Most people who bought XP netbooks in 2009 don't even know what extended support is.
Consumers who buy netbooks in 2009 wouldn't have been able to afford extended support so your point is moot. Extended support is primarily for enterprise customers with multiyear volume licensing agreements.
No, they are not. They are not "VERY" up front about support time-lines. I would venture to guess that the vast majority of MS customers do not know anything about the timelines that MS offers support. Most people that bought XP in 2009 did not know exactly what they were doing. No rational person would make their software incompatible with their own OS in 2 years. Of course, now we know they will, and businesses should keep that in mind if and when they have a choice in what software they run.
Yes because not supporting something as simple and commoditized as a browser is indicative of all "all software"...man get your head out of your ass. OEM machines are only supported for a year anyway, people who bought netbooks in 2009 knew they were piece of shit machines. Consumers have plenty of choices for browsers that support XP. You Are conflating consumer issues with enterprise support issues. No windows IT admin who bought XP licenses in 2009 was oblivious to the exact support timeline, if they were then they really shouldn't have been admins. There is not a another major software company that offers the lifecycle support for an OS that Microsoft does. You bitch an complain about all you want but your comments just go to show you can't fix stupid.
Microsoft announced backgrounding of apps at PDC a few weeks ago so apps will function in the background for certain apps just like the native apps. Pandora backgrounding is a go:). I don't know about you but backgrounding is all I really care about. As an IPhone user I'm only ever using two apps at a time, one in the background and other actively. WP7 can do this as of PDC.
Also cut and paste is coming in Q1 2011, January I believe. I'm betting full blown multitasking is coming by summer of 2011 but that's just a guess.
The new versions of Windows Home Server is perfect for what you want to do plus there is a great community of users who develop custom plugins for new functionality. Check out http://www.wegotserved.com/
SharePoint 2010 which will launch this year fully supports Firefox and Safari. If you use Sharepoint 2007, there are cross-browser controls from vendors you can use for development i.e. Telerik
Microsoft are VERY explicit that the free VS Express CANNOT be used to develop for the mobile platforms though.
//Microsoft Employee Here//
You can bet this will change with the release of Visual Studio 2010 express and Windows Phone 7. Microsoft is very aware of the importance of being able to develop mobile apps with affordable and free tools. More annoucements will be made at MIX this month.
Microsoft doesn't do site licensed anymore. Office and Windows is licenses per computer.
Office Student & Teacher is $149 in most store, many times cheaper than that. Most schools can furthermore recieve event cheaper volume licensing deals that include FREE home use rights for students, staff, and faculty.
Microsoft is also releasing a free starter version of Office 2010 that will be free for anyone. Microsoft will also roll out the Office Web Apps version as part of the Windows Live. You can beta test it on Skydrive.Live.com now.
I don't know, what can you do with Win7 and Office 2010 that you couldn't do with WinXP and Office 2000? What new improvements in productivity do you gain from them? How did they lower your other costs (e.g. hardware)?
Well, new versions of Office simply exist to force you into their new file formats. Office 97, simply put, does everything anyone could want, and does it well. The only real selling point for the latest iteration is the collaboration technology in it, and even then, that's only good for you if you're using it in a business or groups. There's really no practical justification for a home user to upgrade Office.
Windows 7 though, that's a bit different. It appears that MS has really given us a reason to move on from XP, with better graphics support and better security, without the bugs of nags of Vista. Windows 7 is really what Vista should have been. And it would be more compelling if all versions of 7 were 64 bit native, as CPU's have been 64 bit for quite some time now. The 64 bit part would be the real selling point here, as it would allow all versions to move past that 4 GB memory limit, hardware permitting. For a lot of people, the only reason they really had to move to XP from 98SE was the file system limits on FAT32. While 98 was more stable than 95, the reason I upgraded was the 2 GB FAT limit that was smashed with FAT32. Microsoft too often forgets that we need practical reasons to upgrade, not just shiny eye-candy. And real practical reasons, not artificially forced situations like their new Office file formats. The only reason they did that was to force businesses away from 97 and 2K.
//Microsoft Employee Here//
You're right, consumers need compelling reasons to upgrade to a new version, but the point critics must accept when talking about a huge feature pool in a product like Office is "what is important to me?" The 10% that you use, will be different from the 10% I use. A financial analyst will extract different value from Excel than a presenter will from PowerPoint.
If you work in IT, the fact of the matter is that you are uniquely UNqualified in most circumstances to know what features in a product like PowerPoint, Access, Excel, Publisher, and Word, will make employees more productive. You have to ask yourself, do you track operational clicks? Do you time how long it takes for a marketer to create collatoral? What is the output quality of a document from Office 2k vs Office2010? Will more row support improve a financial analyst's ability to have a single doc vs. spreading them across multiple linked files?
Most of the time, people in IT only consider the most basic of information worker productivity. They don't see the value of the enhancements in Office because they themselves do not live in the product. If you don't believe me, try Outlook 2010 and compare it to previous versions of Outlook, its a much better experience and makes your more productive. Only if you live in the application, would you be able to determine the value of an upgrade.
Final point, for a business, if you were to save 4 minutes a days doing simple MS Office tasks on the computer, over the span of a year, most, if not all organizations would pay for the license of Office. Calculate it. Given, this is only one view in that equation, but things that are trivial in Office 2010 are pretty tough/complex/annoying to do in older versions. Print Preview, resizing, social networking, ECM integration, sharing content, etc...the list is huge.
I think you're full of it. Microsoft is a key committed member of the CSS WG and continue to work in good faith helping the group. Things like test suites, specifications, standards discussions represent some of the output from Microsoft's involvement.
One of the main goals for IE8 was to have full CSS2 compliance and to improve performance over IE7. Compared to previous versions of IE, IE8 largely accomplished these goals. Moving forward for IE9, the goal will be increased standards compliance around CSS3, competative JavaScript performance against competeing browsers, improved rendering performance, and *throwing it some marketing* making it the best browsing experience for ANYONE who uses Windows, dev, designer, consumer, it pro.
Since you're big on the whole standards thing, you might like to know that IE8 is the only fully CSS 2.1 standards compliant browser at the moment. Neither Firefox or Chrome fully implement the entire spec yet.
With regard to ECMAScript4, Microsoft had some fundamental differences with whether it was worth expanding the language considering the legacy baggage and the need to add modern scripting features. We haven't derailed anything, we voiced a disagreement, one that was shared by Yahoo at the time. Microsoft and Yahoo didn't agree on much back then either.
It's easy to have a casual knowledge of the issues when it comes to standards discussions, but when it comes down to creating a quality specification, the issues are a lot more complex and there are numerous viewpoints from people a lot smarter than you or I about the matter. Your accusations and assertions about Microsoft don't produce any productive outcomes in the debate, and all you really end up doing is vent anger online.
Does any of this genuinely change your opinion in the slightest, or am I wasting my time?
this is not necessarily true. You have to make sure you're getting an image from a trusted source. Would you trust the official chinese version, Red Flag Linux? The point is downloading Windows off bittorrent or from a warez site isn't safe. You wouldn't download RH, Suse, Debian, Fedora, or Ubuntu from an untrusted source. Why would you think Windows should be any different?
Your statement about what constitutes "genuine" is not factual. 1 in 3 pirated copies of Windows actually have malicious software, malware, spyware, trojans, or other undersirable elements. Yes, I agree, they are not knock-offs because at least part of the code is from Microsoft, but by "genuine," Microsoft means untampered copy.
It is always easy to count the number of potential people inconvenienced by a method like this, but considering the number of people saved from buy dangerous software, the trade-off seems justified. Microsoft firmly believes that those who purchase counterfeit copies of Windows are VICTIMS not criminals. If we actually thought they were criminals, we would be taking grandmas and children to court like the RIAA. Just to show you how much damage can happen from illegal software, read the following article.
As a final point, if you consider how sophisticated the world's botnets, trojans, and online attack vectors are becoming, a significant delivery method for these loads are via pirated software, if you refuse to acknowledge this, you're being ignorant.
Thanks for the additional info. One thing I'm not clear on -- is this really new? Since my clean install in November - I am getting told that my legit copy of Windows 7 is not valid every time I am not connected to the Internet. Within 15-20 minutes of getting reconnected, the message clears up (and I have access to optional updates again).
call support for a resolution. this shouldn't happen. i'm a roadwarrior and disconnected for days sometimes. I've never experienced this.
with regard to your retail copy of Vista Business, use tech support, you're paying for it as a retail customer. I think you'll find Microsoft customer support very helpful, and if they aren't let me know and I'll make sure you get help.
On point 3/4 - convincing you of these points doesn't really benefit Microsoft cause you're already a paying customer. If your experiences were the norm and you were the scenario we were wanting to improve, we wouldn't even need WGA or WAT. All I can say is read the following thread: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1546626&cid=31102154
1. i4i is a patent case between two corporations hence it isn't germane to the conversation. 2. The India case involves 4 alleged pirates I believe. Don't know much about it. 3. With regard to German price-fixing, Microsoft has stated that it will comply with the finding and be in full compliance of German law. When you have as large an ecosystem as Microsoft with so many partners, retailers, distributors, and vendors, business processes must always be stringently reviewed on a periodic basis to ensure compliances with all applicable rules and regulations. Microsoft Germany is doing exactly this in this matter. Are you really going to fault them for it? http://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-office-price-fixing,7533.html
Windows Update checks your PC to determine which updates it needs depending on what software and devices you have installed. The service does not collect personal information -- Windows Update simply collects specific PC details needed for the update, including data such as computer make and model, version and ID numbers, and other such details.
Microsoft is committed to helping protect your privacy, and does not collect your name or other personally identifiable information. For more details on how the information is protected, see the Windows Update privacy statement.
In other words, while MS does not directly collect my name and phone number, they can uniquely identify my computer by "make and model, version and ID numbers, and other such details". Then, they can check where I am (via geolocation) and who I am by cross-referencing the information with data from data-mining companies.
2. Microsoft complies with laws surrounding rention of customer data including IP addresses. Refer to this blog post that talks not only about Microsoft, but of Google and Yahoo as well. http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10437137-265.html Where as Google and Facebook want to redefine expectations of privacy on the web, Microsoft's privacy policy goes above and beyond the majority of companies that offer goods and services, both physically and virtually. Microsoft's privacy policy view comes from the very top from Steve Ballmer so when he says ours is better than Google's, he challenges anyone in the world to call him out on it. We do not go into your mail, we don't read your personal information, we don't access your stored content, period.
3. How you interpret Microsoft's agenda is up to you, but before trying to find any reason to fault Microsoft, I would ask you to thoroughly consider all the software you run on your environment and ask whether your information is safe with other 3rd party vendors. There are too many who do not apply as rigourous standards and in actuality, SELL your data to 3rd parties. If you play any computer game with an online component, you should be concerned. If you use extremely proprietary niche software that costs a lot of money, you should be concerned.
You should not be concerned about a company like Microsoft, a company who has billions of users and millions of business customers, about privacy. There are businesses who take security and privacy very seriously and if Microsoft were to pull this type of stuff, we'd get called out on it very quickly, and our reputation would suffer beyond repair.
Simply put, a failure on Microsoft's part to enforce a strong privacy policy would directly cause significant financial harm to the company. It's not worth it.
Yes, we at at Microsoft are SUCH ASSHOLES:) read the statement:
A Letter from Marc Whitten: Discontinuation of Xbox LIVE for Original Xbox Games Dear Xbox LIVE Members,
On April 15 we will discontinue the Xbox LIVE service for original Xbox consoles and games, including Xbox v1 games playable on Xbox 360 and Xbox Originals. I want to start by saying this isn’t a decision we made lightly, but after careful consideration, it is clear this will provide the greatest benefit to the Xbox LIVE community.
Seven years ago we laid out our vision for the connected console when we launched Xbox LIVE. We believed then that the power of the Internet to connect people would revolutionize living room entertainment. It started with amazing multiplayer games, and we’ve since seen that bet pay off again and again with the launches of Xbox 360, Marketplace, Netflix and powerful social features like Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm. None of this would have been possible without the success of LIVE as a multiplayer gaming network.
There’s no greater example of the power of the Xbox LIVE community than the “Halo” franchise. “Halo 2” has had an amazing run on LIVE, with a dedicated community more than five years after launch and well into the next generation of consoles. It has fundamentally changed the way we play video games. And while it’s difficult to see that run come to an end, the “Halo” franchise continues to act as the benchmark for multiplayer gaming in this generation, with “Halo 3,” “Halo 3: ODST” and soon “Halo: Reach” on Xbox 360.
Your Xbox LIVE community has grown to 23 million strong. And as we look down the road, we’ll continue to evolve the service with features and experiences that harness the full power of Xbox 360. To reach our aspiration, we need to make changes to the service that are incompatible with our original Xbox v1 games. We will contact the Xbox LIVE members directly impacted by this change and if this includes you, I encourage you to check your LIVE messages and associated e-mail account over the coming weeks for more details and opportunities. We view you as a partner in this process.
We’ll share more details soon, but in the meantime I want to assure you that the best is yet to come for Xbox LIVE. I believe we’ll look back on 2010 as a landmark year in gaming and home entertainment, and I couldn’t be more excited about what we have in store with “Project Natal” and LIVE. The LIVE community is the driving force behind everything we do, and it’s because of the community that ground-breaking experiences on Xbox continue to be possible.
Our two views are not mutually exclusive. By defintion a corporation is to serve the interests of the shareholders. This has its pluses and minues. The only real check against corporate power, greed, and malice is the "people" and the only entity that can enforce ethics is the Government. If you don't have people and government to check corporate power.
almost all corporate machines sold with windows have a sticker of authenticity on the box or laptop. If you don't have media, Microsoft can give it to you for less than $20 or you can use any VL media and input the key. This is a typical scenario. This isn't foolproof though.
Slashdot Mirror
Best comment on libertarians EVER!
Most people who bought XP netbooks in 2009 don't even know what extended support is.
Consumers who buy netbooks in 2009 wouldn't have been able to afford extended support so your point is moot. Extended support is primarily for enterprise customers with multiyear volume licensing agreements.
No, they are not. They are not "VERY" up front about support time-lines. I would venture to guess that the vast majority of MS customers do not know anything about the timelines that MS offers support. Most people that bought XP in 2009 did not know exactly what they were doing. No rational person would make their software incompatible with their own OS in 2 years. Of course, now we know they will, and businesses should keep that in mind if and when they have a choice in what software they run.
Yes because not supporting something as simple and commoditized as a browser is indicative of all "all software"...man get your head out of your ass. OEM machines are only supported for a year anyway, people who bought netbooks in 2009 knew they were piece of shit machines. Consumers have plenty of choices for browsers that support XP. You Are conflating consumer issues with enterprise support issues. No windows IT admin who bought XP licenses in 2009 was oblivious to the exact support timeline, if they were then they really shouldn't have been admins. There is not a another major software company that offers the lifecycle support for an OS that Microsoft does. You bitch an complain about all you want but your comments just go to show you can't fix stupid.
Microsoft announced backgrounding of apps at PDC a few weeks ago so apps will function in the background for certain apps just like the native apps. Pandora backgrounding is a go :). I don't know about you but backgrounding is all I really care about. As an IPhone user I'm only ever using two apps at a time, one in the background and other actively. WP7 can do this as of PDC.
Also cut and paste is coming in Q1 2011, January I believe. I'm betting full blown multitasking is coming by summer of 2011 but that's just a guess.
//Microsoft Employee Here//
The new versions of Windows Home Server is perfect for what you want to do plus there is a great community of users who develop custom plugins for new functionality. Check out http://www.wegotserved.com/
Newegg.com has some great prices.
SharePoint 2010 which will launch this year fully supports Firefox and Safari. If you use Sharepoint 2007, there are cross-browser controls from vendors you can use for development i.e. Telerik
Microsoft are VERY explicit that the free VS Express CANNOT be used to develop for the mobile platforms though.
//Microsoft Employee Here//
You can bet this will change with the release of Visual Studio 2010 express and Windows Phone 7. Microsoft is very aware of the importance of being able to develop mobile apps with affordable and free tools. More annoucements will be made at MIX this month.
http://live.visitmix.com/
Microsoft doesn't do site licensed anymore. Office and Windows is licenses per computer.
Office Student & Teacher is $149 in most store, many times cheaper than that. Most schools can furthermore recieve event cheaper volume licensing deals that include FREE home use rights for students, staff, and faculty.
Microsoft is also releasing a free starter version of Office 2010 that will be free for anyone. Microsoft will also roll out the Office Web Apps version as part of the Windows Live. You can beta test it on Skydrive.Live.com now.
I don't know, what can you do with Win7 and Office 2010 that you couldn't do with WinXP and Office 2000? What new improvements in productivity do you gain from them? How did they lower your other costs (e.g. hardware)?
Well, new versions of Office simply exist to force you into their new file formats. Office 97, simply put, does everything anyone could want, and does it well. The only real selling point for the latest iteration is the collaboration technology in it, and even then, that's only good for you if you're using it in a business or groups. There's really no practical justification for a home user to upgrade Office.
Windows 7 though, that's a bit different. It appears that MS has really given us a reason to move on from XP, with better graphics support and better security, without the bugs of nags of Vista. Windows 7 is really what Vista should have been. And it would be more compelling if all versions of 7 were 64 bit native, as CPU's have been 64 bit for quite some time now. The 64 bit part would be the real selling point here, as it would allow all versions to move past that 4 GB memory limit, hardware permitting. For a lot of people, the only reason they really had to move to XP from 98SE was the file system limits on FAT32. While 98 was more stable than 95, the reason I upgraded was the 2 GB FAT limit that was smashed with FAT32. Microsoft too often forgets that we need practical reasons to upgrade, not just shiny eye-candy. And real practical reasons, not artificially forced situations like their new Office file formats. The only reason they did that was to force businesses away from 97 and 2K.
//Microsoft Employee Here//
You're right, consumers need compelling reasons to upgrade to a new version, but the point critics must accept when talking about a huge feature pool in a product like Office is "what is important to me?" The 10% that you use, will be different from the 10% I use. A financial analyst will extract different value from Excel than a presenter will from PowerPoint.
If you work in IT, the fact of the matter is that you are uniquely UNqualified in most circumstances to know what features in a product like PowerPoint, Access, Excel, Publisher, and Word, will make employees more productive. You have to ask yourself, do you track operational clicks? Do you time how long it takes for a marketer to create collatoral? What is the output quality of a document from Office 2k vs Office2010? Will more row support improve a financial analyst's ability to have a single doc vs. spreading them across multiple linked files?
Most of the time, people in IT only consider the most basic of information worker productivity. They don't see the value of the enhancements in Office because they themselves do not live in the product. If you don't believe me, try Outlook 2010 and compare it to previous versions of Outlook, its a much better experience and makes your more productive. Only if you live in the application, would you be able to determine the value of an upgrade.
To close, the whole point of MS Works was to be a consumer suite. For one reason or another, Office has moved from the workplace to the home. Microsoft realizes this and will be offer a free version of MS Office called "Starter" which will include Word, Excel, Powerpoint.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139162/Microsoft_to_put_free_Office_Starter_2010_on_new_PCs
Final point, for a business, if you were to save 4 minutes a days doing simple MS Office tasks on the computer, over the span of a year, most, if not all organizations would pay for the license of Office. Calculate it. Given, this is only one view in that equation, but things that are trivial in Office 2010 are pretty tough/complex/annoying to do in older versions. Print Preview, resizing, social networking, ECM integration, sharing content, etc...the list is huge.
//Microsoft Employee here//
Check out Microsoft Security Essentials if you work with customers computers.
http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/
It is 100% free and has gotten favorable reviews. It is also very minimalist in design and simple to understand by non-technical people.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2353447,00.asp
I think you're full of it. Microsoft is a key committed member of the CSS WG and continue to work in good faith helping the group. Things like test suites, specifications, standards discussions represent some of the output from Microsoft's involvement.
One of the main goals for IE8 was to have full CSS2 compliance and to improve performance over IE7. Compared to previous versions of IE, IE8 largely accomplished these goals. Moving forward for IE9, the goal will be increased standards compliance around CSS3, competative JavaScript performance against competeing browsers, improved rendering performance, and *throwing it some marketing* making it the best browsing experience for ANYONE who uses Windows, dev, designer, consumer, it pro.
Since you're big on the whole standards thing, you might like to know that IE8 is the only fully CSS 2.1 standards compliant browser at the moment. Neither Firefox or Chrome fully implement the entire spec yet.
http://www.webdevout.net/browser-support?uas=IE6-IE7-IE8-FX2-FX3-OP9#css
With regard to ECMAScript4, Microsoft had some fundamental differences with whether it was worth expanding the language considering the legacy baggage and the need to add modern scripting features. We haven't derailed anything, we voiced a disagreement, one that was shared by Yahoo at the time. Microsoft and Yahoo didn't agree on much back then either.
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2007/11/major-stakeholders-argue-about-the-future-of-web-scripting.ars
It's easy to have a casual knowledge of the issues when it comes to standards discussions, but when it comes down to creating a quality specification, the issues are a lot more complex and there are numerous viewpoints from people a lot smarter than you or I about the matter. Your accusations and assertions about Microsoft don't produce any productive outcomes in the debate, and all you really end up doing is vent anger online.
Does any of this genuinely change your opinion in the slightest, or am I wasting my time?
"Linux is always Genuine"
this is not necessarily true. You have to make sure you're getting an image from a trusted source. Would you trust the official chinese version, Red Flag Linux? The point is downloading Windows off bittorrent or from a warez site isn't safe. You wouldn't download RH, Suse, Debian, Fedora, or Ubuntu from an untrusted source. Why would you think Windows should be any different?
Apple straight up deletes any Apple pirated software if you take it in for servicing.
Your statement about what constitutes "genuine" is not factual. 1 in 3 pirated copies of Windows actually have malicious software, malware, spyware, trojans, or other undersirable elements. Yes, I agree, they are not knock-offs because at least part of the code is from Microsoft, but by "genuine," Microsoft means untampered copy.
It is always easy to count the number of potential people inconvenienced by a method like this, but considering the number of people saved from buy dangerous software, the trade-off seems justified. Microsoft firmly believes that those who purchase counterfeit copies of Windows are VICTIMS not criminals. If we actually thought they were criminals, we would be taking grandmas and children to court like the RIAA. Just to show you how much damage can happen from illegal software, read the following article.
http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/96647/china-makes-biggest-software-piracy-bust-in-history.html
As a final point, if you consider how sophisticated the world's botnets, trojans, and online attack vectors are becoming, a significant delivery method for these loads are via pirated software, if you refuse to acknowledge this, you're being ignorant.
Thanks for the additional info. One thing I'm not clear on -- is this really new? Since my clean install in November - I am getting told that my legit copy of Windows 7 is not valid every time I am not connected to the Internet. Within 15-20 minutes of getting reconnected, the message clears up (and I have access to optional updates again).
call support for a resolution. this shouldn't happen. i'm a roadwarrior and disconnected for days sometimes. I've never experienced this.
with regard to your retail copy of Vista Business, use tech support, you're paying for it as a retail customer. I think you'll find Microsoft customer support very helpful, and if they aren't let me know and I'll make sure you get help.
On point 3/4 - convincing you of these points doesn't really benefit Microsoft cause you're already a paying customer. If your experiences were the norm and you were the scenario we were wanting to improve, we wouldn't even need WGA or WAT. All I can say is read the following thread:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1546626&cid=31102154
I can't comment on any pending litigation, nor am I an attorney.
As far as the EU anti-trust stuff reading this article:
http://www.internetnews.com/breakingnews/article.php/3853706
1. i4i is a patent case between two corporations hence it isn't germane to the conversation.
2. The India case involves 4 alleged pirates I believe. Don't know much about it.
3. With regard to German price-fixing, Microsoft has stated that it will comply with the finding and be in full compliance of German law. When you have as large an ecosystem as Microsoft with so many partners, retailers, distributors, and vendors, business processes must always be stringently reviewed on a periodic basis to ensure compliances with all applicable rules and regulations. Microsoft Germany is doing exactly this in this matter. Are you really going to fault them for it?
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-office-price-fixing,7533.html
In other words, while MS does not directly collect my name and phone number, they can uniquely identify my computer by "make and model, version and ID numbers, and other such details". Then, they can check where I am (via geolocation) and who I am by cross-referencing the information with data from data-mining companies.
Sweet.
There are few ways I can answer this.
1. The most comprehensive way is to tell you to refer to http://privacy.microsoft.com/
After which point you still have concerns, please fill our our privacy questions form:
https://support.microsoft.com/contactus/emailcontact.aspx?scid=sw;en;1310&ws=1prcen
2. Microsoft complies with laws surrounding rention of customer data including IP addresses. Refer to this blog post that talks not only about Microsoft, but of Google and Yahoo as well.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10437137-265.html
Where as Google and Facebook want to redefine expectations of privacy on the web, Microsoft's privacy policy goes above and beyond the majority of companies that offer goods and services, both physically and virtually. Microsoft's privacy policy view comes from the very top from Steve Ballmer so when he says ours is better than Google's, he challenges anyone in the world to call him out on it. We do not go into your mail, we don't read your personal information, we don't access your stored content, period.
3. How you interpret Microsoft's agenda is up to you, but before trying to find any reason to fault Microsoft, I would ask you to thoroughly consider all the software you run on your environment and ask whether your information is safe with other 3rd party vendors. There are too many who do not apply as rigourous standards and in actuality, SELL your data to 3rd parties. If you play any computer game with an online component, you should be concerned. If you use extremely proprietary niche software that costs a lot of money, you should be concerned.
You should not be concerned about a company like Microsoft, a company who has billions of users and millions of business customers, about privacy. There are businesses who take security and privacy very seriously and if Microsoft were to pull this type of stuff, we'd get called out on it very quickly, and our reputation would suffer beyond repair.
Simply put, a failure on Microsoft's part to enforce a strong privacy policy would directly cause significant financial harm to the company. It's not worth it.
Hope this persuades you a little bit.
the reason i said, "personally speaking" is because I was refering to a general industry perspective, not necessarily a Microsoft view.
This is an excellent blog post about victims:
http://fraudwar.blogspot.com/2008/10/how-using-pirated-software-turns-people.html
@FranTaylor, lots of people use Windows on a server
You are not refuting what I said.
okay fine, rather than pointing you to a case study or to a marketing website like:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver
I simply ask you to open your favorite web browser, enter you zipcode and/or city along with the term:
"Microsoft Parnter"
If that's not proof for you, think about all the companies that use Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, Dynamics CRM, or MS SQL Server.
I have a feeling that you're not really this clueless.
Microsoft circa 2010 is very misunderstood on Slashdot. I also had my doubts before being assimilated by the collective.
Microsoft is fundamentally a different company now than in the 90s. We have to be due to competition, compliance, and regulation.
History is very important, but holding grudges only impedes progress. Even Linus Torvalds has said, "Microsoft hatred is a DISEASE."
Yes, we at at Microsoft are SUCH ASSHOLES :) read the statement:
A Letter from Marc Whitten: Discontinuation of Xbox LIVE for Original Xbox Games
Dear Xbox LIVE Members,
On April 15 we will discontinue the Xbox LIVE service for original Xbox consoles and games, including Xbox v1 games playable on Xbox 360 and Xbox Originals. I want to start by saying this isn’t a decision we made lightly, but after careful consideration, it is clear this will provide the greatest benefit to the Xbox LIVE community.
Seven years ago we laid out our vision for the connected console when we launched Xbox LIVE. We believed then that the power of the Internet to connect people would revolutionize living room entertainment. It started with amazing multiplayer games, and we’ve since seen that bet pay off again and again with the launches of Xbox 360, Marketplace, Netflix and powerful social features like Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm. None of this would have been possible without the success of LIVE as a multiplayer gaming network.
There’s no greater example of the power of the Xbox LIVE community than the “Halo” franchise. “Halo 2” has had an amazing run on LIVE, with a dedicated community more than five years after launch and well into the next generation of consoles. It has fundamentally changed the way we play video games. And while it’s difficult to see that run come to an end, the “Halo” franchise continues to act as the benchmark for multiplayer gaming in this generation, with “Halo 3,” “Halo 3: ODST” and soon “Halo: Reach” on Xbox 360.
Your Xbox LIVE community has grown to 23 million strong. And as we look down the road, we’ll continue to evolve the service with features and experiences that harness the full power of Xbox 360. To reach our aspiration, we need to make changes to the service that are incompatible with our original Xbox v1 games. We will contact the Xbox LIVE members directly impacted by this change and if this includes you, I encourage you to check your LIVE messages and associated e-mail account over the coming weeks for more details and opportunities. We view you as a partner in this process.
We’ll share more details soon, but in the meantime I want to assure you that the best is yet to come for Xbox LIVE. I believe we’ll look back on 2010 as a landmark year in gaming and home entertainment, and I couldn’t be more excited about what we have in store with “Project Natal” and LIVE. The LIVE community is the driving force behind everything we do, and it’s because of the community that ground-breaking experiences on Xbox continue to be possible.
See you on LIVE,
Marc Whitten
Gamertag - Notwen
www.twitter.com/notwen
Our two views are not mutually exclusive. By defintion a corporation is to serve the interests of the shareholders. This has its pluses and minues. The only real check against corporate power, greed, and malice is the "people" and the only entity that can enforce ethics is the Government. If you don't have people and government to check corporate power.
Elliot Spitzer discusses this in context to the Banking Industry on Fora.TV
http://fora.tv/2009/11/12/Eliot_Spitzer-Governments_and_Markets-From_Rand_to_Feinberg
Yes, feel free to read this or refer to the IDC report if you really care.
http://www.iacc.org/news/index.php?id=82
almost all corporate machines sold with windows have a sticker of authenticity on the box or laptop. If you don't have media, Microsoft can give it to you for less than $20 or you can use any VL media and input the key. This is a typical scenario. This isn't foolproof though.