I love how the Apple apologists were trying to cook up reasons why Apple picked Cingular's EDGE network over Verizon's clearly superior EVDO. And the answer is, Apple fucked up the negotiations, just like they fucked up the iPhone trademark.
Its not like everyone is starting from a blank slate on the first day of the contest. It's basically a call for the math geeks who design this stuff to polish up whatever they are working on.
NVidia will only directly support customers who purchase add-on cards. If you buy an Apple, Dell, HP, etc with an NVidia card, you need to work with the OEM to get a supported driver.
The police access issue is pretty irrelevant today... anyone who can afford Vista Ultimate or PGP can lock them out. All of the enterprise solution provide a key escrow capability to allow admins to recover data.
You're right, disk encryption is nothing new. But nobody was forced to use it until now. It's almost a certainty that every Federal laptop & desktop computer will be required to be encrypted in 2008. Once the government encrypts, financial services & insurance companies will likely require the same thing. All of these markets are critical to Linux, Apple or any alternate desktop being successful in the enterprise.
3rd party solutions like Utimaco, Pointsec, PGP, Safeboot, etc all cost somewhere in the $90-150/computer range. If enterprises can choose the Vista solution, which doesn't change the way that users login, can be managed via group policy, costs the same or less, and isn't another license that needs to be tracked... its likely they they will choose Vista Enterprise.
You're missing the point - the selection is between spending $450 for Ultimate and an extra $20-40/seat for software assurance that allows you to use Vista "Enterprise". The "it won't run on new hardware" argument is moot because most companies refresh on a 3-5 year cycle.
Most enterprises are choosing Software Assurance -- because the upfront cost of migrating to Linux is higher. I've been involved in a linux desktop project for awhile now, and migration is not an easy or cheap prospect.
So instead of locking into proprietary software, you lock yourself into proprietary hardware as well?
I've been involved with evaluations and deployments of disk encryption software... there are plenty of great packages out there, but most places will choose the convenient solution over the best one.
The point is, Microsoft is doing the same thing to enterprises that they did to OEM's.
Lots of companies and most governments are going to be mandated to use whole-disk encryption for laptops and desktops in the next year or so. The easiest way to do this is to get your hands on Vista Ultimate or Vista Enterprise.
This is a problem. Vista Ultimate is a consumer product and you cannot get it via a volume license agreement, so that's out. Vista Enterprise is available via volume & enterprise agreements but you must have software assurance agreement in place.
To get software assurance, you pay Microsoft a "seat fee" equal to the number of computers that you have that aren't:
- Servers
- Applicances (VPN devices, Google Search boxes, etc)
- Kiosks (ATM's, POS terminals, etc)
- Embedded devices (Treos, Blackberries, etc)
That means that you'll pay Microsoft for Macs, Linux machines, FreeDOS machines... anything that is a workstation. So switching to Linux won't save a time, because you'll pay Microsoft anyway!
Except for gadget geeks, probably 80% of the Blackberrys, Treos, etc are purchased by companies for employees or by business owners.
Apple is hoping to extend that market by taking a typical consumer/parent who is about to buy a $300 iPod anyway and convincing them spend another $200 for a phone that has unique internet capability. The reasoning behind this is that a person who is ready to by a $300 device is far more likely to spring for a $500 device.
The typical phone buyer considers the phone to be almost disposable. If you come into a store to buy a $50 RAZR after rebate, you're not going to get them to spring for $499. So Apple is taking advantage of the iPod buzz to upsell iPod consumers (the average iPod buyer has already owned 3) into iPhones.
This is sales 101. That's why half the people who show up to buy a Toyota Corolla drive away with a Prius. ("Hmm... $5000 more and I have a hybrid AND get bluetooth and that neato screen")
On the flip side, they'll get businesses to buy some too. Enterprises will stick with Blackberries because they use Exchange and like the security aspects of the device, but there are plenty of mid-level managers with purchase authority to spend $500-600.
The FCC issues experimental/development licenses that allow you to run a small number of devices in a limited area. Its too expensive for your average Joe to afford, but not too big of a deal for a big company like Apple.
My dad spent $1500 on a high end Sony TV in like 1986 -- and is still using that TV today.
If I buy the "wrong" technology today, I'm going to spend $1500 on a TV that will be burnt out in 5-6 years... unless I play video games, which will burn it out in a few months.
A two-door Honda Civic/Ford Focus/Toyota Corolla would meet the commuting needs of 90% of suburbanites. Yet they buy SUVs and large sedans.
Needs matter, but so do wants. Microsoft exceeds your needs, exerts anti-competitive pressure, and spends billions on marketing to convince you to want their product.
Why do you think Google bought YouTube anyway? Its a platform for delivering non-traditional advertising.
You might have noticed that almost every IT rag & business magazine has been talking about the tremendous marketing potential of YouTube in the last few months. This isn't an accident -- YouTube was designed to deliver ads in the form of TV show clips and promotional videos like Sony's.
The user-generated content is a sideshow or trojan horse to hide the real content.
Sure dude... that sounds quite plausible, except for the fact that it isn't true.
Forget about Medicare Part-D. institutionalized patients pay outrageous rates for drugs -- in one nursing home that my wife audited ibuprofen (ie. Advil) was being billed to medicare at $18/pill - that that isn't illegal.
Go read some of the many studies, books and papers about how the system works. The "medical-pharma-legislative complex" has rigged a system that enriches various parties at government expense, and sets a high benchmark that inflates everyone's rates.
While a humorous comment, it highlights what makes the American health care system so unique. We are so fiercely independent, that a good majority of Americans don't like having the government telling us what to do, and this includes how we take care of our body and our health. This system allows for many benefits as well as problems. The most visible problem is the ever-increasing cost of health care, and the number of people like yourselves who are falling through the cracks because good health insurance is only available through employers who can command group rates. On the flip side, because the state is not dictating how health care is conducting itself, American health care is a hot-bed of new procedures and techniques that push the limits of health care because people are willing to pay for an unproven technique even if it has even a small chance of success if the alternative is not acceptable. For example, the second son of a friend of mine was diagnose with Spina Bifida and instead of accepting that his child would be born paralyzed, was able to find a surgeon who was willing to perform surgery on the child while he was still in the womb! (notice that of the four hospitals in the world that perform this unique and complicated surgery, all of them are located in the United States)
As a graduate student, I am faced with paying for a cut-rate, we-don't-pay-for-anything-unless-you-get-hit-by-a- bus student plan, or a much more expensive individual plan. There are very few national health care providers, and you would be well suited to search for and find a regional health insurance company. In the mid-west, I have been leaning towards Anthem as my insurance provider, and hope to have a plan from them to help me start off the new year.
You're listening to too much talk radio.
The "ever increasing" cost of health care is largely a result of the law not permitting Medicare/Medicaid to do things like implement fraud control systems and negotiate for drug pricing. The lack of primary care also tends to crowd expensive emergency rooms with patients that have to be treated without regard to their ability to repay.
If we had a coherent national health system, costs would be much more reasonable.
And the only "fiercely independent" parties are the insurance & pharmaceutical industries that are enriching themselves on the government trough.
The problem is systematic mismanagement. In today's world, if you're not fighting a fire, you're a slacker that needs to be removed. Most corporate-type employees live in a world a paranoia, fear and incompetence. Concepts like cross-training and delegating work are signs of weakness to many. Looking busy and in the loop is more important than reality.
I take 6 weeks of vacation a year, and rarely check email on the weekends unless I'm on-call. When I'm out, other people take on some of my duties. When other people are out, I do the same.
> Unless you get permission, you aren't allowed to have encrypted data on any govt owned hard drive you may be using.
That's just stupid. The Feds are spending millions of disk encryption products like Pointsec, Winmagic, Safeboot, etc. Many agencies have mandated full disk encryption on all laptops.
The problem with self-taught people is that they are "experts" in operating whatever solution they taught themselves, and filter all problems through that tool set. One of the big reasons for this is the free/cheap learning material that they use are vendor-provided educational/marketing collateral.
So when these people move up the ranks and become Microsoft/HP/Cisco/IBM/etc certified they have a natural affinity to their chosen vendor.
Donating money to a "big money" charity and a political campaign, PAC or party organization is a good way to get you on these lists.
Another thing that triggers junk mailing and calls is change of address forms. Political campaigns pay good money for recent movers with a history of sending money to other political campaigns.
The trick is are you talking about the user's lifetime, or the software? Companies pretty much last forever (even bankrupt company assets are sold), so its unlikely that Oracle Linux v1 will be supported in the dusty corner of some insurance company in 2100.
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I love how the Apple apologists were trying to cook up reasons why Apple picked Cingular's EDGE network over Verizon's clearly superior EVDO. And the answer is, Apple fucked up the negotiations, just like they fucked up the iPhone trademark.
Try signing up for Google Checkout to sell things on Google Base... It's a disconnected nightmare process.
Google does search & email well. The rest... right up there with everyone else.
Its not like everyone is starting from a blank slate on the first day of the contest. It's basically a call for the math geeks who design this stuff to polish up whatever they are working on.
That's kind of lame, eh? You except someone to disassemble a laptop to replace the video card? That's just nuts.
NVidia will only directly support customers who purchase add-on cards. If you buy an Apple, Dell, HP, etc with an NVidia card, you need to work with the OEM to get a supported driver.
The police access issue is pretty irrelevant today... anyone who can afford Vista Ultimate or PGP can lock them out. All of the enterprise solution provide a key escrow capability to allow admins to recover data.
You're right, disk encryption is nothing new. But nobody was forced to use it until now. It's almost a certainty that every Federal laptop & desktop computer will be required to be encrypted in 2008. Once the government encrypts, financial services & insurance companies will likely require the same thing. All of these markets are critical to Linux, Apple or any alternate desktop being successful in the enterprise.
3rd party solutions like Utimaco, Pointsec, PGP, Safeboot, etc all cost somewhere in the $90-150/computer range. If enterprises can choose the Vista solution, which doesn't change the way that users login, can be managed via group policy, costs the same or less, and isn't another license that needs to be tracked... its likely they they will choose Vista Enterprise.
You're missing the point - the selection is between spending $450 for Ultimate and an extra $20-40/seat for software assurance that allows you to use Vista "Enterprise". The "it won't run on new hardware" argument is moot because most companies refresh on a 3-5 year cycle.
Most enterprises are choosing Software Assurance -- because the upfront cost of migrating to Linux is higher. I've been involved in a linux desktop project for awhile now, and migration is not an easy or cheap prospect.
So instead of locking into proprietary software, you lock yourself into proprietary hardware as well?
I've been involved with evaluations and deployments of disk encryption software... there are plenty of great packages out there, but most places will choose the convenient solution over the best one.
The point is, Microsoft is doing the same thing to enterprises that they did to OEM's.
Vista will make cost irrelevant.
Lots of companies and most governments are going to be mandated to use whole-disk encryption for laptops and desktops in the next year or so. The easiest way to do this is to get your hands on Vista Ultimate or Vista Enterprise.
This is a problem.
Vista Ultimate is a consumer product and you cannot get it via a volume license agreement, so that's out.
Vista Enterprise is available via volume & enterprise agreements but you must have software assurance agreement in place.
To get software assurance, you pay Microsoft a "seat fee" equal to the number of computers that you have that aren't:
- Servers
- Applicances (VPN devices, Google Search boxes, etc)
- Kiosks (ATM's, POS terminals, etc)
- Embedded devices (Treos, Blackberries, etc)
That means that you'll pay Microsoft for Macs, Linux machines, FreeDOS machines... anything that is a workstation. So switching to Linux won't save a time, because you'll pay Microsoft anyway!
Businesses do.
Except for gadget geeks, probably 80% of the Blackberrys, Treos, etc are purchased by companies for employees or by business owners.
Apple is hoping to extend that market by taking a typical consumer/parent who is about to buy a $300 iPod anyway and convincing them spend another $200 for a phone that has unique internet capability. The reasoning behind this is that a person who is ready to by a $300 device is far more likely to spring for a $500 device.
The typical phone buyer considers the phone to be almost disposable. If you come into a store to buy a $50 RAZR after rebate, you're not going to get them to spring for $499. So Apple is taking advantage of the iPod buzz to upsell iPod consumers (the average iPod buyer has already owned 3) into iPhones.
This is sales 101. That's why half the people who show up to buy a Toyota Corolla drive away with a Prius. ("Hmm... $5000 more and I have a hybrid AND get bluetooth and that neato screen")
On the flip side, they'll get businesses to buy some too. Enterprises will stick with Blackberries because they use Exchange and like the security aspects of the device, but there are plenty of mid-level managers with purchase authority to spend $500-600.
The FCC issues experimental/development licenses that allow you to run a small number of devices in a limited area. Its too expensive for your average Joe to afford, but not too big of a deal for a big company like Apple.
My dad spent $1500 on a high end Sony TV in like 1986 -- and is still using that TV today.
If I buy the "wrong" technology today, I'm going to spend $1500 on a TV that will be burnt out in 5-6 years... unless I play video games, which will burn it out in a few months.
A two-door Honda Civic/Ford Focus/Toyota Corolla would meet the commuting needs of 90% of suburbanites. Yet they buy SUVs and large sedans.
Needs matter, but so do wants. Microsoft exceeds your needs, exerts anti-competitive pressure, and spends billions on marketing to convince you to want their product.
Why do you think Google bought YouTube anyway? Its a platform for delivering non-traditional advertising.
You might have noticed that almost every IT rag & business magazine has been talking about the tremendous marketing potential of YouTube in the last few months. This isn't an accident -- YouTube was designed to deliver ads in the form of TV show clips and promotional videos like Sony's.
The user-generated content is a sideshow or trojan horse to hide the real content.
Wrong. The music company gets $2, the artist makes something like $0.10.
In any case, the public isn't under a mandate to enrich anyone. Do you send checks to the UAW when you buy a used car?
Sure dude... that sounds quite plausible, except for the fact that it isn't true.
Forget about Medicare Part-D. institutionalized patients pay outrageous rates for drugs -- in one nursing home that my wife audited ibuprofen (ie. Advil) was being billed to medicare at $18/pill - that that isn't illegal.
Go read some of the many studies, books and papers about how the system works. The "medical-pharma-legislative complex" has rigged a system that enriches various parties at government expense, and sets a high benchmark that inflates everyone's rates.
While a humorous comment, it highlights what makes the American health care system so unique. We are so fiercely independent, that a good majority of Americans don't like having the government telling us what to do, and this includes how we take care of our body and our health. This system allows for many benefits as well as problems. The most visible problem is the ever-increasing cost of health care, and the number of people like yourselves who are falling through the cracks because good health insurance is only available through employers who can command group rates. On the flip side, because the state is not dictating how health care is conducting itself, American health care is a hot-bed of new procedures and techniques that push the limits of health care because people are willing to pay for an unproven technique even if it has even a small chance of success if the alternative is not acceptable. For example, the second son of a friend of mine was diagnose with Spina Bifida and instead of accepting that his child would be born paralyzed, was able to find a surgeon who was willing to perform surgery on the child while he was still in the womb! (notice that of the four hospitals in the world that perform this unique and complicated surgery, all of them are located in the United States)
As a graduate student, I am faced with paying for a cut-rate, we-don't-pay-for-anything-unless-you-get-hit-by-a- bus student plan, or a much more expensive individual plan. There are very few national health care providers, and you would be well suited to search for and find a regional health insurance company. In the mid-west, I have been leaning towards Anthem as my insurance provider, and hope to have a plan from them to help me start off the new year.
You're listening to too much talk radio.
The "ever increasing" cost of health care is largely a result of the law not permitting Medicare/Medicaid to do things like implement fraud control systems and negotiate for drug pricing. The lack of primary care also tends to crowd expensive emergency rooms with patients that have to be treated without regard to their ability to repay.
If we had a coherent national health system, costs would be much more reasonable.
And the only "fiercely independent" parties are the insurance & pharmaceutical industries that are enriching themselves on the government trough.The problem is systematic mismanagement. In today's world, if you're not fighting a fire, you're a slacker that needs to be removed. Most corporate-type employees live in a world a paranoia, fear and incompetence. Concepts like cross-training and delegating work are signs of weakness to many. Looking busy and in the loop is more important than reality.
I take 6 weeks of vacation a year, and rarely check email on the weekends unless I'm on-call. When I'm out, other people take on some of my duties. When other people are out, I do the same.
There's a big difference between starvation and not buying overprice pomegrante jam.
Mess with Oracle, and this guy will mess with you.
The whole point of this (really stupid) idea is that the service will be more convenient than picking up the phone and dialing people.
We we heard about this at work, we spent about 45 minutes setting up crank calls for sex therapists, hair club for men, chinese food joints, etc.
> Unless you get permission, you aren't allowed to have encrypted data on any govt owned hard drive you may be using.
That's just stupid. The Feds are spending millions of disk encryption products like Pointsec, Winmagic, Safeboot, etc. Many agencies have mandated full disk encryption on all laptops.
The problem with self-taught people is that they are "experts" in operating whatever solution they taught themselves, and filter all problems through that tool set. One of the big reasons for this is the free/cheap learning material that they use are vendor-provided educational/marketing collateral.
So when these people move up the ranks and become Microsoft/HP/Cisco/IBM/etc certified they have a natural affinity to their chosen vendor.
Donating money to a "big money" charity and a political campaign, PAC or party organization is a good way to get you on these lists.
Another thing that triggers junk mailing and calls is change of address forms. Political campaigns pay good money for recent movers with a history of sending money to other political campaigns.
The trick is are you talking about the user's lifetime, or the software? Companies pretty much last forever (even bankrupt company assets are sold), so its unlikely that Oracle Linux v1 will be supported in the dusty corner of some insurance company in 2100.