OT Bill Gates tells senators "we need more foreign programmers to remain competitive"

[Mxsmanic]

At least Mxsmanic isn't calling Office a single application.

Office is a single application in a marketing sense, and also in a
technical sense from some viewpoints.

Name the biggest non-Microsoft owned money making application.

Hmm ... not sure. In my own case, the cost of Quark XPress alone
dwarfs my entire investment in Microsoft applications. I think my
investment in Adobe software is also quite a bit larger.

We've been over this before. Microsoft's revenue dwarfs the sum of
all other personal computer software publishers.

But the revenue of all other software publishers dwarfs the revenue of
Microsoft.

That's what Microsoft defenders and other clueless people were
saying during the Microsoft trial six years ago. There is no sign
whatsoever of Microsoft losing market share.

I see signs of it. More importantly, Microsoft is far too dependent
on far too small a number of revenue sources. Without Office and
Windows, Microsoft would fold, and without either one of these two
products, Microsoft would be severely crippled. The company has far
too many eggs in far too few baskets. This has long been recognized
as a problem for the company, but investors seem willing to ignore it
as long as the company seems to be making money.

 

[Mxsmanic]

Pretty soon the Mac OS or something will all of its features and full
compatitibility will be available for PCs. Then what?

Then nothing, unless Apple lowers its prices to make its products
truly competitive with PCs.

Ultimately we will all be using some kind of Unix type OS, with
unlimited flavors but a base of open-source code.

There is absolutely no way to know what we will be using in the
future. About all we can say is that it will either be Windows or
something else.

Meanwhile, MS is plodding along with an ex-CFO at the helm, mired in
the torpor of quarterly earnings targets, hoping to cram a new desktop
OS down peoples' throats and get a fresh run out of the deal. It
can't last forever.

I agree. Bill Gates made the company, and he is no longer in the
driver's seat. I knew there was a problem as soon as MS declared its
first dividend.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Then nothing, unless Apple lowers its prices to make its products
truly competitive with PCs.

Well, if the Mac OS will run on PCs, Apple will have relinquished its
closed architecture.

There is absolutely no way to know what we will be using in the
future. About all we can say is that it will either be Windows or
something else.

Only a fool hesitates to predict the future, because such predictions
are quickly forgotten unless they turn out to be true, in which case
the prognosticator gets a cheap halo.

That is why I confidently assert that Unix, or Linux, or some flavor
of nix, is the wave of the future. Or, to be more precise,
open-source code is the wave of the future as developers find it
necessary to port to various interfaces, different sized screens,
different keyboard layouts, etc. etc.

Mark my words.

Charlie

 

[John Doe]

Office is a single application in a marketing sense, and also in a
technical sense from some viewpoints.

Okay then, you're still silly.

Hmm ... not sure.

No surprise.

In my own case, the cost of Quark XPress alone
dwarfs my entire investment in Microsoft applications. I think my
investment in Adobe software is also quite a bit larger.

That is meaningless to anybody else.

Microsoft's net income... 10 billion.
Adobe's net income... 266 million.

And last I heard, Microsoft has Adobe in its sights. If so, that
means no more Adobe.





<Snipped rest of the usual semantical nonsense>

 

[John Doe]

The penny dropped when I realised he was snipping my posts down to
half sentences to move away from his early indefensible
statements.

You have no argument, you are just an insulting tough guy Wanna-be.

Regards

Martin



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Subject: Re: OT Bill Gates tells senators "we need more foreign programmers to remain competitive"
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[H. Seldon]

John Doe rattled our cages with this on Thursday 3/30/2006

Bill Gates was in Washington this week, as usual lobbying for an
increase in H-1B visas. The richest man in the world earned his keep
when he looked our president in the eye and (without laughing) said
"Microsoft needs cheap, easy to control foreign programmers to
remain competitive". Both Bill Gates and our president probably get
a good laugh out of that one.

If it weren't for the Wall Street investors consumate greed, maybe old
Bill wouldn't be looking for all that cheap labor. Must satisfy those
double digit returns money grubbing sons-a-bitches. The people who
contribute the least, demand and get the most. Present day proof? Oil
industry.

To satisfy those demands? Cheap labor.

--
_____________________________________________________________

That's all,


"Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get
you"

< Colin Sautar >

 

[Mxsmanic]

Well, if the Mac OS will run on PCs, Apple will have relinquished its
closed architecture.

It doesn't run on PCs.

Only a fool hesitates to predict the future, because such predictions
are quickly forgotten unless they turn out to be true, in which case
the prognosticator gets a cheap halo.

That may be true for predictions alone, but when predictions are
enshrined in engineering or business decisions, they tend to be
remembered whether they are true or not--and since most predictions of
the future are incorrect, only a fool would make predictions that are
likely to be so enshrined.

That is why I confidently assert that Unix, or Linux, or some flavor
of nix, is the wave of the future. Or, to be more precise,
open-source code is the wave of the future as developers find it
necessary to port to various interfaces, different sized screens,
different keyboard layouts, etc. etc.

Open-source cannot work because it is not economically viable. The
world's software cannot be written by geeks working in their bedrooms
part-time for free on only the projects that happen to interest them
at any given moment.

 

[Mxsmanic]

And last I heard, Microsoft has Adobe in its sights. If so, that
means no more Adobe.

Microsoft has always had Adobe in its sites, but it lacks ammunition;
that is, MS does not have the technical competence necessary to
compete with Adobe. Remember PhotoDraw 2000?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

It doesn't run on PCs.

Connect the dots. Apple has gone to Intel, and their OS is
unix-based. They are ready to challenge MS again, but the cost will
be the loss of their proprietary hardware.

Apple has a history of taking risks, most of which don't pay off, but
they have hung in there. I think their perilous history has poised
them to take advantage of device proliferation.

MS has succeeded consistently because of risk aversion and ruthless
exploitation of their dominant position. They wait until something is
a clear winner, and then buy it in. But they can't control cell
phones, media players, home theaters, automotive computers, and
everything else all at the same time.

MS has never developed anything worthwhile on their own, and they
always look foolish when they try. Making the help file into a
cartoon paper clip... that's MS innovation. Even when Apple fails,
they don't look foolish, and sometimes they really nail it. They are
in touch with the marketplace because they haven't had the luxury of
controlling and dictating to the marketplace.

That may be true for predictions alone, but when predictions are
enshrined in engineering or business decisions, they tend to be
remembered whether they are true or not--and since most predictions of
the future are incorrect, only a fool would make predictions that are
likely to be so enshrined.

My predictions don't bear such a burden. I can drop them if they turn
out wrong, and refer to them for the rest of my life if they turn out
right. Nice, eh?

Open-source cannot work because it is not economically viable. The
world's software cannot be written by geeks working in their bedrooms
part-time for free on only the projects that happen to interest them
at any given moment.

No, that's a narrow view of what open source software is all about.

Put yourself in the situation of a hardware manufacturer that wants a
custom interface ASAP. Do you want to reinvent the wheel, or do you
want to build on an open-source base?

Computer hardware is getting less generic, and the OS will have to be
less generic as well. MS has XP media edition, a step in the right
direction... but the obsession is Vista, the magical new OS that
people are going to buy just for the pleasure of having a different
OS. That is what I mean when I say MS is plodding along... they have
a history of earning windfall profits with each big new OS release.
Well, it's been 4 years, time to pull the rabbit out of the hat once
again. Will it work this time?

It's quite true that the world will need a 64-bit OS at some point,
when RAM goes past 4gb in the average machine and 64-bit media apps
and games start to come out. But, it's an open question whether Vista
will be the only reasonable choice, or the best choice.

Charlie

 

[David Maynard]

Connect the dots. Apple has gone to Intel, and their OS is
unix-based. They are ready to challenge MS again, but the cost will
be the loss of their proprietary hardware.

Apple has a history of taking risks, most of which don't pay off, but
they have hung in there. I think their perilous history has poised
them to take advantage of device proliferation.

MS has succeeded consistently because of risk aversion and ruthless
exploitation of their dominant position.

You've got a chicken and the egg dilemma with your scenario. They couldn't
have a 'dominate' position before they succeeded with something so it can't
be the 'dominate' position that allowed them to succeed in the first place.

They wait until something is
a clear winner, and then buy it in. But they can't control cell
phones, media players, home theaters, automotive computers, and
everything else all at the same time.

MS has never developed anything worthwhile on their own, and they
always look foolish when they try.

Your knowledge of Microsoft's history is apparently lacking but that's an
interesting 'complaint' to make visa vie Apple when they've abandoned their
own O.S. for something they perceive an already developed 'clear winner'.

Making the help file into a
cartoon paper clip... that's MS innovation.

Close. Rather extensive context sensitive English language help and wizards
are more like it. Something the open source community has a tendency to
dismiss, or think that slapping up a man page qualifies as. If a car were
as 'O.S.' the difference for 'start car help' would be akin to: MS help
tells you to insert key, labeled "ignition key," into ignition switch on
steering wheel column. Turn key to the right till motor starts, then
release. Move transmission lever on center console to D... In Linux you'd
get an exploded engineering drawing of the automobile and the text
beginning with internal combustion theory, the history of gears and
materials technology as a background prelude to explaining the reason for
every nut and bolt in the thing so you can make the car do 'whatever you
want' by re-engineering it, except you'd have to find the Libc gas station
and decide whether you wanted to use, and install, the gnome ignition key
system or one of the 15 others that 'come with it' (see 'appropriate' man
page) bearing in mind you've got a KDE radio and your transmission isn't
fully supported yet (see man transmission).

That, btw, is one reason why MS succeeded.


<snip>

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

You've got a chicken and the egg dilemma with your scenario. They couldn't
have a 'dominate' position before they succeeded with something so it can't
be the 'dominate' position that allowed them to succeed in the first place.

They succeeded in making a sale to IBM, and IBM did the heavy lifting
for them. DOS wasn't exactly an MS innovation. Win 3x... well, it
worked. 9x? XP? Reactive engineering, every step of the way.

Your knowledge of Microsoft's history is apparently lacking but that's an

Sorry, I forgot Microsoft Bob.

interesting 'complaint' to make visa vie Apple when they've abandoned their
own O.S. for something they perceive an already developed 'clear winner'.


Close. Rather extensive context sensitive English language help and wizards
are more like it. Something the open source community has a tendency to
dismiss, or think that slapping up a man page qualifies as. If a car were
as 'O.S.' the difference for 'start car help' would be akin to: MS help
tells you to insert key, labeled "ignition key," into ignition switch on
steering wheel column. Turn key to the right till motor starts, then
release. Move transmission lever on center console to D... In Linux you'd
get an exploded engineering drawing of the automobile and the text
beginning with internal combustion theory, the history of gears and
materials technology as a background prelude to explaining the reason for
every nut and bolt in the thing so you can make the car do 'whatever you
want' by re-engineering it, except you'd have to find the Libc gas station
and decide whether you wanted to use, and install, the gnome ignition key
system or one of the 15 others that 'come with it' (see 'appropriate' man
page) bearing in mind you've got a KDE radio and your transmission isn't
fully supported yet (see man transmission).

Yeah, what you're talking about is writing good documentation.
Techies are averse to any kind of knowledge sharing and they are
purposefully obscure. But any company with a decent staff can do it
if they are motivated. Plenty of software companies produce good
docs.

Sell 'em short, I say. You'll be rich.

Charlie

 

[Mxsmanic]

Connect the dots. Apple has gone to Intel, and their OS is
unix-based. They are ready to challenge MS again, but the cost will
be the loss of their proprietary hardware.

I don't think they are willing to sacrifice the cash cow of their
proprietary hardware.

Put yourself in the situation of a hardware manufacturer that wants a
custom interface ASAP. Do you want to reinvent the wheel, or do you
want to build on an open-source base?

If I need a custom interface, then by definition it doesn't already
exist, so I'll have to pay to get it written. Open source won't help.

That is what I mean when I say MS is plodding along... they have
a history of earning windfall profits with each big new OS release.
Well, it's been 4 years, time to pull the rabbit out of the hat once
again. Will it work this time?

I don't know. I hope not. MS needs to be weaned from this habit.

 

[David Maynard]

They succeeded in making a sale to IBM,

A rather impressive coup considering they were not the presumptive supplier
when IBM bought the PC design.

and IBM did the heavy lifting
for them.

IBM did very little 'lifting' in the software department as they considered
it an unfortunate burden to selling the hardware.

It was Microsoft's vision to be a 'software company' at a time when most of
the rest figured the money was in hardware.

DOS wasn't exactly an MS innovation.

There are very few unqualified 'innovations', they're usually closer to
evolutions. CPM was cloned off of DEC's O.S. and Linux was cloned off of
Unix. Even the mouse is little more than an upside down trackball.

Win 3x... well, it
worked.

And that was saying a lot at the time, more than the competition could.

But the real secret was Word, which MS provided to Apple. Word was the big
ticket item and Windows ran it, which was the purpose behind developing
Windows: a means to run Word on IBM compatible PCs.

9x? XP? Reactive engineering, every step of the way.

Reactive to what?

Sorry, I forgot Microsoft Bob.




Yeah, what you're talking about is writing good documentation.

"Good documentation" is not the same as good help, otherwise the exploded
engineering drawing in my example would be 'good'.

Techies are averse to any kind of knowledge sharing and they are
purposefully obscure.

No, it's companies that are averse to sharing information but techies love
to demonstrate their technical expertise and wax forever on even the most
obscure details. It's just that they're usually lousy writers and tend to
presume 'everyone' knows planck's constant, and if you don't why bother?

But any company with a decent staff can do it
if they are motivated.

That's a lot of IFs not even counting the ones you left out.

Apple did try to capitalize on that, once, with their ads of how their
instruction manual was only this |--| thick but I can imagine some
wondering if that was simply because they left out half of it. Not saying
they did, just that touting size alone doesn't prove anything as I've seen
extremely short instructions that were also extremely bad.

Plenty of software companies produce good
docs.

'Docs' are not a help subsystem.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

A rather impressive coup considering they were not the presumptive supplier
when IBM bought the PC design.

Sure. Gates is a good businessman.

IBM did very little 'lifting' in the software department as they considered
it an unfortunate burden to selling the hardware.

They established the PC as the dominant platform, and MS-DOS therefore
became the dominant OS. If a different platform with a different
operating system had prevailed over the PC, MS might be a historical
footnote.

It was Microsoft's vision to be a 'software company' at a time when most of
the rest figured the money was in hardware.

Gates has a nose for money.

There are very few unqualified 'innovations', they're usually closer to
evolutions. CPM was cloned off of DEC's O.S. and Linux was cloned off of
Unix. Even the mouse is little more than an upside down trackball.


And that was saying a lot at the time, more than the competition could.

It is hard to make the case that Win 3x was as good as Mac OS 6, but
it had the installed base, thanks to the IBM PC and IBM's decision to
go with open architecture.

But the real secret was Word, which MS provided to Apple. Word was the big
ticket item and Windows ran it, which was the purpose behind developing
Windows: a means to run Word on IBM compatible PCs.

No, I can't buy that premise. Any kind of DPMI would have sufficed
for a word processing platform. MS developed Windows because the
market wanted a multitasking environment.

Reactive to what?

Reactive to new technologies developed outside Redmond, like the
Netscape browser.

"Good documentation" is not the same as good help, otherwise the exploded
engineering drawing in my example would be 'good'.


No, it's companies that are averse to sharing information but techies love
to demonstrate their technical expertise and wax forever on even the most
obscure details. It's just that they're usually lousy writers and tend to
presume 'everyone' knows planck's constant, and if you don't why bother?


That's a lot of IFs not even counting the ones you left out.

I've gone through a lot of software manuals. I can't see that MS has
done anything unique, or uniquely well, with their help files or any
other aspect of their documentation.

Apple did try to capitalize on that, once, with their ads of how their
instruction manual was only this |--| thick but I can imagine some
wondering if that was simply because they left out half of it. Not saying
they did, just that touting size alone doesn't prove anything as I've seen
extremely short instructions that were also extremely bad.

I couldn't agree more. I often find myself wanting more details. I
would say a skinny manual for something as complex as a modern OS is
simply a denial of reality.

I'm not a Mac user, much less enthusiast. I use Windows and I like it
fine. But, I recognize that it is designed to suppress competition by
taking other people's bright ideas and baking them into the OS. That
has worked for years, but I don't think it will work much longer,
because there are too many different platforms, and MS can't control
them all with closed, proprietary code.

Charlie

 

[Ed Medlin]

A rather impressive coup considering they were not the presumptive
supplier when IBM bought the PC design.

The "impressive" part of that coup was that Gates managed to maintain the
intellectual rights to Dos when he contracted with IBM. If he hadn't of done
that, I wonder where MS would be today? That fuzzy-face kid made the deal of
the century and I respect him for it. People seem to forget that Gates was
the little guy taking on the IBM giant for several years after that.

Ed

<snipped for brevity>

 

[John Doe]

A clown who hasn't figured out that Microsoft holds monopoly power.

 

[David Maynard]

Demented troll trolling.

A clown who hasn't figured out that Microsoft holds monopoly power.

 

[David Maynard]

The "impressive" part of that coup was that Gates managed to maintain the
intellectual rights to Dos when he contracted with IBM. If he hadn't of done
that, I wonder where MS would be today? That fuzzy-face kid made the deal of
the century and I respect him for it. People seem to forget that Gates was
the little guy taking on the IBM giant for several years after that.

He did the same thing with Word at Apple.

From the modern perspective it certainly seems an incredible blunder on
both IBM and Apple's part but the modus operandi back in those days was
everyone's computer was proprietary anyway so it didn't matter, or so they
thought. Sell 'DOS' and that just meant that, or so the theory went, you
had to buy an IBM computer, which is what IBM wanted to sell anyway.

 

[David Maynard]

Sure. Gates is a good businessman.

That's the name of the game, you know. But Gates wouldn't have gotten the
chance to be good at it if Digital Research hadn't first been so incredibly
bad.

They established the PC as the dominant platform,

Not really. The market did. All IBM had to do, and did, was buy an existing
design on the cheap and and slap their name on it. The rest was a foregone
conclusion.

At that time the 'micro-computer' market was mostly populated with various
small companies (an exception being Radio Shack) all with their own
proprietary hardware/software, mostly 'home' computers, and no one knew if
they'd be around next year, or the year after, or the year after that but
with IBM, the undisputed 'god' of computers, at least in the public's eye,
the 'uncertainty' was gone. You knew *they* would be around, not to mention
that, regardless of what was in it, the thing must be a 'real computer'
because it's an IBM. It's synonymous. You "just can't go wrong with an IBM."

and MS-DOS therefore
became the dominant OS.

Gates was perceptive enough to realize that and essentially gave DOS away
while Digital Research tossed the opportunity out the window, if you'll
pardon the pun.

If a different platform with a different
operating system had prevailed over the PC, MS might be a historical
footnote.

That falls into the flying pigs category.

Gates has a nose for money.

And how many folks do you know of that go into business to lose money?

It is hard to make the case that Win 3x was as good as Mac OS 6,

That wasn't the competition. It don't run on an IBM PC.

but
it had the installed base, thanks to the IBM PC and IBM's decision to
go with open architecture.

IBM didn't make that decision. They had intended the system to be
proprietary by virtue of their BIOS but it was reverse engineered and that
was that.

They tried to put the cat back in the bag with the proprietary MCA bus and
were darn near scratched to death by it.

No, I can't buy that premise. Any kind of DPMI would have sufficed
for a word processing platform. MS developed Windows because the
market wanted a multitasking environment.



Reactive to new technologies developed outside Redmond, like the
Netscape browser.

Well, shoot, every company reacts to that kind of thing, or goes out of
business.

I've gone through a lot of software manuals. I can't see that MS has
done anything unique, or uniquely well, with their help files or any
other aspect of their documentation.

Then you must either like wading through tech manuals or still think a tech
manual is a help system, or both.

I couldn't agree more. I often find myself wanting more details. I
would say a skinny manual for something as complex as a modern OS is
simply a denial of reality.

I'm not a Mac user, much less enthusiast. I use Windows and I like it
fine. But, I recognize that it is designed to suppress competition by
taking other people's bright ideas and baking them into the OS.

Well, let's see how that works in other industries. Someone comes up with
air conditioning, that can go in a car. Did not all of them eventually come
up with their own? Someone comes up with the idea of an 'automatic
shifter'. Did not all of them eventually come up with their own version of
it? Someone comes up with a car radio. Did not all of them eventually come
up with their own take on it?

No one in their right mind leaves their product stagnant, or passes up a
good idea, if they intend to stay in business.

That
has worked for years, but I don't think it will work much longer,
because there are too many different platforms, and MS can't control
them all with closed, proprietary code.

You're too wrapped up in 'MS take over the world' conspiracy theories.
There have always been other platforms, and platforms MS was not involved
with because it isn't their business.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Charlie Wilkes wrote:


You're too wrapped up in 'MS take over the world' conspiracy theories.
There have always been other platforms, and platforms MS was not involved
with because it isn't their business.

I'm mostly interested in where things will go from here. Yes, there
have always been other computer platforms, but for consumers, the main
choice has been Windows or Mac. Now lots of gadgets are full-fledged
computers. Each requires an OS. Is Windows going to dominate them
all? I think developers will find it easier to start with an
open-source kernel.

At the same time, the desktop has matured. In the 1990s, every
upgrade brought important new capabilities. But why should the
average person upgrade to Vista?

The OS market is becoming fragmented. We'll see what that does to
Microsoft's market position and profits.

Charlie