... "This is a bogus threat, demonstrably so: Programmer wages in India are much lower than in the U.S. Given that, why does the industry want to bring Indian programmers to the U.S. as H-1Bs? Why not just employ those programmers in India in the first place? The answer is that it is not feasible to do so. "...
With the severe downturn in the economy, a lot of companies are moving out of the Silicon Valley area for cheaper locations. Utah, Texas, Illinois are amongst the top places trying to attract those big ones. Chicago recently succeeded in lobbying Boeing to move their HQ. So, what all this has to do with H1B? I can see the new trend here where companies trying to save on their $$$ and moving their development offshore to those exactly cheaper places.
The article's author mention that this would be an infeasible solution. Linux, Apache, Tomcat, Mozilla (just to name a few of the most popular projects which have been pooling resources globally) have now been doing it for years.
You have a point, but I took voice recognition as one example amongst many things to come. I did not mean to say that any Apple OS had no support for it. You can check out Microsoft Research website for all the cool stuff they're working on. We will soon start seeing a lot of RnD ideas making it into realized products. ----
Actually I do. I have a 3C509 operating in legacy mode with PnP turned off. I got that card because of Linux and it works in win98 and w2k. What's up? ----
It's not fair for the Mac to only have to deal with Apple hardware and let W2K deal with the enormous amount of third-party hardware out there and then compare the 2. And honestly, W2K ain't that bad.
Windows will only get better with more features to look forward to (voice recognition for example). Apple will always be Apple and will always run on Apple only.
people, once again let me speak up here. we have choices. plenty. nobody can force us to use windows, internet explorer, office, sql server, exchange server, etc etc. we have java, mozilla, beos, linux, os2, now osX, staroffice, mysql, sendmail, oracle, etc etc. if that is not enough go write your own. buy alternative. but please, stop with this tunnel vision of targeting everything that microsoft does.
may be if we all stop paying for their software that they will eventually run out of money.
let's face it, it's already tough out there running a business off propriety software, let alone with open source. i have no doubt of the quality of code that comes out of oss, but how many will actually be able to build a profitable business on that? so far i see only one redhat (but then again they are a little bit more diversified too)...
Sombody please remind me why do we have Sco, SunOS/Solaris, HP, AIX, Irix unices OS's that's all incompatible in every possible way one can imagine. We are all aware of the same command (e.g. ps) that takes different arguments that are platform specific. One would tend to think that Unix being a common belief here that one would not have that much trouble swithing between all of the above.
Well, may be because those unix vendors need to differentiate themselves from their competitors by adding extensions that are proprietary to them. Why? Perhaps they need to produce revenues and one way of doing so is to convince customers to go with their solution in the hope for them to save in the long run (simple business sense).
May be now is a good time to squeeze those extra $$$ that have gone uncollected in the past years. We are all aware of the economy slowdown and being able to upheld their profit margin in a unfit economy makes business sense...
We all would like to see NS and the Lizard to rise against the Redmond behemoth and reclaim what should have been theirs. I think overall mozilla is doing very well. It can only get better.
The bad news is that NS is no longer the same NS we all wished it had stayed. Instead, some other behemoth owns it and a lot of people despises them. So, what we, the hard NS followers, are supposed to do? Excuse the punn, but I feel like I have been sandwiched. --
The pure truth is that nobody really knows what the future hold for all those OS (free or not). If I knew what would be the next great OS, I would probably just keep my mouth shut and go buy heaps of stocks and watch my money grow.
All those pep talk are just pure propaganda, from both sides. We have seen over and over again that having the technology edge does not guarantee a market for your product. There are simply too many factors to consider to guarantee that your product will be successful amongs customers.
Microsoft is trying to salvage their baby and so does the Linux/BSD/Un*x afficionados.
peace V
--
Re:In a Corporatocracy, we're all just targets.
on
Clever Girl Bess
·
· Score: 4
Citizens are mere consumers, and societies are now viewed as mass markets. Sad, but that's what we get for a free market. I wish we had a solution to this.
It is very amusing as I read the postings that you all seem to think that Microsoft still worries about Java. While Microsoft has been working on new versions of their Visual Studio suite, Visual J++ has been stagnat. Ask any Visual J++ user out there if they have had any updated release and they will tell you. Instead, Microsoft has been putting their effort into C# and thier.Net initiative. The truth: C# is Java. Give C# 2 years and we talk. I can see the same hostile take over that IE did to Netscape. Rememember when we all thought that Netscape marketshare will never go below 50%, well newsflash people. C# will turn out to be a much better language to work with, with real productivity tools.
Until now, with all the Microsoft bashing that Microsoft products are inferior (which I take as cheap talk, and you are free to talk cheap), I have always been intrigued by the fact that Microsft JVM for a loooonnngggg time has had the *fastest* JVM and Java compiler on the market. What a slap to Sun and all it's loyal followers. They had to come up with HotSpot to bridge the gap. And I bet you MSJVM still kick their ass. But who cares. As long as I can write code, I am happy.
Java applets will be replaced by ActiveX controls. C# will push Java in a few years. And Windows will always be the OS of the masses. Linux and flavors of unix will always be a niche market. Even unix vendors can't standardize amongst themselves.
Microsoft Transaction Server, together with COM+ and C#, will make the oh-so-powerful-and-damn-slow EJB technology looks like a joke. CORBA is going nowhere. How is Orbix today? What happened to all those CORBA vendors, that suddenly happened to have disappeared? OMG is good for the academics. Companies out there want real solution to their problem. Cost effective solution. And Microsft over and over have consistently delivered to their customers.
And please don't tell me that Unix is so much better than Windows. Unix has had 25 years to mature. Give Windows another 5 years and then we talk.
Bottom line. It's a good thing that Java is no longer on Microsoft task list. That means more time to make C# a kick ass language, which by the way, has been submitted to the ECMSA standard body, something that Sun (yeah, this one is for all the open source nuckle head) has been reluctant to do. Why?
PS-Apple can't even write a decent office package for their own platform. They need Microsoft to do it for them. Thinking about what Microsoft contributed to the public in popularizing the PC and office productivity (taken that the GUI+pointing device idea was from Xerox, adopted by everybody), they must be really bad at designing software.
And now that Netscape development team is moving under the umbrella of AOL Technology, how many people would argue that AOL is better than Microsoft? --
Will somebody remind us here on/. how many branched versions of unix today exist from the original K&R ?
Of course, you as a vendor, you will want to add additional functionality that you think will differentiate you from your competitors and increase sales. People here seem to forget that it is business that drive technology, not vice-versa. As a public traded company, they have the fudicial responsibility to generate returns on shareholders investment. Modifying standards and adding their own extensions is one way of doing it. As long as they don't go and rewrite the standards, I don't see any harm in it.
Why have so many distros of Linux. Why can't all the distro companies come together and work towards 1 standard way of distributing Linux?
People, there is a choice. You don't want to use Windows, install Linux/BSD/SolarisX86. Use apache. Use XPCOM. Use CORBA. Use LaTeX/StarOffice. Use Netscape instead of IE. Make your choice and stop bashing Microsoft. --
Windows is one of the cheapest OS around. Taken, Linux is Free, but to state that a copy of WIndows 95 for $80 as expensive is just so narrow minded.
How much do you think Solaris goes for? Or Apple OS?
We all like reading criticisms, but please do so fairly.
Long live Thompson. He left a legacy and I am sure that's all he wants as he moves forward in his life to gain even greater experience flying... --
Additional stats:
You try and load all the newsgroups from your ISP. Not only that NS6 takes forever to load all the groups, the mem usage is +50 megs.
I truly believe that Gecko is highly efficient. But why so much bloat around Gecko? Do we, as users, really need all those fancy features in Mozilla/Netscape? What's up with the sidebar? It's so annoying it's not funny.
One last thing: Netscape, please try include less marketing stuff in the browser. Using NS6 is like staring at a permanently ever changing banner advertisements...
--
Why would I want to pay $50 for a browser plus when I could get the same for free?
Microsoft, just like any other company, has a responsiblity towards their shareholders. They have to be profitable and provide a return on the hundred of thousands of invectors who bought the stock. So does Oracle. And so used to be Netscape. Of course, as a company they will try by any means to get market share. What do you think Oracle did when they decided to give away their CRM applications for FREE in order to lure competition away from Siebel Systems? Sun Micro is giving away Star Office for free when they paid millions of dollars for it? Is it not for the same reason to attract more users. Does that mean that Oracle and Sun Micro are delaying innovation in the CRM and Word Processing business? Why should Microsoft not allowed to give their browsers away for free?
Consumers won big time for not having to pay anything to use a browser-plus. Although I don't use it regularly, because I am a die hard Netscape user, I believe IE has the best browser for viewing flash/real audio/whatever. You need a plug in, and IE will fetch it for you and install it. Unfortunately this is not so in Netscape. I still have to go manually to the site, download the plugin, and then install it. To me, it's not a big deal. But to the mass users, surely the former is more attractive. And Netscape is doing very little:( in making Netscape a better user-friendly browser. Sure, it's the most compliant browser out there. But what about the user, who just want a browser and not be a Netscape follower? One of the direct result for Microsoft giving away their browsers is that now we have Mozilla. Only the guru could tell if Netscape would have put their code in the hands of developers should there not have been IE...
To think about the numerous things that have come out of Microsoft research is so *unfair* to say that they have hindered the innovation process in software. They invest billions of dollars in their research and they have top researchers working in Redmond. Check out http://research.microsoft.com. The popular button, even though very well criticized when WIn95 came out, is now very much standard in Gnome. I know, they got the GUI idea from Xerox. So did Apple and IBM.
Installing service pack 1 on Windows 2000 took 2 mouse clicks. Sure, none of us can go modify and recompile the NT kernel to suit our needs (besides it's not available), but the average Joe Blow will never do that anyway. Linux kernel code is free, but how many people, out of all the OS users out there, can say they can go dive in and make changes. Unless you are one of the mainteners, the kernel code is of very little use. All we can hope for is./configure ; make config ; make mrproper ; make . Right?
2 years ago, we had Java. Today, we have C#. Choice for developers. Both languages are well backed up. But we all wonder why Sun is so reluctant to submit Java to the developers? Could be they restricting innovation? Who knows. At least Microsoft is giving away C#.
Who cares about Active Desktop? OS2 is excellent, I won't deny that. But what good it is if software for it is not as numerous as Linux and Windows? Why be restricted to a few applications when I could be choosing from many?
--
In all these M$ v/s DOJ, we seem to forget who is the real winner here by including a browser with the OS. Solaris does it with their HotJava browser. Linux does it with Netscape. Irix does it with Netscape. So why is it strange that when Microsoft try to ship their own browser with their OS everybody jumps 50 feet high?
The truth is, may be most of the/. users would rather use Netscape. Good choice. But we seem to forget that 90% of Windows users out there (think about the +40 age group or the not-so-computer-savy user out there) would rather simply switch on their computer and surf the net, without having to do anything. It's already terrifying for them to even switch on the damn box, let alone removing IE and installing NS.
That's what I always do anyway. I want a browser independent of the OS. But that's my choice. Most people just want a browser that works.
Now what is disturbing is the fact that whenever you buy a PC you get M$ Windows automatically with it. Hopefully things are starting to change and we are today seeing the major PC manufacturers offering Linux as a viable alternative OS.
So what's the point? M$ stand a good chance of walking away a clear winner. Consider the # of browsers currently available for Linux. Now that OSS is clearly being made more public, more and more people are aware of better alternative out there. Besides, the software landscape 5 years ago (whenever the initial suit was established) has changeg so much that will the case still stand on its 2 feet?
Oracle software is run on the major intnernet sites, and Sun hardware obviously own the market on the hardware side. Shall we break Oracle too? What about Sun?
Today M$ stand against much more competition that ever. Linux is growing leaps and bounds every single day. Star Office is turning out to be a wonderful replacement for M$ Office. Netscape will always be the browser of choice for Linux/Unix users alike.
Do we still think that M$ still holds a monopoly and is worth breaking up? AOL should definitely be on the list. --
G%^ damn it poeple!! Quit bitching and use something else instead of Windows. I am just sick and tired of reading the same comments over and over again about how Windows blows.
People, you have a choice. Use Linux. Use OS2. Use BeOs. Whatever, but for crying out loud, QUIT BITCHING. Geezus. --
What a cheap shot at Microsoft! Anybody can claim that NS6 is far superior browser to IE5, let alone IE6 with all the standard compliance built into Gecko?
Could you just imagine if it was IEx released with as many bugs at NS6?
I like Netscape. I have been using Netscape since 2.0. But come on people, let's stop the ranting and let's help dig those bugs out and contribute to Bugzilla.
Annoyed and unbiased.
--
--
Slashdot Mirror
With the severe downturn in the economy, a lot of companies are moving out of the Silicon Valley area for cheaper locations. Utah, Texas, Illinois are amongst the top places trying to attract those big ones. Chicago recently succeeded in lobbying Boeing to move their HQ. So, what all this has to do with H1B? I can see the new trend here where companies trying to save on their $$$ and moving their development offshore to those exactly cheaper places.
The article's author mention that this would be an infeasible solution. Linux, Apache, Tomcat, Mozilla (just to name a few of the most popular projects which have been pooling resources globally) have now been doing it for years.
I think he is an idiot.
----
You have a point, but I took voice recognition as one example amongst many things to come. I did not mean to say that any Apple OS had no support for it. You can check out Microsoft Research website for all the cool stuff they're working on. We will soon start seeing a lot of RnD ideas making it into realized products.
----
Actually I do. I have a 3C509 operating in legacy mode with PnP turned off. I got that card because of Linux and it works in win98 and w2k. What's up?
----
Windows will only get better with more features to look forward to (voice recognition for example). Apple will always be Apple and will always run on Apple only.
Be an Apple and buy a Mango.
Apple Monger
----
may be if we all stop paying for their software that they will eventually run out of money.
evolution ...
----
just a thought
----
Well, may be because those unix vendors need to differentiate themselves from their competitors by adding extensions that are proprietary to them. Why? Perhaps they need to produce revenues and one way of doing so is to convince customers to go with their solution in the hope for them to save in the long run (simple business sense).
Why bark so loud when Microsoft does the same?
--
--
But then again I might be wrong ...
--
The bad news is that NS is no longer the same NS we all wished it had stayed. Instead, some other behemoth owns it and a lot of people despises them. So, what we, the hard NS followers, are supposed to do? Excuse the punn, but I feel like I have been sandwiched.
--
All those pep talk are just pure propaganda, from both sides. We have seen over and over again that having the technology edge does not guarantee a market for your product. There are simply too many factors to consider to guarantee that your product will be successful amongs customers.
Microsoft is trying to salvage their baby and so does the Linux/BSD/Un*x afficionados.
peace V
--
--
Until now, with all the Microsoft bashing that Microsoft products are inferior (which I take as cheap talk, and you are free to talk cheap), I have always been intrigued by the fact that Microsft JVM for a loooonnngggg time has had the *fastest* JVM and Java compiler on the market. What a slap to Sun and all it's loyal followers. They had to come up with HotSpot to bridge the gap. And I bet you MSJVM still kick their ass. But who cares. As long as I can write code, I am happy.
Java applets will be replaced by ActiveX controls. C# will push Java in a few years. And Windows will always be the OS of the masses. Linux and flavors of unix will always be a niche market. Even unix vendors can't standardize amongst themselves.
Microsoft Transaction Server, together with COM+ and C#, will make the oh-so-powerful-and-damn-slow EJB technology looks like a joke. CORBA is going nowhere. How is Orbix today? What happened to all those CORBA vendors, that suddenly happened to have disappeared? OMG is good for the academics. Companies out there want real solution to their problem. Cost effective solution. And Microsft over and over have consistently delivered to their customers.
And please don't tell me that Unix is so much better than Windows. Unix has had 25 years to mature. Give Windows another 5 years and then we talk.
Bottom line. It's a good thing that Java is no longer on Microsoft task list. That means more time to make C# a kick ass language, which by the way, has been submitted to the ECMSA standard body, something that Sun (yeah, this one is for all the open source nuckle head) has been reluctant to do. Why?
PS-Apple can't even write a decent office package for their own platform. They need Microsoft to do it for them. Thinking about what Microsoft contributed to the public in popularizing the PC and office productivity (taken that the GUI+pointing device idea was from Xerox, adopted by everybody), they must be really bad at designing software.
And now that Netscape development team is moving under the umbrella of AOL Technology, how many people would argue that AOL is better than Microsoft?
--
Thank you for pointing out the "deep throat" quote.
--
Of course, you as a vendor, you will want to add additional functionality that you think will differentiate you from your competitors and increase sales. People here seem to forget that it is business that drive technology, not vice-versa. As a public traded company, they have the fudicial responsibility to generate returns on shareholders investment. Modifying standards and adding their own extensions is one way of doing it. As long as they don't go and rewrite the standards, I don't see any harm in it.
Why have so many distros of Linux. Why can't all the distro companies come together and work towards 1 standard way of distributing Linux?
People, there is a choice. You don't want to use Windows, install Linux/BSD/SolarisX86. Use apache. Use XPCOM. Use CORBA. Use LaTeX/StarOffice. Use Netscape instead of IE. Make your choice and stop bashing Microsoft.
--
Can we imagine Oracle without Ellison? How about Sun without McNealy? But is there really a Microsoft without Gates and Ballmer?
--
will the least greedy publisher to leave the library please switch ebays website off? thank you.
--
Windows is one of the cheapest OS around. Taken, Linux is Free, but to state that a copy of WIndows 95 for $80 as expensive is just so narrow minded. How much do you think Solaris goes for? Or Apple OS? We all like reading criticisms, but please do so fairly. Long live Thompson. He left a legacy and I am sure that's all he wants as he moves forward in his life to gain even greater experience flying ...
--
Additional stats: You try and load all the newsgroups from your ISP. Not only that NS6 takes forever to load all the groups, the mem usage is +50 megs. I truly believe that Gecko is highly efficient. But why so much bloat around Gecko? Do we, as users, really need all those fancy features in Mozilla/Netscape? What's up with the sidebar? It's so annoying it's not funny. One last thing: Netscape, please try include less marketing stuff in the browser. Using NS6 is like staring at a permanently ever changing banner advertisements ...
--
Why would I want to pay $50 for a browser plus when I could get the same for free? Microsoft, just like any other company, has a responsiblity towards their shareholders. They have to be profitable and provide a return on the hundred of thousands of invectors who bought the stock. So does Oracle. And so used to be Netscape. Of course, as a company they will try by any means to get market share. What do you think Oracle did when they decided to give away their CRM applications for FREE in order to lure competition away from Siebel Systems? Sun Micro is giving away Star Office for free when they paid millions of dollars for it? Is it not for the same reason to attract more users. Does that mean that Oracle and Sun Micro are delaying innovation in the CRM and Word Processing business? Why should Microsoft not allowed to give their browsers away for free? Consumers won big time for not having to pay anything to use a browser-plus. Although I don't use it regularly, because I am a die hard Netscape user, I believe IE has the best browser for viewing flash/real audio/whatever. You need a plug in, and IE will fetch it for you and install it. Unfortunately this is not so in Netscape. I still have to go manually to the site, download the plugin, and then install it. To me, it's not a big deal. But to the mass users, surely the former is more attractive. And Netscape is doing very little :( in making Netscape a better user-friendly browser. Sure, it's the most compliant browser out there. But what about the user, who just want a browser and not be a Netscape follower? One of the direct result for Microsoft giving away their browsers is that now we have Mozilla. Only the guru could tell if Netscape would have put their code in the hands of developers should there not have been IE ...
To think about the numerous things that have come out of Microsoft research is so *unfair* to say that they have hindered the innovation process in software. They invest billions of dollars in their research and they have top researchers working in Redmond. Check out http://research.microsoft.com. The popular button, even though very well criticized when WIn95 came out, is now very much standard in Gnome. I know, they got the GUI idea from Xerox. So did Apple and IBM.
Installing service pack 1 on Windows 2000 took 2 mouse clicks. Sure, none of us can go modify and recompile the NT kernel to suit our needs (besides it's not available), but the average Joe Blow will never do that anyway. Linux kernel code is free, but how many people, out of all the OS users out there, can say they can go dive in and make changes. Unless you are one of the mainteners, the kernel code is of very little use. All we can hope for is ./configure ; make config ; make mrproper ; make . Right?
2 years ago, we had Java. Today, we have C#. Choice for developers. Both languages are well backed up. But we all wonder why Sun is so reluctant to submit Java to the developers? Could be they restricting innovation? Who knows. At least Microsoft is giving away C#.
Who cares about Active Desktop? OS2 is excellent, I won't deny that. But what good it is if software for it is not as numerous as Linux and Windows? Why be restricted to a few applications when I could be choosing from many?
--
In all these M$ v/s DOJ, we seem to forget who is the real winner here by including a browser with the OS. Solaris does it with their HotJava browser. Linux does it with Netscape. Irix does it with Netscape. So why is it strange that when Microsoft try to ship their own browser with their OS everybody jumps 50 feet high? The truth is, may be most of the /. users would rather use Netscape. Good choice. But we seem to forget that 90% of Windows users out there (think about the +40 age group or the not-so-computer-savy user out there) would rather simply switch on their computer and surf the net, without having to do anything. It's already terrifying for them to even switch on the damn box, let alone removing IE and installing NS.
That's what I always do anyway. I want a browser independent of the OS. But that's my choice. Most people just want a browser that works.
Now what is disturbing is the fact that whenever you buy a PC you get M$ Windows automatically with it. Hopefully things are starting to change and we are today seeing the major PC manufacturers offering Linux as a viable alternative OS.
So what's the point? M$ stand a good chance of walking away a clear winner. Consider the # of browsers currently available for Linux. Now that OSS is clearly being made more public, more and more people are aware of better alternative out there. Besides, the software landscape 5 years ago (whenever the initial suit was established) has changeg so much that will the case still stand on its 2 feet?
Oracle software is run on the major intnernet sites, and Sun hardware obviously own the market on the hardware side. Shall we break Oracle too? What about Sun?
Today M$ stand against much more competition that ever. Linux is growing leaps and bounds every single day. Star Office is turning out to be a wonderful replacement for M$ Office. Netscape will always be the browser of choice for Linux/Unix users alike.
Do we still think that M$ still holds a monopoly and is worth breaking up? AOL should definitely be on the list.
--
Oh, and now I am suppose to believe that the fonts in Netscape on Linux is better that the fonts in IE running on Windows?
--
G%^ damn it poeple!! Quit bitching and use something else instead of Windows. I am just sick and tired of reading the same comments over and over again about how Windows blows. People, you have a choice. Use Linux. Use OS2. Use BeOs. Whatever, but for crying out loud, QUIT BITCHING. Geezus.
--
is now functional for Linux users! Well done guys!
--
What a cheap shot at Microsoft! Anybody can claim that NS6 is far superior browser to IE5, let alone IE6 with all the standard compliance built into Gecko? Could you just imagine if it was IEx released with as many bugs at NS6? I like Netscape. I have been using Netscape since 2.0. But come on people, let's stop the ranting and let's help dig those bugs out and contribute to Bugzilla. Annoyed and unbiased. --
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