The real villain here is MS, not Dell. They're actually being pretty reasonable considering the extra process they're having to maintain.
How can you say this? Dell had to agree to this in the first place, right? So how do they escape all blame here? They did their best to jam Vista down our throats and share every bit as much blame as MSFT. Dell actually eliminated XP (fall '07) entirely only to bring it back by customer demand. Haven't you seen the numerous petitions to Dell to keep selling XP? Those don't come about because Dell is doing it right. They come about because Dell is NOT doing things right.
I say this in all seriousness because I just bought a lot of PC's for our office. Dell wanted me to buy Vista (clearly). Other PC makers were happy to supply either XP or Vista. Now how come the other guys can do that and Dell (with it's vast resources) can't?
You act like Dell works for MSFT. Last I checked, Dell can make decisions on it's own. And clearly, they backed the wrong horse this time around. They should be punished (by lower revenues) and if you look at their stock price they have. No surprise there. That's what happens when you try to forcefeed your customers.
Hopefully, they will get it right. But if they stop selling it on June 30th, you can be sure we'll go through this "eliminate/bring back" process all over again. Dell does not understand that their business customers do not all want Vista. They will eventually understand that fact, though. It gets hard to ignore when your customer flee to your competitors.
Also, just FYI...the Vostro does NOT have a docking station available for it.
Did you ever, in your wildest dreams, think you would have to check for that?!?! Well, I didn't either and found out the hard way when I bought 2 of them for our office.
Needless to say, we are none too happy that this fact isn't pointed out by Dell. Do I really need to go through each and every single piece of the details to verify "standard laptop items" are there? ie: should I really have to check that my new laptop has a 10/100 port? Is that not "standard" on all laptops now? That's the kind of stuff I am talking about. Surely the availability of a docking station falls into that category. But nope...not at Dell.
Marketing is ruling the roost over there at Dell and they are trying to carve up the product lines so finely that the average customer has no clue what is and is not included on a given laptop. Very very customer unfriendly, if you ask me. Reminds me of the early days of PC's when you had to ask, "does it include a parallel port? How about a serial port?". After about 2 years of that, almost all PC's had those ports as standard features.
This is one of many reasons we left Dell. For good.
The other is just a small bug that occurs when you create a new folder and then try to rename it too quickly.
Uh-huh. So you don't think "creating and naming a folder" should be a minimum requirement for an OS? I keep hearing justifications for Vista's poor I/O performance and I can't help but wonder: where is the skepticism?
Copying files, creating/naming folders, etc have been a standard feature of an OS since, oh...about 1983. Are you really giving MSFT a free pass on this? In my mind, it's inexcusable for this functionality not to be perfect. How can an OS, with the money and time MSFT put into it, not work perfectly with respect to the file system???? I don't care what they say: that's the very definition of a lemon.
This is 1 of many reasons I don't use Dell for my company's PC's anymore. We have standardized on XP. We will stay on XP until there is a viable alternative that works better. ie: not Vista.
Dell has been trying to cram Vista down customer's throats for almost a year now. They stopped selling XP altogether and then had to go back and add XP options on a few product lines, like Vostro. Mind you, they don't offer XP on ALL of their machines. Just a few "select" product lines. Note: this was a Dell decision, not a MSFT one. Other PC makers were happy to put XP on our machines if that's what we wanted. Dell tries to force us into Vista.
As it stands currently, I have left Dell as a customer for this reason. It is so blatantly obvious that they are catering to their supplier (MSFT) instead of their customer's that I just refuse to deal with them anymore. I am certain I am not alone, either.
How can such a successful company like Dell make such a serious blunder to their business customers? It's bad enough to do it to MaryJane Mathteacher but businesses won't put up with that crap. Businesses pay a premium (usually) to get *exactly* what they want. There are very good reasons for this and if you try to force us into "your" solution, we will go elsewhere.
Dell...are you listening? Figure it out. Vista sucks. People don't want it. Stop pretending they do and start doing what your customers want. How many petitions do we have to sign to tell you idiots we want to pass on Vista and get XP instead?
Now you add insult to injury by charging us $50. Nice move. It makes it that much easier to go elsewhere, as plenty of more customer-focused PC suppliers are offering what their customer's want -- XP.
(disclosure: I used to work at Dell from 92-95 and was a major Dell fanboy for many many years. I am biased in support of Dell and yet....I have to tell it like it is)
As someone who studies and trades commodities, you do realize that OPEC isn't exactly the beacon of unbiased information, don't you?
Seriously. You might as well believe the RIAA numbers if you believe OPEC.
OPEC is a cartel. A cartel will say and do anything to remain a cartel. Even lie about what they can and can not produce. Do not kid yourself: supply is a very very very real issue. Moreso now than the "gas crunch" of the 70's or any other example you care to cite.
The simple fact is: the "world" is now competing for the same oil resources the US has enjoyed for almost 80 years. The competition for those resources has never been this fierce....but it is going to get worse as time goes on. Get used to it. The US is not the only one who NEEDS oil and who is willing to pay for it. Lots of countries fill that gap now.
OPEC would LOVE sell you more oil @ $135/bbl. The fact is, they can't because they can't increase their daily production enough to matter (pricing wise). Otherwise, they would.
Everyone, from the top to the bottom, does their time in the industries that create our food, our shelter, our power, etc.
You grossly underestimate human behavior. You're replying to my question of alternatives with a system that is already proved broken? Communism doesn't work.
You're right to have digital supply/demand questions. IMHO, it is different. As in "a whole new category".
Unfortunately, under our current laws, we keep trying to treat them like physical goods, which doesn't work for some of the same reasons you laid out. You see, in a better capital market (ie: less regulation, less laws to muck things up)....music would be priced according to it's value. And in the world where you can copy with the click of a button, it's much much less than what you have paid all your life.
Certainly not free. But definitely not what the owners and producers think they are entitled to (and are going to Congress to try to enforce). Somewhere in the middle. In fact, it's being played out as we speak. We'll eventually see what the "market will bear" for digital assets. My guess is: not nearly as much as we used to pay for the physical items.
Capitalist economics is a shell game? I strongly disagree but I will go with it for the purposes of discussion. (I believe capitalism does a damn fine job of allocating resources efficiently)
Question for you: what is the alternative?
What is the utopian economic vision you have in mind? If capitalist economics sucks, then what is the "right" model, in your mind? Please enlighten us.
Microsoft could drop the price in Windows by 50% across the board.
Then they might only have 50% gross margins opposed to 85%. Kinda like Intel has on CPU's.
You all didn't know? Umm, Windows is HUGELY profitable. One of the the most profitable products ever sold. Ever.
Just the words "heavy" and "big" scare me the bejeezus out of me. I don't know about 5 lbs of plastic...
I do, however, find it ironic that I fear such words as they describe me in a very elegant way.
...and I finally see the first insightful post on this entire thread.
Folks, we live in capitalistic societies (most of us, anyway). Until the economics "work" - EV cars on a mass scale are a pipedream.
Until it is less expensive than a fossil-fuel car (TCO), it won't happen. Right now, it's not even close. Fossil fueled transportation is far more cost effective than it' electric/hybrid equivalent.
If you disagree with me, then all you have to do to be rich is to go sell your idea to a trucking company. If the economics are there, they'll pay you a mint to make it happen. Unfortunately, the fact is: the economics AREN'T there.
I don't get your post. We still have amateur engineers working in their garages all over the world. Yet, we require PE certification if you want to design/build a bridge for the government.
They aren't mutually exclusive, ya know. (and yes, I realize MSFT *could* make the mutually exclusive....but it doesn't HAVE to be that way by default)
Just like other engineering disciplines, programming will have many different "levels" of competence. Some folks will be amateurs. Others will "know enough to be dangerous". And still others will know it inside and out. The idea is that the marketplace needs a way to differentiate between those groups. Right now, there is 1 group: programmers.
Are you kidding? It's not 1/10th of a percent. Try an order of magnitude bigger. More like 1% of the entire population.
The US has THE largest prison population in the world. Bigger than China. Bigger than N Korea. Bigger than Russia. Bigger than any foe you can come up with.
Pffft. I wish it was 1/10th of a percent. Maybe then I wouldn't have to entertain these police state conspiracy theories I keep coming up with. One percent of the total population is a huge number and you can't help but wonder how it got that way.
Back in the 80's and 90's, we already tried doing metered service. AOL, Compuserve, Genie, and other ISP's had hourly rates back in those days.
It made their product a niche product and eventually ALL of those companies abandoned that billing scheme in favor of unlimited pricing. Guess what happened? The internet hit critical mass BECAUSE they changed to "unlimited" monthly plans.
So now, in 2008, we are looking back into metered service? Good luck with that. My gut tells me "the people" will reject it. Just like they did back in the 80's and 90's. As soon as someone (Netzero) offered all you can eat for one price....the other competitors started bleeding customers. It will be the same this time around.
People don't want to look over their shoulders or monitor their usage. They do it for cell phones because they have to (no other choice). Not true for ISP's.
Each exchange (NYSE, Nasdaq, etc) has their own requirements for listing. If you can't meet the requirements (there are many), then you trade on the pink sheets.
It has nothing to do with CPA's signing off or not signing off.
I ditched Creative way back when once I discovered they transcode ALL output to 48Khz. Since I went to Turtle Beach, I must say -- my life is MUCH easier with respect to "good" sound cards. (ie: not onboard)
It also has the nice ability to output anything in DD 5.1 -- even if it's stereo only. My audio receiver really likes that because I don't go in and out of Dolby Digital. Just a nice, clean, constant 5.1 stream all the time. And yes, it supports Vista.
First, goodwill in the accounting sense is from mergers and acquisitions. Second, Accounting rules can be weird and oftentimes, they don't match what you would intuitively think. That's the case here. "Goodwill" is not some magic number that has to do with the goodwill of the brand. It has NOTHING to do with brand.
Coke recognized the error of it's ways and changed back as soon as it was clear New Coke was a flop.
I don't see that same behavior from MSFT.
...and maybe that is why Coca-Cola is, and has been, one of THE most recognized brands in all of business history. Companies screw up all the time. That's part of business.
What seperates the men from the boys is how a company reacts to a screw up. JnJ recalled Tylenol. Coke changed back and killed New Coke. Hell, even Jack in the Box was able to come back from the dead after killing a few people. In contrast, MSFT doesn't seem to recognize the lessons there so it continues screwing up while it thinks it is doing it right.
I just bought a PS3 and Wii in recent months. I decided to take the plunge into consoles.
I have the *exact* same thoughts as you and my experiences have played that out. For FPS, I find it much more difficult on a console that good old keyboard/mouse. Other types of games are great on the console but FPS is a special niche that just controls better on a PC.
Thank you for the post. Excellent response and you hit the nail on the head - if too much of this goes on, confidence in the financial systems will wain.
...and that is precisely what is going on right as we speak (for other reasons, however).
The best thing about your post that most people will miss is this: there are alternatives around the world. The US financial system is, literally, competing for confidence. So far, it's been a pretty good 300 yr run. But that doesn't mean squat for the future. As they say, "past performance is no indication of future results".
That must be taken into consideration during this discussion of what should and shouldn't be allowed.
CEO's are people too. Sometimes they need a way to sell and generate cash for themselves, personally. And just like you, they are going to "use" the rules anyway they can to better benefit themselves personally. If you are negative about it, you call that "gaming the system". If you are positive about it, you call it "knowing your stuff". Either way, it doesn't matter because it's legal. And being legal is all that matters in the world of finance. Capitalism doesn't care about your moral quandaries.
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The real villain here is MS, not Dell. They're actually being pretty reasonable considering the extra process they're having to maintain.
How can you say this? Dell had to agree to this in the first place, right? So how do they escape all blame here? They did their best to jam Vista down our throats and share every bit as much blame as MSFT. Dell actually eliminated XP (fall '07) entirely only to bring it back by customer demand. Haven't you seen the numerous petitions to Dell to keep selling XP? Those don't come about because Dell is doing it right. They come about because Dell is NOT doing things right.
I say this in all seriousness because I just bought a lot of PC's for our office. Dell wanted me to buy Vista (clearly). Other PC makers were happy to supply either XP or Vista. Now how come the other guys can do that and Dell (with it's vast resources) can't?
You act like Dell works for MSFT. Last I checked, Dell can make decisions on it's own. And clearly, they backed the wrong horse this time around. They should be punished (by lower revenues) and if you look at their stock price they have. No surprise there. That's what happens when you try to forcefeed your customers.
Hopefully, they will get it right. But if they stop selling it on June 30th, you can be sure we'll go through this "eliminate/bring back" process all over again. Dell does not understand that their business customers do not all want Vista. They will eventually understand that fact, though. It gets hard to ignore when your customer flee to your competitors.
Also, just FYI...the Vostro does NOT have a docking station available for it.
Did you ever, in your wildest dreams, think you would have to check for that?!?! Well, I didn't either and found out the hard way when I bought 2 of them for our office.
Needless to say, we are none too happy that this fact isn't pointed out by Dell. Do I really need to go through each and every single piece of the details to verify "standard laptop items" are there? ie: should I really have to check that my new laptop has a 10/100 port? Is that not "standard" on all laptops now? That's the kind of stuff I am talking about. Surely the availability of a docking station falls into that category. But nope...not at Dell.
Marketing is ruling the roost over there at Dell and they are trying to carve up the product lines so finely that the average customer has no clue what is and is not included on a given laptop. Very very customer unfriendly, if you ask me. Reminds me of the early days of PC's when you had to ask, "does it include a parallel port? How about a serial port?". After about 2 years of that, almost all PC's had those ports as standard features.
This is one of many reasons we left Dell. For good.
The other is just a small bug that occurs when you create a new folder and then try to rename it too quickly.
Uh-huh. So you don't think "creating and naming a folder" should be a minimum requirement for an OS? I keep hearing justifications for Vista's poor I/O performance and I can't help but wonder: where is the skepticism?
Copying files, creating/naming folders, etc have been a standard feature of an OS since, oh...about 1983. Are you really giving MSFT a free pass on this? In my mind, it's inexcusable for this functionality not to be perfect. How can an OS, with the money and time MSFT put into it, not work perfectly with respect to the file system???? I don't care what they say: that's the very definition of a lemon.
This is 1 of many reasons I don't use Dell for my company's PC's anymore. We have standardized on XP. We will stay on XP until there is a viable alternative that works better. ie: not Vista.
Dell has been trying to cram Vista down customer's throats for almost a year now. They stopped selling XP altogether and then had to go back and add XP options on a few product lines, like Vostro. Mind you, they don't offer XP on ALL of their machines. Just a few "select" product lines. Note: this was a Dell decision, not a MSFT one. Other PC makers were happy to put XP on our machines if that's what we wanted. Dell tries to force us into Vista.
As it stands currently, I have left Dell as a customer for this reason. It is so blatantly obvious that they are catering to their supplier (MSFT) instead of their customer's that I just refuse to deal with them anymore. I am certain I am not alone, either.
How can such a successful company like Dell make such a serious blunder to their business customers? It's bad enough to do it to MaryJane Mathteacher but businesses won't put up with that crap. Businesses pay a premium (usually) to get *exactly* what they want. There are very good reasons for this and if you try to force us into "your" solution, we will go elsewhere.
Dell...are you listening? Figure it out. Vista sucks. People don't want it. Stop pretending they do and start doing what your customers want. How many petitions do we have to sign to tell you idiots we want to pass on Vista and get XP instead?
Now you add insult to injury by charging us $50. Nice move. It makes it that much easier to go elsewhere, as plenty of more customer-focused PC suppliers are offering what their customer's want -- XP.
(disclosure: I used to work at Dell from 92-95 and was a major Dell fanboy for many many years. I am biased in support of Dell and yet....I have to tell it like it is)
As someone who studies and trades commodities, you do realize that OPEC isn't exactly the beacon of unbiased information, don't you?
Seriously. You might as well believe the RIAA numbers if you believe OPEC.
OPEC is a cartel. A cartel will say and do anything to remain a cartel. Even lie about what they can and can not produce. Do not kid yourself: supply is a very very very real issue. Moreso now than the "gas crunch" of the 70's or any other example you care to cite.
The simple fact is: the "world" is now competing for the same oil resources the US has enjoyed for almost 80 years. The competition for those resources has never been this fierce....but it is going to get worse as time goes on. Get used to it. The US is not the only one who NEEDS oil and who is willing to pay for it. Lots of countries fill that gap now.
OPEC would LOVE sell you more oil @ $135/bbl. The fact is, they can't because they can't increase their daily production enough to matter (pricing wise). Otherwise, they would.
Everyone, from the top to the bottom, does their time in the industries that create our food, our shelter, our power, etc.
You grossly underestimate human behavior. You're replying to my question of alternatives with a system that is already proved broken? Communism doesn't work.
Any other ideas?
You're right to have digital supply/demand questions. IMHO, it is different. As in "a whole new category".
Unfortunately, under our current laws, we keep trying to treat them like physical goods, which doesn't work for some of the same reasons you laid out. You see, in a better capital market (ie: less regulation, less laws to muck things up)....music would be priced according to it's value. And in the world where you can copy with the click of a button, it's much much less than what you have paid all your life.
Certainly not free. But definitely not what the owners and producers think they are entitled to (and are going to Congress to try to enforce). Somewhere in the middle. In fact, it's being played out as we speak. We'll eventually see what the "market will bear" for digital assets. My guess is: not nearly as much as we used to pay for the physical items.
Capitalist economics is a shell game? I strongly disagree but I will go with it for the purposes of discussion. (I believe capitalism does a damn fine job of allocating resources efficiently)
Question for you: what is the alternative?
What is the utopian economic vision you have in mind? If capitalist economics sucks, then what is the "right" model, in your mind? Please enlighten us.
We did that.
They were called BBS's. They worked great for their time.
We didn't need the government then and we sure as hell don't need them now. We can do it fine on our own, thanks.
Microsoft could drop the price in Windows by 50% across the board.
Then they might only have 50% gross margins opposed to 85%. Kinda like Intel has on CPU's.
You all didn't know?
Umm, Windows is HUGELY profitable. One of the the most profitable products ever sold. Ever.
Speak for yourself there, McGruff.
/.
This is
Just the words "heavy" and "big" scare me the bejeezus out of me. I don't know about 5 lbs of plastic...
I do, however, find it ironic that I fear such words as they describe me in a very elegant way.
...and I finally see the first insightful post on this entire thread.
Folks, we live in capitalistic societies (most of us, anyway). Until the economics "work" - EV cars on a mass scale are a pipedream.
Until it is less expensive than a fossil-fuel car (TCO), it won't happen. Right now, it's not even close. Fossil fueled transportation is far more cost effective than it' electric/hybrid equivalent.
If you disagree with me, then all you have to do to be rich is to go sell your idea to a trucking company. If the economics are there, they'll pay you a mint to make it happen. Unfortunately, the fact is: the economics AREN'T there.
I don't get your post. We still have amateur engineers working in their garages all over the world. Yet, we require PE certification if you want to design/build a bridge for the government.
They aren't mutually exclusive, ya know. (and yes, I realize MSFT *could* make the mutually exclusive....but it doesn't HAVE to be that way by default)
Just like other engineering disciplines, programming will have many different "levels" of competence. Some folks will be amateurs. Others will "know enough to be dangerous". And still others will know it inside and out. The idea is that the marketplace needs a way to differentiate between those groups. Right now, there is 1 group: programmers.
Some are good. Most are bad.
Good catch...you're right. 1% of adults. Not 1% of all people.
Are you kidding? It's not 1/10th of a percent. Try an order of magnitude bigger. More like 1% of the entire population.
The US has THE largest prison population in the world. Bigger than China. Bigger than N Korea. Bigger than Russia. Bigger than any foe you can come up with.
Pffft. I wish it was 1/10th of a percent. Maybe then I wouldn't have to entertain these police state conspiracy theories I keep coming up with. One percent of the total population is a huge number and you can't help but wonder how it got that way.
Back in the 80's and 90's, we already tried doing metered service. AOL, Compuserve, Genie, and other ISP's had hourly rates back in those days.
It made their product a niche product and eventually ALL of those companies abandoned that billing scheme in favor of unlimited pricing. Guess what happened? The internet hit critical mass BECAUSE they changed to "unlimited" monthly plans.
So now, in 2008, we are looking back into metered service? Good luck with that. My gut tells me "the people" will reject it. Just like they did back in the 80's and 90's. As soon as someone (Netzero) offered all you can eat for one price....the other competitors started bleeding customers. It will be the same this time around.
People don't want to look over their shoulders or monitor their usage. They do it for cell phones because they have to (no other choice). Not true for ISP's.
That is not why they go to the pink sheets.
Each exchange (NYSE, Nasdaq, etc) has their own requirements for listing. If you can't meet the requirements (there are many), then you trade on the pink sheets.
It has nothing to do with CPA's signing off or not signing off.
I use a Turtle Beach Montego DDL and I love it.
I ditched Creative way back when once I discovered they transcode ALL output to 48Khz. Since I went to Turtle Beach, I must say -- my life is MUCH easier with respect to "good" sound cards. (ie: not onboard)
It also has the nice ability to output anything in DD 5.1 -- even if it's stereo only. My audio receiver really likes that because I don't go in and out of Dolby Digital. Just a nice, clean, constant 5.1 stream all the time. And yes, it supports Vista.
Band-Aid.
You have 2 things going on here.
First, goodwill in the accounting sense is from mergers and acquisitions. Second, Accounting rules can be weird and oftentimes, they don't match what you would intuitively think. That's the case here. "Goodwill" is not some magic number that has to do with the goodwill of the brand. It has NOTHING to do with brand.
Coke recognized the error of it's ways and changed back as soon as it was clear New Coke was a flop.
...and maybe that is why Coca-Cola is, and has been, one of THE most recognized brands in all of business history. Companies screw up all the time. That's part of business.
I don't see that same behavior from MSFT.
What seperates the men from the boys is how a company reacts to a screw up. JnJ recalled Tylenol. Coke changed back and killed New Coke. Hell, even Jack in the Box was able to come back from the dead after killing a few people. In contrast, MSFT doesn't seem to recognize the lessons there so it continues screwing up while it thinks it is doing it right.
Keyboard + mouse
(or this + this)
I just bought a PS3 and Wii in recent months. I decided to take the plunge into consoles.
I have the *exact* same thoughts as you and my experiences have played that out. For FPS, I find it much more difficult on a console that good old keyboard/mouse. Other types of games are great on the console but FPS is a special niche that just controls better on a PC.
Thank you for the post. Excellent response and you hit the nail on the head - if too much of this goes on, confidence in the financial systems will wain.
...and that is precisely what is going on right as we speak (for other reasons, however).
The best thing about your post that most people will miss is this: there are alternatives around the world. The US financial system is, literally, competing for confidence. So far, it's been a pretty good 300 yr run. But that doesn't mean squat for the future. As they say, "past performance is no indication of future results".
That must be taken into consideration during this discussion of what should and shouldn't be allowed.
Exactly right.
CEO's are people too. Sometimes they need a way to sell and generate cash for themselves, personally. And just like you, they are going to "use" the rules anyway they can to better benefit themselves personally. If you are negative about it, you call that "gaming the system". If you are positive about it, you call it "knowing your stuff". Either way, it doesn't matter because it's legal. And being legal is all that matters in the world of finance. Capitalism doesn't care about your moral quandaries.