don't want to do Linux. Indeed, some of the commentary at the event related to Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and its vulnerability when it comes to large business and government accounts because: Posted on 05/02/2006 5:49:36 AM PDT by ShadowAce
2008 will be a critical year for Apple, Microsoft, and the Linux contingent. If Apple can't significantly expand its presence by then in the PC market it is likely going to be finished with this segment. Its likely path in that case will be to focus more aggressively on the consumer electronics market it currently dominates.
I mentioned last week that I was planning to attend the Linspire-sponsored Linux Desktop Summit where the discussion would include reasons the folks who build PCs don't want to do Linux. Indeed, some of the commentary at the event related to Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and its vulnerability when it comes to large business and government accounts because:
There was also a lot of discussion about what Linux should become, with some of the most interesting commentary coming from Geoffrey Moore, author of "Crossing the Chasm," who was right on in stating that Linux is going in the wrong direction with respect to the desktop.
There was little mention of the Mac OS at the conference, yet, given the success of Linux against Unix (the Mac OS has Unix at its core) you would think that platform might make a better first target for Linux than Windows would.
It was as fascinating to learn that Moore was an avid Linux supporter as it was to learn that he felt strongly it was on the wrong path for the desktop. He went into great detail as to how he felt that Microsoft was, like many of the large companies that hire him to consult, a dinosaur trying unsuccessfully to be fast moving and trendy again. He clearly felt that the company was vulnerable -- but not to Linux, considering what this system's desktop path seems to be.
Moore pointed out that things move slowly and that a good place to look for ideas for future products is among kids and young people -- and what they are currently using. Today kids are using devices like cell phones and iPods, often juggling several gadgets running at once. These devices are not all-in-ones, rather they're specialized to whatever the user wants to do. In short, they're nearly the opposite of what Windows currently is. What does that mean? It means Windows might be a poor model for future products. Future products probably won't be running on anything that looks like today's Windows.
All of this reminded me of the way in which Windows came about. Back in the 1980s, IBM's (NYSE: IBM) dominance was based on mainframes, and this firm was more powerful in its day than Microsoft is today. Companies like Fujitsu, Hitachi (NYSE: HIT) and Digital tried to make a better mainframe product than IBM. Digital even changed its name to "DEC" so it kind of looked like "IBM." Several firms actually attempted to steal IBM's proprietary technology so they could build competing products that they'd offer at lower prices.
Often people seem to think that just because they can sell something cheaper they have a major competitive advantage. For software, in particular, price is just one factor -- but it's often far from the most compelling.
As a result of focusing intently on price and IBM these folks fought over about 10 percent of the market. Some were successful in peripherals or emerging markets, but IBM actually remained dominant in mainframes.
In contrast, Microsoft, Dell (Nasdaq: DELL), and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) grew, not by making a better mainframe, but by helping to create and ride the next wave, personal computers. This was a wave Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) started but couldn't ride itself. IBM couldn't move fast enough, often crippled its own products to protect existing revenue streams and recently exited the PC market after admitting it couldn't compete.
For the Linux set, focusing on Microsoft and Windows might mean those players will mirror the experiences of IBM's traditional competitors like Digital and face a similar end. To win, they need to focus not on where the market was, but where it is going, and they should do everything in their power to get there first even if that means finding a way to partner with Microsoft.
Shortly after the show last week I saw this post on the Groklaw Web site which advocates a boycott of Linux distributions and the hardware vendors who use them when FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) rules are not followed to the letter. This smacks of religious elitism -- and boycotts scare the hell out of hardware vendors, IT buyers, and consumers alike. As a result I have to wonder if it is even possible for Linux proponents to stop the infighting long enough to even think about the future, let alone get there first.
No one seems to talk much about Apple Leopard, the next version of the Mac OS. This is primarily because Apple, unlike Microsoft, is not talking about this next generation platform publicly. Based on comments by Apple chief Steve Jobs it was slated to roll out about the same time as Vista originally was, but if what I'm reading is right, it too has run into problems and won't show up until late 2007. This OS was largely modeled after what Vista was going to be. However, unlike Microsoft, Apple did not cut features to make the 2006 date, a date that Microsoft has now missed anyway. As result, Leopard may look a lot like what Vista was promised to be and, based on how Apple developed the iPod, it may also be capable of building a media center offering that works.
One of the interesting features expected to be included in Leopard is a true hardware virtualization layer, probably at least partially leveraging Intel's (Nasdaq: INTC) LG technology which should be nearly fully cooked by that time. Virtualization was supposed to be included in Windows Vista but it too slipped out of the product. As many have pointed out, virtualization could be a vastly more palatable way to gain Windows compatibility than Apple's Boot Camp now is.
One lesson that may come out of this is that removing a feature to make a deadline is a bad idea because there are dependencies that break -- and this breakage can dramatically reduce, if not eliminate, the time savings such a decision was expected to create. In addition, it makes the product look crippled -- and crippled products don't sell well. If the right people observe and learn this lesson it may result in better and timelier software products going forward from a lot of companies.
Despite all this, if this Leopard vs. Vista scenario plays out this will place the most competitive Mac OS in history -- on aggressively designed Intel based hardware -- against what may be the most competitively exposed Microsoft desktop OS since Windows Millennium Edition in the market, in the fourth quarter of 2007.
If Apple can't at least double its small share during this unique event it should abandon the Mac OS as a dead end, because this kind of opportunity will never come again.
If it does double share, which it could do by cutting a broad swath through the consumer market with a well designed media center-like product, it could dramatically change the market and remind the Linux folks that the desktop isn't about FOSS -- it's about selling the products consumers want to buy.
2008 will be a critical year for Apple, Microsoft, and the Linux contingent. If Apple can't significantly expand its presence by then in the PC market it is likely going to be finished with this segment. Its likely path in that case will be to focus more aggressively on the consumer electronics market it currently dominates.
If the Linux set can't get over its internal problems it will be bypassed, likely by something else that better blends proprietary and open source components into solutions that more accurately meet the emerging needs for appliance-like products real people want to buy. If Microsoft can't find a way to become agile and customer focused again it will clearly be on the long slow path that IBM blazed -- and that Sun is already reaching the end of.
There is potential for 2008 to be a year of change, both positive and negative, for Microsoft, Apple and Linux. This is history in the making for all three entities and we are getting a chance to witness it.
The outcome will have a great deal to do with the quality of the decisions all parties make this year. The first decision all should make is to focus unwaveringly on their customers -- if they can figure out who they really are. Of the three entities, the only one that appears to clearly understands this, so far, is Apple. 
WIPO is pushing open source, just like all UN agencies. Are you ever going to actually speak out against them and Stallman, like I do? Or just continue to claim I somehow support them LOL.
Reduced to childish insults, like normal, when your same exact BS was blown up again. Quit posting it, and you won't have deal with it being thrown back in your face everytime.
Ha ha! That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! You support their laws, even if they erode US sovereignty and then you condemn ME for not speaking out against them!
LMAO!
Laugh all you want flamer, the UN is fully committed to open source just like you. They reference Stallman constantly just like you too. Only one portion of the DMCA was related to the UN and it's now obviously contrary to their current goals.
WIPO Announces Plans to Support Open Source
http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20041004215722422
"Today WIPO supports an entirely different approach, which emphasizes open source software"
"Only one portion of the DMCA was related to the UN and it's now obviously contrary to their current goals. "
Spin, spin, spin. It's UN law, implemented with your blessing. Of course, you love all things "one world" just like Microsoft money for China and Planned Parenthood.
"it's now obviously contrary to their current goals. "
Ha! They haven't repealed the WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act, have they? That's the model for the DMCA, you know, right? Did we just lie again?
And as for condeming the WIPO, I was expressing my disgust with them as you argued against me, earlier, lying about DMCA not being UN law, etc.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1620494/posts?page=163#163
So, lie again if you want, but the facts once again don't line up with your version of reality.
Context, GE. His original post stated how many desktops he has and how he uses them. The statement in a vacuum on this thread is technically incorrect (although it was preceded with "I don't think" so is not an absolute statement), but you posted a link to the other thread, which has context, and makes his statement true.
Correction to the above...Instead of "WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act", that should read "WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty".
The treaty was the model for DMCA. The Implementation Act was where we actually sold out our sovereignty to the UN and WIPO, with the full backing of GE.
LOL there's not even such a thing. If there was, we'd all have to use open source now since that's what they are pushing, along with you of course.
"one world"
Which is why they suppport open source now, a software world without borders, just like you. Proprietary software puts up too many borders for you guys, known as "ownership".
The constitutional source of the copyright laws of the United States is very different in spirit than the copyright laws of much of the rest of the world. WIPO so far has had a very non-US approach, which tried to give absolute power to the copyright holders, and we adopted WIPO policies as our laws in direct opposition to the spirit of the Constitution. Not only the WIPO-based DMCA, but the CTEA and others influenced by the international community have made our copyright laws stray very far from their constitutional basis.
It is good that WIPO is moving towards a US-based model that balances copyright holders' limited monopoly powers with the public good.
WIPO has always basically been owned by the big corporations. It is a tool to advance their power and make them more money. Didn't you notice that WIPO didn't say anything about open source until big business players got behind it?
"LOL there's not even such a thing."
UN policy. Law might not have been the correct word, but someone with greater intelligence than a cockroach would have been able to understand. But, dealing with you as much as I do, even I am occasionally astounded by the depths of your ignorance.
"Which is why they suppport open source now, a software world without borders, just like you."
Well, I'm not the one here defending their policies. You, however, defend the DMCA, straight from the UN, until you froth at the mouth.
LOL the DMCA is not "straight from the UN", it has one section related to their former position on intellectual property. However the UN is obviously now commited fully to open source, just like you. The US Congress is rightfully going the other way, for stricter enforcement of IP laws, not pushing open source like you and the UN now constantly do.
Guess who's going to win out in the US Flamer? Me and the Congress who want IP protected, or you and the UN who want it freely given away?
Wow. Tristan sounds just like GE.
That one's quite bad. Here's a few funny GE-type bits of stupidity (I promised not to call GE ignorant anymore):
this rugged IBM laptop I am using was designed and built by an American company
Using largely non-American parts.
It's a computer program that was initially developed in Finland as a means of circumventing valuable copyrights and patents owned by an American company called SCO Group.
It was built to get around the licensing of MINIX, which was created by a Dutch professor. That is aside from the un-established question of whether SCO actually owns the copyrights to UNIX.
a leading computer expert Steve Balmer
Steve Ballmer is not a computer expert. He is a manager in a software company.
A generation of computer users might get use to accepting foreign software hand-outs rather than paying for a superior American products.
Superior American products like SuSE and Red Hat Linux?
And guess what software Osama Bin Laden uses on his laptop? If you guessed it was Linux you would be 100% right.
What orifice did he pull that one out of? This idiot's blog is the only source for this information I could find on the 'net.
Report them to the Business Software Alliance who have the legal authority to inspect any company's computers for illegal programs like Linux.
Huh? No they don't, aside from the fact that you can't run an illegal copy of Linux.
But the BSA underscores a danger with commercial software. You may have paid full-price for 20 licenses of Windows and Office Pro, but you face a big lawsuit or settlement if you can't produce proof of purchase when the BSA comes knocking. You are assumed guilty until proven innocent. This means businesses have to add costly license compliance overhead in order to not get screwed by the BSA.
You're right, this blogger sounds just as stupid and paranoid as GE, so it could be him.
The US Congress has been going the unconstitutional (not rightful) way for years because of payoffs by the copyright cartel and complying with WIPO.
By constitutional definition, anything that hurts the progress of the arts and sciences cannot be part of our copyright law, period. Yet it's there, and there even stronger in the proposed new laws.
So, one more time for those who still might be reading this thread (which has devolved far off topic due to GE's trolling).
Here's exactly what I said...
OTOH, running dual head with either separate desktops (my personal preference) or with one desktop spanning both monitors rocks. Windows will do dual heads, but I don't think you can get dual desktops without third party tools.
NOTE the term "separate deskstops". I'll spell it for you slowly so perhaps you can understand it. "s-e-p-a-r-a-t-e d-e-s-k-t-o-p-s". This is an entirely different concept from having a single desktop that spans two monitors. it also doesn't specifically make any statement about multiple virtual desktops, though I elaborated later to clarify for others on the thread, that with Linux you can run BOTH multiple desktops AND multiple virtual desktops AT THE SAME TIME.
antirepublicrat, I do not believe I was factually incorrect in my statement. I don't have a place to install that particular MS tool, but from what I've read, it will support multiple virts, not multiple desktops, and certainly not multiple desktops with multiple virts on each. If you have seen any information to the contrary, I'd be interested in knowing about it, as there are a couple of folks where I work that might be able to make use of it.
Only incorrect in that statement in a vacuum without the context of the thread GE linked to. GE knew the context, yet he still claimed you lied -- standard tactics. Stating without context that you can't get "dual desktops" without 3rd party tools on Windows is an incorrect statement, since it doesn't have the clarification omitting dual virtual desktops.
I think we're misunderstanding each other a bit. My original statement didn't mention virtual desktops at all. What I was saying was that MS didn't provide for the ability of running dual desktops. That is, each physical screen is a separate entity from the other. They would have different taskbar, tray, and "start" button that are independent of each other.
Regardless, it's a pointless bit to argue over in any case. The only reason I even bothered was for the benefit of the non-trolls on the thread. I couldn't care less what the troll writes or thinks, as it's sole purpose is to disrupt threads.
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