Lol Microsoft

[Red Squirrel]

MS still has a huge market share for corporate stuff. MS exchange, SQL server etc... and when you look at those prices, and the fact that companies are willing to pay, they're not going anywhere. I'd bet that microsoft's OEM OS sales are like 0.1% of their profits. It's the corporate licensing that really rolls in the dough. Office can cost a company in the millions as they have to pay per computer. At close to a grand a pop, it adds up very fast. Then for exchange you're paying for the cal's AND user access licences, AND outlook itself (or the whole office suite). So basically every Exchange mailbox requires the company to pay microsoft 3 times. Citrix? Now you're paying 5 times. User access for Citrix itself, then user access for the terminal server, and still have to pay for the Exchange cal and server user access and Outlook.... it's just insane. THAT is where they make their money, these convoluted licensing schemes that take your money from all directions. It's pretty bad to have to pay for a product, then pay even more money based on the data that is in it. (in this case, the users).

Personally if I ran a company everything would be open source based and for the money I save, I'd just hire a few support people to make it all work the way the company needs, and to support it.

 

[baydude]

So if people like OP are so sure about MS going downhill why don't they just short sell and make a profit?

 

[Genx87]

MS still has a huge market share for corporate stuff. MS exchange, SQL server etc... and when you look at those prices, and the fact that companies are willing to pay, they're not going anywhere. I'd bet that microsoft's OEM OS sales are like 0.1% of their profits. It's the corporate licensing that really rolls in the dough. Office can cost a company in the millions as they have to pay per computer. At close to a grand a pop, it adds up very fast. Then for exchange you're paying for the cal's AND user access licences, AND outlook itself (or the whole office suite). So basically every Exchange mailbox requires the company to pay microsoft 3 times. Citrix? Now you're paying 5 times. User access for Citrix itself, then user access for the terminal server, and still have to pay for the Exchange cal and server user access and Outlook.... it's just insane. THAT is where they make their money, these convoluted licensing schemes that take your money from all directions. It's pretty bad to have to pay for a product, then pay even more money based on the data that is in it. (in this case, the users).

Personally if I ran a company everything would be open source based and for the money I save, I'd just hire a few support people to make it all work the way the company needs, and to support it.

But these convoluted licensing schemes are also a reason to walk away from Microsoft products when something as good shows up. Imagine not having to license Exchange, SQL server, windows server for access to file shares, Office ect.

 

[Tommy2000GT]

Windows ME wasn't so bad, except for the random crashing that I could never fix

 

[sourceninja]

But these convoluted licensing schemes are also a reason to walk away from Microsoft products when something as good shows up. Imagine not having to license Exchange, SQL server, windows 08 for access to file shares, Office ect.

And that is where we are at. We don't have exchange, we don't have sql server, and we are almost done with office. We are even looking at moving file sharing to the cloud.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

But these convoluted licensing schemes are also a reason to walk away from Microsoft products when something as good shows up. Imagine not having to license Exchange, SQL server, windows server for access to file shares, Office ect.

Their convoluted licensing schemes keep changing and getting more convoluted with each product cycle as well. I don't even try understanding their licensing any more; I email our software sales rep what I want to do, what hardware it will run on, etc, and she works with MS on the quote.

 

[Bateluer]

MS still has a huge market share for corporate stuff. MS exchange, SQL server etc... and when you look at those prices, and the fact that companies are willing to pay, they're not going anywhere. I'd bet that microsoft's OEM OS sales are like 0.1% of their profits. It's the corporate licensing that really rolls in the dough. Office can cost a company in the millions as they have to pay per computer. At close to a grand a pop, it adds up very fast. Then for exchange you're paying for the cal's AND user access licences, AND outlook itself (or the whole office suite). So basically every Exchange mailbox requires the company to pay microsoft 3 times. Citrix? Now you're paying 5 times. User access for Citrix itself, then user access for the terminal server, and still have to pay for the Exchange cal and server user access and Outlook.... it's just insane. THAT is where they make their money, these convoluted licensing schemes that take your money from all directions. It's pretty bad to have to pay for a product, then pay even more money based on the data that is in it. (in this case, the users).

Personally if I ran a company everything would be open source based and for the money I save, I'd just hire a few support people to make it all work the way the company needs, and to support it.

I agree 100% with you. But, the longer you build on Microsoft products, the harder it is to leave. :/

A company should think long and hard before buying into yet another Microsoft product or service.

 

[Genx87]

Their convoluted licensing schemes keep changing and getting more convoluted with each product cycle as well. I don't even try understanding their licensing any more; I email our software sales rep what I want to do, what hardware it will run on, etc, and she works with MS on the quote.

Exactly. It is like they trying to drive away their customers.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

You too? I was monitoring our traffic the other day to present a reason to pull in fiber. Our connection was pegged at about 90% utilization through most of the day. The biggest consumers of this bandwidth was dropbox and yousendit. It was an eye opener for sure.

Pull in the fiber for sure. Think long term instead of short term.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

Windows ME wasn't so bad, except for the random crashing that I could never fix

that's very bad bro

 

[Pray To Jesus]

So if people like OP are so sure about MS going downhill why don't they just short sell and make a profit?

Easier to invest in their competitor. APPL did very well for their investors.

 

[drebo]

Personally if I ran a company everything would be open source based and for the money I save, I'd just hire a few support people to make it all work the way the company needs, and to support it.

Except that you don't save money by running open source.

Sure, there are a few instances...if you're doing extremely basic word processing, OpenOffice can be OK. But the first time one of your users is emailed a Word document and the formatting is broken, that $165 cost savings goes out the window because they have to spend hours fixing it or arguing with IT people.

It's the same way with a LOT of other apps as well. MySQL is great, but the management tools are no where near as mature as SQL Server's tools. Exchange doesn't really have a viable free alternative, either. Sure, dovecot+postfix+roundcube can do a lot of what Exchange does, but it's like 80%. And a lot of times, you're going to spend a LOT more time setting up the open source solutions, and the cost in that time is rarely worth it.

Citrix XenServer is nowhere near as easy to use as VMWare or even HyperV, and HyperV version 3 is almost as good as either of those.

Sure, there are other free LDAP directories you can use for auth and what not, but none of them have the level of tools that Microsoft's Active Directory has.

So, the reality is that Microsoft products can be replaced, but the ease of management cannot. So while you save a few thousand in licensing costs, you lose countless hours in implementation and support.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

Except that you don't save money by running open source.

Sure, there are a few instances...if you're doing extremely basic word processing, OpenOffice can be OK. But the first time one of your users is emailed a Word document and the formatting is broken, that $165 cost savings goes out the window because they have to spend hours fixing it or arguing with IT people.

It's the same way with a LOT of other apps as well. MySQL is great, but the management tools are no where near as mature as SQL Server's tools. Exchange doesn't really have a viable free alternative, either. Sure, dovecot+postfix+roundcube can do a lot of what Exchange does, but it's like 80%. And a lot of times, you're going to spend a LOT more time setting up the open source solutions, and the cost in that time is rarely worth it.

Citrix XenServer is nowhere near as easy to use as VMWare or even HyperV, and HyperV version 3 is almost as good as either of those.

Sure, there are other free LDAP directories you can use for auth and what not, but none of them have the level of tools that Microsoft's Active Directory has.

So, the reality is that Microsoft products can be replaced, but the ease of management cannot. So while you save a few thousand in licensing costs, you lose countless hours in implementation and support.

At this point is where the cloud computing comes in.

 

[sourceninja]

Except that you don't save money by running open source.

Sure, there are a few instances...if you're doing extremely basic word processing, OpenOffice can be OK. But the first time one of your users is emailed a Word document and the formatting is broken, that $165 cost savings goes out the window because they have to spend hours fixing it or arguing with IT people.

It's the same way with a LOT of other apps as well. MySQL is great, but the management tools are no where near as mature as SQL Server's tools. Exchange doesn't really have a viable free alternative, either. Sure, dovecot+postfix+roundcube can do a lot of what Exchange does, but it's like 80%. And a lot of times, you're going to spend a LOT more time setting up the open source solutions, and the cost in that time is rarely worth it.

Citrix XenServer is nowhere near as easy to use as VMWare or even HyperV, and HyperV version 3 is almost as good as either of those.

Sure, there are other free LDAP directories you can use for auth and what not, but none of them have the level of tools that Microsoft's Active Directory has.

So, the reality is that Microsoft products can be replaced, but the ease of management cannot. So while you save a few thousand in licensing costs, you lose countless hours in implementation and support.

That is all dependent on your staff and what you are replacing. We saved TONS of money by moving to open source. Solaris to Linux ;-)

 

[Red Squirrel]

Except that you don't save money by running open source.

Sure, there are a few instances...if you're doing extremely basic word processing, OpenOffice can be OK. But the first time one of your users is emailed a Word document and the formatting is broken, that $165 cost savings goes out the window because they have to spend hours fixing it or arguing with IT people.

It's the same way with a LOT of other apps as well. MySQL is great, but the management tools are no where near as mature as SQL Server's tools. Exchange doesn't really have a viable free alternative, either. Sure, dovecot+postfix+roundcube can do a lot of what Exchange does, but it's like 80%. And a lot of times, you're going to spend a LOT more time setting up the open source solutions, and the cost in that time is rarely worth it.

Citrix XenServer is nowhere near as easy to use as VMWare or even HyperV, and HyperV version 3 is almost as good as either of those.

Sure, there are other free LDAP directories you can use for auth and what not, but none of them have the level of tools that Microsoft's Active Directory has.

So, the reality is that Microsoft products can be replaced, but the ease of management cannot. So while you save a few thousand in licensing costs, you lose countless hours in implementation and support.

And that's where the programmers would come in, they'd make sure that everything is tailored for the company's needs.

One of the biggest reasons I hear about using Office is because of all the scripting. Guess what, Microsoft Excel is not a programming language, if you need a form, do it in a real language like php and put it on the intranet. The hospital I worked at was plagued with all these excel forms and stuff and it was a real IT nightmare having to support code that is not even in a central place.

 

[Stone Rain]

Microsoft has a massive market share to coast on. They have billions of licenses sold, etc. This means at least for the next 10 years, MS will be alive and kicking. Look at IBM for an example of the same thing. But at least from my point of view...Microsoft is a has-been. I refuse to sink my money in their products anymore.

The way I see it, Microsoft hit home on 7. They need to issue another service pack for it. Speed it up. THAT'S a solid option. 7 is great. I would probably buy an update. But 8? Why? There's no difference except a mucked up UI, an altered API, and a few subpar tablets that it's built for. Why waste my money when I can get 7?

 

[Jeffg010]

Any one that is saying windows 95 was solid did not do any real tech support. I did tech support in a Novell windows 95 environment and it sucked ass. Not until windows 98 SE did it start to pan out. Windows 2000 was even better with Novell but by then we switched to all Microsoft and then moved into active directory. Windows 95 was a crap OS.

 

[mugs]

Back when it got released, machines with single core processor and 256MB of ram was the norm. XP runs like crap on anything with less than 1GB, even 1GB is pushing it.

What? XP ran fine on 256 MB of RAM. I didn't even have 1 GB of RAM until 2006 (which I increased to 4 GB in 2007, probably because I was using Firefox).

 

[Red Squirrel]

Novell windows 95 environment

That sounds like something straight from a horror movie. :biggrin:

 

[ShawnD1]

Any one that is saying windows 95 was solid did not do any real tech support.

I used a Windows 95 computer for about 4 years and it never crashed. It was a custom built computer by a local computer shop. We used it for playing games and Microsoft Office. If there was something wrong with the OS, it would have crashed every once in a while.

 

[Train]

Any one that is saying windows 95 was solid did not do any real tech support. I did tech support in a Novell windows 95 environment and it sucked ass. Not until windows 98 SE did it start to pan out. Windows 2000 was even better with Novell but by then we switched to all Microsoft and then moved into active directory. Windows 95 was a crap OS.

The problem was Novell, not Win 95.

I worked with Novell networking stuff in the 90's, what a pain.

 

[Red Squirrel]

What? XP ran fine on 256 MB of RAM. I didn't even have 1 GB of RAM until 2006 (which I increased to 4 GB in 2007, probably because I was using Firefox).

Yeah, on it's own. Try to do any real work. Throw in an AV, messengering app and bunch of other crap that accumulates in the systray over time that is needed for some things to work, Email client, Web browser (Firefox uses close to a gig on it's own) and it will be thrashing like no tomorrow. Don't even try to open photoshop, autocad, video editing software, or any game, either.

I always laugh when people say an OS runs well without considering what it's actually made for. The OS needs to run well WHILE performing all these tasks, otherwise, it's not really running well, unless you only want to play solitaire.

 

[Hugo Drax]

Funny thing I was talking to a colleague today and they said they are switching to a Macintosh because he does not want windows 8 in the future.

I wonder how many people will be switching to Apple computer systems now that Microsoft put out that turd of an operating system.

 

[mugs]

Yeah, on it's own. Try to do any real work. Throw in an AV, messengering app and bunch of other crap that accumulates in the systray over time that is needed for some things to work, Email client, Web browser (Firefox uses close to a gig on it's own) and it will be thrashing like no tomorrow. Don't even try to open photoshop, autocad, video editing software, or any game, either.

I always laugh when people say an OS runs well without considering what it's actually made for. The OS needs to run well WHILE performing all these tasks, otherwise, it's not really running well, unless you only want to play solitaire.

This is why programs have their own system requirements. Why are you imposing the requirement of running RAM-intensive software without sufficient RAM and then saying that OS is bloated?

Windows XP ran fine with 256 MB of RAM (or less) while running the software that most people use. It even ran Photoshop fine with that amount of RAM when it was released. It didn't run fine with 256 MB of RAM 5 years later when software system requirements had increased and Firefox was awful (Photoshop alone required 512 MB by that time). But you said it was bloated when it was released and running XP with as little as 1 GB was pushing it, and I'm saying that's completely inaccurate. Laugh all you want.

 

[Sephire]

People are actually returning their Windows 8 machines for a Windows 7 :biggrin:

Once "normal" people realize there is no start button. Game over man.