All large companies have the same IP strategy and they behave exactly the same simply because they can.
Sorry. Google, Motorola, Samsung, etc. have used patents purely in defensive mode. Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Erricsson etc. are the litigious bastards.
If these patents would be worthless, they wouldn't pay anything in the first place.
When these patenting agreements were drawn up, Android had a much smaller marketshare. So rather than getting caught up in litgation, some large Android makers chose to pay. But not Motorola, and they are yet to pay a penny. Now that Android is the undisputed king in mobile and tablets, even Microsoft making Android devices through Nokia; there is not much compulsion to continue paying.
Phones and tablets do not replace desktops and laptops. Agreed, they don't. However people hesitate a lot before upgrading the desktop OS. And desktops and laptops last more than 8 to 12 years, so not much revefnue for Microsoft from those markets. Hence my prediction that they are doomed.
What the large monies paid by Samsung indicates is the enormous mindshare and marketshare for Android. Windows on the mobile and tablet space is non-existent. For some years Microsoft might make money out of Android sales using these patent threats, being the litigious thugs they are.
But in a few years - say three at the max, Android makers will realise that these patents are really worthless, and back away from their agreements.
In any case a few billions in patent royalty is pocket change for Microsoft, and their bloated manpower will plunge them into the death spiral since Windows is becoming fast irrelevant in the only space it serves - viz, the desktop.
I've been using a desktop for more than 15 years. It is not a good habit to pin apps to the task bar. Putting up the shortcuts for the browser and email client is good enough most of the time.
When rarely used apps need to be called up, the Start Menu is the best way to do it.
Using a keyboard instead of a mouse on the desktop is like using the mouth instead of the penis for sex. Some like you seem to like it that way but do not speak for the rest of us.
Why should MS decide what tablets and phones need as minimum hardware?
Not only minimum, but maximum as well. MS gets to decide the biggest screen size, the highest speed CPU that can run Windows - tablet edition, on a non-desktop form factor. MS does not want vendors selling full fledged Windows on tablet form factor devices even though it is technically feasible.
Hardware had to be compatible to sell bundled with Windows.
MS does not want to encourage vendors who also provide open source drivers with their hardware. In this day and age, if MS made a reference standard for writing drivers hat did not require any signing, many vendors would only be too happy to innovate.
MS's goal is not to promote innovation, but to restrict vendors from making PCs that can also run Linux flawlessly. Having lost the tablet and phone business to Linux and Android, MS wants to keep on stifling the Linux desktop for as long as they can. One way they do this is to give incentives to vendors that make only Windows compatible hardware. Also the driver signing and Windows Update gives them a lever to destroy any vendor who gets too cosy with the Linux world.
From Vista and up, the hardware can be designed to give out intentional error messages that are ignored by Windows, and thus the hardware becomes unusable in Linux.
Windows 7 was better received by the market because it was BETTER than Vista. Windows 8 was crap and got he reception it deserved. Merely releasing 9 without removing the crapstatic TIFKAM interface will result in poor reputation.
The reasons Internet Explorer got a bad reputation:
1. It was tied to the operating system, unnecessarily. The browser has exactly zilch to do with the operating system. ActiveX controls, tying versions of the browser with versions of the OS, varying behaviour of same browser version on different OS versions etc. If IE is renamed, it should be delinked from the OS like other browsers.
2. Intentional non-compatibility with standards, because of the arrogant assumption that with marketshare they can bully the World.
3. No sandboxing, no protection from ads, popups, malware downloads, sucking upto to the MAFIAA in proprietary standards and DRM.
Fix these issues in the browser FIRST, then call it Internet Shit-hole, but people will still buy it.
I'm an Apple, I am female I'm an Apple, I am white I'm an Apple, I am black I'm an Apple, I am brown I'm an Apple, I am Hispanic............ FUCK YOU ALL!! I AM STEVE JOBS, AND I AM APPLE!!
And like most notoriously poor patents granted; they will not reveal details of their goof-up; or how it works. Nobody else can copy their style of work since they have design patents on those things as well.
I can't believe how sentimental people were towards a junkpile like XP
Sentimental, eh? More like hard-nosed and very very practical and down to earth. Will XP get my real useful application software running? YES. Will my software run on 7 or 8? NO.
So, no sentiment towards Microsoft - simply stick with what works.
Stuff that works isn't junkpile; stuff that consumes more space but gets in the way of getting work done is a large pile of junk. So the adjective suits Windows 7 or 8, not XP.
It is true that I gave up on Vista early. With Windows 8 and later, I had zero motivation to even try and install them on hardware that works perfectly with 7.
Some college and hospital apps do not work with 7, but do well with XP; besides Windows 7 required more RAM than XP; so we deceided to stick with XP.
Everybody went in for Windows as their favoutte desktop operating system a couple decades back. After XP, there is little to be gained from Microsoft's latter offerings in operating systems. So now we are seeing large migrations to Linux and larger numbers still sticking on with XP.
In the tablet marketplace, Microsoft is a recent entrant. iPad and Android tablets comfortably have more than 90% marketshare in this segment.
Microsoft started out with restrictions on what processor, screen size and memory can be offered by OEMs in tablet form factor, to try and prevent tablets eating away their desktop marketshare.
Then MS provided a convoluted method of delivering apps for tablet devices compared to desktop apps with similar functionality and architecture. Developers boycotted the entire Surface market as a result.
And the Surface is priced more than twice that of a laptop, despite the latter providing more usability and applications, once the OS is upgraded from 8 to 7. Yes, I meant upgraded, it wasn't a typo.
The moral of the story is You Cant Fool All The People All The Time, as Lincoln famously said. Remove the lock on the bootloader in all Surface tablet categories, Allow all Surfaces to connect to the Active Directory, Come up with more meaningful development tools and app for ARM Surface tablets, and lastly price it between $100 to $300 in varying configurations. People might be tempted to take notice.
and the manufacturer says "not our problem--it's old!" Then people might realize what a Pandora's Box this is...
This is exactly what Microsoft is saying about Windows XP. For IOT devices lasting dozens of years, it is better to stay as far away from Microsoft as possible.
My first and subsequent posts, and the article - are all about Microsoft's attempts to earn trust. Many millions of customers have already reposed trust and money with Microsoft for their software. Migrating to open source is not an easy option for most of them; and indeed that is not the point under debate.
If Microsoft wants their loyal trustworthy userbase to continue to trust them, they should adopt different measures than being pseudo-transparent with biggest customers such as the government. I have not written, nor intend to debate upon Microsoft's customers migrating to open source.
If you want to buy 20 machines today with a Windows OS, the only choice is Windows 8. Even though almost a billion PCs run XP, it is not possible to get a new machine with a legal licensed copy of XP without jumping through numerous hoops and shelling out loads of cash.
Microsoft wants us to trust their word that it is not feasible to offer or support XP on new machines. This is not believable. Opening up the source code is the only way to prove or disprove Microsoft's version of the facts.
Whether you agree or not is not important. Hundreds of legacy code developed for Windows platform using Windows development tools run only on XP and are not supported by 7 or 8. Customers are left with no choice but to rewrite code at great expense, often impossible since the vendors are no longer in business. In my view this represents a lock-in, whereby customers are forced to shell out large sums of money to obtain support for XP legally on new systems by investing in Enterprise Volume License Agreements and associated costs.
Don't force bloatware on hapless customers. XP was 1.2GB. XP with SP2 was about 2GB. XP with SP3 is about 7GB. And now Microsoft claims XP is so insecure it cannot be patched anymore, so customers have to buy a new OS which weighs in at 20GB.
Cut all the crap and come clean. Release the entire source code for XP if you are not going to patch it. Or keep quiet and prepare to be unbelieved even if you speak the truth.
They should fire all their marketing executives and build a simple website, and try online marketing instead. They can employ tools like, you knoe, Search Engine Optimisation, Website building tools etc. etc.
Whenever I look at the ugly girls dancing in the GoDaddy ads I can see where they keep losing more and more millions.
Slashdot Mirror
In my company, we have 3 colleges, a hospital and software teams that have been using the same PCs for over 6 years now. About 800 of them.
All large companies have the same IP strategy and they behave exactly the same simply because they can.
Sorry. Google, Motorola, Samsung, etc. have used patents purely in defensive mode. Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Erricsson etc. are the litigious bastards.
If these patents would be worthless, they wouldn't pay anything in the first place.
When these patenting agreements were drawn up, Android had a much smaller marketshare. So rather than getting caught up in litgation, some large Android makers chose to pay. But not Motorola, and they are yet to pay a penny. Now that Android is the undisputed king in mobile and tablets, even Microsoft making Android devices through Nokia; there is not much compulsion to continue paying.
Phones and tablets do not replace desktops and laptops.
Agreed, they don't. However people hesitate a lot before upgrading the desktop OS. And desktops and laptops last more than 8 to 12 years, so not much revefnue for Microsoft from those markets. Hence my prediction that they are doomed.
What the large monies paid by Samsung indicates is the enormous mindshare and marketshare for Android. Windows on the mobile and tablet space is non-existent. For some years Microsoft might make money out of Android sales using these patent threats, being the litigious thugs they are.
But in a few years - say three at the max, Android makers will realise that these patents are really worthless, and back away from their agreements.
In any case a few billions in patent royalty is pocket change for Microsoft, and their bloated manpower will plunge them into the death spiral since Windows is becoming fast irrelevant in the only space it serves - viz, the desktop.
Everyone knows the even number versions suck.
how is this news for nerds?
Chromebooks do not run Linux, they run the Chrome OS, for God's sake!
When Adobe Photoshop truly comes to the plain vanilla distri, then we can start putting up articles on here.
I've been using a desktop for more than 15 years. It is not a good habit to pin apps to the task bar. Putting up the shortcuts for the browser and email client is good enough most of the time.
When rarely used apps need to be called up, the Start Menu is the best way to do it.
Using a keyboard instead of a mouse on the desktop is like using the mouth instead of the penis for sex. Some like you seem to like it that way but do not speak for the rest of us.
and fucking closed the beta once and for all.
I absolutely want no fucking around with the interface I have been using for more than 16 years now.
Ridiculous.
Just like the Windows 8 user interface. Rubbish.
Please stop it.
Kind regards
jkrise
Why should MS decide what tablets and phones need as minimum hardware?
Not only minimum, but maximum as well. MS gets to decide the biggest screen size, the highest speed CPU that can run Windows - tablet edition, on a non-desktop form factor. MS does not want vendors selling full fledged Windows on tablet form factor devices even though it is technically feasible.
Hardware had to be compatible to sell bundled with Windows.
MS does not want to encourage vendors who also provide open source drivers with their hardware. In this day and age, if MS made a reference standard for writing drivers hat did not require any signing, many vendors would only be too happy to innovate.
MS's goal is not to promote innovation, but to restrict vendors from making PCs that can also run Linux flawlessly. Having lost the tablet and phone business to Linux and Android, MS wants to keep on stifling the Linux desktop for as long as they can. One way they do this is to give incentives to vendors that make only Windows compatible hardware. Also the driver signing and Windows Update gives them a lever to destroy any vendor who gets too cosy with the Linux world.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-u...
From Vista and up, the hardware can be designed to give out intentional error messages that are ignored by Windows, and thus the hardware becomes unusable in Linux.
http://redmondmag.com/articles...
Make of these what you will.
Well. Sandra Bullock doesn't look like Indian Bullocks. Besides, in India bullocks are male, and usually castrated.
Windows 7 was better received by the market because it was BETTER than Vista. Windows 8 was crap and got he reception it deserved. Merely releasing 9 without removing the crapstatic TIFKAM interface will result in poor reputation.
The reasons Internet Explorer got a bad reputation:
1. It was tied to the operating system, unnecessarily. The browser has exactly zilch to do with the operating system. ActiveX controls, tying versions of the browser with versions of the OS, varying behaviour of same browser version on different OS versions etc. If IE is renamed, it should be delinked from the OS like other browsers.
2. Intentional non-compatibility with standards, because of the arrogant assumption that with marketshare they can bully the World.
3. No sandboxing, no protection from ads, popups, malware downloads, sucking upto to the MAFIAA in proprietary standards and DRM.
Fix these issues in the browser FIRST, then call it Internet Shit-hole, but people will still buy it.
I'm an Apple, I am female .... .... ....
I'm an Apple, I am white
I'm an Apple, I am black
I'm an Apple, I am brown
I'm an Apple, I am Hispanic
FUCK YOU ALL!! I AM STEVE JOBS, AND I AM APPLE!!
And like most notoriously poor patents granted; they will not reveal details of their goof-up; or how it works. Nobody else can copy their style of work since they have design patents on those things as well.
I can't believe how sentimental people were towards a junkpile like XP
Sentimental, eh? More like hard-nosed and very very practical and down to earth.
Will XP get my real useful application software running? YES.
Will my software run on 7 or 8? NO.
So, no sentiment towards Microsoft - simply stick with what works.
Stuff that works isn't junkpile; stuff that consumes more space but gets in the way of getting work done is a large pile of junk. So the adjective suits Windows 7 or 8, not XP.
It is true that I gave up on Vista early. With Windows 8 and later, I had zero motivation to even try and install them on hardware that works perfectly with 7.
Some college and hospital apps do not work with 7, but do well with XP; besides Windows 7 required more RAM than XP; so we deceided to stick with XP.
Everybody went in for Windows as their favoutte desktop operating system a couple decades back. After XP, there is little to be gained from Microsoft's latter offerings in operating systems. So now we are seeing large migrations to Linux and larger numbers still sticking on with XP.
In the tablet marketplace, Microsoft is a recent entrant. iPad and Android tablets comfortably have more than 90% marketshare in this segment.
Microsoft started out with restrictions on what processor, screen size and memory can be offered by OEMs in tablet form factor, to try and prevent tablets eating away their desktop marketshare.
Then MS provided a convoluted method of delivering apps for tablet devices compared to desktop apps with similar functionality and architecture. Developers boycotted the entire Surface market as a result.
And the Surface is priced more than twice that of a laptop, despite the latter providing more usability and applications, once the OS is upgraded from 8 to 7. Yes, I meant upgraded, it wasn't a typo.
The moral of the story is You Cant Fool All The People All The Time, as Lincoln famously said. Remove the lock on the bootloader in all Surface tablet categories, Allow all Surfaces to connect to the Active Directory, Come up with more meaningful development tools and app for ARM Surface tablets, and lastly price it between $100 to $300 in varying configurations. People might be tempted to take notice.
You never know when they will get killed. Same goes for Free Sharepoint, Free Office 365, Free One Drive etc. Get off them and breathe free.
and the manufacturer says "not our problem--it's old!" Then people might realize what a Pandora's Box this is...
This is exactly what Microsoft is saying about Windows XP. For IOT devices lasting dozens of years, it is better to stay as far away from Microsoft as possible.
My first and subsequent posts, and the article - are all about Microsoft's attempts to earn trust. Many millions of customers have already reposed trust and money with Microsoft for their software. Migrating to open source is not an easy option for most of them; and indeed that is not the point under debate.
If Microsoft wants their loyal trustworthy userbase to continue to trust them, they should adopt different measures than being pseudo-transparent with biggest customers such as the government. I have not written, nor intend to debate upon Microsoft's customers migrating to open source.
If you want to buy 20 machines today with a Windows OS, the only choice is Windows 8. Even though almost a billion PCs run XP, it is not possible to get a new machine with a legal licensed copy of XP without jumping through numerous hoops and shelling out loads of cash.
Microsoft wants us to trust their word that it is not feasible to offer or support XP on new machines. This is not believable. Opening up the source code is the only way to prove or disprove Microsoft's version of the facts.
Whether you agree or not is not important. Hundreds of legacy code developed for Windows platform using Windows development tools run only on XP and are not supported by 7 or 8. Customers are left with no choice but to rewrite code at great expense, often impossible since the vendors are no longer in business. In my view this represents a lock-in, whereby customers are forced to shell out large sums of money to obtain support for XP legally on new systems by investing in Enterprise Volume License Agreements and associated costs.
A pseudonym enables other posters to look at your posting history and judge for themselves based on what they see.
Be brave enough to post after logging in, or you will be thought of as a shill.
My post wasn't about the options for Microsoft's customers. It was about Microsoft's attempts at transparency to earn trust.
Don't force bloatware on hapless customers. XP was 1.2GB. XP with SP2 was about 2GB. XP with SP3 is about 7GB. And now Microsoft claims XP is so insecure it cannot be patched anymore, so customers have to buy a new OS which weighs in at 20GB.
Cut all the crap and come clean. Release the entire source code for XP if you are not going to patch it. Or keep quiet and prepare to be unbelieved even if you speak the truth.
They should fire all their marketing executives and build a simple website, and try online marketing instead. They can employ tools like, you knoe, Search Engine Optimisation, Website building tools etc. etc.
Whenever I look at the ugly girls dancing in the GoDaddy ads I can see where they keep losing more and more millions.
If the Americans had any intelligence and sincerity, Snowden would not have had any reason to flee in the first place.