Microsoft’s chief software architect recently returned from one of his fabled “Think Weeks” full of ideas on mesh networking, unified networking and more, says eWEEK. Elsewhere, the Internet firms riding a ‘mini bubble’ said Gates. Update: Another one with Bill: “Hardware to Be Nearly Free in 10 Years”.
What Is Bill Gates Thinking?
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Bill Gates is a master of business. Even without a college degree he gets to have “think weeks”. I envy that man. Not only did he bring Microsoft Corporation to a near natural monopoly state (yes electric and heating gas companies are natural monopolies too), he gets to have “think weeks”. I am jealous.
Gates would be better suited worrying less on hypothetical technologies and more on improving Microsoft’s image and reputation. He should work on making good, technical and business, reasons to stay a Microsoft customer. He should be working on a legal agreement with Mono/DotGNU to shield them from patent suits so as to give .NET more credibility on the “open standards” front.
I don’t know. If I was Bill, I’d be taking my Think Weeks in the Bahamas or Conzumel rather than in Washington state.
If you were Bill Gates, you’d probably own an island and regularly frequent it, but obviously Bill thinks very differently than you 🙂
” ..to try to get a sense of who the key players are, what the new capabilities will be and how we should factor that into our software design.”
I think he means take over and have total control.
I’ve been asking myself that since Windows 95!
*business practices aside* The man certainly has vision, you have to give him that. twenty some odd years later, he still has some great ideas.
i didn’t realize that all new hires get to trapse around his house for an evening, that would be worth it alone!
“Gates would be better suited worrying less on hypothetical technologies and more on improving Microsoft’s image and reputation. He should work on making good, technical and business, reasons to stay a Microsoft customer. He should be working on a legal agreement with Mono/DotGNU to shield them from patent suits so as to give .NET more credibility on the “open standards” front.”
I disagree. While M$ software that I have used (Windows, VB/VC++, WMP) has some instability issues they have a bigger problem: Lack of new ideas. Longhorn is a great example. They are advertising a z-buffered interface that sends more work to the gfx system, woops Aqua. They will be featuring a better system to find things easily on your system, oops sherlock (not a Mac user, is that the right name?). They will have improved security, oops that’s a given.
Microsoft is in serious need of innovation. Yea they need stability too, but let’s face it the market craves features not working features. We don’t see AOL improve it’s efficiency, no we see them add more features.
BillG knows what he’s doing, he knows he doesn’t have to release something finished. As with most business though, Microsoft will eventually (hopefully sooner rather than later) fade away to a competitor.
“Gates would be better suited worrying less on hypothetical technologies and more on improving Microsoft’s image and reputation. He should work on making good, technical and business, reasons to stay a Microsoft customer. He should be working on a legal agreement with Mono/DotGNU to shield them from patent suits so as to give .NET more credibility on the “open standards” front.”
Well part of the reason is you basing your thought on a false idea. MS doesn’t need to improve their image and reputation. To most people they have a very good image and reputation, it’s a small minority that things otherwise. So they could care less on that front. Even companies that it’s hard to belive people would have a positive image of do. Wal-mart is consistantly on top of the heap when it comes to most respected companies in america. This would seam impossible do to their small biz/town killing nature, yet people love wal-mart.
MS has done a great job making people content with using their product. And MS could care less about mono, it’s not in their interest.
People really need to get out of this bubble of Windows is crap and crashes all the time and is to expensive and that people hate MS and using windows and so forth. It’s simply not true. Step out from your basement and interact with real people in the real world and you will see how silly such beliefs are. But so many people only get their veiws of these things from tech sites like osnews and slashdot. They are blind to the world.
in 50 words or less, what’s Microsoft’s true position with respect to their legal and technical issues, and what’s the direction they SHOULD be going in?
they’re not as successful outside their core markets. do they need to change windows and office in order to foster true integrative success? how can they better capitalize on their massive R&D expenditures? and finally, do they really need to be a better “corporate citizen” or is that just the rabble rousing?
>>People really need to get out of this bubble of Windows is crap and crashes all the time and is to expensive and that people hate MS and using windows and so forth. It’s simply not true.
there are smart people who would disagree with you. and just because a viewpoint has zealots and parrots backing it…doesn’t make it less valid.
yes, windows xp is a huge improvement in stability and to your average home user, it’s more then stable enough. but from a corporate standpoint, windows xp is not the end all be all of stability.
so we mostly solved the stability problems that plaqued us for years and years.
wonderful.
now your average folks are dealing with a never ending stream of viruses, trojans, keyloggers, adware, spyware, patches, pop-ups and nagware.
it’s come to the point were corporations entire desktop support teams are holding back a tidal wave of crap.
and on the home front, people are completely helpless with no avenue of respite.
so we’ve traded one problem for another…and i’ll have you know the stability issues aren’t ALL gone. there are plenty left to still offend a substantial number of people.
as for the price? the price is too high. period.
the company itself, bill gates and the top 5 officers combine for a worth of 120 billion…from selling an Operating System and an Office Suite.
Where’s the R&D you talk about? Where’s the shareholders cut?
It’s plain and simple, people, government, companies are all getting poked in the eyes.
Microsoft is now looking for the next monopoly…funded completely by it’s current monopoly of the desktop operating system & office suite segment.
>>Windows is crap.
Finally, I’ll have to say, your generalizations are your undoing. You’d like to pigeon hole or paint somebody in a completely black and white manner. You discredit yourself.
I know very few people that I can have a conversation with, face to face, that would say “windows is crap”. Most techies would say that windows is “fine”. It’s expensive, but “ok”. Is there a possibility for better? Yes. Mac OS X, and Linux desktops fill a niche that in some ways isn’t as good as XP, but in other ways is superior.
And I get this from people at Linux User Group meetings, Cisco Cert prep groups, My fellow MCSE cohorts, and general all around techies.
Brad, you best quit while you are ahead.
It’s plain to see that the zealots have got to you, and now you are chasing windmills…
i suggest you push back from the keyboard for a while and get out a bit…
Gates have been doing this “thinking” thing ever since i can remember. Back in the mid 1990’s he’s been writing to newspaper columns about his “thoughts” and “visions”. Its the same empty talk as its always been, never says anything substantial other than vague things like “integration”, “personal tech” and all that other pre-packaged nonsense.
I’m wordering what’s the real reason he’s doing this? Why does he feel compelled to share his meandering thoughts with us? Is it an attempt to shift the market to what is most convinient to microsoft? Is it a publicity stunt to project a more personable type of company that everyone can relate to? Or is it simply an ego trip …
Id have to agree, that based on the article that those “think weeks” are more like what are other people doing so we can use it more than what can we do better or newer.
However id like to make some points in the second previous post, xp pro is stable enough for home users, ms market is home users or havent you noticed that. Price doesnt matter since their computer comes with Windows already in there, so most people since MS when they think PC ;-). Also the masses have learned about ad-aware and firewalls. They know how to kill spyware, or their children do who use that computer and have done the work for them. That means theyve worked around the problem and its not longer a problem for them since they just want to browser web and use email contently. Though true MS should actually FIX the problem but they dont really have to. Also anyone who reads osnews clearly isnt in touch with avg joe user. joe user uses ms, he complains, he gets a relative to fix it, he moves on, hes never heard of any os other than MS and there are more of them than any of us here.
but have to admit BG does have the vision. one of the leading person in the industry.
Gosh, that Netscape kind of reminds me of those bullies back in high school. I’d better get my guys to punch them out.
Wow, that Stac stuff is super, I should get my guys to go “borrow” it from them.
Geez, I could make a whole bunch of money by telling IBM I wrote an operating system. I tell this Patterson guy I will give him a wad of Moms cash for that QDos stuff.
Oh man, now they are asking me if IE is REALLY part of Windows. I wish my guys were here.
Oh man, now they are asking me if WMP is REALLY part of Windows. I wish my guys were here.
I know, I can get the guys to spend some money to make that nasty Linux stuff go away….and that little company from Utah can take all the blame. Cooooool.
(etc etc etc)
Who are these people you speak of? My point was correct about how people feel about MS and Bill Gates for that matter.
http://www.pwc.com/Extweb/ncsurvres.nsf/docid/ED064D1FB0A349ED80256…
“now your average folks are dealing with a never ending stream of viruses, trojans, keyloggers, adware, spyware, patches, pop-ups and nagware. ”
Sure some people have these problems, but you seam to massively over blow the situation. I know some people that have had large problems, but they also tend to be people who ran winME for 3 years, never updated it, and only used IE and Outlook. Sure this would apply to a decent number of people, but not all the people with this setup have problems. Also they arn’t on a current version of the OS, or updated, you could say move them to linux, or they could just update to winXP which would be far less painful for them. Attacking windows on something from a previous version isn’t valid, same as it wouldn’t be to attack linux about something that was the case 5 years ago.
Many many people run windows with no problem what so ever. And you don’t have to work hard to do it either. You exagerate the situation greatly. And honestly the bulk of the problems arn’t MS’s problem. How many of the things you listed are a problem if you have winXP with all updates applied? Sure there will be some, but linux will have issues to. Nothing is perfect.
Furthermore how are people at home helpless, people have freinds, most no someone who is good with computers. Also MS has help forums on their webpage that can answer about every question under the sun. Whether it’s a simple issue, or you want to know how to remove MS messenger or WMP, it’s there.
How much help does a person with something other then Windows or MacOS have?
“as for the price? the price is too high. period.
the company itself, bill gates and the top 5 officers combine for a worth of 120 billion…from selling an Operating System and an Office Suite.
Where’s the R&D you talk about? Where’s the shareholders cut?
It’s plain and simple, people, government, companies are all getting poked in the eyes.
Microsoft is now looking for the next monopoly…funded completely by it’s current monopoly of the desktop operating system & office suite segment.”
Saying the price is to high is totaly a matter of opinion. Relative to say MacOS it’s not to far off. Also most people get their copy of windows with there computer, which added about 20 bucks to the cost of the computer. When many/most people are up for a upgrade they tend to just buy a new computer. Also the cost of WinXP pro is nothing when you factor time into the equation. I will gladly pay for it compaired to trying to get linux to work for me and the time it will take. People value there time very much, and though installing linux may be educational, most probably don’t want to learn something. MS still sells copies of Windows very well, as you point out they have a lot of money, must people people arn’t having an issue with the price.
Far as worth of the top brass, you do realize Bill Gates is only worth 50 billion or whatever on paper, the top 5 own the majority of the company. Bill Gates has 51 percent of MS shares, he can’t sell them unless he wants to loose control of the company. The only way he would sell them is to other top brass that would ensure he stays in power. So effectively he doesn’t have that money. Far as actualy in pocket money he doesn’t have any where near that much. And he also gives away a ton of it.
Where is the shareholders cut? Oh I don’t know, maybe it’s in the freaking value of the stock. How else do you think stock market works. You buy a share of stock, if the company makes money people want to buy more stock in the company, so the value of the stock goes up. You have no made money and got a share of the profits, (you need to sell it though, some forget that). If MS started not making money their share value drops thus stock drops. Why do so many people seam to think if a company has money in the bank that means they need to give it away, or that it means everyone gets written a check from the company they own stock in?
Where is the R&D? you ever hear of Microsoft research? MS spends tons of money on this department.
They are looking for their next monopoly eh? Holy Cow! alert the media, “large corporation seeks to find new markets to make more money in” wow! never heard of a company doing this. You seam to belive that it’s wrong for companies to seek new sources of money.
“Finally, I’ll have to say, your generalizations are your undoing. You’d like to pigeon hole or paint somebody in a completely black and white manner. ”
So I pigeon hole zelouts? well, that would make sense. Since small minorities that basicly all have the same train of thought all the time on these sorts of issue do tend to fit into a nice black and white pigeon hole.
“I know very few people that I can have a conversation with, face to face, that would say “windows is crap”. Most techies would say that windows is “fine”. It’s expensive, but “ok”. Is there a possibility for better? Yes. Mac OS X, and Linux desktops fill a niche that in some ways isn’t as good as XP, but in other ways is superior.
”
Thats good, but you seamed to move away from those I was talking about. I was talking about the typical zealot in a place like this. There are more then anough people in here who would say such things. I do think you proved my point though, that in the real world most people don’t have a problem with windows. I really don’t know what your point of disagreement was.
“Brad, you best quit while you are ahead.
It’s plain to see that the zealots have got to you, and now you are chasing windmills…
i suggest you push back from the keyboard for a while and get out a bit… ”
seriously don’t know where you are going with this. You seam to think I was right if I was ahead. What I said was correct. For some things you seamed to want to say I was wrong, but yet agree with me. No one has got to me at all. I don’t know what your looking at. And I’m not chasing any windmills, I tend to like to sit back and watch them work, their rather pretty IMO.
I need to get out a bit? wasn’t that my message to others? I most definitly don’t have a problem, I’m out a good bit. I don’t live eat sleep computers, their just a tool, and I have interest in them a bit more then others. But there is a whole lot of life that has priority above them. Not that computers really have a priority.
if you are the world’s richest man, everything is “free”
seriously though, i agree with bill gates that moore’s law will mean prices will continue to drop. emachines and dell sell pc’s for $399, and what consumers beside gamers need a powerful machine?
if bill gates is correct, that hardware will be extremely affordable, and if apple remains a hardware only company, apple will eventually wither away and die.
How did I get away with the antitrust “probalems” in to USA?
I know with the right amount of money a person is above the law.
well, Apple will probably still have more expensive hardware then, and still have bigger profit margins. In ten years there will be far more people out there and far more computers. So even if the hardware is uber cheap, apple will still sell a ton of it (not that most hardware isn’t uber cheap now). I think they have moved away from just hardware though. And sorta as you said, nearly free is a pretty relitive thing. If a whole computer is under 100 bucks considering what all they do, thats pretty close to free. I mean, spending more on a tv now then a computer is pretty common. Granted tv’s don’t go bad or get dated near as much. But thats also why hardware gets so cheap. There is a limit to how cheap computers can go. There is still a lot of manufacturing. Things like dirt cheap LCDs and solid state HDs will change things a lot. Soon as top end computers become just a bunch of chips on a board and no more mechanical bits and are just a integrated unit they can get much cheaper. And they probably will get to where a worker pushes a button and a computer is all assembled by robots and produces something like a webpad in a few minutes, then they will be cheap. But currently you probably couldn’t build a full computer with the current state of technology (no off the self parts) for under 50 bucks, the closest thing would be a PDA, but thats far from being a desktop. The original iMac is probably about the closest attempt yet at a full computer as cheap as possible. But even one of those couldn’t be built for under 200 bucks today.
It’s obvious computers will become cheaper and cheaper. All products get cheaper with time. How much, who knows. The price for components has changed much in a few years, you just get more for the money. I think what you see now for the base prices on things will hold for a while. They will get faster, but you can see the base manufacturing cost. I think the bigger problem in thinking 10 years out is what will computers look like. Computers haven’t changed a whole lot in 10 years, they still are basicly a box and a screen. But the tech in them has improved to alow them to change a lot. If you park a Shuttle XPC with a LCD next to a Packard Bell from 1994 with a 14 inch monitor, I’d say we have come a long way, but I could also find boxes that are very similar.
If I had to picture a computer in ten years I would say it would be a large LCD with the computer built into the back, with most parts wireless, no expandability, far more powerful then the any software needs. And you can take it anywheres, and bring more into a house, push a button and it works with the other computers in the house as one. but I can also say with 99.9% confidence I will be flat out wrong.
Looking into the future is more fun then anything. Since it’s fun to look back later at what we guessed. I mean if Gates is completely wrong does that matter? No, at least he threw a thought out there, and gave people something to think about. You have to look forwards even though you know you won’t be completely right. We won’t get the future right till someone figures out all the physics that determines it.
Sure some people have these problems, but you seam to massively over blow the situation. I know some people that have had large problems, but they also tend to be people who ran winME for 3 years, never updated it, and only used IE and Outlook. Sure this would apply to a decent number of people, but not all the people with this setup have problems. Also they arn’t on a current version of the OS, or updated, you could say move them to linux, or they could just update to winXP which would be far less painful for them. Attacking windows on something from a previous version isn’t valid, same as it wouldn’t be to attack linux about something that was the case 5 years ago.
Oh thats such bull! You can run WinME for 3 years IF YOU DO NOT conect to the internet! in fact any machine can. The fact is that are billions of machines infected why do you think such worms as mydoom is so popular. Man the world ain’t flat, its round! and windows can’t write software they can only sell it! The fact is that xp is just the same with that of a fisher price GUI. Infact Linux is now EASIER to use!
Many many people run windows with no problem what so ever. And you don’t have to work hard to do it either. You exagerate the situation greatly. And honestly the bulk of the problems arn’t MS’s problem. How many of the things you listed are a problem if you have winXP with all updates applied? Sure there will be some, but linux will have issues to. Nothing is perfect.
I agree nothing is perfect, but the fact is that Linux at least fixes the problem with a proper patch that works. There is no exageration. However thetre is lots of it in your part. You need a proper anti virii software, updated patches and updated fire walls. All that costs huge amount of money and all can cause a corruption in dll files, the registry and stability of the whole OS. Infact patching it makes things worse in windows. Doing that and you will be reinstalling everything very soon!
Furthermore how are people at home helpless, people have freinds, most no someone who is good with computers. Also MS has help forums on their webpage that can answer about every question under the sun. Whether it’s a simple issue, or you want to know how to remove MS messenger or WMP, it’s there.
How much help does a person with something other then Windows or MacOS have?
The fact is that some 15 year old won’t be able to slove the peoblem because of windows design the same virii will infect the same machine over and over, patched or not due to m$ intergration. To repair any machine is a MINIUM cost $110 dollars starting! And a fourm thats not only not very helpful but has the same response. “Restal the OS again!”
Saying the price is to high is totaly a matter of opinion. Relative to say MacOS it’s not to far off. Also most people get their copy of windows with there computer, which added about 20 bucks to the cost of the computer. When many/most people are up for a upgrade they tend to just buy a new computer. Also the cost of WinXP pro is nothing when you factor time into the equation. I will gladly pay for it compaired to trying to get linux to work for me and the time it will take. People value there time very much, and though installing linux may be educational, most probably don’t want to learn something. MS still sells copies of Windows very well, as you point out they have a lot of money, must people people arn’t having an issue with the price.
Far as worth of the top brass, you do realize Bill Gates is only worth 50 billion or whatever on paper, the top 5 own the majority of the company. Bill Gates has 51 percent of MS shares, he can’t sell them unless he wants to loose control of the company. The only way he would sell them is to other top brass that would ensure he stays in power. So effectively he doesn’t have that money. Far as actualy in pocket money he doesn’t have any where near that much. And he also gives away a ton of it.
Where is the shareholders cut? Oh I don’t know, maybe it’s in the freaking value of the stock. How else do you think stock market works. You buy a share of stock, if the company makes money people want to buy more stock in the company, so the value of the stock goes up. You have no made money and got a share of the profits, (you need to sell it though, some forget that). If MS started not making money their share value drops thus stock drops. Why do so many people seam to think if a company has money in the bank that means they need to give it away, or that it means everyone gets written a check from the company they own stock in?
Where is the R&D? you ever hear of Microsoft research? MS spends tons of money on this department.
They are looking for their next monopoly eh? Holy Cow! alert the media, “large corporation seeks to find new markets to make more money in” wow! never heard of a company doing this. You seam to belive that it’s wrong for companies to seek new sources of money.
Hehe. The cost of microsoft far out streches MacOSX or Linux. For one when someone buys MacOSX they get a machine that going to work not belly up 6 months down the road. Also theres the Office suite, new progams to replase (so to sustain compatibility with older windows), firewall etc etc etc…. All of this! Or get Linux up and running, use the same old hardware and do everything you want under an our without the agrivated reboots BSOD’s virii or anything else.
You talk about us being zealots when you have your head stuck so far up your ass that you can’t even see yourslef that you have made a mistake.
You can justify to yourself why you like M$ but don’t thing that you are the majority! Most people I know knows the earth is round and not flat as you continue to believe!
The fact on market expansion. Well you can’t expand into other markets when everything that the company did is just on a bad sales gimmic. Such a thing will always be futile.
However no matter what I say above its people like you that make me smile for it wan’t for your absolute zealotry faith inm$ I wouldn’t be able to infect people like you.
“My point was correct about how people feel about MS and Bill Gates for that matter.”
Um, excuse me, Brad, but on the page that you linked, it did make this note:
“Conducted among 1,000 CEOs in 20 countries worlwide and a selected cross-section of fund managers, non governmental organisations and media commentators.”
Notice it’s CEOs that were the bulk of the voters. Of course they think Bill is a god. They are only concerned with profit. They could give a rat’s arse about Anti-trust and such things. They only see dollar signs when they look at Bill. This does not reprent the view of the common man.
But since you like polls, here’s a link for you:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,39020381,2102244,00.htm
My bottem line in the real world most people have a problem with windows. And its good. Linux is growing and so is OSX so there really is no problems in the future. I can’t see m$ standing up for much longer. Everone I know already knows its a peace of shit company.
>Maybe oneday Bill will get a good idea?
From what I’ve heard Miguel De Icaza thinks .net is a good idea. From what I’ve heard it’s a good idea, and I am excited to use Mono.
If somebody had the idea for .net before M$ please tell me. I don’t much like them, but if they come up with a good idea I intend to credit them.
Oh and, I sure wish I would get press when I think!
has bill gates ever entertained the idea of building a new os with the most advance OS concepts, one from scratch, one that is legacy free? all with the buzz words
personally given that palm bought be for $12, and m$ settled with be inc for $25 million, i’m surprised m$ didn’t offer $25 million for be inc for its OS.
m$ is one of the few companies that could build a brand new OS from scratch, much as it did when it built windows NT (and os/2).
what would an OS with the most advance concepts look like, what technologies would it incorporate?
“Not only did he bring Microsoft Corporation to a near natural monopoly state ”
It’s not a natural monopoly if you have to actively play fast and loose with the law to squash competition.
I don’t know. If I was Bill, I’d be taking my Think Weeks in the Bahamas or Conzumel rather than in Washington state.
Well, all MS products are like they were thought-out there: mostly OK, but dull and average – it makes one want a change of climate…
But the thing that worries me is that they are weeks – many MS products really look like they were thought-out in a week.
In one of the MIT’s Technology Review issues, way back in 1999 or 2000, he has a long and deeply meaningful talk with Michael Dertouzos on software, open source, etc.
One of his comments was that DOS’ success in the PC “revolution” had been the result of the software finally being cheaper than the hardware. He pointed out that this was a problem with the various Unices during the nineties – and I agree – that was the reason I stayed with DOS in 1991 until I could get OS/2. Unix was priced way above my budget, and even above my 486’s rather high price.
Now he appears to be recanting. Now he’s saying in effect that software will be the major cost in purchasing computers in the future. And take a look at the way Windows has remained at its usual price while the hardware has come down.
That’s one of the major reasons why Linux looks so inviting – you can download the software and burn cds of it. You can go get it from a software retailer – which is basically all that RedHat, Mandrake, Su.S.E.m etc, are. And the cost will be set at any number of levels depending on the support you are demanding from your retailer. while Microsoft’s prices are likely to stay as high as they are while computer hardware’s price keeps going down, and the cost of software to hardware is going to change proportion drastically.
Microsoft is going to be looking silly soon – particularly when people dig up BillG’s statements in Technology Review. But, wotthehell – he’s about to shoot himself in the face with a Made-by-Microsoft sponge cake soon. I hope he enjoys it.
Honestly, is _anybody_ intrested in what this guy is
up for? I am not.
If hardware will be free, why shouldn’t software?
In 10 years, you’ll have all the computing power you will need in a cell phone. It will link to numerous output and display options.
MS is too busy protecting. I think palm, linux, and maybe symbian are going to be the real winners here, hopefully obos too.
The interesting question though is how will this effect apple and how will they respond. I think apple should purchase palmsource and forego making pdas.
Windows is crap.
That will be the day
When Microsoft starts to make X-box 2/3 free in 10 years, then I will believe what Mr. Gates said about hardware being free.
On the contrary, I thought he is evading the free software issue.
Saying windows is bad because of ME is like saying Linux blows because of 2.2.x
Linux is easier to use? In many ways I’d agree with you.
Let’s have a hypothetical situation though. User A decides to install a media player in Redhat. He downloads the RPM, and runs it. Sadly, he runs into a dependancy problem. “Why can’t I install this, I downloaded it” he ponders. After searching through google, he finds some, but not all, the answers he needs. “Screw this, atleast Windows works”
The great and terrible thing about linux is it’s complexity. Many things can go wrong with it, and you can do almost anything with it.
For the average desktop user that wants to be left alone and just do their thing, windows is best. They don’t have to worry about updating a kernel if a major bug is found, they don’t have to worry about manually upgrading software (Automatic Updates), and with a virus scanner (Avast is a good one…) they’re virtually safe from hackers and problems.
Zealots like you piss me off. All OS’s have a purpose, and a strong point.
Windows plays games and is easy enough for anyone to use.
Macs are great for multimedia, even *some* games, and are nice and secure
Linux is great for services, for the experimental user, and if you love to have everything “Your way”.
This is over generalized, sure, but hopefully it shows you why some people might prefer one over another, or why some may wish to dual boot.
Stop your bitching and open your eyes.
If Bill Gates thinks hardware will be free what makes you think software won’t? Or everything, for that matter.
I think free stuff is a great idea. Don’t you like getting free stuff? Would life be so much simpler if you could just walk into a store and walk out with all the stuff you want and none of the stuff you don’t. No advertising to manipulate you into getting junk that just clutters up your life and wastes your time.
But maybe life wouldn’t be fun anymore if we could spend our lives worry-free, working when we want to work because we enjoy working. And never being tied down to a go-nowhere position in life. I think a lot of us love our vice, drinking and smoking dope and sitting in go-nowhere positions life because its the path of least resistance. And sometimes its an excuse.
Gates is really saying people will eventually no longer need the increases in processing power. But is this the case? Didn’t Gates mispredict something similar with 640kb of ram, years ago (I could be taking it out of context)?
My 1200mhz Athlon w/ Radeon 8500LE and 512mb RAM is plenty fast enough for everything I do today, including web browsing, e-mail, and most games except the latest FPS. So yeah, consumers who only need e-mail and browsing will get their hardware for dirt-cheap in the next ten years. But if I or anybody else wants to play the nextgen games with their excellent graphics and AI, we’re going to need the nextgen hardware too. Professionals in music, video, and linguistics/AI/comp-sci/mathematics/chess/etc are going to want fast computers too I’d think. And it isn’t going to be near free.
On the server front I suspect Gates is wrong too. Why would he think servers will need less power? Most of the web is pretty simple right now, with text and 2d graphics. But I would think we’ll eventually get better content online too, which is only going to increase the need for processing (heck, let’s throw in some speech processing, text processing, and AI). Also, the number of users will increase. And there will be more than web sites; game servers will require way more processing power. Who wouldn’t want a huge immersive 3d world with continents, weather, excellent AI for NPCs and enemies, etc?
AI is pretty shitty right now relative to humans, and that alone makes me think processing power will only be needed more (and thus hardware prices won’t be low at all).
Where are all the stats to back up his argument here? (I think mine needs no stats since it’s really just that everything will go the way it has, and I’m really just speculating as to how his speculations are wrong. That is, the burden of proof isn’t on me.)
Gates is smarter than you think. Make fun of his quotes, but one day at home it probably hit him:
“Let’s integrate the file browser with the Internet browser!”
…and KDE can’t rip them off fast enough.
Brad: interesting, but some points somehow make me think you get paid for that mostly-accurate “calming down”; if “no, honestly!”, then probably a kind of “happy customer/follower” who nevertheless learned the sidetracking practices of the vendor.
IOW — don’t mix things up, you get funny with that.
“Natural monopoly” and software by itself as an artifically-bloated market are just two different things.
“Think weeks”… oh well, then we’d conclude (by your logic) that other weaks are mindless.
And so on, and so forth… BS.