web marketing just isn't powerful enough to compete. with tv and print ads *in addition* to web ads, big companies can drown most anyone out. however, with some clever viral marketing and a truly high-quality game, then enough buzz would be created to generate competative sales initially. that's why it has to be really good. so people will keep wanting it and talking about it. when the initial buzz wears off, you don't want it to die immediately. you need the goodness of the game to keep people talking and wanting, buying and playing.
great support, a good sales mechanism, and making product demos are all very important as well. if it's some new game and people can't tell you about problems they (and possibly many others) are having, then you can't fix the problem. if they can't buy it easily, most will give up. if they get to play a little for free, if the get a taste, then they'll want more.
with the right combination of marketing, you can achieve success. but the same level? ooo, hmmm... it would have to be a really good game. just like music sales for web-based indie musicians and video sales for web-based videographers.
bullsh*t. apple knows full well that video piracy will make the video ipod explode just as music piracy made the ipod explode. what's REALLY going on here?
...now the world is getting a teste of the totalitarianism which has come to control everything we say and do. welcome to it. there's not much we can do, but now it's in your hands, World. don't let the US get away with bullying you around. the internet is perhaps the greatest invention known to man. don't let the US retain control, or soon you'll have to build your own internet.
p2p filesharing (with the weird exception provided by bittorrent's secondary use a legit way to distribute non-protected materials as well) was created for one purpose: to make available all those files that you couldn't already download for free: copyrighted materials such a software, music, video, and anything else converted to 1's and 0's.
limewire's only ability was to serve that purpose (and poorly, despite the fact it cost money). without that ability, it no longer has purpose, and will disappear.
some go out with a bang, some with a pathetic little wet fart.
since it's illegal to use and illegal to make, we just BUY it from someone else that we make magically exempt from this law-- ya know, cuz we can.
what do they plan to do with it? "research" ? like, perhaps, how much quicker will it kill you if we inject it into your eyeballs than if, say, we light you on fire?
buying anthrax means that it's being made somewhere. if it's here in the US, then that plant could be a target for attack, allowing terrorists to spread large amounts of a very prrolific and highly contageous disease. if it isn't in the US, then it may be more prone to sabotage or theft.
either way, we all get to be terrified of our mail again. oh, happy day.
hey while you're at it, make some more nuclear weopons, and just for kicks, see how many diseases you can weoponize. ya know. cuz it's illegal-- but don't that won't eb a problem. if your company is friends with me and my daddy, you won't ever have to worry about the law. because if anyone, like, oh, i dunno, the seante or conngress have some sort of judiciary council demanding to know what's going on, you can do what donald rumsfeld did when they confronted him: tell them they can go fuck themselves. instead of imprisoning him for contempt and compelling him to disclose the information they were demanding.
but, like anyone connected to the bush regime, when rumsfeld told them to go fuck themselves, they pretty much said, "oh, well, ok. we'll just do that then. thanks so much for your time!"
congress: "carl rove! outing a cia operative is treason! how could you?" rove: "despite the fact that this very verifiable truth is the center of all attention and is beign discussed in every facet of modern media, uh, it's not true. i didn't really do that. i was just kidding. it was someone else." congress: "oh, well ok then. even though we know you did it, and you should be hanged for high treason, we'll let ya go. cuz ya know... your friends with the bushes. and the whole world knows that law don't apply to rich people. especially the bushes."
every time government officials publicly get away with what could be called treason (or simply IS treason), we are the ones who get fucked. not even trying them in court or even acknowledging their crimes means that the next time, no one will even notice. at that point, what lawa or order is there?
i apologize for the earlier remark about your virginity, but i won't use capital letters.
first of all, my post may have misdirected. i was addressing the "community" as they/you are to primary developers of newer technologies and the larges proponents of the absolute dependance on the console window. however, my primary interest is in the commercial linux-on-the-desktop, especially considering the implications of a desktop linux distro for home and office that would enbale a user to accomplish any take available through the console with greater ease and without the knowledge of the command language through the gui.
and while you say (not debating) you can do things fater through the console, then why hasn't the gui been streamlined to permit that range of functions at greater or better speed than manual command entry? not a big deal to the linux community, i know.
i just wanna know why these desktop-linux pushers, who are now in a prime position to knock apple off track by stealing the attention they've drawn from Vista, and offering desktop linux NOT devoid of a console, but devoid of the requirement to use it in favor of GUI replacements in order to make it more appealing and less frightening to people wanting to ditch XP, but don't want to pay for a new computer..
regarding malware: it's an inevitability in any os, but i can appreciate not wanting to speed up the process. anyhow, i think OSX has drawn much more attention, and it still is also malware-free (knocks on wood).
regarding the console: i mistakingly said "remove" when i meant, "create an equally functional GUI equivelant" just so such operations could be done through the gui without having to deal with code. and in a desktop environent, (and i'm not talking about remote server admin, etc. where you need the console, regardless of the local OS), how many of those functions that you must do via console really *have* to be through the console? certainly a good deal of them can be accomlished through the gui by various methods. and surely, linux developers are smart enough that they could design a gui/console hybrid that allows for not only one and the other, but better visual linking of object oriented command structires, especially display boxes for linked files, their attributes, commands and their parameters. it just seems to me that the simple type-it-in interface could updated with a gui console shell which parses the information into a hybrid console/GUI dialog box. perhaps something like a project window, offering much more funtionality that the console's text-in text-out, while providing users and developers incredibly useful tools to streamline workflow?
who gives a shit what you missed losing your virginity to learn, just so that you could dis me here. p'shaw!!
what i was saying that until self-righteous uber-geeks get over yourselves, thee spread of linux will be slow and ineffectual. by casting off people like you whose ideas hold back the commercial progress of linux, the linux community could thrust itself into the mainstream and compete directly with other dominant OSs.
you and your ilk represent the biggest flaw in the linux community: the unwillingness to advance the fuctionality of your OS beyond your own limited uses of it. the rest of the world, the ones who would make linux a household name to replace microsoft, don't do what you do with the console. never will. that's why it gets left behind so that people like you who refuse to advance with the times won't be shut out completely by your own boorish inability to adapt.
for linux to a viable in any market other than the niche home and business markets, it has to get rid of the one thing that has always kept it from competing directly with other OSs: the command console. the people who use linux and can do anything though the console are not the people who need to start using linux.
if linux is ever going to be adopted by anyone other than linux uber-geeks or completely masochistic home computer users, people (beginners & experts alike) must be able to do anything inside linux without ever having to use to command console. sure, keep it around for legacy, and so all those people who actually learned all those commands still have their novelty. for the rest of the world who's more interested in an easy-to-use OS and less in geek noteriety. that's who linux should be sold to: all the people who don't have it already.
if linux becomes as easy to use as OSX, with a comperable package management system and easy installation of new applications, then M$ and apple will both be screwed. M$ will have 2 competitors, OSX and linux. OSX appeals because it's just better than the other 2 (it does everything linux does, but without the hassle of an obsolete interface and an, at best, cryptic command language). however to run OSX you need an Apple. but since most will need a new computer to run vista, people will be looking for a new computer anyhow. by the time vista is out, so will be the cheaper and faster macs with the next version of OSX (vista is based on the features of the current OSX, so it will be a year behind form the start.) if people are offered a third choice: a distro of linux that's as easy to use as the other 2 main OSs.
if some linux distro realizes that this is the golden opportunity to debase M$ and to steal Apple's momentum to further the switch people to linux, they'll do what they have to do: make it super-easy, super-friendly, super-simple, yet still super-powerful.
this may or may not happen. it doesn't matter, really. we all know it's going to happen soon enough. but why the hell, with the shitty economy, the deficit, all the trillions on this rediculous war, would he want to start a huge and incredibly expensive undertaking that would only make things much worse? because talking about it and even starting one (what the hell does bush care? he can do whatever he wants at this point) keeps us distracted from what is going on NOW.
hell, with all of the money they've spent and plan to spend on destroying and occupying iraq so bush's oil company buddies can take all their oil, we could have been to the moon a few times, or made a decent down payment on a suitable spacecraft from aeronautics MegaCorp Lockheed.
there are other really important things going on. we should be less concerned with what will probably happen, and with what is happening.
the guys at systm recently did a video podcast (search in iTMS) (also available from their site) on setting up a mythBox.
plain and easy to understand, yet not dumbed-down, this video quickly and easily walks you through setting up a myth box, with plenty of other relevant information such as minimum reqs as well as recommended hardware (especially for recording hdtv content), and everything else you could think of.
i can't imagine that you worked for aol and would admit it publicly. put yourself on a pedestal, make yourself seem important, but you were (for 12 years) a part of the problem. and now, you're certainly not part of the solution.
whether what you say about new modems being installed, it was not enough. no matter what you say about "floor lore", some (if not more) was/is true. and defense of AOL's business practice, past or present, makes you look like the same kind/flavor of scum that AOL itself is.
so whomever you were, whatever you did, you're still scum-- and you're not even getting paid for it anymore. they may have had us, but it seems they had (and still have) you most of all. you sorry, pitiful, little creature.
so go on. perpetuate the lie. we no longer have to listen to you, and (at least in NY state) can now unsubscribe from your and AOL's total, self-deluded B.S.
as this was cracked so early and so easily, don't you think that microsoft will fix this? do something to make it more difficult? i think it's foolhardy to think thios is the last we'll hear of this...
this all sounds fine and dandy and all. not considering all the other incidental reasons this won't work (at least not within 10 years), people will need to use their compuers for professional developments that cannot be carried out over the internet (could you imagine trying to use a server-side version of After Effects? eek!).
however: i could definately see the os's capabilities being scaled back on the client-side and shifting many less-essential capabilities to server-side. not exaclty a thin client, but thinner than os's now. but for internet workstations/terminals? well i can't think of why this hasn't already been done. imagine iniversities equipping dorm rooms with $200 thin-client internet terminals with word processing and some other limited capabilities. imagine the money that everyone would save!
first of all, microsoft make few products that are anywhere close to "excellent" (mostly network services, active directories, etc.). this is evidenced by spending 5 minutes using it.
second, you're correct in that microsoft has visionary leadedrship and massive amounts of talent. the problem with that is Microsoft uses this to monopolize market share. that is their only goal. like you said, they're incredibly skilled in the business of selling software. they also realize that it's cheaper and easier to spend their time and money A) convincing everyone that they are the best choice regardless of proof to the contrary and B) spending their time trying to monopolize market share instead of improving their product, basically leaving most computer users with no other choice. mocrosoft never ate the competition; ms strong-armed everyone else to the sidelines using highly questionable and very much so unethical and illegal business practices. (did i hear someone say anti-trust?)
third, linux/unix's "paltry market share" is due to very simple reasons:
1) no unity - every distro is different. so painfully different. very few OS's have ever existed that were incompatible on the application level that other versions of the same os.
2) that damned command line - ok. you're a geek. you a super-geek. you're the geekiest geek that ever there was, and you will use that damned command line till the day you die. cuz you are king of all geeks. however, 99.99999% of computer users are NOT geeks. these people need their computer to "just work" without having to screw around in a command line using decades-old syntax that appears, at best, cryptic and difficult to understand and learn. now that's all fine and good, but therin lies linux's biggest weakness: you have no choice but to use the command line for certain things. suck!
apple realized that if they were going to have lin/unix core, they would have to make sure that the gui could handle everything natively. sure, you can do it all from a command line just line li/unix, but why? oh, right, you're king geek.
3) package management - no matter what build of what distro, package management is a nightmare. if you are fortunate to have a package manager in your distro, you know that it leaves much to be desired. OSX has it almost right: if they can fix targeting so that when i move an app to a different folder, Software Update (osx's package manager) can find it and check it for updates. windows, i hate to say, has had this right since windows 98.
4) nearly non-existant marketing - linux trusts word-of-mouth and fear-of-microsoft to drive its sales. they belive that sim ply seeing it's better is enough to switch, but no distro has the money to put forth, say, incentive programs or any other motive to switch beyond "it's better"
5) most people already have windows - no matter how much better the competition might be, no one ever really wants to go through an OS switching nightmare, especially on an enterprise level. windows is easy-enough to use, but unfortunately, the better enterprise solution (at the moment), OSX, isn't available for pc's. this is microsft's biggest strength. that's why they've done everything possible to keep you from doing so, and to keep you entirely dependant on them.
fourth, i really would like to know where your comment "Microsoft dont owe you diddly squat! Not nil. Not nada," comes from. personally, i've never heard anyone claim that microsoft owes anything linux users. i can't see what they could owe. so, i suppose i agree with you here, although i don't know why you mentioned it.
anyhow, you really shouldn't rant on an opposing arguement just because you like windows and think you know what your talking about. the only thing that you've said that is even remotely true or believable is already painfully obvious: superior business strategy and better marketing. microsoft's "warming up to linux" is a survival tactic. microsoft, in the past, has never once embraced
oh, i disagree. you give microsoft far too much credit and not enough to linux. if there's one thing microsoft can never consume (short of an unimaginable shift in the os markets), it's linux.
i would say that this is primarily due to the fact that no one really "owns" linux. there a countless different distros, covered by GPL. not to mention the fact that the people who do own the rights would rather jump off a cliff than sell their distro to MS.
anyway, isn't that the whole point of OSS? that anyone (including MS, Apple, my cat) can build their own distro? apple did. it's called OSX.
if anything, i see this as a major defeat for MS. for years they've been touting New Technology (17 years new, btw)-based systems could match if not beat any linux/unix anything, and that that NT framework would be a renewable source of innvoation and advancement for a long time. 17 years IS a long time in this industry. a VERY long time. microsoft is just FINALLY admitting this (as quietly as possible), and realizing that they haven't put the same redevelopment that goes into new linux kernels into their NT kernel/code base.
the signs have been here for years, and microsoft is just finally heeding them. ha!
after navigating the site for a coupel fo minutes, i've discovered that it's prolly not being maintained, and most links are down. however, i disticlty remember once downloading this MSLinux. as i recall, i couldn't get it to install.
this could lead to government control based on medical condition -- what if i go in for a checkup and am declined to enter the office because the doctor ran my record beforehand and found i had aids?
like the OS itself and anything mircosoft puts out. a whole new name for xp sp3... this just sucks and microsoft should be so ashamed.
"...our stuff is better. we have better stuff," steve jobs said.
"don't you see steve? THAT DOESN'T MATTER!!" replied bill gates.
-pirates of silicon valley
"This Web site describes current aspirations, scenarios, and advancements being considered for the family of future Microsoft Windows client operating system offerings, code-named Longhorn. There is no guarantee, implied or otherwise, concerning final Longhorn release features or attributes. This statement of the Longhorn aspirations was last updated April 25, 2005."
hefeveizen, to my knowledge, is a very yummy wheat beer (as opposed to barley).
personally, though, i prefer pennweizen, a type of hefeweizen, if i'm not mistaken--- although they could be the same beer. yummy, pinepple slice or not.
Slashdot Mirror
web marketing just isn't powerful enough to compete. with tv and print ads *in addition* to web ads, big companies can drown most anyone out. however, with some clever viral marketing and a truly high-quality game, then enough buzz would be created to generate competative sales initially. that's why it has to be really good. so people will keep wanting it and talking about it. when the initial buzz wears off, you don't want it to die immediately. you need the goodness of the game to keep people talking and wanting, buying and playing.
great support, a good sales mechanism, and making product demos are all very important as well. if it's some new game and people can't tell you about problems they (and possibly many others) are having, then you can't fix the problem. if they can't buy it easily, most will give up. if they get to play a little for free, if the get a taste, then they'll want more.
with the right combination of marketing, you can achieve success. but the same level? ooo, hmmm... it would have to be a really good game. just like music sales for web-based indie musicians and video sales for web-based videographers.
bullsh*t. apple knows full well that video piracy will make the video ipod explode just as music piracy made the ipod explode. what's REALLY going on here?
if you're using IE, then you have no right to complain. everyone knows it's flawed, infirior, and insecure. just one more bug in the system.
...now the world is getting a teste of the totalitarianism which has come to control everything we say and do. welcome to it. there's not much we can do, but now it's in your hands, World. don't let the US get away with bullying you around. the internet is perhaps the greatest invention known to man. don't let the US retain control, or soon you'll have to build your own internet.
that's it. just happy to see those fukers get what's coming to them. they steal our culture from us, so we steal it back.
p2p filesharing (with the weird exception provided by bittorrent's secondary use a legit way to distribute non-protected materials as well) was created for one purpose: to make available all those files that you couldn't already download for free: copyrighted materials such a software, music, video, and anything else converted to 1's and 0's.
limewire's only ability was to serve that purpose (and poorly, despite the fact it cost money). without that ability, it no longer has purpose, and will disappear.
some go out with a bang, some with a pathetic little wet fart.
since it's illegal to use and illegal to make, we just BUY it from someone else that we make magically exempt from this law-- ya know, cuz we can.
what do they plan to do with it? "research" ? like, perhaps, how much quicker will it kill you if we inject it into your eyeballs than if, say, we light you on fire?
buying anthrax means that it's being made somewhere. if it's here in the US, then that plant could be a target for attack, allowing terrorists to spread large amounts of a very prrolific and highly contageous disease. if it isn't in the US, then it may be more prone to sabotage or theft.
either way, we all get to be terrified of our mail again. oh, happy day.
hey while you're at it, make some more nuclear weopons, and just for kicks, see how many diseases you can weoponize. ya know. cuz it's illegal-- but don't that won't eb a problem. if your company is friends with me and my daddy, you won't ever have to worry about the law. because if anyone, like, oh, i dunno, the seante or conngress have some sort of judiciary council demanding to know what's going on, you can do what donald rumsfeld did when they confronted him: tell them they can go fuck themselves. instead of imprisoning him for contempt and compelling him to disclose the information they were demanding.
but, like anyone connected to the bush regime, when rumsfeld told them to go fuck themselves, they pretty much said, "oh, well, ok. we'll just do that then. thanks so much for your time!"
congress: "carl rove! outing a cia operative is treason! how could you?"
rove: "despite the fact that this very verifiable truth is the center of all attention and is beign discussed in every facet of modern media, uh, it's not true. i didn't really do that. i was just kidding. it was someone else."
congress: "oh, well ok then. even though we know you did it, and you should be hanged for high treason, we'll let ya go. cuz ya know... your friends with the bushes. and the whole world knows that law don't apply to rich people. especially the bushes."
every time government officials publicly get away with what could be called treason (or simply IS treason), we are the ones who get fucked. not even trying them in court or even acknowledging their crimes means that the next time, no one will even notice. at that point, what lawa or order is there?
i apologize for the earlier remark about your virginity, but i won't use capital letters.
first of all, my post may have misdirected. i was addressing the "community" as they/you are to primary developers of newer technologies and the larges proponents of the absolute dependance on the console window. however, my primary interest is in the commercial linux-on-the-desktop, especially considering the implications of a desktop linux distro for home and office that would enbale a user to accomplish any take available through the console with greater ease and without the knowledge of the command language through the gui.
and while you say (not debating) you can do things fater through the console, then why hasn't the gui been streamlined to permit that range of functions at greater or better speed than manual command entry? not a big deal to the linux community, i know.
i just wanna know why these desktop-linux pushers, who are now in a prime position to knock apple off track by stealing the attention they've drawn from Vista, and offering desktop linux NOT devoid of a console, but devoid of the requirement to use it in favor of GUI replacements in order to make it more appealing and less frightening to people wanting to ditch XP, but don't want to pay for a new computer..
regarding malware: it's an inevitability in any os, but i can appreciate not wanting to speed up the process. anyhow, i think OSX has drawn much more attention, and it still is also malware-free (knocks on wood).
regarding the console: i mistakingly said "remove" when i meant, "create an equally functional GUI equivelant" just so such operations could be done through the gui without having to deal with code. and in a desktop environent, (and i'm not talking about remote server admin, etc. where you need the console, regardless of the local OS), how many of those functions that you must do via console really *have* to be through the console? certainly a good deal of them can be accomlished through the gui by various methods. and surely, linux developers are smart enough that they could design a gui/console hybrid that allows for not only one and the other, but better visual linking of object oriented command structires, especially display boxes for linked files, their attributes, commands and their parameters. it just seems to me that the simple type-it-in interface could updated with a gui console shell which parses the information into a hybrid console/GUI dialog box. perhaps something like a project window, offering much more funtionality that the console's text-in text-out, while providing users and developers incredibly useful tools to streamline workflow?
who gives a shit what you missed losing your virginity to learn, just so that you could dis me here. p'shaw!!
what i was saying that until self-righteous uber-geeks get over yourselves, thee spread of linux will be slow and ineffectual. by casting off people like you whose ideas hold back the commercial progress of linux, the linux community could thrust itself into the mainstream and compete directly with other dominant OSs.
you and your ilk represent the biggest flaw in the linux community: the unwillingness to advance the fuctionality of your OS beyond your own limited uses of it. the rest of the world, the ones who would make linux a household name to replace microsoft, don't do what you do with the console. never will. that's why it gets left behind so that people like you who refuse to advance with the times won't be shut out completely by your own boorish inability to adapt.
for linux to a viable in any market other than the niche home and business markets, it has to get rid of the one thing that has always kept it from competing directly with other OSs: the command console. the people who use linux and can do anything though the console are not the people who need to start using linux.
if linux is ever going to be adopted by anyone other than linux uber-geeks or completely masochistic home computer users, people (beginners & experts alike) must be able to do anything inside linux without ever having to use to command console. sure, keep it around for legacy, and so all those people who actually learned all those commands still have their novelty. for the rest of the world who's more interested in an easy-to-use OS and less in geek noteriety. that's who linux should be sold to: all the people who don't have it already.
if linux becomes as easy to use as OSX, with a comperable package management system and easy installation of new applications, then M$ and apple will both be screwed. M$ will have 2 competitors, OSX and linux. OSX appeals because it's just better than the other 2 (it does everything linux does, but without the hassle of an obsolete interface and an, at best, cryptic command language). however to run OSX you need an Apple. but since most will need a new computer to run vista, people will be looking for a new computer anyhow. by the time vista is out, so will be the cheaper and faster macs with the next version of OSX (vista is based on the features of the current OSX, so it will be a year behind form the start.) if people are offered a third choice: a distro of linux that's as easy to use as the other 2 main OSs.
if some linux distro realizes that this is the golden opportunity to debase M$ and to steal Apple's momentum to further the switch people to linux, they'll do what they have to do: make it super-easy, super-friendly, super-simple, yet still super-powerful.
DEATH TO THE COMMAND CONSOLE!
America's Amazing People Distracting Machine!
this may or may not happen. it doesn't matter, really. we all know it's going to happen soon enough. but why the hell, with the shitty economy, the deficit, all the trillions on this rediculous war, would he want to start a huge and incredibly expensive undertaking that would only make things much worse? because talking about it and even starting one (what the hell does bush care? he can do whatever he wants at this point) keeps us distracted from what is going on NOW.
hell, with all of the money they've spent and plan to spend on destroying and occupying iraq so bush's oil company buddies can take all their oil, we could have been to the moon a few times, or made a decent down payment on a suitable spacecraft from aeronautics MegaCorp Lockheed.
there are other really important things going on. we should be less concerned with what will probably happen, and with what is happening.
the guys at systm recently did a video podcast (search in iTMS) (also available from their site) on setting up a mythBox.
plain and easy to understand, yet not dumbed-down, this video quickly and easily walks you through setting up a myth box, with plenty of other relevant information such as minimum reqs as well as recommended hardware (especially for recording hdtv content), and everything else you could think of.
i can't imagine that you worked for aol and would admit it publicly. put yourself on a pedestal, make yourself seem important, but you were (for 12 years) a part of the problem. and now, you're certainly not part of the solution.
whether what you say about new modems being installed, it was not enough. no matter what you say about "floor lore", some (if not more) was/is true. and defense of AOL's business practice, past or present, makes you look like the same kind/flavor of scum that AOL itself is.
so whomever you were, whatever you did, you're still scum-- and you're not even getting paid for it anymore. they may have had us, but it seems they had (and still have) you most of all. you sorry, pitiful, little creature.
so go on. perpetuate the lie. we no longer have to listen to you, and (at least in NY state) can now unsubscribe from your and AOL's total, self-deluded B.S.that there are, in fact 3 sites:
www.start.com/1 www.start.com/2 www.start.com/3as this was cracked so early and so easily, don't you think that microsoft will fix this? do something to make it more difficult? i think it's foolhardy to think thios is the last we'll hear of this...
this all sounds fine and dandy and all. not considering all the other incidental reasons this won't work (at least not within 10 years), people will need to use their compuers for professional developments that cannot be carried out over the internet (could you imagine trying to use a server-side version of After Effects? eek!). however: i could definately see the os's capabilities being scaled back on the client-side and shifting many less-essential capabilities to server-side. not exaclty a thin client, but thinner than os's now. but for internet workstations/terminals? well i can't think of why this hasn't already been done. imagine iniversities equipping dorm rooms with $200 thin-client internet terminals with word processing and some other limited capabilities. imagine the money that everyone would save!
first of all, microsoft make few products that are anywhere close to "excellent" (mostly network services, active directories, etc.). this is evidenced by spending 5 minutes using it.
second, you're correct in that microsoft has visionary leadedrship and massive amounts of talent. the problem with that is Microsoft uses this to monopolize market share. that is their only goal. like you said, they're incredibly skilled in the business of selling software. they also realize that it's cheaper and easier to spend their time and money A) convincing everyone that they are the best choice regardless of proof to the contrary and B) spending their time trying to monopolize market share instead of improving their product, basically leaving most computer users with no other choice. mocrosoft never ate the competition; ms strong-armed everyone else to the sidelines using highly questionable and very much so unethical and illegal business practices. (did i hear someone say anti-trust?)
third, linux/unix's "paltry market share" is due to very simple reasons:
1) no unity - every distro is different. so painfully different. very few OS's have ever existed that were incompatible on the application level that other versions of the same os.
2) that damned command line - ok. you're a geek. you a super-geek. you're the geekiest geek that ever there was, and you will use that damned command line till the day you die. cuz you are king of all geeks. however, 99.99999% of computer users are NOT geeks. these people need their computer to "just work" without having to screw around in a command line using decades-old syntax that appears, at best, cryptic and difficult to understand and learn. now that's all fine and good, but therin lies linux's biggest weakness: you have no choice but to use the command line for certain things. suck!
apple realized that if they were going to have lin/unix core, they would have to make sure that the gui could handle everything natively. sure, you can do it all from a command line just line li/unix, but why? oh, right, you're king geek.
3) package management - no matter what build of what distro, package management is a nightmare. if you are fortunate to have a package manager in your distro, you know that it leaves much to be desired. OSX has it almost right: if they can fix targeting so that when i move an app to a different folder, Software Update (osx's package manager) can find it and check it for updates. windows, i hate to say, has had this right since windows 98.
4) nearly non-existant marketing - linux trusts word-of-mouth and fear-of-microsoft to drive its sales. they belive that sim ply seeing it's better is enough to switch, but no distro has the money to put forth, say, incentive programs or any other motive to switch beyond "it's better"
5) most people already have windows - no matter how much better the competition might be, no one ever really wants to go through an OS switching nightmare, especially on an enterprise level. windows is easy-enough to use, but unfortunately, the better enterprise solution (at the moment), OSX, isn't available for pc's. this is microsft's biggest strength. that's why they've done everything possible to keep you from doing so, and to keep you entirely dependant on them.
fourth, i really would like to know where your comment "Microsoft dont owe you diddly squat! Not nil. Not nada," comes from. personally, i've never heard anyone claim that microsoft owes anything linux users. i can't see what they could owe. so, i suppose i agree with you here, although i don't know why you mentioned it.
anyhow, you really shouldn't rant on an opposing arguement just because you like windows and think you know what your talking about. the only thing that you've said that is even remotely true or believable is already painfully obvious: superior business strategy and better marketing. microsoft's "warming up to linux" is a survival tactic. microsoft, in the past, has never once embraced
oh, i disagree. you give microsoft far too much credit and not enough to linux. if there's one thing microsoft can never consume (short of an unimaginable shift in the os markets), it's linux.
i would say that this is primarily due to the fact that no one really "owns" linux. there a countless different distros, covered by GPL. not to mention the fact that the people who do own the rights would rather jump off a cliff than sell their distro to MS.
anyway, isn't that the whole point of OSS? that anyone (including MS, Apple, my cat) can build their own distro? apple did. it's called OSX.
if anything, i see this as a major defeat for MS. for years they've been touting New Technology (17 years new, btw)-based systems could match if not beat any linux/unix anything, and that that NT framework would be a renewable source of innvoation and advancement for a long time. 17 years IS a long time in this industry. a VERY long time. microsoft is just FINALLY admitting this (as quietly as possible), and realizing that they haven't put the same redevelopment that goes into new linux kernels into their NT kernel/code base.
the signs have been here for years, and microsoft is just finally heeding them. ha!
after navigating the site for a coupel fo minutes, i've discovered that it's prolly not being maintained, and most links are down. however, i disticlty remember once downloading this MSLinux. as i recall, i couldn't get it to install.
excuse me, but microsoft (at least the last time i checked) HAS a distro of linux and has for many years
mslinux.organd quite frankly, with the amount of technoweenies here spouting all their opinions, i'm very disappointed that this escaped everyone's attention!
like, how could you not know?!
this could lead to government control based on medical condition -- what if i go in for a checkup and am declined to enter the office because the doctor ran my record beforehand and found i had aids?
like the OS itself and anything mircosoft puts out. a whole new name for xp sp3... this just sucks and microsoft should be so ashamed.
"...our stuff is better. we have better stuff," steve jobs said.
"don't you see steve? THAT DOESN'T MATTER!!" replied bill gates.
-pirates of silicon valley
rest in peace. we all will miss you.
from the page footer:
"This Web site describes current aspirations, scenarios, and advancements being considered for the family of future Microsoft Windows client operating system offerings, code-named Longhorn. There is no guarantee, implied or otherwise, concerning final Longhorn release features or attributes. This statement of the Longhorn aspirations was last updated April 25, 2005."
hefeveizen, to my knowledge, is a very yummy wheat beer (as opposed to barley).
personally, though, i prefer pennweizen, a type of hefeweizen, if i'm not mistaken--- although they could be the same beer. yummy, pinepple slice or not.