The "IT guys who came around and fixed it." Between the 30 second phone call, gathering the anti-virus programs,walking over, getting the program to run and clean the virus, I think the productivity is about 30 minutes to an hour. Now that is a best case scenario that only ONE person got infected. That is even a better case scenario if the server didn't get infected. What if this user lost all his word/excel documents which contained valuable data for the company? What is the value on this data in your opinion? Nothing? In my company just one aspect of our software is worth over $6 million. If that data got hosed (don't worry we have multiple backups at remote locations, but hypothetically) someone would be out of a job!
Why didn't the server get infected? Because someone spents many man hours and invested a lot of money in anti-virus software. Prevention also costs money.
50$ billion world wide revenue is not that hard of an estimation to shoot for.
Nice advert for your services, you forgot the URL;)
I work in a 100% NT4 desktop corp environment (our admins, our equipment) and we have around 40,000 users on various domains. We use Exchange and Outlook. Wanna know how many of these "deadly" worms we've had infect our systems in the last 3 years I've been working there? None
There's nothing inherently deadly about MS stuff in a corp environment as long as your admins and engineers are worth the money they're paid. Frankly I welcome hearing how much cash companies are supposedly losing with this - let it be a kick up the backside.:)
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Well your company has some high quality employees who are able to keep the system free and clear of viruses. That is basically gaurd duty - gaurd duty costs money. Money for the anti-virus software (both on workstations and servers) which costs tens of thousands. Cost of the network admins installing/maintaining these programs. Cost of network admins monitoring the emails for false virus captures, and then having to release the email back to the person. The list goes on.
So even if your company has never been infected by a virus, it does cost money to protect against these viruses. In a "nice" world where people did not create viruses a company would not have to supply all of these products/services, and that would save a company a lot of money!
-A
While at college my friend and I needed some extra cash and we created a website design company (stop laughing at me).
We utilized our personal computers (I created a server so we could share data easily). The server which was an old scsi box was donated to us (cost 0), but I am sure a group of techies could muster up an old computer to act as one (not that it is really needed, just more convenient).
Our advertising was limited to internet advertising (registering and getting a website hosted on yahoo which runs $9.00/month). Free online search engine registrations.
Acquiring paper supplies where we created flyers, & business cards ($30.00 which included extra ink for our hp color deskjet). Our most expensive cost was registering the company (as an LLC) for $500.00
All but one of our clients were from word of mouth.
Doing this venture, strictly part time (less then ten hours a week), we earned about 10k/year.
Not a lot of money to say the least, but for 10 hours a week of work, with very little advertising that is a good deal of money. Again this was a part-time "wouldn't it be nice to have some extra cash in the pocket" work.
Eventually we went from web designing to creating business cards, flyers, menus, etc for various clients.
I think it is possible for people to create something and even be able to work at a regular job. It requires working late hours (sometimes) - but that is a sacrifice.
The problem would-be startup companies have is that they want all the glitz and glamour up front. The nice city-view office, the $600.00 Aeron chairs, secretaries, etc. Start with what you got---we are software based - you need a home, computer, internet connection, electricity and a phone/fax line.
-A
I don't know, maybe it won't invent the cure for cancer, maybe it won't be able to decode the sequence and meanings of life - but just like a calculator, it will automate known procedures. This will, at the very least, increase the efficiency of what human scientists can do.
I agree, it is limited to what it has been programmed to do. The AI portion is probably not advanced enough to figure out extremly complex, unknown issues (and it probably doesn't get things like 'hunches.').
But considering that figuring out how yeast cells work is a lot more complex then a calculator, it is still an impressive piece of technology, that will (hopefully) help scientists out.
-Avi
Slashdot Mirror
Nobody ever said that the best product was the one to win the market share. (i.e. VHS vs Beta) -A
The "IT guys who came around and fixed it." Between the 30 second phone call, gathering the anti-virus programs,walking over, getting the program to run and clean the virus, I think the productivity is about 30 minutes to an hour. Now that is a best case scenario that only ONE person got infected. That is even a better case scenario if the server didn't get infected. What if this user lost all his word/excel documents which contained valuable data for the company? What is the value on this data in your opinion? Nothing? In my company just one aspect of our software is worth over $6 million. If that data got hosed (don't worry we have multiple backups at remote locations, but hypothetically) someone would be out of a job! Why didn't the server get infected? Because someone spents many man hours and invested a lot of money in anti-virus software. Prevention also costs money. 50$ billion world wide revenue is not that hard of an estimation to shoot for.
Nice advert for your services, you forgot the URL ;)
I work in a 100% NT4 desktop corp environment (our admins, our equipment) and we have around 40,000 users on various domains. We use Exchange and Outlook. Wanna know how many of these "deadly" worms we've had infect our systems in the last 3 years I've been working there? None
There's nothing inherently deadly about MS stuff in a corp environment as long as your admins and engineers are worth the money they're paid. Frankly I welcome hearing how much cash companies are supposedly losing with this - let it be a kick up the backside. :)
--------------
Well your company has some high quality employees who are able to keep the system free and clear of viruses. That is basically gaurd duty - gaurd duty costs money. Money for the anti-virus software (both on workstations and servers) which costs tens of thousands. Cost of the network admins installing/maintaining these programs. Cost of network admins monitoring the emails for false virus captures, and then having to release the email back to the person. The list goes on.
So even if your company has never been infected by a virus, it does cost money to protect against these viruses. In a "nice" world where people did not create viruses a company would not have to supply all of these products/services, and that would save a company a lot of money!
-A
While at college my friend and I needed some extra cash and we created a website design company (stop laughing at me). We utilized our personal computers (I created a server so we could share data easily). The server which was an old scsi box was donated to us (cost 0), but I am sure a group of techies could muster up an old computer to act as one (not that it is really needed, just more convenient). Our advertising was limited to internet advertising (registering and getting a website hosted on yahoo which runs $9.00/month). Free online search engine registrations. Acquiring paper supplies where we created flyers, & business cards ($30.00 which included extra ink for our hp color deskjet). Our most expensive cost was registering the company (as an LLC) for $500.00 All but one of our clients were from word of mouth. Doing this venture, strictly part time (less then ten hours a week), we earned about 10k/year. Not a lot of money to say the least, but for 10 hours a week of work, with very little advertising that is a good deal of money. Again this was a part-time "wouldn't it be nice to have some extra cash in the pocket" work. Eventually we went from web designing to creating business cards, flyers, menus, etc for various clients. I think it is possible for people to create something and even be able to work at a regular job. It requires working late hours (sometimes) - but that is a sacrifice. The problem would-be startup companies have is that they want all the glitz and glamour up front. The nice city-view office, the $600.00 Aeron chairs, secretaries, etc. Start with what you got---we are software based - you need a home, computer, internet connection, electricity and a phone/fax line. -A
I don't know, maybe it won't invent the cure for cancer, maybe it won't be able to decode the sequence and meanings of life - but just like a calculator, it will automate known procedures. This will, at the very least, increase the efficiency of what human scientists can do. I agree, it is limited to what it has been programmed to do. The AI portion is probably not advanced enough to figure out extremly complex, unknown issues (and it probably doesn't get things like 'hunches.'). But considering that figuring out how yeast cells work is a lot more complex then a calculator, it is still an impressive piece of technology, that will (hopefully) help scientists out. -Avi