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Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> The Way of All Flesh, erm, Software
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>| In case you haven't heard, Prime Minister Tony Blair has set a timetable
>| for his leaving office. Well, OK, it?s highly unofficial and the Sun
>| newspaper reported it...
>|
>| [...]
>|
>|At a certain level, apparently Bill Gates understands the "way of all flesh"
>| too. According to the Economist, he is obsessed with the fate of Digital
>| Equipment Corporation, a giant that was reduced to nothing, and is very
>| concerned that Microsoft doesn't suffer a similar fate; that apparently was
>| a reason why he appointed Ray Ozzie. A good choice, but probably too late.
>|
>| Item: consider how Microsoft has been trying to diversify into everything
>| from MP3 players into video games consoles. This is indicative of a
>| company which is trying to find an additional revenue stream on top of a
>| core business which could become dangerously vulnerable.
>|
>| Item: consider how that core business, operating systems, has reached a
>| point of absurdity. I find new ones every single day. Yesterday, for
>| example, I found out Internet Information Server 6 comes with a feature
>| that limits the size of a download. Some fiddling can make it right, but
>| for those who say, have to import a huge list of addresses for a mass
>| mailing campaign, it is absolutely absurd. Microsoft apparently never
>| thought of this. They also never realised that the cycle of making their
>| operating system ever larger and building in more functionality was
>| going to make it ever more difficult to debug and deploy.
>|
>| Item: consider how Windows users are being bombarded with viruses and
>| trojans, to the point that "zombie" PCs are a genuine internet menace.
>| Yet we have little visibility on how Vista is going to be less vulnerable
>| to this problem, on the contrary, it may be even worse.
>|
>| All these factors in isolation would not be fatal; they only become so
>| because Microsoft does not realise that they are problems at the heart
>| of their business model, and they are not willing to face up to the
>| truth. They lack the introspection to realise their hour of total
>| dominance has passed. They want to keep hold of the days when they set
>| the pace of the IT market, and the idea Mac OS challenging them was
>| laughable and Linux on the desktop was the preserve of a few enthusiasts.
> `----
>
> http://www.linuxextremist.com/?p=103
These various issues do point to an increasing realisation and
acceptance that the world must change for Microsoft to survive. I think
that they're banking on one more round of windows sales before it's all
over and the world moves to Linux. The problem after that is to get
next generation stuff working and people using it; perhaps the online
model could work for them, but I don't think that they'll ever see the
kind of margins they very much got used to.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
Laughing at you is like drop-kicking a wounded humming bird.
|
|
