Microsoft to take over FlickR?

slumped

Wouldn't that be the worst thing ever??

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30400-1303624,00.html

Microsoft bidding €30 BILLON for Yahoo!

S

duffarama

:eek:

Full time magration to pix.ie for me if that happens.

Only joking, I love microsoft

decsramble

There goes the neighbourhood.

How long until flickr only loads properly on Internet Explorer running on Vista and half our photos are just blue screens?

PaulieC

do people really use other kinds of browsers? and does everyone not use Vista?

It's a nice offer for yahoo shareholders - a 62% premium on the current price

jaqian

Can't be any worse that Yahoo owning Flickr

Paulw

A nice deal for Yahoo there. Might be a disaster for the rest of the world though.

Next MS will put in a bid to buy the world. :eek:

slumped

Paulw wrote: »

Next MS will put in a bid to buy the world. :eek:

I won't sell them my share!

PaulieC

Paulw wrote: »

Next MS will put in a bid to buy the world. :eek:

'twould be better than Google buying it you'd have ads on it then

Dades

Don't see what the problem is tbh. Change can be good.

And I'm a Firefox user.

missingtime

Maybe they will make it easier to set up an account!!

challengemaster

Paulw wrote: »

A nice deal for Yahoo there. Might be a disaster for the rest of the world though.

Next MS will put in a bid to buy the world. :eek:

:eek: indeed

cambo_gueno wrote: »

do people really use other kinds of browsers? and does everyone not use Vista?

I'm sorry, what?! IE is the biggest pile of ****e i've ever come across - I don't budge from firefox. people with mac's use safari or otherwise, and LMAO - Vista is the worst OS ever. I use XP and Fedora core 8.

cambo_gueno wrote: »

'twould be better than Google buying it you'd have ads on it then

not really, because if M$ buy it, it'll BSOD every few days, for no good reason.

Ricky91t

I use safari on xp haha

Dunno i would'nt like it im sure thing will change and it will constantly crash

Calina

slumped wrote: »

Wouldn't that be the worst thing ever??

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30400-1303624,00.html

Microsoft bidding €30 BILLON for Yahoo!

S

Yahoo's search is quite nice - I'm preferring it to Google of late. I think their home page is a bit overly cluttered though unless it's improved lately. I suspect that MS is buying market share here - a) photosharing and b) search ad revenue.

I use FireFox all the time and apart from one or two foibles with updates, I can use Microsoft's site okay with it. I also know a few people who swear IE7 suits them better than FF so it comes down to preference.

I like Vista. I have had teething troubles with a printer which was down to HP for some reason. I think MS take a lot of flak that might not be rooted in everyone's reality. I haven't decided whether Google or MS are more evil - they are both big corps and they both have a bottom line as their raison d'etre. I have a suspicion, however, that MS is going more in a direction that interests me, and with a purchase of Yahoo, I suspect that it'll be integrated with Live at some stage because there's a lot of crossover.

xshayx

I hate MS/XP, actually changing to Mac (after 14 years of MS!) when I have the €€€€, but having said that, the only site i use IE for is flickr cause i find it better than firefox for it!

But if they do buy, surely it wont make a difference, isnt flickr running on linux boxes rather than cough and they'll fall over MS ones?!!

challengemaster

99.9% of servers are linux, even M$' servers are linux. M$ machines aren't stable enough (although mine runs forever w/o need to reboot) - I've seen some that get sluggish after 3-5 days, and need to reboot. BSOD for no reason would make servers useless, and also you cant really efficantly remotly control Windows Servers. You would have to physically be at the location if a BSOD or some such occured.

PaulieC

just as a matter of interest, why do people hate Microsoft and why are people really afraid of MS taking over Flickr? And try to keep it rational please

PaulieC

challengemaster wrote: »

99.9% of servers are linux, even M$' servers are linux. M$ machines aren't stable enough (although mine runs forever w/o need to reboot) - I've seen some that get sluggish after 3-5 days, and need to reboot. BSOD for no reason would make servers useless, and also you cant really efficantly remotly control Windows Servers. You would have to physically be at the location if a BSOD or some such occured.

Oh please. If you're going to make a statement, please try to make it at least reasonably resemble the truth.

challengemaster wrote: »

M$ machines aren't stable enough (although mine runs forever w/o need to reboot)

What the hell kind of statement is this to make?

challengemaster wrote: »

even M$' servers are linux

Really? your arguments are really running out of credibility here

challengemaster wrote: »

you cant really efficantly remotly control Windows Servers. You would have to physically be at the location if a BSOD or some such occured.

Again, try to make truthful statements. Not just rehash things you may have read on the internet. As I said in a previous post, if you have rational objections to MS taking over Yahoo, please do explain them, but don't come over all linux fanboy

GristlyEnd

challengemaster wrote: »

M$ machines aren't stable enough (although mine runs forever w/o need to reboot) - I've seen some that get sluggish after 3-5 days, and need to reboot. BSOD for no reason would make servers useless, and also you cant really efficantly remotly control Windows Servers. You would have to physically be at the location if a BSOD or some such occured.

Crock of sh!t. I use Windows Server 2003 in work and very, very rarely have to reboot it. You're posts come across as the typical MS hater :rolleyes: Not saying I love them myself but I'm happy with there server OS for work.

CraggyIslander

not hate, but a strong dislike definately for me.

1: Licensing

i.e. no PC may be sold without an MS license. Businesses are locked in and they're milking it, of every new pc bought 2/3rds of moneys goes to M$ (if you include the mandatory office license if you're running exchange) Untransferable licenses, etc.

2: Business practices

Buying smaller companies that have good ideas / products and running them into the ground (bit like symantec turning everything into bloatware)

3: Not adhering to standards

Too many to mention, but HTML, XML are but a few where M$ use their own standard as opposed to the industry one.

4: Shoddy coding,

'nuf said

Having said that server 2k3 / exchange 2k3 is a fairly stable environment as long as you use the 'if it aint broke dont fix it' mantra.

As for Flickr, I've no opinion as I'm even less of a fan of Yahoo (rarely use my flickr account anyway)

rymus

jaqian wrote: »

Can't be any worse that Yahoo owning Flickr

My sentiments exactly. They can do whatever the hell they want as regards buying and selling as long as they don't mess with flickr. No massive shifts in format or operation and especially no changes in the pricing.

Stephen

Challengemaster, with all due respect, you are talking through your hole. Microsoft.com runs on Windows Server 2008 and IIS7. Where I work we have hundreds of Windows Server 2003 boxes in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavours and they're reliable as hell.
If you look at Netcraft's web server survey you'll see that there is significantly more than 0.1% of webservers running Windows :rolleyes:
That only takes web servers into account. There's a whole other realm of business application servers and stuff out there too.

I've never seen a BSOD in Windows Server 2003 that wasn't hardware related. If your windows BSOD's randomly several times a week then I suspect the problem lies between the keyboard and the chair.

challengemaster

lollers - I honestly don't really care tbh. Some of it may be bs, but everything said so far has no effect on flickr as of yet.. does it?

Really what I think is, we'll just have to wait and see what comes of it, then we can talk about this in relation to flickr. Until we see any change/developments made to it, this is pointless really. Hopefully this change is for the better

Calina

challengemaster wrote: »

lollers - I honestly don't really care tbh. Some of it may be bs, but everything said so far has no effect on flickr as of yet.. does it?

Really what I think is, we'll just have to wait and see what comes of it, then we can talk about this in relation to flickr. Until we see any change/developments made to it, this is pointless really. Hopefully this change is for the better

I really don't want to have to say this but:

you've made statements which were easily pulled apart by other people. You should care about getting things right because attention to detail is important and you need it to be a good photographer.

What is critical here is how much importance MS might attach to Flickr, or whether, as far as MS is concerned, it is just one of those little things that Yahoo owns. MS has been trying to improve its position in the online advertising/search advertising market with comparatively not much success. You could ask what the driver for MS is here: Flickr is the largest or second largest image sharing site in the world (photobucket may be bigger) so they may be interested in that. But Yahoo is the only search engine at the moment which might have the clout to fight google and there is probably a lot more financial worth in that.

If MS are interested in the picture side of things, all to the good. If they are not...then a lot of people are slightly screwed. I suspect the people at Zoomr are watching this with a lot of interest. Some of us have been around long enough to see MS swallow companies before and while some good things come out of it, they are not often of the nature people expect.

rymus

I'm reminded of Homer Simpson's online company "Compu-Global-Hyper-Meganet", that was successfully 'bought out' by Microsoft.. Any TV Addicts can tell ya what happened there

challengemaster

Calina wrote: »

you've made statements which were easily pulled apart by other people. You should care about getting things right because attention to detail is important and you need it to be a good photographer.

Yeah, and I didn't care if they were right or not, or torn apart or not. If a windows box BSOD's its hardly effecting flickr right now. I'm not a M$ hater (although i dislike vista with a passion) - I quite happily use XP and linux. None of the jargon that can be posted about M$' products so far, isn't doing sh!t to flickr right now. We'll have to wait and see what happens. We really can't do anything whatever way this goes, so I suggest we sit back, see what happens, and take it from there, when we get there.

PeakOutput

microsoft effectively has a monopoly. monopolies are bad. having said that google(to a lesser extent) has a monopoly and a large invester in yahoo could make it a viable competitor.

as someone else mentioned its weather or not they see flikr as an essential part of the business a nuisance or an asset or a liability which will ultimately affect weather or not the take over is a good or a bad thing for flikr

Yeah, and I didn't care if they were right or not, or torn apart or not. If a windows box BSOD's its hardly effecting flickr right now. I'm not a M$ hater (although i dislike vista with a passion) - I quite happily use XP and linux. None of the jargon that can be posted about M$' products so far, isn't doing sh!t to flickr right now. We'll have to wait and see what happens. We really can't do anything whatever way this goes, so I suggest we sit back, see what happens, and take it from there, when we get there.

grow up tbh [sarcasm] like totally lollerz[/sarcasm]

its generally a good idea if you know you dont know what your talking about to keep it to yourself so other people dont find out you dont know what your talking about. i dont want to get into a flame war its just straight up advice

mathias

just as a matter of interest, why do people hate Microsoft and why are people really afraid of MS taking over Flickr? And try to keep it rational please

Number 1 here is questionable ethics , there are any number of cases both past and present where the " Little guy " has been screwed over by microsoft ,
one example of late ....still ongoing , is the intense lobbying and lockout of OOXML in order to have it recognised as an open standard , which it most definitely is not.

Another is the OLPC project , Intel and microsoft taking on the original charitable organisation ( XO laptop with linux ) and pushing classmate , a for profit alternative ... I personally find that disgusting.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080123114324664

Number 2 , Microsoft has a virtual monopoly on the desktop , and can and do use every trick in the book in order to keep it that way , monopolies are bad for the consumer , a very good example of this would be IE .... I am absolutely positive that we would all still be using the bug ridden IE6 if firefox hadnt come along.
There is no incentive for any monopoly to improve its offerings if there is no competition.

Number 3 , product activation , in most countries the legal system would have it that you are innocent until proven otherwise , pay for a microsoft license on the other hand , and to microsoft, you are a thief unless you can prove otherwise ! And whats more , you are such a risk of being a thief even after you prove otherwise , that they insist on verifying this as an when they choose , otherwise your very much less than perfect product , stays that way.

There are lots more , but they are the ones that particularly annoy me.

For more , just have a look here ,

www.groklaw.net

watch that site regularly to be kept up to date on any corp that tries legally questionable cases.

Oh , and Ive deleted all my flickr photos and wont be using that site again , ..... thats a given.

PaulieC

MS are actually very serious about digital imaging - look at the proposed JPEG XR standard. They are also ramping up hugely the group that is responsible for digital imaging and video. I think that Flickr will be a very important part of the whole deal. While it's probably mostly about competing with Google on the search front, advertising is a huge part of it - it's where Google make all their revenue.

Fenster

Apacheonly runs on about 63% of severs, as of the last time I saw a figure. This includes both Windows, OS X, Linux, BSD, and other Unix distributions, as Apache runs on all of them.

Linux is well entrenched though, for servers in general. I think it's something like 60-70% penetration for Linux on the back end because of it's expandability, price (free) and open architecture. That's not to say that Windows doesn't have strong inroads into the server market: How many offices have Exchange/Office servers?

Microsoft does have a monopoly on desktops, for sure (it's 80% against 20% combined for Linux, BSD, OS X and other operating systems), but I put it to three things: Excellent marketing/sales, and a focus on ease of use and integration with their office suite.

Fajitas!

Er... Flickr? Photography? Topic?

Please...

CraggyIslander

cambo_gueno wrote: »

MS are actually very serious about digital imaging - look at the proposed JPEG XR standard.

Thats the concerning part, MS's track record on standards is not very good, just look at HTML (IE7 still does not follow the HTML4 standard), XML, or what they tried to do with some of the TCP/IP standards (DNS the MS only works since 2k sp3).

If they get their hands on jpeg, I'm switching to tiffs or gifs. Anything as long as MS isnt setting the standard

magicbastarder

to echo what others have said - one mega corporation has bid to buy another mega corporation. at least it's not myspace, who at one point, made an unlimited licencing claim on all material hosted.

Calina

well, you should be long term moving towards TIFFs anyway because of compression and long term backwards compatibility.

least that was what I was told 18 months ago when I did my digital imaging course.

Roen

what a crock of ****e the lot of ye, stay on topic ffs

rymus

is there a cafe at that service stop? I could do with a coffee

Roen

Coffee, Lap dancing, you name it, I've got it!

rymus

I hereby award you the contract to design and build any future motorway service stops on the island of Ireland.

Fajitas!

In before the lock.