Re:My take on the whole thing
on
XBox Released
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· Score: 1
To add to this if Xbox tanks it will be fun to watch the fall out at MicroSoft. Like watching a fish out of water gasping for water...
My take on the whole thing
on
XBox Released
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I have always liked the editors at Salon and this time is no exception.
What Xbox has going for it...
1 - PS2 is known as a more adult gaming platform. I just bought a PS2 and finding games for my 9 year old daughter is interesting. Maby MS can capitalize it if they are smart.
2 - Should be easy to port PC games to it. Something lacking in PS2/Nintindo worlds.
What Xbox has going against it....
1 - Sony rules the console market right now. Hands down. Nintendo has some a good new platform and more kiddy friendly games. Xbox has to compete with this
2 - Microsoft is used to being able to do what they want because they have a Monopoly. How will management react to situations when they are the small guy. It's like General Moters starting to offer blenders. They are not experts and the people the people who have been making them know a lot more about it and actually listen to there customers.
3 - Lack of vision. Ties into #2. Where's the killer app? Do you really think Gates and Balmer can envision great new games.
4 - Game makers won't produce for a console that hasn't got a proven track record. Why spend millions developing a game for a potential 50 people when I can do it for tens of millions across the world (PS2).
5 - Blue/Green screen of death will put off gamers. I bought a PS2 so I could get away from computer gaming and costant error messages and rebooting. When has anyone ever seen an error message on a Playstation or a Nintendo? I want drop in a game and play it never seeing an error message. PC users are use to getting them and can live with it. Console games don't and won't tolerate it. I gave up PC gaming because I got sick of upgrading video cards, getting more hard drive space, better processors. I just want to drop that disc in and play the game.
6 - The goofy Balmer/Monkey/music crap that the Salon article talked about. If you have to dance around on stage and talk like a motivational speaker your not selling stuff in the console market. When Grand Theft III is released or the next version of Final Fantasy they don't even need to air a commercial. They could send it to the stores and put it on the shelf without a word and it will sell out. Microsoft ain't cool. Sony is, Nintendo is some what.
I could go on and on. I can't see Xbox being anything but a niche market. Microsoft bit off more than they can chew with this one.
" I'm not the average person, but if you just want to pop a cd in and go, redhat is MUCH better than any MS OS has ever been (although I haven't been able to try the XP install)."
I agree, I recently tried installing a RedHat on a desktop I previously installed Win 98 on. I let Redhat default everything and it worked without any problems, including the graphics card on X which is where I thought the problem was.
The Windos 98 install took 3 days to track down the various driver problems.
"Microsoft should be spending its billions generating new demand, not trying to take its 90% market share to 92.5%...The only killer app driving upgrades seems to be games"
Microsoft makes in money like the auto makers make thier money. By constant maintanance and upgrades. Cars are made to fall apart. GM doesn't make money on selling the car, they make it on fixing it and watching you buy a new car every 4 or 5 years. MS makes it's money from people upgrading to the new MS wizbang version X every two years.
If GM made a car that was maintance free and would run for 20 years they would be out of business. Same with Microsoft.
At some point in the cycle customers say "screw this, I am tired of paying". Then they buy a Honda and get Linux on their computer. If Hardware companies are smart (IBM, Compaq, Dell, HP, etc listen up) They can sell great hardware running this opperating system and give companies solutions that work and are cheap.
" When we have squabbles over VMs, when we fight over trivial license issues, when we let the religion of Linux get in the way of rationality -- that's when Microsoft will strike, like a shark devouring a wounded penguin. "
Do you think this kind of stuff doesn't go on in private companies. If you do you need to work in one. There are always squables like these in Microsoft and other comercial programming ogranizations. You can't see them because they are kept in meetings behind doors. The fact it happens in the open for Linux and BSD doesn't detract from it. If the people knew where to find these arguments they probably are all ready sold on Opensource to begin with. People who aren't familiar with Linux wouldn't ever see these arguments. And I am sure IBM can distance itself from these arguments without any problems. Salesmen are adept at this. That's what they get paid to do.
Why would you be at/. if you didn't want to read that kind of stuff?
I won't stop bashing Microsoft until it becomes a regular player like the rest. But since it owns 99.99% if the desktop market and MS people keep pushing unstable, bloated, poorly programmed applications and OS's I will continue to bitch about it. The only way for MS to provide quality is if some one threatens their income source if they screw up.
I use to be one of those guys a long time ago (about 10 years ago) that thought what the home computer user wants controlled the market. Your completely wrong. It's the business accounts that matter. the companies in the fortune 100 list spend far more on wintel boxes than all the home users worldwide combined.
If a IBM or some other provider comes up with desktop and sever solutions using linux that work and sell, MicroSoft will feel the pain a LOT more than if home users everywhere installed linux. Home user sales only affect Radio Shack and Future Shop.
Was it linux or was it you. I have heard from a few guys in the past DB2 does well on Linux and IBM hardware.
How do you know it wasn't the implementation? Perhaps the team didn't fully understand how to migrate from one system to another. It's not like installing an upgrade for Windows. You going to have to be more specific to disprove what I have heard others say about DB2 on Linux.
"Running a few 4-proc Intel servers with Oracle or Sybase does not put you in the same league"
Linux will run on a number of platforms, including OS/390 and other high end IBM servers. IBM is working hard to make it run efficiently on all there hardware platforms. This is why I think your statement is wrong. You are correct that running Linux on Intel 32 bit boxes doesn't do the kind of work that large Sun or IBM systems do. People keep tying linux to Intel box's where they shouldn't.
Linux in one year will be better than it is today, where as Solaris or AIX or MVS won't be. That's the advantage.
I work on Unix machines running Oracle and on OS/390 machines running DB2. Based on my work in that and all my tinkering on linux over the years I think Linux is now able to handle mission critical on the right hardware. All the tools for big bizz mission critical stuff became available in Linux recently.
But, and this is a big but, it has to be setup by the right person. I have seen Unix and MVS systems setup and hose up for mission critical situations. We lost a lot of money while the systems were down. The higher ups would blame the people (as they should have) because the systems work in other situations just fine so it must be the people.
Based on perceptions, if it were Linux setup by the wrong guy and things went belly up they would blame the Linux because it's untested. It would end up the scape goat instead of the lazy implementation group. That's what Linux has to overcome.
I remember a quote I think was from the Red Baron, "It's not the crate, but the man in it that counts".
What kind of databases are you guys running? And how big are they (in Gigs)?
I can save our company lots if I can convince them to run our DB2 and Oracle databases on Linux instead of what we have now. But I need examples of large size databases. Stuff around 50 Gigs to 400 Gigs.
But Microsoft has broken the Anti-trust rules of the Sherman act. There letter writing campaign is legal, and used by everyone else. That's not what I take issue with.
What I take issue with at Microsoft is them saying to Dell, or Compaq, or any vendor, "You will sell our OS with our logo's and how we tell you to, period. And if you offer another operating system to customers besides our products we will yank your license and you will not be able to sell machines with Windows". This gives them the power to crush competitors. That's what breaks the anti trust laws. I won't even start with the gestapo style aduits they force organizations to do periodically.
If Sun, IBM, Novell, Xerox, or any others are doing the same thing they can be hauled into court as well. But they can't because they don't own 80% of the market share.
The letter writing campaign is a general problem not caused by Microsoft but by lobey groups. That I don't blame Microsoft for. But I do blame them for getting into bed with them as well as what I said for the above.
So what if he stabbed the victim. I'm sure it was a missunderstanding. He wanted to show the nice features of the knife and tripped. Yea, thats the story.
Not all the dead people's family crossed out the name. I have a hard time beleiving that the first thing the greiving relatives think of when poor grandpa dies is to rush that letter off to there congressman about poor microsoft getting beaten up. Forget the casket and gave site arrangements, Grandpa would have wanted it that way.
The article speeks to more than just microsurfs questionable intentions. This kind of thing goes on constantly from technology issues to over extending copyright patents to making sure city council builds a statue a Grandma in the city square.
This kind of lobbying behavour is causing problems with democracy in general. Lobby groups, whether its the marketing dept of Micro$queeze or Larry Ellisons private detectives snooping through trash in Redmond, should not have this kind of sway in legal proceedings. That's what friend of the court briefs are for. You can have a say but don't harrass the attorneys into doing what you want.
the difference is Microsoft and there co-horts are using dead people and addresses the don't exist to send letter.
It's about as bead as getting dead people to vote in elections.
Re:Linux not ready for enterprise?
on
IBM Wants Linux
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· Score: 1
Google or not it's still needs some work for it to be used and trusted by some of IBM's bigger clients. Think about systems with hundreds of terrabytes in disk space. The ability to track everyone that modified a paticular file since it was created (legal depts like this). Some of the files and database's I work with are monstrous (100+ gigibytes per file/database).
I like Linux and OpenBSD but I would like to see them mature a bit more before I put my everyday work database and files on them.
Think again. It would be nice if that's the way the world worked but it doesn't. Legaly you can't tamper with a network or system without the ownwers permission. No matter how benevolant the creater the companies lawyers will go after you no matter how honest your intentions are. You messed with our systems and it's off to court you go. There have been a few court cases regarding this all ready. The one I rember was in Nevada (i think) where an IT person fixed something on a clients computer that was out of scope to his work there. The client company sued and won.
There are also lots of "cease and dissist letter" stories from anyone trying to be helpfull and informing companies of holes in there networks.
I remember around 1988 to 90 when I first researched computer viruses they talked about benevolant uses of viruses. Some software companies where looking into using vurises to patch programs and pass on software upgrades without the user having to do anything.
It didn't get any further than that if I remember.
Yes, fine logic there. It's popular, i must not like it. real brains at work there.
I use redhat because I too have a lot of computers to manage and I like the RPM thing. All the other distributions are fine products. Just as effective as redhat. But the logic that the popular distribution must be bad is very immature and moronic.
This could be a new source of advertising space for marketing agencies.
Thank of all the shampoo and perfume samples we can ship to the alien market.
Re:How long should a patent last?
on
Mundie Responds
·
· Score: 1
In my oppinion there should be to dates for IP rights. If the patent is technical in nature, it serves a functional purpose, give it 5 years and then make it public domain. That's enough time for a company to recoup costs and make a profit. For artistic works it should be the life of the creator, and ONLY the creator can patent/copy right that work.
Let's say you couldn't decide for yourself as a consumer. The RIAA is a good example of this. If you want to buy a CD of your favourite band at the music store they MUST go through the RIAA. Any band that wants to sell music to people who enjoy has to pay up and do things the Recording industry way. Ask any musician you know and you hear four letter words.
Microsoft is in a position of dominance. Any company that has lots of computers needs to run an Operating system. To change from windows now would costs lots of money and lost productivity. So companies pay the tax to microsoft instead of setting themselves free. They also have to live with what ever conditions MS gives them. That's why MS is in trouble for aniti-trust violations.
Consumers right now don't have real choices, just like they don't have real choices about where there music comes from. It's no different than the mafia extorting money from retial shops.
Slashdot Mirror
To add to this if Xbox tanks it will be fun to watch the fall out at MicroSoft. Like watching a fish out of water gasping for water...
I have always liked the editors at Salon and this time is no exception.
What Xbox has going for it...
1 - PS2 is known as a more adult gaming platform. I just bought a PS2 and finding games for my 9 year old daughter is interesting. Maby MS can capitalize it if they are smart.
2 - Should be easy to port PC games to it. Something lacking in PS2/Nintindo worlds.
What Xbox has going against it....
1 - Sony rules the console market right now. Hands down. Nintendo has some a good new platform and more kiddy friendly games. Xbox has to compete with this
2 - Microsoft is used to being able to do what they want because they have a Monopoly. How will management react to situations when they are the small guy. It's like General Moters starting to offer blenders. They are not experts and the people the people who have been making them know a lot more about it and actually listen to there customers.
3 - Lack of vision. Ties into #2. Where's the killer app? Do you really think Gates and Balmer can envision great new games.
4 - Game makers won't produce for a console that hasn't got a proven track record. Why spend millions developing a game for a potential 50 people when I can do it for tens of millions across the world (PS2).
5 - Blue/Green screen of death will put off gamers. I bought a PS2 so I could get away from computer gaming and costant error messages and rebooting. When has anyone ever seen an error message on a Playstation or a Nintendo? I want drop in a game and play it never seeing an error message. PC users are use to getting them and can live with it. Console games don't and won't tolerate it. I gave up PC gaming because I got sick of upgrading video cards, getting more hard drive space, better processors. I just want to drop that disc in and play the game.
6 - The goofy Balmer/Monkey/music crap that the Salon article talked about. If you have to dance around on stage and talk like a motivational speaker your not selling stuff in the console market. When Grand Theft III is released or the next version of Final Fantasy they don't even need to air a commercial. They could send it to the stores and put it on the shelf without a word and it will sell out. Microsoft ain't cool. Sony is, Nintendo is some what.
I could go on and on. I can't see Xbox being anything but a niche market. Microsoft bit off more than they can chew with this one.
"One of my non-linux using friends joked about "selling his soul" to buy Windows XP...take from that what you will... "
You can only sell so much snake oil before the customers question what there getting for there buck.
" I'm not the average person, but if you just want to pop a cd in and go, redhat is MUCH better than any MS OS has ever been (although I haven't been able to try the XP install)."
I agree, I recently tried installing a RedHat on a desktop I previously installed Win 98 on. I let Redhat default everything and it worked without any problems, including the graphics card on X which is where I thought the problem was.
The Windos 98 install took 3 days to track down the various driver problems.
"Microsoft should be spending its billions generating new demand, not trying to take its 90% market share to 92.5%...The only killer app driving upgrades seems to be games"
Microsoft makes in money like the auto makers make thier money. By constant maintanance and upgrades. Cars are made to fall apart. GM doesn't make money on selling the car, they make it on fixing it and watching you buy a new car every 4 or 5 years. MS makes it's money from people upgrading to the new MS wizbang version X every two years.
If GM made a car that was maintance free and would run for 20 years they would be out of business. Same with Microsoft.
At some point in the cycle customers say "screw this, I am tired of paying". Then they buy a Honda and get Linux on their computer. If Hardware companies are smart (IBM, Compaq, Dell, HP, etc listen up) They can sell great hardware running this opperating system and give companies solutions that work and are cheap.
" When we have squabbles over VMs, when we fight over trivial license issues, when we let the religion of Linux get in the way of rationality -- that's when Microsoft will strike, like a shark devouring a wounded penguin. "
Do you think this kind of stuff doesn't go on in private companies. If you do you need to work in one. There are always squables like these in Microsoft and other comercial programming ogranizations. You can't see them because they are kept in meetings behind doors. The fact it happens in the open for Linux and BSD doesn't detract from it. If the people knew where to find these arguments they probably are all ready sold on Opensource to begin with. People who aren't familiar with Linux wouldn't ever see these arguments. And I am sure IBM can distance itself from these arguments without any problems. Salesmen are adept at this. That's what they get paid to do.
No we don't.
/. if you didn't want to read that kind of stuff?
Why would you be at
I won't stop bashing Microsoft until it becomes a regular player like the rest. But since it owns 99.99% if the desktop market and MS people keep pushing unstable, bloated, poorly programmed applications and OS's I will continue to bitch about it. The only way for MS to provide quality is if some one threatens their income source if they screw up.
I use to be one of those guys a long time ago (about 10 years ago) that thought what the home computer user wants controlled the market. Your completely wrong. It's the business accounts that matter. the companies in the fortune 100 list spend far more on wintel boxes than all the home users worldwide combined.
If a IBM or some other provider comes up with desktop and sever solutions using linux that work and sell, MicroSoft will feel the pain a LOT more than if home users everywhere installed linux. Home user sales only affect Radio Shack and Future Shop.
"It failed HORRIBLY. "
Was it linux or was it you. I have heard from a few guys in the past DB2 does well on Linux and IBM hardware.
How do you know it wasn't the implementation? Perhaps the team didn't fully understand how to migrate from one system to another. It's not like installing an upgrade for Windows. You going to have to be more specific to disprove what I have heard others say about DB2 on Linux.
"Running a few 4-proc Intel servers with Oracle or Sybase does not put you in the same league"
Linux will run on a number of platforms, including OS/390 and other high end IBM servers. IBM is working hard to make it run efficiently on all there hardware platforms. This is why I think your statement is wrong. You are correct that running Linux on Intel 32 bit boxes doesn't do the kind of work that large Sun or IBM systems do. People keep tying linux to Intel box's where they shouldn't.
Linux in one year will be better than it is today, where as Solaris or AIX or MVS won't be. That's the advantage.
"And now with IBM buying Informix, there is nothing to worry about the future of Informix the product either. "
Unless IBM shoves DB2 down your throat next time you talk about licencing with them.
"What legitimate member of the
Spend time in enough meetings with Admin management and director types and you too can speak like this.
I work on Unix machines running Oracle and on OS/390 machines running DB2. Based on my work in that and all my tinkering on linux over the years I think Linux is now able to handle mission critical on the right hardware. All the tools for big bizz mission critical stuff became available in Linux recently.
But, and this is a big but, it has to be setup by the right person. I have seen Unix and MVS systems setup and hose up for mission critical situations. We lost a lot of money while the systems were down. The higher ups would blame the people (as they should have) because the systems work in other situations just fine so it must be the people.
Based on perceptions, if it were Linux setup by the wrong guy and things went belly up they would blame the Linux because it's untested. It would end up the scape goat instead of the lazy implementation group. That's what Linux has to overcome.
I remember a quote I think was from the Red Baron, "It's not the crate, but the man in it that counts".
What kind of databases are you guys running? And how big are they (in Gigs)?
I can save our company lots if I can convince them to run our DB2 and Oracle databases on Linux instead of what we have now. But I need examples of large size databases. Stuff around 50 Gigs to 400 Gigs.
But Microsoft has broken the Anti-trust rules of the Sherman act. There letter writing campaign is legal, and used by everyone else. That's not what I take issue with.
What I take issue with at Microsoft is them saying to Dell, or Compaq, or any vendor, "You will sell our OS with our logo's and how we tell you to, period. And if you offer another operating system to customers besides our products we will yank your license and you will not be able to sell machines with Windows". This gives them the power to crush competitors. That's what breaks the anti trust laws. I won't even start with the gestapo style aduits they force organizations to do periodically.
If Sun, IBM, Novell, Xerox, or any others are doing the same thing they can be hauled into court as well. But they can't because they don't own 80% of the market share.
The letter writing campaign is a general problem not caused by Microsoft but by lobey groups. That I don't blame Microsoft for. But I do blame them for getting into bed with them as well as what I said for the above.
you sound like a lawyer
So what if he stabbed the victim. I'm sure it was a missunderstanding. He wanted to show the nice features of the knife and tripped. Yea, thats the story.
Not all the dead people's family crossed out the name. I have a hard time beleiving that the first thing the greiving relatives think of when poor grandpa dies is to rush that letter off to there congressman about poor microsoft getting beaten up. Forget the casket and gave site arrangements, Grandpa would have wanted it that way.
The article speeks to more than just microsurfs questionable intentions. This kind of thing goes on constantly from technology issues to over extending copyright patents to making sure city council builds a statue a Grandma in the city square.
This kind of lobbying behavour is causing problems with democracy in general. Lobby groups, whether its the marketing dept of Micro$queeze or Larry Ellisons private detectives snooping through trash in Redmond, should not have this kind of sway in legal proceedings. That's what friend of the court briefs are for. You can have a say but don't harrass the attorneys into doing what you want.
the difference is Microsoft and there co-horts are using dead people and addresses the don't exist to send letter.
It's about as bead as getting dead people to vote in elections.
Google or not it's still needs some work for it to be used and trusted by some of IBM's bigger clients. Think about systems with hundreds of terrabytes in disk space. The ability to track everyone that modified a paticular file since it was created (legal depts like this). Some of the files and database's I work with are monstrous (100+ gigibytes per file/database).
I like Linux and OpenBSD but I would like to see them mature a bit more before I put my everyday work database and files on them.
Think again. It would be nice if that's the way the world worked but it doesn't. Legaly you can't tamper with a network or system without the ownwers permission. No matter how benevolant the creater the companies lawyers will go after you no matter how honest your intentions are. You messed with our systems and it's off to court you go. There have been a few court cases regarding this all ready. The one I rember was in Nevada (i think) where an IT person fixed something on a clients computer that was out of scope to his work there. The client company sued and won.
There are also lots of "cease and dissist letter" stories from anyone trying to be helpfull and informing companies of holes in there networks.
I remember around 1988 to 90 when I first researched computer viruses they talked about benevolant uses of viruses. Some software companies where looking into using vurises to patch programs and pass on software upgrades without the user having to do anything. It didn't get any further than that if I remember.
Yes, fine logic there. It's popular, i must not like it. real brains at work there.
I use redhat because I too have a lot of computers to manage and I like the RPM thing. All the other distributions are fine products. Just as effective as redhat. But the logic that the popular distribution must be bad is very immature and moronic.
This could be a new source of advertising space for marketing agencies. Thank of all the shampoo and perfume samples we can ship to the alien market.
In my oppinion there should be to dates for IP rights. If the patent is technical in nature, it serves a functional purpose, give it 5 years and then make it public domain. That's enough time for a company to recoup costs and make a profit. For artistic works it should be the life of the creator, and ONLY the creator can patent/copy right that work.
Let's say you couldn't decide for yourself as a consumer. The RIAA is a good example of this. If you want to buy a CD of your favourite band at the music store they MUST go through the RIAA. Any band that wants to sell music to people who enjoy has to pay up and do things the Recording industry way. Ask any musician you know and you hear four letter words.
Microsoft is in a position of dominance. Any company that has lots of computers needs to run an Operating system. To change from windows now would costs lots of money and lost productivity. So companies pay the tax to microsoft instead of setting themselves free. They also have to live with what ever conditions MS gives them. That's why MS is in trouble for aniti-trust violations.
Consumers right now don't have real choices, just like they don't have real choices about where there music comes from. It's no different than the mafia extorting money from retial shops.