I just said (for at least the 3rd time now) that the reason for Microsoft's success was H-A-R-D-W-A-R-E, and had not much to do with software or marketing or whatever at all.
If the PC would have stayed closed, even if MS would have created the greatest OS on earth, it would have died.
Microsoft was just lucky that IBM awarded them the x86-dominance, *ANY* other company would have been successful with that.
Microsoft marketing is good, but it's not the reason for their success. For example Apple has and always had better marketing.
Because the majority of system costs were hardware costs, it made perfect sense to go away from a closed hardware / relatively open (Unix) platform to a open hardware/closed software (Wintel) system. With the advent of Linux that changed, now you can have it all.
Do you really think MS had the clout before Win95 to force PC makers into exclusive agreements?
Yes. For example they nearly killed Vobis for preinstalling OS/2
Mac and Amiga suffered the same fate as Betamax, a better product ruined by mismanagement.
I don't consider any closed hardware platform better than the open PC platform (even with Windows)
And when I say "better" I mean "best bang for the buck" and good investment safety.
However this was meant, it comes across with quite a bit of arrogance. Once again, regardless of their business practices, MS has quite a few talented developers. (Please, no complaints about stolen BSD code or security vulnerabilities)
Irrelevant.
As far as MS dropping Alpha support, if your company had a fringe product(by market share, NOT quality) that was about to start consuming more resources than the sales merit, what would you do?
The same.
That's why closed source software is not a save investment.
They were once a small company, and i doubt they would fall into oblivion just because they have a decent competitor.
Aproximately 30% of MS-revenues come from Windows directly, 40% come from MS Office and probably another 20% from the other Win-software they sell.
About 90% of revenues are dependent on Windows. Of course they have huge amounts of money and will continue to exist as an investment-house virtually forever, but as a software-company, I have my doubts.
Well, regardless of highly restrictive OEM agreements, I'd say many PC makers (Dell, HP, Compaq to name a few) would be allies of MS.
Well that's a bit of a stretch. "Dependendts", "Slaves" or "Prisoners" would be better descriptions, IMO.
They will betray and leave Microsoft the first time they get the chance.
After all, like it or not, MS brought PCs into the realm of usability for the average idiot.
Like it or not, but this is plain wrong.
It was asian-hardware makers which brought PCs into the price range suitable for the average person. Remember DOS? Remember high-memory? Remember IRQ/DMA problems?
Usability is secondary and always was. Otherwise the awkard DOS could have never had any chance against MacOS.
Do you really think Dell would be pulling in almost $32 BILLION dollars if we were still using Dr Dos?
Now, let's get clear about something: Microsoft always trailed the computing industry. Windows was late - very late. All other computers (Amiga, Apple and most Unix) had GUIs much earlier than Microsoft.
Yet, everybody pretends as if without Microsoft there would be no GUI. Without Microsoft, the computing industry would be a couple of years farther ahead than it is now.
Welcome to the joys of market share. MS and the "OS-community" are in much different positions. Since most people use Windows, if a hardware manufacturer wants it's product to sell, they have to make it work with Windows.
That's correct now, *BUT* on servers, most manufacturers support Linux as good as Windows and it's possible that a couple of years down the road, Microsoft will have to write drivers themselves for RAID, etc. and will support only a limited selection of server-hardware. (And this will eventually kill them)
You need an example?
Compaq dropped support for the Alpha-platform, because Linux has taken it over completely and Windows only accounted for 5% of new sales of Alpha-systems.
Within a week, Microsoft dropped support for the Alpha, too, because they just can't support it alone, they just can't.
Hell, even on ordinary x86-hardware, Windows is much more complicated to install if the hardware is not preconfigured by the PC-maker for Windows. If you build your own computer, you know what I mean.
OS developers write their own drivers because they have to. Until they have sufficient market share to justify the expense from the manufacturer of creating another set of drivers, this will be their only option.
Yes, but Microsoft does not have that option.
Once, their dominance is in danger it's just a big way down for MS without any hope for return.
Everyone has been predicting that Linux will explode any minute now for *years*. This won't make it happen any sooner. Fact is, Linux doesn't provide anything over Windows for the vast majority of people, and MS has massive marketing muscle.
First, no, not everyone has been predicting that.
Second, Microsoft's OS takes a higher and higher percentage of total computer costs.
15 years ago, Apple dominated the desktop and the PC won because it was maybe 20 to 30% cheaper. Now, we already have reached 20 to 30% of the price of a desktop-system that will go to MS (when you buy retail), which means that a Linux system could be 20 to 30% cheaper if it were preinstalled.
Because of OEM discounts, Windows-machines are still competitive, but as hardware costs continue to fall, Microsoft's fraction continues to rise and soon alternative computer makers will be able to offer significantly cheaper "naked" or Linux-preinstalled systems than the big OEMs and that will help Linux very much.
There is a war going on just realize that. MS is better armed, better financed, better trained, has more allies. If you are not careful you will be carpetbombed into dust.
What allies do they have?
Everybody hates MS, now after MS started a war with Sony, there are not many companies left that a friends with Microsoft.
I also don't think that they can even remotely match the open-source community in development-capacities.
The OS-community wrote almost all drivers itself, while Microsoft is dependent on the hardware manufacturer to do that.
Not at all. The best doesn't always succeed. Consider BetaMax versus VHS.
The problem in a market with networking effects is that an unsuccessful product is not good at all.
Only the open-source nature of Linux made it happen and somewhat outweigthed the big disadvantages like lack of software and drivers in the past.
While there are still a couple of blank spots (like AutoCAD, games or WinModems) the mainstream business hard- and software is there.
As soon as Wine is ready for primetime (always remember Win98 compatibility is enough, the Win32 API is *NOT* a moving target) Linux will truely take off on the desktop, too.
For example, Amazon as a retailer has to compete with every other bookshop on the onternet - this competition is good, and keeps prices down. Low proces allow poorer people to buy. The digital nature of amazon means that anyone can work for it anywhere in the world (excluding the manual work in the warehouses). This is a democratic, meritocratic process.
Dude, didn't you pay attention?
Let me quote:
"In March, just 14 companies controlled 60 percent of users' online time, down from 110 companies two years earlier,"
So there is actually *LESS* competition than before as fewer and fewer companies control the web.
Works (doesn't work on the Mac the so-called multimediasystem, BTW. Yes, I've tried and no, don't bother posting links unless you *really* watched DivX yourself on a Mac)
Real:
Works out of the box (at least on SuSE)
asf:
Works.
Sorenson-QT:
Works with Crossover
So while I agree that it's not perfect yet, Linux certainly is no longer in the multimedia-darkage anymore. Sorenson is pretty much the only thing still not working. (unless you are willing to pay a small amount for Crossover, which I did)
BTW, I would recommend aviplay, it's friendlier than mplayer and included in most distributions.
Bill Gates lying in court?
Microsoft faking evidence?
Microsoft illegaly using their market domination (apologists please note that I don't say monopoly) to lock out competition?
Microsoft forcing customers to buy another license although they already have one?
Microsoft forcing people to buy the product over and over again by breaking formats and standards?
The response of the average Microslave is:
"Oh well, that's just normal business. Everybody would do it if they could."
People pirating software?
"Oh well, that's just normal. Everybody does it."
P.S.: No, I don't pirate software, I even paid for my Linux distribution.
Could the drop in percentage of software being pirated have less to do with individuals pirating less than they did before, and just the sheer number of computer users increasing?
I would rather know how they calculate those numbers. I mean, what do they do? Go from door to door and ask everybody: "Sir, do you pirate software and if yes how much?"
Orcad used to be the #1 pirated electronics engineering program on the planet... that has changed cince the release of EagleCad, it's free for home personal use, so people dont see the need to steal it.
Want to stop piracy? dont rape home users. simple solution that works and is proven over and over. Microsoft... How about selling Office to Corperations for $3000.00 per workstation and make it $59.95 for the home user. office will no longer be pirated as people can actually afford it now for home use. ($199.99 for more for a wordprocessor/spreadsheet/whatever for home use? that is ASKING to be pirated.)
The funny thing is that home-users actually have to pay a lot more for MS-software than businesses (because of massive discounts)
I've not tried MacOS X yet, but I know MacOS and it was equally described as the ultimatively userfriendly OS.
Anyway, I was really disapointed because it's inconsistent (changing windows between apps and within apps; config apps quit when the last window is closed, normal apps don't), awkard (contect menu) and very limiting (try to switch to a finder-window that is obscured by another finder-window. No chance without closing/(re)moving the obscuring window).
Why do people think the Mac is easy? Because user-friendlyness is the main point of Apple marketing.
Linux on the PPC is a bit tricky to install, but the x86-versions are damn easy and KDE beats theMacOS9-GUI single-handedly no matter on what platform.
And since Apple remains the only computer-seller in the world that sells one-button mice (while most other vendors already sell wheel mice) - yes that is important because the mouse is the most important (and de facto only) GUI-navigation tool - I don't believe in the MacOS X marketing anymore.
So to summarize:
No I don't think MacOS X will kill Linux because Linux users already know great GUIs like KDE.
But I do think that MacOS X may gain a lot of users because the marketing-machine behind it is priceless. - And that's a good thing for us Linux-users, too, because apps will be a lot more portable between MacOS X and Linux than Windows and Linux.
A Linux-PDA is useless for me without...
on
Linux PDA Part Deux
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· Score: 4, Interesting
...Linux connectivity.
Every PDA I've seen until now, comes with connectivity to MS Outlook on MS Windows, but none (including the Linux-based ones) come with connectivity to KArm and Kab.
Although I welcome Linux on PDAs, I think it's not really the major issue at hand. What we need is connectivity to KDE.
Of course Windows users don't have to face the task of recompiling their kernel every so often.
Neither have Linux users.
Did I miss something? Did Bill Gates redefine the english language so that "be able to" and "have to" mean the same thing? Why don't Windroids understand the difference then?
That's correct, but you still had to start the - erhm - (it's not an app, what is it?) OS module called IE to be vulnerable.
Windows XP is the first OS that provides fully automated vulnerability through Windows Product Activation which will go online for you. You don't even have to start something, now that's what I call progress!
Re:This would be a nasty one as well...
on
WinXP Security Flaw
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
1. your off-the-cd version of windows XP is vulnerable.
2. You connect to the internet to download all of the security patches.
3. WAMMO! you get struck by this code red XP exploit.
Come on, that would be too hard. Windows XP is so user-friendly, it does that automatically:
1. your off-the-cd version of windows XP is vulnerable.
2. Windows Product Activation connects to the internet to download your activation code.
3. WAMMO! you get struck by this code red XP exploit.
But editors in the respected news firms of the world do not say things as unproductive as those who edit on Slashdot. As editors, they have a RESPONSIBLITY to get _news_ to us, not their own biased point of view.
I don't think you get it.
Slashdot is a site from the (tech)people for the (tech)people, that's why it gets a hell of a lot of typos, comments, double-posts, discussions, flamewars and bias.
I am really happy that there are still sites not controlled by huge corps.
Of course this is a hard concept for some people.
If you love to look at sites with no typos, no comments, no double-posts, no discussions, no flamewars and a more subtile form of bias, why don't you go here or here
On those sites there is no need to tell people to shut up, because people don't get to speak at all.
But then you must include the opportunity cost of buying the DVD drive. For a student, that's a lot.
A DVD drive is A LOT cheaper than MS Windows and MS Office which can both be replaced by what is on the SuSE DVD.
But when you spent the money you would have spent on Microsoft already, just use the CDs which are also in the package, what's the problem?
Re:Why should an interface keep evolving?
on
KDE 3.0 beta 1 is out
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I know I'll lose some Karma for saying this, but the MacOS9 GUI is the worst GUI in wide use.
It's inconsistent (Changing between apps is done through the finder-menu in the up-right corner, changing windows within apps is done using some menu (usually, but not always called "window"))
It's lacking basic abilities every GUI should be able to do (maximize(!), easier resizing)
I bought a Powerbook 2 years ago and I can summarize my experience as following: The software is pretty useless, but the hardware is fine and runs Linux very well.
I only used MacOS to watch DVDs and even that was a PITA (just insert a scratched DVD and see your system freeze -> hard reset)
I did not try MacOS X, but I have yet to hear what MacOS X can do what KDE can't. I won't shell out big bucks just to "try", thank you very much. (Wouldn't probably run very well on a G3/400 192MB RAM anyway)
Slashdot Mirror
I guess some slashdotters will convert their mp3s to ogg and put it on opennap.
Now imagine the average Windows-user finding a file he's been searching for weeks. Yes I guess he will download ogg.
If the PC would have stayed closed, even if MS would have created the greatest OS on earth, it would have died.
Microsoft was just lucky that IBM awarded them the x86-dominance, *ANY* other company would have been successful with that.
Microsoft marketing is good, but it's not the reason for their success. For example Apple has and always had better marketing.
Because the majority of system costs were hardware costs, it made perfect sense to go away from a closed hardware / relatively open (Unix) platform to a open hardware/closed software (Wintel) system. With the advent of Linux that changed, now you can have it all.
Do you really think MS had the clout before Win95 to force PC makers into exclusive agreements?
Yes. For example they nearly killed Vobis for preinstalling OS/2
Mac and Amiga suffered the same fate as Betamax, a better product ruined by mismanagement.
I don't consider any closed hardware platform better than the open PC platform (even with Windows)
And when I say "better" I mean "best bang for the buck" and good investment safety.
However this was meant, it comes across with quite a bit of arrogance. Once again, regardless of their business practices, MS has quite a few talented developers. (Please, no complaints about stolen BSD code or security vulnerabilities)
Irrelevant.
As far as MS dropping Alpha support, if your company had a fringe product(by market share, NOT quality) that was about to start consuming more resources than the sales merit, what would you do?
The same. That's why closed source software is not a save investment.
They were once a small company, and i doubt they would fall into oblivion just because they have a decent competitor.
Aproximately 30% of MS-revenues come from Windows directly, 40% come from MS Office and probably another 20% from the other Win-software they sell.
About 90% of revenues are dependent on Windows. Of course they have huge amounts of money and will continue to exist as an investment-house virtually forever, but as a software-company, I have my doubts.
Of course they still support Alpha, but they dropped support for Windows on Alpha in 1999.
Well that's a bit of a stretch. "Dependendts", "Slaves" or "Prisoners" would be better descriptions, IMO.
They will betray and leave Microsoft the first time they get the chance.
After all, like it or not, MS brought PCs into the realm of usability for the average idiot.
Like it or not, but this is plain wrong.
It was asian-hardware makers which brought PCs into the price range suitable for the average person. Remember DOS? Remember high-memory? Remember IRQ/DMA problems?
Usability is secondary and always was. Otherwise the awkard DOS could have never had any chance against MacOS.
Do you really think Dell would be pulling in almost $32 BILLION dollars if we were still using Dr Dos?
Now, let's get clear about something: Microsoft always trailed the computing industry. Windows was late - very late. All other computers (Amiga, Apple and most Unix) had GUIs much earlier than Microsoft.
Yet, everybody pretends as if without Microsoft there would be no GUI. Without Microsoft, the computing industry would be a couple of years farther ahead than it is now.
Welcome to the joys of market share. MS and the "OS-community" are in much different positions. Since most people use Windows, if a hardware manufacturer wants it's product to sell, they have to make it work with Windows.
That's correct now, *BUT* on servers, most manufacturers support Linux as good as Windows and it's possible that a couple of years down the road, Microsoft will have to write drivers themselves for RAID, etc. and will support only a limited selection of server-hardware. (And this will eventually kill them)
You need an example?
Compaq dropped support for the Alpha-platform, because Linux has taken it over completely and Windows only accounted for 5% of new sales of Alpha-systems.
Within a week, Microsoft dropped support for the Alpha, too, because they just can't support it alone, they just can't.
Hell, even on ordinary x86-hardware, Windows is much more complicated to install if the hardware is not preconfigured by the PC-maker for Windows. If you build your own computer, you know what I mean.
OS developers write their own drivers because they have to. Until they have sufficient market share to justify the expense from the manufacturer of creating another set of drivers, this will be their only option.
Yes, but Microsoft does not have that option.
Once, their dominance is in danger it's just a big way down for MS without any hope for return.
First, no, not everyone has been predicting that.
Second, Microsoft's OS takes a higher and higher percentage of total computer costs.
15 years ago, Apple dominated the desktop and the PC won because it was maybe 20 to 30% cheaper. Now, we already have reached 20 to 30% of the price of a desktop-system that will go to MS (when you buy retail), which means that a Linux system could be 20 to 30% cheaper if it were preinstalled.
Because of OEM discounts, Windows-machines are still competitive, but as hardware costs continue to fall, Microsoft's fraction continues to rise and soon alternative computer makers will be able to offer significantly cheaper "naked" or Linux-preinstalled systems than the big OEMs and that will help Linux very much.
It's just a matter of time.
What allies do they have?
Everybody hates MS, now after MS started a war with Sony, there are not many companies left that a friends with Microsoft.
I also don't think that they can even remotely match the open-source community in development-capacities.
The OS-community wrote almost all drivers itself, while Microsoft is dependent on the hardware manufacturer to do that.
The problem in a market with networking effects is that an unsuccessful product is not good at all.
Only the open-source nature of Linux made it happen and somewhat outweigthed the big disadvantages like lack of software and drivers in the past.
While there are still a couple of blank spots (like AutoCAD, games or WinModems) the mainstream business hard- and software is there.
As soon as Wine is ready for primetime (always remember Win98 compatibility is enough, the Win32 API is *NOT* a moving target) Linux will truely take off on the desktop, too.
Dude, didn't you pay attention?
Let me quote: "In March, just 14 companies controlled 60 percent of users' online time, down from 110 companies two years earlier,"
So there is actually *LESS* competition than before as fewer and fewer companies control the web.
But today, everything works:
So while I agree that it's not perfect yet, Linux certainly is no longer in the multimedia-darkage anymore. Sorenson is pretty much the only thing still not working. (unless you are willing to pay a small amount for Crossover, which I did)
BTW, I would recommend aviplay, it's friendlier than mplayer and included in most distributions.
Microsoft faking evidence?
Microsoft illegaly using their market domination (apologists please note that I don't say monopoly) to lock out competition?
Microsoft forcing customers to buy another license although they already have one?
Microsoft forcing people to buy the product over and over again by breaking formats and standards?
The response of the average Microslave is:
"Oh well, that's just normal business. Everybody would do it if they could."
People pirating software?
"Oh well, that's just normal. Everybody does it."
P.S.: No, I don't pirate software, I even paid for my Linux distribution.
I would rather know how they calculate those numbers. I mean, what do they do? Go from door to door and ask everybody: "Sir, do you pirate software and if yes how much?"
Want to stop piracy? dont rape home users. simple solution that works and is proven over and over. Microsoft... How about selling Office to Corperations for $3000.00 per workstation and make it $59.95 for the home user. office will no longer be pirated as people can actually afford it now for home use. ($199.99 for more for a wordprocessor/spreadsheet/whatever for home use? that is ASKING to be pirated.)
The funny thing is that home-users actually have to pay a lot more for MS-software than businesses (because of massive discounts)
"Hey you, may I steal your car? You can steal mine in return, OK?"
Anyway, I was really disapointed because it's inconsistent (changing windows between apps and within apps; config apps quit when the last window is closed, normal apps don't), awkard (contect menu) and very limiting (try to switch to a finder-window that is obscured by another finder-window. No chance without closing/(re)moving the obscuring window).
Why do people think the Mac is easy? Because user-friendlyness is the main point of Apple marketing.
Linux on the PPC is a bit tricky to install, but the x86-versions are damn easy and KDE beats theMacOS9-GUI single-handedly no matter on what platform.
And since Apple remains the only computer-seller in the world that sells one-button mice (while most other vendors already sell wheel mice) - yes that is important because the mouse is the most important (and de facto only) GUI-navigation tool - I don't believe in the MacOS X marketing anymore.
So to summarize:
No I don't think MacOS X will kill Linux because Linux users already know great GUIs like KDE.
But I do think that MacOS X may gain a lot of users because the marketing-machine behind it is priceless. - And that's a good thing for us Linux-users, too, because apps will be a lot more portable between MacOS X and Linux than Windows and Linux.
Every PDA I've seen until now, comes with connectivity to MS Outlook on MS Windows, but none (including the Linux-based ones) come with connectivity to KArm and Kab.
Although I welcome Linux on PDAs, I think it's not really the major issue at hand. What we need is connectivity to KDE.
Neither have Linux users.
Did I miss something? Did Bill Gates redefine the english language so that "be able to" and "have to" mean the same thing? Why don't Windroids understand the difference then?
Honestly, I think that's even better than "Lindows".
And I don't think that MS also has the rights for "Win" (at least I hope so...)
Windows XP is the first OS that provides fully automated vulnerability through Windows Product Activation which will go online for you. You don't even have to start something, now that's what I call progress!
2. You connect to the internet to download all of the security patches.
3. WAMMO! you get struck by this code red XP exploit.
Come on, that would be too hard. Windows XP is so user-friendly, it does that automatically:
1. your off-the-cd version of windows XP is vulnerable.
2. Windows Product Activation connects to the internet to download your activation code.
3. WAMMO! you get struck by this code red XP exploit.
Even if that were true, why should anybody care WHY Windows is insecure?
I don't think you get it.
Slashdot is a site from the (tech)people for the (tech)people, that's why it gets a hell of a lot of typos, comments, double-posts, discussions, flamewars and bias.
I am really happy that there are still sites not controlled by huge corps.
Of course this is a hard concept for some people.
If you love to look at sites with no typos, no comments, no double-posts, no discussions, no flamewars and a more subtile form of bias, why don't you go here or here
On those sites there is no need to tell people to shut up, because people don't get to speak at all.
A DVD drive is A LOT cheaper than MS Windows and MS Office which can both be replaced by what is on the SuSE DVD.
But when you spent the money you would have spent on Microsoft already, just use the CDs which are also in the package, what's the problem?
It's inconsistent (Changing between apps is done through the finder-menu in the up-right corner, changing windows within apps is done using some menu (usually, but not always called "window"))
It's lacking basic abilities every GUI should be able to do (maximize(!), easier resizing)
I bought a Powerbook 2 years ago and I can summarize my experience as following: The software is pretty useless, but the hardware is fine and runs Linux very well.
I only used MacOS to watch DVDs and even that was a PITA (just insert a scratched DVD and see your system freeze -> hard reset)
I did not try MacOS X, but I have yet to hear what MacOS X can do what KDE can't. I won't shell out big bucks just to "try", thank you very much. (Wouldn't probably run very well on a G3/400 192MB RAM anyway)
Somebody please mod that up, that answers about half of all the anti-KDE/Linux FUD out there:
"KDE looks like Windows"
"Linux is recompiled on a daily basis"
"Linux is used from the CLI"