Microsoft isn't in decline, however much people like you and I would like to imagine them to be. Microsoft is in its prime as the premier desktop operating system and Windows 7 established this in granite. Windows 8 has hairballs, but they are in a position where they can make a mistake or 2 and be trusted to correct it and the market will forgive them for this faux pas. The alternatives to Windows offer no stability advantages --- Linux is far from "write once, works 3 years from now" and neither is OS X. You'll find greater stability in running a Windows app via WINE that you will a native OS X or Linux app several years down the road.
Don't shoot me --- I'm not even a messenger --- sure Windows isn't going to penetrate the mobile or even tablet market simply because they are clueless and in identity crissi, but they will own the desktop market for at least a decade or 2 and it could be more than that.
No, Google Apps is not going to defeat Office let alone automate corporate documents.... reality bites, but reality counts too...
Microsoft was made clawing its way to the top. It had to claw over IBM. It had to claw over Borland or maybe it was Broderbund with the TurboBASIC suite (?). And Microsoft had to claw over Apple and Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect and Novell DOS.
And then Netscape and Java were on the attack and companies like AOL with all those free square frisbees (or maybe they were Starter Disks --- who knows?) wanted to attack MSN.
Microsoft had to fight hard to be where they were, Netscape was threatening that with "Rich client" overlay.
They weren't going to take that chance, and mobilized the full force of their machinery.
Yes in retrospect, it seems obvious that Netscape even if unimpeded wasn't going to win that fight but public perception was the idea that maybe some company would make the operating system no longer matter and Microsoft went on the attack to defend what they had scratched and clawed to earn.
Right? Wrong? Abort, Retry, Fail? This is for others to decide, not me.
The kids these days are really resourceful and will lookup Jimmy Hoffa on wikipedia, then watch a Jimmy Hoffa youtube vid and then berate their peers on Facebook for not knowing who Jim Hoffa is and calling their peers noobs. Kids these days... you gotta love 'em...
There is science and this is done with statistical models and several decades of information to feed the data into the models. And then there is public opinion.
Surprisingly, neither the models nor future results are much affected by public opinion, no matter what public opinion happens to be at the moment. One of these 2 methods is really useful for forecasting, the other not so much.
They use birth rates and death rates to calculate population models and these are very stable. + or - 3 billion for the continent of Africa? Not likely. I don't know if you are versed in statistics, but the population of a single continent doesn't fluctuate +/- 100% within a century due to a new model. Not for an established field with over 200 years of population trending.
Even as population trends, this 11 billion by end of century figure is not believable. We can't predict the weather or climate change, but we can easily predict population growth and the African population growth angle is absolutely not justified in a non-speculative sociology realm.
He sold to US buyers establishing jurisdiction. If he did not sell to US buyers and to only -- as an example --- Chinese buyers, US courts would likely not have jurisdiction....
.... Although in this "new post-Megaupload Wikileaks kill people with drones NSA monitors all" world maybe the US government has no limits any longer as the US courts no longer are willing to rule that such limits exist.
"If you're selling a $500,000 software product; going after pirates is not a winning business strategy -- it's figuring out, why the heck you can't pitch your product to legal buyers, and make your desired revenue there. Either the pricing is all wrong, or your marketing or product targetting is all wrong. "
That is operating on the assumption that the pricing is wrong. Photoshop, Office and Visual Studio are $1000 because many casual users and small businesses will pirate the product or install the office's software on a personal computer (I'm not saying this is right, but I know too many photoshop thieves), but most medium-sized and large businesses and government will purchase the product.
The pricing isn't wrong, the pricing adapted to the marketplace in a way that rewards very high cost and fewer sales.
And super-expensive software often occurs in small markets where the seller is very reliant on trade secrets and does not want their product floating around in the wild for competitors to study, typically in very lucrative and super-specialized niche markets.
+14... the problem with the common man debating science issues is that neither side knows what they are talking about, and don't have the courage to admit it.
Neither Samsung or Apple lose. Some other company X, Y or Z that would like to grow market-share or compete against Samsung loses because both Apple and Samsung are affirmed by the courts to have patents that "count" to participate in the market in a specific way.
Patent reform actually isn't in anyone's interest --- not anyone who would take the time and effort and initiative to do something about it, except possibly Google (which is against all intellectual property and internet laws as a nature of their business model).
This crazy patent system rewards large companies, individuals, lawyers and politicians --- and does not hurt non-commercial works (open source included) because lawyers don't sue where there is no money (#1 rule of lawyers).
There is no evidence any of these anti-patent sentiments are going anywhere, and our messed up patent system generates short term monopolies which spur business growth.
It is a terrible system, but one with no true losers except in theory --- but this theory can't manifest in reality (i.e. no one will bother to sue you unless you make it big, if you made it big you were successful anyway).
An occasional patent troll annoys Microsoft or RIM, gets a settlement that is of no practical concern to target (Microsoft doesn't cry over 60 million). If you are a growing company, you pay the license fees for patents you need and expense it and move on.
I would like to believe you didn't originate that convoluted stinkball of crap and instead read it in a D&D or Pokemon rulebook. If you made it up yourself, may you never reproduce, although I am thinking this concern is not a problem. What hole do barnacle-headed nimrods with canasta-like rules for voting come from?
So, uh, is this like how on Star Trek TNG that Geordi LaForge could auto-magically solve any problem by reversing the polarity or a reverse tachyon pulse.
Or maybe someone can find a smurf that farts IBM's good ole' pixie dust?
And both of those examples are far more realistic that yours. Don't fault me, I'm just the messenger. You're the one that posted what you did and that means it is subject to peer review, unfortunately no pixie-dust farting smurf was available so my critique will have to suffice. But this is slashdot and perhaps one of those will yet show....
"'I've never doubted that making the recording was ethical.'"
The cornerstone of ethics is that is the idea they don't bend to suit your whims. If we all act "low class" and just do whatever we justify to ourselves, the world will be headed into the gutter (even faster than now).
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft isn't in decline, however much people like you and I would like to imagine them to be. Microsoft is in its prime as the premier desktop operating system and Windows 7 established this in granite. Windows 8 has hairballs, but they are in a position where they can make a mistake or 2 and be trusted to correct it and the market will forgive them for this faux pas. The alternatives to Windows offer no stability advantages --- Linux is far from "write once, works 3 years from now" and neither is OS X. You'll find greater stability in running a Windows app via WINE that you will a native OS X or Linux app several years down the road.
.... reality bites, but reality counts too ...
Don't shoot me --- I'm not even a messenger --- sure Windows isn't going to penetrate the mobile or even tablet market simply because they are clueless and in identity crissi, but they will own the desktop market for at least a decade or 2 and it could be more than that.
No, Google Apps is not going to defeat Office let alone automate corporate documents
Microsoft was made clawing its way to the top. It had to claw over IBM. It had to claw over Borland or maybe it was Broderbund with the TurboBASIC suite (?). And Microsoft had to claw over Apple and Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect and Novell DOS.
And then Netscape and Java were on the attack and companies like AOL with all those free square frisbees (or maybe they were Starter Disks --- who knows?) wanted to attack MSN.
Microsoft had to fight hard to be where they were, Netscape was threatening that with "Rich client" overlay.
They weren't going to take that chance, and mobilized the full force of their machinery.
Yes in retrospect, it seems obvious that Netscape even if unimpeded wasn't going to win that fight but public perception was the idea that maybe some company would make the operating system no longer matter and Microsoft went on the attack to defend what they had scratched and clawed to earn.
Right? Wrong? Abort, Retry, Fail? This is for others to decide, not me.
The kids these days are really resourceful and will lookup Jimmy Hoffa on wikipedia, then watch a Jimmy Hoffa youtube vid and then berate their peers on Facebook for not knowing who Jim Hoffa is and calling their peers noobs. Kids these days ... you gotta love 'em ...
There is science and this is done with statistical models and several decades of information to feed the data into the models. And then there is public opinion.
Surprisingly, neither the models nor future results are much affected by public opinion, no matter what public opinion happens to be at the moment. One of these 2 methods is really useful for forecasting, the other not so much.
They use birth rates and death rates to calculate population models and these are very stable. + or - 3 billion for the continent of Africa? Not likely. I don't know if you are versed in statistics, but the population of a single continent doesn't fluctuate +/- 100% within a century due to a new model. Not for an established field with over 200 years of population trending.
This makes little sense. The world population is supposed to peak in 2030 at 8.5 billion.
http://www.businessinsider.com/analyst-world-population-will-peak-at-85-billion-in-2030-2012-11
Even as population trends, this 11 billion by end of century figure is not believable. We can't predict the weather or climate change, but we can easily predict population growth and the African population growth angle is absolutely not justified in a non-speculative sociology realm.
Exactly
He sold to US buyers establishing jurisdiction. If he did not sell to US buyers and to only -- as an example --- Chinese buyers, US courts would likely not have jurisdiction ....
.... Although in this "new post-Megaupload Wikileaks kill people with drones NSA monitors all" world maybe the US government has no limits any longer as the US courts no longer are willing to rule that such limits exist.
"If you're selling a $500,000 software product; going after pirates is not a winning business strategy -- it's figuring out, why the heck you can't pitch your product to legal buyers, and make your desired revenue there. Either the pricing is all wrong, or your marketing or product targetting is all wrong. "
That is operating on the assumption that the pricing is wrong. Photoshop, Office and Visual Studio are $1000 because many casual users and small businesses will pirate the product or install the office's software on a personal computer (I'm not saying this is right, but I know too many photoshop thieves), but most medium-sized and large businesses and government will purchase the product.
The pricing isn't wrong, the pricing adapted to the marketplace in a way that rewards very high cost and fewer sales.
And super-expensive software often occurs in small markets where the seller is very reliant on trade secrets and does not want their product floating around in the wild for competitors to study, typically in very lucrative and super-specialized niche markets.
He should have done the transactions in bitcoin.
Old encyclopedias circa 1960 listed Tunguska as a possibly caused by anti-matter.
Which would have been more interesting than the ho-hum "just a meteor" explanation.
Beets -5% profit margins!
Just remember the safety advice and you'll be ok: Don't stick your penis in it.
Congrats on trying to quantum entangle spaghetti sauce and potato salad. It didn't work, but was entertaining to see the attempt ...
+14 ... the problem with the common man debating science issues is that neither side knows what they are talking about, and don't have the courage to admit it.
Over javascript? That is just one or two steps above being "elite" at HTML.
Neither Samsung or Apple lose. Some other company X, Y or Z that would like to grow market-share or compete against Samsung loses because both Apple and Samsung are affirmed by the courts to have patents that "count" to participate in the market in a specific way.
Patent reform actually isn't in anyone's interest --- not anyone who would take the time and effort and initiative to do something about it, except possibly Google (which is against all intellectual property and internet laws as a nature of their business model).
This crazy patent system rewards large companies, individuals, lawyers and politicians --- and does not hurt non-commercial works (open source included) because lawyers don't sue where there is no money (#1 rule of lawyers).
There is no evidence any of these anti-patent sentiments are going anywhere, and our messed up patent system generates short term monopolies which spur business growth.
It is a terrible system, but one with no true losers except in theory --- but this theory can't manifest in reality (i.e. no one will bother to sue you unless you make it big, if you made it big you were successful anyway).
An occasional patent troll annoys Microsoft or RIM, gets a settlement that is of no practical concern to target (Microsoft doesn't cry over 60 million). If you are a growing company, you pay the license fees for patents you need and expense it and move on.
Functionally, this means the ultimate end of javascript. Because this means even ultimately secure code does not mean it can be trusted.
....
Nor does it mean secure code isn't malicious, it just isn't malicious in the present sense of the word
And that new abuse that does not fit the historical definition is coming down the pipeline.
I would like to believe you didn't originate that convoluted stinkball of crap and instead read it in a D&D or Pokemon rulebook. If you made it up yourself, may you never reproduce, although I am thinking this concern is not a problem. What hole do barnacle-headed nimrods with canasta-like rules for voting come from?
So, uh, is this like how on Star Trek TNG that Geordi LaForge could auto-magically solve any problem by reversing the polarity or a reverse tachyon pulse.
....
Or maybe someone can find a smurf that farts IBM's good ole' pixie dust?
And both of those examples are far more realistic that yours. Don't fault me, I'm just the messenger. You're the one that posted what you did and that means it is subject to peer review, unfortunately no pixie-dust farting smurf was available so my critique will have to suffice. But this is slashdot and perhaps one of those will yet show
"'I've never doubted that making the recording was ethical.'"
The cornerstone of ethics is that is the idea they don't bend to suit your whims. If we all act "low class" and just do whatever we justify to ourselves, the world will be headed into the gutter (even faster than now).
Loss of anonymity and regulation happens to anything that becomes large enough to be noticed.
What makes a product or service from Yahoo unique?
I'm kinda partial to their chocolate 'Yahoo' drink that comes in the glass bottle at the convenience store.
It's true.