Not all banks are like that, and you can always switch banks (or threaten to switch.)
...
Let them know that "Use IE" is not an acceptable answer.
I've used many banks but had to do that only once. If you play it right, the new bank will sweeten the defection with a few perks, discounts, better rates or waived fees.
It's kind of stupid though. If the bank had simply coded to standard, then there wouldn't be a problem, assuming that MS reps didn't flat out negotiate with the bank to make problems for standards compliant browsers.
However, I think more people are now coding to standard XHTML + CSS for FireFox, Opera, Safari, etc. first and then making tweaks so that their work renders also in MSIE.
Passing 11% marketshare will just make that practice more common.
The Onestat press release only mentions the UK and a few of it's former colonies, which tend to flock together somewhat as far as trends and culture go.
I'm interested in what data they have for Germany or other countries. If Apache is any example, then Firefox should be much more in use some places: Apache has only about 70% of the HTTP server market worldwide, but has over 90% in Germany.
Sure it would be ideal if there were a software libre equivalent of Dreamweaver or Quickbooks, but why not just sell ports?
Quickbooks is already ported to OS X, so it's most of the way there already. That ought to be an easy choice. Who wouldn't want a business system immune to the viruses, worms and trojans out there?
Even if the counter that worms, viruses, and trojans will appear as the linux distros gain marketshare, early adopters still save. However, the internal organization of the operating system, especially privilege separation and least privilege, makes it much more resistant. The systems can be further harden by putting things into different partitions and mounting the r/w partions (where there is data) noexec, and mounting the partitions containing executables read-only. Anyway, I digress...
Most businesses won't miss the absence of games and will appreciate a low maintenance platform.
I'm surprised how far down the list your post is and how many people have missed those two points. Perhaps most in the mainstream now equate computer hardware with a particular brand of operating system.
If the big vendors shipped linux pre-installed, it would sell. Right now, Linux distros are easier to install an use than MS Windows, but that's a big psychological hurdle for people to get over. If they install it themselves, it's too adventurous. If it comes pre-installed and preconfigured, then they know that what they have is how it is supposed to be.
It's not as much a chicken-and-egg thing as M$ would benefit from. M$ has, and still does, play hardball with the vendors to ensure that competing operating systems and even competing packages and services don't show up on brand new systems. The chicken-and-egg problem show up in getting the vendors to break loose from M$' grip. One or two alone won't or can't do it -- it'd be too easy for M$ to retaliate like it has in the past. However, if many decide to do it at once, then they'd all hop on the band wagon.
I'm not sure what the first step in that direction is. Prying the contents of the contracts and non-written threats between M$ and the vendors out of hiding and getting them into daylight for public scrutiny would be a coup. But years of court action hasn't made any progress in that regard, maybe there is another way to solve that problem. Personally, I'm expecting the MIT $100 notebook to break the ice, assuming the M$ political engine can't crush the project first.
If you think about M$ supporters that post, you do see a pattern.
One strategy, Hit and run is common enough as a tactic that it is well documented. The other twenty four tactics will also look familiar. Slashdot has become mainstream some while ago, you do see it mentioned and even cited in non-tech print media. So that means you will get a fair number of people that don't know any better than to swallow the marketing. But there are also those that do know better and do seem to have an agenda.
Anyway, MS is probably making so much noise about vaporware like 'Internet versions of Office and Windows' in order to steal thunder from discussions of open standards like OpenDocument or to get people from downloading and testing OpenOffice.org. I mean if MS Office is so much better, what does M$ have to lose? People would try OOo, say 'nah', and then go back to MS Office, right? Or won't that happen ?
Firefox support is coming soon. Please be patient:-)
. Did I read that right? MS supporting Firefox?
No. Parse the statement for tense. They are telling Firefox users in effect to sit down and wait quietly for an unspecified period.
Given the company's history on meeting deadlines, it's not going to be any time soon, unless it's a priority. Given the company's history on interoperability and supporting competing products, protocols and formats, it's not going to be a priority.
It's just a placation to encourage users of competing software to postpone action. You must be new here, and new anywhere else for that matter.;)
People that need an office suite via the net can download OpenOffice.org or individual packages like AbiWord for free.
A credit card is *not* identification. And unless the laws have changed, it is illegal for merchants to use it as such. Sure some tried, but the credit card companies put a stop to it. Maybe there's another wave of stupidity.
Some of the door 'slamming' or closed doors being 'thumped' happens because buildings breath. It's somewhat like blowing across a bottle to make a tone, but ultra low frequency. It's more like bottles connected to bottles. You could probably work something out with a fluid dynamics simulation. The wind doesn't need to be that high to get an effect, but most newer or 'renovated' buildings are too noisy to hear the smaller movements, though. (I measured a lot of 'quiet' rooms in the US at 25 decibels) Caves with a single entrance breath, too, and the frequency can be used to determine the volume.
'Many are specially trained, sometimes at corporate headquarters, Gossett said, as in the case with Microsoft. They are expected to devote about 10 to 15 hours a week talking up the products to friends, securing corporate sponsorship of campus events and lobbying student newspaper reporters to mention products in articles. They also must plaster bulletin boards with posters and chalk sidewalks -- tactics known as "guerrilla marketing," which, marketing firms acknowledge, intentionally skirt the boundaries of campus rules.'
Now how exactly is M$ not like a MLM anymore?
The special training at corporate headquarters is probably one of the reasons there is sometimes a hiatus and it'll go a few days without a peep in defense of M$. They'll also attack, usually with logical fallacies (e.g. ad hominem), any criticism or even critique of products or initiatives that are being launched. (e.g. right now MS SQL.) Read carefully the next attacks from MS fanbois and see that they usually change the topic or go into name calling.
Anyway, it's not a surprise to see them go after OOo and less so for OpenDocument. Both cut into their MS Office revenue. OpenDocument cuts off the lock-in at the file format level, removing dependence on MS for continued use of the documents.
Well, there's the argument that DMCA locks you to a specific vendor (Microsoft or Apple, basically) and therefore is a monopoly-style problem for consumers, but the Gov'mt is likely to think this is akin to complaining that you can't listen your LP's on your CD player. Yeah, the format is locked to a vendor or kind of equipment, but there are ways of transferring it if you really want to. (Yes, there are. Stop complaining.)
Not legally there's not. That's covered by the DMCA under circumvention. If you have the EUCD instead, then even talking about it 'in an organized manner' is illegal. That means that if the vendor doesn't want you to access the file on your brand or model, then you're S.O.L. legally speaking. Sure there are ways to get around most things, but computer crime is up there with armed robbery in terms of punishment these days.
Anyway, that's the whole point of exemptions to the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause. Though it'd be better just to repeal the DMCA. It was able to slide through congress with the help of the media which was giving 24/7 coverage of whether Lewinsky spit or swallowed.
I don't know of any company that is as bad as MS at announcing vaporware year after year after year. I also don't know any company that is as good as MS at pulling the wool over everyone's eyes year after year after year. Never mind that the products are usually buggy for several product revisions. Hell with 2000 out of the box you had to wait for hotfixes to even get features that were "officially" in the product when you bought it.
Not being a MS Windows user I only notice the server side stuff on the rare occasion. What "officially there" features were missing from 2000 (or XP or 2003 etc) ? And what features looked like they were there, but never really worked or required extra fixes. I recall the search function on the IIS server never really worked. LDAP and or Kerberos were broken on AD.
Jokes about how the 'security' patches usually work aside, sabotage actually is one behavior already exhibited. Sure the AARD code was a few years ago, but you have the court records to look at to see what MS did to Java. But that was a few years ago, too. Ok. How about something from 2005, then.
It's even related to the topic, which is Music.
Then at what point can neglect or inaction be called sabotage, if the result is the same? MS products still have ongoing problems with their support of protocols like TCP/IP, HTTP, and Kerberos. And with releasing documentation for their APIs, or even with the implementation of the API itself, such as with ODBC. These are problems that just happen to hinder or block competitors. No. It must be a coincidence.
MS has worked hard to earn the poor reputation it has in the tech community. For years it has engaged in anti-competitive, predatory practices and chronically made shoddy software that usually underperforms the nearest competitor by a long shot.
... The only way to play WMV9 and 10 in Linux is to have an ILLEGAL copy of the codecs installed in/usr/lib/win32. On the other hand, Quicktime generates standards-compliant MPEG4 + AAC streams in an MP4/MOV container. These are decoded using the free and open source ffmpeg libraries.
And the EUCD bans even talking about how to do that. That's circumvention and talking about it is illegal too, not just doing it., though that may also violate the license for the codecs.
I noticed the same: all MS seems to do lately is flail about blindly attacking fad after fad to make money. It seems to be a lack of vision for what the future holds...
MS has always been a follower. Their lack of vision is nothing new, but I suppose that's why the PR team has been out prasing Chairman Bill's as a visionary. How much of a visionary can you be when your company/political movement is based on the fast follower strategy?
More interesting question for me is why the sudden need for more revenue?
Is OpenDocument threatening that much to cut into their hold on people's data? MS Office is one of the two areas that don't lose money for MS. The lock they have on the file format keeps people buying MS Office. If they lose the lock, then they lose MS Office revenue. The lead developer for MS Office, Gagne, is quitting, that's got to hurt, too.
The other of the two is MS Windows. And that is nearly 100% driven by OEM sales, aka the sale of new machines with MS Windows pre-installed. New machine sales have been flat, flat, flat since right before the end of the dot-bomb scams.
So far MS has been able to keep everything quiet about the deals with the OEMs to excluded or discourage selling non-Windows OSes pre-installed. The MIT $100 notebook directly or indirectly will put pressure on that. Only with a monopoly can it charge 80% profit margins, without a monopoly, the monopoly rents go away.
Also the company's stock has not been doing so great. How much of the company's revenue used to be from buying and selling its own stock or from activities like new issues of stock?
"My point is that Microsoft's primary source of income is Microsoft Office, "
Last I checked it was windows.
MS Office and MS Windows are still the only profitable lines they have going. However, MS Windows sales are nearly 100% from OEM sales and MS Office are about 70%.
It seems that the sale of new machines has been more than a little flat the last 5 years, so where is the money coming from? Is it magic Enron money magicked into place by cooking the books? Or is much of it made by buying and selling its own company stock? In that case, a flat or sinking stock price will be taking its toll as well.
Yes, it's interesting to see that competition forced a reduction in price from MS' side, but you still have the problem of quality.
Qualitywise, MS SQL Server is the IIS of the database world. Only if you somehow got locked into.NET or some other proprietary hook into MS would you need MS SQL over an industry standard like Postgresql or MySQL which are in approximately the same niche. Those two are even starting to nibble at the heels of Oracle in some contexts, unlike MS SQL.
MS has tried give aways before with IIS. People learn their lesson and move on, unless they get locked in. The same goes with SQL databases.
So a purchase price of zero is an advantage, but the main reason people use Apache and the other parts of LAMP is the quality. The price is just gravy.
I would be interested to see what OSes those sites are running on
Netcraft used to show a summary with that information. I'm not sure why they stopped showing it, since they do still collect it and show it for individual site queries. I suppose if enough people ask them to reinstate it, they might actually reply to one of the messages and explain the rationale. More likely than not it probably made it evident that one of their major advertisers **cough**MS**cough was losing market share to both other http servers and other platforms.
Along the same lines, I saw a recent IDC report that showed (if one looked at the data oneself) that MS was continuing to lose market share in the server room, at least percentage wise. My guess is that they took most of Novell's share around 2000 when they ran the smear campaign against Netware and then have been slowly hemorrhaging marketshare since then.
The article implies an admission by MS that F/OSS solutions are less expensive. That's something. However, though the cost of software in the developing world really is an important, it significantly less so when compared to the importance of freedom and independence. And that is something they would lose by getting tangled into MS' politics of proprietary protocols and formats.
And while, Free (as in Freedom or Independence) is helped along by Free or Open Source Software, open protocols and data formats are the foundations of that. Most importantly open protocols and data formats can allow both open and closed source systems to work together, even an egregious example of the latter as MS.
If a few of your contacts start sending you.docx files, you'll have to replace your existing copy of MS Word with Office 12
Not unless you want to. The normal response is to agree on a mutually readable format. Usually this is done at the earlier planning stages of the project.
MS can only use the steamroller method if they have enough market share and so far the latest versions of MS Office (with the new unreadable formats) are not moving off the shelves. Many are sticking with the oldest versions they can get away with or migrating to OpenOffice.org
The real problems with Trolltech have nothing to do with the GPL. Dozens of other posts will explain the details of that.
The real problems with Trollech are related:
Trolltech is talking IPO, that's often the kiss of death for creativity and productivity. No Google doesn't count as a counter example until more time has passed. Any company can survive on inertia for a while.
Trolltech is talking about taking on MS staff to make executive decisions affecting the future viability of the company. These are, at best, guys without domain expertise.
It will be interesting to see how a BeOS developer fits into all that.
I suppose the answer to the first part, why there were few applications, is probably the same as why there were few OS/2 apps and why the Macintosh apps (esp. games) disappeared: MS put pressure on other vendors not to develop for the platform and probably had clauses in the NDA for Windows NT developers outright prohibiting it.
Slashdot Mirror
It's kind of stupid though. If the bank had simply coded to standard, then there wouldn't be a problem, assuming that MS reps didn't flat out negotiate with the bank to make problems for standards compliant browsers.
However, I think more people are now coding to standard XHTML + CSS for FireFox, Opera, Safari, etc. first and then making tweaks so that their work renders also in MSIE. Passing 11% marketshare will just make that practice more common.
I'm interested in what data they have for Germany or other countries. If Apache is any example, then Firefox should be much more in use some places: Apache has only about 70% of the HTTP server market worldwide, but has over 90% in Germany.
Quickbooks is already ported to OS X, so it's most of the way there already. That ought to be an easy choice. Who wouldn't want a business system immune to the viruses, worms and trojans out there?
Even if the counter that worms, viruses, and trojans will appear as the linux distros gain marketshare, early adopters still save. However, the internal organization of the operating system, especially privilege separation and least privilege, makes it much more resistant. The systems can be further harden by putting things into different partitions and mounting the r/w partions (where there is data) noexec, and mounting the partitions containing executables read-only. Anyway, I digress...
Most businesses won't miss the absence of games and will appreciate a low maintenance platform.
What Sony is doing is reprehensible, but there is a second large problem there.
If the big vendors shipped linux pre-installed, it would sell. Right now, Linux distros are easier to install an use than MS Windows, but that's a big psychological hurdle for people to get over. If they install it themselves, it's too adventurous. If it comes pre-installed and preconfigured, then they know that what they have is how it is supposed to be.
It's not as much a chicken-and-egg thing as M$ would benefit from. M$ has, and still does, play hardball with the vendors to ensure that competing operating systems and even competing packages and services don't show up on brand new systems. The chicken-and-egg problem show up in getting the vendors to break loose from M$' grip. One or two alone won't or can't do it -- it'd be too easy for M$ to retaliate like it has in the past. However, if many decide to do it at once, then they'd all hop on the band wagon.
I'm not sure what the first step in that direction is. Prying the contents of the contracts and non-written threats between M$ and the vendors out of hiding and getting them into daylight for public scrutiny would be a coup. But years of court action hasn't made any progress in that regard, maybe there is another way to solve that problem. Personally, I'm expecting the MIT $100 notebook to break the ice, assuming the M$ political engine can't crush the project first.
One strategy, Hit and run is common enough as a tactic that it is well documented. The other twenty four tactics will also look familiar. Slashdot has become mainstream some while ago, you do see it mentioned and even cited in non-tech print media. So that means you will get a fair number of people that don't know any better than to swallow the marketing. But there are also those that do know better and do seem to have an agenda.
The implications are that no one would support MS without getting paid in some way.
Anyway, MS is probably making so much noise about vaporware like 'Internet versions of Office and Windows' in order to steal thunder from discussions of open standards like OpenDocument or to get people from downloading and testing OpenOffice.org. I mean if MS Office is so much better, what does M$ have to lose? People would try OOo, say 'nah', and then go back to MS Office, right? Or won't that happen ?
Given the company's history on meeting deadlines, it's not going to be any time soon, unless it's a priority. Given the company's history on interoperability and supporting competing products, protocols and formats, it's not going to be a priority.
It's just a placation to encourage users of competing software to postpone action. You must be new here, and new anywhere else for that matter. ;)
People that need an office suite via the net can download OpenOffice.org or individual packages like AbiWord for free.
A credit card is *not* identification. And unless the laws have changed, it is illegal for merchants to use it as such. Sure some tried, but the credit card companies put a stop to it. Maybe there's another wave of stupidity.
Some of the door 'slamming' or closed doors being 'thumped' happens because buildings breath. It's somewhat like blowing across a bottle to make a tone, but ultra low frequency. It's more like bottles connected to bottles. You could probably work something out with a fluid dynamics simulation. The wind doesn't need to be that high to get an effect, but most newer or 'renovated' buildings are too noisy to hear the smaller movements, though. (I measured a lot of 'quiet' rooms in the US at 25 decibels) Caves with a single entrance breath, too, and the frequency can be used to determine the volume.
The special training at corporate headquarters is probably one of the reasons there is sometimes a hiatus and it'll go a few days without a peep in defense of M$. They'll also attack, usually with logical fallacies (e.g. ad hominem), any criticism or even critique of products or initiatives that are being launched. (e.g. right now MS SQL.) Read carefully the next attacks from MS fanbois and see that they usually change the topic or go into name calling.
Anyway, it's not a surprise to see them go after OOo and less so for OpenDocument. Both cut into their MS Office revenue. OpenDocument cuts off the lock-in at the file format level, removing dependence on MS for continued use of the documents.
Anyway, that's the whole point of exemptions to the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause. Though it'd be better just to repeal the DMCA. It was able to slide through congress with the help of the media which was giving 24/7 coverage of whether Lewinsky spit or swallowed.
Then at what point can neglect or inaction be called sabotage, if the result is the same? MS products still have ongoing problems with their support of protocols like TCP/IP, HTTP, and Kerberos. And with releasing documentation for their APIs, or even with the implementation of the API itself, such as with ODBC. These are problems that just happen to hinder or block competitors. No. It must be a coincidence.
MS has worked hard to earn the poor reputation it has in the tech community. For years it has engaged in anti-competitive, predatory practices and chronically made shoddy software that usually underperforms the nearest competitor by a long shot.
Pardon us for learning from experience.
More interesting question for me is why the sudden need for more revenue?
Is OpenDocument threatening that much to cut into their hold on people's data? MS Office is one of the two areas that don't lose money for MS. The lock they have on the file format keeps people buying MS Office. If they lose the lock, then they lose MS Office revenue. The lead developer for MS Office, Gagne, is quitting, that's got to hurt, too.
The other of the two is MS Windows. And that is nearly 100% driven by OEM sales, aka the sale of new machines with MS Windows pre-installed. New machine sales have been flat, flat, flat since right before the end of the dot-bomb scams. So far MS has been able to keep everything quiet about the deals with the OEMs to excluded or discourage selling non-Windows OSes pre-installed. The MIT $100 notebook directly or indirectly will put pressure on that. Only with a monopoly can it charge 80% profit margins, without a monopoly, the monopoly rents go away.
Also the company's stock has not been doing so great. How much of the company's revenue used to be from buying and selling its own stock or from activities like new issues of stock?
It seems that the sale of new machines has been more than a little flat the last 5 years, so where is the money coming from? Is it magic Enron money magicked into place by cooking the books? Or is much of it made by buying and selling its own company stock? In that case, a flat or sinking stock price will be taking its toll as well.
Qualitywise, MS SQL Server is the IIS of the database world. Only if you somehow got locked into .NET or some other proprietary hook into MS would you need MS SQL over an industry standard like Postgresql or MySQL which are in approximately the same niche. Those two are even starting to nibble at the heels of Oracle in some contexts, unlike MS SQL.
MS has tried give aways before with IIS. People learn their lesson and move on, unless they get locked in. The same goes with SQL databases.
So a purchase price of zero is an advantage, but the main reason people use Apache and the other parts of LAMP is the quality. The price is just gravy.
Along the same lines, I saw a recent IDC report that showed (if one looked at the data oneself) that MS was continuing to lose market share in the server room, at least percentage wise. My guess is that they took most of Novell's share around 2000 when they ran the smear campaign against Netware and then have been slowly hemorrhaging marketshare since then.
You'll have to read the descriptions to decide which ones to try.
And while, Free (as in Freedom or Independence) is helped along by Free or Open Source Software, open protocols and data formats are the foundations of that. Most importantly open protocols and data formats can allow both open and closed source systems to work together, even an egregious example of the latter as MS.
MS can only use the steamroller method if they have enough market share and so far the latest versions of MS Office (with the new unreadable formats) are not moving off the shelves. Many are sticking with the oldest versions they can get away with or migrating to OpenOffice.org
- Trolltech is talking IPO, that's often the kiss of death for creativity and productivity. No Google doesn't count as a counter example until more time has passed. Any company can survive on inertia for a while.
- Trolltech is talking about taking on MS staff to make executive decisions affecting the future viability of the company. These are, at best, guys without domain expertise.
It will be interesting to see how a BeOS developer fits into all that.I suppose the answer to the first part, why there were few applications, is probably the same as why there were few OS/2 apps and why the Macintosh apps (esp. games) disappeared: MS put pressure on other vendors not to develop for the platform and probably had clauses in the NDA for Windows NT developers outright prohibiting it.