Microsoft Sets Tolls for .Net Developers 484
matsh writes: "Today Microsoft revealed the cost of signing up as a developer to .Net. Entry level is $1,000. Standard level $10,000. Custom support will cost even more."
Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none.
Smaller developers (Score:4, Insightful)
That just means that less cool stuff will be produced then I suppose.
Re:Smaller developers (Score:2, Funny)
> creating a bar to smaller (perhaps hobbyist)
> developers.
Gee... Like those 1337 script-kiddies, for instance? Damn, I always liked their cool tools...
Maybe now they'll have to charge for their distribution of Nimda v2.0. Would be a shame, because then they would get my credit card number as well...
> That just means that less cool stuff will be
> produced then I suppose.
Seriously: It *can* improve the quality of software delivered on windoze, because not every redneck cracker will be able to spread his buggy code. So it might be a good idea for commercial solutions, where businesses actually can afford and want to pay for the software they use.
For all others, they should have switched to a free OS of their choice long ago... Hope there's not software piracy going on out there, is there?
Anyway: it was long way back that I saw cool stuff running only on windoze...
Lars
Re:Smaller developers (Score:2)
Re:Smaller developers (Score:4, Insightful)
If Microsoft posted an article this misleading about Linux people would be jumping up and down shouting FUD!! FUD!!... Maybe it should be changed to point out what this fee is really for?
Re:Smaller developers (Score:2, Insightful)
So, it doesn't seem to me to be FUD. Nobody familiar with Windows programming is going to even consider using such a "primitive" development "environment" as worthy of their time.
Re:Smaller developers (Score:2)
MS wants people to progrma on Windows so that they can make a profit. also, they do not allow you to view source so they document everything you need to know, like prototypes.
Linux, well you have to know how to use the language first, and you have to know what Libs to use. and since you have acces to the source, you may as well look at the headers so you can see how to use it, whould it be better for you if some one took all the information about a Lib out of the header and pasted it into an HTML doc?....that is just twice the typing for a more complicated document (you need a TOC) that contains info that you don't neccisaraly need to know (other libs) if you know what you need, then why not study up a bit by actualy looking at the code to see what is going on? makes sence to me.
This story is misleading FUD (Score:5, Informative)
What Microsoft is charging for is for developers to hook into the .NET MyServices (formerly Hailstorm). That's because to use them, you'll be using Microsoft's own resources, i.e., Microsoft's bandwidth and servers. I think most people by now realize that the business model of giving this away for free is just about dead.
If you're developing apps that don't use .NET MyServices, there's no charge. You can download the .NET Framework SDK for free and write your programs in Notepad if you want. This includes standalone apps, server apps, and even web services -- just not .NET MyServices.
Unless Slashdot is just interested in shoving FUD down the throat of all its readers -- and I would hope you'd consider it an insult to your intelligence that they would do this -- they really should correct the story submission.
Re:Thin Edge (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, but your guitar will last you for decades... when do you think the next version of .Net will be released, and how much do you think it will cost? $1000 over 20 years versus $1000 a year is a very different thing. Also, you *can* get a decent guitar for $160 instead of $1200, and would be advised to while you are learning to play, and you'll discover that the two have very different uses. Playing Bach, I'll use the $1200 guitar. Playing Nick Cave, I'll use the $160 guitar. Switch the two around, and it just doesn't sound as nice - in either direction (a bit of buzz on the bottom E and lots of hollow slapping with my palm on the body adds quite a bit to a song like "Kiss Off", but not to "Sweet Baby James"). If both cost $1000, I wouldn't own both.
Look at Basic - half the reason so many people learned it in the early 80s is because it was on a ROM on half the computers out there - Apple ][, IBM PC, etc. And for those that didn't have it, it generally came with the OS (GW Basic, BASICA, etc).
--
Evan
the .net subscription model (Score:2)
Of course like any thing else, MS will want to take this stuff to the subsctiption model. It will be too tempting other wise.
This contrasts well with Open Source, where many of the tools a much lower priced.
Some people will sneer and say you get what you pay for. This is not alway quite true, as some around here will certaainly attest.
Re:the .net subscription model (Score:2, Informative)
I know this is /., but read the article. IT IS $1000/year. Sounds like a subscription to me.
Re:Thin Edge (Score:3, Insightful)
...Not to mention that you could easily, legally, and without harassment buy a used guitar from pawn shops, consignment stores, garage sales, eBay, etc. for a fraction of the price of a new one. I doubt it would be that easy to get you're hands on a used
Re:Thin Edge (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Thin Edge (Score:2)
Re:Thin Edge (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a shameless plug, but... all of these songs [unlink.org] were played on a mass produced Korean Ibanez with a broken neck (fixed with glue and various scrap nails and screws). The thing is also missing buttons on two tuners. I think it sounds pretty damn decent for a guitar that was found broken in two sitting on top of a neighbor's garbage.
Original cost? Probably 200 bucks. If sold, it'd be worth about $20 maximum. To me, it's priceless.
Why Shouldn't they? (Score:2, Insightful)
They obviously think
Seriously though -- in a way it's better than giving it away with copies of Visual Studio
More on the broad front (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:More on the broad front (Score:3, Interesting)
Yah know what though? It's going to KILL them in the web market. They think I'm going to include the web-based version of
Re:More on the broad front (Score:2)
Re:More on the broad front (Score:2)
The only problem with this is that for those that don't jump ship before Microsoft finally cuts people off and forces them to "upgrade" to XP (they've slipped that date what, twice now?) there aren't going to be any transition tools (like Apache on Win32) to help them wean themselves from their pay software addiction; it's going to be cold turkey...
The solution for that is for people like Miguel to be writing tools in the other direction, that run on Linux (etc., I just don't want to type the whole list :) but take Microsoft-format data and configs (in Win2k or less format; XP, natch, will be verboten to us). A lot of this we already have. We already have a lot of things that grok Word and Excel files. Cold Fusion is being ported; the server engine itself is already there. There is an ASP migration tool whose name escapes me. We need to flesh out the suite; hell, maybe somebody could specialize in a distro full of migration tools (Samba enabled by default with a good user/printer migration tool, etc.).
In short, instead of bitching about yet another Microsoft screwup, we should use some business judo and make it work to our advantage. Join Larry and Scott and Steve and Lou in watering Bill's feet of clay, as it were. Soon, kids, very soon.
--
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains.
-- Shelley
I thought Microsoft had learned this lesson before (Score:4, Offtopic)
I would have thought Microsoft learned a valuable lesson back then.
-josh
Re:I thought Microsoft had learned this lesson bef (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I thought Microsoft had learned this lesson bef (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I thought Microsoft had learned this lesson bef (Score:2)
Just keep telling yourself that.
Re:I thought Microsoft had learned this lesson bef (Score:5, Informative)
For starters, this is the ".NET My Services" service, it is NOT the
This is no different from the city library developing a
Re:I thought Microsoft had learned this lesson bef (Score:2, Insightful)
It's actually becomming a real problem in the developpement because so many people are confused by this that they think that only "VS.net" can create web service applications and that only ".net server" can be used as a server plateform.
Re:I thought Microsoft had learned this lesson bef (Score:2)
I think the costs they were referring to were bandwidth costs, not other costs like documentation and support.
This Has Nothing To Do With The SDK (Score:5, Informative)
The article is about pricing for accessing
Re:I thought Microsoft had learned this lesson bef (Score:2)
Maybe you can argue that IE is free now, but oh, you just wait. Microsoft will gouge the money out of you someway or another.
And Sun ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Java Developer Essentials is about 50 USD per year, IIRC.
But what else do you get for 1000 USD ? Or 10000 ?
Re: comparison w/ developer connections (Score:5, Informative)
This is to be hosted/linked/use the core
Pay fees to use .Net services? (Score:2, Funny)
i have become comfortably numb (Score:2, Interesting)
it's something i've come to expect and pass over. pretty soon the whole world should be getting numb to microsoft, and when people get numb to something, that something starts losing any appeal it might ever have had.
can you say ibm?
the article from a couple days ago about microsoft going the ibm way (existing but not cutting edge) is being fulfilled with every developer's rolling eyes.
~A
They may be telling the truth (Score:3, Funny)
Building and connecting the required datacenters - 250 mil
Preventing Hackers from gaining access - unknown (but don't worry, they didn't pay this one)
Having it cracked less than a day after it's release, which will cost million after million to your customers - PRICLESS
Odd business model... (Score:2, Flamebait)
Incentive \In*cen"tive\, a. [L. incentivus, from incinere to strike up or set the tune; pref. in- + canere to sing. See Enchant, Chant.]
1. Inciting; encouraging or moving; rousing to action;
stimulative.
It would appear that Microsoft is not seeing the numbers they would like in Office XP sales. They have the audacity to host a media extravaganza including Madonna in New York to hoopla WinXP, despite recent events (they want to "show the world that America is still doing business"... that costs money... they are launching Xbox next month. That will cost money. the economy is bad, and people are keeping both hands on their wallets...
I may be wrong here... but it looks to me like i am seeing a sick company...
Desperation \Des`per*a"tion\, n. [L. desperatio: cf. OF.desperation.]
1. The act of despairing or becoming desperate; a giving up
of hope.
2. A state of despair, or utter hopeless; abandonment of
hope; extreme recklessness; reckless fury.
Re:Odd business model... (Score:2)
Re:Odd business model... (Score:2)
Re:Odd business model... (Score:2)
How about NO [cnet.com] income tax?
This is .NET My Services, not all of .NET (Score:5, Informative)
The last company [cardinalcommerce.com] I was working for was going to authenticate financial transactions. Let me tell you that they were not going to do it for free. How is this any different? Or maybe the phone company charging for setting up your phone lines and billing your company monthly?
MS is charging for a service and you can choose to use it or not.
Perhaps the open source community can get together and create a distributed authentication system to compete with it.
Re:This is .NET My Services, not all of .NET (Score:2)
projectliberty.org
Re:This is .NET My Services, not all of .NET (Score:3, Funny)
projectliberty.org [projectliberty.org] and
libertyproject.org [libertyproject.org]
this is one type I really didn't want to make with my boss watching...
Re:This is .NET My Services, not all of .NET (Score:2)
It's a decentralized system but with the same functionality as
check it out,
Re:This is .NET My Services, not all of .NET (Score:2)
I'm not sure if MS has released pricing on Visual Studio.NET.. Whatever it is, I'm sure it won't be far off of their current VS pricing. One thing you'll never see is MS making developers SUBSCRIBE to Visual Studio.. they know their customers, and they know that nobody would stand for that. If you had to pay a monthly fee just to run VS in order to revise your app, developers would jump ship.
When someone simply refers to
Re:This is .NET My Services, not all of .NET (Score:2)
It seems to me that you can only force customers into accepting software as a service when you are as big as MS. Any other vendor would be abandoned quite quickly. However, everyone has made themselves vulnerable by relying on MS software so much; they are going to be stuck with it eventually.
Predative, anti-consumer monopoly anyone?
Re:This is .NET My Services, not all of .NET (Score:2)
Mong.
Re:This is .NET My Services, not all of .NET (Score:2)
I keep seeing this over and over - the DIFFERENCE is the Msft is a monopoly using dominance in one market to extend their influence in other markets, just as if they were the only cable company in town wanted to go into, say, auto sales and would only air THEIR car commercials on the tv. The problem with monopolies is what sets the price. If there are two auto dealers naturally people are going to shop between the two to get the best bargain which keeps the dealers operating efficient. If there is ONLY ONE CHOICE, in this case to get on the
There's an amusing story behing how the Strowger automatic telephone switch system started - Strowger ran a funeral parlor and got suspicious when the competition down the street started getting all the business. It turned out that the phone operator was in cahoots with the competing parlor and was send all requests for funeral services THEIR way. Strowger got busy and developed an AUTOMATIC telephone switch so customers could look up a number in a phone book and make their own damn choice, w/o some techno-tomfoolery making it for them. see http://www.webuildphonesystems.com/history.htm for a referance to this story.
Online banking?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Converging things like that is bad, mkay?
--buddy
Re:Online banking?? (Score:2, Informative)
"Participating sites that require a more secure authentication process can use this feature to optionally:
* Require that all aspects of sign-in occur over SSL.
* Require the user to supply a second password in the form of a 4-digit personal identification number (PIN) that Passport manages. The use of the PIN, which is required in addition to the user's current password, results in a higher level of credential strength. In addition, the PIN is protected more rigorously against dictionary attacks."
That's not the half of it... (Score:2, Insightful)
I suppose that's one way of dealing with the industry downturn in the hope of keeping your shareholders happy. It'll be interesting to see how well it fares in real life of course...
GPL: Free to download, free to upgrade, free to use next year, but you may need to pay for support.
MS: Pay to have delivered, pay to upgrade, pay to use next year, and you will have to pay for support.
Well, my cash-strapped industry-downturn budget's made up it's mind...
Don't compare (Score:2, Interesting)
Personally, I believe that if something is good enough, it is worth paying for. Look at Hotmail, the largest free online email service - it's a pretty good deal, it's never down really and you get a lot of features.. Now if you wanted to implement this kind of service into a more corporate environment, surely you'd expect to pay for it?
The extra charges for customized solutions and support - what's the problem with that? Anyone in the market for purchasing bespoke solutions would budget for obtaining a customized product and excellent support services - I know that there are hundreds, probably thousands of companies out there making bespoke solutions that charge an absolute fortune for it, and then totally extortionate the client when it comes to post-sale support..
I think Microsoft are getting their shit together with this and do have a good focus on the future. With the failings of the dotcom model, someone needs to start using the web for just more than a bunch of websites offering resources and to put this emmence network to some practical use..
Yeah, Sun may try and compete. They may try and compete against Passport. True, Passport isn't widely used on 3rd party websites - but with the integration with
And at the end of the day, you're not being forced into using it. You can still go off and use whatever technologies and platform you wish. You may opt to not pay for such services, but if I went to a garage to get my car serviced and was told it was free, i'd be rather dubious about the quality...
Re:Don't compare (Score:4, Insightful)
With the failings of the dotcom model, someone needs to start using the web for just more than a bunch of websites offering resources and to put this emmence network to some practical use.
Where does this assumption come from that if big companies aren't making money off of it, the net is not being of practical use? I just don't get it. Yes, I can see why companies would want to find a way to make the web useful for business. What I don't get is why all of us as a whole world population should think that this is necessary for the web to be useful. I send lots of E-mail; I find scientific preprints online; I can easily post information that people across the world can see; I download huge quantities of free software to run personal and professonal workstations; I order some books and computer hardware online. All of these things are of tremedous use to me, but by and large only the infrastructure providers are profiting off of it. Why should we think that the web isn't of any use right now just because, as one self-styled luminary noted, it isn't obeying some basic rules of business?
Mind you, if companies do find ways to make money off if it, I don't begrudge that... IF (1) I'm not forced into using it (and with M$ behind passport, I bet it will get very difficult for me to do the sort of online commerce I've done in the pass without giving into it, which will piss me off), and if (2) the great elements about the open web which is a "collection of websites" right now don't go away (and the entertainment industry very much wants them to go away in order to turn the internet into the next TV so that they can more easily make money off of it). I'm not anti-business, but I really would like the internet and the web to keep some of the great features it has right now.
-Rob
Re:Don't compare (Score:2)
Economies of scale. If corporates are regularly buying lots of of something, then the price of it comes down for everyone else too. You can get a PC for under a thousand dollars today... the price wasn't driven there by hobbyists, it was driven there by massive corporations signing deals for 50,000 units so the manufacturers could take advantage of economies of scale, which they in turn passed on to consumers.
Why do you think the airlines are hurting so much right now? It's because large corporations are cutting back on business travel... it will result in a round of cost cutting, some airlines will go out of business, but if the corporations don't start travelling again, air travel for the consumer will go up. In any commodity market, margins are thing and you make money on volume. If there's no volume, there's no market, apart from at the expensive, bespoke end. Here endeth the lesson.
How many cs majors will just pirate it anyway? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How many cs majors will just pirate it anyway? (Score:2)
Don't worry. Young & poor geeks will still be able to pirate MS products.
The copy protection for
put into it as can be expected from MS.
For whom the bell tolls... Subscription (Score:2, Interesting)
How does this affect Mono? (Score:2, Troll)
I see things like this, and my first reaction is that it confirms my biases that Miguel de Icaza et al. have gone completely off their rocker by thinking that they can work with Microsoft and support .NET using Mono or anything else developed as true free or open source software.
How does this affect Mono anyway? Will somebody have to cough up in order to develop Mono? While, sure, Ximian could pay, what happens when Ximian does an Eazel? Nautilus is still with us; if Mono is open source, it would still be with us too, except then who has to pay? Or does M$ then sue the entire open source community for working on a .NET application without anybody paying the fees? Or do we really believe that somehow Mono is going to have unfettered access to the APIs it needs without having to pay?
Or would it only be the users of Mono who had to pay the fees?
The lesson I personally would take from this is "stay away." The free software community would do much better to come up with its own solution to the need (if there is one) that .NET is addressing, rather than trying to support the .NET platform. Honestly, if we don't want to hand over all final control of all computing and web standards to Microsoft, we need to be doing everything we can right now to (at best) make them irrelevant, or (at worst) keep just enough of a competing presence in there that open standards can't be summarily ignored.
-Rob
Mono has nothing to do with .NET My Services (Score:2)
Mono has nothing to do with
Mono is a development platform,
Re:Mono has nothing to do with .NET My Services (Score:2)
Mono is a development platform, .NET My Services are web services provided by Microsoft. What exactly makes you thing there is any relationship at all?
From the About Us [ximian.com] page on the Ximian website, "...announced Mono Project, a community initiative to develop an open source, Linux-based version of the Microsoft.NET development platform."
It's little statements like that that make stupid people like me think Mono might just have something to do with .NET.
The FAQ you point at claims that Mono has nothing to do with Passport-- although I think my questions still stand. Would users have to pay if they use Mono to hook into passport? (Presumably yes.) Would Mono developers have to pay if Mono had the capacity to hook into Passport? (No clue).
That FAQ doesn't say a damn thing about "My Services", whatever that is. The article says something about creating applications which can hook into "My Services." Is this going to include anything that uses the .NET API (that thing which Mono is emulating)? Again, I don't know. Saying "Mono has nothing to do with .NET My Services" doesn't even come close to addressing any of the questions I ask. Indeed since Mono trumpets itself as a replacement of some of the things in .NET, it's only natural to ask how Mono is affected when there is an article about licensing fees of some portion of .NET (particularly if the vocabulary is not the same as what's in the Mono FAQ).
-Rob
Well, how much does Linux development cost? (Score:2, Flamebait)
*snicker*
Giving away brainshare is a bad idea (Score:2, Troll)
And look where it got me. A great job programming a credit card fraud detection system using Linux, Mysql and Perl. A competitor didn't believe his own eyes when he saw the performance on our solution. He implemented using
Anyhow - just say no, kids. And if you mention the $1000 price tag, your manager will be more likely to say go ahead if you propose using open technologies. They are getting pretty fed up with Microsoft licensing.
That wasn't coherent. I hope some parts were slightly informative.
Re:Giving away brainshare is a bad idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Not really, because the article refers to MS's
Oh, pay attention... (Score:2, Informative)
The actual cost of developing for
Download the
And that'll cost you nothing. no-thing.
Yeah, VS.NET will cost you hard earned cash. So will a Windows server licence or two for hosting. But even MS isn't stupid enough to create a barrier for entry so high that nobody jumps over it at all.
Stripped down version? (Score:2, Funny)
The giveaway (Score:2)
"I think the numbers are quite reasonable. The applications are putting a load on us," Muglia said. "These numbers are barely covering (our costs)...We're not making money with these numbers. We want to make it as friction-free as possible to adopt this new platform."
Despite some opinions here, $250 is not a lot for a small developer to pay for a year's certification. Look at Sun's licensing scheme. I have no trouble believing MS aren't maknig a penny and may even be losing money on the scheme right now. What did IE development cost them and was it worth it to own the browser market? Lots, and yes. They're very good at this game.
Think about what's going on: MS want to make it easy for developers. They're offering low prices to get a lot of companies to accept and adopt quickly. Consider IE: "Warn if Site Certificate Invalid" and "Notify if certificate has been revoked" are standard options and default on.
Once MS can get to critical mass with .NET and their certiication, your mother-in-law is only going to use MS-certified apps. MS will control the content and the prices will then change to ensure a steady profit stream. This is fairly close to a give-away as it stands, and it meshes with the browser they give away already, and which they have set the way they want it.
Microsoft have added an "E" to their formula: Embrace, Extend, Entrench, Extinguish.
woof.
How am I ever going to beat what's-his-name's "Green Eggs and Hamlet" sig?!
Look at Sun ['s Java]? (Score:2)
Sun's Java: open, mature, stable, scalable, portable, free licence.
Microsoft
Re:Look at Sun ['s Java]? (Score:2)
FUD (c) Microsoft 2001.
http://slashdot.org/~ayjay29/
By a M$ astroTurfer.
Why would I pay for .NET services? (Score:2, Insightful)
I get all of these things for free from various places around the net. In a lot of cases, there are even places that will give me one stop shopping
Oh, yeah, I use a Mac and Linux. I couldn't pay for them if I wanted to.
Re:Why would I pay for .NET services? (Score:2)
Who said they were innovating? If anything, it IS an innovation to make things "easy to get". Classic "linux v MS" arguments always focus on Linux advocates saying "yeah, but you can do everything under Linux already!" when in fact usually it's a pain in the ass to do most of what accomplished quite easily under Windows. This is changing, but they are still not equal systems in terms of "ease of use". So, if the ONLY thing MS "innovates" is "easy to get" systems, it'll still succeed, because many other people seem to be vehemently AGAINST making things easy, for some unknown reason. It usually seems to boil down to ego - "if you're too stupid to use Linux, etc".
Badly worded headline (Score:2)
Evidence of demand, benefits for customer (Score:5, Interesting)
a) Where is the evidence of demand for it?
b) What are the benefits for the customer?
I regularly buy flights on the net, also books. I tend to use the same companies each time. They have my details, I just need to select the product I require and click the accept button. I know that my info. only resides with them, and I trust them not to spread it around.
Where does
I am imagining going to a web site, say Amazon. The site asks me "Can Amazon access your hobby list to make recommendations?" Er, sorry, no it can't. "Can Amazon access your calendar so we can find when your birthday is?". Er, nope. "Can Amazon access your address book so we can tell your friends about our great products?" Absolutely not. "Can Amazon access your job profile so we can suggest some business books?". No, and stop asking the dumb questions. The answer is no.
There are lots of, for instance, on-line calendar services available, which can be accessed from any web enabled device or WAP phone. Do people use them that much? What would Microsoft provide that I can't already get? And would it be worth paying for?
Please, someone tell me, I'm dying to know. What is the benefit to me, Joe Consumer, of
Re:Evidence of demand, benefits for customer (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course, that would never work for me, since I will never have a Passport/.NET/M$ account/identity. But would that then mean that I would no longer be able to use the (.)net for anything besides reading news on Slashdot?
Dan Aris
Re:Evidence of demand, benefits for customer (Score:2)
Imagine these scenarios:
a) a telesales person phones you and asks for your date of birth. Average person responds "Go away annoying person!".
b) a rep. comes to your front door and asks your date of birth. Response "P** off".
c) you get a mailshot asking for your date of birth. Response - in the bin.
d) you want to buy a product from a web site. It asks your date of birth. Response: 1/1/1970.
Do they seriously believe that people are going to give them that info?
Re:Evidence of demand, benefits for customer (Score:4, Interesting)
d) you want to buy a product from a web site. It asks your date of birth. Response: 1/1/1970.
Do they seriously believe that people are going to give them that info?
Yes, they do. And people will.
I have been involved in setting up several web ventures; a handful of them were even successful. One project I was working on involved credit scoring with hooks into buying insurance and such. Before setting off on this we did some research on how willing people would be to become a part of this, seeing as how it required more than the usual amount of personal information. The company we outsourced the research to came back with some truly unexpected results: over 60% of the respondents either were willing to give their information, or didn't have strong feelings against it. Only around 25% of the people we surveyed responded negatively.
Remember, this was information such as social security number, credit history, mother's maiden name, and so forth -- the most personal of information. This took us completely by surprise; we were fully expecting this to be a major hurdle to overcome.
Eventually the effort was killed not by lack of market potential, but by legislation prohibiting the distribution of such information directly to the consumer. (This was backed largely by the credit reporting agencies and their lobbies.)
So do I beleive that .NET will be successful? Absoultely. If it offers even the most trivial of benefits to consumers, they will flock to it like cattle to the slaughter.
benefits for vendor, cutsomer screwed. (Score:2, Interesting)
What makes you think they will ask? Clippy, retired from irritating users, will be trying to compile all of those things to give to whoever wants to tap the information. You can bet all of that crap will be stored on your hard drive in some file that will crash the OS if removed. Why build a four terrabyte database on your victims when you can make them do it for you.
The most disgusting thing about this is that it may work. M$ will continue to twist the arms of big vendors to maintain the stupid Windoze only OS sales, and they will break their old OSs. Joe sixpacks will either quit buying computers (like he already has), or he will migrate eventually. Getting my own wife to use anything but windoze was like pulling teeth, though she understood why. If the greedheads see the migration working, they will try to tap it. They are all licking their chops.
If M$ can't collect my information at home, they have me at work. Service packs and "upgrades" have been adding privacy invasion tools on our NT machines for years. Think Outlook, MSIE 5, remote desktops, bleh. Soon the company will be putting up a ton of money for Win2k, which has yet to be tested with more than 150 company applications. XP has been prove to break Word templates, so more costs will be incured there on thousands of broken documents. But it's worth it, right? Gotta keep current.
-Twitter.
Re:Evidence of demand, benefits for customer (Score:2)
Joe! I will pay you $5 to take a survey about your Xbox and to let me see which games you play on it. Don't worry. This will be kept confidential in accordance with my "privacy policy" which says I can share it with all my business partners.
Joe! I see that you have an UltimateTV. Congratulations ! With your permission, I can access your viewing and recording history in order to provide you with a better Internet experience. I'll even throw in a 20% discount off your first purchase! Would you like that?
Re:Evidence of demand, benefits for customer (Score:2)
Unless, of course, they default everything to YES. We all know how Joe Sixpack changes the default anything...
Re:Evidence of demand, benefits for customer (Score:2)
But does this really happen? Do you know of anyone who regularly buys stuff from lots of different merchants on the web?
I would have thought that the vast majority will stick to only a couple or three merchants, and even then they will be quite picky about what infomation they give to them.
Re:Evidence of demand, benefits for customer (Score:2)
Re:Evidence of demand, benefits for customer (Score:2)
Re:Evidence of demand, benefits for customer (Score:2)
Lets compare prices: (Score:2)
Subscription: $1000 per year.
Cost per application: $250
.NET "Standard" subscription
Subscription: $10,000 per year.
Cost per application: $1500
Linux
Subscription: $0 per life
Cost per application: $0
I don't get it, is this for support on your product you are developing? What about a university or a person making a program on their free time? There's no way some high school kid is going to pay $1250 to hack around on some code while learning C.
Moving to a services business will be painful (Score:5, Informative)
.NET and its components represent a shift away from this. A huge shift. Instead of selling code, the company wants to sell services. And when you sell services, a lot of things change about your business model which can be very painful while you're trying to make the move.
Make no mistake - moving from a boxed product model to a services-based model is hard, whether you are a small dealer or Microsoft Corp. And often the two have clashing priorities. At the moment Microsoft spends hundreds of millions making sure its channel works hard at getting product out to the end user. If they ultimately want to move to services-based revenue and electronic upgrades, the channel could well find itself out in the cold eventually.
Yeah, the alternatives free NOW. (Score:2)
Until its available to businesses, and all those place that offer free-everything realize they can start charging people for it after paying a $1000 fee to Microsoft. The other scenario is that even if only a minor percentage of people sign up for .NET, the "free" sites lose that advertising revenue.
Their Plan... (Score:2)
Re:Their Plan... (Score:2)
Honestly, I think that Microsoft will have grabbed a total world monopoly in anything to do with computers by 2010. OS, hardware, network, payments, authentication, subscriptions... everything. And people will pay heavily - Microsoft may charge $250 per application at the moment, but when they have the developers tied in and trapped, that will be $2000pa. Transactions may start at 2% of transaction value, but in a few years that will be 5%, then 10%.
Competition is good. Make Linux and other free operating systems great. Make them compete on both the desktop and as wonderful integrated servers that are easy to program using simple, easy languages. Improve the paradigm of the internet (uh oh, dilbert time) by having web browsers that can not only load a web page, but can dynamically update that page as a bit of new data arrives (e.g., a new post on /. would appear in the correct place at the time it was posted - no reloading necessary). It doesn't have to be .NET, it can be better, and it can happen sooner, and it can be safe, secure and reliable.
Shock, Surprise (Score:3, Funny)
Cheers,
IT
This is for their supply of .NET services/hosting (Score:3, Insightful)
Alternatively, other companies will be providing the same services for perhaps less or free. All you really need is a
Great news for Microsoft's competitors? (Score:2, Interesting)
If *just* Windows goes into renting software, then the Linux community has a GREAT advantage. Why? People absolutely HATE having the meter running. Any service which has a flat rate, when reasonably priced and sometimes even slightly more expensive, will ALWAYS win the consumer. It is a historical truth.
If only Windows adopts
Seems like it would be a strategic advantage NOT to have software rental on Linux. And this is a plus for the open source community.
Opposing Open Source (Score:2, Interesting)
has Microsoft gone .NUTS ?! (Score:2)
Consider Java/Corba, SOAP and even DCOM if MSFT continues to support it in it's current implementation (I doub it). None of them combined get as much press attention, as
And talk about timing, how many cost-cutting/concious companies will want to add as much as $10,000 to the cost of a project. Even at that price, Government contractors are going to think twice.
It seems to me as of Microsoft is going down the same path of destruction Digital Equipment and IBM traveled when they were kings of their hills. This thought that "nobody gets fired for hiring/using microsoft"
Moreover, it makes the time right for third party companies to begin creating component libraries that will either emulate, compete or obviate
It's too bad... (Score:2)
If $1,000 is going to be the lowest Microsoft will go, then I'm sad to say that beginning developers in the Windows/.NET arena will be stifled. They'll approad other venues, such as Linux, Qt, etc. for learning how to program.
I guess in the current economy, inexperienced, entry-level programmers are not important to Microsoft, making it that much harder for college graduates to get their foot in the door.
There's no intelligent life down here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Once again it becomes blazingly obvious that the bulk of Microsoft's detractors haven't a clue which end they use to go to the bathroom, much less what
This is about
Has nothing to do with the
Re: (Score:2)
missing the point. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's for the costs of access to their prebuilt -services-. If you have the skill to write and support your own shopping cart, you don't shell out $1000.
I mean, the price bar was set by Verisign. They'll charge you $1400 a year for a certificate and 'payment services' (cybercash).
If you snub Verisign and hit up Thawte ($125) for your certificate, and MS for your 'payment services' ($1000) it looks like you're -saving- $375 to me. And that's if MS
Is everyone so terrified of writing their own web calendar that they feel 'robbed' by 'having' to buy
But I suppose writing a well-thought article/post that points out that MS is -saving- you money (albeit a slight bit), or even just releasing their services at the already established going rate, just doesn't get the hits.
Re:Here comes the Sun (Score:2, Insightful)
Doo doo doo doo
Here Comes the Sun
And I say......
It's the most primitive load of junk I've seen in a long time for £80,000.
We bought a Sun E450 (against my wishes - the decision was taken before I got there so it was too late for serious debate). It had 4 SparcII 500Mhz cpus (this is about a year ago), 280Gb disk and 2Gb ram. It cost 80 thousand UKP. It came with:-
Solaris 8
No compiler.
No development tools such as make, M4, autoconf..
No decent desktop (do they really think anyone can be bothered with that joke desktop they supply, with no drag n drop, no file associations etc etc)
The hardware was out of the Arc - no RAID, no mirroring.
At the time I got a quote from Dell for an equivalent power machine - it came in at about £12,000 - with quad channel RAID controller, and 4 PIII Xeon 733Mhz cpus.
Sun charged us over 4000 a peice for the 18Gb Western Dig disks alone - each! When I quizzed them on this - they replied that they get the "best ones". My arse! My room full of Dell servers has WD disks and not one of them has failed - ever (2 years old now). But then even if one did - the servers are all RAID 5 so it won't bring the system down!
Same deal with the RAM - same stuff you can by on the open market - 10 times the price.
When you buy kit from Dell or Compaq (and probably everyone else too) the racks come with nice rack specific monitors, a proper rack keyboard that has a trackball, and fold away neatly. Except if you by a Sun server for 10 times the price - the damm keyboard was too wide to even fit through the rack door - no special monitor, and none of the doors shut properly.
"What a shoddy pile of old rubbish" was my first and lasting impression of "what Sun can give you for £80,000"
We got shot of it last month. Replaced by one Dell 6450 with RedHat Enterprise.
Sorry - this is completely off-topic - but I felt the need
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft tax (Score:2)
If
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Were Microsoft, we dont' have to! (Score:2)
Oh jeez... you kids today. WTF is Rita Pearlman? Do you mean Rhea Perlman (Cheers), married to Danny DeVito (Taxi)? You rememer incorrectly, which means you probably don't remember life under Ma Bell, not necessarily a bad thing.
It weren't SNL, either. It was Lily Tomlin [lilytomlin.com] who made the character "Ernestine, the phone operator", and not only did she do it every chance she got[1], people couldn't see it enough. There's even a couple of clips on her site, http://www.lilytomlin.com/ [lilytomlin.com].
Your bill was wrong? Not according to their computers. Phone broken? A serviceman can be out to repair it in... ohh... how's two weeks after next Thursday sound? You paid twice for each telephone in your house (they could check using Ringer Equivalence): a pe phone/month charge and a lease charge for the phone itself. You could not use a non-Bell phone and Bell did not sell, they only leased (licensed?) equipment. Are we seeing the similarities with Microsoft yet?
Us[4] old people still like that Ma Bell character she did (still does, maybe). She could get a whole load of new (geek) fans changing only a few things around, starting with just one vowel in "Ma Bell" and saying "Microsoft" instead of "The Bell System". The break-up of AT&T pretty much did that act in, but she managed a couple post break-up sketches.
woof.
[1] Name the lame '70s variety show, she was there, from Glen Campbell's Coury Hour to the Donny & Marie show[2]
[2] The original one, where they sang a few songs, did sketches that make current SNL not look so bad, and where Marie gave Donnie a pie-in-the-face at least once an episode[3]
[3] Except one show, where she pushed Donny *into* a giant "pie".
[4] I know it should be "We old people", but I gave up grammar for the sound of the phrase.
Re:Don't they have enough money already? (Score:2, Funny)
I'm sorry. I just can't stand to see someone exaggerating MS' position in the software industry like this...
Re:Don't they have enough money already? (Score:2)
It's still a LOTS cheaper than not fixing your broken product that you've already sold.
Also, every SDK is online for free plus a shitload of other content.
This is NOT a giveaway! As folks discuss the ability for Linux to take on the desktop it's quite apparent that a lack of key applications keep Windows on corporate machines. Keeping developers actually developing for your platform is not about being a nice company. This is about having lots of other folks keep your platform viable.
So yes, I take it for granted that when a company fixes their broken product they should do so at no cost. Is that really so different than an automobile maker recalling and fixing problems with cars they've already sold? Would you expect to have to pay them too?