Well, friends, I am attempting this post from Bellsouth's newsgroup servers
on my old XP machine. Let's see if it works from here (as Bellsouth servers
currently reject ALL newsgroup posts from Windows Mail on Vista).
(5th try at posting)
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RobinS said:
I think the quote is "It's easier to beg forgiveness than it is to ask
permission."
Since when have you heard Microsoft beg anyone's forgiveness? It's more
like "Here, we did this. Now shut up and use it."
There's no way they could afford to do that. And there's a lot with XP
that worked just fine. Mine only BSOD'd on me once in 3 years. It's always
better to fix what you have than it is to scrap it and start over. Joel
Spolsky (
http://joelonsoftware.com) talks about this in his book, how
doing that was the end of Netscape. It took too long to start from
scratch, and in the ensuing years, MS took over the browser market. (Great
book, by the way, very very entertaining, and *not* a pro-MS book,
although he used to work for MS.)
I love Joel's work....got the book on my shelf and have actually read it (a
real feat with my schedule).
The problem with Netscape's rewrite is that they didn't have a competing
browser in the market while they did the rewrite, they tried to SELL thiers
(while Microsoft gave IE away) and they had real competition. Microsoft
would still have XP (which many people in businesses will run for the next
2-3 years at least) and they have no competition.
I think Vista looks pretty cool, and it's not just the UI that changed,
but that is what sells things to many customers. Do you think Apple would
sell as many iPod Nanos if they weren't so cute? I mean, for another $50
you can have a 30GB iPod, what's the point?
Businesses don't buy cute - at least not the ones that I service. And home
users usually have crappy PCs (like the cheapo Dell special of the week)
that barely run as is - they can forget running Vista unless they buy a new
PC, and most of them won't fork over the cash for that.
For the most part, when I mention Vista to anyone, they kinda shrug and say
XP is working just fine for them. I agree with them too. If it ain't broke
don't fix it.
(BTW, if anyone reading this wants to make their XP look and feel like
Vista - I've heard this is good -
http://www.jcxp.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7006 - but I haven't tried it
myself. You can also look at the tweaks on
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/pcs/the-poor-mans-windows-vista-no-upgrading-necessary-182597.php
or
http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/1089/make_xp_look_like_vista_longhorn_free.)
They did give people ample time. Apparently anything that was refactored
to be "Windows XP Certified" works under Vista without any major changes.
Some people did not want to spend the money to upgrade their apps to work
with XP if they could get their software to work within the confines, and
now their software won't work with Vista. (Example A: Intuit's
QuickBooks). It took MS 5 years to develop Vista, and they've been working
with customers on compatability for a couple of years now. How much
frickin' notice do people need?
That brings up the original question in this thread.....if Microsoft knew
aout the upcoming changes AND they were even writing the OS, why the heck
isn't VS2005 compatible? It's incredible...
Duh. Welcome to the corporate world. The purpose of any public corporation
is to make money for its shareholders. Period. Usually serving the
customers better aids them in that process. I think Vista and Office 2007
will do that. They are fairly impressive-looking, and after people get
over the shock, they will like it better than any version they have used
before.
People *are* suckers for "shiny" stuff - even if there is no other benefit
(sometimes even if there is less).
But, I have always found it more profitable to treat customers like friends
and family. The old golden rule thing. It's been around a lot longer than
Microsoft because it works. It works in business and personal life.
For instance, all it would really take to shake Microsoft is a Linux distro
willing to take a fresh look at how they are blowing things and make a
couple of key corrections. Heck, I'd help 'em do it. Not because I hate
Microsoft, but because competition is good for consumers - it even makes
companies stronger and spurs innovation.
I would point out that the developers are not MS's customers, the large
corporations are. However, they will not succeed as well w/o our
cooperation, and they know it, because developers help drive the business.
You are right. Although big corporations are the main targets, the
developers influence the big corporations' IT decisions. So, you'd think
their flagship development studio would work on their flagship OS, wouldn't
you?
I'll check it out; I definitely need to do something different. I want
something that will scan my e-mail, and let me scan my drives when I want
to. I don't want something (McAfee and Norton) that scans every single
document every time I open it. I turned ActiveScanning off, and McAfee
puts up messages about how my system isn't protected every time I reboot,
or standby and come back. It's really, really annoying. But when I open a
solution with 80 classes and a bunch of forms, I don't need all of them
to be virus-scanned. I *know* where they've been. ;-)
So will this product you've recommended plug into Outlook and scan my
e-mails? Does it do active scanning? I appreciate the information. I've
about had it with the big ones.
It does scan your email (in and out). It does do active scanning (which can
be disabled without annoying messages resulting from that decision), but it
is so fast that I haven't even noticed it at work (except when it finds a
virus in the incoming email and alerts me).
The big ones (especially Norton) fell for the whole .Net thing and screwed
up their products. They are bloated and slow.
Even Microsoft doesn't use .Net to do most of its internal coding (if they
did - it would probably be compatible with Vista). So, why do we?
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--
Jim Hubbard
"The democracy will cease to exist when
you take away from those who are willing
to work and give to those who would not."
- Thomas Jefferson
)