The introduction of plug and play ushered in the era for average people to become interested in home computers. It allowed people to add on periphials and increased upgrade potential. This is the reason why Apple did so well for so long until MS ousted them by making their OS avaiable to OEMS. So what you consider a red herring is most likely a driving point for all personal computers today. Ease of use and the ability to change hardware/devices for the average user.
I've been a IT professional for ten years and Windows IS much easier to support than Linux because the marketshare in the workd of computing is dominated by Windows and most people know how to use it. You don't live in the real world if you can't understand this perspective.
MSN is more than msn search. We're talking about internet access, msn gaming studios, msnbc, etc. And it was profitable. I'm not sure where you're getting these enormous losses from. Perhaps its from the money they dumped into the search engine but before that it could substain itself. The search technology wasn't a focus until they threw all that money at it.
You're right about apple but I was referring to Linux. If you read my next reply on the topic you'll see I also agree with you that other MS products being the key to unseating MS. So my assumption is really only based off of what I was replying to and not the entire topic.
Not true. MSN could stand on it's own two feet. But let's reveal what's really going on here. Microsoft nave have jumped into so many other markets that are not making a profit, but think about this. If they wait it out like alot of Japanese compies do (long term is the key), one of them could become an Office or Windows XP. If it is a war, Microsoft has the right plan as does Google.
Office is only half of the solution. Come up with an Office suite that can read MS Office documents and is as supportable as MS's Office and you might have half a chance. It doesn't have to be free or open source either.
What planet do you live on? There isn't an OS out there that can or will match Windows in todays marketplace. The original post says "No one is going to be a threat to Microsoft until they challenge Windows as an operating system" and that is the cold hard truth.
No matter how much you like Redhat or Mandrake or any other flavor of Linux, they're not as supportable as Microsoft or Apple. Remember what it was like before plug and play? Most people couldn't handle installing hardware like speakers and scanners. Driver/Hardware support sucked balls. And it still does for some OS's. And let's not get into the support for Dev's and IT professionals or the books and websites devoted to making peoples lives easier.
The only company that could topple MS is Apple and Apple continues to refuse or fail at opening up it's OS to other OEM's.
MS will never be challenged on the OS level until a company out there can bring a competitvie supportable OS to manufacturers.
Keynote, PowerPoint, or any other tool in the hands of the average human being could be catastrophic.
...In other news today GM announced it would include new dashboard functionality to make on the go changes to their new line of trucks. Drivers will now be able to inflate their tires to monster truck level instantaneously, add multiple high beam lights to their roll bars at no extra cost, display gun racks and fishing poles, whistle "dixie" with their horn...
I bought the game when it first came out and alot of the features you mention werenit in the game yet. The expansion fixed this but not after thousands of players quit.
Does this remind anyone of other Sony products like lets say "Star Wars Galaxies" that didn't work quite as well as promised? Remember installing the software with glee and logging in for the first time? You bought the collectors edition and were wearing your way to cool exclusive sunglasses when the servers crashed? And then you didn't jump on your land speeder or climb into your Xwing fighter, did you? No, you tried to kill a butterfly with your stupid melee knife and got killed.
Well, you can't trick me again Sony. Fuck Sony and all your crapy products that aren't worth a damn because I'm not going to buy them!
In other news today, the author previewed Windows Vista that didn't work quite as well as promised... As he began to install the software with glee...
Pluto is a dog not a planet and to infer anything otherwise is to bow down to the Disney propaganda machine that thinks we still care about their theme parks.
Congrats to the State of Maine for being the first to grow some balls. And for the rest of you - Bite my shiny metal ass!
Why? The people in this country have something to say about the current state of things but have yet to act upon what the morals that govern them. They talk about how wrong the President is but yet they vote him into office again. They shout " I don't want my phone tapped," but they do it in the comfort of their home where they can't be arrested. They say "let us be moral and leaders of the free world," yet they think "a little bit of torture never hurt anyone as long as its in Cuba." And here we are - you and I paying our taxes and showing our teeth like its all okay.
We can sit here and piss and moan about this all day long but until smart people like most of the folks here at slashdot do something, it's all yapping and no substance. No one can ever say that anything got accomplished right the first time by a leader who leads from the back of the bus or that a bunch of grumbling average joes got something done. You might as well be telling 'You're Mama's So Fat Jokes' than wasting you're time talking to the TV as you sit on your fat ass eating Salsa Verde Dorritoes.
So go ahead and mod me down or call me a troll because I don't care. Someone needs to tell America the truth and stand up for whats right. I'm moving to Maine...
You speak as though Microsoft is one person making decisions that have nothing to do with a barrage of Sales and Marketing or Executives that have only one purpose in life...
They are in the business of making money anyway they can and investigating any way to do it.
Your solution is right under your nose and it's called SharePoint. Not only does it have the functionality to store data in all kinds of structured form (since it has a SQL backend), it also has the ability to search inside MS Office and PDF documents.
But don't feel bad - our company did the same thing that you're company probably did when it rolled out SharePoint - we didn't assign admins or permissions correctly, train people, or provide design guidance which caused the project to be a failure.
So we bought Portal Server 2003, and rebuilt the server - but with a clear designed path of what we wanted and what we would offer as a service to the employees. Then we spent the time to customize the Portal with FrontPage and spent a considerable amount of time developing and searching for webparts to enhance user experience.
Another issue we had was we had was training users to use the product to its full potential and getting management to sign their departments up to convert the way they store documents and data. Once they signed up we could assign members in their org to manage the SharePoint sites.
Needless to say the key factor to the whole project being a success was not the training or employees but ensuring that the CEO and other executives in the company that could mandate such a change were behind the project.
Without their approval to co-sign the project, it could have failed like so many others good ideas that never get a chance after employees kick it to the curb.
This is what you get for tying to innovate while being probed in the ass for ideas:
$500 in PSP prizes 4GB Data drive Blaze TV adapter faceplates battery packs 1GB memory stick...don't you make enough money to buy crap like this? Or are you do you just want to help the game industry come up with the next best idea for free?
Where do bacteria go to resolve disputes?
The settling chamber.
Where do alien bacteria go to resolve disputes?
They don't have the right to go to the settling chamber unless they've obtained a legal work visa.
Microsoft uses both models depending on who is managing the projects and products just like any company that trys to come up with new products. But each model will either fail or work depending on the choices made by the company.
But lets be honest. Does Microsoft really need to partner with anyone they don't plan to take over or buy out?
Slashdot Mirror
The introduction of plug and play ushered in the era for average people to become interested in home computers. It allowed people to add on periphials and increased upgrade potential. This is the reason why Apple did so well for so long until MS ousted them by making their OS avaiable to OEMS. So what you consider a red herring is most likely a driving point for all personal computers today. Ease of use and the ability to change hardware/devices for the average user.
I've been a IT professional for ten years and Windows IS much easier to support than Linux because the marketshare in the workd of computing is dominated by Windows and most people know how to use it. You don't live in the real world if you can't understand this perspective.
MSN is more than msn search. We're talking about internet access, msn gaming studios, msnbc, etc. And it was profitable. I'm not sure where you're getting these enormous losses from. Perhaps its from the money they dumped into the search engine but before that it could substain itself. The search technology wasn't a focus until they threw all that money at it.
You're right about apple but I was referring to Linux. If you read my next reply on the topic you'll see I also agree with you that other MS products being the key to unseating MS. So my assumption is really only based off of what I was replying to and not the entire topic.
...in other news today, doctors tried to demote any penis that is not at least 7 inches long to 'dwarf penis' status.
Not true. MSN could stand on it's own two feet. But let's reveal what's really going on here. Microsoft nave have jumped into so many other markets that are not making a profit, but think about this. If they wait it out like alot of Japanese compies do (long term is the key), one of them could become an Office or Windows XP. If it is a war, Microsoft has the right plan as does Google.
Office is only half of the solution. Come up with an Office suite that can read MS Office documents and is as supportable as MS's Office and you might have half a chance. It doesn't have to be free or open source either.
What planet do you live on? There isn't an OS out there that can or will match Windows in todays marketplace. The original post says "No one is going to be a threat to Microsoft until they challenge Windows as an operating system" and that is the cold hard truth.
No matter how much you like Redhat or Mandrake or any other flavor of Linux, they're not as supportable as Microsoft or Apple. Remember what it was like before plug and play? Most people couldn't handle installing hardware like speakers and scanners. Driver/Hardware support sucked balls. And it still does for some OS's. And let's not get into the support for Dev's and IT professionals or the books and websites devoted to making peoples lives easier.
The only company that could topple MS is Apple and Apple continues to refuse or fail at opening up it's OS to other OEM's.
MS will never be challenged on the OS level until a company out there can bring a competitvie supportable OS to manufacturers.
All my games have been cracked before I even download them.
There are only 10 types of gamers in the world: Those who understand pwning, and those who don't
Keynote, PowerPoint, or any other tool in the hands of the average human being could be catastrophic.
...In other news today GM announced it would include new dashboard functionality to make on the go changes to their new line of trucks. Drivers will now be able to inflate their tires to monster truck level instantaneously, add multiple high beam lights to their roll bars at no extra cost, display gun racks and fishing poles, whistle "dixie" with their horn...
...releasing his home address so that viloated AOL users could send their AOL CD's to his house with a termination of service notice attached to it.
I didn't know there was a National Highway Traffic Safety Asministration...
I bought the game when it first came out and alot of the features you mention werenit in the game yet. The expansion fixed this but not after thousands of players quit.
Does this remind anyone of other Sony products like lets say "Star Wars Galaxies" that didn't work quite as well as promised? Remember installing the software with glee and logging in for the first time? You bought the collectors edition and were wearing your way to cool exclusive sunglasses when the servers crashed? And then you didn't jump on your land speeder or climb into your Xwing fighter, did you? No, you tried to kill a butterfly with your stupid melee knife and got killed.
Well, you can't trick me again Sony. Fuck Sony and all your crapy products that aren't worth a damn because I'm not going to buy them!
In other news today, the author previewed Windows Vista that didn't work quite as well as promised... As he began to install the software with glee...
Pluto is a dog not a planet and to infer anything otherwise is to bow down to the Disney propaganda machine that thinks we still care about their theme parks.
Congrats to the State of Maine for being the first to grow some balls. And for the rest of you - Bite my shiny metal ass!
Why? The people in this country have something to say about the current state of things but have yet to act upon what the morals that govern them. They talk about how wrong the President is but yet they vote him into office again. They shout " I don't want my phone tapped," but they do it in the comfort of their home where they can't be arrested. They say "let us be moral and leaders of the free world," yet they think "a little bit of torture never hurt anyone as long as its in Cuba." And here we are - you and I paying our taxes and showing our teeth like its all okay.
We can sit here and piss and moan about this all day long but until smart people like most of the folks here at slashdot do something, it's all yapping and no substance. No one can ever say that anything got accomplished right the first time by a leader who leads from the back of the bus or that a bunch of grumbling average joes got something done. You might as well be telling 'You're Mama's So Fat Jokes' than wasting you're time talking to the TV as you sit on your fat ass eating Salsa Verde Dorritoes.
So go ahead and mod me down or call me a troll because I don't care. Someone needs to tell America the truth and stand up for whats right. I'm moving to Maine...
That doesn't add up... They couldn't find a job at minimum wage because all the illigal aliens in the country currently occupy those jobs.
PFFFFHHHH
I'd like to see a PC with Vista installed on it running 4 Vista virtual machines (via Virtual Anything)...
It's like making Congress tell the truth. It can't be done.
You speak as though Microsoft is one person making decisions that have nothing to do with a barrage of Sales and Marketing or Executives that have only one purpose in life...
They are in the business of making money anyway they can and investigating any way to do it.
Your solution is right under your nose and it's called SharePoint. Not only does it have the functionality to store data in all kinds of structured form (since it has a SQL backend), it also has the ability to search inside MS Office and PDF documents.
But don't feel bad - our company did the same thing that you're company probably did when it rolled out SharePoint - we didn't assign admins or permissions correctly, train people, or provide design guidance which caused the project to be a failure.
So we bought Portal Server 2003, and rebuilt the server - but with a clear designed path of what we wanted and what we would offer as a service to the employees. Then we spent the time to customize the Portal with FrontPage and spent a considerable amount of time developing and searching for webparts to enhance user experience.
Another issue we had was we had was training users to use the product to its full potential and getting management to sign their departments up to convert the way they store documents and data. Once they signed up we could assign members in their org to manage the SharePoint sites.
Needless to say the key factor to the whole project being a success was not the training or employees but ensuring that the CEO and other executives in the company that could mandate such a change were behind the project.
Without their approval to co-sign the project, it could have failed like so many others good ideas that never get a chance after employees kick it to the curb.
Google earth isn't a live feed because the house I've been living in for the past 3 and 1/2 years is still having its foundation poured...
This is what you get for tying to innovate while being probed in the ass for ideas:
...don't you make enough money to buy crap like this? Or are you do you just want to help the game industry come up with the next best idea for free?
$500 in PSP prizes
4GB Data drive
Blaze TV adapter
faceplates
battery packs
1GB memory stick
Where do bacteria go to resolve disputes? The settling chamber. Where do alien bacteria go to resolve disputes? They don't have the right to go to the settling chamber unless they've obtained a legal work visa.
"games should not be infinitely wide-ranging or allow the player to do anything he wants."
Because we said so. And it's a law now so you have to follow it. pfhhhh.
I'm gonna go play some Grand Theft Auto and Spiderman 2 now...
Microsoft uses both models depending on who is managing the projects and products just like any company that trys to come up with new products. But each model will either fail or work depending on the choices made by the company.
But lets be honest. Does Microsoft really need to partner with anyone they don't plan to take over or buy out?