There's no guarantee that splitting the company will produce what you want. IMO the most likely scenario is that the Office company still continues to produce office just for Windows
As a stockholder of the Office corporation I could push the company to release an Office version for Linux. If the company didn't but enough other stockholders felt the same we could sue the company for dereliction of fiducial duty. Stockholder Activism is gaining ground in corporate governance.
Thanks. I've programmed on Windows PCs but not on Macs or Linux, other than some scripts about 10 years ago. As for what languages I'll use, because though it's been about 10 years since I have programmed with it, I'm more familiar with C/C++ so I'll start with it. I'd like to try out Pascal as well, and have downloaded Free Pascal, and maybe Smalltalk. Before I do though I'll see what needs to be done for software written in these languages to run in Linux.
Look, there can't be a competitive market while copyright and patent monopolies exist. Microsoft have been handed monopolies on a silver platter by the same government as are now bitching about their monopoly. Well, I'm not fan of microsoft, but microsoft have just been acting rationally given idiots are willing to give them 20-year monopolies over fundamental tech. If you want to do something substantive about microsoft, then denying them and everyone else patent and copyright monopolies is the one thing that's sure to correct the market.
If you look at old posts of mine you can see how I used to support both copyrights and patents, though NOT software patents, but then I came out as opposing patents. I have to admit now I don't know if patents are good or bad. There are good things as well as bad things about them. I still support copyrights though.
Once you decide you must have MS Office you're pretty much locked into a Windows environment. Sure, you COULD get an apple, but that never really made sense from a cost/benefit perspective. As long as the world speaks ".xls" ".doc" ".eml" ".ppt" etc., we'll be using Windows.
Not only does MS have an Office version for Macs but new Macs come with a 30 day trial version. Actually MS has used the Mac version of Office to experiment with, if something new didn't work right in the Mac version it wouldn't be in the Windows version. Though I haven't and won't use it, the MacBook Pro I got about 4 months ago has Office 2004. The suite includes, looking at the Office subfolder in the Applications folder, Entourage, Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
Well, the Mac is on TV, but it is most definitely _not_ an alternative. Jobs would have to let it be legally installable on whitebox hardware first. We're not just talking about letting Dell and HP make and sell Mac OS pre-installed boxes. Your local integrator has to be able to install it, without too many hurdles, and at a cost that leaves him some profit.
Apple won't allow OS X to be installed on beige box clones, at one tyme Apple did allow Mac clones but Apple lost more in lost hardware sales than they made in the sales of Mac OS licenses.. If the local integrator would make money then Apple would loose money. Apple isn't just a software company, Apple also makes and sales hardware. All to together Apple is a systems integrator, Apple just make things that work, the hardware and software work well together. And that totally ignores Microsoft. MS has already shown what it will do to those it views as competitors.
One relief I could think of that might not be unreasonable for a court to order when a company continues to behave like Microsoft. Strip them of all their patents and bar them from obtaining more patents until their market presence drops below 50%. (Trade one monopoly for another.)
What could be done to MS is to have it's Corporate Charter revoked. Corporations were originally granted charters if the corporation served the Public good. Once a corporation did not serve the public or common good it's charter could be revoked. The first corporate charter was granted to the Dutch East India Company in 1602 by the government in the Netherlands. Corporate charters allowed those who invested in the corporation to limit liability to just what they paid for for the stocks they owned.
I really hope you are not using docx as your standard file format. I don't think any open source project has good fidelity in that format as of yet.
Personally no I don't use docx. The only tyme I even use.doc basically is when a file on the net is in that format. I don't recall opening a.docx document but when I've opened.doc docs I haven't had a problem.
What they're talking about is viable alternatives for the government department with thousands of documents, dozens of databases and systems which interact with each other and the outside world which have been built up over the course of many years.
That's what you get when you don't use standards anyone is free to implement. By using open standards no document would become inaccessible no matter how old it is. As for databases btw there are a bunch of DBMS systems from different companies or other sources in use, and they can't read all the other databases. The only way to make sure anything can read, write, or otherwise use documents of whatever type is by using open standards. The net and web basically made proprietary networks, such as AOL, CompuServe, Genie, and others obsolete. Open web standards and the wide availability of the net made them anarchistic.
Yes, there are alternatives. But the sheer quantity of work involved in rolling them out is immense.
No more immense than any other upgrade. The same thing has be done when upgrading to a new Office version. Mean while when someone who doesn't have the latest version they won't be able to read or modify a doc created in the new version. With Office MS has created a massive lockin.
the fact that a comparable PC costs the same is meaningless if I can get a 200$ discount by leaving that stuff out. I use that stuff regularly(at least every week besides the apple tv) so when I got a mac, I thought it was a good deal(this is outside of the constant hardware issues I've had along with shoddy construction of the notebook case which has greatly lowered my view of macs at this point). But I can easily see someone wanting the same power notebook for whatever use without those frills and will happily take the 200$ discount.
You bring up, if indirectly, a problem I have with Apple. Apple doesn't have a good range of Macs. Forgetting a full tower, more than a year ago I bought a tower PC with Linux preinstalled for $250, there's no mini-tower Mac. As for hardware problems, you have some with your Mac? I'm typing this on my 3rd Mac, a MacBook pro, I got in August so I haven't had it long. However the first Mac I got I bought used in 1992, it was a pre 1989 SE30. The only hardware trouble I had with it was when the floppy drive died in 2000. My second Mac's a Power Mac 7300/200 I bought used in 2000. It lasted without hardware problems until January 2006.
The PCs I've bought though are totally different. In December 1997 I bought 2 new PCs, a laptop from Gateway and a tower from Microway. A few months after I got the laptop the hdd had to be replaced. Then about a week before I had it a year the motherboard also failed and had to be replaced. Then in 2000 I bought a new HP PC and the same thing happened, I had to replace the hdd and the motherboard in the first year. I won't even mention all the problems I had with Windows other than to say I had to reinstall it a number of tymes. So though it's only anecdotal or personal experience I have had used Macs last longer than new PCs, much longer. Oh, I didn't mention the Microway PC. Depending on how you look at it, it has either been the most troublesome, or the least troublesome PC I've owned. Troublesome because it's CPU is a DEC Alpha and I wasn't able to install many programs on it. Least troublesome because I never had any hardware failures and I never had trouble with the OS, Windows NT4. Now I may of had some trouble, though I don't know, if I had been able to use it more than I did.
As for the shoddy laptop case, I totally agree. Other than the keyboard the only thing I don't like about the MBP is the plastic case. Oh, I also just realized, my poor memory, I sometimes have trouble with it not turning off the display when closed and not coming back on when reopened occasionally, however I can just take it to an Apple store and have them look at it. Still I like it more than the PCs I've had.
And you still haven't explained why if Vista is so horrible people haven't moved to Linux,
There's one "good" reason people haven't switched to Linux, most people do not install an OS. If more PCs came with Linux preinstalled and stores stocked them more people would buy Linux PCs. But even if people did install an OS most PCs come with Windows preinstalled. Windows is already paid for, but if the user wants to install Linux and not run Windows then they have to go through the hassle of getting a refund from the OEM. And some people have had to sue the OEM to get the refund.
I think the regulators must force Microsoft to open source Windows 2000 and Office 2000 - the entire source code. Anyone should be free to modify Win2K and O2K and make a good desktop OS that needs just 128MB RAM to run - without breaking every known hardware and software - like Vista does.
While I believe the settlement was barely even a slap on the wrist I disagree with forcing the code to Windows or Office, any version of either, to be open sourced. Instead what I would of seen was MS to have been broken up into at least 2 perhaps 3 different companies. One business would be the Windows business. Then in the case of 2 businesses the second would be everything else but if 3 then the second would be software and the 3rd everything else. The OS business may of had dwindled but the Software business could have grown. It could have sold more software for other OSes, Office for Linux for instance. If there had been an Office for Linux then maybe Open Office wouldn't have taken off, or maybe it would have taken longer. I cold see the individual businesses being bigger than the whole, as with ATT. Heck, one of the baby bells bought the mother bell business.
especially the British East India Company, Microsoft is an amateur.
However whereas Microsoft has no substantial competition in it strongholds of OSes and office suites, the "British" Honourable East India Company had competition. The Dutch East India Company, the first corporation to issue stocks to the public, offered the British company competition.
the price tag has always put me off of looking any further at a Mac.
Today's prices for Macs are comparable to the prices of Windows PCs. While some Mac configurations cost more than comparable PCs, some cost less. The real problem with Macs is that unless a $2500 Mac Pro is bought Macs aren't particularly configurable. Only the Pro can be opened up to replace or add another graphics cards or a second hdd easily, or any number of other things.
Problem is, most folks have never even heard of Linux as a viable alternative.
This is oh so true. But as more PCs come with Linux preinstalled people will hear of it.
unless it generates a good revenue stream I don't really plan to do much support
bingo
Ah but I wouldn't be in the business of programming, I'd be in the business of photography. If instead I wanted to be a programmer and run a software business instead of wanting to be a photographer then I would expect to support the software I sold.
ms has only a nonvoting portion of the stock. of course, this stock is worth several hundred million...
I heard about MS buying the non-voting Apple stock when it was announced in 1997, but after reading your post I was wondering what happened to the stock so I Googled and found this From Apple's 2003 SEC filing::
"In August 1997, the Company and Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) entered into patent cross license and technology agreements. In addition, Microsoft purchased 150,000 shares of Apple Series A nonvoting convertible preferred stock ("preferred stock") for $150 million. These shares were convertible by Microsoft after August 5, 2000, into shares of the Company's common stock at a conversion price of $8.25 per share. During 2000, 74,250 shares of preferred stock were converted to 9 million shares of the Company's common stock. During 2001, the remaining 75,750 preferred shares were converted into 9.2 million shares of the Company's common stock."
Because it's cheaper to develop a software package for one or two OSes at most rather than support a tiny but growing number of alternative OS users.
This is something I don't understand, maybe a reader can help, but it seems to me that once software is created for one OS it shouldn't take much more effort to port the software to other OSes, the creation part being the hardest. This is especially true when you think about software constantly being updated or upgraded, even for new Windows OSes. RSN, well early next year anyway, I hope to start working as pro photographer. For it I want to program some apps I can use. I'll program them on my Mac but I also want port them to the unices such as BSD and Linux as well as to Windows. I figure that if I can port the software to these other OSes I could create another possible revenue source by selling them to others. Maybe it's the cost of support, I don't know. However unless it generates a good revenue stream I don't really plan to do much support, afterall the primary reason to write the programs would be to simplify and make it easier to work as a photographer.
We won't know that there is competition in the marketplace until another monopoly has replaced Microsoft's monopoly.
We will know there's competition when we have choices as to what apps, OSes, and other software we use and still be able to create, view, and share documents whether word processing docs, spread sheets, or webpages.
The thing is is there are viable alternatives however MS lobbyist keep using FUD to scare states from using these, including open source, alternatives. I'm typing this in Firefox running in Tiger, no I didn't upgrade to Leopard even though I have the dvd, on a MacBook Pro. For my office suite I use NeoOffice, the Mac centric version of Open Office. With it I can open and save documents in MS Office 2007's.docx format.
You do realize you made absolutely no point whatsoever, don't you? I mean, it's not even worth taking apart.
My point was that the Iroquois Confederacy gave inspiration to the USA's Founding Fathers as to the form of government the USA would have, I however am wondering what your point was.
I don't know which is worse -- your argument, or your lack of critical thinking skills in defending yourself
That's easy, it's your argument, or lack thereof, that's worse. As you provide no evidence to support your position, only innuendo, it seems all you can do is troll.
And I was wondering if they'd checked European DNA from the "old" races, like the "little dark people" of the British Isles, who predate the Celts. You might still find some in Wales, I dunno.
I don't recall ever hearing about "little dark people" before, so I Googled "little dark people" "british isles". Then I replaced "british isles" with wales, when I did I came across The Manx People and their Origins about the Manx on the Isle of Man. As I'm interested I'll have to go through the results. Thanks.
Most connections are a lot faster at downloading than uploading.
It's my understanding, which may be wrong, that net speeds are asymmetric with download speeds being faster because when the web became open to the populace most people downloaded a lot more than they uploaded. Most uploading was done by browsers requesting connections to websites, sending email, and posting in newsgroups. Many people didn't even create and post their own websites, now however even children post websites, or at least webpages, on social networking websites. Dialup connections being slow, this was fine but with broadband available more people are uploading as well as downloading. Heck my niece, who's almost 4 years old, have her own website registered in her own name. Of course it's her parents who actually create, upload, and maintain it.
Fact is though is that connection speeds can boosted quite a lot if the FCC got out of the way and the cablecos and telcos either build out broadband they have already been paid to build out or got out of the way of others building out the infrastructure. One region in the US is working on an infrastructure that could offer speeds of 100Mbs. In Northeastern Utah a group of cities and communities have joined together to create a Broadband Utopia. While it's being build by the local governments that's all they are doing basically. They allow any entity, whether a business or not, to sale services it is capable of delivering whether it be net access, cable tv, or phone service. As of April 2006 "users can get 8-15Mbps symmetrical fiber for $35-$45 dollars through AT&T or providers like MStar." Because of the competition Comcast was forced to offer "broadband, digital cable, and VoIP service for $90 a month".
So speeds are not so much a limiting factor anymore as the lack of competition is the limiting factor.
That is not an oxymoron, a "truthful lie" is an oxymoron.
It isn't as big of a problem as you want to make it. It isn't the end of life as we know it.
I don't know if I'm unlike you or not but I don't want to create problems, or make them worse, that future generations will have to deal with. If anything I want the world to be a better place for future generations. Much as the Iroquois Confederacy did, I believe in seeing what effects my actions will have on the Seventh Generation and not create problems for them.
Some obscure European political theorist writing about how he admires the Iroquois does not an invention make.
I only provided a starting point, and didn;t do all the research for you. But since you won't follow through with it Benjamen Franklin, a signer of the Declaration Of Independence, and Thomas Jefferson the writer of the DOI also studied and used the Iroquois Conferacy as a basis for the Constitution of the USA:
"The Six Nations:"
"Oldest Living Participatory Democracy on Earth"
The people of the Six Nations, also known by the French term, Iroquois [1] Confederacy, call themselves the Hau de no sau nee (ho dee noe sho nee) meaning People Building a Long House. Located in the northeastern region of North America, originally the Six Nations was five and included the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. The sixth nation, the Tuscaroras, migrated into Iroquois country in the early eighteenth century. Together these peoples comprise the oldest living participatory democracy on earth. Their story, and governance truly based on the consent of the governed, contains a great deal of life-promoting intelligence for those of us not familiar with this area of American history. The original United States representative democracy, fashioned by such central authors as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, drew much inspiration from this confederacy of nations."
"Although hotly debated, it is a historical fact that a number of founding fathers had direct contact with the Iroquois and prominent figures such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were closely involved with their stronger and larger native neighbor, the Iroquois."
"During the era, Benjamin Franklin published twenty-six treaty accounts and represented the state of Pennsylvania as an Indian commissioner. In the pre-Revolutionary period, when he and his friends were advocating a federal union of the colonies, no European model was found to be suitable. Franklin's contact with the Iroquois influenced many key ideas for a new form of government =96 federalism, equality, natural rights, freedom of religion, property rights, etc. At the 1744 treaty council, by Franklin's account, Canassatego, speaker for the great council at Onondaga, recommended that the colonies form a union in common defense under a federal government: 'We are a powerful Confederacy, and by your observing the same methods our wise forefathers have taken, you will acquire much strength and power; therefore, whatever befalls you, do not fall out with one another.'" ...
"Those who recognized the wisdom and long history of the Iroquois government did not consider the Indians as mere "savages." Like the Iroquois, Thomas Jefferson believed that public opinion and popular consent were key in maintaining freedom and good government. He held that the power of public opinion was an important reason for the Iroquois ' lack of oppressive government and class differences, and for the power to impeach officials who offended governing principles. Like the Iroquois, he also believed that the best government is the least government."
"John Adams and Thomas Jefferson have left us some additional evidence that the Iroquois and the Iroquois ideals of government may have influenced them. Johansen asserts that Adams, in his book Defence of the Constitution of the United States, discusses the 'fifty families of the Iroquois' as a model for the Americans to follow. (Johansen 1998:75) Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the quintessential libertarian in American history, wrote admiringly to John Rutledge during the Constitutional Convention 'The only condition on earth to be compared with
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I thought I remembered that Microsoft had then sold almost all its Apple stock?
When I came across the SEC filing I was looking to see if MS had sold or kept the Apple stock, but I didn't find out.
FalconThere's no guarantee that splitting the company will produce what you want. IMO the most likely scenario is that the Office company still continues to produce office just for Windows
As a stockholder of the Office corporation I could push the company to release an Office version for Linux. If the company didn't but enough other stockholders felt the same we could sue the company for dereliction of fiducial duty. Stockholder Activism is gaining ground in corporate governance.
FalconThanks. I've programmed on Windows PCs but not on Macs or Linux, other than some scripts about 10 years ago. As for what languages I'll use, because though it's been about 10 years since I have programmed with it, I'm more familiar with C/C++ so I'll start with it. I'd like to try out Pascal as well, and have downloaded Free Pascal, and maybe Smalltalk. Before I do though I'll see what needs to be done for software written in these languages to run in Linux.
FalconLook, there can't be a competitive market while copyright and patent monopolies exist. Microsoft have been handed monopolies on a silver platter by the same government as are now bitching about their monopoly. Well, I'm not fan of microsoft, but microsoft have just been acting rationally given idiots are willing to give them 20-year monopolies over fundamental tech. If you want to do something substantive about microsoft, then denying them and everyone else patent and copyright monopolies is the one thing that's sure to correct the market.
If you look at old posts of mine you can see how I used to support both copyrights and patents, though NOT software patents, but then I came out as opposing patents. I have to admit now I don't know if patents are good or bad. There are good things as well as bad things about them. I still support copyrights though.
Once you decide you must have MS Office you're pretty much locked into a Windows environment. Sure, you COULD get an apple, but that never really made sense from a cost/benefit perspective. As long as the world speaks ".xls" ".doc" ".eml" ".ppt" etc., we'll be using Windows.
Not only does MS have an Office version for Macs but new Macs come with a 30 day trial version. Actually MS has used the Mac version of Office to experiment with, if something new didn't work right in the Mac version it wouldn't be in the Windows version. Though I haven't and won't use it, the MacBook Pro I got about 4 months ago has Office 2004. The suite includes, looking at the Office subfolder in the Applications folder, Entourage, Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
FalconWell, the Mac is on TV, but it is most definitely _not_ an alternative. Jobs would have to let it be legally installable on whitebox hardware first. We're not just talking about letting Dell and HP make and sell Mac OS pre-installed boxes. Your local integrator has to be able to install it, without too many hurdles, and at a cost that leaves him some profit.
Apple won't allow OS X to be installed on beige box clones, at one tyme Apple did allow Mac clones but Apple lost more in lost hardware sales than they made in the sales of Mac OS licenses.. If the local integrator would make money then Apple would loose money. Apple isn't just a software company, Apple also makes and sales hardware. All to together Apple is a systems integrator, Apple just make things that work, the hardware and software work well together. And that totally ignores Microsoft. MS has already shown what it will do to those it views as competitors.
One relief I could think of that might not be unreasonable for a court to order when a company continues to behave like Microsoft. Strip them of all their patents and bar them from obtaining more patents until their market presence drops below 50%. (Trade one monopoly for another.)
What could be done to MS is to have it's Corporate Charter revoked. Corporations were originally granted charters if the corporation served the Public good. Once a corporation did not serve the public or common good it's charter could be revoked. The first corporate charter was granted to the Dutch East India Company in 1602 by the government in the Netherlands. Corporate charters allowed those who invested in the corporation to limit liability to just what they paid for for the stocks they owned.
FalconI really hope you are not using docx as your standard file format. I don't think any open source project has good fidelity in that format as of yet.
Personally no I don't use docx. The only tyme I even use .doc basically is when a file on the net is in that format. I don't recall opening a .docx document but when I've opened .doc docs I haven't had a problem.
FalconWhat they're talking about is viable alternatives for the government department with thousands of documents, dozens of databases and systems which interact with each other and the outside world which have been built up over the course of many years.
That's what you get when you don't use standards anyone is free to implement. By using open standards no document would become inaccessible no matter how old it is. As for databases btw there are a bunch of DBMS systems from different companies or other sources in use, and they can't read all the other databases. The only way to make sure anything can read, write, or otherwise use documents of whatever type is by using open standards. The net and web basically made proprietary networks, such as AOL, CompuServe, Genie, and others obsolete. Open web standards and the wide availability of the net made them anarchistic.
Yes, there are alternatives. But the sheer quantity of work involved in rolling them out is immense.
No more immense than any other upgrade. The same thing has be done when upgrading to a new Office version. Mean while when someone who doesn't have the latest version they won't be able to read or modify a doc created in the new version. With Office MS has created a massive lockin.
Falconthe fact that a comparable PC costs the same is meaningless if I can get a 200$ discount by leaving that stuff out. I use that stuff regularly(at least every week besides the apple tv) so when I got a mac, I thought it was a good deal(this is outside of the constant hardware issues I've had along with shoddy construction of the notebook case which has greatly lowered my view of macs at this point). But I can easily see someone wanting the same power notebook for whatever use without those frills and will happily take the 200$ discount.
You bring up, if indirectly, a problem I have with Apple. Apple doesn't have a good range of Macs. Forgetting a full tower, more than a year ago I bought a tower PC with Linux preinstalled for $250, there's no mini-tower Mac. As for hardware problems, you have some with your Mac? I'm typing this on my 3rd Mac, a MacBook pro, I got in August so I haven't had it long. However the first Mac I got I bought used in 1992, it was a pre 1989 SE30. The only hardware trouble I had with it was when the floppy drive died in 2000. My second Mac's a Power Mac 7300/200 I bought used in 2000. It lasted without hardware problems until January 2006.
The PCs I've bought though are totally different. In December 1997 I bought 2 new PCs, a laptop from Gateway and a tower from Microway. A few months after I got the laptop the hdd had to be replaced. Then about a week before I had it a year the motherboard also failed and had to be replaced. Then in 2000 I bought a new HP PC and the same thing happened, I had to replace the hdd and the motherboard in the first year. I won't even mention all the problems I had with Windows other than to say I had to reinstall it a number of tymes. So though it's only anecdotal or personal experience I have had used Macs last longer than new PCs, much longer. Oh, I didn't mention the Microway PC. Depending on how you look at it, it has either been the most troublesome, or the least troublesome PC I've owned. Troublesome because it's CPU is a DEC Alpha and I wasn't able to install many programs on it. Least troublesome because I never had any hardware failures and I never had trouble with the OS, Windows NT4. Now I may of had some trouble, though I don't know, if I had been able to use it more than I did.
As for the shoddy laptop case, I totally agree. Other than the keyboard the only thing I don't like about the MBP is the plastic case. Oh, I also just realized, my poor memory, I sometimes have trouble with it not turning off the display when closed and not coming back on when reopened occasionally, however I can just take it to an Apple store and have them look at it. Still I like it more than the PCs I've had.
And you still haven't explained why if Vista is so horrible people haven't moved to Linux,
There's one "good" reason people haven't switched to Linux, most people do not install an OS. If more PCs came with Linux preinstalled and stores stocked them more people would buy Linux PCs. But even if people did install an OS most PCs come with Windows preinstalled. Windows is already paid for, but if the user wants to install Linux and not run Windows then they have to go through the hassle of getting a refund from the OEM. And some people have had to sue the OEM to get the refund.
FalconThirdly, this sentence:
the normal (and good) response occurred being that they lost money.
Makes no damned sense.
The rational market response when something is bad is it will fail in the market, or that a superior product or service will win in the market.
FalconI think the regulators must force Microsoft to open source Windows 2000 and Office 2000 - the entire source code. Anyone should be free to modify Win2K and O2K and make a good desktop OS that needs just 128MB RAM to run - without breaking every known hardware and software - like Vista does.
While I believe the settlement was barely even a slap on the wrist I disagree with forcing the code to Windows or Office, any version of either, to be open sourced. Instead what I would of seen was MS to have been broken up into at least 2 perhaps 3 different companies. One business would be the Windows business. Then in the case of 2 businesses the second would be everything else but if 3 then the second would be software and the 3rd everything else. The OS business may of had dwindled but the Software business could have grown. It could have sold more software for other OSes, Office for Linux for instance. If there had been an Office for Linux then maybe Open Office wouldn't have taken off, or maybe it would have taken longer. I cold see the individual businesses being bigger than the whole, as with ATT. Heck, one of the baby bells bought the mother bell business.
Falconespecially the British East India Company, Microsoft is an amateur.
However whereas Microsoft has no substantial competition in it strongholds of OSes and office suites, the "British" Honourable East India Company had competition. The Dutch East India Company, the first corporation to issue stocks to the public, offered the British company competition.
Falconthe price tag has always put me off of looking any further at a Mac.
Today's prices for Macs are comparable to the prices of Windows PCs. While some Mac configurations cost more than comparable PCs, some cost less. The real problem with Macs is that unless a $2500 Mac Pro is bought Macs aren't particularly configurable. Only the Pro can be opened up to replace or add another graphics cards or a second hdd easily, or any number of other things.
Problem is, most folks have never even heard of Linux as a viable alternative.
This is oh so true. But as more PCs come with Linux preinstalled people will hear of it.
Falconunless it generates a good revenue stream I don't really plan to do much support
bingo
Ah but I wouldn't be in the business of programming, I'd be in the business of photography. If instead I wanted to be a programmer and run a software business instead of wanting to be a photographer then I would expect to support the software I sold.
Falconms has only a nonvoting portion of the stock. of course, this stock is worth several hundred million...
I heard about MS buying the non-voting Apple stock when it was announced in 1997, but after reading your post I was wondering what happened to the stock so I Googled and found this From Apple's 2003 SEC filing::
"In August 1997, the Company and Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) entered into patent cross license and technology agreements. In addition, Microsoft purchased 150,000 shares of Apple Series A nonvoting convertible preferred stock ("preferred stock") for $150 million. These shares were convertible by Microsoft after August 5, 2000, into shares of the Company's common stock at a conversion price of $8.25 per share. During 2000, 74,250 shares of preferred stock were converted to 9 million shares of the Company's common stock. During 2001, the remaining 75,750 preferred shares were converted into 9.2 million shares of the Company's common stock."
FalconBecause it's cheaper to develop a software package for one or two OSes at most rather than support a tiny but growing number of alternative OS users.
This is something I don't understand, maybe a reader can help, but it seems to me that once software is created for one OS it shouldn't take much more effort to port the software to other OSes, the creation part being the hardest. This is especially true when you think about software constantly being updated or upgraded, even for new Windows OSes. RSN, well early next year anyway, I hope to start working as pro photographer. For it I want to program some apps I can use. I'll program them on my Mac but I also want port them to the unices such as BSD and Linux as well as to Windows. I figure that if I can port the software to these other OSes I could create another possible revenue source by selling them to others. Maybe it's the cost of support, I don't know. However unless it generates a good revenue stream I don't really plan to do much support, afterall the primary reason to write the programs would be to simplify and make it easier to work as a photographer.
FalconWe won't know that there is competition in the marketplace until another monopoly has replaced Microsoft's monopoly.
We will know there's competition when we have choices as to what apps, OSes, and other software we use and still be able to create, view, and share documents whether word processing docs, spread sheets, or webpages.
FalconI get confused too much myself.
Falconthere are no viable alternatives.
The thing is is there are viable alternatives however MS lobbyist keep using FUD to scare states from using these, including open source, alternatives. I'm typing this in Firefox running in Tiger, no I didn't upgrade to Leopard even though I have the dvd, on a MacBook Pro. For my office suite I use NeoOffice, the Mac centric version of Open Office. With it I can open and save documents in MS Office 2007's .docx format.
FalconYou do realize you made absolutely no point whatsoever, don't you? I mean, it's not even worth taking apart.
My point was that the Iroquois Confederacy gave inspiration to the USA's Founding Fathers as to the form of government the USA would have, I however am wondering what your point was.
I don't know which is worse -- your argument, or your lack of critical thinking skills in defending yourself
That's easy, it's your argument, or lack thereof, that's worse. As you provide no evidence to support your position, only innuendo, it seems all you can do is troll.
FalconAnd I was wondering if they'd checked European DNA from the "old" races, like the "little dark people" of the British Isles, who predate the Celts. You might still find some in Wales, I dunno.
I don't recall ever hearing about "little dark people" before, so I Googled "little dark people" "british isles". Then I replaced "british isles" with wales, when I did I came across The Manx People and their Origins about the Manx on the Isle of Man. As I'm interested I'll have to go through the results. Thanks.
FalconMost connections are a lot faster at downloading than uploading.
It's my understanding, which may be wrong, that net speeds are asymmetric with download speeds being faster because when the web became open to the populace most people downloaded a lot more than they uploaded. Most uploading was done by browsers requesting connections to websites, sending email, and posting in newsgroups. Many people didn't even create and post their own websites, now however even children post websites, or at least webpages, on social networking websites. Dialup connections being slow, this was fine but with broadband available more people are uploading as well as downloading. Heck my niece, who's almost 4 years old, have her own website registered in her own name. Of course it's her parents who actually create, upload, and maintain it.
Fact is though is that connection speeds can boosted quite a lot if the FCC got out of the way and the cablecos and telcos either build out broadband they have already been paid to build out or got out of the way of others building out the infrastructure. One region in the US is working on an infrastructure that could offer speeds of 100Mbs. In Northeastern Utah a group of cities and communities have joined together to create a Broadband Utopia. While it's being build by the local governments that's all they are doing basically. They allow any entity, whether a business or not, to sale services it is capable of delivering whether it be net access, cable tv, or phone service. As of April 2006 "users can get 8-15Mbps symmetrical fiber for $35-$45 dollars through AT&T or providers like MStar." Because of the competition Comcast was forced to offer "broadband, digital cable, and VoIP service for $90 a month".
So speeds are not so much a limiting factor anymore as the lack of competition is the limiting factor.
FalconThat's an Oxymoron.
That is not an oxymoron, a "truthful lie" is an oxymoron.
It isn't as big of a problem as you want to make it. It isn't the end of life as we know it.
I don't know if I'm unlike you or not but I don't want to create problems, or make them worse, that future generations will have to deal with. If anything I want the world to be a better place for future generations. Much as the Iroquois Confederacy did, I believe in seeing what effects my actions will have on the Seventh Generation and not create problems for them.
FalconSome obscure European political theorist writing about how he admires the Iroquois does not an invention make.
I only provided a starting point, and didn;t do all the research for you. But since you won't follow through with it Benjamen Franklin, a signer of the Declaration Of Independence, and Thomas Jefferson the writer of the DOI also studied and used the Iroquois Conferacy as a basis for the Constitution of the USA:
"The Six Nations:"
"Oldest Living Participatory Democracy on Earth"
The people of the Six Nations, also known by the French term, Iroquois [1] Confederacy, call themselves the Hau de no sau nee (ho dee noe sho nee) meaning People Building a Long House. Located in the northeastern region of North America, originally the Six Nations was five and included the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. The sixth nation, the Tuscaroras, migrated into Iroquois country in the early eighteenth century. Together these peoples comprise the oldest living participatory democracy on earth. Their story, and governance truly based on the consent of the governed, contains a great deal of life-promoting intelligence for those of us not familiar with this area of American history. The original United States representative democracy, fashioned by such central authors as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, drew much inspiration from this confederacy of nations."
"Although hotly debated, it is a historical fact that a number of founding fathers had direct contact with the Iroquois and prominent figures such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were closely involved with their stronger and larger native neighbor, the Iroquois."
"During the era, Benjamin Franklin published twenty-six treaty accounts and represented the state of Pennsylvania as an Indian commissioner. In the pre-Revolutionary period, when he and his friends were advocating a federal union of the colonies, no European model was found to be suitable. Franklin's contact with the Iroquois influenced many key ideas for a new form of government =96 federalism, equality, natural rights, freedom of religion, property rights, etc. At the 1744 treaty council, by Franklin's account, Canassatego, speaker for the great council at Onondaga, recommended that the colonies form a union in common defense under a federal government: 'We are a powerful Confederacy, and by your observing the same methods our wise forefathers have taken, you will acquire much strength and power; therefore, whatever befalls you, do not fall out with one another.'"
...
"Those who recognized the wisdom and long history of the Iroquois government did not consider the Indians as mere "savages." Like the Iroquois, Thomas Jefferson believed that public opinion and popular consent were key in maintaining freedom and good government. He held that the power of public opinion was an important reason for the Iroquois ' lack of oppressive government and class differences, and for the power to impeach officials who offended governing principles. Like the Iroquois, he also believed that the best government is the least government."
" John Adams and Thomas Jefferson have left us some additional evidence that the Iroquois and the Iroquois ideals of government may have influenced them. Johansen asserts that Adams, in his book Defence of the Constitution of the United States, discusses the 'fifty families of the Iroquois' as a model for the Americans to follow. (Johansen 1998:75) Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the quintessential libertarian in American history, wrote admiringly to John Rutledge during the Constitutional Convention 'The only condition on earth to be compared with