I imagine each version of Windows still offers undocumented interfaces to tilt the playing field in favor of Microsoft's other applications. They were found (and memos leaked regarding) doing that, and AFAIK the antitrust ruling against them didn't curtail the activity at all. They would have to maintain these in perpetuity because not only do old versions of their apps persist but third party developers start using them too -- usually badly. That's a lot of persistent cruft Linux is never going to have.
There's also the accumulated bad ideas that persist that Linux doesn't need, like NetBEUI/NetBIOS Microsoft inherited from IBM which was created to support a network of up to 80 devices back in 1983. Back in the day when Microsoft was attempting to take ownership of all of networking by reinventing every protocol ever written with their own incompatible version they came up with some doozies. In terms of protocols and standards Microsoft is notoriously nearsighted, so their stuff winds up with a ton of workarounds for stuff that should have been considered and dealt with cleanly before the first line of code was written. Every kludge has to be embedded in the code for backward compatibility reasons. Also, the downside of "embrace, extend, extinguish" is that you have to support those extensions in perpetuity. This is part of what has made Samba and NTFS support such a chore to code for. It's also why a recent exploit for Vista had been in every version of Windows since '98. Much of this evolutionary engineering was done for linux before it started and codified in the POSIX standards so foresight was a good deal easier to achieve.
Sure linux has some of that stuff but when every now and then somebody wades through the muck and replaces the workarounds with an elegant solution that includes the corner cases.
I imagine there's quite a bit more that makes up Windows' secret sauce, or serves to help obfuscate its workings in an attempt to prevent reverse engineering, or provides the DRM linux will never have, and so on.
Backward compatibility in Linux is often an afterthought -- if your critical app need version x of library y, just add it yourself -- it doesn't need to be included with every version of the OS.
In summary, I don't think Linux will ever need to rise to the level of complexity even of Windows Server 2003, even if you consider all of the filesystems, GUIs, virtual machines and services that a reasonable box would ever be using simultaneously, and for Linux that would include a complete GNU development environment with debuggers, compilers and interpreters for your favorite programming languages.
Of course if you want to include emacs that's a different story.
When Linux hits the amount of lines of code in Vista, it will be BETTER than Vista - but even I doubt whether it will be adequately reliable for normal use.
I doubt this will happen. An operating system does not need that much code, and kernel developers are not evaluated on line counts. Linux is an OS. It does not include a GUI, and that is a mountain of code all by itself. The source code for the current (2.6.22.1) version is only 43MB compressed. I seriously doubt the Aerogel interface and DX10 could fit into 43MB compressed.
The answer is to install more unwanted software. If I do that, will this new stuff uninstall afterward or will I need yet another application from a fourth vendor? And why do I need to install software from Sysinternals to uninstall a Microsoft application from a Microsoft OS? So Microsoft can disclaim liability if I destroy my system trying to complete the job their uninstaller failed to do? What is trivial about this?
Thats the application event log. There's no reason you would ever want to remove it. Removing it should make the system go unstable. And that file has nothing to do with an Office install, thats a core part of windows.
That's an example of a file that's not deletable, when you said there's no such thing. What's special about it is that it's open by a system dll. Does Office not hook and/or replace various system dll's? Is there a way to know for sure if it does or not? Is there a list somewhere of all the files they open? That there is such a file creates the possibility there may be others that must be considered.
tampering with them is unwise.
Certain parts of the registry actually affect behavior, so if you're going to clean up after an installer and modify the registry, you need to be careful when modifying these parts.
Ok, we'll go with what you said. Instead of "tampering is unwise" we'll use the phraseology "you need to be be careful when modifying these parts". I'll stick with the best way to be careful when tampering with undocumented parts of the registry that "affect behavior" whatever that means, is not to do it at all. It is just more reliable to wipe and reinstall the OS.
Me, I would just uninstall the O2k7 demo, and be done with it.
My point exactly. It doesn't completely uninstall and cleaning up the mess it leaves is not trivial.
Or not install it in the first place.
Hence my point about doing a clean OS install when this junk comes preinstalled as bloatware. Since many vendors preinstall this garbage, they leave end users with little choice but to install the OS manually from CD. If a user's going to have to do that anyway, they may as well install a real operating system while they're at it and run Windows in a virtual machine where it belongs.
Advertising to people who can barely afford a computer and can't afford one with an OS probably isn't all that lucrative.
You missed a step. Buying advertising targeted at people who can't afford an OS is unlikely to yield sales with good margins. Selling ads to that ad buyer is likely to be quite profitable. Therefore there will be ads.
Does anyone honestly believe that Microsoft is not capable, or believes it is not capable, of delivering the best and most able word processor producing ODF files?
At worst, the installer/uninstaller would remove the administrator's delete/modify acl's from the folders, but this is trivially undone.
Yes, I tried the obvious stuff. There are other ways to render a folder or file non-deletable. Removing some of them render the system unstable. Take for example, the file C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\AppEvent.Evt. If you can find a way to delete that while the system is running without shutting down event logging, the system will go unstable. Since there's no way to know which dll has which file open, or how to get it to close, or what necessary function it has hooked, tampering with them is unwise. Similarly with legacy registry entries -- there's no way to know which of them are legacy from O2K7 bloatware, or which ones can be safely removed. If the uninstaller can't safely remove it and replace it with its prior content, I am unlikely to since I wasn't there when it was installed to make a note of what it was originally. Introducing any potential issue into a system my mother is going to have to use with only minimal support isn't going to impress her with my geek skills.
You are welcome to try your MCSE wizardry on your own O2K7 demo bloatware when you get it.
For everybody else I recommend a clean install from the OS install CD, not the recovery disc. It's not just more reliable. It's easier, faster, and requires less expert knowledge.
What these geniuses are doing is eliminating the advantage of having the OS preinstalled. If you have to install an OS from media on a new PC anyway, there's one less barrier to Linux adoption.
It came preinstalled on a major oem system I was setting up for my mom.
The program had compatibility issues, and I don't use expireware based on past experience. We had bought O2k7 at the same time as the hardware anyway, but at the last minute mom decided 2k3 would be more familiar and we had a leftover license for that.
2003 will install over the 2007 demo, but then will not validate or be usable. I rolled back to a waypoint image to try again.
2007 demo components must be uninstalled in a particular order. If you uninstall the wrong components first, the remainder will refuse to uninstall. Even with all the components uninstalled it will leave a legacy of non-deletable directory trees, dlls and protected registry entries. This is not acceptable to me.
Ultimately I found the oem software that burns the omitted installation media. I did a wipe and install from that and added drivers downloaded from the oem's site to get a clean base install. From there everything was easy.
lessons: Do not use the OEM OS install, unless it's osX. Do not use expireware. Never uninstall - restore a waypoint image instead. Do not write long slashdot posts on your Blackberry.
In osX the program to copy an image of your system disk to external media is an integral part of the operating system. You can make waypoint images, mount images, install software on them and use the standard OS installer to install an os on them. There's even multicast streaming software to deploy the resulting image files to hundreds of pc's remotely. The os install disc includes the facility as well.
Since uninstallers can never be trusted to remove all traces of their package and avoid bizarre compatibility issues, waypoint imaging has been my preferred package uninstall process on XP for years. I have to use third party utilities but I work it into my periodic XP hygiene reimaging.
I would say Apple has handled this issue better than anybody else in the field. They include everything except the backup media in the base system. I wish they would sell osX for standard systems.
My gnu/linux systems don't need this because I never need a hygiene reinstall, and I "upgrade" to.a clean install of a new version or distro more often, and I can't recall uninstalling any software anyway -- if it's free, why bother?
Ok, you are ready for the next great thing because XP or 98 aren't working out for you any more. You upgrade to Vista and it doesn't work at all with your system or hardware or your patience. You can't legally roll back because you bought the "Vista Upgrade", and even if it was legal your system didn't come with an install CD, the restore CD doesn't work anymore, or you can't get it to activate for some strange reason. You are fully in touch with how thoroughly you've been had by this vendor.
It's time to try something new. That OS-X sounds great but that's a whole new PC. Try the Ubuntu. It's fine, it's free, it runs on your PC and it probably does all the stuff you want to do anyway. At this point what could it hurt? Your computer is well and truly hosed anyway. Give it a shot and maybe you'll like it - if not it's not like it cost you anything more than a couple of hours of time.
In law it's called "passing the bar". The idea is to rate-limit admission of new practitioners of the arts through processes that are arbitrary and unknowable by the applicants. It's part of the veil of mystery that vests the practitioners with supposed special powers.
In short, I agree with you. What this system needs is some light.
I don't like Michael Moore's work, but somebody had to point at the elephant in the living room here.
The AMA set itself up as a gatekeeper to the medical profession and medicine. A legal system embedded in our culture keeps the information and materials required to treat injuries and illness out of the hands of the public. This was purportedly (and logically) done to improve the quality of care in general, since a great deal of medical treatment was once done by unlicensed quacks who did more harm than good. The problem is that this occult (hidden) cabal has evolved into a self-serving priesthood of medicine that limits availability of care in order to drive its value up. A necessary part of this equation is that a large number of people have to suffer from the deprivation of care in order to maximize the value equation. Even the kindest, most generous doctors must participate in the system in order to get into the profession in the first place and to remain in it. If they want to donate their time and expertise to the poor they can only do it if they go abroad.
Add that the medical profession has been victimized by another unaccountable secret cabal of insurance providers set up as gatekeepers to the doctors, and you get a system that's horribly broken. If a doctor wants to treat the indigent for free, for cash or for reduced rates, he can't because the insurance companies would terminate his ability to be compensated through insurance and he would go bankrupt in short order. The proponents of the status quo are horrifically wealthy and intend to stay in that condition. I heard somewhere that medicine accounts for a ridiculous percentage of our GNP, and it's growing at a terrifying rate.
Throw in a third layer of gatekeepers, the lawyers that sue out of business every doctor that doesn't have absurd amounts of insurance coverage and you have a system that can't be fixed. I have often wondered if the lawyers were in collusion with the insurers to keep this broken system in place.
This is not some academic theoretical discussion for me. For nearly 20 years I lived without coverage. Through great care, the avoidance of treatment I really needed and the good fortune to be close enough to cross the Mexican border one day I really needed care, the American healthcare system only bankrupted me once in that period. I can't imagine what poverty I would be living in if I were chronically ill, less fortunate or less careful.
So don't be confused. This is very much the "closed source" kind of evil. If it were possible for a kind and generous soul to study medicine and get accepted by the medical community and devote their life to the general practice of medicine for the good of their community, there would be a clinics everywhere that took cash at reasonable rates because that quality of person is abundant still and they could make a decent living at it. I'm not saying it would be a route to country club membership, but not everyone who wants to be a healer cares about that.
Zenith was the last television manufacturer in the US to fold. Their brand was sold out of bankruptcy and the company that now holds it has nothing to do with the company that began manufacturuing televisions in 1948.
The US, where the thing was invented, no longer manufatures the device known as a "television".
India and China are the emerging markets all IT vendors are looking toward for growth. Between them and Pakistan, they have half of the world's potential customers.
You don't undercut your distributors. They teach that in business 101. The reason why is because it's been tried, and the end result is all companies that tried it went bankrupt when their distributors struck back. It's one thing to cut off the air supply of a phone vendor that was going under anyway. Trying that on HP, Intel, Nokia, Dell, Samsung, Sony, Motorola, Siemens, and Toshiba all on the same day is going to get even Microsoft in a world of hurt. Those guys aren't going to let you knife their baby. Some of them have associates that don't "play well with others".
Trust me, this is being discussed at the highest levels. This is going to be the day GNU/Linux went platinum. Steve, grab a chair. You're going to need it for self defense.
LG, to give a brand name more people recognize, is Philips. The game just changed in a big way.
The rest of the top 10 OEMs will not take this lying down. That was their market, and Microsoft was not welcome to it. Microsoft is taking the bread off their table. The objective of this "pilot project" is nothing less than to capture the entire emerging PC markets of India and China, between them nearly half the world's populace. There will be repercussions. As long as Microsoft stayed out of PC OEM land, everybody else was content to play their game. Now it is clear they will not be content with less than Microsoft Brand breakfast cereal. They will not honor the common principles of capitalism - including the commandment in my subject.
Microsoft has treated OEMs like they're sharecroppers on the field of IT, to plough and plant the field and subsist on the gleaning for too long. In boardrooms across the world this is being discussed, and it won't fare well for Redmond.
The top 10 are: HP, Nokia, Dell, Samsung, Sony, Motorola, Siemens, Toshiba, LG and Apple.
Personally I think this is a good thing. Nothing, and I really do mean nothing, could increase uptake of GNU/Linux more than this. It was time everybody knew where Microsoft stood: at the height of hubris.
... that I get to reference a nearly 50 year old article as insightful commentary on the issue of today.
In the Feb 4, 1958 issue of The Atlanta Constitution noted historian Arnold J. Toynbee wrote about just this issue. He represented that the competition with china over space as if it were a game of football was a perilous and ill considered game.
Now if some kind soul would just tell me where to get the text of that article I would be immensely grateful.
Can't they get an impartial and respected analyst like Rob Enderle or Maureen O'Gara to publish their foregone conclusions for them any more? They have to rely on an employee's blog entries?
Slashdot Mirror
I imagine each version of Windows still offers undocumented interfaces to tilt the playing field in favor of Microsoft's other applications. They were found (and memos leaked regarding) doing that, and AFAIK the antitrust ruling against them didn't curtail the activity at all. They would have to maintain these in perpetuity because not only do old versions of their apps persist but third party developers start using them too -- usually badly. That's a lot of persistent cruft Linux is never going to have.
There's also the accumulated bad ideas that persist that Linux doesn't need, like NetBEUI/NetBIOS Microsoft inherited from IBM which was created to support a network of up to 80 devices back in 1983. Back in the day when Microsoft was attempting to take ownership of all of networking by reinventing every protocol ever written with their own incompatible version they came up with some doozies. In terms of protocols and standards Microsoft is notoriously nearsighted, so their stuff winds up with a ton of workarounds for stuff that should have been considered and dealt with cleanly before the first line of code was written. Every kludge has to be embedded in the code for backward compatibility reasons. Also, the downside of "embrace, extend, extinguish" is that you have to support those extensions in perpetuity. This is part of what has made Samba and NTFS support such a chore to code for. It's also why a recent exploit for Vista had been in every version of Windows since '98. Much of this evolutionary engineering was done for linux before it started and codified in the POSIX standards so foresight was a good deal easier to achieve.
Sure linux has some of that stuff but when every now and then somebody wades through the muck and replaces the workarounds with an elegant solution that includes the corner cases.
I imagine there's quite a bit more that makes up Windows' secret sauce, or serves to help obfuscate its workings in an attempt to prevent reverse engineering, or provides the DRM linux will never have, and so on.
Backward compatibility in Linux is often an afterthought -- if your critical app need version x of library y, just add it yourself -- it doesn't need to be included with every version of the OS.
In summary, I don't think Linux will ever need to rise to the level of complexity even of Windows Server 2003, even if you consider all of the filesystems, GUIs, virtual machines and services that a reasonable box would ever be using simultaneously, and for Linux that would include a complete GNU development environment with debuggers, compilers and interpreters for your favorite programming languages.
Of course if you want to include emacs that's a different story.
I doubt this will happen. An operating system does not need that much code, and kernel developers are not evaluated on line counts. Linux is an OS. It does not include a GUI, and that is a mountain of code all by itself. The source code for the current (2.6.22.1) version is only 43MB compressed. I seriously doubt the Aerogel interface and DX10 could fit into 43MB compressed.
Please review Robert Frost: "The Road Not Taken".
You seem smart. Nevertheless you're solving the wrong problem. Solve the right problem and it will be ok.
It's the per client licenses that kill your budget.
You guys are right. My bad.
Security focus blog has a link to the now dead ISC diary page.
My bad. I guess one alleged but unproven lab only virus for Mac might be as bad as 0 to pwned in 20 minutes for pre-sp2 XP.
I would not say one potential laboratory specimen for OSX is as bad as all 180,000 known Windows threats in the wild even if it's real.
Bad, though, yes, it is, if it's real.
Did I mention it wasn't in the wild? Your mac cannot catch this one yet and likely won't ever, if it's even real.
That is not as bad as zero to pwned in 23 seconds average just by connecting XP to the Internet. But bad, yes it may be.
If it's real, then it's bad.
The answer is to install more unwanted software. If I do that, will this new stuff uninstall afterward or will I need yet another application from a fourth vendor? And why do I need to install software from Sysinternals to uninstall a Microsoft application from a Microsoft OS? So Microsoft can disclaim liability if I destroy my system trying to complete the job their uninstaller failed to do? What is trivial about this?
That's an example of a file that's not deletable, when you said there's no such thing. What's special about it is that it's open by a system dll. Does Office not hook and/or replace various system dll's? Is there a way to know for sure if it does or not? Is there a list somewhere of all the files they open? That there is such a file creates the possibility there may be others that must be considered.Ok, we'll go with what you said. Instead of "tampering is unwise" we'll use the phraseology "you need to be be careful when modifying these parts". I'll stick with the best way to be careful when tampering with undocumented parts of the registry that "affect behavior" whatever that means, is not to do it at all. It is just more reliable to wipe and reinstall the OS.
My point exactly. It doesn't completely uninstall and cleaning up the mess it leaves is not trivial.
Hence my point about doing a clean OS install when this junk comes preinstalled as bloatware. Since many vendors preinstall this garbage, they leave end users with little choice but to install the OS manually from CD. If a user's going to have to do that anyway, they may as well install a real operating system while they're at it and run Windows in a virtual machine where it belongs.
You missed a step. Buying advertising targeted at people who can't afford an OS is unlikely to yield sales with good margins. Selling ads to that ad buyer is likely to be quite profitable. Therefore there will be ads.
Yes, I tried the obvious stuff. There are other ways to render a folder or file non-deletable. Removing some of them render the system unstable. Take for example, the file C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\AppEvent.Evt. If you can find a way to delete that while the system is running without shutting down event logging, the system will go unstable. Since there's no way to know which dll has which file open, or how to get it to close, or what necessary function it has hooked, tampering with them is unwise. Similarly with legacy registry entries -- there's no way to know which of them are legacy from O2K7 bloatware, or which ones can be safely removed. If the uninstaller can't safely remove it and replace it with its prior content, I am unlikely to since I wasn't there when it was installed to make a note of what it was originally. Introducing any potential issue into a system my mother is going to have to use with only minimal support isn't going to impress her with my geek skills.
You are welcome to try your MCSE wizardry on your own O2K7 demo bloatware when you get it.
For everybody else I recommend a clean install from the OS install CD, not the recovery disc. It's not just more reliable. It's easier, faster, and requires less expert knowledge.
What these geniuses are doing is eliminating the advantage of having the OS preinstalled. If you have to install an OS from media on a new PC anyway, there's one less barrier to Linux adoption.
So it works on people too?
It came preinstalled on a major oem system I was setting up for my mom.
The program had compatibility issues, and I don't use expireware based on past experience. We had bought O2k7 at the same time as the hardware anyway, but at the last minute mom decided 2k3 would be more familiar and we had a leftover license for that.
2003 will install over the 2007 demo, but then will not validate or be usable. I rolled back to a waypoint image to try again.
2007 demo components must be uninstalled in a particular order. If you uninstall the wrong components first, the remainder will refuse to uninstall. Even with all the components uninstalled it will leave a legacy of non-deletable directory trees, dlls and protected registry entries. This is not acceptable to me.
Ultimately I found the oem software that burns the omitted installation media. I did a wipe and install from that and added drivers downloaded from the oem's site to get a clean base install. From there everything was easy.
lessons: Do not use the OEM OS install, unless it's osX. Do not use expireware. Never uninstall - restore a waypoint image instead. Do not write long slashdot posts on your Blackberry.
In osX the program to copy an image of your system disk to external media is an integral part of the operating system. You can make waypoint images, mount images, install software on them and use the standard OS installer to install an os on them. There's even multicast streaming software to deploy the resulting image files to hundreds of pc's remotely. The os install disc includes the facility as well.
Since uninstallers can never be trusted to remove all traces of their package and avoid bizarre compatibility issues, waypoint imaging has been my preferred package uninstall process on XP for years. I have to use third party utilities but I work it into my periodic XP hygiene reimaging.
I would say Apple has handled this issue better than anybody else in the field. They include everything except the backup media in the base system. I wish they would sell osX for standard systems.
My gnu/linux systems don't need this because I never need a hygiene reinstall, and I "upgrade" to.a clean install of a new version or distro more often, and I can't recall uninstalling any software anyway -- if it's free, why bother?
Ok, you are ready for the next great thing because XP or 98 aren't working out for you any more. You upgrade to Vista and it doesn't work at all with your system or hardware or your patience. You can't legally roll back because you bought the "Vista Upgrade", and even if it was legal your system didn't come with an install CD, the restore CD doesn't work anymore, or you can't get it to activate for some strange reason. You are fully in touch with how thoroughly you've been had by this vendor.
It's time to try something new. That OS-X sounds great but that's a whole new PC. Try the Ubuntu. It's fine, it's free, it runs on your PC and it probably does all the stuff you want to do anyway. At this point what could it hurt? Your computer is well and truly hosed anyway. Give it a shot and maybe you'll like it - if not it's not like it cost you anything more than a couple of hours of time.
In law it's called "passing the bar". The idea is to rate-limit admission of new practitioners of the arts through processes that are arbitrary and unknowable by the applicants. It's part of the veil of mystery that vests the practitioners with supposed special powers.
In short, I agree with you. What this system needs is some light.
This is the closed source kind of evil.
I don't like Michael Moore's work, but somebody had to point at the elephant in the living room here.
The AMA set itself up as a gatekeeper to the medical profession and medicine. A legal system embedded in our culture keeps the information and materials required to treat injuries and illness out of the hands of the public. This was purportedly (and logically) done to improve the quality of care in general, since a great deal of medical treatment was once done by unlicensed quacks who did more harm than good. The problem is that this occult (hidden) cabal has evolved into a self-serving priesthood of medicine that limits availability of care in order to drive its value up. A necessary part of this equation is that a large number of people have to suffer from the deprivation of care in order to maximize the value equation. Even the kindest, most generous doctors must participate in the system in order to get into the profession in the first place and to remain in it. If they want to donate their time and expertise to the poor they can only do it if they go abroad.
Add that the medical profession has been victimized by another unaccountable secret cabal of insurance providers set up as gatekeepers to the doctors, and you get a system that's horribly broken. If a doctor wants to treat the indigent for free, for cash or for reduced rates, he can't because the insurance companies would terminate his ability to be compensated through insurance and he would go bankrupt in short order. The proponents of the status quo are horrifically wealthy and intend to stay in that condition. I heard somewhere that medicine accounts for a ridiculous percentage of our GNP, and it's growing at a terrifying rate.
Throw in a third layer of gatekeepers, the lawyers that sue out of business every doctor that doesn't have absurd amounts of insurance coverage and you have a system that can't be fixed. I have often wondered if the lawyers were in collusion with the insurers to keep this broken system in place.
This is not some academic theoretical discussion for me. For nearly 20 years I lived without coverage. Through great care, the avoidance of treatment I really needed and the good fortune to be close enough to cross the Mexican border one day I really needed care, the American healthcare system only bankrupted me once in that period. I can't imagine what poverty I would be living in if I were chronically ill, less fortunate or less careful.
So don't be confused. This is very much the "closed source" kind of evil. If it were possible for a kind and generous soul to study medicine and get accepted by the medical community and devote their life to the general practice of medicine for the good of their community, there would be a clinics everywhere that took cash at reasonable rates because that quality of person is abundant still and they could make a decent living at it. I'm not saying it would be a route to country club membership, but not everyone who wants to be a healer cares about that.
Congratulations. May I recommend you call it something like "software insurance"?
Zenith was the last television manufacturer in the US to fold. Their brand was sold out of bankruptcy and the company that now holds it has nothing to do with the company that began manufacturuing televisions in 1948.
The US, where the thing was invented, no longer manufatures the device known as a "television".
Intel just got a wake up call too. It's GAME ON. My question is, will they pick the winner?
At this point (imho), every tech company has to be considered in play .
India and China are the emerging markets all IT vendors are looking toward for growth. Between them and Pakistan, they have half of the world's potential customers.
You don't undercut your distributors. They teach that in business 101. The reason why is because it's been tried, and the end result is all companies that tried it went bankrupt when their distributors struck back. It's one thing to cut off the air supply of a phone vendor that was going under anyway. Trying that on HP, Intel, Nokia, Dell, Samsung, Sony, Motorola, Siemens, and Toshiba all on the same day is going to get even Microsoft in a world of hurt. Those guys aren't going to let you knife their baby. Some of them have associates that don't "play well with others".
Trust me, this is being discussed at the highest levels. This is going to be the day GNU/Linux went platinum. Steve, grab a chair. You're going to need it for self defense.
LG, to give a brand name more people recognize, is Philips. The game just changed in a big way.
The rest of the top 10 OEMs will not take this lying down. That was their market, and Microsoft was not welcome to it. Microsoft is taking the bread off their table. The objective of this "pilot project" is nothing less than to capture the entire emerging PC markets of India and China, between them nearly half the world's populace. There will be repercussions. As long as Microsoft stayed out of PC OEM land, everybody else was content to play their game. Now it is clear they will not be content with less than Microsoft Brand breakfast cereal. They will not honor the common principles of capitalism - including the commandment in my subject.
Microsoft has treated OEMs like they're sharecroppers on the field of IT, to plough and plant the field and subsist on the gleaning for too long. In boardrooms across the world this is being discussed, and it won't fare well for Redmond.
The top 10 are: HP, Nokia, Dell, Samsung, Sony, Motorola, Siemens, Toshiba, LG and Apple.
Personally I think this is a good thing. Nothing, and I really do mean nothing, could increase uptake of GNU/Linux more than this. It was time everybody knew where Microsoft stood: at the height of hubris.
... that I get to reference a nearly 50 year old article as insightful commentary on the issue of today.
In the Feb 4, 1958 issue of The Atlanta Constitution noted historian Arnold J. Toynbee wrote about just this issue. He represented that the competition with china over space as if it were a game of football was a perilous and ill considered game.
Now if some kind soul would just tell me where to get the text of that article I would be immensely grateful.
Can't they get an impartial and respected analyst like Rob Enderle or Maureen O'Gara to publish their foregone conclusions for them any more? They have to rely on an employee's blog entries?
At home you will use these for ever more sophisticated rendering of artificially intelligent virtual reality porn.
At work it will be more useful in the advanced simulation of a mechanical process for imprinting letter glyphs on sheets of wood fiber.