Microsoft's announcement explains why we haven't seen the rumored "Numbers" spreadsheet app added iWork yet. It's being worked on for sure - we know Apple is happy to keep teams working on "just in case" projects, like they way they've had an OS X on Intel team working for the last 5 years. So part of the deal is probably that Apple keeps Numbers on the backburner for now, but having it ready to go probably helps Apple negotiate. And for now, having office available on the Mac is better for everyone.
The letter is pretty stern [...] they are always written in very, very soft diplomatic language. This was not.
I know this is Slashdot, but it looks like even the submitter hasn't read the article! Kind of odd as they also appear to be the person that wrote it...
It used to be that companies had to jump everytime Microsoft announced an initiative, dumping cash into project that at best would have them keeping up with Microsoft. Interesting that Microsoft is being forced to do the same now when Google moves - probably only because they're one of the few innovative compeitors that Microsoft can't just buy.
7% forever is just crazy, short term it's not a big problem, but over a long enough period it's like a licence to print money (which explains why that's what they wanted). It would be a different story if they linked it to inflation or some other index.
That's really going to hurt when you can back up all your photos, videos and data onto one disc, and then lose it! At least if you back up to cd destroying or losing one disk isn't a disaster. Then again, it would be cool to be able to do a back up of an entire system to a DVD 1.6TB disk, you'd just have to make sure you've got multiple copies in multiple locations. But of course you do that already. right?
I've sure when Google was starting out plenty of business types would have tried to put one over them. Must be sweet to be able to return in kind now everyone wants a piece of the action!
More likely what's happening is the IT department sees a need for X, draws up a budget for X with the company's current platform, and gets the budget rejected. So they just do it anyway with the open source solution, present it as a working solution and off you go.
And of course, when it comes to doing a big deal, companies can always try and get a discount by offering to be a case study for the vendor. So their adoption of the vendor's technology gets some press. When a company adopts an open source solution, there's never going to be the same PR push behind it. You are always going to hear more about things that someone can sell than you are about things you can just download for free.
although its existance is almost solely based on databases
I'm not sure Google needs a traditional database, it's more about generating a huge set of data (the index) then making it available as read only. So really easy to scale, compared to say clustering database servers, as there's no need for updates between the nodes, you just replace busted nodes without worrying about lost data etc. While I'm sure there would be some useful snippets in there if Google release the code, most of it just wouldn't be relevant to most other applications, and the crossover with SQL databases would be quite small.
It's not just the problem that they might enter your market. It's that, being essentially an advertising company these days, they'll offer their product for free. The last week or so must have been rough at any company that offers web stats for example. (though most of them aren't that hot anyway). And how many people are paying for yahoo mail now? Alternately, they can make you offer better services at great cost. GMail doesn't have nearly as many members as hotmail, but it they can make Microsoft up their storage limit in response, it costs microsoft a lot more - the sort of game where microsoft is used to playing on the other side!
Perfect for data collecting lego mindstorm robots then.
More practically, i hope they properly lock together like lego blocks, so you can get a nice solid stack of them. Even better would be built in docking so you can just stack another disk on top when you need more storage space.
We have also been made aware of proof of concept code that could seek to exploit the reported vulnerability but are not aware of any customer impact at this time
Well, there might be no customer impact at this time, but seeing as the exploit is published now, can I ask you again in about 5 minutes?
This could have a much bigger impact than just 17,000 users. Just about the only time I have to dig out IE is to access some crazy government site that I HAVE to use, but can't get to work with anything but IE. It might not be ideal, but if it becomes the case that Parisians can't pay their taxes or something unless they use Firefox, well that's got to be good for Firefox. After all, after being forced to try it, they might like it!
When you think about the ridiculous prices people pay for ringtones it's not that crazy. So maybe it'll work for the songs that you just HAVE to have right now, but otherwise why wouldn't you save a few dollars and just wait till you're home and get onto the iTunes store?
Makes sense for google to decentralise their server farms and be able to provide direct access to their services - one of the biggest risks to their continuted success would have to be the breakdown of the "open" internet, though peering failures or closing off (or imposing higher tolls on) private networks.
Skype is in the same situation - they've been able to support so many users simply because their bandwidth is only used to setup the initial connection between the two parties, after that it's the telcos who are supporting and providing the infrastructure for the service that threatens them most. Now that Skype can make real money from its pay services, look for them to do something simliar to Google, to ensure the availability of their service.
compared to what would be the case in the absence of search engines.
Well duh! Otherwise you'd have to browse. and browse. and browse some more, hoping to find a site with the info you wanted. And you'd probably only know about sites that had a big budget to advertise. Search engines are inevitable - some bright spark is always going to realise that there must be a better way to automate the process by having a computer browse for you, so you can ask it later if it found anything on your topic.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's announcement explains why we haven't seen the rumored "Numbers" spreadsheet app added iWork yet. It's being worked on for sure - we know Apple is happy to keep teams working on "just in case" projects, like they way they've had an OS X on Intel team working for the last 5 years. So part of the deal is probably that Apple keeps Numbers on the backburner for now, but having it ready to go probably helps Apple negotiate. And for now, having office available on the Mac is better for everyone.
The software is the razor. The razor blades are the servers. Together they're slicing up Sun's stock price.
I know this is Slashdot, but it looks like even the submitter hasn't read the article! Kind of odd as they also appear to be the person that wrote it...
Expect this to last about 3 minutes, when they realise that none of their users will be "demanding" advertising.
It used to be that companies had to jump everytime Microsoft announced an initiative, dumping cash into project that at best would have them keeping up with Microsoft. Interesting that Microsoft is being forced to do the same now when Google moves - probably only because they're one of the few innovative compeitors that Microsoft can't just buy.
7% forever is just crazy, short term it's not a big problem, but over a long enough period it's like a licence to print money (which explains why that's what they wanted). It would be a different story if they linked it to inflation or some other index.
is an external firewire drive!
That's really going to hurt when you can back up all your photos, videos and data onto one disc, and then lose it! At least if you back up to cd destroying or losing one disk isn't a disaster. Then again, it would be cool to be able to do a back up of an entire system to a DVD 1.6TB disk, you'd just have to make sure you've got multiple copies in multiple locations. But of course you do that already. right?
I've sure when Google was starting out plenty of business types would have tried to put one over them. Must be sweet to be able to return in kind now everyone wants a piece of the action!
(and wasn't the original press release 5 days ago?)
And of course, when it comes to doing a big deal, companies can always try and get a discount by offering to be a case study for the vendor. So their adoption of the vendor's technology gets some press. When a company adopts an open source solution, there's never going to be the same PR push behind it. You are always going to hear more about things that someone can sell than you are about things you can just download for free.
Bah! Everybody knows real men use csv files...
I'm not sure Google needs a traditional database, it's more about generating a huge set of data (the index) then making it available as read only. So really easy to scale, compared to say clustering database servers, as there's no need for updates between the nodes, you just replace busted nodes without worrying about lost data etc. While I'm sure there would be some useful snippets in there if Google release the code, most of it just wouldn't be relevant to most other applications, and the crossover with SQL databases would be quite small.
It's not just the problem that they might enter your market. It's that, being essentially an advertising company these days, they'll offer their product for free. The last week or so must have been rough at any company that offers web stats for example. (though most of them aren't that hot anyway). And how many people are paying for yahoo mail now? Alternately, they can make you offer better services at great cost. GMail doesn't have nearly as many members as hotmail, but it they can make Microsoft up their storage limit in response, it costs microsoft a lot more - the sort of game where microsoft is used to playing on the other side!
More practically, i hope they properly lock together like lego blocks, so you can get a nice solid stack of them. Even better would be built in docking so you can just stack another disk on top when you need more storage space.
Have you had a look at the source on a slashdot page recently?
_uacct = "UA-32013-5";
urchinTracker();
As I said, it could be "good for Firefox". Whether that's good or bad is up to you.
Well, there might be no customer impact at this time, but seeing as the exploit is published now, can I ask you again in about 5 minutes?
This could have a much bigger impact than just 17,000 users. Just about the only time I have to dig out IE is to access some crazy government site that I HAVE to use, but can't get to work with anything but IE. It might not be ideal, but if it becomes the case that Parisians can't pay their taxes or something unless they use Firefox, well that's got to be good for Firefox. After all, after being forced to try it, they might like it!
(never mind that the kid probably would have been just as happy staring at the sun...)
When you think about the ridiculous prices people pay for ringtones it's not that crazy. So maybe it'll work for the songs that you just HAVE to have right now, but otherwise why wouldn't you save a few dollars and just wait till you're home and get onto the iTunes store?
If they really are paying women to go on "dates", then they might be looking at charges a bit more sensational than fraud!
Skype is in the same situation - they've been able to support so many users simply because their bandwidth is only used to setup the initial connection between the two parties, after that it's the telcos who are supporting and providing the infrastructure for the service that threatens them most. Now that Skype can make real money from its pay services, look for them to do something simliar to Google, to ensure the availability of their service.
Well duh! Otherwise you'd have to browse. and browse. and browse some more, hoping to find a site with the info you wanted. And you'd probably only know about sites that had a big budget to advertise. Search engines are inevitable - some bright spark is always going to realise that there must be a better way to automate the process by having a computer browse for you, so you can ask it later if it found anything on your topic.
Perhaps it's been done and a new breed of super inteligent mice have taken over slashdot?