Submitted by Microsoft wants to help aid in the development of Firefox. It sounds pretty scary, doesn’t it? If you’re still here, let me tell you that it’s not as bad as it seems. Sam Ramjii, Director of Microsoft’s Open Source Software Lab, has extended an invitation to the Firefox and Thunderbird developers asking them if they’d like to visit the company’s open source research center. Microsoft’s hopes are that, in a four-day span, the company can provide the open source developers with enough information to get the popular web browser running smoothly on Windows Vista.
Makes one wonder why a program merely using standard APIs would need to be ‘made ready’ at all, and how many software houses Microsoft is inviting in general, since there are approximately gazillions out there.
Makes you wonder? Why?
There are new features in Vista, ESPECIALLY for developers, and they are going to help the Firefox developers understand what they are and how they can leverage them. They are not required, but will help the product regardless.
Makes you wonder? Why?
There are new features in Vista, ESPECIALLY for developers, and they are going to help the Firefox developers understand what they are and how they can leverage them. They are not required, but will help the product regardless.
Because Firefox only comes in 1 flavour, 1 version for Windows. Introducing Vista-only features would needlessly complicate things, wether they integrate it into a standard 1 size-fits-all product, or into another ‘optimised’ version.
“Introducing Vista-only features would needlessly complicate things, wether they integrate it into a standard 1 size-fits-all product, or into another ‘optimised’ version.”
I hate to break it to you, but it looks like FF devs are indeed going to use Vista-only features in the Vista version of Firefox.
The mozilla.dev.planning thread in which the invitation was posted, entitled “Firefox and Thunderbird on Vista”, is readable here:
http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.planning/browse_frm/thre…
beltzner is apparently a Mozilla dev, and his post on that thread reveals some Vista things that FF/Thunderbird devs are interested in:
Default Program infrastructure;
effects of running in the new application security mode;
interacting/integrating with InfoCard;
integration with the common RSS data store and services;
integration with the Vista calendar and address book
It’s interesting (though not surprising) that the response from Mozilla’s people in that thread are a lot more mature than the drivel I’ve seen from MS haters in this osnews thread.
Edited 2006-08-22 22:11
An in that one version it can check to see what OS it’s running on and act appropriately. A LOT of apps do it. I’m pretty sure Firefox already does in fact. Checks for 2000/XP vs 9x.
Makes one wonder why a program merely using standard APIs would need to be ‘made ready’ at all, and how many software houses Microsoft is inviting in general, since there are approximately gazillions out there.
Its more to do with making sure that Mozilla is not relying on out dated win32 features, using the new win32 features such as winforms2, that its also conforming to the new Limited User Access specifications.
Why? its a damn good PR move; Microsoft *NEED* to get application vendors on board to embrace Vista, its changes, and the new api’s that are being included, they need programmers to see working software today that embrace those features.
Ultimately, I think people forget this, Microsoft doesn’t really care if you run Firefox of Internet Explorer, if you’re running Windows and you’ve paid for, it, quite frankly, what you run ontop, they couldn’t care less.
Ultimately, I think people forget this, Microsoft doesn’t really care if you run Firefox of Internet Explorer, if you’re running Windows and you’ve paid for, it, quite frankly, what you run ontop, they couldn’t care less.
Untrue. Massachusetts recently backed away from using OpenDocument because they were fed some Microsoft bullshit about how OpenOffice doesn’t have accessibility support. MS Office doesn’t either, but the operating system does (and there was no discussion of moving away from Windows).
Microsoft want you to use their software and no-one else’s. If they didn’t they wouldn’t be creating a proprietary substitute for the perfectly acceptable, ubiquitous and reimplementable PDF.
“Massachusetts recently backed away from using OpenDocument because they were fed some Microsoft bullshit about how OpenOffice doesn’t have accessibility support.”
1) Massachussetts is averse to tehnology decision made by guys getting free trips to conferences.
2) That guy claimed ODF and PDF were “open”, when they were encumbered by patents by Sun and Adobe.
3) OpenOffice is not as feature rich as Office.
4) The OpenXML format Microsoft has submitted to the EMA is as open as ODF and more open than PDF.
1) Massachussetts is averse to tehnology decision made by guys getting free trips to conferences.
Unless those free trips are to Windows conferences, no doubt.
2) That guy claimed ODF and PDF were “open”, when they were encumbered by patents by Sun and Adobe.
That must be why the KOffice people et. al. are so eager to implement it, then. They miss being served with lawsuits.
3) OpenOffice is not as feature rich as Office.
How many of the features in Office do people actually use? Nowhere near as many as are in it, it would seem, given that people *are* switching to OpenOffice, and MS had to redesign the interface to make them more obvious. One has to wonder what could be more obvious than being listed on a bloody menu. And if they aren’t listed on a menu, then making all your menus “ribbons” won’t help beans.
4) The OpenXML format Microsoft has submitted to the EMA is as open as ODF and more open than PDF.
If your claim about patents and OpenDocument were true, then OpenXML being “as open as ODF” would neither solve the problem nor indicate faulty reasoning on my part.
“If your claim about patents and OpenDocument were true, then OpenXML being “as open as ODF” would neither solve the problem nor indicate faulty reasoning on my part.”
That is the conundrum OSS advocates are in. They’ve hitched their wagon to ODF without fully understanding Sun’s ownership. Since Sun is not perceived to be as EVIL as Microsoft (or whatever spelling the ABMers use today) then Suns patents around ODF are “excused” while Microsofts submission of the Office’s XML formats to ECMA are seen as some evil trick!
The rest of your comments are not worthy of comment.
ODF has pieces patented by Sun. PDF is even more non-open since supporting DRM is mandated by Adobe if you want to use the spec’s.
Essentially the argument against Microsoft OpenXML formats come down to OSS claiming Microsoft is EVIL and shouldn’t be trusted. OSS is a cult.
People can find a number of informative articles here about both ODF and OpenXML.
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20051216153153504
The consensus on GrokLaw is that ODF is a far superior choice than Microsoft’s OpenXML for a number of reasons, and most of those reasons are spelled out rather cogently on various places found in the above repository.
Read about the issues and be informed. The poster to whom I am replying does not sound like he’s been following the issues all that closely (or he has an agenda).
The rest of your comments are not worthy of comment.
Well, if you want to engage in childishness, then on reflection, neither are yours.
The difference between a cult and a religion is that a religion has more members. Closed Source is a religion.
Office is a commercial product, of course they want you to run it. IE is a bundled/free product. So even if you use Firefox, as long as it’s on Windows Microsoft already made their money.
BAD BAD comparison.
>Microsoft doesn’t really care if you run Firefox of Internet Explorer<
Well reasoned – but untrue. The Microsoft worldview is that there is MS software and everything else – and everything else must be neutralized. If everyone used FF for a browser, a popular email client, say Thunderbird, and let’s say a slick clean Web-based word processor and suddenly Walmart started selling those applications in a bundle riding on a cheap PC running Linspire or another consumer-level Linux distro, MS would be flattened since nothing makes them any appreciable money besides the OS and the Office applications. The company would be paired down to the size of Novell in two years.
They care deeply about the everyday applications remaining under their control. They may smile, but they hold daggers behind their backs, waiting for the opportunity to sink and twist the blade into a soft vulnerable spot. They’ve decided that their future is all about making sure they keep their franchise, not inventing new computing experiences. Therefore CEO Ballmer shouting “I will f***ing kill Google!” and throwing billions into copycat products that fail or barely scratch out a return.
There is no doubt MS is making an exploratory run to find out where they can stick the blade into the FF/TB projects. They may go to Redmond with high hopes, but in the end they will return home holding their bowels in their arms.
Roberto
Well said, sir.
1) Porting existing Win32 apps to Vista is very difficult, and even a team as gifted as the Mozilla team will have trouble doing it without special resources from Microsoft.
2) This is a PR stunt that will be used somehow in Vista’s marketing campaign.
And of course, there are the more elaborate conspiracy theories, which may include trying to get the Mozilla team to sign non-disclosure agreements to look at the “secret” high-performance APIs MS’s own developers use, killing the Mozilla team ala Braveheart, etc
Edited 2006-08-22 17:45
Firefox works fine in Vista, currently.
Maybe Microsoft wants it to work better – take advantage of new Vista functionality even. I wouldn’t be surprised if some new vista-specific features make their way into the Firefox code somehow after this.
Perhaps you can just look at it as MS trying to be a good citizen, it is very rare, but seeing as this is the Open Source Software Lab, perhaps it is a genuine overture to OSS. I agree, it may not be, but either way, the users win from this one
If the MS OSSL is the real deal, its days are numbered.
I doubt that, MS is always late to any party, but when they get there, they try to own it. MS know that OSS is not going anywhere, and may be trying to learn how to compete/survive/win in this new world. Making sure that popular OSS apps run properly on Vista would be part of that. I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t see Office for Linux in the next few years, even MS can read the writing on the wall
The point of Open Source is that you *can’t* dominate the space the way Microsoft traditionally has done; if it were possible, then Red Hat, already the established leader in the Linux market, wouldn’t still be facing competition from all the other vendors/orgs, and especially the rise of Novell in so short a time-frame. If Firefox, or any other app, becomes dominant in an application space on Windows (with or without Microsoft’s help), then Microsoft have lost dominance in that space.
Portions of the Empire might be waking up, but the rest of the company – including the Office Stardestroyer, whose adoption of the “semi-open” “open”XML shows it’s still tied to the old religion – is still strong enough to crush internal dissent.
Microsoft will *never* open source Windows, even if ReactOS ends up providing serious competition. A strategic move like that would require an IBM-Gerstner -like turnaround of massive proportions (maybe one even bigger than that), and Microsoft is sufficiently shielded from the effects of the rest of the industry that I don’t see it happening in the next 15 years, at least. Even then, a Microsoft that does such a thing would be as unrecognizable as a dog that turned into a cat.
If MS encourages the use of OSS apps on Windows, and that helps keep Windows relevant, then they are going a long way to keeping at least some of it’s cash cows alive. It’s a good strategy, if they make sure everything worth having runs on windows, then that is an advantage.
Double-edged sword.
If “everything worth having runs on Windows,” that reduces the effect of having to get used to things that are worth having on other OSes, even if the other OSes are not as easy to use.
They are. And getting easier.
Moz don’t use the GPL and are therefore a much more appealing form of OSS in MS’ mind than the likes of the Linux kernel etc.
My guess as to one of the major items MS want to ensure is that the Moz apps use what ever security infrastructure changes vista has to best effect to help MS try and make up some ground on their security rep
If porting apps to Vista is “very difficult” then bang goes one of Microsoft’s supposed advantages – backwards compatibility.
If that is a ploy to kill off yet more of the already tiny non-bespoke independent Windows software industry, I think we’re going to see a lot of ISV’s move partially or wholly to MacOS X or Linux.
Diddums.
Consider this: Microsoft created Internet Explorer to increase Windows’ effectiveness on the internet. This ensured that Windows would remain a viable OS in the years following (which it did viciously) – at that point, they had to enhance and extend IE to lock IE users into Windows.
The last thing Microsoft wants is for Firefox uses to AVOID Windows Vista because Firefox doesn’t work properly on it. I am positive that they do this with any large software manufacturer that produces a popular “must-have” product. (I wouldn’t doubt that Adobe/Macromedia have already been working closely with MS on Vista compatibility)
I think it’s probably obvious that the majority of Firefox users are using Windows. That makes Firefox a “Microsoft-friendly” product. If it works better on windows than it does on Linux/other OSes and people aren’t using it as an excuse to switch, then Microsoft is still “winning”.
Seems like the Mozilla team could integrate Firefox best with open source OSes since they get unencumbered access to source code.
If MS gave them access like that, they would have to sign so many non-disclosure agreements that the Mozilla team might risk “tainting” the Mozilla source code with legal issues.
Most people are comfortable with the level of integration Firefox has in XP (which I’m using right now), so I expect the Mozilla team will just politely refuse the offer, since it seems pretty unneccesary, especially given Thom’s comment above.
Edited 2006-08-22 17:51
Or maybe there is nothing secret they will show them, but just an overview of what’s new, what they can use to help make Firefox on Windows better, and how to do it. Help speed up the process, if you will.
I have a bad feeling about this
Edited 2006-08-22 18:03
It’s OBVIOUS it will be Firefox with GLASS!!!!!
(Joke)
but seriously,
I don’t think anything bad can come from this, it is completely up to Mozilla to sign any NDA and I trust they have some common sense. Microsoft is a shady company and will do anything to screw over competition with as little work as possible.
On the flipside it could just be them using the new rendering technologies in Vista to speed up Gecko or it can even be regarding some WPF/E Integration issues.
Who knows
> On the flipside it could just be them using the new rendering technologies in Vista to speed up Gecko or it can even be regarding some WPF/E Integration issues.
The new rendering technology that Gecko will use is Cairo which is a cross-platform API.
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Gecko_1.9_Roadmap#cairo_Graphics_Substrate
Edited 2006-08-22 19:05
The new rendering technology that Gecko will use is Cairo which is a cross-platform API.
Interesting that you didn’t read anything about Cairo; Cairo needs a backend; maybe it would be in Mozilla’s best interests to ensure that the cairo backend is optimised for Windows Vista rather than relying on GDI+ which as been deprecated.
If the Mozilla team refuses the offer, it will just make them look like complete fools, and would further the percieved reputation of the OSS camp being anti-MS (which by and large it is not, but there is a very vocal minority that lends itself to this rep).
Absolutely no harm can from them heading up to Redmond, so just go already.
Absolutely no harm can from them heading up to Redmond, so just go already.
Tying up a few developers for three days while they’re trying to get a Beta out the door sounds at least mildly harmful to me.
Yeah, I’m sure that’s MS exact intention.
All software companies are always trying to get a beta out the door at any given time, and if they’re not, well…they need to re-evaluate their business model.
Try again…
I think it is just a PR stunt by MS, and there isn’t much for Mozilla to gain. There also isn’t much to lose, though, and they might get some additional testing and goodwill from MS. So why not accept?
There is only one possibility:
Microsoft views Firefox as a pesky competitor and wants to stomp on it.
MS has NEVER tolerated any kind of competition in it’s field of vision and it will not start now. To somehow believe that MS has somehow got religion and is now making nice is naivety that simply ignores the carcases of past MS competitors.
My advice to the FF team:
Believe what you hear from Redmond after:
1) They make IE open source
2) You talk to old MS allies like Symantech, McAfee, Borland and RIM.
yes they have
They were forced to tolerate Apple
“Microsoft views Firefox as a pesky competitor and wants to stomp on it.”
Microsoft is a big company, and I bet the division that works on IE-related technologies views Firefox in that way. But overall, Microsoft’s big money makers are Windows and Office, and everything else is just there to support those two central products. So, for Microsoft, Firefox is mostly good, since most of its users are Windows users, and Firefox already runs better on Windows than any other OS, which will keep them using Windows, even after the move to Vista.
However, offering help doesn’t mean offering protection. That’s why they help the AV people on one side, while in another building there are people doing something that can potentially kill them. It isn’t nice, but it isn’t illegal either (unlike some of their other tactics involving OEMs).
//Firefox already runs better on Windows than any other OS//
Say what??
Having used firefox on different OSes on the same machine, I can state form extensive experience that this is just not so.
In fact, using the Windows OS on the web is by far the riskiest of all OSes on which firefox runs. It is even possible when running firefox on Windows to open a given link in a tab using IE !! How dangerous is that!
Also having used firefox on different os’s “I can state form extensive experience that this is just so”
Firefox runs like a dog on anything but windows, which is sad but anyway.
It loads more quickly under Windows than it does under Linux or OS/2 (in my estimation), but once loaded its overall perfomance is about the same on each.
I tend to use it on 200MHz boxes at home. I’d notice a large performance difference, believe me…
“Having used firefox on different OSes on the same machine, I can state form extensive experience that this is just not so.”
So, explain to me why every single webapp that makes extensive use of javascript is just so painfully slow on Firefox/Linux… Just compare Meebo or Google Calendar on both platforms to see what I mean.
I’ve seen this behaviour with the Mozilla.com version of Firefox on more than one distro.
What did Microsoft do to Borland?
of the gingerbread and Fox story
They should accept.If they do it, it earns them some serious brownie points and if they dont , they are still gaining popularity among the alternative OSes.
I suspect just as people can have very mixed feelings about many issues, any larger company can appear to have many faces, views and interests including MS.
In this case I’d say go and visit out of curiosity, courtesy but don’t put anything Vista/new into Mozilla on Windows that can’t be replicated easily elsewhere. Far better to stay as neutral and as portable as possible, less headaches for developers and users.
Now if MS genuinely understands some aspects of Firefox running on Windows better than the team does, then by all means hear them out.
Maybe the Linux version works better and they are asking for equally good version, maybe.
Firefox on BeOS/Windows user
I feel it would be prudent to obtain a DNA print of the developers involved, before the trip.
I don’t believe that Microsoft technology would be up to producing android counterparts. But surgically altered doubles would lie within the realm of the possible.
Best to be safe.
Will they invite OpenOffice folks to a chat and sharing of ideas with MSOffice developers? I think not.
That’s apples to coconuts. Any type of interaction MS can have with companies to boost adoption of Windows (in this case Firefox) is a no brainer, and actually everyone wins in the end (we get a better browser).
Inviting a company up that competes directly with a product that accounts for over half their revenues (in this case, Office) would be out of the question and makes no business sense whatsoever, plus OOo adoption on Windows is probably a tiny fraction of the percentage of Firefox on Windows.
I’m always one to suspect that Microsoft is up to no good. It’s been this way since the 1970s.
In this case, I believe that they must have the best Mozilla experience for Vista and they want to make certain of it. It helps the Mozilla team and it helps maintain their dominance in operating systems.
I don’t think they’ll learn anything from the Mozilla team that they haven’t already learnt from their source code. If I was thinking about conspiracies, I’d think that the whole Mozilla team would vanish inexplicably somehow. “No, they never arrived.” Then again, that would never happen, would it?
I’d think there would be a lot of benefits for the Mozilla team working with the Vista team. Better integration for starters. A more stable application. Perhaps a few enhanced extensions. If they don’t like what Microsoft has to offer than no harm done. They can just say no thank you and walk away, but just make the effort to go first and not pass judgement before hand.
Opera devs had their meeting at Microsoft last week.
See:
http://my.opera.com/dstorey/blog/show.dml/419834
http://operawatch.com/news/2006/08/opera-visits-microsoft-in-prepar…
http://my.opera.com/olli/blog/show.dml/417961
http://annevankesteren.nl/2006/08/opera-vista
Opera’s not serious competition.
The poster who said that anyone who believes that Microsoft has seen the error of its ways is just naive, was right on the money. Microsoft will go the way of Franco, a believer in its own dictatorial nonsense till the expiration of its last breath.
But hopefully the King Juan Carlos of the software world will then also be able to just tell the reactionaries where to stick it.
Hmm, so worse case scenario, they’ll give soft drink and ice cream, become the size of a house, and become demotivated form programming.
To me it seems ms wants to woo/steal some talented developers. Or get ideas from them since they seem to not be able to come up with anything new well made or exciting now days
Dont make me laugh, firefox is OSS what would inviting the developers do?
Do Intel invite AMD to their labs!, I think not.
A few people keep saying that most FF users are on Windows. Where is exactly are you guys pulling your stats from because that seems a bit outside reality to me?
I wouldn’t doubt this information is gathered by Mozilla and possibly published somewhere, but you have to use common sense here!
But here’s an example to back up my claims (if you don’t believe it):
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
See how Firefox has 26.4% of the browser stats on w3schools?
Now, scroll down to the OS stats – and tell me where you’re finding more than 13.2% of the OSes that are not Windows.
You can assume that most of the mac users are Safari-based and you can assume a large percentage of Linux users are KHTML-based… so it becomes quite evident that most of the Firefox user-base is on Windows. It is their primary target market.
Also, please note that w3schools tends to favor web developers, so you can assume these results are skewed… but I think they would be skewed in the oppostite direction of the point I’m trying to make anyway.
And finally – haven’t you read the news? Internet Explorer usage is decreasing, while Firefox usage is increasing – at a much faster rate than Windows users are decreasing and alternative OS users are increasing.
Edited 2006-08-23 02:14
Ahh now it’s starting to make sense. You get your stats from a page that ends in .asp. Nuff said
http://www.webhits.de/webhits/browser.htm
Linux: .4%
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2
Linux: .44%
http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2006/August/os.php
Linux: 0% (actually it is 355868 out of 83626394 visitors) about .42%
http://www.artlebedev.com/tools/browsers/
Unix: .4% (No mention of Linux)
Notice the trend?
“A few people keep saying that most FF users are on Windows. Where is exactly are you guys pulling your stats from because that seems a bit outside reality to me?”
Go to the various browsing stat sites, and you’ll see that while FF has 10-13% browser share, Linux has ~0.4 OS share and Mac has ~4% OS share (almost all of which use Safari). That makes it pretty obvious that most FF users are Windows users. And I’ve read that Mozilla’s primary target is Windows (i.e. they code for Windows first, then port to the other OSes), though I can’t verify that.
Edit:
Just to add to the stats posted by NotParker:
http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox46-operating-systems-ma…
Linux: 0.36%
Mac: 2.32%
Now, maybe most Linux users are FF users, but the reverse isn’t true by any stretch of the imagination.
Edited 2006-08-23 08:20
No Microsoft “partner” has ever walked away whole or with any appreciable profit from the relationship. Even PC manufacturers rage endlessly how MS makes all the profit in the PC. The Open Source Research Center is roughly the equivalent of the Josef Mengele “medical clinic” at Auschwitz, a place where otherwise beneficent skills and tools are used for horrific ends. MS has only one interest in non-commercial software or software that it doesn’t own: to destroy it. Likely, MS attorneys and managers have cooked up a plan for somehow arresting or diverting development of Firefox and Thunderbird and need some direct involvement of the Mozilloids.
Understand this one big thing: The organization is absolutely incapable of telling the truth. Ask its big customers, really, really big customers that have had to deal with it for decades and ask its former partners and, finally, ask the PC manufacturers. None of them will ever describe the organization as trustworthy. Read the trial transcripts and reports in which MS was caught lying. Read the “Microsoft Files,” a badly written book otherwise filled with excellent citations from law suits around the world describing MS criminal behavior.
If you’ve got two firing neurons in your head and Charles Manson is at the door, you don’t say, “Oh, let’s give old Chuckie a break and see if he’s mellowed out over the years.” You slam the door and call the police. Mass murderers do not mellow out. Savagely criminal enterprises do not evolve into temples of probity. Team FF has deftly inspired and channeled the power of community to deliver stable, sensible software. Right now, it needs to use the power of community the right way and in this case that power would be best exercised by shunning a criminal actor.
Roberto
“No Microsoft “partner” has ever walked away whole or with any appreciable profit from the relationship. ”
I think that sums it up nicely. +1 to you, sir.
No Microsoft “partner” has ever walked away whole or with any appreciable profit from the relationship.
How to you explain Apple, or Corel (which is having an IPO soon) or Sun (not necessarily a partner, but no exactly launching a jihad against Microsoft either).
Microsoft has other things on its mind; they’ve already saturated their core markets, now they’re diversifying their offerings – online services, XBox 360, licencing technologies developed by their R&D facility.
Microsoft is a different beast to what it was 10-15 years ago; as for companies who died; why is it Microsofts fault? Lotus failed to move their suite to 32bit until 2000 (Lotus 123 still being win16 up until then), you had the various vendors like Wordstar, Wordperfect, Harvard graphics beating each other up insteading of merging into one, and creating an integrated 32bit office suite.
All the competition that has died, has died because their products were crap – I challange anyone here to name *ONE* product that was killed because of Microsofts ‘anti-competitive’ nature – name *ONE*.
All the competition that has died, has died because their products were crap – I challange anyone here to name *ONE* product that was killed because of Microsofts ‘anti-competitive’ nature – name *ONE*.
UNIX and Linux weren’t and aren’t crap. UNIX’s Common Desktop Environment has about equivalent functionality to Windows 95 (yes, equivalent, not identical), and God knows UNIX/Linux crashes a lot less.
Those companies died for one or more of four reasons, of which the one you cite was simultaneously only one, and the one most directly attributable to Microsoft malfeasance.
1. Their marketing/pricing (CP/M, OS/2, proprietary UNIX) was as crap as Microsoft’s products (and MS’s marketing twice as good as anyone else’s), and/or
2. They were sidetracked by OS/2 (Lotus) (Thanks to IBM, with help from MS), and/or
3. They were starved of drivers (OS/2), and/or
4. They failed to come up with Windows programs as good as the Microsoft offerings (Word Perfect) – hardly surprising since Microsoft knows exactly what goes into Windows, and everyone else only knows what Microsoft wants them to know.
There are two lessons everyone can learn from this. The first is, never bet your company on a closed-source software vendor.
The second, of course, is “never put a slash in the name of your product! (RMS, are you listening?)
Edited 2006-08-23 12:24
1. OS/2 mainly lost because of Microsoft’s preload deals with OEMs and various underhanded tactics involving key ISVs like WordPerfect, Corel, and Micrografx.
Without access to preloads, OS/2 was forced to be installed by end users, and that doesn’t work in most cases (if one wants to gain marketshare).
Without access to key non-Microsoft applications, the OS didn’t appeal to users regardless of marketing and technical merits.
2. The Lotus SmartSuite for Windows wasn’t sidetracked in any way by OS/2 that I’m aware of.
3. From Warp 3 on (early 1994), drivers were generally not an issue for OS/2. The main problems were market penetration (see point #1) and available software (see #2).
Edited 2006-08-23 17:33
Interesting points you raised, but these are all the result of choices made by the parent company, and nothing to do with Microsoft.
These companies CHOSE to charge excessive amounts for their products (in the case of SCO), they chose to abandon the desktop market – Sun gave up early 1990s to focus on servers and lost its dominance in the US government, IBM charged like a wombed bull for their development tools and did very little evangelisation on the merits of people using their kit over the alternatives.
Again, all these were creations by their own company, not Microsoft, Microsoft simply sat back, watch the horror unfold, and chose the best time to enter the market with a product that was ‘good enough’ to do the job for what 95% of people needed – not necessarily the best, but good enough; if we wanted best, we would be using betamax, the world would have standardised on PAL instead of the US stubbornly sticking with NTSC and the French as backlash to the German invention of PAL, come up with SECAM.
Actually, pricing for the OS/2 1.x SDK was determined by Microsoft, wasn’t it? It was a Microsoft-branded product.
Edited 2006-08-25 21:10
All the competition that has died, has died because their products were crap – I challange anyone here to name *ONE* product that was killed because of Microsofts ‘anti-competitive’ nature – name *ONE*.
Netscape?
Netscape?
The company that stole its IP from a university and Spyglass? The company that gave away for free every version of its browser and complained when Microsoft used the same model?
Please. Get real.
Neither company is all that innocent.
Rumor does have it that Marc Andressen snuck off with the Mosaic source, and that Netscape’s browser was based on that.
However, Microsoft licensed the same code from Spyglass for a percentage of the royalties and then proceded to give the browser away, effectively screwing Spyglass as well.
Besides, the main thrust of the complaint about Microsoft was not the fact that the MSIE browser was free, but rather than the MSIE browser was tied into the OS in such a way that it could not be removed w/o potentially breaking other subsystems and applications.
Please. Get real. And try to limit the revisionist history. Many of us were also there, and we remember very well what occurred.
Edited 2006-08-23 17:44
Netscape?
Ever run Netscape Navigator or Communicator on Windows? there is a reason it was called “Nutscrape” by end users and web developers alike, it was an awful product that was prone to hanging, crashing and corrupting mail firles.
When Microsoft improved Internet Explorer, Netscape took its MONOPOLY for granted and assumed that people would jjust keep using their product, irrespective of how crap it was; well, they were proven wrong, end users migrated away, seeing that yes, it was actually possible to surf the internet without having a browser crash everytime it came accross a Java applet or a Flash/Shockwave object that needed loading.
All the competition that has died, has died because their products were crap – I challange anyone here to name *ONE* product that was killed because of Microsofts ‘anti-competitive’ nature – name *ONE*.
BeOS?
Don’t forget that they filed lawsuit after going out of business – and MS settled (of course). It’s hard to PROVE because Microsoft has this tendency to settle lawsuits before they actually happen.
BeOS?
Don’t forget that they filed lawsuit after going out of business – and MS settled (of course). It’s hard to PROVE because Microsoft has this tendency to settle lawsuits before they actually happen.
So its now Microsofts fault that the hardware support for BeOS was crap and no big name software vendors provided software for the said platform?
I’m sorry, I was a major BeOS fan when it came out in the form of R4, it had alot of potential, but BeOS themselves cocked it up, not Microsoft or anyone else.
BeOS actually had a deal with at least one PC vendor to create a dual-boot machine (Hitachi), but Microsoft leaned on them and the machines were shipped with (1) copies of Windows and BeOS on the hard drive but no boot menu, or (2) Windows on the hard drive and BeOS on floppies.
That type of activity on the part of Microsoft REALLY hurt BeOS.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-840478.html
All the competition that has died, has died because their products were crap – I challange anyone here to name *ONE* product that was killed because of Microsofts ‘anti-competitive’ nature – name *ONE*.
How do you define “anti-competitive nature”…?
Would cutting exclusive deals with PC makers and doing other things to pressure them from loading another OS qualify as “anti-competitive”?
Would leaning on developers who created cross-platform products to refrain from doing so qualify?
Or are those “normal business activities”…?
Would cutting exclusive deals with PC makers and doing other things to pressure them from loading another OS qualify as “anti-competitive”?
And you claim that this is a new idea? Microsoft offers OEM three levels, either sales of OEM copies individually – normally very small hardware vendors grab this offer, then there are the packs of licences, normally in sets of 30 where you save money instead of being them individually, then there is the deepest discounted kit where by you CHOOSE to go exclusively with Microsoft.
There is nothing secret about this arrangement; hell, when I ran my computer business I was looking for ways to reduce my costs, and this was *one* of the ways, I decided not to as it would have restricted me to only offering Windows based PC’s, which I deliberately set out not to do.
Would leaning on developers who created cross-platform products to refrain from doing so qualify?
Provide evidence for such an assertion – Adobe themselves chose not to continue the port of Framemaker, no one else, Adobe themselves chose to drag their feet when it came to delivering Acrobat for Solaris x86 and updating the Linux version.
These are choices which software companies have made, external to any so-called ‘force’ exerted by Microsoft.
Does Microsoft *actually* care if vendors support other operating systems? of course not! ultimately Microsoft is sitting right now, 95% dominance on the desktop, the alternatives are either in disarray or expensive compared to what is in the Wintel world, so it isn’t as though on the desktop there is any immediate threat.
Now, maybe if we have a look at the server, the alternatives are putting some preasure on Microsoft, but the simple fact remains, their profits keep growing, the Windows market over all is growing at a faster rate and valued at a higher amount than the alternatives – all because they’ve provided a competitive product (Windows 2003) which can provide the functionality at a price which people find palitable.
Stop ranting and answer my simple questions.
Would such activities be considered anti-competitive?
Edited 2006-08-25 21:12
“The Open Source Research Center is roughly the equivalent of the Josef Mengele “medical clinic” at Auschwitz, a place where otherwise beneficent skills and tools are used for horrific ends.”
“If you’ve got two firing neurons in your head and Charles Manson is at the door…”
Wow! Nazis and Manson in the same post! You should have tried to work in a Waco reference or something, that would have really made your point!
Out of curiousity, do you find that flouncing around like a drama queen helps you in debates?
“Mass murderers do not mellow out. Savagely criminal enterprises do not evolve into temples of probity.”
Hysterical much? Roberto, you need to turn off the computer, step outside, and have a breath of fresh air.
Don’t forget terrorism, Mom, and apple pie…
Linux has .4% of the desktop.
There can’t be a large percentage of Firefox users on Linux.
Face reality. Firefox’s success on Windows is another nail in the coffin for Linux on the desktop.
Physician, heal thyself.
The only reason to care about “Linux on the desktop” is so that we get decent hardware support. If, in order to have that, I’d have to accept I was the only person in the world not running Redmond’s vicious, overhyped shitware on the desktop, I’d be deliriously happy.
BTW, all those “Linux has [2].4 % of the desktop articles” you Windows fanboys are masturbating over? They’re from a 2001 article by a known Windows shill, who cites a (flawed) survey on another site which takes an infinitesimally small survey of mostly Windows-orientated sites.
That’s .[2]4 or .4%
Nooo! Don’t do it, it’s a trap!
Good god..has histroy taught us nothing?
It rarely does, it would seem.
Some of us learn.
Others don’t.
Guess which set of users will still be bitching about their computing environment in five years?
Heheheh.