Harvard PR - we've heard of it but never hear from it
|
|
|
Microsoft's profit soars
SOFTWARE FLOGGER Microsoft is laughing all the way to the bank after announcing its lastest figures.
The outfit saw its profits grow by 35 per cent in the first three months of 2010, which it attributed to its release of the Windows 7 operating system.
The Vole claims Windows 7 is proving to be its best-selling operating system to date, and said that its business customers are "beginning to refresh their desktops" and shift to Windows 7.
The outfit made a net profit of £2.6 billion. It claimed it had also seen "strong growth" from its Bing search engine business and XBox Live.
Sales hit a record $14.5 billion, which was up six per cent over the same period last year.
It looks like technology companies are doing well, overall. Yahoo and Apple both announced record profits and Google also reported strong figures the week before. µ
Share this:
Share
"when you played an mp3 on the computer and you attempted to copy files over the network (not internet) that it would degrade the performance of the copy significantly reducing the speed"
This is horse shit. Anyone running Vista can test this and prove it's horse shit. Use less words and use more brains.
yes it's very nice. But...
Microsoft's 'record' quarter can't match Apple
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/23/microsoft_third_quarter/
If I Inquired as little as this site does, I would only have a half picture of everything.
In Vista Microsoft incorporated quite a bit of DRM, for their own use and for the content creator's use. There were a large number of posts about it on the web at that time that demonstrated that Microsoft was using it within Vista. It wasn't just confined to content creators. This DRM was used for things that weren't necessarily legitimate. For instance, there was a Doctor in Australia who's job it was to examine High Definition medical xrays. He found that when he played an mp3 file it would cause the displayed content to significantly degrade. When contacted about it Microsoft admitted it and stated basically that it was their way of controlling content they didn't think was legitimate. It was also determined that when you played an mp3 on the computer and you attempted to copy files over the network (not internet) that it would degrade the performance of the copy significantly reducing the speed. Another is that Microsoft drafted (militarily, so to speak) the hardware makers to implement circuitry into their boards which would prevent anyone from altering the physical board to bypass their DRM at the board level. nVidia complained, and I suspect this was one of the main reasons there were such problems with video drivers just after Vista was released.
Microsoft, along with content creators (movie studios and the RIAA (as well as others)), worked to get the Display manufacturers to also comply with their DRM scheme that was built into Windows. For example, if you played content that was DRM laden and you had somehow (per their judgment, BTW) were attempting to play an illegal copy, it would degrade the quality. None of this touches on the DRM facilities they programmed into it to that (at least initially) on a frequent basis would use your computer to contact their servers to determine if you are stealing Windows Vista. If your computer failed to contact their servers within X number of days/weeks Vista would shut down and refuse to let you do anything other than contact Microsoft to activate again. Those clearly were attempts to make you prove repeatedly that you are not a thief. It is akin to having Walmart come to your home every other Sunday to go through the stuff you own to see which items were stolen.
When word of Win7's release was pending, people examined the beta copies and found that it turns out that Microsoft added even more DRM to Win7.
The reason you don't see much of it, at least at this point, is that at the time Microsoft released Vista, Apple responded to the outcry from the consumer that their store was a lock in mechanism. Since Apple knew Microsoft was putting all the DRM in Vista (and there was this ongoing outcry) the best way to overcome any possibility of content creators getting the upper hand on the iTunes store and threatening to move their sales to Windows only was to remove DRM from iTunes. Due to patents and monopoly power, Microsoft most certainly developed their DRM to only work on Windows. Many content creators couldn't afford to target two separate DRM technologies (one for each platform). Apple effectively cut Microsoft off at the knees -- iPod and iTunes integration without DRM would be hard for anyone to beat.
Microsoft had tried with their Zune (but the Zune proves to unpopular due to the integration of the devices to the iTunes store). At one point many of customers that bought the DRM content from Microsoft's suppliers lost their ability to play that content. Microsoft took down their servers. They were moving on to different DRM Technologies. This left some people out in the cold unable to play what they'd legitimately purchased.
Microsoft is doing well at present, but still is stuck on the "fat client" model of IT networks. Google "gets the cloud", Microsoft doesn't. Microsoft is partnering with "Facebook" on cloud-based services. Ya, that will be a big "productivity-booster" for businesses. So this Windows 95- Windows 7 bubble might be historically looked back upon as "peak (fat client) software", which was soon afterwards crushed by cloud computing.
But perhaps Microsoft will be able to ride on the shirttails of Novell (via their infamous cross-licensing deal). Novell has thin-client/server systems suitable for business networks. That is, if Novell does not rip up that agreement (or get purchased by IBM).
OI course, it will cheer the fanboys who think they're "winners" for using M$ -- never quite grasping that they have no choice...
..they can stop charging stupid ammounts of cash for office yet?
2009 was a poor year to compare as things were in the dumps.
Client Division:
2008 2009 2010
3924 3353 4273 Revenue ($million)
2965 2141 2872 Operating Income
They are getting less income from more revenue, while sales of PCs sky-rocket, meaning their average selling price is going down and they are still taking a hit fighting GNU/Linux on the netbooks. Roughly 80 million PCs sold in that quarter. They are getting only $53 ASP, even with their "7" product having a monopoly on retail/OEM channels. Having persuaded OEMs to produce "thin" notebooks instead of netbooks and using "7" instead of XP, you would think they could do better. They cannot raise the price even $10 because the OEMs are threatening to go with GNU/Linux which is now viable. Businesses still cling to XP. Even if M$ gets businesses to switch to "7" their shiny new quad-core desktops with gigabytes of RAM and hot video will not be obsolete for a decade so the refresh cycle will be longer next time. Many businesses have gone 8 years with XP. They can go 10 with "7" or even longer with GNU/Linux. Then there are those pesky netbooks and thin clients...
Sure you can! Just don't buy any media/games/software that uses DRM. Don't blame the OS for supporting DRM if you choose to participate in it.
does anyone know if you can use windows 7 without drm?