[H]omer <spam@xxxxxxx> espoused:
> Verily I say unto thee, that Mark Kent spake thusly:
>
>> I'm sure that they have the "kill the other guy" process off to some
>> truly fine art by now. Considering that this dates back to CP/M,
>> DRDOS, stacker, and in more recent years SCO and others, they know
>> *exactly* how to go about this. They're so good at it, they even
>> managed to get a /judge/ removed from a case.
>
> Assimilation and destruction is Microsoft's core business model, so
> naturally they're good at it. However they are nonetheless starting
> to lose their grip, and ultimately they cannot beat the momentum of
> Free Software. MS are losing the Whack-A-Mole game because how does
> one attack an invisible army, especially one as ubiquitous as FOSS?
>
> There is no single company at FOSS's core, that MS can attack using
> their usual methods, so they've resorted to some desperate measures
> in a last ditch attempt to kill the "cancer". In the long term they
> will lose that battle, because they are not just fighting a handful
> of Linux geeks, or companies that they can "assimilate", or corrupt
> politicians that they can bribe. Increasingly they are fighting for
> the continued support of their own (ex)customers, an ever-expanding
> number of people who have become disenchanted with Microsoft's vile
> politics and Slopware; and a huge number of (sometimes influential)
> people who care passionately about freedom and justice in IT, media
> and communications; who desperately want to end the Microsoft reign
> of terror and corruption.
>
There was another piece Roy posted today, where a professional
journalist was speculating about whether the global rejection of HD-DVD
in favour of Blue-Ray were not, at least perhaps in part, a global
rejection of Microsoft.
Personally, I think that this is quite likely. Amongst all the people I
interwork with on a regular basis, from lawyers to economists, researchers
to project managers, head teachers to ICT support technicians, plumbers
to oil-traders, I don't know anyone that actually /doesn't dislike/
Microsoft. I know a lot of people who don't see any alternative,
but that is hardly the same thing, indeed, there is a very important
differentiation, which is that as people recognise that alternatives
to Microsoft are inexpensive, low-risk and bountiful, I suspect that MS
might well have blow any possibility of keeping a "loyal" customer base.
Even MVPs, Microsoft's unpaid army of viral-market-makers, are beginning
to turn on the mother-ship. Again, Roy posted another piece by a chap
describing in some detail the bugs in the NDIS system which result in
network transactions having bandwidth inversely proportional to the
number of network interfaces.
It really does look very much like game over.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
| Cola faq: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/linux/advocacy/faq-and-primer/ |
| Cola trolls: http://colatrolls.blogspot.com/ |
| My (new) blog: http://www.thereisnomagic.org |
|
|
