I would have argued poverty, crime, the technology gap, drugs... Gotta love Slashdot, sometimes, when "the problem" with America is intellectual property issues.
You would think that being early adopters, crafting the standards so that they can have the first and most compliant implementations might be enough - but I guess these companies aren't secure about the quality of their products, so they have to go down the route of intellectual property ownership, enforcement and RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory, whatever "reasonable" means) licensing fees.
It's not about being confident in your product. It's about investing loads of money into R&D before you produce a product.
Look at any other market where a company needs to do a LOT of R&D to produce a product. Pharmaceutical companies have to invest millions and millions to come up with a new drug to cure whatever. If someone else could immediately produce a generic alternative it wouldn't make sense for the company to do R&D in the first place. Why let someone else profit off their hard work and research?
Any time a company needs to do a lot of R&D to come up with a product it makes sense to seek intellectual property protection (patents, copyright, whatever). Otherwise they're just throwing away money on research - it has nothing to do with confidence in their product(s).
I have come to believe the following: No matter how technologically superior your product may be, if you compete directly with Microsoft you will lose (i.e. you will make less money, and have less market share). Why this is true for OS's and not for microprocessors I'm not sure.
This is the case because of network effects. Millions of Windows users mean there is a huge benefit to being part of the network of Windows users. Lots of programs, support, etc. All things being (at least kinda) equal, it makes more sense to go with the OS that has more users.
There really isn't any kind of network benefits (to the user anyway) from having an Intel vs. an AMD processor.
...to sell premium accounts on my website ($15/year). I've processed 50-60 such transactions, and have never had a single problem with them freezing my account, and have never heard any complaints from users.
I think it all goes to common sense. If you're dealing with large sums of money (which, clearly, I'm not), then don't deal with people who don't have a solid history processing transactions on PayPal.
I'm so glad you pointed this out. It seems there are endless comparisons between Windows and Linux in terms of cost. But I think the thing that gets overlooked the most is how good the IT staff at any particular company/institution might be. If your support staff is good and knows Linux, I can certainly see where it would be possible to save heaps of money running Linux. But if your technology people don't know Linux, then just moving to Linx (be it only in the server space, or desktops, too) wouldn't save any money. The TCO in that case would be extraordinarily high. "Oh shit, we just installed Linux... Nothing works like we expected... What do we do now?"
I think the biggest single factor in any Windows vs. Linux cost debate shouldn't be the simple fact that Linux is free. It should center around how competent an IT department you have, and whether or not they can pull off a Linux deployment that would save a particular company money.
For reference, I'm more of a Windows person. The college I work at exclusively uses Windows computers. I run an IIS server for my personal website without any trouble. I have been starting to learn Linux, but right now I don't know nearly enough to successfully use it to run my website. And I think that's what it comes down to... The right people with the right knowledge can make Linux a LOT cheaper than Windows. If you don't have those people with that knowledge then it makes more sense to stick with Windows.
Slashdot Mirror
I would have argued poverty, crime, the technology gap, drugs... Gotta love Slashdot, sometimes, when "the problem" with America is intellectual property issues.
It's not about being confident in your product. It's about investing loads of money into R&D before you produce a product.
Look at any other market where a company needs to do a LOT of R&D to produce a product. Pharmaceutical companies have to invest millions and millions to come up with a new drug to cure whatever. If someone else could immediately produce a generic alternative it wouldn't make sense for the company to do R&D in the first place. Why let someone else profit off their hard work and research?
Any time a company needs to do a lot of R&D to come up with a product it makes sense to seek intellectual property protection (patents, copyright, whatever). Otherwise they're just throwing away money on research - it has nothing to do with confidence in their product(s).
...to sell premium accounts on my website ($15/year). I've processed 50-60 such transactions, and have never had a single problem with them freezing my account, and have never heard any complaints from users.
I think it all goes to common sense. If you're dealing with large sums of money (which, clearly, I'm not), then don't deal with people who don't have a solid history processing transactions on PayPal.
I'm so glad you pointed this out. It seems there are endless comparisons between Windows and Linux in terms of cost. But I think the thing that gets overlooked the most is how good the IT staff at any particular company/institution might be. If your support staff is good and knows Linux, I can certainly see where it would be possible to save heaps of money running Linux. But if your technology people don't know Linux, then just moving to Linx (be it only in the server space, or desktops, too) wouldn't save any money. The TCO in that case would be extraordinarily high. "Oh shit, we just installed Linux... Nothing works like we expected... What do we do now?"
I think the biggest single factor in any Windows vs. Linux cost debate shouldn't be the simple fact that Linux is free. It should center around how competent an IT department you have, and whether or not they can pull off a Linux deployment that would save a particular company money.
For reference, I'm more of a Windows person. The college I work at exclusively uses Windows computers. I run an IIS server for my personal website without any trouble. I have been starting to learn Linux, but right now I don't know nearly enough to successfully use it to run my website. And I think that's what it comes down to... The right people with the right knowledge can make Linux a LOT cheaper than Windows. If you don't have those people with that knowledge then it makes more sense to stick with Windows.