As Greg Sullivan, the company's group product manager for Windows, told Tom's Hardware Guide last Thursday, Microsoft is sharpening, and to some degree, even trimming its focus to become a "platform company." That's far from a new term; what's new is the way Microsoft is implementing its platform strategy for Vista: Rather than develop a single, convoluted semi-standard (such as ActiveX) and ramming it through the default pipeline of the Web browser, Microsoft is embracing many of the alternative standards that have emerged in the development communities outside of its Redmond campus. But unlike those communities, Microsoft is stitching all these standards together - XML, XSLT, XAML, RSS, SOAP, LINQ, AJAX, and the list continues. By making all these standards come to life on the Microsoft platform in a way that no single vendor can make happen on the Linux platform, Microsoft is not only generating new and practical value that consumers can perceive - not just programmers - but also spotlighting the Linux communities' key weakness: their lack of cohesion among one another.

http://www.tomshardware.com/business...c_2005-02.html

it's true, cohesion is a negative point to linux- counter:

there are so many eager people working on linux stuff that a darwinian thing happens- the best survives.

I wouldn't be too worried.

titanium_geek

Have you seen the specs for Vista? If not, go here: http://www.apcstart.com/teched/pivot/entry.php?id=6. This will keep the average user from going MS any time soon. Not that I dislike Windows or anything, it's just the sheer minimums for Vista that does it for MS.

dont care about the specs for Vi$ta mate -thanks for the link anyway - I run Linux!

I was shocked when I heard (Jeremy's Podcast) about the Vista minimum requirements, and I agree that most people won't get a better system just to run it. However, most of the people that I come across, the average user mind you (not techs), have the belief instilled in them that they need to replace their computer every few years.

By the time Vista comes out hardware prices will have fallen enough to where the budget computers found in places like Wal-mart will include Vista.

One of the more surprising things I heard of regarding impulse buyers was years ago at a local Wal-mart. This was their after Thanksgiving "sale". They put junk computers at a really low price in a center isle and stack the other "regular" price systems around them. The customers in their frenzy (and yes I do mean frenzy, they literally trample each other as they dash towards this stuff) just grab a computer (or two) without checking the price and just pay for it.

If people do things like that, then they'll definitely upgrade for no better reason than Gates telling them they need to. It's sad, but I'm anything but optimistic when it comes to consumers.

"By the time Vista comes out"

We'll be commuting regularly for holidays on Mars.

LOL - same crap from M$

Microsoft may surprise us and actually ship by 2007. I'll reserve judgement on that until then. It does seem they're learning though; IIS 7.0 has an XML configuration file and it's more modular (add remove functionality based on config file).

It seems the behemoth is awake but perhaps still stumbling around in a haze.

"It seems the behemoth is awake but perhaps still stumbling around in a haze."

Yep, its from the party of the 90's where they drank a lot, slept around, and basically enjoyed being the big cheese. Now he's back in the office, and the guy in the Penguin t-shirt from R&D's making suggestions which people are listening to, and he's backtracking faster than his stumpy legs can carry him. He's gonna fall soon, and then everyone'll be happy.

I know of a few people that will not upgrade to this Vista M$ is coming out with. By the sounds of it will not be worth the hassle. They are happy with their computers and I doubt very much they will run out and by a new computer or upgrade theirs just to use Vista. This may actually be a good time for me to talk to them about Linux and see if I can get them to switch or at least dual boot.

I have a feeling that this Vista will be as bad, or worse, then their Windows ME(which to date is the worst Windows OS they ever made.)

I wonder if m$ is trying to go in the direction of the Mac OS. If they can get enough people to keep buying computers(and hardware) that is only compatible with their Operating system then they can push out other OS's becuase it will be to hard to change to something other then Windows. They have already done it in the past but I wonder if they are going to increase there efforts. Bad move if they do.

Either way I see this Vista as a disaster(my opinion.) Of course they will always try and make the worst they come out with as beautiful as they can. Will they suprise us and maybe have the best and greatest OS out there? I doubt it very much, lol. You can't teach an old dog new tricks.


(I am in a hurry so I can't get into as much as I would lke to, maybe later if I have the time.)


Webwolf

If the people you are wanting toconvert are long time users of MS, you will have heck of a time trying to get them familarized with Linux. Have fun Webwolf.

You know when I wrote that post above, a couple of days ago, I would have argued with you. But I have been searching for a user friendly version of linux that others would feel comfortable with right off, for ex. Xandros, Linspire, Suse and Mandriva, but trying to figure out what the commercial software is that comes with any of them is difficult. Now for me I have no problem learning what I need to, and I can learn quick. But for someone who is use to MS their whole life then they need a good transitional type os. Something that not only has the basics of what MS Windows has but programs that can be installed easily without having to run around in search of dependencies, learning binary or source. Granted that is simple enough to do but some people have talents in other areas but not with computers and they just want their computer to work.

On top of that some of these forums you find around the Internet, Linux type forums, have some people that are just rude. It is like they don't want people to discover linux or they expect all people to be able to learn every little thing about linux. Maybe this is why MS is popular, I don't know. I would like to see linux grow and stay around but people need a different attitude and the Major Distro's need some major improvements(Which they are doing much better and I like the direction some are going in.) If this doesn't change more then people won't pay for something they are not sure of or may be a little above their level of computer knowledge(and like I said I am not talking about idiots, I mean people that have talents in other areas or maybe jobs that keep them busy so they don't have a lot of extra time.)

Either way. I still love linux and I won't be going back to XP and I WON'T buy Vista when I can by Linux instead. So I hope all works itself out.

Webwolf

I agree with you.... however, I am stuck in MS until I can find a box to use for Linux only.... The one I have now, it is too valuable to attempt to dual boot....

MicroSoft?

Beh.

I know....