The Linux desktops are good enough to be called competition, now. Mac OS X certainly is good enough.
"And pay 3x more for the hardware to run it on."
It's not hard to get decent Apple hardware for under $1000. Speed isn't that big an issue. My computer at home is years old, and I really don't care too much.
OpenWindows in 2010? Who knows. Would you have expected OpenSolaris in 2005 back in 2000?
Sun beat Microsoft to the OpenWindows bit already... But seriously, I think the migration of Sun and IBM to OSS operating systems is inevitable, because paying for software that is always evolving gets really old after a while. Now, I just download the software from Sun as much as I like, but have the option of paying them annually for real-person support contracts.
The constant evolution of software is evident in that I'm running brand-spanking-new Solaris 10 on an old Sun Ultra workstation. I couldn't imagine using Solaris 2.5 or Solaris 2.6 today, which would have shipped new on that same workstation.
It depends. As a private company, customers have to accept your word, but as a public company customers can look at the SEC filings to see if you are bleeding dry or doing well. Neither is better--it depends on the business.
I figured $400 for XP _and_ Office was about right. One thing that is interesting, is that there are about 1000 different prices for XP and Office, so it's hard to even figure out what any given business would pay (that's why I gave a range). Microsoft's pricing is like talking to a used car salesman.
UNIX - getting their asses handed to them by Linux and Windows. Not exactly a "growth" market there.
Sun sells Linux, too, and will be releasing OpenSolaris this summer.
Linux in SE Asia? - Are you on crack?
Nope. Sun became the largest Linux supplier in the world after a deal with China. It appears they are distributing the software through a Chinese company, so it isn't Sun branded.
HPC - You can't be serious?
Sun is installing HPC clusters hundreds of nodes at a time all over the world. They probably sell more Opterons in a month than SGI sells Itaniums in a quarter--maybe even a year.
Opterons are too low margin for Sun to make money on and SPARC is a dog performance-wise.
Sun has basically the same fabless supply chain that Dell does, so their margins probaby aren't terrible. SPARC isn't quite the dog you speak of, esepcially when UltraSPARC IV+ and Niagara roll around.
Price? - Oh man... you're smoking some of the good stuff.
You are living in the past. I downloaded and burned Solaris 10 onto CD-Rs for no charge. Their hardware is priced competitively, too. Really, it is, even comparing apples to apples with Dell.
I think I just talked myself into selling this dog short.
Er, you do realize the stock is already down a lot this year...this must be why they say individual investors always buy and sell after the trend is already over.
Based on what you just said, one other problem with Microsoft is that their product line is increasingly commodity, but they persist to charge a premium for it. For example, I haven't paid much for an operating system or office suite in years--how is that good for Microsoft's bottom line?
Solaris, Linux, StarOffice, OpenOffice.org, Evolution, Mozilla, etc. all are pretty darn good replacements for businesses spending millions on Microsoft licensing. That 9.6 BILLION MOTHERFUCKING DOLLARS is built on SAND.
...stop selling Office, and start renting it. Only way to use it is to be on-line or something dumb like that.
That won't work because no one wants to lose their right-to-use after their contract runs out. It is _their_ data, after all, not Microsoft's.
This is where other companies are doing better. Other companies can offer infinite right-to-use and charge only for support contracts, which is much nicer to the customers.
I only know enough to defend Sun (I won't stand up for Carly or Bill, sorry). Sun are #1 now in lots of sectors: UNIX (Solaris), Linux (SE Asia), HPC units shipped (Opteron), 64-bit (SPARC and Opteron), price (JDS, JES, Solaris/Linux), and others.
It'll be another year or so for Sun to really overcome their post-boom woes, but they are most definitely set up to do well over the next five years. For the naysayers, Sun is now a break-even company, so they aren't going anywhere ($7billion in the bank is a nice safety net).
Other companies miss by 1% and get skewered by wall street. What makes Microsoft so special? Their monopoly is actually quite fragile (only Microsoft isn't pushing an OSS operating system these days, for example).
Does Apple even use CVS internally? If they forked the codebase, they are probably using the same system they use on other Mac OS components. It would actually be the responsible thing to do, because CVS is really limited and slow for that size codebase.
If they got _all_ the changes, then they should be able to keep stuff from breaking. That is, unless Apple re-wrote most of the app. The summary didn't say how many changes there were.
If a large portion of the app changed, well that tough to merge no matter what.
And let's not forget that other little OS, Solaris, which may actually become a contender on the desktop.
I use Solaris-based JDS3 right now. All it needs is a little more spit and polish (not much really) and pretty much any company can use it on the cheap. I know that I paid nothing for it (okay 5 CD-R disks). Support is optional.
they realise hardware support isn't going to be there
I wonder if this means the hardware manufacturers collectively gave Microsoft the finger. The whole Palladium hype relied on getting the manufacturers on board, which obviously has not happened. Whole new generations of chipsets and motherboards simply have no hint of TCPA or TPCA or whatever it is.
The "Republicans" are supposed to be the party leaning toward "less government". GWB blows that out of the water: record deficits, religion-motivated legislation (wanting to re-write the Constitution, no less), complicating social security, tighter federal control of our schools, the "war on terror" game, etc.
The "Democrats" appear better, but they're not a ton better in the end: the "war on drugs" game, who knows how many more "feel good" programs they can create, nationalized health care makes me nervous, gun control makes me nervous, etc.
The only thing recently the Democrats clearly did better on was the federal budget. The graphs of the deficit over time speak for themselves. Given the unsteady economic growth, lately, I'd feel much more comfortable with the deficit brought under control. There's only so much debt foreign countries are willing to buy, and the fantasy will wear thin eventually.
I'm going to vote for third parties as much as possible in the future, regardless of the "throwing a vote away" nonsense. Especially where I live it's like 200% republican, so any votes the contrary would show up more prominently.
Slashdot Mirror
No no, the GP forgot to mention stirring up the resulting pieces to eliminate locality of information in the trash.
"As opposed to their monopoly in the 2000s?"
The Linux desktops are good enough to be called competition, now. Mac OS X certainly is good enough.
"And pay 3x more for the hardware to run it on."
It's not hard to get decent Apple hardware for under $1000. Speed isn't that big an issue. My computer at home is years old, and I really don't care too much.
OpenWindows in 2010? Who knows. Would you have expected OpenSolaris in 2005 back in 2000?
Sun beat Microsoft to the OpenWindows bit already... But seriously, I think the migration of Sun and IBM to OSS operating systems is inevitable, because paying for software that is always evolving gets really old after a while. Now, I just download the software from Sun as much as I like, but have the option of paying them annually for real-person support contracts.
The constant evolution of software is evident in that I'm running brand-spanking-new Solaris 10 on an old Sun Ultra workstation. I couldn't imagine using Solaris 2.5 or Solaris 2.6 today, which would have shipped new on that same workstation.
It depends. As a private company, customers have to accept your word, but as a public company customers can look at the SEC filings to see if you are bleeding dry or doing well. Neither is better--it depends on the business.
The ultimate geek recipe:
/dev/null
cat meal | digest -a md5 >
Sun is #1 in UNIX. Your IDC report is saying "worldwide server systems market". Huge difference.
Also, I should have clarified that Sun is #1 in Linux units shipped and not revenue.
For 64-bit servers, Itanium is MIA, and POWER's market share is smaller than SPARC. Also, HP and IBM do not exclusively ship 64-bit (e.g., Xeon).
I figured $400 for XP _and_ Office was about right. One thing that is interesting, is that there are about 1000 different prices for XP and Office, so it's hard to even figure out what any given business would pay (that's why I gave a range). Microsoft's pricing is like talking to a used car salesman.
UNIX - getting their asses handed to them by Linux and Windows. Not exactly a "growth" market there.
Sun sells Linux, too, and will be releasing OpenSolaris this summer.
Linux in SE Asia? - Are you on crack?
Nope. Sun became the largest Linux supplier in the world after a deal with China. It appears they are distributing the software through a Chinese company, so it isn't Sun branded.
HPC - You can't be serious?
Sun is installing HPC clusters hundreds of nodes at a time all over the world. They probably sell more Opterons in a month than SGI sells Itaniums in a quarter--maybe even a year.
Opterons are too low margin for Sun to make money on and SPARC is a dog performance-wise.
Sun has basically the same fabless supply chain that Dell does, so their margins probaby aren't terrible. SPARC isn't quite the dog you speak of, esepcially when UltraSPARC IV+ and Niagara roll around.
Price? - Oh man... you're smoking some of the good stuff.
You are living in the past. I downloaded and burned Solaris 10 onto CD-Rs for no charge. Their hardware is priced competitively, too. Really, it is, even comparing apples to apples with Dell.
I think I just talked myself into selling this dog short.
Er, you do realize the stock is already down a lot this year...this must be why they say individual investors always buy and sell after the trend is already over.
Based on what you just said, one other problem with Microsoft is that their product line is increasingly commodity, but they persist to charge a premium for it. For example, I haven't paid much for an operating system or office suite in years--how is that good for Microsoft's bottom line?
Watch out for the big pointy stick!
Every percentage point of share that OO.org/StarOffice take costs Microsoft big time. So it goes both ways.
Solaris, Linux, StarOffice, OpenOffice.org, Evolution, Mozilla, etc. all are pretty darn good replacements for businesses spending millions on Microsoft licensing. That 9.6 BILLION MOTHERFUCKING DOLLARS is built on SAND.
IMO, of course.
...stop selling Office, and start renting it. Only way to use it is to be on-line or something dumb like that.
That won't work because no one wants to lose their right-to-use after their contract runs out. It is _their_ data, after all, not Microsoft's.
This is where other companies are doing better. Other companies can offer infinite right-to-use and charge only for support contracts, which is much nicer to the customers.
I only know enough to defend Sun (I won't stand up for Carly or Bill, sorry). Sun are #1 now in lots of sectors: UNIX (Solaris), Linux (SE Asia), HPC units shipped (Opteron), 64-bit (SPARC and Opteron), price (JDS, JES, Solaris/Linux), and others.
It'll be another year or so for Sun to really overcome their post-boom woes, but they are most definitely set up to do well over the next five years. For the naysayers, Sun is now a break-even company, so they aren't going anywhere ($7billion in the bank is a nice safety net).
Other companies miss by 1% and get skewered by wall street. What makes Microsoft so special? Their monopoly is actually quite fragile (only Microsoft isn't pushing an OSS operating system these days, for example).
Does Apple even use CVS internally? If they forked the codebase, they are probably using the same system they use on other Mac OS components. It would actually be the responsible thing to do, because CVS is really limited and slow for that size codebase.
If they got _all_ the changes, then they should be able to keep stuff from breaking. That is, unless Apple re-wrote most of the app. The summary didn't say how many changes there were.
If a large portion of the app changed, well that tough to merge no matter what.
"...wasn't thrilled by the 2 week shipping time. "
They do say "direct" but they never say from where.
And let's not forget that other little OS, Solaris, which may actually become a contender on the desktop.
I use Solaris-based JDS3 right now. All it needs is a little more spit and polish (not much really) and pretty much any company can use it on the cheap. I know that I paid nothing for it (okay 5 CD-R disks). Support is optional.
they realise hardware support isn't going to be there
I wonder if this means the hardware manufacturers collectively gave Microsoft the finger. The whole Palladium hype relied on getting the manufacturers on board, which obviously has not happened. Whole new generations of chipsets and motherboards simply have no hint of TCPA or TPCA or whatever it is.
DOS, Win95, Win98, Win98SE, WinME
WinNT3, WinNT4, Win2K, WinXP, Longhorn
What do these two sequences have in common?
It's my sundial that's broken you insensitive clod!
I agree with you, but most projects barely have the resources to implement their own features let alone dermine specific OS dependencies.
The version testing is an indicator of the generally unhealthy state of the IT industry as a whole, IMO.
No, this is about _editing_, not just renaming the same thing...
The "Republicans" are supposed to be the party leaning toward "less government". GWB blows that out of the water: record deficits, religion-motivated legislation (wanting to re-write the Constitution, no less), complicating social security, tighter federal control of our schools, the "war on terror" game, etc.
The "Democrats" appear better, but they're not a ton better in the end: the "war on drugs" game, who knows how many more "feel good" programs they can create, nationalized health care makes me nervous, gun control makes me nervous, etc.
The only thing recently the Democrats clearly did better on was the federal budget. The graphs of the deficit over time speak for themselves. Given the unsteady economic growth, lately, I'd feel much more comfortable with the deficit brought under control. There's only so much debt foreign countries are willing to buy, and the fantasy will wear thin eventually.
I'm going to vote for third parties as much as possible in the future, regardless of the "throwing a vote away" nonsense. Especially where I live it's like 200% republican, so any votes the contrary would show up more prominently.