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Just Say No to Microsoft
Ben Rothke writes "Load up a computer today with a basic set of applications software, and there will be a de facto Microsoft tax on that computer. Add roughly $100- for the Windows XP operating systems and $350- for Microsoft office, and you have a significant initial financial outlay. If one would use an open source operating system and set of office applications, the cost savings would be enormous. That is why the option of open source is so financially compelling to the both the consumer and organizations have thousands of computers. And open source is corresponding such a threat to companies such as Microsoft. The idea of saving money and never having to worry about a blue screen of death is the proverbial win/win scenario." Read on for Ben's review.
Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think
author
Tony Bove
pages
243
publisher
No Starch Press
rating
7
reviewer
Ben Rothke
ISBN
159327064X
summary
Open source alternatives to Microsoft operating systems and applications
With that, Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think would seemingly be a most valuable book in helping consumers and corporations rid themselves of the Microsoft tax. Unfortunately, the book spends far too much time slurring Microsoft and Bill Gates.
The books main charges are that Microsoft has been far too predatory and that Bill Gates is not the technical genius that he is made out to be. Microsoft's questionable business tactics are not without ethical lapses, but it must noted that Microsoft is simply one in a long line of companies that have used their size and deep pockets to quash the competition. Microsoft is not alone and joins companies such as American Airlines, Ford and General Motors, Wal-Mart and more that have engaged in practices that while good for their stockholders, have not been good for the competition.
Bove is correct that Microsoft's practices over the years have discouraged innovation and stunted competition. But then again, that is true of Ford, GM and other such companies. The innovations of Ford and GM for example have been mostly superficial, without any significant improvement into crucial issues such as gas mileage and more.
Two of the companies that Microsoft has been accused of destroying are Novell and WordPerfect. Yet much of the blame for the demise of these two companies goes to their management that did not know how to properly market their products nor deal with a competitor such as Microsoft. This is not meant to imply that Microsoft is blameless, rather that Novell and WordPerfect had plenty of opportunities to fend off Microsoft, yet did not rise to the challenge.
Aside from the pervasive anti-Microsoft tone and style and the book, Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think provides a good starting point for those that are looking for a cheaper and safer alternative to Microsoft products.
Chapter 1 start with an overview of the history of Microsoft and how it grew to be the largest software company in the world. In chapter 2, All You Need is a Mac, Bove feels that the quickest route to Microsoft freedom is by purchasing a Macintosh. While a Mac is not necessarily cheaper than a Wintel system, the Mac OS X is considerably more resilient against attacks. In addition, the concern of malware such as viruses and spyware are much less of an issue on a Mac.
Chapter 3 deals with what worries Microsoft the most - Linux. Bove notes that large companies that deal with thousands of end-user desktops are discovering the advantage of migrating to Linux in a big way.
Chapters 4 and 5 deal with Microsoft Word and Excel. Word documents have become the de facto standard for document exchange and are what has locked many people into staying with Microsoft Word. Excel has a similar power in being the de facto spreadsheet. Most people think that the only alternative to Word is WordPerfect and simply don't know about OpenOffice Writer and Calc or other open source alternatives. The two chapters show how it is possible to effectively collaborate on documents without having to use Word.
While the book does not get into every open source alternative to a Microsoft product, Bove's web site has a comprehensive list of open source alternatives to Windows products at www.tonybove.com/getoffmicrosoft/home.html#windows
Chapter 4 concludes with a look at the technical and practical problems with PowerPoint. Bove notes that the corrupting power of PowerPoint is so strong that otherwise normally articulate speakers turn into zombies mumbling the bullet points that appear on the slides behind them. It is not clear though how Impress, the open source alternative to PowerPoint is necessarily better from a presentation perspective.
The next few chapters deal with Outlook, the application that has launched countless viruses and worms, and also detail other network-based problems with Microsoft protocols and applications. Issues such as the never enduing cycle of Microsoft patches are also discussed.
Chapter 10 provides a 10 step program (fashioned after the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 step program) to free the reader from their Microsoft addition. While the steps are brief and effective, it would have been better had there been more technical details on how to migrate out of a Microsoft environment. For the person with thousands of documents and files in various Microsoft formats, it is not as effortless as to simply copy your old files onto a USB drive and move it to the new open source based host.
The book contains four parts, and there are four cartoons at the begging of each part that Bove wrote. The cartoons are quite funny in their own right and Bove should also consider a career as a cartoonist.
Ned Ludd said that the machine was the enemy, and Tony Bove feels the same way about Microsoft. For evidence, check out his campaign to stop the spread of Word documents at www.tonybove.com/getoffmicrosoft/stopdoc.html.
The only negative to the book is that there are far too many anti-negative stories of Microsoft's predatory practices. A few stories would be adequate, but there is no point in belaboring the issue in a book that is meant to be more technical and practical, as opposed to political.
For many people who don't know better, they expect that a blue screen of death and monthly patching is part of a standard computing environment. Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think is an interesting read that will open the eyes of those users to a cheaper, more secure and robust open source solution.
You can purchase Just Say No to Microsoft from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
With that, Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think would seemingly be a most valuable book in helping consumers and corporations rid themselves of the Microsoft tax. Unfortunately, the book spends far too much time slurring Microsoft and Bill Gates.
The books main charges are that Microsoft has been far too predatory and that Bill Gates is not the technical genius that he is made out to be. Microsoft's questionable business tactics are not without ethical lapses, but it must noted that Microsoft is simply one in a long line of companies that have used their size and deep pockets to quash the competition. Microsoft is not alone and joins companies such as American Airlines, Ford and General Motors, Wal-Mart and more that have engaged in practices that while good for their stockholders, have not been good for the competition.
Bove is correct that Microsoft's practices over the years have discouraged innovation and stunted competition. But then again, that is true of Ford, GM and other such companies. The innovations of Ford and GM for example have been mostly superficial, without any significant improvement into crucial issues such as gas mileage and more.
Two of the companies that Microsoft has been accused of destroying are Novell and WordPerfect. Yet much of the blame for the demise of these two companies goes to their management that did not know how to properly market their products nor deal with a competitor such as Microsoft. This is not meant to imply that Microsoft is blameless, rather that Novell and WordPerfect had plenty of opportunities to fend off Microsoft, yet did not rise to the challenge.
Aside from the pervasive anti-Microsoft tone and style and the book, Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think provides a good starting point for those that are looking for a cheaper and safer alternative to Microsoft products.
Chapter 1 start with an overview of the history of Microsoft and how it grew to be the largest software company in the world. In chapter 2, All You Need is a Mac, Bove feels that the quickest route to Microsoft freedom is by purchasing a Macintosh. While a Mac is not necessarily cheaper than a Wintel system, the Mac OS X is considerably more resilient against attacks. In addition, the concern of malware such as viruses and spyware are much less of an issue on a Mac.
Chapter 3 deals with what worries Microsoft the most - Linux. Bove notes that large companies that deal with thousands of end-user desktops are discovering the advantage of migrating to Linux in a big way.
Chapters 4 and 5 deal with Microsoft Word and Excel. Word documents have become the de facto standard for document exchange and are what has locked many people into staying with Microsoft Word. Excel has a similar power in being the de facto spreadsheet. Most people think that the only alternative to Word is WordPerfect and simply don't know about OpenOffice Writer and Calc or other open source alternatives. The two chapters show how it is possible to effectively collaborate on documents without having to use Word.
While the book does not get into every open source alternative to a Microsoft product, Bove's web site has a comprehensive list of open source alternatives to Windows products at www.tonybove.com/getoffmicrosoft/home.html#windows
Chapter 4 concludes with a look at the technical and practical problems with PowerPoint. Bove notes that the corrupting power of PowerPoint is so strong that otherwise normally articulate speakers turn into zombies mumbling the bullet points that appear on the slides behind them. It is not clear though how Impress, the open source alternative to PowerPoint is necessarily better from a presentation perspective.
The next few chapters deal with Outlook, the application that has launched countless viruses and worms, and also detail other network-based problems with Microsoft protocols and applications. Issues such as the never enduing cycle of Microsoft patches are also discussed.
Chapter 10 provides a 10 step program (fashioned after the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 step program) to free the reader from their Microsoft addition. While the steps are brief and effective, it would have been better had there been more technical details on how to migrate out of a Microsoft environment. For the person with thousands of documents and files in various Microsoft formats, it is not as effortless as to simply copy your old files onto a USB drive and move it to the new open source based host.
The book contains four parts, and there are four cartoons at the begging of each part that Bove wrote. The cartoons are quite funny in their own right and Bove should also consider a career as a cartoonist.
Ned Ludd said that the machine was the enemy, and Tony Bove feels the same way about Microsoft. For evidence, check out his campaign to stop the spread of Word documents at www.tonybove.com/getoffmicrosoft/stopdoc.html.
The only negative to the book is that there are far too many anti-negative stories of Microsoft's predatory practices. A few stories would be adequate, but there is no point in belaboring the issue in a book that is meant to be more technical and practical, as opposed to political.
For many people who don't know better, they expect that a blue screen of death and monthly patching is part of a standard computing environment. Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think is an interesting read that will open the eyes of those users to a cheaper, more secure and robust open source solution.
You can purchase Just Say No to Microsoft from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
And if you're going to just say no to Microsoft, Apple isn't necessarily the way to go. You're still locked into all sorts of proprietary software and apps.
Perhaps a more useful book would have been "Just Say Yes to OSS", detailing all of the neat replacements for popular closed-source software, not just Windows and Office. A lot of this stuff has been ported too, so you can phase yourself over, trying out various apps on your Windows box, getting more comfortable with OSS, and gradually moving toward a closed-source-free existence.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
I stopped reading right there. What a load of crap. It's roughly 50$ for Windows XP Home and 100$ for MS Office.
This book is very similar to the Parable of the Broken Window by Bastiat. You can remove Microsoft from the PC equation and maybe see a savings of $450 per PC, but you're forgetting about the unintended consequences of that action.
I'm not being a Microsoft fanboy here, I just wanted to make it clear that Microsoft is producing a huge market than many of us here rely on. Microsoft uses their profit for positive benefits to society as well: 1 2 3 4 These are just a few from November, 2005.
Also, Microsoft employs more than 12,000 people. These people likely buy products or use services that your employer produces.
Sure, ending Microsoft's majority-control of the operating system market and office processing market sounds like a great idea, yet there isn't a viable alternative that is as widely supported, YET. Give it time. Thousands of companies this very minute are working on the next replacement of both the OS and the office processing software.
The market compensates for consumer demand, and no company (that I know of) has had the ability to perform at the top for more than a decade. Microsoft has been on top for a while, but it isn't anything unnatural -- they've created a product that billions of people LIKE using. That product has created a third party market that has put food on the table of millions of contractors, programmers and hardware manufacturers.
Would the money saved over Office and Windows be spent elsewhere? Of course it would. I believe that money will be best spent over time, as individual consumers make individual choices. Yes, going to F/OSS software would likely save $500 per PC that could be spent on food or cars or drugs or hookers or a new roof, but such a change couldn't happen overnight.
If Linux fanboys want to convince, they need to make a product that works as well as the competition.
In my experience (I'm 31 and have been watching freeware since 1984 when I started my first BBS), that hasn't happened often.
Looking at the editorial closer:
Bove is correct that Microsoft's practices over the years have discouraged innovation and stunted competition. Stunted competition? Microsoft's platform has offered millions of programmers a fairly amazing platform to make software that not only works in a standard way familiar to users, but also interacts with other programs.
Two of the companies that Microsoft has been accused of destroying are Novell and WordPerfect. The editor is right in laying the blame at Novell and WordPerfect. My company only maintains a few Novell servers and we HATE them. WordPerfect was always terrible except when it was running solely under DOS. They never produced a product that was user friendly (I know, we still support some WordPerfect desktops).
While a Mac is not necessarily cheaper than a Wintel system, the Mac OS X is considerably more resilient against attacks. I'm not sure this is really a big deal. My security company offers corporations the ability to be virus and spam free for less than $250 per user per year. For a 50-user network, you're looking at only $12,500 to bring us on. Considering most of my customers bill out at $150 per hour, for only 83 hours invested, we're likely saving them hundreds of hours in time saved. If they switched to a Mac, they're still going to need someone working on their spam and other problems, and I don't see a huge savings there over us.
Chapter 3 deals with what worries Microsoft the most - Lin
The OEM cost for pre-loading XP on a new box is significantly less than $100, as is the cost to pre-load Office. Retail end-user costs in no way correlate with OEM costs.
Even more telling is the fact that many large OEMs charge the same or more for boxes without Windows, because those systems generally prove to cost them more in the end - more support calls, more returns because their distro doesn't support the particular DAC codec, whatever. Sometimes the whole is much more than the parts.
And the whole "never worry about blue screens" really put the icing on the Lamecake. The whole blue screen argument is so 2002, and if that's what the anti-M$ bots are still spouting, they need to update their playbook.
I would be astounded to see one article on Slashdot that ever shows Microsoft in a positive light. Microsoft isn't inherently evil, they're a company. They make things. It took hundreds of thousands of unwashed linux programmers over a decade to make their operating system, and Microsoft only takes a few years for each version, which yes, of course, like all things, has flaws. How about just stepping back, taking a deep breath and realizing that, yes, Microsoft makes good things?
From TFS: So...there's too many positive stories of Microsoft's predatory practices? I'm confused...
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
How can paying for an OS be considred a tax? Now, if you wanted to buy a box from Dell without the OS and they won't, then yes that's a tax...well kinda. But stick it to Dell by buying from someone else or making your own system. There are plently of places to buy a computer from without having Windows installed.
gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/an article or two won't convince a newbie or a Joe Manager. Besides, a book might make a perfect gift for an office (pun intended) coworker, or even your boss.
I don't love MS either. But when was the last time you got a BSOD on XP? I have crashes on XP about as often as I do on my debian server. The only BSODs I have had on XP have been when I ran VERY BAD software. Interestingly, the last one was two weeks ago when I was using a driver to read an ext2 volume mounted over USB. Yes, I have crashes on my debian box- the latest was somthing that rsync did that locked me out of both local and ssh connections. (Seriously. I have no idea what was happening and had to kill the machine) And no, I am not a linux guru. But if I have problems like these with my intermediate level of knowledge, then you'd better belive that joe blow will too.
This dude isn't a PC gamer.
Shouldn't that be a non-win/non-win scenario?
[rimshot]
...how the claim that other people have used tactics like those of Microsoft excuses Microsoft, as the reviewer seems to think.
The real price, not the bullshit open source idiocy price, is more like $30 for Windows
Or $450 to upgrade to a new machine every eight years or so.
That $30 Windows install is like the first hit of crack. Everything after that costs you more and more money.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Microsoft's platform has offered millions of programmers a fairly amazing platform to make software that not only works in a standard way familiar to users, but also interacts with other programs.
A fairly amazing platform for programmers? I beg to differ. Ever since I started to develop for Windows in the mid-80s I saw what a mess the platform was in so many ways. There were other GUI systems available (even for DOS) that were cleaner and simpler. There was, of course the Mac.
My company only maintains a few Novell servers and we HATE them.
We love them. They are rock solid stable and virtually maintenance-free.
WordPerfect was always terrible except when it was running solely under DOS.
Terrible how? We still have users who use WordPerfect/Corel Office under Windows and love it, as it is far more tailored to their use than MS Office.
My users (nearly 90% in our last questionnaire) love the Word interface and look-and-feel.
I couldn't let this pass! (1) Have you shown them anything else recently? (You have to bear in mind that users will always prefer the familiar) (2) What do you mean by the Word interface? The thing keeps changing every few years, often in ways that makes it different from the main Windows GUI.
I don't see Microsoft as a thief. Government is a thief: they steal with the threat of a gun. Microsoft is a choice, government isn't.
You and every other person in this world is FREE to choose against Microsoft. As many people know, Microsoft has an interface in their software that is VERY easy to use, and they are supported by more programmers than any other operating system. You can't fault Microsoft for releasing Windows 3.1 that was compatible with millions of computers and offered a fairly decent interface. Apple decided to release their OS to a proprietary solution, and F/OSS OSes weren't really on the radar at the time.
If Linux fanboys want to convince, they need to make a product that works as well as the competition.
This statement is just wrong:
This book is very similar to the Parable of the Broken Window by Bastiat.
It is highly ironic that you use this analogy. It applies to your comments:
I'm not being a Microsoft fanboy here, I just wanted to make it clear that Microsoft is producing a huge market that many of us here rely on. Microsoft uses their profit for positive benefits to society as well: 1 2 3 4 These are just a few from November, 2005.
You imply that the money is well spent propping up Microsoft's monopoly because they make donations to charity and there is employment around their crappy software?
I strongly suspect that if billions didn't go Microsoft's way, some of that money would find its way to charity and there would still be a strong market around custom software solutions. If Microsoft weren't there I'm sure we'd find a way to muddle along ;-)
Of course, we don't know what the world's economies would look like without Microsoft, but from a European perspective (I'm English) a lot less money would be going overseas to an American corporation which could only be good.
Well, you *sound* like one...
In fact, you sound like you're arguing everythign except realistic points (which, of course, the book does too - I don't want to sound like I'm defending it because it's crap).
In fact, everything you write here sounds exactly like the standard fears & rants of a Microsoft sharecropper who fears (greatly) the de-valuation of your company. It's certainly true that Microsoft has engendered a large subculture, but I don't think you could prove that that market would be smaller or less vibrant if there was greater competition in the OS market. It's entirely possible that your specific section would be - you make your money by compensating for flaws in Microsofts product - but the market of third party/customized solutions would probably be at least as large and as profitable. By the way, as long as we're talking about hidden costs, the costs of companies such as yours provides are an excellent demonstration of them.
If Linux fanboys want to convince, they need to make a product that works as well as the competition.
In my experience (I'm 31 and have been watching freeware since 1984 when I started my first BBS), that hasn't happened often.
Of course, there are millions of people who disagree with you. What "works as well" is often subjective. A big part of the issue is convincing people (who, thanks to the MS monopoly, have generally only experienced Windows) is that "different" is not "worse". This is a hard sell and is one reason alternate operating systems have such an uproad hill to acceptance in the general market.
Word documents have become the de facto standard for document exchange and are what has locked many people into staying with Microsoft Word. Really? My users (nearly 90% in our last questionnaire) love the Word interface and look-and-feel.
Self-selected surveys are *great* for backing up your already felt convictions, aren't they? How many of your users are even aware of alternatives to Word? Of the ones who have, how many would even consider switching if they were told they couldn't keep compatability with Word documents, even if there were (potentially massive) cost savings? There's a saying about the value of your share of the IT market being the cost of all your customers to switch away from your product - Microsoft relies very heavily on that to keep customers from switching.
This book is ridiculous, and is pointing the blame at a non-monopoly instead of at competitors who don't know how to compete.
And here is where the real fanboy stuff shows through. Microsoft is *absolutely* a monopoly. There is no question about it whatsoever. You can argue a lot about how they got there, and you can pin blame on IBM and Novell and everyone else, and you can claim that MS deserves its status and it's un-American to limit them, but claiming with a straight face that they aren't a monopoly is just retarded.
Microsoft has been on top for a while, but it isn't anything unnatural -- they've created a product that billions of people LIKE using.
You make a good case for Microsoft but your arguments are mostly personal (experiences) and are unreferenced. It's debatable whether Microsoft got to "be on top" because people like there system or because they had no choice.
I'd suggest reading the Findings of Fact from the Microsoft antitrust case. It's quite revealing. It details, for example, exactly how Microsoft threatened vendors with severe consquences if they even considered selling computers with competing software.
If you have it on your work computer, you can legally use the same SN for one computer at home.
Troll I hope? Cuz...no you can't.
You and every other person in this world is FREE to choose against Microsoft.
So you missed the whole point didn't you?
When I buy a PC, any PC, I have Windows preinstalled. That means that, even if Microsoft licensed Windows to the PC manufacturer only 50 cents, I have to pay 50 cents to Microsoft when I buy the PC.
I don't want to give any money to Microsoft, but when I buy a new PC, I have to anyway. That's the point: you're free to choose to *install* something other than Windows, but you must pay for Windows regardless.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I'm not being a Microsoft fanboy here, I just wanted to make it clear that Microsoft is producing a huge market than many of us here rely on. Microsoft uses their profit for positive benefits to society as well: 1 2 3 4 These are just a few from November, 2005.
Did you know that Microsoft paid no Federal taxes in 1999? And they paid 1.8% on 21.9 billion in pretax profit for 2000-2001.
Also, Microsoft employs more than 12,000 people. These people likely buy products or use services that your employer produces.
GM is going to lay off 30,000 people. They buy products or use services that your employer produces. Better go out and buy a Chevy tonight.
Yes, you are.
Microsoft uses their profit for positive benefits to society as well: 1 2 3 4 These are just a few from November, 2005.
Two articles are about the Gates Foundation, which is NOT Microsoft, one was about Google, and the last was actually about MS.
Also, Microsoft employs more than 12,000 people. These people likely buy products or use services that your employer produces.
They Actually employ more along the lines of 35,000 people, however, if they weren't there, that void would most likely be filled by someone else.
My security company offers corporations the ability to be virus and spam free for less than $250 per user per year. For a 50-user network, you're looking at only $12,500 to bring us on. Considering most of my customers bill out at $150 per hour, for only 83 hours invested, we're likely saving them hundreds of hours in time saved. If they switched to a Mac, they're still going to need someone working on their spam and other problems, and I don't see a huge savings there over us.
Or they could do the smart thing and use something like a Barracuda 400, which at less then $9000.00 for three years of maintenance and updates, is one hell of a lot cheaper than your fee. Considering they'd get free installation support from Barracuda Networks, it would be much, much, cheaper.
This book is very similar to the Parable of the Broken Window by Bastiat.
I agree, but it's the microsoft tax that is the broken window.
Also, Microsoft employs more than 12,000 people. These people likely buy products or use services that your employer produces.
Yes, and broken windows help employ glass makers.
If you actually understood the parable, instead of just trotting it out to look smart, you'd realize that the money wasted on microsoft would flow into other areas of the economy, providing a greater net benefit than just giving it to microsoft.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
If by "Insightful" you mean "Hopeful", then the parent post moderation is correct.
Ten years ago, I downloaded Slackware for the first time, made a towering stack of 3.5" floppies out of the downloaded files, and installed it. I couldn't believe it -- not only did I get the OS, but I got compilers, utilities, games, all for just the cost of Internet access and time spent siphoning bits down the phone line.
Since then, the price of Windows has just gone up. When, exactly (or even generally!), is Microsoft supposed to buckle under the pressure?
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
http://www.openexchange.com/
Did you pull these numbers out of your ass, microshill? Let's see, windows XP professional OEM costs $146.95. You can get a slight discount by buying a 30-pack for $4,249.95. A pre-installed version from a Dell or HPaq (without the media, so you can't reinstall and configure it yourself) would cost a little less, but certainly nowhere near $50.
Office 2003 professional (again, OEM, not retail) costs $319.95. Yes, it's also a little cheaper from a big vendor but nowhere near $100.
Please show me where you can buy windows for $50 and office for $100.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
When cleaning out a section of the garage to unload antiques from a deceased family member's house, I hit the inevitable: boxes of old magazines. When I'm done in the house, they get stacked, eventually boxed, and finally pushed into the garage, and somehow forgotten until we need more room (the books are boxed and are such they don't take up room.
Last night, I hit a box of ca. '94-'95, and the cover of an Economic Review asks, "How Dangerous is Microsoft?" with a web and WHG III's head on the body of a spider, waiting for prey to get caught. In a strange way, it's interesting how the same questions have come up over & over & over for at least ten years.
One of the things I've pointed out before (and should just save on HD) is the fact Microsoft is failing in one of its most powerful areas: marketing. I'd be greatly surprised if someone (bald? turns red easily?) doesn't promise someone in Marketing that if they don't come up with a way to pry the corporate sector's fingers off of the unholy trinity of Win2K (general service expired 06/30/05 but Microsoft tossed a couple of rollup SPs), Office2K and VS 6.0, they won't have to worry about a lump of coal in their stocking, it'll be the insertion of a broomstick which won't be removed until the problem is fixed.
I have to put "finding numbers I can cite" on my ToDo list. The number of individual licenses in the corporate world for Win2K alone is well into six digits. The TCO for these environments has to be staggeringly low. All joking aside about the Microsoft Seal of Software Quality stamped on discs, Win2K, Office2K, and VS6.0 seem to be Triplet Sons of Different Mothers. They dovetail so well and are probably the sturdiest products Microsoft has put out which don't clobber each other. (Please don't cite problems you encountered as exceptions to disprove the rule. I'm quite serious about this. Look at all of their other products and make an objective analysis. But as Winston Churchill used to say, "The lesser of two evils is still evil.")
Microsoft would love to replace those three products with their descendents. They'd probably like to replace SQL2K with SQL05 as those same shops are likely not to upgrade there, either. We're talking massive revenue+profit for Microsoft (not to mention huge commissions for Sales), and hardware vendors would suffer from priapism for a couple of months because the new software would perform so poorly on the old hardware. The corporations, however, would see their budgets melt to the point any form of bonuses, even those executives who are exempt from the freezes everyone else is vulnerable to, would likely get just a free pair of movie tickets as a show of gratitude. The TCO would go from fractions of a cent to incalcuable dollars. Massive scheduling would have to take place to figure out who could be upgraded when (both hardware & software) in conjunction with getting them trained, as well as the technical staff, yadda-yadda. Worst of all, their profits (what profits?), okay, they'd miss their earnings and p%ss off shareholders for six or seven quarters trying to make up for the big technology jump.
Basically, Microsoft screwed up. Remember the joke about the pig that had a cork shoved up its posterior, was fed & fed & fed, got fatter & fatter, won award after award at every fair & exhibition the owners could find? When it was all said & done, they realized they had to pull the cork. So they trained a monkey to do it. When the time came, someone couldn't resist trying to get just close enough to watch the grand event. After the explosion, they found this guy and asked him what happened. He said, "well, about the time the sh%t started flying, the only thing I could see was the monkey trying to push the cork back in."
Microsoft has done something similar with corks. Except it's the geese which lay golden eggs. They motivated the corporations to cork the geese so Microsoft can't grab anything of
by Anonymous Coward on 2005.11.28 14:22 (#14131359)
More Slashdot masturbation material.
No, that would be Open Office, not Word!
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Let's assume, that by some miracle, some subcontractor, ShitSoft (MS) manages to break a deal to sell shit (Windows) for food (OS) for McDonalds (IBM) customers for their fastfood restaurants (PC) sometime in the late 80ies so ShitSoft gains monopoly on fastfood restaurants and thus the food market.
There are 12'000 people involved in devising the best methods to fling shit at the customers, to feed them with shit, to serve shit in the most appetizing way.
Because people don't know anything better, people buy ShitSoft's "product". ShitSoft must be producing a huge market many hungry people rely on, right?
ShitSoft is a nice friendly company, so it donates less than 1% of its profits to help combat diseases, so this is why we should keep eating shit.
Also, ShitSoft also has around 12'000 employees, whom are contractually obliged to eat shit.
ShitSoft has been on the top for a while, they clearly created a product that everyone LIKES, because they don't know any better. That product has created jobs for millions of food specialists, contractors and plastic cutlery producers. (Because they would be totally out of their jobs if people would eat something different, right?)
But as in every fairy tale the bad, ugly guy appeared: community owned greenhouses started producing quality vegetables. They gave it away the plans of building such greenhouses and the seeds for the vegetables, only asking to share them with everyone who wants those plans and seeds.
ShitSoft had to do something: they started their "Get the feces" campaign, where they involved several independent researchers, with only a few million shares from ShitSoft or being a board member at ShitSoft. Those researchers claimed that everyone who uses community owned greenhouses must be a communist for not supporting Real hard working American produced quality branded shit wrapped in nice shiny package, but preferred vegetables. They explained that shit has a much lower Total Caloric Overall, than vegetables and that ShitSoft's shit is produced by a trustable american corporation while the vegetables are clearly on the way to ruin the american economy.
The campaign is still undecided to be effective or not, but let's not forget another issue: ShitSoft's product created a huge industry to modify some of the product's erm, "features". Some customers wanted to decrease the value of the quality shit (no idea why would they want to do that), by buying products from third party companies to make shit lose it's smell and taste, and to drive away the flies. Can you not see how ShitSoft helps the economy?
There have been certain allegations before, that ShitSoft's product is not adequate for human consumption. Such a nonsense! It is a shame that we can't disprove that since ShitSoft's End User Shit Agreement specifically forbids the analysis of their latest, "eXPerience the Shit" product and all former versions. Some people slandered ShitSoft before by claiming that shit causes diarrhea and infections and that generally everyone just should refrain from eating shit, but ShitSoft dismissed such scandalous claims.
Be patriotic, support ShitSoft, down with vegetables!
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
I've always found it strange how so many anti-Microsoft arguments will include some reference to PowerPoint and how it is somehow responsible for bad presentations.
PowerPoint is a fine program for what it does, which is probably why it's so popular. Yes, it can be used poorly, so what. It's not Microsoft's fault. Microsoft didn't invent presentation software, and isn't forcing people to give bad presentations. Other programs like Impress serve the same function, and can be misused just as easily. Used properly, these tools can be very beneficial for both the presenter and the audience.
Adding poor arguments like this one into the mix with good arguments only weakens the better arguments. There are plenty of valid reasons out there for disliking Microsoft and Microsoft software - PowerPoint is not one of them. It doesn't help spread viruses or introduce malware, it doesn't hinder workflow, and it doesn't seem to have as many irritating stability issues as the other programs in the Office suite.
The actual price (which is certainly different) is a trade secret. If only because MS doesn't want everyone else paying what Dell does for windows.
Just for background, if you haven't read already this fellows battle with Toshiba refunding him the cost on his windows 95 license many many years ago is an entertaining read.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
And the great thing about having $350 competition is that it will eventually force you to figure out what it offers and you don't.
I frequently spend money to save time. I order a pizza instead of cooking dinner. I tip the delivery driver rather than go pick it up myself. And I eat from disposable paper plates instead of reusable dishes so I don't have to wash them. I'm perfectly capable of assembling a solid and satisfying meal for about $7 worth of groceries, but it will take me about two hours to do all the things related to it. So instead, I spend $40 on a pizza, because my time is worth more than $16.50 an hour.
Microsoft saves me time. It's easy. What word processor should I use? MS Word. What if I didn't want to? Well... there are many alternatives. If I spent a week evaluating them, I might be able to make a good choice, and that choice would probably have 90% of the functionality of MS Word... but I don't have a week to flush down the toilet just because Microsoft isn't the poster boy for business ethics, and I simply don't understand why I would invest more time for less functionality.
If using a different word processor was going to save me $2500, it might be worth a week of my time, but it's not. At retail prices, it saves me about $100, which makes it worth a couple hours at most... and as a Microsoft partner, I don't pay retail for Microsoft software. At my price, it's not even worth twenty minutes.
Microsoft cheerleader, blue flag waving, you got a problem with that?
That statement shows unawareness of Microsoft's history for the last 20 years. Yes, all those other companies have had ethical lapses. Shady practices and bullying are commonplace among big business, it's undeniably true. However. . .
None of them even come close to Microsoft. The bullying, lying, cheating, stealing and sabotage that Microsoft have carried out -- blatantly and relentlessly for two decades -- make Sony and Wal-Mart look like boy scout camps. Just because everybody cheats doesn't make it OK for Microsoft to cheat, and sure as hell doesn't make it OK for them to cheat twenty times as much as everybody else. And that's before we even get to how the majority of Microsoft's products have been either seriously flawed, or they were five years behind what other companies had done, or both.
I already got rid of all my Microsoft products some while back, and saving a few bucks had nothing to do with it. (They don't give away Mac OS X, anyhow.) Here are some better reasons to ditch Microsoft:
1. Not helping to support a company that has willfully and maliciously caused tremendous harm to the computer industry.
2. Not doing business with a company that has ripped off customers for countless billions, and will undoubtedly rip you off too, if you give them a chance.
3. Avoiding the spyware and DRM that Microsoft would like to slip into your computer.
4. Avoid the many security holes that riddle Microsoft products like swiss cheese.
5. Buy from companies that don't have a track record of putting out crummy products.
The problem, of course, is that people on the whole don't care about right and wrong. Or if they do, they think it's somebody else's problem to do something about it. They may grumble that the DOJ didn't crack down on Microsoft, but the same people will be standing in line to get a XBox 360.
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke
And unfortunately, that's exactly what most good people do. Nothing. Ignore the problem. Tune out the few who complain. Tar them as fanatics or kooks, then you can safely ignore them too. Rationalize.
"Microsoft cheats, but so what? All the big companies do."
"Look at all the innovation Microsoft brought to computers!"
"They wouldn't be so huge and successful if they weren't providing what people want, after all."
"What are you, some kind of communist?"
But if you scratch under the surface, past all the excuses and rationalization, what they're really thinking is: "Man, I want to play Halo 3. .
open source proof reading software?
That is why the option of open source is so financially compelling to the both the consumer and organizations have thousands of computers.
Chapter 1 start with an overview...
My lack of God, it's Trotsky!
I think it's well agreed upon that the proliferation of PCs is at least in part due to Microsoft, whose products are easy to use, even for novices. No matter what you want to think, Linux is NOT easy for inexperienced users.
How exactly is the PC revolution all thanks to Microsoft and their "ease of use for novices"? The PC revolution was well underway before the existence of Windows. I remember helping customers use software I'd written for their 286 notebook luggables running DOS 3 well before Windows made it with WFW.
If you really want less money to go to Microsoft, good sir, then I suggest you run down to the pub, gather up all your friends, and get to work on a product that genuinely replaces Windows. A product that gets the job done on high-end servers, cheap notebooks, and PDAs. A product that may not be perfect (or even close) but one that makes sense to the AVERAGE user. I wish you good luck, and remember: Linux does not meet the above requirements.
*sigh*. Yes. It does. I've converted MANY friends and family to Linux and I have far less support calls than with Windows. You see, the problem lies in the "Power Users" group - people who think they know about computers when in actual fact they only really think they know about Windows. They expect to load up an alternative operating system and have it work just like Windows. Your average Joe User can happily use a setup Linux machine without noticing too much difference because using Thunderbird/Firefox/OO on *nix is not much different to Outlook/IE/Office on Windows (seriously, how many of those whizbang office features do you think your average person uses?).
What we need to do is educate people rather than make a clone of Windows - if you let Microsoft set the rules we'll be playing catchup forever. Getting something else on OEM PCs would help since Joe Average can't exactly replace the Windows he's given now, can he?
The general followers use phrases like "whining Windows ex-pats" and come off as total assholes.
I think it's a good description of the Windows users who tend to complain that "Linux isn't ready for the desktop" based on the 5 minutes following an Ubuntu/Fedora install and before returning to Windows.
And as for the asshole comment, you're a dick :-)
... I just wanted to make it clear that Microsoft is producing a huge market than many of us here rely on. Microsoft uses their profit for positive benefits to society as well...
Well, I for one rely on it only in the sense that my business offers tech support for Windows and WIndows software in general (we prefer our customers run Linux because it is less overhead for us and the customer inevitably spends more because they get more-- less money is going to tech support and more is going to making the environment fit the business).
As for the suggestion that Microsoft uses their profit for positive beneifts to society, well, all the great monopolists have done so in the past. This doesn't justify the negative effects that come from undermining the market system in relevant markets though. I would suppose that people here who agree with you would rather see a world without antitrust law, where Carnegie Steel, AT&T, Microsoft, and Mobile Oil control everything?
The issue is, monopolies are patently dangerous to a democratic society. Harry Truman compared the dangers of monopolies to that of fascism-- that both amount to private ownership over the society as a while, or even over government. Carnegie is remembered as a philanthropist only because his (very brutal) monopoly has not survived. And The Bell Company's early business practices make Microsoft look like a good corporate citizen.
Also, Microsoft employs more than 12,000 people. These people likely buy products or use services that your employer produces.
Really? How many of them purchase consumer software support from an independant provider or Linux-based business system consulting? I doubt any of them do. Sure they vacation in my area, but that is about it.
If Linux fanboys want to convince, they need to make a product that works as well as the competition.
I started using Linux as my primary home system in 1999 because I found that it *worked* better than Windows. Sure, it wasn't pretty, had a pretty unrefined look and feel, etc. But it got the job done better *and* allowed me to work more efficiently. (I started working for Microsoft in 2000 but never stopped using Linux as my primary home system. Also I no longer work for MS, and no I wasn't fired, and no I don't hate MS.) Nearly every computer beginner I have introduced Linux to has had the same reaction: "Boy, this is easier to work with than Windows. I can get more done faster!"
Alas, as people become more familiar with Windows, it becomes harder to switch. Part of the problem is that people learn to be afraid of their computers. Don't believe me? Find a relative who depends on his/her computer, but is certainly not technically inclined and ask them to switch to Linux? Offer to include a second system so they can continue using Windows if they need to. The response is always the same: fear of change. Fear of having to learn everything over again.
In other words, what you are asking for is a Windows clone, not a better product. If it was, we would all be using Linux today.
Now, you say rarely has never unseated commercial competition:
1) BIND
2) Sendmail and Postfix
3) Apache
4) GCC is the most commonly used compiler in a number of fields
5) GNU tools on Solaris
6) MIT Kerberos
7) OpenSSH (vs SSH Inc)
8) GPG (v. PGP).
Indeed in most of the areas of network infrastructure (current exception being directory services), we are finding that Free/Open Source Software is deeply entrenched and, in fact, is the dominant platform for the major services we think of on the internet. Part of the issue, however, is that desktop applications are differnet. They require a different type of community, a different type of collaberation, and they have not had such for as long as the server software.
However, look at the progress being made by such applications as:
OpenOffice.org (compare with StarOffice 5.2)
LyX
Mozilla and Firefox (compare with Netsc
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
When I buy a PC, any PC, I have Windows preinstalled.
Have you been living under a rock for the last five years? Dell, HP, and thousands of independant system builders are happy to sell you a PC without Windows. Even Fry's and Wal-Mart have PCs without Windows.
The fact that those products sell poorly indicates that people want Windows.
That's exactly "broken window fallacy" or the sort of Keynsian thinking that believes that the market should be twisted for things like job creation.
What people should do is buy the best product for their company. The death of Microsoft would be natural economics and the money would go elsewhere. Maybe I would give it direct to a charity, or buy myself some DVDs with the money saved. The point is that opportunity would be transferred from one place to another.
It starts with a bunch of machines that people don't want to replace because it co$ts and managers don't get bonuses from spending money.
/. asking for help with Samba. :-)
The eventual demise of Microsoft will come from the same source that saw the rise of the 'compatible' PC. It was cheaper than the alternative.
It doesn't matter how well your system is running, Microsoft is living proof that quality is not that important, but how little you had to shell out for something 'good enough.'
Cost of replacement and the slowing of the replacement cycle is going to be the death of Microsoft and give rise to cheap Linux boxes.
Books about OpenOffice (or NeoOfficeJ for older Macs) are telling people that its okay NOT to have to shell out the bucks for Microsoft (or even Apple).
I suspect that Vista will be an utter failure because people have a vested interest, read lots of bucks, in their existing machines.
When 'Joe Consumer' is faced with hanging on to his machine under Linux with OpenOffice or spendin '"beaucoup" bucks' he'll wave Microsoft 'Bye Bye' before he tosses all that green on all new hardware.
Would YOU like to have to cough up money to buy a new 64bit processor, gigs of RAM, a new mobo and a new video card, just to run an incrementally 'better' Windows experience.
Fuck that... My wallet and I voted for Linux years ago, though I my wife still owns an aging Win2K Windows box and I still own a couple of OS X 10.4.3 Macs. My last machine is an ADM64 Athlon running slackware.
People are going to vote just as they always have, with their wallets.
Not just Joe Consumer, but the corporation bosses who are stuck to buy 5K, 10K, 15K, or 20K boxes at a shot. We're still running Win2K and would still be running WinNT if we could.
Books about HOW TO DO IT for less are EXACTLY what's needed. They're not written for you. They're written for 'Joe Consumer' and to get the idea to the corporation bosses.
Just brace yourselves for all those AOLers and other newbies getting on
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