So when Microsoft has a virus affect it's system, it's an indicator of a shoddy platform. When Linux is affected by a virus it's because of a Russian evildoer but it's ok, cuz it's good publicity for Linux.
While certainly this is predicted based on the number of programming positions lost to off-shore programming sites, I consider it a bogus estimate for a number of reasons:
First, this is a classic contractionist economic argument. This argument is based in part on a zero sum view of the global economy in general and the American economy in particular: if someone loses, that means someone has to win. It makes sense in football, but not always in economic issues. Both global and American economies tend to expand as years go by. Liberal economists (and the article cites union labor reps, who are by definition, liberal) often use alarming language and predictions to create crises through sky-is-falling rhetoric. They do this because the whole liberal ideology is dependent on class envy and the ideas that a). there is only a fixed amount of economic activity and b). if someone else has a piece that means my piece is smaller.
Second, technology fuels expansion by enabling working productivity gains and increases in efficiencies in the use of resources, be they natural or human. I find it ironic that the article says "some 3.3 million service-sector jobs will be shipped overseas or rendered obsolete by technology." This will likely be true, but the question is: If technology renders jobs obsolete, who are the technologists who are going to create and program the technology that renders other jobs obsolete?
Third, the article doesn't describe its assumptions. On what calculations and assumptions is the "loss" based on? How can we know the model of the future on which the predictions are based? I'm always skeptical of any kind of projection that goes beyond a couple years -- at least in terms of something specific like the loss of 235,000 jobs.
Fourth, How can any such prediction be considered credible when the consequences are being projected for a date 11 years from now? The complexities of global economies make such predictions with an eleven year horizon highly questionable.
Fifth, the most commonly quoted sources were involved in the textile industry. Though the article attempts to make a connection between textiles and programmers, I do not think such a link is reasonable. Textiles are products that are made by union labor which is low-skill in nature. Programmers are, so far, not highly represented by unions and the trade requires substantial skill. I have read about the future of self-programming programs but I doubt this simply because the nature of technology changes so rapidly that the programming programs will always be behind the cutting/bleeding/leading edge. As long as humans are the creative force behind new technologies, programming programs pose little threat IMO.
I think that historical data indicates that over the long haul, global and American economies have expanded incredibly from decade to decade. New industries are created from the advance of technology, which generally tends to create jobs. Technology drives expansion and technologists will always be needed.
In industries like textiles, automotive and manufacturing, there is a significant movement of manufacturnig jobs to off-shore companies. The predominant reason for this shift is due to union labor. At one time, unions were a vital presence in bringing equity to laborers. In the most recent decades, however, unions have been their own worst enemies by forcing industries into labor costs that outstripped the value of the labor. As a result, companies like GM look at off-shore labor as a very compelling alternative to laborers whose low-skill work commands $60,000 a year plus benefits in the US.
The movement of programming jobs to low-cost off-shore programming houses is significant today and there is a trend of concern. Yet much can happen in 11 yrs. Companies may find that language barriers, communication complexities, culture differences, etc. will not have contributed to the overall bottom line as was hoped. Programmers will likely discover ne
As often happens, people have reacted to a Microsoft article without understanding the real issue.
There have been many times when I have wanted to keep an email or a document out of the hands of other people. I once got in trouble for sending an email joke to people whom I knew would enjoy the humor. Alas, they forwarded the email to others who forwarded it to others... and so on... so that eventually it ended up in the hands of someone who took the value on "diversity" a bit too far and were offended.
The DRM feature in Office and Outlook enables a user to prevent emails and documents from being forwarded to and viewed by people not specified by the sender/creator. That's all this feature is. The sender/creator certainly has the option of not embedding DRM into the email or document so that there is no rights management involved.
This feature is one I have wanted for many, many years. I want to control who has access without having to expose the recipient to the mystery and overhead of encryption.
?? We're going well as a company and all's stable ?? I don't think so. Novell is not a stable company.
Read Novell's web site, particularly paying attention to their Investor Relations section. There are two places to spend some time: Novell's financial statements over the past five years and their statement of risk factors. (All data quoted here taken from Novell's web site)
Just in the years 2000, 2001 and 2002, Novell has seen no growth in net profit. Novell's income has essentially been flat at ~ $1.1B since 1997. During Internet Boom year 1999, Novell did post a surge of about $200M and then dropped back to the $1B revenue waterline.
NET PROFIT DECLINES From 1997 - 2002, Novell has had difficulty generating net profits. 1997 -$78.3M 1998 +$101M 1999 +$190M 2000 -$49M 2001 -$272.8M 2002 -$246M.
REDUCTION IN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT BUDGET: Since 1998, Novell has spent progressively less money on product development. In 1998, Novell spent $235M on development and in 2002 spent $169M on development. R&D costs declined in all intervening years.
REDUCTION IN SALES AND MARKETING: Marketing budgets have been essentially cut each year since 1998, with a large spike in 2000, during which $495M was spent. In 2002, Novell spent $358M on marketing.
STOCK PRICE: Novell's share price has steadily shed value since January 2000, when NOVL traded at ~$40/share. It's share price as I write is $3.47.
STATEMENT OF RISK: The current statement of risk on the Novell site is substantially more tame than when I originally researched Novell the first of this year. But check it out. Novell has substantial barriers to prosperity in the IT industry.
ANALYSIS: Novell has steadily lost traction in the market over the last four years. Their decisions to decrease spending in product development and sales & marketing is puzzling when compared to their statement of risk: how can they confront the dominance of larger competitors by spending less money on new product development and less money on getting the word out to companies about their products? Oh sure, you can claim they are spnding their money "smarter" but that's a weak claim because Microsoft can outspend nearly any company it chooses to go head to head with, and a lightweight competitor like Novell stands no chance (anyone remember Netscape?).
Is Novell's emphasis on Linux a lighthearted attempt to piss off SCO? No - Novell cannot be so trivial with its short supply of cash. The Linux move is an attempt to ride the coat tails of OSS in an effort to drive down product development costs. They cannot gain traction in networking and messaging so they are seeking to capitalize on the growth of Linux.
An interesting strategy but this is an approach that has more to do with survival and protecting an asset base than it has to do with innovative competition.
Novell may not be flopping around on the dock gasping for air but it definitely appears to be in the fisherman's boat, heading into shore.
In a related item, Ford announced that in addition to 0% financing, all new car buyers will receive a free saddle, feed bag and whip if they take delivery of a new Ford, Lincoln or Mercury by August 15th.
Insecurity: A Bogus Objection
on
Opengroupware
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
Today, there is no excuse for an insecure Exchange infrastructure. Show me an insecure Exchange environment and I'll show you a sysadmin group sitting on their lazy asses playing Unreal Tournament instead of maintaining their system.
While it is true that the pre-Service Pack 1 version of Exchange 2000 and Outlook 2000 (as well as other MS apps) had security flaws, today's current configuration of Windows Server 2000 SP3 and Exchange SP3 is much more secure. Plus, the implementation of Windows Update helps administrators keep systems up-to-date and secure. MS has been great about pushing security updates out quickly.
Exchange 2003 and Outlook 2003 are fantastic applications with much stronger security.
The Exchange systems that have problems today are managed by admins who do not update their servers, strip suspect attachments , etc. I'm sure there are OSS patches and updates that are necessary to keep OSS servers secure.
So, OSS bigots, system insecurity is not inherent in MS products. It exists in all software to varying degrees. It's time for the/. OSS bigots to stop relying on tribal knowledge and information that is 3 years old.
Hey! I downloaded my Orrin Hatch MP3's fair and square. You'll get my Orrin Hatch MP3's when you pry them from my cold 7200 RPM hard drive. Get yours here:
This is not true. The company I work for uses Office 97 because of the outrageous cost to upgrade Office to current versions. We do not have interoperability problems. The claim that installing Windows XP and Office XP will obligate a non-profit (or any organization) to future versions of the OS or the software is 100% false.
We are currently looking to upgrade to Office 2003 when it is released. We plan on riding that version for ~ 6-7 years just as we have done with Office 97. Further, we are planning to replace GroupWise with Exchange. We will purchase Exchange 2003 and will ride those CALs into 2010. MS has priced itself out of getting us to regularly upgrade but be that as it may, we are not forced to upgrade either our Office suites or our Exchange environment.
While it is true that past versions of Office have had file formats that required either an intentional file save to lower versions or an upgrade in order to read files from a later version, the current version of Office has no such requirement.
If you review my comment, you'll notice that my objection to OSS is not due to issues of product "lock in" but on issues of end user functionality. OSS software is immature in its GUI and is not feature rich. Further, IT staffs are burdened enough without having to help end users with unfamiliar OSS software. Commercial suites like Office have the advantage of a wide user base and the advantages that accrue from that user base.
Currently, the only feature OSS has to claim is its lower cost to acquire. I would submit that the total cost to deploy client-side OSS software is significantly higher than OSS suites in both tangible and intangible terms.
Until client-side OSS software has a more sophisticated GUI and the functionality of commercial software, OSS will not have ubiquity. And OSS will not have ubiquity until it is intentionally developed with an R&D budget.
Ergo, my statement: OSS can be either free or ubiquitous but it cannot be both.
Can someone help me understand how installing MS Office gives MS a foothold into non-profits for more future revenue? I'd like to know specifically how an organization is obligated to more MS products in the future if they accept donated software.
As several have pointed out in this thread, most non-profits have cobbled together their infrastructure with donated hardware and the software that comes with it. Most of these organizations have no illusions of having Exchange, SharePoint Portal server, SQL and Active Directory. While it would be cool to be able to use Office XP to do direct file-sharing of Office files on a Team Services web site, non-profits are rightly expected to spend their money on delivering servies rather than have neato networks.
Having Office XP does not obligate organizations to other MS applications. Even organizations that accept OS software won't be obligated to MS in the future. At bare minimum, employees can do file sharing and printer sharing with a hodge-podge of Win 98, Me, 2000 and XP. Putting Windows XP on a computer doesn't obligate an organization to purchase more MS products.
The/. reactions among the OSS zealots are hysterical objections of Foul! because MS can outplay the free business model to the detriment of the OSS players.
The bottom line is that the "free" OSS business model cannot sustain itself over time. At some point, OSS will need to meet the challenge of commercially developed software in order to attain levels of usability that will be necessary in order for OSS to become widely accepted by end users and the IT staff who support them. To meet that challenge, OSS will need to generate significant revenue.
OSS can have ubiquity or it can be free. It cannot be both.
This post captures beautifully the reality of OSS against MS. I can almost hear the throaty "ugggghh" coming from the bodies of OSS Idealists as they are hit with the economic realities of ubiquity, functionality and integration.
OSS shares the same hubris of Steve Jobs and Apple. Clearly, Apple had a superior design that end users loved. But Apple ignored the economic realities businesses consider: where is the real value in paying $1000 more for an elegant box that does word processing and spreadsheets the same way as the less-elegant, clearly inferior Windows box? There is none. Consequently, the great majority of businesses chose similarly functional and less expensive PC clones. The superior product lost irrecoverable market share because it approached the marketplace with values that were not shared by the marketplace (i.e. cool design instead of functionality).
OSS Idealists think the world ought to be enamored with how great Linux is. But the world doesn't give a s*hit because the ratio of end users to technology geeks is biased greatly toward the end user. End user acceptance and economic sensibility are important factors which drive ubiquity. The unavoidable reality of the power of networks is that as acceptance and ubiquity grows, the power of the network grows as well.
Ubiquity has incredible value to both the end user and the business manager. Neato keen advantages of OSS that issue forth no shortage of geek orgasms don't matter to businesses because businesses don't exist to implement neato keen technology. Technology exists to support a business' ability to generate revenue and profit. Because businesses are about making money and making money is increasingly about connecting more people to purchase opportunities, ubiquity in the back office is extremely valuable to business managers. This is why the job postings you bemoan require MCSE skills. OSS is ostensibly superior to MS but where OSS has failed is in delivering a value position that is compelling to business managers. This is why your passion for Linux is marginalized as a "silly little program:" it holds no true business value for her because it doesn't help her make money. Ubiquity helps her make money and OSS lacks this.
As I have predicted in past posts, I still believe that OSS is a short time away from hitting a wall beyond which it cannot simultaneously move and continue the promise of cheaper/free. As the internet bubble collapse and Mandrake Linux attest, this model cannot be sustained in a capitalist economy.
I would be willing to bet that the prices for RH technical support do not last. As OSS continues to make significant gains in market share - primarily on the basis of price to acquire - their call volume will increase as more companies jettison MS because ignorant CEO's buy into the blather that OSS is less expensive.
IT departments will be burdened with learning OSS platforms and will need technical support to help them through their learning curve. Not only will RH have increased call volume but their cycle times will be longer because a greater percentage of their callers will not be as adept at managing the platform as those technicians whose companies were early OSS adopters.
The costs of running a call center are driven by three key factors: levels of support, call volume and call cycle time. As these factors increase, staffing levels increase and consequently, so do the per seat or per call costs. This is why MS charges $245 per event.
OSS mavens and clueless CEOs will watch OSS costs of ownership climb in both tangible and intangible terms. Though the cost to acquire and license OSS technologies is certainly lower than MS solutions, there are longer-term factors of cost that are ignored by most OSS hype: the cost of fewer technicians capable of skillfully deploying robust OSS solutions because OSS lacks ubiquity, the cost of retooling the skillsets of existing IT staff, the cost of lost IT staff productivity because of the inevitable learning curve of new technologies, the complexity of mixed environments as companies migrate from Windows to OSS and the cost of lack of interoperability between OSS end-user solutions (e.g. Office vs OSS suites), to name a few.
CEOs will mandate their IT teams implement OSS without looking at these factors of total cost of ownership and after a significant investment in OSS, will realize that the TCO of OSS is not what was promised.
I am fascinated by the orgy of buzz that is growing around OSS. It's remarkably similar to the internet growth of the late 90'swhere people believed the illusion that services can be provided for free or significantly lower than traditional channels. As we've painfully observed, this model cannot be sustained in a capitalist economy. The bottom line is that money and profit must exist or businesses, like Red Hat Linux, will cease to exist. Mandrake bears witness to this economic reality from which OSS is not immune.
The OSS model of cheaper/free is not sustainable beyond a certain point. OSS is lean and mean and free because it hasn't achieved a strong level of demand. As the false promise of cheaper lures more and more companies to move to OSS, the OSS developers and businesses will find their costs increasing and they will find that a $245 charge for a support phone call makes a hell of a lot of sense. In fact, because they lack the infrastructure to support increase volumes and cycle times, their costs per call could very well be more than $245 per incident.
I think a lot of OSS idealists and clueless CEOs are in for a rude awakening in five years.
Though you are the first person to correctly recognize this misquoted verse (any time it is used, it is misquoted as saying "the love of money is the root of all evil") you're still a bit off. The verse correctly reads:
For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
So, if a strong, dominant company does subscription pricing, it is rapacious, predetaory behavior.
If a weak company in a weak economy does subscription pricing, it's a justifiable action to maintain shareholder value.
Microsoft also functions in a weak economy and is accountable to shareholders. Why does the same action gain usch polar reactions from the/. crowd?
I'm not a fan of subscription pricing. Neither am I a fan of is/. inherent bias toward OSS and practically everyone but Microsoft.
I attended a MS.NET Visual Studio launch event last spring/summer. During the session, which was led by a knowledgeable and articulate MSite, we were informed that the code compiled by Visual Studio is not executable code but an intermediate language.
The executable code is actually generated on demand on the server side by a just-in-time compiler using the.NET framework resident on the server. The framework determines the hardware and optimizes the code for the server.
The implications of this structure were that there are no longer any advantages to be gained over coding in C# instead of VB because both compile the same intermediate code from Visual Studio. What could only be done in C# can now be done in VB.
The presenter said (almost an exact quote here): "In the past, programmers said, 'I'm a C guy,' or 'I'm a VB guy.' Now that.NET Visual Studio has equalized these two languages through the intermediate language and the JIT compiler, C# and VB will simply be syntactical preference. People will now say 'I'm a.NET guy.'
The Anonymous Coward raises a great point. My brother in law is a rabid anti-MS zealot. My best man in my wedding joined the Sun jihad (his term, not mine) against Microsoft.
Both of them have ranted for years about how MS suppresses innovation. They cite examples of how MS embraces by buying out and extends by either shit-canning the competing product or assimilating it into an existing product mix.
My challenge to both of them has been: Show me an example of suppressed innovation. Neither of them have been able to do so.
My in-law keeps telling me that Linux is the future, and that Amiga runs circles around MS. So, finally, in order to maintain credibility in the debate, I used a Pentium 133 to build a Mandrake Linux box.
While I was amazed that Linux would set up on a 133 with 128MB of RAM, and that it ran quickly on that hardware, I was not impressed with the GUI and open source software. The GUI looked like Windows and the OSS GUI had the sophistication of Win3.1! My first response on viewing the GUI was an audible: "This is it? This looks like Windows?" And the OS software had nowhere near the sophistication of commercial products.
Is this because the OSS programmers suck? Not at all. It is because OSS programmers need to eat. Consequently, they devote their best time and energy to the things that put food on the table.
The whole OSS/MS debate is a philosophical battle measured against price and the romance of open-source, self-organizing communities of programmers who do some really cool stuff but who don't have the money or bandwidth to truly innovate.
The key problem with open source software is economic. It's very difficult for people to make a living writing free software with the hope that people will contribute money to the cause. It is impossible to go to the grocery store and take home a cart full of groceries in exchange for job satisfaction or status as an open source programmer. Grocery stores, car dealerships, malls, dry cleaners, gas stations... capitalist bastards all of them. They want money for their products and services.
The only way OSS can flourish in its ideal incarnation is in a socialist economy. OSS will struggle in a capitalist economy because of the nature of competition, purchaser motivations and the basic material needs of OSS programmers and businesses.
In fact, the idea of an "OSS business" is a paradox that I haven't seen many/.'ers honestly address. Businesses need to make money - that's why they exist. Yet the mantra of OSS is free, open and innovative. I just don't see the full expression of this mantra to be possible in a capitalist economy. On this point, many OS advocates are silent and strike me as a bit dishonest. Or naive.
OSS may find itself on the cutting edge of the Innovator's Dilemma. However, I suspect that there will be market space for both OSS and commercial software. Further, they will balance each other and lift one another to higher levels: OSS will cause price drag on commercial software and commercial software will require OSS to rise to increasing levels of usability. And, though both camps shout loudly that they corner the market on innovation, both will motivate each other to innovate in pretty cool ways.
Fortunately, innovation is a commodity that flows from the limitless expanse of creativity rather than from a particular ideology.
The underlying problem with the promises of cloning and, incidentally, Star Trek's transporter is the assumption that everything significant about a human or even a cat is expressed in physical terms.
The possibility of transporting inanimate objects is very interesting and not dificult to understand: break down the atoms, beam them and reconstitute them. Straightforward. Cloning is also relatively straightforward: copy the genetic description of a creature and you can make endless replicas of that creature.
The problem is this: Humans are not merely physical objects. We have personalities, emotions, longings, etc. How does cloning duplicate personality, intelligence or, in the case of the cats, perfect physical appearance? It doesn't.
The assumption behind the promise of cloning your favorite pet is that the things that make your particular black lab more endearing to you than your neighbor's are contained in genes. Intuitively, with some reflection, we see that this cannot be true. It is not the physical appearance of our black lab that we love, it is the specific manner in which the dog loves us that makes that dog better than some other dog.
The assumption behind transporting humans across space is that humans are merely warm physical objects. Suppose Captain Picard is quite pissed at Data as he is beamed to the planet surface. How does the transporter deconstruct his pissed off emotion? Or suppose Catain Kirk is falling in love with some forbidden fruit: a slinky little Klingon hottie. How does the transporter beam to the surface his romantic longings and anxiety about whether he will choose love over career? If the *material person* is being beamed, what happens to the emotional and spiritual person?
Cloning and transporting are the same problem because they are based on the same assumptions about what it means to be human. Namely, that there is no difference between us and a phaser. There will be many pet owners and surviving lovers/family members who are disappointed when their hopes for reunion are dashed because cloning fails to replicate the intangible mystery of what differentiates people and animals from other lumpy objects.
Sure. In something as inconsequential as preferences for platforms, bigotry is cool because it reveals passion for a bias. Everyone thinks their biases are right and make sense. If we didn't think our biases were right (if not even righteous), what sense would that make? We would be saying "Here's something that I really believe but I'm pretty sure it's fundamentally wrong."
Anti-MS bigots are passionate in their hatred for all things Bill. Radical environmentalists are passionate in their hatred for any encroachment on the environment. I don't personally agree with either form of bigotry but in the case of MS, it makes the discussion fun and interesting. In the case of environmentalists, their presence and efforts most likely mitigate the unchecked capitalistic impulse toward resource consumption.
Bigotry against races, genders, cultures and sexual orientation is decidedly not cool.Though, in light of my idea above, understandable.
- Everyone laughs at lemmings but no one ever wants to admit to being one.
"I know many serious Palm users, but I've never seen a serious PDA user with a Windows PDA."
My brother in law is an ardent M$ hater and refuses to use M$ products. He refuses to associate with people who use M$ products for serious computing. Consequently, his circle of contacts ends up being open source bigots that click away on their Palms.
People connect with each other based on factors of affinity. Many citizens of the/. community are biased toward open source and Anything-That-Isn't-Made-by-Microsoft ethics. Because these are two highly important values to them, these people will tend to form social and professional contacts around a preference for these ethics. In any social circle, there is always a tendency toward homogenity/conformity along the points of affinity. You and I tend to form relationships with people who are much like ourselves. In spite of all the PC rhetoric over the years, there is little diversity in our relationships when our relationships are formed with our most important values in view.
For this reason, the commenter above erroneously concludes that because none of the people he knows use Pocket PC units, the PocketPC unit cannot be taken seriously as a PDA. ChaosDiscord has failed to recognize that the Pocket PDA can indeed be considered a powerful and useful PDA because he has forgotten that his social circle does not represent the overall market for PDAs.
I have been using a PDA for five years and have had five different units. None of them were Palms because I didn't like the aesthetics or the functionality. Yet many people who I know and respect use Palms and love them. I also know many PocketPC user who also love them.
It seems that Palm is losing market share to the Pocket PC platform. I do not think that Microsoft will be able to do to Palm what it did to Netscape but I suspect that both platforms will enjoy sizeable segments of the market because of the strengths of each platform.
Most of us at/. are bigots and that's what makes IT and/. cool: there's a lot of passion and a whole boatload of variety to make for a very fun computing experience.
Slashdot Mirror
So when Microsoft has a virus affect it's system, it's an indicator of a shoddy platform. When Linux is affected by a virus it's because of a Russian evildoer but it's ok, cuz it's good publicity for Linux.
... for a number of reasons.
While certainly this is predicted based on the number of programming positions lost to off-shore programming sites, I consider it a bogus estimate for a number of reasons:
First, this is a classic contractionist economic argument. This argument is based in part on a zero sum view of the global economy in general and the American economy in particular: if someone loses, that means someone has to win. It makes sense in football, but not always in economic issues. Both global and American economies tend to expand as years go by. Liberal economists (and the article cites union labor reps, who are by definition, liberal) often use alarming language and predictions to create crises through sky-is-falling rhetoric. They do this because the whole liberal ideology is dependent on class envy and the ideas that a). there is only a fixed amount of economic activity and b). if someone else has a piece that means my piece is smaller.
Second, technology fuels expansion by enabling working productivity gains and increases in efficiencies in the use of resources, be they natural or human. I find it ironic that the article says "some 3.3 million service-sector jobs will be shipped overseas or rendered obsolete by technology." This will likely be true, but the question is: If technology renders jobs obsolete, who are the technologists who are going to create and program the technology that renders other jobs obsolete?
Third, the article doesn't describe its assumptions. On what calculations and assumptions is the "loss" based on? How can we know the model of the future on which the predictions are based? I'm always skeptical of any kind of projection that goes beyond a couple years -- at least in terms of something specific like the loss of 235,000 jobs.
Fourth, How can any such prediction be considered credible when the consequences are being projected for a date 11 years from now? The complexities of global economies make such predictions with an eleven year horizon highly questionable.
Fifth, the most commonly quoted sources were involved in the textile industry. Though the article attempts to make a connection between textiles and programmers, I do not think such a link is reasonable. Textiles are products that are made by union labor which is low-skill in nature. Programmers are, so far, not highly represented by unions and the trade requires substantial skill. I have read about the future of self-programming programs but I doubt this simply because the nature of technology changes so rapidly that the programming programs will always be behind the cutting/bleeding/leading edge. As long as humans are the creative force behind new technologies, programming programs pose little threat IMO.
I think that historical data indicates that over the long haul, global and American economies have expanded incredibly from decade to decade. New industries are created from the advance of technology, which generally tends to create jobs. Technology drives expansion and technologists will always be needed.
In industries like textiles, automotive and manufacturing, there is a significant movement of manufacturnig jobs to off-shore companies. The predominant reason for this shift is due to union labor. At one time, unions were a vital presence in bringing equity to laborers. In the most recent decades, however, unions have been their own worst enemies by forcing industries into labor costs that outstripped the value of the labor. As a result, companies like GM look at off-shore labor as a very compelling alternative to laborers whose low-skill work commands $60,000 a year plus benefits in the US.
The movement of programming jobs to low-cost off-shore programming houses is significant today and there is a trend of concern. Yet much can happen in 11 yrs. Companies may find that language barriers, communication complexities, culture differences, etc. will not have contributed to the overall bottom line as was hoped. Programmers will likely discover ne
As often happens, people have reacted to a Microsoft article without understanding the real issue.
There have been many times when I have wanted to keep an email or a document out of the hands of other people. I once got in trouble for sending an email joke to people whom I knew would enjoy the humor. Alas, they forwarded the email to others who forwarded it to others... and so on... so that eventually it ended up in the hands of someone who took the value on "diversity" a bit too far and were offended.
The DRM feature in Office and Outlook enables a user to prevent emails and documents from being forwarded to and viewed by people not specified by the sender/creator. That's all this feature is. The sender/creator certainly has the option of not embedding DRM into the email or document so that there is no rights management involved.
This feature is one I have wanted for many, many years. I want to control who has access without having to expose the recipient to the mystery and overhead of encryption.
?? We're going well as a company and all's stable ?? I don't think so. Novell is not a stable company.
Read Novell's web site, particularly paying attention to their Investor Relations section. There are two places to spend some time: Novell's financial statements over the past five years and their statement of risk factors. (All data quoted here taken from Novell's web site)
Just in the years 2000, 2001 and 2002, Novell has seen no growth in net profit. Novell's income has essentially been flat at ~ $1.1B since 1997. During Internet Boom year 1999, Novell did post a surge of about $200M and then dropped back to the $1B revenue waterline.
NET PROFIT DECLINES
From 1997 - 2002, Novell has had difficulty generating net profits.
1997 -$78.3M
1998 +$101M
1999 +$190M
2000 -$49M
2001 -$272.8M
2002 -$246M.
REDUCTION IN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT BUDGET:
Since 1998, Novell has spent progressively less money on product development. In 1998, Novell spent $235M on development and in 2002 spent $169M on development. R&D costs declined in all intervening years.
REDUCTION IN SALES AND MARKETING:
Marketing budgets have been essentially cut each year since 1998, with a large spike in 2000, during which $495M was spent. In 2002, Novell spent $358M on marketing.
STOCK PRICE:
Novell's share price has steadily shed value since January 2000, when NOVL traded at ~$40/share. It's share price as I write is $3.47.
STATEMENT OF RISK:
The current statement of risk on the Novell site is substantially more tame than when I originally researched Novell the first of this year. But check it out. Novell has substantial barriers to prosperity in the IT industry.
ANALYSIS:
Novell has steadily lost traction in the market over the last four years. Their decisions to decrease spending in product development and sales & marketing is puzzling when compared to their statement of risk: how can they confront the dominance of larger competitors by spending less money on new product development and less money on getting the word out to companies about their products? Oh sure, you can claim they are spnding their money "smarter" but that's a weak claim because Microsoft can outspend nearly any company it chooses to go head to head with, and a lightweight competitor like Novell stands no chance (anyone remember Netscape?).
Is Novell's emphasis on Linux a lighthearted attempt to piss off SCO? No - Novell cannot be so trivial with its short supply of cash. The Linux move is an attempt to ride the coat tails of OSS in an effort to drive down product development costs. They cannot gain traction in networking and messaging so they are seeking to capitalize on the growth of Linux.
An interesting strategy but this is an approach that has more to do with survival and protecting an asset base than it has to do with innovative competition.
Novell may not be flopping around on the dock gasping for air but it definitely appears to be in the fisherman's boat, heading into shore.
In a related item, Ford announced that in addition to 0% financing, all new car buyers will receive a free saddle, feed bag and whip if they take delivery of a new Ford, Lincoln or Mercury by August 15th.
While it is true that the pre-Service Pack 1 version of Exchange 2000 and Outlook 2000 (as well as other MS apps) had security flaws, today's current configuration of Windows Server 2000 SP3 and Exchange SP3 is much more secure. Plus, the implementation of Windows Update helps administrators keep systems up-to-date and secure. MS has been great about pushing security updates out quickly.
Exchange 2003 and Outlook 2003 are fantastic applications with much stronger security.
The Exchange systems that have problems today are managed by admins who do not update their servers, strip suspect attachments , etc. I'm sure there are OSS patches and updates that are necessary to keep OSS servers secure.
So, OSS bigots, system insecurity is not inherent in MS products. It exists in all software to varying degrees. It's time for the /. OSS bigots to stop relying on tribal knowledge and information that is 3 years old.
http://www.hatchmusic.com/songs.html
Hopefully, this wasn't a statistic reported by Jayson Blair before he was fired.
We are currently looking to upgrade to Office 2003 when it is released. We plan on riding that version for ~ 6-7 years just as we have done with Office 97. Further, we are planning to replace GroupWise with Exchange. We will purchase Exchange 2003 and will ride those CALs into 2010. MS has priced itself out of getting us to regularly upgrade but be that as it may, we are not forced to upgrade either our Office suites or our Exchange environment.
While it is true that past versions of Office have had file formats that required either an intentional file save to lower versions or an upgrade in order to read files from a later version, the current version of Office has no such requirement.
If you review my comment, you'll notice that my objection to OSS is not due to issues of product "lock in" but on issues of end user functionality. OSS software is immature in its GUI and is not feature rich. Further, IT staffs are burdened enough without having to help end users with unfamiliar OSS software. Commercial suites like Office have the advantage of a wide user base and the advantages that accrue from that user base.
Currently, the only feature OSS has to claim is its lower cost to acquire. I would submit that the total cost to deploy client-side OSS software is significantly higher than OSS suites in both tangible and intangible terms.
Until client-side OSS software has a more sophisticated GUI and the functionality of commercial software, OSS will not have ubiquity. And OSS will not have ubiquity until it is intentionally developed with an R&D budget.
Ergo, my statement: OSS can be either free or ubiquitous but it cannot be both.
As several have pointed out in this thread, most non-profits have cobbled together their infrastructure with donated hardware and the software that comes with it. Most of these organizations have no illusions of having Exchange, SharePoint Portal server, SQL and Active Directory. While it would be cool to be able to use Office XP to do direct file-sharing of Office files on a Team Services web site, non-profits are rightly expected to spend their money on delivering servies rather than have neato networks.
Having Office XP does not obligate organizations to other MS applications. Even organizations that accept OS software won't be obligated to MS in the future. At bare minimum, employees can do file sharing and printer sharing with a hodge-podge of Win 98, Me, 2000 and XP. Putting Windows XP on a computer doesn't obligate an organization to purchase more MS products.
The /. reactions among the OSS zealots are hysterical objections of Foul! because MS can outplay the free business model to the detriment of the OSS players.
The bottom line is that the "free" OSS business model cannot sustain itself over time. At some point, OSS will need to meet the challenge of commercially developed software in order to attain levels of usability that will be necessary in order for OSS to become widely accepted by end users and the IT staff who support them. To meet that challenge, OSS will need to generate significant revenue.
OSS can have ubiquity or it can be free. It cannot be both.
OSS shares the same hubris of Steve Jobs and Apple. Clearly, Apple had a superior design that end users loved. But Apple ignored the economic realities businesses consider: where is the real value in paying $1000 more for an elegant box that does word processing and spreadsheets the same way as the less-elegant, clearly inferior Windows box? There is none. Consequently, the great majority of businesses chose similarly functional and less expensive PC clones. The superior product lost irrecoverable market share because it approached the marketplace with values that were not shared by the marketplace (i.e. cool design instead of functionality).
OSS Idealists think the world ought to be enamored with how great Linux is. But the world doesn't give a s*hit because the ratio of end users to technology geeks is biased greatly toward the end user. End user acceptance and economic sensibility are important factors which drive ubiquity. The unavoidable reality of the power of networks is that as acceptance and ubiquity grows, the power of the network grows as well.
Ubiquity has incredible value to both the end user and the business manager. Neato keen advantages of OSS that issue forth no shortage of geek orgasms don't matter to businesses because businesses don't exist to implement neato keen technology. Technology exists to support a business' ability to generate revenue and profit. Because businesses are about making money and making money is increasingly about connecting more people to purchase opportunities, ubiquity in the back office is extremely valuable to business managers. This is why the job postings you bemoan require MCSE skills. OSS is ostensibly superior to MS but where OSS has failed is in delivering a value position that is compelling to business managers. This is why your passion for Linux is marginalized as a "silly little program:" it holds no true business value for her because it doesn't help her make money. Ubiquity helps her make money and OSS lacks this.
As I have predicted in past posts, I still believe that OSS is a short time away from hitting a wall beyond which it cannot simultaneously move and continue the promise of cheaper/free. As the internet bubble collapse and Mandrake Linux attest, this model cannot be sustained in a capitalist economy.
IT departments will be burdened with learning OSS platforms and will need technical support to help them through their learning curve. Not only will RH have increased call volume but their cycle times will be longer because a greater percentage of their callers will not be as adept at managing the platform as those technicians whose companies were early OSS adopters.
The costs of running a call center are driven by three key factors: levels of support, call volume and call cycle time. As these factors increase, staffing levels increase and consequently, so do the per seat or per call costs. This is why MS charges $245 per event.
OSS mavens and clueless CEOs will watch OSS costs of ownership climb in both tangible and intangible terms. Though the cost to acquire and license OSS technologies is certainly lower than MS solutions, there are longer-term factors of cost that are ignored by most OSS hype: the cost of fewer technicians capable of skillfully deploying robust OSS solutions because OSS lacks ubiquity, the cost of retooling the skillsets of existing IT staff, the cost of lost IT staff productivity because of the inevitable learning curve of new technologies, the complexity of mixed environments as companies migrate from Windows to OSS and the cost of lack of interoperability between OSS end-user solutions (e.g. Office vs OSS suites), to name a few.
CEOs will mandate their IT teams implement OSS without looking at these factors of total cost of ownership and after a significant investment in OSS, will realize that the TCO of OSS is not what was promised.
I am fascinated by the orgy of buzz that is growing around OSS. It's remarkably similar to the internet growth of the late 90'swhere people believed the illusion that services can be provided for free or significantly lower than traditional channels. As we've painfully observed, this model cannot be sustained in a capitalist economy. The bottom line is that money and profit must exist or businesses, like Red Hat Linux, will cease to exist. Mandrake bears witness to this economic reality from which OSS is not immune.
The OSS model of cheaper/free is not sustainable beyond a certain point. OSS is lean and mean and free because it hasn't achieved a strong level of demand. As the false promise of cheaper lures more and more companies to move to OSS, the OSS developers and businesses will find their costs increasing and they will find that a $245 charge for a support phone call makes a hell of a lot of sense. In fact, because they lack the infrastructure to support increase volumes and cycle times, their costs per call could very well be more than $245 per incident.
I think a lot of OSS idealists and clueless CEOs are in for a rude awakening in five years.
Dammit! Somone beat me to this. I wish I were a better slashdotter. I'm not worthy. I suck.
Though you are the first person to correctly recognize this misquoted verse (any time it is used, it is misquoted as saying "the love of money is the root of all evil") you're still a bit off. The verse correctly reads: For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
So, if a strong, dominant company does subscription pricing, it is rapacious, predetaory behavior. If a weak company in a weak economy does subscription pricing, it's a justifiable action to maintain shareholder value. Microsoft also functions in a weak economy and is accountable to shareholders. Why does the same action gain usch polar reactions from the /. crowd?
I'm not a fan of subscription pricing. Neither am I a fan of is /. inherent bias toward OSS and practically everyone but Microsoft.
I attended a MS .NET Visual Studio launch event last spring/summer. During the session, which was led by a knowledgeable and articulate MSite, we were informed that the code compiled by Visual Studio is not executable code but an intermediate language.
.NET framework resident on the server. The framework determines the hardware and optimizes the code for the server.
.NET Visual Studio has equalized these two languages through the intermediate language and the JIT compiler, C# and VB will simply be syntactical preference. People will now say 'I'm a .NET guy.'
The executable code is actually generated on demand on the server side by a just-in-time compiler using the
The implications of this structure were that there are no longer any advantages to be gained over coding in C# instead of VB because both compile the same intermediate code from Visual Studio. What could only be done in C# can now be done in VB.
The presenter said (almost an exact quote here): "In the past, programmers said, 'I'm a C guy,' or 'I'm a VB guy.' Now that
Oh like that would be an unbiased web site!
The Anonymous Coward raises a great point. My brother in law is a rabid anti-MS zealot. My best man in my wedding joined the Sun jihad (his term, not mine) against Microsoft.
/.'ers honestly address. Businesses need to make money - that's why they exist. Yet the mantra of OSS is free, open and innovative. I just don't see the full expression of this mantra to be possible in a capitalist economy. On this point, many OS advocates are silent and strike me as a bit dishonest. Or naive.
Both of them have ranted for years about how MS suppresses innovation. They cite examples of how MS embraces by buying out and extends by either shit-canning the competing product or assimilating it into an existing product mix.
My challenge to both of them has been: Show me an example of suppressed innovation. Neither of them have been able to do so.
My in-law keeps telling me that Linux is the future, and that Amiga runs circles around MS. So, finally, in order to maintain credibility in the debate, I used a Pentium 133 to build a Mandrake Linux box.
While I was amazed that Linux would set up on a 133 with 128MB of RAM, and that it ran quickly on that hardware, I was not impressed with the GUI and open source software. The GUI looked like Windows and the OSS GUI had the sophistication of Win3.1! My first response on viewing the GUI was an audible: "This is it? This looks like Windows?" And the OS software had nowhere near the sophistication of commercial products.
Is this because the OSS programmers suck? Not at all. It is because OSS programmers need to eat. Consequently, they devote their best time and energy to the things that put food on the table.
The whole OSS/MS debate is a philosophical battle measured against price and the romance of open-source, self-organizing communities of programmers who do some really cool stuff but who don't have the money or bandwidth to truly innovate.
The key problem with open source software is economic. It's very difficult for people to make a living writing free software with the hope that people will contribute money to the cause. It is impossible to go to the grocery store and take home a cart full of groceries in exchange for job satisfaction or status as an open source programmer. Grocery stores, car dealerships, malls, dry cleaners, gas stations... capitalist bastards all of them. They want money for their products and services.
The only way OSS can flourish in its ideal incarnation is in a socialist economy. OSS will struggle in a capitalist economy because of the nature of competition, purchaser motivations and the basic material needs of OSS programmers and businesses.
In fact, the idea of an "OSS business" is a paradox that I haven't seen many
OSS may find itself on the cutting edge of the Innovator's Dilemma. However, I suspect that there will be market space for both OSS and commercial software. Further, they will balance each other and lift one another to higher levels: OSS will cause price drag on commercial software and commercial software will require OSS to rise to increasing levels of usability. And, though both camps shout loudly that they corner the market on innovation, both will motivate each other to innovate in pretty cool ways.
Fortunately, innovation is a commodity that flows from the limitless expanse of creativity rather than from a particular ideology.
The underlying problem with the promises of cloning and, incidentally, Star Trek's transporter is the assumption that everything significant about a human or even a cat is expressed in physical terms.
The possibility of transporting inanimate objects is very interesting and not dificult to understand: break down the atoms, beam them and reconstitute them. Straightforward. Cloning is also relatively straightforward: copy the genetic description of a creature and you can make endless replicas of that creature.
The problem is this: Humans are not merely physical objects. We have personalities, emotions, longings, etc. How does cloning duplicate personality, intelligence or, in the case of the cats, perfect physical appearance? It doesn't.
The assumption behind the promise of cloning your favorite pet is that the things that make your particular black lab more endearing to you than your neighbor's are contained in genes. Intuitively, with some reflection, we see that this cannot be true. It is not the physical appearance of our black lab that we love, it is the specific manner in which the dog loves us that makes that dog better than some other dog.
The assumption behind transporting humans across space is that humans are merely warm physical objects. Suppose Captain Picard is quite pissed at Data as he is beamed to the planet surface. How does the transporter deconstruct his pissed off emotion? Or suppose Catain Kirk is falling in love with some forbidden fruit: a slinky little Klingon hottie. How does the transporter beam to the surface his romantic longings and anxiety about whether he will choose love over career? If the *material person* is being beamed, what happens to the emotional and spiritual person?
Cloning and transporting are the same problem because they are based on the same assumptions about what it means to be human. Namely, that there is no difference between us and a phaser. There will be many pet owners and surviving lovers/family members who are disappointed when their hopes for reunion are dashed because cloning fails to replicate the intangible mystery of what differentiates people and animals from other lumpy objects.
Anti-MS bigots are passionate in their hatred for all things Bill. Radical environmentalists are passionate in their hatred for any encroachment on the environment. I don't personally agree with either form of bigotry but in the case of MS, it makes the discussion fun and interesting. In the case of environmentalists, their presence and efforts most likely mitigate the unchecked capitalistic impulse toward resource consumption.
Bigotry against races, genders, cultures and sexual orientation is decidedly not cool.Though, in light of my idea above, understandable.
- Everyone laughs at lemmings but no one ever wants to admit to being one.
My brother in law is an ardent M$ hater and refuses to use M$ products. He refuses to associate with people who use M$ products for serious computing. Consequently, his circle of contacts ends up being open source bigots that click away on their Palms.
People connect with each other based on factors of affinity. Many citizens of the /. community are biased toward open source and Anything-That-Isn't-Made-by-Microsoft ethics. Because these are two highly important values to them, these people will tend to form social and professional contacts around a preference for these ethics. In any social circle, there is always a tendency toward homogenity/conformity along the points of affinity. You and I tend to form relationships with people who are much like ourselves. In spite of all the PC rhetoric over the years, there is little diversity in our relationships when our relationships are formed with our most important values in view.
For this reason, the commenter above erroneously concludes that because none of the people he knows use Pocket PC units, the PocketPC unit cannot be taken seriously as a PDA. ChaosDiscord has failed to recognize that the Pocket PDA can indeed be considered a powerful and useful PDA because he has forgotten that his social circle does not represent the overall market for PDAs.
I have been using a PDA for five years and have had five different units. None of them were Palms because I didn't like the aesthetics or the functionality. Yet many people who I know and respect use Palms and love them. I also know many PocketPC user who also love them.
It seems that Palm is losing market share to the Pocket PC platform. I do not think that Microsoft will be able to do to Palm what it did to Netscape but I suspect that both platforms will enjoy sizeable segments of the market because of the strengths of each platform.
Most of us at /. are bigots and that's what makes IT and /. cool: there's a lot of passion and a whole boatload of variety to make for a very fun computing experience.