Microsoft's Future

cyberkine writes: "The Economist has an interesting article on Microsoft's technology strategies that ends with a very astute comparison with IBM's downfall and resurrection in the wake of its own antitrust battles. 'Microsoft's biggest underlying fear is that it will become like IBM - --a company that still has a strong business but no longer sets computing standards.'"

Re:Crashing....

[sprayNwipe]

Obviously, neither have you. While it's nice to bash MS for crashing, I've actually had decent uptime from it - 3 weeks and counting so far, amazing for a MS product.

Microsoft's Fear?

[Newt-dog]

I thought that Micro$oft's fear was not being able to take over the internet in the next 5 years? I guess he'll have to arm wrestle AOL's Steve Case for the title. My 2 cents.

Re:Microsoft not setting any more standards?

[NecroPuppy]

Hey, they still set the standards for server exploits...

ms like ibm?

[mueslix]

hi folx... just thinking of ms going the same way as ibm did! we would have microsoft supporting linux, developing software for linux and so on... funny thought ;( greets, mueslix

I pledge alligience

[bryan1945]

to the United Subsidieries of the United Coportation of Microsoft. And to the rules of the EULA, for which I agree to never pirate or copy any intellectual property, I Company, under Corporation, for which privacy fails, and laws abound, for lawyers.

-Daily morning speech for employees

Re:Crashing....

[ymgve]

Our network switch says it has been up for 49566 days.

You can say a lot of bad things about old hardware, but then, back in 1865, they knew how to make strong and reliable equipment.

Re:systemlogic poll

[rjamestaylor]

This reminds me of a poll I saw at www.systemlogic.net:

> Which OS company will create the most used operating system by 2020?
>
> Linux
> Microsoft
> Other

Microsoft was in the lead at the time too. :(

Microsoft was ahead? Drats! I guess I'll just pack in my fault-tolerant widely-distributed mirrored cluster Linux servers and give it up to the good folks at Redmond. Dang! Well, you gotta listen to those web site polls. Shoot...

Moderated -1 Flamebait

[xQx]

Shouldn't the article here be moderated down as flamebait?

I've had posts moderated down for less.

Re:Did Microsoft set any standards? Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

...such as the ever popular MS Word file format...

Wah?

M$ and Karma

[Glanz]

In other words, Microsoft fears becoming what it has done to others. Microsoft fears KARMA, the cosmic "get back", Justice, poetic or otherwise....

Re:VB

[CharlieG]

Just remember one thing - Microsoft considers VB their most important development platform, to quote them "The Cobol of the 90s"

What's with the hostility for VB?

[MemeRot]

It's a great tool for what it's meant for: rapid application development for small businesses where the software will be run on a windows pc and used by someone who wants to do all their work in windows forms. It's very very quick, and there are a lot of developers who know it. It's a good choice for internal company apps.

Some people have such glorified ideas of what a 'programmer' is. You give detailed instructions to a machine. If you spend a week writing beautiful code you cost your company 5x. If you spend a day writing ugly code you cost your company 1x. If both programs meet the functional requirements, the company that encourages spending one day will survive better. I have nothing against beautiful code, but I have nothing against utilitarian functional code either.

Re:Where Can MS Go? Nowhere? Not So.

[Dolly_Llama]

The eager zen student asked his master, "Is it possible that one could 'resist feeding the trolls' yet be a troll oneself?"

The master paused for a moment, held up his hand and said

"Natalie Portman"

At this moment, the zen student was enlightened.

Re:systemlogic poll

[Zalgon 26 McGee]

This poll is an obvious fraud. Where's choice #4:

Cowboy Neal?

Future?

[CobesTheGreat]

Microsoft has a future that includes more than massive lawsuits?