As a matter of fact, I am not an American. I live in Europe, have ties with German people and they're less assholes than how you are (deduced from your post above). Why do you think they consider switching?
So you're basically saying "thou shalt not add features to your product". Yes, newer documents can't be opened (or at least not opened properly) by older versions of the suite. I see nothing weird here. It happens everywhere. As software improves and adds functionality to its product, it's only normal that older versions of the same product will not be able to open files created by newer versions of the same product. Happens everywhere, all software does it.
Microsoft does offer free software which you can use to open and view Office documents. You can't edit them, of course, but you can view and print them no problem.
What you do when people pester you with unreadable proprietary documents? You tell them to fuck off, until they have learned to install another program which is free, and produce a readable document with it.
And this attitude is exactly why Desktop Linux hovers at around 2% or wherever it is today. Being smarter than your customer is one thing, shoving that in their face with a smug, asshole attitude is a totally different thing.
Forcing everyone else to adapt to your tiny little world will end up with you being alone and ignored in your tiny little world.
The difference in cost of living between my country's capital and New York is not that big. Consumer prices are 1.5 times higher in New York; restaurant prices are 1.7 times higher in NY; Groceries prices are 2 times higher in NY. Indeed, rent is much higher in NY (7 times higher) but that's an average and can vary greatly (Central Park view apartments cost a LOT more than periphery places). In order to keep the same standard of life from my city (considering my current salary here), I need to make 4500 dollars a month as a specialist in NY. The average salary for my specialization in NY is a little bit over 7K dollars a month and could go as high as 11K dollars a month. Here in my city I make 7.5 dollars an hour, working late shift (because most my customers are from the States). In NY I would make an average of 43.75 dollars an hour (accounting for salary ranges), that's almost 6 times higher than here, and in order to maintain the same living standard I would only have to earn 3.75 times as much. The difference, mathematically speaking, is overhead. by moving to NY, with average salary, my standard of life would greatly improve. So there's your cost calculation right there.
I'd like to add that there are plenty other cheap countries besides India and China. i'm talking about countries where communication barrier simply doesn't exist. Yes, those countries are much smaller in terms of population, both compared to the USA and the giants that are IN and CN, and that's why most people aren't even aware of them, but they exist. Now, large companies are increasingly hiring people from these countries, and the findings are that people hired there would work almost as cheap as people from IN and CN, but their performance is close to their American counterparts. USA companies hire locally (no H1Bs ow W2s), everyone's happy.
Well there is a difference between "seem to work" and "did work". As for the other peripherals, the amount of manual work I would have to put in to set up each profile for each game and each application makes that solution simply not efficient. I might calculate my time efficiency differently than most, but my rule of thumb is: if it takes me more than twice as much to achieve a goal in method B than method A, I'd not use method B. So if I can set up a profile for a game, complete with auto-switching, key backlight color and G-keys in 5 minutes under Windows, i would spend 10 minutes under Linux for the same outcome. But if I have to spend an hour for 1/3 success (key remapping but not auto-switching, nor backlight options)... nah.
I upgraded from Windows 7 (2-year-old installation full with various software and games and whatnot) to Windows 10 in August last year. The machine works very well. I saw no ads, ever, and I don't use Bing or Edge. I use Chrome and occasionally Firefox. Then I installed Ubuntu on a spare HDD on the same machine. Fresh install. My headphones were not detected and didn't work (Logitech G930). Then I followed various tutorials from the good ol' Net and managed to bring them to a working state. Surround button does nothing and microphone breaks off consistently. My keyboard and Mouse (both Logitech, G510 and G700s) have basic functionality enabled, but none of the extra features work. There is no Logitech Gaming Software alternative for Linux. While I would be willing to use an alternative OS, I am certainly not going to replace all my peripherals for that reason. Yeah, it might not be Linux's fault here, but as a regular user I don't care whose darn fault it is. That particular OS combined with that particular hardware doesn't give me the experience I need.
1. My soul has been sold off a long time ago. Selling it again would be illegal. 2. It's your opinion if you call games "worthless piece of shit" and I respect it. Now would be a stretch for me to expect you to respect mine? 3. There have been many excellent games in the last decade. Not my problem if you don't know about them. 4. Oh, a console gamer. That explains a lot.
I have plenty colleagues like this, i also had bosses like this. Sending them an e-mail prompts a phone call from them where they try to "clarify" things. I play dumb and tell them that "I forget things". If they hand me verbal instructions, I wouldn't do it.
I've been seeing this unrelated thing for a long time (years) and maybe I should ask the question: Is it just me, or Asian / Indian names appear more often than Western names when this type of articles are published? By that, I mean "Researchers find/predict/invent/discover" articles. Disclaimer: I'm Romanian.
Could be other reasons for the difference in TCO. I'm assuming IBM, much like all other large corporations, uses a standardized (customized across the entire organization) OS image on the machines. Those OS installations come with bundled software (say, encryption, monitoring, license analyzers, etc). Tools to help and automate things. Now, it could just as well be that the tools themselves are shitty.
There's a paradox here. Windows OS can't really tightly integrate tools because everyone would yell "Monopoly!", so Microsoft simply doesn't include lots of tools that come preinstalled on Macs. And if one or more of these third party tools are deployed for the whole organization, as a mandatory installation, those tools might generate a lot of cost. Is this end users' fault? Unlikely. It just might be that whatever encryption or AV tool some big shot suit picked just sucks. It crashes often, corrupts data, loses saved credentials, desyncs with the policy server, etc. So this generates cost, and Microsoft / Windows / Users are blamed.
While I don't dispute the claims, I am sure the TCO reasons require some digging.
"They also want the court to order the seizure and destruction" - shock therapy has never been more fitting, eh? What are they gonna do, fit such cables in someone's brain and turn the power on?
Not only that, but whoever affords to buy a VR headset is likely already having a larger carbon footprint than the ones who don't afford said gizmo. Bigger house leads to more energy spent heading and maintaining it. More electronics mean more energy consumed. Likely bigger cars with worse mileage too. And so on. telling them about the coral reef dying will scare them in the wrong direction: "OMG where the hell would I go snorkeling then?"
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As a matter of fact, I am not an American. I live in Europe, have ties with German people and they're less assholes than how you are (deduced from your post above). Why do you think they consider switching?
Key word being "politely".
A rare thing in the Linux world.
Who wants a poor customer? :)
Joke aside, export to PDF. Problem solved.
Anyway, I was not discussing the issue of documents compatibility, but rather attitude.
Collectively drop the smugness and Linux will rise.
So you're basically saying "thou shalt not add features to your product".
Yes, newer documents can't be opened (or at least not opened properly) by older versions of the suite. I see nothing weird here. It happens everywhere. As software improves and adds functionality to its product, it's only normal that older versions of the same product will not be able to open files created by newer versions of the same product. Happens everywhere, all software does it.
Microsoft does offer free software which you can use to open and view Office documents. You can't edit them, of course, but you can view and print them no problem.
Actually I would be able to install Open Office and open it that way :)
What you do when people pester you with unreadable proprietary documents? You tell them to fuck off, until they have learned to install another program which is free, and produce a readable document with it.
And this attitude is exactly why Desktop Linux hovers at around 2% or wherever it is today.
Being smarter than your customer is one thing, shoving that in their face with a smug, asshole attitude is a totally different thing.
Forcing everyone else to adapt to your tiny little world will end up with you being alone and ignored in your tiny little world.
The difference in cost of living between my country's capital and New York is not that big.
Consumer prices are 1.5 times higher in New York; restaurant prices are 1.7 times higher in NY; Groceries prices are 2 times higher in NY.
Indeed, rent is much higher in NY (7 times higher) but that's an average and can vary greatly (Central Park view apartments cost a LOT more than periphery places).
In order to keep the same standard of life from my city (considering my current salary here), I need to make 4500 dollars a month as a specialist in NY. The average salary for my specialization in NY is a little bit over 7K dollars a month and could go as high as 11K dollars a month.
Here in my city I make 7.5 dollars an hour, working late shift (because most my customers are from the States). In NY I would make an average of 43.75 dollars an hour (accounting for salary ranges), that's almost 6 times higher than here, and in order to maintain the same living standard I would only have to earn 3.75 times as much.
The difference, mathematically speaking, is overhead. by moving to NY, with average salary, my standard of life would greatly improve. So there's your cost calculation right there.
Source: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of...
Feel free to compare any USA city with Bucharest and you'll see that the cost of living difference isn't that great.
I'd like to add that there are plenty other cheap countries besides India and China. i'm talking about countries where communication barrier simply doesn't exist. Yes, those countries are much smaller in terms of population, both compared to the USA and the giants that are IN and CN, and that's why most people aren't even aware of them, but they exist.
Now, large companies are increasingly hiring people from these countries, and the findings are that people hired there would work almost as cheap as people from IN and CN, but their performance is close to their American counterparts. USA companies hire locally (no H1Bs ow W2s), everyone's happy.
A better analogy is you being arrested and convicted for supporting illegal racing because your license plate reads "ND4SPD".
Well there is a difference between "seem to work" and "did work".
As for the other peripherals, the amount of manual work I would have to put in to set up each profile for each game and each application makes that solution simply not efficient.
I might calculate my time efficiency differently than most, but my rule of thumb is: if it takes me more than twice as much to achieve a goal in method B than method A, I'd not use method B.
So if I can set up a profile for a game, complete with auto-switching, key backlight color and G-keys in 5 minutes under Windows, i would spend 10 minutes under Linux for the same outcome. But if I have to spend an hour for 1/3 success (key remapping but not auto-switching, nor backlight options)... nah.
I upgraded from Windows 7 (2-year-old installation full with various software and games and whatnot) to Windows 10 in August last year. The machine works very well. I saw no ads, ever, and I don't use Bing or Edge. I use Chrome and occasionally Firefox.
Then I installed Ubuntu on a spare HDD on the same machine. Fresh install. My headphones were not detected and didn't work (Logitech G930). Then I followed various tutorials from the good ol' Net and managed to bring them to a working state. Surround button does nothing and microphone breaks off consistently.
My keyboard and Mouse (both Logitech, G510 and G700s) have basic functionality enabled, but none of the extra features work. There is no Logitech Gaming Software alternative for Linux.
While I would be willing to use an alternative OS, I am certainly not going to replace all my peripherals for that reason. Yeah, it might not be Linux's fault here, but as a regular user I don't care whose darn fault it is. That particular OS combined with that particular hardware doesn't give me the experience I need.
1. My soul has been sold off a long time ago. Selling it again would be illegal.
2. It's your opinion if you call games "worthless piece of shit" and I respect it. Now would be a stretch for me to expect you to respect mine?
3. There have been many excellent games in the last decade. Not my problem if you don't know about them.
4. Oh, a console gamer. That explains a lot.
Well then, fortunately i don't work in the USA so I don't have to put up with that kind of crap.
Or grin back.
Also, when are they going to run the experiment on programmers?
I embrace death, so fuck you :)
It's much harder for the boss to fire you if you have performed all duties that came to you in written form.
I have plenty colleagues like this, i also had bosses like this.
Sending them an e-mail prompts a phone call from them where they try to "clarify" things. I play dumb and tell them that "I forget things". If they hand me verbal instructions, I wouldn't do it.
You must be a Linux guy.
"says University of Michigan researcher Neil Dasgupta"
Michigan is not in the Far East, is it?
I've been seeing this unrelated thing for a long time (years) and maybe I should ask the question:
Is it just me, or Asian / Indian names appear more often than Western names when this type of articles are published?
By that, I mean "Researchers find/predict/invent/discover" articles.
Disclaimer: I'm Romanian.
Could be other reasons for the difference in TCO.
I'm assuming IBM, much like all other large corporations, uses a standardized (customized across the entire organization) OS image on the machines. Those OS installations come with bundled software (say, encryption, monitoring, license analyzers, etc). Tools to help and automate things.
Now, it could just as well be that the tools themselves are shitty.
There's a paradox here. Windows OS can't really tightly integrate tools because everyone would yell "Monopoly!", so Microsoft simply doesn't include lots of tools that come preinstalled on Macs. And if one or more of these third party tools are deployed for the whole organization, as a mandatory installation, those tools might generate a lot of cost. Is this end users' fault? Unlikely. It just might be that whatever encryption or AV tool some big shot suit picked just sucks. It crashes often, corrupts data, loses saved credentials, desyncs with the policy server, etc. So this generates cost, and Microsoft / Windows / Users are blamed.
While I don't dispute the claims, I am sure the TCO reasons require some digging.
That's because you work for a company which depends on something other than Windows.
See... same argument.
"They also want the court to order the seizure and destruction" - shock therapy has never been more fitting, eh?
What are they gonna do, fit such cables in someone's brain and turn the power on?
Your lot of assumptions versus my lot of assumptions...
Not only that, but whoever affords to buy a VR headset is likely already having a larger carbon footprint than the ones who don't afford said gizmo. Bigger house leads to more energy spent heading and maintaining it. More electronics mean more energy consumed. Likely bigger cars with worse mileage too. And so on.
telling them about the coral reef dying will scare them in the wrong direction: "OMG where the hell would I go snorkeling then?"