[plug] horrors!

[Christian]

> Microsoft are dead. Nothing to do with Linux. Their business model will
> *not* be sustainable in the long term (*so much* of Microsoft's business
> model relies on their share price continually rising, which it has already
> started to fail to do). Despite the fact that their stuff is pure crap, and
> the general public is slowly but surely wising up to them. Gates is selling
> his shares. You do the math.

Dead?  They're still one of the richest and most powerful companies in
the world.  It'll take a while for that to change, even with the
anti-trust ruling.

Nothing to do with Linux?  Some company is porting their apps to Linux.
There seems to be a connection there if you think about it...

I think you're right that their business isn't sustainable but, at the
same time, a lot of things that aren't sustainable just keep on going
long after they should be finished.

> I dont really see the point of being 'validated' by Microsoft. I couldnt
> care less if they port or not. Id rather see enthusiasm directed towards
> 'open' alternatives, open source or otherwise. If SO is GPL'd, goodnight
> Office.

A lot of people set stock by what Microsoft does.  If they endorse a
particular platform then that platform is very, very often successful.
I don't care about what Microsoft does either but there's no point
sticking your head in the sand and pretending they don't exist.  They're
still very powerful.  As for "goodnight office", I remember a few years
ago people saying "Good night IE" when Mozilla was announced.  Hmmm...


> I cant believe with MS's track record, people *still* hold out faith that
> the next version of product X will be stable and fast. Geez, how many times
> do I have to beat you with a stick before you say 'ouch!'??? 

I don't think anyone believes that any Microsoft product will be stable
and fast.  However, I agree that Office definitely outperforms
StarOffice (under Linux).  I probably wouldn't use Office under Linux
now that StarOffice is free regardless of that but I suspect a lot of
people would.

> At least when Linux software is crap, its usually alpha/beta, free and
> fixable.

But someone still has to fix it!  If no one (or too few) bother then
it's going to stay crap.  Proprietary software on the other hand will
only be acceptably crap because people *have* to fix it.