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Visio to be bought by Microsoft
terrified wrote to to us with the official word that Visio has been purchased by Microsoft. Visio makes some incredible network diagramming and technical drawing software and is used extensively worldwide. The deal was a 1.3$US billion dollar stock swap between the two companies.
visio has been in bed w/ MS forever.
They have used OLE/OCX/COM stuff as
soon as it came out and was a reference customer
in all the developer PR stuff.
I personally think Rational software is next
target for MS. They are in bed w/ them too,
and more garbage to add to MSDEV to jack up
the price. Can you say "Universal Enterprise
Edition" or some crap like that
Visio make a useful program, that integrates well with office. They stick with the newest MS trends (I refuse to call them innovations) and work with MS. They were practically in MS's pocket for years before being bought out.
This is probably a good thing for users of office and Visio, integration is bound to become tighter, but its bad news for those who want Visio for Linux.
A decent vector graphics program is pretty much the only non-games thing I really miss in Linux
Roll on Dia and/or CorelDraw/Linux
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
Actually, unless it can be shown that they're trying to extend their monopoly to prevent others from entering the market, it's perfectly legal. Let's remember, having a monopoly is not illegal in the U.S. Using it to stifle competition is, which is basically what the DOJ is charging Microsoft with.
Now, if Microsoft had the 2nd most popular business diagramming package and tried to buy Visio, you'd have a whole different ballgame. Here's where the fact that they have a monopoly in one area can prevent them from doing things in another. This is exactly why they weren't allowed to purchase Intuit; it was seen as an attempt to eliminate competition in an area where they had tried (and failed) to gain a majority marketshare.
Problem is, it would be a really hard sell to gov't regulators. There is a long history of these types of market consolidations, and invariably the gov't stays out of it unless it gets ridiculous. After all, it's fairly easy to show that these things benefit the consumer short term, and difficult to show the long term damage.
Pan Am back in the early part of the century, and RCA in about the same time frame, are two excellent examples of times the gov't stayed hands off when they probably should have gotten involved. While both of these companies 'got theirs' in the end, they did a very good job of stomping competition flat (and all the innovations that come with it) for several decades first.
As far as the legality goes, if Microsoft's intent in buying Visio is to leverage (blech; hate that word) the Windows monopoly in order to gain the same dominance in the productivity market that they have in the 'office suite' market (which, as you pointed out, they basically created for the purpose), then yes, that's illegal. Again, though, the legality is basically defined by intent. Keeping in mind that most people don't believe that giving away IE and integrating it into Windows was done to kill Netscape, I have little hope that anyone's going to do anything about it.
The whole thing's kind of depressing, actually.
Dia is a program that is quite similar. It doesn't have all the functionality of Visio (yet), but it's early days. Still, I've heard several people swear by it. Check it out.
...that Visio would get a dancing paper clip?
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
A friend asked me whether this was good or bad. I wasn't really sure -- maybe Microsoft wants to roll it into Office or Visual Whatever or something, maybe they'll fuck it up, who knows.
.eps output into typeset LaTeX for that FrameMaker look) for free with little hassle. The architecture is meant to allow Visio-like plugins for transforming SQL to ER diagrams and vice versa, although AFAIK no one has implemented it (I started to look into it and got distracted).
But one thing is for sure. Dia, for any Unix that can build GTK+, is a great tool and in combination with LyX can produce truly professional results (embedding the dia
Check it out:
Dia, a diagram creation program
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
I guess we now have all the more incentive to hack on Dia, then.
Matthew.
It's licensed per machine, with no option for site licensing or concurrent use from a server. That means that when people mail us round visio attachments, I can't see them, 'coz my department doesn't have the budget to put Visio on everyone's desk. A concurrent use license would be ideal, because it's not something we all use all the time...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Interestingly enough, within the past two years, Visio acquired InfoModelers. InfoModelers chief product was InfoModeler, a data diagramming tool that used Object Role Modeling, a relatively obscure diagramming notation. The InfoModeler technology was integrated into Visio Enterprise last year
Anyway, InfoModelers was once part of Asymetrix, and we all know who put a lot of money into Asymetrix - Paul Allen!
So, InfoModeler starts at Asymetrix, leaves home, gets bought by Visio and is now part of Microsoft. Paul Allen is a genius!
They own Avid, which makes SoftImage. They yanked all of their logos off of Avid's web site a while ago when they realized how badly it was hurting Avid's image. But they are still the second largest shareholder in Avid.
Microsoft *is* into 3D rendering.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
Nor was web publishing when they bought Vermeer to get Frontpage...
This seems to be standard modus operandi for Micros~1: Instead of creating technology they buy the companies that have the technology they want.
What about gtk-- (gtk+ C++ wrapper) as an option for C++ development in a Gnomish environment? I haven't tried it yet, as I am just as comfortable using straight C, but it seems like something worth looking into if you want to use C++.
If Microsoft decides they want to play in the *nix world, its more likely that Microsoft would just buy out Novell, AT&T and the Micheal's shares of SCO, which would give them pretty close to a controlling interest in SCO, if not outright majority ownership. They could then do whatever they wanted when it came to attempts at co-opting the *nix market. Or they could just try to screw around with the licenses of the commercial *nixes. Or they could kill/maim the Monterey project (64 bit UNIX for IA-64). Or they could do all of the above.
Microsoft obviously believes that they will either win the current case, or that if they lose the case, the penalty will be negligible, or that they can afford to fight another case should one come up (or when one does).
Given how poorly the DOJ brought out the real issues that should have been used against Microsoft, I can understand why Microsoft seems to feel so little threat from them.
I wasn't suggesting that SCO would be a big Linux competitor (because I agree with you there -- I don't think there is any good reason why a home or most small business users would choose SCO over Linux anymore). I merely think that if Microsoft decided they wanted to get out from under contractual obligations to SCO in regards to their entry into the *nix market, they could easily afford to just buy SCO out and make it a non-issue.
Nah, its not really flamebait (at least it is put politely and coherently). I think there is room for rational discussion, including disagreements. What we don't need are the "'huh-huh... **** sucks... huh-huh huh-huh' 'heh-heh, yea, and it sucks too. heh-heh-heh'" type of comments.
I am not really that familiar with QT, and am only familar with KDE from the end-user standpoint so I can't say for sure, but would it be possible to make a more QT/KDE like C++ binding that worked with GTK+ as the underlying widget set? If not, maybe you can come up with your own C++ bindings for GTK+ that you were more comfortable with than GTK--? Maybe you could just suggest some improvements to the GTK-- bindings?
If the QT/KDE and GTK+/Gnome communities are going to start working together, whatever we can do to facilitate compatibility and communication between us is a good thing, IMO.
Cool! Score one for the spirit of cooperation! You sound like someone who could really provide some positive feedback to the GTK+ and GTK-- developers, so please make sure you send back any ideas/patches/comments you have to them. I am hoping that they will take advantage of this if you do.
The DoJ actually brought out the real issues very well.
Actually, I think that the issues the DoJ brought out were presented pretty well, I just think that they spent too much time talking about browsers and didn't bring up or didn't spend enough time on some other things (OS license agreements, databases, etc) that were as, or more important.
The other thing is that it is Microsoft who's largely the only one (Except for the "microsoft" press) that's claiming that the DoJ did a poor job bringing out the real issues.
Well, it looks more to me like Microsoft (and their apologists) is/are claiming that there either are no issues to be brought up or that the issues that were brought up aren't important (and that isn't what I was saying -- I just believe a lot of important issues didn't get covered). The last thing Microsoft would want to say is that there were relevant complaints against them that weren't brought up.
Microsoft's defense was *really* bad.
Here you are absolutely correct. I'd be really upset if I was paying what Microsoft was for legal fees and I got such poor defense. Microsoft seriously bungled things and seemed ill-prepared, which they should not have given their resources. I would tend to concur that Microsoft must not have taken this whole case very seriously. Unfortunately, I think that they may be justified in this because I suspect that the judgement against them will lack enough teeth to make any real difference at this late date.
That means that those of us that would oppose Microsoft (or at least want to see them kept in check to a certain degree) must remain vigilant.
If I get some free time, I will be working on a companion library to GTK that does all the non-gui support tasks like threads and sockets in a portable, OO way.
Cool. There are already a few C++ wrappers around POSIX threads and Berkeley Sockets which you might be able to use as a starting point. If you can build on something else, then all you have to do is make it fit within the GTK+/Gnome architecture.
Safeway Systems
I think that you mean Softway Systems. While this sort of product (Cygwin32, MKS Toolkit, etc) probably make NT more palatable for some *nix orriented power users as a desktop OS, I don't see it as doing too much to help make NT a more viable enterprise solution in the server room. Call me crazy, but adding more stuff (especially from a 3rd party) to an already bloated environment doesn't seem like a good way to reduce bloat or improve stability. Those are two of the main things that Microsoft is getting beat up on in the server world.
I'm not so sure that running as a separate subsystem instead of on top of Win32 is necessarily that great a thing (at least not if its exclusively so), as that is one of the great failings of the built-in POSIX subsystem of NT (not being able to mix and match *nix and Windows stuff easily). Licensing the NT source is kinda a dangerous thing for a small company like Softway. They should closely at what has happened to companies like Citrix and Bristol who based their future on such agreements.
Most folks are commenting on the obvious connection with Visio's eponymous diagramming package, which does make a nice (for MS) addition to their Office suite, a partial countermove to Sun's making StarOffice gratis. (Does StarOffice include anything Visio-like?)
However, on a second front, Visio also owns a CAD software package (IntelliCAD?) that is fully AutoCAD compatible, right down to running AutoLisp macros, reading/writing the latest DXF files, etc.
(The history goes back a bit - SoftDesk originally wrote the ACAD clone so AutoDesk bought them out, but DOJ required them to spin off the ACAD-like software (anti-monopoly move) which they sold to an obscure Australian company that Visio later bought. Confused yet?)
In addition to an add-on for Office, and ensuring that Visio never gets ported to Linux, MS now owns a package that can (and will, count on it) compete with AutoCAD. (Not that AutoCAD, at a thousand dollars or so per seat, couldn't use some competition - but it already had that without MS buying the Visio company.) It also ensures that IntelliCAD (am I getting the right package name?) is never ported to Linux.
This is a very clever strategic move for Microsoft, equivalent to capturing a couple of key pieces in shogi (unlike chess, in shogi you can place captured pieces on the board as your own).
So, what open/free CAD packages are in development out there? And what visio-like diagramming packages? Time to get coding....
-- Alastair
I've used Visio on NT, and it already integrates nicely with Office apps via OLE/COM/whatever-the-hell-they're-calling-it-this- week. So it should be fairly easy for Microsoft to work it in under the Office umbrella.
You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. Freedom is irrelevant. Standards are irrelevant. All software companies will be assimilated into the Microsoft collective.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
For the consumer:
*IF* you use Microsoft products (and if you use Visio, chances are you do) then this may be good for you. AFAIK, Visio has no plans to do other platforms anyway - and they were way deep into the Office model. I don't see how they could do other platforms without a major re-write. The Office integration has been a nice feature, if you're an Office user. I can only imagine MS would make that more so. I expect Visio would become a piece of one of the Office flavors? We can even hope the cost will go down.
For Microsoft:
There is a little bit of a hole in their product lineup this fills nicely. It even functions as a baby CAD package. There is a Pro version that does things like network autodiscovery and database diagramming (Informix and Oracle at present, no Sybase or MS SQL. I imagine the latter will be fixed soon) which is a new market for MS. It's not like Visio was competeing with anything at MS, and it's very complimentary to lots of MS products. Heck, MS probably just wants the revenue.
For the general populace/Anti-MS crowd:
Well, it's yet another good product that is no owned by MS. I suspect some folks would have written it off anyway, given how heavily MS/Office it is. Overall, I don't think it changes much. MS owns one more particular market. That marekt was previosuly owned by Visio, so at least they didn't kill anyone off.
There are always some interesting implications when Microsoft decides to buy out a company for their product, implications that should interest the Linux community. Whenever a company is bought out by Microsoft, my assumption is that any sort of a Linux port is out of the question. Is this right? I'm not up on my anti-trust laws, but this seems like snuffing out the competition by owning the market that supports the competition. Much like Barnes & Noble couldn't buy up all the book warehouses in the company to put Amazon out of business, it seems like there should be checks in place to keep Microsoft from buying up all the application "warehouses."
You know, for years, I couldn't quite figure out why Microsoft ported Office and IE to the Mac platform, and to be honest, it's a bit puzzling to me still. But the purchase by Microsoft shouldn't surprise anyone. Someone's already noted that they have some very tight integration with MS Office, Visio was started by ex-Microsoft employees, plus the Vision offices are in Seattle! I'm just surprised this didn't happen sooner -- Microsoft could've paid less than the $1.6B they coughed up.
--jeddz
I've used Visio for years, and while I've loved it, there have been a few features I've been asking for, but have never gotten.
Finally, with Microsoft at the helm, I'm sure to get the things I've been needing to work productively. My needs are simple and few: increased instability, bloat, and improved incompatibility.
I was beginning to wonder if I was asking for too much from Visio, and I guess I was. But Microsoft has the background necessary to deliver. Hallelujia!
> Pagemaker
:)
There is MS Publisher.
I don't know for the others, but I think MS and Adobe have some kind of deal. (Who knows, maybe MS will buy Adobe once Adobe is done eating the graphic/desktop publishing market
Visio took great pains to integrate their software into MS Office, and so MS probably recognised it and decided to go all the way with it.
This is one product I don't mind MS touching. As far as designing flowcharts and presentations goes, MS does OK. I just wish they'd stick to that instead of trying to design operating systems. :)
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
This is horrible news. Not only because it shows Microsoft gaining a ready-made venture in another sector of the computing industry and Visio losing its autonomy, but also because Visio, not too long ago, introduced a pseudo-Open Source program for IntelliCAD.
I should say that the IntelliCAD Technology Consortium will either be quietly killed or merely allowed to wither, with no infusions of new work.
--
--
There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
I don't understand why a company just producing closing arguments for an antitrust case against them would go off and munch another company. Then again, they probably will just throw lawyers at this case until everybody forgets about it.
-drstatgeek (close enough, at least
Is this anything like Intermapper? Quite a good network diagramming tool, and still available for reasonable cost from Dartmouth Uni, I think.
I know there are a lot more... but I figured I'd kick off the list.