ATI's linux drivers don't even support the X1x00 series yet.
Oh, and they haven't seen more than a 1% performance improvement (per release) on their last 5 driver releases.
Mainly, it seems like ATI's linux drivers are "improving" in that you can now reasonably get them installed on most configurations.
In terms of normal driver issues (unrelated to difficulty of install, or compatibility with kernel versions) their drivers are absolutely terrible. I find their lack of support for the X1x00 series disturbing.
Use a supported wireless card on SuSE, and it just works. GUI configuration and all.
Incidentally, multi-OS booting stuff is dead easy in SuSE, as well.
Go to YaST. Click on System. Click on Booting (I think its called that, might be startup). A menu comes up listing your grub settings. Click on "Default OS". Use the drop down menu to pick the OS you want. Click "OK"
Lately AMD's development rate has slowed. Initially, I suspected they did this to hold better product back until Intel became competitive again, but after a year or so I believe they started to sit on their laurels.
The new intel designs will push AMD to work harder, which is a good thing. AMD's developers are very, very talented. It's sad to see the business side of the operation (even though its very practical for them) to tell the developers to slow down a little bit.
None of this changes the fact that all of Apple's computers are 32-bit machines, running a 32-bit OS, and a modern PC is 64-bit, running a 64-bit OS.
Are you an idiot, or intentionally obtuse?
Show me a dual processor Windows laptop, 64-bit, with more than 20 minutes of battery life. You can't: modern state-of-the-art windows laptops use the core duo chip. Gateway, Dell, Sony, Lenovo... all of them. And guess what, there all "vista" capable, or whatever MS shit you plan on running.
For that matter, although I am primarily a Linux head, I do own a 2.7ghz dual G5, and the system is no slouch. You don't see IBM dropping the power architecture any time soon, do you?
64-bit computing is nice. But not necessary, for most applications anyways. The primary benefit of x86_64, for most people, is that certain tasks run much faster. Video/Audio encoding. Stuff like folding@home. Physics simulations.
If you develop a 32-bit processor thats just "that-much-faster", you'll be doing just fine. And guess what; on the laptop space the core duo IS that much faster than a Turion or a Mobile Athlon.
And I say this as someone who owns several desktop Athlon64s. But am I dumb enough to put a Athlon64 X2 in my laptop? Bwahahaha.
Apple dropped the PowerPC because it had no portable future. Most likely, Apple will transition to intel, fully, because its a pain in the ass to support two architectures. But don't make the mistake of saying 64-bit versus 32-bit. Otherwise, if that was your primary goal, you would have moved to an itanium. Performance is the goal, and intel's latest chips are very, very fast, as are the PowerPC G5. AMD builds fast, well designed chips, but they aren't some sort of wunderkin.
Obviously, you weren't at fault. But weren't you the teeniest bit mad at yourself for leaving it unlocked?
I bet you don't leave your car unlocked now, huh?
It's not cycnicism. It's pragmatism. Do I care about date rape victims? Hell yes. Would I get upset about my girlfriend walking in certain areas of Chicago by herself? Hell yes.
It's an ugly world out there. One must take certain basic measures to protect onself. It's not like crime is anything new......
People bitch about Google not doing anything innovative, but I think Google does what it does best, and buys the rest of the expertise it needs.
Google runs big servers. Really big. Google does search. Really well. Google stores data. Lots of data.
Applications like Writely stand to do really, really well as part of the Google Arsenal. Google can give them the technological back end support (not to mention programmer dollars) to get the project moving.
I'd love to see Google actually take the fight to Microsoft on something that Microsoft has not traditionally been strong at and show them how it should be done. Show them that they are innovaters and not just tagging along on already established software. Trying and compete with them on this front is almost a lost cause.
How about:
Search (Google>MSN or Windows Live) E-mail (Gmail>Hotmail) Desktop Search (G. Desktop>Windows Indexing Service. We'll see about Vista) Corporate Intranet Search (Google Enterprise>WDS Enterprise) What about Google Scholar, or Google Answers? What about Google Wifi?
Google's good at search. Really good. They've made a LOT of money with search, and "search" technologies are the kind of thing you can integrate into most any application, and cross-applications as well.
Thus, when Google wants to compete with Microsoft, why bother building a new solution, when they can purchase a company that builds a great solution, but is financially incapable of competing with Microsoft?
Add a program to the Google palette, make it interoperate with the other Google apps, and move on.
Writely is a nice product. It produces Word and OpenOffice.org compatible output. It's a good enough wordprocessor for 99% of people. And as a web app, Google can integrate it into Gmail, Blogger, hell, Google Talk. Add in search. Add in online storage.
See the Google strategy?
Of course, you've got to be able to run your web apps on browsers, and if MS dominates the browser market, that could get risky. Then again, one might wonder why Google funds Mozilla and Opera. Note that there isn't ANYTHING fishy going on here; Firefox (and Opera) give Google search referrals, and Google pays them. It's entirely straightforward, non-binding, and easy to change by the user.
As soon as I get the opporunity, I'm switching my company to an online Office solution. Sure; you can use your own Office desktop if you like. But most people, who don't need the fancy Office (OpenOffice.org) features will be okay using Writely.
A clutch feature for me will be if writely has excellent ODTDOC conversion. Then I can switch our file format, too.
But I don't think its fair to critize Google for staying with its core abilities. Google is a search company (or started as one, anyways). Google's developers are brilliant, but there is no reason for Google to launch a completely new app if there are other talented developers out there doing the same thing. Either buy 'em out, or co-develop with them. You don't always have to be evil and use the embrace->extend model in order to win. I think Google is winning the battle v. Microsoft in an entirely "good" way.
At the same time, I couldn't give a rat's ass. Leave your car unlocked, get your radio stolen, see me cry 0 tears.
Leave your house unlocked, and the fine china will walk out the front door.
Leave your computer unprotected, and your data/bandwidth will be taken.
We run OS X/Linux. Automatic security updates, 0 ports exposed, everything behind a NAT, no automatic execution of downloaded files, and nobody types in administrator password without calling me first, either because they don't know them, or they know to verify EVERYTHING with me. Did I mention that user desktops run few (no) services? CUPS, SMB, SSH. No remote or local root logins.
Everyone here understands that ANY thing they download could potentially result in all their data being messed up. Period.
The last piece of the puzzle for me would be to prevent people from "spoofing" OS X users using incorrect icons for executable mime-types. Then I'll be happy.
Dell sends a few test systems to any company willing to spin a Dell Linux (SuSE, Ubuntu, Redhat, whoever). Said company has to BUY them.
Dell supplies all hardware information those companies need to produce their own drivers, and Dell provides options as to what hardware to install in these systems. Dell provides ACPI documentation, as well.
SuSE, Ubuntu, Redhat, Mandriva, Linspire, WHOEVER does their own development, and then sends Dell pre-install images, and pays for Dell to do standard regression testing. Dell sells these systems under a particular Linux brand; Dell's SuSE store, or Dell's Mandriva store, or Dell's Gentoo store. Distribution makers agree to point at Dell as their primary hardware distributor. Dell pays distribution maker a small license fee for each system sold. All support is provided directly by distribution maker; when you call Dell for support, your call is rerouted to the distribution maker, or an alternative number is provided in the box (and on the manuals) from the distribution maker. Hardware issues requiring an RMA would involving shipping the systems to a Dell support center, where each distribution maker would provide software support technicians to Dell who would work in conjunction with Dell's hardware people.
This would be a blockbuster for the Linux market, and quite possible a big revenue generator for Dell. Also, it would work very well with Dell's BTO system. Pick hardware, Pick OS, choose options. Software supported contracted to OS maker, Hardware support by Dell.
No, the U.S. embraces linux as well. Companies here are just quieter about it.
If you are a Fortune 500 company (and not a Linux manufacturer or something) and you announce as switch away from Microsoft, your going to get the thumbscrews turned on you. This means your transition will be painful, and if you have any legacy applications that require Microsoft you'll pay through the noise. Hence, you keep quiet, move slowly, and wait until you have a 100% solution.
Microsoft India, or Microsoft China, or even Microsoft Europe are unlikely to be quite as rough.
The U.S. government is (slowly) embracing linux, and open source. Open Document has quite a bit of traction, the military and intelligence agencies spend quit a bit of time working with (and on) Linux, and some of the largest American IT companies are full-on pressing for Linux (IBM, Novell, Redhat, Sun, and others.)
Unless your are Novell or IBM, however, you have little reason to thumb your nose at Microsoft, mainly because it'll get you turned into the grease spot.
Nobody wants to be the company Microsoft uses to set an example. Nobody wants to be the business Microsoft runs into the ground (and they have done that before).
Trust me, the free lunch is very, very, very popular in the American IT community. CIOs love the idea, but its getting from A to B that is the problem. Killer apps like IBM's workplace, combined with virtualization solutions for legacy apps (and network distributed virtualization!) will help.
Plus, you can't really compare US versus Rest of World, because there are a whole lot more organizations in "Rest of World", meaning statistically your going to hear a lot more announcements.
Oh, and case in point: The announcement this article is discussing is IBM Germany. Sometimes its best for American companies to start with a test case internationally, and then bring home a winning, proven solution. It helps protect you against fearful investors, and provides you with documented examples of working transitions.
Have patience; to American IT officers, nothing speaks louder than the all-mighty dollar. Present them with a documented path towards a cheaper, more reliable solution, and they'll take it.
And it doesn't hurt to have the letters "I-B-M" on the evidence. . . . .
The highest (some say tied for highest) rated in Customer Service, as well as the fastest growing provider, as well as the most profitable segment of the worldwide giant of the same name.
Don't count out T-mobile. Expect their 3G deployment to blow your mind; their testing that Flarion 3G(4G) technology in Austria right now; their getting 100+ mbps on their testbed.
A) One should use OpenOffice.org as a conversion filter instead of relying upon Microsoft's support, and B) Microsoft can't program worth shit.
If every company on the planet except MS has good ODF support, and people start installing OpenOffice.org as a conversion filter, expect really bad things to happen to Microsoft's Office marketshare.
There's another reason its not worth worrying too hard about.
OpenOffice.org will read them correctly. Wordperfect, if they ever get round to it, will read them correctly. Sun's StarOffice, IBM's workplace will read ODF correctly. Abiword, etc, etc . . .
Let's say that MS offers EITHER broken ODF support, or no ODF support at all. Anyone who is in an environment that uses ODF has no problems; they can simply open the ODF in OpenOffice.org, which is free, and save it as a DOC, which Office will open correctly.
And that's the kicker; once you're using OpenOffice.org as a conversion filter you'll have people stop using MS Office for simple edits.
The difference is Office XML cannot be used in OpenSource applications.
Why? Although Microsoft grants you a license, you are not permitted to sublicense. As such, Office XML could never be used in a BSD or GPL, or any similar sublicensing Open Source scheme.
Also, ODF was established by a consortium of companies, is 100% unpatent encumbered, and will most likely become an ISO standard for document distribution in the near future.
Office XML is pretty open, but its not 100%. It's basically only usable by closed source projects, which is most likely Microsoft's intent.
Poor little Microsoft. Someone's out to get them; nay, some organization is working with other companies to get them! Colluding, even!
Microsoft likes to through that term around when they don't have any good arguments. The "independent expert" the EU is consulting with was from a short list picked by MICROSOFT. Back in the antitrust trial (the first one), Microsoft accussed the DoJ, Sun, Netscape, and various others that they were "colluding" against Microsoft.
I don't think the EU is doing anything illegitimate, but even if they were, karma is a bitch. Microsoft deserves every bit of shit that comes their way. They've driving many companies out of business (Remember Stacker?) using purely illegitmate tactics. Go look at the Halloween memos. Now, I don't believe that governments should pull crap like this, but I'm not going to shed a tear for Microsoft if they get fucked.
Governments fuck people everyday. Microsoft fucks people everyday. Pardon me while I play the world's smallest violin for Government fucking Microsoft. God knows they've deserved it on a million issues.
Stick to the facts, MS. Demonstrate stop accusing governments of collusion, stop making stupid offers like restrictive source code licenses. Provide standards based interoperability documentation on an easy to license basis, and all of this crap will go away.
Modern x86 processors are well documented. There's nothing a top of the line AMD won't do that a top of the line Intel will do (except hyperthreading, which isn't applicable, because they are specifically talking about Intel's new line of core processors, which aren't hyperthreaded). AMD's latest and greatest are SSE2 and SSE3 enabled, just like Intel's offerings. The only thing blocking 10 person skype on AMD is CPUID, not any processor specific features.
Everyone always discusses the amazing stuff that comes out of MS Research. Why am I never, ever impressed?
Perhaps they can design a "reclining throne-type waste receptacle that determines whether to delete or quarantine viruses based upon the volume of flatulence."
MS Research produced vaporware, buzzwords, and toys. No interesting development, no pure-science research.
IBM does loads of hard science. Apple has mastered product development.
Why does MS, with a far, far larger budget, and arguable (or at one time) the brightest in the industry, research or produce nothing of any interest whatsoever. The only "innovation" I see coming out of MS is repackaged of other SUCCESFUL products that have already been brought to market; hell, they don't even repackage stuff that has failed for reasons of insufficent marketing.
The better response is to make it absolutely, brilliantly clear that your service doesn't support AOL.
Stick a "Doesn't support AOL" banner on your website, put up a link saying, "AOL's mailservers no longer support the advanced technology used by the rest of the industry. Please upgrade to MSN, Yahoo, Gmail, or any of the other, reliable free e-mail providers out there. If you have any questions or concerns please direct them to or."
Better yet, some one like hotmail or gmail should hop on this train and start a "switch from AOL campaign." What better way to grab users then to scare them off using _valid_ scare tactics?
We don't do business with any AOL users (just checked). The only AOL e-mail I have to deal with is one of our co-worker's private accounts. If he can no longer receive company e-mails, I'll laugh at him.
Hell, even if you do have a billion AOL customers, subscribe to this service for the SHORT-TERM only. Send each and everyone of your customers a nastygram every 2 weeks indicating that you are dropping AOL support, because their "outdated e-mail technology is no longer compatible with the rest of the web." Most people using AOL have had it forever; it won't take much to convince them AOL is ancient. Advise them to switch to an "up and coming" service like Gmail, and they'll switch, at least for your business related e-mails.
A wide variety of companies used to do this with all kinds of services. Internet Explorer, Active X, even AOL and internet access (back when AOL offered nothing but proxys). The key is not where the blame actually lies (AOL's supposed fight with spam), but to instead portray AOL as a white elephant that is no longer keeping up with the times.
My father started in the garage, and now runs a multimillion dollar company specializing in organic chemistry formulations.
But if he had to pick one, either studying (playing with) science, or the money alone, he'd pick the science. Well, 75% of the time, anyways.;-)
Real scientists do it for the love their profession. Money is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. Similarly, real business men, real artists, real authors, real programmers, etc. . . .
The greatest things in mankind's history are generally not created by profiteers; but some of the geniuses do end up rich. And some of those end up POOR again!
Money is not a goal. He who dies with the most stuff does not win. Money is a tool, like any other. Some people build immense collections of eggs, or baseball cards. Some people build mounds of money. In the end, its not material objects that matter.
ClamAV is a well-known opensource antivirus project. At the moment, all it will really do for you is wipe out Windows viruses that somehow end up in your inbox, or on your SMB shares, or on removable media. But if an OS X virus/worm comes out, ClamAV will add it to its signatures.
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ATI's linux drivers don't even support the X1x00 series yet.
Oh, and they haven't seen more than a 1% performance improvement (per release) on their last 5 driver releases.
Mainly, it seems like ATI's linux drivers are "improving" in that you can now reasonably get them installed on most configurations.
In terms of normal driver issues (unrelated to difficulty of install, or compatibility with kernel versions) their drivers are absolutely terrible. I find their lack of support for the X1x00 series disturbing.
Yeah. Hear Hear.
Use a supported wireless card on SuSE, and it just works. GUI configuration and all.
Incidentally, multi-OS booting stuff is dead easy in SuSE, as well.
Go to YaST.
Click on System.
Click on Booting (I think its called that, might be startup).
A menu comes up listing your grub settings.
Click on "Default OS".
Use the drop down menu to pick the OS you want.
Click "OK"
I'm a big AMD fan, but this is true.
Lately AMD's development rate has slowed. Initially, I suspected they did this to hold better product back until Intel became competitive again, but after a year or so I believe they started to sit on their laurels.
The new intel designs will push AMD to work harder, which is a good thing. AMD's developers are very, very talented. It's sad to see the business side of the operation (even though its very practical for them) to tell the developers to slow down a little bit.
Expect AMD to start going full-tilt again.
None of this changes the fact that all of Apple's computers are 32-bit machines, running a 32-bit OS, and a modern PC is 64-bit, running a 64-bit OS.
Are you an idiot, or intentionally obtuse?
Show me a dual processor Windows laptop, 64-bit, with more than 20 minutes of battery life. You can't: modern state-of-the-art windows laptops use the core duo chip. Gateway, Dell, Sony, Lenovo... all of them. And guess what, there all "vista" capable, or whatever MS shit you plan on running.
For that matter, although I am primarily a Linux head, I do own a 2.7ghz dual G5, and the system is no slouch. You don't see IBM dropping the power architecture any time soon, do you?
64-bit computing is nice. But not necessary, for most applications anyways. The primary benefit of x86_64, for most people, is that certain tasks run much faster. Video/Audio encoding. Stuff like folding@home. Physics simulations.
If you develop a 32-bit processor thats just "that-much-faster", you'll be doing just fine. And guess what; on the laptop space the core duo IS that much faster than a Turion or a Mobile Athlon.
And I say this as someone who owns several desktop Athlon64s. But am I dumb enough to put a Athlon64 X2 in my laptop? Bwahahaha.
Apple dropped the PowerPC because it had no portable future. Most likely, Apple will transition to intel, fully, because its a pain in the ass to support two architectures. But don't make the mistake of saying 64-bit versus 32-bit. Otherwise, if that was your primary goal, you would have moved to an itanium. Performance is the goal, and intel's latest chips are very, very fast, as are the PowerPC G5. AMD builds fast, well designed chips, but they aren't some sort of wunderkin.
Stop being a fanboi, and open your eyes.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought Intel developed and pushed USB....
Perhaps I'm misremembering.
If you want root, you have to sudo. That's all. :)
Dude, come on, be realistic.
Obviously, you weren't at fault. But weren't you the teeniest bit mad at yourself for leaving it unlocked?
I bet you don't leave your car unlocked now, huh?
It's not cycnicism. It's pragmatism. Do I care about date rape victims? Hell yes. Would I get upset about my girlfriend walking in certain areas of Chicago by herself? Hell yes.
It's an ugly world out there. One must take certain basic measures to protect onself. It's not like crime is anything new......
Most likely.
People bitch about Google not doing anything innovative, but I think Google does what it does best, and buys the rest of the expertise it needs.
Google runs big servers. Really big.
Google does search. Really well.
Google stores data. Lots of data.
Applications like Writely stand to do really, really well as part of the Google Arsenal. Google can give them the technological back end support (not to mention programmer dollars) to get the project moving.
I'd love to see Google actually take the fight to Microsoft on something that Microsoft has not traditionally been strong at and show them how it should be done. Show them that they are innovaters and not just tagging along on already established software. Trying and compete with them on this front is almost a lost cause.
How about:
Search (Google>MSN or Windows Live)
E-mail (Gmail>Hotmail)
Desktop Search (G. Desktop>Windows Indexing Service. We'll see about Vista)
Corporate Intranet Search (Google Enterprise>WDS Enterprise)
What about Google Scholar, or Google Answers?
What about Google Wifi?
Google's good at search. Really good. They've made a LOT of money with search, and "search" technologies are the kind of thing you can integrate into most any application, and cross-applications as well.
Thus, when Google wants to compete with Microsoft, why bother building a new solution, when they can purchase a company that builds a great solution, but is financially incapable of competing with Microsoft?
Buy Keyhole. Add Search.
Buy Hello+Picassa. Add Search.
Buy Blogger. Add Search.
Build on Jabber. Add Search.
See the trend?
Add a program to the Google palette, make it interoperate with the other Google apps, and move on.
Writely is a nice product. It produces Word and OpenOffice.org compatible output. It's a good enough wordprocessor for 99% of people. And as a web app, Google can integrate it into Gmail, Blogger, hell, Google Talk. Add in search. Add in online storage.
See the Google strategy?
Of course, you've got to be able to run your web apps on browsers, and if MS dominates the browser market, that could get risky. Then again, one might wonder why Google funds Mozilla and Opera. Note that there isn't ANYTHING fishy going on here; Firefox (and Opera) give Google search referrals, and Google pays them. It's entirely straightforward, non-binding, and easy to change by the user.
As soon as I get the opporunity, I'm switching my company to an online Office solution. Sure; you can use your own Office desktop if you like. But most people, who don't need the fancy Office (OpenOffice.org) features will be okay using Writely.
A clutch feature for me will be if writely has excellent ODTDOC conversion. Then I can switch our file format, too.
But I don't think its fair to critize Google for staying with its core abilities. Google is a search company (or started as one, anyways). Google's developers are brilliant, but there is no reason for Google to launch a completely new app if there are other talented developers out there doing the same thing. Either buy 'em out, or co-develop with them. You don't always have to be evil and use the embrace->extend model in order to win. I think Google is winning the battle v. Microsoft in an entirely "good" way.
What he does is wrong. Don't get me wrong.
At the same time, I couldn't give a rat's ass. Leave your car unlocked, get your radio stolen, see me cry 0 tears.
Leave your house unlocked, and the fine china will walk out the front door.
Leave your computer unprotected, and your data/bandwidth will be taken.
We run OS X/Linux. Automatic security updates, 0 ports exposed, everything behind a NAT, no automatic execution of downloaded files, and nobody types in administrator password without calling me first, either because they don't know them, or they know to verify EVERYTHING with me. Did I mention that user desktops run few (no) services? CUPS, SMB, SSH. No remote or local root logins.
Everyone here understands that ANY thing they download could potentially result in all their data being messed up. Period.
The last piece of the puzzle for me would be to prevent people from "spoofing" OS X users using incorrect icons for executable mime-types. Then I'll be happy.
Why should I care?
It's really, really, really, really easy.
Make the distro manufacturers pay for it.
Dell sends a few test systems to any company willing to spin a Dell Linux (SuSE, Ubuntu, Redhat, whoever). Said company has to BUY them.
Dell supplies all hardware information those companies need to produce their own drivers, and Dell provides options as to what hardware to install in these systems. Dell provides ACPI documentation, as well.
SuSE, Ubuntu, Redhat, Mandriva, Linspire, WHOEVER does their own development, and then sends Dell pre-install images, and pays for Dell to do standard regression testing. Dell sells these systems under a particular Linux brand; Dell's SuSE store, or Dell's Mandriva store, or Dell's Gentoo store. Distribution makers agree to point at Dell as their primary hardware distributor. Dell pays distribution maker a small license fee for each system sold. All support is provided directly by distribution maker; when you call Dell for support, your call is rerouted to the distribution maker, or an alternative number is provided in the box (and on the manuals) from the distribution maker. Hardware issues requiring an RMA would involving shipping the systems to a Dell support center, where each distribution maker would provide software support technicians to Dell who would work in conjunction with Dell's hardware people.
This would be a blockbuster for the Linux market, and quite possible a big revenue generator for Dell. Also, it would work very well with Dell's BTO system. Pick hardware, Pick OS, choose options. Software supported contracted to OS maker, Hardware support by Dell.
No, the U.S. embraces linux as well. Companies here are just quieter about it.
If you are a Fortune 500 company (and not a Linux manufacturer or something) and you announce as switch away from Microsoft, your going to get the thumbscrews turned on you. This means your transition will be painful, and if you have any legacy applications that require Microsoft you'll pay through the noise. Hence, you keep quiet, move slowly, and wait until you have a 100% solution.
Microsoft India, or Microsoft China, or even Microsoft Europe are unlikely to be quite as rough.
The U.S. government is (slowly) embracing linux, and open source. Open Document has quite a bit of traction, the military and intelligence agencies spend quit a bit of time working with (and on) Linux, and some of the largest American IT companies are full-on pressing for Linux (IBM, Novell, Redhat, Sun, and others.)
Unless your are Novell or IBM, however, you have little reason to thumb your nose at Microsoft, mainly because it'll get you turned into the grease spot.
Nobody wants to be the company Microsoft uses to set an example. Nobody wants to be the business Microsoft runs into the ground (and they have done that before).
Trust me, the free lunch is very, very, very popular in the American IT community. CIOs love the idea, but its getting from A to B that is the problem. Killer apps like IBM's workplace, combined with virtualization solutions for legacy apps (and network distributed virtualization!) will help.
Plus, you can't really compare US versus Rest of World, because there are a whole lot more organizations in "Rest of World", meaning statistically your going to hear a lot more announcements.
Oh, and case in point: The announcement this article is discussing is IBM Germany. Sometimes its best for American companies to start with a test case internationally, and then bring home a winning, proven solution. It helps protect you against fearful investors, and provides you with documented examples of working transitions.
Have patience; to American IT officers, nothing speaks louder than the all-mighty dollar. Present them with a documented path towards a cheaper, more reliable solution, and they'll take it.
And it doesn't hurt to have the letters "I-B-M" on the evidence. . . . .
Don't forget T-mobile!
The highest (some say tied for highest) rated in Customer Service, as well as the fastest growing provider, as well as the most profitable segment of the worldwide giant of the same name.
Don't count out T-mobile. Expect their 3G deployment to blow your mind; their testing that Flarion 3G(4G) technology in Austria right now; their getting 100+ mbps on their testbed.
This will only validate that:
A) One should use OpenOffice.org as a conversion filter instead of relying upon Microsoft's support, and
B) Microsoft can't program worth shit.
If every company on the planet except MS has good ODF support, and people start installing OpenOffice.org as a conversion filter, expect really bad things to happen to Microsoft's Office marketshare.
There's another reason its not worth worrying too hard about.
;-)
OpenOffice.org will read them correctly. Wordperfect, if they ever get round to it, will read them correctly. Sun's StarOffice, IBM's workplace will read ODF correctly. Abiword, etc, etc . . .
Let's say that MS offers EITHER broken ODF support, or no ODF support at all. Anyone who is in an environment that uses ODF has no problems; they can simply open the ODF in OpenOffice.org, which is free, and save it as a DOC, which Office will open correctly.
And that's the kicker; once you're using OpenOffice.org as a conversion filter you'll have people stop using MS Office for simple edits.
And then you've got a foothold
The difference is Office XML cannot be used in OpenSource applications.
Why? Although Microsoft grants you a license, you are not permitted to sublicense. As such, Office XML could never be used in a BSD or GPL, or any similar sublicensing Open Source scheme.
Also, ODF was established by a consortium of companies, is 100% unpatent encumbered, and will most likely become an ISO standard for document distribution in the near future.
Office XML is pretty open, but its not 100%. It's basically only usable by closed source projects, which is most likely Microsoft's intent.
Poor little Microsoft. Someone's out to get them; nay, some organization is working with other companies to get them! Colluding, even!
Microsoft likes to through that term around when they don't have any good arguments. The "independent expert" the EU is consulting with was from a short list picked by MICROSOFT. Back in the antitrust trial (the first one), Microsoft accussed the DoJ, Sun, Netscape, and various others that they were "colluding" against Microsoft.
I don't think the EU is doing anything illegitimate, but even if they were, karma is a bitch. Microsoft deserves every bit of shit that comes their way. They've driving many companies out of business (Remember Stacker?) using purely illegitmate tactics. Go look at the Halloween memos. Now, I don't believe that governments should pull crap like this, but I'm not going to shed a tear for Microsoft if they get fucked.
Governments fuck people everyday. Microsoft fucks people everyday. Pardon me while I play the world's smallest violin for Government fucking Microsoft. God knows they've deserved it on a million issues.
Stick to the facts, MS. Demonstrate stop accusing governments of collusion, stop making stupid offers like restrictive source code licenses. Provide standards based interoperability documentation on an easy to license basis, and all of this crap will go away.
Follow the damn EU settlement already.
I want to see crossplatform apps (Cinebench, anything else with OS X86 versions) run on the following platforms:
1. MacBook Pro, OS X
2. Core Duo generic laptop, OS X
3. Core Duo generic laptop, Windows XP
And, if possible:
4. Core Duo generic laptop, Linux
That would be a _real_ benchmark.
That's 'cause the extra features don't exist.
Modern x86 processors are well documented. There's nothing a top of the line AMD won't do that a top of the line Intel will do (except hyperthreading, which isn't applicable, because they are specifically talking about Intel's new line of core processors, which aren't hyperthreaded). AMD's latest and greatest are SSE2 and SSE3 enabled, just like Intel's offerings. The only thing blocking 10 person skype on AMD is CPUID, not any processor specific features.
does it again!
Everyone always discusses the amazing stuff that comes out of MS Research. Why am I never, ever impressed?
Perhaps they can design a "reclining throne-type waste receptacle that determines whether to delete or quarantine viruses based upon the volume of flatulence."
MS Research produced vaporware, buzzwords, and toys. No interesting development, no pure-science research.
IBM does loads of hard science.
Apple has mastered product development.
Why does MS, with a far, far larger budget, and arguable (or at one time) the brightest in the industry, research or produce nothing of any interest whatsoever. The only "innovation" I see coming out of MS is repackaged of other SUCCESFUL products that have already been brought to market; hell, they don't even repackage stuff that has failed for reasons of insufficent marketing.
Snore.
AOL can do whatever it wants. Just ignore it.
."
The better response is to make it absolutely, brilliantly clear that your service doesn't support AOL.
Stick a "Doesn't support AOL" banner on your website, put up a link saying, "AOL's mailservers no longer support the advanced technology used by the rest of the industry. Please upgrade to MSN, Yahoo, Gmail, or any of the other, reliable free e-mail providers out there. If you have any questions or concerns please direct them to or
Better yet, some one like hotmail or gmail should hop on this train and start a "switch from AOL campaign." What better way to grab users then to scare them off using _valid_ scare tactics?
We don't do business with any AOL users (just checked). The only AOL e-mail I have to deal with is one of our co-worker's private accounts. If he can no longer receive company e-mails, I'll laugh at him.
Hell, even if you do have a billion AOL customers, subscribe to this service for the SHORT-TERM only. Send each and everyone of your customers a nastygram every 2 weeks indicating that you are dropping AOL support, because their "outdated e-mail technology is no longer compatible with the rest of the web." Most people using AOL have had it forever; it won't take much to convince them AOL is ancient. Advise them to switch to an "up and coming" service like Gmail, and they'll switch, at least for your business related e-mails.
A wide variety of companies used to do this with all kinds of services. Internet Explorer, Active X, even AOL and internet access (back when AOL offered nothing but proxys). The key is not where the blame actually lies (AOL's supposed fight with spam), but to instead portray AOL as a white elephant that is no longer keeping up with the times.
Hear Hear!
;-)
My father started in the garage, and now runs a multimillion dollar company specializing in organic chemistry formulations.
But if he had to pick one, either studying (playing with) science, or the money alone, he'd pick the science. Well, 75% of the time, anyways.
Real scientists do it for the love their profession. Money is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. Similarly, real business men, real artists, real authors, real programmers, etc. . . .
The greatest things in mankind's history are generally not created by profiteers; but some of the geniuses do end up rich. And some of those end up POOR again!
Money is not a goal. He who dies with the most stuff does not win. Money is a tool, like any other. Some people build immense collections of eggs, or baseball cards. Some people build mounds of money. In the end, its not material objects that matter.
I say this as a strict, capitalist libertarian.
SuSE does the same thing.
Insert CD. It shows up on your desktop, or in My Computer (in KDE).
Push Eject button (on your drive, or right click on the CD icon, and click eject).
CD pops out.
Are you worried? I mean, really, really worried?
If so, go here: http://www.clamxav.com/
ClamAV is a well-known opensource antivirus project. At the moment, all it will really do for you is wipe out Windows viruses that somehow end up in your inbox, or on your SMB shares, or on removable media. But if an OS X virus/worm comes out, ClamAV will add it to its signatures.
Good thing, then, that similar to the OS X setup, Windows XP SP2 creates new users without administrator privelidges, right?
Oh, wait; no. You have to go in and do that manually, after you've followed the MS wizard that shows you how to configure users.
Sometimes a company will do things to mitigate user ignorance. Sometimes a company will do thing to exacerbate user ignorance.
Micrsoft follows path #2.