Grafis said:
Great... (no reg. required)
None of those companies have the money to work Washington like the
ad/spy corps do. Microsoft will have to fix their OS, Browser and
software. If not, the solution is simple:
<
http://www.apple.com/macosx/>
You base your choice of which operating system to use on which ones are
supported by the applications that you require. Choosing an OS and then
deciding on which applications you can use limits your choices. You use
the OS the best supports your critical applications. If the
applications doesn't support MacOSX then obviously that's not a viable
choice. If your task can be accomplished with multiple applications
which support different operating systems then you choose the platform
that is most cost effective (and that includes cost of expertise,
training, troubleshooting, management, and even direct costs, like how
much the application costs for each platform).
Say you need to provide remote access to your Unix hosts on your
employees' workstations by using an Xserver program. Your choice is to
use WRQ's ReflectionX because that is what your employees already have
been trained on and have expertise in configuring, using, and
troubleshooting. It is also the product best known by your IT and
helpdesk support groups. Yeah, you could use something else but
training costs money, slows performance in the meantime, and takes times
to acquire a decent level of expertise. Well, that means you need a
platform that is supported by that application, and that means you're
stuck with Windows.
Sorry, I love Windows but I am incredibly worn out by the never ending
battle against the endless chain of issues.... Viruses, Spy/Adware
protection, security holes, patching... The cost to IT, user and
development communities and to our economy is extremely high and for
issues that need not exist and do not exist in other more responsible
environments. To see MS making moves that do not indicate they
appreciate the levity of these issues is extremely discouraging and
will surely magnify the perception of Microsoft as an insecure and
cost heavy OS to operate in the Enterprise environment.
Although the paranoids might construe Microsoft's purchase of Claria to
mean that Microsoft is getting into the malware business, more probable
is that Microsoft want's the advertising channel already existing for
Claria to provide a revenue stream (because maybe Microsoft doesn't like
its current scheme already employed for advertising on their MSN and
Hotmail sites). Microsoft added a firewall far after other vendors were
providing the same function, and some were free. Microsoft bought
Giant's anti-spyware program and provides that for free. Microsoft
bought the RAD anti-virus product (but whether it will be free won't be
known until Microsoft releases the AV product). Microsoft abandoned
their own scheme (which looked to duplicate Yahoo DomainKeys) and is
talking with the folks pushing SPF to make e-mail more safe.
Somehow I really don't think the purchase of Claria is going to undo
everything else by Microsoft, and Microsoft already does advertising so
that's no surprise, either. Yahoo has their means of producing ad
revenue. Google went a step further to deliver targeted ads. You think
Microsoft, or anyone else for that matter, isn't looking at how to
produce more revenue from the ads on their web sites?
