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28 Comments
- hellawaitsyou, on 03/19/2008, -3/+23google is going to take over the world!!
- Stonekeeper, on 03/19/2008, -2/+19nobody in their right minds wants to restrict their long-term market base by using silverlight
- neojinge, on 03/19/2008, -0/+14i like google spreadsheets, so much handier when they're available on the web as opposed to emailing a spreadsheet around or mangling it through a sychronized PDA
- Stonekeeper, on 03/19/2008, -1/+13Which is exactly what i was talking about.
- davidrools, on 03/19/2008, -0/+11I, for one, welc...nah
- PRlME, on 03/19/2008, -1/+9The next best thing will be a old language with a new hat on...oh wait thats AJAX.
- whereiseljefe, on 03/19/2008, -0/+5It's not about speed anymore, it's about reaching the largest possible market. Microsoft in their profound hubris thinks that because they can leverage Silverlight into their windows marketplace will guarentee a market big enough for widespread adoption, which will be difficult as Flash has a near 100% market penetration among all platforms, including those (read: Linux) Microsoft refuses to support and those (read: Mac) Microsoft does not support 100% (read: .NET).
- luchid, on 03/20/2008, -0/+5I don't think so. It will probably fail the same way OOXML has failed. This thing has FIASCO written all over it.
- gr8one, on 03/19/2008, -0/+5I noticed this feature while trying out Google Apps for business. The "Sites" feature (the JotSpot wiki), allows you to create a "Dashboard" page that you can put all kinds of widgets on. One of those types of widges was a Google Docs widget. It basically shows the upper left hand corner of a document or spreadsheet. So you could have a spreadsheet that charts some sort of progress, and uses a chart in the upper left hand corner, and have that chart show up on a page on your project wiki for managment to see without having to open the spreadsheet. Took me a while to see the usefulness of it, but I think if I sat down and thought about it for a day, there's probably a bunch of ways this could be really useful for people.
- HonoredMule, on 03/19/2008, -1/+5One day Microsoft WILL actually die, or otherwise disable MS-controlled tech. It's only a matter of WHEN and how much that will affect YOU (and/or your business and tech).
Open spec technologies, on the other hand, can't ever be "disabled" by anyone, nor is their fate tied in the hand of perishable corporations. I'm not a gambling man, so my choice is clear...especially considering the lack of ANY other differentiating factor outside of market share (where online, open spec like Javascript is winning anyway). - shallowz, on 03/19/2008, -0/+3very very very impressive
- luchid, on 03/20/2008, -0/+3Thank god you don't work as a financial adviser. Please tell me you don't.
- scrag10, on 03/19/2008, -1/+4Without a sidekick like Pinky... not possible.
- luchid, on 03/20/2008, -0/+3Then you should either A) Quit Digg. or B) Refrain from making such idiotic statements.
- HonoredMule, on 03/20/2008, -0/+2If you are a little older than me, perhaps you can remember IBM of old, and the horrors they visited on the tech industry until they were neutered by consumer and government awareness. They're still around, and they never did run out of "a whole lot of cash" or talented employees, nor did they stop competing on technical merit. Do you know anyone who uses OS/2 today? Can you name one IBM software package or technology on which you depend today?
Now IBM's software interests lie with forward-thinking ideas like the Open Source Initiative, and supporting applications like Eclipse.
Proprietary tech cannot survive, because no matter how deep the vendor lock-in, sooner or later it will be so massively outperformed by agile, open technology that isn't encumbered by 30 years worth of backwards compatibility, that even old customers will switch. But far earlier than that, people like me who aren't already "locked in" make a point of using open formats and technology so that MY innovation will always be safe, accessible, and forward-compatible, without dependence on corporate support or specific platforms. In a generation, Microsoft's "whole lot of cash [and] talented employees" will be able to do no more than add their average products to the shelf alongside a healthy range of competitors' offerings. What will happen when >30% of the consumer base does NOT run a Microsoft-certified WIN32 or .NET envirnoment? What do you suppose Microsoft could do that would reverse their declining trend? Do you think keeping up a bi-yearly OS refresh will impress customers now?
MS COMPLETELY lost the browser lock-in tactic, now they're losing the browser war altogether, step by slow-and-painful step. They're desperately struggling to maintain their Office lock-in, but they're having to try to sell their lock-in strategy to the very people who's primary goal is to prevent vendor lock-in, because their consumers got smart and made open standards a requirement. OOo definitely isn't the Firefox of office suites, but how long after document formats are truly standardized will one shows up? After 7 years, where's all the features that were promised with Vista? What new hotness will allure wavering developers back to writing Windows-only software, at the cost of narrowing the target audience? (It's definitely NOT Silverlight.) For that matter, what does Microsoft really have to offer developers at all if the Windows-user demographic ISN'T everyone anymore? Web-apps suck compared to desktop equivalents, but they exist anyway, primarily for two reasons: service-based business models are enabled, and web-apps are platform independent and (because they're based on open technology) quick and easy to develop. But desktop apps can be OS-agnostic too, and Windows-only software development has been declining steadily for many years, DESPITE the fact that .NET is actually a very good development platform, reasonably efficient dynamic runtime, and RELATIVELY future-proof (compared to WIN32). Many consumers may be using Windows for another 20 years yet, but smart developers know NOW is the time to jump ship, because it's stupid to stay chained to the deck when you could be effortlessly flying anywhere at will...no matter how long it takes to sink. If you don't NEED Microsoft, why stay tied to them? And the moment MS makes you give up your legacy code, why would you stay on the only platform (except Mac, maybe?) with the ability to force your hand like that?
All the technologies that have proven truly resilient to age are owned by no one and dependent on nothing proprietary (ex: perl, posix, TCP/IP, email, ECMAScript, C/C++ [still the languages most used for professional/commercial software], SQL, apache...) and all the money and talent in the world cannot bring back the specific ignorance, indifference, and short-sightedness that hobbled Microsoft's customers 30 years ago. Microsoft's decline will not be swift, and their complete demise may be a long time coming yet or may take the form of self-reinvention, but they are already backpedaling and playing catch-up in over half their key markets. Once their OS and office market share reaches a certain flashpoint threshold, Microsoft will be very quickly marginalized, and that's where the change WILL be swift. Suddenly, they'll be just another software company (hardware company more likely...that seems to be a trend with declining software companies), and tomorrow's WIN32 will be today's timeshare systems, while .NET gets run only in "legacy" systems (and while perl, for example, is still a first-class citizen in terms of language support). You can run WIN32, assuming you've got a legacy environment for it, but don't expect any help or bugfixes from us...we only sell zunes and xboxes now.
These days, more people need to worry about Google lock-in, and to figure out where that lock-in will originate, because we already know and reject Microsoft's tactics, and their day in the sun has come and gone. I saw an article introducing Google's "Gadgets" in Google Docs. Perhaps the first baby step toward "extending" open tech (ODF) to produce lock-in...or perhaps I need to be looking out for far less predictable, Microsoft-esque tactics. Maybe dependence on Google's open, online services are the next form of platform lock-in. Maybe that doesn't seem so harmful now...much like govt. standardization on MS Office didn't seem harmful 30 years ago... - inactive, on 03/20/2008, -0/+2/sarcasm?
- troydoogle7, on 03/19/2008, -0/+2you made me chuckle!!
- Mrdudeperson, on 03/20/2008, -0/+2Good Job! Now go back in the cave where you belong.
- HonoredMule, on 03/20/2008, -2/+3How old are you? I'm 26. I'll still be writing code in 30 years, with a few years left in me still. Microsoft is only about 40 years old, yet is already well into a declining state, and every year loses more of the lock-in and traction that has kept it in power thus far.
Examples:
- government departments that originally catapulted MS into its current position, now demanding open document formats for MS-independent document access by citizens
- slow-yet-steady uptake of alternative operating systems
- MS lock-in-wary sentiments being expressed by government agencies around the world, and promoting alternatives
- rising popularity of non-MS tech for internet applications (PHP, Java, now Sun-owned MySQL, AJAX, a host of open standards, etc.)
- increasing popularity of os-agnostic software and underlying technologies among the informed
- heavy corporate investment in MS Office alternatives (Star Office, OOo, Google Docs)
- competitive pricing of "average joe" software that negates the artificially-inflated need for professional software suites that are the backbone of MS' revenue.
I'll be surprised if I live to my own retirement yet Microsoft outlives me. Microsoft has never succeeded on technical merit alone, and they are increasingly having fewer alternative cards to play. They can continue to compete on technical merit, but thinking they'll continue to succeed for half as long as they succeeded before meeting real competition isn't a gamble I'm stupid enough to make. - fkr3, on 03/20/2008, -1/+1I'm a year or two older than you and you're overlooking two things Microsoft has in their favour:
- a whole lot of cash
- a whole lot of talented employees
They're not "doing nothing" to secure their future. - radiopolice, on 03/19/2008, -6/+4I don't know what this means.
- fkr3, on 03/19/2008, -4/+1I'm pretty sure Microsoft will outlive most of us.
- fkr3, on 03/19/2008, -4/+1Right.... that's what people say about Flash too. Then those people get left behind and nobody cares.
Silverlight is/will be cross platform. - ZephyrNinety, on 03/19/2008, -10/+4ALERT THE INTERNET!
- oneon, on 03/19/2008, -8/+2Google is getting boring. If they don't do something radical quick we'll be buying shares at $19.00 Ad words and ad sense saves their ass...
- PRlME, on 03/19/2008, -10/+2what the hell are you talking about? silverlight is still in its dev stage, it would be stupid to implement it now. Silverlight even in its dev stage is already faster then flash(yes i know its not cross and needs .net)
- Motif31G, on 03/19/2008, -10/+1apples are red
- fkr3, on 03/19/2008, -21/+2The next best thing won't be built on JavaScript, CSS and HTML. It'll be with Air or Silverlight.,
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