“Prejudices and misconceptions about Microsoft make it hard to evalute the company’s merits. The biggest myths about Microsoft are that its desktop products are overpriced, it doesn’t respect its customers, and reliability and security are poor. And some think the company is downright evil. In nearly two decades of studying Microsoft, I’ve been able to dig through the hype that the company generates, as well as the misconceptions its detractors create, to see more of the real company than most of you can ever experience.” Read the opinion-piece at InternetWeek, written by Rob Enderle.
Editorial on Microsoft: Hated Because It’s Misunderstood
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
“I’m betting your perceptions of Microsoft are largely fictional…”
“There are three key legs to the belief that Microsoft should be avoided: They charge too much, they don’t respect their customers, and their products are unreliable and insecure.”
Shouldda hadda V8. Who knew it was only a perception problem?
If Microsoft’s lack of security really annoys you, you can fix it without migrating by doing some of the things you would do if you migrated. Learn from the sites that survived the virus and worm attacks:
# Limit the number of applications you put on the desktop.
# Deploy new operating systems on new hardware.
# Keep software up to date (including your firewalls).
# Do regular security audits (including trivial password checks).
# Consider smart cards for verified access.
Flawed?
Not to mention, “Deploy new opertaing systems on new hardware.” Following that idea, that means upgrading from, say, Windows 98 to Windows XP.
Which one had the RPC DCOM exploit in it again?
I don’t think MS is evil. Insubordinate, non-cooperative, often (but not always) monopolistic, and more about talking the talk than anything else a lot of the time, but not evil. Not even bad, sometimes. What, do you think a $40 Billion company is just gonna give up one day, claiming it’s wrong to be evil, or something?
I’d also argue that a lot of people at Microsoft are probably very good people. Some probably awesome. Bill Gates donating millions to India doesn’t count due to the obvious “I gave a little, now you give a little” attitude about the whole issue, but there are definitely some very nice people working in at least semi-high places.
Still, as a business, their practices aren’t always wholesome, and are sometimes rediculously bully-like. Hey, they’re a big company. We just happen to be tech geeks, and they’re a big tech company who acts more interested in business than in other things. Why don’t we get this upset about De Beers? They’re cruel to people on a human level, not just a consumer level, but we’re aaaaall about badmouthing the offenders of the latter.
# Limit the number of applications you put on the desktop.
Why should we compensate for Microsoft’s flaws in their OS by using less applications?
Not for nothing but this story has flamebait written all over it.
I was very receptive to this article’s topic, but it was very disappointing.
Not only does the author start off with blatantly generalizing (who are these people who think MS is evil? Linux users? Identify your audience before pandering to it.), but also seems to be talking to CIOs–who generally know better than to have such opinions.
It is not explained why MS products are a better financial decision than StarOffice, etc. “Try it” is not an argument. I could say, “Run your servers on CP/M! Try it, revenue goes up 300%!” but it wouldn’t be true. The author says there is nothing to compare with, and that is not true: there is Linux.
The second point only applies to CIOs (I doubt any user entertains the idea of being flown about on a private jet by Microsoft).
The third brings in some sort of another car analogy, but a more appropriate one would be:
” For instance if you bought a car and the car maker put in a special bay for car bombs and marked it “Spare Parts Storage””
(and SCO’s DoS has no place here at all; no one is immune to DoSes)
It ends with some sort of semantic discussion of evil.
Enderle has failed once again…
Its products have become slower/heavier, its functionality harder to use and find, ridden with bugs and security holes and design flaws. For instance why does a product like Outlook which is basically a welcome mat to the world allow e-mail to contain scripts embedded in HTML? I use mostly text mail but I can see the merit of HTML mail (nice formatting) but letting people send you a fully-functional webpage, why?
MS is also not listneing to the people who do not want DRM on their machines. MS is valuing their relationship to the industry moer than their customers and this IS evil. It’s not how business is supposed to be.
Why all the insecure ports on my machine when you claim to ushering in a new era of security? I’m sure other OSes have holes too and that the reason Windows is targeted has to do with the market share. However you don’t see Linux fans proclaiming their OS to be free of flaws.
If you ask me Linux isn’t their biggest threat, their own disgruntled userbase is. I’m very glad that North Asia has waken and decided to remove Windows as the default OS there. May other countries follow suit.
For me, it’s just a matter of seeing a better way with GNU/Linux.
It’s not that I hate Microsoft per se, but I’m disgusted with the people that continue to use M$ products, don’t update them, and then blame M$ when a worm or virus is released that exploites a month old vulnerability.
Do they think M$ got their $62.7 billion USD cash reserve by only releasing products when they were ‘ready’?
No M$ at my house, I’ll tell you. Nope, and a regular dosage of apt-get update; apt-get upgrade weekly.
I read this article and is was just a bunch of counter-hyper and misdirection. There are plenty of other things to which MS products can be compared, and a lot of the paragraphs just sound like whining. “Such-and-such runs Linux and *they* were hacked! Nyah nyah.” Whatever.
Look at the other articles this fellow has written. Read them, too, if you want, but it’s more of the same crap. This guy doens’t sound unbiased, he sounds like an MS apologist.
This is funny, I use gaim on my main desktop linux box at home for ICQ/MSN. And for the past week, I’ve been getting this message from [email protected] telling me my version of MSN isnt secure, that i need a patch. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. that’s all I have to say.
I guess thats why MS decided to drop the bundle for Thai People PC to $40.00 and they have been convicted and fined of being a monopolist and for patent infringements, Nope i think we all understand MS pretty well…
“SCO was hit recently with a major denial of service attack”
It’s interesting that the author complains that no one would blame the car manufacturer for faulty gasoline and yet apparently thinks it is a security issue for SCO to have a DoS attack performed on them.
I don’t recall anyone ever blaming MS for a DoS performed on MS – unless the problem is due to shoddy workmanship on desktops that are left wide open (due to bad out of the box configurations and myriad buffer checking problems, among others) to be toppled and used for nefarious purposes.
I believe many of MS’s problems stem from their own success: they have lowered the barrier to owning your own computer by a huge amount, resulting in people owning desktops who have no idea how to secure them. MS is finally beginning to realize this and is making at least some effort to mitigate the problems, though so far they’ve not done as much as many think they should have.
He only calls himself one. In his pieces on the SCO vs IBM affair, he seems to have done no research at all and is basing his opinions solely on reports from his financial analyst friends who have seen the code under the NDA. How a financial analyst qualifies as a code expert is beyond me.
It seems that his work for Microsoft bears the same aura of “believe me because I say so, never mind the facts” type of journalism. Analysis it isn’t.
Glenn
“The biggest myths about Microsoft are that its desktop products are overpriced”
“The figures showed Microsoft raked in $2.89 billion in sales of Windows programs in the three months to Sept 30, with an operating profit of $2.48 billion.
The operating profit was equal to 85.82% of sales, up from a profit margin of 82.27% margin a year earlier.”
nuff said
http://www.ananova.com/business/story/sm_711827.html?menu=
Why am I not surprised?
Just look at all the money MS has in the bank. You don’t get that much money by playing on a level playing field. MS lacks discipline, pisses off their own customers, has poor habits of business, and by most accounts has poor software products. What other business can afford that? I’m sure that MS as an organization has some great people, but the corporate attitude comes from the top executives. They *DID* achieve their monopoly by illegal means, and continues to do so. The quality and price of the software is irrelevant to me after that key point.
I dont care what they say or do or who they send as the do boy to tell us how great they are. No more M$ for me. This article is very funny though. Thanks for the laugh.
Got root?
Now he’s whining about poor pitiful microsoft being misunderstood. He’s right, MS is misunderstood… by him… as is everything else. domofo, for certain.
A classmate in a programming class had problems installing Visual Studio .Net on his computer. Because it was the academic version, Microsoft wanted $245 to help him over the phone.
Now doesn’t this confirm that (1) Microsoft’s prices are too high, (2) Microsoft doesn’t respect its customers, and (3) Microsoft’s products are unreliable and insecure, three of the four things the article is trying to disprove? (I’ll let the reader decide on his/her own about #4, whether or not Microsoft is evil.)
The ‘perception’ that “Microsoft Doesn’t Respect Its Customers” was based on his suggestion that unnamed CIOs must be disappointed that they didn’t receive enough perks from Microsoft. That’s an unfounded and poor argument.
How about the fact that Microsoft pressured customers into paying upfront for software upgrades that may never be delivered?
How about Microsoft auditing customers and levying penalties for licensing violations?
http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html?tag=lh
Mr. Enderle was fired by IBM when they acquired and then divested themselves of ROLM. He has never forgotten that. He never gave it up and moved on. He has turned that old wound into his stance against GNU/Linux and Open Source. He is not to be taken seriously.
Remember, there are many like him, and they are called legion.
So misunderstood when they violated Timeline patents, funded the SCO Group attack, took Burst Media code (all the while performing their own magic missing emails – can you say “BurstGate”?, stole from Stac, and numerous other small players out there. Yep, we misunderstand them so much we walked away from them altogether.
That is what people like Mr. Enderle cannot stand. We walked away from them and moved on. They don’t like losing their paid-for marketing pieces and their remora-like lifestyle suckiing up to billionaires.
Must suck to be you Mr. Enderle. Really. Totally limp.
don’t believe your eyes or ears
enderle’s here to abate your fears
microsoft’s not evil, no no no
so says enderle, the ms ho ho ho
Microsoft, as a monopoly, represents a large market failure; imperfect competition. Microsoft’s biggest ‘evil'(if you want to call it that) is that it can fix the prices.
‘By being the dominant player on the desktop, Microsoft sets prices.’
By being able to do this, Microsoft can continue to dominate the market; whether or not a superior product is released.
The article contained not one verifiable factual statement (that I could detect) and many fatuous statements. It’s not even worth addressing the points, because only the totally clueless would find the article useful to them and need to be dissuaded from believing what the article says. And counter-arguments to nothing arguments would be wasted on the clueless.
What are you guys bitching about? He’s absolutely right…
The biggest myths about Microsoft are that
its desktop products are overpriced
Of course Microsoft products are not overpriced. Microsoft doesn’t sell products it originally develop’d on their own. Instead they bought competitors and are now selling THEIR products.
it doesn’t respect its customers
Again, this is indeed a myth. Ever called Microsoft’s hotline and NOT felt like a petitioner?
and reliability and security are poor
Once more he’s right. There is NO reliability or security in Microsoft products whatsoever.
Nothing to say but his personal bias which is unbirdled zealotry for microsoft. It’s embarrassing to read.
“This is funny, I use gaim on my main desktop linux box at home for ICQ/MSN. And for the past week, I’ve been getting this message from [email protected] telling me my version of MSN isnt secure, that i need a patch. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. that’s all I have to say.”
Microsoft is starting to charge for IM services, that’s why you got the upgrade notice – it’s to force the upgrade to the restricted software.
Microsoft is starting to charge for IM services, that’s why you got the upgrade notice – it’s to force the upgrade to the restricted software.
It seems like what they’re trying to do is either get people to use their MSN client or else charge 3rd parties to connect to their network, which is reasonable, IMHO.
It sounds to me like the Gaim users are just pissed because they can no longer leech off the service and their free ride is over. Well, too bad .. so sad.
If MS wants to charge people to connect to it’s own network, then more power to them. It’s not like it doesn’t cost money to run the shit anyway.
This guy must think that we all are just plain idiots. It’s the only reasonable explanation for this article.
“In nearly two decades of studying Microsoft”
Ohhhh! Wow, that’s amazing! But what he exactly did on these two decades?
Please gimme a break
Not only does the author start off with blatantly generalizing (who are these people who think MS is evil? Linux users? Identify your audience before pandering to it.), but also seems to be talking to CIOs–who generally know better than to have such opinions.
It’s no mystery: Look around on this thread and you will see the kind of people that Enderle is talking about: Bigoted *nix users who do indeed think that “M$” is “evil”. That’s the thing that always cracks me up: If you guys can’t look at yourselves objectively, how do you expect other people to?!?
“then Microsoft started investing in Explorer and made it great.”
Oh, yes, really. Great for install viruses and ignore web standarts like png and svg.
Mr. Enderle was fired by IBM when they acquired and then divested themselves of ROLM. He has never forgotten that. He never gave it up and moved on. He has turned that old wound into his stance against GNU/Linux and Open Source. He is not to be taken seriously.
Since when did you became able to read Mr. Enderle’s thoughts? Don’t be surprised when nobody takes you seriously, troll.
Microsoft wanted $245 to help him over the phone.
Now doesn’t this confirm that (1) Microsoft’s prices are too high, (2) Microsoft doesn’t respect its customers, and (3) Microsoft’s products are unreliable and insecure, three of the four things the article is trying to disprove? (I’ll let the reader decide on his/her own about #4, whether or not Microsoft is evil.)
No, it proves that your friend is a simple-minded twit that should stay away from computers if he can’t install a freakin’ compiler by himself…
Just look at all the money MS has in the bank. You don’t get that much money by playing on a level playing field.
You have a lot to learn about capitalism, Ivan.
Look at M$ they cannot handle any compititon from others other companies technoloy first they copy them and then them squeeze out the market.
example
Mountrushmore Foxpro = Access
wordperfect = word
Netscape =ie
Java <> .Net (but a copy cat)
Sybae SQL = SQL server.
Now they are after Linux playing SCO as their pawn. Windoze is no copy it is piece of crap OS>
Now they are after Linux playing SCO as their pawn. Windoze is no copy it is piece of crap OS
What are you … like 12 years old?!? Using Daddy’s computer again to slap at “the Man”, tsk, tsk…
“No, it proves that your friend is a simple-minded twit that should stay away from computers if he can’t install a freakin’ compiler by himself…”
Right, like he’s the ONLY one who has trouble installing a microsoft app. All their large apps have “gotchas” that could stop anyone who’s doing his first install. You’re the simple-minded twit for pretending that you can read his mind.
Mountrushmore Foxpro = Access
wordperfect = word
Netscape =ie
Java <> .Net (but a copy cat)
Sybae SQL = SQL server.
Foxpro is still offered by MS. Access is not FoxPro. Ask any old school FoxPro developer.
Netscape ? MS didn’t buy netscape. They licensed a browser from a company called Looking Glass. That is what became IE. Christ at least get it right when you fling mud.
.NET is not a copy of Java. If you want to go that route I’d say that Java was a copy of UCSD pascal. Its all bullshit. When designing software you take good ideas and you try and improve on them. In some aspects .net does just that.
SQL is a standard. I’m not sure its really copying anyone if you are implementing a standard.
i judge ms and it’s software based on facts and one of them is: ms products just make users angry, why?
one example:
– Somebody sends you a document done in the latest version
of Word, but you may have not the need or funds to upgrade and are using and older version, now try to open the document without getting pissed of
as a user I’m ok if a new ver of soft has new features and to use them I have to upgrade but I’m not ok with the way users who are happy with current product are just left out to die beacause of an incompatible file format
Netscape ? MS didn’t buy netscape. They licensed a browser from a company called Looking Glass. That is what became IE. Christ at least get it right when you fling mud.
The company that MS licensed what became IE from is called Spy Glass.
“What are you … like 12 years old?!? Using Daddy’s computer again to slap at “the Man”, tsk, tsk…”
And what are you … like a 45 year old man using your work computer to flame 12 years olds on microsofts behalf?
Right, like he’s the ONLY one who has trouble installing a microsoft app. All their large apps have “gotchas” that could stop anyone who’s doing his first install. You’re the simple-minded twit for pretending that you can read his mind.
BS. Installing VS.NET isn’t anything special. If your friend has troubles installing a compiler, he should find a new line of work.
Since I stopped using Microsoft products, I’ve had a far more enjoyable computing experience. And Microsoft products *are* overpriced.
For less than $129, I can buy OS X Panther (well, very soon now) which will run circles around Windows XP and will deliver features that Microsoft won’t be able to match until at least 2005 or 2006. If I wanted to buy Linux, it’s even less.
Some MS products are now no longer free. IE, for instance. Once the competition was killed, MS discontinued development as a standalone product. This means users will be stuck with an outdated and possibly useless product before long. The Web is already passing IE 6 by. The more MS delays IE development, the more the competition blows it out of the water.
Microsoft *is* evil. It has literally lied, cheated, and stolen its way to power. Its products are bloated and buggy. MS tried to squash or circumvent open standards all the time in an attempt to kill off competitors. And at this point, MS takes far too long to improve products compared to its leaner, open-source brethren — despite the fact that MS claims open-source software licenses are evil. Ha!
This Rob dude is obviously an MS butt-licker. Sorry, but his MS excuses are so pathetic that they’re sickening. Nobody should need to try this hard to like a company.
Regards,
Jared
from the help | about box………………
Based on NCSA Mosaic. NCSA Mosaic(TM); was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Distributed under a licensing agreement with Spyglass, Inc.
Contains security software licensed from RSA Data Security Inc.
Portions of this software are based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group.
Multimedia software components, including Indeo(R); video, Indeo(R) audio, and Web Design Effects are provided by Intel Corp.
Unix version contains software licensed from Mainsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1998-1999 Mainsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Mainsoft is a trademark of Mainsoft Corporation.
Warning: This computer program is protected by copyright law and international treaties. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this program, or any portion of it, may result in severe civil and criminal penalties, and will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible under the law.
– Somebody sends you a document done in the latest version
of Word, but you may have not the need or funds to upgrade and are using and older version, now try to open the document without getting pissed of …
So get the http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2000/wd97vwr32.aspx“>Word , you twit.
Note: This is just my personal troll comment, the subject is just a joke.
“Bigoted *nix users who do indeed think that “M$” is “evil”. That’s the thing that always cracks me up: If you guys can’t look at yourselves objectively, how do you expect other people to?!?”
You seems to be the most narrow-minded person here. You don’t need to be a *nix user to realize MS is far from being a company that respects it’s customers and fair on business. It’s just a matter of having a brain.
If you feel confortable to use your MS based operating system after reading the EULA, go ahead and enjoy! But don’t call us “Bigoted”, because this is more appropriate for you and mr. Ederle.
And what are you … like a 45 year old man using your work computer to flame 12 years olds on microsofts behalf?
Do us all a favor and go play with the kiddies. This is an adult thread.
You seems to be the most narrow-minded person here. You don’t need to be a *nix user to realize MS is far from being a company that respects it’s customers and fair on business.
Wrong, I use both MS and *nix daily. But I’ve seen most of the OS bigotry coming from the *nix side, though.
It’s just a matter of having a brain.
No, it’s a matter of USING A BRAIN — which many people on this thread can’t do.
People don’t hate Microsoft for no reason whatsoever it’s because they did something that pissed them off. Early this summer I was browsing for server parts on eBay and found a shirt that said “MICROCRASH – Be grateful we don’t build cars” and since them while walking around campus there hasn’t been a day where someone hasn’t read my shirt then ask me where I got it so they could get one too.
Microsoft has stolen a lot of software and now sells it as their own. The thing that gets me about Microsoft is that they seem to just put out something just to squash the competition and to have a version of whatever it is that is theirs. They can’t stand that Google is out there and popular so M$ says “Well there is something people like and we don’t have a version of it so we’d better put one out.” Now their contributing to the republicans so you can totally forget any possibility for anti-monopoly charges.
“BS. Installing VS.NET isn’t anything special. If your friend has troubles installing a compiler, he should find a new line of work.”
1, not my friend. 2, like you’ve installed any compiler…in your dreams maybe. 3, is jumping to conclusion all the exercise you get.
1, not my friend.
AS IF you have any..
2, like you’ve installed any compiler…in your dreams maybe.
I was writing compilers before you were sperm.
3, is jumping to conclusion all the exercise you get
Dude, I’m probably twice your age but I could kick your fat *ss down the block at any sport…
“Whoa. No need to read any further. You’re one of those Mac bigots who thinks that the rest of the world revolves around your crappy operating system.”
Whoa. No need to read any further. You’re one of those WINDOWS bigots who thinks that the rest of the world revolves around your crappy operating system.
OMFG — all of the posts here I’ve gone through are such repetitive, useless bullshit! I’m sure I missed one or two reasonable ones, because some of you guys drowned me to my neck in raw sewage.
“Mr Enderly isn’t a real analyst — he just calls himself one! BWAHAHAHA!!” Holy shit, do I have to filter all this repetitive, trite mind-numbing garbage, to respond to someone with good points? Enderle must literally receive thousands of emails, each from someone thinking that if he doesn’t respond, they’ve ‘won.’
There’s this one poster who writes:
“The article contained not one verifiable factual statement (that I could detect) and many fatuous statements. It’s not even worth addressing the points, because only the totally clueless would find the article useful to them and need to be dissuaded from believing what the article says. And counter-arguments to nothing arguments would be wasted on the clueless.”
Look at how often he repeats the phrase, “the article.” Three times in three sentences. I could replace each instance with, “these posts,” and that would capture the spirit of the knee-jerking posters who infect this board, who can’t advance an argument with half the skill that Enderle just demonstrated.
If someone could simply summarize all the posts in this discussion on a webpage or in a single post, I’ll respond to the good ones. There have to be one or two of them against Enderle’s article in this long thread.
Let’s take a snip of the original post you “forgot”…
A classmate in a programming class had problems installing Visual Studio .Net on his computer. Because it was the academic version, Microsoft wanted $245 to help him over the phone.
How can you judge the qualification of someone when you don’t even know what is the problem? Perhaps it was a missing file, an unknown error number, etc. You should be aware that not everything works flawlessly in the IT world even if it should.
And you’re the one telling that it’s an adult thread and people don’t use their brains… Hmpf.
You people who are replying to Bar:
Stop. Hasn’t anyone told you that ad hominem arguments are low-class? Even though I disagree with him, I think Bar is a much better debater.
(also: I am not bigoted against Microsoft. They have created a lot of good things. You misunderstood.)
I’m sorry, but I’ll leave the pedophilia to you … you’re obviously an expert.
Leave the pedophilia to your limp-wristed fellow Milquetoast Brits…
The more I watch Microsoft, the more I realize that Bill Gates is much like Edison or Ford. He is a brilliant businessman, you have to give him that. The trouble with Both Edison and Ford is that they both craved absolute control of their creations. Ford refused for years to simply paint his cars colors! He didn’t think it was important. Edison created the first batch of phonographs and motion pictures, but weilded the patent right with such an iron fist of morality that most of the filmmakers moved to California to get far enough away from him to create their own ideas. [Any of this sound familiar…history loves to repeat!]
Bill’s main problem is that Microsoft is HIS vision. His attitude is that HE created the PC market, and you either play nice with his vision or get [put] out of the way. They view everyone else as leechers to their Master Plan. Bill really, really badly wants the home PC to control everything in your house. It’s an innocent, but impractical, idea. Unfortunately, he’s got too much money and with money power, to be told NO his ideal is flawed.
That’s why he needs DRM to appease Hollywood, and Secure Computing to appease his “investors”. Otherwise they won’t play with HIS vison for all your media.
Frankly, I think MS is like IBM in the early 90’s, way to cocky for it’s own good. I think when Longhorn comes out with all of the DRM, .NET, breaks everything goodness that the computer industry will simply sigh and do something else. Of course MS has a lot of money and influance to make sure that doesn’t happen. I see Bill going the way of Howard Huges with his “Spruce Goose” that will suck the company down from it’s peak until he’s out of the picture and it can go it’s own way in the market.
“1, not my friend.
AS IF you have any..
2, like you’ve installed any compiler…in your dreams maybe.
I was writing compilers before you were sperm.
3, is jumping to conclusion all the exercise you get
Dude, I’m probably twice your age but I could kick your fat *ss down the block at any sport…”
1, yeah, your demeanor endears you to millions
2, writing the word “compiler”
3, kick back another beer, is the only thing you can kick
Congratulations mr. Bar! This flame is one of the greatest ones I ever seen on any website (except slashdot, of course) ever!
Three hoorrahs for mr. Bar!
Bar is just as bad.
Do us all a favor and go play with the kiddies. This is an adult thread.
Then why do you keep insulting everyone who doesn’t agree with you? That hardly seems mature…
AT&T WorldNet Services, Parsippany
Obviously someone who can’t afford to live in NYC.
Seriously, his articles read as if they had been written by a MS marketing exec. This isn’t news or even opinion, but only pro-MS propaganda.
Don’t hate the playa. Hate the fact that you don’t have any game.
“Now they are after Linux playing SCO as their pawn. Windoze is no copy it is piece of crap OS”
Do you have some sort of inside infomation? If you do, You should share.
You can save the document in different formats. User stupidity is not the fault of the manufacturer. My highlight for the day was when a Mac cultie tried to install IE6 on to his laptop running WinXP, which already has IE6 on it for those who don’t know. It killed ActiveX, VBScript, Java, everything. It would display html, but that was it.
You’re right installs can be tricky. The cd could be scratched, the memory bad, or the app could have been corrupted by the download off of Kazaa.
Microsoft actually has top notch help support. Yeah the fee is pretty rediculous to you and me, but in a corporate environment that’s pocket change. Plus, they’ll stay with you until the problem is fixed.
Don’t hate.
Don’t hate.
Seriously, his articles read as if they had been written by a MS marketing exec. This isn’t news or even opinion, but only pro-MS propaganda.
I like your name and you seem honest, so I won’t flame you. Just want to point out that almost every post here sounds like they were written by some Linux zealot. Everyone is biased. And when they write their honest thoughts, they sound like PR flacks or zealots.
The difference is, Enderle got up on his soapbox and created something well-written. It took time, more time and experience than people usually use for discussion board posts. And people who’ve actually worked in the industry for a while, who know MSFT people and how well the company treats its employees, find Enderle’s points reasonable.
MSFT has high employee morale, they’ve rewarded shareholders, they’ve put an OS on near everyone’s desk who could pay a few hundred $, and the OS is actually pretty cheap for all the usability testing and end-user polish it has. But since it’s everywhere, you’ll know someone who had a bad experience or got hit by a worm.
In 99% of real companies, you have managers talking about killing their competitors or tightening the screws on the customer. Microsoft on the other hand has worked hard to please its customers, taking flack for not fixing bugs because they don’t want to break apps, and waking up full of fear that they’ll be eaten up by an upstart company. The people who rail against MSFT either have no experience or work at absolutely cool small companies, like MSFT once was but can no longer be (since big companies lose their excitement).
But in an economy where Sun and Oracle lay people off to hire cheap offshorers, Microsoft protects its employees while also hiring Indians. They’ve done pretty well by their:
– employees
– customers (every company will piss off some % of them though)
– shareholders
but not their competitors. Who’s perfect?
Enderle’s articles have been decidedly pro microsoft in the past and anti-OSS.Whether he has a grudge against OSS that only he knows, but i really can’t take a guy very seriously when his articles seem to only look at one side of the coin.
How do we decide that a company is overpricing? Simple when majority of its customers decide that the price is too much and start looking for alternatives. That has always been the rule in the capitalist economy. You hear stories about ppl moving to OSS solutions chiefly because they believe it to be more cost effective.By this rule, that means microsotf is over pricing. Perceived quality to price ratio is more favourable towards OSS (Note i say OSS and not Linux it is not the be all and end all of OSS and this is from a guy who uses Linux as his primary desktop as home), and that frankly is all that counts. Ultimately quality is what the customer percieves it to be its subjective but it is influenced by a lot of factors, like how the company behaves with its customers, (after sales support), perceived ease of use of the product, robustness, etc. And i say perception because more often than not ppl will judge by their experience and not objectively. A guy who couldn’t get linux to install on his machine would be more inclined to hate it, while a guy whose windows kept crashing and has got linux working solidly (me) would probably consider it god send.
Why i am emphasising on perception is that enderle believes that ppl have misunderstood Microsoft. whether they have misunderstood is not really important. What matters is that in their view Microsot cannot be trusted. Until Microsoft does something constructive to change this no amount of words /articles are going to change this perception.
Seriously, Microsoft is not learning lessons from the past (IBM). Monopolies tend to stagnate and unless they pull themselves together and attempt to innovate they may start a rot from within. They had/have a great vision but they are going a little overboard. It is perhaps a part of the natural cycle but by forgetting a crucial rule of business “Keep the customer satisfied”, Microsoft is really not doing anyone good least of all itself. thye shoudl ideally be looking at OSS as an oppurtunity and not as a threat, just like the way they took advantage of the internet. By trying to crush OSS they seem to be taking a short sighted view rather than that of the future. I guess like most ppl they are scared of change.
I love linux. I use it as my main desktop. And i plan to keep useing it. It’s getting better all the time. And I’ve learned alot more about everything computers since i’ve started to use it.
But I have to say that alot of the community sucks(not all and I want even say most). And that everyone seems to be in denial about the problems it has, and the advances it need to make.
And that once it does make those advances that it will be open to the same problems with software and support and scrutiny that MS is. And if there becomes a linux company that grows to the size that windows is now, guess what… they will play some of the same dirty pool that windows does. Why? Cause that is the nature of enconomic game.
This world is full of liars and theives period. And full of people who will write trojans and worms and the like to attack somthing to cause inconvience and fear, for many different reasons of their own.
I’m not going to defend MS really. But honestly the recent problem they had with the blaster worm would had been less of a problem if half the people out there knew what they were doing when they sat down in front of there PCs.
Now granted I will say that MS designs there basic software for those who don’t know what’s up. And that design has in encouraged that type of user. But that’s the way it had to be. And linux will have to go that route to a certain extent(though it pains me).
I run serveral OSs. And there has been pain from both Windows and Linux. And I’m sick of the FUD from both sides. I do not agree with all that the author has said in this article. And he may have a hidden agenda. But he does have some points.
The more I watch Microsoft, the more I realize that Bill Gates is much like Edison or Ford. He is a brilliant businessman, you have to give him that. The trouble with Both Edison and Ford is that they both craved absolute control of their creations.
I agree. I think its the common thread between not only Gates, Edison and Ford, but also Elison and Jobs.
If you look at each of these individuals they are brilliant on many different levels. They are also all arrogant and want the world to conform to their “vision”.
Frankly, I think MS is like IBM in the early 90’s, way to cocky for it’s own good. I think when Longhorn comes out with all of the DRM, .NET, breaks everything goodness that the computer industry will simply sigh and do something else.
It could happen. Maybe MS will lose heavy dominance in a few key areas over time and come back a much gentler giant like IBM did.
I like your name and you seem honest, so I won’t flame you.
Good idea: Cthulhu is flame-resistant.
Just want to point out that almost every post here sounds like they were written by some Linux zealot.
You must have missed Bar’s numerous posts.
The difference is, Enderle got up on his soapbox and created something well-written. It took time, more time and experience than people usually use for discussion board posts.
To be fair, he is being paid to write these articles, while posters here do it in their spare time, often without rewrites. But even though his article may be well-written, that doesn’t make it true. Well-written propaganda remains propaganda.
And people who’ve actually worked in the industry for a while, who know MSFT people and how well the company treats its employees, find Enderle’s points reasonable.
I disagree. I know many people who’ve worked quite a while in the industry who do not find Enderle’s points to be reasonable. And the fact that MS treats its employees well is irrelevant to the effect the company has on the IT “ecosystem.”
the OS is actually pretty cheap for all the usability testing and end-user polish it has. But since it’s everywhere, you’ll know someone who had a bad experience or got hit by a worm.
It’s not only Windows’ prevalence that makes it an easy target for worms and viruses: it has a number of severe security flaws. Windows has 20 times Linux’s market share, but it has 1000 times more viruses…
And now it looks as if this vulnerability has cost the U.S. and Canadian economies hundred of millions in lost time, as Blaster may have contributed to the severity of the recent blackout:
http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2003/0,4814,84510,00.html
Sorry, but I think MS quite deserves its reputation.
Let’s face it everybody. There is never going to be a completely objective, factual review of Microsoft, either positive or negative, nor will there be one of Linux. Everybody’s got an axe to grind, or a wallet to fatten on the back end. But, at least we can try to push for higher ground on these debates.
I have used many different operating systems. In fact, I am writing this post from a Windows 2000 system, sitting behind my FreeBSD firewall at home, which is also connected to a Linux workstation for web development. One of my current projects is to configure a Mac XServe for a large web application. Hey, I have my preferences, but I have to make a living. Each platform has its benefits and its aggravations. The best I can do is try to make a few wry observations here or there:
Linux: yes, its cool, its fun, and you never know what crazy thing someone will dream up next for Linux. But, I have had my share of security hassles there, not to mention upgrade dependency hell with RedHat, the Microsoft of Linux
Mac OS X: OK, UI is very cool. Is it really Unix? Well… yes and no. Works out of the box? Well, until you actually want to do something Unixy like run Sendmail+DNS. (5 hours of reading “Mac OS X Hacks” later, I wish I was using FreeBSD, which takes only 5 minutes to do same.)
FreeBSD: well… OK, I don’t really have much bad to say about FreeBSD except… hey!!! We are using the latest version of a 30-year old system, actually one of the first operating systems ever, and it is still just about the stablest thing around? Shows how far we have really come…
Windows: We have all had some proud Windows user say “I’ve been using Windows for 10 years, and never had a single /(virus|crash|hack)/. It doesn’t take an idiot… all you have to do is:
1. Check for updates every day
2. Run your antivirus software, update definitions every day
3. Remember not to run X, or x, or y, or y+x
4. have a personal firewall
5. stay behind a VPN
6. Use a non-microsoft FTP, mail client, etc…
7. etc…
So, it’s fully possible to run Microsoft and be safe. Why, I have an NT server I haven’t rebooted in 9 months.”
My response: “Hey, of course. And, it’s fully possible to live in a house that needs to be painted every day, and needs plumbing checked every week. But, I don’t want to live in that house.”
Even so, I don’t hate Microsoft. It’s my free choice to use it when people ask me. I could just tell them no. I am just glad I have the free choice to use what I want.
But, to listen to some people, you would think that Windows will devour your firstborn, and Office will sap the strength from your body, leaving a dry dusty corpse. And every time anything comes out of Redmond, lo and behold, it signifies the end of the world… doom is upon us.
No, life goes on. It’s not the end of the world. Yes, every day hundreds of millions of Windows users fire up their systems and log in, and somehow manage to make it through the day. And, every day, a sizeable percentage of them get hosed, usually blissfully unaware until too late. But even so, life goes on, systems get fixed sooner or later, lost data recovered, unrecoverable data forgotten (first curses, then philosophical attitudes adopted) etc…
In the end, the worst I would accuse Microsoft of is a certain… mediocrity; the kind of mediocrity that is inevitable when you try to be all things to all people. (Should serve as a cautionary tale to anyone who wants “their” platform to dominate computing.)
If windows was a work of art not only would it not be worth $299, it wouldn’t recoup the cost of the canvas and the paint.
Holy Hell!
“By anon (IP: —.ipt.aol.com) – Posted on 2003-09-05 03:49:21”
Why don’t you want people to know your name? Or is your name ‘anon’?
“OMFG — all of the posts here I’ve gone through are such repetitive, useless bullshit! I’m sure I missed one or two reasonable ones, because some of you guys drowned me to my neck in raw sewage.”
True. I thought your comment might be different, but I was wrong. If you think Enderle has good points, you are probably beyond reason.
” There’s this one poster who writes: ”
That would be me – Mark Wilson.
“Look at how often he repeats the phrase, “the article.” ”
And your point is?
I don’t know Enderle, only what he wrote, and I did not care to say anything about him other than the content of his article.
” Three times in three sentences. I could replace each instance with, “these posts,” and that would capture the spirit of the knee-jerking posters who infect this board, who can’t advance an argument with half the skill that Enderle just demonstrated. ”
Maybe your last name is Enderle, but I find it difficult to believe any knowledgeable and unbiased person could believe that “the article” advanced “arguments” with “skill”.
” If someone could simply summarize all the posts in this discussion on a webpage or in a single post, I’ll respond to the good ones.”
Are you sure your last name isn’t in Enderle?
Regards,
Mark Wilson
rycamor, I agree with your conclusion. I believe that’s exactly why MS has a good reputation as russian/korean car manufacturers. They should focus in one or two things, not everything. IMNSHO, I think it’s better to make one or two excellent products than a zillion of bad to okay products. Imagine how good would be Windows if they had focused on development and security rather than features. Perhaps they would be as rich as today with the same market share, but with a much better reputation.
Microsoft is interested in one thing, profit. Microsoft is hated because there’s a lot to hate. They’ve systematically attempted to bury their competition over the years in any way they can, not unlike many large corporations. Anyone remember when Microsoft got in trouble over the fact that they charged OEMs the cost of the operating system even if they didn’t install it on a system? Does anyone believe that they wouldn’t do this now if they thought they could get away with it? Does anyone believe that they aren’t attempting similar tactics now? Let’s get real here folks.
Their operating system designs have been security nightmares from the start. Usable? Yes. Fragile? Yes. Everyone who knows the slightest bit about various flavors of operating systems knows this.
The software is designed from the outset to rope people in. Yes it’s functional and usable, but Microsoft will to anything it can get away with to stifle anything that might compete with it.
Microsoft is not evil, it’s amoral. The motto is, “Anything to win.” Any evaluation of the company must take this into account.
Linux is a pain in the ass, but at least it was designed by people for people. OS X is beautiful, and functional, as well as being based on a form of Unix. It has style. As Steve Jobs said once in an interview, “Microsoft’s problem is that they have no style.”
Enough said.
Ken
Taken from Enderle’s article, point by point:
>If Microsoft’s lack of security really annoys you, you can fix it without migrating by doing some of the things you would do if you migrated. Learn from the sites that survived the virus and worm attacks:
># Limit the number of applications you put on the desktop.
I regularly violate this rule with my FreeBSD systems. *
># Deploy new operating systems on new hardware.
I regularly violate this rule with my FreeBSD systems. **
># Keep software up to date (including your firewalls).
I follow this rule with my FreeBSD systems. ***
# Do regular security audits (including trivial password checks).
I follow this rule with my FreeBSD systems. ****
# Consider smart cards for verified access.
Whatever…
# Don’t copy entire software images from old PCs to new ones; leave that to the hardware OEMs, who have testing and procedures in place to make sure the imaging is done right.
I don’t even have to worry about this rule with my FreeBSD systems. *****
# Don’t upgrade memory on existing systems; even the slightest mismatch between memory chips can lead to instability.
I only follow this rule on production servers in FreeBSD ******
————–
* (That’s because almost all the other software I may want to play with has no averse effect to security or stability. Remember, no registry, limited permissions…)
** (Updating one or two pieces of software every other month… hardly what I would call frantic)
*** (The latest FreeBSD runs great on older hardware)
**** (I don’t have to be neurotic about it, though… I actually sleep at night
)
***** (I can have my full software environment duplicated on any system within a couple hours over the web, including all apps, using the FreeBSD ports system. But, if I wanted to copy the entire disk image over, that’s not such a problem either.)
****** (When your OS is stable and built with fault-tolerance in mind, these things are rarely a problem.)
And the fact that MS treats its employees well is irrelevant to the effect the company has on the IT “ecosystem.”
I disagree here. We’re not only talking about the IT ecosystem, but a greater social and economic one. It is entirely relevant how a company treats its employees, and is an exceedingly common measuring stick by which companies are judged.
However, even just in the IT space, employee morale has a definite impact on quality. Google, which does a very good job on it (remember it’s still a small company, so it’s easier) clearly shows the products of minds which care and are untroubled by fear of their employer. Google isn’t perfect — I’m noticing errors more constantly — but they’re attaining a “monopoly” on search, and yet people talk more about the ex-chef of the Grateful Dead serving them lunch every day.
It’s not only Windows’ prevalence that makes it an easy target for worms and viruses: it has a number of severe security flaws. Windows has 20 times Linux’s market share, but it has 1000 times more viruses…
Some zealots write angry posts. Others write viruses. The recent worm even had an anti-MS message in the registry.
I don’t think Gnu/Linux is particularly virus-proof, but its users are far more sophisticated computer-wise. They have to be; almost invariably they seek out the Gnu system instead of having it preinstalled.
However, we all know that even http://ftp.gnu.org had trojans since March since they didn’t patch their systems. [ http://ftp.gnu.org/MISSING-FILES.README ] Linux’s goal is not to be a secure OS, unlike OpenBSD. Further, MSWindows is much more user-friendly, which trades off with security. (I have used Linux for work and home, and while it’s great for dev work, it clearly does not yet have the Windows polish for home users who are expert in things other than computers.)
I just installed Windows service packs and am looking into firewalls. Security isn’t free. MacOS is the only OS I know that does a good job on this front, with its update features. Microsoft should learn from Apple, not Linux.
If I were writing a virus, I’d aim for one that has a lot of home users who don’t patch their systems. Windows is the natural target.
You must have missed Bar’s numerous posts.
Yeah, just noticed them now.
Well-written propaganda remains propaganda. […] I know many people who’ve worked quite a while in the industry who do not find Enderle’s points to be reasonable.
Honest people can disagree. But imagine if they wrote a good article on how MSFT is worse than Hitler. A Microsoftie will find it objectionable and claim the author was horribly biased. Everyone is biased.
Would it help if I said I often communicate with some Opensource and Free Software leaders? Stallman has often mentioned that he didn’t think MSFT was particularly bad (well, until that idiot Gates started calling the GPL communist). But Stallman does go around calling companies evil, and Microsofties answer that computing is a horribly cutthroat industry, with Sun having a “Chief Competitive Officer,” and they had to fight hard to put cheap computers on everyone’s desks. They’ve been succeeding! They don’t have the lock-in of Apple’s hardware, and you can avoid the Microsoft tax while building your own machines.
no. hated, because it lies, cheats and steals.
Are you sure your last name isn’t in Enderle?
Speaking of a name being “in Enderle,” I was thinking that Microsoft was like Ender Wiggin, the star of a book that’s popular among both nerds & geeks. He acted amoral in his excellence, he made mistakes and wasn’t the smartest kid on the block, but he kept learning, forever paranoid. And in the end, he meant well.
Anyway, thought you might be interested. Sun and Oracle’s management remind me of those snarling kids who were simply not up to the task. In concrete terms, the lobbyist recently interviewed by Slashdot explained those two companies made the fatal mistake of inviting the government into the IT industry, and it’ll be hard to remove it.
http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/01/1615232&mode…
Why do we always have to psychoanalyze everything to codify reason and blame; or attempt to spin a negative public opinion into a big sympathy march or cry orgy? Can’t we just dislike Microsoft and their products in shallow, meaningless ways? I know I do.
I have nothing against Microsoft products per se. Windows 2000 and XP are reasonably good operating systems and their office suite is good as well. However, I do have several reasons to believe Microsoft overcharges for its operating system and has underhanded business practices.
If I’m not mistaken, when Windows 2000 was the latest Microsoft OS, it cost $100 for the upgrade and $200 for the retail version.
By comparison, the very latest version of MacOS, which is easier to use, has very useful features that Windows doesn’t (like creating PDF files and mounting ISO images), has far fewer security problems, and is just as good in my opinion, will cost you only $120 for the retail version. Oh, and with Apple servers, you don’t pay anything for client licenses. You just buy the server and that’s it; have as many people use it as possible, it doesn’t cost you one dime more.
With XP as the latest Windows version, you can pickup XP for the usual price, but Windows 2000 is now $200 for the upgrade and $300 for the retail version! Since when does the previous version of an OS cost more than the current version!? Doesn’t the old stuff usually go down in price?
Also, I work for a major university and several years ago we had a Microsoft Select Agreement where we could get any Microsoft product at greatly reduced prices (typically $30-$35 for the OS and most other products, including Win2K and Office2K). This was great because it was much cheaper than retail and we “owned” the copies we purchased, meaning that they were retail copies and that we could legally install them on new hardware as long as we removed it from the old hardware.
A few years ago, Microsoft made us a seemingly great offer… move to a “site-license” leasing agreement (no more purchasing, no more license tracking, no more paperwork), for only the products you commonly use (limiting our selection of products) and we’ll let you have this deal for about 20% less than what you’ve been spending, based on the number of full-time equivalent employees. So we had to pay a little more for very low volume products, but we got unlimited use of Windows and Office. A great deal.. or so we thought!
The very next year Microsoft changed its definition of full-time equivalent employees to include Teaching Assistants and Teaching Fellows, which it had not included previously. This basically doubled our number of FTE’s and therefore doubled the amount we had to pay to Microsoft each year. Save 20% this year, but we’re really going to screw you over next year.. and we’re laughing all the way to the bank!
So we are now paying far more than we were and we don’t “own” any of the software. Oh, if we want to leave the current agreement, we must remove the leased, site-licensed, products from our computers. At this point, nobody’s been keeping up with the paperwork any longer and I doubt we would know which copies were purchased and which ones are leased. If we want to leave the agreement and keep those leased copies of Windows, then we must pay the FULL RETAIL PRICE for copy!!!
Thank you Microsoft for locking us into an agreement we don’t want and severely screwing over us and our thousands of students!
I can understand one or two agressive business deals, but Microsoft has shown themselves time and time again to be deceptive, underhanded, overly agressive, and greedy. I can accept less than perfect products from an honest and reasonable company. I will not accept even the best product from a company that is just out to screw me and does business like Microsoft.
Sorry this is OT but…
The first 2 are perfectly valid (if somewhat inflamatory) opinions. The last 3… ok, they’re garbage, but then so are 30% of the posts in this thread->flamewar between Bar et al.
Personally I also think the article is vapid and devoid of content.
“Why do we always have to psychoanalyze everything to codify reason and blame; or attempt to spin a negative public opinion into a big sympathy march or cry orgy?”
because i believe that telling lies, cheating, and stealing are bad things, and we must fight with corporations which encapsulate these idioms. (you may not think in this way though.) if there exists such a corporation which you cannot fight via law and money, and especially if this corporation is rooted in a land on which it is natural for law and money to perform some deeds in the same bed, you don’t have many ways of fighting left. one way is to create better alternatives in terms of price and functionality, and this is what open source does to some extend (of course this does not mean that it is reason d’etre of open source), another way is to psychoanalyze everything to codify reason and blame ( using nlp perhaps –: ) ); or attempt to spin a negative public opinion into a big sympathy march or cry orgy.
“Can’t we just dislike Microsoft and their products in shallow, meaningless ways? I know I do.”
sure you can. i don’t choose to.
“No, it proves that your friend is a simple-minded twit that should stay away from computers if he can’t install a freakin’ compiler by himself…”
>Right, like he’s the ONLY one who has trouble installing a >microsoft app. All their large apps have “gotchas” that >could stop anyone who’s doing his first install. You’re >the simple-minded twit for pretending that you can read >his mind.
In all my years using MS (since 3.1) I’ve never had any problems installing software, .NET is just one recent app which has caused not one single problem for me. On the other hand, each time I try to get to grips with Linux (three goes now), installing software seems to be a nightmare in comparison. And don’t tell my about all the different and wonderful installers there are for Linux, most of the time I’ve no idea what you guys are talking about. To simply install software do I need all that knowledge? Surely a simple setup.exe or install.exe would be sufficient?
Well, I guess you were lucky. Like I said previously, programs ain’t flawless. I once had problems with some installers, yet it doesn’t make me an idiot. It doesn’t make the programmer that made that executable an idiot either.
Btw, please tell me what your argument against Linux has to do with his original point… You’re just trolling. However, now that you mention it, some Linux distros only require you to know a command and the name of the application. Typing the command will download, compile (if required) and install it. You don’t even need to click “Next” at each installation screen. Hey, there are even some distros when you just have to click a package (like an EXE) and it’ll install it exactly like a setup.exe. How more easy can it get? Well, it could obey to your voice or read your mind, but not even Windows does that.
Sure, Linux programmers still have a lot of work to do with user friendliness, but I don’t think that program installation is an issue.
In November 2004 Dubya and the Republicans are going to get annihilated by the voter backlash. Thousands of Americans dying in Iraq and a stagnant economy won’t be very popular.
The Democrats will be out to get MS for supporting the Republicans.
1.5 Billion people will live in an anti-MS zone (China, Japan, North Korea).
By the time Longhorn SP2 arrives in 2009 we’ll all be using Suse 12.2 on Via 64 bit processors.
I’m tired of people calling MS evil, just because they don’t like it.
Yes, MS make mistakes, and when your software is used on such a large scale, these mistakes can be devastating (Blaster, etc.)
But don’t forget that MS has put a patch for it’s flaw a month or so before Blaster. Why is MS’s fault that people didn’t update their OS? You don’t know how to do it yourself, hire someone to do it for you.
If you don’t know wich fuel your car uses, is not manufacturers fault. Is yours. Same with software.
I think that if you use certified drivers, well written apps, and update constantly there is a minor chance to have trouble, even with MS’s products.
MS are dictators and just like the US government their crimes are so obvious it’s laughable. The US government and Microsoft is one organization, and their goal is to control the entire world and somehow justify it, plain and simple.
Microsoft is not allowed to tell the truth because it goes against their nature. They are always like an elephant that is trying to hide behind a fire hydrant. Their goals are the goals of a monopoly, straight out of the book. The people who defend them are brainless zombies, the uneducated masses.
True it’s not their fault, however there is no victory without freedom, and Microsoft feels the pain of being exposed as the villian. It’s a brutal difficult life for Microsoft employees and we should pity them, we should actually send them money to help them, because they need it big time, trust me.
Now on another note, if the government and all that money wasn’t proping up Microsoft every inch of the way, than Microsoft would fall flat on it’s face right now because open source development is superior. I think that open source developers need to concentrate on their own opportunities and pay less attention to the Microsoft wrecking machine.
We all need to help Microsoft, there is no doubt about it. They need our help badly, and the people from Africa and India should try to lend as much assistance as possible. Even Canadians need to help deliver aid ASAP. Otherwise Microsoft will cave in, more people are needed to HELP.
User stupidity is not the fault of the manufacturer. My highlight for the day was when a Mac cultie tried to install IE6 on to his laptop running WinXP, which already has IE6 on it for those who don’t know. It killed ActiveX, VBScript, Java, everything. It would display html, but that was it.
And this is supposed to be an argument for the ease-of-use of MS installs?
The truth is that if you want to understand Microsoft for what it really is than you need to visit Harvard law school library and do research on ‘monopolies’. If you do that, than you will know more about Microsoft than most people can handle.
> been able to dig through the hype that the company generates, as well
> as the misconceptions its detractors create, to see more of the real
> company than most of you can ever experience
See, as a mere user of a computer I just want software I can install, use, and have it keep working. By and large MS software hasn’t done that for me in any way.
Really, if I need to dig through hype, deal with misconceptions and make a huge effort to see “more of the real company” to feel good about software, then I’m completely on the wrong tack from the start. I couldn’t care less about a company or what it is or how it works.
I want working software.
So what has the authour of the article told us ?
Pretty much nothing.
There’s just no proof/figures behind the claims that the OS is not overpriced. I’d say it’s dramatically overpriced.
The recent worm attacks have been blamed on Microsoft going against an industry standard for allowing attachments to email way back when – and now we are paying the price.
Microsoft leaves easily exploitable ports open – and now we are paying the price.
Certainly many of the ideas microsoft have implemented are user friendly and were intended to help users, but there was just not enough fore-sight to see what problems would be caused in the long term.
Microsoft are not ‘evil’, they are just arrogant.
Honestly, I thought the article was going to be a satirical piece what with poor MS being misunderstood, it’s products aren’t overpriced at all, Windows OS’s have been secure and stable for the last 10 years of his study and the company is really nice.
What a joke when I found out the guy was serious….
MS Office costing hundreds with the competition selling more or less equivalent systems for peanuts. Sure, they aren’t as nice, well integrated or feature full (bloated depending on your POV) but is MS Office worth the price difference? Not in my eyes….
Although WindowsXP seems to be pretty much OK from a stability and a security standpoint (if you don’t do really dumb things that is), everybody would HAVE to agree that Win95 to ME were unstable and unsecure. Denying this as the ‘writer’ does is plainly stupid and harms his credibility. As to MS being evil, I guess that depends on your definition of evil. However, it has been proven that they abused their monpoly position time and time again, MS has introduced pantently FALSIFIED evidence in a courtroom (how did they get away with that?), MS has ripped off smaller companies (STAC, SpyGlass etc) etc etc. To some it’s probably the nirvana of business acumen but to me it’s a greedy, unethical bully.
About Sybase SQLServer and MS SQLServer – Sybase was one of the big relational database managements system success stories in the late 1980s, and Microsoft didn’t have a RDBMS to its name. But Sybase had no presence on the desktop.
So Sybase teamed up with Microsoft and Microsoft rebadged Sybase’s SQLServer. Then the 386 took off and Sybase lost out to Microsoft. It’s kinda like Microsoft and IBM with OS/2, which eventually wound up producing WinNT.
And one last thing, MoronPeeCeeUSR – could you please not address yourself in the comments. “Offbase doofus” is a fine thing to murmur lovingly to oneself in the shower, but do we have to read it in public?
Rob Enderle and the Enderle Group always will be in love with Microsoft. The opinion piece is just that and it would never have been written any other way. It’s a “I love Microsoft and I don’t like ________” (fill in the blanks.) article. Today ,of course, it’s Sun.
What would be more interesting would be to find out how much Mr. Enderle (or a group of Enderles) got paid by Microsoft to write this. If it’s enough money, I think I may have discovered my true calling.
“Don’t upgrade memory on existing systems; even the slightest mismatch between memory chips can lead to instability.”
Yeah, right. Please don’t tell me he’s serious.
MS products are overpriced, they don’t respect their customers and security on wintel is terrible. I redid a machine the other day and it downloaded 54 patches!! I think this article is the new poster child in the war against drug use. Cause this guy is obviously stoned. Any one remember, “I LEARNED IT BY WATCHING YOU!!” ?
Ask anybody familiar with his work (if you call it that) and you will find he has absolutely no credibility, quite frankly, he is a farse.
Anybody read his recent article about the SCO case? A 10 year old could have done a better job comprehending and researching the issues. Then he complete avoids the counter-posts that prove every one of his points wrong, choosing to babble nonsense.
People are better off avoiding anything with the name “Enderle” on it, unless you want to see the worst of the web in terms of writing and analyzing.
One of the funniest lines in the whole piece was:
“I’m on current Microsoft products and I hardly ever crash.”
Well I’m on all Linux products and I absolutely NEVER crash!
This article was a laugh riot!
Where did his guy come from, can you say Gates Groupie?
Let’s see:
* Using a misleading message to deceive those who installed the Win 3.1 beta on DR-DOS into thinking that there was something technically wrong with the interaction of Windows and DR-DOS.
* Ripping off Stac, and more recently, Sendo
* Showing a falsified demonstration in its antitrust trial
This is a company that’s just misunderstood?