But it gets even more interesting. Maybe she is really a he (and perhaps not even a freelance writer at all), since it is "Don Funk" whose user folder appears to be used in the screenshot.
After they stopped laughing, our IT staff predicted that this page would be gone in 24 hours.
Re:Sikorsky ignored a number of problems
on
The Coming Air Age
·
· Score: 2
Like I said, navigation, air traffic control, and pilot skill can be addressed. However, unless they have folding rotor blades, the choppers will take up more space than cars, and will not co-exist in a traditional parking garage. Parking a car is enough of a hassle as it is.
What kills the idea is that the low-tech, non-automated helicopter (or airplane) is priced way beyond the reach of the average consumer. Private aviation was not a cost-effective concept to begin with. Adding all of these gizmos isn't going to make it any cheaper.
Re:Sikorsky ignored a number of problems
on
The Coming Air Age
·
· Score: 2
"8. Stupidity [items A-E]" The free market discourages these things because the low-tech versions are cost-effective. Consider the hybrid gas/electric cars. Until gas costs over $3/gallon, the fuel savings won't cover the increased cost of the car or the replacement batteries. Of all the ideas you suggested, none of them would cost less than the low-tech alternatives.
BTW, I have a cell phone, fax machine, microwave oven, TV remote, alarm clock, and VCR. I use all of them without difficulty. How much would I pay for an "easier to use" version? Zero.
"9. NIMBYs [closing airports?]" The website you quoted starts off with a story of general aviation airports closing in Hawaii. Has it occurred to anyone that the value of land is the key issue? When condos, malls, and parking garages generate more revenue than small airports, what do you think is going to happen?
"10. The FAA" Guilty as charged. If they attacked the cost of aviation as vigorously as safety, we could have more flying and less driving, for the same money. Instead, the cost of general aviation is killing the industry and making small airports more attractive for other uses. Of course, I can't think of any examples of the federal government reducing the cost of anything.
Even if we go hog-wild deploying technology in pursuit of computer-assisted flight, it will still cost too much, humans will still be human, the weather will still interfere, and it gets dark at night. That's why general aviation is for smart people with deep pockets who fly in good weather, mostly during the day. The rest of us fly commercial, and only when it makes economic sense.
Sikorsky ignored a number of problems
on
The Coming Air Age
·
· Score: 2
1. Cost (capital and operating) 2. Pilot skill (individuals flying their own?) 3. Navigation 4. Parking (surely not in a multi-level garage!) 5. Air traffic control 6. Bad weather 7. Night
Aside from navigation and air traffic control, most of these problems are as serious today as when the helicopter was invented.
Sikorsky was too smart not to realize that it was never going to be a mass-market item. He was either fooling investors or fooling the government into subsidizing a project.
If we were so motivated, we could automate enough of helicopter operation to solve problems 2/3/5, but 1/4/6/7 will not go away.
You could say the same thing about any law that limits telemarketing. Does that mean we should give up on legislative relief?
The state DNC lists seem to be the most effective solution thus far, so I guess the best option we have (in DNC states) is to be sure that your cell phone is also on the DNC list.
Autodialers produce, store and dial telephone numbers using a random or sequential number generator. Autodialers are usually used to place artificial (computerized) or prerecorded voice calls. Except for emergency calls or calls made with the prior express consent of the person being called, autodialers and any artificial or prerecorded voice messages may not be used to contact numbers assigned to:
any emergency telephone line;
the telephone line of any guest or patient room at a hospital, health care facility, home for the elderly, or similar establishment;
a paging service, cellular telephone service, or other radio common carrier service, if the person being called would be charged for the call; or
any other service for which the person being called would be charged for the call.
"...agree not to disable any technology required or utilized to serve or display such advertising"
Technology? What technology? Where is the description of the technology in question? How is an end user supposed to know which technologies are "required or utilized" if the "agreement" does not specifically include them? How is anyone supposed to know if they are in compliance with the "agreement"?
The "not to disable" part is also interesting. That's not the same thing as "enabling" the unmentioned "required or utilized" technologies (cookies and popups?). I don't have to accept cookies or enable popups, especially if I disabled those features before visiting their website. I don't have to install Flash. In fact, I can easily find a web browser that is simply too old to support any of their "technology".
And then we have the last line of defense: ignorance. "Gee whiz Citibank, I had no idea that I was prohibited from disabling W, X, Y, and Z to use your site. I have no idea what those thing are or why they don't work on my computer. Besides, the whole thing was set up by my brother in-law, who uses some other bank."
Now for an example of two wrongs making a right: Let's tell Citibank about Gator. Perhaps the marketing stupidity on both sides will cancel out.
It reduced the calls by 99%. Aside from occasional mortgage refinance idiots and clueless SNET morons, the teletrash is pretty much gone. What little gets past the DNC list will be ignored since I only answer when Caller ID shows me a name or number that I recognize.
Before the state offered the DNC list, I played around with a modem that just happened to include caller ID recognition. I wrote a quickie app to detect the "number unavailable" situation and have the modem go off-hook for 5 seconds and hang up. Any call that rang more than once was worth answering, because otherwise my program would have intercepted it. The sheer fun of hearing a single ring followed by silence made it all worthwhile. In a way, the state DNC list has deprived me of the enjoyment I used to get from my homemade teletrash defense system.
I heard RIAA was going to sue Usenet, because of all the binary MP3 postings. I'll bet the people at Usenet headquarters are all huddled under a table, trying to hide from the lawyers.
Not at all. He started off with a really dumb idea, but managed to avoid shooting himself in the foot. For the record, the agency I worked for was outside the jurisdiction of the executive branch, so this little adventure had no impact on me personally.
The outsourcing deal was ridiculed from day one. By the time they had it narrowed down to a single bidder, nearly half of all IT in the state had managed to exempt itself. Had Rowland (a Republican) gone through with the deal, the Democrats would have never stopped talking about the long-term commitment that never produced any savings. The same smoke-and-mirrors technology that the Republicans would have used to "prove" savings would work even better in reverse, as the Democrats "prove" cost overruns.
Instead, the decision was made to outsource a few projects where the scope and risk were more manageable. As usual, common sense will prevail, as soon as all other possibilities have been exhausted.
As it happens, Rowland is up for re-election. I would never have considered myself a Rowland fan, but the Democratic opponent is worse.
A big story around here involves CSC laying off a few thousand people who had been working as part of a huge ($1B) contract that involved outsourcing numerous IT functions for United Technologies Corp (UTC). Reading the press coverage, it looks like a classic outsourcing problem: The project scope widens as the competitors bid each other down. Ultimately, some lucky company finds themselves as the winner[?] of a huge obligation to supply all kinds of services for a price may not be realistic. Quite frankly, I find it hard to believe that traditional IT departments could ever waste as much money as the outsourcers claim they can save.
There is a time and place to outsource certain functions, but these comprehensive deals are for the birds. To me, the key is an exit strategy. If you don't have enough non-outsourced resources, you can never fire the outsourcers. You can expect service and price to shift from the ultra-competitive model of the intitial contract to the "gotcha" model of the renewal.
I worked for the State of Connecticut in 1998. At the time, Governor John Rowland was most anxious to outsource all of state government IT. He was already despised by the state labor unions, and this was simply the icing on the cake. Rowland campaigned very hard to convince a skeptical legislature that big money would be saved. In the end, one of the largest outsourcing proposals in history collapsed when Rowland realized that the bidders were promising savings in later years, and there was zero (or negative) savings in the early years. By the time those years arrived, the alleged "savings" would be mostly funny-money comparisions based on hypothetical pie-in-the-sky projections. If Rowland could have saved a single dollar up front, he would have happily taken the deal if for no other reason than to screw the unions. Outsourcing has been a tough sell in this area ever since. When you can't fool the politicians, who is left to fool?
The issue is not only localized jargon, I suspect some of the jargon is really an attempt to apply new words to old concepts, so as to minimize any prior art comparisons. How else can anyone explain the things that get patented in spite of obvious prior art?
There is an unintended side-effect of this misguided quest for a kamikaze CTO: This is an admission that Warner is "at war" with it's customers, and is desperately seeking reinforcements. Does anyone want to invest in a company that is "at war" with its customer base???
If it's all about profits, why didn't they negotiate [seriously] with Napster? If it's all about stock prices and CEO bonuses, why are they openly declaring war on their customers? If it's all about "war", why do they insist on playing a defensive game against P2P (instead of offering competitive non-crippled alteratives)? At frist glance, it looks like they are going on the offensive with the "legalized computer crime" intiative, but it's really a desperate defensive ploy! At first I thought the CTO advertisement was a joke, but after I thought about all the foolish choices the industry has made regarding technology, it all makes sense (in a warped sort of way.)
None of the heavy hitters in the IT industry will want this losing battle on their resumes, so it's a "tier-2" opportunity at best. This is a classic example of an IT job to be avoided:
The mission is a total loss from day one
Unreasonable expectations to solve a non-technical problem with technology
Inevitable reality will undermine the original mission (and the person in charge of it)
I view it as the techie equivalent of being Saddam's "Chief of Air Defense". Whoever gets this job is going to be thoroughly outgunned by the "evil ones".
Oddly enough, there is a way for someone to be successful in this job, but it involves more diplomacy and negotiation than technology. The problem to be solved is inside Warner, not outside.
If your friend's experience is any indication, then affiliate programs are about as reputable as Multi-Level-Marketing (MLM). I guess the answer is to avoid signing up unless the retailer pays in advance. Given the number of sleazy or bankrupt retailers these days, it's foolish to extend credit to them.
Technically, a sig is just a sig. By definition, it has nothing to do with the topic at hand. The Godwin effect is not invoked until someone takes the bait and starts discussing the sig. I guess you lose.
Assuming this becomes World War "T", where are the targets?
Hacking the RIAA website is amusing, but it's been done. And done. And done. They still run IIS so the next exploit is just a malformed URL away, but what's the point? A PR website that produces no revenue is hardly a strategic target. Ditto for Sony, Disney, MPAA, and the others. If this turns into a war I would hate to see the black hats waste their time on a bunch of meaningless, defenseless websites.
Full disclosure of affiliates at the time the transaction is concluded. If Amazon and the others actually showed which affiliate was going to get a commision, people would spot the monkey business right away. The consumer doesn't have to know the amount, but knowing which affiliate is getting the credit would make this a self-policing situation. If the stealware people are so bold as to falsify Amazon's message back to the constomer, then it's time for the laywers.
I don't know if the big online retailers actually care about affiliate programs or not. If they do, then stealware is intolerable. Otherwise, the programs are useless.
Actually, they will end up selling the US/English version. Most of the computers my company has in Hong Kong and mainland China are set up as US/English because our people need to produce documents in English to be e-mailed to the US. There are quite a few products with bugs that prevent them from working properly with anything other than US/English localization.
Our IT manager in Hong Kong told me that he thought that learning English was easier than learning to use a Chinese keyboard!
I have been to China, and believe me, piracy is a way of life there. You can get any Microsoft product for about $4 per disc. It seems that many people view it simply as buying a less expensive version, much as Americans might buy the store brand of paper towels instead of Bounty(tm). There was a time when the same attitude was common in the US. Ironically, copy protection simply added to the "possession of media == right to install" mindset.
The end result of all this piracy was massive market penetration, to the point where the average Chinese IT worker is "born and raised" on Microsoft products. It's easy to abandon industry standards in favor of the M$ proprietary trap when everything costs $4 per CD.
M$ first introduced product activation in Asia, allegedly because of the rampant piracy. When they realized how quickly the Chinese were prepared to drop M$ in favor of Linux, they couldn't give away the products fast enough.
It will be interesting to see how Microsoft handles product pricing in the various markets around the world. Their current pricing is encountering resistance from US companies, but not [yet] to the point of wholesale abandonment. US prices would be dead-on-arrival in less developed parts of the world, where the commitment to Microsoft is less, as is the availability of funds.
Sure, they can give away the product, but what happens when the market will tolerate a price that not free but far less than full price? Hypothetically, if Microsoft sells a product for $500 in the US and they blow it out for $5 in China, is that not a classic case of product dumping? If they do this, shouldn't I buy all my US licenses via my Beijing office?
From here on out, it will be damn hard for M$ to control who gets the freebies, who gets a steep discount, and who pays a fully-monopolized price.
Given IBM's patent portfolio, support for Linux, and disdain for Microsoft, I think any Microsoft patent-based action against Linux would result in a counter-offensive launched by IBM.
Think about it. Who has more patents, M$ or IBM? Anyone who can prove patent infringement against Microsoft would hit the proverbial jackpot because of the hundreds of millions of infringing software installations.
Besides, how does anyone sue Linux? Where is Linux? Who is Linux? What if the author of the allegedly infringing code is from a country that does not recognize software patents? What if the defendant's contact information is nothing more than a Hotmail spam trap?
If Microsoft get's obnoxious with patents, it will become initiate World War III among all the software patent holders.
"But MS aren't interested in making small amounts of money; they can't afford it."
They can't afford to do it now, but they can definitely afford it when the competition raises the stakes. If the emulator people (Wine + Crossover Office) have a major breakthrough, then Office runs with Linux whether M$ likes it or not.
Microsoft won't spend their own money for the privilege of throwing away the OS business. But when the competition ports Office anyway, it's a different decision: (1) Lose BOTH the OS and the desktop, or (2) Cut their losses on the OS and defend the desktop. I'm sure Microsoft would like to get $200 per seat for a Linux upgrade, as opposed to getting $0 when people buy Crossover Office and keep their MS Office version.
In ancient times, Digital Equipment had the opportunity to port their OS and hundreds of software products to the x86 platform. They ignored the opportunity because it would have killed their hardware revenue stream, and it would place them in price competition with the low-priced Microsoft offerings. The x86 commodity market was built around DOS and Windows because none of the heavy hitters in the OS business wanted to touch the price point of DOS/Windows. They couldn't afford to. After a while, these same heavy hitters couldn't afford to do anything at all, except build their own x86 boxes and resell Microsoft's OS.
There will always be certain things that you can't afford to do, but a little competition changes everything.
Neither M$ nor Linux are "terrorists". It is possible to have decentralized management and guerilla tactics without terrorism. Let's save the "T" word for those who have really earned it.
If Linux is like the Viet Cong, then Microsoft is like the U.S. government. Since Microsoft is becoming the U.S. government, my analogy is working even better than originally intended.
"It's not like Novell, it isn't going to run out of money..."
Steve almost has a clue. Linux has very little money, no central base to be attacked or bought, and it's massively distributed into residential basements and dark corners of IT departments.
This has to be Microsoft's worst nightmare -- an enemy that doesn't care about money or "winning" market share. An enemy that takes Microsoft's "clone and lowball" strategy and turns it back against them. Indeed, Linux is the Viet Cong of the internet.
I find it fascinating to watch Microsoft fumble and bumble with ineffective strategies against an enemy that they truly don't understand. When Microsoft decides to concede the OS battle and tries to take over the Linux desktop, then I'll be worried about the monopoly being perpetuated. They keep denying any intention of porting Office to Linux, so maybe it's Microsoft that will run out of money.
"I am alarmed at all this closeness with Microsoft lately..."
You should be. I remember when Digital Equipment was this close with Microsoft and they convinced M$ to port NT to Alpha. Same thing -- big investment -- deployment of thousands of consultants and support people. Look at how well that worked.
What little remains of DEC now belongs to HP, via Compaq. Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.
Slashdot Mirror
"The writer that we hired; she works for us."
But it gets even more interesting. Maybe she is really a he (and perhaps not even a freelance writer at all), since it is "Don Funk" whose user folder appears to be used in the screenshot.
After they stopped laughing, our IT staff predicted that this page would be gone in 24 hours.
Like I said, navigation, air traffic control, and pilot skill can be addressed. However, unless they have folding rotor blades, the choppers will take up more space than cars, and will not co-exist in a traditional parking garage. Parking a car is enough of a hassle as it is.
What kills the idea is that the low-tech, non-automated helicopter (or airplane) is priced way beyond the reach of the average consumer. Private aviation was not a cost-effective concept to begin with. Adding all of these gizmos isn't going to make it any cheaper.
"8. Stupidity [items A-E]"
The free market discourages these things because the low-tech versions are cost-effective. Consider the hybrid gas/electric cars. Until gas costs over $3/gallon, the fuel savings won't cover the increased cost of the car or the replacement batteries. Of all the ideas you suggested, none of them would cost less than the low-tech alternatives.
BTW, I have a cell phone, fax machine, microwave oven, TV remote, alarm clock, and VCR. I use all of them without difficulty. How much would I pay for an "easier to use" version? Zero.
"9. NIMBYs [closing airports?]" The website you quoted starts off with a story of general aviation airports closing in Hawaii. Has it occurred to anyone that the value of land is the key issue? When condos, malls, and parking garages generate more revenue than small airports, what do you think is going to happen?
"10. The FAA" Guilty as charged. If they attacked the cost of aviation as vigorously as safety, we could have more flying and less driving, for the same money. Instead, the cost of general aviation is killing the industry and making small airports more attractive for other uses. Of course, I can't think of any examples of the federal government reducing the cost of anything.
Even if we go hog-wild deploying technology in pursuit of computer-assisted flight, it will still cost too much, humans will still be human, the weather will still interfere, and it gets dark at night. That's why general aviation is for smart people with deep pockets who fly in good weather, mostly during the day. The rest of us fly commercial, and only when it makes economic sense.
1. Cost (capital and operating)
2. Pilot skill (individuals flying their own?)
3. Navigation
4. Parking (surely not in a multi-level garage!)
5. Air traffic control
6. Bad weather
7. Night
Aside from navigation and air traffic control, most of these problems are as serious today as when the helicopter was invented.
Sikorsky was too smart not to realize that it was never going to be a mass-market item. He was either fooling investors or fooling the government into subsidizing a project.
If we were so motivated, we could automate enough of helicopter operation to solve problems 2/3/5, but 1/4/6/7 will not go away.
You could say the same thing about any law that limits telemarketing. Does that mean we should give up on legislative relief?
The state DNC lists seem to be the most effective solution thus far, so I guess the best option we have (in DNC states) is to be sure that your cell phone is also on the DNC list.
Autodialers produce, store and dial telephone numbers using a random or sequential number generator. Autodialers are usually used to place artificial (computerized) or prerecorded voice calls. Except for emergency calls or calls made with the prior express consent of the person being called, autodialers and any artificial or prerecorded voice messages may not be used to contact numbers assigned to:
"...agree not to disable any technology required or utilized to serve or display such advertising"
Technology? What technology? Where is the description of the technology in question? How is an end user supposed to know which technologies are "required or utilized" if the "agreement" does not specifically include them? How is anyone supposed to know if they are in compliance with the "agreement"?
The "not to disable" part is also interesting. That's not the same thing as "enabling" the unmentioned "required or utilized" technologies (cookies and popups?). I don't have to accept cookies or enable popups, especially if I disabled those features before visiting their website. I don't have to install Flash. In fact, I can easily find a web browser that is simply too old to support any of their "technology".
And then we have the last line of defense: ignorance. "Gee whiz Citibank, I had no idea that I was prohibited from disabling W, X, Y, and Z to use your site. I have no idea what those thing are or why they don't work on my computer. Besides, the whole thing was set up by my brother in-law, who uses some other bank."
Now for an example of two wrongs making a right: Let's tell Citibank about Gator. Perhaps the marketing stupidity on both sides will cancel out.
It reduced the calls by 99%. Aside from occasional mortgage refinance idiots and clueless SNET morons, the teletrash is pretty much gone. What little gets past the DNC list will be ignored since I only answer when Caller ID shows me a name or number that I recognize.
Before the state offered the DNC list, I played around with a modem that just happened to include caller ID recognition. I wrote a quickie app to detect the "number unavailable" situation and have the modem go off-hook for 5 seconds and hang up. Any call that rang more than once was worth answering, because otherwise my program would have intercepted it. The sheer fun of hearing a single ring followed by silence made it all worthwhile. In a way, the state DNC list has deprived me of the enjoyment I used to get from my homemade teletrash defense system.
I heard RIAA was going to sue Usenet, because of all the binary MP3 postings. I'll bet the people at Usenet headquarters are all huddled under a table, trying to hide from the lawyers.
Not at all. He started off with a really dumb idea, but managed to avoid shooting himself in the foot. For the record, the agency I worked for was outside the jurisdiction of the executive branch, so this little adventure had no impact on me personally.
The outsourcing deal was ridiculed from day one. By the time they had it narrowed down to a single bidder, nearly half of all IT in the state had managed to exempt itself. Had Rowland (a Republican) gone through with the deal, the Democrats would have never stopped talking about the long-term commitment that never produced any savings. The same smoke-and-mirrors technology that the Republicans would have used to "prove" savings would work even better in reverse, as the Democrats "prove" cost overruns.
Instead, the decision was made to outsource a few projects where the scope and risk were more manageable. As usual, common sense will prevail, as soon as all other possibilities have been exhausted.
As it happens, Rowland is up for re-election. I would never have considered myself a Rowland fan, but the Democratic opponent is worse.
A big story around here involves CSC laying off a few thousand people who had been working as part of a huge ($1B) contract that involved outsourcing numerous IT functions for United Technologies Corp (UTC). Reading the press coverage, it looks like a classic outsourcing problem: The project scope widens as the competitors bid each other down. Ultimately, some lucky company finds themselves as the winner[?] of a huge obligation to supply all kinds of services for a price may not be realistic. Quite frankly, I find it hard to believe that traditional IT departments could ever waste as much money as the outsourcers claim they can save.
There is a time and place to outsource certain functions, but these comprehensive deals are for the birds. To me, the key is an exit strategy. If you don't have enough non-outsourced resources, you can never fire the outsourcers. You can expect service and price to shift from the ultra-competitive model of the intitial contract to the "gotcha" model of the renewal.
I worked for the State of Connecticut in 1998. At the time, Governor John Rowland was most anxious to outsource all of state government IT. He was already despised by the state labor unions, and this was simply the icing on the cake. Rowland campaigned very hard to convince a skeptical legislature that big money would be saved. In the end, one of the largest outsourcing proposals in history collapsed when Rowland realized that the bidders were promising savings in later years, and there was zero (or negative) savings in the early years. By the time those years arrived, the alleged "savings" would be mostly funny-money comparisions based on hypothetical pie-in-the-sky projections. If Rowland could have saved a single dollar up front, he would have happily taken the deal if for no other reason than to screw the unions. Outsourcing has been a tough sell in this area ever since. When you can't fool the politicians, who is left to fool?
The issue is not only localized jargon, I suspect some of the jargon is really an attempt to apply new words to old concepts, so as to minimize any prior art comparisons. How else can anyone explain the things that get patented in spite of obvious prior art?
If it's all about profits, why didn't they negotiate [seriously] with Napster? If it's all about stock prices and CEO bonuses, why are they openly declaring war on their customers? If it's all about "war", why do they insist on playing a defensive game against P2P (instead of offering competitive non-crippled alteratives)? At frist glance, it looks like they are going on the offensive with the "legalized computer crime" intiative, but it's really a desperate defensive ploy! At first I thought the CTO advertisement was a joke, but after I thought about all the foolish choices the industry has made regarding technology, it all makes sense (in a warped sort of way.)
None of the heavy hitters in the IT industry will want this losing battle on their resumes, so it's a "tier-2" opportunity at best. This is a classic example of an IT job to be avoided:
I view it as the techie equivalent of being Saddam's "Chief of Air Defense". Whoever gets this job is going to be thoroughly outgunned by the "evil ones".
Oddly enough, there is a way for someone to be successful in this job, but it involves more diplomacy and negotiation than technology. The problem to be solved is inside Warner, not outside.
If your friend's experience is any indication, then affiliate programs are about as reputable as Multi-Level-Marketing (MLM). I guess the answer is to avoid signing up unless the retailer pays in advance. Given the number of sleazy or bankrupt retailers these days, it's foolish to extend credit to them.
Technically, a sig is just a sig. By definition, it has nothing to do with the topic at hand. The Godwin effect is not invoked until someone takes the bait and starts discussing the sig. I guess you lose.
Assuming this becomes World War "T", where are the targets?
Hacking the RIAA website is amusing, but it's been done. And done. And done. They still run IIS so the next exploit is just a malformed URL away, but what's the point? A PR website that produces no revenue is hardly a strategic target. Ditto for Sony, Disney, MPAA, and the others. If this turns into a war I would hate to see the black hats waste their time on a bunch of meaningless, defenseless websites.
"And probably a member of the hitler youth."
I have no such affiliation. In fact, I'm not a fan of either Microsoft or Hitler.
Annoying the occasional moron makes it all worthwhile. Go play with your X box.
Full disclosure of affiliates at the time the transaction is concluded. If Amazon and the others actually showed which affiliate was going to get a commision, people would spot the monkey business right away. The consumer doesn't have to know the amount, but knowing which affiliate is getting the credit would make this a self-policing situation. If the stealware people are so bold as to falsify Amazon's message back to the constomer, then it's time for the laywers.
I don't know if the big online retailers actually care about affiliate programs or not. If they do, then stealware is intolerable. Otherwise, the programs are useless.
Actually, they will end up selling the US/English version. Most of the computers my company has in Hong Kong and mainland China are set up as US/English because our people need to produce documents in English to be e-mailed to the US. There are quite a few products with bugs that prevent them from working properly with anything other than US/English localization.
Our IT manager in Hong Kong told me that he thought that learning English was easier than learning to use a Chinese keyboard!
I have been to China, and believe me, piracy is a way of life there. You can get any Microsoft product for about $4 per disc. It seems that many people view it simply as buying a less expensive version, much as Americans might buy the store brand of paper towels instead of Bounty(tm). There was a time when the same attitude was common in the US. Ironically, copy protection simply added to the "possession of media == right to install" mindset.
The end result of all this piracy was massive market penetration, to the point where the average Chinese IT worker is "born and raised" on Microsoft products. It's easy to abandon industry standards in favor of the M$ proprietary trap when everything costs $4 per CD.
M$ first introduced product activation in Asia, allegedly because of the rampant piracy. When they realized how quickly the Chinese were prepared to drop M$ in favor of Linux, they couldn't give away the products fast enough.
It will be interesting to see how Microsoft handles product pricing in the various markets around the world. Their current pricing is encountering resistance from US companies, but not [yet] to the point of wholesale abandonment. US prices would be dead-on-arrival in less developed parts of the world, where the commitment to Microsoft is less, as is the availability of funds.
Sure, they can give away the product, but what happens when the market will tolerate a price that not free but far less than full price? Hypothetically, if Microsoft sells a product for $500 in the US and they blow it out for $5 in China, is that not a classic case of product dumping? If they do this, shouldn't I buy all my US licenses via my Beijing office?
From here on out, it will be damn hard for M$ to control who gets the freebies, who gets a steep discount, and who pays a fully-monopolized price.
Given IBM's patent portfolio, support for Linux, and disdain for Microsoft, I think any Microsoft patent-based action against Linux would result in a counter-offensive launched by IBM.
Think about it. Who has more patents, M$ or IBM? Anyone who can prove patent infringement against Microsoft would hit the proverbial jackpot because of the hundreds of millions of infringing software installations.
Besides, how does anyone sue Linux? Where is Linux? Who is Linux? What if the author of the allegedly infringing code is from a country that does not recognize software patents? What if the defendant's contact information is nothing more than a Hotmail spam trap?
If Microsoft get's obnoxious with patents, it will become initiate World War III among all the software patent holders.
"But MS aren't interested in making small amounts of money; they can't afford it."
They can't afford to do it now, but they can definitely afford it when the competition raises the stakes. If the emulator people (Wine + Crossover Office) have a major breakthrough, then Office runs with Linux whether M$ likes it or not.
Microsoft won't spend their own money for the privilege of throwing away the OS business. But when the competition ports Office anyway, it's a different decision: (1) Lose BOTH the OS and the desktop, or (2) Cut their losses on the OS and defend the desktop. I'm sure Microsoft would like to get $200 per seat for a Linux upgrade, as opposed to getting $0 when people buy Crossover Office and keep their MS Office version.
In ancient times, Digital Equipment had the opportunity to port their OS and hundreds of software products to the x86 platform. They ignored the opportunity because it would have killed their hardware revenue stream, and it would place them in price competition with the low-priced Microsoft offerings. The x86 commodity market was built around DOS and Windows because none of the heavy hitters in the OS business wanted to touch the price point of DOS/Windows. They couldn't afford to. After a while, these same heavy hitters couldn't afford to do anything at all, except build their own x86 boxes and resell Microsoft's OS.
There will always be certain things that you can't afford to do, but a little competition changes everything.
Neither M$ nor Linux are "terrorists". It is possible to have decentralized management and guerilla tactics without terrorism. Let's save the "T" word for those who have really earned it.
If Linux is like the Viet Cong, then Microsoft is like the U.S. government. Since Microsoft is becoming the U.S. government, my analogy is working even better than originally intended.
"It's not like Novell, it isn't going to run out of money..."
Steve almost has a clue. Linux has very little money, no central base to be attacked or bought, and it's massively distributed into residential basements and dark corners of IT departments.
This has to be Microsoft's worst nightmare -- an enemy that doesn't care about money or "winning" market share. An enemy that takes Microsoft's "clone and lowball" strategy and turns it back against them. Indeed, Linux is the Viet Cong of the internet.
I find it fascinating to watch Microsoft fumble and bumble with ineffective strategies against an enemy that they truly don't understand. When Microsoft decides to concede the OS battle and tries to take over the Linux desktop, then I'll be worried about the monopoly being perpetuated. They keep denying any intention of porting Office to Linux, so maybe it's Microsoft that will run out of money.
"I am alarmed at all this closeness with Microsoft lately..."
You should be. I remember when Digital Equipment was this close with Microsoft and they convinced M$ to port NT to Alpha. Same thing -- big investment -- deployment of thousands of consultants and support people. Look at how well that worked.
What little remains of DEC now belongs to HP, via Compaq. Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.