Microsoft no longer thinks Linux poses a threat to its desktop Windows business.
Directions on Microsoft’s Wes Miller pointed out via Twitter how Microsoft has changed the boilerplate “Competition” section in its last two annual financial filings with the SEC.
Microsoft is a bit schizophrenic, there quite a few good developers and products there. Many of which don’t share the evil deeds that the company has made us used to.
So it is good to see that the company is learning to cooperate, even if it is somehow forced to.
Microsoft has learned to profit from linux via patent trolling. They’ve learned through they recent successes that they can troll and profit from linux just as much as from their own product, or even more.
Therefore linux is no more a thread but a new cash cow instead.
Edited 2011-08-12 06:17 UTC
MacOS is more a threat. Mobile computing is the future anyways. Linux desktops barely blip on the radar. It’s inferior, inconsistent and lacks any real unified direction.
And yet Linux is everywhere. Linux is running on more hardware and devices than any other OS. The desktop market is rapidly changing and desktop and mobile environments merge.
I’ll tell you what Linux gives me that I would kill for in Windows. Integrated updates. I build my fedora box, I have it up to date all the time, never have to screw with it. In Windows, 6 months after I install the software, I have to go hunt down new versions and reinstall it all. A few things auto update themselves, but not most.
I’d love to know how that tarball install is auto updated.
It’s also about the desktop, not routers, TVs, toasters or whatever you want to use to make your 1% market share on the desktop look better than it really is.
A stupid comment.
No mainstream distro uses tarballs by default. The vast majority Linux of users stick to their distro repositories.
You’ve completely missed the point.
And what would that be?
That linux on the desktop has less than 1% market share.
That linux has bigger market share in other markets does not change that fact.
I agree that unified update is missing on Windows. It is the one good thing about appstores and web-applications: They make people use new versions. (good for home, not always good for business, but let’s not go to deep)
HOWEVER, just because Microsoft doesn’t provide a nice tool for this, doesn’t mean others don’t! You (and every Windows user!) should check out http://ninite.com/
Basically, I run Microsoft Update to update all my Microsoft software and drivers and my own ninite.exe to update 90% of my other software. That basically leaves only Total Commander that I need to update manually and that is barely a “hunt” (http://ghisler.com/amazons3.php)
“It’s inferior, inconsistent and lacks any real unified direction.”
There is no denying the lack of consistency however some consider this more of a strength than a weakness.
As for it being inferior, you are incorrect. Lower resource usage, multi user security model, modular drivers !> inferior.
Unfortunately you are correct with the lack of direction, it will keep Linux off the mainstream desktop forever.
Edited 2011-08-16 00:27 UTC
I guess GNOME 3, KDE 4 and Unity succeeded in their mission
I just wanted to say: EXACTLY!
From the article:
“This only applies to the Windows desktop, however.”
In other words, Linux on the server is still a huge threat, but when it comes to desktop usage, you are exactly right. In addition to the three projects you mentioned, there’s the problem of buggy graphics drivers from everybody except nVidia, and half the time you can’t suspend/resume with the blob.
With regard to KDE4, Gnome3, Unity, there’s one other thing to take into consideration: Microsoft got Windows 7 right. Add Cygwin and gVim and you’ve got a mature, stable desktop. The closest thing we have in FOSS is KDE4, which seems like the buggy, retarded clone of Win7. Unless you’re broke, or follower of some ideology, there’s no real advantage to using a Linux desktop anymore.
Well except that Windows 7 still likes to try to control your environment far too much for my likes.
I really can’t stand using Windows for much more than launching games.
If they ported Steam and all the games under it for Linux, I can pretty much guarantee a lot of people would switch. The only reason that hasn’t happened with the Mac OS X port, is that the initial purchase price of Macs are still WAY too high for the hardware you get.
I’d say that in my experience, the Win7 UX ranks very high in the hall of shame of retardedness. Performance is terrible, the updating system… well… makes me wonder if abolishing death penalty was the right choice, the explorer breadcrumbs are ridiculously small and you need to hack your system with admin rights to get a Up button, the control panel is a mess, Notepad++ is no match for a Kate as far as usability is concerned…
GNOME 2 on F14 is far from flawless (#1 urge to kill is that column of inactive pixels on the corner of the panel, making mouse targeting stupidly painful), but it works definitely best for me.
Edited 2011-08-12 15:14 UTC
Your description of Windows 7 makes me wonder if we are running the same operating system.
For me the UI responds instantly, the control panel works fine and the update system is for the most part invisible and automatic except for the occasional need to reboot for an update.
And text editors have nothing to do with the OS. You could probably rebuild Kate for windows if you took out any KDE specific bits and made it a Qt app. Personally, I run gvim for my text editing needs on Windows.
And the OP’s description of Linux of Windows 7 made me wonder if we are running the same operating systems.
See where I’m going ?
(PS : If you really think that the Windows 7 updater is fine, I guess you have always got an admin account on your computers. May I suggest that you also try it as a limited user who has some work to do ? Believe me, it’s fun.
Before that, I too just found Windows Update annoying, and unconsciously quickly adjusted the settings to something that makes it more tolerable. It’s only on my current work PC, which I don’t own and can’t tweak, that I’ve discovered the level of carefully-crafted sadistic design that has been put into this thing’s default settings.
You have to experience it firsthand to understand, I think. This backwards counter, like a bad Hollywood bomb detonator, popping up silently behind the active windows so that you don’t notice it right away, counting the minutes you have left with your work, second by second. The disabled “Later” button that’s laughing at your stressed face as you attempt to finish what you are doing in time, and the enabled “Reboot now” button that’s here just to make fun of you a little more. The magical moment, at the end of the 15 minutes, where all applications you were using get brutally killed without a warning or a chance to do something for your unsaved data, in one very rare example of instant responsiveness from this OS. Then, as you wonder if that mail you sent during the last minute was actually sent or not, the frustration of waiting as the machine sluggishly install part of its updates, sluggishly reboots, sluggishly installs some more updates, sometimes reboot again…
I see two possibility as to how this thing could come to existence. Either the guy who coded it never actually tried it with a limited account, or it was a military experiment somewhere around Guantanamo which no one ever knew everything about…)
Neolander stop making stuff up.
I have a 1.2ghz laptop with 2GB of ram (maxed out) … Windows 7 runs with a bit of lag while running Visual Studio, Firefox and SQL server management studio … While debugging a WCF webservice.
Reboots are quicker than Windows XP 64bit on the same laptop and all Windows 7 accounts are essentially limited due to UAC (try debugging a website in IIS in VS when not running as Admin).
The only time when I saw Windows 7 take long than about 30 second to login, is when I was running 2 VMs on the same box … one of them running sharepoint 2010.
Why do people lie on this website? I dunno what it achieves
Well, I don’t know why it works so differently for both of us. My work machine is a C2D @ 2GHz + 2GB RAM, and my personal machine is a Ci5 @ 2.27GHz + 4GB RAM, so I’d naively agree that they should run faster.
Perhaps the difference is in the hard drive (5400 RPM for you too ?). Or in software tweaks (have you applied something like nLite to your Windows DVD or altered the service configuration ? Or perhaps your antivirus is less bloated). Or perhaps you’re just used to the Windows lag, though the 30s objective metric you bring here makes it unlikely.
>30s time to login is frequent here (especially on the work PC, which I don’t turn off during the day because it takes a bit more than a minute to boot), and after login you’re good for a prolonged period of strong lag. On a running system, responsiveness and prioritization of competing tasks is poor : strong disk access from a random background daemon is all it takes to glitch out audio playback, and to kill the responsiveness out of just about every mouse action in unrelated software (opening the start menu, right-clicking…). Occasionally, I even get a laggy keyboard, something I thought had disappeared in the 90s or so.
On my home machine, where I can compare both systems, there is a strong difference between F14+GNOME2 and Windows 7 in terms of responsiveness. Basically, when running similar software (openoffice, firefox, thunderbird, VLC, and compilation jobs…), Linux is relatively bad (imo), and Windows is worse.
Edited 2011-08-13 13:27 UTC
I make an small effort to keep unwanted startup items on login … via msconfig, and I disable a few non-microsoft services.
I have a 4200rpm disk in my laptop (1.8inch iPod like hardisk).
Other than some minor tweaks, I don’t really need to mess a lot with Windows 7.
Keyboard lag was a issue with some kit at Windows 7 launch, with some keyboards.
Fortunately for most users both are much better than OSX.
Take that you Apple troll…..
Um… Okay… So despite me saying here, pretty clearly I think, that I use Fedora+GNOME as my main OS, if I criticize both Windows and Linux, I’m necessarily pro-Apple… Right ?
Wrong. As I also said here, I think that all modern desktop and mobile operating systems suck in their own way. I choose the less painful option, which happens to be Linux. Not paying a minimum of $1000 for the lowest-end laptop available, which doesn’t even provide decent connectivity for the price (because, you know, it has to be so thin).
Edited 2011-08-16 07:25 UTC
I’m not sure how you get it to reboot spontaneously, but mine just pops up and asks me to reboot or suspend. I can tell it to suspend for 4 hours, at which time it just pops back up again with the same dialog.
If you don’t like that behavior, you can set Windows Update to not automatically install the updates. And if you don’t have admin privileges, well… you always get stuck with somebody else’s shitty defaults that way, no matter what OS you use
And I agree with you 100% about Windows Explorer missing an ‘up one level’ button… somebody should be executed for taking that out. But hey, no self-respecting power user uses Explorer anyway, so… *shrug*
Yeah, I have my home computer set up to do that too, but on the work PC, I get this dialog instead : http://i41.servimg.com/u/f41/11/71/91/00/_10.png
As mentioned in the beginning of the paragraph you quote, this problem indeed wouldn’t exist if I had admin privileges on that machine
The point was to show the sadistic genius that has been put in the defaults of Windows Update, which is to the best of my knowledge the sole desktop update system which forces reboots on you this way roughly once a month.
Out of curiosity, what would you suggest as a replacement ?
Edited 2011-08-13 17:43 UTC
Directory Opus. It’s hella expensive, but also replaces several programs, and you won’t find a better file manager on ANY OS. If that is a bit too much for you, just google ‘windows explorer replacements’. There’s only about 3 dozen of them
If you have an admin that blocks you by making you a regular user, that admin should also be able to adjust the settings OR use a proper business update tool.
Don’t be hating the OS that provides all the options that are needed, hate the admin that doesn’t use them
That was my experience with KDE4. What’s up with a bajillion notifications per second? Where’s the clear all button? Why do I have to go manually through all of them, click close and watch the jerky resizing? Why can’t I search in control center and press enter? I have to switch input methods to get to the thing I want. What’s up with the retarted UI decisions like let’s have a wireless selection menu that’s half your screen and you have to click 1030219312 times to get where you want.
I had no problems with it. Update pops up, user press update, user happy. Most of the time without even a reboot.
The breadcrumbs here are okay. And you have about 5 up buttons in the breadcrumb bar, I don’t see why you need one.
Yes, but they built it thinking you’d use search. Wanna change your resolution? Type change resolution. Wanna edit your PATH? Type environment variables.
What does that have to do with Windows? You can install Kate in Windows too.
I feel like Cygwin and some other KDE apps make the perfect desktop for me. Whenever I boot into KDE4, I can only describe it as bearable. Sometimes it’s great. But sometimes it likes annoying the crap out of me.
Edited 2011-08-13 04:00 UTC
Look, frankly, I don’t want to start a flamewar on this. Use what works best for you, and I use what works best for me on my side. I’m not advocating that Linux is the One True Way which everyone should follow, what I’m claiming is that *for me in particular* the Linux way works better, and that it’s not as if Windows didn’t have its problems.
You must remember that the post you’re replying to was written in response to a post which claimed this :
As far as I’m concerned, every single computer OS I’ve tried, as of today, sucks in some way. This includes mobile operating systems. My conclusion is that what you choose as your main OS is nothing but a compromise, based on personal preferences and physiologic/mental capabilities, that attempts to minimize how much you get hurt. You are different than me, and you have unconsciously got used to a different set of problems of your operating system than me, so it’s only logical that we make different choices. No need to try to prove that your choice is superior.
Case in point :
I’m very glad for you that your brain works better than mine on this one. You see, when I use something as regularly as a file browser, I want it to feel natural, and for me natural is when I don’t have to look carefully, don’t have to think, and just use muscle memory.
So a big, dumb “Up” button, which is always at the same place and consistently goes up one level in my well-known folder hierarchy, is a better fit (for me !) than having to target the breadcrumb bar, attentively alter targeting because the first try wasn’t precise enough, then continue to stare the breadcrumb bar as I visually analyze it, locate the end of its content, go two arrows and one variable-sized chunk of text left (while still being very careful that my mouse doesn’t move out of that thin vertical area in the middle of a large heap of unused space), click, and… finally, done.
I know that some people got perfectly used to these breadcrumbs. And I’m happy for them, really. I even find them practical in some particular circumstances. Sadly, my brain is apparently not compatible with them for everyday use, so I prefer the good old “Up” button and am sad that Microsoft have hidden that functionality so deeply that you need an admin account to get it back. That’s all.
It’s the same as translucent windows. Some people just find them cool-looking (because, seriously, a transparent window, how cool is that ?), whereas for me it’s distracting, visually indigestible stuff, which gets in my way in everyday computer usage, so the first thing I do when I set up a Windows 7 box for my use is to disable window translucency and turn them black.
Edited 2011-08-13 09:00 UTC
As a replacement, try Alt+Up. And I believe Windows 8 is going to bring the button back, so all hope isn’t lost for you and your brain
I freaking love Gnome 3. But there is a very good reason why it is called “personal preference.” The Gnome 3, Unity, KDE, OS X DM, Windows DM argument sounds like the same fucking argument over gay marriage in the US. Who cares?! If you aren’t gay, why the fuck does it bother you? This is the exact same situation. Who cares if you don’t like Gnome 3. I do, you don’t, we can still be (internet) friends. Chill. I don’t particularly care for OS X or Windows, but I’m not bashing it or anyone who uses it.
Bad analogy, no one is forcing gay marriage on you. Plus, I can throw your own argument back at you by asking if you don’t care, why even bother to comment on the article? My argument was that Windows has improved, while Gnome/KDE/Ubuntu regressed with their latest versions. These UIs are being forced onto people by planned obsolescence of the older interfaces (unless you use a LTS, in which case you risk not having support for new hardware). As someone who grew up with UNIX, I know I can switch to awesome or openCDE now that all the other desktop environments are broken. A typical user does not know that, nor do they care to learn, and that is why Linux has been downgraded as a threat on the desktop.
If anyone truly thought Linux was a threat on a non-power user’s desktop, I have a bridge to sell.
I use nothing but Linux, and while it would be nice to not have to fix a virus infested computer 1 to 2 times a year, I also don’t want a “My [insert bullshit here] doesn’t look 100% like it does on windows. Put it back.” call every other week either. I don’t use windows, but I don’t push Linux either.
I wanted to comment because all you hear on websites are the people that hate Gnome 3, Unity, KDE 4. There are those of us who actually enjoy one of the above (or more than one), we just generally don’t toss our preferences around like they are candy.
My analogy was pretty bad (my apologies), but it was the only thing I could think of that wasn’t a car analogy.
Edited 2011-08-12 17:46 UTC
You know, I hear this argument all the time and I just have to laugh. Most people can’t run Windows without it getting completely hosed. So aside from a diminishing number of software titles, why exactly do consumers need Windows? They would do equally well with a Linux box without the problem of the machine getting completely hosed.
I think Microsoft downgraded Linux as a threat not because Linux has gotten worse somehow, but because the desktop OS paradigm is shifting. More people are doing their work on their mobile devices. Largely that means iOS and Android. Hence, Apple and Google are now the threats.
Edited 2011-08-12 19:47 UTC
There are, by some estimates, about 1.5 billion PC users.
The breakdown looks much like this:
Win XP 49.5%
Win 7 27.5%
Vista 14.8%
OSX 6.2%
Linux 0.8%
Desktop 95.4%
Mobile 4.6%
Source: StatCounter
The webstat is biased towards those with the most time and freedom to surf the web —
and those whose systems are in pretty good shape. The work gets done. The music plays.
The notion that the masses find the Windows OS difficult or unmanagable is nonsense, pure fantasy.
Amazon.com alone stocks over 78,000 commercial software titles for Windows. You can add to that list thousands more from Windows “repositories” for freeware and shareware like Download.com and essentially everything in FOSS for the desktop client OS.
Mozilla gets 97% of its funding from the add-click. From its placement on the Windows desktop, for all practical purposes.<p>For visibility and funding you can’t beat the port to the Windows.
The average Linux gamer paid $12 for Hunble Indie 3 Bundle – the Windows gamer $5. But total payments from the Linux gamer were less than one-quarter of the whole.
The Windows OS does not demand any ideological or political commitment from its users. That is in many ways a profoundly liberating experience.
Content protection is acceptable in return for services like Netflix or games like “Batman: Arkham City” and “Bioshock: Infinite.”
Oh cut the bullshit, companies and users en masse rely on Linux for their daily work without harbouring any political/ideological ‘commitments’.
Judging by comments regarding Linux by Windows users here on OSNews one could draw the conclusion that a prerequisite to using Windows would be to hate Linux, which is likewise just as untrue.
As for the home user desktop, Windows have nothing to worry about, not even from OSX. On the enterprise desktop there may be a different story, atleast here in Sweden I’m seeing Linux (Ubuntu mainly) increasingly being deployed on company desktop/laptops in the IT sector. Again, this is purely anecdotal as it only pertains to my own observations.
Sure.
If you can ignore the hectoring you’ll get whenever you want and need to install a closed source/proprietary app, codec, font or driver.
And you think that doesn’t go both ways?? Ever been to this blog:
http://linuxhaters.blogspot.com/
Linux users have to listen to plenty of crap too. In fact, Linux users get it the worst coming from Windows, OS X, BSD and Haiku people. Nobody else gets it from so many different directions, in all fairness.
How can KDE4 be considered a clone, considering it was released a year before Windows 7?
The Kickoff menu was first created by Novell for KDE 3 as a response to betas of Windows Vista. From the announcement: (http://old-en.opensuse.org/Kickoff)
“The team evaluated the start menus of common desktops including KDE 3.5, the GNOME main menu developed for SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 Desktop and Windows Vista Beta 2.”
The stasks plasmoid (which made KDE’s taskbar like Windows 7’s) was first uploaded in February 2009 (http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/STasks?content=99739). This was four months after Microsoft first released videos of the new Windows 7 taskbar (http://cybernetnews.com/windows-7-taskbar-screenshots-video/)
… as Linux repellants? 😀
Oh boy, big deal. Who cares for Microsoft’s product? I’m sure that many people who use other products don’t care for Microsoft.
I’m using many apps and OSs. Microsoft was never on the list. Windows is a TOY, not a good OS for work.
Every reason to cheer for the Linux fanboys. The biggest threats to established tech companies have always been those they did not perceive as such.
I do not think Nokia would have had Google and Apple on this kind of list in the mid ’00s.
In a way Android and Linux are about the same. The Linux name is not there but I wouldn’t call it “different things”.
Linux on the desktop doesn’t appear on the radar, but it’s embedded in many TVs, routers, phones, … it’s a huge domination.
And even if Linux is not a threat for Windows desktop, Microsoft is facing the toughest challenges and I only see the down way for them (someone can play “down down down” from T. Waits
)
Linux is for Android same as Mach is for Mac OS. Both see development side as open but ones you get customer side they narrow it down so that it’s basicly there product. So don’t bother cheering victory for Linux in Android case. Might be victory for technology but huge loss for idealogy.
First the US credit rating downgrade, and now the Linux threat level downgrade! Whats wrong with the world?
The users just want to run a App. They don’t know how to build A Desktop of its own. Exactly what KDE allow us.
They aren’t scared of us anymore
First the ignore you. Check!
Then they laugh at you. Check!
Then they fight you. Check!
Then you win. Maybe that’s why they downgraded us, we won.
FTFY
It’s pretty hard to win when you don’t even know what world you’re living in.
They noticed that the OEMs simply refused to give Linux a real chance on the desktop (including making sure the hardware support is there and actually selling them cheaper since you’re not paying for the Windows license).
Regardless, Linux is for those who want it, not necessarily for everyone. Those of us who want it like the advantages it gives us.
They seem to be changing their attitude towards Linux lately.
First this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA2kqAIOoZM
and now this. I wonder why the change of attitude?
They called Linux a “cancer” and “Un-American” not long time ago. Now they are contributing to the kernel, Samba, etc.
What’s going on?
Edited 2011-08-13 04:38 UTC
if they honestly no longer perceive it as a threat they can afford to be magnanimous. That’s on the desktop if course. One could as easily say that in the server space they have come to be resigned to Linux’s presence and the necessity of coop (or at least interop)
The usual Microsoft hypocrisy. Such as how they initially dismissed Android, but now go after it with patent threats.