How Microsoft Will Die

by James R. Stoup Jul 01, 2005

Longhorn, by the features

WFS: Cut
.NET Framework: Cut
MONAD: Cut
Integrated Search: Cut
Avalon: Who knows?
Indigo: Who knows?
IE7: You can repaint a Kia, lower it down, put rims on it and think you are cool, but at the end of the day it is still a Kia.

And so it goes, on and on. Feature after feature is cut, promise after promise is broken, and what do we have at the end of the day? XP SP3. If Microsoft fails to deliver something approaching decent with Longhorn then they will be in trouble. Big trouble. And most people haven’t even realized this yet. But they will soon enough.

Why are they in trouble?

Momentum. It all boils down to momentum. Google has it. Sony has it. Apple has it pouring out of its orifices, Microsoft though. . .not so much. 

You see momentum is what pushes that reluctant manager to go ahead and upgrade his system instead of waiting for something better or (very scary music plays in the background) switching to Linux. Momentum is what gets a word of mouth campaign going that convinces your everyday user to go out and buy the latest OS. Momentum is what keeps the media friendly, sort of. 

But lately MS has been getting all of the wrong types of momentum. They aren’t getting that “battering ram” momentum no, it’s more like at sinking ship momentum. You see the ram is going through, but the ship is going down. Big difference.

Right now Microsoft can’t even hold a press release about Longhorn without either saying its going to be delayed again or that they are cutting even more features. This really makes them look incompetent. I mean, I know they are incompetent but this really lets the rest of the world in on the joke as well.

And no matter how they spin it they have now reached the point where it’s impossible to make the situation sound any better than it is. Three years ago they could have made these announcements from a position of strength. Two years ago they could have made these announcements and then lied heavily in hopes of saving face. One year ago they made these announcements and it started looking really scary for anyone whose business depended on Longhorn. And now this year these announcements make them look like a company that is adrift, with no real vision, desperately trying not to drown. Congratulations Bill you have officially lost any momentum you thought you might have had. 

The 3 nails in the MS coffin

In order of importance:

1. Microsoft
They have always been their worst enemy. Shoddy software practices are forced on programmers due to incompetent managers which in turn produces the mess that is Longhorn. Even if the computing world was relatively quiet (which it isn’t, not by a long shot) then MS would still be in deep horse pucky over the gross stupidity that their leadership has shown. And to make matters even worse management has now realized that this time there isn’t going to be a “quick fix”. There are no more features left to cut. This time the deadline is real because their competitors are getting their act together in a way that hasn’t ever happened before.

2. Apple
Making matters worse is Steve Jobs. He has Apple humming like fine tuned violin. Tiger is everything Apple promised and its only been released for three months or so. And I imagine things are only going to improve.  And if that wasn’t enough Apple is going to squeeze out yet another OS before Microsoft can get Longhorn out the door. Ouch, yet another kick in the balls. Then you have this whole Macintel thing going on plus rumors about the iPod/ITMS/movie business all of which draw the attention of the media towards Apple’s successes.

3. Linux
Never forget Linux. They may be a disorganized, fragmented group who may not present a challenge on the desktop but they are chipping away slowly at MS’s dominance. Then on the server side Microsoft has finally realized that they are fighting a losing war. And this is evidenced by the growing number of MS backed “independent” research groups claiming Windows server is (pick one, cheaper, better, faster, more secure etc.). Those tactics speak of desperation. They are a smear campaign plain and simple.

Mindshare
This is a good indication of how bad the situation currently is and how much worse its going to get. Think about how much of a market share Apple has. Something like 3% of yearly sales with an install base of about 10-15%. Now, think about its mindshare. What is mindshare you ask? Well, its the extent to which people know about a phenomenon. The iPod has enormous mind share. You might not own one yourself but chances are you know someone who has does. The iPod alone has made Apple’s mindshare sky rocket. Now factor in the ITMS and how profitable it has been. Now think about the recent announcement of their switch to Intel. And then there is the ever present rumors about them starting a movie store much like the iTMS. People can’t stop talking about Apple and Jobs is just fanning the flames, trying his best to fuel the fires and feed the rumor mills.

And all the while the media focuses on Apple do you know who they aren’t talking about? Microsoft. Think about all of the buzz that MS has gotten in the past when they released a new operating system. And here they are about to release an item they claim is their most revolutionary product ever and . . . no one is listening. No one cares. Redmond is no longer where all of the news is coming from. If you are about to release a killer product, something that is going to save your company and allow you to ride its success for years to come, the last thing you want to hear are yawns.

News flash! Longhorn is going to be drastically overshadowed by Leopard and Macs running Intel. Make no mistake about it, Jobs is a master showman. As such, he will wait untill the best moment possible and then try and wow the world with all of Apple’s new toys. Who wants to cover a stripped down, bare bones, bug infested OS like Longhorn (which is already being called XP SP3 if that gives you any indication of how bad things are) when you can go look at Leopard running on a pumped up PowerMac with Intel’s latest and greatest chip inside?

Linux learns to game

More bad news for MS is called Cedega. And do you know why it is bad? Because it allows Windows only games to be played on a version of Linux called Linspire. Uh oh. Thats not good.

Gaming is the one area in which Microsoft can truly call their own. No one really even competes with them on the desktop as far as gaming goes. Anything else and Apple and Linux can put up a good fight but not when it comes to games. Until now. With the release of this product Half Life, GTA, Doom 3 and the rest can now be played in Linux. And if they can do it for Linux then they can do it for Mac.  And that simple fact should scare the heck out of Microsoft. Because if that program is ported to OS X then the top games in the industry can be played on a Mac, using Intel’s fastest chip, using NVidia’s best graphics card on a 30” aluminum display. Over night PowerMacs could become the best gaming rig in history.

And remember, its gamers who drive companies to produce the best product possible. Normal people don’t go out and buy the latest and greatest stuff just because it’s out, gamers do. When you are playing Doom 3 you want it to be as realistic as possible and if that means buying a $300 video card then they will do it. If that means buying the fastest processor they will do it. And if that means upgrading to the newest OS then they will do it. Say, we don’t know anyone coming out with a new OS any time do we?

Realistically how long do you think gamers will stick with Windows if it turns out that the best gaming experience can be had on a Mac? And if the rumors are true and Apple does bring AltiVec to the Intel side of things then it is quite possible that Apple may be the ones who very soon are producing the fastest computers anywhere. And remember, gamers always want more power.

Women and children first

Here is my best shot at what Microsoft could do to try and turn things around:

1. Admit defeat
If only to themselves MS has to admit that Longhorn is a complete and utter failure. To have come this far, spent this much money and wasted this much time to ultimately produce an OS which barely has any of the features that was to make it great, is a beyond pathetic. Time to own up to the fact that everybody screwed up.

2. Thin the herd
First one out the door needs to be Ballmer. He is an idiot on a good day and he has just reinforced that image with his bungling of the Longhorn situation. After he goes then its time to go down the line trimming the fat and doing some serious house cleaning. Once that is done then look outside the company for a few decent managers.

3. Do your best
Since Longhorn is the only thing you got at the moment that is what they are going to have to sell. Try to make the best out of a bad situation. This is the point at which you should be treading water while you work on something else.

4. Dump it
Throw all of the current Windows code away. All of it. Everything from 9x to XP to Longhorn, everything has to go. It’s all crap and its time to jettison those reeking piles of poorly written, buggy code.

5. Start over
This may be the hardest pill of all to swallow but the way I see it they have two choices. Plan A, try and make a new OS from the ground up. Just like the people who designed Unix, security and stability have to be your main goals. But that approach is going to take time, a lot of time in fact. And time is something that MS doesn’t have much of right now. So, they might want to look at plan B. Plan B involves doing pretty much what Apple did. Use BSD as the core of your OS then build around it. Now, I realize that doing this would be a major embarrassment and would require the biggest software company on earth to swallow its pride, but ultimately they would see that it’s the best choice.

6. Decouple
There is no need to make IE so deeply attached to your kernel. Bad things happen when you do stuff like that. Same thing with Media Player, uncouple it. Strive to make the system as small as possible. You build the basic system and then offer pieces that can be attached as needed.

7. Move on
It’s time to tell the public that if they want to use the newest applications for then they need to upgrade. Everyone who still uses 98 has to get real. All of you still using 95 need your head examined. And any of you using ME, God help you. Microsoft needs to stand up and inform people that they will no longer bend over backwards to accommodate their old, clunky, piece of crap software. Its time to update all of your applications. 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP and Longhorn are dead, move on. That step alone would make the OS much smaller, faster and more secure.

8. Accept the losses
Microsoft is going to lose market share no matter what they do. If they followed this strategy then they would lose market share faster than if they stuck it out with Longhorn but in a few years they would be in a much better position to come back and reclaim what they had lost.

Wrapping it up

So, there you have it. The current state of the Longhorn, a prediction of things to come and a few hints for the folks in Redmond. It will be fun to watch what happens in the industry in the next few years. We will see if I am right. What do you think? What did I miss?

Update
Since I have received so many comments that seem to dwell on the same point let me clarify my position.  I don’t think Microsoft is going to go anywhere soon.  However, I do think that they are on the downturn.  They have reached their peak and now they are in decline.  It will take a long time for their influence to fade (a decade at least) and for a good part of that time they will still be a force to be reconded with.  But that still doesn’t change the fact that, as a company, they are falling instead of rising.

Check out my views on all of Microsoft’s business endeavors (present and future) here:
Microsoft’s Future Prospects

Comments

  • So here is the problem as I see it, and it’s not with James’ article.  Microsoft has two, count ‘em two, cash cows.  They are the Windows’ OSes, desktops and servers respectively, and their Office suite.  That’s it.  For those that think that anything MS releases is successful, you’re just plain wrong.  Even the XBOX loses money on every console sold.  The only thing that keeps MS where they are is the OS and Office, everything else just loses them money.  So if one of the two cash cows start to show signs of trouble, then MS has a lot to worry about.  And that’s why James is correct, they are on a downslide. The hill they are on top of is so large and so steep that it will take a very long time for their downslide to even be noticed, but it is happening. They’re cash rich, so they might be able to ride whatever decline they’re on and not have to worry about it financially. I’m afraid that Windows is showing a case of “mad cow” disease, and those that eat of it are tainted.  Enjoy!

    zoetrope had this to say on Jul 01, 2005 Posts: 5
  • PS And none of those IT Managers I know even care about Tiger.

    Yep, and neither really does the vast majority of the public.  These little speaches about the imminent death of MS have been occuring with some regularity for years.  I guess the assumption from Apple users is that Apple is the most likely candidate to fill that void.  But it hasn’t materialized and Apple is still in single-digit market share.  Try as they might, that doesn’t seem to ever change with any significance.

    For those of us who use XP, the release of Tiger did not suddenly disable my PC or render it obsolete.  It still works and still works well.  In fact, using both Tiger and XP side-by-side there isn’t all that much difference.  Some good things about Tiger, some good things about XP.  But the chasm that Mac users perceive between the two is largely imaginary.  And when Longhorn is finally released, it’ll shift momentum back to MS and we’ll all forget that we ever really doubted that it could.

    Beeblebrox had this to say on Jul 01, 2005 Posts: 2220
  • RE: #10 is correct in stating that it will take Dell and HP to agree to mount OS X on their boxes for Apple to breakout and start moving upward and to get back to where they were coming out of the 80s into the 90s before the Sculley culture totally messed it up.

    Dell has already indicated that there is interest.  It has been well established that M$‘s OEM customers and enterprise customers are really getting sick and tired of all of the problems.  And anybody who tries to tell me differently doesn’t have a clue.

    I have a very large number of enterprise clients (50 nodes on up to 2000) that are totally fed up with th amount of money being sucked, every year, from their bottomline to keep Windows, in all of it’s variants, up and running at the client level. They are looking for alternatives regardless of how hard their IT Nazis resist.

    Now whether Dell is pushing M$‘s buttons or they are serious time will tell.  But if they are and there is a serious business relationship in place between Apple and HP, beyond iPod, you could very well see either OS X or both mounted in their boxes.  And if (the big red IF) Intel does acquire Apple, Katy bar the door.

    Damm, this is going to be fun to watch over the next 10-20 months.

    Norsk had this to say on Jul 01, 2005 Posts: 8
  • It’s true that Microsoft is the 800 lb gorilla. They have tremendous cash flow and tens of billions of dollars in cash sitting in their savings account.

    But just like the Roman Empire took hundreds of years to fall, Microsoft is similarly facing the barbarians at the gate. And just like Romans would have sniffed at the idea the empire was in serious decline in 100 A.D. I think you have similar attitudes among Microsoft’s supporters these days.

    But James R. Stoup hit the nail on the head. Microsoft is in the beginnings of a major decline. A company as big and established as Microsoft won’t suddenly collapse because of a bungled Longhorn, but something critical as keeping the Windows OS relevant and up to the demands of modern users is critical to the health of the company.

    We know that major engineering disasters are not the result of any single catastrophic failure. The vast majority of the time, it is a chain of events, most of which would be inconsequential if they occurred by themselves. But when a valve fails in a backline pipeline right after a warning light burns out just as routine maintenance work causes operators to redirect a high pressure flow to the backup line…well, that leads to a “major engineering disaster.”

    The same thing is happening to Microsoft. It’s not just Longhorn that is facing problems. But all the things going wrong beneath the Longhorn umbrella has scope way beyond the OS itself.

    So WinFS was dropped from Longhorn? Microsoft supports would say, so what? Longhorn will still be great without WinFS! The NT filesystem is fine!

    The problem is that Microsoft needs WinFS for their next generation database and server products. The developers working on those products have been working for years with the expectation that WinFS will be there.

    The story isn’t that WinFS was dropped from Longhorn. The story is that WinFS has so many problems that Jan 2007 is considered an unrealistic deadline for it to be ready.

    This has a cascade effect where it’s now affecting several major product releases. New server products. New database products. All delayed by years, with Microsoft now scrambling to rewrite everything so that they can have an interim product that doesn’t assume WinFS will be there.

    Can enterprises that rely on terabyte-size transaction databases really go 5 or 7 years without the robust features from their Microsoft products while their competitors are improving productivity, capacity, and features by using Oracle?

    And therein lies the weak link in Microsoft’s product strategy. Microsoft’s empire is built on Windows, but now it’s apparent that the House of Windows has a foundation of every-shifting sand.

    So when Microsoft fails to deliver one piece, it sets off a chain reaction which themselves set off a series of unstoppable reactions. Sometimes a grain of sand shifts, and there are no consequences. But sometimes, a particular grain will shift in a specific way that will cause other grains around it to shift, leading to a landslide that will bring down the whole house.

    So the news isn’t that Longhorn is delayed. The big news is WHY Longhorn is delayed. And that’s problematic because so many fundamental pieces of technology on which dozens of major products will rely upon are all delayed. Business can wait a long time because of their conservative natures, but they can’t wait forever for Microsoft to given them the products they need. Sooner or later, life on the barbarian side of the fence becomes a lot better than living in a purposeless, directionless ecosystem that Microsoft is quickly becoming.

    Paul had this to say on Jul 01, 2005 Posts: 31
  • As much as I love Apple and as much as I like to see some decline for MS I think that James blown the situation at MS totally out of preportions.

    They are not in as deep shit as he makes them to be. E.g. they don’t need to rewrite their whole OS from scratch. It is not all junk. The foundations of Windows is newer than the foundations of Mac OS X. In my opinion it is not the kernel that sucks (it is quite good) it is the MS user interface and the Win32 API. All of that could in theory be changed without rewriting the kernel. Going for BSD makes no sense. Of course none of this is ever going to happen because so many apps run win32.

    I don’t hate MS and I don’t want them to die. I just wish they slow down a little bit so other companies can get a piece of the cake. MS dominance of the market is not healthy. If the failure of Longhorn can enable Apple to grab a bigger marketshare that would be great.

    At lastly lets not forget that MS can totally fail in the OS market and still be doing good. They have a lot of legs to stand on. The same can not be said about Apple. If OS X fails, macs will fail. Then they only have iPod.

    Erik Engheim had this to say on Jul 02, 2005 Posts: 4
  • “For those of us who use XP, the release of Tiger did not suddenly disable my PC or render it obsolete.  It still works and still works well.  In fact, using both Tiger and XP side-by-side there isn’t all that much difference.”

    I too have OS X and XP running side by side and although there are some obvious similarities I can’t honestly say that they both work just as well as one another.  My 3 Macs have all crashed a combined total of once, my 2 XP machines crash daily.  With all the junk I have to run to combat security issues in XP - antivirus, antispyware, etc., one of my XP machines is slower than a slug.  Meanwhile, for 95% of the tasks out there, my 1.33GHz iBook makes my Dell XPS Gen 5 look like a turtle… how is this working well?  I think this marks a first for me in recent times.  I have never heard of anyone actually implying, let alone outright saying, that XP works well.

    dickrichards2000 had this to say on Jul 02, 2005 Posts: 112
  • My 3 Macs have all crashed a combined total of once, my 2 XP machines crash daily.  With all the junk I have to run to combat security issues in XP - antivirus, antispyware, etc., one of my XP machines is slower than a slug.

    To be honest, I’ve always been a little skeptical of Mac-fanatic reports of their experiences with XP.  For some reason, Mac-fanatics seem to go through extreme problems with XP that no one else I know seems to have.

    I have two XP machines and one Mac.  While they have crashed on rare occassion, I can’t remember the last time one of them actually did.  It’s been awhile, and I believe it was a harddrive failure.  Apps crash, sure, on both the Mac and XP, but the OS is hardly ever taken down completely, much less DAILY.

    I also run anti-virus software on XP, and my 2.0 Ghz XP desktop and my 1.8 Ghz XP laptop both SMOKE my 1.2 Ghz Mac mini.  I’ve run several tests comparing the two and it’s no contest.  The Mac mini is nice but it’s slllloooowwwwww.

    And while I’m a little more tech savvy than the average person, my family runs XP as well and they do not experience the kinds of problems you seem to be having with your computer.  They’ve had ZERO viruses in two years and ONE spyware problem, an IE taskbar that they installed themselves and couldn’t get rid of.  And no crashes to speak of, much less on a daily basis.  I can tell you right now that they’d chuck it in the garbage today if that was the case.

    I don’t know what Mac-fanatics do to their XP machines, but whatever it is, it isn’t normal.

    Beeblebrox had this to say on Jul 02, 2005 Posts: 2220
  • Beeblebrox,

    Maybe your definition of normal and their definition of normal are a little different.  Let me give you an example of a normal day for me at work.

    I come in, I sit down and turn on my lovely new Dell.  I then open up my laptop case, pull out my iBook and turn it on.  Now, I always have at least 3 apps running on my iBook.  Safari, iTunes, Pages, maybe TextEdit or Word and sometimes Photoshop if need be.  The point being I always run 3 apps but have no problem running 6 or 7 if I need to.

    But lets look at my Dell running XP.  I open FireFox and Lotus Notes.  Just those two apps stress the system considerably.  And you can forget trying to do anything while either of these applications start up.  Because if you do, then you will lock the application up completely forcing you to restart it.  So, both of those applications are now up and running, I have checked all of my mail and now I am ready to actually do some work.  I can open PowerPoint or Word but not both, because then the system will slow down and often as not lock up.  So, I open PowerPoint, wait for it to completely load then try my luck at Word.  Amazingly enough Word opens, takes a while, but it opens and nothing locks up.  Great.  So, now I have 4 applications running and as long as I don’t do anything taxing things will be ok, sort of. 

    However 4 applications seriously strains the machine’s resources.  So, I must learn to deal with the fact that opening a folder will take several seconds and possiblely cause the system to grind to a halt.  I must be aware of the fact that nothing should be done while something is being opened or saved for free of shutting the system down.

    Oddly enough, most people consider operating like that as “normal”, I do not.  So, maybe you are right.  Maybe what I am asking XP to do isn’t normal.

    James R. Stoup had this to say on Jul 02, 2005 Posts: 122
  • I open FireFox and Lotus Notes.  Just those two apps stress the system considerably.  And you can forget trying to do anything while either of these applications start up.  Because if you do, then you will lock the application up completely forcing you to restart it.

    The same thing happens with me on my Mac mini when I try to open FCP and do ANYTHING else.  Obviously my one experience means that OSX is inferior and crappy and doesn’t work like a “normal” computer is supposed to.

    Like I said, I’m skeptical of reports from Mac-fanatics and their experiences with XP.  What generally happens is that they over-exagerate the problems of XP and simply ignore the problems with OSX. Or they blame XP for any and all PC problems, but blame the user or 3rd party hardware for any Mac problems.

    In any case, a laggy system is not the same as “daily system crashes,” which is what dick was referring to.

    Beeblebrox had this to say on Jul 02, 2005 Posts: 2220
  • Beeb,


    Ok, lets really think about what we are saying.  I open a web broswer and an email client and things slow down.  You open a professional video editing application and your machine slows down. 

    Now, it’s just me but I think there is a small difference between those two scenarios.  I mean FCP can slow down a Dual processor G5 if a large enough render is needed so you telling me that your $500 Mac Mini doesn’t render clips like a professional editing set up doesn’t really impress me.

    The point I was trying to make was that I can rather easily lock up my work machine just by opening several basic applications simultaneously.  Next time Mail and Safari lock up your Mac Mini you feel free to tell me all about it.

    James R. Stoup had this to say on Jul 02, 2005 Posts: 122
  • The point I was trying to make was that I can rather easily lock up my work machine just by opening several basic applications simultaneously.

    Again, I don’t know what you guys are doing to your machines but I don’t anyone besides Mac-fanatics who has these kinds of problems with XP.  Daily system crashes?  Locking up from opening a web browser and e-mail?

    I must be a computer genius because nothing like that ever seems to happen to me.  Not even close.  I do get a lag when opening simultaneous apps, but that happens on the Mac as well, and not just with FCP, but that’s mostly what I use it for so that’s my comparison.  I don’t use it for other work because despite some rather ridiculous claims to the contrary, a 1.2 Ghz Mac mini is considerably slower than a 2.0 Ghz XP PC.

    But that’s on my miraculous non-crashing XP PCs and apparently I own the only two in existence.  Heck, why even bother with your Dell if it crashes every single day and locks up just from opening e-mail and a web browser?  Is whatever app you’re using really worth all that trouble?

    Beeblebrox had this to say on Jul 02, 2005 Posts: 2220
  • Btw, as I write this on my XP desktop, I have Flash open, along with TWO browsers (I’m really playing with fire!) and DVD Lab.  On my XP laptop, I have e-mail open, along with a browser, Ipodder, Itunes, and a calendar program (do I have a deathwish or what!).  My Mac Mini is running DVD player (“24” season 3), Itunes and dashboard.  None of them are laggy, much less frozen.  I guess I lucked out and managed to buy the only two working XP machines in the known galaxy.

    Beeblebrox had this to say on Jul 02, 2005 Posts: 2220
  • Ok, here’s my massive take on it.

    Who the hell cares now? I mean seriously, we have to wait at least 18 months to get everything that we’re talking about here in motion, and another 6-12 before it becomes semi-mainstream. Then Apple has to worry about other production bottlenecks, not just PowerPC chips. Once Intel starts manufacturing for both Apple and Wintel machines, which will be the first to go? Intel processors for Windows, or Intel processors for Mac OS? And once that happens, Intel will pull resources from their Apple processors to fill Wintel orders, so in order to fill Apple demand, Apple will pay more, making products more pricey, making consumers pay more. so, top gaming machine, Alienware, runs beautifully, 4 grand. Apple gaming rig with Intel processor, which is coming at a higher place with same hardware, but having to pay for R&D on top of it, will be a couple grand higher for a top of the line gaming rig. And, like some of you were saying, geeks will pay top dollar for the best hardware, 600 dollars for the G70. What happens when the next gen card is released? What about upgradability? Thats gonna be a big hit, too.

    So Mac OS can run games. Nice. But what has Apple been known for? They’ve bragged about video editing and all that. Doing a switch and saying they can do gaming now, too, will be hard for a lot of people to agree with. And once again, why buy a new computer for thousands of dollars when you can upgrade the one you have for a few hundred?

    The reason Windows machines are all decrapitated are because of user error, because people are retarded when it comes to using the internet. SP2 helped a lot of that out, but a lot of people are too dense to use the features included in it. “Hmm… Windows blocked this ActiveX control. But I might want it. Lets get it anyways!” Bad User, not Bad Windows. I, like Beeblebrox, have NON-CRASHING computers that are running XP. All I have is Norton, Sygate Firewall Pro, and a brain. Thats all that is needed.

    I firmly believe if everyone was educated in using Windows, the problems you hear about wouldn’t be around as much. If Windows is 80% of market share, 30% of that being not with XP SP2, then a third of the people using a Windows computer are spretty much screwed. The other 70% of Windows users arent set, either, and say that 5% of Windows users are actually educated and arent infected, then that leaves still 95% of people complaining about the crap on their computer.

    I see that once Mac OS becomes wide spread, stupid people will start buying them, and spyware will be spread, since we all know hackers get joy from others’ suffering. They WILL find a weay to infect. I don’t care how secure you think you are, I know its possible. I know I could be in an instant, but its easy to recover things. Easy to screw up, easy to fix.

    As for Microsoft removing IE and WMP from the OS, this guy is dumb. If it weren’t for the whining of Apple and AOL and everyone, no anti-trust lawsuits would have been filed, setting MS back, having to deal with lawsuits. Nor would it have made the European Union MAKE MS remove WMP from Longhorn. THAT was a HUGE setback. If it werent for all this lawsuit stuff and having to make a whole new version of Windows by de-integrating WMP from the OS, Longhorn would be much further along.

    TaiyedMan had this to say on Jul 02, 2005 Posts: 4
  • WinFS: Depending on how you use the word “cut,” you could be wrong or right. WinFS has been delayed but will still be downloadable from their web site shortly after Longhorn is released. It seems to me that you are implying that they’ve stopped development on it; that would be wrong.

    .NET Framework: This has not been cut, it is still a major part of Longhorn. Not only is it a major part of Longhorn but also coincides with the release and introduction of Microsoft Visual Studio and XAML.

    Monad: This has not been cut either. Monad has just entered development and will be introduced in Longhorn. They have not cut it back, despite what many rumor mills (read: news sites) claim. Windows users should feel greatful that Microsoft even decided to ship a portion of it in Longhorn, considering it wasn’t intended for Longhorn itself.

    Integrated Search: This has not been cut either. Seriously, do you think they would cut a feature they’ve already created and released (yes, Windows XP has integrated searching)? Longhorn is simply building on the foundation that is already there by improving performance and tidying up the interface. There’s absolutely nothing there to cut, so I fail to see how such a statement could be made.

    Avalon and Indigo: These are still major parts of Longhorn. WinFX (read: .NET framework) and XAML are built around Avalon and Indigo. This has not been cut, dropped, delayed, or anything else that could possibly be said with a negative intent.

    IE7: I agree with you here. The interface improvements to Internet Explorer 7 are nice, but it’s nothing to make me board the Internet Explorer Love Boat. That’s for certain. Hopefully they will improve their standards compliance beyond the show-stopper bugs and work to make the show better, so to speak. Internet Explorer has a very long way to go to reach the superiority of Safari, Firefox, or Opera (and any other browser I don’t feel like mentioning.)

    This article/entry was built on a foundation of incorrect information. Once put into perspective, the argument collapses and implodes upon itself. Chris Howard, first reply to this entry, has the right idea. Microsoft are doing great.

    megamanXplosion had this to say on Jul 03, 2005 Posts: 11
  • .NET FRAMEWORK CAN NOT BE CUT BECAUSE THERE ARE TONS OF MANAGED ASSEMBLIES IN LONGHORN.

    AVALON CAN NOT BE CUT BECAUSE TONS OF STUFF REFERENCE TO AVALON.

    INDIGO CAN NOT BE CUT BECAUSE MEGATONS OF STUFF ALREADY EXISTS IN LONGHORN THAT USES INDIGO.

    YOU GUYS JUST ABSOLUTELY DON’T GET IT.

    YOU EVEN DO NOT KNOW THAT .NET FRAMEWORK IS SO TIGHTLY LINKED TO LONGHORN THAT IT IS _ABSOLUTELY_ IMPOSSIBLE TO UNLINK IT.

    INTEGRATED SEARCH WILL EXIST IN AVALON, BUT IN NO-RELATIONAL WAY (WINFS, SQL) AND WILL BE IMPLEMENTED IN WELL-KNOWN IFilter-s (LIKE SPOTLIGHT).

    AUTHOR OF THIS ARTICLE IS JUST A N00B.

    lexp had this to say on Jul 03, 2005 Posts: 1
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