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I, Cringely On A Momentous Week
rocketjam writes "Robert X. Cringley offers his take on three recent high-tech occurrences, saying they add up to an 'inflection point' that will change the landscape of the personal computer, video game, and electronic entertainment businesses forever. He briefly points out that Bill Gates' revelation that the next-gen XBox will offer music and movie playing capabilities as well as web-surfing will put MS into direct competition with its hardware OEM customers. He also touches on Yahoo's new music service and Apple's rumored movie download service. The meat of the article though is his take on the significance of Google's Web Accelerator. He says, 'If surfing can be doubled in speed for nothing, of course nearly everyone will go for it', the upshot of which is that AOL, MSN and Earthlink lose their relevancy. From this point more speculation on the implications of Google's success in this endeavor ensues."
I work at Microsoft as do several of my friends. A couple work on the XBOX 360 and told me something over beer that really struck me as great marketting. Microsoft has purposely designed this box to be easy to break and mod-chip. The reason? Sales. They can go to game design houses and say "We sold X million units. You should design for us." and they will. Very much as in how they don't care much about the home pirate as they know it gives them mindshare.
I'm not breaking an NDA here as I'm not actually on the dev team.
Can we please stop this crap cliche phrasing?! I know it works for the computer-not-so-literate, but stop this "We will blow your mind for $2.50" and just advertise real-life broadband connections.
But I guess I am just a fool.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
'If surfing can be doubled in speed for nothing, of course nearly everyone will go for it',
And if Google gave away free money, of course nearly everyone will go for it. But Google aren't giving away free money, and they have no hope of simply doubling the speed of surfing just with software.
the upshot of which is that AOL, MSN and Earthlink lose their relevancy.
Or they could... what's that word? Oh yeah, compete.
ASOTV, it's been a good ride, but all good things must come to an end. Cringley used you as his source of insider info in this article. This would normally mean that you are in trouble, but you have been so blithe about revealing company strategy (and philosophy, and personal opinion of SJ, etc) that you are clearly not worried about job security. I wonder why? Who at Apple is not worried about job security? I do not think you are Steve Jobs. In any case, some big eyes are now turned in your direction, and you should probably be more tight-lipped. But thanks for some great posts!
Yeah, and we all know that, just like the XBox 360, Apple's profit strategy also relies pretty much entirely on licensed software sales, 20 million identical units, decreased mass production costs over a 5-year product cycle, and... oh, wait.
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
People buy from us because they DON'T want to have to deal with companies like Dell, HP, Compaq and the like. They also have a love hate relationship with Microsoft. They hate the company, but they also love having a computer. They already know the shoddy software microsoft puts out.
Personally, this just reinforces my opinions of late of the complete end of sales with Microsoft products. If a "partner" decides to go into direct competition, then they cease to be a valid partner. Linux is gaining mindshare and market share. Windows has become the product every wants to get rid of but is afraid they can't.
Hence forth a new business model for any OEM is to offer Linux training and products. Free of charge or very low cost. Let's show MS that they can't piss on the army of people who help put them where they are by even supporting their crap. If it wasn't for places like mine all over the US, how would MS get their stuff repaired? You know full well they won't work with someone over the phone to resolve issues. That will just take more value away from their products. And of course the huge OEMs answer is always "use the restore CD" and fail to mention that data will be lost.
Microsoft won't be in competition with the OEMs until they port Office to the XBox 360. Same goes for all the other existing x86 software and backwards compatability. Until then that is all just fluff to make the XBox look better than the competition (Playstation). Besides, they said all the same things about the XBox last time as well. Every time a new gaming console comes out we have to hear about how it brings the power of ten thousand supercomputers into your living room.
Michael
Actually they have more in common than that. Xbox 360 software currently runs on Power Mac G5s.
Well, it is already clear that they are NOT PowerPC cores. The hardware specifications state that they are BASED on PowerPC, so you can't assume identical clock-for-clock performance. Most likely the hardware in the XBOX360 will be much more powerful than anything below high-end Macs (that will be 2x2.7 at that time, if I'm correct) Somehow it doesn't really matter, because Apple buyers generally aren't going to care if their computer takes 5" more to convert an MP3. Playing games is another area (not a strong Apple point, traditionally)
Also, do note that this thing has the cooling capacity to match: vacuum sealed water cooling (not sure of the exact details, though).
P.
This guy is talking nonsense, even if you don't include the "turning point" BS.
If you haven't read the article he suggests that Microsoft is trying to enter the Personal Computer buesiness. Obviously, this guy doesn't get it.
Although it might not last for long, there is still a distinction between the PC market and the console market. Microsoft probably wants in the long run that consoles will become PCs (That would explain the XBOX's HD). Ofcourse as soon as those consoles become PCs they will be running Windows, and that's Microsoft's reason for getting to the console market. If they just let other company's (i.e Sony) lead the console market, Microsof's vision of Windows-running consoles might not happen.
Microsoft does not want to compete in PC manufacturing, a market it has no experience and no leverage in, just for the heck of it, especialy when they have zero chance of dominating it.
At that point, you'll buy your PC from Google, use Google as your ISP, surf an Internet that is really the Google cache,
(A) Right about here the DOJ decides to take action...
be fed ads and sold content from Google servers. Its a GoogleWorld that requires no AOL, no Microsoft, no Intel, no HP or Dell -- only Google, cable companies, telephone companies, users, and of course advertisers and web page producers.
Doubtful because of (A).
It's surprising to me that he didn't mention the comment of the week; that from Gates about mobile phone making iPods obsolete. It was an important observation, since it is already happening. My phone serves as an MP3 player already. While it doesn't have the capacity of the iPod (yet), who cares... It has an antenna, has considerably more functionality, and I Always-Have-It-With-Me(TM)
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
The new Xbox has several processors, 512MB RAM, a good graphics card, a hard drive, HD video quality, network connectivity, and is supposedly easily moddable. Eventually someone is going to get Windows or Linux to run on this and run WELL. When that happens, you'll be able to buy a highly capable PC for $300. An interesting side effect of this, is that Microsoft has to sell these things at a loss, in order to remain competitive to Sony and Nintendo. Therefore, this might be bad for their profits.
Well, thanks for that pointless reply.
The xbox 360 processor is most definitely a PPC chip, it just isn't as fast a 970. With a comparable video card, a dual 2.7ghz PowerMac will destroy the 360.
The 360 is using stripped down PPC cores. The nightmare for developers is having to hand tune code to make up for all the missing out of order execution logic found in normal desktop chips like the 970 series. I pity the developers who are working on xbox360 projects.
By the time the 360 hits the shelves later this year PowerMac will put it to shame. And forget about being competitive with the PS3 and Revolution early next year.
Apple wouldn't use the chip in the Xbox 360 if IBM was giving them away for free.
Microsoft isn't using these chips because they want to. They are stuck with the hot and un-competitive x86 chips and not having the technology and expertise to create something competitive with Cell.
So it looks like they just took whatever IBM had sitting around for cheap...MS management isn't exactly pleased with the 3.5 billion they wasted last time.
'If surfing can be doubled in speed for nothing, of course nearly everyone will go for it', the upshot of which is that AOL, MSN and Earthlink lose their relevancy.
Er, maybe not. For a start, the GWA doesn't "double" surfing speed. Second, with current bandwidth, I doubt most people would notice or care much about "double" text-loading speeds (GWA doesn't get that sort of compression on images, MP3s, etc, obviously). Third, it's not complex technology. People have been developing (and using) this crap for ages. It's not as if Google have cracked cheap, in-your-house nuclear fusion.
Load Time for 2668 Pages
Without Google Web Accelerator: 1.9 hrs
With Google Web Accelerator: 1.5 hrs
that is for a european user with a pIV 2.4 and 1 gig ram on a 3mbit dsl line.
i case you're asking yourself "how are the numbers calculated": Performance statistics are estimated by testing a percentage of requested pages.
IAAL
comes from the broadcast mindset. "We are in control, you will consume."
...
You want a revolution the likes of which will blow away the $ figures of the early dot bomb era?
Increase the frigging upload speeds.
With 5mbit up, 'distributed distribution' becomes practical. Everyone will be able to relay multiple channels and a cornucopia of virtual of virtual networks will evolve.
You want your friggin inflection Cringer? It's the congruence of cheap, quality, direct to video recording coupled with inexpensive editing tools. It's TV by and for the masses.
Right now there's a smattering of porn and music swapping going on but the friggin upstream bandwidth limitations have a stranglehold on the emergence of distributed video networks. Imagine when you can make a 'film' of something that interests you, distribute it for FREE(well for $50/month) to those who would are interested. It's the WWW all over again but in video!
I am working on an novel approach to making the offerings easy to find, in the transition, but in the end, when bidirectional high speed access is available, the TIVO model will work best. A sort of AI that looks for stuff that's liek what you like.
No, everyone won't become an author, director, or producer, but the stuff will have a route to viewers.
MPAA and those who control distribution are fear this day like the fucking plague. That's why we are seeing consolidation of IP traffic control with those who wish to control distribution, Namely the cable companies and the telcos. They are of the broadcast mindset. An acto of congress would change the whole paradigm of video distribution but it would not put these A$$holes out of business. They just don't see it. Hell, the slick, LCD based, vdeo will always hold the largest audience. But, it will have to be a hell of a lot better than it is now, to compete with what could be...
Don;t tell me it's a technological problem, I KNOW how DOCSIS 2 works and the costs involved. The problem is FEAR of losing control on behalf of
Well I already said that.
Googles cache? Well if they can handle the bandwidth, they are on the right track, and I agree with Mr Cringle. Otherwise, it's just so much fluff and IMO there is no way they can generate the return to pay for it in a few to many network.
One problem that any search engine has is getting URLs.
How do you index URLs? Simple: you start someplace and spider out from there.
What if people are going directly to unlinked, or unindexable pages?
Well heck, you stick something in the way so you see everyplace they go.
Simple. GWA is just a way for Google to get a lead on the "dark web," just like the google toolbar. From your point of view, it speeds stuff up somewhat. That's it!
The hd is removable. The hackers can have one hard drive for their modded xbox, and one hard drive for their LIVE play.
Um, I kind of share your sentiment, but look at Cisco... If you like, we're not surfing the web, but passing through the Cisco cyberway. No problem so far...
I think, therefore I am...I think.