As the token sleazy marketing guy that reads slashdot, I feel obligated to weigh in there.
First, to correct someone else who commented earlier, the point of marketing is not to convince someone to buy what they don't need. That's nuts; getting someone to buy something they don't need is no way to build a business. There are, however, two points to marketing:
1. Differentiation: explain the value of your products to solve a prospect's problems better than those of your competition.
2. Segmentation: determine what attributes your product has (or needs to have) to solve problems that your prospect is willing to pay to solve. This means either take an existing product to solve the products of different prospects, or start with a market that you're successful in and build something new that solves additional problems.
So looking at that, let's consider your statement:
> The best way for marketing to be effective on me
> as a consumer is to... wait for it... show me
> products I am actually interested in.
that's a concise goal, but it raises additional questions.
> marketing to be effective
What do we mean by "effective"? What do you do? what problems are you having today and you're trying to solve? what buying decisions are you involved in? how much money do you have? How much are you willing to spend to solve the problems you mentioned? How about your ideas of brand loyalty? How long will you keep the product?
> show me
Okay, how? Come to your house? Come to your office? Set up a booth at a trade show? Which ones? Advertise in trade magazines you read? How do I know what you read? Advertise on Slashdot? What if you're blocking ads? How about television ads? What do you watch? Are you using Tivo to skip ads? Do you like billboards? Do you prefer mailing circulars? Is there a more cost effective way of reaching you?
> products I am actually interested in
How do I know what you're interested in? Is it related to what you read on the web? Is it related to your job? How about your hobbies? Do you know what specific products you want? How about product categories? What attributes do you consider important in your buying decision? What attributes does your boss force you to have, but you don't think you really need?
My point is your statement makes perfect sense, but it leads to a lot of other questions as well, which is what complicates the issue. And just like with anything, there are good approaches to it, and bad ones (for the web these would include annoying popup ads, email harvesting, spam, telemarketers, etc.). Just like you, I hate the annoying approaches, but remember, hearing someone say they hate marketing is like when you hear someone say they hate computers. They don't really hate *computers*, they hate the experiences they've had with certain computers (or software programs, or whatever) so far.
The technology that we sell is a padlock to music. If you have a lock cutter, a bolt cutter, you can cut that padlock off. If you're determined to steal the music, the music can be stolen. Our technology is not thief proof.
So this guy is selling a technology that won't stop thieves, but it will stop users from legitimately copying music from their CDs to their computer hard drives? It sounds like they're tacitly admitting that they're using the guise of "piracy protection" to do what they really want. That is to make music more like software -- eventually if you want to play it in your car and your home stereo, buy two copies of the CD!
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to be able to load software onto your computer:
* I have a FireWire hard drive that I use to store all my music, and it's available to all my computers (including across my AirPort wireless network)
* Even within my house, having a hard drive with random access to my entire collection is better than some slow CD jukebox with a crappy UI
* I've had CDs go bad that can't be read (older ones with a lot of paint on them) or have gotten scratched. A copy of the songs on a hard drive provide protection against that degradation
* When I'm travelling, I don't want to bring audio CDs with me. It's easier just have songs on the hard drive
Simply put, I will not buy any CDs that can't be read on my computer -- normally. Some silly copy protection scheme that calls up Microsoft to confirm my credit card receipt every time I want listen to a song doesn't count.
A couple of people have suggested that if one doesn't like the FrontPage EULA, you shouldn't use it, That may work for individuals, but what about corporations?
Are they not allowed to say anything negative about Microsoft (like reporting on sleazy things they did in the DOJ trial) just because their IT department decided that everyone's going to use FrontPage to generate web content? What about a news organization?
Think about if other companies did this. I remember back in 1997 when it fashionable to back Apple, you'd have writers penning very biased anti-Apple articles from their own PowerBooks (hey! I'm talking to you, Wired).
I guess this all stems from the idea that you can't buy software; you only license it. It'll only get worse when they put annual subscriptions into play because they won't have to take you to court; they'll just refused to renew your subscription.
I wonder if this means that Microsoft will someday decide to not renew some Microsoft-investigatin' journalist's subscription to their products because of some condition like this in the EULA.
Bart briefly had a Ferarri when he was Burn's heir. He could even have a Christmas elf to come along for the ride. In fact, Marge briefly stole Ranier's Testerossa briefly in one episode.
Troy McClure could have his Delorean. Cletus should be in his stepside pickup truck (complete with roadkill in the bed). Dr. Hibbert could be in his Volvo. I'd like to drive as Prof. Frink on his flying motorcycle.
For songs, the various incarnations of the Simpson's themes would get boring. They should use:
1. The Canyonero theme song (that song is great!)
2. the standard "chase music" that they use for car chases
3. music licensed from bands that have appeared on the Simpsons: Smashing Pumpkins, Cypress Hill, the Who, Elton John, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, Lurleen's songs, Tom Jones, etc.
4. They could stretch it with some vaguely related songs like "Gonna Paint our Wagon" (assuming someone's driving a wood paneled station wagon), "Oh, Streetcar!", the monorail song (particularly if the story is that someone raised the taxes on bus fare)
There are plenty of chances for them to really make this a *Simpsons* game (multiple characters, multiple cars, variety of music), but I suspect that just shoehorned the most obvious Simpsons characters into this game without really thinking about it.
Read the links for the images on IGN's site (comment 2302558-- sue me, I'm too lazy to hyperlink). Whoever set up the site has probably never seen Simpsons
Apu isn't driving a "Red Car"; it should be a circa 1978-era Trans Am-like car (they already had to license the Simpsons characters; I wonder if they'll bother to license the car makes)
Homer definitely isn't driving a pink Cadillac. It's just a pink American sedan.
The game should put Marge in her Canyonero (I guess Krusty should have one too). And they should make Homer's "The Car Built for Homer" a bonus car. Or even his 70s-something Dodge Charger (with sideburned-clad Homer to boot). Then they could put a younger Marge in her Gremlin.
What about Mr. Burns? Would he be in his limo? Or would they show him driving his Model T-type car where the tires must be revulcanized?
For completeness sake, Otto should be in his school bus (although his character is annoying in anything more than 10 second doses).
What about celebrity cameos? Ed Begley Jr can show up in his eco-friendly car powered by his "own sense of self-satisfaction".
They've already got Barney in his Plow King snow plow. Are there any other vehicles they should show?
Sometimes I wonder if the game programmers are actually fans of the show (if so, they should be aware of the above vehicles), or if they just tacked a Simpson's theme on a Crazy Taxi ripoff they were already doing.
One of the karma winners for that day was Slashdot
on
Handling the Loads
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· Score: 2
along with the volunteers rescuing people, donating blood or money, and helping us make sense of this madness. It's important to realize that informing the public about what happened was a crucial part helping the country when we needed it.
Thanks for keeping Slashdot running. When I heard about the news, I couldn't get to CNN or any of the news sites, so on a whim, I checked Slashdot. It loaded fast, and it was a great source of information. Eventually, I just had to go out to my car and listen to NPR.
I was surprised at how many good, informative comments there were. Sure, there were a few trolls or flamebait, but on the whole, the coverage helped in a time when many of us were at a loss.
My thoughts go out to the people who were affected by this and their families. This isn't over yet, but it seems Slashdot was a microcosm of the kind of stuff America is made of.
How exactly did this get modded as funny? I'm starting to wonder if the standards for moderation are getting too loose.
I was not aware that the government ruled that Ford had a monopoly. Nor was it decided that they illegally abused a monopoly. Microsoft was, and that makes a world of difference. Kind of like the difference between a not-guilty person and someone convicted of first degree murder.
Don't like the fact that Microsoft was ruled to have illegally abused their monopoly? Tough. Go complain to Judge Jackson that ruled it and the appeals court that upheld it.
> Although, come to think of it, most of the MS
> shares are actually employee stock options, created
> out of thin air and used by MS as a means of (a)
> avoiding paying cash to employees and (b) dodging
> taxation
As was posted on Slashdot a while ago, Microsoft didn't pay taxes in 2000. If you don't remember, the San Francisco Gate reported that Microsoft paid no taxes in 2000 because of laws that let them take deductions for employees exercising their options. It's estimated that this action reduced Microsoft's tax burden by $3.6 billion dollars.
Luckily, Microsoft was able to divert some of that tax savings to certain campaigns of GWB and other Republicans, and now they're getting a better ROI than they ever would have gotten if they had actually paid any taxes.
It's hard to tell if you meant that sarcastically, but if you did, allow me to explain.
Think about our form of government for a second. You can have the most well researched, informed, unbiased view on a subject, and yet your vote is worth the exact same as someone who heard of the issue 10 minutes ago, misunderstood the explanation, and accidentally wandered into a voting booth. That's kind of the dirty secret of democracy, isn't it?
A democracy allows everyone the right to vote, but it requires that the population be reasonably informed and willing to learn about an issue. But I think a lot of people forget their end of the bargain.
> The idea of a game is to pit players against one
> another and let the best player win, not to sell
> the victory to the player with the most
> disposable income and least scruples.
Congratulations. I think you've summarized the DOJ's case against Microsoft.
> Pushing one bill through Congress is one thing,
> pushing the same bill through 50 states is
> something else entirely.
> It is easier for individuals and small interests
> to act at a state level, and the effects of
> crazy laws such as this one would be minimized.
With all the Libertarians that seem to have infiltrated Slashdot recently (along with the Microsoft supporters -- what, are they bussing them in these days?), I suspect I will get modded down, but...
You're right about the conceptual differences between pushing a law at the Federal level vs. at the State level, but that's an argument for a strong Federal government (and some good campaign finance laws). It's usually the crazy (or one-issue fanatical) individuals who try to get something passed. It is easier to get a state law passed over some crazy thing than it is to get a Federal law passed. For example, laws requiring biblical creation, Jim Crowe laws, laws trying to legislate pi, etc. -- I think there's a web site on this. Of course, it doesn't preclude crazy laws happening on the Federal level; it's just not as frequent.
There's probably a complicated reason why this is, but it's probably because average person isn't really concerned about the government at all. They generally care more about the sports scores than they do about who's running the country. When they do care, it's in a "sports-type" mentality: who won the game, who won the Oscar for best actor, who's now president? That's probably why most people can name 10 sports figures, but would be hard pressed to name their state senators or representatives.
So I disagree that a weaker Federal government in favor of state governments is the answer. A stronger Federal government (along with some new campaign finance laws) is a safer bet that leaving things up to the dubious judgement of the states.
> Because the liberals/socialists want to be the "big brother" of society...
> they don't believe in people taking responsibility for themselves.
Careful about those generalizations and stereotypes. That's what they do in Russia!:-)
I don't think it's the Liberals who are trying to outlaw abortion, legislate what consenting adults can do in their private bedrooms, outlaw free speech (like burning a flag to protest your government), legislate their religious beliefs into public schools, another other acts of increasing the size of government interference.
Big Brother is where you look for him.
Back on topic, I'd rather see something like this installed in the cars of people who have been convicted of driving under the influence (and make it a low standard, too). I think it's more common that people who DUI, do it habitually, so it makes sense to have the technology to monitor them. But putting something like this in cars as a matter of course is unnacceptable.
You cite the Natural Keyboard and Intellimouse as examples of their innovation?
Microsoft Natural Keyboard was an extension on other ergonomic keyboards that had been available for some time. Even Apple had an ergonomic keyboard back in 1992 -- except theirs was adjustable and sported an astonishing $250 price tag. I'm sure that others had them as well, but MS didn't put theirs out until years later.
And Microsoft licensed the Intellimouse from HP, so I'm not sure how much research went into that from MS's resources.
So I agree with the previous posts; Microsoft's research group seems to have contributed little to actual MS products.
I think he meant that internally Microsoft used to refer to Apple as Research and Development South.
Re: not sure I agree
on
HP Buys Compaq
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Compaq has the Intel server market nailed. Someone with market numbers chime in please, but I believe they're way ahead of everyone else. Compaq is credible on the desktop. Their major competitors are Dell and IBM. especially on business desks. Finally, Compaq has PDA offerings that HP lacks, and has a successful storage business that HP would benefit from.
Both Compaq and HP have lost ground in the enterprise service space to IBM and Dell (I believe Compaq saw a 26% drop this year in market share in the enterprise market; not sure about HP). So I'm not sure I'd say Compaq has the Intel server market nailed.
Additionally, the PDA market has been generally stagnant. PDAs were a lot like health club memberships for average people. They would buy them to "get organized", but it would generally be nothing but a glorified address book. I think that's why Palm (who has 70% of the market) has been successful in the past (it was a fad to get a PDA because it made you "hip"), but is also having a hard time this year (no one sees a reason to upgrade). Case in point, in my office-- mostly people 32-50 in a large telecom company-- there are plenty of 2 year old Palm V's, but I've only seen one new model (a entry level 105, I think).
So I still don't know what big advantages Compaq is going to bring to HP.
As we all know, the PC market is quite saturated. Most people who are going to buy a PC have bought one and PC manufacturers are now almostly completely reliant on upgrades to existing computers to drive sales.
And most people that are going to buy a car have already bought those too, but I'd hardly say that market is saturated.
I think what you mean to say is that the PC market has offered very little that is compelling enough for people to buy a new one. This is generally the consensus in the industry because very few companies in the computer industry are innovators. The industry is made up of followers, whose idea of innovating is to increase the number of specification "X". Real innovation is not deepening the pipelines of a processor so that you can run it at a higher clock rate or doubling the hard drive capacity without increasing the price. Although those are facinating technological feats, they are not enough to get people to buy new products. It means coming up with new, compelling functions that people are willing to pay for.
> Microsoft isn't squeezing out competition by including the media player in its software.
> If anything it is just attempting to keep up the times with the MAC people.
> Yes, Mac sucks, but it is renouned for its a/v interface.
This is listed as insightful? I'd call it flamebait.
Microsoft has a monopoly, and they've been found guilty of illegally abusing it. In the case they were found to have squeezed Apple regarding QuickTime where they were trying to illegally partition the market.
How many microsoft people do we have infiltrating slashdot these days? They must have the whole marketing department on here.
> Why is Microsoft not allowed to distribte its multimedia
> play-back software while Apple can?
Microsoft's got a monopoly but Apple doesn't. Simple. Microsoft's also been found to illegally abuse their monopoly to gain entrance into other markets.
So the reason why they can't push their media player is the same reason why someone who gets convicted of drunk driving can't drive a car.
> If Microsoft is the 5th biggest contributer to both the Republicans and Democrats,
> vote in somebody that hasn't been bought.
The difference is a matter of degrees.
Microsoft has donated 4-5 times the amount of money to the Republicans that to the Democrats. The way it worked out is Microsoft the company donated money to the Republican National Committee (RNC) or to particular candidates, but usually it was individuals working at Microsoft or subsidiaries (like WebTV) that donated money to the Democrats. So to say that the two biggest parties are "bought" is to oversimplify the situation.
Don't forget Al Gore went to Microsoft's campus and told them that he supported the case against them (and he refused initially to go at all because Microsoft initially barred the press from attending). GWB on the other hand just mumbles that he's all for innovation.
As you say, do you honestly think that the world's most scrutinized company would knowingly agree to a campaign that utilized dead folk's signature's? As much as you hate to admit, MS has put themselves in this dominant position by having pretty smart people with keen business acumen and the drive to beat/crush their competition. How dumb do you think they are?
I never find the argument that some entity is too smart to do something stupid very convincing. That reminds me of when people claim that some "psychic" must be real because if he were a fake, his tricks would work all the time. Since the tricks only work some of the time, he must be the real thing!
Microsoft isn't infallible. And although it's unlikely that Balmer explicately told them to send out letters with dead people's signatures, he probably implicately told them to do whatever it takes. It's hard to believe that anything Microsoft does in relation to this case would be done without executive management's approval or consent.
Don't forget, although this case is extreme, it isn't completely unheard of considering other things (faked demos in court, misleading videotape in court, the other astroturf campaign, Gates claiming they don't track marketshare, etc) they've done lately.
The Los Angeles Times reported 3 years ago a similar scheme, where Microsoft was planning "a massive media campaign designed to influence state investigators by creating the appearance of a groundswell of public support for the company." [LA Times, "Microsoft Plans Stealth Blitz to Mend Its Image Public relations", Apr 10, 1998]. At the time that target was for free-lance writers to write opinion pieces, which would then be billed to Microsoft as an out of pocket expense.
The only difference is, at the time Microsoft claimed that the idea it "was merely a proposal and 'not something we are moving on'" while this time they seem to be executing this plan.
Faked video tapes, lying executives, and now this. Perhaps I'm overreacting (and it's 7 a.m. for me, so maybe I am), but can this company's actions get any worse? If the government itself were caught doing something like this, people would be in an uproar. But when it's Microsoft, most people respond with, "well, what can you do?"
> Microsoft is sending letters to Utah's Attorney General
> in support of the company, but with fake signatures
> of citizens (some of whom are dead!).
Oh my God! The dead have risen, and they're supporting Microsoft!
At first, it seems like this computer that can fool child language experts is impressive. But in the article you linked where a similar experiment was done to see if psychiatrists could tell the difference between a paranoid patient and a computer:
PARRY was designed to engage in a dialogue in the role of a paranoid patient. The program was perhaps the first to be subject to an actual controlled experiment modeled on the Turing test [5], in which psychiatrists were given transcripts of electronically mediated dialogues with PARRY and with actual paranoids and were asked to pick out the simulated patient from the real. The fact that the
expert judges, the psychiatrists, did no better than chance...
I love reading about Bluetooth! Some of the examples I've read:
"You walk into an airport, and they beam your ticket to your cell phone or PDA." I've seen the airlines lose my luggage before; I think they'll find a way to screw up beaming me my ticket. Anyway, this would require some sort of encryption because they'd want to know if my luggage has been with me, am I the person who really owns this PDA, etc. No, I suspect that Bluetooth will really result in me getting 3 ads for airport gift shops sent to my PDA when I walk in the door.
"You walk in your house and your Palm automatically synchronizes" Sounds great. My Palm confuses my contact manager too often -- duplicate names, to-do's not checked, meetings duplicated. I do want my PDA doing anything without my permission first.
No, I expect Bluetooth will revolutionalize our lives the way infrared in PDAs revolutionalized how we exchange business cards. And *nobody* has printed business cards anymore, right? I work in the telecom industry, and I've seen someone beam a business card maybe 3 times in the last 4 years of the PDA-revolution.
Slashdot Mirror
As the token sleazy marketing guy that reads slashdot, I feel obligated to weigh in there.
First, to correct someone else who commented earlier, the point of marketing is not to convince someone to buy what they don't need. That's nuts; getting someone to buy something they don't need is no way to build a business. There are, however, two points to marketing:
1. Differentiation: explain the value of your products to solve a prospect's problems better than those of your competition.
2. Segmentation: determine what attributes your product has (or needs to have) to solve problems that your prospect is willing to pay to solve. This means either take an existing product to solve the products of different prospects, or start with a market that you're successful in and build something new that solves additional problems.
So looking at that, let's consider your statement:
> The best way for marketing to be effective on me
> as a consumer is to... wait for it... show me
> products I am actually interested in.
that's a concise goal, but it raises additional questions.
> marketing to be effective
What do we mean by "effective"? What do you do? what problems are you having today and you're trying to solve? what buying decisions are you involved in? how much money do you have? How much are you willing to spend to solve the problems you mentioned? How about your ideas of brand loyalty? How long will you keep the product?
> show me
Okay, how? Come to your house? Come to your office? Set up a booth at a trade show? Which ones? Advertise in trade magazines you read? How do I know what you read? Advertise on Slashdot? What if you're blocking ads? How about television ads? What do you watch? Are you using Tivo to skip ads? Do you like billboards? Do you prefer mailing circulars? Is there a more cost effective way of reaching you?
> products I am actually interested in
How do I know what you're interested in? Is it related to what you read on the web? Is it related to your job? How about your hobbies? Do you know what specific products you want? How about product categories? What attributes do you consider important in your buying decision? What attributes does your boss force you to have, but you don't think you really need?
My point is your statement makes perfect sense, but it leads to a lot of other questions as well, which is what complicates the issue. And just like with anything, there are good approaches to it, and bad ones (for the web these would include annoying popup ads, email harvesting, spam, telemarketers, etc.). Just like you, I hate the annoying approaches, but remember, hearing someone say they hate marketing is like when you hear someone say they hate computers. They don't really hate *computers*, they hate the experiences they've had with certain computers (or software programs, or whatever) so far.
I love the quote from the article:
So this guy is selling a technology that won't stop thieves, but it will stop users from legitimately copying music from their CDs to their computer hard drives? It sounds like they're tacitly admitting that they're using the guise of "piracy protection" to do what they really want. That is to make music more like software -- eventually if you want to play it in your car and your home stereo, buy two copies of the CD!
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to be able to load software onto your computer:
* I have a FireWire hard drive that I use to store all my music, and it's available to all my computers (including across my AirPort wireless network)
* Even within my house, having a hard drive with random access to my entire collection is better than some slow CD jukebox with a crappy UI
* I've had CDs go bad that can't be read (older ones with a lot of paint on them) or have gotten scratched. A copy of the songs on a hard drive provide protection against that degradation
* When I'm travelling, I don't want to bring audio CDs with me. It's easier just have songs on the hard drive
Simply put, I will not buy any CDs that can't be read on my computer -- normally. Some silly copy protection scheme that calls up Microsoft to confirm my credit card receipt every time I want listen to a song doesn't count.
A couple of people have suggested that if one doesn't like the FrontPage EULA, you shouldn't use it, That may work for individuals, but what about corporations?
Are they not allowed to say anything negative about Microsoft (like reporting on sleazy things they did in the DOJ trial) just because their IT department decided that everyone's going to use FrontPage to generate web content? What about a news organization?
Think about if other companies did this. I remember back in 1997 when it fashionable to back Apple, you'd have writers penning very biased anti-Apple articles from their own PowerBooks (hey! I'm talking to you, Wired).
I guess this all stems from the idea that you can't buy software; you only license it. It'll only get worse when they put annual subscriptions into play because they won't have to take you to court; they'll just refused to renew your subscription.
I wonder if this means that Microsoft will someday decide to not renew some Microsoft-investigatin' journalist's subscription to their products because of some condition like this in the EULA.
Good ones.
Bart briefly had a Ferarri when he was Burn's heir. He could even have a Christmas elf to come along for the ride. In fact, Marge briefly stole Ranier's Testerossa briefly in one episode.
Troy McClure could have his Delorean. Cletus should be in his stepside pickup truck (complete with roadkill in the bed). Dr. Hibbert could be in his Volvo. I'd like to drive as Prof. Frink on his flying motorcycle.
For songs, the various incarnations of the Simpson's themes would get boring. They should use:
1. The Canyonero theme song (that song is great!)
2. the standard "chase music" that they use for car chases
3. music licensed from bands that have appeared on the Simpsons: Smashing Pumpkins, Cypress Hill, the Who, Elton John, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, Lurleen's songs, Tom Jones, etc.
4. They could stretch it with some vaguely related songs like "Gonna Paint our Wagon" (assuming someone's driving a wood paneled station wagon), "Oh, Streetcar!", the monorail song (particularly if the story is that someone raised the taxes on bus fare)
There are plenty of chances for them to really make this a *Simpsons* game (multiple characters, multiple cars, variety of music), but I suspect that just shoehorned the most obvious Simpsons characters into this game without really thinking about it.
Read the links for the images on IGN's site (comment 2302558-- sue me, I'm too lazy to hyperlink). Whoever set up the site has probably never seen Simpsons
Apu isn't driving a "Red Car"; it should be a circa 1978-era Trans Am-like car (they already had to license the Simpsons characters; I wonder if they'll bother to license the car makes)
Homer definitely isn't driving a pink Cadillac. It's just a pink American sedan.
The game should put Marge in her Canyonero (I guess Krusty should have one too). And they should make Homer's "The Car Built for Homer" a bonus car. Or even his 70s-something Dodge Charger (with sideburned-clad Homer to boot). Then they could put a younger Marge in her Gremlin.
What about Mr. Burns? Would he be in his limo? Or would they show him driving his Model T-type car where the tires must be revulcanized?
For completeness sake, Otto should be in his school bus (although his character is annoying in anything more than 10 second doses).
What about celebrity cameos? Ed Begley Jr can show up in his eco-friendly car powered by his "own sense of self-satisfaction".
They've already got Barney in his Plow King snow plow. Are there any other vehicles they should show?
Sometimes I wonder if the game programmers are actually fans of the show (if so, they should be aware of the above vehicles), or if they just tacked a Simpson's theme on a Crazy Taxi ripoff they were already doing.
along with the volunteers rescuing people, donating blood or money, and helping us make sense of this madness. It's important to realize that informing the public about what happened was a crucial part helping the country when we needed it.
Thanks for keeping Slashdot running. When I heard about the news, I couldn't get to CNN or any of the news sites, so on a whim, I checked Slashdot. It loaded fast, and it was a great source of information. Eventually, I just had to go out to my car and listen to NPR.
I was surprised at how many good, informative comments there were. Sure, there were a few trolls or flamebait, but on the whole, the coverage helped in a time when many of us were at a loss.
My thoughts go out to the people who were affected by this and their families. This isn't over yet, but it seems Slashdot was a microcosm of the kind of stuff America is made of.
How exactly did this get modded as funny? I'm starting to wonder if the standards for moderation are getting too loose.
I was not aware that the government ruled that Ford had a monopoly. Nor was it decided that they illegally abused a monopoly. Microsoft was, and that makes a world of difference. Kind of like the difference between a not-guilty person and someone convicted of first degree murder.
Don't like the fact that Microsoft was ruled to have illegally abused their monopoly? Tough. Go complain to Judge Jackson that ruled it and the appeals court that upheld it.
> Although, come to think of it, most of the MS
> shares are actually employee stock options, created
> out of thin air and used by MS as a means of (a)
> avoiding paying cash to employees and (b) dodging
> taxation
As was posted on Slashdot a while ago, Microsoft didn't pay taxes in 2000. If you don't remember, the San Francisco Gate reported that Microsoft paid no taxes in 2000 because of laws that let them take deductions for employees exercising their options. It's estimated that this action reduced Microsoft's tax burden by $3.6 billion dollars.
Luckily, Microsoft was able to divert some of that tax savings to certain campaigns of GWB and other Republicans, and now they're getting a better ROI than they ever would have gotten if they had actually paid any taxes.
It's hard to tell if you meant that sarcastically, but if you did, allow me to explain.
Think about our form of government for a second. You can have the most well researched, informed, unbiased view on a subject, and yet your vote is worth the exact same as someone who heard of the issue 10 minutes ago, misunderstood the explanation, and accidentally wandered into a voting booth. That's kind of the dirty secret of democracy, isn't it?
A democracy allows everyone the right to vote, but it requires that the population be reasonably informed and willing to learn about an issue. But I think a lot of people forget their end of the bargain.
> The idea of a game is to pit players against one
> another and let the best player win, not to sell
> the victory to the player with the most
> disposable income and least scruples.
Congratulations. I think you've summarized the DOJ's case against Microsoft.
> I once was "Ungrounded Lightning Rod" but /. slashed off my " Rod".
Dear GOD! Was it the new version of Slashdot that did this to you? All that happened to me was it quit spam-proofing my address.
Forget worrying about web sites tracking my mouse movements or sending gravity-well pop-up ads -- I'm surfing with a codpiece!
> Pushing one bill through Congress is one thing,
> It is easier for individuals and small interests> pushing the same bill through 50 states is
> something else entirely.
> to act at a state level, and the effects of
> crazy laws such as this one would be minimized.
With all the Libertarians that seem to have infiltrated Slashdot recently (along with the Microsoft supporters -- what, are they bussing them in these days?), I suspect I will get modded down, but ...
You're right about the conceptual differences between pushing a law at the Federal level vs. at the State level, but that's an argument for a strong Federal government (and some good campaign finance laws). It's usually the crazy (or one-issue fanatical) individuals who try to get something passed. It is easier to get a state law passed over some crazy thing than it is to get a Federal law passed. For example, laws requiring biblical creation, Jim Crowe laws, laws trying to legislate pi, etc. -- I think there's a web site on this. Of course, it doesn't preclude crazy laws happening on the Federal level; it's just not as frequent.
There's probably a complicated reason why this is, but it's probably because average person isn't really concerned about the government at all. They generally care more about the sports scores than they do about who's running the country. When they do care, it's in a "sports-type" mentality: who won the game, who won the Oscar for best actor, who's now president? That's probably why most people can name 10 sports figures, but would be hard pressed to name their state senators or representatives.
So I disagree that a weaker Federal government in favor of state governments is the answer. A stronger Federal government (along with some new campaign finance laws) is a safer bet that leaving things up to the dubious judgement of the states.
P.S., Atlas Shrugged sucked! :-)
> Because the liberals/socialists want to be the "big brother" of society...
:-)
> they don't believe in people taking responsibility for themselves.
Careful about those generalizations and stereotypes. That's what they do in Russia!
I don't think it's the Liberals who are trying to outlaw abortion, legislate what consenting adults can do in their private bedrooms, outlaw free speech (like burning a flag to protest your government), legislate their religious beliefs into public schools, another other acts of increasing the size of government interference.
Big Brother is where you look for him.
Back on topic, I'd rather see something like this installed in the cars of people who have been convicted of driving under the influence (and make it a low standard, too). I think it's more common that people who DUI, do it habitually, so it makes sense to have the technology to monitor them. But putting something like this in cars as a matter of course is unnacceptable.
You cite the Natural Keyboard and Intellimouse as examples of their innovation?
Microsoft Natural Keyboard was an extension on other ergonomic keyboards that had been available for some time. Even Apple had an ergonomic keyboard back in 1992 -- except theirs was adjustable and sported an astonishing $250 price tag. I'm sure that others had them as well, but MS didn't put theirs out until years later.
And Microsoft licensed the Intellimouse from HP, so I'm not sure how much research went into that from MS's resources.
So I agree with the previous posts; Microsoft's research group seems to have contributed little to actual MS products.
> I thought Apple was much older than 10 years...
I think he meant that internally Microsoft used to refer to Apple as Research and Development South.
Both Compaq and HP have lost ground in the enterprise service space to IBM and Dell (I believe Compaq saw a 26% drop this year in market share in the enterprise market; not sure about HP). So I'm not sure I'd say Compaq has the Intel server market nailed.
Additionally, the PDA market has been generally stagnant. PDAs were a lot like health club memberships for average people. They would buy them to "get organized", but it would generally be nothing but a glorified address book. I think that's why Palm (who has 70% of the market) has been successful in the past (it was a fad to get a PDA because it made you "hip"), but is also having a hard time this year (no one sees a reason to upgrade). Case in point, in my office-- mostly people 32-50 in a large telecom company-- there are plenty of 2 year old Palm V's, but I've only seen one new model (a entry level 105, I think).
So I still don't know what big advantages Compaq is going to bring to HP.
And most people that are going to buy a car have already bought those too, but I'd hardly say that market is saturated.
I think what you mean to say is that the PC market has offered very little that is compelling enough for people to buy a new one. This is generally the consensus in the industry because very few companies in the computer industry are innovators. The industry is made up of followers, whose idea of innovating is to increase the number of specification "X". Real innovation is not deepening the pipelines of a processor so that you can run it at a higher clock rate or doubling the hard drive capacity without increasing the price. Although those are facinating technological feats, they are not enough to get people to buy new products. It means coming up with new, compelling functions that people are willing to pay for.
> Microsoft isn't squeezing out competition by including the media player in its software.
> If anything it is just attempting to keep up the times with the MAC people.
> Yes, Mac sucks, but it is renouned for its a/v interface.
This is listed as insightful? I'd call it flamebait.
Microsoft has a monopoly, and they've been found guilty of illegally abusing it. In the case they were found to have squeezed Apple regarding QuickTime where they were trying to illegally partition the market.
How many microsoft people do we have infiltrating slashdot these days? They must have the whole marketing department on here.
> Why is Microsoft not allowed to distribte its multimedia
> play-back software while Apple can?
Microsoft's got a monopoly but Apple doesn't. Simple. Microsoft's also been found to illegally abuse their monopoly to gain entrance into other markets.
So the reason why they can't push their media player is the same reason why someone who gets convicted of drunk driving can't drive a car.
Don't like it? Tough.
> If Microsoft is the 5th biggest contributer to both the Republicans and Democrats,
> vote in somebody that hasn't been bought.
The difference is a matter of degrees.
Microsoft has donated 4-5 times the amount of money to the Republicans that to the Democrats. The way it worked out is Microsoft the company donated money to the Republican National Committee (RNC) or to particular candidates, but usually it was individuals working at Microsoft or subsidiaries (like WebTV) that donated money to the Democrats. So to say that the two biggest parties are "bought" is to oversimplify the situation.
Don't forget Al Gore went to Microsoft's campus and told them that he supported the case against them (and he refused initially to go at all because Microsoft initially barred the press from attending). GWB on the other hand just mumbles that he's all for innovation.
I never find the argument that some entity is too smart to do something stupid very convincing. That reminds me of when people claim that some "psychic" must be real because if he were a fake, his tricks would work all the time. Since the tricks only work some of the time, he must be the real thing!
Microsoft isn't infallible. And although it's unlikely that Balmer explicately told them to send out letters with dead people's signatures, he probably implicately told them to do whatever it takes. It's hard to believe that anything Microsoft does in relation to this case would be done without executive management's approval or consent.
Don't forget, although this case is extreme, it isn't completely unheard of considering other things (faked demos in court, misleading videotape in court, the other astroturf campaign, Gates claiming they don't track marketshare, etc) they've done lately.
The Los Angeles Times reported 3 years ago a similar scheme, where Microsoft was planning "a massive media campaign designed to influence state investigators by creating the appearance of a groundswell of public support for the company." [LA Times, "Microsoft Plans Stealth Blitz to Mend Its Image Public relations", Apr 10, 1998]. At the time that target was for free-lance writers to write opinion pieces, which would then be billed to Microsoft as an out of pocket expense.
The only difference is, at the time Microsoft claimed that the idea it "was merely a proposal and 'not something we are moving on'" while this time they seem to be executing this plan.
Faked video tapes, lying executives, and now this. Perhaps I'm overreacting (and it's 7 a.m. for me, so maybe I am), but can this company's actions get any worse? If the government itself were caught doing something like this, people would be in an uproar. But when it's Microsoft, most people respond with, "well, what can you do?"
> Microsoft is sending letters to Utah's Attorney General
> in support of the company, but with fake signatures
> of citizens (some of whom are dead!).
Oh my God! The dead have risen, and they're supporting Microsoft!
(with apologies to the Simpsons)
At first, it seems like this computer that can fool child language experts is impressive. But in the article you linked where a similar experiment was done to see if psychiatrists could tell the difference between a paranoid patient and a computer:
I love reading about Bluetooth! Some of the examples I've read:
"You walk into an airport, and they beam your ticket to your cell phone or PDA." I've seen the airlines lose my luggage before; I think they'll find a way to screw up beaming me my ticket. Anyway, this would require some sort of encryption because they'd want to know if my luggage has been with me, am I the person who really owns this PDA, etc. No, I suspect that Bluetooth will really result in me getting 3 ads for airport gift shops sent to my PDA when I walk in the door.
"You walk in your house and your Palm automatically synchronizes" Sounds great. My Palm confuses my contact manager too often -- duplicate names, to-do's not checked, meetings duplicated. I do want my PDA doing anything without my permission first.
No, I expect Bluetooth will revolutionalize our lives the way infrared in PDAs revolutionalized how we exchange business cards. And *nobody* has printed business cards anymore, right? I work in the telecom industry, and I've seen someone beam a business card maybe 3 times in the last 4 years of the PDA-revolution.