Re:Peter Principle.

[Spy der Mann]

If there was ever a clear-cut example of someone in over his head, it's Ballmer. If he hadn't been BG's college buddy, he'd be running a Denny's restaurant somewhere.

NO! Ballmer already proved himself as a WONDERFUL telemarketer! We shouldn't dismiss that possibility! :)

Re:Peter Principle.

[Iriel]

He even looks like the typical bald Denny's manager. And he looked about as smart as one when he tried to tell people that Windows Server 2003 was more secure than RedHat 6 :)

Re:Peter Principle.

[__aamcgs2220]

Incorrect. He's said before that he would have been an insurance salesman. At least BG The Insurance Salesman would have been less annoying, more honest, and willing to work with other insurance salespeople.

Re:Peter Principle.

[Anonymous Coward]

It really makes you wonder what kind of dirt he has on Bill, that could conince Gates to let this fool wreck his company.

The only thing funnier&sadder than this is McNealey letting his boy-toy Schwartz wreck that company.

Re:Peter Principle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! I run a Denny's restaurant you insensitive clod!

Re:Peter Principle.

[doombob]

Yeah, but at least he'd be running that Denny's.

Re:Peter Principle.

[16K Ram Pack]

Shhh. Bill might be listening.

Re:Peter Principle.

[nomadic]

If there was ever a clear-cut example of someone in over his head, it's Ballmer. If he hadn't been BG's college buddy, he'd be running a Denny's restaurant somewhere.

Yes, because that Harvard BA and Stanford MBA would qualify him only for the service industry.

Re:Peter Principle.

[nomadic]

Oops, he dropped out of the MBA program, my mistake. But the sarcasm still is appropriate.

Re:Peter Principle.

[jcr]

Aren't you glad that Ballmer isn't working for you? ;-)

-jcr

Re:Peter Principle.

[jcr]

As it happens, there are several degrees from Harvard that I would actually hold against a job candidate. In my experience, a lot of Harvard management grads are trained to be middle managers at IBM in the 1960s.

-jcr

Re:Peter Principle.

[nomadic]

Oh a Harvard degree isn't proof of intelligence or competence, but the fact is Ballmer had a relatively successful career before Gates hired him. Yep, being Gates' buddy got him the job, but if he had never met Billy he'd still probably have ended up in upper management somewhere. And probably not at the local Denny's.

Re:Peter Principle.

[SteeldrivingJon]

Ballmer may have been successful, but wasn't he at Procter & Gamble?

The skills required to succeed selling soap and toilet paper aren't the same as the skills required in the tech industry.

I mean, in his prior industry, "innovation" means using a new quilting pattern every five years.

It's a little bit different.

Re:Peter Principle.

[Eradicator2k3]

That's quite alright. I drive a Ford Taurus and you should see some of the abuse I've been taking.

Catch Google?

[Mz6]

Dog: I'll catch my tail

Re:Catch Google?

[GecKo213]

I find it interesting that a Company who's largest focus is in the OS market is getting so freaked out about a search engine. Google is neither making an OS to compete with MSFT, nor are they trying to compete with any other software MSFT produces. (Games, Office Products, etc...)

Google is a quick, concise, search engine. MSFT's MSN/MSNBC was never anything more than a page to browse news quickly to me. It won't be able to compete with google's clean looking, concise, easy to use, intuative, no popup window search engine.

Go ahead MSFT, *pat pat* You'll catch 'em some day. Just remember the little engine that could.

Re:Catch Google?

[mOdQuArK!]

S market is getting so freaked out about a search engine. Google is neither making an OS to compete with MSFT, nor are they trying to compete with any other software MSFT produces. (Games, Office Products, etc...)

I think you're seriously underestimating Google's potential influence. They are well on their way to become THE search interface for all electronic-based information. If Google has its way, when anyone wants to find _anything_ on a computer, they will use a Google interface - whether it be web pages, text files, images, video, whatever. They will be the gatekeepers to all major sources of information in the net.

Needless to say, Microsoft does not consider this to be a desirable business situation - they did not get to where they are today by letting anyone else control access to their products/content/data. I'm sure they regard it as a survival issue to make sure that Google does not achieve the "search engine" market domination that Microsoft has in the operating system area.

"We'll catch Google"

[Shadow Wrought]

Good luck with that. They have to first overcome the problem that people like Google and don't like MS.

problem

[seoYak]

Admitting you have a problem is the first step to solving it.

Re:problem

[Golias]

This has always been Balmer's M.O. He's played this game a hundred times.

"Aw, shucks... There's no point in denying that the horse crap we shoved out the door last year stunk to high heaven. What a big screw up! But look out, because this year we are going to really dazzle you with some great products!"

He's spent his whole career acknowleging that MS has made poor software "in the past" while promising the moon and the stars Real Soon Now.

He's gotta be giddy with laughter over the fact that it still works after all these years.

Re:problem

[Anonymous Coward]

He's gotta be giddy with laughter over the fact that it still works after all these years.

No, he have come to the point were he actually believes in it.

Re:problem

[caluml]

But look out, because this year we are going to really dazzle you with some great products!"

Windows Current. The best OS - until we need to sell you another one.

Re:problem

[tshak]

This post is moderatd as "insightful", but it's really a troll. Microsoft has made huge advances in the last 5-10 years. Win2k and Win2k3 are solid servers. Sql Server 7.0 and 2K are solid database servers. IIS6 is not only the fastest web application server on the market, it has also been able to avoid the security nightmares of its earlier versions. Outlook, Microsoft's biggest source of desktop security holes, is now rock solid in its latest version. .NET (please don't regurgitate that "java clone" rhetoric, before I used the platform I used to naively make the same comments) is light years beyond VB6/ASP/COM development.

Is Microsoft behind in some areas? Definitely. Longhorn is not even released and it's behind Apples current offering. Their server operating systems still do not have a lightweight "non gui" installation (this isn't true for Windows embedded). The list goes on. The point I'm trying to make, however, is that your comment that they've never followed up with improving their products and that everything Balmer says is "lip service" is just ludicrous. But then again, this is /., so ludicrous turns into "insightful".

Re:problem

[Golias]

Nothing you just said contradicts anything I said. I said nothing to specifically bash MS-SQL, IIS, or .NET, so I don't know where the fuck you are getting all this.

My point remains the same.

Pull up a Lexus/Nexis on his comments around the launch of .NET and things will sound very familiar...

Better still, go get your hands on the original broadcast of Cringely's PBS special, "Triumph of the Nerds" and you get to see a clip of Steve Balmer in his pre-CEO days making essentially the same "in the immediate future, we will not suck anymore" comments that he is now making about what he was promising back then.

Go back even further if you like. As surely as "no more GPF's" meant "BSOD", and as surely as "no more BSOD" actually means "RSOD", Balmer has been singing this same song for almost thirty years now.

If anybody is trolling, it's you. Hearing somebody describe Outlook as "rock solid" almost makes me want to weep for the future of America... but then I remember that there's a good chance, given Microsoft's past history of "astroturfing" on Internet discussion groups, that you could well be a paid shill for all I know.

Re:problem

[dustmite]

This post is moderatd as "insightful", but it's really a troll.

Hey astroturfer, why not let the moderators decide for themselves if a post is a troll? They don't need to be "guided" by you.

The point is clear ... MS is always behind, but always playing the game of "hey the next version will be really amazing", and people keep falling for it. Sure some of their recent product offerings have caught up ...... to 1996, that's the whole point. It's the "two birds in a bush are better than one in the hand" marketing trick, except they don't sell two birds in the end, they sell one.

Re:problem

[tshak]

Nothing you just said contradicts anything I said. I said nothing to specifically bash MS-SQL, IIS, or .NET, so I don't know where the fuck you are getting all this.

Sure it does. You pretty much said Microsoft still sucks just as bad as they did ten years ago, and I'm giving you solid examples of where they do not.

Go back even further if you like. As surely as "no more GPF's" meant "BSOD", and as surely as "no more BSOD" actually means "RSOD", Balmer has been singing this same song for almost thirty years now.


Since Win2k GPF's are almost a thing of the past. Saying "no more" was a bit of an exaggeration, but when compred to ten, or even five years ago, they're virtually a thing of the past. Faulty hardware or drivers are pretty much the only cause of these rare GPF occurances.

Hearing somebody describe Outlook as "rock solid" almost makes me want to weep for the future of America...

I don't see how this sensationalist comment contributes to your argument. I already stated that I believed that Outlook was a very shoddy product, especially from a security standpoint. Outlook 11, however, is practically a rewrite. It's the first version of Outlook that I've extensively used (in the past I'd just remove it because I considered it a trojan horse). If you have actually used Outlook 11 or have any real agruments as to why you don't believe it to be a rock solid product, then I'd love to hear it. If you want to rant about the security swiss cheese that Outlook 10 is, then you're preaching to the choir.

could well be a paid shill for all I know

I'm not a paid shill but I do work for a Microsoft consulting firm. I'm not afraid to admit that. But championing crappy technology is never in my best interest. MS isn't perfect and I'm quick to point out there flaws in the right forums. However the blanket "MS sucks and hasn't done anything" comments that are typical here are getting redundant, and someone has to try and inject some intellect into these emotionally charged assertions.

Re:problem

[tshak]

I'm providing thoughtful critique on the moderation. You may not agree with it, that's fine. I still believe the GP was a troll, and didn't provide anything of value other than "M$ 1S t3h 5uX0r3z".

I never said that MS wasn't behind in some areas. The desktop operating system (compared to OSX) is the most notable example. I'm simply contending that they have delivered in a lot of areas, and those of us that do use MS day to day are far better off today than we were ten years ago. You're free to have your opinion that you think other solutions are better. But to say that MS has practically gone nowhere (especially when they've gone leaps and bounds in some areas) in ten years is ignorant at best.

Re:problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a paid shill but I do work for a Microsoft consulting firm. I'm not afraid to admit that. But championing crappy technology is never in my best interest.

Were you working for this Microsoft consulting company when, for example, they were advising customers to install Outlook 10? Or Exchange 5.0?

Are you even aware of how good open source databases and servers are, and do you give your customers the choice of saving money by using them, in the right circumstances? Or, like any MS consultant I ever met, do you only ever come up with all-MS solutions?

Re:problem

[Golias]

You pretty much said Microsoft still sucks just as bad as they did ten years ago

No.

No, I didn't.

Look again. Never said it.

I'm not a paid shill but I do work for a Microsoft consulting firm.

Meh. Six of one...

Re:problem

[Golias]

But to say that MS has practically gone nowhere (especially when they've gone leaps and bounds in some areas) in ten years is ignorant at best.

Good thing none of us said that, then.

Holy shit, why not try addressing my actual point (about Steve Balmer's selective memory) rather than go on a tirade about all the horrible things which you imagined me saying about Microsoft itself?

Re:problem

[tshak]

Were you working for this Microsoft consulting company when, for example, they were advising customers to install Outlook 10? Or Exchange 5.0?

Absolutely not. I have less experience with the latter, but pre Outlook 11 I would never have recommended Outlook as a viable mail option, mainly due to security concerns.
Are you even aware of how good open source databases and servers are...

I run MySql 4.1 at home. I have it for a couple of my apps, but I usually favor MSSql since I get a free dev license. Quite frankly I think the cost of MSSql is nothing compared to the TCO of other databases in many business cases. Let's agree to disagree on this one.
Or, like any MS consultant I ever met, do you only ever come up with all-MS solutions?

Well, most of our customers hear from IBM, HP, and the like, so yes, we tout MS solutions. We let our customers choose which firm+solution is the best to go with for their situation.

Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

drop it quick..

And furthermore...

[Anonymous Coward]

the fighting on the Eastern Front will not be slowed by the Russian Winter or resistance at Leningrad, and that the last remnants of resistance in the Soviet Union and Great Britain will be crushed.

But seriously folks... this does sound horribly like a company that
a) doesn't really know what it's trying to do
b) and so is fighting battles on every front... and the forces of Google, Linux, Oracle are massing on the banks of the Rhine and the Oder.

Ballmer hurts his own credibility

[yagu]

Ballmer (from the article):"We can't support open source, but we can support interoperability," he said. (what does that mean?... I can't count the number of times I've not been able to lace up some Microsoft technology to some other technology... on the other hand, symmetrically I can't count the number of times I have easily been able to lace up some OSS to other technology.... (I know that doesn't qualify for tautology..., but it illustrates a point))

Ballmer (from the article, re lack of SQLServer spatial storage capabilities):This may be addressed in the next release [of SQL Server] in 18 months, Ballmer said, but conceded he "really didn't know"

Ballmer (from the article, re MapPoint lack of expansion into Southeast Asia): "I didn't know we weren't doing well there," he said. "I'll address that with the team vigorously."

So, for all Ballmer doesn't know in this discussion with partners, how much weight will (Ballmer, from the article): "In the next six months, we'll catch Google in terms of relevancy," hold?

Sounds like Microsoft is seeing Google much as they saw Netscape in the past... a threat that is important and trumps all other goings-on on campus. I'm not sure based on what I've seen so far Microsoft can exceed Google's technology, let alone even catch up with it. Writing smart search technology, evolving it quickly, and improving on it is a much more daunting challenge than cobbling a browser together quickly.

Re:Ballmer hurts his own credibility

[panda]

What it means is Microsoft is not changing their strategy. They support interoperability between the current releases of the their own software and nothing else.

Re:Ballmer hurts his own credibility

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you meant "I'm not sure based on what I've seen so far Microsoft can even catch up with Google's technology, let alone exceed it.".

Re:Ballmer hurts his own credibility

[megarich]

I said it time after time I still feel M$ biggest problem is neglecting their os line and trying to get their hands in stuff that is "hot" at the moment.

And naturally their attempts to come up with the "better" product is half ass since they rather just throw something out quickly just to compete rather than focusing on making a quality product.

So to conclude, here's a fucking idea Ballmer, how about you try to get longhorn released sometime this decade before you decide to become relevent along side with google or whatever other business is out there you'll compete with in the future or buy out just because it gets your off.

Re:Ballmer hurts his own credibility

[Xiaran]

Ballmer (from the article):"We can't support open source, but we can support interoperability," he said. (what does that mean?... I can't count the number of times I've not been able to lace up some Microsoft technology to some other technology... on the other hand, symmetrically I can't count the number of times I have easily been able to lace up some OSS to other technology.... (I know that doesn't qualify for tautology..., but it illustrates a point))

I suspect it means something along the lines of "We support interoperability as long as you are a commercial software development company. That way, if you start doing too well and threating us we can either a) simply buy you b) drive you out of business by undercutting your market with loss leaders c) sue you into oblivion as you are sure to be violating several of our patents from our vast patent library d) if you are too big(like IBM) then well just sign cross licence agreements with each other and back away slowly, muttering to ourselves while plotting our revenge. We might end up sicking SCO on you."

Just a guess.

Re:Ballmer hurts his own credibility

[marcosdumay]

"Sounds like Microsoft is seeing Google much as they saw Netscape in the past... a threat that is important and trumps all other goings-on on campus."

That vision from MS I could never understand. Why does MS think that Google is a treat? I could understand Netscape, I surely understand FOSS, but I can't understand Google. Or are they just envious?

Re:Ballmer hurts his own credibility

[telecsan]

I can't count at all, you insensitive clod!

Re:Ballmer hurts his own credibility

[lightknight]

Because Google is Netscape reincarnated. After you stop laughing, think about it.

With Netscape, it was essentially all about the web.

With Google, it is essentially all about the web.

Problem for MS is that if focus shifts from the OS to the web (Google will run on any OS), then they quickly become irrelevant. Companies will write web apps instead of regular apps. Ties loosen.

Google is starting to spread out into some of Netscape's old areas (server software). As long as they are ahead of MS, MS will see them as a viable threat.

You do remember that Netscapes whole goal was to move everything onto the web, and leave the user with (essentially) a thin client. That is why MS treated Netscape as such a dangerous competitor (and went ballistic). The same strategy MS is trying now, and the same strategy Google may succeed at.

Re:Ballmer hurts his own credibility

[alnjmshntr]

Since when does saying "I don't know" hurt your credibility? Or do you expect him to to know every technical detail of every product in an x billion dollar company?

It would have been easy enough for him to just have said some gumpf, but he didn't. This gets plus points in my book.

Re:Ballmer hurts his own credibility

[wpmegee]

It means the same thing it's always meant. Embrace, extend, extinguish.

Re:Ballmer hurts his own credibility

[Chris Mattern]

Now, that's not true. Microsoft *loves* interoperability... ...as long as they aren't the market leader. That's because interoperability gives them their best chance to catch up. Once they *are* market leader, they pull up the ladder behind them.

Chris Mattern

Re:Ballmer hurts his own credibility

[metamatic]

(Google will run on any OS)

Well, except Google Desktop Search. And Google Picasa. And Google Toolbar. And Google Earth. And Google Hello. All of which require Windows and help support Ballmer's monopoly.

Re:Ballmer hurts his own credibility

[cyxxon]

(Google will run on any OS)

Well, except Google Desktop Search. And Google Picasa. And Google Toolbar. And Google Earth. And Google Hello. All of which require Windows and help support Ballmer's monopoly.

Except that all those you listed are not what defines Google. The web search engine with the vast database and the page rank algorithm tied together with its ease of use defines Google in the customers and /.ers view, maybe Google Ads as well. The rest is just gaining an audience due to the attached name, because people now think it will be as easy and transparent to use as all that stuff they already know under that brand. It Just Works(tm). Apart from the idea that a lot of these Google tools could probably be ported to Linux with not too much of a hassle, or that ports are already underway...

Re:Ballmer hurts his own credibility

[Bamafan77]

Since when does saying "I don't know" hurt your credibility? Or do you expect him to to know every technical detail of every product in an x billion dollar company? It would have been easy enough for him to just have said some gumpf, but he didn't. This gets plus points in my book.

Seriously. It would behoove him to give some BS spin answer rather than the truth, but he actually does the opposite -- and he's critcisized for it. One thing you can count on with stories about Google and MS is a high density of clueless +5 Insightful posts.

Re:Ballmer hurts his own credibility

[FooBarWidget]

"Problem for MS is that if focus shifts from the OS to the web (Google will run on any OS), then they quickly become irrelevant. Companies will write web apps instead of regular apps. Ties loosen."

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Just look at all the banking sites that require IE. Look at all the businesses that have internal websites that heavily make use of ActiveX. Heck, look at all those companies that write tons of Java apps that only run in the Microsoft Java VM!!

Re:Ballmer hurts his own credibility

[M_de_A]

Yeah, except that then we had a 56Kb/s connection, if so. Good luck using Gmail, Google Maps, and so on with that internet connection. Today it is quite easy to consider dropping MS Outlook for Gmail for personal usage. Not then...

Re:Ballmer hurts his own credibility

[audities]

"Sounds like Microsoft is seeing Google much as they saw Netscape in the past..."

Google certainly isn't Netscape. Netscape was a ball of confusion and alot of poor development. Wasted all that energy on the browser when the back end is the solution.

Google is the world's largest computer and eventually will be the world's largest software developer, focusing solely on itself. Google is what McNealy meant by 'the network is the computer'. Carpet bombing baby!

- porgie

yes Ballmer

[sathia]

i'm sure you'll catch it.

open ie, just type www.google.com

caught it?

Obligatory Bin Laden parallel

[Creosote]

"In the next six months, we'll catch Google in terms of relevancy". --Steve Balmer, 27 June 2005

"The U.S. military is 'sure' it will catch Osama bin Laden this year, perhaps within months, a spokesman declared Thursday". --Associated Press story, 30 January 2004

Re:Obligatory Bin Laden parallel

[sharkey]

Operation Infinite FUD?

Confused

[kc0re]

I guess I am confused. Why must everyone "beat" Google? Isn't that what competition is about? You can't beat Google. Google didn't invent searching, but they did perfect it, and now with their newer products they are taking searching to a whole new level.

I don't understand why Balmer is all about trying to conquer every market, by shipping substandard products just so they have some kind of market share out there SOMEWHERE.

Some other market did that!! Anyone remember No Limit Records? Master P? C Murder, any of those guys?

They made their millions by shipping tons of substandard product becuase Rap was so empty after the deaths of Tupac and Biggie, that they were hungry for anything. Eventually, (yes the company still exists) but no one buys their music. Because it is sub-par.

Eventually Computer consumers will wake up and find the substandard OS'es (Windows) to be finally faulty (I think that's happening now) and people will transition to Quality products (Such as Apple).
Note to Microsoft: Quit trying to conquer everything and work on one thing at a time. Namely, right now, your OS!!

Re:Confused

[th0mas.sixbit.org]

You can't beat Google. Google didn't invent searching, but they did perfect it,

note to self: include this phrase on slashdot, get modded up.

Re:Confused

[EvilJohn]

Google didn't "perfect" anything. If they did, I wouldn't be seeing ten pages of results when I search for something.

While Google did improve searching "dramatically" the way that I use the search engine hasn't changed all that much since Alta Vista. If the results I need aren't in the first five or six results, I have to rethink what I'm searching for, possibly using + and - modifiers to eliminate the noise.

Honestly, I was doing this five years ago, it's just that with Google, I have to do it less.

Re:Confused

[kc0re]

Google should Wiki some stuff. If you search for something and you find what you need like on page 3, you should be able to "Mod" it up so that the search becomes more relevant.

Yes i know the implications, spammers and the like would write automated stuff to automod their sites up.. i know i know.. but.. good idea right?

Re:Confused

[frodo from middle ea]

Every time I hear someone moaning about the deaths of Tupac and Biggie, I remember a chirs rock quote...

People say Tupac is a martyr , Biggie is a martyr, I say Martin Luther King was a martyr, Malcom X was a martyr, them 2 ni****ers got shot"

Re:Confused

[Anonymous Coward]

"Why must everyone "beat" Google? Isn't that what competition is about?"

Yes, compitition is about getting to number 1 and staying there. It's the same thing in all industries. Just like all the fast food restraunts want to "beat" McDonalds. It's similar with Xerox, Rollerblade, Oracle, Best Buy, etc. They all are the number one company in their industry, or at least they have that reputation. You may or may not agree that McDonalds is the best fast food restraunt, but you can't deny their popularity.

The goal is to maximize profit in order to pay the stockholders. Sure you can argue otherwise with companies that are not publically held, but that's another topic.

I guess you don't live in a capitalist society.

Re:Confused

[smartin]

Eventually, (yes the company still exists) but no one buys their music. Because it is sub-par.

You mean that some rap can be worse than other rap? I didn't know that was possible.

Re:Confused

[spectre_240sx]

Isn't that essentially how pagerank works, but based on algorithms rather than concious moderation?

News Flash!

[Kierthos]

Ballmer admits strategy to "catch" Google consists of writing the word Google on a baseball, throwing it up into the air and catching it. When faced with the possibility of missing, or a complete lack of physical coordination, Ballmer advised that in the event of such limited cases, a patch would be available to correct the problem.

Kierthos

Surrrrreeee!

[Geminus]

With what .net? Longwhore? Oh wait here comes NeXT out of the gate! Yay!

Developers

[Anonymous Coward]

Developers, developers, developers...

The Numerous Advantages of MS Services

[taskforce]

Hotmail over gMail - MS's handy adverts popup right infront of you, so you don't have to scroll to the bottom of the page. MS has always been at the forefront of UI design.

MSN Search over Google Search - WE PUT IT IN TV ADVERTS

Microsoft's Maps service over Google Maps - It never gives wrong directions. (Becasue it doesn't exist.)

Re:The Numerous Advantages of MS Services

[mopslik]

I know your post is being facetious, but...

Microsoft's Maps ... It never gives wrong directions. (Becasue it doesn't exist.)

It exists, and it does.

Re:The Numerous Advantages of MS Services

[juangonzo]

"Microsoft's Maps service over Google Maps - It never gives wrong directions. (Becasue it doesn't exist.)"

mappoint.msn.com? They have road names for the rest of the world. Also, they don't confuse belgium and the netherlands http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=51.179343,4.658203& spn=22.385814,65.126953&hl=en

SQL Server has shortcomings?

[PaxTech]

That's unpossible!

Who runs these press conferences?

[grahamsz]

I always imagined they were pretty well controlled to stop people asking difficult questions.

Kudos to the journalists for getting that number of "don't knows" from someone who is used to being in the line of fire.

I suppose in some ways it's refreshingly honest, but people in his position are almost expected to BS their way through difficult questions.

Re:Who runs these press conferences?

[mike_the_kid]

Read the article.

This wasn't a press conference, and the questions weren't from journalists.

The questions were from Microsoft's partners (ie, VAR's, stockholders, people who have large investments in MS products)

They aren't paid to ask questions, they're paid to implement solutions. They want to make sure that their chosen partner is doing their fair share.

Its a two way street -- the MS execs get real feedback from real customers who aren't afraid to call the shots the way they see them. The partners get some added measure of a pulse from the management of their very important business partner.

Google + Jabber + OS?

[caluml]

If Google pushed Jabber, let's say, and a Google-branded OS based on Linux, Microsoft would wither rapidly

Re:Google + Jabber + OS?

[Mr Pippin]

Hardly. It would take more than that to successfully dethrone MS from the Desktop. The following items (not all included, but important, none the less)

Unified Application Architecture
Application Interoperability
Legacy Application Support (Win32)
Desktop Office Software Solution
3rd Party Hardware Support
Game Publisher Support
Seamless platform transition ability for business users

All of these need to be at or above existing accepted Desktop standards before you can reasonably hope to unseat Microsoft.

Re:Google + Jabber + OS?

[crimoid]

Why would Google want to produce and support an entire operating system when it can get the job done via the web? A Google operating system would be an unnecessary distraction for the company.

Re:Google + Jabber + OS?

[TomorrowPlusX]

I don't mean to be snarky, but a *lot* of people use their computers for a hell of a lot more than IM.

You might get the teeny-bopper crowd, though. If it's *really* cool, like, Apple-cool.

Re:Google + Jabber + OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

You listed a bunch of things that don't matter, and failed to list the one and only thing that does.

Hardware Vendor Contracts

That's all there is too it. The average consumer only cares that the price of their new PC is low. As long as it is, they buy it. MS WinWhatever comes pre-installed. It would cost more to change the OS, so they don't. Period.

Re:Google + Jabber + OS?

[Bandman]

na, right now, repackaging a Google OS would be suicide for Google at worst, or a waste of time at best. Unless it completely engineers the os from scratch, and it's availble from the web, Google won't (or shouldn't) mess with it.

When Google Office comes out, fear. The ability to go to office.google.com, create a (ms word compatable) document, print it out, and save it (to your gmail space) will be the harkening call, drawing near the end of MS's office dominence.

Look first for the ability of gmail to save files. A GDrive, maybe. That will be a precursor.

Maybe its just a marketing and legal strategy...

[WebHostingGuy]

See, we're not the best in everything. In fact our major products are behind. Therefore, we don't have a monopoly on anything. Please leave our lawyers alone...

While this does have a hint of truth it also works very well for them.

Saturation point.

[suman28]

No innovation and Microsofties leaving to work for google is a sure sign that 'catching up' is going to get harder and harder as days go by.
Besides, they have grown too big for their own good.
It may be a good thing that the company didn't get split into two. This way, at least we have to fight only one 800-pound gorilla, rather than two cunning 'little' monsters.

Re:Saturation point.

[Anonymous Coward]

two cunning 'little' monsters
cunning runts?

They have no philosophy

[Colin Smith]

Or, maybe it's "follow the market". But the market isn't going in a single direction now, it's buggering off all over the place.

It seems to me that the best things in life start with philosophies and then stick to them.

Re:They have no philosophy

[Richie1984]

Microsoft's problem is that they're fighting battles on too many fronts. Instead of doing one area extrememy well, such as search or OS or an iPod competitor, they're fighting a multitude of companies on their own soil.

Microsoft may have the financial resources to throw at these battle fronts, but without public support and without the better product, they have no long term hope

Re:They have no philosophy

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, Microsoft's original goal seemed to be world domination, which it pretty much has achieved on the pee cee desktop. However, now that they are at the top, they do not seem to be sure of what they should be doing so they just end up chasing trends.

Re:They have no philosophy

[Zphbeeblbrox]

Exactly right. It's a whole new world out there. Microsoft can't afford to be the only word in computing anymore. They can't control the whole desktop and internet it's impossible. If they keep trying to they are going to find themselves in a whole world of hope. They may have the financial resorces to try right now but they will in the end fail and make a whole lot of shareholders really unhappy.

What Microsoft really needs right now is to spin off some of these products into seperate companies and pick something to focus on. Diversification is good to an extent but they are stretched way too thin right now. I give em 5 maybe 10 years of throwing money away on this stuff and before Wall Street starts demanding action. (yeah I pulled those numbers out of nowhere)

Re:They have no philosophy

[BewireNomali]

I agree with you wholeheartedly. They are fighting too many battles on too many fronts with cash from a now mature monopoly.

It's often the way when companies get too big and too unwieldy that they split up into more efficient entities. Like everything else in the universe, there seems to be a "sweet spot" for how big a company can get and still be healthy. They just seem too big, with too many products being developed by too many teams with this one borg-like monoculture.

someone posted earlier about their culture. A company's culture has so much to do with the kind of product it produces. Google's culture is directly responsible for it's successes, and in as much as they offer new services, they've never really deviated from their core business, which all are variations of information search.

They don't have a culture - a mantra that they run things by. And that monopoly cash won't last forever when all your businesses are hemorrhaging cash.

Re:They have no philosophy

[Jhan]

<paraphrase>Microsoft has no philosophy</paraphrase>

Maybe true, but they have a business statement. I can't seem to find it right now but goes/went something like this:

Originally, it was

"A computer on every work place desktop, and in every home, and in every school-room running Microsoft software."

However, five-or-so years ago BG decided that that plan had already been fullfilled, and made a more ambitious plan:

"Microsoft software in every pocket, on every wrist, and (of course) in any other concievable electronical device"

That didn't pan out quite like BG wanted. Thank $DEITY. Still, kudos for the rampant mono-mania! I wonder what the next mission statement would have been...

Re:They have no philosophy

[Anonymous Coward]

They have to diversify because of the pressure from stockholders. They can't just say, "alright, we're done" and sit on a revenue stream.

Re:They have no philosophy

[thinkfat]

They might have the cash to fight, but there are other limitations. Money does not code software. Marketing does not either. They can "invent" lots and lots of licensing programs but in the end the software must work.

Even for Microsoft, programmers don't fall from trees and you cannot form teams of socially inept primadonna hackers. Even if you could, you need to discover the truly innovative minds that make technology leap forward. That's something you cannot outsource to India or China.

Seems that Microsoft is throwing everything it has into the battle against Google and maybe onto Longhorn. Everything else has to wait, since they're unable to recruit and train new staff fast enough.

A new era of Honesty in Marketing.

[team99parody]

A couple weeks ago you had Microsoft execs say that

• In a few years Windows will be competitive with Linux for clusters
• Longhorn will be "supercocmpetitive" with apache.
• One day windows will have a scripting language (msh/monad) as powerful as /bin/sh.

Is it the case thah people can see through the fud, so they're concentrating on reality? Wow.

Re:A new era of Honesty in Marketing.

[team99parody]

For those who don't believe, here's a link to Microsoft's Bob Muglia saying that by 2007 they'll be competitive with Linux for

• web hosting,
• high-performance computing and
• security(!!!).

and here's Microsoft saying that in a few years .NET will have a decent scripting language but they're not sure when yet.

Re:A new era of Honesty in Marketing.

[nurhussein]

Let me get this straight. Microsoft basically said:

• In a few years we will catch up with where Linux was now!
• In a few years, we'll have a shell in Windows to catch up with what Unix had 20 years ago!
• In 6 months time we'll catch up with where Google was now!

And as a conclusion...

• WE INNOVATE!

Hooray for innovation. :p

Re:A new era of Honesty in Marketing.

[Curate]

MS is trailing in some areas and they admit that. Competition is good for everybody, right?

In a few years Windows will be competitive with Linux for clusters

Linux does seem to cluster well. Hopefully Windows continues to improve in this area.

Longhorn will be "supercocmpetitive" with apache.

IIS already kicks the crap out of Apache in terms of performance. So do most other web servers. Apache still leads in popularity due to its momentum.

One day windows will have a scripting language (msh/monad) as powerful as /bin/sh.

FWIW, msh is definitely real, and has been available for a year in Beta form. It looks far more powerful than sh, and I am a sh (Bash, these days) guru. Expect to see msh in Longhorn.

Re:A new era of Honesty in Marketing.

[sheldon]

LOL!

It's funny watching Republicans bashing big-business.

couldn't find a different link than the freeper site?

Re:A new era of Honesty in Marketing.

[sheldon]

When I think cluster, I think high-availability. You apparently are thinking beowulf. But for most of what I'd need to do calculations of that sort, grid computing would be a better solution.

IIS is already a better web server than Apache.

Windows Scripting Host already offers better scripting language capabilities than /bin/sh. What you really meant to say here was a better shell.

Sorry, I just have a hard time not responding when people are spewing fud.

Re:A new era of Honesty in Marketing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. The parent poster was not talking about beowulf -- it's high-availability like systems like google with multiple-redundant nodes that can fail over to each other more gracefully and at a large scale than Windows can.

IIS is better at Apache for some things (serving .asp pages); but for others (highly secure servers (look what Schwab, etrade, etc run)) it's much worse. Which you value more depends on your needs.

Regarding scripting, this was Bob Muglia (msft vp)'s opinion.

Re:A new era of Honesty in Marketing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent wrote: "msh is definitely real,... and I am a sh (Bash, these days) guru. Expect to see msh in Longhorn.

Nope, Sorry. " Thursday, June 09, 2005 'Monad' Scripting Shell Unlikely to Debut in Longhorn

Seems you don't realize quite in how bad shape Longhorn is. It's quite likely that in the end this will be the recommended scripting language for .NET

Re:A new era of Honesty in Marketing.

[toddestan]

IIS already kicks the crap out of Apache in terms of performance. So do most other web servers. Apache still leads in popularity due to its momentum.

The fact that you can run Apache on virtually every OS out there doesn't hurt things either.

Re:A new era of Honesty in Marketing.

[ahodgson]

IIS is already a better web server than Apache.

lol. It may perform better than Apache for certain workloads, but then so do any number of other web servers. The vast majority of web sites are not limited by their server performance, however. People use Apache because it can do _anything_, usually pretty well. And if it can't today, it's easy to find a way to make it do so.

It also runs on a whole lot of operating systems that people would generally rather use for servers than Windows. It also runs on Windows, for those perversely inclined to do so.

The real quote about SQL Server should be....

[ARRRLovin]

"I think this might get fixed in the next version of SQL Server, if not, wait another 5 years.........when we fade into oblivion."

.net what

[Amouth]

i knew it was dead before it came out.. i have yet to see anything cool about .net that can't be done with somehting else.. sorry but the only way they are going to "catch Google" is to start an agresive take over at 300$ a share.. and every person wanting to kill MS.. that or start sending the wallys of the MS world to Google..

my prediction

[justforaday]

They may be able to make up some lost ground with Google, but I'm not so sure they'll be able to catch up. It took them a while to destroy Netscape (who has now reared it's ugly head again as Firefox). That was a single target - a single app that did a single thing. Google is more of a hydra that just keeps on growing new heads all over the place...

Re:my prediction

[lee1026]

but all they have to do is kill the "search" head, and google will go down.

Re:my prediction

[Darth_Burrito]

Google is more of a hydra that just keeps on growing new heads all over the place...

How many of google's different heads actually make money? How many of them spend their time devouring company resources?

Re:my prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is turning into a regular company with a diverse set of products. Looking outside the tech industry, many large companies (e.g. Philip Morris, P&G, and GE) do the same. Looking at large tech companies (e.g., IBM, Intel, Microsoft), many are starting to do the same. Google looks like it is trying to become a LARGE company, and is hoping to shrink its dependence upon a core product in the event a change is needed.

Re:my prediction

[Zimok]

Yea but everyone is loving them for it.. including me :) Googles doing a good job anyways.

Re:my prediction

[TuringTest]

How many of google's different heads actually make money?

Anyone with a small white free space to show Google Ads.

Fighting on too many fronts

[nurhussein]

Microsoft has SQL server, yet it's not a database company so it can't quite beat Oracle. Microsoft has MSN search, yet it's not a search company so it can't quite beat Google. Microsoft has .NET, and maybe that *is* their turf, creating software infrastructure, but now Ballmer says they it's a standstill. It may be one of the richest companies in the world, but jack of all trades is still the master of none. There was a time when they could push an inferior product because it was priced cheaper than the specialised stuff and it was "good enough", but that's changing too since now OSS is the cheapest software provider, and even if some of it doesn't have as much features as M$'s offerings (such as Openoffice vs. MS Office), it can be free/dirt cheap and still be "good enough".

So yes, M$ isn't going away, but it's not going to rule with absolute power either, and they're unhappy about the latter. Well, tough shit :)

Re:Fighting on too many fronts

[Anonymous Coward]

At a standstill or not, MS hasn't done too bad for itself. MS has never been about "do one thing, and do it well", it's always been "do yet another thing 'good enough'". And with this strategy they've captured the OS, and Office application market.

Re:Fighting on too many fronts

[fermion]

I don't know what MS is going to do. They survive because of branding even though they provide no end to end solutions. They will license software, and people have to liscense the software because they have proprietary files to read, but MS does not have a product that provides a unique solution, only legacy solutions.

Now one may say look at IBM, but I would say look at compaq and DEC. IBM provides solutions, where MS just provides software. Everytime MS tries to provide solutions it can't because it has no control over hardware. And I think people are looking at why they spend so much money on legacy product.

What saves MS is that they have the hardware people by the nuts. Until the new adminisitration in washington, there was hope that MS would once again be subject to freee market forces. That hope is over. The next hope is that the $300 computers might start pushing vendors to other OS. It is like in the old days when a computer could get no cheaper that it's power supply. Now a computer get no cheaper than it's legacy OS.

Apple, Netscape, Palm,...., Google?

[G4from128k]

Many well-positioned companies have fallen before Microsoft's onslaught. Some might argue that Apple, Netscape, & Palm all made mistakes, but then all companies do. Microsoft is hard to beat given its huge marketshare and the combination of need-for-compatibility and user-apathy (how many people just use what MS provides because it is preloaded).

I hope Google isn't marginalized, but the historical data suggests otherwise.

Same thought, MS chaisng the past

[SuperKendall]

That Siebel quote to me, showed a CEO dangerously out of touch with the market - which is abandoning Siebel in droves. As they are other proprietary things of the same ilk...

I also found the whole "cannot support open source" comment an odd underminging of the whole "Shared Source" inititive, and really shows where his real feeling lie.

I'll never understand.

[JesseL]

Most businesses are happy to sell a decent product that competes well enough in the marketplace for them to turn a healthy profit every year. Microsoft though, is never satisfied. They look around for markets they haven't entered yet, and then do their worst to try to crush every other market players and dominate it with their own mediocre offering.

Why?

What drives this sociopathic yearning? Are they really just chasing an evil desire to rule the world or what?

Re:I'll never understand.

[Jeff Hornby]

All companies try to dominate their market. That's the point. Microsoft is just better at it.

And they enter new markets because it is the nature of companies to want to grow. Once you own a market and you've reached market saturation, there's nothing else to do but enter a new market.

Re:I'll never understand.

[JesseL]

There's a whole lot of companies that are happy to simply succeed in their market. They don't have to drive all the competition out of business, and they are perfectly satisfied to make money doing what they do well. Besides that endless expansion is ultimately never sustainable (ask any conqueror).

Re:I'll never understand.

[hey]

Let say you make cookies. Do you want to KILL all other cookie companies?!

Re:I'll never understand.

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

Those businesses are privately owned. Try telling your stockholders that you want to sit and take divedends.

Re:I'll never understand.

[Anonymous Coward]

No. I really don't care about the other cookie companies in any regard except for one... If people are buying their cookies instead of mine, I'm not selling as many cookies as I potentially could.

My goal as a cookie company is to make as much money as I can selling my cookies. Any other company selling cookies is biting into my potential profits. If I can market my cookies so much better than the other companies that they have to close their doors due to a lack of interest in their cookies... Perfect.

The goal of any business is to make money. Regardless of any mission statement about "improving the quality of life" or "world peace" or whatever else gets thrown in there to make people feel warm and fuzzy. If profit isn't the number one priority, you're not in business, you're in charity.

Re:I'll never understand.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most businesses are happy to sell a decent product that competes well enough in the marketplace for them to turn a healthy profit every year. Google though, is never satisfied. They look around for markets they haven't entered yet, and then do their worst to try to crush every other market players and dominate it with their own mediocre offering.

Why?

What drives this sociopathic yearning? Are they really just chasing an evil desire to rule the world or what?

Re:I'll never understand.

[PMBOK]

Three simple words (used to justify any action in today's world):

Shareholder Value Added

Re:I'll never understand.

[drsquare]

It's called 'ambition'. All successful companies got that way due to ambition and growth.

The opposite of ambition is resting on your laurels. If Microsoft had done that, it'd still be just Gates and Ballmer writing BASIC compilers with no money. Instead they have tens of billions.

Re:I'll never understand.

[drsquare]

Well, if that makes you more successful, then yes. Let's consider the following situation:

I sell 1000 cookies a week.
I have the capacity to sell 2,000 cookies a week.
The market will buy 20,000 cookies a week.
The remaining 19,000 are bought from my competitors.
One of my rivals sells 1,000 a week.
Through good marketing and salesmanship, and what not, I manage to take 500 sales from my rival.
My rival's budget won't survive selling just 500, so he goes bust.
I then take over his whole market share, now I'm selling at my maximum capacity of 2,000 a week.
I use the increased profits to buy more equipment and increase my capacity to 4,000 a week, and start looking at my next rival.
The process repeats until I have a large share, or all, of the market.
Now I'm selling 20,000 cookies a week, 20 times more than before, and my profits are much higher.

Without wanting to defeat my rivals, I'd still be selling a thousand a week. What's wrong with that, you ask? Surely I was making a nice bit of money, and enjoyed the work. Well, yes, I might enjoy making cookies. A few dozen a week for my family and friends. But a thousand? For complete strangers? 18 hours a day? That's not fun, that's work, the only reason I was doing it was to make money. If I'm making money doing something, I may as well make as much as possible. That's the difference between success and medeocrity.

Re:I'll never understand.

[JesseL]

Where do you draw the line between ambition and megalomania? I happen to think it's better to wind up like Switzerland than the empire of Ghengis Kahn.

Re:I'll never understand.

[110010001000]

Thats why you will always be a wage slave.

Re:I'll never understand.

[JesseL]

I'm not a wage slave. I simply don't see any reason to go out of my way to subjugate everyone else when I can be perfectly happy with what I have. Pity the fool who tries to take it.

Re:I'll never understand.

[JesseL]

I think part of the problem here is differing definitions of 'successful'.

I tend to think of being successful (from a business perspective) as making an acceptable profit and having good prospects for long term survival. Success, to me, is a threshold. Once the threshold is reached, everything else is gravy.

Others, like (apparently) yourself, consider success to be a rank on some scale of failure mediocrity success greater success, with no point at which you might be satisfied.

Ultra-competetiveness will only drive you to struggle ever harder, for ever diminishing returns, and the suffering of your competitors. Not to mention that if demand for your cookies is that high, you may as well just raise your prices rather than work harder to make more.

Okay, this is in my ongoing WTF file collection

[suitepotato]

First, Google, despite being the beloved of the geek crowd is Windows-centric again and again. I have working nVidia drivers on FC3, why can't I get an app to surf 3D satellite maps and such? Why is Keyhole for Windows? Is Google going to do ANYTHING with Linux? I don't see them as such darlings, but then I don't have an irrational FUD-based hatred of Microsoft so I am not seizing on them as a battering ram against Redmond.

Second, Portal Kombat is finished. The audience left before there could be a truly gory fatality and left Netscape, Lycos, etc. to figure it out (to the extent that it ever did actually sink in) for themselves that they (the public) didn't care. Why does Microsoft care who searches the web through which engine?

Third, why are people so interested in searching their own desktops? Hello? Anyone remember AltaVista and their search software? Whoopie. I get to have someone else write code so I can waste processor cycles searching my machine for files I should have been smart enough to organize in the first place. Want to help me? Write an app that catalogs every CD as soon as I insert it and then stores the results in a database and make it part of the OS package.

If anything, this is more like Peterbilt saying they're going to catch up with Ferrari. Different markets altogether really. I don't need anyone to search my desktop, Google doesn't write any sort of OS, and Microsoft has never been the search king in my experience. So it's like, who cares?

Re:Okay, this is in my ongoing WTF file collection

[Cyphertube]

Google will serve the market. So, if the market is Windows-oriented, they will product for it first almost every time. Will they do anything with Linux? I'm sure they will, but it takes time. As organisations shift to Linux, then Google will move apps for Linux. Google's stock is valued in part because they know how to reach a paying market.

I agree that Microsoft is little clueless regarding the portal wars... But then again, they seem to be attempting to move into the home box market. That's why the Xbox and Xbox 360 are so important. If they can get use hooked on their search and then use it through their appliance, they get market share, and a very targetted market share at that (particularly if they start stuffing TiVo-like functions into that box).

And why do people search their own desktops? Ok, clearly you've never worked on developing an intranet for a company. People dump stuff anywhere and everywhere. What makes sense for one person doesn't make sense for the next. They forget where they put their own files, and then they need to find files on shared drives.

Yeah, tech-wise, a lot of these things make little sense. To evaluate a corporations actions, you need to start thinking moneywise. (And know that the morons who will stick magnets on the side of a metal case for their computer are the market.)

Re:Okay, this is in my ongoing WTF file collection

[Colin Smith]

"Write an app that catalogs every CD as soon as I insert it and then stores the results in a database and make it part of the OS package. "

http://www.tuxmagazine.com/node/1000037

HTH

Re:Okay, this is in my ongoing WTF file collection

[Jellybob]

Write an app that catalogs every CD as soon as I insert it and then stores the results in a database and make it part of the OS package.

Didn't they already do that? There's an option for something that looks like it might possibly do it in MMC, although I've never actually used it (or heard of anyone else using it).

I don't think it's even needed by 90% of people. Knowing which CD a file is on is nowhere near as hard as finding the damn thing in the stack of 200 identical looking CDs.

Re:Okay, this is in my ongoing WTF file collection

[rpozz]

why are people so interested in searching their own desktops?

Inexperienced users are quite often incapable, or simply can't be bothered to make a directory structure to store their documents in. Many dump them straight onto the desktop or 'My Documents', and this becomes a problem when people have >250GB hard drives. Desktop searching software allows users to dump files where ever they want, and let the OS organise it all for them.

Re:Okay, this is in my ongoing WTF file collection

[rbarreira]

Why is Keyhole for Windows? Is Google going to do ANYTHING with Linux?

Maybe because they didn't write it? They bought the company, remember?

Now, I may be wrong since I haven't actually tried this product, not even the one from the previous company, so I don't know if the software is the same... Maybe someone can shed some light on this :)

Re:Okay, this is in my ongoing WTF file collection

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

Inexperienced users don't make that many files to worry about. Solution in 'search' of a problem.

Re:Okay, this is in my ongoing WTF file collection

[WARM3CH]

Why are people so interested in searching their own desktops?...I get to have someone else write code so I can waste processor cycles searching my machine for files I should have been smart enough to organize in the first place.

I'm researcher and I have a well organized structure of directories for the code and data of many projects I'm or I've been working on. My hard disk is not full but already has more than 300,000 files on it. Now, no matter how I organize the directory structures, the easies way to find "that report I worte 2 years ago where I said X and Y" is to search using a desktop search. Heck, it's even simpler to use the desktop search to find "that email I sent to John 6 months ago where I reported Z".
The point is, desktop search is method to find files based on content. Each file can belong to so many categories and directory structure can only represent one set of them.

Re:Okay, this is in my ongoing WTF file collection

[bhalo05]

Third, why are people so interested in searching their own desktops?

I should have been smart enough to organize in the first place

The issue is I don't want to bother. My computer is supposed to be a tool to do repetitive and boring tasks for me. Why do I need to think every time where should a file go? If that requires CPU cycles, heck, I don't care, I've plenty to spare and I'm sure most of the time CPUs are idle anyway. Fast machines are damn cheap these days and they're only wasted if they are not used!

Re:Okay, this is in my ongoing WTF file collection

[PintoPiman]

First, Google, despite being the beloved of the geek crowd is Windows-centric again and again. I have working nVidia drivers on FC3, why can't I get an app to surf 3D satellite maps and such? Why is Keyhole for Windows? Is Google going to do ANYTHING with Linux? I don't see them as such darlings, but then I don't have an irrational FUD-based hatred of Microsoft so I am not seizing on them as a battering ram against Redmond.

You know, Apple isn't doing much for *Li*nux either, but they're beloved too. Why? Because they (Google and Apple) are releasing cool stuff. GoogleMaps is a new solution to an old problem that brings things to the table that were not there before. So is Tiger's Spotlight. I am and have for some time been a Linux user, but I recognize that most of Linux is not innovation in the feature space. Features are typically copied from proprietary software, generally Microsoft. Linux's innovation in the realm of freedom is a matter for separate conversation.

Why does Microsoft care who searches the web through which engine?

I visit Google's website every day, and I see the ads there every day. I cannot recall the last time I visited MSN. Microsoft.com for me is reserved for when clients call asking about MDAC issues (etc). Google's revenue is ad-based and it is substantial. MS wants a piece of that pie.

Third, why are people so interested in searching their own desktops? Hello? Anyone remember AltaVista and their search software? Whoopie. I get to have someone else write code so I can waste processor cycles searching my machine for files I should have been smart enough to organize in the first place.

You can patronize all you want, maybe you have never lost a file. Even still, you're thinking a little too small here. Those of us who have been devloping for some time, or writing, or for any reason have a lot of files have need for faster access. If I don't know where a file is, Apple's Spotlight is faster than looking for it. Frequently if I *do* know where it is, Spotlight is faster than specifying the path through finder. Who would ever use the start menu when they could use desktop search to run apps?

Another significant desktop search feature is stored queries. Maybe you group your pictures by date but not content. Maybe you group them by content but not date. How cool is a query based on whatever element you didn't use? Search allows you to create organization on the fly. Directories only allow organization along one attribute. This *is* significant.

I don't need anyone to search my desktop, Google doesn't write any sort of OS, and Microsoft has never been the search king in my experience. So it's like, who cares?

There are a lot of usability and feature innovations out there that you're ignoring because of a false distinction between OS and Web App. Search (not just finding what's lost, but getting what you want quickly, organized in the way you are currently interested in organizing it) is a Big Thing. Would you tell a DBA that he shouldn't need SELECT statements since he should already know what table the information he seeks resides in? MS and Google approach the problem from different angles, but it's a big problem with scope beyond their two narrow fields.

This is something that people do every day. That means that there is a lot of money to be made by the guy who does it well, first, or both.

Re:Okay, this is in my ongoing WTF file collection

[Frodo Crockett]

Want to help me? Write an app that catalogs every CD as soon as I insert it and then stores the results in a database and make it part of the OS package.

You forgot the option to rip it while you listen and compress it later using spare cpu cycles. Now *that* would kick ass.

FUCKING HILARIOUS

[Anonymous Coward]

OMFGROTFL

Now THAT is good comedy!

Re:FUCKING HILARIOUS

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's dumb. You just lack a brain.

Ford catching ferrari

[nurb432]

The Tarus will catch the Ferrari eventually, as the Ferrari will run out of gas and be

Remember the old story of the turtle and the rabbit?

Re:Ford catching ferrari

[Musteval]

Hey, could you go look up the price of Microsoft stock? $25? Okay. Now could you check the Google stock? $300? Huh. I wonder which company's gonna run out of gas first?

Re:Ford catching ferrari

[mmkkbb]

MS has nearly 65 billion dollars in total assets. Google has around 3.3 billion.

Re:Ford catching ferrari

[PaxTech]

Comparing two companies by looking at their current stock price is like saying one computer is better than another because the case is bigger.

Look the their market caps, and how much cash reserves they have. Microsoft is sitting on a TON of money, don't count on them running out of gas.

Re:Ford catching ferrari

[drp]

Wow. Do you have any idea how stock prices work?

Comparing just the raw price of stocks is completely pointless. If things worked like you seem to think they do, then Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) would pretty much own the entire American economy, since their stock is trading at around $83,000 a share, and pitiful google is only $300.

Re:Ford catching ferrari

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know much about the stocket market, market capitalization, or the difference between the stock price and the amount of money each company has on-hand to burn, do you?

Re:Ford catching ferrari

[16K Ram Pack]

Cash reserves are mostly irrelevant.

If shareholders don't see stock growth, what do you think they'll start taking an interest in?

Re:Ford catching ferrari

[archen]

Not neccesarily true.

A 96 Tarus has a 16 gal tank. A 2003 Tarus has a 19 Gal tank.
Ford tarus gets 19/25 mpg

A Ferrari is a whole set of cars.
A Ferrari 612 Scagletti gets 11/17 mpg with a 28.5 gal tank.

So the answer is still that it depends on the Tarus and depends on the Ferrari. More importantly it depends on the conditions and who is at the wheel. Seems to apply to MS vs Google just as well.

Re:Ford catching ferrari

[Cromac]

Stock price alone doesn't mean anything about the value of the company. A company with 1,000 shares at $100 is going to be worth a hell of a lot more than a company with 10 shares at $1,000.

The McDonalds of software

[Colin Smith]

"I don't understand why Balmer is all about trying to conquer every market, by shipping substandard products just so they have some kind of market share out there SOMEWHERE."

Didn't you know, MS are considered to be the McDonalds of the software world, fill it full of fat, sugar and sell it *cheap*.

That is because...

[Anonymous Coward]

Along with lacking a user ID, you also lack a sense of humor.

I have no user ID but happily am still able to laugh at funny things. Ha!

Re:That is because...

[Anonymous Coward]

pot-kettle, fellow AC.

I may lack a user ID, but you lack a brain. Therefore, you find anything and everything amusing.

And I do have a user ID, but I dare not risk karma on expressing my true point of view. Slashdot moderators do not understand the difference between opposing opinion and actual trolling and are incapable of moderating objectively.

Re:That is because...

[Anonymous Coward]

I may lack a user ID, but you lack a brain. Therefore, you find anything and everything amusing.

And at the end of it all, who had a more enjoyable life? Intelligence does not equal happiness. Have fun, if you can.

He must have gotten the new ACME catalog....

[sTalking_Goat]

I hear the rocket powered Google Blaster is going to be a best seller this year.

Atleast it should work better than the Earthquake pills and Ballmer sized catapult he used before.

Re:He must have gotten the new ACME catalog....

[Omega697]

I think you mean the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.

And badly too..

[elliam]

The article makes him sound completely out of touch with operations. Someone handed him some shiny brochures and said "Hit the stand, Jack. Make it sound good.". Of course he's not supposed to say "Well, we're boned. We give up." but this guy may as well be on your dashboard, all grins and nods with nothin but a spring in his head.

"We cannot support open source"? Inflexability and weakness.

"We can support interoperability" We are being told we have to.

"I didn't know x" We're sorry.. we thought you ran things around here..

Google's best bet...

[HerculesMO]

Just invest the oodles of money it has into helping developers create true cross-platform applications -- and supporting them. Games, productivity apps, graphic apps, video editing apps... it can all be done under Linux. In the meanwhile, Google writes APIs to get Linux to work better than ever, liscenses that out to the multiple distros for a nominal fee...

Microsoft won't have a chance against that. You are combining the brilliance of Google's marketing position and cash position, by helping Google force the hand of "windows only" developers to start writing applications that work in Linux, Windows, and MacOS. Granted the up front monetary gain is going to be minimal -- but when Google has an OS that is not as stifling as Windows is, they will find it a lot easier to distribute and develop applications like Google Earth or whatever... and make a profit off of everything.

I'm not against Google making money... I'm against a closed platform like Windows. Microsoft is a great software company (regardless of what naysayers state), but their vision is one aimed at monopoly. So long as Google can keep up with their "Do no evil" motto... I will support and root for them.

Re:Google's best bet...

[anoiniminious cowher]

Right, because Google never releases any Windows only Apps...

Re:Google's best bet...

[HerculesMO]

Sure they do... but it's because they want to capture an audience.

They can have a purpose in mind, and not be stupid at the same time.

Re:Google's best bet...

[cmorgan47]

I will support and root for them.

there's no way google's giving you root.

sorry.

Re:Google's best bet...

[electroniceric]

It's a nice vision, but it'll never happen. The desktop app market is mature, and beginning the long slide into commodity. The best Google could get out of cross-platform apps would be to reduce MS' margins a bit, and since Google doesn't compete with MS in the desktop software market, this doesn't help them much.

Basically the only big desktop apps left to write are corporate databases and workflows type apps, perhaps a bit of research-driven software like AI, and a few downloadables in the home space. None of those merit going after a Linux desktop.

Google's core business is Internet information distribution, much like a radio station. They have wisely shown very little interest in getting into anything else.

Time for you medication Mr Ballmer

[FraggedSquid]

I don't think he's been taking his Clozapine recently

Yeah, they will try to do that with more money

[PotatoHead]

than all the other companies combined applied to the problem. They will then say their expensive solution is integrated with their other expensive solutions; thus, providing better ROI and lower cost of ownership. (For web services haha.)

If what they did to the online collaboration tool Placeware is any indication of how they handle these kinds of services, no thanks.

Security Issues

[0kComputer]

"Take for instance the Siebel database. Now I've never used that interface. But I'd love to go to it and say 'who is the account manager for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia?'," Ballmer told the partners. Microsoft's vision for search would eventually make such data discoverable, without using the [actual] application. I'm all for innovation, but it seems to me hes treading on dangerous waters here in terms of security. Google is a very powerful search engine, but the malicious potential is unlimited Put these kind of tools on a corporate network, and trouble is bound to arise. Lets keep the killer searches to the internet.

Ballmer at Denny's

[FunWithHeadlines]

Ballmer as a waiter at Denny's:

"Grand Slam Breakfast! Grand Slam Breakfast! Grand Slam Breakfast! Grand Slam Breakfast!!"

Re:Ballmer at Denny's

[kaffiene]

"uh... want extra sweat with that?"

Re:Ballmer at Denny's

[sharkey]

"Sausages!!! Sausages!!! Sausages!!!"

"WOOOOOOO!!!!! I love this MEAT!!"

Re:Ballmer at Denny's

[emurphy42]

(insert favorite Zippy the Pinhead joke here)

On The Ropes

[Ridgelift]

Later, a typically-enthusiastic Ballmer addressed approximately 500 partner attendees, who grilled the CEO on all things Microsoft.

...Ballmer admitted the platform "had stalled in the last 12 months"...

..."We can't support open source, but we can support interoperability,"...

...may be addressed in the next release [of SQL Server] in 18 months, Ballmer said, but conceded he "really didn't know"...

...when a participant asked why MapPoint had not expanded to South East Asia so such services could be built, Ballmer was stumped...

..."I didn't know we weren't doing well there,"...

..."In the next six months, we'll catch Google in terms of relevancy,"...

...I've never used that interface...

"Give up the fight? No, never," he said.

This is not the Microsoft I know. I remember when Office XP was released, staff was saying things like "this is not a revolutionary version, but rather an evolution in software". They quickly recanted and began preaching "REVOLUTIONARY! REVOLUTIONARY!" again. Microsoft doesn't have great software, is not innovative, and is not liked in the industry the way Google is. What they ARE good at is sales and marketing.
It may sound like Microsoft is conceding in areas, but you watch. Ballmer will come back flailing and ranting "REVOLUTION!" within the next couple of weeks.

Re:On The Ropes

[squidguy]

...when a participant asked why MapPoint had not expanded to South East Asia so such services could be built, Ballmer was stumped... Why expand MapPoint to SE Asia, which will just get pirated anyhow... where's the business case? Or do they plan to sell it in Indonesia for ~ 9718 Rupiah (= 1 USD)?

Who is Better? Breshnev or Nixon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Both Microsoft and Google have acted like Taiwanese companies and catered to Beijing by censoring words and phrases, like "democracy" or "human rights", that conflict with Chinese society. Microsoft is Nixon. Google is Breshnev. Who is better?

Nah

[Colin Smith]

90% market share and 40 billion has *big* inertia. It's happening, but not rapidly, at least not till the tipping point.

Re:Nah

[caluml]

People switched to Google and Gmail pretty fast. I bet you would have said "MSN search is the default search tool, and Hotmail is what MS push all the time, so I doubt anyone will knock them off their spot any time soon" a few years ago.

Re:Nah

[Colin Smith]

"People switched to Google and Gmail pretty fast."

Change a configuration setting in your web browser vs ripping out your OS, then installing, configuring a new one, converting your documents and files etc.

The pace a market changes depends on the level of investment.

Re:Nah

[hey]

Year ago I changed the setting in MS Word to save files as .RTF by default. Now I heardly have any more .DOC files. It recommend that every company's IT department do the same to all machines.

Re:Nah

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell no, I still use Yahoo mail even though I've had a gmail account for a long time. Obviously I use google for searching, but anything with even a tiny bit of intertia (like several years of not-easily-movable old emails) isn't going anywhere quickly.

Plus, the targeted ads on gmail freak me out a little.

Re:Nah

[16K Ram Pack]

Who owns that 40 billion? The shareholders

Now, if you were a shareholder and started seeing no stock growth, would you just want that sitting there, or would you want a slice of it?

Re:Nah

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus, the targeted ads on gmail freak me out a little.

After a second date, a woman sent me an email telling me what a great kisser I was. gmail's targeted ads were all links to dating advice columns with titles like "When is the Right Time to Kiss" and "Learn the Secrets of a Passionate First Kiss".

Can't wait to see what ads I get after we fuck.

The Jerason Banes Guide To Karma Trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

• 1) Read OSNews.
• 2) Carefully write opinionated column on each subject. Do not attempt to challenge Slashdot goodthink.
• 3) Post column to slashdot when story is inevitably posted 2 days later.
• 4) ...
• 5) ...

Re:The Jerason Banes Guide To Karma Trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone doesn't know me as well as he thinks. Otherwise he'd know that I take a lot of flak for challenging Slashdot GroupThink(TM). Not to mention the unlikelyhood of me reading OSNews. Do you see any posts there with my handle? No? Must be because I'm trolling for karma I don't need. (Hello? Caps anyone?)

Will someone mod this idiot down? He's just trolling and attempting to piss me off.

But they are giving up need for compatibility

[SuperKendall]

But Balmer said they could do "Interoperability" which essentially means giving up the "need for compatibility".

They have no choice, as he said it's what customers are asking for. But it does give up the lever that has kept them in the drivers seat.

Wile E Coyote

[phyruxus]

..could not be reached for comment as of the time of posting this article.

Seriously... "We're not number two! There's nothing we can't embrace and extend!" Something's got their panties in a knot... it's the fact that Google is as cool and agile as they used to be, and has the chops to eat their lunch.

Not learning from their mistakes

[Jugalator]

How many switched to MSN Search when they introduced their "Google Killer" some months ago?

And now they're trying to compete with Google Earth with their Virtual Earth. The only problem is that Google has released their software, but Microsoft hasn't. So now people will grow accustomed to their free software and for people to switch, Microsoft probably have to be vastly better for people to change their habits. I can see a similar chain of events unfold as with the Google web search -- vastly superior than what Microsoft can offer, so they try to catch up, when what they need to is to innovate, which they've never been too great about.

"In the next six months, we'll catch Google in terms of relevancy," he said.

LOL. I'll believe it when I see it. I wonder how great MSN Search will be by the end of 2005. Six months and counting, Ballmer.

Re:Not learning from their mistakes

[cowscows]

Yeah, just making something as good as the competition isn't going to get you many converts. Making something a little bit better isn't even going to do the trick, because people are lazy. You have to make something that's a whole lot better, to make it worth the trouble of switching.

MS is going to have a hard time doing that on all the fronts that they're trying to approach. They're going against a dedicated search company in Google, a dedicated database company in Oracle, a dedicated OS developer community with Linux, and less strictly dedicated yet very focused OS producer in Apple, and so on.

Most of those companies have benefited not only from their own abilities and innovations, but also from stagnation of their competitors. Not only did Google release a good search engine, but all of the other ones really sucked at the time. OSX and Linux are good pieces of software, but they really shine when you stand them up next to your average malware ridden windows box.

Microsoft had a lot easier of a time defeating Netscape because Navigator was failing to improve. MS won't get that help from Google or Oracle or Apple. They can't leverage their monopoly as easily anymore, especially not when going against something web-based like Google. They're going to have a hard time competing with software that costs nothing. They're going to have to make some difficult choices and give up some of these fights. They can't win them all.

Golf 101

[p3d0]

Sub-par is a good thing.

.NET at a standstill

[The Slashdolt]

I know the slashdot crowd doesn't like Java, but the reality is that it has a major foothold and it is not letting go. Take for example, this graph. You can clearly see the decline in .NET and the sustainability of Java. Go Mono!

Re:.NET at a standstill

[randomErr]

Platform: .NET - Works on Windows only server
JAVA - Works on anything with 32 bit processor

Overhead: .NET - Large processor and memory overhead
JAVA - Moderate processor and memory overhead (Very configurable)

Developement: .NET (VB) - Easy, but limited abilites. .NET (C#) - Not as easy, but a tone of abilities
JAVA - Not as easy, but a tone of abilities

Conclusion: If developement time is your primary concern then .NET is your best canidate. For everything else there is JAVA.*

* This is my personal comparison between .NET and JAVA. I hate .NET because almost everything I coded in VB and C++ was no long considered 'valid' becuase I couldn't dump it into .NET and get a new bunch of binaries over night. Anything I write in .NET has a memory leak from the poorly writen .NET virtual machine.

Re:.NET at a standstill

[phatrice]

for performance, .NET edges out Java. Although by not too much but this is surely the case.

Re:.NET at a standstill

[Valafar]

Do you have proof of this "memory leak" or are you just spouting off?

What is your source of information for the large processor and memory overhead for .net? What is "large".

If you coded something in C++ (I assume you mean using visual studio 6) you can still compile it with visual studio 7, though not using managed code.

What it appears you're saying is:

"I hate .NET because everything I wrote in Lisp and Eiffle isn't considered valid because I can't dump it into .NET and get a bunch of new binaries over night."

Pure bollocks. .NET is an entirely new development platform. It's not an 'upgrade' (with the exception of the C++ compiler). I'm guessing that you were really talking about the VB 6 applications that you wrote but threw C++ in an attempt to gain some sort of /. coder legitimacy.

I understand that it's your personal opinion but really, if you're going to share it with others (or in this case the whole world) you should at least make an attempt to base it in fact rather than pulling stuff out of your arse.

You should do a bit a research and study. You might actually learn something.

Re:.NET at a standstill

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh really? better performance on what platform? OSX? Solaris? Maybe you're referring to the one and only platform .NET runs on.....

Re:.NET at a standstill

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, what books people are reading does *not* translate into what companies are buying (or not-buying, as in open source).

Re:.NET at a standstill

[Sharpner]

This graph is a misrepresentation.

Java is represented by a single line at the top while .NET practitioners are split across multiple categories, including ".NET languages", C#, and VB. Summing those 3 gives a percentage higher than that recorded for Java. Tap off a bit of the C# if you will, and a larger bit of the VB to represent folks still working with VB6, and you've still got a very competitive situation.

Moreover, all of this ignores the question of whether book sales represent anything meaningful anymore. I used to be an avid tech book buyer, but I almost never buy them anymore -- what I need to know is all there on the web. I'm actually just as likely to buy a book covering an area I don't use as often, as a means of getting a good summary or introduction.

Re:.NET at a standstill

[Sharpner]

> .NET (VB) - Easy, but limited abilites. .NET (C#) - Not as easy, but a tone of abilities

Your view seems colored by experience with pre-.NET VB. I doubt you've looked very closely at VB.NET, because its capabilities very nearly match C#'s.

> I hate .NET because almost everything I coded in VB and C++ was no long[er] considered 'valid' becuase I couldn't dump it into .NET and get a new bunch of binaries over night.

This is tantamount to saying you hate .NET because it's new and not like what you're used to. No painless migration path was promised. It's a brand new platform.

> Anything I write in .NET has a memory leak from the poorly writen .NET virtual machine.

This assertion is really suspect. The .NET garbage collector makes memory leaks far less likely than in VB6 or unmanaged C++. Having written a lot of .NET code, I can say you'd have to be a phenomenally bad coder to have a memory leak in everything you write, and you'd be just fooling yourself to attribute it to a flaw in the platform.

Searching Applications

[Anonymous Coward]

"We'll use search to peer into a range of business applications which would allow multiple applications to be searched simultaneously.

"Take for instance the Siebel database. Now I've never used that interface. But I'd love to go to it and say 'who is the account manager for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia?'," Ballmer told the partners.

Except, what if you're not supposed to see that data? You have to be able to apply security to the data returned from these applications. In most cases that means writing an interface with the application, which any enterprise-level search product already provides. This is just more empty promises from a company that continues to fall behind.

.NET dying?

[PornMaster]

We won't believe it until Netcraft confirms it!

Re:.NET dying?

[Monkey]

I agree! This is a graph based on what? Book sales??

There is a shitload of java related books out there. There are far fewer published .NET titles.

Is the number of books sold on a particular development platform really indicative of the sucess or penetration of that particular technology?

I'd prefer to see some more quantitative hard stats on platform deployment(like Netcraft confirming it!) before leaping to any conclusions.

Only if they "mine" archive.org

[Imposter_of_myself]

Part of what gives google a feature that is well liked is its cache - I don't have to go to the site, I can just look at the cache. That cache took time to build up. The only way that MS could build up a cache of that duration would be to mine the WayBack machine on archive.org. Now if they could mix that with the clustering of vivisimo.com, then they would have a better product.

We'll catch Google!

[cryptor3]

*Shakes fist in air*

*Twirls mustache*

"...if it's the last thing I do!"

Re:We'll catch Google!

[Anonymous Coward]

We'd have utterly dominated IT if it wasn't for you meddling kids!

Re:We'll catch Google!

[s1234d]

How about: "Why do you hate our freedom?" ;-)

I predict

[LesPaul75]

and vowed to keep fighting search giant Google.

I predict they'll soon announce that they are stealing... er... competing by doing something similar to AJAX.

Re:I predict

[egypt_jimbob]

It's not a prediction if it was the previous story.

Re:I predict

[LesPaul75]

I gotta be more careful to add the "" tags to my posts.

Re:I predict

[LesPaul75]

I gotta be more careful to add the "" tags to my posts.

It is? No!

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Spotlight everyday. I even use it to launch apps when I'm too lazy to load up the Applications folder. I also use the Comments field to tag files with the names of clients, and I keep a Smart Folder that holds all the various projects I work on, sorted by client.

Desktop search is a way of getting files to come to you instead of you going to them. If you have a 500GB hard drive of the future 90% full of stuff, have fun with your massive, unmaintainable folder heirarchy when everyone else will just use Smart Folders and search queries to find what they want.

Remember Yahoo's web directory? Do you still browse through genres and categories to find a website? Or do you just do some search terms in Google and click the top results?

Reminds me of the weird guys who hate that iTunes manages their folders for them and insist on managing all 100GB of their MP3s, without realizing iTunes will not only do it for them, but also makes using folders pointless and antiquated anyway. As data quantity increases, manually managing vast folder heirarchies is forcing undue burden on the users, most of whom dump everything into one folder anyway and sort the contents by "Kind" or by "Name." Desktop search takes it even further and easier.

Obg. Simpsons

[TheBigTBird]

The board of directors at Microsoft have gotten wind of Google. Ballmer: Gentlemen, we've got to sink Google, and fast! It's time to call in a favor from Washington. Senator: [on phone] Yes...yes, I understand...I'll take care of it personally. [drives by Google in his limo, tosses a brick at the door, laughs evilly, and drives off] Larry: Dad, did you hear something? Sergey: I-dunno.

Re:Obg. Simpsons

[randomErr]

Be honest, the Senator would have his driver have his butler has his cook who is in the US on an expired VISA do it.

perfected? not.

[everphilski]

Google hasn't "perfected" search. They have a good search engine compared to the search engines that are out there. But search can be made a lot better.
If Google has indeed "perfected" search, then Google might as well stop now... get rid of all the engineers, keep a few IT people to keep the server farm functional, and live off of the "Ads by Goooooooooooogle"
No, my friend, search has a ways to go, whether Microsoft brings it, or Google brings it, or someone new jumps in the fray...
-everphilski-

Re:Peter Principle - Maybe

[Strudelkugel]

Your post was modded funny, but I think you point out a serious fact: Ballmer just isn't up to the job of being Microsoft CEO. That doesn't mean he isn't a smart individual, or very capable in some ways.

Think about Apple, Oracle, maybe even Linux development as managed by Torvalds - What would happen to any of these organizations/efforts without the people who were central to their creation and success? (We know what happened to Apple.) Getting back to the corporate example, as big as these organizations are, one person at the top can make a huge difference, for good or bad. Look what happened to DEC, Wang Labs, IBM, AT&T when the chief exec went pear-shaped.

It's also quite possible to go from bad or mediocre to good - Note Yahoo! before Terry Semel, GE before Jack Welch, Chrysler before Iaccoca. Of course /. is focused on technology, so the tendency is to believe the success or failure of a company is almost completely dependent on the quality of its product technology. I think it is much more dependent on the leadership of the company (like anything else, sports teams, politics, military, etc.) /.-ers post about the various OSS personalities, but discuss Microsoft and Apple almost exclusively in terms of their tech. Gates is a brilliant guy, Jobs is a brilliant guy. Ballmer was never the right choice as Microsoft CEO IMHO, but I don't know who is. I don't know who could replace Jobs, either. I'm sure there are people who would be great CEOs of both companies. I'm guessing Ballmer is on his way out. The big question - What will Microsoft do when it does have the right CEO?

Don't bang a whore(Microsoft) without a condom(Win

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps you don't know, Microsoft has been in bed with the OEMs and they will only pre-install Windows on all new computers. Microsoft could release next version without a single update and call it Windows XPP, it would still get installed on hundreds of millions of computers worldwide.

(Windows is the condom, Microsoft is the whore and OEMs are the desperate clients. Lets just say that without the condom, OEMs are fucked. Note: Apple's condom is too small and Linux condom comes with no guarantee. OEMs don't wanna be the testers. They'll wait until mostly everyone is using Linux/Apple.)

Search inside MS-server-based websites

[G4from128k]

But Balmer said they could do "Interoperability" which essentially means giving up the "need for compatibility".

I'm not sure that interoperability means the end of "need for compatibility." Of course, they will offer interoperability. But I'll wager its just another embrace-and-extend play in which MS plays better with MS. Sure, MS won't prevent Windows users from using Google, but I wonder if MS will try to create an integrated search tool that gets instant high market-share merely by being embedded in the OS.

Going further, what stops MS from offering integrated search products that can access MS-proprietary data structures (ASP, .net, IIS, SQL Server, etc.). With the large number of websites built for IE and run on MS server stuff, MS search could go places that Google would have a harder time following.

Monopoly != no competition

[MarkByers]

He is admiting that MS is losing in places, hence has competition, hence is not a monopoly.

The conclusion doesn't follow from the previous statements. You can hold a monopoly in A while at the same time be losing to competitors in B and C.

You still have the monopoly in A.

Oftopic. Bush as Ballmer

[Sir_Eptishous]

Like someone else who is in over their head.
You know, the guy whose father was President of the United States...
I imagine if it wasn't for that kind of nepotismal influence (sp?) he would be selling used cars in Waco...

Our dogs have caught their tails...

[sczimme]

And if you thinks canines are *normally* confused, you should see the looks on their faces when they manage to catch their tails. It's a combination of "Aha - success!" and "Now what?".

Possibly not unlike Ballmer's reaction to the catching of Google by Microsoft - if it should happen, of course.

Disclaimer: this phenomenon works under only very limited circumstances (e.g small dogs w/ long tails). The catch-the-tail thing won't work for most normal companies^W dogs.

Re:Our dogs have caught their tails...

[jd]

Are you suggesting Ballmer is a Klee Kai?

(There were some bigger Japanese dogs that looked a lot like Ballmer, but they couldn't chase their tail.)

Re:Our dogs have caught their tails...

[sczimme]

Are you suggesting Ballmer is a Klee Kai?

Nah - those look like friendly, clever dogs. :-)

We have Lhasa Apsos. Ours don't have the dust mop appearance but do have rather long tails that curl up over their backs (which apparently facilitates chasing).

Re:Our dogs have caught their tails...

[jd]

Oh wow! Dougal from the Magic Roundabout! (Well, almost. You can see Dougal's face.)

.NET, LONGHORN, SEARCHING ...

[Anonymous Coward]

A HUGE part of the Corporate story is

(a) How easy is it to administer, and

(b) How do we keep the data coherent

and both of those, plus mobility, lead you
to the server space, where Linux not M$ is
the natural owner for _SMART_ enterprises.

Perhaps M$ should license and contribute to Mono.

Re:Don't bang a whore(Microsoft) without a condom(

[DrSkwid]

a Windows condom that is full of holes, how useful !!

SQL Server shortcomings

[antxxxx]

The only shortcomings of sql server refered to in the article were the lack of spatial storage capabilities.

If these were needed by anybody they would have been implemented in mysql, which as everybody knows is a much better database than sql server.

Re:SQL Server shortcomings

[La Camiseta]

They are already implemented.

Re:SQL Server shortcomings

[ergo98]

If these were needed by anybody they would have been implemented in mysql, which as everybody knows is a much better database than sql server.

Sure, everybody that is a dumbass.

In any case, you do have a pertinent point: Spatial storage is an edge requirement for a very small subset of users. That fact that it's not in SQL Server means nothing for the overwhelming majority of RDBMS users.

Re:SQL Server shortcomings

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

[...]lack of spatial storage capabilities.
If these were needed by anybody they would have been implemented in mysql[...]

(DING!) Your wish is granted...

Re:SQL Server shortcomings

[gregarican]

a much better database than sql server. Perhaps define "better" so we have an idea of your criteria. In terms of features and functionality SQL Server is light years beyond mySQL. The list of mySQL gotchas is pretty lengthy and the main gotcha I see regarding SQL Server is the fact that it's produced by Microsoft and lots of folks love to hate on them. Maybe morons having a blank sa password leading to the Slammer exploit, but that's hardly a gotcha for a halfwitted DBA...

Google's in its "last throes"

[presarioD]

Sorry couldn't resist! :-)

Also the obligatory:

At first they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, and then you win. (Ghandi)

is in order as well.

Re:Google's in its "last throes"

[MyLongNickName]

Everyone here is mocking Microsoft... hmmmm....

Re:Google's in its "last throes"

[KD5YPT]

Actually, Microsoft is the one that started it...

Microsoft ignores the users (us).
Now they mock us (for being stupid).
Then they fight us (for trying to find alternative). ... we're not yet at the win part.

Look on the bright side

[b1t r0t]

Ballmer shouldn't let a standstill in Microsoft's .Net strategy get him down. He just needs to remember that famous song from Microsoft The Musical:

Whenever life gets you down...
And you just want to look like a clown...
Keep one word in mind...
And happiness you'll find...
...ohhhhh...

Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!
Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!

Why Microsoft must "beat" Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft wants to destroy Google for the same reason they wanted to destroy Java, Netscape, and Linux: competing platforms. Google represents a rising platform that makes Windows irrelevant because it's delivered over the 'net to anybody's browser. Why do you think Microsoft is suddenly releasing an AJAX framework that will probably tie everyone to Internet Explorer--a Microsoft platform? They want to remove platform-independence in all technologies.

Everything Microsoft does is motivated by maintaining their platform dominance. You can analyze all of thier behavior and trace it back to that. They sell X-Box at a loss to maintain a platform. Attack Google to safeguard the Windows platform. Start the Windows-centric .NET to compete with the platform-independent Java. And so on.

It's not about developers, developers, developers. Developers just prop up the platform.

Good ol' competition

[dtfinch]

What would Microsoft do without it? Not much I bet.

Viel Spass

[omb]

In English, Much Fun

Oh, joy, I knew that there was a /. department in M$, and this is joyous, Balmer did not tell them
what the party line was

so we see lame posts

they really are in trouble.

It's a Tissue Issue

[Quirk]

MS won't catch up with Google for the same reason Open Source won't catch up with MS on the desktop.

Point and Click users want what their friends and family want. They want to share pics, audio/video files, text files, powerpoint presentations, etc., etc. And on the desktop MS has won the race to place first in the consumers' mind in that regard.

When you buy tissue do you think tissue or do you think Kleenex? You might buy some generic brand buy you think Kleenex. Until interoperability becomes commonplace buyers will think Windows on the desktop because that's what their event horizon presents them with.

Remember the joke in Pulp Fiction... the baby tomato out for a walk with it's parent tomatoes dallies behind, angering the papa tomato, who stomps the baby tomato and yells: "Ketchup"... when you think ketchup you think Heinz, when consumers think Personal Computing they think Windows. I doubt that the majority even know what an OS is, as it all comes bundled.

While I'm on a rant, I think MS has chased the dream of the PC as a multimedia server, but I don't think they saw the dual core, multiprocessor model coming to the mass consumer market and their licensing strategy will have to morph to fit the market, as what is the PC becomes an appliance destined for the home basement as a server while laptops become ubiquitous.

Perhaps the most ironic POV prevalent in Open Source is that users are lusers and marketers are hypocritical scum, yet there are marketing people who would happily undertake to promote Open Source products, for the simple reason of undertaking the challenge, but when their kind is treated as piriah it's unlikely too many will be forth coming.

Re:It's a Tissue Issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you really that stupid?

Re:It's a Tissue Issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Was there any point to mentioning the joke in Pulp Fiction? All you had to say was "when you think ketchup..."

Re:It's a Tissue Issue

[limabone]

Right..and when you think internet browser you think Netsca....oh wait...I guess things can change.

Monopolies are evil

[99BottlesOfBeerlnMyF]

It's about time that the world started to recognize what an evil monopoly M$ really is.

google v. microsoft management

[geoff lane]

It's simple really. Google finds a bright lad/lass with a cool idea and then gives him/her resources and time. Every so often something really neat emerges.

Microsoft subjects a cool idea to testing by management torture, pounds it into some preexisting project, removes the parts that compete with existing MS products and then works out how to make money from it. The result is Microsoft Bob.

Death to Oreo's!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fig Newtons Rule!!!!

Clueless

[DogDude]

They have to first overcome the problem that people like Google and don't like MS.

Why do geeks have such a hard time understanding that geeks are a *tiny subset* of the entire population. Are geeks really so ignorant to think, "Well, I think this way, so everybody else must, too"? What's up with that?

Regardless of why you and other geeks think this, you couldn't be more wrong.

I suggest that you and other geeks crawl out of your holes once in a while to see what the whole world is all about.

Re:Clueless

[daeley]

Why do geeks have such a hard time understanding that geeks are a *tiny subset* of the entire population. Are geeks really so ignorant to think, "Well, I think this way, so everybody else must, too"? What's up with that?

Yeah, what's up with that? Kind of like 20 years ago when geeks were the only ones using the Internet. They probably thought it was cool so everybody else would too. Stupid geeks! It's not like anybody would use it for non-geek purposes like, say, selling pet supplies. ;)

Re:Clueless

[metamatic]

The article you linked to talks about respected companies. Respect is not the same as liking. Businessmen respect Microsoft's success to date, but that doesn't mean they like Microsoft.

There was a poll around the same time as your (rather dated) cited article, which showed that Microsoft was the #1 vendor businessmen would like never to have to deal with again.

Re:Clueless

[hairyfeet]

I don't think the problem is dislike,I think it's the fact that they are slowly but surely alienating their customer base.Their are a lot of older folk that DON'T want to give up their Win98.I personally will keep my Win2k over Winxp anyday.Most offices I've worked for can't stand WinXP and want to stick with Win2k. Instead of doing the smart thing and offering support and selling new services and add ons for these OS's they are trying to FORCE people to take WinXP.And no one likes to feel pushed or forced,Especially when the OS they have now is productive and they feel comfortable with it. I personally think that this is going to help Linux more than anything else.Most folks that I've talked to (except for gamers) Don't care for XP and don't like the thought of being forced to learn new layouts and deal with bells and whistles they don't want and can't get rid of.Longhorn looks to be even more cruft that most people don't want,Use,Or need(movie maker,anyone?). As the junk keeps getting thicker in windows and they keep dropping support for the older versions more folks are going to want a simple,Easy to use OS that they can afford to learn because it's not going to be tossed a couple of years down the road. The dumbest move M$ could do is throw out Win98 and Win2k and think people will blindly go with anything they offer.Only the OEM market will jump on Longhorn.The rest will probably do like me and stick with the flavor of windows we like until we have to get a new machine(which if you're not playing games isn't very often). When that day comes I'll buy one of those pre-installed Linux machines so I don't have to worry about drivers and won't have to worry about being abandoned when my machine isn't hot anymore.

Re:Clueless

[strider44]

You do know that article is four, coming on five, years old don't you?

They'll catch Google?

[The Lynxpro]

Perhaps Microsoft should just concentrate on catching up with their existing competitors before proclaiming they'll vanquish new competitors.

*Microsoft needs to concentrate on getting Longhorn out the door in 2006 without resorting to cutting further features.

*Microsoft needs to figure out how to tackle spyware issues on the Windows platform.

*Microsoft has to convince a good segment of the videogame enthusiasts not to wait for the Playstation3 and buy an Xbox360 instead.

*Microsoft needs to figure out how to beat Apple's iPod and iTunes Music Store.

*Microsoft needs to convince Corporate America to upgrade off of Windows2000.

*Microsoft needs Internet Explorer7 to beat Firefox feature-for-feature to regain mindshare.

All of these issues should be the focus of Microsoft before Steve Ballmer starts mouthing off about taking down Google or any other upstart that captures 15 minutes of fame in the press away from Redmond.

Catch Up..What does that even mean?

[B11]

If Ballmer is suggesting that they are going to "catch up" to Google by offering a search engine of similar quality, fine then, but that still leaves the question of "so what?" What is going to intice people to MSN search over Google? The name Microsoft? Users will switch because they're running Windows and MS Office? I just don't see it. Google works great (for most people), they dominate their market, and they're constantly improving and adding new features that more closely enhance their core product, unlike Microsoft. I really think it is time for Microsoft to look within itsself and evaluate what they are "good" at and stick to that. I see them divesting in all but consumer-targeted software (including XBOX titles) add OS sometime in the future.

Ford has caught Ferrari before

[asoap]

Ford caught ferrari years ago, back in the day when Enzo Ferrari was still alive. His whole entire engineering department quit on him because they were tired of his wife stickiing her nose where it didn't belong.

Becuase of this he was then willing to sell his company. One of the interested buyers was Ford. They had a meeting with Ferrari, with all the paperwork ready for him to sign. He looked it over, turned to his friend and said "Let's go get lunch" and never came back. This pissed off the guys at Ford and they vowed to beat Ferrari at his own game. That is when they introduced the original GT40 which cames 1st, 2nd and 3rd (I believe) at LeMans.

And thus, that is how Ford kicked Ferrari's ass. Although, I don't know how difficult that was considering that Ferrari's engineering team left him. Regardless though, it was still a massive accomplishment for Ford.

Re:Ford has caught Ferrari before

[Anonymous Coward]

-1, Offtopic
+97, Interesting

Re:Ford has caught Ferrari before

[tshak]

How is this post insightful? What does some Ford supercar beating the Ferrari have anything to do with the analogy of a Tarus beating a Ferrari?

Re:Ford has caught Ferrari before

[asoap]

Huh... That is suprising. I thought if anything it would have been moderated interesting. I was just providing some food for thought.

Although, it can relate to the analogy of Ford Taurus beating a Ferrari, because that analogy is flawed in this discussion of Microsoft going after Google. Where Google is a company that specializes in Search Engines, and simply cataloging the internet so people can find what they want. Much like Ferrari which is a race team that specializes in building race cars. Compare that to Microsoft that is a company that makes shit loads of software. Operating System, search engines, portals , business software, gaming systms, etc, etc.. Is more like Ford that also makes Pickup trucks, minivans, sports cars, economy, luxury cars, muscle cars, SUVs, etc, etc...

So if the original poster wanted to use cars for an analogy, the proper one would have been Ford vs. Ferrari, and not Ford Taurus vs. Ferrari (360 Modena?)

In which case as I pointed out from History is that Ford has beaten Ferrari. So it's possible that Microsoft can beat Google at there own game.

Re:Ford has caught Ferrari before

[Anonymous Coward]

> And thus, that is how Ford kicked Ferrari's ass.

Actually that was Lola. The Ford GT40 was designed and built by Lola in England under contract to Ford Advanced Vehicles in Slough, England.

> it was still a massive accomplishment for Ford.

Well, I suppose they did pay for it, yes.

Re:Ford has caught Ferrari before

[Moofie]

Ford has beaten Ferrari, therefore Microsoft can beat Google.

Reasoning by analogy isn't reasoning.

Competing with Google

[NetSettler]

"We'll catch Google," Balmer went on to explain off-the-record, "After all, Google only has access to what people post on the web, but we've done "instruction-stream prefetch" one better by inventing the notion of "html-page-post pre-index", where we watch what pages our customers are developing as they type it into FrontPage and pre-compile all the index data. Google is forced to spider the web at great expense, but we are the web and we can skip that costly and slow step. We've modified FrontPage to talk directly to our servers so we'll instantly index anything users upload, and our FrontPage customers will naturally be ahead of the game. We'd even have patented that process, too, but some guy named "netsettler" on Slashdot published our cool idea before we got the patent claim submitted and the patent office, in a rare move, denied our claim. That will be the last time his pages show up on our search engine..."

;)

Re:Competing with Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that related to MS favoring "first to file" in the new US patent system?

Re:Competing with Google

[NetSettler]

Is that related to MS favoring "first to file" in the new US patent system?

Not intentionally. It was just light humor. I was trying to stay on topic.

Re:Competing with Google

[Master of Transhuman]

"I was trying to stay on topic."

You must be new here.

Re:Microsoft has lost geek appeal

[Ucklak]

Microsoft has lost geek appeal. They'll never regain that crown with all the DRM, activation, and expiration dates now infested within their OS.

Someone who buys the Intel microscope to use with Windows isn't a geek, they're a consumer. Someone who builds a robot and an interface to go with it is a geek and they're not using XP like the days they were using Dos, Win3.1, and Win95.

Microsoft may have been smart by playing to dumb masses but us nerds just don't like Microsoft anymore. We want something to work and not have to reinstall because we switch motherboard.

I can tell you that 15 year olds today only use Microsoft to play games or pirate, not as a development platform like the 15 year olds a generation ago.

Which SQL?

[TwoTailedFox]

Microsoft need to view this sentence: Why use Microsoft SQL Server, when you can have the free MySQL?

Best match i got from MSN search

[sundru]

The best match I've had from MSN search is when i typed "google" in a msn search box went to google and then did my search ;-)
partly because am soo lazy as to change IE default page to google *smile*

Re:Best match i got from MSN search

[PenGun]

Lazy you are not. The whole point of computers is to automate stuff. Go ahead and type stuff, my stuff just comes up. I actually am lazy.

PenGun
Do What Now ??? ... Standards and Practices !

MS Has Lost Focus

[ehaggis]

Ballmar's statements and (lack of) answers are symptomatic of a company who is fighting on too many fronts. The core of their business is the desktop / desktop suite, which they do well.

The backend, services and innovation are another story. MS is competing against companies that have their own (non-MS)set of rules. Google develops innovation, MySQL promotes enterprise use, apache values simplicity and security, Linux embraces stability, etc...

MS finds itself in genres where they do not write the rules and is in a quandry.

Do not write MS off though. It only takes a moment of clarity and focus for them to get back on track.

No, Just Another Round of Lies

[FreeUser]

A new era of Honesty in Marketing

* In a few years Windows will be competitive with Linux for clusters

Yeah, but is it true? I'm rather doubtful windows will ever be competative with Linux for clusters.

Longhorn will be "supercocmpetitive" with apache.

Again, how much "truth" is there in this statement? Longhorn remains vaporous, and when it finally ships (late), will it be competative based on features, security, or deliberately introduced incompatabilities?

Is it the case thah people can see through the fud, so they're concentrating on reality?

No, its the case of more FUD, misrepresentations, and outright lies masquerading as the "truth." The difference is, lying about their own products, particularly ones that don't exist yet, isn't quite as transparent as lying about existing products that consistently and demonstrably perform better and cheaper than Microsoft asserts.

MSN search VS Google

[Exter-C]

Over the recent few months I have noticed a trend begining on my small to medium sized web applications. I have now began to get an increased amount of people coming from MSN while the numbers of google visitors has been stable. That can mean many things however I tend to think that it means that MSN is begining to catch up with google as far as web search content is concerned. In many other areas Microsoft is not really a direct competitor to Google (well at this stage).

MOD PARENT UP(even with the bad spelling)

[WilliamSChips]

-nt-

Standard Operating Procedure

[romanr]

1) Get caught with pants down by competitor #1
2) Start bad mouthing competitor #1
3) Buy #2 or #3 competitor to #1
4) Choose one or both of:
4a) Throw additional resources at new aquisition until product is better then #1 (rare)
4b) Give away existing product from #2 or #3 killing market for #1 (preferred)
5) Rest on laurels until new #1 arrives
6) Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

Instance not class

[SuperKendall]

The parent said *A* Taurus catching *A* Ferrari. If you put 200 Ford Taurus on a racetrack with one Ferrari, I can pretty mcuh assure you none of the Taurus will lap the Ferrari.

But on a side note related to the question you raise, why would you rather have the Taurus when companies around you are building Insights and Pryuses? Why would you rather have a platform of popularity rooted in the past instead of thinking to future popularity? That is the issue Microsoft faces, they are chasing after things popular in the past, not the future.

Re:Instance not class

[PW2]

If it's an endurance race over a period of years, the Ford will catch up.

Re:Instance not class

[orasio]

"The parent said *A* Taurus catching *A* Ferrari. If you put 200 Ford Taurus on a racetrack with one Ferrari, I can pretty mcuh assure you none of the Taurus will lap the Ferrari."

I could use 20 Taurus to block the Ferrari, and win the race with the others.
I didn't bother to create a nice analogy to MS practices, because in terms of muddy competition, Microsoft is much more creative than I am.

Re:Instance not class

[Anonymous Coward]

But if it is a pina colada and the cars are ice cubes, they will all melt at the same time.

Re:Instance not class

[Anonymous Coward]

But if it is a pina colada and the cars are ice cubes, they will all melt at the same time.

QED above: Steven Wright posts at Slashdot.

Re:Instance not class

[robertjw]

If it's an endurance race over a period of years, the Ford will catch up.

Interesting, I've never seen and endurance race last years. Typcally 24 hours is long enough. Funny, I didn't see any Tauruses in the results for this year's Daytona 24 hour Race. Several Ferraris, and several other Fords, but no Tauruses. Of course to be fair the comparison should have been made with a specific Ferrari model, maybe the Ferrari 360.

Regardless, I would feel comfortable stating that given almost any kind of course and length of race the Ferrari 360 would significantly embarass anyone with a Ford Taurus.

Re:Instance not class

[Pyroja]

The problem with that Hybrid vs. Taurus comparison is that.. Well, it's too good.

Yes, Insights and Priuses are forward-thinking vehicles designed for a beter future and all that jazz. Yes, Tauruses are traditionals sedans built on the concepts of the past and whatnot.

The fact is, though, that the Taurus still massively outsells the Prius and the Insight.

The Taurus averages about 350,000 sold per year since 1985. ( http://www.internetautoguide.com/reviews/45-int/mi dsize-cars/ford/taurus/2004/ )
The Prius sold all of 24,000 in '03. ( http://slate.msn.com/id/2096191/ )
From 1999 to 2002, the Insight sold just under 11,000 units. ( http://www.insightcentral.net/KB/sales.html )

Take that same concept and apply it to Microsoft vs. "The New Guys" (or whatever you want to call all the various hot new things MicroSoft must defeat to stay relevant) and... You get a very realistic comparison. So a good deal of people are using FireFox and OpenOffice, and Google is THE search engine. People ae still doing all these things from a Windows desktop, and a vast majority stick to the standard MicroSoft offering anyhow.

I'd most definitely love to see the Prius and thew Insight trounce the Taurus. It ain't happenin' soon.

I'd most definitely love to se "The New Guys" trounce MicroSoft. It ain't happenin' soon.

[Be Free.]

Suggestions for Microsoft.

[LWATCDR]

Some lessons for Microsoft to learn
1. You can not win them all.
Why is Microsoft going after Google at all? Is Microsoft loosing money? To beat Google it might just take more money than Microsoft will ever make back.
2. .NET needs to fully support Mac OS/X and Linux! .Net is failing because you only have a CLR for Windows. Yes Mono is nice enough but Java is still the best solution for having one program that will run anywhere. Why not use native code if you are going to run only on Windows. Oh and you pissed off the Visual Basic developers. Visual Basic .NET is too different and a pain for them to port to. Or so I hear I have never learned VB. Blah blah java sucks... go away.
3. Focus, focus, focus....
It is hard to take Microsoft seriously about getting Longhorn out and or making Windows more secure when you are buying up accounting software, fighting with Apple about who as the most open music system, and saying your going after Google.
4. Stop sounding like a stupid spoiled brat..
I mean Open source is a commie plot... Get real please. You are sounding like the tin hat people.

5. Learn from your own past.
Open source is here to stay. Fight it at your own peril. Think of all the companies that stuck with CP/M when you came out with MS-DOS. Think about the companies that stuck with dos when you came out with Windows 3.1... What you have done to others can also be done to you.

Whatchy gonna do, Steve?

[jafac]

. . . "cut off their air-supply?"

Typical jet-lagged CEO

[Anonymous Coward]

Ballmer made the classic mistake of US CEOs: jetting into Australia, scheduling meetings whilst lagged and relying on his engaging personality (the personality that just evaported due to jetlag) to get him past inadequate local briefings.

The meeting with Tony Abbott was a cute move -- Tony has foolishly announced that he wants a $billion national health records system running within 12 months. You'd have think he'd have learnt from the dismal cost overruns of health records systems in the UK and been cautious. But our Tony is a boots-and-all boy, and since the timeline is so tight MS and other COTS software suppliers are the only possibility.

You'd think Ballmer would have learned from his last visit. Then I was in a meeting with Ballmer and some senior university administrators (including a Nobel prizewinner and a few widely-read scientists, the sort of crowd where only MDs are called doctor as everyone has a PhD) when Ballmer told us all just how stupid we were. I couldn't believe it -- one of the world's best corporate marketeers making the basic mistake of insulting the customer. What was most amusing was that Ballmer's bad behaviour has done more to make those administrators look kindly upon "Linux on the desktop" than any amount of trials and pro-Linux PR.

Re:Typical jet-lagged CEO

[Master of Transhuman]

"I couldn't believe it -- one of the world's best corporate marketeers making the basic mistake of insulting the customer."

Read any biography of Bill Gates. This has been his SOP since day one. He alternately screams at customers - BIG customers - or cajoles them by saying, "The next one will be huge! You'll see!" (quote from John Belushi from the "Blues Brothers").

Windows

[alecks]

What exactly is substandard about Windows?? sure there may be a few things here and there but over all, it's a very complex OS that fits perfectly for average users, enterprises, servers, etc..
If you take the time to think about the sheer complexity of the OS and everything it can do with minimal fuss, it's quite amazing. I wonder how stable MacOS would be if every Joe Co. was making hardware for it and every Joe Other was writing software. I don't know about you guys, but since Win 98, I haven't had ANY problems with Windows. It NEVER crashes, It's fast, Easy to configure and install new devices and software, security has never been an issue as long as I don't blindly click OK just make dialog boxes go away... I don't get it!! Windows is a great OS... i wish people would stop bitch and realize that at the level of complexity that MS has to support, they're doing a pretty damn good job. Show me an OS that is as compatible and easy to use as windows and i'll shut up.
As a side note, I think MacOS is also a great OS, but I'm curious how that would change if Apple made a MacOS install CD that I can pop into any piece of hardware from 5, even 10, years ago,and have it run (ingoring speed). Linux may do this, but it looses in compatibility and ease of use.

Re:Windows

[kc0re]

HAHAHAHAHHAHA.. Oh, sorry.

I haven't had ANY problems with Windows. It NEVER crashes
you're shi**ing me right?
Hell it Blue Screened on BILL at a Presentation!
security has never been an issue as long as I don't blindly click OK just make dialog boxes go away
You don't use your computer online do you?

Let's check some of those off

[SuperKendall]

Unified Application Architecture

Meaningless, therefore we shall say it's been achieved elsewhere.

Application Interoperability

I would say OO has reached that point, which is really what you mean even though you use the generic term "Application". What other apps really "interoperate" to any great extent.

Legacy Application Support (Win32)

Wine

Desktop Office Software Solution

OO when the Access like bit is really solid, if it can read access files. Not there yet.

3rd Party Hardware Support

Not there yet. Not sure what keeps this down as much as it is.

Game Publisher Support

Irrelevant in the New Age of the Consoles. Not for the mass market, anyway. And Microsoft has pushed that point by insisting so many game makers release to the XBox before the PC.

Seamless platform transition ability for business users

Wine based distros are getting closer, Apple is also drawing close. At work I seemlessly switched to using OO from Office; platform switch would not be hard at all if a good access replacement is there.

Re:Let's check some of those off

[hermank]

Good points!

I heard that there is alternative of Access in OSS but I've lost the name. Can someone help me here?

Now, how about a phase-swapping-point-generating game?

Legacy Hardware Support?

hmm... windows is not looking good here.

Legacy Desktop Office Application Interoperability?

hmm... MS is not looking good here too.

Seamless 3rd Party platform Interoperability?

hmm... MS is not looking good here too.

3rd Party Application Interoperability

hmm... seems FOSS and MS are roughly the same here.

Seamless 3rd Party platform transition

well.. should i really need to add comments here?

Application Architecture

hmm... MS has no edge here. As the title said, It is in the APPLICATION! not the platform. You cannot say apps easier to design/develop/maintain simply because they are written on Win32 and interoperate well.

Legacy Application Support

hey! how about non win32 app? MS seems not to have adv here too.

And grandparent, what is the advantage of MS on 'Seamless platform transition ability for business users'? From Win98 to W2K to WinXP? how's that difficult for Linux from 1.0 to 2.1 to 2.6? or OO 0.7 to 1.1 or KDE?

Ahem

[musicscene]

Bwahahahaha!

Ah Steve... you always say that when your back is against the wall. Sure throw a billion dollars at it to start the spin machine and we'll all think you have... until the numbers come out and you can chalk up yet another billion dollar failure.

So... in short... Bwahahahahaha!

Are you sure you're not thinking of the...

[hullabalucination]

,,,Canyonero?

http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/thesimpsons/canyone ro.htm

Re:Don't bang a whore(Microsoft) without a condom(

[Anonymous Coward]

hey...what do you think those Windows patches are for ?

Sure, they'll "catch"

[X.25]

If Google was human, I would recommend Ballmer to "catch" Google for a specific part of the body. That's just about all they can "catch".

Whose to blame?

[Rusty Nuts]

http://www.geocities.com/penguinlineup

Not parent poster

[Anonymous Coward]

=cough=
that's [command-tab] and [command-`]
=cough=
the 'option' key says "Alt" but is never referred to as such
=cough=

Re:Not parent poster

[AKAImBatman]

Heh. Good point. I've never quite been able to break the habbit of calling it "Alt-Tab" even though Alt has nothing to do with it. It works out, though, because Windows users seem to understand the terminology better. :-)

Re:Not parent poster

[kpaul]

Or clover-tab, as my charming co-worker, unable to remember 'command', calls it.

Spotlight is not just "desktop search"

[Anonymous Coward]

Dismissing Spotlight for being just "desktop search" is ignoring the different strategy Apple has taken. The examples you gave were OS addons. Even the Longhorn searching is considered to be an addon to XP. Spotlight is different in that it is integrated way down low near the filesystem. By hooking every file action that goes in and out, they've provided an instantaneous feedback loop for anything that deals with the filesystem.

Remember when Nautilus polling open directories every X many seconds was news? Everyone was like "why is there no interface for this", because the problem of having another program modify the directory and Nautilus not knowing was an issue. This problem is *gone* in Tiger. Everything happens instantaneously because of the framework Spotlight has provided. Its also faster than any of these other apps can hope to be because of the integration level.

When developers say "we need an API", Apple listens and comes up with a well thought out one. Its not shit and incompatible with itself for the first four iterations like MS. There aren't three different solutions with completely different features and APIs in each one like Linux. There's one solution that doesn't suck and people can use instantly. Oh you can bitch that they're closed source, but their stuff is open enough for you to jump ship if they go bad. When Apple says "we do interoperability", people don't laugh at them like MS. Your Apple "fanboys" are well aware of the tradeoffs.

Searching has reached the end of the road.

[tolkienfan]

Ballmer says: does anyone believe that search will be the same as it is in ten years time?

Well, search technology has reached the end of the road in relevancy - until one technology progresses:
Natural language processing.

Currently, all searches require human processing. Google realized this and created a system which pulls human cues into a database. A truly great idea: people rank websites by linking to them. Amazing - an original idea.

But it's here, and it's the terminus.

Microsoft can posit and pose and yell and scream. They could even, however unlikely, write a system which is equal.

But all that won't change anything until programs can efficiently determine subject matter, context, relevancy, originality and so on. That is all a long way off.

The same old tactics...

[NerveGas]

Ballmer and the rest of the MS folks have been at this game for many years. Every so often, they say something to the effect of "You know, we realize that things are pretty bad, and we're going to change that." But in the end, they never do.

It's just a ploy to make the disgruntled Microsoft users believe that there's a ray of hope, so that they don't abandon ship.

Years ago in the "Windows NT 5.0 Rapid Deployment Conference" (Before it was even going to be called Windows 2000), Jim Allchin stood up and told us all how horrible NT4 was, and effectively that they had "seen the light". 2000 had many of the same problems that he admitted to NT 4 having on that platform. They didn't fix them, they just tried to make us all feel better. And they've done it over and over since then, nothing's changed.

steve

Re:The same old tactics...

[Cheeze]

I think that's called.....Marketing!

Good marketing of a poor product will yield positive results.

Bad marketing of a good product will yield negative results.

Re:The same old tactics...

[KD5YPT]

However, good marketing of a poor product will create a reputation lost for said company. So the said positive result is only short termed.

Re:The same old tactics...

[Master of Transhuman]

You call it marketing.

I call it lying.

I call it fraud.

As I've said over and over, NO ONE at Microsoft (at least those allowed to talk to the public) is capable of telling the truth. They are complete, unashamed LIARS. They have one job and one job only: lie to you and take your money.

Period.

This is the "corporate culture" Bill Gates founded and encourages and it will never change as long as he and his cronies have a place in the company.

better term than "irrelevant"

[gosand]

MS is to big to become "irrelevent." Many people said the same thing about IBM, and they haven't.

I think a more accurate term would be "not as relevant as they have been." It used to be that if you wanted technology, you looked to Microsoft. (because they made sure they were the only game in town) Now, people are willing to look elsewhere. People and businesses have started to realize that there are other options out there, and MS isn't the only game in town. But you can be sure that MS isn't going to lose their monopoly without a fight. I am fairly confident that their vision will be clouded with their own FUD, and they will slip in the marketplace.

IBM isn't relevant in the PC area.

[crovira]

They're not even IN the PC area anymore.

They sold it off.

Way back when, I used to know people who worked for that division in Boca Raton.

Even the money making section of laptops is now gone to Lenovo.

They're now out of the business of making x86 style desktops and strictly into the POWER and Cell architectures and supporting chip sets.

Re:IBM isn't relevant in the PC area.

[rainman_bc]

Isn't IBM one of the largest patent holders out there? AFAIK they patent and license all sorts of technologies out there. I woulnd't dare call them irrelevant.

Jack of all trades, Master of One

[everphilski]

Microsoft is the master of the Desktop, any way you slice it or dice it.
-everphilski-

Re:Jack of all trades, Master of One

[Wateshay]

Microsoft may have the most desktop market share, but Apple drives the technology.

The Renault Clio commercial similarities..

[necromcr]

This reminds me of this tv commercial. It's funny by itself but imagine Balmer being the floor sweeping guy... :P

So what is Spatial Storage?

[Nom du Keyboard]

So what is Spatial Storage...

...and why do I need it?

Re:So what is Spatial Storage?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a dba and have no real idea, but I think they're talking about GIS data (spatial as in geographic). However, why that type of data would make Oracle SQL a winner vs MS SQL I have no idea - it's still data stored relationally. That said, Oracle has MS SQL beat in deployment in high end/big iron environments but that isn't data type specific.

Does he mean some sort of physical "spatial" storage that I'm not familiar with? I don't know.

I wish someone would have clarified what they meant in the conversation, but then it was probably between two PHBs that didn't know what the buzzword meant ayway.

Show me, then.

[Paradox]

The fact is that Microsoft has code, right now today, to make desktop search happen on Longhorn. If desktop search becomes a killer app for Apple or others (and believe me, it hasn't yet...no one sees floods of people flocking to Apple or some other platform just to get desktop search), Microsoft has the resources to make it part of Longhorn or release it as a separate application...and if it becomes important enough, they will.

Uhh, it's clearly important enough, TFA shows that.

Let's face it. WinFS stalled, and it stalled badly. We can put a pretty face on it by saying that it's Longhorn that caused it with their incredibly long time-to-market, but that's bunk. If it's really ready for use today, why aren't we seeing it? That's the kind of salvo MS would return fire with after they got raked over the coals during the Apple Tiger launch, and before that with the Google Desktop Search agent.

SteveB basically admitted this in TFA, and said in half a year they hope to have a working search package ready for deployment.

The fact is, Windows XP is technologically behind all of its competitors. The fact is, even in that handicapped environment, Google could still build a reasonable desktop search, and MS can't. The fact is, MS is coasting along on their market penetration right now, and if they don't act soon they're going to start losing business.

Re:Show me, then.

[drsmithy]

If it's really ready for use today, why aren't we seeing it?

Maybe it's more ambitious than any of the existing alternatives and simply isn't finished yet ?

The computer world is leapfrog after leapfrong. 5 years ago Apple's OS was (technicalogically) trailing the competition by 5 - 10 years. Today, MacOS is in many ways cutting edge.

The fact is, Windows XP is technologically behind all of its competitors.

What competitors are you thinking of ? OS X is probably ahead on the whole, but it's still got performance issues and for most aspects of networking, is worse.

Linux ? It has some advantages in a few corner cases - mainly to do with customisability - but on the whole it's, at *best*, just on par with Windows.

There's certainly not enough distance between /any/ of the current crop of OSes /on average/ to call one a clear winner.

Re:Show me, then.

[Paradox]

Maybe it's more ambitious than any of the existing alternatives and simply isn't finished yet ?

Considering that WinFS was supposed to be one of the key features of Longhorn, and it was separated from Longhorn and slated to be added to Windows XP and Longhorn as an add-on, it sure gives me the impression that it's done.

It's probably not done though. WinFS has been in the works as a promise practically since WinXP came out. It had better up the ante, because it's had a much longer development time.

The computer world is leapfrog after leapfrong. 5 years ago Apple's OS was (technicalogically) trailing the competition by 5 - 10 years. Today, MacOS is in many ways cutting edge.

Since when has Microsoft been in the business of raising the bar on software? Since Win98, they haven't done much in the way of drastically new technical capabilities.

What competitors are you thinking of ? OS X is probably ahead on the whole, but it's still got performance issues and for most aspects of networking, is worse.

Linux ? It has some advantages in a few corner cases - mainly to do with customisability - but on the whole it's, at *best*, just on par with Windows.

OS X is a superior Desktop OS in every way that matters outside of the games shelf at Game Stop. Linux (and the BSDs for very specific applications) is a superior server OS (this is not a corner case). They are undisputed champions of their domains right now.

Re:Show me, then.

[drsmithy]

Since when has Microsoft been in the business of raising the bar on software? Since Win98, they haven't done much in the way of drastically new technical capabilities.

No-one's done anything particularly "drastic" in the last couple of decades. Singling Microsoft out is hardly rational.

However, that's irrelevant to the topic at hand. Prior to OS X, Apple's OS was 1 - 2 generations behind the competition. With OS X, it is on par. That change happened in the space of a couple of years.

The point is that just because WinFS isn't here today, doesn't mean it won't appear in 18 months and be vastly better than any of the alternatives.

OS X is a superior Desktop OS in every way that matters outside of the games shelf at Game Stop.

Its performance is still mediocre at best.

I would also imagine its hardware scalability is relatively poor (based on its overall poor performance and its much briefer time on multiprocessor hardware).

Accessing network resources is clumsy (and often unreliable)

The Dock is a UI train wreck.

Finder is awful.

Windows does filesystem-level encryption and compression better.

Then there's the indirect aspects:

Games, as you mention. Indeed, software in general.

OS X needs more expensive hardware (and hardware options are far more limited).

Linux (and the BSDs for very specific applications) is a superior server OS (this is not a corner case).

Sorry, it's not that simple.

Windows is better for fileserver to Windows clients (things like share caching, shadow copies, clustering).

Exchange

Centralised management of Windows clients (ie: Active Directory and Group Policy)

From everything I've read and heard, IIS6 and friends are superior to Apache (and friends) for web serving and site development.

For most other things, Windows is at least on par.

Now, the things Linux does better are generally because of its greater customisability to deal with corner cases, *not* general purpose use. One thing Linux does clearly do better than Windows /in general/ is storage management. LVM and Linux's software RAID are excellent - which is why we're rolling our own SAN with Linux and not Windows Storage Server.

Added to this, Linux's often $0 upfront cost has a tendency for people to think it's cheaper, even if their TCO ends up higher. Of course, by the time you're in a position to do a worthwhile TCO evaluation, you've generally got too much invested one way or the other to switch anyway.

However, as I said previously, no OS is so far enough ahead /on average/ that any of them can be considered outright superior (or inferior).

I use a Mac laptop, my work machine is Windows and I'm a Sys Admin. I daresay I'm in a fairly good position to be able to observe the strengths and weakness of the major platforms.

Which one?

[nurb432]

The one with enough money to buy a small country has more gas....

Hint: its Not google

Re:Peter Principle - Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

Ballmer was the best executive at Microsoft even when Bill Gates was the CEO. Bill Gates could hardly predict the future, and his legacy is always catching up with competitors and copying ideas. Ballmer is a very seasoned business person with great marketing and strongarm tactics. He isn't a great technological leader, but neither was Gates. Most of the success of Microsoft could be attributed to Balmer because he made some of the best business decisions to get Windows everywhere it is today.

Unfortuntately for Microsoft when you've saturated the marketplace, killed all the competitors, and do not have a nature of innovating, it leaves you with a billion dollar giant that doesn't know how to ship a product that consumers will want to buy. Longhorn isn't delayed only by technology problems, but they don't know how to expand their business and get people to buy upgrades.

Re:Peter Principle - Maybe

[KH]

Maybe MS should aquire Apple (which probably is never going to happen, given the highly anti-competitive nature of such an acquisition) and get Jobs as the interim CEO as Apple did to NeXT. Then MS will be Apple and everybody will be happy.

The innovators' dilemma.

[crovira]

Microsoft is now in the same bind that all companies who are sucessful find themselves in when they stop listening to their "deep R&D' department and start listening to their marketing department.

Ask youself "When was the time that Microsoft wasn't just reacting to what's happening to the desktop?"

The answer is they have never done it any other way. They had to break the law and violate the Sherman act to get to where they were. But is it enough?

They would now have to be able to react to some fundamentals in the business adn there's nobody there who can think that way (they get weeded out by the corporate culture.)

How's Eerie-Bucyrus doing? How is Xerox doing? (They threw away the entire PC revolution.)

Re:The innovators' dilemma.

[drsmithy]

They had to break the law and violate the Sherman act to get to where they were.

No they didn't. They had to _already_ "be where they were" before they could have been considered to be "breaking the law".

OT but...

[ncmusic]

J*st sp*ll **t th* m*th*r fucking c*rs* w*rds *lr**dy.

All people do is read the words as if you spelled it out. The meaning is still there. What the FUCK is the point of replacing a few letters with @#$%^&*!

Re:OT but...

[jimmypw]

Well im sorry if I believe in censorship its one of my first posts i didnt know if there was already a censorship system in place ill keep that in my fucking mind ¦

Re:OT but...

[ncmusic]

Much better thanks. :)

Re:It is? No!

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of the weird guys who hate that iTunes manages their folders for them and insist on managing all 100GB of their MP3s, without realizing iTunes will not only do it for them, but also makes using folders pointless and antiquated anyway.

Pointless in iTunes perhaps, but iTunes is not necessarily the only app accessing and/or managing those folders. There are plenty of reasons to want the storage structure other than the iTunes way.

Regardless, mp3s have inherent categorization that a lot of other file types do not. Falling back on a full text search to find some source code is not a better organization method than than going to a folder named "project/src".

Wait, I know what we'll do...!

[MECC]

"Microsoft's vision for search would eventually make such data discoverable, without using the [actual] application."

Want to wipe out the competition? Integrate it into the OS! It worked on Netscape, and look at what an innovative and secure thing explorer turned out to be! In fact, that made the whole OS faster and more secure...

Ballmer: 'We'll catch Google'...

[Anonymous Coward]

those meddling kids, and their dog as well.

Re:Peter Principle - Maybe

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The big question - What will Microsoft do when it does have the right CEO?

Innovate?

<ducks>

maybe he meant "buy" google

[192939495969798999]

The only way Microsoft has ever really "competed" was to simply buy the competitor. Maybe he's alluding to plans to purchase a controlling share in Google! MSGoogle -- I hope they don't mess with the culture.

Re:I think

[Anonymous Coward]

Methinks you have a problem with your own sexuality. You probably fear anything that appears too feminine because it reminds you of the dark closet you haven't come out of.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevant

[Winkhorst]

Except Longhorn is going to break all your current software and that will cost you an arm-and-a-half to replace.

Jack of All Trades...

[dew4au]

..Master of None

That could be the way things are heading for MS

honesty

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer confessed the software giant's .NET strategy has come to a standstill, says he's accepted SQL Server's shortcomings"

I don't know if I would say Ballmer is really open and honest, but he is sure a lot more open and honest about MS's shortcomings than Bill Gates ever was.

Re:Microsoft has lost geek appeal

[Jhan]

Microsoft has lost geek appeal.

Count me senile, but when did MS ever have geek appeal?

... I can tell you that 15 year olds today only use Microsoft to play games or pirate, not as a development platform like the 15 year olds a generation ago.

Geeks? Windows programming for fun? At any point in the time-line? Please do eat less mushrooms.

Bring the Bill Back Home...

[Jettamann]

Please put Billy Boy back in charge... Ballmer is the worst front-man for MSFT. The BOD should fire Ballmer for saying "I Didn't/Don't Know..." more then once.

'We'll catch Google'

[slapout]

Kinda pointless to try to catch a one hit wonder isn't it?

Less talk, more walk

[jalefkowit]

Ballmer and MSN should take a page from Yahoo, who have been busy actually competing with Google rather than just talking about competing with Google.

Lately I've found that Yahoo's search engine is better at putting the 'canonical' result for a search in the number 1 position than Google is. Google's results frequently put blog postings, etc. higher than the page those postings are talking about. Yahoo does not seem to have this problem.

Yahoo has been rolling out several innovative search services lately.

Yahoo has actively developing and improving APIs for a range of their services. Google's API has not changed since its rollout in 2002.

Yahoo is integrating with Firefox. Google is not, as far as anyone outside the company can tell.

All of these things have caused a 180 degree turnaround in my perception of Yahoo of late. They have quietly become real contenders again in search and related services -- and without all the "we're gonna kill Google! Just watch us!" noise we keep getting every month from MS. I might take Ballmer & co. more seriously if they followed Yahoo's lead and started delivering rather than just making promises.

Re:Less talk, more walk

[Anonymous Coward]

Yahoo does seem to be doing some high-quality work at the moment. In addition to some fairly excellent product rollouts, they seem to be hiring talented, interesting people again. My impression is that there is a powerful inverse brain-drain happening at Yahoo right now -- this can only bode well for them; they have a lot of very valuable assets than can be used in their fight against Google but they need a surge of creative energy to help really tie the puzzle together.

As for Microsoft, I disagree that they're only "talking the talk." Steve Ballmer's job is partly to communicate Microsoft's intentions to the rest of us in the outside world; it should be no surprise that he's touting the work of his employees. With online advertising looking to be a multi-billion dollar business in the next few years, it's a no-brainer that Microsoft wants as big a piece of the pie as they can get.

From what I've heard, Microsoft is well aware that they are the underdogs in terms of search quality and comprehensiveness. There is no self-delusion here: MS knows it has its work cut out if it wants to play in the lucrative Ad/Search market. But MS is making key hires and infrastructure investments. My understanding is that Microsoft's data centers are quite a bit more advanced even than Google's (and therefore quite a bit less costly to run, though one of Google's core competencies is of course management of huge numbers of PCs.)

Re:Less talk, more walk

[killjoe]

You know I must agree with you. I had set up a yahoo email account ages ago but I never really used it much. I now find myself using more and more because they have drastically improved the UI. Unlike gmail they also let me create folders and filter my mailings lists into them. For some reason the gmail tagging mechanism annoys the hell out of me, I guess I am stuck at folders.

Re:Less talk, more walk

[emurphy42]

Matches X, apply label Y, skip inbox. Voila, tags that work almost exactly like folders.

Re:Less talk, more walk

[Anonymous Coward]

> Yahoo is integrating with Firefox [yahoo.com]. Google is not, as far as anyone outside the company can tell.

http://www.google.com/firefox
It's Firefox's default home page.

Also, if you'll direct your attention to that search bar and the default search engine in every firefox install...

Re:Less talk, more walk

[Anonymous Coward]

Find "Untagged Messages"?

Delete easily w/o greasemonkey?

Hrm... must check out this yahoo thing...

The famous "It's M$ - SCREW THEM" mentality

[hopethisnickisnottak]

Once again the wonderful people at /. show the "It's M$ - SCREW THEM" mentality. How many of you "pundits" commenting on Microsoft's upcoming demise work or have ever worked at MS? How many of you know what sort of projects are being executed there?
That's right, I thought so. Most of this is just a part of your wet dreams where you're the dominatrix and MS is strapped to the bed. Oh! Did I mention Google is the whip? Get over yourselves.

And for those commenting on how Ballmer is an idiot and incapable of working competently as CEO, well, there is this thing known as the Board of Directors. Quite a few have to be independent. And while I don't claim that boards are infallible, if shareholders (many of them) begin to think the CEO is ignorant or not up to the job, he's usually sacked. Last I checked, BG does not hold the majority stock in MS. So he can't KEEP Ballmer there if Ballmer is incompetent.
Again, get over yourselves.
You sound like a kid who's climbed your local hill and is talking about professional mountaineers being incompetent at mountaineering.

Re:The famous "It's M$ - SCREW THEM" mentality

[Master of Transhuman]

"well, there is this thing known as the Board of Directors. Quite a few have to be independent."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

Right - like Enron.

You MS moron.

Projects at MS? LIKE WHAT? They supposedly spend X BILLION a year on R&D! Seen ANY results of that? Like WHERE?

You sound like a Microsoft shill - or someone who realizes what an idiot he is for supporting this lying, incompetent, fraudulent, monopolistic company but can't afford to admit it to anyone because of his fragile self-esteem.

Get over yourself.

Re:The famous "It's M$ - SCREW THEM" mentality

[PenGun]

Uh huh another "professional" moron. This time the loser exposes his stupidity ... "professional mountaineers". Hope on sucker.

Mhwahahah

PenGun
Do What Now ??? ... Standards and Practices !

Re:The famous "It's M$ - SCREW THEM" mentality

[hopethisnickisnottak]

And you sound like a pimply-faced teen with raging hormones and a grudge against the world because you don't get any.

I qualified my statement about BoDs in my previous post - read the fucking post. They're not always infallible, but they will make sure the CEO is not the CEO just because he is friends with BG.

" They supposedly spend X BILLION a year on R&D!"

I don't know how much they spend. But I do believe XBox was really really nice. Wasn't that made by MS? Oh wait. I guess they outsourced RnD for that one.

"You sound like a Microsoft shill"

I already told you what you sound like - so I won't bother repeating myself. For the record, I don't work for MS nor do I own any stock in it. Nothing to do with that company what so ever - except the OS I use.

"or someone who realizes what an idiot he is for supporting this lying, incompetent, fraudulent, monopolistic company but can't afford to admit it to anyone because of his fragile self-esteem."

Oh right, that must be it - my fragile self-esteem. Oops - you just broke it.
As a company, MS is not incompetent. They make shitloads of $s. Way more than you can even count (I hope you can count). I don't really see what sort of fraud they've committed. Bring me up on that one. Lies? It's called MARKETING. Monopoly? Yes, they are one. It isn't my fault. I use Unix and MS Windows both.

Cheers,
Shaunak

PS: Do something about those pimples and those hormones too.

Re:The famous "It's M$ - SCREW THEM" mentality

[hopethisnickisnottak]

" Uh huh another "professional" moron."

I'll have you know that I don't get paid for this. I'm an amateur, Sir, a complete amateur.

"This time the loser exposes his stupidity "

This time the teenager exposes his angst at his pals getting all the pussy and he getting nothing but the old hand. Seriously. Get some perspective before you call others stupid, losers or morons. How old are you? 12? In your parents basement?

"... "professional mountaineers". Hope on sucker."

Have you ever climbed a mountain? Do you know who these people I refer to are? Are you mature enough to understand something other than your need to eat and shit?

Just tried MSN search for the first time

[Adult film producer]

Had to see how well it worked (compared to google..) So I tried an image search and entered the query "anal linux".. MSN returns zero results :(

Google on the other hand was nice enough to provide me with quite a number of images, including many girls that apparently use linux.

Google wins hands-down yet again.

Re:Just tried MSN search for the first time

[TCM]

Among the results is this.

Now I know what it's like to use Linux. Thanks. :)

Oh,it will.

[jd]

The planet is round, so it just has to go in the other direction. It should only need to go a few blocks, given relative performance.

Re:Microsoft has lost geek appeal

[Ucklak]

... but when did MS ever have geek appeal?

Pre Win to Win98 days. Explosion of shareware and home brew projects. X10 is a success story from home brew kits. Ever read the Bill Gates Open Letter?
Not related to Windows but Windows did have geek appeal

... Windows programming for fun? At any point in the time-line?...

Name the alternative that was free to program on in 1989-1996 era that had a considerable market share. Didn't think so. MS has it's position today because of giving away free developer tools then

Re:Peter Principle - Maybe

[110010001000]

Well Ballmer has been keeping MS growing at a healthy pace in revenues and getting more and more profitable every quarter for quite a long time. If that isn't "up to the job" I don't know what is. Thats what you want out of your CEO.

The CTO should handle the progress of the technology.

This is the Fake before the Punch

[mpapet]

Everyone and their dog knows that MS is between platforms.

This is an act of contrition. The public loves these and generally forgives and forgets. They are buying time. Enjoy it, because it won't last.

What I'm most interested to see is if they are so used to being a monopoly that pronhorn is a .Net for the desktop. Takes lots of explaining and has backward compatibility problems. It will be interesting to see what the desktop retailers will do if Longhorn doesn't go over great-guns.

OMFG

[Anonymous Coward]

hahahahaha

Thank you.

"SEARCH ENGINES! SEARCH ENGINES! SEARCH ENGINES!"

[payndz]

'Google' is already entrenched in the culture enough to have become a verb.

'MS Search', despite the fact that it even *contains* a verb already... not gonna happen. Ever.

Google

[certel]

I'm sorry, but Microsoft will not catch Google. No originality.

pretty much why...

[zogger]

...they are going heavy into gaming, consoles, media centers, cell phones, etc. Looks to me like they are diversifying/adding products as fast as possible, that and raking cash out of the system and turning it into tangibles as well, to stay ahead of inflation and the dollar devaluing. And they patent something every day, too. It all adds up. I don't think they are terribly worried about things yet-concerned yes, aware, yes, but worried, nope.

Re:pretty much why...

[robertjw]

...they are going heavy into gaming, consoles, media centers, cell phones, etc. Looks to me like they are diversifying/adding products as fast as possible

They are attempting to diversify, but so far their success has been limited. Companies like GE and IBM are very diverse and make a profit in many different areas. AFAIK, the only areas that Microsoft has been able to make a measurable, consistent profit are the OS software and the Office Suite.

Re:pretty much why...

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAIK, the only areas that Microsoft has been able to make a measurable, consistent profit are the OS software and the Office Suite.

There are many other divisions making money in M$. True, Windows/Office are the big swingin dicks that bring in the most revenue (IIRC, Windows far outpaces Office). But just b/c those two divisions bring in such a sizeable percentage of the bacon doesn't mean the other units are making money. Thing is, when you add up the numbers, a division making a mere 200$ mil per month profit just isn't that large of a percentage overall.

Dance Monkeyboy!

[micromuncher]

Its all propaganda. Google stock explodes and they are doing really cool things with really smart people. So much so, there is even attrition in the M$ camp...

The corporate culture is SO beaten into most M$ employees that seeing people wearing iPods and hearing of Google defections is totally abhorrent.

What do you do when you are not the biggest kid on the block? You make the loudest noise.

New disease?

[Anonymous Coward]

Catch Google?

A shot of penicillin should clear that up.

Re:Microsoft has lost geek appeal

[freeplatypus]

I can tell you that 15 year olds today only use Microsoft to play games or pirate, not as a development platform like the 15 year olds a generation ago.

But I can. And what was the point of Your comment? Just that You don't know developers using MS products. That is worthless statement.

Microsoft has issues in non-monopoly sectors

[mveloso]

Microsoft has in every area in which it isn't a monopoly.

What does that mean?

That means that every product line except Windows and Office has problems - because of how the MS entries match up to the competition. Problems meaning business problems, not technical problems. They have those too, but the business problems are the ones that long-term will affect the company.

Even Windows will start to have problems, when mactel starts shipping. Once IBM moves to mactel internally, everyone and their brother will move to mactel internally. It may take 10 years, but in that 10 years there will be competition in the desktop arena.

Of course, that assumes Apple adjusts to the needs of corporate computing. That's a big assumption.

Since you asked...

[HopeOS]

I write software for all varieties of professional Windows, several distributions of Linux, and Mac OSX. These applications are normally data-intensive and run exclusively on servers. The core Windows subsystems have a number of misfeatures which make the entire platform substandard for server use. Here are just a few.

1) File Locking: It is virtually impossible to overwrite an executable file while it is open on Windows. This is why it is often necessary to reboot the computer when upgrading even minor packages. For home use, this may not be a big deal, but in a production server environment it's a grevious flaw.

2) File Range Locking: Advisory range locks makes it possible for two processes to work in the same file without stomping on each other, even if those processes run on separate machines. Unixes allow a process to block while waiting for file range locks. The Windows API will only tell you if you successfully acquired the lock. The distinction is this: if process A is agressively acquiring and releasing the lock, process B can enter a state where it never gets the lock. This makes Windows file range locking useless as a resource contention mechanism. The correct but missing implementation is that process B should request lock, fail to acquire it, and be stopped. The operating system will queue it for the next release of the lock. When the lock becomes available, B will acquire it immediately and be woken up. A timeout is also considered reasonable. The penalty for this misfeature is a considerable increase in complexity (shared mutexes) and a decrease is capability (does not work across servers).

3) Memory-Mapped Files: Normally, memory-mapped IO is as fast as it comes, but on Windows, it's actually slower than opening a file for overlapped write access. This means that data-intensive cross-platform applications that are based on memory-mapped IO perform at substandard rates on windows or must be completely redesigned with an increase in complexity to account for the fact that writing to memory no longer automatically writes to disk. Database applications suffer for this.

4) On Windows, sockets are not files. But named-pipes are. This means that you can simultaneously block on a file and a named-pipe, but not a file and a socket. That horrendous error increases program complexity by requiring multiple threads to do something that would otherwise have been trivial in a posix environment.

There's more, but it's time for lunch. Best of luck!

-Hope

Re:Since you asked...

[drsmithy]

For home use, this may not be a big deal, but in a production server environment it's a grevious flaw.

If a scheduled downtime window is an issue, then your architecture is flawed. If you don't even *have* scheduled downtime windows, then your processes are also flawed.

Your other examples sound suspiciously like "but it's not like Unix !" complaints.

Re:Since you asked...

[HopeOS]

With regard to your Windows is not Unix comment, I develop for all major platforms, and I have no particular love for any of them. The Windows API is sub-standard not because it is not Unix, but because it fails to provide the standard, necessary, and correct programming paradigms to get the job done with the minimum amount of work. This deficiency is not due to insufficient design, it's due to fundamentally flawed design which cripples Windows in the server market.

With respect to downtime, all our clients have scheduled maintenance. As it is, many of these Windows boxes must be rebooted every evening for various reasons anyway. What you have neglected to account for however is the cost of rebooting those machines, specifically in money, time, and frustration.

In our specific case, every time we want to update our London clients, it costs between 4 and 12 man hours, most of that for an IT guy working overtime to stand around in case he needs to manually reset a server. If we're updating Tokyo, I'm the guy who gets to stay late, and my wife has to bring dinner to the office. Add to that, the IT guy needs to speak English, or I need to speak Japanese.

Compare this to our Linux procedure: 1) shell in, 2) update software, 3) run diagnostic. No one has to stay late, no one has to learn a foreign language, and I get to eat dinner at home with my wife.

-Hope

Re:Since you asked...

[drsmithy]

This deficiency is not due to insufficient design, it's due to fundamentally flawed design which cripples Windows in the server market.

I'm not a developer so I'm not in a position to argue the specifics, however, Windows is hardly "crippled" in the server market. Indeed, it's probably one of the most popular platforms out there.

What you have neglected to account for however is the cost of rebooting those machines, specifically in money, time, and frustration.

No, I haven't. If scheduled downtime for a server reboot is a major issue - in money, time, frustration or anything - your architecture is flawed. Added to that, if your machines or software are that unreliable that this happens regularly, you've got much bigger issues to worry about.

In our specific case, every time we want to update our London clients, it costs between 4 and 12 man hours, most of that for an IT guy working overtime to stand around in case he needs to manually reset a server.

Sounds like both your architecture _and_ your processes are flawed. You shouldn't need someone on-site to reset machines if they don't reboot - lights-out management tools that can do this are commonplace.

Compare this to our Linux procedure: 1) shell in, 2) update software, 3) run diagnostic.

There is no reason you can't do this with your Windows machine as well, that Windows is to blame for.

Re:Since you asked...

[HopeOS]

I'm not a developer so I'm not in a position to argue the specifics, however, Windows is hardly "crippled" in the server market. Indeed, it's probably one of the most popular platforms out there.

By crippled, I do not mean market share; Microsoft in the server room exists primarily due to network effects. Crippled means incapable of performing its primary function at the same level as its competitors. This is why racks of Windows boxes can generally be replaced by a single installation of Linux. It's also why that single installation can run multiple classes of services while it is considered unwise to run more than one class of service on a Windows box.

No, I haven't. If scheduled downtime for a server reboot is a major issue - in money, time, frustration or anything - your architecture is flawed. Added to that, if your machines or software are that unreliable that this happens regularly, you've got much bigger issues to worry about.

It's not my or my company's architecture to which you are referring. You are talking about the status quo of most, if not all, major commodities exchanges, clearing firms, and portions of banking industries dealing with trading. This is because the data services are provide by the exchanges themselves and that software is very poorly written. As a simple example, stopping and restarting the Eurex feeds (major European exchange) can take 15 minutes on average, and sometimes they fail to stop altogether. What to do? You cannot kill the process; task manager won't let you. The machine is dead to the world until it's brought back online. That's a pretty normal day in the real world for a lot of people.

You shouldn't need someone on-site to reset machines if they don't reboot - lights-out management tools that can do this are commonplace.

Certainly, but if you think that the largest financial firms in the world are going to give lights-out control to a third-party service provider in a foreign country, you're being overly naive. Nobody makes any changes to these machines unless there is a warm, authorized, administrative body within 30 seconds of physical access. That rule, like many similar ones before it, is written in blood, since those kinds of mistakes make the world news. Electronic trading on LIFFE opened late this morning due to technical difficulties... for instance.

There is no reason you can't do this with your Windows machine as well, that Windows is to blame for.

Actually, we do. It goes 1) shell in, 2) update software, 3) reboot, 4) wait, 5) shell in again, 6) run diagnostic. The trouble comes from steps 3-5 which on any modern server operating system, should be completely unnecessary. It also forces this machine to be single-use which is a constraint that competing operating systems do not have. Service outage is one thing. Hardware outage is something altogether different. With Windows, you get the cost of both for the use of one.

Windows was designed for desktop computing. It barely made it to a multi-user environment this decade with terminal services. But, even today, for data intensive server tasks, for efficient distribution of services across hardware, and for many multi-user tasks as simple as having dozens of concurrent sessions, Windows is still no match for commodity unixes on the same hardware.

And bear in mind, I've been writing code for nearly 30 years. I started in assembly, worked my way through Apple II's, jumped to PC, up through all of Microsoft's API's, and did not get into serious server work until the late 90's. My professional experience has always been to apply the best tools to the job. Microsoft does not provide those tools for server tasks, and the tools that they do provide are not sufficient. This opinion comes from working with all the major players on a daily basis. I respected Microsoft fine until they started calling dogs "horses," loading them up with kids, running 'em around the room, and calling it the Kentucky Derby.

Microsoft has a perfectly fine desktop operating system, but it's not a server, and can't be until they fix the design flaws.

-Hope

Re:Since you asked...

[drsmithy]

This is because the data services are provide by the exchanges themselves and that software is very poorly written.

I think you've finally identified the real problem here. Your issues aren't caused by Windows, they're caused by shitty software.

You certainly haven't described anything yet that is *inherent* to Windows, merely symptoms of poor software, poor processes and flawed architecture.

Re:Since you asked...

[HopeOS]

That would be a nice theory, but it does not hold up to reason; the same software runs on unix just as poorly, and yet only windows suffers these problems. In the real world, software quality varies; serious server operating systems handle this fact of life with both gusto and style. Windows, simply put, does not, or more to the point, cannot.

The other flaw in that line of argument is that it fails to address the actual problem, the need to reboot at all. Running flaky software should never destablize the operating system, and yet in this case it impedes the OS from rebooting. That's definitively bad when rebooting is so common place.

-Hope

Re:Microsoft has lost geek appeal

[Ucklak]

My point is 'geek appeal' which implies the hobbyist in us. I'm not arguring that PAID developers using Microsoft tools are not using their tools anymore. That's stupid.

Developers using MS Tools will continue to do what feeds them. I doubt that a large percentage of those developers will develop software in their spare time.

Other Ballmer Quotes Not Mentioned

[Master of Transhuman]

"We're a bunch of crooked monopolists."

"Our software sucks rocks."

"Linux TCO is infinitely less than ours."

"Windows was never intended to be 'intuitive' - just stupid."

"Access corrupts its databases if you breath on it."

"Word is too complicated for anyone to use."

"Group Policy doesn't work and nobody can figure out how to make it work."

"Longhorn is a corporate disaster."

"We pay Rob Enderle, Laura DiDio, Maureen O'Gara and Daniel Lyons to be assholes."

"The Gates Foundation is a stock laundering scheme."

"Bill is an asshole."

"I'm an asshole."

"All of this is off the record."

Oh really smartass?

[SuperKendall]

I could use 20 Taurus to block the Ferrari, and win the race with the others.

The track is 202 Touruses wide. You were saying?

Re:Oh really smartass?

[orasio]

202 Tourus widths wide?

Ok, I'll just make them park sideways.

Or spaced amongst each other by 0.9 Ferrari widths.

What are the percentage of people annoyed

[SuperKendall]

Why do geeks have such a hard time understanding that geeks are a *tiny subset* of the entire population.

Perhaps that is true, but on the other hand what is the percentage of the population that has been annoyed by Windows over the years? I think that percentage is quite a bit higher, especially when you factor in spyware and adware. This leads to an indirect dislike of Microsoft when people find out there are other options.

Right and Wrong...

[rmdyer]

Except of course that you are both right and wrong. If I store it then I organize it. There is no way for me to know how you stored your information, unless you tell me. Most people who are smart, organize their information in a way that makes sense to them. People who don't organize their information need a desktop search tool. We all need to search the net because we have absolutely no idea of how it is organized. I will very rarely ever need to search for my own information. It actually seems counter intuitive that I would need to. I personally don't like associating with people who misplace their car keys, or lose their socks in the wash. It is quite peculiar for "those" people to just be pre-occupied with themselves, instead of what is going on external to their own psyche.

Missing part of Ballmer's quote

[Craig_P92669]

They left out the "muhahah!!" at the end.

Hope they do

[LastNickAvailable]

Unlikely but honestly it would be a good thing.
Google these days seems not a good a it used to be in the field of search engines.

Re:Hope they do

[MrPink2U]

I what ways? I seem to get good search results when I use it. This is not flamebait, just asking what you feel is missing or "not as good".

Re:Microsoft has lost geek appeal

[freeplatypus]

My point is 'geek appeal' which implies the hobbyist in us

You do have a point, but still, how can You explain numerous GPLed and Freeware applications available on Windows?

SharpDevelop or free beta MS Visual C# Express are so easy to get and you can do A LOT as hobbyist and even more.

Dot Net?Dot Not!Got Not?Bot Not!Bit Not?Bit Rot!

[NZheretic]

For all the talk of .NET's portability and scalablity, Microsoft has not yet been able to port .NET to the 64bit Intel and AMD processors. The .NET Framework, ASP.NET and even the Common language runtime is still not available for the 64-bit versions of the Windows Server 2003 family.

Dot Net?Dot Not!Got Not?Bot Not!Bit Not?Bit Rot!

Re:Peter Principle - Maybe

[Bamafan77]

Ballmer was never the right choice as Microsoft CEO IMHO, but I don't know who is.

You feel qualified to comment on his suitability for a job without knowing anything about him? Basing opinions on nothing at all -- a Slashdot tradition!

BTW mods, I'm trying to be funny, not trollish. :)

No, it was the Tortise and the Hare

[objekt]

No, it was the Tortise and the Hare

Google? Maybe

[Eric S Raymond]

But not Google AND Linux/GNU AND Apple on Intel AND Oracle AND FreeBSD AND etc..............

Re:Peter Principle - Maybe

[Strudelkugel]

He is no doubt a fine person.

But we are talking business track record here. During his watch, Google conquered search, Apple grabbed portable and downloaded music dominance, and Mozilla/Firefox exploited the lack of attention to IE. These are the sorts of oversights that are ultimately the responsibility of the CEO. He is also constantly saying things that are reactionary, not visionary. Today's quote is another example. All of this indicates to me he isn't the person for the position.

Anything?

[Ryan Monster]

I see a lot of suggestions for how Ballmer could think, feel, act, etc. Could he have said anything in this meeting/interview that wouldn't be picked apart and mocked here?

Re:Peter Principle - Maybe

[Bamafan77]

But we are talking business track record here. During his watch, Google conquered search, Apple grabbed portable and downloaded music dominance, and Mozilla/Firefox exploited the lack of attention to IE. These are the sorts of oversights that are ultimately the responsibility of the CEO. He is also constantly saying things that are reactionary, not visionary. Today's quote is another example. All of this indicates to me he isn't the person for the position.

You also have to remember that's operating under a different set of circumstances than Bill Gates was. He has the DOJ breathing down his neck, unlike Gates. So he doesn't have quite the, how shall we put this, "freedom" to let his "genius" flourish as Bill Gates did. Sure MS essentially got off on the charges, but that doesn't mean the Powers That Be aren't watching. There may still be one MS, but things are different now. Bill Gates certainly wouldn't have seemed as great a " business genius" if he had to run MS under the current level of government scrutiny.

Hmm, maybe I'm taking this a little too personally. But I can't help but like a guy who'll allow himself to be videotaped running around a stage yelling "DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!", even if he does run the Evil Empire.

Corrections

[spitzak]

I have only seen Ctrl+Tab switch tabs in the same window on Windows. To switch windows you use Alt+Tab, whether the window is in the same application or not.

Please don't call these newer window schemes "MDI". The name "MDI" should be reserved for the obsolete scheme where there are overlapping and movable subwindows. When the windows are all fixed in the same place and selected by tabs it should be considered "tabbed" as in "tabbed browsing". It is true that some Windows applications can do both MDI and tabbed browsing, but in actual use everybody sets them to tabbed, so the MDI is just an obsolete leftover.

The scheme where overlapping toolbars are removed and instead placed in non-overlapping positions inside a big window, possibly with a tabbed area for the document in the middle, I call "tiled" windows, though I'm not sure if there is a real name for this. My personal feeling is that this is not necessary and is caused by a bug in all current window systems, in that clicking in a window raises it. This makes overlapping toolbars useless for more than one document, forcing them to be attached to the window.

As for the scroll wheel, actually X does deliver well-defined events for moving the mouse wheel, at least up and down. The scheme is a kludge (it reuses the interface for button 4 and 5 on the mouse) but it has been there for years, and if a KDE program works at all with the scroll wheel it is using this interface. Therefore whatever your problem with the scroll wheel is, it is not due to a missing "standard up/down message in X".

.NET lives

[a137035]

Establishing a new language and set of libraries takes time. .NET is a couple of years old; give it at least another couple of years. Keep in mind that the .NET platform has come much further along within the short time that it exists than C, C++, or Java were within the same amount of time.

In the end, it may ironically be Gnome and Mono that helps .NET get accepted: C# looks like it's becoming more important and more widely used on Linux (albeit with non-.NET libraries) than on Windows.

Don't discount IE's impact on microsoft earnings

[ccoakley]

IE is on the downfall thanks to Firefox, and doesn't really bring Microsoft any revenue anyway

You are ignoring the impacts IE has had on Microsoft's bottom line due to its interoperability with things like ASP and ASP.Net. NMCI, the second largest network (to the internet) is nearly 100% Microsoft. Every single desktop computer is a Dell. Most of the servers are Compaqs (er... HP). Every single one of those runs Windows. The way IE ties in is that many of the applications that run on NMCI are not desktop applications, they are ASP and ASP.Net web applications. These were chosen because of their "ease of development" and because they were an "industry standard" (two terms which mean absolutely nothing semantically, but everything financially). Both of those factors have to do with features that IE has that other browsers do not. The specific features are the ability to render said web applications consistently (circular reasoning, but consistent).

Anyway, since all of NMCI runs windows and IE, all defense contractors who develop software develop on windows and IE (J2EE support exists, but lags in terms of market share -- and many of the J2EE apps render correctly for IE only anyway).

Now admittedly, I haven't worked on an NMCI project in almost a year, so things could have changed. But with the largest single client on the planet, Microsoft isn't doing too bad. And NMCI isn't the only enterprise using IE only for their internal web applications. So IE helps by helping developers choose the appropriate Microsoft development tools (among them SQL Server), which positively impact microsoft's bottom line.

Incidentally, for a while, the only real "feature" that was in common use that broke on other browsers was IE's CSS extension that allowed text to be rendered rotated at 90 degrees. Most of the menu systems for web apps also worked on IE and not on Mozilla, but at least there were work arounds for developers who cared whether their shit ran on other platforms. It's a silly oversight for the CSS standard not to have that capability (it is frequently necessary for large HTML tables to display the column headers rendered at 90 degrees). Has this been fixed?

Re:"We'll catch Google...

[jxyama]

...in relevance."

That's what Ballmer actually said. Big difference.

Microsoft management

[a137035]

Microsoft management is good at business deals, but they are incompetent at technology. In the past, they could get away with that for various reasons, but competition is getting tough.

Microsoft's introduction of .NET, TabletPC, WinFS, Avalon, and Longhorn have been poorly planned and poorly executed, and the market is getting less and less forgiving of that.

Just because we're inferior doesn't mean we won't

[WillAffleckUW]

win.

And truer words were never spoken.

[caveat - I own MSFT, RHAT, and SONY shares]

RE:Ballmer: 'We'll catch Google'

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, just like Wile E. Coyote catches the train in the tunnel.

Well that works as well as CTRL-C/V

[SuperKendall]

Alt-Tab cycles through applications, ctrl-tab cycles through the current applications windows.

That would be cool if it worked.

In Mozilla, Ctrl-Tab cycles between tabs - not windows.

In Explorer, Ctrl-Tab Goes from the file explorer to the address bar and back again. Not between Windows.

In Putty Ctrl-Tab does exactly nothing.

(that's all in Win2K - is that an exception?)

In Finder on the Mac I can toggle between windows. Actually in any app I can toggle between app windows reliably.

How about Windows Cut & Paste with Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V? Even that doesn't work all the time! I find many dialogues I can't even paste into with Ctrl-V, even though Ctrl-Insert/Shift-Insert works just fine. What the hell is that? How can you claim Windows has any kind of consistant behavior at all? I can even spell-check a dialogue text-box entry on the Mac if I really want to.

I can hear Balmer it now

[kmortelite]

"Search engines! Search engines! Search engines!"

out of sheer curiosity

[Anonymous Coward]

what database engine does google use?

Ob Simpsons reference...

[rthille]

Ha Ha!

Support or erode?

[SuperKendall]

Well, except Google Desktop Search. And Google Picasa. And Google Toolbar. And Google Earth. And Google Hello. All of which require Windows and help support Ballmer's monopoly.

I have a different take on this, that these tools more help Google erode the reliance on Microsoft for things than help Windows maintain market share. Google search is nice but not as good as Spotlight. Some of the other tools will eventually arrive elsewhere, but for the moment they are to make people look to Google for software and services first above any other player.

Re:Don't discount IE's impact on microsoft earning

[drsquare]

No, didn't get a word of that.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

> Microsoft has the recources and brains to create high quality
> software, they just don't (usually)

If half of what I read in http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2005/06/bob-herbold-f iefdom-syndrome-and-bobs.html> and its comments is true, they won't, either.

Rest of ballmer's quote missing...

[bani]

For some strange reason, the rest of the quote was omitted from the article. I'll post it here for reader convenience.

Ballmer: 'We'll catch Google'
Ballmer: And when we do, I'll club it to death like a baby seal. Then I'll wear its fur as a necktie, and its skeleton as a headpiece. This will be a warning to others.

No problem at all

[SomeOtherGuy]

It is pretty clear based on current attitudes and past practices that Microsoft will soon be giving their .NET strategy and "product line" the ole' heave ho soon enough.

Much like animals in the wild, if a framework or strategy is weak and non self sustaining they do not mind feeding it to the wolves. In this case there is not much $$$ benefit for them to keep a sick horse with a broken leg alive much longer.

Goodbye .NET it was nice not getting (having) to know ya.

Re:No problem at all

[alucinor]

Great! Now all the C# developers can take their skills over to Linux development.

I love this part from the article

[Nybble's Byte]

But when a participant asked why MapPoint had not expanded to South East Asia so such services could be built, Ballmer was stumped.

"I didn't know we weren't doing well there," he said. "I'll address that with the team vigorously."

In other words, Oh, shit! Heads will roll!

would've been avoided

[Anonymous Coward]

if they gave the summer of code money to the right people.....

Google's response

[Cro Magnon]

"You'll have to find us first!"

as far as I am concerned

[suezz]

Microsoft is irrelevant - I don't touch any window boxes at all - and anyone who use windows on a public facing website is just inviting trouble.

windows is only good for game playing and that is about it from my point of view. sometimes not even
that.

if Microsoft fell of the planet tomorrow nothing in my world would change except I would have a permanent smile.

Nowhere to go yet...

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft IS becoming irrelevant.

The problem is - OK, you've got WinXP, what do you follow it up with? (WinYP? WinZippy?) The graphical user interface is mature; we have mice, icons, button bars, right clicks, etc. What can you do to change that or make it work better? What's the next step? Really, anything more is just polishing. And... the existing hardware is not even challenged by that OS, so there's no incentive to upgrade.

Hey, a lot of people use Win98 still. It works fine, the only problem is hardware and programming that deliberately bypasses it; and the bundled OS of new PC's. Similarly, at about Office 97 or O2K, the question became - what more can an office do? Ditto for the Web.

To get user to the next step, MS or whoever needs to come up with a new "paradigm". (OK, shoot me now. Sorry.) the next technology may be voice-driven, or 3D views, or animated, or something which puts heavy demand on the hardware and requires a step above current hardware or OS. I don't see a hint of it around the corner, so it'll be a while.

Until then, MS is doomed to a lack of free money by the maturity of its products. How long til they burn thru what cash they have? Watch for them to start announcing cutbacks...

The only things that might hold the promise, are the much-hyped Longhorn file system or desktop Google. So:

Is a database/linked file system a good idea? the AS400 had something similar 20 years ago, and only IBM Marketing arm-twisting managed to oversell a so-so idea. The current file-system model is probably the best compromise, requiring by default a certain discipline of control by the user. I still don't see a solution for people who accidentally / lazily save without searching and end up with 30 versions of the same thing. It doesn't solve the "clutter" problem. Going to "versions" of the file, like VMS, is probably a better solution. This ignores the other "where did my file really go?" crowd, or the paranoids who say "how can I ever be sure that fragments of my private data (pr0n) aren't still hiding in there somewhere?

Google-On-Disk ("GOD") shows some promise - for some data. But there are critical files that are not plain-text enough. Then what, you can't register the file with GOD unless a "context driver" is supplied for the filetype? Or, like the 'find a photo by words" problem, the depth of information is not there.

I.e. the old "config.sys" file did not say internally what it was for - that was implicit in the OS. Ditto for DLL's. How would similar files, whose use is implicit in their private little application, be figured into GOD's database? GOD would have to be a flamin' expert on everything - tall order. The search engine and AI context engine would be most of the disk. Even now, half the trick to using Google is saying the right spell - I mean, using the right keywords.

The other problem with a mature Microsoft is the difference between a sitting duck and a moving target. One is easier to draw a bead on. If you don't continuously update the .DOC or .XLS filetype, someone out there will modify the open-source programs to use them - poof! No more unconscionable profits from Office. When the hardware side starts doing the same thing (like NAS using LINUX version of MS File-sharing, Lindows-by-another-name substituting for Windows)then your OS profits go all to heck, too.

Bill Gates' claim during the MS antitrust file was that he couldn't NOT be so darn competitive or MS would become irrelevant quickly. I believe we're starting to see that happen, just not as quickly as some would like.

I believe the future requires smaller, interoperable pieces of technology - simpler "black boxes" like the browser, the SMTP server, the database, the graphical interface. A complex monolith like Windows Longhorn would become too unwieldy to maintain as a whole - which I suspect is why it's so overblown, oversold, underfeatured, and late to market.

Re:Peter Principle - Maybe

[jcr]

Then MS will be Apple and everybody will be happy.

Everybody but the seven layers or so of management dead wood that SJ would have to dismiss...

-jcr

Note I explicitly did not say width...

[SuperKendall]

You fell right into my trap, in fact I have made the whole course 202 Tourus *lengths" wide.

Now how exactly are the touruses supposed to lap me when placed facing towards the edge of the track? Seems ike they are immobile and all I need to do is ram right throw a few for a fiery (yet victourus) finish.

Re:Note I explicitly did not say width...

[toddestan]

I would a couple of the Taurus's actually race, then have a 199 car demolition derby with the other 198 Taurus's and 1 Ferrari.

Re:Note I explicitly did not say width...

[orasio]

Muahahahhaha!!
No! YOU fell right into my trap!!
You said "lengths"

Pithagoras comes to the rescue!!

Taking the taurus for the rectangle it is (wiewed from the top), it is subject to the laws of geometry.

From the pithagora theorem:
width^2 + length^2 = diagonal^2

And diagonal is bigger than length (even taking into account round edges, and using a rectangle inside those boundaries).

I would have no trouble placing the tauruses with their diagonals aligned to the transversal of the track. Plenty of Tauruses to spare, so I can can lap you.

For a simpler answer, I can place the tauruses sideways, and spaced 1 meter in between, so again I have lots of tauruses left to run, or crash your car.

If you are thinking about riding a Ferrari _through_ a Taurus, you will have some trouble with your cars integrity.

Ok, if you were riding a Shelby Cobra 500GT, and were Nicholas Cage, and had a piece of wood to build a ramp, you could try jumping over the Tauruses, but the way it is right now, you lose.

Of course, I would much rather lose with a Ferrari, than win with a thousand Taurus (monetary value aside).

TiVo.

[YesIAmAScript]

How's it doing for TiVo?

And when you think workstations, you think SUN!

Brand name recognition is highly overrated once a product becomes commonplace, it becomes a product type, not a brand. Ask Sony about "Walkman" sales. Or Jacuzzi.

And BTW, I think "catsup", I'm old school.

Re:Peter Principle - Maybe

[jcr]

He is no doubt a fine person.

Umm, I do doubt that. Remember that he's currently the CEO, and was always a very senior manager, of an organization that makes a habit of breaking the law, and then buying their way out of the trouble they've brought on themselves.

-jcr

question, isn't this an identity theft nightmare

[pfharlock]

question, If microsoft is talking about taking all their applications and making all the information contained by those applications searchable by other people on the internet, isn't that sorta like saying to all the identity theives out there, "Hey, here's my stuff. Have at it."

Re:Peter Principle - Maybe

[jcr]

He has the DOJ breathing down his neck, unlike Gates.

Didn't you get the memo? The DOJ capitulated in the face of superior funding.

-jcr

Obligatory FARK

[Anonymous Coward]

Your dog wants Google.

Well .. thats a bit worrying.

[AzraelKans]

I know a lot of people feel is time to crack open the champagne, but heres the problem, if Ballmer said "MSN is the best search engine, IE is on top .NET rocks, SQL too!" then maybe we could open that champagne since that would mean they are blind to their problems. But the detail is .. they are not. and when MS says, "hmm.. you are beating us so we are out to get you." it cant be taken lightly. Last time they said that they buried Netscape to the ground by giving away IE for free. Im not sure what would be their aproach, but I bet it will be something particularly nasty.

Google Earth is Windows only

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, with the last couple of neat things coming from Google being available for Windows only, I would say Google is one of Microsoft's bestest pals.

Google Earth and Autostitch both make me wish I had a Wintel machine.

More like...

[crimson30]

"We'll catch that wasc'lly Google! Huhuhuhuhuh...."

How sad... he's devolved from this to this and finally into Elmer Fudd...

One Word: Quicksilver

[mysta]

While OS-X is _VERY_ nice any its pretty i'm not so sure about the keyboard usability. I can use a windows box without a mouse, i can't do that on a mac, maybe thats because i'm just not smart enough to know all the hotkeys.

Try a Mac with Quicksilver installed. It is amazing. If you love Ctrl-Space completion in programming IDEs such as Eclipse or cannot live without tab completion in a shell you'll be blown away with how Quicksilver changes the way you use your Mac.

For example, to open up slashdot in my browser (without the browser currently running) I type `Ctrl-Space sla `. To find my friend Joe's phone number in my address book (once again without the address book app running) I type `Ctrl-Space joe`. Joe's picture pops up and I hit right arrow to display his details. Want to find a document called "Meeting Notes.txt" that lives somewhere on your machine. Type `Ctrl-Space mee` and you'll see it and a list of other files starting with "mee". Hit `tab` and you can choose to open it, print it, trash it, move it, copy it, etc all with a couple more keystrokes.

No mouse required.

I had pretty much the same opinion of Macs as you do before I actually sat down and used one for a while. I think most of my bias came from using pre-OS X machines. With OS 9 and before I found it incredibly difficult to do anything on a Mac without constantly reaching for the mouse.

With OS X + Quicksilver I honestly barely ever touch the mouse and can do much more and more quickly than I have ever been able to on a Windows machine.

Microsoft are being attacked on all sides

[Halcyon-X]

They apparently have very strong competitors in Firefox for IE, Oracle for SQL Server, LAMP for IIS et al, Google and Yahoo! on the commercial web front, have they spread themselves too thin? If they only choose to go after Google, will they lose significantly in the other areas that they're already having trouble in?

Please stop it

[RoLi]

MS NEEDS to look like they are losing

Can you please stop modding such nonsense as insightful?

MS doesn't need to look like they are losing. The whole DOJ thing was a big joke that didn't even scratch their earnings. So why should they need to look like they are losing? Because the DOJ might not punish them again?

Micro$oft trying to be everything to everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

When is M$ going to try to do what Slashdot does? Perhaps sites might microsoftdottied - fat chance, coz they are not interested in the little guys, just interested in screwing them out of their hard earned money with smoke and mirrors.

not in the stock market

[peter303]

In past year:
GOOG up 200% 96 -> 292
MSFT up 0% 28 -> 25 + 3.4 dividend

A lot of 'innovating' left to do...

[sanermind]

"Does anyone here really believe search is going to look like it does now in 10 years?," he asked attendees. ... But I'd love to go to it and say 'who is the account manager for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia?'," Ballmer told the partners.

Google can already tell you the account manager of the commonwealth bank of australia. (Second up from the bottom of the page)

At least he plans to have microsoft there in the next ten years!

I don't want .net

[Spacejock]

I've been writing in VB since 3.0, and before that in VB Dos and QuickBasic. I don't _want_ .Net, not through fear of change but because it would mean a line-by-line rewrite of hundreds of thousands of lines of code. (Don't talk to me about the project conversion wizard. It's more like a druid.)

If you want me back on the upgrade treadmill, give me VB7. And I don't care if it's just a compatibility layer on top of VB.net.

Re:I don't want .net

[Anonymous Coward]

I dabbled with qbasic maybe eight years ago, but gave it up when I discovered assembler was a trade secret in terms of a memory map of the 86 class - IBM's bad, not M$'s for a change. Blue book anyone? It seems an American disease - that wants to own the whole enchilada. Ya ripped jet engines off from the Brits, Ya ripped the Language off from the Brits, Ya ripped computers off from the Brits - don't give me that Babbage crap - the true father of the computer was George Boole.

Gates on hype...

[KFury]

In response to 700,000 users who sent postcards to Microsoft telling them where they wanted to go today:

"We meant it as a rhetorical device," said Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft. "But, evidently people took us literally. That's nothing new, really. They've been believing our claims and hype for years."

-Bill Gates

Can 'user base who will believe our claims and hype' be justified as a company asset on SEC filings?

Re:Directories

[KwKSilver]

You are so right about using directories. How to create dirs, sub-dirs etc. were among the first things I was taught. I have little or no problem finding what I'm looking for despite having about 15 years accumulation of documents. Never have used "MyDocuments" or whatever that rubbish-pile is called.

Gene Hackman

[Celsius10]

He's just grumpy because Gene lit his thumb on fire.

Now that's more like it!

[SuperKendall]

I would a couple of the Taurus's actually race, then have a 199 car demolition derby with the other 198 Taurus's and 1 Ferrari.

Now that would be something I'd pay money to see, a single Ferrari running like hell all over a 202 Tourus length width track trying to escape doom from a Bland Sedan.

I guess you could also use Saturn ION's.

One Hit Wonder? Hardly.

[wintermute1974]

Microsoft, OTOH, is a one hit wonder.

No, you are wrong. Microsoft is easily a two hit wonder.

Before Microsoft got into operating systems with MS DOS, they were considered the premier programming language company.

Essentially, you bought you 8-bit microcomputer from some company which you chose based on glossy magazine ads and whatever your friends were thinking of buying.

But when it came to running programs, more often than not you would be running Microsoft BASIC. Microsoft wrote the first BASIC interpreter for the first personal computer (the Altair) and from that point on, it went from success to success.

Either your computer was installed with Microsoft BASIC or you could get it on data cassette or floppy disk. (It might have been sold on tape, both magnetic and punch as well. I can't remember.)

Even if IBM had not agreed to let Microsoft sell PC DOS to others, the company was a success. Even if Compaq had not reverse engineered the BIOS and created the PC Clone market, Microsoft was a success.

Microsoft will not lose the desktop market

[Kamex]

No matter how bad longhorn is, it really doesn't matter. It could be guaranteed to crash at startup, and it wouldn't matter. People would simply stick to XP. They aren't going to switch to Linux because they think Windows is firmware and aren't aware of the existance of Linux. You can't choose something if you don't know it exists. If food at a resourant isn't on the menu, and I don't know they have it, I'm not going to pick it. We should be realistic here. Take a look at the W3Schools statistics on operating systems. Windows has over 90% of the market. That's an awfully large portion for a company that's supposably losing. Yes, Linux and Mac are increasing, but it's happening so slowly that it might as well not be happening at all. Then you have to consider W3School's target audience, and how Windows likely has a much larger percentage than this. I don't know about other markets, but with the desktop market - all Microsoft needs to stay alive - they don't even have to release new operating systems. They could halt development of even security updates for 20 years and it wouldn't matter. I really don't think there's a hope. As far as Firefox is concerned, all it takes is for Microsoft to see things grow enough that they decide "Ok, that's enough, we're going to stop it now" and Firefox is history. Thinking that IE can be defeated if the market share shrinks small enough doesn't make any sense, because IE didn't have it's nice market share to begin with, and it still won. All it has to do is bribe away the companies defending Firefox, maybe hire some of the Firefox developers, or perhaps even block Firefox from installing on Windows, and they've got their 90% back. So long as Microsoft keeps it's dominance in the desktop OS and browser markets, they will never go away. Don't get me wrong, I don't want Microsoft around either, but I'm more pessimistic (sp?) than most.

Re:One Hit Wonder? Hardly.

[robertjw]

I stand corrected.

Re:Don't discount IE's impact on microsoft earning

[undef24]

Can you provide specific details as to how asp and asp.net are IE specific? The only thing i've seen are ugly looking panels with big borders that can be easily fixed.

Say, where's Andreeson these days?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love all the nerdy MAC guys always doing their cute "M$" sneers, and whining how much better a Mac (or for that matter a (choke) X86 Linux system) is than a Windows system...
I've been hearing it for years (decades?).
And how "M$" will NEVER catch Google.
I've been a google user since its Stanford inception, when no one had ever heard of it before.
Of late I've begun using search.msn.com as well as google. And I'm starting to use it more.
And more. Works pretty well. Go ahead- continue sneering.
I seem to remember someone crowing 8-10 years ago how Netscape was going to DESTROY MS...uhh, I mean M$... (sorry guys)
I'm still waiting. Mark?

hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Google creates a few web applications and the world goes crazy.

No .NET "standstill"

[Sharpner]

The article says that "Ballmer admitted the platform's interoperability work with IBM and Sun had stalled slightly" or (earlier in the article) "slowed" [emphasis mine].

Our helpful Anonymous Reader reports this as follows: Ballmer "confessed the software giant's .Net strategy has come to a standstill."

What a load of crap.

The project with IBM and Sun may be in more trouble than Bush's Social Security plan, for all I know, but neither .NET itself (with the upcoming release of .NET 2.0) nor even the interoperability piece of .NET (with Indigo) are at anything remotely resembling a standstill.

Dream on, if you must, but learn to read. There are plenty of good reasons to have an anti-Microsoft bias, but .NET isn't one of them. And feeding yourself blatant spin instead of arming yourself with facts is going to leave you unequipped in this battle.

Shame, CmdrTaco, shame. Don't you check these postings for accuracy?

To win over google ...

[jawahar]

1. Create an index of more than 10 billion web pages (bigger index is more appealing)
2. Let individuals,institutions and companies build web applications viz pagerank, trustrank, adsense, adword, shopping, auctions etc over this index
3. Host these applications locally at your servers or remotely through web api
4. Charge flat fee for providing the indexing service

Great idea!

[ImaLamer]

The big question - What will Microsoft do when it does have the right CEO?

I say the next reality show should be people trying out for Ballmer's job.

Imagine the commercials: "See ten people fight it out for control of America's richest company"

Planned obsolescence of file formats is MS ace...

[Cafe Alpha]

Planned obsolescence of file formats is MS ace in the hole. That's why everyone will have to buy MS Office over and over and over. The reason you can't reuse the license to MS office is that in 5 or 10 years everyone with a new seat will be using a version of MS office that creates files that are incompatible with your old version. MS won't sell upgrades too quickly, but they'll use planned obsolescence bleed ever company slowly forever!

Re:Planned obsolescence of file formats is MS ace.

[hey!]

It's not much of an ace when overall customers aren't adopting technology at a high rate.

There's a kind of tipping point involved. At high rates a adoption, the percentage of peole who use the new format are high enough to discourage people from keeping the old one.

If the rates are low, then the percentage of people who can only handle the old format is high enough to discourage adopting the new one.

He is right, Microsoft is now irrelevent

[ebvwfbw]

MS is to big to become "irrelevent." Many people said the same thing about IBM, and they haven't.

IBM isn't irrelevent eh? Work for IBM maybe? How many of your friends have an IBM pc? How many people do you even know that still work on an IBM mainframe? How about IBM equipment of any kind? Sure they are out there but just a short shadow of what they could have been. They could have owned the PC market and even the server market. I have exactly one rack from IBM in my datacenter. Very well built and we may put more of them in, however I have row after row after row of HP and SUN racks. We are dumping the SUN equipment. IBM for years was irrelevent but they may be making a comeback. For years I was told by customer after customer that they wouldn't even consider IBM. Wouldn't even discuss them. I don't sell any of this stuff, I just recommend hardware and software.

Maybe it all depends on your definition of irrelevent. Used to be that nobody got fired for choosing IBM. Then (for a very short time) it was nobody got fired for choosing Microsoft. Today people can be and are fired for choosing IBM or Microsoft. Sounds irrelevent to me. Here we are years later and there are almost daily security issues for Windows. Longhorn will be like going back 5 years - all new code they say. That means chock full of bugs, especially in their haste to make it to market (get people to pay tribute to them). The river denial is running dry, Linux and Unix are ruling the day. Some government agencies have dumped Microsoft for Linux. Business will no doubt follow their success.

One word:

[SuperKendall]

Ramp.

Re:One word:

[orasio]

I believe I already addressed that subject.

Two Words:

[SuperKendall]

Bo Duke

Re:Don't discount IE's impact on microsoft earning

[ccoakley]

Your example is fine.

Those ugly panels require no code to create (they can be created in a GUI builder) and much code to fix.

Many of the default components render correctly (even if they are ugly) in IE and possibly not at all in other browsers (except Opera, by design).

Two Words:

[orasio]

You win

Thanks...

[SuperKendall]

But I admit I cheated, and the diagonal thing was pretty clever. :-)