On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 15:49:18 -0700, in
<4c79929c$0$1616$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>, SMS
<scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
>On 8/28/2010 3:25 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:
>
>> Oh please- if there was a vast untapped market for Linux, we'd see more
>> Linux machines. Even netbooks, which were perfect for Linux, due to
>> their low specs, spec'd up to use Windows due to consumer demand.
>
>Oh g-d, don't get me started on Linux and trying to support six
>different versions each with multiple versions of the kernel.
>
>Sure, we'd be happy to hire six more Linux gurus at a burdened cost of
>$250,000 per year to write drivers for you--after all you're buying 1000
>devices. Would you like some custom silicon to go with that? How about
>of bowl of chili?
>
>Those that claim it was some sort of market power conspiracy against
>Linux are extremely clueless. Linux is free if time has no value.
Linux is hard to support only if expertise is absent. You must not know
how to do it, but that doesn't mean everyone else is so handicapped.
--
John
"It is better to sit in silence and appear ignorant,
than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." -Mark Twain
"A little learning is a dangerous thing." -Alexander Pope
"Being ignorant is not so much a shame,
as being unwilling to learn." -Benjamin Franklin
"John Navas" <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote in message
news:i05j765lepa9j3cnfpca2t485ec9g95b73@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:50:54 -0600, in
> <Bpgeo.76243$1F6.62053@newsfe01.iad>, Todd Allcock
> <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>
>>At 28 Aug 2010 14:40:06 -0700 John Navas wrote:
>
>>> I think it's more a matter of, "See? Now we're doing cloud computing!"
>>> But the problems, again, are reaction and timing -- Microsoft is locked
>>> in a pattern of reacting to the _last_ cycle, trying to defend its
>>> dinosaurs, instead of leading on the Next Big Thing, which is the real
>>> reason I think WinMo7 is doomed to fail -- being 1-2 years late is all
>>> but the kiss of death is high-tech mobile devices.
>>
>>Perhaps, but I think it's more of trying to keep their "old-guard"
>>products relevant longer.
>
> Sure. But that's defending the past at the expense of the future.
Aren't you the guy advocating they buy RIM?
>>Have you used Office Live? Very slick,
>>integrates well with "on site" Office,
>
> I agree. I think it would have been killer say 5 years ago, but now is
> a symptom of Microsoft reacting to increasingly less relevant old
> battles instead of leading on new battles, like the French reinforcing
> the Maginot line instead of developing mobile armor and artillery and
> air defenses.
If Office Live extends the market for Office, it'll be worth it. Part of
embracing the "future" is knowing when the past is no longer relevant.
Office, Exchange, Windows, etc. are still giant cash cows, and will continue
to be for quite some time, so MS should be milking them as long as possible.
>>and overall has a better "real
>>app" feel than Google Docs. (To be fair, GooDocs hasn't seen a major
>>update in a while- I suspect Google has some leapfrogging up their sleeves
>>which makes things better for we consumers.)
>
> I think Google Docs was in large part a diversionary tactic that drew
> Microsoft away from the things it really needed to do.
I think it was another in a long line of Google Experiments. My son's
school uses Google Docs exclusively for the students documents. No software
required, and free storage in the cloud. It doesn't matter which laptop the
kids log into- their documents are on it (via the cloud) and so it the app
they need. The educational benefits are excellent, and it's good for low
spec machines, like the ancient PCs and laptops schools contend with.
Between GDocs and Office Live, I don't even bother with an Office suite on
my oldest netbook any longer (the poor ancient ASUS EEE PC with 4GB SSD.
The 200MB Open Office or Office 2000 chewed up were significant real estate
on that device!)
>>> Microsoft needs to
>>> _lead_ the target, not shoot _at_ the target, which is long gone by the
>>> time the slow Microsoft bullet arrives. It should start with a blank
>>> sheet of paper, and no relationship to Windows and Office whatsoever,
>>> most logically by acquisition, RIM for market share plus some cool
>>> technology startups to put lipstick on it.
>>
>>I disagree- RIM is dangerously close to becoming a niche player without a
>>major overhaul (and the increased fragmention that brings.) MS already
>>had one of those with WinMo- two if you include Sidekick.
>
> RIM still has a dominant market share lead, and a pretty loyal base,
> which I think you may be underestimating.
People are as loyal as their options. Enterprise still loves RIM, for the
security, and ease of use (essentially a single UI and form factor among
most devices- if you've spent any time with a Blackberry, you can manage to
find your way around any of them.)
Consumer users are becoming less enamored of them, IMO. And if MS bought
them, they'd certainly screw them up "reimagining" them, like they did to
Sidekick.
>>MS is giving WP7 some very exciting XBox integration if that's your thing
>>(it isn't mine!) integrated social networking features (yawn) and a Kin-
>>like cloud mirroring of device data (laugh at Kin all you want, but the
>>seamless cloud backup was pretty slick- almost Android-on-steroids.)
>
> I'm not sure there's still room for another player (which WinMo7 is by
> virtue of abandoning WinMo6), and I think Microsoft is going about this
> in a way that's doomed to fail. I think the only real hope of saving
> WinMo7 would be to immediately announce app compatibility with WinMo6,
> and then figure out how to do it quick quick. If Windows 7 had been the
> same kind of complete break with Windows Vista, then I think it would
> still be struggling now.
That assumed WinMo6 had the same type of ubiquitous market reach that
XP/Vista had. Look around your friends, relatives and clients- how many WM6
handsets do you see, vs. Blackberries, iPhones and even Androids. MS needs
backwards compatibility probably as much as WebOS did. It'd be nice, but it
won't make or break it. (In fact, as much as I'd like to see it personally
for selfish reasons, backwards compatibility would likely "break" WP7- it
typically needs cursor hardware, and a much finer controlled touchscreen,
which doesn't lend itself to finger-friendliness.)
What WinMo really needed was a ground up rewrite to eliminate bloat and
redundant legacy code floating around since the Pocket PC days, and a new UI
that was finger friendly all the way to the core- not just until you drilled
down to an app or user settings that presented the same old interface my
Casio E-100 had in 1999! That coupled with a more realistic minimum spec
would've been enough, IMO, if Microsoft put the resources and marketing
behind it. But they don't pay me to make those decisions.
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:40:59 -0600, in
<zpgeo.76242$1F6.67811@newsfe01.iad>, Todd Allcock
<elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>At 28 Aug 2010 18:16:45 -0400 nospam wrote:
>> you can't be serious. is winmo that much of a piece of **** that you
>> actually had to do that?
>
>No, but a particularly buggy HTC handset (my T-Mo MDA/HTC Wizard) was.
>My AT&T Tilt and current Sony X1 are about as rock solid as any phone
>I've used, though I still rebooted them one or twice a week "just in
>case."
Your Microsoft conditioning must run pretty deep.
(That's a joke!)
If I thought I had to reboot a phone that often, I'd get rid of it.
If Microsoft made cars...
In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release
stating (by Mr Welch himself, The GM CEO): If GM had developed
technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the
following characteristics:
1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to
buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason,
and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause
your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would
have to reinstall the engine.
5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought
"Car95" or "CarNT." But then you would have to buy more seats.
6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable,
five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run
on five per cent of the roads.
7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be
replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.
8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
9. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out
and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the
door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.
11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of
Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they
neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option
would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or
more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the
Justice Department.
12. Everytime GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn
how to drive all over again because none of the controls would
operate in the same manner as the old car.
13. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine.
In article <vu5j76dgit39on933u8bd50qbu2o1jms1o@4ax.com>, John Navas
<spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
> >Apple realized that a tablet couldn't be a general purpose computer and
> >remain light enough with good enough battery life to appeal to the
> >masses. The iPad is very impressive.
>
> To the masses.
yes, and? there's a lot more masses buying products than there are
techno-geeks. marketing to them is smart.
nospam wrote on [Sat, 28 Aug 2010 18:18:11 -0400]:
> In article <5uti76t224a3k2ompqfoe3bt0tamlie3e9@4ax.com>, John Navas
> <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>
>> >>>> There's no debate that Android was a direct response to the popularity
>> >>>> of the iPhone. If the iPhone had been available on other carriers
>> >>>> Android would never have had such enormous success.
>> >>>
>> >>> Your usual Appeal to Authority Fallacy ("no debate", "all experts
>> >>> agree", etc, etc, ad nauseam, ad infinitum).
>> >>>
>> >>> Android was a startup to do mobile devices based on Linux, not a
>> >>> response to Apple, that was later acquired by Google. Learn the real
>> >>> facts (history).
>> >>
>> >> yes android was a startup to do mobile devices based on linux, and if
>> >> you look at what it was early on and what it is now, it's very clear
>> >> that it was greatly influenced by apple. i think andy rubin even said
>> >> as much.
>>
>> Only after it was well along, mostly after Google acquired and
>> redirected it, and even then mostly in just the UI area.
>
> in other words, they *are* copying a lot of what makes the iphone
> popular.
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:40:50 -0600, in
<48heo.26921$yr6.22926@newsfe05.iad>, "Todd Allcock"
<elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>"John Navas" <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote in message
>news:i05j765lepa9j3cnfpca2t485ec9g95b73@4ax.com.. .
>> Sure. But that's defending the past at the expense of the future.
>
>Aren't you the guy advocating they buy RIM?
No, that was an article. I don't think it's a great idea -- I just
think it might make more sense than what Microsoft is trying to do now.
>> I agree. I think it would have been killer say 5 years ago, but now is
>> a symptom of Microsoft reacting to increasingly less relevant old
>> battles instead of leading on new battles, like the French reinforcing
>> the Maginot line instead of developing mobile armor and artillery and
>> air defenses.
>
>If Office Live extends the market for Office, it'll be worth it. Part of
>embracing the "future" is knowing when the past is no longer relevant.
>Office, Exchange, Windows, etc. are still giant cash cows, and will continue
>to be for quite some time, so MS should be milking them as long as possible.
The essence of a "cash cow" is that you keep milking it but _stop_
feeding it, investing the feed and milk in more productive long term
opportunities instead. All those legacy products should be getting is
lipstick.
>> I think Google Docs was in large part a diversionary tactic that drew
>> Microsoft away from the things it really needed to do.
>
>I think it was another in a long line of Google Experiments. My son's
>school uses Google Docs exclusively for the students documents. No software
>required, and free storage in the cloud. It doesn't matter which laptop the
>kids log into- their documents are on it (via the cloud) and so it the app
>they need. The educational benefits are excellent, and it's good for low
>spec machines, like the ancient PCs and laptops schools contend with.
>Between GDocs and Office Live, I don't even bother with an Office suite on
>my oldest netbook any longer (the poor ancient ASUS EEE PC with 4GB SSD.
>The 200MB Open Office or Office 2000 chewed up were significant real estate
>on that device!)
Sure, but I think it was more a long term effort to support mobile
devices, like a Google/Android tablet, but largely irrelevant in the
short term except being taken as a diversionary attack on Microsoft
(which is why there's been so little follow-through recently).
(Sun tried the same tactic, but bungled it badly.)
>> RIM still has a dominant market share lead, and a pretty loyal base,
>> which I think you may be underestimating.
>
>People are as loyal as their options.
I still think you are (seriously) underestimating brand loyalty.
>Enterprise still loves RIM, for the
>security, and ease of use (essentially a single UI and form factor among
>most devices- if you've spent any time with a Blackberry, you can manage to
>find your way around any of them.)
>
>Consumer users are becoming less enamored of them, IMO.
That's only because RIM has fallen so far behind in coolness, lost all
the mojo, lost the buzz, problems that could be fixed, although it would
take a major effort. But like Microsoft, RIM is too busy fighting the
old battles to do the job it needs to do in new battles, witness the
BlackBerry Torch, OK but no more than that.
>And if MS bought
>them, they'd certainly screw them up "reimagining" them, like they did to
>Sidekick.
That's a bad analogy -- Microsoft was after Danger, not Sidekick.
>> I'm not sure there's still room for another player (which WinMo7 is by
>> virtue of abandoning WinMo6), and I think Microsoft is going about this
>> in a way that's doomed to fail. I think the only real hope of saving
>> WinMo7 would be to immediately announce app compatibility with WinMo6,
>> and then figure out how to do it quick quick. If Windows 7 had been the
>> same kind of complete break with Windows Vista, then I think it would
>> still be struggling now.
>
>That assumed WinMo6 had the same type of ubiquitous market reach that
>XP/Vista had. Look around your friends, relatives and clients- how many WM6
>handsets do you see, vs. Blackberries, iPhones and even Androids. MS needs
>backwards compatibility probably as much as WebOS did. It'd be nice, but it
>won't make or break it. (In fact, as much as I'd like to see it personally
>for selfish reasons, backwards compatibility would likely "break" WP7- it
>typically needs cursor hardware, and a much finer controlled touchscreen,
>which doesn't lend itself to finger-friendliness.)
I disagree -- when you blow off and piss off your existing customer
base, you create a big additional hurdle that greatly adds to your
marketing challenges.
>What WinMo really needed was a ground up rewrite to eliminate bloat and
>redundant legacy code floating around since the Pocket PC days, and a new UI
>that was finger friendly all the way to the core- not just until you drilled
>down to an app or user settings that presented the same old interface my
>Casio E-100 had in 1999! That coupled with a more realistic minimum spec
>would've been enough, IMO, if Microsoft put the resources and marketing
>behind it. But they don't pay me to make those decisions.
It's not a matter of technology -- it's a matter of understanding users
and the user experience, and making it cool, something Microsoft has
never been terribly good at, with Windows Vista a painful case in point.
--
John
"Assumption is the mother of all screw ups."
[Wethern’s Law of Suspended Judgement]
John Navas wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:40:59 -0600, in
> <zpgeo.76242$1F6.67811@newsfe01.iad>, Todd Allcock
> <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>
>> At 28 Aug 2010 18:16:45 -0400 nospam wrote:
>
>>> you can't be serious. is winmo that much of a piece of **** that you
>>> actually had to do that?
>> No, but a particularly buggy HTC handset (my T-Mo MDA/HTC Wizard) was.
>> My AT&T Tilt and current Sony X1 are about as rock solid as any phone
>> I've used, though I still rebooted them one or twice a week "just in
>> case."
>
> Your Microsoft conditioning must run pretty deep.
> (That's a joke!)
> If I thought I had to reboot a phone that often, I'd get rid of it.
>
>
> If Microsoft made cars...
>
> In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release
> stating (by Mr Welch himself, The GM CEO): If GM had developed
> technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the
> following characteristics:
>
> 1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.
>
> 2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to
> buy a new car.
>
> 3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason,
> and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
>
> 4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause
> your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would
> have to reinstall the engine.
>
> 5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought
> "Car95" or "CarNT." But then you would have to buy more seats.
>
> 6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable,
> five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run
> on five per cent of the roads.
>
> 7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be
> replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.
>
> 8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
>
> 9. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
>
> 10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out
> and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the
> door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.
>
> 11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of
> Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they
> neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option
> would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or
> more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the
> Justice Department.
>
> 12. Everytime GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn
> how to drive all over again because none of the controls would
> operate in the same manner as the old car.
>
> 13. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine.
This must be about the situation ten or twelve years ago. It's
adequately descriptive of the situation ca. 1998.
My copy of Windows XP SP3 has been running for months since the last
reboot. I have a UPS which helps greatly.
Why did I have to reboot months ago? Nothing to do with the O/S and
much to do with the power company's failure to prune the trees in its
right of way. Wet branch contacts power line, power company's fuse
pops. Wait two hours for two men and a truck to show up and replace the
fuse!!!
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 20:23:37 -0400, in
<0IKdnTPMf9UaNeTRnZ2dnUVZ_oqdnZ2d@giganews.com>, "Richard B. Gilbert"
<rgilbert88@comcast.net> wrote:
>John Navas wrote:
>> On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:40:59 -0600, in
>> <zpgeo.76242$1F6.67811@newsfe01.iad>, Todd Allcock
>> <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>>> My AT&T Tilt and current Sony X1 are about as rock solid as any phone
>>> I've used, though I still rebooted them one or twice a week "just in
>>> case."
>>
>> Your Microsoft conditioning must run pretty deep.
>> (That's a joke!)
>> If I thought I had to reboot a phone that often, I'd get rid of it.
>>
>> If Microsoft made cars...
>> [SNIP]
>This must be about the situation ten or twelve years ago. It's
>adequately descriptive of the situation ca. 1998.
>
>My copy of Windows XP SP3 has been running for months since the last
>reboot. I have a UPS which helps greatly.
>
>Why did I have to reboot months ago? Nothing to do with the O/S and
>much to do with the power company's failure to prune the trees in its
>right of way. Wet branch contacts power line, power company's fuse
>pops. Wait two hours for two men and a truck to show up and replace the
>fuse!!!
Sure, and that's the point -- you shouldn't have to reboot your cell
phone either!
--
John
"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea - massive,
difficult to redirect, awe inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind
boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it." --Gene Spafford
Richard B. Gilbert wrote on [Sat, 28 Aug 2010 20:23:37 -0400]:
> John Navas wrote:
>> On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:40:59 -0600, in
>> <zpgeo.76242$1F6.67811@newsfe01.iad>, Todd Allcock
>> <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>>
>>> At 28 Aug 2010 18:16:45 -0400 nospam wrote:
>>
>>>> you can't be serious. is winmo that much of a piece of **** that you
>>>> actually had to do that?
>>> No, but a particularly buggy HTC handset (my T-Mo MDA/HTC Wizard) was.
>>> My AT&T Tilt and current Sony X1 are about as rock solid as any phone
>>> I've used, though I still rebooted them one or twice a week "just in
>>> case."
>>
>> Your Microsoft conditioning must run pretty deep.
>> (That's a joke!)
>> If I thought I had to reboot a phone that often, I'd get rid of it.
>>
>>
>> If Microsoft made cars...
>>
>> In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release
>> stating (by Mr Welch himself, The GM CEO): If GM had developed
>> technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the
>> following characteristics:
>>
>> 1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.
>>
>> 2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to
>> buy a new car.
>>
>> 3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason,
>> and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
>>
>> 4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause
>> your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would
>> have to reinstall the engine.
>>
>> 5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought
>> "Car95" or "CarNT." But then you would have to buy more seats.
>>
>> 6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable,
>> five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run
>> on five per cent of the roads.
>>
>> 7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be
>> replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.
>>
>> 8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
>>
>> 9. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
>>
>> 10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out
>> and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the
>> door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.
>>
>> 11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of
>> Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they
>> neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option
>> would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or
>> more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the
>> Justice Department.
>>
>> 12. Everytime GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn
>> how to drive all over again because none of the controls would
>> operate in the same manner as the old car.
>>
>> 13. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine.
>
> This must be about the situation ten or twelve years ago. It's
> adequately descriptive of the situation ca. 1998.
>
> My copy of Windows XP SP3 has been running for months since the last
> reboot. I have a UPS which helps greatly.
>
> Why did I have to reboot months ago? Nothing to do with the O/S and
> much to do with the power company's failure to prune the trees in its
> right of way. Wet branch contacts power line, power company's fuse
> pops. Wait two hours for two men and a truck to show up and replace the
> fuse!!!
Perhaps you should be installing OS updates more often then.
Justin wrote:
> Richard B. Gilbert wrote on [Sat, 28 Aug 2010 20:23:37 -0400]:
>> John Navas wrote:
>>> On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:40:59 -0600, in
>>> <zpgeo.76242$1F6.67811@newsfe01.iad>, Todd Allcock
>>> <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> At 28 Aug 2010 18:16:45 -0400 nospam wrote:
>>>>> you can't be serious. is winmo that much of a piece of **** that you
>>>>> actually had to do that?
>>>> No, but a particularly buggy HTC handset (my T-Mo MDA/HTC Wizard) was.
>>>> My AT&T Tilt and current Sony X1 are about as rock solid as any phone
>>>> I've used, though I still rebooted them one or twice a week "just in
>>>> case."
>>> Your Microsoft conditioning must run pretty deep.
>>> (That's a joke!)
>>> If I thought I had to reboot a phone that often, I'd get rid of it.
>>>
>>>
>>> If Microsoft made cars...
>>>
>>> In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release
>>> stating (by Mr Welch himself, The GM CEO): If GM had developed
>>> technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the
>>> following characteristics:
>>>
>>> 1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.
>>>
>>> 2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to
>>> buy a new car.
>>>
>>> 3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason,
>>> and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
>>>
>>> 4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause
>>> your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would
>>> have to reinstall the engine.
>>>
>>> 5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought
>>> "Car95" or "CarNT." But then you would have to buy more seats.
>>>
>>> 6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable,
>>> five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run
>>> on five per cent of the roads.
>>>
>>> 7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be
>>> replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.
>>>
>>> 8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
>>>
>>> 9. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
>>>
>>> 10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out
>>> and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the
>>> door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.
>>>
>>> 11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of
>>> Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they
>>> neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option
>>> would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or
>>> more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the
>>> Justice Department.
>>>
>>> 12. Everytime GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn
>>> how to drive all over again because none of the controls would
>>> operate in the same manner as the old car.
>>>
>>> 13. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine.
>> This must be about the situation ten or twelve years ago. It's
>> adequately descriptive of the situation ca. 1998.
>>
>> My copy of Windows XP SP3 has been running for months since the last
>> reboot. I have a UPS which helps greatly.
>>
>> Why did I have to reboot months ago? Nothing to do with the O/S and
>> much to do with the power company's failure to prune the trees in its
>> right of way. Wet branch contacts power line, power company's fuse
>> pops. Wait two hours for two men and a truck to show up and replace the
>> fuse!!!
>
> Perhaps you should be installing OS updates more often then.
Why? What I have works. It requires almost zero maintenance!
OS updates are not going to make the power company more reliable
or trim the damned trees!
Richard B. Gilbert wrote on [Sat, 28 Aug 2010 21:36:42 -0400]:
> Justin wrote:
>> Richard B. Gilbert wrote on [Sat, 28 Aug 2010 20:23:37 -0400]:
>>> John Navas wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:40:59 -0600, in
>>> My copy of Windows XP SP3 has been running for months since the last
>>> reboot. I have a UPS which helps greatly.
>>>
>>> Why did I have to reboot months ago? Nothing to do with the O/S and
>>> much to do with the power company's failure to prune the trees in its
>>> right of way. Wet branch contacts power line, power company's fuse
>>> pops. Wait two hours for two men and a truck to show up and replace the
>>> fuse!!!
>>
>> Perhaps you should be installing OS updates more often then.
>
> Why? What I have works. It requires almost zero maintenance!
> OS updates are not going to make the power company more reliable
> or trim the damned trees!
Security vulnerabilities. There was just one with shortcuts that can be
used just by opening an icon.
At 28 Aug 2010 16:42:57 -0700 John Navas wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:40:59 -0600, in
> <zpgeo.76242$1F6.67811@newsfe01.iad>, Todd Allcock
> <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>
> >At 28 Aug 2010 18:16:45 -0400 nospam wrote:
>
> >> you can't be serious. is winmo that much of a piece of **** that you
> >> actually had to do that?
> >
> >No, but a particularly buggy HTC handset (my T-Mo MDA/HTC Wizard) was.
> >My AT&T Tilt and current Sony X1 are about as rock solid as any phone
> >I've used, though I still rebooted them one or twice a week "just in
> >case."
>
> Your Microsoft conditioning must run pretty deep.
> (That's a joke!)
> If I thought I had to reboot a phone that often, I'd get rid of it.
Like my typical defense of iOS, an OS I don't particularly like because
of the limitations, you have to look at the totality of the experience.
What WinMo gives me, is worth a little instability (or a lot of it, in
the case of the T-Mo MDA!)
The MDA was fantastically underpowered, using a slow 200MHz CPU, and too
little RAM. It had 64MB of RAM, only about 50MB of which was user
accessible. The WinMo core and phone radio software consumed about 22MB
at startup, leaving 28MB. Two RAM hungry memory resident apps I couldn't
live without at the time took me down to 20MB, which should've been
enough for a PDA phone, but then the infamous "memory leak bug" kicked in-
the OS was unable to reclaim all memory vacated by most third-party apps
when closed. The NNTP client I'm still using to this day, QMail, was an
offender- every time I opened and closed it, I'd lose a MB or two.
By the end of the day, I'd have 4 or 5 MB of RAM free, which wasn't
enough for many of the third-party apps I used. (Opera Mobile, for
example, required 12MB of free RAM or it'd refuse to start, Skype needed
at least 10MB!) I basically had to reboot anytime I wanted to launch
either Opera or Skype. Later versions of WinMo improved the memory leak
issue, thankfully, but never co pletely eliminated it, AFAIK.
> If Microsoft made cars...
>
> In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release
> stating (by Mr Welch himself, The GM CEO): If GM had developed
> technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the
> following characteristics:
>
> 1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.
>
> 2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to
> buy a new car.
>
> 3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason,
> and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
>
> 4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause
> your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would
> have to reinstall the engine.
>
> 5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought
> "Car95" or "CarNT." But then you would have to buy more seats.
>
> 6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable,
> five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run
> on five per cent of the roads.
>
> 7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be
> replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.
>
> 8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
>
> 9. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
>
> 10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out
> and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the
> door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.
>
> 11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of
> Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they
> neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option
> would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or
> more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the
> Justice Department.
>
> 12. Everytime GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn
> how to drive all over again because none of the controls would
> operate in the same manner as the old car.
>
> 13. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine.
I remember that, and it's funny stuff, but in reality, if MS made cars,
the "solution" would be the same as with PCs. Install 2-3 times the RAM
MS recommended!
My AT&T Tilt, another mediocre HTC product, like the MDA, was rock
stable, mostly because it contained 128MB RAM instead of 64MB. MS never
completely fixed the memory leak issue, but with 70MB free at boot up
instead 20MB, you couldn't piss away enough memory to ever have a
problem. My Sony X1 has 200MB (user accessible) RAM (don't ask me what
Sony/HTC does with the other 56MB on the chip! Some kind of ROM shadowing,
IIRC) and I don't even use a Task Manager anymore. (On the MDA I had
assigned the Task Manager app to a hardware button for one-touch access!)
The only time I really have to reboot the Sony is when using a couple of
legacy apps designed for prior WinMo OSes that can go flakey (this NNTP
reader being one of them! It occasionally locks up, and while I can shut
it down without rebooting, it won't run again unless I do.) Another
classic "oops" app is a buggy HTC plug-in for Windows Media player that
allows it to run MP4/Quicktime files. It changes the device's graphic
mode to play .mp4 video, but doesn't always restore the standard OS video
mode when finished, so all OS screen draws after this happens take
noticibly longer until reboot. Either sticking with .wmv or using a
third-party mp4 player app, solves the problem. I'd stick to wmv, but
since my wife uses an iPhone, I tend to rip our stuff to mp4 since WinMo
will play anything, but the iPhone's garden gate doesn't open for wmv!
At 28 Aug 2010 16:33:40 -0700 John Navas wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:25:38 -0600, in
> <W1geo.31383$co1.17565@newsfe11.iad>, Todd Allcock
> <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>
> >At 28 Aug 2010 14:09:19 -0700 John Navas wrote:
>
> >> The issue there was abuse of market power, not cost justification.
> >> Need I cite the cases?
> >
> >Oh please- if there was a vast untapped market for Linux, we'd see more
> >Linux machines. Even netbooks, which were perfect for Linux, due to
> >their low specs, spec'd up to use Windows due to consumer demand.
>
> Too late to make that case -- Microsoft already lost big time, and Linux
> is doing very well pretty much everywhere except on the desktop.
MS lost what? A couple of penny-ante (to MS) lawsuits? Linux does well
in servers, and arguably in mobiles, if you count Android as "Linux."
I'd argue that no one is buying Android because it has Linux under the
hood if you dig deep enough.
> >That's where the in-fighting at MS sabatoges MS products. WinMo,
> >although probably capable of beng an effective laptop replacement, was
> >relegated to PC peripheral status, since its MS overlords wouldn't want
> >$8 WinMo licenses to cannibalize $30 98/XP/Vista laptop licenses. It
was
> >probably no coincidence that old-school WinMo improvements petered out
> >just as netbooks became a killer category for MS. Why encourage the
> >future of mobile computing to become WinCE smartphone-based when it
could
> >be XP netbook-based?
>
> The smart company realizes it's better to eat your own children than to
> have them eaten by others, does the best new product it can, and lets
> the chips fall where they may. The dumb company fights to keep its
> children from getting eaten, a losing and counterproductive battle in
> the long run. This sadly is more Ballmer than Gates, not to mention
> Paul Allen. Had Allen stayed healthy and involved, I think Microsoft
> might well be a much better company today.
Perhaps, but then again, I never said MS was smart!
> >At the risk of raising the ire of the iOS fans, many of the iOS
> >restrictions seemingly have a similar goal- to be useful enough people
> >want one as an additional device, but not so useful it could replace a
> >laptop for most users.
>
> Yep, and it may well prove to be Apple's undoing in time.
I doubt it- I think there's plenty of room for net appliances. The iPad
is just the 21st century Audrey- a fantastic concept released before the
tech was really ready.
> >In the end, there's plenty of room for a Microsoft smartphone in an
> >iPhone and Android world-
>
> and RIM and Nokia and WebOS and MeeGo, arguably others as well.
> Sorry, but I'm willing to bet the best Microsoft can do now is a niche,
> and I don't see a viable niche, at least not yet. I'd say maybe gaming,
> but it looks like the Sony juggernaut has finally woken up.
But so has MS, computing's real 800lb. Gorilla. They're late to the
party (again) but they've made their intention to be a major player
clear. That has to make some of the other players pee their pants just a
little. So far, I admit I'm not a huge fan of what I'm seeing- despite
the outdated UI and bloat, I'm very happy with old-school WinMo, because
I "get" it. Unlike most consumers, I _want_ a general-purpose Windows
"palmtop" computer rather than a savantphone that does a few things
really well. Besides the obvious slap-in-the-face to my mobile "wish-
list" WP7 is, I agree the feature set is too-little-too-late at first.
But so was IE 1.0 compared to Netscape, or Word 1.0 compared to
WordPerfect, or Excel 1.0 compared to Lotus 1-2-3. How'd that work out
for all of them?
MS is like the government- the wheels move slowly, but they have
(comparitively) infinite resources, and nothing but time. It's still
early in the smartphone game- only 1-in-5 phones sold today are "smart."
Let's see whose still standing in five years, and with what market share.
>
> >users can pick their ideal smartphone to
> >"match" their choice of preferred services- those in the
> >Apple/iPod/iTunes/MobileMe ecosystem would choose iOS, Gmail/GooCal
users
> >could adopt Android, and MS Live/Office/XBox/Exchange users, (as well
as
> >all seventeen Zune owners!) would gravitate to WP7.
>
> That sounds good in theory, but in practice users tend to cluster to
> 1 or 2 big winners, just as in the desktop OS and server OS battles.
> Remember Novell? Is that what you mean by "plenty of room"?
No, using your own examples, people tend to cluster around MS and one
other player. That's what I mean by there's "plenty of room," if you're
Microsoft.
Game consoles seem to be doing ok as a three-way race, and mobiles are
such a large market there's plenty of room for more than three, IMO-
Symbian, RIM, Apple and Google are all getting along ok, and poor old
WinMo is still selling a million units a month somehow without any
advertising or much support from carriers or manufacturers right now.
(Even after MS threw all the OEMs under the bus announcing WP7 eight
months prior to release, and declaring no current WinMo device would be
upgradable- just as HTC and Samsung were releasing their flagship
Snapdragon-based large-screen WinMo phones! I'd be like Ford announcing
they've invented a car that runs on tap water, it'll be released next near,
and current gasoline cars can't be converted to run on water. Good luck
selling the existing model year lineup, Ford Dealers!)
MS has the resources to outlast and outspend virtually anyone. Hopefully
their product will be worthy of the effort MS will likely expend pushing
it down our collective throats!
The fact that MS already had HTC, Samsung, LG and Dell on board with
nothing more than vapor and a few dog-and-pony demos on prototype
equipment, tells me they're both serious, and won't take failure as an
option.
At 28 Aug 2010 17:06:05 -0700 John Navas wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:40:50 -0600, in
> <48heo.26921$yr6.22926@newsfe05.iad>, "Todd Allcock"
> <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>
> >"John Navas" <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote in message
> >news:i05j765lepa9j3cnfpca2t485ec9g95b73@4ax.com.. .
>
> >> Sure. But that's defending the past at the expense of the future.
> >
> >Aren't you the guy advocating they buy RIM?
>
> No, that was an article. I don't think it's a great idea -- I just
> think it might make more sense than what Microsoft is trying to do now.
Blackberry OS and WinMo have too much in common- they're both tired OSes,
designed for a narrower purpose, that have been kludged to play on the
same field with more modern OSes. The effort to rebuild Blackberry for
the expectations of modern users is the same as for WinMo, and a
wholesale change to Blackberry OS would strand a larger and more fervent
customer base than WinMo enjoys.
> >> I agree. I think it would have been killer say 5 years ago, but now
is
> >> a symptom of Microsoft reacting to increasingly less relevant old
> >> battles instead of leading on new battles, like the French
reinforcing
> >> the Maginot line instead of developing mobile armor and artillery and
> >> air defenses.
> >
> >If Office Live extends the market for Office, it'll be worth it. Part
of
> >embracing the "future" is knowing when the past is no longer relevant.
> >Office, Exchange, Windows, etc. are still giant cash cows, and will
continue
> >to be for quite some time, so MS should be milking them as long as
possible.
>
> The essence of a "cash cow" is that you keep milking it but _stop_
> feeding it, investing the feed and milk in more productive long term
> opportunities instead. All those legacy products should be getting is
> lipstick.
Arguably that's all they are getting anyway- Office 2010 seems little
more than 2007 "now with clouds!" and the typical seemingly random
reworking of the UI to keep the "How To" book publishers in clover, and
Windows 7 is probably what Vista would've been if they released it after
Vista was finished instead of before!
> >> I think Google Docs was in large part a diversionary tactic that drew
> >> Microsoft away from the things it really needed to do.
> >
> >I think it was another in a long line of Google Experiments. My son's
> >school uses Google Docs exclusively for the students documents. No
software
> >required, and free storage in the cloud. It doesn't matter which
laptop the
> >kids log into- their documents are on it (via the cloud) and so it the
app
> >they need. The educational benefits are excellent, and it's good for
low
> >spec machines, like the ancient PCs and laptops schools contend with.
> >Between GDocs and Office Live, I don't even bother with an Office
suite on
> >my oldest netbook any longer (the poor ancient ASUS EEE PC with 4GB SSD.
> >The 200MB Open Office or Office 2000 chewed up were significant real
estate
> >on that device!)
>
> Sure, but I think it was more a long term effort to support mobile
> devices, like a Google/Android tablet, but largely irrelevant in the
> short term except being taken as a diversionary attack on Microsoft
> (which is why there's been so little follow-through recently).
> (Sun tried the same tactic, but bungled it badly.)
Perhaps, but like a lot of Google stuff it might just be like MS R&D-
someone's great idea that dead-ended because it fit no particular
widespread need. Or it was considered a potential fit with another
concurrent or future product (e.g. a prototype or proof-of-concept office
suite for Chrome OS.)
Either way, rich cloud apps are still more awkward to use than those
installed down here on Earth, so MS has quite awhile to keep milking!
> >> RIM still has a dominant market share lead, and a pretty loyal base,
> >> which I think you may be underestimating.
> >
> >People are as loyal as their options.
>
> I still think you are (seriously) underestimating brand loyalty.
Could be- I know a few Crackberry lovers, but every one happily checked
out my wife's iPhone back when she first got it. Most are still glued to
their 'Berries, but they're looking for a new reason to fall in love with
them again!
> >Enterprise still loves RIM, for the
> >security, and ease of use (essentially a single UI and form factor
among
> >most devices- if you've spent any time with a Blackberry, you can
manage to
> >find your way around any of them.)
> >
> >Consumer users are becoming less enamored of them, IMO.
>
> That's only because RIM has fallen so far behind in coolness, lost all
> the mojo, lost the buzz, problems that could be fixed, although it would
> take a major effort. But like Microsoft, RIM is too busy fighting the
> old battles to do the job it needs to do in new battles, witness the
> BlackBerry Torch, OK but no more than that.
My point above about effort. MS trying to beat the current Windows
Mobile or Blackberry OS into an iOS or Android-class mobile OS might be
like trying to pass off Windows 98 SP22 as a modern desktop OS.
> >And if MS bought
> >them, they'd certainly screw them up "reimagining" them, like they did
to
> >Sidekick.
>
> That's a bad analogy -- Microsoft was after Danger, not Sidekick.
Sidekick is just the US branding of Danger.
And what did MS do when they bought Danger? Spun their wheels, then
fired the top Danger people and crashed their servers! Then they
created Kin/Verizon Contractual Obligation Phone 1.0, and let the MS in-
fighting kill it to focus on WP7.
> >> I'm not sure there's still room for another player (which WinMo7 is
by
> >> virtue of abandoning WinMo6), and I think Microsoft is going about
this
> >> in a way that's doomed to fail. I think the only real hope of saving
> >> WinMo7 would be to immediately announce app compatibility with WinMo6,
> >> and then figure out how to do it quick quick. If Windows 7 had been
the
> >> same kind of complete break with Windows Vista, then I think it would
> >> still be struggling now.
> >
> >That assumed WinMo6 had the same type of ubiquitous market reach that
> >XP/Vista had. Look around your friends, relatives and clients- how
many WM6
> >handsets do you see, vs. Blackberries, iPhones and even Androids. MS
needs
> >backwards compatibility probably as much as WebOS did. It'd be nice,
but it
> >won't make or break it. (In fact, as much as I'd like to see it
personally
> >for selfish reasons, backwards compatibility would likely "break" WP7-
it
> >typically needs cursor hardware, and a much finer controlled
touchscreen,
> >which doesn't lend itself to finger-friendliness.)
>
> I disagree -- when you blow off and piss off your existing customer
> base, you create a big additional hurdle that greatly adds to your
> marketing challenges.
Typically, yes, but MS apparently feels there aren't enough of _me_ out
there to worry about! At some point you have to jettison backwards
compatibility if it's holding you back. Part of XP's success was MS'
willingness to kiss a lot of DOS/Win 3.x compatibility goodbye. I'm
certainly in a tiny minority of folks who thought WinMo was still viable.
MS apparently feels there isn't enough lipstick on the planet to save
the WinMo 6.x pig!
> >What WinMo really needed was a ground up rewrite to eliminate bloat
and
> >redundant legacy code floating around since the Pocket PC days, and a
new UI
> >that was finger friendly all the way to the core- not just until you
drilled
> >down to an app or user settings that presented the same old interface
my
> >Casio E-100 had in 1999! That coupled with a more realistic minimum
spec
> >would've been enough, IMO, if Microsoft put the resources and
marketing
> >behind it. But they don't pay me to make those decisions.
>
> It's not a matter of technology -- it's a matter of understanding users
> and the user experience, and making it cool, something Microsoft has
> never been terribly good at, with Windows Vista a painful case in point.
I'm apparently in another minority- I thought Vista _was_ "cool." It was
just an unfinished, bloated, work-in-progress that would've been fine
after another SP or two. MS, however, seized an opportunity to rework
it, change the UI and rename it "7," allowing it to leave the bad press
behind, while simultaneously enabling themselves to charge an upgrade fee
for it. If the very same 7 had been released as Vista SP3, the tech
press would've been less enthusiastic, and MS would be giving it away
instead of selling it to Vista users!
Similarly, if WP7 had been just another reworked WinMo, the tech press
would be far more skeptical, since both WM6 and 6.5 were supposed to be
the "new and improved" WinMo poised to grab significant market share.
Instead, MS is practically bragging about its limitations and
shortcomings as if to "prove" it's completely different from that other
"failed" Windows phone OS.
And make no mistake, WP7 is pretty "cool." If that was my main criteria
for a mobile OS, I'd be excited right now. Unfortunately I fear it'll be
more sizzle than steak, at least when released.
Personally, I predict WP7 will follow the iPhone OS strategy- release
with a laughably tiny feature set hidden under a slick, fun, UI, and add
the missing features over time, along with the bloat, UI complications,
and sluggishness that comes with feature creep. By then, however, the
ecosystem and user base is in place. I'm enjoying the irony that Steve
Jobs once said "if you see a task manager, (we) blew it." Guess what
launches when you double tap the iOS home button? Yep- the "we blew it"
app. The difference, I believe, is that MS will get in one year, where
it took Apple three, because the "missing" stuff is likely stuff that was
actually planned, but couldn't be ready by the 1.0 release, where the
missing stuff in iOS was Apple's inexperience in the mobile space,
assuming people didn't actually need or want cut and paste, background
tasks, rich third-party apps or file sync. I predict WP7 updates will be
flying fast and furious in year one, as MS concentrates on improving the
user experience and repairing their reputation in mobile devices. I
might even _like_ WP7 2.0, um, WP8, er, whatever.
(I realize I may be giving MS far more credit than they're due, but I'd
like to believe they learned SOMETHING from a decade of selling WinCE-
based devices!)
At 28 Aug 2010 21:36:42 -0400 Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
> Justin wrote:
> > Perhaps you should be installing OS updates more often then.
>
> Why? What I have works. It requires almost zero maintenance!
> OS updates are not going to make the power company more reliable
> or trim the damned trees!
I think Justin means the monthy MS security updates, which usually
require a reboot after install. If your PC has run for "months" without
rebooting, you either have automatic updates disabled, or you just don't
realize your PC reboots itself every few Wednesday mornings around 3AM...
Justin wrote:
> Richard B. Gilbert wrote on [Sat, 28 Aug 2010 21:36:42 -0400]:
>> Justin wrote:
>>> Richard B. Gilbert wrote on [Sat, 28 Aug 2010 20:23:37 -0400]:
>>>> John Navas wrote:
>>>>> On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:40:59 -0600, in
>>>> My copy of Windows XP SP3 has been running for months since the last
>>>> reboot. I have a UPS which helps greatly.
>>>>
>>>> Why did I have to reboot months ago? Nothing to do with the O/S and
>>>> much to do with the power company's failure to prune the trees in its
>>>> right of way. Wet branch contacts power line, power company's fuse
>>>> pops. Wait two hours for two men and a truck to show up and replace the
>>>> fuse!!!
>>> Perhaps you should be installing OS updates more often then.
>> Why? What I have works. It requires almost zero maintenance!
>> OS updates are not going to make the power company more reliable
>> or trim the damned trees!
>
> Security vulnerabilities. There was just one with shortcuts that can be
> used just by opening an icon.
If my systems were exposed to strangers, I'd worry about it. As it
happens, they are all located in my home to which only I and my wife
have access. My router/firewall does not allow connections to be opened
from outside. And finally, you could publish, in the New York Times,
anything stored on my Unix systems and it wouldn't bother me in the least!
I suspect you would have to pay the Times to publish it; i.e. pay
advertising rates for the space!
Todd Allcock wrote:
> At 28 Aug 2010 21:36:42 -0400 Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
>> Justin wrote:
>
>>> Perhaps you should be installing OS updates more often then.
>> Why? What I have works. It requires almost zero maintenance!
>> OS updates are not going to make the power company more reliable
>> or trim the damned trees!
>
>
> I think Justin means the monthy MS security updates, which usually
> require a reboot after install. If your PC has run for "months" without
> rebooting, you either have automatic updates disabled, or you just don't
> realize your PC reboots itself every few Wednesday mornings around 3AM...
>
It might also be the case that 99.44% of the bugs and security holes
have been fixed in the version, plus patches, that I'm running.
Todd Allcock wrote on [Sat, 28 Aug 2010 23:21:06 -0600]:
> At 28 Aug 2010 16:33:40 -0700 John Navas wrote:
>> On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:25:38 -0600, in
>> <W1geo.31383$co1.17565@newsfe11.iad>, Todd Allcock
>> <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>>
>> >At 28 Aug 2010 14:09:19 -0700 John Navas wrote:
>>
> MS lost what? A couple of penny-ante (to MS) lawsuits? Linux does well
> in servers, and arguably in mobiles, if you count Android as "Linux."
> I'd argue that no one is buying Android because it has Linux under the
> hood if you dig deep enough.
I did. But I am like that.
>> and RIM and Nokia and WebOS and MeeGo, arguably others as well.
>> Sorry, but I'm willing to bet the best Microsoft can do now is a niche,
>> and I don't see a viable niche, at least not yet. I'd say maybe gaming,
>> but it looks like the Sony juggernaut has finally woken up.
>
>
> But so has MS, computing's real 800lb. Gorilla. They're late to the
> party (again) but they've made their intention to be a major player
> clear. That has to make some of the other players pee their pants just a
When has Microsoft been early to the party, or on time?
Even DOS, Windows and Office were late to the party. I guess they were
smart in that they got BASIC on a whole lot of computers to start out with
> MS is like the government- the wheels move slowly, but they have
> (comparitively) infinite resources, and nothing but time. It's still
> early in the smartphone game- only 1-in-5 phones sold today are "smart."
> Let's see whose still standing in five years, and with what market share.
IE was complete crap in its first few releases, yet look where that went
They are certainly a slow burn.
> Game consoles seem to be doing ok as a three-way race, and mobiles are
Richard B. Gilbert wrote on [Sun, 29 Aug 2010 08:53:45 -0400]:
> Justin wrote:
>> Richard B. Gilbert wrote on [Sat, 28 Aug 2010 21:36:42 -0400]:
>>> Justin wrote:
>>>> Richard B. Gilbert wrote on [Sat, 28 Aug 2010 20:23:37 -0400]:
>>>>> John Navas wrote:
>>>>>> On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:40:59 -0600, in
>>>>> My copy of Windows XP SP3 has been running for months since the last
>>>>> reboot. I have a UPS which helps greatly.
>>>>>
>>>>> Why did I have to reboot months ago? Nothing to do with the O/S and
>>>>> much to do with the power company's failure to prune the trees in its
>>>>> right of way. Wet branch contacts power line, power company's fuse
>>>>> pops. Wait two hours for two men and a truck to show up and replace the
>>>>> fuse!!!
>>>> Perhaps you should be installing OS updates more often then.
>>> Why? What I have works. It requires almost zero maintenance!
>>> OS updates are not going to make the power company more reliable
>>> or trim the damned trees!
>>
>> Security vulnerabilities. There was just one with shortcuts that can be
>> used just by opening an icon.
>
> If my systems were exposed to strangers, I'd worry about it. As it
> happens, they are all located in my home to which only I and my wife
> have access. My router/firewall does not allow connections to be opened
> from outside. And finally, you could publish, in the New York Times,
> anything stored on my Unix systems and it wouldn't bother me in the least!
Doesn't matter if you block all incoming accesses, there are plenty of other
vectors that can hit you just by browsing a web site.
> MS lost what? A couple of penny-ante (to MS) lawsuits? Linux does well
> in servers, and arguably in mobiles, if you count Android as "Linux."
> I'd argue that no one is buying Android because it has Linux under the
> hood if you dig deep enough.
Microsoft has lost. It's over. Based on the statistics from
"http://www.webmasterpro.de", Windows has only about 93.4% of the
desktop market place while OS-X holds about 5%, and Linux holds 1.3%
(actually the Linux share is less because that 1.3% includes both the
desktop and server side, but the numbers don't include Windows Server.
If you include all OSes, not just desktop OSes, it looks even worse for
Microsoft, with their market share falling to just under 92% with
Apple's iOS taking most of the 1.5% away from Microsoft.
It will only get worse for Microsoft. If they don't come up with a
winning product for the mobile device embedded market they'll see their
market share fall below 90% in a few years.
Microsoft doesn't give up on crucial markets. They come back again and
again. They have virtually unlimited resources. Ask Apple. Ask Novell.
Ask Sony. Don't count them out of the phone/tablet market quite yet.
Justin wrote:
> Todd Allcock wrote on [Sat, 28 Aug 2010 23:21:06 -0600]:
>> At 28 Aug 2010 16:33:40 -0700 John Navas wrote:
>>> On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:25:38 -0600, in
>>> <W1geo.31383$co1.17565@newsfe11.iad>, Todd Allcock
>>> <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> At 28 Aug 2010 14:09:19 -0700 John Navas wrote:
>> MS lost what? A couple of penny-ante (to MS) lawsuits? Linux does well
>> in servers, and arguably in mobiles, if you count Android as "Linux."
>> I'd argue that no one is buying Android because it has Linux under the
>> hood if you dig deep enough.
>
> I did. But I am like that.
>
>>> and RIM and Nokia and WebOS and MeeGo, arguably others as well.
>>> Sorry, but I'm willing to bet the best Microsoft can do now is a niche,
>>> and I don't see a viable niche, at least not yet. I'd say maybe gaming,
>>> but it looks like the Sony juggernaut has finally woken up.
>>
>> But so has MS, computing's real 800lb. Gorilla. They're late to the
>> party (again) but they've made their intention to be a major player
>> clear. That has to make some of the other players pee their pants just a
>
> When has Microsoft been early to the party, or on time?
> Even DOS, Windows and Office were late to the party. I guess they were
> smart in that they got BASIC on a whole lot of computers to start out with
>
>> MS is like the government- the wheels move slowly, but they have
>> (comparitively) infinite resources, and nothing but time. It's still
>> early in the smartphone game- only 1-in-5 phones sold today are "smart."
>> Let's see whose still standing in five years, and with what market share.
>
> IE was complete crap in its first few releases, yet look where that went
> They are certainly a slow burn.
>
>
>
>> Game consoles seem to be doing ok as a three-way race, and mobiles are
>
> What are the three?
> The DS outsells them all.
>
What is the "DS"? Please don't abbreviate unless you are certain that
your entire audience will recognize and understand it!
Richard B. Gilbert wrote on [Sun, 29 Aug 2010 10:17:13 -0400]:
> Justin wrote:
>> Todd Allcock wrote on [Sat, 28 Aug 2010 23:21:06 -0600]:
>>> At 28 Aug 2010 16:33:40 -0700 John Navas wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:25:38 -0600, in
>>>> <W1geo.31383$co1.17565@newsfe11.iad>, Todd Allcock
>>>> <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> At 28 Aug 2010 14:09:19 -0700 John Navas wrote:
>>> MS lost what? A couple of penny-ante (to MS) lawsuits? Linux does well
>>> in servers, and arguably in mobiles, if you count Android as "Linux."
>>> I'd argue that no one is buying Android because it has Linux under the
>>> hood if you dig deep enough.
>>
>> I did. But I am like that.
>>
>>>> and RIM and Nokia and WebOS and MeeGo, arguably others as well.
>>>> Sorry, but I'm willing to bet the best Microsoft can do now is a niche,
>>>> and I don't see a viable niche, at least not yet. I'd say maybe gaming,
>>>> but it looks like the Sony juggernaut has finally woken up.
>>>
>>> But so has MS, computing's real 800lb. Gorilla. They're late to the
>>> party (again) but they've made their intention to be a major player
>>> clear. That has to make some of the other players pee their pants just a
>>
>> When has Microsoft been early to the party, or on time?
>> Even DOS, Windows and Office were late to the party. I guess they were
>> smart in that they got BASIC on a whole lot of computers to start out with
>>
>>> MS is like the government- the wheels move slowly, but they have
>>> (comparitively) infinite resources, and nothing but time. It's still
>>> early in the smartphone game- only 1-in-5 phones sold today are "smart."
>>> Let's see whose still standing in five years, and with what market share.
>>
>> IE was complete crap in its first few releases, yet look where that went
>> They are certainly a slow burn.
>>
>>
>>
>>> Game consoles seem to be doing ok as a three-way race, and mobiles are
>>
>> What are the three?
>> The DS outsells them all.
>>
>
> What is the "DS"? Please don't abbreviate unless you are certain that
> your entire audience will recognize and understand it!
I am not abbreviating, it's called a DS, made by Nintendo.
At 29 Aug 2010 14:10:40 +0000 Justin wrote:
> Todd Allcock wrote on [Sat, 28 Aug 2010 23:21:06 -0600]:
> > Linux does well
> > in servers, and arguably in mobiles, if you count Android as "Linux."
> > I'd argue that no one is buying Android because it has Linux under the
> > hood if you dig deep enough.
>
> I did. But I am like that.
Fair enough- "no one" was an exaggeration.
Do you find the Linux roots of Android to be of any value? It's not like
you can compile Linux app source code to run on the Android device
directly, can you? (Or are you running a Linux distribution alongside
Android- a few guys at xda are running Debian, IIRC.) I used to boot one
of my old WinCE handheld PCs (old PDAs that looked like Netbooks) into
NetBSD, trying to eek a little more life out of it, but it was more
trouble than it was worth (mostly due to flakey drivers for the Handhelds
non-standard hardware) but was fun.
So other than the warm fuzzy feeling Linux is down there somewhere, I'm
curious as to what does it actually do for you?
> > Game consoles seem to be doing ok as a three-way race, and mobiles are
>
> What are the three?
> The DS outsells them all.
DS is a handheld. "Game consoles," at least in my mind, connect to TVs.
At 29 Aug 2010 10:17:13 -0400 Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
> Justin wrote:
> > Todd Allcock wrote on [Sat, 28 Aug 2010 23:21:06 -0600]:
> >> At 28 Aug 2010 16:33:40 -0700 John Navas wrote:
> >>> On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:25:38 -0600, in
> >>> <W1geo.31383$co1.17565@newsfe11.iad>, Todd Allcock
> >>> <elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> At 28 Aug 2010 14:09:19 -0700 John Navas wrote:
> >> MS lost what? A couple of penny-ante (to MS) lawsuits? Linux does
well
> >> in servers, and arguably in mobiles, if you count Android as
"Linux." I'd argue that no one is buying Android because it has Linux
under the
> >> hood if you dig deep enough.
> >
> > I did. But I am like that.
> >
> >>> and RIM and Nokia and WebOS and MeeGo, arguably others as well.
> >>> Sorry, but I'm willing to bet the best Microsoft can do now is a
niche,
> >>> and I don't see a viable niche, at least not yet. I'd say maybe
gaming,
> >>> but it looks like the Sony juggernaut has finally woken up.
> >>
> >> But so has MS, computing's real 800lb. Gorilla. They're late to the
> >> party (again) but they've made their intention to be a major player
> >> clear. That has to make some of the other players pee their pants
just a
> >
> > When has Microsoft been early to the party, or on time?
> > Even DOS, Windows and Office were late to the party. I guess they were
> > smart in that they got BASIC on a whole lot of computers to start out
with
> >
> >> MS is like the government- the wheels move slowly, but they have
> >> (comparitively) infinite resources, and nothing but time. It's still
> >> early in the smartphone game- only 1-in-5 phones sold today are
"smart." Let's see whose still standing in five years, and with what
market share.
> >
> > IE was complete crap in its first few releases, yet look where that
went
> > They are certainly a slow burn.
> >
> >
> >
> >> Game consoles seem to be doing ok as a three-way race, and mobiles
are
> >
> > What are the three?
> > The DS outsells them all.
> >
>
> What is the "DS"? Please don't abbreviate unless you are certain that
> your entire audience will recognize and understand it!
He didn't abbreviate it. The Nintendo DS is a handheld game system that
dominates the handheld game category.
In my post, however, I was referring to "game consoles" that connect to
TVs, which is a three horse race, with the Nintendo Wii, Sony
Playstation, and Microsoft XBox.
At 29 Aug 2010 09:17:01 -0400 Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
> Todd Allcock wrote:
> > At 28 Aug 2010 21:36:42 -0400 Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
> >> Justin wrote:
> >
> >>> Perhaps you should be installing OS updates more often then.
> >> Why? What I have works. It requires almost zero maintenance!
> >> OS updates are not going to make the power company more reliable
> >> or trim the damned trees!
> >
> >
> > I think Justin means the monthy MS security updates, which usually
> > require a reboot after install. If your PC has run for "months"
without
> > rebooting, you either have automatic updates disabled, or you just
don't
> > realize your PC reboots itself every few Wednesday mornings around
3AM...
> >
>
> It might also be the case that 99.44% of the bugs and security holes
> have been fixed in the version, plus patches, that I'm running.
Most likely. However, it's the other 0.56% Microsoft worries about, and
sends monthly patches to deal with!
On Sun, 29 Aug 2010 00:29:33 -0600, in
<oaneo.2062$rC7.1573@newsfe10.iad>, Todd Allcock
<elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>At 28 Aug 2010 17:06:05 -0700 John Navas wrote:
>> No, that was an article. I don't think it's a great idea -- I just
>> think it might make more sense than what Microsoft is trying to do now.
>
>Blackberry OS and WinMo have too much in common- they're both tired OSes,
>designed for a narrower purpose, that have been kludged to play on the
>same field with more modern OSes. The effort to rebuild Blackberry for
>the expectations of modern users is the same as for WinMo, and a
>wholesale change to Blackberry OS would strand a larger and more fervent
>customer base than WinMo enjoys.
Market share is priceless. The challenge is to retain as much of the
user base as possible by designing an OS that's fully modern while still
backward compatible, a challenge, but doable in my estimation. WinMo7
might even be a good starting point.
>Windows 7 is probably what Vista would've been if they released it after
>Vista was finished instead of before!
There's truth to that, but I think it's more a matter of Microsoft
getting it first wrong, then right, over and over, in a never-ending
painful cycle. I wouldn't be at all surprised if "Windows 8" is as bad
as Vista.
>Either way, rich cloud apps are still more awkward to use than those
>installed down here on Earth, so MS has quite awhile to keep milking!
They're already more than adequate for many people (and for much of what
I do), and with HTML5 and CSS3 they should be able to pretty much match
desktop functionality (offline as well as online). Plus the price (free
in the case of Google) is right. Google has just had to wait for
technology to catch up to its ambitions. (Gears didn't cut it.) Chrome
is helping by pushing the other browsers hard.
Office survives only through enterprise investment and inertia, and
I see serious signs the tide is reversing. But Office momentum is a
good example of why RIM might have value to Microsoft.
>> That's only because RIM has fallen so far behind in coolness, lost all
>> the mojo, lost the buzz, problems that could be fixed, although it would
>> take a major effort. But like Microsoft, RIM is too busy fighting the
>> old battles to do the job it needs to do in new battles, witness the
>> BlackBerry Torch, OK but no more than that.
>
>My point above about effort. MS trying to beat the current Windows
>Mobile or Blackberry OS into an iOS or Android-class mobile OS might be
>like trying to pass off Windows 98 SP22 as a modern desktop OS.
True. The challenge is to lead the target sufficiently. My thought is
a two-pronged approach, with one team merging WinMo7 and BB OS 6 quick
quick, another team working on a big leap forward at the same time. It's
how Intel now designs chips to stay ahead of AMD, horribly expensive but
quite effective if you're a/the deep pockets player.
>Sidekick is just the US branding of Danger.
Sidekick is a phone.
Danger is the platform.
>And what did MS do when they bought Danger? Spun their wheels, then
>fired the top Danger people and crashed their servers!
All Microsoft wanted was the platform, not Sidekick, so the result isn't
terribly surprising, especially since Microsoft isn't terribly good at
acquisitions.
>Then they
>created Kin/Verizon Contractual Obligation Phone 1.0, and let the MS in-
>fighting kill it to focus on WP7.
I think it more a matter of waking up to the fact that Kim was a poor
idea and dangerous diversion likely to fail. What Microsoft should be
doing is what Sony Ericsson is reportedly doing for Android 3.0, merging
its gaming platform into its mobile communication platform, But the
serious problem for Microsoft is that it's failed to develop and
establish a mobile gaming platform.
>> I disagree -- when you blow off and piss off your existing customer
>> base, you create a big additional hurdle that greatly adds to your
>> marketing challenges.
>
>Typically, yes, but MS apparently feels there aren't enough of _me_ out
>there to worry about! At some point you have to jettison backwards
>compatibility if it's holding you back. Part of XP's success was MS'
>willingness to kiss a lot of DOS/Win 3.x compatibility goodbye.
The push to abandon backward compatibility tends to come from lazy
engineers, not insurmountable obstacles.
You see the glass as (more than) half empty. I see the glass as (more
than) half full -- I'm quite impressed with how much backward
compatibility is built into Windows XP (Vista and 7).
>I'm
>certainly in a tiny minority of folks who thought WinMo was still viable.
> MS apparently feels there isn't enough lipstick on the planet to save
>the WinMo 6.x pig!
Looks like poor judgment to me.
Microsoft has a good record of persistence in some areas (e.g.,
Windows), but it also has a bad record of abandonment in other areas.
>> It's not a matter of technology -- it's a matter of understanding users
>> and the user experience, and making it cool, something Microsoft has
>> never been terribly good at, with Windows Vista a painful case in point.
>
>I'm apparently in another minority- I thought Vista _was_ "cool." It was
>just an unfinished, bloated, work-in-progress that would've been fine
>after another SP or two. MS, however, seized an opportunity to rework
>it, change the UI and rename it "7," allowing it to leave the bad press
>behind, while simultaneously enabling themselves to charge an upgrade fee
>for it. If the very same 7 had been released as Vista SP3, the tech
>press would've been less enthusiastic, and MS would be giving it away
>instead of selling it to Vista users!
I think you underestimate the changes in 7 versus Vista, which I think
are easily as significant as the changes in Vista versus XP, just much
better done (and in less time). You might as well argue that XP was
Windows 2000 SPnn, and Windows 2000 was Windows NT SPnnn.
>Similarly, if WP7 had been just another reworked WinMo, the tech press
>would be far more skeptical, since both WM6 and 6.5 were supposed to be
>the "new and improved" WinMo poised to grab significant market share.
>Instead, MS is practically bragging about its limitations and
>shortcomings as if to "prove" it's completely different from that other
>"failed" Windows phone OS.
Looks like poor judgment to me. Dissing your own children tends to have
unfortunate, unexpected consequences. Coke learned its lesson, now
doesn't say, "Old product sucked, new product doesn't suck!" It now
says, "Same wonderful product, new improved taste!" The difference can
be subtle but profound.
>And make no mistake, WP7 is pretty "cool." If that was my main criteria
>for a mobile OS, I'd be excited right now.
I find technology interesting but not exciting. As a _user_ (not a
technologist), I care not a whit what processor is in my Android phone
or (for example) how Android garbage collection functions. What I do
care about is how well it serves my needs. I won't put up with having
to reboot it, or to kill apps -- the 2nd time I have to kill an app is
the last time it will be on my phone. The 2nd time I have to reboot my
phone is when I start looking for new phone.
>Unfortunately I fear it'll be
>more sizzle than steak, at least when released.
If it has the sizzle I care about, especially seamless integration with
all my Google cloud functionality, that's as good as or better than what
I have now, then that would be enough to get me seriously interested.
The steak (what's inside) is not something I care about as a _user_ (not
a technologist).
A big problem for Microsoft is that it now competes with Google on many
fronts, so it's not in a position to get great cloud support from the
get go. Windows Live Hotmail is losing the war (for 2nd place behind
Yahoo Mail) to Gmail (both free and Google Apps), and the "Windows Live"
re-branding is symptomatic of fundamental miscalculations by Microsoft.
Windows is the problem, not the solution.
>Personally, I predict WP7 will follow the iPhone OS strategy- release
>with a laughably tiny feature set hidden under a slick, fun, UI, and add
>the missing features over time, along with the bloat, UI complications,
>and sluggishness that comes with feature creep.
I predict Microsoft will stay wedded to its dinosaurs, and that WinMo7
will work really well only for those still addicted to Office Kool-Aid.
And in defending its past, I predict Microsoft will lose the war.
I used to be a fan of Office, but Office XP (10) was the last major
version upgrade I really liked, with Office 2003 (11) only a modest
improvement, and Office 2007 (12) an abomination worse than Vista that
actually makes me _less_ (not more) productive. (I'm still stunned that
Microsoft failed to include the Office 2003 UI as an option.)
So I started parting company with Office, shifting more and more of my
work to Google Docs. (I had to install Office 2007 recently to support
a client, and learned all over again just how bad it is.)
>By then, however, the
>ecosystem and user base is in place. I'm enjoying the irony that Steve
>Jobs once said "if you see a task manager, (we) blew it." Guess what
>launches when you double tap the iOS home button? Yep- the "we blew it"
>app. The difference, I believe, is that MS will get in one year, where
>it took Apple three, because the "missing" stuff is likely stuff that was
>actually planned, but couldn't be ready by the 1.0 release, where the
>missing stuff in iOS was Apple's inexperience in the mobile space,
>assuming people didn't actually need or want cut and paste, background
>tasks, rich third-party apps or file sync. I predict WP7 updates will be
>flying fast and furious in year one, as MS concentrates on improving the
>user experience and repairing their reputation in mobile devices. I
>might even _like_ WP7 2.0, um, WP8, er, whatever.
I think it will be game over by then -- the world will have moved on
before Microsoft can get it right, leaving Microsoft still a full cycle
behind, a fatal problem in the long term. WinMo7 is at least a year too
late.
>(I realize I may be giving MS far more credit than they're due, but I'd
>like to believe they learned SOMETHING from a decade of selling WinCE-
>based devices!)
I'm not so optimistic -- I see lots of evidence that Microsoft hasn't
really changed, which is not terribly surprising given that Steveo is
now running the show himself -- corporate culture is very hard to change
even with the right management.
Did Whitacre really change GM enough for it to grow and prosper? I fear
no more so (and probably less so) than Iacocca at Chrysler. What
Whitacre did was a short term success, but I predict GM will go back to
many of its bad old ways in the long term -- too many of the old players
are still in place. Same problem at Microsoft.
--
John
"Assumption is the mother of all screw ups."
[Wethern’s Law of Suspended Judgement]
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 23:21:06 -0600, in
<naneo.2061$rC7.1002@newsfe10.iad>, Todd Allcock
<elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>At 28 Aug 2010 16:33:40 -0700 John Navas wrote:
>> Too late to make that case -- Microsoft already lost big time, and Linux
>> is doing very well pretty much everywhere except on the desktop.
>
>MS lost what? A couple of penny-ante (to MS) lawsuits? Linux does well
>in servers, and arguably in mobiles, if you count Android as "Linux."
>I'd argue that no one is buying Android because it has Linux under the
>hood if you dig deep enough.
No one is buying Windows because it has all that ancient code under the
hood -- they buy it because of (a) hardware bundling and (b) rich
variety of apps. But I digress.
>> and RIM and Nokia and WebOS and MeeGo, arguably others as well.
>> Sorry, but I'm willing to bet the best Microsoft can do now is a niche,
>> and I don't see a viable niche, at least not yet. I'd say maybe gaming,
>> but it looks like the Sony juggernaut has finally woken up.
>MS is like the government- the wheels move slowly, but they have
>(comparitively) infinite resources, and nothing but time. It's still
>early in the smartphone game- only 1-in-5 phones sold today are "smart."
>Let's see whose still standing in five years, and with what market share.
The problem for Microsoft is that moving "slowly" is not a winning
strategy in mobile computing. It's falling farther and farther behind,
not catching up.
>> That sounds good in theory, but in practice users tend to cluster to
>> 1 or 2 big winners, just as in the desktop OS and server OS battles.
>> Remember Novell? Is that what you mean by "plenty of room"?
>
>No, using your own examples, people tend to cluster around MS and one
>other player. That's what I mean by there's "plenty of room," if you're
>Microsoft.
As I'm sure you know, I could pick several other areas in which
Microsoft has fallen flat, not just Bob, MSX, MSN Smart Watch, MSN TV,
Zune/PlaysForSure, tablet PCs, "ultra mobile" PCs, but notably also in
mobile devices like Kin.
>Game consoles seem to be doing ok as a three-way race,
Except Microsoft has no position in the mobile segment, and thus no easy
way to leverage a gaming handset like Sony Ericsson.
>and mobiles are
>such a large market there's plenty of room for more than three, IMO-
>Symbian, RIM, Apple and Google are all getting along ok, and poor old
>WinMo is still selling a million units a month somehow without any
>advertising or much support from carriers or manufacturers right now.
I only see room for 2 or 3 major players -- everyone else will get
killed, and the carnage is already well underway -- just ask Jorma
Ollila and Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.
>(Even after MS threw all the OEMs under the bus announcing WP7 eight
>months prior to release, and declaring no current WinMo device would be
>upgradable- just as HTC and Samsung were releasing their flagship
>Snapdragon-based large-screen WinMo phones! I'd be like Ford announcing
>they've invented a car that runs on tap water, it'll be released next near,
>and current gasoline cars can't be converted to run on water. Good luck
>selling the existing model year lineup, Ford Dealers!)
Those OEMs seem to be giving lackluster support to WinMo7 as compared to
Android, just enough to stay in the game for now, another problem for
WinMo7, which needs enthusiastic pushing of the envelope. Instead, the
hottest engineering is being poured into Android.
>MS has the resources to outlast and outspend virtually anyone. Hopefully
>their product will be worthy of the effort MS will likely expend pushing
>it down our collective throats!
Except time is not on its side. By the time the Microsoft bullet
finally gets there, the target will have long since moved on. Microsoft
needs speed, not staying power.
>The fact that MS already had HTC, Samsung, LG and Dell on board with
>nothing more than vapor and a few dog-and-pony demos on prototype
>equipment, tells me they're both serious, and won't take failure as an
>option.
Tells me Microsoft has yet to convince anyone that WinMo7 is a hot
ticket.
--
John
"Assumption is the mother of all screw ups."
[Wethern’s Law of Suspended Judgement]
On Sun, 29 Aug 2010 09:03:19 -0600, in
<qMueo.23834$st2.18413@newsfe09.iad>, Todd Allcock
<elecconnec@AnoOspamL.com> wrote:
>At 29 Aug 2010 14:10:40 +0000 Justin wrote:
>> Todd Allcock wrote on [Sat, 28 Aug 2010 23:21:06 -0600]:
>> > Game consoles seem to be doing ok as a three-way race, and mobiles are
>>
>> What are the three?
>> The DS outsells them all.
>
>DS is a handheld. "Game consoles," at least in my mind, connect to TVs.
The point is that mobile gaming (what you call handheld) is what
Microsoft needs for mobile devices, not "game consoles", which are
largely irrelevant unless and until it can shrink Xbox down to 1-2
practical chips, which ain't gonna happen any time soon.
--
John
"Assumption is the mother of all screw ups."
[Wethern’s Law of Suspended Judgement]
On Sun, 29 Aug 2010 07:15:28 -0700, in
<4c7a6b5b$0$1583$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>, SMS
<scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote:
>On 28/08/10 10:21 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>> MS lost what? A couple of penny-ante (to MS) lawsuits? Linux does well
>> in servers, and arguably in mobiles, if you count Android as "Linux."
>> I'd argue that no one is buying Android because it has Linux under the
>> hood if you dig deep enough.
>
>Microsoft has lost. It's over. Based on the statistics from
>"http://www.webmasterpro.de", Windows has only about 93.4% of the
>desktop market place while OS-X holds about 5%, and Linux holds 1.3%
>(actually the Linux share is less because that 1.3% includes both the
>desktop and server side, but the numbers don't include Windows Server.
>
>If you include all OSes, not just desktop OSes, it looks even worse for
>Microsoft, with their market share falling to just under 92% with
>Apple's iOS taking most of the 1.5% away from Microsoft.
No such data at that link. Why are we not surprised?
Because you almost never have a _real_ citation.
FYI, that data is actually from Net Applications.
<http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8>
Here's another real citation, different data from Ars Technica:
<http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/01/windows-7-growing-faster-than-vista-overtakes-mac-os.ars>
or <http://goo.gl/SGRL>
that shows (as of December 2009):
Windows 64.30%
Mac OS X 27.88%
Linux 6.41%
Others 1.32%
See also <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems>
There is little published information on the usage share of desktop
and laptop computers. Web client information (see below) is often
used as a proxy for this, but many such computers are not used for
web surfing. Web client stats suggest that Microsoft Windows has
about an 89% share, Apple Mac OS 6% and Linux 1%. The correlation
between desktop share and web client share is being increasingly
challenged by the rise of mobile web access, which rose through 1% in
2009 and 3% in 2010.
Steve Ballmer of Microsoft estimates Linux's share of desktop users
to be higher than the web stats suggest. In a speech to investors in
February 2009, Ballmer presented a slide based on Microsoft's
research: it shows Linux's share of business and home PCs about the
same as Apple's. ...
--
John
"Assumption is the mother of all screw ups."
[Wethern’s Law of Suspended Judgement]
On Sun, 29 Aug 2010 14:14:19 +0000 (UTC), in
<i5dpvr$e4$2@news.eternal-september.org>, Justin <nospam@insightbb.com>
wrote:
>Richard B. Gilbert wrote on [Sun, 29 Aug 2010 08:53:45 -0400]:
>> Justin wrote:
>>> Richard B. Gilbert wrote on [Sat, 28 Aug 2010 21:36:42 -0400]:
>>>> Justin wrote:
>>>>> Richard B. Gilbert wrote on [Sat, 28 Aug 2010 20:23:37 -0400]:
>>>>>> John Navas wrote:
>>>>>>> On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:40:59 -0600, in
>>>>>> My copy of Windows XP SP3 has been running for months since the last
>>>>>> reboot. I have a UPS which helps greatly.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Why did I have to reboot months ago? Nothing to do with the O/S and
>>>>>> much to do with the power company's failure to prune the trees in its
>>>>>> right of way. Wet branch contacts power line, power company's fuse
>>>>>> pops. Wait two hours for two men and a truck to show up and replace the
>>>>>> fuse!!!
>>>>> Perhaps you should be installing OS updates more often then.
>>>> Why? What I have works. It requires almost zero maintenance!
>>>> OS updates are not going to make the power company more reliable
>>>> or trim the damned trees!
>>>
>>> Security vulnerabilities. There was just one with shortcuts that can be
>>> used just by opening an icon.
>>
>> If my systems were exposed to strangers, I'd worry about it. As it
>> happens, they are all located in my home to which only I and my wife
>> have access. My router/firewall does not allow connections to be opened
>> from outside. And finally, you could publish, in the New York Times,
>> anything stored on my Unix systems and it wouldn't bother me in the least!
>
>Doesn't matter if you block all incoming accesses, there are plenty of other
>vectors that can hit you just by browsing a web site.
"Assumption is the mother of all screw ups."
[Wethern’s Law of Suspended Judgement]
Re: "Why the Verizon iPhone is already too late " 
Linear Mode
