Comments on: Software via the Internet: Microsoft in 'cloud' computing

This week, the company plans to make available free software that connects its Windows operating system to software services delivered on the Internet.
The New York Times

[ppgreat]

If you start soon enough...

...you won't have to catch up.

MS is eating everyone's dust on this. And redirecting this huge
ship in another direction, with so many entrenched persona, is
not an easy thing.

Not that it can't be done. But it has to be done and in a very
non-Microsoft way going forward.

Unlikely.

[t8]

Google got there first

<quote>"It will be a race, and who knows who will get there first?"</quote>

Um we already have a winner.

Google.

[Troll Hard]

Sorry Yahoo got there before Google

Everything that Google had mostly, was had by Yahoo first.

#1 Web searches
#2 Web mail
#3 Web Calendar
#4 Groups
#5 Instant Messaging
#6 Web Finance
#7 Bundled Software
#8 Online photo album
#9 Online file storage
#10 Online maps

All done by Yahoo first before Google did it, and way before Microsoft did it.

[WJeansonne]

I'm afraid not. MS Was first with true secure Web services.

It's called Microsoft Outlook Web Access for Exchange.

[songteksten32]

The company

The company plans to making available free software that connects its Windows operating system to software services delivered on the Internet.
http://www.songteksten32.com/teksten/rammstein/index.php
http://www.songteksten32.com/teksten/ramones/index.php

[Had_to_be_said]

Welcome back... to mainframe-computing.

Welcome to perpetual-payment, to use your, proprietary, locked-down, dumb-terminal (errr... I mean "personal computer").

And, welcome to the potential of having your data, literally held-hostage, by an external-company, and its proprietary-formats.

And, welcome to perpetual, uncontrollable reformatting, and "updating", of the critical software... that you depend-upon.

And, welcome to the vagaries of absolute dependence upon a communications-infrastructure (over which, you have no control), and an external service-providers availability, and goodwill.

And, welcome to even greater use-control, revenue-extraction, and lock-in, by one company (namely: Microsoft).

And, welcome to truly being at the mercy of a corporation (whose whims, and merciless self-interest, have always seemed to have taken precedence over actual consumer-needs, OR, any form of ethical-behavior).

In short... welcome back to the 1950s-style, mainframe, dumb-terminal, thin-client, elite-priesthood, absolute-control, style of computing that the computer-people of the 70s, and 80s, fought so hard to liberate us from.

Boy, I cant wait to install the next "Windows-client"... (which, will be specifically-designed to give Microsoft the absolute ability to impose any fee, or use-limitation, that they arbitrarily-invent... by effectively turning my "computer" into little more than a Microsoft-"services" delivery-device).

I honestly think Id be less concerned about this ever becoming a reality... if I hadnt, personally-known of all the individual-components of this, well mapped-out, scheme of Microsofts. Id probably, also, be less apprehensive if I hadnt watched this being so carefully put in place, over the last few years. Or, perhaps Id feel better if Microsoft wasnt, so clearly, becoming absolutely-desperate as their, previous, death-grip on the computer-industry was, so evidently, becoming weaker by the day.

[maverick_nick]

Get real

You're not compelled to use Microsoft product, and you're sure as hell not compelled to use Microsoft services. So why is it that you're complaining about this strategy?

If you want, you can use a Linux distro, or Apple OS X, and Firefox, Opera, Safari, or any one of the other web browsers. Then there are online services as well as legacy applications available for those platforms.

So you have all of this choice, yet you still complain about Microsoft's apparent death grip on the industry. The fact of the matter is that there are many people out there whom use only non-Microsoft products, but even more whom chose to use Microsoft products.

So Microsoft continues to do well not because of a monopoly on the desktop, but rather the choice of consumers. What's the problem?

[gggg sssss]

subpoenas

welcome to access to your confidential data by any lawyer your spouse can hire.

[Penguinisto]

Article needs correction:

In the very first sentence.

MSFT didn't build IE to "fend off new rivals", since

1) MSFT wasn't in the browser biz, and therefore had no
competition/rivalry from them (Netscape for instance didn't
build operating systems), and

2) The likes of Netscape and such weren't "new" - they were
relatively established by then.

/P

[R. U. Sirius]

Snooze

Get real, the web 2.0 train left the station a long time ago. Microsoft is looking more and more like a dinosaur whose only plan is to attempt to emulate already successful models.

"Gee that iPod sells well, let's create a similar thing, color it brown, and call it the Zune."


"Gee that iPhone sells well, let's create a Zune Phone."


"Gee, this internet advertising and search sells well, let's create ZuneSearch."


"Gee, this web 2.0 stuff sells well, let's create the ZuneBlog."

Future products from Microsoft:

- ZuneMovie
- ZuneBand
- ZunePhotoshoppe
- ZuneFlash
- ZuneGo(Windows)Live
- ZuneTiger
- ZuneIllustrator
- ZuneTunes


All will feature the new brill ZuneBrownAqua interface.