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1. Comment - Windows CE 5.0 Previewed for Developers

   (Mar 31, 2004 - 2:47 AM)

   no one noticed that macallan is a whiskey producer in Spain

2. Comment - Microsoft Investigates Leak of Windows Source Code

   (Feb 14, 2004 - 4:49 AM)

   I'm not going to asking you what you are smoking.
   
   Are you illiterate? Dell/HP/Gateway etc have sold desktops with no os' preinstalled for quite some time. They're listed as custom boxes.
   
   People will buy what they want to buy. Does telling all your friends Linux is better than Windows really make a difference? Apparently not because Windows is still 90% of the market.
   Run whatever os you want to run on your own stupid box and leave the rest of the world alone. We don't care about the Mac vs PC vs Nix debate.
   
   Back to the point.. The code that was possibly leaked since it was a snippet would be pretty much useless unless a very good programmer took the time to read it and make sense of it all.
   Microsoft isn't to blame for the insecurity of a Linux machine on their partners network. They may end up with the bad end of the stick when fixing it, but it wasn't their fault. And you're right, anything that is 20 million lines will have errors. Like the grammar on this message board.

3. Comment - First Office 2003 Service Pack Prepped

   (Jan 13, 2004 - 8:31 PM)

   I never said Office was not a large part of Microsoft's revenue. Of course it is. You're putting words in my mouth.
   
   Cash cow in this story is being used as an adjective to call Office expensive.
   
   Constantly come under fire for releasing biyearly upgrades? That's never happened.
   Home users may not use functions beyond Office 97/2000, but certaintly businesses do. Why else upgrade?
   
   Btw, I've been a beta tester for Microsoft's Office division for a long time. I know what I'm talking about.
   
   And of course specialization in a company for a product will eventually make that product an integral source of income for the company. As is the case for Office. And have you used Office 2003? I've been working with it since Beta 1 and it's been incredibly stable in Windows 2000 and Windows XP environments. Maybe you should do some research there. Office 2003 was fully rewritten from scratch. Not code additions like previous versions. It is a far better product, and it is worth the money to upgrade. And aren't majority of monetary decisions influenced by appearance? MS could release a version of Office that looks like the old DOS edit.exe, and another version that looks like the current, and of course the one with the nicer, current interface will sell more. People don't want to spend money on a product that doesn't appeal to them visually.
   
   Back to the car thing, Yugo or a Datsun? Of course the Datsun, it looks nice, and you know it's not made of sheet metal and thumb screws.
   
   Wron again? Not quite. Don't proclaim such an early victory.
   
   Btw, if MS releases a new version of Office approximately every 2 years, how would they force consumers to upgrade biyearly? You don't think they are sliding them a rebranded StarOffice every other upgrade do you?

4. Comment - First Office 2003 Service Pack Prepped

   (Jan 13, 2004 - 3:05 PM)

   thechrisproject, for a moment at least I'll work with the assumption that "cash cow" is not an offensive term.
   So let's say "cash cow" is a normal term, and ceterus paribus in the article, it is still very poorly written.
   
   My post was not a rant, it was an honest critique. I showed clear proof of the errors, and I explained how they could be cleaned up. Just as any editor would do for a writer.
   
   Now, back to the real world. Cash cow is indeed a biased term.
   
   cash cow
   
   n : a project that generates a continuous flow of money [syn: moneymaker, money-spinner]
   
   -Dictionary.com
   
   It authors choice of this world shows the authors bias towards alternative suites due to price, because Microsoft Office is a continous drain on the users funds. That's not true at all after all once the initial package is purchased updates, patches, and service packs for the programs are free.
   Next you'll say "But every version costs way too much money." To counter that, does not any programs latest version cost money? See capitalism. And Microsoft does offer an upgrade version for users of a previous Office version.
   
   And of course now you'll say, "But there are much better Office supplements out there, that people don't need it,". Well then why do people keep buying it? It's a good, solid, stable, user friendly product. Consumers after all are not stupid. They buy the better product generally, and Microsoft has been offering. Americans have always been willing to pay more for a guaranteed better product. See taste and preference. History shows that market forces (consumers) will gravitate to the better or socially acceptable product. For those of you that are old enough, Americans in the 1980's went from the large muscle cars that guzzled gas to luxurious, fuel efficient Japanese cars for a lower price.
   
   Now to bring this back, David should not have used the term cash cow. This is a news story, hence it does not need creative adjectives, just strong adverbs. His job is to report the news, and it is not to create, or influence the news.
   
   First rule of Journalism.
   Act independently. An author should not have obligations to others or to himself when reporting the news.

5. Comment - First Office 2003 Service Pack Prepped

   (Jan 12, 2004 - 5:08 PM)

   As a journalist, you should NOT NOT NOT insult the subject.
   
   Microsoft is in the early phases of developing the first service release for its Office 2003 CASH COW.
   
   Ridiculous. If you wanted to say Microsoft Office System is very expensive, then show the costs of Corel's suite, OpenOffice, StarOffice, and other alternatives. It is wrong to just make accusations and snide remarks.
   
   And as I read this story, I actually did not learn anything. The beginning has nothing to do with the middle which has nothing to do with the end.
   
   Service pack.
   Marketing theory.
   Tester data.
   XML.
   XML fear.
   
   I see at least four different stories here. And they've just been piled together. Elaborate on the effects of the service pack. Explain the reason people wait for service packs. The tester data needs to either go, or somehow be linked to the creation of the service pack. And then no XML information. XML is a completely different issue.
   
   And, yes David, I do have some experience with news writing. I'm the news editor for a newspaper, and production editor for a magazine. If one of my writers brought me this story I would grab them by the ear, drag them to a desk, and make them sit there and rewrite it while I waited.
   
   Your work was done purely at the last minute. Outline, write, revise, rewrite, and take your time.