Hey, RealityCheck, I think Paul Andrews together with the Seattle Times and the rest of the population that shares their opinion for that matter are dreaming and that Jobs' RDF (Reality Distortion Field) is to blame and indeed MS is quen of the music and web search industries. What do you think?

They suggest an idiotic WinPod... I just don't get it?

Ripping off Apple would have been innovative and yet.. what they're doing now.. isnt? *shrug

MS is a software company.. they want to push PLATFORMS so that other companies can make them money by adding value to their PLATFORM.

MS makes the OS, which is useless unless it has lots of DEVELOPERS...

I seriously think MS is Smart, but, what the 'developers' have come up with so far blows.. and it looks like WMA might never gain appreciable respect.. the iPod+iTunes experience is pretty elegant..

But back to the story.. I find it hilariuos that a Seattle paper (bias, check) thinks MS was hugely innovative.

They hustled IBM.. became the standard, now have a monopoly...

Got it?

Nowhere in there is, "OH $#!% we have to innovate our way out of this bloated disgusting mess of an OS.. OH $#!%.. no one likes us.. Oh $#!%.. we're not cool... "

they're boring.. 3rd rate.. but innovation didn't put food on the table.. IBM did

Is Microsoft "beleaguered"?

-1 off the death knell counter!

No MS is not truly beleaguered, but what people are not realising is that there is a wind of change blowing through the tech world. More and more there is a realisation that MS wants to control everything; not only that but there current products are a pos. Why do you think most of the Telcos avoid MS stuff - because they know they would end up being controlled by Gates. If there was truly a case of what goes around comes around, it is MS.

Look at the Chinese with Red Star Linux. They get it and don't want to be controlled by Gates and his crowd. MS has to offer a cut down version of Windows to compete - and still they are up against free Linux and the pirates. Hence lower profits and this is in probably the world's biggest market.

In addition there is a corresponding worldwide rise in truly open standards (= agreed by a committee and open to all, with patent sharing if needed) rather than de facto proprietary ones as pushed/controlled by MS. MS is now concentrating on patents because they realise the game is up. The European monopolies commission seems to have more guts than the DoJ (or more independence from the politicians), realise what MS is up to and are acting accordingly, just another straw in the wind.

MS is rather like Ford in the early car industry, they are currently dominant but will decline to being a major, but not controlling player alongside other major players such as Apple. Hopefully

So far Apple is getting it right.

Tacitus

The world has awakened.

Consumers realize monopoly lead to regressive applications and options controlled by monopoly i.e. no real choices.

Vendors realize profits based on proprietary standards mean little to zero profit for them while owners of proprietary standards earn fat profits.

Lots of well written comments above with people finally getting a sense of the future rather than being cemented in the past and present like reality check and his ilk. Thses minds are nothing more than tech Luddites with no ability to see the bigger picture that is developing in the world, strategically, politically and geographically. Whether Apple is one of the real winners or not isnt the point and the fact that he/they chose this batttlefield simply shows their lack of all round vision. Increasing they suffer from the very distortion of reality they so arrogantly and ignorantly accuse others of. The simple fact is that companies are moving from being MS brown nosers in the narrow world that the likes of RC can't see beyond to being able to understand how to not only live in that current environment, but to develop and compete in ways that will take us into the next phase of technology, one which will increasingly gain independence from those MS tentacles and as MS did with IBM use its own tactics and technology against it. With the size that MS is it will be increasingly unable to to keep repairing the gaps in its barricades and nothing, lack of confidence will fester even more alarmingly and nothing makes an easier target than a failing and failing giant made worse by its inability to spread its profit base away from relatively few mature products, despite that size. As its vuolnerablty becomes ever more visible even its closet allies will open alternatives strategies and the killer blow will of course be delivered eventually from Asia. The likes of RC will be but laughable cronies somewhat in the vein of Lord Haw Haw but without the sense of humour.

<i>What happened to the old Microsoft way of "innovating"?

Faced with an iPod boom in the past, the old Microsoft would have called together hardware makers for a global announcement of "WinPod," a new, cheaper, Windows-reliant MP3 player in versions from Lexar, Hewlett-Packard, Samsung and on down the line.</i>

That about sums up Microsoft "innovation."

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Guest wrote:
..........The simple fact is that companies are moving from being MS brown nosers in the narrow world that the likes of RC can't see beyond to being able to understand how to not only live in that current environment, but to develop and compete in ways that will take us into the next phase of technology, one which will increasingly gain independence from those MS tentacles...........As its vuolnerablty becomes ever more visible even its closet allies will open alternatives strategies and the killer blow will of course be delivered eventually from Asia. The likes of RC will be but laughable cronies somewhat in the vein of Lord Haw Haw but without the sense of humour.