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I think we`re seeing the first signs of some sort of opening warfare between free competition and regulation by various types of governing bodies.

There`ve been a couple of interesting stories in the news, which got me thinking. One is about a satisfaction survey across multiple industries. The airline industry apparently rates behind the IRS in terms of customer satisfaction!

Another has to do with Microsoft choosing to use an army of lawyers to go after the Open Source community, Linux in particular. In other words, Microsoft would rather "compete" by threats of legal action than with increasingly helpful and useful products. When casually surveyed, IT decision-makers in a small, informal poll, showed that their response is to focus more on Linux and back away from Windows.

One thing that caught my eye in an article about the airlines is the "shocking" and "sudden" awareness by airline executives that it actually matters what customers think of their company service! It`s like this is a brand new, totally unheard of concept! :-)

Then we`ve got the "war" between Internet radio stations and the gub`m`nt. The royalty commission has introduced a huge rate hike targeted only to Internet radio, which, unless it`s stopped or rescinded, will probably drive out of business many of the "free" radio stations currently broadcasting.

The proponents say the "corporate giants" of the free radio stations are "stealing royalties from the poor musicians." That`s not the case at all, but the propents usually are corporate giants themselves.

Finally, we`ve all noticed the major movement toward "cookie-cutter" business in America. Go anywhere and you won`t know where you are, what with strip malls and large shopping centers looking exactly the same. Big Box stores all offer the same products, on their schedule, and nobody seems to care if you can`t find what you need.

A good example would be trying to find a swimsuit or sandals in July, the middle of summer. They`re usually gone by then, to make room for the winter line of proucts. So, e-commerce is taking over. For the first time in history, sales of clothing and fashion goods took the lead over technology and electronics products.

What does this all mean to you?

My thinking is that we`re lining up for a historic face-off. The enterprise corporations seem to be the "giants" of business. By that I mean really, really big organizations. On the other side are the small businesses of 50-or less employees, and the micro businesses---the cottage industry of startups and entrepreneurs.

Linux and the Open Source community offer free software that runs on a free operating system. The idea is the only real threat to Microsoft, which would represent the traditional profit-only model. But how does "free" software make any money? Help and support, and certain options where customers can choose to pay money for a more complex product.

Internet radio is also free, and most real musicians would rather have their music heard than fight about royalties. It`s not to say that musicians don`t want to get money. No, it`s that given a choice of never being heard by Commercial Top 40 Play-list giants, most musicians would rather at least be "noticed." Then, if someone likes what they hear, the musician can sell a CD or MP3 from a Web site.

So waddya think? Would it be so terrible if Microsoft were to go out of business? What about those airlines; does a bus company really care what their riders think about the service? Suppose the existing airlines went out of business; would it be possible to replace them with some other airlines?

What do you project will be the coming business climate, where more and more leaders and competent people leave corporations to start their own business? What will your neighborhood be like when the people in charge of the Big stores are the mediocre drones left behind? Can you step into some sort of possible void? Will there be a void?

Before all that happens, what do you think of the possibility that you might receive a threat of legal action because you`re doing something that`s pulling customers away from Big Store, Inc.?

I will only comment on one part of your post:

 

Yes.  There are many folks who would love for this to happen, but in my opinion it would be terrible.  Microsoft does almost as much to drive innovations in the field of software development as the entire open-source community.  You may not agree with their motivation, but you gotta love the end result...

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Oleg Issers | StartupNation.com Web Team

50% of computer programming is trial and error. The other 50% is copy and paste.

Oleg, I used to agree with you. But these days, I see Microsoft mostly buying their "innovations" from smaller separate companies.

There`s no question that Microsoft will go down in history as the leading force in doing exactly what Bill Gates intended: "Windows everywhere!" In the process, they brought PCs into the home and business envrionment and moved us all forward.

But there`s a time and a place for everything, and I believe the news article is showing that Microsoft isn`t leading by innovation anymore. Instead, they`re trying to remain dominant more by combative tactics, legal maneuvering, and threats.

What do you see as a true innovation over the past 2 years, exclusively developed by Microsoft?

• .NET 2.0
• SQLServer 2005 - nothing groundbreaking, but has solid new features. 

What were the innovations over the past 2 years developed by the OS community?

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Oleg Issers | StartupNation.com Web Team

50% of computer programming is trial and error. The other 50% is copy and paste.

Oleg, try this Leopard preview.

Fallout from the loss of Microsoft:

Programs: With nothing to update to, people would start migrating to other (less expensive) programs instead of upgrading. Utilities to convert documents would pop up everywhere, and all new programs would have an option to import data from an M$ product.
Staffing: A lot of losses in IT jobs, but maybe some of these people would move to other technologies and retain their positions. Programming languages change all the time - some people stay, some people don`t. I consider this a norm in technology jobs.
Operating System: This would be the biggest problem. At some point, in order to upgrade, people would have to switch their OS. This could be smooth, or it could mean having to buy all new software and converting every document they own. The financial impact on all companies would be significant.
Business Losses due to malware: There would be a significant decrease Hackers don`t really write virii for Mac OS, Linux, FreeBSD, UNIX, etc. I also think there would be an odd decrease in SPAM, as a lot of programs that suck up email addresses for spammers are written on Windows or use Windows-based virii to propagate.

What would be the greatest benefit? Innovation. Right now, new programs don`t make it off the ground due to the M$ juggernaut. Imagine a day when competition controls advances and not monopolies? I really feel we`d have more choices and less crappy software out there. There are a lot of great programs for Mac OS because Apple encourages developers instead of smashes them down. I can get great programs made by independent developers for banking, RSS reading, web browsing, email handling, site development, etc for $50 to free.


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That PHP Girl
Small Business Essentials
Latest Post on SUN: New Facebook Pages - First Impressions

If Microsoft were to "go away", there will be much fewer software options than currently exist.  For example, .NET is a great development platform; SQL Server is an excellent relational database.  I don`t know about you, but I personally would hate to lose either of those options.  Sure, something else will take their place; but I`d rather not be forced to use Oracle or Postgres or whatnot... I like my SQL Server! 

Microsoft also does a great job of providing resources for developers who work with their platforms. There is no equivalent of MSDN in the open-source world.  (Though I will say that for some reason, the overall quality of MSDN resources has declined greatly in this past year).

Finally, it`s naive to think that if Microsoft ceases to exist all the malware and spam developers will just curl up and die.  The reason most malware today is targeted towards Windows users is because they are such a heavy majority - so the "hackers" get more bang for their buck, so to speak.  If MacOS or Linux were ever to become the predominant OS, you better believe all the malware kids will be learning new things in a hurry.  Right now it`s just not worth their effort to write virii for Macs beacuse of how limited the target audience would be.

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Oleg Issers | StartupNation.com Web Team

50% of computer programming is trial and error. The other 50% is copy and paste.

Hackers wouldn`t write malware against Linux ... it goes against principle.

And what`s wrong with MySQL? I`m all about LAMP.


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That PHP Girl
Small Business Essentials
Latest Post on SUN: New Facebook Pages - First Impressions

Hackers have a principle?  That`s news to me!

Maybe you`re talking about today`s hackers... If the next generation of computer users will primarily use Linux, I would bet money that the next generation of hackers will be writing Linux malware.  That is just the way of the world...

mySQL is perfectly fine for your everyday e-commerce site.  How many enterprise-scale applications running on mySQL do you know of?

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Oleg Issers | StartupNation.com Web Team

50% of computer programming is trial and error. The other 50% is copy and paste.

Well, I`ll tell you right now, when I worked at the Tech Museum, their entire server farm is built on UNIX, MySQL, and ColdFusion.

I don`t know why large enterprises run on MS SQL. My guess is that they don`t know any better.
If they need something extensive, there are better products.
And if they don`t, the LAMP platform works great.

I don`t know why anyone would trust MS SQL, IIS, ASP, etc. I mean, using products with known security holes and you`re OK with that? (Do you not watch the news?) If that`s your deal, whatever. I think I`ll skip it, thanks.

And no, hackers would not write virii for Linux. Phishers, yes. But hackers do have principle - regardless of what you think. In fact, many of them are now all those security experts you see out there making the big bucks now ...

And regardless of what crappy product Mirosoft puts out next, I`ll still not be using it. I think my next big thing is RoR. But until I hit that point, it`s LAMP for me.


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That PHP Girl
Small Business Essentials
Latest Post on SUN: New Facebook Pages - First Impressions

Well... I`ve worked for a established & successful company that provides enterprise management software used by municipal and county governments, police departments, fire departments, courts etc. all over the US.

They offer 2 products: IMB mainframe, and web-based (MS .NET, SQL Server, IIS).  No Linux, no open source.  The company is a partner with both IMB and MS, and so they always end up using the latest & greatest cutting edge software from both companies.

I suppose it is possible that no one in this company and none of the clients they serve watch the news, or just don`t know any better?

Sure there are known security holes.  But they exist on every platform!  The MS ones are just more well known because the hackers/phishers/spammers/whatever you want to call them concentrate all their efforts on going after MS platforms.  If you are a hacker, would you rather write malware that could potentially reach 80% of the internet users, or 5%?

By no means am I advocating that everyone use MS software only. (Though if everyone used IE, it would make my life as a web developer much simpler! )  If mySQL works for you, that`s great.  But why would you want to see some of the available options dissapear?  Sure MS produces some crap; they also produce some great products.  In my opinion, the great products outweight the crap by a large margin.  I honestly believe SQL Server 2005 is the best relational DB on the market today.  If you don`t need it`s advanced capabilities or can`t afford the price tag, there is absolutely nothing wrong with an open-source solution.  But do you really want it to die just because you have a bone to pick with the way Microsoft runs their business?

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Oleg Issers | StartupNation.com Web Team

50% of computer programming is trial and error. The other 50% is copy and paste.