" it's really hard to enter the desktop market because people are used to whatever they used before, mostly Windows... better is worse if it's different. "
If Linux is trying to ape the Windows look and feel, or its rubbish ever-changing architecture or dll hell... then it is doomed to failure in the long term. With Vista, Windows has reached saturation point - even long time users are reluctant to take on Vista or for that matter, IE7 or Office 2007.
Firefox isn't slow in its uptake because it is different from IE7; people use it bcos it is better. Linux trying to mock Windows would be a 10-year backward step, and doomed to failure.
RMS was right... Torvalds is just an engineer; he isn't great at predicting the future or reading people's minds.
That's... um, kinda the way it's supposed to work, isn't it?
Except... it didn't work that way when Win2K was pulled out and XP was the only option. HP belatedly offered Win2K + SP4 as an alternative for some corporate customers, but one had to plead with them.
There's no way any sane customer would inflict Vista on himself; despite the pressure from OEMs. Which probably means they will force MS to extend XP availability well until the post-Vista successor to Windows becomes available.
This is certainly a change from past practices of forced upgrades.
I don't think the OEMs are doing it out of their interest to the customer. They seem to be offering XP bcos else the customer will take his business elsewhere, never to return.
If history is any indicator, it is obvious that big OEMs like HP and Dell (even Intel, with their chipsets) are hand-in-glove with Microsoft to make sure customers are forced to pick the latest MS offering of OS for drivers and support. If the end corporate customer rejects Vista, then Dell and HP will start losing business to system builders and assemblers who offer XP.
Interesting how Microsoft words corruption, bribery and subverting the ISO process as "Business as Usual". In which case, what IBM is doing is very good for the industry - exposing crooks for what they are.
Where I work, the ASP.Net apps work only with IE6 with ActiveX enabled. Trying to use the apps with IE7 is a huge mess and causes support requests.
Also, there is a college in our campus where about 900 students use Moodle very regularly on XP. Moodle has been working fine on IE6 and lately Firefox; but for some reason the IE6 experience seems to be the best. Now if there is an auto-update to IE7, all hell will break loose.
If IE6 is a security hazard; and MS is not keen to resolve them; why not open the source; so interested customers can do so themselves?
If OOXML is to become an ISO standard fully implemented in Office 2009; VBA and binary blobs will have to be deprecated and removed from the feature list.
Else, after ISO approval is sought and obtained, MS might claim it is deprecated but still provide support in Office..... either way, confused times ahead for the Office cash cow, methinks.
A Linux-based laptop should cost about $300 these days; not nearly a thousand bucks. No point buying a machine which is vista capable and slap Linux on it instead.
Unless the OLPC is widely avbl. in the US; kids elsewhere will learn proper computing while kids in the US will be brought up on an unhealthy diet of Allow / Cancels; viruses, trojans, activation keys and insecure PCs. MS will be forced to release a slimmed down and truly secure OS for the OLPC; else they risk being exposed for churning out second-rate code.
Like the OLPC and the EEE PC; more such mini-PCs will signal the demise of Vista and the downfall of MS as we know it today. Let there be more OLPCs I say.... it should even be made avbl. to corporate users, IMO.
I think you are misunderstanding people's reaction to your lack of security. It's not about enforcing a 1-to-1 bond between machine and computer account via MAC address. It is about authenticating the person who has possession of the EEE PC.
It is not unreasonable to assume that the rightful owner possesses his EEE PC; just as one would assume that a mobile phone is in the possession of its rightful owner. Remember this is in-house hospital IT usage; so the aternative is that the doctor does not use any PC and sticks to pen and paper instead for prescriptions, appointments etc.
Also the fact that your particular health facility follows very very poor security protocols, does justify your comments about the lack of need for password authentication.
Again, this is in-house use - the existing appln. is built on VB, Oracle and ODBC and is not web enabled. So unless someone can get hold of the exe; the user credentials; a LAN connection (remember ODBC) etc. etc. - it is not possible to breach the security. Trial runs indicate the doctors prefer the web interface - it is much more consistent across the appln. and hence intuitive. Only very select options are accessible from outside the hospita lVPN - mostly to do with CRM, appointments etc. No access to medical records is possible from outside the VPN - except from specific PCs used by consultant physicians (aka referral doctors).
If anything, it makes me worry about how well my medical records are being handle(d) if my hospital outsources their patient record keeping to India.
Not to worry. The needs of a BPO would be completely different; and the system would be built accordingly.
How do you authenticate users then? Or is security unnecessary at your hospital?
The new HMIS appln. is completely web enabled and built on Ruby on Rails. Users login through the browser before they can access the data.... but doctors prefer to even skip that and want to get direct access to their web apps after launching the browser.
So now, instead of cookies we're trying to get the mac address of the connected PC to determine which doctor is trying to access the appln; and then directly serve the page. Of course, we ensure that the IP address belongs to the hospital LAN before doing so.
No login, seams to be a bit of a security risk. A lot of sensitive information could get into the wrong hands if a somebody misplaces his eee device.
Logging onto the EEE PC - even the XP version; does not enhance security of the web service. And besides, security is really no big deal - when I came here last year; I found that many users share the same account / password; people don't logoff when their shift is over - instead the new user simply continues using the app to save time; etc.
We track the mac address of EEE PCs which connect to the wireless router; that's all the security that seems to matter.
At a hospital I consult with; the IT penetration is surprisingly very poor among doctors. The hospital typically receives 600 patients a day; of which about 275 are diabetics - who require repeated visits over years. There are about 150 in-patients who typically stay for 4.5 days before discharge.
IT usage is about 60% for the in-patients; but less than 12% for out-patients. The problem? Doctors are fed up with using PCs - Windows or Linux. Some of their biggest complaints:
1. Long boot time; Linux is only slightly better here; and Vista is downright pathetic and consequently been banned. The EEE PC boots up in less than 20 seconds and the GUI is immediately functional. No need for any useless login, active desktop, active directory etc.
2. Ultra portable - so the doctor can carry it to the wards and rooms; and dictate into it when necessary. Very cumbersome with laptops; tablets are better; but very expensive compared to the EEE (1:8).
3. Wakes up from suspend in less than 2 seconds - unparalleled.
4. The interface is very user friendly and makes sense without training - unlike Windows.
Surprisingly, this is still not widely avbl in India. Ingram Micro is getting it in the 3rd week of Jan. as I hear. We are ordering about 120 units for our doctors; who are genuinely thrilled with a computer for the first time in their lives.
****
A second appln. is for an e-governance system whereby citizens apply for assistance - there are about a dozen welfare schems like for handicapped, destitutes, old age pension, widow pension etc. The EEE PC is much more functional than a laptop and can be easily carried to the villages by trained self-help-group women assistants. The e-governance appln. is a web-enabled semi-offline-capable system; so even if there is no broadband; the locally installed LAMP appln. gives a very similar look-and-feel; once in a few days it gets synced with the main server.
Being about 25% of the price and weight of a laptop makes the EEE PC very handy for both these situations.
Rather than going by Gates' utterings; we must examine what he has DONE after Open source succeeded despite Microsoft's best efforts at side-tracking it.
1. His departure from the Chairman post indicates very troubled times ahed for his company; and he is reluctant to be associated with a declining company that even customers speak poorly about. This is largely due to the influx of open source and more recently, open standards.
2. The features removed; the h/w requirements; broken s/w compatibility etc. in Vista shows that ignoring the merits of Open Source will only hurt his company even more. The fact that he has not learnt the lessons and abandoned Vista; and continues to brazen it out indicates he does not want to hear the truth... only self-sponsored eulogies from 'independent studies'.
3a. One of the biggest reasons for the success of the Windows platform has been that developers have been attracted to the commodity stuff so that everyone could win. Despite Gates' best efforts, Java and PHP have built up a commendable market-share; while after being bitten badly by the abandonment of VB, Foxpro etc.; developers are extremely cagey of adopting to.Net. Career-wise, it makes more sense for developers to stick to Java, PHP or even RubyonRails because they need not refresh their skills every 2 years or face extinction / pink slips.
3b. The loss of the developer community will pave the way for eventual collapse of the flawed Upgrade-And-We-Will-Solve-Your-Problems approach which has been Microsoft's business model for well over 2 decades.
4. For home users, the only hassle is getting broadband on Linux. Like Google, Linux has spread like wildfire by word-of-mouth; and even longtime friends of MS such as Dell, HP etc. have had to listen to customers and offer Linux bundles. The arrival of small form factor PCs like the OLPC, the XO laptop, the Asus EEE PC on Linux is further accelerating the success of Open source and the downfall of Windows. Microsoft is seeking to delay this by offering XP on these systems; but since long term avblty of XP is a question mark, OEMs, costomers or shareholders aren't very enthused.
All in all, Mr. William Gates has learnt his lessons well in advance; and as Eben Moglen remarked while launching GPL3; this is the beginning of the end for proprietary code.
The Associated Press article yet again misquotes the MS standard as "Open Office XML". It is Office Open XML; and the tragedy is that neither is it Open; nor does Office 2007 fully support the OOXML; as documented.
The only saving grace would be for the BRM to reject this from becoming an ISO standard in February. Else Microsoft's efforts to confuse the market with their skewed terminology looks set to continue.
Generally people who find the idea of a switch daunting will go with the option that seems most obvious, that you know will allow you to continue running 90% of the software you use, and the one that all your friends use.
Which was kind of... what I was saying myself. Many OEMs including Dell, are put off by lacklustre user feedback to Vista, they are preloading Linux and XP instead. Soon, there will be so many 'friends' using Linux... just like the 'friends' who introduced us to the wonders of gmail and google.
Since Microsoft is not (so far, atleast) a hardware company; once the big OEMs politely MS to go and boil Ballsmer's head; MS is a dead duck. No wonder this year's WinHEC has been posponed... I doubt any OEM would willingly build hardware for Windows Vista alone. Most will simply build standards compliant h/w and force MS to support it on Vista.
It won't happen all at once; but unless MS abandons Vista and comes up with a Genuine Windows Advantage OS - Bill Gates will discover that he has built a huge Windows userbase that will destory Microsoft.
How can Vista prompt this? Granted, on low-end hardware, Vista is a dog that likes interrupting you with bullshit prompts. But Microsoft is still selling XP due to popular demand.
On so-called low end hardware... which is very high end for Windows 2000 (remember Win2K can do everything a home user or office user needs, TODAY )Microsoft does not have any software to offer today, that customers can buy with confidence. No doubt XP is being offered on the OLPC, the XO laptop and the EEE PC... but it's a very dicey prospect bcos July 2008 will be the last chance for OEMs to bundle XP.
Microsoft has to create an INCENTIVE for people to use Vista; the reality today is that almost everyone removes even pre-installed Vista and loads XP. So a year from now.... 2 years after Vista has been launched; there will be hardly anyone using Vista; bcos XP is much better at getting things done and needs much lesser hardware.
If Microsoft withdraws XP from the market in July 2008 and makes fresh sales of XP illegal; then non-corporate-licensed users looking for additional PCs will be forced to choose Vista or Mac or Linux. I doubt they will go in for Vista, because the effort to change from XP to Vista is about the same as XP to Linux or Mac.
there is the reality that people and companies stick with what they know -- even if it's a PITA. MS would have to give them a major kick in the ass for them to see the hassle of moving from Windows as worth it. And I don't see even Vista doing that. At worst, companies and people will stick with XP.
I think you are underestimating the power of the marketplace, word-of-mouth marketing etc. The success of gmail and Google is testimony to the fact that open source software can build world-class software solutions; that work equally well on non-MS platforms. Many companies have decided to move away from.Net; and stick to J2EE, PHP or RoR on Linux servers; with browsers the only thing needed on the client side. If a Windows desktop is unviable for a browser, companies and people will simply move to Linux desktops - the success of the Linux-based EEE PC, and Microsoft's frantic efforts to get SOME Windows OS into these tiny PCs also vindicates my point.
Hardware OEMs will hesitate to bundle a dying OS like XP onto their latest offerings - they risk the prospective customer looking for new, flashy things... so if Vista is no good, they'd go to Ubuntu or Xandros instead. And once thousands of customers get comfy with Linux and understand its power and potential; they will never again switch back to Windows.
In short, Microsoft has to release a new OS (not Vista... Vista has to be abandoned) before XP goes out of sale. In fact I think it's already too late... it takes atleast 2 years for the market to warm up to anything new.
Now, that all said, there's also one more big thing: They're giving away FREE copies of EXPENSIVE software* which many people NEED** or WANT with a perfectly reasonable caveat. They're being open and honest, and they're providing both a manual and an automatic method of data collection. The latter is particularly appealing to many, because it basically means they can just forget about it. Those who are worried about their privacy can take the surveys.
Its not even worth pirating Vista... or apply to use the damn thing for free.
Besides, will this free version be usable without being connected to the internet atleast once a week? I doubt it. The moment it is connected to the 'net; privacy for the user is only a pretence.
The caveat is that you have to let them monitor your use of the program.
This gives the false impression that Microsoft somehow does not monitor the use of Vista for non-participants! Every single Vista user is monitored... actually every single Windows user AND Office user is continuously monitored for Genuine Disadvantage from Windows 2000 onwards, if not earlier.
Will Microsoft add these freeloaders / testers while reporting Vista sales? Why not simply admit failure; accept that Vista was a crappy effort; and actually write a new OS capable of running on existing hardware; and existing software apps? The entire PC ecosystem has been broken by Vista; and the customer (even clueless home users) has revolted; taking his business elsewhere (Apple / Linux) and ditching Windows altogether.
Everybody from the hardware OEMs to software developers has lost out because of Vista... so they're going cross-platform (Java) or Linux (the EEE PC from Asus). If Microsoft does not abandon Vista immediately and cut its losses; pretty soon it will have to abandon Windows AND Office entirely.
Small countries like Cuba, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan etc. have voted in favour of OOXML in the failed ISO vote. Iran voted against, however. Maybe this is a revenge?
Ask anyone who is NOT knowledgeable and what do they call it? "Microsoft Office 2007 format". And what does it work with? "Microsoft Office 2007". THAT is what it is. Even the Blow Joe's of with world know it's Microsoft propitiatory Office 2007 format and nothing more.
You are so correct. Which is why, Alan Bell's suggested name change in one of the 600-odd resolutions becomes very meaningful. He suggests renaming the standard as "Legacy Data Formats Represented in XML". I would add a 'partially' or 'confusingly' before Represented to make things even more clear to the Average Joe.
**** "US - 270
Naming DIS 29500: The current name of DIS 29500, Office Open XML is seriously misleading in several respects. First, it is not a document format based on XML but rather an XML representation of a legacy document format with particular processing semantics. Second, reference should not be made to commercial products and clearly "Office" in the title of this proposal is meant as a reference to Microsoft Office. Lastly, the proposal is no more or less open than any other ISO proposal and so "Open" is meaningless in this context.
It is suggested that a new name be chosen for the proposal that reflects its goal of representing and continuing a legacy document format as represented in XML. Such a name should not carry an implied reference to a Microsoft product nor should it use the term "open." One possible name would be: Legacy Document Formats Represented in XML. The principles developed from this effort might well prove effective for other legacy document formats that should be represented in XML.
The only downgrade from Vista to XP is the price...and hassles besides. Why does everyone insist XP is inferior compared to Vista? As far as the user eXPerience is concerned XP is way ahead of Vista, so it is an Upgrade.
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" it's really hard to enter the desktop market because people are used to whatever they used before, mostly Windows... better is worse if it's different. "
If Linux is trying to ape the Windows look and feel, or its rubbish ever-changing architecture or dll hell... then it is doomed to failure in the long term. With Vista, Windows has reached saturation point - even long time users are reluctant to take on Vista or for that matter, IE7 or Office 2007.
Firefox isn't slow in its uptake because it is different from IE7; people use it bcos it is better. Linux trying to mock Windows would be a 10-year backward step, and doomed to failure.
RMS was right... Torvalds is just an engineer; he isn't great at predicting the future or reading people's minds.
That's ... um, kinda the way it's supposed to work, isn't it?
Except... it didn't work that way when Win2K was pulled out and XP was the only option. HP belatedly offered Win2K + SP4 as an alternative for some corporate customers, but one had to plead with them.
There's no way any sane customer would inflict Vista on himself; despite the pressure from OEMs. Which probably means they will force MS to extend XP availability well until the post-Vista successor to Windows becomes available.
This is certainly a change from past practices of forced upgrades.
kudos to the OEM's for providing XP as an option.
I don't think the OEMs are doing it out of their interest to the customer. They seem to be offering XP bcos else the customer will take his business elsewhere, never to return.
If history is any indicator, it is obvious that big OEMs like HP and Dell (even Intel, with their chipsets) are hand-in-glove with Microsoft to make sure customers are forced to pick the latest MS offering of OS for drivers and support. If the end corporate customer rejects Vista, then Dell and HP will start losing business to system builders and assemblers who offer XP.
Inteteresting times ahead.
Interesting how Microsoft words corruption, bribery and subverting the ISO process as "Business as Usual". In which case, what IBM is doing is very good for the industry - exposing crooks for what they are.
Properly written ASP.NET sites work properly in ALL browsers - even ones which don't have javascript support.
I don't know much about the apps... they were written more than 5 years back; and no one in sysadmin seems to have the time or inclination to care.
Where I work, the ASP.Net apps work only with IE6 with ActiveX enabled. Trying to use the apps with IE7 is a huge mess and causes support requests.
Also, there is a college in our campus where about 900 students use Moodle very regularly on XP. Moodle has been working fine on IE6 and lately Firefox; but for some reason the IE6 experience seems to be the best. Now if there is an auto-update to IE7, all hell will break loose.
If IE6 is a security hazard; and MS is not keen to resolve them; why not open the source; so interested customers can do so themselves?
If OOXML is to become an ISO standard fully implemented in Office 2009; VBA and binary blobs will have to be deprecated and removed from the feature list.
Else, after ISO approval is sought and obtained, MS might claim it is deprecated but still provide support in Office..... either way, confused times ahead for the Office cash cow, methinks.
A Linux-based laptop should cost about $300 these days; not nearly a thousand bucks. No point buying a machine which is vista capable and slap Linux on it instead.
Unless the OLPC is widely avbl. in the US; kids elsewhere will learn proper computing while kids in the US will be brought up on an unhealthy diet of Allow / Cancels; viruses, trojans, activation keys and insecure PCs. MS will be forced to release a slimmed down and truly secure OS for the OLPC; else they risk being exposed for churning out second-rate code.
Like the OLPC and the EEE PC; more such mini-PCs will signal the demise of Vista and the downfall of MS as we know it today. Let there be more OLPCs I say.... it should even be made avbl. to corporate users, IMO.
I think you are misunderstanding people's reaction to your lack of security. It's not about enforcing a 1-to-1 bond between machine and computer account via MAC address. It is about authenticating the person who has possession of the EEE PC.
It is not unreasonable to assume that the rightful owner possesses his EEE PC; just as one would assume that a mobile phone is in the possession of its rightful owner. Remember this is in-house hospital IT usage; so the aternative is that the doctor does not use any PC and sticks to pen and paper instead for prescriptions, appointments etc.
Also the fact that your particular health facility follows very very poor security protocols, does justify your comments about the lack of need for password authentication.
Again, this is in-house use - the existing appln. is built on VB, Oracle and ODBC and is not web enabled. So unless someone can get hold of the exe; the user credentials; a LAN connection (remember ODBC) etc. etc. - it is not possible to breach the security. Trial runs indicate the doctors prefer the web interface - it is much more consistent across the appln. and hence intuitive. Only very select options are accessible from outside the hospita lVPN - mostly to do with CRM, appointments etc. No access to medical records is possible from outside the VPN - except from specific PCs used by consultant physicians (aka referral doctors).
If anything, it makes me worry about how well my medical records are being handle(d) if my hospital outsources their patient record keeping to India.
Not to worry. The needs of a BPO would be completely different; and the system would be built accordingly.
How do you authenticate users then? Or is security unnecessary at your hospital?
The new HMIS appln. is completely web enabled and built on Ruby on Rails. Users login through the browser before they can access the data.... but doctors prefer to even skip that and want to get direct access to their web apps after launching the browser.
So now, instead of cookies we're trying to get the mac address of the connected PC to determine which doctor is trying to access the appln; and then directly serve the page. Of course, we ensure that the IP address belongs to the hospital LAN before doing so.
No login, seams to be a bit of a security risk. A lot of sensitive information could get into the wrong hands if a somebody misplaces his eee device.
Logging onto the EEE PC - even the XP version; does not enhance security of the web service. And besides, security is really no big deal - when I came here last year; I found that many users share the same account / password; people don't logoff when their shift is over - instead the new user simply continues using the app to save time; etc.
We track the mac address of EEE PCs which connect to the wireless router; that's all the security that seems to matter.
At a hospital I consult with; the IT penetration is surprisingly very poor among doctors. The hospital typically receives 600 patients a day; of which about 275 are diabetics - who require repeated visits over years. There are about 150 in-patients who typically stay for 4.5 days before discharge.
IT usage is about 60% for the in-patients; but less than 12% for out-patients. The problem? Doctors are fed up with using PCs - Windows or Linux. Some of their biggest complaints:
1. Long boot time; Linux is only slightly better here; and Vista is downright pathetic and consequently been banned. The EEE PC boots up in less than 20 seconds and the GUI is immediately functional. No need for any useless login, active desktop, active directory etc.
2. Ultra portable - so the doctor can carry it to the wards and rooms; and dictate into it when necessary. Very cumbersome with laptops; tablets are better; but very expensive compared to the EEE (1:8).
3. Wakes up from suspend in less than 2 seconds - unparalleled.
4. The interface is very user friendly and makes sense without training - unlike Windows.
Surprisingly, this is still not widely avbl in India. Ingram Micro is getting it in the 3rd week of Jan. as I hear. We are ordering about 120 units for our doctors; who are genuinely thrilled with a computer for the first time in their lives.
****
A second appln. is for an e-governance system whereby citizens apply for assistance - there are about a dozen welfare schems like for handicapped, destitutes, old age pension, widow pension etc. The EEE PC is much more functional than a laptop and can be easily carried to the villages by trained self-help-group women assistants. The e-governance appln. is a web-enabled semi-offline-capable system; so even if there is no broadband; the locally installed LAMP appln. gives a very similar look-and-feel; once in a few days it gets synced with the main server.
Being about 25% of the price and weight of a laptop makes the EEE PC very handy for both these situations.
Rather than going by Gates' utterings; we must examine what he has DONE after Open source succeeded despite Microsoft's best efforts at side-tracking it.
.Net. Career-wise, it makes more sense for developers to stick to Java, PHP or even RubyonRails because they need not refresh their skills every 2 years or face extinction / pink slips.
1. His departure from the Chairman post indicates very troubled times ahed for his company; and he is reluctant to be associated with a declining company that even customers speak poorly about. This is largely due to the influx of open source and more recently, open standards.
2. The features removed; the h/w requirements; broken s/w compatibility etc. in Vista shows that ignoring the merits of Open Source will only hurt his company even more. The fact that he has not learnt the lessons and abandoned Vista; and continues to brazen it out indicates he does not want to hear the truth... only self-sponsored eulogies from 'independent studies'.
3a. One of the biggest reasons for the success of the Windows platform has been that developers have been attracted to the commodity stuff so that everyone could win. Despite Gates' best efforts, Java and PHP have built up a commendable market-share; while after being bitten badly by the abandonment of VB, Foxpro etc.; developers are extremely cagey of adopting to
3b. The loss of the developer community will pave the way for eventual collapse of the flawed Upgrade-And-We-Will-Solve-Your-Problems approach which has been Microsoft's business model for well over 2 decades.
4. For home users, the only hassle is getting broadband on Linux. Like Google, Linux has spread like wildfire by word-of-mouth; and even longtime friends of MS such as Dell, HP etc. have had to listen to customers and offer Linux bundles. The arrival of small form factor PCs like the OLPC, the XO laptop, the Asus EEE PC on Linux is further accelerating the success of Open source and the downfall of Windows. Microsoft is seeking to delay this by offering XP on these systems; but since long term avblty of XP is a question mark, OEMs, costomers or shareholders aren't very enthused.
All in all, Mr. William Gates has learnt his lessons well in advance; and as Eben Moglen remarked while launching GPL3; this is the beginning of the end for proprietary code.
The Associated Press article yet again misquotes the MS standard as "Open Office XML". It is Office Open XML; and the tragedy is that neither is it Open; nor does Office 2007 fully support the OOXML; as documented.
The only saving grace would be for the BRM to reject this from becoming an ISO standard in February. Else Microsoft's efforts to confuse the market with their skewed terminology looks set to continue.
Generally people who find the idea of a switch daunting will go with the option that seems most obvious, that you know will allow you to continue running 90% of the software you use, and the one that all your friends use.
Which was kind of... what I was saying myself. Many OEMs including Dell, are put off by lacklustre user feedback to Vista, they are preloading Linux and XP instead. Soon, there will be so many 'friends' using Linux... just like the 'friends' who introduced us to the wonders of gmail and google.
Since Microsoft is not (so far, atleast) a hardware company; once the big OEMs politely MS to go and boil Ballsmer's head; MS is a dead duck. No wonder this year's WinHEC has been posponed... I doubt any OEM would willingly build hardware for Windows Vista alone. Most will simply build standards compliant h/w and force MS to support it on Vista.
It won't happen all at once; but unless MS abandons Vista and comes up with a Genuine Windows Advantage OS - Bill Gates will discover that he has built a huge Windows userbase that will destory Microsoft.
How can Vista prompt this? Granted, on low-end hardware, Vista is a dog that likes interrupting you with bullshit prompts. But Microsoft is still selling XP due to popular demand.
.Net; and stick to J2EE, PHP or RoR on Linux servers; with browsers the only thing needed on the client side. If a Windows desktop is unviable for a browser, companies and people will simply move to Linux desktops - the success of the Linux-based EEE PC, and Microsoft's frantic efforts to get SOME Windows OS into these tiny PCs also vindicates my point.
On so-called low end hardware... which is very high end for Windows 2000 (remember Win2K can do everything a home user or office user needs, TODAY )Microsoft does not have any software to offer today, that customers can buy with confidence. No doubt XP is being offered on the OLPC, the XO laptop and the EEE PC... but it's a very dicey prospect bcos July 2008 will be the last chance for OEMs to bundle XP.
Microsoft has to create an INCENTIVE for people to use Vista; the reality today is that almost everyone removes even pre-installed Vista and loads XP. So a year from now.... 2 years after Vista has been launched; there will be hardly anyone using Vista; bcos XP is much better at getting things done and needs much lesser hardware.
If Microsoft withdraws XP from the market in July 2008 and makes fresh sales of XP illegal; then non-corporate-licensed users looking for additional PCs will be forced to choose Vista or Mac or Linux. I doubt they will go in for Vista, because the effort to change from XP to Vista is about the same as XP to Linux or Mac.
there is the reality that people and companies stick with what they know -- even if it's a PITA. MS would have to give them a major kick in the ass for them to see the hassle of moving from Windows as worth it. And I don't see even Vista doing that. At worst, companies and people will stick with XP.
I think you are underestimating the power of the marketplace, word-of-mouth marketing etc. The success of gmail and Google is testimony to the fact that open source software can build world-class software solutions; that work equally well on non-MS platforms. Many companies have decided to move away from
Hardware OEMs will hesitate to bundle a dying OS like XP onto their latest offerings - they risk the prospective customer looking for new, flashy things... so if Vista is no good, they'd go to Ubuntu or Xandros instead. And once thousands of customers get comfy with Linux and understand its power and potential; they will never again switch back to Windows.
In short, Microsoft has to release a new OS (not Vista... Vista has to be abandoned) before XP goes out of sale. In fact I think it's already too late... it takes atleast 2 years for the market to warm up to anything new.
Now, that all said, there's also one more big thing: They're giving away FREE copies of EXPENSIVE software* which many people NEED** or WANT with a perfectly reasonable caveat. They're being open and honest, and they're providing both a manual and an automatic method of data collection. The latter is particularly appealing to many, because it basically means they can just forget about it. Those who are worried about their privacy can take the surveys.
More EXPENSIVE does not automatically mean MORE COVETED, or more NEEDED or WANTED. Take a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ATeLDM1H4M
Its not even worth pirating Vista... or apply to use the damn thing for free.
Besides, will this free version be usable without being connected to the internet atleast once a week? I doubt it. The moment it is connected to the 'net; privacy for the user is only a pretence.
The caveat is that you have to let them monitor your use of the program.
This gives the false impression that Microsoft somehow does not monitor the use of Vista for non-participants! Every single Vista user is monitored... actually every single Windows user AND Office user is continuously monitored for Genuine Disadvantage from Windows 2000 onwards, if not earlier.
Will Microsoft add these freeloaders / testers while reporting Vista sales? Why not simply admit failure; accept that Vista was a crappy effort; and actually write a new OS capable of running on existing hardware; and existing software apps? The entire PC ecosystem has been broken by Vista; and the customer (even clueless home users) has revolted; taking his business elsewhere (Apple / Linux) and ditching Windows altogether.
Everybody from the hardware OEMs to software developers has lost out because of Vista... so they're going cross-platform (Java) or Linux (the EEE PC from Asus). If Microsoft does not abandon Vista immediately and cut its losses; pretty soon it will have to abandon Windows AND Office entirely.
Small countries like Cuba, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan etc. have voted in favour of OOXML in the failed ISO vote. Iran voted against, however. Maybe this is a revenge?
* MOOXML (Microsoft Office Obnoxious XML - forgot where I found that one)
* BOOXML (Ballmer Oriented Office XML)
* POOXML (Prehistoric Objects Office XML)
* SUCKXML (Steve's Universally Condemned, Killed XML)
You forgot:
* WTFXML (Windows' Treacherous Format as XML)
That would get everybody's vote... because it conveys the beauty of this format in a way everyone understands!
Ask anyone who is NOT knowledgeable and what do they call it? "Microsoft Office 2007 format". And what does it work with? "Microsoft Office 2007". THAT is what it is. Even the Blow Joe's of with world know it's Microsoft propitiatory Office 2007 format and nothing more.
You are so correct. Which is why, Alan Bell's suggested name change in one of the 600-odd resolutions becomes very meaningful. He suggests renaming the standard as "Legacy Data Formats Represented in XML". I would add a 'partially' or 'confusingly' before Represented to make things even more clear to the Average Joe.
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"US - 270
Naming DIS 29500: The current name of DIS 29500, Office Open XML is seriously misleading in several respects. First, it is not a document format based on XML but rather an XML representation of a legacy document format with particular processing semantics. Second, reference should not be made to commercial products and clearly "Office" in the title of this proposal is meant as a reference to Microsoft Office. Lastly, the proposal is no more or less open than any other ISO proposal and so "Open" is meaningless in this context.
It is suggested that a new name be chosen for the proposal that reflects its goal of representing and continuing a legacy document format as represented in XML. Such a name should not carry an implied reference to a Microsoft product nor should it use the term "open." One possible name would be: Legacy Document Formats Represented in XML. The principles developed from this effort might well prove effective for other legacy document formats that should be represented in XML.
DIS 29500"
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It was the ECMA earlier.... maybe after the OOXML fiasco, it became EMCA.... Embrace Microsoft & Corrupted Association... :-)
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/VSTA-DWNGRD.html
.and hassles besides. Why does everyone insist XP is inferior compared to Vista? As far as the user eXPerience is concerned XP is way ahead of Vista, so it is an Upgrade.
The only downgrade from Vista to XP is the price..
I suspect this kill 'feature' will be activated once Microsoft releases the next stable version of the OS.