I’ve heard that they’re(Microsoft) is getting out of the wirless network business, and have picked up a wireless router and pcmcia card made by them. I’ve always wanted wireless at home, but I’m a little worried about future upgrades from them(or lack thereof.). I still have time to return both of them, and I could use the money for my trip definitely, but I can’t decide just how worried I should be about security problems in the future.
What do you think?
[I’m mainly looking for advice on the security, and I’m returning the pc card regardless, because I just bought that on a whim at best buy today. :\]
If it is “b” return it. If “g”, then you have to decide. MS made the setup easy, straight “g” is one generation back and won’t get improved anyway, and as far as the PCCAED goes, Staples has a Netgear for 29 AR this week. Mixing and matching is allowed, we have a US Robotics router, which talks to a MS, a USR and a linksys card, and nary a problem.
If you want wireless at home, keep them. You are probably not going to upgrade them, anyway. While analysts aren’t sure why Microsoft got out of that business, it wasn’t because of hardware issues.
The only real reason to consider returning them is that there have in fact been quite a few reports of MS networking, esp. WiFi, having buggy hardware. Like others said though, mixing brands is okay (well, in an ideal world).
MS got off to a very bad start in the networking hardware business. Lots of problems with the earliest hardware. That didn’t help.
MS has been working very hard on their own proprietary Bluetooth-like systems. Once they saw WiFi taking off, somebody decided to get into it. Bad decision from MS’s point of view. WiFi is an open standard. There is no money in making hardware anybody can make. Someone, somewhere else, will make the same stuff cheaper, and cheaper, and cheaper.
So MS’s best strategy has always been in staying proprietary. So someone finally wised up that doing WiFi was contrary to Standard MS Procedure and they pulled out.
MS is extremely interested in “owning” the home entertainment business. That are trying to dominate in copyright protection schemes, in video compression, etc. E.g., one of the 2 competing blue laser DVD formats uses MS compression. If it wins, MS will make even more billions. (Never mind how crappy it is.) The wireless home combining networking/computing/games/entertainment is The Next Killer App for them. Pulling out of WiFi means they are taking it to the next level.
Thanks for the advice, but I ended up returning the stuff anyway. The last few transactions on my checking account all hit at the same time kind of unexpectedly(or, “I forgot about this one.”), and I’m leaving for Seattle on thursday, so having money there was a bit more important than having a router and wireless card at home. I think I need to do more research (brands, etc) before I make a purchase again though.