On Jul 20, 7:14 pm, "Moshe Goldfarb." <brick_n_st...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:44:35 -0700 (PDT), Rex Ballard wrote:
> And who really cares?
When a barrel of oil hit's $130, who really cares? Nobody, until the
price of a gallon of gas at the pump shoots up another Dollar ($5/
gallon in US).
> Does the average person give a hoot?
People don't "hate" windows until Word blows up and wipes out 10 hours
worth of work, or some virus riding in on Microsoft's "doggie door"
wipes out 30 days worth of work, or the viruses and DLL hell make the
system unbootable and unreadable.
But the entire time they are working unpaid overtime to make up for
the crap that got destroyed, they are thinking "There's Gotta be
something better".
Remember, people hated "Ma Bell" back in the 1950s. Lenny Bruce used
to tell Jokes about them during the 1950s. There was Lily Tomlin's
"Ernestine the Operator" on Laugh-In and Dean Martin, yet it wasn't
until 1983, when Judge Green accepted the divestature of AT&T as a
settlement of it's antitrust issues, that people actually had a
choice, and once they had the choice, boy did they ever choose, and
before long, Ma Bell was lowering rates, giving packages, and offering
substantially better service and giving the community more choice,
because the competition was better. AT&T had to match offers by MCI,
Sprint, GTE, and a dozen other companies. Over time, the long
distance rates dropped from $2 for 3 minutes and $1/minute there after
to 10 cents per minute, and eventually down to as low as 3 cents per
minute, or $49 for all the long distance calling time you could want.
Eventually, VOIP made it possible to make international calls for just
over 2 cents per minute.
> They don't even know what you are talking about.
They didn't know what MCI was talking about either. But when MCI
started PAYING restaurants a percentage of the revenue from pay phones
instead of charging as much as $100 per month for a pay phone AND
keeping the money deposited by the callers, they liked MCI offer much
better.
When Long Distance callers got service that included very cheap long
distance, a calling card, and discounted international calling from
MCI and GTE, they got less interested in pay by the drink service from
AT&T.
When competition at the local phone companies resulted in getting 20
services, including call forwarding, messages, 3-way calling, and
unlimited long distance for $49/month, the got much less interested in
AT&Ts itemized service that often added up to $100/month, or more.
When Cable companies started offering 10 megabit/second Internet
service for $39/month, people got less interested in waiting around
for 256 kilobit/second DSL service, while paying $50/month for a
second line for "dial-up" service at 28 kbytes per second.
> Microsoft will continue to use whatever format is the chosen one.
> Linux will still continue to languish at 0.6 percent of the desktop.
In case you hadn't noticed, Linux/Unix (including Mac, is now moving
up in the market place). Apple is now the number 3 OEM by unit
volumes, and almost number two by revenues (because Apple's prices
don't erode the way Vista prices do).
Microsoft is trying to squeeze the last drop of cash out of the last
hard-core OEMs to be loyal to Vista, and Dell has already tried to
distance itself from Vista, offering customers XP for an additional
$25.
Dell is already looking at ways to offer Ubuntu and Linux preinstalled
on the same machine and running at the same time. HP now mas machines
that can run Linux if you don't have a hard drive (or you install a
blank drive), and they are pushing for "Dual Boot" capability as well
as partitioning options.
Acer (former number 3) has probably already met the conditions
required for it to begin offering Linux as native with "Virtualized
Windows".
Lennovo has been making nearly all of their machines "Linux Ready" and
is also looking for a package in which Linux is the "Native" and then
there is Virtualized Windows.
Keep in mind that this is the deal that Microsoft gave Apple as a way
to stay on the iMac with OS/X. Since Apple wouldn't scuttle OS/X,
Microsoft had to settle for "second seat" running as a virtual machine
under OS/X. The irony is that this solution actually ran FASTER than
any other "Native" Windows configuration.
> You have in effect created a ruling where everyone will be forced to make
> round tires....
Keep in mind that for almost 40 years, tires were made big and wide,
with lots of rubber, and needed big block engines, because they were
built by the same companies who built Jeeps and other Military
vehicles and the tires were based on the same set of assumptions,
which included very rough terrain, limited shock absorbers, and heavy
payloads.
When Chrysler almost went bankrupt trying to sell gas guzzlers to
budget sensitive baby boomers in their early 20s, NASA decided to
"Reinvent the Wheel". One of the first things they did was throw out
the old assumptions, and look at the existing conditions in the late
1970s and early 1980s. Most cars spent most of their time on well
paved roads, they had hydraulic shock absorbers and often long struts
that could absorb almost anything even on rough roads or going over
speed bumps. They came up with a tire that was much smaller, used far
less "tread" and "air", and reduced fuel consumption by as much as
50%.
Within 10 years, most compacts, sedans, sports, and coupes had the
NASA wheel, and the milage improved. When combined with fuel
injectors, air unduction system (something like a supercharger without
the fan), and hot vapor return (heating fuel to improve the fuel/air
ratio), the milage on automobiles designed for a family of four went
from 12-15 miles per gallon to 35-40 miles per gallon.
I remember gloating because I had a Rambler American, which featured a
low-compression high-torque engine, overdrive transmission, and a very
low idle speed which gave me 40 miles per gallon on highway, back when
the "Gas Crisis" first started. Rambler went bankrupt and was baught
by American Moters, because people couldn't appreciate a fuel-
efficient car in the 1960s. By 1967, the fuel efficient design was
gone, and by the time the gas crisis hit in 1974, people were so
jealous of my 40 miles per gallon. They had to wait in line for hours
several times per week. I was driving hundreds of miles per week and
only needed to refuel once avery two weeks.
And from 1992 to 2006 people gobbled up the SUVs, and when they were
told about the poor gas milage, they said "Who Cares, Gas is CHEAP".
Today, they are spending $100 to fill up the tank, twice a week, and
trying to figure out how they are going to make the next payment on
their adjustable rate mortgage whose rate just increased their house
payment by $1000/month. You remember, the sub-prime mortgage they got
on the $400,000 2 bedroom one bath house in the suburbs thinking "Who
cares, the interest rates are so low, we can afford it", not realizing
that they wouldn't be able to get that 5% fixed rate 30 year mortgage
that the mortgage broker promised them when he pulled the last minute
"bait and switch". on the day of signing.
> So what has changed?
What has changed is that many companies are telling employees to pay
for their own upgrades to vista if they want it. They are telling the
employees to pay for their own upgrades to Office 2007 if they want
it. The CIO is now given a fixed budget for the IT department, and if
upgrades are needed, they have to come out of the IT department budget
(meaning that someone who pushes Vista and Office 2007 too hard might
be offering to give up their own job to pay for it).
What has changed is that many people are now trying to figure out how
to pay for the next tank of gas and the next house payment, and
Microsoft wants them to fork over another $400 for Vista and $400 for
Office 2007 professional.
What has changed is that many consulting firms have made it a policy
NOT to upgrade and if the client wants them to use Vista, the client
has to pay FULL RETAIL PRICE (the company buys the licenses and
charges the customer MSRP) rather than just doing the upgrade for
free.
What has changed is that many corporations have taken a hard-core
policy of no upgrades to Vista or Office, and if a consultant can't
deliver an office document they can read, the company gives them the
URL to OpenOffice or the free Lotus Symphony download, and tells them
to send them the documents in ODF format.
What has changed is that corporate executives have realized that they
have much better ways to spend $millions or $billions of IT dollars
than to waste them on a Vista operating system who's primary
"advantage" is "Better for Video Games", and the Office 2007 upgrade
who's big "feature" is OOXML that is Completely INCOMPATIBLE WITH
ANYTHING BUT OFFICE 2007.
Finally, what has changed is that the key decision makers in 2008 are
the same folks who got no bonus from 2001 to 2003 because the company
had to blow their money on Windows XP upgrades and Office XP/2003
upgrades shortly after that.
Given a choice between paying for a Web2.0 web solution AND a SOA
integrated enterprise, OR upgrading 100,000 to 400,000 employees at
$10,000 a pop (about $4 billion in "dead money" with no real ROI), or
sticking with Windows XP, and OpenOffice with a gradual "as needed"
upgrades to OpenOffice and Linux Native/XP Virtual, they are opting to
go with the strategic high ROI options.
If Microsoft pushes too hard, it could just trigger a policy that says
that all new computers will be configured with Linux and Open Office
(and lots of other OSS and Java applications), and if Microsoft won't
support the XP licenses, then the company will just use "Virtualized
XP" until the bugs and crap-ware make it no longer viable.
And if Microsoft tries to revoke those XP licenses, they will pretty
much be slitting their own throats, because the companies who are
seriously considering Linux might just decide to lock out Microsoft
entirely.
Keep in mind that there are many companies who have successfully
"banned Microsoft" from servers, desktops, and support, and have
pretty much found alternatives to meet any legitimate business need
with Java, OSS, or commercial Linux solutions that provide a "good
enough" equivalent functionality.
Let's face it. The courts aren't gonna do squat. The Bush
administration is siding with Microsoft and completely ignoring the
antitrust judgement they already have against Microsoft.
If Microsoft gets the corporations to do a "Forced Upgrade" to Vista,
we'll be forced to deal with another 4-5 years of overpriced crap-
ware, viruses, DLL hell, anticompetitive market, and OEM "Lock-in".
For the OEMs, this could mean a massive exodus to Apple OS/X, and even
some "No-Name" maker like ASUS, who will ship the machines with Linux
in Flash, and who will force Microsoft to accept the "back seat" with
Virtualized XP or Virtualized Windows 2000.
> --
> Moshe Goldfarb
> Collector of soaps from around the globe.
> Please visit The Hall of Linux Idiots:http://linuxidiots.blogspot.com/
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