All in all, I like Vista + patches. Vista SP1 promises to be a much better proposition, I think. Vista SP2 will probably be the ideal (we can hope). Games running on DX10 feature some serious eye candy (but not so much on audio – see OpenAL).

I do believe their bid for Yahoo, while in line with their past practice of simply purchasing capabilities, instead of initially developing them. Their most recent attempt at internal product development , without using someone else’s work as a starting point, has been a notable failure – Vista. Aside from the annoying aspects that the average consumer is currently experiencing, anyone that listened to the vaunted promises and took a look at the initial “Longhorn” betas (“Longhorn” was, at one point, an early developmental name for the Vista project), realizes this. This strategy, acquisition versus development, has served them in the past, but the formula probably won’t be as magical this time around.

In the previous instances, Microsoft acquired realatively unknown apps that didn’t really have comparable competitors that were widely known – and as such, the Microsoft appropriated and tweaked versions were “new” to the consumer base.

In this case, there already is widely known competition, in the form of Google, and their online services. And while Microsoft is probably hoping to salvage/resurect their online sector, there’s already a less than favorable brand impression in the Microsoft part, and the Yahoo portion, well, it’s not so super-duper spectacular as to grab or re-grab a huge market share simply because of the merger. People may check it out from curiosity, but the window of opportunity for the product line to razzle, dazzle, and excite will be very, very small. And if it fails to dazzle, they’re done.

And while Microsoft has been able to foist off warmed over versions of the same old pig in new lipstick with their various OS and Office releases over the past 10 years, due to the cost of Microsoft divestment being significant – when considering not only up front software cost, but support and training for IT staff and employees, as well as the uncertainty of the efficient continuation of critical business processes during and immediately after ‘switching horses’ – in this instance they don’t have a ‘captive audience’ of customers already in the bag.

Which leads me to just snicker at the thought of this merger idea, and the reasons for doing it.

And yes, it’s Microsoft’s money. To do with whatever they (and their shareholders) want.

I say go for it, guys

One is reminded of Time Warner and AOL.

How did that turn out? My recollection is that Time Warner lost its shirt.

But one of the biggest assets Yahoo has is those millions of @yahoo.com addresses, something GOOG does not have.

Also, xbox has a pretty good reputation.

Many thousands of small and medium businesses are totally Microsoft powered and their investments in the technology (Server 2003 and now 2008, MS SQL Server, Exchange Server ISA Server, System Management Server, Sharepoint Server and many others) and the training and intellectual resources invested in M$ are enormous (that $40 billion did not just come from desktop operating systems and office).

It is still the case, for example that Microsoft Accreditation – MCSE or MCSA qualifications for example, along with Cisco qualifications are still trhe absolute benchmarks for hiring IT support staff.

Whatever M$ shortcomings and failings, manifold indeed, the cost (in operational and HR terms) to many businesses of a sudden withdrawal from the market would be terrifying.

With regard to MicroSoft saving the money, that’s actually very difficult for corporations and amounts that large. Unless you think Yahoo! is going to crash and burn, buying their stock is a way of saving / investing that money.

Mr. Mills;

That’s an interesting idea. One that might be implemented by keeping XP alive for backwards compatibility, so that the Vista successor can start cleaner.

As for using a Linux base, honestly the NT kernel is fine and has quite a lot of nice features and structure, speaking as some one who has done both Unix and NT kernel hacking. I think Vista’s problems are at a much higher level than that.

No, you don’t need a $1000 PC for those things but… it sure as hell makes life easier and $1000 is not a huge amount of money compared to the utility most of us will get out of the machine over it’s life-time. And then there are people who do want to play CoD or do video editing, or graphic design or coding or any number of things for which there is hitherto (or in the forceable future) better online solution.

I’d much rather run my stuff on a machine under the desk than on some sodding server elsewhere. I mean some people create on their machines. They don’t just consume and their is always going to be a need for something more than a glorified smart-phone.

I think a better way of putting it would be to call it the retirement of a corporation. Sounds much more graceful.