Seriously, did you read the article or is this just your reflex defense of apple? The fact Apple was willing to negotiate for the rights let's us know that the claims are valid. Apple is using Burst's technology. We know from a previous post in this thread that Burst has implemented this software in a product so it also is not a patent they just used and put on the shelf.
Apple just doesn't want to pay. Patent infringement is patent infringement, and they are in violation. Their actions also let us know they are AWARE they are in violation. That is the reason why they are trying to get the patent removed. Of course it is important to note they are going to court ONLY after they couldn't get a low enough price for the technology.
"This is the same thing as in the Redhat vs. SCOX case, where SCO makes wild accusations of illegally copied code in Redhat Linux, and Redhat asks the court to stop SCO from making these accusations, and to stop SCO from threatening to sue Redhat."
It is not the same, because Redhat didn't spend months in negotiations trying to license the technology. stop being such a fan boy.
The media loves Apple, and because of all the fan boys they start believing the hype.... "they are perfect and above all others" blah blah blah.
Unfortunately for them they are not, and they can't brake the law. I personally don't agree with the current patent law, but it's still the law. They way to change it is through legislation not the courts. This is a frivolous lawsuit and it's unfortunate that Apple's lawyers aren't held in contempt for wasting the courts time simply because they don't want to pay royalties.
"he actually means here we have 5000 or so carefully picked photos... "
Years ago a story come out about MS doing some careful selections for demo (i think it was for XP) and your guys tooled them. I mean many of you were just vicious; "disingenuous, deceitful, EVIL, liars, etc. etc." That was one of the most hate filled threads I has seen. So we fast forward to today and well I guess I just think it's funny that when Apple does it... it's a stroke of genius.
"Such comparisons come up short in trying to describe Apple's place in the world of business, because they leave out a key factor: Steve Jobs." LOL. One word, FANBOY. seriously though, we should get him some knee pads. lol.
Anyone following the CES from this site most likely is not having a good week. MS is making out pretty friggen well on allot of fronts. Their stuff certainly is doing a good job of trivializing Apple (less the iPod of course). Go ahead flame, its still pretty funny...
No shit they cater to larger clients. As well they should... its called business (by most regards good business). First the crap online story from the WSJ and now this. Editorial standards have really shit the bead over there.
I looked at the "updates" and it looked like the same thing was updated more then once. Does this mean that the "updates" where for the same problem and the previous update for the problem didn't work? Or created new problems? Can anyone clarify?
"researchers found 812 flaws in the Windows operating system, 2,328 problems in various versions of the Unix/Linux operating systems (Mac included). "
If we listened to just the media you would have thought Windows has thousands and the others only had a few dozen. I promise I'm not trolling, but do those numbers stop and make anyone on the site re-think stances? We all saw the numbers that put Firefox with more holes then IE earlier this year too. Could MS be doing a better job, but just getting hammered in the press (who are mostly Apple users by the way)? MS holes get lots of press while other operating systems get a free pass.
"I know Microsoft issued a lot of patches this year that fixed quite a few vulnerabilities... but 812? My suspicion has always been that Microsoft sometimes fixes multiple flaws with a single patch, even though its advisories may make it appear as though the patch addressed a singular issue. "
MS always has an attached KB article that details everything their path does. I don't think that statement is denial.
I find myself defending MS allot on this site, and it's nice to have some numbers from a respected neutral organization to debate some of you guys with. I'm sure after this piece they will be re-classified as MS zealots, but what can ya do.
Beginning of article: "More than two
million users of the original Xbox have subscribed to Xbox Live, or about 10% of
the customer base. Adoption has been "much faster than expected," said Aaron
Greenberg, Microsoft's group marketing manager for Xbox Live, who declined to
say whether the service is profitable. With the Xbox 360, Microsoft hopes to
persuade 50% of users to hook up to the Internet, he said."
End of
article:
"More than 30 million of the consoles have been sold in the U.S. alone, about
double the number of Xboxes sold."
According
to Microsoft they signed up a little over 3 million Xbox Live customers not 2
million. The (silly) article sounds a little bit better with 2 million, but
those numbers haven' been accurate for a long time. MS has also sold more then
15 million consoles in the US... another reason to suggest the numbers are old.
Microsoft
signed up over 3 million subscribers for the first Xbox Live. Do that math,
3,000,000 times $50 = $150,000,000. EACH YEAR! There is no question that MS
will sign up millions more with the Xbox 360 version, but let's say they didn't
(an absurd notation to say the least). Using his quoted numbers (they spent
$150mil to $1 billion) Microsoft will start making a profit somewhere between
year 2 and the end of year 6. I think all of us could agree Microsoft will sign
up at least 10 million subscribers with the Xbox 360 generating them revenue of
over $500 million a year. That doesn't sound like a big flop to me.
The
fundamental understanding that this guy lacks is that nobody wants to have a
bunch of different accounts and bills for each game/ publisher. $50 a year is
allot better then $15 a month per game/publisher. For many people the Live
Marketplace is a very nice plus, and like Zonk detailed in an earlier Slashdot
post it offers some fun games for cheap money. Many of these games will appeal
to the adults who stopped playing when things got more complicated then Mario
Brothers.
Regardless
of whether you like MS or not, most who have used LIVE concede it's a pretty
nice service. This guy is trying to troll to get readers. I think what is most
informative about this article is how the journalistic standards at the WSJ are
starting to drop. This guy is simply trying to come of age by bashing MS, and
like most who try to come of age that way, he ended up looking quite ignorant.
Online Gaming is BIG business and is set to grow by leaps and bounds.
I don't know about you guys, but the past year all my experiences with dell have SUCKED big time. From rude reps in India, to broken parts, cheaper parts being shipped instead of what I ordered, etc. etc. etc. They have lied to me on the phone to try and get me to spend more money, not offering the 64 bit amd chips, I really could go on how a long time. They really aren't cheaper anymore either... Shit there are even large class action law suits against them for some of this stuff.
I couldn't be more dissatisfied with them, and most of my peers that I talk to agree. I even know some of Dell's huge customers are looking to leave them (for example one of the web's largest job boards, I'm sure you have used them....). I like the idea of firefox coming with the computer, but that doesn't compensate for shitty service and parts.
I just bought a server from HP and one from Sun. The both kick ass compared to allot of the crap dell was shipping us for the same price.
My theory is dell is getting greedy and trying to cut corners. They have to meet wallstreet's demands and are having trouble doing it. Dell is public now and they aren't much of a growth stock seeing how they dominate the market (except japan and china of course). They could be screwing with MS because MS will not give them greater discounts then they are already getting.
I'd say dell is trying to muscle MS, but that is only going to backfire. MS really made Dell able to beat HP/Compaq to become number 1. You should slap the hand that feeds you. When dell is competing against HP/Compaq on a completely level playing field I think they will loose.
It was and the DVD Consortium/forum was responsible for this stuff. They chose HD-DVD over Blu-Ray long before MS through it's hat in the ring. Sony wanted more control and pretty much said screw that and went with their blu-ray stuff.
But to your point: MS can support HD-DVD in Vista and not Blu-Ray without a monopoly problem. If MS gives kick-backs that is still only a gray area. The problem they got into before was they gave kickbacks (e.g. to dell) for supporting MS software. (e.g. Windows not Linux, only IE not Netscape, etc.) HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are not MS products.
Giving kickbacks to support a standard that MS maintains is better because it has mandatory managed copy for all movies is a bit different then what people are saying. Microsoft has said officially that if Blu-Ray did mandatory managed copy then they would support both standards (we might not believe them, but that is their official stance, and the law looks at that not at Slashdot theories).
Our conspiracy theories about PS3 and MS trying to hurt Sony may be true, but that won't hold up in court. MS can make a much better case saying that they want their users to be able to just copy movies to the computer and Sony wasn't going to guarantee it. MS can argue that this functionality was necessary for the success of Windows Vista (Media Center will be included in all versions of windows vista except corporate).
I know everyone likes to pretend that this is a clear case of MS abusing its power, but I don't think your arguments (at least what I've read so far) would hold any water in court.
Not to mention Weber who works for HP (who now supports HD-DVD for the same MS stated reasons) was just grandstanding. Her statements were only meant to catch some headlines and if you can't see that you are dirking some pretty strong cool aid you should be sharing with the rest of us.
"Wow, bugfixes for free? MS really just wants to spread the love!"
Actually troll you mis-quoted me... most likely in a pathetic attempt to try and have a point. I was referring to the spam filter (that is excellent by the way). It is not a fix, it's a new feature. I know for you kiddies that is tough to understand. Here is my full quote that you edited.
"Have any of you tried the new service pack with Exchange 2003? The spam filter is awesome. I have a client's office that was getting almost 50k spam email a day, and it has gotten rid of 99% + in their mailboxes (check it out Inteligent Message Filter, not the senderid stuff either). oh and it's, FREE."
Crazy when you put things in context huh? Let's try one of your quotes now.
"Really? The 360 sold something like 350,000 in November. Assuming they sold twice that many in December (which I doubt), that would only be 1.05 million. And let's just conveniently ignore the lackluster launch in Japan."
I applaud you for being the queen of FUD. Your number of 350k (US numbers only) would by correct if Microsoft stopped selling them in November, however my little troll they are not doing that. In fact they will continue selling (into the millions, like I said) up until and past the time Sony releases the PS3. Sony has also helped confirmed this by saying they will be releasing nothing until the spring and even then possibly only in Japan.
Go for it, do the math. Guess what you get? Millions. MS has also announced to their shareholders that they are on track to sell approx. 3 million worldwide in the first 90 days. Again, your sad attempt to have a point has showed your ignorance
Let's try another one of your more aggressive points.
"Once again, let's just conveniently ignore facts that don't fit into our propagandizing worldview. Nintendo already has free online play. This will go to the console with the Revolution."
Ignore the facts? hmmmm.... That's sweet you think Nintendo counts. You stand almost alone in believing Nintendo is much of a player anymore. Maybe with little kids, but nobody thinks the next gen war is with anyone but Sony and MS. Either you truly don't get it or are choosing to spread FUD. I would like to think you are spreading FUD, but sadly I suspect you are just dull.
By the way the facts do support me. Sony did make that statement on the PS3 not having an X-box live style service. The report first came from Phil Harrison of Sony speaking to the US Edition of the Official Playstation magazine. Here is a link from one of the reports on it. http://www.gamesradar.com/news/default.asp?pagetyp eid=2&articleid=37848&subsectionid=2524
See you are a typical zealot that has been spreading FUD for so long that you have honestly started to believe it. Sad and funny at the same time. You are setting yourself up for great disappointment, and fit into the person I was describing in the parent thread perfectly.
Do me a favor? In five years when you realize what I said was right, take a picture of your crumbling world? Post it on the web, I'd enjoy the laugh. Actually on second thought, don't take the picture if you are still in your mommy's basement playing games... that would just be kinda sad if you were still doing that.
Dell is playing with fire. Don't get me wrong I really like that they are installing Firefox, and hope it makes it to the US soon. But is it wise to slap the hand that feeds you? MS's support is one of the reasons Dell was able to undercut HP and become number one. Dell also got big support from Intel for rejecting AMD. Out of the two players to piss off I would think piss Intel would be a better move since everyone is going to HP/Sun to get some 64 bit opterons.
On the flip side HP has been warming up to MS with things like supporting HDDVD and MS/Disney tech over the HP/Java tech.
So many of you guys have been bashing MS so much you missed what they've done. You are so busy saying everything they do sucks and is going to fail, but history shows us that is not the case. They have started to successfully expand into seemingly everthing and you guys are still hung up Windows 95.
Microsoft is now in our cars (e.g. BMWs), and before you idiots say it's just windows media player let me stop you. It is not. I own a new 5 series and it controls climate (heat distribution in the seats, individual vent temp and power, etc.), navigation, alarm and lock settings, media, and countless other settings, including pretty good voice activation with cell phone integration.
Microsoft is in our ATMs, and some pretty impressive stuff coming out soon too (take a look at some of Bank of America's projects).
Mobile 5 for the PDA has push and perfect outlook/exchange integration. Not to mention it seamlessly integrates photos with contacts in outlook and the phone. Mobile 5 integrates the CE and Smartphone platforms and is FAR MORE STABLE then previous OSes. RIM isn't going to be able to beat that, and even Palm has started to give up on the Palm OS (Treo 700 anyone?)
Xbox 360 has a big lead on PS3 (millions of units) and despite your gripes, it is a good platform. PS3 may have blu-ray, but I will be able to buy a player for a couple hundred bucks. PS3 does not have LIVE. LIVE is a kickass groundbfreaking online community, and Sony has announced they will not be doing anything like that. That is a good reason why MS will overtake or drastically close the gap with this next gen war. Online gaming and updates are a big deal and one account one bill one reputation is way better then a new one for every game you have. Also note that the majority of current games use about half of 1 side of the dvd. That gives MS's dual layer about 4 times the space of current generations. Blu-ray is bigger, but if its not used its not a big plus.
Media Center, IPTV, etc. Media Center is decent, sold millions, but in Vista it kick ass. It is also going to be standard with every version of windows except corporate. That is big news, it means MS will be tightly integrated into home entertainment selling 100s of millions of home installations of Vista. IPTV, what can say other then Verizon and SBC were so blown away with MS's next gen platform they agreed to exclusive contracts to use MS technology for almost a decade (this is why we are getting fiber to our doorsteps out here in the east. Verizon wants to start using MS's IPTV.)
Vista, despite much of the nay-saying is great. You can say they are playing catch up or whatever the hell you want, but your tantrums mean nothing to end-users who will be very happy with it. From built in anti-spyware, to great IE upgrades, to cool screen effects. Forget all that, and take a look at the Home Automation Vista will enable... its great. MS and GE have been working on this stuff for years and much of their hard work will be debuting in Vista (not OSX or Linux).
Development tools. Visual Studio 2005 is really good. Some of you can say it bloated or whatever, but the fact remains you can program in dozens of computer languages natively for windows. That is cool. The controls, the database tools, etc. are all very good. Check out Sparkle, pretty cool. Forget webuse, you can put that in your Apps without any problem. OSX offers no tools comprable to Visual Studio, and while Linux has some good stuff, it just isn't on the same level. Not to mention developing for all the distros sucks.
On the Server side. Windows 2003 is making big strides; 64 bit alone is excellent. You can run 32bit apps with no degradation on the 64 bit server OS. That is real nice. They are starting to get into clustering, and don't think for a second that Longhorn server isn't going to steal some Linux clustering market share. You can still cry that Linux is better, but just like on the desktop market people will use windows.
"Microsoft runs on more computers than everything else combined. Thats called having monopoly of the market share"
So did/does oracle have a monopoly on databases? Your statement can be valid if someone has 51% of a market, does that make it a monopoly? Anyone who has slightly over half is a monopoly?
"Try this. Think of having a non-Linux setup at home and at work. See how well things run for you. Next think of a completely non-Microsoft setup everywhere, home and work. Think of all the obstacles."
Are you really serious? That may be a true statement for a techie, but for the average users? I suggest you do some searches and read about how many returns and angry customers that were created when Wal-Mart sold those Lindows machines without making them aware it wasn't windows.
What you guys on the anti-ms side don't understand or just unwilling to except, people want windows. Stupid or not, they want windows, and they want it with internet explorer and windows media player. Look at Europe for instance, the Windows - N without media player is a flop. Why? Because people want media player.
If you ever want to unseat Microsoft you will have to make products that the masses WANT, not just hoping they will be mad enough at MS for whatever reason and decide to try something else.
while much of his argument is terribly flawed, misguided, and wishful thinking I found this line the most amusing, and I almost started laughing out loud.
"Now Microsoft has decided that Explore is no longer fit for Mac users, so its market share will drop even more."
Wishful thinking anyone? Or is he counting the 20 people still using IE on MAC as enough market share to count?
Seriously, like any MAC users are really using IE... they are almost all using Safari or Firefox. MS dropped it because there was no point to wasting time on it for the MAC, it's a puny market and people don't want to use the product in it. Why waste the resources?
actually they aren't. One said we were created in 6 days by the Christian god. The other says that at some point in the time line an intelligent being had to be involved. Whether it was during a six day period or simply craeteing the gasses that started it all.
Why don't you do a little research before touting your FUD.
Oh come on... could this be anymore overtly political? The noble prizes have started to loose the prestige they once held and this journal is heading down the same road. I know many of you don't see this as a liberal vs conservative thing, but I truly believe it is. This is only being given as a way to cement evolution against ID.
Not to start this debate again, but nobody has explained to me where the big bang gases came from that created the universe. What gave the gases the properties to react to one another? Or the elements game from and their properties that evolved into the fist cell.
I agree Creation is debatable, but Intelligent Design seems to be logical to me. At some point in time an intelligent being had to be involved. Seriously, how can you deny that some intelligent being had a hand in the creation of the universe at some point in time? The elements that created everything had to come from somewhere.
Microsoft didn't abuse their monopoly with Windows Server systems. Period. The abuse was when the bundled Internet Explorer and Media Player. This is absurd as saying they abused their monopoly to get Office at the top, they did not.
This is equal to a habitual speeder getting pulled over for the 10th time in a month, and the penalty is his wife can no longer work. The justification; she makes allot of money and bought him the car. Should we tell MS that they can no longer sell Office unless they give Open Office their source code too?
MS server api/code being required to be exposed is border line criminal in my opinion. This is MS IP (good or bad it's theirs), and forcing an Open Source model on the world is a dangerous road... regardless of your opinion on OSS.
This is an attempt to throw a bone at competitors of Microsoft (e.g. Novell, various Linux distros, UNIX, etc.), but it doesn't help the companies that were hurt by the monopoly abuse (e.g. Netscape and Real, of course they settled out of court). The fact that the foes of Microsoft resort to beating them on the server front like this just goes to show you that MS really has made a good product with Windows 2003. This decision may help the Linux community play ball in a windows world, but that punishment has nothing to do with the crime.
The cold hard truth is that this has very little to do with MS or monopolies. The EU is just trying to hurt the US economy by hurting the largest American company. They fined them about a billion dollars already, XP N, and various other penalties.
Again, Microsoft did not abuse their monopoly with any version of the server systems (not to mention they charge allot for it). They got big market share quickly because the small to medium sized companies were ignored by Novell and Sun (major players at the time). NT 3.51 and NT 4 gave MS a large market share because they targeted a group that needed the systems, but had been ignored until then. Small companies get big, and when they did they already were using MS... so they stuck with it. It was a good strategy, and not illegal. Novell's bad business moves aren't Microsoft's fault.
You are way off man. MS has demonstrated one of the best web clients for years; it comes with Exchange and is called outlook web access.
That said, MS and Yahoo both have public beta testing for web clients that are far superior to what google has now. Check them out if you don't believe me. What stops them from going public as quickly as google upgrades is that while google has a few million subscribers the other two have 10 of millions. It's a bit different when you deal with grown up numbers.
Google might have something in the works, but there isn't much buzz in or out of the google campus about it. And as long as their core number of users is small they won't be a real player... they may be in respects to the media coverage, but certainly not with the numbers.
No seriously, I think stuff like this is great. developers (despite their corporation's enemies) really can benefit from good conversation with their peers. At this level, its good to see the top three disusing things... even if its surface stuff. That isn't often possible with all the red tape out there.
It seems the new craze for companies is that when they are struggling, just sue a successful company for patent infringement. Look at creative suing apple over the iPod... they didn't care until apple kicked their ass in the market. Look at RIM.
My point is that our corrupt politicians have allowed what should have been copyright law become patent law. Your code is a parallel to writing a book, not a parallel to creating the electric engine.
The irony is that big corporation like Microsoft have shot themselves in the foot here. They pushed for this type of patent law out of fear that their software would easily be duplicated, so It is funny to watch them get slapped by so many frivolous law suites.
The problem the CIO has is that the position is appointed not elected. That is a very big distinction. This CIO is trying to make a pretty serious change for all the citizens and trying to bypass the officials elected by the citizens to do it. Frankly I think ELECTED officials SHOULD have a say in something as large as this (especially when they are concerned with the decision being made).
If the ELECTED officials want to form a task force of qualified industry specialists to analyze a change in THEIR state that will affect the people they represent they are not only entitled to do so, but should.
Furthermore, legally congress is completely within their realm of jurisdiction here. This challenge is a temper tantrum from a "techie" who got to big for their britches and had their power taken from them.
Whether you agree with the change to ODF or not, the CIO went about the change the wrong way, and now is paying the price for being smug with the congress of mass. I predict that ODF will not prevail in MASS.
Anyone who reads my post's knows I'm pro MS, but I don't belive for a minute that MS sites have almost double Yahoo. The MS sites get about 114 million, not over 180 million like this report says. If that report were accurate, combined with the AOL deal, MS would have the most lucrative Advertising network the internet has ever seen.
This report also contradicts some stats (that I think are more inline with the truth) published by the NY Times and Associated press for the month of september.
Here are the numbers: Yahoo = 123 million AOL = 119 million Microsoft = 114 million Google = 87.6 million
I agree. I have used ajax and implemented bookmarking and printing for any page/content a user views.
I had to think through the site architecture a bit more, and it took more coding (mostly javascript), but isn't that what ajax is anyways? More coding to give the user a smoother, faster, and pleasant experience... nobody (with any sense) said AJAX implemented right is easy, but that is why there are good programmers and then the majority of programmers. The whole purpose is about the end user experience, not the developers.
It would appear that the author of the article fits into the area of "the majority".
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, did you read the article or is this just your reflex defense of apple? The fact Apple was willing to negotiate for the rights let's us know that the claims are valid. Apple is using Burst's technology. We know from a previous post in this thread that Burst has implemented this software in a product so it also is not a patent they just used and put on the shelf.
Apple just doesn't want to pay. Patent infringement is patent infringement, and they are in violation. Their actions also let us know they are AWARE they are in violation. That is the reason why they are trying to get the patent removed. Of course it is important to note they are going to court ONLY after they couldn't get a low enough price for the technology.
"This is the same thing as in the Redhat vs. SCOX case, where SCO makes wild accusations of illegally copied code in Redhat Linux, and Redhat asks the court to stop SCO from making these accusations, and to stop SCO from threatening to sue Redhat."
It is not the same, because Redhat didn't spend months in negotiations trying to license the technology. stop being such a fan boy.
The media loves Apple, and because of all the fan boys they start believing the hype.... "they are perfect and above all others" blah blah blah.
Unfortunately for them they are not, and they can't brake the law. I personally don't agree with the current patent law, but it's still the law. They way to change it is through legislation not the courts. This is a frivolous lawsuit and it's unfortunate that Apple's lawyers aren't held in contempt for wasting the courts time simply because they don't want to pay royalties.
"he actually means here we have 5000 or so carefully picked photos ... "
Years ago a story come out about MS doing some careful selections for demo (i think it was for XP) and your guys tooled them. I mean many of you were just vicious; "disingenuous, deceitful, EVIL, liars, etc. etc." That was one of the most hate filled threads I has seen. So we fast forward to today and well I guess I just think it's funny that when Apple does it... it's a stroke of genius.
"Such comparisons come up short in trying to describe Apple's place in the world of business, because they leave out a key factor: Steve Jobs."
LOL. One word, FANBOY. seriously though, we should get him some knee pads. lol.
Anyone following the CES from this site most likely is not having a good week. MS is making out pretty friggen well on allot of fronts. Their stuff certainly is doing a good job of trivializing Apple (less the iPod of course). Go ahead flame, its still pretty funny...
No shit they cater to larger clients. As well they should... its called business (by most regards good business). First the crap online story from the WSJ and now this. Editorial standards have really shit the bead over there.
I looked at the "updates" and it looked like the same thing was updated more then once. Does this mean that the "updates" where for the same problem and the previous update for the problem didn't work? Or created new problems? Can anyone clarify?
for example:
Apache 'Mod_SSL SSLVerifyClient' Restriction Bypass (Updated)
Apache 'Mod_SSL SSLVerifyClient' Restriction Bypass (Updated)
Apache 'Mod_SSL SSLVerifyClient' Restriction Bypass (Updated)
Apache 'Mod_SSL SSLVerifyClient' Restriction Bypass (Updated)
Apache 'Mod_SSL SSLVerifyClient' Restriction Bypass (Updated)
Apache 'Mod_SSL SSLVerifyClient' Restriction Bypass (Updated)
Apache 'Mod_SSL SSLVerifyClient' Restriction Bypass (Updated)
Apache 'Mod_SSL SSLVerifyClient' Restriction Bypass (Updated)
"researchers found 812 flaws in the Windows operating system, 2,328 problems in various versions of the Unix/Linux operating systems (Mac included). "
... but 812? My suspicion has always been that Microsoft sometimes fixes multiple flaws with a single patch, even though its advisories may make it appear as though the patch addressed a singular issue. "
If we listened to just the media you would have thought Windows has thousands and the others only had a few dozen. I promise I'm not trolling, but do those numbers stop and make anyone on the site re-think stances? We all saw the numbers that put Firefox with more holes then IE earlier this year too. Could MS be doing a better job, but just getting hammered in the press (who are mostly Apple users by the way)? MS holes get lots of press while other operating systems get a free pass.
"I know Microsoft issued a lot of patches this year that fixed quite a few vulnerabilities
MS always has an attached KB article that details everything their path does. I don't think that statement is denial.
I find myself defending MS allot on this site, and it's nice to have some numbers from a respected neutral organization to debate some of you guys with. I'm sure after this piece they will be re-classified as MS zealots, but what can ya do.
Beginning of article:
"More than two million users of the original Xbox have subscribed to Xbox Live, or about 10% of the customer base. Adoption has been "much faster than expected," said Aaron Greenberg, Microsoft's group marketing manager for Xbox Live, who declined to say whether the service is profitable. With the Xbox 360, Microsoft hopes to persuade 50% of users to hook up to the Internet, he said."
End of article:
"More than 30 million of the consoles have been sold in the U.S. alone, about double the number of Xboxes sold."
According to Microsoft they signed up a little over 3 million Xbox Live customers not 2 million. The (silly) article sounds a little bit better with 2 million, but those numbers haven' been accurate for a long time. MS has also sold more then 15 million consoles in the US... another reason to suggest the numbers are old.
Microsoft signed up over 3 million subscribers for the first Xbox Live. Do that math, 3,000,000 times $50 = $150,000,000. EACH YEAR! There is no question that MS will sign up millions more with the Xbox 360 version, but let's say they didn't (an absurd notation to say the least). Using his quoted numbers (they spent $150mil to $1 billion) Microsoft will start making a profit somewhere between year 2 and the end of year 6. I think all of us could agree Microsoft will sign up at least 10 million subscribers with the Xbox 360 generating them revenue of over $500 million a year. That doesn't sound like a big flop to me.
The fundamental understanding that this guy lacks is that nobody wants to have a bunch of different accounts and bills for each game/ publisher. $50 a year is allot better then $15 a month per game/publisher. For many people the Live Marketplace is a very nice plus, and like Zonk detailed in an earlier Slashdot post it offers some fun games for cheap money. Many of these games will appeal to the adults who stopped playing when things got more complicated then Mario Brothers.
Regardless of whether you like MS or not, most who have used LIVE concede it's a pretty nice service. This guy is trying to troll to get readers. I think what is most informative about this article is how the journalistic standards at the WSJ are starting to drop. This guy is simply trying to come of age by bashing MS, and like most who try to come of age that way, he ended up looking quite ignorant. Online Gaming is BIG business and is set to grow by leaps and bounds.
I don't know about you guys, but the past year all my experiences with dell have SUCKED big time. From rude reps in India, to broken parts, cheaper parts being shipped instead of what I ordered, etc. etc. etc. They have lied to me on the phone to try and get me to spend more money, not offering the 64 bit amd chips, I really could go on how a long time. They really aren't cheaper anymore either... Shit there are even large class action law suits against them for some of this stuff.
I couldn't be more dissatisfied with them, and most of my peers that I talk to agree. I even know some of Dell's huge customers are looking to leave them (for example one of the web's largest job boards, I'm sure you have used them....). I like the idea of firefox coming with the computer, but that doesn't compensate for shitty service and parts.
I just bought a server from HP and one from Sun. The both kick ass compared to allot of the crap dell was shipping us for the same price.
My theory is dell is getting greedy and trying to cut corners. They have to meet wallstreet's demands and are having trouble doing it. Dell is public now and they aren't much of a growth stock seeing how they dominate the market (except japan and china of course). They could be screwing with MS because MS will not give them greater discounts then they are already getting.
I'd say dell is trying to muscle MS, but that is only going to backfire. MS really made Dell able to beat HP/Compaq to become number 1. You should slap the hand that feeds you. When dell is competing against HP/Compaq on a completely level playing field I think they will loose.
It was and the DVD Consortium/forum was responsible for this stuff. They chose HD-DVD over Blu-Ray long before MS through it's hat in the ring. Sony wanted more control and pretty much said screw that and went with their blu-ray stuff.
But to your point: MS can support HD-DVD in Vista and not Blu-Ray without a monopoly problem. If MS gives kick-backs that is still only a gray area. The problem they got into before was they gave kickbacks (e.g. to dell) for supporting MS software. (e.g. Windows not Linux, only IE not Netscape, etc.) HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are not MS products.
Giving kickbacks to support a standard that MS maintains is better because it has mandatory managed copy for all movies is a bit different then what people are saying. Microsoft has said officially that if Blu-Ray did mandatory managed copy then they would support both standards (we might not believe them, but that is their official stance, and the law looks at that not at Slashdot theories).
Our conspiracy theories about PS3 and MS trying to hurt Sony may be true, but that won't hold up in court. MS can make a much better case saying that they want their users to be able to just copy movies to the computer and Sony wasn't going to guarantee it. MS can argue that this functionality was necessary for the success of Windows Vista (Media Center will be included in all versions of windows vista except corporate).
I know everyone likes to pretend that this is a clear case of MS abusing its power, but I don't think your arguments (at least what I've read so far) would hold any water in court.
Not to mention Weber who works for HP (who now supports HD-DVD for the same MS stated reasons) was just grandstanding. Her statements were only meant to catch some headlines and if you can't see that you are dirking some pretty strong cool aid you should be sharing with the rest of us.
"Wow, bugfixes for free? MS really just wants to spread the love!"
p eid=2&articleid=37848&subsectionid=2524
Actually troll you mis-quoted me... most likely in a pathetic attempt to try and have a point. I was referring to the spam filter (that is excellent by the way). It is not a fix, it's a new feature. I know for you kiddies that is tough to understand. Here is my full quote that you edited.
"Have any of you tried the new service pack with Exchange 2003? The spam filter is awesome. I have a client's office that was getting almost 50k spam email a day, and it has gotten rid of 99% + in their mailboxes (check it out Inteligent Message Filter, not the senderid stuff either). oh and it's, FREE."
Crazy when you put things in context huh? Let's try one of your quotes now.
"Really? The 360 sold something like 350,000 in November. Assuming they sold twice that many in December (which I doubt), that would only be 1.05 million. And let's just conveniently ignore the lackluster launch in Japan."
I applaud you for being the queen of FUD. Your number of 350k (US numbers only) would by correct if Microsoft stopped selling them in November, however my little troll they are not doing that. In fact they will continue selling (into the millions, like I said) up until and past the time Sony releases the PS3. Sony has also helped confirmed this by saying they will be releasing nothing until the spring and even then possibly only in Japan.
Go for it, do the math. Guess what you get? Millions. MS has also announced to their shareholders that they are on track to sell approx. 3 million worldwide in the first 90 days. Again, your sad attempt to have a point has showed your ignorance
Let's try another one of your more aggressive points.
"Once again, let's just conveniently ignore facts that don't fit into our propagandizing worldview. Nintendo already has free online play. This will go to the console with the Revolution."
Ignore the facts? hmmmm.... That's sweet you think Nintendo counts. You stand almost alone in believing Nintendo is much of a player anymore. Maybe with little kids, but nobody thinks the next gen war is with anyone but Sony and MS. Either you truly don't get it or are choosing to spread FUD. I would like to think you are spreading FUD, but sadly I suspect you are just dull.
By the way the facts do support me. Sony did make that statement on the PS3 not having an X-box live style service. The report first came from Phil Harrison of Sony speaking to the US Edition of the Official Playstation magazine. Here is a link from one of the reports on it.
http://www.gamesradar.com/news/default.asp?pagety
See you are a typical zealot that has been spreading FUD for so long that you have honestly started to believe it. Sad and funny at the same time. You are setting yourself up for great disappointment, and fit into the person I was describing in the parent thread perfectly.
Do me a favor? In five years when you realize what I said was right, take a picture of your crumbling world? Post it on the web, I'd enjoy the laugh. Actually on second thought, don't take the picture if you are still in your mommy's basement playing games... that would just be kinda sad if you were still doing that.
Dell is playing with fire. Don't get me wrong I really like that they are installing Firefox, and hope it makes it to the US soon. But is it wise to slap the hand that feeds you? MS's support is one of the reasons Dell was able to undercut HP and become number one. Dell also got big support from Intel for rejecting AMD. Out of the two players to piss off I would think piss Intel would be a better move since everyone is going to HP/Sun to get some 64 bit opterons.
On the flip side HP has been warming up to MS with things like supporting HDDVD and MS/Disney tech over the HP/Java tech.
So many of you guys have been bashing MS so much you missed what they've done. You are so busy saying everything they do sucks and is going to fail, but history shows us that is not the case. They have started to successfully expand into seemingly everthing and you guys are still hung up Windows 95.
Microsoft is now in our cars (e.g. BMWs), and before you idiots say it's just windows media player let me stop you. It is not. I own a new 5 series and it controls climate (heat distribution in the seats, individual vent temp and power, etc.), navigation, alarm and lock settings, media, and countless other settings, including pretty good voice activation with cell phone integration.
Microsoft is in our ATMs, and some pretty impressive stuff coming out soon too (take a look at some of Bank of America's projects).
Mobile 5 for the PDA has push and perfect outlook/exchange integration. Not to mention it seamlessly integrates photos with contacts in outlook and the phone. Mobile 5 integrates the CE and Smartphone platforms and is FAR MORE STABLE then previous OSes. RIM isn't going to be able to beat that, and even Palm has started to give up on the Palm OS (Treo 700 anyone?)
Xbox 360 has a big lead on PS3 (millions of units) and despite your gripes, it is a good platform. PS3 may have blu-ray, but I will be able to buy a player for a couple hundred bucks. PS3 does not have LIVE. LIVE is a kickass groundbfreaking online community, and Sony has announced they will not be doing anything like that. That is a good reason why MS will overtake or drastically close the gap with this next gen war. Online gaming and updates are a big deal and one account one bill one reputation is way better then a new one for every game you have. Also note that the majority of current games use about half of 1 side of the dvd. That gives MS's dual layer about 4 times the space of current generations. Blu-ray is bigger, but if its not used its not a big plus.
Media Center, IPTV, etc. Media Center is decent, sold millions, but in Vista it kick ass. It is also going to be standard with every version of windows except corporate. That is big news, it means MS will be tightly integrated into home entertainment selling 100s of millions of home installations of Vista. IPTV, what can say other then Verizon and SBC were so blown away with MS's next gen platform they agreed to exclusive contracts to use MS technology for almost a decade (this is why we are getting fiber to our doorsteps out here in the east. Verizon wants to start using MS's IPTV.)
Vista, despite much of the nay-saying is great. You can say they are playing catch up or whatever the hell you want, but your tantrums mean nothing to end-users who will be very happy with it. From built in anti-spyware, to great IE upgrades, to cool screen effects. Forget all that, and take a look at the Home Automation Vista will enable... its great. MS and GE have been working on this stuff for years and much of their hard work will be debuting in Vista (not OSX or Linux).
Development tools. Visual Studio 2005 is really good. Some of you can say it bloated or whatever, but the fact remains you can program in dozens of computer languages natively for windows. That is cool. The controls, the database tools, etc. are all very good. Check out Sparkle, pretty cool. Forget webuse, you can put that in your Apps without any problem. OSX offers no tools comprable to Visual Studio, and while Linux has some good stuff, it just isn't on the same level. Not to mention developing for all the distros sucks.
On the Server side. Windows 2003 is making big strides; 64 bit alone is excellent. You can run 32bit apps with no degradation on the 64 bit server OS. That is real nice. They are starting to get into clustering, and don't think for a second that Longhorn server isn't going to steal some Linux clustering market share. You can still cry that Linux is better, but just like on the desktop market people will use windows.
SQL 2005 is great.
"Microsoft runs on more computers than everything else combined. Thats called having monopoly of the market share"
So did/does oracle have a monopoly on databases? Your statement can be valid if someone has 51% of a market, does that make it a monopoly? Anyone who has slightly over half is a monopoly?
"Try this. Think of having a non-Linux setup at home and at work. See how well things run for you. Next think of a completely non-Microsoft setup everywhere, home and work. Think of all the obstacles."
Are you really serious? That may be a true statement for a techie, but for the average users? I suggest you do some searches and read about how many returns and angry customers that were created when Wal-Mart sold those Lindows machines without making them aware it wasn't windows.
What you guys on the anti-ms side don't understand or just unwilling to except, people want windows. Stupid or not, they want windows, and they want it with internet explorer and windows media player. Look at Europe for instance, the Windows - N without media player is a flop. Why? Because people want media player.
If you ever want to unseat Microsoft you will have to make products that the masses WANT, not just hoping they will be mad enough at MS for whatever reason and decide to try something else.
while much of his argument is terribly flawed, misguided, and wishful thinking I found this line the most amusing, and I almost started laughing out loud.
"Now Microsoft has decided that Explore is no longer fit for Mac users, so its market share will drop even more."
Wishful thinking anyone? Or is he counting the 20 people still using IE on MAC as enough market share to count?
Seriously, like any MAC users are really using IE... they are almost all using Safari or Firefox. MS dropped it because there was no point to wasting time on it for the MAC, it's a puny market and people don't want to use the product in it. Why waste the resources?
actually they aren't. One said we were created in 6 days by the Christian god. The other says that at some point in the time line an intelligent being had to be involved. Whether it was during a six day period or simply craeteing the gasses that started it all.
Why don't you do a little research before touting your FUD.
Oh come on... could this be anymore overtly political? The noble prizes have started to loose the prestige they once held and this journal is heading down the same road. I know many of you don't see this as a liberal vs conservative thing, but I truly believe it is. This is only being given as a way to cement evolution against ID.
Not to start this debate again, but nobody has explained to me where the big bang gases came from that created the universe. What gave the gases the properties to react to one another? Or the elements game from and their properties that evolved into the fist cell.
I agree Creation is debatable, but Intelligent Design seems to be logical to me. At some point in time an intelligent being had to be involved. Seriously, how can you deny that some intelligent being had a hand in the creation of the universe at some point in time? The elements that created everything had to come from somewhere.
Microsoft didn't abuse their monopoly with Windows Server systems. Period. The abuse was when the bundled Internet Explorer and Media Player. This is absurd as saying they abused their monopoly to get Office at the top, they did not.
This is equal to a habitual speeder getting pulled over for the 10th time in a month, and the penalty is his wife can no longer work. The justification; she makes allot of money and bought him the car. Should we tell MS that they can no longer sell Office unless they give Open Office their source code too?
MS server api/code being required to be exposed is border line criminal in my opinion. This is MS IP (good or bad it's theirs), and forcing an Open Source model on the world is a dangerous road... regardless of your opinion on OSS.
This is an attempt to throw a bone at competitors of Microsoft (e.g. Novell, various Linux distros, UNIX, etc.), but it doesn't help the companies that were hurt by the monopoly abuse (e.g. Netscape and Real, of course they settled out of court). The fact that the foes of Microsoft resort to beating them on the server front like this just goes to show you that MS really has made a good product with Windows 2003. This decision may help the Linux community play ball in a windows world, but that punishment has nothing to do with the crime.
The cold hard truth is that this has very little to do with MS or monopolies. The EU is just trying to hurt the US economy by hurting the largest American company. They fined them about a billion dollars already, XP N, and various other penalties.
Again, Microsoft did not abuse their monopoly with any version of the server systems (not to mention they charge allot for it). They got big market share quickly because the small to medium sized companies were ignored by Novell and Sun (major players at the time). NT 3.51 and NT 4 gave MS a large market share because they targeted a group that needed the systems, but had been ignored until then. Small companies get big, and when they did they already were using MS... so they stuck with it. It was a good strategy, and not illegal. Novell's bad business moves aren't Microsoft's fault.
Flame me if you want, but this is a bad ruling.
You are way off man. MS has demonstrated one of the best web clients for years; it comes with Exchange and is called outlook web access.
... they may be in respects to the media coverage, but certainly not with the numbers.
That said, MS and Yahoo both have public beta testing for web clients that are far superior to what google has now. Check them out if you don't believe me. What stops them from going public as quickly as google upgrades is that while google has a few million subscribers the other two have 10 of millions. It's a bit different when you deal with grown up numbers.
Google might have something in the works, but there isn't much buzz in or out of the google campus about it. And as long as their core number of users is small they won't be a real player
where they all started kissing. What a love fest!
No seriously, I think stuff like this is great. developers (despite their corporation's enemies) really can benefit from good conversation with their peers. At this level, its good to see the top three disusing things... even if its surface stuff. That isn't often possible with all the red tape out there.
Kudos to the WSJ for organizing....
first screwing the authors/copyright law with google print, next buying aol, and now big security holes.
Is google tring to be evil like MS?
good question. I didn't see it on their news site (at least not yet anyways)
http://googlepress.blogspot.com/
not on the company blog either (yet)
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
???
http://www.google.com/press/
It seems the new craze for companies is that when they are struggling, just sue a successful company for patent infringement. Look at creative suing apple over the iPod... they didn't care until apple kicked their ass in the market. Look at RIM.
My point is that our corrupt politicians have allowed what should have been copyright law become patent law. Your code is a parallel to writing a book, not a parallel to creating the electric engine.
The irony is that big corporation like Microsoft have shot themselves in the foot here. They pushed for this type of patent law out of fear that their software would easily be duplicated, so It is funny to watch them get slapped by so many frivolous law suites.
The problem the CIO has is that the position is appointed not elected. That is a very big distinction. This CIO is trying to make a pretty serious change for all the citizens and trying to bypass the officials elected by the citizens to do it. Frankly I think ELECTED officials SHOULD have a say in something as large as this (especially when they are concerned with the decision being made).
If the ELECTED officials want to form a task force of qualified industry specialists to analyze a change in THEIR state that will affect the people they represent they are not only entitled to do so, but should.
Furthermore, legally congress is completely within their realm of jurisdiction here. This challenge is a temper tantrum from a "techie" who got to big for their britches and had their power taken from them.
Whether you agree with the change to ODF or not, the CIO went about the change the wrong way, and now is paying the price for being smug with the congress of mass. I predict that ODF will not prevail in MASS.
Anyone who reads my post's knows I'm pro MS, but I don't belive for a minute that MS sites have almost double Yahoo. The MS sites get about 114 million, not over 180 million like this report says. If that report were accurate, combined with the AOL deal, MS would have the most lucrative Advertising network the internet has ever seen.
o l.php [iht.com]
l .html?hp&ex=1131426000&en=ca8853d306a6b3e5&ei=5094 &partner=homepage [nytimes.com]
4 1-2245r.htm [washingtontimes.com]
o ry=20051115 [smartmoney.com]
This report also contradicts some stats (that I think are more inline with the truth) published by the NY Times and Associated press for the month of september.
Here are the numbers:
Yahoo = 123 million
AOL = 119 million
Microsoft = 114 million
Google = 87.6 million
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/06/business/a
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/technology/07ao
http://washingtontimes.com/business/20051113-1134
http://www.smartmoney.com/stockwatch/index.cfm?st
I agree. I have used ajax and implemented bookmarking and printing for any page/content a user views.
I had to think through the site architecture a bit more, and it took more coding (mostly javascript), but isn't that what ajax is anyways? More coding to give the user a smoother, faster, and pleasant experience... nobody (with any sense) said AJAX implemented right is easy, but that is why there are good programmers and then the majority of programmers. The whole purpose is about the end user experience, not the developers.
It would appear that the author of the article fits into the area of "the majority".