No. It means that they will continue to offer this CPU for 5 years so that embedded designers will still be able to design products around this chip and have some sort of guarantee the chip will be around long enough for that product to hit the market.
If Japan was serious about surrendering, why did they let the US bomb them twice before actually doing it? Maybe my logic is flawed, but if surrender was a serious consideration before any of the nukes were dropped, why did it take 2 nukes before it actually happened?
It's truly unfortunate that development stopped on this. FreeSpace2 is still one of my favorite games of all time and BSG is a great universe for this sort of game. I'm convinced that FreeSpace2 was so good it killed the entire space sim genre.
What is needed, whether running Windows, Linux or MacOSX on the desktop, is a means to EFFECTIVELY prevent the installation of unauthorized software and data.
That's easy, don't let normal users have root access. That way the only "installing" they can do is to run applications from their home directory.
That is a complicated trick for a variety of reasons not the least of which is the face that the file system doesn't care if a file is data or executable code no matter where it is located in the file system.
Maybe I'm being naive here, but don't most modern filesystems support this already? On unix systems you need to set the executable bit before running a shell script or program you download. I suppose if the file is in a tarball or something the permissions could/would be preserved. On Windows files are executable by default. That's something that should probably change.
In the end, the TCO of Windows, in this respect, is still lower if for no other reason than the likelihood that someone has a quick and easy way to reload the system clean is pretty high up there.
This is a moot point. I know there are lots of nice imaging solutions for Windows that make reinstalling the OS a very quick process. What you are forgetting is that most of these same utilities support Linux (and sometimes Mac) as well.
There are fewer quick solutions to fixing or cleaning up a compromised system under Linux or MacOSX... with good reason -- they aren't your typical targets.
Assuming your users don't have root access--and you should be slapped if they do--it's usually as simple as rm -Rf/home/infectedhomedirectory. If there is important data in there you can always disable executable permissions from recursivly and safely back up any data first.
At any rate, none of this really affects the TCO at all. When you are running Windows you have to pay extra for AV software. On Linux and Mac you do not. Technical reasons aside, right now there is absolutly no reason to need to be concerned with AV software on Linux and Mac systems. This fact alone makes the Windows TCO higher.
I'd like to point out a few flaws in this argument:
1. These "hardware manufacturers" do not build their own laptops. They are built by OEM's like Compal, AlphaTop, Asus, and Quanta. Here is a nice chart that can give you an idea of who really made your laptop.
2. In the cases of the laptop batteries catching fire, the problem was not with the design of the laptop. The heat produced by the electronics did not cause the battery to catch fire. The problem is that Sony, who is the OEM of the batteries used in all of these cases, used substandard materials in the battery pack. Check the headline on your second link if you need evidence the problem is with Sony batteries.
The grass is free, actually. The problem isn't that pastured cows cost more to feed - quite the opposite is true. The problem is that they each need an acre, so production for the same piece of land falls dramatically.
The grass really isn't free. At least here in the Dairy state (Wisconsin) there is a good third of the year that pasture is worthless as the grass is dead and covered with snow. Farmers need to make hay to feed grass in the winter. This would use more land and that cost alone would be enough to put most farmers deep in to the red. Then you have to consider the cost of fuel and labor required to make all of the extra hay.
The other thing that isn't mentioned anywhere is that a dairy cow's milk production is directly related to her diet. For a cow to produce acceptable amounts of high-quality milk she needs to have a diet high in protein (but not too high.) Grass/hay alone does not provide adequate amounts of protein to maintain good production. This would cause farmers to need to buy more cows (or watch his milk check dwindle to nothing.) Either situation would put almost every dairy farmer out of business.
The Radeon Xpress 1100 was made by ATI long before they were bought by AMD. As much as this card sucks, it's still performs better than an onboard Intel made at the same time. Neither chip has dedicated memory. The current generation of on-board AMD/ATi Chips will blow away the on-board Intel chips.
This benchmark shows Intel's X25-E SSD beating a 15k Seagate Cheetah SAS drive by over 50MB/s read and 10MB/s write speeds. I'd hardly call this "a little more speed." The SSD seems even better when you figure in the noise and heat generated by the 15k RPM Cheetah.
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No. It means that they will continue to offer this CPU for 5 years so that embedded designers will still be able to design products around this chip and have some sort of guarantee the chip will be around long enough for that product to hit the market.
If Japan was serious about surrendering, why did they let the US bomb them twice before actually doing it? Maybe my logic is flawed, but if surrender was a serious consideration before any of the nukes were dropped, why did it take 2 nukes before it actually happened?
It's truly unfortunate that development stopped on this. FreeSpace2 is still one of my favorite games of all time and BSG is a great universe for this sort of game. I'm convinced that FreeSpace2 was so good it killed the entire space sim genre.
What is needed, whether running Windows, Linux or MacOSX on the desktop, is a means to EFFECTIVELY prevent the installation of unauthorized software and data.
That's easy, don't let normal users have root access. That way the only "installing" they can do is to run applications from their home directory.
That is a complicated trick for a variety of reasons not the least of which is the face that the file system doesn't care if a file is data or executable code no matter where it is located in the file system.
Maybe I'm being naive here, but don't most modern filesystems support this already? On unix systems you need to set the executable bit before running a shell script or program you download. I suppose if the file is in a tarball or something the permissions could/would be preserved. On Windows files are executable by default. That's something that should probably change.
In the end, the TCO of Windows, in this respect, is still lower if for no other reason than the likelihood that someone has a quick and easy way to reload the system clean is pretty high up there.
This is a moot point. I know there are lots of nice imaging solutions for Windows that make reinstalling the OS a very quick process. What you are forgetting is that most of these same utilities support Linux (and sometimes Mac) as well.
There are fewer quick solutions to fixing or cleaning up a compromised system under Linux or MacOSX... with good reason -- they aren't your typical targets.
Assuming your users don't have root access--and you should be slapped if they do--it's usually as simple as rm -Rf /home/infectedhomedirectory. If there is important data in there you can always disable executable permissions from recursivly and safely back up any data first.
At any rate, none of this really affects the TCO at all. When you are running Windows you have to pay extra for AV software. On Linux and Mac you do not. Technical reasons aside, right now there is absolutly no reason to need to be concerned with AV software on Linux and Mac systems. This fact alone makes the Windows TCO higher.
I'd like to point out a few flaws in this argument:
1. These "hardware manufacturers" do not build their own laptops. They are built by OEM's like Compal, AlphaTop, Asus, and Quanta. Here is a nice chart that can give you an idea of who really made your laptop.
2. In the cases of the laptop batteries catching fire, the problem was not with the design of the laptop. The heat produced by the electronics did not cause the battery to catch fire. The problem is that Sony, who is the OEM of the batteries used in all of these cases, used substandard materials in the battery pack. Check the headline on your second link if you need evidence the problem is with Sony batteries.
The grass is free, actually. The problem isn't that pastured cows cost more to feed - quite the opposite is true. The problem is that they each need an acre, so production for the same piece of land falls dramatically.
The grass really isn't free. At least here in the Dairy state (Wisconsin) there is a good third of the year that pasture is worthless as the grass is dead and covered with snow. Farmers need to make hay to feed grass in the winter. This would use more land and that cost alone would be enough to put most farmers deep in to the red. Then you have to consider the cost of fuel and labor required to make all of the extra hay.
The other thing that isn't mentioned anywhere is that a dairy cow's milk production is directly related to her diet. For a cow to produce acceptable amounts of high-quality milk she needs to have a diet high in protein (but not too high.) Grass/hay alone does not provide adequate amounts of protein to maintain good production. This would cause farmers to need to buy more cows (or watch his milk check dwindle to nothing.) Either situation would put almost every dairy farmer out of business.
The Radeon Xpress 1100 was made by ATI long before they were bought by AMD. As much as this card sucks, it's still performs better than an onboard Intel made at the same time. Neither chip has dedicated memory. The current generation of on-board AMD/ATi Chips will blow away the on-board Intel chips.
This benchmark shows Intel's X25-E SSD beating a 15k Seagate Cheetah SAS drive by over 50MB/s read and 10MB/s write speeds. I'd hardly call this "a little more speed." The SSD seems even better when you figure in the noise and heat generated by the 15k RPM Cheetah.