Is Microsoft Silent Before a Deadly Storm? 492
M$FTjack writes "Discussions about Microsoft are all over the place, esp. with its recent delays to Vista. Some consider Microsoft to be doomed, while others say Microsoft is silent before a deadly storm. According to the article on CoolTechZone, the author believes that Microsoft will unleash an abundance of next-generation applications that will take everyone by surprise. From the article: 'So why am I citing all these examples? Simply because I think Microsoft is itself poised for a big leap. Despite all the rumors about Google and how it will topple Microsoft, I don't see that happening in the near future ... people (and I don't mean technology enthusiasts) will continue to purchase Microsoft products simply because of the sheer familiarity and comfort levels (BSoD et al) that they have with Microsoft software.'"
Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:5, Interesting)
the author believes that Microsoft will unleash an abundance of next-generation applications that will take everyone by surprise.
No - thats the way Apple works (taking people by surprise with cool new stuff)
Microsoft announces products years in advance in an attempt to stop people buying the competitors products. When MS's software finally arrives, it tends to be..... dissapointing.
people (and I don't mean technology enthusiasts) will continue to purchase Microsoft products simply because of the sheer familiarity and comfort levels (BSoD et al) that they have with Microsoft software.'
No, this should read:
people (and I don't mean technology enthusiasts) will continue to purchase Microsoft products simply because of vendor lock in - they will continue to need to run specialised applications that only exist on the windows platform.
Quotes from the article:Gosh, that's the worst mispelling of six years I've ever seen!Thats just the problem - no new features compelling people to upgrade from office 2000 (or 97 for that matter)The only feature on Live Local I like is the birds eye view - and it doesn't work where I live! (large US cities only). A pity - as virtual earth problaby has better data then google earth, its just that google earth presents it nicer!Riiiight...just like IE7 will mean no need to install firefox!
Analysis like this presents Google as the only competitor to MS - but the fact is their market is being chipped away from all sides, by a multitude of competitors.
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:5, Funny)
Gosh, that's the worst mispelling of six years I've ever seen!
It's not a mispelling, it's a twist. Vista only got delayed by a few months. Longhorn on the other hand...
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not mispelling, it's "misspelling"
Back on topic, I have been amazed at big a deal everyone is making about the Vista delays. How often are software projects late? Um, always?
Indeed, system vendors will be irate, but the idea of Microsoft being "doomed" as the Slashdot article states is patently absurd. Microsoft is such a massive empire; their fall would take decades and a long and consistant string of terrible screw-ups. A few products being late, even years late, might scratch their bottom-line, but it will hardly lead to their demise.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:3, Funny)
What about Bob?
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:5, Insightful)
Only when they are managed by incompetents, the kind of losers who think that working longer hours is something other than a euphemism for low productivity.
No software project I have managed has been late by more than 10% of the total schedule. It just isn't that hard to deliver quality software, on time, every time. I've done it with research-oriented projects, whole applications, and feature upgrades, in Java and C++, working alone and managing largish (~10 developer) teams. I have been involved in very late, very large projects that I accurately predicted would be very late using basic quantitative estimation practices. Large projects are even easier to estimate than small projects because they average over so much diversity. Any two large projects are more similar than any two small projects.
There are two major factors that cause software projects to be late: technological optimism on the part of developers, and faith-based management and estimation practices. I hardly need to write about technological optimism here--we've all at one time or another gotten so enamoured of a new technology that we thought it would solve all our problems in half the time and not contain any gotchas.
Faith-based management practices are based on what people want to be true rather than what is true. They are the epistemology of a bible-believing Christian applied to logistics. We've all seen managers who want badly to believe that the schedule will be met, and so they lie to themselves and everyone one around them, and punish anyone who disagrees with their faith.
Quantitative estimation and management practices are not hard to learn or apply, but they continually come up with the "wrong" answers--ones that the bible-believers don't want to hear. When this happens the bible-believers characteristically make exceptionalist claims: "This is the chosen project! It is not not like all those other projects you based your estimates on! This project is special! It is outside the laws of time, space and logistics!"
Needless to say, like all bible-believers, they are impervious to facts, and so their projects crash merrily through deadline after deadline without any response except ill-conceived attempts to force their minnions and themselves to work ever-longer hours.
The solution to all of this is the Law of Common Humanity: We are just like Them. If industry data from the past century across a dozen different fields shows that working more than 35 or 40 hours a week results in significantly lower productivity, then that is probably true of us as well. If the quantitative estimation practices described in Rapid Development gave reasonable values for others, they probably will for us. If the causes of failure identified in Stephen Flowers excellent book Software Failure: Management Failure caused other projects to fail, they will probably cause ours to fail if we let them.
It is clear that Microsoft has never learned this lesson. They have been famous for late projects since Word1.0 two decades ago, and yet like bible-believers everywhere, they keep to the faith of their forefathers despite the wreckage it produces. On this basis, the odds of Microsoft being poised to unleash a river of innovation is simply not plausible.
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:2, Insightful)
What if MS is actually learning something from Apple's success and trying that strategy out?
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:5, Insightful)
That probably wouldn't work because of their sales strategy. They sell companies expensive 3-year subscriptions with the promise that they'll get Microsoft's latest and greatest when it's ready; to make the sale, naturally, they have to hype the products in the pipeline.
If I recall correctly, Vista/Longhorn was supposed to be out in 2004, 3 years after XP. Some corporations paid a lot of money for a lot of nothing in 2001 and the following years, based on empty promises and grossly miscalculated shipping dates.
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:3, Insightful)
However, while they have to be as open as they can about Vista, Office, and other corporate necessities, consider projects like the Origami, or a rumored XBox handheld. They could really benefit from an Apple-style buzz and launch.
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:5, Interesting)
Last good piece of software was MapPoint2004. Now Google Earth does what I need from it.
Total raping of customers is what they're doing with this crappy Software Assurance.
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:3, Informative)
wik says 2003
link [wikipedia.org]
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. To quote computerworld from 1995:
This has always and continues to be their strategy. As far as I can tell, this time their entire marketing plan is
"Don't buy a Mac or install Ubuntu or else you might miss out on Vista's similar UI candy".
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:3, Insightful)
AFAIK, Vista wasn't delayed six years. That seem to rather match the time it has been in development.
But yes, it was likely delayed more than a "few months" at least due to them deciding to throw out the XP kernel and base it on Server 2003's instead.
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:5, Informative)
They didn't "decide" to make the kernel transition. Rather, much like Duke Nukem Forever, technology changed so much while they were in development that they saw now loss in changing the "engine". In the process they dumped much of the work they have completed, and started largely anew.
It was the result of the first iteration being a complete disaster.
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:3, Insightful)
AFAIK, Vista wasn't delayed six years. That seem to rather match the time it has been in development.
Yeah it was. They called it Longhorn back in 2000, then renamed it as vista. Calling it new is disingenuous - everyone knows MS is working on the next version of their OS. The actual project name is irrelevant.
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you seen Office 2007? They actually tried this time. It has new features, and it's actually way better to use.
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:4, Insightful)
Still can't open open document formats.
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't remember MS promising to deliver Vista in 2001, and I doubt you have proof to the contrary...
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:2)
They just don't produce good products and definitely a brand I don't trust anymore.
Anything from them is simply similar to the PlayStation market. I'm not a PS player and any addon for that platform
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:3, Insightful)
I would want my company to diversify and nost just in other areas. If a microwave oven can run on my software, damn it, i'm gonna get someone to write software for it.
Why did they stop supporting their media player for Mac? Why did they stop at Media Player 6.4 for Linux?
I seriously think that Microsoft coders can't code at all. Whatever
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:2)
Probably better to remain silent than to speak and remove all doubt....
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:4, Interesting)
No, just the way IE4 meant you don't need to install Netscape4 (we all know what happened with Netscape after that).
Also IE7 *will* be a reason for a lot of business organisation that went to firefox to "relax" and go back to IE, because of the new limited rights mode that blocks exploits from happening even after vulnerabilities are discovered.
Also Firefox' team doesn't seem to get it that memory footprint and CPU use matters. I'm growing increasingly frustrated with those issues not addressed (I'm a regular Firefox user, IE6 sits idle doing nothing but testing my sites for IE6 compatibility), and I might move to Opera 9 when it's out.
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe not for enthusiasts or techies, but for the average computer user, IE7 exactly means no need to install firefox.
It takes a big improvement to make it worth someone's time to switch to a new piece of software and learn how to use it. By cutting into the difference in quality, it's simply not worth the average user's time to investigate alternative browsers. Heck, look at the present situation, where IE6 pretty much completely sucks, and still most people won't switch. Now imagine if IE7 copies all the good features from Firefox.
Re:Microsoft is never silent before the storm. (Score:2, Funny)
Polishing Apples (Score:5, Funny)
with a battery instead of a foot pedal. and a digital file instead of a roll of paper with holes punched
into it. and instead of vibrating strings, there are little cones that vibrate directly next to your ear.
But a player piano never looked so shiny and cute and a player piano never played "Fuck the Police" or "Too Drunk to Fuck" ( I don't think ).
This is the genius of apple !
so, where is my book deal.
I doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I doubt it (Score:2, Funny)
Almost two years know and I'm still waiting for application and driver support for XP 64-bit.
The only storm ahead is the one in which fisherman Gates is played by Clooney... of course Gates ends up on an island of billions of dollars as the business world mops up the mess.
Re:I doubt it (Score:2)
Antiviral apps are the only problem i'm aware of along with apps that modify shell context menu's (which is not too difficult to fix)
Re:I doubt it (Score:3, Informative)
It's upto application developers to release 64 bit builds, but for most apps it just isnt necessary or bring any performance benefits. That said, off the top of my head there are 64 bit builds of 7zip and SmartFTP.
maybe stormy silence before a Death? (Score:4, Insightful)
Key moment in the slashdot article:
I think the user community along with the technical community approaches the tipping point with Microsoft, especially with more and more alternatives like web based applications. Microsoft may join that fray, but they've sandbagged themselves, and they may not recover so nimbly this time (though I'll never count Microsoft out).
Microsoft has spent so much ill-will capital, the collective technology users' almost (almost) want Microsoft to go away. Microsoft is still powerful, but a lot of that power today is inertia as Microsoft tries to think of ways to re-invent itself yet again in time to maintain its control. I hope it doesn't.
Meanwhile, users (though they don't quite yet know it) are offered virtually every function as a web application, at least for ninety percent, and in many ways the new applications surpass the old resident application paradigm for convenience, service, and ease of use and maintenance.
Re:maybe stormy silence before a Death? (Score:2)
Daniel
Re:maybe stormy silence before a Death? (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouldn't agree. The collective users minus the knowledgeable community are just happy that the "media center edition windows" that came equipped with their dell lets them do all this "new" cool stuff. don't count out a dazzling UI, fancy-sounding jargon or some other gimmick to win back the ignorant hordes, because I really doubt that true innovation will come by and kill or beat some of the great products already out there.
Either that, or look out for a deadly string of buyouts. Honestly, I love using Visio because it feels so different from the rest of the Office suite. Things just work sometimes -- made me finally give up xfig. If I'm not mistaken Visio was a company that made ...Visio...and then got bought out by MS.
It's true (Score:2)
And that app is named Duke Nukem Forever. No really. Instead of just displaying number in a spreadsheet the little avatar has a machine gun and shoots "virtual" holes in your spreadsheet to match your data. Its pretty cool. And if you don't take proper care of him, then machine guns the whole screen until only the blue in the back can be seen. Good stuff.
That is exactly how I work (Score:4, Funny)
Where's the picket sign? DOOM (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Where's the picket sign? DOOM (Score:3, Funny)
So with the 'obese American' factor figured in, that amounts to about, what, 20 guys?
Re:Where's the picket sign? DOOM (Score:2)
There is a difference between relevance and survival. Chevrolet, for example, is a surviving, but irrelevant company who will be around a long time because they are huge and have a huge customer base.
Re:Where's the picket sign? DOOM (Score:2)
Irrelevant? Come on dude. MS is hardly irrelevant, and hardly having a hard time surviving. What was it they make like 250 (or 500) million every two weeks? They are surviving and the are relevant and they are a big market player. There is no question MS has been here, is here and will continue to be he
Re:Where's the picket sign? DOOM (Score:5, Interesting)
You do realize, don't you, that it's possible for someone to like Microsoft, or to be neutral about them, and still to predict that they have tough times ahead? Building a caricature of everyone disagreeing being a pro-Linux anti-MS nut is both incorrect and offensive. I'm a Microsoft Empower member, my business does consulting largely for Microsoft SQL Server, and I continue to pursue Microsoft certifications, yet there isn't a chance in hell that I'd hold Microsoft stock right now, nor would I recommend that someone accept an employment agreement that relies upon options as the primary draw. Demand cold hard cash or look for work with a competitor.
Re:Where's the picket sign? DOOM (Score:2)
Here are some references, a little old but still relevant:
Re:Where's the picket sign? DOOM (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where's the picket sign? DOOM (Score:2)
Totally irrelevant - Enron lost because their upper execs scammed the company. Are you just throwing company names for the hell of it?
GM was once a really big company
Another irrelevant case. You're comparing apples to oranges. GM is losing out to other major competitors who are able to produce at a cheaper rate - plus people still see foreign cars as superior to domestic. MS, with it's about 90% market share does not suffer such an issue. It's biggest competit
Re:Where's the picket sign? DOOM (Score:2, Interesting)
No kidding I'm comparing apples to oranges, which would be the case for any comparison of this sort. The pertinent point is that they were large, money rich companies that seemed to be in the seat of power, and now they're either gone, or severely crippled. Pointing out that Microsoft makes lots of profit today doesn't prove much -- they have lots of revenue, but they have enormous expenses as well, not to mention that they're seeing increasing pre
Re:Where's the picket sign? DOOM (Score:3, Interesting)
You got it right. While most people at this site are Linux fanboy's and despise anything and everything that Microsoft ever does, they continually miss the point:
Lots of Linux fanbois. And yes, predicting the end of Microsoft is retarded.
Microsoft is the biggest and most successful software production house in the history of the world.
Depends on how you define biggest and most successful. Biggest, in terms of market cap? Most successful, in terms of profit? Then yes, Microsoft sometimes h
Windows Vista = "Meh" (Score:5, Interesting)
But what is in Vista, Better Graphics, Some slight speed improvement on already fast computers, some things a little easier to use, better security for a little while. I rate all of them with a big "Meh" in my book and it will make it hard to convince people they they need to upgrade soon.
Re:Windows Vista = "Meh" (Score:2)
You fail to see why Vista *will* be everywhere: because it will be installed by default on a -very- large number of computer sold in the following years...
Re:Windows Vista = "Meh" (Score:2)
Re:Windows Vista = "Meh" (Score:2)
Re:Windows Vista = "Meh" (Score:2)
Besides Interface and Technical Stuff I really don't see the advantage of Windows Vista.
What is in an OS besides interface and technical stuff? Documentation?
But if they are happy with what they have now there isn't anything I can see that they really want or need in Longhorn that they don't have now... and it will make it hard to convince people they they need to upgrade soon.
Upgrade? No one upgrades Windows; well compared to the install base no one does. Some enterprises that have site licenses wil
Re:Windows Vista = "Meh" (Score:2)
Personally I could live with Windows 2000 but use XP x64 because, well... I just got sick of some of the minor differences. XP has improvements. In Explorer we have the tile and thumbnail folder views, icon grouping by file type or name etc, the ability to hide tray icon
3.1 - 95 - 2000 (Score:2)
Then from Win9x to Win2K with the final removal of DOS. (Yeah, if you were on NT you already had that, I know).
Since then, there hasn't been anything really compelling from an end-user stand point. Crappy apps are still crappy apps. Good apps are still good apps. Most people still login as "admin" with all the associated problems (and for all the perceived benefits).
98% (stat pulled out of my butt) of the home users would
Re:Windows Vista = "Meh" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Windows Vista = "Meh" (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it just me or is Microsoft actually catching up to where *nix has been for twenty years with Project Athena from MIT.....
Directory services, Kerberos, automated maintenance pushed out to workstations (via GPO's in Windows).... Now if we could only deal with insane file locking strategies that WIndows uses, add symlinks, etc. we would have a real OS. Alternatively, if they could add the really cool clustering capabilities VMS had, that would be cool too.
Right now, Windows is sort of a VMS-lite with a nicer GUI but lacking all the enterprise management features that have existed in the enterprise OS world for twenty years.
The *Only* reason what Microsoft is making inroads here is because UNIX/Linux geeks don't really know what their OS is capable of.
Re:Windows Vista = "Meh" (Score:2)
They seem like good enough reasons to upgrade to me...
What's really being said (Score:5, Insightful)
They aren't silent (Score:2)
Not to mention
There's then Vista, and Office 12 under production, and even IE 7.
Actually, it was quite a while since I last saw MS have this many balls in the air. Whether they're doing well or not at it is anot
No, no t ms (Score:2)
Re:No, no t ms (Score:2)
>
>Anyone aware of "next-generation [stuff]" that was born inside a huge corp and not in a startup? May be it just because in huge corps info is far more likely to leak, than in small startup, but anyway I never expect something "too cool" from big corps: they are too deep inside their bureaucracy and other sh** to innovate.
This latest gambit is amusing - either scare the competition
Beware Office 2007, it is that good. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Beware Office 2007, it is that good. (Score:3)
Re:Beware Office 2007, it is that good. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, according to the FAQ's that Microsoft provides on Office 2007 [microsoft.com]:
What's new in the 2007 Microsoft Office system?
What's new in Office Word 2007?
Obviously, it's time to pull out the check book and send more of your money to Redmond.
Re:Beware Office 2007, it is that good. (Score:4, Interesting)
An interface that doesn't suck so badly? Seriously, is there anyone who doesn't look at the menus in Office 2003 and despair? I can't imagine how the average computer user copes; presumably they learn, very laboriously, where in the maze of submenus and dialogs they can find the five features they need most often, and then pray they'll never need to do anything different in future.
I've watched intelligent, computer-literate people struggle with Word 2003, and it's not pretty. Even basic actions like getting the spellchecker to use the right language cause massive headaches for people who haven't sat down and literally memorised the menu system. (Sure, it's obvious once you know where to look, but it's nothing like intuitive.)
By all accounts, the new interface will mean things end up in much more logical places, and can be found with far fewer clicks. If it lives up to the hype, it will actually make Word (and all the other word processors, once they clone the new interface) a much pleasanter tool to use.
Re:Beware Office 2007, it is that good. (Score:5, Interesting)
Must-upgrade the computer, RAM, monitor, video card.
I really would like to know what are the killer features that are so irresistible to you and the article writer. There really isn't much you can't do, in terms of least effort to get words on paper and make it look presentable, that you you couldn't do with Winword 2, or WordPerfect 6, 10 or so years ago. If a feature is important, you learn where it is and/or create a shortcut for it. (I was doing that in WordStar almost 20 years ago.) I know one answer will be "collaborative tools". I've yet to meet anyone who uses these in real life. It requires a unifirm level of competence in a whole group, and you just don't get that. Usually it will be the boss who just sends back files via fax with remarks scribbled on them. But most users are still pushing out one or two page memos, same as their great-grandparents did on Underwood typewriters over a century ago.
Re:Beware Office 2007, it is that good. (Score:5, Informative)
How much of an improvement is it? Testers are discovering "brand new features" that have been there since Office 95, because they can finally _find_ the settings. No more traversing confusing menus and dialogs to change formatting options. Everything's grouped intelligently, instead of doing things like dumping anything from spell check to collaboration to mail merge into a "Tools" menu. Style-based formatting has been made easier. And best of all, no more toolbars that appear and disappear, and no more task pane.
If you want the details, read the "Why the UI" series in Jensen Harris's blog (he's the program manager for the Office "user experience" team) -- http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/category/11
Re:Beware Office 2007, it is that good. (Score:5, Funny)
and let me guess, you're posting using its spell checker!
No, that's not it (Score:3, Interesting)
MS also knows that most of their big corporate users probably won't be migrating to Vista for at least 2 years. It's expensive and it takes years to get a budget like that pushed through the beancounters of a big company.
This is a good opportunity for Apple to gain some marketshare on the home user side of things. Most of us shrug off Boot Camp as "Yeah, dual boot, I was doing that with LiLo in 1995" but for the non-techie users, Boot Camp is *HUGE*.
It means they are no longer tethered to Windows. They will buy a Mac expecting to use Windows 90% of the time, but they will start using Mac OS more and more and come to like it. Once Apple introduces in-house virtualization, they will realize they really don't need to boot to Windows at all.
Once this starts to happen, the big achilles heel for Apple (which is largely a myth anyway) -- software support -- starts to go away. No, Apple's not going to have 95% market share overnight (the corporate side is a lot slower to move and there really is no replacement for the Outlook/Exchange combo on the mac side yet,) but I don't see 25-30% as an unreasonable number. People are *looking* for an alternative to Windows, and Apple is in the right place at the right time.
Re:No, that's not it (Score:2)
Your argument boils down to "People will start buying more Macs because now they can run Windows!".
Right.
Re:No, that's not it (Score:3, Insightful)
The argument is that people are fed up with Windows and the market is ripe for something that will replace it. Boot Camp makes the transition much easier on people because they don't have to quit Windows cold turkey.
People no longer trust Microsoft as they did in the past (right or wrong, most users blame Microsoft for viruses and spyware.) While Macs are not immune to them, the default security policies on OS X (have to enter a password to install anything) make i
They Have Already Started!!!! (Score:2)
MSN!
MS Live!
MS Earth!
Origami!
Office with ribbons!
MS Paint!
Microsoft has for years been releasing cool new products that keep us more productive and, more importantly, provide job strong job security in the tech support field!
Yeah, so next time your banker or nurse tells you that the printer is broken, and that technology never works, you can just have her forward her thoughts to MS customer service.
Get over the BSoD (Score:2)
This whole thread (Score:2, Insightful)
Nothing to see here (Score:2)
Storms (Score:2)
I tried to RTFA... (Score:2)
Assuming the summary is accurate,
"...the author believes that Microsoft will unleash an abundance of next-generation applications that will take everyone by surprise. From the article: 'So why am I citing all these examples? Simply because I think Microsoft is itself poised for a big leap.'"
Wrong. If MS had anything big up their sleeves--that is to say, anything that worked and was compelling--they'd have it out already. I'm not saying there's nothing cool left to be done wit
I get them fairly regularly in XP still but ... (Score:3, Informative)
Blahblah (Score:2)
Who are these people?
Oh really (Score:2)
For him to mention BSoD in his submission was just tired rhetoric. Yea I'm sure people are still running Windows 98 out there and seeing BSoD but that is what they deserve for running a crappy, ancient OS with no memory protection. Anyone running XP or NT isn't likely to see very
Mac OS X Feature for Windows Users (Score:2, Flamebait)
>> continue to purchase Microsoft products simply because
>> of the sheer familiarity and comfort levels (BSoD et al)
When Apple started with switch campaign some years back, I thought that one of the things that they needed to include in OS X for Windows users who were switching was a Control Panel that invokes a "Windows-mode".
When enabled, the Mac would do bizarre shit on an unpredictable basis (OS crashing, audio disappearing, etc)
There is.... (Score:2)
SBD (Score:4, Funny)
Apple's MacBook Hurricane to drown Vista? (Score:2)
Apple's "Boot Camp" beta that lets you run XP on your MacBook? Wonderful! especially now that we hear you can actually triple boot the MacBook into Linux! Yeee Haw! I want one!
Who cares if it does not run Vista! I don't. I don't want to have to replace my 5 computers that run XP just fine, thank you, with whatever yet hardware that Vista requires!
The MacBook running windows is just the kind of disruptive technology that Gates should fear. Users can ad
It would be a big surprise. (Score:2)
That would make the whole community drop jaws in unison so hard it would move the earth a fair bit. What next-generation application can anyone think of that has had its origin within Microsoft? Everything i can think of has either been bought or Xeroxed. Even one a unique first generation application would make a pretty big splash since it would be the first.
I imagine anything M
Rollback 40 years and change Microsoft to IBM (Score:2)
That is why Microsoft is so desperately trying to define what the next great computer frontier will be - whether computerized games consoles, entertainment systems, kitchens or whole houses. However, while these are all in
Radically new, different, familiar and comfortable (Score:2)
People (and I don't mean technology enthusiasts) will continue to purchase Microsoft products simply because of the sheer familiarity and comfort levels (BSoD et al) that they have with Microsoft software.
Revolutionary, new and completely different products that people will buy because they're familiar and comfortable.
Now there's a trick.
B
Nothing to see here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which means, all the MS haters/flamers posts will get modded up as insightful or interesting (and will by in large be neither), anyone saying anything contrary will be left untouched or modded down. Nothing new or valuable will be said, all the same flames will be rehashed yet again.
And I'm sorry, love them or hate them, but to say MS is doomed and going to fold is beyond stupid, with no basis in reality. If you have any sense of the scope of their software suites and the size of their user base, no one in their right mind would say that. You might WANT it to happen, but hope and reality are not the same thing
Nothing Indeed. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd like to ignore such crap myself, but I know I'll be hearing it over and over again. The upgrade train is building up steam again. Because so many people have been burnt before, M$ is having to crank up the volume more than usual. The article is a sorry apology for M$'s glacial six year OS pace and inability to do anything innovative. Just the same, we are going to hear more of the same. M$ might be deadly, but they are never silent because hype a
Tamagochi addon (Score:4, Funny)
No, wait, this is the way Windows already works..
Microsoft by default (Score:3, Interesting)
No, people (and I don't mean technology enthusiasts) will continue to purchase Microsoft products simply because it's Microsoft products that come in the bundle that's included with their PC. Doesn't matter whether it's an in-store purchase, or a checkbox they clicked on the web, 99% of the time, the decision is: do I order a PC with Windows and Office, or just Windows?
How do you tell? (Score:4, Insightful)
More to the point, how often has Microsoft really come out with something innovative that took the world by storm? It's released rehashes of products it bought from other people, but I can't think of many cutting edge, out-of-nowhere advancements that have come from them. It's not really their core competancy is it? Which isn't to say they can't produce some slick stuff when they want to, but rather they're more often riding the coat tails of smaller trailblazers (who they either crush or swallow in the following years).
Oh yeah, like Origami... (Score:3, Insightful)
At a recent Korean demonstration showing off Origami hardware, the software hung and choked many times.
or... how 'bout the TABLET PC??
Re:I trust Microsoft completely..... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I trust Microsoft completely..... (Score:4, Funny)
You forgot the most important similarity (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Doomed!? (Score:2, Informative)