We do intend to announce a new product at the Worldwide Invitational next month in Korea, and we appreciate the enthusiasm and interest in getting an advance look at what that will be, but players will have to wait until May 19th to find out more. Also, we have a very strong connection with the characters and settings of StarCraft, and we do plan to revisit that universe at some point in the future, but we don't have anything new to announce in that regard at present."
Which brings it down to speculation. Especially since Blizzard makes a lot of games. It seems more like they are dropping two probably unrelated teasers into their little statement to drum up interest in both - with possibly no relation (other than fans wishes) between the two... either that or they did a poor attempt at ambiguity in their statement.
Inotherwords, drum up interest for their upcoming product announcement, and let the Starcraft fans know SC2 is in the works as well. Doesnt seem "double-speak" to me - except perhaps to get people to connect the two in an attempt to drive up more interest in their upcoming (probably unrelated) announcement on the 19th.
Because thats all they do maybe... one set of buyers, one set of goals, one set of buyers that are specializing in one product and one product only (namely music). Just a guess... I doubt the likes of you or I will know how a corporation so large (as a Walmart) actually does these things... but it is fun to speculate - especially in the light of success by even some of the larger music only chains.
Agreed... but large corporations seem very slow to do this, or very unwilling to make the expenditure. It seems to be the one area of retail where big box retailers dont have buyers assigned to monitor such things. And as you said, it needs to be on an area by area basis - which adds more to the costs of selling the CDs... perhaps that is part of the reason why they don't. It is easy for a local music store chain to specialize in their market tastes because most likely, all their stores fit the same demographic (as it is a local music chain - or individual music store)... but the listening demographic varies wildly when it comes to a national chain.
Personally I think part of the problem big box retailers have is that carrying music requires a finger on the pulse of what is relevant. Nowadays, with so many one hit or one album for a week wonders, that isnt possible for most big retailers (that havent seemed to have caught on to the volatility of the music scene). The smaller music only shops have a much better chance here as they can "specialize" in what's relevant instead of what the industry tells them is relevant (that is then stocked in palette-fulls).
So, no I dont think big box retailers will remain relevant in the music selling industry - even if they go online (against competition such as iTunes and numerous others), and no I dont think it matters anyway. It is quite rare I buy any CD from a big box retailer such as the ones listed just due to the lack of relevance of what they usually carry.
In addition to that, MS is still counting the copies they sold, so this is still no indication as to the number of copies delivered to end-users.
To add to that, 126 CompUSA's closing with BOATLOADS (errr... truckloads) of Vista and Office 2007 in multiple variants that are now being sold at a horrendously discounted amount - and MS has been paid in full for them. The store I work in has sold $10,000 worth (our current retail discounted price) in the last 2 days to 3 people (previously it was 1-3 copies a day - at one of the largest CompUSAs (by sales) in the chain - even at 30% then 40% then 50% off)... which accounts for $18,000 in normal retail sales of Vista (with our cost being not much below normal retail). Consider the people who bought from my store just hit 5 other CompUSAs in the last 2 days, and many others are being similarly hit, there are tons of copies that wont see an end user for a long time as these people resell the copies they bought to "mom and pop" shops or any other retailer that will snap them up at a much less than cost price they will probably be sold for.
All in all, MS's claims mean not much of anything in the OS marketshare world, though since the current situation will liquidate much of CompUSAs stock, it will be a good thing for MS... there will be far less palettes of the stuff being shipped back to MS because it didnt sell. Our store still has tons of the stuff, but if the current trend continues, a few more entrepreneurs will buy what's left in the next week or so.
So, MS may be making money off the stuff, but that's about all that's currently happening (and this is no indication of future financial stability). And, I am sure if other chains over-ordered like CompUSA did, MS will be getting a lot of shipments back...
...and even if under their current buying contracts they cannot return the tons of copies sitting in chain warehouses, it still doesnt translate into something that indicates financial stability for MS... it will take a very long while for all the copies at retailers to sell out (much longer than the few days we (at CompUSA) were promised. That will eat into their (MS's) next quarters sales projections when retailers arent re-ordering because they still have tons on hand. At best, this is a stop-gap win that has no real meaning for long term financial stability of MS. MS has flooded the supply chain with (using CompUSAs Vista/Office orders and sales as an estimate) 10 times what demand required. It will take a while for that to stop impacting future sales. I bet if MS were to post an indication of their sales over time, you would find they are all one lump sum sale a piece to the major retailers, with only the smaller houses buying in multiple orders at a few a time. Inotherwords, one big burst followed by a trickle.
So, to sum up, this (MS' sales claims and the inferred financial stability) does nothing for their financial stability for anything more than this period... and it will be a couple periods of really dry weather before they can start dragging in some income from this product that no one seems to really want (based off lack of sales at numerous CompUSA's our store has monitored).
Excellent idea... inertial dampeners... like those on the Enterprise...
Maybe if Captain Kirk isnt busy saving the known galaxy, he can just beam us up and take us there at Warp Factor 8... that'll get us there in no time in his inertial damper equipped starship...
And to top that off, companies like MS continuously try to collect information about other products (how many times has an app crashed on Windows, and Windows asks you if you want to send a report to MS?). With the broad coverage of this law, many companies will be able to collect whatever information they want in an effort to "better support you" which could end up becoming an escalating war with each other instead.
Add to that, if you have a website of almost any sort, this is grounds to install spyware on people's machines.
From the bill:
(1) any monitoring of, or interaction with, a subscriber's Internet or other network connection orservice , or a protected computer, by a telecommunications carrier, cable operator, computer hardware or software provider, or provider of information service or interactive computer service, to the extent that such monitoring or interaction is for network or computer security purposes, diagnostics, technical support, or repair, or for the detection or prevention of fraudulent activities; or
Broad interpretations can abound from this one part... a website is an information service... it is also an interactive computer service...
Your VOIP service for that matter also fits in the telecommunications carrier and network connection or provider category.
Technically this means anyone with any sort of presence on the Internet can arbitrarily install spyware on anyone else's computer that comes into use of their internet presence (eg: surfing their web page, using their ftp server, etc).
Xerox owns the patent for tabbed use/behavior in OS GUI components...
But your point is still valid if it were "Why didnt they go after IBM for their extensive use of tabs in their OS (OS/2), and after MS for their extensive use of tabs in their OS's (Win95 and up)?"
Unfortunately, one of the replies to your post with modification, probably still applies... They probably went after Apple, because they have money - but not as much as IBM and MS who they probably cant out-lawyer.
Written as a browser app, it shouldnt need to be signed. Written as an iPhone app, I dont know. Apple doesnt seem to have made a statement on this. And I already addressed this... even if it needs to be a signed app, the fee just needs to be reasonable - which will account for all third party vendor apps - though not perhaps the enthusiast app market that cant otherwise be written as a widget or browser app. Again though, only time and Apple's decision on the matter will tell...
Exactly!:-) And the iPhone looks like it will be (at least) acceptable at both, if not acceptable as a phone, and really good at everything else (in my opinion).
I dunno about that... many executives I have met should be wearing clown suits. It would fit their intelligence and actions level quite appropriately... then again, I work for CompUSA (at least for a little while longer), so that may not hold true of the rest of the executives in the corporate world.
Besides (on a more serious note), if the phone does have the correct functionality and capabilities, then this is doable... with the correct marketing.
The toughest issue might be trying to market a "phone like iPod" to a business. Perceptions can hurt. If it can be marketed as a "somewhat iPod like phone, PDA, et al" then it may suceed... but it is a tough distinction to properly make in an ad campaign, especially with all the effort Apple is putting into promoting it as a __________, ____________, ___________ (fill in with any of it's non-business like features) and phone (ie: they are really pushing all the other non-business features more or equally to the phone and PDA-like features).
I think it will all be a matter of whether AT&T/Cingular drop the ball or run with it... if they make a successful run, others will surely follow suit.
iPhone features a rich HTML email client and Safari -- the most advanced web browser ever on a portable device -- which automatically syncs bookmarks from your PC or Mac. Safari also includes built-in Google and Yahoo! search. iPhone is fully multi-tasking, so you can read a web page while downloading your email in the background over Wi-Fi or EDGE.
(1)First Gen phone?
(2)little room for third party apps? Please provide a link with the specs that indicate that... Being an OSX platform, with most of the needed support in the built-in libraries, apps should be very small anyway.
(3) inherent security problems based off #1 - which is clearly wrong - thus making this point of yours as ludicrous as the rest.
(4)No EDGE support? Cant get high speed anything? Apple clearly states EDGE support, and 802.11b&g.
(5)No Outlook? What about web based? That will work on this phone.
(5)No Vista support? Says who? You? I doubt they will drop the ball on that one - even though Vista market penetration is minimal so far, they'll make sure it works with Vista just because soon Vista market penetration (through pre-installs) will be significant.
(6)Poorly designed UI in your opinion - I personally think it is equal to the others available out there, especially since it has a multi-touch screen - which other phones dont yet have.
(7)Cant get at the battery... if the battery is as easy and cheap to change as on the iPods that you "cant get at the battery", this too is a moot point.
(8)Cant change the SIM... not confirmed... as like many other phones, I think this will be dependant on the network the phone is being sold for. Just like when I bought my Treo - I had to look for one that even had a SIM slot so it would work with T-Mobile.
(9)OK, it wont get a virus... for a while.... and that is bad why? And with Apple's track record of support, when that does happen (based off your statement), that will be an issue why? Apple will have a patch, and probably (in my opinion) far quicker than MS usually does.
And Bluetooth 2.0 which a number of current phones are just starting to support (or dont yet fully support).
.
So, all in all, every point of yours is wrong, and whoever modded you didnt bother to check any of them. Oh well, they way of/.
Next time, learn something about what you post instead of posting FUD with no idea of what you are talking about. Just a thought/suggestion.
Except, if the allusions in the article are correct, AT&T (and thus Cingular) WILL be targetting businesses from day one... so who knows? And if they are, I am sure other carriers will follow suit in an attempt to not be left behind (assuming the iPhone takes off)... they definitely will not want to be left in the cold while AT&T/Cingular grab a bigger chunk of the business cellphone market. Only time will tell.
No, really sensible actually... I just thought that/. posters would be intelligent enough to understand the meaning. Yeah, it's a phone, it will make phone calls... but a few all-in-one, do everything phones make really poor phones because their physical design is more oriented towards text messaging or web browsing. The original Sidekicks (to me) were a pain in the butt to use as a phone (in comparison to say a Treo or many Win-SmartPhones). Apple's design blends the best of all of them (in my opinion). Your opinion may vary...:-)
Guess I really need to spell out everything in my posts from now on...
Dont people ever read the links before they mod posts? Here, I made it easy for you and wrote more below the guy you all just modded up for being incorrect...
Actually, it does... next time read the whole thing before you post. Click the link to the whole article, scroll down an entire pageview and read this part...
"Scenario Poker showing up on Apple's Widget page and listing iPhone compatibility may not necessarily mean that Apple has blessed the application for the iPhone. It is possible this may just be a display of optimism on the part of Scenario Software. Apple has to date not shown any non-Apple applications/Widgets running on the iPhone.Thanks John!"
Apple not "blessing" it, yet allowing the "iPhone compatible" labelling, to me, is read as "this isnt endorsed or written my Apple, but is iPhone compatible".
Unless I am wrong, that is what the phrase "iPhone compatible" means by any stretch of the imagination. Because someone else wants to redefine that phrase to mean "optimistically maybe iPhone compatible" to me is more of a troll response by the author of the article/post.
I could be wrong, but Apple has a track record of not allowing ambiguous (or in this case, flat out wrong) posts of that sort on their site... yeah, they have slipped up on those regards in the past, but it is few and far between.
Yeah, that last one was kinda sarcasm and kinda not... most businesses I have worked for want to know
-Can it receive and send text messages easily?
-Does it make phone calls (easily)? (Yep, it is a phone)
-Can it sync with our email system?
-Can it open the occasional document sent to it?
Some businesses want more collaborative features, but the fact is, they are rarely used in most corporate environments. To that end though, with a full featured web browser (as also discussed on/. before), the possibilities are endless there without too much work - and since many companies are web enabling their stuff, most will see no additional work to make their stuff work on an iPhone. The ones that will are those that use MS (or MS partner) Proprietary solutions like Siebel (which though it is quite powerful, outright sucks anyway).
All in all, I think the iPhone may be the next killer phone.
-Correct form factor (ie: smaller and more comfortable to carry than a Treo or most SmartPhones)
-High level of functionality from full web browser to extensibility via widgets and other apps
-Support from a company that is second to none (other than perhaps IBM that they generally rate roughly equal to)
-Stable, proven platform... no hard resets, soft resets
-Synchronizable with Macs and PCs
-Intuitive interface
-shiny!!! (no, not joking on this one... many tech decisions are based on the eye-candy factor even though they shouldnt be).
-Investment protection in having a phone built on a hardware and software platform that will allow tomorrows (and even the next day's) latest apps and widgets to run on it.
Also, it has already been discussed elsewhere that third parties will be able to write apps for the phone, though for some reason a lot of people keep pretending that isnt the case... why?
Also, even if major apps written for it require Apple's endorsement/approval to run, that isnt a bad thing (assuming the price to do so is reasonable). It will help ensure quality control.
I think businesses will be concerned with how it integrates with the things they need/do. Will it be able to open Office files? Will it be able to synchronize with Outlook? Does it make phone calls? Will it be able to synchronize contacts and such?
None of those should be beyond the capabilities of the phone... it is all just a matter of what actually is implemented (or implementable with minor work) when the phone is released.
Seriously, I think they have more access to that information already (than anyone else)... I doubt this will significantly change things... and if it does, so what? I'd choose Google over MS any day to have such information...
All true... though with SP1 being rush-programmed, rush-tested and rush-released, it may bring more problems than it fixes - or higher resource requirements. Of course it may fix tons of things and do little bad... but considering MS' track record on rush released service packs and/or hotfixes, I doubt it.
No... OS/2 is that good... there were some (few) poor video drivers in earlier releases, but that ended at Warp 4 and later... especially with the inclusion of SciTech Display Doctor/SNAP drivers which support near every card out there. And yes it does run that long without issues... We very recently set up various servers in local EMS (Ambulance) Stations... the earlier ones are going on 5 months, and 11 months respectively...
And the newest version (named eComStation) has far better driver support and DOES install on todays hardware - yet has very minimal hardware requirements still (a whopping P120, 32-48MB RAM).
Our customers are happy their servers arent running Windows... they actually switched off if to eComStation by choice.
Slashdot Mirror
We do intend to announce a new product at the Worldwide Invitational next month in Korea, and we appreciate the enthusiasm and interest in getting an advance look at what that will be, but players will have to wait until May 19th to find out more. Also, we have a very strong connection with the characters and settings of StarCraft, and we do plan to revisit that universe at some point in the future, but we don't have anything new to announce in that regard at present."
Which brings it down to speculation. Especially since Blizzard makes a lot of games. It seems more like they are dropping two probably unrelated teasers into their little statement to drum up interest in both - with possibly no relation (other than fans wishes) between the two... either that or they did a poor attempt at ambiguity in their statement.
Inotherwords, drum up interest for their upcoming product announcement, and let the Starcraft fans know SC2 is in the works as well. Doesnt seem "double-speak" to me - except perhaps to get people to connect the two in an attempt to drive up more interest in their upcoming (probably unrelated) announcement on the 19th.
Oh, and yes, I read the article.
Because thats all they do maybe... one set of buyers, one set of goals, one set of buyers that are specializing in one product and one product only (namely music). Just a guess... I doubt the likes of you or I will know how a corporation so large (as a Walmart) actually does these things... but it is fun to speculate - especially in the light of success by even some of the larger music only chains.
Really... take half a statement, add another (irrelevant to the first) half statement, and you have a totally irrelevant headline for a /. article.
Agreed... but large corporations seem very slow to do this, or very unwilling to make the expenditure. It seems to be the one area of retail where big box retailers dont have buyers assigned to monitor such things. And as you said, it needs to be on an area by area basis - which adds more to the costs of selling the CDs... perhaps that is part of the reason why they don't. It is easy for a local music store chain to specialize in their market tastes because most likely, all their stores fit the same demographic (as it is a local music chain - or individual music store)... but the listening demographic varies wildly when it comes to a national chain.
Personally I think part of the problem big box retailers have is that carrying music requires a finger on the pulse of what is relevant. Nowadays, with so many one hit or one album for a week wonders, that isnt possible for most big retailers (that havent seemed to have caught on to the volatility of the music scene). The smaller music only shops have a much better chance here as they can "specialize" in what's relevant instead of what the industry tells them is relevant (that is then stocked in palette-fulls).
So, no I dont think big box retailers will remain relevant in the music selling industry - even if they go online (against competition such as iTunes and numerous others), and no I dont think it matters anyway. It is quite rare I buy any CD from a big box retailer such as the ones listed just due to the lack of relevance of what they usually carry.
Except that is supposed to change with the Can Spy Act... :-(
In addition to that, MS is still counting the copies they sold, so this is still no indication as to the number of copies delivered to end-users.
To add to that, 126 CompUSA's closing with BOATLOADS (errr... truckloads) of Vista and Office 2007 in multiple variants that are now being sold at a horrendously discounted amount - and MS has been paid in full for them. The store I work in has sold $10,000 worth (our current retail discounted price) in the last 2 days to 3 people (previously it was 1-3 copies a day - at one of the largest CompUSAs (by sales) in the chain - even at 30% then 40% then 50% off)... which accounts for $18,000 in normal retail sales of Vista (with our cost being not much below normal retail). Consider the people who bought from my store just hit 5 other CompUSAs in the last 2 days, and many others are being similarly hit, there are tons of copies that wont see an end user for a long time as these people resell the copies they bought to "mom and pop" shops or any other retailer that will snap them up at a much less than cost price they will probably be sold for.
All in all, MS's claims mean not much of anything in the OS marketshare world, though since the current situation will liquidate much of CompUSAs stock, it will be a good thing for MS... there will be far less palettes of the stuff being shipped back to MS because it didnt sell. Our store still has tons of the stuff, but if the current trend continues, a few more entrepreneurs will buy what's left in the next week or so.
So, MS may be making money off the stuff, but that's about all that's currently happening (and this is no indication of future financial stability). And, I am sure if other chains over-ordered like CompUSA did, MS will be getting a lot of shipments back...
...and even if under their current buying contracts they cannot return the tons of copies sitting in chain warehouses, it still doesnt translate into something that indicates financial stability for MS... it will take a very long while for all the copies at retailers to sell out (much longer than the few days we (at CompUSA) were promised. That will eat into their (MS's) next quarters sales projections when retailers arent re-ordering because they still have tons on hand. At best, this is a stop-gap win that has no real meaning for long term financial stability of MS. MS has flooded the supply chain with (using CompUSAs Vista/Office orders and sales as an estimate) 10 times what demand required. It will take a while for that to stop impacting future sales. I bet if MS were to post an indication of their sales over time, you would find they are all one lump sum sale a piece to the major retailers, with only the smaller houses buying in multiple orders at a few a time. Inotherwords, one big burst followed by a trickle.
So, to sum up, this (MS' sales claims and the inferred financial stability) does nothing for their financial stability for anything more than this period... and it will be a couple periods of really dry weather before they can start dragging in some income from this product that no one seems to really want (based off lack of sales at numerous CompUSA's our store has monitored).
Excellent idea... inertial dampeners... like those on the Enterprise...
Maybe if Captain Kirk isnt busy saving the known galaxy, he can just beam us up and take us there at Warp Factor 8... that'll get us there in no time in his inertial damper equipped starship...
:-)
Ummm... 40 years at what speed? And can I borrow your spacecraft?
And to top that off, companies like MS continuously try to collect information about other products (how many times has an app crashed on Windows, and Windows asks you if you want to send a report to MS?). With the broad coverage of this law, many companies will be able to collect whatever information they want in an effort to "better support you" which could end up becoming an escalating war with each other instead.
Add to that, if you have a website of almost any sort, this is grounds to install spyware on people's machines.
From the bill:
(1) any monitoring of, or interaction with, a subscriber's Internet or other network connection or service , or a protected computer, by a telecommunications carrier, cable operator, computer hardware or software provider, or provider of information service or interactive computer service, to the extent that such monitoring or interaction is for network or computer security purposes, diagnostics, technical support, or repair, or for the detection or prevention of fraudulent activities; or
Broad interpretations can abound from this one part... a website is an information service... it is also an interactive computer service...
Your VOIP service for that matter also fits in the telecommunications carrier and network connection or provider category.
Technically this means anyone with any sort of presence on the Internet can arbitrarily install spyware on anyone else's computer that comes into use of their internet presence (eg: surfing their web page, using their ftp server, etc).
How ridiculously broad.
Because IBM owns the patent for tabs in a browser ( http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT6049812&id= cA0EAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&dq=tabbed+br owsing )
Xerox owns the patent for tabbed use/behavior in OS GUI components...
But your point is still valid if it were "Why didnt they go after IBM for their extensive use of tabs in their OS (OS/2), and after MS for their extensive use of tabs in their OS's (Win95 and up)?"
Unfortunately, one of the replies to your post with modification, probably still applies... They probably went after Apple, because they have money - but not as much as IBM and MS who they probably cant out-lawyer.
Written as a browser app, it shouldnt need to be signed. Written as an iPhone app, I dont know. Apple doesnt seem to have made a statement on this. And I already addressed this... even if it needs to be a signed app, the fee just needs to be reasonable - which will account for all third party vendor apps - though not perhaps the enthusiast app market that cant otherwise be written as a widget or browser app. Again though, only time and Apple's decision on the matter will tell...
Exactly! :-) And the iPhone looks like it will be (at least) acceptable at both, if not acceptable as a phone, and really good at everything else (in my opinion).
I dunno about that... many executives I have met should be wearing clown suits. It would fit their intelligence and actions level quite appropriately... then again, I work for CompUSA (at least for a little while longer), so that may not hold true of the rest of the executives in the corporate world.
Besides (on a more serious note), if the phone does have the correct functionality and capabilities, then this is doable... with the correct marketing.
The toughest issue might be trying to market a "phone like iPod" to a business. Perceptions can hurt. If it can be marketed as a "somewhat iPod like phone, PDA, et al" then it may suceed... but it is a tough distinction to properly make in an ad campaign, especially with all the effort Apple is putting into promoting it as a __________, ____________, ___________ (fill in with any of it's non-business like features) and phone (ie: they are really pushing all the other non-business features more or equally to the phone and PDA-like features).
I think it will all be a matter of whether AT&T/Cingular drop the ball or run with it... if they make a successful run, others will surely follow suit.
From Apple's site:
iPhone features a rich HTML email client and Safari -- the most advanced web browser ever on a portable device -- which automatically syncs bookmarks from your PC or Mac. Safari also includes built-in Google and Yahoo! search. iPhone is fully multi-tasking, so you can read a web page while downloading your email in the background over Wi-Fi or EDGE.
(1)First Gen phone?
(2)little room for third party apps? Please provide a link with the specs that indicate that... Being an OSX platform, with most of the needed support in the built-in libraries, apps should be very small anyway.
(3) inherent security problems based off #1 - which is clearly wrong - thus making this point of yours as ludicrous as the rest.
(4)No EDGE support? Cant get high speed anything? Apple clearly states EDGE support, and 802.11b&g.
(5)No Outlook? What about web based? That will work on this phone.
(5)No Vista support? Says who? You? I doubt they will drop the ball on that one - even though Vista market penetration is minimal so far, they'll make sure it works with Vista just because soon Vista market penetration (through pre-installs) will be significant.
(6)Poorly designed UI in your opinion - I personally think it is equal to the others available out there, especially since it has a multi-touch screen - which other phones dont yet have.
(7)Cant get at the battery... if the battery is as easy and cheap to change as on the iPods that you "cant get at the battery", this too is a moot point.
(8)Cant change the SIM... not confirmed... as like many other phones, I think this will be dependant on the network the phone is being sold for. Just like when I bought my Treo - I had to look for one that even had a SIM slot so it would work with T-Mobile.
(9)OK, it wont get a virus... for a while.... and that is bad why? And with Apple's track record of support, when that does happen (based off your statement), that will be an issue why? Apple will have a patch, and probably (in my opinion) far quicker than MS usually does.
And Bluetooth 2.0 which a number of current phones are just starting to support (or dont yet fully support).
.
So, all in all, every point of yours is wrong, and whoever modded you didnt bother to check any of them. Oh well, they way of /.
Next time, learn something about what you post instead of posting FUD with no idea of what you are talking about. Just a thought/suggestion.
Except, if the allusions in the article are correct, AT&T (and thus Cingular) WILL be targetting businesses from day one... so who knows? And if they are, I am sure other carriers will follow suit in an attempt to not be left behind (assuming the iPhone takes off)... they definitely will not want to be left in the cold while AT&T/Cingular grab a bigger chunk of the business cellphone market. Only time will tell.
No, really sensible actually... I just thought that /. posters would be intelligent enough to understand the meaning. Yeah, it's a phone, it will make phone calls... but a few all-in-one, do everything phones make really poor phones because their physical design is more oriented towards text messaging or web browsing. The original Sidekicks (to me) were a pain in the butt to use as a phone (in comparison to say a Treo or many Win-SmartPhones). Apple's design blends the best of all of them (in my opinion). Your opinion may vary... :-)
Guess I really need to spell out everything in my posts from now on...
Dont people ever read the links before they mod posts? Here, I made it easy for you and wrote more below the guy you all just modded up for being incorrect...
Actually, it does... next time read the whole thing before you post. Click the link to the whole article, scroll down an entire pageview and read this part...
"Scenario Poker showing up on Apple's Widget page and listing iPhone compatibility may not necessarily mean that Apple has blessed the application for the iPhone. It is possible this may just be a display of optimism on the part of Scenario Software. Apple has to date not shown any non-Apple applications/Widgets running on the iPhone.Thanks John!"
Apple not "blessing" it, yet allowing the "iPhone compatible" labelling, to me, is read as "this isnt endorsed or written my Apple, but is iPhone compatible".
Unless I am wrong, that is what the phrase "iPhone compatible" means by any stretch of the imagination. Because someone else wants to redefine that phrase to mean "optimistically maybe iPhone compatible" to me is more of a troll response by the author of the article/post.
I could be wrong, but Apple has a track record of not allowing ambiguous (or in this case, flat out wrong) posts of that sort on their site... yeah, they have slipped up on those regards in the past, but it is few and far between.
Yeah, that last one was kinda sarcasm and kinda not... most businesses I have worked for want to know
-Can it receive and send text messages easily?
-Does it make phone calls (easily)? (Yep, it is a phone)
-Can it sync with our email system?
-Can it open the occasional document sent to it?
Some businesses want more collaborative features, but the fact is, they are rarely used in most corporate environments. To that end though, with a full featured web browser (as also discussed on /. before), the possibilities are endless there without too much work - and since many companies are web enabling their stuff, most will see no additional work to make their stuff work on an iPhone. The ones that will are those that use MS (or MS partner) Proprietary solutions like Siebel (which though it is quite powerful, outright sucks anyway).
All in all, I think the iPhone may be the next killer phone.
-Correct form factor (ie: smaller and more comfortable to carry than a Treo or most SmartPhones)
-High level of functionality from full web browser to extensibility via widgets and other apps
-Support from a company that is second to none (other than perhaps IBM that they generally rate roughly equal to)
-Stable, proven platform... no hard resets, soft resets
-Synchronizable with Macs and PCs
-Intuitive interface
-shiny!!! (no, not joking on this one... many tech decisions are based on the eye-candy factor even though they shouldnt be).
-Investment protection in having a phone built on a hardware and software platform that will allow tomorrows (and even the next day's) latest apps and widgets to run on it.
Just my 12 cents.
Also, it has already been discussed elsewhere that third parties will be able to write apps for the phone, though for some reason a lot of people keep pretending that isnt the case... why?
First 3rd-party app for iPhone appears on Apple's site
And other links elsewhere...
Also, even if major apps written for it require Apple's endorsement/approval to run, that isnt a bad thing (assuming the price to do so is reasonable). It will help ensure quality control.
I dont think businesses will care what it runs
I think businesses will be concerned with how it integrates with the things they need/do. Will it be able to open Office files? Will it be able to synchronize with Outlook? Does it make phone calls? Will it be able to synchronize contacts and such?
None of those should be beyond the capabilities of the phone... it is all just a matter of what actually is implemented (or implementable with minor work) when the phone is released.
Seriously, I think they have more access to that information already (than anyone else)... I doubt this will significantly change things... and if it does, so what? I'd choose Google over MS any day to have such information...
Only time will tell though...
No... OS/2 is that good... there were some (few) poor video drivers in earlier releases, but that ended at Warp 4 and later... especially with the inclusion of SciTech Display Doctor/SNAP drivers which support near every card out there. And yes it does run that long without issues... We very recently set up various servers in local EMS (Ambulance) Stations... the earlier ones are going on 5 months, and 11 months respectively...
And the newest version (named eComStation) has far better driver support and DOES install on todays hardware - yet has very minimal hardware requirements still (a whopping P120, 32-48MB RAM).
Our customers are happy their servers arent running Windows... they actually switched off if to eComStation by choice.