I too am amazed that adults find these books good reading. As a big fantasy book collector, I glanced at one of these books to see if it might appeal to me. The first words of text I saw were:
I suggest people consult some facts before making pronouncements of Microsoft's impending doom. Look at Microsoft's earnings and think for a moment about where that company gets its money. Go here then you can begin to understand exactly how Microsoft is dying.
Microsoft's most recent quarterly earnings for Three Months Ended September 30 per region:
South Pacific and Americas Region: 2,433 million
Europe, Middle East, and Africa Region: 1,105 million
Asia Region: 604 million
Now for the same period last year:
South Pacific and Americas Region: 2,154 million
Europe, Middle East, and Africa Region: 1,085 million
Asia Region: 708 million
The only region in which MS earnings actually went up in this comparison is in the United States of America. The rest of the world is quickly figuring out that it doesn't need to be paying a tax to Microsoft. The fat US corporations are the only ones who can still afford MS software. That's why IBM says over half of its DB2 installations in China run on Linux. There is a similarity between US corporate use of Microsoft tax-ware and the bloated US car industry of the 1970s and 1980s. The US car industry had to reform in order to compete. The same will probably happen in regard to wasting revenue on tax-ware given the recent economic downturn.
I am using QT3 to write a cross platform legal case managment system. I am going to release a version of it that simply does contact, calendar and mail. It will have an Outlook style interface.
Using the database support found in QT3, this application will use PostgreSQL or an ODBC database as its back-end. It will be multi-user. It will allow for the sharing of contacts and calendars. Who knows I might even put in KDE support (someone had to provide an alternative to the anemically developed Aethera).
I am looking for anyone who might like to contribute to this project.
Re:Interesting use of statistics here..
on
Microsoft's Future
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Last quarter Microsoft's earning declined from 6.5 billion to 6.1 billion. A 7% decline.
Microsoft's earnings over the past 4 quarters have been flat. That's right MS is no longer a high growth company. They have consistently earned between 6.5 and 6.1 billion for the past 4 quarters.
What's really neat is that Microsoft's earnings outside of the US have consistently fallen the past 4 quarters. A decline that has only been made up for by an increase in their US earnings.
The biggest weapon that will smite the mighty Microsoft corporate juggernaut is its own accounting practices.
Microsoft's earnings declined from 6.5 billion two quarter's ago to the just released 6.1 billion results from the previous quarter. A decline from quarter to quarter in Microsoft's earnings hasn't occured in a VERY long time. Microsoft hasn't seen a decrease in earnings like this since their pre-DOS days. We have just witnessed the ebbing of the largest and fastest growing company that has ever existed.
Now we all know that tech earnings across the board are down, but no other company depends like Microsoft on steadily increasing stock valuations. Even given the decrease in PC shipments, we have seen the launch of Microsoft's new licensing model and the launch of Office XP (many months ago) have a neglible affect on their bottom line.
Look at their numbers in markets outside the US. In every market outside the US their earnings really tanked this quarter. Without the corporate US licensing market to prop it up, Microsoft wold be in even more serious pain.
The simple fact of the matter is if Microsoft's stock doesn't keep going up, BAD things will happen to it. It will probably need to pay out three to four billion in ill advised put options. Microsoft is going to have a hard time retaining staff as they don't pay their people worth a SH*T. Its more than obvious to their staff and to the investment community that Microsoft is no longer a high growth company. If they finally are forced to pay their people what they are worth, their earnings will tank even further.
What's really funny is that Microsoft predicted 7.1 billion revenue for the current, just started, quarter. This is clearly based on BIG sales of XP and XBox. If either of those products don't do well, and neither is looking like it can makes those numbers at this point, then no one will be wanting to hold MSFT stock come Dec. 30.
Anyone know how Linus' book is selling? Is that information available on the web?
With the likely dissolution of Transmeta in about one year's time (at their current cash burn rate) it will be nice to see Linus get this money. From reading his book, I got the impression that Linus spent most of his stock option money on his house.
Also we might as well begin this speculation now: where will Linus work after Transmeta?
It is now easy to predict that Mandrake will go down as the biggest Linux distro screw up of all time.
(1) Their management is obviously incompetent. This group of French business dum asses handed the most popular (at least by download stats) Linux distro over to a bunch of dot-bomb e-learning idiots here in the States. They later fired that group. Who knows how much money that cost.
(2) Mandrake has to have the worst marketing of all the Linux distros. There is a reason that no big OEMs that Mandrake seriously. This distro has attempted to sell an operating system that people will use to run their businesses while the main Mandrake marketing motif is a drunken looking goofy version of Tux. As for the Mandrake icons and graphics all I can say is it great that Gael Duval's sister has found work.
(3) The Q&A that you see from the older distros like SuSE and RedHat just isn't there. Mandrake 8.1 uses DevFS. While an admirable technical pioneering effort, you just have to look at the Mandrake mailing lists to see that DevFS isn't ready for prime time. It is pretty much a disaster as there are significant hardware configs that DevFS can't handle. Mandrake went from the distro that has the best hardware support to the distro that has the worst. And this is supposed to be a Newbie Linux? 8.1 shipped with a kernel with a VERY broken VM. I have locked up my box many times now as the kernel after taking all 256 megs of swap dies a horrible death.
EU IT had enough with Microsoft already
on
EU May Fine Microsoft
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Microsoft's profits last year in its European, Middle East and Africa region:
4.8 Billion.
Microsoft's profits from two years ago in its European, Middle East and Africa region:
5.1 Billion.
This was the only region in which MS profits declined over this period.
What is the process for syncing the Linus branch with the AC branch? Other than the occassional note from Linus about syncing, how is anyone to know that the AC fixes have been included in the Linus branch. Given that Alan Cox is a full time kernel hacker, it seems that his branch is more active.
Perhaps the kernel needs a Linus/AC syncing squad.
The management from SuSE and Mandrake are actually competing to see who can manage a company worse.
Mandrake:
(1) Hand over control of operations to an American group who decide that Mandrake is now all about E-Learning. Later, fire said group when it becomes obvious that MandrakeExpert won't be bringing in the bacon.
(2) Hire an elementry school child to design the Mandrake logo and graphics.
SuSE:
(1) Waste and overspend existing investment dollars by building a consultancy group that is about 1/3 larger than the market can support.
(2) Original school child who designed logo and marketing material is stolen away by rival distro.
Can someone please explain how regulating an abusive monopoloy like Microsoft hurts the economy?
Can someone please explain the linkage that this Judge sees between the WTC attack and allowing Microsoft to continue its crime spree?
Microsoft and the Microsoft Tax is, in fact, a drag on the economy. Microsoft was fairly successful at making millions of dollars for a few of their share holders and employees. Other than that, they pay no taxes and only leach money from the economy and corporations that they have enslaved on the upgrade treadmill.
What products does Microsoft make that aren't commoditized and couldn't easily be replaced? None.
The only hope that we have now, once this Judge and the DOJ have capitulated is that the States will seek redress of this case. Perhaps companies like AOL will take it upon themselves to file legal action following this settlement debacle. Also, the US legal system will be looking rather pathetic after the EU and places like Korea crack down while Microsoft skates in the States.
I have asked the same question to Mandrake many months prior to 8.1. They said the Mandrake Control Center would be integrated into KDE CC next version. Lo and behold, it isn't as of 8.1.
Mandrake does alot of good things, they push features and new code. However, the Mandrake management is not what I would call highly organized. For gods sake, the French management handed control over to a US group (which they later fired) that wanted to turn Mandrake into a E-Learing outfit.
Just look at Mandrake's marketing and look and feel. It pretty much completely sucks! They recently had a poll concerning the Mandrake logo. 30% of respondents said that the Mandrake logo and look and feel is Childish. And it is. Its amazing that this distro has gone has far as it has with a loopy, drunken looking Tux on the front of all of its boxes. Why they bother to put out a "Mandrake Corporate" product when clearly no one takes Mandrake seriously is beyond me.
Mandrake does little or no stress testing of the distro like the kind that Red Hat does. If they did, they certainly wouldn't be shipping with a 2.4.8 kernel. That kernel has a famously broken VM that will only result in bad quality PR for Linux. Does Mandrake care?
One good OEM event: HP recently started selling boxes with Mandrake as an install option.
Sanders, the AMD CEO, is so hungry to take market share from Intel that he is selling AMDs CPUs for lower than AMD should be.
Its highly possible considering (1) the tech downturn and (2) the fact that Intel has such a lock on the corporate market, that AMDs low as you can go pricing scheme is only hurting AMD.
Re:Okay, sure... good points but incomplete...
on
Linux on the Desktop
·
· Score: 1
Man, you wasted 15 minutes typing in a whole lot of nonsense.
(1) There are more support companies out there that will support a Linux based network than I can begin to count.
(2) Easy to install and more scaleable alternatives to Exchange exist. Domino, OpenMail, Bynari's Exchange replacement.
(3) You can buy a simple Linux based servers like the Cube (from Sun) that are all GUI based configurable. They provide mail, samba based Domain logins, file sharing etc. Installation of these servers is trivial as they were designed for the small business.
(4) Simple linux alternatives exist to other issues that you brought up but explaining them to you would probably be a waste of time.
>>stocks and assets and other things that cannot be readily transferred into cash
Why can't stocks be readily transferred into cash?
Why can't investments in debt and equity securities be readily tranferred into cash?
Do you notice the largish figures on the report listed under investments? That's where the 300 million cash figure comes from.
Look, I know that its confusing accountant-speak to refer to these things as cash, but thats how it works.
Microsoft has 30 billion in "cash". That 30 billion isn't in one big checking account. Look at Microsoft's 10K here. Notice this line on that document:
Investment analysis generally gives a larger meaning to the term "cash" than simply the dollars that a company has in the bank. This is because certain things like equities are easily transferable to dollars in the bank.
The dollars (Cash and cash equivalents) that RedHat has in the bank at any point in time is relatively meaningless. You have to look broader at the stuff that is easily transferred back into dollars in the bank.
That's why Szulik can claim here that RedHat has 300 million cash. Because if it wanted to it could somewhat quickly have those dollars in the bank. But dollars in the bank don't do much for you. RedHat earned 4 million in interest and other payments because it didn't foolishly have its assest in "cash and cash equivalents".
>>Their cash reserves are also drying up pretty quickly.
Wrong.
Companies with no cash reserves don't buy back shares like RedHat is doing now. How exactly would they buy the shares without cash?
They increased their cash reserves by 5 million. From 294 to 299 million. RedHat has a large pot of cash that they are sitting on. This is primarily how their current stock price can be justified in light of decreased earnings and a somewhat lacking business plan.
>>which it appears DO includes many/most of the Afghani people will declare "holy war"
You are wrong here. The majority of Afghans do not support the Taliban. The Taliban controls Afghanistan primarily because the people had tired of war and the existing power/political structure had been destroyed by the war.
>>the culprits are already dead, they were on the planes. There's nobody left to kill
So what you are saying is all four groups of terrorists independently planned and funded this murderous assault with no assistance or coordination from an outside source, be it Bin Laden or others?
Everyone who had anything to do with putting those planes into the WTC died in the crashes?
That is total and complete BULLSHIT.
You are an idiot. What's more, if you think Bin Laden has no moral and legal culpability when people who have trained in his "camps" go out and murder, then you, sir, are no better than those murderous scum.
I spit on your blind, foolish, rationalizing, sorry excuse for a human being hide.
Boris Spassky on Fischer's sanity
on
Bobby Fischer Online?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
This bit of text in the usenet article was interesting:
---
Boris considered it highly probable that I had come up against the elusive genius. When I said that, contrary to popular perception, he didn't sound mad, at all, Boris replied "Of course he isn't."
---
Boris isn't exactly a mental health expert. This is the same Boris Spassky who during the matches in 1972 broke down and accused Fischer of having mind-altering electronics installed in his arm chair.
Its not just you. Journalists need simplistic button holes for complex subjects or their brains explode.
They should also use this one:
"Dos, a copyright violating copy of CP/M that was bought for a song 23 years ago this month by Harvard drop out Bill Games, still runs the majority of computers across the world, as it crashes constantly and costs the world billions in lost productivity every year, it is little known why it is the dominant software used on personal computers."
Actually, the reason that people don't travel from former communist countries such as the Russian Federation is because the government doesn't let the people out. It seems that once poeple actually see first hand what life is like in the west, they don't return.
90% of visa applications to vacation in the west are REFUSED by the Russian government.
We need to petition the Russian officials to arrest employees of Adobe. As some have said, it is illegal to for Adobe to distribute software in Russia that cannot be copied (for backup purposes for example).
Slashdot Mirror
I too am amazed that adults find these books good reading. As a big fantasy book collector, I glanced at one of these books to see if it might appeal to me. The first words of text I saw were:
"Urrg, Troll boogers."
I didn't read any further.
Microsoft is DOOMED.
I suggest people consult some facts before making pronouncements of Microsoft's impending doom. Look at Microsoft's earnings and think for a moment about where that company gets its money. Go here then you can begin to understand exactly how Microsoft is dying.
Microsoft's most recent quarterly earnings for Three Months Ended September 30 per region:
South Pacific and Americas Region: 2,433 million
Europe, Middle East, and Africa Region: 1,105 million
Asia Region: 604 million
Now for the same period last year:
South Pacific and Americas Region: 2,154 million
Europe, Middle East, and Africa Region: 1,085 million
Asia Region: 708 million
The only region in which MS earnings actually went up in this comparison is in the United States of America. The rest of the world is quickly figuring out that it doesn't need to be paying a tax to Microsoft. The fat US corporations are the only ones who can still afford MS software. That's why IBM says over half of its DB2 installations in China run on Linux. There is a similarity between US corporate use of Microsoft tax-ware and the bloated US car industry of the 1970s and 1980s. The US car industry had to reform in order to compete. The same will probably happen in regard to wasting revenue on tax-ware given the recent economic downturn.
>>when intelligent people make these kinds of comments, it confuses me
Who accused CmdrTaco of being intelligent? That's the same guy who gave a good review to The Phantom Menace.
Clearly, CmdrTaco has limited anaylytical and thinking skills.
I am using QT3 to write a cross platform legal case managment system. I am going to release a version of it that simply does contact, calendar and mail. It will have an Outlook style interface.
Screen shot: http://dunsinane.net/bryan/virtualaw.png
Using the database support found in QT3, this application will use PostgreSQL or an ODBC database as its back-end. It will be multi-user. It will allow for the sharing of contacts and calendars. Who knows I might even put in KDE support (someone had to provide an alternative to the anemically developed Aethera).
I am looking for anyone who might like to contribute to this project.
Last quarter Microsoft's earning declined from 6.5 billion to 6.1 billion. A 7% decline.
Microsoft's earnings over the past 4 quarters have been flat. That's right MS is no longer a high growth company. They have consistently earned between 6.5 and 6.1 billion for the past 4 quarters.
What's really neat is that Microsoft's earnings outside of the US have consistently fallen the past 4 quarters. A decline that has only been made up for by an increase in their US earnings.
The biggest weapon that will smite the mighty Microsoft corporate juggernaut is its own accounting practices.
Microsoft's earnings declined from 6.5 billion two quarter's ago to the just released 6.1 billion results from the previous quarter. A decline from quarter to quarter in Microsoft's earnings hasn't occured in a VERY long time. Microsoft hasn't seen a decrease in earnings like this since their pre-DOS days. We have just witnessed the ebbing of the largest and fastest growing company that has ever existed.
Now we all know that tech earnings across the board are down, but no other company depends like Microsoft on steadily increasing stock valuations. Even given the decrease in PC shipments, we have seen the launch of Microsoft's new licensing model and the launch of Office XP (many months ago) have a neglible affect on their bottom line.
Look at their numbers in markets outside the US. In every market outside the US their earnings really tanked this quarter. Without the corporate US licensing market to prop it up, Microsoft wold be in even more serious pain.
The simple fact of the matter is if Microsoft's stock doesn't keep going up, BAD things will happen to it. It will probably need to pay out three to four billion in ill advised put options. Microsoft is going to have a hard time retaining staff as they don't pay their people worth a SH*T. Its more than obvious to their staff and to the investment community that Microsoft is no longer a high growth company. If they finally are forced to pay their people what they are worth, their earnings will tank even further.
What's really funny is that Microsoft predicted 7.1 billion revenue for the current, just started, quarter. This is clearly based on BIG sales of XP and XBox. If either of those products don't do well, and neither is looking like it can makes those numbers at this point, then no one will be wanting to hold MSFT stock come Dec. 30.
Anyone know how Linus' book is selling? Is that information available on the web?
With the likely dissolution of Transmeta in about one year's time (at their current cash burn rate) it will be nice to see Linus get this money. From reading his book, I got the impression that Linus spent most of his stock option money on his house.
Also we might as well begin this speculation now: where will Linus work after Transmeta?
It is now easy to predict that Mandrake will go down as the biggest Linux distro screw up of all time.
(1) Their management is obviously incompetent. This group of French business dum asses handed the most popular (at least by download stats) Linux distro over to a bunch of dot-bomb e-learning idiots here in the States. They later fired that group. Who knows how much money that cost.
(2) Mandrake has to have the worst marketing of all the Linux distros. There is a reason that no big OEMs that Mandrake seriously. This distro has attempted to sell an operating system that people will use to run their businesses while the main Mandrake marketing motif is a drunken looking goofy version of Tux. As for the Mandrake icons and graphics all I can say is it great that Gael Duval's sister has found work.
(3) The Q&A that you see from the older distros like SuSE and RedHat just isn't there. Mandrake 8.1 uses DevFS. While an admirable technical pioneering effort, you just have to look at the Mandrake mailing lists to see that DevFS isn't ready for prime time. It is pretty much a disaster as there are significant hardware configs that DevFS can't handle. Mandrake went from the distro that has the best hardware support to the distro that has the worst. And this is supposed to be a Newbie Linux? 8.1 shipped with a kernel with a VERY broken VM. I have locked up my box many times now as the kernel after taking all 256 megs of swap dies a horrible death.
Microsoft's profits last year in its European, Middle East and Africa region:
4.8 Billion.
Microsoft's profits from two years ago in its European, Middle East and Africa region:
5.1 Billion.
This was the only region in which MS profits declined over this period.
Microsoft's Quarterly Reports
What is the process for syncing the Linus branch with the AC branch? Other than the occassional note from Linus about syncing, how is anyone to know that the AC fixes have been included in the Linus branch. Given that Alan Cox is a full time kernel hacker, it seems that his branch is more active.
Perhaps the kernel needs a Linus/AC syncing squad.
The management from SuSE and Mandrake are actually competing to see who can manage a company worse.
Mandrake:
(1) Hand over control of operations to an American group who decide that Mandrake is now all about E-Learning. Later, fire said group when it becomes obvious that MandrakeExpert won't be bringing in the bacon.
(2) Hire an elementry school child to design the Mandrake logo and graphics.
SuSE:
(1) Waste and overspend existing investment dollars by building a consultancy group that is about 1/3 larger than the market can support.
(2) Original school child who designed logo and marketing material is stolen away by rival distro.
Can someone please explain how regulating an abusive monopoloy like Microsoft hurts the economy?
Can someone please explain the linkage that this Judge sees between the WTC attack and allowing Microsoft to continue its crime spree?
Microsoft and the Microsoft Tax is, in fact, a drag on the economy. Microsoft was fairly successful at making millions of dollars for a few of their share holders and employees. Other than that, they pay no taxes and only leach money from the economy and corporations that they have enslaved on the upgrade treadmill.
What products does Microsoft make that aren't commoditized and couldn't easily be replaced? None.
The only hope that we have now, once this Judge and the DOJ have capitulated is that the States will seek redress of this case. Perhaps companies like AOL will take it upon themselves to file legal action following this settlement debacle. Also, the US legal system will be looking rather pathetic after the EU and places like Korea crack down while Microsoft skates in the States.
I have asked the same question to Mandrake many months prior to 8.1. They said the Mandrake Control Center would be integrated into KDE CC next version. Lo and behold, it isn't as of 8.1.
Mandrake does alot of good things, they push features and new code. However, the Mandrake management is not what I would call highly organized. For gods sake, the French management handed control over to a US group (which they later fired) that wanted to turn Mandrake into a E-Learing outfit.
Just look at Mandrake's marketing and look and feel. It pretty much completely sucks! They recently had a poll concerning the Mandrake logo. 30% of respondents said that the Mandrake logo and look and feel is Childish. And it is. Its amazing that this distro has gone has far as it has with a loopy, drunken looking Tux on the front of all of its boxes. Why they bother to put out a "Mandrake Corporate" product when clearly no one takes Mandrake seriously is beyond me.
Mandrake does little or no stress testing of the distro like the kind that Red Hat does. If they did, they certainly wouldn't be shipping with a 2.4.8 kernel. That kernel has a famously broken VM that will only result in bad quality PR for Linux. Does Mandrake care?
One good OEM event: HP recently started selling boxes with Mandrake as an install option.
Sanders, the AMD CEO, is so hungry to take market share from Intel that he is selling AMDs CPUs for lower than AMD should be.
Its highly possible considering (1) the tech downturn and (2) the fact that Intel has such a lock on the corporate market, that AMDs low as you can go pricing scheme is only hurting AMD.
Man, you wasted 15 minutes typing in a whole lot of nonsense.
(1) There are more support companies out there that will support a Linux based network than I can begin to count.
(2) Easy to install and more scaleable alternatives to Exchange exist. Domino, OpenMail, Bynari's Exchange replacement.
(3) You can buy a simple Linux based servers like the Cube (from Sun) that are all GUI based configurable. They provide mail, samba based Domain logins, file sharing etc. Installation of these servers is trivial as they were designed for the small business.
(4) Simple linux alternatives exist to other issues that you brought up but explaining them to you would probably be a waste of time.
>>stocks and assets and other things that cannot be readily transferred into cash
Why can't stocks be readily transferred into cash?
Why can't investments in debt and equity securities be readily tranferred into cash?
Do you notice the largish figures on the report listed under investments? That's where the 300 million cash figure comes from.
Look, I know that its confusing accountant-speak to refer to these things as cash, but thats how it works.
Microsoft has 30 billion in "cash". That 30 billion isn't in one big checking account. Look at Microsoft's 10K here. Notice this line on that document:
Cash and equivalents $ 4,846
Perhaps, we just have termininology mixup.
Investment analysis generally gives a larger meaning to the term "cash" than simply the dollars that a company has in the bank. This is because certain things like equities are easily transferable to dollars in the bank.
The dollars (Cash and cash equivalents) that RedHat has in the bank at any point in time is relatively meaningless. You have to look broader at the stuff that is easily transferred back into dollars in the bank.
That's why Szulik can claim here that RedHat has 300 million cash. Because if it wanted to it could somewhat quickly have those dollars in the bank. But dollars in the bank don't do much for you. RedHat earned 4 million in interest and other payments because it didn't foolishly have its assest in "cash and cash equivalents".
>>Their cash reserves are also drying up pretty quickly.
Wrong.
Companies with no cash reserves don't buy back shares like RedHat is doing now. How exactly would they buy the shares without cash?
They increased their cash reserves by 5 million. From 294 to 299 million. RedHat has a large pot of cash that they are sitting on. This is primarily how their current stock price can be justified in light of decreased earnings and a somewhat lacking business plan.
>>which it appears DO includes many/most of the Afghani people will declare "holy war"
You are wrong here. The majority of Afghans do not support the Taliban. The Taliban controls Afghanistan primarily because the people had tired of war and the existing power/political structure had been destroyed by the war.
>>the culprits are already dead, they were on the planes. There's nobody left to kill
So what you are saying is all four groups of terrorists independently planned and funded this murderous assault with no assistance or coordination from an outside source, be it Bin Laden or others?
Everyone who had anything to do with putting those planes into the WTC died in the crashes?
That is total and complete BULLSHIT.
You are an idiot. What's more, if you think Bin Laden has no moral and legal culpability when people who have trained in his "camps" go out and murder, then you, sir, are no better than those murderous scum.
I spit on your blind, foolish, rationalizing, sorry excuse for a human being hide.
Why haven't any of the big news agencies reported that Bin Laden was recently appointed the Taliban military commandre in chief?
6 03 7
http://www.vny.com/cf/news/upidetail.cfm?QID=21
This bit of text in the usenet article was interesting:
---
Boris considered it highly probable that I had come up against the elusive genius. When I said that, contrary to popular perception, he didn't sound mad, at all, Boris replied "Of course he isn't."
---
Boris isn't exactly a mental health expert. This is the same Boris Spassky who during the matches in 1972 broke down and accused Fischer of having mind-altering electronics installed in his arm chair.
Its not just you. Journalists need simplistic button holes for complex subjects or their brains explode.
They should also use this one:
"Dos, a copyright violating copy of CP/M that was bought for a song 23 years ago this month by Harvard drop out Bill Games, still runs the majority of computers across the world, as it crashes constantly and costs the world billions in lost productivity every year, it is little known why it is the dominant software used on personal computers."
Actually, the reason that people don't travel from former communist countries such as the Russian Federation is because the government doesn't let the people out. It seems that once poeple actually see first hand what life is like in the west, they don't return.
90% of visa applications to vacation in the west are REFUSED by the Russian government.
We need to petition the Russian officials to arrest employees of Adobe. As some have said, it is illegal to for Adobe to distribute software in Russia that cannot be copied (for backup purposes for example).