>To the untrained eye, Caspian's product, the Apeiro, is a
>new kind of router. But Roberts says it's not a router at
>all, because where traditional routers are "dumb" - Roberts'
>shorthand for the fact that they don't differentiate between
>the kinds of bits running over a network - his "optical IP
>superswitch," as he calls it, is smart. It can identify
>packet types (voice, text, video, et cetera) and priorities,
>allowing it to determine one packet's relation to others,
>and expedite traffic in a way that's impossible today.
Roberts sounds like a jerk. He also sounds like he's trying to do multiple label router switching (MPLS). The idea is the originating device adds a short label in a shim layer between the transport medium (ATM, for example) and the IP layer. The label is read by the label switched routers (LSR) to route the packets through the network. Contrast this with the "best guess" method that's used with regular routers or even the QoS features of ATM.
The idea is that voice packets, various types of data packets, or anything that has different requirements on latency or jitter can be served on the same network.
And the "big gorillas" are happily implementing MPLS for their next generation data networks; Alcatel, Juniper, Cisco (although -- surprise! -- they're initially implementing a proprietary approach and just calling it MPLS), and others are all doing this for their core and edge router products.
"He said if (Shinjan) was an adult, hacking into the
computer system could be a crime."
I found that line pretty disturbing. Just about anything a kid that age does in middle school is a crime when done by an adult. Bullying in middle school is ignored, but if an adult had done the same actions it would translate to a mugging or assault. But schools typically look the other way regarding this kind of terrorizing. So suspending the kid for 10 days just because 'it would have been a crime if he were an adult' seems a bit extreme.
I suspect it had more to do with the 'loner hacking on a computer' scare that's going around these days. It seems like perhaps the punishment didn't fit the crime. Expecially because the youth was so scared that he killed himself afterwards.
Anyone rememeber the Isaac Asimov short story called "Light Verse"? It was about an elderly woman who was famous for creating beautiful abstract art sculptures. Later it was found out that one of her robots had been creating the works for her. It's a better story than my little summary might suggest.
The question is, if you write an AI program that creates something original, who's the creator of the creation? You or the AI program? If Aaron creates an "original", could I display it for money in my own collection?
If I buy the program, tweak it a bit (or it gets randomly mangled, to make an analogy to the above story) and it produces original art, who's the owner now?
Luckily we're spared the answer with Aaron, because the drawings are kinda ugly.
You've been spoiled by the "oh, one more thing" that Steve Jobs does. Perhaps you miss the old days when a system update meant you could spend the weekend after an update was released to hunt for Easter eggs, play with new features, give speech recognition another try, etc.
Apple used to be big into monolithic updates because users expected it. The dot-oh release had some huge features -- 7.0 brought new multitasking management, new system folder structure, and plenty of user interface improvements. 8.0 brought the new Platinum look, PowerPC native almost everything and additional features. 9.0 brought multiple users, speech recognition improvements, and true Carbon support.
Then we waited for the inevitable dot-one release where users were absolved for all the sins from the dot-oh release. Eventually a dot-five release would roll around bring a few more feature, followed by a dot-six release meaning Mac users should get ready for the next dot-oh release in six months.
Minor releases came for new Macs to support new hardware, but any way you looked at it, the updates came once every 6-8 months.
Today's world is different. Apple is pushing periodic updates bringing incremental updates more often, with a large dot-one release planned for June.
In my opinion, that's the way to do it. If Apple knows of something that can be fixed, then they should do it as soon as it's been quality-tested, and not wait for a big monolithic release. This is particular true for security holes (Mac OS !0.1.3 brought an improved ftpd), but it's also nice for system performance and minor bugs. I'm glad to see Apple taking this approach.
I've used Mac OS X exclusively since its release, except to play the occasional DVD on plane or backup my system. It's not as far a long as Mac OS 9 with some things, but for others it's way beyond it. Each week brings an update from Apple or another carbon-compliant application, which means that I can strip the System Folder in the Classic environment for even more performance gains and stability for those apps still left in the Classic Environment. I'm glad that I didn't have to wait until June for the system to become really usable.
I don't see how anyone could compare Microsoft, who has a monopoly, with Apple who has 10% of the desktop market, or less. If Apple ever gets 90% of the desktop market (or even 50%), then people will question their bundling issues as hard as Microsoft's.
Repeat after me: Companies with monopolies are treated differently than those without monopolies.
Plus, Apple's bundlings are more for giving a newbie user a simple capability. For example, Disk Burner provides basic disc burning capabilities, but a user will quickly outgrow it's capability and go with Toast when they want to do xBook capabilities or multiple sessions. Or iTunes has basic MP3 jukebox capabilities, but advanced users quickly move to the more feature-full options. One could argue that Apple is helping third-party companies by giving users a simple application that shows them the need for the more feature-rich application for sale by a third party. Witness the success of Cassidy & Green's Conflict Catcher or Norton Disk Doctor even though Apple has bundled Extension Manager and Disk First Aid for years.
Microsoft, on the other hand is building applications to compete with their vendors. Microsoft Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, Outlook, etc has the most features of any application in their class. I'm not saying they're better, but I'm saying that Microsoft happily competes with its "partners" in a way far different than Apple.
I agree. Why is this an article? At first, it sounded like a troll, but later in the text it just sounded like a college kid trying to get moral absolution to pirate software and download music.
According to the "submit article" thing, there are 162 articles in the queue, and this gets posted?
Hey Crashnbur, among the people who decide what becomes an article on Slashdot, whose ass do you have pictures of?
Ugh, if this is like Atlas Shrugged, then does that mean we have to sit though Bill Gates rambling on for 30 pages about Aristotle during the next trade show?
[Here's my submission of the story that got rejected for some reason]
Ah, Spring! It brings birds, neighbors mowing their laws, and the newly-awaken actions from everyone's favorite monopoly!
That's right, Microsoft's at it again. This time, it's Windows XP, and Microsoft's idea to bundle tons of new stuff into it. The associated press reports that Microsoft is bundling plenty of stuff to keep the Department of Justice busy: MSN Instant Messenger now loads automatically every time you boot Windows XP. A firewall and DVD player are included as well. Of course the firewall will work as advertised, and will never work only to block messages to rivals' network connections while leaving Microsoft open to send anything they want back to Microsoft's servers. Microsoft has never done that, and it's horrible of you to think they would! Look, that issue with the greeting card company in 1999 was just a misunderstanding, not policy.
Microsoft is just trying to give the consumers what they want. As a Microsoft spokes person said, "If people don't find those features compelling enough to upgrade they can keep whatever the heck they want. They're not forced to upgrade."
Funny they should say that.
Microsoft's new upgrade policy basically says that if large companies to upgrade to Windows XP and Office XP by October 2001, they won't be eligible for upgrade pricing after that. ZD Net reports that Microsoft is raising fees from anywhere from 33 to 107%. Guernsey Research analyst Chris LeToq summarized these actions saying that Microsoft is forcing an upgrade.
Clearly Microsoft is no longer concerned about any actions from the DOJ. Lest we forget, according to an article from the Mercury Center in 1999 (sorry, no URL available), they hedged their bets by buying off the presidential candidates early ($18k for John McCain, and they helped finance Bush's gubernatorial inauguration). According to the New York Times, Microsoft hired Ralph Reed, one of Bush's top consultants, to help them during the DOJ trial.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's the code name of their business plan.
Instead of doing subscriptions for Office completely, they may try to do it with just one component, like clip art or templates. Maybe $10 per year to have access to the templates. Or they might make the manual available on a subscription basis, with the first year "free". And then if that is successful (or people don't complain too much), then they will go the whole hog. It's not that Microsoft won't go to a subscription model for Office and everything else, but just when and how to introduce it to everyone without chasing their customers away. A monopoly is self-perpetuating only if the majority of the customers aren't pissed off enough to leave en mass.
I personally hate the idea of subscriptions because that will just lead to people paying for software like they pay for cable. I'm personally happy with using older versions of some software, and I only upgrade when the vendor provides new features that I want. But with Microsoft's combination of monopoly status and penchant for changing file formats every two years, one would be forced to upgrade every couple of years just so to open files from others.
I could see Microsoft eventually moving into a mode where even if they didn't do subscriptions, business development could indicate they want to change the file format (regardless of the engineering requirements) just to "invigorate" the upgrade sales.
Situations like this are why I created my new sig.
I'm running Mac OS X on my PowerBook G3 (firewire), and I'm quite impressed. I use it at work and at home. I've got a few complaints (speed mostly -- it feels like it needs to be optimized).
I loaded it on my wife's iMac DV+, and she now loves it. She's been a Mac user for years, knows nothing about Unix, and she's had no complaints. My friends have installed Mac OS X on their PowerBooks and desktop G3s, and they're running fine.
Yes, there are some issues with the release. But if you have issues, do two things:
1. If you ran the beta, realize that you ran the beta. that is, unfinished software. If you didn't reinitialize the hard drive, and zero it out, perhaps you should do so and then install Mac OS X. Mac users tend to be pretty cavalier about their computers (run beta software, never read the manual, click, drag, delete, etc. without abandon), but a beta OS is pretty serious. There's all sorts of goofiness that goes along with a beta OS that cannot be corrected by "select all" then "move to trash".
2. Provide constructive feedback to Apple's forum (you can copy and paste that yourself; I'm too lazy do do an href). Mac OS X is a tremendous achievement with plenty of potential, but admittedly, there's room for improvement.
Granted, the comment was a bit blunt, but is a "troll" label necessary?
There was ample evidence to suggest that Microsoft did fake demonstration videos during the DOJ trial. The Washington Post reported in Feb 1999 (sorry, no URL available) that "Microsoft was forced to concede that the demonstrations contained inaccuracies". Wired also reported that Microsoft conveniently "edited" video to that inaccurately suggested that Netscape Communicator was easier to install than it really was. the DOJ submitted their own footage indicating this, which forced MS Vice President Brad Chase to concede.
Newsbytes reported a similar incident (sorry, no URL available), when Boise confronted Allchin with proof that another MS video didn't depict what it was supposed to about the "Felton Program" and its effect on Internet Explorer.
Each time this happens, Microsoft responds with a "Whoops! An unfortunate mistake!" Of course, they only seem to do this when they're caught. I haven't heard of an incident when they've volunteered this information before someone caught them.
> From what I've heard, MSIE on Macintosh is the
> most standard-compliant browser out there, which
> is not easy to do. It looks like Microsoft is
> innovative, that deep pockets can make valuable
> software.
Do you want another example? Microsoft Outlook Express is one of the best email applications for the Macintosh. And the latest versions of Office for the Mac have been some of the best. But the thing that all of these have in common are they were developed after the DOJ started looking into Microsoft's monopolist behaviors.
The point is, if the DOJ hadn't begun investigating Microsoft, these products never would have seen the light of day. I remember Word 6 for the Mac, and you can't imagine how terrible it was. It was buggy, bloated, and incredibly slow. Microsoft actually crippled the product to the point that if you ran Word 6 for the Mac and then ran Word 6 for Windows on the same Mac with a Windows-emulator (like Soft Windows or Virtual PC), it was faster in the emulator. The other MS apps were no better for the Mac during the time. Consider that Gates threatened to kill Office for the Mac if Apple didn't bundle IE with the new Macs.
I can see it now. The day MS prevails in court, expect to see a gloating press release about it. At the bottom, in small letters, they'll mention that they're dropping Mac versions of Explorer, Outlook Express, Office, and everything else for the Mac because of a "poor sales." If you think the annual fee for Windows was innovative, you'll probably love what comes after that.
> Democrats are known cheaters when it comes to elections.
That's right -- why would anyone vote for a Democrat? I've also heard that they kick puppies whenever they get the chance, too!
Don't you think a blatant generalization like that is what sustains this horrible partianship in our country? The idea of breaking the country into "us" and "them" and damn everyone on the other side?
> It is well known that there was considerable fraud in the Kennedy-Nixon
> race. The biggest incidence was in Chicago, where ballot boxes were
> stuffed with Kennedy votes. Nixon just didn't pout about it.
It's this sort of apocryphal storytelling that hurts politics today -- this idea that if you say something enough times, it becomes true.
According to an article in Salon;, Nixon did contest the votes, although he did publically concede. The votes in Chicago were close, but by more than 5,000, not a few hundred like in today's case. And after the recount, it was found that Nixon still lost. The Republicans took the matter to court and, according to the article, "A slew of lawsuits were filed by Republicans, and unsuccessful appeals to state election commissions routinely followed. However, all their efforts failed to uncover any significant wrongdoing."
That last part is crucial, but I'm sure we'll continue to hear the story of the "stolen election" despite of any court findings.
> it was thought that Bush may win the popular vote, but Gore win the
> electoral vote. Gore didn't complain about that possibility. Now we come
> to the interesting proposition that Gore may have won the popular vote
> but lost the electoral vote. Now (gasp!) Gore doesn't think that the
> electoral system is fair.
But Gore did explicately state that he wanted no electoral votes to be "unfaithful", so I don't think he's against the system; he's just asking for a full count of the votes.
There's still the issue of some 10,000 uncounted ballots in Miami Beach County that couldn't be counted due to the time constraints. Not questionable, may-not-be-filled-out-legally ballots -- but ballots that people filled out but were not read by the machines. I'm having a hard time believing the excuse that people chose not to vote for president. Most people vote for president and forget about the lesser offices because they're not interested. I find it hard to believe the reverse wouldn't happen. So it makes sense to actually count the votes (with representatives from both organizations there), rather than explain them away.
>It's a measure of how far we've come that we can actually approach discussing the real-world
>application of Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics".
I love Asimov's robot stories, and one of the main factors was that human beings tended to fear robots despite the 3 laws. So to take the Asimov thing further, imagine the public backlash if the human driver got hurt in a race with a robot-- the Frankenstein complex in real life! There would be all sorts of legislation on this type of technology being incorporated into regular automobiles (a la Asimov's story "Sally").
I think it's likely that MS would have killed Office for the Mac. Remember, MS threatened to kill Office once before that, too. MS threatened to kill Office if Scully didn't give them the "perpetual license" to the look and feel of the Mac for Windows. The Mac was pretty vulnerable to not having applications at the time, and Apple conceded. (see Linsmeyer's book, "The Mac Bathroom Reader")
This resulted in the major reason why Apple later lost their look/feel lawsuit against MS. Apple gained the dubious honor of Microsoft admitting that they copied the look/feel in a private document, Microsoft got a license to steal from Apple wholesale for Windows 95, and the consumers gained a true innovation in computers: the trash can being renamed the recycle bin!
That's easy to say that Apple lost "world domination" if they had only shipped the Mac OS on Intel. I'm sure Microsoft would have sat back and let them do it, too. If Apple had released something like that, Microsoft would have just pulled the plug on Microsoft Office for the Mac, and guaranteed that people would have stuck with them anyway. They've done that sort of thing before when they threatened to kill Office for the Mac if Apple didn't adopt Internet Explorer. Then Apple would have been left with having to compete their hardware platform with commodity hardware from Intel clones without Microsoft's tepid support.
I'll admit that putting the Mac OS on Intel would have gone a long way towards acceptance of the Mac because people wouldn't have to invest in hardware to try out the system. However, Apple would have suffered the same problem as they did with the later clones. The Macintosh is an integration between hardware and software, and running the software on generic hardware waters down the Mac quite a bit. With that, the Mac would lose a lot of its distinction, and I don't that would have helped Apple's business any.
"Revenge of the Jedi" was the real title for a while. Kenner (the company who was licensed to make toys), had "Revenge fo the Jedi" on the labels of some of the early stuff. That was before you really knew what the movie was about, but I remember that as a kid, I sent in a million proofs of purchase to get a secret "Revenge of the Jedi" character. Turned out to be Admiral Ackbar, a complete and utter letdown.
The other guy's right that they used the title "Blue Harvest" for the production titles during filming and scouting locations.
Microsoft makes a lot of money off selling apps for the Mac, so that's unlikely if Microsoft is broken up. The new apps company will need to sell as many versions as they can. Once MS is broken up, the different versions will have to compete on their own merits without the benefits of hidden APIs.
However, if Microsoft somehow prevails in this suit, expect that the day after the Apple/Microsoft 5 year truce ends, Microsoft will announce just that. Microsoft has demonstrated many times that they're willing to throw money away to maintain their monopoly. So no matter how much money Microsoft makes off Mac software, if they win this case, they'll kill everything but IE and Outlook Express to make sure that Apple can't make inroads into business.
Advertisers are probably not the only ones excited about GPS tracking of cell phones.
Since many of us have cell phones assigned to us by companies we work for, I imagine some companies would be interested in tracking employees who have phones as well. Companies already have considerable rights in recording phone conversations, tracking web usage, installing security cameras in premises, and collecting various bodily fluids. I wonder how long it will be before they make a deal with their cellular service provider to provide a log of where employees have been Monday through Friday from 8 to 5.
I suspect within a few years we'll hear of someone who was fired for inexplicately being away from the office during business hours, courtesy of their cell phone records.
Mr. Lucas said that Episode I will be released on DVD soon. Unfortunately, it will only run on an Amiga that will be bundled with a version of Microsoft Office for Linux. Just for fun though, he'll infect every fortieth DVD with the Goodtimes virus, so be careful!
If what Microsoft did was "just business" and not illegal, why are they working so hard to claim they didn't do it?
Maritz was quoted in the New York Times saying they were going to "cut off Netscape's air supply." ("Exec denies threatening to choke rival Netscape", San Jose Mercury News, 1/25/1999. No URL, sorry). The plan was to give away for free anything that Netscape was selling. This tactic is classic anticompetitive behavior, but let's pretend like it's not for a minute.
Why did Maritz vehemently claim he didn't say this (and if he doesn't land himself in a perjury case after this is all over, I'll be disappointed), although the DOJ submitted the article where he said it? He claims he was inappropriately quoted, and furthermore, he doesn't know who actually said the quote. At the same time, Microsoft at no time contacted the NYT for a correction. Hmm...
> I admit a splitup sounds like a satisfying vindication of > everyone's Microsoft woes. But, would splitting up Microsoft > really do much do keep them in check? > So, let's say you have the MS Office Co, then MS Operating System > Co, and so on. Their products will still be compatible with each > other (most likely), and people will still use them.
The point of breaking up Microsoft isn't to crush Microsoft, punish Gates, or make some other OS the dominate OS. It's to find a remedy to Microsoft's persistent eagerness to engage in illegal business practices. Microsoft has shown a blatant disregard toward following the law, which is much of the reason why this lawsuit has turned out to look like such a circus for Microsoft. Remember the faked videotape? The phony studies? The parade of "experts" that sounded less like testimony and more like a ventriloquist act with Microsoft as the hand?
Microsoft has made it clear that the only way they will stop bullying other companies, progressively tying applications to their OS to build market share, and threatening competitors and partners is to render them unable to do so.
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Not to mention the fact that most USB devices when introduced after the iMac came in the iMac Bondi Blue.
Hard to say that was inspired by Win 98.
>To the untrained eye, Caspian's product, the Apeiro, is a
>new kind of router. But Roberts says it's not a router at
>all, because where traditional routers are "dumb" - Roberts'
>shorthand for the fact that they don't differentiate between
>the kinds of bits running over a network - his "optical IP
>superswitch," as he calls it, is smart. It can identify
>packet types (voice, text, video, et cetera) and priorities,
>allowing it to determine one packet's relation to others,
>and expedite traffic in a way that's impossible today.
Roberts sounds like a jerk. He also sounds like he's trying to do multiple label router switching (MPLS). The idea is the originating device adds a short label in a shim layer between the transport medium (ATM, for example) and the IP layer. The label is read by the label switched routers (LSR) to route the packets through the network. Contrast this with the "best guess" method that's used with regular routers or even the QoS features of ATM.
The idea is that voice packets, various types of data packets, or anything that has different requirements on latency or jitter can be served on the same network.
And the "big gorillas" are happily implementing MPLS for their next generation data networks; Alcatel, Juniper, Cisco (although -- surprise! -- they're initially implementing a proprietary approach and just calling it MPLS), and others are all doing this for their core and edge router products.
But, hey, who am I to rain on this guy's parade?
You know the Asimov story "The Billiard Ball"? Well, the physicist did it!
"He said if (Shinjan) was an adult, hacking into the computer system could be a crime."
I found that line pretty disturbing. Just about anything a kid that age does in middle school is a crime when done by an adult. Bullying in middle school is ignored, but if an adult had done the same actions it would translate to a mugging or assault. But schools typically look the other way regarding this kind of terrorizing. So suspending the kid for 10 days just because 'it would have been a crime if he were an adult' seems a bit extreme.
I suspect it had more to do with the 'loner hacking on a computer' scare that's going around these days. It seems like perhaps the punishment didn't fit the crime. Expecially because the youth was so scared that he killed himself afterwards.
My sympathies to his family and friends.
Anyone rememeber the Isaac Asimov short story called "Light Verse"? It was about an elderly woman who was famous for creating beautiful abstract art sculptures. Later it was found out that one of her robots had been creating the works for her. It's a better story than my little summary might suggest.
The question is, if you write an AI program that creates something original, who's the creator of the creation? You or the AI program? If Aaron creates an "original", could I display it for money in my own collection?
If I buy the program, tweak it a bit (or it gets randomly mangled, to make an analogy to the above story) and it produces original art, who's the owner now?
Luckily we're spared the answer with Aaron, because the drawings are kinda ugly.
You've been spoiled by the "oh, one more thing" that Steve Jobs does. Perhaps you miss the old days when a system update meant you could spend the weekend after an update was released to hunt for Easter eggs, play with new features, give speech recognition another try, etc.
Apple used to be big into monolithic updates because users expected it. The dot-oh release had some huge features -- 7.0 brought new multitasking management, new system folder structure, and plenty of user interface improvements. 8.0 brought the new Platinum look, PowerPC native almost everything and additional features. 9.0 brought multiple users, speech recognition improvements, and true Carbon support.
Then we waited for the inevitable dot-one release where users were absolved for all the sins from the dot-oh release. Eventually a dot-five release would roll around bring a few more feature, followed by a dot-six release meaning Mac users should get ready for the next dot-oh release in six months.
Minor releases came for new Macs to support new hardware, but any way you looked at it, the updates came once every 6-8 months.
Today's world is different. Apple is pushing periodic updates bringing incremental updates more often, with a large dot-one release planned for June.
In my opinion, that's the way to do it. If Apple knows of something that can be fixed, then they should do it as soon as it's been quality-tested, and not wait for a big monolithic release. This is particular true for security holes (Mac OS !0.1.3 brought an improved ftpd), but it's also nice for system performance and minor bugs. I'm glad to see Apple taking this approach.
I've used Mac OS X exclusively since its release, except to play the occasional DVD on plane or backup my system. It's not as far a long as Mac OS 9 with some things, but for others it's way beyond it. Each week brings an update from Apple or another carbon-compliant application, which means that I can strip the System Folder in the Classic environment for even more performance gains and stability for those apps still left in the Classic Environment. I'm glad that I didn't have to wait until June for the system to become really usable.
I don't see how anyone could compare Microsoft, who has a monopoly, with Apple who has 10% of the desktop market, or less. If Apple ever gets 90% of the desktop market (or even 50%), then people will question their bundling issues as hard as Microsoft's.
Repeat after me: Companies with monopolies are treated differently than those without monopolies.
Plus, Apple's bundlings are more for giving a newbie user a simple capability. For example, Disk Burner provides basic disc burning capabilities, but a user will quickly outgrow it's capability and go with Toast when they want to do xBook capabilities or multiple sessions. Or iTunes has basic MP3 jukebox capabilities, but advanced users quickly move to the more feature-full options. One could argue that Apple is helping third-party companies by giving users a simple application that shows them the need for the more feature-rich application for sale by a third party. Witness the success of Cassidy & Green's Conflict Catcher or Norton Disk Doctor even though Apple has bundled Extension Manager and Disk First Aid for years.
Microsoft, on the other hand is building applications to compete with their vendors. Microsoft Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, Outlook, etc has the most features of any application in their class. I'm not saying they're better, but I'm saying that Microsoft happily competes with its "partners" in a way far different than Apple.
I agree. Why is this an article? At first, it sounded like a troll, but later in the text it just sounded like a college kid trying to get moral absolution to pirate software and download music.
According to the "submit article" thing, there are 162 articles in the queue, and this gets posted?
Hey Crashnbur, among the people who decide what becomes an article on Slashdot, whose ass do you have pictures of?
Ugh, if this is like Atlas Shrugged, then does that mean we have to sit though Bill Gates rambling on for 30 pages about Aristotle during the next trade show?
[Here's my submission of the story that got rejected for some reason]
Ah, Spring! It brings birds, neighbors mowing their laws, and the newly-awaken actions from everyone's favorite monopoly!
That's right, Microsoft's at it again. This time, it's Windows XP, and Microsoft's idea to bundle tons of new stuff into it. The associated press reports that Microsoft is bundling plenty of stuff to keep the Department of Justice busy: MSN Instant Messenger now loads automatically every time you boot Windows XP. A firewall and DVD player are included as well. Of course the firewall will work as advertised, and will never work only to block messages to rivals' network connections while leaving Microsoft open to send anything they want back to Microsoft's servers. Microsoft has never done that, and it's horrible of you to think they would! Look, that issue with the greeting card company in 1999 was just a misunderstanding, not policy.
Microsoft is just trying to give the consumers what they want. As a Microsoft spokes person said, "If people don't find those features compelling enough to upgrade they can keep whatever the heck they want. They're not forced to upgrade."
Funny they should say that.
Microsoft's new upgrade policy basically says that if large companies to upgrade to Windows XP and Office XP by October 2001, they won't be eligible for upgrade pricing after that. ZD Net reports that Microsoft is raising fees from anywhere from 33 to 107%. Guernsey Research analyst Chris LeToq summarized these actions saying that Microsoft is forcing an upgrade.
Clearly Microsoft is no longer concerned about any actions from the DOJ. Lest we forget, according to an article from the Mercury Center in 1999 (sorry, no URL available), they hedged their bets by buying off the presidential candidates early ($18k for John McCain, and they helped finance Bush's gubernatorial inauguration). According to the New York Times, Microsoft hired Ralph Reed, one of Bush's top consultants, to help them during the DOJ trial.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's the code name of their business plan.
Instead of doing subscriptions for Office completely, they may try to do it with just one component, like clip art or templates. Maybe $10 per year to have access to the templates. Or they might make the manual available on a subscription basis, with the first year "free". And then if that is successful (or people don't complain too much), then they will go the whole hog. It's not that Microsoft won't go to a subscription model for Office and everything else, but just when and how to introduce it to everyone without chasing their customers away. A monopoly is self-perpetuating only if the majority of the customers aren't pissed off enough to leave en mass.
I personally hate the idea of subscriptions because that will just lead to people paying for software like they pay for cable. I'm personally happy with using older versions of some software, and I only upgrade when the vendor provides new features that I want. But with Microsoft's combination of monopoly status and penchant for changing file formats every two years, one would be forced to upgrade every couple of years just so to open files from others.
I could see Microsoft eventually moving into a mode where even if they didn't do subscriptions, business development could indicate they want to change the file format (regardless of the engineering requirements) just to "invigorate" the upgrade sales.
Situations like this are why I created my new sig.
You're definitely in the minority here.
I'm running Mac OS X on my PowerBook G3 (firewire), and I'm quite impressed. I use it at work and at home. I've got a few complaints (speed mostly -- it feels like it needs to be optimized).
I loaded it on my wife's iMac DV+, and she now loves it. She's been a Mac user for years, knows nothing about Unix, and she's had no complaints. My friends have installed Mac OS X on their PowerBooks and desktop G3s, and they're running fine.
Yes, there are some issues with the release. But if you have issues, do two things:
1. If you ran the beta, realize that you ran the beta. that is, unfinished software. If you didn't reinitialize the hard drive, and zero it out, perhaps you should do so and then install Mac OS X. Mac users tend to be pretty cavalier about their computers (run beta software, never read the manual, click, drag, delete, etc. without abandon), but a beta OS is pretty serious. There's all sorts of goofiness that goes along with a beta OS that cannot be corrected by "select all" then "move to trash".
2. Provide constructive feedback to Apple's forum (you can copy and paste that yourself; I'm too lazy do do an href). Mac OS X is a tremendous achievement with plenty of potential, but admittedly, there's room for improvement.
Granted, the comment was a bit blunt, but is a "troll" label necessary?
There was ample evidence to suggest that Microsoft did fake demonstration videos during the DOJ trial. The Washington Post reported in Feb 1999 (sorry, no URL available) that "Microsoft was forced to concede that the demonstrations contained inaccuracies". Wired also reported that Microsoft conveniently "edited" video to that inaccurately suggested that Netscape Communicator was easier to install than it really was. the DOJ submitted their own footage indicating this, which forced MS Vice President Brad Chase to concede.
Newsbytes reported a similar incident (sorry, no URL available), when Boise confronted Allchin with proof that another MS video didn't depict what it was supposed to about the "Felton Program" and its effect on Internet Explorer.
Each time this happens, Microsoft responds with a "Whoops! An unfortunate mistake!" Of course, they only seem to do this when they're caught. I haven't heard of an incident when they've volunteered this information before someone caught them.
> From what I've heard, MSIE on Macintosh is the
> most standard-compliant browser out there, which
> is not easy to do. It looks like Microsoft is
> innovative, that deep pockets can make valuable
> software.
Do you want another example? Microsoft Outlook Express is one of the best email applications for the Macintosh. And the latest versions of Office for the Mac have been some of the best. But the thing that all of these have in common are they were developed after the DOJ started looking into Microsoft's monopolist behaviors.
The point is, if the DOJ hadn't begun investigating Microsoft, these products never would have seen the light of day. I remember Word 6 for the Mac, and you can't imagine how terrible it was. It was buggy, bloated, and incredibly slow. Microsoft actually crippled the product to the point that if you ran Word 6 for the Mac and then ran Word 6 for Windows on the same Mac with a Windows-emulator (like Soft Windows or Virtual PC), it was faster in the emulator. The other MS apps were no better for the Mac during the time. Consider that Gates threatened to kill Office for the Mac if Apple didn't bundle IE with the new Macs.
I can see it now. The day MS prevails in court, expect to see a gloating press release about it. At the bottom, in small letters, they'll mention that they're dropping Mac versions of Explorer, Outlook Express, Office, and everything else for the Mac because of a "poor sales." If you think the annual fee for Windows was innovative, you'll probably love what comes after that.
> Democrats are known cheaters when it comes to elections.
That's right -- why would anyone vote for a Democrat? I've also heard that they kick puppies whenever they get the chance, too!
Don't you think a blatant generalization like that is what sustains this horrible partianship in our country? The idea of breaking the country into "us" and "them" and damn everyone on the other side?
> It is well known that there was considerable fraud in the Kennedy-Nixon
> race. The biggest incidence was in Chicago, where ballot boxes were
> stuffed with Kennedy votes. Nixon just didn't pout about it.
It's this sort of apocryphal storytelling that hurts politics today -- this idea that if you say something enough times, it becomes true.
;, Nixon did contest the votes, although he did publically concede. The votes in Chicago were close, but by more than 5,000, not a few hundred like in today's case. And after the recount, it was found that Nixon still lost. The Republicans took the matter to court and, according to the article, "A slew of lawsuits were filed by Republicans, and unsuccessful appeals to state election commissions routinely followed. However, all their efforts failed to uncover any significant wrongdoing."
According to an article in Salon
That last part is crucial, but I'm sure we'll continue to hear the story of the "stolen election" despite of any court findings.
> it was thought that Bush may win the popular vote, but Gore win the
> electoral vote. Gore didn't complain about that possibility. Now we come
> to the interesting proposition that Gore may have won the popular vote
> but lost the electoral vote. Now (gasp!) Gore doesn't think that the
> electoral system is fair.
Yes, and the Republicans were ready to protest that possibility: Republican Representative Ray LaHood introduced a resolution to abolish the Electoral College back when it looked like the reverse. So the politics go both ways.
But Gore did explicately state that he wanted no electoral votes to be "unfaithful", so I don't think he's against the system; he's just asking for a full count of the votes.
There's still the issue of some 10,000 uncounted ballots in Miami Beach County that couldn't be counted due to the time constraints. Not questionable, may-not-be-filled-out-legally ballots -- but ballots that people filled out but were not read by the machines. I'm having a hard time believing the excuse that people chose not to vote for president. Most people vote for president and forget about the lesser offices because they're not interested. I find it hard to believe the reverse wouldn't happen. So it makes sense to actually count the votes (with representatives from both organizations there), rather than explain them away.
>It's a measure of how far we've come that we can actually approach discussing the real-world
>application of Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics".
I love Asimov's robot stories, and one of the main factors was that human beings tended to fear robots despite the 3 laws. So to take the Asimov thing further, imagine the public backlash if the human driver got hurt in a race with a robot-- the Frankenstein complex in real life! There would be all sorts of legislation on this type of technology being incorporated into regular automobiles (a la Asimov's story "Sally").
I think it's likely that MS would have killed Office for the Mac. Remember, MS threatened to kill Office once before that, too. MS threatened to kill Office if Scully didn't give them the "perpetual license" to the look and feel of the Mac for Windows. The Mac was pretty vulnerable to not having applications at the time, and Apple conceded. (see Linsmeyer's book, "The Mac Bathroom Reader")
This resulted in the major reason why Apple later lost their look/feel lawsuit against MS. Apple gained the dubious honor of Microsoft admitting that they copied the look/feel in a private document, Microsoft got a license to steal from Apple wholesale for Windows 95, and the consumers gained a true innovation in computers: the trash can being renamed the recycle bin!
That's easy to say that Apple lost "world domination" if they had only shipped the Mac OS on Intel. I'm sure Microsoft would have sat back and let them do it, too. If Apple had released something like that, Microsoft would have just pulled the plug on Microsoft Office for the Mac, and guaranteed that people would have stuck with them anyway. They've done that sort of thing before when they threatened to kill Office for the Mac if Apple didn't adopt Internet Explorer. Then Apple would have been left with having to compete their hardware platform with commodity hardware from Intel clones without Microsoft's tepid support.
I'll admit that putting the Mac OS on Intel would have gone a long way towards acceptance of the Mac because people wouldn't have to invest in hardware to try out the system. However, Apple would have suffered the same problem as they did with the later clones. The Macintosh is an integration between hardware and software, and running the software on generic hardware waters down the Mac quite a bit. With that, the Mac would lose a lot of its distinction, and I don't that would have helped Apple's business any.
"Revenge of the Jedi" was the real title for a while. Kenner (the company who was licensed to make toys), had "Revenge fo the Jedi" on the labels of some of the early stuff. That was before you really knew what the movie was about, but I remember that as a kid, I sent in a million proofs of purchase to get a secret "Revenge of the Jedi" character. Turned out to be Admiral Ackbar, a complete and utter letdown.
The other guy's right that they used the title "Blue Harvest" for the production titles during filming and scouting locations.
Microsoft makes a lot of money off selling apps for the Mac, so that's unlikely if Microsoft is broken up. The new apps company will need to sell as many versions as they can. Once MS is broken up, the different versions will have to compete on their own merits without the benefits of hidden APIs.
However, if Microsoft somehow prevails in this suit, expect that the day after the Apple/Microsoft 5 year truce ends, Microsoft will announce just that. Microsoft has demonstrated many times that they're willing to throw money away to maintain their monopoly. So no matter how much money Microsoft makes off Mac software, if they win this case, they'll kill everything but IE and Outlook Express to make sure that Apple can't make inroads into business.
Advertisers are probably not the only ones excited about GPS tracking of cell phones.
Since many of us have cell phones assigned to us by companies we work for, I imagine some companies would be interested in tracking employees who have phones as well. Companies already have considerable rights in recording phone conversations, tracking web usage, installing security cameras in premises, and collecting various bodily fluids. I wonder how long it will be before they make a deal with their cellular service provider to provide a log of where employees have been Monday through Friday from 8 to 5.
I suspect within a few years we'll hear of someone who was fired for inexplicately being away from the office during business hours, courtesy of their cell phone records.
Mr. Lucas said that Episode I will be released on DVD soon. Unfortunately, it will only run on an Amiga that will be bundled with a version of Microsoft Office for Linux. Just for fun though, he'll infect every fortieth DVD with the Goodtimes virus, so be careful!
If what Microsoft did was "just business" and not illegal, why are they working so hard to claim they didn't do it?
Maritz was quoted in the New York Times saying they were going to "cut off Netscape's air supply." ("Exec denies threatening to choke rival Netscape", San Jose Mercury News, 1/25/1999. No URL, sorry). The plan was to give away for free anything that Netscape was selling. This tactic is classic anticompetitive behavior, but let's pretend like it's not for a minute.
Why did Maritz vehemently claim he didn't say this (and if he doesn't land himself in a perjury case after this is all over, I'll be disappointed), although the DOJ submitted the article where he said it? He claims he was inappropriately quoted, and furthermore, he doesn't know who actually said the quote. At the same time, Microsoft at no time contacted the NYT for a correction. Hmm...
> I admit a splitup sounds like a satisfying vindication of
> everyone's Microsoft woes. But, would splitting up Microsoft
> really do much do keep them in check?
> So, let's say you have the MS Office Co, then MS Operating System
> Co, and so on. Their products will still be compatible with each
> other (most likely), and people will still use them.
The point of breaking up Microsoft isn't to crush Microsoft, punish Gates, or make some other OS the dominate OS. It's to find a remedy to Microsoft's persistent eagerness to engage in illegal business practices. Microsoft has shown a blatant disregard toward following the law, which is much of the reason why this lawsuit has turned out to look like such a circus for Microsoft. Remember the faked videotape? The phony studies? The parade of "experts" that sounded less like testimony and more like a ventriloquist act with Microsoft as the hand?
Microsoft has made it clear that the only way they will stop bullying other companies, progressively tying applications to their OS to build market share, and threatening competitors and partners is to render them unable to do so.