XP has 73% of the market. Up about 1% a month. W2K 15%. Down about 1% a month.
Mac and Linux 3%. Up 1% since 2003. Linux remaining pretty much where it was in July 20004.OS Platform Stats
This is how the world looks to a developer. I'll leave it to your imagination to consider W2K's place in the home market.
Walmart has tried the Linux route before. Even though this might not be a Linux solution it surely would not be a Win solution.
Walmart is moving up-scale. It wants a cut of the high-margin Home Theater market. The HTPC. The X-Box 360. That is something Microsoft has shown it can deliver.
They haven't denied anything. They have stated that they aren't going to be making a PC. That doesn't deny the OS or a machine that could be backed with the Google Brand name
Give it a rest, will 'ya?
TiVO is losing ground to cheaper cable service-branded PVRs, every attempt to sell the middle class on the Network Appliance has ended in failure, a bloodbath of red ink.
I believe the OED traces the linkage of copyright infringement and piracy back to 1710 and the beginnings of copyright law, in an era when sea-going marauders were still in business.
The cost is offset somewhat by the strange fact that 95% of PC's won't sell until you install Windows on them. A small margin is better than no margin at all.
Let's review, shall we?
Google is a brand name only to Geeks. To everyone else, it is a search page. The company has no experience marketing consumer hardware or software.
WebTV, the Internet Appliance, have ended in a bloodbath of red ink in every trial. The middle class can afford better and it is the middle class that buys.
whilst reducing the staleness that companies like Disney have running through them.
You want to write a successful series of children's books? You don't need Hogwarts and you don't need Narnia, as Daniel Handler proved in A Series of Unfortunate Events.
You want to make a name for yourself in animation? You learn from Disney, from Brad Bird and Tim Burton. You don't stand about whining because the Mouse belongs to someone else.
Copyright used to be sensible, roundabout 15 or twenty years methinks
Statute of Anne, 1710, 14 years, renewable for 14, the author still living. The model for the first U.S. copyright law in 1790.
In 1831, U.S. copyright was extended to 28 years, renewable for 14, again following the European standard.
The Berne Convention of 1886, as revised in 1908, established the modern formula of life plus X years, where X equals 50 years or more. Copyright Timeline
I know Vista just keeps giving me more and more reason to overcome my difficulties with Linux. I want a computer that does what I want. Not some piece of DRM'd-up-the-wazzoo shit.
Which would matter if Vista-home was being marketed to Geeks and home users were system builders, which, overwhelmingly, they are not.
In the consumer market, the PC is an appliance, nothing more, and eveything has to work out-of-the-box, including DRM'd games, movies, and subscription services like Rhapsody.
C.C. Crane will donate a Freeplay Lifeline Radio to an African child with each Lifeline radio you purchase. These clockwork powered AM/FM/SW portables are tough.
Radio is a mature and affordable technology with seventy-five years of experience in educational broadcasting to back it up.
For a very basic start, just check all the mathematical, biological, chemical and so on information collected on Wikipedia. And that's just one single site of millions containing useful information - instantly searchable and accessible.
The World Book is known for its ties to the standard school ciriculum, articles begining at the level they would be introduced in the classroom. You do not teach elementary science to kids by using The Handbook of Chemistry and Physics as your textbook.
I know you meant that number facetiously, but a quick search of my main XP box at work shows 1472 ".exe" files and another roughly 2000 somewhat-executable files (assorted scripts, dlls, and other extensions
I think most users would define an application as a program which can be launched from the Start menu or a desktop icon, and perhaps, with a little thought, file viewers such as the Acrobat Reader. But not the thousands of sub-programs and libraries on which they depend.
Names do matter when you insist on stuffing 14,000 poorly documented apps into your favorite Linux distro, half beginning with "G" and the other with "K."
If it came pre-installed, perhaps customized for a specific hardware platform, a lot more people would use it. This obviously doesn't apply to big IT departments. But it would help home and small business users, most of whom don't install their own OS.
Slashdot has been chanting this mantra for years. But I am not convinced that even Walmart still believes it. The chain has tried to make a go of OEM Linspire, Xzndros, Sun's JDS, etc., none of which has caught fire.
Dell assembles 80,000 computers every 24 hours. In 2002 it chartered eighteen 747's to keep supplies flowing to the states during a dockworker's strike. "(A) veteran builder can piece together a Dell OptiPlex or Dimension PC in three minutes." Living in Dell Tine
It's also not reasonable to expect non-technical end users out there in the mass consumer market to go to the corner store, have a machine put together to their specifications
There is no corner store. There is only a business card posted on the bulletin board of your neighborhood mini-mart.
a Windows-only offering that ignorant customers go along with.
Customers aren't ignorant, they are pragmatic. In a village of 2500 I can walk four blocks and return home with a brand-name digital camera and printer for Windows.
why should I pay more for a computer that I don't want Windows installed on?
You pay more because Dell can order 30,000,000 laptops from China knowing that the default OEM Windows MCE install will sell every damn one of them. You pay more because shelf space is expensive and Linux doesn't deliver any significant after-market sales.
Slashdot Mirror
XP has 73% of the market. Up about 1% a month. W2K 15%. Down about 1% a month.
Mac and Linux 3%. Up 1% since 2003. Linux remaining pretty much where it was in July 20004.OS Platform Stats This is how the world looks to a developer. I'll leave it to your imagination to consider W2K's place in the home market.
It could just be that everyone uses Windows because it is not such a piece of crap after all:
Windows XP had 72% of the market in December. Up 1% from November 2005. Linux 3%. Up 1% since March 2003. OS Platform Stats
This from a developer's site that shows very good numbers for Firefox.
Walmart is moving up-scale. It wants a cut of the high-margin Home Theater market. The HTPC. The X-Box 360. That is something Microsoft has shown it can deliver.
Give it a rest, will 'ya?
TiVO is losing ground to cheaper cable service-branded PVRs, every attempt to sell the middle class on the Network Appliance has ended in failure, a bloodbath of red ink.
In the Western mind, all crimes against property are a form of theft. In any advanced commercial society immaterial property is still property.
The only form of property that, in the end, really matters.
"Identity Theft" makes its first appearance in American statutory law in 1998. Putting an End to Account-Hijacking Identity Theft Now the phrase is in common usage.
I believe the OED traces the linkage of copyright infringement and piracy back to 1710 and the beginnings of copyright law, in an era when sea-going marauders were still in business.
This is not a battle the Geek can win.
Let's review, shall we?
Google is a brand name only to Geeks. To everyone else, it is a search page. The company has no experience marketing consumer hardware or software.
WebTV, the Internet Appliance, have ended in a bloodbath of red ink in every trial. The middle class can afford better and it is the middle class that buys.
You want to write a successful series of children's books? You don't need Hogwarts and you don't need Narnia, as Daniel Handler proved in A Series of Unfortunate Events.
You want to make a name for yourself in animation? You learn from Disney, from Brad Bird and Tim Burton. You don't stand about whining because the Mouse belongs to someone else.
Statute of Anne, 1710, 14 years, renewable for 14, the author still living. The model for the first U.S. copyright law in 1790.
In 1831, U.S. copyright was extended to 28 years, renewable for 14, again following the European standard.
The Berne Convention of 1886, as revised in 1908, established the modern formula of life plus X years, where X equals 50 years or more. Copyright Timeline
For the Wikipedia, the vanity press label means death.
Which would matter if Vista-home was being marketed to Geeks and home users were system builders, which, overwhelmingly, they are not.
In the consumer market, the PC is an appliance, nothing more, and eveything has to work out-of-the-box, including DRM'd games, movies, and subscription services like Rhapsody.
The more important question to ask is what games did Hitler's regime enourage -- or require -- children to play: Game Pieces from an Antisemetic Game Called: Jews Out
None of these cases, so far as I know, have moved beyond the district court level. That doesn't count for much in the federal system.
Radio is a mature and affordable technology with seventy-five years of experience in educational broadcasting to back it up.
The World Book is known for its ties to the standard school ciriculum, articles begining at the level they would be introduced in the classroom. You do not teach elementary science to kids by using The Handbook of Chemistry and Physics as your textbook.
I think most users would define an application as a program which can be launched from the Start menu or a desktop icon, and perhaps, with a little thought, file viewers such as the Acrobat Reader. But not the thousands of sub-programs and libraries on which they depend.
It isn't always wise to take a Slashdot post as Gospel. Still dumpster-diving for that mythical spyware-ridden high-end Windows PC?
Digital VHS is available now ($500 JVC - $1000 Marzntz) with blank cassettes selling for about $8. DVD sales are down, HDTV sales are up.
No manufacturing capacity. No distribution network like Dell or Walmart. No legal access to mass-market content.
Outlook seems to be a likely enough place to begin when you need a program to organize your work: e-mail, contact lists, scheduling and so on.
Names do matter when you insist on stuffing 14,000 poorly documented apps into your favorite Linux distro, half beginning with "G" and the other with "K."
Slashdot has been chanting this mantra for years. But I am not convinced that even Walmart still believes it. The chain has tried to make a go of OEM Linspire, Xzndros, Sun's JDS, etc., none of which has caught fire.
Dell assembles 80,000 computers every 24 hours. In 2002 it chartered eighteen 747's to keep supplies flowing to the states during a dockworker's strike. "(A) veteran builder can piece together a Dell OptiPlex or Dimension PC in three minutes." Living in Dell Tine
There is no corner store. There is only a business card posted on the bulletin board of your neighborhood mini-mart.
a Windows-only offering that ignorant customers go along with.
Customers aren't ignorant, they are pragmatic. In a village of 2500 I can walk four blocks and return home with a brand-name digital camera and printer for Windows.
You pay more because Dell can order 30,000,000 laptops from China knowing that the default OEM Windows MCE install will sell every damn one of them. You pay more because shelf space is expensive and Linux doesn't deliver any significant after-market sales.
Microsoft had become the dominant player in microcomputer languages. Gates was not an unknown quantity to IBM.
Then don't bet your life's savings on the P2P nets or trust in a lawyer who refuses to settle out-of-court.