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Ballmer Admits Google Apps Are Biting Into MS Office
twitter points out coverage of a discussion between Steve Ballmer and two Gartner analysts in which the Microsoft CEO admits that Google Apps is enjoying an advantage over Office by users who want to share their documents. He points to Office Live as their response to Google, and adds, "Google has the lead, but, if we're good at advertising, we'll compete with them in the consumer business." Whether or not they're good at advertising is still in question, if their recent attempts are any indication. Ballmer also made statements indicating some sort of arrangement with Yahoo! could still be in the works, but Microsoft was quick to step on that idea. Regarding Windows Vista, he said Microsoft was prepared for people to skip it altogether, and that Microsoft would be "ready" when it was time to deploy Windows 7.
As much as I am loath to say this, I seriously doubt Microsoft has to worry about Google-apps. Corp-America is not going to go Google-apps. But mind you, they WILL worry. Because Microsoft is so fucking egotistical as a company they can't envision anyone having something successful besides them. It pisses them off, esp. Balmer. They just can't accept that they should stick to what they're good at (were good?). If they put as much effort into making Windows better it WOULD be. They chased the search market in vain and the mp3 player in vain. They're a spoiled company that thinks they should have it because they want it. Microsoft never innovates. They copy or buy. They usually fail at copying. The XBox is a noted example of something they copied and succeeded at gaining market. Keep at it, MS! Pursue! The more money you waste on shit like online apps the more that won't go into Windows! Which is fine. The world would be better off if more people would move on to another OS.
easier for the average user to do what?
someone who's used KDE or Gnome since 1995 would find it easier to use KDE/Gnome than !KDE or !Gnome. what does that prove? unless you're trying to argue that people should stick with the same operating system that they've used in the past because users are too stupid to deal with change, i don't really see your point. that has nothing to do with UI uniformity or the usability of a particular OS.
there's more to software user-friendliness/usability than just resistance to change.
Viruses - THis is not a OS problem, its a user problem.
If Windows can be infected with viruses or malware within hours of installation, with almost no user input, that is an OS problem. Lame excuses not accepted.
Crashes - Yeah, comeback with real proof.
Having just spent the last few hours rescuing a friend's computer when Microsoft had advised her to re-format and reinstall (which would have blown away her PhD thesis in the process) after a crash from which it wouldn't reboot, I think I'm in a good position to answer that. This lady was only running MS Word at the time, and last time I looked, that was MS code.
I have been using Linux on all of my desktop machines since 1995, and I have never had a kernel crash. No, NOT EVEN ONCE. Sure, I have had the occasional panic on bootup when I've done something stupid like forgetting to build in support for my root filesystem type, but I don't think that counts.