How Microsoft Could Embrace Linux 424
"He goes on to cite the governments of Paris, Munich, Brazil, Peru, China, Korea, and Japan which are all embracing open source software to varying degrees. Meanwhile, when they choose Microsoft software, fast-growing emerging markets like China and India opt for pirated copies. Salkever explains that the concerns for customers like these are the 'relatively high price of Microsoft software' and the 'concerns about buying proprietary software to run critical government operations.' Finally he points to recent moves by Sun and IBM to leave the commoditized software and hardware business behind, writing 'When the world's largest and most respected IT consultancy draws a clear bead on your crown jewels, it's time to mount a bold counterattack.'"
Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:5, Insightful)
why would any linux user use MS Office, especially when they have to pay for it?
considering heaps of people use OpenOffice.org and the like on Windows, I really don't see many people using MS Office under linux.
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:2)
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:3, Insightful)
I used to say that when I was a student. Now I have a family to support....
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:3, Interesting)
then when I started working independantly and still hadn't starved I thought I'd better put my money where my mouth was.
I joined EFF and GNU and I donate to beg-ware software, as they are generous, I be generous back.
Sam
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I heard, it's Office that's the real cash cow anyway, not Windows. Why shouldn't they?
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:2)
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is why there was a story here on
What's interestingly is this week's Barrons'...the cover shows a picture of
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they would be exposed to competition in office suites. If I write an excellent office suite for Windows, and somehow have a real chance to take on MSOffice, all they have to do is wait for the next deadly Windows worm, release a patch that everybody will have to install, and attach it something that will make my program crash; then blame me for my poor programming.
In Windows they own the house, in Linux they would be guests. Windows/Office is a powerful combination, and it makes no sense to break it. Rather, they will give discounts on Windows, give away software (typically to schools), or tolerate piracy as in China, so that when the market gets rich they can start some enforcing.
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:5, Interesting)
We ran into this problem when we were looking to buy a new web server. The director actualyl gave me a choice on what was loaded on it. Although my last employer was a Linux shop, this place is Microsoft/Novell. As much as I love all things Linux on the server, we eventually decided to put Windows on it because a) we didn't want a third environment (Windows, Novell, Linux), b) most of our department expertise is Windows/Novell, c) Many of our apps are written in ASP, and although it wouldn't have been out of the question to rewrite them or use an emulator in the short term, it was a drawback.
I wouldn't doubt, however, that the major reason our director (is generally against free software) was okay with Linux is because Novell is backing it now, which is a good thing.
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, this ignores (a) the existence of Crossover Office, which I understand is capable of running Word virtually flawlessly, and (b) the fact that MS wouldn't do it because they know that they'd lose -- the number of people switching to Linux because of the availability of office would cut directly into their Windows revenues, and probably into some of their other application-based revenues also.
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:2, Insightful)
100% compatibility with the other 95% of office users is one
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:2)
Because in my experience as a user, MS Office offers more useful features, is faster, and is less buggy than Open Office.
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:3, Interesting)
MS Office is probably one of the most OS dependant applications there is, porting it to ANY OS would be a nightmare I'd expect. Even with some compatibility layer below, the likelihood of something breaking and support headaches would keep such an endeavor from occurring as the potential market just isn't there.
Given the choice between loosing potential sales to piracy or investing large sums of money in a porting project with a low probability of commercial
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Because they have ten years of archived documents in various MS formats (including VB automations) which require MS Office to make them all work. The value of those documents far outweighs the cost of MS Office.
Which is why MS won't make a Linux version of office any time soon. If there was a Linux version of Office, one of the major roadblocks that holds corporations back from adopting Linux would be gone as well. If you c
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Because they may want the combination of an extremely stable OS, coupled with a very popular office suite? There are many reasons, but the heart of your question is the unspoken assumption that Linux users don't want to pay for software.
I think you're wrong. Using myself as an example: right now I'm in the market for another digital camera. Since my home desktop PC runs Linux, unless I want to use my wife's XP machine every
Re:Office for Linux? who'd use it? (Score:3, Informative)
I use Appleworks for word processing, but Escel is the king.
Wh make a Linux Office version (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wh make a Linux Office version (Score:3, Insightful)
Er, OpenOffice (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Er, OpenOffice (Score:3, Insightful)
Now it's true that most people dont' use most features but, in any reasonably sized organisation, there will be enough people doing important work using these extra features that will make the transition require like for like feature replacement.
Someone m
If MS were not so proud... (Score:3, Insightful)
Before that move, Apple's Mac OSes were a joke - constantly crashing, freezing, etc. They integrated BSD kernel and built their pretty UI and nice apps on top. Good move by Steve Jobs. Apple lost nothing. This is the real reason why MacOS is so popular among the 'computer owners elite' today.
Microsoft could do the same and really hurt all of their competition whose existence is based on the fragility of various/all Windows versions.
Of course, MS could also just make their own Linux distro (MS Linux), make it better than RedHat and 100% free. That's an easy way to get all other Linux distro companies out of business. With their thick bank accounts holding over 30 billion USD, they could offer it for free for a looong looong time. On the other hand, that's Linux distro companies' bread and butter.
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:2, Insightful)
MS controls 100% of the market that they want to, the businesses that pay for software. Why change?
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:2)
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:2)
RTFA. I think the author is saying "...but with a number of high-profile government rollouts, it's only a matter of time before that changes".
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:4, Informative)
Thank you for displaying your profound lack of knowledge of MS operating systems.
The kernel behind Windows 2000/2003 is as solid as Linux. Crashes are almost without exception the result of third party device drivers. The perceived frailty of MS is (a) a hangover from the Win95/98/Me crap and (b) because of the UI and application communication layers, not the kernel.
As a developer I get to see the side of Windows and Linux that many don't -- low level interfaces to system functionality. And many aspects of Windows, from a developer perspective, are ahread of *nix.
The Win32 threading and synchronisation models are ridiculously powerful compared to *nix, which is precisely what makes it so hard to port a lot of Win32-based software to other platforms. The fact that you can't do a simple operation like "wait for a mutex to be released or a socket to become readable" deserves to be a joke about legacy operating systems, not a persistent reality. At least BSD's kqueue comes close.
There are many other places in which the *nix kernels show their age compared to the design of Win32 (not to mention MS's ability to maintain a consistent API over 10 years of product developments). 30 year old technology may be "mature", but its not always The Right Thing To Do for the future.
So try to get the facts before you succumb to FUD about the state of computing -- from MS or FLOSS.
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:3, Informative)
Ummmm.......what about select?
$ man 2 select
explains it, or am I missing something here?
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:2)
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:2)
Absolutely. Can you say CreateRemoteThread()?? Can you say global memory space? Indeed, ridiculously powerful to exploit for malicious software!
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:5, Insightful)
Granted you don't have the ability to set up asynchronous callbacks to be called when something does happen to your mutex/socket.
Before someone points out that a call to select() will tell you when data becomes available for reading, the important distinction is that in the asynchronous callback model in Win32 you get told when and don't have to hang around waiting for it to happen. Obviously you could simulate something along the same lines by having a select() in a single thread notify you (or do a callback) when data is available but in Win32 this takes almost no effort on your part.
If doing communication based software that has to actually be cross platform (and your stuck with C++ for some reason) then ACE is your saviour.
It is a bit unfair criticising the features of the Pthreads model vs the Win32 model - as with everything Microsoft they only had to make it work on one platform theirs ! Portability and real cross platform applicability does come at a cost.
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:5, Interesting)
Win32 has blocking, non-blocking and asynchronous modes of IO. But where it really shines is the integration between IO and scheduling (from a developer perspective).
The call WaitForMultipleObjects allows you to wait on any number of objects, for any or all of them to be signalled. Each object can be a thread, an IO resource (file, socket, pipe), a synchronisation primitive (mutex, event, semaphore), etc.
The other point of integration is Completion Ports. You can provide worker threads and asynchronous callback functions (to be invoked in the worker threads) to any IO operation.
POSIX AIO provides most of the functionality (with regard to IO) that one can desire (Completion ports are cute and offer a lot of potential for performance, but you can do an equivalent job with kqueue/poll/devpoll and/or aio). But POSIX AIO doesn't offer developers control over the integration between the scheduler and IO.
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:2)
or Microsoft Office or Microsoft Internet Explorer or Microsoft Print Spooling or gizmo happy Macromedia.
Year+ uptimes on NT4 Server. And no I wouldn't call it stable.
Astroturf (Score:3, Funny)
So, how do you like working for Microsoft? Do they still have free sodas in the lounge?
You made a pro-Microsoft post that got modded +5 on Slashdot of all places -- you'll probably get a big raise at your next performance review.
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:3, Insightful)
Stop spreading such lies. Each one of your sentence seems unfinished to spread half truths.
Well, I suppose you know the Windows kernel pretty well. But it is NOT as solid as Linux, at best, it is as solid as the PART of Linux that deals with the same hardware and functionality. Windows still does not scale as well as Linux, even with threads
on a single processor. It fails also faster under heavy load.
And you are switching easy (and bloatty) API with "ahead of *nix"
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:3, Interesting)
So here's a programming challange for you. Create a function that takes a mutex, a file/socket handle and a timeout as parameters, and returns when the first of (mutex available, IO readabe, timeout occurred) happens.
Oh, and don't do something like userland polling. This has to prove that the scheduler can wake a thread under those conditions, not that you can sit in a busy loop checking the environment.
Hint: you can't do it. The IO waiting primitives provided by the kernel (select, poll, /dev/poll,
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:5, Insightful)
What about the current inability to cancel create requests in the kernel? That's responsible for a lot of application-level hangs, without involving 3rd-party drivers. You also end up with unkillable processes - not just Unix-like zombie processes, but multi-megabyte monsters that won't go away. In such situations Shutdown is merely a wishful request, and even W2K/XP will struggle to complete it with hung applications.
And many aspects of Windows, from a developer perspective, are ahread of *nix.
Such as? I've been coding for Windows for 10 years, and I still yearn for the simpler and more powerful approach of Unix coding (which is mainly in my spare time at present). From a coder's point of view, the only thing Windows has going for it is Visual Studio, which is still much nicer than KDevelop. The new Visual Studio 2005 Beta is very sluggish, so I hope they've not ruined it.
I had the misfortune to be working on a file-system driver under Windows last year, and it's beyond a joke. Writing even a simple new filesystem requires spending thousands of dollars on the MS IFS kit, and it's far from easy from there. It's a complete spaghetti of interactions between your driver and the cache manager + OS, with many subtle pitfalls. Why else could OSR charge $50K for a driver framework kit just to aid development?? Did I mention that a file-system driver for 9x/Me is completely different from NT/W2K/XP? Now compare this to the simplicity of the VFS layer Unix, and weep...
Windows seems to go out of its way to make everything complicated, just for the sake of it. I'm pleased to see the push for
30 year old technology may be "mature", but its not always The Right Thing To Do for the future.
If it works well, why change it? As a coder I'd rather work with a tried an tested system. With Windows I seem to too much time testing on and coding round the subtle differences between different versions of Windows than , and I'm sure Longhorn is going to be yet another version to include.
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:5, Informative)
The kernel that you talk about, was mostly stolen from DEC..
The UI and application layers were microsoft's own code bolted on top...
The original kernel was a microkernel architecture where device drivers shouldn't have been able to drop the whole system, microsoft screwed that up by allowing drivers to be loaded into kernel space.
The stable parts of windows were stolen, the unstable parts were their own code.. Tells you something about the quality of their development process. The same thing applies to a lot of their other products, the more stable ones were bought/stolen from elsewhere.
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:5, Interesting)
wait for a mutex to be released or a socket to become readable
And there speaks a programmer who has been ill educated by the MSWindows environment. There are dozens of events that a program may need to wait on, everything from mutexes to sockets to GUI callbacks to USB events to power fails to signals to virtual memory events to whatever. To have a special call to wait on only two of them is stupid, precisely the sort of nonsense you expect to see in the MSWindows environment, rather than consistently solving the general problem with powerful, general purpose tools like threads and asynchronous IO. Related to the above, programmers who like the MSWindows kitchen sink API frequently have a poor idea of what a race condition is and how to avoid them, a large part of why MSWindows and MSWindows applications are so flaky. The Unix/Linux API isn't particularly clean either but it's a lot cleaner architecturally.
---
It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry fuckwit, but I learned multithreading and most of my programming skills on FreeBSD and Linux. At some point you have to use your ridiculously fucking power general purpose threads and asynchronous IO to solve a problem rather than just mentally masturbating about it on Slashdot, and in some instance that problem might just be that you need to resume processing once either a mutex is available or a socket is readable. If you every studied software engineering you'd probably even think about abstracti
Re:Examples? (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine a server in which you have a thread for accepting input from sockets, several processing threads (for various stages of processing), and one for sending output to sockets. These threads communicate by means of queues, access to which is controlled by a mutex. Aside: there are often dozens of processing threads in this sort of architecture, and processing ranges from sub-second to a minute or more
Now consider the output thread. It needs to wait on the mutexes of several queues and know when soc
Of sockets, mutex and performance (Score:5, Interesting)
The Win32 threading and synchronisation models are ridiculously powerful compared to *nix, which is precisely what makes it so hard to port a lot of Win32-based software to other platforms. The fact that you can't do a simple operation like "wait for a mutex to be released or a socket to become readable" deserves to be a joke about legacy operating systems, not a persistent reality. At least BSD's kqueue comes close.
If that is true, then it's a shame that the performance of the Win32 sockets are so meagre compared to the Linux implementation. Take a look at this article on Developerworks [ibm.com]. Maybe you can spot the changes required to close the performance gap between Windows and Linux (Linux running about 2 and a half times faster on the same machine).
And I think I'll take you to task for your blind assertion that "you can't do a simple operation like "wait for a mutex to be released or a socket to become readable" on a Unix platform. If you call pthread_mutex_lock in 'fast' mode it simply waits for the mutex to be released and will pick up as soon as the mutex becomes available. And there are plenty of other options around. It's also totally trivial to write a spin-check to check the TCP status of a socket.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Re:If MS were not so proud...or bound by lawsuit (Score:2)
They are banned from doing such after they got dragged through the courts against Caldera.
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:2)
And what do you get in return? Higher security, plus a steep learning curve for your developers, the need to reconquer the whole market from scratch, t
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:2)
Microsoft could do the same and really hurt all of their competition whose existence is based on the fragility of various/all Windows versions.
Hate to break it to you, but the Windows kernel has not been particularly fragile/constantly crashing/freezing since, let's say, Windows 2000, which was (IIRC) released in 1999, so your comment is like 5 years outdated <insert standard comment abo
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:3, Insightful)
NeXT Step was from the start (according to the document I read) a BSD like system built on a Mach microkernel, and with a windowing system on top of the BSD.
So what happens is that Jobs is forced out of Apple, he starts NeXT, returns to apple a few years later, and uses the stuff he started at NeXT, thus effectively Steve Jobs never stopped working towards a be
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:2)
A free MS-Linux offering isn't a bad idea, but Microsoft would have to first demonstrate a profit channel for other products on Linux.
For example, if they could show a market for MS Office for Linux then it would make sense to expand further onto this platform. In all honesty, the presence of MS on Linux is immaterial, open source is still going to change the way we work with computers. The only detriment it would have is MS will emerge as irrelavant within the next decade, n
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:3, Insightful)
Secondly, if they were to change their kernel to a Unix flavor, all of a sud
Re:If MS were not so proud... (Score:2)
Of course not (Score:5, Insightful)
Embrace (Score:2)
They won't ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks for the most part to RMS and the GNU GPL.
Re:They won't ! (Score:2)
Why? (Score:5, Informative)
With no MS Office for Linux, migrating is a lot harder. OOo works fine for most people (better in my experience, but my experience probably differs), but in some cases you just simply need the original, which means you also need Windows (or Crossover Office).
It really is as simple as that. Office isn't just MS's biggest cash cow, it's also their most important selection of proprietary file formats.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh wait sorry, the yellow header sent me into my happy space where the world was fair and McCain was president.
The article doesn't think things through (Score:5, Insightful)
Quote: In November, 2003, the government of Brazil ordered its agencies to use Linux and other open-source software as much as possible. A month later, Israel's Commerce Ministry announced a decision to migrate to OpenOffice, an open-source desktop suite that runs on Linux and Apple's (AAPL ) OS X system, as well as on Windows. The city governments of Paris and Munich both announced their intention to switch to Linux and open-source applications. In Peru, a state legislature nearly passed a law banning the use of proprietary software by government agencies. And the governments of China, Korea, and Japan have announced an alliance to promote open-source software.
All of these organisations are switching because they don't want to use proprietary software. Providing a Linux version of MS Office won't solve this, as there's no chance in hell MS will release it as OSS.
So that's one of the concerns the article mentions, but leaves unaddressed.
Second is the price. Why would MS offer Office for Linux for a low price, when it can just offer existing products (Windows XP plus Office) for a low price, ensuring a lock-in that wouldn't occur with Office/Linux?
Re:The article doesn't think things through (Score:2)
That makes sense. But from the blurb:
So China and India are opting for pirat
every time (Score:3, Funny)
ehm
HEEEEELPPP
Re:every time (Score:2)
Duke Nukem Forever however, seems to be taking.. well.. forever., or maybe thats the whole point.. hmm..
M$ on linux (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all I don't think it would be an easy port to make considering how M$likes to intermingle it's OS with it's applications. Office is bound to be using alot of OS specific API's, com objects etc... If the main selling opportunity would be low priced copies to the third world, then maybe they don't think it is worth the cost.
Thirdly I think it would be to much an admittance of defeat for M$ to aknowledge Linux that way.
Re:M$ on linux (Score:4, Insightful)
While part of that is true, i'd like to bring to your attention the nice, shiny boxes that hold MS Office for OSX.
it would be their death (Score:5, Insightful)
This is probably *bad* for Microsoft... (Score:3, Interesting)
You want a low cost, or free, system.
- In which case you use Linux and OpenOffice.org both of which are already proven products.
You want a UNIX based system as your using legacy UNIX products, but need Microsoft Office.
- In which case you use MacOS X and Microsoft Office.
You need Microsoft Office for office productivity and compatibility with other products.
- In which case is the $100 for a Microsoft Windows license really an issue?
I agree developing nations should find better and cheaper ways of doing things, but doing the same things a different way just for the sake of it doesn't seem justified to me!
Revival of the Xenix ? (Score:2)
Microsoft gains the same things it gained when it shipped Internet Explorer for Mac OS a few years back..
Funny thing about the english language (Score:2)
We could, for example, begin using it in lieu of opposites and still retain the original meaning, like if we were talking about the Boston Embracer [wikipedia.org]. Or this [darwinawards.com]warm and fuzzy story about cooperation, understanding, and symbiosis between man and pet.
With this new meaning-neutral language which we here at
The search for new markets (Score:2)
Microsoft has to find new markets. They brought into the PDA market, the TV market, the search business. They could attack comptetitors very successful with billions of dollars, but by that they destroyed the markets. After MS has destroyed a market they had to find new ways to generate profits again. But in most cases this was not successful yet.
Microsoft will never offer linux software (Score:2, Insightful)
To do so they would be admitting that Windows is on the way out and they'd never do that. While they have Windows they control everything else in the software market - they will never give that up under any circumstances.
The sad fact is that the desktop market is owned by Microsoft and this will never change. Corporations, who are ultimately the ones that decide on standards through their software purchasing habits, are more interested in playing it safe. Most corporate IT decision makers are
Re:Microsoft will never offer linux software (Score:3, Insightful)
the desktop market is owned by Microsoft and this will never change
Right, just like how the computer industry as a whole is still dominated by IBM.
The rich irony of it all (Score:2)
Windows 95 or Me anyone?
Lending credibility ... (Score:2)
It is the unpredictability of the entire market response that would give their management waking nightmares. It is a concern that has more than a bit of merit.
At this juncture they have the hopes of locking in much of the industrialized (really formally would be more accurate) via local laws and trade agreements combined with a new operating system that locks down a greater proportion of users. A columnist just risks his/her reputation, those managing risk t
Sure, why not, go ahead -- IF . . . (Score:2)
2. It's completely interoperable with the non-Linux versions (i.e., document transportability)
3. It's guaranteed to keep step with changes in non-Linux versions, with respect to #1, #2, security, and all other maintenance.
4. MSFT publicly promises that the above conditions will be in perpetuity, to avoid any "get 'em addicted, then cut them off" tricks.
Office Plus Linux, Nightmare? (Score:2)
Do one better: Give it away (Score:3, Interesting)
Windows+X (Score:2)
Wouldn't solve the games issue, but then again, even the X servers that Linux has don't have indirect rendering capabilities. Too bad...
-Erwos
Re:Windows+X (Score:2)
Jon.
MS already has a plan... cheap & stripped down (Score:3, Interesting)
Secondly, Windows and Office are mutually supporting monopolies that are enhanced by the "net effect". You run Office because its the standard on Windows and you run Windows because you need Office. And everyone else you share files with run Office and Windows, so that reinforces the matter. If any cracks appear in that ediface, the whole thing more or less collaspes. MS will never chance that. MS could afford to make Office for Mac because Mac never a threat because it costs more than a PC, so it never challenged MS's model of being the low-cost solution. But Linux *is* a threat. Linux is cheaper and it has the potential to eat Microsoft's lunch in MS's native environment (i.e. low-end workstations, PCs, and servers), so they will never give it an opening.
They can't do it in India (Score:3, Informative)
India has such a HUGE variety of languages that almost 100% of computer users know English and are often unwilling to use PC's in their native language. (I belong to this category). A Hindi version of WinXP would suck totally ... in the market and everywhere.
I was involved with a bit of work on Pango rendere r for my mother tongue ... the unicode renderer was fairly easy to handle - but the translation was a horror . Imagine translating Abort
Better Interoperability (Score:2)
They aren't going to remove all possible migration to other OSs. What they can do, however, is make it easy for those that migrate to interact with others that have not migrated. Or rather to allow people to only migrate portions of their systems, portions they think could benefit from using Linux, and maintai
with the right trade laws, M$ can conquer all (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't count on it. Monsanto ... uh I mean Microsoft ... can muster lots of support for such a campaign.
The United States forbids [cnn.com] poor countries from making generic versions of antiretroviral drugs for AIDS treatment. Given the limited financial resources involved, this will certainly cost lives.
Monsanto [monsantoafrica.com] Company is suing farmers [corpwatch.org] for re-using seed where patented genes have been found, whether said farmers wanted them or not [etcgroup.org].
How will software be any different? Countries developed enough to need office suites will be signing trade agreements with the United States. Undoubtedly there will be intellectual property conditions.
It's not Windows, it's OFFICE! (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the mechanism by which MS can keep Apple in check. At any time, Apple knows that MS can stop providing Office for the Mac, neatly pulling the plug on any problematic growth in Mac user share.
If Microsoft cares about keeping Windows on desktops, it would be utterly foolish to release a version of Office for Linux. Unlike OSX, Linux is free, removing one of the barriers to acceptance. If Office were available for Linux, corporate types (and Universities) would very quickly embrace Linux as the desktop standard. It's a no-brainer.
One step further: MS Linux... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That would be a wise move (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you implying that Microsoft provided this? If so, that is not correct. The product you're thinking of that brought TCP/IP to to Windows 3.x is Trumpet [trumpet.com] Winsock.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That would be a wise move (Score:2, Informative)
Re:argh! my eyes (Score:5, Funny)
Color scheme looks okay to me, nowhere near as bad as the Games ones but I'm wondering whether they really have enough Italian readers to justify a special 'it' section.
Re:argh! my eyes (Score:2)
You misunderstand. It's "it" like "he" or "she". So it's a section about things.
Re:Need a split (Score:2)
Re:I'd love to see X11 support (Score:2, Informative)
Re:New Office Version (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Micro$oft and Linux ??? (Score:2)
Of course not. But what the article fails to realise is that it can never happen, and the reasons are actually pretty simple.
Microsoft are probably the ONLY company on the planet with a business model based on selling something which literally EVERYONE with a computer wants, yet they will not customise. Other companies either offer software development services & solutions (cf. IBM), hardware (cf. Sun, IBM) or cater for a specific market (rather
Re:This is a rather moot point really. (Score:2)
Perhaps you would care to provide us with a list of this exotic hardware which is commonly used in a business setting and has no Linux drivers. I don't think DirectX9 video cards are particularly heavily utilised in office (The flight sim easter egg works fine with software rendering).