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Gates Says "A Lot of Work" Ahead In IT Development
An anonymous reader writes "Bill Gates concluded his last Microsoft-associated public appearance in the EU today with comments about the future of IT. The long-time company head said that there's still a lot of work to be done before Information Technology resources truly come into their own. '"There's another side that is how software is allowing people to be more productive at work. It's the empowerment of these people to do their jobs more effectively." Gates also commented on the potential of the Internet, calling it a "huge democratization tool". But Gates said there is still a long road ahead for tech development. "It's come a long way in the last 30 years but we're not even halfway there with building the systems we need to have."'"
"...and Microsoft is working to bring you the tools YOUR company needs to be competitively productive!"
and those IT guys will have to fix them. Lots of benefit to the economy, I think
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Thanks to all that new software increasing productivity, I can afford to space out at my desk an extra 35%.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
That's a revelation? Isn't that what has been promised continually since day one?
Right before you retire.
I'm sure this has absolutely nothing to do with it.
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
It needs to be said.
There are companies that have still improperly embracing technology to suit their needs, or lack insight into implementing technology.
Chicago is a good market for tons of organizations, schools and business that have any decent foundation in technology to suit their needs.
I'm referring to Chicago, not any of it's suburbs.
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
Frankly don't care what Bill Gates has to say, unless it has to do with growing my business using whatever methods it takes.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I spent all day today tracking down the reason why one of our lab XP machines would only respond with "Access Denied!" to any attempt to log in remotely. A web search produced at least four dozen distinct possibilities from simple sharing settings to obscure security flags you need a team of digital Sherpas to even find
*My* problem turned out to be one of the really obscure ones, and by sheer luck it was the second one I tried or I'd be working this tomorrow as well. The problem with *IT* is that the dominant OS is a deliberately obfuscated pile of week old baboon jism.
I had to use RegEdit last week to make Visio behave the way I wanted to. WTF is that? Is that supposed to be even remotely sane? And this week it's reverted back to its old behavior for no known reason.
The Amiga, Acorn Archimedes, Atari ST and so on were all capable of many of the things that Windows is only recently capable of and yet they were all products of the 1980s. MS has done nothing to advance the state of computing. The resources that are wasted on trying to deal with their proprietary crap would have been better spent elsewhere. Even today with OOXML we are still fighting them while they dig their heels in to slow progress until they are good and ready.
20 years and counting Bill. 20 years. I weep for the state of computing under MS's jackboot.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
He's right. And the main reason is the stuff that his company sells.
A consistent picture in every company that I have seen from the inside, with not a single exception: The Unix (or in some places, the mainframe) department is an order of magnitude more professional than the windos group. The Unix servers run reliable (mostly), while the windos network is always a hassle. I've twice replaced the windos infrastructure for a small team with something non-windos (Solaris once, OS X once) and it worked better, with less maintainance, and more useful features.
By now I doubt it's a coincidence, and I've come down from my former arrogance of simply assuming that windos admins are mostly stupid fuckups who couldn't get a job in real IT. If there's one constant in all the cases you see - namely microsoft software - then doubt as you may but the chances are excellent that that's the reason.
I mostly learned that from the one really good windos admin I had the pleasure of working with. He could make things work. But the amount of trouble he had to go to was astonishing. Since then, I'm sure the problem isn't the admins (though they sometimes add to the problem, as many of them are stupid fuckups who couldn't get a job in real IT), but the crap they're forced to work with.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
"We'll be talking about a computer in the desk in the future."
We've had desks for a long time now with for example a big hole in the middle covered with glass and a computer monitor angled up below it. What I don't need is a computer that is also my desk. Why? Just because we can? I want to be able to upgrade those two things independently. Most people have phones in their bedrooms near their beds, but that doesn't mean we need phones built into beds!
"One of the biggest changes will be how you interact with the device. The devices themselves will get a lot smaller,..."
Make the devices as small as you want, but please keep the UI portion of it sized to, oh, I don't know, maybe the operator? (Cell phone "keyboards", I'm looking at you.)
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
My $0.02 AU, Ignore at will.
Me failed English...
FreeBSD over Linux. If my comments seem odd, this may explain...
The reason we build good bridges is because there's only 2 or 3 designs. 1 suspension bridge is pretty much the same as another, when they do try to make something new (eg the Millenium 'Bridge of death' across the Thames which was an upside-down suspension) it wobbled so much they had to close it and debu.. fix it.
The same applies to other engineering structures - skyscrapers, ships, cars, etc. These are all the same pattern and when new ones are built little changes. If there was the same level of "innovation" in engineering as occurs in software, everything would just fall down.
He has this exactly right.
Of course his own products, and the incompetence and greed of his company, are a major factor that it is taking so long...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I've switched to OS X just a year ago, dragging several people in my immediate environment with me. From geek to "I bought my first computer two years ago", they all agree that OS X is so much better and ask themselves how they could ever put up with the horror that is the windos GUI.
No, the real truth is that the windos environment is horrible, but it's the environment everyone is familiar with. That means low training costs. Simple as that.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
From geek to "I bought my first computer two years ago", they all agree that OS X is so much better and ask themselves how they could ever put up with the horror that is the windos GUI.
It's probably true that OS X has a better GUI than Windows (Apple has pretty much always beat them there). But Windows took over the market due to many factors, not least of which was inexpensive hardware. Apple tried to compete by allowing Power Computing (or whatever they were called) build their machines instead of just Apple. Hardware prices dropped a bit, but that was about the same time that MacOS was producing 7.5.3 and up...the worst of their operating system line until OS X. So like an inexpensive restaurant with bad food, Apple fell behind and Windows moved forward. At least you could empty the trash and open a folder at the same time...
And now, I'd agree that, even though Apple doesn't seem to have the full features of a Directory-based network like MS or Novell, their OS is finally better than Windows. But their hardware is not twice as much. I can build a screaming machine for under $1000 -- a similar machine would cost me $3000 on Apple hardware.
A properly run Windows box isn't so much worse than an Apple box that I feel like overspending by that much.
Microsoft did one thing to advance the state of computing: they made the business case that you could put cheap commodity hardware and a single operating system on EVERY FREAKING DESK in your business, and that this would allow your business to reap incredible productivity gains. And they were right. The manifest proof of how right they are is why you can buy a computer for $200 at Walmart these days -- the hardware business scaled because Microsoft said that the machine is not just for hobbyists or folks with mathematical degrees and Severe Computional Needs but is also a business appliance, like the telephone.
Think for a moment of how fun it would be for your favorite open source operating system if they all had to run on incompatible CPU architectures on closed, proprietary machines which cost $2,000 each, like the Amiga, Acorn Archimedes, Atari ST and so on cost in the 80s. Think of whether you would like to participate on an Internet if every last person on it knew how to reverse a doubly-linked list (and consider, very carefully, the implications of your answer).
Like it or not, you live in the House That Bill Built.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Really? You can build me this machine for under $1000:
And don't forget the software...
That's what you get in a mac for $3000 ($2799 to be exact). You're telling me you can build a machine just like that for under $1000? Seriously? What, are you planning to steal the CPUs? Those ALONE would cost more than $1000 on Newegg.
wow. It's true.. ..
Unfortunately I would be a fool to buy it and expect to game on it
Intent has a lot to do with the platform you choose as well, but yea - that's some impressive beef.
No, I am not an English major. My posts are subject to typos and incorrect grammar. Do not expect perfection.
I see your point, but I differ in opinion.
...
Suspension bridges have a few critical areas where they HAVE to function. They basically have to support and channel the weight into the load bearing parts of the structures. You can do this in several ways, aesthetically. Not all are created equal.
The same is true for conventional bridges and cars. Angles play a huge role in structural integrity. Everyone gives new car designs crap for being flimsy in an accident, but they are engineering marvels. True - you can't cut the roof off without the frame caving in under the car's weight, but the implementation of crumple zones, collapsing engine mounts, and creative use of bent sheet metal are very effective in absorbing forces that might otherwise kill you. Besides, of course - using sheer force.
I would not want to be a passenger in a 60's car that collides head on with anything of equal mass and rigidity
But yes, the base designs are the same, but I think you forget just how important the little changes are.
No, I am not an English major. My posts are subject to typos and incorrect grammar. Do not expect perfection.
Look at the new software products and its never a little change, its a large change each time. This is a problem, if they built on what they had, improving it, we'd have good software that would be a it boring, certainly not 'cool' and 'new', but it'd work a lot better.
Dear Bill,
The 'I' in 'IT' means 'information'.
What does your software manage ? does it manage information or bits?
All that is needed for an explosive growth of information technology is for software to stop managing bits and start managing information...
True, there were several factors at work here.
...", "hm, why does it take so long?", "I think I'm in the wrong workgroup, where do you change that, again?" (hint, it's nowhere even near the network configuration, it's in an entirely different dialog...) ).
True, one of them was that Apple used to be more expensive than PCs. That is no longer true, but it was, for many years.
Other factors are, of course, MS illegal business practices, the original IBM deal, later OEM deals and so forth.
Once dominance was achieved, all the self-perpetuating effects of a lock-in apply. In essence, switching becomes too expensive (in money and/or effort) for most people because you have all your software, all your documents in some proprietary MS format, all the usual stuff.
Finally, Apple does have the full features, they just work slightly differently. For example, OS X supports Kerberos, which alone puts you way ahead of most so-called corporate networks (which are regularly little more than samba shares on drugs). Bonjour is an incredible service for small networks. If you're running a company with 10 or 20 employees, setting up a network based on Apple technology will save you many days if not weeks of work, lots of trouble, and you can do it even if there isn't a geek in your 10-20 people. Oh, it also works.
I have the direct comparison, because I run windos for gaming. Stuff that takes me seconds to do using two OS X machines ("hey I need this file", "ok, I'll copy it into your inbox" (drag & drop some, done)" is a hassle on windos ("I don't see you on the network.", "Try my IP, it's
I've been watching this train wreck since I moved away from DOS 6 to Novell DOS. I've had the misfortune of using every windos version except ME, usually at work. I've seen how Linux came up, had its opportunity, and blundered it. I've seen how Apple resurfaced, and went straight past anything MS has to offer at a speed that's probably over the speed limit. Windos is a pile of steaming crap, from the network layer to the design details of the GUI. The reason it was successful are mostly business strategy, most of them criminal. The reason why it's still successful is summed up in one phrase: Lock-in. Everything else like training costs, costs of converting documents, convenience, software not being available except for windos, is all just manifestations of lock-in.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Does anyone else find it strange that someone who has built the most successful tech company in history continually delivers the most vacuous, cliched and uninteresting technology predictions of any technology pundit?
So, in the future, we'll be working on really tiny desks? That doesn't sound very ergonomic.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I think you mean Windows. Windos is this. Anyway, I hope it was a consistent typo. It would be even more strange if it was on purpose...
Awesome. The faster I can get things done, the longer I can put off doing them!
In an effort to conform with internet communication standards, please note that the above comment is 100% biased opinion
Yeah, they all have to learn Linux or OSX. The easiest way to get away from those pesky problems is to get away from Windows.
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
It is on purpose, because windows are these.
I don't like marketing people preying on our language.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I have the direct comparison, because I run windos for gaming. Stuff that takes me seconds to do using two OS X machines ("hey I need this file", "ok, I'll copy it into your inbox" (drag & drop some, done)" is a hassle on windos ("I don't see you on the network.", "Try my IP, it's ...", "hm, why does it take so long?", "I think I'm in the wrong workgroup, where do you change that, again?" (hint, it's nowhere even near the network configuration, it's in an entirely different dialog...) ).
Odd, I've got a wireless setup at home (even the desktop uses wireless). Desktop has the USB printer shared. New laptop was printing in 5 seconds through the desktop. Start - Run: \\desktop press OK. Right-click on the printer and choose connect. Print. Same thing works for the shared photos, etc.
I'm not for or against any OS as long as it does what I need it to do and doesn't do what I don't want it to do. These days, it seems the latter is more work than the former.