There are strongly customer oriented companies out there (Apple and Nintendo spring to mind), which are not afraid taking the risk of losing quite a lot of customers by innovation. Both have failed from time to time, but were overwhelmingly successful at other times, and their fan base is the most loyal you can find because they regularly bring out "cool" and 100% usable products.
Microsoft, on the other hand, is a totally risk averse company that just tries to keep the train going, disregarding any opportunity to reshuffle the market by means of technological breakthrough. That's why many of us say Microsoft is already "dead" and a thing of the past. Their lock-in infrastructure still keeps a majority of businesses running, they still have enough market capitalization to thrive for years without any income, but outside of their core market (Office/Outlook/Exchange) they don't stand a chance anymore. And even at their core business they are seriously threatened by convenient cross-platform technologies.
Thanks for the clarification. But I still think "duopoly" is a bad metaphor because it would have two involve two different market entities.
Anyway, I went Linux-only two years ago because of numerous reasons, the main one being I felt screwed and crippled in multiple ways. I have never looked back to that strange Windows culture of suffering.
really why dont everyone stops this nonsense about microsoft, they are good and they know what they are doing. Period. Everything else is just fundamentalism. They're good at making money and they know what they are doing in that regard. The same is not true however for the design of their products. Their software and technologies are designed for generating maximum profit. Just that and nothing else. If you want innovation, look somewhere else.
shouldn't they simply replace their "fglrx" with "ati", in their xorg.conf? The open source driver has no support for R500/R600 based hardware (not even 2D). So, some of us still have to use fglrx.
The very idea that Japan would, or could, become world class was laughable, just ask the British motorcycle industry - or the US motor industry The same can now be said about the Chinese vs. Japanese motor industry. Some plants in China have recently started to produce affordable quality motorcycles. Most of them are based on Hondas, but without being direct rip-offs. Because I wanted a new bike, but a Honda would have been to expensive, I opted for a 125 ccm Regal Raptor softchopper. I love that bike, insurance is cheap, it doesn't need much gas and it has been running 100% reliably. What sucks a bit though is that it is slightly underpowered for a 125 (11 hp/95 kph). But at half the price of a comparable Honda - who cares? I just need something to drive to work and back.
Regal Raptor has also been fast with building a Europe-wide network of specialist dealers, so I think the Chinese are really serious here.
Because you cannot convince everyone you know to install a decent multi protocol messenger. Some less tech savvy folks in my contact list are too afraid to lay hands on their machine and will panically stick with whatever came on it preinstalled (in most cases, Windows with MSN Messenger). So I still have to keep that MSN account, although I strongly prefer Yahoo over it (for its great support in Kopete).
I don't know about Ubuntu, but Kubuntu and Mandriva detect unpartitioned space on your HD and offer to automatically create the partition layout there. So the easy way is to shrink the Windows partition beforehand (using the GPartEd live cd for example) or have a second empty HD and just accept the partitioning defaults.
Companies don't pay for the distro, they pay for guaranteed technical support. Management does not have the time and capacity to resort to newsgroups and forums or tinker around when something is borked. So they shell out some money and use Red Hat's support infrastructure.
These "clones" don't threaten Red Hat's business, because they don't come with these all-in-one support options that businesses love. Plus they have to contribute modified code back, so it's even a kind of win-win situation.
Every language except English has characters that are invalid in URLs. English is the only language I know that uses the original Roman alphabet without additional letters.
Maybe it's because nobody on slashdot actually called OOXML a proprietary format? I would rather call it an obfuscated pseudo-open format with a deliberately bloated and confusing spec that allows for all kinds of quirks and different interpretations. Of course, only Microsoft Office will interpret OOXML "correctly". It's a desperate attempt of MS to throw its weight behind a standardization body, so certified businesses will have to use OOXML, probably relying on poorly documented "rich extra features" that are only compatible with Microsoft Office.
CIO.com sure has a hardon for online ad revenue. Seventeen pages for one article, the article itself taking up only 1/3 of the page real estate for each page. Talk about a pain in the ass to read. What ads are you talking about? I never see any ads on the internet. I think I'm using the wrong browser.
Maybe Windows can be forced to sort of work for all the listed areas (except of the more critical ones, of course). That's a large difference to "works fine". If real money and work effort is involved, you better think twice about what computing platform you choose to get the task accomplished efficiently and quickly.
Slashdot Mirror
There are strongly customer oriented companies out there (Apple and Nintendo spring to mind), which are not afraid taking the risk of losing quite a lot of customers by innovation. Both have failed from time to time, but were overwhelmingly successful at other times, and their fan base is the most loyal you can find because they regularly bring out "cool" and 100% usable products.
Microsoft, on the other hand, is a totally risk averse company that just tries to keep the train going, disregarding any opportunity to reshuffle the market by means of technological breakthrough. That's why many of us say Microsoft is already "dead" and a thing of the past. Their lock-in infrastructure still keeps a majority of businesses running, they still have enough market capitalization to thrive for years without any income, but outside of their core market (Office/Outlook/Exchange) they don't stand a chance anymore. And even at their core business they are seriously threatened by convenient cross-platform technologies.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Nice troll account you have there! I like the nick, especially.
Yes, there are. And "ha ha" doesn't change too much about it.
For example, see how much Linux has improved by comparing Slackware 1.0 to Kubuntu Feisty. Crap. Bad analogy.
Thanks for the clarification. But I still think "duopoly" is a bad metaphor because it would have two involve two different market entities.
Anyway, I went Linux-only two years ago because of numerous reasons, the main one being I felt screwed and crippled in multiple ways. I have never looked back to that strange Windows culture of suffering.
That smart guy also said Microsoft excels at being a duopoly with Windows! Erm ... ok, whatever that means.
But then at least you could patch the source.
Regal Raptor has also been fast with building a Europe-wide network of specialist dealers, so I think the Chinese are really serious here.
But Linux is "Made in Finland" ...
What, not even foreplay? I call rip-off!
Because you cannot convince everyone you know to install a decent multi protocol messenger. Some less tech savvy folks in my contact list are too afraid to lay hands on their machine and will panically stick with whatever came on it preinstalled (in most cases, Windows with MSN Messenger). So I still have to keep that MSN account, although I strongly prefer Yahoo over it (for its great support in Kopete).
I don't know about Ubuntu, but Kubuntu and Mandriva detect unpartitioned space on your HD and offer to automatically create the partition layout there. So the easy way is to shrink the Windows partition beforehand (using the GPartEd live cd for example) or have a second empty HD and just accept the partitioning defaults.
You seem to be out of sarcasm tags today.
Companies don't pay for the distro, they pay for guaranteed technical support. Management does not have the time and capacity to resort to newsgroups and forums or tinker around when something is borked. So they shell out some money and use Red Hat's support infrastructure.
These "clones" don't threaten Red Hat's business, because they don't come with these all-in-one support options that businesses love. Plus they have to contribute modified code back, so it's even a kind of win-win situation.
And what does this have to do with KDE? Windows emulation crap is a pure GNOME concern. Real desktops innovate, don't emulate.
Entschuldigung, ich habe Dein Gesabbel nicht richtig verstanden. Ist Dein Internetvisum für unenglische Halbmenschen etwa abgelaufen?
Every language except English has characters that are invalid in URLs. English is the only language I know that uses the original Roman alphabet without additional letters.
Maybe it's because nobody on slashdot actually called OOXML a proprietary format? I would rather call it an obfuscated pseudo-open format with a deliberately bloated and confusing spec that allows for all kinds of quirks and different interpretations. Of course, only Microsoft Office will interpret OOXML "correctly". It's a desperate attempt of MS to throw its weight behind a standardization body, so certified businesses will have to use OOXML, probably relying on poorly documented "rich extra features" that are only compatible with Microsoft Office.
Maybe Windows can be forced to sort of work for all the listed areas (except of the more critical ones, of course). That's a large difference to "works fine". If real money and work effort is involved, you better think twice about what computing platform you choose to get the task accomplished efficiently and quickly.
Or a German keyboard, but in which case he still would have a sub-par penis of ~ 9cm.