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A Post-Microsoft World
from the does-this-mean-anything-new? dept.
"Good morning, and welcome to the post-Microsoft world." Words many of you have been waiting to hear for years. Yesterday's court ruling didn't end the Microsoft Age, just focused attention on the fact that it's over.
The response to the ruling yesterday, in fact, defined hype. Almost all the significance was symbolic. The findings changed little in the short term, and probably even less in the long run. The most significant and blessed fallout from yesterday may be the loss not of Microsoft, but of a host of those annoying dot.coms flushed out by a NASDAQ mourning a world without Omnipotent Bill. Truth is, we are already living in a post-Microsoft world, and nobody really much cares.
Until the mid-90s, Microsoft was the technological Godhead. Everyone involved with computing or the network hated, used, exploited or feared it. That's no longer true.
The Microsoft Age began to unravel when programmers all over the earth connected and demonstrated that they could create a viable, ethical alternative operating system, sharing freely what was costing everybody else billions. It was accelerated by Bill Gates' profound and distinctly non-visionary arrogance. Anybody who has ever watched TV would have known to settle a long time ago, but Gates must have been reading his own press, thumbing his nose at the one mega-corporation on earth bigger than his.
Had the government intervened a decade ago, when it would really have mattered, yesterday's court ruling might have been as ground-breaking as the pundits and analysts were claiming last night. Who knows what kind of smothered, suppressed and acquired innovation might have been unleashed had Microsoft been reigned in at the height of its abuse and power?
As it was, the decision felt profoundly anti-climactic. It's hard to think of a single major thing on the Net that will change. Bill Gates, it was clear, had given up on this judge, first patronizing, then brazenly lying to him, finally going for the end run, perhaps in the hope that a Republican would shortly take up residence in the White House.
In a few years, after the platoons of lawyers have been as enriched as Microsoft's middle managers, it's possible that computer users will have three or four operating systems to choose from -- if there even are traditional operating systems, sold and downloaded in traditional ways, which seems less likely by the week. But even if there are, it isn't clear that any "remedies," once they are finally contested and sorted out in the courts, will have much meaning. Gates is still trying to come to grips with a political system that is slicker than he is. How odd to see him all over the evening newscasts, practicing his own annoying what-me-worry? spin, proclaiming his company the world's greatest, cheapest and most benevolent technological empowering force.
It seemed pooped and lame. Bill Gates' company hasn't dominated any of the significant technological movements and evolutions of the late 90s: open source, nano-technology, AI, genetic research, hand-held and wireless computing, supercomputers.
For those who've spent years battling and fussing over this rapacious, insatiable company, there was belated satisfaction in seeing a federal judge confirm what a lot of people already knew: Billl Gates is a monopolistic, predatory lawbreaker.
But apart from terrifying high-tech investors for a day or two, it's difficult to discern a single significant outcome from yesterday's decision, a single reality likely to change for people who use computers, the Net or the Web. The pundits couldn't even agree whether Microsoft would be more of a menace broken up or left alone. And the hysteria about lawsuits was laughable. Microsoft has a big enough legal budget to tie up class-action lawsuits for years, and its insurance company is already putting aside billions to start drawing interest for the inevitable day when the settlements must be paid.
Yesterday brought the odd spectacle of 21st-century economic problem confronted by a century-old law (the Sherman Anti-Trust Act) being deployed by a 225-year-old institution (the federal judiciary) and analyzed by an ancient information structure (the news media). All this was also being trumpeted endlessly by a federal bureaucracy eager to appear to curb the unchecked power of run-amok corporations, when it's far from clear it will ultimately even be able to curb one.
Perhaps the post-Microsoft world began between when Linus Torvald began his software experiment and Judge Jackson's eerily retro ruling yesterday. Why eerie? Because it pitted a string of l9th-century laws and institutions against a 21st-century economic system. And the antiquarians really thought they had won.
When all is said and done, many of the people reading, working on and joining this site had a hell of a lot more to do with this than those Justice Department pols falling all over one another yesterday to get their pusses in front of the TV cameras, trying to convince the world that they were out there fighting for the little guy.
Just because a law is old (Score:3)
If you read some of the laws in the Torah, esp some of the ones about things like debt that most people don't pay much attention to and really think about them you will realize that many issue of the question "How do we treat our fellow people" have not changed in 4000 years or more.
The Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Jon... (Score:3)
It is not a post-microsoft era. Reasons to follow:
In short, Microsoft isn't dead.. and even if they were broken up, categorically every single major brokerage has stated such a move would have a direct benefit on the stock-holders and bill gates would get richer. One need look no farther than the "post-AT&T" era to see how much your rates have increased... DESPITE free internet telephony tech being available.
I rest my case, your honor.
A brief history of the uP (Score:3)
Blinded by the Linux (Score:3)
Re:Choice is good? (Score:3)
You mention the ol' days of the home computer explosion. A lot of games were ported to as many different platforms as possible, if the company was willing to do so. I think it was either Hard Hat Mack or Miner2049er that was available on everything from the Vic20 (mine!) to the Atari 400 + 800, and 2600 game console, not to mention Apple ][, Colecovision, etc.
At which point the effort ($) put in by the developers returned a nice profit. Granted, not all those ports came out at the same time, but the first versions proved popular enough that they made more copies available.
Many games in the past were ported to multiple platforms: these days, I'm lucky if ANY games make it over to the Mac.
Pope
Re:Sorry Guys. (Score:3)
I keep reading stuff like this, and Yet Do I Marvel. I guess it's human nature to assume that most of the (important) computers in the world are like the one on your desk. Also, that the computer on your desk is particularly important. I'll submit to you that this just isn't true.
Most of the important computers in the world are either things like embedded controllers, or very, very large information systems that do important things, like run the phone system, send bills, or write checks. In other words, all the systems that people were getting freaked out about when Y2K rolled around.
Microsoft's real market share of crucial computing is just not very big. I hate to break it to people out there, but the computing that most of us do on our desktop machines is just not very important in the big scheme of things. I mean, how could it be? Sending memos back and forth doesn't really accomplish much. A spreadsheet may seem important, but very few of them reach or endorse conclusions that were either unknown or unreachable by other means.
What personal computers are really about, more than anything, is keeping people entertained. Microsoft is not a technology company, but an entertainment outfit. The Web was not a threat to Microsoft because somebody would write a java word processor or something that would eat into MS Office revenues per se. The Web was a threat because people found it more entertaining than existing MS product offerings.
Look carefully at Microsoft's investments outside of operating systems and applications. You've got a TV network (MSNBC), an alleged content provider (MSN), freemail (hotmail), a bunch of stuff like Encarta, kid's toys, now a gaming box... In other words, entertainment. What you don't see is serious vertical market software, or infrastructure stuff.
Interestingly, Microsoft has tried to enter one other non-entertainment area: money and financial software. That, of course, makes sense because the real money is, well, where the money is. But everybody knows that, so the competition there is both fierce and skilled; for PC-based entertainment (like MS Word), it just hasn't been.
Funny thing about that, however: the phone company break-up really did lead to huge improvements in the variety, cost, and even quality of service. And the resulting baby bells and their competitors have grown at a rate much faster than Ma Bell ever did. And investors have done incredibly well. Yes, there are some problems here and there, but the anti-trust ruling in this case clearly did us all a lot of good. If the MS case ends up half as well, we should all be thrilled.
Be careful of what you ask for, you might get it. (Score:3)
Before I begin my rant, look at my user history. I'm a big Linux supporter. I'm also a realist. With any change comes benefits and disadvantages.
In the mid 80s, when it came to PC hardware, IBM was the world leader. What they did, the world followed. When they introduced the 3.5" floppy in 1987, other manufacturers scrambled over themselves to include one in their "clones." 3.5" floppies were not new. HP 150s had them for a few years. But no one could break the 5.25" "standard."
Now that IBM is no longer dominant in the field, the hardware end has not progressed as smoothly. For example, we are still stuck with 3.5" floppies and plus we also now have a plethora of high-capacity "super disks, zips, clicks, etc..."
A fragmented OS world will cause additional support headaches, make no mistake about it. It will not be an easy transition.
Don't misinterpret what I am saying. Microsoft killed the browser market by leveraging their OS installed base to push it through. For those that remember, Microsoft was one of the last major players to discover the Internet and leaped to get into it (they even used Spyglass Mosaic to churn out IE in a hurry). They need to be bitch slapped, but if they dropped dead tomorrow, the industry would take a long time to settle.
Now is the best time for open source and standards movements to make a move. If it doesn't happen now and another closed-proprietary OS takes over, we will have lost our best chance...
Just don't go dancing in the streets yet. The loss of Microsoft dominance will hurt everyone in one way or another.
OS? What's an OS? (Score:3)
I'm a writer. I want to use a comfortable word processor.
My son is four. I want to get him some educational software that will help him learn to read.
I want to be able to browse the web and send email with pictures to my friends.
Obsession with particulars of hardware and software isn't part of this at all. These people aren't stupid; they have their lives and want a tool to help them get things done. Right now, Linux isn't a tool as much as it is a kit that you can spend weekends and evenings with until you've eventually built a ship in a bottle that you are happy with. Windows and Word and Outlook and Excel have gotten to the point where they *are* just tools. When I put on my geek hat, I dislike Bill Gates greatly. When I put on my other hats, I'm glad that I can fire up Word and be done with it.
True, very true (Score:3)
To suggest we are leaving The Microsoft Era is to suggest that Microsoft have in some way impacted our lives up until now. Frankly, apart from giving us something to fight against, they haven't.
If I think back over the past decade or so, [technological] things that have impacted my life significantly have been mobile phones & mobile computing [of the Epoc variety], UN*X/GNU/Linux/Open Source, DVD, MP3.
If we are leaving a technological era, it is probably the Closed Source Era. Not just Microsoft, but producers of CS across the board. We are not however entering the Open Source era, we've been there for a very long time (eras can overlap can't they?), merely coming to a stage where it is going to predominate in the software market. Nor are we going to see the end of closed source software, there is a place for it (surely not I hear you cry, and if you knew who I work for, you'd shout it even louder), but frankly, there are some systems that have to be kept closed, even secretive by their nature. Imagine is a government, any government, opened the source for their [insert intellgence system of your choice] software, they'd be screwed yeah? That's my point.
If we're leaving a financial era, it's the one of having a single behemoth in the software market. If the decision is taken to break-up Microsoft, chances are that it will be broken into three companies: Operating Systems, Internet and Applications. Welcome to the wonderful world of having three Microsofts in the market place, who, by the very nature of the split, will not be competing with each other. Observe as their collective stock value outstrips anything any dotCom speculator considers feasible, but also be aware of the fact that the public now knows the truth, so notice how much less power they have than if Bill hd decided to split the company in such a way voluntarily, say, five years ago. Be thankful therefore that this case has happened, because if they had split the company down previously, you can bet this case would never have been brought, and the practices would have continued unchecked.
Yes, the government has done it as a show and nothing more, but although the reason may not be 'pure', the result is most certainly a Good Thing [TM]
--
Ding dong, the witch... er, warlock is dead! (Score:3)
While lots of us are cheering the results of yesterday's court ruling, it almost seems to me that it is like the case of a bunch of kids who finally realize they can beat up the school yard bully when they gang up on him.
Microsoft is no longer a dominating factor in the new online community. Its still a factor, but it isn't the only one. There are going to be lots of other things that will concern me more. Things like the the DMCA [slashdot.org].
Gonzo
Re:Katz, it's a SOFTWARE COMPANY. (Score:3)
Sounds like a profitable business plan to me. Isn't this what most businesses try to do in one form or another?
A story... (Score:3)
Once upon a time, a long time ago, when the stars were young and the world was new, dragons roamed the earth and men feared them. And it came to be that one dragon did come to dominate the land and roam freely upon it, pillaging and burning as it went, yet those that never saw the beast's depredations called it admirable and came to worship it.
But there were those who saw the damage it wreaked, and the shear evil of the beast, and they banded together to try and destroy it. And slowly they were able to build strongholds against the monster, and on occasion inflict small cuts and scrapes and other indignities upon it, but they could only weaken it little and never slay it, and its depredations continued. And then a giant came down from the north and began battling the dragon, and the battle lasted long and was fought hard, and those banded against it gathered around to witness the terrible struggle.
And then, at last, the giant pinned the dragon, lashing and gnashing its teeth, to the ground and a cheer resounded amongst the gathered throng.
And that's when Jon Katz lept atop a nearby barrel and started to write the dragon's epitaph and loudly proclaim its death....
"But...", said the crowd.
"It's dead!" proclaimed Katz jubilantly.
"Um..." the crowd answered, pointing toward the beast as it trashed in the giant's precarious grip.
"Dead as a doornail! Dead as a tree stump! Dead!" crowed Katz.
"Er..." the crowd attempted to interject.
"It is _sooooooo_ dead....." Katz attempted to continue, interrupted by a loud *THWAP* as the lashing dragon's tail pulped the poor deluded man with an errant flick.
The crowd shrugged. "We _tried_ to tell you!"
The End
In short, Katz, rumours of Microsoft's demise are greatly exagerated, and you are quite premature in writing the company's epitaph. It still holds a monopoly on the desktop market, and there still isn't a clear path to breaking that monopoly. It has been struck a heavy blow by Judge Jackson's ruling, and the class-action lawsuit hounds are gathering to take their respective chunks of flesh, but the fight is far from over and only time will tell if Microsoft's dominance of the market will be more than temporarily staggered by this ruling. I regrettably can't write them off just yet.
-- WhiskeyJack
really..? (Score:3)
If the latter, I hate to disappoint you, but my grandma still don't know what Linux is, and she probably wouldn't care should someone explain to her either. And then, the same goes for about 10 zillion other grandmas, big stupid companies, tiny stupid companies and practically all other computer illiterates.
Conclusion: what you're talking about is far far away, as always.
Re:point of view (Score:3)
They seemed incapable of believing in a reality where someone would not want one of their products. It was incomprehensible to them. Somewhere around 1990 they started believing their own hype and removed themselves from the reality of the marketplace the rest of the world operates in.
It'll take 20 years to settle all of the appeals and other lawsuits this one will generate. By then, Microsoft will either be but a bit player in the overall game or they'll have begun to innovate and contribute the the overall improvement of the computing world.
My bet is that they'll be a bit player, but hey, I"ve been wrong before.
Post? (Score:4)
So, like it or not, if MS open their source code, then Windows could become even more powerful. Think - their installed base, thousands working on their source code. The MCSE's could have to learn how to hack Windows itself. It could be that what is good for the goose is good for the gander, and Windows would become even more prevalent. Some would say this mattered, some would say it doesn't. There is the chance that it would actually get better. We can hope...
Was this headline made by the Katzbot? It is priceless. All I want now is the columbine slant on the whole thing. Remember, kids - everything is an 'age'!
thenerd.
Re:Post? (Score:4)
In the Microsoft world, you have thousands and thousands of barely-competent software vendors writing code for Windows. They test their code (in theory) on Microsoft Windows (and many of them _still_ ignore supporting NT).
If Microsoft's code is opened (and I think you'll see Ice Capades in the Iron city of Dis before that ever happens), suddenly you've got lots of spin-off versions of Windows... and guess what... a lot of this marginal software (including most of Microsoft's own products) will stop working.
Look at it from the 3rd party's point of view, it's already too much trouble to support Windows 98 and Windows NT for many of them... and their stuff barely works in many instances as it is.
What happens when suddenly there's RedHat Windows and AOL Windows and GNUWindows and Corel Windows... and suddenly every software vendor starts getting hundred of calls because their software crashes under Fred's-Windows-and-Video-Strip-Poker.
Don't support it? Fine. Then no one buys anything but Microsoft and then you're in the same places as you are now.
It's a wonderful thought, but Windows is so big and bloated and depends on it's own maddening complexity to work that no one could ever duplicate it.
Remember TASM's "quirks" mode to support the bugs in the MASM assembler for compatibility? Well, just think what you'd have to maintain compatibility with the _whole_ operating system.
Katz, it's a SOFTWARE COMPANY. (Score:4)
Your fallacy seems to assume that Bill Gates is trying to build an empire of everything technological. However, Microsoft has remained to be a primarily software company ever since its inception, and I don't see why a software company needs to dominate nano-technology, supercomputers, or genetic research to be rake in cash from an operating system used in most personal computers in the world.
Actually, why on earth would a software company want to dominate in any of those mentioned fields?
Let me go sell my amazon stocks now, since I don't think they'll plan on doing anything nanotech with their books and DVDs anytime in the near future.
Come-on-Katz? (Score:4)
Yeah I agree,
What would be here without the threat of Microsoft? BUT.. I have heard many times that the greatest technological inventions come about because of war. I am not sure how true that is or not, but you go to RedHat and see the "Anti-Microsoft" die die die energy... Hasn't that fueled the community a bit? I would bet yes.
I don't hate Microsoft, they remind me what I don't want and make me appreciate what I have. I hope that the megapower doesn't get broken down.. Maybe it will keep the commuity-a-burnin for a few more years!
$.02
Re:Come-on-Katz? (Score:4)
What about good old competition. Yeah, it's great to team up and fight the "Bad Guy". But I like it better when we are all on the same playing field and are trying to take that "Bad Guy" spot. As long as there are strict standards to follow, I believe it is healthy. What I mean of strict standards is that you must publish and follow all of your APIs. If you write a file that becomes a standard (as is MS Word) it too must be under a standard and published format that other tools may use.
I enjoyed it back when we had DOS and you can chose from Word, Word Perfect, Write, and Excel Lotus 1,2,3 and other applications. Let the apps fight for features, not file formats.
What I'm trying to say, is that the motivation will still be there. It doesn't just go away. Its the same argument that I give when I push for Open Source and Free Software. The response back is "why should I write something if I can't 'monopolize' on it". The answer is easy. You need to eat. You still come out with features, and support. Free Software does not prevent you from charging for products. I still buy Red Hat and I have a mirror of it. May sound silly, but I like the support.
Companies and people alike will still fight hard to be innovative(TM) and productive, with or without the "Bad Guy".
Steven Rostedt
Only a glancing blow to MS (Score:4)
They will have the courts tied up for years with appeals and why Open Source advocates are rejoicing that the wicked witch is dead, Bill and Balmer and the gang are focusing on making more money with newer products and slick marketing. Unfortunately money is power and although the DOJ won this round but overall I don't believe it will really hurt Microsoft at all.
Sorry Guys. (Score:4)
tcd004
LostBrain [lostbrain.com]
Re:point of view (Score:4)
Outdated thinking (Score:5)
On the one hand, the breakup of Microsoft is largely irrelevant. Microsoft's success in the world of operating systems has peaked. Windows 2000 is the beginning of the end ; its mediocre performance and its failure to establish a strong presence in the server market means that MS will never own the enterprise. And its challengers on the desktop are winning as well ; Microsoft is in retreat on all fronts. And because Microsoft is now a well-established company with stable stock value, a successful career at Microsoft no longer means retiring as a millionaire at age 30. They can't attract the talent they need to keep going. The justice department may well accelerate their decline, but they aren't the cause of it.
On the other hand, you talk of choices between operating systems, etc, etc, and how the world will be all wonderful and happy now that the great beast Microsoft has been slain. Guess again. There's a new sheriff in town, and this time it's got the law on its side and the courts in its pocket. And its name is... the Entertainment Industry. Yes, Microsoft dumbed down computing for the masses and in doing so they reduced the quality of the experience. But they didn't have the millions of dollars of lobbying power that the MPAA, RIAA, and other consortiums of faceless companies have to force their wares down our throats. While Microsoft may have bundled apps in order to kill their competition, the entertainment industry simply gets laws passed to kill theirs.
So we can all jump for joy and celebrate the fact that we can run any operating system we want on our machines. But we're really just kicking the dying giant, while the real enemy creeps up on us from all sides.
What to do about Microsoft (Score:5)
- -Josh Turiel
Ah, But M'soft Still Matters (Unfortunately) (Score:5)
Go into almost any business nowadays and poll people on their OS's and applications. You'll find Microsoft still controls much of the business world. Macintosh and Linux are far behind. In fact, few businessmen even know about Linux.
I may be returning to the financial industry in a few months; I find out today. I'll be entering a pure Microsoft shop. My first order of business will be turning my personal machine into a dual-boot Linux-WinNT setup. I can do that because I know the alternative exists, and I have the expertise to make the alternative work. I've already told the DP manager I plan to implement a firewall and mail server using Linux. He has no Linux experience. All his PC experience concerns Microsoft OS's and applications. In this industry, he's not alone. Even worse, the DP vendors themselves have adopted wholesale Microsoft back-office and front-office applications - running on Microsoft OS's, of course.
Multiply this company by the multitudes of companies in other industries, and you'll see we're a long way from breaking the shackles of Redmond. And let's not even consider Aunt Minnie at home.
We have a long way to go before Microsoft truly doesn't matter. Hopefully, we'll arrive before this mess finally finishes at the Supreme Court. Then, we'll relish the triumph of knowing the marketplace settled the issue - helped along by the Slashdotters, of course. :-)
Not yet. (Score:5)
No, we're not living in a post-Microsoft world yet:
Microsoft products still dominate the personal computing and standard software market:
Even if Microsoft is split up in Baby Bills, this won't automatically change MS Office's market share.
Even if the courts rule Microsoft's marketing methods illegal, this does not mean people will stop to buy Microsoft products.
Even if there are other operating systems that you can buy your PC with, you still need software for it.
At the moment, people buy Windows and Office because everyone else uses it too. And vendors write software and hardware drivers because everyone has it.
This won't change that soon only because Microsoft is punished in any way.
What we need are standardized APIs, data formats, etc. that are not tied to a certain software product. As long as eg Windows' API or Office's data formats remains proprietary, nothing will change from today's situation:
Well, let's see what the punishment for Microsoft will be...
Microsoft is an integral part of our World (Score:5)
Humans love a fight. It is proven that the most patriotic times in this country and the most productive are when we are at a state of war. Many outlets of the computer industry were fueled in energy and enthusiasm to fight against the software behemouth Microsoft. Would Apple have dumped their entire code base, replacing it with the multi-processing, protected memory, BSD pumping Mach Kernel if Microsoft didn't threaten to the world that NT would be the replacement for UNIX and all other Oses? Would Linus and the elite group of hackers that gravitated to Linux have come home every night after a long day of work to work on the Linux kernel and its surrounding technologies if they weren't fueled by the lack of choices for a decent PC based server and development environment? Would the programmers from Apple and SGI have gotten together to break the status quo and put the speed, media power, and 64-bit database file system into the BeOS if they didn't think the media enthusiasts of the world needed something other than the dominating Windows OS? Would Netscape have open sourced their browser and tried to redesign it from the ground up when they saw they were loosing their ground to the powerful Internet Explorer? I think not. I contend that the alternative operating systems, cross platform applications, and the power driving today's businesses online would not have been if we didn't have the company that everyone loves to hate, Microsoft.
Programmers rallied around the little Microsoft of yesteryear because they were fighting against the giant IBM, breaking the status quo of the mainframe world into the PC world today. Because of this, we are living the benefits of a PC (or Mac) on every desktop. Now programmers are rallying around alternative OSes and Internet technologies that make cross-platform, networked applications a reality. They are trying to break the status quo of Windows everywhere. Think of what benefits this energetic generation of programmers will create! And thank Microsoft for fueling the flames in their hearts that help them to continue fighting towards freedom!