Ummm, the original post in this tread said they would like to see the PS3 with the Blu-Ray player optional. That's what started me as saying I didn't think optional hardware would be the way to go.
Now, I didn't know the HD-DVD drive couldn't be used for games. I wonder if developers are going to need the extra space that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray provide. Will this finally be something to differentiate the two machines, with the PS3 getting the larger, more immersive worlds, or perhaps just a lot of extras with the game to help fill the extra space.
I was speaking of the Blu-Ray vs. DVD as suggested, and by extension, the HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox360. If developers know the Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drive is there, they know they can make their games over a certain size, otherwise, they either make it fit to DVD, only, or make two versions. As games get bigger and more immersive, the extra space could become important. Now, do they cut out half their audience by putting it on HD-DVD, or do they slim it down to fit it on DVD? Or do they make two different versions? One Hyper Cool, the other, pretty cool?
I don't see the wii being thought of as a joke in a couple of years. As long as the games keep coming for the system, which they appear to be, it's price point will keep it in millions of entertainment units for a long time coming. For anyone who has a second console, it will most likely be a wii, whether the other console is the PS3 or the xbox360. I can see it selling more then they other two consoles, while the buzz in the gaming world will always be about the next big game for Xbox360 or PS3. I mean, whether you like the thing or not, you got to face it, the thing is a blast to play. If you don't have one, get some beer, some friends, and rent one/locate one, and some of the better games for it, and I think you'll see it will well fill it's role as a second console. You might want to wait until super smash bros and mario party are out for it, but there are some great games out now.. Rayman's Raving Rabbids, Tiger Woods, Wii Play (ok, it's only alright, but well worth the 10 bucks on top of the price of the controller it comes with). I think once a console hits so many sales, (and Wii is 5,000,000 + already, I believe) there's really not much chance of it failing, it becomes such a big market for a developer to create for, that it really just makes sense to do so.
I don't know, I really hate optional hardware on a console. If you develop games for a console, you should know what hardware is in it. You should only have to worry about that one piece of hardware (per vendor), not any of this stupid core, plus, platinum, xtreme, wtf, models of a console. I personally believe, from a developers point of view, you can do more if all the neat gee-wiz options are there in every console.
Your results are atypical. Every day children get together for a game of kickball or baseball or football and no one gets beat up. I cannot recall a single instance of some kid getting beaten up due to performance in a game. Sports teach us more then just physical lessons. They teach us the importance of fair play, working as a team, the limits of our own physical abilities, and a lot about proper attitude. Success and failure are both powerful learning tools. The also get us out and moving. Regular exercise early in life helps maintaining that exercise into adulthood, where it definitely becomes important.
You say you are not bad at sports, but your experiences tell differently. You are just not bad at all sports. Don't worry, this is typical. No one is good at all sports. You just happened to find a sport you were good at (rock climbing). You learned from your experience in rugby that maybe that sport and similar sports weren't for you. I personally play hockey and Aussie football. It turns out I'm pretty good at those, but would probably kill myself climbing mountains.
Get it out of your head that sport and competition are things we should be evolved past. Competition is a driving force of evolution, and sport provides a method of competing. And remember, your results are not typical, they are uniquely yours. You get to pick the way it shapes you. Learn from your atypical experiences, and move on. Looking back on it and stewing is a lot like rocking in a rocking chair. Sure, it gives you something to do, but you ain't getting anywhere.
If we're getting rid of sports that encourage competition, then we should also get rid of all academic competition. No more spelling bees, no more science fairs, no more grades. And when these kids get out of school and into the real world, we can start them out in the office day care with the other babies. Not all people are created equal. Competition allows people to rise to the top. Eliminating it would hinder growth. There's things to be learned from failure, especially our own limitations. It really sounds like you have been jaded by some bad childhood memories of sports and competition. I imagine eliminating things you were good at as a child would seem unreasonable to you. I imagine computer programming competitions and math challenges are okay in your book, but this is only because it was something you excelled at.
We all know the first one that can be copied, and that copy played on a player, will be the one that wins out. Pirating will get the players into peoples homes, then people will buy the HD-DVDs or Blu-Ray Discs. It's easy, put out a couple flicks without copy protection, make it so that blu-ray burner can burn them and they'll play, allow HD over component video, and lock everything down in a year when your format has been the winner for some time.
Throughout thousands of years of human history, some people have dropped dead from mutations. Now it is a 'disease'. Why has it become a disease all of a sudden? Because you can treat cancer through drugs / therapy / medical treatments. It is natural.
Your attitude downplays the effects of severe depression on a person. Bipolar disorder, OCD, depression, and all mood disorders can be debilitating. Just because you can't see the effects of the disease, it does not mean they don't exist. You can't see a person's deafness, does that make them any less deaf?
The features and managability of blackberries with BES make it hands down the only choice for the security conscious enterprise. I can kill any of our blackberries, wipe the data, change the settings, change the password, lock the unit, all from my home. The CEO's BB got stolen? No problem, it has a 8 digit minimum password, locks itself every time it goes into the holster, and it's now useless. That is the features that sold us on them. The apps and OS, sure, others are ahead, but if they want to displace BBs at the top, they've got a lot of catching up to do in these areas. Now it's been a while since I looked at anything else, but I don't imagine this became possible with the competition, though I could be wrong.
Some say democracy failed because the majority has become ignorant and/or apathetic. But if that's what the majority wants, has it really failed? Just because it did not live up to your expectations, does not mean it has failed.
Collusion is of course a problem for a free market, but all it takes is one person/business to offer something better, outside of the colluding entities, and competition is returned. Perhaps looking at a very small section (situation today) of a very large picture makes you think this is failure. The USA does not have a free market, either.
I'm not saying do nothing, it'll work itself out. You could become that one person/business that offers something better.
It's not a problem because filtering has reached a level where it's just not much of a problem for any competent sys admin. If you're having problems, switch providers or use client side filtering. If you're the admin, well I did say competent.
Hey, don't worry. All those headaches are still going to be there. Or you can pay. It's that simple. You can complain about it until you're red in the face, and it's not going to do you any good. Their customers do not care, therefore spending money on the problem is wasting money. You may run it different if you ran it, but you don't.
And what's wrong with SPF? Is it THE solution for spam? No. But can it be another metric used to guage wether an e-mail is spam or not? Yup. It works well as this too.
AOL Sucks, it's always going to be a pain to send through them. You now have the option of paying them to get your junk mail through. Don't like it, don't pay, and make sure your e-mails don't look like spam.
They're a private business and are acting within the law. I don't see a problem with this. If people don't like it, AOL will know when the money starts to dry up. What you can do is vote with your dollar by not purchasing any AOL products and maybe educate anyone you know who uses AOL that there are better, cheaper alternatives.
You're compairing a private enterprise allowing people to pay to have their e-mail sent through without spam filtering for a cost to a government locking up people under the guise of "fighting terrorism"?
In a free democratic society you vote with a ballot. In the free market you vote with your dollars. You can help stop both of these problems.
With today's spam filtering techniques, a little spam is a small price to pay for free e-mail. I get 300-400 a day on one account, and I do not complain. I filter it, I see maybe 10 a day. Spam is not the problem it once was, it just requires vigilance to keep it that way.
But you're not being excluded. The people paying are the ones excluded. You don't have to pay it, and you just put up with the same headaches as before. It's not adding any more to you, it's adding a way, if someone wishes to pay, to get around those headaches. If you do not want to pay, don't, and just continue sending your e-mails.
Nope, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the you in this case. I'd rather they do it then have more stupid viruses trying to infect my computers. If I need to send an exe or anything like that, or more importantly, when I'm talking to a client, I don't use a free e-mail service. It looks cheap. Would you put a hotmail address on your business card?
sorry, I forgot to put the sarcasm tags there. Shipping a computer with no os means every non-tech person who purchases one will call for support when they turn on their new laptop and get "No Operating system" or whatever the error is that's going to spit out. Of they can ship it with FreeDos! That's just as user friendly...
Not having an escalation procedure in place is not really a solution.
Not having to pay people who know linux is a solution. You just don't offer linux on your website, anyone who wants to install it is on their own. It's simple, it saves more then it will cost you. Do you think if someone just offered linux on a PC, customers would be beating a path to their door? Suddenly, windows would be driven to 8% market share 30 seconds after the initial offering?
But it is a pretty well-known fact that such agreements do indeed exist
Did exist. Before the anti-trust trial. I'm not apologizing for microsoft here, I've just seen no evidence that they are abusing their power anymore. What I've been seeing over the past couple of years is in fact the oposite. Choice is returning to the market. It's not going to happen over night, but options have become available. This tells me Microsoft has less and less control over the market, now what's needed is viable competition. Apple is doing great, but costs are keeping them down further then they should be. Linux, I don't find, is going to be a viable option. I use it, but my mother doesn't, and couldn't.
It's all about what the majority of the customers want, and if something will make them money, and I don't see linux making Dell any money. Niche markets have opened up, and they may get larger and larger, but right now, the market is chosing Microsoft. It's changing, but with the illegal practices of Microsoft removed, we do see the OS market has changed, and will continue to do so. It's just not the over night revolution that some were expecting, but most knew would not happen.
Well, unless you have a crappy Fujitsu Siemens with broken ACPI, this should not be an issue. And even in the case of the Fujitsu Siemens, whose fault is it really if:
Again, it costs to test, so they don't. If they make 15 points or 25 points or whatever the formula is, and keep the costs lower enough to offer their laptop cheaper then their competitor, they will do so.
Then just ship it without any OS whatsoever.
Well, that's user friendly.. That'll keep support costs way down. 1 machine configured one way and sent out is easier to support, lowering their costs.
Just train them to escalate the call to somebody more knowledgeable if they encounter a situation not covered by the script. This requires keeping staff that they can escalate too, costing much more then a standard tech monkey. It's a cost/benefit thing.
However, the offer does exist, and in the unlikely event that a customer did take them up on it, they would still face those hypothetical QA and customer service issues mentioned above.
No, if you have them remove windows from it, you're pretty much on your own. They do not support it anymore. The costs of number of people this will piss off is a lot lower then the cost of keeping even 1 higher level tech support staff member.
Those are also Acer's policies, not Microsofts.
The real issue are illegal and secret agreements with Microsoft which are designed to make any windows-less laptop as difficult as possible.
illegal and sexret agreements that you know about how? I thought they were secret?
the real issue is customer demand. If enough demand it, it will happen. But not enough people care. If they offer both with windows or no-os on their website, more people will go for the cheaper option, then there's going to be a lot more support for them, unless they offer no-os with no support, but that will piss a lot of people off, because everyone will go for the cheaper option, then get "Sorry, you should have bought windows' when they try to get help installing their own copy of windows or whatever.
Business bends to the will of the majority of it's customers. When the majority of it's customers demand change, business changes, or is left behind by the competition who offers what the customers want. The company who caters to it's customer base is the one who stays alive. That is what we've been seeing in the past couple of years, and it will continue. More and more places will offer linux, niche markets at first, maybe it will stay that way, maybe it will continue to grow, but I don't see the artificial barriers created by microsoft anymore, and choice has returned in limited amount to the marketplace.
Sure, but taking out those features so they could sell it for cheaper, and keeping the corps buying the version with all the features for a higher prices, I feel (and could be wrong here, they are making insane profits) allowed them to offer it to the home users cheaper. The features they took out, though useful to you and I, just aren't high on the list of the home users, where tasks include getting photos off the camera and e-mailing them to aunt betty.
I understand the arguement against, they're creating artificial barriers that do not really exist, and actually had to work at creating them, but I think those barriers allowed them to keep the prices lower for home users while giving them a return on investment that kept their stock rising, keeping the stockholders happy, and them rolling in money.
I have nothing against large profits on non-necessities when the market will bare the price. I don't find microsoft software a necessity like I do, say, clear air, natural gas, oil, water, etc.
That I will agree with, but is it strong arm tactics from Microsoft, or is it that linux does often not have the driver support to work on said laptops? Or at least the QA guys don't want to go through the testing of another OS on the laptop, and they don't want the tech support to be need to be trained on another OS, adding more lines to the script they already follow. The laptop market is getting as cut-throat as the desktop market, and lowering costs any way, which may include not offering a different OS to keep support and QA/testing costs down helps keep the profit there, while under-cutting your competitors.
I'm not sure which it is. I don't work for the laptop industry. We buy IBM laptops, and they don't seem to have to compete with lower prices, but I still think their thinkpads are worth every penny we paid. At home, acer laptops are dirt cheap, and there are a ton of other companies now in compition for your home laptop dollars.
Before, you had a point, but there are now a ton of places you can buy no-os systems, or linux systems. I'm sure Microsoft is still strong arming somewhat, but if you want it, you can find it. It turns out, most people are just uninformed, don't want to be informed, and XP works for them. I'm a linux guy myself, but blaming the market, which has in the past couple years begun to work the way it's supposed to, for linux's failures to make inroads into the home market (if that's what you were getting at, I may be off a bit), is disingenious as best. Really, microsoft has been working and making a better product, thanks to pressure put on from apple and linux. Linux now has some catching up to do in some areas before some CEO or COO decides that they're going to offer it as a viable alternative to their customers. Who knows, it may happen, I just don't think you can blame MS for the market anymore.
The only useful version is XP Pro Corp. Edition? No, not really. XP Home was fine for home users (I know, crazy, huh?). Really, XP Home couldn't join a domain, couldn't use more then one processor (but it could use HyperThreading if available on the processor), didn't have IIS, didn't have Dynamic Disk support, and ASR (Which is about the only feature that would have been nice, but really, most people would just say "huh?"). XP Home worked well, and saved the customer a bit of cash over XP Pro. If it allowed them to offer lower prices to their customers, more power to them. I know a lot of people still running XP Home just fine.
You may not have been happy with it.. maybe you have multiple processors, maybe you have a domain at home, but really, there are tons of XP Home machines out there that really have no need for Pro.
And the Corp. edition just meant no activation, other then that, I'm relatively certain there were no differences between it and regular XP Professional.
Slashdot Mirror
Ummm, the original post in this tread said they would like to see the PS3 with the Blu-Ray player optional. That's what started me as saying I didn't think optional hardware would be the way to go.
Now, I didn't know the HD-DVD drive couldn't be used for games. I wonder if developers are going to need the extra space that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray provide. Will this finally be something to differentiate the two machines, with the PS3 getting the larger, more immersive worlds, or perhaps just a lot of extras with the game to help fill the extra space.
I was speaking of the Blu-Ray vs. DVD as suggested, and by extension, the HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox360. If developers know the Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drive is there, they know they can make their games over a certain size, otherwise, they either make it fit to DVD, only, or make two versions. As games get bigger and more immersive, the extra space could become important. Now, do they cut out half their audience by putting it on HD-DVD, or do they slim it down to fit it on DVD? Or do they make two different versions? One Hyper Cool, the other, pretty cool?
I don't see the wii being thought of as a joke in a couple of years. As long as the games keep coming for the system, which they appear to be, it's price point will keep it in millions of entertainment units for a long time coming. For anyone who has a second console, it will most likely be a wii, whether the other console is the PS3 or the xbox360. I can see it selling more then they other two consoles, while the buzz in the gaming world will always be about the next big game for Xbox360 or PS3. I mean, whether you like the thing or not, you got to face it, the thing is a blast to play. If you don't have one, get some beer, some friends, and rent one/locate one, and some of the better games for it, and I think you'll see it will well fill it's role as a second console. You might want to wait until super smash bros and mario party are out for it, but there are some great games out now.. Rayman's Raving Rabbids, Tiger Woods, Wii Play (ok, it's only alright, but well worth the 10 bucks on top of the price of the controller it comes with). I think once a console hits so many sales, (and Wii is 5,000,000 + already, I believe) there's really not much chance of it failing, it becomes such a big market for a developer to create for, that it really just makes sense to do so.
I don't know, I really hate optional hardware on a console. If you develop games for a console, you should know what hardware is in it. You should only have to worry about that one piece of hardware (per vendor), not any of this stupid core, plus, platinum, xtreme, wtf, models of a console. I personally believe, from a developers point of view, you can do more if all the neat gee-wiz options are there in every console.
Your results are atypical. Every day children get together for a game of kickball or baseball or football and no one gets beat up. I cannot recall a single instance of some kid getting beaten up due to performance in a game. Sports teach us more then just physical lessons. They teach us the importance of fair play, working as a team, the limits of our own physical abilities, and a lot about proper attitude. Success and failure are both powerful learning tools. The also get us out and moving. Regular exercise early in life helps maintaining that exercise into adulthood, where it definitely becomes important.
You say you are not bad at sports, but your experiences tell differently. You are just not bad at all sports. Don't worry, this is typical. No one is good at all sports. You just happened to find a sport you were good at (rock climbing). You learned from your experience in rugby that maybe that sport and similar sports weren't for you. I personally play hockey and Aussie football. It turns out I'm pretty good at those, but would probably kill myself climbing mountains.
Get it out of your head that sport and competition are things we should be evolved past. Competition is a driving force of evolution, and sport provides a method of competing. And remember, your results are not typical, they are uniquely yours. You get to pick the way it shapes you. Learn from your atypical experiences, and move on. Looking back on it and stewing is a lot like rocking in a rocking chair. Sure, it gives you something to do, but you ain't getting anywhere.
If we're getting rid of sports that encourage competition, then we should also get rid of all academic competition. No more spelling bees, no more science fairs, no more grades. And when these kids get out of school and into the real world, we can start them out in the office day care with the other babies. Not all people are created equal. Competition allows people to rise to the top. Eliminating it would hinder growth. There's things to be learned from failure, especially our own limitations. It really sounds like you have been jaded by some bad childhood memories of sports and competition. I imagine eliminating things you were good at as a child would seem unreasonable to you. I imagine computer programming competitions and math challenges are okay in your book, but this is only because it was something you excelled at.
Ask and you shall receive:
http://www.pckeyboard.com/customizer.html
We all know the first one that can be copied, and that copy played on a player, will be the one that wins out. Pirating will get the players into peoples homes, then people will buy the HD-DVDs or Blu-Ray Discs. It's easy, put out a couple flicks without copy protection, make it so that blu-ray burner can burn them and they'll play, allow HD over component video, and lock everything down in a year when your format has been the winner for some time.
Throughout thousands of years of human history, some people have dropped dead from mutations. Now it is a 'disease'. Why has it become a disease all of a sudden? Because you can treat cancer through drugs / therapy / medical treatments. It is natural.
Your attitude downplays the effects of severe depression on a person. Bipolar disorder, OCD, depression, and all mood disorders can be debilitating. Just because you can't see the effects of the disease, it does not mean they don't exist. You can't see a person's deafness, does that make them any less deaf?
I hope that's a +1 we're laughing AT you funny.
The features and managability of blackberries with BES make it hands down the only choice for the security conscious enterprise. I can kill any of our blackberries, wipe the data, change the settings, change the password, lock the unit, all from my home. The CEO's BB got stolen? No problem, it has a 8 digit minimum password, locks itself every time it goes into the holster, and it's now useless. That is the features that sold us on them. The apps and OS, sure, others are ahead, but if they want to displace BBs at the top, they've got a lot of catching up to do in these areas. Now it's been a while since I looked at anything else, but I don't imagine this became possible with the competition, though I could be wrong.
Some say democracy failed because the majority has become ignorant and/or apathetic. But if that's what the majority wants, has it really failed? Just because it did not live up to your expectations, does not mean it has failed.
Collusion is of course a problem for a free market, but all it takes is one person/business to offer something better, outside of the colluding entities, and competition is returned. Perhaps looking at a very small section (situation today) of a very large picture makes you think this is failure. The USA does not have a free market, either.
I'm not saying do nothing, it'll work itself out. You could become that one person/business that offers something better.
It's not a problem because filtering has reached a level where it's just not much of a problem for any competent sys admin. If you're having problems, switch providers or use client side filtering. If you're the admin, well I did say competent.
Hey, don't worry. All those headaches are still going to be there. Or you can pay. It's that simple. You can complain about it until you're red in the face, and it's not going to do you any good. Their customers do not care, therefore spending money on the problem is wasting money. You may run it different if you ran it, but you don't.
And what's wrong with SPF? Is it THE solution for spam? No. But can it be another metric used to guage wether an e-mail is spam or not? Yup. It works well as this too.
AOL Sucks, it's always going to be a pain to send through them. You now have the option of paying them to get your junk mail through. Don't like it, don't pay, and make sure your e-mails don't look like spam.
They're a private business and are acting within the law. I don't see a problem with this. If people don't like it, AOL will know when the money starts to dry up. What you can do is vote with your dollar by not purchasing any AOL products and maybe educate anyone you know who uses AOL that there are better, cheaper alternatives.
You're compairing a private enterprise allowing people to pay to have their e-mail sent through without spam filtering for a cost to a government locking up people under the guise of "fighting terrorism"?
In a free democratic society you vote with a ballot. In the free market you vote with your dollars. You can help stop both of these problems.
With today's spam filtering techniques, a little spam is a small price to pay for free e-mail. I get 300-400 a day on one account, and I do not complain. I filter it, I see maybe 10 a day. Spam is not the problem it once was, it just requires vigilance to keep it that way.
But you're not being excluded. The people paying are the ones excluded. You don't have to pay it, and you just put up with the same headaches as before. It's not adding any more to you, it's adding a way, if someone wishes to pay, to get around those headaches. If you do not want to pay, don't, and just continue sending your e-mails.
Nope, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the you in this case. I'd rather they do it then have more stupid viruses trying to infect my computers. If I need to send an exe or anything like that, or more importantly, when I'm talking to a client, I don't use a free e-mail service. It looks cheap. Would you put a hotmail address on your business card?
Take the short bus to school, perchance?
So why aren't they doing it?
sorry, I forgot to put the sarcasm tags there. Shipping a computer with no os means every non-tech person who purchases one will call for support when they turn on their new laptop and get "No Operating system" or whatever the error is that's going to spit out. Of they can ship it with FreeDos! That's just as user friendly...
Not having an escalation procedure in place is not really a solution.
Not having to pay people who know linux is a solution. You just don't offer linux on your website, anyone who wants to install it is on their own. It's simple, it saves more then it will cost you. Do you think if someone just offered linux on a PC, customers would be beating a path to their door? Suddenly, windows would be driven to 8% market share 30 seconds after the initial offering?
But it is a pretty well-known fact that such agreements do indeed exist
Did exist. Before the anti-trust trial. I'm not apologizing for microsoft here, I've just seen no evidence that they are abusing their power anymore. What I've been seeing over the past couple of years is in fact the oposite. Choice is returning to the market. It's not going to happen over night, but options have become available. This tells me Microsoft has less and less control over the market, now what's needed is viable competition. Apple is doing great, but costs are keeping them down further then they should be. Linux, I don't find, is going to be a viable option. I use it, but my mother doesn't, and couldn't.
It's all about what the majority of the customers want, and if something will make them money, and I don't see linux making Dell any money. Niche markets have opened up, and they may get larger and larger, but right now, the market is chosing Microsoft. It's changing, but with the illegal practices of Microsoft removed, we do see the OS market has changed, and will continue to do so. It's just not the over night revolution that some were expecting, but most knew would not happen.
Well, unless you have a crappy Fujitsu Siemens with broken ACPI, this should not be an issue. And even in the case of the Fujitsu Siemens, whose fault is it really if:
Again, it costs to test, so they don't. If they make 15 points or 25 points or whatever the formula is, and keep the costs lower enough to offer their laptop cheaper then their competitor, they will do so.
Then just ship it without any OS whatsoever.
Well, that's user friendly.. That'll keep support costs way down. 1 machine configured one way and sent out is easier to support, lowering their costs.
Just train them to escalate the call to somebody more knowledgeable if they encounter a situation not covered by the script.
This requires keeping staff that they can escalate too, costing much more then a standard tech monkey. It's a cost/benefit thing.
However, the offer does exist, and in the unlikely event that a customer did take them up on it, they would still face those hypothetical QA and customer service issues mentioned above.
No, if you have them remove windows from it, you're pretty much on your own. They do not support it anymore. The costs of number of people this will piss off is a lot lower then the cost of keeping even 1 higher level tech support staff member.
Those are also Acer's policies, not Microsofts.
The real issue are illegal and secret agreements with Microsoft which are designed to make any windows-less laptop as difficult as possible.
illegal and sexret agreements that you know about how? I thought they were secret?
the real issue is customer demand. If enough demand it, it will happen. But not enough people care. If they offer both with windows or no-os on their website, more people will go for the cheaper option, then there's going to be a lot more support for them, unless they offer no-os with no support, but that will piss a lot of people off, because everyone will go for the cheaper option, then get "Sorry, you should have bought windows' when they try to get help installing their own copy of windows or whatever.
Business bends to the will of the majority of it's customers. When the majority of it's customers demand change, business changes, or is left behind by the competition who offers what the customers want. The company who caters to it's customer base is the one who stays alive. That is what we've been seeing in the past couple of years, and it will continue. More and more places will offer linux, niche markets at first, maybe it will stay that way, maybe it will continue to grow, but I don't see the artificial barriers created by microsoft anymore, and choice has returned in limited amount to the marketplace.
Sure, but taking out those features so they could sell it for cheaper, and keeping the corps buying the version with all the features for a higher prices, I feel (and could be wrong here, they are making insane profits) allowed them to offer it to the home users cheaper. The features they took out, though useful to you and I, just aren't high on the list of the home users, where tasks include getting photos off the camera and e-mailing them to aunt betty.
I understand the arguement against, they're creating artificial barriers that do not really exist, and actually had to work at creating them, but I think those barriers allowed them to keep the prices lower for home users while giving them a return on investment that kept their stock rising, keeping the stockholders happy, and them rolling in money.
I have nothing against large profits on non-necessities when the market will bare the price. I don't find microsoft software a necessity like I do, say, clear air, natural gas, oil, water, etc.
That I will agree with, but is it strong arm tactics from Microsoft, or is it that linux does often not have the driver support to work on said laptops? Or at least the QA guys don't want to go through the testing of another OS on the laptop, and they don't want the tech support to be need to be trained on another OS, adding more lines to the script they already follow. The laptop market is getting as cut-throat as the desktop market, and lowering costs any way, which may include not offering a different OS to keep support and QA/testing costs down helps keep the profit there, while under-cutting your competitors.
I'm not sure which it is. I don't work for the laptop industry. We buy IBM laptops, and they don't seem to have to compete with lower prices, but I still think their thinkpads are worth every penny we paid. At home, acer laptops are dirt cheap, and there are a ton of other companies now in compition for your home laptop dollars.
Before, you had a point, but there are now a ton of places you can buy no-os systems, or linux systems. I'm sure Microsoft is still strong arming somewhat, but if you want it, you can find it. It turns out, most people are just uninformed, don't want to be informed, and XP works for them. I'm a linux guy myself, but blaming the market, which has in the past couple years begun to work the way it's supposed to, for linux's failures to make inroads into the home market (if that's what you were getting at, I may be off a bit), is disingenious as best. Really, microsoft has been working and making a better product, thanks to pressure put on from apple and linux. Linux now has some catching up to do in some areas before some CEO or COO decides that they're going to offer it as a viable alternative to their customers. Who knows, it may happen, I just don't think you can blame MS for the market anymore.
The only useful version is XP Pro Corp. Edition? No, not really. XP Home was fine for home users (I know, crazy, huh?). Really, XP Home couldn't join a domain, couldn't use more then one processor (but it could use HyperThreading if available on the processor), didn't have IIS, didn't have Dynamic Disk support, and ASR (Which is about the only feature that would have been nice, but really, most people would just say "huh?"). XP Home worked well, and saved the customer a bit of cash over XP Pro. If it allowed them to offer lower prices to their customers, more power to them. I know a lot of people still running XP Home just fine.
You may not have been happy with it.. maybe you have multiple processors, maybe you have a domain at home, but really, there are tons of XP Home machines out there that really have no need for Pro.
And the Corp. edition just meant no activation, other then that, I'm relatively certain there were no differences between it and regular XP Professional.