there are people who still think that Bill Hilf was hired to educate Microsoft on how to work with GNU/Linux and open source software and they are fools. He was hired to educate Microsoft on how to market Microsoft Windows and Microsoft software over GNU/Linux and OSS. He built a lab running all kinds of OSS project and they evaluated what was good, bad, ugly and how Microsoft software could be marketed against that which they learned. Bill Hilf's roll as marketing guy for Windows Server was always the plan and makes complete sense given his initial role.
So stop kidding yourselves into thinking Microsoft wants to work with GNU/Linux and OSS. They want it gone and they want everyone using only Microsoft software. There is not half way. There is no interoperability. Those are marketing lies as they continue to find ways to keep customers on their software.
And Bill Hilf is no friend of any OSS by virtue of who he accepted a job from and what that job is. IMO.
Microsofts long long history should tell you that if you are any kind of a free thinker, any tie to Microsoft is not going to be fun. Its Job #1 isa as a freak'n marketing company and if that's new to you, oh well. Although I'm not a gamer I did find that there was a mass migration out of MS/Bungie not long ago. Surely not a sign of a happy camp.
Not to mention that a split like this and one after such public press releases about how well Halo did for MS/Xbox, why else would Microsoft let them go? They've lost money on everthing they've done outside of leveraging the Windows OS monopoly so it's tough to come up with a sane reason for Microsoft letting Bungie go.
Google around and check the gaming forums. You'll find more hands-on comments about what's happening.
yes, that is more likely the issue since it should be well known by now that Dell gets over 20% of their profits directly from Microsoft marketing programs.
A more in-depth article in a mainstream press would do consumers good to understand how this works. That they they are being corralled into spending hundreds and thousands of dollars by OEMs tied to Microsoft when free open source software could fit the needs in most of the cases.
It'll never happen though since the press does not often tread into that kind of threat to their advertisers.
Microsoft does these kinds of things to either kill off a product for another platform or to force the new purchase into the wonderful world of Windows. They've been pretty successful at protecting their monopoly in the PC OS market and IMO, Bungie was a way for them to "grow" the Xbox marketshare. If there are profits, it's a bonus but the real reason for all of this is to protect the Windows monopoly. It is there that their 10s of billions in annual profits come from. My guess is that Bungie fought back internally and wants to be on its own again. There is a larger market for games than the Xbox. Over the last 5 or so years, Microsoft is a distant 3rd place in the console market after all.
And WTF? Microsoft is letting Bungie go for love? WTF universe is this?
I don't believe Microsoft will get out of the console/gaming market any time soon. There is just too much of a threat that the console become the hub of peoples home computing use they can't let that happen. They were/are willing to lose billions just on a tiny handheld OS jut to kill off the competition( Palm ) so that the handheld doesn't leave Windows out of the picture. There are many other examples of Microsoft spending/losing/investing/whatever millions just to prevent the competition from gaining or growing.
So, IMO, there is no way Microsoft will walk away from the console gaming market. IMO, they bought Bungie and other developers to force games out for the Xbox. They probably told Bungie they'd be independent and the fools believed them. Bungie developers and management want out of Microsoft or they'll all leave Microsoft with just a name and no track forward. Microsoft negotiated a way to keep them making certain games for the Xbox in the future an to revenues from those games. Atleast that is how I see it playing out from years of insight on how Microsoft does businesses.
or maybe the Bungie developers threatened to all quit if Microsoft did not let them go back to being independent. If you notice, they have been somewhat tied to MS Xbox360 and that's not being too independent. The PS2 is still the dominant game platform and the PS3 isn't something to just ignore. Not to mention the Bungie developers might actually want to product a PS3 version because of what that hardware brings.
Just as Microsoft purchased SoftImage only to get them to product a Windows OS version and tried to terminate the UNIX version because the goal was to build support for the WindowsNT OS. In the SoftImage deal, Microsoft ran into major fights with employees over this Windows-only push from Microsoft. Microsoft eventually spit SoftImage back out and they continue to support both *nix and Windows platforms. This Bungie split sounds quite like the SoftImage deal and especially so after hearing how well Halo 3 for Xbox360 sold. You'd think Microsoft would REALLY want to keep control of that kind of money maker and not let the split off to support the other guys.
And who knows, maybe there was quite an uproar from other game vendors because of the ownership of competing game developers such as Bungie? Would really like to know how/why this happened.
Go to http://www.dell.com/ and enter Ubuntu in the search box( upper right corner ). When you select one of the two links found, you'll see where Dell states this: "The main thing to note is that when you choose open source you don't get a Windows® operating system."
They are not helping anybody but Microsoft with that statement. It should state that '...when you choose Ubuntu on Dell, you don't get a Windows® operating system." Confusing customers with what open source is means that they'll have to work much harder to clear that up when they start pre-loading open source applications on Dell/Windows® computers. Yes, it will happen.
The article/author could have made a more convincing connection between the fact that with the Dell/Ubuntu system you get a full office suite for free. I just got a support call from a friends daughter regarding her new laptop and using MS Powerpoint. She didn't realize it only came with a 60 day trial and no longer functioned. She was also surprised that she'd have to purchase MS Office. So why doesn't Dell pre-load Open Office or Star Office on their computers instead of or with MS Office trials? There are a number of open source projects which come with versions for MS Windows and provide great value to customers. Still, OEM's stay away and don't even tell their customers about them. THIS would be a great story for someone willing to dig into this further. Maybe nobody wants to upset their advertisers by exposing the fact that much of what's kept off those computers is related to who pays them to do so? IMO.
Back to the story, both the article and Dell's pre-loading are good for Linux because it's mainstreaming Linux and open source software and that's a good thing. Even though Dell can not advertise their GNU/Linux systems, the general press can do that instead. But, I still feel the author doesn't cut it any slack and continue to say incorrectly that it's only for geeks. And doesn't Ubuntu provide support for the Dell computers? The article only mentioned Novell Suse's $50 version comes with 1 year of support. Isn't there Dell/Ubuntu support from Canonical?
And Microsoft's long long history of these kinds of attacks on competitors does not make them a friend of consumers or a friend of businesses. They surely have done very little to be a friend to me and far far more to the contrary. And convicted monopolies can not protect their monopolies. It is illegal.
because constantly adding drive space to your MS Exchange email server is driving you nuts and it's driving MS Exchange performance down. If that is what the article is really about then maybe Microsoft is just trying to build a control channel which lessens the load of sending 3+MB of MS Word or MS Powerpoint files around the enterprise via email.
My guess is that they'll tie this into the email clients and servers so the user doesn't know about it.
FYI, the article on TheRegister.co.uk mentions both online apps AND web storage. I don't think it's one or the other. Given that, this being about MS Exchange load is less likely and it's more likely a shot at Google Apps. Making it free to existing MS Office users moves Microsoft into the enterprise web apps space in one leap. And they probably won't have to pay people to use it like they did to kill off Netscape's browser.
I can see step 3 being something like an ActiveX control wrapping winword.exe but step 4 is just wrong. Microsoft has failed at adding revenue to their three money makers(MS Windows,MS Office, MS WindowsServer) for the last 15 years. So "Profit" is a long shot and not really much of a concern for them. I'm sure they'd like to actually have something successful at not losing money but the main goal of any MS project is to protect the money makers they have. And do so at pretty much any cost. They make billions in profits from only 3 product lines and spending a few million to protect that is not a problem. Their problem is that they suck at coming up with or making anything profitable and it's probably because protecting existing profits is job #1. IMO.
my thinking on this went like this, 'how can Microsoft leverage their existing monopolies on the Windows OS and office applications?'. Well, putting this out there for free to existing Microsoft Office users is one way to leverage the MS Office monopoly. After all, once Microsoft built this monopoly, they've been really consistent at making sure only MS Office vX users could exchange with MS Office vX users. If they don't tie this with MS Office 2007, they'll surely do so at a later date.
Step One of the forward looking steps which are ALWAYS part of Microsoft's project design principles is 'How can it be used to protect the monopoly?'.
Microsoft does not need any money from these web apps, just needs to make sure the gravy trains of MS Windows and MS Office continue. Google is looking for revenue and coming up with tools/ideas to attract customers. Microsoft is doing what it's done for close to 20 years, attacking new ideas and protecting what it has. IMO.
yup, Palm Computing Inc had it right with both an open development platform and open hardware platform. Palm Inc was doing OK with this until 3Com Inc purchased them. First the hardware vendors were crushed by the many changing connectors and then the software vendors were lost after years and years of hacking on the original PalmOS in attempts to create a "real" multi-threaded, multi-tasking OS. Without that huge community of hardware and software developers, the Palm PDA and phones are really not that exciting anymore. And the press dogs PDA's so it's not even cool to have one anymore.
Apples not really one for opening up everything so if they do come out with the iPhonePDA and it's only software open...it might have a tough time. If they hand out the design/CAD files for hardware add-ons and do the open software then the PDA just might make a comeback. And have a good chance IMO.
dude, give the other one to a Microsoft employee instead. Better yet, give it to one of Steve Balmer's or Bill Gates' kids. The bricks dropped from between Bill and Steve's legs would be well worth the effort. You know, it would look like they dropped a Zune.;-)
I'm with you. Give us an awesome UI device and let it connect to everything else if needed. It's the darn Telco's who are forcing the platform/hardware layout the way they want it so they can lock in users to their service.
Give us a PADD and let us worry about the UI and applications and let the Telco's worry about making the network reliable. The iPhone hardware would make a great v1 PADD with wider models later on.
IMO, the Newton was killed just when the market and technology was ready for it. The Palm Pilot just hit the market and was taking off. Now, we have Apple with the iPhone they need to restrict to make telco's happy but they also have this really nicely patented and usable UI and packaging... They could rip out the telco chips, throw in a video driver chip and make an 3rd party open device for the Nokia N770/N800 space. With VOIP and wireless, email, PIM, and a VGA connector for presentations it would make a splash at any office meeting.
Sounds cool to me but I would rather see a Linux implementation if they could get all the nice gesture stuff working smoothly as Apple does. It is marketing which killed of the PDA market more than the phone market. I don't see even halt the number of smartphone users around as I used to see using PDA's(Palm, Handspring, Sony, and even iPaqs). When the marketing stopped and it didn't seem cool anymore, people slowly left the devices in the desk and doing that for just one month can kill the battery for good. Non replaceable batteries also fixed the life expectancy and probably lead to many EOL scenarios.
Ive me a fully open iPhonePDA and a keychain telco wireless phone module with Bluetooth support and it'll be cool once again to have a PDA. IMO.
MS may give you the apps for almost free by know that you are basically caged in by accepting. I've even heard that local libraries get cheap software from Microsoft but are restricted from using any open source software in the contract. Not sure if that is the same deal you got but either way, know you are in a cage when using Microsoft software. And just because you have company in there, it does not justify the fact you're still caged. IMO.
also, WTF? You picked Microsoft because "everyone else uses...blah blah blah" so why are you questioning the Google mapping API choice? If you follow your previous logic with the mapping API's and you even said yourself that everyone else is using Google. So use Google already instead of posting this silly question to/. or are you just looking to stir the/. pot up? Maybe you're looking for some fodder for an article or something that'll get you page hits in a ZiffDavis web site or blog? Like I said, WTF over?
and here is why, even moderately smart programmers are more comfortable with a spreadsheet than a database or full blown application. Example which I believe still applies today:
I was a member of a "club" of techies who were investing in the stock market in the 1996 timeframe. We cycled the clubs officer positions through the club membership so everyone knew what others were doing and how. The 2nd year, I got the Treasurers position and my job was to collect "investments" at each meeting and provide a overall club report and reports for every member's position/investment in the club. I was handed a spreadsheet with tons of data entry cells sheets to fill in data. I could have cleaned this up but hey, this was the age of the internet right. So I build a SQL database to handle the accounting, wrote code to drive a CGI interface to a web server and wrote scripting to trigger updates on stock valuation and triggers to update the database on changes. It was all accessible from a web browser with a login. And very repeatable. It worked great after the 3rd months meeting and for the remainder of the year. Because it was cross platform, it would run on anybodies computer and did not need to be on the internet.
Here's the kicker( finally ). The next Treasurer was the guy who started the club, owned his own business, was a Windows software engineer who's product he built over close to 10 years and was a signal processing kit(PC and software appliance ). He knew what I was saying when I described the package I'd built to do the books but he wanted none of it. He wanted the latest report and then he write a spreadsheet to handle the task. And for every meeting from then on until the end of the club 2 years later, we were constantly correcting data in the spreadsheet and sometimes, corrections required pulling out paperwork from previous months meetings.
There is a fools familiarity with spreadsheets which people find comforting. They will go to great extremes to try and get the spreadsheet to work for what they are trying to do. Great extremes. And with the plethora of Neanderthal-ish computer users out there who think they are computer guru's because they can do "=(A2+B2)" in MS Excel, it is a long long road to get movement outside of the spreadsheet.
I just found out a buddy has taken on a 2nd job and is trying to build a business out of it. He's under charging to get experience in more aspects of the field and to construct a spreadsheet to "automate" the task(s). He's thinking that the business will grow around the "application"/spreadsheet.
So I think the title should be, "Jon Udell on the Geek's Spreadsheet" because the nerd is really not that 'into' the technology to really know or want to work outside of a standard spreadsheet. IMO.
yes, please explain that to a bunch of legal monkeys who have little to know understanding of the computer industry or computer technology/usage in general. Where is the line as to the education and depth of knowledge expected for the determinate of non-obvious?
Maybe the examiner can require the Board members to take a few basic computing classes or require some books and quiz them on their understanding/comprehension of the books contents? Have you tried explaining how to do something to a Windows user who doesn't know but how to click a few buttons and open a browser and email client? It is very frustrating how little people know about the tool they are using. I know people being paid to use a computer and they didn't know how to get to a website without a link to it. Talk about a society full of dumb shits...
There is a line which must be drawn and there needs to be validation of basic knowledge in the field of the invention by the examiner and all who address the patents. And basic does not mean knowing how to hit the power button if the patent is computer related. IMO.
I've often wondered as to WHOM the "not obvious" clause of determining if something is patentable refers to. I could not believe that it would be the examiner alone and figured they had some way to test this. Now we see that there is no real test at the USPTO, they just rubber stamp everything and let the courts deal with it. Or worst, after the courts deal with it, the USPTO has another look and rubber stamps it again. WTF.
Something is very wrong here and unless there are massive changes, it'll be the major businesses with large bank accounts who control patents and further stall progress and new products from making it to market.
If 1-click can make it, then 1/2-click can also do the same. Catch the freak'n mouse-down event instead of the click event( mouse-down and mouse-up ). And then try for the no-click by "rubbing" the 'buy now' button with a few mouse-over events and change the button color to show the move from "buy now" to "purchased".
I sure hope someone hasn't patented pushing buttons on a flat surface to trigger the stringing of alpha-numeric display elements in a browser or text-box... What a waste of time and effort. IMO.
The though bubble over every MS executives head after hearing this would read: "Stop your crying and bend over and take it like a man. You've been doing so for years and years so shut the hell up and suck it up. It's the way it was, the way it is, and the way it will continue to be. It is our way."
Abuse by Microsoft is not a new phenomenon and I doubt most Microsoft fans are going to think anything of having to jump through yet another hoop to get back to clicking buttons and wiggling that mouse around. Heck, the majority of their users don't know the difference between an application and a utility and hardly know what a file is. It's all a bunch of icons right?;-/
good point. It's gotta help that the Apple product pricing is typically in the mid to upper range. Their user base is mostly as you mention due to this. Maybe they also tend to purchase more devices like the TomTom because of this. They, IMO, are probably more likely to let vendors know they are disappointed by any lack of Mac support along with holding higher professional positions.
It was mentioned elsewhere but mostly, Mac is a fixed and controlled platform and it still makes it into the corporate desktop market better than Linux does. Mostly because of perception/acceptance but still, being the 3rd or 4th ranked OEM gives them recognition over Linux too.
funny you mention Motorola because they purchased Metrowerks and their CodeWarrior tools. Metrowerks was the company Sharp used to provide an IDE/dev env for the Sharp Zaurus on Windows via CodeWarrior. As I mentioned earlier, Sharp was looking for developers to write apps for the Zaurus and initially only had the Linux toolchain/SDK for 2-3 years but didn't provide desktop sync tool for those Linux developers. Late in the game, they later provided a Windows based SDK via Metrowerks/CodeWarrior but by then, many Linux developers were leaving the product. Sharp went and changed the PIM storage mechanisms and was really twisted in how much they'd allow open to developers. They also would not open source their PIM apps and people were wasting their time on building completely new replacements in an attempt to increase PIM satisfaction. BTW, one had to copy the new ARM based PIM database access library from the handheld and into the toolchain path to write apps for it on Linux. No source and the only documentation was a few header files and one API doc.
Motorola, now already has a Windows SDK(CodeWarrior) for their Linux phone and they do have both Windows and Linux versions of that. IIRC, quite pricey but they do have both versions.Still, there are a boat load of Linux developers who'd love to develop for the Motorola platform but will bypass that if it won't work with their Linux desktop and requires Windows for syncing to calendar and address books.
BTW, CodeWarrior is only $3,000 - $4,000 so most Linux or Windows developers are would be happy to develop for the Moto phone platforms. Not!
Having Linux on the device saves them tons on support by using a reliable system, saves them tons in licensing fees by using GPL'ed software, and saves them tons on development time by leveraging many API's available and again, due to the GPL.
When it comes to providing software for users to load to interface a computer with that device, most are still using Microsoft Windows and far far fewer using Mac. IMO, the Mac gets support because it has a long history in the industry and not supporting it pisses of some vocal users( media, etc ).
With this in mind, do you now understand why Microsoft went all out to destroy the C++ frameworks businesses in the 90s? Why they have done the same when any cross platform development tool gains acceptance in the community? If they were using Qt for their desktop app development then it would be one thing but IIRC, Qt 3.0(2001) was the first time it supported Mac and so many companies were/are still tied to other development platforms. Ones which don't easily port to Linux.
BTW, this was the same thing happening when Sharp release the Linux based Zaurus but it was worst there. Sharp wanted developers to help with application and the dev env was Linux but the QtopiaDesktop PIM/syncing application was only for Windows. How stupid is that? Trolltech did release some version of the QtopiaDesktop for Linux but there wasn't a whole lot of activity and eventually, it became outdated and unable to sync with the newer Sharp ROMs.
Hopefully, as OEMs around the world start providing Linux pre-loaded, vendors like those behind the TomTom will start porting their desktop apps to cross platform frameworks and tools so they can support Linux desktop users. Too bad they don't learn from the router companies and put a web server in the device so any browser can work with it using standard protocols.
there could be some backroom money coming from IBM but it's an open source project so I find that hard to believe given so many other reasons for this. For one, since your are talking about a CS major, having one IDE which can be used across the board in the curriculum. For instance, Eclipse can be used for the beginning,and up, Java classes, for the C embedded classes, for the C++ classes, and for the server/backend/web services classes. For the basic classes, there's a small amount of overhead to get simple "hello world" stuff going but once over that, it's a nice all around tool for CS curriculum at any school. I don't know if they're using CVS or note but that might be used to store student files on school systems and might be used by the instructor for final( v1.0 ) class project submittal.
It also helps that it not only supports many programing languages but also runs across many platforms. It does have alot of support across the industry as many have dumped their homegrown IDE's for plugins into Eclipse.
If it is only being used for Java classes, others like NetBeans could probably fill the same needs but there might be a number of professors at your school who have agreed on one IDE to use. It does allow sharing of workspaces and other things in the more advanced classes if everyone is on the same page. And with it being open sourced, it's not like there's much in the way of financial benefits for IBM because your school is using it.
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there are people who still think that Bill Hilf was hired to educate Microsoft on how to work with GNU/Linux and open source software and they are fools. He was hired to educate Microsoft on how to market Microsoft Windows and Microsoft software over GNU/Linux and OSS. He built a lab running all kinds of OSS project and they evaluated what was good, bad, ugly and how Microsoft software could be marketed against that which they learned. Bill Hilf's roll as marketing guy for Windows Server was always the plan and makes complete sense given his initial role.
So stop kidding yourselves into thinking Microsoft wants to work with GNU/Linux and OSS. They want it gone and they want everyone using only Microsoft software. There is not half way. There is no interoperability. Those are marketing lies as they continue to find ways to keep customers on their software.
And Bill Hilf is no friend of any OSS by virtue of who he accepted a job from and what that job is. IMO.
LoB
Microsofts long long history should tell you that if you are any kind of a free thinker, any tie to Microsoft is not going to be fun. Its Job #1 isa as a freak'n marketing company and if that's new to you, oh well. Although I'm not a gamer I did find that there was a mass migration out of MS/Bungie not long ago. Surely not a sign of a happy camp.
Not to mention that a split like this and one after such public press releases about how well Halo did for MS/Xbox, why else would Microsoft let them go? They've lost money on everthing they've done outside of leveraging the Windows OS monopoly so it's tough to come up with a sane reason for Microsoft letting Bungie go.
Google around and check the gaming forums. You'll find more hands-on comments about what's happening.
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not a gamer but still I found that there was a mass migration out of MS/Bungie not long ago. Surely not a sign of a happy camp.
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yes, that is more likely the issue since it should be well known by now that Dell gets over 20% of their profits directly from Microsoft marketing programs.
A more in-depth article in a mainstream press would do consumers good to understand how this works. That they they are being corralled into spending hundreds and thousands of dollars by OEMs tied to Microsoft when free open source software could fit the needs in most of the cases.
It'll never happen though since the press does not often tread into that kind of threat to their advertisers.
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Microsoft does these kinds of things to either kill off a product for another platform or to force the new purchase into the wonderful world of Windows. They've been pretty successful at protecting their monopoly in the PC OS market and IMO, Bungie was a way for them to "grow" the Xbox marketshare. If there are profits, it's a bonus but the real reason for all of this is to protect the Windows monopoly. It is there that their 10s of billions in annual profits come from. My guess is that Bungie fought back internally and wants to be on its own again. There is a larger market for games than the Xbox. Over the last 5 or so years, Microsoft is a distant 3rd place in the console market after all.
And WTF? Microsoft is letting Bungie go for love? WTF universe is this?
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I don't believe Microsoft will get out of the console/gaming market any time soon. There is just too much of a threat that the console become the hub of peoples home computing use they can't let that happen. They were/are willing to lose billions just on a tiny handheld OS jut to kill off the competition( Palm ) so that the handheld doesn't leave Windows out of the picture. There are many other examples of Microsoft spending/losing/investing/whatever millions just to prevent the competition from gaining or growing.
So, IMO, there is no way Microsoft will walk away from the console gaming market. IMO, they bought Bungie and other developers to force games out for the Xbox. They probably told Bungie they'd be independent and the fools believed them. Bungie developers and management want out of Microsoft or they'll all leave Microsoft with just a name and no track forward. Microsoft negotiated a way to keep them making certain games for the Xbox in the future an to revenues from those games. Atleast that is how I see it playing out from years of insight on how Microsoft does businesses.
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or maybe the Bungie developers threatened to all quit if Microsoft did not let them go back to being independent. If you notice, they have been somewhat tied to MS Xbox360 and that's not being too independent. The PS2 is still the dominant game platform and the PS3 isn't something to just ignore. Not to mention the Bungie developers might actually want to product a PS3 version because of what that hardware brings.
Just as Microsoft purchased SoftImage only to get them to product a Windows OS version and tried to terminate the UNIX version because the goal was to build support for the WindowsNT OS. In the SoftImage deal, Microsoft ran into major fights with employees over this Windows-only push from Microsoft. Microsoft eventually spit SoftImage back out and they continue to support both *nix and Windows platforms. This Bungie split sounds quite like the SoftImage deal and especially so after hearing how well Halo 3 for Xbox360 sold. You'd think Microsoft would REALLY want to keep control of that kind of money maker and not let the split off to support the other guys.
And who knows, maybe there was quite an uproar from other game vendors because of the ownership of competing game developers such as Bungie? Would really like to know how/why this happened.
LoB
Go to http://www.dell.com/ and enter Ubuntu in the search box( upper right corner ). When you select one of the two links found, you'll see where Dell states this:
"The main thing to note is that when you choose open source you don't get a Windows® operating system."
They are not helping anybody but Microsoft with that statement. It should state that '...when you choose Ubuntu on Dell, you don't get a Windows® operating system." Confusing customers with what open source is means that they'll have to work much harder to clear that up when they start pre-loading open source applications on Dell/Windows® computers. Yes, it will happen.
The article/author could have made a more convincing connection between the fact that with the Dell/Ubuntu system you get a full office suite for free. I just got a support call from a friends daughter regarding her new laptop and using MS Powerpoint. She didn't realize it only came with a 60 day trial and no longer functioned. She was also surprised that she'd have to purchase MS Office. So why doesn't Dell pre-load Open Office or Star Office on their computers instead of or with MS Office trials? There are a number of open source projects which come with versions for MS Windows and provide great value to customers. Still, OEM's stay away and don't even tell their customers about them. THIS would be a great story for someone willing to dig into this further. Maybe nobody wants to upset their advertisers by exposing the fact that much of what's kept off those computers is related to who pays them to do so? IMO.
Back to the story, both the article and Dell's pre-loading are good for Linux because it's mainstreaming Linux and open source software and that's a good thing. Even though Dell can not advertise their GNU/Linux systems, the general press can do that instead. But, I still feel the author doesn't cut it any slack and continue to say incorrectly that it's only for geeks. And doesn't Ubuntu provide support for the Dell computers? The article only mentioned Novell Suse's $50 version comes with 1 year of support. Isn't there Dell/Ubuntu support from Canonical?
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"I'm Going To F*king Kill Google" sounds like "responding to Google"?
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050905-135244
And Microsoft's long long history of these kinds of attacks on competitors does not make them a friend of consumers or a friend of businesses. They surely have done very little to be a friend to me and far far more to the contrary. And convicted monopolies can not protect their monopolies. It is illegal.
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because constantly adding drive space to your MS Exchange email server is driving you nuts and it's driving MS Exchange performance down. If that is what the article is really about then maybe Microsoft is just trying to build a control channel which lessens the load of sending 3+MB of MS Word or MS Powerpoint files around the enterprise via email.
My guess is that they'll tie this into the email clients and servers so the user doesn't know about it.
FYI, the article on TheRegister.co.uk mentions both online apps AND web storage. I don't think it's one or the other. Given that, this being about MS Exchange load is less likely and it's more likely a shot at Google Apps. Making it free to existing MS Office users moves Microsoft into the enterprise web apps space in one leap. And they probably won't have to pay people to use it like they did to kill off Netscape's browser.
LoB
I can see step 3 being something like an ActiveX control wrapping winword.exe but step 4 is just wrong. Microsoft has failed at adding revenue to their three money makers(MS Windows,MS Office, MS WindowsServer) for the last 15 years. So "Profit" is a long shot and not really much of a concern for them. I'm sure they'd like to actually have something successful at not losing money but the main goal of any MS project is to protect the money makers they have. And do so at pretty much any cost. They make billions in profits from only 3 product lines and spending a few million to protect that is not a problem. Their problem is that they suck at coming up with or making anything profitable and it's probably because protecting existing profits is job #1. IMO.
LoB
my thinking on this went like this, 'how can Microsoft leverage their existing monopolies on the Windows OS and office applications?'. Well, putting this out there for free to existing Microsoft Office users is one way to leverage the MS Office monopoly. After all, once Microsoft built this monopoly, they've been really consistent at making sure only MS Office vX users could exchange with MS Office vX users. If they don't tie this with MS Office 2007, they'll surely do so at a later date.
Step One of the forward looking steps which are ALWAYS part of Microsoft's project design principles is 'How can it be used to protect the monopoly?'.
Microsoft does not need any money from these web apps, just needs to make sure the gravy trains of MS Windows and MS Office continue. Google is looking for revenue and coming up with tools/ideas to attract customers. Microsoft is doing what it's done for close to 20 years, attacking new ideas and protecting what it has. IMO.
LoB
yup, Palm Computing Inc had it right with both an open development platform and open hardware platform. Palm Inc was doing OK with this until 3Com Inc purchased them. First the hardware vendors were crushed by the many changing connectors and then the software vendors were lost after years and years of hacking on the original PalmOS in attempts to create a "real" multi-threaded, multi-tasking OS. Without that huge community of hardware and software developers, the Palm PDA and phones are really not that exciting anymore. And the press dogs PDA's so it's not even cool to have one anymore.
Apples not really one for opening up everything so if they do come out with the iPhonePDA and it's only software open...it might have a tough time. If they hand out the design/CAD files for hardware add-ons and do the open software then the PDA just might make a comeback. And have a good chance IMO.
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dude, give the other one to a Microsoft employee instead. Better yet, give it to one of Steve Balmer's or Bill Gates' kids. The bricks dropped from between Bill and Steve's legs would be well worth the effort. You know, it would look like they dropped a Zune. ;-)
LoB
I'm with you. Give us an awesome UI device and let it connect to everything else if needed. It's the darn Telco's who are forcing the platform/hardware layout the way they want it so they can lock in users to their service.
Give us a PADD and let us worry about the UI and applications and let the Telco's worry about making the network reliable. The iPhone hardware would make a great v1 PADD with wider models later on.
LoB
IMO, the Newton was killed just when the market and technology was ready for it. The Palm Pilot just hit the market and was taking off. Now, we have Apple with the iPhone they need to restrict to make telco's happy but they also have this really nicely patented and usable UI and packaging... They could rip out the telco chips, throw in a video driver chip and make an 3rd party open device for the Nokia N770/N800 space. With VOIP and wireless, email, PIM, and a VGA connector for presentations it would make a splash at any office meeting.
Sounds cool to me but I would rather see a Linux implementation if they could get all the nice gesture stuff working smoothly as Apple does. It is marketing which killed of the PDA market more than the phone market. I don't see even halt the number of smartphone users around as I used to see using PDA's(Palm, Handspring, Sony, and even iPaqs). When the marketing stopped and it didn't seem cool anymore, people slowly left the devices in the desk and doing that for just one month can kill the battery for good. Non replaceable batteries also fixed the life expectancy and probably lead to many EOL scenarios.
Ive me a fully open iPhonePDA and a keychain telco wireless phone module with Bluetooth support and it'll be cool once again to have a PDA. IMO.
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MS may give you the apps for almost free by know that you are basically caged in by accepting. I've even heard that local libraries get cheap software from Microsoft but are restricted from using any open source software in the contract. Not sure if that is the same deal you got but either way, know you are in a cage when using Microsoft software. And just because you have company in there, it does not justify the fact you're still caged. IMO.
/. or are you just looking to stir the /. pot up? Maybe you're looking for some fodder for an article or something that'll get you page hits in a ZiffDavis web site or blog? Like I said, WTF over?
also, WTF? You picked Microsoft because "everyone else uses...blah blah blah" so why are you questioning the Google mapping API choice? If you follow your previous logic with the mapping API's and you even said yourself that everyone else is using Google. So use Google already instead of posting this silly question to
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and here is why, even moderately smart programmers are more comfortable with a spreadsheet than a database or full blown application. Example which I believe still applies today:
I was a member of a "club" of techies who were investing in the stock market in the 1996 timeframe. We cycled the clubs officer positions through the club membership so everyone knew what others were doing and how. The 2nd year, I got the Treasurers position and my job was to collect "investments" at each meeting and provide a overall club report and reports for every member's position/investment in the club. I was handed a spreadsheet with tons of data entry cells sheets to fill in data. I could have cleaned this up but hey, this was the age of the internet right. So I build a SQL database to handle the accounting, wrote code to drive a CGI interface to a web server and wrote scripting to trigger updates on stock valuation and triggers to update the database on changes. It was all accessible from a web browser with a login. And very repeatable. It worked great after the 3rd months meeting and for the remainder of the year. Because it was cross platform, it would run on anybodies computer and did not need to be on the internet.
Here's the kicker( finally ). The next Treasurer was the guy who started the club, owned his own business, was a Windows software engineer who's product he built over close to 10 years and was a signal processing kit(PC and software appliance ). He knew what I was saying when I described the package I'd built to do the books but he wanted none of it. He wanted the latest report and then he write a spreadsheet to handle the task. And for every meeting from then on until the end of the club 2 years later, we were constantly correcting data in the spreadsheet and sometimes, corrections required pulling out paperwork from previous months meetings.
There is a fools familiarity with spreadsheets which people find comforting. They will go to great extremes to try and get the spreadsheet to work for what they are trying to do. Great extremes. And with the plethora of Neanderthal-ish computer users out there who think they are computer guru's because they can do "=(A2+B2)" in MS Excel, it is a long long road to get movement outside of the spreadsheet.
I just found out a buddy has taken on a 2nd job and is trying to build a business out of it. He's under charging to get experience in more aspects of the field and to construct a spreadsheet to "automate" the task(s). He's thinking that the business will grow around the "application"/spreadsheet.
So I think the title should be, "Jon Udell on the Geek's Spreadsheet" because the nerd is really not that 'into' the technology to really know or want to work outside of a standard spreadsheet. IMO.
LoB
yes, please explain that to a bunch of legal monkeys who have little to know understanding of the computer industry or computer technology/usage in general. Where is the line as to the education and depth of knowledge expected for the determinate of non-obvious?
Maybe the examiner can require the Board members to take a few basic computing classes or require some books and quiz them on their understanding/comprehension of the books contents? Have you tried explaining how to do something to a Windows user who doesn't know but how to click a few buttons and open a browser and email client? It is very frustrating how little people know about the tool they are using. I know people being paid to use a computer and they didn't know how to get to a website without a link to it. Talk about a society full of dumb shits...
There is a line which must be drawn and there needs to be validation of basic knowledge in the field of the invention by the examiner and all who address the patents. And basic does not mean knowing how to hit the power button if the patent is computer related. IMO.
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I've often wondered as to WHOM the "not obvious" clause of determining if something is patentable refers to. I could not believe that it would be the examiner alone and figured they had some way to test this. Now we see that there is no real test at the USPTO, they just rubber stamp everything and let the courts deal with it. Or worst, after the courts deal with it, the USPTO has another look and rubber stamps it again. WTF.
Something is very wrong here and unless there are massive changes, it'll be the major businesses with large bank accounts who control patents and further stall progress and new products from making it to market.
If 1-click can make it, then 1/2-click can also do the same. Catch the freak'n mouse-down event instead of the click event( mouse-down and mouse-up ). And then try for the no-click by "rubbing" the 'buy now' button with a few mouse-over events and change the button color to show the move from "buy now" to "purchased".
I sure hope someone hasn't patented pushing buttons on a flat surface to trigger the stringing of alpha-numeric display elements in a browser or text-box... What a waste of time and effort. IMO.
LoB
The though bubble over every MS executives head after hearing this would read: "Stop your crying and bend over and take it like a man. You've been doing so for years and years so shut the hell up and suck it up. It's the way it was, the way it is, and the way it will continue to be. It is our way."
;-/
Abuse by Microsoft is not a new phenomenon and I doubt most Microsoft fans are going to think anything of having to jump through yet another hoop to get back to clicking buttons and wiggling that mouse around. Heck, the majority of their users don't know the difference between an application and a utility and hardly know what a file is. It's all a bunch of icons right?
LoB
good point. It's gotta help that the Apple product pricing is typically in the mid to upper range. Their user base is mostly as you mention due to this. Maybe they also tend to purchase more devices like the TomTom because of this. They, IMO, are probably more likely to let vendors know they are disappointed by any lack of Mac support along with holding higher professional positions.
It was mentioned elsewhere but mostly, Mac is a fixed and controlled platform and it still makes it into the corporate desktop market better than Linux does. Mostly because of perception/acceptance but still, being the 3rd or 4th ranked OEM gives them recognition over Linux too.
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funny you mention Motorola because they purchased Metrowerks and their CodeWarrior tools. Metrowerks was the company Sharp used to provide an IDE/dev env for the Sharp Zaurus on Windows via CodeWarrior. As I mentioned earlier, Sharp was looking for developers to write apps for the Zaurus and initially only had the Linux toolchain/SDK for 2-3 years but didn't provide desktop sync tool for those Linux developers. Late in the game, they later provided a Windows based SDK via Metrowerks/CodeWarrior but by then, many Linux developers were leaving the product. Sharp went and changed the PIM storage mechanisms and was really twisted in how much they'd allow open to developers. They also would not open source their PIM apps and people were wasting their time on building completely new replacements in an attempt to increase PIM satisfaction. BTW, one had to copy the new ARM based PIM database access library from the handheld and into the toolchain path to write apps for it on Linux. No source and the only documentation was a few header files and one API doc.
Motorola, now already has a Windows SDK(CodeWarrior) for their Linux phone and they do have both Windows and Linux versions of that. IIRC, quite pricey but they do have both versions.Still, there are a boat load of Linux developers who'd love to develop for the Motorola platform but will bypass that if it won't work with their Linux desktop and requires Windows for syncing to calendar and address books.
BTW, CodeWarrior is only $3,000 - $4,000 so most Linux or Windows developers are would be happy to develop for the Moto phone platforms. Not!
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Having Linux on the device saves them tons on support by using a reliable system, saves them tons in licensing fees by using GPL'ed software, and saves them tons on development time by leveraging many API's available and again, due to the GPL.
When it comes to providing software for users to load to interface a computer with that device, most are still using Microsoft Windows and far far fewer using Mac. IMO, the Mac gets support because it has a long history in the industry and not supporting it pisses of some vocal users( media, etc ).
With this in mind, do you now understand why Microsoft went all out to destroy the C++ frameworks businesses in the 90s? Why they have done the same when any cross platform development tool gains acceptance in the community? If they were using Qt for their desktop app development then it would be one thing but IIRC, Qt 3.0(2001) was the first time it supported Mac and so many companies were/are still tied to other development platforms. Ones which don't easily port to Linux.
BTW, this was the same thing happening when Sharp release the Linux based Zaurus but it was worst there. Sharp wanted developers to help with application and the dev env was Linux but the QtopiaDesktop PIM/syncing application was only for Windows. How stupid is that? Trolltech did release some version of the QtopiaDesktop for Linux but there wasn't a whole lot of activity and eventually, it became outdated and unable to sync with the newer Sharp ROMs.
Hopefully, as OEMs around the world start providing Linux pre-loaded, vendors like those behind the TomTom will start porting their desktop apps to cross platform frameworks and tools so they can support Linux desktop users. Too bad they don't learn from the router companies and put a web server in the device so any browser can work with it using standard protocols.
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there could be some backroom money coming from IBM but it's an open source project so I find that hard to believe given so many other reasons for this. For one, since your are talking about a CS major, having one IDE which can be used across the board in the curriculum. For instance, Eclipse can be used for the beginning ,and up, Java classes, for the C embedded classes, for the C++ classes, and for the server/backend/web services classes. For the basic classes, there's a small amount of overhead to get simple "hello world" stuff going but once over that, it's a nice all around tool for CS curriculum at any school. I don't know if they're using CVS or note but that might be used to store student files on school systems and might be used by the instructor for final( v1.0 ) class project submittal.
It also helps that it not only supports many programing languages but also runs across many platforms. It does have alot of support across the industry as many have dumped their homegrown IDE's for plugins into Eclipse.
If it is only being used for Java classes, others like NetBeans could probably fill the same needs but there might be a number of professors at your school who have agreed on one IDE to use. It does allow sharing of workspaces and other things in the more advanced classes if everyone is on the same page. And with it being open sourced, it's not like there's much in the way of financial benefits for IBM because your school is using it.
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