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Thread ID: 57293	2005-04-28 14:17:00	Longhorn, Where Are My Friend?	vinref (6194)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
350078	2005-04-29 22:49:00	Dont get me wrong here, but Ive gotta agree with a lot of what Metla has said.... The security model for Windows is just too insecure from the ground up. Its easy for ANYBODY with a little assembly knowledge to modify some NOP's in a virus and have it get around detections. Longhorn does look like it'll have some cool new features, like treating IP addresses as a PNP device much the same as USB Drives are. It has set a bar for what people want in an OS! Its not a very high one, but one that seemingly MacOS has passed but most (like myself) dont want to fork out for the hardware, and Linux + BSD's just arent up to scratch yet. They just simply dont cut the mustard for most people who are looking for a 'quick switch' away from the Evil Empire. Right now, longhorn mostly just looks like WinXP with a bigger, heavier "Windows-blinds" theme that manages to do a lot more than just the window outlines. Its big, slow as hell (Can you say 800Mhz minimum recommended), and it makes the gurls cry. Microsoft lost revenue off each xbox sold, but AFAIK made it up in after-sales of Games + Controllers. What I want to know is _why_ they keep pulling out all the touted features? They're Microsoft! They can spend the $$ if need be to get more/better/faster programmers and uphold their word. It would be a bit of a brain-strain for a few people, but not much! I think that by Dec '06 (The current ETA) you'll get the likes of Linux/OSS catching up quite nicely... Quite likely overtaking, as the innovation/upgrades for most OSS happens a lot more frequently. Gaim gets a new release with fixes and updates, features and improvements every 3 or so weeks. KDE gets a few releases a year, as does Gnome, Fedora, Gentoo, Mandriva.... And as you can see from some of the recent bugs in Firefox, OSS is NOT perfect by any stretch of the imagination! However it is a good example of how the open-source model is the best way, as programmers jumped on the bugs the second they were released, fixed them, tested, and a new release was made (Heck, its only 4MB.. Beats IE's 14MB minimum) with the improvements within a day or so. Places like MS dont have to worry so much because they can sit on bugs/holes and keep them under wraps for months until somebody else chances across them. Anybody see Stallmans comments on a Gentoo-based distro being the only one he finds Free?! Chill. P.S. My word is not gospel, please dont read too much into it	Chilling_Silence (9)
350079	2005-04-29 23:04:00	Granted these are out of date but MS pulled in the reigns about reporting xbox losses over the last couple of years, They haven't made money because their business model dictates that the more they sell the more they lose . Microsoft lost nearly twice as much on its Xbox, games and consumer hardware division in the most recent quarter than it had a year earlier, according to a new regulatory filing . Redmond, Wash . -based Microsoft reported Monday that the home and entertainment division lost $190 million before taxes, write-offs and other charges in its fiscal third quarter that ended March 31, compared with a loss of $97 million a year earlier . Documents filed with the US financial watchdog show that Microsoft's Home and Entertainment division, which includes the Xbox, lost $177m (£112m) in the three months to 30 September . The documents also reveal that four of the seven divisions of the company are operating at a loss . The company's business solutions division, which makes and sells software to small and medium-size businesses, had an operating loss of $67 million on revenue of $148 million . By comparison Microsoft's mobile devices division lost $33m and its MSN net service lost $97m . Gleaned from various sources . Also they tagged 2 Billion dollars to be spent on Xbox live over 5 years . This one is from 2004 26 April 2004 11:55 by cd-rw . org [picture]The software giant is paying a heavy fee for penetrating to the gaming console market . The sales figures are up, but at a reduced price, so the business still generated loss of whopping 209 million USD . Microsoft is a very wealthy company, and it can afford to make loss with the Xbox, while establishing itself on the market, but how long is it willing From what else I was just reading MS have tagged double the amount spent (lost) on the Xbox for the new Xbox (Xbox 360?)	Metla (12)
350080	2005-04-30 00:15:00	What I want to know is _why_ they keep pulling out all the touted features? They're Microsoft! They can spend the $$ if need be to get more/better/faster programmers and uphold their word. It would be a bit of a brain-strain for a few people, but not much! I assume it is because these features are not fully mature/stable and getting them to a release-able state would simply delay Longhorn further. MS must have been very ambitious when they planned Longhorn - with the likes of MacOSX and Linux, Longhorn just had to have the sun shining out of it's a$$ - but MS is surely having trouble living up to it. Anybody see Stallmans comments on a Gentoo-based distro being the only one he finds Free?! Nope. Was it at the recent linuxconf in Canberra? Is there a write-up about it?	vinref (6194)
350081	2005-05-02 00:04:00	Just chanced upon some more MS Finincial info, god damn they make some money.(and spend some) As it did last quarter, the Xbox is showing signs of improvement. While it won't turn the fortunes of Microsoft Corp.'s game division around--it still loses money for the software giant--it did narrow the losses for the second quarter in a row. For the quarter ending March 31, 2005, Microsoft's game group lessened its operating loss to $154 million (from $209 million the same quarter a year ago). The group reported revenues of $593 million, a 12 percent increase due primarily to Xbox sales. Elsewhere, Microsoft was far in the black--even more than usual. Overall earnings for the quarter saw the software giant bank $2.56 billion in profit, or 23 cents per share, on revenue of $9.6 billion. That compares with earnings of $1.32 billion, or 12 cents a share on revenue of 9.18 billion for the same quarter a year ago.	Metla (12)
350082	2005-05-02 02:25:00	...Elsewhere, Microsoft was far in the black--even more than usual. Overall earnings for the quarter saw the software giant bank $2.56 billion in profit, or 23 cents per share, on revenue of $9.6 billion. That compares with earnings of $1.32 billion, or 12 cents a share on revenue of 9.18 billion for the same quarter a year ago. That simply deepens the mystery of why MS is not capable of bringing Longhorn out in time. What would happen if MS decided to go a la Apple and built an OS based on BSD? For those who don't know, the BSD open source license is so liberal it allows anyone (e.g., Apple) to use/modify it and then keep it closed source. MS certainly has the money, BSD has the tools and MS surely has the talent. Imagine that - the power of BSD as shown by Apple, without the closed hardware environment. Apple would be dead in the water.	vinref (6194)
350083	2005-05-02 04:32:00	Not only has MS cut out the much touted journalling file system (a few years in *nixes now), but now it is cutting out the much touted security system (looks like *nix chroot jails, only much much more primitive) . So there goes increased stability and better security . And it's a few years late . Even worse than lacking journalling FS, LVM's and proper user seperation is the monolithic structure of Windows which seriously needs to be addressed . Presently the whole OS hangs around the GUI, if the GUI dies the OS effectively dies . Now for an enduser system it's not too critical, but as a server it's unacceptable . They need to look at a modular approach like *nix and Mac .	BoboTheClown (5652)
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