Credibility and revenue are seperate issues. Losing Apple's future purchases of PPC chips may indeed have a negligible impact on IBM's revenues. But that's not what was being said. What was being said is that the credibility of the PPC *chip* would be hurt by this move... after all, who's left to use the chip? If everybody else is on-board with Intel, is it just going to be IBM using PPC? You can bet that this is pretty much the end of the PPC as the end of a viable alternative to Intel.
As an old Amiga fanboy, I hate to see the alternatives finally lose. I miss the Motorola CPU days. But alas, it wasn't meant to be. Everybody should have seen this Intel move coming the second that OS X came out. It's customized Unix with a pretty face on Intel, people - get used to it. You're part of the Borg now.;-)
Oh man, this whole Red Hat/Fedora thing almost gave me a heart-attack the other day. Red Hat didn't tell me jack about their plans to "discontinue" (their words) the standard RH distro until I got the email below... at which point I thought I'd just wasted a LOT of time installing a new RH9 server and migrating numerous sites. They SAY they told me previously, but they didn't.
FINALLY I learned about Fedora through a third party with no connection to RedHat. *SIGH* Methinks RH's PR droids REALLY need to do a better job spreading the word about big changes like this. I love RedHat, but man, killing the users by shock ain't a good way to make a profit.;)
Here's the email snippet:
------ Thank you for being a Red Hat Network customer.
This e-mail provides you with important information about the upcoming discontinuation of Red Hat Linux, and resources to assist you with your migration to another Red Hat solution.
As previously communicated, Red Hat will discontinue maintenance and errata support for Red Hat Linux 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 and 8.0 as of December 31, 2003. Red Hat will discontinue maintenance and errata support for Red Hat Linux 9 as of April 30, 2004. Red Hat does not plan to release another product in the Red Hat Linux line.
With the recent announcement of Red Hat Enterprise Linux v.3, you'll find migrating to Enterprise Linux appealing. We understand that transitioning to another Red Hat solution requires careful planning and implementation. We have created a migration plan for Red Hat Network customers to help make the transition as simple and seamless as possible. ------
[quote] Trying to become a "technical project manager" is only going to make you slowly lose your technical edge, and spend half your time doing things you don't enjoy - like building time-management charts and sitting in boring meetings. [/quote]
I can't agree more. After managing projects for 11 years, I've watched many engineers try to take on a project management role, most believing they could still code and run the project better than a non-technical manager could. This is NOT to say that I think engineers are incapable of becoming successful PMs - it does happen every day. There is a unique subset of engineers that can handle the transition into a full-on PM role quite successfully.
However, more often than not in my experience, after several months, many of those same engineers turned PM realized how little time they could spend coding, and how much time they now had to sit in mind-numbing meetings and on conference calls. Needless to say, many of them went back to being Technical Leads, because they missed coding. I can't count how many engineers turned-PM bitch about not being able to code, or how rusty they've become because they never have time to focus on the latest technical developments.
PMing can be a major pain in the ass, and immensely frustrating. Unless you enjoy that kind of thing, I recommend thinking carefully before becoming a Human Firewall, because that's exactly what you become when you become a PM.:D
A good non-tech PM knows when to get out of the way and let his team do their job. After all, they have those jobs for a reason. (One would hope.)
The reality is that for any project of substantial size, it's impossible for a single person to manage it. From my experience, it's best to have one person be ultimately responsible for the project, and let them focus on the overall schedule and budget. Then have a Technical Lead (who works for or with the PM) interact with the engineers and translate for them.
But don't rule out a PM because they were never an engineer. A successful PM will have a good BS detector and will know when to believe an engineer, and when to question them further. It's a give and take process. But overall, if you can't pick your PM, educate them, don't work against them.
In the software business, "going gold" has nothing to do with sales. It refers to the instance that the developer declares the product finished and approved for manufacturing. Typically the same day a product goes gold, it ships out to a duplication facility for manufacturing, and depending on certain factors, its usually on its way to retailers and distributors within a matter of days.
Well, ya know, the fact is that developing games costs a lot of money, and the Windows version of NWN is the lead version that will help the publisher get a return on investment. The Linux version will likely make the publisher jack in terms of revenue. The Linux version is great for server geeks and MMRPG entrepreneur wannabes, but in reality its not going to make a lot of money for Bioware.
So think about it this way. If you were running the publisher, and you could earn money NOW by shipping the Windows version and put off the low-revenue Linux version a while, what would you do? Hmmmm, that's a toughie.
They may be selling games, but it's still a business. Just be a little patient. Games aren't made overnight. Or if you insist, they could rush like Microsoft does, and ship an egregiously f*cked buggy product.
Slashdot Mirror
Credibility and revenue are seperate issues. Losing Apple's future purchases of PPC chips may indeed have a negligible impact on IBM's revenues. But that's not what was being said. What was being said is that the credibility of the PPC *chip* would be hurt by this move... after all, who's left to use the chip? If everybody else is on-board with Intel, is it just going to be IBM using PPC? You can bet that this is pretty much the end of the PPC as the end of a viable alternative to Intel. As an old Amiga fanboy, I hate to see the alternatives finally lose. I miss the Motorola CPU days. But alas, it wasn't meant to be. Everybody should have seen this Intel move coming the second that OS X came out. It's customized Unix with a pretty face on Intel, people - get used to it. You're part of the Borg now. ;-)
Oh man, this whole Red Hat/Fedora thing almost gave me a heart-attack the other day. Red Hat didn't tell me jack about their plans to "discontinue" (their words) the standard RH distro until I got the email below... at which point I thought I'd just wasted a LOT of time installing a new RH9 server and migrating numerous sites. They SAY they told me previously, but they didn't.
;)
FINALLY I learned about Fedora through a third party with no connection to RedHat. *SIGH* Methinks RH's PR droids REALLY need to do a better job spreading the word about big changes like this. I love RedHat, but man, killing the users by shock ain't a good way to make a profit.
Here's the email snippet:
------
Thank you for being a Red Hat Network customer.
This e-mail provides you with important information about the upcoming discontinuation of Red Hat Linux, and resources to assist you with your migration to another Red Hat solution.
As previously communicated, Red Hat will discontinue maintenance and errata support for Red Hat Linux 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 and 8.0 as of December 31, 2003. Red Hat will discontinue maintenance and errata support for Red Hat Linux 9 as of April 30, 2004. Red Hat does not plan to release another product in the Red Hat Linux line.
With the recent announcement of Red Hat Enterprise Linux v.3, you'll find migrating to Enterprise Linux appealing. We understand
that transitioning to another Red Hat solution requires careful planning and implementation. We have created a migration plan for Red Hat Network
customers to help make the transition as simple and seamless as possible.
------
[quote]
:D
Trying to become a "technical project manager" is only going to make you slowly lose your technical edge, and spend half your time doing things you don't enjoy - like building time-management charts and sitting in boring meetings.
[/quote]
I can't agree more. After managing projects for 11 years, I've watched many engineers try to take on a project management role, most believing they could still code and run the project better than a non-technical manager could. This is NOT to say that I think engineers are incapable of becoming successful PMs - it does happen every day. There is a unique subset of engineers that can handle the transition into a full-on PM role quite successfully.
However, more often than not in my experience, after several months, many of those same engineers turned PM realized how little time they could spend coding, and how much time they now had to sit in mind-numbing meetings and on conference calls. Needless to say, many of them went back to being Technical Leads, because they missed coding. I can't count how many engineers turned-PM bitch about not being able to code, or how rusty they've become because they never have time to focus on the latest technical developments.
PMing can be a major pain in the ass, and immensely frustrating. Unless you enjoy that kind of thing, I recommend thinking carefully before becoming a Human Firewall, because that's exactly what you become when you become a PM.
A good non-tech PM knows when to get out of the way and let his team do their job. After all, they have those jobs for a reason. (One would hope.)
The reality is that for any project of substantial size, it's impossible for a single person to manage it. From my experience, it's best to have one person be ultimately responsible for the project, and let them focus on the overall schedule and budget. Then have a Technical Lead (who works for or with the PM) interact with the engineers and translate for them. But don't rule out a PM because they were never an engineer. A successful PM will have a good BS detector and will know when to believe an engineer, and when to question them further. It's a give and take process. But overall, if you can't pick your PM, educate them, don't work against them.
In the software business, "going gold" has nothing to do with sales. It refers to the instance that the developer declares the product finished and approved for manufacturing. Typically the same day a product goes gold, it ships out to a duplication facility for manufacturing, and depending on certain factors, its usually on its way to retailers and distributors within a matter of days.
Well, ya know, the fact is that developing games costs a lot of money, and the Windows version of NWN is the lead version that will help the publisher get a return on investment. The Linux version will likely make the publisher jack in terms of revenue. The Linux version is great for server geeks and MMRPG entrepreneur wannabes, but in reality its not going to make a lot of money for Bioware.
So think about it this way. If you were running the publisher, and you could earn money NOW by shipping the Windows version and put off the low-revenue Linux version a while, what would you do? Hmmmm, that's a toughie.
They may be selling games, but it's still a business. Just be a little patient. Games aren't made overnight. Or if you insist, they could rush like Microsoft does, and ship an egregiously f*cked buggy product.