Microsoft makes its first ever loss

[eppur_se_muova]

Source: BBC

The computing giant Microsoft has made its first-ever quarterly loss after it wrote off some of the value of its online advertising business.

The loss came after it wrote down the value of aQuantive by $6.2bn (£3.94bn, 5bn euros), which failed to bring the profits expected by Microsoft.

That led to a $492m loss in the three months to the end of June, compared with a profit of $5.9bn a year ago.

The company has not made a loss since it joined the stock market in 1986.



Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18917906

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Blame it on Google ...

[2on2u]

1. I can hear them laughing now....

[randome]

6. Microsoft is stupid. But the Pengins have not gone anywhere interesting.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

9. Really?

[IMG][/IMG]

[2on2u]

10. Sweet desktop you have there..... how can I do that? n/t

[Spitfire of ATJ]

11. That's actually four desktops rotating on a 3d cube.

Ubuntu is a FREE operating system.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

You download an image file and burn it to CD and reboot and you will get the install program. It will install side by side with Windows and you can select which OS you want to use at boot. I use version 10.04 because the latest gnome interface is for a pad by default.

http://releases.ubuntu.com/lucid/

TONS of settings are available including all kinds of special effects and multiple start menus. I customized my entire interface.

People who see it in action say it looks like something from the future. Windows feels slow and primitive by comparison.

The open source community is fantastic and just about any question or problem imaginable has already been brought up and solved.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

12. BTW: People have been doing their special effects to music for a long time

[2on2u]

15. I've been using Ubuntu for some time now.... 12.04 is what I am running... you mentioned

a "pad" do you mean you have loaded Linux on a tablet PC? Curious, and I have the four desktops... but they simply rotate from desktop to desktop... you have a cube in the center and I am not sure how to set Compiz to get that. I will probably experiment and break something before the night is over. Compiz is a tricky and potentially dangerous program.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

16. That's because Gnome went to Unity and Gnome-Shell

I'm thinking seriously about tossing in a small hard drive or my 16 gig stick and installing the latest version just to see if I can uninstall the pad interface and get the gnome-panel desktop going on it. 10.04 is LTS but support ends soon for updates.

Compiz is working on the new gnome to provide the cube again. Right now the extra desktops continue downward instead of to the side. Another option I am exploring is OpenSUSE evergreen which will provide infinite support for up to version 11.4 in both gnome and KDE desktop interfaces (You have to change your repos). OpenSuse is kinda neat with it's YAST but lacking in it's community support and you will find you are compiling from source code more, which, frankly I prefer since I know the program is going to run on the machine that made it. To give you an idea, I had to try four different fusion icons before I found one that worked.

For people who are fazing out at this point, did I mention this is all free?

[randome]

13. Sure, you may have a killer system.

You and about a dozen other people. Look, Linux has not caught on. I despise Microsoft for many reasons but I've heard for the past 15 years or so how Linux is 'any day now' going to take over the planet.

Has not happened.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

14. Most people don't know about it.

Those that find out wonder why they didn't know.

Maybe because we live in a consumer based economy.

I introduced it to my neighbor and over the last three years his kids have been using it for their homework. It's also safer for browsing the web. He really was blown away that it was free. He thought is was a pirated thing until I showed him the website.

[William Seger]

19. Oh, I know about it

I used Redhat for a while several years ago -- after an excruciating ordeal involving learning FAR more about peripherals and drivers and system internals than I would ever want to know -- and I gave it up because I got tired of checking to see if the new software or hardware I was looking at ran on Linux, and almost always finding that the answer was no. That's not really a criticism of Linux itself, of course, but it's the reality of the market when you're dependent on someone putting huge amounts of time into developing stuff to give away. And sorry, but the situation hasn't really changed much since the 90s. Linux is fine for browsing and emailing, writing documents, and even hosting a web server, but otherwise you're severely limited with Linux. Meanwhile, virtually all popular software has a Windows version, including a lot of freeware, and you can pretty much buy any hardware you want, plug it in and it just works. (I'll admit that Vista had me revisiting the decision, but Windows 7 is much better.)

[Spitfire of ATJ]

21. You know what? I think I have a copy of redhat around here.

Trust me, Linux has come a LONG way since then. Red Hat became Fedora and split. Development has been exponential and plug and play for most devices is enabled now. Comparing Ubuntu to Redhat is like comparing Windows 7 to Windows 3.1. As a matter of fact, Linux has passed Windows and Mac and many of their new features are cheapened and stripped ripoffs of Linux.

You might give it another shot. I think you would be very surprised. You can always take it off again.

[William Seger]

23. That would mean giving up too much software that I like

... and replacing it with poorly supported freeware, just to get a lot of flashy stuff like that spinning desk cube that doesn't do much for me. No thanks.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

27. You can run a lot of windows based programs under wine

or set up a virtual machine. (It's weird seeing Windows boot in a window.)

It depends on your system. Like I said, I've got four OS's installed.

[William Seger]

28. So, the way to make Linux useful it to run Windows?

What we were discussing is why Linux hasn't (and almost certainly never will) replace Windows.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

29. It does do all things windows does and more

AND it can run widows based programs. All of the Windows Office programs are duplicated with Open Office and Gimp is on par with Photoshop. For just about any of what people use computers for Linux will do it as well or even better. My living room has a Linux based Media Center PC that is set up like a DVR.

The only thing it's got issues with is some of the Windows based games so if you are really into games you should boot into Windows like I do but for me, Windows is just a game OS. I might as well be switching on an XBOX instead. I will NOT go browsing around on the web with Windows as it's too vulnerable to attack. One way around that is to create a limited account. I run spybot and adaware and use AVG and it comes up clean and stays that way.

There are millions of people worldwide now working to improve Linux and you get free updates after the improvements have passed peer review. How many people know the guts of their system? Most people turn it on and grab the mouse and open a browser and start clicking. They could care less about the 1 and 0s behind it or how they're handled. For those types, Linux is the same as Windows. They're even selling new computers with Linux.

I still say the "why" is due to people not knowing about it. Once they see it, they want it.

[William Seger]

31. Vegas is not a game, and it loses a lot of features under Wine

Cakewalk Sonar Studio, which I use for recording and audio editing, can't record because there's no Linux driver for the USB audio interface box.

Linux has always been a good OS for people who enjoy the challenge of just getting stuff to work on a computer and don't mind spending hours in the process, and that's the part that hasn't changed much since the 90s. Like most users, I don't need that kind of aggravation in my life just so I can have a spinning desktop cube.

As I said, we were talking about why Linux hasn't replaced Windows, and saying that, well, you can boot Windows on the same box is not really a rebuttal.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

32. Selling Laptops and Desktops is.

But they include everything you need including some extra bundles and themes.

And I could boot DOS on this device too. But I already did Jill of the Jungle.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

33. Video capture drives in Linux are expanding

There's a Media Center program that records to the drive of your choice like a DVR so people are writing drivers but making sure they aren't stepping on any toes. Keep in mind, everything has to be Open Source and reviewed before it's released. Some of the video capture cards use specific protocols that require licensing.

[jmowreader]

35. Gimp is not on par with Photoshop

Photoshop Elements, maybe...but try working in CMYK colorspace in GIMP. There are a couple of plugins that will let you convert RGB to CMYK, but you can't color-correct in CMYK in GIMP and to me, that makes GIMP a toy.

There's also no Linux version of InDesign, none of Adobe Illustrator, the program I use to build newspapers (it's called DTI) is Mac-only, the program that drives my platesetters is Windows NT (and one would think if ANYTHING could be Linux-based in here, it's the platesetter driver)...and BTW the functionality of the spinning cube thing in Linux is available in Mac OS X through Spaces. I've seen it. Since I can't make money with it, I don't want it.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

36. "Since I can't make money with it, I don't want it."

I think of my computer as an entertainment center.

I never tried to make money through my TV either.

[jmowreader]

37. I think of my computer as one of the tools I earn my living with

Gimp: entertainment software

Photoshop: professional tool

[Spitfire of ATJ]

38. There IS a gimp plugin to do what you want

Most people don't have a printer designed to print like that though.

I bet you could go on the forums and someone could direct you to where you could get your drivers. Or you could just write them yourself. I had to modify one designed for the IBM Proprinter for my old Star NX-10.

I guess the main appeal to Linux is not only that it's free but you have a cooler interface that you can customize and you aren't stuck with supporting the Microsoft Empire.

And it's safer for browsing the web.

So for MOST users, Linux is a perfectly viable option.

[jmowreader]

40. I looked already. There isn't a GIMP plug-in to do that

First, this is my printer:



I have to separate photos to CMYK, color-correct them and apply an ICC profile to make them work in my workflow. GIMP won't do that.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

41. Like I said, most people don't use that kind of printer

However:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CMYK_support_in_The_GIMP

[okieinpain]

42. I've been running Vista business 32 bit service pack2

for over a year and I've been impressed with how stable its been. I really don't understand why people hate it so much.

[William Seger]

43. The releases before SP2 were pretty buggy

Also, there were just a lot of really annoying default settings and behaviors that it used, due to Microsoft thinking they knew best how everyone "ought" to use their computers.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

18. BTW: A lot of businesses are now on Linux.

Just look for the little ^ by the start button.

Saw it at Lowes.

[William Seger]

20. It's always been popular for web servers

That's its niche.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

22. They've improved it for home use.

People in the community have really gotten into it.

About all I've done is the interface. You know, window frames, buttons, sliders, menus, icons, etc. So much is available within the system it's rare for me to have to tweak it though code. There's usually a GDI available.

[William Seger]

24. To each his own, and no offense intended, but...

... endlessly fiddling with the appearance of the UI just isn't my cup of tea. To me, the bigger issue is that I don't believe you're ever going to see a freeware Linux program that's in the same class as, say, Sony Vegas for video editing, which I use a lot.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

25. If you are going to spend most of your time in a specific program written for specific OS

Then of course you want that OS. You could always set up a virtual machine but it's easier and cleaner to just boot to the OS.

That's what I do with games.

[XemaSab]

2. Is Microsoft still a thing?

[phantom power]

3. rumors of their death have been exaggerated

[Paulie]

17. Have you seen Office 2013 yet?

I'm not so sure!

[RoccoR5955]

26. Have you seen Windoze 6.2... I mean 8?

The Metro interface will be the death of Microsoft.
The kernel is just the second revision of the Vista kernel, which is buggier than a Lower East Side tenement.
I think that since Balmer took over, Microsoft has lost its stride.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

39. Did they ever fix the Vista crash with NVidia problem?

[img][/img]

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/03/vista-capable-lawsuit-paints-picture-of-buggy-nvidia-drivers/

Don't you love that 1 in 3 crashes are "unknown" or from the OS itself?

[onehandle]

4. Google is Big Brother. nt

[randome]

7. More like a big sister.

[cosmicone]

5. It's a paper loss.

The company is still strong.

[KamaAina]

8. NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

[DeSwiss]

30. K&R

- The giant stumbles, once more.......

[onehandle]

34. Actually blame it on Bill Gates' college roommate.

Steve Ballmer should have been fired years ago.

Bill Gates needs to come back and save Microsoft.

I may be an Apple guy, but I would hate to see Microsoft go down.

Google on the other hand...