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Was there any benefit when Nokia, Nortel, Sony, Toshiba, etc., decided to off-shore their development to the US?

Talk about a bad example. Today Nokia announced they're laying off people in Texas to move R&D in the UK and India.

The guys at theserverside.com have shown that the CNet article puts the circumstances differently:

Green will be leaving to join another software venture, according to Sun. Green tendered his resignation several weeks ago but waited until the Microsoft agreement was settled before announcing his departure, a Sun representative said Monday. The changes were announced internally on Friday.

Cnet article
The Server Side discussion

The company accused Howard Carmack - aka The Buffalo Spammer - of sending more than 825 million illegal emails since March 2002.

Also, it alleged that Carmack and accomplices "used stolen credit cards, identity theft, banking fraud and other illegal activities to fraudulently purchase Internet accounts and send out unsolicited, commercial emails".

No interest in SCO, no interest in Intergraph, no interest in Intel, and no interest in IBM [although I worked there briefly about seven years ago, and, for the record, hated every second of every minute of every hour I spent on IBM premises, and hated the very thought of going to work every day].

Just somebody who follows the news.

And perhaps I should emphasize that my comments had nothing to do with the Torvalds-ish aspects of the SCO litigation [other than to have referenced the fact that Richard Stallman is a marxist whose goal is the abolition of private property rights]. Rather, I commented on PROJECT MONTEREY, which was a joint IBM/SCO project to design a next generation x86-ish/IA64-ish/UNIX-ish operating system out of IBM's AIX and SCO's UnixWare.

IBM had no expertise in writing Unix on x86, SCO had tons of expertise in writing Unix on x86, so IBM called in SCO:

IBM inks Unix pact with SCO
Story last modified October 26, 1998, 1:25 PM PST

The new version of Unix, code-named Monterey, will merge with parts of IBM's Unix operating system (called AIX), some of SCO's UnixWare (a popular version of Unix for small businesses), and a bit of Sequent's PTX technology. The OS will run on Intel's 32-bit and upcoming 64-bit processors as well as IBM's Power family of chips. It's expected to reach the market in about 18 months, around the time when Merced is due.

http://news.com.com/2102-1001_3-217092.html

COMPLAINT

54. By about May 2001, all technical aspects of Project Monterey had been substantially completed. The only remaining tasks of Project Monterey involved marketing and branding tasks to be performed substantially by IBM.

55. On or about May 2001, IBM notified plaintiff that it refused to proceed with Project Monterey, and that IBM considered Project Monterey to be "dead." In fact, in violation of its obligations to SCO, IBM chose to use and appropriate for its own business the proprietary information obtained from SCO.

http://www.caldera.com/scosource/complaint3.06.03. html

UPDATE: CRN Interview: SCO CEO Defends $1 Billion Lawsuit Against IBM
2:57 PM EST Thurs., Apr. 24, 2003

CRN: How much of this stems from Project Monterey? [Project Monterey was a joint venture between IBM, Intel and SCO to produce a Unix-based cross-platform operating system.]

McBride: IBM walked away from Project Monterey, and they told us if we didn't like it, sue us. That took two years out of our life. IBM took chunks out of Monterey, and gave it away. You can find it in Red Hat and SuSE Linux. When IBM pulled out of Monterey, they did it concurrently with moving over to Linux. The heat has been turning up on this for some time.

http://www.crn.com/Components/printArticle.asp?Art icleID=41480

Instead, however, IBM threw SCO to the wolves.

More coverage (copied from USF site):
NY Times,
C|Net,
San Jose Business Journal,
NPR,
UK PC Pro
USF News

Your point about 250 GB not being available in iPod-sized packages is true, but there's an important error: iPods use 1.8" hard drives. iPod mini's use even smaller drives (1"). 2.5" is the notebook size and drives of that size are capacious in cheap in comparison to 1.8" and 1" beasties.

Reference: news.com.com article (that extra .com is really annoying.)

For example:

Interviews where they explicitly say that they wouldn't have done the deal except that it puts pressor on IBM.

That "Where we use their intellectual property, there will be a royalty stream. Where they use ours, there will be a royalty stream back."

that Forrester somehow thinks this is good for Sun - I bet he thinks the SCO/MSFT partnership's good for SCO too. It's sad to see Sun turn into just another SCO. Can I get a "+1 Sad" mod?

A lot of people think something freely available ... can't possibly be secure.

Well, they have been given good reason to feel that way.

And their wages are rising rapidly. This article quotes an avarage IT salary growth rate of 12-14% in India last year.

A couple more years of that, and the benefits of offshoring are going to diminish to the point that we wouldn't have to worry about India anymore. Already many offshoring companies reporting savings of 20-30% instead of 50% couple of years ago.

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5182805.html Quit posting those damn links which require registration! GRRRR

This an important conflict. By a common interpretation of Canadian copyright law, Downloading is legal. It's uploading that's the infringement. It was my impression that this interpretation was due to what party is viewed as causing the copy to be made.

People who install Kazaa on their machine are in control of their machine, and are knowingly installing software that creates copies of files for anonymous transmission across the net. The uploader, then, is the one making the copy.

But this takes that view and turns it upside down. So they're saying that, because Kazaa shares downloaded files by default, an ignorant user can be legitimately unaware that copyright infringement is happening on their box, and that makes them innocent?

This is bizaare...

After some consideration, this sounds more like a case of not being liable for what others do with your stuff. If you leave a case of CDs in an unlocked car, you're not responsible for the infringement if some thief breaks in and copies them all.

ZDNet Article
MSNBC Article

IBM announced today that they will be offering more information on the architecture of its PowerPC and Power server chips to device makers and software developers. First software with Linux, and now hardward with their own Power Line. If intel can only do this for the Centrino line. :-/

If you decide to use a computer for it, you might want to have something like PcAnywhere (or something similar) running so you could remote into it if there is a problem. You'd probably want something like this to automate your keystrokes/mouse clicks. And something like this might work for daily maintenance and scheduled shutdowns.

I imagine you could pretty easily take apart the mouse and take the wires hooked to left click and wire them to a door bell, then record the macro in that program mentioned above to do whatever you need to start the video/flash/ppt presentation.

If you decide to use a computer for it, you might want to have something like PcAnywhere (or something similar) running so you could remote into it if there is a problem. You'd probably want something like this to automate your keystrokes/mouse clicks. And something like this might work for daily maintenance and scheduled shutdowns.

I imagine you could pretty easily take apart the mouse and take the wires hooked to left click and wire them to a door bell, then record the macro in that program mentioned above to do whatever you need to start the video/flash/ppt presentation.

If you decide to use a computer for it, you might want to have something like PcAnywhere (or something similar) running so you could remote into it if there is a problem. You'd probably want something like this to automate your keystrokes/mouse clicks. And something like this might work for daily maintenance and scheduled shutdowns.

I imagine you could pretty easily take apart the mouse and take the wires hooked to left click and wire them to a door bell, then record the macro in that program mentioned above to do whatever you need to start the video/flash/ppt presentation.

Microsoft has a rational for buying a telecoms company, considering the weak telecoms market at this moment.

People have to really consider that AOL is also a competitor that Microsoft wants to take out

But I cannot seem to find any history of restaments of earnings about this topic with microsoft.

but here you can read about the restatments from AOL to "reduce revenue by $190 million and would erase $97 million in qualified earnings from its books over a 21-month period"

It is very funny that Microsoft DID recently post a restatement of 2billion based on stock options, but I wonder if there was something else pidgonholed away in there.,
But veritas restated its earnings because of its dealings with AOL!

Microsoft has a rational for buying a telecoms company, considering the weak telecoms market at this moment.

People have to really consider that AOL is also a competitor that Microsoft wants to take out

But I cannot seem to find any history of restaments of earnings about this topic with microsoft.

but here you can read about the restatments from AOL to "reduce revenue by $190 million and would erase $97 million in qualified earnings from its books over a 21-month period"

It is very funny that Microsoft DID recently post a restatement of 2billion based on stock options, but I wonder if there was something else pidgonholed away in there.,
But veritas restated its earnings because of its dealings with AOL!

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200403301 84527522

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5182078.html

"usually a press release is used verbatim because the journalist is on a tight deadline and didn't have time to write the article"

Well, I don't think that Computer Shopper counts as a newspaper. :-) Seriously, though, no reputable newspaper reprints a press release as if it were a real article. They may take the press release and use it as the basis of a story (e.g. Microsoft's Xbox game console will be $30 cheaper starting Tuesday), but they'll usually call around for their own quotes, and add some analysis. For example, the "'At this lower mass market price point, we're opening up this great system to an even broader audience of people who can experience Xbox for the first time,' Mitch Koch, corporate vice president of worldwide retail sales for Microsoft, said in a statement" is probably straight from the press release (i.e. written by Microsoft's PR people), but everything else in the article, such as the analyst saying that the price drop isn't enough, and the speculation that Sony will drop the price of the PS2 in April, is reporting provided by CNET.

Brought to you by Cisco and Sun!

In November, Amnesty International named 33 companies including Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and Cisco Systems that it said were providing the Chinese with technology to achieve its Internet censorship aims. (article)

Here's some links from an almost-submitted post.

Microsoft Cuts Xbox Price to $150

Microsoft has cut the price of its Xbox game console to about $150 ($149.99), a $30 drop. The price cut was widely expected by analysts in a move to spur slowing console sales for the Xbox as the current generation approaches the end of its cycle, and gamers anticipate the next-generation of consoles in 2005. Microsoft also announced several price cuts on Xbox games and titles including 'Xbox Music Mixer, Project Gotham Racing 2 and Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge.' More coverage at CNet, CNN Money, ZDNet UK, AP via Seattle PI and Bloomberg via Seattle Times. (Microsoft press release)

Here's some links from an almost-submitted post.

Microsoft Cuts Xbox Price to $150

Microsoft has cut the price of its Xbox game console to about $150 ($149.99), a $30 drop. The price cut was widely expected by analysts in a move to spur slowing console sales for the Xbox as the current generation approaches the end of its cycle, and gamers anticipate the next-generation of consoles in 2005. Microsoft also announced several price cuts on Xbox games and titles including 'Xbox Music Mixer, Project Gotham Racing 2 and Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge.' More coverage at CNet, CNN Money, ZDNet UK, AP via Seattle PI and Bloomberg via Seattle Times. (Microsoft press release)

...should be able to implement some impressive and highly usable C# and .NET implementations completely independent of MS influence and support.

As soon as there is significant .NET based code around (if we are really that stupid), Microsoft will play its patent trump card, and either stall all that development, or start charging a license to use it.

The argument that ".NET is a standard" does not cover Microsoft's battery of patents. Mono is technologically a good idea, but it is a Microsoft trap, and it needs to be avoided.

See

• .NET Patent Could Stifle Standards Effort

...but you can read all about it here.

According to the article Opensecrets.org provides a similar service...

Anybody who says the Internet "hasn't changed politics" (re: ex-candidate Dean)...well, I'd point to this a solid real-life example that it has.

Of course I can't find the questionaire for this study, but if it is anything like this study, the phrasing definitely adresses the causation.

It's really a classic problem in the social sciences that peoples answers can depend on the phrasing of logically equivalent questions, or the order the questions are presented in.
If the study asked if the subject bought more or less cd's after starting to fileshare, that's one thing. If the study asked first how many cd's I bought last year, then how many cd's I bought this year and finally if I've downloaded more or less music off the net in the past year, then you are right... but judging from earlier studies I don't think they phrased it that way.

I'd be willing to bet that the iTunes Music Store will receive anchoring from retailers such as Target though.

Already started. You can now buy iTMS Gift Cards at Target.

>Think about it this way -- if one or two folks go into a store and shoplift, its a problem. BUT if they get caught, they get a light sentence. Now, what if hundreds went into stores and shoplifted as if it were institutional values?

They call it shoplifting when you physically remove an item without permission.

But when you walk into my shop, and then build one beside it that is identical in every way but the title, they say it's legal and that I have to tough it out.

If I were the RIAA, I'd be asking right now, what makes it legal to steal my ideas. But I'm not.

>Theft is theft.

It is. That's why when I download albums from Kazaa, I make sure I don't delete the uploader's copy. That way it isn't theft, in any sense whatsoever. (Legal, English, and common usage). In fact, in Canada, the right to download music freely is protected by law, that's how much it isn't theft.

For reference, "stealing" appears once in the US Copyright act, used to explain the act of removing a CD/phonograph/tape/whatever from your posession and use and making it my posession. Theft doesn't appear at all.

Also, the dictionary defines theft as:

\Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e, [thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See Thief.] 1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.

Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief. See Larceny, and the Note under Robbery

The other definitions say the same thing, but are less clear unless you look up the used words, such as "larceny".

Hmmm, doesn't anybody remember when the EFF used to argue that we shouldn't hold P2P tech accountable for how some may misuse it? And that they themselves suggestted suing infringers rather than the technology?

You don't know what you are talking about. The security protocols have changed alot. "TKIP, or the temporal key integrity protocol, packages three improvements to replace the flawed wired equivalent privacy protocol (WEP). With Wi-Fi, data sent over the wireless network is encrypted, but sharing the keys that encrypted the information has always been a problem. TKIP scrambles the keys using a so-called hashing algorithm and ensures the keys haven't been tampered with by adding integrity checking."

...Dell claiming that they were the first to ship integrated wireless and antennas in a laptop, even though Apple in fact did it more than a year earlier?

Maybe someone should "act on behalf of consumers" to notify them of these "inaccuracies".

Or are you thinking about Windows XP reloaded? Erg, can you imagine all the names now of programs? Microsoft Office 2004 Reloaded. Macromedia Flash 2004 reloaded.........help!

Or are you thinking about Windows XP reloaded? Erg, can you imagine all the names now of programs? Microsoft Office 2004 Reloaded. Macromedia Flash 2004 reloaded.........help!

For one, try reading the news item again, as the submitter clearly quotes the article with mention of it. The article really does have it in there too.

I mean, geez, not reading the article is typical of a slashbot but not even reading the submitted blurb and then commenting on the story?

Also, try these on for size:

The Register pointing out that Steve Jobs said so himself during an Apple financial analyst conference.

A Reuters article states rather matter-of-factly that Apple's store doesn't make money.

Apple's Senior Vice President said the store does not make a profit in this news.com.com.com.com article.

This Washington Post article spells it out pretty clearly.

Do I need to go on, or can you prove that the store does make money for Apple?

My understanding is that they are stepping in to save the PC by uniting the X-Box and Windows game development environment.

"Kind of like the radiation from your monitor should disperse within a few feet and be unreadable to anyone. I bet the same black vans that are already following you around can read the tags just fine, and what will you do once they know your fashion sense?"

Just when you thought you were safe with your blinds drawn. (Also look up Marcus Kuhn in Germany)
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-912785.html

There is a bill in California right now that sets out to address consumor privacy concerns. NPR also talked about this in the morning. I agree w/ poster #1 with the potential benefits of RFID and despite my liberal and consumer advocate leanings, I am in favor of them. Clearly, however, policy needs to be set for how they will function both in and out of stores/warehouses. Should they be deactivated when leaving a store? At first I thought yes, but then other potential uses are quashed. Suppose your refridgerator could give you an instant inventory? That kind of thing is something i'de like to have someday. A middle ground was proposed by RSA to have a bag that temporarily blocks RFID until you get home. I don't know how good that will work for all situations, though. Like it or not, RFID is coming. The benefits are just too great to ignore. The question is, how will it be regulated? Now is the time for consumers to lobby for legislation dictating how RFID can be used!

People often complain about how buggy and how full of security holes. Bugs are what occur when you make something that is very large and very complex. People want stuff to be easy to use, which means advanced programming, which in turn results in bugs. As for security holes. This is a subject that really bugs me. The people that tend to be the most critical of microsoft for their numerous security holes (which also result from having such a complex system), also tend to be the ones that like to exploit them. Which is a damn hipocracy if you ask me. Security holes exist, they always have, they always will, and there is nothing whatsoever that you, I or Mr. Gates can do to change that. The problem isn't the security holes, it's the fact that there are people that exploit them. And then those innocent people who don't exploit them will get mad at Microsoft, effectively siding with those malicious jerks who exploit the holes. People should be supportive of Microsoft to fix the holes and bugs, while denouncing the jerks, letting them know that they are neither cool nor respected.

You say that the problem with bugs are that they are present in complex programs and the people who exploit them should be beaten with a donkey. I concur.

HOWEVER, it's not the fact that the bugs were created in the first place that pisses most people off. It is:

-Microsoft consistently releases software with known bugs...23,000 such known in Windows 2000 upon its deployment.

-Microsoft takes its time to fix even the smallest bugs. Remember this?

-Microsoft's patches often cause compatibility issues on down the road for enterprise systems (I don't think I need a link to prove that one).

My point is, you can whine about Microsoft being exploited all you want and complex software having bugs...it's life, it happens. But when the company in question releases buggy software on purpose, takes months to fix critical issues, gouges customers on support costs, releases patches that are not working and/or break other parts of the operating system, etc etc it shows a level of deception that rivals only the tobacco companies.

That's why, for one, I don't complain about release dates being shoved back and the public beta of Windows XP SP2. This shows that Microsoft is trying to become more responsible...but those few actions are but a whisper in the jet engine of Blaster et al.

According to this ZDNN article Jonathan Schwartz says that they will be exactly addressing importing of Excel macros. I haven't seen any specification on it yet, but the people working on it may have preliminary stuff or discussions going on in the "sc" project. Generally, anything added into StarOffice that isn't encumbered by licensing or copyright restrictions makes its way into OOo...most all SO development is done right in the OOo CVS repository.

ed

I think that Suse was the distro they pitched in Munich (although I'm not as sure about this one)

Yes, they were:
From here ... computer maker IBM and Linux seller SuSE helped Munich evaluate the move and are candidates, the companies said.

You may already know this, but this is why I think SCO doesn't sue them:

1. Because of HP's indemnification, SCO's scare tactics are rendered ineffective. But I still think it was good for IBM to take a stand and say they don't need indemnification. But either way would have been fine.
2. They are already in over their head with IBM. Sure, that didn't stop them from suing Redhat, but Redhat is a much smaller company.
3. Both companies are in bed with Microsoft, though with this news, HP less so. HP makes many of the flagship windoze products (IPaq and Windows Media Center).

That being said, your post once again points out that SCO are stupid, litigous, hypocritical lying bastards. But they have been doing an impressive job of keeping their stock price at a relatively reasonable level. I can't believe they've dragged it out as long as they have.

• Hyundi car - sets of pedals, levers lights engine.
• Ford car - sets of pedals, levers lights engine.

Yeah, here it is:
at news dot com dot com.

Yes, they actually did apologize:

CNET.NEWS.COM:RIAA Apology

So, from where I am viewing the market from the perspective of an end user, Apple's market position is looking pretty good to me.

Yeah, real good.

And what about all those announcements?

Microsoft asks Mac users, "How can we get your business?'

Merrill Lynch, whose technology group recently began coverage of Apple, noted in a research note last week that "open source and Mac adoption is still in infancy in the enterprise market." However, "we should see explosive growth in the years to come as corporations look to achieve cost savings within their IT departments."

Using IDC's own estimate for G5/OSX server shipments through 2007, as well as its internal data on OSX operating system attach rates and server pricing, Merrill reckons that the enterprise G5 market could be worth $529 million by 2007. "This represents a [compound annual growth rate] of 61 percent over the 5-year period from 2002-2007," the note said.

Japanese telco to aid Mac phone development

Mac, G5 systems move out enterprise's mainframe

New G5 chips, but no 64-bit OS X
for at least two years (too late).

"We're saying that OSX/G5s will eat Unix," Gantz said

Is Computer Associates contemplating dumping Windows?

If you have been following Microsoft attempts to hold onto counties, cities, states, governmental bodies, governments, corporations and people, you know the headlines have gone from talk to action.

The governments that are starting to move over tend to be mostly poorer countries, or ones with large, largely computer-free populaces. Brazil and China are good examples of this trend. In those places, OSX/G5 adoption has been picking up steam to the point that if a second world country told MS to take a hike, it would hardly rate a Slashdot story on a slow day.

THE NATIONAL HEALTH Service is considering using the OSX operating system; G5s in a 2.3 billion deal that could affect as many as 800,000 PCs if a pilot is successful.

Nine German cities poised to adopt OSX/G5

Official: China to invest in OSX/G5-based software industry

The US Army has abandoned Windows and chosen OSX for a key component of its "Land Warrior" programme, according to a report in National Defense Magazine. The move, initially covering a personal computing and communications device termed the Commander's Digital Assistant (CDA), follows the failure of the previous attempt at such a device in trials in February of this year, and is part of a move to make the device simpler and less breakable.

According to program manager Lt Col Dave Gallop this is part of a broader move towards OSX/G5 by the US Army: "Evidence shows that OSX is more stable. We are moving in general to where the Army is going, to OSX/G5-based OS."

Sun Microsystems is the odd man out. It has an impressive array of powerful enemies: IBM, Microsoft, Intel, HP, Red Hat, Apple, Novell, and more. It has only a weakened Oracle as a friend, and Oracle too has made a "bet the company" move to OSX/G5. OSX/G5 threatens many of Sun's traditional products as sharply as it threatens

Too late.

If you don't believe check out these related stories, dating way back

Still, it's new to the US. ZDNet had something similar a few weeks back

If you don't believe check out these related stories, dating way back

Still, it's new to the US. ZDNet had something similar a few weeks back