Name one top tier vendor other than IBM that ever offered OS/2 2.0 or above as a preloaded operating system.
That right there is why IBM lost the war. And it doesn't really have anything to do with IBM's marketing mistakes (which admittedly were legion). There are really only two reasons for this. The first is Microsoft's monopolistic practices which, among other things, required vendors to pay for Windows licenses for every machine they shipped regardless of whether they had Windows installed. The second is that none of IBM's competitors wanted to finance IBM.
Chicago was vaporware for years, true
on
In Search of Stupidity
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· Score: 4, Insightful
OS/2 v2 had years of a head start on Windows 95. OS/2 Warp had a ten month head start. The fact of the matter is that both of these had insignificant market share when compared to DOS/Windows 3.1. So all your points about how IBM was blindsided by Windows 95 are irrelevant.
And the reason for this is simple: preloads. Consumers very rarely upgrade their operating system. Instead they prefer to run the system that their computer came with. This holds true to today where Microsoft's largest competitor for Vista is itself because no one wants to upgrade without a compelling reason. And IBM couldn't get any of its competitors (Compaq, HP, NEC, DEC, Packard-Bell, etc.) to preload OS/2 for a very simple reason, none of them wanted to be beholden to one of their largest rivals for an operating system.
If the review is accurate, the book is revisionist
on
In Search of Stupidity
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Assertion: It was primarily IBM's own ineptitude in marketing OS/2 which led to Windows 95 taking over the desktop.
Microsoft already had almost complete control over the desktop before Windows 95 was released. Some of this was due to IBM's mistakes with OS/2. Some of this was due to Microsoft's predatory licensing practices. But the single largest reason has nothing to do with either of these factors. IBM's competitors didn't want to subsidize IBM's hardware division by preloading software from it's software division. I remember an interview with the CEO of Compaq. When asked about the possibility of preloading OS/2, he laughed and said something like, ``yeah, right, I'm going to preload the software of a direct competitor on my machines.''
IBM's biggest blunders with OS/2 didn't come until after Windows 95. The ``OS/2 obliterates my software'' campaign was certainly a disaster. So was the gamble that IBM's PSP division made on blowing almost the entire OS/2 v.4 budget on a the stillborn port of OS/2 to the PowerPC chip. But as large as these mistakes were, they were made too late in the game to affect the outcome.
The closest thing I can find to Ransom Love badmouthing the GPL is this: Fundamentally, the only business model that works with GPL is a subscription service, one like Caldera had and where Red Hat has with its enterprise Linux distributions. The GPL might be questionable in court, but for what Richard Stallman intended, it's not flawed at all.From here.
Saying that it works as intended is hardly badmouthing.
Maybe once upon a time, but I'd wager that IBM also has similar ongoing covenants with Microsoft. They are almost certainly no different than Sun and Novell in this regard,
For the record, since 2003 I've used Macs exclusively at home. While my bread and butter is currently earned in an entirely Windows environment, I've no love for Microsoft and am attending school part time to get out of the IT industry altogether. After twelve years working various computer jobs from help desk to programming, I'd much rather be a cranky old liberal arts professor out in the middle of nowhere.
I just happen to think that the hystrionics over this latest agreement are absurd. Pretty much every large company with a significant patent portfolio has made this sort of deal with Microsoft.
First, even Microsoft concedes that Novell's action is no admission of anything Novell distributes infringing on any Microsoft patent.
Second, Microsoft (and not only them, but almost every major IT firm that has been involved in a patent dispute) has a history of making settlements that involve either the cross-licensing of patents or covanents not to sue over patents.
It is perhaps illuminating that Novell could most likely pay off its five year obligation to Microsoft with less than than the interest it would earn from investing the amount Microsoft is paying to Novell up front.
``It's quite probable that one of our former presidents was an athiest''
Some more probably than others. For some presidents the evidence is almost overwhelming that they were atheists.
``but could never say so because only churchgoers can be elected President.''
Or, for the ones in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century believed that churchgoing was a virtue even if they themselves didn't believe in God. One prevalent idea in the early Englightenment was that religion was necessary to keep the ingnorant in line. The idea was that many (or even most) people were unable to think clearly enough to do the right thing without divine promises and threats for the hereafter. In the Cartesian synthesis, religion was looked as a ``provisional morality'' meant to keep civil order until humanity became Enlightened enough to no longer need it. In fact, this philosophy underlies much of the early Masonic movement and it is one reason that many large Christian movements hold that Masonry is fundamentally incompatible with Christianity.
Sun Microsystems did exactly the same thing in 2004, except it took a lawsuit to get the settlement out of Microsoft.
Under the 10-year pact with Microsoft, the software company will pay Sun $700 million to resolve antitrust issues and $900 million to resolve patent issues, the companies said. The companies will pay royalties to use each other's technology; Microsoft is paying $350 million now, with Sun to make payments when it incorporates technology later.
Note especially this bit in the linked article which sounds quite a bit like the original press release: The goal of the technical collaboration between Sun and Microsoft is to improve interoperability between the companies' respective products, according to Sun.
I think it is tremendously inconsistent to be pounding Novell for this agreement and not pound Sun or any of the other many companies that have do-not-sue covenenants over patents. The only difference as far as I can tell between this most recent deal between Novell and Microsoft is the extension to end users.
The most likely scenario is that Novell is sitting on software patents (my guess is that it has something to do with Active Directory) and floated a feeler into Microsoft that they were considering a lawsuit. In return, I'm guessing that Microsoft offered to settle right up front rather than go through yet another lawsuit. On the agreement itself, there is probably a meeting of the minds. The only disagreement comes from the spin. Microsoft likes to construct deals so that they can put a their own unique spin. Like when they settled with Apple quite some time ago, instead of a simple cash payment, Microsoft bought 150M of non-voting Apple stock. On its balance sheet, Microsoft lost no money on this settlement so that they could spin to investors that they lost nothing. They're doing the same thing here by requiring that Novell return the licensing deal.
All the people out there taking a hard line against Novell ought to be taking the same hard line against Sun, IBM and Apple (just to name a few of the companies that have similar deals with Microsoft).
If the price of oil looks as if it will be sustained at above the $100/barrell price, then companies can make more money by investing more in the production of oil substitutes such as biodiesel and coal gassification than they can by investing in oil. Oil companies know this and work hard to keep the cost of oil below that threshhold. Once the price of oil is sustained above that threshhold, the only people that will keep buying oil are those market segments such as plastics and pharmaceuticals where there are presently no substitutes for good old fashioned crude oil
My employer uses a Windows mobile smart phone for its callout pager. Not only is it the worst mobile phone I've ever used, but is close to the worst PDA I've ever used. Configuring the thing is a friggin' nightmare. Network settings are held in four different places.
... get more training than the average voter. Even if you have software that is provably correct, some people will push the buttons wrong. Not even paper and pen can eliminate user error.
The precinct machines that hold a few hundred votes each have their data dumped to centralized tabulating machines which then report the final outcome. In the 2004 elections, it was conclusively demonstrated that/some/ of these centralized tabulators were hooked up to networks that were publicly available. In some cases this was in violation of the law. In other places, no regulation even considered the possibility.
But the real problem is that without a physical paper trail there exists no method by which the outcome can be verified. In a purely electronic system, we are entirely at the mercy of a trail of electrons. As someone who has worked with various types of computers since 1995, this greatly concerns me. It doesn't take nefarious intent to change the outcome of the election when incompetence may very well suffice. With paper ballots, there is an unlimited do-over. The physical ballots can be counted again and again in a room full of observers keeping check on each other. That simply isn't feasible with a purely electronic solution.
Not to mention that power outages on election day don't inhibit voting on paper.
You seem to be equating the effects of a bomb with the magnitude of the explosive power of the bomb. The strength of the bomb measures its explosive power. A stronger bomb set off in front of a modern office building where the code specifies hardening of windows and structural reinforcements may very well cause less damage than a weaker bomb where the buildings are older and not built to withstand an earthquake.
Many companies launch ``unsuccessful'' ventures as part of their branding efforts because many times those unsuccessful ventures lead to profits in other areas.
A good example is IBM's now defunct OS/2 line. In and of itself, it failed fairly spectacularly. Yet it was responsible for helping to bring in billions of dollars to IBM.
Another example are things like the F1 teams of the big automakers. As businesses unto themselves, they lose money (sometimes hand over fist) but the also put the automakers into the international spotlight and help bring in revenue for other divisions.
Another example is the triple decker hamburgers at Wendy's. Almost no one buys them. But surveys have shown that they drive traffic. Many people go to Wendy's just because they/could/ buy one. So even if Wendy's is losing money on keeping advertising around for a product that sells poorly, the make it up from profits on other products that they wouldn't have otherwise sold if they didn't advertise for the poorly selling product.
Another example is the help desk I used to work third shift on. I rarely took calls. My wages and operating expenses were significant. On the face of it, it was hard to justify the expense for a service that no one really used. But then the marketing department did a survey and it turned out that having a warm body available to answer phones around the clock was one of the key selling points that brought in new business. Even if clients never used the service, they chose the firm I was at because they offered that service.
So what Google is doing is nothing new. It's a business tactic that has been around for as long as Homo sapiens has been doing business.
... but the fact is that I'm not. Attorney/Client privilege (at least in the US) has always been narrowly limited. Generally speaking it only covers communications from the client to the attorney when no one else is present and for the purpose of getting a legal opinion or legal help. Simply walking into an attorney's office doesn't confer privilege. Neither does discussing a legal issue. There is a specific context where attorney/client privilege obtains and outside of that context, it does not./That/ is my point. And in fact, courts have specifically denied that communications between a clients and their attorneys on postcards have attorney/client privilege precisely because there is no reasonable expectation of privacy for postcards.
A legal consensus on the issue of email has not yet arisen. Some courts have held that some emails in some contexts are protected. These rulings are not universally applied and, to my knowledge, the issue has not yet gone to the Supreme Court. The fact of the matter is that no person who understands how email works has a reasonable expectation of privacy for messages sent in the medium. Confidential communications should be either be encrypted or sent via some other medium.
I'm glad to know from whence you get your understanding of law.
My point was simple: talking about a doctor about your lab tests in his office comes with a reasonable expectation of privacy. Talking about possible treatments for a possible ailment with a doctor at a cocktail party does not.
Similarly, confessing to a priest within the confines of the Catholic rite of confession comes with a reasonable expectation of privacy that far exceeds consulting that same priest for advice in his office. The priest cannot be compelled to divulge the details of a confession in the former situation, but certain can in the second should the details be about a crime.
Also, if you bring a third party into an attourney-client discussion, the contents for which that third party is present does not unequivocally fall under priviledge. I highly doubt that a post card from a client to an attourney could not be subpeonaed by the other side at trial.
Sure, there are professional organizations but the right to privacy doesn't come from them or even from the occupation. It comes from the circumstances, location and method of the discussions. When you send a message via email over a network, there is no reason to believe that the contents are private unless you intentionally use encryption.
Confessions and medical histories are not off limits because doctors and priests have rights normal people do not. They are off limits because in the confessional and in the doctor's office,/you/ have a reasonable expectation of privacy. A conversation you have with your priest, lawyer or doctor in a situation where this expectation does not obtain is fair game.
Consequently, IT professionals (at best) should only have similar responsibilities vis a vis privacy where the data being considereed is in a context where the owner can reasonably expect it to be private. There is no expectation of privacy in the vast majority of email systems. SMTP (and most proprietary systems) shovel email across the network unencrypted plain as day for anyone to read. A reasonable expectation of privacy only obtains where the user has taken steps to ensure privacy such as using encryption.
In the real world things come in degrees. What constitutes ``good enough'' changes with the industry segment you're in. The same applies to just about everything. What is ``good enough'' for a folding card table in a frat house isn't the same as ``good enough'' for a formal dining table for a governor's residence. And there are many gradations in between.
This doesn't necessarily mean that it's slipshod or crap. It means that a conscious descision was made as to what level of qualify needs to be enforced and testing was calibrated to meet that level given the number of available resources in time and money.
Slashdot Mirror
is missing a third line: IBM REALLY FUCKING HATES MICROSOFT
Make no mistake. A Microsoft patent assault on Linux would bring a full frontal assault on Microsoft by IBM over both hardware and software patents.
More e250s, let alone iPods, have been sold than Zunes since the launch. I've neither seen nor heard of a single Zune line up anywhere
That right there is why IBM lost the war. And it doesn't really have anything to do with IBM's marketing mistakes (which admittedly were legion). There are really only two reasons for this. The first is Microsoft's monopolistic practices which, among other things, required vendors to pay for Windows licenses for every machine they shipped regardless of whether they had Windows installed. The second is that none of IBM's competitors wanted to finance IBM.
And the reason for this is simple: preloads. Consumers very rarely upgrade their operating system. Instead they prefer to run the system that their computer came with. This holds true to today where Microsoft's largest competitor for Vista is itself because no one wants to upgrade without a compelling reason. And IBM couldn't get any of its competitors (Compaq, HP, NEC, DEC, Packard-Bell, etc.) to preload OS/2 for a very simple reason, none of them wanted to be beholden to one of their largest rivals for an operating system.
Microsoft already had almost complete control over the desktop before Windows 95 was released. Some of this was due to IBM's mistakes with OS/2. Some of this was due to Microsoft's predatory licensing practices. But the single largest reason has nothing to do with either of these factors. IBM's competitors didn't want to subsidize IBM's hardware division by preloading software from it's software division. I remember an interview with the CEO of Compaq. When asked about the possibility of preloading OS/2, he laughed and said something like, ``yeah, right, I'm going to preload the software of a direct competitor on my machines.''
IBM's biggest blunders with OS/2 didn't come until after Windows 95. The ``OS/2 obliterates my software'' campaign was certainly a disaster. So was the gamble that IBM's PSP division made on blowing almost the entire OS/2 v.4 budget on a the stillborn port of OS/2 to the PowerPC chip. But as large as these mistakes were, they were made too late in the game to affect the outcome.
Saying that it works as intended is hardly badmouthing.
Maybe once upon a time, but I'd wager that IBM also has similar ongoing covenants with Microsoft. They are almost certainly no different than Sun and Novell in this regard,
For the record, since 2003 I've used Macs exclusively at home. While my bread and butter is currently earned in an entirely Windows environment, I've no love for Microsoft and am attending school part time to get out of the IT industry altogether. After twelve years working various computer jobs from help desk to programming, I'd much rather be a cranky old liberal arts professor out in the middle of nowhere.
I just happen to think that the hystrionics over this latest agreement are absurd. Pretty much every large company with a significant patent portfolio has made this sort of deal with Microsoft.
Second, Microsoft (and not only them, but almost every major IT firm that has been involved in a patent dispute) has a history of making settlements that involve either the cross-licensing of patents or covanents not to sue over patents.
It is perhaps illuminating that Novell could most likely pay off its five year obligation to Microsoft with less than than the interest it would earn from investing the amount Microsoft is paying to Novell up front.
Some more probably than others. For some presidents the evidence is almost overwhelming that they were atheists.
``but could never say so because only churchgoers can be elected President.''
Or, for the ones in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century believed that churchgoing was a virtue even if they themselves didn't believe in God. One prevalent idea in the early Englightenment was that religion was necessary to keep the ingnorant in line. The idea was that many (or even most) people were unable to think clearly enough to do the right thing without divine promises and threats for the hereafter. In the Cartesian synthesis, religion was looked as a ``provisional morality'' meant to keep civil order until humanity became Enlightened enough to no longer need it. In fact, this philosophy underlies much of the early Masonic movement and it is one reason that many large Christian movements hold that Masonry is fundamentally incompatible with Christianity.
Sun Microsystems did exactly the same thing in 2004, except it took a lawsuit to get the settlement out of Microsoft.
Note especially this bit in the linked article which sounds quite a bit like the original press release: The goal of the technical collaboration between Sun and Microsoft is to improve interoperability between the companies' respective products, according to Sun.
I think it is tremendously inconsistent to be pounding Novell for this agreement and not pound Sun or any of the other many companies that have do-not-sue covenenants over patents. The only difference as far as I can tell between this most recent deal between Novell and Microsoft is the extension to end users.
The most likely scenario is that Novell is sitting on software patents (my guess is that it has something to do with Active Directory) and floated a feeler into Microsoft that they were considering a lawsuit. In return, I'm guessing that Microsoft offered to settle right up front rather than go through yet another lawsuit. On the agreement itself, there is probably a meeting of the minds. The only disagreement comes from the spin. Microsoft likes to construct deals so that they can put a their own unique spin. Like when they settled with Apple quite some time ago, instead of a simple cash payment, Microsoft bought 150M of non-voting Apple stock. On its balance sheet, Microsoft lost no money on this settlement so that they could spin to investors that they lost nothing. They're doing the same thing here by requiring that Novell return the licensing deal.
All the people out there taking a hard line against Novell ought to be taking the same hard line against Sun, IBM and Apple (just to name a few of the companies that have similar deals with Microsoft).
It just hasn't had an openly atheist president yet.
If the price of oil looks as if it will be sustained at above the $100/barrell price, then companies can make more money by investing more in the production of oil substitutes such as biodiesel and coal gassification than they can by investing in oil. Oil companies know this and work hard to keep the cost of oil below that threshhold. Once the price of oil is sustained above that threshhold, the only people that will keep buying oil are those market segments such as plastics and pharmaceuticals where there are presently no substitutes for good old fashioned crude oil
My employer uses a Windows mobile smart phone for its callout pager. Not only is it the worst mobile phone I've ever used, but is close to the worst PDA I've ever used. Configuring the thing is a friggin' nightmare. Network settings are held in four different places.
... get more training than the average voter. Even if you have software that is provably correct, some people will push the buttons wrong. Not even paper and pen can eliminate user error.
The precinct machines that hold a few hundred votes each have their data dumped to centralized tabulating machines which then report the final outcome. In the 2004 elections, it was conclusively demonstrated that /some/ of these centralized tabulators were hooked up to networks that were publicly available. In some cases this was in violation of the law. In other places, no regulation even considered the possibility.
But the real problem is that without a physical paper trail there exists no method by which the outcome can be verified. In a purely electronic system, we are entirely at the mercy of a trail of electrons. As someone who has worked with various types of computers since 1995, this greatly concerns me. It doesn't take nefarious intent to change the outcome of the election when incompetence may very well suffice. With paper ballots, there is an unlimited do-over. The physical ballots can be counted again and again in a room full of observers keeping check on each other. That simply isn't feasible with a purely electronic solution.
Not to mention that power outages on election day don't inhibit voting on paper.
You seem to be equating the effects of a bomb with the magnitude of the explosive power of the bomb. The strength of the bomb measures its explosive power. A stronger bomb set off in front of a modern office building where the code specifies hardening of windows and structural reinforcements may very well cause less damage than a weaker bomb where the buildings are older and not built to withstand an earthquake.
Many companies launch ``unsuccessful'' ventures as part of their branding efforts because many times those unsuccessful ventures lead to profits in other areas.
/could/ buy one. So even if Wendy's is losing money on keeping advertising around for a product that sells poorly, the make it up from profits on other products that they wouldn't have otherwise sold if they didn't advertise for the poorly selling product.
A good example is IBM's now defunct OS/2 line. In and of itself, it failed fairly spectacularly. Yet it was responsible for helping to bring in billions of dollars to IBM.
Another example are things like the F1 teams of the big automakers. As businesses unto themselves, they lose money (sometimes hand over fist) but the also put the automakers into the international spotlight and help bring in revenue for other divisions.
Another example is the triple decker hamburgers at Wendy's. Almost no one buys them. But surveys have shown that they drive traffic. Many people go to Wendy's just because they
Another example is the help desk I used to work third shift on. I rarely took calls. My wages and operating expenses were significant. On the face of it, it was hard to justify the expense for a service that no one really used. But then the marketing department did a survey and it turned out that having a warm body available to answer phones around the clock was one of the key selling points that brought in new business. Even if clients never used the service, they chose the firm I was at because they offered that service.
So what Google is doing is nothing new. It's a business tactic that has been around for as long as Homo sapiens has been doing business.
I've yet to see anyone address talk time.
Can you hold a two hour conversation on it?
... how many of those phones will even get a quarter or the eight hour talk time and 12 day stand-by time claimed for the Motophone?
A legal consensus on the issue of email has not yet arisen. Some courts have held that some emails in some contexts are protected. These rulings are not universally applied and, to my knowledge, the issue has not yet gone to the Supreme Court. The fact of the matter is that no person who understands how email works has a reasonable expectation of privacy for messages sent in the medium. Confidential communications should be either be encrypted or sent via some other medium.
I'm glad to know from whence you get your understanding of law.
My point was simple: talking about a doctor about your lab tests in his office comes with a reasonable expectation of privacy. Talking about possible treatments for a possible ailment with a doctor at a cocktail party does not.
Similarly, confessing to a priest within the confines of the Catholic rite of confession comes with a reasonable expectation of privacy that far exceeds consulting that same priest for advice in his office. The priest cannot be compelled to divulge the details of a confession in the former situation, but certain can in the second should the details be about a crime.
Also, if you bring a third party into an attourney-client discussion, the contents for which that third party is present does not unequivocally fall under priviledge. I highly doubt that a post card from a client to an attourney could not be subpeonaed by the other side at trial.
Sure, there are professional organizations but the right to privacy doesn't come from them or even from the occupation. It comes from the circumstances, location and method of the discussions. When you send a message via email over a network, there is no reason to believe that the contents are private unless you intentionally use encryption.
Confessions and medical histories are not off limits because doctors and priests have rights normal people do not. They are off limits because in the confessional and in the doctor's office, /you/ have a reasonable expectation of privacy. A conversation you have with your priest, lawyer or doctor in a situation where this expectation does not obtain is fair game.
Consequently, IT professionals (at best) should only have similar responsibilities vis a vis privacy where the data being considereed is in a context where the owner can reasonably expect it to be private. There is no expectation of privacy in the vast majority of email systems. SMTP (and most proprietary systems) shovel email across the network unencrypted plain as day for anyone to read. A reasonable expectation of privacy only obtains where the user has taken steps to ensure privacy such as using encryption.
Have you ever heard the phrase ``plausible deniability.''
This doesn't necessarily mean that it's slipshod or crap. It means that a conscious descision was made as to what level of qualify needs to be enforced and testing was calibrated to meet that level given the number of available resources in time and money.