Changing Climates for Microsoft and Google

ReadWriteWeb writes "Weather metaphors abound as this article looks at the evolving software environment — and in particular the competition between Microsoft and Google. Milan says that while Google enjoys relative dominance on the Web platform today, two fissures exist that will force them to move. The first is Microsoft's ability to use the exact same HTML based strategy as Google (like Microsoft's current Live initiative); and secondly Microsoft leapfrogging the current environment by solving rich application installation/un installation and enforcing an acceptable contract regarding what rich apps can do on a user's machine. Unfortunately for Google, Microsoft is a lot closer to solving these two issues than people think. Microsoft has the best virtual machine with .NET, the best development tool with Visual Studio and the best access to developers with their MSDN programs. And they have a notion. Steve Ballmer himself has started touting the exact strategy they need — Click Once and Run."

and Google has ...

... respect.

Re:and Google has ...

That they do have respect.

The nice letter to the guy developing the google-map data interface was a great show. And no C&D, just asking nicely.

Im always amazed at companies acting ethically.

Re:google is

I actually like the ads in GMail. They're context-sensitive, so when I'm chatting with one of my friends about the latest hare-brained idea (rocket boosters based on parafin/lox, personal VTOL aircraft, etc.), we get an on-going catalog of mostly-related products. Some of them have been very useful, and gotten us past some difficult engineering problems.

Reductionist

An advertizing company with a search engine [and other tools] to drive traffic to its advertizements.

Google's goal is to make information available and useful to people. They do so through a variety of means, and currently their profit model is based on advertising. It's tempting to reduce companies down to soundbytes, but it's not really useful for understanding how they operate or what they'll do in the future.

Re:and Google has ...

Yes they do, until their applications stop running. People aren't going to blame MSFT for their Google apps not working. They're going to blame Google. "It's Google's responsibility to make sure our stuff works on the MSFT platform. Not the other way around."

People want their computers to run fast and easy. Aside from that, there are very few people that care how that is accomplished. So, if MSFT ensures that their computers are doing just that, they will have happier customers.

MSFT has been known to make sure that certain applications do not run w/o changes on their OS and if you think that they won't do anything in their power to shut Google out, you're sadly mistaken.

click once and be pwned

Steve Ballmer himself has started touting the exact strategy they need -- "Click Once and Run."

That's just about the worst possible news. Microsoft's strategy of making it all-too-easy to install and run questionably-trustworthy code is why the email virus, web browser malware, and -- worst of all -- botnet problems have become the unsolveable epidemics that they are. Does anyone believe that Microsoft will actually get it right this time, in terms of introducing some practically workable mechanism for allowing only trustworthy code? (Not to mention the difficulty of meaningfully defining "trustworthy" in this context...)

Re:click once and be pwned

In order to have a successful application, Microsoft will either have to disable that protection, or require users to store their documents on a remote server.

Wrong. I said "Arbitrary files" not "any files". Go look up "isolated storage" - it allows a partially trusted app to read and write files, while ensuring that the only app that it is capable of messing with is itself. And what's so bad about remote servers? It works for gmail.
This is yet more argument from ignorance.

Additionally, single click 'installs' will eliminate the 'code running off the internet' problem.

Wrong. Such code runs with partial trust, in the internet zone.

Please, know what you're saying before replying.

Damn!

A completely flammable post, before I even commented! Tighten your seatbelts!

Visual Studio

I'd have to say that Visual Studio pretty much rocks. I use it for c++ development only, and am very happy with it. If linux had any dev environment that was ANYWHERE NEAR as good as VC++, maybe I wouldn't despise working on it.

Again

<quote>Eclipse? KDevelop? Emacs?</quote>

Again.. If linux had any dev environment that was ANYWHERE NEAR as good as VC++, maybe I wouldn't despise working on it.

Re:Again

no, but an IDE isnt a hammer. You are implying that Eclipse wont function as an IDE because it isnt finished yet. That isnt true. It simply hasnt matched every single feature of VS yet.

Put it this way - if someone offered you a moderately featured family sedan for free, would you turn it down because you'd rather buy a formula 1 car that can go 80mph faster?

perhaps you need to go 200mph. most people dont.

its an even more tempting proposition when you factor in the the family sedan maker will automatically upgrade you car every year until eventually it does go as fast a formula 1 car.

Re:Visual Studio

"I refuse to touch Emacs with a 39 and a half foot pole"

Perhaps, then, my penis would be of some assistance?

My god..

It was written like a monkey on crack. And damn those "global warming" analogies.

Might as well had the Enzyte "Knock on wood" guy there as well shaking his stick...

today is spammy article day

AdBlock has blocked 19 out of 39 items

so nearly 50% of the page is adverts
sad

Click once and run?

Run where? Screaming from the room? For the border?

click once and run, but run what?

Click once and run, sure, but run what? The program I wanted, or some spyware installing, DRM-adding beast app? Google has a huge competitive advantage in that they don't need to lock people in with that stuff in order to enjoy success. They simply make apps that perform well, and for some reason people continue to use those. Over time, .Net's massive overhead and microsoft's high licensing costs will cripple upstart developers. These developers will turn to OSS alternatives for cost and other benefits, it's only a matter of time. Microsoft may maintain a large market share, but Google will not "lose" because they're doing something different, even if the end result is a similar set (from a stratospherically high-level view) of apps.

Click Once

Click Once is the biggest problem with MS software. Already we have zero click and back door click software installs. It is the bane of my daily chores to remove and recover from web based installs and applications. As a system administrator, having to run in a windows environment I struggle daily to remind the users to NOT INSTALL SOFTWARE FROM THE INTERNET.

I hate Google Toolbar, Yahoo Toolbar and all the others not because those two are not useful, because they are, but rather because they condition the user to install EVERY FREAKING "IE Toolbar" out there. No Toolbars, period!

Your average user is a clueless idiot, and will click install all sorts of crap as long as he thinks it is okay. IT IS NOT OKAY! IE7 is the latest and greatest FOOBAR automatic install from Microsoft. Hey Microsoft, having IE7 automatically install with automatic updates is a really stupid idea, fire the asshat who signed off on that one. Not everyone is running PIV with a gig of ram necissary to run IE7.

So, as for the "click once and run" crap, keep it to yourselves!

yeah right, not from my point of view

This article, part one even, outright dismisses Linux. Not even Oracle is doing that... not much more I need to read in that article even if they do have a valid point or two. Google doesn't even have to release its own OS, all it has to do is begin favoring Linux distributions strongly and MS loses that section of the market, how ever big that might be or might not be.

The point is that anyone that outright dismisses Linux is missing the point altogether... anyone can use it and in using it, it is not like starting your own OS to compete with MS.

An Inconvenient Truth

If this is true we must have a KLOC tax.

Myself, I think the internet has a naturally occurring pattern of variability, but if it turns out the internet is indeed manmade, then a KLOC tax can mitigate the negative externality of global porning.

Acceptable contract?

" enforcing an acceptable contract regarding what rich apps can do on a user's machine."

I, the undersigned do hereby declare that any fool can install any crap on my machine over the internet and make it run like treacle.

Qualify Best

[Microsoft has the best virtual machine and IDE.]

Using persuasive language without a qualification comes accross as marketing FUD. Please qualify "best" for us. .NET is a suite of tools, some old, some new. Each has a set of strength and/or weakness depending on your point of view. For example, C# and its ability to sidestep strong typing and security server/client side, VBA client side and its ability to drive a lot of client side integration (Office Automation), complicated by the fact most enterprise make this almost impossible with default desktop security, Studio with a serious bent on good integration with anything Microsoft but not so good with anything else... coupled with documentation that is completely outdated on MSDN (OLE Object Stream initialization for embedded controls). There are some serious architectual flaws in the whole attempt to integrate OLE/OCX with web pages and services (including support of archaec pre-web stuff.) Extended clip board support... Complexity injected via SOAP/XSL...

So please qualify "best". Because its not reduced complexity, increased quality, best reliablity, best scalability, best security, shortest delivery time, easy integration, or fastest performance...

Re:Here's a test...

What do you mean by "access any database" do you mean a gui database administration tool that allows a user to create tables on any database? Or do you mean compatibility with any database server (oracle, mssql, postgresql)? Or do you mean a gui application with a database backend and along with picking the dev environment we pick a database server too and build the tables etc?

If you mean the last of those options (IE building a custom app that stores customer data in a database) I might take an extra day to build a simple app in Java...
My app will run on windows, mac, linux, be web accessible (via standard browser or handheld), and will scale to millions of users by simply adding hardware.

Now try using Visual Studio to match that..

Sure anyone can open MS Access or Visual Studio and build a little database app for a 5 person company, but the data is now locked up in windows, building in web access is a pain, and you can't run anything but windows on your desktops.

Re:Here's a test...

Many companies don't run anything except for Windows on their desktops (mine included).

Many, but not all.

The company that I work for has some very important customers that don't, and I'd rather spend the time making sure that we worked without regard to operating system than being in the position of having to tell them that we're not interested enough in their business to make our site work for them.

Besides, who knows what the future will bring? Fifteen years ago, if someone told you that you should start developing for Microsoft NT/AS because Novell wouldn't be a factor in the NOS business, would you have believed them?

Doesn't Steve Mean....

"Click Once And Run"...Away?

ClickOnce

I agree that Microsoft does have a very nice development approach, but to claim that ClickOnce [microsoft.com] is comparable to todays HTML/Javascript applications is really reaching. Corporate Users will likely have this ability (once the organization deploys .NET 2.0 runtime), but expecting Windows Live or Yahoo to give up on the AJAX binge for ClickOnce deplyoments is not likely. ClickOnce is more like Java Web Start [sun.com]. We've had that technology for years now, but for some reason, these web apps persist.

correction

Click Once and Run

Shouldn't that read "Click Once, and Reboot"?

Given, Microsoft has a lot of legacy technology and platforms that give them an edge moving forward. But you cannot ignore the other part of the momentum this technology carries with it. All the bugs, limiting architectures, and requirements for legacy support makes it harder to go into a new direction.

My prediction is that the more the environment changes, the bigger an advantage the newer players gain over the large, legacy companies that build their company on incremental products, like Microsoft does with Windows.

Time to Throwdown

Microsoft has never really had a direct threat it its business that could actually compete at the same level. Sure they have had someone up against them in one way or another, but I think we can all agree that Google is the first real threat to what Microsoft does. Apple never really had much going against Microsoft to threaten them and Microsoft invited competition with the Zune, which is new either way. The XBox is the only real example and many would argue that they are doing very well with that system. They have it in them to do well.

What I am getting at is that we have no real idea what Microsoft can and will do in a now hostile marketplace. While they have always had people nipping at their heels, this marks the first time they have another powerhouse to compete with. Microsoft will have evolve and innovate to stay with and ahead of Google. I for one welcome this change of scenery. Competition is only to yield better products faster from both companies. Look at the price wars between Intel and AMD and tell me that the consumers are not winning in that.

I would make a free market comment here, but I was just talking about Microsoft so that really does not fit now does it :)

What MS Doesn't Have

They have .NET which is greta and all, but for the Web they leverage ASP.net which is still a dinosaur of an idea.

Google has GWT, which only about 100 people on Earth get right now. Google has an understanding for the Web, Web applications and how users should interact in the World Wide Web far surpassing MS's "reactive" method of toolkit design.

I see two companies. One which is using old methods, not innovating or developing new ideas and assuming stability in something as fast moving and cutting edge as the WWW. I see another company challenging old ideas (relatively old anyways) and proving the WWW is more than Web Pages and stateless client/server communication.

I see a company that think they get this but only see flashy UI's as the means to the end here. I see another company that understand the UI is just a view to this new idea that the Web is a series of intercommunicating applications users can access from anywhere.

But then, I don't expect many people, especially a monolith who's made their fortunes through brute strength rather than new ideas, to see this until it's apparently obvious. The search for the holy grail of the Web's next "killer app" is right in front of peoples faces.

difference between google and microsoft

You can try for yourself:

on www.google.com search for 'microsoft':
Results 1 - 10 of about 393,000,000

on search.live.com search for 'google':
google page 1 of 751 results

I like my search results 'unbiased', so I choose google.

Re:difference between google and microsoft

I originally thought your comment was trolly, but it actually turns out to be true, especially if you compare all possible cases:

Google searching "microsoft": 39,500,000 results
Google searching "google": 52,800,000 results
MSN searching "microsoft": 80,139,835 results
MSN searching "google": 648 results

I can understand leaning a little more one way or the other, but 648 versus 52 million? Give me a friggin break.

Click Once

and Run For Cover

relative dominance on the Web platform today?

Google enjoys relative dominance on the Web platform today

"Dominance" is easy as long as you don't intend to charge for it. If Google puts a price on Google's free-as-in-beer service offerings, alternatives will start to look more attractive.

(I don't run Google ad/spyware software (e.g., the Google toolbar) here because I don't like other people's software phoning home; I don't think the "advertising on everything" gambit will work on my dev tools either.)

Acceptable contract? Is this ActiveX 2.0?

enforcing an acceptable contract regarding what rich apps can do on a user's machine.

Acceptable contract? Is this ActiveX? Java's sandbox? IE settings? Something else? (Folks, it's been tried before...)

The best development tool with Visual Studio

Have you actually used visual studio? it degrades to a useless piece of rubbish after a few months.

It may be better than Googles offering (nothing) but probably isn't better than eclipse/jbuilder.

And after using both Java and .NET I would say that they are on equal footing, except Java is more mature, open source has things like EJB etc....

Re:The best development tool with Visual Studio

I worked on a codebase of several hundred thousand lines over the summer, all on VS 2005. I was excited to see what all the buzz was about for myself. Intellisense constantly lied about which functions call others (example: it told me a function called itsself while I was looking at it - all 5 lines of it - and it clearly did not...). It constantly jumped to forward declarations when I asked where definitions were. The toolbar buttons would change their placement on occasion, and I would have to put them back. The program they provide for browsing the Windows API documentation frequently crashed (especially when left minimized for a half hour or so).

One of my favorite "features" was when I would tell Visual Studio to close and it would decide what I really meant was "update your intellisense then close". Great. With a project that size updating intellisense took about 2 minutes. I don't need intellisense updated right now, because I can't use it if you're closed. Just close.

The real clincher, though, was the "crash-on-debug" error that started plaguing the office. When you tell VS to "build and debug" it would build the program and then seg fault immediately. That's a serious pain with a large project because it takes a few minutes to load it again. To debug, you'd have to build the program then run it manually and then manually attach the process for debugging. This bug would strike staff at random, and the only solution was to do a complete rebuild of the entire project, non-distributed. This could take hours.

With the amount of talent in that office and the amount of frustration at that crash, we could have just fixed the bug ourselves and saved a lot of time if the product in question was open source, but it wasn't.

Visual Studio has cost that company a lot of money in wasted man hours.

The best Virtual Machine?

Microsoft has the best virtual machine with .NET

If it's the best then why doesn't it work on a Mac or Linux?

Already Solved

You mean, like Java Webstart?

*ducks*

Simply the Best

Microsoft has the best virtual machine with .NET, the best development tool with Visual Studio and the best access to developers with their MSDN programs.

Presumably, the author means best as in 'best for deploying Google-type web applications.' In that case, he is probably correct that MSDN is the strongest developer support program, but on the other points he is verging on fantasy.

Google's web applications are very successful because it has employed a bunch of really bright back-end/modeling architects, and becuse it deploys onto a highly scalable customized Linux cluster.

The .NET/Visual Studio environment is first-in-class when you are deploying data-aware Web pages onto a Windows-only environment.

When you want to use AOP, dependency injection, advanced ORM and MVC tools, and you want to be able to deploy into arbitrary environments, Microsoft is running way behind Java. I get the sense that Seattle-based John Milan really has very little idea of what goes into making a working Google app.

HTML standard and the new proposed canvas tag

I really wish they would include the canvas tag in their next version of Internet Explorer. This would make the door wide open for an endless number of thin applications using cool graphics. But alas, there is not yet a standard for browser rendering of pixel graphics. It wouldn't be surprising if Microsoft tried to sabotage the inclusion of the canvas tag in web pages because using such powerful features in the browser would be against their rich client policy.

Have currently been using the canvas tag myself in IE using google's excanvas and it rocks! Please give us Canvas!

logic errors abound

Microsoft has the best virtual machine with .NET, the best development tool with Visual Studio and the best access to developers with their MSDN programs.

1) The best virtual machine runs on my platform and preferably others. .NET only runs on Windows. Therefore, .NET could not be the best virtual machine for any platform other than Windows.

2) The best development tool runs on my platform and allows me to write applications that run on my platform an preferably others. Visual Studio does not run on anything other than Windows and makes it difficult to write application that will run on any platform other than Windows. Therefore, Visual Studio could not be the best development tool.

3) The developers I look for write software for my platform and preferably others. The majority of developers available through MSDN are focused on developing Windows software using Windows development tools. Therefore, MSDN is not the best way to access developers.

AAAARGH

Aaaawww, this is one of the worst written TFAs i have ever read!!

"Click Once and Run."

remindes me of

Light fuse...run away.

HTML is not code

Consider two classic applications for two platforms. One is more or less owned by Microsoft, the other more or less owned by Google. The apps are familiar to every programmer: 'Hello World' done in C++ and HTML.

Repeat after me:

HTML is not code.
HTML is not code.
HTML is not code.

What is not shown is the C++ compiler and linker that turns code into executable. Also not shown is the web browser which takes HTML and makes it presentable. And that's really the only difference between these two programs.

That and, I don't know, Turing completeness?

TFA is bloody gibber

It takes Milan 892 words to get to his fundamental point: that that Web Browsers are virtual machines, but .Net is better. Most of the 892 words could be described as unnecessary and a sizeable minority are definitely purple, but no matter, at least we've found a point to the article. (The rest of tha rtiocle is 1257 words - a 40% intro! My old editor would have fired him on the spot)

What follows the intro is the creaking sound of an analogy being stretched to catastrophic failure. To save anyone the bother here's the gist:

* HTML and C++ are programming languages and they can run in virtual machines called (respectively) web browsers and .Net. Microsoft more or less owns C++ and Google more or less owns HTML (sic).

* People will install HTML applications (bear with me here, I'm only precis-ing) because you can uninstall them easily and they have a limited impact on the host machine. C++ applications are prone to security holes.

* Microsoft has figured out how to solve the security problem and make better applicatiosn through C++ and their technology is teh krieg.

* But there's another company that's got some Java technology and they're cool, but I'm going to save that tile next week (presumably because I'm being paid by the word).

Now, obviously Mr Milan is a very imaginative man, because even if we are to allow his analogy (there's stuff about weather and railroad tracks as well, but I left those out) his analysis strains credulity. Especially given that he's ignored completely the actual technologies that make his analysis work: in the Web browser's case Javascript and in Microsoft's case C# & the CLI.

Extra executive summary for those that can't bothered to read the read: interesting, but barking.

That's just fine and dandy

Except unless MSFT's web initiative ... 2.0 .... stuff works with Mozilla on a 64-bit Linux desktop, they can count me out.

Part of the reason I use google tools, other than they're free and functional, is that they work well with Mozilla (et al.). I don't use them because I have some fanboy love for Google or because of my really strong hatred for MSFT.

Tom

Not Getting It

From the ClickOnce Deployment Overview [microsoft.com]:

Impact to the user's computer. With Windows Installer deployment, applications often rely on shared components, with the potential for versioning conflicts; with ClickOnce deployment, each application is self-contained and cannot interfere with other applications.

Shared components (libraries/DLLs/whatever) exist for a reason. Many program contain common functionality. Instead of rewriting that for every program, we put it in libraries, which we then reuse in each program that needs the functionality. Instead of including a copy of the library with every program (and keeping multiple copies up to date), we have all programs use the same, single copy of that shared library.

Of course, shared libraries break down when a program expects one library, but gets another, incompatible one. For example, if there are multiple, incompatible libraries named 'foo.dll', and one program on your system works with one version, and another program with another...one of these programs won't work. This, I think, is the problem Microsoft is claiming to have solved here. However, the "solution" they present actually isn't a solution; it says "shared libraries don't work, go back to duplicating code in every program". This is actually a step _back_.

Upcoming patent cases:

Amazon vs. Microsoft for One-Click operations
Lindows vs. Microsoft for Click and Run operations
Pringles vs. Microsoft for Once You Pop, You Can't Stop operations

"Rich" Applications?

WTF is a "rich application"? It seems that the word 'rich' is a buzzword that MS tries to drag out every five years to pad its marketing babble for whatever is the current product push. Just a few years ago, we were talking about the rich interface of Windows 95 or the richness of the .NET platform. Frankly, I think it is an inside joke sourced by MS insiders with heavy stock option portfolios.

Bullsh*t

Wether .Net is a VM or not couldn't matter less. Since it only runs on one plattform. Annihilating all other 'advantages' mentioned with one stroke. Rich Web won't roll on MS only stuff. If I expect MS only eviroments, I build a DX9 app. No need for web hacks there.

The only 2 true non-ajax ways for rich web that I know are Flash and XUL. Java could be there too, but they somehow managed to leave Flash alone, albeit being it's strongest competitor. I expect that to change a bit now that Java is completely GPLd and expect rich web tools and piplelines to arise. XUL still needs a working universal XULRunner Plugin to be a serious alternative and Ajax is to much of a mess to offer anything beyond the one or other neat hack.
Flash is arguably the most widespread VM in terms of installbase ever. Flash still is the VM of choice for anything rich web. And if Adobe doesn't screw up to hard and others don't catch on it will certainly stay that way. Given that the integration of PHP and Flash is growing stronger and stronger and that both are easy to use for n00bs and the de-facto standard in their field I'd say it'll be tough for anyone to take over their position.

Oh, Really...?

Microsoft has the best virtual machine with .NET

Oh really? And how, other than your pronouncement, is that true? Does it run on more platforms than any other VM. Used by more users? Have less bugs? Less security holes? A smaller memory footprint? Better compilers? Faster execution? Cheaper price?

Just tell me how you're decided that .NET is better.

Google is a research company

Think about every single thing you have ever searched for in google. Pretty much in IMO google knows the trends of everything you could possible want to know about.

Hey, the entire world just started searching for "britney paris"...

http://www.google.com/trends?q=britney+paris&ctab= 0&geo=all&date=2006 [google.com]

I wonder why...

But to take what they know and predict what the next 2,3,5,10 years will hold is a lot easier for google then MS.

This article is total crap

The first is Microsoft's ability to use the exact same HTML based strategy as Google (like Microsoft's current Live initiative)

they had access to html ALL along while google was taking over the web. What did they succeed ? except alienating users by thinking them as ledger numbers, just like an old style corporation would ?

Microsoft leapfrogging the current environment by solving rich application installation/un installation and enforcing an acceptable contract regarding what rich apps can do on a user's machine.

Can they now ?

Then why is microsoft experiencing fines after fines in european union and court orders that are ordering them to remove their integrated media player, browser from their operating system ?

Eu, which is not permitting these, is going to permit microsoft preventing this or that app with its 'rich application installation' ? is that it ?

Microsoft has the best virtual machine with .NET

And when did it become so ? as a developer who is on the hardcore developer market, i can tell you that .net development is a novelty, sought by a few contractors occasionally every 1-1.5 months in each major agency center.

the best development tool with Visual Studio and the best access to developers with their MSDN programs.

Wow, now visual studio has become the best dev tool, and apparently we all were sleeping when it happened it seems. And furthermore somehow msdn had come to the point that it has best access to developers.

I BEG editors not to post articles from clueless people. This is total crapola, and its only a microsoft rant that is only thinly disguised.

A Web OS?

An operating system is a resource manager. In the early days of the PC "resources" included memory, I/O devices,
and CPU. With the rise of the GUI (Mac/windows 3.0,...) "resources" expanded to include the graphics
libraries, toolkits, and hardware needed to implement the familiar windows+mouse interface.

Parallel to the evolution of the traditional OS the internet and world wide web came of age. Had MS foreseen the
rise of the web I have no doubt they would have worked hard to maintain the dominance of the Windows OS by including
management of Web resources in the core of the operating system. But as things turned out, Netscape beat them to the
game by delivering the browser. However, the term browser is really too modest. A browser is really an operating
system of sorts (running on top of a host OS) that manages web resources - resources that the underlying OS whether
windows or Linux does not manage so well. The problem is that browsers, while quite good at managing http requests/responses, URIs, HTML, and users' interactions with w3eb servers are not so good at managing the resources needed by applications. So in the world of browsers web applications have little choice but to rely CSS,
HTML, and Javascript. AJAX and related technologies have allowed web applications to compete better with native apps - but not nearly enough to supplant them any time soon.

One possible solution that I see is for the advent of a true Web Operating System (WOS?). The WOS would provide
an abstraction layer over the native machine it is running on (think VMWare/Xen like) and provide a standard API for
web based applications. The WOS could reserve and manage a portion of the resources of the underlying machine and
ensure that web applications do not do nasty things like write to arbitrary memory addresses, etc.

So imagine that a bank would like to make available a home banking application over the web. This application would
be a rich client application that allows disconnected operation. So you could be connected to the net, pay a few bills,
download your account activity and then later when you have no connection you could still execute the app and maybe import
the account activity into your spreadsheet and enter in a few more bill pay transactions to be sent to the bank the next
time you are connected to the internet.

This is clearly not possible today using IE or Firefox. The only way this could be delivered today would be to code
a native application that each user would need to download and install. This is not going to fly.

But imagine that your PC is running a WOS. You start up the WOS browser application, enter in the URL of your
bank and authenticate and request that the Home Banking App be installed. The banks web server communicates with
the WOS installing a bunch of resources (code,data, etc) using the API/services of the WOS. At this point when you run the home banking application the app is running under the control of the WOS.

I believe something like this scenario (devoid of the nagging details as it is) is definately possible today. I think
it is sort of a chicken vs egg type situation. And as idealistic as it may seem I think it is really a "build it and they
will come" situation. Let's say there was an open source WOS project that just showed up. It runs on Windows,Linux,Mac,
whatever, it supports web applications written in java,ruby,php,python. You install the WOS. The API is fairly simple
and intuitive. Hello World is running in a few minutes, a simple calculator takes a few more minutes, You start
thinking about implementing a competitor to excel or word..other people hear about a cool application that requires this
new WOS thing they download it and try it out....pipe dream? maybe...maybe not

LAMP?

Microsoft has the best virtual machine with .NET, the best development tool with Visual Studio and the best access to developers with their MSDN programs.

That'll be why LAMP is so unpopular on the .NET

Ew what a fanboy

I was never a google fan but I was amazed by the summary.
microsoft has best vm? So where is .net for my phone which I use opera mini 3 (j2me) to sign in and post?
Speaking about live.com; I can't comment easily since it simply doesn't work on mac. tells me to upgrade mac ie which doesn't exist!
Also speaking about .net and live.com there is a full feature office which works inside any modern browser/os at thinkfree.com

Best what? Says who?

Microsoft has the best virtual machine with .NET, the best development tool with Visual Studio and the best access to developers with their MSDN programs.

What an unbelievably biased and unsupportable statement. Best virtual machine? What? Best development tool? Ask these people [microsoftweblog.com] how great they think Visual Studio really is. And these are the people that actually use MS development products.

Is this journalism, or yet more thinly veiled MS fanboy talk? I love how everything Microsoft always has to be cast in the XYZ-Killer, or storm brewing, or some other ominous "better watch out" metaphor. Isn't this the same kind of talk that was used to describe Vista, before virtually every ground-breaking feature was a no-show, and yet again we're just going to see a pretty changed-up GUI.

When MS can just create software that works, I'll be more inclined to actually give the "killer" statements some consideration. Until then, I'll file this crap away with WinFS, and Zune "the great iPod killer."

Wow, check out the Kool-Aid...

> Microsoft has the best virtual machine with .NET, the best development
> tool with Visual Studio and the best access to developers with their
> MSDN programs.

Talk about a cultural divide! I find myself totally unable to fathom the mindset behind these statements. .NET being the best VM is at least arguable, as it depends on what you're looking for in a VM, and it really makes quite a big difference what general type of development you're looking to do and what sort of language you're planning to use, but throwing out such a broad statement without qualification or supporting rationale is not what I would call a hallmark of sound reasoning. As for the other two statements, we might as well throw in that they have the best web standards support with IE and the best bug tracking with MSKB and the fastest upgrade cycle with only six years from XP to Vista.

I mean, have you ever tried to *use* Visual Studio? Because, I *have*, just a little, and it only comes across as pleasant to use if you compare it to something out of the fifties, like perhaps punchcards. It makes development tools from the seventies (like Emacs for instance) seem by comparison like the best thing since indoor plumbing.

And as far as access to developers... the access to developers that Microsoft has is much less than would be expected looking only at their market share of users. Sure, they probably have 60% of developers developing primarily for their platform, but based on the percentage of users that they have that number should be much higher. In fact they have a singular knack for alienating developers and driving them away, because developers *hate* them. Even many of the ones who develop primarily for Windows don't like it and would prefer to jump ship if only the market share of users were a little less overwhelmingly slanted in their favor. And we're comparing them to Google, a company that has demonstrated they can cherry pick the best talent away from within Microsoft itself pretty much at will, all those fantastic MSDN programs notwithstanding.

Yet, Microsoft has the best of these things. Sure, whatever. Pass the Grape Flavor-Aid.

Microsoft is grinding to a halt

Hmm, so Balmer says One-Click Run (or whatever) is the answer to everything. Let me guess, we'll see it real soon now? I propose that we make the Wikipedia entry for "FUD" be a transcript of everything that comes out of Balmer's mouth. It would really simplify things.

The truth is that Microsoft is grinding to a halt. It has been obvious for years what they should be doing: Improving security, adding virtualization layers to isolate malicious code, improving maintainability of large-scale installations, reigning in the registry/DLL/kernel extension crud that accumulates, working with rather than against the open source community, making a solid server OS, transitioning to online workflows that free me from being tied to "my" machine.

They have made almost no forward progress on this agenda. Three main reasons:

1. They have never been very innovative, so they tend to wait around until there are taillights to chase (Netscape, Google, Firefox, Apple, Sony/Nintendo). When the competition is gone, they simply sit. How long did it take to bump from IE6 to IE7?
2. Dogged insistence on backward compatibility. They have never had the self-confidence of a Steve Jobs, who is willing to make a clean break every 8-10 years. So they invest increasingly in maintaining all the old crap, which doesn't do wonders for new features, not to mention attracting and retaining superstar coders.
3. The classic innovators dilemma. The truth is that most people don't need 90% of the features in Word or Excel -- what they would like is an ability to move work online and access it from anywhere, from any machine. MS has been slow to pursue this vision because it would mean undercutting their own Office and Windows franchises.

Going forward, they are really screwed because they have lost momentum. The best people are leaving, and the key players who remain are not a great demographic for changing the world: 40-somethings who are financially comfortable from the glory days, like their positions of influence within the company, but are very comfortable and focused more on their kids' soccer games than on changing the world. Everything starts to become more about keeping the world the way it is, rather than changing it for the better. The flame of innovation moves on.

Seriously, if it weren't for the XBox these guys would be completely dead. The community's collective yawn over the launch of Vista surprised even cynical me. There was more fanfare and interest over XP SP2.

not quite

Microsoft has the best virtual machine with .NET, the best development tool with Visual Studio and the best access to developers with their MSDN programs

In Microsoft's mind, anyway. I frankly see nothing that Vista, VisualStudio, and Mono have over Linux, X11, Gnome, Eclipse, and MonoDevelop, or Macintosh, for that matter. If anything, after slowly catching up for a few years, Microsoft is falling behind again, with release delays, security problems, bloat, and lack of ideas. If they win this round, it will be through dirty tricks and monopolistic practices again.

WPF/E - Flash killer ?

What's more interesting is MS' new venture:

WPF/E [microsoft.com]

This is akin to Flash, but much more integrated with the .NET stack. An Avalon for the web, if you will. People have long wondered how ASP.NET will progress, and where the roadmap merges into the WinFx stack.
Scott Guthrie's blog [asp.net] throws some light on that:

There's also a Channel 9 video [msdn.com] about it.
There's some initiative to make it cross-platform and Macs are supported now. MS is in a nice position now, to push this as a Windows update and get a Flash-player equivalent installed on all Windows PCs. Its based on XAML, and the spec is reasonably open. The Mono guys could work with the Xgl guys to deliver this on *nix platforms too.

you forgot M$'s main asset!

"Microsoft is a lot closer to solving these two issues than people think. Microsoft has the best virtual machine with .NET, the best development tool with Visual Studio and the best access to developers with their MSDN programs. And they have a notion."

better yet: they have a monopoly! They can shove whatever they want down people's throats.

Click once, and run.

Is this the new Vista catch-phrase? ;

Denial.......

You can argue about .NET, and about Visual Studio dude, but there is NOTHING that compares to MSDN, and the resources Microsoft makes available to developers. On this, there is no contest.

Re:Denial.......

I can't tell you're serious or not. I've always found navigating MSDN to be pretty frustrating, from the 100 copies of documentation for the same function (none of which are the version you want), to the hours I've spent searching for something only to find that it's not documented anywhere, to the same convoluted thinking that brought us VB and batch file syntax. At least with open source apps, I know there's some upper limit to the amount of frustration I have to endure, since you can just look at the code to get your answer if it comes to that.

Re:Microsoft has the best ...

Which IDE one prefers is a matter of taste alone. Back when I was writing Java, I used IntelliJ and liked it. Yet I find Visual Studio far superior, and C# a language far superior to Java. Now, IntelliJ doesn't do C# and Visual Studio doesn't do Java, so for me the choice is simple.

Now, regarding performance, I'd have to say you're wrong. There are certainly benchmarks that go both ways, but by my purely subjective perception of performance, Java desktop apps (such as Azureus, Eclipse or Zend Development Environment) often feel extremely sluggish, whereas C# apps perform as well as or better than applications written in C++. Furthermore, C# apps often use Windows.Forms for the GUI, which creates a much more seamless integration with other Windows apps.

People who claim Java is faster will usually just look at J2EE web services and ignore everything else.

Re:Strike Three - You're Out!

You make a solid argument for your positions.

Nope.

You've presented good alternatives.

Nope

Look, I agree with some of your sentiments, but at least back up what you say.

Yeap.

Denial

I have used IDEs from many sources and M$ has the best when it comes to visual studio. It integrates with the OS, is customizable for drivers and tools and beats them all!

MSDN is the best developers tools on the planet.

.NET leaves a lot to be desired.

Google has the best people and a far better working environment that nurtures innovation.

Re:Strike Three - You're Out!

I'll concede on the third allegation which I interpreted as the denial of access to the source code. This is one of the reasons that I have Linux running on my home box since I like to know how things tick on the inside. But I develop with M$ at work and I wanted to point a few things:

"Microsoft has the best virtual machine with .NET,"
Nope.

Actually, I don't know if I could say that it is the best ever but it is a damn good virtual machine! It can run as well or even better of its equivalent JVM http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/compare/Benchmark_re sponse.pdf [gotdotnet.com].

"the best development tool with Visual Studio"
Nope.

Bar none, VS is the best development tool that I have used. M$ V$ 2005 alone is amazing and while it oversimplifies things, I like it b/c it makes me tremendously more productive which is great b/c now I have more time to read Slashdot at work!

Just b/c it's made by M$ doesn't mean that it is a horrible product. The company itself makes some really shady ethical decisions but there are a lot of developers working for M$ just like us who want to release a great product.

Re:Weather topics?

No, you are anonymous coward and that would make you cheney or rumsfield.

Re:Strike Three - You're Out!

I use Visual Studio all the time. It's not terrible, but it was far better in 6.0 before they fucked up the UI beyond all recognition. And .NET might be the best if you think the only VMs in existence are JVM and CLR, but the .NET VM can't hold a candle to some others in many respects. Wake me up when the CLR does a fraction of the high-level optimizations something like Sun's Strongtalk or Self VMs do.

The CLR gets good performance by punting on the whole OO thing and making the programmer use non-objects like integers and structures when performance matters. Those other VMs get a good fraction of the performance of C (often 50-90%), all the while using an object model where everything is fully general. That means your loop counter is a full, boxed, heap-allocated object that automatically upgrades to an infinite-precision integer instead of overflowing, at least as far as the programmer knows. If the integer is used as something like a loop counter, the VM is smart enough to unbox it and stick it in a register. When the CLR can do that, let me know, and well talk about throwing the word "best" around.

Re:Strike Three - You're Out!

I'll concede that MSDN is a very nice collection of CDs, but I'd trade those CDs for source code any day of the week. On that note, the Linux stack has a wealth of documentation ... but at your local book store.

MSDN is not just a nice collection of CD's - it's all available on-line [microsoft.com], and free as in beer. No ads, and it works well in Firefox! That's more than you can say for high-quality documentation for any other platform. I challenge you to prove me wrong.

I personally find the CD collection inferior because you have to update it. Fortunately, the MSDN integration in Visual Studio also uses the on-line MSDN if the sought information is not available locally.

Now, on that note, typically, the architects, developers, and testers you're referring to wouldn't know what to do with source code if it hit them in the head. They represent the lower ranks of the tech profession. Those of us who work in pushing the envelope of new technology almost unanimously reject MS products because they are far too contraining.

That's a pretty unfair and ignorant way to look at people who use Visual Studio. Not only are you ignoring the fact that the most commercially successful pieces of software ever conceived - Microsoft Windows and Office - were developed in Visual Studio by people who certainly do not deserve to be called "the lower ranks of the tech profession" (well, some of them perhaps), you are also ignoring the many other companies who have created successful products developed using Microsoft's tools. I work at such a company, and we are in fact pushing the envelope of new technology in our market. While I would not call Microsoft's products perfect, they have been instrumental to our success.

If your tools constrain you, you may be using the wrong ones; or you may be using them incorrectly. I think you have to try very hard to fail at using Visual Studio.

Re:Click Once and Run = apt-get?

What's wrong with apt-get is that my mother would need to be shown more than once to get it to the point where she can use it on her own without calling me. So, while there is nothing inherently wrong with it in general, it's a poor tool for the purpose discussed here.