• (cs)

    I like the project name in the IDE screenshot there -- "CollaborationWare."  It just screams "enterprisey!"

  • (cs) in reply to GoatCheez

    GoatCheez:
    ... lol... .... ... lol.... lol... lol... and to top it all off, ONE lol....  lol... 

    LOL!

  • (cs)

    I guess I can see the 3 blue in the casting cost, since blue is fairly strong on illusions, which is what the entire "Office Killer" is. The black I can definitely see, since anyone faced with working with the app could easily die from the pain. But green? I can't quite make the connection there. Red would have been better, since I'm sure there will be a fair amount of fiery destruction involved with this project.

     

    I started playing Magic around 1993, I think, right near the end of the Legends expansion. I stopped buying new cards a little after Ice Age, when they started making too many cards with "this card becomes twice as powerful if you also have that other card" explicitly printed on them.

  • (cs) in reply to Dragnslcr

    Green? I'd say - number of developers grows... and grows... and grows... Green rush! (think squirel tokens) - but they do nothing... there are no forests :)

    I'd say the V-ed. was one of the best. And some nice things in Mirage.

  • Polari (unregistered)

    Being an active MtG player, I just had to comment on the card. Looking at it as a Magic card it has a load of issues and is quite horribly done, but the best part is that none of it matters. The concept is good, and the card itself is awesome - or dare I say, brillant. I love it.

  • (cs) in reply to Richard Hubbard

    http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3497326

     

    Sounds similar. Time frame could be about right too.

    Try a google for "Microsoft office killer -google".

  • John Hensley (unregistered)

    God help Microsoft if this is about Groove Networks.

     

  • Wile E. Coyote (unregistered) in reply to Who wants to know
    Anonymous:

    WOW, I'm with YOU!  Forget what I said about dream, etc....  They wanted this to be multiplatform?  8-)    Multiplatform and Microsoft don't mix! 

    Steve


    I remember seeing something in the early days of .NET talking about how it was multiplatform...it ran on Windows NT, Windows 2000, etc...  I wish I could find that. 
  • Steven Dake (unregistered)

    These guys should have been validating the market instead of playing magic and buying printers.  Then they would have figured out what they needed to compete with Microsoft.  Since most people really are happy with Microsoft Office except for the price tag, I'm not sure their validation would have come up with much and the founders would have lacked new rounds of funding.  No more magic.

    Shame on those investors.  They should have known market validation was required or they are green (as in inexperienced) money and virtudyne was stupid for taking their funding.  If I were an investor, I'd want to see all the market validation instead of some demo.  Of course, I'm a software engineer and not an investor and know how easily a simple demo could be written to show "we are on track".  On track without market validation?  Get real.

    Morons.

     

  • Soulbender (unregistered) in reply to Rodyland

    http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3497326 "But there are elements of Microsoft Office, like SQL Server, that we want to replace

    This sure isn't boding well.

  • Anony Moose (unregistered) in reply to Steven Dake

    A competent and well-funded team could come up with an "office killer" by taking advantage of all the advances made in software engineering over the last couple of decades, and focussing on a more specific market than "anyone who might find parts of Office useful".

    Apparantly the only part these guys had right was the funding. Bastards.

  • Cheong (unregistered)

    Wow... a MtG card... I really missed that. :D

  • (cs) in reply to BA
    Anonymous:
    Saladin:

    More importantly, this thread has made me nostalgic for M:TG again.  I haven't played it since the 4th Ed. days.

    I really need to find a way to make that old Win95 M:TG PC game work on my current system, since playing against the AI is far easier than spending gobs of money on a real deck and finding other people who feel like doing the same.  Though perhaps buying real cards would be a /little/ less of a financial burden for me now with a full-time job out of college as opposed to when I was playing in the 5th grade and earning like $5 a week.

    Hate to sidetrack further, but the new set that just released, "Time Spiral", is really sweet. It contains reprints of cards from just about every set prior and has a bunch of new cards directly inspired by older cards.


    <font face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Right on time... Me and my friends are already thinking of reliving our MTG days and just waiting for the latest expansion to be released, TimeSpiral... Also, the card displayed by Alex might make it on the Unglued theme... :)


    Alex Papadimoulis:

    The CIO dedicated his "lunch break" to his Magic card collection...</font><font face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif">

    Reminds me of the vendor of a fingerprint identification device used on a school software project I "consulted"...

    During the first "meeting", the lead developer quickly showed his "133t-ness" by explaining to us some mumbo-jumbos of software design (which is basically less than what was taught in school). Then we were introduced to his "crew", a room full of programmers. 

    My "client's" (a group of ordinary students forced to do an app in one of their computer-related courses) app will be using VB6 (since that's what was taught in school back then) and will use the vendor's home-made software (in VC++) which eventually will interface with the vendor's device. One of the developers then tried to show off his "skills" by suggesting that we used java instead. I asked him why (because the client's app will just be needing to call the vendor's app for the fingerprint verification process). Well, he just answered "Nothing. It's cool. Hehe..."

    Well, the first meeting gave me an impression of the team's "skills"... Every succeeding meeting confirmed this..

    During the next meetings, we find them playing Starcraft: Brood Wars again... and again... and again... and again...

    Then one requirement was requested from the client: quit their app after the verification process to bring the focus back to the client's app (instead of manually closing the window to proceed). They say it will be difficult to do... (I ask you now, oh great C++ gurus for I am not a knowledgable one, is quitting the app really that hard to do?) It seems so hard to them that they told us to just bring back the device and the app and get our money back (so they can get back to their Starcraft game we interrupted). I insisted that this could be just a simple statement (forgive me again, oh C++ gurus if I am not aware of what I am saying at that time).

    Well, they managed to do that and from then on we never came back to interrupt their game noble work.

    *Fun times*



    </font>

  • pizza (unregistered) in reply to Grimoire
    Grimoire:

    Alex Papadimoulis:
    Something needed to be done.

    Let me guess...  Lay off all of the underpaid, steady working developers that do all the work, and keep the high profile "super-star" developers who can't code?

    Yep. In my last job investors realised we wernt going to hit the deadline and pulled out, this resulted in everyone being made "redundant" (i.e. fired with no benefits at all, and negative 10 days notice) except the CEO and his mother.

  • Cheong (unregistered) in reply to GoatCheez
    GoatCheez:

     I still find it so funny how they think that they can get a VB6 app to run on non-MS operating systems... lol...

     

    Perheps they're thinking about a VB6 CGI application behind a web server...

    Hurrah! They've invented compiled ASP. :P

  • Michael (unregistered) in reply to bullseye
    bullseye:

    It's like watching a horror movie.  You know everyone is going to die a bloody, and very predicable, death.  Nevertheless, even though you still scream "don't go into the pitch black basement alone!", they ALWAYS go into the basement alone, and they always die.

    Do you hear me, Virtudyne??  DON'T GO INTO THE BASEMENT!!


    Maybe this film is G (they get out of the basement with only a little fright and are a little more thought full in future)?

    Please tell me it's going to be like this?

    It's not rated G is it?

    <sequence>
    <sound>BOOOM-CRASH</sound>
    <action>Vertical levitation</action>
    <action>Instantaneous Translocation</action>
    <action>Pull blanket overhead</action>
    </sequence>
  • Grimble Gromble (unregistered)

    Presumably they were running Windows on the ES7000 (since MS recommended development methods and the project was in VB).  Leaving aside the nightmare of trying to create multithreaded apps in VB6 (but it's possible, and I've seen it done), I wasn't aware that Windows of that era could use such a computer _at all_.

    Was Windows capable of using 32 processors?  This would have been NT4, I'm guessing? 

     

  • Mats Gefvert (unregistered)

    "The horror... the horror..."

  • (cs) in reply to Mats Gefvert

    Lemme guess episode 3: "Virtudyne: Visit to R'lyeh" :-p

  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Rodyland
    Rodyland:

    http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3497326

     

    Sounds similar. Time frame could be about right too.

    Try a google for "Microsoft office killer -google".

    Doesn't sound similar.  Salesforce wasn't conceived to compete with Office; it was conceived to compete with Siebel CRM. 

    Back in 2000 or so, there were really quite a lot of companies that thought they would compete with Office over the net- so many in fact, that when someone said "ASP", it wasn't always easy to figure out if he meant "Active Server Pages" or "Application Service Provider".  Especially since the person saying "ASP" usually didn't have a clue what he was talking about, anyway.

  • mtg_player (unregistered) in reply to Steamer25

    It's good for one purpose.... at the end of the round when you have a lot of unused mana (mana burn) which can't be used...  then comes this card very handy... you'll use it and don't get burned :-) you will waste your mana... i think quite useful :-D

  • TMLC (unregistered) in reply to John Hensley

    Could be

  • TMLC (unregistered) in reply to John Hensley
    Anonymous:

    God help Microsoft if this is about Groove Networks.

    Could be...

  • buddy (unregistered)

    One question, is the company name real?  I'm guessing it isn't, but why can't that information be shared?

  • BA (unregistered) in reply to mtg_player

    Anonymous:
    It's good for one purpose.... at the end of the round when you have a lot of unused mana (mana burn) which can't be used...  then comes this card very handy... you'll use it and don't get burned :-) you will waste your mana... i think quite useful :-D

    So, at most you will be taking four points of burn. I guess useful.
    But if you are playing in such a way that makes the Virtudyne CIO useful, that's WTF right there. Ah, Magic and mispent youth.
     

  • Emphyrio (unregistered)

    I'm curious about "the special coding techniques recommended by Unisys and Microsoft to utilize the server's full potential." -- I'd love some details so I'll know what techniques to avoid.

    The "K = W / $" equation actually makes a certain amount of sense from the management point of view.  The amount of knowledge needed for a job is equal to the amount of work to be done divided by the amount of money you allocate.  For a given amount of work, the smaller the budget, the more knowledge (skill) you'll need.

    If you solve for work, you get "W = K * $", that is, the amount of work performed is equal to the worker's knowledge multiplied by the amount you pay him.  Of course, it doesn't say anything about the quality of the work.
     

  • I'm billgates!! (unregistered) in reply to BA
    Anonymous:

    Anonymous:
    It's good for one purpose.... at the end of the round when you have a lot of unused mana (mana burn) which can't be used...  then comes this card very handy... you'll use it and don't get burned :-) you will waste your mana... i think quite useful :-D

    So, at most you will be taking four points of burn. I guess useful.
    But if you are playing in such a way that makes the Virtudyne CIO useful, that's WTF right there. Ah, Magic and mispent youth.
     



    You could use it if someone had destroyed your Mox Lotus...oh wait...
  • Virtudyne Warrior (unregistered) in reply to Emphyrio

    Wait til they get to the part about moving to the new office...and the new CEO coming on board with is dad...

     

    *heh* 

  • (cs) in reply to ammoQ
    ammoQ:
    GoatCheez:

     I still find it so funny how they think that they can get a VB6 app to run on non-MS operating systems... lol...

    There is virtually nothing that cannot be done in VB6.

    Except for running the application on other operating systems.... I was poking fun at how they are planning to have a VB6 app run on PalmOS.... or at least that's what the post implies they are trying to do.... lol.... It might be a web-based office type application, but in 99? Also, the VB6 designer pic hints at the application being native and not web-based.

  • Cody (unregistered) in reply to BA
    Anonymous:

    Anonymous:
    It's good for one purpose.... at the end of the round when you have a lot of unused mana (mana burn) which can't be used...  then comes this card very handy... you'll use it and don't get burned :-) you will waste your mana... i think quite useful :-D

    So, at most you will be taking four points of burn. I guess useful.
    But if you are playing in such a way that makes the Virtudyne CIO useful, that's WTF right there. Ah, Magic and mispent youth.
     

    Nah, still useless.  You should never even be at risk of taking 5 points of mana burn in the first place, even if you are a bad player.  That ability is worse than OWN's.

    Captcha: Initech - I wish I owned a red FD

  • mj (unregistered)
    Alex Papadimoulis:

    Within a year, the Virtudyne CIO commanded an army of I.T. professionals whose skill levels ranged between complete ineptitude and moderate competence.

    Wow! I hope there are more companies like this. As a moderately competent programmer myself, I would relish the chance to be considered 'leet.' 

  • (cs)

    Hmmm.  This sounds like a company from which many people were recently laid off.  Could it be?  Oh, my!

  • Virtudyne Warrior (unregistered) in reply to mj

    Ahem.  That's "l33t."

  • (cs) in reply to Virtudyne Warrior

    AHEM. That's "1337."

    lol...
     

  • Virtudyne Warrior (unregistered) in reply to GoatCheez
    GoatCheez:

    AHEM. That's "1337."

    lol...
     

    AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA 

  • Sven (unregistered)

    It sounds like it might be Ray Ozzie's Groove


    Here's the archived page from 1998:

    http://web.archive.org/web/19981202204341/http://www.groove.net/

  • (cs) in reply to GoatCheez
    GoatCheez:
    ammoQ:
    GoatCheez:

     I still find it so funny how they think that they can get a VB6 app to run on non-MS operating systems... lol...

    There is virtually nothing that cannot be done in VB6.

    Except for running the application on other operating systems.... I was poking fun at how they are planning to have a VB6 app run on PalmOS.... or at least that's what the post implies they are trying to do.... lol.... It might be a web-based office type application, but in 99? Also, the VB6 designer pic hints at the application being native and not web-based.

     Programming Palms in VB: http://www.appforge.com/index.asp
     

  • Neal (unregistered)

    My money is on Glide write/suite/whatever and Donald Leka, but given the time there's also thinkfree, zoho, and goffice.

  • (cs) in reply to ammoQ
    ammoQ:
    GoatCheez:
    ammoQ:
    GoatCheez:

     I still find it so funny how they think that they can get a VB6 app to run on non-MS operating systems... lol...

    There is virtually nothing that cannot be done in VB6.

    Except for running the application on other operating systems.... I was poking fun at how they are planning to have a VB6 app run on PalmOS.... or at least that's what the post implies they are trying to do.... lol.... It might be a web-based office type application, but in 99? Also, the VB6 designer pic hints at the application being native and not web-based.

     Programming Palms in VB: http://www.appforge.com/index.asp
     

    Now I've seen everything.... lol.... I did check to see if they were around in 99, and they were, and they did have xplat vb product back then too.... F'n a... Anyone want to point me to the company that makes the product that lets you program.... erhm.... hmm..... I can't even think of something that I think can't be done anymore... WTF...


     

  • (cs)

    OK, firstly, here's the card with fixed templating:

    http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a130/tiggum/VirtudyneCIO-.jpg

    Now, here's the card more realistically:

    http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a130/tiggum/VirtudyneCIO-BD.jpg

    Even though it's probably almost as bad as One With Nothing, I fear I may have made it a little too good. :-/


    Wallsy.

  • Eclipz (unregistered) in reply to CodeReaper
    CodeReaper:

    P = W/T

    T = $

    K = P

    K = W/$

    Now, we're all curious as to the magical equation for how to make money... so let's rearrange our new formula:

    $ = W/K


    1) The less you know, the more money you make.
    2) The amount of work you do is more or less irrelevant.
    3) I chose the wrong career to make money with.

     

    Ah!  But you forget, if either money or knowledge is zero, you end up dividing by zero.  When knowledge is zero, it's what I like to call a stupidity singularity, where all money gets sucked in.   We're also assuming knowledge isn't negative (which would be incorrect knowledge), then you start spending money.  Unless you have negative work, then you'd make money but you'd be backpeddling in whatever project you're working on. 

    And well, if money is zero, nobody works anyway. 

     

    Captcha: Paste ....  Yum! 

  • Virtudyne Warrior (unregistered) in reply to Eclipz

    And...

     


    I = H * AD 

    Investor capital = hype times apparent delivery

     

    Captcha: enterprisey

    Sweet! 

  • Monthenor (unregistered) in reply to Wallsy

    Your templating is off.  The original "This ability cannot be used as an instant" is much different from "Play this ability only any time you could play a sorcery".  Although yours is the standard MTG template, it can be altered by effects that allow you to play sorceries or creature abilities at instant speed.  The original states flat-out that it can never be that fast.

  • (cs) in reply to Virtudyne Warrior

    Wanna get rich ? Just make a VB interpreter for Linux and/or Mac.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Saladin
    Saladin:

    More importantly, this thread has made me nostalgic for M:TG again.  I haven't played it since the 4th Ed. days.

    I really need to find a way to make that old Win95 M:TG PC game work on my current system, since playing against the AI is far easier than spending gobs of money on a real deck and finding other people who feel like doing the same.  Though perhaps buying real cards would be a /little/ less of a financial burden for me now with a full-time job out of college as opposed to when I was playing in the 5th grade and earning like $5 a week.

     Try www.magicworkstation.com

     free to use and many "other people who feel like doing the same" a button click away ;)

  • anonymous (unregistered) in reply to ammoQ
    ammoQ:
    GoatCheez:
    ammoQ:
    GoatCheez:

     I still find it so funny how they think that they can get a VB6 app to run on non-MS operating systems... lol...

    There is virtually nothing that cannot be done in VB6.

    Except for running the application on other operating systems.... I was poking fun at how they are planning to have a VB6 app run on PalmOS.... or at least that's what the post implies they are trying to do.... lol.... It might be a web-based office type application, but in 99? Also, the VB6 designer pic hints at the application being native and not web-based.

     Programming Palms in VB: http://www.appforge.com/index.asp
     

     

    That looks to me more like "Programming a (Windows Emulator running on PalmOS) in VB".  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

     

     

     

  • (cs) in reply to Sven
    Anonymous:

    It sounds like it might be Ray Ozzie's Groove


    Here's the archived page from 1998:

    http://web.archive.org/web/19981202204341/http://www.groove.net/

     http://www.groove.net/index.cfm/pagename/CustomerList/

    http://www.careerjournal.com/myc/officelife/20060130-wagstaff.html


    wish I could see the product from the early days
     

  • mj (unregistered) in reply to Virtudyne Warrior

    I believe I did specify 'moderately competent.'

  • Anon Coward (unregistered) in reply to mrsticks1982
    mrsticks1982:
    Anonymous:

    It sounds like it might be Ray Ozzie's Groove


    Here's the archived page from 1998:

    http://web.archive.org/web/19981202204341/http://www.groove.net/

     http://www.groove.net/index.cfm/pagename/CustomerList/

    http://www.careerjournal.com/myc/officelife/20060130-wagstaff.html


    wish I could see the product from the early days
     

     I don't think this is Groove.  Ray Ozzie wanted to write Groove in Java.  However, he was persuaded by Microsoft reps to use C++ instead.  Groove was not a client-server system - it was meant to be a peer-to-peer system, which may or may not interact with servers.  And it was a collaboration platform, not an MS Office killer.

  • mep (unregistered)

    So, this is a nice post, good writing, entertaining, etc...

    But is it a true story?

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