Microsoft plans smaller deals, 'independent' path
,----[ Quote ]
| Speaking to the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Ballmer would not comment
| directly on any potential acquisitions, but he said Microsoft's current focus
| is the "independent path."
|
| "If at some point it makes sense, maybe then it makes sense. But that's not
| where we are going. We are driving in an independent direction," said Ballmer
| in a question-and-answer session.
`----
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUKN1844578520071018?rpc=44
Related:
Microsoft's Silverlight Tags Along On Halo 3 Coattails
,----[ Quote
| Fans who want to check out videos set in the Halo universe and posted on MSN
| will need to first download Silverlight, Microsoft's recently launched
| multimedia client.
`----
http://www.crn.com/software/202100894
Linux to Microsoft: Let's Fight with Silverlight
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft has spent the past few years trumpeting their "you are
| using patented code" with zero proof or real legal action, this
| is their ace in the hole. If Microsoft does manage to make sure
| that this Silverlight becomes the new standard for media rich web
| browsing, we are in real trouble.
`----
http://www.osweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2547&Itemid=449
Microsoft's Silverlight Biased and Doomed
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft is undoubtedly making progress in the browser and operating
| system platform struggle, but since their new Web technology can't be
| viewed and created by everyone, they still have a long way to go.
`----
http://www.osweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2545&Itemid=449
Why Microsoft Silverlight Will Fail.
,----[ Quote ]
| My main reasons (And please, correct me if I am wrong):
|
| * No IDE for me - The development path is currently platform
| specific to Windows. Not even an open compiler or server side
| compiler for Linux is available. Use Expression Blend on my
| Mac? Not happening.
|
| * No plug in for Linux - Even Adobe has managed to deliver it's
| modern plugin to Linux users. I only use Linux as a server
| platform, but with Ubuntu, etc making inroads on the desktop,
| it's nice to have it as an option.
|
| [...]
`----
http://visualrinse.com/2007/04/16/why-microsoft-silverlight-will-fail/
Microsoft's Silverlight and Adobe's Apollo: Web-Killer 2.0
,----[ Quote ]
| Now some may be wondering why so many people, myself included, have such
| violent negative reactions to these attempts to improve the user experience
| of the World Wide Web. After all, I wrote a report at Forrester about seven
| years ago called the X Internet that claimed that the Web needed to be more
| interactive. So what's wrong with a extensions and developer tools to make
| it all easier? Well, other than attempting to sidestep important
| collaborative efforts like World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Web
| Standards Project, these proprietary browser extensions break the utility
| of the World Wide Web in important ways.
|
| [...]
|
| It's nice to know that despite changes in interfaces and software
| technology, Microsoft's strategy for the Internet hasn't changed.
`----
http://biz.yahoo.com/seekingalpha/070507/34657_id.html?.v=19
Audience abandons Microsoft's MIX 07 keynote
,----[ Quote ]
| He said that when Microsoft and other companies create communities
| around their technology, it's usually accidental, not created by
| any ad placed strategically on a web page or in a game.
|
| "The Xbox community existed, but the Microsoft ads [in games and
| on Xbox Live] then got moved around quite by accident, not by
| design," Rasala said. "It's unclear that many companies can
| replicate that pattern by design."
|
| After Bach's keynote, it was difficult to find attendees in
| the hall that did not work for Microsoft. Nine out of 10
| attendees approached for comment after his talk were from
| the company.
`----
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=9217
Silverlight is about The Microsoft Web.
,----[ Quote ]
| Sorry, but I have to say something very rude. You clearly don't know
| what you're talking about. That is Microsoft PR talking. Can you say
| "credibility loss".
|
| Silverlight is about The Microsoft Web
|
| Silverlight is not about the World Wide Web. It's about The Microsoft
| Web. It's about getting fools to rally around Microsoft. After all of
| this time and experience with Microsoft, anybody with half a brain
| will be smart enough to avoid doing that. The last thing you want to
| be is dependent on Microsoft and set yourself up to be a DIRECT
| competitor with "Microsoft Cloud Services" down the road. Dumb.
| Foolish. Stupid. Smart investors won't invest one dime in your
| company and might even short your stock.
|
| Remember, it's Microsoft's cloud. Microsoft is not investing in
| huge datacenters all around the world for no reason. And, Microsoft
| will do whatever it takes, including operating that new online
| services business at a huge loss, to starve off any smaller
| competitor that foolishly chose to develop on the Silverlight
| platform. Microsoft sold $44 BILLION and cleared $18 BILLION
| profit last year. How many billions did you make last year?
`----
http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-11406-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=33334&messageID=613757
Microsoft's Silverlight Promises to Disrupt Linux Web Users
,----[ Quote ]
| Just as it seemed that Linux users (especially 64-bit users) would
| finally be able to enjoy streaming content with a minimum of
| hassle, Microsoft's new Silverlight software promises to throw a
| wrench in the works. Because of sites like Google Video and
| Youtube, Flash video has become a common means of streaming
| multimedia over the Internet.
`----
http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry1418.html
Microsoft's 'Everywhere' excludes Linux
,----[ Quote ]
| This browser add-on enables rendering of WPF content, but
| "Everywhere" doesn't include Linux.
`----
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/7794/53/
ECIS Accuses Microsoft of Plotting HTML Hijack
,----[ Quote ]
| An industry coalition that has represented competitors of Microsoft
| in European markets before the European Commission stepped up its
| public relations offensive this morning, this time accusing
| Microsoft of scheming to upset HTML's place in the fabric of
| the Internet with XAML, an XML-based layout lexicon forn
| etwork applications.
`----
http://www.betanews.com/article/ECIS_Accuses_Microsoft_of_Plotting_HTML_Hijack/1169824569
,----[ Quote ]
| From: Bill Gates
| Sent: Saturday, December 05, 1998 9:44 AM
| To: Bob Muglia (Exchange); Jon DeVaan; Steven Sinofsky
| Cc: Paul Mariz
| Subject: Office rendering
|
| One thing we have got to change is our strategy -- allowing Office
| documents to be rendered very well by OTHER PEOPLES BROWSERS is one of the
| most destructive things we could do to the company.
|
| We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office
| documents very well depends on PROPRIETARY IE capabilities.
|
| Anything else is suicide for our platform. This is a case where Office has
| to to destroy Windows.
`----
http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/2000/PX02991.pdf
More obvious misgivings about Microsoft and SOA
,----[ Quote ]
| My take is that inside of Microsoft its aggressor A-types are all about
| dissing SOA and promoting .NET ad nauseam. At the same time the Microserfs
| and developers must understand the inevitability of SOA for at last a portion
| of the most advanced and innovative enterprises’ and service providers’
| architectures.
|
| And so, as the world turns toward SOA, Microsoft will fight quietly inside of
| itself about what it really is as a company — a partner to its customers, or
| a parasite on the hide of productivity.
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Gardner/?p=2538
Microsoft: My way or the highway with SOA?
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft isn’t changing its tune with SOA, the authors say, noting
| that “Microsoft again appears to be crafting its own rules and vision. The
| company has so far declined to participate in certain key emerging industry
| standards relevant to SOA. It has a different perspective on what SOA is and
| a different approach for crystallizing its vision.“
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/service-oriented/?p=931
Microsoft absent from open standards movement around SOA
,----[ Quote ]
| Now, a new series of SOA standards is headed to OASIS, ones that could
| create a whole market segment around SOA common programmatic principles,
| but Microsoft is nowhere in sight. The absence of Microsoft from the
| Service Component Architecture (SCA), and its sibling Service Data
| Objects (SDO), definitions process can mean one thing: Microsoft will
| pursue its proprietary approach of baking pseudo-SOA into its
| operating system stack as long as it can.
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Gardner/?p=2483
Halloween Memo I Confirmed and Microsoft's History on Standards
,----[ Quote ]
| By the way, if you are by any chance trying to figure out Microsoft's policy
| toward standards, particularly in the context of ODF-EOXML, that same
| Microsoft page is revelatory, Microsoft's answer to what the memo meant when
| it said that Microsoft could extend standard protocols so as to deny
| Linux "entry into the market":
|
| Q: The first document talked about extending standard protocols as a way
| to "deny OSS projects entry into the market." What does this mean?
|
| A: To better serve customers, Microsoft needs to innovate above standard
| protocols. By innovating above the base protocol, we are able to deliver
| advanced functionality to users. An example of this is adding
| transactional support for DTC over HTTP. This would be a value-add and
| would in no way break the standard or undermine the concept of standards,
| of which Microsoft is a significant supporter. Yet it would allow us to
| solve a class of problems in value chain integration for our Web-based
| customers that are not solved by any public standard today. Microsoft
| recognizes that customers are not served by implementations that are
| different without adding value; we therefore support standards as the
| foundation on which further innovation can be based.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070127202224445
Microsoft needs REST
,----[ Quote ]
| Yaron Goland defended his Microsoft colleague, Dare Objasanjo, as a poor
| sitting duck. He justifies the decision to scrap APP as tactical and not
| strategic. He states: “We considered this option but the changes needed to
| make APP work for our scenarios were so fundamental that it wasn’t clear if
| the resulting protocol would still be APP… I also have to admit that I was
| deathly afraid of the political implications of Microsoft messing around with
| APP.” According to Goland, “we couldn’t figure out how to use APP without
| putting an unacceptable implementation and performance burden on both our
| customers and ourselves.”
|
| The implications for this APP vs. Web3S debate can potentially be enormous.
| Just as we are on the brink of creating simple architectures that are
| interoperable using simple standards, the industry risks splitting into
| separate, incompatible camps again. It is probably no coincidence that we
| have Microsoft on one side and Google, IBM and Sun on the other. This will be
| a fundamental problem for enterprise customers if Microsoft extends this
| strategy into any REST architectures that it introduces into the enterprise.
| Any enterprise systems that expose their data using APP, which is likely in
| the near future, will be incompatible with any Microsoft system that expose
| their data with Web3S.
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Newton/?p=14
|
|