Microsoft knows that its Office upgrades are offering less and less, so it's trying to switch to a subscription model, which many CEOs and CIOs are balking at.
Actually I think CEOs and CIOs are being convinced about this. Consider M$ probably spins this "rental" idea as cheaper than buying and then getting on the upgrade-treadmill.
Additionally it allows M$ a lot more control over what's installed and how long it remains installed. If some company gets along fine with Win3.1 for 15-20 years, they have lost a lot of money in upgrades. If that same company gets the rental agreement today, that company better keep ponying up the cash if it wants to keep on running for the next 10-20 years.
People don't care, but they are not stupid. Even though mass media hasn't covered this topic in great depth yet, people aren't going to be buying new hardware that limits them when they already have old stuff that works. I for one isn't going to buy any lame locked hardware. This doesn't mean that MS and the media companies aren't going to try. In fact, they will try and burn through a couple billion dollars to realize, "we really can't control people as much as we like or think we can."
Actually, there are more and more cattle coming online in the world of personal computing every day! In 1996, I there were dozens of people I knew who thought Windows95 was the only standard for the desktop experience. In 1999, there were dozens of people I knew who would ask, "What's a Netscape?" All M$ has to do is release DRM, the new computer-ignorantsia buy computers for a couple of years and help popularize the "carrot" portion of the OS over the "stick," and pretty soon you run into dozens of people who say: "A computer without DRM? Is there such a thing?"
When Microsoft's ubiquitous rollout of DRM is complete, they may be able to play to the paranoia of media companies desperately grasping for something, anything, to tame the very nature of the bit - to make it uncopyable.
Excellent, cogent reasoning! But don't forget the fact that they may use Congress' devotion to DMCA/DRM to steer bills that effectively make non-DRM competitors' OS's (Mac/Linux/etc.) illegal. Don't think something like this can happen? They snookered the Justice department into "penalizing" them with dumping a billion dollars worth or M$ product into Apple's education niche... thereby eliminating the competition...
I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Bill's pretty crafty. This'll probably be revived in a more sinister form next year.
And how! Now that M$ has sent up the trial balloon: "Please help us take over this aspect of business for free!" and failed, they will simply come back with the tried-and-true: "O.K. We'll find a way to make it impossible for you to be able to use Windows without doing what we want." Leveraging the OS monopoly may not be the easiest route (that's why it wasn't option #1), but it's my guess that this "standard m.o." will be the #2 tactic.
It absolutely, positively, without a doubt must have that cutting edge technology included... you know... the type that allows perfect strangers the power to hijack your Address Book!
Word.
Aquire a monopoly so whatever you do, you can't fail. Innovate.
Cut a deal with Hollywood and the MPAA to use the technology to confiscate fair use rights using "Digital Rights Management." Be a "responsible" corporate citizen.
Later lobby to have all remaining operating system alternatives made illegal due to non-compliance with aforementioned DRM technology. Consolodate power. Always operate within the law.
If you sit through 4 hours of gripping epic tale and mayhem and suddenly notice the sun, which was high in the sky is now gone and the stars are out, it's a great movie.
That's great... now if only I could convince my bladder to see it your way.
... and a special 4-hour, R-rated cut of the film debuting in a 4-disc set on November 12th...
Promo: Ooohhhhh yeah!::Baw-chicka-baw-baaaawww:: It's time for some hot Hobbit-elf, elf-Hobbit action! Who's yer 'Precious' now? Being bound up in the darkness... at a theater near you!
As soon as they click the close-box on the window! Then they will come back in the next "anti-M$," selling-PC's-without-OS's thread and scream about how Windows OEM-liscenses are not only okay now, but that they were never used to protect the monopoly.
Pre-loads are what sell consumer desktops. Microsoft has caught the Linux community in the classic Catch-22 [dictionary.com] at the OEM level. Viz: the consumer lineup of computers stays all-M$ because -- "only desktop-OS's benefit from being pre-loaded, and pre-loads are only done for destop-OS's."
Pre-loads are what sell consumer desktops. Microsoft has caught the Linux community in the classic Catch-22 at the OEM level. Viz: the consumer lineup of computers stays all-M$ because -- "only desktop-OS's benefit from being pre-loaded, and pre-loads are only done for destop-OS's."
M$ always makes it simple to figure out what their product is:
Internet Explorer - a browser.
Word - a word-processor.
Media Player - a media player!
Windows - a windows-based OS.
etc...
Making everything easy-to-understand is the brilliance of marketing and also shows how well M$ knows its customer base. Apparently they are the type who are easily confused... the perfect customers for M$.
3. By prohibiting MS selling OS's to OEMs you denying consumers what they want. This is anti-intitutive, since the stated purpose of the trial is to give consumers more choice, not less. Regardless of what we want, millions of people will still want Windows - even if 50% switched to something else it would not deter the large number of people who Windows newbies/enthusists/loyalists. Denying those people pre-installed Windows is just as bad as MS denying you pre-installed Linux. Why trade one monolithic private monopoly for a monolithic government-enforced monopoly? It doesnt make sense, and its fundamentally unfair.
Wow... your mind is firmly on one track pointed in the wrong direction. Keeping M$ from putting ANY pressure on OEM's to stay away from other OS's is BOUND to allow more choice in the marketplace. The ganga must have kicked in by the end where you were going on about the "monolithic government-enforced monopoly." What reality in a parallel universe did that delusion spring from?
Read the handwriting on the wall. The Mac if anything, is getting more open with BSD UNIX at its core. It shares all the same standard P.C. parts sans processor and BIOS. The P.C. on the other hand, is making "proprietary" calls/technology the number one priority... under the leadership of Microsoft.
How much hardware out there is going to risk loss of sales by not complying to M$'s demands in order to get the "Works With Windows" sticker? How long is it before every P.C. peripheral is useless to Linux the same way a Winmodem is? How long is it before certain hard-drives need to be "upgraded" to clasp M$'s tentacles around both the HW and SW side of the file system?
Better wake up and start making plans to move to Linux or the Mac, otherwise you can stay in that increasingly proprietary cage M$ has made for you -- singing the praises of your own imprisonment.
Slashdot Mirror
'Nuff said.
'Nuff said.
Additionally it allows M$ a lot more control over what's installed and how long it remains installed. If some company gets along fine with Win3.1 for 15-20 years, they have lost a lot of money in upgrades. If that same company gets the rental agreement today, that company better keep ponying up the cash if it wants to keep on running for the next 10-20 years.
Because "Linux" an acronym for "Linux Is Not UNIX!" ;c)
trying to eke sales out
:) Unless time suddenly started moving backward, or cnet hired some editors away from slashdot
of a Unix market that
shrank 18.7 percent from
$25.3 billion in 2001 to
$20.6 billion in 2000
That looks like growth to me
Geeez, I knew there was FUD out there about UNIX, but I had no idea they would be this brazen about it!
Others have alreadypointed out the bloat. (I want an emailer that includes a doctor/Eliza function!),
No doubt emacs will support this functionality soon.
It already does: M-x doctor
It absolutely, positively, without a doubt must have that cutting edge technology included... you know... the type that allows perfect strangers the power to hijack your Address Book! Word.
Don't program in any language made by MICRO SOFT unless you read the Sexual-Enhancement EULA.
I knew this guy once who was getting too involved with EMACS and one day he decided to learn LISP. The next day he was gay. True story.
Mod this guy up. This kind of M$-only orthodoxy-gone-wild is exactly what people who just love their Microsoft game-boxen need to know.
As soon as they click the close-box on the window! Then they will come back in the next "anti-M$," selling-PC's-without-OS's thread and scream about how Windows OEM-liscenses are not only okay now, but that they were never used to protect the monopoly.
Back in the day, before The Matrix, Keanu made another sci-fi show predicated on just this idea. It was called Johnny Mnemonic!
Pre-loads are what sell consumer desktops. Microsoft has caught the Linux community in the classic Catch-22 [dictionary.com] at the OEM level. Viz: the consumer lineup of computers stays all-M$ because -- "only desktop-OS's benefit from being pre-loaded, and pre-loads are only done for destop-OS's."
Pre-loads are what sell consumer desktops. Microsoft has caught the Linux community in the classic Catch-22 at the OEM level. Viz: the consumer lineup of computers stays all-M$ because -- "only desktop-OS's benefit from being pre-loaded, and pre-loads are only done for destop-OS's."
- Internet Explorer - a browser.
- Word - a word-processor.
- Media Player - a media player!
- Windows - a windows-based OS.
etc...Making everything easy-to-understand is the brilliance of marketing and also shows how well M$ knows its customer base. Apparently they are the type who are easily confused... the perfect customers for M$.
Read the handwriting on the wall. The Mac if anything, is getting more open with BSD UNIX at its core. It shares all the same standard P.C. parts sans processor and BIOS. The P.C. on the other hand, is making "proprietary" calls/technology the number one priority... under the leadership of Microsoft.
How much hardware out there is going to risk loss of sales by not complying to M$'s demands in order to get the "Works With Windows" sticker? How long is it before every P.C. peripheral is useless to Linux the same way a Winmodem is? How long is it before certain hard-drives need to be "upgraded" to clasp M$'s tentacles around both the HW and SW side of the file system?
Better wake up and start making plans to move to Linux or the Mac, otherwise you can stay in that increasingly proprietary cage M$ has made for you -- singing the praises of your own imprisonment.