Selling close to 20% of his stake in Microsoft seems rather interesting. Was the tax increase so great that his believe in the growth of Microsoft, or lack thereof, exceeded his ability to come out ahead down the road?
That's a large chunk to be selling off just because of a tax. 75 million shares when out of something like 400 million total is more than just a tax issue.
Behind the scenes, he must not have much faith in Windows Phone 7 making them much money. But he would know that Microsoft has lost billions and billions on lots of products which have been, and continue to be, money pits.
Then I sure wish we would stop hearing of Microsoft blocking products with exclusionary arrangements. When the netbooks were just getting going, we started hearing of Microsoft supplying sales people to various retail stores and then how those stores would no longer carry Linux based netbooks or PCs. What about the head of the Taiwanese manufacturing association stating that their manufacturers are afraid of Microsoft on PCs but not so much on things not like a PC? And don't forget, companies as large as Intel and HP have been threatened by Microsoft and gave in to there wishes of NOT supporting competing technologies.
These are not excuses, they are a reality and I sure wish the non-geek community would open their eyes to how the market has been tuned by the monopoly in the room for the past 20 years. IMO
I've also heard directly from a product manager who was told to shut down a Linux based project because of how Microsoft would react to putting that product on the market.
some companies are afraid of Microsoft or have been enticed to steer away from non-Microsoft software. Remember, the year the G1 was released there was that big annual mobile phone conference in Feb or March and nobody would or could say anything about Android. All they would talk about was Windows Mobile 6.5 which was due the next year. Independent press people and bloggers got some to spill the beans about releasing an Android product that year but they could not talk about it at the show.
So companies with any kind of relationship with Microsoft basically have the MS MiB's camped outside their corporate headquarters making sure nobody 'forgets' about Windows.
I'm thankful that some companies have the gutts to build and sell products regardless of what Microsoft wants or does not want.
like your Android running Nexus One, ChromeOS does not mean ALL apps and ALL data are on remote computers somewhere. Some Android apps are only useful with network connections to the data( google maps, email ) but others are more like "utilities" which have enough local data to run without a network. And those apps are run from your Android just like many ChromeOS apps will be. For example, there is a ChromeOS AppStore and when you load those they run on your device and are not just web pages to a remote system. Some are but this is not a requirement as I understand it.
I sure would like to see more Android apps allow for local caching of data so they would still work when 3G or WiFi were down in certain areas.
because Microsoft and Intel have _defined_ what their manufacturers can call a Netbook and the press follow that. It used to be it could only have 1 CPU, less than 10.1" screen, and not more than 1GB of RAM. I think Microsoft and Intel allow 2 cores now but I think the screen size and RAM are still limited at their previous sizes.
If any of you are old enough to recall when the laptop displays hit 12" it was the beginning of really usable portable computers because the keyboard could be full size. IBM had even gone out and created a laptop before then which had a cool keyboard( butterfly? ) which slide out in both directions when you opened the top so that it provided a full keyboard.
The reason Microsoft and Intel define what a netbook is is because they want to keep charging top dollar for full laptop software and hardware(CPUs). If they don't define where the line is, someone is going to create a cheap laptop and blow away years of price defining contracts and licensing deals.
If you don't believe me, just find a site which lists available netbooks. they all have very similar specs for CPU, screen size and shipped memory.
folding the display is probably not going to happen so what you really want is a rolled up screen. _Then_ you can have the keyboard and planar board folding up and making it all much more portable. We're not there yet so it's a large thin bag for now.
if Oracle had the same code/product which Apple was shipping then you are correct and it would not mean it'll be tough to pick up and run with. But, if Sun, now Oracle, has none of the software Apple was using then they now have to come up with all this to make it run on the Mac OSX in Cocoa( native OSX ).
"it won't be Apple doing the work, it will be Oracle". I think that's the big unknown here and given Oracles history, this is a valid concern. The other concern is getting on the platform when it ships and to be trusted is the other thing which prevents people from putting things on their computer after the purchase.
It might be a non-issue but odds are it will be an issue. Time will tell.
more and more it's looking like Apple is doing many of the things Microsoft has done and received a bad reputation for. I'm talking about using developers as pawns in their game to control the platform. I guess the difference is that Steve Jobs is a minimalist and wants things done his way on their platform and Steve Ballmer doesn't care how things look on the platform and the bottom line is that he insists on keeping market share.
These things just make me realize how much better the GNU/Linux platform is as long as you have a few extra brain cells available to understand what a command line is and can learn the basics of computer use.
it can't come soon enough but that'll be great if they can't somehow extend it. Or maybe there'll be a break through before then. Considering how 2000 was when Toyota and Honda first shipped hybrids outside of Japan, those 14 years made the oil industry lots of $$$, put lots of carbon into the atmosphere, and took lots of $$$ from high costs of transporting lots of materials/food/etc.
from what I recall from this old story, there was lots of noise about using open source software instead of Microsoft's because of how the government was using the licensing issues to dig into the computers. The move was to push for completely replacing Windows and Microsoft software because at that point there is nothing but a public relations issue for the government if word started getting out there was nothing to warrant the searches.
This isn't unlike how Microsoft, via the BSA, was going after US School systems to get them to sign expensive licensing contracts. The BSA would force an expensive audit and find some unlicensed software. There would be hugely expensive fines or Microsoft would agree to just an expensive multi-year license agreement and forgive all unlicensed software fines. The school systems were discussing this and some just jumped off of Windows and started to show how the others could too. Microsoft and the BSA pulled out and offered much cheaper licensing deals. The jumps to GNU/Linux and open source software dropped off.
the hybrid NiMH batteries are much less powerful than the ones they once built and used in the Rav4 EV. The other thing which allows them to use the NiMH in the hybrids, IIRC, was the fact that Toyota was able to show the hybrid is 49% EV and 51% gasoline so it is not predominantly powered by electric power. Something about their license stating something to the fact of being predominantly powered by electricity.
Right, and all along the auto industry was willing to spend millions on marketing of hydrogen prototypes and more millions making those prototypes and that was acceptable. That reminds me, how expensive and how practical are those Hummers? Yet somehow they have been made and sold. Not wonder you're posting A/C, I would be embarrassed to post such a comment too.
look at the wikipedia page section regarding the battery. Besides the GM EV1 going 126 miles on a charge with the NiMH batteries, the Toyota Rav4 EV also used high power NiMH batteries until they were sued by the oil company owning the patent and required to discontinue making those batteries.
Pba batteries are too heavy for their energy density and LiOn are still very expensive.This has not helped the EV market but has helped keep oil flowing for the oil industry.
Did you miss the part where they showed how many dealer replaceable parts are on gas engine cars as opposed to electric cars? There is a huge part of our economy just moving money around keeping gasoline powered cars running.
And the other reason the EV was killed was that the Bush administration funded they hydrogen vehicle hype and suckered the CARB members to believe it. CARB backed off of zero emission vehicle requirements and Detroit cheered and stopped making cars and trucks to fulfill those zero-e requirements.
Toyota and Panasonic were forced to discontinue the battery pack design by Texaco(Exxon now) because the patent for the NiMH battery tech is/was owned by them and they won't let vendors build high power NiMH for vehicle motive purposes. Toyota discontinued the Rav4 EV after losing the lawsuit against them because of their batteries they used.
And don't forget, Tesla might have something Toyota wants so they partnered. It could be just a "Made in America" label or it could be something special they did with the EV powerplant or control systems. It might just be a quick way into the market while they figure out if a 100% EV market will grow as opposed to the plug-in hybrid market.
and proprietary software protects them from patent trolls? what are you smoking? Have you not seen how patent trolls have, in some cases, gone after customers who were using the software and not the company producing the software. Proprietary software does not protect you from software patents. And as far as the open specifications requirements go, these are public entities and public documentation and services. They have 100% rights to try first and foremost to reduce the per user licensing fees they would have to pay or the public would have to pay in order to provide services. It seems you see nothing wrong with requiring every member of the public to require a license from one company just to read documentation the government produces.
We're not talking about dictatorships here, these governments are publicly elected and proclaimed to be representing and those they govern. So there is plenty wrong with preventing their ability to see that open standards get first shot since there are many benefits to the public for doing this. IMO
it really doesn't matter because with enough lawyers to keep it in court for years, the large companies crush all the others and squeeze them out of existence. Didn't I just read how the inventor a graphene was told this kind of thing directly and it is why he did not patent it and why he was not able to collect any royalties for his invention?
This kind of thing is destroying innovation because it becomes futile to try and create something new when you'll just end up in court and eventually the lawyers get all your money and the other side gets all your IP.
you mean LibreOffice, the office suite formerly known as OpenOffice.org? Maybe they'll try changing the name to an IP address or some hex codes. That'll work out well for them. Unfortunately, they were correct in acting so quickly since Oracle is not a friend to the open source communities they own the rights to.
they are only mentioning it now because it's completely _good enough_ and that one phrase applied to any cross platform software product scares the hell out of Microsoft. They know "good enough" too well to not be afraid of it.
Thanks for pointing out how old those quotes are. It's rather hilarious.
sad that you have to be a nerd to know how to put a CD in and restart your computer and get a browser running.
we must be getting dumber instead of smarter or our education system is lacking seriously. Then again, these computer things are just a fad.
Ya ya I know, most people don't even know how to connect a DVD player to their TV set and have to hire a Media Installation Expert to do it. As I said, sad.
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Selling close to 20% of his stake in Microsoft seems rather interesting. Was the tax increase so great that his believe in the growth of Microsoft, or lack thereof, exceeded his ability to come out ahead down the road?
That's a large chunk to be selling off just because of a tax. 75 million shares when out of something like 400 million total is more than just a tax issue.
Behind the scenes, he must not have much faith in Windows Phone 7 making them much money. But he would know that Microsoft has lost billions and billions on lots of products which have been, and continue to be, money pits.
LoB
The Tegra2 kit I messed with was 1GHz with 1GB of RAM and it wasn't optimized but run Ubuntu great. can't wait
LoB
Then I sure wish we would stop hearing of Microsoft blocking products with exclusionary arrangements. When the netbooks were just getting going, we started hearing of Microsoft supplying sales people to various retail stores and then how those stores would no longer carry Linux based netbooks or PCs. What about the head of the Taiwanese manufacturing association stating that their manufacturers are afraid of Microsoft on PCs but not so much on things not like a PC?
And don't forget, companies as large as Intel and HP have been threatened by Microsoft and gave in to there wishes of NOT supporting competing technologies.
These are not excuses, they are a reality and I sure wish the non-geek community would open their eyes to how the market has been tuned by the monopoly in the room for the past 20 years. IMO
I've also heard directly from a product manager who was told to shut down a Linux based project because of how Microsoft would react to putting that product on the market.
LoB
some companies are afraid of Microsoft or have been enticed to steer away from non-Microsoft software. Remember, the year the G1 was released there was that big annual mobile phone conference in Feb or March and nobody would or could say anything about Android. All they would talk about was Windows Mobile 6.5 which was due the next year. Independent press people and bloggers got some to spill the beans about releasing an Android product that year but they could not talk about it at the show.
So companies with any kind of relationship with Microsoft basically have the MS MiB's camped outside their corporate headquarters making sure nobody 'forgets' about Windows.
I'm thankful that some companies have the gutts to build and sell products regardless of what Microsoft wants or does not want.
LoB
like your Android running Nexus One, ChromeOS does not mean ALL apps and ALL data are on remote computers somewhere. Some Android apps are only useful with network connections to the data( google maps, email ) but others are more like "utilities" which have enough local data to run without a network. And those apps are run from your Android just like many ChromeOS apps will be. For example, there is a ChromeOS AppStore and when you load those they run on your device and are not just web pages to a remote system. Some are but this is not a requirement as I understand it.
I sure would like to see more Android apps allow for local caching of data so they would still work when 3G or WiFi were down in certain areas.
LoB
maybe not so optimized graphics driver too. gingerbread might change that.
LoB
John Carmack is the id Software guy and id does games('does' used loosely). So we;re talking bout games.
LoB
ah yes, the good old days when the netbooks cost less than $300. Those were the good old days alright and they seem to be long gone.
LoB
because Microsoft and Intel have _defined_ what their manufacturers can call a Netbook and the press follow that. It used to be it could only have 1 CPU, less than 10.1" screen, and not more than 1GB of RAM. I think Microsoft and Intel allow 2 cores now but I think the screen size and RAM are still limited at their previous sizes.
If any of you are old enough to recall when the laptop displays hit 12" it was the beginning of really usable portable computers because the keyboard could be full size. IBM had even gone out and created a laptop before then which had a cool keyboard( butterfly? ) which slide out in both directions when you opened the top so that it provided a full keyboard.
The reason Microsoft and Intel define what a netbook is is because they want to keep charging top dollar for full laptop software and hardware(CPUs). If they don't define where the line is, someone is going to create a cheap laptop and blow away years of price defining contracts and licensing deals.
If you don't believe me, just find a site which lists available netbooks. they all have very similar specs for CPU, screen size and shipped memory.
LoB
folding the display is probably not going to happen so what you really want is a rolled up screen. _Then_ you can have the keyboard and planar board folding up and making it all much more portable. We're not there yet so it's a large thin bag for now.
LoB
if Oracle had the same code/product which Apple was shipping then you are correct and it would not mean it'll be tough to pick up and run with. But, if Sun, now Oracle, has none of the software Apple was using then they now have to come up with all this to make it run on the Mac OSX in Cocoa( native OSX ).
LoB
"it won't be Apple doing the work, it will be Oracle". I think that's the big unknown here and given Oracles history, this is a valid concern. The other concern is getting on the platform when it ships and to be trusted is the other thing which prevents people from putting things on their computer after the purchase.
It might be a non-issue but odds are it will be an issue. Time will tell.
LoB
more and more it's looking like Apple is doing many of the things Microsoft has done and received a bad reputation for. I'm talking about using developers as pawns in their game to control the platform. I guess the difference is that Steve Jobs is a minimalist and wants things done his way on their platform and Steve Ballmer doesn't care how things look on the platform and the bottom line is that he insists on keeping market share.
These things just make me realize how much better the GNU/Linux platform is as long as you have a few extra brain cells available to understand what a command line is and can learn the basics of computer use.
LoB
it can't come soon enough but that'll be great if they can't somehow extend it. Or maybe there'll be a break through before then. Considering how 2000 was when Toyota and Honda first shipped hybrids outside of Japan, those 14 years made the oil industry lots of $$$, put lots of carbon into the atmosphere, and took lots of $$$ from high costs of transporting lots of materials/food/etc.
2014 can't come soon enough.
LoB
from what I recall from this old story, there was lots of noise about using open source software instead of Microsoft's because of how the government was using the licensing issues to dig into the computers. The move was to push for completely replacing Windows and Microsoft software because at that point there is nothing but a public relations issue for the government if word started getting out there was nothing to warrant the searches.
This isn't unlike how Microsoft, via the BSA, was going after US School systems to get them to sign expensive licensing contracts.
The BSA would force an expensive audit and find some unlicensed software. There would be hugely expensive fines or Microsoft would agree to just an expensive multi-year license agreement and forgive all unlicensed software fines. The school systems were discussing this and some just jumped off of Windows and started to show how the others could too. Microsoft and the BSA pulled out and offered much cheaper licensing deals. The jumps to GNU/Linux and open source software dropped off.
LoB
the hybrid NiMH batteries are much less powerful than the ones they once built and used in the Rav4 EV. The other thing which allows them to use the NiMH in the hybrids, IIRC, was the fact that Toyota was able to show the hybrid is 49% EV and 51% gasoline so it is not predominantly powered by electric power. Something about their license stating something to the fact of being predominantly powered by electricity.
LoB
Right, and all along the auto industry was willing to spend millions on marketing of hydrogen prototypes and more millions making those prototypes and that was acceptable. That reminds me, how expensive and how practical are those Hummers? Yet somehow they have been made and sold. Not wonder you're posting A/C, I would be embarrassed to post such a comment too.
LoB
look at the wikipedia page section regarding the battery. Besides the GM EV1 going 126 miles on a charge with the NiMH batteries, the Toyota Rav4 EV also used high power NiMH batteries until they were sued by the oil company owning the patent and required to discontinue making those batteries.
Pba batteries are too heavy for their energy density and LiOn are still very expensive.This has not helped the EV market but has helped keep oil flowing for the oil industry.
LoB
Did you miss the part where they showed how many dealer replaceable parts are on gas engine cars as opposed to electric cars? There is a huge part of our economy just moving money around keeping gasoline powered cars running.
And the other reason the EV was killed was that the Bush administration funded they hydrogen vehicle hype and suckered the CARB members to believe it. CARB backed off of zero emission vehicle requirements and Detroit cheered and stopped making cars and trucks to fulfill those zero-e requirements.
Do you need any more reasons?
LoB
Toyota and Panasonic were forced to discontinue the battery pack design by Texaco(Exxon now) because the patent for the NiMH battery tech is/was owned by them and they won't let vendors build high power NiMH for vehicle motive purposes. Toyota discontinued the Rav4 EV after losing the lawsuit against them because of their batteries they used.
And don't forget, Tesla might have something Toyota wants so they partnered. It could be just a "Made in America" label or it could be something special they did with the EV powerplant or control systems. It might just be a quick way into the market while they figure out if a 100% EV market will grow as opposed to the plug-in hybrid market.
I feel there is a market for both.
LoB
and proprietary software protects them from patent trolls? what are you smoking? Have you not seen how patent trolls have, in some cases, gone after customers who were using the software and not the company producing the software. Proprietary software does not protect you from software patents. And as far as the open specifications requirements go, these are public entities and public documentation and services. They have 100% rights to try first and foremost to reduce the per user licensing fees they would have to pay or the public would have to pay in order to provide services. It seems you see nothing wrong with requiring every member of the public to require a license from one company just to read documentation the government produces.
We're not talking about dictatorships here, these governments are publicly elected and proclaimed to be representing and those they govern. So there is plenty wrong with preventing their ability to see that open standards get first shot since there are many benefits to the public for doing this. IMO
LoB
it really doesn't matter because with enough lawyers to keep it in court for years, the large companies crush all the others and squeeze them out of existence. Didn't I just read how the inventor a graphene was told this kind of thing directly and it is why he did not patent it and why he was not able to collect any royalties for his invention?
This kind of thing is destroying innovation because it becomes futile to try and create something new when you'll just end up in court and eventually the lawyers get all your money and the other side gets all your IP.
LoB
you mean LibreOffice, the office suite formerly known as OpenOffice.org? Maybe they'll try changing the name to an IP address or some hex codes. That'll work out well for them. Unfortunately, they were correct in acting so quickly since Oracle is not a friend to the open source communities they own the rights to.
LoB
they are only mentioning it now because it's completely _good enough_ and that one phrase applied to any cross platform software product scares the hell out of Microsoft. They know "good enough" too well to not be afraid of it.
Thanks for pointing out how old those quotes are. It's rather hilarious.
LoB
sad that you have to be a nerd to know how to put a CD in and restart your computer and get a browser running.
we must be getting dumber instead of smarter or our education system is lacking seriously. Then again, these computer things are just a fad.
Ya ya I know, most people don't even know how to connect a DVD player to their TV set and have to hire a Media Installation Expert to do it. As I said, sad.
LoB