Would You Pay $1000 For Windows? 380
If you're interested in the anti-breakup point of view, even as devil's advocate, this is a useful place to start. I don't buy all of Liebowitz's assumptions or conclusions, but it's much more informative than most flamewars, and does bring up some nagging ideas about market behavior and legal remedies.
I found interesting, too, his assertion that "[a]t the current time, there appear to be virtually no major desktop applications that have been ported to Linux, including those from such market leaders as Intuit, Symantec, Lotus, Adobe, or Quark." Fewer than I'd like, certainly, but "virtually none" is hard to buy.
It's not unreasonable to suggest that the price of Windows would rise if it was made by a newly-formed separate division of Microsoft, but if the marketplace is truly dynamic, it seems like that change could as well be in the opposite direction. (How much would Liebowitz have predicted Netscape's browser to cost today, given the information available in 1993?)
And for some devil's advocacy the other direction, you might find this Motley Fool article (suggested by sjbe and others) an interesting take on an MS breakup as well.
Well, IAE... (Score:2)
Right now people get Windows at a fairly reasonable price, or at least that's the perception and it's usually hidden in the cost of the computer they picked up at Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. Eventually people will start to notice if when the computer they saw for $1700 two months ago is now $2500. The big question is, will they ask why? If they do, the big retailers are more likely to offer PC's with alternative OS's, especially if their tech dept. can add $100 to install the OS of the customer's choice and maybe even add on extra in classes teaching people how to use their new OS. That's where the money will come from to replace the missing $300 billion or whatever it was. And there's always the possibility that Apple will finally get the hint and drop their hardware prices a bit to induce more people to buy Macs. And what about the people who have considered putting out an OS but didn't because there was no way they could break into the market? This would be a golden opportunity for them, as well.
I would be ashamed to write such an article under the auspices of academia, especially at a school like Texas which has a good tradition of economic though going back to John R. Commons. Coincidentally, Common's big theory was that ultimately, the courts are the main determination in how the economy acts, no matter what the market "wants" to do.
Re:Too late now (Score:2)
I'm by far, not a Microsoft basher. I think that they've done some less than kosher things, and some of their product bugs are inexcusable, but the fact of the matter is is that Windows a usable operating system built for the masses...and that's what Microsoft is catering to...the masses.
To use a quote I heard from a Microsoft speaker: "Think of ordering a pizza for 150 million people. On this pizza you've got to put on certain toppings that some will like and some will not like, but in the end, that pizza's got to be acceptable by everyone that's eating it."
If you look at it that way, then you can understand their perspective a little bit better.
Sure, Microsoft has to change some things that they're doing. Raising the cost of the OS to 1 grand would be a change for the worst, but let's face it - if the situation were to pan out that way, Microsoft has to keep bringing in the money, and when you lose 90%+ of your other divisions, you've got to compensate. That's why, in this scenario, I don't think a breakup would be a wise decision. Present another situation, and I might change that stance.
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2)
MS Windows NT 4.0 SERVER 5 users / 10 users $995/$1280
MS Windows NT 4.0 Workstation $190 each
Well let's get with the new Millenium shall we?
MS Windows2000 Server full ver. on cd $1065 (doesn't say how many user licenses)
MS Windows2000 Pro full ver. on cd $195
Windows already costs a grand. Also, compare 2000 to NT4, the cost increases, and Microsoft says it has lowered the cost of a PC.
check the prices yourself [www.atic.ca], its in Vancouver BC Canada.
Re: Innovations (Score:2)
Pretty much the Paper Clip (the most irritationg part of MS Office) and Microsoft Bob (that was so successful).
The site is pretty sparse, post articles to them.
Re:Symantec's irrelevant to Linux (Score:2)
I could do it in about 15 minutes (if that), so it can't be that hard....
More corrections (Score:2)
There were two upgrades available.
One contained just the bug fixes that SE also included. It did not include Internet Connection Sharing or other "New Features". That was the cheap one.
Upgrading from Win98 to Win98SE has always costed around $90 list.
Now, you also seem to pretend that everyone who buys a copy of windows will automatically upgrade to the next version, at a retail price.
That is what Microsoft's revenue model is based on.
They generally leverage their other products to ensure this, too. You have Windows X and Office Y. Your friend buys Windows X+1 and Office Y+1. Office Y+1 does not work well with Office Y, so you buy Office Y+1. Surprise, Office Y+1 doesn't work well with Windows X, so you also have to upgrade to Windows X+1. Gee, isn't that a surprise.
You also assume everyone started from windows 3.1 and upgraded.. nope.
But if you did have a computer since then, and you weren't running DOS all this time, what were you doing? Are you suggesting everyone switched from FreeBSD to WinME?
Most of the legal copies of windows floating around are bundled with computers, where the suppliers (ala Dell) may pay a small price (for being MS buddies).
The "small price" is typically about what the Retail Upgrade version costs, or so Microsoft assures us. About $90 each.
If it was the Full Retail version, it would be about $200 each.
Re:Join ACT and subvert it. (Score:2)
There's no point in joining it, except to give more weight to this prime example of astroturfing.
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Re:How THE F___ (Score:2)
90% of PC buyers don't care about OS (Score:4)
PC buyers don't really care about operating systems, except as far as brand loyalty (like the current inane crop of Pepsi and Coke ads in the US try and appeal to). The "average" home PC buyer really wants a web browser, e-mail, and some sort of word processor. A few want games, a few want office applications, and more than a few want some applications which replace accumulating paper (a la Quicken or a PIM). However, no one cares whether it's Microsoft or Mac or a Xerox Alto, as long as it does what they want, is fairly easy to use, and doesn't break at critical times.
Microsoft's marketing muscle and anti-competitive tactics have increased "brand loyalty" by creating the illusion that other operating environments are somehow incompatible, less functional, or incapable of interoperability with Windows, the "market leader". Therefore, for many PC buyers, liking Microsoft is like liking the popular and unchallenged local sports team -- there's little chance they'll lose, and they never *really* disappoint. There's no compelling reason *to* like them, but it's too much work to be a fan of anyone else. Unfortunately, unlike those scenarios of a couple of decades ago, my computer is powerful enough to run Windows on top of Linux, and run all of my old Amiga software besides. Even without Windows, I can still interoperate passably with windows-using colleagues for most things. (although I do use TeX for all word processing, even musicology papers -- with musical examples)
It's really telling that devices like the i-opener are wildly successful even though they're nothing close to Windows -- but that really proves that what draws people to computers is applications. Sure, on Windows, I can pay for seven different browsers (or get one that's inextricable from the OS kernel) and five different office suites -- but I only need one of each. Beyond that, even, the "applications" that people want are things like cnn.com, amazon.com, Napster, and e-mail -- and I can get to CNN from my mobile phone as easily as from a Windows box.
Microsoft is riding on brand loyalty, which they create and enforce with anti-trust actions. Unfortunately, their ride is slowing, because there aren't any compelling features in their products for most users, and there are enough people reverse-engineering MSFT stuff to provide reasonable interoperability from other operating environments. Most people don't need Word to manage bibliographies or outlines -- they don't really need anything more than Works, but they keep Word around to read Word documents....
~wog
On the other hand... (Score:2)
On the other hand, buying from a company like Compaq gives them the ability to say, "F**k off, you didn't buy Officially Approved Equipment and thus you aren't supported. And since everything from the motherboard to the screws holding the case together won't work in any other computer on Earth, you'll have to buy a whole new machine just to install a f**king CD-ROM drive. Have a nice day, and thank you for choosing Compaq."
(Based on a real world story. The profanity I added.)
Company Info (Score:3)
Intuit:Quicken runs fine on Linux, a la Corel. (if Corel's Office Suite runs under Linux, so does Quicken, it's just not official...)
Symantec & Lotus: They already sold out, or have been crushed by Microsoft. Much more worrisome.
Adobe: They dropped all Unix support in Photoshop 3.x, even though the Windows version of Photoshop 3.0 runs just fine on Linux; see Intuit. Besides, we also have The Gimp.
Quark: Aren't you doing that on a Mac anyhow? Heck, if I had LinuxPPC, I might be able to get that working, too. There are alternatives, too, not that I'd ever want to use, say, Interleaf, but TeX is rather well known; people write books in it.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
Would I pay 1000 dollars for windows? (Score:4)
Re:Support costs (Score:2)
Who is going to take the call when granny's machine has ate itself and bluescreened? Or perhaps when the registry has bitrotted? In your example, someone could telnet in and install GAIM for her. In mine, it would most likely require her to take the machine in for maintainance if it wasn't something trivial.
Windows is EXCELLENT for newbies and that is why it is sold with almost all computers today.
Oh God, no. Windows is not good for newbies at all. I have worked as a technician at a couple of OEMs, and I can say with experience that there are a lot of people who have made an art out of fscking up Windows. If user-friendliness was the only reason for Windows' dominance, BeOS would be dominant now--or hell, even MacOS. Those two are OS's I would put my mom on.
Better source of information for the Pro-Microsoft (Score:2)
Mr. McKenzie is a third-party economist with no interest in Microsoft other than economically (as in, the book was not funded by MS nor MS supporters, and he is not on their payroll in even the subtlest of ways). Yet, the books describes many contradictions in the DoJ's case, as well as describing the economic situation the software industry is in today. A very interesting read, as long as you keep a half-open mind.
For those of you that just brush this off as more Pro-MS FUD, I feel sorry for you. The book is a jewel of economic investigation, and sheds much needed light on the entire antitrust process, as well as the actual goals of the DoJ in this case (hint: Their goal isn't helping consumers).
A very good read. Too bad I didn't post this earlier.
Windows --> Niche Market. (Score:2)
If Linux desktops become good enough to replace Windows desktops, we could see Windows driven into the "niche" category. In that case, a $1000 price tag would not be unrealistic at all.
I don't have any hard data, but I believe I have heard of other cases where Free Software has a dominating market share, and if you want some obscure feature that the free version doesn't have, you are driven to pay a high price for something that satisfies your particular need.
The analogy that I always like to use is the public school analogy (software under the GPL is much like a public work). In the US, public schools provide free education for everybody, but it's not always the best education. Those who want a better education for their children often pay thousands of dollars per year for private schooling, even though their taxes also support the public school.
In the future, the masses run klutzy X-desktops; and the wealthy pay a premium to continue running their favorite apps on state-of- the-art hardware. It could happen.
Clue check (Score:4)
Um, neither is Windows NT.
Next, please?
Re:Well it's already up to $380.66 last I looked.. (Score:3)
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the price of academic integrity (Score:2)
Symantec's irrelevant to Linux (Score:5)
The following Symantec products serve to correct or work around design flaws of Windows/DOS or MacOS:
The following Symantec products serve purposes already filled by existing free software:
The following Symantec products serve political purposes not in tune with many or most Linux users; specifically, they are parental or office censorware:
- I-Gear
- Norton Internet Security (censorware portion)
(The functionality of censorware may be duplicated with free software, so these could perhaps be put in the previous category; however, due to the general opinion of censorware as Bad And Wrong [i.e. unethical on principle and furthermore broken in its implementations] among the Linux community, they belong in their own category.)The following Symantec products are potentially useful under a Linux-based OS:
(Mobile WinFax is not counted as it runs on the PalmOS, not a conventional OS. Norton SystemWorks is not counted because it is a bundle of several packages listed above.)
In short, it is not to be taken as a surprise that Symantec, and other "utility software" companies, see themselves as not having anything to offer the Linux community -- they don't.
Stan Liebowitz (Score:2)
1. If he is a shill for MS, he hides it very well. (Translation: I don't think he is one.)
2. He has done a *lot* of solid empirical research in business economics. He's a scientist, not an advocate.
3. His current work on MS is not easy to dismiss.
-BBB
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2)
Come on Billy....do it! I DARE you!
Let's look at some simple economics. (Score:2)
As for 'the world economy taking a 300 billion dollar hit'.. that's meaningless. You cannot judge the effect of something purely on economic numbers.
Re:Your point? (Score:2)
Problem is "user fiendly" is a term which is thrown arround so much it's almost meaningless.
It's getting better, yes, but it's far from there. Most of the time you can't simply pop in a cd or double click an icon and have a program install on the first try with obvious icons and easy to understand instructions for its features...
That may be fine on a HOME machine. On a machine in education or a company, the end user being able to easily install programs from either removable media or the internet is an expensive disaster. Either the sysadmin has to spend time cleaning up afterwards or a lot of time and effort to stop users being able to do this.
The problem is abuse of the monopoly... (Score:2)
Monopolies are not illegal.
Abusing monopoly power is. Microsoft got in trouble because they used their OS monopoly to leverage their other products. (The case started with Internet Exploiter, but many other examples were uncovered.)
By splitting the OS division off into a separate company, they can no longer use each other to control the industry.
Problem -- abuse of monopoly power -- solved.
Make sense now?
Dumbest Thing I've ever read. (Score:2)
I agree with you r-jae - this is by far the stupidest analysis I have ever had the displeasure of reading. This professor should consider another line of work.
I will respond to this long paper with an equally short response:
1) Competition, assuming there is any, always drives prices down. Always has, and always will. All of the incredibly convulted analysis to the contrary is pure hogwash and pseudo-economic masturbation.
2) Competition, inexorably produces better software. Since no one company would have a stranglehold on innovation, consumers will inevitably lead towards the better product assuming no single company, as in the case of Micro$oft, is allowed to crush their enemies through collusion, strong-arm tactics, bullying, marketing propoganda and illegal activity.
We should all remember the famous last words of Bill Gates, "I don't recall."
Real Intelligence beats artificial stupidity.
Re:Lotus on the desktop (Score:2)
They've really changed over the last 10-20 years, since the anti-trust suit. I wouldn't want to work there (I was a contractor there once) but it's interesting to be on the periphery.
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Re:Symantec's irrelevant to Linux (Score:2)
Re:Say the word Microsoft, watch IQs plummet (Score:2)
The Windows learning curve is such that it appears "easy to use" at first, there are some things which are actually easy (assuming it all works), but it soon gets to the point of being difficult to work out how to do things. Effectivly Windows is a very ugly (and unfriendly) OS with a thin covering to hide all the uglyness.
The unix learning curve is such that the user is expected to have some idea what they are doing before they start, but once they know the basics it's reasonably easy to understand more complex things.
Flawed Economics (Score:2)
"Microsoft would increase the price of Windows until people stopped buying computers"
with the optimal profit point being $1000 for a copy of Windows - raising the cost of a $2000 PC to $3000.
Does anyone other than me think that Apple Mac sales will go up here?
Re:So what? (Score:2)
Indeed some things, like attempting to emulate the sysadmin features of the Windows control panel might be better either out of KDE or restricted to root logins be default.
Also things such as browser proxy settings badly need a global setting and not infrequently keeping well away from the end user. Especially users familiar with Windows, who are used to fiddling with all sorts of things.
Would I pay 1000 dollars for windows? (Score:2)
Well that depends, what kind of windows are they? Anderson? Double hung? Tempered glass? Bulletproof? [...]
Will double hung tempered bulletproof glass keep Windows away from my Linux box? If so, I want some!
Tell a man that there are 400 billion stars and he'll believe you. Say a bench has wet paint and he has to touch it.
Tell the man there are 400 billion molecules of wet paint on the bench.
Re:Say the word Microsoft, watch IQs plummet (Score:3)
But on the tangential note you've brought us to about what people should do if they don't have windows as an option anymore.. just what is it that you're suggesting here? If they don't use linux they should use macOS?
Assuming MacOS X runs as well as it supposedly does and that it can be made to run on a pc, what happens when all the former windows users go out and pick up MacOS for their new computers? Sure, some would probably go for linux instead, but that still leaves you with a large majority of the computer using population using MacOS.. So I suppose that monopolies are okay, just so long as theyre based on a BSD kernel?
Dreamweaver
Your point? (Score:2)
Does Grandma know what C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS\AIC78XX.MPD is for?
Does Joe know what DOS command and switches to use to copy a directory branch to another location while preserving file attributes but excluding empty directories?
Just because a product contains a feature that some people are not interested in does not mean the entire product is useless.
GNOME. KDE.
Re:current cost of Windows (Score:2)
> a joke) then they have, by now, paid between $250 and $500 for the product,
Hey, I've been using Windows 3.1 up to February of this year, & I never paid a dime to Billy G since it came installed on my computer.
> if they have been upgrading faithfully.
Er, like I said, I used Win 3.1 until February of this year. (Been using Linux exclusively since then, except for a day or two when I thought I fried my hard drive & had to revert to my old computer.) Except for being confused about which year it was (which was reflected in the date it returned for a given file), it worked just as well as it ever did.
Funny to relate, DOS 6.00 did not show a Y2K problem. Once I reset the date due to a BIOS problem, DOS had NO PROBLEM with this being the year 2000.
I might just wait until next year to exorcise DOS from that hard drive, just to see if DOS 6.00 was truly Y2K compliant.
]revealing a possibly fatal weakness[
Geoff
Re:Paying only $1000? (Score:2)
Re:Domino/Notes SUCKS (Score:2)
Now, Notes isn't particularly good at mail (although Exchange is much, much worse). However, if your company bought a Notes system and only uses it for mail, they should, quite frankly, have their heads examined. And so should you.
There's no way that IBM could have used Domino/Notes as a front-end to WebSphere, so failing to do so is hardly a failure on IBM's part. IBM also uses Notes for a lot of their commercial sites, such as their small business, EPP, and download sites, so there's no lack of confidence at IBM wrt Notes.
How do I know this? Let's just say I know those sites quite intimately. WebSphere may be the future at IBM, but there's nothing particularly wrong with Notes/Domino.
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Then a Mac with 2 G4s & OS X will seem cheap... (Score:2)
What a friggin moron...
Barring consumer revolt, the only direction prices ever take in a monopoly is UP.
Except with Linux. 110% of $0.00 is still $0.00...
Heil Microsoft! (Score:3)
I just took a look at ebay, and someone is apparently willing to pay at least $380.66 for Windows.
Some people will pay big bucks for old Nazi souvenirs, too. Not that Microsoft is trying to take over the world, of course. They don't have heavy, sloppy vehicles of war with which to run over opponents and blast the competition to pieces.
Oh, wait a minute ....
Hardware cost would rise? (Score:3)
Well, maybe due to the past trend of Windows bloat requiring more hardware...but that much more? If it bloats that much more, the additional bugs will make the crashes will happen even more often.
Re:$1000 on Windows? Old news. (Score:3)
Microsoft and Nazi propaganda (Score:2)
A thousand dollars a copy? I'm sorry, but Windows isn't a car. It isn't a material product with a cost of manufacture subject to economies of scale. Windows is a successful product, one which generates vast profits for Microsoft. Were it to be spun off into a separate company, the division which had windows would still continue to make money.
It's like Dennis Miller said, Bill Gates is one persian cat away from being the villian in a James Bond movie.
Lee Reynolds
Re:He forgets (Score:3)
It is this sort of phony "tech support" which encourages Windows users to start constructing their elaborate voodoo rituals of self-protection from system bugs -- reboot, stand on one foot, whack the monitor three times on one side, boot into safe mode, reboot, sacrifice a goat, and reinstall. The "just reboot" attitude leads not to computer literacy, but to more ignorance and irrationality.
If the user is suffering from a Windows bug which causes intermittent failure, be honest with them: "This is a problem we've reported to Microsoft; they've said they'll consider including it in the next Service Pack, due out in six months; until then, you're out of luck -- just save your work twice as often and do more backups." Don't cop out and defend the indefensible with another "Just reboot, it'll go away."
Re:the reality and loss of no windows. (Score:2)
Re:Your point? (Score:2)
Putting my CS pedant hat on, no OS is "user friendly", because that's not a kernel's job. The UI shell running on top of that OS is another matter altogether. Red Hat or Slackware may not be all that user friendly for the neophyte user, but a TiVo is Linux, and that's mass-market user-friendliness (with the limited functionality that implies).
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Msft OS is getting quite fragmented.... (Score:3)
Gaaaa!!! Way too many windoze to support, and it's getting worse every year. I had enough problems migrating people from Win3 to the Win95 std gui, even then some folks still prefer fileman over explorer! Though Office2k runs happily on Win95a, there are plenty of forced tie in upgrades via the network effect. I was royally pissed to find Win95a wouldn't support USB and that only an OEM upgrade version did. Same deal w/ an AMD 400Mhz cpu upgrade - win95a had a timing issue and Msft wasn't interested in fixing it, sorry AMD. Just yesterday I had to send out a memo to one dept with a 'newer' Office version reminding them to 'save as' an older version for a dept with older Office OR ELSE write up exactely what features your using in the new version that justifies spending $300/wrkstn for upgrades. Answer is that few people use any of the advanced features, the 'newer' version dept has what they have because it was purchased later or is a fashion/status symbol. With the market penetration Msft has, constant upgrades IS the Msft business model, even if it's the equivelent of trading in a perfectly good car for a new one with larger fins and rearranged taillights and that sleek, aerodynamic modern look (whoops, reboot).
Oh, yesterday I got royally pissed at NT4SP5 when a ras process got HUNG and would not terminate (something between WinGate and ras made ras think a port was in use, when you could bring up hyperterm and dial out with no prob!), forcing me to go around and log everyone off to reboot - Usually it is up for months and I leave it alone, serious, but do one thing unusual and it freaks, jeeez.
Interesting (Score:2)
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2)
The cost of an OS is, in the long run, far less dependent on the sticker on the box, and far more on the hours required to support it.
For the *nix products, the cost is almost entirely the support. So, do the math: M$ costs way too f$cking much to start with, and has, on average, far higher support costs.
In answer to your question, I expect to pay the support costs.
I kinda like both RedHat and Suse, then again, these products are around the US$50 mark (RedHat above, Suse below). Compared to the $200-$400 for Win98/2000, I'd call that a good deal. Not to mention I can load the former two on any number of corporate boxes, with no additional costs, while the M$ stuff cost increases on a per-machine basis.
Lawyer-Economist: Utter nonsense (Score:2)
But you may take my economics as absolute truth
I read the entire Starr report. I read the entire Findings of Fact. I read the entire Conclusions of Law.
I could only make it about ten pages into this, even wearing boots (O.K., I'm wearing the pythons today, and I don't want them permanently stained
It is sheer an utter nonsense, the type of lying that is normally done with statistics rather than economics. If this were submitted as a field exam by a graduate student, he would fail . . .
Start with the "low price strategy" as applied to Windows. Complete rubbish. Yes, MS may have charged less than it might have, but the evidence has shownn--and there are explicit findings in the FoF--that microsoft used its monopoly power to charge nearly double the competitive price for windows. This is the *only* part of a desktop computer whose price has risen rather than decreased over the last 20 years.
The argument about not pricing high because the OS is a small percentage of the system cost and therefore a large increase in OS price would only be a small increase in system price is similarly specious: microsoft *has* raised the price in this regard. Furthermore, he seems to be willfully ignoring the fact that MS holds a "contestable monopoly"--it *can* be taken away, and this possiblity *limits* how badly microsfot can abuse its power in setting prices (but does *not* eliminate the power).
Another act of willful ignorance is in the "double marginalization" argument. For this to hold in the manner presented, mere market power by both is not enough--full monopoly power (or at least very close) is needed. However, Office's market power is a dirct consequence of the Windows market power: it comes from bundling both with the system. Break the windows/office tie, and Offfice's market power is drastically reduced.
While I'm at it, there is further error (or at least misdirection) in classifying windows and office as "complementary" for this purpose--people will buy an OS and office software, but (other than illegal acts which microsoft unconvincingly denies) there is nothing making office any more complementary to windows than star office or word perfect is.
While I'm at it, he is correct that ms chose a low price strategy for office--actually, the inherited policy from word and excel, which did indeed drive down prices *for the entire market*. MS figured (correctly, as it turns out) that it could make more by selling more copies at a lower price than the $500 typical asking price for a word processor or spreadsheet tat the time (street prices were lower, but ms still came out way ahead). What is ignored is that microsoft reached this strategy prior to having power in that market. [sidenote: this dates to a time when microsoft wrote quality software that was clearly better than most of its competions {Yes, I'm old enough to remember that . . . }].
hawk, an en economics professor whose opinions aren't for sale to the highest bidder
Paying only $1000? (Score:5)
See, Microsoft is a 'lets-make-money-forget-the-customers' company -- they charge for everything, including every piddly little upgrade for Windows. (The Windows 98 -> SE upgrade is almost $90 from EggHead.com
Windows 95 Upgrade (From 3.11) - $125
Windows 98 Upgrade (From 95) - $125
Windows 98 SE Upgrade (From 98) - $125
The FULL versions of these pieces of software are at least twice as much. (At least here in Canada.. granted, our currency is worth slightly more then a pile of donkey shit.)
Oddly enough, Microsoft sent me a copy of Milennium for free. (I beta tested it for them.) Guess where it is now?
(Answer to rethorical question: on my coffee table, making sure that wet glasses don't leave moisture rings!)
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CitizenC
Re:I'd pay $1000 NOT to use it (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ghost on Linux... really... (Score:2)
It great, being able to do FULL installs of N machines simultaniously. After 15-20 min (PIO mode 4 drives) all the machines have been cloned, and after that, all they need is a reboot, and to be given a unique network name.
As far as I know, currently, the closest thing to this for Linux is Redhat's kickstart, which just keeps the settings, but requires that each machine get an individual install... doable for 5, hell on 50.
(yes, I know that there was a post the other day in the multicast software distro thread about somebody working on a Linux ghost proggy, but as of right now, nothing EXISTS)
I'd *want* an annual fee (Score:3)
Seriously, I would *want* to see an annual fee for software. Just imagine if you could rent a piece of software like that, on an annual or monthly basis:
I'd think that a "software for rent" system has its advantages.
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Re:How does this make sense? (Score:2)
So what? (Score:3)
Your logic is flawed (Score:2)
No, and that's exactly my point. They don't know or care about such things, so why should they know or care about them in Linux, either?
Of the few things Windows has going for it is the fact that you can do pretty much anything that would come up in normal use without actually having to know anything about how the system works.
Linux is pretty much at that point now, if you're running the latest-and-greatest and it has been properly setup.
Yes, Linux requires proper setup. So does Windows. The thing that really makes Windows "easy" is that it comes pre-loaded on the HP Pavilions at Wal-Mart.
Most of the time you can't simply pop in a cd or double click an icon and have a program install on the first try with obvious icons and easy to understand instructions for its features...
The support is there. Most of the time, it doesn't work because it's a Windows disc you just bought. Duh. Software companies tend to focus on the product that has 95% of the market.
Then why are you arguing it?
Re:current cost of Windows (Score:2)
>from your OEM?
I meant ``since" in the temporial sense. As in ``_after_ I bought the machine."
And at least I got install media with it. Nowadays, the best some poor sucker can hope for when you buy a computer with the Windows' license is a CD that will wipe & reinstall the original image of the hard drive.
Sorry to be unlcear.
Geoff
Re:the reality and loss of no windows. (Score:2)
Try Posix threads, which Linus and Alan Cox have said will never be Posix compliant because the standard's so broken.
No, they said the native kernel threading model will never be Posix compliant. They have also expressed interest in supporting a userspace implementation of Posix threads, but only if it doesn't require bad kernel patches.
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Re:I'd *want* an annual fee (Score:2)
If they didn't care or understand about quality before, going to a subscription plan isn't going to magically change their developer's corporate culture.
Again, I don't see how this follows. If the developers were going to be relaxed and virtuous, they could have done it under the existing pricing scheme. Putting them on a yearly update schedule is going to make things more hectic, not less.Lastly, the disruption of upgrade churn is going to be a million times worse with a constant stream of upgrades than with a major upgrade every few years, assuming Microsoft continues to reinvent the wheel with every release, a behavior they seem incapable of breaking themselves from.
Jon
The survey results are in: people are idiots (Score:2)
Microsoft's (or Gate's) popularity has nothing to do with whether or not they broke the law. That is for the courts to decide. Nor does their market share have any relationship to the quality (or lack thereof) of their products.
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'
addendum (Score:2)
Oops, this should have been in there . . .
For the record, I *am* a hard-core free-market type, and am firmly in the Bork/Posner camp on antitrust law. Indeed, over time the market *will* break the microsoft monopoly without government intervention--but in the meantime, consumers are suffering starggering hands at the hands of the monopoly, and chances at economic growth are being permanently lost.
hawk
Adobe FrameMaker (Score:2)
-Waldo
Re:I doubt it. (Score:2)
I don't find it that hard to believe at all. If M$ got broken up, I can see them using that as an excuse to jack up the price. "The OS uses a larger percentage of our workforce and therefore we have to charge more to stay even." I can totally see something like that happening.
I'll agree with you though, that I don't think Linux will actually take over the desktop market. Its just not ready yet. But as window managers like KDE or Gnome become easier to use, and the applications fall into place like they have been (albeit slowly), I see potential. Especially if you consider that you'd be able to get a computer for $1000 cheaper, minus the Windows OS. People are cheap, and don't like to spend more than absolutely necessary. Alot of big businesses (at least here in Minnesota) are incorporating Linux networks in addition to thier existing NT. They are switching over, solely due to the existing NT licensing costs. If the license price goes up more, I can guarantee that these companies will completely embrace Linux (or some other free OS).
If this happens, the trickle down effect will probably make Joe user switch too.
This is purely speculation on my part, granted, but, here anyway, almost every computer store has about twice the space dedicated to Linux and FreeBSD as they do for M$ OS's (and no, its not because the M$ stuff is always sold out
If anything, I think a raise in windows prices will force computer distributers to offer a choice in the preinstalled OS... something I'd REALLY like to see happen. I'd chalk just that up to a hard hit against the Borg of Redmond.
Re:Support costs (Score:3)
What people keep forgetting is that "granny" is a niece market, indeed to some extent all markets are. One problem with Windows is that it trys to be a "jack of all trades" and manages most things badly. (Saying that it manages being a standalone single user machine the best. Connect it to a LAN or want multiple users and you are soon into headache teritory.)
Much easier to tell them to stick a CD in the drive, click install, and be done with it.
Rembering to cross fingers that it will work and that no other application will suddenly start misbehaving.
Windows is EXCELLENT for newbies
Except that it is hardly "excellent" in terms of ease of use also it isn't a good idea to give a newbie something which is quite trivial for them to break
and that is why it is sold with almost all computers today
Actually the reason that Windows is on virtually all new computers is the result of Microsoft's selling arrangments. i.e. "If you only bundle our product then it costs X per unit, if you don't then it costs Y per unit. Where Y>>X (Assuming we will sell it all)" N.B. this kind of thing is also illegal in many parts of the world.
Re:Sounds a Little Counterproductive (Score:2)
Actually "cost" probably matters more than purchase price. Being able to alter their software to fit their business (open source), rather than altering their business to fit their software (current situation with Windows) is likely to reduce costs.
Re:He forgets (Score:3)
Precisely. When a computer crashes, there is a problem. It is not caused by cosmic rays. It is not an inevitable consequence of bits rotting. It is almost invariably the result of programmer error (hardware faults are the other possibility, but by comparison are exceedingly rare) and can and should be isolated, located, and fixed. Any other attitude is unprofessional.
Re:Say the word Microsoft, watch IQs plummet (Score:2)
You shouldn't be so Linux-centric, if what you say is true there's always the Mac.
Too bad (Score:2)
If the natural price of Windows is $1000 and it turns out that people don't want to pay that much when they know the price in advance, then I guess the product just isn't viable.
And it's funny that he talks about $300 billion damage to the world economy, but fails to mention that the benefit to the economy is many, many times that, for a humungous net increase.
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Re:Why does no one ever mention Eazel? (Score:2)
Eazel is supposed to make Linux easy to use for the very people Windows/Mac OS targets, and it will run on top of Linux:
Eazel [eazel.com]
$1700 for a computer (Score:2)
I call that pretty much top of the line. Sure, you don't get all the snazziest peripherals (Jaz/Zip drive, CD burner, DVD, printer... no printer!!! ack), but that's a nice system.
Go someplace else online and select components yourself and put it together, and you could get it for closer to $1000-1200. $1700 indeed... moron.
I don't find $1000 unreasonably low at all!
Eric
PS I'm ranting about information pg 7-8 of his "report"
Thats MS's entire software development strategy (Score:2)
One of the things that pains me most about the way MS develops software, is that they are perpetually working on *symptomatic* treatments of the problems in their software, rather than fixing the root causes. This attitude seems to permeate across their entire range of software.
When your computer is hosed by a virus, MS does not say "ok we'll improve the underlying security model in our next version of Windows", they say "it's your fault for not running an anti-virus and keeping up to date with the latest virus updates". Or, rather than admitting that Outlook has horrible security holes, they throw their hands in the air and say "e-mail viruses that can format your hard disk are just a natural unfortunate result of everyone's desire for everything to be mega-connected" (para-phrasing a quote from an actual MS exec after the ILuvYou mess.) When they write vulnerable software, rather than admitting that they merely couldn't be bothered to improve the security, they just say "well, hackers are at fault here for being such bad people, they should be put in jail". Same for virus writers. So windows has tens of thousands of viruses - Microsoft just says "we should just make it clear that virus writing is bad and that virus writers should be punished." Sort of like always leaving your front door wide open whenever you go anywhere, and then blaming the police for being slack when you get broken into.
Symantec has a number of "crash-protection" products, purely symptomatic "fixes", for which there would be no market at all had Windows not been so unstable.
Each new version of Windows seems to have a bunch of new tools to try work around existing problems in Windows - Windows 98 loads background programs to scan the registry in the background, looking for errors, and fixing them whenever the registry corrupts itself. They advertised this as a wonderful new feature of 98, but did anybody ask why the registry is corrupting itself in the first place?
MS has been making a lot of noise recently also about the wonderful new features of their new package management software: packages (like MS Office) will now automatically detect if system files they require have been corrupted, or have been deleted, and will reinstall them if they have. And yet Joe Public does not know enough to think to ask, "but why are those files getting corrupted in the first place?"
I'm sick of it, quite frankly. Why are they so afraid of just fixing the underlying causes of these problems? I'm a software developer for Windows, and my machine crashes on average around 1 to 3 times a day (and NO this is not faulty hardware or buggy drivers - this average has been about the same for at least 5 totally different computers I've worked on over the years.) I am so sick of the crashes. I am so sick of spending hours and days finding bugs that turn out to be some basic design flaw in Windows (one recent example, my software just kept totally locking up the machine, as it turned out I had deadlock involving a DirectX surface lock and a sockets "sendto" - both of these seem to grab the monstrous design flaw known as the "Win16mutex" - a single global mutex that can squelch the operating system itself). Don't even get me started on the days and weeks spent trying to figure out the screwed up Microsoft API's, that don't work properly, or where the documentation is just plaing wrong, or are badly designed. Some days I really just feel like quitting my job and finding myself a job doing *nix programming. I love the work we do though, I don't want to do any other type of work (realtime 3d graphics simulators). In South Africa those jobs are almost non-existent.
Why Would I Pay $1000 For Windows... (Score:2)
No, I didn't warez it. I won it at the Microsoft RoadShow, just for attending. I like Winodws 2000, but I would never pay $1000 for a workstation version. As far as Windows ME goes, I think the Windows team went a little too egotistical with that one (get it?!?! Okay, there's the corny nerd humor of the day). Considering that the DOS boot disk is dead, and that every current version of Windows isn't just a GUI overlay for DOS now, the Windows sector might be doomed to repeat the mistakes of other "innovators."
On a slightly offtopic note, I managed to execute seven windows of Quake3. It took up a whopping 1200780 kilobytes (yes, nearly 1.2 GIGAbytes) of memory (320 MB of that being physical). So THAT will be the absolute limit of my system. Stuff like that is nice to know.
Stupid Paper (Score:2)
People have already stoped buying their bloatware. Sales of Win2k are dismal, because of the OS's internal problems and high costs. If you have not noticed MS prides itself on conducting "business as usual (TM)" regardless of what the federal govenment has to say. Don't forget that the OS on it's own is next to useless, you have to buy hundreds of dollars of CD's to get any real functionality out of the damn thing.
Without breakup, we might really see a $1,000 OS as MS integrates the entire freaking Office and Visual Nightmare Suite to make it competitive with free software. Sorry, that is just not competive.
The path of least resistance is flowing away from them. Grandma? Hell, I don't know what goes on inside an MS machine and I never will. It's easier for me to set up any of the Linux distros and I can learn everything if I want.
Re:Company Info (Score:2)
I'd hate to typeset stuff with Quark (in fact, I have had to, and I did hate it) but I don't think that you could do nearly as much compositing with TeX as you can with Quark even if you were really proficient with it.
Re:Iomega do NOT charge for support (Score:2)
How do I know so much about how Iomega sucks? I bought their stock. I recommend you don't do the same.
Re:He forgets (Score:2)
Really? I've had it crash a few times, and locked the GUI a couple of times (although I was able to telnet in and kill the hung process). And of course Classic blows up every now and then.
It's definitely very stable overall, though. My biggest complaint is that the user interface sucks ass. It's not very well thought out, and goes against years of user interface research.
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Re:He forgets (Score:2)
Would you call that working around the problem, or fixing the problem?
The problem was, Internet Explorer was corrupt, and wasn't displaying pages. The solution was to repair it; it's no longer corrupt.
The deeper problem is, Windows sucks ass. For this, there is no fix. No, switching to another OS is not an option I can suggest to a customer. Is Microsoft aware of the problem? Sure, that's why they put the Repair feature in there.
Don't assume that every problem has a real solution. In the world of Windows, that's simply not the case. And the people who call in with problems are usually stuck in the world of Windows.
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Re:Your point? (Score:2)
Currently, my brother's computer is sitting in NJ, a useless doorstop. Why? I can't tell, but whatever is wrong with it, he can't fix it. We think a virus may have eaten his hard drive, but we aren't sure. (He's had virus/trojan problems in the past... because of Email attachments his equally clueless friends have sent to him.)
Actually, my brother currently resents his Windows PC, and wishes he had bought a Mac, which is more popular in his business anyway. He's called me for technical support a few time, and I tried to give him basic advice, such as trying to get in in safe mode and remove recent programs. I also tried the old standby, "Have you tried reinstalling Windows from scratch?" but you know, even though he tried is, he isn't equipped to do it. I helped him add a bunch of new hardware to his computer, such as a DVD ROM drive, and I don't think he will be capable of getting all the various drivers he needs re-installed, even if he hasn't lost the disks in his move.
So, right now my brother's $1,800 PC is just sitting there, useless. I suggested he take it somewhere to get it fixed, but he's kind of cash-poor right now being an unpaid intern.
Is this a slam at Windows? Not exactly, though I do hate Micros~1 like poison. No, rather it is the point that, "the clueless PC user who can't even manage to do simple tasks in DOS probably shouldn't have a PC anyway." Really, do you honesly think a Joe or a Grandma can really manage something as complex as a PC? Especially if he or she is going to install new hardware or software without some kind of technical support?
If my brother had one of those Internet appliances, a simple wordprocessor or electric typewriter, and a game console, he'd be in much better shape.
PC's are for people who can run them, know someone who can run them, or afford to pay someone to run them. Most people fall into one of these three catagories. Since I accept that a PC is too complex for a clueless user to run without support, it doesn't really matter what OS it runs.
Is this for Microsoft or against it? (Score:2)
On one hand you have the Microsoft extremists, who vouch that $1,000 versions of Windows would cripple Microsoft's already breaking-at-the seams-company, although it would be worthwhile; on the other hand you have Linux and open source advocates saying that noone would pay $1,000 for Windows anyway, and it isn't worth that much.
It seems like a judge ruling for both sides.
current cost of Windows (Score:4)
Just two points:
Anyone who has been using Windows since version 3.1 (the earliest version at which the product was anything more than a joke) then they have, by now, paid between $250 and $500 for the product, if they have been upgrading faithfully. If they made the jump to Windows NT they are probably verging on that magical $1000 mark by now, if they have not already surpassed it.
On top of the outright cost, we should probably be counting the costs factored into bundled hardware sales and third party software development, which I couldn't even begin to compute here. I'll just say that I suspect that costs to consumers have been increased, rather than lowered, by the existance of the Microsoft monopoly.
If Microsoft has anything to say about the matter, every Windows user will be forced to pay an annual fee for the privilage. I don't know what the actual fee is likely to be, but I suspect that it would rapidly accumulate into a sizable chunk of change.
It is exactly the monopoly power that Microsoft wields that will allow them to institute this new pricing scheme.
Join ACT and subvert it. (Score:2)
What a sad, pathetic special interest group. Of course, no matter how completely asinine their mission statement [actonline.org] sounds, they have the money to shove whatever they see fit down Washington's throat.
What happens if we were to all join [actonline.org] up and subvert it from the inside? C'mon everybody, join and start e-mailing them your input. As a concerned member, they have to listen to you ;)
Microsoft pricing (Score:4)
Microsoft sells their OS for less than they could get for it given their monopoly. Most of the profit comes from the applications. With a breakup, the OS company would have to make money from just the OS, not the applications, and they'd have a monopoly on Windows, so they might raise the price.
That's not a totally stupid claim. That's what might happen for the first few years after a breakup, until the market share of Windows declined. On the other hand, the guy doesn't mention that Microsoft has about 3x the return on investment of the rest of the desktop software industry.
He also makes the point that Microsoft's standardization of APIs does have some value. Remember when apps had to have printer drivers? The UNIX community had a terrible time standardizing; POSIX is pretty basic (no GUI) and there's still some Berkeley/AT&T incompatibility. On the other hand, once you've ported to a variant of UNIX, you usually don't have to update as often as you do with Windows. (Ask anybody who writes to Direct-X.)
It's a very biased article, but not totally dumb.
Re:Are you nucking futz?!!! (Score:2)
Umm. Ok.. Explain Oracle / Sybase then. If you don't pay your anual licensing fee, you database doesn't work anymore.. period. Thankfully they provide data-dumps (in csv's / tsv's).
The key is that if you can extract your data into another format, then you, as the customer, can freely migrate from platform to platform if you don't like the functionality / services of an existing supplier.
In things like Quicken (MS Money), Word, etc, it might be hard to completely dump / restore your data into newer formats (csv's, and RTF may not be completely reliable for this).
That said, an OS is arguably much harder to lease. The average user does not have the resources for which to migrate all of their information from one platform to another.. They don't have ethernet, nor tape backup nor multiple partitions nor most importantly, the know-how.
Are we going to give Comp USA tons of business by sending lay people to have their OS swapped? Most likely the leasing structure would not work as for the home-user as it would for a business.
-Michael
Re:I'd *want* an annual fee (Score:2)
Well, in a purchase and forget model, the vendor has the responsibilty of looking flashy so people will make the initial purchase.. The concept of bug fixes is really just to avoid tarnishing their name (I don't think that the general public feels the same way we do about Windows.. Do they even know that there are alternatives that are more stable?). When MS pulls something like win98se which is just bug fixes (with a few "extras" for the showroom floor), they can get away with it. In a leasing structure, MS gains nothing by trying to sell you "se", since you pay the same monthly / annual rate. If MS really wanted to innovate, or make their development life easier (or their migration to NT), then they'd do it, and offer the new version of windows, just like a new version of AIM or ICQ.
In fact, you remove the incentive for them to provide flash and feature-bloat. Most likely, their strategy would have to shift from sell this box with as much marketing hype as possible, to sell a basic service, and charge for additional features. They could treat features as layers of the cake. To get all the really cool features, you'd have to pay the most money. But then a poor college student wouldn't have to spend as much as a yuppee middle class or tech-head who values this stuff more.
In another posting, I suggested the problems associated with home-users switching to other OS's, so I doubt that MS would fear people terminating their licenses in favor of alternatives.
But look at this side of the coin. If MS actually offered a minimal cost version of their OS with no bells and whistles (leave it to them to take out the damn calculator), then it opens up a new market of competition for OS services again. If a competitor could offer the same services for less overall cost than the next higher version of Windows, or more importantly with a different bundle of software, then this would prevent MS from only putting the useful features in with useless things, just so they could charge more.
Of course, MS would probably consider this and continue their crushing of competition (under the familiar mantra of not wanting to confuse the market place with "too many" options).
-Michael
Whats' the cost of the BSOD? (Score:2)
What's the cost of deleting MSN Explorer spam?
What's the cost of understanding COM?
What's the cost of integrating with deliberately incompatible protocols?
etc., etc.
Jebus! The more I think about it, the more I think life would be so much cheaper without Microsoft.
the reality and loss of no windows. (Score:4)
Another thing, why does slashdot think that there are only two sides?(ms and linux) There are many sides and linux may not come out on top. There is a loyal following of BSD, the MAC is still strong despite everyones claims against it, and BeOS is a stable, powerfull OS that might get some development attention if MS were to get cut. QNX has a nice new OS out that is 100% posix compliant and has the beginnings of a nice GUI.
Microsoft(or one of the parts) would still have quite a bit of controll because of costly upgrades or change overs to other operating systems and data transfers. They would be in need just for compatibiliy with existing data files.
observation: what will happen next? (Score:2)
1. Microsoft product(s) for sale, or use.
2. Microsoft product functions per product.
3. Microsoft pricing.
4. Microsoft ease of use.
5. Linux product(s) for sale, or use.
6. Linux product functions per product.
7. Linux pricing.
8. Linux ease of use.
Conclusion:
Lite analysis of items 1 and 5 shows convergence has occurred.
Average analysis of items 2, and 6 shows convergence will take at least three years to occur.
Casual analysis of items 3, and 7 shows that for Linux products that already exist, we are past convergence. It's cheaper to use Linux products than Microsoft products. Bottom liners are beginning to trade brand loyalty for cost savings.
Hard analysis of items 4, and 8 involves the human element. Not all humans are concerned with brand loyalty. But, all humans are concerned about learning curve requirements. Linux products are just beginning to address this issue. Microsoft appears to have answered this question before windows 98 was obtainable.
Possible suggestion:
1. Create a Benjamin Franklin list of Microsoft, and Linux products; both freeware, and non-freeware. What products does Microsoft have that Linux doesn't, and vise versa.
2. Go on further to identify the functionality of all these products. What functionalities does Microsoft have that Linux doesn't, and vise versa.
3. Start to fill in the gaps with an explication of what the differences are. And are the differences significant
Why all this non-sense?
Because Redmond Oregon has started to become like the city of Jericho. A place were things use to happen.
Windows Costing $1000 (Score:2)
Not going to happen. Currently it is possible to build a no-frills but usable computer for under $500. That number is also going down not up. Microsoft will simply not be able to compete in the marketplace if they offer their base OS for much more than their current prices (~$100). The market simply will not spend twice their computers hardware cost for basic software. It is not going to happen. People from this market are already looking seriously at linux because of the money it will allow them to shave off their bottom lines.
BTW We still have two windows kernels out there, 9x and NT. Microsoft has been claiming that they will fold these together in the future since the release of Win95. Why aren't they? Money. M$ can make lots more by selling an unstable cheap OS (9x) and a stable expensive "server" OS (NT). A large part of the NT market is people who simply want a stable 95. No one would buy NT if the 9x kernel became stable by server standards. Thats ~$200 times the larger number of NT users who would downgrade.
This guy is so clueless... (Score:2)
He attempts to apply classical econimic rules in a field where they simply don't apply. And he doesn't realize why they don't apply. Classical economic rules apply very well to things like card, hammers, television, and such, because people know about these things. They might not be experts, but they know enough to spot obvious lies. People don't know about computers. This is how Microsoft has managed to make its way to the top; it decieves consumers with various techniques (their favorite being what we call FUD, which there is plenty of in this piece as well).
Honestly, I don't see the reasoning behind this at all. It talks a good game, yes. Lots of overpretentious stuff aimed at confusing people. But if you wade through it and look at the wording and the terminology, you'll find that there's absolutely no substance whatsoever.
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$1000 on Windows? Old news. (Score:3)
(rounded to the nearest $10 increment)
So I've laid out $810 already (before sales tax) on Windows, which has never even been my primary operating system. Next time I have to upgrade my Windows install to stay current so that I can exchange files with "The Outside World" I will probably exceed $1000 if sales tax is considered.
Amount spent on Linux over the years? $50.00 for ten boxes of blank floppies that I used to hold downloaded Slackware versions 2.x and 3.x until it went CD/Zip, and after that nothing because I've been downloading my distro CD contents on the net to the same 640MB MO disk over and over again now for several years.
Amount spent on MacOS over the years for my Mac machines? $0.00 -- Apple has always had MacOS (though a slightly out-of-date version) available on-line at their ftp site.
Only Microsoft will still happily sell you a decade-old version of their operating system for full retail price.
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2)
Hawks
"Developers are the redheaded bastard step children of the computer world",
Re:$1700 for a computer (Score:2)
If you built your system with an Iomega Zip drive and called Iomega for tech support, they charge you $14.95 per incident even as a home user. The tech guys won't even talk to you until they get a credit card number from you, although they don't charge if it turns out to be a hardware problem. Many other component manufacturers are the same, but you should feel lucky if you get a plan like Iomega's -- a lot of smaller merchants won't give you tech support at all, unless you call Taiwan and speak Chinese.
I've been going through a nightmare trying to get a Toshiba CD-ROM to spin up on a Promise controller attached to an Asus motherboard. There's no single point of accountability, and I've wound up buying a new CD-ROM and controller card only to find that they don't solve the problem. Usenet discussions and chat rooms have proven useless. Buying from a company like Dell or Compaq gives the end-user the convenience of one central point for support.
Lotus on the desktop (Score:2)
Lotus hasn't been a major player in the desktop applications market for quite a while, in any case.
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Re:current cost of Windows (Score:3)
I'd have to disagree.. There's supply and demand to deal with. If they offer a new version of windows, they have to convince people to purchase the "upgrade". They have to consider how much people will pay for it. The situation is similar with OEMs. If the newer version is much more expensive than an older, why would a person exclusively sell it? During transition periods, you can usually find the option to choose which OS you want from retailers.
MS is bound by supply and demand just as much as anyone else. Even monopolies are confined by it.
The Justice department concluded that MS _was_ in fact charging more for their OS than they could have due to competative supply and demand (though I suspect that it was well within intelligence for a Monopolistic economist).
The reason the price is so low is most likely to proliferate the newest versions, so that they can continue to squash the competition (the real threat). Take Netscape for example. They needed to squash them, so they needed to make sure that _everyone_ had IE. Best way to do it was to integrate into the OS. How do you get people to get that OS (since not everyone uses AutoUpdate), provide a new OS as a reasonable price. I'm sure it's the exact same thing for media players in win-me. I think MS also sees a threat from the iMac crowd. For the first time Apple is viable for the budget PC. So MS wanted to offer the exact same services as the iMac, so as to remove Apple from that exclusive Niche.
The _reason_ MS can get away with marginally profitable pricing schemes for the OS is because once their platform is secured, they can feature bloat their office products and super-charge for them.. Because Office is so expensive, it wouldn't be too painful to migrate to another office suite. But if people perceived that MS Office fullfilled all of their needs, then they might be more likely to stay with MS. MS has a solumn duty to fullfill all our needs (I'm still waiting for MS Pr0n), so this means making sure that they squash competition.. And this means giving as much away for free as possible. (Just read the Justice findings on their internal memos for IE).
I agree with you that after being broken up, their prices will rise.. But if they stick with the bloat-ware, single product, then theyr'e going to go under.. If they charge $1,000 for a product, then they'll get a hell of a lot less sales. Their only alternative would be to offer a cheaper version with less "crap". Their incentive to provide everything for free will go away, and we'll start to see comptition with the feature-ware once again. Netscape _might_ become a contender again, RealPlayer might not get squashed (if this happens in a timely manner), Symantec might be able to step up admin utils again. And most definately, Office competitors will spring back to life.
Office will most likely come down in price, while Windows will have to segment their products (though overall windows will be more expensive).
The sum total of all MS products will probably be $1,000, but the key will be that we'll have the opportunity to purchase the items seperately, and thus have choices (once again) about who we want to spend that $1,000 on.
-Michael
Re:He forgets (Score:2)
If OS X were $999, and Windows $1000, People would still buy OS X, because it rocks baby!
Soylent Green is people!
Well it's already up to $380.66 last I looked... (Score:5)
Someone selling Windows 1.0 on Ebay [ebay.com]
This is Nonsense: Counterexamples Abound (Score:3)
After all, Mac OS 7, 8, 9 and X are all available for substantially less than $1K. And, of course, there is also BeOS, et al. Put simply, if all that the Baby Bills could offer was a $1K Windows, they would all be quickly extinct, and Apple would be the next Microsoft.
What is more, if Apple decided to try to take a monopoly rake, it would then in turn have to face free software as well as anything else the flow of capital to a free market would bear.
All that is required is a free and fair market for OSes -- the rest, particularly the price, will take care of itself.
Re:Too late now (Score:4)
What's most important about this case, however, is how few people outside of the whiny geek contingent actually care about the issue. In the poll mentioned earlier, a sizeable number of people responding to the poll were undecided. Most people who use Microsoft products are sometimes annoyed by the crashing and the cost of upgrading systems, but these are the same people who have used AOL for three years despite all of its technical problems. (The reasons for both cases: "everyone uses it, so there can't be something better" and "I already know how to use this, and I don't want to learn something new.")
In fact, according to the Gallup poll once again, the trend is increasing [gallup.com] in favor of Microsoft. Try to convert a Microsoft lifer to Linux. The second he/she gets a link to a Windows Media Player or QuickTime movie, a cute EXE attachment like a video greeting card, or a Microsoft Office document for StarOffice to slowly beat to death, you'll have some 'splaining to do.
Say the word Microsoft, watch IQs plummet (Score:5)
All up and down the thread i see "Ha! Do that and nobody will buy it!"
--okay, pay attention now, this is the important bit--
That's The Freaking Point!
The whole idea here is that breaking up MS is a bad idea because it would drive the price of MS products up, causing fewer people to buy them, hurting the tech market by alienating customers. Now, before you say, "Huh uh! They'll just use Linux!" remember Grandma May and Steve The Jock whos idea of bleeding edge technology is AOL on their iMac.
Linux isn't for everyone. Now, before you flame me to north dakota and back, i like linux. I'm using linux right now. But linux can be a real pain in the ass sometimes. Yes, you can install redhat 7 in 5 minutes without knowing much about your computer, but do you really think that Grandma wants to learn the directory structure, or that Joe will be awed by the power of the command line? No.. they want to plug the computer in (with as few wires as is possible), turn it on, and have a bright and cheery GUI with nice big buttons staring back at them.
Much as i hate it, idiots are the majority in the modern world. When you think about things like the effects of an MS breakup on the market, you have to remember that the reason MS has a monopoly is that there are enough idiots out there to have put them there.
Dreamweaver
John Dvorak posts to Slashdot! (Score:3)
;-)