Post #194,403
2/13/05 6:19:06 AM
|
RIP MS?
[link|http://abcnews.go.com/Business/SiliconInsider/story?id=88655&page=1|http://abcnews.go.co...y?id=88655&page=1]
Great, healthy companies not only dominate the market, but share of mind. Look at Apple these days. But when was the last time you thought about Microsoft, except in frustration or anger? The company just announced a powerful new search engine, designed to take on Google \ufffd but did anybody notice? Meanwhile, open systems world \ufffd created largely in response to Microsoft's heavy-handed hegemony \ufffd is slowly carving away market share from Gates & Co.: Linux and Firefox hold the world's imagination these days, not Windows and Explorer. The only thing Microsoft seems busy at these days is patching and plugging holes.
Speaking of Gates: if you remember, he was supposed to be going back into the lab to recreate the old MS alchemy. But lately it seems \ufffd statesmanship being the final refuge of the successful entrepreneur \ufffd that he's been devoting more time to philanthropy than capitalism. And though Steve Ballmer is legendary for his sound and fury, these days his leadership seems to be signifying nothing.
Longhorn's Delayed Release
There are other clues as well. Microsoft has always had trouble with stand-alone applications, but in its core business it has been as relentless as the Borg. Now the company seems to have trouble executing even the one task that should take precedence over everything else: getting "Longhorn," its Windows replacement, to market. Longhorn is now two years late. That would be disastrous for a beloved product like the Macintosh, but for a product that is universally reviled as a necessary, but foul-tasting, medicine, this verges on criminal insanity. Or, more likely, organizational paralysis.
Does anyone out there love MSN? I doubt it; it seems to share AOL's fate of being disliked but not hated enough to change your e-mail account. And do college kids still dream of going to work at MS? Five years ago it was a source of pride to go to work for the Evil Empire \ufffd now, who cares?
-----
Yep, they've been sitting on their butts a bit long. I think they are starting to realize it. I have info that the IE team is being restaffed - apparently the falling numbers are beginning to worry the evil empire. I suspect its too late though.
"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein
"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
|
Post #194,408
2/13/05 8:40:03 AM
|
Um, their OS releases have almost always been late too.
I agree with his conclusion that MS is beyond its peak and in decline, but I don't think he presents very strong evidence.
Windows 3.0 was years late. Windows 3.1 was late.
Windows 4.0/95 was years late.
Windows NT was years late.
Windows XP SP2 was late.
Now Longhorn's late.
And we're still waiting for Cairo....
It's not just MS's applications that it has trouble getting out the door when originally promised.
But they are in decline. They have almost no presence in cellular phones or TV set-top boxes. They don't dominate on-line consumer and small-business financials over Quicken. MSN hasn't crushed AOL. MSNBC hasn't crushed CNN. XBox hasn't crushed Sony's PlayStation 2. The PDA market has tanked. Tablet PC has been a fiasco. The MediaCenter PC hasn't taken off. Apple dominates the on-line music business. Java is still very important. MS killed Passport recently. Etc.
Potential partners are very suspicious of MS. Who would trust them?
People who were investing in MS because the stock doubled every year left long ago. MS still has their monopoly profits from Office and Windows, for a while. Linux and free software are making a dent there. But what comes next for them? Where's their big growth market? They haven't found it yet. They'll keep throwing money around like it's going out of style, and they'll have some hits once in a while (mainly by buying successful products and companies from elsewhere). But it's hard to imagine them ever having a franchise like Windows again - in large part because they're a proven monopolist so they can't have things like per-processor contacts again.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
|
Post #194,413
2/13/05 9:23:27 AM
|
DOS 5.0 was late.
Remember the crapola that was DOS 4?
Peter
[link|http://www.ubuntulinux.org|Ubuntu Linux]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
|
Post #194,417
2/13/05 9:36:45 AM
|
But they blamed IBM for that. Always IBM's fault, you know.
|
Post #194,496
2/13/05 11:37:03 PM
|
Read the Innovator's Dilemma + Solution
Two good books, that give a lot of insight on the natural progression of technology companies.
Microsoft is on its way out of its current monopolies. They are in for a world of pain as the monopoly erodes.
It couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch.
Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
|
Post #194,520
2/14/05 8:56:00 AM
|
Hyperbole.
I'm the last one to defend MS. But that line you wrote: "I have info that the IE team is being restaffed - apparently the falling numbers are beginning to worry the evil empire." "Falling numbers" being a worry? Not really. What's Moz + Firefox's penetration? 4%, 5%? Contrast that with the still almost uncountable number of sites that "only work with IE".
Nobody at my house uses Winders. I use it at work (along with Linux), but this "they're on the verge of collapse" stuff is self-defeating at best. I wish it were not hyperbole, but it is. My read is that MSFT will be dominant until I retire (May, 2015) and at that point I won't give a tinker's damn.
bcnu,
Mikem
Eine Leute. Eine Welt. Ein F\ufffdhrer.
God Bless America.
|
Post #194,572
2/14/05 1:17:58 PM
|
Don't think so
"What's Moz + Firefox's penetration? 4%, 5%?"
Actually, its pushing 10 and growing. Plus, its the trend that's worrying. Left on its own it will accellerate. If it drops below 70% then I suspect its a tipping point and domination will never be reestablished.
"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein
"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
|
Post #194,573
2/14/05 1:25:23 PM
|
Got stats for that?
I'd heard the 5% figure, but without hard numbers I dunno.
I'd like to believe you.
Peter
[link|http://www.ubuntulinux.org|Ubuntu Linux]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
|
Post #194,578
2/14/05 1:41:01 PM
|
check these
[link|http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp|20% for Firefox in 2/05]
A
Play I Some Music w/ Papa Andy
Saturday 8 PM - 11 PM ET
All Night Rewind 11 PM - 5 PM
Reggae, African and Caribbean Music
[link|http://wxxe.org|Tune In]
|
Post #194,579
2/14/05 1:41:38 PM
|
different numbers from different places
Most put it around 5%, but [link|http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox34.html|this article] puts Mozilla at 7.35% back in November.
Darrell Spice, Jr. [link|http://spiceware.org/gallery/ArtisticOverpass|Artistic Overpass]\n[link|http://www.spiceware.org/|SpiceWare] - We don't do Windows, it's too much of a chore
|
Post #194,585
2/14/05 2:31:45 PM
2/14/05 2:32:15 PM
|
I have a site that shows greater penetration... (not pR0n)
It is safe for work...
[link|http://tinyurl.com/4ozb4|January shows nearly 60%] for Mozilla/FireFox/other Gecko based browsers.
It is a pretty good source too. I'd have to think a precedent may be settling.
-- [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg], [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey[link|http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=134485&cid=11233230|"Microsoft Security" is an even better oxymoron than "Miltary Intelligence"] No matter how much Microsoft supporters whine about how Linux and other operating systems have just as many bugs as their operating systems do, the bottom line is that the serious, gut-wrenching problems happen on Windows, not on Linux, not on Mac OS. -- [link|http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1622086,00.asp|source]
Edited by folkert
Feb. 14, 2005, 02:32:15 PM EST
|
Post #194,587
2/14/05 2:48:06 PM
|
Oh. THAT place.
Some of the top referrers to that site are: - [link|http://maturegalleries.org/|http://maturegalleries.org/]
- [link|http://fisting-sex.net/|http://fisting-sex.net/]
- [link|http://hardcore-porn-pictures.biz/|http://hardcore-porn-pictures.biz/]
- [link|http://www.searchforsex.com/index2.html|http://www.searchforsex.com/index2.html]
- [link|http://www.black-white.us/incest|http://www.black-white.us/incest]
- \t[link|http://www.daddyswhores.net/|http://www.daddyswhores.net/]
(These places CAN'T be 'work-safe') [link|http://forfree.sytes.net|
] Imric's Tips for Living
- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
|
Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
|
|
Post #194,589
2/14/05 2:50:02 PM
|
Nope, not a single one of those listed are SFW.
-- [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg], [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey[link|http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=134485&cid=11233230|"Microsoft Security" is an even better oxymoron than "Miltary Intelligence"] No matter how much Microsoft supporters whine about how Linux and other operating systems have just as many bugs as their operating systems do, the bottom line is that the serious, gut-wrenching problems happen on Windows, not on Linux, not on Mac OS. -- [link|http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1622086,00.asp|source]
|
Post #194,709
2/15/05 1:56:07 AM
|
Interesting... So, the USAF has a facility at something...
...called "grandforks" -- where have I heard that name before? And they have a box called "HAL 9000" there, I see, which is the eighth-most frequent caller here... Hey, Greg, BTW, you never mentioned where you work nowadays... Want a semi-educated guess? :-)
[Extensive use of ellipses copyright (c) Bill Patient, Greg Folkert. Used without permission. No rights reserved. Not valid in the contiguous 48 states. Redeemable on alternate mondays with a full moon, from 2 PM to 13:30.]
[link|mailto:MyUserId@MyISP.CountryCode|Christian R. Conrad]
(I live in Finland, and my e-mail in-box is at the Saunalahti company.)
Your lies are of Microsoftian Scale and boring to boot. Your 'depression' may be the closest you ever come to recognizing truth: you have no 'inferiority complex', you are inferior - and something inside you recognizes this. - [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=71575|Ashton Brown]
|
Post #194,714
2/15/05 3:55:17 AM
|
off by a few states..
Grand Forks is a city in North Dakota along its border with Minnesota. Folkert's in Michigan.
Steven_AS is the user there.
--
Steve
|
Post #194,749
2/15/05 10:46:06 AM
|
Ah, duh! Note to self (not K): Forks != Rapids. Thx, Steve.
|
Post #194,718
2/15/05 8:37:25 AM
2/15/05 8:41:27 AM
|
I work at this location.
[link|http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?country=US&addtohistory=&formtype=address&searchtype=address&cat=&address=5510%2033rd%20St%20Se&city=Grand%20Rapids&state=MI&zipcode=49512%2d2060&searchtab=home|WAM, Inc., 5510 33rd St SE, Cascade Twp, MI 49512-2060, US, (616) 957-MAIL(6245)] (if the image doesn't work)
[image|http://mq-mapgend.websys.aol.com/mqmapgend?MQMapGenRequest=FDR2dmwjDE%3byt29%26FDJnci4Jkqj%2cMMCJ%3aHOEvq%3bwawua8%3a%29r8slu8%3a%26%40%24%3a%26%40y%3aqyb%3al4b%3aTD%15JFE%3aHOHQJ%3bwawua8%3a%29r8slu8%3a%26%40%24%3a%26%40%24x9%40||Greg Works HERE!|353|463]
That is where all my machines live too.
Most mornings, I can smell the Jet Fuel being used by idling turbine engines. MMMMMMM, reminds me of why I like racing.
-- [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg], [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey[link|http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=134485&cid=11233230|"Microsoft Security" is an even better oxymoron than "Miltary Intelligence"] No matter how much Microsoft supporters whine about how Linux and other operating systems have just as many bugs as their operating systems do, the bottom line is that the serious, gut-wrenching problems happen on Windows, not on Linux, not on Mac OS. -- [link|http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1622086,00.asp|source] Edit: Damn typo.
Edited by folkert
Feb. 15, 2005, 08:41:27 AM EST
|
Post #194,795
2/15/05 2:16:20 PM
|
Coordinates acquired, target locked, fire at will
"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein
"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
|
Post #194,802
2/15/05 2:34:46 PM
|
I am going to tell...
Willie on you. He is 84, short, black and keeps on a ticking... he has got more "artificial" pieces than most cyborgs do. I doubt the missile will hurt him. He is like a cochroach, he will out live us all, the roaches too.
-- [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg], [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey[link|http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=134485&cid=11233230|"Microsoft Security" is an even better oxymoron than "Miltary Intelligence"] No matter how much Microsoft supporters whine about how Linux and other operating systems have just as many bugs as their operating systems do, the bottom line is that the serious, gut-wrenching problems happen on Windows, not on Linux, not on Mac OS. -- [link|http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1622086,00.asp|source]
|
Post #194,804
2/15/05 2:40:37 PM
|
You keep your willie
in your pants.
"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein
"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
|
Post #194,808
2/15/05 3:13:54 PM
|
No... not that one!
No... really, William is his real name, he is 84 and about 4'9" tall, gray haired old-guy of Afro-ethnic origin.
-- [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg], [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey[link|http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=134485&cid=11233230|"Microsoft Security" is an even better oxymoron than "Miltary Intelligence"] No matter how much Microsoft supporters whine about how Linux and other operating systems have just as many bugs as their operating systems do, the bottom line is that the serious, gut-wrenching problems happen on Windows, not on Linux, not on Mac OS. -- [link|http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1622086,00.asp|source]
|
Post #194,796
2/15/05 2:17:43 PM
|
That's me lurking about
~~~)-Steven----
"I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.
He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country..."
General George S. Patton
|
Post #194,633
2/14/05 5:30:38 PM
|
Those stats may be depressed too
simply because anyone that has Windows, has IE; even if they only use it for updating Windows. This of course means for at least some reports, anyone who has Mozilla, Firefox, or Opera on Windows is being counted twice (if everyone used Firefox, this type of reporting would show 50% share)
~~~)-Steven----
"I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.
He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country..."
General George S. Patton
|
Post #194,693
2/14/05 10:06:53 PM
|
And besides that
Today I had to use the UserAgent extension to tell a site that I was using IE6 when in fact I was using Mozilla. The site came up, then it redirected to a message telling me that they had imporved the site, and to take advantage of it I'd need a more modern browser. Provided links to the download pages for IE and Netscape.
I offered a different UserAgent string, and compared the site side-by-side with Mozilla/Linux and IE6/WXP. I didn't see any differences. Had the pediatrician not already called the prescription in to that pharmacy, they would have lost a sale.
===
Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
|
Post #194,737
2/15/05 10:16:50 AM
|
Me 2.
bcnu,
Mikem
Eine Leute. Eine Welt. Ein F\ufffdhrer.
God Bless America.
|
Post #194,738
2/15/05 10:20:20 AM
|
So, if 70% is the limit.
Would you say Apache hasn't achieved domination?
bcnu,
Mikem
Eine Leute. Eine Welt. Ein F\ufffdhrer.
God Bless America.
|
