John A. Bailo wrote:
> Freeride wrote:
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2006-10-13T183235Z_01_N13347063_RTRIDST_0_TECH-FINANCIAL-SEC-INCURSIONS-DC.XML&WTmodLoc=TechInternet-C1-Headline-2
> >
> >>Online brokerage account scams worry SEC
> >
> >>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - High-tech crooks are hijacking online brokerage
> >>accounts using spyware and operating from remote locations, sometimes in
> >>Eastern Europe, U.S. market regulators said on Friday.
> >
> >
> > Is there any difference between the "crooks" and Microsoft? They both seem
> > to be profiting greatly from spyware.
>
> No one forces anyone to buy a Windows OS.
That is about the most absurd statement I've ever seen in this group.
The end-user almost NEVER makes the final choice of whether Windows
will be on his PC. The OEM might have purchased Windows from
Microsoft, and installed it on every machine, as part of the terms of
their contract for the product line.
When it comes to desktops and laptops, Microsoft is pretty tough with
OEMs.
Microsoft doesn't actually hold a loaded gun at Michael Dell's head and
say "Sign the Contract", but the combination of incentives, and
threats, can be a very powerful combination. Michael Dell has tried
repeatedly to offer Linux and UNIX on his machines. In 1990, Dell
offered SCO Unix, but then withdrew that product and switched to
Windows exclusively. Dell has tried to get around licensing
restrictions by offering machines without hard drives, so that
end-users could add their own hard drives, and install Linux.
Microsoft's simplest answer is to harass Dell's customers, demanding
payments for Windows unless the end-user can prove that Windows was
never installed.
HP has offered the HP9000 workstation as a high end engineering
workstation for years, and the ability to sell UNIX or Linux on HP
Laptops and desktops dovetails into these markets, where they could
leverage their reputation. Carly Fiorina promised that every HP
Printer would be made Linux compatible. HP was also the first to offer
AMD-64 based desktop and laptop products. To be fully functional and
take advantage of the 64 bit capability, the machine was originally
offered with Linux and was announced at the Linux expo. Microsoft must
have applied some intense pressure, because the Linux offering was
withdrawn before anything could happen. HP had gambled a huge pile of
money on this new machine, and then gave away their trump cards. Could
it be that Microsoft had some backers among the hewletts and packards
and other major shareholders and proxy holders, and could have had
Carly fired? Remember that HP executives were being "Pretexted".
Their personal records were being investigated and disclosed illegally
- at about the same time that the decision to withdraw the Linux
offering was made. That sounds a lot like blackmail to me.
IBM's Sam Palmisano publicly announced that he was going to have all of
IBM's desktops and laptops converted to Linux by 2007. This was about
4 years ago. Nearly all Thinkpads could be converted to Linux,
especially SUSE or Red Hat Linux, in a matter of hours. It was shortly
after Sam made this bold announcement, that SCO filed their lawsuit
against IBM, funded by BayStar, who now claimed that they were verbally
promised that Microsoft would "guarantee" the investment to be
profitable.
Eventually, an impasse between Microsoft and IBM led IBM to completely
eliminate it's Desktop and Laptop division. IBM has made a really bold
choice. Better to cut all ties as an OEM and then have the freedom to
do anything they want with the PCs as VARs, than to be bound by terms
that prevent custom configurations, even for IBM's own employees.
> The People need to take charge.
Nearly all Linux deployments are deployed by the end users. These end
users are converting machines to Linux, world wide, at a rate
equilalent to nearly 1/2 the PCs sold in the United States.
Yet even today, Microsoft tries to harass "White Box" manufacturers as
"promoting piracy" and refuse to allow that ANY of these machines could
be purchased for the purpose of running Linux. Yet, Microsoft has yet
to expose a massive piracy effort, on the part of dealers, resellers,
or consultants, or even corporate purchasers of these White Box
machines. On the contrary, many government agencies, corporations, and
community organizations are publicly declaring their "effinity" to
Linux. Many are taking the position that new machines will ONLY be
configured with Linux. Those wanting Windows will just have to settle
for the older machines.
Microsoft service contracts are about to expire, and many corporate
customers are either not renewing, are renewing at much lower levels,
or have established plans for Linux migration that can be implemented
within hours or days - using the OEM licenses originally provided with
the machine, and with the Linux licenses. Essentially, the corporate
image would have a Linux native system and a Windows XP or Windows 2000
(whatever was licensed) which can only be activated using the
registration code from the sticker provided by the OEM.
Even today, the Microsoft EULA permits the creation of backup images,
and the restoration of those images - so long as the machine being
restored is licensed by an OEM license. If the recovery is to a
Virtual machine on an OEM licensed machine, it would not be a violation
of the OEM license.
Microsoft may desparately want to try to revoke or alter this license,
but if they attempt to do so, it's entirely possible that the end-user
would demand restitution from the OEM, since they paid for a feature
which Microsoft is telling them they are not allowed to use.
Furthermore, these corporate customers may push the issue, forcing the
OEMs to remove Windows entirely, and give an "appropriate" discount -
since they will not be allowed to use the Windows license in the manner
of their choosing.
Worse, corporate customers could start telling Dell, HP, Gateway,
Lennovo, and Sony that they won't be buying any more Windows PCs, that
they are now seriously looking at Apple, and unless they can offer a
Linux/Windows or Unix/Windows product - preconfigured and ready to run
- out of the box, Apple will be getting their business.
Last quarter, Apple captured 12% of the Desktop/Laptop market. That
has now put them into the top 10, and might even put them in the top 6,
possibly even bumping Gateway out of the top 5 in the next quarter or
two.
Corprorate customers could opt to boycott. They could simply delay
purchases for months, replacing only defectivve computers (leased).
Keep in mind that OEMs and corporate customers don't have to go to
Microsoft either. They could go with Crossover or Win4Lin, which can
run most Windows applicatitons.
If it suddenly turned out that 1/2 to 2/3 of the machines being sold
were running Crossover or Win4Lin instead of Windows Vista, how long do
you think it would take for applications like Quicken to make
absolutely sure that their software runs on these Windows "emulators"?
For 13 years, Linux has tried to "play nice" with Microsoft, making it
possible for users to quickly and easily switch between Windows and
Linux, starting with configurations such as dual-boot, and
virtual-drive installations offered by Slackware since 1993. Each new
release of Windows since Windows 95 has had "anti-linux" measures.
Windows 95 wiped the boot track and partitions clean, eliminating the
linux partition and LILO boot manager. Windows NT 4.0 tried to insert
their own boot manager, which meant that Windows NT 4.0 had to be
installed BEFORE Linux was installed. Windows 98 had USB and DVD-CSS,
which were intended to be features that were unavailable to Linux due
to strict nondisclosure and license agreements between all members.
Windows 2000 changed NTFS, added driver signing, and other measures
designed to scare would-be Linux installers into not installing Linux
with Windows 2000. Windows ME had DVD-Writers, but the writers
couldn't be used by Linux. Microsoft even conspired with the MPAA to
try and block the publication of DVD-CSS drivers, claiming that Linux
would be used to pirate movies. Ironically, it was Windows ME that
made piracy trivial. Next we have Windows XP, with it's Activation
codes and lock-outs. If you wanted to install Linux, XP could detect
the change in hardware (smaller C: drive) and would flag you as a
pirate.
So here we are with Vista, and Microsoft is threatened by Linux in the
form of Xen, VMWare, and virtual machines that allow users to run 64
bit Linux and 32 bit Windows. Obviously, the 64 bit machine will
perform better and this means that the Linux machine would actually run
functions such as display, communications, context switching, and image
manipulation much faster than Windows native technology. Furthermore,
since Linux provides security, firewalling, authentication, and user
mode and kernel mode (root) authority, and gives the user clear and
deliberate prompts for root password and permissioning, it becomes easy
to limit the ability of viruses to run amok. Since Windows VM become
an application protected by both Linux security (firewalls, bulkheads,
and authentication/authorization) as well as Windows security
(antivirus, antispyware), it gets pretty easy to see that Linux
Host/Windows Client becomes a winning combination - ironically, about
the same thing Apple discovered with their Mac.
But Microsoft is trying to use Vista to control Ring Zero. They are
trying to prevent Vista from runing as a VM application. Not a good
thing, from the OEM point of view. Linux users won't tolerate it.
They will just choose not to purchase newer machines with Vista. Apple
will just become MORE popular, moving well into the Top 5 OEM list, and
Sony will probably offer a "professional" version of their PS/3 that
runs Linux.
Will HP and Dell actually sit back and wait for Vista and let Microsoft
lock them into "Windows Only" offerings while Apple and Sony start
scarfing up huge market share?
Will Lennovo be able to sell "Windows Only" machines to IBM, given that
Sam has said that all of the desktop and laptop machines used by IBM
will be running Linux by 2007?
There is no question that the "Windows Only" desktop has no future
left. What remains to be seen is whether Microsoft's refusal to "play
nice" with Linux will mean that Windows Vista itself has no future.
> --
> Texeme Construct
> http://texeme.com
|
|
