Reader Comments

"Microsoft, however, says it has an answer to all of the problems people have with My Space." Like the fact that MySpace pages look like a dog vomited on my screen?

serves you well for even daring to visit myspace.

"The service sports 123 million unique users, with roughly 3 million new users visiting Spaces every second. These users upload 6 million photos to the service every day, requiring 1 TB (terabyte) of additional storage every 9 days. " That is freakin staggering. That must have at least 2 dell servers running that thing.

Does Microsoft think it needs to go after every single online service in existence? This is a company that makes Windows and office software. It's not an online service provider. What a waste of shareholder money. Not that I mind, of course. The more Microsoft stretches itself thin going after every single market in existence so that everything in the world is prefixed with "Microsoft," the more it ensures its flaming downward spiral into irrelevance, just like IBM did. IBM once controlled the PC market just as Microsoft does today. In a flash, IBM's dominance was gone. It's a matter of time before this happens to Microsoft in the next few years.

"Does Microsoft think it needs to go after every single online service in existence?" Replace Microsoft with Google in the above statement.

This should have been part of the weekly short takes.

"This should have been part of the weekly short takes." Yes, but Paul never misses a chance to serve as Head Cheerleader for Windows™ Live™ Whatever Service Needs Promotion This Week™. I agree, though, that it would be more appropriate in "Short Takes". There are more compelling stories of interest to this site's supposed target audience (Windows IT Professionals) than this one, but it's still interesting. Assuming they'e accurate, those ARE some impressive usage statistics.

"That is freakin staggering. That must have at least 2 dell servers running that thing." Pretending to be bonch: Nope, just one XServe, just like NASA, universities, etc. "flaming downward spiral into irrelevance, just like IBM did" If you think IBM is irrelevant, than you must be a kid that knows nothing about the corporate market. IBM still rules the roost in many areas, including the ever important are of banking. They dropped out of the market because it wasn't profitable enough for them. And since they are so irrelevant, how are they #10 on the Fortune 500 list? http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/full_list/

IBM is "irrelevant" because they don't do photoshop....err itunes....errr iphoto... well actually it's just that mac users don't do anything that is actually relevant to know what irrelevance is.

"Replace Microsoft with Google in the above statement." Uh, Google is a web services company. They got their start with a search engine. Microsoft is a retail software company that sells an operating system and office suite on CDs. "If you think IBM is irrelevant, than you must be a kid that knows nothing about the corporate market." My point was that IBM had total dominance of the PC market in the 80s, just like Microsoft in the 90s. Microsoft is on its way out, all the expert analysts agree, and none of you fanboys are willing to accept the writing on the wall. Even Microsoft's employees don't like Microsoft and think Vista's codebase is a "trainwreck." guruguru: Frankly, you're an idiot. Macs do more things than Windows is even capable of doing. Have fun waiting until 2007 to get a minor update to your six-year-old operating system.

Bonch you are wrong. yet again. There. Now everyone please ignore him, no matter what he says. He has been told he is wrong. If we ignore him each day he will eventually go away. Guaranteed.

What, exactly, am I wrong about? I've been reading Wininformant for years, even back to when I was a Windows fanboy just two years ago. I promise I will never go away.

bonch says "I promise I will never go away." What is it with these former child star actors? Bonch, you will never get a call from the producers of Eight is Enough to revitalize your role. You need to find a job and stop waisting your life posting on forums.

"well actually it's just that mac users don't do anything that is actually relevant to know what irrelevance is." Why do you have to stoop to bonch's level in order to make your (admittedly weak) point? Statements like that make you look like a Windows zealot every bit on par with bonch and his overenthusiasm for his computing platform of choice. IOW, you both look like little playground boys measuring their p e n i s e s to see who wins. Congratulations--you're both losers.

"The service sports 123 million unique users, with roughly 3 million users visiting MSN Spaces every second." Whaaaa? 3 million users a second? That means they have 259,200,000,000 users per day? Something seems very, very wrong with that math. TWO HUNDRED FIFTY NINE BILLION users a day cannot possibly be right. It just can't. ****checking math**** 3 Million Users/second = 180,000,000 users/minute 180M users/minute = 10,800,000,000 users/hour 10,800,000,000 users/hour = 259,200,000,000 users/day Oh, come on! Whom are they trying to kid? For a service that has "123 Million unique users", that means each user would have to visit the site 2,107 times per day to hit those numbers! Something's wrong with these numbers.

I agree... your numbers are wrong. 3 million unique users visiting per second does not mean that they are getting 3 millions hits per second. I think that they mean that at any given time there are 3 million unique visitor sessions active. That means I could be on the site for one hour and click 3 times (based on 20 minute sessions)and I would be considered one of the 3 million unique visitors per second for that whole hour. Basically 3 million unique users are on the site at any given time.

"Oh, come on! Whom are they trying to kid? For a service that has "123 Million unique users", that means each user would have to visit the site 2,107 times per day to hit those numbers!" I think they mean that there are rougly 3 million people using it at any given point in the day, not that there are 3 million page hits a second. Though 123 unique million users could mean 123 million registered users and then the numbers would make sense, but either way an explanation would be nice.

Wow! 3 million at any given time is a huge number!

bonch: "My point was that IBM had total dominance of the PC market in the 80s, just like Microsoft in the 90s" Did they? By the mid-80s Compaq had already beat IBM to market with the first 386-based PC. Of course since you weren't alive in the 80s you wouldn't remember. The PC market isn't where IBM had its dominance; they dominated in mainframes. Moving into the PC market (and making the ecosystem open) is what caused them to slowly lose dominance.

"My point was that IBM had total dominance of the PC market in the 80s, just like Microsoft in the 90s." But your point is not relevant. IBM's core business was not desktop PC's. However, that was probably their "friendly" face that the "average joe" saw. Since they don't sell dektop PC's for the home market, most people would feel that they are irrelevant, and may also question that they are still in business. However, the numbers clearly speak for themselves. Once again, in usual bonch fashion, you totall ignore the real issue and go right for the MS bashing. "Macs do more things than Windows is even capable of doing." Now that statement is even more idiotic than what guruguru said. Clearly, you have no concept of what they are capable of. Once again, may I please point you to SQL Server and Exchange server. Both of those run some pretty large businesses, and clearly are capable of a lot. SQL in particular, with the right hardware, can run easily with the Oracles of the world. And please point out at least one of these "expert" analysts. I wouldn't have any confidence in an analyst that said that MS was on its way out. That's just ridiculous. And as soon as you iPeople get that through your thick goatees, the sooner you will realize that you can like the Mac, and use the Mac, but you don't have to be so arrogant about it. You never sell something by saying how bad the competition is. you sell something by saying how good you are. And let me laugh when I see you in line for yet another yearly $129 point upgrade. Let's face the facts with the Windows lifecycle. Corporations, you know, the thing that you want to be a part of when you grow up (to make lots of money so you can buy those expensive white boxes without the help of your parents), do not want a piece of software that they get charged for every year because of some incremental improvements. They need a sustatinable infrastructure.

"Corporations, you know, the thing that you want to be a part of when you grow up (to make lots of money so you can buy those expensive white boxes without the help of your parents), do not want a piece of software that they get charged for every year because of some incremental improvements. They need a sustatinable infrastructure." The sarcasm dripping from your voice is unnecessary. As you said, "you don't have to be so arrogant about it." As for corporations needing a "sustainable infrastructure," I would submit to you that many small- to medium-sized businesses avoid Windows due to the productivity losses from security issues and the need to either hire an IT person or pay through the nose for outside consulting. Larger corporations can hide that cost, which is substantial. Even such a small event as a "critical update" on Patch Tuesday can send some larger companies into a tailspin when they update their "sustainable infrastructure". You're right about bonch being overzealous, but you need to tone down your rhetoric as well, IMHO. ------- Image refresh count: FIVE

I do admin that the sarcasm was unnecessary. But I will say that bonch tends to bring out the worst in you. Now I don't agree that small and mid-size businesses avoid Windows. What are they using then? They certainly aren't using Macs, and they aren't using Linux, either (which of course would be a huge burden to an IT department). They still do use Windows. I don't consider my company a large company, but we do have about 100 employees, and for that type of company, you do need a small IT staff. Only the smallest of companies would need to outsource their IT staff. Patch Tuesday is not a big problem for me. It is a definable event that can be planned for. With the easy to set up and use WSUS server, I have been able to greatly automate the installation on my network. All software requires updates, and this makes it very easy to fix these. Once again, I can't see the Mac getting huge numbers until they start catering to the business world. How would you deploy patched effectively to a Mac or Linux environment? This is one area that MS shines, since, yeah, MS has a lot of experience :) And yes, they do need a sustainable infrastructure. That means being able to follow a roadmap and stick to it. Companies of any size do not want to upgrade their desktop OS every year. While Vista has certainly been a long and hard journey to wait for, as a company, I'd rather wait longer for an OS than not. Consider how long it takes some large corporations to update their software. Years sometimes. That is what actually makes a small company more adept at making these changes. I think in many cases the Mac people are forgetting that there is a whole corporate world out there, and their needs are different than a home or small business user. ------ CAPTCHA: got it the first time!

WHERE ARE MY FRUITY APPLES BONCH, I ASKED FOR THEM 43 SECONDS AGO. BY THE WAY, THE SILLY MAC FROZE AGAIN, AND IT WONT END THE STUPID CD PLAYER TASK. NO I DONT KNOW WHY, I WAS HAPPILY LISTENING TO SPICEWORLD, AND MY FAVOURITE GINGER SPICE WAS SINGING AWAY WHEN IT JUST FROZE! I AM UTTERLY ANNOYED, THAT WAS MY FAVOURITE CD AND NOW ITS GOING TO TAKE HOURS TO GET IT BACK. I CANT END THE STUPID TASK, I TRY TO FORCE QUIT BUT THE MAC WONT DO IT! EVEN IN WINDOWS YOU CAN END A PROCESS TREE AND RESTART EXPLORER! YOU CANT RESTART THE SILLY BILLY FINDER BONCH. ITS JUST SILLY. SILLY BILLY BONCH THE SILLY BILLY ADVICE TO BUY A SILLY BILLY MAC WAS JUST SILLY.

lol. There's a few dozen in every crowd, isn't there?

IMO, this isn't about Mac vs. Windows; this is about a web service that a small group inside Microsoft is passionately building to serve a customer group that wants to connect online and is not served by the current offerings from MySpace, Facebook, et. al. Check-out http://thespacecraft.spaces.msn.com for more on what's here.