Jobst Brandt vs. Tire Glue

[jim beam]

[email protected] wrote:
> On Jul 30, 12:59 pm, still me <[email protected]> wrote:
>> On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 03:48:53 -0000, "[email protected]"
>>
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> Because you had to buy the hardware from DEC, while Unix
>>> turned out to be adaptable to several different platforms.
>> But that was just an architectural question. "The" chip to use and the
>> architecture of it was an open war for a long time. DEC was ahead
>> quite a few times. Companies could have built on DEC's architecture
>> and licensed their software. It was clearly superior. But, this proves
>> the point. DEC didn't know **** about selling or business.
>> Technological superiority, marketing incompetence.
>
> It wasn't clearly superior to everybody. I mean,
> it's not like the BSD Unix sales force outwrestled
> the DEC VMS sales force, yet people bought VAXes
> and ran BSD on them. That's my point - there's not
> always a consensus on "clearly superior."
>
>> Same goes for "Macs". I don't know that they are far superior, I do
>> know they are at least equal to MS-Windows. Yet MS dominates that
>> market. Why? Technological superiority of MS-Windows? No way. But,
>> regardless of the reason (lots of theories), MS and Intel won the war
>> despite technology that wasn't as good.
>
> Well, you won't get any defense of MS from me.
> Though back when Windows 9x was young, Macs were
> more expensive, and MacOS was not yet OS X (which
> is "clearly superior" to previous Mac OS, and IMHO
> to Windows). MS and Intel won for a number of a
> reasons, and price was one. There are still
> alternatives, though; Mac and Unix/Linux have not
> gone the way of Simplex or Betamax, for very good
> reasons.
>
> Anyway, did you know that one of the chief architects
> of Windows NT was a VMS guru? If you shift IBM by
> one letter, you get HAL from 2001, everybody knows
> that. But if you shift VMS by one letter, you get WNT.
> I always wondered about that.
>
> Ben
>

alpha rocked. novell netware was no p.o.s. either. wintel sucked/s.
wintel won the sales war, not by targeting geeks, where wintel /knew/
they were hated and inferior and could never prevail, but by targeting
the boardroom/executive body. if you were in the habit of reading the
business/financial press at this time, you'd have seen an avalanche of
p.r. and advertising. and as long as the suits were making the budgets
and buying into the "keep up with the jonses", the longhairs never stood
a chance. there are cultural oases of course, universities and
mainframe cultures, but for those guys, cultural inertia was their
savior and even then, it was touch-and-go for a while. not so now of
course. linux[!] and anti-trust keep things a little more civilized.
and ballmer's less of a sociopath.

p.s. i heard the wnt legend from jeremy allison one time - no
bullshitter he.

 

[RonSonic]

On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 17:00:13 -0500, Tim McNamara <[email protected]> wrote:

>In article <[email protected]>,
> RonSonic <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 29 Jul 2007 12:46:06 -0400, John Forrest Tomlinson
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> >On Sun, 29 Jul 2007 11:03:42 -0400, RonSonic
>> ><[email protected]> wrote:
>> >
>> >>I will never willingly own a vehicle that does not allow me to look
>> >>over normal cars in traffic. That is a very important factor in
>> >>vehicle choice for me. I haven't owned a short car in over 20 years
>> >>and simply won't again.
>> >
>> >That figures - you strike me as the type of person who wants a big
>> >vehicle, other road users be damned.
>>
>> My gas-powered vehicle (as mentioned) is a Bronco II. Not big by any
>> definition. It is taller than normal cars. I like that. I also like
>> that what little space there is in it is a good fit for the things I
>> carry. I rarely haul more than one other person and I can carry
>> either enough bikes and gear for a day or enough amplifier and guitar
>> for a night or enough repairs to make a pickup and delivery
>> worthwhile. It doesn't burn much gas for a brick shaped object and
>> has been reliable for me.
>
>I had one of those 1988-2001. While what you say about its utility was
>also true for me, it was the worst POS lemon of a vehicle I have ever
>owned. It cost me $13,000 to buy new and I think I paid damn near that
>much in repairs over the years.
>
>Being a cheap *******, I have owned three cars in 29 years. A 1981
>Plymouth Arrow mini-pickup (cheap but well-made and very reliable,
>except it was horrible in the snow), the 1988 Bronco II (lemon but good
>in the snow) and a 1990 Volvo 240 (bought used in 2001). The latter is
>the best car I have ever owned and I fully expect to get 250,000-300,000
>miles out of it.

I'll be ready for another, more competent vehicle soon, myself. I like the B2
"package" but this one is getting old and as you mention they were mostly
trouble from the get go. This was a lucky one which only makes it the best of a
bad breed. If it had the engine and drivetrain from my old Chevy Astro (bigger
than I needed) I'd probably love it forever.

I basically believe in driving them 'til they drop. I don't see spending money
on mundane land transportation.

Ron

 

[still me]

On Tue, 31 Jul 2007 00:55:26 -0000, "[email protected]"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Anyway, did you know that one of the chief architects
>of Windows NT was a VMS guru? If you shift IBM by
>one letter, you get HAL from 2001, everybody knows
>that. But if you shift VMS by one letter, you get WNT.
>I always wondered about that.

Yes, Dave Cutler. But, while there are some similarities that started
back in the NT days, they ignored a lot of the basic foundation blocks
of VMS and any good architecture. The biggest one was their failure to
simply make programs run in their own isolated space in the hardware.
Much of that was due to DOS legacy/compatibility which MS was
unwilling to give up.

Unfortunately, they then magnified that by carrying the lack off
segregation over into the software end, where it's still a free for
all with programs running where ever they want, whenever they want.
Most of this is due to MS's own plans to "integrate everything" in
terms of software. It makes their cross application programming
easier, but leads to the spaghetti natured POS we have today.

 

[still me]

On Tue, 31 Jul 2007 08:58:24 -0400, RonSonic
<[email protected]> wrote:

>I basically believe in driving them 'til they drop. I don't see spending money
>on mundane land transportation.

I drive them for a long time too - but I still choose something that's
more fun than "mundane land transportation". Might as well enjoy those
hours behind the wheel.

 

[still me]

On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 20:14:54 -0700, jim beam
<[email protected]> wrote:

>
>alpha rocked.

It did, 10 years before Intel got to 64 bit.

>novell netware was no p.o.s. either.

Not bad for it's time. Too bad it became an OS commodity. Either they
just lost their niche to the OS integration, or they just didn't
market what they had, I stopped paying attention years ago.

>wintel sucked/s.
>wintel won the sales war, not by targeting geeks, where wintel /knew/
>they were hated and inferior and could never prevail, but by targeting
>the boardroom/executive body.

DEC (and others) also missed the shift from the IT guy being a geek,
to being one of those Sr. management guys. The CIO rarely knows ****
about computers these days. Because of that, they never did any
marketing and continued to think that technology itself would sell. MS
continues to push well with marketing and sales, not significant
products, at that crowd. The emperor has no clothes, upgrades are
endless, but Sr. Management is so isolated they don't care.

There was a joke floating around in the late 80's that went something
like this "Did you hear joke about digital salesman"? and the other
guy responds "Digital has salesman?" That was late 80's, MS win 3.1
did not debut until March 1992. The writing was on the wall.

>if you were in the habit of reading the
>business/financial press at this time, you'd have seen an avalanche of
>p.r. and advertising. and as long as the suits were making the budgets
>and buying into the "keep up with the jonses", the longhairs never stood
>a chance.

Yep.

> there are cultural oases of course, universities and
>mainframe cultures, but for those guys, cultural inertia was their
>savior and even then, it was touch-and-go for a while.

Yep. At least the server market is fighting back.

>not so now of
>course. linux[!] and anti-trust keep things a little more civilized.
>and ballmer's less of a sociopath.

A little. At least MS is worried, which is good. I don't think the
antitrust matters much in the USA. The judge didn't understand any
technical issues (deep inside where MS exerts it's real monopoly
power) and his technical advisor was his clerk - who apparently knew
how to type in windows so he became the judge's technical expert. The
Justice Department just wimped right out when Bush got in, and the
whole thing went down the tubes. SO MS's behavior continues with only
a few limitations.
>
>p.s. i heard the wnt legend from jeremy allison one time - no
>bullshitter he.

 

[Tim McNamara]

In article <[email protected]>,
still me <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Tue, 31 Jul 2007 08:58:24 -0400, RonSonic
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >I basically believe in driving them 'til they drop. I don't see
> >spending money on mundane land transportation.
>
> I drive them for a long time too - but I still choose something
> that's more fun than "mundane land transportation". Might as well
> enjoy those hours behind the wheel.

Is that possible? I detest driving, but then I live in an urban area
with incredibly badly designed and badly maintained roads populated
(probably like everywhere else) with far too many people whose driving
skills barely extend beyond starting the car and putting in in "drive."
I just try to choose cars that make driving less miserable- enjoying
driving is too much to hope for.

 

[Michael Press]

In article
<[email protected]>,
still me <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Tue, 31 Jul 2007 00:55:26 -0000, "[email protected]"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >Anyway, did you know that one of the chief architects
> >of Windows NT was a VMS guru? If you shift IBM by
> >one letter, you get HAL from 2001, everybody knows
> >that. But if you shift VMS by one letter, you get WNT.
> >I always wondered about that.
>
> Yes, Dave Cutler. But, while there are some similarities that started
> back in the NT days, they ignored a lot of the basic foundation blocks
> of VMS and any good architecture. The biggest one was their failure to
> simply make programs run in their own isolated space in the hardware.
> Much of that was due to DOS legacy/compatibility which MS was
> unwilling to give up.
>
> Unfortunately, they then magnified that by carrying the lack off
> segregation over into the software end, where it's still a free for
> all with programs running where ever they want, whenever they want.
> Most of this is due to MS's own plans to "integrate everything" in
> terms of software. It makes their cross application programming
> easier, but leads to the spaghetti natured POS we have today.

Yonks ago I had a DOS machine and a manual. When I
first wrote a terminate and stay resident routine. I
wanted to write it in a way to be a good citizen. It
was impossible to write a TSR routine that was polite.
I could not defend myself against any other code, and I
could not guarantee that I would not clobber somebody
else. What a waste. This **** is everywhere and nobody
knows how crappy it is, no idea, none, nada.

--
Michael Press

 

[jim beam]

still me wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 20:14:54 -0700, jim beam
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> alpha rocked.
>
> It did, 10 years before Intel got to 64 bit.

intel's /still/ not 64-bit. all this "dual core" **** they're dumping
on the market right now is 32-bit. it's pathetic.

>
>> novell netware was no p.o.s. either.
>
> Not bad for it's time. Too bad it became an OS commodity. Either they
> just lost their niche to the OS integration, or they just didn't
> market what they had, I stopped paying attention years ago.
>
>> wintel sucked/s.
>> wintel won the sales war, not by targeting geeks, where wintel /knew/
>> they were hated and inferior and could never prevail, but by targeting
>> the boardroom/executive body.
>
> DEC (and others) also missed the shift from the IT guy being a geek,
> to being one of those Sr. management guys. The CIO rarely knows ****
> about computers these days. Because of that, they never did any
> marketing and continued to think that technology itself would sell. MS
> continues to push well with marketing and sales, not significant
> products, at that crowd. The emperor has no clothes, upgrades are
> endless, but Sr. Management is so isolated they don't care.
>
> There was a joke floating around in the late 80's that went something
> like this "Did you hear joke about digital salesman"? and the other
> guy responds "Digital has salesman?" That was late 80's, MS win 3.1
> did not debut until March 1992. The writing was on the wall.
>
>> if you were in the habit of reading the
>> business/financial press at this time, you'd have seen an avalanche of
>> p.r. and advertising. and as long as the suits were making the budgets
>> and buying into the "keep up with the jonses", the longhairs never stood
>> a chance.
>
> Yep.
>
>> there are cultural oases of course, universities and
>> mainframe cultures, but for those guys, cultural inertia was their
>> savior and even then, it was touch-and-go for a while.
>
> Yep. At least the server market is fighting back.

no kidding. want remote admin tools on wnt? you pay an arm and a leg.
vnc is verboten. linux/bsd? comes bundled right in. can't tell you
the last time i physically touched my servers. to anyone that's not a
total m$ borg that knows no different, /paying/ for remote admin is
ridiculous and reinforces the culture of m$ dumbness.


>
>> not so now of
>> course. linux[!] and anti-trust keep things a little more civilized.
>> and ballmer's less of a sociopath.
>
> A little. At least MS is worried, which is good. I don't think the
> antitrust matters much in the USA. The judge didn't understand any
> technical issues (deep inside where MS exerts it's real monopoly
> power) and his technical advisor was his clerk - who apparently knew
> how to type in windows so he became the judge's technical expert. The
> Justice Department just wimped right out when Bush got in, and the
> whole thing went down the tubes. SO MS's behavior continues with only
> a few limitations.

m$'s biggest worry is linux - by far.

1. the price is unbeatable.
2. the performance rocks.
3. it's under the radar for user space.

regarding #3, let's just say i'm familiar with an unauthorized linux
conversion where corporate systems were, er, "migrated" from wnt to
linux one weekend. only thing noticed in userspace was that server
crashes stopped. and even that was only noticed after some months.
just because some people /think/ their systems run wnt, doesn't mean
they actually are! truly, you'd better believe m$ are taking linux
/very/ seriously indeed.


>> p.s. i heard the wnt legend from jeremy allison one time - no
>> bullshitter he.
>
>

 

[Clive George]

"jim beam" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> intel's /still/ not 64-bit. all this "dual core" **** they're dumping on
> the market right now is 32-bit. it's pathetic.

That doesn't mean they don't have a 64 bit offering, just that the markets
which don't need 64 bit don't have it.

I did have the joy of alphas late last century. Nice in places, but
ultimately intel x86 became fast enough and linux made it cheap, and it was
also easier having software in 32 bit land than 64.

OTOH I think java is the 'killer app' for 64 bit machines. Memory is now
cheap enough that it's possible to deal with the hunger java has for it by
simply giving it more, and we're finally at the 32 bit limit. The last
server I bought was 32 bit, 6 months or so ago. The next one will probably
be 64 bit - but it'll still probably be intel.

> no kidding. want remote admin tools on wnt? you pay an arm and a leg.
> vnc is verboten. linux/bsd? comes bundled right in. can't tell you the
> last time i physically touched my servers. to anyone that's not a total
> m$ borg that knows no different, /paying/ for remote admin is ridiculous
> and reinforces the culture of m$ dumbness.

Don't get that one. VNC is free and available on windows as it is elsewhere.
And what does the windows remote desktop offering price? Certainly doesn't
cost us any extra.

FWIW I'm not a windows zealot - far from it. I just don't like seeing people
overplaying their hand.

And I do work 250 miles from my servers. Physical access is reserved for
hardware problems, on both the windows and *nix boxes.

cheers,
clive

 

[jim beam]

Clive George wrote:
> "jim beam" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>
>> intel's /still/ not 64-bit. all this "dual core" **** they're dumping
>> on the market right now is 32-bit. it's pathetic.
>
> That doesn't mean they don't have a 64 bit offering, just that the
> markets which don't need 64 bit don't have it.
>
> I did have the joy of alphas late last century. Nice in places, but
> ultimately intel x86 became fast enough and linux made it cheap, and it
> was also easier having software in 32 bit land than 64.
>
> OTOH I think java is the 'killer app' for 64 bit machines. Memory is now
> cheap enough that it's possible to deal with the hunger java has for it
> by simply giving it more, and we're finally at the 32 bit limit. The
> last server I bought was 32 bit, 6 months or so ago. The next one will
> probably be 64 bit - but it'll still probably be intel.
>
>> no kidding. want remote admin tools on wnt? you pay an arm and a
>> leg. vnc is verboten. linux/bsd? comes bundled right in. can't tell
>> you the last time i physically touched my servers. to anyone that's
>> not a total m$ borg that knows no different, /paying/ for remote admin
>> is ridiculous and reinforces the culture of m$ dumbness.
>
> Don't get that one. VNC is free and available on windows as it is
> elsewhere.

and it's targeted by windoze "malicious software removal tool" is it not?


> And what does the windows remote desktop offering price?
> Certainly doesn't cost us any extra.

for xp pro and up - you're paying for it. and it wasn't available until
vnc hit the scene. prior to that, rsh and latterly ssh were ubiquitous
in *nix. and "x" is a wholly server/client model.

>
> FWIW I'm not a windows zealot - far from it. I just don't like seeing
> people overplaying their hand.
>
> And I do work 250 miles from my servers. Physical access is reserved for
> hardware problems, on both the windows and *nix boxes.
>
> cheers,
> clive

 

[Ben C]

On 2007-08-01, jim beam <[email protected]> wrote:
[...]
> for xp pro and up - you're paying for it. and it wasn't available until
> vnc hit the scene. prior to that, rsh and latterly ssh were ubiquitous
> in *nix. and "x" is a wholly server/client model.

I think the reason for that was their business model which consisted of
the idea that everybody should have a huge Intel PC under their desk and
their own copy of all the software.

So logging into other computers around the office and running programs
on them has always been a big no no.

 

[Clive George]

"jim beam" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

>>> no kidding. want remote admin tools on wnt? you pay an arm and a leg.
>>> vnc is verboten. linux/bsd? comes bundled right in. can't tell you
>>> the last time i physically touched my servers. to anyone that's not a
>>> total m$ borg that knows no different, /paying/ for remote admin is
>>> ridiculous and reinforces the culture of m$ dumbness.
>>
>> Don't get that one. VNC is free and available on windows as it is
>> elsewhere.
>
> and it's targeted by windoze "malicious software removal tool" is it not?

Doesn't seem to be. I'm using it quite happily - the RealVNC version.
(my software VPN complains if I'm running it on the desktop, but only
complains - doesn't make me stop it).

>> And what does the windows remote desktop offering price? Certainly
>> doesn't cost us any extra.
>
> for xp pro and up - you're paying for it.

Sorry, don't understand. I'm not aware of paying extra for windows remote
desktop.

> and it wasn't available until vnc hit the scene. prior to that, rsh and
> latterly ssh were ubiquitous in *nix. and "x" is a wholly server/client
> model.

I'm talking about now, not then.

(the other great thing about VNC is it means no more having to muck around
with X on windows boxes - run xvnc on the server, it's much better)

cheers,
clive

 

[jim beam]

Clive George wrote:
> "jim beam" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>
>>>> no kidding. want remote admin tools on wnt? you pay an arm and a
>>>> leg. vnc is verboten. linux/bsd? comes bundled right in. can't
>>>> tell you the last time i physically touched my servers. to anyone
>>>> that's not a total m$ borg that knows no different, /paying/ for
>>>> remote admin is ridiculous and reinforces the culture of m$ dumbness.
>>>
>>> Don't get that one. VNC is free and available on windows as it is
>>> elsewhere.
>>
>> and it's targeted by windoze "malicious software removal tool" is it not?
>
> Doesn't seem to be. I'm using it quite happily - the RealVNC version.

ah, the /paid/ version!


> (my software VPN complains if I'm running it on the desktop, but only
> complains - doesn't make me stop it).
>
>>> And what does the windows remote desktop offering price? Certainly
>>> doesn't cost us any extra.
>>
>> for xp pro and up - you're paying for it.
>
> Sorry, don't understand. I'm not aware of paying extra for windows
> remote desktop.

eh? is there no price difference between xp and xp pro?

>
>> and it wasn't available until vnc hit the scene. prior to that, rsh
>> and latterly ssh were ubiquitous in *nix. and "x" is a wholly
>> server/client model.
>
> I'm talking about now, not then.

but the point is, m$ were charging a lot for remote admin s/w before
vnc. about $1k iirc. competition means they've had to reduce that.


>
> (the other great thing about VNC is it means no more having to muck
> around with X on windows boxes - run xvnc on the server, it's much better)
>
> cheers,
> clive

indeed - the irony of administrating 'doze from a linux box is just
delicious.

 

[Peter Cole]

jim beam wrote:

> alpha rocked. novell netware was no p.o.s. either. wintel sucked/s.
> wintel won the sales war, not by targeting geeks, where wintel /knew/
> they were hated and inferior and could never prevail, but by targeting
> the boardroom/executive body. if you were in the habit of reading the
> business/financial press at this time, you'd have seen an avalanche of
> p.r. and advertising. and as long as the suits were making the budgets
> and buying into the "keep up with the jonses", the longhairs never stood
> a chance. there are cultural oases of course, universities and
> mainframe cultures, but for those guys, cultural inertia was their
> savior and even then, it was touch-and-go for a while. not so now of
> course. linux[!] and anti-trust keep things a little more civilized.


It's quite simple in retrospect. The winning combination was generic
hardware and bundled software. Companies that tried to bundle hardware
and software (DEC, Apple, Sun) were losers, as were companies that tried
to sell non-integrated software (Novell, Borland, Ashton-Tate, Lotus).
Oracle continues to do well, despite a narrow product offering, because
it is so well integrated with other vendor's application software.
Ultimately, I think they're as vulnerable as Novell.

All high-tech trends quickly to commodity. The players who "commoditize"
first win. In the desktop market the critical point was when Phoenix
cloned the BIOS and IBM didn't sue, the rest was history.

What most of the unenlightened critics still fail to recognize was that
MS won by taking on the most difficult problem of all -- "virtualizing"
a broad array of different hardware. This allowed competitive markets to
emerge in motherboards, graphics, storage and peripherals. It was those
markets that drove the revolution. Apple's "1984" commercial was
actually the height of irony.

Linux was, and still is, a great choice for applications with narrow
requirements for hardware and software. It solved the easy (kernel)
problem well, but MS solved the hard one. Now that MS has largely caught
up on kernel performance and reliability, it's a contender in even
"narrow" systems.

Microsoft's strategy was so successful that it gave them a virtual
monopoly, which, in turn, got them into legal heat if they pressed it
too far. It was their brilliance at solving the right problem at the
right time that gave them their market dominance. Figuring out which
problem to focus on *is* marketing, actually solving it *is* technology.
To win as big as they did, MS had to do both extremely well -- and,
perhaps more importantly, they had to decide what to do not so well.

The MS computing game plan: 1) get the desktop infrastructure 2) get the
desktop applications 3) get the server infrastructure 4) get the server
applications. They've done 1 & 2 completely and are well along on 3 & 4.
MS's biggest fear is a paradigm shift that will change the game enough
to end their monopoly. In every case of potential threat --
gaming/entertainment, Internet, thin computing, etc. they've responded
aggressively. Time will tell if they can hang on, but they have a pile
of cash to work with.

> and ballmer's less of a sociopath.

Less than who? Gates? Yeah, right. The guys who's giving away both his
and Warren Buffet's fortunes to put a significant dent in suffering
around the world. Yup, what a sociopath. We should have a lot more
sociopaths like that.

Oh yeah, another thing, despite being a "long hair" and member of a few
"cultural oases", and a user of their products only where I had to, MS
strategy was so obviously right to me that I made a large investment in
them. Since I got in a little late, I only made 16x. Yeah, they really suck.

 

[jim beam]

Ben C wrote:
> On 2007-08-01, jim beam <[email protected]> wrote:
> [...]
>> for xp pro and up - you're paying for it. and it wasn't available until
>> vnc hit the scene. prior to that, rsh and latterly ssh were ubiquitous
>> in *nix. and "x" is a wholly server/client model.
>
> I think the reason for that was their business model which consisted of
> the idea that everybody should have a huge Intel PC under their desk and
> their own copy of all the software.
>
> So logging into other computers around the office and running programs
> on them has always been a big no no.

indeed. but it's not like they had much choice initially - their stuff
was/is such garbage, it was simply impossible to do it any other way.
and it's not like they couldn't charge per user like other network s/w
vendors do.

one of the factors is the wintel alliance. by local s/w, you need to
keep buying expensive local hardware.

and then there's admins and their training. training is a /huge/
industry and a major profit center in its own right. need a new machine
in the office? admin usually spends a day messing about to get all the
corporate fluff/apps loaded. multiply that by the # of machines... in
a network push environment, simply plug it in and switch it on. you
/can/ do that in 'doze these days, but not many companies have that
ability/desire. after all, the admin needs their job...

 

[jim beam]

Peter Cole wrote:
> jim beam wrote:
>
>> alpha rocked. novell netware was no p.o.s. either. wintel sucked/s.
>> wintel won the sales war, not by targeting geeks, where wintel /knew/
>> they were hated and inferior and could never prevail, but by targeting
>> the boardroom/executive body. if you were in the habit of reading the
>> business/financial press at this time, you'd have seen an avalanche of
>> p.r. and advertising. and as long as the suits were making the
>> budgets and buying into the "keep up with the jonses", the longhairs
>> never stood a chance. there are cultural oases of course,
>> universities and mainframe cultures, but for those guys, cultural
>> inertia was their savior and even then, it was touch-and-go for a
>> while. not so now of course. linux[!] and anti-trust keep things a
>> little more civilized.
>
>
> It's quite simple in retrospect. The winning combination was generic
> hardware and bundled software.

open hardware was ibm's gift, not m$. but that won't stop the m$
propaganda machine propagating that story. just like the lies about
"win 95 doesn't run on top of dos." it did.


> Companies that tried to bundle hardware
> and software (DEC, Apple, Sun) were losers, as were companies that tried
> to sell non-integrated software (Novell, Borland, Ashton-Tate, Lotus).
> Oracle continues to do well, despite a narrow product offering, because
> it is so well integrated with other vendor's application software.
> Ultimately, I think they're as vulnerable as Novell.
>
> All high-tech trends quickly to commodity. The players who "commoditize"
> first win. In the desktop market the critical point was when Phoenix
> cloned the BIOS and IBM didn't sue, the rest was history.

see above.


>
> What most of the unenlightened critics still fail to recognize was that
> MS won by taking on the most difficult problem of all -- "virtualizing"
> a broad array of different hardware. This allowed competitive markets to
> emerge in motherboards, graphics, storage and peripherals. It was those
> markets that drove the revolution. Apple's "1984" commercial was
> actually the height of irony.
>
> Linux was, and still is, a great choice for applications with narrow
> requirements for hardware and software. It solved the easy (kernel)
> problem well, but MS solved the hard one. Now that MS has largely caught
> up on kernel performance and reliability, it's a contender in even
> "narrow" systems.

yeah. "narrow" systems like bind, apache, sendmail.


>
> Microsoft's strategy was so successful that it gave them a virtual
> monopoly, which, in turn, got them into legal heat if they pressed it
> too far. It was their brilliance at solving the right problem at the
> right time that gave them their market dominance. Figuring out which
> problem to focus on *is* marketing, actually solving it *is* technology.
> To win as big as they did, MS had to do both extremely well -- and,
> perhaps more importantly, they had to decide what to do not so well.
>
> The MS computing game plan: 1) get the desktop infrastructure 2) get the
> desktop applications 3) get the server infrastructure 4) get the server
> applications. They've done 1 & 2 completely and are well along on 3 & 4.
> MS's biggest fear is a paradigm shift that will change the game enough
> to end their monopoly. In every case of potential threat --
> gaming/entertainment, Internet, thin computing, etc. they've responded
> aggressively. Time will tell if they can hang on, but they have a pile
> of cash to work with.

and yet they're still losing big time on major infrastructure - projects
into which they've poured untold resources for more than 10 years.

>
> > and ballmer's less of a sociopath.
>
> Less than who? Gates? Yeah, right. The guys who's giving away both his
> and Warren Buffet's fortunes to put a significant dent in suffering
> around the world. Yup, what a sociopath. We should have a lot more
> sociopaths like that.

buddy of mine works with a gates project partner. long story short,
meeting, one presenter has a stutter. gates snaps: "who sent you?
you're wasting my time, get out of here." yup, we need more people like
that.

>
> Oh yeah, another thing, despite being a "long hair" and member of a few
> "cultural oases", and a user of their products only where I had to, MS
> strategy was so obviously right to me that I made a large investment in
> them. Since I got in a little late, I only made 16x. Yeah, they really
> suck.

ah, self interest! can't beat that!

 

[Clive George]

"jim beam" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Clive George wrote:
>> "jim beam" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected]...
>>
>>>>> no kidding. want remote admin tools on wnt? you pay an arm and a
>>>>> leg. vnc is verboten. linux/bsd? comes bundled right in. can't tell
>>>>> you the last time i physically touched my servers. to anyone that's
>>>>> not a total m$ borg that knows no different, /paying/ for remote admin
>>>>> is ridiculous and reinforces the culture of m$ dumbness.
>>>>
>>>> Don't get that one. VNC is free and available on windows as it is
>>>> elsewhere.
>>>
>>> and it's targeted by windoze "malicious software removal tool" is it
>>> not?
>>
>> Doesn't seem to be. I'm using it quite happily - the RealVNC version.
>
> ah, the /paid/ version!

Nope, the free version. Like I said. If you want, I can repeat it : I don't
pay for VNC software, client or server. Do you understand that yet?

>> (my software VPN complains if I'm running it on the desktop, but only
>> complains - doesn't make me stop it).
>>
>>>> And what does the windows remote desktop offering price? Certainly
>>>> doesn't cost us any extra.
>>>
>>> for xp pro and up - you're paying for it.
>>
>> Sorry, don't understand. I'm not aware of paying extra for windows remote
>> desktop.
>
> eh? is there no price difference between xp and xp pro?

The servers run windows server OS's. The desktops run XP pro coz in a
corporate environment you probably want to - but it's not so you can remote
admin the servers, it's for other reasons.

clive

 

[G.T.]

Peter Cole wrote:
>
> What most of the unenlightened critics still fail to recognize was that
> MS won by taking on the most difficult problem of all -- "virtualizing"
> a broad array of different hardware. This allowed competitive markets to
> emerge in motherboards, graphics, storage and peripherals. It was those
> markets that drove the revolution. Apple's "1984" commercial was
> actually the height of irony.

You mean they lied about other DOS products when Windows started getting
popular. That's when they started taking over the market and it wasn't
because of their "virtualizing".

>
> > and ballmer's less of a sociopath.
>
> Less than who? Gates? Yeah, right. The guys who's giving away both his
> and Warren Buffet's fortunes to put a significant dent in suffering
> around the world. Yup, what a sociopath. We should have a lot more
> sociopaths like that.
>

Hahahahah, you're very naive. Have you actually bothered to look to see
where those investments are going?

Greg
--
The ticketbastard Tax Tracker:
http://www.ticketmastersucks.org/tracker.html

Dethink to survive - Mclusky

 

[Tim McNamara]

In article <[email protected]>,
Peter Cole <[email protected]> wrote:

> jim beam wrote:
>
> > alpha rocked. novell netware was no p.o.s. either. wintel
> > sucked/s. wintel won the sales war, not by targeting geeks, where
> > wintel /knew/ they were hated and inferior and could never prevail,
> > but by targeting the boardroom/executive body. if you were in the
> > habit of reading the business/financial press at this time, you'd
> > have seen an avalanche of p.r. and advertising. and as long as the
> > suits were making the budgets and buying into the "keep up with the
> > jonses", the longhairs never stood a chance. there are cultural
> > oases of course, universities and mainframe cultures, but for those
> > guys, cultural inertia was their savior and even then, it was
> > touch-and-go for a while. not so now of course. linux[!] and
> > anti-trust keep things a little more civilized.
>
>
> It's quite simple in retrospect. The winning combination was generic
> hardware and bundled software. Companies that tried to bundle
> hardware and software (DEC, Apple, Sun) were losers

"Losers" is relatively speaking. Losers compared to the market share of
Windows, but not so much when compared to computer retailers. Last I
saw, Apple was actually in the top three of computer brands (behind Dell
and HP, IIRC). Apple's laptops are pretty competitive on price/spec
and sell well within their sector; desktops not as well.

> Linux was, and still is, a great choice for applications with narrow
> requirements for hardware and software. It solved the easy (kernel)
> problem well, but MS solved the hard one. Now that MS has largely
> caught up on kernel performance and reliability, it's a contender in
> even "narrow" systems.

Vista adoption continues to lag, however. Either that means that XP was
"good enough" or that there is little confidence that Vista is better.
There is still much interest in many business sectors to look outside of
the Windows system to other options, particularly *nixen and OS X.

> Microsoft's strategy was so successful that it gave them a virtual
> monopoly, which, in turn, got them into legal heat if they pressed it
> too far. It was their brilliance at solving the right problem at the
> right time that gave them their market dominance. Figuring out which
> problem to focus on *is* marketing, actually solving it *is*
> technology. To win as big as they did, MS had to do both extremely
> well -- and, perhaps more importantly, they had to decide what to do
> not so well.

It's a rosy portrait you paint but it's more impressionistic than
factual. And Microsoft did develop a monopoly, not through marketing
and technical superiority but through monopolistic practices.

> > and ballmer's less of a sociopath.
>
> Less than who? Gates? Yeah, right. The guys who's giving away both
> his and Warren Buffet's fortunes to put a significant dent in
> suffering around the world. Yup, what a sociopath. We should have a
> lot more sociopaths like that.

Ballmer seems like more of a sociopath to me. But then that's how
people get into those positions. Nice guys don't get there. As far as
Saint Bill's setting the world aright, IMHO the end does not justify the
means. Other people may think differently.

> Oh yeah, another thing, despite being a "long hair" and member of a
> few "cultural oases", and a user of their products only where I had
> to, MS strategy was so obviously right to me that I made a large
> investment in them. Since I got in a little late, I only made 16x.
> Yeah, they really suck.

Monopolism is the right strategy? Your business ethics seem a bit
different than mine, I guess.

 

[Peter Cole]

jim beam wrote:
> Peter Cole wrote:
>> jim beam wrote:
>>
>>> alpha rocked. novell netware was no p.o.s. either. wintel sucked/s.
>>> wintel won the sales war, not by targeting geeks, where wintel /knew/
>>> they were hated and inferior and could never prevail, but by
>>> targeting the boardroom/executive body. if you were in the habit of
>>> reading the business/financial press at this time, you'd have seen an
>>> avalanche of p.r. and advertising. and as long as the suits were
>>> making the budgets and buying into the "keep up with the jonses", the
>>> longhairs never stood a chance. there are cultural oases of course,
>>> universities and mainframe cultures, but for those guys, cultural
>>> inertia was their savior and even then, it was touch-and-go for a
>>> while. not so now of course. linux[!] and anti-trust keep things a
>>> little more civilized.
>>
>>
>> It's quite simple in retrospect. The winning combination was generic
>> hardware and bundled software.
>
> open hardware was ibm's gift, not m$. but that won't stop the m$
> propaganda machine propagating that story. just like the lies about
> "win 95 doesn't run on top of dos." it did.
>
>
>> Companies that tried to bundle hardware and software (DEC, Apple, Sun)
>> were losers, as were companies that tried to sell non-integrated
>> software (Novell, Borland, Ashton-Tate, Lotus). Oracle continues to do
>> well, despite a narrow product offering, because it is so well
>> integrated with other vendor's application software. Ultimately, I
>> think they're as vulnerable as Novell.
>>
>> All high-tech trends quickly to commodity. The players who
>> "commoditize" first win. In the desktop market the critical point was
>> when Phoenix cloned the BIOS and IBM didn't sue, the rest was history.
>
> see above.

You're just repeating what I said. As far as it being a "gift", that
wasn't the kind of thing that IBM had much of a reputation for, then or now.


>
>
>>
>> What most of the unenlightened critics still fail to recognize was
>> that MS won by taking on the most difficult problem of all --
>> "virtualizing" a broad array of different hardware. This allowed
>> competitive markets to emerge in motherboards, graphics, storage and
>> peripherals. It was those markets that drove the revolution. Apple's
>> "1984" commercial was actually the height of irony.
>>
>> Linux was, and still is, a great choice for applications with narrow
>> requirements for hardware and software. It solved the easy (kernel)
>> problem well, but MS solved the hard one. Now that MS has largely
>> caught up on kernel performance and reliability, it's a contender in
>> even "narrow" systems.
>
> yeah. "narrow" systems like bind, apache, sendmail.

They are narrow, in the sense that they are server apps that don't have
to deal with a plethora of peripherals and are singular applications
that don't have to integrate with a lot of others. How do you define narrow?


>
>>
>> Microsoft's strategy was so successful that it gave them a virtual
>> monopoly, which, in turn, got them into legal heat if they pressed it
>> too far. It was their brilliance at solving the right problem at the
>> right time that gave them their market dominance. Figuring out which
>> problem to focus on *is* marketing, actually solving it *is*
>> technology. To win as big as they did, MS had to do both extremely
>> well -- and, perhaps more importantly, they had to decide what to do
>> not so well.
>>
>> The MS computing game plan: 1) get the desktop infrastructure 2) get
>> the desktop applications 3) get the server infrastructure 4) get the
>> server applications. They've done 1 & 2 completely and are well along
>> on 3 & 4. MS's biggest fear is a paradigm shift that will change the
>> game enough to end their monopoly. In every case of potential threat
>> -- gaming/entertainment, Internet, thin computing, etc. they've
>> responded aggressively. Time will tell if they can hang on, but they
>> have a pile of cash to work with.
>
> and yet they're still losing big time on major infrastructure - projects
> into which they've poured untold resources for more than 10 years.
>
>>
>> > and ballmer's less of a sociopath.
>>
>> Less than who? Gates? Yeah, right. The guys who's giving away both his
>> and Warren Buffet's fortunes to put a significant dent in suffering
>> around the world. Yup, what a sociopath. We should have a lot more
>> sociopaths like that.
>
> buddy of mine works with a gates project partner. long story short,
> meeting, one presenter has a stutter. gates snaps: "who sent you?
> you're wasting my time, get out of here." yup, we need more people like
> that.

Let's see -- wiping out serious diseases, ending a great deal of world
misery -- using personal fortune vs (if the story is true) hurting
somebody's feelings --- hmmmm, I guess you're right, he must be a sociopath.

Who would put up somebody with a (bad, presumably) stutter as a
presenter? Did the person really have a stutter or was just a bad
presenter? How can you be a good presenter with a stutter?


>>
>> Oh yeah, another thing, despite being a "long hair" and member of a
>> few "cultural oases", and a user of their products only where I had
>> to, MS strategy was so obviously right to me that I made a large
>> investment in them. Since I got in a little late, I only made 16x.
>> Yeah, they really suck.
>
> ah, self interest! can't beat that!

What's the problem with making money. I suppose all you "insiders" don't
make money because it's beneath you?