>And Office Inc would probably do Office for the Internet too
> (which Microsoft will fight tooth and nail against unless
> someone like Google does Google Office first).
Bill G has repeatedly pushed for Office on the internet. This part of the whole "ie is integrated into the OS" thing. He wants IE to be the OS. This gives MS full control over the licensing of Windows apps, especially Office. MS could then rent office and other apps to users on a subscription basis, instead of selling a semi-permanent license. Talk about your captive users and forced upgrades! Why on earth would MS fight this?
Sounds like what Bill wants to do is "Office for IE on Windows" and his motivation is better control over licensing. That's not "Office for Internet" which, theoretically, would not be dependant on IE or Windows, and would be about innovating a new way for people to work.
I can already access all my GMail with any browser, and I have 250G storage. Soon I expect I'll be able to access all my GDocuments and wordprocess and speadsheet them with any browser. (Or maybe with a GBrowser on any computer. Then, who needs Windows?
Bill openly says that he runs Microsoft under the assumption that they can be irrelevant in 5 years -- right now Google is the most likely candidate to dethrone him.
They aren't afraid of Google as a computing platform. They are afraid of Google as a search interface. See Bill's interview posted recently on/.
If Bill said that, Bill's lying. Microsoft owes its existance to the fact it can leverage its dominance of the computing platform to make successes in other areas. He who owns the platform wins; in the DOS days Microsoft leveraged it's ownership of the OS to make sure Excel beat Lotus -- Microsoft employees used to chant "DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run" (I know this first hand).
In the Windows days, Microsoft was scared to death of Netscape, because Netscape gave the world easy access to a new computing platform -- the internet -- and if everyone used Netscape and internet-based applications, then no one cares what OS Netscape is running on. The Microsoft predator killed Netscape to protect the computing platform.
Then came Java. Java is a platform, everyone got excited about the concept of a ubiquitous internet-friendly platform where applications could run anywhere; Java was the new computing platform that threatened Windows' dominance -- Microsoft did everything they could to kill it (although it's still breathing).
Now comes Google. IE beat Netscape in the browser wars, but now everyone is using their browser to access Google. Google is much more than a search engine, it is "the internet" to many people; they've begun providing some great applications (GMail, Google Maps), and are working towards many more -- are Google Office and Google Net far off?
If Google is permitted to succeed, Google will become the new computing platform. This is why Microsoft attempted a hostle take-over of Google before they went IPO, and that is why Microsoft must kill Google now. To protect their dominance of the computing platform.
He who owns the platform wins.
...still wouldnt give a flying f*ck about linux because the market share isn't there
Office Inc would have to find ways to grow their market; they'd have to continually innovate to make their product better, and would have to grow into new areas -- there is no Office for Linux now because in the minds of the pointy-haired bosses, it would "legitimize" Linux as a desktop computing platform (ie., threatening Windows platform dominance). Office Inc would most assuredly release an Office for Linux (it'd probably even just require a rebuild of Office for OS X). And Office Inc would probably do Office for the Internet too (which Microsoft will fight tooth and nail against unless someone like Google does Google Office first).
MSN is not only a web portal but an ISP. MSN merging with AOL is 2 full service **internet providers** merging. Last I checked (5 minutes ago) neigher Google nor Yahoo advertized internet access. Although I could have sworn Yahoo used to.
MSN is a huge money loosing operation, just like IE before it. In a fair non-predatory market, MSN would have to compete against Google and AOL by innovating and offering better products and services. Instead Microsoft uses MSN as a predatory weapon against its current fierce competitor for the world's computing platform.
So to conclude, your wrong on premise #1, draw bad conclusions on premises #2 and #3, and are comparing apples to oranges on #4.
And I conclude that you're being very short-sighted and don't appreciate the subtleties and long-term thinking that goes into running the world's biggest software company.
Once again, evidence that Microsoft needs to be broken into a bunch of smaller companies.
Windows Inc. would be afraid that Google threatens it's dominance of the world's computing platform, but would not be able to use MSN Inc. to battle Google. Windows Inc would be forced to make Windows better.
Office Inc. would want their software running on all computers everywhere, it would make Office for Linux, maybe even Office for the internet -- Office Inc would have no interest in ensuring Windows was the dominant computing platform.
Internet Explorer Inc. would embrace technologies like Java and Flash ensuring seemless compatibility with their browser. They would ship a top notch version of IE for all platforms including Mac and Linux. They would not worry about these technologies threatening Windows' dominance of the world's computing platform.
And, MSN Inc. would have to compete fairly with its competition from Yahoo and Google, and would not have the resources to perform its *illegal* predatory business tactics.
On a similar note, a caveman has been wondering why you need firefox and email when he can learn everything he needs to know by grunting to each other next to the camp fire.
First of all, this caveman is not just grunting by the camp fire, I am asking "what am I missing?" -- it's not nice to make fun of others for being inquisitive.
Secondly, since AOL and MSN are things used primarily by the less savvy computer users, and I am a very experienced internet user and computer professional -- a more accurate analogy would be: This Firefox and Email user is wondering why the cavemen carry clubs and live in caves when there are grocery stores and houses available.
There must be some huge aspect of the internet that I'm just out of the loop on.
I don't use AOL, I don't use MSN... I hardly even use instant messaging... I just browse with Firefox and use email.
I hear about how AOL is a major corporation and I wonder... how? why? I hear that MSN and AOL are apparently merging, and I wonder... how does that affect me? Why do people care?
Really... just... don't... get it. What am I missing?
you must educate the user to the dangers - don't open suspicious messages or attachments; don't wander into sketchy websites.
I disagree completely. If I open and email attachment the OS should be smart enough to warn me when that attachment is trying to do something unexpected. Instead of just blocking all attachments that end with EXE, why can the OS let me run the EXE and warn me if the EXE is trying to modify critical system info, or access the internet in an unpermitted way?
Similarly, a web browser should be capable of providing a read-only view of any web page I browse to. I should not expect a web site to be capable of infecting my system when all I'm doing is viewing a page.
People need to have higher expectations of the software companies, and must demand higher quality products. Not accept weak excuses like "just don't do that" when you're doing something the product is designed for.
I've been considering buying a Mac because the anti-virus software on my Windows laptop drives me nuts. Funny, I was under the impression that Mac's we're more virus-proof.
But this article is telling me I'll have the same issues if I switch? *sigh* Computers are becoming a real pain the butt to use.
I hit the wrong reply link, then posted it again to get it in the right place. So sue me. Or better yet, ask slashdot for the ability to move the location of a post.
he would feel very uneasy riding in an airplane where WindowsCE was controlling the cabin pressure. [...] I wonder if he is taking his gut feeling about the company and judging the technical worth of its products sight unseen.
A used car salesman has sold you problematic cars for the past 20 years, and he says he finally has a good car to sell you. Are you going to examine the car for "technical worth" or are you going to let your previous experiences with that salesman influence your buying decision?
he would feel very uneasy riding in an airplane where WindowsCE was controlling the cabin pressure. [...] I wonder if he is taking his gut feeling about the company and judging the technical worth of its products sight unseen.
A used car salesman has sold you problematic cars for the past 20 years, and he says he finally has a good car to sell you. Are you going to examine the car for "technical worth" or are you going to let your previous experiences with that salesman influence your buying decision?
Not sure how you meant the word "hackers," of course, but your respect for "outlaws" certainly seems well misplaced.
I use the term "outlaw" figuratively -- innovations come from the spirit of constrasting the status quo, original thinkers and rule-breakers. Like the guys who invented Napster, Gnutella, and BitTorrent. Those are outlaws almost in the literal sense, and they are the true internet innovators of our time. Think of rule-breakers like Steve Jobs, Linus Torvalds, Larry and Sergey, and frankly even Jeff Bezos and the young Bill Gates. They are those who dared to, dare I say it, "Think Different".
The great innovations do not generally come from large corporations and especially not monopolies -- mainly because large companies do not succeed by making great software, but rather by sucking less than their competition. It's the smaller, agile, rule-breakers make the great software -- while it may be a stretch to include companies like Apple and Google among this list of "small companies", I do for convenience and because they are the exceptions.
Steve Jobs once said (circa 1998) that the only place in technology where there's true innovation is the internet because Microsoft doesn't own it.
This GoogleNet idea is an interesting one, but I expect such a proprietary internet would lack would be shunned by the hackers and outlaws that bring true innovation to the technology world.
That being said, Google is much more open to developers than the other monopoly we're familiar with. And they have been collecting money and PhDs at an alarming rate -- they have something big planned.
Clearly Google realizes (like Microsoft before them) that he who owns the platform wins. By building a "better" internet, GoogleNet could be the next Win32 API enabling Google to have an earth-shattering money machine. Perhaps Google's stock is not over-valued afterall.
Perhaps he's a good team builder, well-organized, good at setting and maintaining the expectations of his superiors, good at insulating you from the day to day high-level business problems and decisions...
Hopefully your manager has other positive qualities that out-weight his technical deficiencies. It takes people with varying strengths to make a good team.
Java applets are ideal for RIA. Swing and Java2D provide everything a developer needs to make a world-class GUI; and technologies like Thinlet have lots of potential too.
But a JMS server on the back end and you have an ASYNCHRONOUS rich-internet application -- which is unheard of in other technologies like Flash and even Flex.
People say "Java Applets are slow" and that may have been true 5 years ago, but machines are much faster now, and everyone I know have at least Java 1.4 installed on their PC.
I'm a programmer at a large size hi-tech company in Ottawa and I didn't know about the Linux symposium. I would have gone.
I'm not a hardcore linux geek, but I watch the news, read the paper, and I'm on slashdot every day. You guys are going to *have* to do a better job advertising this!
Yeah, I'm looking forward to growing up because, as I understand it, I'm likely to evolve more fingers so I can type faster. Yeah, and my brain will evolve so it can transmit signals telepathically to my PC so I won't have to reach for my mouse.
You know, I write code for a living, and I'm constantly amazed how when I get to work the next morning objects have evolved that implement my interfaces.
And last year an old Pentium 3 I had evolved into a P4. It's quite amazing, all of these things just happening on their own with no designer required. It's so cool!
This is the kind of approach Microsoft should take more often.
Part of the reasons MS's product releases take so long and are so complex is their obligation to be backwardly compatible with all previous versions. And they've done a great job of it. (I have software that was written in 1994 for Windows 3.1 and it still runs fine on XP.)
Cutting the cord and telling Windows user's they must have XP is tough love, but will likely result in a more stable product and faster maintenance releases.
This approached worked great for Apple when they went to OS X.
I remember Scotty explaining to LaForge one day that his secret was to always exaggerate the time it takes to do something by a factor of eight. Usually this made him look like a hero, but he always had that built in time for dealing with the unforeseen problem.
I always hated that scene. Scotty *was* a miracle worker -- he really DID accomplish engineering miracles when the ship was in mortal danger -- and always did it in less time than it would take any other engineer.
In ST:III he made a joke that he exaggerates estimates to Kirk, "Certainly,
sir. How else can I keep my reputation as a miracle worker?"
But it was a *joke*! In that ST:TNG episode they had Scotty decalre that he regularly exaggerated and lied about estimates only to make himself look better. This forever tarnishing Scotty brilliance, and I hated (HATED!) that scene.
Slashdot Mirror
> (which Microsoft will fight tooth and nail against unless
> someone like Google does Google Office first).
Bill G has repeatedly pushed for Office on the internet. This part of the whole "ie is integrated into the OS" thing. He wants IE to be the OS. This gives MS full control over the licensing of Windows apps, especially Office. MS could then rent office and other apps to users on a subscription basis, instead of selling a semi-permanent license. Talk about your captive users and forced upgrades! Why on earth would MS fight this?
Sounds like what Bill wants to do is "Office for IE on Windows" and his motivation is better control over licensing. That's not "Office for Internet" which, theoretically, would not be dependant on IE or Windows, and would be about innovating a new way for people to work.
I can already access all my GMail with any browser, and I have 250G storage. Soon I expect I'll be able to access all my GDocuments and wordprocess and speadsheet them with any browser. (Or maybe with a GBrowser on any computer. Then, who needs Windows?
Bill openly says that he runs Microsoft under the assumption that they can be irrelevant in 5 years -- right now Google is the most likely candidate to dethrone him.
Sam
If Bill said that, Bill's lying. Microsoft owes its existance to the fact it can leverage its dominance of the computing platform to make successes in other areas. He who owns the platform wins; in the DOS days Microsoft leveraged it's ownership of the OS to make sure Excel beat Lotus -- Microsoft employees used to chant "DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run" (I know this first hand).
In the Windows days, Microsoft was scared to death of Netscape, because Netscape gave the world easy access to a new computing platform -- the internet -- and if everyone used Netscape and internet-based applications, then no one cares what OS Netscape is running on. The Microsoft predator killed Netscape to protect the computing platform.
Then came Java. Java is a platform, everyone got excited about the concept of a ubiquitous internet-friendly platform where applications could run anywhere; Java was the new computing platform that threatened Windows' dominance -- Microsoft did everything they could to kill it (although it's still breathing).
Now comes Google. IE beat Netscape in the browser wars, but now everyone is using their browser to access Google. Google is much more than a search engine, it is "the internet" to many people; they've begun providing some great applications (GMail, Google Maps), and are working towards many more -- are Google Office and Google Net far off?
If Google is permitted to succeed, Google will become the new computing platform. This is why Microsoft attempted a hostle take-over of Google before they went IPO, and that is why Microsoft must kill Google now. To protect their dominance of the computing platform.
He who owns the platform wins.
Office Inc would have to find ways to grow their market; they'd have to continually innovate to make their product better, and would have to grow into new areas -- there is no Office for Linux now because in the minds of the pointy-haired bosses, it would "legitimize" Linux as a desktop computing platform (ie., threatening Windows platform dominance). Office Inc would most assuredly release an Office for Linux (it'd probably even just require a rebuild of Office for OS X). And Office Inc would probably do Office for the Internet too (which Microsoft will fight tooth and nail against unless someone like Google does Google Office first).
MSN is not only a web portal but an ISP. MSN merging with AOL is 2 full service **internet providers** merging. Last I checked (5 minutes ago) neigher Google nor Yahoo advertized internet access. Although I could have sworn Yahoo used to.
MSN is a huge money loosing operation, just like IE before it. In a fair non-predatory market, MSN would have to compete against Google and AOL by innovating and offering better products and services. Instead Microsoft uses MSN as a predatory weapon against its current fierce competitor for the world's computing platform.
So to conclude, your wrong on premise #1, draw bad conclusions on premises #2 and #3, and are comparing apples to oranges on #4.
And I conclude that you're being very short-sighted and don't appreciate the subtleties and long-term thinking that goes into running the world's biggest software company.
Sam
Windows Inc. would be afraid that Google threatens it's dominance of the world's computing platform, but would not be able to use MSN Inc. to battle Google. Windows Inc would be forced to make Windows better.
Office Inc. would want their software running on all computers everywhere, it would make Office for Linux, maybe even Office for the internet -- Office Inc would have no interest in ensuring Windows was the dominant computing platform.
Internet Explorer Inc. would embrace technologies like Java and Flash ensuring seemless compatibility with their browser. They would ship a top notch version of IE for all platforms including Mac and Linux. They would not worry about these technologies threatening Windows' dominance of the world's computing platform.
And, MSN Inc. would have to compete fairly with its competition from Yahoo and Google, and would not have the resources to perform its *illegal* predatory business tactics.
Sam
First of all, this caveman is not just grunting by the camp fire, I am asking "what am I missing?" -- it's not nice to make fun of others for being inquisitive.
Secondly, since AOL and MSN are things used primarily by the less savvy computer users, and I am a very experienced internet user and computer professional -- a more accurate analogy would be: This Firefox and Email user is wondering why the cavemen carry clubs and live in caves when there are grocery stores and houses available.
Sam
I don't use AOL, I don't use MSN ... I hardly even use instant messaging ... I just browse with Firefox and use email.
I hear about how AOL is a major corporation and I wonder ... how? why? I hear that MSN and AOL are apparently merging, and I wonder ... how does that affect me? Why do people care?
Really ... just ... don't ... get it. What am I missing?
Sam
I disagree completely. If I open and email attachment the OS should be smart enough to warn me when that attachment is trying to do something unexpected. Instead of just blocking all attachments that end with EXE, why can the OS let me run the EXE and warn me if the EXE is trying to modify critical system info, or access the internet in an unpermitted way?
Similarly, a web browser should be capable of providing a read-only view of any web page I browse to. I should not expect a web site to be capable of infecting my system when all I'm doing is viewing a page.
People need to have higher expectations of the software companies, and must demand higher quality products. Not accept weak excuses like "just don't do that" when you're doing something the product is designed for.
Sam
But this article is telling me I'll have the same issues if I switch? *sigh* Computers are becoming a real pain the butt to use.
Sam
Sam
A used car salesman has sold you problematic cars for the past 20 years, and he says he finally has a good car to sell you. Are you going to examine the car for "technical worth" or are you going to let your previous experiences with that salesman influence your buying decision?
Sam
A used car salesman has sold you problematic cars for the past 20 years, and he says he finally has a good car to sell you. Are you going to examine the car for "technical worth" or are you going to let your previous experiences with that salesman influence your buying decision?
Sam
Sam
I use the term "outlaw" figuratively -- innovations come from the spirit of constrasting the status quo, original thinkers and rule-breakers. Like the guys who invented Napster, Gnutella, and BitTorrent. Those are outlaws almost in the literal sense, and they are the true internet innovators of our time. Think of rule-breakers like Steve Jobs, Linus Torvalds, Larry and Sergey, and frankly even Jeff Bezos and the young Bill Gates. They are those who dared to, dare I say it, "Think Different".
The great innovations do not generally come from large corporations and especially not monopolies -- mainly because large companies do not succeed by making great software, but rather by sucking less than their competition. It's the smaller, agile, rule-breakers make the great software -- while it may be a stretch to include companies like Apple and Google among this list of "small companies", I do for convenience and because they are the exceptions.
For more of this sort of thinking, and a fun read, pick up "Hackers and Painters" by Paul Graham.
Sam
This GoogleNet idea is an interesting one, but I expect such a proprietary internet would lack would be shunned by the hackers and outlaws that bring true innovation to the technology world.
That being said, Google is much more open to developers than the other monopoly we're familiar with. And they have been collecting money and PhDs at an alarming rate -- they have something big planned.
Clearly Google realizes (like Microsoft before them) that he who owns the platform wins. By building a "better" internet, GoogleNet could be the next Win32 API enabling Google to have an earth-shattering money machine. Perhaps Google's stock is not over-valued afterall.
Sam
Hopefully your manager has other positive qualities that out-weight his technical deficiencies. It takes people with varying strengths to make a good team.
Sam
Java applets are ideal for RIA. Swing and Java2D provide everything a developer needs to make a world-class GUI; and technologies like Thinlet have lots of potential too.
But a JMS server on the back end and you have an ASYNCHRONOUS rich-internet application -- which is unheard of in other technologies like Flash and even Flex.
People say "Java Applets are slow" and that may have been true 5 years ago, but machines are much faster now, and everyone I know have at least Java 1.4 installed on their PC.
The ideal technology for RIA is Java.
Sam
I'm not a hardcore linux geek, but I watch the news, read the paper, and I'm on slashdot every day. You guys are going to *have* to do a better job advertising this!
Sam
> No we weren't. Get used to it. And Grow Up.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to growing up because, as I understand it, I'm likely to evolve more fingers so I can type faster. Yeah, and my brain will evolve so it can transmit signals telepathically to my PC so I won't have to reach for my mouse.
You know, I write code for a living, and I'm constantly amazed how when I get to work the next morning objects have evolved that implement my interfaces.
And last year an old Pentium 3 I had evolved into a P4. It's quite amazing, all of these things just happening on their own with no designer required. It's so cool!
Sam
Sam
Part of the reasons MS's product releases take so long and are so complex is their obligation to be backwardly compatible with all previous versions. And they've done a great job of it. (I have software that was written in 1994 for Windows 3.1 and it still runs fine on XP.)
Cutting the cord and telling Windows user's they must have XP is tough love, but will likely result in a more stable product and faster maintenance releases.
This approached worked great for Apple when they went to OS X.
Sam
I would, however, buy OS X for my VAIO PC if I could.
Sam
Things work quite well. All the apps work, I can develop with Eclipse, JBoss, and MySQL.
User switching is nice, so my wife can have her own email/office environment.
I rarely have to reboot the machine due to problems.
I don't see the value proposition in upgrading to Windows Vista? What is it supposed to give me?
Sam
I always hated that scene. Scotty *was* a miracle worker -- he really DID accomplish engineering miracles when the ship was in mortal danger -- and always did it in less time than it would take any other engineer.
In ST:III he made a joke that he exaggerates estimates to Kirk, "Certainly, sir. How else can I keep my reputation as a miracle worker?"
But it was a *joke*! In that ST:TNG episode they had Scotty decalre that he regularly exaggerated and lied about estimates only to make himself look better. This forever tarnishing Scotty brilliance, and I hated (HATED!) that scene.
Sigh ... I really, really hate that scene.
Sam
ARGH!
The Space Channel told me via email a few months ago they were going to air on the same weekends as in the Sci-Fi in the states.
Guess they couldn't work out a deal or something.
Bittorrent here I come!!
Sam
Anyone know if (when?) season 2 airs in Canada?
I want a Mac Mini with a 2G Pentium-M, 1Gig Ram, and 100G HD.
Where is it, Steve??
Sam