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Thousands of IT people around the world are loosing their jobs as software and computer needs are all hosted in some remote location by application service providers. "We'd love to keep them around", said the CEO of a major Fortune 500 company, "but it's really not that difficult to reboot my little black box that gives me access to everything I need".

I heard Scott McNealy speak last summer and he was totally gung ho about this exact idea, in nearly those exact words. Except what did he call it, um, "Utility computing". The theory is that upkeep on your computers should be something as impersonal and effortless as paying your electricity bill, and should be managed the same way, you should take one step beyond outsourcing your IT department into outsourcing the insides of the computers themselves. Because if you don't have anything running locally, you don't need a local IT department, right? This wasn't even about thin clients, so much; by McNealy's reckoning, you could do this today, nearly. He was talking about how he wished he could shut down Sun's internal mail servers, stop having to go to the bother of maintaining all the email clients and such across all the operating systems Sun internally supports, and just sign all his employees up for Yahoo Mail or something.

The reason Sun likes the idea of all software being reduced to a service provided by remote application providers is because once that happens, they can try to sell Sun hardware to the application providers.

Right. You won't *have* to buy new hardware for Vista either, provided you don't intend to use many of Vista's features. This has been documented several times already.

word processing

drawing

page layout

print to cheap color printer
3) web connection
4) play lightweight games - most non-geeks use game consoles for "real" games

Even better if it were "instant-on/restore-to-default-state-on-power-on" like the old Commodore 64 or Cybersource's Linux-based Safe Internet Computer

A manufacturing-cost-reduced Pentium-1 based computer running Linux, MS-Windows NT Workstation, or MS-Windows 98 could do all of these things. Sadly, viruses and exploits are a crippling threat on the no-longer-maintained MS platforms.

Hmm, here's a thought:
Mod one of those open-source Linksys routers to include a web browser and some way to run that browser remotely - VNC, X, faked MS-Windows Terminal Server, java-in-a-web-browser, it doesn't matter, then block all direct traffic between the LAN and the internet. *Poof* instant "browsing appliance" and ultra-secure firewall all in one. Of course, you'd lose bookmarking, printing, and saving of web pages, but in some environments that would be a plus. Hmm, combine this with an old 486 running NT for schoolwork and you've got a nice, cheap system.

Note to patent hoarders: It's obvious to those skilled in the art HOW to do the above, it's just a bit of work.

It's quite amazing what people were predicting back in the year 2000, and what a contrast is from now.

There's a particlarly interesting old news article here.My favorite part is:
By 2004, IT professionals will interview employers so stringently that 40 per cent of employers will substantially miss recruitment goals

(link was taken from Brainbox article)

SCO said its rights do not depend on copyrights and patents, but rather on a contractual relationship with IBM. "Copyrights and patents are protection against strangers," SCO said. "Contracts are what you use against parties you have relationships with. From a legal standpoint, contracts end up being far stronger than anything you could do with copyrights.

reference

So EV1 is at far greater risk from SCO now than before.

Ok how about just perjury alone. Forged video evidence was also presented in the anti-trust trial in the U.S.

Ok how about the court's decision, upheld on appeal, that the company used illegal methods to maintain a desktop monopoly?

There are also the false and misleading advertising, against palm, novell, and regarding MS-Passport. MS-Passport cannot be secure even in theory, so any claims were clearly known to be falsehoods. And since MS-Office 2003 is tied into that, expect more legal action.

Then there have been a series of fines regarding patent infringements. The most recent being from SPX.

Where I come from, all that's called lying or stealing.

Too few articles mention all three and articles mostly fall into one of two categories: Usually the articles praise Mozilla and Opera for features, usability, flexibility, support of standards, stability, security and multi-plaform support. Or they go on about the problems specific to MSIE, while implying that MSIE is the alpha and omega of web browsers, and finish by giving the bad advice to sit still and obediently wait to buy the next upgrade, service pack, bug fix for MSIE. At the same time, users and administrators tied to MSIE are prevented from learning unresolved problems. There are also further costs if company data, such as customer lists, are compromised as a result.

Clearly censorship is not the optimal long term nor even short term solution. IT staff can save time and money now by migrating their users to Mozilla and Opera.

Stand in line buddy. It's crap like this that makes me ashamed to be associated with the IT industry. What makes it even worse is that the shareholders don't give a rat's as long as it keeps the cash rolling in.

Slight off topic, but we haven't had a SCO story for a couple of days:

Next month, SCO will tell companies that use or distribute Linux, such as Red Hat Inc., that they need to buy a license, says McBride

"SCO Group will publicly discuss potential solutions" ... "expected to hold a news conference 9 July": "It's unclear what SCO Group has in mind, but compensation and prevention of future code misuse are possibilities"

Darl McBride is flying over to Japan to try and put his case to the CE Linux Forum (CELF). This story also has some further comments by analysts, which give additional interesting hints about the allegedly infringing code.

just a couple more tidbits - yesterday corel announced that the next version of WordPerfect Office 11 will ship in April, at least two months ahead of Microsoft Office 2003, and there was also an eWeek story about Microsoft Office embracing XML.

A Google new search reveals all sorts of interesting articles, including some cases where people were busted.

And this little gem:

The group said that last week's new piracy-fighting proposal from the European Commission is "inadequate in view of the magnitude of the piracy problem and fails to introduce urgently needed measures to hold back the epidemic of counterfeiting." The group claims that in Europe, film, video, music, business and leisure software industries alone suffer losses in excess of EUR4.5 billion annually due to piracy.

Microsoft puts Longhorn on the desktop, Blackcomb on the server

By Paul Thurrott, Windows for Professionals
Wednesday, 13 November 2002

Microsoft has confirmed rumours that its next Windows release, code-named Longhorn, will be a desktop OS only, and not a synchronized release including both desktop and server versions as originally planned.
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Likewise, the Windows release following Longhorn, code-named Blackcomb, will be server-only. While the company has not announced an official release date for Longhorn, the time table for its release hasn't changed, Microsoft said. This means Longhorn will arrive in 2004 or 2005, depending on which Microsoft official you believe.

"Customer requirements dictate our release strategies and timing for Windows products," a Microsoft spokesperson said.

"Customers have asked that we map our server releases more closely to how they can consume and implement advances and innovations we deliver. Given the deployment cycles and budgeting that customers work through, and given the significant customer interest in our upcoming release of Windows .NET Server 2003, we have determined that another major release of Windows Server in the Longhorn client timeframe does not meet the needs of most of our customers.

âoeAnother major release of Windows Server will follow Windows .NET Server 2003; it is code named Blackcomb. We do not have a firm release date at this time, [but] Microsoft will determine a release timeframe based on what customers tell us they require."

Though details are still unclear, Longhorn will include a new 3D-based user interface with interactive video, a SQL Server-based file system called Windows Future Storage (WinFS), and a MSN 8-like Start Menu addition called the Sidebar.

Telstra deal + Sun does linux = Telstra does linux

Adobe may be leaving Asian makets but their products won't be... Adobe is just leaving the risk behind. For example, a recent press release said that they chose Lionbridge, which will localize the company's recently released Illustrator 10 graphics software into Japanese, Traditional Chinese and Korean, "based on its ability to provide the Adobe team with improved quality and a more manageable localization process" (see press release) but I think it's simply an operation in risk management: Lionbridge invests the US$750,000 it would cost to produce the Asian versions of Illustrator 10 and then it also pays royalties. If the piracy rate is as high as the Business Software Association thinks it is -- 94 percent -- then Lionbridge takes all the risk while Adobe can only benefit. This meshes with Adobe's official position: "the company remains committed to developing Chinese-language versions of its products, despite comments reportedly made by its chief executive officer last week that Adobe could abandon the market because of software piracy in the region." (see IT World)
-Duke


Additional coverage: Mass High Tech, IT News (Australia)

Yes, you're right. I had forgotten that, but a quick google search yielded this link. In any case, I don't think Corel's complaint had anything to do with MS's unfair business practices, just with RevCan's bid management.

More information available from ;

http://wp.bpc-users.org
http://24.192.20.40/survey.htm
http://bpa.boxen.dhs.org/
http://www.itnews.com.au/story.cfm?id=632
http://www.it.fai rfax.com.au/breaking/19991201/A10364-1999Dec1.html
http://www.newswire.com.au/9912/bighike.h tm
http://www.smh.com.au/news/991 2/02/bizcom/bizcom2.html