Just because they don't sell it, doesn't mean they don't make money on it. The browser is used as a tool to divert users to their services such as Expedia, MSN, Carpoint, and so on, which in turn can make money for the company.
Now before you flame MS, Real, Netscape and AOL all do the same thing - the product is free, but one has to do quite a great deal of cleanup after the installation. AOL IM and Netscape - Delete QuickLaunch, Delete IE toolbar button, delete Favorite, delete Try AOL shortcuts Real - Unassociate it with all the media types, get rid of "notifications", delete Favorites and QuickLaunch
At least in case of IE, all I have to clean out are the favorites it creates, in Media and Links. Not that bad.
The states "seek to establish themselves as national antitrust policymakers" in a case where they haven't shown any "state-specific injury," the company argued in part.
How can it possibly be that the states have shown no specific cases in their area? I'm sure there are many constituents in this state, or companies, that can demonstrate being harmed by some area of Microsoft actions. The states didn't just all jump on the bandwagon against Microsoft without having any cases themselves, they simply pooled their cases together. And now that the overall case seems to not be happening, they're seeking once again to address their grievances individually by state, b/c they're not happy with the settlement.
I don't see how that's unconstitutional - since the main trial already agreed that MS had a monopoly in the OS market, the states aren't seeking to make federal decisions, only to use them to help their case.
The article is a little sparse, but I don't see this being a solid argument at this point.
Some people may be right in that in his pictures aren't that pretty, or some statements are incorrect, or there may be elements we've seen before, but hey, aren't we forgetting something? His Master's Thesis got posted on Slashdot!!! I mean, how great is that. When and if I ever get to my master's, I'd sure love that kind of recognition. I think he at least gets credit for reaching such a large audience, and for covering a topic we all know and can discuss.
All I was saying is that writing an actual useful application that could be used by many people may ultimately more satisfying and rewarding than writing one specific driver that only a handful of people need, although it may very well be challenging and interesting, not to mention a good learning experience. Having never written a driver, I very well may be mistaken:)
My only question to this is that if computer saturation really does happen and the OS market "collapses", then how does Linux not get affected by that? In a saturated market, why would Linux have this "real competitive advantage", wouldn't the existing computers already run an OS and probably not switch soon?
Kind of puts it in perspective when you realize that the "high" prices we're complaining about are your "low" prices. I mentioned that that $15 is too much usually, but UKP11 is just over that, whereas your chain record store prices seem even more astronomical.
On the bright side, you have a great deal of very talented UK acts, many of whom (most?) release UK-only singles/EPs that us blokes over here have to import for a premium. I finally broke down and bought Muse's Origin of Symmetry as an import, as I don't see it coming over here soon. And it tortures me to hear Strokes' NYC Cops over here, but it's not on the US version of their album (yes, I know arguably not truly a UK act, but that song is avail. in UK).
Yes, many people seem to think that it's a potential lose/lose for MS as you described, but I think MS is really hoping to sucker people in now with the promise of platform independence, and when those initiatives fail, people would then be targeting Windows only. Now, I personally like many concepts of.NET, but I can see why it's a risky initiative. I think 2002 will be an interesting year for development either way the way things are shaping up.
Yes, I am sure, as I was probably one of the first people to start buying cds. Buy.com had every DVD for 14.99 when they started selling them, at least the single-disk ones, and I really got used to thinking that was the normal price for DVDs. Of course now those are only the old titles that are priced like that, 17.99 and up seems to be the standard price, and "prerelease deals" for new stuff are usually above $20, especially for new movies. Hmm, sucker us in and then raise the price, looks like the movie industry and the cd one are sharing the same playbook.
What are the chances of this being successful? I think pretty low, considering that Java hardcore programmers will stay away from MS tools and MS developers will either stick with VB.NET or choose to learn C#. I'm sure they feel they need to still have some Java support just to please a small portion of their customers, but I think similarly to Visual FoxPro, Java is unlikely to get front running from any Microsoft marketing or incentives due to the concentration on other languages.
Incidentally, any good links about J# that you've come across?
Yes, exactly. The argument is always that mall prices are higher because they pay more for rent and infrastructure there, but at the same time, there is a much larger amount of traffic at the mall than at some small strip mall where mom-and-pops are. You would think that with a greater amount of customers, and less need for promotion because potential customers are walking right by you all the time, prices could be the same or even less.
I think the fact that your comment got modded as funny indicates what most people think of vinyl today. I have heard many purists advocate it's "warm analog sound", but if I can't play it in my car or take it to a friend's house, then what's the point?
This is especially true since there is no return policy on opened music in most stores, such as Best Buy. You're absolutely right, I can see myself bying a ton more music if it was $8 per cd or even less and I could return if I didn't like it within let's say 10 days and exchange for another cd.
Now I'm sure some people would choose to use this for piracy, but I know lower prices would be a great incentive to try new stuff, and be less likely to regret and return something not quite good if I didn't spend as much money on it.
It's hard to justify spending $15 when you really only know one song, and there is no listening station for that artist. So you go, ok, I'll go home and download this album, and see if I like it. But then if you do, you already have it downloaded so there is less incentive to go _back_ to the store and buy it. Lower prices would greatly increase impulse purchases of music.
Stop making us look bad here in the USA:) What is the average price for a new cd in the UK, assuming 1.43 conversion rate to US dollar? I'm just curious.
And in many cases, DVDs are cheaper than CDs, which is just completely incredible. Walmart has so many DVD titles for $14.99, but go to any cd store at the mall and face 15.99 prices for music. As you point out, DVDs are harder to make b/c of all the bonus materials, not to mention they entertain you for longer each time. I still buy both, but cd prices are something that have irked me for years.
Now let's guess which moderator was biased and anti-anything that speaks positively of Microsoft. Is it at all possible to have moderators that do not use moderation to push their views? I'm sorry if I'm complaining, but it's irritating to try to have a balanced discussion only to try to have people with their own agendas shut you up.
Very interesting, thanks for the information. I certainly did not know about Japan's role, and it makes sense for the rush if there were not too many address blocks allocated to the region. The first article does mention production deployment of Q4 of 2002, so perhaps not as fast as you might have said, but certainly faster than most of US. I can't wait for Japan to make USA look bad and spur adoption here faster.
VBA, which you mention, as well as VB6 used objects certainly, but were not truly object-oriented. But in.NET, everything is an object and must be dealt with this way, which means all variables, forms, and libraries. So certainly, one can no longer do CStr(intFoo), and has to do intFoo.ToString.
But this also means that VB now has true inheritance and polymorphism. If VBA has been your only exposure, you probably have not done classes, but in VB, Implements was the only way to inherit, and it was very very poor. VB.Net has overloading and true inheritance, which now makes it truly OO.
Um, Visual Foxpro 7 was just released last year before.Net was even out. Are you saying there are no future versions in devlopment, or did you just miss that a new release [microsoft.com] came out
You got me, I did indeed miss this. But why did I miss it? Perhaps MS is still working on supporting it, but it's definitely not at the forefront. The only reason MS has not dropped it yet is because of the vocal and strong VFP community. But when was the last time MS has suggested that anyone use FoxPro for any new development projects? When has it suggested that VFP's database platform is better for any tasks than SQL Server? FoxPro does not exist in MS marketing to the best of my understanding.
Why was it not included in Visual Studio.NET? Ken Levy says in this article that it's because
Visual FoxPro 7.0 will not be included in the upcoming Visual Studio.NET product. Because Visual FoxPro 7.0 is not a Microsoft.NET language and does not share the Visual Studio.NET IDE, Microsoft has decided to ship it ahead of, and separately from, Visual Studio.NET. This will enable FoxPro developers to benefit sooner from the new features of the product and enjoy the productivity enhancements that it provides.
He makes it sound like a benefit, but I don't buy it. If.NET is MS's future, why not VFP.NET? Because it is on its way out.
This sounds like it's perfectly covered in "Lots of early posts that "seem" to be informative/insightful and get mod-ed up when they really shouldn't be..." FAQ answer. NET Enterprise 2002 sounded too good to not be legitimate to someone, it looks like:)
Well, you have to give us somewhat of a break in the USA, larger geographically and greater number of hosts means it's a great deal harder to change. I haven't heard your argument before though, do you have any link with information about IPv6 having such high penetration over there?
You do raise a good point regarding peering companies. But I imagine they do what any transition requires one to do - maintain separate systems until completion, in this case being separate logical (and perhaps in some cases physical) networks. As for peers that want this functionality, but peering company is not cooperating, I'm sure they could find another host. Again, this might be simplistic. But yeah, IPv4 is definitely here for a while, I didn't see its demise mentioned on that "timeline of the future" article a few days back:)
The article is overall pretty positive, but I do disagree with a few things.
I specified VB.Net as opposed to VB; even though Microsoft would have you believe otherwise, the two are really different languages.
I don't think MS is really trying to hide that VB.Net is very different, and many many VB developers are mad at it for changing things so dramatically. Although the syntax is close, there were many changes, some make necessary by the fact that everything is now an object, and some just to drop bad practices (Wend, Goto, Variant, As Any, etc.).
The article also makes it seem like MS is advocating C# completely replacing C++, which it is not. C++ is still included in Visual Studio.NET and although MS is pushing C#, it's not going away in the MS toolbox.
If you want an example of MS dropping a language, look at Visual FoxPro. Anyone remember FoxPro? MS is still officially "no comment" on the matter, I wish they would just come out and announce that it's dead.
The different languages for CLR being alike to skins is a pretty original argument. We could pick it apart, but I see where he's going with it.
I don't like your optimism? I thought I was being nice and honest, but obviously you know better.
Reality is that Microsoft is just an ordinary company that makes a lot of mistakes and screws up a lot. Probably even more than other companies
I completely agree. In fact, your list of failed projects is very interesting, as I have not heard of quite a few of them. But allow me to differ in a few areas.
Full disclosure aside, I own an Xbox, and I do admit that it's possible it will fail. But I don't think it would be for the reasons you stated. A North American company trying to break through a market in Japan cannot do well, and MS did not really expect their launch numbers there to be very high. Considering the strong support they're getting from developers like Sega and Team Ninja, I think their future chances are pretty good. Don't forget that GameCube's launch numbers were even worse - we are in an economic downturn still, after all.
As for the hardware drivers question, the only reason there is no large community writing drivers for Windows is because of course there is no reason for it. I don't think most developers are very excited about writing drivers - they're programs with very narrow purpose that are obseleted on a whim by the hardware manufacturer with a minor product revision. As Linux gains support, hardware companies will try to ensure to make both Windows and Linux drivers inhouse, and I hope to see independent need for driver writing go away. Linux community has more exciting and better applications to create.
I'll refer a full discussion of why HTTP is poor to some already existing excellent posts, but the quick answer here is that you're confusing interface with what's going on behind the scenes. Sure you could build a simple interface that could be accessed even using Gopher, but applications are more and more complicated on the server side, and getting everything to communicate is hard with a stateless short-term protocol. Flashy ads = HTML, on intranet apps this is not even an issue.
Slashdot Mirror
Just because they don't sell it, doesn't mean they don't make money on it. The browser is used as a tool to divert users to their services such as Expedia, MSN, Carpoint, and so on, which in turn can make money for the company.
Now before you flame MS, Real, Netscape and AOL all do the same thing - the product is free, but one has to do quite a great deal of cleanup after the installation.
AOL IM and Netscape - Delete QuickLaunch, Delete IE toolbar button, delete Favorite, delete Try AOL shortcuts
Real - Unassociate it with all the media types, get rid of "notifications", delete Favorites and QuickLaunch
At least in case of IE, all I have to clean out are the favorites it creates, in Media and Links. Not that bad.
Please don't knock 3D, it happens to be my preferred state of perceiving this world. Thanks.
The states "seek to establish themselves as national antitrust policymakers" in a case where they haven't shown any "state-specific injury," the company argued in part.
How can it possibly be that the states have shown no specific cases in their area? I'm sure there are many constituents in this state, or companies, that can demonstrate being harmed by some area of Microsoft actions. The states didn't just all jump on the bandwagon against Microsoft without having any cases themselves, they simply pooled their cases together. And now that the overall case seems to not be happening, they're seeking once again to address their grievances individually by state, b/c they're not happy with the settlement.
I don't see how that's unconstitutional - since the main trial already agreed that MS had a monopoly in the OS market, the states aren't seeking to make federal decisions, only to use them to help their case.
The article is a little sparse, but I don't see this being a solid argument at this point.
Some people may be right in that in his pictures aren't that pretty, or some statements are incorrect, or there may be elements we've seen before, but hey, aren't we forgetting something? His Master's Thesis got posted on Slashdot!!! I mean, how great is that. When and if I ever get to my master's, I'd sure love that kind of recognition. I think he at least gets credit for reaching such a large audience, and for covering a topic we all know and can discuss.
All I was saying is that writing an actual useful application that could be used by many people may ultimately more satisfying and rewarding than writing one specific driver that only a handful of people need, although it may very well be challenging and interesting, not to mention a good learning experience. Having never written a driver, I very well may be mistaken :)
My only question to this is that if computer saturation really does happen and the OS market "collapses", then how does Linux not get affected by that? In a saturated market, why would Linux have this "real competitive advantage", wouldn't the existing computers already run an OS and probably not switch soon?
Kind of puts it in perspective when you realize that the "high" prices we're complaining about are your "low" prices. I mentioned that that $15 is too much usually, but UKP11 is just over that, whereas your chain record store prices seem even more astronomical.
On the bright side, you have a great deal of very talented UK acts, many of whom (most?) release UK-only singles/EPs that us blokes over here have to import for a premium. I finally broke down and bought Muse's Origin of Symmetry as an import, as I don't see it coming over here soon. And it tortures me to hear Strokes' NYC Cops over here, but it's not on the US version of their album (yes, I know arguably not truly a UK act, but that song is avail. in UK).
Err, I meant "to start buying DVDs". Should've previewed first, my apologies.
Yes, many people seem to think that it's a potential lose/lose for MS as you described, but I think MS is really hoping to sucker people in now with the promise of platform independence, and when those initiatives fail, people would then be targeting Windows only. Now, I personally like many concepts of .NET, but I can see why it's a risky initiative. I think 2002 will be an interesting year for development either way the way things are shaping up.
Yes, I am sure, as I was probably one of the first people to start buying cds. Buy.com had every DVD for 14.99 when they started selling them, at least the single-disk ones, and I really got used to thinking that was the normal price for DVDs. Of course now those are only the old titles that are priced like that, 17.99 and up seems to be the standard price, and "prerelease deals" for new stuff are usually above $20, especially for new movies. Hmm, sucker us in and then raise the price, looks like the movie industry and the cd one are sharing the same playbook.
What are the chances of this being successful? I think pretty low, considering that Java hardcore programmers will stay away from MS tools and MS developers will either stick with VB.NET or choose to learn C#. I'm sure they feel they need to still have some Java support just to please a small portion of their customers, but I think similarly to Visual FoxPro, Java is unlikely to get front running from any Microsoft marketing or incentives due to the concentration on other languages.
Incidentally, any good links about J# that you've come across?
Yes, exactly. The argument is always that mall prices are higher because they pay more for rent and infrastructure there, but at the same time, there is a much larger amount of traffic at the mall than at some small strip mall where mom-and-pops are. You would think that with a greater amount of customers, and less need for promotion because potential customers are walking right by you all the time, prices could be the same or even less.
I think the fact that your comment got modded as funny indicates what most people think of vinyl today. I have heard many purists advocate it's "warm analog sound", but if I can't play it in my car or take it to a friend's house, then what's the point?
This is especially true since there is no return policy on opened music in most stores, such as Best Buy. You're absolutely right, I can see myself bying a ton more music if it was $8 per cd or even less and I could return if I didn't like it within let's say 10 days and exchange for another cd.
Now I'm sure some people would choose to use this for piracy, but I know lower prices would be a great incentive to try new stuff, and be less likely to regret and return something not quite good if I didn't spend as much money on it.
It's hard to justify spending $15 when you really only know one song, and there is no listening station for that artist. So you go, ok, I'll go home and download this album, and see if I like it. But then if you do, you already have it downloaded so there is less incentive to go _back_ to the store and buy it. Lower prices would greatly increase impulse purchases of music.
Stop making us look bad here in the USA :) What is the average price for a new cd in the UK, assuming 1.43 conversion rate to US dollar? I'm just curious.
And in many cases, DVDs are cheaper than CDs, which is just completely incredible. Walmart has so many DVD titles for $14.99, but go to any cd store at the mall and face 15.99 prices for music. As you point out, DVDs are harder to make b/c of all the bonus materials, not to mention they entertain you for longer each time. I still buy both, but cd prices are something that have irked me for years.
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=1, Insightful=1, Interesting=1, Total=3.
Now let's guess which moderator was biased and anti-anything that speaks positively of Microsoft. Is it at all possible to have moderators that do not use moderation to push their views? I'm sorry if I'm complaining, but it's irritating to try to have a balanced discussion only to try to have people with their own agendas shut you up.
I hope meta-moderation catches this eventually.
Very interesting, thanks for the information. I certainly did not know about Japan's role, and it makes sense for the rush if there were not too many address blocks allocated to the region. The first article does mention production deployment of Q4 of 2002, so perhaps not as fast as you might have said, but certainly faster than most of US. I can't wait for Japan to make USA look bad and spur adoption here faster.
VBA, which you mention, as well as VB6 used objects certainly, but were not truly object-oriented. But in .NET, everything is an object and must be dealt with this way, which means all variables, forms, and libraries. So certainly, one can no longer do CStr(intFoo), and has to do intFoo.ToString.
But this also means that VB now has true inheritance and polymorphism. If VBA has been your only exposure, you probably have not done classes, but in VB, Implements was the only way to inherit, and it was very very poor. VB.Net has overloading and true inheritance, which now makes it truly OO.
Um, Visual Foxpro 7 was just released last year before .Net was even out. Are you saying there are no future versions in devlopment, or did you just miss that a new release [microsoft.com] came out
.NET product. Because Visual FoxPro 7.0 is not a Microsoft .NET language and does not share the Visual Studio .NET IDE, Microsoft has decided to ship it ahead of, and separately from, Visual Studio .NET. This will enable FoxPro developers to benefit sooner from the new features of the product and enjoy the productivity enhancements that it provides.
.NET is MS's future, why not VFP.NET? Because it is on its way out.
You got me, I did indeed miss this. But why did I miss it? Perhaps MS is still working on supporting it, but it's definitely not at the forefront. The only reason MS has not dropped it yet is because of the vocal and strong VFP community. But when was the last time MS has suggested that anyone use FoxPro for any new development projects? When has it suggested that VFP's database platform is better for any tasks than SQL Server? FoxPro does not exist in MS marketing to the best of my understanding.
Why was it not included in Visual Studio.NET? Ken Levy says in this article that it's because
Visual FoxPro 7.0 will not be included in the upcoming Visual Studio
He makes it sound like a benefit, but I don't buy it. If
This sounds like it's perfectly covered in "Lots of early posts that "seem" to be informative/insightful and get mod-ed up when they really shouldn't be..." FAQ answer. NET Enterprise 2002 sounded too good to not be legitimate to someone, it looks like :)
Well, you have to give us somewhat of a break in the USA, larger geographically and greater number of hosts means it's a great deal harder to change. I haven't heard your argument before though, do you have any link with information about IPv6 having such high penetration over there?
:)
You do raise a good point regarding peering companies. But I imagine they do what any transition requires one to do - maintain separate systems until completion, in this case being separate logical (and perhaps in some cases physical) networks. As for peers that want this functionality, but peering company is not cooperating, I'm sure they could find another host. Again, this might be simplistic. But yeah, IPv4 is definitely here for a while, I didn't see its demise mentioned on that "timeline of the future" article a few days back
The article is overall pretty positive, but I do disagree with a few things.
I specified VB.Net as opposed to VB; even though Microsoft would have you believe otherwise, the two are really different languages.
I don't think MS is really trying to hide that VB.Net is very different, and many many VB developers are mad at it for changing things so dramatically. Although the syntax is close, there were many changes, some make necessary by the fact that everything is now an object, and some just to drop bad practices (Wend, Goto, Variant, As Any, etc.).
The article also makes it seem like MS is advocating C# completely replacing C++, which it is not. C++ is still included in Visual Studio.NET and although MS is pushing C#, it's not going away in the MS toolbox.
If you want an example of MS dropping a language, look at Visual FoxPro. Anyone remember FoxPro? MS is still officially "no comment" on the matter, I wish they would just come out and announce that it's dead.
The different languages for CLR being alike to skins is a pretty original argument. We could pick it apart, but I see where he's going with it.
I don't like your optimism? I thought I was being nice and honest, but obviously you know better.
Reality is that Microsoft is just an ordinary company that makes a lot of mistakes and screws up a lot. Probably even more than other companies
I completely agree. In fact, your list of failed projects is very interesting, as I have not heard of quite a few of them. But allow me to differ in a few areas.
Full disclosure aside, I own an Xbox, and I do admit that it's possible it will fail. But I don't think it would be for the reasons you stated. A North American company trying to break through a market in Japan cannot do well, and MS did not really expect their launch numbers there to be very high. Considering the strong support they're getting from developers like Sega and Team Ninja, I think their future chances are pretty good. Don't forget that GameCube's launch numbers were even worse - we are in an economic downturn still, after all.
As for the hardware drivers question, the only reason there is no large community writing drivers for Windows is because of course there is no reason for it. I don't think most developers are very excited about writing drivers - they're programs with very narrow purpose that are obseleted on a whim by the hardware manufacturer with a minor product revision. As Linux gains support, hardware companies will try to ensure to make both Windows and Linux drivers inhouse, and I hope to see independent need for driver writing go away. Linux community has more exciting and better applications to create.
I'll refer a full discussion of why HTTP is poor to some already existing excellent posts, but the quick answer here is that you're confusing interface with what's going on behind the scenes. Sure you could build a simple interface that could be accessed even using Gopher, but applications are more and more complicated on the server side, and getting everything to communicate is hard with a stateless short-term protocol. Flashy ads = HTML, on intranet apps this is not even an issue.