Gates on Spyware and OS Competition 690
Ant writes "CNET's News.com has an article that says Microsoft plans to offer its own anti-spyware software." prostoalex writes "Both OsNews and InfoWorld talk about Bill Gates' speech at the Computer History Museum in California. Gates is noting that Linux is taking over, and claims that 10 years forward Linux and Windows will be the only OSs left in the market."
800lb Gorilla (Score:5, Insightful)
Mac OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
what's the deal? my summer internship (a school district) uses macs like crazy.. of my experience (and i know, it is not very much) mac os x has, by far, been the most stable OS i have had to use in the workplace. i'm not sure why it would go away so suddenly.
No Mac OS? What will the Mac Business Unit Think? (Score:3, Insightful)
man, that's really f-ed up. Maybe the Windows Office team are getting jealous of how good the Mac version of Office is getting and are planning on burning the MacBU to the ground...
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:5, Insightful)
MS PHB: "Well, let's get to work on patching it."
MS Engineer 2: "Wait, couldn't we not patch it and instead sell the patch together with others as a piece of software with an annual update fee?"
MS PHB: "Congratulations, you just got promoted."
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:4, Insightful)
"Microsoft need to do something about security" - Microsoft release XPSP2 - "Microsoft changed a bunch of securty settings and now my badly written app does not work anymore".
Seems to be the american way (Score:3, Insightful)
prostoalex (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing I see is in the OsNews article where Bill Gates is quoted to say "fast forward 10 years, the two leading OS technologies will be Linux and Windows." But "leading" is very different from "only". Nowhere does it say all other OSs will disappear.
prostoalex, YOU must substantiate your statement NOW. Or are you spreading more anti-MS FUD??
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:3, Insightful)
If they are really are the ones who know the most about protecting Windows from spyware, then almost every Windows user is doomed.
Heck, Mr Gates himself faces the very same spyware problem.
Anti spyware? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nuclear Reactor Market?? (Score:1, Insightful)
When you hear reports of computer troubles at nuclear plants, it's more likely to be SoBig.x trashing the mail server, than slammer causing a SCRAM.
Sounds bad to me. (Score:5, Insightful)
I submit that Microsoft will only judge as spyware products which either install themselves without explicit permission, or products which are not owned by companies who pay Microsoft.
I hate to be so cynical, but I've been burned by too many Microsoft "features" [in recent memory: IE upgrades only available to XP users, and a Windows ME setup CD refusing to install to a FAT16 partition formatted by its own boot disk] to believe much of what they say.
Just my $0.02 USD.
Same old Bill Gates. (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's some advice, Bill. It's easier to prevent the stuff from being installed then it is to clean up all the millions of variations that will be out there.
Not to mention this will be another DAILY download update along with:
#1. Security updates
#2. Anti-virus signatures
He's right (Score:5, Insightful)
The battle for desktop supremacy, however, is already won. I like the fact that I can run UNIX apps on my iBook, but I just built a tower for Windows. There's just too much breadth of software to shift away from the platform. MS has also come up with some good stuff recently (.NET, which in some cases is what Java should've been) that cement their hold.
Also, one would think UNIX refugees coming to Mac would boost the platform on the desktop. Not happening. I think people are finally settling on the fact that UNIX is a rock-solid server, but that doesn't necessarily make it a great desktop. Whether it's Windows or some other windowing system that wins the crown, I'm not sure, but classic UNIX is pretty much finished.
Re:Mac-Tel? (Score:1, Insightful)
Another problem would be that there are differences between the architectures enough that source code may require changes before it will execute correctly. There would be no software that would run on your x86 OSX machine. Companies would most likely need to port their applications before OSX-x86 would be useful.
This might be secretly happening right now. NDA companies that develop major products for your OS and have them start porting. Don't let the MBU know or their might be an in company leak.
Re:RTFA! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Mac OS? (Score:2, Insightful)
Uh...this year is the twentieth anniversary of MacOS. I don't think they were predicting the death of MacOS and Apple 2 decades ago...unless they were predicting the death of MacOS the instant it came out. lol
Though your point is correct (above is just a nitpick)- people have been predicting the death of MacOS for a while, and Apple's stocks have been shooting through the roof since OS X came out. lol.
Check out the Apple Death Knell...
http://www.macobserver.com/appledeathknell/index.
Re:Excellent. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Optimistic Gates? (Score:3, Insightful)
Evil intentions though he may have, Gates isn't an idiot. He may not like it, but he can see that SCO has made a complete cock-up of its anti-Linux scam.
What an endorsement (Score:5, Insightful)
This should give pointy hair bosses pause in claiming that Linux is just too risky.
What a huge step to be so publicly recognized as the most prominent threat to MS for an OS that is not controlled by any one cooperation.
In the end it will be inevitable that an OS becomes a commodity. MS tries to fight hard against this by building up the OS to do everything short of singing and dancing for you but I don't think that will save them in the long run.
What a politicaaly contrived statement (Score:4, Insightful)
What a politically contrived statement. He can't say "only windows" (read monopoly), so their must be at least 1 other OS, and people would laugh if an open source operating system wasn't included.
Now all of a sudden he takes the wind out of the sails of the Linux zealots, and appears all controversial. Yep... in 10 years it there will be Windows and *nix, just like today.
Actually, Google Vs Microsoft more likely (Score:5, Insightful)
The above link has three pertinant quotes.
"Microsoft's fortunes grew with personal computers or, more specifically, supplying the software for what used to be called "IBM-compatible PCs". It is easy to forget that 20 years ago there were a number of standards competing for dominance. (Of the others, only Apple survives.)"
"Google knows it cannot remain just a search engine company, because that leaves it vulnerable if someone else comes along and does it better. That is why it keeps adding services. The best publicised has been its proposed e-mail service, Gmail, which has upset privacy activists because it will include advertising based on the content of the e-mails. But it is likely to prove extremely popular because it will make searching through e-mail much easier and quicker, and because it offers a gigabyte of storage. For most users, that means they will never have to delete another e-mail. "
"But Microsoft is vulnerable if a competitor shifts the focus away from the PC and on to the internet. And we all know the company most capable of that."
Take that all to the extreme - If network centric computing and a company like google go to the logical conclusion of their efforts, subsuming encyclopedia software (remember encarta?), email, games and eventually word processing and other applications into an always on, globally available internet technology that would free you from not just your desktop but from even needing a permanent computer of your own, wouldn't the most logical thing to beat be problems with privacy?
After all, if you can eliminate "spying" on a distributed system like that, then you've aready eliminated spyware as a matter of course (maybe by using thin clients and making all the intelligence and security reside in the server and communication layers).
Keep it updated, eh? (Score:2, Insightful)
Now the only question is what Microsoft feels to be a good update schedule for their anti-malware software. Are we going to see once a month release cycles that detect spyware that has been out for six months the way they wait six months [silicon.com] to release patches for known vulnerabilites on Windows Update?
What's left in 10 years (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Mac-Tel?-Apple Dreams and x86 Nightmares. (Score:5, Insightful)
This sems to be a common wet dream amoungst x86 PC users (you never hear Apple users lusting after a x86 machine). I recommend you buy an Apple and just get it over with. You'll be happier. Apple will be happier. The only ones who wouldn't be happy is those with a heavy investment in all things x86.
Paranoia (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like you need to get your tinfoil hat resized again.
Windows?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Windows itself _IS_ Spyware ! (Score:2, Insightful)
backdoors don't work too well if the target can see them.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm only semi-kidding.
OK. I'm not.
DON'T CLICK (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:5, Insightful)
I've met quite a few software engineers, and none of them would suggest that. (Nor would a PHB promote them, they'd take credit for it instead.)
Re:Just Linux and Windows???? Not likely (Score:3, Insightful)
For me to buy this, I'm going to have to see some concrete examples. Got any links?
Seems like Solaris has made money for Sun without being in maintenance mode. Same for MS. Same for Red Hat, Wind River, QNX, Palm, IBM (who have made more money and lost more money on operating systems than just about anybody), etc...
I have nothing to back up my statements other than vague assertions but then you haven't presented anything other than vague assertions either, so I reckon that's fair.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Mac OS? (Score:2, Insightful)
There were very good reasons to predict the death of MacOS. It had a *LOT* of problems that were not fixable such that the only real fix was to start over with something new - which is exactly what Apple ended up doing. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great product, and the magnitude of the task they did proved that people at Apple do in fact know how to do more than just make pretty interfaces that impress artists, and that they really do have people with impressive skills on staff (which surprised me, frankly). I like what they've done in their new OS. I just don't like that they did a marketing lie by calling it another release of MacOS.
Re:Windows itself _IS_ Spyware ! (Score:2, Insightful)
>have backdoors built in, allowing US spy agencies to
>heck into, do something funny, and/or sabortage the
>"enemy system"
Uh. It's not a fact, well-known or not. It's speculation promoted by the paranoid masses.
Stop being a tard.
Apple DOES have a hard time selling its machines. (Score:3, Insightful)
I own and admin a shitload of macs- ranging from a quadra 650 to G5s. The only macs I have that have BROKEN are one of the two G4s I admin, thirteen of the fifteen iMacs I admin, and BOTH of the G5s I admin (one blew a hard drive, the other the logic board and video card).
All my beige Macs are rock motherhumping solid. Never had a problem with any of them, ever. This candy colored aluminum crap, on the other hand, is- at BEST- consumer grade.
Windows kills jobs now? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article (emphasis mine):
Wasn't it supposed to be Linux that kills jobs [slashdot.org]?
Re:He's right (Score:3, Insightful)
Reason is obvious if you translate it to cars (Score:3, Insightful)
There are two kinds of people who complain about MS. Those with somekind of hatred towards MS for whatever reason and those who of us who are tired of the constant delays, promised features that are moved to the next version and just plain shoddy code.
It is like with IE, geezus MS how long is it going to take to get proper PNG support. Or with AMD, exactly what is taking so long to get 64bit support out? Linux and BSD got it now for ages, are opensource developers really that much better and more motivated?
The list goes on, Longhorn? The next big thing? Well not really, features and improvements are being dropped left right and center until what is left over is still just another point upgrade and not the much needed rewrite that windows needs.
If I need something done and you do it without being asked then I will be gratefull. If I ask you to do something and you do it then I will thank you. If I have to keep nagging you for years to do something and then finally you do it in a half-assed way then I am going to think your a fucking asshole.
Get married and you will find that this is pretty normal human behaviour.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
And from that toy sprung forth revolutions in photo, print and video graphics. The toy seems to have served many industries very well.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, right. Just because you only buy low-end machines doesn't mean everyone do the same. Macs are pretty popular in the media industry and have a group of very loyal fans. Unless they are going down, I doubt Apple is going down either.
I don't see any reason for Mac OS to be a GUI on top of Linux either. First of all, it would be yet an other transition. Secondly, they wouldn't win anything at it. Linux kernel doesn't have all the stuff the Darwin kernel has. I think it's ridiculous that you are suggesting that they would switch a nice kernel that they have complete control over to a third party kernel they don't have control over which doesn't even have the same features.
Don't get me wrong. Linux is okay and I use it too, but the truth is that it's being hyped way to much. Linux is not superior in any way as some people (like you) seem to think. Soon these people will learn that there are alternatives to Linux also. It isn't just Windows or Linux.
Re:Windows itself _IS_ Spyware ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Listen to yourself, you sound like an idiot. I know Microsoft Windows code is closed-source. But here's a fundmental fact that nobody understands- it's open-source to every employee working under windows in Microsoft. That's about 14000+ employees mind you, and they belong to every nationality you can think of, even those you can't spell. Maybe their livelyhood depends on them keeping quiet, but I'm sure you are the one spreading FUD around.
Stop scaring the people. Stop this nonsense. I'm surprised you didn't find a place for terrorists in your comment somewhere.
Re:He's right (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no 'won', there is only 'winning' (or if you really want, 'won for now'). Windows might be king forever, but it's not likely at all.
Hardware and OS's are going to continue to evolve and as time goes on, I think the specific OS you chose is going to become less and less important.
Also, one would think UNIX refugees coming to Mac would boost the platform on the desktop. Not happening. I think people are finally settling on the fact that UNIX is a rock-solid server, but that doesn't necessarily make it a great desktop.
Who are these 'people' you are talking about? I guarantee you that more people today use Unix as their desktop OS than have ever in the past, and that number is growing.
Whether it's Windows or some other windowing system that wins the crown, I'm not sure, but classic UNIX is pretty much finished.
What do you mean by 'classic UNIX'? Solaris, Linux, OS X and BSD are modern Unices. I could just as easily say 'classic Windows' is pretty much finished, and be just as correct.
Damned if you do... (Score:3, Insightful)
a) Windows should provide it because it's their responsibility to be secure
b) Windows bundling anti-spyware software puts anti-spyware folks out of business because no one will buy it because the bundled is too easy to just use it.
So... yet another case where Microsoft will be damned if they do it and damned if they don't. I'm sure it will be feed for all the "M$" bashers no matter which way it goes.
My prediction (Score:1, Insightful)
In ten years time, I predict Windows will be just a bad memory.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple is the same way. Apple sells products that people buy because they want to be "cool".
Now just because something is cool that does not mean it sucks. Both Harleys and Macs are great products that just also happen to be very fashionable.
AS long as apple can define "cool" it will do just fine, whether it's selling computers or earphones does not matter all that much.
In 10 years, I wonder what big cat... (Score:2, Insightful)
Lessee... Lion, um - Leopard, Cougar, Gepard... uh.. Thundercat?
Jobs better hope for divine intervention.
Linux:Microsoft::Kids:Establishment (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft is a very large company. It has an established hierarchy, and people who have worked for years to reach their positions, and now have guaranteed status. They're concerned about someone walking in and taking what they've spent a long time getting and rely on.
Linux is a loose network of some of the most devoted-to-work people, who want to stir things up and change the world, even if it results in a lot less money for them. It is a hypercompetitive meritocracy -- you can't work up any type of "status" that you can live off for years (well, maybe if you work at IBM).
Microsoft/Linux is just another example of a neverending struggle. It's just a little more blatant than most.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't believe any knowledgeable human would risk almost certain death and disfigurement by intentionally allowing a Dvorak article to come into direct physical contact with their anus. The only other person believed to have done this was a gentleman by the name of Goatse, I think. You might be able to find him with a Google search....
Re:Mac OS? (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at the PDA industry - they aren't goverened by a single big software company only supporting one architecture, if a PDA manufacturer sees a better architecture then they usually have no significant problems with dropping their current one in favor of it without worrying about hardware compatability. I'm sure that if the desktop computer industry was able to pick and choose their architectures we would be in a much better position.
It's also worth noting that different CPU architectures suit different problems, and having the choice allows you to pick the best hardware for the job.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Quartz Extreme is an excellent example. By the time Jaguar was released most of the current Macs would support it out of the box, by 2003 all Macs sold supported QE. Since Apple was deciding to replace their long used Rage 128s with Radeon and GeForce GPUs they were able to add a very useful feature to the OS that all shipping systems would be able to utilize. Tiger is going to utilize the advanced shader programmability of newer Radeon and GeForce GPUs in two systems called CoreImage and CoreVideo. By the time Tiger ships most if not all Macs being sold will support these features out of the box, many systems sold right now can support these features.
Writing their OS for commodity PCs would pretty much remove that ability. When it wouldn't be guaranteed all of their customers would be able to see the new features it wouldn't be worth while to even add such features. It took Microsoft a long time to get USB and hot plugging working right in Windows. Since so few people had USB ports on their computers there was little impetus to fix USB functionality in the OS. Apple on the otherhand was replacing ADB on their systems with USB and their USB support was pretty exceptional. It's taken Microsoft a long time to get their WiFi support up to a moderately useful level because for long time no PCs were really shipping with WiFi capabilities. Apple however rolled out with extremely good WiFi support because their systems were shipping with WiFi capabilities built in.
When a single company builds the hardware their OS is going to run on they tend to have excellent support for their hardware. Linux from any particular distribution is very hit-or-miss with hardware from particular vendors. Even HP doesn't support every bit of hardware in their laptops that have Linux as an OS option. They only support what SuSE and Red Hat support. Apple supports every piece of hardware on any Mac capable of running the OS.
OSX for commodity PCs would not be the same OSX that runs on Macs. Without spending hundreds of millions of compatibility testing it would be exceedingly difficult for Apple to support the range of hardware that Microsoft does. As we've seen with Linux, hardware vendors do not want to write drivers for any OS but Windows and they're usually none too cooperative in releasing specs for their products.
As such Apple would have to pick up the slack or hope they could get thousands of programmers to contribute homegrown drivers. In the first case they would have to spend lots of money to make sure a huge range of hardware worked properly and in the second they would have a slew of half-complete drivers shipping with the OS. Spending a lot of money supporting the menagerie of PC hardware would make selling OSX for PCs unprofitable in the extreme and shipping half-complete drivers and only offering partial functionality for people's hardware would kill their sales and make the whole enterprise unprofitable.
No one is going to switch to MacOS X-x86 if their hardware isn't likely to run properly. Developers aren't going to bother supporting an OS on another architecture that only a few people use, fewer of which even want to buy their products. You don't see many commercial Linux applications for Linux/PPC or Linux/MIPS. Microsoft killed their Windows NT ports because few third parties bothered porting their applications to non-x86 archtectures even though the OS environment was the same. Vis à vis don't hold your breath waiting for Apple to release OSX for PCs.
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:3, Insightful)
It was enabled by default about 30% of the time already, it seemed to be a pretty random thing.
Thanks to SP2 we have a worthless, buggy, problematic firewall which yields no benefit whatsoever, turned on all the time by default! yay.
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:5, Insightful)
I've worked in a 120,000-employee corporation in 2002, and almost every single person I met there actually had a clue. There was no political bullshit, we had clear objectives and reasonable timelines, the only hassle was that it'd take a few days to get specific software and hardware.
A colleague of mine worked for a subsidy of IBM last year, and told me it was the same way there, no bullshit, no slacking and no sloppiness, of course that makes only two small examples, but that's just to say such generalizations are bad overall.
Re:Reason is obvious if you translate it to cars (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mac OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
-John C. Dvorak, SF Examiner, Feb. 1984.
If you're trying to discredit Dvorak, this is a bad example. The mouse has become the single most non-productive enhancement to computing in history. People used to fly through applications using TAB and function keys. Although they usually still can, they don't.
Try waiting for a bank teller, loan processer, application taker, or yout typical computer user to do anything now and it's tap, tap, tap, reach, slide, click, tap, tap, tap, reach, slide, click, tap, tap, tap, reach, slide, click, .... just to move focus to the next text box. I find myself silently screaming TAB, dammit, TAB! TAB to the button and hit ENTER!
What's worse is I'm finding applications that no longer implement focus shifting with tab. "Web apps" are notoriusly bad. Worse yet is where most workspaces "have room" for the mouse. Mousing literally causes in pain in my neck in my workstation.
AFAIC, there's still no evidence that people actually want to use a mouse. They simply don't know of any other way.
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:4, Insightful)
As it is, serious mission critical software developed by honest companies generally works well, as do bridges. Software sold by sleazy business folk is sold before the engineers are satisfied with its quality, and it always "collapses."
All that is to say, engineers aren't the ones releasing unfinished software that doesn't work right.
Windows good for spyware collection ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Mac OS? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Reason is obvious if you translate it to cars (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't care.
I wanna know how long it'll take before they realise that routing all the controls through the radio and having the car stop and open all the doors if a hitchiker in a blue shirt and trousers flags you down is a bad idea. And that requiring the hitchiker to be wearing a police jacket and nice shoes as well isn't much of an improvement.
TAB, dammit, TAB (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Same old Bill Gates. (Score:3, Insightful)
The easiest analogy to use to explain this is "disease". It actually fits pretty well in the Windows environment, with "infections" from trojans, viruses, worms, and malware.
There are two approaches, depending on whether you are utopian-driven (Free Software and the likes) or profit-driven (large corporate pharmaceutical companies):
Most pharmaceutical companies choose the latter, because it keeps their revenue coming in strong, as long as the disease continues to exist and affect people.
Most Free Software people (and other utopians) have the opposite view. Cure the problem by treating the cause, and you won't have to worry about treating the symptoms.
I don't even have to remind you where Bill Gates and Microsoft stand on this issue. Any time they see some way to edge in a few more profit margin points, they go for it:
They will do whatever it takes, to keep people putting their dollars behind Microsoft products, even if it pisses off one of their own partners in the process.
Re: more obvious if you translate back to software (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not that they do evil, but that they are in a position to do evil without consequence as a monopoly. There is no material reward for them to play nice, because material rewards flow ONLY from maintaining the monopoly. An employee who figures out a way to make it harder to defect from M$ deserves a promotion, but an employee who figures out a way to ease the customer's experience is just eccentric, irrelevant to the actual business of making money.
This is distinctly different from a free market where easing a customer's experience improves customer loyalty and increases the likelihood that you'll make a profit.
The only way you can help M$ to do a better job is to bring them back into the free market by breaking their monopoly. Don't buy computers with M$ products pre-installed. Don't let your boss do so. Make sacrifices to break the monopoly and your children will inherit a better computing experience.
Re:Mac OS? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:1, Insightful)
One thing that's generally true about large corporations is that only about 10% of the employees are doing anything that really matter strategically and actually understand what the business is. The rest are shuffling papers around, playing political games, while maintaining old revenue streams and spouting the party line.
Re:Windows itself _IS_ Spyware ! (Score:5, Insightful)
1- 14K+ employees workin in the OS? I don't think so.
2- 14K+ employees can read and understand the code? Again I don't think so.
2- With only two or three hackers working in the compiler(s) is enough to make a backdoor that is not visible in the source, and present in every OS.
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a hassle?!?! Sheez-Ma-neez! friend. A few days.... Wow. Where is this heaven on Earth you're working at?
My OS predictions (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, they are having problems writing Windows for AMD64. While open source OSs chug along. Will linx run on mainframes? It already does. Will windows run on mainframes? It probably will never make it. As long as there is a spectrum of hardware Windows with its sloppy architecture, coding and design will be locked into to the low end of the market. billg is out of touch, or just plain doing market speak (same thing really).
Re:Too much control? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:3, Insightful)
You expected the ad department to house the really competant and moral people in the organization? Besides, you're talking about the ad department of a branch of Microsoft that is essentially an afterthought. You were working with the losers.
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft has some solid coding divisions just like any big company. And Microsoft has some BS departments just like any big company. Is it any surprise that a division which "ships" every month is filled with sloppy coding practices, FUD and general CYA-motivated BS?
My area of Microsoft happens to be filled with people who could code the smirk off of almost any slashdotter. I work with people who have been in the business longer than most of the MSN Ads people have been out of diapers. And they are at Microsoft primarily because they are brilliant.
I'm sorry your experience at Microsoft was so disappointing and wish you well elsewhere but I can assure you that my time at MS has been quite intellectually fulfilling.
Re:800lb Gorilla (Score:2, Insightful)
OS X comes free with any new Mac? I should hope so, with the outrageous prices they charge for hardware. It's my belief that what's holding Apple back from real mainstream use in the PC world is that it's just too expensive. When I see a decent Apple for $800 who's model series isn't four years old, I'll buy.
Re:Linux:Microsoft::Kids:Establishment (Score:2, Insightful)
I take you meant more than a kernel when saying 'Linux', because otherwise you're delusional, dude. Try subscribing to netdev mailing list and you will see a hierarchy in all its glory and that
It has an established hierarchy, and people who have worked for years to reach their positions, and now have guaranteed status. They're concerned about someone walking in and taking what they've spent a long time getting and rely on.
Re:Windows itself _IS_ Spyware ! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Did everyone miss the critical point? (Score:3, Insightful)
As to how Microsoft is going to beat Linux according to Gates, it seems to be via its software's value, rather than the price. Bill Gates is trying to create software that needs little maintainance and little support. By doing so, he hopes to cut down the number of IT administrators needed on companies (a good admin costs overall up to $200,000 per year for a given company here in the Bay Area, for example). On the other hand, Linux rivals (e.g. Red Hat) are making money primarily by support calls and require capable administrators. Gates hopes to elliminate this need.
Someone has already created software that needs little maintenance and support. It's called Mac OS X (frankly, even the old Mac OS was much more reliable compared to then-current incarnations of Windows). Corporate IT departments ignored it, partly because it required the purchase of new hardware, but mostly because it makes having a large IT staff superflous-- and IT managers like the empires they build and the power they wield over an organization that depends on rickety shit like Windows that always needs an army of admins to keep it running.
Anyone who has admin'd a mixed network of decent size will tell you that the number of Windows problems they saw dwarfed the number of Mac problems, even when the Macs were years old and the PCs were brand-new, and even when the Macs outnumbered the Windows machines. I've seen it myself. At my last job, the company went from being an all-Mac shop to running Windows everywhere but in the design studio. For a period of time when it was all-Mac, I was the sole admin of over 100 machines and my biggest problem was finding a good book to read between help calls. As soon as some 98 and NT machines landed on users' desks, we needed to add two more people to the IT staff and we could still barely keep up.
Even if it's coming from Microsoft (and that's making the hefty assumption that they can actually produce a Windows that is low-maintenance), I have a hard time believing that these corporate IT guys will willingly buy something that will effectively lessen their power within the corporation.
~Philly
depends... (Score:1, Insightful)
Also everything is not text based, try doing some Cad work. You can do it with only the keyboard, but then the person standing behind you will be silently screaming MOUSE, dammit, MOUSE! MOUSE to the line and Click it!
Re:Windows itself _IS_ Spyware ! (Score:3, Insightful)