"As another great leader once said, "Shop smart, shop S-Mart," notice how Sears and Kmart have merged? How long before the combined corporation renames itself to S-Mart... it's coming, I tell you!!!"
You really should email Bruce Campbell and remind him that he is a genius of the business world (with a screaming brain) for predicting this unholy merger eons ago.
"And as a side point, the world progresses by generations. The additude and bias of the last generation is replaced by the fresh more adapted views of the next generation. As a whole, humanity grows by death of the old, and birth of the new. Think your government representitives are bad now, then think of what would happen if a guy who was born in 1750 was making the decisions on stuff like the Internet"
Would you rather live in a *Logan's Run* civilization where you have to be "renued" at the ripe age of 30? (yes, I realize the age was lower in the book).
And oh my....the tyranny to live under the rule of someone who has lived a long time. Seems like that's what we tolerate today here in the U.S. under the Constitution.
I also think there are several figures from the 18th Century that could easily function in the 21st (and later) and our society would be better if they still lived. I'm thinking about Ben Franklin and Voltaire in particular.
Militarily, just imagine if the military minds of Julius Caesar, Alexander and Cromwell held commanded in today's battlefields.
Your post really discredits people from the past and cheapens their individual contributions.
"My comments were not a distortion - there have been a lot of Star Wars releases."
So? How many times has Disney released their films? How many times has the Wizard of Oz been released? How many times on DVD has the Evil Dead Trilogy been released? Your comment tried to imply that there's something wrong about Lucas releasing his films and thus is gouging the public and his fan base. You know, I was around when the original trilogy was released on VHS. There was not a large outcry for widescreen presentation on that format at the time. So it was released fullframe. THX was not completed when the original Star Wars film was released. The soundtracks were redone and certified for THX presentation. Thus the home version became THX certified which went along with THX equipment being released to the home market. After that, widescreen presentation took off on VHS (after having been rather popular on the unpopular-in-America LaserDisc format), so they were released in widescreen format.
That's not bilking. That's giving the consumer what they wanted.
"George Lucas fanboy tells someone to grow up and get out of their Mom's basement?"
No, I was making a point. The profits off his movies do not go up his nose.
I also find it amusing that everyone criticizing my post do not even have the courage to do it while logged in with their Slashdot user names. Cowards, basement dwellers, etc.
"Episode 4 on HD-DVD Episode 4-6 on HD-DVD Episode 1-3 on HD-DVD The boxed full set 1-6 on HD-DVD Way to milk it George!!!"
Except 20th Century Fox Home Video is committed to Blu-Ray and thus your prediction is incorrect. Furthermore, all the studios release multiple versions of films to "double dip". Its not a George Lucas exclusive. And unlike most of Hollywood, George reinvests his monies into advancing the whole industry with pioneering technology. He did it with ILM, THX, Pixar, and now digitally projected cinema. So again, your criticism - in a weak attempt at humor - is a distortion. Grow up and get out of your mom's basement.
"On the downside, his work tends to be very politically neutral, which makes it safe, but bland. Serenity was cancelled because it was slyly political, Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham style. The shocker is that it managed to get aired at all, on Fox TV, which is basically a mouthpiece for the Sheriff."
How do you figure? With the "Western in space" motiff, the Alliance is the victorious Union forces from the Civil War, but in space. That makes the *independents* like the crew of the Serenity, former veterans of the Confederacy. Thus FireFly is a romanticized story about how shunned Confederate veterans cope in the wake of defeat in the Old West..in space...trying to stay independent, survive, and not sell-out. Of course, the subject of slavery has been eliminated from the reasoning for the Independence movement in the story.
C'mon, its bloody obvious. Captain Mal has a mild Southern accent...something that the template for his character - Han Solo - does not feature.
"Sony has to learn that single party closed standards won't exist for long. We won't see an open standard, but at least a consortium of different markets offers multiple profit-oriented groups some debate."
How exactly do you consider Blu-Ray to not be an open standard? The audio is AAC, which is Dolby's technology. Anyone can license it. The only reason why people call it a closed codec is because of its association with the Apple iTunes Music Store which wraps AAC files with Apple's own DRM system known as Fairplay. Sure, AAC is not open source like Ogg Vorbis, but again, anyone can license it and it is easily arguable that it is superior to (tin can sounding) WMA by Microsoft...especially AAC+. As for the video codec, the main codec supported by Blu-Ray is the H.264 (mainly developed by Apple) implementation of MPEG4. Blu-Ray also (at this time) supports the under-performing AV-1 (Windows Media 9) codec as well.
So again, how is Blu-Ray exactly Sony proprietary? Apple backs it. So does Sony's long time nemesis Matsushita (Panasonic) who usually does the exact opposite of Sony deliberately (purchasing MCA/Universal right after Sony purchase Columbia/Tri-Star Pictures, and jumping into videogames by fronting money to 3D0 back in the early 90s). The only reason why Warner Home Video and Toshiba push HD-DVD is to preserve their intellectual property licensing revenue they currently receive from the original DVD format technology. It certainly is not for altruistic reasons or even trying to be the best format available.
Intel does not make DVD players for consumers. In fact, the most consumer friendly company that will be a customer of Intel's next year is Apple...and Apple backs Blu-Ray.
Microsoft may pay lip service to HD-DVD, but they won't be shipping the Xbox360 with an HD-DVD drive. That is why many people online are tagging the eventual phenomenon of the Playstation3 oblitterating the Xbox360 as "getting Dreamcasted" considering Sega launched the Dreamcast early in an effort to get to the market first before the Playstation2 and consequently shipped without a DVD drive. Many consumers held out in purchasing the Dreamcast because the lack of the DVD drive, especially since Sega kept on vacilating in public comments whether an updated Dreamcast with a DVD drive would ship later. It did not happen and the platform crumbled. Similarly, Microsoft backed DVD+R over the objections of the DVD Forum and their annointed standard DVD-R yet DVD+R did not usurp that standard and the whole issue became moot when combo drives eventually shipped.
Sony backs Blu-Ray, and it will be standard in the PS3. Since Sony backs Blu-Ray, so does Sony (Columbia & Tri-Star) Pictures, Sony Pictures controlled MGM, Disney, and 20th Century Fox. Yes, Paramount, Warner Home Video (Warner, Turner, New Line) and NBC Universal supposedly support HD-DVD but all parties are holding off releasing any titles for this upcoming holiday season. Furthermore, the only strong supporter amongst the three is Warner because they wish to preserve the patents they hold on the original DVD format which means they would still be receiving royalties on HD-DVD whereas their payments would be greatly reduced if the industry moves to backing Blu-Ray (which is one of Sony's motivations).
Truth be told, HD-DVD is only good for the studios because they don't have to buy new equipment to press the discs. It is not better for Joe Public because HD-DVD has less storage capacity than Blu-Ray and consequently, HD-DVD will not support 1080p due to its limitations. I am excusing the fact that currently Blu-Ray has more DRM capabilities than HD-DVD and thus is less friendly to the public because I believe the HD-DVD format will quickly adopt similar technologies in an effort to woo fence-sitting content owners.
I hope Microsoft's explicit backing of HD-DVD will encourage Sony & Company to dump AV-1 (Windows Media 9) as an official codec supported by Blu-Ray because H.264 is superior and thus dumping the other codec would reduce royalty payments and thus encourage the equipment and discs to be marketed cheaper to the consumers whereas HD-DVD will foolishly retain AV-1 because Toshiba is sucking up to Microsoft despite the codec offering much less capabilities than H.264. Let those foolish enough to purchase HD-DVD products pay the "Microsoft tax" for inferior performance.
"Also a little cnfusing is that while they managed to pick up Nowhere Man (which was a surprisingly good show all things considered) they somehow neglected The Prisoner (to which Nowhere Man owes a great deal)."
Just as they hoisted Firefly onto the list without its inspirations known as Blake's 7 and Cowboy Bebop. Or the X-Files without Kolchak the Night Stalker.
Time Tunnel sucked....just as the *update* from the SciFi Channel next season will also suck. And when I say *update* I mean "hey, us SciFi Channel executives are too cheap to bring the good Doctor Who to the States so let's resurrect a turkey product sitting on the Universal shelves and see if we can jump on the time travel bandwagon amongst scifi fans!"
I was happy with Doctor Who's high ranking - albeit without mentioning the current season - but some of those shows on that list have no business being on it. And I mean Andromeda, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Earth: Final Conflict. And to have the X-Files on the list but exclude Kolchak the Night Stalker is beyond wrong.
I'm sure there's more Slashdotters out there that would agree with that statement as to which computing power is more of a relic, the general purpose PC or Sun...
Now, had he said that Windows will become a relic and the home market will be divided between Mac OS X and Linux over the next 5 years, I could buy that proposition.
"As for Dvorak's speculation Microsoft is prepping to split into three companies, I don't get that. Why would they? One of Microsoft's major takeaways from the DOJ's penalty phase was not having to split up as a company."
So? AT&T could have kept the Baby Bells had they parted ways with their hardware business based upon them losing to the DOJ. Instead, they kept the hardware business and then spun off the Baby Bells. Less than 20 years later, AT&T spun off their hardware business anyways.
Moral of the story, companies often do what the government wants them to do but years later and on their own terms.
Furthermore, Microsoft would do it as their own choice so it looks like a strategic victory and not a defeat.
"According to today's NYT, Time Warner says that AOL is their future. So the MS buying AOL scenario seems less likely."
(Time)Warner has a history of seeking partnerships with their divisions if it will profit them more, and then hopefully sucker their partner into selling out cheaply later down the road.
It happened with Warner-Amex, which is now known as Time Warner Cable. Comcast spent years trying to get an IPO of their stake in Time Warner Cable since Time Warner corporate kept lowballing them on the share price to buy back the interest.
Back in 1980, Warner sought IBM to buy a 50% stake in Atari, Inc. long before the troubles that befell the company. Chairman Steve Ross thought IBM's technological leadership could keep Atari on top of all of their videogame and home computer rivals. And supposedly, IBM was impressed with the power of the 8-bit Atari line since the custom chips made the system stronger than its other 8-bit rivals. But ultimately, IBM created their own PC division instead of acquiring an existing player and the rest is history.
Following the Time Warner merger, Time Warner sought partnerships for the Time Warner Entertainment division.
And so on... Moral of the story is don't trust a Time Warner press release or an announcement of interest in a profitable division of theirs.
"Microsoft didn't innovate a thing - they just happened to be a mainstream OS which wasn't owned by anyone with a vested interest in pushing their own hardware. Right position, right time. Zero innovation involved."
Partially right. Microsoft didn't own a "mainstream OS," they *pwned* CP/M away from Digital Research by means of QDOS. Again, not innovation, but good ol' fashioned theft.
More like "Is AOL the key to Google killing Microsoft?"
Microsoft could not buy AOL without parting with AIM due to antitrust considerations. There's already the public record about Microsoft considering AIM a monopoly back before the AOL Time Warner merger and that would be thrown back in their face. Furthermore, if AOL Music's *partnership* with the iTunes Music Store was cancelled following a Microsoft acquisition, Steve Jobs would bring up the issue to the Feds.
Google could use AOL to chip away at Microsoft bit-by-bit. Just imagine them bundling OpenOffice with all AOL discs and having the AOL multitude use it instead of Microsoft Word. Google would also have the stomach to switch the default AOL browser from IE to FireFox, which would also hurt Microsoft.
Google could choose to continue development on WinAmp or directly open source it. Microsoft would kill it completely.
Google could leverage AOL to promote its Wifi plans. Unlimited access to wifi if you are a paying AOL member.
"I'd like choice too but I'm not siding with Real on this one., nore am IK, I'm, siding against Apple from more-or-less forcing vendor lockin. (I know that there are OGG and MP3's available from a few vendors, but the ones that advertise: the ones that Joe Sixpack will use all come +DRM)"
I'll say one thing. If a vendor locks me into something, I'd rather it be Apple than Microsoft.:)
"Are you sure about this? If so, can I collect some money too? The RIAA owns no copyrights, sells no albums, owns no recording studios, producers, they do not play music either. How do they leverage getting 1/3 of the sales of something that they have nothing to do with?"
The RIAA bribes - excuse me - lobbies members of Congress. So when you buy music from an RIAA affiliated label, despite your political affiliation, your money is going to some politicians who are not of your political stripe.
Then there's the cost of suing end users supposedly downloading their music.
Then there's the cost of the Grammy's.
Oh, and lobbying foreign governments to crack down on commercial piracy and implement U.S. style copyright laws.
"Right now, the RIAA can pretty much dictate terms to a new artist. You want to get into Wherehouse Music stores, Borders and the rest? Then you're going to have to sign a label with us. Sure, you won't get much money, but we're providing this big service for you, right? So you have to take the terms we give you! Now along comes the music stores, and the RIAA is hoping for the same thing. Between Napster and WalMart Music and MSN Music (whenever that opens) and Rhapsody and iTunes, if you want your music on their, you're going to have to go through the RIAA who will do the cheerleading, spend the money on advertising, and make you a star!"
You don't need the RIAA to get your wares sold on iTunes. You need a CD with a professional looking label applied to it along with $500 given to CD Baby, and you'll be available through iTunes.
"But if you're in America, then American copyright applies. So if a song is owned by a copyright holder in America, and they don't give permission for Allofmp3 to distribute a song, and you download it in America, then don't complain when a court summons appears through your letterbox."
The same goes for importing non-Region1 DVDs. If you import a Region2 DVD to the US, the MPAA considers that a form of piracy called "parallel import".
"Apple should partner w/ Google and the recently announced Google Wi-Fi service. Two power houses, major distribution and mind share, not to mention the pile of cash they're both sitting on. Oh and they'd be getting free advertisements w/ 2-3 combined posts per day here on/."
Slashdot Mirror
"As another great leader once said, "Shop smart, shop S-Mart," notice how Sears and Kmart have merged? How long before the combined corporation renames itself to S-Mart... it's coming, I tell you!!!"
You really should email Bruce Campbell and remind him that he is a genius of the business world (with a screaming brain) for predicting this unholy merger eons ago.
"Screw your jet pack, I want loose alien chicks!"
Even if they existed and were loose, what guarantee would you have that they'd have relations with you?
Fembots would be a better bet.
"And as a side point, the world progresses by generations. The additude and bias of the last generation is replaced by the fresh more adapted views of the next generation. As a whole, humanity grows by death of the old, and birth of the new. Think your government representitives are bad now, then think of what would happen if a guy who was born in 1750 was making the decisions on stuff like the Internet"
Would you rather live in a *Logan's Run* civilization where you have to be "renued" at the ripe age of 30? (yes, I realize the age was lower in the book).
And oh my....the tyranny to live under the rule of someone who has lived a long time. Seems like that's what we tolerate today here in the U.S. under the Constitution.
I also think there are several figures from the 18th Century that could easily function in the 21st (and later) and our society would be better if they still lived. I'm thinking about Ben Franklin and Voltaire in particular.
Militarily, just imagine if the military minds of Julius Caesar, Alexander and Cromwell held commanded in today's battlefields.
Your post really discredits people from the past and cheapens their individual contributions.
"My comments were not a distortion - there have been a lot of Star Wars releases."
So? How many times has Disney released their films? How many times has the Wizard of Oz been released? How many times on DVD has the Evil Dead Trilogy been released? Your comment tried to imply that there's something wrong about Lucas releasing his films and thus is gouging the public and his fan base. You know, I was around when the original trilogy was released on VHS. There was not a large outcry for widescreen presentation on that format at the time. So it was released fullframe. THX was not completed when the original Star Wars film was released. The soundtracks were redone and certified for THX presentation. Thus the home version became THX certified which went along with THX equipment being released to the home market. After that, widescreen presentation took off on VHS (after having been rather popular on the unpopular-in-America LaserDisc format), so they were released in widescreen format.
That's not bilking. That's giving the consumer what they wanted.
"George Lucas fanboy tells someone to grow up and get out of their Mom's basement?"
No, I was making a point. The profits off his movies do not go up his nose.
I also find it amusing that everyone criticizing my post do not even have the courage to do it while logged in with their Slashdot user names. Cowards, basement dwellers, etc.
"Episode 4 on HD-DVD Episode 4-6 on HD-DVD Episode 1-3 on HD-DVD
The boxed full set 1-6 on HD-DVD Way to milk it George!!!"
Except 20th Century Fox Home Video is committed to Blu-Ray and thus your prediction is incorrect. Furthermore, all the studios release multiple versions of films to "double dip". Its not a George Lucas exclusive. And unlike most of Hollywood, George reinvests his monies into advancing the whole industry with pioneering technology. He did it with ILM, THX, Pixar, and now digitally projected cinema. So again, your criticism - in a weak attempt at humor - is a distortion. Grow up and get out of your mom's basement.
"On the downside, his work tends to be very politically neutral, which makes it safe, but bland. Serenity was cancelled because it was slyly political, Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham style. The shocker is that it managed to get aired at all, on Fox TV, which is basically a mouthpiece for the Sheriff."
How do you figure? With the "Western in space" motiff, the Alliance is the victorious Union forces from the Civil War, but in space. That makes the *independents* like the crew of the Serenity, former veterans of the Confederacy. Thus FireFly is a romanticized story about how shunned Confederate veterans cope in the wake of defeat in the Old West..in space...trying to stay independent, survive, and not sell-out. Of course, the subject of slavery has been eliminated from the reasoning for the Independence movement in the story.
C'mon, its bloody obvious. Captain Mal has a mild Southern accent...something that the template for his character - Han Solo - does not feature.
"There are some things that never change:Broadband over powerlines is just around the corner The desktop PC is dying"
Don't forget about these either:
*Linux is almost ready for the consumer desktop.
*Apple/BSD/Sun/Palm/PalmOS/TiVo is dying.
*Windows ___ is the best version of Windows ever!
* ____ is the Microsoft killer!
and
*Duke Nukem Forever - coming soon!
"look at minidisk, UMD, and memory stick. Sony LOVES having it's own standard that doesnt work with anything else."
If that were true, Sony would've stacked the Blu-Ray format with its ATRAC audio format, but alas, they went with Dolby's AAC. Try again.
"Sony has to learn that single party closed standards won't exist for long. We won't see an open standard, but at least a consortium of different markets offers multiple profit-oriented groups some debate."
How exactly do you consider Blu-Ray to not be an open standard? The audio is AAC, which is Dolby's technology. Anyone can license it. The only reason why people call it a closed codec is because of its association with the Apple iTunes Music Store which wraps AAC files with Apple's own DRM system known as Fairplay. Sure, AAC is not open source like Ogg Vorbis, but again, anyone can license it and it is easily arguable that it is superior to (tin can sounding) WMA by Microsoft...especially AAC+. As for the video codec, the main codec supported by Blu-Ray is the H.264 (mainly developed by Apple) implementation of MPEG4. Blu-Ray also (at this time) supports the under-performing AV-1 (Windows Media 9) codec as well.
So again, how is Blu-Ray exactly Sony proprietary? Apple backs it. So does Sony's long time nemesis Matsushita (Panasonic) who usually does the exact opposite of Sony deliberately (purchasing MCA/Universal right after Sony purchase Columbia/Tri-Star Pictures, and jumping into videogames by fronting money to 3D0 back in the early 90s). The only reason why Warner Home Video and Toshiba push HD-DVD is to preserve their intellectual property licensing revenue they currently receive from the original DVD format technology. It certainly is not for altruistic reasons or even trying to be the best format available.
Intel does not make DVD players for consumers. In fact, the most consumer friendly company that will be a customer of Intel's next year is Apple...and Apple backs Blu-Ray.
Microsoft may pay lip service to HD-DVD, but they won't be shipping the Xbox360 with an HD-DVD drive. That is why many people online are tagging the eventual phenomenon of the Playstation3 oblitterating the Xbox360 as "getting Dreamcasted" considering Sega launched the Dreamcast early in an effort to get to the market first before the Playstation2 and consequently shipped without a DVD drive. Many consumers held out in purchasing the Dreamcast because the lack of the DVD drive, especially since Sega kept on vacilating in public comments whether an updated Dreamcast with a DVD drive would ship later. It did not happen and the platform crumbled. Similarly, Microsoft backed DVD+R over the objections of the DVD Forum and their annointed standard DVD-R yet DVD+R did not usurp that standard and the whole issue became moot when combo drives eventually shipped.
Sony backs Blu-Ray, and it will be standard in the PS3. Since Sony backs Blu-Ray, so does Sony (Columbia & Tri-Star) Pictures, Sony Pictures controlled MGM, Disney, and 20th Century Fox. Yes, Paramount, Warner Home Video (Warner, Turner, New Line) and NBC Universal supposedly support HD-DVD but all parties are holding off releasing any titles for this upcoming holiday season. Furthermore, the only strong supporter amongst the three is Warner because they wish to preserve the patents they hold on the original DVD format which means they would still be receiving royalties on HD-DVD whereas their payments would be greatly reduced if the industry moves to backing Blu-Ray (which is one of Sony's motivations).
Truth be told, HD-DVD is only good for the studios because they don't have to buy new equipment to press the discs. It is not better for Joe Public because HD-DVD has less storage capacity than Blu-Ray and consequently, HD-DVD will not support 1080p due to its limitations. I am excusing the fact that currently Blu-Ray has more DRM capabilities than HD-DVD and thus is less friendly to the public because I believe the HD-DVD format will quickly adopt similar technologies in an effort to woo fence-sitting content owners.
I hope Microsoft's explicit backing of HD-DVD will encourage Sony & Company to dump AV-1 (Windows Media 9) as an official codec supported by Blu-Ray because H.264 is superior and thus dumping the other codec would reduce royalty payments and thus encourage the equipment and discs to be marketed cheaper to the consumers whereas HD-DVD will foolishly retain AV-1 because Toshiba is sucking up to Microsoft despite the codec offering much less capabilities than H.264. Let those foolish enough to purchase HD-DVD products pay the "Microsoft tax" for inferior performance.
"Battle of the Planets (C'mon, Futurama's in there!)"
And Starblazers!
I'm sure someone else will chime in about Robotech. I'm all for Cowboy Bebop too.
"Also a little cnfusing is that while they managed to pick up Nowhere Man (which was a surprisingly good show all things considered) they somehow neglected The Prisoner (to which Nowhere Man owes a great deal)."
Just as they hoisted Firefly onto the list without its inspirations known as Blake's 7 and Cowboy Bebop. Or the X-Files without Kolchak the Night Stalker.
"You also had Time Tunnel from the 60s"
Time Tunnel sucked....just as the *update* from the SciFi Channel next season will also suck. And when I say *update* I mean "hey, us SciFi Channel executives are too cheap to bring the good Doctor Who to the States so let's resurrect a turkey product sitting on the Universal shelves and see if we can jump on the time travel bandwagon amongst scifi fans!"
I was happy with Doctor Who's high ranking - albeit without mentioning the current season - but some of those shows on that list have no business being on it. And I mean Andromeda, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Earth: Final Conflict. And to have the X-Files on the list but exclude Kolchak the Night Stalker is beyond wrong.
I'm sure there's more Slashdotters out there that would agree with that statement as to which computing power is more of a relic, the general purpose PC or Sun...
Now, had he said that Windows will become a relic and the home market will be divided between Mac OS X and Linux over the next 5 years, I could buy that proposition.
"As for Dvorak's speculation Microsoft is prepping to split into three companies, I don't get that. Why would they? One of Microsoft's major takeaways from the DOJ's penalty phase was not having to split up as a company."
So? AT&T could have kept the Baby Bells had they parted ways with their hardware business based upon them losing to the DOJ. Instead, they kept the hardware business and then spun off the Baby Bells. Less than 20 years later, AT&T spun off their hardware business anyways.
Moral of the story, companies often do what the government wants them to do but years later and on their own terms.
Furthermore, Microsoft would do it as their own choice so it looks like a strategic victory and not a defeat.
"MS has shown proficiency at crushing their small competitors. They don't seem to have had as much luck with the big guys, though."
MS failed to crush TiVo with their UltimateTV product. So sometimes even Microsoft can't beat small competitors either.
"According to today's NYT, Time Warner says that AOL is their future. So the MS buying AOL scenario seems less likely."
(Time)Warner has a history of seeking partnerships with their divisions if it will profit them more, and then hopefully sucker their partner into selling out cheaply later down the road.
It happened with Warner-Amex, which is now known as Time Warner Cable. Comcast spent years trying to get an IPO of their stake in Time Warner Cable since Time Warner corporate kept lowballing them on the share price to buy back the interest.
Back in 1980, Warner sought IBM to buy a 50% stake in Atari, Inc. long before the troubles that befell the company. Chairman Steve Ross thought IBM's technological leadership could keep Atari on top of all of their videogame and home computer rivals. And supposedly, IBM was impressed with the power of the 8-bit Atari line since the custom chips made the system stronger than its other 8-bit rivals. But ultimately, IBM created their own PC division instead of acquiring an existing player and the rest is history.
Following the Time Warner merger, Time Warner sought partnerships for the Time Warner Entertainment division.
And so on... Moral of the story is don't trust a Time Warner press release or an announcement of interest in a profitable division of theirs.
"Microsoft didn't innovate a thing - they just happened to be a mainstream OS which wasn't owned by anyone with a vested interest in pushing their own hardware. Right position, right time. Zero innovation involved."
Partially right. Microsoft didn't own a "mainstream OS," they *pwned* CP/M away from Digital Research by means of QDOS. Again, not innovation, but good ol' fashioned theft.
More like "Is AOL the key to Google killing Microsoft?"
Microsoft could not buy AOL without parting with AIM due to antitrust considerations. There's already the public record about Microsoft considering AIM a monopoly back before the AOL Time Warner merger and that would be thrown back in their face. Furthermore, if AOL Music's *partnership* with the iTunes Music Store was cancelled following a Microsoft acquisition, Steve Jobs would bring up the issue to the Feds.
Google could use AOL to chip away at Microsoft bit-by-bit. Just imagine them bundling OpenOffice with all AOL discs and having the AOL multitude use it instead of Microsoft Word. Google would also have the stomach to switch the default AOL browser from IE to FireFox, which would also hurt Microsoft.
Google could choose to continue development on WinAmp or directly open source it. Microsoft would kill it completely.
Google could leverage AOL to promote its Wifi plans. Unlimited access to wifi if you are a paying AOL member.
And that's just the stuff off the top of my head.
"I'd like choice too but I'm not siding with Real on this one., nore am IK, I'm, siding against Apple from more-or-less forcing vendor lockin. (I know that there are OGG and MP3's available from a few vendors, but the ones that advertise: the ones that Joe Sixpack will use all come +DRM)"
:)
I'll say one thing. If a vendor locks me into something, I'd rather it be Apple than Microsoft.
"Are you sure about this? If so, can I collect some money too? The RIAA owns no copyrights, sells no albums, owns no recording studios, producers, they do not play music either. How do they leverage getting 1/3 of the sales of something that they have nothing to do with?"
The RIAA bribes - excuse me - lobbies members of Congress. So when you buy music from an RIAA affiliated label, despite your political affiliation, your money is going to some politicians who are not of your political stripe.
Then there's the cost of suing end users supposedly downloading their music.
Then there's the cost of the Grammy's.
Oh, and lobbying foreign governments to crack down on commercial piracy and implement U.S. style copyright laws.
"Right now, the RIAA can pretty much dictate terms to a new artist. You want to get into Wherehouse Music stores, Borders and the rest? Then you're going to have to sign a label with us. Sure, you won't get much money, but we're providing this big service for you, right? So you have to take the terms we give you! Now along comes the music stores, and the RIAA is hoping for the same thing. Between Napster and WalMart Music and MSN Music (whenever that opens) and Rhapsody and iTunes, if you want your music on their, you're going to have to go through the RIAA who will do the cheerleading, spend the money on advertising, and make you a star!"
You don't need the RIAA to get your wares sold on iTunes. You need a CD with a professional looking label applied to it along with $500 given to CD Baby, and you'll be available through iTunes.
"But if you're in America, then American copyright applies. So if a song is owned by a copyright holder in America, and they don't give permission for Allofmp3 to distribute a song, and you download it in America, then don't complain when a court summons appears through your letterbox."
The same goes for importing non-Region1 DVDs. If you import a Region2 DVD to the US, the MPAA considers that a form of piracy called "parallel import".
"Apple should partner w/ Google and the recently announced Google Wi-Fi service. Two power houses, major distribution and mind share, not to mention the pile of cash they're both sitting on. Oh and they'd be getting free advertisements w/ 2-3 combined posts per day here on /."
8 _3-5873485.html?tag=nefd.top
O L_
More likely Google will buy AOL from Time Warner.
As theorized here:
http://news.com.com/Google+to+bid+on+AOL/2100-103
And Dugg here:
http://www.digg.com/technology/Google_to_bid_on_A