Perhaps actually deorbiting in a controlled manner, aiming for a particular impact zone, would take more fuel than they had, but switching to a naturally decaying orbit for the same impact zone in a number of orbits time was doable?
The same way they keep them out of the military urban combat training areas I would think.
In the UK there is at least two full scale towns that I can think of that are used for training, and about a dozen villages - and that's just for the military, I also know of two urban training facilities for the police and private security companies. The main reason no one moves in is the same reason townships in Africa, and hobo towns in the US before they were removed and the problem hidden, always appear on the edge of a population centre - even the homeless need such things as food, water and sanitation and those things are significantly easier to source where they already exist for others.
Really? You are using the pomp and ceremony attached to Her Majesty's Government to support RMS? Thats got to be the funniest thing I have read in quite some time.
Out of interest, in your dug-in defensive position, how are you going to defend when your main powersource for the tank is turned off?
Something has to power the main function of the tank, and I doubt they carry enough battery packs to carry it out for long with the engine turned off...
The Register can claim anything they want, they provide no proof for any of it.
And as for the "why", that depends on the reasons - are Apple hedging their bets? Are they in a trial period? Are they just balancing load across multiple independent providers?
When you distribute storage, you do it for any number of reasons, and those reasons influence how you do the distribution. When the data itself doesn't actually affect the application, and s merely data being managed, it doesn't have to be anywhere near the application itself - the iCloud front end doesn't give a toss about the actual AAC file, it just displays details from the metadata, the actual file is totally separate and can be downloaded from anywhere.
If you stay away from the exotic storage mechanisms on either platform, and just use SQL Server, it's pretty easy to build a complex website which runs fine on both Azure and a standard IIS setup.
It's also likely that they aren't "striping" the website itself, but hosting the front end on Azure and returning objects from AWS - quite a few large services do something similar to this.
After using the iPhone (both original and 3G), and owning an iPad, after switching to an Android handset in February of this year (HTC Desire), I can personally say with full confidence that yes, I prefer the Apple iPhone and iOS ecosystem to my Android experience.
I can't wait to switch back to the iPhone early next year, nothing about my Android experience has impressed me at all, and while my iPhone 3G did have a lot of niggles under iOS4, it was never as bad as what I am experiencing with the Desire. With my iPhone, it used to be my main mobile platform while out and about, on the train or whatever - the browsing experience on the Desire is so poor in comparison, I rarely bother.
So what am I? Am I paid by Apple? Am I a zombie? Or am I someone who has tried both sides and made an informed decision? Because my current stance is that the iPhone is much better than a high end Android handset and I won't be choosing Android again in the near future.
Why shouldn't the US Government have an interest in a third parties decision affecting two large US companies? I don't get the issue here, to me the "outrage" that this story puts forward seems forced and misused.
The problem is, Boeings level of risk on the 787 was not merely high, it was "hey, lets go sky diving but you know what would be fun? Throwing the parachutes out first and chasing them!" levels of risk.
They were fantastically successful on the 777 project, so much so that they beat all expectations on it. But the 777 largely used the same design and production methodologies as the 767 (although the 777 was the first airliner to be CAD designed, it was still largely using the same design techniques as the 767) and thus only the design of the aircraft was a risk factor. And that paid off.
With the 787, Boeing went for a full composite fuselage, something that had up until then only been done on low production rate regional and business jet aircraft. They also went for electrically drive hydraulics, HVAC and other systems rather than conventional bleed air powered systems. They also went for fully composite wings, another first. Engine pylons and support systems designed to support a quick swap of engines between two totally different engine manufacturers - again, another first (reengining an aircraft from one manufacturers engines to anothers is a several day job on other airframes - Boeing wanted it down to the same time as a normal engine swap).
All of that on its own would have constituted a high risk project. Several of the things noted above have thrown up their own problems in manufacturing, which have needed solutions. Several of the things above have resulted in multi month delays. Thats what happens when you have a high risk project.
But Boeing didn't stop there - they parceled out the design to third parties. Which involved having several disparate design teams working together across teh globe, in many different languages.
Boeing still didn't stop there. They also completely changed the production process. Large sub assemblies built across the globe by risk sharing partners and flown to Boeings final assembly line. Never done that before, the largest structure preassembled on the 777 was a few sheets of aluminium and everything else was done on one assembly line. Now Boeing had twenty assembly lines across the globe to manage and sort out.
And they did all of this so they could parcel out the risk - reduce their own risk. Only that didn't work... Boeing ended up with tens of billions of dollars in "unforseen" expenditure, including having to buy the assembly lines of several of its partners, and bringing most of the design for the 787-9 variant back in house. Ending up with 4 unsellable airframes in their inventory that they had to write off. Billions of dollars in compensation payments. And an inventory backlog that analysts put in the hundreds of billions of dollars...
Not to mention that its just recently come to light that most of the first 300 or so airframes were ordered at prices near to $70Million each, and they will cost Boeing around $180Million each to build and deliver. Thats the way to make money...
This wasn't just a high risk program, it was an "all or nothing" fantasy leap into the unknown. And Mulally got out well before it started to show.
Oh, and its nice of you to bring up the 747, but that ship has sailed - the 747-400 ended production a few years ago, and the 747-8 (the latest variant) won't make any money with its current order book.
I have no problem with Boeing innovating, but you don't have to innovate *everything* in the damn business at the same time - its sheer stupidity to change things like the design methodology and the production methodology when you are already taking huge risks on the product itself. Mulallys board wanted a complete change in the way Boeing CA worked, and thats what they pushed for when they launched the 787. And it didn't pay off.
With Boeing trying desperately to remove as much risk behind the 787 as possible, by moving so much of the design and build process back in house, is anything I am saying really that wrong?
I may not hail from Washington State, but Im certainly not new to the aviation business - and while Boeing IDS may be profitable, Boeing CA still needs to pull its weight...
Boeing attempted three things all at the same time - first brand new product in 15 years, brand new (to Boeing) way of designing that product, and a brand new (again, to Boeing) way of building that product.
Fast forward 5 years from launch, and we have Boeing bringing huge work packages back into their internal structure (and in several cases outright buying out their third parties to take over the production line), reabsorbing design authority for major assemblies and having to open another final assembly line just to bring the monthly production numbers up to the original estimate.
Boeing changed way too much (infact, it would be easier to list what they kept from the 777 program than what they changed) and it paid the price - and they did it chasing cost reductions, with Mulally leading that pack.
Boeing is billions out of pocket, they have four 787 aircraft they cannot sell (they wrote them down in accounting terms, to shift them from a liability on the Inventory books to an R&D investment - and they had to write them down because the rework required on them makes them uneconomical to sell, Boeing decided to go with new build aircraft to deliver to the airlines that had these particular birds on order, which is unheard of).
Not to mention the fact that Boeing are in a forward loss situation for the entire 747-8 backlog, but thats another discussion entirely...
This isn't about being fashionable bashing Boeing, they outright deserve the criticism they get - and a lot of it is down to decisions made by Mulallys board.
Considering that Mulally launched one of the most bodged development programs at Boeing, the 787. Not only did this program reach in the direction of considerably technical improvement over current generation products, it did it with a design and build methodology that Boeing had never tried before.
This irresponsible cock up by the board, headed by Mulally, drove the 787 to be over three years late for EIS, with huge problems yet to rectify, and Boeing billions of dollars worse off.
Mulally has a lot of great achievements, but the world would see him completely differently if he had remained at Boeing to see out even the first few years of the 787 debacle. Instead, he bailed early on and now is remembered for the positive work he has done at Ford.
I've heard similar things suggested elsewhere, but is engine braking really avoided in the US? When I was taught here in the UK, engine braking was a primary method of braking the vehicle from any speed (you apply the brake while either remaining in the current gear or down shifting and letting each gear engage with no accelerator applied) and is used basically by everyone.
I spent about 5 minutes on their site before I found that little gem in their blog, and from that point onward Opa wasnt something I was considering further investigation of.
A language with a forced license on your code before it's even written? No thanks.
Definitely a case of apples and oranges - have Space X developed a space telescope? Does the JWST launch satellites? In both cases: no.
Its like saying "instead of spending this $100,000 on building this house, instead I'm going to give it to these people to build delivery trucks." It doesn't solve the problem the original amount was spent to solve.
A few issues with the numbers and opinions in your post...
"Thus currently they have had a total of 236 orders and delivered 56 jets, and the ordering seems to have dropped to near nothing (they've had 2 this year)."
Your "2" is net, there have actually been 12 A380s ordered this year, ILFC converted their order of 10 to A320s because they weren't placing them with any customers - the lessors have rapidly discovered that those airlines that want to operate the A380 are doing the ordering themselves (its better in a financial sense - the airline places the order and then does a sale-and-lease-back with a bank so they don't end up owning the asset, but they the lease rates at a much better level than if they went directly to a lessor).
Also, there is another A380 order currently pending for 10 aircraft, and two more lined up for later this year.
So don't count the A380 out yet.
"Now compare that to the Boeing 747, which has a total of over 1,400 delivered, and 114 orders for their new variant, the 747-8, which is still in final testing, and another hundred orders for older variants."
The 747-8 is the only variant with current orders - Boeing ended production of the 747-400 a couple of years ago and converted the entire production line over to the -8. That 114 orders is it for the 747, so I don't think crowing about it is due - the A380 didn't exist when the vast bulk of that 1,400 747s were ordered so how do you expect it to compete for them?
Its interesting how you pitch the A380s 200 odd orders as a negative, while you pitch the 747s 100 odd orders as a positive - take a look at the financial figures behind the two programs and you will see a completely differnet picture, with the A380 breaking even on an airframe basis now (although it is still in a program loss position), and the 747 predicted by Boeing to be in a forward-loss situation for the forseeable future both per airframe and on a program basis.
The 747-8 is late and well over budget and the current orders will not break even, either on an individual airframe basis or as a program as a whole. Now thats a cock up.
"Or how about the Boeing 787, their next generation mid body plane? Expensive little thing, because of all the carbon fibre, and has had more than a few delays in delivery (if it gets certified it'll start shipping fourth quarter of this year). Yet despite that they still have 827 orders for the thing."
The A380 has also suffered from production delays, rather than certification delays, with the bulk of their delay being after certification was issued - the 787 has thus far suffered both, and it has yet to be seen if Boeing has seen the back of any problems (unlikely, as Boeing is still carrying out manufacturing holds in its production chain to sort out huge issues - with 800 planes yet to be delivered and the 787 already 3 years behind schedule, Boeing should have had production sorted by now).
Expect even more 787 hurt in the coming 18 months - its going to take them that long to even consider getting up to their planned production schedule of 10 a month, and even while sorting that out they have to build and certify the 787-9...
Its also worth noting that Airbus build the A330-200 and A330-300 just fine, and made an absolute mint from that airframe while Boeing was busy cocking up the 787.
"Remember the A380 started in 1991. 2 years later, Boeing discontinued a similar project because they felt the demand wasn't there."
Uhm, the status of the A380 project was a very low status concept project in the 1990s- EADS didn't authorise the aircraft until late 2000, and thats when the real money was spent.
Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, Boeing was readily pitching enhanced models of the 747 to airlines, including a full double deck variant - and the airlines all said "no, we don't want another 747 variant, we want a new airframe." which is sort of why the vast majority of the 747-8s clientele is freight, at well over 70% of orders...
Boeing also piled a lot of money into their Sonic Cruiser during this time, only to have to completely shelve that and come up with the 787.
And equally, those projects can install crapware as well via their binary builds - I stopped using PDFCreator because their sourceforge build started coming with a lot of unasked for crap, and indeed at one point installed stuff without even asking.
British Airways never received any subsidy for their Concorde flights after they bought out the British Government from their share shortly after the British Airways privitisation - and from that point onward, British Airways managed to run Concorde at a fairly decent profit.
Infact, for several years during the 1990s, Concorde was BA's best profit center.
What did they change? The prices. When the Government ran the public airline, they priced Concorde as a "get the clientele flying BA, then make money off them some other way" tempter. When BA went private, the new management did some market research and actually discovered that very few of those flying Concorde actually knew how much they were paying, as they just had their secretaries book the tickets and deal with the cost.
So BA dramatically raised prices, and passenger numbers didn't fall at all.
The reason Concorde was retired was because all the airframes were coming up for their first major airframe checks, which cost several million per airframe on a normal aircraft, let alone Concorde, and because these checks had never been done before in the life of the aircraft, no one wanted to invest the extra money in building the infrastructure to enable Concorde to undergo them.
Airbus pulled the type certificate after consultation with Air France and British Airways, and the fleets were grounded. This is also why no one else will fly a Concorde again - the airframes are time expired, and there isn't the infrastructure around to support a re-life of them.
Slashdot Mirror
Artificial scarcity or not, people still like to get paid for work they do.
And where do you get this from? That shitty article a few months ago?
Having access to the builds, I can tell you now that .Net is very much alive and available in Windows 8.
Perhaps actually deorbiting in a controlled manner, aiming for a particular impact zone, would take more fuel than they had, but switching to a naturally decaying orbit for the same impact zone in a number of orbits time was doable?
The same way they keep them out of the military urban combat training areas I would think.
In the UK there is at least two full scale towns that I can think of that are used for training, and about a dozen villages - and that's just for the military, I also know of two urban training facilities for the police and private security companies. The main reason no one moves in is the same reason townships in Africa, and hobo towns in the US before they were removed and the problem hidden, always appear on the edge of a population centre - even the homeless need such things as food, water and sanitation and those things are significantly easier to source where they already exist for others.
Really? You are using the pomp and ceremony attached to Her Majesty's Government to support RMS? Thats got to be the funniest thing I have read in quite some time.
Out of interest, in your dug-in defensive position, how are you going to defend when your main powersource for the tank is turned off?
Something has to power the main function of the tank, and I doubt they carry enough battery packs to carry it out for long with the engine turned off...
The Register can claim anything they want, they provide no proof for any of it.
And as for the "why", that depends on the reasons - are Apple hedging their bets? Are they in a trial period? Are they just balancing load across multiple independent providers?
When you distribute storage, you do it for any number of reasons, and those reasons influence how you do the distribution. When the data itself doesn't actually affect the application, and s merely data being managed, it doesn't have to be anywhere near the application itself - the iCloud front end doesn't give a toss about the actual AAC file, it just displays details from the metadata, the actual file is totally separate and can be downloaded from anywhere.
If you stay away from the exotic storage mechanisms on either platform, and just use SQL Server, it's pretty easy to build a complex website which runs fine on both Azure and a standard IIS setup.
It's also likely that they aren't "striping" the website itself, but hosting the front end on Azure and returning objects from AWS - quite a few large services do something similar to this.
Come join us on #macosx on freenode, and you will soon see that I am no fanboy.
After using the iPhone (both original and 3G), and owning an iPad, after switching to an Android handset in February of this year (HTC Desire), I can personally say with full confidence that yes, I prefer the Apple iPhone and iOS ecosystem to my Android experience.
I can't wait to switch back to the iPhone early next year, nothing about my Android experience has impressed me at all, and while my iPhone 3G did have a lot of niggles under iOS4, it was never as bad as what I am experiencing with the Desire. With my iPhone, it used to be my main mobile platform while out and about, on the train or whatever - the browsing experience on the Desire is so poor in comparison, I rarely bother.
So what am I? Am I paid by Apple? Am I a zombie? Or am I someone who has tried both sides and made an informed decision? Because my current stance is that the iPhone is much better than a high end Android handset and I won't be choosing Android again in the near future.
Android has been available now for over three years, so when is this "bubble" supposed to be popping for Apple?
So basically, what you are saying is that You can't be bothered, so you want others to do the work for you?
Why shouldn't the US Government have an interest in a third parties decision affecting two large US companies? I don't get the issue here, to me the "outrage" that this story puts forward seems forced and misused.
The problem is, Boeings level of risk on the 787 was not merely high, it was "hey, lets go sky diving but you know what would be fun? Throwing the parachutes out first and chasing them!" levels of risk.
They were fantastically successful on the 777 project, so much so that they beat all expectations on it. But the 777 largely used the same design and production methodologies as the 767 (although the 777 was the first airliner to be CAD designed, it was still largely using the same design techniques as the 767) and thus only the design of the aircraft was a risk factor. And that paid off.
With the 787, Boeing went for a full composite fuselage, something that had up until then only been done on low production rate regional and business jet aircraft. They also went for electrically drive hydraulics, HVAC and other systems rather than conventional bleed air powered systems. They also went for fully composite wings, another first. Engine pylons and support systems designed to support a quick swap of engines between two totally different engine manufacturers - again, another first (reengining an aircraft from one manufacturers engines to anothers is a several day job on other airframes - Boeing wanted it down to the same time as a normal engine swap).
All of that on its own would have constituted a high risk project. Several of the things noted above have thrown up their own problems in manufacturing, which have needed solutions. Several of the things above have resulted in multi month delays. Thats what happens when you have a high risk project.
But Boeing didn't stop there - they parceled out the design to third parties. Which involved having several disparate design teams working together across teh globe, in many different languages.
Boeing still didn't stop there. They also completely changed the production process. Large sub assemblies built across the globe by risk sharing partners and flown to Boeings final assembly line. Never done that before, the largest structure preassembled on the 777 was a few sheets of aluminium and everything else was done on one assembly line. Now Boeing had twenty assembly lines across the globe to manage and sort out.
And they did all of this so they could parcel out the risk - reduce their own risk. Only that didn't work... Boeing ended up with tens of billions of dollars in "unforseen" expenditure, including having to buy the assembly lines of several of its partners, and bringing most of the design for the 787-9 variant back in house. Ending up with 4 unsellable airframes in their inventory that they had to write off. Billions of dollars in compensation payments. And an inventory backlog that analysts put in the hundreds of billions of dollars...
Not to mention that its just recently come to light that most of the first 300 or so airframes were ordered at prices near to $70Million each, and they will cost Boeing around $180Million each to build and deliver. Thats the way to make money...
This wasn't just a high risk program, it was an "all or nothing" fantasy leap into the unknown. And Mulally got out well before it started to show.
Oh, and its nice of you to bring up the 747, but that ship has sailed - the 747-400 ended production a few years ago, and the 747-8 (the latest variant) won't make any money with its current order book.
I have no problem with Boeing innovating, but you don't have to innovate *everything* in the damn business at the same time - its sheer stupidity to change things like the design methodology and the production methodology when you are already taking huge risks on the product itself. Mulallys board wanted a complete change in the way Boeing CA worked, and thats what they pushed for when they launched the 787. And it didn't pay off.
With Boeing trying desperately to remove as much risk behind the 787 as possible, by moving so much of the design and build process back in house, is anything I am saying really that wrong?
I may not hail from Washington State, but Im certainly not new to the aviation business - and while Boeing IDS may be profitable, Boeing CA still needs to pull its weight...
Boeing attempted three things all at the same time - first brand new product in 15 years, brand new (to Boeing) way of designing that product, and a brand new (again, to Boeing) way of building that product.
Fast forward 5 years from launch, and we have Boeing bringing huge work packages back into their internal structure (and in several cases outright buying out their third parties to take over the production line), reabsorbing design authority for major assemblies and having to open another final assembly line just to bring the monthly production numbers up to the original estimate.
Boeing changed way too much (infact, it would be easier to list what they kept from the 777 program than what they changed) and it paid the price - and they did it chasing cost reductions, with Mulally leading that pack.
Boeing is billions out of pocket, they have four 787 aircraft they cannot sell (they wrote them down in accounting terms, to shift them from a liability on the Inventory books to an R&D investment - and they had to write them down because the rework required on them makes them uneconomical to sell, Boeing decided to go with new build aircraft to deliver to the airlines that had these particular birds on order, which is unheard of).
Not to mention the fact that Boeing are in a forward loss situation for the entire 747-8 backlog, but thats another discussion entirely...
This isn't about being fashionable bashing Boeing, they outright deserve the criticism they get - and a lot of it is down to decisions made by Mulallys board.
Considering that Mulally launched one of the most bodged development programs at Boeing, the 787. Not only did this program reach in the direction of considerably technical improvement over current generation products, it did it with a design and build methodology that Boeing had never tried before.
This irresponsible cock up by the board, headed by Mulally, drove the 787 to be over three years late for EIS, with huge problems yet to rectify, and Boeing billions of dollars worse off.
Mulally has a lot of great achievements, but the world would see him completely differently if he had remained at Boeing to see out even the first few years of the 787 debacle. Instead, he bailed early on and now is remembered for the positive work he has done at Ford.
I've heard similar things suggested elsewhere, but is engine braking really avoided in the US? When I was taught here in the UK, engine braking was a primary method of braking the vehicle from any speed (you apply the brake while either remaining in the current gear or down shifting and letting each gear engage with no accelerator applied) and is used basically by everyone.
I spent about 5 minutes on their site before I found that little gem in their blog, and from that point onward Opa wasnt something I was considering further investigation of.
A language with a forced license on your code before it's even written? No thanks.
How about agreeing to take a sealed parcel for a stranger with you while you travel the world, and delivering it to another stranger...
How many people would say yes to that?
Definitely a case of apples and oranges - have Space X developed a space telescope? Does the JWST launch satellites? In both cases: no.
Its like saying "instead of spending this $100,000 on building this house, instead I'm going to give it to these people to build delivery trucks." It doesn't solve the problem the original amount was spent to solve.
A few issues with the numbers and opinions in your post...
"Thus currently they have had a total of 236 orders and delivered 56 jets, and the ordering seems to have dropped to near nothing (they've had 2 this year)."
Your "2" is net, there have actually been 12 A380s ordered this year, ILFC converted their order of 10 to A320s because they weren't placing them with any customers - the lessors have rapidly discovered that those airlines that want to operate the A380 are doing the ordering themselves (its better in a financial sense - the airline places the order and then does a sale-and-lease-back with a bank so they don't end up owning the asset, but they the lease rates at a much better level than if they went directly to a lessor).
Also, there is another A380 order currently pending for 10 aircraft, and two more lined up for later this year.
So don't count the A380 out yet.
"Now compare that to the Boeing 747, which has a total of over 1,400 delivered, and 114 orders for their new variant, the 747-8, which is still in final testing, and another hundred orders for older variants."
The 747-8 is the only variant with current orders - Boeing ended production of the 747-400 a couple of years ago and converted the entire production line over to the -8. That 114 orders is it for the 747, so I don't think crowing about it is due - the A380 didn't exist when the vast bulk of that 1,400 747s were ordered so how do you expect it to compete for them?
Its interesting how you pitch the A380s 200 odd orders as a negative, while you pitch the 747s 100 odd orders as a positive - take a look at the financial figures behind the two programs and you will see a completely differnet picture, with the A380 breaking even on an airframe basis now (although it is still in a program loss position), and the 747 predicted by Boeing to be in a forward-loss situation for the forseeable future both per airframe and on a program basis.
The 747-8 is late and well over budget and the current orders will not break even, either on an individual airframe basis or as a program as a whole. Now thats a cock up.
"Or how about the Boeing 787, their next generation mid body plane? Expensive little thing, because of all the carbon fibre, and has had more than a few delays in delivery (if it gets certified it'll start shipping fourth quarter of this year). Yet despite that they still have 827 orders for the thing."
The A380 has also suffered from production delays, rather than certification delays, with the bulk of their delay being after certification was issued - the 787 has thus far suffered both, and it has yet to be seen if Boeing has seen the back of any problems (unlikely, as Boeing is still carrying out manufacturing holds in its production chain to sort out huge issues - with 800 planes yet to be delivered and the 787 already 3 years behind schedule, Boeing should have had production sorted by now).
Expect even more 787 hurt in the coming 18 months - its going to take them that long to even consider getting up to their planned production schedule of 10 a month, and even while sorting that out they have to build and certify the 787-9...
Its also worth noting that Airbus build the A330-200 and A330-300 just fine, and made an absolute mint from that airframe while Boeing was busy cocking up the 787.
"Remember the A380 started in 1991. 2 years later, Boeing discontinued a similar project because they felt the demand wasn't there."
Uhm, the status of the A380 project was a very low status concept project in the 1990s- EADS didn't authorise the aircraft until late 2000, and thats when the real money was spent.
Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, Boeing was readily pitching enhanced models of the 747 to airlines, including a full double deck variant - and the airlines all said "no, we don't want another 747 variant, we want a new airframe." which is sort of why the vast majority of the 747-8s clientele is freight, at well over 70% of orders...
Boeing also piled a lot of money into their Sonic Cruiser during this time, only to have to completely shelve that and come up with the 787.
And equally, those projects can install crapware as well via their binary builds - I stopped using PDFCreator because their sourceforge build started coming with a lot of unasked for crap, and indeed at one point installed stuff without even asking.
Dropping USB sticks in a corporate car park is a well known method of getting malware into that company.
British Airways never received any subsidy for their Concorde flights after they bought out the British Government from their share shortly after the British Airways privitisation - and from that point onward, British Airways managed to run Concorde at a fairly decent profit.
Infact, for several years during the 1990s, Concorde was BA's best profit center.
What did they change? The prices. When the Government ran the public airline, they priced Concorde as a "get the clientele flying BA, then make money off them some other way" tempter. When BA went private, the new management did some market research and actually discovered that very few of those flying Concorde actually knew how much they were paying, as they just had their secretaries book the tickets and deal with the cost.
So BA dramatically raised prices, and passenger numbers didn't fall at all.
The reason Concorde was retired was because all the airframes were coming up for their first major airframe checks, which cost several million per airframe on a normal aircraft, let alone Concorde, and because these checks had never been done before in the life of the aircraft, no one wanted to invest the extra money in building the infrastructure to enable Concorde to undergo them.
Airbus pulled the type certificate after consultation with Air France and British Airways, and the fleets were grounded. This is also why no one else will fly a Concorde again - the airframes are time expired, and there isn't the infrastructure around to support a re-life of them.
I've used the Windows 8 demos, the UI you are referring to is one of several, and not the one I have active. Stop the FUD.