Indeed. This whole story slants towards defamation and libel.
Right 100%, except that it explicitly says that they escaped punishment for their "cybercrime", and given that all that one of them did was software development or connecting hardware they owned to computers they owned that's not just a "slant". Isn't there a point at which people in the US have a right to defend themselves against false accusations? I mean, several of the companies listed (especially the anti-virus companies) have very strict policies against hiring criminals; this could do serious damage to these guys careers if they don't react to it. False accusations of criminal activity with a clear aim of doing career damage is about as serious as libel gets and very clearly comes inside what Wikipedia says is defamation.
I'm not normally a strong believer in the American "sue baby sue" attitude, but if nobody reacts to this kind of thing the press gets they idea that they can just put out lies with no consequences. Could we put a fund together to help some of the more clearly reputable of these guys towards a lawsuit? I'd certainly put in 100 Euros..
(And yes, before you ask, I do think this is 100% compatible with my strong belief that people have the right to free speech)
No web app versions of Word, Excel, etc ( I'll admit, I like having this option, since I cannot install them and sometimes OO/LO doesn't cut it)
By this I guess you mean that the web versions of Excel have much better conversion accuracy from standard office versions than the Google Docs applications?
They believed that money spent on security products == we are secure. They were not asleep..
Except that, according to the reports, Sony had servers for development which were fully protected with firewalls etc. and which were not hacked / hackable (by LulzSec) and other servers for customer data where they hadn't made any investment. So they hadn't spent that money. You may be right they weren't asleep. Someone made a conscious choice that customer data is not important, but it's not that they had made any of the investment they should have done.
What is it adding over Google apps in your case? It seems to me that if you want to reliably migrate away from MS infrastructure that would be more of a step in the right direction, wouldn't it? Won't your marketing people miss man of the top end features of powerpoint in any case?
The normal way to do that is that the human entered password encrypts a longer secret. The longer secret (or secrets) encrypts the drive. When you change the password then you do reencrypt the longer secret. That way you change the decryption password without re-encrypting the whole device.
If you think about it there's really no other way to do it. If the user can enter the device with just a PIN then that PIN has to open the encrypted stores up.
RedPhone:
9. Do you make source code available?
[most of our] products are commercially licensed and can be reviewed by commercial customers.
In other words the Chinese and US governments (who have plenty of access to "commercial" customers) can find holes in it, but we little people don't get the same access. No thanks.
It seems that Twinkle even supports ZRTP and is compatible with Zphone but the instructions I found to set it up are the perfect example of why Skype is so successful (compare with install / create account / it works... )
MS embracing open standards and specs is a good thing.
Microsoft knows fine well that Microsoft always has three Es in embrace. They are not coming over to HTML 5 for the good of the standard of to help save the world. They are doing it in order to have developer tools which work on HTML 5 and so limit their loss of market share. Their long term aim will be to destabilize and misappropriate the standard. There is nothing good about Microsoft getting involved in any standard. Look at the history of OOXML. Look at how they attempted to take over Kerberos.
This is not a sign that Microsoft has become good. It is a sign that they are too weak to force Silverlight on the world and they realise that now, so they will work with the standard for the time being.
[...] Once you've made the browser so big that it encompasses all possible generic operating system needs, it is too bloated and someone else makes a smaller faster better browser.
The whole point of the "browser is an OS" is not to "encompass all possible generic operating system needs". The idea is that most of those needs will be handled by a "the cloud". Most of the time, when Microsoft or an IT manager talks about it, that doesn't mean anything sensible. However, when Google talks about it, it really means
You aren't going to have to do file storage because your named objects are going to be stored in the cloud server and just cached locally
You aren't going to have to do much computing because most of that will be handled by Google's servers
You aren't going to have to think about application security because that will be handled by Google's
You aren't going to have to control privacy and data flow because Google will do it for you.
You aren't going to have to handle user management because Google will do that for you.
You aren't going to have to handle setting up a file server/ file sharing because that will be done already, by Google
etc.
If that list scares you, then it should. Basically what you are saying here is that when you move to a "Browser is the OS set up" what you are actually moving to is a "Google is your administrator and your system and all applications are controlled by them set up". You had better hope they are nice http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh/>operators
Operating systems and browsers are two different things.
You are answering the wrong question here. The question isn't "should I build these things separately". The question is, "should the user have any understanding of the underlying operating system, and if so, do I need any more interface to it than a web browser can provide?" The Google answer is "no". Fundamentally, you as a naive user, surrender everything to Google. Your so the OS is still there, just the user doesn't have to worry about what it does or how it works.
HTML5 isn't the best way to write any application; that's why almost everyone else who's made an HTML based platform has moved to a native one after the fact.
Given that nobody has fully implemented it ye very few of the people who used HTML used HTML 5, so that comparison isn't yet made. Probably we should come back to that ten years from now to get the proper empirical data. However, every potential alternative platform has problems:
Windows binary
no simple way to install applications; user need to download, install, approve etc. Many different incompatible versions and bad multi-version support
Linux binary
not widely enough installed; users are resistant to learning; several different versions
OS/X binary
both disadvantages of Windows and Linux at once!
Java "binary"
horribly variable platform versions; users are resistant; inconsistent user interface; ugly
Flash "binary"
partly incomplete platform access; horrible security model; horribly s.low and unstable; at serious risk of elimination in the next couple of years
HTML5 / AJAX
incomplete platform access; slow.
Does HTML need the features necessary to write generic applications? Certainly not.
Again it's the wrong question. The question is: "does it make sense for the people writing the HTML 5 standard to make generic applications possible". The answer is "unfortunately yes". They see a gap in the market and they are closest to filling it. Let's be clear what the gap is:
Cross platform (Windows XP -> Windows 2008 / OS/X / Linux + Mobile )
It's not Sony that's getting attacked; it's the consumers. Sony is more the pimp pushing young girls out naked into the street. And yes, I do think they should be punished for that, not the person who took photos to prove they were doing it. No matter how illegal those photos may be for containing an image of a minor.
Interestingly enough; in many places, if you leave your door open and someone walks inside, does no damage, and then leaves then they haven't committed a crime (felony); at most a civil matter (misdemeanor or less). Now if you steal, that's a different matter.
Partly agree but, by people providing "security and operating systems to those people" I didn't mean the installation people. To be absolutely clear I meant
Microsoft and to a small extent other operating system providers. As currently specified, I think no consumer operating system is ready for the job it is meant to do. We need basic CC level assurance combined with OpenBSD defaults and serious levels of MAC through the entire systems backed with a clever and clear user interface to it all. At that point we will begin to be able to talk about securing systems with proper configuration.
All of these things have been available in some systems (e.g. Multics) and could be available now in standard systems if we our operating system manufacturers hadn't been able to sacrifice security for features. Had we seriously concentrated on it, we probably wouldn't even have lost that much development time and certainly the time lost to electronic crime would have more than made up for that.
Only once we start to deliver basic underlying security will it even begin to be reasonable to blame the people installing systems for failures.
As is traditional bad form; I'll reply to myself. One point I didn't put clearly. In this case the people that need to be informed are not the people that own the system. If you want me to know my house is insecure, you have simply to tell me. If I say "yes I know" then that's my responsibility and decision. In the case of a big company like Sony, if you simply say it (and many have) they will answer "we are secure to industry standards; don't try it or we'll arrest you". The only way to demonstrate to the people who own the data; the users; is to actually demonstrate the break in. This is a major difference.
If I was a bank, keeping other people's data and money; if I was claiming to be secure, and deceiving others, then you might have a point. As it is, the glass is achieving the exact security goal it is expected to achieve; noise and tamper evidence. Nobody's claiming that we need perfect security. Just that "secure enough to store 100k people's data" is much more secure than most companies are willing to spend the time and mony to achieve.
P.S. having said that, I live six floors up; we have security guards, cameras and double glazing. If someone would insure the test, or if you were willing to place a 50 dollar bet on it and cover any damage you did to the neighbors then I'd love to see you try.
Not always. Most of the time, when you start needing more bandwidth you find that you can simply upgrade technology. 100M Ethernet to 10G Ethernet. Simple optical solutions to DWDM. This is often much much cheaper than laying more fibre. This is not to mention the fact that sensible companies lay several dark fibres when they lay one live fibre. The cost difference is typically negligible. Of course, eventually you are using the maximum amount of fibre in a link in the most efficient method available. At that point you do have to upgrade your installation, but this leads to far below linear costs.
The easy way to see this is to compare the cost of core bandwidth with the cost of edge bandwidth. Typically there are orders of magnitude in difference in cost.
LulzSec is not Anonymous, who at least pretends to have a purpose, and they shouldn't be treated as such.
Ah yes; Because "Anonymous" says it, it must be true.
They are doing it purely for the "Lulz" and don't deserve any more recognition than they already gain from their twitter feed.
They will be caught eventually, and when they are, I sincerely hope something terrible happens to them.
Maybe, five years ago, because they released other people's data, I could be persuaded to agree with you. Now, we have the situation where most cracking is taking place in private. If LulzSec is taking advantage of a breach for the "Lulz" then someone else has already done the same for money, profit and crime. Clearly the hacker crackdown and all the associated arrests of people for public hacking have been counter-productive. Without people like Lulz, we would never really see how bad the security is in the various big companies. Sure, if they get caught they deserve a slap on the wrist, mostly for the stupdity of getting caught. The people who should be punished are the people running the companies they hack (a bit) and the people providing security and operating systems to those people (lots). I really don't see the point in punishing people just because they make a public noise about what they did.
Bandwidth is a scarce resource. [...] They should charge a very minimal fee for running a wire, and then charge users for bandwidth at an auction basis.
This is the horribly misguided wisdom the ISPs are managing to put to us. Connectivity is scarce; putting in cables is expensive. Maintaining them is even more expensive. Once you have the right ones in place however, the difference in cost between installing 500kb/S and 50Mb/S is pretty small. So bandwidth should be pretty close to free once you have the connnection. Why isn't it? Well, bandwidth is a good proxy for technical knowledge. It is also needed to serve content. The ISPs want to use bandwidth charging to stop private people from competing in content creation.
It's important to remember also that quite a few of the things the patent office does nowadays they do because of successful appeals against their patent rejections. E.g. the standard for "obvious" is at least in part determined by patents that the office rejected and then lost lawsuits about.
Why? Unless I'm missing something, your comment seems a bit nonsensical. This should actively encourage creating public open standards. If you want your product to be safe from patents, then the best way will be to state clearly how it works in a patent. Basically you would want to do that for every part of the products functionality apart from those bits where you can get a patent yourself or keep the functionality secret.
Right, except that if you took a different plan, e.g. prepaid, you wouldn't have to pay that $59 a month and would probably end up closer to $15 a month. So you are paying about $1000 extra for the phone.
And you're going to 'block sales' without trespassing or obstructing traffic how exactly?
'cmon. Has everybody forgotten how to protest. If the protesters want to get away with it there are so many ways this can be done. Wait until other customers start to arrive in the store. Go into the store (together with more friends than there are assistants). Pretend to be a customer. Demand attention then ask long and annoying but plausible questions about something expensive best of all if it's something you really do want to buy somewhere else. Act unsure; keep all the assistants busy. Then give up. Walk to a different part of the store. Repeat. Alternatively stand outside and be loud. Most customers won't come. Alternatively come in the same colour as the shop assistants. If asked give misleading advice, especially to go to the store round the corner.
Anyway you probably don't care too much about being charged with trespassing. That's the whole point of civil disobedience.
You know, I hope you people who do these things don't object when right wing wackos boycott Ford for 'promoting' homosexuality or anything..
Of course I object; to the homophobia. I don't care about the fact of the boycott if it wasn't for such a bad reason.
P.S. The best way to boycott Sony is not buying their stuff. Buy a Wii instead. That's what I do. I won't be turning up in a Sony store tomorrow because I haven't cared about Sony for years.
Well that depends if they signed up for facebook with their real ID or not. Maybe anonymous is really targetting idiots who use their own name on Facebook.
Having large number of consumers turn up at stores and block sales is going to target the top guy. I hope they make sure that they know how to identify Sony sponsored trouble makers. Most interesting would be if they manage to get some real customers confused with the protesters and violently kicked out by security. Now that would make a story:-)
Right; this is crucial to remember. The reason for any information release at this point is to block MS partners who are thinking of becoming HP partners. MS will now be feeding this into their friends in your company and whenever someone points out what WebOS can do that person will say "if we just wait six months MS will do the same thing and we won't need to migrate".
Oh; and there will be 32 bit backwards compatibility; even if it's just through an integrated transparent hypervisor. Trust me.
If you want to adopt WebOS, get your project going now. Make serious progress as a "demo", "test environment" etc. If asked about the new MS product just say that this will give your organization a chance to prepare. Get real customers doing real things. At the point where Microsoft backs out or fails to deliver what your customers need, that is the point to make it really official.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed. This whole story slants towards defamation and libel.
Right 100%, except that it explicitly says that they escaped punishment for their "cybercrime", and given that all that one of them did was software development or connecting hardware they owned to computers they owned that's not just a "slant". Isn't there a point at which people in the US have a right to defend themselves against false accusations? I mean, several of the companies listed (especially the anti-virus companies) have very strict policies against hiring criminals; this could do serious damage to these guys careers if they don't react to it. False accusations of criminal activity with a clear aim of doing career damage is about as serious as libel gets and very clearly comes inside what Wikipedia says is defamation.
I'm not normally a strong believer in the American "sue baby sue" attitude, but if nobody reacts to this kind of thing the press gets they idea that they can just put out lies with no consequences. Could we put a fund together to help some of the more clearly reputable of these guys towards a lawsuit? I'd certainly put in 100 Euros..
(And yes, before you ask, I do think this is 100% compatible with my strong belief that people have the right to free speech)
No web app versions of Word, Excel, etc ( I'll admit, I like having this option, since I cannot install them and sometimes OO/LO doesn't cut it)
By this I guess you mean that the web versions of Excel have much better conversion accuracy from standard office versions than the Google Docs applications?
They believed that money spent on security products == we are secure. They were not asleep..
Except that, according to the reports, Sony had servers for development which were fully protected with firewalls etc. and which were not hacked / hackable (by LulzSec) and other servers for customer data where they hadn't made any investment. So they hadn't spent that money. You may be right they weren't asleep. Someone made a conscious choice that customer data is not important, but it's not that they had made any of the investment they should have done.
What is it adding over Google apps in your case? It seems to me that if you want to reliably migrate away from MS infrastructure that would be more of a step in the right direction, wouldn't it? Won't your marketing people miss man of the top end features of powerpoint in any case?
Yes you're right. Claymore mines are immoral. He really should be more careful.
The normal way to do that is that the human entered password encrypts a longer secret. The longer secret (or secrets) encrypts the drive. When you change the password then you do reencrypt the longer secret. That way you change the decryption password without re-encrypting the whole device.
If you think about it there's really no other way to do it. If the user can enter the device with just a PIN then that PIN has to open the encrypted stores up.
9. Do you make source code available?
[most of our] products are commercially licensed and can be reviewed by commercial customers.
In other words the Chinese and US governments (who have plenty of access to "commercial" customers) can find holes in it, but we little people don't get the same access. No thanks.
Orbot, however, is decisively cool..
is if the government first passes.....
Hmm.. welcome to the 21st century. I think you will find we do things differently here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act
It seems that Twinkle even supports ZRTP and is compatible with Zphone but the instructions I found to set it up are the perfect example of why Skype is so successful (compare with install / create account / it works... )
MS embracing open standards and specs is a good thing.
Microsoft knows fine well that Microsoft always has three Es in embrace. They are not coming over to HTML 5 for the good of the standard of to help save the world. They are doing it in order to have developer tools which work on HTML 5 and so limit their loss of market share. Their long term aim will be to destabilize and misappropriate the standard. There is nothing good about Microsoft getting involved in any standard. Look at the history of OOXML. Look at how they attempted to take over Kerberos.
This is not a sign that Microsoft has become good. It is a sign that they are too weak to force Silverlight on the world and they realise that now, so they will work with the standard for the time being.
The 'browser as an OS' concept is still stupid.
[...] Once you've made the browser so big that it encompasses all possible generic operating system needs, it is too bloated and someone else makes a smaller faster better browser.
The whole point of the "browser is an OS" is not to "encompass all possible generic operating system needs". The idea is that most of those needs will be handled by a "the cloud". Most of the time, when Microsoft or an IT manager talks about it, that doesn't mean anything sensible. However, when Google talks about it, it really means
If that list scares you, then it should. Basically what you are saying here is that when you move to a "Browser is the OS set up" what you are actually moving to is a "Google is your administrator and your system and all applications are controlled by them set up". You had better hope they are nice http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh/>operators
Operating systems and browsers are two different things.
You are answering the wrong question here. The question isn't "should I build these things separately". The question is, "should the user have any understanding of the underlying operating system, and if so, do I need any more interface to it than a web browser can provide?" The Google answer is "no". Fundamentally, you as a naive user, surrender everything to Google. Your so the OS is still there, just the user doesn't have to worry about what it does or how it works.
HTML5 isn't the best way to write any application; that's why almost everyone else who's made an HTML based platform has moved to a native one after the fact.
Given that nobody has fully implemented it ye very few of the people who used HTML used HTML 5, so that comparison isn't yet made. Probably we should come back to that ten years from now to get the proper empirical data. However, every potential alternative platform has problems:
Windows binary no simple way to install applications; user need to download, install, approve etc. Many different incompatible versions and bad multi-version support Linux binary not widely enough installed; users are resistant to learning; several different versions OS/X binary both disadvantages of Windows and Linux at once! Java "binary" horribly variable platform versions; users are resistant; inconsistent user interface; ugly Flash "binary" partly incomplete platform access; horrible security model; horribly s.low and unstable; at serious risk of elimination in the next couple of years HTML5 / AJAX incomplete platform access; slow.Does HTML need the features necessary to write generic applications? Certainly not.
Again it's the wrong question. The question is: "does it make sense for the people writing the HTML 5 standard to make generic applications possible". The answer is "unfortunately yes". They see a gap in the market and they are closest to filling it. Let's be clear what the gap is:
Way to go offtopic.
It's not Sony that's getting attacked; it's the consumers. Sony is more the pimp pushing young girls out naked into the street. And yes, I do think they should be punished for that, not the person who took photos to prove they were doing it. No matter how illegal those photos may be for containing an image of a minor.
Interestingly enough; in many places, if you leave your door open and someone walks inside, does no damage, and then leaves then they haven't committed a crime (felony); at most a civil matter (misdemeanor or less). Now if you steal, that's a different matter.
Partly agree but, by people providing "security and operating systems to those people" I didn't mean the installation people. To be absolutely clear I meant Microsoft and to a small extent other operating system providers. As currently specified, I think no consumer operating system is ready for the job it is meant to do. We need basic CC level assurance combined with OpenBSD defaults and serious levels of MAC through the entire systems backed with a clever and clear user interface to it all. At that point we will begin to be able to talk about securing systems with proper configuration.
All of these things have been available in some systems (e.g. Multics) and could be available now in standard systems if we our operating system manufacturers hadn't been able to sacrifice security for features. Had we seriously concentrated on it, we probably wouldn't even have lost that much development time and certainly the time lost to electronic crime would have more than made up for that.
Only once we start to deliver basic underlying security will it even begin to be reasonable to blame the people installing systems for failures.
As is traditional bad form; I'll reply to myself. One point I didn't put clearly. In this case the people that need to be informed are not the people that own the system. If you want me to know my house is insecure, you have simply to tell me. If I say "yes I know" then that's my responsibility and decision. In the case of a big company like Sony, if you simply say it (and many have) they will answer "we are secure to industry standards; don't try it or we'll arrest you". The only way to demonstrate to the people who own the data; the users; is to actually demonstrate the break in. This is a major difference.
P.S. having said that, I live six floors up; we have security guards, cameras and double glazing. If someone would insure the test, or if you were willing to place a 50 dollar bet on it and cover any damage you did to the neighbors then I'd love to see you try.
Not always. Most of the time, when you start needing more bandwidth you find that you can simply upgrade technology. 100M Ethernet to 10G Ethernet. Simple optical solutions to DWDM. This is often much much cheaper than laying more fibre. This is not to mention the fact that sensible companies lay several dark fibres when they lay one live fibre. The cost difference is typically negligible. Of course, eventually you are using the maximum amount of fibre in a link in the most efficient method available. At that point you do have to upgrade your installation, but this leads to far below linear costs.
The easy way to see this is to compare the cost of core bandwidth with the cost of edge bandwidth. Typically there are orders of magnitude in difference in cost.
LulzSec is not Anonymous, who at least pretends to have a purpose, and they shouldn't be treated as such.
Ah yes; Because "Anonymous" says it, it must be true.
They are doing it purely for the "Lulz" and don't deserve any more recognition than they already gain from their twitter feed.
They will be caught eventually, and when they are, I sincerely hope something terrible happens to them.
Maybe, five years ago, because they released other people's data, I could be persuaded to agree with you. Now, we have the situation where most cracking is taking place in private. If LulzSec is taking advantage of a breach for the "Lulz" then someone else has already done the same for money, profit and crime. Clearly the hacker crackdown and all the associated arrests of people for public hacking have been counter-productive. Without people like Lulz, we would never really see how bad the security is in the various big companies. Sure, if they get caught they deserve a slap on the wrist, mostly for the stupdity of getting caught. The people who should be punished are the people running the companies they hack (a bit) and the people providing security and operating systems to those people (lots). I really don't see the point in punishing people just because they make a public noise about what they did.
Bandwidth is a scarce resource. [...] They should charge a very minimal fee for running a wire, and then charge users for bandwidth at an auction basis.
This is the horribly misguided wisdom the ISPs are managing to put to us. Connectivity is scarce; putting in cables is expensive. Maintaining them is even more expensive. Once you have the right ones in place however, the difference in cost between installing 500kb/S and 50Mb/S is pretty small. So bandwidth should be pretty close to free once you have the connnection. Why isn't it? Well, bandwidth is a good proxy for technical knowledge. It is also needed to serve content. The ISPs want to use bandwidth charging to stop private people from competing in content creation.
It's important to remember also that quite a few of the things the patent office does nowadays they do because of successful appeals against their patent rejections. E.g. the standard for "obvious" is at least in part determined by patents that the office rejected and then lost lawsuits about.
"Defacto Standards" will be all that remains.
Why? Unless I'm missing something, your comment seems a bit nonsensical. This should actively encourage creating public open standards. If you want your product to be safe from patents, then the best way will be to state clearly how it works in a patent. Basically you would want to do that for every part of the products functionality apart from those bits where you can get a patent yourself or keep the functionality secret.
Right, except that if you took a different plan, e.g. prepaid, you wouldn't have to pay that $59 a month and would probably end up closer to $15 a month. So you are paying about $1000 extra for the phone.
And you're going to 'block sales' without trespassing or obstructing traffic how exactly?
'cmon. Has everybody forgotten how to protest. If the protesters want to get away with it there are so many ways this can be done. Wait until other customers start to arrive in the store. Go into the store (together with more friends than there are assistants). Pretend to be a customer. Demand attention then ask long and annoying but plausible questions about something expensive best of all if it's something you really do want to buy somewhere else. Act unsure; keep all the assistants busy. Then give up. Walk to a different part of the store. Repeat. Alternatively stand outside and be loud. Most customers won't come. Alternatively come in the same colour as the shop assistants. If asked give misleading advice, especially to go to the store round the corner.
Anyway you probably don't care too much about being charged with trespassing. That's the whole point of civil disobedience.
You know, I hope you people who do these things don't object when right wing wackos boycott Ford for 'promoting' homosexuality or anything..
Of course I object; to the homophobia. I don't care about the fact of the boycott if it wasn't for such a bad reason.
P.S. The best way to boycott Sony is not buying their stuff. Buy a Wii instead. That's what I do. I won't be turning up in a Sony store tomorrow because I haven't cared about Sony for years.
Well that depends if they signed up for facebook with their real ID or not. Maybe anonymous is really targetting idiots who use their own name on Facebook.
Having large number of consumers turn up at stores and block sales is going to target the top guy. I hope they make sure that they know how to identify Sony sponsored trouble makers. Most interesting would be if they manage to get some real customers confused with the protesters and violently kicked out by security. Now that would make a story :-)
Remember that early builds from MS mean nothing.
Right; this is crucial to remember. The reason for any information release at this point is to block MS partners who are thinking of becoming HP partners. MS will now be feeding this into their friends in your company and whenever someone points out what WebOS can do that person will say "if we just wait six months MS will do the same thing and we won't need to migrate".
Oh; and there will be 32 bit backwards compatibility; even if it's just through an integrated transparent hypervisor. Trust me.
If you want to adopt WebOS, get your project going now. Make serious progress as a "demo", "test environment" etc. If asked about the new MS product just say that this will give your organization a chance to prepare. Get real customers doing real things. At the point where Microsoft backs out or fails to deliver what your customers need, that is the point to make it really official.