12/09/2003: 
Technologica
From The Sun-Mart-Wal-Java Dept.
shamelessy reposted from Slashdot
"According to an EWeek article, Sun is challenging Microsoft on a new front: the consumer market. Believing its Java Desktop System is "a more effective home and retail solution," the company is negotiating with major retailers Wal-Mart and Office Depot to include the Java desktop on consumer PCs and laptops."
I've never used the Java Desktop System (but I bet I know someone who has). It can only be good news for everyone who doesn't work in Redmond. Or is it? I had this thought about a friend of mine last night who subcontracts for Microsoft, or as he puts it "sucks Bill Gates' di*k." If Microsoft loses X% of market share to open source/Java/Mac, does some directly proportionate X% of Microsoft workers/subcontractors lose their jobs? And would Mr. Smith's invisible hand find them jobs programming in *nix? Are the skills transferable? Is it actually in our economic best interest to continue the current trend, and just have other operating systems around to keep Redmond honest? Comments welcomed.
Also, I saw a story and I forgot where it was, but it said that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was considering choosing an open source option for at least some of its systems, much like Brazil has recently done. Anyone see anything on this?
3 Annotations Submitted
Tuesday the 9th of December, [athena] noted:
Q: Do you like Bill Gates?
A: I would like to replace Microsoft.
Q: What would you like to replace Microsoft with?
A: Let's talk about movies.
Tuesday the 9th of December, awiggins noted:
The article you where referring to prof_booty, is here. The original link from Slashdot is busted, but this may be it here.
I am conflicted on the subject of Microsoft. While they have a stranglehold on the industry and they have on more than one occasion suppressed competition in some pretty shady ways, the vast amount of man power and money at their disposal allows for a top notch R&D department. I am not saying all their ideas are good, or that they could not have invested more time in fixing security holes, but they do have the ability to introduce some pretty great innovations. Granted the original ideas for DOS and Windows 3.1 where stolen from others, Microsoft has made computers accessible to a much wider audience then would have been otherwise possible. The high level of demand that this "wider audience" created is the major contributor in the rapid rate of advancement in the computer field in the past 15 years or so. Would Intel have continued developing newer, faster chips if they had been making them for only a few thousand professors at universities across the country? Perhaps, but development would not have been along the lines of Moore's Law as we understand it now.
So, even though I deal with Microsoft with great distaste, I think their greater cash flow and superior R&D make them a necessary evil. With each new release, Windows becomes more stable and has more features. Maybe someday they will actually make it so that it does not have more security holes then the Canadian border. Who knows, perhaps someday it will be as good a product as Linux.
Wednesday the 10th of December, rafuzo noted:
Do not confuse linux with a "good product". Linux is neither good, nor a product.
I agree that Microsoft, for all its flaws, is a force for good in economic history. That being said, I think their flaws are more in the actual execution of their OS products: design decisions for the past 15 years have been, for that monstruous R&D division, absolutely atrocious and unacceptable. They have been designing shoddy OS products for a decade, but because their development products have been better by leaps and bounds, they have a huge developer base and thus a huge tie-in market for their rancid OSes.
What Apple is doing now is what MS should have done when they decided to make an OS out of Windows: Scrap DOS. Even if they simply built NT sooner rather than later, or went to a unix/NextStep amalgamation like Apple did, they would have had the reliability and security issues better in hand, as well as an already established developer environment AND market.
