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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!"
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 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
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.
What do you expect? This isn't necessarily greed on Microsoft's part. It is damage control. They are trying to save the Windows lineage. If too many people keep running XP, Windows as a platform will shrivel up and die. If nothing else, Vista keeps up the illusion of progress and innovation. And Microsoft needs people to buy into that illusion. Hell, I don't even think they really need to buy it. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft started giving it away like IE and other products.
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
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
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?