There were also a few features from Azure missing in the list. In-Memory Caching - Azure has AppFabric caching plus caching in web/worker roles, Message Queues - Service Bus and Azure Storage Queues, Notifications - this is part of Mobile Services, admittedly not as comprehensive an offering as Amazon's but still there, and you mentioned media encoding which exists in Azure as stated by the original article. Also, Blob storage is a comparable equivalent to S3 from what I understand.

Plus, in the original article, Route 53 was mentioned twice.

I'm not disagreeing that both Azure and Google lag behind Amazon, but personally I prefer their slow and steady approach which is resulting in some very well thought out services versus Amazon's sling features out as quickly as possible without them necessarily joining up as well as they could.

I suppose competitiveness all depends on what customers actually need. My company's requirements are fairly standard so from our perspective, Amazon and Azure both have all the features we need, but Azure is a much more coherent system in my opinion.

Nuke-because when Skynet takes over we'll be too busy fighting for our lives against our metal overlords to be comparing clouds.

I really want one of these, but it's just too damn steep.

To those worried about the RAM, don't be. I've got a Dell Mini 9 with 1Gb of RAM which is running Windows 8 for basic browsing/office quite happily. I also have a desktop with 12Gb RAM that rarely goes over 2.5 through normal use (non-gaming/visual studio).

If the keyboard was part of the package for the same price...maybe, but I'm not paying another $130 (which will translate to £130) for a keyboard, no matter how good it may be.

If you're too distracted to notice that you have gone through several more countries than expected, then may I suggest you shouldn't be driving...

DS9 was a welcome diversion from the Star Trek of old, and the Dominion War was a fantastic story arc and really made the series. Without that, DS9 would just be remembered as the odd-series out-okay but nothing special, but the Dominion arc created the opportunity for so many character piece episodes and really showcased the best and worst of the ST universe.

Top5:

In The Pale Moonlight

Way of the Warrior

The Changing Face of Evil

The Dogs of War/What You Leave Behind (personally I count this a 3-parter so am only counting it as one.

Waltz

So many other fantastic episodes.

DS9 may have (allegedly) started as a B5 ripoff but, and this is coming from someone who was also a massive B5 fan, it far surpassed that series.

Now if only I could cleanse the memory of Voyager from my mind...

"They raped her quicker than Mike Tyson raped that one girl," he said, before dissolving into giggles.

What the f**k is wrong with these people!?

$10m fine when the bribery resulted in contracts worth $54m, seriously? If they're going to fine them, they need to fine them an amount which doesn't make the crime worth it, say something more than what they got out of it and then some to ensure that the financial consequences of getting caught are greater than the gain from engaging in these practices.

Suspect it's not just Chinese and Korean officials who are receiving bribes...

"Microsoft's business model is predicated on these handcuffs" - If they're so bothered about handcuffs, why aren't they pulling this stunt outside Apple stores, Apple's ecosystem is the most locked-down environment in existence. They're just bitter about UEFI and/or looking for a new excuse to bash M$.

@jdx.

I initially read that as 714,000 as well, my sight must be going.

So by my maths, it will cost me $9.50 over 8.3 years to store up to a TB? That is interesting as drives rarely last me that long, it may actually be worth doing for the stuff I don't need immediate access to.

@The Alpha Klutz

That is very true. I haven't paid for a Microsoft OS since Windows ME (still bitter about that by the way), but £15 seemed too good to miss. Even if it turned out to be a pile of shite, just revert to a backup and no major loss.

As it is, I am surprisingly happy with the upgrade - £15 well spent.

Awaits obligatory "Microsoft have been making crap for years, now....." comment.

On a non-Microsoft hating note, if they can make use of something that would previously have gone to waste then good on them.

Counter-troll

We use Windows Embedded 7 (and previously XP Embedded) to control industrial machines and have found it to be an extremely reliable platform. Not the easiest to set up it has to be said, but not once have we had one crash or go bad. The memory footprint is quite reasonable, the main issue we have is with SQL Server Express using up all the memory after it's been online for a couple of weeks - maybe SQL Server Embedded will address this.

Wow the "M$ are evil and everything said about them is a lie paid for by Ballmer" trolling begins on the first post today.

Any idea how much of the 2.5% RT sales is made up of all the Surfaces Microsoft is giving their employees?

I've had Windows8 on my home desktop for the past week and I must say the TIFKAM aspects haven't bothered me half as much as I expected them to, I haven't even really had to make a conscious attempt to avoid them. Live tiles are proving mildly useful as when the computer boots, I get BBC headlines scrolling on the front page and easy access to all my main apps just as easily as I did before, in some cases easier.

Still not sure I'd want to spend all my days in TIFKAM land, but largely not as unpleasant as I expected.

Penguin because I'm waiting for the "Linux rulez, Wind0wz sux" trolling to begin.

Padmasree Warrior

With a name like that, how could it be anyone else?

15 years...just enough time for the people in charge of the fiasco to have retired with their cosy Government pensions.

Be careful HP, that shares at least one aspect in common with an iDevice...lots more if we throw out common sense and start making shit up.

@AC 12:02

While I'm sure that people have killed themselves using methods found through research conducted on these sites, the fact that they went to such effort to do the research would seem to suggest that they were rather dead-set (pun intended) on topping themselves anyway.

Say for instance, in a single year, 15 people look at a specific suicide website, all with the intention of committing suicide. 5 kill themselves, the other 10 decide they'd rather live. How many of the 5 who died would've killed themselves anyway, and how many of the 10 who didn't would have if the site had not been there to put them off the idea?

Legislation like this needs to be based off of real data and scientific and social studies, not one out-of-touch minister and his yes men aides trying to find some means to justify their existence.

As the first poster stated, this is feature creep of the worst kind and it is only the beginning...

Will someone please think of the children.

All this just stinks of bone-idle parenting.

If kids are being exposed to porn on t'Internet, then it's because their parents aren't properly supervising them or setting up parental controls.

How long before you have to opt in to non-child suitable content on TV? Or how long until the Government starts ordering the blocking of sites based on religious or political content under the guise of protecting the children or the state from Terrorists?

It may seem absurd, but once you enable opt-in censoring, it's only a matter of time before feature-creep sets in...

I saw porn when I was a kid (albeit grainy soft-core images I found on my Dad's computer), but it did not damage me in anyway or turn me in to a sexual predator with warped views of intimacy, because my parents brought me up to not be an idiot.

Note to Microsoft:

Stop trying to be cool, you SUCK at it!

<pedant>

@Mending - So basically you want M$ to sell Linux?

Having said that, I agree whole-heartedly on points 1,5,and 6.

On point 2, yes IE9 is shit and so will IE10 be, but to give up on IE would be one massive loss of face. Also, even if they did, they would never bundle Chromium or Firefox with Windows.

On point 3, same again, there is absolutely no motivation for them to put Thunderbird or any mail client other than their own in Windows. Imho, Outlook 2010 is a really good mail app, and I am currently using OWA as my main client and I am pleasantly surprised by how functional it is.

On point 4, I couldn't give a rats arse if they make their employees dress up as oompa loompas, I highly doubt their clothing has any effect on the quality of the product.

And as for so.cl bringing up a page that looks just like Facebook, it what world does that page look anything like Facebook?

</pedant>

Mine's the one with the copy of "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People through overuse of Pedantry" in the pocket.

I had the audacity to move house in 2010 and was told that Tiscali/TalkTalk would be more than happy to transfer my phone and broadband, but I could suck a lemon if I wanted my TV because they were no longer installing it, not even for existing customers. Instead, I could sign up now and get TV when it became available 'in the near future'.

Given the delays, I'm glad I was smart enough to see that this was not going to go well, and switched to Virgin. Now I've got Tivo, it's possibly one of the best decisions I ever made.

Never mind Tiscali/TalkTalk, one day you will have TV services again. Of course, by the time that happens , no one will care.

Fail - do you really need to ask?

@Destroy All Monsters - Trannysaurus? You owe me a new keyboard good sir/madam/space-dino!

Mine's the one with the slightly damp keyboard cloth in the pocket.

If the tweet was sent from a school computer, they were right to punish him but expulsion is a grossly disproportionate response.

If it was not sent from a school computer, it is none of their bloody business.

Either way, calling in the Police because some students were offended by his use of the word fuck, absolutely wrong and the Police should've told them where to go rather than get involved.

Freedom of what?

Mine's the one with "fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck" embroidered on the back.

Such ridiculous wastage and ill-thought out systems is unfortunately representative of the public sector as a whole. While continual attempts should be made to reduce wastage and systems bloat, it is inevitable that when there is plenty of money around, such important work is forgotten about.

HMRC should be congratulated for reducing their expenditure so quickly. I dare say there a few more Government departments who could do with the same treatment. 31 CRMs down to one is impressive, my former employer (a publicly funded college) had 4 being used at one point by half a dozen people who all sat in the same office!

Thumbs up to HMRC, now the remaining Government departments need to get their fingers out of their respective arses, perform the same analysis of their systems and see how much they can save. Let's make a game of it, the department that finds the most wastage get to keep their jobs!

Yay I finally beat the odds!

Our main internal job management app runs on Azure and is currently completely unavailable, guess we're among the lucky 3.8%.

Still better availability than we had with our previous hosting company...at least as long as it doesn't go on too long.

I hope that, if Apple do this, Asus sue the shit out of them so they can be on the receiving end of a 'prior art' law suit for once.

Maybe Samsung could chip in too, make it a team effort!

Fail - because any attempt to sue Apple will most likely fail while it is still bathed in the heavenly light of Saint Jobs.

I find it interesting that they criticise MS for butting their noses in to other people's business when that is exactly what they are doing. Could this be because the bigger backers equal rights has, the more people look at what they are saying and realise that it is nothing more than bigotted world views based on twisted interpretations of religious texts.

Religious texts being twisted for nefarious purposes, but that almost never happens!

May I suggest we leave them to get on with it. Seems to me that the gene pool would be better off without any polluting contributions from these fecking idiots!

I went in to PC World to look at the TVs before Christmas and was approached by one of their sales numpties. While looking at a ProLine TV (cheap as cheap can get) and asking about its various features, he responded with 'yes' and 'because my LG does it so this one will'.

With product knowledge like that, is it any wonder that potential customers would rather go it alone online than trust these idiots to advise them on which product is for them.

PC World - terrible name because no one with the slightest bit of computer knowledge would ever buy one from there!

Bitter?

One has to wonder, out of the population-control proponents, how voluntary their lack of reproduction really was... Mines the one with the 3-day old in the pocket!

What a bunch of pointless twats.

amen Mr Craig, amen.

I know prices won't fall to spinning-metal prices, but if they could fall just enough that an 80-120Gb SSD doesn't cost me an arm and a leg, I'll be a very happy dev!

As an existing VM customer, Tivo has cost me £50 install and £3 extra a month, a pretty good deal I think.

Have had the Tivo for just a couple of weeks and can already not imaging being without it. Also, less torrent downloading as I no longer have to torrent programmes which are on at a time that is inconvenient for me, I just series link it and watch when I think about it!

Say what you like about VM (no really, go ahead), but the Tivo deal is a big win for them and hopefully one that will start to eat in to Sky's customer base (assuming VM's customer services department don't start alienating people)

Actually

we only scrapped 2 squadrons of Tornadoes, we are still stuck with 5 squadrons of the things.

Icon - Like we could even if we wanted to.

I for one

welcome our high-velocity-paint-fleck-flinging iss-targeting overlords.

icon - one day...

No please don't sit on my lap...aaarrrgghh, my pelvis!

I for one welcome our yadda yadda yadda overlords.

Pic - the unavoidable result of the overlord invasion...

What a complete

and total twat!

Count the many things wrong with this:

Dumping constituents personal details in public bins

Dumping what I would classify as sensitive information in bins (but which according to our incredibly complacent Government was not sensitive).

Dumping laws already mentioned by AC@19:32

One man's irrelevant is another man's sensitive.

I would never dump my own personal details in a public bin, let alone some one else's.

Add this to the 'second-coming-of-Jesus' scale miracle that is Liam Fox still having a job and I really can't comprehend what planet these out-of-touch upper-class twonks are on!

Fail of the scale only possible by the UK Government.

wooo no title

In an ideal world I would be supporting every word those two men just said, but a large portion of the civilized world is on its way back in to recession. America only barely avoided defaulting on its debt and, even if pumping money in to the space industry would help the US economy, have they got the money to spend in the first place?

Alien - we won't be seeing any of these any time soon...

No I will not put in a title!

As the recipient of high velocity, point blank paintballs to both the arsehole and the earhole, I can confirm that Paintballs f**king hurt when they hit you and have no doubt that they would be capable of puncturing a silicon-enhanced jub at close range.

Paris because...just because.

Too slow

I haven't been looking for a tablet but for these prices, I would seriously consider getting it (and tried but was too late). Will work okay as a basic browsing device then it would just be a matter of waiting for someone to port Android or Linux to it.

That price for that hardware is a frikkin' steal!

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

"The buy gives Telecity another two data centres operating in Dublin" - hope they haven't made the same mistake as M$ and Amazon and have actually installed reliable backup generators.

Paris because...something about backing up. I just can't be bothered today!