I forgot to mention one more thing; HP has been pretty quiet when it comes to desktop Linux, but they've been pushing Linux in the enterprise. I recommend checking out the HP exec's interview at Web Talk Guys. So it's not like they just started putting some effort in Linux just recently if you are talking about Linux in general.
> Wow, HP is really doing everything right so far. Signing deals with Apple, Starbucks, and now Mandrake. My respect for the company has shot up within the last few months.
On the other hand, HP does not have great prospect in the high end computing market. Itanium is not really taking off and it appears that Intel wants to focus on 64 bit extension of x86 rather. This is a major, major blow to HP, since they thought that they can finally move DEC/VAX customers to new architecture.
Maybe this is an indication of HP trying to grow its market share in the low end computing market because it's really tough to save their high end computing market and gain some growth there. I don't mean to reiterate IBM's TV commercial, but Linux is really the future; no bright future for DEC/VAX/Itanium.
Google has submission page, but it doesn't really do much. The way it works is that a page gets indexed if and only if inbound link is found in Google's current index.
That means..., yes, there are number of pages that are not indexed in Google, simply because no one or no page links to those pages/websites.
He appeared in ZDNet's Face-to-Face several months ago and he was talking about Novell's Linux strategy in the interview; here's the link http://zdnet.com.com/1200-1110-5083063.html (You need to scroll down one screen or so).
> With those odd assed 3 mile long URL that are built from some kind of search stat or refer. Now that said these types of traffic leaches are VERY unlikely to actually PAY for something, I can see this as not necessarily a bad thing. weed out some of the traffic scabbers,...
I'm not so sure if I agree with this because some SEO(Search Engine Optimization) firms do recommend to create these 3 mile long URL strings and there is a very big chance that 3 mile long URL strings are created by SEO firms, which, by the way, charge for some hefty fee. So it means that these 3 mile long URL strings websites do have money and they are actually the ones who are likely to spend money to get good listings in Yahoo.
Yes, all are Japanese companies and what I read is...
"Japan is weakening. Japanese high tech companies are weakening. Now is the time. Let's beat them up now so that they can't get up again."
I don't embrace this type of strategy, but apparently some people(some companies) still feel that that's how you run your business and drive profitability.
Well, I suppose they can, that's why they did it, right? It is rather outrageous, but that's probably why something like this took place in Australia not in US. I'm sure they can do that in US as well, but it involves certain risk(human rights, privacy issues, etc. etc.)
> Well, who's going to stop Billionaires with cops?
Great question. You cannot win against all the money in the world.
If you are just talking about small businesses that have survived for the last 20 years, yes, Google does not break these small businesses, but if you are talking about small businesses that were established after... mid-90s, then yes, Google can break these small businesses.
Internet is THE media today; a lot of businesses utilize media to market their business. Sometime it's essential to their survival. So these new small businesses reply on the internet to market their business. Today, it can mean that having good rankings in Google. So... if Google decides to tweak its algo and your rankings suffer, your business can break. Your small business can break. Google can break small businesses. It happens.
> compaq_ipaq_ battery.html
In case you are not familiar with SEO(Search Engine Optimization), Google does not interpret underscore "_" as space, meaning this particular file name "compaq_ipaq_ battery" is not affecting search results.
Also Google just rolled out new algorithm so that, if and when you stick too many keywords in URL strings, you get penalized(you don't get banned, but your rankings suffer).
Just one more thing; often these URL strings are human-readable because websites want to become user friendly, not just search engine friendly.
I'm sure that Microsoft plans to invest billions of dollars in R&D, but they currently have $45 billion in bank. Microsoft is a stunningly successful company (financially at least) and $45 billion is an exceptional amount of money. Why they decided to spread $10 billion? I don't know exactly why, but the followings are my guess:
1. Now that antitrust law suits mess are getting cleaned up, they can safely spend $10 billion out of $45 billion; nothing much to worry about any longer.
2. After all, they need to make shareholders happy. What better way to make them happy other than giving them cash?
2.1. Many shareholders probably believe that the company does not need to keep $45 billion in bank.
3. Up until now, for people like Bill Gates and Steven Ballmer, Microsoft was life. Their lives were all about Microsoft. Now that they have family (kids, etc.), they decide to take a part of the result of their work.
4. I'm sure that they have plans for acquisitions and what have you, but don't need $45 billion, $35 billion is enough.
Information is ever more important; it's more like that people in the modern society are addicted to the information. Given that, there are ever more opportunities if you are in business of delivering the information.
That said, you can't stick to books and magazines. The form of the deliverance is getting kind of outdated. Bit extreme example, but Reuters started out their business flying out pigeons to send out stock prices all over Europe; that's how they delivered information and made money. Of course, they don't fly pigeons today. They do something like http://www.reuters.com/. That's Reuters today, and that's the mechanism that they have today to deliver information.
Step back and reply to your post, I do believe that you can sell information, and you can make a lot of money doing that. But... I kind of feel that books and magazines as a deliverance method of information is getting outdated.
> Companies like MS can steal GNU / Linux code and put it in their kernels?
Companies like Microsoft do not have to follow GPL if they were to take code from, say, Linux. I am not speaking sarcastically, I honestly believe that, even in US, GPL is not exactly enforceable. But if we look at companies like IBM and Oracle, even though they have power to not follow GPL, they decide to follow GPL. They contribute back to the community like GPL says. And they are doing not because Richard Stallman tells them to do but they believe that they can win that way and they get more benefit than not follow GPL. I think that that's the whole point here. Bottom line, GPL is not a law in any country; breaking GPL is different from, let's say, not filing tax properly or killing people.
It is not enforceable in Germany, and so what? If GPL presents a valid idea and it truly creates win-win situation for everyone involved, it will be adapted.
They have $45 billion in bank, but it's a dead money. They just can't move it around for various reasons (anti trust case in EU is one of reasons). Besides, even if they got away with anti trust case in US, acquiring Sun? That's 99% market dominance of software development platform (.NET and Java). That's monopoly; that's anti trust. That's illegal. MS acquiring Sun? No, that's impossible.
I cannot conceive of any Sun executive wanting to be acquired by any company. Besides, they can prevent that by buying back their shares, since they still have $5 billion in bank.
The question was raised in the last event NC03-Q2, and Scott McNealy denied the rumor flat out. I think that he meant what he said and I cannot see how he decides to sell his company to anyone. And again, he and Sun can prevent that from happening.
I'd think that some investor thought it's a good stock to buy. It is true that they had tough time last year, but I think that two things are true:
1. Generally, Sun employees like working for the company. Head hunters are generally having tough time recruiting Sun (star) employees.
2. Customers like their product and service.
When these two are true, it's a good stock to buy even though they are not making great profit this quarter. I am just speculating, but chances are that someone/some institution figured that it's a good time to buy and they bought good chunk.
This is not the first recession in our history; nor is the last one for sure. Unemployment does not sound too great and does affect your confidence and all, but it happens to everyone (which is to say, much of it depends on luck not so much your skill or personality). As a matter of fact, some of, what we call, successful business men experienced the same. Have you heard of this guy, Michael Bloomberg? Well, Solomon Smith Barney fired him almost 20 years ago. He ended up starting up on his own and he's a billionaire now.
I can't say that you can be next Mike, but the point is, maybe it's a sign. Maybe success is calling you. Maybe you are not supposed to be employed (by anyone except for yourself).
Yeah... they appear to come to opposite conclusions, but if you read both, they suggest what sounds very familiar; money/fame (NewsForge one suggests money (kind of) and Cybernaut suggests fame (kind of). When we look at companies like Microsoft, Macromedia, and Adobe, open source appears to be some bizarre stuff that geeks do, but at the end of the day, it's backed up by reasons that create much of today's society; money/fame.
The trailer, uh, to be honest, wasn't that great. I wasn't impressed.
In essence, T is a dark story and I think that T should be told like that. The trailer looks like, how should I put this,...
> No Jim Cameron, no Linda Hamilton...
They both have shadowy side and T needs to have that. Not just T, many sci fi stories are kind of dark and shadowy. Without these aspects, sci fi just doesn't look like sci fi.
> This 'Homeland Security' and ferocious anti-terrorism behavior is getting seriously out of hand.. its an enormous overreaction and its starting to make the USA look very very silly.
HS is just another government agency doing nothing but to help corporate, in this case, security companies and what not (and of course, defense contractors in one way or another). The comment is silly; absolutely silly. Terrorism has nothing to do with free software or not even computers probably.
While we realize that the comment made on free software is silly, we also want (or demand) representation from major media. Why are we also not getting the info that people who say things like this are just doing their job? Why are we also not getting the info that someone says that free software is evil because his employer (true employer) wants him to say so?
First amendment; freedom of speech. Yes, everyone has a right to say what he wants to say. If one believes that free software is evil and it is the root cause of terrorism, he has the right to say so and I even defend his right. But once again, the problem that I see here is that we are not told why he is saying what he's saying, which gives people opportunity to judge whether the comment is silly or not.
> The problem with Access is, of course, that it only runs on Windows. Wouldn't it be groovy to have a cross-platform, true alternative?
MS Access is supposedly designed for small businesses and for small groups in big companies, but after I worked with a small company who uses MS Access to manage their customer records, I've come to conclude that any database does not belong to a small business. There is no reliable or economical way to manage any database for small (very small) business. The only alternative I see is out sourcing, utility model. Perhaps something like, they subscribe a service and they manage all their customer records using web. Something like that.
I read some article or interview saying that developers who work on non-MS office suite are having very difficult time implementing their version of personal database like MS Access, but I don't think that it is the only reason why we don't see any software like MS Access. It is just not a software model that works in real world; though we see number of MS Access users today, I do not think that it is a model that has future.
Regarding marketing, as I recall the interview with a Google marketing manager (at techtv?), she was saying that Google spent virtually $0.00 to advertise itself. Google is one of (small number of) companies that their product made their names. After all, that is the right way to market and make profit.
I read many comments like yours on Slashdot, and I can understand why you say that. For typical slashdotters, yes, Sun's announcement feels like too late. If you live in a major city in US or its metropolitan area, perhaps that's how you feel. If you work in the IT industry, more so. But the reality is that we are still at the beginning of the information age. I truly feel that the market is wide open.
If you look beyond US metropolitan area (and other, what they call, developed countries), there is a huge opportunity. There does not seem to be a wide margin in the IT industry in US, but there is China. There's large part of EU. Potentially, Middle East, now that Iraq war is pretty much over. Just that... it's over 5 times bigger that the whole US. Market is wide open.
In addition, Sun does have competitive edge over Exchange and Domino. The fact is that MS is stuck in the world of 32 bit. They say IA-64 is coming, but even if it arrives tomorrow, how long do they take to make it really functional AND get support from other ISVs? Domino is a competitive product, but Sun is really kicking IBM's ass in high end because of its quality, openness, and price.
I am not a marketing analyst and I cannot or dear not predict the future, BUT I do say that "... it's too late" sounds a little premature.
Questioning with reason work in a team but not for customers. From what I understand, customers are not in my team. They play with my team, but not IN. When I question a customer, things go badly. Probably not always, but generally so.
Having accepted the fact, I try to do the following whenever my customer wants to apply a lousy solution.
1. Listen to what my customer is saying very carefully and find out what exactly I need to do to fulfill the requirement.
2. Think hard and find out what I really need to do to solve the problem.
3. Find a way to do 2 while I am fulfilling the requirement outlined in 1.
Generally, (my) customers are not technically savvy, so they don't care or cannot understand what's really happening underneath the solution that I provide. But if you look closely, requirement is met and a good solution is applied at the same time. Doesn't work out like this always, but this is what I try to do.
So Yahoo is going to build (enhance) their version of super iron computer. Interesting to see how they approach from OS standpoint. If I remember correctly, Google has clustered Linux machines. Yahoo primarily uses FreeBSD. Do they keep using FreeBSD? FreeBSD super cluster? Can using BSD possibly give advantage to Yahoo?
Slashdot Mirror
I like this show, but I am not so sure if IT Conversations is a talk radio show. It's a series of interviews, right?
http://www.webtalkguys.com
Pretty good show, I listen to it every week. Whether the show is geeky enough for this audience is a question, but I personally enjoy it.
I forgot to mention one more thing; HP has been pretty quiet when it comes to desktop Linux, but they've been pushing Linux in the enterprise. I recommend checking out the HP exec's interview at Web Talk Guys. So it's not like they just started putting some effort in Linux just recently if you are talking about Linux in general.
> Wow, HP is really doing everything right so far. Signing deals with Apple, Starbucks, and now Mandrake. My respect for the company has shot up within the last few months.
On the other hand, HP does not have great prospect in the high end computing market. Itanium is not really taking off and it appears that Intel wants to focus on 64 bit extension of x86 rather. This is a major, major blow to HP, since they thought that they can finally move DEC/VAX customers to new architecture.
Maybe this is an indication of HP trying to grow its market share in the low end computing market because it's really tough to save their high end computing market and gain some growth there. I don't mean to reiterate IBM's TV commercial, but Linux is really the future; no bright future for DEC/VAX/Itanium.
> I've never submitted the URL to google.
..., yes, there are number of pages that are not indexed in Google, simply because no one or no page links to those pages/websites.
Google has submission page, but it doesn't really do much. The way it works is that a page gets indexed if and only if inbound link is found in Google's current index.
That means
He appeared in ZDNet's Face-to-Face several months ago and he was talking about Novell's Linux strategy in the interview; here's the link http://zdnet.com.com/1200-1110-5083063.html (You need to scroll down one screen or so).
> With those odd assed 3 mile long URL that are built from some kind of search stat or refer. Now that said these types of traffic leaches are VERY unlikely to actually PAY for something, I can see this as not necessarily a bad thing. weed out some of the traffic scabbers, ...
I'm not so sure if I agree with this because some SEO(Search Engine Optimization) firms do recommend to create these 3 mile long URL strings and there is a very big chance that 3 mile long URL strings are created by SEO firms, which, by the way, charge for some hefty fee. So it means that these 3 mile long URL strings websites do have money and they are actually the ones who are likely to spend money to get good listings in Yahoo.
Yes, all are Japanese companies and what I read is ...
"Japan is weakening. Japanese high tech companies are weakening. Now is the time. Let's beat them up now so that they can't get up again."
I don't embrace this type of strategy, but apparently some people(some companies) still feel that that's how you run your business and drive profitability.
> Can they do that?
Well, I suppose they can, that's why they did it, right? It is rather outrageous, but that's probably why something like this took place in Australia not in US. I'm sure they can do that in US as well, but it involves certain risk(human rights, privacy issues, etc. etc.)
> Well, who's going to stop Billionaires with cops?
Great question. You cannot win against all the money in the world.
If you are just talking about small businesses that have survived for the last 20 years, yes, Google does not break these small businesses, but if you are talking about small businesses that were established after ... mid-90s, then yes, Google can break these small businesses.
... if Google decides to tweak its algo and your rankings suffer, your business can break. Your small business can break. Google can break small businesses. It happens.
Internet is THE media today; a lot of businesses utilize media to market their business. Sometime it's essential to their survival. So these new small businesses reply on the internet to market their business. Today, it can mean that having good rankings in Google. So
> compaq_ipaq_ battery.html In case you are not familiar with SEO(Search Engine Optimization), Google does not interpret underscore "_" as space, meaning this particular file name "compaq_ipaq_ battery" is not affecting search results. Also Google just rolled out new algorithm so that, if and when you stick too many keywords in URL strings, you get penalized(you don't get banned, but your rankings suffer). Just one more thing; often these URL strings are human-readable because websites want to become user friendly, not just search engine friendly.
I'm sure that Microsoft plans to invest billions of dollars in R&D, but they currently have $45 billion in bank. Microsoft is a stunningly successful company (financially at least) and $45 billion is an exceptional amount of money. Why they decided to spread $10 billion? I don't know exactly why, but the followings are my guess:
1. Now that antitrust law suits mess are getting cleaned up, they can safely spend $10 billion out of $45 billion; nothing much to worry about any longer.
2. After all, they need to make shareholders happy. What better way to make them happy other than giving them cash?
2.1. Many shareholders probably believe that the company does not need to keep $45 billion in bank.
3. Up until now, for people like Bill Gates and Steven Ballmer, Microsoft was life. Their lives were all about Microsoft. Now that they have family (kids, etc.), they decide to take a part of the result of their work.
4. I'm sure that they have plans for acquisitions and what have you, but don't need $45 billion, $35 billion is enough.
Information is ever more important; it's more like that people in the modern society are addicted to the information. Given that, there are ever more opportunities if you are in business of delivering the information.
... I kind of feel that books and magazines as a deliverance method of information is getting outdated.
That said, you can't stick to books and magazines. The form of the deliverance is getting kind of outdated. Bit extreme example, but Reuters started out their business flying out pigeons to send out stock prices all over Europe; that's how they delivered information and made money. Of course, they don't fly pigeons today. They do something like http://www.reuters.com/. That's Reuters today, and that's the mechanism that they have today to deliver information.
Step back and reply to your post, I do believe that you can sell information, and you can make a lot of money doing that. But
> Companies like MS can steal GNU / Linux code and put it in their kernels?
Companies like Microsoft do not have to follow GPL if they were to take code from, say, Linux. I am not speaking sarcastically, I honestly believe that, even in US, GPL is not exactly enforceable. But if we look at companies like IBM and Oracle, even though they have power to not follow GPL, they decide to follow GPL. They contribute back to the community like GPL says. And they are doing not because Richard Stallman tells them to do but they believe that they can win that way and they get more benefit than not follow GPL. I think that that's the whole point here. Bottom line, GPL is not a law in any country; breaking GPL is different from, let's say, not filing tax properly or killing people.
It is not enforceable in Germany, and so what? If GPL presents a valid idea and it truly creates win-win situation for everyone involved, it will be adapted.
They have $45 billion in bank, but it's a dead money. They just can't move it around for various reasons (anti trust case in EU is one of reasons). Besides, even if they got away with anti trust case in US, acquiring Sun? That's 99% market dominance of software development platform (.NET and Java). That's monopoly; that's anti trust. That's illegal. MS acquiring Sun? No, that's impossible.
I cannot conceive of any Sun executive wanting to be acquired by any company. Besides, they can prevent that by buying back their shares, since they still have $5 billion in bank.
The question was raised in the last event NC03-Q2, and Scott McNealy denied the rumor flat out. I think that he meant what he said and I cannot see how he decides to sell his company to anyone. And again, he and Sun can prevent that from happening.
I'd think that some investor thought it's a good stock to buy. It is true that they had tough time last year, but I think that two things are true:
1. Generally, Sun employees like working for the company. Head hunters are generally having tough time recruiting Sun (star) employees.
2. Customers like their product and service.
When these two are true, it's a good stock to buy even though they are not making great profit this quarter. I am just speculating, but chances are that someone/some institution figured that it's a good time to buy and they bought good chunk.
This is not the first recession in our history; nor is the last one for sure. Unemployment does not sound too great and does affect your confidence and all, but it happens to everyone (which is to say, much of it depends on luck not so much your skill or personality). As a matter of fact, some of, what we call, successful business men experienced the same. Have you heard of this guy, Michael Bloomberg? Well, Solomon Smith Barney fired him almost 20 years ago. He ended up starting up on his own and he's a billionaire now.
I can't say that you can be next Mike, but the point is, maybe it's a sign. Maybe success is calling you. Maybe you are not supposed to be employed (by anyone except for yourself).
Yeah... they appear to come to opposite conclusions, but if you read both, they suggest what sounds very familiar; money/fame (NewsForge one suggests money (kind of) and Cybernaut suggests fame (kind of). When we look at companies like Microsoft, Macromedia, and Adobe, open source appears to be some bizarre stuff that geeks do, but at the end of the day, it's backed up by reasons that create much of today's society; money/fame.
The trailer, uh, to be honest, wasn't that great. I wasn't impressed.
...
In essence, T is a dark story and I think that T should be told like that. The trailer looks like, how should I put this,
> No Jim Cameron, no Linda Hamilton...
They both have shadowy side and T needs to have that. Not just T, many sci fi stories are kind of dark and shadowy. Without these aspects, sci fi just doesn't look like sci fi.
> This 'Homeland Security' and ferocious anti-terrorism behavior is getting seriously out of hand.. its an enormous overreaction and its starting to make the USA look very very silly.
HS is just another government agency doing nothing but to help corporate, in this case, security companies and what not (and of course, defense contractors in one way or another). The comment is silly; absolutely silly. Terrorism has nothing to do with free software or not even computers probably.
While we realize that the comment made on free software is silly, we also want (or demand) representation from major media. Why are we also not getting the info that people who say things like this are just doing their job? Why are we also not getting the info that someone says that free software is evil because his employer (true employer) wants him to say so?
First amendment; freedom of speech. Yes, everyone has a right to say what he wants to say. If one believes that free software is evil and it is the root cause of terrorism, he has the right to say so and I even defend his right. But once again, the problem that I see here is that we are not told why he is saying what he's saying, which gives people opportunity to judge whether the comment is silly or not.
> The problem with Access is, of course, that it only runs on Windows. Wouldn't it be groovy to have a cross-platform, true alternative?
MS Access is supposedly designed for small businesses and for small groups in big companies, but after I worked with a small company who uses MS Access to manage their customer records, I've come to conclude that any database does not belong to a small business. There is no reliable or economical way to manage any database for small (very small) business. The only alternative I see is out sourcing, utility model. Perhaps something like, they subscribe a service and they manage all their customer records using web. Something like that.
I read some article or interview saying that developers who work on non-MS office suite are having very difficult time implementing their version of personal database like MS Access, but I don't think that it is the only reason why we don't see any software like MS Access. It is just not a software model that works in real world; though we see number of MS Access users today, I do not think that it is a model that has future.
Regarding marketing, as I recall the interview with a Google marketing manager (at techtv?), she was saying that Google spent virtually $0.00 to advertise itself. Google is one of (small number of) companies that their product made their names. After all, that is the right way to market and make profit.
> ... frankly it's too late for a new entry.
I read many comments like yours on Slashdot, and I can understand why you say that. For typical slashdotters, yes, Sun's announcement feels like too late. If you live in a major city in US or its metropolitan area, perhaps that's how you feel. If you work in the IT industry, more so. But the reality is that we are still at the beginning of the information age. I truly feel that the market is wide open.
If you look beyond US metropolitan area (and other, what they call, developed countries), there is a huge opportunity. There does not seem to be a wide margin in the IT industry in US, but there is China. There's large part of EU. Potentially, Middle East, now that Iraq war is pretty much over. Just that... it's over 5 times bigger that the whole US. Market is wide open.
In addition, Sun does have competitive edge over Exchange and Domino. The fact is that MS is stuck in the world of 32 bit. They say IA-64 is coming, but even if it arrives tomorrow, how long do they take to make it really functional AND get support from other ISVs? Domino is a competitive product, but Sun is really kicking IBM's ass in high end because of its quality, openness, and price.
I am not a marketing analyst and I cannot or dear not predict the future, BUT I do say that "... it's too late" sounds a little premature.
Questioning with reason work in a team but not for customers. From what I understand, customers are not in my team. They play with my team, but not IN. When I question a customer, things go badly. Probably not always, but generally so.
Having accepted the fact, I try to do the following whenever my customer wants to apply a lousy solution.
1. Listen to what my customer is saying very carefully and find out what exactly I need to do to fulfill the requirement.
2. Think hard and find out what I really need to do to solve the problem.
3. Find a way to do 2 while I am fulfilling the requirement outlined in 1.
Generally, (my) customers are not technically savvy, so they don't care or cannot understand what's really happening underneath the solution that I provide. But if you look closely, requirement is met and a good solution is applied at the same time. Doesn't work out like this always, but this is what I try to do.
So Yahoo is going to build (enhance) their version of super iron computer. Interesting to see how they approach from OS standpoint. If I remember correctly, Google has clustered Linux machines. Yahoo primarily uses FreeBSD. Do they keep using FreeBSD? FreeBSD super cluster? Can using BSD possibly give advantage to Yahoo?