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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.
"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
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
#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.
t ory/0,14024,1506602,00.html
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/weblogs/s
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
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
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.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
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",
My city: Barcelona.
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.
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.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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.
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.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
"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?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
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/
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.
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.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us