Recently in Microsoft Category

I've got to say, I truly wonder why so many corporations willingly cede complete and utter control over their software infrastructure to proprietary software vendors.

Let's face it, when you are a proprietary software vendor, your entire business rests on how good you are at preventing people from using your software unless they've paid for it. The only practical way to do that is to build extra software that makes sure only authorized users use the product software.

In other words, part of what you are paying for with proprietary software is an extra piece of software that decides whether or not you can use the software you've paid for. If that software doesn't work right, you can't use your own software. Even if you've done absolutely nothing wrong, until the vendor fixes the problem.

Got it?

That's how Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage works. If the server goes down (as happened recently, read the comments for some great user opinions on the MSDN blog entry about it here), or if something else breaks, you can't use your software.

If I had to run Windows, I would seriously consider buying a pirated version (in addition to the "legal" version) just so I wouldn't have to worry about just this kind of thing.

This isn't news: twenty years ago, PC support staff at small/medium sized companies routinely used commercial copy-protection cracking software so they could re-install Lotus 1-2-3 (et al) when the users lost key diskettes or misplaced their activation codes. If you were big enough, you could get more special-purpose software to manage your licenses; if you weren't, you had to go out and spend a few hundred bucks every time your users trashed their systems and needed to replace their applications.

Just in case you had any illusions about what your software is doing and who is in charge, consider this: Windows Update updating without permission! Basically, the story here is that the blogger didn't want Windows Update to update without permission, but the fact is that the EULA for Windows says that Microsoft is in charge of how that software works, not you. But it is galling nonetheless.

This little titbit, I Warned Ye... may be flip, but it sure is true: don't go rushing into the latest and greatest for no other reason than your vendor wants you to. Vista may be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but according to this report from W3Counter.com, Vista has only about 3.46% market share, versus 83.48% for Windows XP (Linux is climbing, having just beat out Windows 98 at 1.34%).

So what are you paying your software vendors for?

If you've been following any of the discourse on security, cryptography and the Internet over the past ten or fifteen years, the name Peter Gutmann will definitely ring a bell.

So you've to give credence to his recent report, A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection.

In particular, consider the Executive Summary:

Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in order to provide content protection for so-called “premium content”, typically HD data from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sources. Providing this protection incurs considerable costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical support overhead, and hardware and software cost. These issues affect not only users of Vista but the entire PC industry, since the effects of the protection measures extend to cover all hardware and software that will ever come into contact with Vista, even if it's not used directly with Vista (for example hardware in a Macintosh computer or on a Linux server). This document analyses the cost involved in Vista's content protection, and the collateral damage that this incurs throughout the computer industry.

In other words, Vista is designed to protect "premium content" such as music or movies. Vista's design thus places the corporate goals of maximizing profit ahead of the goal of maximizing user value.

Not cool, Microsoft.

After years of waiting, is Vista worth it, to Microsoft or to anyone else? The jury is still out, but so far it's not looking that good. Slashdot reported Survey Finds Few Intend to Upgrade to Vista, pointing to a Harris Interactive poll that concluded Most Potential Buyers of Microsoft’s Vista Take a Wait and See Attitude.

The Harris poll, conducted last month, showed that 87% "of those online" were "aware" of Microsoft's Vista upgrade, only "12 percent of online adults who are aware say they intended to upgrade."

Uh-oh.

Hardware vendors aren't happy either, according to an earlier Slashdot item, PC Makers Say Vista Is Not a Seller. That links to a Gizmodo article, PC Makers to Microsoft: "Vista Is Not a Seller. You Suck".

More bad news for Microsoft, despite their optimistic PR, as reported in Slashdot, in MS Says Vista Selling At Twice XP's Pace. The early news coverage on Vista sales apparently derived from Microsoft press releases; the higher numbers may not be that impressive when you consider that there was a big backlog of orders for Vista, as well as a much larger market for PCs this year than five years ago when XP came out.

If that's not enough drama, Slashdot also reported Microsoft Sued Over Vista Marketing, according to an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Microsoft sued over Windows Vista marketing.

Apparently, some folks think it's not cool to call a computer "Windows Vista Capable" unless it can actually support signature Windows Vista features.

The bigger question, of course, will be whether this kind of bad news will turn into good news for Linux--can those promoting open source operating system alternatives actually leverage these missteps into competitive advantage?

Just in case you thought I thought that Microsoft was evil incarnate, you're wrong. Not far wrong, but still.

Anyway, Microsofties aren't dumb, and they do a lot of open source-y stuff. If you're interested in what they've been doing, check out Port 25 to see what's been going on in their Open Source Software Lab.

There are some useful articles, such as MySQL Conference 2007, PostgreSQL on Windows: A Primer, and HOW-TO: CONNECTING SQL SERVER 2005 JDBC to JBOSS, and more (but not too much more) about open source coexistence with Microsoft software.

Check out this Slashdot item about Red Hat's Matt Szulik saying, go ahead and take Microsoft's money and get it over with. And dittos for Oracle, apparently.

Here's Matthew Aslett's article at CBR Online, Take Microsoft's Linux money, says Red Hat.

Bravo, Red Hat, that's just the right attitude, and I'm not being sarcastic at all here: try the low-priced spread and you'll go back to Red Hat if you care about quality.