“The software industry has two problems as it looks to jump-start Web services — expected to be the next big thing in business computing — the economy is weak and Microsoft is strong. So, when executives and chief technology officers gathered in Monterey, California on Wednesday for Merrill Lynch’s Shaping Software 2002 conference, conversation centered on Microsoft Corp. — the industry’s 800-pound gorilla — and still-slumping corporate spending.” Read it at Reuters.
Microsoft a Problem for Software Rivals
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Eugenia Loli
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Right now, it is Sun. Specifically, if they didn’t let Microsoft off the hook from the original contract during its Sun v. Microsoft case about Java, nothing would turn out this way. Secondly, if it let go ultimate control over Java earlier on instead of viciously protecting it Microsoft and Sun might co-exist on Javaland.
Besides, on the second part of the article…. well, obviously they are a problem to their competitors. If they aren’t, well they aren’t a good competitor then. It is not like Microsoft is using any of their monopolies against them (if it was possible in the first place).
While i agree that MS isnt killing java,, its Sun doing that by themselves.. Microsoft has and is using its desktop monopoly to push into this market and many others.. If all the business machines are windows already… then why use a competitors addon, for their windows servers? I bet, You cant look me or anyone on this site square in the eyes and say MS isnt going to leverage its Windows monopoly to enter this area without laughing. I know i couldnt. And yes its a monopoly and they were found guilty of leveraging it.. just because there was no punishment doesnt mean there was no crime.
“…Web services — expected to be the next big thing in business computing…”
What?? Wasn’t that years ago, when all the dot com crashes happened??
The next big thing… I would like the next big thing to one day be “Computers for normal people that just plain work.”
How about the next big thing being …
Corporations that didn’t worry so damn much about the next big thing, and fix the products that are currently out now.
@Rajar:
>”Right now, it is Sun. Specifically, if they didn’t let Microsoft off the hook from the original contract during its Sun v. Microsoft case about Java, nothing would turn out this way. Secondly, if it let go ultimate control over Java earlier on instead of viciously protecting it Microsoft and Sun might co-exist on Javaland.”
Sun sued MS for breaking WORA of Java by not including RMI and JNI. Because that would open the interoperability with different platforms. And they simply lost it. Period. From the first day of existance, MS has only one strategy, WORW. Write Once, Run on Windows.
Of course Sun did sue them. MS did not obey the contract they did with Sun. Do you suggest we should stop the criminals by overselves, rather than suing them? What a retarded logic is that?
Rajan R: “Specifically, if they didn’t let Microsoft off the hook from the original contract during its Sun v. Microsoft case about Java, nothing would turn out this way. Secondly, if it let go ultimate control over Java earlier on instead of viciously protecting it Microsoft and Sun might co-exist on Javaland.”
Rajan, which dimension are you from? The whole MS/Sun thing came about because Microsoft intentionally made their version Enhanced for Windows (read Incompatible with everyone else) because Java had the potential to commoditize the Operating System… something Microsoft found unacceptible. Why on Earth would Microsoft be happy to allow the underlying OS to become transparent to such a flexible and effective end cause, particularly when they own the desktop market already? In true Microsoft Embrace and Extend policy, they deliberately created inconsistencies with True Java to protect their monopoly Desktop. If you could imagine a world where Microsoft did the right thing in the first place, you’d find Windows wouldn’t be so hard a habit to kick, MS Office would run natively under Sun, BeOS,OS/2,Linux on a Java Virtual Machine, instantly the OS Tax can be given to someone other than Microsoft… Microsoft Strategists flagged this as a problem earlier on and saw the need to subvert this effort. Sorry, Microsoft was always going to do what they did to Java anyway, they had to.
“If all the business machines are windows already… then why use a competitors addon, for their windows servers?”
Well, firstly, MS certainly don’t have a monopoly in the server space.
Why are they making inroads there? Well ‘compatibility’ is an obvious answer – which would tend to imply that they _are_ leveraging their Windows desktop install base.
But you raise a very interesting point “why use a competitor’s add-on?”. One of the most revealing things about the recent PetStore benchmarks was that the various components from various vendors just *don’t* play nice together. We find this all the time – with hardware as well as software; we will often choose a “second-choice” technology in one area, simply because we can get integrated, single-vendor support on the whole system. The cost of supporting products from different vendors (“its not our RAID array, its their server mainboard…” “no, its your graphics card drivers”) is huge when compared to a single vendor solution. The fact that Microsoft work with the major hardware vendors to specify that end of the platform is also an essential prerequisite.
The fact that we can buy well integrated, highly compatible software components *from a single vendor*, and at a reasonable price, is highly attractive to business.
Sun exploit the same principle in the high-end server space, very successfully, and Apple do the same on the desktop. This is an advantage that 3rd party software is always going to find difficult to overcome – except, of course, with other compelling innovation in the area of TCO.
ickusslime: Microsoft has and is using its desktop monopoly to push into this market and many others..
Which market? The article and my comment mention two distinctively different markets. I’m guessing .NET vs. Java, but .NET’s main success would actually depend on the enterprise and the embeded, where Microsoft doesn’t have a monopoly. On the desktop, the most .NET would change is programmers would use it over Win32. Big difference there…
ickusslime: If all the business machines are windows already… then why use a competitors addon, for their windows servers?
Unless you were living under a rock and was given a impression that Microsoft have a monopoly in the server market, you are wrong. In fact Linux is growing strong in this market, especially the web server market. Especially in the CRM market, where Microsoft DOESN’T dominate at all.
ickusslime: You cant look me or anyone on this site square in the eyes and say MS isnt going to leverage its Windows monopoly to enter this area without laughing.
I can’t technically look at you square in the eyes… Windows monopoly is secondary. Unless a bunch of goons would be marketing this to run on Windows on the Average Joe’s laptop, or even bundle it with Windows – Windows on the server have NO MONOPOLY. Nadda.
ickusslime: And yes its a monopoly and they were found guilty of leveraging it.. just because there was no punishment doesnt mean there was no crime.
Well, they are only found guilty of leveraging Windows monopoly on the Netscape saga, under a law all OSNews regulars know that I think is the ultimate form of stupidity in a civil commercial law. (As for crime, this is a civil case, not a criminal one).
So look at me squarely in the eyes and say “I’m not ignorant” without laughing, please?
—
Jace: What?? Wasn’t that years ago, when all the dot com crashes happened??
Web services hype came about when the dot com crash reach its height.
Sun sued MS for breaking WORA of Java by not including RMI and JNI. Because that would open the interoperability with different platforms. And they simply lost it. Period. From the first day of existance, MS has only one strategy, WORW. Write Once, Run on Windows.
Actually, I don’t think the original contract included RMI and JNI. In fact, IIRC, the whole case was centred around the fact that Microsoft exposed Win32 APIs to Java developers in a non-standard way (although optional) and J++ smashing that in Java developer’s face didn’t make things better.
But my whole point wasn’t the fact that Microsoft broke Sun’s WORA dream. My whole point was Sun has a incompetent legal team.
Do you suggest we should stop the criminals by overselves, rather than suing them?
No, I suggest letting the market decide what they want. On the Java issue, my whole point wasn’t that Microsoft didn’t broke the contract. Because they did. Sun has every right to sue them, they didn’t use antitrust laws (at least until now). They used contract laws. Microsoft broke a contract, I’m NOT defending that.
Sikoan Rajevski: The whole MS/Sun thing came about because Microsoft intentionally made their version Enhanced for Windows (read Incompatible with everyone else) because Java had the potential to commoditize the Operating System…
Well, this was too good to be true. No, you can make a Java app that runs on any other JVM. If you use Win32 in your Java, don’t even think of expecting it to work with other JVM because it won’t unless the JVM author decides to support it.
Secondly, porting Win32 apps to Java isn’t the most easiest thing in the world – heck, it is cheaper just porting to other major platforms. Especially then. Even if Microsoft followed the contract to the last word, I doubt Java posed much of a threat to Windows’ monopoly, especially then during the 1.1 days. Java was and still isn’t ready for desktop use.
And for the fucking last time, I never supported Microsoft in that case. I’m only supporting them where antitrust laws are used.
I think Sun themselves almost killed Java because they closely guard it. They won’t except suggestions from other companies on its directions unless they find it to be in their favour. Now Sun has JCP which is still a far cry from a normal standards body. Sun can very well send Java’s specifications to EMCA or ANSI or the ISO, and still retain its rights over the Java trademark for enforcement purposes.
Ultimately, if Microsoft had a say in Java, and IBM had a greater say in Java, Java’s acceptance would be much more higher that it is today. But one thing Microsoft WILL NOT do: joining a club made by its archrival where one of their hobbies is bashing Microsoft.
Sikoan Rajevski: Rajan, which dimension are you from?
…and I don’t believe in these quantum dimension crap-o.
Why are they making inroads there? Well ‘compatibility’ is an obvious answer – which would tend to imply that they _are_ leveraging their Windows desktop install base.
I’m sorry, I may not know much about CRM, but how can Microsoft use the “compatiblity” part against its competitors? It makes little to no sense at all.
1) .Net means getting into bed with MSFT again. How many times do people need to be screwed by MSFT before they figure out that the best they can hope for in this kind of relationship is a bad case of thee clap?
2) .Net only serves off W2000. You are in the position of buying expensive, slow, buggy, virus-prone low thru-put crap servers JUST to run .NET. I mean, who’d be dumb enough to run W2k servers at all except that your clueless pointy-haired boss has some perverse desire to run Outlook/Exchange because he doesn’t know better.?
How many times do people need to be screwed by MSFT before they figure out that the best they can hope for in this kind of relationship is a bad case of thee clap?
Until they do get through the bad part of the relationship. Sorry, but it is true, most people don’t really hate Microsoft. Heck, they probably won’t at all if Windows 9x never existed, and Netscape died before they could hire some lawyers.
Besides, for most people, from Win32 to .NET – big difference is personal ethics in consumerism. Not.
.Net only serves off W2000. You are in the position of buying expensive, slow, buggy, virus-prone low thru-put crap servers JUST to run .NET.
In the future, no. If Mono has its way, and ***IF*** Corel puts some meat into Rotor (and allow it for commercial use), it wouldn’t be Win2k-exclusive. Microsoft knows very well that while it can make its .NET implementation the best, it needs good implementations for Unix as there’s where the server market is moving (back) to. (If they are that dumb not to realize this, they probably would have placed a gag order on its team not to talk to Mono about technical stuff).
I mean, who’d be dumb enough to run W2k servers at all except that your clueless pointy-haired boss has some perverse desire to run Outlook/Exchange because he doesn’t know better.?
You just found a big market, buddy.
“You just found a big market, buddy.”
Alas, true enough.