Any chance of a translation ?

I'm deep in the guts of a project right now (TCP/IP, VoIP and C/C++) and can't afford the time to translate this - but was a massive ~Delphi fan back in the day - used it since V1.0 and loved it as a RAD tool.

any chance of the engleeeesh version ?

Microsoft + CapGemini + Post Office = null

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8_1FAjKFRY

what are they trying to achieve indeed?

Of course it's a shakedown

It was the same with .US, .NAME. .INFO and all the rest that came with an overpriced "sunrise" period. Forcing '00,000s of brands to spend meaninglessly on these domains to stave off domain-jackers.

ICANN and Netsol/Verisign has been a cosy cartel for years.

Freedom of ...

CarrierIQ seem a very Dodgy outfit - and what the fuck are these big Operators like Sprint and Verizon thinking about allowing or even paying some turd party to put dodgy spyware on all their customers mobiles - WTF is that all about.

Shocking. Stay the fuck away from O2 or I'm off to another network rapido

PhotoBox!

I certainly wouldn't use photobox as a good reference site. My wife ordered a family photo album from them and they sent us the wrong one 6 times - over the course of 3 months, Each time I received somebody else's photo album, one even semi-explicit, and each time it was "no need to return it, just destroy it" and we'll get the right one straight out to you. They might not lose data but they certainly mash it up.

~Ballmer, Gates and the bearded lady

Ballmer is a trier but waste of time, Billl Gates knows he can't compete (he's got nothing, never had other than dodgy business practises)and the world's moved on; perhaps Ellison want to make a name for himself - doubt it; he's got nothing but a beard, a laden bank account, an ugly wife and some plants.

Maybe Andrew Mason ...

China

does all this really matter in the new "long term"?

When the chinese take over the world, Jobs will be dead, human rights will be gone, Brin & page will be lost, ballmer will be outed as a polo monkey and no one will care anyway. Prepare for national bankruptcy then slavery ... fun to watch.

doea anyone care about Microsoft?

IEX..N - do they matter anymore?

A shame

I had the good fortune to speak with the amn when he demonstrated his work in the hut at Bletchley. It's a shame to lose a man of his character.

RIP

Who cares ? It's Apple

Let 'em have it with all guns blazing. They're quite happy to spray the patent love in all directions themselves. Let the whole lot of them rot in their own spew. Have a look at the capital markets, the state of the economy, China's rise to power. The patent system is yet another fuck-up of biblical proportions.

Yes but can Google do it

There's been a massive shift away from "Google love" across the world in recent times and the rift between Apple + Google over Android hasn't helped. That, alongside Google's childish publicly spat with Microsoft over patents, and their multi-billion patent issue with Oracle all work against it.

Additionally, the growth of alternative powerhouses such as facebook, groupon (who are heavily investing in S/W guys and desperately appear to want to be a tech titan), twitter and others means that they'll struggle to get these adopted. There's much more probability of someone facebook providing a standard that gets accepted than google.

That's just the way the World goes ... a new post-Google age is dawning. (Unless Google+ is a massive success and they open it up to all types of Google profile - not just personal ones (ridiculous decision)

Microsoft Again

For quite some time now the GPO has been presenting and talking up its Windows-based technology platform.

MicroTroll

The future of a once great company - trolling

Where's Ballmer while this is going on ...

Awesome, iOS update awesome. I'm a MSFT VC++ dev - gutted. Moving over to APPL - it's the future

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Apple are rapidly declining into farce with this nonsense. They need to get over it and focus on consistenly delivering better and leading-edge product and let their competitors copy to flatter.

unfortunately, with Jobs at the center of this sort of shyte, they're rotten to the core

2.2BN

Shurely [sic] not. 2.2M would make more sense. A load of rubbish in it's day - I was a 3.11 expert - whatever the fuck that meant.

Amazon for "mission critical"

I don't think so. that would be like, or even worse (though cheaper) , than entrusting your cloud data to Microsoft. I suggest they go back to selling books and bloated word processors and phones that brick after update respectively.

For thee could - Guess what ! - We've got Google.

The Lawrence J Ellison legacy - a null pointer

Larry should learn a musical instrument or perhaps to paint. It might teach him what real talent, intellect or a legacy actually means - assuming, of course, he didn't try to patent the process of creating music or art. The man and his company are beyond pathetic - much like the current patent system.

It's time for Microsoft to move on - the handset and tablet markets are lost

Microsoft needs years to get a product right - their early successes with Windows we're simply due to a lack of competition and their "time to market" during the '80/'90s, which was better than anyone else. The cost of that reduced development time was lack of quality and flexibility in the underlying codebase - something which is now beginning to deeply erode their stock value and ability to release new products.

This lack of quality, flexiblity and portability means they have to or at least take every opportunity then can to re-write/re-design from scratch whenever there's a new project in the offing. Win, Win95, WinXP, Win7, etc... erveyone one seemed to be based on a new codebase and design paradigm.

iOS was built on a better foundation - and it's showing. Gates always feared Jobs - and now we know why. You may as well leave Ballmer in place at this stage - it's too late to rescue this titanic journey into the abyss.

what's going on at CTIA

Asides from this ridiculous attitude to consumer care the CTIA is losing credibility fast.

I've just returned from the CTIA annual wireless shingdig at the Orange country convention center in Orlando. This was considered the second best wireless industry event of the yearly calendar after MWC in Barcelona. Last year, in Las Vegas, it was good - This year It was totally rubbish - it looked more like a Sunday market with car-boot sale for smartphone covers and headsets.

Compared to MWC, which was a fantastic event, the CTIA was a total non-event.

Time to look in the mirror over there and make some hard decisions - or it will go the way of WiMAX.

Good ridddance

Shower of bums - they set their team of legal beagles on me for my use of a domain with "sun" in the title - good riddance McNealey you f%£$£*g parasite

Thoughts from a person-centred transition facilitator

It's hardly any surprise - can you imagine actually hiring a former public sector worker?

As a profitable private enterprise, we don't actually have any roles for a "person-centred transition facilitator"or an "ambient replenishment controller and regional head of services, infrastructure and procurement" (AKA shelf stacker and caretaker).

We'd have to make up jobs that aren't necessary, double our HR team to deal with their "duvet day" requirements and increase the size of our legal dept. to manage their gripes.

I'd suggest we ship them all to China - a hearty dose of reality awaits ...

There's lot of talent in MSFT - let them shine

There's huge amounts of talent in the company but they're clearly not being allowed to shine. Consider Anders Hejlsberg, the original creator of Borland's Delphi, stolen by MSFT to build the .NET framework. This guy's got more knowledge than most of the Microsoft President's put together - it's a guy like this who should have led the WinPho7 development - he's got the creativity, the nous and the respect to have delivered something truly new + exciting.

Change the guy at the top, let the real talent shine and see what happens...

Playing into Larry's hands

This is playing into Larry's hands. there's nothing he's like better than to see an end to organised scaled OSS projects - removes any threat to his lumbering database cash cow.

The way forward is to ostracise Oracle, MSFT and these other organisations who are closed. Apple's longevity is questionable as ever but it's fair to say that Google could provide the necccessary leadership, alongside Apache and others and don't let the like of Larry, Steve (x2) or others into the fold.

The success of OSS is somewhat inevitable - this just resets things and provides an opportunity to clear the decks of the greedy.

Can we have a new "Larry the devil" icon please.

Time to turn our backs on Oracle

Our business (financials) has recently begun an internal review of all systems with a specific requirement to migrate from Oracle within 12 months. This has recently been extended beyond the DB to cover any Oracle-related (i.e. SUN) equipment or software also.

Not sure what Oracle Sales been up to at a C-level but it's going to cost them in the long run.

Android - a naturally fragmented ecosystem

Ecosystem fragmentation occurs when ecosystems are disconnected by human or non-human determinants, including the short-term exploitation of capital. As a result, natural areas are broken up into smaller pieces or patches that lead to shrinkage, attrition, and isolation — all of which can be summarized under the term fragmentation.

Apple's ownership of the entire iOS ecosystem, and their reliance on it working end-to-end effectively to generate ever-increasing revenues, imposes on them an obligation to satisfactorily perform or complete every task so that it fulfills requirements - otherwise there is a consequent heavy penalty for failure.

In Google's case, Android is not the tip of the spear and doesn't impose the same contraints or demand for detail for revenue enhancement, and these key usability issues will conitnue to contrain Android and forego its ubiquity.

The solution, In essence, is that Google either need to up the ante, focus on this area of the business, or succumb to Jobs (and likely Microsoft) in the medium-term. And that's only the start of the erosion. Too many battles on too many fronts will, in time, turn this erosion to corrosion.

O&O

This smells of a fail before it starts

As much as I'd like this to work as an interesting alternative platform to both Microsoft & the increasingly strange Jobs & Co. at Apple, I can't see it.

I don't believe there's a lot of developer buy-in globally and it's not got a successful vibe.

I don't think it will be too long before Google actually realise this and re-focus this project's resources onto Android 3.0 and beyond.

What was this article trying to tell us?

What is this guy trying to say, what's the message? Building out and managing huge server farms is expensive? No shit sherlock - what's it go to do with Open V Closed software?

Muppet Magic.

Th return of Dragon Data perhaps?

As I read it, they're effectively screwing this up before it beings by splitting the processing capability in two because neither Swansea nor Cardiff could agree on a location - This is fairly typical of Welsh initiatives.

Next steps we'll see the usual application comments focused on the processing power required for Weather forecasting and genome mapping and the creation of hundreds of jobs in hi-tech spin-offs. More crapola from over-paid clowns in civil servant suits.

There's some hope for this if they build on the reputation of Alan Cox in Swansea Uni and build a linux-based HPC - it might raise profiles if nothing else.

Is anyone on watch over there?

This product had little chance form day one. I pointed it out to my wife and she couldn't understand why Microsoft would release something so ineffective when the game had moved on so far with Android and Google. For f*&k - she works in Health + Beauty products and has little or no real understanding of tech. What the f*&k were Ozzie, Mundie, Ballmer and turner doing releasing this rubbish?

If I were a MSFT stockholder I'd be welll on the way to selling on my stock. This company is only going one way.

Your conclusions will prove to be wrong ...

It's like everything else that the iPhone has been responsible for that may have gone before but didn't meet with general acceptance. Even Web browsing on a Phone, available for many years, in some shape or form, wasn'[t propoerly exploited until Apple did i properly.

You'll find Video calling is exactly the same - it will be adopted in droves and put even further strain on the mobile core networks - despite the initial Wi-Fi handoff/backhaul caveat it still needs to pass through the RNC/MSC to allow for Govt. Intercept on the audio.

Wait & See - It won't take long

Another Half-arsed effort from Microsoft

Yes again in their desire to get something (anything) into the hands of consumers they're pushing a "nearly" finished OS out there. The patching process will then take place and almost inevitably kill your handset after some future update.

Who in their right monds, having sip'd from their firehose for the last 20 years, would trust them to do this right?

Will they ever learn?

It's 1988 again

Looks like Jobs is making the same old mistakes again - despite the billions he's making today.

His Howard Hughes approach is once again beginning to ostracise Apple from the developer community at large again and pushing Android to the forefront - so reminiscent of Microsoft V Apple again.

Despite Apple's massive lead now, it will not fulfil its true promise if he continues to act like God.

When will it stop

Despite loving my iphone I've finally had enough of his control - I don't think it's right that they monopolise this domain as they do. I'm going to get myself one of those new ACER liquids on Vodafone. Mostly an issue of pride.

Strangely enough I made a similar decision in the late 80s when moving from Apple to Microsoft PC.

And leopard is

not about to change its spots. Most of apple's commercial codebase is built on Open Source foundations. Get over it or get on it - they don't have a monopoly on hardware or software - simply the vision and resources to do what they do. Retaliate with better products back or accept that your late nights and C++ code is out there to be monetized ...

Google instructs employees to stop using google - citing personal privacy issues

Why not? Same idea surely

Perhaps they should buy Google

After all it's only a website - right Steve.

Why they allow Ballmer to come to work is beyond me. The man's got none of the attributes needed to hold down even a cleaning job over there.

I'll drink to that.

Lacking any kind of future Direction

The reality is that Microsoft, despite their billions and huge development capability, are a spent force. They're devoid of new ideas, a coherent strategy or an kind of relevant future in the consumer space - which will inevitably drive the business decisions of the future. It's happening to Nokia in the same way - Google and Apple's time has yet to arrive - despite their huge presence today they're set for even greater growth and relevance.

It's hardly surprising when you compare CEOs - Sergey, Larry, Steve Jobs on the once side - Steve Ballmer on the other. Creativity is hardly flowing down from above in Washington.

If business are sensible enough to migrate to Linux on the desktop then

they're running OpenOffice.

Do Microsoft's actions really matter so much anymore?

Within our business we've all but removed the necessity for IE on the desktop. There's one ageing Cloud app that needs it today but that's being re-written in Q3. We're basically a Chrome-only business now, openoffice when needed and have moved to Android handsets - basically some flavour of linux everywhere. Saving us a lot of money - We're only 450 people but I'd always question the relevance of Microsoft's actions in any IT outlook - they're simply not all that relevant anymore

And following this story

the loophole it will be closed.

31,040 euros !!!

Let me just say that 31,040 euros doesn't pay for an OS-level developer. I'd suggest you'd need to double that at a minimum to equate to the salary you'd need to pay to a decent kernel-level developer

The browser is the application ...

Let's not forget that controlling the installed applications is hardly an issue as most current and future useful apps are in the cloud - available via the browser.

All of that fluff you can get in the appstore is probably available via the browser and, if not, HTML5 will undoubted provide an engine for it going forward.

When was the last time I actually bought an app for my Windows laptop ?

I haven't. I've download OpenOffice, Avast, Chrome and a few other tools and that's about it. Aside from initially being plagued by Norton and some other shite that PC World pre-load on my desktop I simply don't think about buying apps for Windows. Even though I'm a developer and know my way around most flavours of *nix & windows I can honestly say I''ve not been sure for a long time that my security on this Windows laptop hasn't been compromised by a rootkit or other- and I've grown to accept that fact. How fucked is that ...

New spread is via Email

I've noticed Conficker being spread in the last week or so via email. There's thousands of emails flying about now with it as an attachment - claiming to be from Microsoft. The mail typically looks like this:

----- Original Message -----

From: Microsoft Team <jcurley@epitiro.com>

Sent: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:41:04 +0000 (GMT)

Subject: Conflicker.B Infection Alert

Dear Microsoft Customer,

Starting 12/11/2009 the ‘Conficker’ worm began infecting Microsoft customers unusually rapidly. Microsoft has been advised by your Internet provider that your network is infected.

To counteract further spread we advise removing the infection using an antispyware program. We are supplying all effected Windows Users with a free system scan in order to clean any files infected by the virus.

Please install attached file to start the scan. The process takes under a minute and will prevent your files from being compromised. We appreciate your prompt cooperation.

Regards,

Microsoft Windows Agent #2 (Hollis)

Microsoft Windows Computer Safety Division

Her indoors wants one

I think it's the acid test - this will be a success.

I bought her a Windows 7 ACER PC last month from PC World. Came so full of 60-day trial rubbish from Norton, Kodak and the likes that the performance was crap and there was relentless pop-ups so she actually gave up on it. I ended up re-formatting and sticking Ubuntu on it. She's hasn't noticed the difference but thinks it's a lot quicker now.

She's just seen this iPad preview now and said that she wants rid of the laptop (ebay maybe hon, someone might want it!). A consumer PC for the masses.

9 years of Visual C++ and now it's time to learn how to code for the apple. How did Microsoft fuck things up so much ... !

Makes our decision easy

We were waiting and mulling based on their pricing decision. Looks like they've made it for us. We're committing to GraniteDS for our J2EE environment.

Crazy prices ...

In-game Advertising Engine

This makes a lot of sense. The clear model here has to be providing an off-the-shelf in-game ads api for the iPhone/iPod. It will make it simple for developers to integrate an Ads framework a likely they'll get a share of the click-thru revenue.

Smart thinking (if I'm right - which would be unusual)