Microsoft's DNA won't permit Oracle-Sun deal

I'm a PC!

The odd thing is that for a company whose core competency is software, all their TV commercials these days appear to be flogging hardware.

Microsoft as a hardware vendor

Balmer's response is understandable considering their track record. Microsoft's foray into the hardware world has been far from impressive.

The XBox is really just a glorified PC... the original one was exactly that just stuffed into an X-shaped box (which is why it ran Linux so well - or maybe that should be why Linux ran so well on it. *sigh* I miss XBMC *sigh*).

We've all seen the results of when Microsoft had a go at designing the XBox 360, I believe it's referred to as the 3RRoD. Quite how they managed to fuck up building a PC and putting it in a dull greyish box is beyond me.

Zune is probably best forgotten about. It appears that Microsoft want everyone to forget about it. Apple aren't losing any sleep about losing any iPod market share to Microsoft. Creative are a bigger threat to their revenue stream than Microsoft are, and despite the Zen et al being technically equivalent (some would say superior) to the iPod, it's not a serious threat.

Microsoft's mice and keyboards are somewhat overpriced for what they are but generally they're OK, I guess .... but then again how hard can it be to manufacture a mouse and a keyboard? Surely even the mighty mighty Microsoft aren't so inept that they can fuck that up.

Microsoft is a software company. In my opinion, their software is pretty mediocre compared to the alternatives (OS X, Linux, etc...). Their software always requires countless hotfixes and patches to address flaws in the original product. It's a lot more difficult to apply a hotfix to a piece of hardware than it is to their crappy software.

Here's hoping Balmer sticks to his guns and doesn't try anything else with hardware. Microsoft clearly don't "get" the hardware business - at least they realise that.

Wow what a concept

"Increasingly, a hardware and software stack tuned to the needs of a combined database, storage system, and processing unit - an appliance - is seen as the way to tackle this."

As deployed in the HP3000 range (long out of production ) and IBM AS400/e-series (still in production I think). Welcome back to the 1970s/1980s.

<sarcasm>

And will this new solution come complete with complaints about premium pricing (not infrequently by people who only counted PC costs in terms of the server hardware), infrequent hardware upgrades (got to milk that cash cow) and expensive peripherals (you can't just hang any old disk drive on an E-series).

</sarcasm>

As an old E-series bod I can say that for companies who like tinkering with 'puters they weren't very interesting. For companies who want to run a business, provided you were OK with playing by their rules (just like playing by MS rules, but different rules) they got the whole job done (I won't use the S word but the pre-integration of DB/storage/processors definitely simplified things). I never worried about disk crashes, record level locking, someone accidently deleting a database or recovery in DB2/400, because it was never a problem. Migration from proprietary processor to PowerPC architecture (following proper prep) was about 5 minutes. You only knew how crummy Access was when you had to implement multi-user access on it.

Anti-Trust

Of course Microsoft can see benefits in having a hardware platform and software as can everyone else but it's equally, of course Microsoft would say otherwise, as they don't really have the opportunity to do it. It follows that such a notion is therefore ridiculed or dismissed.

Microsoft have enough anti-trust problems as it is and they'd be compounded if they were in the PC hardware business as well. Only in particular cases and markets, where there is competition, can Microsoft get away with the hardware and software bundle. If they had their choice I'm sure they'd love to lock Microsoft OS's and Microsoft hardware together, just like Apple does. If for no other reason than to force DRM and TPM hardware support which third-party PC hardware suppliers may be less than enthusiastic about adding.

Microsoft's DNA hasn't 'evolved' its been forced into being what it is. Whether Microsoft would or could create decent PC hardware is a different matter.

Re: Anti-Trust

"Microsoft's DNA hasn't 'evolved' its been forced into being what it is."

uhh... what? Being forced into what you are is the definition of evolution. I guess you think that wolves haven't evolved into pack predators, they have been forced into it by rabbits being so fast, too?

@Oninoshiko

They were forced into by the moose. I always said those were evil.

@sooty

"i have a sidewinder force feedback joystick"

Sounds nice. But a non-standard peripheral to support and (i guess) too few games took the trouble to get other games publishers to do it also. It sounds mechanically more complex (hence more expensive) to make.

Too bad. But in the IT business someone will re-discover the idea in a few years.

@Peter Thomas

I read your piece. I thought you were dead. You look in good shape for a man of 96.

I was surprised that you didn't mention the old NCR Terradata package for BI. That seemed fairly tightly integrated as well. I'd heard they'd had a lot of chopping and changing but it seemed highly relevant to your interests.