Aero May be Transparent but MSFT is Anything But

[CH]

The eye candy that MSFT is using to distract the market from their failure
to be able to make major reliability features that protect and repair the
Vista Operating System like Windows File Protection.

Aero uses transparency as one of its components, even extending that to the
gadgets on the sidebar which is a simply a convoluted way of promoting
Windows Live products and features that can all be reached without the
Sidebar.

Sidebars equally functional have been around for years, as have all the
features of Aero, free, and from 3rd party.

While MSFT espouses "clear, confident, and connected they have moved to make
their financial reporting "murky, furtive, and disconnected. The new method
of financial reporting could be dubbed Aero Quintissentially Opaque.
Stevie Sinofsky wants to "3 Card Monte" the unprofitable division reporting.


Microsoft financials getting less transparent
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/105090.asp

Monday, July 17, 2006
Microsoft Hides Its Mobile and Business Apps Divisions
By Mary Jo Foley

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1990243,00.asp?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535

Microsoft's new financial reporting: Less is not more
http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/brierdudley/2006/07/microsofts_new_financial_repor_1.html

Posted by Brier Dudley at 03:02 PM

During the mid-1980's at Cornell, little Stevie must have taken a few train
rides to the streets of New York and watched the shell games.

Ann Coulter is a Cornellian. It must be catching.

CH

 

[John Jay Smith]

I see all this bad results of MS as a big opportunity for other OS's to grab
a share of the market...

Things are going to change after the release of Vista

 

[Bernie]

You are absolutely right... but is there anyone who has the vision,
resources and cajones?

 

[Chad Harris]

Of course. Actually their serum cajones level only spikes when they use
superficial features like Aero Glass to mask the total lack of features like
a broken Windows File Protection in Vista to date and their lie to OEM Vista
preload purchasers that they will be able to use Win RE, Startup Repair from
the code shorted recovery discs or partitions OEM named partners and MSFT
use to samdbag and mislead their customers.

CH

 

[Bernie]

Chad those were the kind of points John was making to back up his claim
that the launch of Vista would be a "big opportunity for other OS's to
grab a share of the market.."

I pretty much agree but I don't see any other players likely to take
advantage of it.

The opportunity is there for someone. Linux is too fragmented and
esoteric to ever be a match for Windows on the desktops of the world.
Apple has the credibility and their OS is pretty enough and AOL like
enough in usability but I don't think they have the vision. They are too
much into being cool and elite. Their history of making dents in the
universe is pretty weak. They had 5 years to capture the world back in
the 80s. They had the Mac when MS had DOS. They sat back and basked in
their coolness while MS came up with Windows 1 and then 2 and then 3 and
then 3.1 at which time the world decided GUIs were the thing.

I would dearly love to see some real competition for MS. They have had
it so easy in that department for so long that they assume their market
will always be there regardless of how well or badly their product
performs. But who can blame them? There is no one to challenge them.

 

[Chad Harris]

I truly agree Bernie When there is competition (Firefox)--I haven't used
Opera in years but it sure has its fans who know Windows--I think you can
see the result. Firefox has been making steady gains on IE every month. I
think Firefox has many more options with its extensions and hacks.

I haven't used Linux and it's my loss (I'll get around to it hopefully
soon), but people who are Linux admins I know who are equally good with
Windoz and Mac point out its efficiency, stability and economy for all kinds
of workplaces --at least on the server side.

I think your point about "too fragmented" and possibly complicated for the
average desktop user who is totally gui conditioned is a good one. It
wouldn't be hard to come up with a version of a 'synthesized Linux' that
could be fairly wide-spread, but given most people's lazziness and
reluctance to do a minimum of reading or use Help in Windows, I don't see
Linux challenging as far as the OS's go, but I sure see it giving the
Longhorn servers a run for market share.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1995495,00.asp

MSFT Windows Server Map
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/42718/42718.html

Microsoft Financial Analyst Meeting 2006
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/speech/FY06/AnalystMtg2006.mspx

Kevin Johnson/Bob Muglia's (Server and Tools Chief) Speeches FAM 2006
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/speech/FY06/Johnson_MugliaFAM2006.mspx

CH

 

[Guest]

Linux Xandros 4.0 and PC-BSD 1.2

There was some brief hope that EU Software consortium
or Adobe would court and develope these OS's into a
commerical world class OS to kill off Windows, but it appears
institutional share holders are a conservative lot, so it may
not happen.

 

[Bernie]

And I agree with you too Chad (better stop meeting like this). It is
very good for the market that Linux is making inroads into the server
market. That has forced MS to improve their server offerings and will
continue to have that effect. Likewise Firefox. I've been using Firefox
for a couple of years and I love it. I was using Opera before that. I
just took a look at Opera 9 and that is pretty cool too. The mail client
of theirs looks very good from the brief thing I saw about it on their
site. If it is a stand alone app it might take over from Thunderbird as
my client of choice. The really great thing about Thunderbird for me is
the portable version that can run off a USB stick. I use a stick to
transfer it to any machine or O/S I'm working on.

If the whole idea of portable apps takes off that will be a needle to MS
too that might have beneficial effects. And I think portable apps have a
great future.