MS has primarily been a software company as far as PCs go. Users wind up buying primarily a hardware system, that typically has MS on it.
MS winds up being limited by the innovation of its "partners". Apple has profited from being vertically integrated making both hardware & software.
Warren Buffett once said in an answer to a reporter's question, that he wouldn't invest in MS because he couldn't see the long term investment strategy of basing a business on PC software. That seems to be an indication of a conundrum for MS.
Question: Does Ballmer have a strategy to break out of the partner limitations?
As software and programming become more routine, will Dell, HP, Sony, Toshiba and others finally pick open source?
Makes for wasteful governments. I am sure IBM or EDS could have quoted a system to take care of employee based on existing code and systems they had refined over decades.
That is why they should do the least and let private businesses compete for tasks.
It is sad that politicians and some in the public think government is THE answer.
I've listened to the person in charge of archiving at the Library of Congress who handles such things, as do many other libraries. They have developed a lot of techniques for handling and dealing with large items, including restoration. I'll bet the British Museum has a similar map department.
My bet is they have information on this at their website.
Opinions on verifying code as a means to tell whether a Toyota will have 'sudden acceleration' above are UTTERLY, well, let us say, ill thought out in my opinion, in most cases. Code is only ONE part of an almost hopelessly complex system when ALL THE POSSIBLE VARIABLES are analyzed.
Failure analysis may start with code, but these systems then can encounter intermittent connections, power surges, static generated by multiple known and unknown items (including the rare intermittent connections), induced currents in parallel wires, temperature induced changes, faulty seals & water/condensation intrusion, etc. By the time an accident investigator looks at a vehicle that had a problem, the transients are long gone.
Intermittent Mechanical (& thus often electrical) changes & failures are an absolute bane of complex systems.
In my opinion, the only way you can find these rare transient problems is to find vehicles who have been reported to have these problems (& didn't crash) and then you load them up with data loggers and drive the hell out of them in all sorts of environments.
Personally, I really like a 1972 Blazer...with a manual transmission. Minimal plastic, no electronics beyond the turn signal module, fix it myself and I can start it with a bit of a downhill run. Yup, I drive my Highlander, but I'm thinking of putting a 72 Blazer back in as new shape.
Managers at less than optimally run companies are too busy putting out brush fires or "doing golf".
Anyone in his right mind would figure a way to eventually migrate out of a Windows platform by one method or another JUST TO STAY marginally more safe in the Internet Security arena.
Moving to MacOS X give the opportunity to do work in MacOSX whenever possible and only revert to Windows as needed. What a gift.
Been using both Windows and Mac together for over a decade, since Win 3.11 (if I remember). It just is not that much different to get used to one OS or another or BOTH.
For God's sake and all of our digital information, it is time for a revolution.
IE has failed so many times with so many bad consequences it is time to simply outlaw the use of IE.
How many car crashes due to any number of causes before they yank ALL those car models and force the manufacturer to replace the brakes.
Get rid of MS Internet Explorer, once & for ALL. If Microsoft were an honest company they would have stopped IE and started including FireFox a long time ago. At least then, everyone can examine code and offer patches.
iPhone w/ATT: My opinion hands down: Listened to an audio professional this morning note he specifically queried 100 iPhone owners over the last year, and not one was unhappy. The exception is a friend who works in a hospital and ATT doesn't have coverage in that hospital area (Kent near Providence).
Cell Card/Verizon: My opinion: Always works (which ATT did not).
Government Effects--Trolling for Votes
on
A Requiem For Saab
·
· Score: 0
Saab of all the auto companies out there should have stayed small and survived & could have done so. They had concepts that suited their market and kept advancing. My guess is someone will buy the brand name, model rights and maybe a facility or two and try to keep it alive by sharing more components with other auto component parts and auto makers. You can buy engine and drive train parts, instead of making them, thus keeping up with the big guys. But the profitability of small volume mfgr as a business is REALLY TOUGH.
In the late 1990s I recall auto analysts saying there was twice as much auto production capacity as their were buyers. Something has to give and now the closures are starting. The train wreck has been a long time coming. The overall interference by the governmental entities that push large auto companies in their design, fuels, safety, unions and other choices has resulted in the mess today where it should have been GM that was sold off for parts, except for the politics.
In the late 1990s I recall auto analysts saying there was twice as much auto production capacity as their were buyers. Something has to give and now the closures are starting. Rather than our government improving the business conditions so our US auto companies could continue to compete on the global markets, it is easily seen that the state and federal governments hindered auto companies in so many ways. That includes pressure to roll over to union demands.
I really don't give GM a chance of surviving long term, because of the innefficiencies in place.
The U.S. did NOT get to be a great country by having Presidents & Congress, inexperienced in business, telling companies what they have to do, resulting in inefficient business conditions for the companies within their borders, who then can't compete in the global market that the politicians themselves push as desirable for export conditions and hopefully increased employment.
It is just sick. It is a tax on us all to support these "to big to fail" companies merely because senators, congressmen and the President want votes.
If end consumers continue to buy less and less of the crap that print media churn out now, as they have done for a decade or so on the news channels, what do you do when "consumers" don't read the "newsloggers" (or whatever you want to call them)?
How do you fire a reporter once he is on the governement dole and you now have a beaurocrat in charge of "paying" newsloggers or whatever?
Incestuous is the best word I can think of right now.
Use of the Internet should generally be remembered to be nonsecure and suspect.
Lots of people will forget, because they are tired, pushed, harangued, or pissed off at their boss or coworkers.
Trying to instill constant vigilant attitudes will be REAL tough.
Maybe Browser pop-ups reminding employees of the latest intrusion or hazard of the day is not so bad as a reminder. (Please no bricks) If I was to design a popup, it would be a one liner with a link for more info. and the popup would disappear after 5 seconds on its own.
"A single Envion unit is capable of processing up to 10,000 tons of plastic waste annually, producing three to five barrels of refined petroleum product per ton of plastic waste."
Gasoline weighs about 6 lb/gallon x 55 gallons = lb/barrel 3 Barrels weighs about 990 lbs 5 barrels weighs about 1650 lbs = 82% recovery
My guess is 82% recovery will be rare.
Recovering OVER 100% by weight in "hydrocarbon oil" per ton of plastic makes me believe the hype machine is running.
This is not surprising as I've read about it several years back with respect to Coronal Mass Ejections.
Congress has not funded the grid, airport traffic control systems, social security, medicaid, the 50% of dams that are in need of major repair, replacement or tear down, and don't forget chemical & nuclear waste removal-disposal, let alone securing borders.
But going after the CIA for breaking fingers is so important for Congress.
Start learning and planning, even if rough on "the money". Call SCORE from the phone book. They have an inexpensive CD on preparing a business plan. Taylor it to your field.
Start talking to people. People in tech companies, VCs, management groups, banks, attorneys who handle mergers and aquisitions, professional groups that meet on tech subjects. Find people who are interested, knowledgable and willing to offer advice or a reference to another person or company. A month of serious contacts will turn up amazing people, and links to other people.
The numbers part of any plan are where investors and managers are most interested to judge whether a "product" can return income to pay for their involvement. VC's generally know that they have to fund 6-10 companies to get one that returns enough to pay for the other 5-9 that don't make it. In spite of their years in the "business" they will likely admit they can predict which of the 10 will be a big deal, and thus they can't really tell if yours will be "BIG" or "not".
It takes a lot of connections. Move on them with data, diagrams, and an analysis of the existing products both commercial and freeware.
3rd party apps for $20-30 or so will download a list of 100 patents as fast as your Internet connection can take the feed. That makes the USPTO still a fairly good choice.
It has been my experience that in any "invention" there are a few subclasses where all of the relevant prior art is located that I want and usually only 1-2 dozen patents at most are directly related to what I do. Hence, I can quickly find what is "out there" (and in the patent applications, too).
That quick search at least starts to teach a person what he is up against.
The original question of what to do about patent infringement claims is the easiest part to answer: Give your patent attorney (1) an open checkbook, (2) negotiate a "deal or cross license" or (3) fold. With lots of time and resources maybe you can design your way around the prior art patent. Those are the options.
Slashdot Mirror
Break up Sony into units that MUST cater to customers and MUST innovate & MUST beat the competition (as opposed to matching the Zune).
MS has primarily been a software company as far as PCs go. Users wind up buying primarily a hardware system, that typically has MS on it.
MS winds up being limited by the innovation of its "partners". Apple has profited from being vertically integrated making both hardware & software.
Warren Buffett once said in an answer to a reporter's question, that he wouldn't invest in MS because he couldn't see the long term investment strategy of basing a business on PC software. That seems to be an indication of a conundrum for MS.
Question: Does Ballmer have a strategy to break out of the partner limitations?
As software and programming become more routine, will Dell, HP, Sony, Toshiba and others finally pick open source?
I don't know, but The Markets will tell us.
Really? End of subject.
Makes for wasteful governments. I am sure IBM or EDS could have quoted a system to take care of employee based on existing code and systems they had refined over decades.
That is why they should do the least and let private businesses compete for tasks.
It is sad that politicians and some in the public think government is THE answer.
"What will happen if the company that owns the patent asserts it?"
Easy answer. Negotiations will start.
Patent lawyers will sit down and debate the issues.
They will either agree and buy or license the patent or litigate and then win or pay a license fee.
Happens all the time.
I've listened to the person in charge of archiving at the Library of Congress who handles such things, as do many other libraries. They have developed a lot of techniques for handling and dealing with large items, including restoration. I'll bet the British Museum has a similar map department.
My bet is they have information on this at their website.
What happens when HAL says "I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do this."
Opinions on verifying code as a means to tell whether a Toyota will have 'sudden acceleration' above are UTTERLY, well, let us say, ill thought out in my opinion, in most cases. Code is only ONE part of an almost hopelessly complex system when ALL THE POSSIBLE VARIABLES are analyzed.
Failure analysis may start with code, but these systems then can encounter intermittent connections, power surges, static generated by multiple known and unknown items (including the rare intermittent connections), induced currents in parallel wires, temperature induced changes, faulty seals & water/condensation intrusion, etc. By the time an accident investigator looks at a vehicle that had a problem, the transients are long gone.
Intermittent Mechanical (& thus often electrical) changes & failures are an absolute bane of complex systems.
In my opinion, the only way you can find these rare transient problems is to find vehicles who have been reported to have these problems (& didn't crash) and then you load them up with data loggers and drive the hell out of them in all sorts of environments.
Personally, I really like a 1972 Blazer...with a manual transmission. Minimal plastic, no electronics beyond the turn signal module, fix it myself and I can start it with a bit of a downhill run. Yup, I drive my Highlander, but I'm thinking of putting a 72 Blazer back in as new shape.
Managers at less than optimally run companies are too busy putting out brush fires or "doing golf".
Anyone in his right mind would figure a way to eventually migrate out of a Windows platform by one method or another JUST TO STAY marginally more safe in the Internet Security arena.
Moving to MacOS X give the opportunity to do work in MacOSX whenever possible and only revert to Windows as needed. What a gift.
Been using both Windows and Mac together for over a decade, since Win 3.11 (if I remember). It just is not that much different to get used to one OS or another or BOTH.
JUST DO IT!
One significant figure?
Eventually wins out in spite of competitive statements and advertising.
If it does NOT work, then the excuses start.
For God's sake and all of our digital information, it is time for a revolution.
IE has failed so many times with so many bad consequences it is time to simply outlaw the use of IE.
How many car crashes due to any number of causes before they yank ALL those car models and force the manufacturer to replace the brakes.
Get rid of MS Internet Explorer, once & for ALL. If Microsoft were an honest company they would have stopped IE and started including FireFox a long time ago. At least then, everyone can examine code and offer patches.
iPhone w/ATT: My opinion hands down: Listened to an audio professional this morning note he specifically queried 100 iPhone owners over the last year, and not one was unhappy. The exception is a friend who works in a hospital and ATT doesn't have coverage in that hospital area (Kent near Providence). Cell Card/Verizon: My opinion: Always works (which ATT did not).
Saab of all the auto companies out there should have stayed small and survived & could have done so. They had concepts that suited their market and kept advancing. My guess is someone will buy the brand name, model rights and maybe a facility or two and try to keep it alive by sharing more components with other auto component parts and auto makers. You can buy engine and drive train parts, instead of making them, thus keeping up with the big guys. But the profitability of small volume mfgr as a business is REALLY TOUGH. In the late 1990s I recall auto analysts saying there was twice as much auto production capacity as their were buyers. Something has to give and now the closures are starting. The train wreck has been a long time coming. The overall interference by the governmental entities that push large auto companies in their design, fuels, safety, unions and other choices has resulted in the mess today where it should have been GM that was sold off for parts, except for the politics. In the late 1990s I recall auto analysts saying there was twice as much auto production capacity as their were buyers. Something has to give and now the closures are starting. Rather than our government improving the business conditions so our US auto companies could continue to compete on the global markets, it is easily seen that the state and federal governments hindered auto companies in so many ways. That includes pressure to roll over to union demands. I really don't give GM a chance of surviving long term, because of the innefficiencies in place. The U.S. did NOT get to be a great country by having Presidents & Congress, inexperienced in business, telling companies what they have to do, resulting in inefficient business conditions for the companies within their borders, who then can't compete in the global market that the politicians themselves push as desirable for export conditions and hopefully increased employment. It is just sick. It is a tax on us all to support these "to big to fail" companies merely because senators, congressmen and the President want votes.
Hmm, let see.
Consumer wants info on "The XYZ Co" and hits Google, Yahoo, Bing.
Content Providers want to push their advertisers so they get income,... so
Content Providers seek as many consumer eyes as possible,...while
Murdock figures out how to crash the eyes visiting his websites.
God, he must secretly want to retire.
If end consumers continue to buy less and less of the crap that print media churn out now, as they have done for a decade or so on the news channels, what do you do when "consumers" don't read the "newsloggers" (or whatever you want to call them)?
How do you fire a reporter once he is on the governement dole and you now have a beaurocrat in charge of "paying" newsloggers or whatever?
Incestuous is the best word I can think of right now.
Have one ready.
Use it.
Move.
Lets see, Apple has top to bottom control, OS, Developer Tools, Software, multiple lines of hardware, services.
Microsoft has OS, Dev Tools, Software and ...........no iPod, iPhone, Accessories, Laptop or Desktop hardware worth speaking of at the moment.
Now just what is Microsoft going to be selling? $300 boxes of Win7 while Amazon sells for less?
Once the experiment is over where do the "Genius'" work?
"When you get rid of the real experts, who is going to figure out the new stuff?""
A big employment issue IBM & companies in general have is finding new employees who might become super creative and innovative.
Multiple choice employment forms and interviews only give clues.
or at least mind-numbing forgetfulness.
Use of the Internet should generally be remembered to be nonsecure and suspect.
Lots of people will forget, because they are tired, pushed, harangued, or pissed off at their boss or coworkers.
Trying to instill constant vigilant attitudes will be REAL tough.
Maybe Browser pop-ups reminding employees of the latest intrusion or hazard of the day is not so bad as a reminder. (Please no bricks) If I was to design a popup, it would be a one liner with a link for more info. and the popup would disappear after 5 seconds on its own.
I typed too fast on my prior reply.
The last line should have been...
If they claimed recovering over 100% by weight in "hydrocarbon oil" per ton of plastic it would make me believe the hype machine was running.
"A single Envion unit is capable of processing up to 10,000 tons of plastic waste annually, producing three to five barrels of refined petroleum product per ton of plastic waste."
Gasoline weighs about 6 lb/gallon x 55 gallons = lb/barrel
3 Barrels weighs about 990 lbs
5 barrels weighs about 1650 lbs = 82% recovery
My guess is 82% recovery will be rare.
Recovering OVER 100% by weight in "hydrocarbon oil" per ton of plastic makes me believe the hype machine is running.
This is not surprising as I've read about it several years back with respect to Coronal Mass Ejections.
Congress has not funded the grid, airport traffic control systems, social security, medicaid, the 50% of dams that are in need of major repair, replacement or tear down, and don't forget chemical & nuclear waste removal-disposal, let alone securing borders.
But going after the CIA for breaking fingers is so important for Congress.
Vote them ALL out of office.
Start learning and planning, even if rough on "the money". Call SCORE from the phone book. They have an inexpensive CD on preparing a business plan. Taylor it to your field.
Start talking to people. People in tech companies, VCs, management groups, banks, attorneys who handle mergers and aquisitions, professional groups that meet on tech subjects. Find people who are interested, knowledgable and willing to offer advice or a reference to another person or company. A month of serious contacts will turn up amazing people, and links to other people.
The numbers part of any plan are where investors and managers are most interested to judge whether a "product" can return income to pay for their involvement. VC's generally know that they have to fund 6-10 companies to get one that returns enough to pay for the other 5-9 that don't make it. In spite of their years in the "business" they will likely admit they can predict which of the 10 will be a big deal, and thus they can't really tell if yours will be "BIG" or "not".
It takes a lot of connections. Move on them with data, diagrams, and an analysis of the existing products both commercial and freeware.
Lots of good comments.
3rd party apps for $20-30 or so will download a list of 100 patents as fast as your Internet connection can take the feed. That makes the USPTO still a fairly good choice.
It has been my experience that in any "invention" there are a few subclasses where all of the relevant prior art is located that I want and usually only 1-2 dozen patents at most are directly related to what I do. Hence, I can quickly find what is "out there" (and in the patent applications, too).
That quick search at least starts to teach a person what he is up against.
The original question of what to do about patent infringement claims is the easiest part to answer: Give your patent attorney (1) an open checkbook, (2) negotiate a "deal or cross license" or (3) fold. With lots of time and resources maybe you can design your way around the prior art patent. Those are the options.