Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was in a lighthearted mood during a swing through the Netherlands, but did he give a serious clue about Longhorn?
Ballmer sees squeeze on Longhorn deadline
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Eugenia Loli
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So there you have it, Longhorn will be released Dec 31st 2006, that is around Christmas 2006 or more likely early 2007, which means that it will not begin to make a dent till late 2007 with consumers or early 2008. Businesses will be even more cautious.
While Linux distributions should not get too self-complacent, these gives them ample breathing room to put together very-complete and coherent packages.
Unfortunately, I doubt that Longhorn will do away with the ongoing security nightmare that is IE, ActiveX, Outlook Express. With more and more integration, and less less separation between the OS and the userland apps that run on it, things will get worse not better. Add to this, a huge push for Digital Restriction Manipulation (DRM) that no sane consumer wants, and you have the ingredients for what may very well be a disaster, not an untimitigated disaster, yet a disaster.
Even if non-thinking user goes and gets a computer at Best Buy in 2008, my bet is that all power users and trend setters will be running either Linux or Mac OS X. Linux will also be a very complete choice for businesses that are ready for a change.
This is not to say that there may not be very compelling things about Longhorn, but they may not be enough to make a difference.
>My son doesn’t have an MP3 player. He has a Windows Media
>player.” Everyone in his household knows that the protection
>of intellectual copyrights is important, he said. “It’s what
>puts food on the table.”
Hahaha..i bet his son does not smoke grass, does not drink, is not intressted in girls and does not go to adult websites either.
pssssst..his son dual boots into Linux and daddy does not have the eXpierence to get in.
December 31, 2006 . . . . Are you kidding me, more like December 31, 2007 or 2008! That’s not including the weeding out period Windows XP has to go through.
Everyone here knows the annoucements being released with 12/31/06 rolls around. Delays, delays, delays. Just like everything else Microsoft produces.
But thanks for the “release date” Ballmer, something is better than nothing.
While Linux distributions should not get too self-complacent, these gives them ample breathing room to put together very-complete and coherent packages.
Which they apparantly refused to do the past ten years.
Unfortunately, I doubt that Longhorn will do away with the ongoing security nightmare that is IE, ActiveX, Outlook Express. With more and more integration, and less less separation between the OS and the userland apps that run on it, things will get worse not better.
I have a little bit more faith. I’m not saying that all security issues will be dealt with– but I do think MS has learned something from the past years.
Add to this, a huge push for Digital Restriction Manipulation (DRM) that no sane consumer wants, and you have the ingredients for what may very well be a disaster, not an untimitigated disaster, yet a disaster.
I actually stand behind the protection of copyright. I’m a huge music fan, and I just see that Record Companies are afraid to launch new and refreshing artists; and with that I mean artists that bring something different. They simply won;t do that with the current Kazaa/eDonkey culture, where everyone just keeps downloading music instead of not being a cheap-ass and actually buying the damn albums.
I’m pretty sick of these cheap-ass people who mystirously have money to buy big computers, but somehow cannot afford to buy a CD. Total crap. How would you feel if the bread you baked was taken away out of you bakery for free?
Even if non-thinking user goes and gets a computer at Best Buy in 2008, my bet is that all power users and trend setters will be running either Linux or Mac OS X. Linux will also be a very complete choice for businesses that are ready for a change.
Linux will always stay at the 3-4% marketshare in the desktop market. Same for OS X. Even though I have an iMac myself, and I honestly don’t think that they are expensive, they simply will never be as common as the x86.
I was there this morning and he was sort of joking, saying how we developers (the audience) knew how 200x always means the end of 200x, then said very loudly “31ST OF DECEMBER 2006”, so don’t take it too serious.
I actually stand behind the protection of copyright.
I don’t have a problem in principle with DRM, but I don’t care for the current implementations when it comes to music. As far as Apple and ITMS goes, I think the part about having being able to have the files on 3 different computers is fair, I don’t like the fact that I have iTunes installed unless I want to break the DRM, which kind of defeats the purpose.
Microsoft and WMA have similar problems. What’s going to become of your music selection when these online stores decide to close up shop and there’s nobody there to authenticate your tunes anymore?
In order for DRMed-music to be acceptable to me, it must be open-ended enough so that I can play my music how I want, when I want, and where I want. It must be open-ended enough so that I can play it on any OS or any portable device I choose, without the need for some authentication server that probably won’t be there in 10 years.
How would you feel if the bread you baked was taken away out of you bakery for free?
Bread is a rivalrous good. Software is not. So those kinds of comparisons are flawed. That said, of course artists should get compensated for their creations somehow, maybe just not the same way producers of bread get compensated.
my comment above is of course valid for both music and software and any other digital good by the way.
Is it true that Duke Nukem Forever will be bundled with longhorn
“I actually stand behind the protection of copyright. I’m a huge music fan, and I just see that Record Companies are afraid to launch new and refreshing artists”
<rant>This is complete, unadulterated bullshit. I get soooo tired of hearing these kinds of sentiments in here. Open your eyes and take a look around people. There’s a lot more out there than just what they play on the radio or what you see on MTV. There’s a greater variety of music available today than ever before. All you have to do is look for it. Some of you people are stuck in the past playing your crusty classic rock and Beatles albums and need to move on, expand your horizons. Lots of bitching going on about today’s teen pop groups and what not. Well, guess what? There have been teen pop groups going way back, it’s not a new phenonmenon. While I am it, I’ll even dare to say what nobody else will….the Beatles were the Backstreet Boys of their day. The only thing they didn’t do is dance, but they might has well have. The silly hair cuts, ridiculous outfits, stupid songs like “Yellow Submarine” all add up to the same thing…screaming teen age girls, just what the record producers and agents want. </rant>
I think the release of tiger next year would be a great time for apple to partner up with a pc manufacturer (hp?) and make os x for the x86. I’ve heard numerous arguements that this would put apple out of business etc.. But apple right now is making alot of money from ipods. Their name is in the news, on tvs, in peoples minds. Yes apples computer sales would certainly drop, but their recognition would go up 10 fold. also having one of the biggest pc manurfacturers back them would put some pressure on microsoft. If tiger waso ut in 2005 for all platforms, i think you’d see a drastic declinesi n microsofts userbase. Unfortunatly Microsoft would not make Office for it so apple would have to release thier own office suite. I think we will one day see OS X (or XI perhaps) on x86, weather it be a defiant move from apple to try to take microsoft down a notch, or a last ditch effort to try to stay alive, it’ll happen someday.
While Linux distributions should not get too self-complacent, these gives them ample breathing room to put together very-complete and coherent packages.
Which they apparantly refused to do the past ten years
Thom keeps forgetting that it took Microsoft over 20 years to get to the interface we know as XP. It’s only taken about 10 years to get the UI choices that Linux has. I’d say that’s doing pretty well under the time frame.
Unfortunately, I doubt that Longhorn will do away with the ongoing security nightmare that is IE, ActiveX, Outlook Express. With more and more integration, and less less separation between the OS and the userland apps that run on it, things will get worse not better.
I have a little bit more faith. I’m not saying that all security issues will be dealt with– but I do think MS has learned something from the past years.
Actually, Vader and the Emperor really haven’t learned much. The same philosophy of patching the UI from security flaws instead of building the product based on security first is going to doom them. Longhorn is going to be a UI candy treat, but not any more secure than any other version of Windows.
Even if non-thinking user goes and gets a computer at Best Buy in 2008, my bet is that all power users and trend setters will be running either Linux or Mac OS X. Linux will also be a very complete choice for businesses that are ready for a change.
Linux will always stay at the 3-4% marketshare in the desktop market. Same for OS X. Even though I have an iMac myself, and I honestly don’t think that they are expensive, they simply will never be as common as the x86.
I do agree with you about Mac’s, in that they won’t break out much, due to Job’s philosophy on being a niche market, and the monopolistic like control (sound familiar) over the hardware for Mac. I don’t agree with you on Linux.
Linux is gaining ground both on servers and desktops…Just today AT&T is looking into using Linux on their desktop systems. More major companies are looking at the upfront support costs in dealing with viruses, security flaws and UI problems Windows has, and are seeing the value of a Linux implementation: security, stability, and value of product.
MS can’t show stability, security or value of product right now. Longhorn may change some of that, but I highly doubt it.
I don’t think Apple will ever make OS X for x86, because it will be the end of their “it just works” reputation. The power of Apple is the combination of great hardware and beautiful software… look at the amazing PowerBook, running Panther, and try to imagine some crappy Dell instead of it… no, it just doesn’t feel right
I wouldn’t consider it out of the realm of possibility for a company like HP to approach Apple about licensing their hardware as a way of differentiating themselves and getting access to a rapidly advancing software platform.
If you’re a computer manufacturer, and you have to compete with hundreds of other companies large and small for the PC market, you don’t want to hear from your primary supplier of software that they won’t have anything new to show for two or three years.
So there you have it, Longhorn will be released Dec 31st 2006, that is around Christmas 2006 or more likely early 2007, which means that it will not begin to make a dent till late 2007 with consumers or early 2008. Businesses will be even more cautious.
Even if Longhorn is released in late 2006, it will take a long time before it will make a dent. It will most likely not run well on existing hardware and windows XP fills the business needs of most companies (just like win2k for that matter). This means that Longhorn will replace XP as old hardware is replaced, and that happens about every third year. This gives us 2009. And even then we can expect that there will be a lot of XP in the market.
By the time Longhorn is ready Linux will be a much stronger competitor than it was three years ago when XP was released. Longhorn will have to compete with enterprise ready desktp systems from Novell and Redhat showing nice desktops running Gnome 2.14 and KDE 4.x both probably with significantly incresed usability. By the end of 2007 when when win2k is end of lifed we may have Gnome 2.16 that is even better, and we can expect that a fair amount of old win2k customers will chose Linux to keep the costs of new hardware down.
Microsoft was able to fool their customers into ROI free upgrade to XP, but they will not be able to pull that stunt again. All in all I would be surprised if Longhorn get more than 50% marketshare by 2009 giving room for competitors like Linux and Apple.
ROFL…
You sound bitter — have you been laid off recently?
*insert generic USA made is the best quality the world comment here*
You mean like American cars? *snicker*
Microsoft is not an American company, it’s multinational. America is the biggest consumer market (as a country) that’s the only reason why Microsoft headquarters are in America. Eventually this will change.
Balmer does not have to worry about putting food on the table, he is a billionaire. It’s you that have to worry about making another stupid decision, not Balmer.
Balmer can afford to buy a new table for every meal that he eats, not just the food, but he can buy the table, chairs, plates, etc, no problem, and on top of it leave a huge tip.
http://m0rten.mine.nu/morten/fun/video/ballmer_dance.mpg
The Open Source Software movement has a business model very similar to the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceutical industry employs millions of highly paid workersand is immensely profitable. The Top 10 pharmaceutical companies are far larger and far more profitable than any software maker except Microsoft. A pharmaceutical company capitalised at US$50 billion is a mid sized player.
Big Pharma relies on government funded university basic research which it ‘packages’ and sells. The paharmaceutical companies pay licensing fees and help fund basic research. So Eli Lilley, for example, is similar to Linspire but 1000 times more profitable.
> Add to this, a huge push for Digital Restriction
> Manipulation (DRM) that no sane consumer wants,
No sane consumer wants? I am looking forward to it. Just wait and see the explosion of linux and free software when people realize they have to pay for their software (Windows in primis)!
The Open Source Software movement has a business model very similar to the pharmaceutical industry.
With the subtle difference that the customers of big pharma generally can’t reproduce and redistribute their products for practically nothing.
Just a small detail you may have overlooked while comparing the different business models…
On DRM and “stealing of music”. Music authors and listeners have been around as long as humanity is. As a matter of fact, music record labels are only a recent adition that came into existance because in the past reproducing and distributing music was hard or too unpractical for the individuals and therefore certain companies made a business of it. There is nothing wrong with that of course – on the contrary, it *is* an important industry, employing so many people etc. but OTOH there is no special law of nature that says we have to have music record labels at all (if they can’t keep up with the tech)!
I’m embarrassed for Ballmer every time I watch that.
What the hell was he thinking..
1. his pr team his told him its good to jell and spring around on the stage because its cool.
2. he had a rahter big coke sniff behind the curtain.
3. he is a fool
place your bets….
one, DRM does not protect copyright.
two, your appreciation of the current state of the recording industry is off. music sales worldwide are climbing in volume, and profits in the US were up last year.
oh, and i’m not opposed to DRM because I wish to copy music. I own no pirated music and own over 600 legally purchased CDs. I’m opposed to it because it prevents me using *my own music* in a way that is convenient to me – to whit, encoding it to a format I find convenient and high-quality and using it on *my own choice* of portable player.
“I don’t have a problem in principle with DRM”
Unfortunately for the supporters of DRM, both humanities’ ear (“the analogue hole”) and millions of simple radio’s, cd players (“lack of backward compatibility”) do have a principal problem with the ideology.
Unfortunately for the supporters of DRM, both humanities’ ear (“the analogue hole”) and millions of simple radio’s, cd players (“lack of backward compatibility”) do have a principal problem with the ideology.
Right, so I guess we should’ve never gone to CDs in the first place because it wasn’t backwards compatable with vinyl records and 8track tapes.
You ‘guess’?
1) Last time i checked, MIDI was still popular. Got it? Standard?
2) Backward compatibility -> damn right that slowed adoption. As always. The change in hardware needed is much more drastic than the ones you’re describing.
3) CD benefits -> damn right the CD has benefits over vinyl, mc. Vice versa, too. Its hard to argue ow DRM has for the consumer… which slows adoption.
4) The analogue hole doesn’t lower adoption; it raises adoption. I’m not arguing for or against adoption, i’m arguing against the pathetic ideology which apparently criminalizes legitimate buyers and demands them to buy new audio hardware whereas it doesn’t even secure what it tries to protect!
4) The analogue hole doesn’t lower adoption; it raises adoption. I’m not arguing for or against adoption, i’m arguing against the pathetic ideology which apparently criminalizes legitimate buyers and demands them to buy new audio hardware whereas it doesn’t even secure what it tries to protect!
Look, there’s nobody forcing anybody to do anything. Nobody is going to come to your house and demand that you throw away your CD collection.
As for me, I find CDs to be extremely annoying. They’re way too big and they scratch too easy. Personally, I’d rather carry my music around on a device that can hold many gigs of music and is about the size of a pack of cigarettes. And you don’t have to subscribe to anybody’s DRM to take your music portable .. rip your tunes to ogg, mp3, etc. I’m just saying that CDs are yesterdays technology, regardless of whether DRM catches on or not.
I don’t have any CDs myself, but if I did, I’d rip them all and pawn them on eBay or something.
And I’m not saying that any current DRM implementation is perfect, nor might it ever be. I’m simply saying that if they can find a way to prevent me from sharing my tunes with millions of people without impeding on my ability to listen to my music how I want, I don’t have a problem with the concept.
I’m simply saying that if they can find a way to prevent me from sharing my tunes with millions of people without impeding on my ability to listen to my music how I want, I don’t have a problem with the concept.
(I agree on you with CDs for the reasons you state. I guess that’s related to the popularity of portable multimedia players.)
The concept analogue hole does not prevent you from sharing your tunes with millions of people without impeding on your ability to listen to my music how you want. The analogue hole allows you to spread anything you are able to hear; hence any implementation of DRM does not work the way you want it to be. Unless humanity becomes some sort of cyborg, DRM does not work.