actually, quite the opposite. Sales brings in the dollars... not R&D. The Lawyers are next in line because they keep the dollars coming INTO the company and not OUT of the company. R&D in most places is a function of marketing and manufacturing lately... if they happen to patent something it's generally the Lawyers that get the pat on the back for making good legal use of the companies Intellectual Property... not the inventive person that thought it up.
that's also why US businesses fail versus their Asian counterparts... the focus in 90% of US businesses is on Financial/sales growth not on actually making the product the customers BUY.
but Vonage does pay for the lines. They pay to have "phone lines" to the demux box that down coverts from the network to phone company lines to make the calls. As well as for the network bandwidth they use.. fat pipes 24x7 cost thousands of dollars a month. The joke of the whole thing is that they are most likely using off-the-shelf phone company equipment turned around backwards... instead of binding 2-3 T1 INTO their company they are sending the phone calls back OUT in the proper format.... It's genius.
I find patent infringement hard to swallow though. This is all off-the-shelf equipment, the patents should have been paid for with the equipment purchase.. so maybe it's a software patent on moving the data type "phone call" from an internal network to the phone company network. Either way, the Phone company and equipment maker has been well paid... and they've found a technicality to sue on.
As far as the phone company not getting their "fair share", realize in most cases a phone call is only a 28.8k stream for them... and they pay "long distance" over the same pipes we use the internet for.... in other words typical long distance calling is ALREADY VOIP and customers are being raped for cost of voice (28.8k * $.15/min) compared to data (1Mb/S for $39/month). Phone companies need to adjust their models to better reflect the cost structure... perhaps we should pay more for the higher speeds (6mb) but less for basic (768k) and do away with POTS altogether.. it's a quick change of boxes at your house for most people.
he'd qualify for a business degree...(being richest guy in the WORLD at one point). Getting a monopoly and piles of cash is what it's all about... in that sense he's done OK without one.
Although, I tend to view these as useless hypocrisy. After all, it's Gates always making statements about NOT having enough educated people, life ain't fair, etc.. yet HIS company puts all sorts of artificial hoops up dependent on such arbitrary and petty status even he never bothered for. As opposed to "honest hard work" that he claims as his success.
bonus points if they made this an open spec to follow. Then state govts could benifit as well for their depts and schools. Hopefully it will be a "evolving" standard, perhaps on a yearly basis, then the industry could pick it apart and help make it better!!!! (I'm hungry for pie in the sky now) It's the one thing Microsoft hasn't been able to fix is their developers!developers!developers! refusing to adopt the new security features and draging the ship down.
I'd bet the Feds over all, through all the departments spend HUNDREDS of millions of dollars on Windows desktops per year!! If the feds would even offer Apple or Red Hat 1/10 of that business they'd comply automatically without being asked.
This is a very good thing!! The feds are simply stating they will be using a particular configuration of windows their experts have determined increases security and removes the gaping holes the default WinTel box at the store ships with. They're mandating that all their vendors get with the program and MAKE their software work with the new increased security settings already built into Windows. It's what Microsoft keeps promising to do when they say "most secure ever" but then the first thing vendors do is require IT to "turn down" security settings because highly paid programmers can't be bothered to make their software work properly under security settings.
We see this all the time on home PCs where you have to be Admin to run simple games... the feds are saying NO MORE to that. This is a VERY good thing!!
Except for the little fact that the govt gave 200Bilion dollars in tax incentives to get broadband out there!! That would offset quite a few poor regions. On top of that telcos/cablecos are granted monopoly over the right-of-way...even if you personally had the money, the local govt already granted monopoly to THEM to provide service for EVERYBODY.
I agree they'd WANT to provide service in more profitable regions first.. but that's not what the company CONTRACTED to do!
There's almost nothing Microsoft has that Novell didn't have first other than media stuff. Microsoft's stuff of importance like file sharing, word processors, file servers.. is all pale imitation of stuff Novell was doing 10 years sooner. If Novell truly wanted to hurt Microsoft, they'd use their knowladge of Windows internals to build a free adapter for Microsoft computers to some new OSS variant of Novell's Groupwise products. That would wipe Microsoft out if we could stop having to share to the "lowest common denominator". i.e. windows that nobody can make work with anything but SMB. (except Novell!)
In that respect I'd almost agree that Novell is giving up (again) and not wanting to stick out the fight. Like they did with Groupwise.. they beat out Window enterprise server and email hands down for literally an entire DECADE!!! but because they didn't want to rock the boat like Netscape did they choose to wither into obscurity... They won't put up a fight to be better than Microsoft, so while they were for a very long time everybody forgot about them while Microsoft was advertising the heck out of IT media. I'd think somebody in the company got the bright idea to "try out" that "linux thing" so they ran out and bought a company. I think Microsoft swooped in and told the if they wanted Groupwise (Directory, file server, email) to run on vista/Office 2007 AT ALL they'd "get in line" or Microsoft would break compatibility like a twig and not let Novell "in on it". Note they've already openly done this to Symantec and Mcaffee... M$ seems to be flush with cash and burning bridges this round of upgrades. No company will sacrifice the only remaining profit center to pick a fight with competition.
Unfortunately, NOW is the time to FIGHT. Novell should have turned to Apple or something to gain some ground... but that's the problem. They're too big to be bought, and too small to be an equal merger with the likes of Apple, Red Hat, or Dell, etc. I think they're taking Apple's place as Microsoft's "sanctioned competitor" as Apple starts getting teeth to bite Microsoft with.
that thinking is the problem.. a proper company needs BOTH the safe version now and the most creative version developed and tested properly. Why do you think we have so many Windows security problems? there's no room to be creative to explore what "might" happen, to rewrite whole parts "just because" so the project evolves.. then old bugs don't keep getting passed along thru many versions. That's one thing the Linux group does very well... they don't throw out good code, but revel in the idea that there's more than one "right way" to solve a problem. When the problem changes or the system evolves there is a new, better way somebody thought of and worked thru.
I'm NOT saying be careless. But there's that quote "chance favors the prepared mind" and having more than one way to solve a problem ready and tested is being prepared.
they find their way to the companies pocket because with the extra kickbacks Dell can shave another $50 off the sale price of the computer. In that respect the customer "sort of" wins by the advertising picking up some costs.
The Software maker like it because then they can get their stuff on other OEM PCs.. that would be why so many PCs have junk on them... Software makers jockeying for retail position. I'd bet companies like Symantec get more than 3/4 of their "home" sales from pre-installs at this point. People just don't buy software like they used to.
Agreed, the bigger issue is that Dell has 100% of the hardware supported under linux, that they advertise it, and that at least somebody can support it properly. As long as Dell supported 1 version with source for all the drivers, the others would follow easily. The BIGGER issue is that once a big name maker like Dell supports Linux officially, then the market for OTHER companies to support software and hardware gets bigger exponentially. The biggest thing "Linux" needs is recognition... a simple "penguins supported here" sticker from somebody as big as Dell would put numbers on the map. Dell is all about selling hardware. It wouldn't HURT them to support Linux, after all, they don't make windows either.
a regular joe would never be bothered with such petty charges anyway... she had a marginally legal right to the info, and a marginally legal "plausable denyability" of involvement. The only real evidence they had on her was some conversations she had with the board members.. that's like trying to accuse a rapper of murder for a rap about "bustin a cap". If stuff like this was really important, they'd prosecute all the papparazzi that trespass on celebrity property, and nearly threaten their lives. They'd prosecute all the FBI agents that misused those "patriot letters" (I'm sure there's a purgery clause in there). They'd prosecute all the fake DMCA notices.... The whole thing was selective enforcement for political/financial gain of the bastard board member.
If anybody got off with a crime, it's the board member that leaked info about company financial issues and strategy to the press, and defied the trust of the board of directors and their elected officer Carly. Most slashdotters are still not getting that most of the bad press and "revelations" about how "bad" Carly was were because of those board members... She was implementing the will of the board as discussed in private meetings and one dissenting board member was publicly undermining her position. Those board members should have been expelled from the company and their stocks ceased/cashed in. If those board members were employees they would be facing criminal and civil court cases worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.... Look what Apple does to leakers... that should have been certain members of the board. The board didn't even slap them on the wrist for violation of their affirmed duties to the company!!
I don't get why slashdotters are so against Dunn.. she did exactly what we root for here all the time. She saw a crime committed against her company and went a little overboard. How often do we rally over documents that are outright stolen, broken NDAs, hacked IP addresses and DoS'd websites we don't like... those are all criminal acts too, often because somebody supposedly "cheated" a customer out of a $10 rebate on some toy.
the prices are so high because in the early 80s when the first cell spectrum was sold off, it was sold for chump change.. nearly the same as equivalent TV spectrum.. but completely closed and private. The early buyers bought it almost as a "gag". It wasn't until about 10 years later technology caught up and that spectrum became worth 100x or more what was paid for it. The govt is just getting a better deal for the spectrum this time around... think of it like property tax in exchange for the govt guaranteeing their use during the contract.
I've seen digital capable (non-hd) TVs as low as $300 now. Remember, ATSC Digital signal is not the same as HDTV. HDTV is ONE of the signals, and all ATSC TVs can downscale the signal, but you don't need the high priced ones. I believe it was announced either here or on Digg that there's no more sales of non-digital tuners allowed. They should have done THAT 2-3 years ago, then the industry would find a way to get the cost reasonable. I always thought that was a crock that only the $800+ TVs had digital until last Christmas season. Most people STILL simply don't know any better that it's going away!!!
It's like you said, the HD channels are "extra" right now. They're running at 1/2 or less power of the analog channel. It costs a lot of money to run 25,000 watts all day!! Once they turn analog off, they'll have funds to turn the HD signal to full strength and it will get better.
I'd almost think they could make a simple re-transmitter to something like channel 2,3,4 like the old video games used to do. A simple antenna would allow it to broadcast a channel to nearby handhelds and old sets. Bonus points if it ran off 12V battery power.
more than that, it's a simple, cheap mass information medium. It's good for nearly 95% of US households to have that type of communication available for emergencies. The govt hasn't made very good use of it lately, but the potential is there. When the prez, for instance, goes on TV nearly every person can see that if they choose. That's instant communication to 300M people. for a one-time $40 a pop, that's super cheap infrastructure.
better than that most Radio stations get some form of Payola to the tune of a few hundred dollars a spin.. so they actually MAKE money playing music!!!
because Europe has parties that are actually left leaning and get elected. In the US right now we have "far right" and "mostly right" wing parties with zero representation by any other ideology in our govt.
but they've BEEN subject to ACTUAL terrorism via the IRA for much longer... like 20 years, it's actually got better over there since before 9/11. Why didn't the British govt need this in the 70's and 80's when IRA bombings were several times a year? It's like things get better, so they feel the need to "look busy" and punish the same number of people because they have the spare time.
the difference between improper and illegal is the whole slippery slope thing. We only KNOW that 4 were actually illegal. That's 4 incidents that made it through layers and layers of bureaucrats to an auditor. How many of the "improper" ones were really illegal? The whole argument of "improper" is that we filed the paperwork late, busted the guy anyway but he's really bad. "it's just paperwork". how do we KNOW the evidence wasn't planted and the "late" paperwork fixed to look like a mistake? Quick, how do you tell? Take their word for it... try telling that to the IRS if you don't file their tax paperwork correctly!
My company went through those wonderful SOX prep and audits recently.. the whole point of the thing is to document you do the work CORRECTLY and on time. Then you show a pattern of on time, proper paperwork if a financial mistake happens, it's just that, a mistake. IF a SOX auditor for business were to look at these results, they'd find the FBI at large complicit in willfully breaking the law because they show a pattern of paperwork, etc not in order. Do the paperwork properly and SHOW us your following the law!!!!
but that's exactly the problem... to the police, that's a "victimless" crime and you got off easy. Simply not being allowed to use the evidence in court is not enough. It won't stop the constant fishing for more evidence.. that means more and more rights getting violated. The framers knew what they were writing.. unfortunately, many of the Constitutions Rights don't have a punishment associated with them and THAT is a problem. It amounts to being "asked nicely" to not do certain things.. or we'll "ask less nicely".
We've reached the point something harsh has to be done about it or we won't have law and order anymore. These police and agents wouldn't hesitate a second for a "1 over" ticket or 1 day lapse in tax liability or legal summons... This amounts to "we can't follow ALL the laws" so they choose the ones they want to follow... it's being demanded from the very top of the country down... not just in govt but business, education, religion, as well. In simplest terms if the govt is allowing/encouraging agents to do this, in violation of the bill of rights, then they are in "breech of contract" that contract being the constitution and they hold no authority.... the libertarians and neo-cons all want to take us back to "contract law" society.. why not make an example of them here?
the key is PREMIUM space. Microsoft had to give a lot to get Vista Home Premium on desktops.. the cost went up, but not as much as they really wanted. MS tried to position MCE to the "Apple quality" desktops, but with vista it's back to bottom barrel again... With the new Apple toys, they're starting to eat into the PC makers profit centers... while leaving the work of making PCs for them to fight for scraps with MS wanting an larger piece of pie every year. Even Microsoft is squeezing the PC makers by moving their new toys to MS only... Zune, XBox, MS hardware, etc.. It's not a fun time to be in the computer hardware business.
If Apple was really serious about sticking it to Microsoft they would start supporting Linux behind the scenes. Silly things like iPods and iTunes and Quicktime would all do great over there in official terms... the idea being to take away a current MS user...and hopefully get a Mac user when it's time for new hardware. I'm not saying to give away the farm... but make the big entertainment toys, hardware, media have an option for Linux use as well. Linux users still have to buy hardware.. and Apple sells monitors, mice, keyboards, wireless routers, media extenders.. they should be working that market to Linux users as another way to make profit.
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that's also why US businesses fail versus their Asian counterparts... the focus in 90% of US businesses is on Financial/sales growth not on actually making the product the customers BUY.
I find patent infringement hard to swallow though. This is all off-the-shelf equipment, the patents should have been paid for with the equipment purchase.. so maybe it's a software patent on moving the data type "phone call" from an internal network to the phone company network. Either way, the Phone company and equipment maker has been well paid... and they've found a technicality to sue on.
As far as the phone company not getting their "fair share", realize in most cases a phone call is only a 28.8k stream for them... and they pay "long distance" over the same pipes we use the internet for.... in other words typical long distance calling is ALREADY VOIP and customers are being raped for cost of voice (28.8k * $.15/min) compared to data (1Mb/S for $39/month). Phone companies need to adjust their models to better reflect the cost structure... perhaps we should pay more for the higher speeds (6mb) but less for basic (768k) and do away with POTS altogether.. it's a quick change of boxes at your house for most people.
Although, I tend to view these as useless hypocrisy. After all, it's Gates always making statements about NOT having enough educated people, life ain't fair, etc.. yet HIS company puts all sorts of artificial hoops up dependent on such arbitrary and petty status even he never bothered for. As opposed to "honest hard work" that he claims as his success.
bonus points if they made this an open spec to follow. Then state govts could benifit as well for their depts and schools. Hopefully it will be a "evolving" standard, perhaps on a yearly basis, then the industry could pick it apart and help make it better!!!! (I'm hungry for pie in the sky now) It's the one thing Microsoft hasn't been able to fix is their developers!developers!developers! refusing to adopt the new security features and draging the ship down.
I'd bet the Feds over all, through all the departments spend HUNDREDS of millions of dollars on Windows desktops per year!! If the feds would even offer Apple or Red Hat 1/10 of that business they'd comply automatically without being asked.
We see this all the time on home PCs where you have to be Admin to run simple games... the feds are saying NO MORE to that. This is a VERY good thing!!
I agree they'd WANT to provide service in more profitable regions first.. but that's not what the company CONTRACTED to do!
In that respect I'd almost agree that Novell is giving up (again) and not wanting to stick out the fight. Like they did with Groupwise.. they beat out Window enterprise server and email hands down for literally an entire DECADE!!! but because they didn't want to rock the boat like Netscape did they choose to wither into obscurity... They won't put up a fight to be better than Microsoft, so while they were for a very long time everybody forgot about them while Microsoft was advertising the heck out of IT media. I'd think somebody in the company got the bright idea to "try out" that "linux thing" so they ran out and bought a company. I think Microsoft swooped in and told the if they wanted Groupwise (Directory, file server, email) to run on vista/Office 2007 AT ALL they'd "get in line" or Microsoft would break compatibility like a twig and not let Novell "in on it". Note they've already openly done this to Symantec and Mcaffee... M$ seems to be flush with cash and burning bridges this round of upgrades. No company will sacrifice the only remaining profit center to pick a fight with competition.
Unfortunately, NOW is the time to FIGHT. Novell should have turned to Apple or something to gain some ground... but that's the problem. They're too big to be bought, and too small to be an equal merger with the likes of Apple, Red Hat, or Dell, etc. I think they're taking Apple's place as Microsoft's "sanctioned competitor" as Apple starts getting teeth to bite Microsoft with.
I'm NOT saying be careless. But there's that quote "chance favors the prepared mind" and having more than one way to solve a problem ready and tested is being prepared.
The Software maker like it because then they can get their stuff on other OEM PCs.. that would be why so many PCs have junk on them... Software makers jockeying for retail position. I'd bet companies like Symantec get more than 3/4 of their "home" sales from pre-installs at this point. People just don't buy software like they used to.
Agreed, the bigger issue is that Dell has 100% of the hardware supported under linux, that they advertise it, and that at least somebody can support it properly. As long as Dell supported 1 version with source for all the drivers, the others would follow easily. The BIGGER issue is that once a big name maker like Dell supports Linux officially, then the market for OTHER companies to support software and hardware gets bigger exponentially. The biggest thing "Linux" needs is recognition... a simple "penguins supported here" sticker from somebody as big as Dell would put numbers on the map. Dell is all about selling hardware. It wouldn't HURT them to support Linux, after all, they don't make windows either.
If anybody got off with a crime, it's the board member that leaked info about company financial issues and strategy to the press, and defied the trust of the board of directors and their elected officer Carly. Most slashdotters are still not getting that most of the bad press and "revelations" about how "bad" Carly was were because of those board members... She was implementing the will of the board as discussed in private meetings and one dissenting board member was publicly undermining her position. Those board members should have been expelled from the company and their stocks ceased/cashed in. If those board members were employees they would be facing criminal and civil court cases worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.... Look what Apple does to leakers... that should have been certain members of the board. The board didn't even slap them on the wrist for violation of their affirmed duties to the company!!
I don't get why slashdotters are so against Dunn.. she did exactly what we root for here all the time. She saw a crime committed against her company and went a little overboard. How often do we rally over documents that are outright stolen, broken NDAs, hacked IP addresses and DoS'd websites we don't like... those are all criminal acts too, often because somebody supposedly "cheated" a customer out of a $10 rebate on some toy.
the prices are so high because in the early 80s when the first cell spectrum was sold off, it was sold for chump change.. nearly the same as equivalent TV spectrum.. but completely closed and private. The early buyers bought it almost as a "gag". It wasn't until about 10 years later technology caught up and that spectrum became worth 100x or more what was paid for it. The govt is just getting a better deal for the spectrum this time around... think of it like property tax in exchange for the govt guaranteeing their use during the contract.
none that couldn't be dealt with by some rope and pointy white hats!
I've seen digital capable (non-hd) TVs as low as $300 now. Remember, ATSC Digital signal is not the same as HDTV. HDTV is ONE of the signals, and all ATSC TVs can downscale the signal, but you don't need the high priced ones. I believe it was announced either here or on Digg that there's no more sales of non-digital tuners allowed. They should have done THAT 2-3 years ago, then the industry would find a way to get the cost reasonable. I always thought that was a crock that only the $800+ TVs had digital until last Christmas season. Most people STILL simply don't know any better that it's going away!!!
It's like you said, the HD channels are "extra" right now. They're running at 1/2 or less power of the analog channel. It costs a lot of money to run 25,000 watts all day!! Once they turn analog off, they'll have funds to turn the HD signal to full strength and it will get better.
I'd almost think they could make a simple re-transmitter to something like channel 2,3,4 like the old video games used to do. A simple antenna would allow it to broadcast a channel to nearby handhelds and old sets. Bonus points if it ran off 12V battery power.
more than that, it's a simple, cheap mass information medium. It's good for nearly 95% of US households to have that type of communication available for emergencies. The govt hasn't made very good use of it lately, but the potential is there. When the prez, for instance, goes on TV nearly every person can see that if they choose. That's instant communication to 300M people. for a one-time $40 a pop, that's super cheap infrastructure.
better than that most Radio stations get some form of Payola to the tune of a few hundred dollars a spin.. so they actually MAKE money playing music!!!
the key point there is SELLING your data... the privacy laws mention nothing at all about the govt simply TAKING it!!!
because Europe has parties that are actually left leaning and get elected. In the US right now we have "far right" and "mostly right" wing parties with zero representation by any other ideology in our govt.
but they've BEEN subject to ACTUAL terrorism via the IRA for much longer... like 20 years, it's actually got better over there since before 9/11. Why didn't the British govt need this in the 70's and 80's when IRA bombings were several times a year? It's like things get better, so they feel the need to "look busy" and punish the same number of people because they have the spare time.
My company went through those wonderful SOX prep and audits recently.. the whole point of the thing is to document you do the work CORRECTLY and on time. Then you show a pattern of on time, proper paperwork if a financial mistake happens, it's just that, a mistake. IF a SOX auditor for business were to look at these results, they'd find the FBI at large complicit in willfully breaking the law because they show a pattern of paperwork, etc not in order. Do the paperwork properly and SHOW us your following the law!!!!
We've reached the point something harsh has to be done about it or we won't have law and order anymore. These police and agents wouldn't hesitate a second for a "1 over" ticket or 1 day lapse in tax liability or legal summons... This amounts to "we can't follow ALL the laws" so they choose the ones they want to follow... it's being demanded from the very top of the country down... not just in govt but business, education, religion, as well. In simplest terms if the govt is allowing/encouraging agents to do this, in violation of the bill of rights, then they are in "breech of contract" that contract being the constitution and they hold no authority.... the libertarians and neo-cons all want to take us back to "contract law" society.. why not make an example of them here?
If Apple was really serious about sticking it to Microsoft they would start supporting Linux behind the scenes. Silly things like iPods and iTunes and Quicktime would all do great over there in official terms... the idea being to take away a current MS user...and hopefully get a Mac user when it's time for new hardware. I'm not saying to give away the farm... but make the big entertainment toys, hardware, media have an option for Linux use as well. Linux users still have to buy hardware.. and Apple sells monitors, mice, keyboards, wireless routers, media extenders.. they should be working that market to Linux users as another way to make profit.