There are plenty of people who run successful car repair shops because people don't want to learn cars. There are plumbers, electricians, welders, etc because people don't want to learn each of those skills. And there are people that run businesses that serve the tech illiterate.
I agree with almost everything you wrote. My one quibble would be with "don't want to learn." For most people, it's a matter of time. After working all day and spending time with my wife and kids, I have precious little free time left. Even if I wanted to learn how to fix my own car, run my own electrical wiring, fix my own plumbing, etc, there's no time to learn it all. I might be able to learn the basics (i.e. how to use it), but not the in-depth stuff (how to repair it). In computer terms, it's the difference between being able to use a computer to read e-mail/play games/write documents/etc and being able to open a computer up to replace a damaged power supply. Most people can be taught the former but the latter takes a greater time commitment that many people just can't meet.
Forget 2050. There are times when I feel like I'm struggling to keep up with technology and I'm only 38! I'll likely be that old guy who shakes my fist as "those kids" and says "In my day when we wanted to look up information we did it the old fashioned way: We googled it! We didn't have any of these fancy brain-chips to tell us the information as soon as we think of it. Now get off my lawn!"
Besides passengers fighting back instead of sitting back and letting a hijacking happen, the only worthwhile security that happened after 9/11 was the locked, reinforced cabin doors. That ensures that the hijackers can't get into the cabin before the passengers take them out. Other than that, pre-9/11 screening (checking for guns, knives, etc) would have been enough. Yes, it let the hijackers through, but the "increased TSA security" has also let through people with weapons.
Well, I could envision a system where all the data is collected, searched through, and anything that didn't contain certain target phrases (or was to/from target individuals) was ditched. This would mean that the data was collected but not stored. Slightly better than the "collect and store everything" that apparently the NSA has done. Not by much, mind you, but a bit better.
Of course, any such system would also need to have real checks and balances in place to prevent abuse. Not "Court Rubber Stamp" but an actual process where you would need to present actual evidence showing why you needed to see all of the data John Smith was targeting. Sadly, such a checks and balances system would never be put into place or would quickly be watered down for "National Security Reasons" until it was back to "Court Rubber Stamp" again.
It looks like the courts said "Radio means that it plays sound. Since data doesn't play sound, it isn't radio. Therefore the WiFi networks (traveling via radio communications) aren't actually radio at all." Nothing like a verdict that completely ignores the basic facts of the matter in exchange for a judge's twisted understanding.
Our living room still has a Standard Definition TV, not an HDTV. Money is tight and I don't see the reason for ditching a perfectly good working television set to upgrade to the latest/greatest. We have a Roku and DVD player so that we can view streaming media and DVDs. My wife's and my bedroom has a smallish HD set but only because the SD set in there died and that's what's on the market now. When my living room SDTV dies, we'll upgrade to an HDTV set, but not a minute sooner.
The graphs looked nice but didn't have any labels to tell exactly what was being tracked using what metrics and displayed in what manner. It's easy to make a graph showing what looks like a huge increase when it is really a moderate or even small increase. The real test will be when the benchmarks come out and people make graphs that are actually labeled.
Never mind my previous comment. I just realized that Oyster is an eBook lending service, not a PHYSICAL book lending service. So, of course, textbook publishers could deny them access to their content or sue them if they created eBook versions of text books without permission.
(This is what happens when you've been offline a few days, are trying to catch up on Slashdot, and comment hastily without fully reading everything.)
Honestly, the publishing companies might not like it but they couldn't stop them legally. If you buy a book, you can then lend it to people or even rent it out to as many people as you want (one at a time, of course) without raising any issues. This has been tested before with video stores. Movie companies first hated them as they saw each rental as a lost sale. Then, they realized that people would rent movies they wouldn't have bought at all - thus generating more revenue.
Of course, what the textbook publishers WILL do is what they always do. Change a few words, update the revision, and then lobby universities to REQUIRE the new edition. Since Oyster would need to buy the same number of books that it would rent out and then those books couldn't be used next year (since the new new edition will have just came out), the "rent for $10 a month" model will be a money losing proposition requiring Oyster to either: 1) Give up renting textbooks, 2) Charge much more for textbooks (making renting them less attractive) or 3) Go out of business. All 3 options would be "wins" as far as the textbook publishers are concerned.
The flu vaccine tends to be in a class by itself. Unlike other vaccines, there are dozens of flu strains and vaccine manufacturers need to guess which ones to include in the next year's batch. That plus the low rate of flu vaccination means that flu vaccines tend not to be effective in stopping the flu.
As far as Hep B is concerned, Hep B infection can also cause cancer so a vaccination against this is doubly good.
Next, even if you can treat tetanus (or other diseases that have lower mortality rates), vaccination would result in less suffering (since the population would be mostly immune) and lower medical bills (one shot which contains multiple vaccines versus treatment after infection and perhaps extended treatment for any lingering symptoms the disease causes).
Finally, whenever I hear people say that we're giving too many vaccines, I wonder if they realize how many viruses the average 3 month old is exposed to every day. A 3 month old's immune system is already fighting off hundreds of threats a day (if not more). I hardly think that a dozen more "threats" (disabled viruses intended to teach the immune system how to fight the diseases) administered every few years is going to overload the system.
People have responded to this with statements about terrorism/security and such, but the first thing I thought of was vaccines. The anti-vaccination folks constantly declare vaccines to be a bigger health risk than the disease they protect against. Part of the problem is that vaccines are so successful that most folks today don't remember a time when polio, measles, whooping cough, etc ravaged the world. They don't remember people dying or being permanently maimed by these diseases. (This includes me, by the way.)
To some people, this lack of personal experience makes them imagine the diseases as if they were a "bad cold." Then, they hear about the "toxins" in vaccines and the bad risk assessment kicks in. They figure that the high danger (as perceived by them) of vaccines outweighs the low chance of getting the disease and the low severity (again as seen by them) of the disease. So they skip the vaccinations - and then herd immunity breaks down, people get sick, and die.
Though I wouldn't trade being safe from these diseases, this state of safety has altered the ability of some people to make good risk assessments.
I wonder how they will deal with buying books for gifts. If I bought a physical copy of a book and gave it as a gift to someone else, would I get a free/cheap Kindle copy to keep for myself?
What would be even more interesting would be if Earth already had some single cell life and the invading Martian life wound up more adaptable, thrived more, and drove the Earth life to extinction.
I think it's less of a "we're in a dictatorship" than it is a combination of two things:
1) News organizations are controlled by big business. They are fine with reporting current events but only brief blurbs at times spun to the business' best interests. Little to no "hard hitting" journalism lest it rock the boat. They save the "hard hitting" stuff for celebrity news and gossip. ("Hard hitting" in that they will focus on it intently in the way they should with real news.)
2) Journalists are scared that, if they ask tough questions, government officials won't grant them further interviews and that would jeopardize their jobs. So they might ask an uncomfortable question or two, but they also won't call the official on the answer when it contradicts something they said before or when it is obviously wrong.
There's nothing in place, per se, that prevents journalists from doing actual journalism but we've gotten so used to "soft journalism" that actual journalism seems like something odd and wrong. (We could very well be heading down a path where actual journalism is outlawed, but we're not quite there yet.)
No, parental control software is to be used for kids who are old enough to use a device on their own, but not old enough to completely understand that certain actions can get them into trouble. My oldest son is 10 years old. He doesn't need constant supervision when he uses he tablet (and we couldn't constantly supervise him if we wanted to). However, partly due to his age and partly because he has Asperger's Syndrome, he's very naive about how the world works. He understands intellectually that there are bad people in the world, but he assumes everyone is his friend until proven otherwise. Not a bad world view ideally, but online that means he could get into trouble.
Think of parental controls like training wheels on a bike. They're there to help keep the kid from falling and to help the kid learn how to ride, but eventually they go away and the child rides without the training wheels.
We recently got two 7 inch Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 tablets for our kids. We splurged for the Otterbox cases because those tend to be very sturdy. (We have one on our iPad and it survived a pretty decent fall with no damage.) The cost for a Tab 2 and Otterbox case? About $210. Looking the specs over, the OLPC model seems to have a slightly faster processor, less MP rear camera, and more MP front camera. Otherwise, they look pretty similar.
The built-in parental controls are nice, but I've found some free Android apps that do that too: App Lock and ScreenTime. The latter of these has a "remote control" app you can load on your Android phone/tablet to monitor and control your kids' usage. I recently used it when my son refused to go brush his teeth because he was busy tablet-gaming. Instead of trying to pry the tablet out of his hands, I simply opened the Remote Control app and locked him out for five minutes with a "Go Brush Your Teeth" message.
I'm interested in other parental control apps folks might use. Especially since my son has gone on YouTube - after I told him there are videos there that aren't for him - and signed up for the social aspects of a game using my e-mail address - which I'm mostly upset about since the company didn't send an e-mail saying "Your e-mail was used to sign up for an account." Any good web filtering apps would be appreciated.
There are, but unfortunately they are on The Daily Show and Colbert Report and they mask their journalism as satire/comedy. It's sad when the comedians make better journalists than the journalists do!
About the only way I can see this being an issue is if the text conversation went:
A: "What's up?" B: "Nothing much. Just driving." A: "You're texting while driving?" B: "Yup." A: "Want to meet at the pizzeria on fifth and main for lunch?" [B doesn't answer because he just hit another car looking at A's text.]
Of course, in this case A might (at most) have a moral duty not to text B since he knows B is texting while driving. I don't think that translates into a legal duty, however. The decision to read or answer the text (or phone call, or e-mail, or anything else) is the driver's alone. He's the only one who r legal responsibility.
Sadly, over on Phil Plait's blog, an anti-vax commenter said "If by chance a death occurs... I personally would rather bear the dead than sustain the epidemic trend of life long chronic illnesses such as autism, asthma, diabetes, cancer." Yes, this person would rather see a child dead than have autism, diabetes, cancer, or ASTHMA!
Personally, my son is autistic (Asperger's Syndrome) and I know plenty of other parents of autistic kids (many with needs much greater than my own son). I know of NO parents who wish their kid was dead. I know a parent whose child has cancer (second or third time back - going to need a bone marrow transplant and even then it's not a guarantee) - I'm sure that they have NEVER wished their child was dead. I can't imagine ANY parent wishing their kid was dead (perhaps short some terminal illness where the kid has zero chance of recovery and is suffering greatly... and even then it's a "choosing between two evils" scenario). But this anti-vaxxer would rather see kids dead than risk the "horrors" of asthma.
One last point: I have Asperger's Syndrome as well so I was also personally offended by the implication that both my son and I were better off dead than autistic. I've done pretty well for myself and my son's future is quite bright. (The kid's a natural at math and computers. Scary good.) Even if vaccines DID cause autism (WHICH THEY DON'T), I'd rather have a hundred autistic kids than one child die of a vaccine preventable illness.
If measles was limited to the people who didn't vaccinate due to "it'll lead to autism" scares, I'd agree.
Unfortunately, everyone who doesn't vaccinate due to misplaced fears of autism or "toxins" in the vaccines weakens herd immunity. That means that people who can't vaccinate for legitimate medical reasons (immune system problems, too young, allergic, etc) can get the diseases and die. These people aren't just putting their kids at risk, they are putting every other person their child is in contact with at risk. Even if "in contact with" is indirectly. (Kid sneezes on a shopping cart handle as he puts it in the cart corral. Five minutes later you pull the cart out to use. Congrats, you've been exposed!)
If anti-vax folks only put them at risk, I'd chalk it up to personal freedom to do dumb things. However, you don't have the right to put other people's lives at risk because you believe in X.
'new threat which is not of somebody personally intending to aid terrorism, but of conduct which is likely to or capable of facilitating terrorism'
In other words, if the government doesn't like what you are doing, they can accuse you of helping terrorists with your actions. Revealing illegal government actions? You are weakening the government which helps terrorists. Protesting government actions you disagree with? You are sympathizing with terrorists. Whispering to a co-worker how you don't like Public Official X? Terrorist talk!!!!
Now everyone get perfectly in line and stay there. The government is here to help you (stay in line).
Most of Microsoft's continued profits come from "momentum." Back in the day, everyone HAD to use Windows and Office. If you didn't use Windows and Office, you couldn't do business. (Yes, I know there were always alternatives, but the mindset and market share were such that it was very hard to NOT use Microsoft products.) Today, you don't NEED to use them. Many companies still use them because that's what they've always used (i.e. Momentum) but that can't last forever. At some point, some companies will look at alternatives to cut costs and might go with offerings such as OpenOffice.org. Other companies will question WHY they need to buy an upgrade when the version they are currently on works fine for their needs. Once their Windows and Office divisions drop profitability (which, IIRC, is already beginning), the whole company (which has positioned itself to rely on those divisions) will topple.
The "split them up" plan is designed to prevent this otherwise inevitable downfall. They might be able to pull it off without splitting up, but it's going to be a hard change and I don't know whether Microsoft is up to it.
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I agree with almost everything you wrote. My one quibble would be with "don't want to learn." For most people, it's a matter of time. After working all day and spending time with my wife and kids, I have precious little free time left. Even if I wanted to learn how to fix my own car, run my own electrical wiring, fix my own plumbing, etc, there's no time to learn it all. I might be able to learn the basics (i.e. how to use it), but not the in-depth stuff (how to repair it). In computer terms, it's the difference between being able to use a computer to read e-mail/play games/write documents/etc and being able to open a computer up to replace a damaged power supply. Most people can be taught the former but the latter takes a greater time commitment that many people just can't meet.
Forget 2050. There are times when I feel like I'm struggling to keep up with technology and I'm only 38! I'll likely be that old guy who shakes my fist as "those kids" and says "In my day when we wanted to look up information we did it the old fashioned way: We googled it! We didn't have any of these fancy brain-chips to tell us the information as soon as we think of it. Now get off my lawn!"
It's not the Quantum foam's fault. It was both awful and terrific tasting until you measured (tasted) it.
Or, to quote Professor Farnsworth: You changed the result by measuring it!
I'm not one to agree with the TSA, but confiscating any grenade, even one that the owner insists is a dud, seems to be a good security policy.
Besides passengers fighting back instead of sitting back and letting a hijacking happen, the only worthwhile security that happened after 9/11 was the locked, reinforced cabin doors. That ensures that the hijackers can't get into the cabin before the passengers take them out. Other than that, pre-9/11 screening (checking for guns, knives, etc) would have been enough. Yes, it let the hijackers through, but the "increased TSA security" has also let through people with weapons.
Well, I could envision a system where all the data is collected, searched through, and anything that didn't contain certain target phrases (or was to/from target individuals) was ditched. This would mean that the data was collected but not stored. Slightly better than the "collect and store everything" that apparently the NSA has done. Not by much, mind you, but a bit better.
Of course, any such system would also need to have real checks and balances in place to prevent abuse. Not "Court Rubber Stamp" but an actual process where you would need to present actual evidence showing why you needed to see all of the data John Smith was targeting. Sadly, such a checks and balances system would never be put into place or would quickly be watered down for "National Security Reasons" until it was back to "Court Rubber Stamp" again.
It looks like the courts said "Radio means that it plays sound. Since data doesn't play sound, it isn't radio. Therefore the WiFi networks (traveling via radio communications) aren't actually radio at all." Nothing like a verdict that completely ignores the basic facts of the matter in exchange for a judge's twisted understanding.
Our living room still has a Standard Definition TV, not an HDTV. Money is tight and I don't see the reason for ditching a perfectly good working television set to upgrade to the latest/greatest. We have a Roku and DVD player so that we can view streaming media and DVDs. My wife's and my bedroom has a smallish HD set but only because the SD set in there died and that's what's on the market now. When my living room SDTV dies, we'll upgrade to an HDTV set, but not a minute sooner.
The graphs looked nice but didn't have any labels to tell exactly what was being tracked using what metrics and displayed in what manner. It's easy to make a graph showing what looks like a huge increase when it is really a moderate or even small increase. The real test will be when the benchmarks come out and people make graphs that are actually labeled.
Never mind my previous comment. I just realized that Oyster is an eBook lending service, not a PHYSICAL book lending service. So, of course, textbook publishers could deny them access to their content or sue them if they created eBook versions of text books without permission.
(This is what happens when you've been offline a few days, are trying to catch up on Slashdot, and comment hastily without fully reading everything.)
Honestly, the publishing companies might not like it but they couldn't stop them legally. If you buy a book, you can then lend it to people or even rent it out to as many people as you want (one at a time, of course) without raising any issues. This has been tested before with video stores. Movie companies first hated them as they saw each rental as a lost sale. Then, they realized that people would rent movies they wouldn't have bought at all - thus generating more revenue.
Of course, what the textbook publishers WILL do is what they always do. Change a few words, update the revision, and then lobby universities to REQUIRE the new edition. Since Oyster would need to buy the same number of books that it would rent out and then those books couldn't be used next year (since the new new edition will have just came out), the "rent for $10 a month" model will be a money losing proposition requiring Oyster to either: 1) Give up renting textbooks, 2) Charge much more for textbooks (making renting them less attractive) or 3) Go out of business. All 3 options would be "wins" as far as the textbook publishers are concerned.
The flu vaccine tends to be in a class by itself. Unlike other vaccines, there are dozens of flu strains and vaccine manufacturers need to guess which ones to include in the next year's batch. That plus the low rate of flu vaccination means that flu vaccines tend not to be effective in stopping the flu.
As far as Hep B is concerned, Hep B infection can also cause cancer so a vaccination against this is doubly good.
Next, even if you can treat tetanus (or other diseases that have lower mortality rates), vaccination would result in less suffering (since the population would be mostly immune) and lower medical bills (one shot which contains multiple vaccines versus treatment after infection and perhaps extended treatment for any lingering symptoms the disease causes).
Finally, whenever I hear people say that we're giving too many vaccines, I wonder if they realize how many viruses the average 3 month old is exposed to every day. A 3 month old's immune system is already fighting off hundreds of threats a day (if not more). I hardly think that a dozen more "threats" (disabled viruses intended to teach the immune system how to fight the diseases) administered every few years is going to overload the system.
People have responded to this with statements about terrorism/security and such, but the first thing I thought of was vaccines. The anti-vaccination folks constantly declare vaccines to be a bigger health risk than the disease they protect against. Part of the problem is that vaccines are so successful that most folks today don't remember a time when polio, measles, whooping cough, etc ravaged the world. They don't remember people dying or being permanently maimed by these diseases. (This includes me, by the way.)
To some people, this lack of personal experience makes them imagine the diseases as if they were a "bad cold." Then, they hear about the "toxins" in vaccines and the bad risk assessment kicks in. They figure that the high danger (as perceived by them) of vaccines outweighs the low chance of getting the disease and the low severity (again as seen by them) of the disease. So they skip the vaccinations - and then herd immunity breaks down, people get sick, and die.
Though I wouldn't trade being safe from these diseases, this state of safety has altered the ability of some people to make good risk assessments.
I for one am against that idea.
It might have something to do with the tie I'm currently wearing, though.
I wonder how they will deal with buying books for gifts. If I bought a physical copy of a book and gave it as a gift to someone else, would I get a free/cheap Kindle copy to keep for myself?
What would be even more interesting would be if Earth already had some single cell life and the invading Martian life wound up more adaptable, thrived more, and drove the Earth life to extinction.
I think it's less of a "we're in a dictatorship" than it is a combination of two things:
1) News organizations are controlled by big business. They are fine with reporting current events but only brief blurbs at times spun to the business' best interests. Little to no "hard hitting" journalism lest it rock the boat. They save the "hard hitting" stuff for celebrity news and gossip. ("Hard hitting" in that they will focus on it intently in the way they should with real news.)
2) Journalists are scared that, if they ask tough questions, government officials won't grant them further interviews and that would jeopardize their jobs. So they might ask an uncomfortable question or two, but they also won't call the official on the answer when it contradicts something they said before or when it is obviously wrong.
There's nothing in place, per se, that prevents journalists from doing actual journalism but we've gotten so used to "soft journalism" that actual journalism seems like something odd and wrong. (We could very well be heading down a path where actual journalism is outlawed, but we're not quite there yet.)
No, parental control software is to be used for kids who are old enough to use a device on their own, but not old enough to completely understand that certain actions can get them into trouble. My oldest son is 10 years old. He doesn't need constant supervision when he uses he tablet (and we couldn't constantly supervise him if we wanted to). However, partly due to his age and partly because he has Asperger's Syndrome, he's very naive about how the world works. He understands intellectually that there are bad people in the world, but he assumes everyone is his friend until proven otherwise. Not a bad world view ideally, but online that means he could get into trouble.
Think of parental controls like training wheels on a bike. They're there to help keep the kid from falling and to help the kid learn how to ride, but eventually they go away and the child rides without the training wheels.
We recently got two 7 inch Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 tablets for our kids. We splurged for the Otterbox cases because those tend to be very sturdy. (We have one on our iPad and it survived a pretty decent fall with no damage.) The cost for a Tab 2 and Otterbox case? About $210. Looking the specs over, the OLPC model seems to have a slightly faster processor, less MP rear camera, and more MP front camera. Otherwise, they look pretty similar.
The built-in parental controls are nice, but I've found some free Android apps that do that too: App Lock and ScreenTime. The latter of these has a "remote control" app you can load on your Android phone/tablet to monitor and control your kids' usage. I recently used it when my son refused to go brush his teeth because he was busy tablet-gaming. Instead of trying to pry the tablet out of his hands, I simply opened the Remote Control app and locked him out for five minutes with a "Go Brush Your Teeth" message.
I'm interested in other parental control apps folks might use. Especially since my son has gone on YouTube - after I told him there are videos there that aren't for him - and signed up for the social aspects of a game using my e-mail address - which I'm mostly upset about since the company didn't send an e-mail saying "Your e-mail was used to sign up for an account." Any good web filtering apps would be appreciated.
There are, but unfortunately they are on The Daily Show and Colbert Report and they mask their journalism as satire/comedy. It's sad when the comedians make better journalists than the journalists do!
About the only way I can see this being an issue is if the text conversation went:
A: "What's up?"
B: "Nothing much. Just driving."
A: "You're texting while driving?"
B: "Yup."
A: "Want to meet at the pizzeria on fifth and main for lunch?"
[B doesn't answer because he just hit another car looking at A's text.]
Of course, in this case A might (at most) have a moral duty not to text B since he knows B is texting while driving. I don't think that translates into a legal duty, however. The decision to read or answer the text (or phone call, or e-mail, or anything else) is the driver's alone. He's the only one who r legal responsibility.
Sadly, over on Phil Plait's blog, an anti-vax commenter said "If by chance a death occurs... I personally would rather bear the dead than sustain the epidemic trend of life long chronic illnesses such as autism, asthma, diabetes, cancer." Yes, this person would rather see a child dead than have autism, diabetes, cancer, or ASTHMA!
Personally, my son is autistic (Asperger's Syndrome) and I know plenty of other parents of autistic kids (many with needs much greater than my own son). I know of NO parents who wish their kid was dead. I know a parent whose child has cancer (second or third time back - going to need a bone marrow transplant and even then it's not a guarantee) - I'm sure that they have NEVER wished their child was dead. I can't imagine ANY parent wishing their kid was dead (perhaps short some terminal illness where the kid has zero chance of recovery and is suffering greatly... and even then it's a "choosing between two evils" scenario). But this anti-vaxxer would rather see kids dead than risk the "horrors" of asthma.
One last point: I have Asperger's Syndrome as well so I was also personally offended by the implication that both my son and I were better off dead than autistic. I've done pretty well for myself and my son's future is quite bright. (The kid's a natural at math and computers. Scary good.) Even if vaccines DID cause autism (WHICH THEY DON'T), I'd rather have a hundred autistic kids than one child die of a vaccine preventable illness.
If measles was limited to the people who didn't vaccinate due to "it'll lead to autism" scares, I'd agree.
Unfortunately, everyone who doesn't vaccinate due to misplaced fears of autism or "toxins" in the vaccines weakens herd immunity. That means that people who can't vaccinate for legitimate medical reasons (immune system problems, too young, allergic, etc) can get the diseases and die. These people aren't just putting their kids at risk, they are putting every other person their child is in contact with at risk. Even if "in contact with" is indirectly. (Kid sneezes on a shopping cart handle as he puts it in the cart corral. Five minutes later you pull the cart out to use. Congrats, you've been exposed!)
If anti-vax folks only put them at risk, I'd chalk it up to personal freedom to do dumb things. However, you don't have the right to put other people's lives at risk because you believe in X.
In other words, if the government doesn't like what you are doing, they can accuse you of helping terrorists with your actions. Revealing illegal government actions? You are weakening the government which helps terrorists. Protesting government actions you disagree with? You are sympathizing with terrorists. Whispering to a co-worker how you don't like Public Official X? Terrorist talk!!!!
Now everyone get perfectly in line and stay there. The government is here to help you (stay in line).
Most of Microsoft's continued profits come from "momentum." Back in the day, everyone HAD to use Windows and Office. If you didn't use Windows and Office, you couldn't do business. (Yes, I know there were always alternatives, but the mindset and market share were such that it was very hard to NOT use Microsoft products.) Today, you don't NEED to use them. Many companies still use them because that's what they've always used (i.e. Momentum) but that can't last forever. At some point, some companies will look at alternatives to cut costs and might go with offerings such as OpenOffice.org. Other companies will question WHY they need to buy an upgrade when the version they are currently on works fine for their needs. Once their Windows and Office divisions drop profitability (which, IIRC, is already beginning), the whole company (which has positioned itself to rely on those divisions) will topple.
The "split them up" plan is designed to prevent this otherwise inevitable downfall. They might be able to pull it off without splitting up, but it's going to be a hard change and I don't know whether Microsoft is up to it.