“Redmond has a new line of equipment designed to help turn your home into a wireless network. In the short term, at least, that’s good news for the industry.” Read the article at Business 2.0.
Microsoft Cuts the Cord
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I may be wrong, but this sounds a lot like Apple’s Airport which has a base station with airport cards, and is easy to setup.
Microsoft will force standards and make this a commodity market. Maybe the standards won’t have much foresight, but I’ll take the cheap pricing.
This is the one good thing Microsoft does, and they’re skilled at it.
Funny, I was at Best Buy yesterday and noticed the Microsoft products.
MS counts on its brand name recognition. If you’re a clueless user you’re more likely to buy the MS product than the LinkSys one even though LinkSys has greater expertise in the field.
In any case healthy competition is always welcome.
As for standards, I think that question has been settled for now (IEEE 802.11b).
Yep, sure.
A pro-MS reviewer from ZDnet.com did a review of the MS hardware in question.
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2880820,00.ht…
The article is a pretty good one, but you be the judge of it.
>A pro-MS reviewer from ZDnet.com…
I don’t know how you can call Coursey as pro-MS, when he says that this “MS hardware” stinks, and when it is well known that he is an OSX user.
My beloved readers, you never cease to amaze me.
Well, lets see…
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2879155,00.ht…
In which he explains how his Pocket PC is waaay better than any Palm OS device.
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2882518,00.ht…
In which he tepidly praises Netscape 7, and proclaims IE to be fabulous.
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2895473,00.ht…
“New Microsoft cell phone: Why I just love it!”
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2894994,00.ht…
Would somebody who isn’t pro-MS write a column that is basically an ad for MS Works??
Anyhow, to say this hardware ‘stinks’: thats a single review of a single product, which I would say isn’t ‘statistically’ significant. I see Coursey as actually somewhat even handed. He likes Macs, also likes IE, gives some MS products and policies good reviews, others, he lambasts. Anyway, one can assume that anyone writing for ZDNet is basically Pro-MS, thats the whole flavor of the site…
No, no, no, no. Airport doesn’t have a setup wizard.
Does it really matter? only a sucker reads one review and makes a discision to buy. the guy is entitled to his opinion one way or another.
i would buy linksys before i even considered this but thats my opinion.
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2879155,00.ht…
In which he explains how his Pocket PC is waaay better than any Palm OS device.
And supporting PocketPC over Palm means he is pro-MS?I personally perfer a PocketPC device than a Palm device. The big reason that it is “multitasking” – ie, playing MP3s in the background why I manage my appointments.
He clearly in this article, list down his point on why he prefer Pocket PC over Palm. (Besides, I prefer a Symbian device over them all)
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2882518,00.ht…
In which he tepidly praises Netscape 7, and proclaims IE to be fabulous.
Personally, I prefer IE greatly over Netscape 7. Netscape 7 is just a AOL billboard. I would rather push Mozilla than Netscape 7 cause Netscape 7 takes/hides away the features that the consumer really wants.
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2895473,00.ht…
“New Microsoft cell phone: Why I just love it!”
Why? As an unbiased reporter he can’t like a product? So if I post a article saying he likes the iMac, does that make him biased for Apple? Nope. He likes that cellphone. Few months ago, he wrote an article stating why he hates the Treo. Nothing wrong.
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2894994,00.ht…
Would somebody who isn’t pro-MS write a column that is basically an ad for MS Works??
Word for $99. Plus other goodies. Isn’t an ad. A lot of people never actually knew about this.
Seems to me that everytime someone writes an pro-MS article, that automatically makes them a MS zealot.
Eug: sorry for being OT.
rajan, there is an AirPort wizard type thing for OS 9, but, as you know, not for OS X. It just automatically detects it.
I did not have the original graphite Airport base station because, with OS 9, you could use one of your Macs as the base station. I did then get a snow base station when you couldn’t do that with OS X. Now though, you can do that with OS X. Having a wireless home network has been really great.
In the PC world, it is interesting Microsoft is doing this, especially because Linksys is so prominent. But, they must want to make sure this gets to be a very commom thing in the home – and make more money to boot 🙂
You know how much I hate wizards – I was listing them as a negative point. 🙂
Besides, unlike Apple, Microsoft have an potential of commodizing them. Heck, maybe one day, they would be as common as NIC cards and modems.
Sounds like its all about M$ being able to gain further control of networks. Wonder how well these will integrate with Longhorn and .net clients….
If ultimate control is what they want, they don’t have to make hardware to do it. Profit is what they are after.
I may be wrong, but this sounds a lot like Apple’s Airport which has a base station with airport cards, and is easy to setup.
Ummm… probably because they’re all based on the same set of IEEE standards…
In any case, these types of products have been available for the PC for a while, it’s just that Microsoft has put their brand name on some now. Personally, I don’t see how a Microsoft-branded product could be any easier to setup than the existing products, they’re all fairly easy (especially with a new Windows installation since WindowsXP and 2k default to DHCP).
” Besides, unlike Apple, Microsoft have an potential of commodizing them. Heck, maybe one day, they would be as common as NIC cards and modems.”
Macs ALL had ethernet cards way before all windows boxes did. heck, the Gateway “iMac” killer (correct me if I am wrong…) doesn’t ship with ethernet standard STILL in the 21st century.
did someone mention that great browser, IE?
——-
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=5885
It seems every 2 weeks they discover new vulnerabilities, lol
Macs ALL had ethernet cards way before all windows boxes did.
Because Apple controls the platform, not because there was demand for it (or even is today). Windows boxes will never ALL ship with ethernet cards because some people will have uses for boxes without ethernet.
heck, the Gateway “iMac” killer (correct me if I am wrong…) doesn’t ship with ethernet standard STILL in the 21st century.
You’re wrong, the base-level Gateway profile (all-in-one system, what I assume you’re calling the “iMac killer”) comes with ethernet standard. What it doesn’t come with standard is a modem, which you can add for $30. Personally, having not owned a modem in the 6 years I’ve been buying/building computers, I prefer that to Apple’s approach of giving me (and charging me for) something I will never use. That being said, all of the people that will never use that ethernet port might feel the same way about Gateway, because there’s no option to remove it.
“Microsoft will force standards and make this a commodity market. Maybe the standards won’t have much foresight, but I’ll take the cheap pricing.”
There already is a standard: 802.11b. Microsoft can’t “force” standards here; they are simply making use of existing standards. WiFi is already a commodity market; prices have been dropping rapidly for the past year or two. I don’t see how Microsoft’s entry into this market changes anything.
Saying this is significant is like saying that Microsoft “commoditized” the keyboard and mouse market, simply by offering their own branded devices! Microsoft isn’t entering this market to commoditize it; Microsoft is entering this market because others have already commoditized it for them.
“poor richard”,
“(correct me if I am wrong…”
Ok.
From Gateways website on the base $999.00 Profile 4 ( iMac Killer )
“Network Adapter
Integrated 10/100 Ethernet”
That is because everbuddy is using IE, so the have a large
testfield. My guess is, Microsoft will have a final release after IE beta 23.0
Ah..the Wonderfull Microsoft Hardware, now you can even crash your Joystick or get a MS networkcard virus.
That is what i call inovation!
Hail Microsoft!
Bas
Before Apple decided NIC was here to stay, NIC cards were pretty common on PCs. Just not on consumer desktop – they don’t need/want it. Besides the Gateway Profile comes with a integrated 10/100 Ethernet.
“That being said, all of the people that will never use that ethernet port might feel the same way about Gateway, because there’s no option to remove it.”
Then they’ll whine when it comes time to move their data to a new computer!
Ok, I was wrong about the Gateway.
I used USB to do that. Much faster than Ethernet. Not made for networking, but for transfering files – it is *fast*. And of course, complicated.
Besides, if this is the only use, I rather go down to a store and pick up a Ethernet PCI card for $20 or a PMICIA card for $60 and use that to transfer files *when* I need to.
used USB to do that. Much faster than Ethernet. Not made for networking, but for transfering files – it is *fast*.
ummm… USB faster than ethernet? Maybe if you’re only running 10baseT.
Then again, I just pull the drives to transfer files to a new computer.
Let me restate that pooint.
Replace “USB” with “USB 2.0”.