Because we know that changing the laws happens much faster than court cases are completed. WTF?
And what makes you think that the famed Microsoft 'Men in Black' and the other lobbyist funded by Apple and Oracle won't counter a Google push to change the patent laws to fight off the ongoing court cases against Google or its customers and filed by these companies?
it would be better to fight both battles at the same time.
Jane you ignorant slut, they purchased those patents so Google could not use them to counter the law suits those companies already filed against Google or its product, Android. The ONLY way you play the patent game is exactly how the nuclear arms race was played and that's by mutual assured destruction. Google had basically nothing to fight with and they were looking for the Nortel patents to have something to fight back with. Microsoft, Apple and Oracle all have a very full patent portfolio and even if the patents are peripheral, filing a case against Google and having the judge pick it apart takes close to a decade. Look at SCO vs IBM/Linux. This is wolf pack attacking and nothing less.
And the reason these companies teamed up was because they could run the price up much much higher by summing their investments against the one other bidder, Google.
Google already knows and is being attacked by patents already held by those companies and wanted the Nortel patents as protection against these thugs, joining them does the same thing as losing the bid. oh, but it costs them no money.
Microsoft's public statement about asking Google to join them was 100% PR. Remember, Microsoft had been caught assigning no less than 12 employees to one guy writing an article on a Microsoft product and even handed out coaching instructions analysed by psychologists to direct the author to write the article they way they wanted it. Not to mention that the magazine editor was hounded by a Microsoft employee to get the article written in the first place. Talk about The Wizard of Oz syndrome, Microsoft is a PR firm first and foremost.
they don't want to kill it right off the bat because that really would piss off those diehard followers who took the.Net plunge. So they'll make a home for it in this obscure.Net for embedded systems. It won't look like they are killing it but the effect is letting die a slow death. Maybe this is the reason for that instead of trying to beat out Googles ADK or even Arduino.
that's what I was thinking. They'll blow billions every 3 months on BING and have blown billions on Zune and Windows CE but when it comes to security for Windows, the product which allows them to spend/waste so many billions, they offer a $200k bounty if you qualify? As you said, "How CHEAP of them!".
Microsoft has a history of failures and poor support once they realized they can't keep pouring millions and billions into it. Windows is the only exception so without leveraging Windows and being sure it'll continue, why would a company get into embedded hardware and software by following Microsoft down this winding road? Besides, embedded systems require long lives and Microsoft products outside of Windows do not have this. Only naive "Windows shops" would fall for this. IMO
don't forget that it has also killed a good $20 billion in profits. Oh look, the whole division which includes the XBox just pulled in $32 million. Don't they spend a good $100 million on marketing alone.
The XBox may have killed the Dreamcast and kept Sony in check but they did that at a cost of many billions of dollars obtained from the Windows OS side of the business.
ignorant. Really, you can't because they don't want to listen to something which says they've been doing it wrong all these years. And then there is the "nobody ever gets fired for choosing Microsoft" mantra and the desire to blend in so you're not a target for the layoff. So no, you'll only see a small uptick in OSS in a down economy and what you'll probably see is more piracy and/or longer refresh cycles. IMO
I forgot to mention that at one time Microsoft was having the BSA go after School Systems around the country. The deal was pay for the audit and the fines for anything found or jump on board Microsoft's new licensing model and have the slate wiped clean. The bulk license was very expensive and word started going around the various School Systems and they found GNU/Linux. A big annual IT in Education conference or something like that was must a month or so out and all the buzz was how they were all going to be shown how GNU/Linux could be used instead of Microsoft software and save them loads of cash. Microsoft apologized and the BSA went away with only a few School Systems implementing the switch over to GNU/Linux. too bad but when it comes to threats of dumping Microsoft all together when a BSA threat comes down, they start backing off.
yes, Ernie Ball did get bit by the BSA because they used software from vendors who fund the BSA( Microsoft for example ). But he also ended up paying the BSA $100,000 before they decided to make the company a BSA poster child. This pissed Sterling Ball off to no end and he ordered his IT department off of Microsoft software fast. Now, Ernie Ball is a poster child for the FSF by word of mouth and somehow I think Sterling Ball is quite happy with that too.
Remember, use of ANY software licensed by any of the vendors funding the BSA means they can knock on your door at any time and ask for an audit and you must comply. It's one of those hidden costs of using those vendors software.
This is, as stated, a ploy to dilute what open source means. To say customers don't care about the platform is silly considering how serious platform intrusions are, how serious platform reliability is and how platform updates are handled. Can Microsoft really say that Windows gets out of developers way and out of the way of maintenance admins? No, and for decades they designed Windows so it wasn't out of the way. This is just another Microsoft ploy in their attempt to Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish open source and in particular GNU/Linux. IMO
what I would like to see is who's making a profit after all the upfront costs. I don't know about Sony but the last quarter for Microsoft showed their entertainment and devices division bringing in a wooping $32 million after 6 years of losing hundreds of millions to billions per quarter. And then there is the upfront development costs. Microsoft has Windows to fund its losses while I guess Sony had its PS2 to fund the PS3 costs. So I'd really like to see those kinds of comparisons. These numbers at least tell you if the product is sustainable on its own and we are already seeing Microsoft kill off products after years and years of losses. Or less in the case of MS-Kin.
it will be interesting to see if Microsoft can pull off what Sony did by making profits of the old 360 while the next gen spins out. I don't see why Sony can't do it with the PS3 vs PS4(?).
They already have this to some extent in the Microsoft Windows based AT&T Uverse utility boxes spreading around. Have you ever walked by one of those and hear the fans they require? There was also a time when the UPS batteries in those boxes were blowing up due to heating issues. Some Microsoft employee probably walked by one in Milwaukee and noticed the snow melted around it and came up with the idea of heating homes around the neighborhood.
ssssssssh, that's a feature they'll fix in the update SP1. They are a marketing company first and foremost so don't worry about it, that'll be handled when the time comes with lots of press releases too.
The Bush administration proclaimed this over and over and over so no doubt at least 10% of their followers believed this. And look, they got a majority of the votes in the 2004 election.
But now I wonder if with the Mac at over 10% of the PC market will the rest follow even though "the majority" believe Microsoft Windows is the best software ever? Can the 10% butt up against the majority which hold some other belief and still gain a majority? I doubt it can happen without a generational change. People do not want to find their beliefs were/are incorrect.
I saw the Food Revolution episodes with the LA School District and how the School Board was being run by one guy. That was pathetic and we are talking about a _huge_ school system having been controlled by one person. Scary.
You can not have computer illiterate educators and users and get educational improvements using computer technology. Your Foundation's donations not only lock them into Microsoft products but do nothing to educate the educators in even the basics of computer operating system usage. You've gone great though selling them on teaching "The Word", "The Excel" and "The Powerpoint" so you've locked another generation into only knowing products and not concepts of word processing, spreadsheets, or presentations. You've also done a great job at instilling fear of the computer by doing nothing to educate on the concepts of file systems, printing systems nor even general desktop metaphoric use. File - Open and File - Create New are perfect because they first must start "The Word", ie _your_ application. And the 3 or 4 other methods of getting new files created must be the right way to do it considering the 10s of millions you've spent in User Design Pattern research over the years.
And I just loved how you blasted the OLPC for its poor design and unfamiliar software yet turn around and claim that a standard Windows desktop is all they should have to know how to use.
So you can not have it both ways Bill. You either educate the educators and people learn concepts and standard usage patterns which expose them to the ability to use other platforms or you continue keeping them ignorant and spending your billions to keep them generating more money for you by locking them into Microsoft products.
Besides, it surprises me that you and your Foundation are even allowed to pedal Microsoft software being so financially tied at the hip. I had thought there were laws against such conflicts of interest.
if they "hoped" for it they sure didn't talk about it. From what I heard and saw, they used BeOS to pick at its bones and tried to get Garnet in shape as a good OS but it never happened. And then they kept changing the cradle and connector so that hardware vendors couldn't keep up with the changes and soon lots of software developers finally gave up as they kept screwing with the API's and what the Palm platform was supposed to be.
If you were around back then, you too would understand why it's a joke when they talk about Apple inventing the mobile device application market.
and it's cheap too. What fool would expect Microsoft to tell you the information you just gave them was "new"? Why does it remind me of their method of filing patents? Like everything else from them, it's more likely to be just another PR stunt. IMO
wasn't "everyone" once on MySpace and I recall something called AOL once used by "everyone" too. Don't forget, Android OEMs often do deals with Google which include Google services like their app store, gmail, google chat, google voice, google maps, etc. Preloaded with a gmail account. That's lots of devices every day with users who could easily switch social networks.
It does not help that Facebook has partnered with Microsoft and is therefore blocking lots of Google ads from their site and being as aggressive about it as if Microsoft was at the helm.
we'll see if this even makes it out of the geekier side of the online news forums. It's the 'other' forums where the advertising would be effective since most everyone here has already heard of Google+.
on a side note, I wonder when Facebook will start disabling all users using a Gmail account for their email address.
Slashdot Mirror
Because we know that changing the laws happens much faster than court cases are completed. WTF?
And what makes you think that the famed Microsoft 'Men in Black' and the other lobbyist funded by Apple and Oracle won't counter a Google push to change the patent laws to fight off the ongoing court cases against Google or its customers and filed by these companies?
it would be better to fight both battles at the same time.
LoB
Jane you ignorant slut, they purchased those patents so Google could not use them to counter the law suits those companies already filed against Google or its product, Android. The ONLY way you play the patent game is exactly how the nuclear arms race was played and that's by mutual assured destruction. Google had basically nothing to fight with and they were looking for the Nortel patents to have something to fight back with. Microsoft, Apple and Oracle all have a very full patent portfolio and even if the patents are peripheral, filing a case against Google and having the judge pick it apart takes close to a decade. Look at SCO vs IBM/Linux. This is wolf pack attacking and nothing less.
And the reason these companies teamed up was because they could run the price up much much higher by summing their investments against the one other bidder, Google.
LoB
Google already knows and is being attacked by patents already held by those companies and wanted the Nortel patents as protection against these thugs, joining them does the same thing as losing the bid. oh, but it costs them no money.
Microsoft's public statement about asking Google to join them was 100% PR. Remember, Microsoft had been caught assigning no less than 12 employees to one guy writing an article on a Microsoft product and even handed out coaching instructions analysed by psychologists to direct the author to write the article they way they wanted it. Not to mention that the magazine editor was hounded by a Microsoft employee to get the article written in the first place. Talk about The Wizard of Oz syndrome, Microsoft is a PR firm first and foremost.
LoB
they don't want to kill it right off the bat because that really would piss off those diehard followers who took the .Net plunge. So they'll make a home for it in this obscure .Net for embedded systems. It won't look like they are killing it but the effect is letting die a slow death.
Maybe this is the reason for that instead of trying to beat out Googles ADK or even Arduino.
LoB
that's what I was thinking. They'll blow billions every 3 months on BING and have blown billions on Zune and Windows CE but when it comes to security for Windows, the product which allows them to spend/waste so many billions, they offer a $200k bounty if you qualify? As you said, "How CHEAP of them!".
Then again, it's probably just another PR stunt.
LoB
Microsoft has a history of failures and poor support once they realized they can't keep pouring millions and billions into it. Windows is the only exception so without leveraging Windows and being sure it'll continue, why would a company get into embedded hardware and software by following Microsoft down this winding road? Besides, embedded systems require long lives and Microsoft products outside of Windows do not have this. Only naive "Windows shops" would fall for this. IMO
LoB
don't forget that it has also killed a good $20 billion in profits. Oh look, the whole division which includes the XBox just pulled in $32 million. Don't they spend a good $100 million on marketing alone.
The XBox may have killed the Dreamcast and kept Sony in check but they did that at a cost of many billions of dollars obtained from the Windows OS side of the business.
LoB
ignorant. Really, you can't because they don't want to listen to something which says they've been doing it wrong all these years. And then there is the "nobody ever gets fired for choosing Microsoft" mantra and the desire to blend in so you're not a target for the layoff. So no, you'll only see a small uptick in OSS in a down economy and what you'll probably see is more piracy and/or longer refresh cycles. IMO
LoB
I forgot to mention that at one time Microsoft was having the BSA go after School Systems around the country. The deal was pay for the audit and the fines for anything found or jump on board Microsoft's new licensing model and have the slate wiped clean. The bulk license was very expensive and word started going around the various School Systems and they found GNU/Linux. A big annual IT in Education conference or something like that was must a month or so out and all the buzz was how they were all going to be shown how GNU/Linux could be used instead of Microsoft software and save them loads of cash. Microsoft apologized and the BSA went away with only a few School Systems implementing the switch over to GNU/Linux. too bad but when it comes to threats of dumping Microsoft all together when a BSA threat comes down, they start backing off.
LoB
yes, Ernie Ball did get bit by the BSA because they used software from vendors who fund the BSA( Microsoft for example ). But he also ended up paying the BSA $100,000 before they decided to make the company a BSA poster child. This pissed Sterling Ball off to no end and he ordered his IT department off of Microsoft software fast. Now, Ernie Ball is a poster child for the FSF by word of mouth and somehow I think Sterling Ball is quite happy with that too.
Remember, use of ANY software licensed by any of the vendors funding the BSA means they can knock on your door at any time and ask for an audit and you must comply. It's one of those hidden costs of using those vendors software.
LoB
This is, as stated, a ploy to dilute what open source means. To say customers don't care about the platform is silly considering how serious platform intrusions are, how serious platform reliability is and how platform updates are handled. Can Microsoft really say that Windows gets out of developers way and out of the way of maintenance admins? No, and for decades they designed Windows so it wasn't out of the way. This is just another Microsoft ploy in their attempt to Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish open source and in particular GNU/Linux. IMO
LoB
what I would like to see is who's making a profit after all the upfront costs. I don't know about Sony but the last quarter for Microsoft showed their entertainment and devices division bringing in a wooping $32 million after 6 years of losing hundreds of millions to billions per quarter. And then there is the upfront development costs. Microsoft has Windows to fund its losses while I guess Sony had its PS2 to fund the PS3 costs. So I'd really like to see those kinds of comparisons. These numbers at least tell you if the product is sustainable on its own and we are already seeing Microsoft kill off products after years and years of losses. Or less in the case of MS-Kin.
it will be interesting to see if Microsoft can pull off what Sony did by making profits of the old 360 while the next gen spins out. I don't see why Sony can't do it with the PS3 vs PS4(?).
LoB
They already have this to some extent in the Microsoft Windows based AT&T Uverse utility boxes spreading around. Have you ever walked by one of those and hear the fans they require? There was also a time when the UPS batteries in those boxes were blowing up due to heating issues. Some Microsoft employee probably walked by one in Milwaukee and noticed the snow melted around it and came up with the idea of heating homes around the neighborhood.
LoB
ssssssssh, that's a feature they'll fix in the update SP1. They are a marketing company first and foremost so don't worry about it, that'll be handled when the time comes with lots of press releases too.
LoB
don't you mean an XBox? lol
LoB
The Bush administration proclaimed this over and over and over so no doubt at least 10% of their followers believed this. And look, they got a majority of the votes in the 2004 election.
But now I wonder if with the Mac at over 10% of the PC market will the rest follow even though "the majority" believe Microsoft Windows is the best software ever? Can the 10% butt up against the majority which hold some other belief and still gain a majority? I doubt it can happen without a generational change. People do not want to find their beliefs were/are incorrect.
LoB
and the percentage sounds about right for this kind of blind stupidity.
LoB
I saw the Food Revolution episodes with the LA School District and how the School Board was being run by one guy. That was pathetic and we are talking about a _huge_ school system having been controlled by one person. Scary.
LoB
You can not have computer illiterate educators and users and get educational improvements using computer technology. Your Foundation's donations not only lock them into Microsoft products but do nothing to educate the educators in even the basics of computer operating system usage. You've gone great though selling them on teaching "The Word", "The Excel" and "The Powerpoint" so you've locked another generation into only knowing products and not concepts of word processing, spreadsheets, or presentations. You've also done a great job at instilling fear of the computer by doing nothing to educate on the concepts of file systems, printing systems nor even general desktop metaphoric use. File - Open and File - Create New are perfect because they first must start "The Word", ie _your_ application. And the 3 or 4 other methods of getting new files created must be the right way to do it considering the 10s of millions you've spent in User Design Pattern research over the years.
And I just loved how you blasted the OLPC for its poor design and unfamiliar software yet turn around and claim that a standard Windows desktop is all they should have to know how to use.
So you can not have it both ways Bill. You either educate the educators and people learn concepts and standard usage patterns which expose them to the ability to use other platforms or you continue keeping them ignorant and spending your billions to keep them generating more money for you by locking them into Microsoft products.
Besides, it surprises me that you and your Foundation are even allowed to pedal Microsoft software being so financially tied at the hip. I had thought there were laws against such conflicts of interest.
LoB
the cake is real, it's just a bomb.
LoB
if they "hoped" for it they sure didn't talk about it. From what I heard and saw, they used BeOS to pick at its bones and tried to get Garnet in shape as a good OS but it never happened. And then they kept changing the cradle and connector so that hardware vendors couldn't keep up with the changes and soon lots of software developers finally gave up as they kept screwing with the API's and what the Palm platform was supposed to be.
If you were around back then, you too would understand why it's a joke when they talk about Apple inventing the mobile device application market.
LoB
and it's cheap too. What fool would expect Microsoft to tell you the information you just gave them was "new"? Why does it remind me of their method of filing patents? Like everything else from them, it's more likely to be just another PR stunt. IMO
LoB
wasn't "everyone" once on MySpace and I recall something called AOL once used by "everyone" too. Don't forget, Android OEMs often do deals with Google which include Google services like their app store, gmail, google chat, google voice, google maps, etc. Preloaded with a gmail account. That's lots of devices every day with users who could easily switch social networks.
It does not help that Facebook has partnered with Microsoft and is therefore blocking lots of Google ads from their site and being as aggressive about it as if Microsoft was at the helm.
LoB
never mind, I see TFA is on C'net
LoB
we'll see if this even makes it out of the geekier side of the online news forums. It's the 'other' forums where the advertising would be effective since most everyone here has already heard of Google+.
on a side note, I wonder when Facebook will start disabling all users using a Gmail account for their email address.
LoB