Challenges To Microsoft For 2006

TekkenLaw writes "Directions on Microsoft, a site which claims to be 'the only independent organization in the world devoted exclusively to tracking Microsoft', has published a list of 10 challenges for 2006 for Microsoft as a company. Top strategic issues in all areas of operation from OS to gaming are covered." From the article: "Windows Vista could offer large organizations improvements in software development, security, reliability, systems management, and user interface. However, public demonstrations have been full of cool graphics effects and consumer features that probably turn off more IT staff than they attract, and sales of Windows upgrade rights to corporations have been disappointing. In 2006, Microsoft has to settle on a feature set for Vista that appeals to enterprises, explain clearly what that feature set is, and reveal what PC hardware and other infrastructure corporations require to reap the benefits." Actually presented in a fairly respectful way, it's interesting to see the overall picture we've reported on for the past year condensed down into one page.

Comments

# 11

[rodentia]

Stop behaving like a spoiled child.

This is all wrong

[endrue]

Actually presented in a fairly respectful way...

Fairly respectful!!??? This is slashdot, we want meat with the blood still in it.

Re:This is all wrong

[tpgp]

it's interesting to see the overall picture we've reported on for the past year condensed down into one page.

Reported? This is slashdot! We want baseless speculation, rumour mongering and idle gossip (and possibly links to others reporting)

Re:This is all wrong

[moro_666]

meat and blood is all over the thing cant you see ?

Microsoft's Top 10 Challenges

1)yada yada vista
2)yada yada security
3)yada yada managed solutions
4)yada yada tools

5)yada yada online strategy
6)yada yada small and medium business
7)yada yada systems management managed solutions
8)yada yada reengineer engineering
9)yada yada Xbox 360 final death

10)Licensing: Value for the Money alias PROFIT!!!

this is the blood that you are looking for, isn't it ?

i wonder why i don't look surprised ...

Re:This is all wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

...you forgot that we need to blame GW for it, no matter what it is.

Re:This is all wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Whiner.

I like the pretty lights

[RingDev]

"However, public demonstrations have been full of cool graphics effects and consumer features that probably turn off more IT staff than they attract"

With the exception of Windows application developers who have been battling with GDI(+) for the last 10 years. The new graphics core of windows has been needed for a long time now.

-Rick

Re:I like the pretty lights

[inphinity]

With the exception of Windows application developers who have been battling with GDI(+) for the last 10 years. The new graphics core of windows has been needed for a long time now.

True, but don't you think a new file system, API structure, or network stack would bring even more dev/IT people to the table? Consumer sales are nice, but it's IT sales that drive the industry.

Re:I like the pretty lights

[JanneM]

True, but don't you think a new file system, API structure, or network stack would bring even more dev/IT people to the table?

But just how well do they integrate with non-MS systems? Like it or not, but having multiple systems is increasingly the reality, and nobody will want to support or develop for something that can't be transferred or interfaced with other systems.

Re:I like the pretty lights

[toddbu]

Consumer sales are nice, but it's IT sales that drive the industry.

Well, depends on how you look at it. Microsoft displaced IBM in corporate American because it had broad consumer appeal. Some of those consumers are IT people, and they in turn help drive the decision making process for their companies. So you need broad consumer appeal.

Personally, I think Microsoft has fallen down by focusing too much on corporate America. Don't get me wrong - I'm not an anti-corporate guy and this isn't a corporate bashing session. It's just that if you look at Microsoft's early history, it was all about "sticking it to the man". Word processors, once the domain of large systems, was pushed to the desktop, along with spreadsheets and other corporate applications. I worked in a company where we effectively neutralized our big iron with a single desktop application. So for Microsoft to now ignore the average Joe and focus exclusively on what large companies need is totally stupid. What Microsoft needs to do is return to its roots and continue to focus on what the consumer really needs - a machine that just works. No more reboots, spyware, rootkits, or spam. Plug it in and it runs. If Microsoft could build a PC that's as reliable as my refrigerator then they would once again be in a dominate industry position.

Re:I like the pretty lights

[kawika]

Hey, rework the APIs all you want, if you think that's what stands between developers and quality applications. If you're talking about the behind-the-APIs code, change all that too since it shouldn't affect developers or users. No matter what, though, all the old APIs have to stay there for compat reasons.

The changes to the user interface really grind my gears. No, not the transparency and cooler icons, I don't really care about those one way or another because I can turn them off. Vista has moved a lot of the common tasks around for reasons that make no sense. It's harder to find most system settings because they are several clicks deeper in the UI. Who does this benefit? It's not better for experts, who already had figured out the old locations whether they made sense or not. It's not better for Grandma, who *still* can't find or change any settings; now her brainy grandson can't help her either. It's not better for new users--are there any new Windows users anymore?

Re:I like the pretty lights

[jacksonj04]

The reasoning behind this is that you can't (easily) show off many of the new features in any kind of public demo, they need hands-on meddling.

Re:I like the pretty lights

[Ninjy]

Yes, hundreds every day, probably. People are born all the time, you know.

Re:I like the pretty lights

[Giometrix]

"If Microsoft could build a PC that's as reliable as my refrigerator then they would once again be in a dominate industry position."

When did Microsoft lose its dominent industry position? I didn't get the memo.

Sure, they aren't as dominant as they were a few years ago, but they are still very dominant

Re:I like the pretty lights

[pfharlock]

I agree with you 100%, which is why I hope they don't do as you suggest :) I would much rather see an open platform succeed, be it linux bsd or whatever. Hopefully this isn't viewed as flaimbait, it isn't intended to be, I just like Open Source.

Re:I like the pretty lights

[Luscious868]

"If Microsoft could build a PC that's as reliable as my refrigerator then they would once again be in a dominate industry position."

Apple has already done it but price and compatibility matter. As long as a Dell w/ Windows is cheaper than a Mac w/ OS X companies that run Windows will probably continue to run Windows. It has it downsides, but I think for most corporate types unless there is a large cost savings they think the devil you know is better than the devil you don't.

Re:I like the pretty lights

[DigitalReality]

No matter what, though, all the old APIs have to stay there for compat reasons.

With the size that Vista is (the Beta 1 disc I believe is around 2.7 GB, and installed, it's probably much larger) I'm sure it wouldn't have cost them too much extra space to rebuild the old API with some sort of intermediary to the .NET framework, or just rebuild the existing functions as part of the framework (essentially emulating the old Windows API). They managed to include an entire 16-bit Windows emulation back-end for compatibility after making the full switch to 32-bit, although this didn't work out well for old device drivers (which isn't because of the APIs).

But the key is, you can now ditch the old API's and do not have to rely on them at all with new Application support. The .NET framework for Vista is to replace the APIs, not build an interface to them.

Re:I like the pretty lights

[RingDev]

The GDI API was revamped a while back (for XP I believe) to GDI+. It's nothing fancy, it still uses the processor only for all work, there is no hardware acceleration, and all graphics are handled by an application's primary thread. GDI's craptacular performance requires developers to create double buffers and perform some nasty cross thread work to keep a GUI seemlessly updated while preforming proc intensive or IO wait threads in the background.

Ever notice how sometimes a window stops responding while an app is accessing a network share or disk? That's because the primary thread is running both the IO process (which hits a wait state while waiting on the stream) and the Graphics process. There are kludges that have been getting stuck into GDI to make it smoother arround this. It is still a piece of crap, a nicely polished and well used piece of crap, but a piece of crap none the less. I unfortunately haven't had much time to developer in the new graphics system, but if it can do even just a fraction of what I have heard, it will be a huge boon to windows application graphics. Good bye grey boxes!

-Rick

Re:I like the pretty lights

[kawika]

I think Microsoft has fallen down by focusing too much on corporate America.

Corps and individuals want different things from their apps, and they even want different apps in many cases. Corps want everything to be centrally installable, configurable, and controllable by their IT dept to conform to company policy. In the individual case, the only centrally controlled PCs are the 0wned ones hacked by some eastern European crime cartel.

Look at it through the lens of a corp-focused company, though, and there is an opportunity. Many individuals want their PCs to be managed by someone else, either to save the hassle or because they don't know what they're doing. What if Microsoft was the central manager? You'd have to feed them a LOT of data about what was going on in your PC, just like IT management. And you'd have to pay them a maintenance fee. Basically that's what is going on with Windows OneCare.

Re:I like the pretty lights

[mdman]

Yes they are the dominate company for sure. Mac, Linux and the rest have a small market share compaired to Microsoft. Like em , or dont.. the numbers dont lie.

Re:I like the pretty lights

[musicmaster]

Personally, I think Microsoft has fallen down by focusing too much on corporate America.

I agree. Microsoft tries time and again to lead in the business market, while in the end the new sources of growth are in the consumer market. See the browser, multimedia, the graphic user interface, the game stations (Xbox) and the handheld market (Palm, Blackberry). Phone operating systems are one of the few areas where they were present from the beginning.

The main benefits that Vista can have for business are stability and safety against intruders - features that will only become apparent when the software is released on the market. Microsoft has had several mediocre releases (Windows 98 and ME), so you cannot expect business to trust them that the next one will be a good one.

Re:I like the pretty lights

[chaim79]

It's just that if you look at Microsoft's early history, it was all about "sticking it to the man".

I'd like to know how that works when you are 'the man' getting stuck? In those early days IBM was 'the man' (along with all the other UNIX Mainframe people) and the Microsoft was a company built out of the homebrew meetings and Gate's basement. In those days Microsoft was the Rebel. Nowadays Microsoft is 'the man', they are the overlords, the Evil Empire, the oddly dressed guy named 'cats' saying something about 'base'.

I think the problem is that Microsoft has lost the edge of the customer's perception, also I think the customer base has grown more intelligent over the years. Most people working with computers today have Grown up with computers and are starting to look for something different, and in doing so have found alternatives to MS that work better, and are starting to find them before MS copies them. They are starting to see the trend that MS has of seeing something good and trying to take it over (and doing it badly 1/2 the time).

Unfortunately the majority of people using computers are barely computer literate and just want to plug something in and do what they want without fuss. That is where Microsoft should focus; making a product that plugs in and does what you want with no fuss muss or anything else. However I think Mac already has a big edge in that market that MS will never catch up with. (with Mac's closed architecture they can control combinations and improve reliability/interoperability/ease-of-use easily, however MS has to support in some way a nearly infinite amount of 3rd party stuff that has problems interacting with each other and with the OS, MS is kinda in a bind there)

I think the thing that Bill Gates fears has come true but in a way that he hasn't quite expected, others are more innovative then he is and MS is loosing the race, but it isn't from one competitor but from the community itself (Open Source). Because MS has spread out into so many markets and so many products they are getting competition in each market that they are unable to quickly respond to, they are loosing the battle, slowly.

I don't think that we will ever see MS completely disappear, but I think they will slowly fade into the background as newer and faster products/companies/OS communities keep showing up with better products. In the end I think they will be like IBM, not out of the computer market, just not a leader.

Re:I like the pretty lights

[krang321]

Windows Vista could offer large organizations improvements in software development, security, reliability

Is M$ the only company that requires its customers to pay more money, and time upgrading to a new version because they cant fix the security and reliability in their current products? They have been saying this for years... why do their customers still believe that they tell the truth!

Re:I like the pretty lights

[RingDev]

You'll notice Version 11 of Crystal Reports is still just as crappy and unreliable as ever.

-Rick

Re:I like the pretty lights

[toddbu]

Unfortunately the majority of people using computers are barely computer literate and just want to plug something in and do what they want without fuss.

I call this job security. :-)

I think the thing that Bill Gates fears has come true but in a way that he hasn't quite expected, others are more innovative then he is and MS is loosing the race, but it isn't from one competitor but from the community itself (Open Source).

Microsoft's strength has always been integration rather than innovation. In a pre-email, pre-web world, communication between companies and individuals was difficult, but that's not the way it is any more. The biggest limiting factor to Microsoft totally losing the war is the hardware vendors, many of whom have become dependent on a single, predictable model for delivering drivers. As the *nix market grows, however, this will change, and they'll be forced to fix the problem.

Re:I like the pretty lights

[Anonymous Coward]

We have this "it just works" already, it's called Linux.

Firefox

[HUADPE]

Nowhere in the article does it even mention Firefox or indeed, any browsers at all. I would say that fighting for market share of browsers is now (again) a real challenge for Microsoft.

Re:Firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not mentioned because the IE/Firefox browser war is completely unimportant to MS. They make no revenue on IE, it actually loses them money. Everyone is fixated on the success of Firefox because it is one place where Microsoft is (slightly) losing its dominense. In the meantime, Bill Gates could care less about it.

Re:Firefox

[TopShelf]

That's because in the grand scheme of the business, the "browser war" is a border skirmish that has very little to no effect on the bottom line. Delivering Vista to market and actually getting businesses on board with it is far more important.

Re:Firefox

[DerPflanz]

Nowhere in the article does it even mention Firefox or indeed, any browsers at all.

And why would that matter so much to them? Explorer isn't making any money for Microsoft, and after all, being a business, Microsoft wants to make money. The fact that they haven't brought a major release in the last few years would mean something. More interesting products would be Office, Windows and their server software. I doubt if Microsoft would go any worse if everybody would start to use Firefox (or any browser for that matter) tomorrow.

All in all, I have the feeling Microsoft is getting better. They pulled IE for Mac, which was an ugly beast (according to comments here), they are communicating with Firefox (even it is as small as an icon) and they are giving stuff away for free (Visual Studio Express).

Re:Firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill Gates could care less about it.

Exactly. Bill Gates cares about it because Firefox is a problem. Firefox has XUL, which for all intents and purposes is a direct competitor to XAML. Luckily for Microsoft, Mozilla has failed to promote XUL at all. That should give MS plenty of time to establish XAML in the marketplace before everyone figures out that Mozilla has been doing the same thing for years...

Plan

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Invent cure for cancer
2. Prevent Ballmer from killing anyone
3. Profit

Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Less bloat, more substance.

Re:Summary

[wolff000]

HERE HERE!

Re:Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Where? Where?

Oh. You mean, "Hear, hear!"

#1 Justifying Censorship

[digitaldc]

#1 Convincing people that their software truly allows people to innovate and create (as it does in some countries,) yet at the same time doing the opposite by censoring and restricting users in other countries.

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/weblogs/st ory/0,14024,1506602,00.html

Mostly fixing past mistakes

[olddotter]

I would add to the list, cut down on the number of different versions of Vista. If they don't Windows will be more fractured than the number of distributions of *BSD and Linux on x86.

Ok so I exaggerate a little bit. There are hundreds of distributions, but I think there are less than 6 major distributions that have significant desktop share.

Re:Mostly fixing past mistakes

[Anonymous Coward]

"I would add to the list, cut down on the number of different versions of Vista."

The many versions of Vista appear to be there to try to give an artificially generated sense of value for the high cost of the complete version of the system. Like they have been trying to do with the overseas version - with little success it appears.

Re:Mostly fixing past mistakes

[myBotPiko]

You might not have exaggerated as much as you might think, the different windows versions are intentionally not compatible with different kinds of software, thus causing fragmentation.

Take ISS and MS SQL server for example, you can forget about running them on anything other then at least the professional version.

This is like saying that you can not run apache and MySQL/postgreSQL on your ubuntu desktop distribution.

Lots of stories about Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot seems to have increasing amounts of stories on Microsoft. Just an observation from a Linux fan.

Re:Lots of stories about Microsoft

[honeypotslash]

Possibly becoming Microdot.org?
--
Get your Free MacMini here

Re:Lots of stories about Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

hey tosspot, I browse with signatures turned off... and here you are deliberately ignoring the convention...

Re:Lots of stories about Microsoft

[colinrichardday]

Know your enemy? Hey, that what Sun Tzu would say.

Don't expect realism.

[SatanicPuppy]

I mean, one of their goals is "Take Vista into the Boardroom"...A reasonable company would say, "Make sure Vista gets released this year."

Small to Medium Business

[inphinity]

Microsoft upgrade license sales disappointing?
Gee, wonder why that could be?

Perhaps it's the fact that a small business (like the one I work for) that uses Exchange would have to pay approximately $10,000 in software licensing costs for an "upgrade". Not to mention the new hardware that would be required to run the insanely gluttonous software itself.

Compare that to having a clever sysadmin and an installed base of RedHat Enterprise Linux with sendmail? Even with our yearly subscription costs of ~$600, it would take more than 15 years for the costs to equal out.

Give me the OSS headaches and clever admins any day...

Re:Small to Medium Business

[DogDude]

That's why there's lots and lots of hosted Exchange Services out there. That's what we use, and it's fantabulous. We do it because Exchange is very useful, and there's no substitute for it, but not quite $10K or so worth of useful to us.

Re:Small to Medium Business

[MSFanBoi2]

Never mind the fact that your install of Sendmail doesn't have 1/5th the features of Exchange 2003 that most companies use quite often and are dependent on. Who needs calendaring?
Who needs wireless email?
Who needs single instance storage?
I can go on and on... Sendmail is good as a mail gateway service, but not much else for a real company.

Perhaps if small businesses like the one you worked for bothered investigating Select and Enterprise agreements (which do exist for even smaller companies) the costs for upgrades is very small over three years.

Re:Small to Medium Business

[Gothmolly]

Good point about the clever admins. Monkey admins can make your $10,000+ exchange setup suck tail, but a clever admin can make an old PC + $600 for RHEL work like a champ. You need clever admins regardless.

Re:Small to Medium Business

[Anonymous Coward]

  Compare that to having a clever sysadmin and an installed base of RedHat Enterprise Linux with sendmail? Even with our yearly subscription costs of ~$600, it would take more than 15 years for the costs to equal out.

The problem with your logic, at least in my part of the country, is that a good Windows admin (yes, there is such a thing) is going to cost a company roughly 20K-30K less per year than your "clever (read: *nix-savvy) sysadmin." Add to that the cross-Office app compatibility of Exchange and the decision becomes a lot more difficult than you make it out to be. If it was as easy as all that, MS (or at least Exchange) would have died a long time ago.

Re:Small to Medium Business

[SatanicPuppy]

I agree with you, but you're comparing apples to oranges. The pointy hairs all want shared calendars and the other flashy sparkly crap that Exchange provides.

Open source still does not have a good answer to Exchange...You can say Phpgroupware and such, but try to convince people who've used Exchange to use those products? It's seriously uphill, because even though they're cheaper, they just don't work as well on the user end, no matter how well they perform on the server end.

Re:Small to Medium Business

[gad_zuki!]

Only on slashdot would that comment be considered insightful.

Where are you going to get your groupware from? Don't like paying for exchange, then pay for something like *shudder* Scalix.

Exchange isn't just an email server, it also does groupware, unlike Sendmail. If your company only does email and bought Exchange then guess what? Its your company's fault for buying a Lexus when all they needed was a Hyundai. Sorry, but you can't blame MS for this one.

Re:Small to Medium Business

[Anonymous Coward]

"Perhaps it's the fact that a small business (like the one I work for) that uses Exchange would have to pay approximately $10,000 in software licensing costs for an 'upgrade'."

I don't know where you've been shopping but I can buy a copy of Small Business Server for $400. CAL's cost about $430 per 5 users. For 10,000 you could buy the SBS licensing for 50 people and have enough leftover to buy a reasonable server. Doesn't sound so expensive to me. SBS used to suck but has improved greatly.

MS consultants (like I used to be) are pounding out SBS servers for small business at an astounding rate and there is nothing that can match the TCO in the OSS community. Small businesses can have enterprise features on small business budgets without maintaining a staff but it only happens in the Microsoft Universe. There are so many MS consultants that you can drop one if you don't like the work they are doing. Then have another one show up the next day and the new consultant should know exactly what's going within minutes of looking at the setup.

Re:Small to Medium Business

[tres]

Who needs calendaring?

Using Sendmail does not imply that calendaring is not available.

One quick google search using "outlook calendaring open source" yielded this among other items:
http://openconnector.org/

Who needs wireless email?

Hmmm... I guess need Exchange to read email on my wireless phone. Guess I'll have to tell my people that they can't send emails to me any longer because we use Sendmail as our MTA.

Who needs signle instance storage?

Not me.

Who needs to resurrect messages from a corrupt data store?

Not me.

Who needs to figure out how to keep the mail server running once you've filled the disks with a massive file that you can't move to a larger disk (because it's being accessed)?

Not me.

Who needs to figure out why people intermittently can't connect to the Exchange server anymore when all the licenses are used?

Not me.

Who wants to deal with departments of employees calling with the same question while you wait for more client access licenses to be purchased?

Not me.

Who wants to figure out how to upgrade from SBS to an even more expensive version of Exchange (only to find out that you can't "upgrade")?

Not me.

I can go on and on.

Exchange is a fine product for some limited settings. For the rest of us, there are feature-for-feature open source alternatives that will work with Outhouse. They don't entail rediculous licensing problems inherent in Exchange and are engineered better.

Re:Small to Medium Business

[ErikInterlude]

Who needs wireless email?

Hmmm... I guess need Exchange to read email on my wireless phone. Guess I'll have to tell my people that they can't send emails to me any longer because we use Sendmail as our MTA.

This is a pretty good point, and relevant where I work as well. I work for a relatively small company. This company, however, has a significant sales staff; some work directly for the company and some belong to companies that are essentially hired out by us. Everyone that does sales has some form of wireless email access. It used to be the blackberry, but the IT staff have issued out Treos recently. They apparently have a solution that allows them to do a wireless email solution that integrates with whatever Windows system they have set up (this is an exclusively Windows place. I'm the only Mac guy there.)

Not only do all the sales staff have wireless email, the engineering and production heads have been issued Treos as well. I don't know what an open source solution would be, but wireless email is pretty much one of the major lifeblood veins where I work.

Re:Small to Medium Business

[MSFanBoi2]

One quick google search using "outlook calendaring open source" yielded this among other items: http://openconnector.org/

Have you USED openconnector before? It's in early Alpha, and requires a whole lot more than Sendmail (as the original poster mentioned, but hey, it's Microsoft bashing, so it's OK not to read the OP right?)

Who needs to resurrect messages from a corrupt data store?

I've been managing Exchange since 5.0. I can count the number of times I've had to rescue anything from a corrupt data store on two fingers (in 12 years). Each time only took a few minutes cause I was intelligent enough to follow standard/best practices.

Who needs to figure out how to keep the mail server running once you've filled the disks with a massive file that you can't move to a larger disk (because it's being accessed)?
Again, if one were to follow standard best practices, this ISN'T an issue. It's also readily apparent you've never used Exchange before, because moving mailboxes is simple. VERY simple. Move to a new storage group, or even a new server with a couple of mouse clicks. Yes it is that easy. Again, hell it's bashing Microsoft, so don't let little things like the truth get in your way m'kay?

Who needs to figure out why people intermittently can't connect to the Exchange server anymore when all the licenses are used?

Licensing is part of the Microsoft world, it's not that difficult. Nor does it take much time. Most companies that use MS products know how licensing work...

Who wants to figure out how to upgrade from SBS to an even more expensive version of Exchange (only to find out that you can't "upgrade")?

You know how easy it is to add new Exchange servers to an SBS Exchange environment? Very. Buy a new copy of Exchange an add to the SBS Exchange org.

Exchange is a fine product for some limited settings. For the rest of us, there are feature-for-feature open source alternatives that will work with Outhouse. They don't entail rediculous licensing problems inherent in Exchange and are engineered better.

If that really was the case, why are not more people moving to them...

Re:Small to Medium Business

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you, but you're comparing apples to oranges. The pointy hairs all want shared calendars and the other flashy sparkly crap that Exchange provides.

Shared calendars is flashy sparkly crap? Try project/team oriented work across departments, markets and time zones without it. You'll spend all your time calling/mailing back and forth to get everybody synced for availability at the same time for phone or in person meetings or not informed of where people are, what they are doing and when they are available next (which can be if importance to others than busybodies)

Open source still does not have a good answer to Exchange...You can say Phpgroupware and such, but try to convince people who've used Exchange to use those products? It's seriously uphill, because even though they're cheaper, they just don't work as well on the user end, no matter how well they perform on the server end.

On that I agree. I used to work for an org using Notes, now another using Exchange 2003. Wow, what a difference as a user. It has its share of problems and room for improvements, but hate to say it - by god how useful it is as a business tool overall. I don't think F/OSS quite gets the scale of this challenge.

Re:Small to Medium Business

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps if small businesses like the one you worked for bothered investigating Select and Enterprise agreements (which do exist for even smaller companies) the costs for upgrades is very small over three years

Please tell me more about the great deals on Microsoft(TM) products and/or services!

Re:Small to Medium Business

[jschoenberg]

You are sounding like a bitter licensee of software rather than a level-headed IT pro. Personally, I've never had to deal with the licensing issue, so the problems you mention do not exist for me. I think you may be over-exaggerating the "limited settings" that Exchange would be appropriate for. Speaking from experience, there really is no competitor to Exchange in the OSS realm for enterprise-class email handling. For small business, I agree, you might not need those enterprise features, so it probably makes sense to use SendMail, but that doesn't mean that Exchange sucks. But I guess you are really saying that Exchange licesnsing sucks.

Re:Small to Medium Business

[Weedlekin]

"I don't think F/OSS quite gets the scale of this challenge."

It isn't so much that they don't get the scale of the challenge as the fact that most of the people capable of writing such an application have little incentive for doing so. They aren't being paid, and those who are capable of managing and coding for major projects of this sort have no need or desire for that sort of program. There are many very large and complex FOSS projects that have been running for years, are pretty well managed, and result in high-quality products that are very competitive with commercial offerings in terms of features, stability, efficiency, portability, etc. However, a disproportionate number of these tend to be things that programmers want for themselves such as IDEs, specialist text editors, language compilers and related tools, application frameworks etc., etc.

Even when this isn't directly the case, a lot of effort gets put into things that most programmers think are generally useful (office productivity software, image manipulation stuff, multimedia apps, operating systems and utilities, web browsers, EMAIL programs), while a lot less is invested in things they aren't interested in at all. And stuff like Exchange falls squarely into the "yawn" category unless it is combined with the offer of ulare large sums of money.

Re:Small to Medium Business

[tres]

It's in early Alpha, and requires a whole lot more than Sendmail (as the original poster mentioned, but hey, it's Microsoft bashing, so it's OK not to read the OP right?)

No genius, the point is that Sendmail is not the same type of product as Exchange. If you want to toot about how great Exchange is because it has "features" that Sendmail doesn't have, then be ready when someone bursts your bubble and lets you know that Sendmail isn't supposed to have those "features." Nobody in their right mind wants Sendmail to be a calendaring agent, but there are other alternatives available that will do the job.

I've been managing Exchange since 5.0. I can count the number of times I've had to rescue anything from a corrupt data store on two fingers (in 12 years)...

I hate to break it to you d00d, but your calculator is broke.
The following is from Microsoft's Support documentation

Exchange 5.0 5.0.1457 March 1997

So you let me know how 2005 - 1997 = 12, then maybe I'll start believing your best practices stories.

It's also readily apparent you've never used Exchange before, because moving mailboxes is simple...

Sorry fella, but last time I worked with Exchange, there was no individual data store for each user; everyone had everything in a single database... just about the single most idiotic thing I've ever seen. And keep in mind, the data store couldn't go beyond the size of a single partition. So you keep on believing that you know what I've done, but I'm damn glad I left the button clicking to you MCSE monkeys long ago.

Licensing is part of the Microsoft world, it's not that difficult. Nor does it take much time. Most companies that use MS products know how licensing work...

Shucks, maybe that's why the OP (Original Post, you remember that, right?) mentioned licensing as one of the main reasons why people aren't upgrading (read: paying again for bug fixes in earlier versions of Exchange). People know how it works, and when you've been screwed into client access licenses that no longer work on your new version of SBS or you're not able to upgrade from Exchange SBS to the next full version of Exchange without buying the previous full version of Exchange, you learn it's probably better to tuck that Win NT4 box running Exchange 5.5 far behind a couple of packet filtering OpenBSD routers and a DMZ FreeBSD or Debian server running Sendmail/Postfix and clamav. And the best part for that small business is that they can keep on using the same old hardware that is no longer fit to run the latest version of Windows; just repurpose machines that would be thrown-out anyway.

You know how easy it is to add new Exchange servers to an SBS Exchange environment? Very. Buy a new copy of Exchange an add to the SBS Exchange org.

I guess I wasn't very clear; there are Microsoft Tech Documents for upgrading from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000 that say that you can not do this from SBS server to full version of Win2K Server and Exchange 2000. You just can't. You must upgrade from SBS to NT4/Exchange 5.5 and then upgrade to Win2k and Exchange 2000. In a world where everyone can afford to pay just for the right to access the server that you've already paid money for, maybe that's an acceptible answer, but for small businesses, this kind of classic Microsoft double-dipping makes following the upgrade treadmill impossible.

If that really was the case, why are not more people moving to [open source Exchange alternatives]...

Check this out d00d:
http://www.novell.com/products/openexchange/

And try to remember where this post all began... nobody is upgrading... nobody is changing the version of Exchange that they have---and likely when they do, it will be for an open source alternative.

Re:Small to Medium Business

[tres]

Thank you for your response. I'd like to elucidate my point of view for a moment as it appears that I've done a poor job of explaining myself.

1) Microsoft licensing and Microsoft software can not be distinguished from one another.

2) There is a glut of technical problems with Microsoft software that I touched on as it pertains to Exchange; it is well documented (Google "Microsoft vulnerabilty"). Although part of my post focuses on the inherent problems that Microsoft licensing proves to be, I believe it's unfair to characterize it as if it is exclusively focused on the licensing problems.

It seems that my mention of numerous technical problems was not enough, or was not focused upon in my response. I will work to provide a more robust set of technical as well as licensing issues. I took it for granted that the copious documented technical problems that Microsoft software has historically suffered would provide an analog to my focus on licensing.

There is at least one well known (at least in my circles) alternative to Exchange. Take a look at this:

http://www.novell.com/products/openexchange/

Feature for feature it has everything Exchange has (except the licensing :) ).

Re:Small to Medium Business

[jschoenberg]

Careful of promises by Novell! That product, without any doubt whatsoever, does not support many features that Exchange has, as mentioned in many other threads on the Slashdot article. Including my company's absolute requirement: Cellphone access to the email server, including email, schedule, contacts and tasks.

Independent?

[fuzzy12345]

Dude, if you're devoted exclusively to tracking Microsoft, how likely is is that you're independent? I'm thinkking you come to the table with a POV (i.e. bias), otherwise why would you devote your time exclusively to tracking Microsoft in the first place?

Oh well. If a country's citizens think 'bipartisan' and 'independent' are the same thing, who am I to complain that the concept of independence has slipped a little?

Re:Independent?

[truthsearch]

Because whether they say things that are pro-Microsoft or anti-Microsoft people will listen. As long as the topic is one of the best known companies in the world people will listen, good news or bad.

Although everyone has a point of view, independent or not, I would say they're a respectable source of opinion.

Re:Independent?

[DogDude]

Microsoft is one of the largest, most valuable, most important organizations on the PLANET. I think that it would take a big team of people to actually keep up with what the entire company is doing. Believe it or not, super-geeks are the only ones that think of MS as a "bad" or "good" company with any kind of "bias". Most people just think of them as a large, important company that has a massive impact on the world economy.

Re:Independent?

[Red Flayer]

"I'm thinkking you come to the table with a POV (i.e. bias)"

Anyone and everyone who has had even the tiniest bit of exposure to something has bias.

" Dude, if you're devoted exclusively to tracking Microsoft, how likely is is that you're independent?"

Independent != unbiased. Independent == not funded by MS or a competitor.

"why would you devote your time exclusively to tracking Microsoft in the first place?"

Because it's too much for one person to track every company? Because it's an area of interest?

"Oh well. If a country's citizens think 'bipartisan' and 'independent' are the same thing, who am I to complain that the concept of independence has slipped a little?"

Pot, meet kettle. Political independence/bipartisanship is not comparable to journalistic independence. Until you understand what independent means in terms of journalism, please don't bother ranting about how everyone else's view of journalistic independence doesn't meet your flawed idea of what it is.

It's one thing to say that the author in question doesn't have journalistic integrity for reasons A,B, and C. It's another thing to say they are inherently biased because they choose to focus on one subject. The best journalists will focus on a subject and still maintain objectivity, which is totally different from independence.

Re:Independent?

[fuzzy12345]

Independent != unbiased. Independent == not funded by MS or a competitor.

Dude, the majority of people wouldn't care where directionsonmicrosoft.com gets its money from, except to the extent that it might indicate bias in their research. Here's the FIRST body text on their homepage: Directions on Microsoft is the only INDEPENDENT organization in the world devoted exclusively to tracking Microsoft. *I* didn't capitalize the word -- and what they're trying to get across is that they're unbiased. Further, I'd say it's a safe guess that these people DO in fact get much of their funding from Microsoft's competitors -- think about it, what other deep pocketed organizations would need to know about non-material changes in such excruciating detail?

Pot, meet kettle.

??? Oh, I know, you read this phrase on slashdot somewhere and the poster got modded up, so now you slip it into all your posts, without an understanding of its meaning, in the cargo-cult hope that you'll get modded up, too.

The best journalists will focus on a subject and still maintain objectivity, which is totally different from independence.

Can you name anyone who's focused on one subject for a decade and a half (as these people have) who you'd still call a journalist? And why are you talking about journalism anyway? These people wouldn't even call themselves journalists.

Re:Independent?

[IANAAC]

That was my thought too. The domain directionsonmicrosoft.com is registered to Redmond Communications. Anybody know anything about them?

Re:Independent?

[Red Flayer]

"??? Oh, I know, you read this phrase on slashdot somewhere and the poster got modded up, so now you slip it into all your posts, without an understanding of its meaning, in the cargo-cult hope that you'll get modded up, too.",/i>

Umm, no. Your post was hypocritical (not understanding the meaning of 'independent' and lambasting others for same). It applies. Let me guess, you didn't even bother reading the sentences following that phrase, and so you don't even understand the point I was making. I'm not motivated by karma or getting modded up -- I'm motivated by trying to make useful additions the the dialogue -- and I had to respond to your illogical and trolish post.

"These people wouldn't even call themselves journalists."

Doesn't matter. The broader point still holds, which is that crying 'bias' just because they track Microsoft exclusively, and aren't truly 'independent' by your contorted definition, has nothing to do with whether their research can be trusted at all. You want to dismiss it out of hand, because of some perceived bias that you can't cite examples of -- my point is that unless you can tie in some of that bias to your theory, it doesn't hold water.

Let me guess -- you've discovered that posting an early response taking a strong stance on some pretext related to an article, without bothering to make a fully reasoned point, often results in getting modded up -- especially when you add a troll to the end of it. So that's what you do.

Re:Independent?

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks, dude.. before I read your post, I was starting to think that all intelligent life had left this site.

Profitable XBox 360

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft executives have promised that the Xbox business would become profitable by FY'07, which begins in July 2006. Many of the pieces are in place: Microsoft beat Sony and Nintendo to market with an impressive piece of hardware, has enlisted many new third-party publishers and developers (particularly important in Japan, where the first Xbox was a dud), and has more than two million paying customers for Xbox Live where its competitors are still figuring out their online strategies. Most important, Microsoft is committed to breaking even on the console over its lifecycle, leaving plenty of room to profit from games, Live subscriptions, hardware peripherals, and downloads. In 2006 Microsoft will have to justify the console's high price (or lower it to put price pressure on Sony), come up with the "must have" game title that was missing at launch, and prove that early shortages and glitches are temporary and solvable problems.

It doesn't sound to me like any of this will really make the XBox 360 profitable; the fact is that Sony could (possibly) launch the PS3 at $300 while the Revolution launches at $200 making the $300-$400 XBox 360 look expensive (forcing a price cut), the accessories of both the PS3 and Revolution could be cheaper being that Nintendo offers the Wavebird at a dramatically lower price than the XBox 360 wireless controller, and even the Games could be cheaper on other platforms; I'm not saying this will happen, but Sony and Nintendo will do anything in their power to keep Microsoft in the red (they may not be able to kill the giant but they can certainly make them uncomfortable). The only way to actually turn a profit on one of these systems (which seems like a foreign concept for Microsoft) is to not loose so much money up front that you can never recover; Nintendo always looses less than $10 per system while it has been reported that the PS2's costs were greatly overestimated.

Re:Profitable XBox 360

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignoring the software/developer side of the console market, Microsoft is massively handicapped, and with the obscenely expensive first Xbox and defect riddled and shockingly underpowered 360, it look they are almost certainly fatally handicapped by not being able to manufacture their own hardware.

The first Xbox was roughly twice as expensive to manufacture as the PS2. Sony was making a profit on the PS2 hardware within the first year of its release. And they continued to make a profit to this day. So all the talk of Microsoft being in a war of attrition with Sony is extremely silly. The only one suffering was Microsoft over the past four years.

Manufacturing...

This time around they have had to put out brute force hardware early, so by the time the PS3 and Revolution come out the 360 hardware is going to look embarrassingly underpowered AND Microsoft is still losing huge amounts per machine.

The folks up in Redmond have to be utterly delusional over the whole 360 project. It is clearly a project that should never have gotten approval.

Promises, promises

[bradbeattie]

Windows Vista could offer large organizations improvements in software development, security, reliability, systems management, and user interface.

Wow! Look at that long list of positive attributes! I almost forgot that (A) it isn't out yet and (B) Microsoft has set a precedent against having those things. Look, until its widely released we won't really know the impact of Vista. Until then, it's just promises, promises.

Re:Promises, promises

[Anonymous Coward]

Like that fantastic, futuristic, new technology, RSS . I can't wait!.

Re:Promises, promises

[Jugalator]

Which is why your bolded word is "could", not "will", right?

Re:Promises, promises

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Vista could offer large organizations improvements in software development,

You will need to rewrite all your applications

security,

"Trusted" computing and DRM everywhere !

reliability,

Only crashes once per day instead of 3 times !

systems management,

You'll need to buy more Windows boxes to manage the ones you already have !

and user interface.

A new Start button and transparent menus...

Re:Promises, promises

[bradbeattie]

Yep. Otherwise the "could" is the asterisk beside the deal that says "2 gigabytes of RAM for only $29*"

Why they will all upgrade to Excel 2006

[Anonymous Coward]

16,384 columns and 1 million rows in a single worksheet. 255 columns and 65535 rows just don't cut it anymore. The financial world would not even consider a competing spreadsheet due to backwards compatibility concerns. Expect them to upgrade en masse. There was not really a compelling reason to leave Office 97 until this.

They forgot...

[elbenito69]

Where's my Flight Sim 2006, damnit?

Re:Firefox - MS can't beat it.

[JLavezzo]

Perhaps they've concluded that Firefox will continue to erode IE's market share?

Don't screw it up!

[bms20]

Actually, I'm a bit worried that they will wreck what is great about windows: Its the same (for the most part) where ever its installed. It might be hard for the slashdot community to recognize a non-computer expert, but there are a lot of them. Many of them run windows XP in the 2000 look-alike mode - specifically so that they need not learn a new "look and feel". MacOS concentrates on bling only - and this is where it fails - general users don't want zoom up icons, pan out desktops etc. What they want is just a simple environment that looks good and works the way they expect it to - and with M$ changing this it could cause many more people to stick with XP or win2k then they expect. I really wish that they'd fix the security in XP, and improve it rather than concentrate on the bling. -Brett

Re:Don't screw it up!

[llthomps]

MacOS concentrates on bling only - and this is where it fails - general users don't want zoom up icons, pan out desktops etc.

Have you ever used Mac OS? The bling is there, of course. But the Mac OS right now is considerably more robust (and predictable, for that matter) than Windows has ever been in its history.

Re:Don't screw it up!

[truthsearch]

OS X does not concentrate on bling only. But I won't argue the point with someone who obviously hasn't used it much.

ANY OS will look the same on every machine. I can put gnome on 1000 desktops and make it look identical across every one. But many people adjust visual settings to their tastes. And that's a good thing for individual users. It makes them more productive. Windows changes UIs with every major release, and all I see is users struggling to adjust. I've gotten many people to switch from Windows to OS X and none of them are disappointed.

Re:Don't screw it up!

[C0rinthian]

What they want is just a simple environment that looks good and works the way they expect it to

You know, that's exactly how I would describe MacOS.

Re:Don't screw it up!

[LoaTao]

"MacOS concentrates on bling only"

IMHO you are over simplifying why people (myself included) like OS X. Ease of use, stability (in the current version) and security all are present. I'm sure that none of this happened by chance. I'm also interested in why you think that OS X has failed. What is your basis for that statement?

Re:Don't screw it up!

[Anonymous Coward]

MacOS concentrates on bling only - and this is where it fails

So you haven't actually used it, have you? If you had, you might appreciate that an OS may be both visually appealing and powerful. It doesn't have to be one to the complete exclusion of the other.

Re:Don't screw it up!

[mugs_oh]

It's not just the general users that resist change. I always use the classic start menu and change Win2k look, all the crap they added to that menu only ends up taking half the screen and offers me no advantage. Actually, if you go to your performance settings and choose "Optimize for Performance", it sets you back to the "2000 look-alike mode." Rounded corners on windows and cartoonish bold colors just don't do much for me.

Re:Don't screw it up!

[aaronl]

Most of these non-experts actually run WinXP in with the native XP theme, because they don't know how to change it.

I prefer efficiency to worthless eye-candy. I hate all the screen waste and clutter that the XP interface throws at me. It also sucks a lot of time down and provides the potential for inconsistency among users. I have a mix of NT4, 2000, and XP desktops, and trying to troubleshoot a user is a pain. The largest reason for this is the different UI on each. It's just easier to VNC in and fix it myself than to try to get any information out of the user.

When I set up an XP machine, after I clear all the pop-ups that MS throws at me, I set the system to use the classic 2000 theme, turn off the HTML explorer views, and set the start menu to classic. Of course, I also have to turn on file extensions, hidden files, system files, yes really system files, and browsing in a separate process. Then I have to turn off sounds, all the *other* annoying MS pop-ups, and all the fading effects.

People will stick to 2k or XP until they need a new computer. People just don't upgrade their OS. You're talking about people that buy a new computer rather than format/reinstall.

Re:Don't screw it up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows changes UIs with every major release, and all I see is users struggling to adjust. I've gotten many people to switch from Windows to OS X and none of them are disappointed.

Granted, the default theme in Windows XP is quite different, and Microsoft has taken to needlessly rearranging stuff nowadays. But overall, the Windows XP interface is much like the Windows 95 interface from 10 years ago. If you change Windows XP to classic mode, it basically looks and acts like Windows 98 did seven years ago, except with some nicer looking fonts and spiffier icons.

On the other hand, OSX 10.4 looks very little like Mac OS from even 5 years ago. Expect more changes ahead when Apple starts the task of fixing the Finder which has been broken since day 1.

The fight's not yet necessary

[truthsearch]

They still have 85%+ market share. And it's still installed by default in every Windows install. They may loose a few percent here or there, but as long as they make their browser the fastest in the next release of Windows they won't have to do anything else to fight for market share. You give users too much credit.

Re:The fight's not yet necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

They may loose a few percent here or there,

No, they may lose a few percent here or there. Learn the difference.

Re:The fight's not yet necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

Still installed by default? Yes.
The default browser? Maybe.

What direction has their 85% market share been going? Down.

Re:The fight's not yet necessary

[superpulpsicle]

I do think firefox will reach 50% market share one day. But at the current pace it will have to do alot more than the word of mouth advertising.

Fast Food Analogies

[Tony]

So, you're saying Microsoft is the McDonald's of computing? I'd have to say you are right. It's're everywhere, the most-used, not very good for you, give syou diarrhea, and really doesn't taste that good. But, it's everywhere, and people (who are afraid of change), choose to use it because it has familiar icons.

I always considered Microsoft Windows the Budweiser of operating systems, but being the McDonald's is about the same.

Re:Fast Food Analogies

[mattwarden]

Actually, a lot of people buy McDonalds because it's cheap and they can have "dinner" for about $3.

Bye bye, analogy.

Re:Fast Food Analogies

[drinkypoo]

Quite an insightful statement. You can get two double cheeseburgers, such as they are, for $2. That's actually got a fair amount of food value...

Serving Size: 6.1 oz (173 g)... 23g fat, 37g carbohydrates, 25g protein each. Granted, there's too much fat and way too much carbs there for most americans (who are sedentary) but if you don't mind being somewhat unhealthy you can definitely live on the stuff for cheap.

Re:Fast Food Analogies

[daviddennis]

Actually, the analogy holds up. You can get a $300 PC, and it will sort of work, just as McDonald's is sort of food.

D

Re:Fast Food Analogies

[Anonymous Coward]

How much did you paid for your copy of XP? Most people I know paid nothing, which is only slightly below 3$. It was no free lunch, though.

Tony (Grandparent): my hat is off to you.

Re:Fast Food Analogies

[mattwarden]

Who do you know that paid *nothing* for their Windows XP? Did they get a cracked copy or something? Or are you showing your ignorance about how one pays for Windows when buying a new machine with Windows pre-loaded?

Re:Fast Food Analogies

[Anonymous Coward]

Wendy's gives you dinner for $3, for McDonalds its closer to $5.

And yes, I am a lardass.

Re:Fast Food Analogies

[mattwarden]

At McD's... Double cheesburger: $1. Fries: $1. Drink: $1. Coronary: Priceless.

Re:Fast Food Analogies

[dangitman]

Actually, a lot of people buy McDonalds because it's cheap and they can have "dinner" for about $3.

How can that be considered "cheap" in any meaningful sense of the word? Especially given the poor quality of McDonalds, it is astonishingly easy to put together a better meal than McDonalds for half the price.

Re:Fast Food Analogies

[damsa]

But you have to invest in cookware and an oven to make that meal. Also you have to invest in things like refrigeration, spices, and other fixed costs. Windows is like McDonalds, upfront costs are minimal, you can get a PC that runs windows well for less than 100 bucks at a used computer store. Running a MacOS well, will cost you at least 400-500. But over time the MacOS will save you more money in the long run.

Re:Fast Food Analogies

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows can be considered unofficial freeware (for personal use). Actually it is, for personal use, cheaper than linux or any other OS out there.
I agree, however, that the macdonald analogy is not perfect. Maybe Coca-Cola is a better one?

Re:Fast Food Analogies

[dangitman]

But you have to invest in cookware and an oven to make that meal.

If you rent a house, those are usually suppplied. And in reality, very few people don't already have those things. Spices cost very little money, and could be paid for in one meal versus McDonalds. And what of the cost of fuel to get to the McDonalds, or the time it takes, compared to just staying at home and whipping up a meal while watching TV or listening to the radio?

Re:Fast Food Analogies

[damsa]

Some people do not have cookware and an oven supplied, these people live in dorms or shared living arrangements without an access to a kitchen. Spices at 3-4 dollars a bottle, is going to quickly eat up your entire budget at McDonalds. People generally stop by a McDonalds on the way home from work, or eat it as lunch while away at work, so fuel costs are minimal. Either way you have to buy groceries, and that also eats up fuel costs.

Re:Fast Food Analogies

[dangitman]

Spices at 3-4 dollars a bottle,

What the heck? Go to an Asian grocery, they are around 50 cents a bag. Cooking utensils can usually be had for free, or very cheap from a goodwill store or garage sale.

Re:Fast Food Analogies

[mattwarden]

Not everyone has an Asian grocery around.

Re:Fast Food Analogies

[dangitman]

Not everyone has an Asian grocery around.

Maybe, but that must be a very small portion of the earth. Those things are everywhere. There's probably more people in the world without a McDonalds nearby than without an Asian grocery nearby. And why can't you buy 50 cent herbs from the regular supermarket? $3-4 sounds insanely high.

Re:Fast Food Analogies

[mattwarden]

$3-4 is what it is at grocery stores in my area. If I wanted to go to an Asian grocery store, I would need do drive 45 minutes south to downtown Cincinnati.

Google?

[vrta]

Where's the f****** kill google objective? "Microsoft's online strategy has had more facelifts than an aging movie star. The latest strategy could deal with the Google threat, but..." Ah... they are waiting for Duke Nukem to do it for them...

Re:Google?

[yuretz]

Nice topic for the next slashdot poll.
Who will f****ng bury google in the near future?

1. Duke Nukem
2. Steve Ballmer
2. I will do it
4. Steve Nukem, Duke Ballmer and Cowboy Neal

Re:Google?

[hachete]

i thought they'd bought opera already

Biggest Challenge For 2006? Xbox 360

[Anonymous Coward]

The software upgrade is a larger and more serious long term problem for Microsoft.

However, if we are talking about just 2006, the biggest problem for Microsoft is what to do about the 360 problem.

They really have three options:

1) Pull the plug on the whole thing. Take the short term PR and ego hit and make a clean break and move on.

2) Pull out of Japan in some hopefully face saving way and try to survive on just the US and European markets.

3) Pull the plug on the 360 hardware and refocus the Xbox group on trying to create a revenue stream out the 360 dev tools and online stuff for the existing x86 game market.

None of those are attractive options, but option 4) of just soldiering on just isn't a realistinc option.

The days of throwing billions at a market are over for Microsoft. If you don't believe that, you need someone to explain to you about the 11 billion shares of Microsoft stock out there, Microsoft being forced to keep raising the dividen they are paying to those 11 billion shares, the current stock buyback, an so on.

If you can get a grasp of the magnitude of what is going on with Microsoft's financials right now, you will quickly see how little cash Microsoft actually has throw around.

Re:Biggest Challenge For 2006? Xbox 360

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they will pull the plug on Japan. I am hearing people talk about Japanese developers are starting to quietly cancel 360 projects. The 8000 units that were reported in the latest sales figures from Japan might as well be 0.

The problem for Microsoft is that when they face the reality that it is over for them in Japan they are also having to admit they are looking at their best case scenario, no matter how unrealistic it actually is, of being far behind Sony no matter what happens.

It looks like we are few weeks away from a huge amount of PS3 and Revolution details and showings. The 360 is going to be forgotten very quickly. People who are seeing the stuff that is supposed to be at CES for the PS3 are talking about how the stuff we've seen so far is nothing compared to what they are seeing on the PS3 coming up.

Near term I think Microsoft starts shutting down their Japan push and will quietly let the 360 die there. Europe is massively Sony territory. The US seems to have a small but very loyal group of 360 supporters who will most likely stick it out no matter what happens with Sony and Nintendo - probably in the 5 - 10 million or so range.

I think the 360 has probably a maximum installed base of around 10-15 million - if the whole project doesn't get killed off next year.

I have seen a lot of console launches. Never have I seen such outright hostility and contempt for a console as the 360 has. The mood of people I know ranges from complete indifference to outright hostility. The only places I see any interest in the 360 are a handful of heavily 360 orientated sites on the net.

Re:Biggest Challenge For 2006? Xbox 360

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand what you are talking about with Microsoft and their stock.

Isn't more stock better? It just shows how rich Microsoft is. And doesn't Microsoft have 50 billion in the bank?

I'm sure Microsoft could just buy Sony and Nintendo if they really wanted to.

Re:Biggest Challenge For 2006? Xbox 360

[wbren]

*BEEP*

Please take an introductory economics course and try again. Thank you, and have a nice day, Anonymous Coward.

Re:Biggest Challenge For 2006? Xbox 360

[jschoenberg]

Forgive me for being clueless here, but what exactly is the 360 problem? I have about 12 friends that own 360s, and it appears to me to be the best consumer device since the iPod. One friend has a media center PC that he connects to with his 360, which absolutely blows the Tivo out of the water, too. What's the problem with the marketability and profitability of such a nice consumer device?

Re:Biggest Challenge For 2006? Xbox 360

[dangitman]

One friend has a media center PC that he connects to with his 360, which absolutely blows the Tivo out of the water, too. What's the problem with the marketability and profitability of such a nice consumer device?

I think you hit on the fundamental problem. the only people who buy such things are the kind of people who think of themselves as "consumers" and their life revolves around meaningless shit like TV and video games.

Other people have more meaningful lives and don't think of themselves as consumers. So how sustainable can the business be, given that owning such a device marks one as one of the "losers" in life?

Re:Biggest Challenge For 2006? Xbox 360

[jschoenberg]

Calling my friends losers and saying their lives revolve around meaningless shit, eh? Well, I think that much of the thread and the posted article are about consumers of technology such as what I mentioned, so it sounds like you are officially off topic in your hatred of people who use a computer, TV and a video game machine.

Re:Biggest Challenge For 2006? Xbox 360

[dangitman]

so it sounds like you are officially off topic in your hatred of people who use a computer, TV and a video game machine.

It's not using these technologies that is the problem. It's the lame obsession with it, and the "status" games about who has the best equipment - like the comment about Tivo being "blown away" and the mention of flashy features that don't amount to much in the real world.

Re:Biggest Challenge For 2006? Xbox 360

[jschoenberg]

Well, I guess everyone has a hobby, eh? Personally, I would say computers and video games are a hobby, and TV would be a recreation. I've got lots of other hobbies including photography, writing, wine-making, billiards. Some might call me obsessed about some of those, but I'm definitely not obsessed about having the best equipment, but thanks for asking.

I'm quite sure you'll find lots of people on slashdot obsessed with the things you mention, though, and sure, you can be upset with them over it, but then you would just be obsessed with something lame yourself.

Live and let live is my motto, and that includes people that have different obsessive hobbies than me!

New User

[repetty]

>> MacOS concentrates on bling only...

It appears that you are a new user here. I recommend that you do some searches on Slashdot before spouting.

Mac OS X is generally held in high regard here. The consensus, with un-noteable exceptions, is that while OS X has "bling" it also delivers the goods in excellent fashion.

Sincerely,

Richard
Windows System Administrator

Re:New User

[freedom_india]

Truly said.
I bought an iBook for my consulting assignments because i was tired of being wary when i connect to WiFi spots.
I was tired of having to run SpyBot every few days.
Mac just works. Period.

They forgot one.

[FrankieBoy]

11) Stop being evil.

Re:They forgot one.

[at_slashdot]

11) Stop being evil.
That would contradict their mission statement.

Re:They forgot one.

[inphinity]

Larry Page and Sergey Brin read Slashdot!?

Re:They forgot one.

[dangitman]

11) Stop being evil.

But that's no fun. Being not-evil is not nearly as interesting as the seat-hurling arts.

Update anti-iPod campaign

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

they'll have to update their anti-iPod propaganda since their main reason for snubbing the world's favourite media player has now been addressed - yes, the iPod does have a stopwatch.

The interface I want

[PingPongBoy]

Tablet PC that can really read handwriting

Re:The interface I want

[MSFanBoi2]

Apparently you haven't touched a Tablet PC as of late. Since SP2, Windows for Tablet PC's has been QUITE good.

Re:The interface I want

[CommanderData]

I would agree. I have a Toshiba M200, and it can read/search/convert all of my awful chicken-scratch handwriting. No training of the software or user required. It's amazing :)

Where's "Stop breaking the Law"?

[Andy_R]

Microsoft have royally pissed off the EU, and many other jusrisdictions with their continual and unrepentant monopoly abuse, but are still in denial. Their current strategy seems to be to drag the court cases out forever, and hope they will go away. Eventually, they will have to face up to the law, pay huge fines and (here's the challenge) change their culture to a more law-abiding style.

Re:Where's "Stop breaking the Law"?

[TheBogie]

Pissing off the EU is a very easy thing to do. The EU puts harsh and irrational restraints on all businesses. This is why there is > 10% unemployment in France, Germany, etc. When they stop strangling business with their laws things will get better for them.

Re:Where's "Stop breaking the Law"?

[Andy_R]

It seems that rampant Xenophobia is alive, well and being modded up on Slashdot.

As a business owner located in the EU, I'd be very interested to see evidence of any 'harsh and irrational restraints' that I'm under, as I'm not currently aware of any.

The EU monopoly abuse laws that Microsoft are so dismissive of are pretty much exactly the same as the US, it's just that we might actually be enforcing them.

As for unemployment rates, our 4.7% unemployment rate here in Britain is lower than the 5.5% in the USA. The high rates (which are lower than 10% according to the US Govt.) in France and Germany have far more to do with local left-wing economic policies and the absorption of communist East Germany respectively than EU-wide laws.

Re:Where's "Stop breaking the Law"?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Um... Yes. Perish the thought that the laws of a nation should be there for the benefit of its citizens, and should supports businesses only in as much as they ultimately benefit the citizens too. It would definitely be better to have a US-style arrangement, where people can work arbitrarily long hours without overtime, get about 1/2 as much annual leave as the legal minimum in Europe (with most employers giving more), and have no job security because they can be fired on a whim.

We have plenty of problems with our laws being daft over here, both at a national and a continental level, but overall our employment laws are pretty fair to both sides, I think.

Re:Where's "Stop breaking the Law"?

[Lonewolf666]

I guess they expect to get away with ridicoulously light penalties for monopoly abuse like in the USA. This state of mind will probably persist until Microsoft loses a few of the court cases elsewhere and actually has to pay up.
And considering how large Microsoft's profits are, it might actually take repeated fines of the size demanded by the EU commission to enforce a change.

Re:Where's "Stop breaking the Law"?

[dangitman]

It seems that rampant Xenophobia is alive, well and being modded up on Slashdot.

Yes. This is one of the main reasons I would stop reading slashdot, if it got any worse than it already is. American slashdotters generally have an extremely distorted, America-centric view of the world. The amount of nonsense that gets written about Europe is truly staggering. Can anyone say "uber-mensch"?

Top 10 list if done by Slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

10. Stop sucking so bad
9. Do more testing
8. Stop sucking so bad
7. Be more open with your code base and licensing
6. Stop sucking so bad
5. Stop sucking so bad
4. Get a foam chair for Steve Ballmer. In fact, get everyone foam chairs and start having Ballmer Fridays where employees can release stress on each other.
3. Don't be too hasty to start any more new projects; you need to put a lot of energy into existing projects to make them better....with one exception: A Microsoft breakfast cereal with crunchy window banners and marshmallow blue screens could put a couple more dollars in your pockets.
2. Stop being evil
1. It's 2006!!! Where is my flying car!?!?

Re:Top 10 list if done by Slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

11. Profit!

Respectful?

[Uukrul]

Windows Vista could offer large organizations improvements in software development, security, reliability, systems management, and user interface. However, public demonstrations have been full of cool graphics effects and consumer features

This isn't be respectful, this is an advertisement.

It's like when you have a job interview and they ask you to say something "bad" about yourself.
The answers are "You work too hard", "You often take on more work than you should", "You make too many demands on yourself", ...very bad indeed.

Re:Respectful?

[mattwarden]

It's like when you have a job interview and they ask you to say something "bad" about yourself. The answers are "You work too hard", "You often take on more work than you should", "You make too many demands on yourself",

Yeah, or: I tend to have sexual relations with the cleaning staff, petty cash tends to inexplicably lose money on my watch, when I get angry I open up a console in a random directory and type rm -rf, and I sometimes play WoW when the boss isn't looking.

Re:Respectful?

[ozmanjusri]

I tend to have sexual relations with the cleaning staff

You have a Roomba?

Re:Respectful?

[XMyth]

No, he meant the broom.

Mactel Challenge?

[Trurl's Machine]

I think MacOS for Intel will be a major challenge in 2006. Even the cracked developer built has already gained some popularity. This January we are likely to see the official end-user release. Should it be cracked as well, it might seriously challenge Windows domination among home users who don't worry too much about legal issues, don't want the whole Windows hassle but still want to run natively "Photoshop" or "Warcraft".

Re:Mactel Challenge?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me you are joking or just doing a bit of wishful thinking out loud...

How exactly does Apple being forced to use Intel chips represent any concern in any sense for Microsoft?

You can't possibly be under the delusion that the x86 world is just waiting around for Apple to sell them overpriced x86 boxes?

Apple is enjoying their little blip from the mini, other than that the company is quicly transforming themselves into a Media company. The suckers who buy Intel Macs will be generously helping fund that transition.

Intel Macs will be around for a year, year and a half at most before they go software only with OS X and its apps.

I would love to hear someone explain how Apple is going to survive as an x86 OEM. Please don't try to claim 'people will pay more for OS X or Apple quality' or some other rubbish like that. If Dell is having major troubles and they are the premier x86 OEM who can crap in box the cheapest and get millions to buy their crap, Apple has what chance to survive in that market?

Re:Mactel Challenge?

[Trurl's Machine]

You can't possibly be under the delusion that the x86 world is just waiting around for Apple to sell them overpriced x86 boxes?

No, absolutely not! I'm just under impression that - to quote myself - that part of the x86 world that doesn't worry too much about legal issues is actually waiting for a cracked MacOS X for x86 to install on their justly priced self-assembled x86 boxes.

Re:Mactel Challenge?

[dangitman]

You can't possibly be under the delusion that the x86 world is just waiting around for Apple to sell them overpriced x86 boxes?

You can't possibly be so retarded that you have it completely backwards. Or maybe you can. I just saw your user handle. The other poster was talking about running MacOS on non-Apple x86 boxes. You also seem to be so deluded that you think there is an "x86" market. There is not. People buy Windows or MacOS. Nobody (except freaks) buys a computer because it has an "x86" processor. They buy machines to do stuff.

Boot for gaming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Possibly OT, but something I've wanted to bring up for a while now - has MS thought about making a mode for gamers that offers more available resources for gaming? For example, who needs that print spooler to play WoW? And how many WoW players are savvy enough to turn off all the unnecessary services before they load it up? A guy named Black Viper once had a site that was dedicated mainly to showing how to shut off those unnecessary services for things like gaming and generally freeing up resources that Windows took up for no good reason, but I wonder how far could it go? Especially since MS is now running games on the Xbox off a version of Windows?

Re:Boot for gaming?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe Microsoft has something like this, it's called DOS ...

As everyone remembers, back with windows 95 if you wanted to play a DOS game you could have windows shut down and start up in DOS mode to play games; this wasn't strictly necessary but many games ran a lot smoother. The problem with this is that people disliked rebooting their system in order to play a game; if this wasn't the case you'd probably see companies producing games built on top of custom bootable linux distributions that would only require you to put the DVD/CD into your drive and reboot the computer.

Re:Boot for gaming?

[guspasho]

Possibly OT, but something I've wanted to bring up for a while now - has MS thought about making a mode for gamers that offers more available resources for gaming? For example, who needs that print spooler to play WoW? And how many WoW players are savvy enough to turn off all the unnecessary services before they load it up? A guy named Black Viper once had a site that was dedicated mainly to showing how to shut off those unnecessary services for things like gaming and generally freeing up resources that Windows took up for no good reason, but I wonder how far could it go? Especially since MS is now running games on the Xbox off a version of Windows? This was me. I just wanted to add that I wish something like this would be shipped with Vista.

Upgrade? What Upgrade?

[15Bit]

#1 - Convince both business and home users (business mainly) to do the upgrade. Its a major investment in both time and money, and consequently a lot of companies just look at the *working* solutions they have and take a "ain't broke, don't fix it" approach.

They need to get XP users to reinvest, and when you consider that lots of places are still happy with Win2000 (not to mention the significant minority still running NT4), this is a hard nut to crack. Ultimately, it'll probably come down to compatibility - MS will need to convince software writers to desert the older platforms, and convince businesses that the new features ("stability" and "security" perhaps...) are needed. A sensible, simple and transparent license system will help too.

I hate to break it to you...

[TooCynical]

Microsoft has never marketed their products to IT folks as a primary user. If they had they would not have reached the dominance that they currently enjoy.

Step 1. Get the business users and executives on board - show lots of pretty pictures and whiz-bang niftyness

Step 2. Develop and sell plenty of books, training, and certification standards (yeah! yet another revenue stream)

Step 3. Shove product down the throats of the IT department

Step 4. Global domination

R

Re:# 11 Why Flamebait? This is TRUE!

[ackthpt]

Stop behaving like a spoiled child.

Microsoft at first took for granted the role lobbying could play for them and now is into it on all continents (excepting Antarctica, but give them time) playing hardball and complaining bitterly when governments turn on them for being the big multinational (primarily US though) which holds them hostage as long as they depend upon Windows software (such as Office.) Microsoft has effectively killed a lot of independent software development by "bundling". Sometimes what is bundled for 'free' is good, sometimes poor, but ultimately it is an uncustomisable black box which severely limits its usability. Never the less, idependent companies struggle to compete and then when a government body, such as the EU, says "You must unbundle" they piss and moan. They swore it would break Windows to have Explorer unbundled then had the audacity to fake system behaviour before a court. Lovely for them that the Bush administration went easy on them and overturned the recommendation to have the company split up. Even after such a near miss they continue in their clandestine dirty tricks, then whine when they get caught. Then they want US federal law to protect them from unwelcome publicity of security holes, on grounds it could pose a national security risk. Gawds.

They should reserve more of their energy to building be simple and hardened operating system instead of a bag of alley cats.

Don't count them out yet

[frozenray]

I know most people here would like to see Microsoft going down in flames and F/OSS taking over the world.

Wishful thinking, I say.

They must still have some aces down their corporate sleeves because it appears that they're still hiring people like crazy: a friend of mine who deals in office furniture over in Redmond tells me that they're delivering chairs to Microsoft headquarters as fast as they can manufacture them!

Re:Don't count them out yet

[ngm]

Enh, those are probably just for the Ballmer-mandated, company-wide chair throwing sessions. They break a lot chairs that way you know...

;)

Re:Don't count them out yet

[Anonymous Coward]

a friend of mine who deals in office furniture over in Redmond tells me that they're delivering chairs to Microsoft headquarters as fast as they can manufacture them!

That's just because Ballmer has been destroying the chairs as fast as they are supplied. "F****** kill google" indeed! I can picture it now, "quick, quick bring us more chairs before the beast turns on employees! We must satiate the beast with more chairs!"

Re:What Vista Needs

[amliebsch]

cat (isn't there a DOS equiv to cat...?)

Yes, it's type.

Re:What Vista Needs

[jimktrains]

Why was I modded overrated? Those are things I use everyday and sorly miss whenever I have to use windows. i have no gripe with Windows, jsut think that some things coudl be added to make it better....

What's overrated suppose to mean anyway?

sleeping at the weel.

[CDPatten]

So many of you guys have been bashing MS so much you missed what they've done. You are so busy saying everything they do sucks and is going to fail, but history shows us that is not the case. They have started to successfully expand into seemingly everthing and you guys are still hung up Windows 95.

Microsoft is now in our cars (e.g. BMWs), and before you idiots say it's just windows media player let me stop you. It is not. I own a new 5 series and it controls climate (heat distribution in the seats, individual vent temp and power, etc.), navigation, alarm and lock settings, media, and countless other settings, including pretty good voice activation with cell phone integration.

Microsoft is in our ATMs, and some pretty impressive stuff coming out soon too (take a look at some of Bank of America's projects).

Mobile 5 for the PDA has push and perfect outlook/exchange integration. Not to mention it seamlessly integrates photos with contacts in outlook and the phone. Mobile 5 integrates the CE and Smartphone platforms and is FAR MORE STABLE then previous OSes. RIM isn't going to be able to beat that, and even Palm has started to give up on the Palm OS (Treo 700 anyone?)

Xbox 360 has a big lead on PS3 (millions of units) and despite your gripes, it is a good platform. PS3 may have blu-ray, but I will be able to buy a player for a couple hundred bucks. PS3 does not have LIVE. LIVE is a kickass groundbfreaking online community, and Sony has announced they will not be doing anything like that. That is a good reason why MS will overtake or drastically close the gap with this next gen war. Online gaming and updates are a big deal and one account one bill one reputation is way better then a new one for every game you have. Also note that the majority of current games use about half of 1 side of the dvd. That gives MS's dual layer about 4 times the space of current generations. Blu-ray is bigger, but if its not used its not a big plus.

Media Center, IPTV, etc. Media Center is decent, sold millions, but in Vista it kick ass. It is also going to be standard with every version of windows except corporate. That is big news, it means MS will be tightly integrated into home entertainment selling 100s of millions of home installations of Vista. IPTV, what can say other then Verizon and SBC were so blown away with MS's next gen platform they agreed to exclusive contracts to use MS technology for almost a decade (this is why we are getting fiber to our doorsteps out here in the east. Verizon wants to start using MS's IPTV.)

Vista, despite much of the nay-saying is great. You can say they are playing catch up or whatever the hell you want, but your tantrums mean nothing to end-users who will be very happy with it. From built in anti-spyware, to great IE upgrades, to cool screen effects. Forget all that, and take a look at the Home Automation Vista will enable... its great. MS and GE have been working on this stuff for years and much of their hard work will be debuting in Vista (not OSX or Linux).

Development tools. Visual Studio 2005 is really good. Some of you can say it bloated or whatever, but the fact remains you can program in dozens of computer languages natively for windows. That is cool. The controls, the database tools, etc. are all very good. Check out Sparkle, pretty cool. Forget webuse, you can put that in your Apps without any problem. OSX offers no tools comprable to Visual Studio, and while Linux has some good stuff, it just isn't on the same level. Not to mention developing for all the distros sucks.

On the Server side. Windows 2003 is making big strides; 64 bit alone is excellent. You can run 32bit apps with no degradation on the 64 bit server OS. That is real nice. They are starting to get into clustering, and don't think for a second that Longhorn server isn't going to steal some Linux clustering market share. You can still cry that Linux is better, but just like on the desktop market people will use windows.

SQL 2005 is great.

Re:sleeping at the weel.

[itsthinking]

wait, I'm having flashbacks, this sounds like a lot of the same stuff I heard right before XP came out.

BMW... isn't most of the auto press united in saying that iDrive is a clunky piece of crap?

Re:sleeping at the weel.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about the other stuff said, but I use the iDrive and its awesome. I like it allot, and way better then my wife's benz. You try controlling the hundred plus features that can be set to customize a 7 series with a bunch of buttons on the dashboard. Talk about a nightmare and over complication. The only people I find that have trouble with iDrive are uncoordinated, my mother for example doesn't like it. But to be fair, she just recently signed onto power windows being a good idea.

Seriosuly dude, MS didn't make the iDrive, and the iDrive doesn't represent the whole of the functionality. May car, using xp embedded, can tell me the status of all sorts of things, from oil levels, fluid levels, break pad wearing, engine stuff, etc. All items have estimates on the screen of how many miles until it will need to be fix/replaced. I have a treo 650 and I literally can say "Call Bill" and it finds it on my phone and dials the number. I can say "Dial 555 555 5555" and it will dial it. I can be on the phone sit in the car and it instantly syncs and comes over the speakers without me having to do a friggen thing. I can say "CD Track 5", "FM Frequency 104.1", etc. Great features when you have the nav on the main screen. Shit even the buttons on the steering wheel are programmable.

Those are features that happened because of the platform and how easy it was to develop on.

Re:sleeping at the weel.

[Joe123456]

Will you still think that it is awesome when it crashes and you are lock in.

Re:sleeping at the weel.

[packslash]

"OSX offers no tools comprable to Visual Studio" You're right xcode and interface builder are much better. There is no comparison! The lateset build of Vista is basically osx Tiger. Take a look at winsupersite.com Paul thurrots site. He is the biggest windows fanboy known to man. Here is what he had to say about the latest build of vista "One issue Microsoft is going to have to work hard to overcome is how closely parts of this product resemble Mac OS X." Let me tel you, If Paul Thurrot says ms is copying apple lmao they aren't just copying them they are rebranding tiger dvds. "From built in anti-spyware, to great IE upgrades, to cool screen effects." yah that's a great feature! hahaha I'd rather take an os that doesn't require a built anti spyware application due to better engineering. But hey that's just me!

Re:sleeping at the weel.

[Anonymous Coward]

" hahaha I'd rather take an os that doesn't require a built anti spyware application due to better engineering. But hey that's just me!"

don't be an idiot. OSX has had 4 paid upgrades and 5 release compared to XP and its two free upgrades. They both came out in 2001. OSX like XP has had 1000s of updates, patches, and fixes in it's life span. The only reason osx doesn't have the spyware and security problems that get published with XP is because nobody uses it. Nobody serious out making money hacking or with pop-up ads are going to go after 2%-5% of the market. It's the same argument you guys made about Firefox until it got market share and started having more holes found then IE.

"You're right xcode and interface builder are much better."
That's cute. Your statement is absurd on its face. You clearly aren't a developer of any stature. Linux people could make an argument, but macs sure as hell can't. In fact you and Steve Jobs are the only fools I've heard try and pretend xcode is in a serious alternative to a real dev suite like visual studio. lol. Keep dreamy buddy.

"The lateset build of Vista is basically osx Tiger. Take a look at winsupersite.com Paul thurrots site."
I use both of them in my lab at home, and I support OSX at client offices (I don't know who Paul is). I can tell you they are not the same. Just so I understand, what is the same again?

Before you say search, MS demoed it working in 2003 at a conference that they displayed longhorn. Apple released 2 versions over the course of years before they got that feature. They may have been first to market, but you can't seriously think they were working on it first. Dashboard? The sidebar was in that 2003 demo too, and they are different. Other then that, what? Shadows under windows? Seriously what is the same?

Re:sleeping at the weel.

[ClamIAm]

Xbox 360 has a big lead on PS3 (millions of units)

Really? The 360 sold something like 350,000 in November. Assuming they sold twice that many in December (which I doubt), that would only be 1.05 million. And let's just conveniently ignore the lackluster launch in Japan.

Sony has announced they will not be doing anything like that.

Once again, let's just conveniently ignore facts that don't fit into our propagandizing worldview. Nintendo already has free online play. This will go to the console with the Revolution.

Have any of you tried the new service pack with Exchange 2003? It's FREE

Wow, bugfixes for free? MS really just wants to spread the love!

Re:sleeping at the weel.

[CDPatten]

"Wow, bugfixes for free? MS really just wants to spread the love!"

Actually troll you mis-quoted me... most likely in a pathetic attempt to try and have a point. I was referring to the spam filter (that is excellent by the way). It is not a fix, it's a new feature. I know for you kiddies that is tough to understand. Here is my full quote that you edited.

"Have any of you tried the new service pack with Exchange 2003? The spam filter is awesome. I have a client's office that was getting almost 50k spam email a day, and it has gotten rid of 99% + in their mailboxes (check it out Inteligent Message Filter, not the senderid stuff either). oh and it's, FREE."

Crazy when you put things in context huh? Let's try one of your quotes now.

"Really? The 360 sold something like 350,000 in November. Assuming they sold twice that many in December (which I doubt), that would only be 1.05 million. And let's just conveniently ignore the lackluster launch in Japan."

I applaud you for being the queen of FUD. Your number of 350k (US numbers only) would by correct if Microsoft stopped selling them in November, however my little troll they are not doing that. In fact they will continue selling (into the millions, like I said) up until and past the time Sony releases the PS3. Sony has also helped confirmed this by saying they will be releasing nothing until the spring and even then possibly only in Japan.

Go for it, do the math. Guess what you get? Millions. MS has also announced to their shareholders that they are on track to sell approx. 3 million worldwide in the first 90 days. Again, your sad attempt to have a point has showed your ignorance

Let's try another one of your more aggressive points.

"Once again, let's just conveniently ignore facts that don't fit into our propagandizing worldview. Nintendo already has free online play. This will go to the console with the Revolution."

Ignore the facts? hmmmm.... That's sweet you think Nintendo counts. You stand almost alone in believing Nintendo is much of a player anymore. Maybe with little kids, but nobody thinks the next gen war is with anyone but Sony and MS. Either you truly don't get it or are choosing to spread FUD. I would like to think you are spreading FUD, but sadly I suspect you are just dull.

By the way the facts do support me. Sony did make that statement on the PS3 not having an X-box live style service. The report first came from Phil Harrison of Sony speaking to the US Edition of the Official Playstation magazine. Here is a link from one of the reports on it.
http://www.gamesradar.com/news/default.asp?pagetyp eid=2&articleid=37848&subsectionid=2524

See you are a typical zealot that has been spreading FUD for so long that you have honestly started to believe it. Sad and funny at the same time. You are setting yourself up for great disappointment, and fit into the person I was describing in the parent thread perfectly.

Do me a favor? In five years when you realize what I said was right, take a picture of your crumbling world? Post it on the web, I'd enjoy the laugh. Actually on second thought, don't take the picture if you are still in your mommy's basement playing games... that would just be kinda sad if you were still doing that.

Re:sleeping at the weel.

[ClamIAm]

Wow, so when people respond with salient points, all you do is reiterate what you said and attack the poster? I realize you don't have to face people when adding insults to your post, but it makes you look less intelligent. Just a suggestion.

That's sweet you think Nintendo counts. You stand almost alone in believing Nintendo is much of a player anymore.

Let's think about this for a second. If I use the word "everyone" as you do, then "everyone" dismissed Nintendo during this generation as well. But wait. The Gamecube had a larger market share than the Xbox for quite a while, I believe it was something like two years. The Xbox was also successful to some degree in Europe and the US because of the hackability and ease of piracy (while a small minority in the US, I've heard this was a bigger reason for success in Europe). The Xbox flopped in Japan, and the 360 launch there showed that it is still not a large force.

Secondly, Nintendo is making much more profit than the Xbox division (whatever it's called) at Microsoft. This isn't hard, as the Xbox division is still in the red overall. I believe Nintendo had its first unprofitable quarter EVER last year or in 2003, and that was partially due to the yen/dollar exchange rate. People (ahem) love to predict Nintendo's demise, as well as "OMG KIDD13", but there has been no evidence that they're going away. Your points against Nintendo are real, actual FUD. They cast doubt that Nintendo can survive, and cast an image on them that is pure opinion.

Also, what about the handheld games market? I seem to recall Nintendo doing pretty well there.

Xbox Live

I don't care. The only people I've ever known/read about that love Live and think it's great are pseudo-hardcore gamers and "journalists" who think they understand the industry. Never mind the fact that consoles online is still a relatively new area and not much has been done yet. To people who don't game 20 hours a week, paying for an online service is pretty unappealing. Also, I didn't say Sony was planning a Live service. Thanks for implying I did though.

Sales figures

Sure, Microsoft has told its investors that they're on track to sell x number of consoles or whatever. Unfortunately, we're going to have to wait a few years until we see who is right. I would say that past indications are a pretty good predictor of the future, so I'll say the 360 does about the same, possibly a little better. The same for the Revolution.

you mis-quoted me ... the spam filter is not a fix, it's a new feature.

I would hope an email server has some sort of spam filter. I would also hope that I wouldn't have to pray for my vendor to add one after I already bought the product. Waiting for something that should've been included in the first place isn't my idea of a good software purchase.

Re:sleeping at the weel.

[dangitman]

Microsoft is now in our cars (e.g. BMWs), and before you idiots say it's just windows media player let me stop you. It is not. I own a new 5 series and it controls climate (heat distribution in the seats, individual vent temp and power, etc.), navigation, alarm and lock settings, media, and countless other settings, including pretty good voice activation with cell phone integration.

Boy, you must be a really fun person to hang out with.

Re:sleeping at the weel.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I don't care. The only people I've ever known/read about that love Live and think it's great are pseudo-hardcore gamers and "journalists" who think they understand the industry. Never mind the fact that consoles online is still a relatively new area and not much has been done yet. To people who don't game 20 hours a week, paying for an online service is pretty unappealing. Also, I didn't say Sony was planning a Live service. Thanks for implying I did though. "

You don't care? He just pointed out the FUD in your statement and destroyed your argument and the best you can come up with is "I don't care".

I'm a gamer and let me tell you online gaming is awesome. Not much done? You obviously don't know what you are talking about; MS signed up almost 3 million subscribers under Xbox, and currently report subscriptions at almost 80% of sales of the Xbox 360. As far as paying for the service, it offers lots of stuff for free (trailers, new levels, etc.). $50 is also cheaper then paying all the different game providers and having a bunch of different accounts like Sony is proposing. You can pay MS for the service and get more... and people are doing that in huge numbers. It's pretty cool to be able to play a bunch of people in a game at anytime... one sign on for all games, and no headaches with remembering a bunch of usernames and passwords.

you have been caught talking out of your ass and look pretty foolish to all of us who have read this thread. Stop now while you have a shred of dignity.

Re:sleeping at the weel.

[ClamIAm]

Posting anonymously only works when people can't guess who the real poster is.

He just pointed out the FUD in your statement and destroyed your argument

Thanks for directly referencing what you're talking about, and showing how it's relevant. Oh wait.

MS signed up almost 3 million subscribers under Xbox

That's really great for them. Now why don't you compare these numbers to the other consoles available, and also to PC gaming? Oh wait, that's because it would invalidate your argument. Whoops.

[Microsoft] currently report (sic) subscriptions at almost 80% of sales of the Xbox 360.

Wow. That's impressive. Especially considering that most of those who have bought the 360 so far are those of the non-"gam3r d00dz" segment. Wait, no they aren't.

$50 is also cheaper then paying all the different game providers and having a bunch of different accounts like Sony is proposing.

I guess I didn't realize that Sony was forcing all publishers to charge for their online games. And publishers are definitely going to force all their games to have different accounts. Not.

you have been caught talking out of your ass and look pretty foolish to all of us who have read this thread. Stop now while you have a shred of dignity.

If this is true, why are you the only one replying? Can you honestly say you speak for every slashdot user? Oh, and I never realized that others' opinions of me dictate my dignity. Thanks for clearing that up.

Re:sleeping at the weel.

[packslash]

"don't be an idiot. OSX has had 4 paid upgrades and 5 release compared to XP and its two free upgrades. "

lol you're the fucking moron xp has has far more security patches than osx. I have an xp box and a g5 sitting next to me and I can definitely tell you which one makes me more nervous. Hey that doesn't matter anyway tadah! how about the latest neat exploit? that's right as of today there is a serious fucking gaping hole in windows. please remove your foot from your mouth.
"The only reason osx doesn't have the spyware and security problems that get published with XP is because nobody uses it. "

Lucasfilm would have to disagree but I guess they are nobody? owned your userbase theory is old and tired and has be disproved many times. mac osx is inherently more secure by design than windows xp. if you are trying to say it's not you would definitely be in the minority on slashdot. Nice try tho

"That's cute. Your statement is absurd on its face. You clearly aren't a developer of any stature. Linux people could make an argument, but macs sure as hell can't. In fact you and Steve Jobs are the only fools I've heard try and pretend xcode is in a serious alternative to a real dev suite like visual studio. lol. Keep dreamy buddy."
macs sure as hell couldn't as they are computers you fucking simpleton. I'm sorry you find that abortion that is visual studio great lmao I dont' know what to tell you. You obviously haven't used interface builder. There is nothing close. "I use both of them in my lab at home, and I support OSX at client offices (I don't know who Paul is). I can tell you they are not the same. Just so I understand, what is the same again?" paul thurrot disagrees

They'll upgrade, they always do

[bob2cam]

The whole concept of making something visually appealing and powerful seems to be lost on many Linux/Windows techies. That accounts for why IT doesn't understand the visual value of Windows Vista while consumers will love it. But eventually, IT will upgrade. They always do.
As a matter of fact you could keep the article and republish it every time a new Microsoft OS upgrade is released cause' every time an upgrade is released the media predicts the same thing. For following "blah blah blah" reasons, no one going to move from (take your pick, 3.0,3.1,3.11,W95,w98,w2000, wXP) to the latest and greatest. Eventually, everyone does, they just take their time.

Re:They'll upgrade, they always do

[Zerbs]

What is more likely to happen in the corporate environment, is to gradually ease into Vista, once they can no longer buy new computers with XP/2003 on them, and can do a boatload of testing on their systems to ensure that they won't break on the new OS. At my last company, as a developer I begged and pleaded the IS operations people to upgrade a production server from NT 4. They finally rebuilt it as a 2000 system when the antique external disk array crashed big time... in 2004. They also finally upgraded or got rid of their 98 desktops in 2003.

Re:They'll upgrade, they always do

[chaim79]

Is that why many places still run with NT4 and Win98? I'm working at a small (but growing) company building dynamic websites (ecomerce and such), 6 months ago we FINALY dropped support for Netscape 4! THERE ARE STILL PEOPLE WHO USE NETSCAPE 4 OUT THERE!!! We are helping someone with a product that doesn't work with any version of IE except 5.x! I've done support for small businesses that still use Win 3.11!!

Most businesses are not worried about having the 'cutting edge' software, but ARE concerned with Making a Profit, all computer issues are "if it ain't broke, don't even Touch it! we can't afford to do anything with it!".

The only places that worry about the cutting edge are computer focused businesses, software development, etc. Just about everyone else does the cost/benifit analisys and decides to stay with what they got. (after all, how many viruses are out there for Win 3.11!) :)

They could start by using plain English

[FishandChips]

• Microsoft needs to map out where its managed solutions effort is going

• programming to a raw API

• Results in 2005 didn't demonstrate that the unit has the right size, channel, and product lineup

• Microsoft needs to show enough progress on DSI to get ISVs

• Reengineer Engineering for Clearer Roadmaps

• the disconnect between the pricing of the Software Assurance maintenance plan and actual product release cycles

These quotes are taken from the article. They suggest a rather obvious problem that Microsoft might start to fix in 2006. Microsoft have become so bureaucratic and their plans are so contorted and jargon-ridden that few outside the IT industry can any longer understand a word they say. There is no impression here of contact with the end-user, let alone an ordinary Joe. One begins to wonder if Microsoft even now care who they're selling these products to.

Since Microsoft have lost the ability to explain what they are doing other than, perhaps, to a Freudian therapist, it's not surprising that customers see dirty work afoot in almost every new move. The impression is of fantastic constipation, like a grouchy grizzly emerging from long hiberation.

Re:They could start by using plain English

[wbren]

• Microsoft might start to fix in 2006
• contorted and jargon-ridden
• a Freudian therapist
• dirty work afoot
• fantastic constipation, like a grouchy grizzly emerging from long hiberation

These quotes are taken from your reply. They suggest a rather obvious problem with evaluating articles the way you do.

Re:They could start by using plain English

[FishandChips]

I entirely agree: Yes, a typical American education must put folks at a terrble disadvantage these days, irony bypass and all. Have you thought of investing in a dictionary?

One challenge missed

[Todd Knarr]

There's one challenge missing from the list, and it's probably the biggest one. It's related to getting Vista into the boardroom, but distinct in a number of ways. It is: convince the CFO that he'll see a positive ROI on the upgrade within 2 years.

That's going to be a hard sell. The CFO remembers the last round of licensing changes, where Microsoft promised that those expensive licenses would cover all the upgrades and then released their major upgrade just after the license coverage ended. IT remembers too, but the CFO had to sign the checks. The CFO also remembers that the Win2K upgrade is only a year or so old, less if they went to XP, and the company hasn't recovered the costs of that yet. He's also going to be looking at the cost analysis from his IT guys, backed up by vendor quotes, for upgrading the hardware in his company to the bare minimums for Vista, and wondering where in the budget he's going to find that big a chunk of change. And last but not least, he's going to be looking at the analysis by the IT guys of what Vista will give that they can use that they don't already have, and despite all Microsoft's hype and whiz-bang features very few of them actually show up for the users. With the economy not so hot and investors demanding profits, the dog-and-pony extravaganza will have a hard time competing with the dollar signs.

Ozzie's Take

[LukePieStalker]

Anyone who wants to know how MS thinks they will meet the challenge over the next year should check out Ray Ozzie's latest blog entry.

Clever admins...

[Anonymous Coward]

...are precisely what any corporate organization (larger than mom & pop size IT shops) explicitly DO NOT WANT anymore!!!!

In 2006, corp management wants their IT operation to be able to be run by $24K/yr kids with associates degrees as PC techs. They are sick and fed up with paying large salaries to highly trained, seasoned veteran IT professionals who will invariably position themselves in ways to enforce their own job security and keep the corp at their mercy (ala BOFH, etc). Corp management wants cheap, replicated, easily replaceable IT drones... all of whom can do each others' jobs with point & click GUI Windows with little brainpower needed. Either that or they *WILL* outsource to overseas and/or "hosted" service providers where they can hold a legal contract over the heads of their IT suppliers. A new revolution is brewing in the IT world in the USA, and those who hold advanced degrees, certifications and years of experience in the biz will soon start finding out thet their corporate employers are about to begin a new phase of revolt against them.

Re:Clever admins...

[XMyth]

Oh.......

Re:That Borg Icon Has To Go

[PFI_Optix]

Off-topic? Troll?

Seriously, folks. I think it's a fair observation. The borg pic does hint at a clear bias against Microsoft.

Of course, I don't recall /. ever making any claims at objectivity.

And after 10+ YEARS...

[Anonymous Coward]

...of Windows Server operating systems (NT "Advanced Server" 3.1, NT 3.5, NT 3.51, NT 4.0, W2K, W2K3) they still cannot send a single print job to multiple printers simultaneously (i.e. "broadcast printing") without forcing you to have to buy expensive third-party add-on software, whereas with Linux or any other *nix for that matter, it's trivial simple to set up a Samba print queue on a server that can accept a print job from a workstation and broadcast-print it to multiple networked laserjets at the same time.

Re:And after 10+ YEARS...

[XMilkProject]

Why on earth would you want to print to all your printers at once? I mean I can imagine some various obscure things you might do with that, but nothing that makes practical sense.

I'm sure you have a very good reason that i'm not aware of, but I assume microsoft is in the same boat as me and is also not aware of any reason to implement such a feature.

Couldn't all your printers have very different settings required? Where a single print job might not be configured properly for all of them? And if they were all identical it seems like you could script the functionality in just a few lines.
I'll be curious to find out what the common uses of this functionality are, off the top of my head I imagine using it to send notices to many departments at once, etc. Although maybe email would be more suited to that.

Re:And after 10+ YEARS...

[Anonymous Coward]

well to be fair, that is pretty nitch functionality and most companies would want to forbid that kinda thing anyways. And even with that being true it certainly doesn't refute the parent thread's statements.

Re:And after 10+ YEARS...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be curious to find out what the common uses of this functionality are, off the top of my head I imagine using it to send notices to many departments at once, etc. Although maybe email would be more suited to that.

Sales order picking tickets may need to print in multiple warehouses, maybe even in different cities, plus a copy in the sales office that generated the order too.

Law enforcement need to print warrants when someone with an outstanding warrant is picked up on a traffic stop. They need to print one at the jail to be waiting there when the arrestee is brought in, a copy also needs printed at the dispatch center for the files of the dispatcher who enters the arrest into the court system, and probably print one or more copies at the police station too. These are often three different physical locations miles apart from one another.

Hospitals also commonly need broadcast printing to multiple printers.

A buddy of mine works at an HVAC maintenance service company that does broadcast printing to dispatch work orders to multiple locations.

Broadcast printing is not a rare "niche" need at all. It's quite commonplace. Large numbers of business and government systems need to distribute simutaneous hardcopies in multiple locations where there is no PC for every potential recipient to log into and check email or whatever. A sheet coming off a printer at each location is an excellent way to accomplish dissemination of the needed info.

Windows Servers are deficient in this area. That's why there are several companies that sell software to add this feature to Windows. There are some expensive softwares and some cheap ones too that will do this, but none are freeware AFAIK. Google is your friend -- look for something that installs as a Windows "port monitor" (IntelliScribe, PQM Print Queue Manager, EPM, Frogmore Print Distributor, many others).

Top Ten Goals For Microsoft

[MightyMartian]

10. Fucking kill Linux.
9. Fucking kill Steve Jobs.
8. Fucking kill Toaster Strudles.
7. Fucking kill open source.
6. Fucking kill South Korea.
5. Fucking kill the EU.
4. Fucking kill Linus Torvalds.
4. Make love to Sun and...
3. Fucking kill Java.
1. Fucking kill Google.

Re:Top Ten Goals For Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

2. Get MSWord to number enumerations correctly :)

Re:Top Ten Goals For Microsoft

[srite]

you forgot Steve Balmer's office without chairs .......

Left unattended, each could...

[dpilot]

"Left unattended, each could ultimately interrupt Microsoft's 25+ year run of growth and profits and leave the door open for younger, smaller, and more nimble competitors."

And the problem with this is????

It appears that what they're trying to say is that by addressing these Top 10 Challenges, Microsoft can prevent "younger, smaller, and more nimble competitors" from gaining a foothold in the marketplace. In other words, if Microsoft simply rests on its current monopoly status and continue to mis-execute, they're going to have some serious competition.

I still fail to see a problemhere , except for Microsoft shareholders and IT managers who have unwisely over-bought into Microsoft monoculture.

Or maybe they should rejuvenate yet again, and smash the competition, yet again. That'll make computing better for all of us. Right?

Re:Left unattended, each could...

[Lonewolf666]

It appears that what they're trying to say is that by addressing these Top 10 Challenges, Microsoft can prevent "younger, smaller, and more nimble competitors" from gaining a foothold in the marketplace. In other words, if Microsoft simply rests on its current monopoly status and continue to mis-execute, they're going to have some serious competition.

Which seems a quite insightful statement. Because overwhelming market share in IT means a competitive advantage through so called "network effects". If almost everybody uses your software, it is more attractive to new customers because using it will provide document compatibility with existing organizations.
So if Microsoft decides to compete more seriously on quality, it will be very difficult to displace. Continuing arrogance and sloppiness, however, may create a breakthrough for the competition.

TFA misses 3 most important challenges

[po8]

Huh. The three items I think of as the top MS challenges for 2006 weren't even on the list.

1. Come to terms with the international market on pricing and control. Foreign governments are increasingly unwilling to have the hand of a US corporation around the neck of their IT infrastructure. At the same time, potential non-governmental customers in foreign countries, who have traditionally defaulted to pirated MS software, are reacting to increasing MS pressure to pay untenable sums for crippled SW versions by fleeing to Linux in droves. The international market is very important in 2006, because the US market is fairly saturated and the Vista upgrade is not looking like it will take off that soon. Finding an international strategy that continues to capture real (non-pirated) market share without compromising US strategy may be MS's toughest 2006 challenge.
2. Develop a strategy for dealing with Open Source. In 2006, Linux, Firefox, and OpenOffice will again gain some percentage points on the desktop in the US and especially internationally. In the past, these gains have come at the expense of old-school UNIX; they're now starting to erode MS's customer base. Microsoft has a lot of options for dealing with this problem in 2006. It can: try to use its patent power to cripple open source; embrace open source and try to find business models that let it continue to make money; ignore open source until it's a bigger threat; try to use its illegal monopoly power to keep open source from going mainstream; embrace, extend, extinguish; etc. However, the worst thing it could do in 2006 is to continue to mix elements of all of these strategies to form an incoherent whole. MS incoherence so far has been a key contributor to open source success at their expense.
3. Figure out how to deal with US governments. By avoiding the consequences of their illegal monopoly conviction a few years back, Microsoft has put themselves in a position where the US Federal government is constantly breathing down their neck. While the President and key administration officials have acted to shield MS so far, this is a precarious position to be in for another year. Meanwhile, state and local governments are finding open source a quite attractive alternative. Since governments are a driver for enterprise software due to interoperability, and since governments have a lot of power to influence MS business practices, MS needs to get their US government relations in order. 2006 would be a good time.

Re:TFA misses 3 most important challenges

[Anonymous Coward]

Come to terms with the international market on pricing and control.

Personally, I'm really hoping that, in typical MS fashion, they *don't* figure this one out.

Because that will allow alternate OS's to grow and flourish overseas in market's where MS can't depend on the network effect. Then, that technology will get re-imported back into the US, causing all sorts of problems for MS.

not name-calling

[rodentia]

I'm not calling anyone names, I am making a comparison between MS and a particular set of behaviors.

Spoiled children often display a lack of consideration for others, are prone to temper outbursts and are often manipulative. Their behavior is intrusive and obstructive.

Visual Studio 2005 / Office 12

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Writing as the guy who evaluates new versions of development tools at work...

Visual Studio 2005 is really good.

No, it's not. It would be pretty good if it worked, but it has some unforgivable bugs.

For a start, there's clearly something wrong with the UI code that make it literally unusable on the majority of our PCs at work. (They have varied specs, and some of them very powerful boxes by any standards, so don't even bother telling me we just need another 512MB of RAM or something. Thanks.) It'll go into a trance for minutes at a time one some machines, hogging almost 100% CPU and GB of memory. We haven't been able to isolate the problem, because other machines run it fine, but it seems to be connected to the background updating of Intellisense (on which many of the useful improvements in VS2005 rely, of course) and the processing power or memory size of the machine in question does not seem to matter. On at least one powerful machine, it was OK to start with but performance has degraded to unusability over time, too.

Even worse, there are also some major bugs in the code generation. It appears, based on tests conducted among our dev teams and some colleagues at other organisations, that they introduced some serious performance regressions between beta 2 and the final release. In a fairly large study, co-ordinated between several dev teams with independent code bases, we've measured a 30-50% drop in the performnce of heavily mathematical code since VS2003, for example, and there definitely wasn't anything close to that problem in beta 2.

How they managed not to notice that, we don't know, but the simple fact is that at present, the parts of VS2005 we're using (mainly VC++ for native code, for performance reasons) are not an improvement on 2003. Several of my colleagues have reverted all the way to VC++ 6 as an IDE, with a workhorse machine building the final code using the 2003 compiler; they never used the earlier .Net versions for day-to-day development because useful features like browse info were removed. The whole team is now backing out of the 2005 upgrade because the UI bugs make it a liability for us and the performance bugs mean our customers -- to whom speed typically matters a lot -- probably won't buy anything we compile with it anyway. Needless to say, since we were the first guys to try it, most of our other dev teams have no immediate plans to attempt an upgrade at this point!

If Microsoft released a service pack that fixed these show-stopping bugs early in 2006, we'd certainly consider upgrading at that stage, because there is a lot to like about VS2005 as well. But the simple fact is that right now, there are some bugs so serious that nothing else matters.

Kudos to the economists who recommended giving away the Express versions for free, though; that's a smart move.

Office 12 really is a new product. It's not an update like the other versions have been. The ribbon menu system is WAY better then the current drop down menus.

Leaving aside the fact that it's not out yet so we don't know what the ribbons will do in the end product, personally I found them annoying as hell anyway. I've been using MS Office on Windows since version -17 or something, and I know how to get things done. What I want is fixes for the awkward bits that make my life more difficult, or improvements and new features (there's plenty a WP program could do to help a lot of people's everyday work that Word still, bizarrely, can't do). What I absolutely don't want is another UI overhaul, particularly one that's going to mean I have to work out where everything's gone so I can fend off the hoards of enquiries from colleagues who know I like to play with this stuff and will probably find things before they do.

Re:Visual Studio 2005 / Office 12

[Anonymous Coward]

good news brother... you can still enbale the old menu structure... looks like your Office 12 point is invalid.

Re:Visual Studio 2005 / Office 12

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

good news brother... you can still enbale the old menu structure...

Really? Everything I've seen says that by the final release, Microsoft do not (or at least did not at the time) intend to leave the old menu structure around, forcing everyone to shift. Maybe the idiocy of that plan has sunk in.

OK, so assuming 95% of the user base can and will immediately revert to the old-style menus, what other reason is there to upgrade from Office 2003?

Re:Visual Studio 2005 / Office 12

[Anonymous Coward]

i'd argue your assumption of 95% is dead wrong. I'd say intially 30% revert, but after a few momths beomce curious and go to the ribbon. at the end of the day i'd say only 5% stick with the old menus.

Re:Visual Studio 2005 / Office 12

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd argue that you are pulling numbers out of thin air. And I'd be polite in doing so.

Your flying car is already here

[Anonymous Coward]

1. It's 2006!!! Where is my flying car!?!?

Your flying car is right here. And it's been around since 1979.

Re:Your flying car is already here

[dangitman]

And they still piss off Boss Hogg, to this very day.

Now there is some sound advice....

[Anonymous Coward]

That a lot of slashdoters need.

I'd say Budweiser is a better analogy

[Lifewish]

Cos using Windows all night gives me a fucking awful headache by morning.

Re:# 11 Why Flamebait? This is TRUE!

[jschoenberg]

You are really just pointing out the differences between the ITPro/Geek market and the consumer market. Consumers WANT everything bundled. They don't want to have to download one program for this and a different program for that. Can you imagine what would happen if you were not allowed to buy a car with a Turbo....if you were required to buy it separately from a list of manufacturers? A car manufacturer should be allowed to include whatever they want in their car (unless they force consumers to buy their car...see below).

I notice that people don't complain that Garage Band is cutting into Reason's profits. Apple is a very forceful bundler, especially when you consider hardware, yet nobody is suing Apple.

I feel that preventing Microsoft from putting whatever they want in the OS is a lighter form of facism. However, Microsoft's early tactics of requiring manufacturers to only provide Windows is totally evil, and Microsoft deserves whatever they have coming to them with that one. That is very wrong, as mentioned above when compared to automobile manufacturers, but it doesn't mean that Microsoft should not be allowed to put whatever features they want in their product.

Re:What Vista Needs

[Theatetus]

I hate to defend Windows (as much as I despise it), but people often don't realize what's available to them on it:
>> cat (isn't there a DOS equiv to cat...?)

type

>> cmdln grep

findstr

>> w, cal, bc, lynx, ssh

All ported to Windows and as equally supported as they are on UNIX.

Re:What Vista Needs

[jimktrains]

The hole point of my post was native things. I know I can get ssh servers and clients, but i want it there to begin with. I want this stuff on every compy I use, so I don't have to install it on every one...

Re:# 11 Why Flamebait? This is TRUE!

[dangitman]

I notice that people don't complain that Garage Band is cutting into Reason's profits. Apple is a very forceful bundler, especially when you consider hardware, yet nobody is suing Apple.

The bundling isn't really the major issue. Apple doesn't go around breaking third-party software like Microsoft does.

& one more

[KwKSilver]

Learn to write a EULA that is less overtly insulting. I just read one at home for the first time in just over 4 yrs. I was so hot after a short time that I had to walk away from it. Had I been sure that I had a Linux or BSD disk that would work, I'd have formatted the HD right there! As is, I was trying a Live Ubuntu for AMD64 CD within minutes. Just for chuckles this afternoon I dropped in the Knoppix CD that came with my Debian Bible this summer & it booted quicker than XP. OTOH it doesn't have all the pre-installed crapware.

Anybody know if I can use the system disk I had to burn to reformat the HD & install vanilla XP, i.e. XP w/out all the media crap? If not, then Windows weeks are numbered, maybe days, if it doesn't get less obnoxious.

sleeping at the weel-BASIC

[Anonymous Coward]

"Development tools. Visual Studio 2005 is really good. Some of you can say it bloated or whatever, but the fact remains you can program in dozens of computer languages natively for windows. "

All those languages and programmers are still only 20% more efficient than BASIC.

Re:# 11 Why Flamebait? This is TRUE!

[Forbman]

most cars don't have turbos. Most cars sensibly void the warranties on their engines if you do install your own turbo (hint: make sure the car you might try this on is paid for, is at least out of warranty, or you just don't care about it!). And, unless you live in California, chances are you can get away with this w/o invoking someone saying, "you have to put all your OEM parts back on before you can smog-check your car".

It's fine if the car company says, "no user-servicable parts inside". It's quite another when messing with your car risks an unreasonable fine (in relationship to other crimes of more social import) or jail time, if you're caught.

At least in the real world, buying a "turbo" engine generally means that the engine manufacturer has taken the time to beef up the oil supply to add a line to lube the turbo, strengthening various parts of the engine, matching the transmission and clutch to the increased torque/HP, and lowered the compression ratio (different pistons, thinner head gaskets) so as to avoid detonation, and made the fuel injection system/ECS to provide enough fuel under load, instead of figuring out how to do these things on your own...

While Apple is also bundling, it happens that it doesn't seem to restrict others from doing what their bundled software does. In fact, they actually make their software (iPhoto, iTunes, etc) generally...well...GOOD, something that MS has failed to really do with its bundled products. Apple also "owns" its hardware, so it doesn't have to play by the same rules as Microsoft, just like IBM, Sun, HP, et al do not have to with their non-Windows-based hardware.

No one complains about wanting to run HP/UX on an i-Series or Sunfire server and those damn hardware bastards won't do anything to facilitate this!

Re:# 11 Why Flamebait? This is TRUE!

[Forbman]

Also, Microsoft would just like to be able to turn "putting whatever they want in the OS" into "restricting what can be put onto the OS". buhbye to non-Windows Logo-compliant (i.e., paid MS the $$$ to get "certified") software...

Re:# 11 Why Flamebait? This is TRUE!

[jschoenberg]

Hey, I'm not saying Microsoft software is good, I'm just saying they have a right to sell their OS the exact way they want to (even if it sucks and makes other OSs look like a better option!). As long as they don't require hardware manufacturers to sell it), of course.

Your writings on turbo are exactly what I am saying about the Microsoft issue. That is, you typically WANT a bundled turbo because it functions better, so consumers should not be denied the possibility, especially to directly benefit competitor software manufacturers, as they have in the Microsoft case. Certainly in the US, it should never, never, never be illegal to put your own turbo on your car. Break the warranty absolutely (I can't imagine making Ford responsible for your blown motor after you pushed the PSI "to 11")

Should the simple act of modifying your car by adding a turbo (or a mod-chip, or different tires, or different gas or different woper blades, or diferent headlight bulbs, or different windows tint, or different paint, or different bumper stickers....whatever) be enough of a risk to create a law against it? Of course, such modifications should be subject to reasonable environmental and safety standards, such as in my state where both the state patrol and the department of ecology inspect such work. What kind of facist state makes such limitation on freedom?

uber admin

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it every oss freak thinks they are uber admins and that's all anyone ever needs? Probably 95 % of the uber admins here are posers who work on Windows in their jobs and are uber admins on their linux box at home that servs up some mp3's.

Directions on Microsoft independent? HAH!

[Anonymous Coward]

How f*cking independent are they if they have an internal Microsoft email address?