Ah, but you forget that NBC Universal formed a joint venture with Fox to distribute their content online, in direct competition with Apple. They're not just walking away from the business. They're saying that Apple is screwing them so they're going to go it alone and, perhaps, screw Apple.
Well, not really. I don't think NBC's DRM approach is wises for them or good for users but Apple is starting to smell a bit more arrogant thean usual - which is saying a lot. They're a lot like Microsoft was in the early 90's...our way or the highway. It'll be good for them to have a little competition and take them down a notch or two.
PS. iPod's are overpriced and overrated. Buy "generic" and save!
This is an issue that has ebbed and flowed for decades. The world swings back and forth from centralized systems (e.g. mainframe) to edge devices (PC's/phones) and now, somewhat, back toward centralized systems (Google etal) connecting to dumb clients on the edge (Web browsers etc.). The reality is the the best solution is a combination of powerful devices on the "edge" or in the corporate datacenter and Web-based services. Some of those Web-based services provided good utility in their own right - Google, Hotmail etc.. Others are Web-based services that enhance "edge" devices - spam filtering for email servers or mail clients, storage services for PC apps like Photoshop Elements etc. When I hear the mantra of Software as a Service (SaaS) from some quarters I think they're insane. Microsoft in this case has it right. They're talking about "Software + Services" - the best of both worlds where you have the appropriate combination of local software running on servers, PC, Phones, XBOX's etc and "cloud services."
Seriously...how many companies have tried to take on Microsoft in word processing/spreadsheets etc? What makes Adobe think they have a better chance of success than Novell, Corel etal? Flash? AIR? Yeah...right. Seriously, Adobe is doing a halfway decent job of competing with Microsoft as the platform level with Flex/Flash and maybe AIR. Why not stick to that knitting before they decide to expand their ambitions? Maybe it's because they know something the rest of us don't regarding their ability to seriously compete as a platform provider.
CP/M high volume? RIIIIIIIGHT.
Show me the long list of hardware and software for the Amiga and then compare that list to what was available for Windows. No comparison. The Mac has a slightly better story but the variety of hardware devices and apps pales in comparison.
I guess "shit" is in the eye of the beholder. I'd rather have had shitty old Windows that runs on thousands of different hardware platfoms and runs tens of thousands of apps than an Amiga that ran basically nothing.
By the way, I've owned MANY Mac's so I'm not a PC-only bigot.
I think you're fooling yourself. Various flavors of Unix certainly played some role in driving standardization in hardware but Windows deserves the lionshare of the credit. Before Windows (or DOS...) there was no high-volume, mainstream OS that ran on commodity hardware. Love 'em or hate 'em but MSFT had the business sense to build and license their OS to anybody who wanted to use it. The result was a huge amount of innovation in hardware devices and software that worked with Windows. I'm not arguing that Windows was the only OS to do that but it was the only one that was widely available at low cost to anybody who wanted it. Apple, had they had better business sense, could have done the same thing but they didn't.
Quick reality check for you dude. I know reality hurts but...
Microsoft is NOT barred from "embedding the functionality of other software markets into their OS..." They are barred from integrating trademarked functionality/features defined as "middleware" according to the court definition that prevents third parties from offering the same functionality with equal visibility. The court did not rule that they cannot bundle this middleware into their OS. They are just required to make it possible for similar functionality offered by other companies to compete.
You're clearly dense. Microsoft does more to publish their API's than any comapany in the world for a very simple reason: they want others to write software for Windows. Duh. Do a quick search on MSDN for "SDK" and you'll find dozens. There's a platform SDK for all versions of Windows. There are SDK's for other platforms as well - Office, Windows Media Player, many many others.
Get educated.
Love 'em or hate 'em but Microsoft has a cool idea with Popfly in that they're providing a tool for NON-DEVELOPERS to build applications for "platforms" like Facebook. Drag and drop a few objects written by real developers and connect them and modify them in ways that you want and you have an application. This is markedly different than Yahoo Tubes which is clearly targeted at coders. I'm not sure if Facebook will be a huge success as a platform but if MSFT can make Popfly easy enough for anybody to use then they'll be successful in lots of places including Facebook.
By the way, I think InfoCards can and will interop with other authentication approaches. If Liberty actually ever produced any real working coded they could probalby work with InfoCards. It would be relatively trivial for Apple to create an iWallet;) that their users can use to manage these identity cards.
I think this connecting Web surfing behavior to individual people is somewhat scary but probably inevitable. Deleting cookies daily will not keep you anonymous forever. Even if the Fed's or EU make this stuff illegal it will be done by somebody. I'd rather it was done in a transparent way - at least that way we have some idea of what "they" know.
Regarding CardSpace and InfoCards...as a heavy Web user I would LOVE if it were to succeed. It would make my job much easier and ultimately more secure. The thing about InfoCards is that you're not transmitting your user name and password over the wire. You're sending an encrypted token. The data stays with whomever "issued" you your InfoCard. For example, I use Bank of America (fuck them, by the way). When I sign-in to the B of A Web site today I enter a username...then they prompt me with a second screen which shows a photo that I selected. If the photo is the one I selected I enter my password and I'm authenticated. While this is somewhat more secure than the usual username and password combo it's still unsecure for a number of reasons. First, because B of A is only one of about 1000 sites I use I use a password that...while somewhat secure...is probalby relatively easy to break. Second, I send my username and password over the wire every time I sign on to the site. While they use SSL it would be relatively easy for someone to steal the user name and password - eithe from Phising or some other method like keystroke logging. With an InfoCard, B of A issues me an encrypted token that says I am who I say I am. When I sign-on to their site using that InfoCard I send them the token, not the actual username and password.
This is still not perfect but from a usability standpoint and from an overall security standpoint it is a huge advance over the way things are done today.
The other neat thing about InfoCards is that there is nothing Microsoft proprietary about them. They're based on WS* standards. Anyone could implement their own InfoCard manager on any platform/OS. Microsoft happens to have one in Windows Vista that they call CardSpace. All CardSpace is is a "wallet" for storing the cards. But all the cards have is the token...not the actual data.
CardSpace also has a neat feature where you can create a self-issued InfoCard. You can create as many as you want that share as little or as much information as you may want to share with a site. You can have one that has a made-up name (studmuffin) and lame password (player) that you can use when creating accounts on Web sites you've never visted before. The idea is that rather than going through the process of filling out a bunch of fields on the Web site you submit your self-issued InfoCard and it happens automatically. For sites that you want/need to have a more secure and personal relationship like a bank you might have another self-issued InfoCard that includes your real name, address, phone number etc.
Overall I think InfoCards...or something like them...are necessary. How many of you have 20 or 30 user names and passwords either written down on paper somewhere or maybe in a file on your system or in your email address manager? That's insecure and a hassle. I want to be able to sign-on in a click of two.
By the way, the guy behind InfoCard/CardSpace is not some wierd Microsoft borg guy. He's a renounded leader in identity management and, based on what I've read, is probably more concerned about privacy and security than most people.
I agree with most of what you said. It's like trying to be cool when you're not or, even if you are cool, you can't say you are or...you're not cool.
What I don't really agree with is the criticism of them saying they want to democratize development. Maybe "democratize" wasn't the best choice of words but I think there's something cool about trying to make computing and development more accessible. I think one of the reasons the uber eggheads have such a hard time with Microsoft (beyond some bad behavior a few years back) is that they feel threatened by them. MSFT created VB because they wanted to make it easier to write apps for Windows than using C. Sure, C is a more elegante' and powerful way to write apps but VB was easy enough that anybody would put together a decent Windows app. Despite what some may think, Microsoft has generally forced prices of computing down, making it more accessible to everyone. Sure, today you can get good software for nothing but overall Microsoft software is and has always been cheaper than most commercial alternatives.
But I digress. Popfly seems to be about making it easy for anyone to make simple little Web apps. It's a step in the right direction as far as I'm concerned. Even if it does make nervous the people who like to feel superior to everyone else b/c they have more technical knowledge.
Silverlight ActiveX for Web 2.0? Uhh...no. Silverlight runs on Mac (Firefox and Safari) and Windows. No activex.
Nobody wants it? No again. Developers who actually want to write applications instead of only making annoying Flash-y animations will like Silverlight. Wait for a year and see.
Hey, I've had three beers so maybe I'm just feeling feisty but you're clearly a fucking idiot. Zune, while not a raging success, is classic Microsoft. A decent but not great product that in this case has an innovative idea - music sharing - that wasn't quite ready for prime time. They'll stick with it and, as with XBOX vs. PS, they'll eventually get it right and be #1 or #2 in the market. Windows Mobile is already the #2 platform for smart phones in the world and quickly catching up to Symbian. As somoene who has used both platforms extensively - as well as RIM - I can tell you that Windows Mobile is in most (not all) superior. So, your definition of "hideous mess" must be more of a reflection on your life given that you have nothing more intersting or constructive to add the discourse than this drivel.
Nice hopes but I don't think patent law works like that. Copying (or, more put more friendly "using") someone else's intellectual property without permission or paying a royalty cann't be redressed by making trivial changes. Sure, that may work in some cases but in all? Not likely.
I'm a good Democratic (as in Democratic Party) and hardly a right-wing flag waving free market lunatic. But even I think that people and companies need to be rewarded for investing in R&D. If MSFT or any other company is prevented for earning royalties on their IP then they will have no incentive to do research. Yes, they can continue to develop products to meet users needs but if FOSS can just use/borrow/mimic/copy all of their work without at no cost then they have an unfair leg-up. Competing with "free" as in money, not freedom, is hard enough when there's a level playing field. When "free" software also uses patented methods that's rediculous.
Google will take care of us. Not to worry. They don't do evil...as long as you watch their ads. Just don't ask questions or break their NDA's. Then you're fucked.
But seriously, from what I can tell, the real and fairly cool vision of Windows Live is to allow for easy and seamless sync of data between PC's (and Mac's), phones, others personal devices - delivering the data in a format appropriate for the device/form factor. I personally have a home server already but would be more than happy to get rid of it if I could pay someone else a few bucks a month to deal with it for me and deal with the various sync issues that I don't want to have to deal with manually. I think this is what Ray Ozzie envisions with Windows Live. We'll see if they actually deliver. Hope so.
Total nonesese from someone who knows nothing about accounting. It is a common practice to defer income...Microsoft has been doing so for years. If it were somehow nefarious then it would have caught up with them by now.
People can reasonably accuse MSFT of many things but of accounting tricks. Microsoft, many might argue, is overly conservative in their accounting practices and always have been. Take a look at reports from any big brokerage/analyst firm and you'll see they say the same thing.
At least in the US they'll have a hard time if they don't sync with Exchange. Windows Mobile is popular and growing rapidly in the states because of that. And you can buy a decent device (Motorola Q) for $149. Much easier sell to a business than $599 or whatever Apple ends up charging.
Microsoft reports earnings on Thursday and I'm sure they'll provide some details on sales of Vista and Office 2007. From what I've read, sales of Vista seem to be good. Dell's decision to offer XP is a PR thing...they had a few customers who complained.
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Ah, but you forget that NBC Universal formed a joint venture with Fox to distribute their content online, in direct competition with Apple. They're not just walking away from the business. They're saying that Apple is screwing them so they're going to go it alone and, perhaps, screw Apple.
Well, not really. I don't think NBC's DRM approach is wises for them or good for users but Apple is starting to smell a bit more arrogant thean usual - which is saying a lot. They're a lot like Microsoft was in the early 90's...our way or the highway. It'll be good for them to have a little competition and take them down a notch or two.
PS. iPod's are overpriced and overrated. Buy "generic" and save!
This is an issue that has ebbed and flowed for decades. The world swings back and forth from centralized systems (e.g. mainframe) to edge devices (PC's/phones) and now, somewhat, back toward centralized systems (Google etal) connecting to dumb clients on the edge (Web browsers etc.). The reality is the the best solution is a combination of powerful devices on the "edge" or in the corporate datacenter and Web-based services. Some of those Web-based services provided good utility in their own right - Google, Hotmail etc.. Others are Web-based services that enhance "edge" devices - spam filtering for email servers or mail clients, storage services for PC apps like Photoshop Elements etc. When I hear the mantra of Software as a Service (SaaS) from some quarters I think they're insane. Microsoft in this case has it right. They're talking about "Software + Services" - the best of both worlds where you have the appropriate combination of local software running on servers, PC, Phones, XBOX's etc and "cloud services."
Seriously...how many companies have tried to take on Microsoft in word processing/spreadsheets etc? What makes Adobe think they have a better chance of success than Novell, Corel etal? Flash? AIR? Yeah...right. Seriously, Adobe is doing a halfway decent job of competing with Microsoft as the platform level with Flex/Flash and maybe AIR. Why not stick to that knitting before they decide to expand their ambitions? Maybe it's because they know something the rest of us don't regarding their ability to seriously compete as a platform provider.
CP/M high volume? RIIIIIIIGHT. Show me the long list of hardware and software for the Amiga and then compare that list to what was available for Windows. No comparison. The Mac has a slightly better story but the variety of hardware devices and apps pales in comparison. I guess "shit" is in the eye of the beholder. I'd rather have had shitty old Windows that runs on thousands of different hardware platfoms and runs tens of thousands of apps than an Amiga that ran basically nothing. By the way, I've owned MANY Mac's so I'm not a PC-only bigot.
I think you're fooling yourself. Various flavors of Unix certainly played some role in driving standardization in hardware but Windows deserves the lionshare of the credit. Before Windows (or DOS...) there was no high-volume, mainstream OS that ran on commodity hardware. Love 'em or hate 'em but MSFT had the business sense to build and license their OS to anybody who wanted to use it. The result was a huge amount of innovation in hardware devices and software that worked with Windows. I'm not arguing that Windows was the only OS to do that but it was the only one that was widely available at low cost to anybody who wanted it. Apple, had they had better business sense, could have done the same thing but they didn't.
Quick reality check for you dude. I know reality hurts but... Microsoft is NOT barred from "embedding the functionality of other software markets into their OS..." They are barred from integrating trademarked functionality/features defined as "middleware" according to the court definition that prevents third parties from offering the same functionality with equal visibility. The court did not rule that they cannot bundle this middleware into their OS. They are just required to make it possible for similar functionality offered by other companies to compete.
You're clearly dense. Microsoft does more to publish their API's than any comapany in the world for a very simple reason: they want others to write software for Windows. Duh. Do a quick search on MSDN for "SDK" and you'll find dozens. There's a platform SDK for all versions of Windows. There are SDK's for other platforms as well - Office, Windows Media Player, many many others. Get educated.
Check this link out: http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html
You can see some pretty cool demos at http://www.microsoft.com/surface/
Love 'em or hate 'em but Microsoft has a cool idea with Popfly in that they're providing a tool for NON-DEVELOPERS to build applications for "platforms" like Facebook. Drag and drop a few objects written by real developers and connect them and modify them in ways that you want and you have an application. This is markedly different than Yahoo Tubes which is clearly targeted at coders. I'm not sure if Facebook will be a huge success as a platform but if MSFT can make Popfly easy enough for anybody to use then they'll be successful in lots of places including Facebook.
By the way, I think InfoCards can and will interop with other authentication approaches. If Liberty actually ever produced any real working coded they could probalby work with InfoCards. It would be relatively trivial for Apple to create an iWallet ;) that their users can use to manage these identity cards.
I think this connecting Web surfing behavior to individual people is somewhat scary but probably inevitable. Deleting cookies daily will not keep you anonymous forever. Even if the Fed's or EU make this stuff illegal it will be done by somebody. I'd rather it was done in a transparent way - at least that way we have some idea of what "they" know. Regarding CardSpace and InfoCards...as a heavy Web user I would LOVE if it were to succeed. It would make my job much easier and ultimately more secure. The thing about InfoCards is that you're not transmitting your user name and password over the wire. You're sending an encrypted token. The data stays with whomever "issued" you your InfoCard. For example, I use Bank of America (fuck them, by the way). When I sign-in to the B of A Web site today I enter a username...then they prompt me with a second screen which shows a photo that I selected. If the photo is the one I selected I enter my password and I'm authenticated. While this is somewhat more secure than the usual username and password combo it's still unsecure for a number of reasons. First, because B of A is only one of about 1000 sites I use I use a password that...while somewhat secure...is probalby relatively easy to break. Second, I send my username and password over the wire every time I sign on to the site. While they use SSL it would be relatively easy for someone to steal the user name and password - eithe from Phising or some other method like keystroke logging. With an InfoCard, B of A issues me an encrypted token that says I am who I say I am. When I sign-on to their site using that InfoCard I send them the token, not the actual username and password. This is still not perfect but from a usability standpoint and from an overall security standpoint it is a huge advance over the way things are done today. The other neat thing about InfoCards is that there is nothing Microsoft proprietary about them. They're based on WS* standards. Anyone could implement their own InfoCard manager on any platform/OS. Microsoft happens to have one in Windows Vista that they call CardSpace. All CardSpace is is a "wallet" for storing the cards. But all the cards have is the token...not the actual data. CardSpace also has a neat feature where you can create a self-issued InfoCard. You can create as many as you want that share as little or as much information as you may want to share with a site. You can have one that has a made-up name (studmuffin) and lame password (player) that you can use when creating accounts on Web sites you've never visted before. The idea is that rather than going through the process of filling out a bunch of fields on the Web site you submit your self-issued InfoCard and it happens automatically. For sites that you want/need to have a more secure and personal relationship like a bank you might have another self-issued InfoCard that includes your real name, address, phone number etc. Overall I think InfoCards...or something like them...are necessary. How many of you have 20 or 30 user names and passwords either written down on paper somewhere or maybe in a file on your system or in your email address manager? That's insecure and a hassle. I want to be able to sign-on in a click of two. By the way, the guy behind InfoCard/CardSpace is not some wierd Microsoft borg guy. He's a renounded leader in identity management and, based on what I've read, is probably more concerned about privacy and security than most people.
I agree with most of what you said. It's like trying to be cool when you're not or, even if you are cool, you can't say you are or...you're not cool. What I don't really agree with is the criticism of them saying they want to democratize development. Maybe "democratize" wasn't the best choice of words but I think there's something cool about trying to make computing and development more accessible. I think one of the reasons the uber eggheads have such a hard time with Microsoft (beyond some bad behavior a few years back) is that they feel threatened by them. MSFT created VB because they wanted to make it easier to write apps for Windows than using C. Sure, C is a more elegante' and powerful way to write apps but VB was easy enough that anybody would put together a decent Windows app. Despite what some may think, Microsoft has generally forced prices of computing down, making it more accessible to everyone. Sure, today you can get good software for nothing but overall Microsoft software is and has always been cheaper than most commercial alternatives. But I digress. Popfly seems to be about making it easy for anyone to make simple little Web apps. It's a step in the right direction as far as I'm concerned. Even if it does make nervous the people who like to feel superior to everyone else b/c they have more technical knowledge.
Nah, I don't think it was a metaphor. I was either just ignorance, annoying flame-bait or possibly wishful thinking.
Silverlight ActiveX for Web 2.0? Uhh...no. Silverlight runs on Mac (Firefox and Safari) and Windows. No activex. Nobody wants it? No again. Developers who actually want to write applications instead of only making annoying Flash-y animations will like Silverlight. Wait for a year and see.
Can't resist. And why is it that you're uniquely qualified to identify popfly as a "masturbatory web-2.0 buzzword festival..."? You've used the site?
Hey, I've had three beers so maybe I'm just feeling feisty but you're clearly a fucking idiot. Zune, while not a raging success, is classic Microsoft. A decent but not great product that in this case has an innovative idea - music sharing - that wasn't quite ready for prime time. They'll stick with it and, as with XBOX vs. PS, they'll eventually get it right and be #1 or #2 in the market. Windows Mobile is already the #2 platform for smart phones in the world and quickly catching up to Symbian. As somoene who has used both platforms extensively - as well as RIM - I can tell you that Windows Mobile is in most (not all) superior. So, your definition of "hideous mess" must be more of a reflection on your life given that you have nothing more intersting or constructive to add the discourse than this drivel.
Nice hopes but I don't think patent law works like that. Copying (or, more put more friendly "using") someone else's intellectual property without permission or paying a royalty cann't be redressed by making trivial changes. Sure, that may work in some cases but in all? Not likely. I'm a good Democratic (as in Democratic Party) and hardly a right-wing flag waving free market lunatic. But even I think that people and companies need to be rewarded for investing in R&D. If MSFT or any other company is prevented for earning royalties on their IP then they will have no incentive to do research. Yes, they can continue to develop products to meet users needs but if FOSS can just use/borrow/mimic/copy all of their work without at no cost then they have an unfair leg-up. Competing with "free" as in money, not freedom, is hard enough when there's a level playing field. When "free" software also uses patented methods that's rediculous.
Google will take care of us. Not to worry. They don't do evil...as long as you watch their ads. Just don't ask questions or break their NDA's. Then you're fucked.
But seriously, from what I can tell, the real and fairly cool vision of Windows Live is to allow for easy and seamless sync of data between PC's (and Mac's), phones, others personal devices - delivering the data in a format appropriate for the device/form factor. I personally have a home server already but would be more than happy to get rid of it if I could pay someone else a few bucks a month to deal with it for me and deal with the various sync issues that I don't want to have to deal with manually. I think this is what Ray Ozzie envisions with Windows Live. We'll see if they actually deliver. Hope so.
Total nonesese from someone who knows nothing about accounting. It is a common practice to defer income...Microsoft has been doing so for years. If it were somehow nefarious then it would have caught up with them by now. People can reasonably accuse MSFT of many things but of accounting tricks. Microsoft, many might argue, is overly conservative in their accounting practices and always have been. Take a look at reports from any big brokerage/analyst firm and you'll see they say the same thing.
Guess the several individual /. posts about doom and gloom for Vista and MSFT may have been just a little overblown....
At least in the US they'll have a hard time if they don't sync with Exchange. Windows Mobile is popular and growing rapidly in the states because of that. And you can buy a decent device (Motorola Q) for $149. Much easier sell to a business than $599 or whatever Apple ends up charging.
Microsoft reports earnings on Thursday and I'm sure they'll provide some details on sales of Vista and Office 2007. From what I've read, sales of Vista seem to be good. Dell's decision to offer XP is a PR thing...they had a few customers who complained.