Those are not companies rivalring on their Windows offers but on their OS offers. Quite a different thing. By the way, if you don't understand that all copyright laws are government granted monopolies (not that this is good or bad by itself) it's no wonder you can't understand such a simple fact.
I have no idea what you meant by "Those are not companies rivalring on their Windows offers but on their OS offers" Windows is an OS. They are rivals (even if one would say small rivals) to Windows OS.
Copyright laws are monopolies on a specific product, not on an industry or type of product. MS does not have a copyright on OS', they have a copyright on Windows. There is a huge difference, hopefully that fact didn't pass you by.
What you're completely missing is that Windows 7 basically is Vista SP2 and doesn't add anything significantly new from the perspective of the 6 items you listed. That means companies have had years to plan for those and are still saying no thanks in large numbers after they said no thanks to Vista. Perhaps this commonly accepted wisdom of waiting for SP1 will come back to bite MS in the butt and if they hadn't tried to sweep things under the rug with a rename they might have been better off.
I know exactly what win7 is and how it relates to Vista. I am not missing a single thing. What you are missing is that no company jumps in head first into a new product and they view Win7 as a brand new product...not an SP to Vista. Plus planning for Vista years ago and then scraping those plans means that they need to plan, again, from scratch. Why? Because technologies change, costs change, internal software/procedures change so the plan needs to change and if it changes so much it just needs to be started from the ground up. As such companies will wait - just like they do for any software/hardware updates. MS is not trying to "sweep things under the rug" they are actively working on a new product and good for them. You are assigning malicious intent where none is needed. They are attempting to resolve issues - that is what we want and expect. I have Vista and Win7 and other then the look of the software there are significant changes.
Sure it is. This monopoly is given the force of law. That's why there aren't plenty of little Microsoft rivals
also selling Windows. You don't "own" anything. The government interferes in the market because it has been
granted that power and it is considered in the public interest to do so.
Without that interference, there would be nothing to stop plenty of little Microsoft rivals from undercutting
Microsoft and selling their products in Best Buy rather than some swap meet.
No rivals? Are you kidding me? Let's look at the alternatives:
Personal Computing
Apple, & Linux are just two popular ones.
FireFox
Opera
Netscape
Enterprise Computing
FreeBSD
Oracle
Linux
Unix
Apple (they started a small enterprise line a while ago)
FireFox
Opera
Netscape
So yea there are other options. Best Buy sells Windows over Linux (actually they sell this to but not as much) because they can make more money. Why would I pay Best Buy for Linux when I can get it for free? You can't get Windows for free (legally) so when you buy a computer if you want Windows you gotta pay someone for it. If Best Buy could charge you for Linux they would sell that too.
Because while my personal experience, with Vista, has been good I do understand and realize and acknowledge that other people (especially corporations) have not had such a great experience. So *I* have no complaints (other then personal preferences, but look/feel is not a valid complaint imho), but others do. If the common consensus is that Vista is bad then I am not so stubborn/stuck-up to say "Vista is bad".
It is not news. First off companies held out on Vista because Vista didn't work properly. So far reports show that Win7 is doing well and will be well received....but it won't happen overnight. Issues companies take into consideration:
1) Hardware costs (servers/pcs)
2) Migration Costs
3) Down time for upgrades
4) Application Testing costs (did Adobe make sure they are 100% compliant with Win7? This includes older versions)
5) Software costs (Will they have to buy Office 2007, or a new version or cant they stick with Office 2003. Will they have to buy a new version of Adobe, Norton AntiVirus, MS.Net Studio, etc) - this shit adds up FAST until a single PC is looking like a $2,000 upgrade...not a $500 upgrade
6) Tech Support availability - Does MS have lots of staff well-versed in handling potential issues. Does your vendor offer tech support? Does your own staff offer it?
So far I just named you six potential, and major, issues right off the top of my head. None of these are "trust" related (as far as MS products are concerned).
Other issue, that is more MS concerned, patches. 300,000 testers in limited environments is not as good as 3MM investors in enterprise environments. Now you have malicious hackers you need to concern yourself with who are looking for vulnerabilities and implementing them.
Just because companies held off on Vista does not mean they will not upgrade to 7. It isn't a lack of trust with MS it is a lack of trust in a new product and most companies avoid getting the latest and greatest of ANY product until it has the equivelant of an SP1
I was thinking something similar to you, and that brought to mind an idea...
Microsoft should sell their OS, barebones with no utilities, at a reduced price(say $25 off)
Then they should sell a Microsoft Basic User CD with IE, WMP, WMM, Defender, Wordpad(it's a word processor!,) etc for $40
And they should sell a bundle; OS and Basic User software for the current price of the OS.
AND, they should allow resellers to sell the bare OS along with their own user bundle.
It will be great, just like Linux distributions, but with a paid-for core OS!!
Your idea is forward thinking, but a person like me will end up paying $15 more for stuff that I already get today. There are a lot of people like that. Most people want IE, WMP, WM, Defender, Wordpad, etc pre-built.
BTW for any protection (defender, firewall, etc I would think that should be basic - do we really want more people with worms on their computers)?
Another issue, if MS offers the "bundle" version someone will say "that's a monopoly, why don't they offer a version with FireFox?". There is always someone who will complain and there is always someone who will make enough noise to an uninformed judge. In all honesty if someone doesn't like Windows they can buy a computer without an OS. If Dell doesn't offer computers without an OS don't shop at dell. I bought my computer from a place and they asked me which OS I wanted. They asked if I wanted XP, Vista, Linux, or clean. My choice, not Uncle Sam's choice. Since when did we want Uncle Sam to tell stores what they should or should not sell? Maybe Uncle Sam should tell stores they are not allowed to sell GTA, or any other game that is rated higher then G. See where we are heading? These people who think they have no choice must be shopping at Dell. Well that's Dell's perogative to sell only Windows (doesn't Dell offer Linux these days?)
Considering how much of a marketshare FireFox has, and they have publically said they don't want the help of the gov't, and how profitable Apple is, this monopoly stuff really only exists in people's minds. Really, there aren't any monopolies anymore. Hell, you don't like US gov't...move to England, canada, mexico, wherever. You don't like democracies... move to China, Cuba, wherever. You don't like gov'ts at all...move to Brazil, live in the jungle - by yourself - and avoid human contact. The closest thing we have to a monopoly these days are the oil companies - and they have 100% price fixing - and they publicize it.
If you want price fixing look at car dealerships. Go to Wal-mart...every wal-mart has the same prices. Go to gas stations. Go buy an X-box games.
Having a product, and subsequent versions of that, which people utilize is not a monopoly. To punish a company for making a successful product is wrong - it makes companies not want to create such products. Monopoly means no other options - but there are other options. There are other OS there are other office productivity software. The market helped make MS the dominant producer.
You state that IE and WMP should not be bundled in with their machine - that is your opinion...mine is different. If I didn't have IE built into my computer how was I supposed to go to Mozilla's website and download firefox? Or should I have been forced to grab an AOL CD and install their crap-ware on my computer? If I didn't have WMP pre-installed on my computer how was I going to listen to music? Install Real player and all the spyware that came with it? It still boggles my mind that MS "should" be forced to install their competitors products into their software. How about Red Hat be forced to install IE or WMP? Or Mac be forced to use MS Paint and MS Office instead of their own version? Every OS has their preferred versions. Nobody is complaining about those products. Let's take this into other markets. How about BMW be forced to install Ford's dashboard? Hyndai must now install lamborghini tires.
What MS did wrong, and it was done a LONG time ago so we need to stop beating the "anti-trust" drums like they do this everyday, is force retailers to use their products. Geez this didn't happen last week, this happend a decade ago. At some point it gets old.
XP will be fased out and I don't see companies using the abandoned version that we call Vista(it's the truth!). Unless they want to get an illegal version or stick to their old licenses if they still have it. XP is old and MS is trying to obsolete it and since they have the monopoly on spreading Windows, companies will have no choice.
We WILL switch to Windows 7 or you will be forced to choose a different OS like Mac OS or a GNU/Linux flavour(or a dying *BSD;) )
Way to butcher the English language and fail at law. Owning exclusive rights to produce your own product is not a monopoly. The word "fased" does not exist, but the word "phased" does exist. MS is no different then any other company who chooses to discontinue offering services to an aging product. XP has been out for a long time and they would like to make new revenue sales. Windows 7 does offer many new features that XP does not. A company has the option of sticking around with XP and Office 2003 if they so choose, or they can upgrade.
I do not know how old you are, but assuming you are at least in your 20's do you not remember when MS went from Win98/NT to XP? Everyone bitched and moaned and now we have "Windows XP fanatics" who absolutely love XP. Vista was bad, but 7 seems great so far. I have been using it in Beta and have zero complaints. Then again I have been using Vista 64 Premium and Vista 32 Home (desktop/laptop respectively) and have no complaints.
This is nothing new, so why is this news? Most businesses are not early adopters of technology and usually wait until SP1 comes out. DUH! This has nothing to do with VISTA, and has nothing to do with ME. Even hardware companies get the same deal. Businesses that need to keep mission critical systems up will not want to buy the latest and greatest until it has gone through a bunch of patches. Also, let's not forget, that buying software (and hardware to run it) as an early adopter = bigger price tag. Wait a year and things will be about 50% cheaper - which in a business can mean LOTS of money.
I wonder if this questionnaire took into account businsses that got Vista. Most likely these companies will not upgrade at all since they just spent a ton of money on Vista. This article is flawed and fails to be news. Wait, it's anti-MS bashing so it is news here.
If software/hardware companies want more early adopters they need to offer substantial discounts. For example "Be the first 25,000 to order our stuff within the first three months and get 50% off software, and 15% off hardware". That will get you more early adopters.
This is a huge dent. Let's say if they didn't price fix they would sell their product at $100, but after price fixing they sell their product at $25. Their additional profit is $25/unit. So paying 9 mil Euros will put a huge dent into that additional profit if not take it out completely. Remember we are talking about a local subsidiary of MS, not MS corporate home. If MS let's them shoulder the burden of that penalty it would be heavy.
Though I am wondering how they are doing price fixing. If they have a suggested retail price on the box that does not fall under price fixing. Stores are not obligated to sell at those prices but historically stores are given some kind of preferential treatement (e.g. becoming an authorized dealer) for selling at the suggested price. The other upside is that Store A doesn't price gouge itself to be better priced then Store B. That's not price fixing. So going by
Microsoft has influenced the resale price of the software package--Office Home & Student 2007--in an anticompetitive manner
this must not lead to a form of coordination where the supplier actively tries to coordinate the pricing activities of the retailer and thus retailer and supplier agree on future actions of the retailer. I
Dude is making wind to get some brownie points (works great on/.). In all honesty setting a suggested retail price != price fixing. Again, if anyone here believes that they may want to sue every company that produces a product with a price attacked to the packaging from the manufacturer.
BTW i highlighted the "anticompetitive manner" it doesnt' state against what. Anti-competitive against Open Office? I doubt that. Anticompetitive against other MS Office retailers? Why would corporate do that? They don't care what the retailers sell it at as long as they get their money for each box sold (which they set the price). It's popular and easy to slam MS because it's been done before. The number 1 company in a given market is always viewed as the evil of the world. Since they have tons of money it's "OK" to sue.
On a side note I find fault with statements like this
Russia recently announced that it was considering adding Microsoft to a list of companies with high market share that might be subject to additional scrutiny under that country's antitrust laws,
So if I create a prodcut that EVERYONE loves and EVERYONE MUST HAVE I should be put under scrutiny and sued? Even if I didn't do anything wrong I am supposed to be punished because everyone loves my product? The American dream (or any other countries dream) being torn down one lawsuit at a time. I feel that Russia will sue because getting 9 mil euros is an easy way to increase a countries income.
In the US when you buy a product from an online merchant who is from another state then where it is being shipped to there are no taxes assessed. Technically you, the purchaser, are supposed to pay the taxes at year end. The reason they do not force the seller to assess the taxes is because it would be so convoluted and impractical (technology wise) plus paying it at the end of the quarter would be so painstaking the gov't was nice and made it the responsibility of the purchaser.
It's bad for an economy when an entrepreneur has to first take into consideration the taxes before engaging in a business enterprise or even consider them. That's just idiotic.
No it isn't. Just like it isn't bad to check up on safety regulations before venturing into a business. It's also very inexpensive. I registered a company by paying my cpa $200. I have an LLC. My cpa then told me what I had to do for taxes. It was quite simple. It's also good for the economy.
Yes, BTW, I think prostitution should be legal.
Depending where you live it may be. Depending where you live, even if it isn't, the cops get bribed and turn a blind eye. But this is not prostitution it's video and that is legal in most countries.
It does. The exoskeleton works by reading the bio electric signals. Then 'guessing' what movement you intend to make from a large list of things possible. It then moves before you do so that you arent pulling yourself out of the suit. So there is some AI involved, and an sensor malfunction could result in you rampageing the city. Better still since the system works on a set of movements... Normally with random signals you'd probablly just fall down or flail randomly. With a list of instructions it to go about on its own.:D
Sorry, doing X when Y happens is not AI. Now if the computer see's you doing Y and it thinks "hmm X isn't the best course, neither is Z, neither is A. Hey this user is a moron let's do something completely different to get a new outcome" that would be AI.
Luckily for me slashdot is an american based company. The thread poster lives in america and went to an american school. He's been living in Philadelphia since 2005 (he is practically my neighbor)
The/. poster said limited mass production. The article says annual production of 400. The/. poster fails. The/. editors fail for poor grammar "Cyberdyne are planing". It would be more appropriate to say "Cyberdine IS planning"
Cyberdyne are planning an annual production of 400 units
Also, according to Cyberdyne's website battary life is at 2 hours 40 minutes. Not sure where you got at least 5 hours. As for self-awareness the device has to have some form of AI. I know you were trying to be funny, but you have to wait until version 2.0 to pull this joke out:)
That is not true at all. A 90 day sample out of 365 is a great grouping, not as good as a 365 sample, but still good enough. 1 day is not 90 days...in fact it is 90 times less accurate.
So what your saying is because MS/Blizzard got "bad rulings" other bad rulings should be made as long as it effects them? There we go - great reasoning at it's best. Instead of improving the system you want it to get worse...then you will complain when some company - which happens to meet your standard - falls victim to those standards you hailed as "good job".
BTW with regards to the Blizzard issue you are referring to people attempting to run WoW independently on their computers - it's Blizzards software they can dictate how to operte it. Don't like it? Don't buy it. I have a rule for people who come to my house - no smoking. If they don't like it they don't have to come to my house. Should the courts rule that I can't dictate what happens in my house?
There is no hipocrisy on cheer as MS got slammed by the same tool they created (or loobied toward the creation) in order to slam the small guys.
If there is any hipocrisy anywhere here it is within MS, by violating a software patent.
You are obviously an anti-MS fanatic who can't see reason (that's why you are a fanatic). MS created a tool and someone is sueing them YEARS after the tool had been established - a submarine patent. This is something/. users have stated they hate for many years. Now MS is getting sued by a submarine patent and you are saying "as they should". MS did not do anything hypocritical and you obviously do not know what that word means. What you are attempting to say "they created a tool that I do not like and now they are getting sued for it by a submarine patent, and since they are MS it is a good day". Except this jury set a horrible legal precedent so this company is going to continue to sue companies like Adobe, Blizzard and other companies which restrict registration of licensed software.
You fail.
Slashdot Mirror
Those are not companies rivalring on their Windows offers but on their OS offers. Quite a different thing. By the way, if you don't understand that all copyright laws are government granted monopolies (not that this is good or bad by itself) it's no wonder you can't understand such a simple fact.
I have no idea what you meant by "Those are not companies rivalring on their Windows offers but on their OS offers" Windows is an OS. They are rivals (even if one would say small rivals) to Windows OS.
Copyright laws are monopolies on a specific product, not on an industry or type of product. MS does not have a copyright on OS', they have a copyright on Windows. There is a huge difference, hopefully that fact didn't pass you by.
What you're completely missing is that Windows 7 basically is Vista SP2 and doesn't add anything significantly new from the perspective of the 6 items you listed. That means companies have had years to plan for those and are still saying no thanks in large numbers after they said no thanks to Vista. Perhaps this commonly accepted wisdom of waiting for SP1 will come back to bite MS in the butt and if they hadn't tried to sweep things under the rug with a rename they might have been better off.
I know exactly what win7 is and how it relates to Vista. I am not missing a single thing. What you are missing is that no company jumps in head first into a new product and they view Win7 as a brand new product...not an SP to Vista. Plus planning for Vista years ago and then scraping those plans means that they need to plan, again, from scratch. Why? Because technologies change, costs change, internal software/procedures change so the plan needs to change and if it changes so much it just needs to be started from the ground up. As such companies will wait - just like they do for any software/hardware updates. MS is not trying to "sweep things under the rug" they are actively working on a new product and good for them. You are assigning malicious intent where none is needed. They are attempting to resolve issues - that is what we want and expect. I have Vista and Win7 and other then the look of the software there are significant changes.
Sure it is. This monopoly is given the force of law. That's why there aren't plenty of little Microsoft rivals also selling Windows. You don't "own" anything. The government interferes in the market because it has been granted that power and it is considered in the public interest to do so. Without that interference, there would be nothing to stop plenty of little Microsoft rivals from undercutting Microsoft and selling their products in Best Buy rather than some swap meet.
No rivals? Are you kidding me? Let's look at the alternatives:
Personal Computing
Apple, & Linux are just two popular ones.
FireFox
Opera
Netscape
Enterprise Computing
FreeBSD
Oracle
Linux
Unix
Apple (they started a small enterprise line a while ago)
FireFox
Opera
Netscape
So yea there are other options. Best Buy sells Windows over Linux (actually they sell this to but not as much) because they can make more money. Why would I pay Best Buy for Linux when I can get it for free? You can't get Windows for free (legally) so when you buy a computer if you want Windows you gotta pay someone for it. If Best Buy could charge you for Linux they would sell that too.
If you have no complaints, why is Vista bad?
Because while my personal experience, with Vista, has been good I do understand and realize and acknowledge that other people (especially corporations) have not had such a great experience. So *I* have no complaints (other then personal preferences, but look/feel is not a valid complaint imho), but others do. If the common consensus is that Vista is bad then I am not so stubborn/stuck-up to say "Vista is bad".
It is not news. First off companies held out on Vista because Vista didn't work properly. So far reports show that Win7 is doing well and will be well received....but it won't happen overnight. Issues companies take into consideration: .Net Studio, etc) - this shit adds up FAST until a single PC is looking like a $2,000 upgrade...not a $500 upgrade
1) Hardware costs (servers/pcs)
2) Migration Costs
3) Down time for upgrades
4) Application Testing costs (did Adobe make sure they are 100% compliant with Win7? This includes older versions)
5) Software costs (Will they have to buy Office 2007, or a new version or cant they stick with Office 2003. Will they have to buy a new version of Adobe, Norton AntiVirus, MS
6) Tech Support availability - Does MS have lots of staff well-versed in handling potential issues. Does your vendor offer tech support? Does your own staff offer it?
So far I just named you six potential, and major, issues right off the top of my head. None of these are "trust" related (as far as MS products are concerned).
Other issue, that is more MS concerned, patches. 300,000 testers in limited environments is not as good as 3MM investors in enterprise environments. Now you have malicious hackers you need to concern yourself with who are looking for vulnerabilities and implementing them.
Just because companies held off on Vista does not mean they will not upgrade to 7. It isn't a lack of trust with MS it is a lack of trust in a new product and most companies avoid getting the latest and greatest of ANY product until it has the equivelant of an SP1
I was thinking something similar to you, and that brought to mind an idea... Microsoft should sell their OS, barebones with no utilities, at a reduced price(say $25 off) Then they should sell a Microsoft Basic User CD with IE, WMP, WMM, Defender, Wordpad(it's a word processor!,) etc for $40 And they should sell a bundle; OS and Basic User software for the current price of the OS. AND, they should allow resellers to sell the bare OS along with their own user bundle. It will be great, just like Linux distributions, but with a paid-for core OS!!
Your idea is forward thinking, but a person like me will end up paying $15 more for stuff that I already get today. There are a lot of people like that. Most people want IE, WMP, WM, Defender, Wordpad, etc pre-built.
BTW for any protection (defender, firewall, etc I would think that should be basic - do we really want more people with worms on their computers)?
Another issue, if MS offers the "bundle" version someone will say "that's a monopoly, why don't they offer a version with FireFox?". There is always someone who will complain and there is always someone who will make enough noise to an uninformed judge. In all honesty if someone doesn't like Windows they can buy a computer without an OS. If Dell doesn't offer computers without an OS don't shop at dell. I bought my computer from a place and they asked me which OS I wanted. They asked if I wanted XP, Vista, Linux, or clean. My choice, not Uncle Sam's choice. Since when did we want Uncle Sam to tell stores what they should or should not sell? Maybe Uncle Sam should tell stores they are not allowed to sell GTA, or any other game that is rated higher then G. See where we are heading? These people who think they have no choice must be shopping at Dell. Well that's Dell's perogative to sell only Windows (doesn't Dell offer Linux these days?)
Considering how much of a marketshare FireFox has, and they have publically said they don't want the help of the gov't, and how profitable Apple is, this monopoly stuff really only exists in people's minds. Really, there aren't any monopolies anymore. Hell, you don't like US gov't...move to England, canada, mexico, wherever. You don't like democracies... move to China, Cuba, wherever. You don't like gov'ts at all...move to Brazil, live in the jungle - by yourself - and avoid human contact. The closest thing we have to a monopoly these days are the oil companies - and they have 100% price fixing - and they publicize it.
If you want price fixing look at car dealerships. Go to Wal-mart...every wal-mart has the same prices. Go to gas stations. Go buy an X-box games.
Having a product, and subsequent versions of that, which people utilize is not a monopoly. To punish a company for making a successful product is wrong - it makes companies not want to create such products. Monopoly means no other options - but there are other options. There are other OS there are other office productivity software. The market helped make MS the dominant producer.
You state that IE and WMP should not be bundled in with their machine - that is your opinion...mine is different. If I didn't have IE built into my computer how was I supposed to go to Mozilla's website and download firefox? Or should I have been forced to grab an AOL CD and install their crap-ware on my computer? If I didn't have WMP pre-installed on my computer how was I going to listen to music? Install Real player and all the spyware that came with it? It still boggles my mind that MS "should" be forced to install their competitors products into their software. How about Red Hat be forced to install IE or WMP? Or Mac be forced to use MS Paint and MS Office instead of their own version? Every OS has their preferred versions. Nobody is complaining about those products. Let's take this into other markets. How about BMW be forced to install Ford's dashboard? Hyndai must now install lamborghini tires.
What MS did wrong, and it was done a LONG time ago so we need to stop beating the "anti-trust" drums like they do this everyday, is force retailers to use their products. Geez this didn't happen last week, this happend a decade ago. At some point it gets old.
XP will be fased out and I don't see companies using the abandoned version that we call Vista(it's the truth!). Unless they want to get an illegal version or stick to their old licenses if they still have it. XP is old and MS is trying to obsolete it and since they have the monopoly on spreading Windows, companies will have no choice. We WILL switch to Windows 7 or you will be forced to choose a different OS like Mac OS or a GNU/Linux flavour(or a dying *BSD ;) )
Way to butcher the English language and fail at law. Owning exclusive rights to produce your own product is not a monopoly. The word "fased" does not exist, but the word "phased" does exist. MS is no different then any other company who chooses to discontinue offering services to an aging product. XP has been out for a long time and they would like to make new revenue sales. Windows 7 does offer many new features that XP does not. A company has the option of sticking around with XP and Office 2003 if they so choose, or they can upgrade.
I do not know how old you are, but assuming you are at least in your 20's do you not remember when MS went from Win98/NT to XP? Everyone bitched and moaned and now we have "Windows XP fanatics" who absolutely love XP. Vista was bad, but 7 seems great so far. I have been using it in Beta and have zero complaints. Then again I have been using Vista 64 Premium and Vista 32 Home (desktop/laptop respectively) and have no complaints.
This is nothing new, so why is this news? Most businesses are not early adopters of technology and usually wait until SP1 comes out. DUH! This has nothing to do with VISTA, and has nothing to do with ME. Even hardware companies get the same deal. Businesses that need to keep mission critical systems up will not want to buy the latest and greatest until it has gone through a bunch of patches. Also, let's not forget, that buying software (and hardware to run it) as an early adopter = bigger price tag. Wait a year and things will be about 50% cheaper - which in a business can mean LOTS of money.
I wonder if this questionnaire took into account businsses that got Vista. Most likely these companies will not upgrade at all since they just spent a ton of money on Vista. This article is flawed and fails to be news. Wait, it's anti-MS bashing so it is news here.
If software/hardware companies want more early adopters they need to offer substantial discounts. For example "Be the first 25,000 to order our stuff within the first three months and get 50% off software, and 15% off hardware". That will get you more early adopters.
Though I am wondering how they are doing price fixing. If they have a suggested retail price on the box that does not fall under price fixing. Stores are not obligated to sell at those prices but historically stores are given some kind of preferential treatement (e.g. becoming an authorized dealer) for selling at the suggested price. The other upside is that Store A doesn't price gouge itself to be better priced then Store B. That's not price fixing. So going by
Microsoft has influenced the resale price of the software package--Office Home & Student 2007--in an anticompetitive manner
this must not lead to a form of coordination where the supplier actively tries to coordinate the pricing activities of the retailer and thus retailer and supplier agree on future actions of the retailer. I
Dude is making wind to get some brownie points (works great on /.). In all honesty setting a suggested retail price != price fixing. Again, if anyone here believes that they may want to sue every company that produces a product with a price attacked to the packaging from the manufacturer.
BTW i highlighted the "anticompetitive manner" it doesnt' state against what. Anti-competitive against Open Office? I doubt that. Anticompetitive against other MS Office retailers? Why would corporate do that? They don't care what the retailers sell it at as long as they get their money for each box sold (which they set the price). It's popular and easy to slam MS because it's been done before. The number 1 company in a given market is always viewed as the evil of the world. Since they have tons of money it's "OK" to sue.
On a side note I find fault with statements like this
Russia recently announced that it was considering adding Microsoft to a list of companies with high market share that might be subject to additional scrutiny under that country's antitrust laws,
So if I create a prodcut that EVERYONE loves and EVERYONE MUST HAVE I should be put under scrutiny and sued? Even if I didn't do anything wrong I am supposed to be punished because everyone loves my product? The American dream (or any other countries dream) being torn down one lawsuit at a time. I feel that Russia will sue because getting 9 mil euros is an easy way to increase a countries income.
In the US when you buy a product from an online merchant who is from another state then where it is being shipped to there are no taxes assessed. Technically you, the purchaser, are supposed to pay the taxes at year end. The reason they do not force the seller to assess the taxes is because it would be so convoluted and impractical (technology wise) plus paying it at the end of the quarter would be so painstaking the gov't was nice and made it the responsibility of the purchaser.
It's bad for an economy when an entrepreneur has to first take into consideration the taxes before engaging in a business enterprise or even consider them. That's just idiotic.
No it isn't. Just like it isn't bad to check up on safety regulations before venturing into a business. It's also very inexpensive. I registered a company by paying my cpa $200. I have an LLC. My cpa then told me what I had to do for taxes. It was quite simple. It's also good for the economy.
Yes, BTW, I think prostitution should be legal.
Depending where you live it may be. Depending where you live, even if it isn't, the cops get bribed and turn a blind eye. But this is not prostitution it's video and that is legal in most countries.
The search involves tax officials examining stripper websites, hours upon hours, for completely legitimate purposes.
Yes, I do this all the time too. I wonder if I can use this line with my boss?
It does. The exoskeleton works by reading the bio electric signals. Then 'guessing' what movement you intend to make from a large list of things possible. It then moves before you do so that you arent pulling yourself out of the suit. So there is some AI involved, and an sensor malfunction could result in you rampageing the city. Better still since the system works on a set of movements... Normally with random signals you'd probablly just fall down or flail randomly. With a list of instructions it to go about on its own. :D
Sorry, doing X when Y happens is not AI. Now if the computer see's you doing Y and it thinks "hmm X isn't the best course, neither is Z, neither is A. Hey this user is a moron let's do something completely different to get a new outcome" that would be AI.
Luckily for me slashdot is an american based company. The thread poster lives in america and went to an american school. He's been living in Philadelphia since 2005 (he is practically my neighbor)
Cyberdyne are planning an annual production of 400 units
Also, according to Cyberdyne's website battary life is at 2 hours 40 minutes. Not sure where you got at least 5 hours. As for self-awareness the device has to have some form of AI. I know you were trying to be funny, but you have to wait until version 2.0 to pull this joke out :)
Between Cyberdyne corporation and HAL suit....do we REALLY want to let this company grow? Imagine HAL in a T1000 body
That's it? Shit I'll take three! Time to start a super hero group in my neighborhood!
The only way the system will be fixed is if the people who created it feel the same pain.
False
Why that isn't obvious to you is beyond explaining
Because you're an AC and that drops your credibility by a lot of mod points.
That is not true at all. A 90 day sample out of 365 is a great grouping, not as good as a 365 sample, but still good enough. 1 day is not 90 days...in fact it is 90 times less accurate.
It used some Proactiv. Hope it doesn't experience any side effects
If Bush was around we would have started a pre-emptive strike against this foreign nation with WMDs.
Really when they posted the relationship story here on /. many people said "huh?" and "this can't last"...and it didn't. This is no surprise to us.
So what your saying is because MS/Blizzard got "bad rulings" other bad rulings should be made as long as it effects them? There we go - great reasoning at it's best. Instead of improving the system you want it to get worse...then you will complain when some company - which happens to meet your standard - falls victim to those standards you hailed as "good job".
BTW with regards to the Blizzard issue you are referring to people attempting to run WoW independently on their computers - it's Blizzards software they can dictate how to operte it. Don't like it? Don't buy it. I have a rule for people who come to my house - no smoking. If they don't like it they don't have to come to my house. Should the courts rule that I can't dictate what happens in my house?
There is no hipocrisy on cheer as MS got slammed by the same tool they created (or loobied toward the creation) in order to slam the small guys. If there is any hipocrisy anywhere here it is within MS, by violating a software patent.
You are obviously an anti-MS fanatic who can't see reason (that's why you are a fanatic). MS created a tool and someone is sueing them YEARS after the tool had been established - a submarine patent. This is something /. users have stated they hate for many years. Now MS is getting sued by a submarine patent and you are saying "as they should". MS did not do anything hypocritical and you obviously do not know what that word means. What you are attempting to say "they created a tool that I do not like and now they are getting sued for it by a submarine patent, and since they are MS it is a good day". Except this jury set a horrible legal precedent so this company is going to continue to sue companies like Adobe, Blizzard and other companies which restrict registration of licensed software.
You fail.