I tried to send this before, with an "off top.." note,in brackets, and was refused by the automatic list machine, but apparently, without that note the same thing can be sent, so I will try once more: And of course, it really _is_ ot--altho we should watch ms like a hawk, there's not a heck of a lot we can do about what they do. On Tuesday 10 August 2004 13:27, LRivas@oxiquim.cl wrote:
No, I still think they dont
/large snip/
the only way to really BEAT linux is just making an exeptionally good product out of Windows, they need to make a so good product, as to convince us to prefer. And the formula is quite simple, MS has followed the way of the multimedia for too many years, mutlimedia that bothers more than help do the job. So many fisher-price-like-multimedia-desktop-colors-and-enviroments in windows only make us think there is no more to 'innovate'...But linux is still virus-free and BSOD-free. what do you prefer?
Tom Nielsen
MS is seeing the light in small ways--like selling its expensive product for a lot less in third world countries. Like its recent move to the nt file system. MS and its associates no longer seem quite as intent on hunting down users of decss, even tho they haven't actually published the source code themselves. However, I think they shoot themselves in the foot when they make new operating systems on which old programs no longer run. Sometimes there are no modern replacements, or the replacements are extremely expensive. (Some CAD progams are well into the 5 figures!) The company I retired from got burned that way, when some techie decided to upgrade a system with an EEsof Windows program which is no longer made. The replacement is over $15000, and the company is on an austerity budget and won't buy it, so they have lost the capability. (The replacement, BTW, is ugly and clumsy.) As often as they do this, somebody gets annoyed enough to look elsewhere, and if that somebody turns out to have clout in an IT department, there may be a wholesale switch to something else. It didn't happen at my old place yet, but since it is now a division of a _very_ large world-wide organization, it would certainly be interesting to see! They will also shoot themselves in the foot if, as I suspect, they turn the software into a time-out type of system which will force users to upgrade, especially in light of my previous observation. --doug