Washington is unfortunately following the CA/MS/MI model, not the ID/NV/WY model. It's already caused Boeing to relocate their headquarters (taking with it a substantial chunk of change)...
Boeing moved its headquarters to Chicago because Boeing had became something more than an aircraft manufacturer in Seattle.
At the time, Boeing had about 200,000 employees world-wide, 78,000 in Seattle and a headquarters staff of about 500. To attract Boeing, Illinois kicked in $41 in tax breaks and grants, Chicago $20 million. Boeing Moving Headquarters to Chicago
Yahoo! is heavily run on open source software, including PHP, FreeBSD and Linux. It won't look good for Microsoft if so much more infrastructure is running on software they have belittled for years now.
How many visitors to Yahoo! give a flying fsuck about the infrastructure of a web portal?
From 2002 to 2004 the then Home and Entertainment Division made an accumulated loss for 3.5 billion dollars
Pocket change.
Water under the bridge.
Revenue in the unit that includes Xbox rose 3.1 percent to $3.06 billion, exceeding Microsoft's forecast that it would decline as much as 8 percent. The division posted earnings of $357 million, the first time it has reported profits in back-to- back quarters. Liddell cited the high number of games sold per Xbox machine for the unit's revenue and profit increases. Consumers on average buy seven titles with each machine, which bolsters earnings because the games are profitable while the consoles usually lose money or break even.Morning Call [Jaunary 24]
Develop for the XBox 360 and get the Windows market as a bonus. The XBox helps anchor Microsoft's position in the hone.
Surface has nothing to do with touching. There are 7 cameras below the glass that track and feed movement. The glass is the point reference and is not configured to detect or relay any physical content. It's just a big ass table with old tech stuffed inside.
Surface can take the punishment of the game room or bar.
It might be possible replace a damaged table top with a cut glass sheet or plastic panel purchased from Home Depot.
The use of rear projection suggests that it should at least be relatively simple and cheap to scale Surface to any arbitrary size or shape, for vertical or horizontal mounting.
Surface can read codes stamped into objects. Glasses. Cameras. Game pieces. Surface can communicate with objects - perhaps over a Bluetooth link or something faster.
Surface seem to do most of its work in software. I can't see any objection to using simple, reliable, off the shelf hardware.
The gPC was consistently sold out, they sold them as fast as they could make them, and Walmart for a period of time said it was their top selling PC.
You still haven't told me how many units were sold.
You haven't told me how long the gPC was a top seller. You haven't told me about returns.
You haven't told me how much these sales were worth to Walmart - compared to the Vista laptops which left their store with a printer and a digital camera in the same cart.
Maybe you should check their stock price this week.
While you should check out how well others in the tech sector have been doing of late - how many have been showing a loss, performing below expectations...
when I pointed out that you didn't need to pay $150 for Office 2007 Home&Student to write letters, they were very open to the idea of trying out OOo. I think they'll be very happy with it, mostly because they saved $150.
MS Office 2007 has been insanely successful at retail.
The runaway best seller in PC software. Bigger than games. Bigger than anything.
Through end of November, U.S. retail PC software sales are up 10.3 percent year over year as measured in dollar volume, according to NPD. By comparison, Office sales are up 50.7 percent, by the same measure and in the same time frame.
"Here's the really interesting statistic," said Chris Swenson, NPD's director of Software Industry Analysis. "Over two-thirds of the dollar volume growth in the U.S. retail PC software market in 2007 can be attributed to Microsoft Office. In other words, the ratio of Office dollar growth to total PC software growth is 67 percent."
Office sales are so big, they make calculating broader PC software retail sales difficult.
Apple has had a great year selling Macs, which has helped boost Office 2004 sales. Version 2004 is doing so well that, ahead of the holiday sales period, Mac Office accounted for about 20 percent of all U.S. retail Office sales, according to NPD.
For Black Friday, Microsoft offered a surprising deal: for about 56 bucks, after rebates, Office 2004 Student and Teacher Edition and the forthcoming Office 2008 Special Media Edition. The new, top-of-the-line Mac Office version would otherwise sell for about $500.The Year of Office 2007
MS Office Home is $120 at Amazon. Retail boxed. Free shipping. Three seat license.
Replacement ink jet cartridges typically list for around $60 the pair. You do the math. If you can afford the consumables, you can afford MS Office. The added expense is trivial.
If his employer has a volume licensing agreement with Microsoft, your neighbor may qualify for a full version of Office for the price of shipping and handling.
Maybe you missed the ASUS Eee PC and the Everex gPC that Walmart has been selling? Maybe.
If he did, he wasn't the only one.
I've yet to see anyone here post actual numbers for sales of the gPC.
The rave reviews came from Geeks. Not from the Walmart customer who needed a functional modem, dial-up at $10 a month. Walmart has a lot of customers who fit that profile.
But one thing that is catching on is "anything but Vista"
You'll find the gPC at Walmart.com. The only Linux box that you will find at Walmart.com. But you will also find a full line-up of Vista machines.
--- and a $100 multifunction printer that ships with a Vista driver.
Windows Vista sales have been strongest at the "high" end. Vista Premium and Ultimate.
Strong enough to help fuel 20% growth in Microsoft's client division in the first and second quarters of fiscal 2008.
Microsoft is out-performing the tech sector. It is out-performing Apple. It is out-performing Google.
Yeah Blender devs! Make me a program that reads my mind, improves on my ideas to make them actually good and creates a 3D mesh of exactly what I need fully textured and realized.
What is so implausible about a program that provides the tools to customize and animate a generous selection of pre-built models? Pixar uses in-house tools like "Universal Man."
There are other professional tools out there to generate realistic terrain, trees, and so forth.
You never reflect on what life was like for your grandparents before the automobile or refrigerators were standards for every family.
You do if you want to understand why some innovations see mass adoption and others do not. Your great-grandfather could walk down any middle class suburban street and feel perfectly at home. We do not build like The Jetsons.
I gave copies of Mandriva to several people last year. Nobody asked ME how many copies of Linux I gave away!
Because nobody cares.
The DIY system install is for the enthusiast.
For thirty years the home PC has been sold as an appliance. Unpack the box, connect the cables and you are good to go.
Dual boot is for the enthusiast.
File systems that can be read by Linux but not by Windows. Full-featured hardware drivers for Windows but not for Linux. Two software libraries to maintain. Two operating systems to maintain. Two skill sets to maintain.
The Geek never gets the meaning of "mass" in mass market.
Microsoft thinks of success in terms of selling its first 100 million licenses for Vista. There are perhaps one billion users on the Windows desktop world-wide.
When there was a strike on the L.A. docks Dell had entire fleets of planes in the air to maintain its supply lines.
The Home Shopping Network laptop special that airs at 3 AM eastern time migrates more users to Vista in five minutes than your occasional handout draws into the Linux fold in a year.
People still buy computers/OS's off shelves. If you dig into it you probably would see a 20% increase in the price of the OEM contract.
Dig into it and you will find that OEM Vista Premium and Ultimate are taking the lion's share of the consumer market. If you think that doesn't look good to both the OEM and Microsoft, think again.
It would certainly seem that for the Geek at least his perception of reality is the only reality.
Otherwise, how else could he ignore Microsoft's standout performance in fiscal 2008? 20% growth in the Windowa client division alone.
Microsoft's results contrast with disappointing forecasts from technology companies such as Apple Inc., Intel Corp. and Motorola Inc. The Standard & Poor's 500 Information Technology Index has fallen 12 percent this year, the second-worst performance of 10 industry groups tracked by the S&P.
About 75 percent of the Windows programs sold last quarter were the higher-priced versions. Unearned revenue, which tracks signings of multiyear corporate contracts for Microsoft software, rose $500 million more than CFO Chris Liddell had forecast. Sales in Microsoft's business unit, which includes the Office applications, advanced 37 percent. Microsoft Shares Rise on Profit, Forecast Increases [January 25]
No, the economy and a really terrible flagship product (Vista) have castrated them already. Linux in spite of it's Fanboys has really started to take root as an option.
Microsoft has posted first and second quarterly results for fiscal year 2008 that that have been nothing less than spectacular. It is debt free, paying dividends, and holds $20 billion or so in cash.
Interestingly, since Windows Vista became generally available one year ago, Microsoft's client business has grown more than 20% and sales of Windows Vista have now surpassed 100 million licenses.Microsoft reports record second quarter results
If this is castration, then let's give the eunuchs their due:
Vista is the only client OS to show significant growth in years.OS Platform Stats
You can argue all you like about the specifics of the w3Schools stats but you are going to have a much harder time explaining away the long term trends exposed there.
The reason that OEMs appear to love Vista so much is that Microsoft forces it down their throats
How many quarters does Microsoft have to show record growth and earnings in Windows sales before the Geek admits that Vista is taking hold in the market?
Vista 7% [up from 0% in January O7]
OSX 4% [up from 3% in November 04]
Linux 4% [up from 3% in December 03]
It's not the absolute numbers in the W3Schoola stats that interest me, but the exposure of long-term trends. For all the talk here about Vista's "failure," it is the only client OS that has shown significant growth in years.
That growth has has to be rooted in Vista's success in the consumer market. In the OEM system sale with Vista Premium and Ultimate. The media PC. The gamer's special. The road warrior's Lenovo laptop,
Systems with much higher specs and more generous profit margins than the generic Linux econo-box.
Isn't the whole point of terror to cause, well, terror? Sounds sociological to me.
Well of course it does.
Hamas blows the wall surrounding Gaza and in one stroke strengthens its claim on the Palestinians and makes the Israeli strategist look a fool.
It is never about the building. It is about how people respond to its fall. The terrorist's actions always make sense when you look at the larger social context. That is what a sociologist is trained to do.
superstition mumbo-jumba gets in the way or progress.
really, the days of secret ceremonies are coming to and end.
On whose say so? The geek's?
There are times when I think that the geek is the last of the imperialists. Believing that every cultural barrier must fall to his "white man's" notion of perfection.
nobody is going to travel all the way from Iraq/Iran/Saudi to study complete bollocks like sociology or any of the other pap degrees offered, it's no wonder that there aren't too many Islamist sociology and psychology students.
one of the oldest stereotypes of the engineer is that of a man who cannot place his actions in any in social context.
he'll route a cross-town expressway that erases entire urban neighborhoods, erects permanent physical barriers to social migration.
build the one hundred eighty five story office tower that has maximum rental space and escape routes that are as close to useless as the fire codes permit.
Then again, permits for what is basically sensors is a nanny state attitude bordering very much on Big Brother.
The argument has made repeatedly on Slashdot that computer users should be licensed - that users should demonstrate a mastery of basic skills and show some sense of responsibility for the potential consequences of his actions.
But tell the Geek that he needs a license before toying with class 4 biologic and radiological alarms and the world becomes a nanny state.
Franklin was speaking about the first assents in a hot air balloon. Franklin's own "inventions" tended to be eminently practical:
bifocals, lightning rods, the Franklin stove, the lending library, the volunteer fire company.
If anything Vista reminds me a lot of OS X - very pretty but very frustrating if you don't want to do exactly what Redmond or Cupertino want you to do.
But that is precisely the point. OSX and Vista sell to users who do not want the geek's engagement with an operating system.
Microsoft's just doing what they do best. No, not technology -- marketing. They create their own buzz and news that everything's awesomely great in Microsoftland to convince people who don't look any deeper to find the real truth.
What truth?
Microsoft has done spectacularly well in its first and second quarters
This is a thirty year old company showing 15% growth in a mature market.
Debt free and with $20 billion in cash.
In these OS Platform Stats, Vista is approaching the desktop market share of OSX and Linux combined.
MS Office 2007 is a runaway best seller at retail:
"Over two-thirds of the dollar volume growth in the U.S. retail PC software market in 2007 can be attributed to Microsoft Office. In other words, the ratio of Office dollar growth to total PC software growth is 67 percent." The Year of Office 2007
Slashdot Mirror
Boeing moved its headquarters to Chicago because Boeing had became something more than an aircraft manufacturer in Seattle.
At the time, Boeing had about 200,000 employees world-wide, 78,000 in Seattle and a headquarters staff of about 500. To attract Boeing, Illinois kicked in $41 in tax breaks and grants, Chicago $20 million. Boeing Moving Headquarters to Chicago
How many visitors to Yahoo! give a flying fsuck about the infrastructure of a web portal?
You want the free sample? Turn on a radio. Go to Amazon.com.
Pocket change.
Water under the bridge.
Revenue in the unit that includes Xbox rose 3.1 percent to $3.06 billion, exceeding Microsoft's forecast that it would decline as much as 8 percent. The division posted earnings of $357 million, the first time it has reported profits in back-to- back quarters. Liddell cited the high number of games sold per Xbox machine for the unit's revenue and profit increases. Consumers on average buy seven titles with each machine, which bolsters earnings because the games are profitable while the consoles usually lose money or break even. Morning Call [Jaunary 24]
Develop for the XBox 360 and get the Windows market as a bonus. The XBox helps anchor Microsoft's position in the hone.
Surface can take the punishment of the game room or bar.
It might be possible replace a damaged table top with a cut glass sheet or plastic panel purchased from Home Depot.
The use of rear projection suggests that it should at least be relatively simple and cheap to scale Surface to any arbitrary size or shape, for vertical or horizontal mounting.
Surface can read codes stamped into objects. Glasses. Cameras. Game pieces. Surface can communicate with objects - perhaps over a Bluetooth link or something faster.
Surface seem to do most of its work in software. I can't see any objection to using simple, reliable, off the shelf hardware.
You still haven't told me how many units were sold.
You haven't told me how long the gPC was a top seller. You haven't told me about returns.
You haven't told me how much these sales were worth to Walmart - compared to the Vista laptops which left their store with a printer and a digital camera in the same cart.
Maybe you should check their stock price this week.
While you should check out how well others in the tech sector have been doing of late - how many have been showing a loss, performing below expectations...
MS Office 2007 has been insanely successful at retail.
The runaway best seller in PC software. Bigger than games. Bigger than anything.
Through end of November, U.S. retail PC software sales are up 10.3 percent year over year as measured in dollar volume, according to NPD. By comparison, Office sales are up 50.7 percent, by the same measure and in the same time frame.
"Here's the really interesting statistic," said Chris Swenson, NPD's director of Software Industry Analysis. "Over two-thirds of the dollar volume growth in the U.S. retail PC software market in 2007 can be attributed to Microsoft Office. In other words, the ratio of Office dollar growth to total PC software growth is 67 percent."
Office sales are so big, they make calculating broader PC software retail sales difficult.
Apple has had a great year selling Macs, which has helped boost Office 2004 sales. Version 2004 is doing so well that, ahead of the holiday sales period, Mac Office accounted for about 20 percent of all U.S. retail Office sales, according to NPD.
For Black Friday, Microsoft offered a surprising deal: for about 56 bucks, after rebates, Office 2004 Student and Teacher Edition and the forthcoming Office 2008 Special Media Edition. The new, top-of-the-line Mac Office version would otherwise sell for about $500. The Year of Office 2007
MS Office Home is $120 at Amazon. Retail boxed. Free shipping. Three seat license.
Replacement ink jet cartridges typically list for around $60 the pair. You do the math. If you can afford the consumables, you can afford MS Office. The added expense is trivial.
If his employer has a volume licensing agreement with Microsoft, your neighbor may qualify for a full version of Office for the price of shipping and handling.
If he did, he wasn't the only one.
I've yet to see anyone here post actual numbers for sales of the gPC.
The rave reviews came from Geeks. Not from the Walmart customer who needed a functional modem, dial-up at $10 a month. Walmart has a lot of customers who fit that profile.
But one thing that is catching on is "anything but Vista"
You'll find the gPC at Walmart.com. The only Linux box that you will find at Walmart.com. But you will also find a full line-up of Vista machines.
--- and a $100 multifunction printer that ships with a Vista driver.
Windows Vista sales have been strongest at the "high" end. Vista Premium and Ultimate.
The $600 Dual Core Acer desktop with 20" widescreen LCD monitor.
Strong enough to help fuel 20% growth in Microsoft's client division in the first and second quarters of fiscal 2008. Microsoft is out-performing the tech sector. It is out-performing Apple. It is out-performing Google.
Microsoftr has $20 billion in cash. Microsoft saw a 79% rise in its quarterly profit. Microsoft is coining money.
What is so implausible about a program that provides the tools to customize and animate a generous selection of pre-built models? Pixar uses in-house tools like "Universal Man."
There are other professional tools out there to generate realistic terrain, trees, and so forth.
Why not something for the modder?
You do if you want to understand why some innovations see mass adoption and others do not. Your great-grandfather could walk down any middle class suburban street and feel perfectly at home. We do not build like The Jetsons.
Because nobody cares.
The DIY system install is for the enthusiast.
For thirty years the home PC has been sold as an appliance. Unpack the box, connect the cables and you are good to go.
Dual boot is for the enthusiast.
File systems that can be read by Linux but not by Windows. Full-featured hardware drivers for Windows but not for Linux. Two software libraries to maintain. Two operating systems to maintain. Two skill sets to maintain.
The Geek never gets the meaning of "mass" in mass market.
Microsoft thinks of success in terms of selling its first 100 million licenses for Vista. There are perhaps one billion users on the Windows desktop world-wide.
When there was a strike on the L.A. docks Dell had entire fleets of planes in the air to maintain its supply lines.
The Home Shopping Network laptop special that airs at 3 AM eastern time migrates more users to Vista in five minutes than your occasional handout draws into the Linux fold in a year.
Dig into it and you will find that OEM Vista Premium and Ultimate are taking the lion's share of the consumer market. If you think that doesn't look good to both the OEM and Microsoft, think again.
Twice nothing is still nothing.
It would certainly seem that for the Geek at least his perception of reality is the only reality.
Otherwise, how else could he ignore Microsoft's standout performance in fiscal 2008? 20% growth in the Windowa client division alone.
Microsoft's results contrast with disappointing forecasts from technology companies such as Apple Inc., Intel Corp. and Motorola Inc. The Standard & Poor's 500 Information Technology Index has fallen 12 percent this year, the second-worst performance of 10 industry groups tracked by the S&P.
About 75 percent of the Windows programs sold last quarter were the higher-priced versions. Unearned revenue, which tracks signings of multiyear corporate contracts for Microsoft software, rose $500 million more than CFO Chris Liddell had forecast. Sales in Microsoft's business unit, which includes the Office applications, advanced 37 percent. Microsoft Shares Rise on Profit, Forecast Increases [January 25]
Microsoft has posted first and second quarterly results for fiscal year 2008 that that have been nothing less than spectacular. It is debt free, paying dividends, and holds $20 billion or so in cash.
Interestingly, since Windows Vista became generally available one year ago, Microsoft's client business has grown more than 20% and sales of Windows Vista have now surpassed 100 million licenses. Microsoft reports record second quarter results
If this is castration, then let's give the eunuchs their due:
Vista is the only client OS to show significant growth in years. OS Platform Stats
You can argue all you like about the specifics of the w3Schools stats but you are going to have a much harder time explaining away the long term trends exposed there.
How many quarters does Microsoft have to show record growth and earnings in Windows sales before the Geek admits that Vista is taking hold in the market?
OS Platform Stats [December 2007]
Vista 7% [up from 0% in January O7]
OSX 4% [up from 3% in November 04]
Linux 4% [up from 3% in December 03]
It's not the absolute numbers in the W3Schoola stats that interest me, but the exposure of long-term trends. For all the talk here about Vista's "failure," it is the only client OS that has shown significant growth in years.
That growth has has to be rooted in Vista's success in the consumer market. In the OEM system sale with Vista Premium and Ultimate. The media PC. The gamer's special. The road warrior's Lenovo laptop,
Systems with much higher specs and more generous profit margins than the generic Linux econo-box.
Well of course it does.
Hamas blows the wall surrounding Gaza and in one stroke strengthens its claim on the Palestinians and makes the Israeli strategist look a fool.
It is never about the building. It is about how people respond to its fall. The terrorist's actions always make sense when you look at the larger social context. That is what a sociologist is trained to do.
really, the days of secret ceremonies are coming to and end.
On whose say so? The geek's?
There are times when I think that the geek is the last of the imperialists. Believing that every cultural barrier must fall to his "white man's" notion of perfection.
one of the oldest stereotypes of the engineer is that of a man who cannot place his actions in any in social context.
he'll route a cross-town expressway that erases entire urban neighborhoods, erects permanent physical barriers to social migration.
build the one hundred eighty five story office tower that has maximum rental space and escape routes that are as close to useless as the fire codes permit.
The argument has made repeatedly on Slashdot that computer users should be licensed - that users should demonstrate a mastery of basic skills and show some sense of responsibility for the potential consequences of his actions.
But tell the Geek that he needs a license before toying with class 4 biologic and radiological alarms and the world becomes a nanny state.
Franklin was speaking about the first assents in a hot air balloon. Franklin's own "inventions" tended to be eminently practical: bifocals, lightning rods, the Franklin stove, the lending library, the volunteer fire company.
But that is precisely the point. OSX and Vista sell to users who do not want the geek's engagement with an operating system.
What truth?
Microsoft has done spectacularly well in its first and second quarters
This is a thirty year old company showing 15% growth in a mature market.
Debt free and with $20 billion in cash.
In these OS Platform Stats, Vista is approaching the desktop market share of OSX and Linux combined.
Microsoft is engaged in projects as diverse and ambitious as designing and launching a comsat for Africa. Cameroon: Microsoft Partners With Schools for IT Development
MS Office 2007 is a runaway best seller at retail:
"Over two-thirds of the dollar volume growth in the U.S. retail PC software market in 2007 can be attributed to Microsoft Office. In other words, the ratio of Office dollar growth to total PC software growth is 67 percent." The Year of Office 2007
When the 500 GB internal drive is $130 retail boxed who gives a damn about disk space?