So, let's look at some interesting facts: 1. MS Puts back the release of its latest Server OS.
If you want to look at facts, then post facts. MS is pushing back the successor to their latest Server OS. Their latest server OS is in RC1 and should be out by Q1 of next year.
The key phrase here is "to force competitors out of business". The XBox is sold at a loss because that's part of the console business. I know many will cry "but Gord says that's a myth!", but it's not. Loss-leaders have been a part of many businesses for a long time, and Microsoft's larger-than-usual loss is easily justified by it's larger-than-usual attach rate (number of games, controllers, etc. sold per unit).
Internet Explorer is to Netscape as Explorer was to "DOS file browsers". What used to be a seperate product is now a trivial and ubiquitous function of a computer, and therefore packaged as a value added feature to an OS. You can dissagree with the technical design, but it's not your product to design. The fact of the matter is that browsing the web has because a fundamental feature of almost every gadget. If that doesn't sell you, think about Trumpet Winsock before the days of Dialup Networking or a TCP/IP stack being built into Windows. TCP/IP stacks used to be a product space. Did Microsoft "abuse their monopoly" by giving customers something that they wanted, and therefore crushing the "competition"? And not to troll, but the release of a substandard browser (3.0 was great, I'm talking about Communicator) really didn't help the situation for Netscape either.
First of all I want to start by saying that I agree with this part of the ruling and I find it disconcerning that Microsoft felt that they needed to strong-arm OEM's as opposed to competing simply on the merits of their product.
I still feel there has been competition, however, I never believed that Microsoft attained it's monopoly through these tactics. There has been competition in the x86 sector (although less then possible because of the OEM issues), but more importantly there has always been competition in the desktop and server sectors. You can always buy a Sun, SGI, Apple, IBM, desktop or server.
I think it's important to discern the difference between the illegal _maintaining_ of a monpoly and the illegal _attaining_ of a monopoly. Microsoft won fair and square, they just used questionable (and now ruled illegal) tactics to maintain that position.
Right, but this has to do with the volume of electricity. Again, I have no problem with ISP's either A) capping my bandwidth or B) charging me for additional bandwidth usage. The power company does not care if you are powering a computer or heat lamps for growing pot.
Utilities (and I consider broadband a utility just as much as electricity or water) should not be able to control what you do with bandwidth. What they can do, is sell you a limited amount of bandwidth. If my provider is giving me 1.5Mb/down, and 256kb up (burstable), then it shouldn't matter if I'm using it all day or not. Filtering packets based on what you're doing is, in my opinion, like the telephone company saying that I talk to my Uncle too much on the phone so they're going to block his number.
I have no problem with the enforcing of copyrights, but that is not (and should never be) the ISP's job. We all know that this has absolutely nothing to do with the ISP's "respect" for copyrights, rather, this is simply about saving money by limiting bandwidth usage.
I'm not at all Anti-Mac, but I really have to address a couple of issues: 1) No viruses.
There are plenty of Mac viruses to keep Mac users on alert. Windows is worse _ONLY_ if you use Microsoft Outlook Express. Stay away from that program (it should be marked as a trojan by McAfee IMHO). I personally have had no virus problems with my Windows PC.
2) I can clone my entire HD with a freeware utility
I'm not sure what you mean by clone (complete disk copy or a disk image), but XCopy32 (built into Windows) works great not to mention many freeware utilities.
6) Apple gives you, out of box, almost all the software you need to get productive
So does Dell.
7) 802.11 networking is built into the OS and every new mac... no drivers necessary.
Kind of... Many users site Airport problems (I think Jaguar has resolved most of them). 3rd party 802.11b devices may also require drivers. With WinXP many 3rd party drivers are already included and if not it's PnP.
8) Almost every printer is supported in X.2 Installing printers is also a breeze in with 2K or XP.
I hate it when my mom asks me why she can't open attachments
If it's an executeable on ANY OS you have to be careful.
Nevertheless, Apple has done a lot of things Right, and they have little to go to catch up to XP in some areas, and have surpassed XP in others. Linux... well, on the desktop it's playing catch up with both OS's IMHO.
Actually, YOU are believing in the Mhz myth just as much as everyone else. Mhz doesn't mean much of anything - somewhat regardless of the pipeline as well (branch prediction can make up for longer pipelines, for example). What does matter is real world performance, and in certain area's G4's are way behind Athlon's and P4's. Altivec is great, but only helps in very specific area's (Like a Guassian Blur) but due to poor memory bandwidth can't be used in larger, more practical uses.
Finally, The Man Mr. Carmack has this to say about G4's, how a P3 _can_ be faster in certain area's, and how Altivec is not relevant for apps like games (although on x86 SIMD is very important for games). Read more here.
BTW: I think Apple has done an incredible job with it's hardware of late. I'm a Windows guy myself but for normal "desktop" users I've been continually recommending the G4 iMac's as they are great machines. G4's are fast enough for many applications and I don't feel that Mac's feel slow at all (assuming OS 10.1 or 10.2). However, I do know that when I want speed (eg: for games or 3D rendering) I'll go x86 for almost twice the speed at a fraction of the price.
Re:Linux needs a more professional evangelist
on
Halloween VII
·
· Score: 2
That's not what I said. It doesn't bother ME at all, but it does make him look childish in certain eyes. PHB's are their own culture, and they are less rational then emotional.
They are still trying to figure out how to roll out.net
You must mean ".NET My Services" because.NET as a technology has been rolled out and has been receiving wide acceptance.
Re:Why negative attacks don't work for MSoft
on
Halloween VII
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I dissagree. I think negative attacks don't work well on either side, and that each competitor needs to focus on making their products the best, instead of cutting the other product down.
Linux needs a more professional evangelist
on
Halloween VII
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Well, it was all pretty sane up to that point; it's nice to know our opponents are still smoking crack -ESR
I'm sorry, but if I was an IT manager of a corporation and if I was reading this commentary I would assume no credibility to ESR after this comment. Grow Up.
Looking for proof.
on
Halloween VII
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Although this seems legit at-a-glance, I can't find any proof that this is truely an internal MS document. Time for me to start querying the insiders:-).
Or is it because Microsoft crushed the opposition by exploiting their monopoly?
What monopoly? You act as if Microsoft has always had this magical monopoly since the beginning of time. When I worked at Software Etc. in early 93, I remember selling an almost equal amount of Lotus and Word Perfect. I hadn't even used Microsoft Office until 96, and to this day I've never installed it on my personal machine. Nevertheless, I remember that both Wordperfect and Lotus products were very poor at competing on price (they were usually 20-30% more expensive then MS products), and eventually the price/performance ratio of MS's software won.
XDoc makes perfect sense in Office. It would be silly to force MS to "keep it seperate" because of their "market dominance". This is the same BS logic that would have prevented Dialup Networking, a graphical file browser, and a TCP/IP stack in Windows.
I agree that software should win based on the technical merits of their product, and I don't think that the inclusion of a crappy "portable" document format with Office is going to make everyone switch. However, if Microsoft releases a great format that's _TRUELY_ cross platform and that costs less then ADOBE's overpriced authoring tools, then the consumers have won.
Regardless, sabotaging Netscape was just as much a monopolist no-no.
I was a Web Designer in 95 and 96, and I exclusively used NS2 & 3 and Lynx for web page testing. I ignored IE because it was utter crap. When IE3 came along, I couldn't ignore it, but it was still "IE". When Communicator 4 came along, I said, "this is broke" and was happy to accept IE4 since it was the closest thing to the W3C standards at the time.
The only thing that sabotaged the Netscape browser was Communicator.
Niether was TCP/IP stacks for Windows, so there was a market for it. This is what happens with technology - what was once an accomplishment that could sold as a $50 product becomes trivial years later.
"Web Browsers" is not a market, it is a common task that consumers want in their OS. It's just like saying that MS leveraged their OS monopoly to include a file manager or a TCP/IP stack (remember Trumpet Winsock?).
Continuing lawsuits will be the only way to stop the M$ creature from consuming everything in it's path
No, continuing innovation will be the only way to stop MS. Look at Apple. They finally innovated after being stale for all these years (iMac, iBooks, OS X, iPod, etc.), and aside from price they are competing very well with MS.
Slashdot Mirror
So, let's look at some interesting facts:
1. MS Puts back the release of its latest Server OS.
If you want to look at facts, then post facts. MS is pushing back the successor to their latest Server OS. Their latest server OS is in RC1 and should be out by Q1 of next year.
The key phrase here is "to force competitors out of business". The XBox is sold at a loss because that's part of the console business. I know many will cry "but Gord says that's a myth!", but it's not. Loss-leaders have been a part of many businesses for a long time, and Microsoft's larger-than-usual loss is easily justified by it's larger-than-usual attach rate (number of games, controllers, etc. sold per unit).
Internet Explorer is to Netscape as Explorer was to "DOS file browsers". What used to be a seperate product is now a trivial and ubiquitous function of a computer, and therefore packaged as a value added feature to an OS. You can dissagree with the technical design, but it's not your product to design. The fact of the matter is that browsing the web has because a fundamental feature of almost every gadget. If that doesn't sell you, think about Trumpet Winsock before the days of Dialup Networking or a TCP/IP stack being built into Windows. TCP/IP stacks used to be a product space. Did Microsoft "abuse their monopoly" by giving customers something that they wanted, and therefore crushing the "competition"? And not to troll, but the release of a substandard browser (3.0 was great, I'm talking about Communicator) really didn't help the situation for Netscape either.
First of all I want to start by saying that I agree with this part of the ruling and I find it disconcerning that Microsoft felt that they needed to strong-arm OEM's as opposed to competing simply on the merits of their product.
I still feel there has been competition, however, I never believed that Microsoft attained it's monopoly through these tactics. There has been competition in the x86 sector (although less then possible because of the OEM issues), but more importantly there has always been competition in the desktop and server sectors. You can always buy a Sun, SGI, Apple, IBM, desktop or server.
I think it's important to discern the difference between the illegal _maintaining_ of a monpoly and the illegal _attaining_ of a monopoly. Microsoft won fair and square, they just used questionable (and now ruled illegal) tactics to maintain that position.
Right, but this has to do with the volume of electricity. Again, I have no problem with ISP's either A) capping my bandwidth or B) charging me for additional bandwidth usage. The power company does not care if you are powering a computer or heat lamps for growing pot.
Utilities (and I consider broadband a utility just as much as electricity or water) should not be able to control what you do with bandwidth. What they can do, is sell you a limited amount of bandwidth. If my provider is giving me 1.5Mb/down, and 256kb up (burstable), then it shouldn't matter if I'm using it all day or not. Filtering packets based on what you're doing is, in my opinion, like the telephone company saying that I talk to my Uncle too much on the phone so they're going to block his number.
I have no problem with the enforcing of copyrights, but that is not (and should never be) the ISP's job. We all know that this has absolutely nothing to do with the ISP's "respect" for copyrights, rather, this is simply about saving money by limiting bandwidth usage.
"EULA's to end Microsoft's browser dominance!"... Needless to say, I was very confused.
I'm not at all Anti-Mac, but I really have to address a couple of issues:
1) No viruses.
There are plenty of Mac viruses to keep Mac users on alert. Windows is worse _ONLY_ if you use Microsoft Outlook Express. Stay away from that program (it should be marked as a trojan by McAfee IMHO). I personally have had no virus problems with my Windows PC.
2) I can clone my entire HD with a freeware utility
I'm not sure what you mean by clone (complete disk copy or a disk image), but XCopy32 (built into Windows) works great not to mention many freeware utilities.
6) Apple gives you, out of box, almost all the software you need to get productive
So does Dell.
7) 802.11 networking is built into the OS and every new mac... no drivers necessary.
Kind of... Many users site Airport problems (I think Jaguar has resolved most of them). 3rd party 802.11b devices may also require drivers. With WinXP many 3rd party drivers are already included and if not it's PnP.
8) Almost every printer is supported in X.2
Installing printers is also a breeze in with 2K or XP.
I hate it when my mom asks me why she can't open attachments
If it's an executeable on ANY OS you have to be careful.
Nevertheless, Apple has done a lot of things Right, and they have little to go to catch up to XP in some areas, and have surpassed XP in others. Linux... well, on the desktop it's playing catch up with both OS's IMHO.
Actually, YOU are believing in the Mhz myth just as much as everyone else. Mhz doesn't mean much of anything - somewhat regardless of the pipeline as well (branch prediction can make up for longer pipelines, for example). What does matter is real world performance, and in certain area's G4's are way behind Athlon's and P4's. Altivec is great, but only helps in very specific area's (Like a Guassian Blur) but due to poor memory bandwidth can't be used in larger, more practical uses.
Finally, The Man Mr. Carmack has this to say about G4's, how a P3 _can_ be faster in certain area's, and how Altivec is not relevant for apps like games (although on x86 SIMD is very important for games). Read more here.
BTW: I think Apple has done an incredible job with it's hardware of late. I'm a Windows guy myself but for normal "desktop" users I've been continually recommending the G4 iMac's as they are great machines. G4's are fast enough for many applications and I don't feel that Mac's feel slow at all (assuming OS 10.1 or 10.2). However, I do know that when I want speed (eg: for games or 3D rendering) I'll go x86 for almost twice the speed at a fraction of the price.
That's not what I said. It doesn't bother ME at all, but it does make him look childish in certain eyes. PHB's are their own culture, and they are less rational then emotional.
They are still trying to figure out how to roll out .net
.NET as a technology has been rolled out and has been receiving wide acceptance.
You must mean ".NET My Services" because
I dissagree. I think negative attacks don't work well on either side, and that each competitor needs to focus on making their products the best, instead of cutting the other product down.
Well, it was all pretty sane up to that point; it's nice to know our opponents are still smoking crack -ESR
I'm sorry, but if I was an IT manager of a corporation and if I was reading this commentary I would assume no credibility to ESR after this comment. Grow Up.
Although this seems legit at-a-glance, I can't find any proof that this is truely an internal MS document. Time for me to start querying the insiders :-).
This is why I'm buying my music on Vinyl... try it analog.
I have sufficient faith in the human race.
And here, my friend, is your problem.
Poor analogy. We can prove that we landed on the moon. We can't prove evolution.
Which DTD's are proprietary? Because so far, everything in .NET (XML configs, etc.) is open. We'll soon see about Office.
Or is it because Microsoft crushed the opposition by exploiting their monopoly?
What monopoly? You act as if Microsoft has always had this magical monopoly since the beginning of time. When I worked at Software Etc. in early 93, I remember selling an almost equal amount of Lotus and Word Perfect. I hadn't even used Microsoft Office until 96, and to this day I've never installed it on my personal machine. Nevertheless, I remember that both Wordperfect and Lotus products were very poor at competing on price (they were usually 20-30% more expensive then MS products), and eventually the price/performance ratio of MS's software won.
XDoc makes perfect sense in Office. It would be silly to force MS to "keep it seperate" because of their "market dominance". This is the same BS logic that would have prevented Dialup Networking, a graphical file browser, and a TCP/IP stack in Windows.
I agree that software should win based on the technical merits of their product, and I don't think that the inclusion of a crappy "portable" document format with Office is going to make everyone switch. However, if Microsoft releases a great format that's _TRUELY_ cross platform and that costs less then ADOBE's overpriced authoring tools, then the consumers have won.
Universities are not in the business of making profit.
+5 Funny
Regardless, sabotaging Netscape was just as much a monopolist no-no.
I was a Web Designer in 95 and 96, and I exclusively used NS2 & 3 and Lynx for web page testing. I ignored IE because it was utter crap. When IE3 came along, I couldn't ignore it, but it was still "IE". When Communicator 4 came along, I said, "this is broke" and was happy to accept IE4 since it was the closest thing to the W3C standards at the time.
The only thing that sabotaged the Netscape browser was Communicator.
It wasn't in 1996. Go figure.
Niether was TCP/IP stacks for Windows, so there was a market for it. This is what happens with technology - what was once an accomplishment that could sold as a $50 product becomes trivial years later.
Look at the screenshots!
I did, they're fake.
"Web Browsers" is not a market, it is a common task that consumers want in their OS. It's just like saying that MS leveraged their OS monopoly to include a file manager or a TCP/IP stack (remember Trumpet Winsock?).
Continuing lawsuits will be the only way to stop the M$ creature from consuming everything in it's path
No, continuing innovation will be the only way to stop MS. Look at Apple. They finally innovated after being stale for all these years (iMac, iBooks, OS X, iPod, etc.), and aside from price they are competing very well with MS.