Even though XP is not flying off the shelves, alot of damage is already done. Notice this is an optional download and not a required patch/fix. No fines or penalties were brought against them, just a "you have to stop that from now on". They can probably bury the patch and obfuscate the name so nobody ever installs it. This is the same practice that killed of the browser competition. Too little, too late...
IMHO, they should be required to recall all XP boxes and pay for a qualified technician to install the patch. If anything breaks, Microsoft again pays the bill of fixing it.
Microsoft was found guilty of a federal crime and agreed to abid by the terms of a settlement. This shows that they can break the terms of the settlement and just get a verbal scolding. Exactly the reason why they needed to get busted into tiny pieces. IMHO.
BTW, don't you just love that stuff Microsoft is spewing about how Apple is limiting choice in online music? And how Microsoft is all about choice. These guys lyed on the stand and they have no problem lying to the public, press, investors, etc.
yup, the guy even made a comment saying Microsoft makes money on MS PocketPC business( he said something about Palm and Microsoft making $$ on the handheld ). Over the last 7 years, Microsoft has lost billions on the Windows CE platform. Heck, they paid AT&T 5 BILLION to put WinCE on set-top TV boxes that never existed.
Mr Louderback is no visionary so it's just good bathroom reading material. IMHO.
They guy also only talks about free in the corporate setting and even then, he's really talking about support. He doesn't even mention that fact that Dell, HP, etc not only pay Microsoft for it's OS and software but they also have to support the platform they sell these on, including the Microsoft OS's. GNU/Linux and OSS apps come and as free to Dell and the support costs are generally going to be fewer.
The one thing that's keeping companies from increasing their GNU/Linux pre-installations is that Microsoft pays off a lot of these companies to support the OS issues. A prime example is the RoadRunner system where I heard a RoadRunner tech support person say that they don't support anything but Microsoft Windows because Microsoft pays for the support centers.
It'll take a bit of long term vision on the part of Dell, HP, etc to see that the cost of doing business with Microsoft is higher than the cost of selling, supporting, and promoting an GNU/Linux and OSS solution. Just a few more major migrations off Microsoft to free OSS and this guy will have to eat his words. IMHO.
With Novells purchase of Ximian and the founder of Gnome, could this be why Sun is now looking at KDE????
My guess is that is also has to do with Qt and some users/businesses preference for KDE. It's good to have choice as long as they both still "play" together. IMHO.
You could have said the same thing when Microsoft partnered with Sybase in the 90's. What happened there? Microsoft took the Sybase SQL Server product and ended up making thier own and grabbing a very large part of that market and very quickly.
THIS is the sole purpose for a Microsoft "partnership" IMO so THAT is why it's a concern when Microsoft partners with anybody. Look how stupid Siebol was to partner with Microsoft recently. They even invited Bill G to keynote their annual CRM gathering.
Somehow, 20 years of history keeps escaping the CEO's, CFO's, and Boards of todays corporations. They seem to see $$$ and overlook the fact that the touch of Microsoft is the touch of death.
> > I've been able to run multiple applications on a single system for many, many years now. It's called multi-tasking:) Or did they mean "running multiple operating systems on a single system", in which case isn't that redudant with the first part of the sentence (running both Windows and Linux on a single server)? > >
You obviously have not tried to run Microsfot Windows servers. When Microsoft sold companies on replacing their UNIX servers with Windows, it soon was found that one UNIX box running many server applications, needed many Windows boxes( one for each application ) because of how poorly the OS is designed.
They are realizing that now there is a way to bring all those applications back into one box. Voila', the virtual machine and running many MS Windows partitions on one piece of hardware. Just like how Microsofts OS is broken with regards to security and they are building the security into the hardware, the OS is broken so their putting a VM layer between it and the hardware to allow many applications to run on one box so when one crashes and the OS comes down, all the others are still running.
People/companies are moving toward Linux because it CAN run many application servers on one box( like UNIX ). Killing off the VM companies gives Microsft( and partners/EMC ) the ability to still push Windows and show that they too can run many apps on one box.
I'll bet Microsoft Windows management costs will go way up with this added layer wedged into the system.
I know EMC partnered with Microsoft and then Microsoft started pushing it's storage system harder. The EMC people seemed cautious but were not sure how/what Microsoft was up to. Then Microsoft purchased VirtualPC....
Reading the press release, it sure sounds like these guys are following Microsofts lead in using VMs to make a more reliable Windows based storage system.
IMHO, EMC are still stupid for even opening the door to Microsoft. Hopefully, my friends at EMC won't be out of work too soon.:/
Microsoft locked out other OS's in the 90's by locking in the OEM's. With the VM's around, we could run the one or two Windows apps we needed while migrating to GNU/Linux. Then, BANG, Microsoft purchases VirtualPC and their partner( EMC ) purchases VMware....
Just watch what EMC does with VMware to see if it's being done to prevent OS competition. If they can the OS support and tie it into a Windows-only storage system, you know it was for Microsoft. Otherwise, they would have just partnered with them for use in their storage systems. It would have been cheaper to do that then to purchase the whole company and kill the current business model just to tie it into their SAN system. IMHO.
EMC has a deal with Microsoft for their SAN systems. Ie, Microsoft is paying EMC to support Windows as a platform( most likely ). Now, how do you keep your SAN up 7/24/365 AND do it on Windows AND keep hardware/management down? You do the same thing Microsoft is going to do. You put a few virtual machines on one box running a few copies of Windows. When one crashes, the others take over while the failed one is rebooted or serviced/reinstalled.
I wonder how much Microsoft is paying EMC to take another VM product off the market?????
In 1995, only had 700,000 NT licenses were sold. I remember this because in 1994, I predicted that Microsoft would move it's PR/FUD machine to NT once Chicago/Win95 was shipped. I don't remember the exact number but I think NT broke the 1 million unit sold number in 1996 but it was only something like 1.25 million. The press was all over NT and it was doing NT against UNIX and Novel server( but not OS/2 ). The only time a comparison of NT again OS/2 came about it showed OS/2 outperforming NT on one CPU while NT was run on 2 CPU's.
NT got the press/PR and grew pretty quick in the mid to late 1990's with Linux only getting started in the later part of the 90's.
Anything that's giving Microsoft as much trouble as Linux is, is enough to smile about IMO. If Microsofts growth can be stalled, real innovation can start again. There are some cheering but as you said, it's still early for cheering. But it's looking good.
yes, I used LAMP because that's what stated the uptake of Linux in the server space when Microsoft was just getting NT going. Microsft had to own the server space too in order to keep it's growth rate up and the server products didn't reach the marketshare to do this.Anything having over 10% marketshare would not be acceptable by Microsoft IMHO. It puts pressure on them to interoperate and that is NOT how Microsoft grows.
I could be wrong but I think that LAMP started the Linux growth by showing it can work and work well. JBOSS, WebSphere, Oracle, etc all came after LAMP and all helped keep the MS Windows server share lower.
BTW, those parking servers still mean something. Didn't I read recently how one such parker went back to Linux? I think that still helps but you have to dig deeper. You brought up some good points.
Lighten up Francis! The just of what I said is that their growth is leveling off. As far as "products in their pipeline" goes, nothing since MS Windows and MS Office has made any real positive mark on their financials. So all of a sudden this has changed? I don't think so.
The fact that Bill, Steve, and friends never mentioned their last OS competitor until the late 1990's showed that they have a tendancy to not give validation to the competition publicly( vocal or written ). Linux changed that. Just look at how they've used Linux over the last few years. Communism, anti-American, anti-Innovation(?), anti-IP, etc. Not to mention how they've mentioned Linux in their financial statements. Linux is a BIG problem from Microsoft if you like it or not.
The pedalling of their patents is something they hardly ever did. They don't want companies to interoperate because they want to own it all. To own it all they must keep moving their API's and designs. Licensing out there stuff would likely require them to support that patent technology in their system for many years. Not a very "Microsoft" thing to do. IMHO. BTW, do you know for a fact that these analysts are NOT getting kickbacks for this? This might make MS some $$ up front but it's the act of doing this that is very interesting and unusual. Good for short term gains( analysts like this ) and bad for long term financials for a company operated the way Microsoft has been operated over the last 20 some odd years. IMHO.
DCOM is microsofts Distributed COM system. COM is their Common Object eM-something. It's Object-like and not Object Oriented like you'd learn in any OOP class at school.
Microsoft didn't invent COM-like design they just don't like how OO hides the underlying details( like the OS API's ). COM was only "invented" because IBM based OS/2's WorkplaceShell on CORBA. BTW, IBM's design was called SOM( System Object Model ). Like everything else, anything Microsoft puts in it's Windows OS must be made to work only on Windows and COM/DCOM is no exception. They put parts of COM on Solaris but that was only to get companies to port UNIX code to Win32 by showing they could have Win32 code run on both UNIX and Windows. After a few important apps were ported, Microsoft pulled the rug out from under the UNIX capabilities( Win32 on Windows - only ).
What at issue here is that object oriented designs, languages, and frameworks were "the big thing" in the late 80's and early 90's but Microsoft did it's own thing. Miguel went and copied the "one off" design and he's decided to follow Microsoft again with dotNet. Something is goofy here IMHO.
you should know by know that this is about VFAT and not FAT even though Microsoft's page talks about only FAT. From what I've read, the patent claims are for long filename support( VFAT ) and so as long as the FAT file system is used, device vendors should be out of this for the time being. IMHO.
Does anybody know why de Icaza likes to follow what Microsoft is doing? When I first heard of Gnome from one of its devleopers, he described it as a Microsoft COM-like design. When I asked why they would follow Microsofts design philosiphy he had no answer. THEN, de Icaza pulls out the Microsoft dotNet-like thing. And there are patents on that stuff too.
I just really looks like de Icaza has a "thing" for copying Microsoft's designs. And if THIS current patent issue isn't a sign of things to come, I don't know what is. Novell might get nailed with patent claims against Gnome and it's other recently purchased copies of Microsofts work. They'll still have Suse though.;-)
When you look at the bigger picture, it sure doesn't look like there's any growth left in the company. For me, the telling signs were:
1) first put up when Microsoft started mentioning the word "Linux". They don't do that normally since it validates the product.
2) when they started mentioning it in their financial statements.
3) when LAMP took away most of the MS Windows server growth.
4) more and more mentioning of the word "Linux" by Bill and Steve.
5) recently when Prudentials financial analysts start asking about Microsoft Windows growth prospects against Linux and Linux desktop growth.
6) Microsoft trying to pedal it's patents for $$$.
It may not be visible as a death spiral but it sure looks like there is a massive amount of "concern" in Redmond. And with all of their profits in the OS and office applications, they have nothing but cash to help them get out of this. Even giving away their software will not KILL Linux. It would only slow it down momentarily and they know this. IMHO.
There is concern in Redmond. You can be sure of that. Is the Coriolis Effect in action here? There's probably some movement already and there is no sign of an opposing force. Surely, not this patent claim.
For those devices which want to use the VFAT filesystem and have computational abilities( PDA, camera, etc ) all they have to do is ship the media blank and format it when the system boots.
It would be far better just to use the FAT system and forget about this issue. BUT, be aware that Microsoft will be doing this more and more. ie, walk, don't run, away from all Microsoft software/tech ASAP. IMO.
Does anybody remember HP New Wave? This product was a n Object-like interface which replaced the Program Manager on Windows 3.x and guess what? It allowed long filenames for your folders and files AND still stored those files as short filenames. This was years before Microsofts 2nd great piece of sh*t operating environment, called MS Windows 95, existed.
It was said at the time that Microsoft hired away the HP engineers who worked on HP New Wave and that this was how they came up with the awesome(NOT) technology that became the MS Windows 95 desktop.
My guess would be that HP might own patents on this and not Microsoft. At least this predates the 1995 patent date and if anything is prior art and public domain.
Like I've said before, anybody who plays with ANY of Microsoft products pays a VERY big price. Eventually.
Mod the parent up. This one hits the nail on the head and is the heart of what's wrong with MS Windows and right with Linux. What Microsoft claims as integration is done in a way which brings the whole house down when one small part fails. The co-mingling of applications with the OS. Legal documentation even showed that this was originally done for anti-competitive reasons and now is being presented as the latest half-baked why MS Windows is supposedly better than Linux. This is not the design methodology used in the *nix world.
This is also something to watch out for when developers try to mimic the Microsoft Windows system while making Linux more and more user friendly.
Isn't this a term used for having to deal with the issues related to choices made? Why should anybody expect others let Microsoft sugar coat the mess they released on the world? Those who use MS products must pay the price of such a choice. Those who consider they have no choice because IT gives them no choice have to play on the theadmill Microsoft and their IT departments put them on and should make their IT staff fix the problem. IMHO.
When will Microsoft go to court for all of this crap? Can you imagine purchasing a new car and seeing a note on the seat. You open the door of your new car and read the note. It says that the auto maker has no responsibility to how the car works or if it will work.... The auto makers can't pull the kind of EUL that Microsoft gets away with. Yet no lawsuits. What gives?
I didn't look close but from what I've heard in the past, this system failed because it was on a network which ended up getting flooded with traffice from all the infected Microsoft Windows machines on the same network.
IMO, if this turns out to be true, Bill and Company still get the finger and should be held responsible for this.
Where's Microsofts indemnification from damages from it's holey( not holy as Bill thinks ) software?
Slashdot Mirror
I thought Suse was a Utah( USA ) based product. ;-)
Even though XP is not flying off the shelves, alot of damage is already done. Notice this is an optional download and not a required patch/fix. No fines or penalties were brought against them, just a "you have to stop that from now on". They can probably bury the patch and obfuscate the name so nobody ever installs it. This is the same practice that killed of the browser competition. Too little, too late...
IMHO, they should be required to recall all XP boxes and pay for a qualified technician to install the patch. If anything breaks, Microsoft again pays the bill of fixing it.
Microsoft was found guilty of a federal crime and agreed to abid by the terms of a settlement. This shows that they can break the terms of the settlement and just get a verbal scolding. Exactly the reason why they needed to get busted into tiny pieces. IMHO.
BTW, don't you just love that stuff Microsoft is spewing about how Apple is limiting choice in online music? And how Microsoft is all about choice. These guys lyed on the stand and they have no problem lying to the public, press, investors, etc.
LoB
Like the Bush Administration has a clue. I guess they have a clue about campaigning but NOTHING else. WMD's my ars. IMHO.
LoB
yup, the guy even made a comment saying Microsoft makes money on MS PocketPC business( he said something about Palm and Microsoft making $$ on the handheld ). Over the last 7 years, Microsoft has lost billions on the Windows CE platform. Heck, they paid AT&T 5 BILLION to put WinCE on set-top TV boxes that never existed.
Mr Louderback is no visionary so it's just good bathroom reading material. IMHO.
LoB
They guy also only talks about free in the corporate setting and even then, he's really talking about support. He doesn't even mention that fact that Dell, HP, etc not only pay Microsoft for it's OS and software but they also have to support the platform they sell these on, including the Microsoft OS's. GNU/Linux and OSS apps come and as free to Dell and the support costs are generally going to be fewer.
The one thing that's keeping companies from increasing their GNU/Linux pre-installations is that Microsoft pays off a lot of these companies to support the OS issues. A prime example is the RoadRunner system where I heard a RoadRunner tech support person say that they don't support anything but Microsoft Windows because Microsoft pays for the support centers.
It'll take a bit of long term vision on the part of Dell, HP, etc to see that the cost of doing business with Microsoft is higher than the cost of selling, supporting, and promoting an GNU/Linux and OSS solution. Just a few more major migrations off Microsoft to free OSS and this guy will have to eat his words. IMHO.
LoB
With Novells purchase of Ximian and the founder of Gnome, could this be why Sun is now looking at KDE????
My guess is that is also has to do with Qt and some users/businesses preference for KDE. It's good to have choice as long as they both still "play" together. IMHO.
LoB
You could have said the same thing when Microsoft partnered with Sybase in the 90's. What happened there? Microsoft took the Sybase SQL Server product and ended up making thier own and grabbing a very large part of that market and very quickly.
THIS is the sole purpose for a Microsoft "partnership" IMO so THAT is why it's a concern when Microsoft partners with anybody. Look how stupid Siebol was to partner with Microsoft recently. They even invited Bill G to keynote their annual CRM gathering.
Somehow, 20 years of history keeps escaping the CEO's, CFO's, and Boards of todays corporations. They seem to see $$$ and overlook the fact that the touch of Microsoft is the touch of death.
IMHO.
LoB
then EMC is smarter than I thought. :)
LoB
> :) Or did they mean "running multiple operating systems on a single system", in which case isn't that redudant with the first part of the sentence (running both Windows and Linux on a single server)?
> I've been able to run multiple applications on a single system for many, many years now. It's called multi-tasking
>
>
You obviously have not tried to run Microsfot Windows servers. When Microsoft sold companies on replacing their UNIX servers with Windows, it soon was found that one UNIX box running many server applications, needed many Windows boxes( one for each application ) because of how poorly the OS is designed.
They are realizing that now there is a way to bring all those applications back into one box. Voila', the virtual machine and running many MS Windows partitions on one piece of hardware. Just like how Microsofts OS is broken with regards to security and they are building the security into the hardware, the OS is broken so their putting a VM layer between it and the hardware to allow many applications to run on one box so when one crashes and the OS comes down, all the others are still running.
People/companies are moving toward Linux because it CAN run many application servers on one box( like UNIX ). Killing off the VM companies gives Microsft( and partners/EMC ) the ability to still push Windows and show that they too can run many apps on one box.
I'll bet Microsoft Windows management costs will go way up with this added layer wedged into the system.
LoB
EMC is a "partner" of Microsofts.....
LoB
I know EMC partnered with Microsoft and then Microsoft started pushing it's storage system harder. The EMC people seemed cautious but were not sure how/what Microsoft was up to. Then Microsoft purchased VirtualPC....
:/
Reading the press release, it sure sounds like these guys are following Microsofts lead in using VMs to make a more reliable Windows based storage system.
IMHO, EMC are still stupid for even opening the door to Microsoft. Hopefully, my friends at EMC won't be out of work too soon.
LoB
Microsoft locked out other OS's in the 90's by locking in the OEM's. With the VM's around, we could run the one or two Windows apps we needed while migrating to GNU/Linux. Then, BANG, Microsoft purchases VirtualPC and their partner( EMC ) purchases VMware....
Just watch what EMC does with VMware to see if it's being done to prevent OS competition. If they can the OS support and tie it into a Windows-only storage system, you know it was for Microsoft. Otherwise, they would have just partnered with them for use in their storage systems. It would have been cheaper to do that then to purchase the whole company and kill the current business model just to tie it into their SAN system.
IMHO.
LoB
EMC has a deal with Microsoft for their SAN systems. Ie, Microsoft is paying EMC to support Windows as a platform( most likely ). Now, how do you keep your SAN up 7/24/365 AND do it on Windows AND keep hardware/management down? You do the same thing Microsoft is going to do. You put a few virtual machines on one box running a few copies of Windows. When one crashes, the others take over while the failed one is rebooted or serviced/reinstalled.
I wonder how much Microsoft is paying EMC to take another VM product off the market?????
LoB
In 1995, only had 700,000 NT licenses were sold. I remember this because in 1994, I predicted that Microsoft would move it's PR/FUD machine to NT once Chicago/Win95 was shipped. I don't remember the exact number but I think NT broke the 1 million unit sold number in 1996 but it was only something like 1.25 million. The press was all over NT and it was doing NT against UNIX and Novel server( but not OS/2 ). The only time a comparison of NT again OS/2 came about it showed OS/2 outperforming NT on one CPU while NT was run on 2 CPU's.
NT got the press/PR and grew pretty quick in the mid to late 1990's with Linux only getting started in the later part of the 90's.
Anything that's giving Microsoft as much trouble as Linux is, is enough to smile about IMO. If Microsofts growth can be stalled, real innovation can start again. There are some cheering but as you said, it's still early for cheering. But it's looking good.
LoB
yes, I used LAMP because that's what stated the uptake of Linux in the server space when Microsoft was just getting NT going. Microsft had to own the server space too in order to keep it's growth rate up and the server products didn't reach the marketshare to do this.Anything having over 10% marketshare would not be acceptable by Microsoft IMHO. It puts pressure on them to interoperate and that is NOT how Microsoft grows.
I could be wrong but I think that LAMP started the Linux growth by showing it can work and work well. JBOSS, WebSphere, Oracle, etc all came after LAMP and all helped keep the MS Windows server share lower.
BTW, those parking servers still mean something. Didn't I read recently how one such parker went back to Linux? I think that still helps but you have to dig deeper. You brought up some good points.
LoB
Lighten up Francis! The just of what I said is that their growth is leveling off. As far as "products in their pipeline" goes, nothing since MS Windows and MS Office has made any real positive mark on their financials. So all of a sudden this has changed? I don't think so.
The fact that Bill, Steve, and friends never mentioned their last OS competitor until the late 1990's showed that they have a tendancy to not give validation to the competition publicly( vocal or written ). Linux changed that. Just look at how they've used Linux over the last few years. Communism, anti-American, anti-Innovation(?), anti-IP, etc. Not to mention how they've mentioned Linux in their financial statements. Linux is a BIG problem from Microsoft if you like it or not.
The pedalling of their patents is something they hardly ever did. They don't want companies to interoperate because they want to own it all. To own it all they must keep moving their API's and designs. Licensing out there stuff would likely require them to support that patent technology in their system for many years. Not a very "Microsoft" thing to do. IMHO. BTW, do you know for a fact that these analysts are NOT getting kickbacks for this? This might make MS some $$ up front but it's the act of doing this that is very interesting and unusual. Good for short term gains( analysts like this ) and bad for long term financials for a company operated the way Microsoft has been operated over the last 20 some odd years. IMHO.
LoB
DCOM is microsofts Distributed COM system. COM is their Common Object eM-something. It's Object-like and not Object Oriented like you'd learn in any OOP class at school.
Microsoft didn't invent COM-like design they just don't like how OO hides the underlying details( like the OS API's ). COM was only "invented" because IBM based OS/2's WorkplaceShell on CORBA. BTW, IBM's design was called SOM( System Object Model ). Like everything else, anything Microsoft puts in it's Windows OS must be made to work only on Windows and COM/DCOM is no exception. They put parts of COM on Solaris but that was only to get companies to port UNIX code to Win32 by showing they could have Win32 code run on both UNIX and Windows. After a few important apps were ported, Microsoft pulled the rug out from under the UNIX capabilities( Win32 on Windows - only ).
What at issue here is that object oriented designs, languages, and frameworks were "the big thing" in the late 80's and early 90's but Microsoft did it's own thing. Miguel went and copied the "one off" design and he's decided to follow Microsoft again with dotNet. Something is goofy here IMHO.
LoB
you should know by know that this is about VFAT and not FAT even though Microsoft's page talks about only FAT. From what I've read, the patent claims are for long filename support( VFAT ) and so as long as the FAT file system is used, device vendors should be out of this for the time being. IMHO.
LoB
Does anybody know why de Icaza likes to follow what Microsoft is doing? When I first heard of Gnome from one of its devleopers, he described it as a Microsoft COM-like design. When I asked why they would follow Microsofts design philosiphy he had no answer. THEN, de Icaza pulls out the Microsoft dotNet-like thing. And there are patents on that stuff too.
;-)
I just really looks like de Icaza has a "thing" for copying Microsoft's designs. And if THIS current patent issue isn't a sign of things to come, I don't know what is. Novell might get nailed with patent claims against Gnome and it's other recently purchased copies of Microsofts work. They'll still have Suse though.
LoB
When you look at the bigger picture, it sure doesn't look like there's any growth left in the company. For me, the telling signs were:
1) first put up when Microsoft started mentioning the word "Linux". They don't do that normally since it validates the product.
2) when they started mentioning it in their financial statements.
3) when LAMP took away most of the MS Windows server growth.
4) more and more mentioning of the word "Linux" by Bill and Steve.
5) recently when Prudentials financial analysts start asking about Microsoft Windows growth prospects against Linux and Linux desktop growth.
6) Microsoft trying to pedal it's patents for $$$.
It may not be visible as a death spiral but it sure looks like there is a massive amount of "concern" in Redmond. And with all of their profits in the OS and office applications, they have nothing but cash to help them get out of this. Even giving away their software will not KILL Linux. It would only slow it down momentarily and they know this. IMHO.
There is concern in Redmond. You can be sure of that. Is the Coriolis Effect in action here? There's probably some movement already and there is no sign of an opposing force. Surely, not this patent claim.
LoB
For those devices which want to use the VFAT filesystem and have computational abilities( PDA, camera, etc ) all they have to do is ship the media blank and format it when the system boots.
It would be far better just to use the FAT system and forget about this issue. BUT, be aware that Microsoft will be doing this more and more. ie, walk, don't run, away from all Microsoft software/tech ASAP. IMO.
LoB
Does anybody remember HP New Wave? This product was a n Object-like interface which replaced the Program Manager on Windows 3.x and guess what? It allowed long filenames for your folders and files AND still stored those files as short filenames. This was years before Microsofts 2nd great piece of sh*t operating environment, called MS Windows 95, existed.
It was said at the time that Microsoft hired away the HP engineers who worked on HP New Wave and that this was how they came up with the awesome(NOT) technology that became the MS Windows 95 desktop.
My guess would be that HP might own patents on this and not Microsoft. At least this predates the 1995 patent date and if anything is prior art and public domain.
Like I've said before, anybody who plays with ANY of Microsoft products pays a VERY big price. Eventually.
LoB
Mod the parent up. This one hits the nail on the head and is the heart of what's wrong with MS Windows and right with Linux. What Microsoft claims as integration is done in a way which brings the whole house down when one small part fails. The co-mingling of applications with the OS. Legal documentation even showed that this was originally done for anti-competitive reasons and now is being presented as the latest half-baked why MS Windows is supposedly better than Linux. This is not the design methodology used in the *nix world.
This is also something to watch out for when developers try to mimic the Microsoft Windows system while making Linux more and more user friendly.
IMHO
LoB
Isn't this a term used for having to deal with the issues related to choices made? Why should anybody expect others let Microsoft sugar coat the mess they released on the world? Those who use MS products must pay the price of such a choice. Those who consider they have no choice because IT gives them no choice have to play on the theadmill Microsoft and their IT departments put them on and should make their IT staff fix the problem. IMHO.
When will Microsoft go to court for all of this crap? Can you imagine purchasing a new car and seeing a note on the seat. You open the door of your new car and read the note. It says that the auto maker has no responsibility to how the car works or if it will work.... The auto makers can't pull the kind of EUL that Microsoft gets away with. Yet no lawsuits. What gives?
LoB
I didn't look close but from what I've heard in the past, this system failed because it was on a network which ended up getting flooded with traffice from all the infected Microsoft Windows machines on the same network.
IMO, if this turns out to be true, Bill and Company still get the finger and should be held responsible for this.
Where's Microsofts indemnification from damages from it's holey( not holy as Bill thinks ) software?
LoB