MS Expecting To Lose Money On Xbox Beyond 2008?

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ask Samsung, Novell, IBM, SUN and others


Pozdrawiam.

Blips at best compared to the might that is Microsoft.

 

[George Macdonald]

Early Word DID out-do WP by presenting an easy to use WYSIWIG word
processor. Of course since then Word has mutated into such a bloated
beast that it barely resembles a word processor anymore.

WP6Win was half-baked as a GUI interface; WP7 fixed most of it that from my
POV - a shame they took so long that many had already been borged... by, in
hindsight, unscrupulous marketing practices. Both WP6 and WP7 did a good
enough job of the font presentation and it was still more useful for
serious work... from my persepctive.

Say what you will about Microsoft, but in this case, they actually did
have the superior product at the time.

Superior for their vision of a GUI - maybe.

Ironic? Most people look at me weird when I tell them about computers
that *don't* crash or need rebooting once a day/week... They've become
conditioned by the computer industry to expect crashes and unstable
programs. While the early versions of MacOS weren't very stable, it
quickly improved with each successive version. The same can't be said
about Windows. Win2k and XP maybe a lot better, but still don't come
close to MacOSX or Linux.

Did you not see the video? Admittedly another fool who can't get his Mime
types right - had to use IE to see it - but I thought the irony was clear
and seems to be reflected in your opinions above.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[Nicholas Andrade]

Netscape, why pay for something when IE does what I want and for free

Netscape was free to download. I admit it took a while on a 28.8, but
there was no reason to pay if you didn't want the CD.

Adios,
~Nick

 

[Khee Mao]

this is from the newest business week:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_16/art04_16/0416_88covsto.jp
g


some reactions on message boards to this

quote:

"Dammit. MS is not losing enough money! Quick launch Xbox 2 now!"

quote:

"The data was provided by Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

You'll find a case study of theirs or two on Microsoft's own site."

quote:

"From this graph the goal of Xbox program was clear; its sole purpose of
existence is to hurt SCEI by taking away market shares and not allowing SCEI
to recoup its investment, and MS will do everything in its power to continue
to hurt SCEI, profit be damned."

"This is not a joke. SCEI is going up against an opponent with a bottomless
bank account, a vastly superior development environment, and a long history
of successfully eliminating its rivals. SCEI can't possibly hope to recoup
its CELL investment against a rival willing to lose a couple billion to make
sure CELL fails...

It's kind of strange that it will be PSX3 that will be forced out of market
even though it is Xbox Next that's actually losing billions....

Bill Gate's Kill List :

WordPerfect
Apple Macintoshi
Lotus 1-2-3
IBM OS/2
Novell Netware
Palm Pilot
Netscape Navigator
SCEI PlayStation3(TM)"


quote:

"sweet. maybe Microsoft will have the ****ing BALLZ to put twin VPUs
(graphics processors) and 1 GB memory in Xbox 2


I mean, if Microsoft is allegedly putting in THREE ****in CPUs, they can at
least marry that with TWO graphics processors!"

....as if Sony doesn't have deep enough pockets?!?!?

 

[Cherko]

Oh yes, love the tabs. After getting so used to them, IE feels
terribly clumsy when I have to open more than a few sites.

Try MyIE2, it's an IE enhancer that gives you tabbed browsing, among other features.

http://www.myie2.com/

 

[Tony Hill]

Early Word DID out-do WP by presenting an easy to use WYSIWIG word
processor. Of course since then Word has mutated into such a bloated
beast that it barely resembles a word processor anymore.

Say what you will about Microsoft, but in this case, they actually did
have the superior product at the time.

Corel also managed to make Wordperfect an incredibly unstable
application as well. I actually rather liked the Wordperfect suite,
but switched to MS because I was unable to get any work done without
WP crashing! 4 service packs later and WP Suite was halfway usable,
but by that time I had already switched.

Microsoft Excel is another reason why MS Office sold well. For quite
some time it was far and away the best spreadsheet application, and
even now the competition is still left wanting for certain tasks.

Ironic? Most people look at me weird when I tell them about computers
that *don't* crash or need rebooting once a day/week... They've become
conditioned by the computer industry to expect crashes and unstable
programs. While the early versions of MacOS weren't very stable, it
quickly improved with each successive version. The same can't be said
about Windows. Win2k and XP maybe a lot better, but still don't come
close to MacOSX or Linux.

From an end-user/desktop perspective, Win2K and WinXP are VERY stable.
I usually make only one reboot a month for security fixes. For a
server I wouldn't appreciate that very much (my server-type system
runs Linux and gets rebooted about once every 12 months for kernel
recompiles and whenever the power goes out), but for a desktop that is
certainly acceptable. This is running WinXP Pro. Previously I ran
Win2K Pro and had similarly good success.

The only time I had regular crashing/rebooting was when my power
supply was in the process of committing suicide. Since I replaced
that several months ago the system works great.

For me this is a TOTAL change from Win9x. I managed to crash every
version of Win9x I ever used on pretty much a daily basis. Didn't
matter much what version I used (though WinMe and early Win95 were the
worst) or what hardware was used, even in the best-case I managed to
bring the machine to it's knees on a VERY regular basis. WinNT was a
big improvement here, but I still managed to crash NT from time to
time, but since Win2K Microsoft operating systems have been pretty
stable for desktop use.

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

Microsoft Excel is another reason why MS Office sold well. For quite
some time it was far and away the best spreadsheet application, and
even now the competition is still left wanting for certain tasks.

Please! MS-Excel does a few WYSIWIYG tasks well (fonts,
graph labeling) but is severely deficient in other areas like
calculations (recursion/circularity handled worse than 1983
Lotus 1-2-3 v1A) and statistics.

It all depends on your needs. MIcrosoft products are generally
considered "user friendly" because common, simple tasks are
easy to learn and perform. The cost is more complex tasks are
much more difficult or even not available -- "expert hostile".

From an end-user/desktop perspective, Win2K and WinXP are VERY stable.
I usually make only one reboot a month for security fixes. For a

At work, we are advised to reboot/repower MS-Win2k Pro at
least 2x per week.

server I wouldn't appreciate that very much (my server-type system

The MS-Win2k Pro servers running MS-Exchange Server seem to
need weekly reboots, often at peak times.

For me this is a TOTAL change from Win9x. I managed to crash every
version of Win9x I ever used on pretty much a daily basis. Didn't

Practicing "safe computing" and heavy admin (RegClean &
multiple defrags) kept MS-Win9* very stable for me at work
and my kids at home. Not more than one-two OS crash per
machine year. More app crashes.

-- Robert

 

[xTenn]

Please! MS-Excel does a few WYSIWIYG tasks well (fonts,
graph labeling) but is severely deficient in other areas like
calculations (recursion/circularity handled worse than 1983
Lotus 1-2-3 v1A) and statistics.

The design of Excel is the key component, IMHO. With the right add-in it
can get as specific as you need, while keeping the ease of use and
flexibility. Statistics, for example:

http://www.palisade.com/html/statto...tistics&OVKEY=excel statistics&OVMTC=standard

http://www.id-bs.com/xlfit4/index.asp?source=Overture-Excelstatistics-1

http://www.id-bs.com/xlfit4/index.asp?source=Overture-Excelstatistics-1

http://www.addinsoft.com/



You should be warned that, without the add-ins, there are known problems.
For a rather biased summation, check here:

http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jcryer/JSMTalk2001.pdf

Of course, if the issues mentioned above were as severe as discussed then
there would be no statiscal add-ins from reputable companies - yet the links
should prove otherwise. Excel is a tool, but even the best phillips
screwdriver will not fit every screwhead. ( Just for the record, I do
believe that Office in general is getting a bit on the chunky side and
personally prefer earlier versions, but I digress. )

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

The design of Excel is the key component, IMHO. With the right add-in it
can get as specific as you need, while keeping the ease of use and
flexibility. Statistics, for example:

Add-ins certainly help add missing functionality.

But can they repair broken fundamentals like calculation
order and handling on-purpose circularity?

-- Robert

 

[xTenn]

Add-ins certainly help add missing functionality.

But can they repair broken fundamentals like calculation
order and handling on-purpose circularity?

-- Robert

I can honestly say that I do not know for certain. No doubt an add-in that
calls its own functions could have a corrected methodology, but without
adhering to the more strict function set of said add-in it would seemingly
be quite easy to introduce error into a spreadsheet that up to that point
was correct. Not as easy to do given the mechanics and application
otherwise (add-in use and/or dependency), but I would still imagine quite
possible, particularly if such habits ( non-add-in use of related and/or
applicable functionality ) would tend to be recurring in building said
speadsheet by a given user.

Man, this thread is way off from the newsgroup I saw it in. Uh, Xbox
Rocks.

 

[The little lost angel]

But can they repair broken fundamentals like calculation
order and handling on-purpose circularity?

I'm curious how did other spreadsheet handled deliberate circularity?
Recurse until a stable solution is reached or ?

--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code

 

[Neil Hopkins]

I'm curious how did other spreadsheet handled deliberate circularity?
Recurse until a stable solution is reached or ?

Yep - the old dos version of Supercalc used to be good at things like
that. You'd set limits for the solution and the maximum number of
iterations and it would keep going as long as necessary.

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

I'm curious how did other spreadsheet handled deliberate circularity?
Recurse until a stable solution is reached or ?

Lotus 1-2-3 determines what it calls "Natural Order" (can do
columnwise & rowwise if desired), and then if circularity exists,
iterates for a fixed number of iterations. Check convergence by
hitting F9 while watching the sensitive numbers for change.

The circularity better converge by substitution or the whole
sheet will blow up.

-- Robert

 

[George Macdonald]

Please! MS-Excel does a few WYSIWIYG tasks well (fonts,
graph labeling) but is severely deficient in other areas like
calculations (recursion/circularity handled worse than 1983
Lotus 1-2-3 v1A) and statistics.

Alas poor Lotus Improv... progress dry-gulched again.:-(

At work, we are advised to reboot/repower MS-Win2k Pro at
least 2x per week.

Fine as long as you never get the Login "loop".

Practicing "safe computing" and heavy admin (RegClean &
multiple defrags) kept MS-Win9* very stable for me at work
and my kids at home. Not more than one-two OS crash per
machine year. More app crashes.

My Win98SE at home has never been right -- particularly annoying hangs of
Acrobat Reader 5.1 at startup or termination -- ever sinceTurboTax
"silently" installed IE5.5. All those in the office which I've pegged at
IE5.01 continue to function fine.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[Tony Hill]

Please! MS-Excel does a few WYSIWIYG tasks well (fonts,
graph labeling) but is severely deficient in other areas like
calculations (recursion/circularity handled worse than 1983
Lotus 1-2-3 v1A) and statistics.

It all depends on your needs. MIcrosoft products are generally
considered "user friendly" because common, simple tasks are
easy to learn and perform. The cost is more complex tasks are
much more difficult or even not available -- "expert hostile".

Sure, no one product is going to be perfect for all tasks, but I would
guess that for 90%+ of users, the combination of functionality and
ease of use made Excel the best spreadsheet out there.

At work, we are advised to reboot/repower MS-Win2k Pro at
least 2x per week.

In my experience that is definitely not necessary. I have a tendency
to pound my machine fairly hard, plus I run a fair amount of unstable
applications. While I certainly wouldn't say that Win2K never
crashed, crashes were VERY few and far between, especially after I got
rid of my Creative Labs SBLive!

The MS-Win2k Pro servers running MS-Exchange Server seem to
need weekly reboots, often at peak times.

I don't find that Windows makes a very good server operating system,
though I would suspect that if you're requiring weekly reboots that
there is a configuration, driver or hardware problem with that system.
Monthly reboots, maybe, but weekly is too much for a Win2K server.

Practicing "safe computing" and heavy admin (RegClean &
multiple defrags) kept MS-Win9* very stable for me at work
and my kids at home. Not more than one-two OS crash per
machine year. More app crashes.

My problem was that applications would constantly crash causing the OS
to become completely unstable until I rebooted. It was very rare that
I would actually get a BSOD, more that the system just would stop
being able to reliably run any applications (often not being able to
even start the app or start Explorer). With Win2K and WinXP this sort
of thing, for me at least, went from being a daily occurrence to
happening maybe once every 3-6 months.

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

Sure, no one product is going to be perfect for all tasks, but I would
guess that for 90%+ of users, the combination of functionality and
ease of use made Excel the best spreadsheet out there.

Quite possibly, but when it fials, it is in unexpected ways.

rid of my Creative Labs SBLive!

Bad hardware, or bad drivers?

there is a configuration, driver or hardware problem with that system.
Monthly reboots, maybe, but weekly is too much for a Win2K server.

Agreed. I think somehow the OS leaks memory from certain
thread conditions.

My problem was that applications would constantly crash causing the OS
to become completely unstable until I rebooted. It was very rare that

Are you sure you kept your Registry defragged?
This was a common symptom of needing the old
defrag-reboot-defrag-reboot-defrag sequence.

-- Robert

 

[Tony Hill]

Quite possibly, but when it fials, it is in unexpected ways.

I find that to be true about most computer stuff! :>

Bad hardware, or bad drivers?

Terrible drivers! What's worse, the terrible drivers weren't updated
for more than a year, despite having many known problems.

Agreed. I think somehow the OS leaks memory from certain
thread conditions.

I think whoever is administering that server should get on that,
honestly. If he/she really thinks it's a Windows problem, CALL MS
TECH SUPPORT! Seriously, your company is paying big $$$ for this
software, and that kind of reboot rate is not at all normal for an MS
Exchange server.

Are you sure you kept your Registry defragged?
This was a common symptom of needing the old
defrag-reboot-defrag-reboot-defrag sequence.

I did all kinds of things on all sorts of different systems, totally
lost count of the things I tried to get Win9x stable, but none of them
succeeded. Of course, it's been about 4 years since I've run Win9x
for any of my home systems and about 3 years since I've used it for
work or school, so fortunately now it's mostly just a distant and
thankfully fading memory.

 

[Doug Jacobs]

Terrible drivers! What's worse, the terrible drivers weren't updated
for more than a year, despite having many known problems.

Oh god! The pain! The awful searing pain!

I didn't understand how Creative managed to survive that whole debacle...
The installer for SBLive would cause Win98 to instantaneously reboot.
Others reported the same problems. I finally borrowed an old SB16 my
roommate had lying around and it installed flawlessly.

I ended up returning the SBLive, confused as to how this managed to escape
notice of Creative's QA staff, was shipped anyways, and not fixed despite
it being a "known issue" for months.

I think whoever is administering that server should get on that,
honestly. If he/she really thinks it's a Windows problem, CALL MS
TECH SUPPORT! Seriously, your company is paying big $$$ for this
software, and that kind of reboot rate is not at all normal for an MS
Exchange server.

Ha ha! You're funny. Microsoft's EULA literally says that any problems
their software causes is not their fault - in fact, they don't even
guarantee that their stuff will even work. So the fact this guy's
Exchange Server works at all is a minor miracle, according to Microsoft.

Microsoft Tech Support is as logical as, say, Military Intelligence, or
Jumbo Shrimp, or... In short, he's on his own.

My advice - ditch Exchange and use a *real* mailserver (preferably on a
*real* OS)

 

[JAD]

No problem, as the world will end sometime around then ;^)