Posts by Eadon
2399 posts • joined Monday 3rd August 2009 06:33 GMT
Page:
Re: qualifies Microsoft as a special kind of stupid
"qualifies Sinofsky as a special king of stupid."
Win 8's Metro/"Modern UI" and degradation of the Classic UI was not Sinofsky's decision, something as major as this is the decision of the Board Of Directors, it's a fundamental matter of MS vision and strategy. This is CEO level, not Sinofsky level.
As it happens, Windows "blue" is continuing with the same general Modern UI strategy minus a couple of reluctant concessions. The two ladies brought in to manage Windows have not denounced Modern UI, far from it.
Re: good news about Microsoft?
@mmeier - "Nokia was dying"
It was not, when Elop took over, Nokia was growing, loved and had a massive market share. But Elop certainly did kill Nokia.
The rest of your blurb is uninformed humbug too (as usual). Thanks to Elop, Nokia ditched it's own operating systems, which were growing and prospering when Elop took over, and Elop (who is Microsoft by proxy) declined/declines to offer a Nokia Android model as an option for customers to choose. In doing this, Nokia left a huge vacuum. Samsung said, thank you very much! And Samsung took Nokia's customers. Including me.
Meanwhile Win Pho 7 and Win Pho 8 have been unmitigated disasters, despite MS throwing Billions at advertising them.
MMEIER HUMBUG FAIL
Re: Smart Phones Myth
@Don Jefe "I'm not sure it is a myth"
I said that the Smart phones phenomenon was a "factor", I didn't say that there was no effect. However there's a strong signal in the stats that Win Pho 8 inflicted incredible damage to the Desktop market, one that was previously somewhat stagnant.
That there is no real choice in desktops at the moment means that people are actively searching for alternatives, which, in fact, are tablets for the most part. Slap on a mouse and keyboard and you have a PC that's good enough for many.
Re: Smart Phones Myth
@AC 12:52 - "Where MS really made a MASSIVE strategic mistake"
AC, I've been saying the same thing here a year ago, before MS released the Surface. By releasing their own hardware, MS upset its OEM partners. HP abandoned Win8 tablets right off the bat.
That was *BEFORE* MS desperately started selling the Surface in the retail channel. (Before that it was selling in its own stores and website). MS broke their promise to their OEMs that they would not do that.
So now OEMs face a choice. They compete with MS by buying MS licences in a market where MS does not have to pay its own licence fees. Or they don't. Another deal breaker is that you need another hundred dollars or two just to run Windows on these mobile devices, due to increased CPU, storage and memory requirements to load and run all the bloat. The business model is untenable.
MS STRATEGY FAIL
Re: Balmer is safe because...
"Is SB still there because he is the ONLY option at"
Of course. And who do you think ensured that?
Re: Real science
@Don Jefe "None if the Space Shuttles crashed."
Stop for one second and have a ponder. Do you really suppose that I did not know the fate of the doomed shuttles when I wrote that? And do you think that I did not know what crash meant? Therefore, just possibly, I was wording things flippantly.
"I'm not sure you realize how close to disaster space exploration always is and how much sheer good luck is involved."
I'm not sure you realise how close to patronising man can get on this forum.
"Every space related dollar spent helps pave the way for safer exploration"
Bullshit. There has been no manned space exploration program since the 70's. We have regressed with bureaucratic, non-scientific projects that have pointlessly cost scores of billions, such as the ISS. The Russians got it right witih Mir before the ISS existed.
"It's going to take a lot longer than 50 years to get it to the point we can feasibly explore those planet size moons."
You seem to assume I meant manned missions. I didn't. The issue with manned exploration of the Jovian satellites is to survive all the radiation, so it would be unfeasible anyway in the conceivable future.
Re: good news about Microsoft?
@Phoenix50 "built his entire career on planning, deploying and supporting Microsoft technologies for the next part of 20 years"
In the realm of phones alone, MS have done great evil. They wrecked Nokia (who were, contrary to myth prospering), just to buy some Win Pho customers and plunder their patents. Thousands of Nokia engineers have lost their jobs. So do you pity those Nokia Engineers that MS threw onto the trash heap? What about their "entire careers" depending on Symbian and Meego etc.
Before that, MS ruined Danger. More careers ruined. And Sendo before that. Dirty business practices. This is just phones here! It's not just phones: MS paid SCO 60 million for "licences" at a time when it was suing Linux / open source users for $699 a pop. I could go on all day about the deeply unethical actions of this organisation.
When your income is tied to the fortune of an organisation, it is natural to want that organisation to prosper. It's easy for a man whose purse is filled by such an organisation for that man to see only good in that organisation. It's called Rationalisation.
Re: The explanation for Bill Gates
"Having a dad that knows how to write contracts does have its advantages."
Precisely. People think of Gates as a visionary (he didn't even predict the Internet AFTER it happened, in his autobiography, "The Road Ahead". Gates is a biz man and he still is. Charidy is a great tool for doing biz.
Apple's products might be evil but you can tel that a lot of warmth and pride has gone into them (ignoring iTunes of course). Ditto Google's products such as Android, Maps, Search etc. Most of all you see it in open source software.
If you look at MS, their software is perfunctory. It's been written by people with no job satisfaction, no self-worth, who are competing with one another not to get fired in the next rank and yank review cycle. The software doesn't have that, well, human touch. If one were to think of software as living organisms. Microsoft's software would be ZOMBIES. Cold. Slow. Infested with viruses. It eats your intelligence for breakfast and you have lost the will to live. Ribbons. Metro. Hell, even Aero.
And who orchestrates this software danse macabre?
MS EXECS .......................................... FROM HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Real science
"visit one of the most potentially dangerous asteroids to Earth, collect samples, and then bring it back home for analysis"
That's a real mission, doing real science. The billions wasted on flying (and crashing) space shuttles and building an orbiting tin can was not doing real science.
Where are the new generation of orbiters to all the gas giants and their planet-sized moons? Alien worlds of immense beauty and awe are out there, under-explored!
Map Of Reality scale 1:1
Google won't rest until every grain of sand, patch of tarmack, brick and tuft of grass is in its map.
But that's a side show. Google won't rest until it has mapped YOU at a similar level of detail. That's also true of a myriad organisations, of course, corporate and political. Google are out in front compiling the....
BIG DATA ................................................. FROM HELL!
Smart Phones Myth
"more to do with factors like smartphones"
That's a factor but it's also largely a myth - a myth perpetuated by the MS marketing department to explain the disaster that is Win 8. Windows 7 sales bumped up when it was released, and smart phones were common place then.
Windows 8 sank the PC market, netbooks style.
The problem is that MS tells the OEM's what to do, crushing competition by unfair biz practices. If the desktop was competitive like the smart phone market is competitive, then PC's would be much more attractive to buy for customers. Many customers are not buying PC's because they do not want Windows 8. And they don't want the hassle of installing an alternative.
PEOPLE NOT BUYING PCS BECAUSE OF SMART PHONES MYTH FAIL
Balmer is safe because...
He was best man at Gates' wedding.
What's more surprising is how Elop clings to power (or what is left of said "power").
Rich rewards...... OH YEAH!!!
"But rich rewards are on offer for the searcher who looks beyond the surface of the blue-and-grey floatyness."
What? An Android job at Google?
MS TRYING TO BE COOL GIMMICK FAIL
Freetard
Freetard means one that supports freedom.
I am a FREETARD.
Re: Windows 8 destroyed the PC>
@1Rafayal "Are you really blaming the release of Windows 8 for the drop in PC sales?"
Yes. MS released windows 8 and immediately the pc market ground to a halt.
PC Microsoft Windows 8 PC drain
"The PC business continues to be a drain on Dell"
Microsoft screwed it's desktop OEMs in Microsoft's FUTILE attempt to get leverage via Microsoft's desktop customers to CONVERT them to Modern UI (aka Metro). Thereby tricking customers into liking the MS Metro touch mobile interface. Through familiarity.
The OEM's are losing money based on Microsoft's FAILED GAMBIT.
MICROSOFT FORCING USERS INTO LIKING MODERN UI TO GET LEVERAGE FAIL
Re: Windows 8 destroyed the PC>
"PCs and laptops have peaked"
How do you explain, then this? That the avalanche drop in PC sales was sudden - when MS released Win 8.
Re: Eadon's theory of Techie "Waves" - TWO types
@Simon Harris,
No need to go into a sulk just because you don't understand QM. Not many have my Alpha Geek status...
QUANTUM UNCERTAINTY FAIL
Re: Windows 8 destroyed the PC>
@Phenix50 "No, it didn't, hasn't and won't."
Yes it has. Win 8 came out and suddenly a stagnant market became a market going over a cliff. It was a sudden transition, a quantum jump from State struggling to State disaster.
The PC won't recover.
Re: Eadon's theory of Techie "Waves" - TWO types
@Simon Harris - "analogue computing" - yes, the Jaquard loom isn't a computer or analogue, I was conflating it with antique analogue computers as a "wave" which was a technical mistake. Mea Culpa.
Regarding the hanging chads - you referenced that a vote could either be 1 or 0, and could be both until "observed". That is not quantum uncertainty ala the Heisenberg equation, it is related to the quantum phenomenon of entanglement, whereby there is a supposition of two or more states. The entanglement only decays upon an observation (or similar disturbance of its environment.
Re: Eadon's theory of Techie "Waves" - TWO types
"Zero positive votes and all negatives again!"
And yet I am right.
Re: Eadon's theory of Techie "Waves" - TWO types
@Simon Harris "Up or Down, which I count as 2 states"
You are confusing a binary (2 states) computer with a digital computer, they're two distinct concepts. Jaquard looms were not digital computers.
By the way, your amusing reference to "quantum uncertainty" is also flawed. Quantum uncertainty comes from an intrinsic randomness built into the equations of QM. Where as the concept of something being both 1 and 0 at the same time (a qbit) is actually a supposition of states, not uncertainty, and an observation is needed to resolve it (by "collapsing the wave function" or whatever mechanism is the flavour of the day). But not many people know that. :)
Re: Erosion of PC market could be a death spiral
@Hooksie "A lot of truth in there but a lot of balls too. MS make money every time an Android device is shipped so they could have quite a healthy revenue stream just from that."
Yes, MS are parasitically making money from Android (thanks to patents extortion), but are making huge losses from Win Pho 8. So MS are benefiting from the spread of Android, they only make money from their competitor. Ironic eh?
Re: Colour me shocked
"Of course it's all Microsoft's fault for releasing Windows 8. *sarcasm*"
There are contributing factors, but... The decline in PC sales accelerated precipitously upon the advent of the release of Windows 8 in October last year. That's causation, not correlation.
When non-techies ask me what my opinion of Windows 8 is, I ask their opinion, to establish what the man in the street thinks, so to speak. They tell me that they are hearing bad things about it.
UH OH!
Erosion of PC market could be a death spiral
"During Q1 this year more slablets were shipped into consumer and business channels than PCs - that's notebooks AND desktops COMBINED"
For OEMs profits on PCs were always razor thin, so they needed volume to turn peanuts into something worth bothering to do business for. All the real profits went / go to MS.
Now that the market is diving into the ground at a startling acceleration of 15% per second per second, those profits will be / ARE falling and OEMs will be forced to continue to raise prices / lowe quality, which in turn will depress the PC market.
I used to think that the PC market couldn't die all together, but now it can! Tablets are cheap and Windows-free, therefore desirable. They can be docked with a keyboard, mouse and monitor. In other words, there is no need for a PC any more.
Yes, there will always be some professionals that need Quicken or AutoCad or what have you. But even there, if the PC market dies, developers are going to be supporting non-Windows systems.
People think that MS is too big to fail, and that's true to an extent, with long term government and corporate contracts. But MS needs to make X Billions a quarter to stop its share price collapsing and to be able to cover its operating overheads. If the PC market collapse continues apace, then MS's revenue stream will be under serious duress.
It's only clueless PHB's and Sys Admins who want to give money to MS in the first place, it's a matter of time before the C*O's really draw the line on money spent on the MS stack.
Meanwhile, Android, Chrome and Linux wait in the wings for the MS OEM desktop monopoly to crumble. Also dire for MS is that Apple and now even Chrome are there to take the prestige money. MS can only go after the chav PC market.
MS WINDOWS 8 PC MARKET COLLAPSE GIGA-FAIL
Re: Eadon's theory of Techie "Waves" - TWO types
@Justin Stringfellow "How's that different"
Actually your PC is doing things without your fingers being on the keyboard. Unless it is switched off, of course.
Re: Eadon's theory of Techie "Waves" - TWO types
@AC 10:59 "Off the top of my head, you missed: Punch Card tabulators, electro mechanical computing devices, abacus, analogue elecronic computers, PDAs."
You're going into low-level detail, ripples upon the revolutionary waves that I mentioned.
Furthermore, the abacus does not qualify as you have to control the beads with your own digits.
Re: Eadon's theory of Techie "Waves" - TWO types
@Don Jefe "Punch cards lasted in widespread acadrmic use until the 1970's; quite a while after the Victorians had stopped making their gaudy contributions to the world"
To clarify I meant the analogue computing punch cards that existed before digital computers, e.g. Jacquard loom cards.
Digital computer punch cards fall under the category of wide-spread programming, as they were merely a digital software storage medium, in effect.
Lobbyists Are ANTI-DEMOCRATIC
Lobbyists are unelected, unaccountable and unwanted. There should be laws passed to curtail and illegitimatise the influence these corporate wormtongues enjoy in politics - this is corruption and graft.
Cast out the Google's, Microsofts, Monsanto, Banks and the RIAA and MPAA copyright maffiaa and other miscreants from the process law making and the Treasury.
VENAL POLITIICIANS FAIL
Eadon's theory of Techie "Waves" - TWO types
There are two types of waves:
Computer Waves
1) Archimedes + mates
2) Babbage
3) Von Newmann
4) Valves
5) Silicon Transister
6) Chips
7) Mainframes
8) Minis
9) Workstations
10) Desktop PC's + consoles etc.
11) Laptops / netbooks
12) tablets
13) smart phones
14) Wearable computers
15) Miniscule computers
We are at 14
Then software / networking waves
1) Punch cards in Victorian industry
2) Babbage/Ada
3) Turing
4) operating systems + wide spread programming
5) networking / packet-based networking / internet
6) Self learning AI
7) Human Brain simulations
8) Beyond Human Brain
The "Cloud" is just the Internet + storage, step 5.
We are at step 6 (self-driving cars etc).
Laying under sea cables - forget cables, use neutrinos!
"There are not many companies on the planet that can afford to do that, and there never will be"
Banks frequently do this kind of thing to get an advantage at High Frequency trading. Sooner or later, it has been predicated, banks will build particle accelerators to fire neutrino through the Earth, to gain a few microseconds. That's a technically formidable project with an unbelievable price tag but it will be fun to see if it happens.
By the way, it's Azure that is desperately playing catchup with Amazon and Google.
Re: beyond a joke
@James Anderson "Overweight and flimsy at the same time"
Indeed. That will be a huge battery to run Windows Pho 8 OS.
Re: beyond a joke
"If Nokia made Android phones, they'd make Samsung an also-ran."
Samsung took over Nokia's market. Think about that and come back and tell me why what you said is ridiculous.
Re: beyond a joke
@Stevecrox "which is good for Nokia/Microsoft, my little sisters has had problems with the wireless charging, bluetooth and the wifi (two replacement units). So far all her rage has been at O2 rather than the poorly working units
Really interesting! Without wanting to contradict, permit me to place a POV that this could also be rather BAD news for Nokia/Microsoft. Why because it means that O2 and other carriers have a disincentive to push Nokia and MS phones. O2 do not want to upset their customers.
Posted in Review: HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook
Re: Why?
@Ken Hagan " can't think of any convincing evidence I've seen in the last 20 years that suggests machines without Windows are cheaper than machines with"
A non-windows OS on the same machine runs faster, is free from crapware, doesn't need anti-virus and IS technically cheaper (MS use monopoly tactics too, to curb cheap competition) and has a lower TCO.
@Yet Another Anonymous coward "Unfortunately office365 doesn't work with chrome"
LibreOffice 4 - does the same job better for most people. No ribbon for starters, no licence fees, no product activation and no spying. It's seriously good these days.
Samsung took over the Nokia market
I have said it before and said it again.
MS thought that they could transfer all the Nokia customers to Win Pho 7 and Win Pho 8. Instead, they drove all the Nokia customers to a competitor in Korea.
And so MS obliterated a great European industrial legend, as a marketing ploy. Sad beyond words. MS don't care of course, but in thinking that they had killed a competitor at best, all they did was make Android stronger and create a Korean phone player to replace Nokia.
THE CURSE OF MICROSOFT STRIKES AGAIN (CURSE ICON)
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0601151
PC shipments ffailing for ONE reason
Can you guess what it is?
MS FAIL
"Google has been ordered"
Nice one. Google - "I vas only folloving ze orders!"
Forget Germany. Hopefully MS will block offensive words in England too, like "Win" "Pho" "8" "Bing" "Metro", ".NET" "Lumia" and "Ribbon".
Posted in Bing uncloaks Klingon translator
@Rampant Spaniel - Endangered Languages
"How about they throw some help to many of the endangered languages"
You mean like .NET?
Re: Naughty Microsoft
Hello me-trifles:
"Seriously, I visit customers every day to fix their PCs and :"
Your stats do not say what you think they say. What they actually say is that Windows PC's need fixing with a far higher frequency with respect to their comparative market share.
E.g. Linux has a 2% market share on the desktop yet only 0.1% need fixing. That's one in 20, compared to an over 100% ratio compared to respective market share for Windows. Think about it.
Re: @ Eadon - MS in HEADLESS CHICKEN MODE
@TheVogon shouldn't feed Vogons but...
"Linux on the desktop is a failure "
- the desktop share of Linux is increasing, slowly but steadily. MS prevents OEMs pre-installing Linux (by strong-arm tactics) so that the 2% Linux desktop market share exists because people actually went to the trouble of removing Windows and replacing it with something better.
"just look at the tens of millions spent in Munich"
Munich have saved 11 million euros to date. Their TCO is down from 34 to 23 million euros since their successful switch to Linux. MS paid HP to produce a report claiming that Munich did not save money, but the report was retracted after Munich said they had: in fact they saved 11 million euros and counting. No more licence fees to MS means that they will save more and more now that they've paid the one-off cost of switching.
"Apple is a niche player" - iPAD has crushed Windows 8 on tablets. iPhone makes Apple more money than all of Microsoft's stuff combined. You're right that Apple is a locked in system, but so is Windows 8 Metro/App Store. In fact Windows 8 is MORE locked in due to the MS-signed UEFI system.
VOGON FAIL
Re: Have you noticed they're hiding the screen... HUGE STORY
@Eguro - "and the first didn't show winpho, but later in the series it was visible"
"enough stories to go around, without having to invent new ones"
I am sympathetic to your points. However I see things a bit differently. That Nokia are sheepish about showing their phone screen with Windows 8 on it, and are, instead, attempting to sell their gimcrack because of a camera - that's a MASSIVE STORY.
Do you see other phone manufacturers trying to hide their phone screens? Blackberry? Android? iPhone?
It means that internally, Nokia are ASHAMED of Win Pho 8 or they think that it's putting customers off their phones. Or BOTH.
NOKIA HIDING THEIR PHONE SCREENS FAIL
@Destroy All Monsters - "NP-Hard category ... sounds fishy this context - Quantum computers are NOT better than classical computers at solving (i.e. finding the best solution to) those kind of problems"
Actually in theory quantum computers are better than classical computers at NP Hard problems. See Shor's algorithm for an extremely cute example.
Re: Aid
This baffles me too, WTF are we sending aid to these wealthy nations?
Want One
This is MY kind of flying car. With brobdingnagian jets!
Antivirus belongs...
Only on Windows machines, thank you very much. So that's corporate desktops then.
