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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ericneu who wrote (50090)	9/27/2000 12:24:49 PM
From: dybdahl	Respond to of 74651

If there isn't a specfic reason to limit the resolution to 256 colors on Windows 2000, I can only conclude, that terminal services and Application Service Providers are areas that are not important to Microsoft. Microsoft has a long way to go before Windows 2000 is a serious competitor to Linux/Unix when it comes to remote desktops: - Stability. Sessions tend to hang on Windows Terminal Services. - Resolution. 8-bit color is still max. on Windows. - Speed. On a LAN, response is far better on X-Windows than on Terminal Services. - Display accuracy. Terminal Services often makes "stripes" on screens, leaving bits of graphics on unwanted places. It seems that they have some bugs in their protocol handling. The biggest advantage, that Terminal Server has, is connecting through low bandwidth connections. But since bandwidth becomes less a problem, this benefit is being reduced all the time.

To: ericneu who wrote (50090)	9/27/2000 1:14:58 PM
From: Dave	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

"I'm afraid you're seeing conspiracies where there are none. I suspect that the reason Terminal Services doesn't support 16-bit color in Windows 2000 is very simple." "Microsoft prioritizes features based on customer demand. For most customers 16-bit color isn't a requirement for thin client usage. Features in higher demand should be dealt with first, such as lowering per session bandwidth requirements and increasing the number of users that can be supported on a single server." I doubt this. If you were anybody but Microsoft and you were implementing a thin client, and the wallpaper was stored on a server, you would recompress the wallpaper image in JPEG or RLE before sending. This is what Microsoft's own WebTV does before transmitting any image. Mac OS allows you to use compressed desktop images. If the transmitted image is compressed, the native pixel depth becomes irrelevant. Using compressed images, or just letting the user choose a format, would have been the obvious choice for any developer. But this is Microsoft. When you are trying to figure out why Microsoft made a design decision that is in no way helpful, and that actually hurts (or just annoys) consumers, but you find out that this questionable decision also injures a strategic competitor as "collateral damage", you have your answer.