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Microsoft Trumps Google, Yahoo! R&D Budgets
Rob writes to mention a Computer Business Review Online article on Microsoft's commitment to out-spend Google and Yahoo! on innovation in the coming year. From the article: "Microsoft Corp will spend over $1bn on R&D just in its MSN unit, for the fiscal year starting in July, chief executive Steve Ballmer told an audience of would-be advertising customers. The money, part of the surprise spending package that recently gave Microsoft's share price its biggest single-day drop in five years, comes as the company struggles to catch up to Yahoo! Inc and Google Inc in the search and online advertising market."
Nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got something to say
But nothin comes out when they move they lips
Just a buncha gibberish
And muthafuckas act like they forgot about Vista
It's nice to know that MS will outspend Yahoo! and Google. However, isn't ROI a more important factor when it comes to things like this? I'm crystal-balling that MS will have the lowest ROI of the three over the next few years.
This guy's the limit!
I guess they're hoping Vista does well then.
Common sense is not so common
Just happens to find a story from "Computer Business Review" that's been everywhere else already?
As long as google's search engine is better, everyone will search there. On the other hand google's search engine is still far from flawless, so msn could do a nice job if they improved on that. When people will have an actual reason to use MSN search, advertizers will have a reason to get their ads there.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
So who're they going to buy to get their innovation from then?
Rushes to set up a company "CS Innovation Ltd". A mere snip at $20 million.
Deleted
I can already see it now... multiple widescreen LCDs, macbooks and most ergonomical pens ever designed for everyone...
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
More innnovation is a direct result of spending more money on it.
Or, maybe that's just Microsoft 'innovation'. They certainly often seem to have a curious definition for that word.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Most of this R&D money won't be spent in order to make their products better, but to acquire broad-to-the-point-of-meaninglessness patents in order to prevent the competitors making their products better.
if-we-throw-enough-money-at-a-problem-it-will-go-a way department.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
-Oscar Wilde
We're not smart enough to innovate efficiently, so we're gonna spend gobs and gobs of money buying it! :-)
The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.
No big surprise there.
That said, I strongly suspect that those working for Microsoft work there for a paycheck -- nothing more, nothing less. Whereas those working for companies like Google love their jobs and really put the effort in -- in ways that can't be measured by hours or even "productivity". But I bet those differences has a very significant impact on the futures of both companies.
Of course, this assumes that their work environments match the reputations of the companies. That may not be a valid assumption.
It would be better if software companies would break out Research from Development. Software ages so quickly that almost all software companies are continuously development new products. Research, however, is a different story. I'm guessing this 'R & D' for MSN is all 'D'.
Outspending doesn't imply out-innovating. The most innovative solutions or ideas often result in (or are produced out of a need for) LESS spending.
Also, I've never considered it "innovation" when the primary business model is to copy other products' features and add a few pretty icons and obvious additions. I have yet to see a NEW idea come from Microsoft. I see a pattern of copying existing ideas, and integrating them closely with the OS so people ignore the original product since a good-enough version comes "free" with the OS.
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
It is not the number of heads you hire that makes the difference, it's the creativity of each individual that counts. Common view by CEO's is that a certain problem requires so and so many people wich have a given set of buzz words on their CV.
If fact, what you need is to identify the creative (and unique) individuals and it does not matter how many people you have hired unless there is process in place in the company that identifies those individuals and gives them the lead.
Does this mean that the next generation windows will exist in two flavors:
A cheap version with a lots of online spam and a expensive spamfree version?
Of course they will give it a more commercial name.
May be some of that money be spent on licenses. This is because departments at Microsoft are treated and still treat each other as mini coporations. They bill each other for services.
Isnt it ? While being a matter of jokes all around the world for delaying vista and the problems theyre having with it, they still pour lots of money for msn. who uses msn anyway ?
Read radical news here
Dear Microsoft Executives and Stockholders,
You cannot buy "innovation".
Love,
Reality
Microsoft Corp will spend over $1bn on R&D just in its MSN unit, for the fiscal year starting in July...
That is an impressive figure to be sure but I still think it isn't enough to acheve world domination, why MS can't even develop a sealth fighter for that price let alone a whole fleet of Borg cubes fully armed, warp capable and sporting a giant Windows logo on each side.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Is this a case of Microsoft assuming they can throw vast amounts of money at any problem and solve it better than other people?
I mean, nine women can't have a baby in one month. Maybe, just maybe, the reason why Google is out innovating them is they either have smarter people, better development practices, or don't have a bunch of historical baggage of other products they need to slavishly support.
I guess from Microsoft's perspective, it's good to spend money on R&D. Hopefully they'll make better products, and at a minimum they'll probably get to write it off on their taxes.
In the long run though, I wonder if Google won't simply out-do them with fresh thinking, new ways of doing things, and a completely different business model than Microsoft. This may not simply be a matter of keep throwing vast amounts of money at the problem until it becomes easier.
This may require some more fundamental changes.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Microsoft seems to spend most of its time buying other companies these days. Is this classified as R&D?
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
Microsoft throws money at its problems. Like most things in modern America more money usually means more success, right? Bully: I am going to beat you up. Geek: why? Bully: I am bigger than you and I can, that's why! Developers! Isn't Microsoft a software company?
"One is again harnessing the power of audience intelligence to get better ROI for advertisers," he said, "the second is to really do a better job to give you more complete control over the two separate marketplaces, because, as you know, search and contextual work in different ways."
Instead of coming up with the next search engine, create something entirely new to computing. You have the money, power and capability to do anything you want, let's see some real computing innovation. Start with new software. Go into better gaming hardware/software, build the next useful application - Whatever. Once you draw an audience to your websites, you harness your ROI automatically.
Suggestions for R&D:
New, Lighter, Less Expensive Secure Operating System
New Cool & Useful Technology/Hardware to digitize your home, incorporate all your digital gadgets, gaming, GPS, Remote access, etc.
New (not monolithic blue) Websites to provide free services & reviews (you actually will use) with minimal ads (see Google Earth, wikipedia, download.com)
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Happy Cinco de Mayo!
blenderking.com over 50,000 blenders can't be wrong
assume MS can't do well at anything, but the search results on Live are comparable and in a few cases were more accurate than what I was getting with Google. I've tested against all 3 players with the same searches and I would call Live and Google a tie, while Yahoo probably delivered the least relevant results from my very informal test. You can shrug off MS all you want, hitory shows when they want something bad enough they will get it.
They'll do even better when they start out-thinking their competitors.
They've been outspending Apache for years in the webserver market. What are their respective market shares again?
bang goes my karma... again...
$$ != innovation more $$$$$ != more innovation you can't just throw money at (a larger set of) developers and expect cool stuff to spring out.
Power to the Penguin!
Why does microsoft feel the need to get into this market? They are a software producer... Why even bother with advertising? Why not spend the billion dollars on IE and Vista?
- Joe
Google does some pretty fun and interesting things with their company culture. I can't imagine Yahoo! instituting anything similar without a huge change in management. I could be totally wrong on this since I haven't heard anything about Yahoo's company culture, but given Yahoo's affiliations, I can't imagine being too wrong about it.
Yahoo! is officially "old news" as far as I'm concerned. I can't imagine what could make them new again. Google, at least for now, has more 'youth' on its side and whatever they are doing is working for them. Microsoft and Yahoo will need to study Google to figure out why they are so successful rather than simply spending money doing more of what they have been doing which is failing to improve their success.
Frankly, as has been observed before, Microsoft is a little out of control with their attacks into areas they don't belong. They would do far better to shore up their core products and find a way to make them "NEW" again. People have already caught on to the idea that Microsoft has been releasing the same product with file format changes and new colors of the same bells and whistles that were already there. Vista is a dressed-up XP and the newest office isn't really all that different or more useful than OfficeXP, let alone 2003 which isn't all that better than Office97 come to think of it. For most people, Microsoft's game is just about up.
It's not the size that counts, it's what you do with it.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Spending more than Google, etc., else matters for little if Microsoft don't spend wisely...
I'm not so sure that wisdom is necessarily something Microsoft has quite so much of, however...
oh, oh its like 1989 all over again, the competetive spending, the silly technology built merely to demonstrate intellectual muscle , the ideologies in struggle... can't resist...
"Mr Gates, tear down that firewall"!
I wonder if there will be a coup attempt @ microsoft? (or google for that matter).
Carrying the metaphor to another extreme, I wonder if a heirarchical organization could spring up inside Google - the way modern Christianity overpowered the more decentralized Gnostic-style versions?
meh
... I dunno, I think MSFT might actually be doing something really visionary this time.
I bet that Live services might actually usher in the era of micropayments and on-demand access to the largest online marketplace for software, games and tools... with Microsoft as the gatekeeper. Add to that the ability to have full control on the support/upgrade cycles on business applications and complete knowledge of what users use their PCs for... this could really be a goldmine.
While the concept has existed for some time, its really nice to see a major software vendor bet this much capital to actually realize it.
How do you rate their chances of success with this?
In other news: grass is found to be green, water retains qualities of wetness, sky exhibits blue qualities, and your grandmother's rhubarb recipe is not as good as you remember it.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Once, ``I'd say developers, developers, developers, developers, but not any more, baby; it's advertisers, advertisers, advertisers,'' Ballmer said at an Avenue A client meeting in March in Florida, while running around the stage and punching the air.
MSFT just doesn't get it, do they?
" Oh, and I suppose that legal costs are covered within an R&D budget also? How much of this is actually going to be used for development, as opposed to turf defending legal action by measures such as:
- legal challenges to libre software IP
- submarine patents to kill libre software initiatives
- legal harrasment and intimidation of libre software developers
- lobbyist activities in political parties and governments
- poisoning the well for libre software in China
- support of centeralist, autocratic and totalitarian regimes for monitoring citizens and suppressing privacy, freedom of speech and freedom of association
"This is progress?
"We have told our R&D folks that our number one priority, number one priority is software as a service," Ballmer said.
Well I guess the focus on security as priority #1 didn't last long then. Wonder if the new top priority will do any better.
How much longer until Steve Ballmer is canned? His google penis envy is gonna be the death of MS.
Similes are like metaphors
Would that I had mod points for this.
Throwing money at a problem rarely actually fixes it. It's easier to increase a budget than to rethink your R&D priorities, come up with changes, and act on them. Spending more money typically just shows that you've acknowledged there's a problem and would like someone to think that you're committed to making it less of a problem.
Which, hey, could be the plan.
Dare to Hope. Prepare to be Disappointed.
I remember reading an interview with Bill Gates many years ago when he said he never wanted Microsoft to become IBM, by which he meant he never wanted to become a big slow moving company full of suits. Any body remember the article in question? Would be nice to read again in the light of what Microsoft has become...
Remember when IBM stumbled badly and it took everyone by surprise? I wonder when the crash of Microsoft will be heard. My guess is we've still got about five years to go...
Well, at least they have the guts going out with their guns blazing then die a slow painful death!
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity....Calvin
But hasn't Google already pretty much hired up all the experts on search algorithms and data analysis in the world? Well, probably not _all_ of them, but the smartest, and MS is getting second pickings at best (though Yahoo probably knows this space better than MS). I haven't heard of any developer defections from Google to Microsoft -- rather, it's been the other way around.
l 2005/tc20050728_5...
So what if Microsoft has tons of cash? Money doesn't magically transform into innovation -- it takes brilliant people to do that. Microsoft has some brilliant developers in the OS and middleware spaces (as well as marketing and lawyers) but not search. That talent all works at Google and Yahoo now.
Not to mention a lot of the old UNIX, Internet, and Web gurus work there too: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/ju
Search is all about results, and it's not easy to fake and fluff over with marketing. And just being able to afford the infrastructure means squat if your algorithms are second-rate.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
Why does microsoft feel the need to get into this market? They are a software producer...
Because they are obsessed with software as an Internet service. At the moment it is a battle mainly for power and control, but it is, ultimately, intended to transform software from an item "sold" into a continuing revenue stream from use.
He who has the power and control will get the revenue stream.
"But customers don't want that; and with large HDs and OSS don't need it," I hear you cry, "and what has all of this got to do with turning into an advertising company anyway?"
Ahhhhhhhhh, Grasshopper, shift your point of view and see things behind the veil of illusion. You are still thinking of yourself as the customer and Office as the content to be delivered to you over the net, for a fee.
Microsoft now views the advertiser as the customer and is putting their research dollars into ways to deliver content to them, for a fee.
And what is this content that the advertisers desire?
You my pet. You!
Happy surfing.
KFG
but if they are going to spend the money they stole through their OS monopoly, I would by far prefer them to spend it on research than on price-dumping a game console. No I don't pay the microsoft tax, but really I do anyway, because my kids school pays it, my local government pays it, and my employer pays it.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
You keep using that word. I do not think that word means what you think it means.
It all seems like a game of cards.
Microsoft, google and yahoo are all at the same table and MS has just raised its stake up to $1billion. Google and yahoo see sense and call. However in the end microsoft is screwed because they have been bluffing all along.
Google comes out on top because they have a good product and reputation everyone wants.
Who really won here, the guy who had money to burn for nothing or the guy providing valuable resources and tools.
Its just common sense to me.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
I've heard MS Research described as a roach motel. They employ *lots* of extremely talented people. But it seems that once they check in, they never check out. You see them at conferences and the odd paper trickles out, but they definitely tend to drop off the radar.
I've always wondered what happens to these formerly incredibly productive people. Are they stuck in bureaucratic hell? Are they working on stuff so far into the theoretical that products are years off? Or is it the ultimate cushy job and they just get fat drinking free snapple behind their closed door?
It's true they do surface from time-to-time (like Anders Hejlberg) so you know they are working on something, but this happens so rarely you have to wonder what the hell is going on in there. Why do they get such a lousy return from their huge R&D budget?
-ec
Googles press release in response...
"We are glad that Microsoft has made this commitment."
We at Google plan on spending less than 10% of what Microsoft does in the next year.
We also plan on more than doubling our revenue in the next year."
"Does Microsoft plan on doubling their revenue?"
Microsoft has spent billions adversiting all the cool new features that Vista would have, and after soo many years, it is nothing more than XP with new eye candy. This shows that, just because you spend millions/billions, you won't be able to deliver all that you promise.
1b doesn't really outspend Google, according to this http://www.internetoutsider.com/2006/05/ballmer_ge ts_ch.html
This is a hilarious story... MS outspends everyone on R&D yet fails with every single attempt at innvoation... prehaps that explains the fact that MS outspends everyone... BECAUSE THEY HAVE TOO!!!! LOL!
Now, why would MS try to outspend Yahoo when MS and Yahoo are merging and MS is already dead?!
Does anyone here every feel like you might be a human version of Pavlov's famous canine friend.
/. editor posts story: blah blah blah Microsoft blah.
/.er: foams at the mouth
"Titanic Buys Bigger Deck Chairs"
All the R&D spending in the world won't make you first at something that someone else is already first at. They should either completely spin off R&D so that the mother company doesn't interfere (so that development can go into uncharted waters), or sink that cash back into legal battles and just sue everyone for everything.
stuff |
Dont cut back on my Pro Club membership, keep that free stuff coming, baby! More valets, damn it! Who wants to stand outside in the rain for more than 30 seconds to get across the campus? They should be LINED UP WAITING FOR ME! My dry cleaning was late last week, forcing me to hang around until 5:03pm! This cant happen! If I dont use my air-miles, you should BUY THEM FROM ME! My corporate AMEX is starting to fade from excessive usage, so you'll be taking care of that, wont you babe? Platinum anyone? I'm getting a new Porsche next month, so what about that plan to widen the parking spaces to cut down on dings? And when the hell is someone going to come by and cut down that tree to improve my view of Lake Bill? I'm telling you, it is getting harder and harder to focus on my hunk of Vista under these conditions. I might have to seek counseling!
Rollover & Die for the companies it buys up
they can spend 20 billion and it will not change the image of MSN. nobody likes them.. they stink and dress funny.
Inovate some new products that we have not seen. Don't patch a hole in the boat.
This is not really news, just something they have to spend $ on to survive in the market..
Kill your TV
While I am sure MS hopes to have its research dollars turn into real innovation, what is really important is that MS demonstrates a credible commitement to the search market. MS is just trying to send a signal to potential partners that they see MSN as a longer term strategic technology and they are putting a bet on it. MS has to spend at least $1B for anyone to notice, but they are saying -"join us, we'll still be in this market in a few years".
One thing some of you folks might want to consider is that this might be the rumbling of the "big bear" waking up finally.
/. is that all things MS are big, stupid, hated, and evil I would encourage people not to count out the big bear just yet.
MS built an empire on some core products. They have rested on those laurels for a while now. They built pretty houses, donated to charity, even threw the occasional chair. Maybe this is them waking up and saying "well what do we want to do now? Hey! Let's actually get back into the serious software business!"
What they have initially to lay out is more capital then most second world nations. You can claim all you want that MS can't buy innovation with money, that they have to find people that "love" their work and all those are at Google or whatever. But I would hold that with deep enough pockets they can start going around to people with big but hard to quantify ideas and say "here's a bucket of money if you think you can make your idea happen".
They might be gearing up to take the Yahoo/Google approach to software and services development and throw several things at the proverbial wall to see what sticks.
As much as the mantra of
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
Every news item has a subtitle commentary in the form xx-xx-xx department. These subtitles are so very lame. They person who dreams them up needs to get back to their day job.
Then I got these fake-ass niggaz I first drew with
Claimin that they non-violent, talkin like they *He's not how he used to be*
Spit venom in interviews, speakin on reunions
Move units, then talk shit and we can do this
Until then - I ain't even speakin your name
Just keep my name outta yo' mouth and we can keep it the same
Nigga, it ain't that I'm too big to listen to the rumors
It's just that I'm too damn big to pay attention to 'em
That's the difference
1) They see the future as Software as Service -- a place Google, and to a lesser extent Yahoo!, are in many ways eitehr ahead of them or more competitive than they'd like, despite Microsoft having worked very hard to leverage its OS and browser dominance into dominance in that area. 2) Google, in particular, is working particularly hard to undermine Microsoft's browser dominance (promoting Firefox) and is leveraging its search dominance to promote its own standard software stack, which could eventually give it an advantage similar to Microsoft's OS dominance in terms of controlling user expectations and experience. 3) If browser/OS agnostic web apps become more important, the relevance of the OS dominance that has been the base of every Microsoft strategy since the 1980s will fade, forcing Microsoft to compete somewhere else. They want to delay this as long as possible, and be able to dominate the new emerging central front the way they have the OS market. So they have to compete here, to maintain their status at the top of the heap.
Will someone please tell me one original innovation Microsoft has deveolped themselves? No buying or stealing involved. Just one.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
Granted its not coming directly from R&D, but http://finance.google.com/finance?q=msft&btnG=Sear ch 2005 Revenue (USD): 39.79B isn't too shabby.
Everyone is giving them flak for thinking they can throw money at the situation and it fix all of their problems, but it takes $$$ to hire the best and brightest. I for one would like to get M$ and Google to start a bidding war for my mind. If M$ has the funds to back it, then maybe they can get some people in there to do some good.
Someone put it earlier that their stock is going to be a rollercoaster these next few years, but I would still bet that it's going to inch up over the next 3-5 years.
When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
It might do some good in marketing, where you can just go out an buy more time slots with the money, but R&D requires that you have people with ideas to develop and the skill to capitalize on the ideas. Many of those have walked away from MS long time ago, or just never bothered to walk in the door.
I mean: we're talking about a company that told the European Court that they don't understand Windows well enough to document it properly. -- Even if they were lying, it still bodes ill for their R&D plans.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
that's one hell of a press release ... could we say this?
(for those who didn't see the video - links here http://thankyoustephencolbert.org/)
...for Microsoft to ask for a refund?
Given the rivalry between these two behemoths, I guess, the day is not far away, when corporations will start writing viruses (knowingly or unknowingly) to make people use their products-
Like maybe some google fellow writing (with or without the blessings from google) a virus to install firefox in all m/cs or maybe even changing all soft links pointing to IE to point to firefox.
or vice-versa.
rajmohan_h@yahoo.com
Won't solve their problems. All one has to do is look at how much they've thrown at Vista devolopment, and watch it get scaled back and pushed back anyway.
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
I can't argue that Microsoft is very wealthy. I just don't see the innovation (MS has made me hate that word...) that I would hope for after making the kinds of investments they have made in R&D. Their main source of innovation seems to come from their M&A unit (although it's really just acquisitions- not a lot of merging going on).
:)
My personal theory about the poor return on their investment is that they hire a lot of people who are or would normally be university professors. But Microsoft hires them and they now have a job without the requirement to publish or teach. Should be nirvana, but what happens when you take away publishing and teaching requirements from a professor? You get a grad student. And a grad student is just somebody who doesn't want to work.
There are many MSFT papers at SIGGRAPH, the worlds leading graphics conference. Its hard to get a paper accepted there with up to an 80% rejection rate. Yet I've seen few of these results in commercial MSFT products such as DirectX, XBox, etc.
haha, that is good. Tell it to all my grad-school friends, most of whom will agree
Well put and I agree. I frequently argue pro M$(devil's advocate style) that through M&A they are actually benefitting society. They take semi-mature products that have small market penetration (and smaller hopes of breaking through) and push them through their massive distribution channels. I know they probably lose some of the innovative momentum in the process, but I guess it's kinda like this: which is better helping a few people out a lot or helping a LOT of people out a little? FYI, there is no right answer...just different ways of looking at it.
When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
I am all for this, I think that MSN is lacking a little bit compared to what Google and Yahoo! have to offer. It will be nice to see what they can come up with. And as always, competition is good for the consumer, the more MSN spends, the more Google and Yahoo! will spend. And I am always for us consumers getting a better product.
This just goes to show that Microsoft, like Congress, is exceptionally good at throwing money at a problem and hoping that things work out. I would be more interested as an investor, to see some evidence that they get a bang for their buck. More money != money better spent
Self-referential Sigs are cool on /. these days...
54
There are rumors coming out of Redmond to the effect that management is putting the screws to everyone's budget. Any bets on how much of this much-heralded budget for "innovation" gets funnelled through K Street?
Sheesh.
If money was the sovereign cure for lackluster product, MS would have produced the world's most amazing software instead of the steaming pile of code that is MS Office, Windows, etc.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
So much money - for what? Where are the "innovations" they claim? What is Microsoft Research doing all day?
Their homepage is slow and not very expressive. There's a lot of blabla that reads like your average university summary, and then there's these huuuugly innovative ideas, like in the hardware section:
We're working on devices which will allow you to use novel forms of input, such as a gesture, a wink, a voice command, or a pen.
Did someone forgot to update the page after, say, 1980 or so?
We're also exploring new ways to use the keyboard, for instance, sliders set between the keypads of a split keyboard that will give you the ability to scroll or move around the document without lifting your hands to grab your mouse.
Which actually is a nice idea. Where's the prototype? Can't take more than a year to get it done.
Their crypto research looks cool at first glance, but when you dig deeper into the papers, you'll see that there's very little that wasn't already part of "Applied Cryptography" - the bible of crypto-for-geeks, published 10 years ago.
There's tons of stuff there. But 90% of it are straight trashcan material. Every research institute has its share of failures, but MS Research has brought us, well, what exactly? MS fanboys, here's your chance, please list the ten greatest inventions that have come out of MS Research.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
It's too bad that "bill gates vigorish and protection services Incorporated" has extracted so much blood money to spend buying more market share, distribution channels, and influence. Not only is his prominence a direct result of black-heart evil, and therefore unjustified from the get-go, their 'vision' (puke) of the way IT should be done, is always completely wrong-headed. They have remade large portions of IT in the image of a deformed mutant demon.
We can at least partially thank John Ashcroft and the reign of George W. Bush for this.
Win Borg
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
"We'll buy 100x as much innovation as google"
Does anybody else cringe when they hear intangibles commodotized like this? You can innovate for free. (and some people are) Or you can do like google and poach the VCs.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
The question here is... whose investment is it really? Microsofts? No. Not when they're a monopoly; not when they've been convicted in court of hurting society, and continue to flout that ruling. Microsoft is the kind of company that refuses to lower prices for basic software from a MONTH's wages in developing countries, and then gives a little back to that country when the politicians and other people who can further Microsoft's monopoly are looking.
They've got a lot of money, sure, but it's OUR money, and it's our technology their hampering to further their own R&D.
Does Google even need to spend half of what MS is planning for innovation? Given 20% time that Google employees get and the product results from that, I'll bet that Microsoft needs to spend all that extra cash to stay where they are in comparison, let alone try to catch up.
Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk -- coldacid.net
they used to brag how they were spending a billion bucks on windows NT but look at we got for that money....
I didnt know it would cost microsoft nearly a billion dallors to hire a bunch of people to sit on the internet, read slashdot and copy every innovation that yahoo and google comes up with. Then send if off the to development department to have it written up with that oh so good MS flavor of light blue gradients everywhere.
That's the question I'm asking, because before this article I would have guessed microsoft was cutting back on MSN spending. Microsoft will be stopping all CDROM games on their "MSN gaming zone", which will mean a significant loss in traffic.
Wouldn't it seem more prudent to keep successful programs running while they find new programs to replace them?
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
You cannot produce a baby in one month by impregnating nine women.
Why hello Google summer of code. The summer of code project is where Google offers US $4500. for students (usually PhD's, but university seniors anyway), to develop code, usually open source or free software, that will improve various free/open source software projects. The first summer was intended to be 200 students, but the overwhelming response prompted Google to up the number of positions to 419. It cost Google $1,885,500.00 It was supposed to cost them US $900,000.00. I know of at least one project that saw 3 PhD's and 4 Masters degree students in the summer developer ranks. The code they wrote was great. It helped the students, and helped the project. If Google were to increase the spots to 1000, it would cost them US $4,500,000.00 Four and a half million dollars. That is 1/222 of what Microsoft is trying to spend. I have every expectation that Google's Summer will be more productive than Microsofts.
I'd suggest to rank all employees into those who are trying to "please" management and those who are trying to solve customer "problems" and act accordingly...
God and religion are distinct
All has been decided for them between MS and the computer manufacturers with the complicity of several governments.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.