I've noticed that IE7 defaults to MSN as it's homepage if the user hasn't set one yet. Worse yet, the favorites default to many Microsoft owned pages. Obviously this limits consumer choice and is anti-competitive! How long are we going to tolerate such defaults from a convicted monopolist?
Anyone know which game got cut? In the writeup it reads reduced its number of projects-in-development from three to two, but fails to mention anything about that third game.
Looks like donating your time isn't a thankless job anymore.
Perhaps I'm just a little too cynical here, but this sounds like a great way to get free labor using an open source project. You release it, give some early adopters a thank you gift, and then wait as more people contribute to the project. You leave people with the hopes that they too will get "paid" for their work. Considering the (relatively) small amount of money spent on the gift vs. hiring people to work on the project it comes off as quite a deal. You might even get free advertising.
From reading the other comments here it seems that whether private offices are important is a matter of personal opinion. From asking about this it sounds like you don't really value it. If you've been in a cube farm/shared offices then you should have a good idea what works for you, productivity wise. If not, try to determine that before making any changes. Also consider who you'd be around if you didn't have a private office. If it's with people you work with often in a shared office, it might be beneficial. If it's in a cube farm with people who are noisy or on the phone a lot it's probably going to drive down your productivity.
You might want to consider this from the company's prospective: how much do they value the benefits of giving you a private office. Most companies wouldn't dare pay that much for something without expecting some return from their investment. They might be expecting higher morale and loyalty to the company. They might expect you to be more productive. They might just expect their clients to take them more seriously because everyone has an office. Most businesses wouldn't dare spend that much money unless the expected benefit of a private office exceeds (or at least equals) the cost of the increased rent.
The problem with your arguement is that the parts where they call C++/CLI C++ is when dealing with.Net code. In those places using ISO C++ isn't an option because it doesn't use the CLI and doesn't support.Net.
It's true that IBM has extensive knowledge and experience in the OS area, but the problem with big blue is that desktop (consumer) Linux will probably never be a priority. IBM's business model is based around two things: business hardware and consultants. Because consulting is a major part of their business they don't have much incentive to improve the usability or ease of install for Linux. Instead, they'll focus their efforts on stuff that helps them in the server market: portability, performance, reliability, etc. Don't get me wrong, this does help Linux, but not in a way that results in it being preinstalled on a consumer desktop or laptop.
Except for the autoplay and everything disabled questions, what do these questions have to do with security? Most of these questions are of the type "when will Windows become Linux?".
Yeah, I too remember playing that game. One of my friends at the time got the bootleg version and we tried it out. I remember it being amusing for a few hours, but it was a hollow shell of a game with no redeeming value after the novelty of its violence wore off. Overall, I got the impression that I would have been upset had I paid $30-50 for it, but I've rented worse games.
Well put. I've grown tired of the PS/PS2/PSP game lineup. The PS3 looks like it's going to be the same. Granted, I love some of those games, but I've played too many sequels already. I'm much more excited about the 360 and the Revolution than I am about the PS3 at this point.
Convenient how you left Linspire out of your argument. Is a $498 Linux laptop at Walmart not low enough for you?
As far as the price of Windows dropping because Linux is on the desktop - it's possible, but don't expect it to happen immediately. Microsoft (like pretty much all companies, Red Hat and SUSE) gets the majority of the sale of their software, and sets the MSRP of their software. They probably have hundreds of people working out the best pricing plan to maximize profit (like pretty much every company). If they notice that they're selling less copies they'll adjust their offerings accordingly. Take a look at the SKUs planned for Vista. It hints that they're planning some major changes to their pricing plans. In fact, it's a sign of price discrimination, which many businesses do (like Red Hat).
Depends on who you sell to. If you're selling to consumers, many will go with the cheapest option available that accomplishes their needs. If you're selling to businesses, then "you get what you pay for" is that attitude you need to address. I think you see both of these in the computer market. Linspire (aka Lindows) offers a cheap alternative for computer novicies. Most other Linux vendors focus on the business market, hence the high price for a "free" operating system.
Go (back?) to college, take some economics courses. It'll do you good. You don't have to agree with it, just understand it.
I think you misunderstood that comment (and didn't bother to read the links). The previous poster asked "Where is ALT OS for sale preinstalled that do NOT cost more then MS. Even if the OS is Linux that can be gotten for free?". I responded with "Just because other OSes aren't undercutting Microsoft and may understand economics more than you do doesn't mean it's Microsofts fault.", referring to the cost not market penetration. My implication was that if a computer manufacturer was going to offer a non-Microsoft OS because "it is better", then they should charge more because there's a cultural perception that you get what you pay for. If you offer a non-Microsoft OS because "it is free", then many people will assume it isn't as valuable as Windows. This is the idea behind price as a signal. This is probably culture senstive, so it might not apply to other countries.
Microsoft has long had a price tier structure for productivity software. They offer Works, Word, Office Standard, Office Professional, etc. Computer manufacturers offer several different choices for productivity software. Dell defaults to Word Perfect and the customer choses if they want to pay more to get Works or Office.
(As the article mentions) Microsoft has also started selling Windows Starter Edition in developing countries. Just because other OSes aren't undercutting Microsoft and may understand economicsmore than you do doesn't mean it's Microsofts fault.
Seriously, why would a modern computer manufactuer sell a computer that would force users to reboot in order to switch tasks? It's a tideous processs and most computer users would hate it. If one of the OSes will do most of what users wants (and therefore make rebooting unnecessary), then that OS will be enough for 99% of their customers. Those who do take advantage of the dual boot option will be confused/infuriated with not having their profiles/settings persist in both environments. Chances are the 1% who do want a dual boot system would end up nuking the system and setting it up themselves.
Most computer users want something easy and simplistic. Dual booting is not. In order to get it to that point a company would have to spend thousands to millions of dollars in software development, which in turn would rase the cost of the computer hundreds to thousands of dollars. Think of most of the computer users you know. Who among them would pay that much extra for a dual boot system?
Some of the author's expectations would cost too much to add into the system at this time. Perhaps if MS waited longer the price would drop on adding them, but not right now. Cases in point:
Mistake #3: No HDMI support
Mistake #4: 20GB is too small
Other items would have added to the development time of the product. If you work in software development you should be familiar with the concept of having to cut features in order to release in time. I think these items are of this category:
Mistake #2: No MSN Music
Mistake #6: No Web Browser
Mistake #7: No WMV-HD DVD Playback
Mistake #8: No MPEG-4 AVI playback (i.e. XviD, etc)
Mistake #9: No System-Wide Video Calibration
Then there's just design decisions that the author disliked:
Mistake #5: Microtransaction Security
Mistake #11: No pressure sensitive face buttons
Then the one that are probably licensing related (if not it probably belongs with "No WMV-HD DVD Playback" above):
This stunt just reflects poorly on security researchers. Yes it sucks that MS is slow to respond, but threatening to sell the exploit to the highest bidder doesn't help. It just comes off as extortion or aiding virus writers.
It really isn't in their best interests to do that. Changing formats is as painful for them as it is for everyone else. That's why the default format in Office hasn't changed since Office 97. At least they've learned from that experience and are not repeating the same mistakes - keeping the same extension and not releasing plugins for older versions of Office. They plan on releasing.docx plugins for Office 2000 - Office 2003 near the Office 12 ship date.
Because its Microsoft. If somebody was marketing iPod Defender or Google Defender the Slashdot community would be all over them. In terms of Microsoft, Slashdot seems to be forever locked in the 1999, M$ is teh sux mentality.
Let's face it, Internet ads suck. The are worse than other types of ads, even TV. Here's why:
They lack creativity. The recent trend is a bunch of "kill 10 grues and win a prize" variety.
They are ugly.
They are obnoxious. Popups, sound, distracting animation. Just obnoxious in a text orientated environment.
They are mostly irrelavent to the content in the pages you are looking at.
I would say that the root problem is mostly money. And there are some examples where the advertising works and is a more pleasant experience: movie ads on IMDB, Xbox virial ads, the occasional odd flash advertising site, certain Google text ads, search engine advertising.
Slashdot Mirror
Sarbanes-Oxley...it works because it has to!
Mission Accomplished
Yes, but this is Slashdot so we'll have to bash the 360 because it's Microsoft. :P
I've noticed that IE7 defaults to MSN as it's homepage if the user hasn't set one yet. Worse yet, the favorites default to many Microsoft owned pages. Obviously this limits consumer choice and is anti-competitive! How long are we going to tolerate such defaults from a convicted monopolist?
Anyone know which game got cut? In the writeup it reads reduced its number of projects-in-development from three to two, but fails to mention anything about that third game.
Global warming?
Perhaps I'm just a little too cynical here, but this sounds like a great way to get free labor using an open source project. You release it, give some early adopters a thank you gift, and then wait as more people contribute to the project. You leave people with the hopes that they too will get "paid" for their work. Considering the (relatively) small amount of money spent on the gift vs. hiring people to work on the project it comes off as quite a deal. You might even get free advertising.
From reading the other comments here it seems that whether private offices are important is a matter of personal opinion. From asking about this it sounds like you don't really value it. If you've been in a cube farm/shared offices then you should have a good idea what works for you, productivity wise. If not, try to determine that before making any changes. Also consider who you'd be around if you didn't have a private office. If it's with people you work with often in a shared office, it might be beneficial. If it's in a cube farm with people who are noisy or on the phone a lot it's probably going to drive down your productivity.
You might want to consider this from the company's prospective: how much do they value the benefits of giving you a private office. Most companies wouldn't dare pay that much for something without expecting some return from their investment. They might be expecting higher morale and loyalty to the company. They might expect you to be more productive. They might just expect their clients to take them more seriously because everyone has an office. Most businesses wouldn't dare spend that much money unless the expected benefit of a private office exceeds (or at least equals) the cost of the increased rent.
The problem with your arguement is that the parts where they call C++/CLI C++ is when dealing with .Net code. In those places using ISO C++ isn't an option because it doesn't use the CLI and doesn't support .Net.
The Merch
It's true that IBM has extensive knowledge and experience in the OS area, but the problem with big blue is that desktop (consumer) Linux will probably never be a priority. IBM's business model is based around two things: business hardware and consultants. Because consulting is a major part of their business they don't have much incentive to improve the usability or ease of install for Linux. Instead, they'll focus their efforts on stuff that helps them in the server market: portability, performance, reliability, etc. Don't get me wrong, this does help Linux, but not in a way that results in it being preinstalled on a consumer desktop or laptop.
Probably because of this line:
Except for the autoplay and everything disabled questions, what do these questions have to do with security? Most of these questions are of the type "when will Windows become Linux?".
Yeah, I too remember playing that game. One of my friends at the time got the bootleg version and we tried it out. I remember it being amusing for a few hours, but it was a hollow shell of a game with no redeeming value after the novelty of its violence wore off. Overall, I got the impression that I would have been upset had I paid $30-50 for it, but I've rented worse games.
Well put. I've grown tired of the PS/PS2/PSP game lineup. The PS3 looks like it's going to be the same. Granted, I love some of those games, but I've played too many sequels already. I'm much more excited about the 360 and the Revolution than I am about the PS3 at this point.
Convenient how you left Linspire out of your argument. Is a $498 Linux laptop at Walmart not low enough for you?
As far as the price of Windows dropping because Linux is on the desktop - it's possible, but don't expect it to happen immediately. Microsoft (like pretty much all companies, Red Hat and SUSE) gets the majority of the sale of their software, and sets the MSRP of their software. They probably have hundreds of people working out the best pricing plan to maximize profit (like pretty much every company). If they notice that they're selling less copies they'll adjust their offerings accordingly. Take a look at the SKUs planned for Vista. It hints that they're planning some major changes to their pricing plans. In fact, it's a sign of price discrimination, which many businesses do (like Red Hat).
Depends on who you sell to. If you're selling to consumers, many will go with the cheapest option available that accomplishes their needs. If you're selling to businesses, then "you get what you pay for" is that attitude you need to address. I think you see both of these in the computer market. Linspire (aka Lindows) offers a cheap alternative for computer novicies. Most other Linux vendors focus on the business market, hence the high price for a "free" operating system.
Go (back?) to college, take some economics courses. It'll do you good. You don't have to agree with it, just understand it.
I think you misunderstood that comment (and didn't bother to read the links). The previous poster asked "Where is ALT OS for sale preinstalled that do NOT cost more then MS. Even if the OS is Linux that can be gotten for free?". I responded with "Just because other OSes aren't undercutting Microsoft and may understand economics more than you do doesn't mean it's Microsofts fault.", referring to the cost not market penetration. My implication was that if a computer manufacturer was going to offer a non-Microsoft OS because "it is better", then they should charge more because there's a cultural perception that you get what you pay for. If you offer a non-Microsoft OS because "it is free", then many people will assume it isn't as valuable as Windows. This is the idea behind price as a signal. This is probably culture senstive, so it might not apply to other countries.
Microsoft has long had a price tier structure for productivity software. They offer Works, Word, Office Standard, Office Professional, etc. Computer manufacturers offer several different choices for productivity software. Dell defaults to Word Perfect and the customer choses if they want to pay more to get Works or Office.
(As the article mentions) Microsoft has also started selling Windows Starter Edition in developing countries. Just because other OSes aren't undercutting Microsoft and may understand economics more than you do doesn't mean it's Microsofts fault.
Seriously, why would a modern computer manufactuer sell a computer that would force users to reboot in order to switch tasks? It's a tideous processs and most computer users would hate it. If one of the OSes will do most of what users wants (and therefore make rebooting unnecessary), then that OS will be enough for 99% of their customers. Those who do take advantage of the dual boot option will be confused/infuriated with not having their profiles/settings persist in both environments. Chances are the 1% who do want a dual boot system would end up nuking the system and setting it up themselves.
Most computer users want something easy and simplistic. Dual booting is not. In order to get it to that point a company would have to spend thousands to millions of dollars in software development, which in turn would rase the cost of the computer hundreds to thousands of dollars. Think of most of the computer users you know. Who among them would pay that much extra for a dual boot system?
Some of the author's expectations would cost too much to add into the system at this time. Perhaps if MS waited longer the price would drop on adding them, but not right now. Cases in point:
Other items would have added to the development time of the product. If you work in software development you should be familiar with the concept of having to cut features in order to release in time. I think these items are of this category:
Then there's just design decisions that the author disliked:
Then the one that are probably licensing related (if not it probably belongs with "No WMV-HD DVD Playback" above):
That leaves us with a real flaw:
This stunt just reflects poorly on security researchers. Yes it sucks that MS is slow to respond, but threatening to sell the exploit to the highest bidder doesn't help. It just comes off as extortion or aiding virus writers.
It really isn't in their best interests to do that. Changing formats is as painful for them as it is for everyone else. That's why the default format in Office hasn't changed since Office 97. At least they've learned from that experience and are not repeating the same mistakes - keeping the same extension and not releasing plugins for older versions of Office. They plan on releasing .docx plugins for Office 2000 - Office 2003 near the Office 12 ship date.
Source
Because its Microsoft. If somebody was marketing iPod Defender or Google Defender the Slashdot community would be all over them. In terms of Microsoft, Slashdot seems to be forever locked in the 1999, M$ is teh sux mentality.
- They lack creativity. The recent trend is a bunch of "kill 10 grues and win a prize" variety.
- They are ugly.
- They are obnoxious. Popups, sound, distracting animation. Just obnoxious in a text orientated environment.
- They are mostly irrelavent to the content in the pages you are looking at.
I would say that the root problem is mostly money. And there are some examples where the advertising works and is a more pleasant experience: movie ads on IMDB, Xbox virial ads, the occasional odd flash advertising site, certain Google text ads, search engine advertising.