James Bond remote controling his super-neat-o BMW with his tricked out Ericsson phone.
How about looking past the BMW/Lotus/fancy-other-stuff etc and going with the entertainment/fantasy? As in "James Bond remote controlling his cool gadget filled car with an even cooler gadget filled cell phone like any kid (size doesn't matter) would dream about having." Afterall, marketing happens everywhere nowadays - just look at your average webpage.
I would have expected earth to be peppered with "asteriods" all the time... it's just that they are small - not Bruce Willis sized... and when they don't land we call them meteors.
Seems to me that if you look at the Microsoft official line on TCO and Linux, you have a good place to start your investigation.
I had a quick look at some of their documents (like www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/ casestudies/XO_final.doc and http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/migrate/unix/ businessvalue.asp) and it looks to me like they concede that licences are expensive but you save on the "administration, integration and development" costs (ahhh... perhaps too many cheap MCSEs and VB programmers with 2 weeks CTEC experience??).
So if I were looking, these would be areas I'd concentrate on since M$ says that's where Windows is better (ie that's what they worry about... unless that's what they want us to think... or maybe they want us to think that they want us to... ahh hell I give up!)
Consultant: The MS bug (Magnetic Shift bug) is like the classic Y2K bug.
Businessman: What's that?
Consultant: It involved a near global catastrophy which occured aroung the 19th century. Only the speedy responce by excellent programmers saved civilisation.
Businessman: How does this affect me?
Consultant: You need a team of 25 programmers, at least, to write bug fixes for the software in your toaster so that it can cope with the reversal of the magentic field.
Businessman: But I thought the toaster is AI and can learn these things?
Consultant: Trust me - your toaster needs this because...
Businessman: OK, OK -sigh-, spare me the details... how much?
Couldn't read the article, but something that came to mind straight away was that the OS may be irrelevant to the end user but not to the poor smuck whose job it is to look after the servers... Something like IIS vs Apache - does the person reading the web-page care? No, but the Sys Admin does!
Just my $0.02 worth...
http://www.proiv.com/0025664A00363AEA/pages/4GL/$F ile/4gl.pdf is an interesting PDF on how Nandos Chickenland is moving to Unix/Linux (with the help of 4GLSystems) in their Enterprise Management Systems. While Linux is becomming more and more mainstream (even my technophobic Dad asked me about "that new thingy giving Microsoft headaches"), IMHO the future of a similar market penetration for Linux as M$ has (at least in the desktop market) is still far off. And perhaps it would be better if it never arrived?!?
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Why would you want to fold a business card sized CD in half???
How about looking past the BMW/Lotus/fancy-other-stuff etc and going with the entertainment/fantasy? As in "James Bond remote controlling his cool gadget filled car with an even cooler gadget filled cell phone like any kid (size doesn't matter) would dream about having." Afterall, marketing happens everywhere nowadays - just look at your average webpage.
I would have expected earth to be peppered with "asteriods" all the time... it's just that they are small - not Bruce Willis sized... and when they don't land we call them meteors.
I had a quick look at some of their documents (like www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/ casestudies/XO_final.doc and http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/migrate/unix/ businessvalue.asp) and it looks to me like they concede that licences are expensive but you save on the "administration, integration and development" costs (ahhh... perhaps too many cheap MCSEs and VB programmers with 2 weeks CTEC experience??).
So if I were looking, these would be areas I'd concentrate on since M$ says that's where Windows is better (ie that's what they worry about... unless that's what they want us to think... or maybe they want us to think that they want us to... ahh hell I give up!)
Actually, the consutants I know are not too hot on their history... :-)
Consultant: The MS bug (Magnetic Shift bug) is like the classic Y2K bug.
Businessman: What's that?
Consultant: It involved a near global catastrophy which occured aroung the 19th century. Only the speedy responce by excellent programmers saved civilisation.
Businessman: How does this affect me?
Consultant: You need a team of 25 programmers, at least, to write bug fixes for the software in your toaster so that it can cope with the reversal of the magentic field.
Businessman: But I thought the toaster is AI and can learn these things?
Consultant: Trust me - your toaster needs this because...
Businessman: OK, OK -sigh-, spare me the details... how much?
Consultant: -rubbing hands- Well...
And no need to swim [http://www.channelswimming.com/] ;-)
Couldn't read the article, but something that came to mind straight away was that the OS may be irrelevant to the end user but not to the poor smuck whose job it is to look after the servers... Something like IIS vs Apache - does the person reading the web-page care? No, but the Sys Admin does! Just my $0.02 worth...
http://www.proiv.com/0025664A00363AEA/pages/4GL/$F ile/4gl.pdf is an interesting PDF on how Nandos Chickenland is moving to Unix/Linux (with the help of 4GLSystems) in their Enterprise Management Systems. While Linux is becomming more and more mainstream (even my technophobic Dad asked me about "that new thingy giving Microsoft headaches"), IMHO the future of a similar market penetration for Linux as M$ has (at least in the desktop market) is still far off. And perhaps it would be better if it never arrived?!?
Will Nokia get into the Model Train business anytime soon? Or could there be ulterior motives - like a trademark lawsuite... :-)
Now that we have the answer, what was the question?