MBA Assignments & Exams, Rolemaster Playtesting, MS-Windows 7

[tcpip]

Last week received results for my first two MBA assignments; Management Perspectives 67.5% (meh), Financial Management 88% (woot!). In the former, my marks were lower because I left out perspectives such as "Porter's Five Forces", the "McKinsey 7-S model" and so forth. If this sounds like management-babble that's because it is. I am somewhat horrified by how intellectually lightweight management theory actually is. There is a lot of influence from the latest popular psychology and material from actually practising managers who seem to owe their position more to luck, gender and school connections. In any case, exams are next week I've I've started putting together study notes from the course material. For my next two courses (and thus completing the Grad Cert level) I'll probably be taking Marketing (which should be a doddle with my background) and Managing Information Systems, which should be more challenging.

With the release of a playtester version of Rolemaster Cyradon I've been running scenarios with the three groups that I do regular face-to-face gaming with. Cyradon is pretty much generic fantasy, in many ways reminiscent of Rolemaster's old default game-world, ShadowWorld. That means there is a science-fantasy background in the distant past (thus one can integrate components of SpaceMaster), plus a reduced number from the standard set of fantasy 'races'; elves, dwarves, gnomes and lizard-men are all present. There is a group that physically resembles orcs, the gryx, but with a more peaceful outlook. Added to the mix are gryphons as potential PCs. The system is, well Rolemaster with some slight modifications, with both the benefits and problems of that game. Character generation still takes too long, the skill system is simple, combat is colourful with random deadliness, and the magic system certainly requires experienced players.

On Friday night went to an MS-Windows "7" (more marketing nonsense; it's actually NT v6.1.7) launch party (parody available) that was hosted at our work. A substantial number of our rusted-on pro-Linux systems team were present and, in all honesty, I cannot see any real advantages to Microsoft's latest release. Yes, it's better that Windows Vista, but that's hardly a great achievement. Big selling features supposedly include virtual folders, some user interface changes, and keyboard shortcuts - none of which are exactly great (or particularly new) improvements. It would be interesting to see if Windows 7 is still tied to DRM as its predecessor. Overall, there is no good reason to upgrade from Windows XP especially at the price tag that Windows "7" comes with; and I suspect the market will respond in kind.

Comments

[zey.livejournal.com]

I think you underestimate the power of a monopoly. [...] Windows has a variety of active monopoly tricks to support it (see documented examples of M$ abusing market power to destroy opposition) and passive monolpoly facts (de facto proprietary standards, inertia, etc).

Now don't get me wrong: they've certainly used their position to cruel other companies products before (DR-DOS and Netscape in particular). They're the 800 pound gorilla in the market and it's a good thing that they have the DoJ breathing down their necks and the European Commission hitting them with fines where appropriate and enforcing things like the browser ballot.

However — they're not a monopoly in the market... not even in the specific market of Windows platform providers: you can run your Windows apps in WINE, Bordeaux and ReactOS. Alternatively, you can choose Linux, one of the BSDs or a Mac. All of them are fine operating systems with strengths and weaknesses that make them better or worse for particular tasks.

Nobody forces companies and individuals (outside of their workplaces) to use Windows. Nobody forces developers to program for Windows — hell, I'm a little one-man ISV and my apps are released for Windows, Mac and Linux — and if I'm doing it, trust me, anyone can. I'm able to do that because I actively made a decision to.

And cars are in fact quite similar.

Not similar enough to not muddy the waters every time they come up in computing debates as bad analogies. The worst thing about them is debates end up side-tracked into why the analogy is good or bad, straying from whatever it was originally intended to shine light on. Honestly, it's a Godwin's Law special case.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

They are not an absolute monopoly but they're pretty close. They go out of their way to ensure competitive advantage of their market position to maintained.

Some MS-Windows applications run in Wine, but no Linux applications run in MS-Windows. OpenOffice can save files in MS-Office format, but MS-Office cannot read OpenOffice files. This is how a monopoly ensures that it retains market dominance.

[zey.livejournal.com]

Some MS-Windows applications run in Wine, but no Linux applications run in MS-Windows.

Most Linux apps have Windows ports available — from the command shell through to GIMP, Xchat, Apache, and so on. If anything, you could say Microsoft are at a disadvantage here. It's easier to migrate binaries off their products and onto their competitors systems than it is to do the opposite :).

OpenOffice can save files in MS-Office format, but MS-Office cannot read OpenOffice files. This is how a monopoly ensures that it retains market dominance.

WordPefect would have died an even quicker death if they couldn't import their competitors files. If anything, file import capability is a strong feature that MS Office is missing and hurts them. I've switched a couple of home users to OpenOffice on this alone (where a new version of MS Office couldn't read an old MS Office's file format, OO could) :).

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

It cuts both ways; the minority market application must make their product compatible with the monopolist. The monopolist must ensure that their product is not compatible with the competitor.