Microsoft Walking Away from Yahoo Acquisition

[gifford]

The cold hard facts are that MS has it's OS and software installed on over 96% of the world's PCs.

Oh it really gets tiresome hearing that statistic. I believe symbian are actually the most installed OS full stop, not that they will last long now either.

The battle of the OS's has only just begun, the new playing field is mobile devices which msft are going to lose, i guarantee.
Mobile devices ARE the future of personal computing, and there are MANY more mobile devices than PC's.

If you thought msft were safe, think again, the next few years are going to be very interesting indeed, and the outcome may come as a surprise to those not blessed with foresight.

 

[HiRez]

it's just that most people have absolutely no issues working with MS products.

Wow. I must know at least a few dozen people who use Windows everyday and pretty much all of them have mentioned numerous "issues" in the past. Not to say that Macs don't have their own issues, but really, your comment bears no resemblance to the reality I see. Thanks for the laugh.

 

[chagla]

yep, they have learnt how to wield a monopoly, and they do it well.

They have stifled innovation, like i said.

whats so pitiful of me saying the truth, I hate them, I really do, life is precious, and I have wasted much time over the years making my products compatible with msft. because I'm forced to. because they lead through intimidation, corruption, manipulation and stealing, not by innovation.

speaking of innovation..
http://labs.live.com/Deepfish/videos.aspx

whoa! wait a minute. why does it look so similar to safari on the iphone? i bet microsoft stole this one too from apple! or ..... could it be...

surface? http://www.microsoft.com/surface/index.html

you know GUI wasn't exactly apples own idea all right? (and there are numerous other little things in Osx that were "borrowed" from elsewhere, in microsofts case you like to label as "theft"). you don't go criticizing all the tire making companies for looking alike do you? companies take ideas, they buy out other companies, take things from others and improve them... this is all part of a culture. if this is "stealing", then you will find every single company is guilty of this. including.. *gasp* Apple!

i really find it ironic that mac needs to be compared to windows to make their point. if mac is so great, it should be able to stand on its own merit than to pick on something else, whatever it is. it only conveys, "oh, well we both suck, we just suck a little less than the other guy" instead of "I'm a mac and I can do THIS". of course claims on their commercials are very questionable, annoying as well.

 

[MBP15C2D4GBLED]

Oy vey. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Look closer at Gartner's report... it's a measurement of share between Exchange, Lotus, Groupwise, and the smaller also-rans in the same space. It does not address the majority of people across every industry (and a gigantic, overwhelming majority in higher ed, high tech, and small businesses) who are on non-"enterprise" e-mail systems. There are a few million Exchange seats in America; there are tens of millions of people using email in business. It's not hard to see.

It is QUITE hard to see. You either need to post some studies aorquit with the untruthfulness of this line of posting.

I worked in a University setting about 14 years ago. Yeah, Pegasus was real popular then at the departmental server level.

Nobody runs amateur software like that anymore. It's bad enough to keep track of the bugs in a big package like Exchange, much less trying to keep secure running a small fry like Pegasus, etc.

Even at that time, a generic university account used DEC & Solaris to do mail.

So where are your numbers? Either refute me with hard facts, or can it. Saying "any fool can see" is attempting to skirt the issue without providing facts. You said enterprise. Enterprises are not academia. Enterprise is a lot of employees making cash for stock holders.

"any fool can see" that in academia, you just hire a group of rag tag students to hold a system together.

"any fool can see" a dial up or DSL or cable ISP is also not a enterprise. A bunch of users on slow speed connections running to a bunch of Unix servers is nothing.

"any fool can see" a enterprise is not where you have free or practically free labor to maintain a porridge of various small servers together with duct tape and shoe string.

A enterprise is a lot of employees needing to get work done, in a time critical manner, to get products to market. These things called enterprises need to minimize their money spent on IT support for email. At least 49% of these enterprises (enterprises being the key word) *buy* Exchange rather than any other choice given.

 

[BongoBanger]

In the past 5 years until recently they've been approximately level with IBM, but they have under-performed the market significantly.

Agree here. The problem is that MS is so utterly dominant in its core markets it's difficult to find other markets to expand into to stimulate growth. The Xbox has helped here but it's still relatively small potatoes.

Apple could sell OS X to other OEMs if they wanted, it does run on Intel hardware now. Also the software market is an 80/20 situation so you don't need 90% of the market to win.

Well they could but since the vast majority of Apple's Mac revenue is driven by hardware sales this would be suicidal unless they could capture a significant part of the corporate market very quickly which, given MS's dominance, would be very, very difficult.

Reality's wake-up call is a bitch! But she's in the driving seat and she runs on facts - get used to it.

Well, yes, she does. That's why I've given you facts and so far all you've been able to give is speculation.

Oh it really gets tiresome hearing that statistic.

Doesn't stop it being true though, does it?

I believe symbian are actually the most installed OS full stop, not that they will last long now either.

It is but what does Symbian - a mobile phone OS - have to do with PC OSs? In addition, why do you think Symbian wont last long given it's increasing market share? Again this is mere speculation with no back up.

The battle of the OS's has only just begun, the new playing field is mobile devices which msft are going to lose, i guarantee.

More speculation.

Mobile devices ARE the future of personal computing, and there are MANY more mobile devices than PC's.

Yes... so what? Mobile computing will increase but it won't replace desktops for a long, long time if ever because there are some tasks that you just can't do effectively on a small mobile platform.

If you thought msft were safe, think again, the next few years are going to be very interesting indeed, and the outcome may come as a surprise to those not blessed with foresight.

They might but I doubt it. I get the feeling given your previous posts that this is a mantra you've been reciting for years which has so far proved to be incorrect and which, frankly, looks to remain so for some time to come.

Wow. I must know at least a few dozen people who use Windows everyday and pretty much all of them have mentioned numerous "issues" in the past.

Thank you for your anecdotal evidence. The vast majority of people remain perfectly happy with their 'out of the box' PCs.

Not to say that Macs don't have their own issues, but really, your comment bears no resemblance to the reality I see. Thanks for the laugh.

Right. So your experience with some people who use Windows is obviously the overwhelming reality? Except it's not - most people don't care about their OS as long as it works which for the vast majority it does. Thank you for the laugh.

 

[gnasher729]

Mac owners seem to see what they want and block out what they dont like. Simply put, Microsoft is a company that is capable of doing things that no other company in the world can do. The type of talent and experience that MS has is untouchable. Comments such as "Microsoft has done nothing in the past 5 years worth talking about" is just plain wrong, stupid, and ignorant.

Well, if you look at the development with the OOXML "standard", where Microsoft has managed to get a huge pile of garbage accepted as an international standard, undermining the working of the ISO and destroying its reputation, with already disastrous consequences in many areas of international standards, then yes, you are absolutely right. Just not right in the way you think you are right.

Microsoft has done a lot of things in the past ten years, past five years, and in the last year that are worth talking about. The EU is not only talking about it, they have already fined Microsoft about €600,000,000 and there are likely to be more fines in the future.

 

[gifford]

A
It is but what does Symbian - a mobile phone OS - have to do with PC OSs? In addition, why do you think Symbian wont last long given it's increasing market share? Again this is mere speculation with no back up.

The phone will be your "personal computer".
Symbian is nowhere near advanced enough to take advantage of the new revolution about to take place, was great for low processor speeds of old.

You either get it or you dont really. It's tiring trying to explain stuff like this to people who lack foresight, I also think I may have had this exact conversation with you before. Just come and find me in 3 years. I'm very good at speculating by the way.

One can only speculate that the sun will rise tomorrow, my bet's it will.

 

[gifford]

I get the feeling given your previous posts that this is a mantra you've been reciting for years which has so far proved to be incorrect and which, frankly, looks to remain so for some time to come.

i HAVE been saying it for years, but not within a short time frame.
I said in 1998 apple would have a 10% market share in 10 years, which as good as damn it they have. People accused me of wild speculation back then as well. I'm used to it.

 

[AidenShaw]

I'm not just a random msft basher, I have a long history of bashing PC's, and I wont be satisfied until they are history. I dont care which company does it, although Google and Apple look likely suspects at the moment.

I used ZX80, TI994a, Apricot and Atari ST first, then I remember my school buying a load of PC's , I remember thinking "what the hell is this piece of sh*t" for a couple of years my computing life was hell, it was like using computers designed by someone with no soul, satans computers. Then someone showed me a Mac. God spoke to me that day, he said I was the chosen one, to rid the world of crappy user interfaces. So I lurked on forums from that day forth, spreading the mac gospel.

Unbelievable, if you ask me.

Get a life, computers are just tools...

 

[G58]

Who was implementing the GUI before Apple?

That's right, No-one. PARC demonstrated it to a few people. Apple developed it and released the first personal computer with a GUI.

M$ wait until others develop and release ideas. And then the Billious one stands up on stage and talks endlessly about what what he thinks people want - like he's some fabled visionary predicting the future or something.

And most PC users actually think they're seeing innovation!! Then the F¨ç˚wits are happy to wait another two years while M$ sort out their version of it!

But the important question is: How does he know what people want?
Simple: Apple have developed and released it and their customers have already been using it for 3, 4, 5, 6 years! It's pathetic.

Eg:
Aqua rip-off graphics
Everything in Vista
Zune - the fat, turd coloured music player

Do you really think this is the same as a company like Apple discovering a smaller company who is developing an idea that either has a very small following or none at all, and then buying them out - because they can see a future in their idea?

Do let us know how you managed to fit your head up there. You're a circus act? Oh, that explains it.

speaking of innovation..
http://labs.live.com/Deepfish/videos.aspx

whoa! wait a minute. why does it look so similar to safari on the iphone? i bet microsoft stole this one too from apple! or ..... could it be...

surface? http://www.microsoft.com/surface/index.html

you know GUI wasn't exactly apples own idea all right? (and there are numerous other little things in Osx that were "borrowed" from elsewhere, in microsofts case you like to label as "theft"). you don't go criticizing all the tire making companies for looking alike do you? companies take ideas, they buy out other companies, take things from others and improve them... this is all part of a culture. if this is "stealing", then you will find every single company is guilty of this. including.. *gasp* Apple!

i really find it ironic that mac needs to be compared to windows to make their point. if mac is so great, it should be able to stand on its own merit than to pick on something else, whatever it is. it only conveys, "oh, well we both suck, we just suck a little less than the other guy" instead of "I'm a mac and I can do THIS". of course claims on their commercials are very questionable, annoying as well.

 

[coleridge78]

It is QUITE hard to see. You either need to post some studies aorquit with the untruthfulness of this line of posting.

This is an amusing line of argument for someone who hasn't posted any numbers other than an analysis of Exchange vs its direct competitors (NOT as a comparison to the market as a whole).

I worked in a University setting about 14 years ago. Yeah, Pegasus was real popular then at the departmental server level.

Actually, you're wrong. Pegasus is a client, not a server. Maybe you're thinking of Mercury?

So where are your numbers? Either refute me with hard facts, or can it. Saying "any fool can see" is attempting to skirt the issue without providing facts. You said enterprise. Enterprises are not academia. Enterprise is a lot of employees making cash for stock holders.

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/sysadmin/2007/01/05/fingerprinting-mail-servers.html

You are just. Flat. Wrong. Also, for the record, I can't find a single dictionary that agrees with your definition of "enterprise". It also doesn't define anything meaningful in the current discussion; you must be mad to think that a vendor would care more about a 2000-employee "enterprise" than it would about a 15,000-employee state university with government contract funding behind it. It's a laughable, asinine notion, which is all to prevalent among freshly-minted MBA know-nothings who haven't experienced actual business yet.

"any fool can see" that in academia, you just hire a group of rag tag students to hold a system together.

It is to laugh. Public universities are under tighter regulatory controls than any public company save a bank.

"any fool can see" a enterprise is not where you have free or practically free labor to maintain a porridge of various small servers together with duct tape and shoe string.

Are you talking about places like, say, universities, which have single government grants worth more than the entire revenue of many "enterprises"? Or are you talking about small businesses, which account for an order of magnitude more of GDP than "enterprises"? I'm not sure which hilarity you're currently prattling about.

A enterprise is a lot of employees needing to get work done, in a time critical manner, to get products to market. These things called enterprises need to minimize their money spent on IT support for email. At least 49% of these enterprises (enterprises being the key word) *buy* Exchange rather than any other choice given.

Again, you. Are. Wrong. Like all macho forum posters, you ignored the part where I specifically called you out. Again: Your numbers were a comparison of competitors in one class of software. It *did not address* the market share of alternatives which do not claim to be part of that class and which, as the O'Reilly numbers show, far outnumber Exchange.

 

[roar08]

Macrumors.com is starting to suck HARD

Once again, what the hell does this news have to do with "Mac rumors".

If I gave a rip about Microsoft or Yahoo! I'd read C|NET or some other pandering drivel.

The rumors here are interesting most of the time, but smothered as of late by nothing more valuable then a copy/paste of the tech news of the day. And that news is "after the fact" at best.

Keep it to "Mac rumors" or keep this inane tripe confined to a section of your site specifically NOT about Mac/Apple rumors.

Or maybe the ad banner revenue of the unrelated headlines and senseless banter among opposite-minded morons ensuing thereafter is too much to pass up.

 

[chagla]

Do let us know how you managed to fit your head up there. You're a circus act? Oh, that explains it.

I won't degrade myself of getting personal on a message board. I do maintain a standard. Thanks. I think we can all sense your frustration from this quote.
*added you to ignore list*

Having said that, I give up. They rightly say, one can negotiate with a ter0rr!st, but not with a mac user.

 

[RM48]

You show your utter lack of knowledge when you say that "any stupid idiot can do that" in reference to the Xbox. Microsoft entered the video game market, which is a VERY challenging market, and totally dominated it. Sony, which has been the ultra iconic brand of video gaming, cant even touch Microsoft in the multi-billion dollar US gaming market. In addition to the console itself, Xbox live is one of the most impressive things Microsoft has ever done. The problem with you is that your biased against Microsoft so you totally trash all the above as if it doesnt mean anything, when it is actually extremely impressive. Your comment; "uncle bill's porno pics of his lady friend while the neighbors kids are playing a game on it" shows not only your bias but also your immaturity, your lack of any good real points, and your lack of intelligence. Totally throwing the xbox and the surface table into the garbage as if they could be created by any stupid idiot is laughable. Apple makes really amazing products, and so does Microsoft. Certain things Apple does better and certain things Microsoft does better. However, discarding innovations made by Microsoft simply because you don't like them is ridiculous.
Thanks for making me laugh though.

Like release a coffee table that automatically recognises a mobile phone randomly placed on it, also recognises that it has photos on it and then automatically downloads uncle Bill's porno pics he took of his lady friend... while the neighbour's kids are playing a game on it...

Or, what about a games console - that not only doesn't make any money... it actually loses money!!

Here's the news: ANY STUPID IDIOT CAN DO THAT!

What isn't so easy is designing products in an expanding market, that people actually want, and that actually work. But if you can do all of this AND make money AND grab 28% market share of something like the smart phone market in the first 8 months, you're called Apple.

Other than the iPod, this has never been done in a mature market before.

 

[RM48]

Wow, you seem to know everything. Every single thing that you labeled as "Fact" is not a fact at all.
You seem to take this whole Microsoft vs. Apple thing very seriously. Why? Dont you have anything better to do other than sit around all day and think of ridiculous things to say about Microsoft?
Let us all know when you own a company like Microsoft, since you seem to know everything about everything you should be the next worlds richest man in no time.

This is one man's assessment.

I'm not impressed by any of these characters.

If what we've just seen was a pissing contest between Ballmer and Yang, it's even worse than I thought.

M$ Search isn't working: Fact

M$ thinks it needs Yahoo: Fact

In reality, they need each other like a brick needs a log in a **** storm.

Yahoo needs Google: Fact

Google doesn't need Yahoo: Fact

And people buy shares in these companies?

 

[Mackan]

Well, can only conclude that we see some Mac fanboys at their finest in this thread. The absolute hate against MS is ridiculous. Some are acting like MS killed their firstborn. Bear in mind that all companies have their good and bad sides.

 

[Bubba Satori]

Looks like Yang will have managed to lose $18 billion of the shareholders money if this article is right. Monday could be ugly for Yahoo.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/microsoft_yahoo

"Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Jerry Yang has gotten what he wanted: a chance to prove his company is worth more than the $47.5 billion that Microsoft Corp. offered to buy the Internet pioneer. Many analysts believe Yahoo's stock price, which had climbed nearly 50 percent since Microsoft's initial offer, will surrender most, if not all, of that gain, leaving the Sunnyvale-based company's market value around $30 billion."

 

[Don.Key]

Wow. I must know at least a few dozen people who use Windows everyday and pretty much all of them have mentioned numerous "issues" in the past. Not to say that Macs don't have their own issues, but really, your comment bears no resemblance to the reality I see. Thanks for the laugh.

There are no OSes with GUIs which have "no issues".

What he probably wanted to say is compared to the normal "baselevel" of problems every OS expierences.

I switched to OSX about a year ago and to be sincere, I had much more issues (Crashes, networking issues and so on) with OSX then with Windows. I attribute this partially to the fact that I knew my Windows very, very well and was running old and proven systems (WIN 2k) until the end while on apple I went to leopard almost after release. XP on desktop today is as stable and mature as WIN2K btw.

The only OS I had no issues in the past years was Solaris on servers, driven by pure VT100 console, those where flawless and running as clean as one could imagine with uptime only reset when a new patch cluster comes in (Not that I ever needed it, I update for security reasons).

 

[Loudwater]

Kudos to Yahoo for taking the sacrifice (could be big) to deny Microsoft!

 

[Eraserhead]

Agree here. The problem is that MS is so utterly dominant in its core markets it's difficult to find other markets to expand into to stimulate growth. The Xbox has helped here but it's still relatively small potatoes.

The thing is, it still isn't making even an operating profit.

Well they could but since the vast majority of Apple's Mac revenue is driven by hardware sales this would be suicidal unless they could capture a significant part of the corporate market very quickly which, given MS's dominance, would be very, very difficult.

True, the problem I feel is that .NET needs to be re-written from scratch as I've mentioned before, see Peter B's second article on Cocoa vs .NET for more.

Additionally Windows probably needs the same treatment, without going into a "which platform is better" argument (which I don't want to do), the difference between Mac OS X 10.0 and 10.5 is far greater than the difference between Windows 2000 and Windows Vista (both of which where released approximately the same time difference apart) when Apple has had a lot less money for the majority of that time and has also managed to completely change the underlying processor used in their line. As I mentioned before in this thread Paul Thurrott said there were problems getting Windows 2000 stable in 1999, and Mini Microsoft reiterated them for Vista in 2006.

If I'm right about those changes being required, assuming that they don't have a secret project, they would be at least 5-7 years behind Apple. Now they could have a secret project, but as they are still adding to the flaws in .NET they look like they haven't realised it yet.

There are a lot of business applications which require Windows but if you are replacing Windows you can just as easily run it in a VM on a Mac as on a PC.

 

[Blah64]

Bzzzt.

No, MS sucks in terms of talent...if they had one, we would see a lot of innovative products over the years...and they haven't come up with ANYTHING really worthy of praise in the last 20 years.

http://labs.live.com/photosynth/

one example.

You do know that photosynth was NOT a microsoft creation, right? They bought the technology from a local Ballard company (SeaDragon), and a UW student.

Your claim actually helps the counter-argument!

That's not to say they won't be able to make it better with more resources, and it's not to say they haven't done ANYTHING innovative in their 30 years, but it's really more rare than people think.

 

[gifford]

Unbelievable, if you ask me.

Get a life, computers are just tools...

What is unbelievable is that people are unable to see that I was deliberately trying to pretend to be everything that people find annoying about a mac fanboy, mixed in with a bit of truth.
I dont even believe in god, I believe in science, I'm an atheist.
Why? Because all the anti mac fanboys annoy me. I see little evidence of overly mac fanboyism on this site, yet I read it exists everyday. Even those who adore the mac, are also very critical of apples every move.
People like to make out that folk like me worship the mac like a god, so I gave you evidence of our existence but in an exaggerated way that anyone with half a brain should have understood.

PS: I'm also the guy who makes the coolaide round here. have a sip... join us...

 

[Erwin-Br]

Yes, you should. If you really think MS is king, please go buy a PC and use Windows all day long. MS bashing is not reserved to Mac fans only, it's a global routine for those that: 1) use MS products; 2) have to put up with MS twisted Internet standards; 3) know what MS has done in terms of abuse of market power; 4) know how MS got the "right" to create Windows in the first place.

If you are not included in the groups above or, better yet, make lots of money supporting MS crap as an IT "MS-certified" technician, again: enjoy your PC and be happy.

Spoken like a true adolescent. I do not think MS is "king" and...

1) I do use some MS products. Only the good ones, of course.

2) I'm not a webdeveloper. And I won't argue with you here, they do need to get their act together on the standards. Fortunately, the first steps are being made.

3) Welcome to the real world, and the free market. There are companies who have done, and are doing, far worse. And with more damaging results to our envioronment, I might add! (Think about oil companies, holding back any innovation that might save our world) Don't forget that Google isn't holy either (supporting censorship in certain countries, for example).

4) Why should I, or any user, care about an old story that happened decades ago? I'm driving a Volkswagen. Do you think I care that Volkswagen created its very first car for the Nazi's during World War 2?

I enjoy Windows XP. I enjoy Leopard even more. I do not like Vista, and will skip it for whatever comes next. And yes, I am happy. I have nothing to complain about. Maybe you should try the same. Be happy with your Mac, and don't waste your time bitching about a system you don't even use.

--Erwin

 

[Shasterball]

In addition to the console itself, Xbox live is one of the most impressive things Microsoft has ever done. The problem with you is that your biased against Microsoft so you totally trash all the above as if it doesnt mean anything, when it is actually extremely impressive.

Look, I am not a Microsoft fan, but that does not add to why I think the XBOX 360 is the most pathetic system in a long time. I mean, what's the fail rate on that thing? I'm on my 5th free one in 2 years! 5th! WITH THE SAME ISSUE. Is unbearably sad. When my wireless controllers don't work, what does customer service tell me to do? "Actually unplug your XBOX and then plug it back in". That's sad. What's sadder? That fix works! It's to the point that when I call up to get a new one, because my old one is again broken, they throw free crap at me -- controllers, games, storage, XBOX live. Sadly, I can't use any of it because my XBOX IS BROKEN!

So please....please....don't tout XBOX.

That being said. Isn't this a Microsoft/Yahoo thread?

 

[Shasterball]

4) Why should I, or any user, care about an old story that happened decades ago? I'm driving a Volkswagen. Do you think I care that Volkswagen created its very first car for the Nazi's during World War 2?

Obviously you don't care about "old stories" or "history" since the first Volkswagen was built in 1931 (yes designed by Hitler). Not created for the Nazi's. Not during WWII.