Microsoft On Linux: Forecast Or Fantasy? 332
FarHat wrote to us about an article currently running on CNN regarding the long-term prospects of Microsoft and Linux. One of the launch points is the persistent rumors of Microsoft porting Office to Linux, as well as Neal Stephenson's In the Beginning was the Command Line. Fun read, overall.
Microsoft learning?? (Score:1)
Why not? (Score:1)
good for us students (Score:2)
A port of office would help linux a lot (Score:1)
Re:Why not? (Score:1)
If MS does go forward with a port, it will be based on the potential demand from the business world -- not the home-brewed linux folk... if a work is in progress, we won't see it until this demand is high enough.
dispelling myths about Linux. (Score:5)
Fact: Employees of microsoft depend on the sale of Windows to support their families. By not buying Windows you will force them to starve on the street with their families. You can help prevent this by spending your rent and food budget on Microsft products.
Myth: Using Linux will make me a super stud.
Fact: Linux causes severe erectile disfunction. In a recent study, 47 impotent men were given computers running Linux. All 47 reported an inability to maintain an erection after using Linux for several days.
Myth: Using Unix-like OS's will help me grow a thick bushy beard.
Fact: Almost 7% of professional Unix admins do not have thick bushy beards.
I hope this clears things up for y'all.
Thanks,
--Shoeboy
(full disclosure: I am a Microsoft employee.)
Re:Microsoft learning?? (Score:1)
Visit uMoo - http://www.uMoo.com/ [umoo.com] Betsy needs some company
most likely (Score:1)
What about Star Office ? (Score:1)
Wouldn't Linux users be more likely to use an application that is Free and easy to use ?
Besides, does M$ have the patience or the know how to create the different distros of office, or are they going to distribute the source code out for the applications ?
(Of course it would be fun to have the source code.....)
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MS Office 2000 modifies NT OS. (Score:4)
We recently had several clients start running Office 2000, and were amazed to note that it added several Unix-like features to the *OS*, mostly as services on known ports - like Quote of the day!
One theory is that these may form the beginnings of Microsoft's "3 great new anti-piracy features" licensing engine. We see these posters in Europe, and find them odd... anti-piracy isn't usually a marketing angle that works. But the posters are everywhere in the airports.
Anybody monitored traffic from a NT workstation or 98 box with Office 2000 on it? We dissuade clients from "sharing" software, but I'd love to know what our pals in Redmond are doing. I think they'll have a hard time convincing the judge that the Apps are part of the OS, yet it seems that Office is about to start integrating completely.
Microsoft helping linux?!? (Score:2)
I program for a small buisness, and just a month ago, the prez was looking into switching his (rather computer intensive) buisness over to Linux. He almost did, too. The only thing that stopped him was that there weren't enough good office tools for Linux yet, that he could trust the rest of the office staff with. (read as: the people who DON'T program[gasp!]) If Linux had MS Office, then he would probably make the switch in an instant. And I'm guessing that he's not the only small buisness president who looks longingly at Linux's impressive stability record. I think that if MS supported it, it would sort of "legitamize" linux for a lot of people who have heard of it, but dismiss it as "a passing fad", or "something that only true computer geeks can use".
I'd be surprised if it happens. (Score:2)
If we were, however, to see a split up of Microsoft in which the portion that makes Office is independent of the OS, then I'd say the chances we'd see Office on Linux would increase.
Of course, I can't say what will really happen. Maybe MS will port Office to make a quick buck. Who knows?
Re:[OT] whoop's analysis of OpenSSH.com's boycott (Score:1)
MS's entry into the world of Linux...(no!) (Score:2)
possible user group.. (Score:1)
Then again, some of the linux user base/newer linux user base could be people who're switching to linux because of external influence (i.e. someone said "aww, come on, try it" or something) and they may want to be able to keep their windows apps because they're just stubborn that way (or, if M$ had already ported it/made it available on the CD as either for win or linux), and they'd use it da dee da.
Therefore, this might appeal to people who are already accustomed to Microsoft's product/interface and they like it/don't feel the need to find something new, or maybe they're just new to linux from the windows world and would rather have some small piece of windows familiarity. Of course, if I were the target audience, I wouldn't want the product, but i'm not everybody..
In any case, IE should come first (Score:2)
I think it's obvious that the effort required to port Office would be much bigger than porting IE. So it would be better for them if they made some pilot projects.
Plus, there's Star Office (which it's free) so MS would probably be forced to give away Office for free. Do you really think they're going to do that when 2/3 of Microsoft profits come from Office?? A lot of people would move to Linux just to have Office for free. IMHO, it just doesn't match with their business model.
Cost-Benefit anal (Score:1)
Would you pay $250 for Office for Linux? Would it be unwieldy to port to Linux due to support issues on all the distros?
Msft could offer Office for Redhat Linux (insert favorite distro) but then they would really be into antitrust problems. Would it be really difficult to port to Linux? Or is the support issue holding them back.
How is Correl doing with support?
Re:dispelling myths about Linux. (Score:4)
Fact: Almost 7% of professional Unix admins do not have thick bushy beards.
Is that because 7% of professional Unix admins are women? :-)
Ported to Linux? Not likely, UNIX maybe... (Score:1)
moderators on crack || was dispelling myths (Score:2)
My $2E-2
Jim
Tux can represent.... (Score:4)
The girth of the software or distribution defines how fat Tux is! See, for Embeddable Linux, you have a Tux that hasn't eaten in a few weeks. For RedHat, you have one that's been eating too much caviar instead of the regular fish. And for Office for Linux, you have a Tux that has had WAY too much Mackerel, and is really starting to look like he needs to pull his own weight around here....
And who in hell is going to want to buy a product that has a penguin that looks like Fat Bastard stamped on the box?
Best defense against Government Lawsuit? (Score:1)
"So we port Office 2000 to Linux to demonstrate how even handed we are. Who knows, we sell a few copies and then make it worthless by changing the file formats and slow rolling the port for the next version. By then, the government case will be over and we can resume our quest for world domination. Heh Heh Heh...".
Port it! (Score:1)
I would happily use any Microsoft software that was ported *decently* to Linux. (you know what I mean if you've used Microsoft's "Internet Explorer for Unix". Ugh.)
Unfortunately, I have a feeling that the Wine project will beat them to it. I ran Excel '97 a while back on Wine, and that stupid paperclip came up just fine. Not much else worked, though. I'm sure it's better now. Of course, there's always VMWare, but that's not even close to native! (need a copy of Windows, too much RAM, etc., etc...)
...and if Microsoft can't play fair, let 'em burn. They've been asking for it for years. I'll happily give them another chance, I just don't think they can change their ways by now. But we'll see what the trial brings. Windows 2000 will probably make them more arrogant than ever, now that they've invented a few more features from Unix.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
Not Likely (Score:5)
It ain't happening. No way in heaven or hell is MS porting Office to Linux until it has absolutely no choice (and even then, Gates would probably rather go down fighting).
It isn't the office suite monopoly that maintains MS' dominance. It's not even the OS monopoly. It's the combination of them that is so lethal. It's like that classic hack where you get two intruder processes running as root. Whenever the sysadmin kills one of them, the other immediately restarts it. The only way to kill them is to kill them both simultaneously (not as easy as it sounds) or reboot. The two together are orders of magnitude stronger than either alone.
In the same way, Windows and Office together are literally orders of magnitude stronger than either alone. Whenever Office is seriously threatened by a competitor, MS comes out with a new version of Windows with shiny new features, and a companion version of office using all those new features. By the time the competitor manages to catch up with the new OS, it's all over. Similarly, Office enforces the presence of Windows in literally every computer workplace in America- Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and Powerpoint presentations are the lingua franca of the modern business world, and no self-respecting business user can be without them if they want to communicate with anyone else. All those who have been asked for a resume in Word format raise your hands. I thought so.
The proof is Macintosh- MS Office for Mac, when MS decides to sell it (which is far from always), has always been at least one major version behind the Windows equivalent. This, probably more than any other factor, is what killed the Macintosh as a business product and what will sooner or later kill it entirely.
Mac once accounted for over 10% of the desktop market. Linux now accounts for about 4%. The only concievable reason for MS to sell Office for Linux would be for the revenue, which could hardly amount to more than a few tens of millions. Linux is the most credible threat to MS's dominance in the last 5 years at least. Let's think about this. Is MS going to shatter their iron triangle of software dominance in exchange for an additional 4% of a market they already completely dominate? If you believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you for a really great price...
I'd love to see Office on Linux. I really would. But don't hold your breath.
Re:Microsoft helping linux?!? (Score:4)
Microsoft is stuck between the proverbial "rock and a hard place" on this one. If they port their apps, they make it easier for their desktop customers to ditch Windows (and more generally, they give Linux credit as being more than a student's toy).
But if they don't port their apps, they let the application competition grow and strengthen unhindered. How can they crush WP, SO, KO, Abi, etc., if they don't challenge them on their own turf? It's a true dilemma, and I'd sure like to have been a fly on the wall at some of their executive meetings where they must surely have debated the pros and cons of porting by now.
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Wouldn't Use It (Score:1)
The only tragical part about a port of Office to Linux is that a lot of people probably would use it instead of Koffice, Staroffice and similar suites. That would be bad, cause they really need all the support they need.
Re:Microsoft helping linux?!? (Score:1)
Re:Not Likely (Score:1)
I really would not love to see Office on Linux. It's a crappy piece pf spftware that thinks it knows what you want, which it doesn't. Unless you think and act exactly the way Micresoft thinks you should. I don't, I don't want to, and I won't.
Re:dispelling myths about Linux. (Score:1)
Re:Port it! (Score:2)
If IE5 were ported to linux (it should actually be almost as simple as recompiling on a linux box), it would be a good, and would finally give us linux users a decent browser (yes, I know mozilla is getting better, but it's not quite usable yet for most people).
Didn't we cover this in the meeting? (Score:4)
Even without the prospect of a breakup they might have been working on one at a low priority anyway. It would be stupid not to plan for future contingencies. But there's more reason at least for someone to want this to get done quickly.
When MS is broken up, Bill will probably leave with the applications division in his pocket. OS is looking less and less attractive. Win2K is being squeezed from below by Linux and from above by Sun. It will never be the goldmine that Dos/Windos has been. As for that former goldmine, Win9x is the product that's in legal trouble and under scrutiny: dealing with it is just going to get more and more tedious following the settlement/Court Order. Anyway, applications are where it's at profit wise --I thought almost everyone around here agreed that Office is really the basis of the monopoly. And keeping applications under his control keeps Bill mobile in a post-breakup world.
If he wants to remain the Grand Vizier in the future that he has been til now, Bill will abscond with applications and suddenly become Linux's best friend.
Then you will see Bill Gates magically produce "Office for Linux" as if plucked it from under Judge Jackson's robe. At which time, the most common Mac application will be his property, the most common Win32 apps will also be his, and the applications that give Linux the legitimacy to vie at last for world OS dominance will also belong to Bill Gates. During these feats of pretigitation he'll have never left the audience's gaze on center stage for a second, and he should easily find ways to become the biggest beneficiary of the world's "Great March To Linux".
Meanwhile, since that future route (breakup) is not yet necessary, he can slow the adoption of wouldbe competitors in the Linux field. Aren't we just around the corner from Corel's Office2000 for Linux announcement?
When you hear that Microsoft is working on a port of Office for Linux, you can file in it the memory hole--Microsoft may be working on a port, but Microsoft won't be a company anymore when or if this thing is ever released. IOW: it's a vapor announcemnt from a company that hasn't even been born yet. Pure BogeyMan, and nothing to lose sleep over.
Re:Microsoft helping linux?!? (Score:1)
Linux is now a very *legitimate* force on the OS playing-field, even in MS' eyes.
Of course Linux is legitimate in MS's eyes, and in the eyes of nearly everyone associated with the computer industy. The people who it is NOT as legitimate with, yet, are the very people Microsoft is doing their best to keep in the dark about it: Average consumers, home users, etc. THEY are the real targets of the microsoft "fact [ha!] sheets", and articals on Linux vs Windows. Of course the people who do much work with it will realize that they are full of !@#. But you see, it doesn't matter, as long as Joe consumer doesn't figure out. And as long as Joe consumer still uses Windows, the rest of us, even those of us who would rather not, will have to deal with it, to some extent, just because it is what the majority of PCs are running right now. And that is why these are the people who most need education, since most of them either
a) Have never heard of Linux
b) Think it is inferior to windows, thanks to MS's propaganda campaign.
c) Think it is just "something that nerds/geeks/whatever use" or is "just a passing fad".
If MS were to actually acknowledge Linux as viable enough to produce software for, then quite a few people would begin to look at it in a different light. And quite possibly switch OSs, after Linux's virtues became more aparent to Joe Public. Which is probably why MS won't. But it's nice to think about, at least...
MS Linux (Score:1)
Re:Why not? (Score:1)
Now, if I could have exactly the same functionality WITHOUT Microsoft products, fine... But until then...
Re:Microsoft learning?? (Score:2)
Linux users make up less than 3% of the home market, and less than 5% of the business market.
That's less than Macs!!!
MS doesn't need to, nor will they (I have a feeling) make products or port existing ones to Linux.
Linux - the standard of the future ? (Score:2)
Now we are seeing that Linux itself is becoming a commodity - a component which can be plugged in to use in a multitude of purposes. If you are using Linux, you get a solid, clean base that you can build your things on (this applies to other free unices, too, in a lesser extent).
By using Linux, you gain competitive advantage over your rivals who haven't embraced the open source phenomenon. It's only lately that the Big Boys of the industry have begun to understand this. IBM certainly knows it; they are very clearly committed to Linux. SCO got the message. Intel realizes this - and let's not forget the recent announcement by Motorola.
And - you can be very certain of this - Microsoft knows it too. You can be sure that the top heads of the corporation have thought of what Linux may become and how they might counter it. In the end, they, too, might have to submit.
As many others have pointed out, Microsoft is in a difficult situation. By not releasing Office for Linux, they are losing. By releasing Office for Linux, they are losing. The key point is to make the release at the time when they lose the least - or even better - when they have the opportunity to make an advantage of it. The time is certainly not now - and I don't think it's because they are incapable of producing software for Linux; such claims are ignorant FUD from the unwashed Linux advocates. It's not a far-fetched idea that they could release Office for Linux tomorrow if they wanted to - it just doesn't make sense for them.
If the near future goes as I think it will go - if Linux is being made a standard which everyone must (should) conform to (World Domination anyone ? :), Microsoft will start supporting Linux. And they are going to do it the same way as with any other commodity - embrace and extend. They will do everything in their power to corrupt Linux, while making a profit from their Office package.
Re:Not Likely (Score:1)
You can do all sorts of things, I don't think MS ports Office to Linux because they want to support Linux. Consider this: if Microsoft is bringing you flowers, they're most likely decorating your grave.
Yes I believe the Office port, I won't use it, but what will the mass do?
Does Microsoft Want To Do Linux? (Score:1)
In the Beginning Was the Command Line (Score:2)
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Re:Microsoft learning?? (Score:1)
I don't disagree with you - it's not a big market numbers-wise for MS, but you are missing one possible argument - it is a NON-SATURATED market. Existing PC and Mac users are harder to sell with, because the chances are they already have several MS products, and are less likely to want to upgrade. So a new market of 3-5% could be really quite profitable
Re:Port it! (Score:1)
Wow, you got the darn thing to work? It apparently runs on some mythical
version of Solaris 2.5.1, and it's always a pain for me to find a machine
that will run it at all... (I'm trying it on a box running Solaris 2.6,
which is what they're all upgraded to on campus now. The script for IE5
thinks its okay...)
In case anyone was wondering what "UNIX" is according to Microsoft, here
it is:
case $OSname in
SunOS) case $OSrev in
5.[567]*)
OSdir=sunos5
5.[89]*)
echo "$OSname $OSrev is not currently supported."
echo "Please visit $IEUrl for a list of supported platforms.\n"
OSdir=sunos5
esac;;
HP-UX) case $OSrev in
*.10.[23]*|*.11.*)
OSdir=ux10
esac
esac
I got past the "display server cache" on IE4, but it isn't doing much
else at the moment...
They both It don't work over a regular X connection unless I use the
undocumented '-remote' switch, and make sure the mouse isn't on the
window to start with. One time it locked up my mouse cursor, and I
had to ssh in *again* and kill it off. I got it to show the licensing
agreement, but it will consistently "Abort" under IE5 or sleep under IE4.
Oh, and it needs 17MB of RAM to do nothing, so far.
Here are the ones I tried:
Internet Explorer 4.71.1410.4 ; Copyright (c) 1995-98 Microsoft Corp.
Internet Explorer 5.00.2013.1312 ; Copyright (c) 1995-98 Microsoft Corp.
So until IE 5.0 for Unix actually *works* on a Solaris box I can use, I'm
not too impressed with it. I hope you'll understand why--it's as if
Microsoft released IE5 and it worked on Windows '95, but not on '98,
but that's okay, because who uses Windows '98, right?
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
wrong (Score:1)
and no, this is not like the argument for why ms will never make office for mac. Mac was never a threat to MS. Linux is.
Motive? (Score:2)
(Disclaimer: I've never run Linux - so shoot me down. Tell me where I'm wrong - cause mostly I'm just making guesses when it comes to Linux and what it can and can't do.)
...). Where do you stop - there are a lot of things that "exist" on Windows that would probably take a lot of effort to implement in or port to Linux.
Microsoft does not really gain anything out of porting office to Linux.
They have to:
- develop a whole bunch of "services" that don't really exist under Linux in order to get office to play nicely. (Think OLE / ActiveX type stuff / ADO / OLEDB / ODBC / Unicode? and code pages / Internet Explorer integration
- shoot themselves in the revenue foot becuase now people don't have to buy Windows. I know - I know, but the Mac has never historically eaten into Windows sales - It was an extra revenue source. Linux will be detrimental to Windows sales.
- Train people to support linux? and the office on top of it? I don't think so.
Microsoft never wanted to be in the Unix business. A long long time ago Microsoft had one of the most popular *nix OSes for the intel platform (Microsoft Xenix). They sold it off becuase of the way Windows and OS2 were developing - I believe it was bought by SCO and Xenix either became SCO unix or a lot of it went into SCO unix. (long time ago - could be a bit wrong here...)
End result: They have to work incredibly hard for a very small return... It's not going to happen.
possible, but not easy - Interesting Times for M$ (Score:1)
Given the functional complexity of Office 2000 (hey even 95 and 97 for that matter) this will be no mean feet.
Also with added competition from the like of StarOffice/ Abiword/K-office and the Linux/Unix desktop environments like gnome/KDE I think that M$ will have some really good competition in the corporate market place (which is where it gets most of its revenues from).
basically these are "Interesting Times" for M$ (thanks to Terry Pratchett for this one:-)
Re:In any case, IE should come first (Score:2)
I agree with you completely that IE should and would be the first thing that MS ports to linux... hell, they already ported it to solaris so I'm sure the jump from a different unix wouldn't be anywhere near as rough as the jump from windows.
What I disagree with is the assertion that they would be forced to give away Office to compete with Star Office. First of all, in my brief encounters with Star Office, I've been totally unimpressed, IMHO word is a much better product, that could change, but I don't have all that much faith in sun to get SO up to snuff. One should really be comparing it to the WordPerfect suite that is out for linux, which still costs money for comercial use (where most of the money MS makes off of Office sales).
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Off topic but... (Score:1)
Office for Linux in your dreams (Score:3)
Re:Microsoft learning?? (Score:1)
On a related note, it looks like FileMaker [filemaker.com] might be working on a Linux port, check out job listing (#2971 [192.35.50.6]), which states: Experience with Unix/Linux development is required...
Re:Microsoft learning?? (Score:1)
Re:Not Likely (Score:1)
The proof is Macintosh- MS Office for Mac, when MS decides to sell it (which is far from always), has always been at least one major version behind the Windows equivalent. This, probably more than any other factor, is what killed the Macintosh as a business product and what will sooner or later kill it entirely.
This may be the reason why they will release Office on Linux.
Microsoft is so profitable because the Office suite is standard on all major companies. Bills worst nightmare is if some major companies buy Linux for their desktops and start to use Staroffice, or something. In this situation, Bill has to release Office on Linux to keep the file format monopoly/initiative for documents. It might even be a very good port initially, just to squash the office suit competition. But guess which platform the Office suite is going to run best on in the future? If Bill releases office on Linux, he will use it to crush Linux like he crushed the Apple.
In year 2003, magazine reviews will find that the new Windows version runs Office 3.14 times faster than Linux on equivalent machines....
Re:Motive? (Score:1)
Re:Not Likely (Score:1)
I have no idea where you get these figures from but anyway (suppose these figures are right). There is one great difference between mac and linux on their run for common desktop environment. That is linux has a fair share of server market to support desktop market. I don't know about OS X but mac has never had stability or performance for server environment.
Why I think this makes difference is that I think windows is where it is now because of its LAN integration (yes, they are finally catching up with tcp/ip but its LANs where their products are usable IMHO) and exchange.
Re: Uh, if you mean that it adds services (Score:2)
Just cause Unix distributions generally come with QOTD, doesn't mean it's part of the OS. Anyone could write a service to add QOTD etc to Office. Gee hard. I mean look at VMWare, they managed to write VMWare for NT without any access to NT source code. It's extending the OS without source that windows is good at.
It's not unlikely that Windows apps will be ported (Score:1)
This is ESPECIALLY true now that Mainsoft [mainsoft.com] have released MainWin for Linux (basically a complete port of Win32 to Linux - includes COM/ODBC/MFC etc). This is the porting tool Microsoft used to get Internet Explorer and Outlook Express on Slowlaris a HP-UX.
Ofcourse, I'm refusing to use any Offfice product on Linux until X has antialiasing
BTW, these people who thinks MS Office is 'bloated', should try Star Office. 30 second load time comapred to 2 second load time....not to mention the way it pretends to be a shell...
the os war has one final battleground (Score:1)
Re:wrong (Score:1)
But why isn't Linux used on the desktop? Could it be due to the (perceived or otherwise) lack of 'standard' desktop applications?
Besides, you are missing the point of the articles - as it points out, at the moment everyone who chooses Linux over Windows xx (and there are some, and that number is likely to grow, even if it's just because it's easier to grow a small market share than a big one) deprives MS of an OS customer and an Apps customer. If the number of people using Linux grows, then the likelyhood of a Linux port grows significantly for purely economic reasons - some people will choose Linux anyway, it's better to make $150 from each of them, then $0. Not everyone who uses Linux now, and in the future, objects to paying for software.
This is just FUD without the F. (Score:1)
1) They think they have lost the OS war and don't want to lose the Office Suite War (This isn't happening yet, and probably won't for a while)
2) They are extending their FUD strategy to create an illusion that linux is a real threat, and if successful, they will have an easier time defending their position that they are not a monopoly in court.(I believe this makes the most sense, at least at the present)
3) They are setting up to build their own distributions, in which their "enhancements" only work with their distribution, therefore causing a migration to their distribution(this is also not very likely, and it would be tough to do this without violating the GPL)
Re:Microsoft learning?? (Score:1)
Funny how Neal Stephenson is portrayed. (Score:1)
Still, he did title his essay In the Beginning was the Command Line, which you must admit has a sort of comp-sci history feel to it, so maybe Stephenson was trying to project the impression that he's an expert. =)
Can IBM help out? (Score:2)
Basically me and most other users would be happy with either one. Is there any chance of IBM doing a smartsuite port to Linux I wonder? They don't have any problems with OS's any more (OS2 is dead) and they would have the staff for it.
They have just finished porting Lotus Notes r5 to linux, which also shows they take Linux seriously.
Re:Watch this space. (Score:4)
Sometimes I have met with outright hostility, and sometimes I am accused of being a "troll" (whatever that is) but since I am getting paid for this, I have to endure it.
Typical marketeer. Whinges about having to work for their money while expecting others to contribute to their projects, career and company's marketing strategy for free.
Indeed it seems such robust interaction is part-and-parcel of the whole "Open source" community. Us Marketers didn't grasp that before, we took our eye off the ball, but trust me, we will not be blindsided again, like we were by the Internet in 1994.
Well, the rest of your post seems to indicate that you're going to be deliberately covering your eyes this time. Just because you're in denial doesn't mean it wont happen.
Linux has no support for de-facto industry standards. DCOM, and DirectX are the main examples, but there are many others.
Sorry, directX is an evil Microsoft development. Not sure about dcom but be sure that if there were any real need for these things, Linux would have them.
Linux lacks the industry standard word processor - Microsoft Word, and spreadsheet - Microsoft Excel
I think most of us on here know why this is. But I don't think you're claiming it's the fault of Linux anyway. If companies want to be tied to MS, I guess that's there call but I really don't see this lasting forever. If and when Linux takes over the world, if these applications are still only available for windows, they will be forced out of the market an replaced with something else for better or worse.
We cannot produce a coherent marketing story for Linux. This is despite having one of the largest marketing budgets in the industry. We therefore cannot hope to sell our software on the Linux platform.
Did you ever consider the option that you just don't "get it"? Seriously? I suspect that for you, "failure is not an option" so when you can't work something out, it can't be your fault, it has to be the fault of the market right?
Our Marketing department was surprised to find that Linux, despite being written by a "communistic" process, actually had quite good security controls
And you wonder why you get labelled "troll"? Linux has some of the foremost people in the field working on it. Clearly your research is pretty shallow if you come up with statements like this.
even compared to the code some of our best (and by best I mean highest paid) hackers
And you guys wonder about being called "suits" when you refer to youe professional programming staff like that?
We spend $millions. Believe me, we would have found it if it existed.
Once again this comes back to the "suit" thing. If a geek can't grok something, he'll go back and readjust his perspective and try again and keep trying until he "gets it". A suit will just assume it's something wrong with the item in question and just dismiss it
The zealots are Linux's market. They are not lucrative. They dissuade naive user takeup of Linux. They talk down, condescend and patronise. They are arrogant. They scare people off. They mumble under their breath about "suits" and "clueless newbies".
And they're part of the thing that drives the success of Linux as well. Their message may be wrong but they bring Linux to the attention of others. Have you ever really used Linux? I mean really and seriously? From the perspective of an admin who's had to put up with all the Microsoft crap moving to Linux with it's power and configurability is enough to put a fanatical gleam in nearly anyone's eye. It's no wonder there are zealots out there. And yes, "clueless newbie" is a standard insult but it's there for a reason. Most of us had to go through all the reading of HOWTOS, misconfigurations and other joys that build our skills, we are not paid to babysit someone who got their redhat CD off the front of a magazine and now wants to know if they can run Linux in a dos window. I repeat, we are not paid but these users demand to know the answers, now, and in full.
Our software company has significant Market share in its chosen niche (some would say too much share). We do not need the incremental revenue that a Linux port of our products would produce.
MINDSHARE!
Therefore we have no plans to port our software to Linux now, or in the next two to three years.
Sure, close your eyes. That steam train is still going to hit you.
Alternatively, get someone on your team who "gets it". Not all of us Linux users out here are zealots. Most of us are too busy doing our jobs to answer your marketing questions. Of course you're going to mostly hear from the zealots. Go find one of your big marketing books and look up "self selection".
Rich
Re:MS Office 2000 modifies NT OS. (Score:2)
Unfortunately it always shows the same sequence of quotes, and doesn't record where you left off. So if you are one of those people who needs to reboot every so often, you get stuck with the same quotes again.
IE5 for Solaris is SPARC-only (Score:3)
It would take a drastically changed environment for MS to support Linux.
Re:I'd be surprised if it happens. (Score:2)
Although, they do have a Mac version, don't they?
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Re:good for us students (Score:2)
Yet another professor, quite rightly favoured LaTeX for his slides and handouts, since there was a lot of algebra in there.
Most of the "proper" programming was done on Suns -- and the PCs were useful when you couldn't find a console or a VT220 to get your work done on.
Moral: don't assume that everywhere is like your place. There are a good number of sites where MS Office is *not* the defacto standard.
--
Re:I Don't Want Office (Score:2)
As an end user, I don't give a damn about how they do their file format. It would be nice if it played well with other processors, but it's not the end of the world. Besides, it's not like Corel and Sun are writing books on how to read *their* formats.
No, I don't like all those buttons. Fortunately, it's customizable and I get rid of only the ones I don't use.
I don't buy software based on the hair, do you?
Turn the paperclip off -- it's not that hard.
Maybe we can do this ourselves... I don't see anything remotely approaching Office 2000's level of usefulness. KWord isn't that great. I'll give it some time, but I'm not going to hold my breath on this one.
Yeah, go back to the CD player... After all, we don't have enough of those on freshmeat, do we?
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Re:Microsoft could make history... (Score:2)
Netscape is BLOATED. eg. it's HUGE, SLOW, UNMAINTANABLE and doesn't do what it's supposed to do properly.
Why do you think the source for netscape was quickly 'disposed' of.
Re:dispelling myths about Linux. (Score:2)
No, because I'm not sure if the two 7% groups actually overlap ;-)
Re:Watch this space. (Score:3)
Your statement is not the case. Most "geeks" do not "grok" CAPITALISM but they make absolutely no effort to adjust their perspective.
Well, my own data point is that most of the coders I know are just about the most capitalistic bastards in existence. The reason they don't like marketing is that most of what they see of it is about 60% bullshit and only about 5% of the capability of the product. Most of us are extremely clear thinkers and would rather just have a datasheet of the facts rather than some salesdroid telling us unmeasurable opinions about how their product is "fantastic" and "the best" (often at the bottom of an advert where 9/10 of the page is taken up with some anorexic model)
They do not understand that fundamentally, they owe their living to the hard working guys and girls in their marketing departments
And I'm sure that they feel it's the other way around. The fact is that in this world, marketeers are needed so it's more of a symbiotic or team relationship. Again, coders can visualise a world where they can produce their product and people would buy it on their merits without the need for marketeers. A utopian view perhaps but somewhat more realistic than the other way around where marketeers would sell stuff that never needs to be produced.
who slave daily to persuade the software-buying public that the bug-ridden mess they have developed is worth spending $$$s on.
Im sure many programmers feel they would like to produce bug free code but don't have time to. Well, who's fault is that? The marketeers who sold the product for a fixed price and to a deadline. The reality is that bug free software isn't currently financially viable for most applications at the moment (Except for Open Source which has no deadlines or budget of course). Now, that is capitalism for you.
And I would like to talk more on this subject, but events have overtaken me, as I seem to have upset someone in our legal department with my previous posting. If you don't hear from me for a while, it will be because I am dealing a rather large amount of that "corporate BS" that you open source guys are lucky to be free from.
Oh, I'm not an "open source" guy, I code distinctly commercial software for a living, as I suspect, do many people who contribute to open source. So we all get to see some of that corporate BS. I'm fortunate enough to work for a company where we don't see much of that and that I'm happy to say, goes for honesty in its marketing rather than BS (But we can afford to because we're damn good)
I'm still not sure that you're not a troll (I can't see that you'd have been still posting on here if your legal dept had jumped on you) but if you're not, I hope you get through all the legal stuff. Far as I could see, there wasn't anything too commercially sensitive in there and I don't have a clue which company you're working for. Also, IMO, posting to this kind of forum is exactly the kind of reasearch you should have been doing.
Rich
Static Analysis (Score:2)
Right now, Linux may be 3% of the business desktop market, but that is because MSOffice is not available for it. Were MS to release Office for Linux, that number would jump to about 25%, or much larger than the Mac.
The Mac market WRT business is saturated: you are unlikely to see a huge increase in the number of Macs being used in a business sense (by this I mean word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, etc., not graphics manipulation or page layout.) The Linux market is like a supersaturated solution: one disruption and the system will undergo a massive state change.
This is both why MS won't port Office in the near term (since it would "knife the baby") and why they must port it in the long run. Eventually, all that potential money just sitting there waiting for somebody else to grab it will be too much.
However, the day MS announces Office for Linux is the day MSWindows has a sheet pulled over its head and a toe-tag tied on.
Anti-piracy as marketing (Score:2)
"Oh, it has anti-piracy features. This means I won't have a chance to get a pirate copy, so I'll buy my own copy right now !"
Here's my dream scenario (Score:2)
The best solution for everybody: Linux users will get drivers for all their hardware, Microsoft users will get Linux system stability for their applications.
Only the Wine developers will have to find another hobby. (I need Vax emulation in Linux)
What we really want is MS to use open file formats (Score:2)
Of course MS will never do this, since it is the main reason that:
Things will only get worse if UCITA passes, because then it may be illegal for any company to reverse-engineer the MS Office file formats. Then we'll see the true power of mindshare.
An example:
Re:Tux can represent.... (Score:2)
a penguin that looks like Fat Bastard
Need a cute fat penguin ? Go and read UK broadsheet newspaper The Guardian [guardian.co.uk]. Steve Bell's overweight penguins have been a regular cartoon strip for nearly twenty years (since the Falklands conflict).
We're not ready for Office yet (Score:2)
I'm still unable to get sound working on my Dell machine running RedHat 5.2. I still get "pixel trash" using the latest Bashee driver for X that I can find. And I've started tiring of having to spend hours grabbing constanst updates for this part of the system and that. I would much prefer using Linux all the time, but it isn't there yet. I'd run a web site on a Linux server in a minute, but I sheepishly have to admit that it's still a clunker as an alternative to Windows for most everyday tasks.
Microsoft will make Linux apps (Score:2)
Re:Not Likely (Score:3)
It isn't the office suite monopoly that maintains MS' dominance. It's not even the OS monopoly. It's the combination of them that is so lethal. It's like that classic hack where you get two intruder processes running as root. Whenever the sysadmin kills one of them, the other immediately restarts it. The only way to kill them is to kill them both simultaneously (not as easy as it sounds) or reboot. The two together are orders of magnitude stronger than either alone.
I agree with almost everything you say... which is why, if MS is smart, they will port Office to Linux. Here's my scenario:
First, MS continues badmouthing Linux, but changes its strategy. Current efforts to brand it as unstable and insecure are failing. MS can't take the next likely option: claim that Linux has poor support options, because MS's customer support is legendarily bad. The place to hit Linux is where it has an acknowledged weakness: the GUI.
Attack Linux as a poor desktop solution whenever possible. Win2K purposely blurs the distinction between desktop and server; keep doing this and market W2k as the answer to all needs at once.
When Linux reaches 10% market share, release MS Office for Linux. Don't implement all the features. Do a poor port, similar to the Mac version, that has fewer features, clashes with Linux's interface, and is much slower-- especially in places where a user will be frustrated. Make documents look poorer in Linux than in W2k.
Then show the result. StarOffice isn't a mature product, IMHO (it is good, but still needs a great deal of work). WordPerfect 8 is in a similar position (I've been using it for 6 months for windows, and it is still slow and clunky). Well-meaning Linux ompanies eager to expand market share will promise that MS Office runs on Linux, without warning of the drawbacks. Companies will ask for Office, to ease their transitions. Remember, the market is saturated. Offices that want Linux are having to switch from Windows, and migrating everything your office does on computers all at once is very difficult.
Horror stories will emerge. Linux will have failed to deliver. Poor GUI will be blamed, because it only takes a few bad anecdotes to kill a product. People will say "it's good for web, file and print servers, but don't use it with an office suite." And that will be that.
If your technology can't keep its promises, then that's it. Managers won't wait for patches, and they won't wait for upgrades. If they've just switched operating systems and had a disaster, there is no way they will 'fix' it by switching office suites, too. They will blame Linux (not Office for Linux) and switch back. And tell all their friends what a disaster it was. This is what we call a poison pill.
So let's hope and pray that MS doesn't do this, or that if it does, that we as Linux advocates have the patience and wisdom to handle it carefully. Remember, be careful what you wish for. I'd say to sysadmins that if it happens, that you give it a long hard look before recommending to your corporation-- then recommend StarOffice or Corel Suite 8, or whatever open source equivalent is out there.
Re:Not Likely (Score:2)
Agreed, given that a group within MS completely rewrote MS Office in Java. You could open up your browser on any platform and work in MS Office. Gates had a screaming fit and killed the project. Shortly thereafter, the VP in charge of the project took a year-long sabbatical. Don't know if he was forced to or if it was voluntary, or if he ever went back.
I'm PROUD of microsoft this time around... (Score:2)
LOTS of their products are both good and useful, their only drawback being an intnentional difficulty in using non-ms products with them.
So. why am I proud of them? With Windows 2000, MS decided NOT to ship a whole bunch of vendor drivers.
With windows, they would say 'we support lots of hwardware... more than our competitors. WIndows is great.' And from a marketing poitn of view, I guess this worked, but from a technical view, it's the manufacturers responsibility to make sure the drivers for their product exist. MS had them convinced that to make your product cool, windows had to support it, so you had to give your driver to MS.
Now they've backtracked. Win2k is great (I mean, it's still windows, and it sure doesn't replace unix, but it's the best thing MS has released yet.). Win2k by itself is very stable. Oops. I added the 3dfx drivers, and after a while, while watching some video, it crashed. From what I've seen, it really *IS* the third party drivers that are messing things up (and linux is no different).
If we had the full windows API, ported (OSS or not, though of course OSS is good) to Linux by MS, and the built the 'Lindows' or top of it, or whatever, and had all their apps recompiled... we'd get all the advantages of Windows as a desktop, and all the advantages of Linux as a backend. But this will only work if MS decides to use the power of linux, instead of trying to extend and extinguish it. The windows desktop has to be X compliant, and the control panel has to work on standard init scripts (at least, human readable ones)
Re:dispelling myths about Linux. (Score:3)
I understand that Alan Cox has a patch for that, but Linus won't allow it into the main tree for reasons of aesthetics.
--Shoeboy
maybe (Score:2)
Re:We're not ready for Office yet (Score:3)
The arguments that certain hardware support is weak under linux is, indeed, valid. I will concede that point. But hardware support under NT is sometimes no better. It reminds me of the microsoft FUD article that says linux doesn't support USB. Well neither does NT 4.0 but of course that does not get mentioned. Linux has a reputation of being well handled on older hardware but as with NT, you get better results with better hardware.
I've been using linux exclusivly at home for the past 4 years. At work for the past 2 years. Admittedly i am a geek and do not mind playing with my OS.
The issue as I see it is not hardware support and what not but the user. Not everyone should own a computer. It's that simple. Some people can't drive. I don't want these people using a computer. Give them a limited function internet appliance and let them be on their way. In those cases, the hardware is tuned to work explicitly before it goes out the door of the factory. I think it's wonderful that computers have been pushed into the mainstream and that people WANT to use them but as much as apple or microsoft or even the eazel people would have you believe, a better interface isn't the answer. The desktop interface paradigm may change and SHOULD change but we need better educated users. Sometimes I feel that maybe we should have Internet Usage License afterall.
Actually... (Score:2)
That depends on the distribution you use. Slakware does in fact cause severe erectile disfunction however RedHat doesn't. And Debian actually makes your penis grow! Why, in the first 3 weeks that I used Debian, my penis grew 4 inches! Do the words "Foot long hot dog" bring anything to mind? There you go, then...
Most likely they're hedging their bets (Score:3)
If I were them I'd develop it in (mostly) secret and if the snowball becomes an avalanche, release it then. If the snowball peters out, just throw the code out. If Linux goes away, MS won't mind throwing out the work of an entire development team (It's not like they can't afford to) and if Linux gets big, MS can jump on the bandwagon then after having milked 'doze for all it was worth.
This can also backfire. (Score:2)
That's not too bad of a scenario. How about this. Office is installed on most of the distributions. But it is broken. Then an e-mail is leaked that has one of the top guys at MS writing to Balmer about how to break Office on Linux. Here we go back to the DOJ.
Or what if we have a last ditch effort by Corel or Star Office to save themselves from MS. They open source their product completely. Now we have people trying Linux with the option of going to a fully open sourced Office suite.
The problem Microsoft has with Linux is that it will never go away. It's not like Netscape or Apple where you can destroy a company. But Linux is an OS that is free to the public and as long as someone is tinkering with it, it will always be a threat. MS has lots of resources, but it may be hard to fight against the rest of the world. As long as someone uses Linux, Linux will constantly show up as a competitor.
Steven Rostedt
Where he gets the figures from (Score:2)
According to the article:
That's pretty badly worded, though. Does that mean that 4% of the computers in the workplace are running Linux? That 4% of users run Linux? That they run Linux exclusively?
Re:Motive? (Score:2)
Three commercial companies make products for just that purpose, two of which include source code licensed from Microsoft (Bristol's Wind/U and (Microsoft's choice for porting IE to HP/UX and Solaris) Mainsoft's MainWin). The other is Twin from Willows (funded by Ray Noorda (former CEO of Novell and also the money guy behind Caldera)). The Wine project also has winelib, which is what Corel is using for their Windows->Linux ports. It is my understanding that it isn't quite as refined as the commercial products yet, but is now progressing more rapidly now that Corel is contributing back their enhancements and fixes.
These porting products provide most if not all of the services and API's you are talking about, and as for IE integration, I would believe Microsoft doing an IE port for Linux way before I would believe they'd do an MS-Office port, especially since they have already done ports of IE to Solaris and HP/UX.
The reason that Microsoft won't do a Linux port of Office is because it would hurt Windows sales more than it would build sales of Office. It would also be an admission of defeat that Microsoft's pride would never allow them to make, even if it were monetarily advantageous in the long run. Training support costs wouldn't be that big of a deal to them, they barely support their own products now (a lot of the support they push off to the hardware vendors), so what would the difference be? They train people to support MS-Office on MacOS, so adding one other OS wouldn't be that much more of a stretch.
Microsoft XENIX was sold to SCO way before Windows or OS/2 were in development. SCO sold XENIX (which was a UNIX V7 variant) for a long time, then they grafted major parts of XENIX into their SVR2 UNIX port which was SCO UNIX. SCO OpenDesktop and OpenServer still contain a lot of cruft for backwards compatibility with old XENIX apps. SCO UnixWare on the otherhand is based on SVR4, and is a lot cleaner (albiet still wouldn't be my first choice).
Re:Fight back! Deface those posters! (Score:2)
I've been walking around looking at all the "Windows 2000: Comming Feb 17. As stable on the internet as off" posters, and now I think I'm going to sticker over "the internet" part of the poster. Then it will read more gramatically correct... of course who'd want a computer that acted like it was off when it was on anyway is beyond my comprehension.
Oh... I don't know... (Score:2)
How about this:
1) Create a binary-only kernel module that must be licensed from Microsoft.
2) Push UCITA so that your clause about not reverse engineering it or how it works will hold up in court. Also your clause about only running the module with MS Linux.
3) Have MS office for Linux do something in that module and have it refuse to run unless it has the module loaded. It'd probably be something cryptographic.
Voila. Instant proprietary distribution, no violation of the GPL and well with in the kernel rules according to Linus.
Hey! (Score:2)
And I can put out PDFs or HTML with LaTeX. I've got everyone covered as far as distributing my documents goes. HTML is the lowest common denominator, of course. PDF's are just a hair above it (Alladin GhostScript can view PDFs, so Acrobat isn't your only choice.)
* Well, LaTeX anyway. Nothing puts out a better looking document. Nothing.
Re:We're not ready for Office yet (Score:3)
This is completely off base. On a superficial level, your analogy is wrong. Most anyone can drive, but it isn't necessary to know how to replace a fuel injector or a muffler in order to do so. Some people can, but does that mean that other people are stupid and shouldn't drive?
More fundamentally, you're dividing the world into techies and grandmas and are focused on the different ways each of those groups uses computers. That's not the issue. The point is that Linux is still too much hassle for the techies who don't want to waste their time in that way. Car enthusiasts may like to fiddle, but that doesn't mean they want to own cars that are more difficult to maintain than everyone else, just to show how cool they are. And yet that's the Linux philosophy.
Look, there's a *reason* that in any group of knowledgable tech-heads that most of them would rather just work with Windows--and this is even though they don't like Windows. It's because all the sysadmin headaches of Linux, all the do-it-yourself issues, all the compatibility problems, they just don't seem worth it for a lot of people. These people are not stupid; they're quite often brilliant. It Linux *were* clearly superior to Windows then the techies would be switching over just for the sheer joy of it, and you'd never find a hardcore programming shop using anything but Linux. But this isn't the case. Linux is only worth it if you want to make a hobby of twiddling and downloading and configuring instead of writing code. That's something that you can do if you're a student, or if you just like the twiddling, but it's a deterrent otherwise. Let me clarify that this isn't the "keep away the computer newbies" barrier everyone seems so fond of, but something that's keeping away great technical minds. That's the hurdle Linux can't get over; that's why it isn't taking over the desktop. It's a weird philisophical issue that's at fault, not the underlying technology.
Not Likely (Score:3)
(They cannot port "Office", because Office aka StarOffice, ApplixOffice, WordPerfect Office,.. is already or will soon be available, and not by Microsoft.)
There will be one big binary setup chunk (no RPM or anything, because MS does not/cannot control the RPM format) called "MS Linux installer" that will scatter 1024 files around your /usr/bin, /usr/lib, /usr/share, /var/lib, /home, and /etc directories, even if you select /usr/local/office as destination directory. The "MS Linux installer" will complain that it is incompatible with other package managers and that you might want to only download *.msl packages from linux.microsoft.com for optimum system performance.
There will be an uninstall option that needs a web connection to microsoft.com, and downloads an "uninstaller" (also binary only) that only runs as root. This uninstaller will not work on many systems until after the first "service pack".
Of course, Internet Explorer 5.5 will be included with MS Office 2000 for Linux. You will have to install it "to harvest the real power of Office and to experience all of the advanced features". Internet Explorer will automatically convert your KFM and Netscape bookmarks to IE format (which will be binary, i.e. not easily converted back) and unless you go after "Advanced Install" and uncheck "Options / Internet Explorer / Post-Install Options / Advanced / [x] Autoconvert older browser bookmarks", will delete the original bookmarks. (I witnessed this behaviour on some Netscape installations I've seen - so it's not entirely fiction...)
Internet Explorer will also complain on first start that it is running in an incompatible desktop environment/window manager and that you might want to download "MS Desktop for Linux" as a .msl package from microsoft.com. MS Desktop will (by default) automatically delete any other window manager executables it finds, converting the Gnome/KDE menus first (i.e. deleting the originals, of course).
By then, you will have three different uninstaller applications on your system (problably in /Program Files/Microsoft/Uninstall/), each of which requires that the other two are deinstalled first ... Of course, Microsoft realizes their mistake and announces a press release that they are already planning on thinking about starting to develop a concept for a possible upgrade.
If you actually try to run one of the office apps, it will crash the system hard the moment you start anything like strace, gdb, or anything. Of course, all MS Office applications need to run setuid root, because otherwise they would not be able to "offer all the advanced high-tech e-commerce network industry solution features" they provide. Oh yes, and because they run setuid root, you will have to purchase the "Office 2000 Network Install Update" if you want a network-capable installation, because otherwise everything MS Office saves will be in "/My Document" owned by root.root, no matter which user starts MS Office.
You will not be able to deactive active content in Internet Explorer for any Microsoft site (actually, that's how it is in Windows today, at least on some of the systems I saw), or rather, they will execute no matter what you configure. Internet Explorer will from time to time just forget your homepage and automatically load one of the Windows 2000, MS Office or Windows 98 homepages when you start it. Internet Explorer will also stop loading and crash hard if you start tcpdump or something in a terminal. You will notice frequent DNS requests to activex.microsoft.com, update.microsoft.com and such when running Word or Excel, if you configure your DNS server to log requests. Microsoft will tell people that Office is checking for new versions and upgrades that may be available, thus the DNS requests.
</black_future>
Actually, I myself don't think they will do it as obviously as that. But something in this direction is bound to happen, if Microsoft starts producing applications for Linux. They can only both "embrace and extend", they only start in markets where they can bully/cheat/kick the competition out.
Fortunately, Microsoft still does not seem to have realized the impact that Open Source software has worldwide. Two years ago, the EU would never have dreamed of requesting Windows 2000 source code to check for Diskeeper. Two years ago, France would never have dreamed of suggesting to BAN software in government where no source is available ("for security reasons").
The only way is forward. Choose the right path. Now please give me a good score on this one, I spend a lot of time for the satire and I don't post too often :)
Re:Watch this space. (Score:2)
Buddy Microsoft guy here is so completely corporate he's almost a cartoon.
This is the old, out-dated style of business thinking clashing with the new style of business-think. I have this argument with my father all the time (an IT executive at a big corp) and I think even he is beginning to grok it. Maybe a bit of topic, but what the hell.
Microsoft (and most of the large IT players right now) are old-style business thinkers. Their product strategy is simple: devise product, patent product, sell product, defend product.
These companies exist only for profit. They never seek opinions or approval from their industry peers - why would they - they are trying to drive their peers out of the marketplace. They act nice to the customer not because they respect him, but because they need his loyalty. They act nice their hackers not because they like them, but because they don't want their competitors to have them. They contribute to the common good only in return for taxation benefits. Their only contributions to education and knowledge are certification programs designed to perpetuate the product and generate even more profit.
The easiest road to profit is control. Control of the product, control of the marketplace, control of the consumer. Monopolies an excellent way of maintaining this control. Microsoft is almost the ultimate corporation this way -- they maintain absolute control over their product, develop their own standards, and sell to a clientle that is not educated enough to know any better. Microsoft has acheived what most companies can only dream of -- total control of their market.
Without competition there is no challenge to the product. If the money is rolling in why on Earth would you invest more money in making the product better? From Microsoft's point of view, Windows is already the perfect product -- it generates profit. Subsequent versions of Windows do not have to be better or more stable, they just have to sell.
Successful old-style business thinkers to nothing to advance knowledge, because they don't have to and it isn't profitable. Windows 2000 is really nothing more then a nicer looking NT4. A server operating system with plug and play, a server operating system with Direct X, a server operating system that went to market with 60000 possible bugs, but I'll bet the shadow under the mousepointer works great. Style over substance, because the product is already 'perfect'.
The problem Microsoft faces now, and what all of the old style business thinkers face, is the unsustainability of this style of thinking. Growth can't go on forever, and neither can intellectual stagnation. One day, a group of people are going to come along, who can't be bought, who can't be sued, and who make things, not for profit, but because they can. Because it needs to be made. Because it advances knowledge. Because it is cool. They don't need to amass multi-billion dollar fortunes to pay for their computer bits and beer. They make their money helping others to use their product, something that should be done anyway. In the OS world, these new-style business thinkers are those "Linux Zealots". And one day, without ever launching a lawsuit, or a hostile take-over, they will topple these greedy, arrogant companies. Microsoft will either change, or it will die.
Microsoft guys, if you are still reading this thread, this is your fate. Start thinking like people rather than corporations before it is too late. Get off your asses, and tell your boss that you want to port Office over Linux, that you want to give it away free, and that you want to open source it. Then the rest of us can hack it, make it faster, and get rid of that damn talking paperclip.
Publisher is particularly bad (Score:2)
Re:Not Likely (Score:3)
I've probably left out quite a bit. When you get done with all of that will the result still be Linux? If you don't do most of that will the product be MS Office on Linux? I believe both answers are No. Such a beast would be a real nightmare. Not because it is so good and would steal more market for Microsoft but because it would be hideously ugly and painful but people would try to use it anyway to be "compatible".
Hi! You've been had (Score:2)
Doesn't anyone think that $473/minute legal consultation fees are a tad high. Well, how about dropping the decimal places and text around his figures: $3133 7. Hmmm... looks like [hax0r|skript-kiddy]speak to me!
I will admit that this is one of the more clever trolls posted in quite a while. Kudos, dmg... whoever you are.
Eric
Re:I'd be surprised if it happens. (Score:2)
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Re:Microsoft could make history... (Score:2)
Please show me any undocumented features in windows dlls netscape can't. you mean MSHTML.DLL? oh wait, that _is_ IE and anyone can use it.
And that doesn't explain why other browsers (mozilla5 and opera are also many times faster than netscape at starting and rendering).
Re:It's not unlikely that Windows apps will be por (Score:2)
1) There's no reason why other vendors can't "preload DLLs" (most DLLs are shared in memory and most apps use those DLLs anyway, like mscomctl). And besides, there's no such thing as 'preloading' DLLs, you can have apps that loads a library, and another app that needs to use it won't take as long to load it cause it's already in memory. And what's this "system" dlls thing? To me system dlls are things like gdi32.dll etc.
2) Windows 2000 boots faster than Redhat Linux on the same machine here.
3) Windows bloated? Uh, what's netscape/staroffice?
Re:Microsoft will make Linux apps (Score:2)
Remember, all conservatives are "classical liberals", so you need to keep time context in mind and avoid knee-jerk use of or reaction to the term "liberal"...