Get Off Microsoft

More details of the Zune media player from Microsoft have been released. By most accounts and blogs, it’s a ho-hum affair, as I noted in my last blog entry. Microsoft and its partners will be losing money this holiday season by selling it at the announced price (see Zune? It’s the Aboriginal word for “loss leader”).

Zune is priced the same as a 30G iPod, but includes quite a bit of installed music (which you may or may not like). You can “beam” music from your Zune to other Zune-carrying friends through its wireless connection, but this feature is likely to be marginal until more people adopt the Zune. You can’t copy any music you bought previously at an online store that uses digital rights management (DRM) technology — that means you can’t copy music you bought from Napster, Urge, Rhapsody, or the iTunes Music Store. The Zune is tied to a new Microsoft store and works with paid subscriptions for free music.

Microsoft is making the classic mistake of using price, features, and incremental improvements to compete against an established leading product. There is no breakthrough technology, pricing model, form factor, or leveraging position associated with the Zune. While I could buy a Zune and copy to it all the music in my iTunes library — except of course the songs I purchased from the iTunes store — I have no compelling reason to do so. At least not yet. The only compelling reason to get a Zune is if you don’t yet have any media player and don’t like Apple or don’t like the iPod and iTunes for whatever reasons (mostly “religious” — the Zune is not open, either).

The incremental innovation that Microsoft introduced with Zune is a cash system, already in use in the Xbox Live Marketplace and planned for use in other online stores, that works like a prepaid phone card. You add money to an account and points are deducted as you buy things. For example, a single song is 79 points, equivalent to $0.99. The cool thing about this is that you can give a gift certificate of points, which the recipient can redeem at different Microsoft online stores — possibly splitting the points between purchases at the online music store and purchases in the Xbox Live Marketplace or future Microsoft stores. In other words, it will act as a common global currency for Microsoft products.

And yet, this is more a convenience for Microsoft than it is for the consumer. It’s no big deal to offer gift certificates redeemable in cash in any affiliated store — it’s just harder to keep the accounting straight. And how hard will it be for people to divide 79 points into $0.99 per song?

iPod users will not buy it. Only those who have a beef with Apple and the iPod will cross over to the dark side.

The iPod changed the way we deal with audio and video, much like the Mac two decades earlier changed the way we deal with text and graphics. Eventually the PC caught up with the Mac in many ways (though not in all ways). Will the same happen to the iPod?

The answer is eventually, yes. Will the platform that surpasses it be the new Zune player from Toshiba built with Microsoft technology? Not likely. The platform that will surpass the iPod has to not only beat the iPod in features, and not only beat the iPod+iTunes combination in music selections, but also offer something truly useful — such as an open system.

We already have a closed system for playing music — the iPod. Why would we want another one? Zune is not exactly open with its proprietary connection to Zune Marketplace, though it does offer support for AAC and MPEG-4. It won’t sport many accessories at first, doesn’t offer a way to manage podcasts, and requires more software to be installed on PCs (it won’t connect to Macs). The WiFi capability is “cool” but not all that useful — it doesn’t offer complete Internet access yet. I agree with Adrian Kingsley-Hughes in Hardware 2.0 that “The whole wireless Zune-to-Zune content sharing system is interesting from a technical standpoint but it’s not something that I’d see myself using.  Now if Microsoft had come out with a player that had 100GB capacity and a built-in phone, things would be different.”

What might make Zune different is its price — as yet unannounced. How low must Toshiba go before anyone will pay attention?

By now you must have read about the widely publicized decision by Microsoft founder Bill Gates to step down from his position as chief software architect two years from now, while retaining the job of chairman and still running his foundation. Most of the analysts agree that it is not that dramatic a change, and that Gates will remain in a power position — “the ninth vote” that ends any technology or business debate in the power corridors on the Redmond campus..

Ray Ozzie, who had been a Microsoft CTO, is now chief software architect. Another CTO, Craig Mundie, is now chief research and strategy officer. Ozzie is responsible for the development of VisiCalc, Lotus Notes and Groove Networks, and the author of the recent memo outlining Microsoft’s services strategy. Both Ozzie and Mundie are alumni of Data General, the Westboro, Mass. minicomputer maker immortalized in the book Soul Of A New Machine by Tracy Kidder (I also worked at Data General during the time of Kidder’s book, from 1976-1979).

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, pointed out that the transition is more about how Microsoft, led by Ozzie, will add services to everything it does, as well as move beyond the PC into other devices such as mobile phones and televisions. The key to Microsoft’s new strategy, according to Ozzie as quoted by Ina Fried of CNET News.com, is that “every offering that we have in the company in some way, shape or form is going to be touched by services.” According to Ozzie (as quoted by Barbara Darrow in CRN), Mundie will determine how to build prototype projects and handle development projects “both applied and research.” He will also handle intellectual property issues and policy. Ozzie’s realm will start at advanced development and center on products and product strategy.

Journalists seized on the opportunity to ask Ozzie and Mundie about how Microsoft turns ideas into products and strategies — bringing up specifically Bill Gates’ semi-annual “Think Week” that gave Gates the opportunity to comment on all proposed projects. Twice a year Bill would go into seclusion for a week and read thousands of pages of research reports, emails, product plans, and white papers. But Ray Ozzie disputed the notion that Bill alone provided feedback. As quoted in CNET News.com’s report, Ozzie said:

Bill has not actually read all the papers in a think week in, I believe he said, four years. As the process has evolved, individual employees realized this is a great opportunity to get a broad amount of visibility, and as it’s progressed, more people have been commenting on think week papers, not just Bill.

Mundie agreed, and added:

That one is sort of mythological in proportion because people have read about it. But one of Bill’s great strengths has been, I think, in many ways, solidification of ideas from the various brain trusts in the company for years and years, and his ability to bring that together.

I’ve always thought that you could figure out where Microsoft is going next by reading Bill Gates’ lips in interviews, speeches, and press conferences. Like Babe Ruth, Gates would point in the direction of his next home run and get ready to swing at the pitch. He then would leave it up to the spin controllers at Microsoft to remove any ballplayers who might get in his way. It was refreshing, at least, to occasionally read about Gates remarking in petulant tones about a competitor while his spin-control machine was looking the other way. Bill Gates typically takes any competition personally. You can glean quite a bit about which companies and technologies get under his skin from listening to his occasional slips in interviews and off-the-cuff answers to reporters’ questions — such as Gates’ criticism of Google last year, as quoted by Fred Vogelstein in “Gates vs. Google: Search and Destroy” in Fortune, May 16, 2005:

“There are companies that are just so cool that you just can’t even deal with it,” Gates said sarcastically, suggesting that Google was nothing more than the latest fad. Gates then added, “At least they know to wear black.”

Do you think we’ll ever see this kind of candid response from Ozzie and Mundie? So far, I have trouble staying awake while reading their spin-controlled interviews. Despite Ozzie’s fresh outlook and innovative past, I don’t see how this dynamic duo can pull off a dramatic sea change for Microsoft while still in Steve Ballmer’s shadow.

While Ozzie is a relative newcomer with new ideas, Mundie has been at Microsoft since 1992. Clearly his ideas have helped shape Microsoft’s strategies in the last decade, which doesn’t give me confidence that the company will change much. Back in 2002, Mundie took a hard line about security as overseer of the company’s Trustworthy Computing initiative — he told an audience, according to Paul Boutin in Wired News, that in response to the threat of terrorist cyberattacks, Microsoft would deploy security fixes to its installed base of hundreds of millions of computers worldwide in the coming year — even if those fixes break applications in use by customers. “We’re going to tell people that even if it means we’re going to break some of your apps, we’re going to make these things more secure. You’re just going to have to go back and fix it.”

Let the record show that Microsoft was unable to truly fix its installed base as of 2006, even though the fixes it did provide certainly did break apps.

And it is also unlikely that Microsoft will embrace the open-source model anytime soon. Wikipedia is particularly critical of Mundie — “Mundie has repeatedly been accused of spreading FUD by people in the open source and free software community” — and has even challenged his resume as having developed the first operating system for Data General’s Nova minicomputer. Mundie’s crime to the open source community is his criticism of the open-source GNU General Public License (GPL):

The GPL mandates that any software that incorporates source code already licensed under the GPL will itself become subject to the GPL. When the resulting software product is distributed, its creator must make the entire source code base freely available to everyone, at no additional charge. This viral aspect of the GPL poses a threat to the intellectual property of any organization making use of it. It also fundamentally undermines the independent commercial software sector because it effectively makes it impossible to distribute software on a basis where recipients pay for the product rather than just the cost of distribution.

Mundie further clarified his views on GPL and the open-source model in a Gartner Fellows interview:

There is an ongoing misunderstanding between the use of source code access as an aid in technology education, and in open source as a short cut for driving technology transfers into local commercial environments. The first approach has been the history of open source and that’s an essential, positive benefit of code access. On the other hand, licenses that are restricted and don’t allow for direct commercialization (of the source code) will not help achieve a sustainable local software economy.

With Ozzie and Mundie at the helm, Microsoft is not likely to make its transition — from Office and Windows revenue streams to services — very quickly. While heaping praise on Ozzie for at least having a truly innovative past, let’s not forget that Mundie, and ultimately Ballmer, will remain “the voice of reason” in Redmond.

I couldn’t help comparing the Ozzie and Mundie relationship to the one in the TV show “Ozzie and Harriet” (about Ozzie and Harriet Nelson and their sons David and Ricky Nelson), which lasted 14 years on American television despite its tired formula of parents raising precocious children. Indeed, Microsoft may last another 14 years despite its tired formula of proprietary software lock-in based on a monopoly base. Read the following description of Ozzie and Harriet’s relationship to see how it might fit Ray Ozzie, a more impulsive idealist, and Craig Mundie, the voice of reason:

The genial, bumbling Ozzie was the narrative linchpin of Ozzie and Harriet, attempting to steer his young sons into the proper paths (usually rather ineffectually) and attempting to assert his ego in a household in which he was often ill at ease. That ego, and that household, were held together by wise homemaker Harriet. Although she may have seemed something of a cipher to many viewers, clad in the elegant dresses that defined the housewife on 1950s television, Harriet represented the voice of reason on Ozzie and Harriet, rescuing Ozzie — and occasionally David and Rick — from the consequences of over-impulsive behavior.

My question is, will a Ricky Nelson emerge?

Microsoft just released its OneCare subscription security service that is supposed to help you keep your operating system — namely, Vista, whenever it actually ships — secure. Industry skeptics point out that OneCare is liable to put Symantec and McAfee out of business. As I pointed out last Feb. (”Vista Security is Just a Click Away“), while antispyware software will be bundled with Vista, antivirus software will not — Microsoft will be charging a premium for it.

Maybe you believe that Microsoft is probably the best software company to undertake the task of making Vista, the upcoming version of Windows, secure. Then again, maybe not — perhaps Symantec and McAfee might have a better shot. But maybe you believe Microsoft deserves to be taken seriously as a vendor of security, just like Symantec and McAfee, for Vista. Even if you believe Microsoft has a reputation for producing buggy software, that doesn’t rule out the possibility that Microsoft is better suited to tackle Vista security.

But Microsoft still has a credibility problem with OneCare. John Sheesley, TechProGuild Senior Editor, makes a very good point in “OneCare goes Live, but it doesn’t make me trust Microsoft any better” in TechRepublic:

In selling a subscription product that secures its systems, what incentive does Microsoft have to truly build security into their products to begin with? Sheer altruism? Ask Netscape, Lotus, IBM, Corel, Novell, Ashton-Tate, Borland, and Computer Associates how altruistic Microsoft is. The answer is there is no incentive. Microsoft gets to play lip-service to security with Vista and other products and then offer to take more of your money via OneCare for you to be truly secure.

Altruism aside, it is in Microsoft’s interests to portray itself as a company that cares about security. And yet, Microsoft seems to get away with behavior that demonstrates it has little interest in making its operating system actually secure. The company could have bundled anti-virus as well as anti-spyware tools and a firewall with Vista, but chose not to. There are real advantages to having anti-virus software bundled with the operating system. And yet, Microsoft has always been more interested in bundling other stuff, such as Windows Player, with little regard as to whether the bundling was most useful for the average consumer. As Sheesley points out in the above blog entry,

Why is it more important to bundle something like a media player which is completely irrelevant to an operating system, but not something like security?

The answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind. The media and the bloggers can write all they want about Microsoft’s conflict of interest in offering a paid security service to keep its own software secure. Microsoft will continue to get away with it because its brand is just that powerful. That’s one thing you can trust.

Microsoft plans to significantly boost spending in the upcoming year to battle with Google and other rivals. The company is starting from scratch, and it scares Wall Street. The reason, reading between the lines, is that Microsoft now has to compete on something like a level playing field. With its new services strategy, it can’t effectively use its monopoly to lock in customers as easily.

The core of Microsoft’s new spending will be on software services. Windows Live is evolving to be an advertising funded one-stop shop for everything from e-mail to instant messaging to blogs. According to a report today on Reuters (available from ZDNet), Microsoft will spend heavily for computer servers and data storage and has already bought a 75-acre property in central Washington state to build a server farm that will hold thousands of data-serving computers.

Microsoft’s stock tumble last week put Wall Street’s concerns about the company in the press. In a note to clients (as reported by Todd Bishop of seattlepi.com, who participated in the conference call), analyst Rick Sherlund of Goldman Sachs said the company’s earnings-per-share guidance for the year, $1.36 to $1.41, is “way below” his previous $1.57 estimate. “While revenues are fine, spending is snowballing,” Sherlund concluded. All told, Microsoft lost about $32 billion in market value, as investors reacted to its less-than-expected earnings announcement.

Indeed, the money is flowing… but not necessarily into research and development. Quite a bit must be going into the coffers of gatekeepers such as Amazon.com. According to another Todd Bishop report (and others, including this one on Slashdot), Microsoft struck a deal with Amazon.com subsidiary A9.com to provide underlying technology for the A9’s search service, replacing Google as the default option. Searches from A9, Alexa and the A9 search box on the Amazon home page now show results “powered by Windows Live Search.”

Google is looking for ways to block Microsoft’s encroachment. According to a report today, “New Microsoft Browser Raises Google’s Hackles” by Steve Lohr of The New York Times (which at first rejected my non-Microsoft browser, but then let me through), Google expressed concerns to the U.S. Justice Department and the European Commission that the search box in the upper-right corner of Internet Explorer (IE) 7, which is typically set up to send users to Microsoft’s MSN search service, puts Microsoft in a position to unfairly grab Web traffic and advertising dollars from its competitors.

Of course it does.

Microsoft’s response so far is to point out that the default settings in IE 7 are easy to change. “The search box in IE7 is not Microsoft’s. It belongs to the user.” Good luck with that.

As I pointed out in a previous blog entry, if Microsoft would start from scratch and redirect its energy into Web services, the strategy would at first put Office out of business, but it also would shore up Microsoft as a company that delivers the best, most innovative solutions. Microsoft is coming from behind in the Web services markets for business and especially for consumers, where it is also lagging in the competition for online advertising. Todd Lowenstein, a co-portfolio manager for HighMark Capital Management’s Value Momentum Fund who holds shares of Microsoft, was quoted in the Reuters report:

If you look at Microsoft historically, it’s usually had a second-mover advantage. Microsoft hasn’t really been the one to innovate, but to copy and then leapfrog the first mover and that’s been the company’s modus operandi. Microsoft must feel threatened and it wants to draw a line in the sand. The jury’s still out on whether that makes good economic sense.

Does your Windows PC have too much fun when you’re not around, cavorting on the Internet, guided by rootkits you know nothing about? If your Windows PC runs uncharacteristically slow, it might be serving a network of bots controlled by criminal hackers who use the network to make considerable profits in click-through schemes and spam delivery.

The Sony BMG rootkit fiasco continues to haunt the PC industry as Sony BMG tries to settle the lawsuits. Researchers note that the Sony BMG rootkit affected more than half a million computers. More importantly, the tools and information to develop custom rootkits are freely available and thieves are wiser about how to use them.

According to “Rootkit numbers rocketing up, McAfee says” by By Dawn Kawamoto of CNET News.com:

In the first quarter, the number of rootkits seen by McAfee’s Avert Labs grew by 700 percent, compared with the same period last year… While Microsoft’s Windows is the main target of malicious rootkits because of its high level of use, McAfee also noted that its many undocumented application programming interfaces (APIs) make it an attractive target.

A rootkit’s purpose is to hide code — adware, spyware, or the latest threat, botware that turns Windows PCs into zombies. According to “What’s the next security threat?” by Ron Condon of CNET News.com:

The spyware or Trojan horses they plant on unsuspecting users’ machines do not draw attention to themselves, but once installed, they work as slaves to their remote masters. Users are rarely aware that their machines have been hijacked. The system continues to work, albeit slightly more slowly at times, and they have no control over the secret tasks it is being asked to perform. Bot networks, which are armies of these hijacked computers, have become the predominant feature of the Internet threat landscape. According to security company CipherTrust, more than 180,000 PCs are turned into zombies every day, and that figure is continually rising.

What can you do about this? You can attempt to remove any rootkits from your Windows system — try F-Secure BlackLight, or Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool, which according to eWeek has been recently updated to detect a few notorious rootkit-makers. Good luck with that.

Of course, I prefer the Microsoft Software Removal Tool, which is designed to remove all traces of Microsoft software from your life and provide a measure of computing diversity in the networked world.

Apple’s 30th anniversary is a prime subject for journalists this month, and I’ve fielded a number of interesting questions concerning Apple’s success. I gathered some relevant questions and my responses here.

Q. Will Apple ever be successful in the business market?

I think Apple is already somewhat successful and will continue to gain market share with the Intel-based Macs. However, the new frontier in business software is the move to Web services, a.k.a. Web. 2.0, and the Mac is just another player in this world, and not particularly more compelling than a stripped-down, security-software-laden PC running a browser. I agree in part with David Berlind’s opinion in his Between the Lines blog on ZDNet, “Mac OS X for business: Too little, too late“. Berlind points to an article in the Wall St. Journal by Nick Wingfield, “Mac’s Moment?” — in which Wingfield states that Apple has its best chance in years to make a dent in the business market. According to David Berlind,

This is pure bologna. Apple’s best chance to “make a dent” came about two years ago when Windows looked completely hopeless on the security front.

Berlind’s experience with pushing the Mac for business two years ago is not particularly insightful — sure, the company did little to promote itself through existing business channels such as ZDNet — but Berlind’s point about Web 2.0 and the future of computing is something I agree with:

But increasingly over time, they’ll be little more than hosts, integration points, and interface providers for thin applications and XML-based Web services. This isn’t exactly a good time for a new operating system — be it OS X, Linux or even Microsoft’s own Vista — to displace the installed base.

And of course I agree with Berlind’s bottom line, for in effect he uses a computer for business:

Will Apple sell more Macs? Definitely. I’d like nothing more than one of those slick systems sitting on my desktop. But a dent in business sales? Not.

This is the point: Apple is in fact growing its business market share, slowly but surely. A comment by “dlmeyer” to the above blog makes the case well:

I suspect there’s a couple flaws in the logic of all involved here. Apple is a growing influence in the back rooms of many corporations… A growing share of a growing market means many more sales each quarter, and they are mostly ‘new customers’ for Apple… Apple should be looking at ways to get more Macs onto corporate desktops. But not by wholesale replacement! A couple thousand a year in that 180,000 desk company would be a great start! Apple is growing faster today than any other PC maker in the top ten, there is always a danger in growing too quickly.

Besides, what’s to stop Apple from dominating home and small business computing?

Q. What is the key to Apple’s success over the last thirty years?

Innovation and style. Apple’s aggressive optimism in being innovative at all costs is appealing, and its use of style is excellent marketing. Apple’s solution to the the music industry’s conundrum about online music — the iPod and iTunes music store — is, by all accounts, wildly successful. Two decades ago Apple provided many of the innovations we now rely on in computing — easy networking and file sharing, a personalized user interface, integration of audio and video… the list goes on and on. But most importantly, Apple is willing to do anything to innovate — at least, that’s the perception. It’s like a breath of fresh air whenever Apple introduces something.

The Mac over the last 20 years has been an innovation in what some people today call “personal media aggregation” or “digital lifestyle aggregation”. Slowly but surely, the Mac became the control center for my life — all aspects of my life, including work, hobbies, socializing, family activities, travel… There is no part of my life that is not in some way coordinated by email, posted on a calendar, described in documents, shown in photos, visualized in graphics, demonstrated by video, and accompanied by sound… on my Mac. This evolution of personal computing is still led by Apple as the company introduces media players and home systems.

Q. Do you think the iPod is diluting the Apple brand and its status as an elite and luxurious brand?

No. At some point Apple may license the FairPlay digital rights management technology so that others can manufacture iPod-like devices that play iTunes music store music. But Apple will continue to innovate. As for “elite and luxurious” I beg to differ: you just can’t get all the features of either an iPod or a Mac at a lower price anyway. I don’t buy luxury products, nor do I consider myself part of an elite. I just said “no” to Microsoft.

Q. Looking back on Apple’s 30 years, do you think things could have been any different? If Apple had sold their machines more cheaply, or licensed the Mac OS to third-party manufacturers, do you think the Microsoft monopoly could have been avoided?

You have to go back to Microsoft DOS. Rather than encouraging a choice in computer hardware grounded in innovation, Microsoft’s DOS fostered a choice grounded in copycat engineering. DOS was closely tied to the hardware configuration, which helped to solidify the IBM PC (which was largely comprised of off-the-shelf components) as a market standard, which in turn spawned an industry of IBM PC clones. As a computer user back then, I was miserable using these clones. But I don’t think there was any way to stop Microsoft — its major competitor, Digital Research, was stomped into the dirt even though it had a better user interface (with GEM) than Windows.

The Mac was a breath of fresh air. But the Mac OS was not something Apple could easily license, for roughly the same reason: it was tied to the hardware configuration. There would have had to be Mac clones. And of course, copycat engineering is never very satisfying to those who are looking for innovation. So I’m happy that Apple chose the route it took. I’ve been a happy Apple user for all these decades despite its lack of market share.

Q. Do you think it’s fare to say that Microsoft threw Apple a lifeline back in the late 90s, by securing development of MS Office for 5 years? If they’d pulled the plug, would Apple still be here?

Who knows for sure? What I know is that at the time, Microsoft needed the PR, and Apple needed Office. Nobody did this for charity. Today, Microsoft needs better R&D, while Apple doesn’t need Office.

Q. Will Macs see just as many viruses as Windows if its market share continues to increase?

No, because Mac OS X has a more secure architecture (see “A Tale of Two Viral Exploits“). For one thing, installer programs for Mac OS X require authentication to run, while installers for Windows XP don’t. Authentication stops the installation process to get your password. If something starts to install itself on your Mac, you will most likely know because it will ask for your password. Another difference between Mac OS X and Windows XP is that even as the sole user (a.k.a. administrator) of a Mac OS X system, you don’t get access to system-critical files (known as root access in the language of system administrators). Administrators in Windows XP do, thereby allowing applications such as viruses access to those files too. Also, Microsoft often ships software with settings at the least secure positions. Mac OS X starts out with filesharing and related services turned off — you have to turn them on to use them. Windows XP starts with these services on, assuming you want to immediately share files with other computers on the network.

Q. With all the buzz lately about booting Windows on Macs lately, would you consider using a Macintosh to run Windows if you needed a Windows machine?

I always need a Windows PC, if only to test software for PCs, to grab “screen shots” of software-in-action for one of my books, or to (ahem) play games. Most likely a garden-variety game-oriented PC is the right choice for these activities, and not too expensive. It may seem a “luxury” to own 2 computers, but many people do. My Mac PowerBook is my life. I will continue to expand with an iMac and an Intel Mac; I even have older Macs that still work fine and are networked in. As for running Windows on my Intel Mac, I will surely try it (and, of course, the alternatives). But I won’t recommend anything until I’ve really had enough hands-on experience. Right now I don’t recommend trying it for playing Windows games.

Microsoft’s delay in providing Windows Vista to the general marketplace has sparked all manner of criticism and analysis. I’ve addressed a number of questions from reporters and journalists and gathered them here, with paraphrased questions and my responses.

Q. People have the opinion that Microsoft is either being (a) simply dominant or (b) actively harmful to the computing community.

I think both (a) and (b) are true. In the case of Microsoft Office and applications, (a) is true — Microsoft is simply dominant, and the competition has trouble getting a foothold or establishing standards that help to level the playing field. But in the case of Windows, Microsoft is (b) actively harmful by protecting its asset and holding back innovation, not to mention failing to ensure security.

Microsoft might better serve its customers, and even its stockholders, by completely opening up Windows (and Vista) source code, and redirecting its energy into Web services that at first put Office itself out of business but shores up Microsoft as a company that delivers the best, most innovative solutions (hah!). Fat chance any of this will happen, though.

Q. Microsoft is often portrayed as the bully in the computing industry playground. But how much of that is jealousy? Would Adobe, Apple, or Quark be any more benevolent if they controlled the lion’s share of the computer market?

Just because there is jealousy doesn’t make it any less true: Microsoft is a bully. Would Adobe, Apple, or Quark be bullies if they could? Actually, they are. They just don’t have the power to run everyone else out of the playground.

Some describe it as “human nature” but the reality is that our economic system encourages this kind of aggressive behavior (not to mention our culture). That’s why we have regulations for companies to follow (including stricter regulations for monopolies), and consumer groups to fight back.

Q. The other angle of attack for Microsoft critics is that it produces inferior products, with many people pointing to the security flaws of the Windows operating system as classic examples of this. Do you think this vulnerability of the Windows OS a symptom of its ubiquity (making it a tempting target) or is there a fundamental problem with the way Microsoft creates operating systems?

There is a fundamental problem: Microsoft is trying to continue its monopoly by implementing an architecture that allows extensive customization (with hardware drivers) and choice among hardware products. If Microsoft would start from scratch with a new system, it would be less vulnerable, but Microsoft would immediately lose market share. On the other hand, if Microsoft divested itself of Windows and made the source code available, there would be many different “flavors” of open-Windows that would make it harder for virus exploits, but again, Microsoft would lose its domination of the system “market”. The only solution is for Microsoft to take the hit — either by re-architecting, or by divesting — and move on with decent software products.

Q. Is MS Office really so bad that you think people should ditch it in favor of commercial and open source alternatives?

What’s bad is the Word document format addiction. Microsoft shamelessly proposes its own format as a standard, when it is clearly not an open standard. Word doc files produced a new version of Word might not be readable by older versions — forcing people to upgrade. Office is not totally bad, but having no choice is bad. OpenOffice (and its cousin, NeoOffice), AbiWord, and other open-source programs are free to use and free to upgrade. That’s reason enough; but these programs are also as robust (or even more robust) than Office. On a level playing field — if all these programs were free, including Office, and if people standardized on using the OpenDocument format — I believe NeoOffice would triumph over Office on the Mac because it is more stable. Not only that, but people using other programs could read your files without changing their software.

Q. A persistent irritant is arriving at web sites designed for Internet Explorer, and only viewable with Internet Explorer. Do you think Microsoft deliberately sets out to implement things like web page standards that only their own software can handle correctly?

Of course Microsoft deliberately implements technology that locks people into its software; how else do you explain ActiveX controls, which are dangerous? There are other examples of Microsoft doing this, specifically with regard to cutting off Netscape and competitors to Media Player.

It will take time, but sites designed for IE will change because they are too dangerous to use, and IE is too vulnerable.

Q. The antidote to Microsoft’s dominance is often said to be open source software. Is this realistic? While Linux has certainly made some headway in some markets, it’s still far from being recognized by the average PC user (and buyer). How far are we from the point where PCs with Linux operating systems could be sold in retail stores?

Linux was not originally designed to replace Windows — it is at its best when it’s used for servers. Mac OS X, on the other hand, does a fine job of replacing Windows. The role of open source in OS X is well documented. Apple didn’t need to open the entire source code for OS X; all it had to do was act like a good citizen in the open source community, support open-source standards, and use open source code in its products. This is an excellent antidote to Microsoft’s dominance. Some day (soon) we will all see how successful this strategy has become.

A brave new world shimmers on the horizon for many who are fed up with Microsoft’s grip on the computer industry. By the time Microsoft gets its act together with better system software, the Intel-based Mac will likely be dual-booting Mac OS X and earlier versions of Windows.

First, Microsoft has clearly stumbled with Vista, the new version of Windows, which is now reported to be delayed until January 2007 (see “Cloud Over Redmond” by Ina Fried of CNet News.com). Analysts are talking sound bites about how the Vista delay will help Apple sell more Intel Macs…

Apple is already strong in areas where Microsoft has promised to deliver key improvements with Vista: security, and features such as video and photo editing and search, analysts said… “There are two critical PC-buying windows for computers: back-to-school and the holiday season,” Piper Jaffray’s Munster said. “Microsoft is going to be on the sidelines for both of those this year. That has to benefit Apple.”

Second, a groundswell of interest in the Intel Mac platform has sparked efforts to put legacy Windows applications — either through Windows emulation or by booting Windows itself — on the Intel Macs. At this point, the Intel-based Macs can run nearly any version of Windows except the forthcoming Vista.

Why not Vista? Dan Warne’s article in apcmag.com, “Microsoft Bombshell: no EFI support for Vista” points out that Microsoft’s lack of support for Intel’s new Extensible Firmware Interface will be…

… a shock for owners of Intel Macs who had hoped they would be able to dual-boot between Windows Vista and OS X. Intel Macs only support booting via EFI….

Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) is the modern and flexible successor to the 20-year-old PC BIOS. It is responsible for initialising hardware in the PC, and importantly, device drivers are stored in the EFI flash memory rather than being loaded by the operating system. It is a major change for the PC industry and both PC makers and Microsoft have been slow to make the switch. Because the Apple Intel Mac platform is entirely new, it does not have any legacy support concerns. It was hoped that 2006 would be the year PC makers would make the switch. Microsoft’s lack of Windows support is a huge blow to Intel’s hopes, and removes most of the incentive for PC makers to implement it in the short term.

A comment to this article from “Geoffrey” provides a good summary of a Mac owner’s point of view — a view I agree with:

We all know how plagued Windows is with malware, instability and security problems. There are plenty of Mac owners who have a need to run some Windows apps that can’t run under VirtualPC (funnily enough, mostly games), and there’s another crowd of Windows PC owners looking longingly at the Mac’s stability and who would jump at the chance to have a dual-boot machine that ran their occasional Windows apps and games, and could be booted into secure Mac OS X for everything else. There is much frantic activity going on to ‘crack’ Intel OS X so it can run on a generic PC, but the EFI issue is causing problems there, as well.

A comment from “Scott” brings an industry perspective:

I think the even bigger and more important issue is that Microsoft continues to hold computer technology back for it’s own purposes. Since Microsoft has a monopoly on the operating system for most computers, they are the ones that set the standards. To say that they are not going to introduce a feature because there aren’t enough machines that utilize it is really saying they aren’t going to waste resources on innovation. Since a machine with EFI can’t boot Windows, that means that manufacturers aren’t going to use EFI until Windows will support it. Microsoft has to be the leader.

Microsoft not only holds the industry back (for whatever purposes), it will continue to do so by delaying Vista. Microsoft is not likely to introduce any major improvements to system software until January, 2007.

Which is what makes the Intel Mac more attractive. Today you can get at least two different solutions to run Windows itself, or just Windows applications, on an Intel Mac. OpenOSX WinTel and Q are different offerings that allow host operating systems (and applications) such as Windows XP to run in a protected, virtual environment in a window on Mac OS X. Both are essentially Cocoa graphical user interfaces that control the included underlying Open Source “Qemu” x86 virtualization/emulation software. According to the OpenOSX site, OpenOSX has been tested with Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0, Windows XP Professional, and Ubuntu Linux 5.1.0. It also comes with Red Hat Linux, Debian Linux, and FreeBSD operating systems. Q is a completely rewritten Cocoa port of Qemu, built directly on OS X, making use of Apple’s Coreimage, Coreaudio, and OpenGL technologies.

Rumors are swirling that Apple will soon release a version of OS X for the Intel Mac that includes a tightly integrated WINE emulator, which provides a compatibility layer for running Windows programs that does not require Windows or any Microsoft code. Unfortunately most Windows emulation methods don’t provide support for 3D graphics, which means Windows gamers are out of luck.

But if you are serious about reliving the glories of the old days of PC gaming on your Mac, try DOSBox, a Disk Operating System (DOS) and Intel x86 PC emulator, complete with sound, graphics, mouse and modem emulation — it does 286/386 realmode/protected mode, Directory FileSystem/XMS/EMS, Tandy/Hercules/CGA/EGA/VGA/VESA graphics, and a SoundBlaster/Gravis Ultra Sound card for excellent sound compatibility with older DOS games. The site claims you can run Leisure Suit Larry 6 and Fuzzy’s World of Miniature Space Golf on a Mac G3, and that a G4 offers near-Pentium performance.

And for a DIY approach to getting Windows XP on an Intel Mac, follow the “Instructions on how to install Windows” from UNEASYsilence, or check out the video tutorial. You need an original Microsoft Windows XP PRO SP2 CD-ROM. Good luck!

By now you have probably read about Origami, Microsoft’s “micro-tablet” or “ultra-mobile” PC that will shortly become available from manufacturers such as Samsung at prices as low as $600. Microsoft Watch offers an excellent summary.

You have also read about Writely.com right in this blog. Writely– a.k.a. the “Web 2.0 word processor” that runs on a server as you work in your browser — was recently acquired by Google. Writely is part of a new wave of free Web services you can use from your browser, no matter what type of computer.

Both stories hitting at the same time begs the question: what will happen when Origami devices meet Web services? One of the biggest drawbacks I see with Origami devices is the lack of adequate disk space. Fill that sucker up with desktop applications, and you have no more room for music and videos. It makes more sense to skip the costly desktop applications and use these free Web services instead — nothing to install, nothing to use up your precious disk space. The services work with all modern file formats and keep copies (even older versions) of your documents automatically on their servers. They are designed to be convenient, and they are free.

I wonder how Microsoft will entice Origami manufacturers to continue to bundle Office with these devices? Will Microsoft essentially give Office away? The cost of Office is too high for a $500 computer. Manufacturers should be tempted to forego applications other than browsers (and, of course, games) and encourage their new customers to log into Writely and other services as they become available this year.

Even better: I hope a manufacturer (Apple?) will introduce something like an Origami, only with Linux. It could rely on Web services for everything from email (Gmail) and word processing (Writely) to backup and storage. And it would be less expensive than Windows-based Origami devices.

Consider this view of Google’s acquisition of Writely — from a comment by Gary Edwards quoted in Dan Farber’s ZDNet blog:

Writely is a masterpiece of an ODF AJAX engine, able to upload any OpenDocument file for collaborative work, publication, and/or distribution. Highly structured information in, highly structured collaborative information out. All of which is Internet ready.

The killer for Microsoft is that they now face an open stack of highly structured, Internet ready information services that with the flick of the download switch could easily stretch across the over 450 million desktops that make up the mighty Windows monopoly base, over every Linux, OSX, and Solaris desktop, up through Writely collaboration services, through the Google mash of services and information and out across the Open Internet, and back again.

Amazing what can happen when you finally are able to separate information from application, package it in a highly structured self describing open XML file format, and put the power of Google behind it.

So, why not a cheaper Origami-like device from a manufacturer that runs Linux and Web services? And what about Microsoft’s own Origami becoming a leverage for Web services that eventually dethrone Microsoft Office? It could happen. The Origami devices will probably be just as vulnerable to malware as ordinary Windows PCs, and I doubt that the new legion of Origami users will pay attention every Patch Tuesday to keep ahead of security breaches. But if Origami users skip the Microsoft desktop applications (Office, Internet Explorer, Outlook, etc.), they stand a fighting chance of keeping their Origamis more secure.