Why can't anyone compete with Microsoft...and hopefully bankrupt them?

Discussion in 'Computers & Tech' started by slackercruster, Mar 13, 2018.

  1. slackercruster

    slackercruster Banned

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    Over the weekend I picked up a virus. You know the deal, you click on the wrong thing and boom! I tried to shut the computer down ASAP but it got ruined.

    It is not too big a loss. I try to use older, retired laptops to surf the web / email / etc. I do have an expensive 2017 laptop with Windows 10 with high RAM and a expensive 2017 desktop with Windows 10 and even higher RAM. I try to use them only when necessary for internet use.

    The Acer laptop that got killed was Windows 8 or 9...can't remember. But when it died, I pulled out an old Sony laptop with Windows 7. To my surprise, the Windows 7 runs like a dream on the internet. It seems every time Microsoft comes out with a new Windows they **** us.

    I have 2 computers running Windows 10 and they both run terribly. Half the time they are downlodining unwanted, forced updates fron Microsoft and grind to a standstill. Even after they update they are very slow. My desktop Windows 10 has a huge RAM, fast processor and all, but it is garbage. My cheap, junk Walmart Sony with Windows 7 and no memory runs rings around both of the Windows 10 computers.

    Why can't anyone compete with Microsoft...and hopefully bankrupt them?
     
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  2. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    I can only guess you are roughly in your 20's. Because I can remember the era where Microsoft was yet another bit player in the OS market.

    Microsoft is the "sole survivor" for many reasons. Primarily, because they made and released an inexpensive OS that was stable, and ran across a great many platforms. And they made the development kits easy to access for programmers, and continued to progress through time where many others did not.

    And no, it was far from the first. Just off the top of my head, here are just some of the operating systems I have worked with over the decades:

    UNIX
    XENIX (were you even aware one of the first common Unix builds for the PC was made by Microsoft?)
    Linux (I lump ALL UNIX derivatives into this, from Red Hat to Mint to Lindows in here)
    AppleDOS
    LisaOS
    Mac Classic
    Mac X (including all up to today)
    AtariDOS
    AtariTOS
    GEM
    CP/M (and all the variations)
    MS-DOS (to include the various IBM variations)
    DR-DOS (to include Novell DOS)
    UCSD p-System
    Chrome (and all iterations to include Chromium, Android, etc)
    HDOS
    DOS/360
    OS/360
    OS/2
    Windows (1.02R until today)
    NT (from NT 3.1 until Win2K)
    NetWare (2 through 5)
    Banyan Vines
    TRSDos
    Color Basic (Tandy CoCo)
    DesqView
    Commodore (many iterations, from Super Pet through VIC-20, C-64 and others)
    AmigaDOS
    GEOS (once again multiple iterations, from C-64 through Apple and IBM)

    And there are many more I simply can not remember at the moment.

    Until the mid-1990's, buying software was a major pain. Unlike today, you had to make sure that not only did you meet the hardware requirements, but that your OS was compatible. If you were working on a computer professionally (even on a PC) you might need 3-4+ different operating systems to do your work. DOS for your main, then GEM to run Ventura Publisher. Then exit out of that to load Windows 3.1 to do some more general word processing.

    It was a real nightmare. Microsoft emerged dominant simply because it was inexpensive, easy to use, and worked on almost everything (they even made versions of NT for the Mac).

    And I do not see that ever changing. There have even been attempts to run Windows programs natively in other operating systems. OS/2 was probably the first to try, and it flopped. The newest I am watching now is ReactOS, essentially a GNU-BSD build that will run Windows software natively via backward engineering the Windows API with a user interface that emulates Win95.

    But this has actually been around for over 20 years, and has only recently been picked up again and advanced.
     
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  3. Spooky

    Spooky Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I use Windows 10 and don't see any issue.

    Many even compare it to windows 7.

    If you are just cruising the web and think its slow its not because of windows, its probably your internet connection.

    I get the automatic updates also and think that in the last year there has only been one that has required more than a half hour of downtime.
     
  4. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    The last time they tried that, our economy went into recession. If you don't like it, go to some version of Unix or Mac IOS.
     
  5. pixiebox

    pixiebox Newly Registered

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    Microsoft helps me (MS Excel anyways) invoice my customers on a regular basis.

    They make helpful stuff even to this day. Not so much 'cool' for the millennials because they are all about Apple this and iPad that but for a blue collar small business owner, Microsoft is still the poison of choice.

    However, in the next 20 years, unless they create something for a much younger generation, I don't think they will be around. Bill's got the money to keep it up till eternity though.
     
    Last edited: Jul 3, 2018
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  6. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Where have you been the last 2 decades? Bill Gates has had almost nothing to do with Microsoft for years now.

    He retired as CEO way back in 2000, and back in 2006 he resigned from his position of Head Architect and has held largely symbolic positions since then. The last OS that he had any involvement in was Vista. Everything that has followed has been since he stepped down as the head of the company.

    Heck, Steve Ballmer took over as the largest shareholder way back in 2014. That is when Bill sold off a huge chunk of his stock to the open market.
     
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  7. Nonnie

    Nonnie Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Although my computer's have Windows installed, I use such programs as Open Office, Lotus, Firefox, Thunderbird etc.. and I avoid Microsoft.

    I'm in the process of piecing a PC together and I'm going to install a Linux OS. If successful, I'll then change my other PC's, laptops etc..

    One of the easiest OS systems I've used was QDos on the Sinclair Ql.
     
  8. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    The biggest problem with LINUX is in software.

    Yea, most of it is free. But it largely pales when compared to the retail version of that software available for Windows.

    I saw this first hand last year, when I tried to find good POS software for Linux. Even though I used MINT as the backbone of my operations, I was unable to find a single POS package worth a damn for it. I was still having to use a Windows computer with a commercial package for that purpose.

    Most of us in the industry from the 1980-1990's saw this first hand. Ultimately, an OS is only as good as the software you can get for it. And emulation is not the answer, that only adds another layer of potential failure when it comes to operating for commercial purposes. And much of that (like WINE) is open source, so not a solution at all for a serious commercial solution.

    Feel free to use LINUX and Open Office, so long as you only want to do word processing and web browsing. For that, it is perfectly fine. But good luck using that to run say Fallout 4, or QuickBooks.
     
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  9. Nonnie

    Nonnie Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The only things I use are spreadsheets, word processer, web browsing, reading PDF's and running the taxman's Basic software tools for RTI wages. I'm sure the taxman did a linuk version.

    I used to have QuickBooks but I just use my own written spreadsheet. I think QuickBooks has gone cloud based anyhow.

    For some reason, the PC I'm tinkering with only works in safe mode. Bit busy at work so the build etc... will take ages.
     
  10. iamwhatiseem

    iamwhatiseem Well-Known Member

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    You do understand that has nothing to do with Linux right?
    And the statement "an OS is only as good as the software you can get for it" is equally dumb.
    And the statement "not a solution for serious commercial solution"... well that is just laughable. Seeing how the vast majority of the internet is not Microsoft.
    Embedded systems worldwide in all manner of equipment is overwhelmingly *nix and not Microsoft.
    This forums is running on Linux.
    *nix servers dwarf the use of Microsoft servers.
     
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  11. Blaster3

    Blaster3 Well-Known Member

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    all but a few phones are linux based, as are pads & tablets... me, i use debian & ubuntu based distro's...

    as fer winblows, well, it just blows... while catering to the mindless...
     
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  12. iamwhatiseem

    iamwhatiseem Well-Known Member

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    I like LinuxMint myself...
     
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  13. Diuretic

    Diuretic Well-Known Member

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    Yes Linux Mint is a fine piece of kit. Using it has become easier as it has developed and it's not so scary to shift from Windows to Linux. Having said that I can understand why people are reluctant to make the move. I have an XP desktop on an old computer which I use primarily for Office (10). I find Office to be a great piece of software, although I have Libre Office on this laptop which runs Mint I use the old XP and Office for stuff that has to be produced easily and quickly. MS won't go under, you just need to look for alternatives.
     
  14. Jonsa

    Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The only people who should ever have any interest in the O/S are developers and users who are technically competent.

    EVERYONE else makes their decisions based on the applications they need.

    The rise of Unix server software was rapid because while being a tad harder to use, it generally was between free and a couple hundred bucks. MS offered NT at five times the price. MS had a lock on the corporate server market for a time but everyone else quickly realized Unix servers did the job with way more flexibility (open source and all).
     
  15. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    And like so many, you keep missing the difference between use and application.

    Who cares what platform a server runs on, really? It is the platform that the user runs on that matters most.

    In the 1990's, most of the corporate networks I worked on were a hybred of the older UNIX-OS/360 type platforms, and Novell. Novell handled most of the account and security features, the old mainframes had largely been reduced to operating as dumb systems handling specific purposes. At Hughes Aerospace, one of the last mainframes still in use (1998) was involved in printing checks.

    Who cares if this site runs on Linux, Unix, OS/2, or anything else? What do most of those that access it use?

    And a browser is pretty universal. They all read and execute the code (HTML) in largely the same way. But what does that matter if the user needs say a POS package? Or a program for tracking loans and inventory, while creating forms to be sent to law enforcement and other state and federal agencies?

    Software developers create their programs largely to be sold to users. And to be marketable, they tend to write for the OS that is most commonly used by their perspective buyers.

    And at one time, if you were working in music, that means writing for the Atari. If you were writing for video editing, that meant writing for the Amiga. Graphics and WYSIWYG graphics, why you write for the Mac of course.

    And general purpose business, that means PC. DOS 20+ years ago, today it is Windows.

    What a server runs does not matter, because it does not matter to the user. I know the POS where I work operates on Win2K, and reports to a server that runs UNIX. Does not matter what the system it reports to runs on.

    Funny thing is, I have been hearing these "XXX OS is going to take over" for over 30 years now. And it has never happened yet. Any other ones that have come along have always remained small nitch uses, and never took over other than in their little nitch.
     
  16. iamwhatiseem

    iamwhatiseem Well-Known Member

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    Why does an OS matter.... well, it is that kind of attitude as to why the leading operating system is allowed to watch and record everything we do. Including emails, photos and documents. If you don't agree to it - then you can't use the computer you just bought.
    That is what happens when everyone just accepts whatever is put in front of them
     
  17. BULGARICA

    BULGARICA Banned

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    Because it's not that easy. They're making sure you stay on the bottom. Google is the other big problem. They, together with Shitesoft will make sure you sink.
     
  18. Jonsa

    Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Hetro and homogeneity of multiple platforms for specific functions all to deliver end user applications.

    I recall introduction of the 6800 and the unix wars. life and death over "little endian or big endian" Berkley? System 3? Xenix??????
     
  19. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Yep. Xenix, a fun little OS. I bet most in here do not even know that the most popular version of UNIX for the PC for a decade was made by Microsoft.

    Yes, I remember a great many of the various kinds of "Platform Wars" over the years. Token Ring Vs. Ethernet, Thin Net Vs. 10baseT. I even remember the CD-ROM format wars of the late 1980's and early 1990's. Where companies tried to flood the market with cheap CD-ROM drives that worked, but used their own format instead of the Yellow Book format (Sun-Moon-Star was a particularly memorable company in this manner).

    The competing DOS brands, the competing GUI interfaces, having to have 3 or more different operating systems to do your job. Guessing wrong, and a year later you were buying everything all over again because you had invested a few thousand in Ventura Publisher and GEM, only to then see Harvard Graphics and Windows become the industry standard.

    u-Matic Vs. Betamax Vs. VHS. CED Vs. Laserdisk. HD-DVD Vs. BluRay. Windows Vs. GEM Vs. VisiOn Vs. X-Windows. Banyan Vs. WEB Vs. Novell Vs. Lantastic Vs. MS-Net. Oh, I have gone through a great many format wars. And my biggest memory is that whenever possible, I tried to stay the hell away with them and work "legacy" as much as possible until the dust settled and a standard was finally achieved.

    Kinda like how I bet most of the HD-DVD owners are feeling now. Investing a ton of money into players and movies that are now largely an interesting conversation piece and little more.

    And yea, with the exception of u-Matic, Laserdisk and HD-DVD I have used all of those other formats I just listed (and more). My CED was an interesting case, I bought it right after they were discontinued so it and the movies were dirt cheap. I did invest quite heavily into GEOS, I actually had a hope it might become as popular on the PC as it was on the C-64 and Apple II. But pressure from MS on software makers to not support it doomed that particular OS. But ultimately it still did quite well. For a decade until they ended support for DOS, AOL used it as their user interface. And companies like Nokia, Casio, HP, Mitsubishi, and Brother used it as an OS for everything from cameras and cell phones to PDAs, digital books and typewriters.

    And yea, in some ways what I am seeing now in the UNIX-Clone area is very similar to the late 1980's and early 1990's. There seem to be 1,001 different variants on UNIX-clones. Ultimately I picked one primarily because of it's ease of use and it's reported stability. But I still had a lot of problems, and many programs simply would not work because they were created for a flavor of UNIX-clone that I was not using.

    And that ultimately is what will doom them as an "Operating System for the masses". Yes, us techies and geeks will use them. Those that run servers and the like will use them. But Joe and Mary who simply want to browse the web and occasionally pop in Call of Duty or The Sims? Nope, they will not touch it. And they are the majority of users out there. Same with the DoD, WallMart, Chevron, Disney, Boeing, and the like. Sure, a variant of UNIX will be used on the back end. But other than that, nope. Everything else will still be the variant of Windows that they prefer because of ease of use, cost, and software available.

    And in the last 12 years I have seen the Army move from XP to 7 to 8 to now 10. Myself, I am back to using 7 as my day-to-day OS because it does all that I need. I still have my MINT server in the closet, but it just does it's job, I do not really "use" it. I have not even hooked it up to a monitor since April.

    And interestingly, in my Army Tech School 5 years ago we had to familiarize ourselves with Solaris. Install it, operate under it in GUI and command line, create a network using it. And in the 5 years since then I have not touched any other Solaris system. And not talked to anybody else who has, outside of in the classroom in school.
     
  20. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    Data-deletion bug forces Microsoft to suspend rollout of Windows 10 update
    The bug had been reported by insiders, but it looks like nothing was done about it.
    Peter Bright - 10/6/2018, 4:15 PM

    [​IMG]
    This message, shown during Windows upgrades, is going to be salt in the wound.

    Earlier this week, Microsoft started distributing the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, version 1809, to Windows users who manually checked for updates. The company has now halted that rollout after many reports that installing the update is causing serious data loss: specifically, deleting the Documents, and perhaps Pictures, folders. Microsoft is also advising anyone who has downloaded the update but not yet installed it to not install it at all.

    The exact circumstances causing data loss aren't clear; the handful of reports on Microsoft's forums and Reddit don't have any obvious commonalities, and people report seeing only one affected system among many when upgraded. There will need to be some amount of investigation before a fix can be developed.

    This will be too late for anyone that's suffered data loss; although file recovery/undelete tools might be able to salvage the deleted files, the only reliable way of recovering them is to restore from a backup.

    ... https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...-latest-windows-10-update-over-data-loss-bug/
    --------

    Windows is increasingly its own virus. GNU/Linux is seriously a more reliable operating system at this point, and it's free, open, entirely customizable and all-around wonderful to boot. :D So, as far as competing with Microsoft is concerned, don't worry about commercial alternatives. Just grab Linux and go to town. Demand that software companies support it, because you as a customer are finished with Microsoft's insane crap.
     
  21. jay runner

    jay runner Banned

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    In the 1980's I can't think of a single place of employment in these parts that didn't use Microsoft and PC's. Microsoft had a stranglehold on the market. It has to be difficult to compete with that kind of entrenchment. But they tell me PC's will soon be obsolete.
     
  22. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    That is because they were winning the software war. And this is not because of Microsoft so much as it was because of IBM, and Lotus.

    By the mid-1980's, the "Gold Standard" for a computer was that it be X86 compatible, and run Lotus 1-2-3.

    And this was most commonly done with Microsoft DOS. This can even be seen in 1985 when the first true standard for expansion memory was the "LIM EMS" specification. LIM is Lotus-Intel-Microsoft.

    And there were other OS in use, depending on what you did. I worked on CP/M machines in that era, and also XENIX. But by far the software people wanted to use were written for DOS, so that became the standard.

    But the stranglehold really came from IBM and Lotus, Microsoft simply rode the wave.

    And we had a slew of "MS-DOS Clones" that were used as well. DR-DOS (which is ironic, it is literally a clone of a clone of their own product), PC-DOS (IBM), Novell DOS, 4DOS, NDOS (a Norton clone of 4DOS), and a slew of others. And some of those were very successful, especially 4DOS and DR-DOS/Novell DOS. Myself and a lot of my friends used Novell DOS 7, as it let us create a simple and inexpensive network (a capability that was redundant a year later when Win95 had a similar capability).

    One of my contracts in the early 1990's was with a chain of video rental stores in the SF Bay area. They used OS/2 with Lantastic at their 20+ stores. In fact, if you used an ATM back in the mid-late 1980's odds are it ran OS/2. Most large retail operations used OS/2 as the software behind their POS systems. NPR even used OS/2 until 2007.

    OS/2 even competed side by side with Win 3.1, until Win95 came out. But this once again introduced software incompatibility, so ultimately the OS was doomed in the consumer market. It was by far the better of the 2 products, but failed in the home market (much like Betamax was superior to VHS and died in the home market, but thrived among professionals until the advent of digital recording in the late 1990's).
     
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