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Microsoft's Masterpiece of FUD?
walterbyrd writes "Linux Journal has published an article by Glyn Moody, about the Microsoft sponsored study: The Economic Impact of Microsoft Windows Vista (pdf). Apparently Moody feels that the economic effects of MS-Vista being delayed in Europe would not be as dire as Microsoft would have the world believe." From the article: "The implication is that the European Commission would be crazy to jeopardize these wonderful benefits by clipping the wings of this digital golden goose, or even grounding it completely. The white paper looks tremendously professional, and is filled with tables, bar and pie charts; it has suitably serious discussions of methodology, and even introduces a few measured caveats: who could doubt its conclusions? What makes this FUD so impressive is that this attention to detail obscures the sleight of hand that is going on here. The white paper may predict sales by the "Microsoft ecosystem" of over $40 billion in six of Europe's biggest economies, but what this figure hides is the fact that income for Microsoft and its chums is a cost for the rest of Europe."
Isn't that a bit like saying "Rembrandt's Masterpiece of Art"? There are so many to choose from, each one brilliant and unique in its own way.
Unless the title is referring to the piece of work a journeyman turns in to become a master craftsmen, in which case he's scaring me.
This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
It's wealth movement.
Deleted
Microsoft will delay shipping Vista to the EU until after SP1 this means European organisations will
1) Not have the "benefits" of learning about the early security holes
2) Not have the "advantage" of paying the launch list price, they'll have to wait until Microsoft slash prices as Vista doesn't fly
3) Have a mature support market to fall back on
4) More time to work out if its actually worth it
Brilliant, its like testing something dangerous on lab rats but we get to use Americans instead.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Wow, hit Slashdot for the first time today and surprise surprise, its the daily MS bitching thread.
I challenge everyone to take 80% of the time they spend complaining about Microsoft and devote it to something else such as contributing to an OSS project.
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
A poster on the linked page (http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000097) gave the best possible reply, IMHO:
k en_window") to be significant?
"How does it help?
Submitted by Bozikins (not verified) on Wed, 2006-09-20 17:58.
Why is it beneficial to anyone that a new operating system will require 100,000 new jobs to support it - couldn't they be better employed improving the human condition? Should we consider the parable of the broken Windows mentioned elsewhere ("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_bro
"
If your not familiar with the broken window parable, follow the wiki link-perfect reply!
I was not aware of the broken window parable until just a few minutes ago, thus fell enlightened;It is a good day for me!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
...if everyone gets to own it in the FOSS way. Two different beasts in this discussion, even though it's all about software. There are just so many ways to build a system now with FOSS, and with various degrees of cost from free as in beer to expensive, that it is doubtful any one system or way or pricing level will ever become dominant like MS has become, and being open, you can't get locked in, in the same manner. Here's an opportunity for europe-say-to only drop 5 billion on mass adoption of FOSS, and save the other 35 billion to use in other areas.
Open source leads to open standards as well, and that is a critical issue now, especially with governments and business. A document you make today with open standards will still be readable for free any number of years from now.
Look at that reference in the latest vista candidate article, MS will still hose any other system you have on the disk, on purpose, if you go to install it(guru tweaking not applicable, I mean for joe regular). What would they do if it was the opposite on purpose? That's the different mindset we are facing, MS is their way or the highway,their monopoly status will remain and it will be serious folding money no matter what you are talking about, or FOSS which is primarily free and Free for the most part. A monopoly (note: a monopoly does not mean 100% when speaking legally) signifies abuse in the market place, as in "costs you money" with little recourse, then it becomes an abusive monopoly and starts to get into the illegal areas, which they have been provbven to have done. and it wasn't an accident either.
That's one of the main issues if you use the word monopoly as it relates to current business practices, abusive behavior leading to your wallet getting lighter. MS is saying if you don't stick to their monopoly expensive products it will cost you serious money, that's the FUD part, because STICKING with them costs you serious folding money, and for most purposes today, there is no longer a need. For some, yes, for most, no.
I've actually downloaded the PDF, and I've been reading through it. It's only 16 pages, and there's a hell of a lot of white space. There's also a lot of space taken up with a bunch of rather unimpressive bar charts.
The problem is, they have absolutely no justification for any of their numbers. For instance, on page 5 they claim, "In 2008, IDC predicts that 80% of Microsoft client operating systems shipped into enterprises will be Windows Vista." But they can't back it up!
They also admit they've only been looking at these numbers since 2002, so they've got no basis for comparison. In order for their 'study' to have any meaning, they'd have to compare it to the relative effects of the introduction of XP, compared to previous Microsoft operating systems. But they admit their data doesn't go back that far!
Their 'predictions' have as much weight as those you'd get from your local psychic.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
So let's see:
Looking at how 'fast' XP spread after launch, a massive buying spree just for the sake of upgrading is unlikely. Add to that hardware requirements (meaning simply upgrading your computer is not an option in far too many cases) and I would say people will buy Vista preloaded on PCs that would have been otherwise bought with XP anyway. Then this looks like MS issuing Win XP SP3 and calling it a major reason for 'new' cash flow. Now, given that MS is spinning "this is the cash flow we expect Vista to generate" into "this is the excess cash flow we expect Vista to generate and you'll never get it it you don't allow us to do whatever we like" I would indeed call it a major piece of FUD.
On the other hand, I don't see why MS should have mentioned F/OSS in this paper. Certainly one is not supposed to make a case for the opposition in such cases. My problem is with them grossly misrepresenting their own case.
It shouldn't take an economist to look at the world today and compare it to the world a hundred years ago to recognize that wealth has indeed been created through trade, innovation, and exploitation of resources.
Your comparison to a sunday school theory doesn't hold much weight given that wealth creation is an observable phenomenon. If all that ever happened was wealth movement, then everyone else in the world ought to live in stone age conditions given the lifestyles of industrialized nations. Regardless of the hyperbole used by anti-capitalists and others with anti-west agendas, that is not the case.
This won't get modded up since the article is too old, so I'm just posting it for your elucidation.
Anyway, unlike energy, wealth can be created and destroyed. Consider cookies, for instance:
I take some flour, sugar, butter, chocolate chips and other miscellaneous goods. The total value of these goods is only a bit more than a dollar.
Using them in various arcane ways, I craft, say, a dozen chocolate chip cookies, the likes of which anyone would pay $.25 and think it was a good deal.
So, we started out with about a dollar's worth of goods, and ended up with something like three dollars worth of cookies. There's now two more dollars worth of value in the economy, and it's all mine. This is what people mean when they say "wealth creation".
If I were to, instead, just set all those ingredients aflame, the world's economy would be poorer by about a dollar. That would be the destruction of wealth.
Of course, it's true that in a closed system, it would be impossible to create more than a certain amount of wealth. It's a good thing, then, that there's this big giant flaming ball of gas up in the sky spewing an unimaginable amount of energy in every direction, some of which fortunately falls on us.
In a more universal sense, you could make the case that there's only a certain maximum amount of wealth possible; however, reaching that would involve things like dyson spheres and asteroid farms.