Microsoft - real strategy? Or playing us for suckers? 1

[guestgulkan]

I just noticed a thread started about MSCRM - no doubt "it's what we've all been waiting for". I have no idea what it is but i'll have a look - I have lost genuine interest when I forced to hand in Win2000 for WinXP.

I wonder if MS has any real strategy to take the PC forward?? I seems to me that MS tends to leap around - too many fingers in too many pies - which confuses the poor saps at my level of the operation.

PS - What ever happened to .NET ?

 

[Stevehewitt]

Hopefully this doesn't turn into a I hate MS thread.

I'm not sure what you mean by MSCRM. I know about the MS Customer Relations Management applications that you can purchase - and very good they are too!

Although MS do have their fingers in many pies, I don't think that there is a problem with it. I feel that they are pushing the PC further and enabling Information Workers to get more done in less time.

Regarding .NET. Well I have created a couple of apps in VB .NET and I know other people who have as well. MS are using it all the time and .NET will integrate office even more with each other.

 

[jsteph]

MS is too reactionary too late. Like when they missed the boat on the internet in the early '90s--then when they realized where the world was going they went 'all internet all the time' as fast (and in as bumbling a manner) as they could.

.Net is quite simply another desperate attempt to make a virtual machine and get everyone to buy into it. Sure--*any* reasonably well written VM will work on all platforms--if *everyone* buys into it and every machine on earth has it. But it hit the market and recieved a HUGE yawn.

It's a 27 meg download for the VM, or CLR--actually nothing more than an emulator. And I've not heard how .Net integrates with any of the Unix platforms. Sure--it's compatible on MS Windows--but isn't Windows compatible with Windows? Then what's the point of a VM? And renaming their embattled Java to "C#" in an attempt to give it some C++ panache---don't get me started...
--Jsteph

 

[Stevehewitt]

Hopefully this doesn't turn into a I hate MS thread.

3 posts in as well - doesn't bare well for "professionals".


Steve.
P.S. Nothing personal - But spent the last 15 mins reading posts in Ethics and this forum, most of which is MS bashing - again

 

[jsteph]

Stevehewitt,
If someone gives their opinion and it isn't positive, it does not make it unprofessional. If the truth hurts, so be it. What I stated about .Net's poor reception is true, and my other comments about .Net are not unreasonable by any stretch, and most, I imagine, would agree.

It's not bashing. Being silent is and accepting mediocrity without protest doesn't help anyone. And to preempt a common, trite retort--yes, many of us *do* use MS products. It's simply because it's part of our livelyhood (not all, in my case), but that doesn't mean we have to kiss butt and try to take the high road.
--Jim

 

[strongm]

>most, I imagine, would agree

If you say so.

 

[unixtechie]

Microsoft is like any other company. Put out a product as quickly as possible, even if it contains known defects. The reason is profit - it takes longer to solve the problems than the lost revenue, and later when a solution comes around from engieering you can put out a recall, or a patch as it may be.

And if nobody or too few people complain - hey, brush it under the rug and put the profits in the bank and ignore the few.

 

[unixtechie]

And this today about Microsoft's flagship browser, I guess it is a good thing Bill announced 6 months ago that security was going to be MS's priority. Think how bad things would be if they weren't spending billions for secure applications :

"Security holes in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser have been exploited by hackers to hijack AOL instant messaging accounts and force unsuspecting Web surfers to run up massive phone bills..."

"The company is looking into what it says are variations of the original hole that have been discovered since then that the patch does not fix..."

"Also on Friday, anti-virus company Global Hauri of South Korea warned about a new medium-risk computer worm that spreads through Microsoft Network's MSN Messenger system, attempts to connect to a porn Web site and passes itself around to others in the victim's contact list."

 

[jad]

whatever you say about microsoft (and i am NOT a microsoft junkie, believe me) the world would definately be a different place if they had never existed.

people say that MacOS would have won over users with the graphical user interface, unix people might have written nice specialised applications ...

but to be perfectly honest it was due to microsoft not signing a sole deal with IBM (DOS days) that allowed cheap clones to be produced, forcing competition in extras for machines as a form of differentiation.

so sound devices were produced, not necessarily good ones, but it differentiated a machine from the competition if it had a sound card; graphics cards were made faster and cleverer in order for games and apps to work quicker; CPU speeds increased to cope with bigger applications and to form differentiation.

their code may be bloated, it may be buggy, but it is mass market, it is cheap; you may not think it's cheap but if you compare the costs to that of a supercomputer, which incidentally costs the same amount of money to design as a pentium, it is cheap; it has forced competition, and in some very small moments has been inspirational

it actually isn't that easy to use in comparison to other programs, whatever MS'philes think. Word is easier than 'vi' for unix or 'View' for BBC or even most Wordprocessors for DOS, but there are a lot more out there that _are_ easier to use.

However, those other programs would probably not exist, or at best be mainstream if MS had never existed.

"Microsoft - real strategy? Or playing us for suckers?"
I believe they have a strategy, and i believe that it isn't for my sake, but i don't believe that they are intentionally playing us for suckers.

 

[jsteph]

jad,
It was IBM--NOT Microsoft, who ushered in the competition and generated the 'clone' market. IBM could have gone with DRDOS, and the story is well known about Gary Kildall snubbing IBM while tooling around in his plane--at which time IBM left town and went to seattle to by an operating system that Bill Gates had just purchased (MS did NOT write the original DOS).

The direction that MS went was to literally steal Mac's windowing code, and subsequently use their market share leverage in the IBM clone market to kill the other windowing OS's, like Geoworks, and several others. Had MS not:
A. Stolen the windowing code from mac
B. Used what has been *proven* to be illegal monopolistic practices

...then one of the other windowing OS's would have moved to the top in what was clearly becoming a windowing market.

--jsteph

 

[CajunCenturion]

jad - Are you talking about hardware or software?


Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[jad]

jsteph:
It was IBM--NOT Microsoft, who ushered in the competition and generated the 'clone' market. IBM could have gone with DRDOS, and the story is well known about Gary Kildall snubbing IBM while tooling around in his plane--at which time IBM left town and went to seattle to by an operating system that Bill Gates had just purchased (MS did NOT write the original DOS).


i never said MS wrote MSDOS ... if you want to read it that way do feel free.
IBM didn't want competition, they didn't create competition, they forgot to get MS to sign a contract that says 'Only deal with IBM computers' this is the reason that all PC's are 'IBM Compatible' due to IBM starting the f*cking thing and giving PC credibility.
if MS had been tied to IBM only then they wouldn't have gotten far, but then neither would the cloners that needed an OS.

The direction that MS went was to literally steal Mac's windowing code, and subsequently use their market share leverage in the IBM clone market to kill the other windowing OS's, like Geoworks, and several others. Had MS not:
A. Stolen the windowing code from mac
B. Used what has been *proven* to be illegal monopolistic practices


I don't care ... yes they stole MacOS code, and Mac are brilliant in seeing the use of the ideas that they stole from Xerox but if MS hadn't done it we'd still be clicking with a one button mouse on an expensive monopolistic computer that doesn't play games ... if we could be arsed to even use the thing.

...then one of the other windowing OS's would have moved to the top in what was clearly becoming a windowing market.


if MS had never existed then there wouldn't really be a market for another windowing system to take control of ...

yes MS is a monopoly, yes i don't like their practices, yes i remove it from every machine i possibly can in my organisation ... but the world would have been a very different place without them.

this is not an MS flame discussion

CajunCenturion:
Are you talking about hardware or software?

as was said before (not by me MS have their fingers in many pies.

Bill Gates once said that 640K should be enough for anyone ... but then they got involved in the groups that discuss the direction of new hardware

they make money from hardware and from upgrades to PC's that come with their software ... they are software, but they are also hardware ...

they have used their monopoly to push machine specs up. Linux/Solaris works far better on new machines than on old ones, even if MS bloatware doesn't seem to be any better on new PC's ...

 

[CajunCenturion]

I do not agree that it was IBM allowing MS to keep the marketing rights to MSDOS as being reason behind the clone wars. In fact, MS had very little, if anything, to do with the clones because MS is a software (read marketing) company and the clones are hardware. They are machines built using products from Intel, Motorola, TI, NCR, Seagate, Micropolis, Adaptec, Western Digital, to name a few.

IMHO, the real player behind the clone wars was Intel. It was their open market strategy that was the primary force behind the clone wars, as they became the de facto standard for the microprocessor. When the clone wars started in the early 80’s, with most being built around the Intel 808x family (although Zilog, Radio Shack, and some others were also players), you had several choices for an OS, among them being CP/M, QDOS, MSDOS, Unix, DRDOS, as well as others from smaller vendors, some being vendor specific, and some specific vendor variations of others. QDOS was particularly interesting because it was the foundation of MSDOS, which Bill Gates did not write, but bought from Seattle Computer Products in 1981. Microsoft itself had nothing to do with the building of PC hardware (clones). To claim that it was IBM’s failure to secure the marketing rights of MSDOS as allowing cheap clones to be produced is first mixing apples and oranges because clones were hardware, and MS was only involved in software, and second, because you had a choice of OS’s at the time, neither IBM nor MS controlled the marketplace. Windows wasn’t even an issue during the first several years of the clone wars.

“their code may be bloated, it may be buggy, but it is mass market, it is cheap; you may not think it's cheap but if you compare the costs to that of a supercomputer, which incidentally costs the same amount of money to design as a pentium,” Again, you are mixing hardware and software, and did you honestly mean to say that cost to design a supercomputer is the same as the cost to design a Pentium? I’d bet the engineers at Cray would have a problem with that assertion. Design costs aside, you also need to factor in production costs, which I don’t think you’ll find to be anywhere close, in order to make a reasonable comparison.

“However, those other programs would probably not exist, or at best be mainstream if MS had never existed..” Would you please explain this statement, because on the surface it appears to be self-contradictory, unless we have a different understanding of what you mean by ‘mainstream’? In any event, don’t you think that creative talents of the application developers would have still reached fruition regardless of their underlying OS?

When you imply that MS has their fingers in the hardware pie, to what are you referring? Does MS actually manufacture any hardware, and if so, what is it?

“whatever you say about microsoft (and i am NOT a microsoft junkie, believe me) the world would definately be a different place if they had never existed.” That is quite true indeed. Don’t know if it would be better or worse, but you are absolutely correct, it would be different.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[strongm]

Sorry Jad I just don't have time to adress each of your points. I can summarise though: wrong

(yes, you have one or two very, very specific points that are correct - eg, the IT world would be different if Microsoft had never existed - but the rest of your...views...are based on incorrect supposition which therefore lead to incorrect conclusions)

 

[Gatorajc]

"MS is a software (read marketing) company"

Come On. Do you really think M$ is what is JUST because of marketing? I know its a popular opinion to bash M$ in the IT world but they are where they are at because they put out useful products. Could they be better? Yes, are they perfect, of course not. Name one that is.

If you want to see just Marketing see Britney Spears.

I believe in the best product for getting the job done and a lot of times, hold on to your undies its M$. **GASP**

I think that the technology world would a better place with LESS Microsoft, I would like to see some of the software that companies would have produced if not driven out by M$, but the technology world would be A LOT worse with out them.







AJ


If at first you do not succeed, cheat!

 

[jsteph]

Gatorjac,
You are correct that it's not *just* marketing, but to say they are where they are because they put out the most useful products is missing a HUGE point:
Yes, they do put out the most useful product *now* but that's because in general they are the *only* products--and that is because of my earlier statment about illegal business practices--which arguably could fall under the guise of 'marketing'.

To say they put out the most useful products would be to say that (prior to this spring) that Sadaam Husien was the 'most useful' leader for Iraq. Well, he was the *only* one--though others may have tried to become leaders, their bodies were probably mutilated beyond recognition when their attempts for leadership were found out. Much like Geoworks, and OS/2 are gone without a trace, as are other would-be MS competiors in other areas like the office suite market.

So we work with what we *have to* but I believe that if true competition were alive (with MS or without MS as part of that competition) in the Office suite and OS market that the IT world *would* be much different--it would be much better.
--jsteph

 

[sleipnir214]

No, Mi¢ro$oft is not where it is today solely because of marketing. There's also early industry market positioning, taking shortcuts in software engineering, and monopolistic business practices.


BWT: Anyone ever heard of the first-person shoot-em-up game, Half-Life?

The publisher, Valve Software, admitted yesterday (20031002) that the entire source tree of their new product, Half-Life 2, was stolen in mid-September. The thief abused one of the 31 reported yet unfixed security holes in IE -- one in particular which allows arbitrary code to be executed on the client machine without the knowledge of the user. (

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s=e6e7d0ce0abe19997425ef50fa7fe1df&threadid=10692)

My point is that if Mi¢ro$oft were really as serious about security as their marketing would like to make us believe, this kind of execreble software engineering wouldn't be happening.

There are times I think of Bill Gates as the Wizard of OZ (from the movie version): "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!". There are times I am far less charitable.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

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

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[sleipnir214]

An interesting take on Mi¢ro$oft, security, and market share is a lawsuit filed in California on 2003-09-30:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm.../nm/20031003/tc_nm/tech_microsoft_security_dc

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

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

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[unixtechie]

hey microslug is spending something like $5 billion on security. nice to see the money is being well spent.

 

[jsteph]

<< ...$5 billion on security. nice to see the money is being well spent.>>

My guess is that they're spending that money on their own security--If their internal systems were as weak as the shelf-versions of Windows, then their source code would have been on the internet long ago.
--jsteph