Microsoft makes more money than any Y Combinator startup ever will. Bill Gates is off saving the world with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, while PG is busy exploiting young talent.
Microsoft is Dead
221–230 of 454 posts
Re: Microsoft is Dead
#222Paul, have you heard anything about enterprise software? :)
Re: Microsoft is Dead
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
So let me get this straight: Microsoft offers your university worthless software that provides no value to end users. The university knows its worthless software, you know its worthless, but the university is forced to buy it anyway because the dirty rotten scoundrels at Microsoft set the price so low. University S/W Buyer: "We have to buy some MS Software." University S/W Boss: "Why?" University S/W Buyer: "Its $5.0…
kind of. look at it from the competitor's end. they can't afford to sell at $5, they'd go under. It's like wal-mart putting mom and pop record stores out of business by selling CDs at cost. So MS keeps their software standard at colleges, which influences students' buying habits (god forbid they grow accustomed to Mac or Linux and lose their fear of them).
Well with the amount of fees i shelled out in here, buying a computer, installing linux and learning it wasnt easy. So had to go for computers provided by schools with no admin rights :(
Re: Microsoft is Dead
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recently acquired a Mac Book Pro. There was precisely one Windows program I wanted to run on it (SuperMemo) under Parallels, which received good reviews. Rather than wait to purchase a copy of Windows from the local CompUSA, I used an OEM copy of Windows from a defenestrated a DELL box (I replaced Windows with Debian). After installing XP as a guest OS under Parallels, I activated XP online by purchasing a product…
Technically it isn't a legit copy of Windows. OEM versions are usually tied to the computer they are originally sold with. Personally I don't think it is fair, but that's how licensing works under a monopoly. Jonathan Allen
Tied how? Certainly not legally. When you buy the computer you buy a license... no court would uphold charging people for something and not letting them have it.
The "shrinkwrapped" license agreements are not really enforcable... at least not in a legitimate (eg: competant) court.
Re: Microsoft is Dead
#225Being nearly 50years old, what frightens me about MS is that they think they can sell an OS which they can remotely turn off without out a court warrant and then its up to you if your business hasn't gone bankrupt to sue them . This just shows complete and utter contempt for their customers.Which will do for them in the long run.My next box will be linux. Maybe the apple setup etc looks attractive to the younger gene…
Don't be silly Bob. Apple is not arrogant nor greedy... unless you're a socialist who thinks that all companies that actually sell software are "arrogant and greedy".
The stallman cult thinks this and they have gone so far as to have protests against Apple when they sued microsoft! That's how twisted their socialist thinking is-- they support the monopolist against the underdog!
If you're 50 years old, get a mac, you'll find that its a hell of a lot easier to use than Linux.
To claim that its "superficial" is to not understand the real advantages of the Mac... alas, I suspect too many people like you reject microsoft and then reject Apple (because of FUD spread by MS or linux fans) and then go back to microsoft when they discover that Linux is a damn hard to administer desktop (for most people.)
I have been using unix for 20 years and I only run Linux in particular situaitons because generally the admin load is just not worth it. Why deal with it when Mac OS X is so much better? So, I use it on servers, but only when I am not able to use apple hardwware (They make great servers too....)
The thing about Apple is, its far better than people think... and most people have never tried it, and yet many of these peopel have a negative impression of it based on propaganda from MS proponents.
Re: Microsoft is Dead
#226More online Web 2.0 image editing tools: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/free-online-photo-editors/
Re: Microsoft is Dead
#227MS may be past their peak but they're certainly not dead and won't be while they've still got large corporations willing to buy their software.
Some of your arguments just don't hold water, at one point you're arguing the desktop is dead but then oh one of the reasons MS is in trouble is Apple's desktop?
Web based applications may be on the rise but there are plenty of problems with them too, disconnected operation, lack of backups etc. being some of them.
The platform of the future is the phone - you've only got to look at how it's used to fuel innovation in some of the third world countries.
Re: Microsoft is Dead
#228Microsoft will still be THE MAN on the desktop and enterprise for a long time (I just switched to Mac however. Parallels rocks). And .Net is what will keep them ticking. (Office too, but that's a different post. Have you seen what MindManager has done with Word?) If anyone wants to put the last nail in their coffin, build a better .Net. And do it with Lisp. .Net shows what we have needed for a long time. A consistent…
I'm not sure you realize the can of worms you would be opening up by feeing up the syntax chain. I agree freeing up syntax is a very viable method for imporving codeing, but it is also very easily leads twards confusion in the minds of code maintainers. The idea is old and has been implemented a number of times, but also it has never taken off because of the major problem with what does "for (x) in Y {;;some more code here}" mean? FYI, I've implemented a flexible programming language. They are a bear to implement. I'm positive you don't want to go there. Think about this. The developer tweeks the syntax translation for the code he is working on. What happes to all the other uses of that syntax in the program?
Re: Microsoft is Dead
#229In a recent blog post, I explain why Web Applications are far superior to Desktop Applications. Desktop apps are by and large OS dependent and the economics of running a desktop business are not as good as a web app business.
My post here : http://www.vinnylingham.com/2007/02/top-20-reasons-why-web-apps-are-superior-to-desktop-apps.html
I totally agree with Paul in almost everything, however I don't believe buying up all the web 2.0 companies would work. Microsoft has to actually concede that web apps are the future - they still don't believe that it is!
Re: Microsoft is Dead
#230Microsoft is dead because we no longer use windows as a platform. We mostly stay away from desktop applications and instead develop web apps. We build on browsers now. They're easier to develop for, there's no need to install apps and compatability is easier (compare porting an app between mac, linux and win to firefox, IE, safari).
Now that getting apps to the users is easier I think people need to tackle the next problem: Mobile. Currently developing apps for mobile is possibly harder than for the desktop. The operators restrict you and the handsets are fragmented and inconsistent. Even with the supposedly crossplatform java has different api's on different handsets.
Perhaps the mobile problem could be solved in the same way as the desktop with web apps. We would need reliable, fast wireless broadband coverage and good mobile browsers that follow the same standards. I dont see this happening for 5 or so years.
Without allowing web apps to access phone api features I'm not sure if this is the best solution. All I can see is that whoever solves the mobile problem has a chance to be a new tech giant.