Not a cheape Linux workstation, you could save some money and buy other similar boxes (save the component and s-video out) that do more or less the same thing. This thing could be a huge winner for Apex if they'd just do two things:
1. Include software to make this thing a Tivo like device (DVR/PVR)
2. Include a DVD burner to and make it so you can burn the recorded TV content to DVD.
If it did those things I'd probably pay $500 for it, it would be worth it for people with HDTVs
With due respect, these are completely different technologies. CXml and EDI are protocoil/standards of machine to machine communication, they aren't specific techniques they are foundation materials/technologies on which systems are built.
Amazon's "marketplace" technology as defined in the patent-pending filing, defines a specific process by which their customers can shop for products offered by amazon side-by-side with products offered by other amazon customers/retailers.
If Amazon had no means to protect this invention why would they have wasted money on implementing it? They could have, but a competitor could come in right behind them and copy their process (reverse engineer the user interface/experience).
The idea of allowing customers to list items for a sale along side amazon.com's own listings (marketplace) is beyond a unique idea, it is a process and therefor it is something that can be patented.
Do we know how much money www.amazon.com put into research and development on this system?
Why shouldn't they have the right to protect their investment, their invention(!) against other on-line retailers. Everything www.amazon.com does gets copied, don't even try to bring "but Walmart can't patent this or that, etc.." with on-line retailers it's their web-site and the user interface processes that make the difference in losing and sustaining customers, why should other on-line retailers have the right to steal an idea and implement it in their site without helping pay for it's invention.
For the money, the 64x Itanium 2 blows away the competition (it's likely a few engineers at Sun have lost many nights sleep over it) It won't happen overnight, but it will happen. Proprietary OS based systems by Sun, IBM and others will continue on the path to fade out. Why? Because they are too expensive, it's getting to the point that the pay off isn't there. Even if you hate Win32, you can run Linux on a Itanium 2 (and wait and see Sun will likely announce Solaris for it before years end)
How does.NET play into all this? Easy enough, write once run on WinX (Win32, Win64, WinCE, etc..) Itanium 2 is not backwards compatable with 32-bit code, so.NET will provide a bridge there that will likely be at least twice as fast as the on-chip 32-bit emulator. I'm sure this was part of the strategy behind putting everything though a virtual machine.
.NET is really great for developing RAD web applications (through ASP.NET) and developing web services. It has it's place in the enterprise environments and let's face it, C# (and the renovations made to the VB language in VB.NET) makes for a better language than Java2 (as long as you're developing for the Win32 platform). Beyond this scope,.NET has no defined future, and since Microsoft isn't rushing to get CLRs out for other OSs (other than their own of course), I wonder what their long term strategy with it is.
One only has to look at Microsoft's own product line to see that neither COM or native code is something that isn't going away in commerical applications. The latest build of Office (coming to us now a year after the first release of the.NET Framework and VS.NET) is not a managed application, the next releases of SQL Server and Exchange Server will not be a managed applications.
Also, look at what DirectX does, at it's core it's a set of multimedia libraries optimized for hardware. The only thing COM does for DirectX is provide programmers an interface into it. As of the current release of DirectX, parallel COM and.NET interfaces exist into DirectX, but under the hood the majority of the code is very low level and tightly optimized and that will not change.
The original other had good intent, but really only someone who doesn't understand COM and.NET would even raise this question.
Slashdot Mirror
Not a cheape Linux workstation, you could save some money and buy other similar boxes (save the component and s-video out) that do more or less the same thing. This thing could be a huge winner for Apex if they'd just do two things: 1. Include software to make this thing a Tivo like device (DVR/PVR) 2. Include a DVD burner to and make it so you can burn the recorded TV content to DVD. If it did those things I'd probably pay $500 for it, it would be worth it for people with HDTVs
With due respect, these are completely different technologies. CXml and EDI are protocoil/standards of machine to machine communication, they aren't specific techniques they are foundation materials/technologies on which systems are built.
Amazon's "marketplace" technology as defined in the patent-pending filing, defines a specific process by which their customers can shop for products offered by amazon side-by-side with products offered by other amazon customers/retailers.
If Amazon had no means to protect this invention why would they have wasted money on implementing it? They could have, but a competitor could come in right behind them and copy their process (reverse engineer the user interface/experience).
The idea of allowing customers to list items for a sale along side amazon.com's own listings (marketplace) is beyond a unique idea, it is a process and therefor it is something that can be patented.
Do we know how much money www.amazon.com put into research and development on this system?
Why shouldn't they have the right to protect their investment, their invention(!) against other on-line retailers. Everything www.amazon.com does gets copied, don't even try to bring "but Walmart can't patent this or that, etc.." with on-line retailers it's their web-site and the user interface processes that make the difference in losing and sustaining customers, why should other on-line retailers have the right to steal an idea and implement it in their site without helping pay for it's invention.
You people make me sick.
For the money, the 64x Itanium 2 blows away the competition (it's likely a few engineers at Sun have lost many nights sleep over it) It won't happen overnight, but it will happen. Proprietary OS based systems by Sun, IBM and others will continue on the path to fade out. Why? Because they are too expensive, it's getting to the point that the pay off isn't there. Even if you hate Win32, you can run Linux on a Itanium 2 (and wait and see Sun will likely announce Solaris for it before years end)
.NET play into all this? Easy enough, write once run on WinX (Win32, Win64, WinCE, etc..) Itanium 2 is not backwards compatable with 32-bit code, so .NET will provide a bridge there that will likely be at least twice as fast as the on-chip 32-bit emulator. I'm sure this was part of the strategy behind putting everything though a virtual machine.
How does
.NET is really great for developing RAD web applications (through ASP.NET) and developing web services. It has it's place in the enterprise environments and let's face it, C# (and the renovations made to the VB language in VB.NET) makes for a better language than Java2 (as long as you're developing for the Win32 platform). Beyond this scope, .NET has no defined future, and since Microsoft isn't rushing to get CLRs out for other OSs (other than their own of course), I wonder what their long term strategy with it is.
One only has to look at Microsoft's own product line to see that neither COM or native code is something that isn't going away in commerical applications. The latest build of Office (coming to us now a year after the first release of the .NET Framework and VS.NET) is not a managed application, the next releases of SQL Server and Exchange Server will not be a managed applications.
Also, look at what DirectX does, at it's core it's a set of multimedia libraries optimized for hardware. The only thing COM does for DirectX is provide programmers an interface into it. As of the current release of DirectX, parallel COM and .NET interfaces exist into DirectX, but under the hood the majority of the code is very low level and tightly optimized and that will not change.
The original other had good intent, but really only someone who doesn't understand COM and .NET would even raise this question.