It's funny how every specialty manufacturer attempts to reach out to another not-new-and-already-dominated market segment with an idea that they should have committed to years ago.
It sounds like they want some kind of time shifting device that's network enabled. Let's see, time shifting? Yup done. Now networked media device? Yup done.
So that means my mega-corporation will make a device that will be higher priced that no one will buy because the price is too high and the feature set too vague! "Let's do it! Come on! Who is with me!!!"
1. Just because an application can open a secret file format -today- doesn't mean one will be do so legally tomorrow.
2. Just because many people overpaid for software so they all can share the secret files it creates doesn't make it "open" to anyone but your fellow consumers.
3. Phrases like "for all intents and purposes" just make your assertions sound less problematic than they really are.
Competition in Office Suites? Really? are you serious about this? What's the viable alternative to Office then? Not Open Office, not Corel.
4. Microsoft has a monopoly that includes their Office product. As a result of their monopoly, they demand artificially high prices, additional profits and can deliver an inferior product. Then they penalize any competitor by simply lowering their prices to eliminate their competitor. They extend their monopoly by linking in other products in areas where no competitor is allowed. Outlook and their mail-server backend is a good example.
6. I agree with you that the government is playing hardball with MS. They really don't -want- to convert everything. In the future don't turn it into a "freemarket think" speech.
How does it make you feel to hear you have overpaid a monopoly for inferior software?
This kind of quickie-mart reduction of economic reasoning is why the Average American in trouble.
Autos/livery business. The reasonable livery worker said, "This automobile industry uses like skills, so I'll try to get a job there." In 2005, can the IBM worker move in a similar way? Not likely because he's competing with similar workers who are being paid 1/5 less.
Outsourcing Creates New Opportunities. Economic thought says the most likely answer is the place that maximizes profit. And that place is NOT the U.S. because our wages and living standards are so high relative to other places.
Progress Ah, the cult of progress: What goods/services will Americans sell to other global that they can't get anywhere else? They can get your precious Flash programming lots of other places for a lot less. Then what will you do? Likely sponge off your wealthy parents until you find something else you can feel superior in.
There is nothing worse than objectivity these days. Throw in some sex, hyperbole, salacious gossip and unverifiable innuendo and you've got yourself a modern-american best seller.
I don't know what it is about the American zeitgeist these days. Fearful, supporting strong chains of authority and making their lives worse to support the richest 5%.
You might need some endorsements from people who are gatekeepers. For example, find some Harvard intellectual who will give you a thumbs up. Make sure you find a Libertarian gatekeeper or two so you aren't convicted in the court of public opinion of being an "agenda" writer.
-All people (98%+/- have televisions in U.S.)are used to advertising -Most people won't mind a few commercials in everything, they are used to it. Even your shopping cart has advertisements on it. -Advertising is everywhere and it WORKS.
For those that like google's adverts today, it is only a matter of time before they are replaced by something more (wait for it....) PROFITABLE. Look at Yahoo. Same idea, different day.
Double-click is here to stay. Double-click along with the rest of the ad industry (442,000 + 56,000 advert workers in 2002 http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs030.htm) likely pushing hard to get ads forced into browsers one way or another.
Switch to Linux, and maybe elinks or whatever that very useful text-only browser is called and regain some peace of mind.
That some people make money off of collecting the published thoughts of others?
Here's the process: 1. wget url1 url2 url3 2. find: OMG ur phone IM text message 3. Ask the clients what they want to hear. 4. Tell them what they want to hear. 5. Profit!
How would -anyone- quantify the juvenile (sp?) thoughts anyway?
I need to start a scam like this. Baby needs a new pair of shoes!
Furthermore: - See another post complaining about HP's high printing costs. Poster switched printers, paid more for each toner cartridge, but got many more pages out of it. I have that experience with our current HP laser printer.
- Long ago reported class action suit brought against HP for notifying consumer that the cartridge is out of ink when it in fact isn't. We (unfortunately) have an HP inkjet fax machine that complains the color cartridge is out of ink. Maybe we're special, but we -never- print color faxes or color anything with that POS...
- Maybe Capellas did some bad things, and Carly fixed a few. But, based on my experience, they have made (many) more undesirable products under Carly's reign too.
There is -no- incentive for any company in payments processing to do anything else but make a profit.
Dilbert PHB's are in charge of your data. This despite Visa/Mastercard rules. These PHB's they put their full faith and credit in: - A Windows Server infrastructure. The rest is just weird hobby OS stuff. - Has never heard of PGP, PKI, PKCS. That's just bad-guy stuff. - Believe that email is secure. I need a password to get my mail right? - Hire IT folks that agree with them. "There's no budget for anything else." says the PHB.
Visa/Mastercard is a federation of the largest banks in the country. Do you think they are going to let their cash-cow get burdened by additional costs and regulations?
What about -their- (visa/mc banks) merchant services organization? (firstdata.com) How much theft have they had? It's likely you will never know. You'll find out about theft from their small-time competitor in AZ, but firstdata? Not likely.
Two suggestions as to why Linspire is mentioned. 1. Linspire PR got the story in. One should -always- wonder this when one brand keeps being mentioned throughout an otherwise uninteresting story.
2. Linspire is in retail because they know how to create a package and the retailer likes the price and market possibilities. Plus, Linspire can afford to pay the shelf/promotional fees required to be and stay in the store.
I'm thinking most/.'s don't know how retail works. It's not so much about a great product. Vendor's Side: - Can the vendor afford to be in the store? Setup, shelf and participation fees. Not to mention "influencing" the buyers. - Is there enough money to advertise? Because it's not moving in retail without it. (Even a "small" retailer like microcenter) - Are the retailer's pricing practices compatible with the vendor's?
Retail Side: - The big retailer has to know that the branded vendor is generating enough demand through advertising on their own. They read all the market-share research. - Every vendor has to be able to afford to "participate" and "influence" (read: $$$) the retailer. - One way or another, the retailer has to meet/exceed their ROI on that shelf space. So they either get it through sales or the vendor pays extra (and pays and pays) to stay.
I'd be interested to hear if the sales person had any incentives from Microsoft influencing her pitch.
This is one way the channel works. Vendor says to retailer, "I'll give x dollars to you if you hit volume y in the next 60 days and I'll give you z dollars to help you hit that target.
Retailer creates a salesperson spiff/rebate/gift/whatever as an incentive to move more of those units and lets the salesperson do what it takes to make the number.
I agree with you that there is generally some configuration with add-in cards. The ideal Linux distro will totally eliminate the terminal window.
Warning: I'll likely be modded down for the next statements.
IMHO There are better desktop distros than Fedora. I happen to think Ubuntu is pretty great. They've addressed many more of the fit-and-finish issues you have. Suse is not perfect, but good too. (There's always OSX)
Fedora has much momentum and a broad user-base, but I think it is slowly being eclipsed by other desktop distros. Moreover, Red Hat has no incentive to make Fedora as good as their commercial product. Shareholders aren't interested in a world-class free distro. They want profits.
In one company I worked, one call wiped out the profit of 5 units sold. Laptops likely make more money per unit, but same concept...
There is -no- incentive for having warm bodies intelligently support a product. An employee like that would: 1. cost too much money/hour and be hard to replace. 2. Take too long with each customer 3. Inspire more phone calls. (support is great right?) 4. Raise the price of the laptop.
Microsoft is one of many competitors and it would be -really- good for Dell to have an OSX server OS option.
Microsoft gets to keep their desktop monopoly with their #1 American buddy Dell. Dell can put the screws into Microsoft on a better server OS deal. And Apple gets a new channel!
Is anyone surprised that Dell would want to extend their product line?
"Yeah I'd do it." is what every reseller says. They all want one more thing to sell. Especially when it's something that not every pc reseller has and goes for a higher price with better profit margin.
Apple would want to remain in total control of the deal. I'm sure the people working at Dell are used to being the -only- 900lb gorilla in the room, so that would rub the Dell people the wrong way the minute the meeting started.
I just don't see Dell bending over backwards to accomodate Apple. I find it equally hard to believe Apple would accomodate Dell.
It -would- be interesting to see if Microsoft would actually let Apple into Dell's channel in any meaningful way. There would likely be some interesting changes from Microsoft on the next pricing agreement sent to Dell. (e.g. an Apple penalty)
Spoken like someone who has -never- tried to land a gov't contract.
In the usual scenario, innovation gets purchased, but not without the Northrop-Grumman getting a big, no -giant-, chunk of the contract.
If you only had the slightest idea exactly how RFP's and RFQ's get written you would understand the powerball-lottery-like odds of the entrepreneur landing the big contract.
Don't B.S. me about company X or Y who did it either. They had to make a big deal with the bigger guy to be a small part of the project. (which has it's advantages) Either that or they paid the lobbyists like the big guys do and were there writing the RFP with the agency issuing it -and- simultaneously buying off the big contractors one way or another. Net gain is about equal in either case.
Winning contracts is no-holds-barred, no trick too dirty kind of business. My hat is off to the guys/girls who are good at it.
Somewhere (on a blog) is a person who says that the modern Media empires play a gate keeper role for information with the vast majority of people relying on these gate keepers to manage their information.
Reading blogs is the equivalent of going to a new gate keeper. They simply publish content as they see fit with whatever comments they want to add.
In theory, that sounds pretty exciting, but in practice people will still rely on the media empires for "important" stories. (ex. Watergate scandal)It is a kind of "trust" filter.
More importantly, it would be the exception to the rule blogger who would explore a single topic long enough to define an issue with any objectivity. BTW, how many readers would stick around for it anyway. Then they would need the gate keeping media empire to get the story through most consumers "trust" filter.
Well, the gate keeping media empire won't take too kindly to having Joe-Blogger steal their eye-balls. So they'll make Joe's story their own and if it's different than Joe Blogger's version, well "Joe just didn't get the facts right because we have more resources to do the story right."
So there may be millions of new gate keepers, but they won't stay on a topic long enough or shift media empire agendas.
Blogging does make publishing information to millions around the world very easy. That is a good thing.
From a technical perspective this is a good thing.
But: - How does this ensure Sun's going-forward viability? e.g. will Sun be around in 10 years to support this? Based on their stock's selling price, I'd say the investment community is betting against Sun being around as Sun. - How exactly does this make PHB's feel better? I'm all for OSS especially with the credibility of a Sun behind it, but PHB's want support.
Sounds bizarre, but I can imagine a scenario in Diebold going like this.
1. Technical guy says, "votes are stored on some portable media to be taken to a voting tabulation center." 2. PHB says "Okay, but what if the customer doesn't like our voting scheme?" 3. Technical guy says, "votes are stored on some portable media, along with the method in which those votes are counted." The PHB retains her self-satisfied sense of belonging because she's just contributed in a meaningful and valuable way. After all they can't say "no" when the customer can define the counting system requirements! PHB thinks, "Data security. Isn't that something I need when I buy something online?????" 4. The PHB's PHB says, "You are a fscking genius! Letting the customer define the counting system requirements is pure genius! They'll have to pay us for it too!!"
This is exactly my experience working for an OEM. Will it pass outgoing inspection? Yes or No. Period.
I used to believe the "quality" American party-line, but I don't any more. It makes products that too few Americans want because the price is too high and the feature set too small. Meanwhile, the low-price competition is adding more poorly implemented features.
The Taiwanese/Chinese cultures of capitalism are simply remarkable. Unfettered and likely breaking scores of the rules American capitalists play by. (exs. "quality", "you get what you pay for") Nevermind what it's doing to their environment.
Slashdot Mirror
It's funny how every specialty manufacturer attempts to reach out to another not-new-and-already-dominated market segment with an idea that they should have committed to years ago.
It sounds like they want some kind of time shifting device that's network enabled. Let's see, time shifting? Yup done. Now networked media device? Yup done.
So that means my mega-corporation will make a device that will be higher priced that no one will buy because the price is too high and the feature set too vague! "Let's do it! Come on! Who is with me!!!"
BSD! (Boooo! shouts the Linux fans)
No, wait,
Linux! (Kill the penguin lover! shouts the BSD fans)
Uh, well both are good. What was the question again?
1. Just because an application can open a secret file format -today- doesn't mean one will be do so legally tomorrow.
2. Just because many people overpaid for software so they all can share the secret files it creates doesn't make it "open" to anyone but your fellow consumers.
3. Phrases like "for all intents and purposes" just make your assertions sound less problematic than they really are.
Competition in Office Suites? Really? are you serious about this? What's the viable alternative to Office then? Not Open Office, not Corel.
4. Microsoft has a monopoly that includes their Office product. As a result of their monopoly, they demand artificially high prices, additional profits and can deliver an inferior product. Then they penalize any competitor by simply lowering their prices to eliminate their competitor. They extend their monopoly by linking in other products in areas where no competitor is allowed. Outlook and their mail-server backend is a good example.
6. I agree with you that the government is playing hardball with MS. They really don't -want- to convert everything. In the future don't turn it into a "freemarket think" speech.
How does it make you feel to hear you have overpaid a monopoly for inferior software?
This kind of quickie-mart reduction of economic reasoning is why the Average American in trouble.
C ourses/so11/stratification/income&wealth.htm
Autos/livery business.
The reasonable livery worker said, "This automobile industry uses like skills, so I'll try to get a job there."
In 2005, can the IBM worker move in a similar way? Not likely because he's competing with similar workers who are being paid 1/5 less.
Outsourcing Creates New Opportunities.
Economic thought says the most likely answer is the place that maximizes profit. And that place is NOT the U.S. because our wages and living standards are so high relative to other places.
Progress
Ah, the cult of progress:
What goods/services will Americans sell to other global that they can't get anywhere else? They can get your precious Flash programming lots of other places for a lot less. Then what will you do? Likely sponge off your wealthy parents until you find something else you can feel superior in.
Sovereignty & Free Markets
The U.S. is an economic sovereignty with the top-10% of its citizens owning 72% of everything. That's using data from 1983! They got it using a heavily modified set of free market tools. http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/
Live and Learn a little about America before you put your foot in your mouth again.
For /.'ers who feel outraged that this kind of thing, now is the time to do something about it.
Do what all the other special interest groups do when things don't go their way.
Legislate!
Get a law passed better defining and thereby denying this kind of action. It's what every group does.
Start working the system! You won't be the first person identified as a special interest, so wear the label with pride and get busy.
Note to self:
TODO Kill my Xbox, gameboy, cable, satellite, wide-screen, projector, dvd, TIVO AND TV.
There is nothing worse than objectivity these days. Throw in some sex, hyperbole, salacious gossip and unverifiable innuendo and you've got yourself a modern-american best seller.
I don't know what it is about the American zeitgeist these days. Fearful, supporting strong chains of authority and making their lives worse to support the richest 5%.
You might need some endorsements from people who are gatekeepers. For example, find some Harvard intellectual who will give you a thumbs up. Make sure you find a Libertarian gatekeeper or two so you aren't convicted in the court of public opinion of being an "agenda" writer.
-All people (98%+/- have televisions in U.S.)are used to advertising
-Most people won't mind a few commercials in everything, they are used to it. Even your shopping cart has advertisements on it.
-Advertising is everywhere and it WORKS.
For those that like google's adverts today, it is only a matter of time before they are replaced by something more (wait for it....) PROFITABLE. Look at Yahoo. Same idea, different day.
Double-click is here to stay. Double-click along with the rest of the ad industry (442,000 + 56,000 advert workers in 2002 http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs030.htm) likely pushing hard to get ads forced into browsers one way or another.
Switch to Linux, and maybe elinks or whatever that very useful text-only browser is called and regain some peace of mind.
Note to self:
Kill my television.
That some people make money off of collecting the published thoughts of others?
Here's the process:
1. wget url1 url2 url3
2. find: OMG ur phone IM text message
3. Ask the clients what they want to hear.
4. Tell them what they want to hear.
5. Profit!
How would -anyone- quantify the juvenile (sp?) thoughts anyway?
I need to start a scam like this. Baby needs a new pair of shoes!
It will be interesting to see how much:
1. The book sells
2. The book's topic is covered and/or promoted on more mainstream media outlets.
And then, if he's labeled either positively in a Woodward/Berstein way or "agenda" reporter way that discredits his point-of-view.
I second the mod-point abuse suggestion.
Furthermore:
- See another post complaining about HP's high printing costs. Poster switched printers, paid more for each toner cartridge, but got many more pages out of it. I have that experience with our current HP laser printer.
- Long ago reported class action suit brought against HP for notifying consumer that the cartridge is out of ink when it in fact isn't. We (unfortunately) have an HP inkjet fax machine that complains the color cartridge is out of ink. Maybe we're special, but we -never- print color faxes or color anything with that POS...
- Maybe Capellas did some bad things, and Carly fixed a few. But, based on my experience, they have made (many) more undesirable products under Carly's reign too.
There is -no- incentive for any company in payments processing to do anything else but make a profit.
Dilbert PHB's are in charge of your data. This despite Visa/Mastercard rules.
These PHB's they put their full faith and credit in:
- A Windows Server infrastructure. The rest is just weird hobby OS stuff.
- Has never heard of PGP, PKI, PKCS. That's just bad-guy stuff.
- Believe that email is secure. I need a password to get my mail right?
- Hire IT folks that agree with them. "There's no budget for anything else." says the PHB.
Visa/Mastercard is a federation of the largest banks in the country. Do you think they are going to let their cash-cow get burdened by additional costs and regulations?
What about -their- (visa/mc banks) merchant services organization? (firstdata.com) How much theft have they had? It's likely you will never know. You'll find out about theft from their small-time competitor in AZ, but firstdata? Not likely.
Two suggestions as to why Linspire is mentioned.
/.'s don't know how retail works. It's not so much about a great product.
1. Linspire PR got the story in. One should -always- wonder this when one brand keeps being mentioned throughout an otherwise uninteresting story.
2. Linspire is in retail because they know how to create a package and the retailer likes the price and market possibilities. Plus, Linspire can afford to pay the shelf/promotional fees required to be and stay in the store.
I'm thinking most
Vendor's Side:
- Can the vendor afford to be in the store? Setup, shelf and participation fees. Not to mention "influencing" the buyers.
- Is there enough money to advertise? Because it's not moving in retail without it. (Even a "small" retailer like microcenter)
- Are the retailer's pricing practices compatible with the vendor's?
Retail Side:
- The big retailer has to know that the branded vendor is generating enough demand through advertising on their own. They read all the market-share research.
- Every vendor has to be able to afford to "participate" and "influence" (read: $$$) the retailer.
- One way or another, the retailer has to meet/exceed their ROI on that shelf space. So they either get it through sales or the vendor pays extra (and pays and pays) to stay.
Mod parent down for promulgating the MS corporate-think.
I will rephrase the corporate-think.
Consumers that buys a low-end non-windows PC have a pirated copies of windows xp that they want to install on a new PC.
-Every- consumer?? Really?
Most people don't want to steal Windows and won't because it's too much trouble. To them, they get it with a new PC anyway.
I'd be interested to hear if the sales person had any incentives from Microsoft influencing her pitch.
This is one way the channel works. Vendor says to retailer, "I'll give x dollars to you if you hit volume y in the next 60 days and I'll give you z dollars to help you hit that target.
Retailer creates a salesperson spiff/rebate/gift/whatever as an incentive to move more of those units and lets the salesperson do what it takes to make the number.
I agree with you that there is generally some configuration with add-in cards. The ideal Linux distro will totally eliminate the terminal window.
Warning: I'll likely be modded down for the next statements.
IMHO There are better desktop distros than Fedora. I happen to think Ubuntu is pretty great. They've addressed many more of the fit-and-finish issues you have. Suse is not perfect, but good too. (There's always OSX)
Fedora has much momentum and a broad user-base, but I think it is slowly being eclipsed by other desktop distros. Moreover, Red Hat has no incentive to make Fedora as good as their commercial product. Shareholders aren't interested in a world-class free distro. They want profits.
In one company I worked, one call wiped out the profit of 5 units sold. Laptops likely make more money per unit, but same concept...
There is -no- incentive for having warm bodies intelligently support a product. An employee like that would:
1. cost too much money/hour and be hard to replace.
2. Take too long with each customer
3. Inspire more phone calls. (support is great right?)
4. Raise the price of the laptop.
I loose my mind everytime I see silly errors like that.
Microsoft is one of many competitors and it would be -really- good for Dell to have an OSX server OS option.
Microsoft gets to keep their desktop monopoly with their #1 American buddy Dell. Dell can put the screws into Microsoft on a better server OS deal. And Apple gets a new channel!
Is anyone surprised that Dell would want to extend their product line?
"Yeah I'd do it." is what every reseller says. They all want one more thing to sell. Especially when it's something that not every pc reseller has and goes for a higher price with better profit margin.
Apple would want to remain in total control of the deal. I'm sure the people working at Dell are used to being the -only- 900lb gorilla in the room, so that would rub the Dell people the wrong way the minute the meeting started.
I just don't see Dell bending over backwards to accomodate Apple. I find it equally hard to believe Apple would accomodate Dell.
It -would- be interesting to see if Microsoft would actually let Apple into Dell's channel in any meaningful way. There would likely be some interesting changes from Microsoft on the next pricing agreement sent to Dell. (e.g. an Apple penalty)
Spoken like someone who has -never- tried to land a gov't contract.
In the usual scenario, innovation gets purchased, but not without the Northrop-Grumman getting a big, no -giant-, chunk of the contract.
If you only had the slightest idea exactly how RFP's and RFQ's get written you would understand the powerball-lottery-like odds of the entrepreneur landing the big contract.
Don't B.S. me about company X or Y who did it either. They had to make a big deal with the bigger guy to be a small part of the project. (which has it's advantages) Either that or they paid the lobbyists like the big guys do and were there writing the RFP with the agency issuing it -and- simultaneously buying off the big contractors one way or another. Net gain is about equal in either case.
Winning contracts is no-holds-barred, no trick too dirty kind of business. My hat is off to the guys/girls who are good at it.
Blogging is Reality TV for the Internet.
Somewhere (on a blog) is a person who says that the modern Media empires play a gate keeper role for information with the vast majority of people relying on these gate keepers to manage their information.
Reading blogs is the equivalent of going to a new gate keeper. They simply publish content as they see fit with whatever comments they want to add.
In theory, that sounds pretty exciting, but in practice people will still rely on the media empires for "important" stories. (ex. Watergate scandal)It is a kind of "trust" filter.
More importantly, it would be the exception to the rule blogger who would explore a single topic long enough to define an issue with any objectivity. BTW, how many readers would stick around for it anyway. Then they would need the gate keeping media empire to get the story through most consumers "trust" filter.
Well, the gate keeping media empire won't take too kindly to having Joe-Blogger steal their eye-balls. So they'll make Joe's story their own and if it's different than Joe Blogger's version, well "Joe just didn't get the facts right because we have more resources to do the story right."
So there may be millions of new gate keepers, but they won't stay on a topic long enough or shift media empire agendas.
Blogging does make publishing information to millions around the world very easy. That is a good thing.
From a technical perspective this is a good thing.
But:
- How does this ensure Sun's going-forward viability? e.g. will Sun be around in 10 years to support this? Based on their stock's selling price, I'd say the investment community is betting against Sun being around as Sun.
- How exactly does this make PHB's feel better? I'm all for OSS especially with the credibility of a Sun behind it, but PHB's want support.
Mod me down, but I think they are good questions.
Sounds bizarre, but I can imagine a scenario in Diebold going like this.
1. Technical guy says, "votes are stored on some portable media to be taken to a voting tabulation center."
2. PHB says "Okay, but what if the customer doesn't like our voting scheme?"
3. Technical guy says, "votes are stored on some portable media, along with the method in which those votes are counted."
The PHB retains her self-satisfied sense of belonging because she's just contributed in a meaningful and valuable way. After all they can't say "no" when the customer can define the counting system requirements! PHB thinks, "Data security. Isn't that something I need when I buy something online?????"
4. The PHB's PHB says, "You are a fscking genius! Letting the customer define the counting system requirements is pure genius! They'll have to pay us for it too!!"
A little more like Office Space than Watergate.
Mod parent -way- up.
This is exactly my experience working for an OEM. Will it pass outgoing inspection? Yes or No. Period.
I used to believe the "quality" American party-line, but I don't any more. It makes products that too few Americans want because the price is too high and the feature set too small. Meanwhile, the low-price competition is adding more poorly implemented features.
The Taiwanese/Chinese cultures of capitalism are simply remarkable. Unfettered and likely breaking scores of the rules American capitalists play by. (exs. "quality", "you get what you pay for") Nevermind what it's doing to their environment.
Ground-Breaking New? No.
But, imagine this thing in a production environment.
It kills high-end inkjets in speed and I'm guessing there isn't any new head-technology besides getting so many to work together so well.
The bottleneck is in RIPing the image and the usual getting the job set-up effort.