This is my favorite part. Oh, man. Let me stop the tears of laughter. OK. Now I can type again.
Let me get this straight. SunnComm is worried because "SunnComm's reputation has been falsely damaged."
SunnComm creates a product that purports to be secure DRM. Then someone holds down the shift key and disables this secure DRM.
It seems to me that SunnComm's reputation as a maker of secure DRM has been quite fairly damaged. If someone claimed that holding down the shift key rendered the DRM useless when in fact it did no such thing, that might be "false damage" to SunnComm's reputation if it were widely distributed and accepted as truth. But SunnComm's reputation is being damaged specifically because their product doesn't do what it's supposed to do!
SunnComm: Bringing doublespeak to a whole new level.
Based on the "About Us" info found here, this is an upscale, academically successful school district located in the 'burbs west of Chicago.
I wonder if the parents of students in the inner city are laughing or crying when they read about this lawsuit. "Hah! Our kids have a tough time getting textbooks, and the parents in Oak Park are worried about wireless networks?!"
My guess is that Windows iPod users will be among the first guinea pigs. I have a friend who is an avowed Mac-hater. She recently received an iPod for her birthday and was absolutely giddy. She has stayed away from online music stores because she sees them all as inferior to spending hours on P2P systems hunting for the stuff she wants. I wouldn't be surprised if she tried out the Windows version of the Apple Music Store shortly after roll-out.
Just before rolling out the dual-platform iPods, Apple was reporting that the Windows version of the iPod was selling at the same rate as the Mac version. With those rough numbers in hand, if you count on a similar conversion rate for the Music Store (I know, it's a wild ass guess), it seems that the Windows version should get at least as many customers as the Mac version.
Those who argue that Mac users are zealots are ignoring a few things. For one, Apple is slowly convincing Windows users that Apple can make great non-Mac products. Second, Apple's brand image in the youth market is extraordinarily strong. If there was ever a market dominated by youth tastes, music is it.
Reports of Apple arriving in the Windows music game too late ignore the fact that nobody else has been able to implement a Windows music service that consumers actually like. I don't think we'll see the Windows Music Store getting 20x the volume of the Mac version, but I do think it will be immediately profitable.
Damn, that's some interesting commentary, gosand. It's always difficult to get a feel for a company from the outside, but I could tell by what you wrote that Motorola has lost its identity. Of course, soulless companies can go on for quite some time before they finally wither away and die. It sounds like it wouldn't be any fun to work there, though.
Just a few years ago, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras wrote the classic business book Built to Last which detailed why some companies are great, and others are just good.
Motorola was placed in contrast with Zenith. Both companies were established at around the same time and were basically in the same market. Over time, however, Zenith languished while Motorola kept on crankin' out the hits. Motorola's culture encouraged innovation and relentless focus on quality.
Those of you who graduated from college in the 1990s or 2000s likely won't remember this, but in the 1980s, Motorola was one of the view companies that was consistently beating Japanese companies in quality. They were hailed by US government and business leaders alike as an exemplar of what an American business could do in a challenging international market.
This is just further proof that nobody sits on top forever, and that keeping a very large, multinational business dynamic is a tremendously difficult task.
Mitnick's statement makes me wonder. If putting people in jail for cracking doesn't deter them, then why isn't he busy getting into more of the trouble that landed him in jail?
Using XHTML and CSS makes maintenance a lot easier. It makes for leaner code, which results in faster-loading pages. Zeldman's book shows you how to apply XHTML/CSS in a manner that actually works in the real world. In order to get even more value out of the Zeldman book, check out its logical companion, Speed Up Your Site, which focuses on optimizing your code for speed, and for search engine visibility.
Big Business, meet Big Government. Imagine the synergies! Imagine the data-mining possibilities! We can sell it to the public as an opportunity to improve the democratic process. They'll buy it, because Americans have infinite faith in technology to solve all political and social problems.
If a majority of eligible voters actually voted, would we even be bothering with all this crap about electronic voting?
They have an awesome working relationship with Microsoft. They get to do exactly what they love to do (finding exploits) in code that is supposedly riddled with problems and get paid tons of money to do it. In addition, they help the world by helping MS identify and fix these bugs.
I can't argue with those points. You're absolutely right. It's just a shame to me that someone who knows a lot about something that affects the security of millions of Americans can't speak out about that threat without being fired by their employer.
It's rare to see a group of people take a stand about something they feel is of more importance than just dollars and cents. These folks are essentially blowing the whistle on something a lot of people have known about for a long time but have been too frightened to say for fear of the wrath of Microsoft.
While I absolutely agree with you that @Stake is just protecting their own interest, their action is proof of how far Microsoft has permeated the fabric of the IT business. Virtually every company in the industry has to be careful about criticizing (or even allowing an employee to criticize) Microsoft, for fear of retribution.
@the Stake fired him because they didn't want to piss off Microsoft. From their point of view it was better to sacrifice an obviously capable and smart employee at the altar of commerce than potentially endanger their working relationship with Microsoft.
I guess that's where the phrase, "power corrupts" comes from, eh?
they really got their act together during the dying days of the dot-com boom (say, their last year of publishing)
That's so true. I remember seeing some of the headlines in the last few months of their existence, and thinking, "Damn, they sure aren't afraid to bite the hand that feeds them." They also had some really good writers, and the amount of actual facts they got their hands on seemed to be much better (again, in their end-game) than any of the other tech mags.
I for one hope that the new endeavor brings back some of the old editors and writers. I'm getting so tired of the drive-by "journalism" of most industry mags.
1) Apple had a lead (time-to-market wise) because they released the Mac product first. If they hadn't released the Mac product first, they would have no lead. It's all just vapor until you actually get the product out the door. Also, there are no guarantees that Jobs could have scored the distribution deals that he did if the Music Store hadn't been released Mac-only at first. This was a testbed not just for Apple, but for the labels.
2) Apple's strategy has long been to survive through innovation. Just as 3M will always have copycats selling Post-It knockoffs, Apple will always be followed by the Dells of the world. Apple knows this; it's happened time after time in the past. But Apple's DNA revolves around being different. You can call it a marketing ploy, but it seems to be a part of the culture there. Dell has become successful because of its distribution model. Apple has become successful because of its continuous innovation. And just because Apple doesn't dominate the industry doesn't mean that it's not a successful company.
3) Dell is in a great position to copy Apple. But Apple has far more experience at this game, in part because of that lead time you were referring to. Apple also has connections to the music industry that Dell can't match. In the end, it comes down to which company can implement their Windows music service in a manner that entices customers. The labels have had online music sites for quite some time now, and it wasn't until the iTunes Music Store came along that suddenly the popular wisdom flipped 180 degrees and everyone started saying, "Duh! This is so easy. Why didn't someone do it before now?" Well, perhaps it wasn't done before because it wasn't really as easy as everyone now supposes.
4) I've been watching Apple get written off for the last two decades. Oddly, most of the reports of Apple's demise usually come right after they've created something new and innovative. The pundits always come out of the woodwork to declare that Apple is totally screwed now, because their competitors will surely copy them and eat their lunch. Damned if you innovate, damned if you don't.
Sure, Red Herring got pretty arrogant back in its first incarnation. But RH was the best place to track what was going on in the Dot-Com economy. I thought the journalistic quality was pretty good, especially considering the alternatives at the time.
Now Red Herring is back, and it seems to be the whipping boy for the Dot-Com era. We can all remember back to those days and blame all the hype and excesses and idiocy of that time on one magazine. But let's be honest - a lot of people bought into the hype in those years, and it wasn't just the writers and editors at Red Herring. In fact, a lot of their articles were pretty sceptical.
If Red Herring's re-emergence means that seed investors are slowly edging back into the technology field, so much the better for those of us who do work in the tech world. I for one like it when there are multiple sources of information and multiple viewpoints. Schadenfreude only gets you so far.
Good point. I should have said, "since the development of agriculture," as it was really the development of specialization that let to our current shortage of free time.
Fortune blew 15k on a lark to write a cute article. No one said anything about long-term benefits, usage, or comprehension.
Excellent point. I agree that this was just a lark on Fortune's part. But I think it's also indicative of a larger fixation in American business and society at large.
People discuss computers in megahertz, but not ease of use. They talk about Java this and Java that without ever finding out exactly how Java is really going to provide any benefit beyond what their existing languages/apps/infrastructure/whatever are providing them. They look for the silver bullet when the answer isn't that easy.
Actually, Fortune isn't an exemplar of long-term thinking anyway. Although some of their columnists are pretty sharp, they tend to play up the latest trends and fads in investing and business, rather than focusing on what works over the long haul. But then, when public companies are only looking quarter to quarter in a frantic effort to placate shareholders, what should we expect?
OK, I'm getting way off topic. Time for me to find that old stash of Quaaludes...
Don't think long term. Remain fixated on the short-term.
I've taught basic Internet and computer skills classes to a wide variety of people, all over the US. In doing so I've found that the only way to really make something stick is to actually sit them in front of the computer and have them learn by doing. The "three geeks and $15k" method is like a Microsoft Windows wizard. It may help you with the problem at hand, but it's not revealing anything about the hows and whys behind the problem.
In short, the end user isn't learning. They're still beholden to the geeks, because as soon as the carefully orchestrated setup hits a snafu, Abbie Normal won't know how to fix that problem.
Immersive, hands-on teaching works. It takes time and patience. Unfortunately neither are in ample supply these days, so everyone keeps on looking for silver bullet "solutions". This attitude is everywhere, even in large corporations, where managers want the latest shiny packaged product, because they actually believe that they can get results without having to learn anything first.
The computer industry is a victim of its own hype. Or rather, society is a victim of the industry hype. If we actually acknowledged the value of learning, we might collectively be able to harness the power of computers instead of spending huge chunks of time dealing with trivial annoyances.
"In recent months, online trading company ETrade and retailer Amazon have announced a shift from Sun servers to Linux as money-saving measures to run their websites. Amazon said it saved $17 million in one quarter alone by using Intel/Linux systems."
"Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley is moving its Solaris applications to Intel computers running Linux."
According to market research firm International Data Corp., Linux will account for 32 percent of server installations this year, up from 27 percent in 2001. Windows will jump from 41 percent in 2001 to 47 percent in 2002. Unix, on the other hand, is expected to drop from 14 percent of new installations in 2001 to 10 percent in 2002.
Point taken about marketshare growth. It's difficult to gauge where Linux users are coming from.
I also understand your point about how important it is to keep mission-critical apps on a server OS you know you can trust. Solaris is absolutely the standard for these sorts of situations, and I think that only the most berzerk Linux advocate would argue that point.
However, just as many large companies are doing what they can to move away from reliance on mainframes, the world sits still for no OS. Linux has momentum primarily because it offers cost advantages that the bean counters can easily understand. While Linux is not yet ready for some of the applications Solaris is used for, it has evolved over the years from a mere "hobby" OS into a system capable of handling quite a variety of tasks.
Sun's philosophy seems to be that Linux isn't in their league, and it never will be. This sort of head in the sand mentality ignores the gains Linux has made over the last few years, and ignores its substantial momentum in the enterprise.
Sun may have nothing to fear from Linux in the high-end enterprise market that they claim as their own, but there was a time when none of the UNIX vendors had anything to fear from either Linux or Microsoft. Things change, sometimes pretty rapidly.
Yes, Sun's sales grew in Q2 2003. They lead all other UNIX vendors in hardware sales. Sun's managers are probably looking at the same numbers with smug satisfaction.
But the problem is that Sun's competition isn't other UNIX vendors. It's all those people with x86 boxes out there that are loaded up with Linux (or, sadly, Windows). The reality is that Sun is taking a larger share of a smaller pie.
Sun makes money off sales of their own hardware. While their hardware is excellent, if a bunch of x86 machines can do the job more cheaply, guess who is going to win the battle?
Don't take my word for it. Serverwatch just came out with an article about it: "According to IDC, leading the market recovery in the U.S. has been x86-based (Intel and AMD) servers running either Linux or Windows operating systems. IDC anticipates the worldwide Linux server market will grow 34 percent, to $3.1 billion, in 2003 compared to 2002. The Windows server market is expected to grow 8 percent, to $15.0 billion. "
Sun is doing OK for now, but the long-term trends are tough to ignore. Check out the full article.
Sorry to break it to you but it does not play in the same league as Solaris or HP-UX, and it won't for quite some time.
Interesting comment. First, you are missing the point of my original comment. Regardless of whether you think Linux is as good as Solaris, the fact of the matter is that Linux's marketshare is growing rapidly, while Sun's is shrinking.
Second, Linux is permeating the enterprise market in ways that you apparently don't see.
It reminds me of the situation in the late 1990s, when everyone was running their dot-com web apps on Solaris, with Sun hardware. "This is mission-critical. There's no way we'd run it on Linux."
Now you don't hear that about web apps. The Sun worshippers now declare that while it's OK to use Linux for web apps, it's not suitable for things outside of Web application development.
I wonder how it will take before the comments shift to something like this: "Linux is OK for web apps and clustering and data warehousing and and as an embedded OS, but it's not nearly as capable as Solaris for...."
Basically the Internet lets you do certain things more rapidly. You can find information, share information, buy and sell goods and services online more rapidly than you can without the Internet.
While this may sound like a luxury, throughout human history "free time" has been an indicator of wealth. Those who have to spend all of their time on day to day tasks have less time for leisure. Those who have mechanisms (servants, for example) at hand to take care of the myriad little tasks that pop up in daily life therefore have more time to spend doing whatever they like.
The Internet shortens the amount of time we have to spend on arranging the minutiae of life, and provides the *option* to spend more of our time on pursuits that we find enjoyable. How people spend that extra time (by working that much harder, by watching more TV, by going on a hike, etc.) is up to the individual. But if the duty of a representative government is to help improve the quality of its citizens' lives, then a robust Internet infrastructure is something governments should be pursuing.
The above points don't even touch on the *potential* productivity gains possible through true integration of the Internet into the fabric of business and government.
Furthermore, we do not believe that the earth is round.
Linux plays a role in the server market whether you want to "believe" in it or not. His elliptical method of writing is pure corporatese, and serves as a classic example of why Sun is in a pretty scary position right now. Rather than address reality, they're avoiding it with sneaky turns of phrase.
Apple Logos Dispute Settled LONDON (AP) Saturday, October 12, 1991
A multimillion dollar trademark battle between Apple Computer Inc. and the Beatles' Apple Corps holding company over their similar corporate logos has ended with an out-of-court settlement.
Apple Corps, formed by the Beatles in 1963 to manage their music rights, accused Apple Computer of violating a 1981 agreement by using its apple logo on music-synthesizing equipment.
Apple Computer's logo features a horizontally striped apple with a bite out of it and a leaf on top, while the Apple Corp logo is an apple with a stalk on top.
The two-year-old dispute centered on Apple Computer's musical instrument digital interface or Midi. Apple Corps contended the personal computer maker had agreed to use the apple logo only on computer equipment in order to avoid interfering with the British company's music business.
Gordon Pollock, a lawyer for Apple Corps, said in the High Court on Friday that the companies had reached an amicable settlement.
Apple Corps sued Apple Computer in the court last Oct. 29. "It has been a long, hard road," Pollock said. He said the terms of the settlement were confidential.
The San Francisco Chronicle cited one report that it said called for Apple Computer to pay $29 million. The newspaper did not reveal the source of the report.
Apple Computer, based in Cupertino, Calif., disclosed in July that it had put about $38 million in reserve to settle the litigation.
Apple Corps is owned by the three surviving members of the Beatles Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr and by the estate of John Lennon, who was shot to death in New York in December 1980.
London news reports said the case cost the two companies an estimated 7 million pounds ($11.9 million) in lawyers' fees and other costs.
Apple Corps was asking for a worldwide ban on the use of the Apple Computer logo on music-synthesizing equipment designed by Apple Computer.
Lawyers for Apple Computer argued that the agreement was unenforceable and that Apple Corps' claim violated the 1957 Treaty of Rome that set up the European Common Market. --
I'd argue that moderation makes quality. Without it, you have undifferentiated crap, with the occasionally intelligent comment thrown in. Moderation is what makes Slashdot truly useful.
Slashdot Mirror
That is SO funny! I've NEVER seen that karma whoring comment before!
Let me get this straight. SunnComm is worried because "SunnComm's reputation has been falsely damaged."
SunnComm creates a product that purports to be secure DRM. Then someone holds down the shift key and disables this secure DRM.
It seems to me that SunnComm's reputation as a maker of secure DRM has been quite fairly damaged. If someone claimed that holding down the shift key rendered the DRM useless when in fact it did no such thing, that might be "false damage" to SunnComm's reputation if it were widely distributed and accepted as truth. But SunnComm's reputation is being damaged specifically because their product doesn't do what it's supposed to do!
SunnComm: Bringing doublespeak to a whole new level.
I wonder if the parents of students in the inner city are laughing or crying when they read about this lawsuit. "Hah! Our kids have a tough time getting textbooks, and the parents in Oak Park are worried about wireless networks?!"
Just before rolling out the dual-platform iPods, Apple was reporting that the Windows version of the iPod was selling at the same rate as the Mac version. With those rough numbers in hand, if you count on a similar conversion rate for the Music Store (I know, it's a wild ass guess), it seems that the Windows version should get at least as many customers as the Mac version.
Those who argue that Mac users are zealots are ignoring a few things. For one, Apple is slowly convincing Windows users that Apple can make great non-Mac products. Second, Apple's brand image in the youth market is extraordinarily strong. If there was ever a market dominated by youth tastes, music is it.
Reports of Apple arriving in the Windows music game too late ignore the fact that nobody else has been able to implement a Windows music service that consumers actually like. I don't think we'll see the Windows Music Store getting 20x the volume of the Mac version, but I do think it will be immediately profitable.
Motorola was placed in contrast with Zenith. Both companies were established at around the same time and were basically in the same market. Over time, however, Zenith languished while Motorola kept on crankin' out the hits. Motorola's culture encouraged innovation and relentless focus on quality.
Those of you who graduated from college in the 1990s or 2000s likely won't remember this, but in the 1980s, Motorola was one of the view companies that was consistently beating Japanese companies in quality. They were hailed by US government and business leaders alike as an exemplar of what an American business could do in a challenging international market.
This is just further proof that nobody sits on top forever, and that keeping a very large, multinational business dynamic is a tremendously difficult task.
If a majority of eligible voters actually voted, would we even be bothering with all this crap about electronic voting?
I can't argue with those points. You're absolutely right. It's just a shame to me that someone who knows a lot about something that affects the security of millions of Americans can't speak out about that threat without being fired by their employer.
It's rare to see a group of people take a stand about something they feel is of more importance than just dollars and cents. These folks are essentially blowing the whistle on something a lot of people have known about for a long time but have been too frightened to say for fear of the wrath of Microsoft.
While I absolutely agree with you that @Stake is just protecting their own interest, their action is proof of how far Microsoft has permeated the fabric of the IT business. Virtually every company in the industry has to be careful about criticizing (or even allowing an employee to criticize) Microsoft, for fear of retribution.
I guess that's where the phrase, "power corrupts" comes from, eh?
That's so true. I remember seeing some of the headlines in the last few months of their existence, and thinking, "Damn, they sure aren't afraid to bite the hand that feeds them." They also had some really good writers, and the amount of actual facts they got their hands on seemed to be much better (again, in their end-game) than any of the other tech mags.
I for one hope that the new endeavor brings back some of the old editors and writers. I'm getting so tired of the drive-by "journalism" of most industry mags.
2) Apple's strategy has long been to survive through innovation. Just as 3M will always have copycats selling Post-It knockoffs, Apple will always be followed by the Dells of the world. Apple knows this; it's happened time after time in the past. But Apple's DNA revolves around being different. You can call it a marketing ploy, but it seems to be a part of the culture there. Dell has become successful because of its distribution model. Apple has become successful because of its continuous innovation. And just because Apple doesn't dominate the industry doesn't mean that it's not a successful company.
3) Dell is in a great position to copy Apple. But Apple has far more experience at this game, in part because of that lead time you were referring to. Apple also has connections to the music industry that Dell can't match. In the end, it comes down to which company can implement their Windows music service in a manner that entices customers. The labels have had online music sites for quite some time now, and it wasn't until the iTunes Music Store came along that suddenly the popular wisdom flipped 180 degrees and everyone started saying, "Duh! This is so easy. Why didn't someone do it before now?" Well, perhaps it wasn't done before because it wasn't really as easy as everyone now supposes.
4) I've been watching Apple get written off for the last two decades. Oddly, most of the reports of Apple's demise usually come right after they've created something new and innovative. The pundits always come out of the woodwork to declare that Apple is totally screwed now, because their competitors will surely copy them and eat their lunch. Damned if you innovate, damned if you don't.
Now Red Herring is back, and it seems to be the whipping boy for the Dot-Com era. We can all remember back to those days and blame all the hype and excesses and idiocy of that time on one magazine. But let's be honest - a lot of people bought into the hype in those years, and it wasn't just the writers and editors at Red Herring. In fact, a lot of their articles were pretty sceptical.
If Red Herring's re-emergence means that seed investors are slowly edging back into the technology field, so much the better for those of us who do work in the tech world. I for one like it when there are multiple sources of information and multiple viewpoints. Schadenfreude only gets you so far.
Good point. I should have said, "since the development of agriculture," as it was really the development of specialization that let to our current shortage of free time.
Excellent point. I agree that this was just a lark on Fortune's part. But I think it's also indicative of a larger fixation in American business and society at large.
People discuss computers in megahertz, but not ease of use. They talk about Java this and Java that without ever finding out exactly how Java is really going to provide any benefit beyond what their existing languages/apps/infrastructure/whatever are providing them. They look for the silver bullet when the answer isn't that easy.
Actually, Fortune isn't an exemplar of long-term thinking anyway. Although some of their columnists are pretty sharp, they tend to play up the latest trends and fads in investing and business, rather than focusing on what works over the long haul. But then, when public companies are only looking quarter to quarter in a frantic effort to placate shareholders, what should we expect?
OK, I'm getting way off topic. Time for me to find that old stash of Quaaludes...
Throw money at the problem.
Don't think long term. Remain fixated on the short-term.
I've taught basic Internet and computer skills classes to a wide variety of people, all over the US. In doing so I've found that the only way to really make something stick is to actually sit them in front of the computer and have them learn by doing. The "three geeks and $15k" method is like a Microsoft Windows wizard. It may help you with the problem at hand, but it's not revealing anything about the hows and whys behind the problem.
In short, the end user isn't learning. They're still beholden to the geeks, because as soon as the carefully orchestrated setup hits a snafu, Abbie Normal won't know how to fix that problem.
Immersive, hands-on teaching works. It takes time and patience. Unfortunately neither are in ample supply these days, so everyone keeps on looking for silver bullet "solutions". This attitude is everywhere, even in large corporations, where managers want the latest shiny packaged product, because they actually believe that they can get results without having to learn anything first.
The computer industry is a victim of its own hype. Or rather, society is a victim of the industry hype. If we actually acknowledged the value of learning, we might collectively be able to harness the power of computers instead of spending huge chunks of time dealing with trivial annoyances.
"In recent months, online trading company ETrade and retailer Amazon have announced a shift from Sun servers to Linux as money-saving measures to run their websites. Amazon said it saved $17 million in one quarter alone by using Intel/Linux systems."
"Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley is moving its Solaris applications to Intel computers running Linux."
According to market research firm International Data Corp., Linux will account for 32 percent of server installations this year, up from 27 percent in 2001. Windows will jump from 41 percent in 2001 to 47 percent in 2002. Unix, on the other hand, is expected to drop from 14 percent of new installations in 2001 to 10 percent in 2002.
I also understand your point about how important it is to keep mission-critical apps on a server OS you know you can trust. Solaris is absolutely the standard for these sorts of situations, and I think that only the most berzerk Linux advocate would argue that point.
However, just as many large companies are doing what they can to move away from reliance on mainframes, the world sits still for no OS. Linux has momentum primarily because it offers cost advantages that the bean counters can easily understand. While Linux is not yet ready for some of the applications Solaris is used for, it has evolved over the years from a mere "hobby" OS into a system capable of handling quite a variety of tasks.
Sun's philosophy seems to be that Linux isn't in their league, and it never will be. This sort of head in the sand mentality ignores the gains Linux has made over the last few years, and ignores its substantial momentum in the enterprise.
Sun may have nothing to fear from Linux in the high-end enterprise market that they claim as their own, but there was a time when none of the UNIX vendors had anything to fear from either Linux or Microsoft. Things change, sometimes pretty rapidly.
But the problem is that Sun's competition isn't other UNIX vendors. It's all those people with x86 boxes out there that are loaded up with Linux (or, sadly, Windows). The reality is that Sun is taking a larger share of a smaller pie.
Sun makes money off sales of their own hardware. While their hardware is excellent, if a bunch of x86 machines can do the job more cheaply, guess who is going to win the battle?
Don't take my word for it. Serverwatch just came out with an article about it: "According to IDC, leading the market recovery in the U.S. has been x86-based (Intel and AMD) servers running either Linux or Windows operating systems. IDC anticipates the worldwide Linux server market will grow 34 percent, to $3.1 billion, in 2003 compared to 2002. The Windows server market is expected to grow 8 percent, to $15.0 billion. "
Sun is doing OK for now, but the long-term trends are tough to ignore. Check out the full article.
Interesting comment. First, you are missing the point of my original comment. Regardless of whether you think Linux is as good as Solaris, the fact of the matter is that Linux's marketshare is growing rapidly, while Sun's is shrinking. Second, Linux is permeating the enterprise market in ways that you apparently don't see.
It reminds me of the situation in the late 1990s, when everyone was running their dot-com web apps on Solaris, with Sun hardware. "This is mission-critical. There's no way we'd run it on Linux."
Now you don't hear that about web apps. The Sun worshippers now declare that while it's OK to use Linux for web apps, it's not suitable for things outside of Web application development.
I wonder how it will take before the comments shift to something like this: "Linux is OK for web apps and clustering and data warehousing and and as an embedded OS, but it's not nearly as capable as Solaris for ... ."
While this may sound like a luxury, throughout human history "free time" has been an indicator of wealth. Those who have to spend all of their time on day to day tasks have less time for leisure. Those who have mechanisms (servants, for example) at hand to take care of the myriad little tasks that pop up in daily life therefore have more time to spend doing whatever they like.
The Internet shortens the amount of time we have to spend on arranging the minutiae of life, and provides the *option* to spend more of our time on pursuits that we find enjoyable. How people spend that extra time (by working that much harder, by watching more TV, by going on a hike, etc.) is up to the individual. But if the duty of a representative government is to help improve the quality of its citizens' lives, then a robust Internet infrastructure is something governments should be pursuing.
The above points don't even touch on the *potential* productivity gains possible through true integration of the Internet into the fabric of business and government.
Linux plays a role in the server market whether you want to "believe" in it or not. His elliptical method of writing is pure corporatese, and serves as a classic example of why Sun is in a pretty scary position right now. Rather than address reality, they're avoiding it with sneaky turns of phrase.
Apple Logos Dispute Settled
LONDON (AP)
Saturday, October 12, 1991
A multimillion dollar trademark battle between Apple Computer Inc. and the Beatles' Apple Corps holding company over their similar corporate logos has ended with an out-of-court settlement.
Apple Corps, formed by the Beatles in 1963 to manage their music rights, accused Apple Computer of violating a 1981 agreement by using its apple logo on music-synthesizing equipment.
Apple Computer's logo features a horizontally striped apple with a bite out of it and a leaf on top, while the Apple Corp logo is an apple with a stalk on top.
The two-year-old dispute centered on Apple Computer's musical instrument digital interface or Midi. Apple Corps contended the personal computer maker had agreed to use the apple logo only on computer equipment in order to avoid interfering with the British company's music business.
Gordon Pollock, a lawyer for Apple Corps, said in the High Court on Friday that the companies had reached an amicable settlement.
Apple Corps sued Apple Computer in the court last Oct. 29. "It has been a long, hard road," Pollock said. He said the terms of the settlement were confidential.
The San Francisco Chronicle cited one report that it said called for Apple Computer to pay $29 million. The newspaper did not reveal the source of the report.
Apple Computer, based in Cupertino, Calif., disclosed in July that it had put about $38 million in reserve to settle the litigation.
Apple Corps is owned by the three surviving members of the Beatles Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr and by the estate of John Lennon, who was shot to death in New York in December 1980.
London news reports said the case cost the two companies an estimated 7 million pounds ($11.9 million) in lawyers' fees and other costs.
Apple Corps was asking for a worldwide ban on the use of the Apple Computer logo on music-synthesizing equipment designed by Apple Computer.
Lawyers for Apple Computer argued that the agreement was unenforceable and that Apple Corps' claim violated the 1957 Treaty of Rome that set up the European Common Market.
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I'd argue that moderation makes quality. Without it, you have undifferentiated crap, with the occasionally intelligent comment thrown in. Moderation is what makes Slashdot truly useful.