Microsoft Avalanche to take on Bittorrent

I think there is a major misunderstanding here. Everyone is hatin on MS because they want to use a technology (BT specifically). They like the way the technology works and propose to offer enhancements for security and authentication.

They are proposing to use it for not only their own update distribution, but as a distribution technology for anyone who wishes to use it. This does not mean that they are making a BT client, but using the BT distribution technology. The creator of BT is appauled by this but rather, he should be flattered by this. This is Microsoft saying "wow, this guy built this amazing open source technology, but we can't claim it for ourselves, so we'll over-expose it".

Bottom line, Microsoft should be into more GNU and open source, and even offer more of it to the public. They are already rich and powerful, now it's time to share. They've alreay proven their greed with their Microsoft Genuine Product Verification system (which is flawed by design because what if you run MAC OS or Linux to download something for your home XP machine?), but now it's time they give back to the world... And give back ALOT!

Give MS a break. They are greedy and selfish and egotistical and they are downplaying the BT technology as much as possible claiming it has problems, but you know what? They are still using the BT technology platform and that is enough for us to see that they may have all the money in the world, but money doesn't buy genius!

I'm not sure I understand all the hate being thrown at Microsoft for this. They produced a legitimate (and don't start with the "biased against Bittorrent" stuff) research paper outlining some methods of evaluating file transfer. Why can't they do something academic without being blasted by pseudonerds who can't stand the thought of their beloved Bittorrent being challenged?

It would be a horrible, costly corporate error to ignore swarming technologies at this point, so how can you blame them for looking into some ways to build it into their software (that is, after all, Microsoft's business)?

Everybody relax... it's only research. It's how mathematicians put food on their tables. Bittorrent's not going anywhere, and Microsoft just might come up with something interesting and useful, even if it never sees as much publicity as Bittorrent.

yeah

i doubt people are gonna drop their p2p app for microsoft's.
could this be microsoft's answer to iTunes and napster?
could they sell media on this kind of network they're developing?
i doubt that microsoft will go into this for "free".. it'll have
a back-end where people can sell music, movies, tv shows, etc.

No reason the Microsoft technology can't co-exist with BitTorrent. I'm sure there will be lots of MS downloads that will be easier because of it; and if folks want to grab "Batman Begins" they can turn to BitTorrent.

" They call it Microsoft Avalanche and it uses a technique Microsoft calls â??network codingâ??. This breaks a file into small data packets, which are suited for fast transfer over the Internet, and contains details about all the other pieces of the file. "

correct me if i'm wrong here, but hasn't this idea been around for a while? BT has it, overnet, edonkey, most other p2p apps do something very similar to this...but yet M$ calls it this so it must be so.....maybe so much B$ to go with the M$.....my .02c

I dont know who would want to wasted the time seeding a download for a microsoft update anyway.. It's not like they have to "conservere bandwidth" per se, anyway. Not only that, but it would still be faster if M$ hosts the content as they have been. Just my .02

This is typical Microsoft strategy. Wait until a new technology is established, and then take it over by using sheer weight.
For example:
Internet Explorer & Outlook
Windows Media Player
Microsoft Anti-spyware
etc. etc. etc.

meh, it'll be just like microsoft did with all their other attempts to move into a sector of the market, there'll always be an alternate solution that people continue to pirate through, if it were true then there wouldnt still be pirated copies of windows and office on the internet

I don't think Microsoft will be able to go very far with this. I guess if you want to stay legal, then it might be a direction to go in. Although I'm sure people will stay with Bittorrents for the sheer amount of content than rather switching over.

The only way I can see this helping Microsoft is if they deployed it to their own services, like in updates and whatnot but even then that isn't much. I think they should just focus all their attention to make Longhorn the OS that they want it to be, cause now it's just starting to look like just a pay-for graphical interface.

But wont people choose the original bitorrent because it has less limits with illegal files, AKA more files?