Ballmer Admits Google Apps Are Biting Into MS Office 293
twitter points out coverage of a discussion between Steve Ballmer and two Gartner analysts in which the Microsoft CEO admits that Google Apps is enjoying an advantage over Office by users who want to share their documents. He points to Office Live as their response to Google, and adds, "Google has the lead, but, if we're good at advertising, we'll compete with them in the consumer business." Whether or not they're good at advertising is still in question, if their recent attempts are any indication. Ballmer also made statements indicating some sort of arrangement with Yahoo! could still be in the works, but Microsoft was quick to step on that idea. Regarding Windows Vista, he said Microsoft was prepared for people to skip it altogether, and that Microsoft would be "ready" when it was time to deploy Windows 7.
Well, here we go (Score:3, Interesting)
Regarding Windows Vista, he said Microsoft was prepared for people to skip it altogether, and that Microsoft would be "ready" when it was time to deploy Windows 7.
If you ask me, Windows 7 looks a lot like a response to Linux on the desktop. Now's the time for OSS developers to step up to plate and deliver a solution that will make Windows 7 look like child's play. I'm game.
Google Apps is pretty useful (Score:5, Interesting)
I started a company last year, and I could have chosen to either: a) set up a Windows Server and buy multiple Office licenses, or b) sign up for Google Docs.
Docs has worked out really well for us.
Re:Well, here we go (Score:4, Interesting)
If you ask me, Windows 7 looks a lot like a response to Linux on the desktop. Now's the time for OSS developers to step up to plate and deliver a solution that will make Windows 7 look like child's play. I'm game.
Technologically, Linux and OS X are light years ahead of Windows, and will be by Windows 7. The problem is, some people will never use Linux unless it has a uniform UI (which, have you ever seen Windows?, Linux's UI is more uniform than even all of MS's products.) and other will not move to Linux unless *insert specialty application or game* is available on Linux. Still, the vast majority of users will use whatever is on their computer, be it Linux, Vista, XP, OS X, BSD, etc.
Re:Well, here we go (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Google Apps is pretty useful (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a not true (Score:5, Interesting)
I was there at the talk. What Ballmer said (and I'm paraphrasing) is that Google Apps have no audience; user growth plateaued months ago and that in their (MS's) own studies almost all college students buy MS Office and use it. He said the only time students are using Google Apps is when they need to collaborate on projects but he talked about how MS is working to beef up their own collaboration tools in Office 2007/08.
Really guys, this is reaching.
Ballmer is a good entertaining speaker, and Gartner analysts are not going to outfox the guy.
MS Office file formats are becoming the odd ones (Score:5, Interesting)
In my firm, which is a Fortune 50 company, we're actively abandoning MS Office for our own modification of Open Office. In fact OO3 does everything better - it handles all the problems of earlier versions like embedded OLE objects, it handles all our all 'legacy' junk AND it handles all of the various MS Office 2007 file formats which, as everyone knows were invented JUST to force people to lock in and upgrade. In fact all those Office 2007 formats are becoming the weird occasional exception for us as we move to ODF and such. Mostly we use MS Office 2007 formats as a required translation step from DOC to ODF since OO3 handles it that way by default: DOC > DOCX > ODF for instance.
So being weird and unique, Balmer, we don't care. Soon MS Office will be just another legacy format we keep around for archival purposes like Lotus Wordpro, 123, AmiPro and the like. Good luck with that, Steve.
Re:Well, here we go (Score:3, Interesting)
The enterpirse space is embracing linux. It's a major player in the server space and enterprise desktops are getting more linux friendly all the time (it's an option at our enterprise).
Re:Well, here we go (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well, here we go (Score:4, Interesting)
Viruses - THis is not a OS problem, its a user problem.... Malware - Again not specific to Windows.
Granted.
But I'll take an OS any day that works with me on this problem, not against me. Yes, Windows is trying to improve with Vista -- too little, too late. Too many programs that won't scale to limited user accounts, no unified system-wide updates.
Prove conclusively, once and for all that X percentage of crashes are because of MS code, Vs. X percentage of crashes on Linux.
Doesn't matter. If the crashes were because of a driver (that is, the manufacturer's fault), and Linux has a more solid driver for that (but it's in-kernel, and therefore unofficial), then Linux wins that argument.
Drivers - Add all the drivers to the kernel? So the manufacturers of devices have to wait till the kernel maintainer decides on his own sweet time when to integrate patches. AND THEN wait till picks them up downstream.
This assumes several things:
- That all drivers must be in the kernel source. There are drivers which are separately maintained, just like on Windows.
- That all drivers are even in-kernel. The bulk of printer drivers, for example, are PPDs, used by CUPS -- entirely userspace.
- That the kernel maintainer is the one integrating. Nope, that's up to you. The kernel maintainer just decides if your patch makes it into the kernel. Nothing stopping you from maintaining it as a separate module, or letting distros merge it into their own kernel forks.
- That the kernel maintainer is a different person than the manufacturer.
- That the manufacturer is even involved in the process, beyond publishing specs.
- That any of this is remotely an issue for OS X. Apple pretty much gets to pick and choose what hardware will be supported, and how.
All the software in the world at a single spot. i.e. Google for applications.
Or search your package manager.
Who addresses commercial software? Who handles payments for this? Who will handle updates?
If you're on Ubuntu, the answer to all of the above is "Canonical". I can buy Parallels directly from Canonical, add an official repository, and install it (and get updates) through the same channels I install all my other software.
Or you could ask Dell how they handle the Fluendo codecs. I'm betting it's the same mechanism, though.
Do users want to download Multi GB Games/Applications?
I don't know that I've seen a multi-GB downloadable game or application for Linux. Sure, the whole distro is huge, but individual apps aren't, even when you factor in needed libraries.
Note: That was "downloadable". Most games for Linux come in a small-ish demo form through the repositories. If you buy the full game (for Windows, presumably), you can copy the game files off the disc, type in the CD key, and you've now got the full game -- but the patches still come through the package manager. Honestly, the binaries are small enough.
Who pays for the massive bandwidth?
Again, Canonical.
Are you not aware of how existing package managers work, for existing apps?
What if you're not connected online
Then, presumably, you get a disc which has the files on it. Granted, no one's built a disc that is specifically a compilation of all the demo versions of various games -- but it could be done.
I'll wait for some real responses now...
I actually like the UI.
And I like the fact that if I didn't like the UI, there are dozens (hundreds?) of window managers, all compatible enough that I can run any Linux app on them -- or write my own.
I like the fact that I can have both a rock-solid OS (and one which doesn't nag me all the time) and better desktop effects than Vi
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Emacs -vs- Emacs (Score:3, Interesting)
I am a big fan of (the basic GNU) Emacs, because it's so easy to edit with a nice blank screen rather than all having those superfluous menubars and whatnot cluttering up the workspace.
There is no doubt about it, the Emacs architecture has won the day. Microsoft uses a poorly reimplemented model for everything nowadays. The ability to modify behavior of an application with a full-fledged computer language was truly innovative. http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-paper.html [gnu.org]
(My perspective is of one who remembers when Emacs was a bunch of macros for TECO, so I never got into the habit of using a menubar.) And now that GNU Emacs can render fonts nicely in X11, XEmacs has become even more otiose.
I happen to like menubars, scrollbars and GUI and that's why I was attracted to XEmacs in order to fix the deficiencies in 19.14.
You can always turn off that sort of stuff in XEmacs. My first commercial use of XEmacs was as an embedded editor in a Process Control System that only had access to PC console tty.
But ... if it bothers you, no problem. At least you're not using something loathesome like VIM. (nvi is nice though).
And XEmacs has as much right to be called "GNU Emacs" as the one sitting on gnu.org, but that is an argument for a different day.
Re:Well, here we go (Score:3, Interesting)
There actually are defraggers for Linux, I'm told, but it's rare to need one. And, because they shove everything down to one end of the drive, they spoil the advantage in seek time that comes from keeping the heads halfway up. I've seen it claimed that it's better to back everything up, reformat and restore so that you end up with everything well spread out again but I'd not argue the point.
And, while I'm thinking about it, it's not that the Microsoft filesystems are badly designed, it's that Windows is programmed to put files one right after the other so that there's no room for growth and files quickly fragment. Microsoft doesn't need to rework NTFS, they need to rework their file location algorithm.