Plus (I don't know from experience - I live in the suburbs where there are no cows) it seems to me that if you were going to tip a cow you'd bring some friends to lie down next to the cow's feet to make it easier to tip - not only will the cow be unable to move his feet for better balance, but it would tip easier because it now has both the force of the pusher and the force of these two guys laying there acting against it.
Plus, it appears from the diagram to say that it would require "2.07" people to exert 1360 newtons of force on this cow. Doing a quick conversion on www.onlineconversion.com shows that 1360 newtons of force is about 306 pounds of force. If you had two or three jocks tipping the cow - or a group of 5 or more normal guys - it doesn't sound so impossible.
Why are businesses so against open-source? It's obvious - because it's better. People weren't afraid of socialism because it was better, but rather because they feared losing their jobs and social status - and maybe because of the Nazis.
Here's news to business people: you don't have to use - or even touch, or think about - open-source software! If you want to release a program that isn't open source, that's fine - good for you. We're not forcing you into writing open-source programs, but both you and us alike have the freedom to release our programs under whatever sort of license we want. Just because I choose open-source doesn't mean you have to.
I think some companies are getting a little greedy and wish they could just take the source and put it into their closed-source programs. They don't like the "our program, our rules" sort of thing. I've got news for them - just because someone is releasing their source into the community for everyone to use doesn't mean that you can take it as your own. It's fine to charge for a CD, but it's NOT okay to think that our open-source code is just out there for you to take as your own - if you want to use open-source code, then you've gotta follow the rules of its license. You don't want me to steal your programs and code, do you? We obey your licenses when we buy your products, now you obey our licenses. Don't get greedy - we're giving you free code, and there's ABSOLUTELY NOTHING saying that you can't make profit off of it (just look at companies like SuSE, Mandriva, and RedHat) but you can't just take it as your own.
"But in the case of a rootkit for the purpose of copy-protecting a music CD?"
The way I see it, the problem isn't so much the copy-protection as it is the fact that it installs a rootkit (which is usually something hackers would do if they wanted to sabotage your PC and bypass all built-in security features). If you ask me, it's 100% OK for them to require copyright protection - but NOT through the use of a rootkit. They could've required the use of a simple add-on program rather than a rootkit that can't be removed short of reinstalling Windows. Yeah, I'm sure that's real comforting to hear from Tech Support - "Now just take out your backup drive and. . . what? You don't have a backup drive? Uh-oh. .." And it'd be too late to make a new backup since that would include the registry keys and program files for the rootkit.
I'm sure they weren't intending for this to be a security problem but it is - or at least could easily become one. Plus it's a big inconvenience if the rootkit breaks some part of Windows - especially since you can't just uninstall the rootkit.
"Anyway i dont know how much has changed since i haven't been gaming on linux recently."
The only thing I don't like about Cedega is that IT DOESN'T WORK! I don't know if it's always been this way but the free version of Cedega won't even run Steam. Although it used to so I don't know what changed - Cedega or Steam.
"Bottom line? You spend more time getting things to work than using the actual system. This might be fine if you want to do this kind of stuff as a technical challenge, but personally, I just want to be able to use my system for what I need to get done, and not have to worry about half of the crap I mentioned above."
What distro do you use? I've NEVER had to tinker with a bunch of crap to get things to work - not any more than I did for Windows. Everything worked perfectly straight from install - and I'm not just talking about on one specific distro. I've tried Mandrake 8.0-(I think it was 10.1 - whatever it was just before they started calling it Mandriva), Red Hat 9.0, Fedora Core 1-3, and Slackware 10.1-10.2 (what I use now) and I've never had any problems - just things I didn't like (for example, RH and FC blocking MP3s and Mandrake seeming to have kind-of abandoned its non-paying users).
AFAIK X should have no problem using any resolution - my guess is that your video driver didn't support that resolution. And, yes, wireless in Linux may not work all that well on some cards - but that's because the chipmakers don't support Linux too much and many don't make a Linux driver, so the community has to make their own.
Maybe it's just a laptop thing. I know my laptop works fine with Slackware 10.2 but it's an old 400MHz machine - maybe the newer ones don't work as well with Linux. . .
And when you're talking strictly about using xbox-linux. . . of course it's not easy! MS doesn't want you running Linux on your Xbox - they're not just going to tell you the hardware specs and stuff. It's not Linux's fault, and if MS were to tell you exactly what kind of soundchip Xbox uses I'm sure you'd have no problem getting it to work.
I wonder if iPod had something to do with these converts - I wouldn't be surprised.
To many people who don't have iPods, they're just an ordinary MP3 player. That's the way I always felt - until I actually used one.
They're just cool. And they're easy to use. And they work great. I'm sure some of these fed-up MS users thought one day of how well their iPod works and how much they use it (I usually listen to mine in the car, sometimes when doing homework, when I'm mowing the lawn, riding my bike...) and compared that to how poorly their Windows machine works even with 20+ times the speed and RAM - and the new ones even play video. I know my iPod certainly gives me a good impression of Apple (though I've never used a Mac - I like to build my own PCs with Linux, which I'm quite happy with).
I don't play console games other than when I go to my friends' houses or when they bring their Xboxes over, so I really don't know a whole ton of console games other than what I see advertised and what I hear people talking about.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but MS Game Studios publishes the games - of course, they do make games, but most of them are actually made by someone else and then MS Game Studios publishes them. id and Valve both make and publish all their own games. And it's not all too fair to ask if Valve's only making a game every 5 years is profitable - Half-Life was their first game, and it was probably tough for them to figure out how to follow up such a huge success now that everyone had high expectations for them. Plus they did have quite a few mods they made for it, such as Blue Shift and Opposing Force.
Yes, the majority of MP3 players use MS software. But that doesn't matter considering that iPods account for about 75% of all MP3 players sold.
And I never said that MS as a whole was unprofitable, or that they were on the verge of financial collapse. What I said is that most of their livelihood is riding on Windows and Office. I don't care if MS Hardware is making a profit - if it is, it's only a small profit and is nowhere near enough to carry MS through if they were to lose MS Office and/or MS Windows, with all their other business ventures.
"there was a stock split about two years ago, which might explain the jump from $70 -> $30."
I know, but (I think) usually when they split they do so in hopes that more people will buy and that the stock price will go right back up. MS stock was known as being one of the "high price" stocks - I'd be willing to bet that they were hoping people would see that it's down to $30 and buy it, hoping that it will shoot back up to somewhere above $50.
Plus, I remember reading somewhere that a bunch of MS people (both the ordinary workers and those higher up) were selling stock - usually if you're higher up in the company you'd hold onto your stocks because you think your company's going to do something really good that makes people like your company more and will make them feel that buying stock in your company is a worthwhile investment.
"I work at MGS and sometimes I feel like we get no respect from those in other divisions"
You should get respect from them - IMO the hardware division and MS Game Studio are the best parts of MS. I don't even touch a Windows machine except for the machines at school - I prefer Linux - but I still use my MS Natural keyboard (it's more comfortable) and I love to play Xbox when I go to my friend's houses or they bring their Xboxes over (my parents don't want me to have a game console).
Exactly. But it's not exactly "chump change for MS Office and Windows" - these two cost a lot, and if you're not very tech-savvy you've basically got two choices - buy a Mac or buy a Windows PC - which will probably come with MS Office.
I'm not saying that MS' other business ventures are big-time money losers - they do make money for MS, just not directly. If MS makes the software for your cellphone, even if they lose money on it, they gain money because they can make it so you can update your address book and install new apps - but only from a Windows PC. MS loses money on the Xbox, but they still can turn it into profit if they let you listen to music, watch movies, and look at pictures on it - but you can only upload them from a Windows PC. Sure, you can view files from your PC on a MSNTV box - but only if it's a Windows PC. Soon people will find that Windows can communicate with all of their devices - but their Linux and Mac PCs can't, or at least not as well.
And I'm willing to bet that any news that you get with an anti-MS conclusion isn't coming from MSNBC - which is what shows up on the MSN homepage, which is what shows up by default when you launch IE, which is what Windows uses by default.
It's kind of like how it used to be with iPods. Originally iPods only worked with Macs - and people were attracted to the iPod, but it only worked with a Mac, so they bought both. Now it's the "iTunes doesn't sell the iPod, the iPod sells iTunes" thing - if you want to upload music to your iPod you have to use iTunes (unless you download another program like Anapod or something - which most people don't because the iPod CD [which you have to use anyway to format the iPod] has iTunes on it). So if you need to use iTunes anyways to put the music on the iPod, who are you more likely to buy your music from, iTunes or another music store? Most people would probably just use iTunes.
"Novell has lasted how long? SCO has lasted how long? MS has $50,000,000,000+ in the bank. MS will be around for a very very long time short of a lot of cataclymic stupidity."
What do Novell and SCO have to do with this? Neither of these has (AFAIK) tried to step into other areas of business. Novell is surviving well because it is good at what it does and is still used in many businesses, and because it bought SuSE Linux. SCO wouldn't have done so bad if they had embraced open source rather than trying to shut it down. IIRC SCO did well back when it was called Caldera and made Caldera Linux - they made many contributions to the open source community. Then they stopped making Caldera Linux, broke off their connections to the open source community, and renamed the company SCO - and that's when it started doing bad.
And, like I said before, there are only two things that make money for MS - the rest is all drug-dealerware and vaporware just meant to keep you using MS stuff - and those two cash cows are Windows and Office. Sure, MS has a huge bank account. But they're only making money off of Windows and Office. That leaves Xbox/Xbox 360, Microsoft Game Studios, Microsoft Publishing, MSNBC (both the website and the TV network - don't forget they've got to pay those reporters and crew), MSN (which includes not only their Internet service and instant messenger, but also Hotmail, Encarta, their new search engine, the MSN "portal" site, and the.Net Passport service), their hardware lab, their new Linux/open-source lab, and plenty of other business ventures that are nothing but loss to them.
Sure, it might take a while, but MS would die out quicker than you'd think. Without a death grip on the PC industry, they'd have to either get a death grip on another industry - which isn't easy to do - or learn to do well in their current industries - which would be hard with so many of them. Either way they'd need to change - which is often hard for a big company to do. And they'd need to stay on their toes - which also is often hard for a big company to do.
I remember hearing about MS stock being around $70 a share. Now it looks like it's trading at about $30 a share - from Yahoo! Finance it doesn't look like Google's ever been below the $100 mark. They're almost up to $400 now. And with Google paying developers to work on Firefox and OpenOffice.org, I think MS is starting to sweat just a little bit - especially since people already are switching over to Firefox, Gmail, and OO.o, but hardly anyone knows or cares about - much less uses - MS's search engine.
Re:about this potential X-Box failure...
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XBOX 360=Dreamcast 2.0?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
"The fact that Microsoft is making so much money in every other area"
What other areas are those? The PDA/cellphone area? No, I gotta say, I think they're losing there. The MP3 player area? No, I gotta say they're losing there, too - even though the majority of MP3 players use MS software, many still don't, and even MS employees agree that the iPod is better. The PC peripheral area? No, I think companies like Logitech and Kensington are still beating them there. The PC gaming area? No, id and Valve have got them beat - and if MS hadn't bought Bungie we'd never be able to make the comparison. Maybe you're talking about Microsoft Press? MS' history is fairly interesting, but I doubt they're making a killing off their books.
Name four areas where MS is "making so much money".
I'll help you out a bit. Let's see - there's the OS area, there's MS Office, there's IE. . . oh, wait, that's free. . . what about OE. . . wait, no, that's free too. . . hmm. . .
And Windows and Office are stolen quite often in other countries. Not to mention the fact that Linux, MacOS, Firefox, and OpenOffice.org are gaining ground. If they ever lose Windows and Office, MS won't last long unless they change their money-spending habits.
"Microsoft has lost billions of dollars on the XBox. Heck, it's still losing money on a quarterly basis as Microsoft readies the 360. If the XBox 360 is as big a financial disaster as the XBox then Microsoft investors are almost certainly going to wonder what they are doing throwing their money down a hole."
It's a pretty well-known fact (at least I always thought it was) that MS loses TONS of money. They lost it on their MSNTV thing, they're losing it on Xbox, they're losing money on their handheld device software, they're losing money on their PC peripherals (mice, keyboards, joysticks, and such). . . they lose money on lots of things.
That's the problem with MS - they can afford to lose - big time. Xbox isn't selling well? Put a little more money into it. WebTV isn't selling well? We'll throw some money into it and try to sell it again as MSNTV - still not selling well? We'll throw more money at it and call it MSNTV 2. And they can still afford to keep losing money because their two biggest cash cows - Windows and Office - are so overpriced, and no matter how ridiculously expensive they are most people will either buy them or get a new computer that comes with them.
But, it can't go on forever, and I think people know this - from what I hear MS stock has declined quite a bit over the past couple years. I don't know if this is because Win2K had so many problems it might as well have had the y2k bug just for extra value (knowing MS they could've gotten away with it by calling it a "feature"), or if it's because of MS' throwing gobs of money into Xbox, or if it's because of Steve Jobs and his "Linux is a cancer" and his "I'll fucking bury the Google boys - I've shafted companies before and I'll do it again", or maybe because people have been tired of them and their shit all along - and now, with Linux and MacOS, and OpenOffice.org being able to read and write Office files and running on any OS, and Firefox proving to be better than IE in many aspects and also running on any OS, people are gradually easing themselves into non-MS alternatives and perhaps will even ditch Windows.
The ONLY thing keeping the current Xbox around - and the only thing that makes anyone even care about the 360 - is the "Halo" series. What games do you think of when you think about Playstation-specific games? Midnight Club, GTA, 007, Devil May Cry, Killzone. . . What about for GameCube? Luigi's Mansion, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Super Smash Bros.,. ..What about Xbox-specific games? Halo and Halo 2, and us guys will think of DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball - pretty much all the rest are also for the other consoles.
Don't get me wrong here - I LOVE Halo! - but it's pretty pathetic that it's the only reason people buy Xbox. I know it's a big cash cow for them, but they're milking that sucker dry as a bone. They've already got Halo 1 and 2, Halo action figures, and, soon, a Halo movie and Halo 3 - if they don't get some other games in there to help it out, it's gonna flop because, yeah, people love playing Halo but it's only a matter of time before PS has something just as cool. And when you're buying a console, what are you gonna buy - the one that has a huge lineup of games or the one that has Halo and "that other game that looked pretty cool in the commercial"?
You forgot to mention the fact that increased use in non-MS software would increase the likelihood that the user would stop using Windows.
Think about it - with all of the viruses and spyware, and all the required updates, mandatory anti-spyware and antivirus programs, and spambots, and other things. . . would YOU still be using Windows if it weren't for:
1. Internet Explorer - Firefox is a great alternative and also runs on both Mac OS and Linux 2. Outlook Express - many e-mail services use a Web interface, and Thunderbird runs on Windows, Mac OS and Linux if your e-mail server doesn't use a Web interface (or you don't like the Web interface) 3. MS Office - OpenOffice.org runs GREAT, and it can do anything Office can. Also, it can read your old MS Office files flawlessly - it might trip up on things like embedded video clips but other than that it works great. OO.o also can run on Windows, Linux. or Mac OS.
If Google were "just" attacking IE, then MS would take minimal damage - especially since MS makes no money off of IE itself (instead, they use it as a tool to lock people into using their products - I've heard Windows breaks without it, and I'm sure MS Office and other programs make use of it).
However, Google is attacking MS on all three fronts - they're attacking IE by supporting Firefox, they're attacking OE with Gmail and its Web interface (which works with any browser - not just IE and Firefox/Mozilla but even some of the lesser-known ones), and they're attacking MS Office by supporting OpenOffice.org.
(IOW Google is screwing MS over - and they've got plenty of people who are with them all the way. Not only do they have the support of Linux and Mac lovers, but they also have support from some of the MS lovers who just don't like Firefox and OE, they have support from people/institutions that can't afford to buy Office or Windows but still want to be able to view customers' Word docs, and the support of businesses who want to make handheld devices that can check e-mail, edit documents, and surf the Web without owing royalties to MS, as well as hackers that want to hack devices like the PSP to have these capabilities. And I'm sure there are others.)
I switched from Windows to Linux a while back, and I have absolutely NO regrets (except that I can't run some of my games:( ). I can transfer files between my PC and a Windows PC flawlessly with my USB flash drive, I can edit Word docs on my PC flawlessly, edit them, save them, and then bring them to school and view them perfectly.
I don't. This program is for advertisers who use AdSense, not for ordinary users like you and me - or even for bloggers. You only get money if you are using AdSense - not only that, but you'd have to get your website's users to either sign up for AdSense or start using FireFox.
"but will people care when they get it automatically installed at their computers?"
So what if it's automatically installed on their computers? They'll be referred to Firefox by any AdSense-using site they visit - I'm sure a good amount of them will switch over to Firefox, especially once the first major Vista virus is out (and I doubt it will be very long until that happens - I heard that there's already a virus for MS' new scripting language).
Have you ever seen that picture of the original MS staff way back in the '80s or whatever? They look like they probably did do lines, or smoke weed or something.
"operating system under development" . . . "designed new from the ground up, built on a new language and designed with emphasis on dependability instead of performance."
Dammit MS! It's amazing that anyone will buy your products anymore.
"Designed new from the ground up", "Designed with emphasis on dependability instead of performance" - didn't they say that's what they did for Vista? Didn't they promise that it'd be rebuilt from the ground up with security and stability in mind?
"Microsoft publish benchmark statistics showing Linux (and FreeBSD) to be better than Windows."
MS is monopolistic, not stupid. It's no secret that Windows blows - even many people who use Windows think it sucks.
It's not all that shocking to me that MS is publishing the truth - when they published the lies, all it did was call a huge backlash from people who knew the truth. Now they're probably hoping to keep people from switching to Linux with a "we'll make it better. . . we promise!" kind of thing.
"That's why its a phenomenon seen with electrons in atoms for example, and not people and walls."
Right, but regular physics still says that nothing can be two places at once - which makes it damn confusing when quantum physics says that things can be and that some things (such as electrons) often are. I'm not talking about it actually jumping from atom to atom or being on two atoms at the same time, but actually being two places at the same time on the same atom.
My understanding of quantum physics is very basic (I'm still taking regular physics!) and all came from a video I saw so maybe there's something I'm misunderstanding or something I didn't catch but I'm pretty sure they said in there somewhere that subatomic particles can be in multiple locations at the same time.
I don't think they'll outdo the iPod. First of all, the firmware isn't what made the iPod a hit, it's the fact that you can easily and quickly play; pause; change and create playlists; change volume and song; seek to a specific location in the song; rate the song; search by artist, album, genre, etc.; and many other things using only your thumb.
It has little to do with the quality of the firmware - it's got just about everything to do with its cool-looking design and ease-of-use.
The fact that it doesn't use MS-licensed software is great, too - makes it just that much more likely that it works with Linux (and it does, flawlessly, by the way).
Not that the iPod couldn't benefit from open source - iPodLinux looks really cool, and it must be great being able to create and play MP3s on your iPod, as well as play games and do many other things you can do in Linux. But a lot of that isn't really what you're looking for in an MP3 player.
Oh, and one more thing that makes the iPod better - it doesn't try to be a Swiss Army knife like the Neuros player looks like it's trying to do. My iPod mini doesn't play videos and doesn't have a color screen, and I don't care because it's for listening to, not for watching. And the Video iPod is for watching, and I'm sure they tried to make sure it's not an eyesore. This thing (judging from its picture) looks like just a boring digital camera, not something I'd want to watch an entire episode of "Battlestar Galactica" on.
Plus, the iPod's got cool accessories for it, like speakers that hook up to it, radio transmitters, armbands for when you're jogging or biking or whatever, remote controls (for when you're listening to the iPod through speakers or the radio instead of headphones), and alarm clocks that play one of your MP3s instead of having that loud, annoying beep.
I don't know about that. I think people are just used to it and put up with it. I'm a teen and I know that while most of my friends don't complain about paying $20 or whatever for a CD, most of them wouldn't even think twice about copying it off someone or asking someone who owns the CD to copy it for them.
I don't buy many CDs either. But I think the main driving factors in whether or not you're going to steal it or buy it are:
(a) Is it shit? There's a lot of stuff on the radio that, quite frankly, really sucks. The last CD I bought (well, it was actually 2 CDs) was Led Zeppelin's Greatest Hits. I didn't mind paying $20 for it because first of all, all the songs I recognized on the back of the case were songs I liked, and second of all, there were 2 whole CDs so there were bound to be songs on there I liked but had never heard. I don't mind plopping down $15-$25 for a CD that I know will be worth it, but not for some crap where I only like one song on the CD.
(b) Is it cheap? I don't mind paying $5 for a mix CD as long as the CD's got a couple good songs on it and the rest aren't horrible.
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Plus, it appears from the diagram to say that it would require "2.07" people to exert 1360 newtons of force on this cow. Doing a quick conversion on www.onlineconversion.com shows that 1360 newtons of force is about 306 pounds of force. If you had two or three jocks tipping the cow - or a group of 5 or more normal guys - it doesn't sound so impossible.
Here's news to business people: you don't have to use - or even touch, or think about - open-source software! If you want to release a program that isn't open source, that's fine - good for you. We're not forcing you into writing open-source programs, but both you and us alike have the freedom to release our programs under whatever sort of license we want. Just because I choose open-source doesn't mean you have to.
I think some companies are getting a little greedy and wish they could just take the source and put it into their closed-source programs. They don't like the "our program, our rules" sort of thing. I've got news for them - just because someone is releasing their source into the community for everyone to use doesn't mean that you can take it as your own. It's fine to charge for a CD, but it's NOT okay to think that our open-source code is just out there for you to take as your own - if you want to use open-source code, then you've gotta follow the rules of its license. You don't want me to steal your programs and code, do you? We obey your licenses when we buy your products, now you obey our licenses. Don't get greedy - we're giving you free code, and there's ABSOLUTELY NOTHING saying that you can't make profit off of it (just look at companies like SuSE, Mandriva, and RedHat) but you can't just take it as your own.
Well if I were with Britney Spears, I'd use a Trojan too :)
Dammit! Guppy's onto me! ^W^W^W^W
The way I see it, the problem isn't so much the copy-protection as it is the fact that it installs a rootkit (which is usually something hackers would do if they wanted to sabotage your PC and bypass all built-in security features). If you ask me, it's 100% OK for them to require copyright protection - but NOT through the use of a rootkit. They could've required the use of a simple add-on program rather than a rootkit that can't be removed short of reinstalling Windows. Yeah, I'm sure that's real comforting to hear from Tech Support - "Now just take out your backup drive and. . . what? You don't have a backup drive? Uh-oh. . ." And it'd be too late to make a new backup since that would include the registry keys and program files for the rootkit.
I'm sure they weren't intending for this to be a security problem but it is - or at least could easily become one. Plus it's a big inconvenience if the rootkit breaks some part of Windows - especially since you can't just uninstall the rootkit.
The only thing I don't like about Cedega is that IT DOESN'T WORK! I don't know if it's always been this way but the free version of Cedega won't even run Steam. Although it used to so I don't know what changed - Cedega or Steam.
What distro do you use? I've NEVER had to tinker with a bunch of crap to get things to work - not any more than I did for Windows. Everything worked perfectly straight from install - and I'm not just talking about on one specific distro. I've tried Mandrake 8.0-(I think it was 10.1 - whatever it was just before they started calling it Mandriva), Red Hat 9.0, Fedora Core 1-3, and Slackware 10.1-10.2 (what I use now) and I've never had any problems - just things I didn't like (for example, RH and FC blocking MP3s and Mandrake seeming to have kind-of abandoned its non-paying users).
AFAIK X should have no problem using any resolution - my guess is that your video driver didn't support that resolution. And, yes, wireless in Linux may not work all that well on some cards - but that's because the chipmakers don't support Linux too much and many don't make a Linux driver, so the community has to make their own.
Maybe it's just a laptop thing. I know my laptop works fine with Slackware 10.2 but it's an old 400MHz machine - maybe the newer ones don't work as well with Linux. . .
And when you're talking strictly about using xbox-linux. . . of course it's not easy! MS doesn't want you running Linux on your Xbox - they're not just going to tell you the hardware specs and stuff. It's not Linux's fault, and if MS were to tell you exactly what kind of soundchip Xbox uses I'm sure you'd have no problem getting it to work.
To many people who don't have iPods, they're just an ordinary MP3 player. That's the way I always felt - until I actually used one.
They're just cool. And they're easy to use. And they work great. I'm sure some of these fed-up MS users thought one day of how well their iPod works and how much they use it (I usually listen to mine in the car, sometimes when doing homework, when I'm mowing the lawn, riding my bike...) and compared that to how poorly their Windows machine works even with 20+ times the speed and RAM - and the new ones even play video. I know my iPod certainly gives me a good impression of Apple (though I've never used a Mac - I like to build my own PCs with Linux, which I'm quite happy with).
I don't play console games other than when I go to my friends' houses or when they bring their Xboxes over, so I really don't know a whole ton of console games other than what I see advertised and what I hear people talking about.
Yes, the majority of MP3 players use MS software. But that doesn't matter considering that iPods account for about 75% of all MP3 players sold.
And I never said that MS as a whole was unprofitable, or that they were on the verge of financial collapse. What I said is that most of their livelihood is riding on Windows and Office. I don't care if MS Hardware is making a profit - if it is, it's only a small profit and is nowhere near enough to carry MS through if they were to lose MS Office and/or MS Windows, with all their other business ventures.
I know, but (I think) usually when they split they do so in hopes that more people will buy and that the stock price will go right back up. MS stock was known as being one of the "high price" stocks - I'd be willing to bet that they were hoping people would see that it's down to $30 and buy it, hoping that it will shoot back up to somewhere above $50.
Plus, I remember reading somewhere that a bunch of MS people (both the ordinary workers and those higher up) were selling stock - usually if you're higher up in the company you'd hold onto your stocks because you think your company's going to do something really good that makes people like your company more and will make them feel that buying stock in your company is a worthwhile investment.
"I work at MGS and sometimes I feel like we get no respect from those in other divisions"
You should get respect from them - IMO the hardware division and MS Game Studio are the best parts of MS. I don't even touch a Windows machine except for the machines at school - I prefer Linux - but I still use my MS Natural keyboard (it's more comfortable) and I love to play Xbox when I go to my friend's houses or they bring their Xboxes over (my parents don't want me to have a game console).
I'm not saying that MS' other business ventures are big-time money losers - they do make money for MS, just not directly. If MS makes the software for your cellphone, even if they lose money on it, they gain money because they can make it so you can update your address book and install new apps - but only from a Windows PC. MS loses money on the Xbox, but they still can turn it into profit if they let you listen to music, watch movies, and look at pictures on it - but you can only upload them from a Windows PC. Sure, you can view files from your PC on a MSNTV box - but only if it's a Windows PC. Soon people will find that Windows can communicate with all of their devices - but their Linux and Mac PCs can't, or at least not as well.
And I'm willing to bet that any news that you get with an anti-MS conclusion isn't coming from MSNBC - which is what shows up on the MSN homepage, which is what shows up by default when you launch IE, which is what Windows uses by default.
It's kind of like how it used to be with iPods. Originally iPods only worked with Macs - and people were attracted to the iPod, but it only worked with a Mac, so they bought both. Now it's the "iTunes doesn't sell the iPod, the iPod sells iTunes" thing - if you want to upload music to your iPod you have to use iTunes (unless you download another program like Anapod or something - which most people don't because the iPod CD [which you have to use anyway to format the iPod] has iTunes on it). So if you need to use iTunes anyways to put the music on the iPod, who are you more likely to buy your music from, iTunes or another music store? Most people would probably just use iTunes.
What do Novell and SCO have to do with this? Neither of these has (AFAIK) tried to step into other areas of business. Novell is surviving well because it is good at what it does and is still used in many businesses, and because it bought SuSE Linux. SCO wouldn't have done so bad if they had embraced open source rather than trying to shut it down. IIRC SCO did well back when it was called Caldera and made Caldera Linux - they made many contributions to the open source community. Then they stopped making Caldera Linux, broke off their connections to the open source community, and renamed the company SCO - and that's when it started doing bad.
And, like I said before, there are only two things that make money for MS - the rest is all drug-dealerware and vaporware just meant to keep you using MS stuff - and those two cash cows are Windows and Office. Sure, MS has a huge bank account. But they're only making money off of Windows and Office. That leaves Xbox/Xbox 360, Microsoft Game Studios, Microsoft Publishing, MSNBC (both the website and the TV network - don't forget they've got to pay those reporters and crew), MSN (which includes not only their Internet service and instant messenger, but also Hotmail, Encarta, their new search engine, the MSN "portal" site, and the .Net Passport service), their hardware lab, their new Linux/open-source lab, and plenty of other business ventures that are nothing but loss to them.
Sure, it might take a while, but MS would die out quicker than you'd think. Without a death grip on the PC industry, they'd have to either get a death grip on another industry - which isn't easy to do - or learn to do well in their current industries - which would be hard with so many of them. Either way they'd need to change - which is often hard for a big company to do. And they'd need to stay on their toes - which also is often hard for a big company to do.
I remember hearing about MS stock being around $70 a share. Now it looks like it's trading at about $30 a share - from Yahoo! Finance it doesn't look like Google's ever been below the $100 mark. They're almost up to $400 now. And with Google paying developers to work on Firefox and OpenOffice.org, I think MS is starting to sweat just a little bit - especially since people already are switching over to Firefox, Gmail, and OO.o, but hardly anyone knows or cares about - much less uses - MS's search engine.
What other areas are those? The PDA/cellphone area? No, I gotta say, I think they're losing there. The MP3 player area? No, I gotta say they're losing there, too - even though the majority of MP3 players use MS software, many still don't, and even MS employees agree that the iPod is better. The PC peripheral area? No, I think companies like Logitech and Kensington are still beating them there. The PC gaming area? No, id and Valve have got them beat - and if MS hadn't bought Bungie we'd never be able to make the comparison. Maybe you're talking about Microsoft Press? MS' history is fairly interesting, but I doubt they're making a killing off their books.
Name four areas where MS is "making so much money".
I'll help you out a bit. Let's see - there's the OS area, there's MS Office, there's IE. . . oh, wait, that's free. . . what about OE. . . wait, no, that's free too. . . hmm. . .
And Windows and Office are stolen quite often in other countries. Not to mention the fact that Linux, MacOS, Firefox, and OpenOffice.org are gaining ground. If they ever lose Windows and Office, MS won't last long unless they change their money-spending habits.
It's a pretty well-known fact (at least I always thought it was) that MS loses TONS of money. They lost it on their MSNTV thing, they're losing it on Xbox, they're losing money on their handheld device software, they're losing money on their PC peripherals (mice, keyboards, joysticks, and such). . . they lose money on lots of things.
That's the problem with MS - they can afford to lose - big time. Xbox isn't selling well? Put a little more money into it. WebTV isn't selling well? We'll throw some money into it and try to sell it again as MSNTV - still not selling well? We'll throw more money at it and call it MSNTV 2. And they can still afford to keep losing money because their two biggest cash cows - Windows and Office - are so overpriced, and no matter how ridiculously expensive they are most people will either buy them or get a new computer that comes with them.
But, it can't go on forever, and I think people know this - from what I hear MS stock has declined quite a bit over the past couple years. I don't know if this is because Win2K had so many problems it might as well have had the y2k bug just for extra value (knowing MS they could've gotten away with it by calling it a "feature"), or if it's because of MS' throwing gobs of money into Xbox, or if it's because of Steve Jobs and his "Linux is a cancer" and his "I'll fucking bury the Google boys - I've shafted companies before and I'll do it again", or maybe because people have been tired of them and their shit all along - and now, with Linux and MacOS, and OpenOffice.org being able to read and write Office files and running on any OS, and Firefox proving to be better than IE in many aspects and also running on any OS, people are gradually easing themselves into non-MS alternatives and perhaps will even ditch Windows.
Don't get me wrong here - I LOVE Halo! - but it's pretty pathetic that it's the only reason people buy Xbox. I know it's a big cash cow for them, but they're milking that sucker dry as a bone. They've already got Halo 1 and 2, Halo action figures, and, soon, a Halo movie and Halo 3 - if they don't get some other games in there to help it out, it's gonna flop because, yeah, people love playing Halo but it's only a matter of time before PS has something just as cool. And when you're buying a console, what are you gonna buy - the one that has a huge lineup of games or the one that has Halo and "that other game that looked pretty cool in the commercial"?
Think about it - with all of the viruses and spyware, and all the required updates, mandatory anti-spyware and antivirus programs, and spambots, and other things. . . would YOU still be using Windows if it weren't for:
1. Internet Explorer - Firefox is a great alternative and also runs on both Mac OS and Linux
2. Outlook Express - many e-mail services use a Web interface, and Thunderbird runs on Windows, Mac OS and Linux if your e-mail server doesn't use a Web interface (or you don't like the Web interface)
3. MS Office - OpenOffice.org runs GREAT, and it can do anything Office can. Also, it can read your old MS Office files flawlessly - it might trip up on things like embedded video clips but other than that it works great. OO.o also can run on Windows, Linux. or Mac OS.
If Google were "just" attacking IE, then MS would take minimal damage - especially since MS makes no money off of IE itself (instead, they use it as a tool to lock people into using their products - I've heard Windows breaks without it, and I'm sure MS Office and other programs make use of it).
However, Google is attacking MS on all three fronts - they're attacking IE by supporting Firefox, they're attacking OE with Gmail and its Web interface (which works with any browser - not just IE and Firefox/Mozilla but even some of the lesser-known ones), and they're attacking MS Office by supporting OpenOffice.org.
(IOW Google is screwing MS over - and they've got plenty of people who are with them all the way. Not only do they have the support of Linux and Mac lovers, but they also have support from some of the MS lovers who just don't like Firefox and OE, they have support from people/institutions that can't afford to buy Office or Windows but still want to be able to view customers' Word docs, and the support of businesses who want to make handheld devices that can check e-mail, edit documents, and surf the Web without owing royalties to MS, as well as hackers that want to hack devices like the PSP to have these capabilities. And I'm sure there are others.)
I switched from Windows to Linux a while back, and I have absolutely NO regrets (except that I can't run some of my games :( ). I can transfer files between my PC and a Windows PC flawlessly with my USB flash drive, I can edit Word docs on my PC flawlessly, edit them, save them, and then bring them to school and view them perfectly.
I don't. This program is for advertisers who use AdSense, not for ordinary users like you and me - or even for bloggers. You only get money if you are using AdSense - not only that, but you'd have to get your website's users to either sign up for AdSense or start using FireFox.
So what if it's automatically installed on their computers? They'll be referred to Firefox by any AdSense-using site they visit - I'm sure a good amount of them will switch over to Firefox, especially once the first major Vista virus is out (and I doubt it will be very long until that happens - I heard that there's already a virus for MS' new scripting language).
Have you ever seen that picture of the original MS staff way back in the '80s or whatever? They look like they probably did do lines, or smoke weed or something.
Dammit MS! It's amazing that anyone will buy your products anymore.
"Designed new from the ground up", "Designed with emphasis on dependability instead of performance" - didn't they say that's what they did for Vista? Didn't they promise that it'd be rebuilt from the ground up with security and stability in mind?
MS is monopolistic, not stupid. It's no secret that Windows blows - even many people who use Windows think it sucks.
It's not all that shocking to me that MS is publishing the truth - when they published the lies, all it did was call a huge backlash from people who knew the truth. Now they're probably hoping to keep people from switching to Linux with a "we'll make it better. . . we promise!" kind of thing.
Right, but regular physics still says that nothing can be two places at once - which makes it damn confusing when quantum physics says that things can be and that some things (such as electrons) often are. I'm not talking about it actually jumping from atom to atom or being on two atoms at the same time, but actually being two places at the same time on the same atom.
My understanding of quantum physics is very basic (I'm still taking regular physics!) and all came from a video I saw so maybe there's something I'm misunderstanding or something I didn't catch but I'm pretty sure they said in there somewhere that subatomic particles can be in multiple locations at the same time.
It has little to do with the quality of the firmware - it's got just about everything to do with its cool-looking design and ease-of-use.
The fact that it doesn't use MS-licensed software is great, too - makes it just that much more likely that it works with Linux (and it does, flawlessly, by the way).
Not that the iPod couldn't benefit from open source - iPodLinux looks really cool, and it must be great being able to create and play MP3s on your iPod, as well as play games and do many other things you can do in Linux. But a lot of that isn't really what you're looking for in an MP3 player.
Oh, and one more thing that makes the iPod better - it doesn't try to be a Swiss Army knife like the Neuros player looks like it's trying to do. My iPod mini doesn't play videos and doesn't have a color screen, and I don't care because it's for listening to, not for watching. And the Video iPod is for watching, and I'm sure they tried to make sure it's not an eyesore. This thing (judging from its picture) looks like just a boring digital camera, not something I'd want to watch an entire episode of "Battlestar Galactica" on.
Plus, the iPod's got cool accessories for it, like speakers that hook up to it, radio transmitters, armbands for when you're jogging or biking or whatever, remote controls (for when you're listening to the iPod through speakers or the radio instead of headphones), and alarm clocks that play one of your MP3s instead of having that loud, annoying beep.
I don't know about that. I think people are just used to it and put up with it. I'm a teen and I know that while most of my friends don't complain about paying $20 or whatever for a CD, most of them wouldn't even think twice about copying it off someone or asking someone who owns the CD to copy it for them.
I don't buy many CDs either. But I think the main driving factors in whether or not you're going to steal it or buy it are:
(a) Is it shit? There's a lot of stuff on the radio that, quite frankly, really sucks. The last CD I bought (well, it was actually 2 CDs) was Led Zeppelin's Greatest Hits. I didn't mind paying $20 for it because first of all, all the songs I recognized on the back of the case were songs I liked, and second of all, there were 2 whole CDs so there were bound to be songs on there I liked but had never heard. I don't mind plopping down $15-$25 for a CD that I know will be worth it, but not for some crap where I only like one song on the CD.
(b) Is it cheap? I don't mind paying $5 for a mix CD as long as the CD's got a couple good songs on it and the rest aren't horrible.