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John Dvorak's Eight Signs MS is Dead in the Water
j79 writes "John Dvorak has written an opinion piece on why he believes Microsoft is dead in the water. He discusses Vista, Office 2007, MSN and MSN search, the Xbox 360, Pad-based computing, .Net, and Microsoft's obsession with Google. "
My god, the marketwatch site is well ahead of the game.
They have incorporated Web 2.1 Server side blink!
If you think I'm joking, just look at the stock quotes on the page.
As for MS being dead in the water, I think they certainly have the sharks swimming around them, but I wouldn't call them dead just yet.
Remember, its not over until the fat penguin sings.
liqbase
PLEASE make my dreams come true!!!
----- I have bad karma for a reason! -----
...and he almost never is.
Some more of John Dvorak's keyboard drooling... Why did anyone give this guy a job writing?
~S
First it's "imminent death of apple predicted". Then a successive variation of that same theme, except with the vendor/company changed. So, this year it's Microsoft's turn?
I guess if he makes more than one prediction at once, there's more of a chance that he'll be right with at least one of them!
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
...it MUST be true.
People always fail to take into account that MS has a war chest comprising some tens of billions of dollars. Love them or hate them, MS is going nowhere anytime soon.
Eight signs Dvorak is dead in the water
"John Dvorak has written an opinion piece on why he believes Microsoft is dead in the water."
If Microsoft is dead in the water, what OS will Apple put on its next gen computers?
Is where Microsoft stopped innovating. Whenever you get into a "one-up" cold war, your thinking becomes limited to finding features that are just over what the competitor is doing and not necessarily related to what makes the life of the user easier.
MS has taken their eye off of the ball and has been concentrating on everything but the user.
Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/ -- A workout plan that doesn't feel like homework.
With a 90% installbase and billions and billions of dollars... Microsoft isn't going anywhere. People are still addicted to their software and will keep coming back for more. They can sustain a lack of creativity for many many years.
http://religiousfreaks.com/For once, this guy is actually making sense. When was the last time M$ actually innovated something? It's been a while. Win95 was the last thing I remember, and even that was strongly influenced by both X and the Mac. Vista has become XP with Glass; Office 2007 is a new UI to look better under Vista. IE7 is a Firefox clone, and Microsoft has been spewing Google-copycat programs for a while now.
My #1 sign that Microsoft is going over the water at 100MPH in a speedboat while her competitors drown: 38B USD in profit.
I wish I could write something that is as 'dead' as .NET is. I'd be a billionaire.
Microsoft has indeed shown lack of vision by concentrating not on where its strength laid, the operating system, but instead parleying with the competitors in 'side ventures' it had expanded to.
I cant complain though, i believe that this has given the open source community time to breath and catch up.
Read radical news here
Oh, yeah, he's always an idiot. One of the few examples of where Slashdot hypocricy doesn't happen. We can all agree a monkey with a blackboard and chalk could do a better job.
1) my points are baseless
2) flamebait!
3) hey, I might not be right but at least I'm fun to read...
4) M$ $uck3rz!!1!!
5) Hey, I own a Mac too!
6) Did I mention my employers advertisements? Could you buy something please?
7) I'm too old to find a real tech job. Thanks for the "work"!
8) Hey, Slashdot linked to me! Again and again and again! I must be doing something right!!!
... it was written by John Dvorak, and that guy has as much insight as a rock.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
he can't even reach 10 signs!
Well, I suppose anything is possible. Like Dvorak being right.
I'd give about equal odds to him being right or that MS is going to be hurt in the long term. (ignoring the obvious link that Dvorak has just created)
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
of Slashdrones denouncing Dvorak as a troll. Well, that might be right, but he's a successful troll. You can only accomplish that if you put enough truth and insight, wacky and wrongheaded though it may eventually turn out to be, into your communications as to make for interesting reading. Dvorak does that.
Take this article. I don't know about all the reasons. For example, I'm not a gamer so I don't know crap about the 360. But there's something here for everyone. He says that Vista OS and Office 2007 will be problematic letdowns. He says MSN and the MSN Search Engine are essentially useless. He points out an abandoned former focus, pad-based computing. Is there anything there that's really all that nuts?
No, there isn't. But then, like a good troll who has thrown out a couple of interesting statements to which nearly everyone can say "He's got a point," he then moves on to the provocation - Preoccupation with Google. He calls it a distraction. He tosses out opinions like they're facts. No matter how you view the relationship between Google and MS, there's something in that paragraph to disagree with.
Thus, conversation ensues. Slashdot stories get posted. Traffic gets created.
The man is a damn good troll and he deserves far more props (for that) than he gets around here.
Can we please have a 6 month moratorium on NOT posting Dvorak's trolls on the front page of slashdot?
Test your net with Netalyzr
My dog's ass sees the sun more often than Dvorak actually calls one correctly.
-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
So the !great Dvorak says that MS is dead in the water, yet they are still going to make a ton of money. Then how are they dead in the water? I'm sure Gates and Co. give a shit what people think as long as the money is running in the door. If MS is dead in the water yet making a lot of money, then what does that make Apple?
Most people would continue running XP and 2003 server, and the current office suite until MS gets their delayed stuff released. 2003 makes a great desktop and gives me no reason to switch to Linux or Mac as a primary desktop. Reliable enough when using an IE-alternative for surfing and runs all the games and apps that Linux and Mac don't.
Wow this guy is really a visionary. A 6 year old could write that article.
Cash on hand. (This Forbes article was the latest numbers I could find, from 2005.)
...with the Vista comment and the Google Comment.
Just to host all their amazing stories of these two non-biased jornalists, I love linux but god I'm on Microsofts side with these two monkeys.
Six years ago I had a heated debate with a friend about what should be done about Microsoft. I was (and still am) adamant Microsoft needs legal throttling. Microsoft escaped by the hair of their chin with a fortuitous changing of the guard shortly after losing their DOJ battle (Clinton and Democrats to Bush and the big-money-friendly Republicans). Clearly the new regime had no appetite for any meaningful punishment for Microsoft.
My friend waved his hands and said, "Let the market forces settle it", to which I pointed out Microsoft had gained so much power and momentum that market forces may have become irrelevant.
While better late than never, I think Dvorak makes some good points, but would focus on one I think he misses the mark:
I think Microsoft is right to worry about Google. Google has blind-sided Microsoft on yet another "it's the internet" facet they either glibly ignored, or just didn't see. Google has planted the seed that maybe, just maybe, the OS isn't going to be relevant in the future, thus allowing more free choice, and less dependence on Microsoft. Google's "proof" that XMLHTTPREQUEST can provide responsive web apps as stopgap technology (I can't believe that there eventually will be some better replacement) has spawned many other interesting companies and application.
Some of these "AJAX" apps are downright useful, and for the casual user, can completely replace their office suites in functionality (for their purposes), and then some (remote, network accessible from anywhere).
The amazing irony in all of this is Microsoft invented what may end up being the Silver Bullet that defeats them (XMLHTTPREQUEST). And, finally, maybe market forces will level the playing field.
Why the HELL you waste our time with Dvorak's nonsensical jabber?
Really,
Come to think of it, we arent seeing much new spectacular innovations, new technologies etc around lately ? I mean compared to the 90es ? Do we ?
Things we get are hybrids of existing technologies - which can happen to be revolutionary at times, but it seems that there isnt any big bang anymore like it was back then ?
Have we reached a stagnation period of it/telecommunications development, like it happens between big breakthrough periods.
I wonder what will the next breakthrough that will unleash something like the situation in the 90es will be. Telepathy ?
Read radical news here
Continued copying of *all* of Apple's inovation:1 2378047444&q=Motorrider&pl=true
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-41344461
fak3r.com
There are more than 8 signs that Dvorak is a gasbag. I site his numerous rambling predictions in the past that have turned out to be wrong more often than not. He just likes trying to raise a stink to maintain his dwindling readership.
Seriously:
1) delayed and cut features have been status quo from the beginning, at least with Windows OS releases.
2) Nothing new in Office. Aside from new document formats, there has been little new for years from what I hear.
3) MSN has been nothing really since WebTV and that was a failure as well.
4) MSN search. That will succeed if they are allowed to slap that into IE by default, just like bundling IE.
5) Xbox 360. Dunno, the PS3 and the game market will determine this. From what I understand the 360 is a decent gaming platform, but lacking in games at this time.
6) Pad based computing. Microsoft has had a number of products fail, but Windows Tablet edition is not that significant of a product and it will sell as long as tablets will sell.
7)
8) Google. Microsoft has never liked competition. The funny thing is that they silently ignore Apple because (IMHO) they can't touch them.
However, I do see MS as becoming kinda obsolete. They are _NOT_ a monopoly. Plenty of people use plenty of platforms and software products. MS does have a slight edge now because so many companies have custom/3rd party apps for their platforms, including DOS still to this day. Apps drive the OS. Once Windows apps are able to be virtualized or emulated in some way, the extra crap that comes with using windows might be their own demise.
I think Slashdot has given about 8000 reasons why Dvorak is dead in the water.
I will just pop in to say, as I have before, that Dvorak is a yellow journalist. He writes outlandish articles to get attention. Every time Slashdot posts his articles they lower themselves further into tabloid territory. If Slashdot doesn't care about credibility and is only concerned with getting as many viewers as possible then more power to them
Just a couple of months ago, Dvorak was trolling that he thought Apple would switch to windows and now MS is dead in the water? Why would Apple, a company growing like crazy, switch to an OS from a company that's dead in the water? Make up your mind, troll... every time you write you make yourself look dumber and dumber.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/03/184825 01 3/ 1535214/ 18262575 1 35 52034 3
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/25/18152
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/18
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/16
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/22/18025
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/24/21282
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/14/15
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/13/18552
trustedworlds.net - gaming, security, and the gunk that lives in between
I use Linux and Windows daily. My experience has taught me a lot of things. These are undeniable facts about Linux:
1. You can not play games on it.
2. It cannot be used by my grandma.
3. It lacks a GUI of any note.
4. There is no support available for it.
5. It is an assortment of fragmented distributions.
6. It cannot be run on the x86 platform.
7. You have to compile everything and know C.
8. Support for the latest hardware is always poor.
9. It is incompatiable with Windows.
10.It is dying.
C'mon. He is supposed to be an "expert" but doesn't know what Groove is? Lotus Notes? Gee, John. What did Ray Ozzie do at the time he was recruited?
MS is headed for diminshed expectation land - but Dvorak is like the IT version of Limbaugh. What a maroon.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Nine signs - Netcraft confirmed it.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Lately I have witnessed several signs that Microsoft is in retreat on some fronts; and witnessed several things that Microsoft has done to customers and competitors which at one time they would have gotten away with without comment, yet when they have tried them recently it has resulted in significant public outcry.
I have begun to periodically wonder if this means we are on the verge of some sort of sea change, about to reach some kind of "end of the beginning" point after which we will enter a new era; an era where the overriding theme of the computer industry is Microsoft's influence consistently and gradually waning as they are overcome, one product at a time, by the forces of a competitive market (as opposed to the old era, where the overriding theme was Microsoft's influence consistently and gradually increasing as the competitive market, one competitor at a time, is overcome by the force of Microsoft's monopolistic practices).
However it is now clear to me this cannot be the case. After all, If John Dvorak thinks Microsoft is in trouble, then we can absolutely conclude Microsoft is healthier than they have ever been and is at no risk of finding themselves in trouble anytime soon. Stopped clocks may be right twice a day, but John Dvorak never is.
Microsoft is an enormous company, and they've got their tentacles into almost everything software nowadays--but Dvorak only mentions the things going wrong. What about SQL Server 2005? VS 2005? I wouldn't use them myself, but MS is doing good things there. He might dis Office 2007, but there's one good thing about it: Sharepoint. Ever tried to coordinate training teams at ten different locations? The e-mails get hard to deal with, fast. So what if 2k7 isn't revolutionary? Like he said, MS is dominant in office suites. They just need to give people a reason to upgrade to the latest version, and I think they've done well enough on that. Now if they could stop the "you're a blockhead, buy our stuff" Office ads...
The article summary actually had some key points that actually seemed to be based in reality.... so I bit, and I'm amazed.
Of course, the article contained not one new concept, just a mash up of gripes posted around the net about MS of late.
So maybe today John just couldn't come up with a new troll topic and a pending deadline mandated he come up with *something*. And thus, John posts a non-inflamatory article that can actually be regarded as plausible.
Perhaps a better headline would have been "A sign that Dvorak is dead in the Water"...
Or has a case of writers block at the moment at least.
The article's comments are basically the same things that were said about another corporate giant in the 1980s... General Motors.
Somehow, they survived into the next millenium.
Oh boy, could I have stumbled upon an unannounced marketing name for yet another a flavor of the same OS? Windows Vista / New Millenium Edition
Slash N-M-E.... yup, it's my nme.
I'll stick with my Fed-up-ora, thank you very much.
How about somebody shooting Dvorak and leaving him 'dead in the water'. He would do everyone a favor.
Is it possible to stop discussing this Dvorak guy's article entirely? He's been flooding the net with bullshit theories for a while now, and the consensus here is that he is a shill / troll / moron. If he hadn't been writing for deadtree magazines for years, nobody would give him any credit. His ideas are bad, he just speaks louder than the others to get attention and sell adspace for whoever who works for. Giving him more web presence doesnt seem like a solution to me.
-- Home is where you eat your heart out.
But this is a good approximation. :-)
1. The following sentence is false.
2. The previous sentence is true.
The /. version goes like this:
1. John Dvorak never gets anything right.
2. John Dvorak says Microsoft is dead in the water.
Where is this article!?
I don't think Microsoft is in any danger of dying - companies with billions of dollars in their war chest don't tend to die. What Microsoft will do is lose their dominance of the market to smaller, more nimble competitors. Microsoft is in the same position that IBM was in during most of the 1980s - they have a near-monopoly position in a maturing market, but they're struggling to adapt themselves to changing conditions.
Like Microsoft, IBM was a massive corporation with an entrenched and risk-averse corporate culture. IBM had the same kind of market dominance and clout that Microsoft has now. IBM came out with their latest and greatest consumer machine in 1984 - the PCjr - but it was a horrendous flop because it didn't take the needs of users into consideration. I'm becoming more and more convinced that Windows Vista will be the same thing - a flop that came about because of a poor understanding of what users really want. I think that the LUA system in Vista will be as badly received as the PCjr's chiclet keys.
IBM didn't die, but they did lose a lot of money and a lot of marketshare to smaller, more nimble competitors like Compaq. It was only after IBM started refocusing on their core competencies (big iron, blade servers, etc.) that IBM's really regained some of its strength - but even today it doesn't have near the dominance that it did now.
The days of the Windows monoculture are starting to wane - Apple has a product that's more than competitive with Microsoft's offerings. Microsoft, like IBM back then, just isn't nimble enough to meet the demands of a changing marketplace. Microsoft's attempts to do vertical integration aren't working all that well - the XBox Division is bleeding cash left and right despite the popularity of their product, the online division is floundering to compete with Google, and businesses aren't going to retrain their staff to deal with Office 2007.
Microsoft isn't belly up yet, and probably won't be for a good, long time, but their continued missteps may see them lose a significant amount of money and marketshare.
JOHN DVORAK did an excellent job writing this article. Exactly what I woulda said. Well done.
The bit about the new version of office doing little more than maintain the company's dominance in office software sort of sums it up for me. What's it supposed to do? Entertain pundits?
Suppsoedly, we in the linux community talk about how we like continuous upgrades. Nat Friedman of Novell said that in an interview. You don't come out with something revolutionary -- you just improve it continuously. We bash MS for not doing that.
But here's this guy saying that the new release of windows isn't going to be new enough, not enough of a dramatic break with the past. It will probably run programs reliably, but it's not *exciting* or *entertaining*.
It's probably going to plug a lot of the security holes they have now. Fewer people will run as Administrator. ActiveX won't be so dangerous. And that's really all that they have to do.
Dvorak reportedly felt physical pain when his name was cited without the middle initial. Middle initials are apparently dead in the water as well.
Dvorak is the same guy who not very long ago said that Apple will ditch Mac OSX for Windows... But if Apple adopted Windows, wouldn't that make Windows almost the only desktop OS used by non-geeks? (I'm not saying anything bad about Linux/*BSD geeks, I'm just saying the general population doesn't use or understand the atlernative OSes.) It just seems to me that it's a contradiction to claim that almost all desktop machines will be running Windows, then say that MS is dead in the water...
Bytheway, I don't, and wouldn't ever, believe that Apple would ever use Windows, I'm just stating what his claim was
Dvorak has some good points, but there is a lot of time (and cash reserves to fund that time) for MS walk the death march. Most of what he cites are very short-term issues. More significantly, the risks long term for MS are poor security, anti-DRM backlash, and the improvement of competitive alternatives, FLOSS or else. And like any other 500 lb. gorilla, MS can't react to the market very quickly. Dvorak is probably right insomuch that the stock will correct to reflect what MS actually is: a big company whose best days are behind them.
Anybody want a peanut?
...that these comments will contain less than 10% of the regular Dvorak-bashing, because it happens to coincide with slashdot groupthink? I know many, many solid businesses whose success or failure will have little to do with the slight IT overhead of Windows vs Linux, and that are so entrenched in MS products and MS-only software it'll take decades to dig them out. Hell, our mother company recently purchased a core banking solution in Java, to replace the old system written in COBOL. Yes, COBOL in 2006. I've seen enough bluescreens around the world to know that many companies are equally tied to Windows. Read the recent MS financial reports? Yes the Xbox360 is a lackluster but they're raking in cash like never before on their cash cows.
The only thing the stock investors aren't happy with is that Microsoft seems to be throwing all that money into a big black hole. And if they become the iTMS of general-purpose DRM, they'll have a lock-in of previously unmatched proportions (and that's saying a lot). Of course, again slashdot thinks the people will raise up in rebellion, which is optimistic at best. Mircosoft isn't anywhere near dead in the water. Think IBM in the 1980s and you're looking at dead in the water. Dead in the water is when your cash cows are sick and dying, and you're desperately soul searching to find a way to stay in business. Microsoft is suffering from nothing than not seeing any good business to throw money at.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In 40 years from now, when a small and clumsy start-up sets the de facto standard for operating systems, and Microsoft is no more after they failed to embrace Internet5, and the google execs having given up on google ("We're rich, who cares!"), I expect dvorak to speak again -- whether alive or after waking up from his grave for it, to give us one final message
"Ha ha! Told you!!"
Or wait, isn't meth all the rage these days?
Anyway, MS is too big, too powerful and has money coming out of every orifice of its body (making analogies with the human anatomy). As much as I would like to see some competition on the desktop, I currently don't see any. Yeah, there's Apple, but sorry I don't want to pay a $1000 premium to Jobs for running Mac OS X.
As much as I would like to run a LINUX desktop, I run too many games and one too many other small pieces of software that I like on Windows to jettison it.
If I didn't run games, then yeah, LINUX would work. I'm perfectly comfortable with the idea of running Mozilla on LINUX and using OpenOffice and have done so in the past. So yeah, I can survive without Windows in a semi-business context where my duties are primarily technical. But running Half-Life2 at 2048x1536 like I can on Windows, well, LINUX stumbles there.
When I buy a shrink wrapped game, I want to play the game (enjoy the content) not care about how to make it work on LINUX. The few ports I've seen to LINUX of games have not impressed me.
Yeah I love, GNU, the bash shell, Apache, etc., etc., but the reality is, MS is here to stay.
-M
The problem is that Microsoft's two main R&D centers in Cupertino are justing not producing enough new and exciting innovations. The leader of one just stepped down and the other is concentrating on portable music.
[Insert pithy quote here]
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Nice Try Dvorak!
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
The more I see Dvorak submissions on Slashdot the more I'm convinced. John Dvorak himself probably submits his articles to Slashdot so that they get noticed (and ridiculed, but thats a different matter). Slashdot has become a guaranteed salary generator of sorts for Dvorak.
Ok do you know those nerds that apparently have too much free time on their hands and like to make uberlong posts that refute parent posts sentence by sentence? They're pathetic, aren't they?
.Net fra
Well I'll do just that right now, and I don't care what you think, CUZ I'M PISSED OFF.
1. Vista OS. It's now so delayed that its consumer version will miss the 2006 Christmas season. It's now supposed to arrive in early 2007. Even when it does, all of its promised cool features have been removed and it appears to be little more than a gussied-up version of Windows XP. It appears as if it is going to be a great disappointment. This should have been the company's number one priority.
For the developers and consumers, the coolest features are Aero Glass, Indigo, Avalon, Net 2.0 and the rest of the WinFX framework. They were ultra cool but now they are just "gussied-up" XP upgrade? Get your facts straight.
Almost anything in Vista was rebuilt/enhanced: the framework, the interface, the IP stack, the color profiles, there's actually a new advanced printing standard, the audio system, EVERYTHING.
So they dropped WinFS and a few other features for a later update, and suddenly the rest is "boring"? Gimme a break!
2. Office 2007. There is nothing in this new suite that is going to do much more than sustain the product as a dominant office suite. Unfortunately seven different versions are going to be released which will just confuse things. A new enterprise version has been added which appears to have a Lotus Notes-like element called Microsoft Groove. This is being sold as some sort of solution for online collaboration. If it is anything like Notes it will create a lot of anguish with users.
"If it is anything like Notes it will create a lot of anguish with users"? what kind of a nonsense argument is that?! Is this what you have as a sign MS is dead in the water. Have you used Office 2007, what would you do better than Microsoft if you were in their place? Just flamebaiting as always.
3. MSN. Microsoft should have abandoned MSN a decade ago. There is a lot of talk about Microsoft becoming more of a publisher and selling advertising. Microsoft should be buying advertising not selling it. This is not a media publishing company; it's a software publishing company. Why people keep encouraging Microsoft to go in this direction is baffling.
Maybe they should've stuck to making Basic compilers for 8-bit computers? Grow up, companies evolve and adapt to a changing market. You were whining when Microsoft was slow to discover the Internet, now whining they are discovering it.
4. MSN Search Engine. Again more of the same and pointless. Selling ads
Yea shit, selling ads and pocketing the money. Totally pointless, why would anyone care about this thing called uhmm, revenew... uhmm reveneu, revenue, what was it anyway? Totally pointless.
5. Xbox360. The potential to become the dominant game platform and an eventual and enviable profit center. Unfortunately the company did not foresee the Sony delays and failed to manufacture enough units to satisfy the demand. This was an exhibition of poor planning and bad business intelligence gathering.
That's total nonsense again. The initial shortage of units happened because of simultaneous world wide release. It had nothing to do with "foreseeing" the Sony delays.
And right now Microsoft is making and selling enough units to meet the demand. So where is the damn issue?
6. Pad-based computing. According to Gates just a few years back this was to become the dominant form of computing by now. What happened?
You said Apple is buying Adobe, Adobe buying Microsoft buying RedHat buying the Moon and blah blah.
What happened? What happened is you had no idea what you're talking most of the time, while Microsoft knows what it's doing most of the time. Noone is protected from errors, neither is Microsoft.
7. Dot Net initiative. The
the interface was better in 95 and 98, and serviceability best in windows 3.1 and WFW... without the evil Registry, we moved folks' entire PC personalities onto new boxes by editing the old INI files into the new ones, and deleting only the old driver references. the OS was at its most stable in NT 3.51.
MS doesn't get better, they just try to herd the users in the direction they want to go this year.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Could you imagine? Bill Gates announces it's been real but they're closing up shop, laying off all employees, and oh-by-the-way cancelling all software licenses. "That's right - legally the software is our property and we can do what we want with it and frankly, with over $50,000,000,000 in well diversified investments I just don't need the aggravation anymore. Thanks for playing, but you are now required to delete all copies of Microsoft products, from MITS BASIC 3 to preview betas of Windows Vista, you must now turn them off and install something else. Get a Mac. Sun, IBM, Apple can all pick up the slack. You will have to try that Linux thing or whatever on your notebooks now, I don't care anymore. We apologize for the inconvience but there will be no more patches or tech support. In fact, our few remaining employees in the legal department will be vigorously prosecuting anybody caught running a Microsoft product. Tata, good luck, and thanks for all the moolah."
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
The parasites need a leg up on the other parasites.
The quickest way to get sanity back to the stocks and commodities markets is to set time limits between trades. On stocks it should be two years. It is supposed to be an *investment*, it has turned into computer program driven real time fast trades gambling bingo hall with insider manipulation.
John Dvorak says: "MS is dead".
Fujisawa says: "Time to buy stock; since we know how often Dvorak is right".
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I can give an opinion on why conservatives backed off the DoJ's prosecution of Microsoft.
1) Conservatives notice that many (not all) liberals tend to pick on successful companies due to their philosophies and predispositions. This causes many conservatives to tune out legitimate anti-trust complaints. Those claims become part of the background noise of complaints against anything capitalistic in general.
2) How many of the general population of liberals or conservatives know enough to make an intelligent determination about Microsoft trade practices.
There are exceptions. Robert Bork helped Netscape in their legal dealings against Microsoft if memory serves.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
If there was ever a strong sign that MS is doing just fine and has a bright future, it is our buddy John predicting their demise.
Kinda depressing really, can't he go back to predicting the death of the net, Apple, and Linux to ensure they keep growing?
Finkployd
John Dvorak confirms it: Microsoft is dying.
Yeah, right. But a guy can hope...
Is it true that they've got enough coming back from investments to completely cover the costs of their software business?
"There is a deep-rooted belief that if a company like Google is successful, then they are an enemy per se."
The reason is that Bill wants everybody else's money - not just his own.
The magnitude of greed in this asshole is mind-boggling.
I'm surprised he isn't trying to have Microsoft make aircraft, cars and nuclear power plants - or maybe tanks - or run his own bank and stock exchange as well.
Bill - fix your fucking operating system before you do ANYTHING else today, okay?
News today is that Gartner is saying no way will Vista ship even to volume licensees in 2006. They don't expect Vista to ship to consumers until at LEAST 2nd quarter of 2007 and possibly even third quarter. The reason is that MS has scheduled only ONE release candidate for Vista. Also:
"The analysts point out that the release of Vista is more akin to the release of Windows 2000 than Windows XP, which was basically a renovation of Windows 2000. Thus, the timing of Microsoft's release schedule, in which the company allots just five months between the beta 2 release, expected in June this year, and the final product has been questioned.
The gap between Windows XP beta 2 and final was release was just five months. However, the gap between Windows 2000 beta 2 and final release was 16 months."
On the other hand, if you view Vista as a gussied up XP, maybe we can halve the difference to eight or ten months. But based on the Microsoft employees who have been bitching on blogs about bad test results being certified as accepted and the like, I'd guess Vista has a long way to go yet.
And if it comes out of the box with the sort of bugs and bad design features Thurriot was complaining about, it could well be dead in the water.
Not to mention it will only be installed on new consumer PCs - most of the old ones won't run it effectively at all. So it's doubtful that consumers are going to drive its adoption.
Even corporationa are probably going to implement it only as machines are upgraded to newer ones via attrition. The article I read about Gartner also says analysts don't expect Vista to be deployed by most corporations until sometime in 2008.
I foresee Vista being adopted by corporations even more slowly than XP was. In other words, in 2010, probably thirty percent of corporations will still be using Windows XP.
My prediction: by 2015, Windows is history.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
This is how I read it:
"I have been predicting that MSFT is going nowhere, and now that MSFT is actually going nowhere, I am about to tell you that I have been predicting that MSFT was going to go nowhere. And predicting for quite some time. Honest. Just ask the people which I had been predicting this to. In private. People I am not going to name. And I'll throw in some words which are supposed to justify my predictions that I am now making of this thing which is now happening."
I can assure you, the best way to get rid of dragons is to have one of your own.
OK, so I'm painting a big bulls-eye on my back, but I'd like to see Microsoft just write a decent app that would make 70-80% of PC users happy. Stop making Swiss Army knives with so many different tools that one needs a Hummer to carry one. Including the kitchen sink just means most of your customers are paying for a whole bunch of features (and bugs!) they don't need.
Yes, this goes against business: making a solid tool that works and makes your customers happy, instead of making gobs of money for the corporation. Come on, MS! Pride yourself on building a good app, not a good bank account. Make us happy to hand over our money to you. Stop making us feel like you are the overlord and we have no choice.
Sure, I've heard nothing but disappointment and annoyance when it comes to Vista, but I've yet to hear a bad word about Office 2007. Last I heard it was a really exciting release that was going to totally redo the interface and finally provide a worthwhile difference between old and new MS word versions.
I'm pretty sure that the /. powers-that-be only approve Dvorak stories to elicit the knee-jerk "Dvorak sucks" responses simply to amuse themselves, utterly independent of whether Dvorak sucks or not.
Next Dvorak article here - don't post anything.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
I always like reading what Dvorak has to say. I'm not sure how he became a pundit, but its always nice to see someone with enough gas to jab at various industry ideas--as poorly thought out as they may be.
This piece, however, is a "no duh" item. The computer industry by-in-large has run out of innovative ideas. Now we're polishing the status quo with pretty user interfaces.
"Dot Net initiative. The .Net framework that many believe is an example of how Microsoft can actually put together elegant and powerful architectures when it wants to, is being killed by Open Source systems that are free and almost just as powerful. Microsoft has been unable to cope with Open Source except to complain about it."
.NET are great for development. I would not go as far to say that it's being killed by Open Source.
I like java w/ Exclipse like the next guy, but Visual Studio and
No, first was 'Imminent death of the 'net predicted.'
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
For better or worse, Microsoft will be around for a long, long time. Look how long Western Union lasted after the telephone replaced the telegraph. However, what Dvorak may be saying is that the days of Microsoft being a driving, innovative, vibrant force in the computer industry have long since passed. Microsoft's stock price illustrates this nicely.
Is where Microsoft stopped innovating. Whenever you get into a "one-up" cold war...
.NET vs Java perhaps.
Really. Like the Wordperfect vs Office battle? Or the IE vs Netscape battle? Or the NT vs OS/2 battle? Or the MSDOS vs PC-DOS battle? More recently, even the XBOX vs Playstation/Nintendo battle, or even
Microsoft has been playing the "one-up" cold war for a lot longer than google has been around, and winning just about every time. But by your metrics, Microsoft stopped innovating long before their obsession with google.
6. Pad-based computing. According to Gates just a few years back this was to become the dominant form of computing by now. What happened?
Well, while it's not dominant, there are a hell of a lot more people using tablets, and they're still being produced. And guess what? They like them. I have said it before and will say it again; if the future consists of phone, PDA, notebook, desktop and server-based platforms, then we may as well give up now. The tablet is a great concept, and in most cases a great piece of engineering. So MS may sell their OS with it, but the actual hardware platform is brand new.
Kudos to MS for having the balls to try something new which - like their autoPC may or may not fail. They have the cash to spare, so best they attempt to establish new computing niches...
ok flamebait troll...w/e this topic is, to nerds, more attractive than actually having a date on Saturday night (with a woman) put down the mouse and vasoline, stop posting on forum boards about how Microsoft sucks and get a life. ----- have a nice day :)
VS2005 is awful. We skipped VS7 and 7.1 and finally moved to VS2005 because it fully supports the C++98 standard (yes, so did 7.1, but I couldn't convince management). I fire up a small program and get a ton of warnings saying that strncpy, strncat, sprintf, etc., are all depreciated, and I should use the "safer" ones that won't allow for buffer overflows.
Well, guess what...they're not depreciated. Microsoft decided to go around the ISO standards committee and decide that they would label all these functions in such a way as to suggest that str*() functions were going to go away sometime soon. Only VS2005 supports the _s functions, which, surprise surprise, makes your code completely Windows dependent. Yes it's just a warning, and yes you can turn it off, but on a project-by-project basis...there's no global default for this.
They also renamed the Standard Template Library to to "SCL" just because they can. Gee, the rest of the world knows it as STL, but with VS2005 you gotta look for it by another name.
What's sad is that VS2005 came out after Herb Sutter, a member of the ISO standards committe and I'd argue #2 in the food chain of important C++ guys went to work for them. He's actually responsible for some of this. Hey, Herb...thanks for letting me compile Loki, but you can stick bogus depreciation warnings and that whole managed C++ crap where the sun don't shine.
I'd even like to say the editor itself is better, but it's not. It's a resource pig and slow on my top-o-the-line P4 box. I have to say, I'm almost kind of glad...I'd gotten a bit too used to code-completion, but because VS2005 is so slow, I really now have the reason to check and remember the parameters to functions.
And don't get me started on converting MFC or ATL projects from VS6 to VS2005. It's almost easier just to move the code manually.
Dvorak almost had it. People here almost had it.
Microsoft is starting to look lost because it is focusing so much attention at so many businesses that are not its core: software development. Things like MSN, search, xbox are cash sinkholes that are not what makes Microsoft the powerful and respected (well, maybe not at Slashdot) company that it is. Up to here, everybody is getting.
But what Dvorak and most of everybody here on Slashdot is missing is that this is not a choice Microsoft has. Microsoft sees 5, 10, 15 years ahead and knows that the days of its packaged software dominance are going to end. With computers reaching the power and speed of "good enough for daily tasks," consumers are less and less likely to want to pay to upgrade to a new operating system. With the emergence of browser applications and the gradual (albiet not full) maturation of free open source alternatives to Office and Windows, Microsoft has serious looming threats in the near future.
Microsoft is smart. It is trying to reinvent itself BEFORE the trends of technology FORCE it to. By finding a new cash cow to rely on, it can sit comfortable the day a new version of Windows *doesn't* gain wide adoption (thinking - of course - two or three versions from now). Traditionally, that cash cow was and is Office. Let's not forget many people are perfectly content with Office 97 and see no need to upgrade to the newest version. This will only become more common as the Office product matures further. And as I stated above, and with the news that ODF is now an ISO standard, even Office is no longer a safe bet *in the long term.* Microsoft execs realize this threat is not yet mature as everybody here on Slashdot wishes, but DOES realize that given enough time, their Office revenue stream will dwindle as well.
So what happens? Microsoft looks at the current fastest growing technical market and tries to enter that race: search (Google), online ads (Google), online content deliver (iTunes). Microsoft is banking on online content distribution and services. If they're smart, they will tie their Office products with various online services to create the next generation online desktop Office applications. They will then charge a subscription fee and serve ads. THAT is where Microsoft is going. And they've got 40 billion dollars to ensure it happens.
And what about the xbox? It's got NOTHING to do with anything. It is Bill Gate's life long dream to make Microsoft an entertainment hub. But if all the threats mentioned above come around in full force as they probably will in 10 years, this dream will probably never fully materialize. It's just the world's richest man making his company invest in his pet project.
mac fanbois are sooooo funny !!!!
When did Dvorak start working for Netcraft?
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
One of (he | me) are very confused here...
dave
After much research, I have reverse engineered John Dvorak.
.NET CLR is a solid idea, and will be a major threat to OSS if MS succeeds in getting everyone to write managed code (and I say that as a Linux programmer), but it will take some time for that to happen. MSN sucks, and has always sucked, so that's hardly news.
1. Write sensationalist article about Microsoft's imminent doom
2. Lure tens of thousands of Slashdot eyeballs to web site
3. Profit!
Seriously, though, why does every utterance from this guy make it to the Slashdot front page? This particular article is a little less ridiculous than the last one (some kind of fan-boy fantasy about how Apple is going to take over the world), but it's still absurd to think that MS is adrift. Dvorak's claims about how Vista and Office don't offer compelling reasons to upgrade are the exact same things people said about Windows 2000 and Windows XP (and their Office contemporaries), but those seem to have worked out pretty well for MS. The
The only real threat to MS is Google, a competition which Dvorak calls a "preoccupation". Has anyone else tried out the new Google calendar? It's good. Adios, Outlook.
I'm dealing with a lot (!) european training and system houses (look at my nick), Java courses (including J2EE stuff, application servers, Spring, Hibernate, Certification, etc.) here outsell
Same analysis for popular Job search-engines. Demand for skilled Java experts is a lot (!) higher than
Alot of VB6 people are switching to Java here.
my 2 cents
Microsoft has made some mis-steps for sure, but so has every other tech company including Apple and "Open Source" is no pancea either. This comes from the same idiot who predicted that everyone would dump Windows if only Adobe would port Photoshop to Linux. The fact that Photoshop has been available for Apple from day one and didn't cause an exodus to the Mac never ocurred to him I guess...
The only real valid point that I like in that story is that Microsoft is going after Google in some markets that they should potentially stay out of. From another view, why not jump into a profitable area?
[%] Cingular Ringtones
...is if you doused her in gasoline and lit her on fire.
I think by dead, the author means that microsoft is failing to move forward; to grow; to thrive. Microsoft having fully decomposed and been recycled in the form of some more benevolent creatures is a nice dream, but failing to continue their strides towards monopolistic practices is good enough for a while :)
John has been around for a long time. He's been watching the computer industry and he knows the history. There was a time when John was predicting the passing of IBM as the computer industry heavyweight. You know what? He was right then, and I think he's right now. Although I have to say that by now, he's got a gift for the obvious.
:)
Microsoft has replaced IBM as the hated, arrogant, monopolistic goliath. There was a time when the saying went "nobody gets fired for specifying IBM (services and equipment)". Five years ago, you could replace 'IBM' with 'Microsoft'. Of course, things are changing. The 'net, Linux, Java, and Apple have changed the landscape.
But it's still fun to talk smack about Microsoft.
Best regards.
Please, oh, please, take a basic economics class. Learn what a monopoly is. Understand why a monopoly is not just a "market leader." Learn that a monopoly can easily enforce returns not available in a competitive market, and is therefore a legitimate target of government regulation. Microsoft can continue to suck the economy's blood for DECADES as long as it can remain an unregulated monopoly. There is nothing you or Google can do about it.
Fundamentally a good product [aside from those that feed addictions] are what people need not just want they want.
When it comes down to it, what in Vista do users actually "need"? I look at Vista and see a larger, shinier, fundamentally no better OS that is segregated into markets artificially to create the sense of premiums.
At some point MSFT has to come to the realization that the market is driven by the customers true needs and not just what some press agent drones up in advertisement as their needs.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
commentary. Amazing how he can say such insightful and meaningful things about Microsoft while only being able to generate moronic, hyperbolic tripe about Apple. Yes, I'm kidding...
No fan of Microsoft here, but I think Dvorak really misunderstands the problem. Yeah, Vista slipped, and that probably sucks for Microsoft. Not sure it's really the death of Microsoft.
I think what we're really seeing is that Microsoft is a much further thinker than Dvorak is. Not that outhinking Dvorak is really a hard accomplishment. What amazes me is that Dvorak thinks Microsoft is just making an enemy out of Google because they're successful. I think Microsoft is much smarter than that.
What is Google's business model? Advertising. What does Google create? Just about everything. Google is looking at old products and businesses and thinking about how to make them free of cost but full of ads. This definitely should scare Microsoft.
Google has search, mail, and now calendar. What happens when they get a word processor, spreadsheet, and a presentation program? And what happens when consumers look at the money they are paying for MS Office when they are no longer using it?
If Microsoft doesn't at least consider being able to switch to an ad-supported services company, then I think this might just happen and then Microsoft truly will be dead in the water.
However, for some reason John Dvorak sees Microsoft competing with Google as purely a distraction. I think Dvorak needs to be thinking on a grander scale.
FiGZ.COM - A waste of perfectly good web space
From the link's page source: Eight signs Microsoft is dead in the water - MarketWatch
Wow. You mean these guys are still around? They must have some die hard hang-ons to be able to stay in business this long.
Regardless, I have to get back to playing World of Warcraft on my Fedora box.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
I was just about to publish my article, "Eight Signs That John Dvorak is Dead in the Water".
My bicyles
>It's just that there is virtually nothing interesting or exciting happening (with the >lone exception of the X-Box360)
C'mon, the guy can't even spell the products correctly (it's xbox 360, silly, not X-Box360). And we're supposed to listen to him? Pfft...
He just doesn't get it. He really doesn't. Google hired an engineer Microsoft did not want Google to hire. *throws chair* Steve Ballmer is going to fscking kill Google!!!111!!!
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Those nifty AJAXified updating stock quotes are using an XmlHTTPRequest.
The XmlHTTPRequest was developed by Microsoft and later implemented in other browsers.
Its been around a long time, and MS never really did much with it.
It took a bunch of open source coders to make anything cool or useful with it.
But MS should get the props for inventing it.
It is the one example of innovation I can think of from them that has ever amounted to something.
I think the fact that Microsoft avoids innovation like the plague is actually one of their secrets to profit and success.
Let others waste their time and money innovating. Innovation is for the losers. Wait, stall, and make empty vaporware promises, then buy someone else's finished product at the last minute and rebrand it as yours.
It has always made them the most profitable software vendor in the past, why should they change now?
As much as it would fill me with glee if those eight signs were proof that Microsoft was dead in the water and would have to compete on a level playing field from now on, I believe that Microsoft would point out that it has over forty-billion signs in the bank that say it isn't and won't.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
1. Dvorak writes a sensationalist op-ed that reeks of... well, it just reeks.
2. It gets posted to Slashdot and wherever else.
3. Slashdot users (among others) bemoan the... stench. The smoke begins to billow.
4. Curious onlookers see the smoke, assume there's fire, and click the link.
5. Said users view the obligatory ads.
6. Dvorak's employer/publisher makes money.
7. Rinse and repeat.
What's so confusing about this?
Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. - John 14:6 NLT
History is littered with many examples of sudden changes in power structure causing a lot of pain all around (Roman Empire, break up of USSR,...). Far better would be shift so that MS no longer abuses its power and instead becomes a contributory member of the industry.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Eventhough this article has been tagged as "moron", "troll" & "fud" there are a number of people who will read this article presented to them from sources other than /.. And those people are the ones that sign the pay-checks at the end of the day. To us we see the "moron" and "troll" part but we are immune to the "fud". The other group of non-tech stock-market watching people are going to see the "fud" and start looking at how much thay have invested in MSFT versus other "open source like" companies.
Microsoft controls the market becaues Microsoft is generating income. When Microsoft stops generating income the market will turn on them.
I like-a do-the cha-cha.
Wow, that's one of the more sensible things I've ever read by Dvorak. I can't say I disagree with any of his arguments, and MS truly is unexciting and completely lacking in vision and direction (except for the Xbox division). Then again, the Xbox division is pretty much the only one that makes products that target consumers instead of targetting corporate IT as their market. The major problem with MS software is that they've completely lost touch with consumers, and haven't the slightest idea of how to design software that consumers want to use. They add requested feature after feature, without any oversight on workflow or comprehensive interface design. In the end, we just get incredibly bloated software with functionality randomly scattered throughout the interface in inconsistent ways.
It seems they really need to refocus on individual consumer needs instead of what businesses need, and not be afraid to refactor their software with top-to-bottom interface redesigns when functionality and/or workflow changes significantly.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
Microsoft has not stopped innovating. It cannot "stop" doing something that it never started doing.
In its entire existence, I don't think Microsoft has produced even one new idea in computing. It bought the precursor to MS-DOS. It copied pipes and redirection from Unix. (not quite getting them right, but never mind). It copied the Windows GUI from Apple (with changes that made it not quite as good as the original).
What made Microsoft big and rich was marketing capability, plus perhaps a certain lack of ethical restraint (Stac technologies, Netscape, ....). Not innovation.
John Dvorak has never been of any use, and he never will be. He's like the old Andy Rooney segment at the end of 60 minutes. Why do they call it a stool anyway? You can't sit on it...
I like toast!
For chrissakes John, get a dang editor.
"I get no spam"
What was your username again? -BOFH
There is a two part answer to that.
Why isn't the funny foot used in his articles? Seriously.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
No disrespect to Mr. Dvorak's prior significant contributions to software and computing in general. However, crying the demise of a leviathan like MS is a bit dillusional. Apple went through a period of reinventing themselves succesfully and MS could take decades to do the same if they ever had to. Having a gajillion in cash reserves affords a company that luxury.
For someone currently using the new Office beta, and having been intimately familiar with previous versions, I'd just like to say that the learning curve is suprisingly low.
While I'm sure your familiarity is a factor, could the reason for the low learning curve also be the fact that it's a word processor?
No offense, but a word processor shouldn't really have much of a learning curve at all in the first place. The task it was created to fulfull is a simple one. Create a new document, then type. Save or print.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I say we all chip in and get Mr. Dvorak a bigger megaphone.
I've also seen Microsoft's RFID platform. The time is coming very soon that a windows box will be able to do everything that folks use custom point-of-sale systems for, and of course do everything else that a computer can do at the same time. That will open up a new niche for Microsoft.
Don't get me wrong - I think that Microsoft is way too big for what it does and thier own weight is dragging them down - but there are still some good ideas wading out of the corporate behemoth.
.Net has a fair degree of industry acceptance, but it took a LOT of money and time and effort from Microsoft to get it there.
And even now, how caught on is it really? Microsoft is not using it for large apps or large portions of the OS. It hasn't really slowed down Java or LAMP development in the slightest.
Think of how much better the world would be if Microsoft had focused all that energy into improving LAMP or Java related stuff, instead of reolling a completely redundant solution.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Since when did Microsoft start wearing bras?
Oh wait, I'm answering the wrong post...
Corn is no place for a mighty John Dvorak.
With a 90% installbase and billions and billions of dollars...
Sounds like the minicomputer industry in the early 1980's. I remember a few: DEC, Prime, Tandem, Data General, Burroughs, Control Data, Scientific Data, Honeywell...
Dust in the wind...
Mister Softie reduces earnings projections
Vista is delayed, may be delayed again
Weak sisters bail, stock drops ~$4 = ~15%
One or two pundits call it the end of the world
"not Warren Buffet" Dvorak confirms
=Buy signal!
8 ball time:
How deep to go in now,
If it holds $23, buy again, else wait for $22
There should be a second wave of selling, keep some powder dry
Up 0.01 after hours, 23.18
...as long as his columns keep appearing as Slashdot stories.
> My prediction: by 2015, Windows is history.
I think on the server Windows is history now for many companies, either they run Linux on x86 architectures or they run it under VM on the mainframe.
On the desktop I am not so sure, certainly by 2015 I think the dominance will be gone. Whether it will be gone completely is another matter. I am pretty certain that if people are running Windows it will be Windows 2010 or whatever it will be called and not Windows 2015.
I don't think that MS has realised that there is no money in operating systems any more. IBM, HP and Sun (to some extent) cottoned on to that some time back. MS is trying to sell the same old stuff, while FOSS gradually climbs up the food chain. I think we will see the likes of Oracle getting out of databases and BEA getting out of enterprise Web systems before we see MS abandoning its cash cows.
I think a lot of people are not understanding what the term "dead in the water" means. It doesn't mean that you are sinking or in any real danger to speak of, at least, immediate danger. Just not going anywhere.
And, Dvorak BS aside, its fairly true at the momemnt of MS.
In their existence they have really only made money on Windows and Office. And they are reaching a point where there isn't a whole lot of visible innovation that can go into either (thats meaningful to Joe User). Win2000 was a perfectly passable O/S 6 years ago, and it still is now. Office has 99% of all features that users could possibly currently want (even though the users don't always know they are there). MS simply doesn't know where to take their core atm.
And, since software doesn't degrade, theoretically there will come a time where people just stop feeling the urge to buy a new OS at all. Software doesn't degrade with time. If every 1950 chevy still ran today just like the day it was made, how many people would be driving new cars? Some? Sure. But lots of people will still drive the old ones too.
MS knows this and its why they are so furiously trying to expand into other markets. But they've never been successful outside their core. Even Xbox for example has only been successful from a market penetration standpoint but its still lost them money overall.
Teehee. Is it just me or does X-Box360 look as cool as "Ro-Bot"?
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
It almost seems as the Apple/Microsoft story may be based on the fable "The Tortoise and the Hare." For years, Microsoft ran away with everything while Apple just seemed to sort of plod along, managing to dodge the bankruptcy bullet on more than one occasion. Their hardware was mostly ignored but those who took the time to look were impressed with the quality and performance of it. All in all, the faithful said the Apple was a well run company that produced quality goods but suffered from bouts of lackluster results. Despite it all, Apple kept at it, working hard, developing products and doing their level best. Along the way, IBM and Microsoft sort of lost steam, IBM sold itself out of the consumer market while Microsoft missed goals and suffered delay after delay, pushing their most promising new product releases into the future causing some people to claim that their latest products are just a step above vaporware.
Apple in the meantime has done a wonderful job of making and selling a couple of notable products and services. Their war-chest is stuffed with a pile of money and they are now bringing a real product to market that is designed to compete with the PC industry (including the Microsoft juggernaut) head to head. From all appearances, it looks like Apple Inc. is primed to steal market share from the big boys in the PC industry (Lenovo, Dell, Microsoft, and so on). What they are offering is good hardware, stellar marketing, and impressive timing. Everyone who loves their iPod is a potential customer! Especially if the Apple hardware in someway improves the perceived value of their other Apple stuff (or makes it easier to use). The executives at Apple are quite shrewd and astute businessmen, they know what they are doing and they have a plan.
I'm not counting Microsoft out, they will continue to command the lion's share of the market, but Apple has become a foe that they don't quite know how to deal with. It is as if the little ankle biting dog suddenly got bigger and more aggressive when nobody was looking! Still, Apple is not putting down a full court press frontal attack on Microsoft, they are in a sense, sharing - perhaps that is what "Boot Camp" is all about (I don't know, and I'm not even exactly speculating, I am floating a question). Are the Apple execs positioning their company as a non-enemy so that if Microsoft were to suddenly flex their muscle, they would look like the innocent ninety-eight pound weakling being bullied by the big kid? That could be good for marketing!
Why is the parent modded insightful? Modems are all over the freaking place. Any analog large-pipe that carries data requires a modem; cable, DSL (including T1, T3, etc). If you are a home owner with internet access (and don't have FIOS), you most likely have a modem. And regardless, the point is that Hayes isn't popular anymore. With all their resources, they could have switched to home networking equipment or online multimedia or microwave macaroni and cheese, but instead they faded into obscurity.
... again. No really, what Slashdot needs is a 'Dvorak' icon.
This
... that is dead. Why bother link\posting to this trolls articles? Time to find another source of "News for Nerds".
... because there is no patch for human stupidity.
Dvorak's predictions are often laughably off base but he definitely makes at least one good point. 8. Preoccupation with Google. Microsoft is too easily distracted by successful companies who are not competitors. There is a deep-rooted belief that if a company like Google is successful, then they are an enemy per se. So the company obsesses on what Google is doing rather than concentrating on important Microsoft projects.
Man I love how whenever Dvorak makes a post, most Slashdotters denounce him as a crazy nut, but when it's something anti-MS...those comments are nowhere to be found...as if making bad remarks about an MS product automatically gives him credibility...
Just wait until Google releases their own OS.
Dvorak is far from the sharpest tool in the shed. In fact he's not even IN the shed. He's leaning against the outside of it rusting in the rain.
so much depends
upon
John
Dvorak
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Dvorak just likes to make inane random predictions that never, and I mean never, come true. His column inches are dedicated to shots in the dark which don't deserve the time of day. He's a troll with a website who claims to be an expert, and loves making wilder and crazier predictions with a distinct Apple fetish
Apple has the best sales they've ever had, they have no reason to open source it, and it's just... nonsense to anyone.
Looking at Slashdot posts he thinks
* Apple is going to move to Windows
* Microsoft should buy Opera
* Apple are promoted by news people more than they are used
* the Creative Commons license is worth trashing
* That Apple's move to Intel will harm Linux
* Google is planning a web browser
* Apple should discontinue the Mac
* TiVo is a way of stealing programming
Make your own opinions. Mine is that he's a poor troll. Okay, so he correctly predicted that Apple would move to Intel. But if you fire enough shots and make enough random predictions, you're eventually going to get one on the bullseye.
Microsoft could sit still for maybe five years or more and release NOTHING and they still would be able to come back. Universities support MS with courses based on their "ecosystem". Employers support MS by requiring applicants to be able to work with their systems (and how many more typists and accountants are there than server admins?). Governments support MS by mandating electronic document standards which are only really Office formats. Gamers and game companies support MS by buying or releasing PC games that require Windows. OEMs support MS by pre-installing their OS and packages on new machines. These people all have good reasons to do these things but it amounts to a huge life-support system for Microsoft and they can afford to screw up for years and years because all these factors mean that most users (and I mean well over 90% of all computer-based work and leisure hours logged at a desktop or laptop) have no choice but to use Windows.
No choice. That's what monopolies are all about, which is why in a capitalist system the government's role (probably the government's only legitimate role in a truly capitalistic society) is to break up monopolies and ensure the market is open to entrepreneurs.
Basically, Gates should be told that he has enough money and has therefore won the game and forced to retire (from MS anyway) and have MS broken up and auctioned off. In the long term we as users would benefit just as a forest benefits from the occasional fire.
But that's not going to happen now. I don't think that Microsoft will be shifted from their position in my lifetime; unless a law was passed (everywhere) which required all machines sold to be "naked". Even then, compatibility would still give MS a very strong hand. Also not going to happen.
The best any of us can realistically hope for is that at least no one will manage to force all computers to have Windows pre-installed and that motherboards will not have DRM installed which locks out non-MS operating systems. Even this could realistically happen; certainly Apple is showing every sign of being happy to support such things as long as it results in a duopoly (hello, BootCamp).
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MSFT&t=5y
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Predicting that Microsoft is dead in the water is a little premature. They still have a huge market advantage in virtually every field they compete in because of their size and cash flow. They will always have the ability to buy out competitors and throw more money at any problem than anyone else. They still get to hire the smartest people coming out of college.
I never used an of the still older dedicated word processors but can guess they were even worse.
Further there is much more to Office then Word.
Given what you are doing with your word processor I suggest you switch to a lighter weight tool that will do everything you want. Perhaps notepad.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It's not cash that makes a company (though that helps); it's the people who work there.
MS used to have the most talented engineers in the world. Now that title belongs to Google and a host of start-ups.
If having the most money doesn't give them the brightest developers in the world, does that mean they're the most powerful company? Because they could potentially spend 10 billion in a few years to "catch up"? I don't even think stockholders would allow MS to spend that much.
Money is like fuel, and MS is like the obsolete space shuttle -- most of the fuel goes towards lifting the weight of the fuel!
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
I don't usually agree with Dvorak, but he does have a valid point here. What is exciting in about Vista, Office, or anything else Microsoft is producing? With Vista, most of the features have been around in other OSes for quite some time. With Office, how many ways can you design a word processor? Most of the time, all I need to do is type and save. Powerpoint has all the functionality I need today. Access could use some work but how exciting is "the New Access... less buggier than the old one"? Do I really need 2007? .Net, what the hell is that? Better question, why should I or any other basic user care? MSN? Are they still offering dial-up service or webservice portal? Webservice portal are a dime a dozen-Google, Yahoo, etc. They are all free anyway and I could less about advertisements. So, I do agree with Dvorak here and Microsoft is a bloated giant. They have no imagination or at least the marketing skills to show that they do.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
There is an unstoppable and huge contingent of people who will only use
Microsoft no matter what happens. These are the people who continue to support
Microsoft regardless of the quality of their products vs. other products
available for cheaper.
"Microsoft is damned if they do and damned if they don't."
As often as I hear people say "Damn it!" or "This damn computer [rant]" or something to that effect in reference to the Microsoft software they're using, it seems like they're pretty damn damned no matter what.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
In the Gospel of John, (not Dvorak) the devil takes Jesus up onto a hillside and shows him the "kingdoms of the world" and offers it to Jesus as a reward if he will fall down and worship the devil.
Jesus said no, but clearly Mr. William G the 3rd said yes.
So the ninth reason Microsoft is dead and doomed to burn for all eternity is... oh, wait, that's not what Dvorak was saying, was it?
Sorry, my bad...
"Sic Semper Path of Least Resistance"
Word's not really much of a WYSIWYG word processor. Only in the best case will it function like that. Most of the time, tho, it's a document mutilation tool.
/does anyone at MS even realize how bad Word is?
//i mean, use the thing for an hour, and see what happens.
///gaaaah! why can't I get rid of all these paragraph notations! they just appeared after I added a linefeed, and now they won't go away!!!
////why do I actually have to insert the HTML line break command to add a linefeed in this comment???
At least with Katz we could filter him out of the headlines with preferences.
I've said that Longhorn will be Microsoft's OS2 for months. It will be adopted by the businesses who are so incredibly stupid that they really thing they have to adopt everything MS puts out as "new."
I knew MS has jumped the shark in my C#.NET class. Every single student who had a pirate copy of VS.NET had it working. Every single one of us who had legit software had failed to get VS.NET to install. This is typical of MS' policies on piracy. I don't pirate MS' software - I run Knoppix.
From The Article :
> "Microsoft has been unable to cope with Open Source except to complain about it."
You forget the hundreds of Linux users who are sitting in prison thanks to the BSA, not to mention the people who have been shot on both sides of this war. The BSA may kick in yoru door tonight. Are you ready to defend your right to run Linux? !!Lock & Load!
Andy Out!
What's this about pad computing? Are the sharks smelling blood in the water?
(Seriously, though, what's the difference between Pad Computing and Tablet Computing?)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
He says that Microsoft is too easily distracted by companies who are not competitors. Not competitors right now is more like it. 20 years ago Bell Atlantic and Cox Communications weren't competitors either, neither were Sony and Apple. Microsoft obviously sees something in Google that makes them think they WILL be a direct competitor in the future, even if they are only an oblique competitor now.
I can make a pretty good guess as to what that is--Google provides rich software as a service and they make money doing it. Microsoft has known for almost a decade now that the continual growth in networks will enable software to be provided as a service. And the continued increase in the acceptance of open source means that the perceived value of software as a product will continue to decrease...how much could the Office product be worth if 90% of the most-used functionality is available for $0.00? Meanwhile the greater sophistication and reliability of software means that replacement cycles are slowing down, and the ever-more-common use of updates and patches reinforces the service aspect to software.
When software is available as a service, the business model changes dramatically--it's not (just) a product sale anymore. So what does it become? On-demand, pay as needed? Monthly or annual subscription? Advertising supported? Google has gone with the latter, and they are making money with software services--effectively establishing themselves as threats to a future Microsoft direction.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
How dead is it?
It's so dead, that recently
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/
But sure, Microsoft is dead in the water.
Hey, I heard they just released a special pink IPod!! Apple is really going places!
"Microsoft advertising ironically highlights dinosaurs"
Every time I see their dinosaur commercials telling
me how Microsoft Office has evolved, I can hear
a voice saying:
"This just means it was not Intelligently Designed"...
Get it straight. Vista is XP with Glass, and new audio and networking stacks.
You had a heated debate with a friend over Microsoft? Not only that, but it's impacted you so deeply that you're able to touch upon it with almost total recall (down to your friend's hand gestures) SIX YEARS later?
Gentlemen, I think we've found Slashdot patient zero...
I had to go and look this up to see why everyone is gushing about it. To me all it looks like is PUSH via javascript. Is it really that revolutionary & could kill Microsoft? Any example pages?
I'm not jumping on you, just need more data.
Predicting the imminent death of Microsoft has replaced predicting the imminent death of the Internet. Both predictions are stupid and Not Going to Happen. Microsoft owns 95% of the market and has tens of billions in cash reserves. That means they are untouchable due to network effect, no matter how shoddy or overpriced their products are.
I wont believe it until then...
comparing hypothetical investments made one year ago.
I put this link in my profile back-in-the-day. Running this with the market numbers, MSFT tracks with the market. That's another sign of being dead in the water -- flowing with the current.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
1. Vista OS. It's now so delayed that its consumer version will miss the 2006 Christmas season. It's now supposed to arrive in early 2007. Even when it does, all of its promised cool features have been removed and it appears to be little more than a gussied-up version of Windows XP. It appears as if it is going to be a great disappointment. This should have been the company's number one priority.
Missing Christmas isn't a big deal -- who's going to buy you an OS for Christmas? If it's just going to be bundled as always, I see no reason MS has any inscentive to finish the OS at all, much less add all those features -- if they did nothing at all, Dell would still be shipping XP for $50 per computer.
What amazes me is that anyone was the least bit surprised in the sheer amount of vaporware in Vista. The intelligent people are looking at this and saying "Hmm, maybe it's technically better, but it's still not worth $200. I'll pirate it or get it bundled with my computer."
2. Office 2007. There is nothing in this new suite that is going to do much more than sustain the product as a dominant office suite. Unfortunately seven different versions are going to be released which will just confuse things. A new enterprise version has been added which appears to have a Lotus Notes-like element called Microsoft Groove. This is being sold as some sort of solution for online collaboration. If it is anything like Notes it will create a lot of anguish with users.
Seven different versions of Vista isn't a good thing either. I admit it sounds a bit like different Linux distros, but historically, different versions of XP, say, only mean that XP Home is a crippled version of XP Pro, and XP Corporate is XP Pro without all the copy protection crap.
However, innovation in the interface is a good thing. But, I'm just as skeptical about this as I was about the changes to the XP interface. Ok, I like the look better than 2K, and I like how it groups different windows of the same program (something Linux did for years before), and hides unused taskbar icons (which is only nice because there are so damn many of them in the first place.) But, there were also a huge number of "innovations" that did nothing but get in the way.
3. MSN. Microsoft should have abandoned MSN a decade ago. There is a lot of talk about Microsoft becoming more of a publisher and selling advertising. Microsoft should be buying advertising not selling it. This is not a media publishing company; it's a software publishing company. Why people keep encouraging Microsoft to go in this direction is baffling.
Maybe because this direction lies actual profit. They've seen what Google can do with it -- and Google was actually innovative here, so MS is trying to embrace/extend as usual. Maybe not the best tactic, but not a dead end anymore than anything else MS has done.
4. MSN Search Engine. Again more of the same and pointless. Selling ads
Same applies here, then.
5. Xbox360. The potential to become the dominant game platform and an eventual and enviable profit center. Unfortunately the company did not foresee the Sony delays and failed to manufacture enough units to satisfy the demand. This was an exhibition of poor planning and bad business intelligence gathering.
I'm guessing they did forsee Sony delays, and that's why they rushed their product out. No, the surprise was how much demand there was.
I see nothing horribly wrong on the business end of the 360, only several very large things wrong with me actually buying one for any significant amount of money. I'll probably borrow one to play Halo 3's campaign, then give it back.
6. Pad-based computing. According to Gates just a few years back this was to become the dominant form of computing by now. What happened?
Probably the same thing that happened to a lot of their failures. I don't see Media Center edition being a big deal either.
7. Dot Net initiative. The
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
it means MS is alive and well. Dvorak has been celebrating Apple's death for years and always been wrong, called Linux a hobbyist fad until someone told him about Ajax and now MS is dead too? Methinks someone is trolling for hits, nothing to see here...
For like 12 years MS hasn't changed the Office UI singificantly because of "training" issues, and everyone here flamed them for rehashing the same product over-and-over.
The problem is that only the vocal minority complains about things and it gets changed, while the majority of users are fine with the way things are.
I work for a 3rd party Office Tech support company and every time an company upgrades from 97, 2000 to either 2002 and 2003 I already know what the call is about. Here are the top 3 questions...
1. Why can't I get rid of Track changes? - This one is major. We get calls all the time about this and it is a bitch to describe how to accept all changes because you can no longer to it through the Tools, Track Changes, Accept all Changes in document menu. You have to find the "Peice of paper" with the check mark on it and then accept. This may not even be visible on their screen becacse their toolbars might be coverning the options up. That or add the Accept all Changes back to the tool bar through customize toolbars but that is a pain to do each item.
Well that isn't the half of this issue... Mostly these people just upgraded and now all their documents have track changes. I have spoken to literally hundreds of users who saw this and then immediatley figured it was the Final Showing mark up and they toggle it only to find when they reopen the document it shows the track changes again.
2. I can't figure out mail merges?! - From 97 to 2000 you had a simple 3 step merge process which in 2002 and 2003 they converted to 6 steps which most of the menus don't make sense and has it own set of DDE bugs. Now they have to relearn it all over again.
3. I want to get rid of the task pane! - Yes this a simple and silly question, but these people are paying us by the minue to fix these problems and so we spend about 90 seconds having them go to the tools, options, general and uncheck startup task pane.
Trust me... Non techies do not like change. They want to learn their job and then just do it without having to mess with change... EVER!
Vista is going to put a world of hurt on the corporate world. Yeah... It going to keep me employed and busy, but I'm sure all the CIO's are collectively cringing thinking about how much is going to cost them to retrain their work force.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Great comment! It's very true. Most people are completely unwilling to learn even the basics of how to operate a computer yet they allow themselves to become completely and utterly dependent on them. For example, I can't tell you the number of people that can't understand the concept of a file. How many times have I walked someone through a task and when I tell them to click on something, they ask me if I mean right-click or left-click. They obviously have no concept of what the right button is for. Or I ask them to look at something on their desktop and have no clue what I'm talking about.
Unfortunately, operating a computer is not like driving a car and never will be. I had some hope that the next generation of computer users (read: current teenagers and younger) would be better, but I feel like I find just as many of them that are nearly as clueless as their parents. The only difference is, they can use iTunes. I sometimes feel the human race is doomed if this level of computer ignorance continues.......
What I meant to say is that I single-handedly invented the one, and headed the committee that developed the zero. In my spare time I enjoy getting multi-terabyte Oracle databases to run on my Atari 2600. The only real problem with that is it makes River Raid lag. And in my spare time at work I've been working on an interface that will let me plug by brain directly into a USB port. Shouldn't be difficult, and shortly thereafter I plan to also do firewire. There are no plans for bluetooth at this time.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=184424&cid=152 27525
;-)
INAUTHENTIC
So we have an inauthentic commenter commenting about an inauthentic article. I think my head is about to explode.
cLive
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
When you look at the MSFT insider trading you find that William H. Gates, III has sold in the last 12 month 147000000 shares (about $4 Billion). That is about 15% of his shares. He has sold similar amounts in the previous years. Bill is bailing out as fast as he can without creating a panic.
is going on here? What did Dvorak do to you people? That overrides your natural loathing of Microsoft, and has you all foaming at the mouth to defend it so you can berate poor old Mr. Dvorak.
FWIW, I think his article is perfectly reasonable. MS is, after 30 years, still incapable of managing a release of their major product. They jumped into the overcrowded and cutthroat game console business for no reason but they just like to try to take things over. There's no real money in it for them, unless they manage to wipe out Nintendo and Sony. And the obsession with trying to "kill" Google is about as stupid as a company can get. What's next, Amazon? But then, look who's in charge (Steve Ballbustmer). All they really know how to do is monopolize. That's one of the drawbacks of a monopoly.
I fully expect this post to be marked flamebait and/or troll within 30 seconds. Go ahead... make my day.
Most people don't even think inside the box.
1 - Vista - WRONG!
.Net - WRONG .NET framework anyway? He's comparing apples and oranges here...
Contrary to the rumours most of the "cool" features are still in Vista and the rest (WinFS) will be added in Service Pack 1 - so the project is pretty much on track.
2 - Office 2007 - WRONG
Complete GUI remake with new interface paradigm (the most significant change in all office suites' UIs since 80s and MS-DOS) + new open XML-based file formats = big release (definitely bigger then 2000, XP or 2003).
3/4 - MSN / MSN Search Engine - WRONG
Top 3 website worldwide + top 2 instant messaging service (software product btw) + top 2 webmail service. This is a success (even if certain Dvorak thinks the direction is "wrong").
5 - Xbox360 - MOSTLY WRONG
Second most popular console (outside Japan) - hardly a failure. And after CPU upgrade, Halo 3 and HD-DVD drive (all aimed at PS3) - it may even become number one.
6 - Pad-based computing - MOSTLY WRONG
It is taking off slowly, but it is getting more and more popular. Not necessary as Tablet PC, but also including Windows Mobile "pad" devices.
7 -
Killed? What open source has to do with
And I'm not even gonna mention that C#/VB.net/C++.CLI replaced VB6, Delphi (mostly), C++ (partially), Java (partially, work in progress) - and most important: it brought them all together in single homogeneous environment on MS OS.
8 - Google - CORRECT
Well, at least one thing he got correctly. Then again there was Netscape before. And WordPerfect. And Lotus. And Novell. And Borland. And Corel. And RealNetworks.
Slashdot - free anti-Microsoft propaganda 24/7
Microsoft has pretty much destroyed the traditional desktop software market. They did it through a combination of incompetance and malice. By incompetance, look at their badly documented, sloppily implemented and ever shifting APIs which make writing apps hard and seamlessly deploying upgrades even harder. Add to this a security model that allows malware to thrive which in turn means that testing out new software is fraught. As for Microsoft's malice, look what happened to Stac, Netscape and many others.
So Microsoft has made making a living writing small desktop apps is inordinately difficult. AJAX and Flash allow one to side step the problems Microsoft has created. And Google is a threat to Microsoft because they provide very useful, very powerful, cross-platform applications without playing Microsoft's way. And if this catches on, Microsoft because irrelevant.
In fact, you almost got it.
All you say is true. But the point is not what you say.
Of course, Microsoft is clever enough to know that its current cash cows (Windows and Office) won't last forever.
But the point is "what is doing Microsoft to prepare itself for this future?". As you say, entering the race that other companies started: search (Google), music (iTunes), games (Sony). That is to say, screaming "me too!" for any profitable business related to technology that is fashionable. I'm amazed that they haven't launched nakedmicrosoftbabies.com. At least so far.
Microsoft should start new races, new paths to meet the user's needs (not everything is invented and there is a lot of room for improvement in software industry). Instead of this, Microsoft is a follower of other companies' paths, not a leader.
I am old enough to remember the days when Microsoft was the leader in PC industry. Back then, everything Microsoft did was received with excitement. These were the days. Since five years ago, every news that comes from Redmond makes me yawn.
These is the point Dvorak is trying to make. Microsoft will keep make lots of money but what they do is more and more irrelevant for software industry.
I heard Katz is off writing about dogs and dog ownership these days. What a fall, eh?
His arguement is that open source systems are free. Well .Net is free so if there is a problem with system costs that is an OS issue not .Net which is free just like Java.
A new enterprise version has been added which appears to have a Lotus Notes-like element called Microsoft Groove. This is being sold as some sort of solution for online collaboration. If it is anything like Notes it will create a lot of anguish with users.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I liked Wordperfect 6.0. Also did a lot of my college papers on a CPM machine running WordStar. It's the main reason I use Joe in Linux. The keys are the same, pretty much.
However, I still stand by my statement. A word processor shouldn't be a big deal, because the task is does isn't a big deal. For me, using Word is just making sure that other non-technical people can open and read your documents. Other than that, I use gvim.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I'll bet you there is before it ships...
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I still prefer LaTeX over Word any day.
I think this puts it almost perfectly.
Quite frankly, when I look at the Microsoft monopoly, I see a monopoly that's actually in very poor health. It isn't going to fall over soon, but it isn't going to last too many more years either.
As far as I can see, Microsoft has two core products:
1. Windows - it's a good product to have as a cornerstone, because everybody will need to keep it updated to be current. However, it's a product that is under siege. Every malware writer out there has it in their sights. And, they've fallen very badly behind with Vista, while Linux and Mac OS X have been proving themselves more current and stable. But, even more to the point, when was the last time you saw a big line-up for a Windows release a la Windows 95? People aren't using the product because they want to, they're using it because they need to, and that means that once they think there's a viable alternative, they'll switch. And, as you pointed out, Microsoft knows that.
2. Office - here the problem is just as you said - Office 97 was good enough for a lot of people. It's a solid product, and not one that really needs to be updated, and so the business for each new version runs the risk of getting smaller and smaller.
It's hardly a surprise that Microsoft is trying to diversify a la IBM - quite frankly, it's probably their best chance for survival, and I think they know it...
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
Interesting points. Where I work we have stuck with WordPerfect because those of us who write (my companiy's main product) find Word to be so alien and unfriendly as to be unusable.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
Seriously. MS's strength was the OS? Ummm. OK.
However, I do agree with you. They have lost focus on what was working (not that it was a good product, ie Windows 9x and NT), and because they lost focus on what was working for them as a company, other's are now far ahead (Apple) or catching up (Linux) to the projected features of Vista. Oh, BTW, we know Vista will have the typical initial release issues that Windows releases have.
Microsoft dead? Nope. They will still be around for a long time - much like IBM, but we will see a shift to alternative operating systems and desktop software products within the next three years.
Doesnt anybody else get the mans writings? It not supposed to be reporting, or accurate, its entertainment. With his wild claims and predictions its like hes a phycic for the tech world. People read him because they want to hear what he'll come up with, not because they actually believe its going to come true.
Dvorak's terrible reporting and sensationalistic, self serving articles are a regular here on Slashdot so it's not too hard to see that ./ and aforementioned hack are in bed together on some level. Advertising perhaps? Cos for a site that chooses a handful of the top stories each day, Dvoraks crap should not be getting anywhere near the front page.
Seriously.
Empires are based on economy, not on stuffed-shirt politicians.
Initially Microsoft was contributing and improving Java (heard of J++?) but Sun sued them for it. It was then Microsoft went and created it's own solution (.NET).
Your attempt to re-rwite history is not very good - initially Microsoft tried to hijack Java, by adding non-standard features (ever hear of the Windows specific extnesion to J++)? Later on they slowed down the adoption of applets by having that damn J++ lingering in systems everywhere, bedeviling serious applet writers. Only now have applets started to become somewhat common to see. Just recently Sun got a few Billion dollars from Microsoft as a direct result, so it's not just me who thought Microsoft overstepped.
Microsoft also never got on board the official Java standards body, the JCP - even though they were invitied. They chose to take thier toys and go home.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Hey I speculate that blah deh blahde blibbety bloo. I'm also one of the dudes you might remember from cnet or tech tv or something like that crap.
This guy is the John Madden of technology sportscasting. When he speaks truth he is stating the obvious. When he attempts to forcast he just pulls crap out of his ass. He should learn to use a Mac and find peace away from the real geeks.
Madden-esque: The PC will continue to be the most common personal computing appliance for a long time to come....What I think the software vendor is trying to do here is maximize profits and ship a lot of copies....I think the mistake they made here is to alienate their profit base and also shit where they eat....Boom tough actin' tinactin!
I also hate anyone who greenlights stuff with Dvorak anywhere in the article.
What is the guy drinking, or smoking? Whatever it is, I'll have some of that. I really need a delusionary acid trip right now, after a stressful day at work.
I'm sure all the CIO's are collectively cringing thinking about how much is going to cost them to retrain their work force.
Unless M$ offers some serious incentive to upgrade to Vista then you may see ppl
hold back for quite awhile, and some Corporations are still running a Win2k domain
versus moving to XP and were 1/3rd of the way into 2006 .
They'd rather take the money and spend it elsehwere .
A good example of how some major corporations hate to spend money on IT .
Conoco corporate in Ponca City Oklahoma in 2001 had 10 Base-T hubs for most of
their network at their Administration facility their for that refinery,
and had a cmpus of several bldgs, and basically ignored the 5-4-3 rule .
It was so bad to ghost the machines we had to haul them to the basement
and hook them up to a seperate LAN in a lab, and when we got there
they were trying to back up 25 machines at once thru one cat5e strand , lol .
The network was hideous, and crashed, and was miserably slow because they
did not want to do the right thing and lay the network out right .
The network went up and down so much I nicknamed it Yo-Yo net .
Thus why I say unless it affects them drastically they are not going to
squat and drop a thin dime for IT, and look at IT as burden not a benefit .
Some smarter companies realize their is a threshold and spend enough to
keep it working well, but most look for any excuse to cut corners .
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
If you all hate John Dvorak so damn much, why the hell do you keep posting his articles? Why the fuck do you keep posting in threads related to his articles? Everyone knows he's an asshole, if you'd just ignore his stupid fucking ramblings, his column would stop making money and GO AWAY.
Too bad you're all a bunch of sheep.
Douchebags.
The OSS guys invented XmlHttpRequest because, although MS invented the tag, the OSS coders took it up and moved the market.
?
Microsoft might be stagnant.
However Microsoft is very good at making products people like and understand. For better or worse their products are very user friendly. Might not be innovative, but they are easy to use and fairly solid.
Google on the other side is producing brilliant technology solutions, but they are designed by technical folks for technical folks.
Take Gmail as an example. Cool, yes. But much more complicated and less intuitive to use than Hotmail or Yahoo mail.
Take Google Desktop search. Cool, yes. Works in every browser. But it is much less understandable and easy to use than Microsoft Desktop Search.
And the list continues.
The adoption of Linux shows that technical superiority does not make a product more successful. Microsoft is here to stay if they do not fail to be customer focused and produce software the way people want to have it.
Google on the other hand must change its techno-centric culture a little bit to make products easy and simple. That's what made them successful in the search engine market.
Thank god Slashdot is posting some well thought-out, well researched and well written news for once! I say every article on Slashdot should be by John Dvorak ;)
What was so hard about WordStar? I taught myself to use it on CP/M in a few hours, and it was pretty easy to use due to its context menus. The only hard things about it were:
1) The embedded "." commands, which weren't on the menus, and therefore had to be memorised (although the only one most people used was ".pa" to insert manual page breaks).
2) Mailmerge being via a separate program.
3) Having to reformat a document with a command after editing it.
Other than that, I found WordStar to actually be better than Word for writing real documents (i.e. stuff that isn't a letter) because:
-- All its commands were available from the keyboard using well designed key patterns.
-- You could see _every_ formatting command on the screen, and delete them just as easily as text characters.
-- Documents were simple text files with no special binary data in them.
-- Printer and screen "drivers" were also text files.
You'd be surprised how many professional authors still use WordStar (and not the Windows version either). People who type and edit large volumes of text appreciate not having to interrupt their typing rhythm reaching for function keys, cursor keys, or even worse, a mouse, to perform basic editing operations. It's just as easy to use without looking at the keyboard on a laptop, whereas the keys Word uses are in completely different places and smaller (such people commonly use key remapping software to map the control key to the caps lock on IBM PC-derived keyboards, which relegated control to a far more awkward position for touch typists than was the case with other machines that WordStar ran on).
Note that I'm not claiming WordStar is a better WP than Word or whatever in a universal sense (professional authors for example are notable in having little interest in WYSIWYG because they mostly print double-spaced manuscripts that will be edited and type-set by others). However, it was not a "bitch to use" for everyone -- in fact, for many touch-typists, Word's reliance on "Windows-isms" makes it far more of a bitch than WordStar, not to mention proprietary and ever-changing document formats, binary printer drivers that ordinary mortals can't configure, and a penchant for thinking it knows what you want to to, and then doing it without being told.
Come on, it's already at 4. Just one more.
Nyhetsankaret.com -- det bÃsta av Sveriges Nyhetssido
and if the blood in the water is coming out so fast that even Dvorak has noticed, MS may be in far more trouble than even we thought.
Tech Public Policy stuff
It is not that the new Office represents a quantum leap in user interfaces. The old UI works just fine. I think that if people are going to find the new UI difficult to use, they will stick to Office 2003.
There is no comparison with 1984 IBM. The PCJr was a flop because it was an overpriced incompetent machine; for 700$ you bought CGA graphics and beep-beep sound, whereas with half the price you got a C64 with much better graphics, hardware sprites and scrolling and the famous SID.
/., people said very often "I do not need XP, win2k serves me fine"...but when XP came out, the improvements at kernel, libraries, interface etc were so great that now it is very hard to find win2k installed in an office.
/.ers saying that Microsoft is in trouble. Microsoft is not in any kind of trouble at all. You will see the rate of adoption of Vista will be very high once it comes out.
Microsoft has no such low-quality product in its hands. Let's be serious: Vista will be an improvement over XP, just like XP was an improvement over win2k. We all remember that here at
I agree that Dvorak is wrong (as usually is), but I also disagree with most of
As for Microsoft having found a cash cow, what's different now than, let's say, 10 years ago? nothing, in my opinion: their aim is to make a profit by gradually offering more and more features, creating needs in consumers. If Microsoft wanted, they could have made Windows XP in 1985; it is not that there are new algorithms now or languages that did not exist back then (even OpenGL existed). Bill Gates has spoken about information management technology more than 20 years ago (i.e. the O/S being the database), and the project Cairo is about that. Does anybody believe that Microsoft has failed to implement Cairo? they haven't. They just hold the ace card for the right moment.
Sweet!
;)
This means Apple doesn't have to open source their OS.
Or does the new MS Office seem an awful lot like Apple iWorks?
I mean. You know. Apple is officially broke. M$ is dead in the water. Now they should obviously join forces (i.e. Macs sold with Vista, Apple buys M$ and so on) so they can be broke AND dead in the water at the same time! Wow! DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper! That would be SO GREAT! *mwuahaha*
;)
Or would it?
Sorry, some people just are so... I mean, look at the article tags, it's all there
Well the software was not good, but it was strong in that it was almost a monopoly you know.
That aside i do not see any need for upgrading my xp to vista.
Read radical news here
It is
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Slashdot articles on any of these three are repulsive and shouldn't appear on the front page.
A lot of VB6 people feel some strong resentment that a lot of their indepth and detailed experience in building VB is going down the trash can. Go FOSS, and things evolve.
I think hell just froze over... Dvorak is always ringing the deth nell for Apple and praising Microsoft. Now it appears he has 'switched' to predicting microsoft's death.
Good homework with those articles...
I actually enjoyed the latest Dvorak article, if for nothing else than it points out the obvious. Vista is going to be a late disappointment. MSN search, as someone said, could be powerful if they are allowed to integrate with IE 7, but Google is too popular for people to not simply change their homepage to google or type it in every time they launch IE. And lets face it, Apple has the marketing buzz that Microsoft can never get back. Whether it is Apple or another company rising up, I think that Microsoft is a slowly sinking life raft in the consumer market (that will never capsize, but will not be the battleship they once were).
Because there are so many of them.
I know it is. In fact that was my point.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
...but I was using MID2MOD to chaingun Former Humans to the kicking sounds of Nirvana back in the days where the only music you could find online was MIDI files (as opposed to now, where you can find anything but MIDI - unless you want to pay $1.95 under the "ringtone" banner. Bullshit).
So this was, what... maybe 98 or thereabouts. And I was late to the scene.
The trans-generational relations are +1 Funny for the ages.
What exactly is a "conservative"? What exactly is a "liberal"? I assume these two words mean two opposite things, so another question is, "at what point does one cross the line"?
Okay, I know what you're trying to get at, but really, the world isn't black and white. If you were making a movie or something arty, that's one thing, but basing your entire worldview on it? That's unhealthy.
Ah, yes, Europe. The very cutting edge keystone of tech. Where the Master System, Spectrum and C-64 reigned supreme way into the, what, mid 1990s?
See, they were doing dogshit (the SMS), kitsch (the Speccy, with the Sponge Keyboard of "baaahahahhahahahahha that thing's the pink plastic flamingo of computing") AND retro (the admittedly beloved C-64) way way before these buzzwords were hip in America!
If Europe was any measure of where tech is headed, the rest of the world would probably still be using Amigas.