Guest #1 September 26, 2005 M$FT to take over yet another product and market Newest Palm Treo to Have M$FT OS story story "What we're going to see Microsoft attempt to do is move away from a packaged software model and sell everything as a service," he said. "Microsoft wants to make sure people pay Microsoft for any use of computers anywhere. It's a very clever, intricate strategy based upon control and ownership of low-level things like APIs (application programming interfaces), tools, communications protocols, and file formats." (my emphasis) source Harju's opinion: The only good thing about this development is the possibility of a Palm-based Treo 700, but I'm sure Gates will have the usual dirty backroom deals that will provide "disincentives" to keep them (Palm) from doing so. This is just as it was with the PC manufacturers, for which M$FT was ruled to be in violation of the Sherman Act, but given the (current) diversity of this market, it will be a while before the empire has yet another monopoly. However, you will eventually see some kind of suit, whether from consumers, states, or the federal government, over this development. Please remember that you read it here first. The other thing this will do is make the Treo 650 a lot cheaper now, which means it'll be the last one to not be tainted with the stamp of the Evil Empire. I can't wait to buy one (the Treo 650, that is). ------------ M$FT to Double India Staff Harju's Opinion: Please don't get me started on this one. ---------------- Massachussets to Phase Out MS Office by 1/2007 Harju's Opinion: I could not be more delighted by this development. This follows on the City of Munich's decision to go Open Source on their desktops. It's still only a drop in the bucket, and given M$FT's long-term strategy of owning the critical pieces of the pie rather than the whole enchilada, consumers will still be paying the Evil Empire for many things. I swear, if I ever see the Micro$oft logo on my television set, I'm going to commit an act of defenestration. mh ."The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SudsyFist 0 #2 September 27, 2005 Quote M$FT to Double India Staff Harju's Opinion: Please don't get me started on this one. Seriously, what's your beef with this? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rmsmith 1 #3 September 27, 2005 Using RHEL4, and I'm waiting for Adobe to release a version of Acrobat Professional (creator). The PDF format is a perfect format for long term digital archives. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AlexCrowley 0 #4 September 27, 2005 urg? Linux already has plenty of .ps creation tools, why wait for yet another proprietary format from a private company? TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AlexCrowley 0 #5 September 27, 2005 Palm's been dead for nearly 6 years, about the same point they spun out Palmsource. Carl Yankowski mortally wounded a healthy company, although you could easily point back to an earlier time when 3com ousted the original engineering team and then infected baby Palm by dumping all their problem children into the spun off organization. Trust me, at the time of Palm's independence they were amazingly clueless and took a billion dollars and pissed it away on stupid aquisitions that generated 0 revenue. They filled out the executive ranks with a troupe of gleaming, smiling and vapid ex-Disney execs who didnt understand a damn thing about technology, and once they lost their decent engineers and thinkers to Handspring they had completely ineffective and myopic R & D. Their constant focus on issues that were no longer relevent is pretty much what killed Palm. Little things like battery life became the reason for NOT innovating, even when peoples behavior changed - in those days Palm couldnt envision their users having to charge their handhelds every day - even though the users had learned this behavior, since the introduction of the original palm, from the ubiquity of cell phones. Adopting MS software makes a great deal of sense, especially if you've ever spent any time near Palm's codebase. As for MAs decision for open standards? that makes a great deal of sense, but remains to be seen if it's serious. MS will level the playing field if they have to as they have done before. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SkyDekker 1,465 #6 September 27, 2005 I don't understand what your problem is. Just a success story of capitalism and survival of the fittest. You wouldn't want government to interfer with business would you? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bwilling 0 #7 September 27, 2005 QuoteI don't understand what your problem is. Just a success story of capitalism and survival of the fittest. You wouldn't want government to interfer with business would you? You're kidding, right? Our own government (not to mention the government of other countries!) has sued them not once, but twice for illegal monopolistic behaviour, and it's just a success story of capitalism? "If all you ever do is all you ever did, then all you'll ever get is all you ever got." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 2,106 #8 September 27, 2005 QuoteQuoteI don't understand what your problem is. Just a success story of capitalism and survival of the fittest. You wouldn't want government to interfer with business would you? You're kidding, right? Our own government (not to mention the government of other countries!) has sued them not once, but twice for illegal monopolistic behaviour, and it's just a success story of capitalism? Anti monopoly laws are just societal restraints on the most successful capitalists. Unrestrained capitalism would have no such laws.... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
crozby 0 #9 September 27, 2005 I dont understand peoples beef with Microsoft. They produce top-notch software at dirt-cheap prices. They, more than anyone, has been responsible for bringing computing to the masses. Windows XP costs, i dunno, say around 150 bucks. Do any of you know how many lines of code are involved in Windows XP? Shitloads. Many times more than are in a whole raft of more expensive pieces of software. They took hundreds of thousands of man-hours to write. XP is dirt cheap for what it is and what it does. Here's a classic example of what MS do: There was a piece of software called AutoRoute. It was the predecessor to GPS-based routing applications. It let you print out driving directions so's you could plan your route from A to B. It was pretty good but it was buggy. And it cost a lot. Micosoft bought the company. They improved the product. They fixed the bugs. They sold it for half the price. That's what they do: provide good reliable software at reasonable prices. The fact that you can plug amost anything into your PC and it works. The fact that you can easily use most Windows software because they look similar. The fact that the dumbest user can operate something like Excel and yet that product is a key components in hugely complex financial applications used by institutions globally. These are all wonders that people take for granted. I've worked on a many platforms including Apple, Sun, VMS, IBM 3090, ICL and Windows. Windows shits on all the others from a great height. When you bitch about Windows you have no idea how utterly shit in comparison the alternatives are. Microsoft are the market leader because they are the best, simple as that. And to top it all, Bill Gates gives many times the combined income of all us contributors here at DZ.com to charity. What a wanker Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
GTAVercetti 0 #10 September 27, 2005 Quote I've worked on a many platforms including Apple, Sun, VMS, IBM 3090, ICL and Windows. Windows shits on all the others from a great height. When you bitch about Windows you have no idea how utterly shit in comparison the alternatives are. Microsoft are the market leader because they are the best, simple as that. Not a bad post. However, I disagree with the "shit on all alternatives" Ease of use? perhaps so. But power, ability to customize, monopplization on memory, multitasking? I think not. For the average user, Windows is fantastic. They make a great product for Joe Sixpack to check email, do his taxes, and write a letter. But when I try to run 18 programs, compile code, work on the Internet, and whatever else, Windows sucks. You ever try to make an Access application? We did. The application size was 5.7 MB. After ONE USE, all of the bloat and excess that MS adds to the DB resulting in the file being 27 MB. I should not have to compact and repair my DB after one use. As I said, great for the average user, shit for those who need less CPU being hogged by MS or its programs. In anycase, I still have no problem with them doing this. I believe in the free market and until someone does it better and CHEAPER (I am looking at you Apple), they can keep on keeping on. Oh an not to mention that Xbox is building my friend, who was injured in Afghanistan, a new controller. Sony and Nintendo said no. Why yes, my license number is a palindrome. Thank you for noticing. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SudsyFist 0 #11 September 27, 2005 QuoteDo any of you know how many lines of code are involved in Windows XP? Shitloads. Many times more than are in a whole raft of more expensive pieces of software. They took hundreds of thousands of man-hours to write. XP is dirt cheap for what it is and what it does. Never, ever, ever, ever judge the quality of a piece of software proportionally by the number of lines of code from which it runs; the fact is that it's usually a measure of *inverse* proportion between the two variables (less code = higher quality). Microsoft's spaghetti code culture is nothing to be admired, and it's really catching up with them with Windows Vista. I'm no Microsoft fanboy, but I'm not a total hater, either. I acknowledge both the good (.NET Framework, C#, e.g.) and the bad (business practices, code bloat, e.g.). Why must people espouse a staunchly black and white view so often? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Channman 2 #12 September 27, 2005 There is big money to be made, I just hope im a stockholder, I'll need to go over my financial records just to make sure. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AlexCrowley 0 #13 September 27, 2005 Because we only have two hands, two feet, two eyes and two noses. I think most people can't keep track of more complex arguments once they run out of hands to count them on. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
waltappel 1 #14 September 27, 2005 QuoteI dont understand peoples beef with Microsoft. They produce top-notch software at dirt-cheap prices. They, more than anyone, has been responsible for bringing computing to the masses. Are you kidding?!!! I use and like Microsoft applications, but I have NO illusions about some of the crappy code they have put out. Every now and then I see "lost productivity" figures in the news expressed as dollar amounts lost because of smoking, drugs, or whatever. Those amounts would absolutely pale in comparison to the amount of lost productivity due to problems with various versions of the Windows OS. Microsoft has a long-standing practice of putting unstable software on the market and letting its customers do its testing. Quote Windows XP costs, i dunno, say around 150 bucks. Do any of you know how many lines of code are involved in Windows XP? Shitloads. Many times more than are in a whole raft of more expensive pieces of software. They took hundreds of thousands of man-hours to write. XP is dirt cheap for what it is and what it does. I agree that XP is a pretty decent OS, but look at all the crappy, unstable versions of Windows they put out prior to XP. It's about time they got it right. Quote The fact that you can plug amost anything into your PC and it works. The fact that you can easily use most Windows software because they look similar. The fact that the dumbest user can operate something like Excel and yet that product is a key components in hugely complex financial applications used by institutions globally. These are all wonders that people take for granted. You're right on the money that Microsoft has always take great pains to make their software as easy to install as possible (compared to other OS's). They've also made it very easy to find device drivers. Quote I've worked on a many platforms including Apple, Sun, VMS, IBM 3090, ICL and Windows. Windows shits on all the others from a great height. When you bitch about Windows you have no idea how utterly shit in comparison the alternatives are. You cannot do an apples-to-apples comparison on those OSs. They all have their place. Quote Microsoft are the market leader because they are the best, simple as that. They are also, in part, the market leader because of anti-competitive and predatory business practices. As I said, I use and like a lot of their products, but I have no illusions about Microsoft as a company. Walt Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 2,106 #15 September 27, 2005 I find it funny how our capitalist society frowns on the most successful capitalists of all.... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
waltappel 1 #16 September 27, 2005 Quote I find it funny how our capitalist society frowns on the most successful capitalists of all. It's because of the history of what many people consider to be abuses by those companies. Monopolies have the resources to obliterate their competition, which limits the choices consumers have. Walt Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AlexCrowley 0 #17 September 27, 2005 I always found this an interesting point of view to take. I can't understand if I'm missing something (capitalism is allowed to be unethical and immoral as long as it makes a profit) or the person making the statement is (from a technical viewpoint, understanding bootloaders, unethical code tinkering, standards subversion etc). The capitalist: 'the market decides based on a variety of factors including price and quality' simply does not apply to Microsoft's growth in the usual sense. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tso-d_chris 0 #18 September 27, 2005 QuoteI've worked on a many platforms including Apple, Sun, VMS, IBM 3090, ICL and Windows. Windows shits on all the others from a great height. HA HA HA. XP is so far behind the curve in comparison to OS X, I gave away my PC and all but refuse to use anyone else's. Apple's ease of use and capability is unmatched in most areas. Gaming, of course, is a notable exception. Apple's superior security also makes getting a virus extremely difficult. Granted, Windows Vista will be out last year this year late next year (without all the anticipated features), but then again, Leopard will be available at about the same time, and will likely cost less, while offering superior functionality. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Casurf1978 0 #19 September 27, 2005 Quote I find it funny how our capitalist society frowns on the most successful capitalists of all. In the end monopolies would destroy a capitalistic society. There would be zero competition. What I find funny is that w/o restraints this system would destroy itself. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SkyDekker 1,465 #20 September 27, 2005 QuoteIn the end monopolies would destroy a capitalistic society. There would be zero competition. What I find funny is that w/o restraints this system would destroy itself. Which brings us to the question: What level of governmental interference changes capitalism into communism? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 2,106 #21 September 27, 2005 QuoteQuoteIn the end monopolies would destroy a capitalistic society. There would be zero competition. What I find funny is that w/o restraints this system would destroy itself. Which brings us to the question: What level of governmental interference changes capitalism into communism? Excellent question. Reminds me that people ahead of me driving slower than I want to are all morons, whereas people behind me who drive faster than I want to are all lunatics.... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #22 September 27, 2005 QuoteI dont understand peoples beef with Microsoft. They produce top-notch software at dirt-cheap prices. They, more than anyone, has been responsible for bringing computing to the masses. Wow - didn't know it was possible to be so wrong with so few words. Top notch software and dirt cheap pricing - boy, that's some funny shit you're smoking. Let's be clear. MS has a nice cash flow coming in from the wintel domination of the PC world. They use that to spend 2 or 3 releases making halfway usable software. Without that advantage, few of their products would survive the 1.0 disaster. OTOH, their mice have been great improvements, and I know many that like the split keyboards. That's about it for 'innovation.' Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AlexCrowley 0 #23 September 27, 2005 Hmm.... Their security roles model was pretty innovative, sorta. It's a pity that generally their implementation of security was so lacklustre. MS was never about innovation but about accessibility for the common user. They excelled in this area, arguably at the expense of a solid infrastructure, security and reliability. The trick with technology is that its rarely the first to market guy that wins. It's the guy who sits back, gauges reaction to the first guys product line and then cherry picks and improves on the successful ones. R & D and Marketing expenses paid for by your competition, it's really smart thinking, you then just reverse engineer whatever the gizmo is and repackage it in a way thats 'good enough' and 'cheap enough' for widespread adoption. This is fastfood culture, quality gave way to speed and convenience. Apple have been making innovative and technically excellent products for over 2 decades and are worshiped by a core group that cares about these things. Most people simply want a box that will let them do stuff, they dont care enough to spend much, they dont know enough to demand excellence, just enough to get them from A to B. Same way we buy cheap little reliable cars over performance sports cars that are wonders of engineering. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
EricTheRed 0 #24 September 27, 2005 Quote Reminds me that people ahead of me driving slower than I want to are all morons, whereas people behind me who drive faster than I want to are all lunatics. I've never noticed that. There are so few people that are driving faster than me It never occurred to me there may be lunatics on the roadillegible usually Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rmsmith 1 #25 September 29, 2005 Quoteurg? Linux already has plenty of .ps creation tools, why wait for yet another proprietary format from a private company? I can't send a *.ps file to most Windows users because they don't have the software to view it. Adobe does a good job too. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
