Blame Linux if you want, but the real problem lies with the crappy job MSI did putting Linux on its netbook. I don't know if they are still doing it but their original Linux preloads didn't even support all of the hardware on the netbook. Either way, it's not like MSI Wind has stopped offering Linux. A few years ago getting a laptop pre-loaded with Linux was impossible. With the netbooks everyone offers Linux, even when it is pretty clear that they hope it fails.
That's an excellent point. Microsoft didn't come out with special pricing until it was clear that the netbook was a runaway hit.
It's also important to note that the Tier 1 OEMs like Dell and HP weren't the slightest bit interested in upsetting the status quo until a relative upstart on the consumer scene showed that there was money to be made. For HP, Dell, and others near the top of the heap the current Windows marketplace suits them just fine. They get the bulk of Microsoft's marketing money. As long as Windows is a sure bet they don't want to rock the boat.
The fact that companies like HP and Dell sell netbooks (and pre-load Linux across their product lines) shows just how far the Linux trend has already progressed.
The problem isn't that the version of XP used on netbooks took some time and effort to create. The problem is that netbooks running XP are being sold instead of netbooks running a much more expensive version of Windows.
Even just a few years ago no OEM had that sort of leverage over Microsoft. You either built hardware that worked with existing versions of Windows (with existing cost structures) or you didn't build a device at all. With the netbook Microsoft showed that it was willing to cave on price if the alternative was a PC running Linux.
Sure, the netbook version of XP wasn't expensive to create, but Microsoft's R&D department is essentially a fixed cost. The bit that this particular set of articles missed is that Microsoft's unit sales actually increased by 1% in this last quarter, but revenue on those sales was down 8%. Clearly this is better than losing those sales to Linux, but it still amounts to nearly a 10% price reduction on the sale price of Windows due to competition from Linux.
Now clearly this isn't going to drive Microsoft out of business any time soon, but it certainly worries investors. If future trends see Microsoft selling less software at lower prices then they'll want to see changes made.
Linux's mere existence has always had a competitive influence on Microsoft. However, it wasn't until recently that Linux was truly a competitive threat as a desktop for end users. Heck, I've been using Linux on my desktop since 1995, but I haven't really believed it was a viable replacement for Windows for normal folk until fairly recently (and then only in fairly specific situations).
It's hard to argue that Linux doesn't represent a threat now, however. After all, Microsoft resurrected Windows XP and sold it at a steep discount as a specific reaction to Linux adoption on the low end. If Linux didn't Asus and the other netbook vendors wouldn't really have had any choice but to either spec out their netbooks to fit Vista, and sell them at a price point where Vista makes sense.
On a much broader scale Linux and Free Software have been limiting how much Microsoft can charge for software since its inception. This is most visible on the server end, where Linux has a great deal of traction, but it is also visible in areas like development tools, embedded software, etc. As Free Software becomes more visible as competitors to Windows and MS Office Microsoft is going to find it increasingly difficult to defend it's ridiculously high profit margins on these items. At which point Microsoft is likely to become just another software development company instead of the 800 pound gorilla that we all know and love.
The current crop of netbooks are powerful enough to run Vista. They don't run Vista because Microsoft has special netbook pricing for Windows XP. A reduced-price version of XP is a good move for Microsoft in that it stemmed the tide of Linux adoption, but it has signaled lower margins for Microsoft.
If the netbook version of Windows 7 doesn't come with a reduced price then Linux is likely to make up some ground on these devices. If the netbook version of Windows 7 does come with a reduced price, then Microsoft will still continue to see lower revenue. Either way competition from Linux hurts Microsoft. As the extreme low end of the spectrum becomes more and more powerful (and useful) Microsoft is going to be under increased pressure to sell Windows for less.
Of course, Windows 7 could make up some ground on the high end. I suppose it is possible that Windows 7 will be so cool that the release of Windows 7 will reverse the trend on the high end towards Apple's products, but I don't see that happening.
Businesses don't need a new slighly shinier version of the Windows operating system that requires all new hardware. Likewise businesses don't need a new version of their office suite, especially if it comes with a new set of file formats that basically throw out the quadzillions that have been invested in software that deals with the old formats. The old versions of Windows and MS Office work fine, and for many people the cost of upgrading simply isn't justified.
However, in a world where software is increasingly the piece of the puzzle that gives competitive advantage there will always be people that are willing to pay good money for the right piece of software (or to maintain the mission critical software that they are currently using).
Without one of those two Microsoft is crippled beyond recognition. It would still be big, but it wouldn't have nearly the market power (or the money to throw at new products) that it does now.
Actually the article does explain Borvell, it is an amalgam of Borland and Novell, and is basically a reference to how those two companies faded out of the computing spotlight.
I'm fine with waterboarding inmates as long as no one is actually drowned. I draw the line at Barney's "I Love You" song, though. Subjecting humans to that song is simply too uncivilized.
Yes, you can always reformat Perl. However, if I had checked the reformatted Perl into the version control system then my friends using nano would have had an apoplexy. Sometimes Perl's "more than one way to do it" allows people just a little too much leeway.
I realize that's an extreme example, but it illustrates nicely why whitespace as syntax isn't such a bad idea. Eventually you are probably going to tend up collaborating with someone else on the codebase. In C like languages this invariably leads to friction as everyone involved has their favorite code formatting rules. With Python this discussion basically boils down to tabs versus spaces, and no one really argues for tabs any more.
There are reasons to prefer other programming languages over Python, but if the whitespace issue is really your primary hangup then you either need to get a real text editor, or you probably format code very very badly.
Actually, that's not true at all. In fact, I have a wide array of cheap Chinese MP3 players, and they all play ogg vorbis just fine. They don't mention it on the packaging (assuming there is packaging), but they tend to support the format just fine.
Just for your information, Python isn't picky about spacing inside of open parentheses (or brackets) so you are free to express yourself there. I used to feel the same way as you do about whitespace as syntax, but now I actually appreciate it.
The real advantage to whitespace as syntax is that everyone has to follow the same rules, and the rules are sane. I once worked in an environment where the Perl hackers that wrote the original code didn't believe in indenting at all (they all used nano as their editor). Collaborating with people that don't believe in indenting at all is quite difficult. After that, I was glad to use a language that requires some indentation.
Yes, and ten years ago that sort of attitude was understandable. However, these days you have to look pretty hard for an organization of any size that doesn't have some Free Software running as part of their organization.
I imagine that Free Software is going to do very well during this recession. Most companies are no longer afraid of the Penguin, and there really are cost advantages.
Modern thin clients can have CD drives, USB drives, local printers, the works. Don't judge what thin clients can do by whatever it is that you are using. They are probably intentionally broken for security purposes.
The only real downside of modern Linux thin clients is that you have to make do with Linux software. If you don't mind using Firefox and OpenOffice.org, then things are fine.
Chances are good that IBM isn't really targeting your desktop with this plan. IBM knows that every large business (and most smaller businesses) have tons of desktops where Windows and MS Office are overkill. In these situations thin-client or virtualized Linux desktops make perfectly good sense, and there really is a great deal of money that can be saved by going this route.
Some employees, on the other hand, really do need their Windows machines, and that's fine, as IBM's Lotus Software also runs on Windows.
You see, this may appear to be an attack on Windows, but that's not really the case at all. The real attack is on MS Office as the default business document format for the business. IBM is happy to let some power users still use Excel, Visio, and PowerPoint, as long as Lotus software is installed as well (to work with the non-power users). Heck, it wasn't that long ago that Microsoft used the same tactic to supplant Lotus 1-2-3.
If you drink Microsoft's Kool-Aid then you have little choice but to deploy PCs running Windows and MS Office everywhere. Licensing fees quickly add up, as does the cost of maintaining that many PCs. IBM is simply offering a lower-cost alternative for the least demanding of your users. The catch is that if you want your power users to be able to communicate with your non-power users you are going to have to adopt Lotus software across the board.
For some of IBM's customers this arrangement is likely to be compelling. For others, not so much.
I can tell you one thing, the number of books that have come back into print (after years in some cases) is definitely greater than zero. In fact, if you go over to Baen.com you'll find that they have actively been purchasing the rights to science fiction classics to republish them.
Of course, it's basically impossible to argue that violating the author's copyright is ethical, and it certainly isn't legal. It is often a lot more convenient, however. For some people' that's the most important factor in their decision.
The problem with stressing user education, is that it is by far the harder problem.
Take my in-laws, for example. They are nice people, and very intelligent, but they aren't interested in learning all about computers just so that they can get on the Internet. Instead they simply relied on their son-in-law for free malware removal. Eventually I got smart and removed the IE button from their desktop and replaced it with Firefox. They haven't had a problem since.
Now, clearly this is just an anecdote, but it does highlight the problem of relying on user education. User education is hard. Changing your web browser is easy, and in most cases it is even more effective than actually learning something about computer security.
You are assuming that valid sites you visit haven't been compromised so that they install malware, or that your upstream DNS didn't get hijacked.
If your browser isn't secure eventually you will end up with problems no matter what sort of sites you visit. This particular article is just Microsoft trying to side-step the fact that something as simple as switching your browser from IE to something else can reduce your risk substantially.
The LSB is a horrible idea, and it needs to die a sudden, instant, and even immediate death.
You see, the original plan for the LSB was that it would be a installable binary platform that you could install on test hardware and actually use. Perens was involved, and so the original plan was to use Debian as the base for this distribution as it gave them an immediate code base to work with that had been ported to a large number of hardware platforms.
Unfortunately, Caldera didn't want an installable binary distribution, as it thought that an actual working distribution would cut into sales of its product. Red Hat agreed with Caldera mostly because the folks at Red Hat knew that if a binary standard wasn't produced then Red Hat would become the de-facto binary standard.
That's why we have the LSB, and that's why the LSB is about 7 orders of magnitude less important than CentOS, Oracle's Red Hat clone, or any number of Red Hat derivatives all of which simply treat Red Hat Linux as a binary standard.
The LSB is clunky to use, impossible to test against, and specifies so little software that it is basically a joke.
First of all, I probably should point out that I am an avid Emacs user, and I am sure the MP3 (err... Ogg Vorbis) player that comes with Emacs is awesome. Now that I know what your actual problem is I feel like I was a little harsh.
Plus I feel bad for using Emacs in a negative example.
Here's the thing. Your problem isn't really with MP3 library management. Your problem is that you purchased a hardware MP3 player that forced you to use a crappy piece of software.
That's an unfortunate situation to be in, but you can hardly blame this on Songbird or Amarok.
The truly sad bit is that good hardware is ridiculously easy to find. For example, I bought a no name Chinese MP3 player on the off chance that it might play Ogg Vorbis files. It was inexpensive enough that if it didn't work I could afford to simply throw it away. Astonishingly enough it works precisely how you say that you would like your MP3 player to work. Songs can either be organized by playlist or by folder. The unit includes a USB socket that turns it into a Mass Storage device and it works like a charm with my Linux boxes.
The downside, of course, is that the hardware itself is a piece of crap. I've already had to superglue it together twice.
Listen, no one is forcing you to download a new music player. It sounds like what you really want is mpg321, or possibly sox's "play" command. There's probably a port to your operating system of choice.
Everyone else in the conversation assumes that you want something a that competes with ITunes and not the MP3 player that comes with Emacs.
Accepting donations from the wrong people can easily cost charitable organizations in the long run. It is unfortunate that this is the case, but in the charity game the only thing that differentiates your organization from hundreds of other organizations is your reputation. As such it shouldn't surprise anyone that charitable organizations with a good reputation are very concerned about protecting that reputation.
In a perfect world the shady or disreputable charitable organization wouldn't exist and people would give freely knowing that their donations were being used wisely. Unfortunately we don't live in such a world, and so there are compromises that must be made.
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Yes MSI Wind has a much higher return rate for its Linux netbooks. Asus, on the other hand (which sells far more netbooks) says that returns are about the same for both Linux and XP.
Blame Linux if you want, but the real problem lies with the crappy job MSI did putting Linux on its netbook. I don't know if they are still doing it but their original Linux preloads didn't even support all of the hardware on the netbook. Either way, it's not like MSI Wind has stopped offering Linux. A few years ago getting a laptop pre-loaded with Linux was impossible. With the netbooks everyone offers Linux, even when it is pretty clear that they hope it fails.
That's an excellent point. Microsoft didn't come out with special pricing until it was clear that the netbook was a runaway hit.
It's also important to note that the Tier 1 OEMs like Dell and HP weren't the slightest bit interested in upsetting the status quo until a relative upstart on the consumer scene showed that there was money to be made. For HP, Dell, and others near the top of the heap the current Windows marketplace suits them just fine. They get the bulk of Microsoft's marketing money. As long as Windows is a sure bet they don't want to rock the boat.
The fact that companies like HP and Dell sell netbooks (and pre-load Linux across their product lines) shows just how far the Linux trend has already progressed.
The problem isn't that the version of XP used on netbooks took some time and effort to create. The problem is that netbooks running XP are being sold instead of netbooks running a much more expensive version of Windows.
Even just a few years ago no OEM had that sort of leverage over Microsoft. You either built hardware that worked with existing versions of Windows (with existing cost structures) or you didn't build a device at all. With the netbook Microsoft showed that it was willing to cave on price if the alternative was a PC running Linux.
Sure, the netbook version of XP wasn't expensive to create, but Microsoft's R&D department is essentially a fixed cost. The bit that this particular set of articles missed is that Microsoft's unit sales actually increased by 1% in this last quarter, but revenue on those sales was down 8%. Clearly this is better than losing those sales to Linux, but it still amounts to nearly a 10% price reduction on the sale price of Windows due to competition from Linux.
Now clearly this isn't going to drive Microsoft out of business any time soon, but it certainly worries investors. If future trends see Microsoft selling less software at lower prices then they'll want to see changes made.
Linux's mere existence has always had a competitive influence on Microsoft. However, it wasn't until recently that Linux was truly a competitive threat as a desktop for end users. Heck, I've been using Linux on my desktop since 1995, but I haven't really believed it was a viable replacement for Windows for normal folk until fairly recently (and then only in fairly specific situations).
It's hard to argue that Linux doesn't represent a threat now, however. After all, Microsoft resurrected Windows XP and sold it at a steep discount as a specific reaction to Linux adoption on the low end. If Linux didn't Asus and the other netbook vendors wouldn't really have had any choice but to either spec out their netbooks to fit Vista, and sell them at a price point where Vista makes sense.
On a much broader scale Linux and Free Software have been limiting how much Microsoft can charge for software since its inception. This is most visible on the server end, where Linux has a great deal of traction, but it is also visible in areas like development tools, embedded software, etc. As Free Software becomes more visible as competitors to Windows and MS Office Microsoft is going to find it increasingly difficult to defend it's ridiculously high profit margins on these items. At which point Microsoft is likely to become just another software development company instead of the 800 pound gorilla that we all know and love.
Are you kidding? Most of the "improvements" to MS Office are nothing more than thinly veiled advertisements for server software.
The current crop of netbooks are powerful enough to run Vista. They don't run Vista because Microsoft has special netbook pricing for Windows XP. A reduced-price version of XP is a good move for Microsoft in that it stemmed the tide of Linux adoption, but it has signaled lower margins for Microsoft.
If the netbook version of Windows 7 doesn't come with a reduced price then Linux is likely to make up some ground on these devices. If the netbook version of Windows 7 does come with a reduced price, then Microsoft will still continue to see lower revenue. Either way competition from Linux hurts Microsoft. As the extreme low end of the spectrum becomes more and more powerful (and useful) Microsoft is going to be under increased pressure to sell Windows for less.
Of course, Windows 7 could make up some ground on the high end. I suppose it is possible that Windows 7 will be so cool that the release of Windows 7 will reverse the trend on the high end towards Apple's products, but I don't see that happening.
Businesses don't need a new slighly shinier version of the Windows operating system that requires all new hardware. Likewise businesses don't need a new version of their office suite, especially if it comes with a new set of file formats that basically throw out the quadzillions that have been invested in software that deals with the old formats. The old versions of Windows and MS Office work fine, and for many people the cost of upgrading simply isn't justified.
However, in a world where software is increasingly the piece of the puzzle that gives competitive advantage there will always be people that are willing to pay good money for the right piece of software (or to maintain the mission critical software that they are currently using).
Without one of those two Microsoft is crippled beyond recognition. It would still be big, but it wouldn't have nearly the market power (or the money to throw at new products) that it does now.
Actually the article does explain Borvell, it is an amalgam of Borland and Novell, and is basically a reference to how those two companies faded out of the computing spotlight.
I'm fine with waterboarding inmates as long as no one is actually drowned. I draw the line at Barney's "I Love You" song, though. Subjecting humans to that song is simply too uncivilized.
Yes, you can always reformat Perl. However, if I had checked the reformatted Perl into the version control system then my friends using nano would have had an apoplexy. Sometimes Perl's "more than one way to do it" allows people just a little too much leeway.
I realize that's an extreme example, but it illustrates nicely why whitespace as syntax isn't such a bad idea. Eventually you are probably going to tend up collaborating with someone else on the codebase. In C like languages this invariably leads to friction as everyone involved has their favorite code formatting rules. With Python this discussion basically boils down to tabs versus spaces, and no one really argues for tabs any more.
There are reasons to prefer other programming languages over Python, but if the whitespace issue is really your primary hangup then you either need to get a real text editor, or you probably format code very very badly.
I'm pretty sure that some mobile phones run on Linux :).
Actually, that's not true at all. In fact, I have a wide array of cheap Chinese MP3 players, and they all play ogg vorbis just fine. They don't mention it on the packaging (assuming there is packaging), but they tend to support the format just fine.
Just for your information, Python isn't picky about spacing inside of open parentheses (or brackets) so you are free to express yourself there. I used to feel the same way as you do about whitespace as syntax, but now I actually appreciate it.
The real advantage to whitespace as syntax is that everyone has to follow the same rules, and the rules are sane. I once worked in an environment where the Perl hackers that wrote the original code didn't believe in indenting at all (they all used nano as their editor). Collaborating with people that don't believe in indenting at all is quite difficult. After that, I was glad to use a language that requires some indentation.
Yes, and ten years ago that sort of attitude was understandable. However, these days you have to look pretty hard for an organization of any size that doesn't have some Free Software running as part of their organization.
I imagine that Free Software is going to do very well during this recession. Most companies are no longer afraid of the Penguin, and there really are cost advantages.
Modern thin clients can have CD drives, USB drives, local printers, the works. Don't judge what thin clients can do by whatever it is that you are using. They are probably intentionally broken for security purposes.
The only real downside of modern Linux thin clients is that you have to make do with Linux software. If you don't mind using Firefox and OpenOffice.org, then things are fine.
Chances are good that IBM isn't really targeting your desktop with this plan. IBM knows that every large business (and most smaller businesses) have tons of desktops where Windows and MS Office are overkill. In these situations thin-client or virtualized Linux desktops make perfectly good sense, and there really is a great deal of money that can be saved by going this route.
Some employees, on the other hand, really do need their Windows machines, and that's fine, as IBM's Lotus Software also runs on Windows.
You see, this may appear to be an attack on Windows, but that's not really the case at all. The real attack is on MS Office as the default business document format for the business. IBM is happy to let some power users still use Excel, Visio, and PowerPoint, as long as Lotus software is installed as well (to work with the non-power users). Heck, it wasn't that long ago that Microsoft used the same tactic to supplant Lotus 1-2-3.
If you drink Microsoft's Kool-Aid then you have little choice but to deploy PCs running Windows and MS Office everywhere. Licensing fees quickly add up, as does the cost of maintaining that many PCs. IBM is simply offering a lower-cost alternative for the least demanding of your users. The catch is that if you want your power users to be able to communicate with your non-power users you are going to have to adopt Lotus software across the board.
For some of IBM's customers this arrangement is likely to be compelling. For others, not so much.
I can tell you one thing, the number of books that have come back into print (after years in some cases) is definitely greater than zero. In fact, if you go over to Baen.com you'll find that they have actively been purchasing the rights to science fiction classics to republish them.
Of course, it's basically impossible to argue that violating the author's copyright is ethical, and it certainly isn't legal. It is often a lot more convenient, however. For some people' that's the most important factor in their decision.
The problem with stressing user education, is that it is by far the harder problem.
Take my in-laws, for example. They are nice people, and very intelligent, but they aren't interested in learning all about computers just so that they can get on the Internet. Instead they simply relied on their son-in-law for free malware removal. Eventually I got smart and removed the IE button from their desktop and replaced it with Firefox. They haven't had a problem since.
Now, clearly this is just an anecdote, but it does highlight the problem of relying on user education. User education is hard. Changing your web browser is easy, and in most cases it is even more effective than actually learning something about computer security.
You are assuming that valid sites you visit haven't been compromised so that they install malware, or that your upstream DNS didn't get hijacked.
If your browser isn't secure eventually you will end up with problems no matter what sort of sites you visit. This particular article is just Microsoft trying to side-step the fact that something as simple as switching your browser from IE to something else can reduce your risk substantially.
The LSB is a horrible idea, and it needs to die a sudden, instant, and even immediate death.
You see, the original plan for the LSB was that it would be a installable binary platform that you could install on test hardware and actually use. Perens was involved, and so the original plan was to use Debian as the base for this distribution as it gave them an immediate code base to work with that had been ported to a large number of hardware platforms.
Unfortunately, Caldera didn't want an installable binary distribution, as it thought that an actual working distribution would cut into sales of its product. Red Hat agreed with Caldera mostly because the folks at Red Hat knew that if a binary standard wasn't produced then Red Hat would become the de-facto binary standard.
That's why we have the LSB, and that's why the LSB is about 7 orders of magnitude less important than CentOS, Oracle's Red Hat clone, or any number of Red Hat derivatives all of which simply treat Red Hat Linux as a binary standard.
The LSB is clunky to use, impossible to test against, and specifies so little software that it is basically a joke.
First of all, I probably should point out that I am an avid Emacs user, and I am sure the MP3 (err... Ogg Vorbis) player that comes with Emacs is awesome. Now that I know what your actual problem is I feel like I was a little harsh.
Plus I feel bad for using Emacs in a negative example.
Here's the thing. Your problem isn't really with MP3 library management. Your problem is that you purchased a hardware MP3 player that forced you to use a crappy piece of software.
That's an unfortunate situation to be in, but you can hardly blame this on Songbird or Amarok.
The truly sad bit is that good hardware is ridiculously easy to find. For example, I bought a no name Chinese MP3 player on the off chance that it might play Ogg Vorbis files. It was inexpensive enough that if it didn't work I could afford to simply throw it away. Astonishingly enough it works precisely how you say that you would like your MP3 player to work. Songs can either be organized by playlist or by folder. The unit includes a USB socket that turns it into a Mass Storage device and it works like a charm with my Linux boxes.
The downside, of course, is that the hardware itself is a piece of crap. I've already had to superglue it together twice.
Oh well.
Listen, no one is forcing you to download a new music player. It sounds like what you really want is mpg321, or possibly sox's "play" command. There's probably a port to your operating system of choice.
Everyone else in the conversation assumes that you want something a that competes with ITunes and not the MP3 player that comes with Emacs.
Songbird is a XUL application. It would actually be more accurate to say that they've put a music player in the mozilla web browser.
Once you are using XUL, you might as well render HTML using Gecko.
Accepting donations from the wrong people can easily cost charitable organizations in the long run. It is unfortunate that this is the case, but in the charity game the only thing that differentiates your organization from hundreds of other organizations is your reputation. As such it shouldn't surprise anyone that charitable organizations with a good reputation are very concerned about protecting that reputation.
In a perfect world the shady or disreputable charitable organization wouldn't exist and people would give freely knowing that their donations were being used wisely. Unfortunately we don't live in such a world, and so there are compromises that must be made.