And Novell is the current 'pusher' of Mono and it's Microsoft fanboy( Miguel de Icaca ). I wonder how much egg is on the face of the Novell lawyers now, or if they still have a job at Novell?
From what you described as the "ribbon interface" in MS Office 2007, it sounds like context based toolbars. The application menu and tool bars of a mid 90s OpenDOC container part comes to mind. It's also pretty common in most word processor and spreadsheet apps since they do this when adding things like graphics and charts to a doc. And there are probably tons of other examples of menus and/or toolbars changing based on the context of the editing or user interest.
Is this the Microsoft "innovation" you are talking about?
Exactly, why are/did companies think they were getting any real protection from Microsoft and actually purchase these Suse contracts from Microsoft? Doesn't Walmart have a couple or three lawyers around to look at this contract between Microsoft and Novell? Or did Microsoft write up an nice summary for them and THAT is what the decision was based on. There were huge holes in the original agreement which let Microsoft sue anybody no matter if they had a Suse license or not. Now, we find that there is a "clone" clause which again, pretty much excluded every bit of software in Novell Suse Linux.
So are these companies so afraid of Microsoft that they'll sign a deal worth less than the paper it's written on just because it has the Microsoft corporate logo on it since there appears to be no legal "promise" in the docs. The best I can see is that between the handful of 'viable' Linux distros, picking one which is part of Microsoft's planned attack against OSS and Linux is better than picking a Linux distro which is not part of Microsoft's plan since that would piss them off immediately. Whatever pissing them off means.
Come to think of it, if there isn't pure ignorance involved, such a deal with Microsoft could be part of a massive migration off of Microsoft software. After all, the only thing Microsoft has against these companies which holds any legal water are their current Microsoft software licenses. Because it is sure looking like being locked into Microsoft software now means being locked out of all other software. IMO.
The cable companies are going to have to start xmitting all digital in a year or so. That's probably why they'll be moving to a similar setup, though I'd not heard anything about it being IP based.
It'll be interesting to hear how the Microsoft based IPTV system works out since it's already been in the works for 3 or 4 years and massively expensive for AT&T( billions spent and billions more to spend ) while IPTV had already been in use overseas for years. From what I've heard, the Microsoft setup requires Microsoft software from the backend to the frontend. How convenient for Microsoft.
Oh, and what is up with them always saying how fast the channel changing is? Is that something others are having problems with cause channel changing now is pretty instant, even with Tivo.
there are alot of Microsoft employees and by distributing the Zune to as many as possible, they can then put out a press release showing a sharp increase in usage.;-)
That's right, after Microsoft shipped Windows 95, they dumped hundreds of millions on pushing Windows NT at the server markets. It was a full blown marketing attack on UNIX, Netware, and Lan Manager/OS/2 and we know it is marketing which won the day and admins who lost. How many UNIX servers turned into a dozen WinTel PCs after they found out one WinTel PC couldn't a few server processes and had to be split into one service/PC. Then they had to pull in replication to get anything close to the 99.9999% uptime of the UNIX systems.
Yup, it's interesting how snake oil still gets sold year after year but only under a different name. IMO.
Oh, and virtualization, that's all about moving all those single tasking servers back into one box where one crash won't take out the others. That's innovation for ya. Go Microsoft!:-/
That title has got to change since the blog had nothing to do with OLPC. If anything, it shows that the Intel ClassmatePC was not even designed for the same market as the OLPC. A 2 hour battery life? Standard software interface? And don't even get me started about how the wireless didn't work.
This is purely a simplistic review of a small piece of hardware Intel half-heartedly designed and is using in an attempt to stall acceptance of the OLPC. The ClassmatePC is not designed for use outside of 1st world classrooms or homes. And shame on Intel for putting such little effort into this and going after OLPC customers.
WTF, the guy who shot him is in prison so how can you say they put no fault with the shooter? What a moronic statement.
The fact that only one bullet made it through the vest is pretty amazing but from the looks of it, the widow sued because the vest company knew of the deterioration factors but didn't tell the cops about it. And it seems there were enough bleeding hearts on the jury to find the company guilty of neglect. The fact that they pulled the vests off the market shortly after the death is quite 'telling' too. IMO, had they came clean with the pros AND cons of the product initially, they would have probably walked away from this. It's questionable if the cop would have lived since they very well might have still pushed the usage beyond the 100% protection point. IMO.
Found this and it looks like a court found enough evidence to say the vest failed due to heat, moisture, and light. Also, the vest was made of Zylon and the company stopped using it 4 months after the cop was killed.
I read somewhere that Bill Gates once said that there would be only one software company when one of his competitors had just said that there was room for many software companies. It probably sounded like a joke at the time but little did they all know it was really his intention to do whatever it took to make that happen.
Sounds like NTerprise was a victim of the platform they chose to innovate on. Too bad since it does sound like they did it the right way, GDI that is.
they initially licensed the Citrix system but own it by now. Regarding NTerprise, I guess Microsoft and Citrix split the market on the Windows platform and made it too difficult for others to exist. It's just one of the reasons no software company is safe on Microsoft Windows. Now, not only does Microsoft own and control the OS, development tools, and sales channels but they also want in on the ad revenue side of it. I just don't know how anybody could feel safer in THAT environment as opposed to Linux with all its supposed MS IP problems.
Don't know about NTerprise but Citrix didn't go out of business. The market thought they were dead(1996?) when Microsoft threatened to kill them by building their own thin client system into the next version of MS Windows( NT v4 ). I made a nice profit off that since it hammered Citrix stock and made it a cheap buy. For some reason, investors thought Microsoft could actually build a MetaFrame class software system in just a few months and pre-load it into Windows NT. I knew better and made a nice profit off that, but that's another story. Back to Citrix. Citrix MetaFrame thin client required access to the underlying OS and so Citrix needed to license parts Win32 from Microsoft. Remember that 1996 was around the time of the thin client hype so you can see that Microsoft would become quite 'aware' of something which might promote the use of thin clients and could be a threat to MS Windows. Also, WinFrame clients were multi-platform and Citrix was doing quite well with its MetaFrame product. Microsoft wanted to purchase MetaFrame but Citrix wouldn't cave to Microsofts lowball numbers and threatened publicly to build their own system and ship it with WindowsNT. I would imagine that the Windows source code licensing fees were also brought up and used to threaten Citrix. But, eventually, Microsoft and Citrix came an 'agreement'. Microsoft would get MetaFrame source code to include in Windows( renamed MS Windows Terminal Server ) under license for 3 or 5 years and after which time, Microsoft would own the product and source code. You know, the same kind of deal which Microsoft SQL Server from 'partner' Sybase( Sybase SQL Server ).
I don't know what makes MetaFrame better than Microsoft Terminal Server but something keeps businesses buying and using it. My guess is that the people at Citrix know what they are doing since they originally created the market back in the OS/2 days while Microsoft is primarily a marketing company directing developers based on threats and not "innovation". Ie, they're pretty bad at leading and improving software for customers and better at producing software which isolates technology to their Windows platform. IMO.
in one public statement, IIRC, Palm had mentioned that they'd been working on this for a few years. I do hope that the competition between ALP and the new Palm OS ends up being good for the platform. The Palm UI is still the easiest and quickest way to get at PDA/Phone PIM data IMO.
They are promoting it over the others to it's customers who insist on using Linux for one purpose and one purpose only. This is to eventually put such a bad taste in their mouths that they'll run from any Linux and back into Microsoft's shards of broken glass call MS Windows. They've used this sort of trick before, and it worked, and it appears they are using it again.
One way it'll play out is like this: They/Microsoft eventually either pull the plug on the Microsoft/Novell deal either by not renewing it with Novell or massively increasing the "licensing" fees to Novell. Either way, Novell is out of the picture and instantly loses most of its customers. Microsoft could then offer licensing directly to those frightened/unlicensed Suse Linux customers at current rates to hook them if they are not already partially tied to Microsoft Windows products, or immediately send them outrageous licensing bills for the Suse Linux software protections scheme with the offer to license them MS Windows based products at far less.
Think about how the BSA works today or how Microsft pulled the rug out from under the Win32-on-UNIX 'partners' and their customers. THAT is just one way Microsoft has operated which could apply to this scenario. But even if it does not operate this way, mark my word, they will never accept customers running anything but Microsoft software while they still have the power to manipulate the market and protect the Microsoft Windows monopoly. Without MS Windows, Microsoft is dead and they know it. IMO.
ha, and THAT case worked out real well for them didn't it. Sure they got Lindows to change their name to Linspire but Microsoft had to pay them a few million to do it AND Linspire got the rights to use a bunch of their media codecs. Had Microsoft threatened that there was also MSFT IP in Linspire, the Linspire guys probably would have got a couple of million out of them and Microsoft Office ported to Linspire. Microsoft can be dumb but they are not THAT dumb. Money is nothing to them as long as they can keep marketshare and the "Windows" brand. They lose a couple billion every year on all those projects outside of MS Windows, MS Office, and MS Windows Server and most of that is just to keep the competition from having a chance of significant marketshare. IMO.
what also stunned me was the huge air/heating vents on the side of the thing. These were obviously not well thought out and are not even really comparable to the OLPC design. Well, except in the Microsoft/Intel marketing materials to the leaders and educators who probably have no clue as to why one is better than the other. I'm sure the higher cost and expensive presents the Microsoft/Intel teams are handing out is going to go a long way in making sure the wrong product gets used for the wrong job. IMO.
Oh, watch that video from the classmatepc site and notice when the guy closes the lid and the opens it, he puts and effort into keeping the screen away from us. Then, once he does hit the power button, and the Microsoft Windows desktop shows up, he quickly hit a key which brings up the Intel logo. It's obviously staged.
so that would mean that they could split the losses between Microsoft, Intel, and the RIAA and get on with trying to kill off the OLPC project. Having the TPM crap in there is probably something Microsoft required too since they do not want these getting a OLPC image installed. After all, this whole thing is far more likely to be caused by threats of what positive press Linux will get when OLPC trials succeed. IMO.
If the goal is to get technology to kids in developing nations, do we care who does it?
This is not the main goal of the Microsoft/Intel project. They will say this to the public but their intentions are to stop the competitions products from gaining a significant market share. Both Microsoft and Intel had been offered opportunities to be part of the OLPC project and most likely pricing was their main issue. Negroponte knows this and it is likey why he said what he did in the 60Minutes piece.
If Intel can pull it off cheaper, should I feel bad for Negroponte?
They can't but they can get Microsoft involved and split the loss so they can compete with a small group who have researched and invested a few years into making it work and have no licensing issues/expenses by using Linux and OSS. Again, Negroponte knows this because they've already tried to negotiate with Microsoft and Intel along with know what such hardware is going to cost to manufacture in quantity.
If this is truly altruistic work, then he should embrace Intel's commitment, and try to work together.
Microsoft and Intel have no purpose doing what they are doing but to protect their marketshare and their brand names. Both of which help them keep their prices and market pricing at fat profit levels. The OLPC does not appear to be driven by profits and what Negroponte has done in the past shows he has an altruistic foundation. Microsoft nor Intel can show this and history shows quite the opposite.
If this is for-profit capitalism, merely disguised as charity, then may the best man win.
One side is business profit driven( Microsoft/Intel-ClassMatePC ) while the other is charity driven( OLPC ). They are crossing paths and we already know that the billions behind the Microsoft/Intel project is hurting the OLPC project since Negroponte has already said this. And it just blows me away that Intel would fall for this level when there has been nothing said in the press or otherwise which would have locked Intel out of future designs. AMD is not giving their CPU's away for free. Now Microsoft, that's another story since they absolutely can not allow Linux and OSS to gain traction anywhere. Once you've stopped cleaning Windows, you don't go back and with the open nature of the OLPC, the closed box of Microsoft Windows/software would be painful and constraining.
don't be fooled, it is far far more likely that this is about terminating the OLPC project and not about selling computers to countries so poor they need ~$200 laptop/software packages. If Intel and Microsoft are successful, they'll terminate the program until another threat comes up. Oh, and Microsoft is involved.
One thing to notice, the OLPC project is probably 50% hardware and 50% software when you consider how much effort went into the UI and low power wireless designs. What Intel and Microsoft are showing is a subsidized small WinTel laptop with a colorful thin rubber membrane glued to it as a handle.
We already saw Microsoft drop licensing costs for MS Windows and MS Office down to $5 in Taiwan after it was noticed that the Linux/OSS based HP and Dell laptops were selling out. We've also seen that Microsoft has put aside millions of dollars to purchase back public moves away Windows/Microsoft and toward Linux/OSS. This is they same thing and it is HIGHLY probable that if they do harm to the OLPC project, their job is done and the subsidies will stop if not the entire project terminated. IMO.
Negroponte probably has some good proof that the ClassMatePC is being sold below cost since his group has been working on a lowcost design for a couple of years and included negotiations with both Microsoft and Intel. Both of which are involved in the ClassMatePC.
Just like how Microsoft started giving out Microsoft Windows for far far below market costs to Taiwan when those HP and Dell notebooks running Linux were selling very well, they both( Intel and Microsoft ) are subsidizing their product to keep the "competition" from gaining ground.
If I was seeing Linux on the ClassMatePC instead of MS Windows, I might be able to believe that Intel could be motivated by charity but with Microsoft involved and how BOTH companies blasted OLPC in the press, it's all about business and their sole purpose here is to get OLPC to fail. The ClassMatePC would be pulled from the market later since cheap hardware and software is NOT what Intel or Microsoft want. IMO.
The public announcments will follow that the reason for this is because the popular ODF file format is so inefficient that supporting it natively in MS Word 2010 causes Word to exceed the addressing limits of 32-bits.
In more news, the new Microsoft Windows Infirmary will have a minimum memory requirement of 4GB.;-)
WTF, WinV is already slow enough on a dualcore desktop CPU and Microsoft wants your MS Windows based phone to be your next computer? THAT could only mean that they plan on WinCE being the base for the next version of MS Windows.;-)
Who are these Microsoft clowns and where in the world do they keep coming up with this material?
the first part was funny, the 2nd bit is just way "out" there. IMO, putting candidates out there to spoil an election is not beyond what is plausible for the current Republican part. The Dem just don't seem willing to cross that line as willingly as the Rep's are or it's never crossed their minds. IMO.
But I do have faith that the Dem's will lose this election too.
BFD, we all know Microsoft has a monopoly and controls the PC distribution channels. Did anybody think Microsoft would not require OEM's to pre-load MS Windows Vista?
It's pretty much the monopoly gravy train in action and if you looked at any other period in time who many PC's shipped pre-loaded with Microsoft Windows, you'd see fairly similar numbers. They might get some boost in sales considering they've spent hundreds of millions of dollars marketing this "new" version of MS Windows and we all know that there is a sucker born every minute... but where're talking worldwide so it's more like a sucker born every second IMO.
Let's see, a sucker born every second,,,,100 days.... 100 days * 24 hours per day * 60 minutes per hour * 60 seconds in a minute.... That's 8.5 million new WinV suckers in 100 days. Sounds about right.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
And Novell is the current 'pusher' of Mono and it's Microsoft fanboy( Miguel de Icaca ). I wonder how much egg is on the face of the Novell lawyers now, or if they still have a job at Novell?
LoB
From what you described as the "ribbon interface" in MS Office 2007, it sounds like context based toolbars. The application menu and tool bars of a mid 90s OpenDOC container part comes to mind. It's also pretty common in most word processor and spreadsheet apps since they do this when adding things like graphics and charts to a doc. And there are probably tons of other examples of menus and/or toolbars changing based on the context of the editing or user interest.
Is this the Microsoft "innovation" you are talking about?
LoB
Exactly, why are/did companies think they were getting any real protection from Microsoft and actually purchase these Suse contracts from Microsoft? Doesn't Walmart have a couple or three lawyers around to look at this contract between Microsoft and Novell? Or did Microsoft write up an nice summary for them and THAT is what the decision was based on. There were huge holes in the original agreement which let Microsoft sue anybody no matter if they had a Suse license or not. Now, we find that there is a "clone" clause which again, pretty much excluded every bit of software in Novell Suse Linux.
So are these companies so afraid of Microsoft that they'll sign a deal worth less than the paper it's written on just because it has the Microsoft corporate logo on it since there appears to be no legal "promise" in the docs. The best I can see is that between the handful of 'viable' Linux distros, picking one which is part of Microsoft's planned attack against OSS and Linux is better than picking a Linux distro which is not part of Microsoft's plan since that would piss them off immediately. Whatever pissing them off means.
Come to think of it, if there isn't pure ignorance involved, such a deal with Microsoft could be part of a massive migration off of Microsoft software. After all, the only thing Microsoft has against these companies which holds any legal water are their current Microsoft software licenses. Because it is sure looking like being locked into Microsoft software now means being locked out of all other software. IMO.
LoB
The cable companies are going to have to start xmitting all digital in a year or so. That's probably why they'll be moving to a similar setup, though I'd not heard anything about it being IP based.
It'll be interesting to hear how the Microsoft based IPTV system works out since it's already been in the works for 3 or 4 years and massively expensive for AT&T( billions spent and billions more to spend ) while IPTV had already been in use overseas for years. From what I've heard, the Microsoft setup requires Microsoft software from the backend to the frontend. How convenient for Microsoft.
Oh, and what is up with them always saying how fast the channel changing is? Is that something others are having problems with cause channel changing now is pretty instant, even with Tivo.
LoB
there are alot of Microsoft employees and by distributing the Zune to as many as possible, they can then put out a press release showing a sharp increase in usage. ;-)
LoB
That's right, after Microsoft shipped Windows 95, they dumped hundreds of millions on pushing Windows NT at the server markets. It was a full blown marketing attack on UNIX, Netware, and Lan Manager/OS/2 and we know it is marketing which won the day and admins who lost. How many UNIX servers turned into a dozen WinTel PCs after they found out one WinTel PC couldn't a few server processes and had to be split into one service/PC. Then they had to pull in replication to get anything close to the 99.9999% uptime of the UNIX systems.
:-/
Yup, it's interesting how snake oil still gets sold year after year but only under a different name. IMO.
Oh, and virtualization, that's all about moving all those single tasking servers back into one box where one crash won't take out the others. That's innovation for ya. Go Microsoft!
LoB
That title has got to change since the blog had nothing to do with OLPC. If anything, it shows that the Intel ClassmatePC was not even designed for the same market as the OLPC. A 2 hour battery life? Standard software interface? And don't even get me started about how the wireless didn't work.
This is purely a simplistic review of a small piece of hardware Intel half-heartedly designed and is using in an attempt to stall acceptance of the OLPC. The ClassmatePC is not designed for use outside of 1st world classrooms or homes. And shame on Intel for putting such little effort into this and going after OLPC customers.
LoB
WTF, the guy who shot him is in prison so how can you say they put no fault with the shooter? What a moronic statement.
The fact that only one bullet made it through the vest is pretty amazing but from the looks of it, the widow sued because the vest company knew of the deterioration factors but didn't tell the cops about it. And it seems there were enough bleeding hearts on the jury to find the company guilty of neglect. The fact that they pulled the vests off the market shortly after the death is quite 'telling' too. IMO, had they came clean with the pros AND cons of the product initially, they would have probably walked away from this. It's questionable if the cop would have lived since they very well might have still pushed the usage beyond the 100% protection point. IMO.
LoB
Found this and it looks like a court found enough evidence to say the vest failed due to heat, moisture, and light. Also, the vest was made of Zylon and the company stopped using it 4 months after the cop was killed.
m
http://www.whistleblowers.org/Cop_s_widow_wins.ht
LoB
I read somewhere that Bill Gates once said that there would be only one software company when one of his competitors had just said that there was room for many software companies. It probably sounded like a joke at the time but little did they all know it was really his intention to do whatever it took to make that happen.
Sounds like NTerprise was a victim of the platform they chose to innovate on. Too bad since it does sound like they did it the right way, GDI that is.
LoB
they initially licensed the Citrix system but own it by now. Regarding NTerprise, I guess Microsoft and Citrix split the market on the Windows platform and made it too difficult for others to exist. It's just one of the reasons no software company is safe on Microsoft Windows. Now, not only does Microsoft own and control the OS, development tools, and sales channels but they also want in on the ad revenue side of it. I just don't know how anybody could feel safer in THAT environment as opposed to Linux with all its supposed MS IP problems.
LoB
Don't know about NTerprise but Citrix didn't go out of business. The market thought they were dead(1996?) when Microsoft threatened to kill them by building their own thin client system into the next version of MS Windows( NT v4 ). I made a nice profit off that since it hammered Citrix stock and made it a cheap buy. For some reason, investors thought Microsoft could actually build a MetaFrame class software system in just a few months and pre-load it into Windows NT. I knew better and made a nice profit off that, but that's another story. Back to Citrix. Citrix MetaFrame thin client required access to the underlying OS and so Citrix needed to license parts Win32 from Microsoft. Remember that 1996 was around the time of the thin client hype so you can see that Microsoft would become quite 'aware' of something which might promote the use of thin clients and could be a threat to MS Windows. Also, WinFrame clients were multi-platform and Citrix was doing quite well with its MetaFrame product. Microsoft wanted to purchase MetaFrame but Citrix wouldn't cave to Microsofts lowball numbers and threatened publicly to build their own system and ship it with WindowsNT. I would imagine that the Windows source code licensing fees were also brought up and used to threaten Citrix. But, eventually, Microsoft and Citrix came an 'agreement'. Microsoft would get MetaFrame source code to include in Windows( renamed MS Windows Terminal Server ) under license for 3 or 5 years and after which time, Microsoft would own the product and source code. You know, the same kind of deal which Microsoft SQL Server from 'partner' Sybase( Sybase SQL Server ).
m icrosoft-crisis-1997-usa-today-article/
I don't know what makes MetaFrame better than Microsoft Terminal Server but something keeps businesses buying and using it. My guess is that the people at Citrix know what they are doing since they originally created the market back in the OS/2 days while Microsoft is primarily a marketing company directing developers based on threats and not "innovation". Ie, they're pretty bad at leading and improving software for customers and better at producing software which isolates technology to their Windows platform. IMO.
I found this article on the Microsoft vs Citrix history. It's pretty long and I've only started to read it so hopefully, my recollection is close to what the article says happened:
http://noncitrix.wordpress.com/2007/02/28/citrix-
LoB
in one public statement, IIRC, Palm had mentioned that they'd been working on this for a few years. I do hope that the competition between ALP and the new Palm OS ends up being good for the platform. The Palm UI is still the easiest and quickest way to get at PDA/Phone PIM data IMO.
LoB
They are promoting it over the others to it's customers who insist on using Linux for one purpose and one purpose only. This is to eventually put such a bad taste in their mouths that they'll run from any Linux and back into Microsoft's shards of broken glass call MS Windows. They've used this sort of trick before, and it worked, and it appears they are using it again.
One way it'll play out is like this: They/Microsoft eventually either pull the plug on the Microsoft/Novell deal either by not renewing it with Novell or massively increasing the "licensing" fees to Novell. Either way, Novell is out of the picture and instantly loses most of its customers. Microsoft could then offer licensing directly to those frightened/unlicensed Suse Linux customers at current rates to hook them if they are not already partially tied to Microsoft Windows products, or immediately send them outrageous licensing bills for the Suse Linux software protections scheme with the offer to license them MS Windows based products at far less.
Think about how the BSA works today or how Microsft pulled the rug out from under the Win32-on-UNIX 'partners' and their customers. THAT is just one way Microsoft has operated which could apply to this scenario. But even if it does not operate this way, mark my word, they will never accept customers running anything but Microsoft software while they still have the power to manipulate the market and protect the Microsoft Windows monopoly. Without MS Windows, Microsoft is dead and they know it. IMO.
LoB
Which was only in response to the success of this project:
4 514,00.htm
"The HP 'people's notebook' runs Linux"
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,213
Just another example of how Microsoft leads nowhere but stomps on anything successful which does not run their Windows product(s).
LoB
ha, and THAT case worked out real well for them didn't it. Sure they got Lindows to change their name to Linspire but Microsoft had to pay them a few million to do it AND Linspire got the rights to use a bunch of their media codecs. Had Microsoft threatened that there was also MSFT IP in Linspire, the Linspire guys probably would have got a couple of million out of them and Microsoft Office ported to Linspire. Microsoft can be dumb but they are not THAT dumb. Money is nothing to them as long as they can keep marketshare and the "Windows" brand. They lose a couple billion every year on all those projects outside of MS Windows, MS Office, and MS Windows Server and most of that is just to keep the competition from having a chance of significant marketshare. IMO.
LoB
what also stunned me was the huge air/heating vents on the side of the thing. These were obviously not well thought out and are not even really comparable to the OLPC design. Well, except in the Microsoft/Intel marketing materials to the leaders and educators who probably have no clue as to why one is better than the other. I'm sure the higher cost and expensive presents the Microsoft/Intel teams are handing out is going to go a long way in making sure the wrong product gets used for the wrong job. IMO.
Oh, watch that video from the classmatepc site and notice when the guy closes the lid and the opens it, he puts and effort into keeping the screen away from us. Then, once he does hit the power button, and the Microsoft Windows desktop shows up, he quickly hit a key which brings up the Intel logo. It's obviously staged.
LoB
so that would mean that they could split the losses between Microsoft, Intel, and the RIAA and get on with trying to kill off the OLPC project. Having the TPM crap in there is probably something Microsoft required too since they do not want these getting a OLPC image installed. After all, this whole thing is far more likely to be caused by threats of what positive press Linux will get when OLPC trials succeed. IMO.
LoB
This is not the main goal of the Microsoft/Intel project. They will say this to the public but their intentions are to stop the competitions products from gaining a significant market share. Both Microsoft and Intel had been offered opportunities to be part of the OLPC project and most likely pricing was their main issue. Negroponte knows this and it is likey why he said what he did in the 60Minutes piece.
If Intel can pull it off cheaper, should I feel bad for Negroponte?
They can't but they can get Microsoft involved and split the loss so they can compete with a small group who have researched and invested a few years into making it work and have no licensing issues/expenses by using Linux and OSS. Again, Negroponte knows this because they've already tried to negotiate with Microsoft and Intel along with know what such hardware is going to cost to manufacture in quantity.
If this is truly altruistic work, then he should embrace Intel's commitment, and try to work together.
Microsoft and Intel have no purpose doing what they are doing but to protect their marketshare and their brand names. Both of which help them keep their prices and market pricing at fat profit levels. The OLPC does not appear to be driven by profits and what Negroponte has done in the past shows he has an altruistic foundation. Microsoft nor Intel can show this and history shows quite the opposite.
If this is for-profit capitalism, merely disguised as charity, then may the best man win.
One side is business profit driven( Microsoft/Intel-ClassMatePC ) while the other is charity driven( OLPC ). They are crossing paths and we already know that the billions behind the Microsoft/Intel project is hurting the OLPC project since Negroponte has already said this.
And it just blows me away that Intel would fall for this level when there has been nothing said in the press or otherwise which would have locked Intel out of future designs. AMD is not giving their CPU's away for free. Now Microsoft, that's another story since they absolutely can not allow Linux and OSS to gain traction anywhere. Once you've stopped cleaning Windows, you don't go back and with the open nature of the OLPC, the closed box of Microsoft Windows/software would be painful and constraining.
LoB
don't be fooled, it is far far more likely that this is about terminating the OLPC project and not about selling computers to countries so poor they need ~$200 laptop/software packages. If Intel and Microsoft are successful, they'll terminate the program until another threat comes up. Oh, and Microsoft is involved.
One thing to notice, the OLPC project is probably 50% hardware and 50% software when you consider how much effort went into the UI and low power wireless designs. What Intel and Microsoft are showing is a subsidized small WinTel laptop with a colorful thin rubber membrane glued to it as a handle.
We already saw Microsoft drop licensing costs for MS Windows and MS Office down to $5 in Taiwan after it was noticed that the Linux/OSS based HP and Dell laptops were selling out. We've also seen that Microsoft has put aside millions of dollars to purchase back public moves away Windows/Microsoft and toward Linux/OSS. This is they same thing and it is HIGHLY probable that if they do harm to the OLPC project, their job is done and the subsidies will stop if not the entire project terminated. IMO.
LoB
Negroponte probably has some good proof that the ClassMatePC is being sold below cost since his group has been working on a lowcost design for a couple of years and included negotiations with both Microsoft and Intel. Both of which are involved in the ClassMatePC.
Just like how Microsoft started giving out Microsoft Windows for far far below market costs to Taiwan when those HP and Dell notebooks running Linux were selling very well, they both( Intel and Microsoft ) are subsidizing their product to keep the "competition" from gaining ground.
If I was seeing Linux on the ClassMatePC instead of MS Windows, I might be able to believe that Intel could be motivated by charity but with Microsoft involved and how BOTH companies blasted OLPC in the press, it's all about business and their sole purpose here is to get OLPC to fail. The ClassMatePC would be pulled from the market later since cheap hardware and software is NOT what Intel or Microsoft want. IMO.
LoB
The public announcments will follow that the reason for this is because the popular ODF file format is so inefficient that supporting it natively in MS Word 2010 causes Word to exceed the addressing limits of 32-bits.
;-)
In more news, the new Microsoft Windows Infirmary will have a minimum memory requirement of 4GB.
LoB
WTF, WinV is already slow enough on a dualcore desktop CPU and Microsoft wants your MS Windows based phone to be your next computer? THAT could only mean that they plan on WinCE being the base for the next version of MS Windows. ;-)
Who are these Microsoft clowns and where in the world do they keep coming up with this material?
LoB
the first part was funny, the 2nd bit is just way "out" there. IMO, putting candidates out there to spoil an election is not beyond what is plausible for the current Republican part. The Dem just don't seem willing to cross that line as willingly as the Rep's are or it's never crossed their minds. IMO.
But I do have faith that the Dem's will lose this election too.
LoB
BFD, we all know Microsoft has a monopoly and controls the PC distribution channels. Did anybody think Microsoft would not require OEM's to pre-load MS Windows Vista?
;-)
It's pretty much the monopoly gravy train in action and if you looked at any other period in time who many PC's shipped pre-loaded with Microsoft Windows, you'd see fairly similar numbers. They might get some boost in sales considering they've spent hundreds of millions of dollars marketing this "new" version of MS Windows and we all know that there is a sucker born every minute... but where're talking worldwide so it's more like a sucker born every second IMO.
Let's see, a sucker born every second,,,,100 days....
100 days * 24 hours per day * 60 minutes per hour * 60 seconds in a minute....
That's 8.5 million new WinV suckers in 100 days. Sounds about right.
LoB