LOL hehe:) That's one of the funniest posts I have read on Slashdot... You really have some talent... A lot of the jokes on slashdot are either lame or just a re-hash of someone else's joke but yours is pretty good...
Buy puts? If anything I would rather buy some call options. This is probably the busiest Microsoft has been since the late 90's (probably since Windows 95). I am guessing that sales and earnings have more upside potential than downside...
AMD? Nah... AMD may be ok but it is a riskier move...
Apple? Probably overvalued IMO. If Apple loses its iPod market share, it's going to get hammered. It has a lot of things going for it but iPod is a huge factor. Unlike many other products, iPod is something that has low barriers to entry. If you wanted to buy Apple stock, the time would have been one or two years.
Firefox is definitely losing some momentum. Its growth rate seems to have stagnated, and it is starting to show some of the problems that have plagued other browsers. Namely, firefox is quite unstable with the latest official release (it takes up a lot of memory and slows down if you have multiple tabs open with somewhat sizeable (1MB) images. I think there is something wrong with the way it allocates and frees memory.) There is also some increase in vulnerabilities.
I think the real test will be to see what happens when the new version of Internet Explorer comes out in a few months. Is that going to steal back some of the lost market share or will firefox out-innovate it?
R&D and Marketing are usually the first one to go when companies are in trouble... Ironically, these two are the most important in most organizations yet cutting them is more common than cutting SGA or management pay/perks...
This is nothing more than another successful action by employers to seize power from employees. Although employers own the e-mail systems, it is ludicrous to fire people for "abusing" it. Apart from the fact that any worker will not consider the use of the e-mail (in this example) abuse, it is simply management overpowering workers...
Oh well, I suppose it was inevitable... companies were going to fire workers sooner or later for so-called abuse of e-mail... Next on the list: abuse of internet bandwidth...:(
When Bidu IPOed a few weeks ago on the NASDAQ, it skyrocketed to some insane level. It subsequently fell back but maybe the markets knew that BIDU was going to be big in China. I still think BIDU is mostly hype (I would never pay for an established company that has a P/E of 1000+) but it remains to be seen.
The search engine (eg. google) and internet commerce (eg. ebay) are big battlegrounds in China...
USA has a lot of nationalism, except you guys call it patriotism. The nationalism in China is far worse (mostly because it's easier to influence hte population with propaganda under totalitarian systems) but don't for a minute assume that USA is not nationalist...
China is very nationalist because the so-called communism that emerged after WWII was very nationalist. There is no easier way to brainwash the conservatives and make the liberal sympathetic to the totalitarians than to inject nationalism.
"
If she export a thousand jobs to China for making ping-pong balls and we convert our thousand workers to something else (say making foobar which goes for $100 each and each worker can make 3 of in an hour), it can be a win/win sitiation - their economies get 1000 more jobs that didn't exist before and we maximize the potential of our workforce."
Yeah... it's called comparative advantage...
"
Of course, I wonder if economic academics figure in the cost of building up China and other countries (competition for resources such as oil, future competition in the marketplace, etcetera)."
Overall that's supposed to be good for several reasons.
One, increased competition lowers product costs and improves quality. For example, car quality and costs improved significantly when Japan and Korea started making cars instead of mostly USA (I'm talking about what was bought in USA--obviously European companies were around too).
Second, increasing standard of living in other countries, and increasing global GDP enables everyone to be better off as a whole--although you as an individual may or may not be better off. For instance, if there was no growth in the developing countries, most the developed world will go into a slow decline/"recession of sorts" (since there is literally no growth in Europe and Japan).
I agree that global labour arbitrage is rough for the workers. I myself have been negatively impacted by it (I'm in Canada BTW). I think the best one can do is to somehow go into a field or maybe do something that will be in demand in the future... I don't know what that means but that's what needs to be done...
"
Exporting jobs is just plain bad for any economy. It reduces jobs and increases the money flow out of the country. The US is experiencing some serious economic draining ATM."
That's the nature of capitalism and free markets. USA is experiencing nothing different from what it or any other country experienced over the last 200 years... Jobs--and capital--has always gone to the lowest-cost producer. What's happening is nothing new. Tech jobs may be moving to India and China but they will just as easily move to Vietnam and Ecuador in 10 years if costs are lower there...
"
Linux doesn't really have this economic effect attached to it. Even if you buy a distro, you can buy the distro(s) made in your country."
Buying local goods makes very little difference (except from an environmental and possibly human rights perspective (e.g. workers may be more abused elsewhere) but we are not talking about that with this situation). There is no such thing as a local good that is made in a particular country. Is the computer you are reading this on made locally? If 80% of something is manufactured elsewhere and 20% is assembled loallys, and 100% sold in USA, is that a local good? The fact of the matter is, there is nothing that is a local good--never has been and never will be. I'll bet that 90% of what you consume is dependent on foreign goods to some degree.
It's true that everything costs SOMETHING, but I think Bill Gates' point is that the cost of hardware will drop close to zero and that companies will make money off services and software. I don't think he is saying that hardware will cost zero. There will always be the cost of the physical material, shipping, and so on, but those costs might be very low to the point of not mattering at all.
On top the examples I listed before, another one is disposable cameras. You can literally get free disposable cameras right now. Some companies give them away for free but even the ones that cost something (say $20) cost as little as twice the cost of printing/developing pictures. There is no reason that couldn't happen in the computer industry. I can easily see companies giving away game consoles or basic computer hardware for free. Even companies like Google are rumoured to be building Wi-Fi networks that will be offered for free to the public.
"The only way his comments make any sense is if Microsoft provided a computer with every OS purchase. The consumer still pays for the hidden cost."
That is sort of what I expect to happen. It could very well happen, where companies give away hardware for free, while charging for services and software. I predict that the game console market will reach that point within 10 years (if online gaming takes off). It also wouldn't surprise me if cable companies, movies studios, or whoever, gives away free DVD (or some media) players for free while charging for the content (movies, tv shows, etc). I think that's what Gates is predicting--and I share the same vision...
Bill Gates is probably more right than wrong. If you look at the last 10 or 15 years, hardware costs have droppped a lot compared to software costs. Some hardware is almost at some very low marginal cost level (eg. keyboard, mouse, sound card, etc). A sound card used to cost $100 to $150 around 10 years ago; it costs $20 to "$0" (if integrated into motherboard) now.
Video game consoles are literally sold at a loss becaus the profits that can be made on teh software (i.e. game) is much higher. The console still costs quite a bit but it wouldn't surprise me if companies offer free game consoles in 10 years.
Even the valuation placed on Google (although I'm not sure if Google is a tech company or a media/advertising company) by the stock market sort of indicates a new trend where software companies make money, while hardware ones struggle.
I think Bill Gates will turn out to be right. I don't know if hardware will be free per se, but it will be very cheap comapred to software...
What you are saying may be true for small software packages but it is definitely not true for any enterprise software or anything with a large scope. I would count MS Office, MS Sql Server, MS Windows, and MS Visual Studio in the large software category. It's not that easy to create some large software project from scratch. Although the entry costs themselves are low, the development and support costs are not.
If anything, certain hardware has even lower barrier to entry than software. A lot of hardware products, whether it is networking stuff like low-end routers or low-end sound cards or even some decent semiconductor device can be developed for much lower costs than software. One just needs to look at the multitude of computer hardware and peripherals (a huge number from Asian companies that didn't even exit 5 years ago) on the market to see what I mean...
Shale oil is definitely a potentially good investment opportunity if you believe that conventional oil is going to be harder to find. I don't know much about shale oil stuff but I'm bullish on coal-bed methane (natural gas from coal). CBM could be the future of natural gas (although there are some environmental concerns)... I'm medium-term bearish on the oil&gas sector but in the long-run, if you are bullish on the sector, then shale oil, CBM, oil sands, and stuff like that are where the future production is going to come from IMO...
"
Take your example of pollution. Everyone is liable for the damage they cause others in a free market. If pollution causes damage, they would have to compensate those they have hurt."
What happens if you pollute some commonly shared area? For example, what if you just dump pollutants into the atmosphere? THe polluted air may have no short-term impact but travel throughout the planet before impacting something in the long-run. No one can point a finger at anyone. This is not the exception; this is the norm when it comes to pollution (polluters try to release small quantities into the public good (eg. rivers, air, oceans, etc)). What happens if you dump waste into the ocean, in international waters, where no one has any legal ownership?
Or are you a proponent of pure capitalism, where EVERYTHING is owned by someone? In that case, you won't even get past step 1. There is no way you can force all the roads and land to be privately owned. Get back to me when you figure out how to divide up the atmosphere between private individuals...
Lastly, you just need to look at examples to see that pollution needs to be controlled. The closet thing to a free market are some of the poor countries, where there is no government intervention when it comes to pollution (mostly because they can't afford it). What do we see happening there? Well, the corporations and private busiensses simply end up polluting the envrionment. The public is either paid off with "bribes", which doesn't even make up for the damage done, or has little recourse.
The fact of the matter is that pollution and damage to the envrionment will not be solved by any capitalistic market, regardless of how free it is. It is not a coincidence that the most environmentally-friendly and cleanest areas in the world are also some of the most regulated (eg. most of Europe, California, Canada (to some degree), etc)...
"Second, in a situation where there is a finite resource, especially one that places a key role in so many parts of the economy, it is prudent not to pump it out of the ground and squander it as fast as possible."
I disagree... Light sweet crude oil may be in small quantities but other types of oil (like the shale oil mentioned in the article, plus oil sands, heavy deep-water crude, and so forth) are available in large quantities...
Furthermore, oil may be a limited resource but energy is not. The quicker the oil depletes, the more likely we'll find alternative energy (wind, solar, biomass, hydro, and even nuclear) to replace it. Some uses of oil can't be replaced but others can.
"The fuel prices in the UK are high due to high taxation of fuel. Thus, the extra cost is reinvested to the public's benefit.
Therefore, essentially your entire argument has no relevance. If you have a situation, as could happen in the US in the near future, where money for fuel is not reinvested because it's not being taxed and the profits go straight to petrol companies, then you most certainly could get a recession."
Your argument is the same because one can argue that the profits earned by the oil&gas companies will be re-invested and/or given to shareholders, who will then re-invest or spend it themselves...
I think his/her point is not that the hurricane is caused by oil but rather that the oil consumption is high and hence is vulnerable to supply shocks, as it happened with the hurricane...
"Warning: This one comes across as a flame, but I'm to mad at this Win2k Server Bullcrap I have to deal with every odd week to contain my anger caused by parent post. Please excuse."
That's cool with me... my post didn't start off too politely either;)
The situation you describe sounds more like a development problem than a mistake in choosing the software platform. For instance, when you say that the final software doesn't even do HTML properly, I would imagine that it is the developer's "fault" rather than the platform.
I'm not in web development so I can't say if there is anything that is comparable to Zope. But Windows has improved significantly over the years, and has many more add-on tools/software. The results are in the numbers. How do you explain the fact that Windows Server market share growth is higher than anything else? If Windows Server or any other MS product for that matter was inferior then do you think people would be buying as much of it as we are seeing? Sure, there is a marketing push, as you alluded to, but that alone cannot explain it. Companies are in the business of making a profit and if MS-backed software is so underwhelming, everyone would be dumping it.
The fact of the matter is, a lot of Microsoft products are actually easier to use and have lower cost for many businesses. This is especially true for small and medium businesses. Most of those businesses don't have technical expertise in-house or can't afford to hire them (on a regular basis). For them, deploying a Windows Server 2003 for a local file server or a VPN server, or whatever, is much easier and less costly than trying to deploy linux-based systems.
The reason Microsoft products dominate is not simply marketing (although that plays a big role too). It's also because they are low-cost and easy to use. MS SQL Server came out of nowhere and has something like 25% of the database market share; MS Office has 99%+ of the market share and wasn't even ranked #3 15 years ago; IIS used to have zero market share and now owns a large chunk of the web server market share.
Anyway, we'll see what happens with Windows Vista. It's going to be a big challenge for Microsoft. It remains to be seen if Apple and linux can capitalize on the Vista roll-out...
Your point is true to some degree but it isn't as bad as it seems for the following reason...
Those that can't afford Windows (say US$100) can't really afford computers anyway. The cost of the operating system is fairly small compared to other software (like office applications, or image editors, or a computer game, or whatever else you are into) and hardware. Let's also not forget that other items like internet access (especially high speed) probably costs more than the OS over an year (eg. Windows=$100 but cable internet costs $300 in Canada per year ($30/month)). Of course, the prices will be lower in the developing countries so I'm just using developed country prices as an example.
So the way I look at it, the people in developing countries who can't afford the OS can't really afford a computing environment anyway. Having said that, most of the up-and-coming middle class people in those countries CAN afford the higher cost items. The costs have to be lower overall due to lower cost of living/lower salaries/etc but that won't be that big of an issue IMO.
Overall, I think prices will have to be lower (just like prices are lower for everything eg. when G.E. sells a washing machine, it is at a lower price than in developed countries) but not a whole lot. I think the growth will come from the developing middle class and not necessarily from an average person.
Contrary to what the clueless and ill-informed think (j/k no offense;) ), Windows Vista is a MAJOR upgrade. It should be similar to going from Win3.11 to Win 95 or, on the server side, from Windows NT to Windows 2000. The 3D-accelerated GUI alone will push the operating system into a new era.
A lot of you complaining about feature cut-backs don't realize that MS was aiming for the moon. Even after the cut-backs, it'll have more new DESKTOP features than what Linux has gained in the last 5 years.
I personally don't see linux overtaking Windows on the desktop side until the operating system market matures and MS stops innovating or releasing any new major versions (maybe 15 to 20 years from now). Linux has potential on the server (its market share growth over the last 5 years shows that) but the desktop side will be tough for Linux. As a desktop, linux just doesn't have enough applications, and isn't easy to use--two key features desktop users care about.
Even the server side will become more tough for Linux. For regular server use (eg. file server, web server, etc for a small to mid-sized company) Windows 2003 is pretty solid. Its market share growth (along with its first incarnation, Windows NT) from almost none to something large is worth nothing. Linux will faced a big challenge on the server side from the next version of Windows server. Linux's server market share has mostly been increasing due to it taking over Unix servers. But when it goes head to head against the next version of Windows server, it will be a tough battle...
Overall, I expect Windows Vista to grow at double digits on the desktop side for the next 5 years, while Linux likely won't exceed 5 percent for the desktop side.
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LOL hehe :) That's one of the funniest posts I have read on Slashdot... You really have some talent... A lot of the jokes on slashdot are either lame or just a re-hash of someone else's joke but yours is pretty good...
Buy puts? If anything I would rather buy some call options. This is probably the busiest Microsoft has been since the late 90's (probably since Windows 95). I am guessing that sales and earnings have more upside potential than downside...
AMD? Nah... AMD may be ok but it is a riskier move...
Apple? Probably overvalued IMO. If Apple loses its iPod market share, it's going to get hammered. It has a lot of things going for it but iPod is a huge factor. Unlike many other products, iPod is something that has low barriers to entry. If you wanted to buy Apple stock, the time would have been one or two years.
Firefox is definitely losing some momentum. Its growth rate seems to have stagnated, and it is starting to show some of the problems that have plagued other browsers. Namely, firefox is quite unstable with the latest official release (it takes up a lot of memory and slows down if you have multiple tabs open with somewhat sizeable (1MB) images. I think there is something wrong with the way it allocates and frees memory.) There is also some increase in vulnerabilities.
I think the real test will be to see what happens when the new version of Internet Explorer comes out in a few months. Is that going to steal back some of the lost market share or will firefox out-innovate it?
R&D and Marketing are usually the first one to go when companies are in trouble... Ironically, these two are the most important in most organizations yet cutting them is more common than cutting SGA or management pay/perks...
This is nothing more than another successful action by employers to seize power from employees. Although employers own the e-mail systems, it is ludicrous to fire people for "abusing" it. Apart from the fact that any worker will not consider the use of the e-mail (in this example) abuse, it is simply management overpowering workers...
:(
Oh well, I suppose it was inevitable... companies were going to fire workers sooner or later for so-called abuse of e-mail... Next on the list: abuse of internet bandwidth...
It was a joke man... it's not fashionable to nitpicks jokes... but I thought the mistake deserves mention...
When Bidu IPOed a few weeks ago on the NASDAQ, it skyrocketed to some insane level. It subsequently fell back but maybe the markets knew that BIDU was going to be big in China. I still think BIDU is mostly hype (I would never pay for an established company that has a P/E of 1000+) but it remains to be seen.
The search engine (eg. google) and internet commerce (eg. ebay) are big battlegrounds in China...
USA has a lot of nationalism, except you guys call it patriotism. The nationalism in China is far worse (mostly because it's easier to influence hte population with propaganda under totalitarian systems) but don't for a minute assume that USA is not nationalist...
China is very nationalist because the so-called communism that emerged after WWII was very nationalist. There is no easier way to brainwash the conservatives and make the liberal sympathetic to the totalitarians than to inject nationalism.
" If she export a thousand jobs to China for making ping-pong balls and we convert our thousand workers to something else (say making foobar which goes for $100 each and each worker can make 3 of in an hour), it can be a win/win sitiation - their economies get 1000 more jobs that didn't exist before and we maximize the potential of our workforce."
Yeah... it's called comparative advantage...
" Of course, I wonder if economic academics figure in the cost of building up China and other countries (competition for resources such as oil, future competition in the marketplace, etcetera)."
Overall that's supposed to be good for several reasons.
One, increased competition lowers product costs and improves quality. For example, car quality and costs improved significantly when Japan and Korea started making cars instead of mostly USA (I'm talking about what was bought in USA--obviously European companies were around too).
Second, increasing standard of living in other countries, and increasing global GDP enables everyone to be better off as a whole--although you as an individual may or may not be better off. For instance, if there was no growth in the developing countries, most the developed world will go into a slow decline/"recession of sorts" (since there is literally no growth in Europe and Japan).
I agree that global labour arbitrage is rough for the workers. I myself have been negatively impacted by it (I'm in Canada BTW). I think the best one can do is to somehow go into a field or maybe do something that will be in demand in the future... I don't know what that means but that's what needs to be done...
" Exporting jobs is just plain bad for any economy. It reduces jobs and increases the money flow out of the country. The US is experiencing some serious economic draining ATM."
That's the nature of capitalism and free markets. USA is experiencing nothing different from what it or any other country experienced over the last 200 years... Jobs--and capital--has always gone to the lowest-cost producer. What's happening is nothing new. Tech jobs may be moving to India and China but they will just as easily move to Vietnam and Ecuador in 10 years if costs are lower there...
" Linux doesn't really have this economic effect attached to it. Even if you buy a distro, you can buy the distro(s) made in your country."
Buying local goods makes very little difference (except from an environmental and possibly human rights perspective (e.g. workers may be more abused elsewhere) but we are not talking about that with this situation). There is no such thing as a local good that is made in a particular country. Is the computer you are reading this on made locally? If 80% of something is manufactured elsewhere and 20% is assembled loallys, and 100% sold in USA, is that a local good? The fact of the matter is, there is nothing that is a local good--never has been and never will be. I'll bet that 90% of what you consume is dependent on foreign goods to some degree.
Actually I'm waiting for A+... wouldn't that be the best language ever? ;)
" While C lacks the speed..."
Small nitpick... C should actually be faster...
It's true that everything costs SOMETHING, but I think Bill Gates' point is that the cost of hardware will drop close to zero and that companies will make money off services and software. I don't think he is saying that hardware will cost zero. There will always be the cost of the physical material, shipping, and so on, but those costs might be very low to the point of not mattering at all.
On top the examples I listed before, another one is disposable cameras. You can literally get free disposable cameras right now. Some companies give them away for free but even the ones that cost something (say $20) cost as little as twice the cost of printing/developing pictures. There is no reason that couldn't happen in the computer industry. I can easily see companies giving away game consoles or basic computer hardware for free. Even companies like Google are rumoured to be building Wi-Fi networks that will be offered for free to the public.
"The only way his comments make any sense is if Microsoft provided a computer with every OS purchase. The consumer still pays for the hidden cost."
That is sort of what I expect to happen. It could very well happen, where companies give away hardware for free, while charging for services and software. I predict that the game console market will reach that point within 10 years (if online gaming takes off). It also wouldn't surprise me if cable companies, movies studios, or whoever, gives away free DVD (or some media) players for free while charging for the content (movies, tv shows, etc). I think that's what Gates is predicting--and I share the same vision...
Bill Gates is probably more right than wrong. If you look at the last 10 or 15 years, hardware costs have droppped a lot compared to software costs. Some hardware is almost at some very low marginal cost level (eg. keyboard, mouse, sound card, etc). A sound card used to cost $100 to $150 around 10 years ago; it costs $20 to "$0" (if integrated into motherboard) now.
Video game consoles are literally sold at a loss becaus the profits that can be made on teh software (i.e. game) is much higher. The console still costs quite a bit but it wouldn't surprise me if companies offer free game consoles in 10 years.
Even the valuation placed on Google (although I'm not sure if Google is a tech company or a media/advertising company) by the stock market sort of indicates a new trend where software companies make money, while hardware ones struggle.
I think Bill Gates will turn out to be right. I don't know if hardware will be free per se, but it will be very cheap comapred to software...
What you are saying may be true for small software packages but it is definitely not true for any enterprise software or anything with a large scope. I would count MS Office, MS Sql Server, MS Windows, and MS Visual Studio in the large software category. It's not that easy to create some large software project from scratch. Although the entry costs themselves are low, the development and support costs are not.
If anything, certain hardware has even lower barrier to entry than software. A lot of hardware products, whether it is networking stuff like low-end routers or low-end sound cards or even some decent semiconductor device can be developed for much lower costs than software. One just needs to look at the multitude of computer hardware and peripherals (a huge number from Asian companies that didn't even exit 5 years ago) on the market to see what I mean...
Shale oil is definitely a potentially good investment opportunity if you believe that conventional oil is going to be harder to find. I don't know much about shale oil stuff but I'm bullish on coal-bed methane (natural gas from coal). CBM could be the future of natural gas (although there are some environmental concerns)... I'm medium-term bearish on the oil&gas sector but in the long-run, if you are bullish on the sector, then shale oil, CBM, oil sands, and stuff like that are where the future production is going to come from IMO...
" Take your example of pollution. Everyone is liable for the damage they cause others in a free market. If pollution causes damage, they would have to compensate those they have hurt."
What happens if you pollute some commonly shared area? For example, what if you just dump pollutants into the atmosphere? THe polluted air may have no short-term impact but travel throughout the planet before impacting something in the long-run. No one can point a finger at anyone. This is not the exception; this is the norm when it comes to pollution (polluters try to release small quantities into the public good (eg. rivers, air, oceans, etc)). What happens if you dump waste into the ocean, in international waters, where no one has any legal ownership?
Or are you a proponent of pure capitalism, where EVERYTHING is owned by someone? In that case, you won't even get past step 1. There is no way you can force all the roads and land to be privately owned. Get back to me when you figure out how to divide up the atmosphere between private individuals...
Lastly, you just need to look at examples to see that pollution needs to be controlled. The closet thing to a free market are some of the poor countries, where there is no government intervention when it comes to pollution (mostly because they can't afford it). What do we see happening there? Well, the corporations and private busiensses simply end up polluting the envrionment. The public is either paid off with "bribes", which doesn't even make up for the damage done, or has little recourse.
The fact of the matter is that pollution and damage to the envrionment will not be solved by any capitalistic market, regardless of how free it is. It is not a coincidence that the most environmentally-friendly and cleanest areas in the world are also some of the most regulated (eg. most of Europe, California, Canada (to some degree), etc)...
"Second, in a situation where there is a finite resource, especially one that places a key role in so many parts of the economy, it is prudent not to pump it out of the ground and squander it as fast as possible."
I disagree... Light sweet crude oil may be in small quantities but other types of oil (like the shale oil mentioned in the article, plus oil sands, heavy deep-water crude, and so forth) are available in large quantities...
Furthermore, oil may be a limited resource but energy is not. The quicker the oil depletes, the more likely we'll find alternative energy (wind, solar, biomass, hydro, and even nuclear) to replace it. Some uses of oil can't be replaced but others can.
"The fuel prices in the UK are high due to high taxation of fuel. Thus, the extra cost is reinvested to the public's benefit. Therefore, essentially your entire argument has no relevance. If you have a situation, as could happen in the US in the near future, where money for fuel is not reinvested because it's not being taxed and the profits go straight to petrol companies, then you most certainly could get a recession."
Your argument is the same because one can argue that the profits earned by the oil&gas companies will be re-invested and/or given to shareholders, who will then re-invest or spend it themselves...
I think his/her point is not that the hurricane is caused by oil but rather that the oil consumption is high and hence is vulnerable to supply shocks, as it happened with the hurricane...
This is pretty normal in business circles. A lot of business types are highly competitive. I don't know what the deal is here...
When are we getting the sonic tanks from Dune? ;)
"Warning: This one comes across as a flame, but I'm to mad at this Win2k Server Bullcrap I have to deal with every odd week to contain my anger caused by parent post. Please excuse."
;)
That's cool with me... my post didn't start off too politely either
The situation you describe sounds more like a development problem than a mistake in choosing the software platform. For instance, when you say that the final software doesn't even do HTML properly, I would imagine that it is the developer's "fault" rather than the platform.
I'm not in web development so I can't say if there is anything that is comparable to Zope. But Windows has improved significantly over the years, and has many more add-on tools/software. The results are in the numbers. How do you explain the fact that Windows Server market share growth is higher than anything else? If Windows Server or any other MS product for that matter was inferior then do you think people would be buying as much of it as we are seeing? Sure, there is a marketing push, as you alluded to, but that alone cannot explain it. Companies are in the business of making a profit and if MS-backed software is so underwhelming, everyone would be dumping it.
The fact of the matter is, a lot of Microsoft products are actually easier to use and have lower cost for many businesses. This is especially true for small and medium businesses. Most of those businesses don't have technical expertise in-house or can't afford to hire them (on a regular basis). For them, deploying a Windows Server 2003 for a local file server or a VPN server, or whatever, is much easier and less costly than trying to deploy linux-based systems.
The reason Microsoft products dominate is not simply marketing (although that plays a big role too). It's also because they are low-cost and easy to use. MS SQL Server came out of nowhere and has something like 25% of the database market share; MS Office has 99%+ of the market share and wasn't even ranked #3 15 years ago; IIS used to have zero market share and now owns a large chunk of the web server market share.
Anyway, we'll see what happens with Windows Vista. It's going to be a big challenge for Microsoft. It remains to be seen if Apple and linux can capitalize on the Vista roll-out...
Your point is true to some degree but it isn't as bad as it seems for the following reason...
Those that can't afford Windows (say US$100) can't really afford computers anyway. The cost of the operating system is fairly small compared to other software (like office applications, or image editors, or a computer game, or whatever else you are into) and hardware. Let's also not forget that other items like internet access (especially high speed) probably costs more than the OS over an year (eg. Windows=$100 but cable internet costs $300 in Canada per year ($30/month)). Of course, the prices will be lower in the developing countries so I'm just using developed country prices as an example.
So the way I look at it, the people in developing countries who can't afford the OS can't really afford a computing environment anyway. Having said that, most of the up-and-coming middle class people in those countries CAN afford the higher cost items. The costs have to be lower overall due to lower cost of living/lower salaries/etc but that won't be that big of an issue IMO.
Overall, I think prices will have to be lower (just like prices are lower for everything eg. when G.E. sells a washing machine, it is at a lower price than in developed countries) but not a whole lot. I think the growth will come from the developing middle class and not necessarily from an average person.
Contrary to what the clueless and ill-informed think (j/k no offense ;) ), Windows Vista is a MAJOR upgrade. It should be similar to going from Win3.11 to Win 95 or, on the server side, from Windows NT to Windows 2000. The 3D-accelerated GUI alone will push the operating system into a new era.
A lot of you complaining about feature cut-backs don't realize that MS was aiming for the moon. Even after the cut-backs, it'll have more new DESKTOP features than what Linux has gained in the last 5 years.
I personally don't see linux overtaking Windows on the desktop side until the operating system market matures and MS stops innovating or releasing any new major versions (maybe 15 to 20 years from now). Linux has potential on the server (its market share growth over the last 5 years shows that) but the desktop side will be tough for Linux. As a desktop, linux just doesn't have enough applications, and isn't easy to use--two key features desktop users care about.
Even the server side will become more tough for Linux. For regular server use (eg. file server, web server, etc for a small to mid-sized company) Windows 2003 is pretty solid. Its market share growth (along with its first incarnation, Windows NT) from almost none to something large is worth nothing. Linux will faced a big challenge on the server side from the next version of Windows server. Linux's server market share has mostly been increasing due to it taking over Unix servers. But when it goes head to head against the next version of Windows server, it will be a tough battle...
Overall, I expect Windows Vista to grow at double digits on the desktop side for the next 5 years, while Linux likely won't exceed 5 percent for the desktop side.