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**Snowhog** · Oct 20, 2011, 01:08 PM

Re: Is time running out for all non Microsoft OS's

Microsoft doesn't want anyone to use anything but it's products - period. Now that in and of itself isn't a bad thing, as any product manufacturer desires that consumers purchase/use their product over their competitors - that's what capitalism is all about.

But, Microsoft goes further, actively trying, in any way possible, to thwart any competitor, whether it be manufacturer or user, from being able to integrate the products they make or use, with those of Microsoft. What Microsoft has, IMO, lost complete sight of, is that fostering competition, rather than trying to eliminate it, is actually 'good for business.' Ultimately, this corporate mindset will be the downfall of Microsoft.

**ICMike** · Oct 20, 2011, 01:21 PM

Re: Is time running out for all non Microsoft OS's

I hope you're right Snowhog but don't underestimate the blatant, stupid ignorance of most computer consumers that Microsoft is the single, best choice for everyone.

**Snowhog** · Oct 20, 2011, 01:22 PM

Re: Is time running out for all non Microsoft OS's

No, 'cause there our beloved Mac users, and Linux won't likely die anytime soon, if at all.

**ICMike** · Oct 20, 2011, 01:29 PM

Re: Is time running out for all non Microsoft OS's

Yes thank God for Mac. The only problem there is that you can purchase Microsoft Office for Mac.

**GreyGeek** · Oct 20, 2011, 01:35 PM

Re: Is time running out for all non Microsoft OS's

Linux and FOSS will always be around, as long as there are PCs and people want to be free.

IMO, Microsoft's evil will eventually catch up to it and spell its end. You can't fool all the people all the time, even if you bribe every member of Congress with "campaign donations".

**SteveRiley** · Oct 20, 2011, 01:45 PM

Re: Is time running out for all non Microsoft OS's

Believe me, I've wondered about this for a long time. The best explanation I can come up with relies much on the idea of selection pressure, a principle of evolution.

Office rose to dominance because its competition, frankly, stank. The vast majority of people who needed Office-like functionality had only one choice, so Office established itself as the monopolistic standard for document creation. Other products -- like Open Office -- attempt to assert their genes, but because their progeny (that is, documents) can't survive in a world dominated by MS Office, Open Office's genes lose the selection pressure battle.

In areas where Microsoft failed to establish an early competitive win, the situation is different. Notably, I mean small mobile devices. Even though Windows and Office vaulted to monopolistic positions on corporate desktops and laptops, Windows Mobile was sufficiently droll that competitors were able to proliferate. Such growth isn't free, of course; the cost for competitive growth is to provide some kind of compatibility layer that prevents the devices from becoming useless islands. Similarly, users of these devices, to benefit from their superior non-suckiness, had to bear certain costs: occasionally flaky sync, calendar conversion foibles, and other common annoyances. Windows Mobile's superior interoperability with desktop Windows fails to confer enough advantage to beat the selection pressures of flasher UIs and broader device selection, and so we see that Windows Mobile can't gain market share.

There's a third element to this, an element to which all of us should pay very close attention. As a share of all end-user operating systems, Windows is shrinking. Android and Apple are demolishing the desktop PC market. For example, at this moment I'm sitting in the Alaska Airlines lounge at the Los Angeles airport, making my way home to Seattle from Washington DC. About 20 people occupy the lounge. I'm the only one using a traditional laptop! (But with Kubuntu, not Windows, hahaha). Every other LCD- and battery-bearing device that I see here is either a tablet or a smartphone of some kind of A* variety (I walked around, casually glancing at screens, to verify).

[Sorry. I just sat my PC aside for five minutes -- a Singapore Airlines A-380 plane just landed. What a monstrous, beautiful beast!]

Rarely do these devices run any kind of Office program, Microsoft-originated or otherwise. If we continue with the evolutionary analogy, the Office organ is atrophying; its gene confers an increasingly non-selective advantage (that is, decreasing value) and could ultimately disappear from the gene pool. While I'm hesitant to draw definitive conclusions from these observations, I think it isn't unreasonable to predict that we could be witnessing the beginning of the extinction of Office-like functionality and thus the carriers of Office-like genes. May we live interesting times, indeed.

**oshunluvr** · Oct 20, 2011, 02:28 PM

Re: Is time running out for all non Microsoft OS's

I don't have time at the moment to comment with the verbosity of my esteemed forum-mate above (

), but I would say that Microsoft's own business model will eventually distroy itself by vurture that the technology will surpass MS's ability to keep up. Part of what Steve observed was those people being comfortable NOT using Microslop products. Soon, many of them will ponder (while rebooting their desktop for the fifth time in a single workday): Hey, If my Android phone, iPad, etc, can do a better job than this, why am I wasting my time with this crap?

I suspect if you took a well polished linux desktop, installed it on any Android users desktop computer and walked away, they'd be much happier. Actually, it amazes me how many organizations rely on virtually useless MS (and associated) products that should know better - like my company. :-X

**woodsmoke** · Oct 20, 2011, 02:48 PM

Re: Is time running out for all non Microsoft OS's

I teach at a college and have used, and advocated, Linux with them. There used to be a Linux person there and they went to a lot of trouble to "at least" have the website, blackbaord etc. to be compatible with Linux and MAC.

However, he left.

When the whole .docx thing started I talked with the IT people about trying to maintain compatibility with .doc format at least and they did that.

However, when Win7 appeared they installed it last year and IMMEDIATELY I could not get mp3s that I would take in on a usb stick to play, Win7 said it was an UNKNOWN FILE FORMAT..and POSSIBLY DANGEROUS to the computer.

I showed it, on the projector, to the students and they kind of got the idea that something not so nice was happening because they ALL....have mp3 players.

Then last semester they installed the latest Office iteration and this happened.

a) opening a powerpoint at the college using the latest office that has ALWAYS worked fine. It was in .doc.
b) In the time between lecture and lab(ten minutes) I had an idea to add something to the lecture which I was also going to use to introduce the lab and so inserted a single image on a single slide and saved as .ppt...

as I had ALWAYS done... closed and went to get a cup of coffee and a short break.

c) Students came back and while they were reading some instructions I reopened the .ppt and was IMMEDIATELY
informed by Office that the presentation had slides that WERE IRRETRIEVABLY CORRUPTED and that the slides had been replaced by blank slides.

The students SAW this on the projector. It was the same presentation and the slides that were suddenly irretrieveably corrupted were just randomply spaced through the presentation and that peeviously viewed slides, randomly, were replaced by white slides.

d) Ok I was furious to say the least.

e) I copied the ppt to a usb stick and took it home and played it on my Linux machine and it was perfectly fine, there was no "corruption" and there were also no "blank slides"

However, each of the slides that were "blank"(replaced by Office) had a an extra set of data ofr some kind in the permissions.

IN other words, the "larger file size" that you mentioned.

I removed that data set(it is illegible to me) and took the ppt back and STILL MS said it was corrupted, and other slides were then blanked.

f) When one is starting to open the file at the college the "insides" of the "folderview" is BLACK... indicating corruped files.

g) I then had an idea....I had backed everything up on a cd at the house.

h) next trip home and back I got the cd and popped it into the tray.... and opened the supposedly corrupted file..

i) Office immediately SAYS...the file is corrupted, and ALSO shows the BLACK PAPER in the file folder view but then...

opens it and it plays normally.

j) as a test I took the cd and the usb stick to another room and tried it.

Now one has to remember that all the computers are networked and all computers have access to the same file.

in the OTHER room... the file was still corrupted on the network and the file on the USB stick was corrupted but...

the file on the cd was NOT shown as being corrupted and played.

k) the first cut to the chase is that Office puts a data set of some kind on the file

IF ONE MANIPULATES THE FILE IN ANY WAY.....and saves as .doc.

If one, however, manipulates the file and then saves as "default"... .docx it plays fine.

MS ALSO puts a SYNERGISTIC file on the ORIGINAL computer HARDWARE that actively seeks out the data sets that may be on the file.

l) the second cut to the chase is that if one has a "non removeable" storage version of the file on a cd then...
a) if one is on the ORIGINAL computer that has the file on the computer hardware itself it will search for the data set but then also has to play it because the file on the computer can't alter the file on the cd.

If, however, one moves the file from the cd to the computer hardware itself, then the file "becomes corrupted".

m) the file that does the searching is unique, as of now, to each piece of hardware.

I showed this to the IT people and said that they were probably going to get complaints from teachers or students that would save in .doc and they just looked at me and said......this is a quote.

"Mr Woodsmoke....you just need to move on and get with the program like everybody else.".

The answer is simple, you have to save in .docx or .pptx and it will work ok. for now, until MS puts some other thing into their program.

The PREGNANT question that I have to ask...is Why is it that the PRESENT ADMINISTRATION'S Justice Department which is SUPPOSEDLY looking out for all us "people" not subpoening MS and getting an answer to this...

Because when you go to the MS site or the MS forums they say that "this is a known bug" and they are "attempting to deal with it".

It is no such thing, they are lying on the face of it and the lie can be EASILY proved.... just using the method of what I did above.

And DOJ and the present Administration HAVE to know about this...and are doing NOTHING....

if this was under the Bush administration the libs and everybody else would be stringing Bush and his DOJ up by their thumbs..

what cra##ola!!! (excuse my epithet!!) >

So....rant aside....

a) If the college's atitude is typical, they could care less about anything but MS.
b) save as .docx and .pptx and you should be ok.

woodsmoke

**oshunluvr** · Oct 20, 2011, 04:27 PM

Re: Is time running out for all non Microsoft OS's

Or opt out...

...I tell my friends and occasionally co-workers: "Sorry, I can't help you with that. It's a microsoft product, so support was included in what you paid for it - right?"

Same reason I don't put clamav on my computers. If you're dumb uneducated enough to use windows - you get what you paid for.

**Snowman1979** · Oct 20, 2011, 04:42 PM

Re: Is time running out for all non Microsoft OS's

Microsoft missed the boat on smart phones, which is the new growth market.

While they have a hegemony on the desktop, the future is with these smaller, leaner, networked devices. Intel is getting screwed too. They make good laptop CPUs, but lack the ability to make a truly mobile (think Atom) CPU for smaller devices.

I think as these devices evolve, Microsoft will continue to be left out in the cold because the two dominant players want nothing to do with them. When I bring up the idea of a Windows phone, most people (including me) immediately talk about it blue screening in the middle of a phone call.

Windows 8's new interface reminds me of Unity. Something revolutionary, but a swing and a miss. Market share aside, I think Microsoft is going to start declining soon. They will always be relevant, but what we are seeing is a market that is being turned into a commodity market.

Smart phones are relatively cheap, and the price keeps going down. They work very similarly, and for the most part are interchangeable. On the desktop, I see the same thing happening. Windows, Linux and MacOS all do the same thing but different ways. I use both Kubuntu and Windows 7, and I don't find myself on one system wishing I was using the other because some core piece of functionality is missing.

Eventually, the choice of OS will matter less and less. In the 1990s when the microcomputer and the Internet exploded onto the marketplace (yeah IBM introduced the PC in the 1980s, but it took another ten years before everyone had one), all desktop OSes were rapidly evolving and had their growing pains. Lately, the pace has slowed incredibly and the improvements are evolutionary, not revolutionary.

In a market where the choice of OS matters less and less, that can only hurt Microsoft and their hegemony, and only help Linux and OSS/FS.

**oshunluvr** · Oct 20, 2011, 04:47 PM

Re: Is time running out for all non Microsoft OS's

totally agree

**GreyGeek** · Oct 20, 2011, 05:15 PM

Re: Is time running out for all non Microsoft OS's

Originally posted by SteveRiley

...
Windows Mobile's superior interoperability with desktop Windows fails to confer enough advantage to beat the selection pressures of flasher UIs and broader device selection, and so we see that Windows Mobile can't gain market share.

Excellent comments, Steve!

At one time, several years ago, Windows Mobil had a 24% market share. By the time WP7 came out that share had corroded, if memory serves me correctly, to around 2%. WP7's market share climbed to around 7% by March of this year but since then their market share has dropped to 2%. This after a PR campaign that cost MS $400M !!. I found it interesting that iPad could capitalize on its interoperability with an Apple Mac but Windows Mobil hasn't been able to gain market share because it can interoperate with WinXP & Win7, which has a larger market share than Apple's laptops. (It may be that WP7 never had a true 7% market share if rumors that MS counted every device sold, setting on retail shelves, flowing through the channel or on Mfg inventory shelves to get 7% are true.)

Interestingly, MS has used it's corporate legal clout to extort, there is no other word for it, about $500M from various Linux and Android vendors, claiming that they violate MS Patents. For most of the victims it was cheaper to settle, and give MS $5 to $10 per sale, than to spend a bundle in court for the next 5 to 10 years. Barnes & Noble refused, as did Motorola. B&N also refused to sign the NDA concerning the lawsuit, which gave us a window on threats and techniques used by Microsoft. I suspect those techniques will become a topic of the coming lawsuit. After MS sued Motorola Google purchased it and now Google is in combat with MS in a court over the issue of Android (& Linux) containing MS IP. My suspicions are that none of the 235 IP claims that Microsoft made about five years ago are good enough to stand up in court. Either way, it will take 5 or more years before the court rules, if the SCO fiasco is any measure.

A lot can change in 5 years, and I suspect that there will be significant changes in the Internet, how ISP's vend connections, and the role of the cabal in controlling everything. Beyond a doubt Siri has raised the bar on the man-machine interface. Within 5 years we will probably see the end of touch screens, keyboards and mice for most non-business uses of tablets. I suspect that we will also see a lot of lawsuits by Apple and others as a way to stifle competition. IF they are successful the "Siri" interface may not develop as fast as I suspect it will.

Aside: In 1980 I and two other business partners purchased a distributorship from Excalibur Corp for a twelve state area for a product called SAVVY. It was a natural language-artificial intelligence database system, written in PolyForth. I started playing with Forth after I read a book called "Learning Forth" by Dave Brodie. It was funny and informative, the best book on Forth I've read yet. With SAVVY I created a skeleton BIG-5 accounting system and payroll package that I bundled with the SAVVY peripheral card that I sold to a market of 3,200 Apple computer retail stores. Servicing those stores is the reason I got my private pilot's license. During that year the profit on the devices I sold was several hundred $K, and my share was $100K.

SAVVY was remarkable for the time in its ability to interpret what you typed, regardless of how badly you typed, and respond with an appropriate answer. You could ask it something like "Give me alist of all my customers in South Dakota who are behind in their accounts recievable, and sort it by zip and address". If you liked what you saw you could follow it up with "gimme a print out". Or, "what is joe blow's telephone number", or, "do I have any appointments on the afternoon of October 17th", or just about any other question you could think of concerning the data you stored in the associated database system.

Near the end of our first business year I came into my Grand Island office to find a message from one of the techies I had trained in Lincoln. I called the Lincoln office and asked for Randy. "He's not here" the secretary said. "It's working hours. Where is he?", I asked. "He's gone". "Where'd he go?" "Bob laid him off." (Bob was one of my business partners). "Why?". "He's laid everyone off and closed the store." "WHAT!". I called Mike, my other business partner, Bob's son, who did the accounting for the business. He was in shock. His father had secretly created a dummy corporation in his wife's name, moved all of the assets out of our SAVVY business, and his electronics store business, into that dummy corp, leaving behind the liabilities. Mike and I lost our share of the profits. So did Bob. His wife was in a relationship with a guy who Mike said was a member of "Hell's Angles", and she rode off to California with him on his motorcycle carrying $250K. Bob had purchased a bar in South East Nebraska and gave it to his son. He went down there and told his son he was "taking over". His son had deed to the bar and gave his dad a room over the bar and a broom to sweep it out. Bob died within five years of alcoholism.

There's a third element to this, an element to which all of us should pay very close attention. As a share of all end-user operating systems, Windows is shrinking. ... I think it isn't unreasonable to predict that we could be witnessing the beginning of the extinction of ....

Microsoft itself. Before that happens I predict that the MS board will eject Ballmer, which will be a strong signal that "the end is near"...

**woodsmoke** · Oct 20, 2011, 10:12 PM

Re: Is time running out for all non Microsoft OS's

GG I am offended....you SAID in no uncertain terms that you were going to "bow out" so some of the REST OF US could maybe get a word in edgwise....but nooooooooo you keep showing me up for the absolutely moronic old doof that I am...

I think that I shall go to some other forum where there are not such intelligent people and post there....maybe a MS forum!!!

woodverypithyggsmoke

**Detonate** · Oct 21, 2011, 07:14 AM

Re: Is time running out for all non Microsoft OS's

I attend a conference every year which is mostly a three day series of power point presentations. We ran into this problem with MS Office last year with all of the presentations being borked by the the writer of the presentation upgrading to the latest MS Office. We are given all of the presentations on a CD for reference during tax preparation season. None of us could open the ppt files. The writer of the presentations had to downgrade to make usable copies of the files. Actually he installed OO and made the new files and now everyone can open the files. All of the 200+ attendees at this conference are now using OO or Libre. I'm the only one using Linux.

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Is time running out for all non Microsoft OS's

Is time running out for all non Microsoft OS's

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