Actually, most of the people I know use CD.. Even DJ Derek put a load of his stuff on digital format, and that's saying something. There's just a niche interest in Vinyl that is slightly larger than other cities that don't have so many 'DJs'..
Of course they have a right to exert control over it. But as a standard, most places would like their content indexed (how much work would it take to have an opt-in for every subdirectory on a site where content may belong to different authors?). If they don't, as has happened, they stated "We do not want Google to index our pages without paying us lots of money, as google make money off the indexing and finding", and Google promptly took them out of the News and Search. Now, they have exactly what they asked for. Google will make nothing from them. However, as always happens, they didn't actually stop to think what this would REALLY mean. They called Google's bluff, expecting to make a lot of money from the deal. Google didn't bluff and said "Ok then, you're on your own". Now, they're on their own, and will definitely lose the ongoing money obtained through the search engine hits Google provided to them (gratis, and subsidised only by their own index adverts on the way there. Everybody pays for PR after all).
Now, if things change to the point that all sites need to have something to opt in, on a per directory basis (otherwise you end up with a clash), or even per file (for the same reasons), the whole concept of indexing the web becomes impossible, or at least vastly more difficult. For example, you'd need to stamp a file that you wanted indexed using extensions to existing HTML, or in meta fields. And as a goodly many people who put pages up want them indexed, and use tools, then the tools will soon start having defaults of the 'index me' stamp. And then we're back to square one with more traffic being used uselessly. So, you can either choose the opt out (and get free advertising into the bargain), and opt out where you wish, or choose a way that breaks the whole model for everyone.
And like I keep telling the Advertising Standards Authority in complaints letters. It's not stealing, it's "Copyright Infringement". Saying otherwise is false advertising.
DVD succeeded because of it's advantages over the existing media of the day. I.e. Video Tape. The increase in both video and, most especially, audio quality was astounding. From a fuzzy, often degraded video source with, at best stereo, to a crisp, reliable video source with 5.1 encoding that was crystal clear. The light amount of copy protect on the DVD wasn't enough to prevent the market moving across to it, because of the benefits.
Currently (and it has been for quite some time now) it is possible for even the average person (with a PC, as most do) to back up a DVD. A quick search of the web will find a multitude of products that'll do the job with a click of a mouse.
The correlation I think he was trying to make was that comparable media, with reduced cost, but much higher restriction, have always failed, given no huge leap in quality (more than SD to HD). I think it's a reasonable statement for the GP to have made..
Pay Pay haven't thought things through clearly. From the article, they broke the AUP by having donations for software that can "run software on systems other than it was purchased for". Well, I bought a few games ages ago to run on my PC. Guess what. I'm running them on my PC still. ScummVM just means the games carry on working despite me upgrading the OS a little. So, Pay Pal would like to prevent people making my upgrade path more comfortable and simple? For shame!
That the greatest amount of killing, violence, torture and degredation committed by person to person, has been committed by those holding holy scriptures of one religion or another. Shall we ban that? I'm not defending violent porn, or anything like that. Far from it; it's just not my thing. However, it will not cure the problem. The possession of violent porn will not incide a truly meek and mild person to go out and rape and murder. However, someone who is predisposed to rape and murder by personality is likely to have the urge to go and view violent porn. The possession and viewing of it makes little to no difference. The personality traits are the all important thing. I'm tired of this blame culture, where nothing can be the fault of an individual committing a crime. It all has to be the fault of something else. Something that can be sued or banned. Life doesn't work like that. It's all down to individuals and their choices. Sometimes there are no bigger reasons, and the truth is exactly what is shown in it's simplest form.
Had the same thing as a student. So I set up a pack of chocolate digestives (replaced the choccie ones with standard digestives coated with ex lax). Morning after, I came down to find the biscuits gone. On the walk in to Uni, I discovered who it was that had been stealing the biscuits. And no, he didn't make it to a lavatory in time. My food was pretty much left alone after that. The bit I found perplexing was that this chap was a hard core Christian (born again, I think). He was the last one I expected it to be..
Actually, I had driver issues with the Montego DDL which weren't fixed for months. The driver releases are few and far between.
If you're after nice DDL cards, check out the Auzentech cards.. I've got one (X-Plosion, with DTS encoding as well as DDL), and despite a few minor issues, it's great. Still wish NVidia had carried on with the Sound Storm, as that has to be my favourite audio device at the moment.
About the only way to keep the info out of the eyes of the sysadmins is to use heavy encryption on every file you want to store safely. And then, make absolutely sure you never forget the pass phrases, or whatever method you use to secure your side of the key. All the backups in the world won't protect you from forgetting that vital phrase. Oh, and it has to be non-obvious.
That being said, a good keylogger will most likely sniff that out, so if someone in IT is really after the goods, and is willing to face legal flak to get it, you're still back at the point of being stuck, unless you ensure all the business folk maintain their own machines away from IT, and support them entirely themselves, to a secure enough level that they won't fall victim to an attack when they connect to the corporate network, or a trojan in an email.
Like all solutions, the most workable is to ensure if someone is guarding secrets that are that potent and valuable, you make sure it's not worth their while to go scurrying off with them.. In other words, you treat them well, and remunerate them according to the value of their task.. If you force your IT staff to work over long hours, stiff them on their working conditions all for a flat low rate, you're asking for trouble. Give them good conditions, and good pay (going to excellent pay for those sysadmins that are responsible for the really tasty info), and you're far less likely to suffer. Technical solutions just won't work, as the people who know most about it are the ones you don't trust. Which defeats the whole object.
Blimey, another Bristolian! But, I'll add my vote to BlueYonder/Telewest.. Had Broadband in since it started, and not really had any issues with it.. The only ones I did were hardware related (they had a fault due to corroded copper in a service pit just outside the house.. Took about 5 engineer calls until one of them fixed it correctly).. Last time I checked, the phone in support desk doesn't support Linux, but you just tell them you're using Windows, and answer the questions they have using Linux tools. Their call in engineers are happy to 'unofficially' sort out the wiring problems no matter what OS you have.. Pragmatic guys. Had my link maxed out for a few months (pretty much up and down), and nobody batted an eyelid.. So, they're certainly sounding like the best bet..
I think AMD will drop the prices of the CPUs to fit into the price curve.. Doing otherwise is commercial suicide, which I don't think they're quite up for yet.. With you all the way on being excited about having new tech out there, and innovation on all sides is good. Intel may be the big juggernaut, but it's good to see they are still flexible enough to pull good tech out of the hat. Personally, I don't really care who has the best and fastest.. I used to want the best rig I could afford.. These days, I want one that does what I want at the right price.. When the cred card recovers from the last diving holidays and kit purchases, I'll be splashing out on a new CPU with board and RAM.. But by then, things should have settled a little and prices will be a little more sane.. Net winner of this latest upturn in the market.. Me.. Plus thousands of others who can get better kit at a cheaper price.. Long live competition.
Strangely they were previously unaffected by the cheap knock off videotapes in the decades previously. And, it wouldn't have anything to do with the large exodus of people as Hong Kong was being set up to be handed back to the Chinese at all, or any of the other huge social upheavals. It would certainly have nothing to do with the fact that before the hand back to China, Tax was very low, and has since spiralled up massively over there (ask any cab driver over there how much harder it is to make a living since Hong Kong was handed back to the Chinese).
Like you said: "It astonishes me how many people here on Slashdot can't tell truth from fantasy even when truth looks them in the eye."
Actually, I've made a few complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (over here in the UK). Adverts are allowed to be 'economical' with the truth, but they're not allowed to outright lie. Otherwise, it comes under 'false advertising', and the involved companies can get spanked quite hard. The whole 'Piracy is theft' slogan, put large on the screen is a bare faced lie. At the moment, I'd hazard a guess that not a lot of people complain about this, but, given a wider base of complainers, perhaps the ASA will wake up and tell the entertainment industry that it's a bad thing to put on the screens.
Incidentally, there's another ad going round in the cinemas here, about not getting 'pre release' pirate movies.. I could disagree with them on the quality issue, but they keep stating the rest of it is all about the experience of going to the show on the big screen, and I'm 100% behind them on that. I wish, if they had to do the whole brainwashing/indoctrination thing, that they'd actually pick a rational reason, not the knee jerk "Black is white because we say so. Disbelieve us and we'll beat you with a stick." approach.
Made in Cambridgeshire. Definitely UK.. Methinks it's one of those that the lines are blurring on between English and US English. I've always spelled it without the 'e' at the end (I'm a Brit).. Seemed odd to see it with an 'e' there..
The idea of teaching kids, is to teach them to learn. Telling them point blank that the only thing that should be used is Microsoft because anything else won't let them have a job is a MS marketing dream! Also known as brainwashing, indoctrination, whatever else you want to call it. Anyone familiar with an office suite will take approximately a day or two to familiarise themself with a new one. At most a week (unless they're a programmer, using the finer details of macro languages).
Schools are NOT there to teach Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft. They should be teaching the principles of how things work, and how to work concept into execution. Plus, you tell an employer you can use MS Office, PLUS a whole host of other office applications, and you'll stand head and shoulders above someone who is MS only (your CV will have so much more on it).
There were a few browsers around in the 'Browser Wars' timeframe. The most common of which was Netscape. And Netscape was a 'Pay For' browser. In much the same way that Opera is now. Microsoft basically cut the rug from under that. By dumping a product with the OS. In '98 and beyond, everyone that bought a PC already had a browser in. By putting the cost of the browser in with the OS, you'd already paid to have IE with your machine. Netscape didn't have a look in. So, in other words to get Netscape, you'd have to buy two browsers (if you'd bought windows). First IE, which was paid for in the OS price, then adding Netscape on top (if you bought the properly licensed version). With revenues cut off at the knees, the company couldn't afford to throw money at research and development the way MS could (people were still buying Windows, so they were still selling browsers by default). So, the inevitable decline went on. As a company, you can't fight the bottomless purse (which is what MS had to fund their browser with, funding it from their profitable OS & Office side) who is dumping product for free. They killed Netscape the company stone dead. It was sold eventually for a fraction of what it was worth as an open market company in a competitive environment. And it's been languishing ever since. Firefox, as an open source project, and an incredibly successful one, can compete on price, as it doesn't require the kind of funding that Netscape did as a company. Opera does a good job of keeping it's brower around, but still, it's marginalised by MS having the browser in the OS, and also by Firefox. It's a hard fight to keep that running. MS killed a lot of things. Jobs, tax revenues, competition. And the other browsers. It wasn't a beating, it was scorched earth policy. Nothing survives (even their own browser stagnated, thus, marking the segment of the market as 'dead'). But like all scorched earth, in time, shoots grow again, and eventually an ecosystem can develop once more (Firefox, Opera etc). We just see if MS gets to play the same cards again this time round.
But showing that they were prepared to scupper their own customer base due to spite would stop ANY business that had continuity plans from EVER using Microsoft products again. Simply because you couldn't trust them. It would kill the company overnight. Pulling out of Europe would also mean anyone that does a lot of business with Europe (read China, India, and many other places that don't rely solely on the US) would need compatibility with Europe too.. Which means they'd be introduced to non-MS products. With Europe + rest of world (bar US, most likely) using non-MS products rather quickly, the US would soon find that to do business with the rest of the world, it'd have to be compliant with the non-MS standard that had arisen behind the world wide economy. Which would loosen the grip of MS in the US, eventually making it irrelevant. So, in other words, they could choose spite, and kill their whole company in a couple of years (while leaving a lot of pain in the wake for a short amount of time), or they can toe the line, open their API, and do what the EU asks, and then have to compete on innovation with the rest of the world. Which, with the brains in the MS research labs, I reckon they've got a good shot at doing. Like IBM, they'll be around for decades to come, but without the massive monopoly they have now. If I were running the company, I know which option I'd choose.
Just a quick prediction: Intel will trump AMD by pushing the Conroe out. AMD will cut prices, so their chips fit nicely into the price/performance bracket that the market will allow them to sell at. Consumers win. The speed freaks will buy Intel for performance, as it gives the absolute fastest. The people that want good performance at a price that doesn't bust the bank will probably buy AMD (and that's the way it used to be with AMD & Intel for quite a while). Then, AMD will likely make modifications in their next architecture that speed their offering up past that available to Intel. And the speed freaks will buy AMD. Intel may, or may not put their chips in the 'bang for bucks' ladder, as they still have the name to leverage. Then Intel will release another architecture, and so on. This is called competition. It's good. It makes sure that both sides don't do a Microsoft, and get the chance to turn the PC chip market into a monocultural wasteland, and have the market stagnate. Others entering the fray will also be good (how long until China get their own offerings out?).. A heterogenous system is more robust, and results in better product at the end (that's what happens when you get real competition).. That's what's happening in the chip market. Really, the only thing to look at in the big picture is that the general public win. We get better prices for better tech. The speed crown of the day is a passing thing, for either side. As long as I get good tech for a good price, I consider it a win. Whoever gives me that price, Intel or AMD.
If you can't see PDF taking off as a document distribution format, have another look at near enough every single install disk you get. Enclosed instruction manuals. Downloaded user manuals from manufacturers that provide them. Have a look at most places that actually distribute information to the public. You'll find they have a large amount of PDF, simply because they can guarantee it being read, not falling foul of proxy filter rules (yes, lots of proxies filter out Word docs, as they are still perfectly good ways of transmititng executable content). Word documents are a way of storing files internal to a business, and perhaps between a few businesses. Distribution on a larger scale is PDF. This is something Microsoft could do without. Seriously do without. I daresay they'll funnel money into a doc to PDF converter through a shell company and feed it marketing money.. But not having it in the core product is painful (it would be similar to having Windows Media Player barred from ripping to or reading MP3s).
The email address is an item of value, given up in the registration process. Ask any spammer that pays for bulk lists containing these items. Although, on it's own, it is of negligible value, it is still a quantifiable amount with real market value, thus, a consideration.
Sounds exactly like that was what (s)he was doing. The tone of the posting suggested that the AC knew exactly what (s)he was doing, and would follow through on keeping unsatisfactory material from the kids. And also, his/her choice of material wouldn't stop you from blowing stuff up. Virtually or otherwise, so no idea why you'd construe this as getting in your way. I didn't intend to post a reply to your comment (which is pretty much flamebait) but felt compelled as the other reply which clarified the issue a little got modded Flamebait.
I'm surprised Creative didn't already know this, considering the huge patent portfolio they have on anything down to trivial algorithms for use in sound processing, with the intent of preventing anybody else playing in the sound card market. Hopefully, the thing they may learn from this is NOT to sue everyone who appears defenceless, as a fair few of them, that may otherwise have let matters lie quietly, turn round and bite them hard.
Interesting you say "everyone relies on centralised electricity". We don't. Neither do quite a few companies I know of that have high reliance on tech. We all have backup generators, plus lots of UPS. I take it you're not that reliant?
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Actually, most of the people I know use CD.. Even DJ Derek put a load of his stuff on digital format, and that's saying something.
There's just a niche interest in Vinyl that is slightly larger than other cities that don't have so many 'DJs'..
Of course they have a right to exert control over it. But as a standard, most places would like their content indexed (how much work would it take to have an opt-in for every subdirectory on a site where content may belong to different authors?).
If they don't, as has happened, they stated "We do not want Google to index our pages without paying us lots of money, as google make money off the indexing and finding", and Google promptly took them out of the News and Search.
Now, they have exactly what they asked for. Google will make nothing from them.
However, as always happens, they didn't actually stop to think what this would REALLY mean. They called Google's bluff, expecting to make a lot of money from the deal. Google didn't bluff and said "Ok then, you're on your own".
Now, they're on their own, and will definitely lose the ongoing money obtained through the search engine hits Google provided to them (gratis, and subsidised only by their own index adverts on the way there. Everybody pays for PR after all).
Now, if things change to the point that all sites need to have something to opt in, on a per directory basis (otherwise you end up with a clash), or even per file (for the same reasons), the whole concept of indexing the web becomes impossible, or at least vastly more difficult. For example, you'd need to stamp a file that you wanted indexed using extensions to existing HTML, or in meta fields. And as a goodly many people who put pages up want them indexed, and use tools, then the tools will soon start having defaults of the 'index me' stamp. And then we're back to square one with more traffic being used uselessly.
So, you can either choose the opt out (and get free advertising into the bargain), and opt out where you wish, or choose a way that breaks the whole model for everyone.
And like I keep telling the Advertising Standards Authority in complaints letters.
It's not stealing, it's "Copyright Infringement". Saying otherwise is false advertising.
DVD succeeded because of it's advantages over the existing media of the day. I.e. Video Tape.
The increase in both video and, most especially, audio quality was astounding.
From a fuzzy, often degraded video source with, at best stereo, to a crisp, reliable video source with 5.1 encoding that was crystal clear.
The light amount of copy protect on the DVD wasn't enough to prevent the market moving across to it, because of the benefits.
Currently (and it has been for quite some time now) it is possible for even the average person (with a PC, as most do) to back up a DVD. A quick search of the web will find a multitude of products that'll do the job with a click of a mouse.
The correlation I think he was trying to make was that comparable media, with reduced cost, but much higher restriction, have always failed, given no huge leap in quality (more than SD to HD). I think it's a reasonable statement for the GP to have made..
Pay Pay haven't thought things through clearly. From the article, they broke the AUP by having donations for software that can "run software on systems other than it was purchased for".
Well, I bought a few games ages ago to run on my PC. Guess what. I'm running them on my PC still. ScummVM just means the games carry on working despite me upgrading the OS a little.
So, Pay Pal would like to prevent people making my upgrade path more comfortable and simple? For shame!
That the greatest amount of killing, violence, torture and degredation committed by person to person, has been committed by those holding holy scriptures of one religion or another. Shall we ban that?
I'm not defending violent porn, or anything like that. Far from it; it's just not my thing.
However, it will not cure the problem. The possession of violent porn will not incide a truly meek and mild person to go out and rape and murder.
However, someone who is predisposed to rape and murder by personality is likely to have the urge to go and view violent porn. The possession and viewing of it makes little to no difference. The personality traits are the all important thing.
I'm tired of this blame culture, where nothing can be the fault of an individual committing a crime. It all has to be the fault of something else. Something that can be sued or banned. Life doesn't work like that. It's all down to individuals and their choices. Sometimes there are no bigger reasons, and the truth is exactly what is shown in it's simplest form.
Had the same thing as a student. So I set up a pack of chocolate digestives (replaced the choccie ones with standard digestives coated with ex lax). Morning after, I came down to find the biscuits gone.
On the walk in to Uni, I discovered who it was that had been stealing the biscuits. And no, he didn't make it to a lavatory in time.
My food was pretty much left alone after that.
The bit I found perplexing was that this chap was a hard core Christian (born again, I think). He was the last one I expected it to be..
Actually, I had driver issues with the Montego DDL which weren't fixed for months. The driver releases are few and far between.
If you're after nice DDL cards, check out the Auzentech cards.. I've got one (X-Plosion, with DTS encoding as well as DDL), and despite a few minor issues, it's great. Still wish NVidia had carried on with the Sound Storm, as that has to be my favourite audio device at the moment.
About the only way to keep the info out of the eyes of the sysadmins is to use heavy encryption on every file you want to store safely.
And then, make absolutely sure you never forget the pass phrases, or whatever method you use to secure your side of the key.
All the backups in the world won't protect you from forgetting that vital phrase.
Oh, and it has to be non-obvious.
That being said, a good keylogger will most likely sniff that out, so if someone in IT is really after the goods, and is willing to face legal flak to get it, you're still back at the point of being stuck, unless you ensure all the business folk maintain their own machines away from IT, and support them entirely themselves, to a secure enough level that they won't fall victim to an attack when they connect to the corporate network, or a trojan in an email.
Like all solutions, the most workable is to ensure if someone is guarding secrets that are that potent and valuable, you make sure it's not worth their while to go scurrying off with them.. In other words, you treat them well, and remunerate them according to the value of their task..
If you force your IT staff to work over long hours, stiff them on their working conditions all for a flat low rate, you're asking for trouble.
Give them good conditions, and good pay (going to excellent pay for those sysadmins that are responsible for the really tasty info), and you're far less likely to suffer.
Technical solutions just won't work, as the people who know most about it are the ones you don't trust. Which defeats the whole object.
Blimey, another Bristolian!
But, I'll add my vote to BlueYonder/Telewest.. Had Broadband in since it started, and not really had any issues with it..
The only ones I did were hardware related (they had a fault due to corroded copper in a service pit just outside the house.. Took about 5 engineer calls until one of them fixed it correctly)..
Last time I checked, the phone in support desk doesn't support Linux, but you just tell them you're using Windows, and answer the questions they have using Linux tools.
Their call in engineers are happy to 'unofficially' sort out the wiring problems no matter what OS you have.. Pragmatic guys.
Had my link maxed out for a few months (pretty much up and down), and nobody batted an eyelid.. So, they're certainly sounding like the best bet..
I think AMD will drop the prices of the CPUs to fit into the price curve.. Doing otherwise is commercial suicide, which I don't think they're quite up for yet..
With you all the way on being excited about having new tech out there, and innovation on all sides is good. Intel may be the big juggernaut, but it's good to see they are still flexible enough to pull good tech out of the hat.
Personally, I don't really care who has the best and fastest.. I used to want the best rig I could afford.. These days, I want one that does what I want at the right price..
When the cred card recovers from the last diving holidays and kit purchases, I'll be splashing out on a new CPU with board and RAM.. But by then, things should have settled a little and prices will be a little more sane..
Net winner of this latest upturn in the market.. Me.. Plus thousands of others who can get better kit at a cheaper price..
Long live competition.
Strangely they were previously unaffected by the cheap knock off videotapes in the decades previously.
And, it wouldn't have anything to do with the large exodus of people as Hong Kong was being set up to be handed back to the Chinese at all, or any of the other huge social upheavals.
It would certainly have nothing to do with the fact that before the hand back to China, Tax was very low, and has since spiralled up massively over there (ask any cab driver over there how much harder it is to make a living since Hong Kong was handed back to the Chinese).
Like you said:
"It astonishes me how many people here on Slashdot can't tell truth from fantasy even when truth looks them in the eye."
Actually, I've made a few complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (over here in the UK).
Adverts are allowed to be 'economical' with the truth, but they're not allowed to outright lie. Otherwise, it comes under 'false advertising', and the involved companies can get spanked quite hard.
The whole 'Piracy is theft' slogan, put large on the screen is a bare faced lie.
At the moment, I'd hazard a guess that not a lot of people complain about this, but, given a wider base of complainers, perhaps the ASA will wake up and tell the entertainment industry that it's a bad thing to put on the screens.
Incidentally, there's another ad going round in the cinemas here, about not getting 'pre release' pirate movies..
I could disagree with them on the quality issue, but they keep stating the rest of it is all about the experience of going to the show on the big screen, and I'm 100% behind them on that. I wish, if they had to do the whole brainwashing/indoctrination thing, that they'd actually pick a rational reason, not the knee jerk "Black is white because we say so. Disbelieve us and we'll beat you with a stick." approach.
Made in Cambridgeshire. Definitely UK.. Methinks it's one of those that the lines are blurring on between English and US English. I've always spelled it without the 'e' at the end (I'm a Brit).. Seemed odd to see it with an 'e' there..
It is? Wonder why I've been buying Mosquito repellent in England then (for a quick trip abroad)..
The idea of teaching kids, is to teach them to learn.
Telling them point blank that the only thing that should be used is Microsoft because anything else won't let them have a job is a MS marketing dream! Also known as brainwashing, indoctrination, whatever else you want to call it.
Anyone familiar with an office suite will take approximately a day or two to familiarise themself with a new one. At most a week (unless they're a programmer, using the finer details of macro languages).
Schools are NOT there to teach Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft. They should be teaching the principles of how things work, and how to work concept into execution.
Plus, you tell an employer you can use MS Office, PLUS a whole host of other office applications, and you'll stand head and shoulders above someone who is MS only (your CV will have so much more on it).
There were a few browsers around in the 'Browser Wars' timeframe. The most common of which was Netscape. And Netscape was a 'Pay For' browser. In much the same way that Opera is now.
Microsoft basically cut the rug from under that. By dumping a product with the OS. In '98 and beyond, everyone that bought a PC already had a browser in. By putting the cost of the browser in with the OS, you'd already paid to have IE with your machine. Netscape didn't have a look in. So, in other words to get Netscape, you'd have to buy two browsers (if you'd bought windows). First IE, which was paid for in the OS price, then adding Netscape on top (if you bought the properly licensed version).
With revenues cut off at the knees, the company couldn't afford to throw money at research and development the way MS could (people were still buying Windows, so they were still selling browsers by default). So, the inevitable decline went on. As a company, you can't fight the bottomless purse (which is what MS had to fund their browser with, funding it from their profitable OS & Office side) who is dumping product for free.
They killed Netscape the company stone dead. It was sold eventually for a fraction of what it was worth as an open market company in a competitive environment.
And it's been languishing ever since.
Firefox, as an open source project, and an incredibly successful one, can compete on price, as it doesn't require the kind of funding that Netscape did as a company.
Opera does a good job of keeping it's brower around, but still, it's marginalised by MS having the browser in the OS, and also by Firefox. It's a hard fight to keep that running.
MS killed a lot of things. Jobs, tax revenues, competition. And the other browsers. It wasn't a beating, it was scorched earth policy. Nothing survives (even their own browser stagnated, thus, marking the segment of the market as 'dead').
But like all scorched earth, in time, shoots grow again, and eventually an ecosystem can develop once more (Firefox, Opera etc).
We just see if MS gets to play the same cards again this time round.
But showing that they were prepared to scupper their own customer base due to spite would stop ANY business that had continuity plans from EVER using Microsoft products again. Simply because you couldn't trust them.
It would kill the company overnight.
Pulling out of Europe would also mean anyone that does a lot of business with Europe (read China, India, and many other places that don't rely solely on the US) would need compatibility with Europe too.. Which means they'd be introduced to non-MS products.
With Europe + rest of world (bar US, most likely) using non-MS products rather quickly, the US would soon find that to do business with the rest of the world, it'd have to be compliant with the non-MS standard that had arisen behind the world wide economy.
Which would loosen the grip of MS in the US, eventually making it irrelevant.
So, in other words, they could choose spite, and kill their whole company in a couple of years (while leaving a lot of pain in the wake for a short amount of time), or they can toe the line, open their API, and do what the EU asks, and then have to compete on innovation with the rest of the world. Which, with the brains in the MS research labs, I reckon they've got a good shot at doing. Like IBM, they'll be around for decades to come, but without the massive monopoly they have now.
If I were running the company, I know which option I'd choose.
Just a quick prediction: Intel will trump AMD by pushing the Conroe out. AMD will cut prices, so their chips fit nicely into the price/performance bracket that the market will allow them to sell at. Consumers win.
The speed freaks will buy Intel for performance, as it gives the absolute fastest. The people that want good performance at a price that doesn't bust the bank will probably buy AMD (and that's the way it used to be with AMD & Intel for quite a while).
Then, AMD will likely make modifications in their next architecture that speed their offering up past that available to Intel. And the speed freaks will buy AMD. Intel may, or may not put their chips in the 'bang for bucks' ladder, as they still have the name to leverage.
Then Intel will release another architecture, and so on. This is called competition. It's good. It makes sure that both sides don't do a Microsoft, and get the chance to turn the PC chip market into a monocultural wasteland, and have the market stagnate. Others entering the fray will also be good (how long until China get their own offerings out?).. A heterogenous system is more robust, and results in better product at the end (that's what happens when you get real competition).. That's what's happening in the chip market.
Really, the only thing to look at in the big picture is that the general public win. We get better prices for better tech. The speed crown of the day is a passing thing, for either side.
As long as I get good tech for a good price, I consider it a win. Whoever gives me that price, Intel or AMD.
Ever died from bad food? That stuff is evil!!
If you can't see PDF taking off as a document distribution format, have another look at near enough every single install disk you get. Enclosed instruction manuals. Downloaded user manuals from manufacturers that provide them.
Have a look at most places that actually distribute information to the public. You'll find they have a large amount of PDF, simply because they can guarantee it being read, not falling foul of proxy filter rules (yes, lots of proxies filter out Word docs, as they are still perfectly good ways of transmititng executable content).
Word documents are a way of storing files internal to a business, and perhaps between a few businesses.
Distribution on a larger scale is PDF. This is something Microsoft could do without. Seriously do without. I daresay they'll funnel money into a doc to PDF converter through a shell company and feed it marketing money.. But not having it in the core product is painful (it would be similar to having Windows Media Player barred from ripping to or reading MP3s).
The email address is an item of value, given up in the registration process.
Ask any spammer that pays for bulk lists containing these items.
Although, on it's own, it is of negligible value, it is still a quantifiable amount with real market value, thus, a consideration.
Sounds exactly like that was what (s)he was doing. The tone of the posting suggested that the AC knew exactly what (s)he was doing, and would follow through on keeping unsatisfactory material from the kids.
And also, his/her choice of material wouldn't stop you from blowing stuff up. Virtually or otherwise, so no idea why you'd construe this as getting in your way.
I didn't intend to post a reply to your comment (which is pretty much flamebait) but felt compelled as the other reply which clarified the issue a little got modded Flamebait.
I'm surprised Creative didn't already know this, considering the huge patent portfolio they have on anything down to trivial algorithms for use in sound processing, with the intent of preventing anybody else playing in the sound card market.
Hopefully, the thing they may learn from this is NOT to sue everyone who appears defenceless, as a fair few of them, that may otherwise have let matters lie quietly, turn round and bite them hard.
Interesting you say "everyone relies on centralised electricity". We don't.
Neither do quite a few companies I know of that have high reliance on tech. We all have backup generators, plus lots of UPS.
I take it you're not that reliant?