Games have the attention of the public for a long time. It's a multi billion dollar industry and therefor is has everyone's attention and is being taken very seriously. It doesn't need Manhunt to grab their attention or to be taken seriously.
You have a very valid point. On the other hand do games really need to go to this extent to attract an audience? People that get their jollies pretending to hunt someone down and kill them in a brutal fashion are a bit suspect in my opinion. Granted they wont go out and public and do the same thing or will they. This type of violent game really isn't necessary and I believe it's the result of being unable to create a game with an epic story line to garner enough interest, so they resort to ultra violence to makeup for the lack of story.
Apparently you didn't read the fine print which states: Upon downloading this browser you may not avoid Steve Jobs reality distortion field and Safari will be the best browser you've every used and the only one you will use on windows.
Email is not reliable form of urgent communication or appropriate for vitally important documents. It's not secure either.
Phone: If it's urgent you call someone. If you can't get through you leave a message. You have a fairly good idea wether they receive the message, but a solid idea if they actually answer the phone.
Fax: You can fax a person and that'll tell you right away if it ends up on the other side. No guarantee someone is around to check the machine, but if they are, they have your note on a piece of paper. This is good for some contracts and other important documents
Certified Mail: That's what you use for vitally important documents or FedEx, UPS or DHL.
Any company making claims that they can make someone more secure or reliable via email is great, but I'll still use traditional methods for important documents. Should I have to pay for it? I already do when I sign up with my ISP or when I sign up for a free email service. No one would offer those services if they weren't making money from them in one way or another. Those who are the most reliable and provide the best service at the best price win. If some service provider wants to have a third party come in to offer a service, fine, but the ones that don't specifically charge customers will better off and adding constraints and limits are just going to hurt your business. I think the money is better spent lobbing congress to go after spammers.
Beyond your politician, the other way to vote is with your wallet. If something like this goes through, then you have to hit them wear it hurts. I'm not sure it'll have much of an effect, but you do your best.
On another note, just hearing about this makes me want to drop cingular/at&t.
Every time I heard people say, "it's just a phone", I laugh. I think that's a really dumb statement because it's obviously much more than a phone. I think the name iPhone is the problem, but clearly this device is the coolest iPod/iPod video I've ever seen. So is it really just a phone, no. It's also a really cool hand held web device with wifi. Is it just a phone, no. The google maps feature alone is pretty sweet the way you can call the location on the map. Is it really just a phone, no.
Too many people compare it to a Razr. I have a Razr and it's not an iPhone. Compare the iPhone to a Blackberry or another SmartPhone, but stop calling it "just a phone," unless, you're that blind to the technology that goes in it and if that's the case then why are you reading slashdot?
It doesn't matter to the consumer as long as they can play it on whatever player they have. So if I'm in the market, a dual format players will win the battle. I'm sure the quality is more than acceptable on either one.
"Try reading two different texts side by side, at the same time, and it won't work that neatly parallel any more." Your speaking in terms of "focus" as apposed to processing. You can really only focus on one task to do it well, well most people can. Your brain is still processing sound, keeping you breathing and aware of its surrounding. The one man band is a decent example of human focus on multi-processing. It's hard to do, but doable.
If your programming is singularly focused, you'll serialize your code, but if you diagram it, then you can start to see how it can be paralleled. It's all about planning and figuring out what steps are involved. Our minds do it constantly, but only recognize the task at hand.
Potential performance advantage is not always very high (I know, I get paid to squeeze this last bit), and is usually more than offset by difficulty in maintenance. That's fine statement for certain applications. I wouldn't see much advantage for a word processing application. When you start dealing with processor intense applications such as music and video editing the potential advantage is enormous. I know from using these tools everyday and going from a single processing machine to a machine with 2 processors and 4 cores. The difference from being able to run 2 to 4 tracks to nearly 32.
I couldn't agree with you more. I use Vienna RSS feeder extensively and rarely do I search websites for news. I even have an eye out on certain craigslist items.
Yes. It all depends on the investment size and how much the VC owns and the market potential. Most VC's look for 20% to 30% ownership and estimate market potential between 3 and 5 years. 5 Years is pretty normal anything beyond that and they're looking for a larger return. But companies can be funded from as little as 1mm to 150mm. So the expected return will vary with investment size. With something like this company they must have met potential. A return of 10 times investment is pretty nice and I doubt you'll hear investors complain. Obviously not as lucrative as yesteryear but pretty substantial nonetheless.
Here's the quick and dirty version of my entire post.
1. Refine the OS and add some eye candy. 2. Build a solid integrated multi-media application suite (think ilife). Uniform Interface. 3. Hide package managers and make things seamless. 4. Develop a single universal wiki guide for all linux distro's and oss applications. It should have well written guides, reviews, bug reports, etc etc. Sections for business, IT, and graphic application suite replacements etc. 5. Communities need to unify more. leaders elected - resumes posted (membership required).
Linux is not refined enough for the Average Joe.
Yes, it's true Linux is good and stable and I can use it, but it's not going to replace OS X or Windows XP/Vista any time soon.
Each distro seems to have a reasonable amount of desktop conformity. So the problem doesn't fall on that, but it's sure not refined. It's just not pretty enough. Looks like Windows 95. I know you can update it, but who wants to bother. "Oh, but that's what linux is about, customization." Well Joe doesn't even know where to begin and doesn't want to bother. OS X and Windows come with a pretty nice GUI out of the box. OS X can't be customized and I've seen few people customize Windows. It's just not important, but eye candy is, so make it sharp and pretty.
Package managers - new user nightmare. It's easy enough to understand when you take the time - which most people don't have - but it's still a pain in the ass. The average Joe doesn't need to see this and it should be hidden for the most part.
Applications - Confusing. There's too many reasons. First the feature set and interface are subjective, but nonetheless you want something pretty much standard. There are so many different applications that do the same thing. Even with Ubuntu, when you add software there's quite a large list and you're not sure what to choose. So you try a one or two and either the interface is clunky, the feature set is lacking, or it crashes.
I know this will piss a lot of people off, but iLife should be a perfect example of how to build an application suite. It's not everything to all people, but it's robust enough and easy enough to use for the average Joe. If the community could put together a robust package like that, that was easy to use, uniform and worked seamlessly with each other, then you'd have one hell of a package. Problem is, it's not the case and probably never will be. I think product managers, project manager and interface designers should be an integral part of the development cycle. Too often it seems they'll have one of those, but they usually come from a development background and don't relate well to joe.
Community - Sure there are communities and lots of them. So many that it makes you feel nearly overwhelmed with choice. But that doesn't get at the problem with one opensource community brow-beating the other. Then you really see the ugly side of OSS.
Questions. Don't ask them. Well ask them if they're super technical and intrigue the community, but don't ask them if they're stupid or you're stupid. Then they will be like the Roman's and unleash hell. It'll make your sphincter tighten up so much you'll be pooping through your penis. It hits on one of the biggest complaints I hear from IT people or computer savvy people. The average user is stupid and have stupid problems and ask stupid questions. IT professionals for the most part have to be somewhat polite in an office environment, but once you stop into online forums in the OSSC you soon find out where you stand.
I could go on and on and on. I want Linux on the desktop to succeed. Yes, I've been told to become part of the community, but it's been too difficult to get any sort of involvement. So I do my share by donating money to the projects I like. I have no problem getting a distro to work, but it's been nothing but a nightmare for the friends and family members that give it a go. I try to support them, but it's just too loose and confusing for them. They want everything thing in place and to be intuitive. The reality it's not. Not when you have a gazillion applications that start with K or whatever clever yet meaningless name someone comes up with.
For several reasons. One, they want universal applications so people who's print shops and other long-term hardware investments don't become useless (lawsuit, class action) in the short-term; that's 4 to 6 years. Second, their intentions are to leave PPC out of the mix completely, which they've done with hardware. Third, confusion, if they kept both in the mix customers and reseller employees would have a tough time explaining the difference and why some applications work on one platform and not the other.
Over the long haul they'll drop PPC support and state that it's too expensive to maintain both builds. The reality is they know that old hardware will need to be upgraded and people will have one choice. Plus, IBM can't be relied upon to keep up with the pace of Intel/AMD when process upgrades are concerned.
We have a history of global warming or cooling alarmists. My fist assumption by looking at just a small history of reporting is that we don't have a friggin clue.
Example:
In 1895 The New York Times wrote "Geologists Think the World May Be Frozen Up Again."
In 1924 New York Times ran stories about "A New Ice Age."
In 1933 the New York Times wrote "The Longest Warming Spell since 1776."
In 1975 the New York Times wrote, "A Major Cooling Widely Considered to be Inevitable. "
Now Time Magazine's turn:
In 1923 Time Magazine wrote "The discovery of changes in the sun's heat and the southward advance of glaciers in recent years, have given rise to conjectures of possible advent of a new ice age."
In 1939 Time Magazine wrote: "Weather men have no doubt that the world at leas for the time being is growing warmer."
In 1974 Time Magazine wrote: " Experts are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age."
In 2001 Time Magazine wrote: "Scientists no longer doubt that global warming is happening."
I have no idea whether these scientists or climatologists really have a clue or not, but we should be focusing on cleaning up are act regardless. Cleaner energy is a great thing regardless if global warming or cooling is looming. Purely recyclable products should become mandatory. I think we have a moral obligation to have as little impact on the environment as possible. We are clearly intelligent enough to know that most of our byproduct aren't good for the environment and intelligent enough to figure out how to clean it up.
It really shouldn't matter whether you believe global warming/cooling is real or not. It shouldn't matter if your of some political affiliation or not and it shouldn't matter if your an environmentalist or not. What matters is that you do your part and make a statement by doing whatever you can to help reduce pollution and waste.
Eventually, Microsoft won't really care if you're running Linux or their lightweight Windows. They'll have long moved to a new strategy that generates revenue no matter what platform you use and ensures they maintain control.
I'm not sure that IE is going to be as important anymore. At least... not as important as.Net. And that's why I keep wondering about the state and wisdom of Mono. I think you have a valid point, but, I think IE plays an important role and I also think they want to keep people on Windows. They want the whole package and I believe they'll use whatever they can to tie you in. That's why I think they'll tie there office suite to IE and IE ships with Windows and only windows.
SaaS is a great exit strategy, but my company has had a hard time finding vendors that fully support FireFox or Safari. So many vendors require IE. That's my biggest problem or fear, so I hope they become standards compliant according to the W3C specs, otherwise were stuck pretty much where we were before, but paying yearly fees to the same MS.
The goal is to stifle adoption. They were caught off guard with Linux/Apache web server and ended up not being number one in the online server market. However, this wave of attacks appears to be focused on office productivity.
FOSS has garnered a lot of attention in the press lately. Well this is Microsoft's reaction. They're hitting Linux, OpenOffice and mail applications, the three serious contenders. This short-term tactic is only being deployed for the long-term defense and the long-term defense isn't desktop applications it's SaaS. If you think Microsoft is the money-hoarding juggernaut now, wait until you see what happens when they get a yearly service fee from these corporations.
Currently everyone's on the bandwagon, but to be honest, there's not really a viable online solution that replaces Microsoft Office. The only viable alternative I've seen is OpenOffice.org and it's on the desktop. So Microsoft spouts 235 patent violations and companies hold off on switching platforms or they buy the latest version of office. This is exactly what Microsoft is vying for. They are buying time to completely revamp their offerings as a service. They've already said they'll do it, but they need to beat the competition. Well, not really, they just need to hold the customer off on their next purchase. Corporations do not upgrade nearly as frequently as consumers.
SaaS as an office suite isn't ready for prime time. Two critical pieces need to happen before people can use it as a viable alternative. First, we need browsers to support offline work. FireFox 2 supports this to some extent, but they haven't touted the service enough to make people notice. We'll hear plenty about it in version 3. Meanwhile Microsoft will implement this within IE for sure. However, lock-in happens when you realize you'll need.net to use IE and online MS Office will require IE and.net. Second, we need greater availability of broadband on the go, 3rd Generation. Availability is poor, but it wont be in 5 years. Just in time for Office SaaS and lightweight Windows.
So what about Vista? Vista is targeted to multi-media and not so much business. It's the same strategy as Apple and Cisco's latest play. SaaS doesn't make much sense for home users, but multimedia does.
Microsoft made a valid point when they said that Linux isn't much without Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Seems pretty sad that they can make that claim, but Linux has bested Microsoft online and they did it with LAMP . However, that was in the early days when Linux wasn't a viable desktop alternative, which it is today. But the future isn't the desktop, well it is, but it's SaaS and your OS. The great thing is, your OS need only be a lightweight version.
So this whole patent thing is Microsofts version of Steve Jobs reality distortion field. Get everyone off the real topic, which is Linux's role in SaaS and onto how Linux will be able to survive on the desktop. Everyone is so eager to see what patents Linux is violating when they should shrug it off and drive the goal to future service offerings through Linux.
Linux best opportunity to overcome the desktop hurdle is to develop a cohesive relationship with SaaS service providers while offering a lightweight stable as hell desktop OS.
to what Microsoft is really doing. They're not trying to stop the innovation or progress of OSS development. They are trying to stop the adoption of OSS by making these patent claims and then having the claims published in trade magazines and the web.
This is probably the most effective way to protect their bottom line. Going into court isn't what they want. They want doubt in prospective OSS adopters. With doubt comes the likelihood of sticking with what's safe. It's the same sort of campaign they "allegedly" helped SCO take-on to help stifle OSS adoption. From what I can tell, it had a impact for quite some time.
I am sure Microsoft knows that quite a few patents may not hold up. They'll only get bad publicity in the tech world, but to shareholders and the rest of the world, they'll look like they're protecting their assets. They had record profits last quarter and will continue to do so by spreading doubt in prospective adopters minds. It's so simple and yet so effective.
Well 2.1 seems fast enough for me. I have been working on a document that's over 50 pages long and contains tables, graphs and images. OpenOffice/J has been great and I haven't noticed any slow down. However, I'm on a Mac Pro with 3ghz processors. Maybe I'll try it on my PowerBook.
I certainly see your point, but I don't think Apple is looking at it from the point of view as another phone in the very saturated phone market.
Apple is looking at this as a full service solution, from the top down. They're going to deliver the whole package like they did with the iPod. They already have the software (itunes) and the store (itms) in place. They both work really well and most people I know use iTunes regardless if they own an iPod. You'll be able to sync music, video's, contacts and a bit more. The key ingredient is the ipod-esque ease of use and top to bottom solution. ATT in this deal is just a service provider. You'll get voice, data, and voice mail through them, but the real meat of the product is Apple's application integration. That's totally different from most phones where you rely on the service provider to provide you with the extra goodies.
A lot of people have wanted the iPod to have wireless and internet capabilities, well now it does and with a lot more. People are complaining about iPhone only supporting edge in the beginning, but I know few people that utilize broadband on their mobile devices. Most of what I see is text messaging and checking email. A small delay in loading a wep page or downloading a file isn't going to be a deal breaker for most.
Apple wouldn't release something if they didn't think they could improve on what's currently on the market. I'm still taking the wait and see approach, but I'm definitely interested and I don't think it'll bomb like Balmer said.
You're right, it was bad. It never went into any real solutions. Never mind that it didn't mention how SaaS may make the transition a lot smoother. You don't necessarily need to port over to the Mac as you might migrate to the net and then have availability on any system. OS X Server can surely simplify the maintenance of a Macintosh network.
E. Guittard or Etienne Guittard is by far one of the best if not the best chocolate companies in the US. They're located in San Carlos, California and each chocolate uses beans from different parts of the world. They mostly produce dark chocolate which pair well with wine. You'll find their chocolates used in fine restaurants and in high end grocery stores. I love them and order them once in a while. If I'm going to eat chocolate it's going to be E. Guittard.
http://www.guittard.com/home/learn_varietals.html
Slashdot Mirror
Games have the attention of the public for a long time. It's a multi billion dollar industry and therefor is has everyone's attention and is being taken very seriously. It doesn't need Manhunt to grab their attention or to be taken seriously.
You have a very valid point. On the other hand do games really need to go to this extent to attract an audience? People that get their jollies pretending to hunt someone down and kill them in a brutal fashion are a bit suspect in my opinion. Granted they wont go out and public and do the same thing or will they. This type of violent game really isn't necessary and I believe it's the result of being unable to create a game with an epic story line to garner enough interest, so they resort to ultra violence to makeup for the lack of story.
Apparently you didn't read the fine print which states: Upon downloading this browser you may not avoid Steve Jobs reality distortion field and Safari will be the best browser you've every used and the only one you will use on windows.
You see they'll come to the realization that everything on earth is natural and good but people and resort to cannibalism.
Night of the living Vegan.Email is not reliable form of urgent communication or appropriate for vitally important documents. It's not secure either.
Phone: If it's urgent you call someone. If you can't get through you leave a message. You have a fairly good idea wether they receive the message, but a solid idea if they actually answer the phone.
Fax: You can fax a person and that'll tell you right away if it ends up on the other side. No guarantee someone is around to check the machine, but if they are, they have your note on a piece of paper. This is good for some contracts and other important documents
Certified Mail: That's what you use for vitally important documents or FedEx, UPS or DHL.
Any company making claims that they can make someone more secure or reliable via email is great, but I'll still use traditional methods for important documents. Should I have to pay for it? I already do when I sign up with my ISP or when I sign up for a free email service. No one would offer those services if they weren't making money from them in one way or another. Those who are the most reliable and provide the best service at the best price win. If some service provider wants to have a third party come in to offer a service, fine, but the ones that don't specifically charge customers will better off and adding constraints and limits are just going to hurt your business. I think the money is better spent lobbing congress to go after spammers.Beyond your politician, the other way to vote is with your wallet. If something like this goes through, then you have to hit them wear it hurts. I'm not sure it'll have much of an effect, but you do your best.
On another note, just hearing about this makes me want to drop cingular/at&t.
to wish ill-will towards anyone, but seeing how the RIAA has handled this case, I can't help myself.
Every time I heard people say, "it's just a phone", I laugh. I think that's a really dumb statement because it's obviously much more than a phone. I think the name iPhone is the problem, but clearly this device is the coolest iPod/iPod video I've ever seen. So is it really just a phone, no. It's also a really cool hand held web device with wifi. Is it just a phone, no. The google maps feature alone is pretty sweet the way you can call the location on the map. Is it really just a phone, no.
Too many people compare it to a Razr. I have a Razr and it's not an iPhone. Compare the iPhone to a Blackberry or another SmartPhone, but stop calling it "just a phone," unless, you're that blind to the technology that goes in it and if that's the case then why are you reading slashdot?
Build an ark!
It doesn't matter to the consumer as long as they can play it on whatever player they have. So if I'm in the market, a dual format players will win the battle. I'm sure the quality is more than acceptable on either one.
If your programming is singularly focused, you'll serialize your code, but if you diagram it, then you can start to see how it can be paralleled. It's all about planning and figuring out what steps are involved. Our minds do it constantly, but only recognize the task at hand.
Apparently she's unafraid to get screwed by an Apple.
I couldn't agree with you more. I use Vienna RSS feeder extensively and rarely do I search websites for news. I even have an eye out on certain craigslist items.
Yes. It all depends on the investment size and how much the VC owns and the market potential. Most VC's look for 20% to 30% ownership and estimate market potential between 3 and 5 years. 5 Years is pretty normal anything beyond that and they're looking for a larger return. But companies can be funded from as little as 1mm to 150mm. So the expected return will vary with investment size. With something like this company they must have met potential. A return of 10 times investment is pretty nice and I doubt you'll hear investors complain. Obviously not as lucrative as yesteryear but pretty substantial nonetheless.
Here's the quick and dirty version of my entire post.
1. Refine the OS and add some eye candy.
2. Build a solid integrated multi-media application suite (think ilife). Uniform Interface.
3. Hide package managers and make things seamless.
4. Develop a single universal wiki guide for all linux distro's and oss applications. It should have well written guides, reviews, bug reports, etc etc. Sections for business, IT, and graphic application suite replacements etc.
5. Communities need to unify more. leaders elected - resumes posted (membership required).
Linux is not refined enough for the Average Joe.
Yes, it's true Linux is good and stable and I can use it, but it's not going to replace OS X or Windows XP/Vista any time soon.
Each distro seems to have a reasonable amount of desktop conformity. So the problem doesn't fall on that, but it's sure not refined. It's just not pretty enough. Looks like Windows 95. I know you can update it, but who wants to bother. "Oh, but that's what linux is about, customization." Well Joe doesn't even know where to begin and doesn't want to bother. OS X and Windows come with a pretty nice GUI out of the box. OS X can't be customized and I've seen few people customize Windows. It's just not important, but eye candy is, so make it sharp and pretty.
Package managers - new user nightmare. It's easy enough to understand when you take the time - which most people don't have - but it's still a pain in the ass. The average Joe doesn't need to see this and it should be hidden for the most part.
Applications - Confusing. There's too many reasons. First the feature set and interface are subjective, but nonetheless you want something pretty much standard. There are so many different applications that do the same thing. Even with Ubuntu, when you add software there's quite a large list and you're not sure what to choose. So you try a one or two and either the interface is clunky, the feature set is lacking, or it crashes.
I know this will piss a lot of people off, but iLife should be a perfect example of how to build an application suite. It's not everything to all people, but it's robust enough and easy enough to use for the average Joe. If the community could put together a robust package like that, that was easy to use, uniform and worked seamlessly with each other, then you'd have one hell of a package. Problem is, it's not the case and probably never will be. I think product managers, project manager and interface designers should be an integral part of the development cycle. Too often it seems they'll have one of those, but they usually come from a development background and don't relate well to joe.
Community - Sure there are communities and lots of them. So many that it makes you feel nearly overwhelmed with choice. But that doesn't get at the problem with one opensource community brow-beating the other. Then you really see the ugly side of OSS.
Questions. Don't ask them. Well ask them if they're super technical and intrigue the community, but don't ask them if they're stupid or you're stupid. Then they will be like the Roman's and unleash hell. It'll make your sphincter tighten up so much you'll be pooping through your penis. It hits on one of the biggest complaints I hear from IT people or computer savvy people. The average user is stupid and have stupid problems and ask stupid questions. IT professionals for the most part have to be somewhat polite in an office environment, but once you stop into online forums in the OSSC you soon find out where you stand.
I could go on and on and on. I want Linux on the desktop to succeed. Yes, I've been told to become part of the community, but it's been too difficult to get any sort of involvement. So I do my share by donating money to the projects I like. I have no problem getting a distro to work, but it's been nothing but a nightmare for the friends and family members that give it a go. I try to support them, but it's just too loose and confusing for them. They want everything thing in place and to be intuitive. The reality it's not. Not when you have a gazillion applications that start with K or whatever clever yet meaningless name someone comes up with.
For several reasons. One, they want universal applications so people who's print shops and other long-term hardware investments don't become useless (lawsuit, class action) in the short-term; that's 4 to 6 years. Second, their intentions are to leave PPC out of the mix completely, which they've done with hardware. Third, confusion, if they kept both in the mix customers and reseller employees would have a tough time explaining the difference and why some applications work on one platform and not the other.
Over the long haul they'll drop PPC support and state that it's too expensive to maintain both builds. The reality is they know that old hardware will need to be upgraded and people will have one choice. Plus, IBM can't be relied upon to keep up with the pace of Intel/AMD when process upgrades are concerned.
We have a history of global warming or cooling alarmists. My fist assumption by looking at just a small history of reporting is that we don't have a friggin clue.
Example:- In 1895 The New York Times wrote "Geologists Think the World May Be Frozen Up Again."
- In 1924 New York Times ran stories about "A New Ice Age."
- In 1933 the New York Times wrote "The Longest Warming Spell since 1776."
- In 1975 the New York Times wrote, "A Major Cooling Widely Considered to be Inevitable. "
Now Time Magazine's turn:I have no idea whether these scientists or climatologists really have a clue or not, but we should be focusing on cleaning up are act regardless. Cleaner energy is a great thing regardless if global warming or cooling is looming. Purely recyclable products should become mandatory. I think we have a moral obligation to have as little impact on the environment as possible. We are clearly intelligent enough to know that most of our byproduct aren't good for the environment and intelligent enough to figure out how to clean it up.
It really shouldn't matter whether you believe global warming/cooling is real or not. It shouldn't matter if your of some political affiliation or not and it shouldn't matter if your an environmentalist or not. What matters is that you do your part and make a statement by doing whatever you can to help reduce pollution and waste.
The goal is to stifle adoption. They were caught off guard with Linux/Apache web server and ended up not being number one in the online server market. However, this wave of attacks appears to be focused on office productivity.
.net to use IE and online MS Office will require IE and .net. Second, we need greater availability of broadband on the go, 3rd Generation. Availability is poor, but it wont be in 5 years. Just in time for Office SaaS and lightweight Windows.
FOSS has garnered a lot of attention in the press lately. Well this is Microsoft's reaction. They're hitting Linux, OpenOffice and mail applications, the three serious contenders. This short-term tactic is only being deployed for the long-term defense and the long-term defense isn't desktop applications it's SaaS. If you think Microsoft is the money-hoarding juggernaut now, wait until you see what happens when they get a yearly service fee from these corporations.
Currently everyone's on the bandwagon, but to be honest, there's not really a viable online solution that replaces Microsoft Office. The only viable alternative I've seen is OpenOffice.org and it's on the desktop. So Microsoft spouts 235 patent violations and companies hold off on switching platforms or they buy the latest version of office. This is exactly what Microsoft is vying for. They are buying time to completely revamp their offerings as a service. They've already said they'll do it, but they need to beat the competition. Well, not really, they just need to hold the customer off on their next purchase. Corporations do not upgrade nearly as frequently as consumers.
SaaS as an office suite isn't ready for prime time. Two critical pieces need to happen before people can use it as a viable alternative. First, we need browsers to support offline work. FireFox 2 supports this to some extent, but they haven't touted the service enough to make people notice. We'll hear plenty about it in version 3. Meanwhile Microsoft will implement this within IE for sure. However, lock-in happens when you realize you'll need
So what about Vista? Vista is targeted to multi-media and not so much business. It's the same strategy as Apple and Cisco's latest play. SaaS doesn't make much sense for home users, but multimedia does.
Microsoft made a valid point when they said that Linux isn't much without Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Seems pretty sad that they can make that claim, but Linux has bested Microsoft online and they did it with LAMP . However, that was in the early days when Linux wasn't a viable desktop alternative, which it is today. But the future isn't the desktop, well it is, but it's SaaS and your OS. The great thing is, your OS need only be a lightweight version.
So this whole patent thing is Microsofts version of Steve Jobs reality distortion field. Get everyone off the real topic, which is Linux's role in SaaS and onto how Linux will be able to survive on the desktop. Everyone is so eager to see what patents Linux is violating when they should shrug it off and drive the goal to future service offerings through Linux.
Linux best opportunity to overcome the desktop hurdle is to develop a cohesive relationship with SaaS service providers while offering a lightweight stable as hell desktop OS.
to what Microsoft is really doing. They're not trying to stop the innovation or progress of OSS development. They are trying to stop the adoption of OSS by making these patent claims and then having the claims published in trade magazines and the web.
This is probably the most effective way to protect their bottom line. Going into court isn't what they want. They want doubt in prospective OSS adopters. With doubt comes the likelihood of sticking with what's safe. It's the same sort of campaign they "allegedly" helped SCO take-on to help stifle OSS adoption. From what I can tell, it had a impact for quite some time.
I am sure Microsoft knows that quite a few patents may not hold up. They'll only get bad publicity in the tech world, but to shareholders and the rest of the world, they'll look like they're protecting their assets. They had record profits last quarter and will continue to do so by spreading doubt in prospective adopters minds. It's so simple and yet so effective.
Well 2.1 seems fast enough for me. I have been working on a document that's over 50 pages long and contains tables, graphs and images. OpenOffice/J has been great and I haven't noticed any slow down. However, I'm on a Mac Pro with 3ghz processors. Maybe I'll try it on my PowerBook.
I certainly see your point, but I don't think Apple is looking at it from the point of view as another phone in the very saturated phone market. Apple is looking at this as a full service solution, from the top down. They're going to deliver the whole package like they did with the iPod. They already have the software (itunes) and the store (itms) in place. They both work really well and most people I know use iTunes regardless if they own an iPod. You'll be able to sync music, video's, contacts and a bit more. The key ingredient is the ipod-esque ease of use and top to bottom solution. ATT in this deal is just a service provider. You'll get voice, data, and voice mail through them, but the real meat of the product is Apple's application integration. That's totally different from most phones where you rely on the service provider to provide you with the extra goodies. A lot of people have wanted the iPod to have wireless and internet capabilities, well now it does and with a lot more. People are complaining about iPhone only supporting edge in the beginning, but I know few people that utilize broadband on their mobile devices. Most of what I see is text messaging and checking email. A small delay in loading a wep page or downloading a file isn't going to be a deal breaker for most. Apple wouldn't release something if they didn't think they could improve on what's currently on the market. I'm still taking the wait and see approach, but I'm definitely interested and I don't think it'll bomb like Balmer said.
You're right, it was bad. It never went into any real solutions. Never mind that it didn't mention how SaaS may make the transition a lot smoother. You don't necessarily need to port over to the Mac as you might migrate to the net and then have availability on any system. OS X Server can surely simplify the maintenance of a Macintosh network.
E. Guittard or Etienne Guittard is by far one of the best if not the best chocolate companies in the US. They're located in San Carlos, California and each chocolate uses beans from different parts of the world. They mostly produce dark chocolate which pair well with wine. You'll find their chocolates used in fine restaurants and in high end grocery stores. I love them and order them once in a while. If I'm going to eat chocolate it's going to be E. Guittard. http://www.guittard.com/home/learn_varietals.html