Windows Server 2012 is the name of the new server product that will ship at the end of the year.
Windows 7 has pretty good adoption in the enterprise market. And while most shops didn't deploy Vista on the desktop, they were buying Vista licenses with a downgrade to XP. Microsoft didn't lose money or market share. I imagine that many shops will purchase Windows 8 licenses as soon as it ships, with a Windows 7 downgrade and actually deploy 7 on the desktop.
For years people have said the PC market is dead and no one will purchase PCs anymore because netbooks are around, or smartphones, or tablets. But more most people, these devices supplement a PC. They don't fully replace a PC.
PC sales haven't suffered, and PCs certainly aren't disappearing in the enterprise market (where Microsoft really makes bank).
Will Best Buy continue to sell Windows desktops? Yes. Will enterprise shops still buy Windows desktops and servers almost exclusively? Yes. It doesn't matter. As much as Windows ME was a disaster, it didn't affect market share. As much as Vista was a turd, it didn't affect market share.
Even if people started replacing desktop apps with web apps, they still need an OS on their desktop/laptop.
Furthermore, as much as I don't care for Microsoft's business tactics, and as much as I love Linux, I think Microsoft will actually GAIN market share with the new Window Server 2012 while companies like VMWare and Citrix will be losing business.
Buffet bailed out his local paper first. I worked there. It was "employee" owned in that you could buy stock, but the stock had to stay with the company and usually when the company got rid of people, the executives kept just awarding more and more stock to themselves. They kept paying themselves huge bonuses and talked publicly about record profits, but they maintained the profits by layoffs and pay cuts followed by more layoffs and pay cuts.
The publisher/CEO told me that the thought the internet wouldn't affect the newspaper industry at all. It was the same as radio and TV before it.
He also bragged about how proud he was of the newspaper's legacy of enacting change in the community via propaganda. When Nebraska was being considered for the first legal casinos outside of reservations, Atlantic City and Vegas, the World-Herald ran front page stories daily about how gambling was evil and would immediately destroy any metropolitan area it was in. So the casinos built right across the river in Iowa. Iowa has been rolling in tax revenue since then, while all the money comes from Omaha. The casinos haven't destroyed our city, but we missed out on all the tax revenue thanks to the paper. I also spoke to a reporter whose assignment was literally to slander someone running for city council in Lincoln, Nebraska as much as possible. He owned a sex toy company, which was against the morals of the paper, and they felt it was their duty to bury the guy. Oddly enough, the paper didn't have morals when it came to abusing employees and laying them off.
The company was run exceedingly poorly. Oddly enough, most of the suggestions I made to improve the company were implemented about two years later when the newspaper was somewhat forced to embrace the digital era.
Google News has said they'd share revenue with newspapers who feed them stories. And I specifically frequent news sites that have good writers and good view points. You can run a successful newspaper, though the physical product may eventually die out. It is a shame that Buffet is bailing out poorly run companies, because the same corrupt executives who lined their pockets as they laid everyone off just got rewarded for their behavior so it can continue some more.
The DMCA was aimed at stopping piracy, but reaches too far. Circumventing copyright protections (DRM) for any reason is illegal according to the DMCA. If SecuROM is hosing your computer and you need to fix your computer by removing SecuROM, then you just broke the law even if you made no effort to pirate software.
Pystar wasn't pirating copies of OS X. They were buying copies and reselling them, and a judge ruled that since they bypassed DRM to get the software to install, that means they weren't protected by first-sale doctrine, which is backwards. First-sale doctrine should have protected them and said that they had the right to do what they wanted with the software and hardware they purchased. However, thanks to the DMCA, Pystar does not have the right to circumvent DRM for any reason.
Let's say the pizza shop demanded that you eat their pizza on their plate, and their plate alone. You have plates at home, or you could buy other plates cheaper elsewhere. The only thing stopping you from placing their pizza on your plate was their license, and judges don't find this to be anti-competitive behavior. This is the same federal government who said Microsoft didn't have the right to bundle Windows Media Player, and Microsoft wasn't forcing people to use it, or preventing people from using other media players. The government demanded that Microsoft support interoperability and not bundle. But they do support Apple whose behavior is far more anti-competitive than Microsoft's.
That's my point. By placing the DMCA above all other relevant laws, Atari v. Activision would be ruled differently. I don't like this new precedent and what it bodes for the future.
In theory, first sale doctrine says that once you purchase the software you should have the right to do with it what you want.
Judges have made conflicting rulings in this area. You can apparently ignore the DMCA and jailbreak your iPhone if you want, because you own the phone and you have the right to try and unlock more features with the hardware if you want. Some judges have said that mod chips on consoles are legal in and of themselves. They are only illegal when you pirate games.
Here, judges are ruling that the DMCA trumps consumer rights.
Should Apple have the right to demand the software can only run on their hardware?
Remember when Atari tried blocking third-party software from their hardware and a judge ruled that they must allow for third-party use of their hardware?
This gets me that first sale doctrine doesn't matter. The DMCA (which is overkill and bad legislation) takes precedence. The Psystar case reminds me of the Atari ruling, when Atari didn't want to allow third-party developers to make games for their console. Imagine if there were no third-party developers today. If Psystar legally purchased OSX software licenses, why shouldn't they be able to legally resell them with hardware? We have judges protecting a monopoly and frankly I don't understand it.
Some remain millionaires and some squander their wealth. Those that squander their wealth are back to being average Americans. However, given that some remain millionaires, the pool of NFL players has more money on the whole than the average American. And former players get NFL health benefits.
I'm assuming the statistics cover all players, but punters and kickers rarely (if ever) get hit.
Steroids don't cause CTE, nor shave 10 years off your life. And the NFL has aggressive steroids testing now. It is possible players like Seau (who just committed suicide) did steroids in his career, but I don't think it is a given that all NFL players do steroids.
If you are only implying that their living hard is just taking hits, that's the entire point I'm making. The trauma from these hits are killing players quicker.
Dr. Cantu at Boston Universities' chronic traumatic encephalopathy department said their study showed the average first-string college football player in a given year experiences between 800 and 1,500 blows to the head of a G-force greater than 20.
They do tests with accelerometers in helmets actually. And there is a big industry right now in trying to design safer helmets.
The headline is a bit misleading in that many of these studies have concluded the sheet number of small hits is actually more dangerous than the few big ones that lead to concussions. Even players who never get a concussion can be looking at a lifetime of neurological conditions. If I recall, the average NFL player dies over 10 years earlier than the average American. Considering these are frequently relatively wealthy people with good health care, that should say something.
We used to say football was barbaric when it was played without much in the way of helmets and pads, but the real issue is that we have people over 300 pounds who are pure muscle and can run a 4.5 40 yard dash. People hit with far more force in football today than they did 50 years ago. And that trend will likely continue. At some point, something will have to give.
BTW, I love the game of football, but I am concerned about the well being of players. And I'm not sure I'd let my son play if I had one.
They aren't pricing games at $100. New games are still $60, where as NES titles inflation adjusted would be over $100 today. We're paying less per game.
And you can't simply develop a Wii game and magically release it on all 3 consoles. There is additional cost to port. We're talking the entry level cost of development at $17-$20 million. Developers often target a single console for development. For a single platform, there are similar numbers today than the NES era.
Simply put, games cost EXPONENTIALLY more to to develop now, yet cost less. And you're complaining they cost too much. This is exactly why the bubble will burst.
1. FWIW, I doubt those numbers as well, but those are the numbers from the article. I tried doing research for an article I was writing to determine the budget to make Super Mario Bros. I couldn't find the numbers anywhere.
If anyone has decent documented numbers of the production costs of older games, please respond with a link.
2. There were 62 million NES consoles sold. There have been 62 million PS3s sold. I'm not seeing much of a change.
This is happening to a lesser extent. Indie titles and iOS titles are popular right now. But most people won't go and buy a console game that looks dated. Consumers do respond to graphics. Consumers expect increasingly more for increasingly less.
The best selling titles traditionally are shooters. If the next Call of Duty game had shoddy graphics to save money, can you imagine the reaction?
The cost of recording an album or printing a book hasn't risen dramatically in the past 20 years.
The cost of making a game has. Perhaps you should read the article and check the chart right up at the top. In the 16-bit era, it cost 50k-300k to make a game. This article lists $17m-$20m to produce a game. And we know certain games like Max Payne 3 and GTAIV cost north of $100m.
Record companies aren't going bankrupt left and right. Game developers are. Please read what I wrote and respond to what I actually said.
Developing 3D models aren't easy. The more assets you need, and the nicer you want them to look means you need to pay more artists for their time. Having a faster processor doesn't really reduce the time it takes artists to make these models.
Making better looking games year after year with the same console hardware means paying developers to creatively eke more power out of those consoles.
And I've never seen a developer state that porting costs more than art assets. Porting can be expensive, and sometimes it also means giving up revenue that Microsoft or Sony paid to have an "exclusive".
I stated that EA is a publisher. And as a publisher, they turn a profit currently. I stated that people see them as the devil and don't care if they might potentially fail.
The problem is that developers don't work unless a publisher funds it. Hoping that EA dies means all the developers lose their jobs first.
I've mentioned this many times before. We're going to have a bubble burst here pretty soon.
I've heard it stated the entry level for a AAA title is $15 million, with the average AAA game costing $25 million to develop. Some games like GTA IV cost north of $100 million.
Very few console games sell more than 1 million copies. For instance, only 25 titles have ever reached that mark on the PS3.
NES games cost $50 back in 1985, which is over $100 in today's dollars. We expect far more from a game now while we're willing to spend far less, and yet consumers constantly complain that games are too expensive.
Now, I hear rumors today that EA is about to be bought out. Do people realize game developers often work 80 hour weeks without paid overtime? Do they realize developers keep going bankrupt?
Sure, EA is the devil and people may relish in publishers going bankrupt, but without developers we don't have games. I'd rather not see all my favorite developers out of work.
Unquestionably, Steam has DRM, but it is some of the least intrusive DRM out there.
I can play games offline. I can download copies of my games as many times as I want on other devices. I don't get limited activations. Steam doesn't break anything else on my box. And Steam routinely has really cheap prices.
I don't like DRM. I feel it punishes paying customers without stopping pirates. But frankly, I think Steam is worth the trade-off. The DRM doesn't get in the way, and the benefits are pretty good.
Slashdot Mirror
Many Microsoft sites that used Silverlight have moved to HTML5, and Microsoft is telling Silverlight developers to embrace HTML5.
Windows Server 2012 is the name of the new server product that will ship at the end of the year.
Windows 7 has pretty good adoption in the enterprise market. And while most shops didn't deploy Vista on the desktop, they were buying Vista licenses with a downgrade to XP. Microsoft didn't lose money or market share. I imagine that many shops will purchase Windows 8 licenses as soon as it ships, with a Windows 7 downgrade and actually deploy 7 on the desktop.
For years people have said the PC market is dead and no one will purchase PCs anymore because netbooks are around, or smartphones, or tablets. But more most people, these devices supplement a PC. They don't fully replace a PC.
PC sales haven't suffered, and PCs certainly aren't disappearing in the enterprise market (where Microsoft really makes bank).
Will Best Buy continue to sell Windows desktops? Yes. Will enterprise shops still buy Windows desktops and servers almost exclusively? Yes. It doesn't matter. As much as Windows ME was a disaster, it didn't affect market share. As much as Vista was a turd, it didn't affect market share.
Even if people started replacing desktop apps with web apps, they still need an OS on their desktop/laptop.
Furthermore, as much as I don't care for Microsoft's business tactics, and as much as I love Linux, I think Microsoft will actually GAIN market share with the new Window Server 2012 while companies like VMWare and Citrix will be losing business.
Buffet bailed out his local paper first. I worked there. It was "employee" owned in that you could buy stock, but the stock had to stay with the company and usually when the company got rid of people, the executives kept just awarding more and more stock to themselves. They kept paying themselves huge bonuses and talked publicly about record profits, but they maintained the profits by layoffs and pay cuts followed by more layoffs and pay cuts.
The publisher/CEO told me that the thought the internet wouldn't affect the newspaper industry at all. It was the same as radio and TV before it.
He also bragged about how proud he was of the newspaper's legacy of enacting change in the community via propaganda. When Nebraska was being considered for the first legal casinos outside of reservations, Atlantic City and Vegas, the World-Herald ran front page stories daily about how gambling was evil and would immediately destroy any metropolitan area it was in. So the casinos built right across the river in Iowa. Iowa has been rolling in tax revenue since then, while all the money comes from Omaha. The casinos haven't destroyed our city, but we missed out on all the tax revenue thanks to the paper. I also spoke to a reporter whose assignment was literally to slander someone running for city council in Lincoln, Nebraska as much as possible. He owned a sex toy company, which was against the morals of the paper, and they felt it was their duty to bury the guy. Oddly enough, the paper didn't have morals when it came to abusing employees and laying them off.
The company was run exceedingly poorly. Oddly enough, most of the suggestions I made to improve the company were implemented about two years later when the newspaper was somewhat forced to embrace the digital era.
Google News has said they'd share revenue with newspapers who feed them stories. And I specifically frequent news sites that have good writers and good view points. You can run a successful newspaper, though the physical product may eventually die out. It is a shame that Buffet is bailing out poorly run companies, because the same corrupt executives who lined their pockets as they laid everyone off just got rewarded for their behavior so it can continue some more.
The DMCA was aimed at stopping piracy, but reaches too far. Circumventing copyright protections (DRM) for any reason is illegal according to the DMCA. If SecuROM is hosing your computer and you need to fix your computer by removing SecuROM, then you just broke the law even if you made no effort to pirate software.
Pystar wasn't pirating copies of OS X. They were buying copies and reselling them, and a judge ruled that since they bypassed DRM to get the software to install, that means they weren't protected by first-sale doctrine, which is backwards. First-sale doctrine should have protected them and said that they had the right to do what they wanted with the software and hardware they purchased. However, thanks to the DMCA, Pystar does not have the right to circumvent DRM for any reason.
Terrible analogy.
Let's say the pizza shop demanded that you eat their pizza on their plate, and their plate alone. You have plates at home, or you could buy other plates cheaper elsewhere. The only thing stopping you from placing their pizza on your plate was their license, and judges don't find this to be anti-competitive behavior. This is the same federal government who said Microsoft didn't have the right to bundle Windows Media Player, and Microsoft wasn't forcing people to use it, or preventing people from using other media players. The government demanded that Microsoft support interoperability and not bundle. But they do support Apple whose behavior is far more anti-competitive than Microsoft's.
That's my point. By placing the DMCA above all other relevant laws, Atari v. Activision would be ruled differently. I don't like this new precedent and what it bodes for the future.
They have a monopoly of hardware that is allowed to run Apple software.
It was Apple's product, but once you purchase it, it becomes your product.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
In theory, first sale doctrine says that once you purchase the software you should have the right to do with it what you want.
Judges have made conflicting rulings in this area. You can apparently ignore the DMCA and jailbreak your iPhone if you want, because you own the phone and you have the right to try and unlock more features with the hardware if you want. Some judges have said that mod chips on consoles are legal in and of themselves. They are only illegal when you pirate games.
Here, judges are ruling that the DMCA trumps consumer rights.
Should Apple have the right to demand the software can only run on their hardware?
Remember when Atari tried blocking third-party software from their hardware and a judge ruled that they must allow for third-party use of their hardware?
This gets me that first sale doctrine doesn't matter. The DMCA (which is overkill and bad legislation) takes precedence. The Psystar case reminds me of the Atari ruling, when Atari didn't want to allow third-party developers to make games for their console. Imagine if there were no third-party developers today. If Psystar legally purchased OSX software licenses, why shouldn't they be able to legally resell them with hardware? We have judges protecting a monopoly and frankly I don't understand it.
Some remain millionaires and some squander their wealth. Those that squander their wealth are back to being average Americans. However, given that some remain millionaires, the pool of NFL players has more money on the whole than the average American. And former players get NFL health benefits.
I'm assuming the statistics cover all players, but punters and kickers rarely (if ever) get hit.
Steroids don't cause CTE, nor shave 10 years off your life. And the NFL has aggressive steroids testing now. It is possible players like Seau (who just committed suicide) did steroids in his career, but I don't think it is a given that all NFL players do steroids.
If you are only implying that their living hard is just taking hits, that's the entire point I'm making. The trauma from these hits are killing players quicker.
Dr. Cantu at Boston Universities' chronic traumatic encephalopathy department said their study showed the average first-string college football player in a given year experiences between 800 and 1,500 blows to the head of a G-force greater than 20.
They do tests with accelerometers in helmets actually. And there is a big industry right now in trying to design safer helmets.
The headline is a bit misleading in that many of these studies have concluded the sheet number of small hits is actually more dangerous than the few big ones that lead to concussions. Even players who never get a concussion can be looking at a lifetime of neurological conditions. If I recall, the average NFL player dies over 10 years earlier than the average American. Considering these are frequently relatively wealthy people with good health care, that should say something.
We used to say football was barbaric when it was played without much in the way of helmets and pads, but the real issue is that we have people over 300 pounds who are pure muscle and can run a 4.5 40 yard dash. People hit with far more force in football today than they did 50 years ago. And that trend will likely continue. At some point, something will have to give.
BTW, I love the game of football, but I am concerned about the well being of players. And I'm not sure I'd let my son play if I had one.
They aren't pricing games at $100. New games are still $60, where as NES titles inflation adjusted would be over $100 today. We're paying less per game.
And you can't simply develop a Wii game and magically release it on all 3 consoles. There is additional cost to port. We're talking the entry level cost of development at $17-$20 million. Developers often target a single console for development. For a single platform, there are similar numbers today than the NES era.
Simply put, games cost EXPONENTIALLY more to to develop now, yet cost less. And you're complaining they cost too much. This is exactly why the bubble will burst.
1. FWIW, I doubt those numbers as well, but those are the numbers from the article. I tried doing research for an article I was writing to determine the budget to make Super Mario Bros. I couldn't find the numbers anywhere.
If anyone has decent documented numbers of the production costs of older games, please respond with a link.
2. There were 62 million NES consoles sold. There have been 62 million PS3s sold. I'm not seeing much of a change.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles#Nintendo
This is happening to a lesser extent. Indie titles and iOS titles are popular right now. But most people won't go and buy a console game that looks dated. Consumers do respond to graphics. Consumers expect increasingly more for increasingly less.
The best selling titles traditionally are shooters. If the next Call of Duty game had shoddy graphics to save money, can you imagine the reaction?
The cost of recording an album or printing a book hasn't risen dramatically in the past 20 years.
The cost of making a game has. Perhaps you should read the article and check the chart right up at the top. In the 16-bit era, it cost 50k-300k to make a game. This article lists $17m-$20m to produce a game. And we know certain games like Max Payne 3 and GTAIV cost north of $100m.
Record companies aren't going bankrupt left and right. Game developers are. Please read what I wrote and respond to what I actually said.
Developing 3D models aren't easy. The more assets you need, and the nicer you want them to look means you need to pay more artists for their time. Having a faster processor doesn't really reduce the time it takes artists to make these models.
Making better looking games year after year with the same console hardware means paying developers to creatively eke more power out of those consoles.
And I've never seen a developer state that porting costs more than art assets. Porting can be expensive, and sometimes it also means giving up revenue that Microsoft or Sony paid to have an "exclusive".
I stated that EA is a publisher. And as a publisher, they turn a profit currently. I stated that people see them as the devil and don't care if they might potentially fail.
The problem is that developers don't work unless a publisher funds it. Hoping that EA dies means all the developers lose their jobs first.
I've mentioned this many times before. We're going to have a bubble burst here pretty soon.
I've heard it stated the entry level for a AAA title is $15 million, with the average AAA game costing $25 million to develop. Some games like GTA IV cost north of $100 million.
Very few console games sell more than 1 million copies. For instance, only 25 titles have ever reached that mark on the PS3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#PlayStation_3
NES games cost $50 back in 1985, which is over $100 in today's dollars. We expect far more from a game now while we're willing to spend far less, and yet consumers constantly complain that games are too expensive.
Now, I hear rumors today that EA is about to be bought out. Do people realize game developers often work 80 hour weeks without paid overtime? Do they realize developers keep going bankrupt?
Sure, EA is the devil and people may relish in publishers going bankrupt, but without developers we don't have games. I'd rather not see all my favorite developers out of work.
This is one of the few sane comments and it is modded flamebait. Please mod parent up.
Unquestionably, Steam has DRM, but it is some of the least intrusive DRM out there.
I can play games offline. I can download copies of my games as many times as I want on other devices. I don't get limited activations. Steam doesn't break anything else on my box. And Steam routinely has really cheap prices.
I don't like DRM. I feel it punishes paying customers without stopping pirates. But frankly, I think Steam is worth the trade-off. The DRM doesn't get in the way, and the benefits are pretty good.
For what it is worth, ScummVM works just fine on Linux. And many classic DOS point-and-click games also work great in DOSBox on Linux.