One employee in the company's Mobile and Embedded Devices group said when it comes to her review score, "my performance is about 10 percent of the whole equation."
This sounds like what someone that got a bad review would say.
Not likely to be a realistic consideration for Slashdotters who count their media, development tools, etc in the terabytes, though.
I see your point, but you should probably consider that there's a HUGE amount of redundancy in the data you've described. For instance, for every Slashdotter that has a copy of the Linux Kernel, there's thousands of others with completely identical files. There only needs to be one copy of this (obviously with appropriate backups on the google server.) So, there can be a huge amount of compression of the data. This is actually how Gmail allows you to store 2+ gB of data. They don't actually have all that data capacity, they just know how much redundancy there is in email. Filesystems are no different in this respect.
doubling nuclear capacity would make only a small impact on reducing carbon emissions by 2035.
And driving more hybrids would also make a small impact, and using solar power would make a small impact, and using energy efficient appliances would make a small impact, and using wind power would make a small impact, and using more hydroelectric power would make a small impact, and developing fuel cell technologies would make a small impact, and turning off lights at night would make a small impact,......
The point is there's no magic bullet, there's no one thing that will make us stop using dirty, non-renewable energy sources. But, if we encourage all the things that will make us less dependant on oil, we'll be better off.
If they honestly are using all that space for business related material, you guys need to fix up a TB or two of networked storage + employee training in how to use it.
Or you could avoid the costly training, and buy a $200 400 gB drive and double your disk space overnight and focus on other stuff, like making great products for instance.
content is disturbing, part of me says, go ahead and let the telcos try to do this. If they try to charge companies, it will only speed up the creation of alternative wi-fi/wi-max networks that provide better service anyways.
I would argue that paying off the national debt would reduce the risk of inflation and I believe that's the concensus. Obviously, it would not be done overnight (even if we did capture this asteroid). The reason for this is that decresing the amount of national debt would reduce the number of debt sellers while the debt buyers would remain the same as you you've stated. This causes interest rates to go down which in turns reduces the risk of inflation.
Anyway, where else are people supposed to invest, that is safe?
There would still be a number of safe options. Treasuries are not the only things that are safe. For instance FDIC insured CDs are just as safe because they have the government guarantee (just like treasuries). There's no reason the Goverment could not continue to guarantee CDs. Also, there are Government backed securities like GNMA. These are mortgages that are guaranteed by the government. Again, just as safe as treasuries. There's no doubt that significantly paying down the national debt would cause an increased investment in the stock market which would stimulate the economy which is also good.
I guess, I'm wondering what the alternative is to OSS at least in the CS field? Since Microsoft and other closed source companies don't publish their source, how can you study it? At my school, we studied Minix (which is open source). I suppose it would be interesting to have studied Windows, but since we can't view the source, so there's not much to study.
Why would you want to pay off the national debt? One man's debt is another man's investment.
There are a number of reasons to do this:
1.) Lower national debt would mean lower interest rates
2.) Lower national debt would mean the goverment would have to spend less money on debt service which would free up money for other programs, etc or taxes could be lowered.
3.) As you said the debt is an investment. If that investment option wasn't available, people would need to invest in businesses, real estate or other investments that can create jobs more efficiently than government can.
I don't think your decision is illogical and I'm not trying to pursuade you to use Linux. I use Windows XP on my laptop as well. I'm just saying most people just use Windows because it's there. You don't fall into that category because you made a decision to use XP based on it's easier install. That IS an advantage of Windows in my opinion as well. I never said that it's illogical to use Linux. I only said most people don't have the information to make the appropriate decision.
The reasons they give are reasons that engineers and other smart people might illogically reject Linux. You need to remember most people don't have a clue. They are not engineers and they probably don't want to know too much about computers. They reject Linux because they bought their computer for $1500 and it came with Windows XP installed and they click the AOL icon to get internet when they bring the box home. Little do they know that they could have put together the box theirselves for about $500 and installed Linux for free. I really question the assumption that most people are knowledgable enough to have a discussion of the benefits of Open Office vs. Microsoft Office. The other problem is that most people don't want to take the time to figure it out.
From the website that is linked to from the article: "There is, however, a darker side to the Sky by Broadband - it installs onto your system a P2P (Peer-to-Peer) application called Kontiki. The purpose of this is to allow others to access the movie data that lives on your PC. This means that they entire Sky by Broadband system is a big P2P experiment and everyone wanting in on Sky by Broadband has to take part."
From the PC Doctor: What this really means is that Sky in all their advertising are making out that you are downloading content directly from them rather than other users.
Sky is being very honest about this despite what the PC Doctor says. I think it's very clear from the website that you are downloading the the movies peer to peer. What ELSE could they say to spell it out? I don't get it.
So I get a server from Sun. Does that just mean I get a fast computer with a shitty audio and video card? Limited expansion slots?
Since this particular server is a Niagara Server, it has the Ultrasparc T1 chip. That's the big difference. This chip has 8 cores and each core can run 4 threads at the same time for a total of 32 threads of execution. So, IF you're running a web or application server, you will be able to support a LOT more users than a single core or even dual core processor for about the same price of a high end Wintel or Lintel box. Also, this chip uses a fraction of the power that a PC uses. Since servers are always on, this is a big deal for saving money in a data center. The total power consumption is about 70 watts. The Intel Chips use more than 100 watts. I don't know about expansion slots or video card actually, but if you care about that on this box, you're missing the point.
Yeah, I have my issues with Microsoft as well. They're definitly not the driving force in computing, but other companies make breakthroughs that pushes Microsoft to do one of two things:
1.) Buy the competition
2.) Copy the competition
So far, they've been able to beat people on both those scores. They've done this very clearly with Netscape in the browser war. They've also done this to some degree with Real Media. The Windows media player came out later and unfortunatly, more and more people are using it.
Now, they're going to try to do it with Google. We'll see how this 'Search Engine War' turns out. So far, Google has a huge lead.
Oh yeah, to respond to your question: Where do you get that I have something against Apple or Microsoft?
Your statement "I believe that Microsoft and Apple are the reason that computing or computing devices aren't really in more homes." blames Microsoft and Apple for the fact that more computing devices are not in homes. I think most would agree that's not exactly a positive thing to say about Microsoft or Apple. It also assumes that Apple and Microsoft are the only ones that can control what people do. I disagree with that. If Microsoft and Apple fell significantly behind another inovative company and or community that made things easier, people would switch to another alternative. I don't believe people are really locked into Windows as they say they are espeically since Firefox came out.
I believe that Microsoft and Apple are the reason that computing or computing devices aren't really in more homes. The term 'computer' sounds like you have to be smart to know how to use it.
You said earlier that iPods are something consumers can understand. I'm sure you're aware the Apple makes the ipods right? Also, more than half of the people in the US have a computer in their house that runs Microsoft's OS, so how can you blame them for the fact that computing devices aren't really in more homes? It seems totally illogical.
What it comes down to is that the computer market is expanding faster than we can train people to understand them. This includes people in the US, India, China, Europe and the rest of the world. If you know how to use computers, setup computers, manage engineers, work with people, be on a concall, it doesn't really matter where you live, there will be a job for you at market rates no matter where you live. As India's economy matures, the rates that engineers demand will even out with those demanded in the US. It's interesting to note that we haven't really seen a significant impact to the rates paid in the US. If anything they are rising slightly. This is already happeneing to some degree and the trend will continue.
I mean proportion of tax devoted to health care as opposed to health fund plus gap payment.
Ok, how do you explain this then? I mean why on earth would it be cheaper to have the Government provide healthcare? I guess it just doesn't make sense to me because we've had so many examples of this not working like in the Soviet Union, most of Africa and China socialism has been a complete dissaster. Why would a Social healthcare system be so effective in Australia?
Now that Australia's health system is more private, my costs are higher.
Well, that would make sense if you were getting your health care paid for by the Govt. in the past and now it's not free to you. Since you now have to pay for it yourself, it would cost YOU more since it used to be free, but the overall cost is probably much less because the private sector is much more efficient than government because there's competition. You have the choice of going to another place for medical so they have to stay competative. I bet you take a look at your medical bill more closely now that you're paying, which means you're more likely to shop for price whereas in the past you probably didn't give a damn how much it cost. I personally think there's very few instances where the Government should take responsibility of doing things that people can do on their own. Why would we want to have the Government do something that they're not very good at when even by getting a job at a coffee shop, you will be able to get health insurance. It seems to me that at least in the US, it's pretty easy to provide for your family's healthcare needs which means we can let the Government focus on things it's in a better position to make an impact on, like national security.
Sure, now prove that without one single exception every single post of a given sort is modded down.
I don't think that you need to prove that every single post of a given sort is modded down to demonstrate a bias or that there's some degree of silencing. I'll give you an example from one that I've posted that got mod down. I posted something that was critical of the UN. I believe my post was well thought out and I would hardly call it an post that was extreme right wing. Sometimes I belive the UN is a good organization but in this particular instance, I thought they were over stepping their bounds though. I got modded down. I could see not getting mod up, but there's just no way my post could logically be mod down, it wasn't off-topic, it couldn't be considered flamebait in any way. I'm almost certain that I was mod down due to ideology. This happens all the time. I also consistantly see posts that either say Microsoft sucks or that Linux is great or Repblicans stink and they get mod up. I think even the chairman of the democratic party could read through Slashdot and see that it slants to the left. It's really pretty clear.
Stating what you know to be an opinion as a fact *is* lying.
I don't really agree with that. I could have worded my statement to say, "Microsoft supporters are silenced on Slashdot". This would still be an opinion. Even if you later presented statistics that proved that my opinion was wrong, I would not have been lying. Lying has to be intentional. If I said to you that I have a PHd in computer science I would be lying because it's a fact that I know is untrue. There's a big difference. By your definition anyone who makes predictions is a liar. If I said I'm absolutly positive that in 10 years computers would be faster than they are today, I'd be a liar by this def'n because it is an opinion, but I'm stating it as fact because it's extremely likely.
Yeah, the alternative would be to limit people to certain amount of points. If you rate yourself 10 on Java, maybe you can only rate yourself a 3 on C# because you have limited rating points. Obviously, this means that someone who sucks could rate themselves just as high as a hardcore coder, but at least it would let the hiring manager see what areas the candidate thinks they're strongest in.
I should be able to rate my skills in different areas (i.e. C#, ASP, NetBurst engineering, etc.) from 1 to 10. Employers should filter their applicants in this fashion; so if I know more about the target material than the next guy, I'm more likely to get an E-mail.
I like the thought, but wouldn't this encourage people to rate themselves 10 on every category and therefore spam the hiring managers?
He said, "The effects of the moderation system mean that the majority has sucessfully silenced the minority and opposing opinions are no longer seriously considered."
You said, "You, sir have proven yourself to be an idiotic moron."
How ever you want to characterize what he said or you said, I would not have called him a moron for this statement. If you want to argue about *silencing*, moding a post down makes it go below most people's threshold. In fact no moderation at all makes a post stay hidden except for the subject and it's rarely read unless it's included with full text. (Score 3 or higher). In effect, by modding down posts that you don't agree with, you are to a large degree silencing the writer of the posts based on ideology. So, yes many right wing whackos, Microsoft supporters, Linux bashers, supporters of racist organizations, supporters of nazis, etc are in effect silenced by negative moderation due to the fact that they are in the minority on Slashdot. In some cases, this is waranted because it's off topic (usually in the case of the racists and Nazis) and in other cases it's not waranted like my previous example about a Microsoft post that actually has insightful or informative information.
Also, about your thing with accusing people of lying. You seem to like doing that. Maybe you don't know what a lie is. By definition an opinion is not a lie. Disagreeing with someone doesn't mean they're lying. If I say that I think Microsoft supporters are silenced on Slashdot, you might disagree with me, but that doesn't mean I'm lying. You might even have statistics to back your point of view. This would not make me a liar. You might consider not calling people liars when you disagree with them. In some cultures calling someone a liar is grounds for murder.
One important factor that people seem to be missing is that you will have to buy wireless broadband FROM THE WIRELESS CARRIER for this to work.
Not necessarily. I have a wi-fi network in my house, so I could use it there. There's a wi-fi network at my workplace. There's a wireless network at many resturants and coffee shops. Basically, there's wireless all around now and more coming. Google is talking about providing free wireless in San Francisco and maybe the whole US. The telcos could be cut out of the equation if they're not careful.
The hard part will be getting these to market; since almost all mobile phones are sold thru the mobile telcom companies.
I think consumers will be willing to buy cell phones from anyone who can eliminate their costly cell phone bills. All Microsoft would have to do is work out a deal with Walmart or some other national chain and people will flock there if this is the real deal.
Slashdot Mirror
One employee in the company's Mobile and Embedded Devices group said when it comes to her review score, "my performance is about 10 percent of the whole equation."
This sounds like what someone that got a bad review would say.
So, was this a net energy producing reaction? If so maybe we can use this as an energy source?
Not likely to be a realistic consideration for Slashdotters who count their media, development tools, etc in the terabytes, though.
I see your point, but you should probably consider that there's a HUGE amount of redundancy in the data you've described. For instance, for every Slashdotter that has a copy of the Linux Kernel, there's thousands of others with completely identical files. There only needs to be one copy of this (obviously with appropriate backups on the google server.) So, there can be a huge amount of compression of the data. This is actually how Gmail allows you to store 2+ gB of data. They don't actually have all that data capacity, they just know how much redundancy there is in email. Filesystems are no different in this respect.
doubling nuclear capacity would make only a small impact on reducing carbon emissions by 2035.
......
And driving more hybrids would also make a small impact, and using solar power would make a small impact, and using energy efficient appliances would make a small impact, and using wind power would make a small impact, and using more hydroelectric power would make a small impact, and developing fuel cell technologies would make a small impact, and turning off lights at night would make a small impact,
The point is there's no magic bullet, there's no one thing that will make us stop using dirty, non-renewable energy sources. But, if we encourage all the things that will make us less dependant on oil, we'll be better off.
If they honestly are using all that space for business related material, you guys need to fix up a TB or two of networked storage + employee training in how to use it.
Or you could avoid the costly training, and buy a $200 400 gB drive and double your disk space overnight and focus on other stuff, like making great products for instance.
content is disturbing, part of me says, go ahead and let the telcos try to do this. If they try to charge companies, it will only speed up the creation of alternative wi-fi/wi-max networks that provide better service anyways.
it will cause massive inflation.
I would argue that paying off the national debt would reduce the risk of inflation and I believe that's the concensus. Obviously, it would not be done overnight (even if we did capture this asteroid). The reason for this is that decresing the amount of national debt would reduce the number of debt sellers while the debt buyers would remain the same as you you've stated. This causes interest rates to go down which in turns reduces the risk of inflation.
Anyway, where else are people supposed to invest, that is safe?
There would still be a number of safe options. Treasuries are not the only things that are safe. For instance FDIC insured CDs are just as safe because they have the government guarantee (just like treasuries). There's no reason the Goverment could not continue to guarantee CDs. Also, there are Government backed securities like GNMA. These are mortgages that are guaranteed by the government. Again, just as safe as treasuries. There's no doubt that significantly paying down the national debt would cause an increased investment in the stock market which would stimulate the economy which is also good.
I guess, I'm wondering what the alternative is to OSS at least in the CS field? Since Microsoft and other closed source companies don't publish their source, how can you study it? At my school, we studied Minix (which is open source). I suppose it would be interesting to have studied Windows, but since we can't view the source, so there's not much to study.
Why would you want to pay off the national debt? One man's debt is another man's investment.
There are a number of reasons to do this:
1.) Lower national debt would mean lower interest rates
2.) Lower national debt would mean the goverment would have to spend less money on debt service which would free up money for other programs, etc or taxes could be lowered.
3.) As you said the debt is an investment. If that investment option wasn't available, people would need to invest in businesses, real estate or other investments that can create jobs more efficiently than government can.
We might actually be able to pay off the national debt!!!
I don't think your decision is illogical and I'm not trying to pursuade you to use Linux. I use Windows XP on my laptop as well. I'm just saying most people just use Windows because it's there. You don't fall into that category because you made a decision to use XP based on it's easier install. That IS an advantage of Windows in my opinion as well. I never said that it's illogical to use Linux. I only said most people don't have the information to make the appropriate decision.
The reasons they give are reasons that engineers and other smart people might illogically reject Linux. You need to remember most people don't have a clue. They are not engineers and they probably don't want to know too much about computers. They reject Linux because they bought their computer for $1500 and it came with Windows XP installed and they click the AOL icon to get internet when they bring the box home. Little do they know that they could have put together the box theirselves for about $500 and installed Linux for free. I really question the assumption that most people are knowledgable enough to have a discussion of the benefits of Open Office vs. Microsoft Office. The other problem is that most people don't want to take the time to figure it out.
From the website that is linked to from the article: "There is, however, a darker side to the Sky by Broadband - it installs onto your system a P2P (Peer-to-Peer) application called Kontiki. The purpose of this is to allow others to access the movie data that lives on your PC. This means that they entire Sky by Broadband system is a big P2P experiment and everyone wanting in on Sky by Broadband has to take part."
From the PC Doctor: What this really means is that Sky in all their advertising are making out that you are downloading content directly from them rather than other users.
Sky is being very honest about this despite what the PC Doctor says. I think it's very clear from the website that you are downloading the the movies peer to peer. What ELSE could they say to spell it out? I don't get it.
So I get a server from Sun. Does that just mean I get a fast computer with a shitty audio and video card? Limited expansion slots?
Since this particular server is a Niagara Server, it has the Ultrasparc T1 chip. That's the big difference. This chip has 8 cores and each core can run 4 threads at the same time for a total of 32 threads of execution. So, IF you're running a web or application server, you will be able to support a LOT more users than a single core or even dual core processor for about the same price of a high end Wintel or Lintel box. Also, this chip uses a fraction of the power that a PC uses. Since servers are always on, this is a big deal for saving money in a data center. The total power consumption is about 70 watts. The Intel Chips use more than 100 watts. I don't know about expansion slots or video card actually, but if you care about that on this box, you're missing the point.
Yeah, I have my issues with Microsoft as well. They're definitly not the driving force in computing, but other companies make breakthroughs that pushes Microsoft to do one of two things: 1.) Buy the competition 2.) Copy the competition So far, they've been able to beat people on both those scores. They've done this very clearly with Netscape in the browser war. They've also done this to some degree with Real Media. The Windows media player came out later and unfortunatly, more and more people are using it.
Now, they're going to try to do it with Google. We'll see how this 'Search Engine War' turns out. So far, Google has a huge lead.
Oh yeah, to respond to your question: Where do you get that I have something against Apple or Microsoft?
Your statement "I believe that Microsoft and Apple are the reason that computing or computing devices aren't really in more homes." blames Microsoft and Apple for the fact that more computing devices are not in homes. I think most would agree that's not exactly a positive thing to say about Microsoft or Apple. It also assumes that Apple and Microsoft are the only ones that can control what people do. I disagree with that. If Microsoft and Apple fell significantly behind another inovative company and or community that made things easier, people would switch to another alternative. I don't believe people are really locked into Windows as they say they are espeically since Firefox came out.
I believe that Microsoft and Apple are the reason that computing or computing devices aren't really in more homes. The term 'computer' sounds like you have to be smart to know how to use it.
You said earlier that iPods are something consumers can understand. I'm sure you're aware the Apple makes the ipods right? Also, more than half of the people in the US have a computer in their house that runs Microsoft's OS, so how can you blame them for the fact that computing devices aren't really in more homes? It seems totally illogical.
What it comes down to is that the computer market is expanding faster than we can train people to understand them. This includes people in the US, India, China, Europe and the rest of the world. If you know how to use computers, setup computers, manage engineers, work with people, be on a concall, it doesn't really matter where you live, there will be a job for you at market rates no matter where you live. As India's economy matures, the rates that engineers demand will even out with those demanded in the US. It's interesting to note that we haven't really seen a significant impact to the rates paid in the US. If anything they are rising slightly. This is already happeneing to some degree and the trend will continue.
I mean proportion of tax devoted to health care as opposed to health fund plus gap payment.
Ok, how do you explain this then? I mean why on earth would it be cheaper to have the Government provide healthcare? I guess it just doesn't make sense to me because we've had so many examples of this not working like in the Soviet Union, most of Africa and China socialism has been a complete dissaster. Why would a Social healthcare system be so effective in Australia?
Ok, I'll give you the last word. Fun dialog.
Now that Australia's health system is more private, my costs are higher.
Well, that would make sense if you were getting your health care paid for by the Govt. in the past and now it's not free to you. Since you now have to pay for it yourself, it would cost YOU more since it used to be free, but the overall cost is probably much less because the private sector is much more efficient than government because there's competition. You have the choice of going to another place for medical so they have to stay competative. I bet you take a look at your medical bill more closely now that you're paying, which means you're more likely to shop for price whereas in the past you probably didn't give a damn how much it cost. I personally think there's very few instances where the Government should take responsibility of doing things that people can do on their own. Why would we want to have the Government do something that they're not very good at when even by getting a job at a coffee shop, you will be able to get health insurance. It seems to me that at least in the US, it's pretty easy to provide for your family's healthcare needs which means we can let the Government focus on things it's in a better position to make an impact on, like national security.
Sure, now prove that without one single exception every single post of a given sort is modded down.
I don't think that you need to prove that every single post of a given sort is modded down to demonstrate a bias or that there's some degree of silencing. I'll give you an example from one that I've posted that got mod down. I posted something that was critical of the UN. I believe my post was well thought out and I would hardly call it an post that was extreme right wing. Sometimes I belive the UN is a good organization but in this particular instance, I thought they were over stepping their bounds though. I got modded down. I could see not getting mod up, but there's just no way my post could logically be mod down, it wasn't off-topic, it couldn't be considered flamebait in any way. I'm almost certain that I was mod down due to ideology. This happens all the time. I also consistantly see posts that either say Microsoft sucks or that Linux is great or Repblicans stink and they get mod up. I think even the chairman of the democratic party could read through Slashdot and see that it slants to the left. It's really pretty clear.
Stating what you know to be an opinion as a fact *is* lying.
I don't really agree with that. I could have worded my statement to say, "Microsoft supporters are silenced on Slashdot". This would still be an opinion. Even if you later presented statistics that proved that my opinion was wrong, I would not have been lying. Lying has to be intentional. If I said to you that I have a PHd in computer science I would be lying because it's a fact that I know is untrue. There's a big difference. By your definition anyone who makes predictions is a liar. If I said I'm absolutly positive that in 10 years computers would be faster than they are today, I'd be a liar by this def'n because it is an opinion, but I'm stating it as fact because it's extremely likely.
Yeah, the alternative would be to limit people to certain amount of points. If you rate yourself 10 on Java, maybe you can only rate yourself a 3 on C# because you have limited rating points. Obviously, this means that someone who sucks could rate themselves just as high as a hardcore coder, but at least it would let the hiring manager see what areas the candidate thinks they're strongest in.
I should be able to rate my skills in different areas (i.e. C#, ASP, NetBurst engineering, etc.) from 1 to 10. Employers should filter their applicants in this fashion; so if I know more about the target material than the next guy, I'm more likely to get an E-mail.
I like the thought, but wouldn't this encourage people to rate themselves 10 on every category and therefore spam the hiring managers?
He said, "The effects of the moderation system mean that the majority has sucessfully silenced the minority and opposing opinions are no longer seriously considered."
You said, "You, sir have proven yourself to be an idiotic moron."
How ever you want to characterize what he said or you said, I would not have called him a moron for this statement. If you want to argue about *silencing*, moding a post down makes it go below most people's threshold. In fact no moderation at all makes a post stay hidden except for the subject and it's rarely read unless it's included with full text. (Score 3 or higher). In effect, by modding down posts that you don't agree with, you are to a large degree silencing the writer of the posts based on ideology. So, yes many right wing whackos, Microsoft supporters, Linux bashers, supporters of racist organizations, supporters of nazis, etc are in effect silenced by negative moderation due to the fact that they are in the minority on Slashdot. In some cases, this is waranted because it's off topic (usually in the case of the racists and Nazis) and in other cases it's not waranted like my previous example about a Microsoft post that actually has insightful or informative information.
Also, about your thing with accusing people of lying. You seem to like doing that. Maybe you don't know what a lie is. By definition an opinion is not a lie. Disagreeing with someone doesn't mean they're lying. If I say that I think Microsoft supporters are silenced on Slashdot, you might disagree with me, but that doesn't mean I'm lying. You might even have statistics to back your point of view. This would not make me a liar. You might consider not calling people liars when you disagree with them. In some cultures calling someone a liar is grounds for murder.
One important factor that people seem to be missing is that you will have to buy wireless broadband FROM THE WIRELESS CARRIER for this to work.
Not necessarily. I have a wi-fi network in my house, so I could use it there. There's a wi-fi network at my workplace. There's a wireless network at many resturants and coffee shops. Basically, there's wireless all around now and more coming. Google is talking about providing free wireless in San Francisco and maybe the whole US. The telcos could be cut out of the equation if they're not careful.
The hard part will be getting these to market; since almost all mobile phones are sold thru the mobile telcom companies.
I think consumers will be willing to buy cell phones from anyone who can eliminate their costly cell phone bills. All Microsoft would have to do is work out a deal with Walmart or some other national chain and people will flock there if this is the real deal.