Though what supposedly "set off a patent Armageddon in the mobile space" isn't about software / concept patents. And generally seems a bit like something done on behalf of most companies behind cellular technology - it's just that Nokia has not only one of the larger contributions, but also probably the least to loose by any turmoil in the US market.
You're definatelly biased, you're repeating some urban myth. There was no such accident ("reboot"? Are you trying so hard to kid yourself?)
The only thing even remotely close to what you describe was two cases of Autralian A340 rapidly changing altitude in one spot; at cruising speed (when any airplane would be travelling on autopilot), certainly due to faulty inputs from Northrop Grumman sensors, possibly due to one US installation for communication with subs...
And MFD blackouts are a separate issue, happening from time to time everywhere.
If only you would realise how you "trust silicon" when flying Boeing, too... And that your example, of forgetting about non-essential (except for very rare, but easy to determine conditions) switch is a good one of how machine could do better.
It's ultimately a matter of stats. Half of aircraft accidents are your damn fault (as a group, since you're apparently a pilot...). "Catastrophic failures", on which you would prefer to focus so much, are a much smaller part.
"The pilot always trumps the autopilot", really? Tell that to millions of people alive thanks to autopilots keeping airplanes in narrow range between stalling and structural damage at cruise speed. Or those alive after CAT IIIb autolandings in almost zero visibility conditions.
That is simply false; it's not a "possibility", it's how control instruments inherently work.
When you hear about it, "journalists" wanted a story. The same "journalists" who forget that all new Boeings also have fly-by-wire (what, you really think it will allow any kind of input, at any speed? That what it is all about?)
The last time a truly new market was unfolding, MS fought hard to maintain something close to previous status quo; almost derailed it (netbooks). Despite that market being far from saturated (but probably saturated as far as MS limited "target customer" goes)
New markets, by now, almost imply better value to ever greater numbers of customers; it's not clear MS even wants to go there (and there is plenty of space to go - compare total number of PCs in use, somewhere around 1.3 billion IIRC, with annual sales of mobile phones - also around 1.3 billion; and total of almost 5 billion subscribers)
If you define major markets as those few visible "premium" ones, with "premium" people... "Influencial force" is perhaps what you should be using, they certainly are that. But "major" one is a misunderstanding IMHO; not with 2% of sales.
And hey, Nokia seems to be in a bit different game, for some reason. Which is a bit unfortunate for them, as far as feelings and expectations of "analysts" and "investors" determining, say, stock prices go - they don't attach any value to how 5 billion mobile subsribers, a number to which Nokia is hugely contributing (also via R&D, with some other manufacturers possibly freeriding...), will influence humanity (also improving possibilities of investment...). Sure, targetting also "lesser" people, in which Apple openly isn't even interested (similarly, though to a much smaller scale, with MS; which was the real point here), won't bring so impressive profits; but they are still there. One can also appreciate how Nokia actually owns over a dozen of their manufacturing plants, most of them not in China, half of them in the EU (heck, one is even on the same continent as Cupertino, most likely much closer to it than any of the plants manufacturing Apple devices).
Why would their customers force themselves into "high end" while something like Nokia 5230, for example, is available (plus its family, 5288 and 5232 IIRC); look at what it offers and its price, without contract. And that's still not the most affordable Symbian smartphone. I wouldn't be surprised if Nokia breaks "100 million smartphones shipped annually" this year. With how their platform will most likely hugely improve (Qt, et al) it might bring some interesting effects of scale down the line. Where is the lead from Apple II or strictly IBM PC heyday?
Anyway, it's probably inevitable; we do have one case study already (which developed basically under their noses / MS was never big in it / they are loosing what small share they had) - mobile phones. 3.3 billion mobile subscribers at the end of 2007, 4.6 billion at the end of 2009, with probably close to 5 billion now. Number of mobile phones shipped annually close to the total number of PCs worldwide (around 1.3 billion IIRC).
Yes, those are simple devices - though very large part of them gives reasonably full access to the web (it's not a coincidence that Opera Mini is #1 mobile web browser, in number of visits, and despite its users typically being cautious about data transfer due to costs); likewise with email, IM, or being the first foray into affordable photography and videorecording. But they show how price matters; and their users will certainly want more.
They couldn't even get Yahoo, another US corp. Getting a much larger Nordic one, listed on several stock exchanges (and damn important to Finnish one), would be probably in entirely different league.
Generally, Nokia seems to be in somewhat unfortunate position of providing tangible, long term benefits on the scale of humanity (4.6 billion mobile subscribers at the end of 2009 already, in large part thanks to efforts of Nokia)...while of course being largely judged also by feelings and expectations of stock market "analysts"; nvm those are also bound to benefit greatly, long term, thanks to what Nokia does. Some enitities are perhaps even quite openly freeriding (we'll see how the patent dispute will turn out)
"Emerging markets" nowadays means often what people like to call "race to the bottom" (though I like to look at it as "race to more" (...people using it)); does MS even want to play that game? (look how irritated they were with netbooks, before they manage to derail them a bit)
The problem is, perhaps, that they don't want to be involved in anything which would lower the costs for customers too much - while still trying to be perceived as not targetting primarily "premium" people (something which Apple openly does, so they don't risk getting into "too low costs" area). Heck, so far MS almost derailed netbooks while securing their position on them...
Hm, and I take it you're from quite atypical market where Symbian is not dominating; multitasking works fine on it, and is a great thing.
OTOH, many of the Google I/O Android sessions focus on helping devs with power management, asynchronous programming and performance - and multitasking doesn't help in those areas, quite the contrary.
Still already works nice on Android, of course (even if there are some other platforms which have the 3 above topics + multitasking adressed for some time)
I don't think they won the round with netbooks so much as stalled, a bit, the emerging market; at least for now. Large part of the world still wants much cheaper machines than what "netbooks" have eventually become, and probably in large part due to actions of MS.
There is also, basically, an ISA bus on your motherboard; in the form of Low Pin Count bus. As a matter of fact...PCI -> PCIe have somewhat similar relation to the one between ISA -> LPC. Roughly the same logically, as far as software is concerned, but implemented using less parallel approach. So your "using pci-e for some of them is a waste of lanes" is probably unjustified.
On board sound might be PCI based logically, but it's partly integrated into the chipset. The "audio chip" you see on a motherboard is often little more than a codec, not sitting on PCI anyway. Similar with Ethernet PHY. Super I/O and BIOS sits on LPC. And "main" chipset often sits on PCIe already.
Hm, since you concentrate on #2 and on who "won" this space from MS - it isn't as clear cut; describes a very small group of quite atypical markets, at best.
Apple probably never commanded quite as big total share of portable media players as many believe. Hell, for few years already just one other manufacturer, Nokia, sells annually around the same number of music players as the total number of iPods ever produced up to a given point. Just that one. When looking strictly at "mobile phone" category (however blurry the distinction is), Nokia provides annually an order of magnitude more mobile phones than Apple has ever produced. Those shares don't seem to be really going away... I can probably count on fingers of one hand the number of times I've seen an iPod (excluding my iPod of course...); an iPhone in the wild - never as of yet, I think ("a major force" with 2%). And that's in a reasonably prosperous late EU memberstate - people used cheap Chinese "S1" mp3 players at first, then switched mostly to so called "feature phones", few years back. Guess the world at large.
I think that's a large part of MS problems discussed here - no, the market is nowhere near saturated (total number of PCs is around the annual sales of mobile phones - that's saturated, and still growing TBH; with 3.3 billion subscribers at the end of 2007, 4.6 billion at the end of 2009, 5 billion just around the corner probably and don't be surprised with 6 billion relatively soon). But MS doesn't really want to grow beyond their self-restricted, "interesting" part of the market; or doesn't even know how (at least as far as profiting goes)
...and in the meantime Mir 3 is planned to be outright a space dry dock; not that much of a problem, it seems, even with their launching sites & orbits.
Slashdot Mirror
Not because HTC is an important partner of MS in bringing (for better or forse...) WinMob phones to the market?
So, when that source will nickname it iPhone Death? ;p
Though what supposedly "set off a patent Armageddon in the mobile space" isn't about software / concept patents. And generally seems a bit like something done on behalf of most companies behind cellular technology - it's just that Nokia has not only one of the larger contributions, but also probably the least to loose by any turmoil in the US market.
What that guy will do when the ISA card interfacing to the lathe will give up the ghost? ;)
Don't forget LPC bus, that's also sort of ISA. And in most (all?) current PCs.
You're definatelly biased, you're repeating some urban myth. There was no such accident ("reboot"? Are you trying so hard to kid yourself?)
The only thing even remotely close to what you describe was two cases of Autralian A340 rapidly changing altitude in one spot; at cruising speed (when any airplane would be travelling on autopilot), certainly due to faulty inputs from Northrop Grumman sensors, possibly due to one US installation for communication with subs...
And MFD blackouts are a separate issue, happening from time to time everywhere.
If only you would realise how you "trust silicon" when flying Boeing, too... And that your example, of forgetting about non-essential (except for very rare, but easy to determine conditions) switch is a good one of how machine could do better.
It's ultimately a matter of stats. Half of aircraft accidents are your damn fault (as a group, since you're apparently a pilot...). "Catastrophic failures", on which you would prefer to focus so much, are a much smaller part.
"The pilot always trumps the autopilot", really? Tell that to millions of people alive thanks to autopilots keeping airplanes in narrow range between stalling and structural damage at cruise speed. Or those alive after CAT IIIb autolandings in almost zero visibility conditions.
Boeing, which you so love, itself states that Airbus planes are equally safe. I guess they are wrong too, eh?
That is simply false; it's not a "possibility", it's how control instruments inherently work.
When you hear about it, "journalists" wanted a story. The same "journalists" who forget that all new Boeings also have fly-by-wire (what, you really think it will allow any kind of input, at any speed? That what it is all about?)
The last time a truly new market was unfolding, MS fought hard to maintain something close to previous status quo; almost derailed it (netbooks). Despite that market being far from saturated (but probably saturated as far as MS limited "target customer" goes)
New markets, by now, almost imply better value to ever greater numbers of customers; it's not clear MS even wants to go there (and there is plenty of space to go - compare total number of PCs in use, somewhere around 1.3 billion IIRC, with annual sales of mobile phones - also around 1.3 billion; and total of almost 5 billion subscribers)
If you define major markets as those few visible "premium" ones, with "premium" people...
"Influencial force" is perhaps what you should be using, they certainly are that. But "major" one is a misunderstanding IMHO; not with 2% of sales.
And hey, Nokia seems to be in a bit different game, for some reason. Which is a bit unfortunate for them, as far as feelings and expectations of "analysts" and "investors" determining, say, stock prices go - they don't attach any value to how 5 billion mobile subsribers, a number to which Nokia is hugely contributing (also via R&D, with some other manufacturers possibly freeriding...), will influence humanity (also improving possibilities of investment...). Sure, targetting also "lesser" people, in which Apple openly isn't even interested (similarly, though to a much smaller scale, with MS; which was the real point here), won't bring so impressive profits; but they are still there. One can also appreciate how Nokia actually owns over a dozen of their manufacturing plants, most of them not in China, half of them in the EU (heck, one is even on the same continent as Cupertino, most likely much closer to it than any of the plants manufacturing Apple devices).
Why would their customers force themselves into "high end" while something like Nokia 5230, for example, is available (plus its family, 5288 and 5232 IIRC); look at what it offers and its price, without contract. And that's still not the most affordable Symbian smartphone. I wouldn't be surprised if Nokia breaks "100 million smartphones shipped annually" this year. With how their platform will most likely hugely improve (Qt, et al) it might bring some interesting effects of scale down the line.
Where is the lead from Apple II or strictly IBM PC heyday?
Or MeeGo / etc.
Anyway, it's probably inevitable; we do have one case study already (which developed basically under their noses / MS was never big in it / they are loosing what small share they had) - mobile phones. 3.3 billion mobile subscribers at the end of 2007, 4.6 billion at the end of 2009, with probably close to 5 billion now. Number of mobile phones shipped annually close to the total number of PCs worldwide (around 1.3 billion IIRC).
Yes, those are simple devices - though very large part of them gives reasonably full access to the web (it's not a coincidence that Opera Mini is #1 mobile web browser, in number of visits, and despite its users typically being cautious about data transfer due to costs); likewise with email, IM, or being the first foray into affordable photography and videorecording. But they show how price matters; and their users will certainly want more.
They couldn't even get Yahoo, another US corp. Getting a much larger Nordic one, listed on several stock exchanges (and damn important to Finnish one), would be probably in entirely different league.
Generally, Nokia seems to be in somewhat unfortunate position of providing tangible, long term benefits on the scale of humanity (4.6 billion mobile subscribers at the end of 2009 already, in large part thanks to efforts of Nokia)...while of course being largely judged also by feelings and expectations of stock market "analysts"; nvm those are also bound to benefit greatly, long term, thanks to what Nokia does. Some enitities are perhaps even quite openly freeriding (we'll see how the patent dispute will turn out)
"Emerging markets" nowadays means often what people like to call "race to the bottom" (though I like to look at it as "race to more" (...people using it)); does MS even want to play that game? (look how irritated they were with netbooks, before they manage to derail them a bit)
The problem is, perhaps, that they don't want to be involved in anything which would lower the costs for customers too much - while still trying to be perceived as not targetting primarily "premium" people (something which Apple openly does, so they don't risk getting into "too low costs" area). Heck, so far MS almost derailed netbooks while securing their position on them...
Hm, and I take it you're from quite atypical market where Symbian is not dominating; multitasking works fine on it, and is a great thing.
OTOH, many of the Google I/O Android sessions focus on helping devs with power management, asynchronous programming and performance - and multitasking doesn't help in those areas, quite the contrary.
Still already works nice on Android, of course (even if there are some other platforms which have the 3 above topics + multitasking adressed for some time)
I don't think they won the round with netbooks so much as stalled, a bit, the emerging market; at least for now. Large part of the world still wants much cheaper machines than what "netbooks" have eventually become, and probably in large part due to actions of MS.
There is also, basically, an ISA bus on your motherboard; in the form of Low Pin Count bus. As a matter of fact...PCI -> PCIe have somewhat similar relation to the one between ISA -> LPC. Roughly the same logically, as far as software is concerned, but implemented using less parallel approach. So your "using pci-e for some of them is a waste of lanes" is probably unjustified.
On board sound might be PCI based logically, but it's partly integrated into the chipset. The "audio chip" you see on a motherboard is often little more than a codec, not sitting on PCI anyway. Similar with Ethernet PHY. Super I/O and BIOS sits on LPC. And "main" chipset often sits on PCIe already.
Hm, since you concentrate on #2 and on who "won" this space from MS - it isn't as clear cut; describes a very small group of quite atypical markets, at best.
Apple probably never commanded quite as big total share of portable media players as many believe. Hell, for few years already just one other manufacturer, Nokia, sells annually around the same number of music players as the total number of iPods ever produced up to a given point. Just that one. When looking strictly at "mobile phone" category (however blurry the distinction is), Nokia provides annually an order of magnitude more mobile phones than Apple has ever produced. Those shares don't seem to be really going away...
I can probably count on fingers of one hand the number of times I've seen an iPod (excluding my iPod of course...); an iPhone in the wild - never as of yet, I think ("a major force" with 2%). And that's in a reasonably prosperous late EU memberstate - people used cheap Chinese "S1" mp3 players at first, then switched mostly to so called "feature phones", few years back. Guess the world at large.
I think that's a large part of MS problems discussed here - no, the market is nowhere near saturated (total number of PCs is around the annual sales of mobile phones - that's saturated, and still growing TBH; with 3.3 billion subscribers at the end of 2007, 4.6 billion at the end of 2009, 5 billion just around the corner probably and don't be surprised with 6 billion relatively soon). But MS doesn't really want to grow beyond their self-restricted, "interesting" part of the market; or doesn't even know how (at least as far as profiting goes)
Accidentally, the SpaceX launcher even looks (the flame) and sounds quite a bit..."Russian" ;)
(must be the fuel)
...and in the meantime Mir 3 is planned to be outright a space dry dock; not that much of a problem, it seems, even with their launching sites & orbits.
"Can't"? A bit too strong wording.
How would that be any different from what is desired now?
To be fair, you would still prefer much, much, much more to live in Bulgaria. Reasonably nice place, overall.
(I'm not familiar with Syria...)
...If only they had stuck with HTML as the markup language and GIF/Jpeg as the image formats.
Wasn't that also abour severe hardware limitations of handsets back then?