Hopefully all UK net users have already seen the following, but it's worth pointing out just the same:
Gasp in awe as you watch Jack Straw, Home Secretary of the UK (ie, important government chap), find himself liable for two years imprisonment (if this law was to pass) because someone sent him an encrypted message that he can't decrypt.
This law is really so incredibly fscked, and demonstrates a completely lack of understanding, on par with the 'net filtering legislation that's just come in to effect in Australia (Oz/.'ers: what's happening down there?).
I don't think the profitability of any potential micro-MS would be Gate's deciding factor in which company he would want to be involved in.
Immediately after the break-up, chances are he's going to own a big chunk of all 3 divisions anyway, so his money is more or less safe. I also imagine, he will have some degree of influence over the individual companies, due to his holdings in the company (ofcourse, I imagine the DOJ could force him to put his eggs in one basket or put other similar constraints on his involvement).
(Also, I read somewhere that after the break up of Standard Oil and AT&T the respective market caps of the offshoot companies was greater than that of the whole, or somesuch. Basically, they were saying it's good to invest in a company just before a forced break up. Anyone got references to this? Or am I talking crap?).
I imagine that the market would react favourably to whichever (if any!) of the companies Gates aligned himself with. Gates being Gates and all.
But from the announcement, it sounds like he's going in to the applications division anyway.
It'll be interesting to see how the market reacts over the next few days. MSFT has been on a bit of a roller coaster for the past week. It's worth pointing out that they're up 2% or so as of writing this, which is good considering they've been falling for a week or so. Have a look at bigcharts.com or your favourite financial news site.
I'm suprised MSNBC (being partially owned by Microsoft and all) ran that photo - it's not particularly flattering to Ballmer, considering he has a bit of a reputation for being a, erm, loud mouthed bossy boots (or similar).
Here's one for the conspiracy theorists: I wonder if there's anything, post-potential breakup, to stop the Baby-Microsofts from licensing their code/products to external parties, and, if so, if there's something stopping Gates running off to setup another company repackaging/enhancing the existing Microsoft products. Lots of people would blindly follow Gates if he was to go his "seperate" way.
God knows he's got the money to fund a start-up for a year or two.
Ofcourse, he could just be stepping aside so he's got more time to play in his vault-o-cash, ala Scrooge Duck (or whatever Donald's uncle was called).
Market cap is easy to measure - market share isn't.
Remember the recent fuss over Linux users buying Quake to get the commercial levels, but the sales being registered as Windows sales (or something along those lines)?
Who's figures do you believe for market share? Sales figures are always fiddled with? How do you measure the number of Linux users when they can legally download/copy distributions?
More and more I'm reminded of the cyberspace scenes as described by Gibson. On the virtual world of the internet we have these larger and larger blocks representing big companies...
Have a look at SmartMoney's Map of the Market, which, I suspect, may have been inspired by the same Gibson reference. It's a very nice way of representing the relative market caps of these big companies (and the movements of the individual companies, market sectors, etc.). Very cool tool...
It probably will mean AOL freebie disks falling out of Time magazine, etc., every other week...
Similar to Freeserve in the UK. ISP supposedly run by Dixon's (big bricks and mortar electrical goods/computer chain in the UK). All the techie stuff is done by boring technical companies in the background, with Dixon's largely providing the distribution network for their CD's (ie, shipping crates of the things to their stores along with their normal shipments of TVs, etc.)
Marginal cost to them is next to nothing, and it's built them a business worth, well, lots. Can't find their exact market cap at the moment, but I seem to recall it's in the region of £1.5bn.
I find it interesting that a 'net company has finally turned around and bought an established old media company.
Talking about this with some people the other day, and we found it suprising that the dotcoms haven't been using their insane valuations to do stock swaps to purchase the established brands (with good back-catalogues/archives of content).
From the website: "We give this information some time in advance to give new Jazz++ users a chance to decide whether to wait for the Open Source release. It will of course be possible to buy licenses for version 3.x up to the time of the new release in order to be able to use the current version. There will however be no refund of licenses bought in this period."
Sounds as though they're being pretty upfront with potential (paying) customers about the situtation, which is good enough for me. (Not that I matter in the slightest, you understand)
Hong Kong is probably my favourite place on earth - worth spending the money to go there and have a look around.
Once you're there, ofcourse, there are plenty of _cheap_ geek toys to buy to keep you happy. The cost of accomodation, food, etc., is/was quite cheap.
Don't know the cost of getting there from the US, but there are often really good deals from the UK (and, I guess, the rest of Europe). It's also a pretty common place to stop over on the way to/from Australia and the UK. Last time I did Sydney to London we had a six hour stop over which was just enough to zip in to town, ride the Star Ferry, get some fake watches at the Night Market, and get back to the airport in time for some duty free shopping.
Would move there in an instant if it wasn't for the whole communist rule thing. Oh well.
In the UK, we have a company called, suprisingly, Teletext that does the commercial teletext services on ITV (Ch. 3) and Channel 4. They may well do the services on Channel 5, but as anyone from the UK would tell you, no one watches Channel 5, so I can't tell you.
As well as doing their teletext services, they have a half decent web site, and promises of digital teletext, with, erm, pictures and stuff. Unfortunately, you can't actually get a digital teletext decoder yet, but that's a long (and extremely boring) story. Or maybe you can. I dunno, but these geeks can probably set you straight.
Do a search on, say, google for "teletext gateway" and you will find some services that provide teletext access via the web, such as this dutch site.
Before sending money off to these guys, remember that most banks have nasty charges for converting cheques from one currency to another. From memory, the standard charge in Australia to convert currency is AUS$20, so either include enough money to cover the cost, or get your bank to write a cheque in Australian dollars. Maybe get together with some friends/your local LUG and pool your money to save on bank fees.
There is the chance that since these guys are a worthy cause, their local bank might waive the fees, but I wouldn't count on it.
...j
(US readers: s/cheques/checks/g - make sense now? <g>)
Re:Random RISC OS trivia by an ex-user
on
The ROX Desktop
·
· Score: 1
From my understanding, Acorn didn't entirely disappear. Have a look at Element 14.
Actually, this article at CBS MarketWatch is better - is lists the top 5 gainers of all time. Interestingly, they're all Internet companies, although I guess that will change, given time. And Cobalt, another Linux/Hardware company is currently in the third slot after their recent IPO.
Anyway, looks like VA Linux is going to end up in the top 5 somewhere unless something goes horribly wrong in the next few hours.
If the price doesn't settle back too much, VA Linux is set to be the bigger first day gainer ever - a dubious honour currently held by The Globe (the URL appears to be incorrect in the Yahoo story).
If my memory serves me correctly, there's lots of influential games developers in Guildford, right? Bullfrog/EA for starters...
Best thing about Guildford though? It's close to London.:-)
(Actually, all I know of Guildford is the Forte Posthouse (it's a hotel) on the edge of town. Spent six weeks there when I was doing a contract down that way. They have good chocolate ice cream.)
Slashdot Mirror
Go to my.mp3.com - it'll give you the download list and recommendations on what else to try based on your previous downloads.
...j
FWIW, the new RAQs are x86 based. Check out the press release.
I guess they get more bang per buck, development is a bit easier, and their customers may well be more comfortable running "normal" hardware.
Cobalt's products are cool - I just wish they were a bit cheaper...
For something similar, have a look at this product from rebel.com - they have some interesting bits of hardware generally.
...j
rpmfind (see rpmfind.net) is a database/service that will find the files in the packages for you. It's quite snazzy.
You can use it via the web interface (above) or via the CLI tool.
...j
Hopefully all UK net users have already seen the following, but it's worth pointing out just the same:
/.'ers: what's happening down there?).
Gasp in awe as you watch Jack Straw, Home Secretary of the UK (ie, important government chap), find himself liable for two years imprisonment (if this law was to pass) because someone sent him an encrypted message that he can't decrypt.
This law is really so incredibly fscked, and demonstrates a completely lack of understanding, on par with the 'net filtering legislation that's just come in to effect in Australia (Oz
...j
(an Australian living the UK)
I don't think the profitability of any potential micro-MS would be Gate's deciding factor in which company he would want to be involved in.
Immediately after the break-up, chances are he's going to own a big chunk of all 3 divisions anyway, so his money is more or less safe. I also imagine, he will have some degree of influence over the individual companies, due to his holdings in the company (ofcourse, I imagine the DOJ could force him to put his eggs in one basket or put other similar constraints on his involvement).
(Also, I read somewhere that after the break up of Standard Oil and AT&T the respective market caps of the offshoot companies was greater than that of the whole, or somesuch. Basically, they were saying it's good to invest in a company just before a forced break up. Anyone got references to this? Or am I talking crap?).
I imagine that the market would react favourably to whichever (if any!) of the companies Gates aligned himself with. Gates being Gates and all.
But from the announcement, it sounds like he's going in to the applications division anyway.
It'll be interesting to see how the market reacts over the next few days. MSFT has been on a bit of a roller coaster for the past week. It's worth pointing out that they're up 2% or so as of writing this, which is good considering they've been falling for a week or so. Have a look at bigcharts.com or your favourite financial news site.
...j
I'm suprised MSNBC (being partially owned by Microsoft and all) ran that photo - it's not particularly flattering to Ballmer, considering he has a bit of a reputation for being a, erm, loud mouthed bossy boots (or similar).
Here's one for the conspiracy theorists: I wonder if there's anything, post-potential breakup, to stop the Baby-Microsofts from licensing their code/products to external parties, and, if so, if there's something stopping Gates running off to setup another company repackaging/enhancing the existing Microsoft products. Lots of people would blindly follow Gates if he was to go his "seperate" way.
God knows he's got the money to fund a start-up for a year or two.
Ofcourse, he could just be stepping aside so he's got more time to play in his vault-o-cash, ala Scrooge Duck (or whatever Donald's uncle was called).
<g>
...j
koffice looks extremely promising.
Ooops. Should of hit preview. Doh!
Market cap is easy to measure - market share isn't.
Remember the recent fuss over Linux users buying Quake to get the commercial levels, but the sales being registered as Windows sales (or something along those lines)?
Who's figures do you believe for market share? Sales figures are always fiddled with? How do you measure the number of Linux users when they can legally download/copy distributions?
Etc?
...j
More and more I'm reminded of the cyberspace scenes as described by Gibson. On the virtual world of the internet we have these larger and larger blocks representing big companies...
Have a look at SmartMoney's Map of the Market, which, I suspect, may have been inspired by the same Gibson reference. It's a very nice way of representing the relative market caps of these big companies (and the movements of the individual companies, market sectors, etc.). Very cool tool...
...j
It probably will mean AOL freebie disks falling out of Time magazine, etc., every other week...
Similar to Freeserve in the UK. ISP supposedly run by Dixon's (big bricks and mortar electrical goods/computer chain in the UK). All the techie stuff is done by boring technical companies in the background, with Dixon's largely providing the distribution network for their CD's (ie, shipping crates of the things to their stores along with their normal shipments of TVs, etc.)
Marginal cost to them is next to nothing, and it's built them a business worth, well, lots. Can't find their exact market cap at the moment, but I seem to recall it's in the region of £1.5bn.
...j
I find it interesting that a 'net company has finally turned around and bought an established old media company.
Talking about this with some people the other day, and we found it suprising that the dotcoms haven't been using their insane valuations to do stock swaps to purchase the established brands (with good back-catalogues/archives of content).
...j
From the website: "We give this information some time in advance to give new Jazz++ users a chance to decide whether to wait for the Open Source release. It will of course be possible to buy licenses for version 3.x up to the time of the new release in order to be able to use the current version. There will however be no refund of licenses bought in this period."
Sounds as though they're being pretty upfront with potential (paying) customers about the situtation, which is good enough for me. (Not that I matter in the slightest, you understand)
...j
Hong Kong is probably my favourite place on earth - worth spending the money to go there and have a look around.
Once you're there, ofcourse, there are plenty of _cheap_ geek toys to buy to keep you happy. The cost of accomodation, food, etc., is/was quite cheap.
Don't know the cost of getting there from the US, but there are often really good deals from the UK (and, I guess, the rest of Europe). It's also a pretty common place to stop over on the way to/from Australia and the UK. Last time I did Sydney to London we had a six hour stop over which was just enough to zip in to town, ride the Star Ferry, get some fake watches at the Night Market, and get back to the airport in time for some duty free shopping.
Would move there in an instant if it wasn't for the whole communist rule thing. Oh well.
...j
In the UK, we have a company called, suprisingly, Teletext that does the commercial teletext services on ITV (Ch. 3) and Channel 4. They may well do the services on Channel 5, but as anyone from the UK would tell you, no one watches Channel 5, so I can't tell you.
As well as doing their teletext services, they have a half decent web site, and promises of digital teletext, with, erm, pictures and stuff. Unfortunately, you can't actually get a digital teletext decoder yet, but that's a long (and extremely boring) story. Or maybe you can. I dunno, but these geeks can probably set you straight.
Do a search on, say, google for "teletext gateway" and you will find some services that provide teletext access via the web, such as this dutch site.
...j
But when are they gonna release the source-code for their backend?
<g>
...j
squishdot.org is where you can find squishdot.
Haven't used it, but heard good things.
...j
Before sending money off to these guys, remember that most banks have nasty charges for converting cheques from one currency to another. From memory, the standard charge in Australia to convert currency is AUS$20, so either include enough money to cover the cost, or get your bank to write a cheque in Australian dollars. Maybe get together with some friends/your local LUG and pool your money to save on bank fees.
There is the chance that since these guys are a worthy cause, their local bank might waive the fees, but I wouldn't count on it.
...j
(US readers: s/cheques/checks/g - make sense now? <g>)
From my understanding, Acorn didn't entirely disappear. Have a look at Element 14.
They concentrate on set-top boxy things now.
...j
I've a vague recollection that he has a classroom set up in his garage where he teaches kids about computers.
Methinks I saw this on one of Robert X. Cringley's documentaries.
...j
Actually, this article at CBS MarketWatch is better - is lists the top 5 gainers of all time. Interestingly, they're all Internet companies, although I guess that will change, given time. And Cobalt, another Linux/Hardware company is currently in the third slot after their recent IPO.
Anyway, looks like VA Linux is going to end up in the top 5 somewhere unless something goes horribly wrong in the next few hours.
...j
If the price doesn't settle back too much, VA Linux is set to be the bigger first day gainer ever - a dubious honour currently held by The Globe (the URL appears to be incorrect in the Yahoo story).
...j
If my memory serves me correctly, there's lots of influential games developers in Guildford, right? Bullfrog/EA for starters...
:-)
Best thing about Guildford though? It's close to London.
(Actually, all I know of Guildford is the Forte Posthouse (it's a hotel) on the edge of town. Spent six weeks there when I was doing a contract down that way. They have good chocolate ice cream.)
...j
Or if you look at this page you'll see you can get a different configuration of the Gateway box:
Memory 64MB RAM memory
Hard Drive 20GB Ultra ATA hard drive
$1499
So, much better deals with Gateway. A lot of companies probably already qualify for chunky discounts from them as well.
No sign of any Gateway-badged Raq's, however...
...j
Have a look at this news.com story - follow the relevant links at the bottom to get the history of Ms. Haines' case.
/. away!)
(Methinks c|net/news.com has more thank 128k, so
...j