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Dvorak Says MS Should Buy Opera
patro writes "Should MS beef up cranky old Internet Explorer for today's standards? Dvorak thinks buying Opera would be a smarter move. It works on all the major platforms including the Mac which IE won't support anymore and $400 million for it is pocket money for Microsoft."
NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
(filler text to get around message filters)
...Dvorak is a hack...so, there you have it.
Microsoft doesn't want their stuff to work on all other platforms... After all, they intentionally discontinued work on IE for mac, and have bought several companies only to immediately axe their Linux offerings.
Microsoft is not a company selling apps, Microsoft is a company selling lock-in. As long as customers are sticking with them, they don't really need to spend "pocket change" to keep up with technology.
What are you eating? isItVeg?.
Wow! That's the best idea I've ever heard. There should be absolutely no problems shoehorning it into Vista by next year. Way to go, Dvorak! You deserve a raise!
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
Then after the "MS Opera" release, firefox would have even less competition.
Dvorak has apparently forgotten all the work that Microsoft put into stuffing Internet Explorer and its components into every unlikely corner of the Windows operating systems. You can't just easily rip that out and replace it with a new browser..
Opera can be uninstalled.
He's just another utterly clueless pundit. To have them buy Opera is to admit that they didn't have what it takes to secure and extend the thing. MS flatly won't be inclined to do that if they can help it- this suggestion is in the same class as saying MS ought to do a Linux version of MS Office.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Unlikely. Opera isn't compatible with Microsoft's business strategy since it implements web standards.
Wait, I think I've figured out the pattern!Now if we can just get Google to promise not to be evil... oh, wait, my analogy is breaking down.
Five percent of one year's DoD budget puts us on Mars.
Why does Dvorak even make it on here? I'm not trying to troll, just noticing that every Dvorak post made is a HUGE flamewar against his ignorance in computing. I mean, sure, he can have his opinion. But why does it make slashdot EVERY single time he makes a comment?
Microsoft Sucks, F/OSS Rocks. I get mod points now right?
Generally, buying up your competetors (especially one of the very few competitors that could actually be bought) doesnt look so good when you've already been a convicted monopoly.
Bottles.
He could be their mascot, and beat up the Linux penguin and the Mac... whatever the hell that thing is in the Mac logo.
I disassembled it for you:
NOP
...
NOP
NOP
NOP
NOP
NOP
NOP
NOP
NOP
NOP
NOP
Fascinating, and, oh, look! Dvorak is little endian!
Google gave Opera (and Mozilla foundation) a chunk of cash in exchange for Opera being totally free (as in no ads) and google being the preferred search engine. There could be other terms to their agreement as well...
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
His entire argument is predicated upon the false premises that Microsoft wants to support open standards and that they want to support the Mac.
Microsoft has virtually bottomless resources - if they really wanted to, they could crank out a secure cross-platform web browser that supported relevant standards. What Microsoft has is exactly what they want - vendor lock-in with a mediocre product that through its various 'feature-driven' incompatibilities gives them some sense of control.
If Mircosoft can't own the roads, they want to own the potholes.
Shall I start with the bit about how Microsoft has no reason to develop Mac programs anymore becuse they can just use the Intel-based versions? He seems to have forgotten that fact that the platform is more than just a processer archtecture, there's the OS API as well. It takes a lot of glue code to get an x86 Windows app to run on x86 Linux (and even then it's rarely perfect), and the same would be true on x86 Mac.
.NET CLR 1.1.4322)"
Then he goes off on the whole "Opera identifies itself as IE so we don't know how many people use it" bull that's been debunked over and over and over again. Opera IDs itself as IE in the same way that IE identifies itself as Netscape -- and for the same reason. If you're paying any attention at all, you can tell the difference.
Some examples:
Netscape 4: "Mozilla/4.7 [en] (WinNT; U)"
IE 6: "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1;
Opera 7: "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1) Opera 7.50 [en]"
You'll note that IE spoofs Netscape, that Opera spoofs IE (including the Netscape spoof), and that all three are easily distinguishable if you're looking in the right place.
Does this guy have a clue what he's talking about?