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Google is Microsoft's New Open Source
Robert writes "Steve Ballmer told investors recently that Microsoft's biggest challenge is embracing software-as-a-service business models, as
embodied by rival Google Inc. Investing in software as a service and advertising-supported businesses is a challenge
like that which the company faced at the dawn of the open-source movement. To paraphrase
him heavily, the takeaway was: Yes, we're investing a lot, but it's riskier, long-term,
not to do so. We have a lot of cool stuff coming up and, yes, we are also playing catch-up
on a couple of fronts. His speech came a
month after Microsoft revealed that its R&D budget for fiscal 2007, which ends
mid-2007, would rise to $6.2bn." From the article: "We've
got to make this transition, which our industry is making, from software as a product to
software as a service ... If you want to be a leading software
company, you've got to be a leading software-as-a-service company."
Microsoft has real competition, forcing them to develop better, more competitive software. Downside?
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
We have now found the perfect slashdot headline.
All the key memes are there.
We need continue no longer.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Ever the follower, never the innovator.
Go ahead and call me unreliable; reliable is just a synonym for predictable.
Microsoft will gladly embody software as a service. Infact, it might as well be their idea, as they are going to be generating much more revenue by doing this, effectively screwing the customer who has to pay more for the same poorly written MS code, and the customer will be more along the lines 'renting' the code since the eons of service renewals will never relent.
The 'software as a service' structure could be one of the worst ideas ever. Google offers actuall services, to mix it up, Microsoft on the same terms would be taking the whole idea out of proportion. You don't want to have to, essentially, RENT Microsoft Exchange Server, for example, would you? As compared to Google, the software they do distribute is completly free.
So, their new challenger? Would it be more accurate to say their "additional" challenger? They haven't even destroyed open source yet.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
This is vaguely similar to the RIAA, etc wanting us to merely rent music, or repurchase it in a new format every so often, instead of owning it outright.
Music as a service. Software as a service. What's the difference?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
"If anyone gets in our way... We simply buy them and liquidate them. There are no questions about being on top our war chest poops money like scatamania video." ... After realizing what he had just said Mr. Ballmer ordered journalists to make necessary changes... "If you look at it competitively... the issue really isn't any one company, Google or anyone else," he said. "The question is, how do we get on top of and really drive business model transformations."
Infiltrated dot Net
When you have a tens of billions of dollars coming in per year from one of your franchises (shrink wrapped applications), it is almost impossible to take even 5% hurt on that business to build a competing business which results in lesser revenue. (classic innvoator's dilemma).
Microsoft will probably do a lot better in a network/subscription based business model in the gaming world though (because they didn't have significant stream of $$ coming in from their classic shrink wrapped gaming software business).
I'm aware that MS has been trying to sell its software as service instead of as a product (read: pay every time you use instead of paying just once) for ages, but where does that tie into them again trying to jump a train they missed?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I been reading about software-as-a-service for months now in the trade magazines. So this isn't new. Is Micrsoft admitting that they dropped the ball on this one like the Internet in 1995?
from Microsoft or anyone else. I will either use OpenSource software that's free (as in beer) or in cases where I must have some functionality that's only offered in a proprietary package, I'll buy software outright. If the only way to get a particular bit of software is to rent it, I'll go without.
:-> ) though I needed it enough in 2000 that I dropped the cash. (I don't do warez, so that's not an option)
Lots of the software that I use on a daily basis hasn't been updated in years. This is especially true of expensive packages like FrameMaker (5.5.6), Illustrator (v 10) and other software I purchased for consulting work back in the day. I'm not dropping another $600 on FrameMaker for the minimal feature updates (although I hear 7.0 has multiple levels of undo
I run Office 2000 (it came "free" with a PC) on my one Windows box, and don't see a compelling reason to upgrade. I certainly won't be paying Redmond a monthly rental fee to run an office suite. I allow Google to display ads, but I'm not paying Google any actual cash and I've pretty much trained myself so that I don't even see the ads anymore. Ballmer & company still don't get it.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Nice to see Microsoft trying to change in order to fit the market and stop trying to change the market in order for it to fit them.
When Microsoft finally falls apart, it will be interesting to piece together the strings. And where the money went.
Microsoft really needs to focus on it's core product, Windows. Get it out. Get it working well. All funds should be directed towards that.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Don't think it will save them this time however. Microsoft faces real structural problems in moving to software as a service, as well as a complete reengineering of the financial model that has given them such deep pockets. One thing is certain, the standard procedure of putting stuff out for free and trying to dominate won't work in the service model, at least not in the long term.
We'll just need a confirmation from Netcraft, but then that's it.
Sure they're going to spend 6.2bn but that money could probably save a lot of poverty strickens kids in the 3rd world. Let's face it, it's a waste of money and Microsoft may make a few "good" products, and I mean a very few, but I think good PR would get more business.
Maybe they will throw a couple hundred millions at wine, make their own distro and then offer services around it? I doubt they will do that soon, since that would hurt their bottom line for the moment. But as soon as the other business model promises more profit they could be able to make the switch if they are prepared. As far as I understand they are getting ready.
So maybe it is not time to dump your MS stock just yet.
Like with the Xbox they would enter a competitive market. Maybe then they will make better products. At least they should be able to, considering all the brain power they are sucking up every year.
... Renting... Recently a former company where I worked wanted MS Exchange so off I went to get a quote and submit a proposal, etc. After speaking with an MS rep I found myself laughing at him on the phone and he too realizing what he was telling me... According to him I would need to buy Exchange Server and seats for my user. For 40 users total the price was over 4000.00 not a big deal until he mentioned I would only be able to use 5gigs of my 400gig drive. 5gigs? I said... "Yes if you need more space you have to buy another license..." Humorous...
Infiltrated dot Net
Anytime I hear people talk about MS and open source, they speak of it as one vs the other, when in fact there is a lot of good open source written for MS platforms. Two of my favorites (both are BSD licensed) are:
http://dotnetnuke.com/
http://listring.com/
Talk about begging the question. Or staggering disingenuity.
... If you want to be a leading software company, you've got to be a leading software-as-a-service company."
"We've got to make this transition, which our industry is making, from software as a product to software as a service
Software-as-service (ie charge me every time I use it) instead of Software-as-product (ie I buy it and OWN it forever). Sound vaguely familiar?
Mr Ballmer, see, it's not that the industry is making this mystical transition. YOU'RE DRIVING IT, DUMBASS.
How ridiculous is it to be desperately trying to catch up to your own policy?
That would be like the RIAA complaining that it's trying to keep up with "...all this complicated DRM technology..."
-Styopa
Microsoft "Because we also ran"
...is the day they make a vaccuum cleaner. ;P
.Net (or even Mono) app? It would suck. The bottom line is that the web is not ready (and may possibly never be ready) to be a software platform for people like us. But Microsoft doesn't cater to people like us. They cater to Joe and Jane Average. So... in other words "Nothing to see here. Move along".
OK, all kidding aside I'm pretty sure Microsoft will stay afloat in the software as a service industry. After all it's only web stuff. While the web is a lot more complex than it was at the dawn of HTML/HTTP, it's also very limited. The most that web apps can achieve are consumer level apps that lots of Joe and Jane Averages use. ie. they aren't targetting REAL users yet. They're only going for the majority of users, so... ho hum. More of the same. Where Google offers a search engine, MS will offer a search engine with tail fins and chrome bumpers that gets less mileage per gallon and only refuels at MS stations (OS/browser lock-in). Hmmm... come to think of it, maybe that's why they're splitting the browser out of the OS now? They plan to make their web services more OS independent and perhaps will port the browser again?
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. People like us who want REAL software that does REAL work (coders, media production, graphics, etc...) will never want software as a service in it's present and web limited way. The web needs to vastly change in the areas of bandwidth (at least 100 megabits/s at home as a start) and standard 'in browser' graphical functionality (being able to do realtime graphical rendering in 2D and 3D fo UI elements). Could you imagine some numbnut AJAX developer writing a video editor to work in a browser? Or worse yet as a Java or
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I am not sure that the pay-every-time-you-use model is what Ballmer was talking about. I am scared that Microsoft might release their products for free, but cram them full of so many ads that you want to puke. I am sure that GoDaddy would love to have a video with dancing girls with HUGE breasts played as Word starts. I hate ads and I hate application that are free and make you view their advertisements. Personally, I would rather buy some software with no ads, than get the same software for free with loads of ads.
Our personal thoughts about Microsoft, Pro or Con, are not that relevant in the larger scheme of things. If we look at Microsoft's total suite of products as a fairly well integrated (and improving) stack of platforms, tools and user interfaces for collaborative work, then the move to Software as a Service is both logical and perhaps ultimately the way everyone will go.
There are some many possible threads here that it's not possible to give a coherent discussion when I'm here at work, but here are some of the ideas that come to mind as an advantage of the concept from a somewhat Microsoft centric perspective:
Shortness of time limits clarity on these ideas. Resolving them in our discussions here can be fun, but I think Microsoft should pay us for the privlege. Don't you?
These are all areas where Microsoft can bring a very rich user experience that will drive the competitors to greatly improve their offerings. It will also force Microsoft to be more open and accessible to other vendor's products, solutions and open standards. Resolving all the issues involved will take a long time. I've been involved with these discussions for over a dozen years now. I expect it will take another dozen for these things to work as well as we imagine them to.
There's another point that's been made by others too. Moving from a license per box to a license per use and even mostly free stuff business model will be painful. Look at Novell. One of their biggest revenue problems is that the move to FOSS has occurred more quickly than they expected driving revenues down faster than they'd planned and could adjust for.
Microsoft will feel similar pain, but is learning from all the pioneers how not to get shot in the back. It is what they are best at
A hammer is not a "service." A paintbrush is not a "service." A car is not a "service." They are tools. And, unless people use them very infrequently, people don't rent their tools. They buy them so that they may own them. Software follows this analogy to a very high degree. Software is a tool and, as such, the market for "rented" tools is way way smaller than the pundits are predicting. This will become even more true as Open Source solutions continue to make inroads and force aside overpriced proprietary solutions that are buggier and offer almost no extra compelling functionality.
Microsoft does know how to Pwnz0r and expand existing markets but, so far, they have largely failed to create new ones. Software-as-a-service is a dead end, especially for a company the size of Microsoft.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
No we still need "AT&T looks to charge Microsoft for , the rival to Google's developed by former Sun and Apple employees, using too much bandwidth while microsoft's counter suite attacks AT&T for allowing the NSA to spy on their employees."
I can throw a one hundred thousand pound walrus right through a brick wall.
Then I guess they made one vacuum cleaner back in 1991 and called it MS-DOS 5.0. In an impressive feat for Microsoft, they managed to get it right the first time around. It did what it was supposed to do and did it well.
For some reason, the text in the article makes my head hurt maybe cause they like to use really-long-hyphenated-words.
For the headache prone:
Google scares us. We are putting more money into R&D while also copying Google's succesful business model. We want to be the best. Oh yeah, China should provide a juicy source of income, but we aren't seeing much revenue because of piracy.
Oh yeah, the article notes that Microsoft has $35 Billion in cash.
By estimations you could completely fill 16.5 olympic sized swimming pools with all that cash in $100 bills. It'd been even more volume if you wanted to be able to swim in it like Scrooge McDuck. (But think of the paper cuts)
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
It seems microsoft has been pushing this for the last couple years.
A monthly subscription software as a service model won't work that well, especially if microsoft is dumb enough to actually charge their monthly(or yearly, whatever) fee for windows itself. I don't think microsft would ever be that stupid but, things can change. Either way I don't think it would fly well with consumers who already pay an arm and a leg for M$ Software(which is mostly crap anyway) to pay for it again and again. Anybody who does the math will disagree with this software as a service idea, unless they have cash lying around that they are willing to waste.
Do the math:
$250(this can be higher of course) now OR $20/Month (really low estimate)
$20 * 12 Months = 2*10 * 12 = $240 / year !!
if they charge $50/Month: 5*12*10 = $600/year !!
I think many will see this as a bad idea, and there will also be some willing to pay that much but as a model I think it will fail.
Figures,
Just when Windows becomes bearably funtional and stable, and the Office suite is mature enough that the average user could run WinXP + Office XP for 10 years without having any reason to upgrade, then they decide that "software-as-a-product" is dead, time to make you start paying monthly for software-as-a-service.
I'm surprised the furniture industry hasn't gotten in on this. Why do they sell chairs, tables, and sofas that last upwards of 10 - 20 years. Clearly the industry should get out of the "furniture as a product" business and move to a subscription or ad-supported "furniture as a service" model.
And for all google's services, I use very few of them because I don't want ads all the time, in everything I do. Even if they don't flash or bounce. Even if they are "relevant". Sometimes I just don't want ads!!
What's with all the rants about renting software. That's hardly the point of the article or service-based software.
Service based software has many revenue streams and powerful advantages. First, it'd be great to have a virtual desktop that followed me whereever I logged into. Not only do my files follow, but I can login to a kiosk and actually edit my Powerpoint before a presentation (without the danger of locally saving it). This is a great model (with enough bandwidth) that facilitates collaboration and mobility.
Second, many companies are already paying through the nose for a similar model. We pay hundreds of dollars/year/user for PC service support with software. Many folks only occassionally use the MS apps, but we have to buy licenses for each PC. It would be FAR cheaper if we could centrally host the applications and pay by usage. And this would also enable us to automatically backup files and allow users to access programs from home. Users often lose data when their desktop crashes. No more with service-based software!
Third, look at the Turbo-Tax model. It's $70 for the desktop version (PLUS electronic filing fees) and $20 online with FREE electronic filing. The service based model would be similar. Pay $500 for MS Office or $40/year to use/access the same thing. It's likely to be MUCH cheaper.
Fourth, they'll also license it to folks like Google who will then provide it to us for free (or VERY cheaply as a premier member) as a service and part of their total desktop management.
Just wanted to point out that there's many good things about this. Dismissing anything MS does simply because it's MS totally misses the point. Sure, it could (and might) suck, but it could also be a great thing.
Did I read that right or does MS really have a $6.2bn anual R&D budget? For that kind of money they could provide all the software I use with Windows for free.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
It's still missing a speculative question mark and the word 'killer'.
Bot Assisted Blogging
Right. The success of their office productivity suite will make it very hard for Microsoft to transition to SaaS as a company wide business model. They can certainly create new revenue streams in a SaaS model but they have too much investment in software for the client's machine to ever truly embrace the thin-client approach that makes sense for SaaS.
"the biggest challenge facing microsoft today is how to part more fools from more money. to make more money, you have to do that."
ladies and gentleman, watch your wallets on the way out.
make software that doesn't suck and have a million things wrong with it
A service business model demands much lower cost per purchase but lots of repeat business. In order for customers to become repeat customers they have to be satisfied with the transaction. If not satisfied, no repeat business.
So how can Microsoft dream of being "big time" in the service business when they historically do such a poor job of of keeping their customers happy?
I'm 100% in favor of people selling what they have to sell on their own terms. And if no one wants to take those terms, they sell nothing or change models. But I get suspicious when people say "let the consumers decide if they want X or Y" and Y is blatantly inferior to X.
When millions of people seem to be choosing crippled, severely restrictive products over comparable ones that are unrestricted and cost less, you have a prima facie case for some sort of market failure, or anti-competitive activity. It could well turn out that the products are not actually a good substitute and the case is dropped.
But no one would choose to have a broadcast flag limiting how & whether they can time/space/format shift the entertainments they purchase. Why do we all just assume the market is working fine, and this is one of those valuable things being put up for sale. The latest rms-bashing piece suffers from this lack of common sense. Your post doesn't necessarily suffer (but you could have made things clear by say '$x' and '$y'. The prices for the two options would vary -- greatly, if the market's working right).
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Read it again... it's a JOKE moron. Vaccuum cleaners are SUPPOSED to suck. Idiot.
"...transition....not software, but.....software as a service..."
Please dear g*d not this again. This has got to be the longest "transition" in history.
They're used to making money with companies, not the "average user". Sure, we all have our Windows and we all dished out 300something to Redmond (needn't comment if you didn't, the one or the other way). But compare that to even a small company and face that this is peanuts compared to what you have to dish out to only give 10 people a server, a database and the ability to access it.
Google works by the "give a little, get a little, do it often, get a f..ing lot!" principle. You can of course buy their services, too, and get some better service that way. If you're satisfied with the "basic" service, just as fine. I guess they'll consider it advertising. And behold, it works.
MS works akin to the creed "get a little, get a little more, get a f...ing lot!" Anything you want, no matter how small, you have to pay for it unless MS can immediately see a benefit in you having it for free, be it a bigger market share or locking you more tightly to their systems. Unfortunately, as a "normal" user, you don't care about 100% compatibility with your peers or that you might have to spend a few hours configuring everything to make it tick right. There's a free alternative? See ya, Redmond, I'm going with that free schtuff.
Service, software or anything. Companies will buy, they need compatibility and an hour spent is more expensive than the product. Normal users will more likely go for the free alternative. Spare time is still considered free.
In both senses.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
MS sells primarily Windows and Office. As I understand it, that's where their primary revenue comes from.
Windows 2000 or XP should be good for a long, long time. Remember Ballmer's famous "developers developers developers"? What's implied in that is that the developers want to reach as wide of a target as they can - that's why they're writing for Windows in the first place. The wider the target, the more software the developers sell. In short, to be operable on all flavors of Windows. Just last year I worked on a product and as part of QA we had to verify that it ran on Win95! Versions A and B!
So IMHO, that pretty much makes Vista optional - and it's going to be for a long, long time. Unless MS figures out some amazing way to get the developers to aim for a smaller locked-in target. I mean, think about how many machines are out there running XP today. How is MS going to tell all of those people to stop it, upgrade, and start paying MS rent?
And as for Office, if it's on a pay-as-you-go model, no business will stand for that for the same reasons. Again, they're competing against earlier releases of Office. And OpenOffice. Soon as a halfway competent accountant runs the numbers, the pay-as-you-go model will be avoided.
I'll betcha Vista and pay-as-you-go winds up being Microsoft's next Windows ME. Nobody will touch either with a ten foot pole.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Once software as a service is definitely widespread piracy will dissapear. The main problem is that you make software and you cannot take control of it when a user installs or modifies it. He just disconnects from the net and is by his own. On the other hand, if you want to use a service you have to pay for it or you cant use it. The example is the xbox live for xbox360. Maybe you buy a chip for the console or use pirated games, but no one on earth will save you from paying the 5$ that costs. That is the way to go. If you use good software, pay for it. If you do not care support, you can use software for free. This is how canonical works.
let's say one researcher costs $100,000 then they can pay for 62,000 people doing R&D? This is ridiculous!!! I don't believe a word!
"Microsoft revealed that its R&D budget for fiscal 2007, which ends mid-2007, would rise to $6.2bn."
They will be employing an enormous number of computer scientists, which should cheer up students in that field. OTOH, does M$ have anything to show for the expenditure? I haven't heard of it. The stockholders (and I am one) are getting restless.
Come on Monkey-boy. Show us the money.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Could this be the reason why they're purchasing Softricity? (Other than the obvious reason that SoftGrid is kick-ass)
Spork.
P.S. Spork.
No, nobody really wants "software as a service". What they want is a company that "services its software".
All other tangible products come with warranties these days. If it's delivered broken it is repaired at the cost of the manufacturer. Microsoft wants to push the cost of their mistakes onto the customer through a restrictive subscription model.
Software as a service is working for Google because currently they aren't limiting its use nor charging a subscription/service fee for it.
It's not just "catch up", there's a big difference.
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
You forgot to fit games in there somewhere.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
move from buyinmg software to renting software?
I believe the article is a bit intentionally mis-leading....
Just an observation. :)
But whatever the bandwidth, doesn't that kind of rendering need low latency as well?
Ballmer's comments only make sense if you drink the company kool-aid first.
...everything but the goat leggings.
If you have ever been at a Microsoft pep-rally, you know how scary some of these people can be. They are honestly very cult like.
"Seven years of college down the drain. Might as well join the f-ing Peace Corps." - John 'Bluto' Blutarsky
"Hotbot dot yahoo!"
Depends on the application. And if it's rendering client side then the latency of the info doesn't figure in unless you need the data in a time significant manner (real time gaming) as opposed to normal application where short delays in getting the info is acceptable.
I am not in anyway affiliated with Max Cannon
Microsoft didn't get to where it is by allowing you a choice. Microsoft will go to your boss's boss's boss (or higher if necessary) to do this. If you're independent, then they just have to go to Dell and prevent them from "selling" you a machine. This is about lock-in, not trying to convince you. As long as you can not "buy" a machine running Vista and you can't collaborate with people who do unless you "subscribe" to a Vista machine, you will not be making a choice. (My subscription to quotation marks has expired, or I would have put a pair around the word choice.)
let's say one researcher costs $100,000 then they can pay for 62,000 people doing R&D? This is ridiculous!!! I don't believe a word!
You're forgetting support staff, administrative staff, machine costs, cost to either rent or build office space, etc. Not to mention that benefits for employees are going to cost around as much as their salaries, give or take. With researchers, you also have to pay to send them to conferences so their work gets heard. And don't forget that Microsoft Research sponsors a number of conferences. I know they are a sponsor of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) annual conference, for one.
I think there are two discussions - one for consumers and one for corporations.
.Mac users.
The consumer discussion is really about "software-as-FREE-service" - not "software-as-service." Nobody will be able to convince me (or any other consumer) that software that performs basic functions (like word processing, presentation and spreadsheets), that sits on servers (where it is easily maintained and updated) and is used by millions of users, will cost anything in the long run. "$6.2 Bn" in development cost my foot; freeware that performs these functions has been available for twenty years. Most computers come with freeware that does all this stuff anyway.
These software services will cost pennies per month per user in terms of server capacity and bandwidth. The ONLY real costs have to do with storage; the rest is cheap.
Advertisers will queue up to pay these modest costs in unobtrusive advertisements - like a banner at the top of your browser window that is aimed at who you are, not what you are typing (too intrusive).
I think that this is the market that Google wants; it would sit well with their Gmail customers. Apple also has a similar market segment in its
Corporate customers are a different story. They want absolute security for their data; how Microsoft (or Google, for that matter) will guarantee that on the open Internet will be interesting to watch.
Corporate power users are completely different from consumer users; these people run spreadsheets (just to name one app) that use the entire resources of the same PC boxes that are used as servers.
It has taken corporations 25 years to get used to using, maintaining and paying for PCs with MS apps; let's see how long it takes for them to just toss all that investment out the window so they can pay at least as much for "software-as-service."
So are they going to rewrite Vista as an AJAX app?
I tend to think of software-as-a-service not just as HTML/Javascript/XML delivered over the Web, but also as packages downloaded from a distro repository. Isn't the open source software repository model a software-as-a-service model, too?
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
AT&T to charge for Google's M$ killer. Sun && Apple to join the feeding frenzy. Will this help Ubuntu?
I have nothing to say.
The new services model is not software-as-a-service, like MS thinks it is. The service is not the software itself. A service can be implemented as software. A service can also be implemented as human technicians. But the price of software by itself, as a separate entity, is fast approaching $0. Hence, in the open source model, you build services around software -- be they software-driven services like the Red Hat Network, or human-driven services like on-call support people.
But renting software? That's ridiculous.
Premium software as a product is not going anywhere. But there's a certain level of commodization now, that people aren't going to be willing to rent or eventually even buy, like office suites.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
Will Google become Microsoft's new Apple Killer?
~ roscivs
It will look all the less as MS will then be able to up the price for a permanent license for their OS (or Office or whatever) to $500 or more, so everyone will think they're really saving money.
And of course, with patented Office file formats, a new MS image format and all, nobody will want to risk losing their data by not continuing to pay the monthly fees. Even better, with WinFS, it may be hard to even copy any file to another OS without losing data.
Six point two _BILLION_ dollars (us) to come up with crap like Vista et al ???????
The rental aspect of software like Exchange is that you can really only use it while Microsoft supports it. Once they stop supporting a particular version, any new security holes in it stay open, making it way unsafe to continue to use it.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
If you are so stuborn to keep demanding that an all purpose machine does specialized task then you will be screwed and deservedly so.
You wanna play games? Buy a games console.
You wanna have a general purpose machine? Use something open, I would say Linux.
Your problem is that you insist in playing games for a machine that is not designed to do so. Well, pay the premium for it, but there are clea alternatives, you are just chosing to be locked.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Currently, we are in the midst of a transition for home users to a client/server model. Their home computer is the client. Google is working hard to be the server. They want to supply your email server, your photo server, your video server, your communication (IM/VOIP/etc) server, your news server, and your file server.
Microsoft should be combatting that, but should also be moving in a different path. They should be building software, (and encouraging the building of hardware), that moves all those servers into your house. They need a new version of windows, named "Windows Share" or such, that provides all those servers with the minimal setup, "We will now sign up a domain, (If you know what this is and already have one, click HERE)", the same way they do for email. They could even push a shuttle-esque hardware appliance that comes almost completely setup. Plug it into your internet connection and go.
Microsoft could sell this in many fronts. "Own your own data" "You deside your storage, not google" "Always fast access around the house" "Don't upload your data twice, do it once to your own server" etc etc. More-over, they could then set up a service to ADMINISTER the computer. They take over all those silly upkeep jobs, (similar to what AOL does already), and you don't even have to think about the server, it just works. And microsoft makes a handy profit simply from pushing patches and security tools, and rolling back computers when they stop working.
I do security