They will maintain interest by doing things like this: running the development process "in public", trying not to suprise developers, etc.
It is a publicity stunt, sort of. Linux and Mac OS X are getting more and more hype, and unlike MS are shipping working, production code. Microsoft knows that no matter what, running code wins out. If Mac does what you want it to today, if your geek in IT has a Linux box up and running today, they'll lose a sale.
So, if we can't ship running code, they figure, let's do the next best thing: let's ship betas till the cows come home. By keeping developers hungry for what it might do (and in fairness, probably will) they'll be tempted to wait.
They know Linux and Mac developers will use the betas to stay up-to-date. That's OK; you can always litigate that away.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you kidding? Not only does he have all those accounts, but there's that whole "survived the data gunshot wounds in the 40's" thing, too.
They got /.'ed and their server went down.
They will maintain interest by doing things like this: running the development process "in public", trying not to suprise developers, etc. It is a publicity stunt, sort of. Linux and Mac OS X are getting more and more hype, and unlike MS are shipping working, production code. Microsoft knows that no matter what, running code wins out. If Mac does what you want it to today, if your geek in IT has a Linux box up and running today, they'll lose a sale. So, if we can't ship running code, they figure, let's do the next best thing: let's ship betas till the cows come home. By keeping developers hungry for what it might do (and in fairness, probably will) they'll be tempted to wait. They know Linux and Mac developers will use the betas to stay up-to-date. That's OK; you can always litigate that away.