@jtsiren

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The thing is, this time Microsoft got it right. .NET is quite a bit better than Java, very clean

Both technologies have their strongpoints. IMO Microsoft needs more competition, I think in terms of their marketshare and profits they push the market forward by far too little. They only seem to do what they need to do in reaction to competitors gaining ground.

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Of course Microsoft also has many other products that could be considered top of their class. I think Office is one of those.

OpenOffice.org and Firefox are good free alternatives. IMO it's amazing that free products nowadays are able to rival IE and MS Office in quality (IMO due to Microsoft behaviour in the market killing the viability of rival products, and its marketshare making the support for alternative operating systems too insignificant, thus being not of interest to ordinary consumers, making the circle complete). Of course, there's not enough marketing money available to market free products, marketing is one of Microsoft's strong points.

@MikeB

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IMO Microsoft needs more competition

Of course.

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OpenOffice.org and Firefox are good free alternatives.

Sure they are. Actually as far as browsers go, I don't think Internet Explorer is top of the pack any more, it was for a while. But Office I'd still keep there by miles, even if the free alternatives have progressed greatly too.

I love open source, so nobody get me wrong. Lots of great stuff by great people out there.

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marketing is one of Microsoft's strong points.

As is Sony's. They maintain an image that is often above their product (of course at times the product may be best or near best too no doubt, these are usually the times I buy Sony most eagerly). Lots of people still think Sony equals pretty much best when technical people clearly can separate many Sony products from real top-of-the-line products by more prestigious, smaller manufacturers.

@MikeB

I'm not sure that marketing is a strong point for Microsoft. The clever thing is that their marketing is done for them by others. If they want to enter a market, they can exercise their Windows advantage (pun intended), add cut-throat pricing, and Dell, HP, PC World, CompUSA or whoever does the advertising for them.

I grumble about Microsoft, but they never really had any competition. Apple and Commodore blew it. BeOS was too late and too marginal. But Open-source is doing everything they used to do to other people. OpenOffice might not be as good as Office, but it's good enough for most people, significantly cheaper and easier to get hold off than MS Office - just click a download link. I think that's hilarious.

Chris

Last edited by clebin on 28-May-2007 at 07:33 PM.

@clebin
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But Open-source is doing everything they used to do to other people. OpenOffice might not be as good as Office, but it's good enough for most people

Open Source has done far more harm to *nix as a whole in my opinion. DG-UX, HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, Irix, and SCO to name but a few have been marginalized and in some cases are essentially gone. Linux has replaced them. It's sad really Irix was great still way better then Linux, IMO. Sun now appears to be following the failed SGI business plan. Microsoft has gained server share and other companies have lost it to Microsoft and to Linux. I know others will disagree and that's fine but it seems Linux has helped kill *nixes and indirectly helped Microsoft.

Open office is okay, personally it feels 5 years old but it does do most things for most people. MS Word is often overkill though the latest version is prolly the best one in a while.


@Thread
Humor : Sony Innovation

@jtsiren

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BTW: How is this different from Sony having many proprietary, incompatible standards that are not based on open forums? Can you spell MiniDisc, UMD, memory stick, Blu-ray... I agree both companies do this. I am not disputing it in any way. This is one reason I find the companies so similar!

How's that different? I never felt the need to use MiniDisc, UMD nor Sony memory sticks. They are just storage media, you have a lot to choose from in this regard. Don't like it, you are free to buy a roughly equivalent quality device from the many competitors. Nintendo uses cartidges for their DS you cannot use with anything else, the PSP uses UMD, so what?

The only storage media I can think of you can blame Sony for is the 3.5 inch diskette, if you really preferred using 5 1/4 floppies. If you prefer 3.5 inch diskettes they rather deserve credit. Music cassettes cannot be blamed on Sony alone, you will have to blame (or credit) Philips as well.

Regarding DVD and Blu-Ray, Sony is just part of a industry majority consortium. You can just as well blame TDK, Apple Inc., Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Panasonic, Hitachi, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sun, Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, etc, etc, etc for this.

Now regarding M$, I don't like using Microsoft Office at all, although it's not difficult to import M$ Office files into 3rd party efforts, it's much more of a drag the other way around. A problem when exchanging files with people who don't know that much about computers (many business contacts).

Last edited by MikeB on 28-May-2007 at 08:05 PM.
Last edited by MikeB on 28-May-2007 at 08:01 PM.

@MikeB

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How's that different? I never felt the need to use MiniDisc, UMD nor Sony memory sticks. They are just storage media, you have a lot to choose from in this regard. Don't like it, you are free to buy a roughly equivalent quality device from the many competitors. Nintendo uses cartidges for their DS you cannot use with anything else, the PSP uses UMD, so what?

If you have a Sony product you are forced to use their storage media, there's nothing to choose from, it's Memory Stick Pro Duo or the highway, most of the time. Nintendo uses cartridges that are of course proprietary and about the PSP's UMD format, fair enough, it's fine in both cases. But Pro Duo sticks are amongst the most expensive in the market and all their mobile phones etc. use them exclusively. I could have bought a 2GB stick of a different standard with the same money I paid for my 1GB Pro Duo, but that's all their hardware supports.

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Now regarding M$, I don't like using Microsoft Office at all, although it's not difficult to import M$ Office files into 3rd party efforts, it's much more of a drag the other way around. A problem when exchanging files with people who don't know that much about computers (many business contacts).

Not anymore, Office 2007 uses compressed XML files as .doc files. The text itself is plaintext as well, meaning that even without a viewer that can handle XML, you can still read the text without any formatting. Moreover, MathType is no longer used for equations, Tex is used, which is another industry standard.

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@clebin

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Apple and Commodore blew it. BeOS was too late and too marginal.

I think nowadays also IBM realizes they blew it, giving Microsoft way too much power. Without IBM's choice for MSDOS (one of the most limited and handicapped OSes ever released) IMO Microsoft would never have been the company it is today. For example maybe they could have funded QNX (Qunix, Quick Unix) development to suit their needs.

On a more positive note, I do think Microsoft development of Amiga software allowed them to envision some pretty significant but IMO badly implemented enhancements into their later Windows products.

@BrianK

Not sure how I feel about that. I totally agree that Linux is taking share away from Unix. I'm not sure that makes Windows more likely to take market share off Unix + Linux combined. I hope the opposite will be true in the long term.

Microsoft's lock-in is the big reason it's gained share. Windows on the desktop leads to a Windows-based network. Then you hook Exchange into your Active Directory nice and cheaply. Exchange works best with Outlook/Office and IE which locks you back into Windows on your desktop.

The Unix server vendors could never compete with the prices Microsoft charges, because it's all being subsidised by the desktops. The only answer to that is compete on the desktop, which Solaris or AIX could never do.

But with open-source you can. Just rreverse-engineer Microsoft's protocols and offer it all for free. You slowly unravel Office, Outlook and Windows desktops and the MS server prices don't look so good. The proprietary standards don't look so binding. Sun, and Solaris, can compete again.

I may be in a worse mood tomorrow, but today, that's how I see it!

Chris

@AMiGR

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f you have a Sony product you are forced to use their storage media, there's nothing to choose from, it's Memory Stick Pro Duo or the highway, most of the time.

So what? Buy a Panasonic, Philps, Samsung, etc, etc, etc, etc.... instead! *If* you really dislike to use their memory sticks so much. Nobody is forcing anything on you, Sony may think their storage media is best cut for the job, like Nintendo thinks cartidges are better for the Nintendo DS.

The Sony PS3 supports lots of storage media, 3rd party USB memory sticks. For example I and my girlfriend use our non-Sony MP3 players to store pictures, videos and music onto the PS3.

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But Pro Duo sticks are amongst the most expensive in the market and all their mobile phones etc. use them exclusively.

*If* you don't like these sticks there are enough alternatives from Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, LG, etc, etc. Probably there are consumers who do like Sony's sticks, how many storage media should a cellphone support? If you don't like the specs, why buy the device at all?

@MikeB

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Without IBM's choice for MSDOS (one of the most limited and handicapped OSes ever released) IMO Microsoft would never have been the company it is today.

Yep, IBM choosing to out-source for an OS must be the stupidest mistake in the history of computing!

Chris

@MikeB

It's a bit like the lock-in I mentioned though. You could say, "well you don't have to use Windows" Sony and Microsoft aren't the only company to do it. Printer manufacturers would really rather you buy their expensive cartridges. Apple do it but are careful not to try and get away with too much after ADB, NuBus and other defunct things.

It doesn't bother me too much. I actually chose not to buy the Sony camera in duty free because I didn't want their memory format.

Chris

@clebin

Just to be clear I don't believe Linux is the only reason Windows gained marketshare on the *nixes but it is one.

Yes other companies do use their own standards. Apple is a huge user of these sort of thing. Can anyone say iTunes iPod? If you buy an iTune song it's DRM locked to Apple products and when your iPod dies really the only choice is to buy another iPod. One couldn't use the Rio Karma w/ sound quality that puts bests the iPod, for example, due to Apple's lock-in of the market. 5th gen iPod SNR is ~85db this little guy was A rated at 95dB. And of course a player shipped with Sennheiser ear buds. And supported Linux and Amiga over ethernet.. I miss my Karma.

Last edited by BrianK on 28-May-2007 at 10:48 PM.

@BrianK

Sounds like a nice music player.

Removing iTunes DRM is easy - you don't have to buy another iPod. Just burning your tracks to CD removes all the nastiness so you can import them again as standard files. It's not a bad idea to burn them to CD anyway.

Apple did negotiate with the record companies to release higher bitrate DRM-free tracks at a slight premium. They're the main culprits.

Just in case anyone thinks I'm Apple's fanboy spokesman here, the flip-side is Jobs' statements about DRM, which are a tad hypocritical given that they've refused to license their FairPlay DRM to anybody else. I also think the iTunes Store is pretty bad value for money given that you can get a physical CD for not much more than you pay for a DRM-ed up stream of bits. For that reason, I use the software but never the store.

Chris

@clebin

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Just burning your tracks to CD removes all the nastiness so you can import them again as standard files.

Indeed a klugy work around. Had Apple licensed their DRM, as you said which they could have done and so far have denied all comers, other players then the iPod could be used. The reason they didn't seems obvious if the industry reports of iPods being the largest profit music player. A company would want to do everything to protect a 40+% margin leading selling product. And yes personally CDs are still the better way to go. If you want a whole CD buying the CD is not only less expensive but the audio quality on the CD is higher. Though in MN we do enjoy one of the lowest priced CDs in the US. Not sure why. But Minneapolis is frequently about $5 per CD less then Denver, for example.

More on the Karma it had a very small webserver built in. So one could easily network it and access it. Very creative and it lost to the iPod as did everyone. As we all know too well markets don't always result in the technically best product winning, else why would we have Windows.

Last edited by BrianK on 29-May-2007 at 12:00 AM.

@MikeB

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So what? Buy a Panasonic, Philps, Samsung, etc, etc, etc, etc.... instead! *If* you really dislike to use their memory sticks so much.

I like their mobile phones, I do not like Panasonic's, or Philips', or Samsung's. I do not *dislike* their memory sticks, it's just that they are pretty much the most expensive in the market, if we exclude some miniature ones.

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Nobody is forcing anything on you, Sony may think their storage media is best cut for the job, like Nintendo thinks cartidges are better for the Nintendo DS.

The console game delivery story is a totally different thing and has nothing to do with reusable media to transfer data from a computer to a device and vice versa. What Nintendo and Sony do to deliver games to their consoles is fine, they think that's the best thing for the job so they use it. However, there were standard memory sticks Sony could have used for their mobile phones, but no, they insist on using their own, manufactured by themselves and SanDisk and costing an arm and a leg. It's just annoying, because they usually do have the best phones for what I use them for.

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The Sony PS3 supports lots of storage media, 3rd party USB memory sticks. For example I and my girlfriend use our non-Sony MP3 players to store pictures, videos and music onto the PS3.

Your point being?

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*If* you don't like these sticks there are enough alternatives from Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, LG, etc, etc. Probably there are consumers who do like Sony's sticks, how many storage media should a cellphone support? If you don't like the specs, why buy the device at all?

I do not like the *price* of those sticks and I can assure you that no other consumer likes their price either. The sticks themselves are fine. They just cost too bloody much! I like the specs, I just think that they should have gone for one of the existing standards that are cheaper, since they are produced in a more massive scale.

Anyway, the whole point here was about Microsoft introducing proprietary standards and the fact that Sony does as well. How on earth can you be claiming that it's not OK when MS does it but it's fine when Sony does?

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@BrianK
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Though in MN we do enjoy one of the lowest priced CDs in the US. Not sure why. But Minneapolis is frequently about $5 per CD less then Denver, for example

Pah, couldn't you have told me that a couple of weeks ago?

I bought a load of CDs in Denver. Ok that bit isn't true.

@AMiGR

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How on earth can you be claiming that it's not OK when MS does it but it's fine when Sony does?

@AMiGR

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I do not *dislike* their memory sticks, it's just that they are pretty much the most expensive in the market, if we exclude some miniature ones.

That's just how it is, the XBox 360 uses extremely loud and relatively scratch prone DVD drives. Don't like it? Don't buy it!

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The console game delivery story is a totally different thing and has nothing to do with reusable media to transfer data from a computer to a device and vice versa.

You can just use BlueTooth, that's how I do it. Or maybe use an USB cable.

Maybe there's some niche product with which you only have expensive upgrade options (like was the case for the Amiga at a point), don't like it? Don't buy it! However Sony Ericson phones are not a niche product, you will be able to find support nearly everywhere. That's part of the reason why the consumer satisfaction is so high.

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Your point being?

Quite simple, it's a much larger device than a cellphone thus Sony added a varierty of options. WIth regard to cellphones they added the option they may think is the best solution for their devices. You rather be walking around with a PS3 instead of a cellphone? Point: Cellphones are designed to be as small as possible and due to this fact your options will more likely be limited in comparison to larger devices.

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I do not like the *price* of those sticks and I can assure you that no other consumer likes their price either

Your point? Sure consumers often prefer cheaper prices or better yet want them to be free if possible! But I am sure there are people who gladly pay the extra few bucks for memory sticks, for example because of the sticks being a good quality option (or based on other merrits, making their choice based from a larger perspective).

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Anyway, the whole point here was about Microsoft introducing proprietary standards and the fact that Sony does as well. How on earth can you be claiming that it's not OK when MS does it but it's fine when Sony does?

No, that's where you pulled the discussion towards. we talked about monopolies and consumer choice. You don't have to buy Sony products, However I am sure even Sony and Amiga employees use Windows and other Microsoft products, just because of practical reasons due to Microsoft's industry might and business practises (killing off or marginalizing otherwise very viable alternatives and efforts) over the years.

Sony's and other company's introduction of proprietary standards is IMO excellent in terms of pushing the market forward through innovative competition. New proprietary solutions allows room for distinction and consuner choice, a reason for companies to invest in research and development.

However in Microsoft's case, Windows users often have little to no option to just eat up almost everything Microsoft serves them (especially non-computer wizkids and for business purposes). Look at Windows as a country covering 90% of the world, Microsoft as its government and it's easy to see the disadvantages smaller yet more innovative and top-class yet less resourceful and mightycompanies are facing when competing with the government (Microsoft).

On the other hand all of Sony's product perform well or badly based their own merrits, there's no monopoly to push standards down people's throats, both situations IMO are very different.

Last edited by MikeB on 29-May-2007 at 10:18 AM.
Last edited by MikeB on 29-May-2007 at 10:11 AM.

@clebin

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Yep, IBM choosing to out-source for an OS must be the stupidest mistake in the history of computing!

To recap, Microsoft bought the "piece of crap" MSDOS is for a mere summ of 25,000 USD. It was called QDOS back then, Quick and Dirty Operating System and was developed by a single developer to mimic CP/M functionality.

@MikeB

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That's just how it is, the XBox 360 uses extremely loud and relatively scratch prone DVD drives. Don't like it? Don't buy it!

I haven't.

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You can just use BlueTooth, that's how I do it. Or maybe use an USB cable.

And where does BlueTooth and the USB cable *read and write* from and to? That's right, the memory stick on your device, for which you paid fifty quid instead of twenty, because it's a Sony or SanDisk Pro Duo.

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Maybe there's some niche product with which you only have expensive upgrade options (like was the case for the Amiga at a point), don't like it? Don't buy it! However Sony Ericson phones are not a niche product, you will be able to find support nearly everywhere. That's part of the reason why the consumer satisfaction is so high.

*Sigh*, "support elsewhere". I do not like the phones from their competitors, period. You push it here, you push it there, you just cannot admit the fact that Sony pushed their own proprietary and incredibly expensive format forward instead of using the existing, mass-produced, standards.

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Your point? Sure consumers often prefer cheaper prices or better yet want them to be free if possible! But I am sure there are people who gladly pay the extra few bucks for memory sticks, for example because of the sticks being a good quality option (or based on other merrits, making their choice based from a larger perspective).

Like? They cost more, are as fast/slow, last exactly as long, are smaller than some and bigger than some other standards, etc. Seriously, there is nothing the Pro Duo sticks have that their competitors do not have at a lower price. That was one of the criticisms reviewers kept giving about the PSP, it had a proprietary format for content delivery which was fair enough, and instead of having a standard format for data exchange, it had another proprietary format there as well, not to mention that for the PSP you have to buy special "gaming" Pro Duos that are faster than the bog standard ones.

A Sony 2GB Pro Duo has a rather bogus RRP of £149.99 and can be bought for £25 from Play.com.
A SanDisk 4GB Gaming Pro Duo has an RRP of £99.99 and can be bought for £35.99.
In comparison, a SanDisk 2GB MicroSD that is by far smaller than a Pro Duo costs £14.99 and a MiniSD costs £9.99. Play.com's OEM MiniSD's cost £5.99 for a gig. SanDisk's Premier MicroSD at 2GB costs £17.99. The RRP's of all of the above are comparable to Play.com's prices.

Generally, you have to pay more than double the price to get either the same thing or something larger, if you're looking at MicroSDs.

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No, that's where you pulled the discussion towards. we talked about monopolies and consumer choice.

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The way they design their dev tools, industry standards and services are often geared towards incompatibilty with competing solutions (open standards). For example promoting XNA as a professional level games development kit (the experience gained is only useful in Windows or XBox 360 environments).

That is where you dragged the discussion, not me. Stop hiding behind your fingers every time you don't like what someone tells you.

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You don't have to buy Sony products, However I am sure even Sony and Amiga employees use Windows and other Microsoft products, just because of practical reasons due to Microsoft's industry might and business practises (killing off or marginalizing otherwise very viable alternatives and efforts) over the years.

You don't have to buy Microsoft's products either, feel free to use the open alternatives or MacOS X as I do. Do you believe for *one* second that a company that releases RootKit-"enabled" CDs that open your machine wide to attacks from anyone would *not* have done the same as Microsoft if they had the reach to do it at the time? Sony and MS are very much alike, corporate giants that do their best to destroy the competition and discredit everyone that competes with them using their publicity as an attack platform. They both use companies and communities when it suits them and then sue them or stop them when it suits them better.

Sony *mainly* uses their name and not their technology in the consumer electronic market, their HiFi's never were "High Fidelity" in the last 20 years, they are "looks first" electronics, their Trinitron TV's were just rehashing of the old Trinitron TVs of theirs while the competition had moved forwards. Their mobile CD players (Walkman brand products) were the same thing others had done before and were looks first, sound second. Same as their headphones, they are on par with Philips and brands like that, selling their name in a flashy package and nothing else. Have a chat with any audiophile about Sony's soundsystems in general.

All these huge electronics companies have stopped producing innovative and quality consumer electronics decades ago, they are in the cheap, mass-produced, throw-away product era. At the same price you can buy a Sony speaker you can buy a Dantax (from the made in Denmark series) that is gonna sound about a million times better.

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On the other hand all of Sony's product perform well or badly based their own merrits, there's no monopoly to push standards down people's throats, both situations IMO are very different.

No, they perform well mostly because of Sony's name. Same as Philips, Technics (yuk), Yamaha, etc.. When a consumer walks into a shop and sees two products, one of which with more features and the other with the Sony name, they go with the Sony product, "it's well known, it must be good", and you cannot possibly claim that this isn't happening.

Last edited by AMiGR on 29-May-2007 at 12:45 PM.

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