Microsoft plays nice? Or April Fool?

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Message 986589 - Posted: 4 Apr 2010, 16:46:40 UTC
Last modified: 4 Apr 2010, 16:48:26 UTC

Possibly an interesting turn for a new head in Microsoft:


Microsoft clutches open source to its corporate heart - New GM vows end to religious war

... Microsoft is still haunted by a legacy of bad blood and what it calls "misrepresentations". This stems not just from Utzschneider's boss Steve Ballmer and his periodic claims that Linux is violating Microsoft patents. It goes further back. Microsoft's first attempts to engage with open source and Linux produced the hated Get the Facts campaign. This was followed by the notorious Halloween memos. Both exposed a bare-knuckled fight to discredit Linux and open source and persuade customers and partners that Windows was empirically the better way to go.

Utzschneider said Microsoft has changed, realizing it makes good business sense to work with Linux and open source - although the two will still compete in places. To change perceptions about Microsoft, he said the company can't use "clever advertising or press".

"It has to be done with products and actions and behavior on a sustained basis across the company and across the ecosystem. I want the idea of Microsoft being proprietary and closed and not open to interoperating - I want that to disappear as an issue," he said.


What is that? He wants the 'issue' of Microsoft's attempt of ruling the computer world to cease to be 'an issue'?! Has he dreamt up some 'ultimate solution' that cures it all for us?

All an April Fool's dream or likewise an April nightmare?


Meanwhile, there's still the long running fun with:

Opera alerts EU to hidden Windows browser-ballot - IE wizard obscures choice?

... The Commission has the power to fine Microsoft for not complying with antitrust law. Microsoft was fined $1.39bn (899m euro) in 2008 for not meeting the terms of an earlier antitrust ruling in a separate case in 2004.

According to Lie, the ballot screen is now being hidden by the IE configuration wizard when you download IE and the ballot screen in the same update from Microsoft's Windows Update service.

The browser choice screen is offered by Microsoft as an automatic download for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, to reach PCs already running the operating system rather than new copies of Windows 7 that will be installed fresh.

Lie said the problem could be that the browser ballot screen runs in IE, so IE must therefore be configured when it's been downloaded and set up for the first time.

Lie said: "When you've been through the 10 screens of IE settings, you are limited with what you can be bothered doing next."



Can old leopards really change their spots?

Regards,
Martin
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Message 988962 - Posted: 13 Apr 2010, 22:34:43 UTC
Last modified: 13 Apr 2010, 22:38:46 UTC

A few Microsoft hits in this list?

Ubuntu Linux Claims 12 Million Users and Rising

... 12 million people are using Ubuntu Linux as their primary operating system. The number is significantly higher than 2008's numbers, jumping up 4 million over the last two years. This may be a good indication that end-users are desperately seeking alternatives to Microsoft's Windows platform and Apple's Mac OS.

But the number of users may actually grow at an even faster rate once Ubuntu Linux incorporates "Lucid Lynx," a codename assigned to the Ubuntu 10.04 update. Scheduled for distribution by the end of the month, the update will overhaul Ubuntu Linux's interface and provide multiple new features on the desktop...



Meanwhile, is this Microsoft's idea of "free" to counter a series of OSes that are "free-of-cost and that use total-freedom-of-use open source"?

Windows Ad Edition Could Be Free

... Talk of a free edition of Microsoft's Windows OS isn't anything new: the idea has been around since 2005 at the very least. However, Stephen Chapman of MSFTKitchen seems the think the free edition is closer to reality than ever before, especially with businesses pushing to move software into the cloud...


Intel Not Shaken by Microsoft's Itanium Phase Out

Only six percent of Itanium systems run Microsoft Windows.

... I wonder which OS(es) the other 94% are running?...


Especially considering this never ending stream of disruption and ad-hoc vulnerabilities patching:

Microsoft to Patch 25 Windows Vulnerabilities

Get ready for Patch Tuesday!

At the end of March, Microsoft released an out-of-band patch for a "serious flaw" affecting IE6 and IE7 because the vulnerability was said to be both critical and time sensitive. So what about the flaws that don't warrant an out-of-band patch?

CNet reports that Microsoft will next week release 11 security bulletins addressing a total of 25 vulnerabilities. Spread across Windows, Microsoft Office, and Exchange, five of the bulletins are addressing critical vulnerabilities, five are considered important, and the last is rated as moderate.

All five of the bulletins marked critical as well as three of the important bulletins affect vulnerabilities that allow for remote code execution. Exploit code for two of the vulnerabilities has already been released.


I wonder what that lot will break as collateral damage?...


Why Mozilla Needs To Go Into Survival Mode

... Mozilla needs to draw from the best it has to be able to survive this battle. And if it can, we should see amazing innovation in the browser field over the next five years.

What is very interesting in the stats are:

  • How biased the stats can be!
  • The share loss/gains appear to be largely between Firefox and IE;
  • There's a very hard logjam apparent for users on IE6. Those that made it to IE7 are steadily moving up to IE8... BIG proprietary lock-in on IE6?...


Indeed, whilst there was only IE6, there was zero web development for a number of years. Amazing how Mozilla busted that stagnation after the destruction of Netscape...


All good interesting stuff!

Regards,
Martin


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Message 991065 - Posted: 22 Apr 2010, 10:23:10 UTC
Last modified: 22 Apr 2010, 10:23:33 UTC

There's going to be a bit of Microsoft collateral damage from this one:

McAfee false positive bricks enterprise PCs worldwide - World of hurt

... customers of a widely used McAfee anti-virus product were in a world of hurt on Wednesday after an update caused large swaths of their machines to become completely inoperable.

... The virus definition falsely identifies a core Windows file as infected, quarantines it and then shuts down the machine. When restarted, the PCs are unable to load Windows, a glitch that mires them in an endless reboot cycle. ...



All very silly.

Perhaps Microsoft should fix their core problems rather than leave their users vulnerable to various 3rd parties?...


Microsoft's malware vulnerabilities continue to be another positive for the value of the various alternatives that are now slowly pushing the Microsoft dinosaur... Provided the various Microsoft lock-ins can be neutralised...

Regards,
Martin
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Message 991564 - Posted: 24 Apr 2010, 10:07:39 UTC - in response to Message 991065.  

All very silly.

Perhaps Microsoft should fix their core problems rather than leave their users vulnerable to various 3rd parties?...


Microsoft's malware vulnerabilities continue to be another positive for the value of the various alternatives that are now slowly pushing the Microsoft dinosaur... Provided the various Microsoft lock-ins can be neutralised...


Well, another Windows user friend rang in a panic with her laptop doing 'strange things'... Usual silliness to clean up and fix. All she was doing was browsing a reliable news site when up pops a malware advertisement...

Too many wasted hours later, she's now instead using Firefox and looking at getting a new Apple machine...


So this is the typical fix-it advice?

Tackling a malware nightmare

Andy Butler has an infected Windows PC and the infections keep coming back. It's a good time to give it a through "spring clean" to remove any malware…

Only on Microsoft Windows.


All very silly...

Regards,
Martin

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Message 993324 - Posted: 1 May 2010, 19:34:57 UTC

For once, is this an example of where Microsoft is victim to someone else's system?...

Microsoft says IE9 will only support H.264 for video

Microsoft is supporting H.264 in IE9 but not its own system, VC-1, or the open source Ogg Theora...


I think this comment sums it up succinctly:

What a ridiculous mess. It's hard to know who to have any sympathy with on this one.

Not Microsoft, who are pushing their own proprietary, Linux-unfriendly stuff.

And certainly not Apple. Turning their noses up at Theora because of an "uncertain patent landscape" is utter hypocrisy, when they're actually pushing H.264, which we know is patented up to the eyeballs! The whole H.264 situation stinks. MPEG LA has promised to not collect any royalty fees until the end of 2015; just enough time to get the entire internet hooked on it and then they can clean up.

And finally, not Adobe because ... well, Flash is a buggy, resource pig - especially on non-Windows systems.



Indeed what a mess, and that's before suffering the patents abuse mess!

All very silly,
Martin

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Message 994025 - Posted: 4 May 2010, 14:41:01 UTC

After over a decade of hegemony, is this the start of a slow or rapid downfall?

Microsoft's Internet Explorer losing browser share


Regards,
Martin

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Message 994059 - Posted: 4 May 2010, 16:20:47 UTC - in response to Message 994025.  

heck only 60% of the world population needlessly exposes itself to malware now! Fantastic news!!!


In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
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Message 994199 - Posted: 5 May 2010, 13:05:10 UTC - in response to Message 994025.  

After over a decade of hegemony, is this the start of a slow or rapid downfall?

Microsoft's Internet Explorer losing browser share


Are these some of the user features that Microsoft needs to support?

... Why Google Chrome Will Crush IE In Browser War


Wait a moment... Is that called competition?...

And how many YEARS was it that IE6 was left languishing completely unimproved?


Regards,
Martin


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Message 1004263 - Posted: 15 Jun 2010, 0:02:22 UTC
Last modified: 15 Jun 2010, 0:02:39 UTC

As if the incessant flood of patches weren't bad enough:


Microsoft sneaks Firefox add-on into Patch Tuesday update

Microsoft has silently slipped a Firefox extension onto user machines via an automatic software update. Again.

... Microsoft now tells The Reg that the update was installing the latest version of its Bing toolbar...

... The update was marked "important," not "optional." And Firefox users at MozillaZone weren't too happy about the silent extension install. "I am still annoyed that Microsoft thinks it is ok to arbitrarily tack on something to my FF browser WITHOUT asking, and worst of all, disabling the Uninstall button! Why do they keep doing stupid things like that?!" says one posted. ...



So,... is Microsoft Windows itself a 'virus'?!...

Regards,
Martin
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Message boards : Politics : Microsoft plays nice? Or April Fool?


 
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