Some Big-Wigs just don't get it. It's not that their music has been stolen, thereby disappearing the corresponding dollars. It's much more a case of the free/cheap/new/independent sources of music on the internet offering a better cost/benefit ratio than their previous 1-good-apple-in-a-bag-of-twelve deal. They haven't been ripped off - they're becoming irrelevant. Their misfortune is a direct product of their own greed, so shy of a deaf granny or disabled teen-ager here and there, they have no one to sue. Any money fountain attracts nasty people - let 'em cry, let 'em rot.
In the early '90s, I was in high demand as a software engineer who could build high-availability systems on OpenVMS and Unix. Then WinDoze started leaking in, and my bosses, and their bosses, starting saying things like "Why should I build this new app on OpenVMS when I can get a Windows box for $2k and it comes with a free web server?"
The answer, of course, is Reliability, Availability, Securability (RAS).
But no, ever mindful of immediate costs and features, and completely bind to the 5-year costs, they forced us to change to WinDoze. And they're still demanding feature improvements and cost reductions instead of RAS. Firing those pin-heads and giving us our tools back would go a long way towards improving the disaster that is today's software development environment. In fact, you can tar & feather 'em for the remaining multitude of sins they've foisted upon the software world. Yeah, out-sourcing is a great way to build secure software.
Some folks may wish to discount his business opinions, since Gene apparently doesn't know where the world's gold goes:
The only reason why gold is expensive is because we all agree that it is. There's no real use for it, except we all agree and abide by the idea that gold costs a certain amount per ounce.
When I worked at the Associated Press in Manhattan a few years back, we released audio and video on our web site, but only for Internet Explorer. Which means no Linux of course. The howls of protest were drowned out only by the chatter of lame explanations by red-faced managers, citing cost, deadlines, and oh, the media-player agreement with Microsoft, as insurmountable issues. Needless to say, getting Firefox support in place became a high priority. I would image these guys will be feeling the same heat about now.
Compared to developing their own kernel for their product, sure, perhaps they saved millions. Maybe tens of millions.
But products aren't designed like that. We buy commercial kernels like pSOS or QNX or (lately), use Linux for free. We pay royalties based on units shipped to the kernel provider, which amounts to cents or dollars per unit. This is much cheaper than the Care And Feeding of kernel developers.
My bet is that people will avoid buying these in droves simply because they can't find a CD slot on their cellphones. Imagine the customer support calls?
Maybe it was intentional? It happened on a Friday night, after businesses were closed. Convenient, very convenient.
1. Gage the pain of the customers, record a datapoint. 2. Announce it won't be fixed until Monday, record a pain datapoint. 3. Fix it by Saturday, record a datapoint. 4. Watch the media and blogs for a few days, record final datapoints. 5. Extrapolate the equivalent "during business hours" customer pain level 6. Determine the risk/advantage ratio of WGA, lay out future product plans accordingly.
Maybe that's why MS has been so silent (so far) on this outage - they didn't want to pollute their data gathering efforts with media influence.
I didn't notice any other conspiracy theories in this thread, so I thought I'd better whip one up post haste;-)
Well I'm no drum-banging Dvorak fan, but at least when he opens his mouth, regardless of what comes out, it wasn't put there by marketing dollars, unlike the paid shills at so many "respectable" publications.
I suspect the $100 computer is the beginning of the "long tail". Zillions will be sold, but little profit can be milked from each sale. Such a market will attract those companies that can squeeze quality and performance down to the barest of thread-bare acceptability.
My dog is totally freaked by squirrels. She goes completely nuts, whining and fussing if she even *smells* one, let alone sees one. Given that we live on the edge of a small forest, the freak-outs are a daily (or better) event. I had no idea squirrels were conducting stealth surveilence operations. I guess my dog was right all along.
To all you cat lovers out there: Let's see you cat do that!
I like all your points, because I lived and worked there for the last seven years. I moved back home to Canada some months ago and wouldn't go back for darn near anything. Yeah it's exciting and interesting, but the concrete, steel, and crowds wear you done after a few years.
One point you missed though - when disaster strikes (9/11, 2003 power outage...) - there's no worse place to be than a commuter in Manhattan. They bottle up that island (yes, Manhattan is an island) reeeeeeeeal good, leaving you to enjoy a ten mile walk home fueled by street food and fire-hydrant water. Enjoy!!
The last thing any movie maker needs is someone taking a cheap copy and showing it to everyone on the planet, making them want to buy the high-quality version.
Federal bureaucrats technically illiterate? Uninformed? Geeze, reminds me of every middle manager I worked for in the 90's and early 2000's. I'm hopeful things have changed here in the business world a little bit. Any hope for the feds? Another decade maybe?
Yup - I've never seen a pump here in Canada that didn't have a temerature-adjustment sensor, and a government-mandated sticker on the pumping saying so. Hard to believe we're getting screwed less than the Americans on this one!
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Some Big-Wigs just don't get it. It's not that their music has been stolen, thereby disappearing the corresponding dollars. It's much more a case of the free/cheap/new/independent sources of music on the internet offering a better cost/benefit ratio than their previous 1-good-apple-in-a-bag-of-twelve deal. They haven't been ripped off - they're becoming irrelevant. Their misfortune is a direct product of their own greed, so shy of a deaf granny or disabled teen-ager here and there, they have no one to sue. Any money fountain attracts nasty people - let 'em cry, let 'em rot.
In the early '90s, I was in high demand as a software engineer who could build high-availability systems on OpenVMS and Unix. Then WinDoze started leaking in, and my bosses, and their bosses, starting saying things like "Why should I build this new app on OpenVMS when I can get a Windows box for $2k and it comes with a free web server?"
The answer, of course, is Reliability, Availability, Securability (RAS).
But no, ever mindful of immediate costs and features, and completely bind to the 5-year costs, they forced us to change to WinDoze. And they're still demanding feature improvements and cost reductions instead of RAS. Firing those pin-heads and giving us our tools back would go a long way towards improving the disaster that is today's software development environment. In fact, you can tar & feather 'em for the remaining multitude of sins they've foisted upon the software world. Yeah, out-sourcing is a great way to build secure software.
Some folks may wish to discount his business opinions, since Gene apparently doesn't know where the world's gold goes:
The only reason why gold is expensive is because we all agree that it is. There's no real use for it, except we all agree and abide by the idea that gold costs a certain amount per ounce.
Wow.
When I worked at the Associated Press in Manhattan a few years back, we released audio and video on our web site, but only for Internet Explorer. Which means no Linux of course. The howls of protest were drowned out only by the chatter of lame explanations by red-faced managers, citing cost, deadlines, and oh, the media-player agreement with Microsoft, as insurmountable issues. Needless to say, getting Firefox support in place became a high priority. I would image these guys will be feeling the same heat about now.
Good points.
Three times huh? No wonder your estimate is 6 months. Mine is more like 18 lol!
Compared to developing their own kernel for their product, sure, perhaps they saved millions. Maybe tens of millions.
But products aren't designed like that. We buy commercial kernels like pSOS or QNX or (lately), use Linux for free. We pay royalties based on units shipped to the kernel provider, which amounts to cents or dollars per unit. This is much cheaper than the Care And Feeding of kernel developers.
My bet is that people will avoid buying these in droves simply because they can't find a CD slot on their cellphones. Imagine the customer support calls?
Maybe it was intentional? It happened on a Friday night, after businesses were closed. Convenient, very convenient.
;-)
1. Gage the pain of the customers, record a datapoint.
2. Announce it won't be fixed until Monday, record a pain datapoint.
3. Fix it by Saturday, record a datapoint.
4. Watch the media and blogs for a few days, record final datapoints.
5. Extrapolate the equivalent "during business hours" customer pain level
6. Determine the risk/advantage ratio of WGA, lay out future product plans accordingly.
Maybe that's why MS has been so silent (so far) on this outage - they didn't want to pollute their data gathering efforts with media influence.
I didn't notice any other conspiracy theories in this thread, so I thought I'd better whip one up post haste
Well I'm no drum-banging Dvorak fan, but at least when he opens his mouth, regardless of what comes out, it wasn't put there by marketing dollars, unlike the paid shills at so many "respectable" publications.
Microsoft made a good-faith effort to comply? Wow, that IS news! Oops, my cynicism was showing ;-)
I suspect the $100 computer is the beginning of the "long tail". Zillions will be sold, but little profit can be milked from each sale. Such a market will attract those companies that can squeeze quality and performance down to the barest of thread-bare acceptability.
My dog is totally freaked by squirrels. She goes completely nuts, whining and fussing if she even *smells* one, let alone sees one. Given that we live on the edge of a small forest, the freak-outs are a daily (or better) event. I had no idea squirrels were conducting stealth surveilence operations. I guess my dog was right all along. To all you cat lovers out there: Let's see you cat do that!
Any chance we could get a cure for greed? There's a few governments and a bag-full of companies we might want to spinkle some such potion over.
I like all your points, because I lived and worked there for the last seven years. I moved back home to Canada some months ago and wouldn't go back for darn near anything. Yeah it's exciting and interesting, but the concrete, steel, and crowds wear you done after a few years.
One point you missed though - when disaster strikes (9/11, 2003 power outage...) - there's no worse place to be than a commuter in Manhattan. They bottle up that island (yes, Manhattan is an island) reeeeeeeeal good, leaving you to enjoy a ten mile walk home fueled by street food and fire-hydrant water. Enjoy!!
So Balmer throws a chair across the room and declares war on Google? It would seem otherwise now.
The last thing any movie maker needs is someone taking a cheap copy and showing it to everyone on the planet, making them want to buy the high-quality version.
Federal bureaucrats technically illiterate? Uninformed? Geeze, reminds me of every middle manager I worked for in the 90's and early 2000's. I'm hopeful things have changed here in the business world a little bit. Any hope for the feds? Another decade maybe?
Microsoft sucks, Google Rocks. In five years, we'll be saying Google Sucks, and someone else (new guy) rocks. The more things change.... the same.
Yup - I've never seen a pump here in Canada that didn't have a temerature-adjustment sensor, and a government-mandated sticker on the pumping saying so. Hard to believe we're getting screwed less than the Americans on this one!