PC World - Vendors Rally While Windows Sleeps

"Dell, Intel and their partners announced last week new technologies that represent major leaps forward for mobility. The companies seem to have discovered the secret to making such bold leaps: Cut Microsoft out of the deal.

One technology involves enabling users to gain instant access to a laptop's e-mail, browser and other basic functionality -- without booting Windows at all."

Microsoft Yahoo Merger

The Chickens Come Home to Roost

Here is my theory, just based on personal experience, with no hard facts (but some rationales) to back it up:

Companies know more about their revenue sources than they are required to report. FASB rules require them to be consistent about how they report, but they are also allowed to change how they report from time to time. You can "book" revenue from a sale immediately, or spread it out over time, or put it off until all product is delivered if you want. I've worked for small, privately held companies where I knew the accounting people, and I know that while changing the way we booked revenue or merging or splitting of a part of the organization often had innocent (i.e. valid business) explanations, the real explanation was often to obscure failures at the executive level. Failures to sell new product, failures to manage cost of delivery, or (and this is especially true of small companies) failures to manage executive perks which often sapped company resources.

In the 2000 time frame I worked for a large organization that signed a volume purchase agreement (VPA) with Microsoft. I don't know when Microsoft started using these VPAs, but I do remember reading that they changed the way they "booked" them about that time too although that didn't strike me as interesting at the time. The process was heralded by people higher up in the organization as a major cost savings, but as time went on and as activities associated with the VPA either happened, or in some cases were just stated to have happened, I began to suspect that there was no actual cost saving and that we might actually be spending more on Microsoft products than we would have otherwise.

I remember us having to come up with a count, which was really an estimate, of how many Windows PCs we (the entire organization) had. I know the count was more of a wild ass guess than it was a count, and the count was rounded up to satisfy Microsoft and (theoretically) get a lower unit cost. This organization was big, very big. Very few of our machines were on the Internet, and most of the machines were only networked locally, in many hundreds of LANs with local administrators. Had some new inventory process been imposed on these people I would have heard about it, and I didn't hear about it. Furthermore, most of these machines were not typical desktops, but were in place to run a specific set of locally written applications. They did not need to run Microsoft Office, for example, but the counting process glossed over that fact and even included the rights to run Microsoft products that weren't in use at all. The whole thing seemed to be a publicity stunt for certain organization managers, sounding great for the customer, but was really a windfall for Microsoft.

We were running Windows 2000, and nowhere near ready to convert to XP since in fact there were stragglers still running Windows NT, so in effect, we were paying a second time for software we already had. No worry though, said Microsoft, the contract includes an upgrade to XP, whenever we decided to do it, that is, as long as it is within five years, after which you do another VPA (I remember out VPA being for five years, but I don't think all VPAs have that term, some are shorter, I don't know if they come in longer terms as well). Nominally in fact the VPA was for Windows XP, it's just that other than writing a big check to Microsoft, nobody cared when or if the upgrade actually occurred. Do I have to spell out the rest of the story?

My guess is that the number of deals such as this is large (the entire Federal government agency by agency for a start) and when Microsoft makes claims about the number of 2000, or XP, or Vista licenses out there it's a lot of accounting tricks, after all, we didn't get an actual copy of any Microsoft products for each machine we ran. Instead we installed off the net, or from copies of copies of copies of the original disks. No need to mess with those fancy laser printed product keys. A single key made all the installs work without contacting the mother ship.

Yes, there was a costs "savings" for these VPAs, but the savings failed to take into account that facts that: (1) the machines were purchased with Windows already installed, (2) previous licenses had paid for the software again, (3) VPA1 had paid again, and (4) a subsequent VPA2 paid yet a fourth time. The savings MIGHT materialize if there were more frequent product releases from Microsoft (but guess who controls that) and only then if the customer were able to upgrade almost immediately (something the technical people know wasn't going to happen, but then the company/government negotiators are not generally technical people).

So, when Microsoft does their quarterly reports on how many licenses of various products they have sold I figure they are about as accurate as a weather forecast for this day next month. This is not just because I don't trust Microsoft, but because I think a lot of companies play these games. Maybe all of them do.

The difference between these "booked" numbers and what Microsoft deposits into the bank every quarter gives them a lot of room to paint a rosy picture when things are dropping off. If that is the case, and they make subsequent cuts or change their business in some drastic way those ruts in income stream can be smoothed out and the problem resolved without stockholders ever noticing. The more other activities the company is involved with, the more room there is to spread the blame around, making it look like the sacred cash cows are still in good shape while only these new (and ultimately expendable) ventures are holding things back.

Of course these book-cooking operations can't hide a monotonically decreasing income picture forever. The actions you have to take in the background get more and more drastic. Microsoft could use the billions they have in the bank to pay off any shortfalls they have, but that doesn't impress the stock market. If instead, you do something to drastically change the way you keep your books, say merge with another large company, spend most of your cash, stock swaps, redundancy layoffs... Some of these actions may actually improve your picture, but even if they don't you get an excellent opportunity to obscure the picture even further and a chance to promise shareholders that once the merger costs are absorbed, things will be wonderful again.

That's what I think is going on here, and because I think Yahoo has been playing similar games, no matter if the merger goes through or not, both companies are going to face dismal futures unless they make actual and substantive changes to their business models rather than superficial ones. (And did I mention the long term costs of ignoring your customers actual needs while you tinkered with your company spreadsheets?)

(This post revised and extended from an original Slashdot comment I made)

Celestia

Making me cry...

Rumor: Microsoft set for vast data-center push

"I've also heard that people may be 'stunned' about the extent to which Microsoft will embrace open-source software and interoperability in its plan. We shall see."

The only thing that will "stun" people is if they populate these data centers with Linux servers.

I don't think it beyond the realm of possibility either. Consider the alternative. Last time I worked with Microsoft servers it was still a royal pain in the backside to configure them remotely. Microsoft was just getting around to vending a tool (name of which I've forgotten) to allow for such things, but it worked poorly. No doubt it has improved, but my guess is that it takes more flunkies per gigahertz to run a Windows server farm than any other variety, and that doesn't count all the flunkies that have to go around repairing and re-installing software on end-user's desks. All well and good when it is an invisibly small part of your product line. But imagine all the companies that will line up to get rid of their own computer rooms and have Microsoft provide that service to them. These companies, some of which may remember that they actually spent less when they were dependent on the big bad mainframe, won't mind paying a premium to get themselves out of the computer maintenance business again.

Timesharing2.0 here we come!

But when it gets rolling, it will no longer matter to Microsoft that they set an example, "eating their own dog food" so to speak with Windows server, which has eaten (no pun intended) about as far into the Unix and Mainframe server markets as it is going to. Microsoft is going to be focused on saving Kilowatts, efficient and transparent virtualization, and most of all, centers that can run with almost no personnel on hand, be administered from Redmond, or India, or anywhere, including a web page at the customer site. They may, in the long run, even see some advantages in vending cheap thin clients to their customers, because, after all, they will be responsible for keeping these machines up to date and virus free and we all know that's almost impossible with Windows. Deals they have with Novell and Citrix may well grease the skids for this thing being an almost totally transparent switch from the hokey mostly client paradigm we suffer under now to something that resembles the true client/server model we talked about in the 90s.

I promise not to be stunned.

Q&A: Microsoft's Multi-Billion Dollar EU Fine - Forbes.com

"LONDON - The European Competition Commission has just fined Microsoft $1.35 billion for failing to comply with an antitrust ruling made in 2004. (See: 'Microsoft Gets Mammoth Fine') There are a lot of questions about the fines, so here are some answers."

Official Google Blog: A renewed wish for open document standards

"We join the ODF Alliance and many other experts in our belief that OOXML doesn't meet the criteria required for a globally-accepted standard. (An overview of our findings and sample technical issues unresolved are posted here.)"

Promulgated Principles and Practices Purport to Promote Portability

Probably Not, if Past performance is Predictive.

An Open Letter to Steve Ballmer

"The alternative, if you force these businesses to fester within Microsoft, is that these businesses will always play second fiddle to Windows—and fail to meet their potential."

The Men Behind the Curtain

"Were they cast as characters in The Wizard of Oz, Yahoo would play the Cowardly Lion and Microsoft the Tin Woodman. No Scarecrow would be required since there are plenty of brains at each company to go around."

Official Google Blog: Yahoo! and the future of the Internet

"This hostile bid was announced on Friday, so there is plenty of time for these questions to be thoroughly addressed. We take Internet openness, choice and innovation seriously. They are the core of our culture. We believe that the interests of Internet users come first -- and should come first -- as the merits of this proposed acquisition are examined and alternatives explored."

I'm actually surprised to see any Google opposition at all since I think the merger will/would be a monumental disaster.

Come to think of it though, I guess that's not e very good reason to be in favor of something. It would in fact be better if our laws against anti-competitiveness actually worked and we didn't have to rely on companies blowing their own extremities off.

PC World - The Next 25 Years in Tech

"The future ain't what it used to be. In the pre-PC era, futurists predicted huge changes in transportation. By 2008 we would be flitting about in personal jetpacks and taking vacations on the moon. But the communications revolution spurred by personal computers and the Internet wasn't on anyone's radar."

One has to wonder (well, I have to wonder) whether our preoccupation with infinite desktop CPU speed (needed to boot Vista in one's lifetime) and other Star-Trekish technological impossibilities like teleportation and materializing manufactured goods out of thin air from the VR world hasn't permanently unhinged our imaginations from real world things that could have actually been accomplished.

Day by day, the Futurological Congress is coming to life near you, although it may be in the form of a computer screen rather than a pill.

Slashdot | Microsoft Bids $44.6 Billion For Yahoo

Next best comment on MSFT/YHOO:

But from the perspective of Yahoo! users the more important question is whether a MS takeover will turn Yahoo! into tepid porridge? And will the long, slow decline of Microsoft now drag Yahoo! down too?

I certainly hope (and think) so!

I was a loyal and early user of both Yahoo and Microsoft products. There is nothing like a loyal user scorned.

Microsoft's version to version bloat, buggyness, and most of all, attempts to lock one product inextricably to another, plus their habit of acquiring other companies who's products I used, only to simply discontinue them or render them unrecognizable -- all of this, finally, drove me away in disgust. I gave up my career in order to avoid having to deal with MS crap.

What puzzles me is how you (and others) cannot see that Yahoo is made in the same mold as Microsoft already.

I've been (unfortunately) involved in some Yahoo Groups for a long while and countless times have had to explain the tortured process for an outsider to sign up for Yahoo Groups, involving them not only giving up (or faking) a lot of personal information, but also agreeing to take a Yahoo e-mail address as part of the process. How many of the claimed bazzillion Yahoo e-mail addresses are (as I suspect) mostly unused? I'd guess a lot. I had one guy tell me he never could remember his Yahoo sign-on, so every time he wanted to check the messages in the group he would just sign up for Yahoo all over again. Their stuff is so crappy it makes me sick to even think about it.

Do you use Flickr without paying the premium fee? I can't imagine why anyone would. They keep everything you upload, but hide all but the last 200 pictures from you. This is the most retarded scheme I've ever heard of. They must have the largest collection of unaccessible information on Earth! To help them out I just continue to upload files. I keep the pictures I actually want to view on Google. Flickr has had a lot of service outages, and for me is often painfully slow. Is it any wonder?

How can you stand all the stupid animated graphics that Yahoo throws at you? Half my screen real-estate and 90 percent of my bandwidth is used up with this silly junk when I go to a Yahoo page.

I know only one or two people who use Yahoo as their primary e-mail account, and maybe not coincidentally these are the people who don't seem to have their e-mail act totally together, don't respond to important messages, can't keep their CCs and BCCs straight, and since they are universally Windows users, are often having serious computer problems anyway ("Sorry, I haven't been able to check my e-mail in three weeks, my computer keeps locking up, got any ideas?").

These two companies are a match made in heaven. I wish them the greatest of happiness, and I hope they alienate a few billion more users along the way so that the rest of us can stop playing the role of free tech support for them.

Microsoft: Steve Ballmer's letter to the Yahoo board

Best comment on the Microsoft takeover offer to Yahoo:

"On one hand you have a bunch of useless BSD/php/c++ old lazy farts that can't develop worth shit who will end up being bitch boys to bosses that are going to be doing .NET everywhere. LOL.

Dear MSFT, as part of this takeover, please extend all takeover courtesies that Yahoo has traditionally extended to companies that it bought out. In other words, please do the best you can in ultimately creating the most fvcked up experience that you can possibly imagine so that the rest of Yahoo knows how miserable an acquisition can be for an acquiree...."

Patterico’s Pontifications » I Hate Microsoft Word

"Word processing programs that think they know best: Has section 3553 of Title 18, United States Code, been copyrighted, or is the Second Circuit in this opinion issued today attempting to cite to subsection “c” of that provision, and some word processing program has turned the cite into a copyright symbol, “©”?"

My favorite among the 48 suggested remedies so far: Use a Selectric Typewriter...

In short, I am the master of that machine, and I have tried to use Word and other word processor programs, but there is nothing they can do that I cannot do faster on an old fashioned electric typewriter.

Three Dollars Too Much

To try and thwart Nicholas Negraponte's One Laptop Per Child effort Microsoft is making copies of Windows available to a competing Intel box for $3 as I understand it. They are also working to make a version of Windows that will run on the OLPC, presumably for a similar price.

I know a lot of people that use computers. Before I left the big city to head for the beach I might have had conversations about home computer use (leaving out work related use for the moment) with dozens of people. But having been in the boondocks for a while my circle of friends has grown smaller. Get this though, here is the percentage of my Windows using friends who are reporting significant problems with their home installations: 100.

It just struck me the other day that I don't know any Windows users, not one, who isn't having problems, and I don't mean minor problems, I mean major "lost everything" problems. To help convince you that I'm not making this up, here are their stories, names omitted to save them the embarrassment...

Case A is a retired technologist, programmer for the Apolo moon missions, inventor, and aspiring author. He doesn't want to tinker with computers any more, he just wants to write his books. For months he has been doing so on a laptop, without major incident, but having "normal" Windows users issues with pop-up ads, spy-ware, spam, and drivers mysteriously failing to do what they used to do. His reaction to these problems has been to remove almost everything except Microsoft Office from his machine. Having sent him either links, or actual files that require Adobe Acrobat or Real Player I find that he has uninstalled those things out of fear. Nevertheless he managed to get Internet Explorer outfitted with so many "helpful" tool-bar additions that there was little screen real-estate left over for anything else. His sound card stopped making sounds, pop-ups continued to pop-up and he complained that the machine was getting slower and slower. He didn't want to try Firefox though as Microsoft has succeeded in convincing him that his problems have nothing to do with Windows itself, but just that big-bad world that it has to live in on the Internet.

He recently called in a panic to tell me that his machine, a laptop, suddenly wouldn't boot at all. Long story short, he had installed yet another "security" package from his ISP that had caused the condition. A trip to the shop for an overnight stay and $65 later the machine was working again. Fortunately, the fact that he hadn't done a recent back-up didn't cost him anything as they were able to retain his existing file system. Fortunately or otherwise, he was so shaken by the experience he purchased another PC as a "back-up machine" on the rather safe assumption that a similar thing will soon happen again. If the medicine makes you sick, try taking more of it.

Case B is a dear little lady that I agreed to help with her e-mail problems. Now I've steadfastly refused to get involved with anyone's Windows issues other than offering generic advice such as "why are you still using that crapware?" but in this case the problems seemed to be mostly "older person trying to cope with new-fangled technology", so I stop by once in a while to get her unstuck with sending a reply, forwarding a message, or attaching a photo. Unfortunately this has turned into three machines so far. The last one I purchased myself, used, from a shop I trusted, with a clean install of Windows XP and little else. I put on anti-virus programs and such, and so far so good. I can't be sure that her earlier machines were hardware or software failures. At some point it gets hard to tell from a post-mortem point of view. Power supplies burn out, fans die and machine overheat, often after running at 100 percent CPU for days at a time doing no-telling what in the background. If she manages to kill this machine, her next one will run Linux. Enough is enough.

Case C is a minister, on a dial-up connection, who really doesn't do much more than e-mail and print out church related materials from time to time. When I first saw his machine it had an obscure virus that was not removable by any of the major packages that are supposed to do such things. Fortunately I learned this through research, which was much quicker than trial and error. He too took it to a "competent" shop who managed to get rid of the virus and most of his applications software at the same time. I'll be installing Open Office for him and he is already using Firefox, thanks to some other kind soul he ran into. Should the need arise, he will already be over the hurdles that tie most people to Windows.

Case D is a couple of guys that run a small home business involving shared files with several other people working at home. Their Windows machines, although of relatively recent vintage are always bogged down doing something in the background that nobody can quite define. Opening a web page is a go-to-the-fridge-for-another-coke sort of operation at times, and while some of this problem is a slow ADSL connection and a care-less Verizon support system, my Apple laptop works pretty well on their network, even wirelessly, while their hardwired desktop systems continue to crawl.

Finally, the co-workers in this small business are always having trouble with their PCs too, except for the one Apple user of course. So those machines have to be regularly hauled over to "headquarters" for diagnosis and I dread even hearing about the long tortuous road to recovery, which is often followed by an almost immediate relapse.

So those are my sample points. All of them. Other people I know that are using Apple computers or Linux haven't been complaining much about slow systems or slow Internet or random crashes. Oh I know, there are Apple machines that are junk (I had one of those once too) and Windows machines that perform flawlessly, those just don't happen to be in my universe of users at the moment.

Worth three dollars? Hardly.

Slashdot | Open Library Goes Online With Public Domain Books

From one of the articles:

With the backing of some of the groups opposed to the Google Library project, the Open Content Alliance should experience smooth sailing.

In other words, the group trying to tie up Google in the courts is off doing something very similar on it's own. Typical outcomes for such efforts is to plod along offering competition to the product being litigated and in the process try to make the venture unprofitable for the target organization. Once case is settle out of court (or in) competing product is dropped like a hot potato.

Why would ANYONE trust Yahoo, MSN, HP or Adobe with content of any kind?

I fail to see what is wrong with the Google approach: I can search on content with strings. If the found content is not under copyright I have full access to it right away. If the found content is still under copyright I can at least verify that it actually covers the topic I'm interested in (as opposed to just containing a word or two in the glossary) and I can then procede to order the book, go to my public library, or whatever I need to do to get the information.

I love Project Gutenberg and the like, but considering the players involved this thing stinks to high heaven.

Of course Google could just make it easy on themselves and pull the plug on their efforts right now. Let these bandwagoneers do the heavy lifting and just provide searches on it all (which they are likely to do in any event).

My guess is though that this group will disband about a day after Google stops scanning.

We WILL get fooled again!

I, Cringely . Pulpit . The Final Days of Google . Comments | PBS

"Remember, being number one is not about being the best, it's about preventing anyone else from being the best."

Definitely off his game on this one. Maybe the understudy wrote it?

Doubleclick turned down Microsoft money? « Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger

Keep in mind all the speculation and rumor mongering on all of this is just that. parties are forbiden to disclose what went on in those negotiations, so in a sense, by listening to this stuff: Everything You Know is Wong!

That said, let's jump right in shall we?:

Is it just me or isn't it a little strange to have Microsoft legal in the form of Brad Smith calling around to journalists trying to sway public opinion on all of this? Don't they have other "departments" to do that sort of thing?

Has anyone thought of the possibility that had Microsoft won the bidding then there most certainly WOULD have been an antitrust issue, and without any prompting from Google?

Google is not a convicted monopolist, nor do they dominate search in the same way that Microsoft dominates the desktop. Microsoft would have done everyone a big favor, including their investors, had they voluntarily split the company into separate OS and Applications companies. Still not too late for that move either, but as Microsoft continues to lose mindshare the benefits diminish.

Maybe Microsoft legal meddled a bit too much in the negotiations and now they have a guilty conscience, aka fear of the next re-org. After all, they DID lose the antitrust suit, it was only sloppy sentencing that got them off the hook. And now with everyone re-evaluating DRM, MS selling copies of Windows for $3 there isn't much for MS legal to do other than work out cross licensing issues for patents. Must be hell.

As Eric Schmidt said in *this interview*:

Google promises not to lock users data into their products. To me, that has become the number one feature of any software I use.

While there is always reason to be skeptical when a vendor makes such a promise, we don't have to be skeptical if Microsoft were to make such a promise (which they haven't to my knowledge), we only have to look at their history: With almost every product, with every press release, with every membership on any standards body Microsoft's goal even beyond a desire to have the best products is to make it difficult if not impossible to use competing products side by side with monoliths such as Office and Exchange.

As someone already pointed out, I doubt that the sellers in this case really care what Microsoft's evil intent might have been, but the US Justice department might have, and that would have held up them getting their money.

There is relatively little merit in challenging the Google buy however, so this sale will sail (hehe) through by comparison to what would have happened if MS had won the bidding.

Gates Asks U.S. Senate Panel To Ease Skilled-Worker Visas - WSJ.com

"Mr. Gates said a worker's mother country is helped when that worker sends home some of his or her wages to remaining family members. He also said that countries with health problems would be better served by greater investment in health care and not by trying to prevent their health-care professionals from moving abroad."

Did anyone on the Senate panel have brains enough to challenge this doublespeak from Microsoft's Idiot-in-Chief?

What am I saying, of course not.

Wired: AP Technology and Business News from the Outside World on Wired.com

As the professor on Futurama says: "Good News Everyone!"...

"Diebold Inc. saw great potential in the modernization of elections equipment. Now, analysts say, executives may be angling for ways to dump its e-voting subsidiary that's widely seen as tarnishing the company's reputation."

Good news, because Windows based flaky touch screen systems will get a much deserved black-eye.

Good news, because maybe a few taxpayers (regardless of political affiliation) will be outraged by yet another wholesale replacement of voting systems by what is (almost**) certainly going to be more of the same. You think the laptop, touchscreen, and software (particularly Microsoft) sales reps are going to just sit idly by as Diebold leaves the playing field? With luck a few well placed (and as many cases as not Democratic leaning) election officials will be publicly driven from office. Do I care whether they are corrupt or just stupid? Um, no. In fact, corrupt governments might tend to watch how they spend our money more carefully. I want the spending on things that obviously don't work to stop, no matter what the cause.

Good news, because it might serve to remind people how close some of the 2006 results were (just as close in many cases as Florida 2000) and yet very few of these results were contested by Republican losing candidates, who could have wasted more taxpayer money with a nod. The one case of a contested results in the states surrounding me was in fact one in with a republican won by a comfortable margin. The Democrats called for a recount anyway. There is no doubt who the "ends justify the means" crybabies are (except in the mainstream media that is).

Good news, finally, because there is (**at least) some chance that the few stories of poor to non-existent systems analysis that went into these new touchscreen voting systems will yield some viable open source alternatives (in fact open source applications running on Linux are ready to go.)

I'll continue to spank posters on Slashdot, local forums, and newspaper editors, who imply that an election has only been mishandled when Republicans win. That shallow thinking HAS lead to tyranny (even if a tyranny of "the masses") in other countries and it will do so here if not stopped.