So they switched from a 10 year old OS and an 8 year old office suite to a modern OS and office suite and had favorable results.
Who wouldda thunk?
It's kinda like trading in your '64 Chevy Impala for a 2005 Toyota Camry and concluding Chevy sucks.
Now how they managed to "save" $100,000 by switching 110 machines when the cost of NT+Office per machine x 110 is less than $100,000 is beyond me. I'm sure the machines magically migrated themselves at no cost either.
I try to be an open minded person. I try and recognize both the strengths and weaknesses of Linux, Windows, Firefox, IE, you name it.
Being a Windows admin I have to put up with a lot of crap to participate at slashdot in a positive and open minded fashion. I'm done. I haven't read an article here in months that I didn't already come across on my own. I'm also fed up with the blatant bias and lack of professionalism on the part of slashdot employees and mods.
I'll go read my news elsewhere and spare myself the ration of shit that comes from you elitist snobs when reading it here.
Yep. Any time there is criticism of Linux, everyone will first start with the excuse making, then start saying how bad Microsoft is on some unrelated topic.
Eventually someone with a brain comes along, points this out and is promptly modded Troll or Flamebait.
Linux people seem to have some inferiority complex about Microsoft or something.
Don't worry, I'll be joining you in Troll-ville soon when the hypocrites mod this.
Sony does have that one minor victory:
The compact disc.
Yes when you bought your CD-Rom drive part of your money went to sony.
Also, the reason Blu-Ray is spelled that way isn't so that it will "look cool" it's because you can't Trademark "Blue-Ray".
I hope Blu-Ray wins. It's a much better format for the consumer.
Blu-ray holds more data (plus will expand to > 100GB soon)
and the #1 reason:
Blu-ray has a scratch resistant coating!!!!
Yes that's right! With the amount of data stored on these things you could ruin half the library of congress with one good scratch. You think a skip is bad on a 650MB CD, just wait till you scratch your HD-DVD chumps!
Is is just me or does this seem a really bad idea? With Wikipedia you know what you are getting. The information is most likly correct but you'll take it with a grain of salt just to be sure. You don't really go there when doing research right?
With Wikispecies it's information that is scientific in nature and accuracy becomes paramount.
How long until everyone settles on the truly accurate definition of the Basselope? How about the purple-headed trowser snake?
Yeah, we use secureid's for remote access too. I'm not a big fan of having to carry it around. We already have smartcards for physical access to buildings I would rather we just stick with that.
The best of all worlds scenario might be something like this: 1. You log on to a PC using a very secure method (say PIN + fingerprint + smartcard reader on keyboard). 2. That's it. Any additional authentication information you may need is stored using your public key. You have 50 different "passwords" but you never have to remember them.
This is all the classic holy grail of systems admins: a single sign on.
The problem with single sign-on is that if you get your password cracked you are in DEEP trouble. This is a possible solution to that.
FYI: All those discount cards that grocery stores want you to use.. I just make crap up when I'm filling out the form. My local stores are still trying to figure out why an 80 year old woman is buying condoms.
Gotta love those Windows fanboys. Unix (and more recently Linux, even though some Unix vendors might not like it) has always been focused on security. Whilest in Windows security is an afterthought. Example: 99.99% of Windows (including corporate desktops) users are doing normal day-to-day tasks in Administrator mode. But not only that, you can trash so many app installations on a windows machine even without admin priveleges.
Why do you need to reach way into the past to a consumer-level OS that was designed prior to the popularity of the internet to support your argument about Windows security? Can you think of any reason why Windows 95 or Windows 3.1 needed to be secure when they were released? Was Sasser going to spread via 5.25" floppy? Why don't you come into the new millennium and tell me how insecure Windows Server 2003 is when hardened by a competent administrator?
It's also a bit ridiculous to talk about users being logged on as an admin. When you do something stupid like flip your car when trying doughnuts in the parking lot do you blame Yugo? No. Why blame MS when you do something stupid like open an attachment when logged on as an admin? The idea that you have to be logged on as an admin to a Windows box to get anything to run is a myth. I disprove that myth everyday despite Linux Fanboi FUD to the contrary.
You do realise how incredebly easy it is to have a piece of code running somewhere on a Windows network without anyone ever knowing. Hence spyware.
I think you are confusing two different concepts. Spyware is more closely related to the aforementioned problem of users signing on as an admin. I believe you might mean a sniffer, root kit or something to that effect. It's just as easy to have an undetected app on a Linux network as a Windows network. It all comes down to how much you are looking for it.
As for scalability, have you ever seen Windows running on 64-way servers?
Yes.
What about enterprise-level mainframes?
We replaced our mainframes with Windows clusters and a SAN. The cost of SCALING the mainframe to meet our needs was too great.
Now try counting how many top 500 systems run linux (or unix).
Count how many businesses use one of the top 500 computers. What percentage of computer systems does this comprise? What percentage of daily commuters chooses Ferrari over Lamborghini for their drive to work? Who cares?
You act like you can't reuse your fingerprint for more than one service! It's not like you change your password every 90 days PLUS cut a finger off!
Settle down. This is technology to be used for authentication into your Windows computer. It's possible to store other security tokens on your computer in an encrypted format and use them for other purposes. Do you really have to provide an e-mail password to check your email? Why don't you just encrypt that password with your network logon (or public key) and store it?
There are a variety of ways to do authentication. Your password+token at work is one way but it wouldn't be very practical for every account you need to get into.
Hey, FYI two-factor authentication has been available in the MS space for years as well. Most don't like it simply because they are cheap. It cost money for a fingerprint or smartcard reader or a secureid.
So you think that Linux is secure because you can put an unpatched XP box on the internet and it will get hacked? That's the chewbaca defense if I've ever heard it.
Try running ANY version of windows on more thAn 2 processors? Ok, how about NT 4.0 Server, Enterprise, TSE, W2k server, advanced, datacenter, 2003 Server, enterprise and datacenter. You might find they actually scale better than linux for "trivial" things like file servers and databases.
Windows never "forked". Windows 95,98,98SE and ME were all derived in a linear fashion from Windows 95. NT, 2000 and 2003 were all descendants of NT 3.5 (Which "forked" from OS/2 I suppose). In fact Windows has "unforked" since both the consumer line and professional line of operating systems have converged with XP.
What the hell is Windows XP Corp? I can't seem to find any reference to this imaginary forked OS of yours.
How you managed to make a bunch of crap up then still get modded "insightful" is beyond me. Gotta make sure there is FUD on both sides of the fence I guess.
Nice work there mods. Now get back to flamebait or troll tagging me or something.
I'm not talking about DLLs you've paid for. I'm talking about the ones you haven't paid for. The "secret sauce" for Windows is the libraries. WINE works at it's best when you pirate a copy of those libraries and use them.
(that link above ends in "dll"/. seems to put an odd space in there)
I think Nintendo SHOULD takes steps to make sure their ROMs do not run on emulators. They sold you the game to run on a Nintendo didn't they? How does allowing a ROM to run on an emulator help them sell Nintendos?
One of the great things about Windows is all the applications available for it. If you hate MS and don't want to use Windows fine, don't let the door hit you in the ass. Just don't come whining about your sorely missed apps once you're over there. Deal with what you have and don't try to gripe or sue your way out of your predicament.
Let's be clear about something: You bought MS Office for WINDOWS. You didn't buy MS Office for SOMETHING LIKE WINDOWS. You don't expect MS Office for Mac to run on Windows, why would you expect MS Office for Windows to run on something else? You've been lucky so far, but now your luck has run out.
If you bought it then obviously it is your software and you can do what you want with it. Just don't expect MS to go to great lengths to help you run in an unsupported manner. It's like expecting Nintendo to help you get your ROM game running on a SNES emulator.
I know you all love to hate Microsoft but I think they are being quite fair this time. WINE uses dlls and modules that were written by Microsoft yet they have not paid for them. Is WINE violating copyright? No, they are asking you to do that for them.
I don't get the big deal anyway. What are you running Office on *nix for anyway? Shouldn't you be using that piece of crap, OpenOffice anyway you sellouts?
I think this is definately Microsoft's way of acknowledging WINE. Of course my way of acknowledging flies is by pulling out a rolled up newspaper. It certainly doesn't mean I feel threatened.
They're just saying "don't expect to be able to use our bandwidth and download from us without being a customer first".
No, they are just saying "don't expect to be able to use our bandwidth and download from us without being a Microsoft Windows OS customer first (even if you are a valid Microsoft Office customer)." Very different than what you posted.
-------------
First, Windows update and Office update are completely separate. You are confusing the two badly. No one is saying you can't update Office because you don't own Windows. They are saying you can't update Windows unless you own Windows (duh what a concept). So take your monopoly whining else where.
Second, no one told you that Office would run on WINE to begin with. I thought the product was:
Microsoft Office 200x **for Windows**
or
Microsoft Office **for Mac**
and not
Microsoft Office **for something that looks like and acts like but is really just a knock off and shameless leech of our successful Windows platform**
Third, You're a frickin sellout for using MS Office in the first place! If you have such a gripe about MS then why are you using them? Where's your OpenOffice at? commie.
And Lastly, that article appears to be full of shit anyway. I just downloaded an Office 2003 update without any activex even running!
"Windows Server 2003 had 30 days of risk, Linux (Red Hat Enterprise Server 3) 71 days.
But which reports of vulns are they considering? Microsoft often provides their own reports, which are released WITH THE PATCH. I wouldn't give those reports the same weight, since the vuln could have been there (and unofficially known) for MONTHS."
If they were using vulnerability reports that were released with the patch wouldn't that make the number of Microsoft days of risk zero?
MS gets plenty of scrutiny about their patches. If you don't like the statistic you should probably look at Red Hat more closely, not Microsoft. When a Linux vulnerability was disclosed did Red Hat fix it as quickly as they could have? As quickly as the other distros?
Slashdot think: Prior to the explosion of the internet, MS released a desktop OS for consumers that was designed for ease of use rather than security. I therefore conclude that a fully patched, competently installed, and well administered Windows Server 2003 computer is completely insecure and Linus Torvalds walks on water. If you disagree or fail to spell Microsoft without a $ in place of the S then you are a troll.
"Most of the naysayers hate Microsoft so much, they'll blather any lie about them. They hate MS so much they don't even know the products in-depth themselves, recycling garbage from the Win95/Office 2000 days. Please, just STFU."
Yeah, the *nix guy in the cube next to me was griping the other day about how you couldn't set permissions at the file level in Windows. He went on and on about how much Windows sucks because of that. I was finally able to figure out he was talking about Windows 3.1
Geez I can't believe you went there. Dude it was a troll, you're not really supposed to respond.:D Gotcha.
Linux/unix is pathetic in it's user friendliness compared to Windows. Most windows users would ask "What's a dependency" simply because it's all handled for them. Are you really trying to compare RPM to InstallShield?
This does NOT however make *nix a bad OS by any means. Don't lose a grip on reality when you're trying to defend it though. It may tie or win in an overal OS comparison, but user friendliness? come on.
An example:
I was cracking up at this Linux guy trying to get his CDRom to eject the other day because some process had it in use. It was a riot to watch. It was likely something very simple that a user with more experience could have overcome, but a three year old can push the CDRom button on a Windows machine:P Why can't the OS just deal with that crap? I'm sure it's undesireable in some circumstances to have a filesystem unexpectedly dismount but it's not like Windows will BSOD over it.
hehe dude. Seriously. MS doesn't make an iPod. Settle down, don't feel so threatened.
I think iPods are great. However, I can't even name the proprietary format they use (nor can most people). No one cares including MS management. If you see the iPod music format spread outside the iPod, THEN you'll probably see some competition building. Don't confuse the iPod hardware with the software like you just did with the Palm OS (that PocketPC is in competition with).
I saw the Gates keynote and read all the interviews. It looks to me like MS is invading your living room, not your headphones. I think Sony and Tivo have more to worry about than Apple (who sold out and made peace to MS a long time ago).
I also think you just want to believe that the "bad guy", Microsoft is after the "good guy", Apple. Get over it. It's ok for people to like a great product like the iPod. It doesn't have to be a conspiracy. If they were really after them you would feel it. Just ask Sony, VMWare, Wordperfect, Novell, Lotus, Palm or Netscape.
Again, MS management doesn't give a crap about people using the iPod. Heck, they are probably wearing one while they draft their plans on how to get Media Center into your SUV. Both you and the guy who wrote that article sound just like the typical MS bigots. You can't let someone just take delight in owning their iPod, you have to use it as some sort of imagined victory over Bill. Go find peace with yourself.
I don't think one has anything to really do with the other. There are media players that play Windows Media but there are no Microsoft made portable music devices. What people really want isn't one music format or another. No, what they want is the music. If you want to really turn it into some kind of competition then the real winner is MP3 because "that's where the music is".
WMA is doing just fine out there even in the face of overwhelming competition from the "free" mp3 standard. I'm sure MS would love it if the iPod supported them but they are far from "doomed". WMA is doing perfectly fine against it's *real* competition, Apple's quicktime.
If you want to see what else a "technology saavy group" chooses, go see what OS they are running or what video game console they are playing. Think anyone at MS is using Palm over PocketPC?
---
The #1 thing I want you to get out of my previous post is this: MS management doesn't care about what music player it's employees are using. That article and the author's "source" are full of crap.
I think I'm obligated by fate to respond to your post. See I work at Coke and my last job was at Microsoft:D
It is definately a career limiting move to use a Pepsi product at Coke as it should be. Everyone knows better so it's not an issue. It's a very cutthroat rivalry and just like you won't find an Eagles player wearing a Patriots jersey, you won't find a Coke employee holding a can of Pepsi.
As for iPods at Microsoft.. I call bullshit on the whole article. MS doesn't give a crap if people use iPods. The guys there are the most technology saavy group you'll find anywhere. The iPod has a natural appeal to them. Employee happiness is a huge priority for MS and it helps them retain great talent. They won't jeopardize it over something silly like that.
Slashdot Mirror
So they switched from a 10 year old OS and an 8 year old office suite to a modern OS and office suite and had favorable results.
Who wouldda thunk?
It's kinda like trading in your '64 Chevy Impala for a 2005 Toyota Camry and concluding Chevy sucks.
Now how they managed to "save" $100,000 by switching 110 machines when the cost of NT+Office per machine x 110 is less than $100,000 is beyond me. I'm sure the machines magically migrated themselves at no cost either.
Microsoft FUD got nothin' on me!!
I try to be an open minded person. I try and recognize both the strengths and weaknesses of Linux, Windows, Firefox, IE, you name it.
Being a Windows admin I have to put up with a lot of crap to participate at slashdot in a positive and open minded fashion. I'm done. I haven't read an article here in months that I didn't already come across on my own. I'm also fed up with the blatant bias and lack of professionalism on the part of slashdot employees and mods.
I'll go read my news elsewhere and spare myself the ration of shit that comes from you elitist snobs when reading it here.
rofl.
Yep. Any time there is criticism of Linux, everyone will first start with the excuse making, then start saying how bad Microsoft is on some unrelated topic.
Eventually someone with a brain comes along, points this out and is promptly modded Troll or Flamebait.
Linux people seem to have some inferiority complex about Microsoft or something.
Don't worry, I'll be joining you in Troll-ville soon when the hypocrites mod this.
Sony does have that one minor victory: The compact disc. Yes when you bought your CD-Rom drive part of your money went to sony. Also, the reason Blu-Ray is spelled that way isn't so that it will "look cool" it's because you can't Trademark "Blue-Ray". I hope Blu-Ray wins. It's a much better format for the consumer.
We wants teh blu-ray!!!
Both are backwards compatible.
Blu-ray holds more data (plus will expand to > 100GB soon)
and the #1 reason:
Blu-ray has a scratch resistant coating!!!!
Yes that's right! With the amount of data stored on these things you could ruin half the library of congress with one good scratch. You think a skip is bad on a 650MB CD, just wait till you scratch your HD-DVD chumps!
Is is just me or does this seem a really bad idea? With Wikipedia you know what you are getting. The information is most likly correct but you'll take it with a grain of salt just to be sure. You don't really go there when doing research right?
With Wikispecies it's information that is scientific in nature and accuracy becomes paramount.
How long until everyone settles on the truly accurate definition of the Basselope? How about the purple-headed trowser snake?
Bad idea I say.
Yeah, we use secureid's for remote access too. I'm not a big fan of having to carry it around. We already have smartcards for physical access to buildings I would rather we just stick with that.
The best of all worlds scenario might be something like this:
1. You log on to a PC using a very secure method (say PIN + fingerprint + smartcard reader on keyboard).
2. That's it. Any additional authentication information you may need is stored using your public key. You have 50 different "passwords" but you never have to remember them.
This is all the classic holy grail of systems admins: a single sign on.
The problem with single sign-on is that if you get your password cracked you are in DEEP trouble. This is a possible solution to that.
FYI: All those discount cards that grocery stores want you to use.. I just make crap up when I'm filling out the form. My local stores are still trying to figure out why an 80 year old woman is buying condoms.
It's also a bit ridiculous to talk about users being logged on as an admin. When you do something stupid like flip your car when trying doughnuts in the parking lot do you blame Yugo? No. Why blame MS when you do something stupid like open an attachment when logged on as an admin? The idea that you have to be logged on as an admin to a Windows box to get anything to run is a myth. I disprove that myth everyday despite Linux Fanboi FUD to the contrary. I think you are confusing two different concepts. Spyware is more closely related to the aforementioned problem of users signing on as an admin. I believe you might mean a sniffer, root kit or something to that effect. It's just as easy to have an undetected app on a Linux network as a Windows network. It all comes down to how much you are looking for it. Yes. We replaced our mainframes with Windows clusters and a SAN. The cost of SCALING the mainframe to meet our needs was too great. Count how many businesses use one of the top 500 computers. What percentage of computer systems does this comprise? What percentage of daily commuters chooses Ferrari over Lamborghini for their drive to work? Who cares?
I don't think you understand the technology.
You act like you can't reuse your fingerprint for more than one service! It's not like you change your password every 90 days PLUS cut a finger off!
Settle down. This is technology to be used for authentication into your Windows computer. It's possible to store other security tokens on your computer in an encrypted format and use them for other purposes. Do you really have to provide an e-mail password to check your email? Why don't you just encrypt that password with your network logon (or public key) and store it?
There are a variety of ways to do authentication. Your password+token at work is one way but it wouldn't be very practical for every account you need to get into.
Please don't riot. Thanks!
Troll.
Hey, FYI two-factor authentication has been available in the MS space for years as well. Most don't like it simply because they are cheap. It cost money for a fingerprint or smartcard reader or a secureid.
hehe you Chose OS/2 over Windows or Unix and we're supposed to listen to you?
rofl. riiiight.
So you think that Linux is secure because you can put an unpatched XP box on the internet and it will get hacked? That's the chewbaca defense if I've ever heard it.
Try running ANY version of windows on more thAn 2 processors? Ok, how about NT 4.0 Server, Enterprise, TSE, W2k server, advanced, datacenter, 2003 Server, enterprise and datacenter. You might find they actually scale better than linux for "trivial" things like file servers and databases.
Windows never "forked". Windows 95,98,98SE and ME were all derived in a linear fashion from Windows 95. NT, 2000 and 2003 were all descendants of NT 3.5 (Which "forked" from OS/2 I suppose). In fact Windows has "unforked" since both the consumer line and professional line of operating systems have converged with XP.
What the hell is Windows XP Corp? I can't seem to find any reference to this imaginary forked OS of yours.
How you managed to make a bunch of crap up then still get modded "insightful" is beyond me. Gotta make sure there is FUD on both sides of the fence I guess.
Nice work there mods. Now get back to flamebait or troll tagging me or something.
I'm not talking about DLLs you've paid for. I'm talking about the ones you haven't paid for. The "secret sauce" for Windows is the libraries. WINE works at it's best when you pirate a copy of those libraries and use them.
e r/config-d ll
/. seems to put an odd space in there)
Looky:
http://www.winehq.com/site/docs/wine-us
(that link above ends in "dll"
I think Nintendo SHOULD takes steps to make sure their ROMs do not run on emulators. They sold you the game to run on a Nintendo didn't they? How does allowing a ROM to run on an emulator help them sell Nintendos?
One of the great things about Windows is all the applications available for it. If you hate MS and don't want to use Windows fine, don't let the door hit you in the ass. Just don't come whining about your sorely missed apps once you're over there. Deal with what you have and don't try to gripe or sue your way out of your predicament.
Let's be clear about something: You bought MS Office for WINDOWS. You didn't buy MS Office for SOMETHING LIKE WINDOWS. You don't expect MS Office for Mac to run on Windows, why would you expect MS Office for Windows to run on something else? You've been lucky so far, but now your luck has run out.
If you bought it then obviously it is your software and you can do what you want with it. Just don't expect MS to go to great lengths to help you run in an unsupported manner. It's like expecting Nintendo to help you get your ROM game running on a SNES emulator.
I know you all love to hate Microsoft but I think they are being quite fair this time. WINE uses dlls and modules that were written by Microsoft yet they have not paid for them. Is WINE violating copyright? No, they are asking you to do that for them.
I don't get the big deal anyway. What are you running Office on *nix for anyway? Shouldn't you be using that piece of crap, OpenOffice anyway you sellouts?
I think this is definately Microsoft's way of acknowledging WINE. Of course my way of acknowledging flies is by pulling out a rolled up newspaper. It certainly doesn't mean I feel threatened.
You don't even know what anti-trust means.
They're just saying "don't expect to be able to use our bandwidth and download from us without being a customer first".
No, they are just saying "don't expect to be able to use our bandwidth and download from us without being a Microsoft Windows OS customer first (even if you are a valid Microsoft Office customer)." Very different than what you posted.
-------------
First, Windows update and Office update are completely separate. You are confusing the two badly. No one is saying you can't update Office because you don't own Windows. They are saying you can't update Windows unless you own Windows (duh what a concept). So take your monopoly whining else where.
Second, no one told you that Office would run on WINE to begin with. I thought the product was:
Microsoft Office 200x **for Windows**
or
Microsoft Office **for Mac**
and not
Microsoft Office **for something that looks like and acts like but is really just a knock off and shameless leech of our successful Windows platform**
Third, You're a frickin sellout for using MS Office in the first place! If you have such a gripe about MS then why are you using them? Where's your OpenOffice at? commie.
And Lastly, that article appears to be full of shit anyway. I just downloaded an Office 2003 update without any activex even running!
"Windows Server 2003 had 30 days of risk, Linux (Red Hat Enterprise Server 3) 71 days.
But which reports of vulns are they considering? Microsoft often provides their own reports, which are released WITH THE PATCH. I wouldn't give those reports the same weight, since the vuln could have been there (and unofficially known) for MONTHS."
If they were using vulnerability reports that were released with the patch wouldn't that make the number of Microsoft days of risk zero?
MS gets plenty of scrutiny about their patches. If you don't like the statistic you should probably look at Red Hat more closely, not Microsoft. When a Linux vulnerability was disclosed did Red Hat fix it as quickly as they could have? As quickly as the other distros?
Slashdot think:
Prior to the explosion of the internet, MS released a desktop OS for consumers that was designed for ease of use rather than security. I therefore conclude that a fully patched, competently installed, and well administered Windows Server 2003 computer is completely insecure and Linus Torvalds walks on water. If you disagree or fail to spell Microsoft without a $ in place of the S then you are a troll.
ROFL:
"Most of the naysayers hate Microsoft so much, they'll blather any lie about them. They hate MS so much they don't even know the products in-depth themselves, recycling garbage from the Win95/Office 2000 days. Please, just STFU."
Yeah, the *nix guy in the cube next to me was griping the other day about how you couldn't set permissions at the file level in Windows. He went on and on about how much Windows sucks because of that. I was finally able to figure out he was talking about Windows 3.1
Geez I can't believe you went there. Dude it was a troll, you're not really supposed to respond. :D Gotcha.
Linux/unix is pathetic in it's user friendliness compared to Windows. Most windows users would ask "What's a dependency" simply because it's all handled for them. Are you really trying to compare RPM to InstallShield?
This does NOT however make *nix a bad OS by any means. Don't lose a grip on reality when you're trying to defend it though. It may tie or win in an overal OS comparison, but user friendliness? come on.
An example:
I was cracking up at this Linux guy trying to get his CDRom to eject the other day because some process had it in use. It was a riot to watch. It was likely something very simple that a user with more experience could have overcome, but a three year old can push the CDRom button on a Windows machine :P Why can't the OS just deal with that crap? I'm sure it's undesireable in some circumstances to have a filesystem unexpectedly dismount but it's not like Windows will BSOD over it.
at user friendliness? Yeah, it's trolling/flame bait but so is this stupid article. Go put that in your pipe and mod it.
hehe dude. Seriously. MS doesn't make an iPod. Settle down, don't feel so threatened.
I think iPods are great. However, I can't even name the proprietary format they use (nor can most people). No one cares including MS management. If you see the iPod music format spread outside the iPod, THEN you'll probably see some competition building. Don't confuse the iPod hardware with the software like you just did with the Palm OS (that PocketPC is in competition with).
I saw the Gates keynote and read all the interviews. It looks to me like MS is invading your living room, not your headphones. I think Sony and Tivo have more to worry about than Apple (who sold out and made peace to MS a long time ago).
I also think you just want to believe that the "bad guy", Microsoft is after the "good guy", Apple. Get over it. It's ok for people to like a great product like the iPod. It doesn't have to be a conspiracy. If they were really after them you would feel it. Just ask Sony, VMWare, Wordperfect, Novell, Lotus, Palm or Netscape.
Again, MS management doesn't give a crap about people using the iPod. Heck, they are probably wearing one while they draft their plans on how to get Media Center into your SUV. Both you and the guy who wrote that article sound just like the typical MS bigots. You can't let someone just take delight in owning their iPod, you have to use it as some sort of imagined victory over Bill. Go find peace with yourself.
I don't think one has anything to really do with the other. There are media players that play Windows Media but there are no Microsoft made portable music devices. What people really want isn't one music format or another. No, what they want is the music. If you want to really turn it into some kind of competition then the real winner is MP3 because "that's where the music is".
WMA is doing just fine out there even in the face of overwhelming competition from the "free" mp3 standard. I'm sure MS would love it if the iPod supported them but they are far from "doomed". WMA is doing perfectly fine against it's *real* competition, Apple's quicktime.
If you want to see what else a "technology saavy group" chooses, go see what OS they are running or what video game console they are playing. Think anyone at MS is using Palm over PocketPC?
---
The #1 thing I want you to get out of my previous post is this: MS management doesn't care about what music player it's employees are using. That article and the author's "source" are full of crap.
I think I'm obligated by fate to respond to your post. See I work at Coke and my last job was at Microsoft :D
It is definately a career limiting move to use a Pepsi product at Coke as it should be. Everyone knows better so it's not an issue. It's a very cutthroat rivalry and just like you won't find an Eagles player wearing a Patriots jersey, you won't find a Coke employee holding a can of Pepsi.
As for iPods at Microsoft.. I call bullshit on the whole article. MS doesn't give a crap if people use iPods. The guys there are the most technology saavy group you'll find anywhere. The iPod has a natural appeal to them. Employee happiness is a huge priority for MS and it helps them retain great talent. They won't jeopardize it over something silly like that.
So Shenanigans on that article!
Isupposeyoucouldhavewrittenitwithoutspacesandthatw ouldhavemadeithardertoreadbutImnotreallysuresinces uchalargereadwithnoparagraphswassounsightlythatIch osenottoevenlookIbetyouforgettochangehtmlformatted toplainoldtextandfurthermoredidn'tusethepreviewbut tonDon'tbeupsetifsomeoneflamesyou.
Simple: They have your money.
Q: How does a buy-here-pay-here used car salesman tell when he's dealing with a sucker?
A: The person walked onto the lot.
Q: How do you tell when a lawyer is lying?
A: His lips are moving.
Q: How do you tell when email is spam?
A: It says it isn't.