Slashdot Mirror

Mmm.. no. The market as a whole dropped yesterday, supposedly because of inflation fears.

i used to respect Yahoo back in the early 90's , now they are just another desperate american advertising company

Well, they are American. I suppose that's good cause to loathe them, if that's your thing. But lately Yahoo has been changing quite a bit. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but after they purchased Flickr, they've been "flickrizing" their apps at a fairly rapid clip. They're overhauling the interfaces to their key apps. Some of their beta apps are work very well and are a pleasure to use. It's easy to add new Yahoo services without getting tied into any Passport-like crap. You can use the apps you like and disregard the ones you don't like.

They're not first to market, but they're restructing their whole approach to provide regular non-geeks the opportunity to exchange information, establish online communities, create their own blogs, and so on. It's not the Google approach, which is tool-centric. Yahoo is remaking itself as what AOL could have become if it had any brains. As for being an "advertising company" maybe you haven't compared Google web apps to Yahoo web apps lately.

Crap, forgot to preview http://www.fortune.com/fortune/print/0,15935,11345 96,00.html

ANIME EXPLOSION It's... Profitmón! From Pokémon to Full Metal Panic, the anime industry is doing everything the rest of show biz isn't: embracing technology, coddling fans--and making a killing. FORTUNE Monday, November 28, 2005 By Daniel Roth It was 2 a.m. when John Ledford heard the banging at his door. Stumbling from bed on that night in the fall of 1999, he threw on a robe over his boxers and opened the door of his Houston apartment to a twentysomething guy with glasses and a face full of freckles. Ledford was about to tell him he had the wrong apartment when the stranger launched into a speech. At that moment, Ledford knew: This visit was no accident. This stranger was an otaku. Translated literally, the word is Japanese for "your household." But for obscure reasons, otaku morphed in modern Japan to connote a scarily hard-core fan, a nerd obsessed with a hobby to the point of unhealthiness. In the U.S. the otaku's infatuation is focused on anime--the Japanese style of animation that typically features saucer-eyed women and giant mechanical men. American otaku wear the label with pride. The specimen at Ledford's door was going on about an anime TV show called Neon Genesis Evangelion, a series about humans fighting an alien invasion. He had a problem with the ending. "I don't like the direction you went in and I want you to go back and fix it," he demanded. Ledford explained that he didn't make the show and closed the door. He was rattled by the nocturnal visit--later that morning, leaving for Japan, he called his assistant and told her to find him a new place to live. But he should have known: That's what happens when your customers are wild with desire. Ledford is CEO of AD Vision, the largest importer and distributor of anime in the country. ADV may not have made Evangelion, but it did get the show into the hands of American otaku. "The hard-core fan base is very rabid," says Ledford. "They will get behind you as a company. You don't have to spend a dollar in marketing; you just have to be friends with them." (With the understanding that any true friendship needs limits--and visiting hours.) There must be a few studio heads out there who would accept 2 a.m. chats with customers in exchange for a rosier state of business. The numbers in mainstream entertainment are bad: Hollywood box-office receipts are down 7% over last year's middling performance. Home video, which in the past couple of years accounted for about a quarter of the profits on average at the major studios, is losing its shine too. Goldman Sachs forecasts virtually no growth in DVD sales for the major studios in 2006 and an outright decline in sales the year after that. In TV land, prime viewers are fleeing prime time: The networks have seen a 7.4% drop in viewings by 18- to 49-year-olds so far this fall compared with last year. There are plenty of reasons for these declines--fickle tastes, videogames, piracy. But there's also the fact that, frankly, the entertainment industry tends not to show the fans much love. Any business that prices popcorn the way gas stations price gas, encodes software into its CDs that compromises computer security, or persists in building sitcoms around Jim Belushi needs work in staying close to customers. Yet with anime and its print cousin--the paperback-sized cartoon books called manga--the otaku keep showing up, cash in hand. This tidy little corner of the show-biz universe--a market worth more than $625 million last year at retail in North America, of which AD Vision captured $150 million--makes for a rare example of an entertainment niche that does more than not alienate its customers: It has found ways to keep them buying and buying. In the process, anime and manga firms have taken on forms very different from Hollywood studios or publishing houses. They more closely resemble the constantly updating startups of Silicon Valley. Their ethos is to get the product out to the right people--whether it's on a DVD or over a

You're mixing apples and oranges here.

In Mass, we're talking about government. Government has a responsibility to represent, support and answer to everyone. It's the very reason for government's existence. Reasonable efforts need to be made to support those with disabilities. I'd suspect that we would disagree on what constitutes "reasonable effort" but we do agree that disabled people have a right to access government services.

Slashdot, on the other hand, is not a government service. In a rational society, it would have no legal obligation to support disabled individuals in any way. I'm not saying that it shouldn't provide support, only that it should not face legal repercussions if it does not do so. Of course, we don't live in a rational society. We live in one where a restaurant owner can be fined or shut down because the toilet is a quarter of an inch too close to the wall. We live in this society. This is the kind of crap that leads to "bleeding heart liberal" comments like the one above.

No, but I do remember Michael Dell saying he would sell Mac OS X on a Dell if Apple were to allow it.

FYI - Since you brought him up, Warren Buffet had this to say about the Flat Tax (not the "Fair" tax idea, but close):

I wouldn't support it. We have, in my view, a taxation system that's much too flat already. If you look at the payroll tax--which is over 12% now, and that applies on the first $80,000 or $90,000 of income--Bill and I pay practically none of that in relation to our income. For the people that work for us, their tax rate in many cases is the same or even higher than my own, since the rate on capital gains and dividends was cut to 15%. What has gone on in this country in recent years is a huge benefit to the very rich and not that much relief to people down below. Frankly, I think that Bill and I should have a higher tax rate on the income we get. We pay less than half the rate that I was paying 25 years ago when I was making a lot less money. They have really taken care of the rich.

-- Fortune

Fortune ran an article this month on this very subject. Had a nice scientific angle to it, rather than just an emotional-political bias. Also illustrates that lovely topic "natural selection" or "evolution" to be perfectly rude.

The gist of it is, if you dump Tamiflu into the environment to save a bunch of chickens, which is what the Asian governments are discussing [not, as you might think, to save a few sidereal infected humans] you're going to destroy Tamiflu's effectiveness. To put this in perfect perspective for you, if THEY push Tamiflu into the environment when the virus hasn't even crossed over to a human pandemic state, the virus will adapt, and by the time it's crossed over and YOU are SICK AND DYING, Tamiflu will have zero affect on the virus, and YOU will have no defense, making your chance of death about 25% based on historical projections. So Monday, when you get to work, look around, and imagine 1/4 of those people not there because some fucking QUACK in ASIA had to save some DUCKS.

Some cultural suffering v. My survival = ROAST DUCK Here's more background material from Foreign Affairs, written by some smart people that may shed additional light on the subject.

I realy do wonder just whats going to happen to the heirs to his fortune... i mean realy... does any one have any clue what the Jnr Gates s are going to do with the worlds largest inheritance...

The couple of articles below will answer probably a majority of questions.

Check the conversation between Gates and Buffet on this topic to see that their views are fairly noble indeed:
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles /0,15114,1117906,00.html

Excerpt on why Buffet thinks Gates is able to manage philanthropy better than Buffet:
"FORTUNE: You have different philosophies about philanthropy, with Bill giving a lot of his money away today and Warren waiting until he dies to give it away. What arguments would you make to the other that your way is the right way?
BUFFETT: Well, I think his way is better. He and Melinda, they're devoting a huge amount of money, terrific brains, and heart to it. That's a great combination. I couldn't have done that when I was in my 40s and added anything meaningful. At my age now, you can argue that a very significant percentage of the money has been made. And I don't need the stock to control Berkshire, so it may make sense to do something very significant before I die."

-----------

While you are it, please see this old (1986) article about Buffet (referenced from the earlier one) titled "Should You Leave It All to the Children":
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,11 16457,00.html

"Susan Buffett, who works in Washington as an administrative assistant to the editor of U.S. News & World Report and is married to a public interest lawyer, admits her father's position is tough to live with. 'My dad is one of the most honest, principled, good guys I know,' she says. 'And I basically agree with him. But it's sort of strange when you know most parents want to buy things for their kids and all you need is a small sum of money --to fix up the kitchen, not to go to the beach for six months. He won't give it to us on principle. All my life my father has been teaching us. Well, I feel I've learned the lesson. At a certain point you can stop.'"

S

I realy do wonder just whats going to happen to the heirs to his fortune... i mean realy... does any one have any clue what the Jnr Gates s are going to do with the worlds largest inheritance...

The couple of articles below will answer probably a majority of questions.

Check the conversation between Gates and Buffet on this topic to see that their views are fairly noble indeed:
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles /0,15114,1117906,00.html

Excerpt on why Buffet thinks Gates is able to manage philanthropy better than Buffet:
"FORTUNE: You have different philosophies about philanthropy, with Bill giving a lot of his money away today and Warren waiting until he dies to give it away. What arguments would you make to the other that your way is the right way?
BUFFETT: Well, I think his way is better. He and Melinda, they're devoting a huge amount of money, terrific brains, and heart to it. That's a great combination. I couldn't have done that when I was in my 40s and added anything meaningful. At my age now, you can argue that a very significant percentage of the money has been made. And I don't need the stock to control Berkshire, so it may make sense to do something very significant before I die."

-----------

While you are it, please see this old (1986) article about Buffet (referenced from the earlier one) titled "Should You Leave It All to the Children":
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,11 16457,00.html

"Susan Buffett, who works in Washington as an administrative assistant to the editor of U.S. News & World Report and is married to a public interest lawyer, admits her father's position is tough to live with. 'My dad is one of the most honest, principled, good guys I know,' she says. 'And I basically agree with him. But it's sort of strange when you know most parents want to buy things for their kids and all you need is a small sum of money --to fix up the kitchen, not to go to the beach for six months. He won't give it to us on principle. All my life my father has been teaching us. Well, I feel I've learned the lesson. At a certain point you can stop.'"

S

This article was up on /. a few weeks ago, but seeing this healine, it's probably good to relink for those interested

The Law of Unintended Consequences

Bill Gates is a paranoid loser, that's why. He's got more than enough money. He's got more than enough power. But he still let's other people's excellence bother him. Ha ha ha, he'll never be happy and that is what a loser is.

Apple is a Fortune 500 Company.

In fact, they are the 263rd largest company in America by Revenues. In 2004, they made over $8 billion in revenues last year.

In comparison, Gateway is ranked #495 with over $3b in revenue.

While Microsoft is larger, #41, with over $36b in revenue, it isn't this massive comparison. Microsoft isn't the largest or most powerful company in America, and they aren't even the most powerful or largest in the Computer Industry (IBM, HP, and Dell are all larger companies).

People treat Apple like it's this little company in a garage, but it's a large company, one of the 300 largest in America, with a market cap in excess of $43 BILLION dollars.

Microsoft is in fact a monopolist with those higher levels of profits, but Apple is NOT small, stop treating them as such.

In comparison, Red Hat's capitalization is under $3b, and is treated like a large bully on Slashdot, while Apple at nearly 15 times the value and a larger company is treated like it's still Steve Jobs and Woz in a garage.

I love my Powerbook, I have 15 Macs in my small business, but Apple isn't a small company and should be held to task for its failures.

BTW: at $36b in revenue compared to $8b in revenue, Microsoft isn't even ONE order of magnitude larger than Apple, and both have influences in society in different ways, hardly orders of magnitude different.

Alex

Apple is a Fortune 500 Company.

In fact, they are the 263rd largest company in America by Revenues. In 2004, they made over $8 billion in revenues last year.

In comparison, Gateway is ranked #495 with over $3b in revenue.

While Microsoft is larger, #41, with over $36b in revenue, it isn't this massive comparison. Microsoft isn't the largest or most powerful company in America, and they aren't even the most powerful or largest in the Computer Industry (IBM, HP, and Dell are all larger companies).

People treat Apple like it's this little company in a garage, but it's a large company, one of the 300 largest in America, with a market cap in excess of $43 BILLION dollars.

Microsoft is in fact a monopolist with those higher levels of profits, but Apple is NOT small, stop treating them as such.

In comparison, Red Hat's capitalization is under $3b, and is treated like a large bully on Slashdot, while Apple at nearly 15 times the value and a larger company is treated like it's still Steve Jobs and Woz in a garage.

I love my Powerbook, I have 15 Macs in my small business, but Apple isn't a small company and should be held to task for its failures.

BTW: at $36b in revenue compared to $8b in revenue, Microsoft isn't even ONE order of magnitude larger than Apple, and both have influences in society in different ways, hardly orders of magnitude different.

Alex

Apple is a Fortune 500 Company.

In fact, they are the 263rd largest company in America by Revenues. In 2004, they made over $8 billion in revenues last year.

In comparison, Gateway is ranked #495 with over $3b in revenue.

While Microsoft is larger, #41, with over $36b in revenue, it isn't this massive comparison. Microsoft isn't the largest or most powerful company in America, and they aren't even the most powerful or largest in the Computer Industry (IBM, HP, and Dell are all larger companies).

People treat Apple like it's this little company in a garage, but it's a large company, one of the 300 largest in America, with a market cap in excess of $43 BILLION dollars.

Microsoft is in fact a monopolist with those higher levels of profits, but Apple is NOT small, stop treating them as such.

In comparison, Red Hat's capitalization is under $3b, and is treated like a large bully on Slashdot, while Apple at nearly 15 times the value and a larger company is treated like it's still Steve Jobs and Woz in a garage.

I love my Powerbook, I have 15 Macs in my small business, but Apple isn't a small company and should be held to task for its failures.

BTW: at $36b in revenue compared to $8b in revenue, Microsoft isn't even ONE order of magnitude larger than Apple, and both have influences in society in different ways, hardly orders of magnitude different.

Alex

Criteria? Try "criterion," singular. The only metric they cited about "impact on research" is a really crappy one: "While the number of journal articles produced by American researchers has risen slightly since 1988, the rest of the world has raced ahead (see chart)."

pff .. "As a result, Chinese students practically flee to the US after completing university."

You are believing wrong things.

from the http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,10 81269-1,00.html

"...A worrisome sign is that the brightest students from many Asian countries are staying home to get their Ph.D.s rather than coming to America, as they did in rising numbers until the mid-1990s..."

"...Perhaps worse, those who still come to America for their Ph.D.s--arguably the best of the best--are returning home in increasing numbers. In economies like China's or India's, growing two or three times faster than America's, elite students see huge opportunities. Even foreign nationals well established in the U.S. are heading home. "Many of my friends are going back," says professor Godwin Wong of Berkeley's Haas School of Business. "They're leaving big corporate jobs here because they can make more money in China."

i wish i would have learned chinese..

I found the article online here.

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles /0,15114,1050065-1,00.html

Thanks for the lead... Here are some interesting snips...

-----
Gates says that when Microsoft is done integrating search into future versions of Windows and Office, the world will look back at the way we are now "Googling" for stuff on the Internet and laugh. "The idea that you type in these words [in the search box] that aren't sentences and you don't get any answers--you just get back all these things you have to click on--that is so antiquated," he says, later adding, "We need to take search way beyond how people think of it today and just have it be naturally available, based on the task they want to do." For example, if you wanted to look up a factoid while you were writing a document, you might search for it without ever leaving Word.
-----
In spring 2003, Payne pitched Gates on buying Overture, a move that would have given Microsoft search engine technology out of AltaVista as well as an advertising business that was generating huge profits. But Gates shot the plan down, convinced that Microsoft could do a better job for less money on its own. Instead, Yahoo bought Overture, a move that, together with its earlier purchase of Inktomi, enabled it to catapult itself successfully into the search game in a year.
-----
In fall 2003, Microsoft briefly considered buying Google, only to realize that even if Brin, Page, and their board could have been persuaded to sell--which seemed unlikely--Microsoft would have been left to explain to the world why it was now running a search engine built entirely on Linux instead of Windows.
-----
Privately, Google's executives understand exactly the impact they are having on Gates and his team. They project a carefree image in part because it makes business sense. One blunder by Netscape was that it let Andreessen tell the world how he intended to put Microsoft out of business. Count on Google not to repeat that mistake.
-----

That last part seems to be only a theory that the reporter came up with, a pretty valid one, but just not one with any factual support.

Anyway a very worthwhile article.

Also, take the recent big articles in New York Times and Fortune, calling out for MORE subsidizing of fundamental technology, because corporations can't develop it themselves. It's so costly and unprofitable, the public must subsidize the costs and risk, so private companies can privatize the profit.

Normally it's not widely admitted, except when politicians like Bush start shifting the subsidies around, making enemies.

Protectionism is just a tool. Whether it's useful (and for whom) depends on the situation.

swilden writers, "and how many companies *aren't* smaller?"

Now that it an easy question. There are 9 companies that aren't smaller than IBM in the US alone. :)

In 2005, IBM's Fortune 500 Rank was 10, meaning 9 companies exceeded them in size. In 2004 they were number 9... they gotta watch out.

It isn't just IBM that is HUGE. HP, through merger mania is #11, and tiny little direct sales PC only Dell is even ranked #28... Note I say Tiny because Dell had under $50b in revenues, and IBM had almost $100b... IBM despite spinning off and selling division after division is twice the size of Dell. However, while Dell shot up the list, Apple is growing nicely and is up to rank 263, but with just over $8 in Revenues.

However, in reality, there are MANY companies that are larger than IBM. IBM is only #20 on the Global 500 rank...

For comparison, the almighty Microsoft, that Slashdot seems to be under the mistaken impression is the largest and most powerful company in the world, only clocks in at #41 in the Fortune 500 list (and Intel is #50), and at #127.

What does this mean? Note very much... :)

OTOH, IBM is HUGE, MASSIVE, GIANT. Despite massive spin-offs, they are a $100b company. Microsoft is a minor player in comparison at $36b, although is HUGELY profitable... But, for comparison, niche player Apple is over 1/5th the size of Microsoft, so it's not the minor player everyone treats them as.

Alex

swilden writers, "and how many companies *aren't* smaller?"

Now that it an easy question. There are 9 companies that aren't smaller than IBM in the US alone. :)

In 2005, IBM's Fortune 500 Rank was 10, meaning 9 companies exceeded them in size. In 2004 they were number 9... they gotta watch out.

It isn't just IBM that is HUGE. HP, through merger mania is #11, and tiny little direct sales PC only Dell is even ranked #28... Note I say Tiny because Dell had under $50b in revenues, and IBM had almost $100b... IBM despite spinning off and selling division after division is twice the size of Dell. However, while Dell shot up the list, Apple is growing nicely and is up to rank 263, but with just over $8 in Revenues.

However, in reality, there are MANY companies that are larger than IBM. IBM is only #20 on the Global 500 rank...

For comparison, the almighty Microsoft, that Slashdot seems to be under the mistaken impression is the largest and most powerful company in the world, only clocks in at #41 in the Fortune 500 list (and Intel is #50), and at #127.

What does this mean? Note very much... :)

OTOH, IBM is HUGE, MASSIVE, GIANT. Despite massive spin-offs, they are a $100b company. Microsoft is a minor player in comparison at $36b, although is HUGELY profitable... But, for comparison, niche player Apple is over 1/5th the size of Microsoft, so it's not the minor player everyone treats them as.

Alex

swilden writers, "and how many companies *aren't* smaller?"

Now that it an easy question. There are 9 companies that aren't smaller than IBM in the US alone. :)

In 2005, IBM's Fortune 500 Rank was 10, meaning 9 companies exceeded them in size. In 2004 they were number 9... they gotta watch out.

It isn't just IBM that is HUGE. HP, through merger mania is #11, and tiny little direct sales PC only Dell is even ranked #28... Note I say Tiny because Dell had under $50b in revenues, and IBM had almost $100b... IBM despite spinning off and selling division after division is twice the size of Dell. However, while Dell shot up the list, Apple is growing nicely and is up to rank 263, but with just over $8 in Revenues.

However, in reality, there are MANY companies that are larger than IBM. IBM is only #20 on the Global 500 rank...

For comparison, the almighty Microsoft, that Slashdot seems to be under the mistaken impression is the largest and most powerful company in the world, only clocks in at #41 in the Fortune 500 list (and Intel is #50), and at #127.

What does this mean? Note very much... :)

OTOH, IBM is HUGE, MASSIVE, GIANT. Despite massive spin-offs, they are a $100b company. Microsoft is a minor player in comparison at $36b, although is HUGELY profitable... But, for comparison, niche player Apple is over 1/5th the size of Microsoft, so it's not the minor player everyone treats them as.

Alex

swilden writers, "and how many companies *aren't* smaller?"

Now that it an easy question. There are 9 companies that aren't smaller than IBM in the US alone. :)

In 2005, IBM's Fortune 500 Rank was 10, meaning 9 companies exceeded them in size. In 2004 they were number 9... they gotta watch out.

It isn't just IBM that is HUGE. HP, through merger mania is #11, and tiny little direct sales PC only Dell is even ranked #28... Note I say Tiny because Dell had under $50b in revenues, and IBM had almost $100b... IBM despite spinning off and selling division after division is twice the size of Dell. However, while Dell shot up the list, Apple is growing nicely and is up to rank 263, but with just over $8 in Revenues.

However, in reality, there are MANY companies that are larger than IBM. IBM is only #20 on the Global 500 rank...

For comparison, the almighty Microsoft, that Slashdot seems to be under the mistaken impression is the largest and most powerful company in the world, only clocks in at #41 in the Fortune 500 list (and Intel is #50), and at #127.

What does this mean? Note very much... :)

OTOH, IBM is HUGE, MASSIVE, GIANT. Despite massive spin-offs, they are a $100b company. Microsoft is a minor player in comparison at $36b, although is HUGELY profitable... But, for comparison, niche player Apple is over 1/5th the size of Microsoft, so it's not the minor player everyone treats them as.

Alex

swilden writers, "and how many companies *aren't* smaller?"

Now that it an easy question. There are 9 companies that aren't smaller than IBM in the US alone. :)

In 2005, IBM's Fortune 500 Rank was 10, meaning 9 companies exceeded them in size. In 2004 they were number 9... they gotta watch out.

It isn't just IBM that is HUGE. HP, through merger mania is #11, and tiny little direct sales PC only Dell is even ranked #28... Note I say Tiny because Dell had under $50b in revenues, and IBM had almost $100b... IBM despite spinning off and selling division after division is twice the size of Dell. However, while Dell shot up the list, Apple is growing nicely and is up to rank 263, but with just over $8 in Revenues.

However, in reality, there are MANY companies that are larger than IBM. IBM is only #20 on the Global 500 rank...

For comparison, the almighty Microsoft, that Slashdot seems to be under the mistaken impression is the largest and most powerful company in the world, only clocks in at #41 in the Fortune 500 list (and Intel is #50), and at #127.

What does this mean? Note very much... :)

OTOH, IBM is HUGE, MASSIVE, GIANT. Despite massive spin-offs, they are a $100b company. Microsoft is a minor player in comparison at $36b, although is HUGELY profitable... But, for comparison, niche player Apple is over 1/5th the size of Microsoft, so it's not the minor player everyone treats them as.

Alex

swilden writers, "and how many companies *aren't* smaller?"

Now that it an easy question. There are 9 companies that aren't smaller than IBM in the US alone. :)

In 2005, IBM's Fortune 500 Rank was 10, meaning 9 companies exceeded them in size. In 2004 they were number 9... they gotta watch out.

It isn't just IBM that is HUGE. HP, through merger mania is #11, and tiny little direct sales PC only Dell is even ranked #28... Note I say Tiny because Dell had under $50b in revenues, and IBM had almost $100b... IBM despite spinning off and selling division after division is twice the size of Dell. However, while Dell shot up the list, Apple is growing nicely and is up to rank 263, but with just over $8 in Revenues.

However, in reality, there are MANY companies that are larger than IBM. IBM is only #20 on the Global 500 rank...

For comparison, the almighty Microsoft, that Slashdot seems to be under the mistaken impression is the largest and most powerful company in the world, only clocks in at #41 in the Fortune 500 list (and Intel is #50), and at #127.

What does this mean? Note very much... :)

OTOH, IBM is HUGE, MASSIVE, GIANT. Despite massive spin-offs, they are a $100b company. Microsoft is a minor player in comparison at $36b, although is HUGELY profitable... But, for comparison, niche player Apple is over 1/5th the size of Microsoft, so it's not the minor player everyone treats them as.

Alex

swilden writers, "and how many companies *aren't* smaller?"

Now that it an easy question. There are 9 companies that aren't smaller than IBM in the US alone. :)

In 2005, IBM's Fortune 500 Rank was 10, meaning 9 companies exceeded them in size. In 2004 they were number 9... they gotta watch out.

It isn't just IBM that is HUGE. HP, through merger mania is #11, and tiny little direct sales PC only Dell is even ranked #28... Note I say Tiny because Dell had under $50b in revenues, and IBM had almost $100b... IBM despite spinning off and selling division after division is twice the size of Dell. However, while Dell shot up the list, Apple is growing nicely and is up to rank 263, but with just over $8 in Revenues.

However, in reality, there are MANY companies that are larger than IBM. IBM is only #20 on the Global 500 rank...

For comparison, the almighty Microsoft, that Slashdot seems to be under the mistaken impression is the largest and most powerful company in the world, only clocks in at #41 in the Fortune 500 list (and Intel is #50), and at #127.

What does this mean? Note very much... :)

OTOH, IBM is HUGE, MASSIVE, GIANT. Despite massive spin-offs, they are a $100b company. Microsoft is a minor player in comparison at $36b, although is HUGELY profitable... But, for comparison, niche player Apple is over 1/5th the size of Microsoft, so it's not the minor player everyone treats them as.

Alex

OK so they have all that but is it *worth* 300$/share, 400$/share? Will you buy a GOOG share for 400$? No matter how good a company may be, there's always a limit on the value of its shares. Google's worth

The taxpayer picks up the costs and risk, while corporations profit.

", the sheer population of Asian countries may allow them to train more scientists and engineers than the U.S. "

China already does produce more engineering graduates than the U.S., by a factor of ten. They also produce produce three times the number of college graduates. See the latest Fortune cover story for details.

Sadder still is that China is also graduating twice the number of engineeers per capita as the U.S. (India isn't far behind in either of these metrics). Before you blame this on offshoring, keep in mind that offshoring has only been a pressing issue for techies in the last four or five years, and economies are slow to change. This is a cultural thing too.

Do you think that any geek who achieves momentary fame should have a job for life? Don't you think an employee should be measured by the value he's contributing now?

When I heard "Alan Kay" I remembered this load of whining. Here's my comment on that.

I have more respect for people who actually get things done, like the Linux kernel contributors, than people who pontificate on the future of OO or whatever. Anyone claiming that HP should keep this guy because of his long-past accomplishments should have his head examined. HP should only retain people who help the company make money and move forward.

I've been in IT since part way thru my military years, and I've switched over to Bioinformatics and am now pursuing a PhD in Economics, since I already have a post-grad certificate in Data Resource Management and don't think IT has any real promise by itself.

Fortune agrees with me that what the US needs are PhDs, and probably not IT ones. You can either get on board a sinking ship, or you can start building a better boat.

Here, try this one. Only one page.

I posted about this before, but fortune.com has never changed their favicon.ico from the default that comes with Netscape Enterprise server. When do you suppose they'll figure it out?

Really interesting, from the article:
The most paranoid people at Microsoft even think "Google Office" is inevitable.

I'm amazed by the stereotypical response here... You are actually creating an antithesis in which to argue your point. For the record, both Windows and Linux have there strengths and weaknesses, and yes one of Linux's greatest strengths is the distribution of its source code & developer base. However, in terms of market share, Windows has Linux beat. The question, that is more intriguing, is why? Why is an OS that is free, not have the largest market share? And unfortunately, the answer is consolidation. M$ is able to control what happens in the Windows "System", because it is closed (see System Theory.

In chaos theory, a butterfly that beats it's wings creates a tidal wave thousands of miles away (see Butterfly Effect), this is the way of the Linux "System", any number of develops beating there wings in order to contribute to the whole, it's an open system.

The best way for Linux development to complete with Windows is for business transactions (like with Mandriva and Lycoris) to occur.

One last thought, don't be blinded by and idealist views of Open Source and Closed Source. Although, Open Source is generally good, it's not above its deviousness. Try search for "google hiring Microsoft executives" in Google and see what the first listing is. Or take a look at this. Not to nock Google, I love it....my intention is to point out a major proponent of Open Source, doing whatever it takes to complete.

This whole dance has been strange. There is still this thread dangling from Steve Jobs telling Fortune Magazine that PC vendors want Mac OS X, which led to speculation that PC makers might ship PowerPC systems.

What was the point of dropping that hint, at that time, in that way, if Apple really doesn't plan to license Mac OS X to other PC vendors?

Yea, too bad one of these HD discs won't be in some really desirable machine, like a super-cool fancy new console game machine or something. Oh, wait...

Between this, and the comments in the Gates interview the other day, I'm thinking that MS is obsessing over Google lately. My guess is they sent a few folks over to Google pitch one of their "embrace and extend" tactics and were laughed out of the office.

Fortune has an interesting article about why Google scares Microsoft.

One of the more interesting items is that Bill was looking through Google's want ads, and they were looking for the exact same type of people Microsoft is. In fact many have jumped ship. It goes into some detail over why they are afraid of the Google model, and the difficulties they have had in building a Google-killer.

Microsoft has certainly managed to turn it's battleship around and demolish competitors (Netscape), and perhaps that's possible here, with their 34 Billion in cash, however I think the main difficulty will be that Google too is making money. And they aren't standing still.

Actually, they haven't been wasting any money developing IE, they've let it languish. They've only just recently reassembled a team to build a new version. Seems they are being attacked on all fronts, but competition is what Bill does best.

Besides, Microsoft has always been a build or buy company, that's one of the ways they achieve their goal of everybody using Microsoft software, by controlling the standards. If someone else builds the software, that's harder to do. If MS had been more on the ball as far as the internet, so that instead of everybody starting out writing perl scripts to Oracle databases on Sun servers, and instead, with the desktop locked up, and everybody writing ASP pages, requiring MS standard browsers, I think the server market today would be far different.

There's an interesting article from Fortune on the reasoning behind MS's strategy. It discusses Microsoft's efforts to build a Google killer, and how Google is keeping nimbly ahead of them.

Microsoft was already months into a massive project aimed at taking down Google when the truth began to dawn on Bill Gates. It was December 2003. He was poking around on the Google company website and came across a help-wanted page with descriptions of all the open jobs at Google. Why, he wondered, were the qualifications for so many of them identical to Microsoft job specs...

There was an FORTUNE Magazine article run yesterday about why Google scares Microsoft which mentioned this. Here's a quote:

"Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and CEO Eric Schmidt all say that any talk about supplanting Microsoft is ludicrous. But the idea that Google will one day marginalize Microsoft's operating system and bypass Windows applications is already starting to become reality. The most paranoid people at Microsoft even think "Google Office" is inevitable."

No, I don't think Google is making an OS. They don't HAVE to. Google has become so ubiquitous that they could offer an Office replacement straight from their servers, and any computer with an internet connection would be able to run it - Windows, Mac, Linux, PDA, whatever - and you could store and transfer your files using a Gmail account.

Pretty exciting, when you think about it. Let's cross our fingers.

You mean all that innovation that comes from 1-Click software patents, the Happy Birthday song, Winnie the Pooh, etc.

If you look at the Constitution, copyright covers: "[o]nly the writings and discoveries of authors and inventors...and then only to the end of promoting science and the useful arts."

Original ideas should not become commodities that are transferred to purchasers and assignees - which is the problem with all the examples above.

Longhorn does copy some features of Tiger. Even their "It Just Works" mantra is ripped from OS X Switch campaign that Apple launched years ago. One of the main criticisms I had with Gates and Co is that for years they tout all these "innovations" that Windows brings but in reality many of the innovations were either copied or bought from others.

Even Microsoft is saying that one of the new features in LongHorn will be previews, just like we've had on other operating systems.

This is what you wrote:

Have any of you people even used Windows in 15 years?

Not only did thumbnails provide a 'miniture' page view of HTML pages, Word Documents, and almost any Document file format.

... and here is what Microsoft says about the new features in Longhorn, taken from details revealed by Jim Allchin, Microsoft's grpup VP for platforms: http://www.fortune.com/fortune/fastforward/0,15704 ,1052600,00.html

Longhorn doesn't just show you an icon for a document, for example, but rather an itsy-bitsy picture of the first page. If you have a really good monitor--and eyesight--you could even read the numbers in that spreadsheet.

From what you said, it's obvious that you can't even tell the difference between an application-drawn file selector dialog box and a system utility file browser. You've a poser, not a coder. Not even a real user.

Now, on to debunking some more of your drivel:

Not all open source coders would compare to the level of training and education the Microsoft team of developers could and potential do get. Unfortunately many Open Source coders are average joes that make code that gets by, has no clue about interoperability, UI, or ease of use.

Sounds more like you're talking about Microsoft. Try "Microsoft has no clue about interoperability, UI, or ease of use". I mean, come on, trying to hold up Microsoft as a paragon of interopeability is brain-dead. They aren't even interoperable with themselves. UI - well, we've had tabbed browsers, multi-page and multi-depth desktops, translucent menus, and the ability to run programs on one system and interact with them on another, even through the internet, as standard equipment. Microsoft still can't do any of this right.

This is EXACTLY why I am standing on a soapbox and trying to tell all of the average joe programmers in the open source world, along with the highly trained and skilled developers in the open source world, DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE Microsoft in what they HAVE done or COULD do - EVER!

In the past we've over-estimated Microsofts abilities time and again. Those days are long gone, now. We know that Microsofts' corporate culture doesn't allow them to admit to mistakes, doesn't allow them to be innovative, etc.

The only reason people use Windows or Office is because they have to - not because they want to. Most people get it pre-installed. Its not like they had much of a choice.

So if you want to bury your head in the sand and say, Oh everything Microsoft has done is crap or could do is crap, then you are only fooling yourself with your own ignore from pride.

So name something Microsoft did in, say, the last decade, that wasn't "situation normal - all fucked up". Windows 95, which was supposed to be a "true 32-bit multitasking OS that viruses won't be able to run on"? 98, aka the Win95 bug fix? Millenium - the OS for the new millenium, which people looked for bootleg copies of 98 so they could downgrade? XP - which has the distinction of having the most zombie PCs in the world? The various Office releases, which, when they break their files, you have to open them up in OpenOffice and resave them? Internet Exploder?

Oh, I know - you must be referring to Clippy and Bob!

Sheesh, get with the program. The Bitch from Redmond has to astroturf, lie, bully, and even then they can't keep up. The one thing I was worried about was that the courts would have forced Microsoft to reinvent itself by breaking it up. I was SO glad that didn't happen. It gave linux the necessary breathing space

Does anyone else find it funny that the Fortune.com web site has a Netscape favicon installed? Did someone forget to change the default favicon.ico file from Netscape Enterprise Server 4.1?

Welcome to My Search History!?????

I, for one, welcome our new Internet overlords.

Nor was this story remarkable by Loomis' standards. She covered her own corporate employer, AOL Time Warner, for several years and her reports were characterized by withering sarcasm in reviewing their strategies, finances, and internal politics.

Fiorina may no longer be one of the most powerful women in American business, but Loomis still is.

• Dell is a smart company that runs a lean & mean R&D machine. They seemingly put a lot of thought into new product introduction as well as price point. These folks are going to be hellish successful for a long time. It doesn't really matter much what product they are putting out, they seem to do it well. Hate 'em or love 'em, you gotta admire them.

Not long after, Bill Gates did an interview with Gizmodo. Coincidence? (Gizmodo was not featured in the FORTUNE article - Engadget and Microsoft's own Bob Scoble were).