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Author Topic: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS  (Read 14368 times)

guest

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MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
« on: October 19, 2007, 06:14:34 PM »

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/10/19/microsoft-creates-millions-jobs

Now I am (until Feb 2008) a MS "Partner" and this is the biggest load of bovine faeces I've ever seen - even for a MS IDC survey.

We cannot find one customer (not one) who have any plans at ALL to use Vista. That's none. Nada. Zilch. Now given that MS will no longer supply XP to anyone other than Tier 1 "partners" what are we supposed to do?

I'll tell you what we have done - we have bought 3 OEM licenses (2 x XP, 1 x Win2k3) and that's it. We are 100% legal and no more s/w from MS will be purchased by me. The kids schools use OpenOffice now and so do we. The MS Partner agreement expires in Feb and they can go forth and multiply.

I've used Windows since IBM effectively canned OS/2 - an OS that I could do voice recognition (that worked!) on back in 1996. With a Cyrix PR166+ and 32MB of memory! I usually do have a Linux box up but frankly until recently Wine etc was too much hassle to get going to contemplate having Linux as an os for the kids. I've sold shedloads of hardware/software but that's it for us and MS - I'm simply not going to try to convince businesses that Vista is right for them as in 95% of cases it patently isn't. Nor I'm sad to say is Office 2007 due to the retraining costs - and frankly its just another load of bells & whistles that 80%+ (MS own figure) of users will never use - hells bells there are companies making decent money modifying Office 2007 to behave like Office 2003.

I haven't participated in OS wars for well over a decade but MS have lost the plot entirely in my book. The only people getting Vista are the poor sods who have no choice in the matter (bundled with new computer) - yes there will be some who want it but apart from DX10 (which WILL be back-ported to XP - bet on it) and Aero it offers little of true value while shovelling lots of TURDS (Technology Users' Rights Denial Systems*) in your face :)

Anyone have any thoughts?

*(c) Morely Dotes - someone I disagree violently with over the way mail abuse policies should work, but he has this one nailed!

PS - TURDS = DRM

PPS - don't get me wrong, WindowsXP + Win2k3 (SBS usually) is a stunning buy for most businesses as their existing admin costs disappear. Vista + SBS? I think not.

« Last Edit: October 19, 2007, 06:17:51 PM by rizla »
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roseway

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Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2007, 06:51:13 PM »

As a long term Linux user (more than 10 years) you can probably guess what I think. :)
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  Eric

guest

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Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
« Reply #2 on: October 19, 2007, 07:23:13 PM »

Yes I can :D

Thing is I've done the OS wars, I've used and deployed OS/2, Win2k/XP/2k3, Solaris (yes really), Suse (as was) etc etc. I don't care what it is, as long as the customer is happy. Can't find any business customers for Vista though - well not quite true, we get muppets (Asian lads around here - exclusively*) who seem to think that half a dozen copies of XP/Vista/whatever as long as it "does the biz" and a 2k3 server ought to cost £250 or so - installed and deployed! I'd charge more than that for Linux if I had to install/deploy it on half a dozen boxes!

*I am not being racist. I have lived in Leicester for 18 years and I know the market. Whites (no idea what religion) will pay the price if they approach you - no debate (lots of piracy goes on obviously), Asian (Hindu) will bargain and bluster then buy it illegally; Asian (Sikh) will argue then buy regardless of price but gods help you if it goes wrong; Black (afro-carribean) won't buy or ask - they will pirate it; Asian (Muslim) don't want it once their kids are out of school but while they are will buy whatever is recommended; etc etc. Just demographics (mainly to do with available cash) but we hang colours around people. I still get loads of abuse in England and I am white. However I'm a Scot ;)

PPS - you can tell after 18 years in Leicester as soon as you walk in a business/home door whether it is Muslim, Hindu, Sikh etc which is why I added religion to "Asian" people. Its Diwali down here soon which is fun, as are the Sikh festivals which involve them giving food and drink away to people they have never met :) Eid is OK but I'm not keen on the precursor to it - Ramadan.

PPPS - way off topic or what? :D
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soms

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Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
« Reply #3 on: October 20, 2007, 09:15:18 PM »

In July I bought a new Dimension 9200 PC from Dell factory outlet, came with Vista Home P pre-installed.

Thankfully the machine came with two hard disks so I simply bought XP Home OEM (technically not correct as I had no accompanying hardware but at least it is genuine) and installed it on the second HDD as a dual boot system.

I never use Vista now, set XP as the default OS.

Vista is a poor performer in comparison to XP (this is on a dual core, 2GB RAM, SATA PC) whereas XP performs like nothing I have seen before (the joys of a well spec-ed £400 PC).

Vista in a bad attempt to be more "user friendly" etc etc to me an an experienced user it simply over complicated and bloated. The number of different options and control applets has multiplied, how can that be simpler? Everything is harder to use and it seems to laggy, always running background tasks and so on...

Rant over, your right to dump Vista and M$ althogether if they wont let you ship XP which now has a well established place, especially for those who aren't fans of Vista.
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kitz

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Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
« Reply #4 on: October 21, 2007, 09:54:25 AM »

>> The software behemoth reckons it's directly responsible for creating 14 million jobs worldwide,


<sarcastic hat on>
That would perhaps be ironing out problems in Vista for the punters would it?
</sarcastic hat off>

Ive been a fan of Windows in the past.  Although I have issues with some of the things Gates does he gotta admit that the guy is a marketing genius.  Hes taken some damn good ideas (not necessarily M$ ones if you know what I mean!) and made them available to the masses.
The concept of Windows meant that many who couldnt get to grips with other O/S's at least stood a chance.

Some people slated off Win ME - yeah it did have its faults compared to say 2k, but I personally never had a problem with it nor any of the machines I installed it on.  A lot of people moaned about XP but I found it resolved a lot of issues and for the home user I think it was good.

However - Vista is another matter.  I dont have as much to do with other PCs these days so perhaps thats something to do with it.. but Im really disappointed in what should be a highish spec PC - well media center that Ive built.  Not because of the hardware thats in there, but more the problems and niggles with getting stuff to work just right.  Theres still things I havent as yet ironed out.. and Im beginning to regret ever purchasing a copy of Vista to put on it.

Yes I will admit my knowledge of PCs/ operating systems/hardware has declined over the past few years (It does if you dont stay on top of it), but if someone like me struggles or tears my hair out over stuff - then what chance has joe public?  Aside from the fact IMHO Its way too big and eats up too many resources.

*Ive dabbled with linux too (RedHat) a few years back, but drew the line when it came to compiling my own drivers :(
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kitz

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Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
« Reply #5 on: October 21, 2007, 10:01:51 AM »

>> PPPS - way off topic or what?

<mods hat on>
Comments noted. 
</mods hat off>
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Floydoid

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guest

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Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
« Reply #7 on: October 21, 2007, 11:04:03 AM »

Linux (Ubuntu for sure) is a LOT friendlier to newbies now kitz. It is just about idiot-proof :)
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roseway

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Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
« Reply #8 on: October 21, 2007, 11:16:45 AM »

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  Eric

kitz

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Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
« Reply #9 on: October 21, 2007, 03:13:37 PM »

I suppose I should have another go.. 

TBH I didnt think RH8 was too bad - and I was starting to get the hang of it...  but this was pre adsl days and I gave up after too much fruitless searching for drivers etc :/   
If Id been building a new box obviously I could have chosen the hardware etc..  but the "RH box was just a play around machine" made from a system I'd originally built a few years prior to that.
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roseway

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Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
« Reply #10 on: October 21, 2007, 04:18:15 PM »

Did you watch the Google video of LinuxMCE? It's very impressive, and has got me thinking about building a media centre now. :)
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  Eric

kitz

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Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
« Reply #11 on: October 21, 2007, 04:29:55 PM »

nope - remind me and perhaps its something I could consider  ;D

Although Im still a bit dubios of linux and hardware since my last goes -  my confidence isnt enamoured either that Vista seems to be having a few probs with simple things like a keyboard and a broadcom wireless network card.   Should post the specs up some time.

Just a bit downhearted atm about it all - cause I kinda bust the budget for something I wanted - that doesnt quite work as it should :/
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guest

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Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
« Reply #12 on: October 21, 2007, 04:41:06 PM »

I bought a (sort of) pre-built/designed "videobox". A KiSS DP600 (we have a KiSS DP1500 upstairs which is perfect for old portable TVs and will work well on wireless).

It does what it says on the tin (it's really just a cut-down Linux kernel) provided you use wired ethernet and are aware of how MPEG4 (DivX/XVid) works. ie people moan that it takes ages to FF/RW but that's down to key frames and how the video was encoded. You simply can't (right now) have the compression MPEG4 offers and have the FF/RW speed consumers expect if the content is on a network rather than a local hard disk.

I dabbled with some mini-ITX stuff for a while but the problem is that they simply don't sell enough to reduce the price via economies of scale. Getting decent ITX kit in a DECENT case can be quite eye-watering when you reflect on the processing power you get.

One thing for sure (I decided this years ago) is that the Windows MCE is not the way to go. Linux is as you can get a nice lean kernel with ONLY the stuff you need linked into it. Back to the nice (but expensive) mini-ITX h/w again though as if you're going to do something right then..... :)
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guest

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Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
« Reply #13 on: October 21, 2007, 04:46:31 PM »

kitz - try wired ethernet. Really. Wireless is rubbish on this sort of thing unless you live way the hell out in the middle of nowhere (you know where I "came" from now - that's what I mean).

Also I seem to remember some whinges about Broadcom and Vista. I have Broadcom chipsets in all the important machines here and I wouldn't touch another vendor. It isn't Vista though....
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kitz

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Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
« Reply #14 on: October 21, 2007, 04:59:09 PM »

>> kitz - try wired ethernet.

Thats what I do need to do - I need a piece of cable long enough though to give it a test...  and tbh the location means that permanent wired is going to be out anyhow :(.

The only solution I could perhaps think of is something like the Netgear powerline adaptors.

Direct line of vision there isnt really that much distance for wireless - but because of layout of the house, wired ethernet isnt going to be possible.   The router is located at the front of the house..   yet I can take my lappy right down to the bottom of the garden and still get a decent signal... so I dont think its the router.

Ive got an extender plugged into the card atm which has helped a little - and at least Im not getting 50kbps now.

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