I think I saw a post around here recently that indicated the average OEM price for Windows paid by Dell or Gateway was on the order of $30/machine. An amount, I might add, that's probably padded somewhat, passed on, and paid by the consumer.
That being the case, it's not "much" of the cost, and what there is is passed on anyway. So what's Dell's reason again? Especially when the user upgrades to a more expensive version of Windows and Dell makes even more money on the deal.
Adding a "free" OS means all of that upgrade income goes away, and will either be lost (unlikely), or the machine price padded to make up the difference.
Further, a company like Dell probably has their drives delivered preimaged so they don't have to do the work. Adding Linux to the mix means an entire new set of drive SKUs has to be ordered and stocked and managed. Not to mention the support issues other people have already indicated.
So what's Dell's reason again? To accomodate a group of "fussy" Linux types who probably don't want the preinstalled distribution/filesystem/whatever anyway?
Most non-Slashdotter's don't want to learn how to use a computer, anymore than they really want to spend time learning Word or Excel or Photoshop. What they want are letters or reports or photos, and to get their work done and get home in time for dinner.
A good tool is like a hammer. You pick it up, hit something with it, and then put it down and get on with what you're doing. Quick, easy, and intuitive.
If you have to take a class, read a book, and spend hours dinking with it, then it's just not a very good tool for the average person to deal with...
"Well, this open source one does everything we need, its free, and the big bonus is that if we run into problems with it, we can take that source and work around it."
Putting more work on your development staff is a good thing? Assuming you have one qualified in that language and system, of course.
One company I consulted for looked at various open source content management systems, and then paid about $50,000 for a commercial one. The commercial one had great documentation (most of the OSS systems REALLY sucked in that regard) and they offered paid support contracts and had a great reputation for service and fast turnaround for support issues.
Taking one of their developers off of a project and having him tinker around in some system he know's nothing about in an attempt to "work around" some problem is not what they call "a good thing".
I also know a few shops who've attempted to use OSS products and probably spent more time (and dollars) working on them and/or attempting to roll their own solutions than they would have spent simpy buying something.
From my perspective, OSS works best when you're so large you can afford to devote resources to it, or if you're so small and cash-strapped you have no other choice.
"Personally, if I could, I would just ski all the time for exercise."
Skiing is primarily an anaerobic sport, unless you're talking about cross-country or unless you're the type who's constantly falling down and trying to get back up....;)
If you could... but I doubt you can. Most Treos and smart phones are heavily subsidized with a two-year contract.
And at the risk of going round and round, my original comment still stands: PDAs as dedicated devices are disappearing. What little market they had has been largely surplanted by the phone/pager/text messenger/pda combo (Treo, Blackberry), which is primarily a communications device, by increased use and ownership of notebooks and subnotebooks, and, while I'm thinking about it, by the iPod as an entertainment device, and by the Gameboy/PlayStation Portable PSP (ditto).
No one wants a dedicated, crippled "baby" computer with no storage to speak of that's yet another device to carry and maintain and keep charged.
Then I'll have been correct, as I said "PDAs as dedicated devices are disappearing". Dedicated, remember? If the only way a PDA survives is by making it into a phone, then it's no longer a dedicated device, but a converged one like the Treo.
Another data point lies in the fact that Dell is dropping the Axim. Apparently, once the current Dell Axim offerings are gone, they are gone. Dell doesn't want 'em, the stores don't want 'em, and all because people aren't buying them. If the market was growing, the converse would be true. It's not.
But hey! If you like 'em so much maybe you'd like to buy my iPaq 550! Between my RAZR, iPod, and MacBook Pro it's been sitting in a drawer unused for nearly two years now.
And once I get my iPhone, you can get my RAZR and iPod nano too...
Walk into a CompUSA or Best Buy and see how much space is devoted to PDAs. Actually, I'm not sure my local BB even HAS any PDAs any more. Why stock something when there's no demand for it?
PDAs as dedicated devices are disappearing, as they're squeezed out by cell phones and "smart phones" on the low-end and sub-notebooks and notebooks on the high end.
Their big reason for existing was as an address book, calendar (day-timer) replacement, and note taker. Any modern phone can store hundreds of numbers these days, smart phones and notebooks do calendars and notes and much, much more.
PDAs "may" stick around for special-purpose devices, but Palm is history, and Garmin needs to stay on its toes as GPS system get smaller and are eventually included in phones and notebooks as stock features.
"So if you can show me OSX, BSD or Linux pushing 3D information over an Apple Remote or X11 session, I would love to see this. Vista and Longhorn CAN do this."
You win, since they only reason to have a server is push 3D information over an RDP session. You NEVER use them for anything else.
It wouldn't have been such an issue if Microsoft, in its inifinite wisdom, hadn't decided to ignore content headers and ALWAYS attempt to open PDFs inside the browser. There's almost no way to get IE to simply "download" a file to disk if it thinks it knows how it "should" be handled.
"People replace their phones often, but they don't *need* to, contrary to what the person I was replying to implied."
Actually, if you'd read *my* post, you would have seen that there's plenty of circumstances under which they NEED to replace their phone. Switching providers, lost phones, stolen phones, broken phones, all occur more often than one might think. In fact, I've gotten new phones for three of those four reasons alone.
Which still misses the point. Whether or not one needs one or wants one, I personally have no doubt Apple will sell as many of them as they can make.
"By contrast, the mobile phone market is established..."
Yeah, it's established, with really crappy software and interfaces. I just love trying to dig six levels deep clicking through some menu tree trying to find some setting or option. I just love trying to type and send text messages on a ten-key pad. I just love trying to remember which number saves a voice mail message while I'm in the middle of listening to them.
"Even if they need a mobile for whatever reason, most don't "need" a new phone that often."
Maybe they don't, but the industry average is 18 months. New phones, new features, switching carriers, early cancellations, "style", phones that are dropped, damaged, or stolen, all contribute to earlier replacement.
"... targeting exclusively high-end consumers."
Who says they're going to exclusively target high-end customers? That's a really, really, really bad assumption. The first pod was expensive too, but now there's one at nearly any price point you care to mention. Besides, Apple has already stated that the iPhone is simply the first in a line of many future devices.
"Apple got in early enough and worked their magic."
From my perspective, and given the above, there's still plenty of time for Apple to work their magic. Especially since the market for convergence devices (phone, mp3, camera, internet) is still in it's infancy.
And if all it does is get the industry out of Lotus 1-2-3 hierarchical menu interfaces, it will still have been worth it.
How about listing 1,000 mp3s as "available" on your home bittorrent server? Why reach for every pie-in=the-sky possibility that ignores the probable intent?
All QTFairUse does is extract an unprotected audio stream from iTunes. As such, any song extracted has to one purchased by you, and your iTunes player has to be authorized to play it.
In short, it's a far cry from being able to crack the DRM on any iTMS file, from any source.
Since iTunes already lets you make an unprotected CD of the music you bought, the only thing QTFairUse really does is let you save to disk instead of CD.
If the lifetime is comparable... then I suspect that's the answer. A high-efficiency bulb that lasts 4-5 times longer means fewer bulbs need to be purchased. Why cannibalise your own product line unless you have to?
Also note that they failed to give a timeline for reaching equivalent efficiency. As mentioned above, it sounds like they're promising that they'll get there... sometime. But in the meantime, let use continue to rake in the profits on the existing, power-hungry technology we've spent decades amortizing...
"Even with a 50% false positive rate on a system like that you are giving your 'Security Officers' a good head start on containing or even preventing any possible trouble."
Forget false positives, what about security officers who now only look at whatever it is the system highlights for them? I can easily see such a system becoming a crutch and a excuse, "Well, the computer didn't signal anything was wrong..."
You obviously don't have ENOUGH monitoring. I'd say you need to fit everyone with a GPS-enabled, non-removable ankle bracelet so that, if a crime occurs, you just trace who was there at the time.
Actually, I think some prisons are already doing this...
What gets on MY chimes is the fact that the politicians are considering laws banning incandescents and moving towards CFBs... and, suddenly, GE announces a "new" technology that will let incandescents be just as efficient.
I mean, I'm not putting on my tinfoil hat just yet, but the timing here seems to be more than coincidental. Just how long has GE been "researching" this technology?
Which is why schemes of this sort generally use all upper-case letters, some are entirely alphabetic, and most often drop those confusing 1's and 0's from the code sequence. Start getting hundreds of tech support calls regarding bad serial numbers and you fix the confusing aspects quick...
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Yes, you can pay, but that sort of falls under my first category, doesn't it? That you're large enough to afford to devote resources to it?
I think I saw a post around here recently that indicated the average OEM price for Windows paid by Dell or Gateway was on the order of $30/machine. An amount, I might add, that's probably padded somewhat, passed on, and paid by the consumer.
That being the case, it's not "much" of the cost, and what there is is passed on anyway. So what's Dell's reason again? Especially when the user upgrades to a more expensive version of Windows and Dell makes even more money on the deal.
Adding a "free" OS means all of that upgrade income goes away, and will either be lost (unlikely), or the machine price padded to make up the difference.
Further, a company like Dell probably has their drives delivered preimaged so they don't have to do the work. Adding Linux to the mix means an entire new set of drive SKUs has to be ordered and stocked and managed. Not to mention the support issues other people have already indicated.
So what's Dell's reason again? To accomodate a group of "fussy" Linux types who probably don't want the preinstalled distribution/filesystem/whatever anyway?
Most non-Slashdotter's don't want to learn how to use a computer, anymore than they really want to spend time learning Word or Excel or Photoshop. What they want are letters or reports or photos, and to get their work done and get home in time for dinner.
A good tool is like a hammer. You pick it up, hit something with it, and then put it down and get on with what you're doing. Quick, easy, and intuitive.
If you have to take a class, read a book, and spend hours dinking with it, then it's just not a very good tool for the average person to deal with...
"Well, this open source one does everything we need, its free, and the big bonus is that if we run into problems with it, we can take that source and work around it."
Putting more work on your development staff is a good thing? Assuming you have one qualified in that language and system, of course.
One company I consulted for looked at various open source content management systems, and then paid about $50,000 for a commercial one. The commercial one had great documentation (most of the OSS systems REALLY sucked in that regard) and they offered paid support contracts and had a great reputation for service and fast turnaround for support issues.
Taking one of their developers off of a project and having him tinker around in some system he know's nothing about in an attempt to "work around" some problem is not what they call "a good thing".
I also know a few shops who've attempted to use OSS products and probably spent more time (and dollars) working on them and/or attempting to roll their own solutions than they would have spent simpy buying something.
From my perspective, OSS works best when you're so large you can afford to devote resources to it, or if you're so small and cash-strapped you have no other choice.
"Or they don't trust their carrier."
If you're so paranoid that you don't trust your carrier, then why in the world are you trusting some "anonymous" proxy server or forwarding service?
If I was running the NSA I'd setup dozens of the things...
iPods and Audible audiobooks make a great combination in that regard.
"Personally, if I could, I would just ski all the time for exercise."
;)
Skiing is primarily an anaerobic sport, unless you're talking about cross-country or unless you're the type who's constantly falling down and trying to get back up....
"... without a voice/data plan..."
If you could... but I doubt you can. Most Treos and smart phones are heavily subsidized with a two-year contract.
And at the risk of going round and round, my original comment still stands: PDAs as dedicated devices are disappearing. What little market they had has been largely surplanted by the phone/pager/text messenger/pda combo (Treo, Blackberry), which is primarily a communications device, by increased use and ownership of notebooks and subnotebooks, and, while I'm thinking about it, by the iPod as an entertainment device, and by the Gameboy/PlayStation Portable PSP (ditto).
No one wants a dedicated, crippled "baby" computer with no storage to speak of that's yet another device to carry and maintain and keep charged.
Then I'll have been correct, as I said "PDAs as dedicated devices are disappearing". Dedicated, remember? If the only way a PDA survives is by making it into a phone, then it's no longer a dedicated device, but a converged one like the Treo.
Another data point lies in the fact that Dell is dropping the Axim. Apparently, once the current Dell Axim offerings are gone, they are gone. Dell doesn't want 'em, the stores don't want 'em, and all because people aren't buying them. If the market was growing, the converse would be true. It's not.
But hey! If you like 'em so much maybe you'd like to buy my iPaq 550! Between my RAZR, iPod, and MacBook Pro it's been sitting in a drawer unused for nearly two years now.
And once I get my iPhone, you can get my RAZR and iPod nano too...
Sorry, but any list the mentions Zork and not the Colossal Cave (Adventure) just isn't going to cut it in my book.
Walk into a CompUSA or Best Buy and see how much space is devoted to PDAs. Actually, I'm not sure my local BB even HAS any PDAs any more. Why stock something when there's no demand for it?
PDAs as dedicated devices are disappearing, as they're squeezed out by cell phones and "smart phones" on the low-end and sub-notebooks and notebooks on the high end.
Their big reason for existing was as an address book, calendar (day-timer) replacement, and note taker. Any modern phone can store hundreds of numbers these days, smart phones and notebooks do calendars and notes and much, much more.
PDAs "may" stick around for special-purpose devices, but Palm is history, and Garmin needs to stay on its toes as GPS system get smaller and are eventually included in phones and notebooks as stock features.
Go to the Address Book. Choose Setup from the center menu. Change View from All to Primary Contact.
Problem solved. (Though it took me a few minutes to find the option again. Case in point, I guess.)
"So if you can show me OSX, BSD or Linux pushing 3D information over an Apple Remote or X11 session, I would love to see this. Vista and Longhorn CAN do this."
You win, since they only reason to have a server is push 3D information over an RDP session. You NEVER use them for anything else.
It wouldn't have been such an issue if Microsoft, in its inifinite wisdom, hadn't decided to ignore content headers and ALWAYS attempt to open PDFs inside the browser. There's almost no way to get IE to simply "download" a file to disk if it thinks it knows how it "should" be handled.
Actually, if you stop to think about it from both sides of the equation, doesn't that cover nearly ALL of the population?
"People replace their phones often, but they don't *need* to, contrary to what the person I was replying to implied."
Actually, if you'd read *my* post, you would have seen that there's plenty of circumstances under which they NEED to replace their phone. Switching providers, lost phones, stolen phones, broken phones, all occur more often than one might think. In fact, I've gotten new phones for three of those four reasons alone.
Which still misses the point. Whether or not one needs one or wants one, I personally have no doubt Apple will sell as many of them as they can make.
"By contrast, the mobile phone market is established..."
Yeah, it's established, with really crappy software and interfaces. I just love trying to dig six levels deep clicking through some menu tree trying to find some setting or option. I just love trying to type and send text messages on a ten-key pad. I just love trying to remember which number saves a voice mail message while I'm in the middle of listening to them.
"Even if they need a mobile for whatever reason, most don't "need" a new phone that often."
Maybe they don't, but the industry average is 18 months. New phones, new features, switching carriers, early cancellations, "style", phones that are dropped, damaged, or stolen, all contribute to earlier replacement.
"... targeting exclusively high-end consumers."
Who says they're going to exclusively target high-end customers? That's a really, really, really bad assumption. The first pod was expensive too, but now there's one at nearly any price point you care to mention. Besides, Apple has already stated that the iPhone is simply the first in a line of many future devices.
"Apple got in early enough and worked their magic."
From my perspective, and given the above, there's still plenty of time for Apple to work their magic. Especially since the market for convergence devices (phone, mp3, camera, internet) is still in it's infancy.
And if all it does is get the industry out of Lotus 1-2-3 hierarchical menu interfaces, it will still have been worth it.
How about listing 1,000 mp3s as "available" on your home bittorrent server? Why reach for every pie-in=the-sky possibility that ignores the probable intent?
All QTFairUse does is extract an unprotected audio stream from iTunes. As such, any song extracted has to one purchased by you, and your iTunes player has to be authorized to play it.
In short, it's a far cry from being able to crack the DRM on any iTMS file, from any source.
Since iTunes already lets you make an unprotected CD of the music you bought, the only thing QTFairUse really does is let you save to disk instead of CD.
Wow.
Yeah, they've made a "fool" of Apple's DRM...
If the lifetime is comparable... then I suspect that's the answer. A high-efficiency bulb that lasts 4-5 times longer means fewer bulbs need to be purchased. Why cannibalise your own product line unless you have to?
Also note that they failed to give a timeline for reaching equivalent efficiency. As mentioned above, it sounds like they're promising that they'll get there... sometime. But in the meantime, let use continue to rake in the profits on the existing, power-hungry technology we've spent decades amortizing...
"Even with a 50% false positive rate on a system like that you are giving your 'Security Officers' a good head start on containing or even preventing any possible trouble."
Forget false positives, what about security officers who now only look at whatever it is the system highlights for them? I can easily see such a system becoming a crutch and a excuse, "Well, the computer didn't signal anything was wrong..."
You obviously don't have ENOUGH monitoring. I'd say you need to fit everyone with a GPS-enabled, non-removable ankle bracelet so that, if a crime occurs, you just trace who was there at the time.
Actually, I think some prisons are already doing this...
What gets on MY chimes is the fact that the politicians are considering laws banning incandescents and moving towards CFBs... and, suddenly, GE announces a "new" technology that will let incandescents be just as efficient.
I mean, I'm not putting on my tinfoil hat just yet, but the timing here seems to be more than coincidental. Just how long has GE been "researching" this technology?
You forgot the phase-conjugate tracking system.
Which is why schemes of this sort generally use all upper-case letters, some are entirely alphabetic, and most often drop those confusing 1's and 0's from the code sequence. Start getting hundreds of tech support calls regarding bad serial numbers and you fix the confusing aspects quick...