Microsoft makes 85% margin on Windows system 5

[thorntonb]

FRONT PAGE - COMPANIES & MARKETS: Microsoft makes 85% margin on Windows system

Can you believe this??

http://search.ft.com/search/article...ry=Microsoft&vsc_appId=totalSearch&state=Form

Where is IT Going In The Next 5 Years??? not sure but all the money is going into Microsoft's bank account

 

[palbano]

>> and dependant on MS products, such as they are, to
>> fulfill my family obligations.

That seems a tad hypocritical yes? Working in the sun Java environment is not comparable to the Microsoft anything environment due to the MSDN Resource. However when it (Java) is providing you with your livelihood it seems hypocritical to make disparaging remarks about it or it's custodians (Sun).

Bye the way Cajun I really like that tag line Never heard it before.
-pete

 

[schase]

Personally I do not see it as hypocritical at all. Knowing and voicing and probably more important - finding methods to work with/around a products weakness is important.

I am in perhaps a unique environment. In my office I could dictate what software goes on what computers - and I could carry that out to every computer in this company provided I can prove that it will be the best combination of: user friendly; add no additional cost than comparable products we use now; that I can support it and fix it quickly on the drop of a dime; and that it will be compatible with any other workstations needing to utilize the same info.

I may test a Linux brand out here at work. But for now I'll stick with Microsoft. I'm not a lover or a hater, just a user. I could care less about Microsoft's profit margin (other than the macroeconomics ramifications if Microsoft were to fail suddenly) - I have to worry about my departments profit margin.

"Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"

-Adm. James Farragut

Stuart

 

[petermeachem]

This is somewhat relevant, and also terribly funny. Actually the whole site is a hoot.

http://www.therockalltimes.co.uk/2002/05/13/ms-linux.html

Peter Meachem
peter @ accuflight.com

 

[CajunCenturion]

palbana - Thanks about the tag line, but the credit belongs to someone a whole lot smatter than I.

You stated that my remark about being dependant upon Microsoft products such as they are as being hypocritical. I would like you to explain why you feel that way. If I worked for Microsoft, where Microsoft were paying me, then it would be different.

My clients are not being paid by Microsoft. It the reverse. My client is paying Microsoft for goods and services. As it turns out, those good and services (especially the services - have you called MS help lately) have serious deficiencies. They have thru some brilliant marketing, and thru some illegal trade practices, have all but established a monopoly. Because of that monopoly, they have been able to get away with sub-standard products because the users had no choice.

Now, the US Government is dealing with the illegal trade practices (how effectively remains to be seen) and with the emergence of the linux (used in a generic sense) options and open source application solutions are now providing users with a choice. This is forcing Microsoft to upgrade their quality.

schase - As I said in an earlie post, their profit margin only bothers because it comes from a sub-standard product. Otherwise, I wouldn't care either. You, correctly so, are concerned about your department's profit margin. You also indicated that finding workarounds for product deficiencies are quite important. I have to ask - how much of your departments labor costs have been spent developing work-arounds for Microsoft deficienciens, (time lost during reboots, plugging security holes, dealing with incompatibilities between products, upgrading one MS app only to break another MS app, installing patches in the wrong order, data recovery from system crashes, etc, etc) as opposoed to developing useful and productive tools for your enterprise. It may not affect your specific departmental profit (labor cost is constant whether they're developing more efficient tools for the company, or building a deficiency workaround), but what about your departmental productivity. And doesn't that drop in productivity lead to overall corporate profit drop? Good Luck
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As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[schase]

Actually only one full day of our server being down.

"Only" - believe me it was far from a fun day.

But I also am very proactive in terms of maintenance and upkeep. I go on a rotational order, defragging, blowing out the inside, updating patches, etc etc. Theres "only" been one crash over the past year - harddrive failure. - well ok 2, counting the servers crash that one day.

Having said that - I probably spend 2 hours a day doing the above, testing my backups, etc.

If I were on a Novell server again - well that server was up for 3 years straight............

On a personal note - just installed Mandrake at home last night - wow I'm impressed. "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"

-Adm. James Farragut

Stuart

 

[palbano]

Cajun,

>> I would like you to explain why you feel that way

I already tried to. If you don't agree that's cool. It's just the way I feel. I hear a lot of complaining about all sorts of companies and their product from folks in my shop and it get's a little old. No big deal really.

-pete

 

[AIXSPadmin]

There is certainly nothing wrong with a company making money, and if they can make an 85% profit margin all the more power to them. However, if that product is defective then I question the motives and responsibility of the management of that company.

Vehicle manufacturers have recalls. If a vehicle has certain problems then the mfg. company places a recall and sends notices to all individuals who own that vehicle, and in some cases the mfg. co. bears the cost of fixing the defect (as they should). This is the same with a lot of other products on the market. But with software, even if it is defective (crashes daily/weekly, etc.) there is nothing anyone can do about it. This "defective" software costs companies money; the time to reboot and the person being back to the place where the crash happened.

Doesn't that make you feel safe? Defective software being sold by Micrsoft, and used by the military to defend freedom and liberty. Imagine in the middle of extreme urgency, be it training or live action, and it could happen, that a system running known defective software "crashes," possibly causing injury or fatality to personnel.

Microsoft has as much a responsibility to generate workable code, as does Ford and GM to assemble safe and reliable autos.

 

[svanels]

Making products that has a certain time span also can be a strategy.

The British automobile industry vanished because they didn't get money for spare parts. The things hardly broke or needed repairs.

If windows will run stable like Linux/Unix, what about all the MCSE, MCetc.. we still need them? Will we still be forced to upgrade or by a new computer with every minor improvement on the OS.

We have a Distributed Control System runing on HP-UX, uptime 99.9999%, mission critical equipment, 6 years 1x24 hours running. Our supporting engineers already left looking for work. The system manufacturer also needs to lock their specialists behind bars, because they can't give proper support anymore.

Some Unix systems are going the same way as British Leyland, they do not break down easily, but if they do, the creator doesn't exist anymore. Steven van Els
SAvanEls@cq-link.sr

 

[petermeachem]

I don't think that British Leyland is exactly a good example of excellence. Offhand I can't think of a single decent product. Allegro no, Marina no, TR7 no (I had one of those). One of BL's problems was that all parts for all cars were different, you couldn't fit a part from one car to another. Ford's brilliance was that you could. You could buy a Capri with a 1300 engine (I think) or a 3 litre engine. I met a guy who was rallying a 100E Ford (look it up if you don't know what it is). He had fitted it with Excort RS1600 running gear throughout and it pretty well all fitted straight in and worked. BL's other problem was that they built complete rubbish that nobody wanted to buy. Look at Rover now. They are doing so well, I'm really pleased.

What you need to do is to use your parts bin to the best advantage to produce a product that people want. MS do that. Peter Meachem
peter @ accuflight.com

 

[Tarwn]

>>Vehicle manufacturers have recalls. If a vehicle has certain problems then the mfg. company places a recall and sends notices to all individuals who own that vehicle, and in some cases the mfg. co. bears the cost of fixing the defect (as they should).

Is anyone keeping track of the total nationwide damage from using MS products (outages, loss of life, etc)? It has been quite widely published that the car companies ethics concerning recalls are not as good as they would like the common populace to believe (to put it mildly). Perhaps MS saw the car industry's business practices and decided to model themselves after the a car manufacturer, doing total loss estimates vs total fix estimates and coming up with a bigger loss from fixing the problems than from letting them go.
I have seen several publications from insiders at several differant large car companies who admit that not only did they[the CEO, etc..you know, the decision making they ] know there was a problem ahead of time, but already had an estimate for the recall as well as estimates on possible lawsuits, and had decided the lawsuits would be cheaper than the recall.

Just a quick jot...
-Tarwn

Ps: 99.6% MS at work, with the occasional VMS machine (ick). At home I run Win 2000 Server (no crashs, 1 reboot a month, 8 months since install), Win 2000 professional (crashes...stupid Toshiba port of windows), RH Linux (no crashes, 5 reboots, hey I just re-installed it a couple days ago, what do you expect? )

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For my next trick I will pull a hat out of a rabbit (if you think thats bad you should see how the pigeon feels...)

 

[Panzrwagn]

Where is IT going in the next 5 years?

Offshore Development - App Dev in this country is an endangered species - regardless of your language or platform

Lego Software - Click together components to make apps work. THe components will be made guess where - offshore.

Winux vs. Lindows - It's a fresking OS. Nobody, and I mean nobody in the business realm cares. The customers want functionality, security (perceived or otherwise) and availability. When there's a viable alternative to Word/Excel/Powerpoint/Visio that interoperates even marginally as well as these applications, come get me. Don't even get me started on Star Office. Until then ...

Microsoft - When you have that much money you can become anything you need to.

Oracle - the only stuff with more bugs in it than Microsoft are the other large app vendors, with Larry's Legions leading the way.

Siebel - the Number 1 CRM vendor and their product is an embarassment even to Microsoft. Total crap stem to stern. But, it has traction in the market. Maybe they'll fix it along the way.

PeopleSoft - Enterprise Software Suite, but big complex, expensive. Once it's in, it stays in.

SAP - You vill do it za vey vee intend. Your business vill comply or it vill fail.

HP - Treading the dangerous middle ground between IBM and Dell. Good Luck out maneuvering both at once. But, we'll always have their printers.

IBM - The Once and Future King

Dell - State of the Average product and superior execution in manufacturing are hard to beat.

Sun - The Apple of the Unix Server world

Apple - The 10% loyal opposition. Is it enought to keep the niche alive and viable?

Cisco - The Microsoft of the Network. Forklift and dynamite required change out their position in infrastructure.

 

[petermeachem]

Excuse me but I assume that by 'offshore' you mean the part of the world that isn't the US?

We, and here I speak generously for the rest of the world, do NOT like being treated as second class citizens who are fit only to do what the USA wants us to do.

Talk about too big for your boots. Peter Meachem
peter @ accuflight.com

 

[Tarwn]

What is this "part of the world that isn't US" thing you speak of?


-Tarwn --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
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[petermeachem]

Well, if you sail west from the left hand side of the US, the first thing you bump into is not the right hand side of the US but somewhere else. Peter Meachem
peter @ accuflight.com

 

[sleipnir214]

petermeachem:

<sarcasm type=&quot;gleeful&quot; delivery=&quot;deadpan&quot;>
You mean Hawai'i?
</sarcasm>

&quot;No one can make you feel inferior without your permission&quot; -- Elenor Roosevelt

Don't get your knickers in a twist over his nomenclature. I sincerely doubt Panzrwagn is President of the National Geographic Society or Chairman of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!

 

[Tarwn]

lol
Thanks sleipner, that started off my vacation right
See everyone in a week
-Tarwn --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
FAQ FAQ20-2863
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[CharlieJax]

duh - thats all I can say. CJ

Don't drink and post, save that for driving home!

 

[AIXSPadmin]

Panzrwagn is correct about the OS &quot;Winblows vs *nix,&quot; a business could not care in the least which operating system is running an application.

Individuals have a favorite, right or wrong about which OS is best and that is generally what they run at home or develop freeware or shareware for on their own time. However, a business doesn't have preference.

The Fortune 500 company I work for has OS/390s, RS/6000s, E10Ks, and Windows* servers. When a new application comes in they don't say, &quot;I like Windows best so it is going there,&quot; if that application is only developed on Solaris that is where it goes.

For heaven's sake a business is for the bottom line, if every application ran on Windows and processing time didn't matter, then nobody would buy an RS/6000 because of the cost; but processing time can cost money so if an application runs on Windows and AIX and you need to have thousands of users running concurrently and processing thousands of units of work then AIX becomes the preference. Say an hour of work costs $1,000 and Windows will process the workload in 15 minutes but AIX processes the same workload in 2 minutes. AIX is lower cost so that is the targeted platform.

If an application runs on AIX or Solaris and a company runs both then which is chosen? It may come down to workload and available servers in the environment. Which environment has the most capacity available may be the deciding factor.

As far as Linux in the enterprise, I don't seriously think that Linux will be a contender for the role of challenger to AIX/Solaris/HP-UX in the short term if ever. AIX has many features available that Linux does not have, plus one individual does not control the kernel. Also, there may be applications and IBM is supporting Linux and doing Linux development, however, as one application on Linux that is being brought into our envrionment let me tell you of that problem. iPlanet is our web server, however, it is running on AIX and Sun took over iPlanet when the Sun-Netscape alliance dissolved a while ago; Sun doesn't develop for AIX so the company is moving the web server to IBM HTTP Server on Linux. Well the company also uses Network Dispatcher, no problem, it runs on Linux, however, Network Dispatcher ONLY runs on a specific kernel level, which is different than the level that HTTP Server needs to run. Therefore, there is an additional serer needed to run ND which wasn't required on AIX. So no, I don't see Linux taking over the Unix world and forcing out the major Unix flavors. It is merely being adopted by IBM and Sun not so they will eventually start making it their main OS, but to give them more options and businesses more alternatives. If you can run Linux on an IBM mainframe then maybe IBM can sell hardware to a business using the lower cost solution. Though I don't see the lower cost, and besides you still need someone who knows VM. So what do you gain?

Anyway, that will probably start a big goings-on because people really have a strong opinion on OSs.

 

[CajunCenturion]

AIXSPadmin - you stated &quot;a business could not care in the least which operating system is running&quot;.

In making that statement, from a direct standpoint, how you considered the licensing costs (initial and upgrade), and have you considered the cost of the hardware required (ie processor speed and memory) to effectively run that OS now, and to keep pace in the future? I've found that both of these direct costs are something what companies DO care about.

Indirect costs to a company, that are cared about include the availability of applications and their related costs, and the availability and related costs of developers and administrators.

Then there is downtime, in other words, how often does that OS crash and so forth.

If these things were not an issue, then we wouldn't have surveys about the real costs of systems as discussed in another thread. Good Luck
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As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein