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Redmond Yawning at Apple-Google Alliance? 214

Posted by CowboyNeal from the much-ado-about-something dept.
Debra D'Agostino writes "Despite the media hype around Google CEO Eric Schmidt's appointment to Apple's board, CIO Insight Executive Editor Dan Briody says it's not that big a story. 'Apple and Google are already plenty tight,' he says. Arthur Levinson, CEO of Genentech, has been on both boards for years. And Al Gore and Intuit Chairman Bill Campbell are both Apple board members and advisors to Google. 'While it's fun to speculate about what an Apple-Google alliance could produce (GoogleMacs? MacGoogle? GoogleTunes?) this move is far from an alliance,' Briody writes. 'And even if it were, it wouldn't be first time that two upstart powerhouses have joined forces in an attempt to unseat Microsoft. Remember AOL-Netscape? Boy, they just steamrolled the team from Redmond, didn't they?'"
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Redmond Yawning at Apple-Google Alliance? More

Redmond Yawning at Apple-Google Alliance?

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  • this article is tiresome (Score:5, Funny)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Thursday August 31, 2006 @11:16PM (#16021479) Homepage
    These are exciting times for Microsoft Haters. Google is growing in strength, serving up online ads by the bucket, even making headway in the corporate software market.

    What adult writes like this?

    Blogs are the new Op-Ed page, only with no journalistic standards.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by qortra ( 591818 )
      What adult writes like this?

      To be fair, the portion of the article that you quoted is infact objectively true, and not editorial at all. If I were as upset with the current state of blogs as you obviously are, I would have quoted the following gems from this article:

      The truth is, Apple and Google are already plenty tight. (perhaps true but badly phrased)

      or

      Well, duh. That's the business model in Redmond. (badly written and possibly misleading; several reputable companies have headquarters in Redmo [wikipedia.org]

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Guuge ( 719028 )
      What adult writes like this?

      I would say Donald Rumsfeld, but he would have used the term "Microsoft-Hating Nazis" or perhaps "Macintosh Fascists" instead.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tbone1 ( 309237 )
      What adult writes like this?

      I was about to say "any journalist", but then I wondered if, by "adult", you intended some connotation that would exclude them.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by kitzilla ( 266382 )

      >> These are exciting times for Microsoft Haters. Google is growing in strength, serving up online ads by the bucket, even making headway in the corporate software market.

      > What adult writes like this?

      Substitiute "democracy" for "Microsoft haters," and it sounds a bit like pretty much anyone in the Bush administration, actually.

  • so... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31, 2006 @11:16PM (#16021480)
    apple is an upstart now?
    • apple is an upstart now?
      Maybe, if you compare it to IBM, Xerox, or Nintendo.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kahrytan ( 913147 )

        Apple Computer is NOT an upstart. Hell, Apple started the home personal computer. Though, some may argue that issue.

      Google is an upstart company. They are relatively new and have large sums of cash. Apple has alot of cash on hand but they have been around awhile.

  • Question from a Mac user (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NTiOzymandias ( 753325 ) on Thursday August 31, 2006 @11:24PM (#16021529)
    If Apple and Google are so tight, where the hell is that Mac-compatible Google Talk voice chat client we were promised a year ago?

    Not to mention... well... ALL the rest of Google's software.

    I'm not blaming Google specifically, mind you.... Apple should hurry up and fix those Javascript bugs in Safari already so that stuff like Writely will finally work.

    • Board connections != product collaboration (Score:5, Informative)

      by Infonaut ( 96956 ) <infonaut@gmail.com> on Thursday August 31, 2006 @11:37PM (#16021592) Homepage Journal

      If Apple and Google are so tight, where the hell is that Mac-compatible Google Talk voice chat client we were promised a year ago?

      Likewise, how come Intuit has waffled back and forth over Mac support during Campbell's tenure on Apple's board? How come the presence of Ellison on Apple's board never resulted in any staggering Oracle+Apple ventures?

      Boards of directors are supposed provide outside perspective and serve as a safeguard for shareholders. Whether they actually do this in the era of the massively overpaid chief executive is debatable, but it seems obvious that membership on a board doesn't lead to actual strategic connections between the two companies.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by inKubus ( 199753 )
        If you look at the top 500 companies in America, you'll find they share the same 1000 people as board members. The super rich get around. If you own 10% of a company, you're probably going to want to try for a board spot, so you have some say beyond just voting shares. Thus, the billionaires all run each other's companies to a certain extent. Talk about anti-trust, you'll see eventually this being exposed. Then they'll look back at the records the SEC keeps, and the state regulators and they'll find al

    • If Apple and Google are so tight, where the hell is that Mac-compatible Google Talk voice chat client we were promised a year ago?

      Apple and Google could work together more closely, but what is their major strength is that both work with open standards quite a bit (although not quite enough to satisfy me). For example, OS X ships with ichat that supports Jabber and several open standard voice and video protocols. OS X server ships with a Jabber server. Google uses Jabber for their talk protocol. I use iCh

  • I agree that just because Schmidt is on the board that this is an all-out agreement. Don't dismiss this though. Given some time, something could come up--or maybe nothing at all. I can still be pretty sure that Redmond isn't yawning over this. I'd say a few chairs are being thrown around (It's like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic--er, I mean the board room)
    • I'd say a few chairs are being thrown around

      Possible, but I don't think that particular chair-thrower takes Eric Schmidt very seriously. Remember, in that very same chair-throwing conversation, he called Eric Schmidt "a pussy."

  • -1 Troll (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 42Penguins ( 861511 ) on Thursday August 31, 2006 @11:28PM (#16021548)
    If there was ever a trolling story, this is it. NPOV anyone?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      NPOV anyone?

      It's not Wikipedia, idiot. Crawl back into your mother's basement.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by jb.hl.com ( 782137 )
      Looking for NPOV on Slashdot is like being straight and cruising gay bars for girls.

  • MS Threat (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gamer4Life ( 803857 ) on Thursday August 31, 2006 @11:46PM (#16021639)
    No one is going to be a threat to Microsoft until they challenge Windows as an operating system. Microsoft can always include any product they make into their operating system "for free" (actually subsidized by the cost of Windows), and push them out, like what they've done with all before them.

    The key to "beating" Microsoft is the OS. Something that's easy to use, runs on cheap/common hardware, and compatible with current software.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by earthbound kid ( 859282 )
      "Generals always fight the last war."

      The age of the OS is almost over. Remember in the mid-90s, what you did when you wanted a computerized map of some place you'd never been? You went to the store, bought a CD-ROM, put it in your computer, ran the installer, and checked the map. The CD had to be for the right OS (meaning Windows most of the time) or the whole thing wouldn't work.

      How do we check maps now? We go to googlemaps.com. It doesn't matter what OS you use for this.

      The internet is making whole classe

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by shoma-san ( 739914 )
        What planet do you live on? There isn't an OS out there that can or will match Windows in todays marketplace. The original post says "No one is going to be a threat to Microsoft until they challenge Windows as an operating system" and that is the cold hard truth.

        No matter how much you like Redhat or Mandrake or any other flavor of Linux, they're not as supportable as Microsoft or Apple. Remember what it was like before plug and play? Most people couldn't handle installing hardware like speakers and scanners

        • Re:MS Threat (Score:5, Interesting)

          by _Sprocket_ ( 42527 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @01:47AM (#16022122)
          No matter how much you like Redhat or Mandrake or any other flavor of Linux, they're not as supportable as Microsoft or Apple. Remember what it was like before plug and play? Most people couldn't handle installing hardware like speakers and scanners. Driver/Hardware support sucked balls. And it still does for some OS's. And let's not get into the support for Dev's and IT professionals or the books and websites devoted to making peoples lives easier.


          History does not agree with your premise. If ease of use was so important, Apple would be dominating the industry. MacOS had far superior "plug and play" support well before it came to any environment Windows ran on ("Microsoft" and "Apple" are not OSes). And even with the state that WinXP is in today, there is still a very large market for supporting end user desktops. It would seem that Windows (and even OSX) falls short of your ideal. Don't get me wrong - Linux (since you brought it up) as a desktop platform does have various short-comings. But I don't find "supportability" as much an issue as you make it out.

          The only company that could topple MS is Apple and Apple continues to refuse or fail at opening up it's OS to other OEM's.


          Apple lost in the early years because IBM lost. When IBM lost control of its "personal computer" architecture and it became a commodity platform, it set the stage for Microsoft's success and the demise for Apple who managed to "win" and keep control of its own platform. Tough break for Apple. They failed to bootstrap their own version of a commodity platform years later. And I'm not so sure any attempt today to support the x86 platform today would be successful (not that it wouldn't be interesting to see it attempted).

          MS will never be challenged on the OS level until a company out there can bring a competitvie supportable OS to manufacturers.


          You're assuming that Microsoft has to be unseated at the OS level. I disagree. What has to be done is to remove the OS as the lynch-pin to any given strategy. Web apps would be one piece to that - although I'm not convinced that alone will do it.

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Admiral Ag ( 829695 )
          I think the point is that Linux can out-Windows Windows.

          Windows won the OS war because it was cheaper because it could be installed on pretty much any manufacturer's desktop PC. IMHO Apple made the superior product (and I think it still does, but YMMV). But Wintel was "good enough" and cheaper. Apple is never going to compete at the bargain basement cheap box level, but then again the people who buy those sorts of computers are unlikely to care about the OS as long as it works and it is "good enough".

          Window
          • Windows has a monopoly because it's on every desktop and laptop that isn't sold by Apple. Linux being free isn't a great help to people who've already paid for Windows. The next year will be critical in that regard. With Vista coming in how will the OEM market react.

            Are the companies that are making noise about pre-installing Linux doing just so that they can get a better discount from MS? What if they're serious? There's a real advantage to OEMs to never have to pay for software again. At the top of the

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by monoqlith ( 610041 )
        Your predictions are appealing, but I'll play the devil's advocate: they are a little premature and discount Microsoft completely as a competitor, which is pretty short-sighted considering competing in market share (many times unfairly) is the thing Microsoft does best.

        For one, applications on the desktop are much more mature than their AJAX and Java counterparts - Writely.com and Google Spreadsheets, for instance, don't even pretend to replace Microsoft Word and Excel at this moment. This will of course ch
        • Charging just for support and giving away an OS is something Microsoft and Apple can both do in the future to compete on price.

          That's not to guarantee that Apple will ever shift from tying its OS to its hardware. Just saying this to keep the other option of licensing their OS open.
    • The key to "beating" Microsoft is the OS. Something that's easy to use, runs on cheap/common hardware, and compatible with current software.

      Dell's Back-To-School special was a $279 XP Home system. Word Perfect. Monitor. One-Year Warranty. You can't get much cheaper than that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by camt ( 162536 )
      I'm pretty sure the key to beating Microsoft is winning the Office market, which is probably much harder than beating them at the OS war, in no small part because of custom MS Access apps that run half of your business and VB macros, etc.
    • Yes, ant Google's helped a lot in that respect. Imagine if the best search engine was MSN based. Imagine Microsoft leveraging online apps the way Google does? Passport could be a reality. Maybe you'll be needing some extensions for enhaced features on MSN (MSN may have enhanced features now...I don't know, I I don't care). There'd be a direct relationship connecting an OS (clients) and content (Web service): you can leverage that. If you want to migrate...you may lose important webapps functionality. And on

  • The key to beating Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Heir Of The Mess ( 939658 ) on Thursday August 31, 2006 @11:48PM (#16021647)
    The key to beating Microsoft is to unseat Windows. Having a new board member at Apple isn't going to do that.

    If Apple was serious about unseating Windows then they would copy Microsoft's strategies. Microsoft can see threats coming. The Playstation was a trojan horse into the living room. MS pumped a lot of money into putting a machine into people's living rooms that would stop them from needing to buy a Playstation. This is a long term strategy.

    What Apple should do is buy Sun and put those hardware engineers to work on making the worlds best game console. That console should be a server with thin clients around the house, it should serve up great games and movies to the tv, and also let you wirelessly connect a Monitor and keyboard thin client and use Googles internet office suite for working on all your work like needs. TV and music on demand would be served up through Apples iTunes store. With this strategy Apple/Google/Sun could take over the entire household computing needs. And you know it would be cool because it comes from Apple.

    Of course in the meantime I'm going to end up buying Vista, Office 2007, a Nintendo Wii and think about an Xbox 360.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by laffer1 ( 701823 )
      Quite a few think windows is the key. I personally think its Office. Sure OpenOffice and a ton of other apps exist. They don't get business people interested. If someone could actually take over the office suite market, they could control the desktop business uses. Microsoft got Windows into the offices of the world with office. Why does Microsoft still make Office for the Mac? Could it be because OSX is actually a good product and if it had a rival Office suite it might take marketshare from Windows?
      • I think what protects Microsoft's dominance is what I call the "last 1%" - that little bit of extra functionality that we get from the ubiquity of MS products. In my case, it is the integration of EndNote with Microsoft Word ("Cite as you write.") The productivity boost that little feature gives me keeps me away from Writely, OpenOffice, etc; it keeps .doc as the standard format for my documents. For other people, it is different things - add-ons and plugins for MS products that aren't available for non-MS
    • What Apple should do is buy Sun and put those hardware engineers to work on making the worlds best game console.

      Sun's engineering expertise centered around providing software and hardware for large organizations. I don't think they can take that expertise and apply it well to consumer electronics. Save for Java, nothing they have done has come anywhere near consumer conciousness or use, and even then, Java is pretty well hidden.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Heir Of The Mess ( 939658 )
        I'm an Engineer. We solve problems period. It's just up to the person in charge to formulate the problem correctly. Of course some Engineers provide good solutions and others don't, but the point is, is that a good Engineer can easily be retargeted. In fact the morale of an Engineer increases greatly when you give them somthing new to do.

        A game console is a platform, the Engineers wouldn't be creating the content. I think that taking the Engineers from Sun and giving them a problem formulated by Steve Jo
    • ...Is time.

      Empires climb and fall. Fortunes come and go. In this life the only constant is change.

      The vast majority of businesses don't long survive the end of their founders' direct participation, and I expect Microsoft is no different. Shortly after Bill Gates loses interest Steve Ballmer will have a stroke trying to sell proprietary software to Venezuela and it will all be over. A series of absurd follies, operational errors and legal decisions will drive the company to receivership. It will be a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 )
      Apple's not serious about unseating Windows. They can't do it and they know it. They must be content as a vertically integrated solutions company that snipes at MS from the peanut gallery.

      What makes you think Sun engineers are qualified to do a game console or that they'd hang around to do it? Sun is successful today on the strength of their servers. Game machines couldn't be more different. Not that you game console idea is credible anyway.
    • The big problem I think with such a huge system distributed throughout the entire house, serving up media, being your tool for all your needs... is that it will cost quite a bit... and it might be obsolete in a few years.

      Imagine having an Atari 2600 / 8 Track / Beta video / 9600 baud modem machine integrated into your house...

      Or even if its not part of your house, you still bought all this crap and invested in it... you're going to want to hold on to it for as long as possible, probably to the point it just

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vistic ( 556838 )
        (PS. How many people bought and still use those mid-90s Gateway 2000 Destination PC's that were supposed to go into your living room and used wireless keyboard and mouse so you could work from your couch?)
    • What Apple should do is buy Sun and put those hardware engineers to work on making the worlds best game console. That console should be a server with thin clients around the house, it should serve up great games and movies to the tv, and also let you wirelessly connect a Monitor and keyboard thin client and use Googles internet office suite for working on all your work like needs. TV and music on demand would be served up through Apples iTunes store. With this strategy Apple/Google/Sun could take over the e

  • Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nascarguy27 ( 984493 ) <nascarguy27@nosPAM.gmail.com> on Thursday August 31, 2006 @11:50PM (#16021654)
    Why would anyone compare AOL-Netscape to Google-Apple? Aol and Netscape were both failing before they joined. Google and Apple are both doing very well and aren't exactly the same type of merge/join the AOL and Netcape. If memory serves me right AOL bought Netscape. Neither Apple nor Google is buying the other. It's just the CEO of one company serving on the board of another. It happens all the time with businesses.

  • MacGoogle (Score:5, Funny)

    by jx100 ( 453615 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @12:23AM (#16021793)
    Comes with a mullet, a swiss army knife, some little toy magnets, a straw, a rubber band, a paperclip, and a couple wires.

    You make the computer yourself, or the bad guys get away.

  • Crush Microsoft? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by msimm ( 580077 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @01:03AM (#16021943) Homepage
    Not likely. Alliance or not. In fact no-ones even ready to challenge them, Apple being the strongest contender, but to do *that* Apple would have to give something up I don't believe their willing to do.

    Namely, their hardward platform. Let OS X/Tiger/Cheetah/whatever run on the same commodity hardware Windows has for ages and watch uses start to drift. Of course there's give and theirs take, Apple will have lost the ability to micromanage the hardware like they always have (mostly for the better I think) but then there are a lot of people like me who have invested heavily in PC hardware (built from commodity/specialized PC parts) who wouldn't dream of scrapping the whole system to change the operating system.

    Then there's the question that *really* puzzles me. I always heard the story of how Apple makes most of its revenue off its hardware sales, and that sounded reasonable enough, then (for testing, my company does web-app development) we get an Apple and find out even point releases are sold seperately as upgrades. Is it just me or does that make it look like Micrsoft is really doing *me* a favor, namely by continuing to update and support their software platform until its end of life?

    Thats a legitimate question by the way. I'm not an Apple basher (I'd pay $120 or whatever the going price is to see if I liked it on PC hardware), I do use Windows (XP Pro, on Workstations) and I manage more Linux servers (RHELu3) then any and all of that combined.

    But in business Micrsoft is kind and not just because its the right OS (although that it and always has been Microsofts target market). Take any mid-sized business, inventory their hardware and tell me how much its going to cost to replace each system? Because you can't just do one, one there, thats where the compatibility issues come in. Say we've got 100 workstation no at EOL, nobody is going to sign off on a purchase order to replace all those functioning systems unless they have a lot of extra cash and a serious bias. Because in business sense it just doesn't add up. Then remember those EOL systems, you know, the ones the interns use, file stores, backup systems, whatever. Companies invest a lot of capitol into a solution like that and you're absolutely right, its going to be hard to topple.

    I'm still not sure what Apples strategy is with the move to Intel, but so far it seem clear that moving into Micrsofts territory is not on the map. Things could change, I'd like that, or Redmond could be the 10,000 lb gorilla they aren't willing to challenge.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by JPRelph ( 519032 )
      we get an Apple and find out even point releases are sold seperately as upgrades


      Apple charge for milestone releases (eg. 10.3 to 10.4) whereas the point releases are really 10.4.1 to 10.4.7. It's their naming strategy that makes it look like a smaller release, probably because they want to stick with Mac OS X for a bit longer before going to 11, but updating from 10.2 to 10.4 is a pretty massive upgrade even though it just looks like "2 point releases".

    • Re:Crush Microsoft? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by maztuhblastah ( 745586 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @08:29AM (#16023253) Journal
      I think Steve is happy that he's the one making the decisions. It's amazing how many times I see this sort of thing parroted, apparently without people realizing what effect this would have on Apple. Seriously, think about this for a second.

      1) What is the primary problem with Windows stability? One word: drivers. There is no way that a company, even one with as many resources as MS, can support every possible config out there. Windows would be a hell of alot more stable if people didn't run it on so many crappy rigs. Unfortunately, they do, and MS gets the bad press for it. True, they contribute to the problem, but you'd have no idea how many times I've seen a BSOD induced by bad RAM or a shitty driver. You probably can guess how many people blame that on MS instead of their decision to buy third-rate hardware. If Apple released OS X for generic PC's, then this would undoubtedly be a problem. I do not doubt for a second, that many people here could build machines with hardware combos that work well with OS X. I also know that most average users won't build their own system, let alone pick components that will work perfectly with OS X.

      2) Developers. Balmer wasn't lying when he made his "developers, developers" speech. They really are what makes a successful OS... well... successful. If OS X is released for generic x86 boxes, think about it from a developer's standpoint. Suddenly, developers have two PC markets to target. Those with Windows, and those with OS X. Now, as much fun as it imagine that the majority of users will dump Windows (and all their applications, etc.) and flock to run OS X and OS X only, it is very much a dream. Instead, many people will dual-boot OS X and Windows. Now, switch back to developer perspective for a minute... You know that most OS X PC users have Windows anyways, therefore, does it make sense to make a special OS X PC version of your software? No. Instead, you drop _all_ OS X support, and tell the users to simply boot into Windows when they want to use your software. Suddenly, as most dev. houses follow this trend, we see the majority of application support for OS X just shrivel up and die. Not good. For a practical example of this, witness OS/2's integration with Windows 3.1 and the effect it had on developers.

      3) Hardware. Apple is a hardware company. Repeat that: Apple is a hardware company. They happen to know how to make great software, and, as a result have gained recognition for it's ease of use. However, despite their software-making abilities, hardware makes up over 80% of their revenues. What's in that other 20%? iTunes Music Store sales, boxed copies of OS X, etc. In short, without hardware (and I mean actual computers and iPods), Apple can't survive. Period. As optimistic as it is to assume that OS X PC could take on MS well enough to replace hardware as a revenue stream, it is just not going to happen. Also, if anyone could buy and install OS X on a commodity PC, why would they buy the shiny boxes for 10-20% more?

    • Then there's the question that *really* puzzles me. I ... find out even point releases are sold seperately as upgrades. Is it just me or does that make it look like Micrsoft is really doing *me* a favor, namely by continuing to update and support their software platform until its end of life?

      Let me help solve your little puzzle here. It is all about marketing. Apple's OS were numbered before 7...8...9 etc.

      OS X (OS 10) was so very radical (because it is really Next's Unix OS) that they changed numbering conv

  • nothing to see here (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pliep ( 880962 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @01:36AM (#16022089) Homepage
    So, it's just a CEO that sits around a board meeting a couple of times per year giving advice. It's NOT a merger, it's NO co-operation in products, there IS NO alliance.

    It's just that the media and a lot of lame bloggers make a big hype out of this. Everybody else just yawns along with Redmond.
  • Soon they will be as strong and flexible as gumby and hercules combined!
  • two upstart powerhouses

    WTF ?
     

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by cowscows ( 103644 )
      Speak for yourself nerd, but I had never even heard of Apple (are they related to the beatles?) or Google before (isn't it spelled googol?)

  • upstart powerhouses? (Score:3, Informative)

    by thebdj ( 768618 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @07:26AM (#16023026) Journal
    two upstart powerhouses

    Let us look at the definitions of upstart from Princeton Wordnet:

    1. an arrogant or presumptuous person (Sounds more like Microsoft then Google, I cannot attest for Apple.)
    2. a person who has suddenly risen to a higher economic status but has not gained social acceptance of others in that class (Apple is almost as old as Microsoft and unless my mind fails me, they had a graphical OS first. Google might be closer, but look at Google's core tech. They are considered the top, ahead of Microsoft, and have gained social acceptance.)

    That handles the nouns. Now since they used it as an adjective:
    1. characteristic of someone who has risen economically or socially but lacks the social skills appropriate for this new position.

    Seriously, a horrible use of the word. If anyone lacks the social skills appropriate for their position it is Microsoft. We all know their tactics are less than admirable, and there are plenty of jokes about their social skills with regards to chairs. I just wish people would stop acting like Microsoft is some untouchable entity. I can only hope that I get to see the day they have a great fall.
  • Didn't check, because I refuse to read an article with a title " Redmond Yawning at Apple-Google Alliance?" when there is no fucking alliance, or even close. Read up on what the board of directors are, what they do, and how many members Apple has had from various companies, and why they aren't allied and sometimes even competitors. Then come again.
  • The point is not that Google and Apple will bring down Microsoft. The writing is on the wall (it's actually been there for years, but broadband and a combination of other factors now make things much more plausible). Services are moving to the web and by services I mean applications like those found in Office. It is no longer making as much of a difference what platform (Windows/Linux/Mac OS) that a person runs because the things that the average users (and a lot of business users) need are going to run in
  • My conspiracy theory... I call it the silverback conspiracy (silver/gray haired typically-white old men). So many corporations are all in bed together. I noticed this while working in the defense industry, its frightening how many CEO's are on the Board of Directors of their "competiton." Seems less and less like a free market and more and more like cleverly disguised monopolies. I'm only half serious about the conspiracy theory.

    Now let me adjust my tinfoil hat.
  • In related news, Microsoft announced today that it has had a Google board member in development for several months and will be releasing it to the public next week.

  • Microsoft Quotes (Score:3, Funny)

    by mabu ( 178417 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @12:55PM (#16024935)
    "There are no significant bugs in our released software that any significant number of users want fixed."
      - Bill Gates, 1995

    "Microsoft has had clear competitors in the past. It's a good thing we have museums to document that."
      - Bill Gates, 2001

    "I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operation system, and possible program, of all time."
      - Bill Gates, 1987

    "There are people who don't like capitalism, and people who don't like PCs. But there's no one who likes the PC who doesn't like Microsoft."
      - Bill Gates

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