Confidential Microsoft Emails Posted Online

dos4who writes "From the class action 'Comes et al. v. Microsoft' suit, some very enlightening internal Microsoft emails are now made public. Emails to and from Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Jim Allchin, etc all make for some mind blowing reading. One of my favorites is from Jim Allchin to Bill Gates, entitled 'losing our way,' in which Allchin states 'I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft.'"

Comments

HAHAHA

[Anonymous Coward]

These confirm that Microsoft so-called critics are just telling it like it is. Vista is a second-rate, user-hostile OSX knock-off, .NET is a java knock-off and MS senior execs are lying through their teeth when they talk about innovation.

Classic stuff.

Thats nothing..

[cybrthng]

If you read what people post here, most sane people wouldn't touch linux and would look at these discussions as childs play.

Losing our way?

[Rolman]

It's interesting for Jim Allchin to state this, because in terms of performance, security and understanding what the most important problems a customer face, I didn't know Microsoft had a "way" they're somehow losing now. To say that Microsoft has always been lazy in these areas is an understatement.

Now this gets me thinking, because we in FLOSS care a lot about security and performance, but not too much about the end users experience and the applications that are important to them. We all know how Apple just Gets It(tm) and we should, too, if we ever want to expand our installed base and market share beyond geeks and tech savvy users.

Re:Losing our way?

[iluvcapra]

Surely you knew that 90% of the world uses Windows. You can't claim a figure like that is only the result of monopolistic practices and be serious

You're right, under 60% or so they're merely "predatory practices!" :D

It fits people's needs by being something that is brain-dead useable across an enormous variety of hardware

It fits people's needs by being on their computer when they bought it; people don't choose OS's, they're considered features of the box you pay for. Thus, Windows is useable for people, but the economic signal that drives Windows quality is the demands of the OEM bundlers, not the users. MS is trying to change this slowly, and maybe they'll just have to start selling their own computers at some point.

But what's the point in trying to expand market share, just for its own sake?

It's an important part of a bunch of positive feedback loop, not least of which is: more users -> more developers -> more software titles -> more users.

Re:Losing our way?

[Lazerf4rt]

It fits people's needs by being on their computer when they bought it; people don't choose OS's, they're considered features of the box you pay for.

This is a totally valid point, and you also cited a legitimate need for the end user. Most people do need something on their computers when they buy them. But you can't claim or even imply this is the secret of Windows' success. I remember when Windows 3.1 came out. Home users willingly bought and installed it on their existing 286/386 machines in droves, which were running DOS up to that point. It was a good product introduced at the right time for the right audience. It spawned a whole family of application software and grew from there, making Microsoft rich. The OEM bundling resulted as a by-product.

more users -> more developers -> more software titles -> more users

This is just another way of saying you want to expand market share for the sake of expanding it.

I'd prefer to use open source whose chief motivation was to offer a good experience. Not whose chief motivation was to expand market share. I know part of Windows' motivation was to grow a large market, but that only stemmed from their desire to make money. They were successful at that, and that's how they made something everyone uses.

Re:Losing our way?

[cowscows]

Whether or not people choose free software is not particularly important to me, but I'm very eager to see the dominance of Windows fade. For a number of reasons.

As other software platforms become more popular, I hope that more of the software specific to my profession will become available on platforms other than windows, so that I don't have to keep a windows box at home on top of my preferred computer. I wish that my mom's job didn't require her to own a windows machine, because I didn't enjoy giving her tech support over the phone for all the stupid problems she had. It'd be nice if there were a few less compromised computers out there sending me lots of spam.

I don't use windows as my primary OS, I don't do tech support for a living, yet I have to deal with windows problems on almost a daily basis.

Re:Losing our way?

[iluvcapra]

But you can't claim or even imply this is the secret of Windows' success. I remember when Windows 3.1 came out. Home users willingly bought and installed it on their existing 286/386 machines in droves, which were running DOS up to that point. It was a good product introduced at the right time for the right audience. [...] The OEM bundling resulted as a by-product.

When Windows 3.1 came out, computers were much more expensive relatively, so getting a better OS with a new machine was a very pricey proposition. When a copy of a full-featured version of the OS costs as much as a low-end computer, however, the decision is different, and the computer is much more of a commodity that simply comes out of the box with everything it needs to be useful; the alternate idea, that you buy a computer and buy an OS to run on it, is simply not economical. OEM bundling is what makes Windows affordable.

Microsoft has made some good plays and makes some good products -- I still think Excel is the best application ever written -- but OEM bundling is what sustains the market share. Computer purchasers are never presented with a genuine, unencumbered decision about which OS to run, with good information and prices which reflected the actual underlying value of products. They don't want to make the decision, anyways, they just want a box that works. Windows 3.1 is a good upgrade from MS-DOS, but computers at the time were expensive, rare (relative to today), and doing things like buying a new OS in a box and installing it wasn't such a tough choice, since people were willing to spend a lot of time and TLC on their boxes (they'd spent so much money on them, after all).

It's like radios -- you, the end-user, used to have to buy the tubes from RCA, and there were ads saying how great the tubes were, and you spent a lot of money on them because you'd spent so much money on your radio set, and replacing a bad triode was cheaper than buying a new radio. But now you just buy the thing as a block, and the radio is so cheap you don't care what transistors are in it, because the radio is taken for granted to always work and has become the foundation of other tech, like cellphones and WiFi.

Some companies, like Apple, and Google, but others too, are trying to build enabling technologies on top of computers like cellphones build on top of radio. They want you to take the computer for granted. Microsoft's Windows platform people are in the position of arguing "Look at all the great things you can do with Microsoft's tubes! Remember, it's the TUBES that make it work."

So my point is that the OEM bundling ... I forget... whatever, it's bad.

This is just another way of saying you want to expand market share for the sake of expanding it.

I guess you're right, but if I like Linux, having more Linux users in the world makes Linux easier to use -- without having to change a line of code. MS OS's have lagged behind Linux's security and server capabilities, and behind OS X in home user features and usability, but that's from the perspective of individual users. On Window's side is ubiquity, and the fact that the guys from Geek Squad know how to fix all your little hard drive issues, and that novel you are writing will open at work, and on and on. If I ran Linux, all of this would be true for me, too, if the 90% were Linux.

I'd settle for 30% desktop penetration, frankly.

Re:Losing our way?

[oohshiny]

Surely you knew that 90% of the world uses Windows. You can't claim a figure like that is only the result of monopolistic practices and be serious.

Why not? It has worked for many other companies before in cases where the products clearly were not superior to those of their competitors.

It fits people's needs by being something that is brain-dead useable across an enormous variety of hardware. That should be obvious from the 90%.

Windows is not "brain-dead usable" on any hardware, and its hardware compatibility is a mixed bag. Overall, Windows is just barely good enough. The technical qualities that keep Windows around are its complexity and its proprietary protocols and formats, which make the cost of switching very high.

but if you're involved in free software, why does it matter how much of the world is using it?

Because computers aren't islands; if I want to read E-mail using free software, open up attachments, conduct on-line business, etc., the protocols and formats to do so need to be open and free.

Since Microsoft has made a 20 year career out of making those protocols and formats proprietary, closed, and non-free, taking away market share from Microsoft is apparently the only way to force them to open up. And it will happen: people are really, really tired of Microsoft's business practices and crappy products.

Re:broken legal system

[tomhudson]

A legal system who shows so little self respect, letting these leaks happen, not investigating prosectuing and harshly punishing the source of such leaks, cannot expect others to respect it.

These aren't "illegal leaks" - they're evidence that has been made public - and rightfully so - because justice must not only be done, but seen to be done. Don't expect to be able to keep illegal anti-competitive activities secret because of some non-existent "corporate right to privacy."

/. bias

[Arathon]

Disclaimer: I like Linux more than I like Windows.

Still, I just don't get why this would be somehow indicative of anything but good things of Microsoft. Everyone knows that 3 years ago, they were floundering in regards to Vista. Whether you like Vista now or not, it's a perfectly reasonable thing for him to have said (i.e. I'd buy a Mac), and most likely an exaggeration anyway. It all makes a lot of sense to me, and we don't do ourselves credit as part of the FOSS community by bashing anything that isn't just because we can. =)

Re:/. bias

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the docs you'll see that breaking competition laws is the reason they're the wealthiest software company. It's wrong to say "number one software company" when their business revolves around making me-too parodies of competitors innovative products.

Re:/. bias

[pla]

Whether you like Vista now or not, it's a perfectly reasonable thing for him to have said (i.e. I'd buy a Mac), and most likely an exaggeration anyway.

Agreed. Whether exaggeration for effect, or just admitting that Apple has a damned fine user interface that MS would do well to "borrow" from, I don't really think we should take comments like that as the proof of internal decay most have made it out as.

For comparison, how many Linux and FOSS-in-general fans run Windows on their primary desktop machine? I, for one, will admit that I do, because Linux quite simply hurts to use as a desktop on a daily basis. I absolutely love it for anything running behind the scenes (NAS, routers, webservers, mailservers, etc), but when it comes to sitting down and getting real work done at a workstation (or even just wasting time playing a game), Windows has Linux beat hands-down.

And I say that as someone who rolls his own distros. I understand how to make any desired functionality work, but that doesn't mean I want to waste that much effort every time I install a sound or video card, or god forbid try to add any USB device other than keyboard/mouse/mass-storage.

I think a lot of the problem comes down to multimedia. For any machine that doesn't need sound or graphics and only rarely changes hardware, Linux kicks serious ass. For the rest, I hope you have the exact same rev of the exact same hardware and run the same version of the same distro as someone who wrote a HowTo article, or get ready for some pain.

Re:One of my favorites

[Frizzle Fry]

It's sort of silly to say that the fact that the guy is PM makes him sort of super authority. It's not as if he has a high-ranking position (VP, PUM). For all we know, he was just hired out of college last week; hell, there are PM interns.

They are the one's laughing....

[LibertineR]

It is so sad that again, no one gets it.

You think its funny? They think it is fucking HILARIOUS.

By yesterday, Microsoft made more money on Vista than OSX has in its entire lifespan.

Sun's handling of Java gave Microsoft enough time to make .NET a killer platform, especially for Web apps.

Even if the only way that Microsoft is innovative is in how they turn other people's ideas into profit centers, I assure you that they are laughing a lot more than Apple or Sun today.

Re:They are the one's laughing....

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if the only way that Microsoft is innovative is in how they turn other people's ideas into profit centers, I assure you that they are laughing a lot more than Apple or Sun today.

Not for much longer pal, MSFT Proprietary lock-in is under attack on all fronts and the vaporware game is played out because other companies (like Apple) are actually delivering.

You do have a point though, if MSFT are going to continue flouting competition law, they may as well enjoy doing it.

Re:They are the one's laughing....

[stewbacca]

Uh, would you like to cite your claim that Vista has made more money that OS X in its entire lifespan? Did you factor in the average cost of the Mac attached to OS X? What about all the $129 incremental updates? I didn't think so.

I'm not sure where you live, but the biggest line for the Vista launch that I've seen reported was 18 people. Even at $400 for the Ultimate version, that hardly makes a dent in the total OS X revenue thus far.

Re:They are the one's laughing....

[archen]

I don't know, considering Vista only came out recently, I wouldn't be surprised to find early adapters who are fascinated by new shiny things going out in droves to buy Vista. I also wouldn't be surprised if Vista cost more to develop than OSX over its entire life so far. For that matter it almost seems like Vista has dropped more major features than OSX added over its life.

Re:They are the one's laughing....

[myowntrueself]

By yesterday, Microsoft made more money on Vista than OSX has in its entire lifespan.i>

Considering how much was spent on developing Vista ($billions) it seems very implausible that $billions+n has been recouped by Microsoft at this point in time, for any value of n.

You did say "made more money on Vista"; at this stage, Vista has made a net *loss* not a profit.

Re:They are the one's laughing....

[julesh]

I work for a company that is just wrapping up 3 in-house software projects totaling 38 million USD. Do you know what technology was used for all of them?

It doesn't matter, I dare say in all three cases the tech decision was made by the same small group of people. Expand your survey to 5,000 projects in 2,000 businesses in at least 3 different countries spread over a variety of market areas, company ages and structural types and I'll start accepting it as meaningful. .NET is a joke. The only people that think .NET is an Enterprise-class answer for anything are the people that don't work in an enterprise.

Funny. The Enterprise developers I've talked to will generally tell you that the language you're working with is irrelevant. Only the architecture you build is important. You need access to reliable messaging systems (which .NET gives you) and access to reliable data storage systems (which .NET gives you) and the ability to integrate a wide variety of standard external components for a variety of purposes from reporting to integrating with external communication networks (which .NET gives you). Beyond that, the only important thing is that you have enough programmers who are experienced enough with the platform you're working on. This may be .NET's stumbling point: it hasn't existed for long enough, and as most CS graduates of the last 10 years have acquired extensive Java experience by the time they graduate even, it seems a natural choice. This distinction won't last forever.

DCOM sucks.

You can find people with that opinion about any distributed component system. The most commonly complained-about seems to be CORBA.

The CLR is a performance _joke_ in the automotive and financial industries.

I've got a friend who's a programmer in the automotive industry. Yes, you're right he wouldn't consider using the CLR for any of his work. He works in C, mostly, with hand-crafted assembly language for a large portion of his code. He produces systems that have hard real-time requirements of responding within a few hundred processor cycles of an incoming event. Of course any kind of garbage-collected, just-in-time compiled system is a joke for this kind of application.

As for financial industries, I've worked there myself (admittedly before .NET was an option) and don't expect they'd have a huge amount of trouble with it. But the financial industry is a late adopter of most new technologies. Last financial corp I worked with was still developing their desktop apps in C and Motif in 1998, and was still using an e-mail system that ran on a VAX that you had to access via a serial cable plugged into the back of your PC. So no, I don't expect you'd see a lot of .NET apps springing up in that market, either. This has nothing to do with the quality of the system.

All my comments aside, how can anyone with a modicum of professional experience think a 5yr old technology(.NET) would be a better choice then a 15yr old technology that is 64% of the market and still under heavy development and support?

Because the market is changeable. When Java was 5 years old, people were saying exactly the same thing about the likelihood of that taking over from C++ and Corba. It happened in fairly short order, though.

Re:Non-PDF?

[MysticOne]

I think you're misunderstanding the purpose of PDF. It's not just to make text available, but to make documents (including images, and in some cases 3D content) that will look the same on ANY platform. This is absolutely necessary for publishing and other areas where you need a document format that isn't subject to all the inconsistencies of presentation that most word processing formats suffer. To my knowledge, there is no other document format that is intended to work this way. Microsoft was working on a PDF replacement, but I don't know much about it, and I'm sure it'd be bound to Microsoft.

I can agree that the Adobe Reader software sucks. But, there are many, many PDF readers available that work just fine without the Adobe nonsense, but still give you access to one of the nicest document formats available.

Re:Very Interesting -- Tux Looms Large! Who Knew?

[scottv67]

I know you're just trolling but I'll play along. It's too cold to do anything outside today. Why not feed the Slashtrolls...

I knew people who were making a decent living doing computer consulting for home users who went out of business because of how many 15 year old neighbours could do most of what they do for free.

That one line has got to be the best advertisement/endorsement for Linux and open source software that I've seen in a long time. If you are truly not trolling, think of how powerful that statement is: "Linux: even your neighbor's 15-year-old kid can maintain it." We should welcome software that is that easy to use and maintain, not lament it's arrival .

Microsoft doesn't even believe in what they do

[koan]

Im a big fan of XP, but Vista has left me scratching my head trying to figure out what they were up to, from the emails I gather they don't really know either.

Re:Non-PDF?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

That "bad file format" you are knocking is the compsiting and rendering format for the Macintosh OS X Quartz user interface.

See this: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/1q00/macos-x-gui/ma cos-x-gui-4.html

This was the natural extrapolation from DPS - display PostScript - used on the NeXT and original SunOS NeWS.

There is a difference between crappy rendering implementation and crappy model.

Re:Groklaw coverage

[Vellmont]

including a clarification from Allchin on that 'I'd buy a Mac' quote.

Where I live we don't call that clarification, we call that spin.

context to 'losing our way'

[dioscaido]

Written on January 2004. This was just before the big 'reset' where they realized they were going in the wrong direction, and completely refocused their efforts -- they wen't gun-ho on security, developing XP SP2, and moving 'longhorn' development to the win2k3 codebase instead of the bloated junk they had for the very early previews.

So the statement makes total sense within context. Soon after Jim's statement, the development of 'longhorn' was dramatically altered. You can't use it as a reflection of the RTM'd product. The RTM'd product is a result of these harsh words.

Re:Non-PDF?

[Phil John]

It may not be the best software, but to call PDF a bad format is just plain ignorant.

It allows document publishers to ensure that their files will look the same on every platform, transcending font issues etc - you can't say that with Word docments, web pages, rtf files etc.

True, for this kind of document it makes little sense to use a PDF vs. images, but that's not the fault of the format, it's the fault of the people who digitized the printouts.

If you're fed up with Adobe PDF reader, try something else like the free Foxit Reader - small, quick to load and fast to browse files, I haven't had the reader installed for a couple of years now.

It is possible to make a fast reader, see the one that ships with Mac OS X, or Evince - they both fly even with large complex documents.

Why do I care about 1991

[madshot]

Why do I really care about 1991. Do you think that will actually change the release of Windows Vista or Microsoft domination of the world technology market? How screwed would the world be if Microsoft closed its doors one day because they get tired of being a business that is always fighting legal battles? Imagine a world without Microsoft. 911 tries to dispatch an ambulance but they can't activate their copy of windows to run the dispatch software because Microsoft closed its doors. A automotive company tries to install Quickbooks but it requires the latest Windows .NET updates before it will install, but they can't seem to get them from Microsoft because the website is down. Like it or not, Microsoft is a dominating force in the world. I only wish I had thought of it first :-) So when I read documents from 1990 and 1991 I say "how much money is this costing tax payers?" and "at what point will Microsoft just say screw it and close their doors." Peace

Re:One of my favorites

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's move on and steal the Java language. It's not only funny but they actually did it eventually.
They called it .NET and C#.

- pflakes

Re:Clarification and Implications.

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of Vista and DRM, I'm proud to say I just successfully stripped DRM out of my latest batch of iTunes downloads on...what else? Vista! :)

Give people the power of choice. The law isn't some monolithic superstructure that automatically applies identically in all situations and for all people, period and amen. What's the difference between fair use and theft? Let the courts sort it out, not the money-wreathed corporate overlords.

How would you feel if your screwdriver or hammer wouldn't "screw" or "hammer" if it decided the screws and nails you were using were borrowed or re-used?

Re:Clarification and Implications.

[Chineseyes]

more than the failure of Zune and Xbox..... whoa you had me until the xbox part I don't know where you've been lately but xbox360 has been a HUGE success partly due to Sony shooting themselves in the foot by trying to push a $600 console and having production issues with the PS3 but still calling xbox360 a failure is really pushing it.

Re:Wishful Thinking

[4e617474]

This is because the promise of Linux has been wasted by the lack of production of true killer applications, allowing both Microsoft and Apple to further embed their OS's among their faithful.

I remember sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for Linux's world domination, but I don't think that that was ever its promise. The whole concept of the "killer application", IMHO, runs contrary to the Linux way of doing things. In fact, the more obviously useful a "Linux" app tends to be to large numbers of people, the more likely you are to see Windows and OS X ports.

Linux let users run whatever machine they could get their hands on and have a stable, supported (as in patched and secure) system that would run current apps while the Mac and Windows worlds had people running to the store to replace perfectly good machines. Schools in under-funded districts and governments in poor countries slowly discover that proprietary software vendors hold them over a barrel while FLOSS just gives and gives. These aren't strategies that get you ahead by the next fiscal quarter, but they get you ahead of where you were four or five years ago.

MSFT and Apple fight for their share of consumers (and MSFT pretty much takes the business world for granted) while the FLOSS world makes sure to keep doing what they're doing and their share of developers, enterprise users, and savvy home users expands slowly but steadily. Linux isn't out to get people to come on board because it's got something you'll be deprived of if you don't, and it isn't out to attack or exploit how the other guys slip up. Hell, Linux isn't marching lock-step towards any single goal - it's fragmented, huge numbers of disparate groups and individuals working towards different ends, which Linus has said is exactly what he likes to see. Linux developers achieve a means to an end, polish up the rough edges when they've got something that's going to be around for a while and the users demand it, and let you get off the roller coaster of everyone else deciding what latest and greatest features you just have to have. You want Linux? Here it is. You want to wait a few years for it to improve some more? It will, and it will still be yours for the asking. [insert stream vs. boulder or similar Taoist metaphor]

WinFS, trip bits, trusted path ...

[Erris]

"We need a simple fast storage system" in this context means "We need to ditch WinFS".

Now that Vista is out, you can see he was talking about much more than that. Had the company quit focusing on trying to become a publishing, music and games monopoly as well as a computing monopoly, Vista would not weigh in at 10GB of trip bits, encrypted binary paths and other in the customer face insult and instability. WinFS was just one of the things that make Vista less than fast, stable, secure or anything else the customer might want. He thought that M$ should spend developer time on making things work for the user, not building better cages.

Re:But corporations are people too!

[BandwidthHog]

But they’re not one of us. We are people. They’re a fictional entity, essentially an overgrown contractual agreement. And a public one at that.

Like most, you missed the point.

[LibertineR]

Windows itself should remind you that the best technology does not always win.

What .NET did, was give developers a reason not to switch, and enough of them to steal the profitability potential away from Sun. How come so many of you never take a business perspective to your replies?

There are plenty of companies using .NET in the enterprise, and whether .NET is superior doesnt matter at all in that equation. .NET allows apps to be built quickly, without much learning curve, and foot-in-the-door matters more than anything else when it comes to technical adoption. If .NET existed solely for the purpose of limiting Java penetration, then you would have to conclude that on that note alone, .NET is wildly successful.

So, stop with the technical arguments, because it is past time for us to understand that technology alone never wins in the enterprise.

Confidential email

[Duncan3]

When will these guys figure out all email is public?

If you want to scheme, that's what golf courses are for.

Re:the death of Xbox 360 and what that means.

[The Warlock]

Do you even believe the shit coming out of your mouth?

First of all, let's end the misinformation.
1) The PS3 is not significantly more powerful than the X360.

2) Even if it were, nobody gives a shit. The PS2 was way less powerful than either Gamecube or Xbox, and everyone bought it anyway, because it was cheaper and first to market.

3) The PS3 does not run games through Linux. Indeed, a Linux install on the PS3 can't even use 3D acceleration. They call this a "security measure", I call it "deliberately crippling the hardware". Reminds me of the PSP.

4) Microsoft wants gamers to abandon the PC as a gaming platform and go to the 360. Then they can focus on making the Home version of Windows a purely media-centered OS and the business version essentially a backend for Office-type apps without having to worry about making a 3D rendering library or any of that crap.

Re:the death of Xbox 360 and what that means.

[killjoe]

"Microsoft wants gamers to abandon the PC as a gaming platform and go to the 360. "

If that was true they would not be coming out with directX 10 and making it vista only.

Really?

[codepunk]

Linux is the killer application and it will be even more so in the future. Don't worry MS is scared of Linux and probably even more so today.

1. When you typed this posted at least a few linux boxes where involved in storing, sorting
and displaying your drivel.

2. I bet you probably even do a few google searches per day, there you go again 100,000 linux boxes
faithfully answer your request at lightning speed.

3. Go to work and half the printers there probably have embedded linux.

4. You are probably posting using your wireless router again running linux.

5. Watching your dvr or tivo today, again linux.

6. Go to the movies and watching CG animation again rendered on linux.

7. Request a web page, probably linux dns server answering that request.

8. Check your email, again probably linux or routed through linux boxes somewhere.

9. Wipe your ass, some embedded controller at the paper mill running linux made that happen.

10. Picking your nose... well ok linux probably had nothing to do with that but that is what the
parent had to be doing when authoring that post.

Linux touches your life everyday and does so without
being noticed...now that is the killer app!

Re:Really?

[Jesus_666]

True. Linux doesn't win by competing strongly in one market, it wins by competing in all markets at once, including ones that Microsoft couldn't even be bothered to think about if they were caught in a sea of excruciating boredom. Putting their OS on a USB stick-sized computer with the raw power of a 1996 gaming rig isn't sexy to Microsoft, but there are companies who make money that way (google "gumstix").

Microsoft might own the desktop, but when you build, say, an autonomous blimp for a research project, you're not going to use Windows Mobile as the operating system. When you build your own Cell-based monster audio processor you're not going to use it either. Or when setting up a Playstation 2 cluster. Or when gutting an old CRT monitor, replacing the tube with an LCD screen and putting in everything you need to turn the thing into a combintaion TV/DVD player/PVR.

Linux is everywhere. It doesn't need to win against Microsoft, because it doesn't even need to compete - there are dozens of other playing fields it's already plaing on.

He can go get a Mac now

[cyberkahn]

"After 17 years with the company, Jim Allchin retired from Microsoft as of Jan. 30, 2007 - the day on which Microsoft officially released the Windows Vista operating system to consumers." Here's his bio.

Re:Context is important-crossplatform for Windows

[Locutus]

(big with Slashdotters, but not even a blip on the radar screen with 99% of Microsoft's customer base)

you know, this makes me think that this "cross platform" stuff should not be pushed as 'cross OS' but instead, it should be talked about in relation to working across Microsofts various OS's and their versions.
Here are two scenarios in this regard:

1:
developer1-"Look, why don't we start these new projects on JBOSS and Java? It's all cross-platform and we can not only run it on our Windows Server 2003 machines, if we could also run it on a Linux server."
developer2-"Who cares about Linux, we're a Microsoft shop so it doesn't matter if the project runs on Linux."

2:
developer1-"Look, why don't we start these new project on JBOSS and JAVA? It's all cross-platform and we can not only run it on our Windows Server 2003 machines, it'll also run it on that Windows Server 2000 machine we have running just a few database translations a week. And, it'll run on and can be developed on the Windows XP machines we all have." developer2-"You mean the app software will run on those without having to upgrade them? That's cool and if it works, we won't have to deal with changing everything again when we have to bring in the Vista Server machines."

You get the idea.
LoB

Re:Linux material

[bigmammoth]

Reading these documents really crystallize Microsoft's most recent efforts to incorporate patent agreement legal language into their deal with Novel. It is the only front on which Microsoft can wage any form of defense against the inevitable commodification of software. Making everyone a participant is simply much more efficient than top down closed development. While It turned out MS approach to appropriate the linux evangelization though transparency was laughed at "shared source" anyone? ...You have to give them credit for clearly identifying the potential week point: "additionally, strong patent procurement is a key enabler which allows us to publish more of our source code to leverage evangelization benefits (the patent application process is, in a manner of speaking, a form of source publication)" This patent approach could theoretically allow microsoft to benefit from the work of everyone that touches their code while still charging any person that distributes the code for profit via licensing patents. And I imagine that is the direction they are going with their novel agreement. We already have that situation with some open source projects that implement patented technology's forced to have free and non-free (patent licensed) versions for corporate customers while giving away the source for non-commercial usage/development. This is un-free hopefully people will generally recognize it as such & hopefully GL3 will also help. Else we could see Microsoft transform from software licenser into a patent licenser.

Re:BullSh*t

[Brad Eleven]

"Giving corporations HUMAN rights is completely messed up."

Hear, hear. See also the corporations' claim to their right to lobby, since citizens have same. I'd like to see corporations assume the same--actually more--responsibilities as citizens.

In fact, isn't the concept of a corporation based on *avoiding* responsibility, e.g., individual members aren't liable for actions taken by the corporation?