On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 14:44:15 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

[putolin]

> Microsoft isn't an operating system. Its a standard API for people to
> code agansts. ONE standard. You can regard javascript/XML/HTML as
> another, and thats where a lot of linux penetration can happen..we have
> cross platform interoperability with broswers.
>

Yea sure,
Why doesn't the current crop of games run on < WinXp ?
Why doesn't Solidworks work on Vista?

> But alas, not with API's. I dont want to run windows in a box on Linux.
> I want to run current windows only programs on linux natively.

Wine works well for me

>
> Crack that nut and Microsoft is gone from the professional and office
> evironment forever.


--
Tayo'y Mga Pinoy

On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 07:45:47 -0600, High Plains Thumper wrote:

[putolin]

>> It did fork off into a toy market....It's called Windows (what ever).
>
> Do you mean the large fork and spoon in the dining room? :-)

Don't know I eat with my fingers like all good Filipinos.

>
> That effort is bangsit compared to Linux, which is bangsit opposite.
> Linux adds flavour, like Bagoong Alamang. It is the Ampalaya, the Patis
> of life. :-)

--
Tayo'y Mga Pinoy

On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:23:54 +0200, Hadron wrote:

> Ignoramus18579 writes:
>
>> On 2008-03-30, Hadron wrote:
>>> Ignoramus10476 writes:
>>>
>>>> On 2008-03-29, Moshe Goldfarb wrote:
>>>>> On Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:16:56 GMT, Wes Groleau wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>>>>>> Microsoft will have to drop the "soft" from the brand and try to evolve with
>>>>>>> something like "Zune" (Oh lordy!).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> M$ will never catch the iPod.
>>>>>
>>>>> And where are all these Linux based iPod-like devices we keep hearing
>>>>> about?
>>>>
>>>> I have one and it works very well. It is called Cowon A3 movie
>>>> player. To be more precise, it is my wife's, as I do not watch
>>>> movies. It works great and does not require any software, it looks
>>>
>>> Aha. So you know nothing about it. But it's "great". And your ability to
>>> compare and contrast with similar devices is ? .... Oh yes. You do not
>>> use it.
>>
>> Why, I saw it working.
>
> So you content that not using such devices, and seeing one such device
> in action gives you the skill set and knowledge with which to judge it
> against the market leader?
>
>>
>>>> like a USB drive to the host computer.
>>>
>>> Aha. So basic connectivity.
>>
>> Yep. Try doing that with an ipod.
>>
>> i
>
> Huh? Are you suggesting you can not do that with an iPod?
>
> Google it up.
>
>
> And thanks for confirming my suspicions.

I don't particularly like iTunes or the software included with the iPod, at
least the Windows versions of it and from my last experience a year ago
which could possibly be dated.
However, nothing can touch the iPod for support, third party add ons, etc.

It's not even close.

The iPod, like the iPhone is the gadget to beat.
Some have come close, none have topped it.

I have a Creative Zen Vision M.
Specs wise it blew away the iPods that were out at the time.
Better screen rez.
Larger disk.
FM radio.
Better Video.
Very nice interface which is as good as the iPod, but different.
You name it and the Zen was better and it cost a LOT less as well.
At the time....

FWIW the Zen turned out to be a huge POS.
It has known firmware bugs, lockups etc.

I should have known because Creative is a suck ass company but I got fooled
because a lot of people have these things and it cost less.



--
Moshe Goldfarb
Collector of soaps from around the globe.
Please visit The Hall of Linux Idiots:
http://linuxidiots.blogspot.com/

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

>> It did fork off into a toy market....It's called Windows(what ever).
>>
> Well it ought to have done, but it didn't. The majority of professional
> applications beyond the WP/spreadsheet/database/email/browser type of
> stuff stayed with windows.

Not around here! Audio recording, video editing, and various animation
programmes /cannot/ be "run" on Windoze. The film, advertising and TV
companies /all/ run Linux machines for these purposes.

> Its no use proclaiming that windows is a toy. I know that, you know
> that, we all know that. The real issue is how to persuade all those 3rd
> party applications writers to port their applications to a real
> operating system.

The only applications not fully covered by Linux these days are games.

> RedHat tried, but its not been a conspicuous success.
>
> And to an extent the open source nature of Linux, with the whole shebang
> being a rapidly moving target of a dozen different distros, makes it far
> far harder for application developers to nail their colours exactly on
> the one mast. There are more than one to nail it too. Then add in all
> the window managers..and you start to see the problems.

It's less of a problem than you might imagine.

> Windos great strength was never that it was any good technically. It
> never was, but it did one thing right: It set a standard. If you got
> your code working with windows it would work pretty much n any PC for
> the next few years. In a more or less predictable way.

That might have been true in the past, but "Vista" deliberately set out to
break compatibility with some products, and the forthcoming Windoze 7 will
deliberately have *no* backward compatibility whatsoever. The poor fools
who've "invested" in MS Office and all the rest of their rubbish-ware will
have to buy all their applications all over again...

> I don't know what the answer to that is, or should be, but that is the
> *problem*, for sure.

Not really.

> The day I can e.g. get a box from a vendor labeled 'GrootSplat
> interactive development tool for aerodynamic modelling' with the magic
> words underneath :-
>
> 'Runs on all Linux distros'
>
> will be the day I scrub XP off the PC hard drive..as it were.

It's getting there, but you won't have to /buy/ the application - just
download the .deb or .rpm as appropriate and automatically install it.

> Perhaps if the Linux community spent less time on fancy window managers,
> and more tome developing and SELLING API's that mimicked the windows
> API, that would happen.

No. You've missed the point. There are (probably) three significant
competing Linux desktops (xfce, Gnome and kde). Kde and Gnome take great
pains to make applications run on either desktop. There's little to choose
between the big two.

> Applications sell operating systems. Not the other way around.

Sometimes. Security, stability and reliability "sell" Linux in the web
server market!

> Microsoft isn't an operating system. Its a standard API for people to
> code agansts. ONE standard. You can regard javascript/XML/HTML as
> another, and thats where a lot of linux penetration can happen..we have
> cross platform interoperability with broswers.
>
> But alas, not with API's. I dont want to run windows in a box on Linux.

Why not? It's quite fun to "run" Windoze XP in a window on my desktop. I
tried "Internet Explorer" and saw how quickly it was compromised...

> I want to run current windows only programs on linux natively.

Why. Most of them are very poorly written, and there are (often) better OS
equivalents available.

> Crack that nut and Microsoft is gone from the professional and office
> evironment forever.

They already are gone in many companies. The home users just need to catch
up...

C.

Christopher Hunter writes:

> The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>>> It did fork off into a toy market....It's called Windows(what ever).
>>>
>> Well it ought to have done, but it didn't. The majority of professional
>> applications beyond the WP/spreadsheet/database/email/browser type of
>> stuff stayed with windows.
>
> Not around here! Audio recording, video editing, and various animation
> programmes /cannot/ be "run" on Windoze. The film, advertising and TV
> companies /all/ run Linux machines for these purposes.
>
>> Its no use proclaiming that windows is a toy. I know that, you know
>> that, we all know that. The real issue is how to persuade all those 3rd
>> party applications writers to port their applications to a real
>> operating system.
>
> The only applications not fully covered by Linux these days are games.

Enough of your lies and posturing already.

Baho Utot wrote:
> High Plains Thumper wrote:
>
> [putolin]
>
>>> It did fork off into a toy market....It's called Windows
>>> (what ever).
>>
>> Do you mean the large fork and spoon in the dining room?
>> :-)
>
> Don't know I eat with my fingers like all good Filipinos.

And point with your lips to give directions. :-)

Navajos and other Native Americans out here point with their
lips. Perhaps that is why the Filipino community feels at home.

(I was referring to the wall decorations. :-)

Too bad we don't have Jolly Bee or Goldilocks out here.

>> That effort is bangsit compared to Linux, which is bangsit
>> opposite. Linux adds flavour, like Bagoong Alamang. It is
>> the Ampalaya, the Patis of life. :-)

--
HPT

Moshe Goldfarb wrote:
> The iPod, like the iPhone is the gadget to beat.
> Some have come close, none have topped it.

Depends on what you want.

Apple apparently has a patent on the "multi-touch"
and as usual, they do wonders on the user interface.

But, iPhone doesn't have GPS and its algorithm for trying
to simulate it with WiFi and cell tower triangulation
often gets VERY wrong answers.

And its cell access is GSM only (or do I have that backward?)

And every time someone hacks the lock that prevents using
other than Apple's chosen carrier, Apple offers a firmware
"upgrade" that (BTW) makes the hack not work.

Neo 1973 had GPS, higher-res display, and a few other things
iPhone didn't, at a lower price. Plus all the software was
open source, AND they released CAD files for ALL of the hardware.
But it had almost NO memory by today's standards.

http://www.openmoko.com/products-index.html

The Helio Ocean was kind of cool, too.

Depends on what you want.

--
Wes Groleau

I've noticed lately that the paranoid fear of computers becoming
intelligent and taking over the world has almost entirely disappeared
from the common culture. Near as I can tell, this coincides with
the release of MS-DOS.
-- Larry DeLuca

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> The day I can e.g. get a box from a vendor labeled 'GrootSplat
> interactive development tool for aerodynamic modelling' with the magic
> words underneath :-
>
> 'Runs on all Linux distros'
>
> will be the day I scrub XP off the PC hard drive..as it were.

Perhaps I'd feel differently if I had ever needed an IDT for AM.
But everything I have needed or thought I needed for my Mac OS
(with a couple of exceptions), I've downloaded from some Linux
site and installed. Only two such items failed to compile the
first try and both were trivial fixes. One was to add a NULL
parameter to two function calls (or I could have rolled Berkeley
DB back in time from 4.5 to 3.2). The other only needed me to
install something else I had incorrectly assumed I already had.

> Perhaps if the Linux community spent less time on fancy window managers,
> and more tome developing and SELLING API's that mimicked the windows
> API, that would happen.
>
> Applications sell operating systems. Not the other way around.
>
> Microsoft isn't an operating system. Its a standard API for people to
> code agansts. ONE standard. You can regard javascript/XML/HTML as
> another, and thats where a lot of linux penetration can happen..we have
> cross platform interoperability with broswers.

And Cocoa on Mac OS X is another.

But a LOT of stuff 'runs on all Linux distros'

--
Wes Groleau

I've noticed lately that the paranoid fear of computers becoming
intelligent and taking over the world has almost entirely disappeared
from the common culture. Near as I can tell, this coincides with
the release of MS-DOS.
-- Larry DeLuca

On 2008-03-30, Hadron wrote:
> Ignoramus18579 writes:
>
>> On 2008-03-30, Hadron wrote:
>>> Ignoramus10476 writes:
>>>
>>>> On 2008-03-29, Moshe Goldfarb wrote:
>>>>> On Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:16:56 GMT, Wes Groleau wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>>>>>> Microsoft will have to drop the "soft" from the brand and try to evolve with
>>>>>>> something like "Zune" (Oh lordy!).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> M$ will never catch the iPod.
>>>>>
>>>>> And where are all these Linux based iPod-like devices we keep hearing
>>>>> about?
>>>>
>>>> I have one and it works very well. It is called Cowon A3 movie
>>>> player. To be more precise, it is my wife's, as I do not watch
>>>> movies. It works great and does not require any software, it looks
>>>
>>> Aha. So you know nothing about it. But it's "great". And your ability to
>>> compare and contrast with similar devices is ? .... Oh yes. You do not
>>> use it.
>>
>> Why, I saw it working.
>
> So you content that not using such devices, and seeing one such device
> in action gives you the skill set and knowledge with which to judge it
> against the market leader?

All I could see, is that it works well. My wife uses it for a few
hours every day.

I did not claim that it works better than any other device. You made
that up. It is definitely very computer friendly with its usb storage
functionality. That means that you can go to any friend and copy their
pirated videos without asking them to install any spyware.

i

>>
>>>> like a USB drive to the host computer.
>>>
>>> Aha. So basic connectivity.
>>
>> Yep. Try doing that with an ipod.
>>
>> i
>
> Huh? Are you suggesting you can not do that with an iPod?
>
> Google it up.

http://people.csail.mit.edu/adonovan/hacks/ipod.html

I may have missed the latest developments with this ipod.

i

>
> And thanks for confirming my suspicions.
>

Ignoramus18579 writes:

> On 2008-03-30, Hadron wrote:
>> Ignoramus18579 writes:
>>
>>> On 2008-03-30, Hadron wrote:
>>>> Ignoramus10476 writes:
>>>>
>>>>> On 2008-03-29, Moshe Goldfarb wrote:
>>>>>> On Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:16:56 GMT, Wes Groleau wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>>>>>>> Microsoft will have to drop the "soft" from the brand and try to evolve with
>>>>>>>> something like "Zune" (Oh lordy!).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> M$ will never catch the iPod.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And where are all these Linux based iPod-like devices we keep hearing
>>>>>> about?
>>>>>
>>>>> I have one and it works very well. It is called Cowon A3 movie
>>>>> player. To be more precise, it is my wife's, as I do not watch
>>>>> movies. It works great and does not require any software, it looks
>>>>
>>>> Aha. So you know nothing about it. But it's "great". And your ability to
>>>> compare and contrast with similar devices is ? .... Oh yes. You do not
>>>> use it.
>>>
>>> Why, I saw it working.
>>
>> So you content that not using such devices, and seeing one such device
>> in action gives you the skill set and knowledge with which to judge it
>> against the market leader?
>
> All I could see, is that it works well. My wife uses it for a few
> hours every day.

You said it works "very well". To make that judgement you need to know
what you are talking about. By your own words you admit you dont.

If you said "it works well enough from what I can see" fair enough - but
in the context of iPods you are saying this thing (I never heard of it)
works "very well". Well thats a bit of a comparison IMO.
>
> I did not claim that it works better than any other device. You made
> that up. It is definitely very computer friendly with its usb storage
> functionality. That means that you can go to any friend and copy their
> pirated videos without asking them to install any spyware.
>
> i

What spyware? What are you talking about? You can use the iPods as
storage devices too you know.

>
>>>
>>>>> like a USB drive to the host computer.
>>>>
>>>> Aha. So basic connectivity.
>>>
>>> Yep. Try doing that with an ipod.
>>>
>>> i
>>
>> Huh? Are you suggesting you can not do that with an iPod?
>>
>> Google it up.
>
> http://people.csail.mit.edu/adonovan/hacks/ipod.html
>
> I may have missed the latest developments with this ipod.
>
> i

You might, with all due respect, simply not know what you are talking
about. You have been able to store things on iPods since before the dawn
of time.....

On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 23:44:09 +0000, Wes Groleau wrote:

> But a LOT of stuff 'runs on all Linux distros'

Like everything in /bin and /sbin, and /usr/bin and /usr/sbin, and
/usr/share . . . .

Isn't strange how variety and user choice is a fault, to the Microsoft
flacks?

And, yes, they even attack the open-source nature of most of the Linux
software, as another fault . . . .

At least we know now how American politics is made possible.

--

Kill. Kill! KILL!

< comp.os.linux.misc

http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz

____/ Colin Wilson on Sunday 30 March 2008 12:48 : \____

>> > M$ will never catch the iPod.
>> Who wants to?
>
> Zune - Microsoft obviously want(ed) to.

The iPod is a bridge for Apple to enter mobile device, which are becoming
increasingly dominant. It's worth emphasising that due to Vista's bloat,
Microsoft has recently begun create a Windows Mobile derivative for larger
devices. It all just shows you how far behind Microsoft has fallen wrt to
Symbian, Linux and even Apple (the iPhone is just the beginning).

--
~~ Best of wishes

Microsoft loves competition.
"I’m thinking of hitting the OEMs harder than in the past with anti-Linux. ...
they should do a delicate dance"
--Joachim Kempin, Microsoft OEM Chief

On 2008-03-30, Wes Groleau wrote:
> Moshe Goldfarb wrote:
>> The iPod, like the iPhone is the gadget to beat.
>> Some have come close, none have topped it.
>
> Depends on what you want.
>
> Apple apparently has a patent on the "multi-touch"
> and as usual, they do wonders on the user interface.
>
> But, iPhone doesn't have GPS and its algorithm for trying
> to simulate it with WiFi and cell tower triangulation
> often gets VERY wrong answers.
>
> And its cell access is GSM only (or do I have that backward?)
>
> And every time someone hacks the lock that prevents using
> other than Apple's chosen carrier, Apple offers a firmware
> "upgrade" that (BTW) makes the hack not work.
>
> Neo 1973 had GPS, higher-res display, and a few other things
> iPhone didn't, at a lower price. Plus all the software was
> open source, AND they released CAD files for ALL of the hardware.
> But it had almost NO memory by today's standards.
>
> http://www.openmoko.com/products-index.html

It is still in beta, though. Has been so in a while.

i

>
> The Helio Ocean was kind of cool, too.
>
> Depends on what you want.
>

> You might, with all due respect, simply not know what you are talking
> about. You have been able to store things on iPods since before the dawn
> of time.....

So let's say that I insert that iPod into a Linux computer and it sees
it as a USB device. If I copy MP3s on it, will I be able to play them?

i

Microsoft OS is simple, it gets people using computers.

Then they discover *nix and what it can do. Having used a simple OS for so
long, they feel confident to broaden their horizons, but they're not usually
ready. But still, the seed is there.

"Ignoramus17370" wrote in message
news:d5qdnWOAYaiNUXDanZ2dnUVZ_qjinZ2d@giganews.com ...
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/macworld/200...insharpdecline
>
> Microsoft's brand power has been in sharp decline over the past four
> years, an indication the company is losing credibility and mindshare
> with U.S. business users, according to a recent study by market
> research firm CoreBrand.
> ADVERTISEMENT
>
> According to the CoreBrand Power 100 2007 study, which polled about
> 12,000 U.S. business decision-makers, Microsoft dropped from number 12
> in the ranking of the most powerful U.S. company brands in 2004 to
> number 59 last year. In 1996, the company ranked number 1 in brand
> power among 1,200 top companies in about 50 industries, said James
> Gregory, CEO of CoreBrand.
>
> CoreBrand measures brand power using four criteria. It first rates the
> familiarity of a company's brand. Once a company has a certain level
> of familiarity, they are ranked according to three "attributes of
> favorability": overall reputation, perception of management and
> investment potential, Gregory said. While Microsoft's brand is still
> eminently recognizable, the company is declining in all three
> favorable attributes, he said.
>
> Gregory said that a decline in and of itself is not indicative that a
> company is losing its mindshare or reputation among
> customers. However, what's significant in Microsoft's case is that the
> decline has been consistent over a number of years, and has plunged
> dramatically in a brief time.
>
> "When you see something decline with increasing velocity, it's a
> concern," he said.
>
> Among its peers in the category of Computers, Peripherals and Computer
> Software, Microsoft is second to IBM in brand power, with Toshiba a
> close third, Gregory said. If Microsoft's downward trend continues,
> Toshiba could pass it in brand power next year, he said.
>
> Gregory could only speculate as to why Microsoft's reputation has been
> declining, since his firm does not ask people that specific
> question. He said the "underwhelming" response to Windows Vista might
> be one reason, and Apple's clever "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" advertising
> campaign -- which paints Windows in an unfavorable light -- may be
> another.
>
> IBM suffered a "much faster and more severe" decline in brand power in
> the early 1990s, Gregory said, and it took them 10 years to rebuild
> the brand's reputation. To stage a similar turnaround, Microsoft must
> have a clearer vision of the direction in which the company is headed
> and put forth leaders that people can trust to articulate that vision,
> he said.
>
> Microsoft, which has been diversifying its business beyond packaged
> software in the past several years, has struggled to articulate how
> the many facets of its business -- software, entertainment and online
> among them -- show a cohesive business plan. The company has been
> trying to clarify at least one of those strategies -- its online
> advertising business -- with new services and a bid to purchase
> Yahoo. However, Gregory suggested it may take more than that to raise
> the perception of its brand.

Oh yes, Microsoft is doing so terribly. That's why Linux has a whopping .67
percent market share. Try thinking for yourself for once you ignoramus

kmbfhaya wrote:

>
> Oh yes, Microsoft is doing so terribly. That's why Linux has a whopping
> .67 percent market share.

Yes Mr. Goebbels - repeat a lie often enough and people will start to
believe it.

I guess we've found your home page ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels

Cheers.

--
The world can't afford the rich.

Q: What OS is built for lusers?
A: Which one requires running lusermgr.msc to create them?

Francis (Frank) adds a new "gadget" to his Vista box ...
Download it here: http://tinyurl.com/2hnof6

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, NoStop

wrote
on Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:03:53 -0700
:
> kmbfhaya wrote:
>
>>
>> Oh yes, Microsoft is doing so terribly. That's why Linux has a whopping
>> .67 percent market share.
>
> Yes Mr. Goebbels - repeat a lie often enough and people will start to
> believe it.
>
> I guess we've found your home page ...
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels
>
> Cheers.
>

I'll admit to wonder if we can ever get accurate numbers,
but the sad truth is that Linux does not command a really
sizable portion of the desktop market, at least officially.
Of course Linux has pretty much taken over the Unix server
market, though Windows shows signs of viciously fighting
back -- if one can call GoDaddy-type deals "fighting",
as opposed to sleazing into the undergrowth like some sort
of legless reptile.

There's also a lot of dualboots and emulators out there,
not to mention embedded devices, mobiles, and vendors
hawking Linux-based desktops. (Dell is still among them,
though as usual they're being relatively quiet about it.)

And then there's the browser idiocy. HTTP/HTML never
did get its purpose straight (is it stateless? stateful?
secure? insecure?) and reliable identification of the OS
of an incoming HTTP packet request is at best a good guess.
Identification of the server OS from an HTTP server is
also a good guess, especially with a proxy in the middle.

One could easily have a Linux front end with Apache serving
as a proxy for a FreeBSD application server (Java ajpv13),
with a Microsoft C# SOAP-callable affair somewhere in
the mix, and of course a backend database that could be
anything at all. Which OS should Netcraft report?

As for how well Microsoft is doing...Yahoo! is still
reporting them as having $57B/year in raw revenue, $17B
in profits, 79.20% in quarterly earnings growth (compared
to the prior year), $22B in operating cash flow, and $14B
in levered free cash flow. Glowingly good numbers.

But I also remember Atari in the early 80's. It was a
bloody price war -- and Commodore eventually died because
of it.

Could something like Atari's fall from grace and
Commodore's death happen again? Dunno. We'll have to
wait until early or mid May for updates, at least.

--
#191, ewill3@earthlink.net
Linux. Because vaporware only goes so far.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

kmbfhaya wrote:
> "Ignoramus17370" wrote in message
> news:d5qdnWOAYaiNUXDanZ2dnUVZ_qjinZ2d@giganews.com ...
>> http://news.yahoo.com/s/macworld/200...insharpdecline
>>
>> Microsoft's brand power has been in sharp decline over the past four
>> years, an indication the company is losing credibility and mindshare
>> with U.S. business users, according to a recent study by market
>> research firm CoreBrand.
>> ADVERTISEMENT
>>
>> According to the CoreBrand Power 100 2007 study, which polled about
>> 12,000 U.S. business decision-makers, Microsoft dropped from number 12
>> in the ranking of the most powerful U.S. company brands in 2004 to
>> number 59 last year. In 1996, the company ranked number 1 in brand
>> power among 1,200 top companies in about 50 industries, said James
>> Gregory, CEO of CoreBrand.
>>
>> CoreBrand measures brand power using four criteria. It first rates the
>> familiarity of a company's brand. Once a company has a certain level
>> of familiarity, they are ranked according to three "attributes of
>> favorability": overall reputation, perception of management and
>> investment potential, Gregory said. While Microsoft's brand is still
>> eminently recognizable, the company is declining in all three
>> favorable attributes, he said.
>>
>> Gregory said that a decline in and of itself is not indicative that a
>> company is losing its mindshare or reputation among
>> customers. However, what's significant in Microsoft's case is that the
>> decline has been consistent over a number of years, and has plunged
>> dramatically in a brief time.
>>
>> "When you see something decline with increasing velocity, it's a
>> concern," he said.
>>
>> Among its peers in the category of Computers, Peripherals and Computer
>> Software, Microsoft is second to IBM in brand power, with Toshiba a
>> close third, Gregory said. If Microsoft's downward trend continues,
>> Toshiba could pass it in brand power next year, he said.
>>
>> Gregory could only speculate as to why Microsoft's reputation has been
>> declining, since his firm does not ask people that specific
>> question. He said the "underwhelming" response to Windows Vista might
>> be one reason, and Apple's clever "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" advertising
>> campaign -- which paints Windows in an unfavorable light -- may be
>> another.
>>
>> IBM suffered a "much faster and more severe" decline in brand power in
>> the early 1990s, Gregory said, and it took them 10 years to rebuild
>> the brand's reputation. To stage a similar turnaround, Microsoft must
>> have a clearer vision of the direction in which the company is headed
>> and put forth leaders that people can trust to articulate that vision,
>> he said.
>>
>> Microsoft, which has been diversifying its business beyond packaged
>> software in the past several years, has struggled to articulate how
>> the many facets of its business -- software, entertainment and online
>> among them -- show a cohesive business plan. The company has been
>> trying to clarify at least one of those strategies -- its online
>> advertising business -- with new services and a bid to purchase
>> Yahoo. However, Gregory suggested it may take more than that to raise
>> the perception of its brand.
>
> Oh yes, Microsoft is doing so terribly. That's why Linux has a whopping .67
> percent market share. Try thinking for yourself for once you ignoramus
>
>

Linux has a zero market share, since its never sold.