The death of Microsoft

[bali_survivor]

Quote from Agyar:

I'll disagree with you again here. I've been a DBA and a developer on both SQL Server and Oracle systems. Compared to Oracle, SQL Server is still garbage in my opinion. SQL Server has Oracle beat hands down as far as ease-of-use, but unlike on the desktop that doesn't matter nearly as much for a database. Data integrity, scalability, and uptime are a BIG DEAL for a database and MS still isn't there. I haven't tried SQL Server 2005 yet though, so maybe my opinion will change.

Oracle 10g running RAC on a Linux cluster is about as much fun as a database geek can have.

MicroShit has been wanting to do this a long time and this is where recently they had patch on XP where the "activation of malicious code" comes in. Next thing is they'll switch it of if they "are of the opinion" that you run an illigal copy. "Have to protect our intellectual property". Yeah right, it is midnight and you are int he middle of a trade. Then your computer goes offline and won't reboot.

Too far fetched? NO. I have had this happen with several pieces of software that were based on "monthly payments". Oops, sorry, we had a ID-10-T problem. Why do you think I have stand alone charting software with a stand alone data vendor and an alternative data feed / environment completely setup in VMware on another OS? < 90 seconds to boot up another machine and be operational on that. And on the "normal" machine that is up an running < 30 seconds to start the VMware environment, just in case there is a non-OS problem.

People relying on a SINGLE piece of software from a vendor (being this broker, charting, OS or whatever) are not taking this business seriously and are a blow up waiting to happen.

I do not lightly forget problems with 4 different pieces of software not working at a critical moment. The quality of the stuff is going rapidly down the gurgler and that is why open source is able to exist today.

Those who have tried to lock in people with "certification" programs, "lease based (monthly) licensing fees" etc are trying to desperately hanging on to their customer base when they can not hang on to them because of innovation or other advantages. Novell comes to mind, so does Data General, NCR and a host of others.

I have been told that the city of Munich has switched completely to Linux - 17000+ workstations. That is not a hobby.

MicroShit is a monopoly and they are desperately trying to hang on to that. But eventually the market will find a way around them, and this is already happening elsewhere. The official OS in China is now Linux, the last MS OS was Win2000.

They should have broken up a long time ago, just like Bell was. But Bush stopped that.

Sticking your head in the sand and monopolising the local market does not mean that you are going to win the war outside the US. Alternatives are springing more and more up.

Ever tried Ubuntu? It must be several factors easier to install than anything else I have used in the last 20+ years. In fact I can run it of a "live CD" and not install at all on HD. Reminds me of the old DOS days. It finds wireless cards, video etc automatically where as under Solaris I cannot even get it to detect much of the hardware.

If you have not tried Ubuntu I suggest you take a look at it. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Maria

PS Oracle is shit too. This is why it has to go down for maintenance.

 

[nononsense]

Quote from Agyar:

...

I can't believe I let myself get dragged into a Linux religious war.

My Dear Agyar,
You are not. You are only witnessing a scenery of "The Survival of the Fittest".
It happens all the time.

 

[Agyar]

Quote from science_trader:

And in the end, what is your conclusion ?

My point is the following :

- M$ is a limited 'OS' driving people to infantilism (who would write on a physical file 'my file' ???) and not a single company should risk developing their systems on such a piece of closed source crap (ask all the traders who have to deal with excel upgrades).

- Linux brings a decent open alternative. If you just can't manage its complexity, then just opt out for mac OSX.

- I have been here and I have told people, now if they want to keep on relying on windows for their computers, they are free to do it, but please don't come and cry later on...

My conclusions:

- Linux is technologically superior to Windows in many ways.

but

- Linux is still, as you say, more complex than the alternatives.

- Linux does not have billions of dollars of marketing behind it.

- There is no catalyst to spur a large adoption of Linux at this time that I can see.

 

[bali_survivor]

Quote from nononsense:

My Dear Agyar,
You are not. You are only witnessing a scenery of "The Survival of the Fittest".
It happens all the time.

Spot on!

Microsoft is going downhill from now on. They always have been a one product company and have failed to innovate. All they have managed to do is "window dressing" but no gain in productivity for the end user, on the contrary, only gain in the amount of maintenance and downtime required. ( And gain in the amount of hardware required. )

Maria

 

[Waterloo]

Ok, let me change the focus of the arguement to business. Forget the who's better tech wise stuff for now.

IF, I am a start up, without tons of VC cash to through around, then I would rule out M$ on a cost basis. It's simple numbers, ie. keeping my costs inline.

And then, if I do become successful, I have built my success upon a low cost option which will help me going forward.

Let's face, Apache, PHP, Netbeans, PostGRE etc... don't really cost me anything. So I have the flexiability to try to make something happen without (minimal) expenses - apart from my time. I like that. And there's alot of people in less affluent parts of the world that also like that.

The cost of M$ basically becomes a barrier to entry. By using OSS software I can lower that barrier. Then I only need an idea and a lot smaller amount of cash.

 

[nononsense]

Hi Girls & Boys,
We got excellent volatility in this thread.

 

[science_trader]

Quote from bali_survivor:

Spot on!

Microsoft is going downhill from now on. They always have been a one product company and have failed to innovate. All they have managed to do is "window dressing" but no gain in productivity for the end user, on the contrary, only gain in the amount of maintenance and downtime required. ( And gain in the amount of hardware required. )

Maria

Another point : linux is the only OS I see running faster and faster on my old PIII 600MHz...

 

[nononsense]

Quote from science_trader:

Another point : linux is the only OS I see running faster and faster on my old PIII 600MHz...

The same on PII's 64MHz
PS: Don't forget it also makes IBM's cluster world champion tick.

 

[Agyar]

Quote from Waterloo:

Ok, let me change the focus of the arguement to business. Forget the who's better tech wise stuff for now.

IF, I am a start up, without tons of VC cash to through around, then I would rule out M$ on a cost basis. It's simple numbers, ie. keeping my costs inline.

And then, if I do become successful, I have built my success upon a low cost option which will help me going forward.

Let's face, Apache, PHP, Netbeans, PostGRE etc... don't really cost me anything. So I have the flexiability to try to make something happen without (minimal) expenses - apart from my time. I like that. And there's alot of people in less affluent parts of the world that also like that.

The cost of M$ basically becomes a barrier to entry. By using OSS software I can lower that barrier. Then I only need an idea and a lot smaller amount of cash.

Interesting. I think that is certainly a feasible situation, but that is not the way I have seen things happen. I have worked for 4 startups since 2001. All 4 of them used MS technology (which is funny because MS technology is not where most of my experience is). 3 of them were 5 people or less. I haven't worked at a startup in over a year, though. Maybe things are different now.

PS - funnily enough, one of those startups was an interesting .NET/Windows app that I helped build. The angel that did the ultimate round of funding for the company was a big linux/java nut and totally scrapped our already working system to redo the entire thing in Java. He ended up taking the whole company down when he did this.

I now have 40,000 shares of nothing. Thanks dumbass.

 

[Waterloo]

Quote from Agyar:

Interesting. I think that is certainly a feasible situation, but that is not the way I have seen things happen. I have worked for 4 startups since 2001. All 4 of them used MS technology (which is funny because MS technology is not where most of my experience is). 3 of them were 5 people or less. I haven't worked at a startup in over a year, though. Maybe things are different now.

Actually where I was going with that, but didn't state, is that with the rest of the world coming up to speed skill wise, there will be entrepreneurial activity that is not N.A. based. N.A. is a M$ strong hold. So, if are in Romania/ Poland/ India, you've got the talent and the idea, but not the $$$ for M$ then you will try alternatives. Which is where OSS comes in. Basically I see the software production industry expanding to less affluent countries. They will choose alternative to costly M$, and hence M$ market share will be negatively impacted.