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10 Biggest Microsoft Surprises of 2005
IZ Reloaded writes "The Microsoft Watch has a top 10 list of the biggest Microsoft surprises of the year. Among the surprises are Internet Explorer rising from the dead, Microsoft gets RSS and Microsoft Office team blogging. From Microsoft Watch: MS 'gets' RSS: While some folks were less than overjoyed that Microsoft was tinkering with the "little orange RSS box," Microsoft ended up looking like a company with a clue when it came to outlining its company-wide RSS strategy in 2005. RSS support will be built into not just Internet Explorer 7.0, but also Outlook 12 and Windows Vista itself. Almost all Microsoft blogs and sites have RSS feeds these days. RSS is gospel in Redmond these days."
Steve Balmer discovered at the office party having sexual relations with Google in a storage cupboard.
5. Microsoft refuses to take the EC seriously
7. Redmond still can't find a way to shake its shoddy security image
I'm not really sure why these two are considered surprises. These seem more like expectations than anything.
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
RSS is gospel in Redmond these days
It must be a bit bittersweet, given that RSS is basically a sloppier version of Microsoft's "push" technology CDF, which was introduced with Internet Explorer 4.0.
Is it just me or do other people not get RSS?
It seems to me to be very limited, only useful to be able to quickly read headlines from peoples blogs.
Sorry to piss on your blogfire, but most people have better things to do that keep up to date with blogging.
I realise its Web 2.0 and all that, but is RSS really important enough to put into the OS?!
Posting this article on this site is like tossing Nemo into a shark tank.
Let us count the intellectually absent posts.. damn, where did I put that Long Integer?
Cogito Ergo Sum
Hu? IE was never dead, maybe development of IE but certainly not its userbase.
1. IE rises from the dead: After insisting that Internet Explorer was an inextricable part of Windows, Microsoft abruptly changed course and decided to develop and deliver a new standalone version of its browser, after all. Nothing like a little competition to open new doors (and windows).
Doesn't look like much of a surprise to me. If they're going to want to compete with Google with their Web-based Office products, they're going to want to have a semi-proprietary (and predictable since they own and develop it!) platform on which to work on their competitive edge: IE.
Do they really, or is this just the fad du jour up in Redmond? It's more like Uncle Bill saw demonstration of RSS and liked it as a basis to further his vision of pervasive fee-based web services, a vision where MSFT is squarely situated as the tollbooth in the middle of everything.
Sure, they have the feeds everywhere and have built the protocol into their core products, but that doesn't mean they "get it" in the same sense that you or I "get it." It's more like RSS it the kool-ade of the month, just like "security-security-security" was last January (or was it in 2004?), and "developers-developers-developers" was a few months back.
I'm so disillusioned with MSFT and its leapard's spots that never change: embrace, extend, vanquish, bugify and feature-encumber with more bugs. Then churn the non-compatible and bug-rich versions to pump up revenues.
They "get it," maybe, but only to the extent that it gets them theirs: they want to own all the tollbooths on the web-services highway.
Who here honestly believed that MS would really put some effort in cleaning up the crap that is IE? Oh sure, they might make some fixes to the next version but what do you expect? The people at MS are not insane or stupid, they do not produce shoddy code on purpose. It is just the MS always adds so many features to its product that on release it turns out there are a whole lot of open holes because of all the features. The best way to make IE more secure is to rip out activex. Not going to happen.
You can in theory do the best more secure development in the world and if you then have some idiot decide that it would be really cool if unknown code could have free access to the system (html/javascript email) none of it matters. It would be like trying to design a safe and have markelting insist on a nice clear glass panel in the outside wall so people can see how save their money is.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
And the number one point of confusion?
'So, the old stuff was Dead, right?'
No, seriously - what the heck is 'Live' supposed to mean? Any ideas?
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
RSS can be handy for stock watchers. You can subscribe to an RSS feed for each company you track by entering their symbol on Yahoo Finance, and clicking the RSS button. An application like RSSReader (which is free) will pull all of the headlines together. It saves a ton of time when you want to read each stock's daily news.
Of course Microsoft would finally embrace RSS, when Atom reached 1.0 a while ago. Gotta keep comfortably behind the times, but still pretend that you're "with it."
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Hard to tell from the hyper "This is all _so_ cool" attitude of the writer, but
every indicator I've seen in the past year says that more and more Americans
(not sure about the Europeans) have wised up to the MS process of whipping up
some alpha-level code, throwing it on the market all the while marketing said
code as the greatest thing since sex. The experience of the consumer after she
gets her pretty new Dell does not match the picture presented by Microsoft and
Dell as to what the experience will be.
I talk with a lot of folks from grandmas to IT people and the one constant across
the board is that people are sick of Microsoft's junk because of unreliability
problems, whether due to security or stability or scalibility, etc, etc. ad
infinitum, ad nauseaum.
The only reason Microsoft has managed to get away with pushing their junk on the
market is because most of these folks were coming into the PC realm for the
first time and didn't know any better. Well, they sure as hell know better now:
They've been burned repeatedly by lousy MS junk since the middle of the
1980's and they are actively looking for alternatives.
Look for Apple and F/OSS to have a banner year.
Cheers.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
The Windows Genuine Advantage validation plug-in was the biggest surprice for me. In the download page they even have step-by-step instructions with photos on how to install it on Firefox.
Although I am an dedicated Mac guy, this is not an attempt at a flame of MS....and I hope the following post proves that:
I get a little scared everytime MS gets interested in adopting some standard. So I will be interested to see what they do in terms of XML. The reason is basically due to some of their other forays into standards. The most publicized would be Java. However, some of you may also be aware of MS's use (misuse) of the Kerberos standard. Rather than use the standard, they co-opted it slightly by using fields previously unused in Kerberos. While the jury was still out last time I checked on whether this degraded the security of Kerberos, I just do not understand why they felt the need to change it at all.....especially when they are adamant about not telling anyone what the heck they did exactly so someone--other than MS--can determine if what they did has some potential for holes or cross system interoperability problems.
Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.
There were no surprises from Microsoft in 2005. They have ended the year as they began it: fighting, bullying and litigating. Unless Microsoft decides to do a deal with the EC and various other parties, chances are they will end 2006 in the same way too.
The "surprises" in the article are at best changes of nuance and pretty darn piffling. So Microsoft gets keen on RSS and the Office team starts to blog? Only in a very boring corporation suffering from serious organizational arthritis would this be considered news. The proceedings of the 23rd convention of the Chinese communist party would hold more interest.
It's hard to think there will be any surprises from Microsoft for as long as Gates, Ballmer and their supporters are in such tight charge. Mabye events or Wall Street will force some change (all those Xbox zillions pouring down the manhole cover), but until then it looks to be strictly yesterday's men and yesterday's business practices.
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MS 'gets' RSS: While some folks were less than overjoyed that Microsoft was tinkering with the "little orange RSS box," Microsoft ended up looking like a company with a clue when it came to outlining its company-wide RSS strategy in 2005. RSS support will be built into not just Internet Explorer 7.0, but also Outlook 12 and Windows Vista itself. Almost all Microsoft blogs and sites have RSS feeds these days. RSS is gospel in Redmond these days."
Microsoft is adding RSS features years after they have become standard in other browsers and email clients. Microsoft is blogging years after others started. MS adds RSS feeds to its websites years after others. And this means MS gets RSS?
MS was slow to RSS just like they were slow to understand that the Internet was important. But they will probably dominate RSS just like the Internet.
A lot of people are going to get owned by this in the next few days / week, especially with so many people out of the office until next week...
see SANS / ISC for more info.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe