A former Microsoftie says addiction to Windows revenue, mediocre products, and missed opportunities could doom Seattle’s most successful company.
Microsoft’s Sacred Cash Cow
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Thats the same article as the Microsoftie one.
wow thats a lot of words. I did read the whole thing though. Definately a great read if you have the time.
I agree 100% with everything he said. The only thing that surprised me what that somebody so tech savvy didn’t know anything about OS X until a few months ago.
I feel the same way as he does with Windows…bored. It’s become the same kind of boring, confining OS that the MacOS was prior to OS X. I don’t like to use it, even though I have to for work. If XP is already outdated and boring in 2004, imagine how boring it’s going to feel in 2005, 2006, 2007. Windows = work now, and Linux = play. All my downloading, dvd watching, cd burning, exploration and education happen in Linux. The possibilities of what you can do with that OS are only limited by your mind. I’m also a huge admirer of OS X. I bought an eMac for my mom after a virus knocked out her Windows machine. If I could afford a Mac for myself (or if Apple would sell me an eMac without a nasty CRT built in) I would be an OS X user as well.
and that is M$ huge cash reserves. Why would they need to slavishly protect their stock price? With $50 billion in the bank, they can afford to make a few mistakes.
And, since they specialize in software, they have fewer headaches to worry about than Apple, IBM, and Sun who all have to cope with both hardware and software issues.
I bet M$ is more worried about when interest rates are going to rise – the higher the rates are, the faster their piggybank will grow and the less any fines or settlements or strategic missteps will matter.
“I feel the same way as he does with Windows…bored. It’s become the same kind of boring, confining OS that the MacOS was prior to OS X. ”
No, it always was boring and vaguely nasty to use. I think this is because there are so many little things that are a constant annoyance, such as the horizontally-scrolling, non-resizable file requester. (I speak of Win2k, it might have improved in XP).
Microsoft is actually in Redmond, not Seattle!
“I switched!” Ex-Microsoft employee falls for OS X
Posted by Eugenia Loli-Queru on 2004-06-03 17:51:30 UTC, submitted by Claudio
OSNews link http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=7254
Direct link http://www.idealog.us/2004/03/i_switched_exmi.html
“I switched!” Ex-Microsoft employee falls for OS X
Posted by Eugenia Loli-Queru on 2004-06-03 17:51:30 UTC, submitted by Claudio
But that doesn matter, since the other one was from three months ago.
(How long until I am modded down this time?)
YAWWWWWNNNN… The anti-Micosoft extermists have been saying this since the 80’s.
Um… Boeing? Every one forgets that Boeing is in this area too.. ALWAYS MS..
“”YAWWWWWNNNN… The anti-Micosoft extermists have been saying this since the 80’s. “”
Umm, Microsoft wasn’t a monopoly until the mid 90’s……….
I agree with the previous poster. The ANTI-MICROSOFT people have been predicting the Doom of microsoft for nearly a decade now. And whats happened since then, well Microsoft has managed to horde away 50+ billion in cash reserves, not bad for a company thats about to meet its demise by Linux.
Btw does any one know of a linux company with a 1+ billion in cash reserves???? Common people i know someone must know of atleast one linux company………
Also i find it ironic that this so called non profit evangelist who might i add got rich by working for microsoft is now become an expert on what microsoft is doing wrong. I think this guy is better off working for non profit organization.
Saying Microsoft is about to die is sought of like saying the oil reserves in the world are dimining. Its just NOT going to happen.
One last thing all you people who HATE using windows, why the fuck do you use then, go use your precious linux, let see how many great games you get for it.
:):)
First line : “Why are Microsoft products so endlessly frustrating to use?”.
This is 100% wrong in my case. So I wonder what good I can get from the rest of the article ? Yet another “former Microsoft employee pissed after being fired”. Big deal.
“let see how many great games you get for it.”
Unreal
Unreal Tournament 2K3
Unreal Tournament 2K4
Return to Castle Wolfenstien
Doom 3 (When it is released)
Heretic II
Doom
Quake
Quake II
Quake III
Neverwinter Nights
etc…
I use Both OS, so not Anti-MS. Just wanted to point out that there ARE some great games available for Linux, just not all of them which is why I still do need to dual-boot.
Regards
I don’t seem to suffer the same problems as the author. I have desktops running Linux, Solaris 9 Sparc, Win2k, WinXP, FreeBSD, and OS X. I never have to reboot any of them unless I install a piece of software or a patch that requires a reboot. The only desktop that really acts up for me is the OS X box.
In the datacenter we run Linux, Solaris 8 & 9 Sparc, Win2k, Win2k3, AIX, OS X, and Netware 6. The same thing applies here with regards to reboots, except for with our Netware servers, they do have some issues at times.
Btw does any one know of a linux company with a 1+ billion in cash reserves???? Common people i know someone must know of atleast one linux company………
IBM surely has more than a billion dollar in cash. In 2001, Novelle had 700 million, I don’t know if they have more or less than that now.
It doesn’t matter, really. What matters to MS stockholders are stock performance. If MS was to lose a significant portion of its market share, its stock price would fall. It would still have its reserve but it wouldn’t be the same behemoth it is today (it would just be a smaller behemoth…)
It’s true that MS could survive 10 years without any revenue, but that’s not a realistic scenario. The problem is that MS derives nearly all its revenue from two products: Windows and Office. Take away one of those monopolies (especially Office) and the company becomes vulnerable. It won’t disappear, but it won’t be able to set the IT agenda like it has been doing for the past 10 years or so. In essence, the Microsoft we know today would be no more, even though the company would continue to exist.
Saying Microsoft is about to die is sought of like saying the oil reserves in the world are dimining. Its just NOT going to happen.
[Off-topic] By definition, oil reserves are a non-renewable energy resource, therefore they are constantly “dimming” as you put it.
In fact, most experts agree we have reached “peak oil” production, i.e. that exploitation costs are going to rise at the same time as demand is going up. Since our society is extremely dependent on oil (probably all the food you eat is transported by trucks/and or diesel trains, unless you live on a farm), this is worrisome as it could cause a global recession. Not to mention that we use a lot of plastics (think of the keyboard you’re typing these messages with, for example) which are a by-product of oil…
One last thing all you people who HATE using windows, why the f*ck do you use then
Using profanity on this site will get you modded down. Also, it marks you as yet another adolescent troll. If you can’t make a rational argument without the use of expletives, then you’re really doing your “side” a disservice – unless you’re really a Linux “double agent” who’s trying to depict Windows advocates as raving maniacs – which isn’t much better.
Notice, apart from NWN, they’re all first person shooters. What about strategy games like C&C generals? Or how about racing games like NFS Underground? Sports games? That list you’ve provided is just a small fraction of the different genres of games available, and just a small fraction of the different titles in a genre (Half-life is painfully absent).
Linux is not a home desktop entertainment (computainment) center and the GPL although decentralizing control of the system, does interfere with assemby line manufacturing, so you won’t be seeing a lot of games although you can play music, do digital photography work, and watch DVD’s if you are literate in Linux and ask questions.
It’s not a computainment center, buy a game console (Xbox,PS2,Nintendo).
“buy a game console (Xbox,PS2,Nintendo).” is a terrible response to the lack of games on Linux.
Can you get Blizzard games on Consoles? Would you *really* want to play FPS on consoles? RTS? MMOGS? PC RPGS? no
Console and PC excel in different areas, one cannot replace the other.
“Notice, apart from NWN, they’re all first person shooters. What about strategy games like C&C generals? Or how about racing games like NFS Underground? Sports games? That list you’ve provided is just a small fraction of the different genres of games available, and just a small fraction of the different titles in a genre (Half-life is painfully absent).”
True enough. I know there are alot missing, is why I still have windows around. I do the FPS myself and pay little attention to the strategy, racing or the sports games, so don’t know about those at all, as I don’t play those even on windows.
Was just pointing out to the poster I responded to that there were good games available, and by no means meant they are all available.
I think that sophisticated games (requiring specific hardware support) would drag down Linux.
The article sounds like a lawsuit from slander against MS, I would be very careful writing articles and comments about a Company or any Company for that matter. Slander is serious business and can wind up costing you a lot of money.
.Net’s got the typical Microsoft problem.
Make things easy for incompetent programmers and give up Enterprise Quality.
– VB.Net didn’t copy the JavaBeans model so we still have Dll’s to deal with esp. in Component building.
– Pointers gives up Java’s easier and more Secure Coding model
– No Checked Exceptions means Microsoft won’t be coding any… same old crash city.
– managed and unmanaged code, together again: is this Microsoft keeping the ability to write it’s own spyware?
Microsoft MCSD education is still a joke:
– They teach database coding using Grid Controls, which will kill database performance, fine for single user desktop apps. but not for Enterprise coding.
– They don’t teach any SQL
– They show an example of USING an async threaded class, but, Not how to code one. ( Remember, with Microsoft, if there’s no example code, it’s Broke. )
– The Thread class is NOT inheritable!?!
– They use the toString() method on a String!
This is the WORST copy job in history.
I’ve never seen anything this Half-A**ed.
.Net: Microsoft Bunts
Java: Sun hits a home run, and is so thorough, that they run around the bases Twice!
Ok, IANAL, and I don’t mean te be an ass about this, but, if I recall correctly, this would be liable, since it’s written, and in the U.S. it’s very hard for a large, well known, public company to successfully sue for slander/liable.
Unreal
Unreal Tournament 2K3
Unreal Tournament 2K4
Return to Castle Wolfenstien
Doom 3 (When it is released)
Heretic II
Doom
Quake
Quake II
Quake III
All of those games have 2 things in common.
a) They’re first person shooters
b) The programmers have either made the engine side code available to the public, and in doing so have leveraged an army of OSS addicts to port it and maintain it for them, or have an ulterior motive (More sales of their graphics engine, eg Unreal) for making things as cross-platform as possible.
Nobody is targetting Linux as a games platform (Outside the Open Source community). If you see a Linux port of a commercial game it’s because there are motivations other than selling copies of the game, or simple assumption that if the engine code is out there someone will be addict enough to port it for free.
microsoft knows it cant rely on windows for ever thats why they are diversifying with things like the xbox
“will be addict enough to port it for free.”
Bullshit, the companies do it themselves. Idiot.
“All of those games have 2 things in common.
a) They’re first person shooters
b) The programmers have either made the engine side code available to the public, and in doing so have leveraged an army of OSS addicts to port it and maintain it for them, or have an ulterior motive (More sales of their graphics engine, eg Unreal) for making things as cross-platform as possible.
Nobody is targetting Linux as a games platform (Outside the Open Source community). If you see a Linux port of a commercial game it’s because there are motivations other than selling copies of the game, or simple assumption that if the engine code is out there someone will be addict enough to port it for free.”
True, they are first person shooters, which is an extremely popular game genre. As far as the code goes, outside of Heretic II which was ported by Loki, the rest have all been written by the companies themselves. Epic has released the Linux binaries themselves, as have Id Software. By distributing the binaries they are targeting the Linux platform for games, no matter what the ulterior motive may be. Unfortunately there are too many in the Linux community who want everything for no cost, hence the reason why Loki went under. And to add to the list another Loki game, Railroad Tycoon…another one I happened to buy.
Bullshit, the companies do it themselves. Idiot.
So the Syllable Doom port was created by ID?
Wow, how remarkably friendly of them.
The article was well written and not really over the top; a bit of zealotry, but that is to be expected when you find something new you really like…I remember when I first discovered Linux…ahhh…it was just yesterday…
In any case, there are a a few items in the article that the author might want to be made aware of:
1. OO.org was actually based on Star Office, rather than the other way around as stated in the article…The SO code was made open source, and that code was used for the basis of OO.org. The two now coexist as separate code forks…
2. Mono is not the only project currently working on allowing Linux apps to run within the .Net framework. .GNU is another project with a different approach toward a similar goal if I recall… But Mono is also in a precarious position…Icaza talks about it in his blog….in that there are two sets of code going on there…one functionality basically with MS support and one without. There is a very real risk of MS saying screw you! and pulling out the rug from the MOno developers, making mono a crippled albeit still somewhat functional beast….history has shown MS to not be above such tactics…as a result, MS is in a better position with Mono than the author reflects in the article…
3.The competing J2 framework from Sun might have been given a bit more of a mention in the article…that might have shored up the author’s points regarding the .Net framework…
<rant>
It’d be great if Sun would associate it with a decent licensing model so that people that play with programming in their free time could play with it…(kind of like Trolltech did originally)…(I woulldnt expect them to open souce it, though that would allow for a serious influx of antimicrosofties with mad skill to take a bite out of .Net’s mojo…)
<end rant>
I know these are nitpicky issues….but for people not in the know, such little things are helpful when viewing the big picture…
I hope this enlightens someone…
On first observation, the title is very childish and demeaning to the fact that it is wrong for a company to make money to provide jobs (good paying jobs) for its associates. If you do not like MS, software fine but one cannot argue that Bill Gates is a Businessman in the sense he knows how to make money. Bill Gates has built Microsoft into the worlds leading technology powerhouse with the world’s most popular operating system and office suite.
What aggravates me the most is how the Linux community in general tries to invoke a price limit on Windows or Office suites and software in general. It is a free country a company such as MS can charge what they see fit for profit and providing jobs for associates.
If you can build a better operating system or do better then go for it. Nothing is stopping someone from trying to do so, otherwise quit complaining about someone being successful from hard work and better yourself.
Wee-Jin Goh
Notice, apart from NWN, they’re all first person shooters. What about strategy games like C&C generals?
Well, you can play Warcraft III and Starcraft with WineX (it runs perfectly).
(Half-life is painfully absent).
Half-Life and Counter-Strike run great with Wine as well. I get maybe 2-3 fps less than when running native.
Jeff
“buy a game console (Xbox,PS2,Nintendo).” is a terrible response to the lack of games on Linux.
Actually, it’s a great response. You get great FPS and can play quite a few RTS on Linux with Wine – the two genres that aren’t as well suited for consoles. So consoles + Linux is actually quite a good combination.
Can you get Blizzard games on Consoles?
Sure. If I recall correctly, Starcraft: Ghost will be a console-only title for at least a couple of months.
Would you *really* want to play FPS on consoles? RTS? MMOGS? PC RPGS? no
I’m not sure what MMOGS are, but it’s quite possible to play FPS on consoles (Counter-Strike for the Xbox is quite cool). Same goes for RTS – it’s just a question of designing the right controls.
Guys, take it from someone in the industry: consoles will continue to take a bigger share of the gaming industry. Serious games today play mostly on consoles, and if you go to E3 consoles are front and center, with the PC well behind.
Leonard Smith
Are you still trolling around here? You might want to check out a little thing known as the U.S. Constitution, especially the first amendment.
Hint: it’s not slander if it’s true!
First amendment, you might need to do some research on this one. Your opionion is hardly fact, and it would not hold up in a court of law…
just some words of advice for you
“On first observation, the title is very childish and demeaning to the fact that it is wrong for a company to make money to provide jobs (good paying jobs) for its associates.”
Uh…no, if you read the article you’ll understand the title. Basically, MS Windows and MS Office are “Microsoft’s Sacred Cash Cow”, and they focus so much on keeping them as they are that they miss oportunities elsewhere.
“First amendment, you might need to do some research on this one. Your opionion is hardly fact, and it would not hold up in a court of law…”
The voicing of opinions is protected by the first amendment.
Wait, apologies, I was of course thinking about the Hexen port to BeOS.
Syllable would be the Quake I port.
Wow, those ID guys sure do get around, don’t they.
For your info, ID released the Doom, Quake, Quake II under GPL and they were THEN ported by the gaming community. Incidentally a Quake II port is available for Solaris, and that sure as hell wasn’t done by ID.
Ok, so you can (If you’re lucky) get hold of Quake III in a box. How nice of the ID people. Hold on though, wasn’t it Loki who ported it, ran out of money, then sold the port back to ID who now maintain it? Of course it was.
Ah yes, Loki. The one company in the world with the balls to try and make a living out of porting good games to Linux. Where are they now?
Unreal Tournament was another Loki port.
UT 2003 had *cough* minor problems, but in fairness was done by Epic and not a third party.
UT 2004 has native Linux. Can’t complain, but I can’t see it as anything more than giving non-gamer customers another reason to use their engine. I’d love to see some Linux sales figures on it.
Without someone like Loki to port and sell the games then Linux gamers are still stuck hoping that either “Linux compatible” is a worthwhile marketing tool for someone’s engine, or monthly subscriptions can overcome low sales. If not then there won’t be a native port.
Hopefully I’m wrong, but in a sector as cuthroat as gaming there’s just not much point slowing down production to support Linux when there are a coupla hundred million Windows boxes out there, not to mention PS2/XBox etc.
Wasn’t the point of the article that Windows and Office are Microsoft’s cash cows? I don’t see how that can be disputed. Whether or not they are resting on their laurels can be disputed, but that’s another story…
This article was not about gaming support under linux. I, for one, am getting extremely tired of hearing again and again that linux, osx, or *bsd, or (insert operating system here) is somehow an inferior OS simply because Windows has more games available.
Games are great and all, but they’re not all that’s important.
First amendment, you might need to do some research on this one. Your opionion is hardly fact, and it would not hold up in a court of law…
Yet one cannot be sued over opinions. Now if this guy signed a NDA and then revelead some things he wasn’t supposed to, then he could be the target of legal action. Or if he claimed that Bill Gates sucks the blood of young children.
But, unlike you it seems, I’ve RTFA, and I didn’t see anything in there that would provide grounds for a lawsuit – nor would it be a smart PR move for MS.
just some words of advice for you
Why? I didn’t write the article – though I certainly enjoyed it! And I certainly don’t need any legal advice from you.
Meanwhile, I hope you don’t mind if I give a little more credibility to the words of someone who’s actually worked for MS for eight years as a technology manager than to those of Yet Another Internet Troll.
Unless you also happen to work for MS, of course. Then I’m sure we’ll be all very interested to hear what you have to say on the matter…
Diablo for Playstation, Starcraft for Nintendo 64 to name a few. Of course back then where it was expensive to put these game online on console since these hardware do not include modem port.
Would you *really* want to play FPS on consoles? RTS? MMOGS? PC RPGS? no
Huh? What about Half-Life (Playstation 2), Quake 3 Arena (Dreamcast, Playstation 2), Unreal Tournament (Dreamcast, Playstation 2), Unreal 2(Xbox), Final Fantasy XII (Playstation 2), Phantasy Star Online (Dreamcast, Xbox, Gamecube, PC), Morromind(Xbox), Star Wars Knight Republic(Xbox)?
“Btw does any one know of a Linux company with a 1+ billion in cash “Btw does any one know of a Linux company with a 1+ billion in cash reserves???? Common people I know someone must know of at least one Linux company………”
I think IBM would be a contender and so would SUN.
“One last thing all you people who HATE using windows, why the fuck do you use then, go use your precious Linux, let see how many great games you get for it. ”
No one ever said hate. I would prefer to use Linux/*BSD, however, most people are addicted to using MS Word/doc format. Now if the world would just switch to a non-proprietary file format then it would be a much better place. May the best product win. Don’t get me wrong OO.o is a great product, however its not 100 percent compatible. For the record, MS makes a good word processor but the file format is the ugly part. As for games, the world does not revolve around games. Developers are coming around to making games for Linux and that is just a matter of time.
As for file formats, how about open file formats so that people can share documents on a variety of platforms. Please note, I didn’t say open up the source code. This could only benefit customers. And I can prove open standards are a good thing.
Proof:
1) Your looking at this web page HTML and JavaScript are open standards
2) Connecting to the Internet via TCP/IP
Linux is bad at games…? well.. umm maybe.. but its god dammed great at emulation.
ePSXe plays almost all PlayStation games.
Mame runs thousands of games.
Winex from Transgaming runs around 400-500 new Windows games.
DosBox run around 800 old (but good) Dos games.
and if all else fails you can use vmware, when you want to play a games.. saves ya the trouble of dual booting.
You also have emulators for a ton of other platforms n64, snes, etc.
There are afew other games you missed on the list.. Kohan a RTS game has a native Linux port of the first game and a Transgaming version of the second. and also Terminus a space flight sim, is a good native game too. There is abunch more out there too.
Most of the features he claims to lack are things he just appears to not know about:
•The ability to log in to all our favorite Web sites with one password.
It’s called Passport. It has its detractors, sure, but it does exactly what he’s talking about.
•Spam blocking for our e-mail accounts.
Outlook 2003 has a junk mail filter that is fairly accurate, at least over time. *
•Calendar sharing with colleagues and friends to schedule meetings.
Outlook 2000/2003’s Internet free/busy publishing? It uses Front Page web publishing even.
•Automatic address book updates for all our contacts.
It’s not QUITE automatic, being more of an opt-in thing, but you can send each other vCards. That’s an external standard by the way. There are several apps out there that will do that kind of thing for you though. I just got mail from someone the other day asking me to update my contant info. The system was called Plaxto or Plaxo or something like that. Personally, I found it intrusive – I didn’t remember the person sending the update request to me.
•A virtual hard drive on the Internet for sharing files, photos, and music with our friends and access to these files via the Internet while traveling anywhere in the world.
Several sites already did (or do) this. If Microsoft did everything, you’d be shouting monopolist even harder. And people would sue even more.
•Synchronization of our Internet bookmarks across all our computers.
I can’t argue this one. I too would love to have that feature built in. There ARE services and software that will do this for you, but I too would rather the OS do it for me. Then again I’d like for Microsoft to buy WinZip and ship it with every copy of Windows. (Instant lawsuits, but it would be convenient.) Sure, Windows XP can zip and unzip very simple zip files, which is (way) better than nothing, but they made it incredibly counterintuitive, possibly to avoid (yep) lawsuits.
•Online profiles of personal information that we could choose to share with Web sites and social networks.
Now we’re back to Passport, MSN IM, etc. I already do all that now. It’s free, too. MSN (the web site) lets you have a free page too, or they did. I haven’t checked mine in a while.
•Regular backup of files to a storage site on the Internet.
This is a technically unfeasible idea for the masses, at least at this time. Maybe someday. I do think it would be cool if you could somehow do some kind of encrypted P2P sharing of your System Restore Points. (Look up System Restore in Windows XP’s help system to see what I mean.)
•Regular application and system- security updates.
Windows Update. Office Update. Two websites that update *gasp* your office applications, your OS. Both include security patches.
•One-step migration of files and programs to a new computer.
You mean the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard? Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and there you are. It has a one-step mode (For when your other PC is up, ready to go, etc.) and a two-step mode for when you need to copy your files and settings off and restore them later.
He worked at Microsoft how long? Not long enough to learn about these simple things, apparently. Now, if I can just figure out how to get my Indexing Service (Built into Windows XP) to talk to my Windows Search function, I’ll have nearly instant searches of my own system. Sort of like what Google is supposedly coming out with soon.
* You can also get SpamBayes for Outlook (google it). It rocks. It’s also OSS.
“Linux is bad at games…? well.. umm maybe.. but its god dammed great at emulation.
ePSXe plays almost all PlayStation games.
Mame runs thousands of games.
Winex from Transgaming runs around 400-500 new Windows games.
DosBox run around 800 old (but good) Dos games.
and if all else fails you can use vmware, when you want to play a games.. saves ya the trouble of dual booting.
You also have emulators for a ton of other platforms n64, snes, etc. ”
So why not use Windows for gaming then? Aside from the fact that its not Linux, I dont see anything wrong with someone choosing Windows for their main OS.
“As for file formats, how about open file formats so that people can share documents on a variety of platforms. Please note, I didn’t say open up the source code. ”
Pagestream has a fully documented file format and runs on several platforms. Any other DTP program or “graphical word processor” could add filters for importing or exporting Pagestream documents.
The format is an IFF format, with chunks. In effect, a binary equivalent of XML-SVG.
The whole purpose of the IFF, introduced by Electronic Arts about 20 years ago, was to provide an open file format. AIFF audio files are one example. There are IFF formats for audio, text, animation, images, etc – all open and ready to use.
Unreal
Unreal Tournament 2K3
Unreal Tournament 2K4
Return to Castle Wolfenstien
Doom 3 (When it is released)
Heretic II
Doom
Quake
Quake II
Quake III
Some id based opengl games run fine on linux, the others are either much slower and/or don’t have the eye candy that directx offers.
And since i’m a medal of honor multiplayer junkie i don’t think i’ll be using linux for gamming any time soon. (although the medal of honor multiplayer server for linux rocks
Come to think of it, osnews should organize some MOA tournaments between the different zealot factions around here. I for one can’t wait to snipe some linux zealots in the head 😛 lol
First off, Microsoft always, and I means always, gives away its Service Packs for free. They have never charged for a Service Pack.
Second, Microsoft never said ” Recently, though, Microsoft announced that its next major Windows release, code-named Longhorn, might be delayed beyond 2006 unless it is significantly pared down ” In fact they did say that they were expecting to SHIP Longhorn in 2006 but they are not significantly parring down features. The anti-Microsoft pro-Apple crowd and even the Linux guys may enjoy this article becau7se it bashes MS, but to me it has no substance.
This is by far the best article i have read on OS news for quite some times.
Energy is NOT renewable, produceble or destructable.
Energy is convertable, thou. Off topic – mod me down if you wish
“Energy is NOT renewable, produceble or destructable.
Energy is convertable, thou. Off topic – mod me down if you wish”
I don’t mean to be an ass by critically replying to an admittedly off topic post, but when talking about renewable and non-renewable energy resources it’s the source of the energy that’s considered renewable or not. For example, fossil fuels are non-renewable since the oil is just sitting down there and once we suck it all up it’s gone, while solar and wind power are renewable since they’ll be available as long as the world is turning and the sun is shining.
It’s the source of energy that isn’t (actually) renewable
I have a hard time believing some of things this author is saying about rebooting his computer everyday. Now, what OS is he using? Windows 95??? Honestly, windows xp and 2k are stable, unless you’ve made it unstable. You know…Windows stability isn’t that bad as people make it sound to be.
You should learn your history before spouting off like this.
Quake 1 was ported by the same guy who wrote the original Threewave CTF mod. Quake 1, along with QuakeWorld and the tdfx versions were available for Linux long before Quake 1 was put under the GPL. IIRC, Quake 1 went under the GPL around 2000 and I was playing QuakeWorld TeamFortress on Linux in 1998 or so. Quake 2 was ported by the same guy who ported quake 1, at which point he was employed by id. Both Quake 1 and Quake 2 were even available in retail boxes for Linux. I have that box laying around at home somewhere. The GPL release of Quake 1 happened at the very, very end of Quake 1’s popularity. I’m sure it’s been ported to more platforms since then. Quake 3 was written for Linux and Windows (and the Mac for that matter) at the same time by id. Loki was merely the distributor. All of the test releases and betas for Quake 3 were also available for Linux (they were even released before the Windows test releases).
Doom is so old, I’m not sure who ported it to Linux, but Doom 3, from all reports, is also being written for multiple platforms by id and will be available for Windows, Linux and the Mac (again, this is the preliminary info id has released), though they’ll go back to the old distribution method (buy the Windows version, get the pak files from that and then download the Linux binaries).
Loki ported a dozen or so games to Linux and, by and large, those ports were excellently done.
Anyways, the Linux ports of at least the Quake series of id games were NOT done by the open source community. The first was done by contract, the second was done by the same guy in his spare time while working at id, the third was supported from the get go by Carmack.
I just installed SP2 on my dual boot. Big deal…got a “security center” that does nothing to address their security issues, but try to sell you anti-virus. IE blocks popups now…no tab support or any security features to speak of…come on guys just steal some Mozilla code!!! It’s free…but no just the same old watered down Windows.
I’ve read, well the first third at least, a few days ago and yes it sucks and yes there’s is nothing in there that would remotely pull the rug under MS’s feet.
Now for the second offtopic thread that was started by several of our favorite astroturfers. There are various games of various genres on Linux. Just as well though I’d rather be laying on my couch playing in front of my TV, without the hassle of hardware drivers and spyware slowing down my game. That’s just me though, everyone has their preferences.
Enjoy!
From the article:
“Many of today’s most compelling products are Web-based applications that run just as well on Linux with the FireFox browser or OS X with Apple’s Safari browser as they do on Windows”
Really?? Give me some examples. I have yet to see a web-based application that requires user interaction that is as responsive and feature rich as a corresponding desktop application. To even get close you need to utilize browser specific features (ActiveX, Plugins, etc). Support for CSS/DHTML/DOM also vary between browser type/versions and operating systems. People have been asserting web-based apps will replace desktop software for years, but it hasn’t happened.
If I had to develop desktop software to run on more than one OS I would look at QT/wxWindows/Java-Swing as a cross-platform solution. I would only consider a web-based solution for the most trivial of applications.
“You couldn’t say that you need Windows for any reason..”
I run Solaris, Linux, Windows, BSD, and OS X and I need them all for one thing or another. My need may be because of a certain piece of software, that I prefer over others, that requires a specific OS or just a need to try different things.
I can say I need Windows because there are some utilites that I use in my job that require Windows and I prefer to use over others that will run on other OSes. If I were to use the other apps just because I don’t have to run them on Windows then I wouldn’t be happy with them.
He seems to have replaced one religion with another. I found it strange how taken in by Apple’s propaganda he is in the way he repeatedly connected open source development and open source products to OS X. The parts of OS X that really matter to users are the parts that are closed. Everything else exists in hundreds of duplicate forms among all the Unix and Linux varients that I continue to have little to zero interest in.
Other than that, and the placement of “the” in front of Bluetooth, I felt this was a very well written article with a lot of great observations and interesting tidbits.
It maybe off-topic.
Sometimes, I am very curious on some guy critisizes IE (Internet Explorer). One issue is tabbed browser.
Though I haven’t touched IE in Win or OSX for a long time, I still have to say MS did nothing wrong in this issue. Look, Windows has a taskbar that is a native tabs for web browsing. Especially, at least, the “tabs” can be grouped as one. It’s not very bad anyway.
sorry to tell you, no ID game uses directX. MOH runs off of the quake3 engine, which like everything ID does, is openGL.
as for games running slower, you obviously dont know what your talking about. ut2k4 and 2k3 run significantly faster on my linux box then my windows box.
starcraft, warcraft 2, starcraft ghost, there are even rumors of worlds of warcraft being ported to xbox. so much for blizzard not doing console. for mmorpgs? um, everquest, phantasy star online, ffxi? rpgs? console is the land of the rpg.
now, if you havnt heard of halo, you’re been living in a cave. SOCOMII happens to be one of my favorite fps out there, and its a ps2 game.(only thing better is enemy-territory, which of course has a native linux version)
PCs are general use machines, not gaming platforms. They can be used that way, just like they can be used in any of thousands of other ways. i am a hardcore gamer (with lots of disposable income), ive got the three major consoles, and i find that the only reason i play a game on pc nowadays is a) its warcraft III or enemy-territory, or b) i want to try it before i buy it. so, windows is of course the platform of choice for gamers that are also thieves, but for people who are actually willing to pay for what they use, console is where its at.
At first Computing was something sooo exciting!!
The first computer I used at a friend’s was a ZX 81. We spent hours coding little things in BASIC and we really had fun.
Then I got to try a TRS 80 at school. At that time the langage used on this awful piece of hardware was called LSE ( Langage special education….yes I’m french.)
Then my father bought me a Commodore 64, and WOW what fun I had with this one…
Later, when I finally got to work; I was confronted with my first Wintel machine, an I386 running MS Windows 3.1….and there was no fun anymore.
Yes the GUI was new to me, and at first sight was something cool but I really never, never enjoyed using this machine.
Then came MS Windows 95, and believe me or not, this time the experience was so awfull that I prefered to go and give a try to the AS400 that had been unused for months in an office near mine.
There was no window manager on that, and it was more fun to me than any of the “eyecandyfull” MS apps used by my colleagues. Maybe just because it was MY toy, as nobody else would want to even put a finger on it.
As years went by,being productive and less of a rebel became more important to me, and I ended up using Win 98 and Win 2000 like everyone did around me. Computers became boring tools just like fax machines, telephones or diesel cars.
In 2002, I HAD to buy a PC for the familly, and I was told that with XP I would never experience blue screen of death anymore, that DOS had vanished and that I would like XP very much.
3 weeks after the purchase, my PC wouldn’t boot, there was nothing to do. I went to the shop where I bought this machine and asked for the CD to reinstall my OS….
I was explained what OEM was, asked for about 45€ ” and bring us your PC, we’ll call you when it’s ready, it takes 2 or 3 days bla bla bla…”
I called a friend for help……..and you know what…….I love this guy………he is more than a friend to me now, because he is the one who told me “Try this, It’s called a Linux distro, it’s free to copy…….well if you don’t like it I’ll give you a copy of Windows but it’s illegal!”
But I never had to ask him for an illegal copy of Win XP, because the fun was back, and that Linux thing gave me everything I had expected from computing for years. My wife can be productive, my daughter can use my computer without breaking the fucking OS and I feel like I felt when I had my Commodore 64, EXCITED to compute, at last after all these years of boredom with MS.
Name ONE all original Microsoft product.
Bob
you have never ONLY had a Linux box to use and hence were forced to learn it. If you did.. you couldn’t say that Microsoft products are easier to use then Apple’s.
If I have to be FORCED to learn something then its not exactly easier than what I’m already working with.
If its *easier* than what I’m using now than shouldn’t using it come naturally ?
If I have to be FORCED to learn something then its not exactly easier than what I’m already working with.
If its *easier* than what I’m using now than shouldn’t using it come naturally ?
Not necessarily. Learning something new, even if in the end it’s simpler, still requires a learning curve.
An example: Maya is said to be easier than 3DStudioMax. But someone who know 3DStudioMax really well will still have to spend some time learning Maya…
Missed Opportunities
•The ability to log in to all our favorite Web sites with one password.
•Spam blocking for our e-mail accounts.
•Calendar sharing with colleagues and friends to schedule meetings.
•Automatic address book updates for all our contacts.
•A virtual hard drive on the Internet for sharing files, photos, and music with our friends and access to these files via the Internet while traveling anywhere in the world.
•Synchronization of our Internet bookmarks across all our computers.
•Online profiles of personal information that we could choose to share with Web sites and social networks.
•Regular backup of files to a storage site on the Internet.
•Regular application and system- security updates.
•One-step migration of files and programs to a new computer.
Apple provides a service similar to what I’ve described, called .Mac, for $99.95 annually. Signing up 20 million Windows users (a fraction of the worldwide installed base) to services that cost, say, $19.95 per month would generate more than $4.7 billion in revenue annually.
im not paying $20 a month for internet services. im responsible for my files and backups and nobody else. i dont have an iq of 150. how hard is it to copy paste files from windows explorer to a removeable media and then copy paste them to a new computer. if people cant or wont attempt to figure out how to use 1) admin and limited accounts 2) a file system program like windows explorer and drop down menues like file > open 3) use windows and office update, then maybe they shouldnt bother using a computer and use a telephone and notepad instead. (ie my dad)
i savagely guard my files and anybody who attempts to hack attila’s files will drown in the own blood.