Corporate users don't whine. When they are screwed, they stop buying. These machines were marketed heavily at them. Remember the "Attila the Mac" ads for the Quadra? Those were endorsed and paid for by Apple. Selling them and then yanking support for them is suicide, which is why Apple is not considered for widespread corporate deployment and Dell is still going strong.
Why do you think there has always been a requirement for Windows to be backward compatible? Whine all you want about it being a pain in the ass, but you don't buy computers by the train car load and you don't piss off the people who do.
Say what you want about MS and their business practices, they take care of the big buyer. Apple treats their customers as if they are parasites who should thank their lucky stars that Apple would deign to sell them a machine.
Newton anyone? How did that lawsuit turn out? Same thing. Apple opened the market, dropped support and Palm said so long and thanks for all the fish!
While the machine and software were excellent for the time, it was Apple's boneheaded discontinuation and non-support of the Lisa that made Microsoft the company it is today and sent Apple into the corporate wasteland.
I know more than one company that were sold on Lisa, bought is and deployed it. Then, they were told it was the end of the line - zip for you, nada.
Had the knuckleheads at Apple even bothered to offer a discount on Macs to corporate Lisa buyers things might have been different. Instead, they got nothing so they shunned Apple. The instead bought MS and when Windows came out they never looked back.
Thier employees cut their teeth on Windows machines, and then bought them for home where their kids got ahold of them. The rest is history. Yes, Apple sold a lot to schools, but home is where the fun is and most use came. It's been a Wintel world ever since.
Since then, Apple has only gained among niche users in desktop publishing and more recently on media development. I don't count iPod as computer hardware. It is a straight consumer product.
Had Apple behaved differently, the PC world could have been very different.
Correct. Sorry, that's the truth and I won't bs you. The vast majority of people don't know what's under the hood of their browser and won't care by default. Do you care that certain design restrictions brought on by government mandate hampers the efforts of engineers to design cars? No. You want to put in the key, twist it and have it fire up and drive.
My answer for web developers is that if they are so hot to trot for new features, then the company should hire more developers.
I've used IE7 for about a day now and find it works well enough. Nuances of where buttons are etc are typical for any browser redesign and are a minor learning curve. I had to spend a small amount of time familiarizing with ff too.
This is a beta, and a beta one at that. I find the bashing and such unseemly. Yes, ff is in my opinion better, but I would rather MS try to give us what we've shown we like rather than what they think is good for us. Borrowing popular design features from your competitors is a time honored tradition is every industry. It doesn't freak me out or offend me. Hopefully, enough feedback from users will result in a more polished product at final. That is the idea really.
The under the hood stuff that matters to developers, is in my opinion and probably for 99 per cent of the users, irrelevant. Developers have to make it work. I could care less about acid test and css compliance. I want it to render fast and go where I want. Frankly, I still find for most sites, that IE renders a bit faster. Not significantly, but it is there.
I expect on this board where "ms = evil" to go on trashing this and vista (stupid name), but the reality is that one week after being released as final, they will both have a larger installed user base than mac and linux combined. Ditto on the browser front. And that is with people having to go to the trouble of downloading IE7.
Like it or not, if a challengers are going to even break 15 per cent combined, they are going to have to wow the general public with ease of use and integrated features. Having a group of geeks feeling smug in their little corner of the net does not bring success. Sorry, I didn't invent the world.
Okay, so they say not all sharers are evil, just bad. This stance, while a slightly sugar-coated version of what has been said before, is not worthy of really listening to or debating anymore.
These groups, the RIAA and BPI are not concerned about the artist etc, they are concerned with their cash lifeline. The organizations produce nothing, not one disc, not one note. They are an industry umbrella organization, not unlike a deBeers for music (though without the class).
They exist to act as a cartel, keep the prices up, and do whatever it takes to protect that cash flow. The Sony payola thing just shows they are no strangers to illegal tactics. The drive to force Apple to increase iTune prices shows their price-fixing tendencies.
Downloading threatens all that (yes, even legal downloading) as sooner or later the artists may go that way cutting out the need for their cartel and putting that cash directly in their pockets.
I think a lot of it has to do with the profit-taking cycle as it relates to the stock market. They want to show continual bottom line growth and to do so, they cut costs. R and D is too often seen as a cost not an investment.
Profit is necessary for a company to go on, but R and D ensures it has something to sell tomorrow.
The problem is more a lack of will to put funding into research and development. Many companies in the US have unfortunately fallen into a wait and see approach on technology and concnetrate on short term gains.
Sad as the US used to be where most of the new ideas and approaches came about. When you hear of innovations now, they are coming from other countries.
My experiences with Linux remind me of working on a 1960's British sports car. It works great when it works, but you have to be a pretty fair mechanic as you always have to be tinkering and tuning to keep it running decently. The ordinary computer user doesn't want to do that.
Apple works really well, but it is expensive in the public's mind, and the games etc that are the stuff of home use just aren't there.
People don't choose MS over other OS's because they have no choice, they choose it because that is what they want. The claimed loss is bogus.
Frankly, because of previous market penetration and standardization by industry on Windows, there is no viable alternative desktop system. That's why linux's meager gains have been server side. That, and it is still too complex for most home users.
Apple, well like it or not people have and continue to choose windows because that is what they are familiar with and that is where the majority of home programs like games are aimed. Apple's OS may be the best mostly unused OS ever made, they may have good built-in apps, but they don't have much of an audience.
Claims that these OS's are fast growing are pointless. Both put together add up to less than 10 per cent of the PC's out there. That's not a very good number.
MS made hay in the 80's with windows because they successfully penetrated the corporate market which is where many people got their first exposure to computers. MS was smart there as it set them up for the dominance they now enjoy.
You think that mobo prices will fall because they can integrate less onto the chipset? Har-Har! You probably believed in trickle-down economics.
It the real world, it doesn't work that way. Look at cell phones, they don't cut the cost as they become cheaper to make, they just give you new features you don't need and that cost you money and keep the price the same (or raise it a bit).
Shame on MS? Why? This is standard business practice. You see talent, you want it, you buy it. I personally dream of a white knight with a sack of cash luring me away. I have this sneaking suspicion that most of us work for money. Call it a quirk, but I like to eat.
I know that on this board, MS = Evil, but get a grip.
The distro problem is a manifestation of what I am talking about. Gnome may be it, or not. However, the linux universe is not made up of Robin Hoods trying to make the computing world safe from Microsoft. All of them want to be the next king OS, all of them want to be rich (which was part of Thorvald's rant not too long ago) and if they succeeded, it would be "meet the new boss, same as the old boss". They don't co-operate because they see it as against their own interests.
As for nipping at the heels of MS. No.
I can think of no other industry where after so long, a sub 10 per cent penetration would be seen as acceptable, let alone the coming of a golden age.
Linux has plenty of competition - from other linux developers. Frankly the biggest obstacle linux faces is the unwillingness of its developers to not screw each other, let alone work together
If we are going to survive this type of development is what is required. The rate of development in the world with former developing countries not only approaching western levels of living, but western levels of consumption, in accelerating not slowing. While people make not want to "go backwards" in terms of how they live, it may be the only alternative if they want to live.
Whether or not this particular project will succeed, sustainable cities are coming and it's a good thing. Right now, it runs contrary to the type of lifestyle promoted in the west as the very economy is based on consumption.
Ultimately we are going to have to choose to control that consumption. That has only really shown up so far in the emergence of hybrid cars etc, though that is largely due to a desire to wean ourselves off oil controlled by hostile regimes. Fear of what the environment is going to become really isn't taken seriously yet.
Industries that behave the way the entertainment industry has deserves to die. Rather than adapt to the changing nature of their audience they are willing to attack that audience to preserve it. Kind of a cull I guess in their twisted logic.
There is a certain danger for people who sell stuff that people don't "need" pissing off the people who might buy their products. I haven't bought a CD or DVD in five years, partly because there is so little stuff worth having and partly because every time I hear something from the industry, it just pisses me off a little more. Over time, I have found out I don't miss the stuff. I listen to music on the radio and on discs I already own, as well as watch TV, but beyond that I do other stuff that does not contribute to their bottom line. I don't boycott anyone directly, I just don't make an effort towards any of these offerings and have found I can exist quite happily without them. Plus I have more money for when I do want to indulge myself.
Companies that feel they are entitled to a level of profit from the public will do more damage to the economy that any group of terrorists.
As you can gather from all the comments, the problem is culturally ingrained in the US psyche. There seems to be a convergence o attitudes that lead to this such as:
1. A distrust and disdain for those who are "smarter than the average bear". This leads to smart kids playing dumb in order to not get a pounding.
2. An almost fanatical opposition to the government spending money on anything that does not provide an immediate financial return (except ironically for weapons). This leads to underfunded schools.
3. A catering to kids that teaches them that they will be rewarded regardless of their accomplishments (or lack thereof). This leads to an overweening sense of entitlement.
4. A watering down of curriculum to satisfy parents who feel that their kid's poor performance is a personal reflection of themselves. This leads to a sub-par education even if you do succeed in the system.
5. Politics invading the school system and boards to the point where debates are over who's ideological agenda will be followed as opposed to what is in the best interest of the students. This leads to fatigued administrators who give up because things get personal and ugly.
6. Lack of involvement in kid's lives by the parents which fosters a "nobody gives a crap" attitude in so many kids.
There are more reasons, but you get the idea.
Corporations may be legally persons, but they have no soul. As others have pointed out, many companies have worked with questionable and objectionable regimes to further the regimes ends in exchange for money. That being said I will blame the companies involved because they are steered by people who do have choices. I will avoid their products and I will hurt them (as much as I can) by voting with my wallet. They can make enough money to thrive and survive without dealing with regimes that have objectives that run contrary to our own. Many companies do have board that make that ethical choice.
Further, anyone who thinks the Chinese repay commercial favours and abide by the rules of the rest of the world hasn't paid attention to history.
This is indicative of a philosophical difference between Canada and the US. In the US, business is king. In Canada, business is a means to prosperity for the owners and employees. However, it is recognized that people have to work to eat etc and that business holds the advantage over their employees.
As a result there is more legislation regarding workers rights than in the US. For example, in the US, your boss can come up to you and order you to pee in a bottle to see if you smoked a joint recently. In Canada, unless you are a pilot, railroad engineer etc where your performance could hurt others, this is forbidden. Also, I was surprised to find that in the US, paid vacation time is not a requirement. In Canada, you are entitled to two weeks per year minimum by law.
Slashdot Mirror
Corporate users don't whine. When they are screwed, they stop buying. These machines were marketed heavily at them. Remember the "Attila the Mac" ads for the Quadra? Those were endorsed and paid for by Apple. Selling them and then yanking support for them is suicide, which is why Apple is not considered for widespread corporate deployment and Dell is still going strong.
Why do you think there has always been a requirement for Windows to be backward compatible? Whine all you want about it being a pain in the ass, but you don't buy computers by the train car load and you don't piss off the people who do.
Say what you want about MS and their business practices, they take care of the big buyer. Apple treats their customers as if they are parasites who should thank their lucky stars that Apple would deign to sell them a machine.
Newton anyone? How did that lawsuit turn out? Same thing. Apple opened the market, dropped support and Palm said so long and thanks for all the fish!
While the machine and software were excellent for the time, it was Apple's boneheaded discontinuation and non-support of the Lisa that made Microsoft the company it is today and sent Apple into the corporate wasteland. I know more than one company that were sold on Lisa, bought is and deployed it. Then, they were told it was the end of the line - zip for you, nada. Had the knuckleheads at Apple even bothered to offer a discount on Macs to corporate Lisa buyers things might have been different. Instead, they got nothing so they shunned Apple. The instead bought MS and when Windows came out they never looked back. Thier employees cut their teeth on Windows machines, and then bought them for home where their kids got ahold of them. The rest is history. Yes, Apple sold a lot to schools, but home is where the fun is and most use came. It's been a Wintel world ever since. Since then, Apple has only gained among niche users in desktop publishing and more recently on media development. I don't count iPod as computer hardware. It is a straight consumer product. Had Apple behaved differently, the PC world could have been very different.
Correct. Sorry, that's the truth and I won't bs you. The vast majority of people don't know what's under the hood of their browser and won't care by default. Do you care that certain design restrictions brought on by government mandate hampers the efforts of engineers to design cars? No. You want to put in the key, twist it and have it fire up and drive.
My answer for web developers is that if they are so hot to trot for new features, then the company should hire more developers.
I've used IE7 for about a day now and find it works well enough. Nuances of where buttons are etc are typical for any browser redesign and are a minor learning curve. I had to spend a small amount of time familiarizing with ff too.
This is a beta, and a beta one at that. I find the bashing and such unseemly. Yes, ff is in my opinion better, but I would rather MS try to give us what we've shown we like rather than what they think is good for us. Borrowing popular design features from your competitors is a time honored tradition is every industry. It doesn't freak me out or offend me. Hopefully, enough feedback from users will result in a more polished product at final. That is the idea really.
The under the hood stuff that matters to developers, is in my opinion and probably for 99 per cent of the users, irrelevant. Developers have to make it work. I could care less about acid test and css compliance. I want it to render fast and go where I want. Frankly, I still find for most sites, that IE renders a bit faster. Not significantly, but it is there.
I expect on this board where "ms = evil" to go on trashing this and vista (stupid name), but the reality is that one week after being released as final, they will both have a larger installed user base than mac and linux combined. Ditto on the browser front. And that is with people having to go to the trouble of downloading IE7.
Like it or not, if a challengers are going to even break 15 per cent combined, they are going to have to wow the general public with ease of use and integrated features. Having a group of geeks feeling smug in their little corner of the net does not bring success. Sorry, I didn't invent the world.
Insightful? I guess there wasn't a Bitter moderation descriptor
Except for in number of users. OSX 10, the OS for the both of us.
You can't shut a mac user up. When they die, you have to beat their mouths to death with a stick.
I already read 10 dupes a day.
Okay, so they say not all sharers are evil, just bad. This stance, while a slightly sugar-coated version of what has been said before, is not worthy of really listening to or debating anymore. These groups, the RIAA and BPI are not concerned about the artist etc, they are concerned with their cash lifeline. The organizations produce nothing, not one disc, not one note. They are an industry umbrella organization, not unlike a deBeers for music (though without the class). They exist to act as a cartel, keep the prices up, and do whatever it takes to protect that cash flow. The Sony payola thing just shows they are no strangers to illegal tactics. The drive to force Apple to increase iTune prices shows their price-fixing tendencies. Downloading threatens all that (yes, even legal downloading) as sooner or later the artists may go that way cutting out the need for their cartel and putting that cash directly in their pockets.
I think a lot of it has to do with the profit-taking cycle as it relates to the stock market. They want to show continual bottom line growth and to do so, they cut costs. R and D is too often seen as a cost not an investment. Profit is necessary for a company to go on, but R and D ensures it has something to sell tomorrow.
The problem is more a lack of will to put funding into research and development. Many companies in the US have unfortunately fallen into a wait and see approach on technology and concnetrate on short term gains. Sad as the US used to be where most of the new ideas and approaches came about. When you hear of innovations now, they are coming from other countries.
My experiences with Linux remind me of working on a 1960's British sports car. It works great when it works, but you have to be a pretty fair mechanic as you always have to be tinkering and tuning to keep it running decently. The ordinary computer user doesn't want to do that.
Apple works really well, but it is expensive in the public's mind, and the games etc that are the stuff of home use just aren't there.
People don't choose MS over other OS's because they have no choice, they choose it because that is what they want. The claimed loss is bogus.
Frankly, because of previous market penetration and standardization by industry on Windows, there is no viable alternative desktop system. That's why linux's meager gains have been server side. That, and it is still too complex for most home users.
Apple, well like it or not people have and continue to choose windows because that is what they are familiar with and that is where the majority of home programs like games are aimed. Apple's OS may be the best mostly unused OS ever made, they may have good built-in apps, but they don't have much of an audience.
Claims that these OS's are fast growing are pointless. Both put together add up to less than 10 per cent of the PC's out there. That's not a very good number.
MS made hay in the 80's with windows because they successfully penetrated the corporate market which is where many people got their first exposure to computers. MS was smart there as it set them up for the dominance they now enjoy.
I thought, that on slashdot, that piracy was what microsoft charges for their OS and the good fight was getting it and spreading it for free.
You think that mobo prices will fall because they can integrate less onto the chipset? Har-Har! You probably believed in trickle-down economics.
It the real world, it doesn't work that way. Look at cell phones, they don't cut the cost as they become cheaper to make, they just give you new features you don't need and that cost you money and keep the price the same (or raise it a bit).
Shame on MS? Why? This is standard business practice. You see talent, you want it, you buy it. I personally dream of a white knight with a sack of cash luring me away. I have this sneaking suspicion that most of us work for money. Call it a quirk, but I like to eat.
I know that on this board, MS = Evil, but get a grip.
The distro problem is a manifestation of what I am talking about. Gnome may be it, or not. However, the linux universe is not made up of Robin Hoods trying to make the computing world safe from Microsoft. All of them want to be the next king OS, all of them want to be rich (which was part of Thorvald's rant not too long ago) and if they succeeded, it would be "meet the new boss, same as the old boss". They don't co-operate because they see it as against their own interests.
As for nipping at the heels of MS. No.
I can think of no other industry where after so long, a sub 10 per cent penetration would be seen as acceptable, let alone the coming of a golden age.
Linux has plenty of competition - from other linux developers. Frankly the biggest obstacle linux faces is the unwillingness of its developers to not screw each other, let alone work together
If we are going to survive this type of development is what is required. The rate of development in the world with former developing countries not only approaching western levels of living, but western levels of consumption, in accelerating not slowing. While people make not want to "go backwards" in terms of how they live, it may be the only alternative if they want to live.
Whether or not this particular project will succeed, sustainable cities are coming and it's a good thing. Right now, it runs contrary to the type of lifestyle promoted in the west as the very economy is based on consumption.
Ultimately we are going to have to choose to control that consumption. That has only really shown up so far in the emergence of hybrid cars etc, though that is largely due to a desire to wean ourselves off oil controlled by hostile regimes. Fear of what the environment is going to become really isn't taken seriously yet.
Industries that behave the way the entertainment industry has deserves to die. Rather than adapt to the changing nature of their audience they are willing to attack that audience to preserve it. Kind of a cull I guess in their twisted logic.
There is a certain danger for people who sell stuff that people don't "need" pissing off the people who might buy their products. I haven't bought a CD or DVD in five years, partly because there is so little stuff worth having and partly because every time I hear something from the industry, it just pisses me off a little more. Over time, I have found out I don't miss the stuff. I listen to music on the radio and on discs I already own, as well as watch TV, but beyond that I do other stuff that does not contribute to their bottom line. I don't boycott anyone directly, I just don't make an effort towards any of these offerings and have found I can exist quite happily without them. Plus I have more money for when I do want to indulge myself.
Companies that feel they are entitled to a level of profit from the public will do more damage to the economy that any group of terrorists.
As you can gather from all the comments, the problem is culturally ingrained in the US psyche. There seems to be a convergence o attitudes that lead to this such as: 1. A distrust and disdain for those who are "smarter than the average bear". This leads to smart kids playing dumb in order to not get a pounding. 2. An almost fanatical opposition to the government spending money on anything that does not provide an immediate financial return (except ironically for weapons). This leads to underfunded schools. 3. A catering to kids that teaches them that they will be rewarded regardless of their accomplishments (or lack thereof). This leads to an overweening sense of entitlement. 4. A watering down of curriculum to satisfy parents who feel that their kid's poor performance is a personal reflection of themselves. This leads to a sub-par education even if you do succeed in the system. 5. Politics invading the school system and boards to the point where debates are over who's ideological agenda will be followed as opposed to what is in the best interest of the students. This leads to fatigued administrators who give up because things get personal and ugly. 6. Lack of involvement in kid's lives by the parents which fosters a "nobody gives a crap" attitude in so many kids. There are more reasons, but you get the idea.
But not serious cash. Nintendo has made a lot of cash regardless of the relative low adoption rate of its hardware. They're not dumb.
Corporations may be legally persons, but they have no soul. As others have pointed out, many companies have worked with questionable and objectionable regimes to further the regimes ends in exchange for money. That being said I will blame the companies involved because they are steered by people who do have choices. I will avoid their products and I will hurt them (as much as I can) by voting with my wallet. They can make enough money to thrive and survive without dealing with regimes that have objectives that run contrary to our own. Many companies do have board that make that ethical choice.
Further, anyone who thinks the Chinese repay commercial favours and abide by the rules of the rest of the world hasn't paid attention to history.
No matter how you word it, any mission statement can be reduced to "we strive to do our best, to be our best, to provide our best".
They are all to often a sign of weak leadership and direction hoping to compensate for such.
I dislike them on that basis.
This is indicative of a philosophical difference between Canada and the US. In the US, business is king. In Canada, business is a means to prosperity for the owners and employees. However, it is recognized that people have to work to eat etc and that business holds the advantage over their employees.
As a result there is more legislation regarding workers rights than in the US. For example, in the US, your boss can come up to you and order you to pee in a bottle to see if you smoked a joint recently. In Canada, unless you are a pilot, railroad engineer etc where your performance could hurt others, this is forbidden. Also, I was surprised to find that in the US, paid vacation time is not a requirement. In Canada, you are entitled to two weeks per year minimum by law.
There are other examples, but you get the idea.