“They [Linux] are a very serious competitor. […] Their community is very, very good, and we’re hard at work trying to follow that model. […] Obviously…the way (Linux) work is done–I think about it in a more componentized way. I believe in integration because I believe it makes peoples’ lives simpler. On the other hand, I consider componentization to be a great attribute from an engineering perspective. Then there are things I don’t want to learn from them. It’s very hard to innovate when you’re in a decentralized mode.[…] Look at the Linux kernel. Do you think there’s a lot of innovation there? It’s not that they’re not great developers–they are. I have great respect for them, but I think it’s hard, because of the model, to do. They can do innovation–great innovation–in small pockets.[…] There’s quite a dichotomy there and there are some advantages. But in terms of some of the innovations for the future, I don’t want to adopt that model.” Read Jim Allchin’s interesting interview at C|Net News.com.
Microsoft’s Jim Allchin on XML, Web Services and Linux
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
What does Microsoft know of innovation? All they do is repackage.
Personally, I agree with Allchin’s assesements about integration in Linux distros. Extreme componentization does not lead to good integration and consistency. It might be good for some developers, but it is a pain for the users.
As for Ms repackaging, I would not agree. The .NET Platform is more than a “java clone”. C# has many new features compared to the java language. And DirectX 8+ is also a great environment for devs. It has come a long way since D3D 1.0 (where they purchased it from that company can’t remember their name now).
I’ve also read an article on ZDnet that quoted Allchin several times. That combined with this interview gave me the impression that MS (or at least Allchin) is a big cry baby. “Waah! People aren’t liking my idea!”
The average Internet user does mostly is email and instant messaging and web browsing. Smarter people are capable enough to do things for themselves and not rely on “web services”. I never realized how web services can make my life easier. So first of all there’s an issue of the value of having and using web services, and then there’s the issue of who’s going to deliver it. The ever present fear of what lurks on the Internet is on the minds of everybody, so security is the #1 priority and seriously, MS does not have a good histroy in that department. The ZDnet article brought up the point about security and I’m just reiterating.
Allchin acts like web services is going to save the world, and revive a struggling economy, it just sounds like an infomercial – what I mean is those late night TV programs that advertise a product and try to make you think how wonderful it is, i.e. the Ginsu knife, the Mega All-in-one Blender etc.
Hey! The Linux kernel is good!
The flaw in Allchin’s accusation is that Linux is not 100% distributed. You have some guys working at Ximian to deliver an important foundation, others together in the Gnu cathedral doing other parts…
And all these organizations are competing on many levels against Microsoft, which was founded in 1975. Sometimes very successfully, sometimes not.
What a bozo. Just knows how to work within the framework of his fiefdom.
Miles:
So, MS doesn’t innovate? Do you know the meaning of innovation? I think not.
Microsoft has innovated very many things, such as GREAT character recognition, decent voice recognition, superb audio and video codecs, the taskbar, the list goes on… so instead of being a mindless troll, why not actually try and learn something instead, and actually contribute something that’s worth my time to read.
Tly: That’s just it, the average person just e-mails, surfs, and communicates…. Microsoft wants them to start using it for other things, like using it as a more effective tool for things like scheaduling, cooperation, etc… .NET, however, is more of a benefit to business, not general consumers.
When Allchin says it can revive a struggling economy, he is referring to the tech sector, mostly, however, he is also saying that if companies take advantage of .NET, they will save money, and thus, have more money to spend on other things, which will produce things that people, or other companies, will buy, etc….
I’ll post more info to backup my position. I don’t have the time during my class.
It was RenderMorphics. Their “Immediate mode” became Direct3D. “Retained mode” (Scene graph type stuff) fell off the face of the earth AFAIK.
CPU Guy: MOst of the things you mentioned Microsoft didn’t even write (they bought), nevermind truly innovating.
Linux hasn’t innovated much, other than the way people think, and the way software is developed (at least in the mainstream eyes). Software wise, if MOSIX made the kernel, that would be an innovation.
Allchin:
>>But in terms of some of the innovations for the future, I don’t want to adopt that model.
Oh well, I think Microsoft does innovate and does learn and use ideas from others. That’s a good thing. People familiar with Windows 2000 Server and Back Office Apps know that it is an extremely rich and very well designed environment. .Net is likely to be along the same lines.
If memory serves, didn’t Allchin or some other Microsoft executive give rave praises to the legendary BeOS!
Just gotta get BeOS in here somehow ya know…
ciao
yc
Matt: When you say bought the company, what you really mean is hired the developers from another company. So just because they “bought the technology” doesn’t mean they aren’t innovative….
And last I looked, Microsoft is doing a great deal with things like hand-writing recognition, and such, ever check out research.microsoft.com?
This show how big a fear they have for competition…
First they laughed, then they fighted, now they start
to be nice, then they…..
The linux kernel may not have much innovation, but doesn’t it
whoop all MS Kernels when it comes to i/o throughput?
Makes you wonder how fast it would be if they did actually innovate…
Microsoft does do some innovation, but they still do copy a lot (like everyone else). I think this is somewhat of a cheap shot at linux because MS is scared.
I do somewhat agree with the component argument, however i think it falls down in that a well laid out component structure can be just as integrated as somthing more static. And just because Linux has failed to make a coordinated attempt at this does not mean the whole model is flawed.
Their plan appears to be to suck our collective **** before they try to bite it off with lawsuits and restrictive business practices. I propose we study MS’s practices (not the published comments of its cuddlier employees) and learn to do what they do, better than they do it.
Linux is better because pinguins ae better swimmers and
MySQL outpreformed MS Sql in our (by us paid) research?
I think `we` alreay beaten them because we do what we do
best using the finest piece of software on earth..
I have yet to see one thing come out of microsoft that they didn’t buy or steal from someone else. MS is great at taking someone elses idea and forcing their own product on users. If that is innovation then I guess microsoft is innovative.
…not having standards, or not adhering to them, is. It’s just easier to create and enforce standards within a single company than than within a more broadly distributed developer community.
http://www.taikahn.com/mssucks.html
Microsoft has only lately become a player in innovation, with the creation of .NET. As for “GREAT character recognition, decent voice recognition, superb audio and video codecs, the taskbar, the list goes on” let me list the responses, in respective order of appearance.
Character recognition: You got me there, since I havn’t payed attention to that.
Voice recognition: I was under the impression that OTHER companies wrote software FOR Windows that allowed for Voice Recognition?
Super audio and video codecs: DivX, mp3, and ogg are the best codecs for video (DivX) and audio (mp3+ogg). WMA and WMV and all the others, imho, are crap. Except, of course, for Quicktime, which I happen to like a lot.
Taskbar: Well you got me there, the taskbar sure does have it’s good points, but so do other ways to manage windows, like a dock. Anyways, I’m skeptical that Microsoft was the first to create this apparently radical idea.
Bring on a bigger list?
I mean i get sick of seeing all those stupid 1 degree of seperation commercials…i mean you can do the same thing with Linux or anyother operating system…almost everything is based on open standards that MS didn’t totally innovate on there own such as XML, SOAP, WSDL, etc…i won’t deny that they have participated in helping develop these standards but like everthing else they touch it’s the old embrace and extend routine and they will continue to be incompatible with the rest of the world.
and i am almost positive they didn’t innovate the task bar, i remember reading about it in a History of the GUI thing i read a while ago..i will have to try to find it.
I have no freakin’ clue, but hey, you know, it’s something new, I guess we’d have to give them credit for that.
This nice little article over at Arstechnica should clear up any confusion over .NET.
http://arstechnica.com/paedia/n/net/net-1.html
hey, thanks for the link…good article
Well, I was using a task bar on my Acorn RiscPC quite a while before Win95 came out. The OS was (is) called RiscOS.
Oh and btw: RiscOS’ “Close-The-Window” gadget was on the right side of the title bar and – how surprising – was marked with an X, instead of a little box on the left side …
Yeah – Freedom to innovate …
Microsoft is not very innovative, but it brings certain concepts or products from small markets to wide acceptance. That’s their merit. (Character recognition, or OCR, has been researched and used for decades).
The Linux kernel is _very_ innovative. So much, in fact, that it does not use all innovations available at the same time.
Some guys have done a great job of uniting all features… look for FOLK and WOLK (this latter is the Working Overloaded Linux Kernel).
Also there’ are many cool things happening, read Kerneltrap to stay in tune.
Also, the Linux Kernel has had some things Windows just recently announced, like IPV6 and 64-bit support.
I suggest Mr. Allchin change subject, not because of Microsoft’s level of innovation, but because the Linux world innovates so fast.
I don’t use Linux because it _is_ good, but because it _becomes_ good way too quick. It’s like buying a puppet on Monday to get a Greyhound on Saturday.
…I chose Greyhound because it’s lean and quick like Linux. 😉
I would love to hear what everyone considers innovation. Is it a case of “I done it first!” or “I done it better”? What is it?
If you stick to the classical definition of “innovative”, it is possible that we could go back and realize NOTHING is truly innovative, as it builds upon previous concepts. Only the “I done it firsts” are innovative.
In the case of “I done it better”, the subjective term “better” throws the discussion to a level of semantical ping-pong, where one’s definition is discarded by others.
Is innovation subjective? If so, nothing and everything is innovative, and these discussions are worthless.
in·no·vate (n-vt)
v. in·no·vat·ed, in·no·vat·ing, in·no·vates
v. tr.
To begin or introduce (something new) for or as if for the first time.
v. intr.
To begin or introduce something new.
Note that some special characters are lost in the cut and paste. Nice try on wordplay though.
what crack is he on?
a real-time module that gets faster and faster as the smp scalability increases? sounds inovative and smart.
a new User mode Linux so that you can open a vertual machine that can be used to test code or new kernals with out taking down your machine?! very inovative and very smart.
Jim is on crack.
Tommes:
Windows used a taskbar before Windows95, in fact, I believe it was in 1.0, however, it may have been 2.0.
kernel writers aren’t going to be the innovators; the researchers at universities, research centres, etc. are the ones who come up with the new stuff.
We all know the Xerox stuff that lead to Apple’s GUI but Apple still considered the innovator. You get the point – the application guys get the credit while the real innovators locked away in their labs get squat. Linux, MS, no difference in the end just programmers taking what researchers have discovered and making something useful out of it.
MS has well funded research labs that seem aimed at incrementally improving things…doesn’t seem like anything that changed paradigms came out of those labs.
But the Windows taskbar seems to me a lot similar to that toolbar on the top of the screen Macs had (it was even context dependent).
Also floating menus, when made “sticky” are a special case of taskbar.
Maybe we can settle for “Microsoft invented the taskbar at the bottom of the screen”?
When you’re quick, it seems you invented a lot of things.
Corn was once taken from America (the continent, not US) to Europe. But in Italy it is known as “granoturco” (Turkish grain). Go figure.
Microsoft is a very young company. It has some 30 years, IIRC. It really gained relevance some 20 years ago.
Many, many other mainstream corps are 60; IBM, if I’m not wrong, is around 100 years old… Can you believe it?
that’s funny, my parents have two computers, one running windows 98 and one old one that my mom still likes to use that runs windows 3.1 for workgroups (or something like that)
where is the taskbar there…i don’t see it, am i blind?
i must be…hmmm, lets open an app…minimize the “Program Manager” (yes that’s right, remember that, no start menu you had to use the stupid program manager with icons to all your apps)
where did it go, oh, not on a taskbar…it created an icon on the bottom of the screen…
okay, maybe i have to minimize two apps…minimize the notepad…hmm, created an icon on my screen…no tasbar?
i must be going crazy????
Anon:
No, researches tend to invent or discover.
Brad: It was something that was taken out of Windows, and then put back in as part of Win95.
…you were right, i will admit when i am wrong!
i found this site:
“http://www.infosatellite.com/news/2001/10/
a251001windowshistory_screenshots.html”
and in win 1.0.1 there is what looks like it COULD be
a taskbar, or just the bottom part of the screen that
the app is not covering?
but then it there is no sign of it in later releases until
win95
I was at Linux World in SF this year and I must say that just hearing about things like “soft reboots” and some of the work in the clustering field, blew my mind. This guy doesn’t know what he is talking about, and he doesn’t understand open source.
If I remember correctly, this is no real taskbar. Only minimized (suspended) apps go down there…
No matter how much you wish, Microsoft did innovate. Saying Microsoft did not innovate is as stupid as saying Apple did not innovate. There are lots of innovations coming from Microsoft, actually there are so many innovations that you just can not deny them all. But of course a zealot will tell the same thing just for the sake of saying it.
The guy is more or less right about open source. These open source project contributors are not all great programmers. For most of them, it is fun. That’s a problem for serious users. I am a programmer who would like to contribute to open source, but for me it won’t be more than fun. For Linus it was fun too. He didn’t want to shake Microsoft, or Apple. He is just doing something which he likes. But this is a problem when it comes to compete with Microsoft or Apple or any other company which makes operating systems.
Linux kernel is not so much great. It is quite complex and still considered to be immature when compared to Solaris for example. Linux kernel is not so easy to change, many stuff is tightly integrated to the kernel, which makes it harder to improve. You need to be very careful.
Furthermore, most of the applications in open source, although some of them are really great, are like hobby stuff when compared to the real applications. Writing applications for small tasks are easy, but when it comes to more complex applications, open source still lacks lots of things. Take office for example, take a complete, integrated operating system. I like linux, but when I don’t want to care about what’s going on and be able to do everything easily I want Windows, not Linux. I don’t care whether it is open source or not, I want to do a certain task easily. People who claim that Linux is better, or Mac Os X is better are kinda kidding. You can not compete with a company which has far more money you can imagine. Microsoft is the king of software and probably it will be there for a very long time. The only hope for linux now is the developing nations. If developing nations adopt linux, instead of windows, then we will have lots of users for linux and developers, so linux will become better and more standardized.
When you buy an IBM laptop, it is easy to use windows xp. Windows XP runs there. But for some thinkpad models it is not so easy to run Xwindow. Tell me which os is crap. If I can not even run a GUI in my machine, then that OS is crap. It is as simple as that. Don’t be a zealot, just use your simple logical brain. You may hate Microsoft, you may want open source to succeed, but bashing Microsoft will not make open source any better.
When it comes to the decisions, people make wise decisions. I loved Linux, but at home I am using Windows. It gave me all sorts of problems, but when compared to linux, it pays off at the end.
By the way I have read the Linux Kernel from O’reilly and before reading it I was also thinking that Linux kernel is better than anything else. But it turns out that, it is not as simple as that. That idea was a simple wish only.
Your topic doesn’t match the rest of your post, you don’t demonstrate how MS innovated (I guess it did, but you don’t take the time to explain). Anyway, what you wrote has some views that I find not to be completely valid:
You can not compete with a company which has far more money you can imagine. Microsoft is the king of software and probably it will be there for a very long time.
It sounds like you’re a capitalism lover, though I’m sure it’s not the case, you shouldn’t be so pesimistic. Microsoft started far behind Apple, but made some pretty smart moves (IBM…) and now look where it is. Why can’t something like that happen to any other OS? Though the times have changed since that, no company is the winner forever.
When you buy an IBM laptop, it is easy to use windows xp. Windows XP runs there. But for some thinkpad models it is not so easy to run Xwindow. Tell me which os is crap. If I can not even run a GUI in my machine, then that OS is crap. It is as simple as that. Don’t be a zealot, just use your simple logical brain. You may hate Microsoft, you may want open source to succeed, but bashing Microsoft will not make open source any better.
Funny thing, you’re bashing Linux here, and for something that isn’t its fault at all. Saying an OS is crap because there aren’t drivers developed by the hardware companies is just unfair. And in my case, I can run Linux with a GUI in my machine, and with hardware acceleration (NVidia drivers). I guess that makes that OS not crap… on my machine.
When it comes to the decisions, people make wise decisions. I loved Linux, but at home I am using Windows. It gave me all sorts of problems, but when compared to linux, it pays off at the end.
Well, if Windows works better for you, fine. But I see no reason why it shouldn’t work for many other people, or be inferior to Windows. After all, most commercial UNIXes are harder to configure than Linux (except Mac OS X, as far as I know), and they are better in their functions than Windows.
By the way I have read the Linux Kernel from O’reilly and before reading it I was also thinking that Linux kernel is better than anything else. But it turns out that, it is not as simple as that. That idea was a simple wish only.
Well, it’s not like Linux kernel is the best out there, of course, but its main advantadges is that it works properly, is free software (no, I’m not trying to praise, I’m saying a fact, it’s an advantadge for enterprises like Google), and it is hardware compatible with many devices.
CPUGuy:
MS didn’t invent OCR. Nor does it have or has ever had a product that does it well.
KCP (http://www.kurzweiltech.com/kcp.html) was one of the early innovators. OCR was around before Bill Gates was born.
OmniPage (http://www.scansoft.com) is the leader and the innovator (as opposed to inventor…) in that area.
Score: MS/CPUGuy: 0, History: 1
MS didn’t invent voice recognition, nor innovate it.
The main innovators were Dragon Systems, Lernout and Hauspie and IBM. DS and LH are now part of ScanSoft. The most basic features of L&H’s VoiceXpress make up the inadequate foundation of voice recognition in Windows.
Score: MS/CPUGuy: 0, History: 2
Superb audio and video codecs? Huh? Like WMA and WMV are innovative! All their features (minus DRM) existed long ago in many different products. Google is your friend.
Score: MS/CPUGuy: 0, History: 3
The taskbar? Hmmm… OK.
Score: MS/CPUGuy: 1, History: 3
The list goes on? Please, list innovations.
.net is an extension upon a theme, so I suppose it is an innovation. At least it finally makes Win32 development bareable. The total wasteland that is Win32 API + MFC + ATL + WTL + COM with all their inconsistancies and bad design should have been abandoned long ago.
Sergio:
Alot of talk. Zero substance. The OSNews terms of submittion should include a clause: “Your comment must present a logical and coherent argument, with facts and references.”
At least Eugenia would then be forbidden from posting here.
Score correction, the taskbar was a direct left from NEXTSTEP.
If you were to give MS credit for innovating something I would give them credit for the Paper Clip guy. Boy, that sure does make my life productive.
.NET = Paper Clip Guy
I fail to see you showing any signs of Microsoft innovating in their post. Call me a zealot all you want, I run both Windows ME and Windows XP on a dual-boot machine at home, and I don’t have Linux installed. The simple fact of the matter is that the only reason Windows remained popular during the Windows 95/98/ME days is because of game and hardware support. Not to mention the simplicity and ease of use to most end users (At that time… Linux is getting there real fast buddy, try installing Lycoris and let me know any huge flaws that you can find, other than maybe fonts, for most end users).
In case you were wondering why I love Linux so much, but still use 2, count ’em 2, Windows operating systems, the reason is quite simple… GAMES! Windows does nothing nothing nothing better than Linux but games for me (In that there’s a much wider selection of available commercial games that I’ve spent my money on to be able to use). It’s another big plus as well that I don’t have to defrag my ReiserFS Linux installs every freakin’ weekend like I do with FAT32/NTFS.
Correction in my last post, “innovating in their post” should read “innovating in YOUR post.” Sorry for any confusion/misunderstanding from that, or any other typos that may be lurking in my previous post.
I’ve stopped arguing about “innovation” with people as it’s an impossible thing to define, and most people (even here, it seems) only have a superficial take on innovation. They’ll remember the start bar and as it was the first they saw of it they’ll think Microsoft invented it. It’s just mindless, they haven’t even done any research. What they regard as innovation is market penetration, and hey, Microsoft does that well.
When you get away from the superficial, from what most people have seen, then you often get into vague academic ideas that haven’t had it to market. Draw a pie-menu on a bit of paper and call that innovation – without an implementation.
Innovation is bunk.
In the days of Windows 3 there was a product named DashBoard that was the taskbar – years before Windows ’95 and their taskbar.
(I’m not saying Dashboard was the first, though)
Only Microsoft cronies are the ones who think that they’re innovative and that Bill Gates and Co. are extreme geniouses.
Microsoft may indeed innovate, I’m not going to argue that one. On the other hand, Microsoft tends to discourage any innovation outside of it’s own company. Heard of Palladium? That’s right, Microsoft wants to incorporate DRM technology, not just into it’s OS, but every other OS on the PC Platform. How is this bad for innovation, you might ask? Well, for innovation to truly happen, we need an open environment in which to bring about new things (ideas), now try to innovate in an oppressive environment, where innovation is limited by technology that controls whether or not what you have innovated is acceptable or meets a certain criteria. Microsoft is siding with the record companies that want to take the power away from the consumer and it’s important to note the way they are doing this. It’s not so much the fact that they are assuming all consumers are criminals, but it’s the fact that they are creating a controlled and limited environment. So, according to Microsoft if innovation is going to happen, it’s going to have to come from them.
HuffePuff:
And what exactly do you think a taskbar is?
Bob The Monkey:
Obviously, you must not know how to read, and you must not know anything of handwritting recognition. I didn’t say Microsoft invented OCR. Have you ever seen how well the TabletPC recognizes handwritting…. well, no you haven’t, but I have, as I beta test the TabletPC SDK. The Transcriber in PocketPC is FAR better than anything out there.
Microsoft is doing lots of great work with voice recognition. Just because they didn’t invent it, as you say, doesn’t mean they haven’t done some innovations with it…. it is become obvious that you don’t know what innovate means… either that or you have more in common with the monkey than you think.
So other codecs are able to compress the data as well with the same quality video/audio as Windows Media… I think not. But hey, something to bash MS with… right?
And then your comment about Win32 shows that you don’t really care that it’s just YOUR opinion on the subject, and that your opinion is not the only opinion out there…. as the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
n1xt3r: Do you have any clue at all what you are saying? Do you have any clue as to what Palladium actually is?
Let me save you the time of thinking about it, the answer to both is no. How about you go and read what it is before you start spouting off about it.
Cpuguy. Yes, I know quite a bit about Palladium and no, I’m not going to waste my time proving it anymore than I already have. You must really trust Microsoft if you are so confident in Palladium. That’s fine, but I’m not comfortable with the idea of trusting the integrity of my personal files to a large corporation, which would have the potential to _censor_ the content of my personal data.
Do we really need DRM/Palladium?
No, absolutlely not.
CPUGuy.
You, my friend, are an idiot.
You said ‘character recognition’. Not handwriting recognition. ‘Character recognition’ is closer to OCR than HWR. But I digress. You’re the one who obviously can’t read.
Have you ever seen how well the TabletPC recognizes handwritting…. well, no you haven’t, but I have, as I beta test the TabletPC SDK. The Transcriber in PocketPC is FAR better than anything out there.
So let me get this straight, you know I havn’t seen it?
By the way, the Newton had the same level of HWR 5 years ago. I have it on my MP130 and MP2000U. But anyway, we’re talking about innovation.
What you call Transcriber is infact Paragraph’s CalliGrapher ( http://www.paragraph.com/ ) stripped down.
You lose.
Next up, Voice Recognition.
Unless you specify exactly WHAT Microsoft is doing with voice recognition, you lose.
Next up, Codecs.
Where did I bash MS? Oh, you can’t find where! That’s because I didn’t.
WMV is just MPEG-4. Except, as usual, it’s not standard MPEG-4. You know, when arguing, it’s good to provide links and references. Not just your own, ignorant, praise.
I havn’t a clue what WMA really is. Please specify where innovation occured (I’ll give you a hint: better sound at low bitrates). It’s just another audio codec.
DRM is an innovation. One I’d rather not be forced to use.
And then your comment about Win32 shows that you don’t really care that it’s just YOUR opinion on the subject, and that your opinion is not the only opinion out there…. as the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Ah, no way! What do you think these posts are? They’re all opinions of the people posting them. What the hell do you think your post is? It’s YOUR opinion too!
I don’t think I said ‘my opinion is the right one’. I said “.net is an extension upon a theme, so I suppose it is an innovation. At least it finally makes Win32 development bareable. The total wasteland that is Win32 API + MFC + ATL + WTL + COM with all their inconsistancies and bad design should have been abandoned long ago.”
So, uhm, please tell me, what’s wrong with that opinion? 🙂
I do develop for Win32. Every day. That’s my opinion. Let me give you an example. CSocket. Do you think that’s a well designed class?
I like the .net framework. And C#. More than the previous frameworks.
[This post is MY OPINION. It’s not the only one. It may not be the correct one. But it’s mine]
When I said character regocnition, I meant things like characters for Chineese script, etc…
I’m sorry, I’ve had/used a Newton, it’s not as good.
Voice Regocnition: http://research.microsoft.com/ui/persona/home.htm
WMV is not just mpeg4, WMV is much better than mpeg4 for streaming and has a much higher data compression/quality ratio.
WMA is just another audio codec, yes, but it’s the audio codec which offers the best compression/quality.
Example: 128kbits for MP3 is about the same as 64kbits for WMA.