beanzontoast
Guru
- Location
- South of The Peaks
rh100 said:
+1. This is why I think it will always be necessary to back up data locally, even if we do have a world where the apps themselves are remotely accessed.
What's the future for Microsoft?
- Thread starter Yellow Fang
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+1. This is why I think it will always be necessary to back up data locally, even if we do have a world where the apps themselves are remotely accessed.
Tollers
Guru
- Location
- San Francisco, California
I'm struggling not to comment on this thread. I'd love to, but have to keep corporate secrets 
meenaghman
Guru
The corporate market is where the money is.. however look East. The Chinese and Indians ( I forget how many graduates between them per year but its a staggering number) are switching to Linux and Open/Star Office in a big way. Linux ain't perfect either, but its getting there. Most Computer users just want to be able to switch a box on do their stuff and switch it off at the end of the day. It depends what "their stuff" is. For most its fairly mundane " a graph a day keeps the boss at bay" work to do with SpreadSheets,Wordprocessing, and email. Bear in mind also that virtually all schools teach Excel not Spreadsheet, Word - not word processing. As for programming that seems to have disappeared off the curriculum these days. People are taught to be users of Software rather than a bit of logic programing. I know that there are macros and formulae in Excel which provide one with a bit of programming experience, but most of the curriculum seems bent on presentation rather than data manipulation.
OP
OP
Yellow Fang
Legendary Member
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Well, I'm hoping MS won't go bust for a while, as I'm trying to get my head around VBA and I don't want my effort wasted.
I forgot about the office environment (pretty big omission). I suppose MS is fine in that environment as they have IT depts. All the same, commercial licences of MS products cost lots more than home licences, which cost lots more than Linux and Open Office. If you were a small company, why pay the extra cost?
I suppose most businesses that need special desktop applications would probably still go for MS, just because they have sort of become the industry standard. My previous company developed applications for storing, retrieving and playing video for the television broadcast industry. This involved interfacing with databases and dedicated boards where timing considerations were critical. It doesn't matter too much which operating system was running on the boards, but it's a complication if the database is running on a different operating system. The majority of coders have experience of working in the MS environment, and the IDEs for developing code on Linux don't appear to be anywhere near as good as for MS.
I remember going to some BCS talk, which said mainframes would make a comeback, partly as a response to save electricity. This would not help MS's cause.
I forgot about the office environment (pretty big omission). I suppose MS is fine in that environment as they have IT depts. All the same, commercial licences of MS products cost lots more than home licences, which cost lots more than Linux and Open Office. If you were a small company, why pay the extra cost?
I suppose most businesses that need special desktop applications would probably still go for MS, just because they have sort of become the industry standard. My previous company developed applications for storing, retrieving and playing video for the television broadcast industry. This involved interfacing with databases and dedicated boards where timing considerations were critical. It doesn't matter too much which operating system was running on the boards, but it's a complication if the database is running on a different operating system. The majority of coders have experience of working in the MS environment, and the IDEs for developing code on Linux don't appear to be anywhere near as good as for MS.
I remember going to some BCS talk, which said mainframes would make a comeback, partly as a response to save electricity. This would not help MS's cause.
Tollers
Guru
- Location
- San Francisco, California
marinyork said:If you get any freebies to test out project natal you'll let us know.
Well. im not a microsoft man....or a google man. Im with the other lot!
Riverman
Guru
- Location
- sur de Inglaterra
The moment google release an OS for the desktop, Microsoft's fate will hopefully have been sealed.
Tollers
Guru
- Location
- San Francisco, California
Riverman said:
Wow, do you really want one company running your computers OS, office suite, you search engine, your phone, your maps? I don't understand how people don't find Google a frightening company, especially with their excessive data retention policies.
rh100
Well-Known Member
Riverman said:
I disagree, Linux is free yet is still a minority OS. Who would change their infrastructure to take on new OS, how will it integrate for authentication and all the rest. The fact is, MS Windows is the standard, for good or ill, that most other IT companies work to and be compatible with. Google's OS may well be good, but could well be dropped within a few years, so why invest?
That's not a forward-looking outlook. Back in the 80s the big companies were all saying "PCs won't take off, however will they integrate with the minicomputer?" and so the minicomputer companies said "ok, we needn't worry, our customers still appreciate what we do". Now where are they?rh100 said:
Innovative technology takeup starts with smaller institutions which can make do with 50% solutions, and percolates up into the bigger ones which need 90% - and by the time they reach the corporate behemoths they've achieved most of that 90%. This is known in software circles as "Worse is Better"
http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html
(and if you read the first paragraph and say "wtf is CLOS and the MIT/Stanford style of design?", that kinda proves my point. Approximately nobody has heard of it any more)
rh100
Well-Known Member
coruskate said:
Fair point. there may well be technically superior products and systems, I'll bow down to others knowledge on that. Wintel has really now been embedded in the workplace though, now on every desk beyond the early adopters of computers like payroll dept's etc, they are being used by non computer specialists, at work and at home. Whatever replaces that needs to be similar enough, with enough application support to make the change.
But then, if apps do go web based, it's only the familiar interface that needs to remain. Perhaps a rise in thin clients then, it wouldn't matter about os's and hardware.
