Return of the '70s Microsoft Weirdos 338
theodp writes "On the eve of the company's move from Albuquerque to Seattle in 1978, a famous photo was taken (in a shopping mall no less) of the original Microsoft team, looking mighty sharp in their '70s outfits. Almost 30 years later, as Bill Gates prepares to depart from Microsoft, the group (looking older, but better) reconvened for a retake."
For those in the UK or with a proxy (Score:2, Informative)
The BBC has some footage of the new photo being take on the iplayer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b00c6sdc.shtml?src=ip_mp [bbc.co.uk]
Its part of a documentary about bill gates for the money programme. Bit dumbed down for non geek audiences but interesting none the less if only to laugh at all the 70's gates footage and Ballmers big shiney head. Oh and I cant find where but at some point bill gates jumps over a chair... there has to be some jokes in there!
Re:11/12 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Thank you (Score:1, Informative)
Are you serious? Have you seen any recent version of Ubuntu? How can anyone say it's less user-friendly than Windows with a straight face?
Re:Thank you (Score:1, Informative)
I'm not really sure the license fees are exaggerated (XP or Vista ships with the vast majority of PCs sold, the market doesn't seem to mind the price). Microsoft could charge less, but that doesn't mean that they would be better off doing so.
For businesses that are paying people $30,000 a year to work (this is an absurd low ball), $300 every 3 years (this is probably somewhat high) is not particularly onerous of a license fee (any business will still prefer $299 to $300, and so on). As long as Microsoft can maintain the perceived value of Windows, they will do fine (and the 'mainstream' take on Vista is that it could have been better and more exciting, not that it flopped).
Re:Epitome (Score:5, Informative)
FTA:
Present for the reunion was office manager Miriam Lubow (center of new picture), who missed the original sitting due to a snowstorm. (When Lubow, now retired, first met Gates, she couldn't believe that disheveled kid was the president.) Absent for the reshoot was Bob Wallace (top center), who died in 2002; after leaving Microsoft in 1983, he pioneered the idea of shareware.
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft does charge less, to OEMs that is.
The license that is sold for $250 in-store, costs $80 (or less) to the OEM - even mom & pop shops. That's one hell of an insult to the loyal customers who actually buy the new OS to update their existing PCs, and to the businesses that buy hundreds or thousands of licenses. They can negotiate a "preferred partner" deal, but it's still nowhere near the OEM pricing.
Never forget (Score:2, Informative)
...that for the better part of 2 decades you cannot walk into a retail store to get a Window-less PC
...that MS choked the life out of Netscape, even when IE was free on every desktop
...that their embrace and extend diluted the OLPC's goals (to me this makes the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation a mere cover not unlike crocodile tears)
...that a generation of users think CTL-ALT-DEL can reset everything from PCs to other appliances
...that yes, some of the more promising startup technologies that reflected true innovation were bought up by MS only to be downgraded to research papers and never to see the light of day
...that the OS has provided a fertile breeding ground for botnets, spyware, and viruses. Ask your sysadmin if you need help remembering this.
You might push the myth that they were responsible for putting a computer in a lot of households. Was there any other choice? They didn't need to strong arm or blackmail the dealers to sell HW with windows on it, if the product can stand on its merits. They killed Netscape because they feared it would have made the OS irrelevant. If you asked me, Where do you want to go today, we should have been there already.
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Informative)
No, that was the Internet.
The spreadsheet was the "killer ap" that got PCs on to the desktops of accountants and managers. The Internet was the "killer ap" that finally got the PC in to the homes of people like our parents. Email, the web and now digital photos of grandchildren on Facebook and Flickr have pretty much made even a dial-up account a necessity for pretty much everyone. Homeless people use the Internet.
And Bill Gates famously [salon.com] missed the potential of a free & open Internet until quite late in the game (I don't think Windows shipped with built-in support for TCP/IP until Windows 98, but correct me if I'm wrong).
Re:Thank you (Score:5, Informative)
I installed Ubuntu late last year, and setting up multiple monitors still requires editing text files.
Linux is friendly for people with a lot of skill, who need a lot from their computer and aren't afraid of the command line; or people with very little skill, who don't need to do anything but browse the web, check their email, and do some word processing.
For everybody in-between, Windows is still a clear win.
Re:Thank you (Score:2, Informative)
Back in '86, you could buy two $2500 Mac Pluses for the cost of a single IBM AT (which didn't include a monitor).
Just like today, Macs can be "cheap" if you compare them to their competition.