Comments on: Watching the 'Microsoft killers' come and go

Responses to an earlier column suggest that Adobe may indeed be onto something, says CNET News.com's Charles Cooper. What do you think?

[OziIan]

Killers?

I missed the Friday post - so I have no idea what others have said there.

I believe there is no such thing as a "Micro$oft killer".
Remember OS2? It had a VERY big backer, was supposed to be an "M$ killer"' and where is it now?. Gone - along with the valve amplifier - for use of OS2-iphiles and audiophiles only (respectively).

The best anyone can hope for, when competing with M$ is to turn out a niche product, too insignificant to worry M$, and hope it will be profitable (a couple of million dollars a year would be nice)
Example: Opera browser; Apple

Or else create a fantastic product then wait for one of the bigger fish to buy you out.
Example: XTree Pro, Ghost, DriveImage (by Symantec)

Create a fantastic product, then HOPE M$ will pay you some money to incorporate your product in it's Windows OS
Example: ThumbsPlus

When all else fails, the very deep and litigeous M$ pockets seem to sweep all aside. M$ can even afford to take on state and federal governments. Win some (in USA) and loose some (in EU).

Or M$ simply buys a good product out for the bit they want and bury the rest. "You want $500 mil for your company? Gee, that's cheap. OK"
Example: Do we have space to list a few thousand companies here?

Oops, I forgot to mention that Micro$oft simply incorporates someone elses ideas (don't worry if it's patented or not) and calls it their own.
Example: original DOS; the GUI environment; more recently, trying to buy out (OK "pursuade") Standards bodies around the world that its version of "Open Document" is the way to go - long after ODF had been a "de-facto standard". (Open Document standards & Microsoft in one sentence is an oxymoron, anyway). Fortunately that hasn't happened - yet - but given time and money, LOTS of MONEY to be exact, it probably will happen.

Since the beginning of PCs, it seems, M$ has bullied its way to be the King of the Castle. It intends to stay there. The only "Microsoft Killer" out there is Microsoft doing all the killing, I would suggest.

[Jortibereal]

....ugh

Why do you feel the need to say Micro$oft and M$? Yeah, I know you're talking about how greedy Microsoft is. It's not like Apple or any other tech company likes money. Only Microsoft, right?

...Grow up. Microsoft may have deeper pockets than most tech companies, but any company likes making money just as much as Microsoft does.

[UrbanBard]

Microsoft can, and will, be taken down.

It is a monopoly, after all, and it shares the sins of all
monopolies: high prices, poor products and services. What was
the secret of Microsoft's success? That the IBM compatible
clones needed a single operating system. Since Apple would not
sell to them, that left Microsoft.

Of course, Microsoft lied, manipulated and stole to get its
Windows OS accepted. It financed IBM's OS/2 and then sank it. It
persuaded all the competitors to its Microsoft Office application
to waste their money on OS/2. So, when Microsoft sank OS/2,
down the tubes went Ashton-Tate, Lotus, Borland and
WordPerfect. When Windows 95 come out, it broke all their office
apps leaving Microsoft Office supreme. All this is detailed of the
Department of Justice's monopoly trial. But here is a different
link.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/TechQ307/Entries/
2007/9/19_Office_Wars_4_-_Microsofts_Assault_on_Lotus_%
26_IBM.html

So, who could take Microsoft down? Adobe? Not likely. Microsoft
has been doing a good job of shooting themselves in the foot,
but that is not enough. There needs to be competitor sneaky
enough to wait for decades for the change. One that has been
putting its markers in place patiently. One that has been
consistently overlooked because of it's niche position. One who's
leader has said the OS wars are over. But, they are not.

But that competitor is not ready yet. Times are not yet ripe.
Microsoft is not yet corrupt enough and technology changes
need to occur. It won't be a single company that will take down
Microsoft. Microsoft's enemies will gobble it up from all
direction.

A Tsunami is coming. The earth quake has already happened,
but the waters are yet to rise.

[Penguinisto]

Correction:

OS/2 and Windows have the same mother. OS/2's big problem was that it ran both Win32 and OS/2 code natively... so why bother with buying OS/2 when you could simply copy your buddy's 6 floppies with Windows 3.1 on it?

No apps, no compelling reason to buy the OS underneath it, so Windows won that round.

/P

[jeremyblaze]

remember when?

Ah, the dregs of failed attempts to dethrone MS.

Lotus SmartSuite (been so long, I think that was the title)

Novell PerfectOffice
Novell (everything else)

Corel WordPerfect Office, Java WP, Linux WP, CorelLinux, and just about every 3rd press release.

Netscape
AOL
'World Wide Web'
D.O.J.

Only two companies have really had any success directly competing with MS: SUN (JAVA) and Intuit. Intuit being the only truly successful consumer software company that won a battle against MS.

And just for fun, a prediction: Corel will divest of WP, or release to open source like Mozilla, and be purchased by MS, in its full scale attempt to destroy Adobe. Bets?

[Betty Roper]

Blinkers firmly in place

In a discussion of Microsoft's vulnerability to AIR there's no mention of Ozzie's software + services and/or Silverlight.

... this must be CNet.

[ewelch]

Uh, right

Silverlight is a joke. It's got about as much chance of unseating
Flash as Arnold Schwarzenegger has of becoming President.

[t8]

Microsoft's biggest threat is...

Microsoft's biggest threat is a change in paradigm.

There is a move away from expensive programs that are stored on a hard drive to web based services and software. Also the rise and rise of the mobile phone will help this paradigm.

And it is Google that will benefit from this future.

So Google is a Microsoft killer and they haven't gone yet and they won't either.

Microsoft's biggest problem in competing in this Internet Age is all the resources that are needed to keep pumping money from their legacy software.

So they have left the door open for the likes of Google.

[alenas]

Google?

I am not sure that Google has pretty good future itself. Cause all they revenue generating model is in question from the start. They got lots of money from IPO, but not sure if they are doing anything usefull with it. Would not be suprised if Google will be on the long list of wasted start-ups that go bust. Creating free applications does not bring revenue...

[NickH]

There's alot of confusion here.

The orginal article was about Adobe AIR, which is Adobe's platform for DESKTOP applications.

(Not only am I sceptical that Adobe's platform can take on Microsoft's platform in this desktop arena, I also don't see it marginalising operating systems either)

This seems to being muddled with the issue of a general migration towards web-based applications. If anything is gradually marginalizing the OS, it is this, and this has NOTHING specifically to do with Adobe - who is just one of many tool vendors in this market.

There is an overlap, and its here: The browser is ultimatley a poor platform for application development. To take things to the next generation, we need to move beyond HTML/DOM/Javascript. Ajax solves some issues, but fundamentally does not break out of the HTML/DOM/Script paradigm.

What was exciting about Java all those years ago, was that it appeared this needed shift. My personal opinion is that it failed in large part because it was far too much a generalist, and didn't focus on building great presentation layers. That's what we want the browser to be: a host for our presentation layer.

So, fast forward to today. We have Flash and Silverlight. Both are technologies for breaking out of the HTML straightjacket and building next generation web based applications, both providing excellent presentation layer capability.

We can argue about which gain developer mindshare (I lean towards Silverlight), but really, its not important. One or both of these technologies will gain significant traction over the next years, and will bring in a world where web apps are just so much better than we have today.

It's often said that the real Windows Killer will come from the place least expected. How ironic then, that Microsoft's own Silverlight might be setting itself up to be "the Killer".

[maccam--2008]

Huh?

"Microsoft killers...(starting with the Apple Mac and going from
there)"

Isn't this backwards? MS developed Windows partly and Office for
Windows as a result of their experience writing apps for the Mac--
Excel and Word (and Power Point) were Mac products long before
they were Windows products.

[kingwr]

Facts

While you are right about Excel and PowerPoint, MS Word was not developed for the Mac first. MS Word was ported to the Mac from the DOS version a couple of years after its release for the PC.

[alenas]

Microsoft killer will be Bill G.

Microsoft has only one killer - it is itself.
I think they are reaching a point when they have so much money that is hard to manage and there are too many people sitting on top of that $$$ pile. Big problem is that US dollar is losing value rapidly and if they do not use it - they will be left with nothing.
MS projects that really need cash - can not get it. That's why innovation is hidding somewhere in the toilet - afraid to go out and show itself.
I think Bill and other people in Microsoft knows about that and the first thing they could do is to start taking company apart. They are letting Bungie go. Maybe that is a first sign?
They could create a lot of small companies (one for office, one for windows, etc...). Then those little companies would be able to compete between themselves, that way increasing productivity and innovation.
Microsoft definitely needs some radical change. They have lots of smart people - so lets see what they come up with :)

[Troll Hard]

That is what the DOJ should have done

break Microsoft up into smaller parts.

MS-OS for Windows.

MS-Applications for MS-Office, MS-Money, MS-Works, etc.

MS-Games for Video Games and the XBox.

MSN for Internet access and web portals, also Media Player and Internet Explorer.

MSDN for Development tools.

The smaller Microsofts, or Baby Softs, or whatever can compete with everyone else, and not carry on the huge debt that Microsoft has or have the advantage of the huge R&D budget or be able to bundle software anymore.

[ThePoke]

.NET User Nightmares

I've had nothing but trouble with .NET as a user and am CONSTANTLY fighting it. I'm one of the best PC techs out there... and for years bragged about being able to fix ANY windows problem without a reinstall...

In the last two years, I've had to reinstall XP 6 times on 3 systems because of .NET hosing itself and every app relying on it to the point of no return.

I haven't done any development on .NET and my experiences would keep me from even THINKING about deploying anything based on it... because once one app hoses, NOTHING that relies on it will work right... and then the user is down for days sorting out the mess.

(And of-course, most people think system restore will save them and it never does with .net nor does remove/install windows components).

[ThePoke]

Forgot to mention...

When I reinstalled XP the last two times? I flushed the last month or so remaining on my Symantec Systemworks and other .NET-reliant software.

As a user, I don't like software that wastes a week of my time and takes my whole system down...

[NickH]

Do you have more details?

I'm a software developer, and have built a number of appplication with .Net, including commercially sold software packages and internal applications for large organistaions.

I would estimate that these projects together have in excess of 20,000 users. Thats probably split 50/50 desktop/web apps.

I've not come across one instance of the .Net framework becoming 'hosed'. I'm really interested to know how that happens. Can you not simply re-install .Net? What version of .Net did this happen too?

[Gunady]

You are one in thousands.. or even millions

I have implemented dozens of .NET application, including products that heavily depends on .NET framework, e.g. SharePoint, MSCRM, etc, to Custom Solutions, ranging from Web to Windows Application.

I haven't even once experienced .NET behaved like what you have mentioned. I come from developer background (ASP to ASP.NET, VB6 to C#), and now more on consulting. Yes, I complain limitation and defect/bugs of Microsoft application, but .NET is one of the most stable component in Microsoft environment. Sadly, Visual Studio comes with numbers (lots) of bugs, but one of the major (if not one of the best) IDE in software/hardware programming so far. The only time that .NET failed was when I install SP1 of VS2005, that requires 6-7GB, which I don't have. Damn.. I blame VS SP1 though. But, a little tweaks here and there, solve the problem.

[Gunady]

And you should feel sad ..

because you cannot enjoy the luxuries of what Virtual Machine (.NET Framework or Java Runtime or recently Adobe) can offer you in software programming world. All major software goes to that direction.

I assume from this statement "because once one app hoses, NOTHING that relies on it will work right", that you won't use Virtual Machine in the future.

[ThePoke]

More details

Esp. with sytems with XP Media Center, the .NET becomes corrupt with auto-updates. Because MCE relies on .NET 1.1, the option to uninstall/reinstall is removed from the user (but can be manually forced, but then usually what caused it to become non-functional also keeps uninstall/reinstall from working often-times). This leaves the system in install limbo...

With .net 2 and 3, if 1.1 isn't there, it will use new code within 2 and 3... but problem is, there's usually enough of 1.1 to trick it into continuing to use the broken 1.1 dlls and code.

So on MCE systems, I turn autoupdates off, but Symantec has a habit of turning it back on...

This is a known issue and there are a few websites by MS techs and developers with manual workarounds... and after following their directions to the letter, got to the end of their suggestions and their conclusion "sorry at this point, rebuild is your only option".

I don't take rebuilding mature or mission-critical systems lightly and it's a sucky way of doing business... a user should NEVER have to rebuild.

Oh - and I did restore the system from backup the one time and that night, Symantec turned autoupdates back on... system updated itself over night and we were back to square one...

[rcrusoe]

No one is going to kill Microsoft

but their inability to be successful anywhere but the desktop OS and Office software could make them very, very sick.

Platform agnostic software is going to continue to grow making choice of operating system less important.

Other office suites will continue to erode their market share, however slowly.

With less money coming from these cash cows MS will have to reduce the money they currently dump into their "blackhole" projects (XBox, Zune, etc.)

Rather than try to conquer the known universe, perhaps they should pick one world to concentrate on. Otherwise, everything could eventually slip through their fingers.

[Penguinisto]

They'll likely kill themselves.

They've stumbled with Vista. Hard.

If Vista were a movie, it would be called "Vista: Son of WindowsME"

[i]"Rather than try to conquer the known universe, perhaps they should pick one world to concentrate on. Otherwise, everything could eventually slip through their fingers."[/i]

Their only real hope is Office. Everything else is faltering, failing, or otherwise costing them a shedload of cash that they can ill-afford to waste.

/P

[bignumone]

No Micro$oft killers?

Sorry, I had to use the "$" because it bugged someone. It bugs
me that it bugged him.
Anyhow, M$ (hee-hee) will kill itself, there will be no need for a
"killer". Substandard products and anticompetitive practices will
catch up to it as a company. People will stop buying the
products and go to others that are of better quality and more
user friendly. Possible partners will not talk with M$ (hee)
because they will be afraid M$ copy or outright steal novel ideas.
Although they are known for being very efficient, they are large
and process driven. You can not drive a company on process, it
gums up the works like...well...gum.
Can they change, but they won't. I predict we will hear about the
company beginning to shrink by 2010.
I do believe I will be alive to hear the words shouted; "M$ is
dead, long live M$!"

[Al.Capital]

Strategy In Place

The Adobe strategy is nearly perfect for cutting off a Microsoft retreat following Redmond's recent blunders with Google. Basically, Adobe had figured out, a long time ago, that it can simply displace a large part of Microsoft's potential core market, in Microsoft Office applications. Adobe will take the high end and Google will take the low end. When Microsoft tries to back out of its application competition with Google, they will find that Adobe "magically" introduces a spreadsheet/graphics application, that will complete their office suite. Amazing as it is, Ballmer has not yet responded to any of these strategic threats by Adobe. What are they thinking in Redmond? Ballmer, Adobe Office is around the corner poised to complete the "pincer", and Google Office is right in front of you. For more MSFT and other commentary visit:

http://mnrtrading.blogspot.com/

[Xenu7-214951314497503184010868]

Microsoft Kills Itself

Nobody will every kill Microsoft. Microsoft will kill itself, be split up and sold off to other software companies that can actually innovate.

[Troll Hard]

The big reason why Adobe Flex is no MS-Killer

is the $499 price tag:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/

Not when Microsoft offers the Express Edition of Visual Studio 2008 Beta for free:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/express/default.aspx

The Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions are available for free download here:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/express/aa975050.aspx

I am sorry, but how can you beat free? True they are not as powerful as the Professional edition and above, but they are free development tools that can use the .Net framework, and the .Net Framework is easier to install than the Flex framework, but the .Net framework is better documented and has more books written about it.

I did some Visual Studio 2005 Visual BASIC 2005 training videos from Visual BASIC 6.0, and Microsoft gave me a free version of Visual Studio 2005 Standard edition for answering a survey.

Adobe wants me to pay $499 for the Flex development tool, or else I can try the trial with the time bomb that cripples it so it won't work later unless I pay for registration.

Where is the Flex Express Edition?

[TheConnatic]

Reply to - The big reason why Adobe Flex is no MS-Killer

Actually you can develop in Flex for free, as the SDK is free, Eclipse is free and you can get a free command line compiler.

What you are paying the $499 for is a very nice tool with lots of extra capability for - instance proper Debuging.

And i have used the Visual Studio Express Editions, and the limitation built into it like not being able to compile a .dll mean that to do anything worthwhile you need the Professional edition.

.Net applicaiton are also horrible to create an installer with Express Editions you dont have the normal installer in the Express Edition but something called OneClick. It took me over a week to get a progam i wrote to install on a normal PC running windows XP due issues with Security issues and Certificates e.t.c which are far from straight forward to understand.

The Express Editions are for hobbyists and not serious development, the Development environment is a lot nicer than previous Visual Studio editions and initially i enjoyed the programming experience, but then i had to actually package an application and that is an absolute nightmare.

[Penguinisto]

Two problems:

* Visual Studio Express is severely limited in what it can do.

* Visual Studio 2008 Beta is time-expired, and well... it's a Beta. Not exactly something you want to build production-grade commercial apps on, no?

[i]"and the .Net Framework is easier to install than the Flex framework"[/i]

Please, tell me where to get this .NET Framework thingy for my Mac.

[i]"Where is the Flex Express Edition?"[/i]

I'll show you that as soon as you show me the cross-platform .Net framework (and no, Mono doesn't even come close to counting)

/P

[ServedUp]

Microsoft Killer - Apple MAC?

If anything Microsoft and "Windows" should be labelled the "Mac"
Killer. The "Mac" actually came first before "Windows".

Just setting the record straight, because Microsoft failed to kill
off the MAC OS during the Windows 95 - 2001 onslaught
because Apple and the "Mac" are still around. And by no means
is the battle for dominance over.. or the debate, obviously.

Microsoft lied about Vista, and its capabilities. Just to coax users
to upgrade. But looking past Windows, Mac OS X is clearly a
better choice, in fact its the original prototype of Vista in my
opinion.

[FutureGuy]

SilverLight

MS didn't create silverlight for nothing. Its there answer to Adobe and its pretty strong answer.

[Penguinisto]

Well... it isn't just the up-and-comers

MSFt stumbled badly with Vista. Very badly.

When I see even artists in a 3d hobbyists' group (http://www.renderosity.com) as a majority shying away from Vista (even the 64-bit-eager crowd is hooking onto XP-64), you know something's up. These folks are more the type to either use Windows or OSX... mostly Windows, by a large margin.

Most will be using XP until it croaks at this point.

Maybe this new "SP 1" for Vista may change that - I'm not holding my breath (and I strongly suspect that this thing could be just a warmed-over XP in the literal code-base sense). Maybe it won't change things, especially the prevailing public perception that Vista is both a dog and a hog.

Long story short - it isn't just the fact that better alternatives are out there, but what's finally turning Joe Sixpack's eyes away from the MSFT glare is the fact that Vista quite frankly blows chunks. Microsoft stumbled.

/P