begin rambelings, i would recomend against reading this, the spelling sucks. points are made that are off topic and frankly the thing is a mess. but i wrote it and when i got to the end rather than delete this work like i normally do when i feel i am doing a core dump i thought it was to much effort to waste. so here it is
you have been warned
i think we are begging to say major fracturing of the market, more people are starting to see what hardware can and cannot do (not always the case but at least some people i know wont by hardware based on software features)
look at the pda phone market for example, you have the buisness user, the home entertainment user, the "all my friends like thiers" market and the hardcore market (note these are ones i interact with on a daily basis, not all the ones that exsist)
the buisness users wants it to work, they dont understand the statment or its implications they want it to work. mainly use email and opens word docs
entretainment user (note can be 2 sub catagories, light and hard core). once again wants it to work but are willing to invest more time in encoding moives. may research good file formats (hardcore) but will generally stick to supplied apps (note i normally dont have respect for these people as they will use heavy compresion to save space then buy wodden headphones because they sound better)
the "all my friends like thiers" market, i wolud say this is why microsoft and nokia suscseed in thier respective fields, you can go on about backwards compatability but the truth is that most users of windows apps have never thought about it at all these people want to be able to do the cool stuff that everyone else does without putting in the hard work. i see this alot as my equipment really impresses most people
eg i can play mp3s on my phone when the file is at home. problem is that they want it without having to think about it, sure i can do that but theres more than one way to skin a cat and ftp sharing C: dosent quite match up to a sftp server. i can make the sftp server easy to install but its not worth the effort because they want it for free (they are aware that i didnt pay anything for it)
when it comes to microsoft people try to nail it down to one formula from the perpective of todays markets when in actual fact it is a series of decissoins over time that at the time made the most finacial sense coupled with a deep understanding of advertising (initially) followed by market share (once it hit a certin percentage they start throwing thier wieght around) and standord buisness tactics.
at teh moment they are cashed up. if you will allow me to make a comparison to the US as someone from another country, it is like the US in the way that they are powerful and impoisible to beat with current tactics, hence terrorism/guirella warfware (in this case i would say that linux is gurellia warfare.)
in the casese i am reffreing to its the only option left to fight back, i beilve that apple is playing the same game microsoft is. ie big corparation warfare however this is good from thier perspective and is the logical choice (would it be apple if it was 10 smaller companies?) however as we all know big buisness combat rules are well defined and its normally the one with the most cash that wins UNLESS you come up with a good idea
a good idea in warefare was gurillea warfare, in our case its the Redundant Array of Inexpensvie Humans of OSS that wroks well (RAIH, Ray - hee) to our advantage. looking at the quality vs quantity debate we can see that we have the quanitity advantage (ie too many people to sue, they could do it but the inital cost/reward tradeoff is too much) hence why they "have never taken linux seriosly" basically they cant comprhend the enemy or its intetions
drilling down into that line of thought a bit more we can see that most of microsofts moves are buisness bassed for getting a maximum of return for as little work as posible while also reducing risk. they are VERY VERY good at that however the OSS community's secrets which microsoft is not awear of is that
1. OSS dosent play by "big buisness rules", there is no need as profit is not the motivation
2. the people microsoft is fighting are the people they hire and fire on a daily basis (programmers, lawers)
3. thier ennimes are also thier cutomers
***4*** not only are the rules by which they make thier risk/reward analisys not bieng folowed by the OSS comunity, those rules dont fit like tehy do with other buisness. they work but hove greatly reduced effectivness
point 4 can be shown by the gradual change in tactics. some people at microsoft get it but i am willing to bet they see linux as "just another preditor" rather than relising they are now on mars. its not taht somthnig new came along its that EVERYTHING has changed. sure it could be stated that in terms of the real world (law and such) nothing has changed but at the very least on some metaphorical level everything has changed and microsoft has yet to relise it
will this kill microsoft..... NO, not at all. what it will do is make them change thier game (kicking and screaming of course, tahts just the standard buisness rules) once again already seem them do that yada yada yada
i think its important to note that they do honestly see themselves as trying to make the world a better place and more simple at that however not only is this world not simple but that the people wha make the desiceions always seem to make the mistake of thinking that microsoft canmake th world a better place.
i highly dought this as from what i can see microsoft has been trying to move the world to one end of a line (like that white black, and other such oppisites) whereas linux is pushing the word to another end of the spectrum. i guess the sides would be public vs private, community vs personal or for the people (as in the bettering of man kind) vs for the individual (or group) (note i dont mean linux is the golden light of the people. just try and keep what i said in perspective )
so basically from the last 2 paragraghs it would seem to me that the people in microsoft have people using microsofts products and humanity mixed up and feel that they are helping humanity when only they are helping microsoft. in this case i would blame the buisness decissiens. i belive they tried to help humanity but failed to do so because microsoft saw thier ideas as "leverage" and took the ideal and patented it
of course everything i said means nothing at all. it is mearly insane rambeling and i bet you didnt read this far, however microsoft is only relevent to me when the ban linux or affect me directly. i have long ago said good bye to microsoft and have only a few devices that are still running miocrosoft products (phone) to put it simply they only get/annoy you if you let them. they make a great OS however as much as they tell me i need it it is obvious that in the 12 years i have been using a coumpeter with windows pruducts i have been hurting myself in the same way as using a unergenomic computer chair. what works for one pearson dosent work for others and for me the main "feature" that dosent work for me is a GUI, for others it may be as simple as localisation support in thier native languge or virtual desktops however not everyone is ready for a lifestyle change (which i belive in my case it was considering how much PC usage i do in a day) even if they are hurting themselves in the long run, humans rarely do whats best for them
give me the /bin/sh or give me death
