I agree. I use a disposable credit card number, so each time I order I input a new credit card number anyway. Does anybody want to be one click away from sending the wrong product to the wrong address for too much money? Although it sure feels addictive in the iTIMS--if I didn't have one-click turned off, I can see spending many more dollars there through sheer impulsive purchasing.
I think that's a damn good question. I suspect we'll know the answer to that in about 4 quarters--either 1) they aren't making money and never will, 2) they negotiated a better price with the RIAA than did Apple, or 3) they are more efficient in their org (which, as an ex-Apple employee, I can believe).
A big cut into Apple's $.30 is the credit card charge--if I'm not mistaken, there's a minimum charge of $.25 for every credit card transaction. Since many of these songs are purchased as a one-off, Apple only makes ($.30-$.25=$.05), not a whole hell of a lot.
Pretty clear that Mac Office is not part of the settlement.
I stand corrected. I didn't read the form, just the FAQ. But I guess I wonder why that is? If MSFT was found to have an actionable monopoly in Office products, doesn't that extend to Office on the Mac? Is the supposition that there is more Office competition on the Mac?
I suppose it's actually because the actionable part is the bundling agreements; on a PC, Office often comes with a new computer, no choice. Whereas on a Mac, the consumer had to make the decision to purchase it on their own.
The settlement includes Office. Inasmuch as Office is sold for Macs, it appears that the version of Office for Macintosh wold also be included. Until and unless I see something that says that the version of Office for the Macintosh is not part of this settlement, I am going to assume that some Mac users would be included.
You are suggesting that the Pepsi logo confirms the McDonald's deal? Maybe you don't get out much--but Pepsi is a carbonated, sugared beverage; McDonald's sells rapidly produced meat-flavored grease. See the difference?
Seriously, before you start swearing at folks, you might check the details.
Microsoft to use Apple CPU in next-gen gaming console, forgetting that Macs suck for gaming!
Apple computers comprise world's 3rd fastest machine!
Honest to God, what's next? Has the sign of the apocalypse befallen us! Run, run while you still can, before the legendary Apple OEM 2-button mouse is nigh!
Is Novell in a better position to float a free, prosumer/hobbyist version of Linux to support their paying enterprise Linux product than was Red Hat?
Does this mean that we are now more likely to see SUSE on the hobbyist desktop vs. Red Hat? I guess it depends if Novell plans to release a consumer grade version of SUSE for free--and it's too early to tell if that's going to be the case. But there's now a "hobbyist/prosumer" niche to be filled, and IMHO whoever fills that position is much more likely to be recommended for server grade Linux, also. You recommend what you're familiar with--and if we can bang against SUSE for free on our closet boxes, when a PHB asks for a Linux recommendation, I think we are much more likely to recommend SUSE. Regardless of the technical differences/advantages, since it's always better to go with "the devil you know."
Sounds like we have another standard bearer, folks, which actually underscores the strength of Linux--any number of companies can offer the product, since it's owned-at-large, regardless of the travails of a company in particular. If Red Hat had been the sole proprietor of Linux, their stopping support for the consumer version could very well have been the end of the line of Linux on the desktop--but inasmuch as it's open source, another company is able to fill the breach.
What this means for SCO is better left to other threads, I think. But I would've liked to see their faces--and I'm glad I'm not a SCO customer (or distributor). Can Novell revoke SCO's license to UNIX? hehee.
As other posts have mentioned, the G5 happens to suck at Intel emulation. It apparently lacks the endian compatibility mode that the G4 had; getting VPC to run on the G5 will be a major undertaking. I don't know that MSFT has this in their favor for making Xbox backwards compatibility work.
I think it remains an open question whether or not Connectix told MSFT that before they were purchased (they surely knew it themselves) or if it was a post-purchase discovery; I can only imagine the look on the faces. But I don't think we'll ever know.
I think you're mistaking perception with behavior. It's not really how people actually use the console; it's how they think they're going to use the console. The ability to play PS1 games meant something to me when I went to purchase a PS2; I recognized that that meant that a lot of games would be immediately available for it (cheaply, on eBay). However, I have only actually purchased one PS1 game to play.
If only one of PS3 and Xbox2 are backwards compatible, that will factor in on my purchasing decision; that's something that I can control. Whether or not I actually ever wind up using it that way is irrelevant. Although, that said, Sony would be the greater fool to sacrifice their customer base, inasumch as it is much larger; Sony has much more to lose from starting over at the starting line than does MSFT.
What do you think I'm going to do when we need a new copy of Office?
Install Open Office, of course! Better that than to risk the BSA breaking down your door, no? And you're being naive if you think that they will accept your explanation of "stolen versions installed, paid versions in the safe."
Friend, I sympathize, I really do. If the world didn't have serial numbers and passwords, I would be out of a job. I'm even a Mac pro, too. But, all that said, there's no way that I would use warez serial numbers anywhere that I was getting paid to do work. I'll sometimes take that chance on my own machines, when I'm demoing something--I'm not going to purchase a full version of Quark, say, just so I can learn how it operates, so I can learn how to support it. But at work--no way.
If Quark wants to waste your time, pass on the cost to the client. When they challenge a 1/2hr charge, you can explain to them that that was for the 1/2hr you spent on the phone with Quark Volume Licensing--and, oh, btw, Adobe picks up their phone right away, so now do you see how ID would actually save you money? Passing on the costs of Product Activation is the only way to get these corps to change their practices and remember on which side their bread is buttered; enabling that customer-hostility is only going to wind up costing you grief.
Guess how many people email for support, and get pissed off after I only answer their first 2-3 emails? LOTS.
What about giving the program away for free, but selling support, ala an opensource model? "$10 for the program--no product activation. But, $45/year/user for support." That sounds like what the people want, would remove the product registration headache from you, and would provide a continual stream of revenue--even if they didn't purchase a newer version.
Now, whether you make your program needlessly obtuse so that a user is virtually required to have support with you is an exercise for the reader; there's a risk of scaring away the new user who could develop into a valuable customer in the future.
Sounds to me like you should develop for another OS. If you find this onerous, it's the nature of the beast. Really--I'm not trying to troll. But in making a business decision for the OS you want to target, you have to realize that that may not be the best tool for the job.
Not a great many home users currently use their computer as a webserver, although that's certainly possible. But I shudder a little bit to think that every grandma in the country will be running a blog on the IIS built into their computer, and leaving it on on their broadband connection 24/7, since now they have something to serve.
Won't this magnify the security issues surrounding MSFT's web serving software? Although it will help to inflate IIS's marketshare, too, once 95% of 200 million people start using it for their home based sites...
They do expect to offload some processing to the Graphics card for some post-processing. Don't know how feasible that is, but it's apparently feasible enough for them to mention it. So those cards may come in use yet. And, incidentally, I don't think they do have SuperDrives--they took all the discounts they could that were available through the typical BTO channel--which includes no modem, and no SuperDrive.
And, I did ask--and yes, each came with a keyboard and mouse. Now that's some real superflous hardware.
Well, it gets 10 hours when playing music, so I would expect at least that. But this requires much less power than music playing, so probably a lot more. 10 hours would provide 20 transfers; twice as many would be 40 transfers. And then I maybe need to charge it, once. So I don't think that'll be an issue, either.
Ok, enough. I'm in the market for this, even after reading your muddled commentary. I spent $700 for my camera, because I like the features that that quality of camera added. Which means, incidentally, that I fill up my CF cards faster than a cheap camera, because my pics tend to be higher res, and therefore the pics take more memory.
So--when I travel to distant and exotic lands on vacations of a few weeks, I would still much rather take an iPod with this adapter and dump photos from a 256M card, than have to take an iBook and find places to charge it.
If it means that every 2-3 days, when I've filled up a 256M card, that it takes me 30 mins to upload to my iPod--yeah, I'm happy to do it. And I'll buy the adapter to do it with. I would still rather do that than carry my iBook through the hinterlands of Russia and Turkey.
So get over your damn self. Sorry the product didn't work for you. I still think it'll work for some people. Reporting the facts w/o sarcasm would have made for a better case. As it is, it seems like you're bent on convincing everyone else that this product will also suck for them, regardless if their needs are not your own.
That includes Apple, incidentally. When I was last at 1 Infinite Loop (admittedly, it was directly after 9/11) pictures of the outsides of the building were forbidden.
Why don't I use it now? Because, it has no earthly use, except in very specific situations.
I think we all tried to like it when OS 9 came with a voice password. Sure, it works. Well, even. But I can type, and move my mouse, faster than I can speak. Plus, hearing the quietude broken by the sound of my own voice is unnerving.
Although I don't doubt that voice recog has even gotten better in 10.3, I don't have any plans to try it. MSFT should learn from Apple on this one: as much as we think we'd like to be like Captain Kirk, voice recog is kinda stupid. (Dictation would be a whole 'nother story). I suppose in the instance of a PDA the goal is to remove the need for a keyboard--but I wouldn't want to depend on any voice recog, either, so the presence of a keyboard is still required.
It is superior in every way to analog NTSC format.
Really? I didn't know that TiVo made a HD compatible PVR.
So, that's one way they aren't superior. And, once TiVo gets the technical issues fixed, the broadcast flag will stop my ability to watch the shows I want when I want to. So--analog for me, as long as possible. Once HD is mandated, I guess it's back to books.
That's what the parent post said. So the question remains: how is Napster et al going to be profitable, since they don't have the margin of an "iPod alike" to take to the bank? Especially since they presumably have to pay MSFT for their encoding technology, also. And, they have to compete with every other WMA enabled $.99 download music site.
Well, it could be that a) MSFT is giving a discount on their encoding tech, to get it established in the marketplace; but wait until it gets established. Then MSFT will triple the prices, and what are you going to do? They've done this before. Or, b) it could be that Napster gets some kick from the portable music players. No question that digitized music helps sells players for said music, so maybe the top 5 manufacturers all pay Napster something back. Finally, c) it could be that Apple just isn't managing the iTMS revenues very well, so a more efficient company is able to actually make money on the music alone. I don't know what Apple's expenses are well enough to know if the cost of the iTMS is reducible or not; for instance, is it bandwidth cost? Server cost? Dunno.
This probably won't be able to apply to you, but it's worth knowing: Mac OS X Server can do this out of the box (to Mac clients). Apple calls it "NetBoot", and it's been available since at least 2000; I believe the tech came from NeXT originally.
Under OS 9 and 10.3 it allows for clients-without-drives as they get all their OS etc from the server down the wire (10.1,.2 required a HD, but only for swap), which is useful in some secure installations. Read more about it here.
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I agree. I use a disposable credit card number, so each time I order I input a new credit card number anyway. Does anybody want to be one click away from sending the wrong product to the wrong address for too much money? Although it sure feels addictive in the iTIMS--if I didn't have one-click turned off, I can see spending many more dollars there through sheer impulsive purchasing.
I think that's a damn good question. I suspect we'll know the answer to that in about 4 quarters--either 1) they aren't making money and never will, 2) they negotiated a better price with the RIAA than did Apple, or 3) they are more efficient in their org (which, as an ex-Apple employee, I can believe).
A big cut into Apple's $.30 is the credit card charge--if I'm not mistaken, there's a minimum charge of $.25 for every credit card transaction. Since many of these songs are purchased as a one-off, Apple only makes ($.30-$.25=$.05), not a whole hell of a lot.
Pretty clear that Mac Office is not part of the settlement.
I stand corrected. I didn't read the form, just the FAQ. But I guess I wonder why that is? If MSFT was found to have an actionable monopoly in Office products, doesn't that extend to Office on the Mac? Is the supposition that there is more Office competition on the Mac?
I suppose it's actually because the actionable part is the bundling agreements; on a PC, Office often comes with a new computer, no choice. Whereas on a Mac, the consumer had to make the decision to purchase it on their own.
The settlement includes Office. Inasmuch as Office is sold for Macs, it appears that the version of Office for Macintosh wold also be included. Until and unless I see something that says that the version of Office for the Macintosh is not part of this settlement, I am going to assume that some Mac users would be included.
You are suggesting that the Pepsi logo confirms the McDonald's deal? Maybe you don't get out much--but Pepsi is a carbonated, sugared beverage; McDonald's sells rapidly produced meat-flavored grease. See the difference?
Seriously, before you start swearing at folks, you might check the details.
Red Hat CEO says that users should use Windows!
Microsoft to use Apple CPU in next-gen gaming console, forgetting that Macs suck for gaming!
Apple computers comprise world's 3rd fastest machine!
Honest to God, what's next? Has the sign of the apocalypse befallen us! Run, run while you still can, before the legendary Apple OEM 2-button mouse is nigh!
Um, google for them?
Is Novell in a better position to float a free, prosumer/hobbyist version of Linux to support their paying enterprise Linux product than was Red Hat?
Does this mean that we are now more likely to see SUSE on the hobbyist desktop vs. Red Hat? I guess it depends if Novell plans to release a consumer grade version of SUSE for free--and it's too early to tell if that's going to be the case. But there's now a "hobbyist/prosumer" niche to be filled, and IMHO whoever fills that position is much more likely to be recommended for server grade Linux, also. You recommend what you're familiar with--and if we can bang against SUSE for free on our closet boxes, when a PHB asks for a Linux recommendation, I think we are much more likely to recommend SUSE. Regardless of the technical differences/advantages, since it's always better to go with "the devil you know."
Sounds like we have another standard bearer, folks, which actually underscores the strength of Linux--any number of companies can offer the product, since it's owned-at-large, regardless of the travails of a company in particular. If Red Hat had been the sole proprietor of Linux, their stopping support for the consumer version could very well have been the end of the line of Linux on the desktop--but inasmuch as it's open source, another company is able to fill the breach.
What this means for SCO is better left to other threads, I think. But I would've liked to see their faces--and I'm glad I'm not a SCO customer (or distributor). Can Novell revoke SCO's license to UNIX? hehee.
As other posts have mentioned, the G5 happens to suck at Intel emulation. It apparently lacks the endian compatibility mode that the G4 had; getting VPC to run on the G5 will be a major undertaking. I don't know that MSFT has this in their favor for making Xbox backwards compatibility work.
I think it remains an open question whether or not Connectix told MSFT that before they were purchased (they surely knew it themselves) or if it was a post-purchase discovery; I can only imagine the look on the faces. But I don't think we'll ever know.
Microsoft could twist IBM's arm
That's something that I'd like to see.
I think you're mistaking perception with behavior. It's not really how people actually use the console; it's how they think they're going to use the console. The ability to play PS1 games meant something to me when I went to purchase a PS2; I recognized that that meant that a lot of games would be immediately available for it (cheaply, on eBay). However, I have only actually purchased one PS1 game to play.
If only one of PS3 and Xbox2 are backwards compatible, that will factor in on my purchasing decision; that's something that I can control. Whether or not I actually ever wind up using it that way is irrelevant. Although, that said, Sony would be the greater fool to sacrifice their customer base, inasumch as it is much larger; Sony has much more to lose from starting over at the starting line than does MSFT.
What do you think I'm going to do when we need a new copy of Office?
Install Open Office, of course! Better that than to risk the BSA breaking down your door, no? And you're being naive if you think that they will accept your explanation of "stolen versions installed, paid versions in the safe."
Friend, I sympathize, I really do. If the world didn't have serial numbers and passwords, I would be out of a job. I'm even a Mac pro, too. But, all that said, there's no way that I would use warez serial numbers anywhere that I was getting paid to do work. I'll sometimes take that chance on my own machines, when I'm demoing something--I'm not going to purchase a full version of Quark, say, just so I can learn how it operates, so I can learn how to support it. But at work--no way.
If Quark wants to waste your time, pass on the cost to the client. When they challenge a 1/2hr charge, you can explain to them that that was for the 1/2hr you spent on the phone with Quark Volume Licensing--and, oh, btw, Adobe picks up their phone right away, so now do you see how ID would actually save you money? Passing on the costs of Product Activation is the only way to get these corps to change their practices and remember on which side their bread is buttered; enabling that customer-hostility is only going to wind up costing you grief.
Guess how many people email for support, and get pissed off after I only answer their first 2-3 emails? LOTS.
What about giving the program away for free, but selling support, ala an opensource model? "$10 for the program--no product activation. But, $45/year/user for support." That sounds like what the people want, would remove the product registration headache from you, and would provide a continual stream of revenue--even if they didn't purchase a newer version.
Now, whether you make your program needlessly obtuse so that a user is virtually required to have support with you is an exercise for the reader; there's a risk of scaring away the new user who could develop into a valuable customer in the future.
Sounds to me like you should develop for another OS. If you find this onerous, it's the nature of the beast. Really--I'm not trying to troll. But in making a business decision for the OS you want to target, you have to realize that that may not be the best tool for the job.
Not a great many home users currently use their computer as a webserver, although that's certainly possible. But I shudder a little bit to think that every grandma in the country will be running a blog on the IIS built into their computer, and leaving it on on their broadband connection 24/7, since now they have something to serve.
Won't this magnify the security issues surrounding MSFT's web serving software? Although it will help to inflate IIS's marketshare, too, once 95% of 200 million people start using it for their home based sites...
They do expect to offload some processing to the Graphics card for some post-processing. Don't know how feasible that is, but it's apparently feasible enough for them to mention it. So those cards may come in use yet. And, incidentally, I don't think they do have SuperDrives--they took all the discounts they could that were available through the typical BTO channel--which includes no modem, and no SuperDrive.
And, I did ask--and yes, each came with a keyboard and mouse. Now that's some real superflous hardware.
Well, it gets 10 hours when playing music, so I would expect at least that. But this requires much less power than music playing, so probably a lot more. 10 hours would provide 20 transfers; twice as many would be 40 transfers. And then I maybe need to charge it, once. So I don't think that'll be an issue, either.
Ok, enough. I'm in the market for this, even after reading your muddled commentary. I spent $700 for my camera, because I like the features that that quality of camera added. Which means, incidentally, that I fill up my CF cards faster than a cheap camera, because my pics tend to be higher res, and therefore the pics take more memory.
So--when I travel to distant and exotic lands on vacations of a few weeks, I would still much rather take an iPod with this adapter and dump photos from a 256M card, than have to take an iBook and find places to charge it.
If it means that every 2-3 days, when I've filled up a 256M card, that it takes me 30 mins to upload to my iPod--yeah, I'm happy to do it. And I'll buy the adapter to do it with. I would still rather do that than carry my iBook through the hinterlands of Russia and Turkey.
So get over your damn self. Sorry the product didn't work for you. I still think it'll work for some people. Reporting the facts w/o sarcasm would have made for a better case. As it is, it seems like you're bent on convincing everyone else that this product will also suck for them, regardless if their needs are not your own.
That includes Apple, incidentally. When I was last at 1 Infinite Loop (admittedly, it was directly after 9/11) pictures of the outsides of the building were forbidden.
Why don't I use it now? Because, it has no earthly use, except in very specific situations.
I think we all tried to like it when OS 9 came with a voice password. Sure, it works. Well, even. But I can type, and move my mouse, faster than I can speak. Plus, hearing the quietude broken by the sound of my own voice is unnerving.
Although I don't doubt that voice recog has even gotten better in 10.3, I don't have any plans to try it. MSFT should learn from Apple on this one: as much as we think we'd like to be like Captain Kirk, voice recog is kinda stupid. (Dictation would be a whole 'nother story). I suppose in the instance of a PDA the goal is to remove the need for a keyboard--but I wouldn't want to depend on any voice recog, either, so the presence of a keyboard is still required.
It is superior in every way to analog NTSC format.
Really? I didn't know that TiVo made a HD compatible PVR.
So, that's one way they aren't superior. And, once TiVo gets the technical issues fixed, the broadcast flag will stop my ability to watch the shows I want when I want to. So--analog for me, as long as possible. Once HD is mandated, I guess it's back to books.
I stand corrected. Interesting, though, that one can netboot OS 9 clients--I guess it's because you've got a Unix Server doing the heavy lifting.
That's what the parent post said. So the question remains: how is Napster et al going to be profitable, since they don't have the margin of an "iPod alike" to take to the bank? Especially since they presumably have to pay MSFT for their encoding technology, also. And, they have to compete with every other WMA enabled $.99 download music site.
Well, it could be that a) MSFT is giving a discount on their encoding tech, to get it established in the marketplace; but wait until it gets established. Then MSFT will triple the prices, and what are you going to do? They've done this before. Or, b) it could be that Napster gets some kick from the portable music players. No question that digitized music helps sells players for said music, so maybe the top 5 manufacturers all pay Napster something back. Finally, c) it could be that Apple just isn't managing the iTMS revenues very well, so a more efficient company is able to actually make money on the music alone. I don't know what Apple's expenses are well enough to know if the cost of the iTMS is reducible or not; for instance, is it bandwidth cost? Server cost? Dunno.
This probably won't be able to apply to you, but it's worth knowing: Mac OS X Server can do this out of the box (to Mac clients). Apple calls it "NetBoot", and it's been available since at least 2000; I believe the tech came from NeXT originally.
Under OS 9 and 10.3 it allows for clients-without-drives as they get all their OS etc from the server down the wire (10.1,