OSNews:

OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/18250/Microsoft_Reiterates_Its_Commitment_to_the_Desktop Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:09:42 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254724 http://osnews.com/thread?254724 This is only tangentially related to the article in question, but it appears there...

I find the Office/Windows 'yin/yang' symbol they're using in that article to be tasteless. Wed, 11 Jul 2007 22:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Almafeta) Comments RE: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254734 http://osnews.com/thread?254734 I find the Office/Windows 'yin/yang' symbol they're using in that article to be tasteless.

What about it do you find tasteless? Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Jon Dough) Comments RE[2]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254739 http://osnews.com/thread?254739 Well, adapting religious symbols for commercial use, generally. Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Almafeta) Comments RE: yin-yang http://osnews.com/thread?254743 http://osnews.com/thread?254743 I find the Office/Windows 'yin/yang' symbol they're using in that article to be tasteless.

The yin-yang symbol should represent the good and the evil.
I'm wondering, on the twos, which is the good half.

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (scott.tiger) Comments RE: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254744 http://osnews.com/thread?254744 yeah well, we all have different threshold, i find the fact that they continually poison the world with their crap to be more offending.

yes, mod me down, but its the truth. Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Redeeman) Comments RE[2]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254748 http://osnews.com/thread?254748 Microsoft built this industry into what it is today. Remember that. Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ronaldst) Comments RE[2]: yin-yang http://osnews.com/thread?254749 http://osnews.com/thread?254749 The dichotomy of good and evil is a western one, you could just as well ask yourself which half is the light? The Bright? The Dark? The Masculine? The Strong? The Feminine? Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Coxy) Comments RE[3]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254753 http://osnews.com/thread?254753 That's not even true. Microsoft has - as many other companies - merely managed to create a big fortune through mafia-like behaviour. MS has not built the industry into anything. Rather demolished it. Not unlike IBM before 1990. Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dylansmrjones) Comments RE[3]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254754 http://osnews.com/thread?254754 But is all ok for rockers to wear crucifixes and t-shirts that say "Jesus is my home-boy"?

Plese, stop being so precious; there are things that I don't like in the world that affect my religious beliefs, but I don't go all precious about it - I just move on and get on with life. Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments RE[4]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254756 http://osnews.com/thread?254756

That's not even true. Microsoft has - as many other companies - merely managed to create a big fortune through mafia-like behaviour. MS has not built the industry into anything. Rather demolished it. Not unlike IBM before 1990.

IBM is no less ruthless than they were 20 years ago, the difference is today, they're using their brains. Who cares about the operating system - the big bucks are made in the middleware. The operating system by itself is useless without middleware - hence IBM's support for Linux and Solaris.

Add services, the name "IBM" and all that goes with it, and they're in a good position - but it doesn't make them any less 'evil'. Mind you, whether Microsoft or IBM is evil, its immaterial to the discourse in progress - its a business, not an individual. Microsoft didn't get or maintain their share solely through 'evilness' - look at the number of companies who "we would move, but we can't get the applications we need" - its the third parties and their anti-UNIX (Linux and Solaris) agenda that damages competition not Microsoft. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments RE[3]: yin-yang http://osnews.com/thread?254759 http://osnews.com/thread?254759 """
you could just as well ask yourself which half is the light? The Bright? The Dark? The Masculine? The Strong? The Feminine?
"""

The Bloated? :-) Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (sbergman27) Comments RE[3]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254761 http://osnews.com/thread?254761 I hate to talk about what would be, it doesn't make much sense but, as you started, lets clarify a bit the unstoppable course of history.

MS didn't created most of fundamental things it uses, if were not them, for sure, we would have another company (or better yet, companies) selling similar softwares. No one can say we could be in better or worse situation as history doesn't allow us to come back and try the other options.

As much as we like to point the creators and their inventions and glorify them (including in economical sense sometimes), what is most of times deserved, lets not forget that, if not all, for sure the vast majority of creations are, at large, fruit of collective human minds and would happen soon or later anyway (at least in science and technology). Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (acobar) Comments RE[4]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254770 http://osnews.com/thread?254770 There's a huge difference between a company using religious symbols to sell a product to people in general, and then somebody making a product using religious symbols in order to sell these products to a specific group.

There are many reasons not to blend religious opinions with economics, as well as politics. They don't fit together well. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dylansmrjones) Comments More integration with the Internet http://osnews.com/thread?254771 http://osnews.com/thread?254771 Microsoft is great at desktop applications, and Google is great an web applications. Microsoft should adapt its products to interact more with the web, for instance Word documents could be opened remotely from an company server and could be accessed from the office and from the home. You wouldn't have to carry your files on a USB key all the time. Just leave your .doc and .xls files on your server and open them from wherever you want. It's feasable with WebDrive, but Microsoft should offer this possibility out of the box. Same for e-mail, you should be able to access your email from anywhere in Outlook more easily, without having to use a slow webmail. Again, it's possible to synchronize your emails, your contacts and agenda, but if most people don't use it, it's because it's not easy to set up. So Microsoft should realize that people are not always at the same computer. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Joe User) Comments Microsoft will.. http://osnews.com/thread?254773 http://osnews.com/thread?254773 "Microsoft will continue to FIX desktop products".

Couldn't resist it! Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (stodge) Comments RE: More integration with the Internet http://osnews.com/thread?254776 http://osnews.com/thread?254776 "Just leave your .doc and .xls files on your server and open them from wherever you want. It's feasable with WebDrive, but Microsoft should offer this possibility out of the box. Same for e-mail, you should be able to access your email from anywhere in Outlook more easily, without having to use a slow webmail. Again, it's possible to synchronize your emails, your contacts and agenda, but if most people don't use it, it's because it's not easy to set up. So Microsoft should realize that people are not always at the same computer."

Ermm...all of this is possible "out of the box". You can connect to VPN out of the box, and therefore connect to all of those things. I could be misinterpreting your comment, but I do these things all the time from multiple computers, outside my companies network. You do need a VPN account, but that is normally just a request to your company sysadmin. If it is a home desktop you are using as a server, that is possible as well with Remote Desktop. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 01:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (DrillSgt) Comments RE: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254785 http://osnews.com/thread?254785 It's not that bad. First, the Taijitu (Yin/Yang symbol) is not strictly a religious symbol. It is more of a philosophical diagram, supposed to represent the basic equilibrium at play in all phenomena. The two principles, Yin and Yang, are complementary and interdependent. Though they are separate, each contains the seed of the other, and they cannot exist without another...I find that the analogy to Microsoft's two-pronged approach to Desktop monopoly is actually quite fitting.

The Taijitu *is* often used as a symbol for Taoism, however I'm pretty sure true Taoists would find the idea of being outraged at the misuse of a symbol quite amusing... Thu, 12 Jul 2007 02:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (archiesteel) Comments RE[3]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254789 http://osnews.com/thread?254789 Microsoft built this industry into what it is today. Remember that.

Before Microsoft, computers were marketed as these wonderful machines that nerdy guys could program to automate processes and solve problems. Customers bought them and hired the whiz-kids that made them run stock markets and send people to the moon.

Microsoft decided to market computers as a new kind of typewriter that could run special applications that come in boxes. A whole industry of vendors and retailers were needed to sell the flashy boxes of software.

Microsoft reinvented the software industry by making software a business. Before it was the realm of elite scientists. Microsoft's vision was a software industry full of executives, managers, finance, sales, marketing, and customer service. You no longer had to be an engineer from MIT to make money in software. You could be a salesman from UCLA.

The role that Bill Gates played in the computer industry is that he was the first businessman to know enough about programming to be able to manage programmers like any other employee. He signaled the end of the programming as a science/art and the beginning of programming as skilled labor. He represents the shift from computer science to information technology.

Microsoft is the reason why computer science has lost its appeal among talented youth around the world. Why the mythical man-month has been hardcoded into the software industry. Why shipping 100 PYs overseas is a simple matter of economics. Why many highly-qualified programmers wedge themselves into middle management roles in hopes of finding happiness.

Microsoft built this industry into what it is today. Good for them. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 02:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (butters) Comments RE: More integration with the Internet http://osnews.com/thread?254793 http://osnews.com/thread?254793 I'd hate to see that charge per license. You really think they're going to do all that and make it free? I'm surprised MS hasn't adopted the cell phone carrier style of licensing and start to charge per minute of logged server time.

Con artists, and highway robbers...the lot of them. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 03:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Phloptical) Comments RE[2]: More integration with the Internet http://osnews.com/thread?254795 http://osnews.com/thread?254795 "Ermm...all of this is possible "out of the box". You can connect to VPN out of the box, and therefore connect to all of those things."

That's one solution, however with Outlook Web Access in Exchange 2007, this functionality is baked into the web interface. You can access any share you have permissions for and view all of your documents via the browser, or download them locally. It is IMO the killer feature of OWA 2007. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 03:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jayson.knight) Comments RE[4]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254796 http://osnews.com/thread?254796 Microsoft reinvented the software industry by making software a business.

Not really. They weren't the first to go into the computer business. Heck, until Windows, they were just a little fish in a big pond. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 03:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Almafeta) Comments RE: More integration with the Internet http://osnews.com/thread?254797 http://osnews.com/thread?254797 "Same for e-mail, you should be able to access your email from anywhere in Outlook more easily, without having to use a slow webmail."

Outlook Anywhere in Exchange 2007 lets you use an Outlook client from any PC (it does this via RPC). Dead simple to configure, and you get the full desktop experience. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 03:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jayson.knight) Comments RE[3]: More integration with the Internet http://osnews.com/thread?254798 http://osnews.com/thread?254798 "That's one solution, however with Outlook Web Access in Exchange 2007, this functionality is baked into the web interface. You can access any share you have permissions for and view all of your documents via the browser, or download them locally. It is IMO the killer feature of OWA 2007."

Absolutely. The new OWA is great. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 03:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (DrillSgt) Comments RE[5]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254809 http://osnews.com/thread?254809 Microsoft was the first successful software vendor. They were a little fish in a big pond of massive hardware vendors who thought that software had little intrinsic value. They thought that the value was that the machine could be programmed to do whatever the customer wanted. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 03:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (butters) Comments RE[5]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254810 http://osnews.com/thread?254810 Ah. The OS. It should be clean, functional, simple, easy to use, and most importantly free. The base foundation for applications.

Not that Microsoft is particularly screwing up by selling Windows for god awful high prices, but just imagine the, in it's position, what free would do for it. Then again if it were free people might not feel like they've lost anything for not using it.

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 04:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (systyrant) Comments RE[6]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254827 http://osnews.com/thread?254827 Actually, Gates and Jobs were at about the same place at about the same time. If Gates hadn't been there and if Jobs hadn't priced himself out of the market (more or less), 95% of users would run Macs now.

I do not think the lack of Bill Gates would make the big difference.

The computers would be a bit more exclusive (read: expensive) in the beginning, but as Macs got enough momentum (read: market share) the prices would have fallen there too.

Nah, don't glorify Bill Gates. He had a good idea and knew how to use it, but he wasn't by any means alone.

Nalle Berg.
./nalle. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 06:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Nalle) Comments RE[6]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254832 http://osnews.com/thread?254832 Not true. There was succesful vendors before Microsoft and Microsoft is not the sole succesful vendor to day. Most succesful financially, yes, but not the only one - nor the first. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 07:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dylansmrjones) Comments RE[5]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254835 http://osnews.com/thread?254835 Religious opinions are best not blended with anything. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 07:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (sard) Comments RE[5]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254836 http://osnews.com/thread?254836 I don't think he was talking about the computer business as a whole, but really only selling software as a business.

Before microsoft there really wasn't anyone doing it, IBM and Apple sold the whole kit, hardware and software. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 07:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (REM2000) Comments RE[4]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254841 http://osnews.com/thread?254841 Or they just made the home desktop cheap and accessable to non-geeks. Funny, without that first step to put computers into homes, there would be no open source movement.

Oh, and all the complaining about the yin/yang symbol reminded me of that "coexist" bumper sticker... Thu, 12 Jul 2007 08:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (codehead78) Comments RE[4]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254843 http://osnews.com/thread?254843 precocious? Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Spellcheck) Comments RE[3]: yin-yang http://osnews.com/thread?254844 http://osnews.com/thread?254844 Not true. The Ancient Persians understood there was an eternal fight between Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu, iirc. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments RE[3]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254845 http://osnews.com/thread?254845 Microsoft built this industry into what it is today.

That must be why so many people still hate computers. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments RE[5]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254846 http://osnews.com/thread?254846 Or they just made the home desktop cheap and accessable to non-geeks.

Er, no. Apple did that. MS only got into Windows to stop the brain-drain away from DOS.

Funny, without that first step to put computers into homes, there would be no open source movement.

Wrong again. UNIX software was regularly distributed as source. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments RE: Microsoft will.. http://osnews.com/thread?254847 http://osnews.com/thread?254847 "Microsoft will continue to FIX desktop products".

Or rather "attempt to fix". Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments Two things are interesting about this... http://osnews.com/thread?254848 http://osnews.com/thread?254848 Firstly, don't they realise one of the reasons no-one wants Vista is exactly because it's being released the same way 95 and 98 is, instead of the way Linux distros are (i.e. incrementally)? And now they want to do Vista+1 the same way?

Secondly, does "Microsoft reiterates its commitment to the desktop" really mean "Microsoft acknowledges it has lost the server"? Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments Only a fraction http://osnews.com/thread?254849 http://osnews.com/thread?254849 "When you think about Vista, the 2007 Office system, and Exchange 2007, those were huge, huge, big dog releases. Those are monumental products, multi-billion dollar products that we put into the marketplace. But, ladies and gentlemen, that's only a part of the story. That's only just a fraction of the story," Turner added.

Quite right: then there's the new hardware, anti-virus software, the anti-spyware, the training costs for users and support staff, the lack of backwards compatibility in O2K7, the list could go on...

-n- Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (nick_h) Comments RE[5]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254855 http://osnews.com/thread?254855 IBM is no less ruthless than they were 20 years ago, the difference is today, they're using their brains.

I can't comment on the first part, except to say that I don't think being ruthless IS very smart. Being ruthless creates enemies. And giving people incentive to beat you is far more likely to get you killed or your empire destroyed than it is to make sure you can retire to your dacha with a large pension. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 10:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments RE[6]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254862 http://osnews.com/thread?254862

Microsoft was the first successful software vendor.

Companies such as Digital Research, Visicorp, Ashton Tate, Lotus, Borland and MicroPro (to name only a handful) were doing rather well for themselves before Microsoft grew rapidly in the mid-80's. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Vanders) Comments RE[4]: yin-yang http://osnews.com/thread?254863 http://osnews.com/thread?254863 No surprise MS says this

And I am a little glad. Server/heads is easier to maintain in a large environment but I prefer having my own machine, so even if it doesn't use any MS products I don't mind if they are focussed on keeping the one-computer-per-user model viable.

(begin rambling)

Hardly a surprise that Redmond would take this position. They were involved in pushing it from the start, and had a role in moving away from client/server mainframe/head stuff towards everyone getting their own machine.

Today, as machines have a lot of unneeded power (leaving gaming and compositing aside), there is a bit of a move the other direction. A lot of schools and workplaces are rediscovering the idea of central configuration and maintenance of fewer boxes, with remote access to them. Microsoft of course wouldn't like this, as their business model as always has consisted of selling software to be run on individual computers.

If they can come up with a product that does remote heads the Microsoft Way they may soften their stance a bit. By that I mean they would need a Microsoft product to manage everything, and maybe a way to charge usage licenses for each remote head. Maybe they are already working on this or have such a thing, I really don't know. Until then, does anyone see such a large corporation changing a stance so fundamental to the way they work?

(OT time)

The dichotomy of good and evil is a western one

Not true. The Ancient Persians understood there was an eternal fight between Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu, iirc.

I don't think of Zoroastrianism as an "eastern" religion like Hinduism / Buddhism / Taoism. A lot of researchers think the Jews (and this Christians and Muslims) got some of their ideas about an afterlife, angels and a devil from Zoroastrians during the Babylonian captivity. At any rate, I tend to lump Zoroastrianism in with Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Whether or not one considers those to be "western" religions, they sure have a lot more to do with each other than with stuff like Taoism / Hinduism / Buddhism etc.

I guess what I'm saying is that Zoroastrianism, rather than being an eastern religion with a good / evil dichotomy, is more of a more or less monotheistic* religion that came from a place a little to the east.

* saying "more or less monotheistic" is leaving out discussion of terms like Monism and Henotheism etc

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (MamiyaOtaru) Comments RE[6]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254864 http://osnews.com/thread?254864 Wrong again. UNIX software was regularly distributed as source.

While most came either as source or with source, they where generally not Open Source in any way that the phrase is currently understood. Having access to the source code is only one small part of what Open Source is generally about. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dagw) Comments RE[5]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254865 http://osnews.com/thread?254865

Or they just made the home desktop cheap and accessable to non-geeks. Funny, without that first step to put computers into homes, there would be no open source movement.

Excuse me, but is it necessary to continue to push that blatent lie over and over again?

Before "Microsoft" and "the PC" people were happily using Amstrads, Atari's and Amiga's. Heck, I would be confident to go so far to say that back in the good old days, the Amiga did a lot better at meeting the end users requirements than the crap we see today.

I remember the variety of languages, REXX, AmigaBASIC, and AMOS - massive amounts of documentation when you bought a computer, if you wanted to be a programmer, you had all the documentation there. Heck, when I had an Amiga 500, there was sufficient documentation to not only help you how to use Kindwords, but also how to write your own applications.

You could play games; plonk in a disk, and it would load up and voila, no directx, no opengl jihads, everything just worked as it should be. Same goes for applications - it all worked as it should. Anyone from that era can't honestly look at back and consider what was accomplished with such limited system specifications wasn't remarkable. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments RE[5]: yin-yang http://osnews.com/thread?254866 http://osnews.com/thread?254866 "A lot of schools and workplaces are rediscovering the idea of central configuration and maintenance of fewer boxes, with remote access to them."

My former university's library used a Sun system with Ray terminals - working excellently, silently, and needed no maintenance (just replacement in worst case). While I think this kind of solution is the way to go in larger scale IT installations (companies, authorities, networked installations like hospitals), in average home use the MICROS~1 model will still prevail for some decades.

"Microsoft of course wouldn't like this, as their business model as always has consisted of selling software to be run on individual computers."

Maybe this is because they can charge more money by forcing one license per computer, and one computer per person, instead of the model above: one license and unlimited clients (with full featured function usage). Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Doc Pain) Comments RE[5]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254867 http://osnews.com/thread?254867 "Microsoft reinvented the software industry by making software a business. Before it was the realm of elite scientists."
Nah, I were no scientist but I managed well with commodores/amigas and BASIC. A lot of people did, and they were cheap computers with a lot more functionality then their competitors of that time. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (elwis) Comments RE[6]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254886 http://osnews.com/thread?254886 BASIC ? Isn't that precisely what Microsoft business was founded on ? BASIC on home computers, most notably the Apple II. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ElCabri) Comments RE[6]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254893 http://osnews.com/thread?254893 Precisely! Actually with the LiveCD it literally can be more like the 'good ol' days.' Pop in a disk, let your computer boot up to whatever game / application you wanted.

I still loved having the majority of your OS in a rom. It booted fast, and never depended on a hard drive or other media to boot up. The only problem was that the operating system was as easily upgraded. Loved the Amiga and Atari ST. I still have my Atari STs. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (leech) Comments RE[7]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254894 http://osnews.com/thread?254894 While most came either as source or with source, they where generally not Open Source in any way that the phrase is currently understood. Having access to the source code is only one small part of what Open Source is generally about.

I think you'll find that most of it came under BSD and/or MIT licences... Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments RE[5]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254895 http://osnews.com/thread?254895 "Not really. They weren't the first to go into the computer business."

They didn't go into the computer industry, they went into the software industry, and they did create the blueprint for how proprietary software companies develop and sell software.

"Heck, until Windows, they were just a little fish in a big pond."

Have you ever heard of MS-DOS? MS BASIC for every PET/VIC20/C64/TRS-80/TI-99. their software has been on almost every consumer machine for decades. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (BluenoseJake) Comments RE[6]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254896 http://osnews.com/thread?254896 "Er, no. Apple did that. MS only got into Windows to stop the brain-drain away from DOS. "

Early Apple computers could hardly be described as cheap. Accessible, sure, cheap? no way Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (BluenoseJake) Comments RE[7]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254899 http://osnews.com/thread?254899 OK, but neither were IBM's. Not "we're an average-earning family, let's have one or two of them in the house for the kids" cheap. That honour goes to Commodore, Atari, and Acorn, if we're talking about computers with GUIs. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments RE[6]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254901 http://osnews.com/thread?254901 Before "Microsoft" and "the PC" people were happily using Amstrads, Atari's and Amiga's. Heck, I would be confident to go so far to say that back in the good old days, the Amiga did a lot better at meeting the end users requirements than the crap we see today.

Well, hurrah. I can finally agree with you on something wholeheartedly.

I remember the variety of languages, REXX, AmigaBASIC, and AMOS - massive amounts of documentation when you bought a computer, if you wanted to be a programmer, you had all the documentation there. Heck, when I had an Amiga 500, there was sufficient documentation to not only help you how to use Kindwords, but also how to write your own applications. OTOH I wish I could agree with you there. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that mine didn't come with that. OTOH these days you can download perl, python, c, several lisps...all of them for free and several of them for both Linux and Windows.

But again, yes, even Linux does some things wrong, or allows you to do in a million different ways in the hope that it will please somebody, that Amiga/Commodore (miraculously, it seems, given the latter's repuation) got right first time.

You could play games; plonk in a disk, and it would load up and voila, no directx, no opengl jihads, everything just worked as it should be. Same goes for applications - it all worked as it should. Anyone from that era can't honestly look at back and consider what was accomplished with such limited system specifications wasn't remarkable.

Agreed. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments RE[6]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254902 http://osnews.com/thread?254902

Have you ever heard of MS-DOS?

CP/M was much more important than MS-DOS until the IBM clone market appeared in the mid-80's.

Due to an early poor decision by Microsoft they also made very little money from their BASIC on Commodore machines, and didn't provide BASIC for machines from Apple, Sinclair and a few other 8bit micro vendors of the time, so although Microsoft BASIC was important, it didn't generate as much money for them as you might have thought.

Microsoft as we know them now didn't appear until the mid-80's and it took them a few years to come up with that "Blueprint" that a lot of people now accept as "Just the way things are". Prior to that they were just another software vendor who happened to have a BASIC you could licence. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Vanders) Comments RE[6]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254905 http://osnews.com/thread?254905 My Apple ][+ came with a complete logic diagram for the hardware, too.

Come to think of it, large scale OSS would have thrived in that heterogeneous environment. Multiplatform being our middle name and all.

Of course, the essential spark that was missing was ubiquitous access to the Internet or something like it.

Certainly fertile ground for an alternate history novel. :-) Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (sbergman27) Comments RE: Two things are interesting about this... http://osnews.com/thread?254906 http://osnews.com/thread?254906 "Secondly, does "Microsoft reiterates its commitment to the desktop" really mean "Microsoft acknowledges it has lost the server"?"

How did you come to that conclusion, Both Linux and Windows have been growing at the expense of old school UNIX, I think the battle for the server is far from over:

http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS5369154346.html
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2007/02/02/february_2007_web_serv... Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (BluenoseJake) Comments RE[2]: Two things are interesting about this... http://osnews.com/thread?254907 http://osnews.com/thread?254907 How did you come to that conclusion, Both Linux and Windows have been growing at the expense of old school UNIX, I think the battle for the server is far from over:

I didn't come to any conclusion. I posed a question (that's what the "?" is for). Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments commitment http://osnews.com/thread?254910 http://osnews.com/thread?254910 Microsoft backpedals for Nvidia, you lose:

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40913

EVER WONDER WHY MS refuses to release DX10 for XP, forcing users to Linux, and barring that, Vista - also known as Me II? It is easy, there was a technical reason, but it shot that down when Nvidia couldn't cut it. Now it is simply arm twisting. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (netpython) Comments RE[3]: Two things are interesting about this... http://osnews.com/thread?254911 http://osnews.com/thread?254911 Secondly, does "Microsoft reiterates its commitment to the desktop" really mean "Microsoft acknowledges it has lost the server"?

Including the "really" indicates you have already made a conclusion and is now asking for confirmation. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Marcellus) Comments RE: More integration with the Internet http://osnews.com/thread?254914 http://osnews.com/thread?254914 Have you ever heard of DAV or WebDAV protocol ? All MS Office apps are DAV clients. With DAV one can load and save documents on the server as if they are on hard drive. DAV is an open standard, Apache HTTPD and Apache Tomcat speak DAV. IIS too, probably.

You can access your mail "anywhere in Outlook", whatever is that supposed to mean, if you are using either IMAP or MS Exchange protocol. Does your ISP or IT department allow that, it is another question.

And, WebMail does not have to be slow. In fact, if the messages contain binary attachments WebMail is considerably faster.

Much depends of your ISP and/or IT department of your employer. They have to maintain balance between security and ease of use. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 17:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (trenchsol) Comments RE: Two things are interesting about this... http://osnews.com/thread?254915 http://osnews.com/thread?254915 Microsoft has not lost the server because they never owned it. Their server share today is bigger than ever, more than 30%. The rest are different variants of UNIX and Linux. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 17:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (trenchsol) Comments Gates v. Gandhi http://osnews.com/thread?254924 http://osnews.com/thread?254924 "...Bill Gates' vision of a PC on every desk in every home..."

Gandi said, "Poverty is the worst form of violence."

William must lower the price of his product and donate massive amounts of equipment to impoverished area in the U.S.

Yes. To all the Europeans on the list ... there is still poverty here. There are some streets in my village paved by dirt.

Gates vision and real-world reality are not getting along. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mind!dagger) Comments RE[2]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?254925 http://osnews.com/thread?254925 Well....
Adolf Hitler ripped off an old wiking symbol.
He flipped it round, and came up with a simillar one as we see with this yin/yang symbol as MS is ripping off.

Soo...
It's nothing new, in the perspective of history...

Edit:
Sorry, it seems (after googling around), that it's not only wikings that used it..
It's an old universal symbol, asian and other parts of the world.
In europe it was used as early as the bronze age, and even earlier... Sooo... Well.
Seems that MS is doing nothing new here, taken the historical perspective in hand.Edited 2007-07-12 18:45 Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (brostenen) Comments What Microsoft has done for the industry http://osnews.com/thread?254987 http://osnews.com/thread?254987 Some of the comments in the discussion remind of an old article I had seen. I posted it to my blog with permission of course. Have a look.

http://practicallinux.blogspot.com/ Thu, 12 Jul 2007 21:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (iamkmaniam) Comments RE[8]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?255035 http://osnews.com/thread?255035 Not the original commercial Unixes and other commercial software. Most of it came with a look but don't touch license, and some allowed you to modify the source code for in house use (I don't know if you where allowed to distribute your patches or not). But that is not open source. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dagw) Comments RE[3]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?255070 http://osnews.com/thread?255070 To require that hardware vendors max out their specs just to get their devices to run on the software; is not innovation. At least not on the part of the operating system developers them selves.

Don't get me wrong I love faster hardware but that does not equal software innovation. Which really is quite plain to see. Thu, 12 Jul 2007 23:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Brotherred) Comments RE[8]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?255081 http://osnews.com/thread?255081 partially correct, but after Compaq cloned the IBM bios and started selling IBM compatible 286 and 386s, the price for PCs started to drop, and continued to drop to as the pc market opened up and competition and economies of scale continued to lower the cost to build a pc.

Because of this, as well as the adoption of the pc by the business world, drove the price down where "an average-earning family, let's have one or two of them in the house for the kids" could afford one, which didn't happen to apple until later. This coupled with the desire to have the same software at home as at work, is what put a pc in almost every home.

Apples prices didn't really start to drop until later, when they adopted mostly standard pc parts for their computers, and Mac desktops (laptops seem to be on par) are still more expensive than their PC counterparts, even though they are composed of the very same parts. Fri, 13 Jul 2007 00:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (BluenoseJake) Comments RE[7]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?255135 http://osnews.com/thread?255135

Precisely! Actually with the LiveCD it literally can be more like the 'good ol' days.' Pop in a disk, let your computer boot up to whatever game / application you wanted.

I still loved having the majority of your OS in a rom. It booted fast, and never depended on a hard drive or other media to boot up. The only problem was that the operating system was as easily upgraded. Loved the Amiga and Atari ST. I still have my Atari STs.

I agree; I've said it in the past. Plonk the OS on an upgradeable chip, and store everything on the hard disk. Given the massive amounts of performance that can result from solid state, it would provide also the 'holy grail' which laptop companies want today.

I remember using an Atari at college to record some composition on a keyboard; it was a great tool, and easy to use as well. Fri, 13 Jul 2007 04:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments RE[7]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?255136 http://osnews.com/thread?255136

Well, hurrah. I can finally agree with you on something wholeheartedly.

The first sign of the apocalypse is near :-)

OTOH I wish I could agree with you there. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that mine didn't come with that. OTOH these days you can download perl, python, c, several lisps...all of them for free and several of them for both Linux and Windows.

But again, yes, even Linux does some things wrong, or allows you to do in a million different ways in the hope that it will please somebody, that Amiga/Commodore (miraculously, it seems, given the latter's repuation) got right first time.

The great thing with Amiga (along with other platforms) it married beautifully the geek attraction factor along with ease of you. It was a machine that as a geek you could experiment and do really cool things, and on the other hand, could be used as an easy to use family computer.

The problem with Linux (currently) it has the geek factor but lacks the trappings people expect - a large selection of commercial third party software. MYOB for example, holds 90%+ of the small to medium business market in New Zealand/Australia - for small businesses to move, there needs to be MYOB to be made available.

I admit, the vast majority of issues actually sit beyond what distributors can't directly solve, but at the same time, it has to be acknowledged that there are things which are holding back adoption that go beyond the Microsoft related conspiracy theories.

I've deployed Linux desktops (specifically SLED), and I can assure you that the biggest questions aren't ease of use - they're happy with the desktop, heck, my mum thinks its easier than Windows. The issue is when they say, "oh, can I run zyx application" - most are happy with running OpenOffice.org/StarOffice, but they don't want to give up their label makers, their Genealogy applications, their accounting software which they know how to use, and have a tonne of files saved in an uninportable format.Edited 2007-07-13 04:43 Fri, 13 Jul 2007 04:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments RE: The Title... http://osnews.com/thread?255200 http://osnews.com/thread?255200 In related news, the government affirmed it's commitment
to keep taxing it's citizens. Fri, 13 Jul 2007 11:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (StychoKiller) Comments RE[9]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?255207 http://osnews.com/thread?255207 partially correct, but after Compaq cloned the IBM bios and started selling IBM compatible 286 and 386s, the price for PCs started to drop, and continued to drop to as the pc market opened up and competition and economies of scale continued to lower the cost to build a pc.

True, but whilst I wouldn't know the situation in the States, IBM PC's and compatibles weren't affordable for kids (or rather their parents) until well into the 1990s. So the perceptions that either Microsoft or Apple were the ones who got computers into every home is wrong, at least in the UK, because here, as I said, it was Commodore, Atari, and Acorn.

Because of this, as well as the adoption of the pc by the business world, drove the price down where "an average-earning family, let's have one or two of them in the house for the kids" could afford one, which didn't happen to apple until later. This coupled with the desire to have the same software at home as at work, is what put a pc in almost every home.

Which would have happened with or without Microsoft. That this is true is obvious when you see that you can now get a PC (and I'm not just talking about OLPC's, or their Intel rival) for less than the cost of some versions of Windows. And yet most versions of Linux come with software whose value, if they were developed by traditional means, has been estimated to be in the billions. Fri, 13 Jul 2007 12:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments RE[10]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?255502 http://osnews.com/thread?255502 "hich would have happened with or without Microsoft. That this is true is obvious when you see that you can now get a PC (and I'm not just talking about OLPC's, or their Intel rival) for less than the cost of some versions of Windows. And yet most versions of Linux come with software whose value, if they were developed by traditional means, has been estimated to be in the billions."

I agree, and you wouldn't be able to buy a pc for that price without the process I described in my last post. Also, without cheap, near universal hardware to run on, Linux still may have developed, but would not have a chance of reaching the masses, as there would be no "monopoly" OS to want an alternative to, it would have been just one OS among several, and without a common enemy, I believe that the Opensource movement wouldn't have been able to gather the momentum that they now have. Sun, 15 Jul 2007 11:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (BluenoseJake) Comments RE[11]: Tangent http://osnews.com/thread?255570 http://osnews.com/thread?255570 Well I tried to mod that comment up, but the story is too old. So just pretend I did it ;-) Sun, 15 Jul 2007 17:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments