Post #16,087
11/1/01 4:20:25 PM
11/1/01 5:33:14 PM
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Cringely makes the case Re: Why nobody has beaten Microsoft
At their own game, that is.
[link|http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20011101.html|link]
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Post #16,091
11/1/01 4:42:48 PM
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To certain extent right
He's right to a certain extent, but he misses a few points.
First, on MS can afford to lose huge sums of money pushing a new technology, because they are already a monopoly. This is exactly why certain actions by monopolies are illegal, it given them to much of an advantage over other companies that they can't fight against.
Second, he under estimates just how much PHBs are responsible for the movement of the market. There are a lot of companies that have no technology strategy other then 'do whatever MS is pushing.' This means every other product faces a huge barrier where MS products face a downhill slope.
On the other hand, he is certainly correct about Apple holding themselves in their corner. By refusing to give up any control over the hardware part they kept the Mac a nitch product.
Jay
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Post #16,093
11/1/01 4:44:06 PM
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I expected better from him.
I don't know why, I just did.
Blackbird
MSBob
WindowsME
and so on.
No, MS isn't better at designing products or pushing technologies or ANYTHING.
MS is really, Really, REALLY good at leveraging their desktop monopoly.
That is why Sun can't get a foothold on the desktop, but does a pretty good business in large web site servers.
And so on and so forth.
Desktop monopoly == huge war chest.
Which means that MS can afford to push inferior products. MS can even afford to give away inferior products. Just to establish a foothold in a market. Then MS can exploit that foothold.
After all these years, I expected him to know this and understand this and so on.
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Post #16,104
11/1/01 5:50:27 PM
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Pearls before swine.
M$ has successfully redefined not merely innovation but adequacy and normal too.
In the TLA-besotted 80-IQ Bizness suited class - it has now become 'normal' for crashes, reboots, RRR (get the PFY to do it again - he's cheap and no perks). IIS got a bug again..? second since last Monday? Load the backups - all of 'em. I got a meeting; don't bother me with this tech stuff.
Worst of all (for everyone not-M$) it has become normal to assume the supine position: to willingly (enthusiastically even) flush, dump perfectly working hardware, load 'new' and retrain: every couple years, (year?) and to deem the costs/seat: normal too.
Wanna bet that even the new licensing rape shall soon be accepted as mere seduction, then.. kinda kinky sex? Let's have *more*, that was soo good (I get more money for my CTO Empire! and that corner office.. and more PFYs in stable).
CEO - What, me worry? I parachute outta here and do it again - I'm on everybody's BODs already. What was the name of this Company, again?
Only difference I can see between Their Taleban and Ours: B n'B are after only your business life and property - not your immoral soul (though religious fervor for Our Stuff is always rewarded.. with more frequent chances to re-buy Our Stuff).
Hook, line, sinker. From DOJ on down, seems they last as long as also lasts: <5% owning >60% of It All. Tame rabbits don't often organize for reform.
Oh well. Dystopias are like that, especially bizness ones.
Ashton
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Post #16,109
11/1/01 6:18:07 PM
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Microsoft will lie, cheat, steal and work very hard...
A quote from the article.
I think the "lie, cheat, and steal" is appropriate. Actually, in my circles, Microsoft is really ticking off many corporate customers with the required registration stuff and the push to deny corporations the advantage of the OEM Windows License. (Read Brian Livingston in Infoworld and you will get the idea. Basically, if you're a "corporate customer" will 500 or more employees, your OEM Microsoft licenses you received when you purchased the machines are "invalid" and you ARE REQUIRED to purchase new Windows licenses at full retail price. I'm really hoping a big company will take Microsoft to court on this one, and fight it down to the point where Microsoft has to pay billions in settlements.... )
My boss said in a meeting today that when he talks to "clients" (Fortune 1000 grocery and pharmacy companies), they are VERY INTERESTED when he talks about our Unix (HP-UX), DB2, and Java system. He said today in the same meeting that we probably LOST a major Fortune 500 contract in 1998 because we were running NT 4.0, SQL Server, Delphi, and PC Assembler at the time. Reliability and scalability were the driving factors.
Now, word is getting around our industry about our new infrastructure, and the customers are starting to call us. We're about to close a nice contract hopefully in the next couple of weeks for even more work!
The other "disincentive" for Microsoft is that the licensing goons visited us about 1 1/2 years ago, and tapped the corporate coffers to the tune of about $125,000 for a 53 employee company. For a 53 employee company!
No wonder he was interested in talking with me in May when I interviewed! No wonder he hired me right away and we've been buying Unix hardware, DB2, Java, and hiring programmers ever since!
He doesn't want to tap the coffers for another $125,000 next year. In two years, we could be completely Unix/Linux and have the corporate customers lining up to do business with us... At least I sincerely hope so!
Glen Austin
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Post #16,165
11/2/01 9:01:44 AM
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Woo-Hoo! Great story!
Hey, Silverlock...You were looking for a business case for Linux, et al.? You need! to talk to this guy!!!
jb4
(Resistance is not futile...)
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Post #16,298
11/3/01 12:02:00 AM
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More
We have two Windows-based systems in our company which represent two of our four "core" businesses. I am currently working on the fifth and sixth "core" business, which we hope to have online early next year. The two new businesses are in Unix.
There are already plans to replace 3 of our 4 "legacy" businesses with Java or Delphi replacements (we can run either Windows (Delphi) or Linux (Kylix)). They will be able to run on either Windows or Unix/Linux. The "last" business will probably just go away, because it isn't profitable.
Our largest legacy moneymaker (a huge Windows kludge) was down twice last month, once with Nimda virus, and once with a programming bug. Each time, the client suffered through a multi-hour outage, on what we advertise to be an "almost realtime" system. The client visited us this week. The visit was primarily to handle how we were planning to achieve HIPAA compliance, but the outages came up in the conversation. The client brought a representative from a big 8 consulting firm. With the recent departure of the company's CIO, I am very concerned that the outages have put one of our "core" businesses at risk of being taken over by a big 8 consulting firm. I know how these consulting guys work and having them visit us was just the start of them pitching a project to replace us.
Now, this Windows kludge was poorly designed, poorly coded, and is poorly monitored by our processing staff. And the second outage was due to several programming bugs in the code. The bugs weren't caught because the owner of the company had a single "senior" programmer develop the project and did not follow a process of code review and inspection for defects. This same error would have also caused the code to fail in Unix.
The other outage was caused by the Nimda virus, something that definitely would NOT have happened, had we been on Unix.
We are having code reviews now, but we haven't gone back and reviewed all the "legacy code". The problem is that a "legacy code review" would cut into our new projects, and the owner feels that we need to deliver these new projects for us to stay in business.
Glen Austin
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Post #16,330
11/3/01 9:14:45 AM
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Very typical
We are having code reviews now, but we haven't gone back and reviewed all the "legacy code". The problem is that a "legacy code review" would cut into our new projects, and the owner feels that we need to deliver these new projects for us to stay in business. Been there, done that. :=( Actually, ten or fifteen years ago, I was the programmer behind a complete rewrite of what I guess you'd call a "core component". Took a really crufty program, reduced it to essentials, and rewrote from scratch. I suppose there are people who turn their noses up at such projects, but except for the "drop everything, we've got to do this" three month interruption (which, after all, can't have been that important since I don't remember much about it), it was a pretty interesting and rewarding project. Alas, since then I've met/encountered a lot of code that could have used the same treatment, but never got it. "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
-- Donald Knuth
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Post #16,429
11/4/01 5:14:05 AM
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Now that you mention it...
... I seem to recall doing the same on a small project. The hardest part was not insulting the previous programmer whose mindset was very very COBOL (but he'd written this in QuickBASIC). This was because he was my boss. Fortunately, he quickly accepted I was a rather better programmer than he.
Hmm. I seem to recall a few more I did along the same lines. One I even did to myself! (Dial-in package around Banyan VINES; front-end program written in QuickBASIC for authenticating the user upfront before they connected to the server. Managed to re-write it in VINES' dial-up scripting language. Saved a few hundred K.)
Wade.
"All around me are nothing but fakes
Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
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Post #16,239
11/2/01 2:47:08 PM
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Microsoft listens
They're bastards, but they're attentive bastards.
How long have the users of languages that don't look like C++ said to Sun "Hey, we like the idea of a VM that runs everywhere but your VM is too specific to the Java language. Howabout extending the VM to be capable of hosting several languages?"
Sun, in their arrogance, didn't listen. A few languages have been retargeted to run on the JVM, but its always something of a bad fit.
Microsoft heard this and set out to provide a runtime that supports lots of languages. Sounds crazy but MS is promoting diversity in programming models while Sun is looking like the monopolist actively hindering advancement.
I don't think the .NET runtime is rich enough either. Its got some issues. But it at least acknowledges the potential for diversity in programming languages.
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Post #16,241
11/2/01 2:56:59 PM
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Re: Microsoft listens
I don't think the .NET runtime is rich enough either. Its got some issues. But it at least acknowledges the potential for diversity in programming languages. Yeah... their programming languages... jb4
(Resistance is not futile...)
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Post #16,242
11/2/01 3:00:55 PM
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That's the basic technique.
Microsoft is like a bulldog. Ugly as all Hell, slow, cantankerous, and tempermental, but once it gets a deathgrip on something, you need to kill it to unclamp the jaws.
They are pretty much always listening for some "percieved need" that matches their goals - and when they see it, they'll jump on it, especially if nobody else is.
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Post #16,244
11/2/01 3:02:26 PM
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Python and Perl run on it.
Saw that the other day.
Regards,
-scott anderson
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Post #16,262
11/2/01 4:54:20 PM
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Perl only sort of
There are, shall we say, severe performance issues.
But yes. ActiveState has been contracted by Microsoft to port both languages to .NET.
Cheers,
Ben
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