Sounds like embrace and extend to me.
MSFT had a fit, when Asus started selling millions of low cost non-MSOS systems and even implemented an XP license exception, and special pricing, to allow XP to ship on systems with 1GB RAM.
It seems to be a bit of a stretch to include some of the systems that MS is claiming to be "netbooks," as netbooks, when they are probably notebooks, instead. In my view, a netbook is defined by the feature set, of the least expensive method available to launch and run Firefox and any app for that API. Any more than that, and I think you drift from netbook to notebook. Of course you are free to have a different view.
"I think what happened is that lots of people want a "portable computer" to do more than just access the web. They want something they can use to do word processing, spreadsheets and presentations (which for most people means Microsoft Office)."
I can understand that people may expect more for a portable, but a "netbook," as originally specified, should not even have a hard drive with which to install MS Office. It should be used to access "the cloud" and use google aps or the like to handle word processing and handle E-Mail via webmail. I just think that these "netbooks" were sold to people looking for notebooks and not a completely new animal. Spreadsheets and presentations should be out of the netbook realm.
I would think these devices should be marketed in the same vicinity as PDA's and iPhones that you can type on, not in the laptop dept.
"The article also mentions that: "Not only are people overwhelmingly buying Windows, but those that try Linux are often returning it," wrote Leblanc, noting that the United Kingdom's Car phone Warehouse dropped Linux-based netbooks after seeing return rates as high as 20%.""
That does not make sense. The primary purpose of a netbook should be to launch a browser, the new API. If "netbooks" are being returned because they do not have windows, they were likely, not netbooks. ASUS pretty much created the netbook market by selling 200$ netbooks with Linux in Europe.
"They don't pass laws saying "you can't buy this companies' asphalt" or "you can't upgrade your microscopes to this particular one" either."
Oh yes, they do. They do it all the time with building codes and construction specifications. Particularly when one brand of "asphalt" results in higher incidence of potholes, road wear and incompatibilities with existing government equipment.
"While we're at it, why not allow execution of scripts written in this new language?"
Great, the next-gen virus vector?
But scriptable would be nice, given the fits it would cause Microsoft as a platform independent API.
"Retail space is cheap right now,"
You have not seen NOTHIN' yet. Commercial Real Estate is going to bust and bust big. 50% drop in a deflationary spiral of empty buildings and failed banks.
"When customers complain, refer them to the problems NewEgg experienced and encourage them to take it up with the NY state legislature."
It is not the customers that matter but the point at which it becomes common knowledge to online retailers that it is not worth the hassle to do business in NYS.
When every major onlne web page states that no offers are valid in NYS, and NYS residents are SOL with regard to the web economy, and when 3rd party resellers start popping up in NJS who exist to circumvent the tax, THEN you will see legislation to make NYS online activity competitive.
"If Windows 7 can maintain its "light and fast" reputation and Apple doesn't make any moves to upset it such as releasing a *real* low-cost Mac (less than $350), netbook, or start embracing OS X on non-Apple hardware, I can see MS not losing any major marketshare like they have been with Vista."
Apple is a non-issue in this regard. The real killer is the 150$ netbooks that Acer and others are selling that have Linux or Free DOS on them, knocking off the 50$ cost of an OEM version of Vista, which would not run on these anyway.
Of course the purchasers of these systems, may very well be loading a modified version XP on them, but that does not help MS so much.
When MS goes crying to the OEMs saying they need to use Genuine Windows, they can honestly say, to MS, "you do not sell a version of Visa that runs on these systems."
The true killer though is the Steel protections in the stimulus package. If that goes through, as is, watch MS international revenues go POOF!
"I wonder how long they'll be able to keep that lawsuit going."
About zero seconds. I am sure that as soon as it is clear that the RIAA minions have targeted anyone of notoriety or influence, the suit is dropped.
These suits are just to keep the rabble in line and the settlements rolling in. The LAST thing they want is a public champion with the means to get good lawyers.
I am astounded that whatever police force was involved in this would even bother? There are people in the world who traffic in narcotics for relatively paltry sums of money, at the risk of very harsh mandatory minimum prison sentences. Contrast that with this paltry fine? Who is going to care.
The audacity of the wasted effort boggles my mind to think that any effort to keep a screener off of the torrents is asinine. The greater the effort put forth to prevent distribution, the greater the reward or prestige from defeating it. Just the thought of all the potential points of failure for to keep a film that has to be distributed internationally for a global premiere of the net is just all kinds of stupid.
And here the Canadian RIAA has managed to find/fund some law enforcement to make some kind of example. What a waste. Of course if all you have is a dead business model the only thing you can try to do is resuscitate it.
"You just go ahead and tell the truth all the time. I hope poverty suits you."
Yeah, there is the way the world SHOULD work and the way it DOES work. Unbridled honesty is rarely valued in business. You have to remember that truth is relative, unless it is backed up with data. Data can be spun.
"99% of the time, you need either a) a friend/family to put in a good word for you, b) a nice stroke of luck, c) significant experience already in the field, or d) a nice piece of paper/degree that at least says you passed some tests on the subject matter, to get a job in the first place; hell, most of the time you need the above just to get an INTERVIEW. If you don't, you never have anyone to actually prove yourself to."
100% true about the network requirements. Build your network. Find a shitty job nominally in the career field that you want to be in. Excel and develop a reputation amongst your peers as the go to guy who can get the job done with minimum supervision fastest. Eventually someone you know will get the big break and remember you when an opening arises.
I advanced because some of my managers and peers did, and I made their job easy. Heck I did their jobs as well as mine. So, when they were looking to fill a job, I came to mind. The matter of a degree never came up.
Tech support is always hiring somewhere. The job sucks, but there are far worse, and it give you the opportunity to excel, learn business skills and move on to better things. IT Temp agencies are usually a good place to start and make a name for yourself too.
I do not have a degree, but I manage those who do, using skills that I learned on the way up and training that I received on my employer's dime.
Times are tough now though and a B.S. degree won't get you much advantage these days. Plenty of graduates with engineering degrees in the phone queue.
Particularly annoying to me, is parents bidding up tuition rates with home equity loans on houses that were not really worth what they thought they were, to get junior into the best school they could.
Now that the bubble has burst, tuition rates should someday return to sane levels.
We had an "electrical engineer" with just such a degree in our group for 10 years. No one ever noticed, until he moved to a team where you might actually have to know a little bit about electronic principles with "real" electrical engineers.
He was not particularly useful as an engineer but in my estimation, I have worked with quite a few who have "real" degrees who were not more useful, either.
"if you plan to deter piracy through lawsuits..."
The problem is that the purpose of civil lawsuits is primarily to recover damages, which in the case of file sharing are minor on an individual basis.
Deterrence is more in the realm of criminal cases, but in the case of file sharing, is not worth the prosecutions time.
"So the question becomes, what hurts me, as a middle class taxpayer, worse."
What hurts you the middle class taxpayer worse is the U.S Government spending 700B$ to bail out their investment banker buddies in a futile effort to prop up a failed ponzi scheme. That money could have been better spent to benefit those who did not actually cause the problem. Or saved for a time when it could have done the maximum good.
Solving a credit crisis by borrowing even more money from foreign interests, to keep people in overpriced houses that they can not afford by giving that money to those who lent irresponsibly in the first place is abhorrent to me.
No limits on executive compensation? No equity in exchange for the funds? No executive or congressional oversight? Off loading bad bets to the American tax payer? The plan as originally submitted is a bad bankers wet dream.
"Poor Democrats are having to face up to the brutal reality that their beloved socialism doesn't always work so fucking well. A few hundred years of history should have made that obvious though."
"Poor Republicans are having to face up to the brutal reality that their beloved "free market" doesn't always work so fucking well."
You are both idiots. This is not a Republican/Democrat issue. They are both corrupt and complicit. Borrow and spend vs. Tax and spend. You both suck.
The Free Market however, when properly regulated and left to it own devices, is a beautiful and efficient machine. "Too big to fail," is just too big. "Get smaller" -Nixon. And if you think this mess started with Carter, when he and Volker were the ones who cleaned up the last mess, you need to get educated.
If we could keep Bush and the Democratic congress out of out of the mix this credit crisis would resolve itself much more quickly and efficiently. Yes, there would be pain, but the American people deserve it, for electing financial incompetents who only tell them what they want to hear, instead of the truth. Get ready for a decade long stretch of double digit inflation and interest rates.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like embrace and extend to me. MSFT had a fit, when Asus started selling millions of low cost non-MSOS systems and even implemented an XP license exception, and special pricing, to allow XP to ship on systems with 1GB RAM. It seems to be a bit of a stretch to include some of the systems that MS is claiming to be "netbooks," as netbooks, when they are probably notebooks, instead. In my view, a netbook is defined by the feature set, of the least expensive method available to launch and run Firefox and any app for that API. Any more than that, and I think you drift from netbook to notebook. Of course you are free to have a different view.
"I think what happened is that lots of people want a "portable computer" to do more than just access the web. They want something they can use to do word processing, spreadsheets and presentations (which for most people means Microsoft Office)."
I can understand that people may expect more for a portable, but a "netbook," as originally specified, should not even have a hard drive with which to install MS Office. It should be used to access "the cloud" and use google aps or the like to handle word processing and handle E-Mail via webmail. I just think that these "netbooks" were sold to people looking for notebooks and not a completely new animal. Spreadsheets and presentations should be out of the netbook realm.
I would think these devices should be marketed in the same vicinity as PDA's and iPhones that you can type on, not in the laptop dept.
"The article also mentions that: "Not only are people overwhelmingly buying Windows, but those that try Linux are often returning it," wrote Leblanc, noting that the United Kingdom's Car phone Warehouse dropped Linux-based netbooks after seeing return rates as high as 20%.""
That does not make sense. The primary purpose of a netbook should be to launch a browser, the new API. If "netbooks" are being returned because they do not have windows, they were likely, not netbooks. ASUS pretty much created the netbook market by selling 200$ netbooks with Linux in Europe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbook/
It should be interesting to see how MSFT will deal with a preference for a less expensive netbook compatible Win7 on non-netbooks. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/microsofts-netbook-conundrum/
"They don't pass laws saying "you can't buy this companies' asphalt" or "you can't upgrade your microscopes to this particular one" either." Oh yes, they do. They do it all the time with building codes and construction specifications. Particularly when one brand of "asphalt" results in higher incidence of potholes, road wear and incompatibilities with existing government equipment.
"While we're at it, why not allow execution of scripts written in this new language?" Great, the next-gen virus vector? But scriptable would be nice, given the fits it would cause Microsoft as a platform independent API.
Lars? Is that you? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIuR5TNyL8Y/
"Retail space is cheap right now," You have not seen NOTHIN' yet. Commercial Real Estate is going to bust and bust big. 50% drop in a deflationary spiral of empty buildings and failed banks.
Bought by Acer? Now they kick everyone's ass with netbooks. Including Microsoft.
"So Microsoft should be forced to sell XP indefinitely and provide support for it indefinitely?"
How about, they can cease support once they open the code?
"When customers complain, refer them to the problems NewEgg experienced and encourage them to take it up with the NY state legislature."
It is not the customers that matter but the point at which it becomes common knowledge to online retailers that it is not worth the hassle to do business in NYS.
When every major onlne web page states that no offers are valid in NYS, and NYS residents are SOL with regard to the web economy, and when 3rd party resellers start popping up in NJS who exist to circumvent the tax, THEN you will see legislation to make NYS online activity competitive.
"If Windows 7 can maintain its "light and fast" reputation and Apple doesn't make any moves to upset it such as releasing a *real* low-cost Mac (less than $350), netbook, or start embracing OS X on non-Apple hardware, I can see MS not losing any major marketshare like they have been with Vista."
Apple is a non-issue in this regard. The real killer is the 150$ netbooks that Acer and others are selling that have Linux or Free DOS on them, knocking off the 50$ cost of an OEM version of Vista, which would not run on these anyway.
Of course the purchasers of these systems, may very well be loading a modified version XP on them, but that does not help MS so much.
When MS goes crying to the OEMs saying they need to use Genuine Windows, they can honestly say, to MS, "you do not sell a version of Visa that runs on these systems."
The true killer though is the Steel protections in the stimulus package. If that goes through, as is, watch MS international revenues go POOF!
"Apple needs to break this perception that Mr. Jobs is Apple."
I remember an Apple without Jobs. That is going to be a tough perception to break.
"Steve Jobs is sick, OH NOEZ!" Have you SEEN Jobs lately? That dude is not well.
"I wonder how long they'll be able to keep that lawsuit going." About zero seconds. I am sure that as soon as it is clear that the RIAA minions have targeted anyone of notoriety or influence, the suit is dropped. These suits are just to keep the rabble in line and the settlements rolling in. The LAST thing they want is a public champion with the means to get good lawyers.
I am astounded that whatever police force was involved in this would even bother? There are people in the world who traffic in narcotics for relatively paltry sums of money, at the risk of very harsh mandatory minimum prison sentences. Contrast that with this paltry fine? Who is going to care. The audacity of the wasted effort boggles my mind to think that any effort to keep a screener off of the torrents is asinine. The greater the effort put forth to prevent distribution, the greater the reward or prestige from defeating it. Just the thought of all the potential points of failure for to keep a film that has to be distributed internationally for a global premiere of the net is just all kinds of stupid. And here the Canadian RIAA has managed to find/fund some law enforcement to make some kind of example. What a waste. Of course if all you have is a dead business model the only thing you can try to do is resuscitate it.
"You just go ahead and tell the truth all the time. I hope poverty suits you." Yeah, there is the way the world SHOULD work and the way it DOES work. Unbridled honesty is rarely valued in business. You have to remember that truth is relative, unless it is backed up with data. Data can be spun.
"99% of the time, you need either a) a friend/family to put in a good word for you, b) a nice stroke of luck, c) significant experience already in the field, or d) a nice piece of paper/degree that at least says you passed some tests on the subject matter, to get a job in the first place; hell, most of the time you need the above just to get an INTERVIEW. If you don't, you never have anyone to actually prove yourself to."
100% true about the network requirements. Build your network. Find a shitty job nominally in the career field that you want to be in. Excel and develop a reputation amongst your peers as the go to guy who can get the job done with minimum supervision fastest. Eventually someone you know will get the big break and remember you when an opening arises.
I advanced because some of my managers and peers did, and I made their job easy. Heck I did their jobs as well as mine. So, when they were looking to fill a job, I came to mind. The matter of a degree never came up.
Tech support is always hiring somewhere. The job sucks, but there are far worse, and it give you the opportunity to excel, learn business skills and move on to better things. IT Temp agencies are usually a good place to start and make a name for yourself too. I do not have a degree, but I manage those who do, using skills that I learned on the way up and training that I received on my employer's dime. Times are tough now though and a B.S. degree won't get you much advantage these days. Plenty of graduates with engineering degrees in the phone queue.
Particularly annoying to me, is parents bidding up tuition rates with home equity loans on houses that were not really worth what they thought they were, to get junior into the best school they could.
Now that the bubble has burst, tuition rates should someday return to sane levels.
We had an "electrical engineer" with just such a degree in our group for 10 years. No one ever noticed, until he moved to a team where you might actually have to know a little bit about electronic principles with "real" electrical engineers. He was not particularly useful as an engineer but in my estimation, I have worked with quite a few who have "real" degrees who were not more useful, either.
"if you plan to deter piracy through lawsuits..." The problem is that the purpose of civil lawsuits is primarily to recover damages, which in the case of file sharing are minor on an individual basis. Deterrence is more in the realm of criminal cases, but in the case of file sharing, is not worth the prosecutions time.
"So the question becomes, what hurts me, as a middle class taxpayer, worse."
What hurts you the middle class taxpayer worse is the U.S Government spending 700B$ to bail out their investment banker buddies in a futile effort to prop up a failed ponzi scheme. That money could have been better spent to benefit those who did not actually cause the problem. Or saved for a time when it could have done the maximum good.
Solving a credit crisis by borrowing even more money from foreign interests, to keep people in overpriced houses that they can not afford by giving that money to those who lent irresponsibly in the first place is abhorrent to me.
No limits on executive compensation? No equity in exchange for the funds? No executive or congressional oversight? Off loading bad bets to the American tax payer? The plan as originally submitted is a bad bankers wet dream.
Fail.
Let the market punish the bad actors.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/25/115925/299/175/610043
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/09/ots-puts-washin.html
"Poor Democrats are having to face up to the brutal reality that their beloved socialism doesn't always work so fucking well. A few hundred years of history should have made that obvious though."
"Poor Republicans are having to face up to the brutal reality that their beloved "free market" doesn't always work so fucking well."
You are both idiots. This is not a Republican/Democrat issue. They are both corrupt and complicit. Borrow and spend vs. Tax and spend. You both suck. The Free Market however, when properly regulated and left to it own devices, is a beautiful and efficient machine. "Too big to fail," is just too big. "Get smaller" -Nixon. And if you think this mess started with Carter, when he and Volker were the ones who cleaned up the last mess, you need to get educated. If we could keep Bush and the Democratic congress out of out of the mix this credit crisis would resolve itself much more quickly and efficiently. Yes, there would be pain, but the American people deserve it, for electing financial incompetents who only tell them what they want to hear, instead of the truth. Get ready for a decade long stretch of double digit inflation and interest rates.