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Microsoft United States

DoJ Extends Microsoft Oversight for Two Years 118

Posted by samzenpus from the problem-solved dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The US Department of Justice has extended its anti-trust oversight of Microsoft by two years. This only applies to the requirement that Microsoft make protocol documentation available to competitors, though. All of the other requirements have expired, and Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly did not give the states complaining the full five years of oversight they requested. Still, this should prove useful given that one of Microsoft's new tricks is to use OOXML extensions to tie businesses to Sharepoint."
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DoJ Extends Microsoft Oversight for Two Years More

DoJ Extends Microsoft Oversight for Two Years

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  • Toothless and Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ozmanjusri ( 601766 ) <aussie_bob@ho[ ]il.com ['tma' in gap]> on Wednesday January 30, 2008 @10:04PM (#22242296) Journal
    What's the point? The DoJ has achieved less real change in the past decade than the EU has achieved in past two years.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by infonography ( 566403 )

      What's the point? The DoJ has achieved less real change in the past decade than the EU has achieved in past two years.
      No, the economy and a really terrible flagship product (Vista) have castrated them already. Linux in spite of it's Fanboys has really started to take root as an option.

      Remember that most of the people currently buying computers these days don't know what the black stuff on Bill Gates' Icon is about.

      • The Geek in Fantasyland (Score:4, Informative)

        by westlake ( 615356 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @03:30AM (#22243968)
        No, the economy and a really terrible flagship product (Vista) have castrated them already. Linux in spite of it's Fanboys has really started to take root as an option.

        Microsoft has posted first and second quarterly results for fiscal year 2008 that that have been nothing less than spectacular. It is debt free, paying dividends, and holds $20 billion or so in cash.

        Interestingly, since Windows Vista became generally available one year ago, Microsoft's client business has grown more than 20% and sales of Windows Vista have now surpassed 100 million licenses. Microsoft reports record second quarter results [mcsolutions.co.uk]

        If this is castration, then let's give the eunuchs their due:

        Vista is the only client OS to show significant growth in years. OS Platform Stats [w3schools.com]

        You can argue all you like about the specifics of the w3Schools stats but you are going to have a much harder time explaining away the long term trends exposed there.

        • Uh.. it's pretty easy to grow significantly from 0% when your creator uses their monopoly powers to make it the *only* Windows option in a lot of cases. Vista adoption is piss-poor compared to all the hype that has been surrounding Longhorn for the last few years (even I thought that maybe Microsoft had got their act together, but the fact that even the Microsoft pandering public doesn't like it has given me back a little of my faith in human kind). If it were a choice between XP and Vista then only the pos

        • Re:The Geek in Fantasyland (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Divebus ( 860563 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @05:27AM (#22244486)

          Interestingly, since Windows Vista became generally available one year ago, Microsoft's client business has grown more than 20% and sales of Windows Vista have now surpassed 100 million licenses.
          Fishy math, there. Apple has jumped several percentage points in that same year, and some Major PC vendors are now shipping Linux machines in broad daylight. I know more people running Leopard than Vista and they only sold a few million of those so far. Where's the Vista? Are they counting all the machines returned to the vendor or reverted to XP? Something funny going on here.
          • Exactly, the company that I work for buys Dell workstations and Lenovo laptops. Every single one of them comes with a Vista license sticker, and we immediately image the machine with XP.

            There's a couple hundred of those licenses right there. I'm sure we're not the only Fortune 100 business doing this, either.
        • In replying to you I am risking having a chair thrown at me but here goes;

          Microsoft has posted first and second quarterly results for fiscal year 2008 that that have been nothing less than spectacular. It is debt free, paying dividends, and holds $20 billion or so in cash.

          Interestingly, since Windows Vista became generally available one year ago, Microsoft's client business has grown more than 20% and sales of Windows Vista have now surpassed 100 million licenses.

          Down from $60.6 Billion in 2004, my what a profitability surge. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/25/1458251 [slashdot.org]

          Microsoft reports record second quarter results [mcsolutions.co.uk]

          If this is castration, then let's give the eunuchs their due:

          Like Eunuchs or in the case UNIX (and the little brother Linux) the price of the OS is NOTHING. They get their income from the support systems around the OS, SUN has it's Hardware and support, Linux (all forms) has a good support and lots of sales of books by that O'Reilly dude (Technical books one NOT the idiot blowha

    • What's the point? The DoJ has achieved less real change in the past decade than the EU has achieved in past two years.

      I don't understand. What is the purpose of the consent decree? Is it to enable other companies to compete, or is it to reduce Microsoft's market share by any means necessary?

      The reason I ask: your statement (requesting 'real change') reminds me of what Neelie Koroes (EU judge) said when MS threw in the towel in Europe: "You can't draw a line and say exactly 50 (percent) is correct, but a significant drop in market share is what we would like to see"

      Both statements don't seem to make sense. If the EU or the

      • I genuinely don't believe you can effective competition in a free/regulated capitalist market unless there are a large number of players. Large to me means 5-10. My belief is that economic policy and regulation should be geared around maximising the number of competitors in a give market.

        This is an issue entirely separate from monopolies abusing their supremacy in one market to gain undeserved share in another market, however the latter could not occur if the markets were regulated as described in the previ

  • I dunno... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by greenguy ( 162630 )
    I consider anyone still using Microsoft, and OOXML in particular, to be making a major oversight.

    Of course, among people I know, that's almost as many now as it ever was. *Sigh...*

    • Re:I dunno... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by timmarhy ( 659436 ) on Wednesday January 30, 2008 @10:26PM (#22242436)
      Microsoft make lots of very good products, it's not fair to bag them on -everything-

      sql server is a great product, and is certainly better then everything else in the opensource world aside from postgresql (i've used both extensively) and even then sql server trumps pg in many areas. like wise with access, say what you will about it but i don't see any OSS project that's even close to it.

      many of the developer tools MS puts out are top notch as well, something OSS is still 10 years behind on - easy to use gui development, and i say that as someone who programmed in wxpython for 2 years solid on both windows and freebsd, and has since moved to a windows shop. no doubt there will be some out their who will equate this with VB programmers and the usual snobbery, but the truth is i can put together a windows apps many times faster and just as robust as anything currently out there int he linux world.

      for OSS to move forward, they need to drop the stupid ego trip and look at what MS do RIGHT, or OSS will always be the poor mans 2nd choice.

      • *ahem* Ubuntu

        quite possibly best OS distro out there, even among the likes of commercial offerings like OSX and WinXP. Sure each has its advantages in certain areas, but as a jack of all trades ubuntu can get it all done without much fuss. What it really comes down to is application support, if you are using software that absolutely requires any one OS in exclusion of all others, then you are screwing yourself for the future (this mostly applies to businesses however)
        • your only screwing yourself if you don't pick the right OS for your business needs, and right now that means windows and MS for most people.

          OSS stuff is often too highly specialised to be a good investment for lots of businesses as well, they need to know they get the support down the track. yes there are vendors like red hat, but have you looked at their prices? it makes windows look cheap.

          • Re:oblig Ubuntu reference (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Ajehals ( 947354 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @12:13AM (#22243120) Journal
            It depends what you are looking at.

            Many businesses, especially small to medium businesses have very minimal IT requirements, mail, web access and general administrative tasks. If you go the windows route that basic set up is quite expensive, prone to issues, inflexible and it will probably require more in the way of maintenance than a well configured FOSS based alternative. Many businesses have huge numbers of call centre seats that in effect need a web browser and possibly a very minimal agent application, with maybe one in 20 users requiring a spreadsheet application or a word-processor (Oh and they like to hot-seat), again, it doesn't have to be complex, and again its probably a better solution to use FOSS here too.

            The truth is that for most people a non MS OS would probably do, we can both list things that are non-trivial to achieve, or possibly even impossible (running certain applications), without Windows, which is all well and good, but it is true to say that there is a large base of companies who could live without windows at all or with a mixed environment.

            I'm not saying that FOSS is only suitable for small organisations, because that is not true, there is some extremely capable stuff out there, I would certainly say that there is an awful lot that is possible using FOSS that is either impossible with Windows, or prohibitively expensive, the problem as always is the fact that most businesses are entrenched in one technology or another and would find it extremely difficult to get out of it.

            Anyway, this posted at a silly time in the morning, and I'm tired so excuse any rambling / grammatical errors or typo's.

            Cheers.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by filbranden ( 1168407 )

            your only screwing yourself if you don't pick the right OS for your business needs, and right now that means windows and MS for most people.

            Your argument is completely flawed. You start saying that you have to pick the right OS for your business needs, and then you say that for most people it is Microsoft, in a way to imply that everyone should go with Microsoft since it's good for most so it will be good for you? It doesn't make sense. You say: 1) You should pick what is good for you; 2) Most people pick this, so you should pick it too.

            The problem today is that Microsoft has a monopoly for so long that people start thinking that their way

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by timmarhy ( 659436 )
              I think you missed the entire point, please reread what i said without the rabid anti-ms bias and you'll see i said 1. pick the best tool for the job and 2. most people pick MS for this reason, it's simply what they need to run their business. don't hate me because i'm right k?

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by jimicus ( 737525 )
                2 does not necessarily follow on from 1.

                Lots of people pick MS without really evaluating whether or not there are any alternatives which may suit them better. Furthermore, a lot of small businesses get their IT supplied by the local chap down the road who happens to know a bit about computers - and 9 times out of 10, what that means is he'll install Windows SBS because it's what he knows.
                • Can you really blame Microsoft for people not taking the time to research their choices? Let's be honest, the fact that people don't bother evaluating would suggest either:-

                  A) they don't know of alternatives, or
                  B) they're happy with what they have right now.

                  Given the rise of knowledge of Linux's existence and yet the lack of progress with gaining marketshare from Microsoft, it grows more and more likely that it's B.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by jimicus ( 737525 )
                    Of course I can't. But I wasn't.

                    Smaller businesses are happy with what they have right now - probably because quite honestly, the level of functionality SBS gives you for the money is actually pretty damn good. I defy anyone to build a Linux-based solution with the same level of functionality for less cost when the cost of their time is taken into account.

                    The things you'll have trouble with are:

                    - Exchange - there's no Free equivalent which integrates as sweetly with Outlook and a web based client
                • A lot of companies pick microsoft to work with other companies that are already on/using microsoft. have you ever tried asking a company that is paying you millions to send the files over in this format? IF you are getting paid, you usually conform to the one paying you. If you don't they have the option of going else where. You can alway go a step further by doing what they want and also give them other options. Same result different ways. It is more work, but the people paying should like it. They get exa

        • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

          by CannonballHead ( 842625 )

          I've known two computer science majors out of about the ten at my school to have major problems getting Ubuntu (and Fedora for that matter) installed on their laptops. Either sound wasn't working, or wireless card, or the monitor, or in one case it wouldn't format/partition the hard drive correctly.

          Frankly, I love Linux. I took Windows XP off my laptop and am doing a VirtualBox OSE virtual machine with XP installed and can even run Sibelius 5.1 [sibelius.com] on it. No 3D support is detrimental, but I have my deskto

      • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I've used a lot of MS products, and I've never, ever thought that any of them were the best in their field.
        I really really hope you were paid to make that post.

        • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

          by timmarhy ( 659436 )
          For a start there's no such thing as "best" there's only "most apropriate", and please post examples of whats wrong with sql server, visual studio and .net? with your vast experience please enlighten me with all the problems you've come across.

          i'd also like to point out that 2 of the top 5 sites on netcraft are windows os http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html [netcraft.com]

          what do you /. nerds alwasy say? "i'll believe it when netcraft confirms it"?

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by MttJocy ( 873799 )
            Sure, and the same page lists the other 3 in the top 5 as being a BSD derivative, along with every other system in the top 19 (bar one unknown) with MS having it's next entry at 22. Looking at a wider portion of the dataset shows that those particular two systems are more exceptions than rules, compared to other systems on alternative operating systems.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by GaryPatterson ( 852699 )
        I like SQL Server, and have developed extensively for it, but this statement "certainly better then everything else in the opensource" is wrong because it infers SQL Server is an open sourced product. If you're going to compare am expensive DBMS to a free one, you need to account for the free one being free to install with a $0 per user cost. SQL Server is over-used in business today, with managers buying it for small projects where it's not warranted.

        SQL Server is better for some applications than many ope

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Shados ( 741919 )
          You do realise that for small installations and small projects, SQL Server is free, yes?
          • I do now!

            Well, I've only used it in businesses where some IT guy adds a cost to the project.

            Would the free licence extend to (say) a small set of 5-10 users in a business? With DTS packages, schedules, and all the nice bits?

            • Re:I dunno... (Score:4, Informative)

              by Shados ( 741919 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @12:27AM (#22243206)
              Unlimited users, but its a bit limited on how much hardware and RAM you can throw at it. Also limited to 4 gigs in size. Reporting Services is in, DTS (Which, as of SQL Server 2005, has been remade from scratch into the vastly superior SSIS) is NOT in (and that makes me very, very sad, since SSIS is my favorite ETL tool).

              I'm not sure about the scheduling and stuff, but quite a bit of these features are there. The development tools for it are also free (they're part of a free version of Visual Studio). No Analysis Service and OLAP cubes either.

              It is definately not for all scenarios, but considering the ease of development, it serves a lot of purposes. I still push the open source offering when we need an enterprise-class solution and the customer's being cheap though :) Postgres has OK dev tools, and onces its hidden behind an ORM like Hibernate or LLBLGEN, it all looks the same, aside for the business intelligence bits.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Shados ( 741919 )
              http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/features/compare-features.mspx [microsoft.com]

              There. It has the service broker, doesn't have data driven notification... One thing thats nice, is that it can deal with "on the fly" attaching of database files...so you can use SQL Server databases a bit like you'd be using MS Access databases, or (I beleive, I've never used it) SQLite. Ship the application with the database file, and it will use it like (but not quite) it was an embedded database... Thats something the full version of S

      • Re:I dunno... (Score:5, Informative)

        by filbranden ( 1168407 ) on Thursday January 31, 2008 @12:16AM (#22243134)

        For OSS to move forward, they need to drop the stupid ego trip and look at what MS do RIGHT, or OSS will always be the poor mans 2nd choice.

        On the contrary.

        There are misguided FOSS attempts on going after what Microsoft is doing, but overall all they achieve is a loss of time for everyone. Why lose time replicating crappy technology? In this bag, I include, for instance, Mono and Moonlight. And, of course, the efforts on implementing MSOOXML, by Gnome, for instance. MSOOXML should be seen as a deprecated legacy format, for which only a half-assed converter should be created.

        Take Samba, for instance. It's a great piece of software! But for what? For implementing a proprietary file sharing protocol, that is so flawed that it has to be changed with every major version of Microsoft's OS, many times with incompatibilities with previous versions. I mean, of course Samba made viable the implementation of Linux on the enterprise, on Windows networks, and should be praised for that. But, overall, isn't it a waste for these very talented guys to lose all this time coding this crappy protocol, when they could in fact be putting their effort on something other than following what Microsoft is doing?

        Microsoft make lots of very good products, it's not fair to bag them on -everything-

        I don't agree. I don't know any Microsoft product that I could call "very good".

        The reason to "bag them" is not because of their products, but because of their business practics, which are not based on competing on merits, but on spreading FUD and locking in customers as much as they can. Just see ODF/MSOOXML and the OLPC/Classmate for two great examples of why Microsoft is not to be trusted.

        • Uhhh... not every OSS "company" is in it for pure good will and peace toward mankind. For that matter, Apple isn't either.

          I don't think everything Microsoft does is ethical, by a long shot, but hey, Starbucks isn't the nicest either.

          But that doesn't really matter. A LOT of people use Microsoft Office. You can't just suddenly introduce a new OSS standard and expect someone to suddenly drop MS Office entirely and move. That's why Open Office has some success - it is somewaht compatible with MS Office

        • I don't agree. I don't know any Microsoft product that I could call "very good".

          That's a bit harsh. Some products that spring to mind that are very good are IIS6 and SQL Server 2005. Pick an inherent flaw in either product that makes it suck compared to another. And before you jump the gun, remember neither will ever be made open-source nor "free" as such, so that'll be outside the scope of both. They were designed to be solid server products, and both have now a proven track-record in terms of security and

        • I don't agree. I don't know any Microsoft product that I could call "very good".

          Oh I don't know. Dungeon Siege 2 was very good IMO :D

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rtechie ( 244489 )

          Take Samba, for instance. It's a great piece of software! But for what? For implementing a proprietary file sharing protocol, that is so flawed that it has to be changed with every major version of Microsoft's OS, many times with incompatibilities with previous versions. ... But, overall, isn't it a waste for these very talented guys to lose all this time coding this crappy protocol, when they could in fact be putting their effort on something other than following what Microsoft is doing?

          So name the better protocol. Samba is big largely because NFS sucks hard. What else is out there? Netware?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pembo13 ( 770295 )

        Here's my list of Microsoft products that I like (and I have used _alot_ of their software)

        • Notepad
        • Calc
        • Wordpad
        • Remote Desktop
        • Control Panel

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ianare ( 1132971 )
          • notepad, wordpad - are you for real? Quite possibly the worst simple text editors. I suggest you try notepad++ [sourceforge.net] (open source, windows only)
          • Calc - After using the calculator included with gnome, I have a deep hatred for this POS. No copy/paste, no way to see waht operations were entered, less functionality.
          • remote desktop - Not bad, though a little slow, even on Gb ethernet. I still like SSH better.
          • control panel - I actually like this one, I find it easier to use than the KDE 3.x clusterfuck of options (ma

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mcrbids ( 148650 )
        sql server is a great product, and is certainly better then everything else in the opensource world aside from postgresql

        I would argue with that, since it depends on your requirements for "better".

        PostgreSQL is a high-quality database. I managed millions of dollars worth of data on Postgres. It runs fast with complex queries (11-table joins with millions of records on each) when lots of RAM is available. Better, it's free, takes about 10 minutes to install when you include its download time via yum on the f
        • so your saying you agree with me? because in that very sentence you quoted me on i said "better then anything ASIDE from postgresql".

          sql server has reporting services, to which postgresql has no answer, and frankly in my current position i shudder to think what OSS would have me using. i will certainly pay that managing licenses is a pain in the ass. i certainly miss that side of things when i was using freebsd/postgresql/python - definately headache free to manage. i'm not so sure about sqlite though. i u

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rbanffy ( 584143 )
        "Microsoft make lots of very good products, it's not fair to bag them on -everything-"

        "sql server is a great product, and is certainly better then everything else in the opensource world aside from postgresql"

        While I agree SQL Server is their best product, I don't quite agree it's better than anything open-source. There are a lot of other options besides PostgreSQL (which is great and I love it) that are as good as SQL Server that have the added bonus of not being limited to Windows and what Windows can run

      • Do you actually LIKE SQL Server and Access?

        I've developed with Oracle for years and then moved to a team of Microsoft drones some years ago. They loved MSSQL but I hated it with all my guts. After Oracle, developing with it was horrid. I begged to be moved away from the team but it took 2 years to years.

        I must agree developing stuff with MSVS is cool but only if you want to stay strictly in the M$ world. Microsoft did a great job to make all their tools completely incompatible with anything else.

        B


      • I noticed you did not compare SQL Server to Oracle....that's kind of telling isn't it. I mean it's really easy to compare a product developed by a multi-billion corporation versus a product developed by a group of developers and given away for free. Hmmm....SQL Server is a FAIR DBMS. Oracle is simply superior.

        And your *ahem* programming skills....please. Yeah that's why LAMP solutions are killing MS. I've programmed in Windows and in Unix/Linux. Microsoft programming tools are big and clunky and it take

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Locutus ( 9039 )
        I will agree that on the Windows platform, there are many many GUI builders for the non-programmer and manager types. And that is a problem for the GNU/Linux. So although real programmers don't need no stinking GUI builder and are far more efficient writing apps when they know the APIs, from the outside, it looks like the "polished" tools are not there.

        What is a shame is that VX-REXX has not been open sourced and ported to GNU/Linux. Just that one tool would be enough to quite 80% of those saying no good G

      • many of the developer tools MS puts out are top notch as well, something OSS is still 10 years behind on - easy to use gui development, and i say that as someone who programmed in wxpython for 2 years solid on both windows and freebsd, and has since moved to a windows shop. no doubt there will be some out their who will equate this with VB programmers and the usual snobbery, but the truth is i can put together a windows apps many times faster and just as robust as anything currently out there int he linux world.

        Agreed, Microsoft makes good development tools. And a powerful GUI designer helps if you need to create some dialogs fast.

        I think you missed some OSS solutions though, judging from your wx reference. Take a look at this Qt demo video [trolltech.com] (yay, no reading!), and compare it with the VS.Net solutions. There is a reason KDE has so many apps, Qt makes it possible to develop applications just as fast and customers drool over the API's. ;-)

  • In other news.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Viceroy Potatohead ( 954845 ) on Wednesday January 30, 2008 @10:15PM (#22242372) Homepage
    In a rare "double-whammy" decision, the DOJ has ordered Steve Ballmer and Darl MacBride to co-produce (and star in) a feature length film entitled "2 CEOs, 1 Cup"... MacBride couldn't be reached for comment, but Ballmer was heard saying: "No problem. Bill has been preparing me for this for years".

    Seriously, though. Why does the DOJ seem so toothless when it comes to corporations or the ultra-wealthy, yet act like right-stomping psychopaths for small players (to the point of waffling on definitions of torture, or weaseling around the constitution)? How could it be anything but corruption?
    • Because it is an American company and of course are totally ethical and obey laws just because they are not in *gasp* another country or so they think.

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Shouldn't that be: "2 CEOs, 1 Chair"?

    • Why does the DOJ seem so toothless when it comes to corporations or the ultra-wealthy, yet act like right-stomping psychopaths for small players (to the point of waffling on definitions of torture, or weaseling around the constitution)? How could it be anything but corruption?
      Since when does DOJ stand for Microsoft?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by pclminion ( 145572 )

      In a rare "double-whammy" decision, the DOJ has ordered Steve Ballmer and Darl MacBride to co-produce (and star in) a feature length film entitled "2 CEOs, 1 Cup"...

      For some reason I imagined these two men struggling valiantly for control of an athletic cup. What is wrong with me?

    • I'm inspired enough to install a second whammy bar on my Fender...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by S.O.B. ( 136083 )

      Seriously, though. Why does the DOJ seem so toothless when it comes to corporations or the ultra-wealthy, yet act like right-stomping psychopaths for small players (to the point of waffling on definitions of torture, or weaseling around the constitution)?


      Because there is a Republican president.
      • You should have said "because we have THIS republican president."
        • It might be even better to say "it's because of this administration." Bush may make the big talk and misuse his veto pen, but it really looks like Cheney and Addington call the shots in the executive branch (though I bet Addington is royally pissed at the current AG).

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday January 30, 2008 @10:23PM (#22242422)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • The are SOOO toothless.

      If they had any brains in those courts, they'd surely know that people (not just myself) endure the crap I am talking about in:

      http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=435574&cid=22242114 [slashdot.org]

      and in my journal:

      Wednesday January 30, @02:30PM

      But, I guess they are bought off, and all the other stuff we see and hear is just posturing and smoke and mirrors.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 0racle ( 667029 )

      Microsoft still holds a heavily dominant position in the O/S market and an equally dominant market position in the office applications market

      Did it ever cross your mind that perhaps the market chose to give MS this position? Office is a very good product, there really isn't anything as good. Windows is a good OS, people know how to use it. Their Server products work well. There might be a reason people keep buying it.

      One of those reasons is because alternatives pretty much suck. I'm in the position of try

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by 0racle ( 667029 )

          how many ways are there to install software?
          Ignoring 3rd party installers, MSI's.

          why is there still support for 16 bit apps
          Because some people still need it. Are you really holding up removing backwards compatibility as a good feature?
          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by 0racle ( 667029 )

              I have literally seen setup.exe that wrapped an MSI that wrapped a jar file that ran the installation

              From Microsoft?

              Apple did it.

              Actually, Apple did not. 68k -> PPC, PPC ran the fast majority of 68k code, as much as was possible. Classic -> OS X, PPC OS X included both a compatibility API and Classic itself. PPC -> Intel, Apple allows you to run PPC code with out any user interaction. Apple provided a transition period of 8 years to get off of classic apps. They had similarly long runs for all th

  • Sharepoint leverages OOXML? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RobBebop ( 947356 ) on Wednesday January 30, 2008 @10:43PM (#22242528) Homepage Journal

    one of Microsoft's new tricks is to use OOXML extensions to tie businesses to Sharepoint

    This is news to me. If this is true, it sounds like the Microsoft is making an attempt to entrench businesses with OOXML through there popular web-based collaboration software.

    A quick search on Google turns up Alfresco [alfresco.com] as a F/OSS alternative to Sharepoint. Can anybody comment on the quality and effectiveness of Alfresco, and mention if it is mature enough to be a viable (and recommendable) alternative to Sharepoint as an enterprise solution for collaboration within large businesses?

  • Incompetence? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PineHall ( 206441 ) on Wednesday January 30, 2008 @11:09PM (#22242686)
    Is it incompetence that caused Microsoft not to get the protocol specifications documented? If that is the case Microsoft is in big trouble. Or they are illegally going slow. Either way Microsoft should be in big trouble. I think the judge needs to wake up.
  • as a matter of fact, I would generally agree with all the claims that they strong arm the competition to win against better products in the marketplace. But, MS (and Bill Gates) in particular has been shilling for Democrats as of lately. He put Gore as his de facto choice of a successful politician in his retirement video. And he talked about the necessity to "contribute to society" by charity rather than by progress -- a traditional Democratic dogma. I don't want to argue politics per se here. I just
  • Making DX10 Vista only really is a crime. The software I use professionally barely runs on Vista (OpenGL), so unless I want to duel boot for games, I can't enjoy the eye candy of DX10 games. The DOJ oversight? Bet they havn't a clue about MS making their 3D API Vista only.
  • I think in the grand scheme of things, MS'es monopolistic practices are hardly anything to be concerned with. There is a lot more competition out there than you think. MS just has a better marketing machine to keep their motor running. While there is obvious concern on the part of the DoJ, they are doing just enough to keep the judge from getting too pissed. Usually in cases of monopolistic companies, resolutions take many years to resolve fully. The Bell phone company case took about 10 years to finalize.

  • Translated:

    The DOJ is going to sit back and watch Micro$oft ignore their rulings, expand the monopoly and break laws for yet another two more years.

    I'm inspired.
  • >This only applies to the requirement that Microsoft make protocol documentation available to competitors, though.
    >All of the other requirements have expired [SNIP]

    Quite the contrary. The protocol documentation requirements were already extended. She ordered that the rest of the requirements *NOT* expire.
  • > The US Department of Justice has extended its anti-trust oversight of Microsoft by two
    > years.

    No they didn't. US Federal District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly did.

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