Microsoft Linux
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What would happen if MS did the following. 1. Said "Lets do Linux" 2. Stop supporting all existing Windows software. 3. Created MS Linux 4. Created MS Office for Linux 5. Created Visual Studio for Linux If they did it better than everyone else and put Red Hat, Mandrake, etc out of business would it be unfair, Monoply? I agree that there business practices were/are questonable, but MS Office is the most expensive suite and still has the biggest market share.
The reasons I don't like Microsoft is: 1) They have questionable buisness practices. 2) They charge a who lot for their OSes, and all their software. I would have to say that their software is great though. I'd have to say that their products are of the highest quality -- they are extremely flexible and sometimes those automatic operations are nice (sometimes they are not, but they can usually be turned off). This is why I believe they are so successful -- and they can do it *QUICKLY*. (Take a look at IE -- despite all its' early problems, IE has been able to squash Netscape and become the browser standard. And they did that in a very short period of time.) I believe the most important reason why Microsoft is able to produce high quality software is b/c they have excellent programmers and an excellent software management system -- anyone who has read "Code Complete" or some of MS Press' similar books can see that they have an excellent system for building software. No, I have never worked for MS, but I have been involved in many other professionally build applications and programming interfaces -- and never have I seen a project get written so well so quick. Example: Look the number of people who have contributed world-wide to Linux (and Gnome and KDE) compared to the number of people who have contributed to Windows. Linux is just beginning to catch up with Windows, but still has a way to go. In WinXP, you can drag and drop files onto a CDRW drive and then just press burn -- no more need for programs like Nero (or Linux's XCdBurn (or whatever it is)) for simple burning. And despite what a lot of people think, MS has more projects than just Windows, Office, and Visual Studio -- I don't believe they only make good products because of the massive amounts of programmers. I believe most people would have to say that MS products are what they would ideally like to use. I believe that if anyone made an *honest* survey of companies that have converted to Linux / StarOffice / WordPerfect / .... the reason would be cost, not that they actually think MS products are crap. All that being said, I really would like to see other companies produce products capable of competing with MS products, then everyone could have cheaper software. Let's face reality, the reason MS products are expensive is because they have a *virtual* monopoly (not a real one). Anyway, back to the original question, if MS decided to do MS Linux, MS Office for Linux, and VS for Linux, I think that they would severly cripple R
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MS had some problems with AT&T with licensing. That is why they decided to create NT from scratch than use Xenix core. Actually, Gates said in an interview that AT&T does not know how to manage their intellectual property and has caused Unix not achieve its potential in the mas market. I think he was referring to a proposal, where MS wanted to build Windows on top of Xenix core like Mac OS X has a BSD core now. Thomas My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers
Yes you have brought back a few menories, I rember using Xenix in the 70's. But wasn't NT designed by the "team" that produced VMS, which IMHO has to the the worst O/S I have ever used!
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The reasons I don't like Microsoft is: 1) They have questionable buisness practices. 2) They charge a who lot for their OSes, and all their software. I would have to say that their software is great though. I'd have to say that their products are of the highest quality -- they are extremely flexible and sometimes those automatic operations are nice (sometimes they are not, but they can usually be turned off). This is why I believe they are so successful -- and they can do it *QUICKLY*. (Take a look at IE -- despite all its' early problems, IE has been able to squash Netscape and become the browser standard. And they did that in a very short period of time.) I believe the most important reason why Microsoft is able to produce high quality software is b/c they have excellent programmers and an excellent software management system -- anyone who has read "Code Complete" or some of MS Press' similar books can see that they have an excellent system for building software. No, I have never worked for MS, but I have been involved in many other professionally build applications and programming interfaces -- and never have I seen a project get written so well so quick. Example: Look the number of people who have contributed world-wide to Linux (and Gnome and KDE) compared to the number of people who have contributed to Windows. Linux is just beginning to catch up with Windows, but still has a way to go. In WinXP, you can drag and drop files onto a CDRW drive and then just press burn -- no more need for programs like Nero (or Linux's XCdBurn (or whatever it is)) for simple burning. And despite what a lot of people think, MS has more projects than just Windows, Office, and Visual Studio -- I don't believe they only make good products because of the massive amounts of programmers. I believe most people would have to say that MS products are what they would ideally like to use. I believe that if anyone made an *honest* survey of companies that have converted to Linux / StarOffice / WordPerfect / .... the reason would be cost, not that they actually think MS products are crap. All that being said, I really would like to see other companies produce products capable of competing with MS products, then everyone could have cheaper software. Let's face reality, the reason MS products are expensive is because they have a *virtual* monopoly (not a real one). Anyway, back to the original question, if MS decided to do MS Linux, MS Office for Linux, and VS for Linux, I think that they would severly cripple R
I also think MS products are top rate and Expensive. Remember when you could by Quattro Pro and Paradox fro $50.00 bucks each? Why didn't they grab market share? My gripe is that when I look at the software on my PC it is mostly all MS products. I tried OpenOffice it's pretty good but I have to use MS Office at work. So I switched back. I guess its like being left handed and always using a right handed mouse. It is easier to move from PC to PC if I don't resist. But I would really like to use a MS balanced computer. I have AutoCAD, Quicken and CodeWright. EVERYTHING else is a MS product X| but what to do? What are the alternatives? Jeff Patterson Programmers speak in Code. http://www.anti-dmca.org[^]
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Yes you have brought back a few menories, I rember using Xenix in the 70's. But wasn't NT designed by the "team" that produced VMS, which IMHO has to the the worst O/S I have ever used!
Actually, I do not know who designed NT. and have never used VMS either. :-D But, MS wanted to build Windows over Xenix core (if I remember it right). When people talk about Unix being very difficult to use, I tell them that the problem is not with Unix. It is with the people managing the Unix OSs. For them, it seems like user-friendliness is the last requirement. Explains why Windows had an easy time getting market share, and now holding on to it. IMO, they do a better job than others in putting together something that is easy to use. My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers
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Yes you have brought back a few menories, I rember using Xenix in the 70's. But wasn't NT designed by the "team" that produced VMS, which IMHO has to the the worst O/S I have ever used!
Ted Ferenc wrote: wasn't NT designed by the "team" that produced VMS, NT actually came more from the Prism project at Digital than VMS itself. Prism was a total new OS designed to supercede VMS. I think about 20 of the top guys were taken from Digital with Cutler to MS when Prism was canned. Originally NT was to supercede OS/2 but some business went wrong with IBM and MS made it supercede Windows by using the Winapi. So because of Prism and the Winapi, NT really inherits the attributes of two OSes. When I used VMS I never thought it was so bad. "beggars can't be choosers" Regardz Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
You are the intrepid one, always willing to leap into the fray! A serious character flaw, I might add, but entertaining. Said by Roger Wright about me.
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Ted Ferenc wrote: wasn't NT designed by the "team" that produced VMS, NT actually came more from the Prism project at Digital than VMS itself. Prism was a total new OS designed to supercede VMS. I think about 20 of the top guys were taken from Digital with Cutler to MS when Prism was canned. Originally NT was to supercede OS/2 but some business went wrong with IBM and MS made it supercede Windows by using the Winapi. So because of Prism and the Winapi, NT really inherits the attributes of two OSes. When I used VMS I never thought it was so bad. "beggars can't be choosers" Regardz Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
You are the intrepid one, always willing to leap into the fray! A serious character flaw, I might add, but entertaining. Said by Roger Wright about me.
There's nowt as queer as folk, as we say. But if we all had the same opinions life would be boring! My main gripe with VMS was that if your program went into a loop, it was virtually impossible to kill it on the system console, it also tended to slow down all the other users responces as well, this was on the smallest to the largest computers. But that was a few years back now. Ted
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Actually, I do not know who designed NT. and have never used VMS either. :-D But, MS wanted to build Windows over Xenix core (if I remember it right). When people talk about Unix being very difficult to use, I tell them that the problem is not with Unix. It is with the people managing the Unix OSs. For them, it seems like user-friendliness is the last requirement. Explains why Windows had an easy time getting market share, and now holding on to it. IMO, they do a better job than others in putting together something that is easy to use. My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers
Well when I was young(ish) before M$, CPM was FAR better than MSDOS, but as with most things we purchase we/upper management are swayed by adverts and what we percieve to be better, i.e. buy M$ get a free works package. As you say they put together something that is "easy" to install, and have the killer applications for it. But M$ have had a, successful, habit of only improving the software when a competitor started to become a threat, e.g. DRDOS and MSDOS 5. I would say XP is what 95 should have been. Now many times are you, as an expert, asked to sort out a simple problem on someones Windows PC? But as you say even a raw novice can easily get up and running.
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Well when I was young(ish) before M$, CPM was FAR better than MSDOS, but as with most things we purchase we/upper management are swayed by adverts and what we percieve to be better, i.e. buy M$ get a free works package. As you say they put together something that is "easy" to install, and have the killer applications for it. But M$ have had a, successful, habit of only improving the software when a competitor started to become a threat, e.g. DRDOS and MSDOS 5. I would say XP is what 95 should have been. Now many times are you, as an expert, asked to sort out a simple problem on someones Windows PC? But as you say even a raw novice can easily get up and running.
Ted Ferenc wrote: Now many times are you, as an expert, asked to sort out a simple problem on someones Windows PC? But as you say even a raw novice can easily get up and running. Compared to other systems, that they would not even try. That was the only point. The only other system would be Apple, but was/is expensive compared to geting a PC. My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers
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OldRob wrote: WallMart has obviously chosen to do so by avoiding MS. No matter how you add the numbers up, someone is losing money and it isn't WalMart. OldRob wrote: That has been true in the past, but may be becoming less so as Corporate IT groups struggle with cost control, and if the Home PC really becomes a commodity like TVs, etc. that could markedly change the picture... While PCs are largely a commodity, the Home PC market will not displace corporate sales for the forseeable future. The key difference between PCs and TVs is the relatively expensive after sales support required (in call support as well as warranty replacement. Heck, if my Dad plagued Gateway as much as he bugs his sons, he could drive the company bankrupt, single handed:)) What are the margins on TVs? I suspect they're higher, as a percentage of base cost, than PCs. (Save Macs, which enjoy huge margins, but dismal sales.) I wouldn't be suprised if WalMart quietly drops the low cost PC in the near future. (My local WalMarts don't even carry it.)
walmart is ging a Via 800 Mhz processor for the 199$ PC. Now, who wants to use that with an XP machine? No one is losing money on that. VIA makes processor, chip set, motherboard; and everything else in that - a 10 GB 5400 rpm drive, a 14" monitor and Linux. If it cost me 400 $, I would buy atleast a Celeron instead of that. Anyone could sell that config for 199$, but none of the major PC manufacturers are interested. IMO, people in US can afford 20$ a month to get a 700$ PC on credit. I bought a Dell Dimension 4550 - P4 2 GHz, 20 GB HDD, 15" flat panel, 512 MB Ram for 700 dollars. Thomas My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers
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Nope... because as nice as Linux is for the Geek, Mom and Pop would run screaming from it. Linux drives me nuts on a daily basis, and I'm in that Geek category. And from what I see in the LUGs I belong to, that's pretty much a universal situation for most Linux Geek users. Oh, and BTW, I don't have much of an opinion for Lycoris either. They are heading in the right direction, but currently it's not a distro I'd choose to use (and I buy a registered version of this distro). William E. Kempf
I did not even know that there was a ditribution called Lycoris, until I saw the Walmart ad. :-) I use Debian. Which distribution do you use? I have used Slackware years ago, and have installed RadHat once (but that was only for a test machine). Which distribution that you prefer and why? My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers
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walmart is ging a Via 800 Mhz processor for the 199$ PC. Now, who wants to use that with an XP machine? No one is losing money on that. VIA makes processor, chip set, motherboard; and everything else in that - a 10 GB 5400 rpm drive, a 14" monitor and Linux. If it cost me 400 $, I would buy atleast a Celeron instead of that. Anyone could sell that config for 199$, but none of the major PC manufacturers are interested. IMO, people in US can afford 20$ a month to get a 700$ PC on credit. I bought a Dell Dimension 4550 - P4 2 GHz, 20 GB HDD, 15" flat panel, 512 MB Ram for 700 dollars. Thomas My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers
I still question whether someone can build a PC for $199 AND have both them AND WalMart make money. (Even Playstation 2, Nintendos and X-Boxes don't make money at those prices.) I do agree with you though, that regardless of profit margin, why anyone would bother, especially given the prices Dell and Gateway offer. Even a poor student would want something capable of playing games.
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I also think MS products are top rate and Expensive. Remember when you could by Quattro Pro and Paradox fro $50.00 bucks each? Why didn't they grab market share? My gripe is that when I look at the software on my PC it is mostly all MS products. I tried OpenOffice it's pretty good but I have to use MS Office at work. So I switched back. I guess its like being left handed and always using a right handed mouse. It is easier to move from PC to PC if I don't resist. But I would really like to use a MS balanced computer. I have AutoCAD, Quicken and CodeWright. EVERYTHING else is a MS product X| but what to do? What are the alternatives? Jeff Patterson Programmers speak in Code. http://www.anti-dmca.org[^]
Jeff Patterson wrote: What are the alternatives? WordPerfect. I don't personally like it, but others swear by it and you can get it for cheap in the Corel Family Pack, or whatever it's called (which also includes Quattro Pro, which I detest.) The best theory for why Quattro Pro didn't gain significant market share when sold for $50 is that most people want to use at home what they use at work and Apple, Borland, Corel and WordPerfect ignored the corporate market (except for specific verticals, such as graphic design companies and law offices) until Microsoft had already pretty much grabbed it all. (While WordPerfect was using their pitiful sales team to get shelf space at Egghead, Microsoft was sending teams of sales and marketing people to the Forbes 1000 companies and negotiating site licenses.) (PS. Don't ask me to defend Microsoft's latest bulk license bullsh--t. Screw forcing Microsoft to bundle Java or Netscape, those are all sideshows. The good news is that the free market is working, companies are refusing to go along or switching to Corel, if even for a bluff. Microsoft has already changed the prices and structure once, expect them to change it again.)
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I still question whether someone can build a PC for $199 AND have both them AND WalMart make money. (Even Playstation 2, Nintendos and X-Boxes don't make money at those prices.) I do agree with you though, that regardless of profit margin, why anyone would bother, especially given the prices Dell and Gateway offer. Even a poor student would want something capable of playing games.
I am certain that VIA makes money (as they would on any of their OEM deals) and Walmart makes money (very little though). Now Lycoris will also make money. Who loses money, is decided by who is resposible for support? I saw a CNN article that said that eMachines sells 400,000 399$ PCs (Celeron) a year; and these guys are targetting that market. VIA would obviously be giving rock bottom prices, if someone ordered their integrated motherboard with processor, compared to Intel's price of a celeron. My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers
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I am certain that VIA makes money (as they would on any of their OEM deals) and Walmart makes money (very little though). Now Lycoris will also make money. Who loses money, is decided by who is resposible for support? I saw a CNN article that said that eMachines sells 400,000 399$ PCs (Celeron) a year; and these guys are targetting that market. VIA would obviously be giving rock bottom prices, if someone ordered their integrated motherboard with processor, compared to Intel's price of a celeron. My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers
I thought eMachines went bankrupt. I guess not. The following is apparently from the same CNN.com article (note that the monitor is not included! and the "aim to provide..." phrase defies logic) so maybe they do make a pittance, until someone makes a support call: The machines, manufactured by Microtel Computer Systems, aim to provide an experience similar to Windows by using operating systems based on the free Linux system. They support high-speed Internet (though the service itself is not included) and have a CD drive that can read music and data disks, but not record them. They also have relatively small hard disk drives of 10 gigabytes. There is no modem, floppy disk drive, or monitor, and the VIA Technologies microchip that is the brains of the machine may not be known to users familiar with Intel's Intel inside marketing campaign and Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices.
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I thought eMachines went bankrupt. I guess not. The following is apparently from the same CNN.com article (note that the monitor is not included! and the "aim to provide..." phrase defies logic) so maybe they do make a pittance, until someone makes a support call: The machines, manufactured by Microtel Computer Systems, aim to provide an experience similar to Windows by using operating systems based on the free Linux system. They support high-speed Internet (though the service itself is not included) and have a CD drive that can read music and data disks, but not record them. They also have relatively small hard disk drives of 10 gigabytes. There is no modem, floppy disk drive, or monitor, and the VIA Technologies microchip that is the brains of the machine may not be known to users familiar with Intel's Intel inside marketing campaign and Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices.
i guess it is generally a good idea to follow the lead of a company that went bankrupt :-D My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers
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I did not even know that there was a ditribution called Lycoris, until I saw the Walmart ad. :-) I use Debian. Which distribution do you use? I have used Slackware years ago, and have installed RadHat once (but that was only for a test machine). Which distribution that you prefer and why? My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers
I've tried Lycoris, RedHat and Mandrake. Of these, the only one that provides a package that feels like a complete OS, instead of just a bunch of free apps of questionable quality installed by what appears to be a simple batch script. RedHat is the worst with regards to having this polished finished. Lycoris isn't too bad on this front, though it's packaging scheme leaves a lot to be desired. RPMS in general suck. With RedHat you can make use of apt-rpm to help make RPM hell bearable, even though this isn't a directly supported packaging mechanism, since there's an apt-enabled RPM site for RedHat. Lycoris, however, doesn't even have this remedy. Mandrake, on the other hand, has urpmi which works very nicely for about 90% of the software you'll want to install. Further, Mandrake compiles things to the 586 architecture, while the others are still 386, and you can definately see a performance difference. I'm fairly happy with Mandrake as an "out of the box" distribution. Some day I'll want to play with Gentoo just for the raw power involved with a source based distribution system. But I don't have a machine powerful enough to put up with getting a base system installed (rumors of 3 days worth of work for machines like my 300 MhZ box), nor do I feel comfortable enough with configuring Linux systems yet. If someone actually got Gentoo to do a base install as simply as Mandrake does (should be very possible, even though it's a source based distribution, even if this means it's not quite as optimized) I'd probably switch immediately. But such a distro is even less appropriate for Mom and Pop. William E. Kempf