That's assuming you ignore their extraordinary growth in Mac sales, with portables in particular flying off the virtual shelves. It's worth remembering whenever anybody quotes that 5% market share figure that an absurd number of Windows PCs are used in markets that Apple simply doesn't compete in (i.e., extreme budget PCs, corporate, gaming PCs etc). A more accurate representation would be to look at the markets Apple does compete in (IT professionals, developers, design professionals, mid-range consumer machines). Whilst I have no figures to hand, I suspect you'd find the share is far bit more than 5%.
I have to laugh at the histrionics coming from some quarters. Apple sell a hardware device which runs its own software, and so they restrict what third-party software can and can't run on that device. Why is this such a bad thing? I don't hear screams of 'no fair' being aimed at Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft for their similar behaviour in the console industry, so why should this be so maligned here? Frankly, I'm glad they've put this restriction in place, as it means we as iPhone users won't be subject to this kind of crap. Java applications have long been the absolute worst where UI is concerned, and Apple wants the iPhone to be considered the pinnacle of the mobile interface, not the sloppy bottom of the barrel that Java ME represents.
Because we know how well they've stuck to that! Spurious argument, I know; but clearly 'data acquisition' isn't an ends, it's merely a means. Although as another poster has pointed out, products (means) and profit (ends) aren't necessarily directly linked. In Google's case, there are a fair few steps to the process.
It's hardly idiocy to call it that; don't forget that whilst traditional media companies - such as the television or radio stations you mention - existed in a given form for decades before being forced to diversify. Google on the other hand began as a company whose primary product was search, but rapidly diversified into other areas. The consistent theme between all the things they've diversified into has always been advertising, so it's perfectly reasonable to refer to them as an advertising company.
Google are an advertising company. Anything it invests in is done with the ultimate objective of selling more advertising. Microsoft is a software company who have, admittedly, recently taken an interest in Search tools, but not with the objective of selling advertising so much as adding value to its own software and services. One of the reasons Google doesn't talk up any direct competition with Microsoft is because they're not direct competitors. Until they're both directly selling software to the same target market this will remain the case.
I was wondering about this myself, reading the synopsis. I must admit I pretty much ignored Netscape 8 post-beta, but the idea of offering users the ability to render a page in another browser if it doesn't work in the default engine seems inspired to me. Considering the alternative is to either a.) just embed the IE engine or b.) just use Gecko, I can't see how this was disastrous.
Has the air of spin to it, if you ask me. Could the original poster explain what they meant?
Important point; it's bigger, but it's the exact same resolution. At the sort of size we're talking about, does a slightly bigger screen of the same resolution make that much of a difference? After all you could simulate the same viewport size by bringing the iPod a few inches closer to your face...
I think the way that Dave Winer characterises Microsoft is accurate; they're a company which only becomes interested in markets once others have proved them viable. After all, that's the safe bet. Microsoft are a business first and foremost, not an innovator. A lot of technology companies are innovators first, businesses second, and a lot of this type of company go out of business when they realise they didn't actually have any means of making money from their innovation. From this perspective it is of course sensible to let others make your mistakes for you, then enter the market once it's proven. Microsoft have done this time and time again; with Apple, IBM, Sega (Dreamcast, anyone?), Sendo and probably numerous others I've not heard about.
I quote Paul Graham (who created Yahoo Stores, cited by Joel Spolsky):
"If you want to write desktop software now you do it on Microsoft's terms, calling their APIs and working around their buggy OS. And if you manage to write something that takes off, you may find that you were merely doing market research for Microsoft."
But there is innovation, still. Microsoft has begun to give a lot more free reign to its web development teams. There are interesting projects taking off there, and they might well become useful tools. But as far as business goes, this is practically just research. They might turn up useful tools in the future which can be sold, but then again they might not.
The biggest problem Microsoft suffers from nowadays is that where previously they allowed others to do their market research for them, nowadays they seem to assume that they have a right to any market dominated by any company vaguely related to technology. This is a serious mistake. Microsoft can't beat Google by doing the tools Google does better than them, because Microsoft isn't an advertising company. Microsoft can't beat Apple at the iPod+iTunes game, because they don't understand what it is consumers want. They fundamentally don't grok either what it is that makes these things successful or their reason for existing in the first place.
Scoble can talk about the little innovations that Microsoft makes (even though I think pretty much every example he cites is desperately flawed), but even in these cases they're usually incremental improvement. Microsoft didn't bring the mouse to the desktop as a revolutionary input device; they merely refined it. They didn't 'make' Halo; they bought the company that did and got them to make their game an Xbox exclusive (to begin with, at least).
I honestly believe Microsoft would be set for a fall (in the way that all those clueless journos predicted the 'death' of Apple throughout the 90s) if it wasn't for the insanely large pile of cash they sit on. It'll take many years of stupidity to fritter that away. In the meantime they'll keep putting out crappy operating systems based on Windows NT with yet more "me too!" chrome based on what Mac OS X looked like 3 years previously but that will begrudgingly be accepted by the market who are already crack addicts to Win32; they'll keep on attempting to win the handheld device / videogame system / portable music player markets; keep on trying to compete with Google and keep coming up scratching their heads. Eventually a wind change will occur once the likes of Ballmer has been superceded by a new generation of people who were inspired by Apple, Google, Yahoo et al and want to do more. People who recognise that there is sometimes a correlation between business success and innovation, and that being "me too!" doesn't always hack it. That's when Microsoft will finally return to being an innovator.
They could do what Skype does with its SMS service; before your SMS messages sent from Skype can be identified as coming from your mobile phone, you must validate your phone by entering a code Skype sends to it. If you required a Google account and a single, validated telephone number in order to use click-to-call, this would solve the large majority of casual spoofed/prank calls.
The Silmarillion is a huge, sprawling history of Middle Earth spanning from creation myth right up until the end of the Third Age (so effectively LOTR is just the final blink of the eye). From reading the article, it seems Peter Jackson was under the impression they'd be making two prequel films (of which one would be The Hobbit) back-to-back, but this wouldn't make sense unless they covered adjacent chronologies. I'd fear studio-led creation here, were it not for the existence of a very well-thought-out treatment for a film based on The Akallabeth; the most relevant portion of The Silmarillion for those who were interested in the mythology behind The Lord of the Rings.
...and also, voicing some rather old concerns (I'm sure it was around a year ago that PC Gamer in the UK covered the whole issue of the never-changing status quo with your quests never having an effect on your surroundings). It's true that WoW could benefit from a more 'interactive' world, where the boundaries and territories of your particular faction could change, but then other games do this - see EVE Online for instance; if you want to play a game where you have truly dynamic borders and power struggles, there's your candidate.
I think the biggest worry for me with WoW is one I've never seen discussed; the economy. Since each sharded server will eventually mature into a well-populated realm containing a large number of high-level characters, the value of certain commodities and equippable items will change. Eventually, as enough high-level players reach a certain state of wealthiness, you'll see the emergence of a large number of Twinks. As soon as this takes hold, items which are useful to Twinks shoot up in value and price out legitimate players. Rarer equipment which would normally only command a moderately expensive fee suddenly become beyond the reach of anyone except those who already have wealthy high-level characters.
The resale market isn't the only area affected. Tradeskills which would normally consume certain commodities and produce items of use to low to mid-level characters become irrelevent as the produce no longer has the demand, and so the trade goods used to make them also diminish in value. All the while, the few tradeskills of relevence in the endgame (such as enchanting) continue to become increasingly profitable (individuals charging a fee for the mere privilege of having an enchant performed, even if you provide the raw materials). As the status quo gradually shifts, so do the attitudes of the populace, who effectively all shrug their shoulders in resignation, saying "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em".
Other games (well, my only experience is with EVE Online) work by ensuring that the market is self-replenishing; goods are produced from raw materials but ships can be destroyed in combat, meaning that there will always be demand for further production. By not having any kind of 'release valve', the economy of WoW is in perpetual inflation, and eventually it has to break.
...then he killed her accidentally during consensual sex. That is, it was a violent sex game that went terribly, terribly wrong. Recall the case of Michael Hutchence who initially appeared to have committed suicide but it is suspected accidentally killed himself in the process of autoerotic asphyxiation. I'd wager that this sort of thing goes on a lot more than anyone realises, as it's not exactly the sort of topic you bring up round the coffee table.
But I digress; the point is, if the guy *did* kill her accidentally, then not only is the concept of him being a 'deranged murderer' inaccurate, but the victim was herself in some way an accessory to her own death. Thus the role of violent pornography in her death is questionable at best, as is any campaign to pin the blame on it. Of course this all hinges on the idea that it was an accident and that this story wasn't concocted by the guy (I can't say I've read a lot of analysis on this angle, as the majority of mainstream press articles haven't even mentioned the consensual element, let alone consider if he was telling the truth in saying it).
...Google's acquiescence to China's civil rights-crushing requirements for entry to the Chinese market was merely a ploy? If your ultimate objective was global philanthropy you might have to make a few concessions in the shorter term in order to ensure that your business was as successful as possible. After all, you can pretty much guarantee that the success of MSN Search isn't a precursor to Microsoft going on a $1.1bn charitable spending spree (Gates Foundation aside).
So; a masochist and a sadist too? My word. However does she cope with you? Well, I suppose the small mercy of you not buying exorbitantly-priced graphics accelerator hardware probably helps...
Well, my order has just been confirmed - £479.35 including VAT and delivery. I believe this is the same as the annual GDP of some central American countries (not including cocaine production). I admit it; I am indeed a masochist.
Baked beans on toast for the rest of the year then?
I've already spoken to one UK reseller who confirmed they have them in stock. Not yet booked in, and thus not available for purchase, but cards from Connect3D, Sapphire, PowerColor and HIS were all on the premises and will be available to exchange for cash within 24 hours.
Clearly ATI has learned its lesson where launches are concerned.
...which confirms my suspicion that in order to fall into this group you must be either one (or both) of a masochist or an ideologue; neither of whom, I imagine, are ATI's core demographic when launching a graphics card that costs in the region of $650/£500.
That's what their previous designation was for the very top of the line cards. Unfortunately (particularly with the X800XT PE, which I waited 3 months to get hold of) the suffix was associated with being impossible to find (quite true) and for marketing / PR reasons the name was retired in favour of an additional X.
Still, I agree that the trend towards increasingly lengthy names is getting a bit out of hand. I remember when the original GeForce launched and it was simply referred to as the "GeForce256". For a while Nvidia even flirted with making the names more simple with the GeForce 2. Then they brought out the MX and it kind of got confusing from there on out...
Slashdot Mirror
Does that take into account all those people who bought a machine with Linux on it and removed it in favour of Windows XP?
That's assuming you ignore their extraordinary growth in Mac sales, with portables in particular flying off the virtual shelves. It's worth remembering whenever anybody quotes that 5% market share figure that an absurd number of Windows PCs are used in markets that Apple simply doesn't compete in (i.e., extreme budget PCs, corporate, gaming PCs etc). A more accurate representation would be to look at the markets Apple does compete in (IT professionals, developers, design professionals, mid-range consumer machines). Whilst I have no figures to hand, I suspect you'd find the share is far bit more than 5%.
I have to laugh at the histrionics coming from some quarters. Apple sell a hardware device which runs its own software, and so they restrict what third-party software can and can't run on that device. Why is this such a bad thing? I don't hear screams of 'no fair' being aimed at Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft for their similar behaviour in the console industry, so why should this be so maligned here? Frankly, I'm glad they've put this restriction in place, as it means we as iPhone users won't be subject to this kind of crap. Java applications have long been the absolute worst where UI is concerned, and Apple wants the iPhone to be considered the pinnacle of the mobile interface, not the sloppy bottom of the barrel that Java ME represents.
Because we know how well they've stuck to that! Spurious argument, I know; but clearly 'data acquisition' isn't an ends, it's merely a means. Although as another poster has pointed out, products (means) and profit (ends) aren't necessarily directly linked. In Google's case, there are a fair few steps to the process.
It's hardly idiocy to call it that; don't forget that whilst traditional media companies - such as the television or radio stations you mention - existed in a given form for decades before being forced to diversify. Google on the other hand began as a company whose primary product was search, but rapidly diversified into other areas. The consistent theme between all the things they've diversified into has always been advertising, so it's perfectly reasonable to refer to them as an advertising company.
Google are an advertising company. Anything it invests in is done with the ultimate objective of selling more advertising. Microsoft is a software company who have, admittedly, recently taken an interest in Search tools, but not with the objective of selling advertising so much as adding value to its own software and services. One of the reasons Google doesn't talk up any direct competition with Microsoft is because they're not direct competitors. Until they're both directly selling software to the same target market this will remain the case.
I was wondering about this myself, reading the synopsis. I must admit I pretty much ignored Netscape 8 post-beta, but the idea of offering users the ability to render a page in another browser if it doesn't work in the default engine seems inspired to me. Considering the alternative is to either a.) just embed the IE engine or b.) just use Gecko, I can't see how this was disastrous.
Has the air of spin to it, if you ask me. Could the original poster explain what they meant?
Important point; it's bigger, but it's the exact same resolution. At the sort of size we're talking about, does a slightly bigger screen of the same resolution make that much of a difference? After all you could simulate the same viewport size by bringing the iPod a few inches closer to your face...
I think the way that Dave Winer characterises Microsoft is accurate; they're a company which only becomes interested in markets once others have proved them viable. After all, that's the safe bet. Microsoft are a business first and foremost, not an innovator. A lot of technology companies are innovators first, businesses second, and a lot of this type of company go out of business when they realise they didn't actually have any means of making money from their innovation. From this perspective it is of course sensible to let others make your mistakes for you, then enter the market once it's proven. Microsoft have done this time and time again; with Apple, IBM, Sega (Dreamcast, anyone?), Sendo and probably numerous others I've not heard about.
I quote Paul Graham (who created Yahoo Stores, cited by Joel Spolsky):
But there is innovation, still. Microsoft has begun to give a lot more free reign to its web development teams. There are interesting projects taking off there, and they might well become useful tools. But as far as business goes, this is practically just research. They might turn up useful tools in the future which can be sold, but then again they might not.
The biggest problem Microsoft suffers from nowadays is that where previously they allowed others to do their market research for them, nowadays they seem to assume that they have a right to any market dominated by any company vaguely related to technology. This is a serious mistake. Microsoft can't beat Google by doing the tools Google does better than them, because Microsoft isn't an advertising company. Microsoft can't beat Apple at the iPod+iTunes game, because they don't understand what it is consumers want. They fundamentally don't grok either what it is that makes these things successful or their reason for existing in the first place.
Scoble can talk about the little innovations that Microsoft makes (even though I think pretty much every example he cites is desperately flawed), but even in these cases they're usually incremental improvement. Microsoft didn't bring the mouse to the desktop as a revolutionary input device; they merely refined it. They didn't 'make' Halo; they bought the company that did and got them to make their game an Xbox exclusive (to begin with, at least).
I honestly believe Microsoft would be set for a fall (in the way that all those clueless journos predicted the 'death' of Apple throughout the 90s) if it wasn't for the insanely large pile of cash they sit on. It'll take many years of stupidity to fritter that away. In the meantime they'll keep putting out crappy operating systems based on Windows NT with yet more "me too!" chrome based on what Mac OS X looked like 3 years previously but that will begrudgingly be accepted by the market who are already crack addicts to Win32; they'll keep on attempting to win the handheld device / videogame system / portable music player markets; keep on trying to compete with Google and keep coming up scratching their heads. Eventually a wind change will occur once the likes of Ballmer has been superceded by a new generation of people who were inspired by Apple, Google, Yahoo et al and want to do more. People who recognise that there is sometimes a correlation between business success and innovation, and that being "me too!" doesn't always hack it. That's when Microsoft will finally return to being an innovator.
They could do what Skype does with its SMS service; before your SMS messages sent from Skype can be identified as coming from your mobile phone, you must validate your phone by entering a code Skype sends to it. If you required a Google account and a single, validated telephone number in order to use click-to-call, this would solve the large majority of casual spoofed/prank calls.
You didn't mean omitting, did you?
The Silmarillion is a huge, sprawling history of Middle Earth spanning from creation myth right up until the end of the Third Age (so effectively LOTR is just the final blink of the eye). From reading the article, it seems Peter Jackson was under the impression they'd be making two prequel films (of which one would be The Hobbit) back-to-back, but this wouldn't make sense unless they covered adjacent chronologies. I'd fear studio-led creation here, were it not for the existence of a very well-thought-out treatment for a film based on The Akallabeth; the most relevant portion of The Silmarillion for those who were interested in the mythology behind The Lord of the Rings.
...and also, voicing some rather old concerns (I'm sure it was around a year ago that PC Gamer in the UK covered the whole issue of the never-changing status quo with your quests never having an effect on your surroundings). It's true that WoW could benefit from a more 'interactive' world, where the boundaries and territories of your particular faction could change, but then other games do this - see EVE Online for instance; if you want to play a game where you have truly dynamic borders and power struggles, there's your candidate.
I think the biggest worry for me with WoW is one I've never seen discussed; the economy. Since each sharded server will eventually mature into a well-populated realm containing a large number of high-level characters, the value of certain commodities and equippable items will change. Eventually, as enough high-level players reach a certain state of wealthiness, you'll see the emergence of a large number of Twinks. As soon as this takes hold, items which are useful to Twinks shoot up in value and price out legitimate players. Rarer equipment which would normally only command a moderately expensive fee suddenly become beyond the reach of anyone except those who already have wealthy high-level characters.
The resale market isn't the only area affected. Tradeskills which would normally consume certain commodities and produce items of use to low to mid-level characters become irrelevent as the produce no longer has the demand, and so the trade goods used to make them also diminish in value. All the while, the few tradeskills of relevence in the endgame (such as enchanting) continue to become increasingly profitable (individuals charging a fee for the mere privilege of having an enchant performed, even if you provide the raw materials). As the status quo gradually shifts, so do the attitudes of the populace, who effectively all shrug their shoulders in resignation, saying "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em".
Other games (well, my only experience is with EVE Online) work by ensuring that the market is self-replenishing; goods are produced from raw materials but ships can be destroyed in combat, meaning that there will always be demand for further production. By not having any kind of 'release valve', the economy of WoW is in perpetual inflation, and eventually it has to break.
Maybe a mashup of Seven-of-Nine in her slinky Borg catsuit with Bill's head on top...?
...then he killed her accidentally during consensual sex. That is, it was a violent sex game that went terribly, terribly wrong. Recall the case of Michael Hutchence who initially appeared to have committed suicide but it is suspected accidentally killed himself in the process of autoerotic asphyxiation. I'd wager that this sort of thing goes on a lot more than anyone realises, as it's not exactly the sort of topic you bring up round the coffee table.
But I digress; the point is, if the guy *did* kill her accidentally, then not only is the concept of him being a 'deranged murderer' inaccurate, but the victim was herself in some way an accessory to her own death. Thus the role of violent pornography in her death is questionable at best, as is any campaign to pin the blame on it. Of course this all hinges on the idea that it was an accident and that this story wasn't concocted by the guy (I can't say I've read a lot of analysis on this angle, as the majority of mainstream press articles haven't even mentioned the consensual element, let alone consider if he was telling the truth in saying it).
...Google's acquiescence to China's civil rights-crushing requirements for entry to the Chinese market was merely a ploy? If your ultimate objective was global philanthropy you might have to make a few concessions in the shorter term in order to ensure that your business was as successful as possible. After all, you can pretty much guarantee that the success of MSN Search isn't a precursor to Microsoft going on a $1.1bn charitable spending spree (Gates Foundation aside).
So; a masochist and a sadist too? My word. However does she cope with you? Well, I suppose the small mercy of you not buying exorbitantly-priced graphics accelerator hardware probably helps...
Married? So you're a masochist too!
Well, my order has just been confirmed - £479.35 including VAT and delivery. I believe this is the same as the annual GDP of some central American countries (not including cocaine production). I admit it; I am indeed a masochist.
Baked beans on toast for the rest of the year then?
The pain only begins when I default on my monthly loan repayments, though.
I've already spoken to one UK reseller who confirmed they have them in stock. Not yet booked in, and thus not available for purchase, but cards from Connect3D, Sapphire, PowerColor and HIS were all on the premises and will be available to exchange for cash within 24 hours. Clearly ATI has learned its lesson where launches are concerned.
...which confirms my suspicion that in order to fall into this group you must be either one (or both) of a masochist or an ideologue; neither of whom, I imagine, are ATI's core demographic when launching a graphics card that costs in the region of $650/£500.
That's what their previous designation was for the very top of the line cards. Unfortunately (particularly with the X800XT PE, which I waited 3 months to get hold of) the suffix was associated with being impossible to find (quite true) and for marketing / PR reasons the name was retired in favour of an additional X. Still, I agree that the trend towards increasingly lengthy names is getting a bit out of hand. I remember when the original GeForce launched and it was simply referred to as the "GeForce256". For a while Nvidia even flirted with making the names more simple with the GeForce 2. Then they brought out the MX and it kind of got confusing from there on out...