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10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews)
For some end-of-year amusement: Betanews advises Microsoft to buy Palm as a way of getting back into the smartphone market. "Microsoft should offer an open-source mobile operating system -- and WebOS would be it. A proprietary OS is less appealing when a good open-source alternative (Android) is available. Microsoft has too much valuable intellectual property tied into Windows Mobile for an open-source effort. But WebOS would be an easy open-source project."
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10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Dec 30, 2009 18:07 UTC (Wed) by linuxjacques (subscriber, #45768) [Link]
Please, don't even joke about this. :-(
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Dec 30, 2009 18:58 UTC (Wed) by deucalion (guest, #12904) [Link]
Judging by how bad WebOS fares in some aspects compared to the original PalmOS it actually sounds feasible.
I don't think anyone at Palm or any WebOS user would appreciate it though. The reasoning in the article is beyond childish and unsubstantiated. Thanks for the "amusement". ;)
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Dec 30, 2009 19:03 UTC (Wed) by nhippi (subscriber, #34640) [Link]
Apparently lots of analysts are stuck with Palm stock. Nothing else explains the need to spread the rumours that palm is being bought.
News to me Posted Dec 30, 2009 23:58 UTC (Wed) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]
Oh, does Palm still exist?
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Dec 31, 2009 1:48 UTC (Thu) by PaulWay (✭ supporter ✭, #45600) [Link]
The disturbing thing is that nine of those ten reasons are actually rather good for Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't like it when there's a niche they're not in, and everyone knows Windows Mobile is crap.
But they won't buy Palm. It would mean they'd have to touch that ugly "GPL" thing that they've been complaining about all these years. There's too much open sourced code in Palm's codebase now for them to back it all out and go back to something proprietary. Even if somehow they were to close off the codebase and write everything proprietary from there, Microsoft knows as well as anyone that the open source community will fork the code ASAP, and any handset capable of running whatever Web-OS derived proprietary code will be reverse engineered to run the open source fork.
Have fun,
Paul
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Dec 31, 2009 3:05 UTC (Thu) by robla (subscriber, #424) [Link] From the article: " Other commentators have suggested Microsoft should buy RIM, but the Canadian company would cost more and bring along lots of legacy technology, carrier relationships and manufacturing and hardware infrastructure. Then there is the problem of overlap -- for business customers, developers and hardware manufacturers -- with Windows Mobile/Phone." Most of this seems like reasons why Microsoft should buy RIM. Microsoft doesn't have a history of being a knight in shining armor to save companies who aren't getting traction. They've historically purchased companies who either are long-time leaders in markets they've failed to enter (e.g. Visio, Great Plains, Intuit (failed acquisition)) or up-and- comers with a lot of fresh momentum (e.g. WebTV, FoxPro, Vermeer [FrontPage]). I can't think of anyone who is in a good position to buy Palm. It'd have to be a highly-capitalized company who isn't currently in the mobile market and wants to get a recognized brand at a discount. If forced to guess, I'd pick an emerging market company like Huawei or Tata. Cisco might be interested, since they seem to like proprietary implementations of standards-based technology, and this would give them a respectable UI layer for many of their properties (e.g. the Scientific Atlanta boxes, Linksys consumer gear, etc)
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Dec 31, 2009 4:48 UTC (Thu) by SEJeff (subscriber, #51588) [Link]
Lets be honest with ourselves here. Were Microsoft to design and ship a phone
running any non-windows mobile phone would be admitting windows mobile is the failure it actually is. This will never happen. Too many chairs will be thrown at those who even whisper the idea in Redmond.
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Dec 31, 2009 19:52 UTC (Thu) by MattPerry (guest, #46341) [Link]
> Were Microsoft to design and ship a phone running any non-windows mobile
> phone would be admitting windows mobile is the failure it actually is.
That's where the marketing and branding come in. They'd just rebrand the OS as Windows Mobile and move forward.
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Dec 31, 2009 7:58 UTC (Thu) by petegn (guest, #847) [Link]
Let 2010 be the year that M$ Corp finally dies for good in it's entireity now that would be a very nice present for Christmas 2010
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Dec 31, 2009 13:00 UTC (Thu) by modernjazz (subscriber, #4185) [Link]
That seems to be a bit of an extreme view. Is someone forcing you to use
Microsoft, or do you have free choice in what you use? If the former, don't you think whoever is imposing that choice on you should bear the majority of your anger? If the latter, why do you care? You're presumably using Linux or whatever makes you happy, why should you wish for something (the demise of Microsoft) that takes a similar freedom of choice away from others?
It's fine to enthusiastically support your team, but not nice to wish that
I think a much better present for 2010 would be that free software becomes
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Dec 31, 2009 15:10 UTC (Thu) by Kit (guest, #55925) [Link]
I would say if it's the latter, it would imply that for *some* reason the Microsoft choice is superior to the open source choice for some amount of people. In that case, it would be a bad thing for society as a whole (as opposed to, say, the free software movement or more likely just a specific project) to have Microsoft simply die, without the Free alternatives becoming in every way the superior to Microsoft's offerings.
IME, Free Software is superior in *many* ways (w/o even counting non-technical), and many Free Software projects are flat out superior to their proprietary competition, but that doesn't extend to *every* situation, use-case, and user.
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Dec 31, 2009 15:21 UTC (Thu) by dbruce (subscriber, #57948) [Link]
I don't think it is so bad to wish that the Microsoft monopoly would come to an end, although wishing for bankruptcy and job losses is mean-spirited. Sadly, most people are still de facto "forced" to use Windows. At least Mac/OSX has some traction in the general population as an alternative to Windows. Apart from that, at least 99% of regular folks still think that "personal computer" means "Windows box". All computers sold at every brick-and mortar store in my city come with Windows. The OEMs still don't make non-Windows machines easily accessible, even if it is possible for someone specifically looking for, say, a Dell Ubuntu box to find the page where it is offered.
Free/open software isn't primarily held back by software quality or usability any longer. It is held back by inertia, lack of consumer awareness, and anti-competitive practices by Microsoft.
What I would like to see is for consumers to get a valid, straight-up comparison of machines with Windows and Linux, e.g.:
"For $250 you can get this netbook with a blank hard drive"
"For no added cost, you can get a complete operating system and user environment that lets you browse the web, use email, work with MS Office documents in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint formats, do online banking, edit photos, play music, etc. It is not MS Windows, so it may be unfamiliar at first, but it is no more complex or difficult, and many people find it a lot simpler. Also, a vast collection of software is simple to install with free downloads that includes virtually anything one might want to do with a computer, from software development to industrial-strength databases. Also, you will not have to worry about the Windows worms, viruses, and other malware that are prevalent"
"Or, for an additional $50, you can get an entry-level version of Windows. If you want a full-featured version, that will be extra. This familiar system will run the software you have probably heard of, but is vulnerable to viruses and other malware. You definitely should buy an anti-malware package for an extra $50. If you want to run MS Word, you will need to buy a basic package of MS Office, for another $100. This brings your price up to around $450. Any other programs you want in the future will probably cost you more money. Also, if new versions come out, you will have to pay again for the new versions. But hey, it's familiar, and it's what "everyone" uses, so it must be worth it, right?"
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Dec 31, 2009 23:12 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Bankruptcy is not so bad for a company like Microsoft.All it really does is give a chance at reorganization and the ability to renegotiate contracts and such. A big company like MS that has been around for years and years is going to have so many obligations and tie-ins with other companies, investors, and individuals it would be nearly impossible to change the way they do business. So bankruptcy can be used to break old habits and so on and so forth. (which is why the USA government bailed out Chrysler and such. They would of not had to dissolve the company or anything like that... it was really about protecting the interests of the Unions since bankruptcy would of allowed those manufacturers to legally break most prior agreements) The major downside, of course, is that it makes money more expensive. Large publicly traded corporations depend on a continuous influx of new capitol to pay for operations and stuff like that. So that makes that more expensive to do business since credit will be harder to find and interest rates will be higher. But the way Microsoft is now their business model is very successful. They make more money pretty much every quarter and have a large amount of capitol and investments in other companies. Microsoft has such a large investment in other tech companies that it would require a total fallout of the market right now. I just don't see this happening near term. Maybe in 20 years or so they will reach a point were their business model must change. It would require a huge change in the market to break such massive inertia. Anyway it goes Microsoft would end up being a huge asset to open source and the state of the art in computer science if they did end up opening up. They have a huge number of extremely intelligent and driven folks working for them.
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Jan 1, 2010 9:33 UTC (Fri) by xav (subscriber, #18536) [Link] That seems to be a bit of an extreme view. Is someone forcing you to use Microsoft, or do you have free choice in what you use?Well, in my country at least you can't buy a new PC (even a netbook) without Microsoft, except if you assemble it yourself. So basically Ím forced to buy it. That alone is a good reason to wish they were gone.
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Jan 2, 2010 2:29 UTC (Sat) by modernjazz (subscriber, #4185) [Link]
One can wish for (and even work for) more flexibility in the market
without wishing ill to one's competitors. Imagine you have a rude neighbor: do you wish he were nicer, or do you wish he were dead? To me one of those is reasonable, and the other is psychotic. I vote we try to keep this difference firmly in mind.
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Jan 2, 2010 23:45 UTC (Sat) by viro (subscriber, #7872) [Link]
Seeing that "assemble it yourself" takes all of a 20 minutes, including unpacking the case, motherboard+CPU+fan+RAM bundle and the harddisk, it's rather hard to take _that_ argument seriously. These days you tend to have ethernet and video onboard, so it literally is just a matter of screwing the pegs into the case (a minute), putting the mb/CPU bundle in (a minute or two), putting the screws through the holes in mb (minute), fixing the disk and dvd in cage (2-3 minutes), attaching the power switch/leds/reset bundle to the header on mb (3 minutes, including finding all instructions), attaching IDE/SATA cables, plugging the power cables into mb and disk/dvd and closing the case (another minute).
It's really not the "arcane skills" level, not even "need hands growing from the proper place" one; it's not _quite_ LEGO bricks, but it's definitely comparable to toys for 10-12yo.
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Jan 3, 2010 0:36 UTC (Sun) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
sorry, it's not always that easy (once in a while it is, but not always)
I've been building my own machines for about 20 years, so it's not that I don't have experiance or don't know what I'm doing, but even so I run into cases where turning a pile of parts into a working system takes a lot of time (not to mention having spare parts of the right type around to discover which of the components you have isn't working)
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Jan 3, 2010 3:29 UTC (Sun) by viro (subscriber, #7872) [Link]
... which is why I said "motherboard+CPU+fan+RAM bundle". Usually the outfits that sell those offer minimal testing of the combo for $5 or so.
And ship the results assembled, so you don't have to bother with thermal paste, attaching CPU fan, etc. All hardware sucks, of course, but putting together an x86 box got far easier.
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Jan 4, 2010 18:01 UTC (Mon) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link]
Someone is forcing you to buy a pc, are they holding a gun to your head? You are twisting words: making it hard for you to purchase an alternative versus forcing you to do something is the difference between being an upset consumer and slavery.
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Jan 4, 2010 21:50 UTC (Mon) by PaulWay (✭ supporter ✭, #45600) [Link]
> Is someone forcing you to use Microsoft, or do you have free choice in what you use?
Yes, in short, they are. In Australia you pretty much can't buy a brand-name computer with Linux pre-installed. Microsoft has forced all the resellers of EEEs and similar to go with the Windows-only versions. Dell doesn't offer Ubuntu on any laptop or desktop here. Elsewhere in the world you might be able to get Linux pre-installed on a brand-name machine but it will be only one of a very limited number of options, and you certainly won't get it on the premium models. Microsoft has plugged the loophole that allows you to get a refund on Windows if you don't use it, and the resellers and OEMs aren't falling for that any more either.
So, yes, if I want a new laptop I am forced to buy a copy of Windows. Unless I'm competent enough to build my own desktop machine I am forced to buy a copy of Windows. These usually come bundled with a whole raft of other junk - Microsoft Works, in this day and age? - and 'trial' versions of anti-virus software without which your Windows machine is a sitting duck on the internet. A PC with Windows is far better supplied with an OpenDisc, but it will be a cold day in Bill Gates' sauna when resellers do that.
Of course, I personally go and remove Windows off my machines where I can. On the other hand, but Microsoft's death would free the entire industry from a manipulative, backstabbing, underhanded and bullying convicted monopolist. And I for one still look forward to that situation. I think it's unlikely, because Microsoft's vast capital reserves and transfinite ability to fudge its own sales figures will comfortably keep the undead wreck shambling along for a good couple of years yet, but Microsoft must know that it is not the option that people want or like to use. Their astroturfing "Windows 7 Launch Party" campaign is proof of that.
Have fun,
Paul
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Dec 31, 2009 15:11 UTC (Thu) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]
Better for Microsoft to have to downsize and to be forced through competition to embrace an increasing proportion of open source into their products. Besides, if Microsoft including their liabilities were to become bankrupt, their assets including the brand will still be worth something to someone. If so, they won't die in the normal sense of the word. More likely they will have to do what IBM had to do when they lost monopoly control: downsize, reorganise and change their senior management and culture. Don't forget that IBM used to be considered the bad boy as far as abuse of monopoly was concerned, yet now they are considered one of the most effective investors in the open source community.
10 reasons why Microsoft must buy Palm (Betanews) Posted Dec 31, 2009 23:25 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] IBM is still a major evil corporation, as far as major evil corporations go. Same thing with most large corporations that invest in Linux and OSS. Oracle is a big one, Novell, Vmware, Intel, etc etc. All of them contribute and all of them have a very blemished history when viewed using the ethical framework built up around free and open source software.IBM is still the big bad wolf. I would not trust them any further then I could throw them! Just go back and investgate the early history of SCO vs IBM. IBM, in a real business sense, did just totally screw over SCO.. worked with them, got SCO to make a huge investment and take a huge chance with IBM, and then when the markets changed they threw them away like used tissue. Of course this was all before SCO decided to go on their self destructive (and highly stupid) crusade against Linux; which was a after effect of failing to sue IBM successfully for violating contracts. But like anything else, successful capitalism requires cooperation as much as competition. Ultra cutthroat approach to competition will just hurt everybody involved. The writing is on the wall for large proprietary Unix and IBM's interests in providing competitive services to their customers coincide with many of the goals of open source products. So as long as that continues then IBM is OSS friendly with many projects. Such is the reality with most of these sorts of corporations.
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