It's been a long december, and there's reason to believe that maybe this year will be better than the last...

Just posted my follow-up to last weeks article. It basically discusses the fact that one (or possibly two) of the big retail giants in America will likely sense blood in the water for a Linux desktop. In case you don't think that the Linux desktop isn't going to happen, all you have to do is look (and ask) around for signs of weakening windows infrastructure.

You can read my suggestions to Wal-Mart and Target (That's pronounced "Tar-Jee-Eh?") here. I suggest you follow the links on that article and suggest things to them too.

It's all about to crumble, in my not-so-humble opinion. Microsoft has ignored security concerns for so, so long. It's simply too late to fix the problems in XP/ME/Win2k/NT -- they're a critical mass of insecurities. Complicating matters on the increased security of "LongShot" (LongHorn? FogHorn? KongLearn?) is the fact that they're on the hook to fix stuff wrong with XP right now and for the very, very long forseeable future.

If this doesn't alarm Wall-street, I don't know what would - except don't forget that they've got a bunch of journalists jammed in their pockets (don't believe me -- read this steaming pile of pandering. There's some nice spin for you. Microsoft hasn't created one of the largest security boon-doggles in recent history -- they've created a "market" for spy-ware and anti-virus software companies. While the piece tries to come off as balanced, there are some really nice quotes in there about how it's not Microsoft's fault that spyware exists -- it's the spyware writers that are to blame.

They've got a lot of practice with this kind of spin. The link there is to an article I penned in 1999. Check the similarity by their PR people -- they're not very inventive -- of course, who can be when you've had a streak lasting over 5 years in Internet security embarassment.

Oh, and then there's piece of shill. Here they claim that open source software is costing businesses cash. The stark truth of the matter is that there has been a drain on the pocketbooks of business for the past decade -- a company from Redmond Washington has been charging them for the software they've already purchased. They do it about every 2-3 years. Recently they've been trying to take up a yearly tax collection instead. In case you don't know, Bill Gates has even said in public that Microsoft's only real competition was its own install base of customers. Nice.

Good thing Linux has been there holding up the other end of the market -- it's the only credible threat to their monopoly pricing structure. The real push will not be for the cash on the supply side (purchasing windows) -- the real push will be on the usability side -- using the product will incur such risk for consumers, such frustration, such a waste of time and cash -- they'll come to Linux just to check their email and check on the weather / sports.

Yes, it's going to be an interesting year(2005), I think.

--FeriCyde