Products that work well with lots of other Microsoft products.
This is a particularly wicked problem for enterprises that have built a lot of custom line-of-business systems that are inextricably tied up in Microsoft's technology.
Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
51–60 of 120 posts
Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
#52Compatibility
Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
#53A suite of development tools that are performant and easy to use on a platform that is scalable with a community that is (reasonably) sane.
Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just don't get this insistance on control over utility servers. If we take sensitive businesses out of the equation there's really no argument for it. How many times has gmail been down for me? Never. What about exchange/lotus notes? At least once a month. And even when they work they're shit.
When you're using gmail, you also dependent on the internet connection. And my opinion, for business email, having abc@yourcompany.com looks better than abc@gmail.com
You can get abc@yourcompany.com in gmail. http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/gmail.html
Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
#55OpenOffice does not even come close to MS Office .. especially for the Excel part.
The problem is not that XLS(X) is a better or worse format than OOXML. The problem is that it is defacto - so if I want to be able to communicate with the rest of the business world, I need compatibility.
Softmaker comes close, but not good enough. Plus now that OpenOffice's future is tenuous (oracle?), I would rather buy Office or Softmaker.
Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just don't get this insistance on control over utility servers. If we take sensitive businesses out of the equation there's really no argument for it. How many times has gmail been down for me? Never. What about exchange/lotus notes? At least once a month. And even when they work they're shit.
In my experience even small businesses often believe their data/privacy is too important to hand over to someone else.
I'm sure Google does a better job at securing their server than most small businesses.
Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
#57"Free" isn't the thing Microsoft should be worried about. If Twitter grows to become 50,000 people in 10 years, they won't select Google Docs because it's free. They'll choose it because it helps them get work done better for an overall lower cost, and that is really what Microsoft should be worried about because their competitive edge in most areas is eroding quickly. For example, Android isn't going to beat Windows…
I agree that price isn't the issue, but by being free (to con sumers at least) these alternatives are ubiquitous, and therefore widely recognized as better. If they were paid for none of us would have used them, so we couldn't all agree that they are better.
Ubuntu is hardly ubiquitous.
Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
#58more readable fonts
Couldn't agree more. When are we going to see nice font rendering on Linux?
Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
#59Things that force me to keep windows installed (not all MS products, but in a sense require you to have windows):
1) Powerpoint - Impress can't even import many powerpoint presentations correctly, and offers far less pre-made themes,. and is overall very weak competitively. (In general, the entire Office suite wins over the alternatives; the powerpoint/impress difference though really stands out).
2) Games. - You can't play 95+% of FPSs on linux.
3) Laptops seem to work better with Win7 than Linux (Kubuntu), in terms of input/out (I'm using a Dell). The linux touchpad drivers are lacking TouchCheck, so accidental tapping while typing is a huge issue. Plugging into an external monitor is not automatic.
4) Full-screen flash remains screwy on linux.
Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
#60Things that force me to keep windows installed (not all MS products, but in a sense require you to have windows): 1) Powerpoint - Impress can't even import many powerpoint presentations correctly, and offers far less pre-made themes,. and is overall very weak competitively. (In general, the entire Office suite wins over the alternatives; the powerpoint/impress difference though really stands out). 2) Games. - You can…
1) Never used both of them, can't say here
2) Actually you can play most of them, at least those without copy protection. http://winehq.com
3) That's because Dell made drivers for win and didn't for linux. They can't hire one full day linux programmer? Maybe they do not want my money?
4) Works for me.