"...I tend to find the people who have moved around a lot are much more flexible..."
That is certainly one of the possibilities. There is something to be said for a person with 5 years at 5 different employers -- a richer experience.
When a contractor is really good, the employer is often motivated to make an attractive full-time offer. When I see a person whose career consists of 10 six-month assignments over 5 years, I have to wonder:
Why didn't any of these 10 employers want this person for more than six months?
Did this person rely on the short-term nature of these assignments to avoid following any of these projects through the entire development cycle?
Could they actually maintain these projects or have they been sliding along?
When you make a good hire, you worry about how long you can retain the person. When you make a bad hire, retention is no problem; mediocrity lasts forever. If I want a good person and I want to keep them for at least a few years, the many-job candidate is not my first choice. Unless the interview process turns up something important, I can't expect them to stay any longer than their track record would indicate. A competent person who stays 5 years is more valuble than a superstar who is gone after 1.
If I want a temp, I'll hire one. For projects of a temporary nature, the job-hopping issue is no problem. Either the person works well and I offer a full-time deal, or they're gone at the end of the contract.
Considering how all the big accounting firms are motivated to lie, it was only a matter of time before one of them got caught. I'm not claiming that any of them lie, but the motivation is surely there. People who pay for accounting & consulting services are not always interested in the truth.
In my line of business, lying would not help, not even short-term. Had I gone to work for Arthur Andersen, I'm sure they would have paid more than I make now. However, it would have meant sitting a little further out on the risk/reward curve. Working in a conservative industry means I can spend my free time on Slashdot instead of Monster, Careerbuilder, & Dice.
I was in college back in the early 80s. At the time, new grads were having a hell of a time landing jobs. I was really worried about graduating and finding nothing to do. By the mid 80's, things warmed up just a little. I was looking for a part-time job that would provide meaningful experience, because it looked like experience was the only way to get a "real" job later.
I applied for what I thought was a temporary, part-time, third shift operations job in a data center that ran a bunch of DEC VAX machines. The job they offered me was first shift, and 91% of full-time (state employee benefits included). I was a junior in college, who accidently landed a job that was no worse than what a new grad would get. I decided to take a break from school and go back when the job ended. Well, the job that wasn't third-shift or part-time wasn't temporary either. The original employee on leave never came back, so I became an accidental full-time permanent employee. I never went back to school, because I stayed 13 years, with five promotions, ending as the Director of Technical Services.
If I had stayed in school, I would have finished in 86 or 87, and the job market was really hopping by then (but who knew back in 85?) I was so happy to have found a job, I thought it would be stupid to finish school if that meant graduating into a down market. Having seen how many employers "required" degrees but "hired" experience, I determined that experience would win out over degrees most of the time, or at least often enough to keep me working. My cynical view of employment has served me well. After 17 years of uninterrupted employment, I'm having a hard time seeing the downside of quitting college early.
So, why do I post this mini-autobiography? To illustrate just how cyclical the IT has always been. When it's hot, anyone who can type can get a job. When it's cold, having a Ph.D. won't help. So, I think the strategy is to build credentials and manufacture your own experience in the "cold" years, as you wait for the "hot" years. If you live in a high-cost area, consider moving someplace cheap. There is no reason to tolerate a high cost of living unless you have a big paycheck to cover it. Go back for an MSCS or MBA degree if you can; work outside IT if you must. Either way, start your own little empire of computers, using open source (Linux) or free downloads from Oracle (free for non-commercial use, including home hacking). If you can pick up contract work of any type, then you'll be in a position to do something when the market heats up again. Timing is everything.
The fact that we have a down market combined with a glut of H1Bs makes me wonder if we are going to see a massive correction when the market heats up. I predict a shortage of IT people, because it makes no sense to invest 4 years of tuition just to compete with H1Bs. Then again, my prediction plus $1.10 gets you a medium coffee at Dunkin Donuts.
"Meanwhile, how about giving us some assurances that you're committed to long-term loyalty to your employees"
I believe it's the classic risk/reward equation. During the Dot-Com era, the highest salaries went to those who abandoned their relatively stable jobs to go off and join startups. The companies that "went public" spewed forth plenty of money for salaries, bonuses, and stock options. Those that failed to go public are pretty much gone by now. Hell, they're ALL pretty much gone by now!
I work for a company that has nothing to do with IT, but we use IT to help provide services. Do I make as much as I could have with a dot-com? No. Do I make as much as I should, based on salary surveys and other data? Nope. Do I pay my staff as much as they are worth? No; I'm very lucky to have them On the other hand, we survived the Dot-Bomb era, no problem. The company has been around for almost 60 years, so they won't be disappearing anytime soon. Even when some divisions had problems and layoffs, corporate IT was unscathed. I believe it worked this way because I kept the department small when I could easily justify 2X as many positions as I have. This means a substantial backlog of projects, but it also means the knife of corporate austerity does its damage elsewhere.
Nobody is going to get rich working in my department, but I think I do a world-class job of defending my people. What I fail to understand is how so many people thought it was possible to earn big money without big risk.
If you have 1000 non-union IT people, and a 5% layoff, then 50 of the "weakest links" are going to be gone.
If you have the same 1000 people and a 50% reduction, then there will be plenty of talented people among the 500 casualties, but the worst will go first.
With a 100% reduction, the talent pool starts to look pretty good, since the best & brightest are now available.
Reference checks are difficult when the applicants past employers are out of business. Even when the ex-employer is still in business, most will never say anything negative ex-employees, and many have "zero disclosure" policies that circumvent the entire purpose of a reference check. I have had some success asking the magic question "Would you rehire?" Asking for an opinion instead of a statement of fact works wonders.
It's difficult to tell the difference between a compulsive job-hopper, a deadbeat who gets consistently canned, and a talented person who is stuck with the LIFO scenario. It's also difficult to read a resume (or check references) to determine which of the 3 layoff scenarios has taken place. A letter of reference (with an e-mail that works) from a past supervisor may be the only thing that helps.
"I beleive claming to fame 'a dregree' is better than 'I have no degree, but it's not that usefull and I am good'"
It depends on how many examples you have that support the "I am good" assertion, especially if those examples are logically presented with proper spelling and grammar.
As a manager with no degree, I am in a position to comment.
I give careful consideration to all applicants, but I take a sceptical view of those people whose only claim to fame is a degree or certification. I want experience, or concrete evidence that the candidate is prepared to do the job with minimal babysitting. Another thing I want is some longevity. If I'm hiring for a full-time position, I view it as a purchase as opposed to a rental. You would be amazed to see how many people have years of experience, but never more than 12 months at any one place. What assurances do I have that such people are not simply hopping from one contract to the next, leaving behind a trail of destruction?
My hires have ranged from a high school dropout [long story omitted], to an MSCS. I'm quite proud of my people; all except one have worked out well. I don't actively seek to avoid hiring people with degrees, I'm just not convinced that the credential means much. This means I'm tough on recent grads, but who isn't? For the record, I hired a recent grad after he spent some time in my department as a temp -- another success story.
I believe that managers will repeat any behavior that works, and abandon that which does not work. After you get burned on a few bad hires, you will seek to avoid whatever led you down that path.
M$ is a big player in XML. Now they now have to either continue the pro-XML strategy and acknowledge that XML will commoditize their precious proprietary files (hastening the decay of the M$ monopoly), or "embrace and extend" the XML used by Office into something that looks like XML but isn't.
As a desperation ploy, they could use XML file formats, leaving the tags in plain text but encrypting the data. Any competetive products trying to work with the file would be face the wrath of DMCA.
Beaming your shopping list from a PDA is a cool idea, but the stores really don't want you thinking too much about your list. They would prefer you spend the time walking past as much stuff as possible. The brands with the best margins are positioned at eye-level, with the hope of you going off-list and buying stuff impulsively.
I consistently spend less when I shop than when my wife does, even though she prepares the list either way. If it's not on the list, it's not in the cart. I also do the math, so that coupons for expensive brands are used only when the actual price beats the store brand.
The grocery store is filled with opportunities to make sub-optimal buying decisions -- two of my favorites:
"Decoy" items that look exactly like the items on sale, to be sold at high prices when the "real" sale items run out.
"Sales" where the price is just the regular price (except advertised prominently, so as to look like a bargain).
Scanner "errors" that consistently favor the store -- this happens ALOT, and the pattern of error is PREDICTABLE
You will never see the stores provide any technology that helps you evaluate prices. If they had their way, the only price you would get is a total for the entire cart!
"The Japanese are able and willing to abandon Windows completely - unlike the Chinese."
Do not underestimate the Chinese. Piracy is still rampant in China, and you can still get any M$ product you want for $4 per CD. On the other hand, M$ is getting serious about "product activation", BSA love letters, and other anti-piracy initiatives. The Chinese may have been willing to tolerate the security and stability issues at $4/product, but full sticker price is another matter entirely.
I believe you are correct. Due to Constitutional issues, the real issue here is the state "use" taxes, where they collect the sales tax from their own residents, as if the mail order items were bought in-state.
Currently, the "use tax" laws are borderline unenforcable, because non of the out-of-state entities is currently required to report individual sales to any state government.
Notice how this little consortium includes nowhere near all 50 states. Granting them any kind of special taxing authority will simply open the floodgates in such a way that online commerce will either move offshore or dry up entirely. About the only thing that would work is some kind of Federal tax that could be collected at a flat rate and then fowarded to the states, proportional to each state's online purchases. Let the states figure out how to subdivide the revenue with municipalities and county government. This flat rate would have little or no correlation to any state's sales tax rate, but it would generate revenue as an alternative to the current arrangement, which generates $0. Since the Feds dont allocate anything to states based on their contributions, this would be quite a culture shift.
The tendency of state tax law is to overcomplicate, which is precisely what we need to avoid online taxation entirely. From what I have seen, the consortium is nowhere near asking for something that is settles the issue once-and-for-all with a plan that is simple enough to actually do.
I blame Doubleclick for this, at least as much as Microsoft. Thanks to Doubleclick, it was inevitable that the browsers would become hostile to 3rd party cookies. M$ simply did it first.
Considering how little IE does to suppress popups and other crap, it's odd that M$ suddenly decided to declare war on 3rd party cookies.
It never occurred to me that there could be a non-marketing application for 3rd party cookies, so I don't mind having IE ditch them.
Even if Eolas wins, what prevents M$ from simply continuing the infringement? All M$ has to do "delay and deny" so as to drag out the process until Eolas runs out of money. Even if Eolas wins, M$ [eventually] pays, and life goes on.
Given the ultra-light/total-fluff "punishment" in the DOJ case, I'm sure the Microsoft folks are really trembling in their boots over this one.
At my company, we have a corporate website and individual portals for our clients, all of which implement P3P. It's essentially mandatory, once your customers start using IE6. I would prefer to have the customers abandon M$ entirely, but most can be expected to follow the path of least resistance, which means IE6 more often than not.
Many (15%?) people set their "cookie security" to "high". This makes cookies fail on all non-P3P websites, causing all kinds of application misbehaviors. So we either have an inconvenient/hard-to-follow set of instructions about enabling cookies, or we set up P3P on the server side. In our case, we never share or cross-market our client data with anyone, so P3P is administratively simple as well.
On the other hand, I don't see what stops the sleazier companies from simply lying about privacy via P3P. After all, these are some of the same people who sell everything you do to Doubleclick and quietly switch your privcacy preferences to "yes, spam me" (hint: 4-letter auction site; starts with "E"). What's another lie when there is direct marketing revenue at stake?
Absolutely correct. That means legacy hardware may not boot some future DRM/crippleware OS, just as 286 processors were left in the cold when Win95 came out. Before that happens, I can imagine M$ checking for Palladium hardware and then requiring it to be enabled. IMHO, Palladium & LaGrande are the technological equivalent of Saddam's WMD programs. The best time to resist and evade this menace is right now. Apathy may be hazardous to your freedom.
If there is anything that would interest AMD and Intel in adding features that customers don't want, it would be the premature obsolesence of CPU and MB, correct? They won't be selling much of this crippleware unless people are somehow coerced into buying it. The entities that cause this stuff to exist certainly don't want it to be optional for long; therefore it won't be.
I predict that a DRM-free lifestyle will eventually require legacy hardware and a legacy OS. Step #1 is awareness of the electrolytic capacitor problem. My whole point is that your MB won't be so disposable when all the new ones have badware inside.
Palladium may be optional, but it how optional do you think it will be when a future version of Windoze won't boot without it? You might switch to Linux, but I can see the day coming when Palladium compatibility is required to boot any OS. There may be quite a market for "legacy" MBs and operating systems.
Think about it. Just how much juice do the copyright interests have when they can force a much larger industry to spend its own money to design "features" that customers don't want? And Palladium is somehow going to remain optional? Not for long!
Could the lard industry get McDonalds and Burger King to make greasier french fries, just to sell more lard?
"Why do Americans think that they can pass laws for the whole world?"
I would like to believe that the rest of the world can think for itself, and perhaps serve as the last line of defense against legislative stupidity. The ability of America to dictate the laws of others is limited only by the rest of the world's willingness to assert itself. In such matters as fair use and copyright, that assertiveness has been in short supply. Too many countries have adopted their own DMCA-inspired copyright laws, to say nothing of software patents, and other bad ideas that are unfortunately "made in USA". A few overly righteous people may be shocked to learn this, but the method of buying politicians and then pushing custom-built legislation is not an "Americans only" game. We simply have more than our fair share of corporations playing it. Without the cooperation of sleazy politicians in other countries, the influence of US corporations would end at the border. Due to a global glut of sleazy politicians, DRM badware is closer than you think.
I hope you are correct. I hope the Canadians have the sense to resist not only Palladium, LaGrande, and the entire genre of crippleware, but also DMCA, TCPA, and software patents as well. If necessary, I can buy my next MB from a mail order house in Montreal.
Unless you have absolute confidence in the Canadian legislative process, it might be prudent to examine your MB and perhaps find an upgrade without electrolytic capacitors.
Instead of viewing these as commodity items, we need to insist on a motherboard that does not have self-destructive components. Someday, DRM-enabled hardware is going to be the law of the land, therefore the last generation of uncrippled boards is going to be whatever we own at the time.
When companies invest R&D money into bigger hard drives, faster CPUs, video gizmos, and slicker GUI interfaces, we all understand the motivation -- increased sales.
From what I have heard about "LaGrande" and "Palladium", there are benefits for the "gatekeepers", but no benefit for end users. Nobody is projecting increased sales because of these lovely DRM "features". Indeed, many are wondering if people will buy this stuff at all. This would be like McDonalds working on a way to make greasier french fries, because it would help the lard industry.
So my question is this: "Who is bankrolling this operation?" If Intel/AMD/M$ are really spending their own money on this, it's a mass outbreak of corporate stupidity. Is Saddam Hussein attacking our tech industry with some kind of "dumb-down" bio-warfare weapon?
My conspiracy theory is that the "LaGrande/Palladium" boxes will be blown out at firesale prices, subsidized by someone who really wants this stuff to be deployed -- kind of like Xbox on a massive scale. The payback will have to come from the victims^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h customers -- endless fees and hidden surcharges built into everything they do.
The pursuit of cheap labor never ends. For decades, Japan was a large source of cheap labor; not anymore. Now it's China, Korea, and Central America. At some point, the focus will shift to Africa. When Microsoft finally starts to care about this market, they will find themselves fighting a losing battle against a thoroughly entrenched Linux base, filled with customers who have come to expect a retail price of $0.
It's hard to compete with Microsoft because they control such a high percentage of the market. Now, imagine Microsoft trying to compete where the situation is reversed, with the added challenge of facing a market leader who has an untouchable price advantage. Game Over.
Everything that happens to Microsoft in developing countries could just as easily happen in their tradtional markets. In corporate life, there is nothing quite so contagious as the perception that our competitors are saving money by doing something that our company hasn't thought of yet. Working examples of large-scale Linux deployment would be Microsoft's worst nightmare.
There is a big difference between "uniform licensing" and "effective enforcement". They could get rid of product activation, using "technical problems" and "customer complaints" as justification. Then they could whimper and whine every so often about the pirates. Just because they have to try and enforce uniform licensing, it doesn't mean they have to be successful.
Considering alleged M$ non-compliance with previous agreements, this whole concept would be relatively tame by compared to their other tactics.
Consider the Namibia situation that triggered this discussion. Is there anything in a proposed settlement that limits M$ ability to make charitable donations? Couldn't they flood the academic and government sectors with "corporate goodwill"? Apple, DEC, and numerous others had academic donation programs that bordered on product dumping. Nobody prosecuted them, so M$ would be in the clear.
Microsoft can't afford to let Linux become the standard by default in developing nations. It gives Linux credibility that will find its way back to the markets M$ cares about. China is a perfect example of a market that won't support Microsoft prices, but is way too big to ignore. The Chinese were using Microsoft products as a de facto standard until piracy became a hot issue. As piracy diminished, so did the M$ market share. I think M$ was actually better off in China with the piracy. These days, Linux is on a rampage in China. Go ahead and write off Namibia if you like, but how about the rest of Africa?
Nobody buys Microsoft products for security or stability, and the price is no great bargain either. People buy Microsoft because "It's the standard -- everyone else uses it -- I need compatibility." This all falls apart pretty fast when the have-nots of the world use Linux and they manage to survive. The gods of corporate cost control will eventually focus on Microsoft licensing. When they do, the question will be, "Why do we pay for Microsoft products when a billion Chinese people have managed to avoid this $800 per seat expense?"
When struggling countries like Namibia are motivated to avoid Microsoft, the same motivations are coming soon to a computer near you.
We all know it is possible to use Linux as an alternative to Microsoft. Most of us are accustomed to tolerating the Microsoft OS in order to get the functionality of their office apps. As time goes by, Linux has narrowed the gap to the point where the most cost-conscious users (schools and government) are ready to jump ship. The next wave will be home users, then small business, ultimately big business.
Ironically, conquering the piracy problem is what got the ball rolling. If Microsoft turned a blind eye toward piracy in certain key markets, they could have prevented Linux from establishing market share. Sure, they need to collect money from those who have money, but they also need to give away product to anyone who can't or won't pay. If you can't get the customer's money, you have to at least stop them from using the competitor's product.
Microsoft talks a good game about dealing with Linux as a competitor, but look at their actions. Higher prices, "software assurance", increasingly obnoxious EULA's, all the things they might be expected to do if there was no competition. The handwriting is on the wall -- time for Bill to cash in his chips and retire.
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That is certainly one of the possibilities. There is something to be said for a person with 5 years at 5 different employers -- a richer experience.
When a contractor is really good, the employer is often motivated to make an attractive full-time offer. When I see a person whose career consists of 10 six-month assignments over 5 years, I have to wonder:
- Why didn't any of these 10 employers want this person for more than six months?
- Did this person rely on the short-term nature of these assignments to avoid following any of these projects through the entire development cycle?
- Could they actually maintain these projects or have they been sliding along?
When you make a good hire, you worry about how long you can retain the person. When you make a bad hire, retention is no problem; mediocrity lasts forever. If I want a good person and I want to keep them for at least a few years, the many-job candidate is not my first choice. Unless the interview process turns up something important, I can't expect them to stay any longer than their track record would indicate. A competent person who stays 5 years is more valuble than a superstar who is gone after 1.If I want a temp, I'll hire one. For projects of a temporary nature, the job-hopping issue is no problem. Either the person works well and I offer a full-time deal, or they're gone at the end of the contract.
Considering how all the big accounting firms are motivated to lie, it was only a matter of time before one of them got caught. I'm not claiming that any of them lie, but the motivation is surely there. People who pay for accounting & consulting services are not always interested in the truth.
In my line of business, lying would not help, not even short-term. Had I gone to work for Arthur Andersen, I'm sure they would have paid more than I make now. However, it would have meant sitting a little further out on the risk/reward curve. Working in a conservative industry means I can spend my free time on Slashdot instead of Monster, Careerbuilder, & Dice.
I was in college back in the early 80s. At the time, new grads were having a hell of a time landing jobs. I was really worried about graduating and finding nothing to do. By the mid 80's, things warmed up just a little. I was looking for a part-time job that would provide meaningful experience, because it looked like experience was the only way to get a "real" job later.
I applied for what I thought was a temporary, part-time, third shift operations job in a data center that ran a bunch of DEC VAX machines. The job they offered me was first shift, and 91% of full-time (state employee benefits included). I was a junior in college, who accidently landed a job that was no worse than what a new grad would get. I decided to take a break from school and go back when the job ended. Well, the job that wasn't third-shift or part-time wasn't temporary either. The original employee on leave never came back, so I became an accidental full-time permanent employee. I never went back to school, because I stayed 13 years, with five promotions, ending as the Director of Technical Services.
If I had stayed in school, I would have finished in 86 or 87, and the job market was really hopping by then (but who knew back in 85?) I was so happy to have found a job, I thought it would be stupid to finish school if that meant graduating into a down market. Having seen how many employers "required" degrees but "hired" experience, I determined that experience would win out over degrees most of the time, or at least often enough to keep me working. My cynical view of employment has served me well. After 17 years of uninterrupted employment, I'm having a hard time seeing the downside of quitting college early.
So, why do I post this mini-autobiography? To illustrate just how cyclical the IT has always been. When it's hot, anyone who can type can get a job. When it's cold, having a Ph.D. won't help. So, I think the strategy is to build credentials and manufacture your own experience in the "cold" years, as you wait for the "hot" years. If you live in a high-cost area, consider moving someplace cheap. There is no reason to tolerate a high cost of living unless you have a big paycheck to cover it. Go back for an MSCS or MBA degree if you can; work outside IT if you must. Either way, start your own little empire of computers, using open source (Linux) or free downloads from Oracle (free for non-commercial use, including home hacking). If you can pick up contract work of any type, then you'll be in a position to do something when the market heats up again. Timing is everything.
The fact that we have a down market combined with a glut of H1Bs makes me wonder if we are going to see a massive correction when the market heats up. I predict a shortage of IT people, because it makes no sense to invest 4 years of tuition just to compete with H1Bs. Then again, my prediction plus $1.10 gets you a medium coffee at Dunkin Donuts.
"Meanwhile, how about giving us some assurances that you're committed to long-term loyalty to your employees"
I believe it's the classic risk/reward equation. During the Dot-Com era, the highest salaries went to those who abandoned their relatively stable jobs to go off and join startups. The companies that "went public" spewed forth plenty of money for salaries, bonuses, and stock options. Those that failed to go public are pretty much gone by now. Hell, they're ALL pretty much gone by now!
I work for a company that has nothing to do with IT, but we use IT to help provide services. Do I make as much as I could have with a dot-com? No. Do I make as much as I should, based on salary surveys and other data? Nope. Do I pay my staff as much as they are worth? No; I'm very lucky to have them On the other hand, we survived the Dot-Bomb era, no problem. The company has been around for almost 60 years, so they won't be disappearing anytime soon. Even when some divisions had problems and layoffs, corporate IT was unscathed. I believe it worked this way because I kept the department small when I could easily justify 2X as many positions as I have. This means a substantial backlog of projects, but it also means the knife of corporate austerity does its damage elsewhere.
Nobody is going to get rich working in my department, but I think I do a world-class job of defending my people. What I fail to understand is how so many people thought it was possible to earn big money without big risk.
Reference checks are difficult when the applicants past employers are out of business. Even when the ex-employer is still in business, most will never say anything negative ex-employees, and many have "zero disclosure" policies that circumvent the entire purpose of a reference check. I have had some success asking the magic question "Would you rehire?" Asking for an opinion instead of a statement of fact works wonders.
It's difficult to tell the difference between a compulsive job-hopper, a deadbeat who gets consistently canned, and a talented person who is stuck with the LIFO scenario. It's also difficult to read a resume (or check references) to determine which of the 3 layoff scenarios has taken place. A letter of reference (with an e-mail that works) from a past supervisor may be the only thing that helps.
"I beleive claming to fame 'a dregree' is better than 'I have no degree, but it's not that usefull and I am good'"
It depends on how many examples you have that support the "I am good" assertion, especially if those examples are logically presented with proper spelling and grammar.
As a manager with no degree, I am in a position to comment.
I give careful consideration to all applicants, but I take a sceptical view of those people whose only claim to fame is a degree or certification. I want experience, or concrete evidence that the candidate is prepared to do the job with minimal babysitting. Another thing I want is some longevity. If I'm hiring for a full-time position, I view it as a purchase as opposed to a rental. You would be amazed to see how many people have years of experience, but never more than 12 months at any one place. What assurances do I have that such people are not simply hopping from one contract to the next, leaving behind a trail of destruction?
My hires have ranged from a high school dropout [long story omitted], to an MSCS. I'm quite proud of my people; all except one have worked out well. I don't actively seek to avoid hiring people with degrees, I'm just not convinced that the credential means much. This means I'm tough on recent grads, but who isn't? For the record, I hired a recent grad after he spent some time in my department as a temp -- another success story.
I believe that managers will repeat any behavior that works, and abandon that which does not work. After you get burned on a few bad hires, you will seek to avoid whatever led you down that path.
M$ is a big player in XML. Now they now have to either continue the pro-XML strategy and acknowledge that XML will commoditize their precious proprietary files (hastening the decay of the M$ monopoly), or "embrace and extend" the XML used by Office into something that looks like XML but isn't.
As a desperation ploy, they could use XML file formats, leaving the tags in plain text but encrypting the data. Any competetive products trying to work with the file would be face the wrath of DMCA.
So they can sue each other silly when retailer X offers an item (any item), at the same "copyrighted" price as retailer Y.
I consistently spend less when I shop than when my wife does, even though she prepares the list either way. If it's not on the list, it's not in the cart. I also do the math, so that coupons for expensive brands are used only when the actual price beats the store brand.
The grocery store is filled with opportunities to make sub-optimal buying decisions -- two of my favorites:
You will never see the stores provide any technology that helps you evaluate prices. If they had their way, the only price you would get is a total for the entire cart!
"The Japanese are able and willing to abandon Windows completely - unlike the Chinese."
Do not underestimate the Chinese. Piracy is still rampant in China, and you can still get any M$ product you want for $4 per CD. On the other hand, M$ is getting serious about "product activation", BSA love letters, and other anti-piracy initiatives. The Chinese may have been willing to tolerate the security and stability issues at $4/product, but full sticker price is another matter entirely.
I believe you are correct. Due to Constitutional issues, the real issue here is the state "use" taxes, where they collect the sales tax from their own residents, as if the mail order items were bought in-state.
Currently, the "use tax" laws are borderline unenforcable, because non of the out-of-state entities is currently required to report individual sales to any state government.
Notice how this little consortium includes nowhere near all 50 states. Granting them any kind of special taxing authority will simply open the floodgates in such a way that online commerce will either move offshore or dry up entirely. About the only thing that would work is some kind of Federal tax that could be collected at a flat rate and then fowarded to the states, proportional to each state's online purchases. Let the states figure out how to subdivide the revenue with municipalities and county government. This flat rate would have little or no correlation to any state's sales tax rate, but it would generate revenue as an alternative to the current arrangement, which generates $0. Since the Feds dont allocate anything to states based on their contributions, this would be quite a culture shift.
The tendency of state tax law is to overcomplicate, which is precisely what we need to avoid online taxation entirely. From what I have seen, the consortium is nowhere near asking for something that is settles the issue once-and-for-all with a plan that is simple enough to actually do.
I blame Doubleclick for this, at least as much as Microsoft. Thanks to Doubleclick, it was inevitable that the browsers would become hostile to 3rd party cookies. M$ simply did it first.
Considering how little IE does to suppress popups and other crap, it's odd that M$ suddenly decided to declare war on 3rd party cookies.
It never occurred to me that there could be a non-marketing application for 3rd party cookies, so I don't mind having IE ditch them.
Even if Eolas wins, what prevents M$ from simply continuing the infringement? All M$ has to do "delay and deny" so as to drag out the process until Eolas runs out of money. Even if Eolas wins, M$ [eventually] pays, and life goes on.
Given the ultra-light/total-fluff "punishment" in the DOJ case, I'm sure the Microsoft folks are really trembling in their boots over this one.
At my company, we have a corporate website and individual portals for our clients, all of which implement P3P. It's essentially mandatory, once your customers start using IE6. I would prefer to have the customers abandon M$ entirely, but most can be expected to follow the path of least resistance, which means IE6 more often than not.
Many (15%?) people set their "cookie security" to "high". This makes cookies fail on all non-P3P websites, causing all kinds of application misbehaviors. So we either have an inconvenient/hard-to-follow set of instructions about enabling cookies, or we set up P3P on the server side. In our case, we never share or cross-market our client data with anyone, so P3P is administratively simple as well.
On the other hand, I don't see what stops the sleazier companies from simply lying about privacy via P3P. After all, these are some of the same people who sell everything you do to Doubleclick and quietly switch your privcacy preferences to "yes, spam me" (hint: 4-letter auction site; starts with "E"). What's another lie when there is direct marketing revenue at stake?
Absolutely correct. That means legacy hardware may not boot some future DRM/crippleware OS, just as 286 processors were left in the cold when Win95 came out. Before that happens, I can imagine M$ checking for Palladium hardware and then requiring it to be enabled. IMHO, Palladium & LaGrande are the technological equivalent of Saddam's WMD programs. The best time to resist and evade this menace is right now. Apathy may be hazardous to your freedom.
If there is anything that would interest AMD and Intel in adding features that customers don't want, it would be the premature obsolesence of CPU and MB, correct? They won't be selling much of this crippleware unless people are somehow coerced into buying it. The entities that cause this stuff to exist certainly don't want it to be optional for long; therefore it won't be.
I predict that a DRM-free lifestyle will eventually require legacy hardware and a legacy OS. Step #1 is awareness of the electrolytic capacitor problem. My whole point is that your MB won't be so disposable when all the new ones have badware inside.
Palladium may be optional, but it how optional do you think it will be when a future version of Windoze won't boot without it? You might switch to Linux, but I can see the day coming when Palladium compatibility is required to boot any OS. There may be quite a market for "legacy" MBs and operating systems.
Think about it. Just how much juice do the copyright interests have when they can force a much larger industry to spend its own money to design "features" that customers don't want? And Palladium is somehow going to remain optional? Not for long!
Could the lard industry get McDonalds and Burger King to make greasier french fries, just to sell more lard?
"Why do Americans think that they can pass laws for the whole world?"
I would like to believe that the rest of the world can think for itself, and perhaps serve as the last line of defense against legislative stupidity. The ability of America to dictate the laws of others is limited only by the rest of the world's willingness to assert itself. In such matters as fair use and copyright, that assertiveness has been in short supply. Too many countries have adopted their own DMCA-inspired copyright laws, to say nothing of software patents, and other bad ideas that are unfortunately "made in USA". A few overly righteous people may be shocked to learn this, but the method of buying politicians and then pushing custom-built legislation is not an "Americans only" game. We simply have more than our fair share of corporations playing it. Without the cooperation of sleazy politicians in other countries, the influence of US corporations would end at the border. Due to a global glut of sleazy politicians, DRM badware is closer than you think.
I hope you are correct. I hope the Canadians have the sense to resist not only Palladium, LaGrande, and the entire genre of crippleware, but also DMCA, TCPA, and software patents as well. If necessary, I can buy my next MB from a mail order house in Montreal.
Unless you have absolute confidence in the Canadian legislative process, it might be prudent to examine your MB and perhaps find an upgrade without electrolytic capacitors.
Instead of viewing these as commodity items, we need to insist on a motherboard that does not have self-destructive components. Someday, DRM-enabled hardware is going to be the law of the land, therefore the last generation of uncrippled boards is going to be whatever we own at the time.
When companies invest R&D money into bigger hard drives, faster CPUs, video gizmos, and slicker GUI interfaces, we all understand the motivation -- increased sales.
From what I have heard about "LaGrande" and "Palladium", there are benefits for the "gatekeepers", but no benefit for end users. Nobody is projecting increased sales because of these lovely DRM "features". Indeed, many are wondering if people will buy this stuff at all. This would be like McDonalds working on a way to make greasier french fries, because it would help the lard industry.
So my question is this: "Who is bankrolling this operation?" If Intel/AMD/M$ are really spending their own money on this, it's a mass outbreak of corporate stupidity. Is Saddam Hussein attacking our tech industry with some kind of "dumb-down" bio-warfare weapon?
My conspiracy theory is that the "LaGrande/Palladium" boxes will be blown out at firesale prices, subsidized by someone who really wants this stuff to be deployed -- kind of like Xbox on a massive scale. The payback will have to come from the victims^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h customers -- endless fees and hidden surcharges built into everything they do.
I guess the job at the grammar company didn't work out.
The pursuit of cheap labor never ends. For decades, Japan was a large source of cheap labor; not anymore. Now it's China, Korea, and Central America. At some point, the focus will shift to Africa. When Microsoft finally starts to care about this market, they will find themselves fighting a losing battle against a thoroughly entrenched Linux base, filled with customers who have come to expect a retail price of $0.
It's hard to compete with Microsoft because they control such a high percentage of the market. Now, imagine Microsoft trying to compete where the situation is reversed, with the added challenge of facing a market leader who has an untouchable price advantage. Game Over.
Everything that happens to Microsoft in developing countries could just as easily happen in their tradtional markets. In corporate life, there is nothing quite so contagious as the perception that our competitors are saving money by doing something that our company hasn't thought of yet. Working examples of large-scale Linux deployment would be Microsoft's worst nightmare.
There is a big difference between "uniform licensing" and "effective enforcement". They could get rid of product activation, using "technical problems" and "customer complaints" as justification. Then they could whimper and whine every so often about the pirates. Just because they have to try and enforce uniform licensing, it doesn't mean they have to be successful.
Considering alleged M$ non-compliance with previous agreements, this whole concept would be relatively tame by compared to their other tactics.
Consider the Namibia situation that triggered this discussion. Is there anything in a proposed settlement that limits M$ ability to make charitable donations? Couldn't they flood the academic and government sectors with "corporate goodwill"? Apple, DEC, and numerous others had academic donation programs that bordered on product dumping. Nobody prosecuted them, so M$ would be in the clear.
Microsoft can't afford to let Linux become the standard by default in developing nations. It gives Linux credibility that will find its way back to the markets M$ cares about. China is a perfect example of a market that won't support Microsoft prices, but is way too big to ignore. The Chinese were using Microsoft products as a de facto standard until piracy became a hot issue. As piracy diminished, so did the M$ market share. I think M$ was actually better off in China with the piracy. These days, Linux is on a rampage in China. Go ahead and write off Namibia if you like, but how about the rest of Africa?
Nobody buys Microsoft products for security or stability, and the price is no great bargain either. People buy Microsoft because "It's the standard -- everyone else uses it -- I need compatibility." This all falls apart pretty fast when the have-nots of the world use Linux and they manage to survive. The gods of corporate cost control will eventually focus on Microsoft licensing. When they do, the question will be, "Why do we pay for Microsoft products when a billion Chinese people have managed to avoid this $800 per seat expense?"
When struggling countries like Namibia are motivated to avoid Microsoft, the same motivations are coming soon to a computer near you.
We all know it is possible to use Linux as an alternative to Microsoft. Most of us are accustomed to tolerating the Microsoft OS in order to get the functionality of their office apps. As time goes by, Linux has narrowed the gap to the point where the most cost-conscious users (schools and government) are ready to jump ship. The next wave will be home users, then small business, ultimately big business.
Ironically, conquering the piracy problem is what got the ball rolling. If Microsoft turned a blind eye toward piracy in certain key markets, they could have prevented Linux from establishing market share. Sure, they need to collect money from those who have money, but they also need to give away product to anyone who can't or won't pay. If you can't get the customer's money, you have to at least stop them from using the competitor's product.
Microsoft talks a good game about dealing with Linux as a competitor, but look at their actions. Higher prices, "software assurance", increasingly obnoxious EULA's, all the things they might be expected to do if there was no competition. The handwriting is on the wall -- time for Bill to cash in his chips and retire.