quote:
Originally posted by Dirk Gently:
"Should its desktop software sales stagnate or, worse, decline, Microsoft's profit could plummet, and it could find itself with a diminished ability to bankroll promising, but costly, new ventures, such as tablet PCs, smart phones and online video games."
:cool:
(okay, last one: ) "In a recent interview, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said Linux is just the latest in a long line of competitors, adding that the company has no plans to allow its products to run on Linux." Hahaha! Is it just me, or is it a bit out of his hands by now (wine?) 
[ July 22, 2003: Message edited by: Dirk Gently ]
[ July 22, 2003: Message edited by: Dirk Gently ]
I think these plans or schemes are ill conceived though. Tablet PC aren't taking off, people just don't seem interested, smart phones, well everyone seems to be staying clear of M$ on that one as well. Grandady of all ill conceived M$ plans, the Xbox, there sales figures for Xbox are actually down from what they predicted, barely just ahead of the Game Cube and there still taking huges losses on each one sold. So M$ has $49 billion dollars in the bank but you'd be suprised how quickly that could go.
Personally I'd prefer not to see M$ products on Linux, there are plenty of better solutions that have been born from the *nix community or from "real" standards. For example would it be a good thing to see M$ port .NOT over to Linux? Personally I don't believe that would actually improve their products. For example the
MONO project exists to just do that, why use C#, F#, VB script, ASP etc??? These protocols will always remain essentially products of M$ thinking and the essentially M$ property? So why not just use standards that already exist that are already doing a fantastic job???? I think it's crazy. Why use MSXSLT? When the only source of XSL(T) developers should be looking to is W3C. This is analogous to JScript, M$'s own Javascript implementation. Why duplicate standards for no other reason that to "own" them and to cause confusion. These standards shouldn't be owned by anyone, they should belong to the wider community.
Who knows what will happen though, right? One thing is for sure it will be interesting.
[ July 22, 2003: Message edited by: Zardoz ]
