About Me

I ramble about a number of things - but travel experiences, movies and music feature prominently. See my label cloud for a better idea. All comnments and opinions on this blog are my own, and do not in any way reflect the opinions/position of my employer (past/current/future).

20 July 2006

Microsoft Playing Fair?

From dedicated tech sites like CNet to mainstream media like The Seattle Times, the word is that Microsoft are adopting 12 principles towards more competitive practices with Vista. No doubt, the fines lobbied by the EU totaling to almost a billion Euros had something to do with it, but the question remains - how much of this is publicity, and how much of this is actually going to happen.

The question really is, can I buy Windows Vista, the operating system without crap like IE, Outlook Express, Solitaire (and the other Windows games), Media Player and all the other GB worth of bloatware? Windows Vista is reputed to have a massive installation base, but if this is true, a slim down version of windows at a slimed down price ... then Linux and other OO variants will have to really think fresh ... On the other hand, it could also usher in a new era of true interoperability. Somehow, I just don't see it happening.

3 comments:

carl said...

Dude, you should try writing drivers for Vista ;-) Let me just say that it's lots of "fun", using the most loose and sarcastic sense of the word "fun" as you can think of :-P

alapan said...

No thanks - I have tried writing drivers for Windows CE - and have decided never again ;P

alapan said...

A very interesting article on the issue from Furtune/CNN:
http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/20/technology/microsoft.fortune/index.htm