Evolution in action

What we are seeing is the evolution of Android into a more-literal-than-usual-metaphoric ecosystem, rather like (in fact literally) Linux distros. Different Linux distros are suited to different users - embedded, supercomputer, desktop, mobile, bleeding edge, conservative (with a small c), secure and so on.

With android we'll see a similar process happening. This can be pretty healthy as it means that the best will survive. Google own the official version, so that there is fragmentation doesn't matter much, so long as an official compatible version exists.

With all these flavours of Android, new operating systems will find fewer available niches to squeeze into, so to win they will need to create something new and exciting.

Embedded bloat

"That Windows 8 Embedded is Windows 8 with some extra bits"

Linux embedded distro's are generally normal Linux with many features removed so that the OS runs on cheap, low-powered hardware. A well known example is Raspberry Pi.

But this quote indicates that Windows 8 "embedded" should be even more bloated than Windows 8. That may or may not be true, but when MS talks about "trends towards more generic hardware" it seems to be saying, Good luck getting Windows 8 embedded working on anything even remotely out of the ordinary.

As for an embedded system only being able to remove parts of the UI and not ALL of the UI, that's just weird. When MS talk about "embedded" I'm not sure that they're thinking about what most people think of as embedded.

The use cases they seem to be talking about are basically desktop like systems - kiosk systems that probably have a relatively large quantity of RAM and CPU and Graphics hardware. Let's face it, there's no chance MS would squeeze the fast old woman that is Windows 8 into a $50 Raspberry Pi like device.

WINDOWS 8 CRIPPLED METRO EMBEDDED FAIL!

Windows Cash Cow on death row

"It may be that Microsoft now believes its best chance of carving itself a significant slice of that pie will be for OEMs to market tablets that offer both a low price tag and the full power of Windows"

MS betrayed its partners by competing with them - releasing the Surface computers on it's own retail systems and then releasing the computers in generic shops.

So the OEMs were not pleased about that, and cancelled (or "delayed") their own Windows mobile tablets projects.

There are additional issues:

1) Windows too fat and power hungry to run on cheap hardware

2) Windows licences are too expensive.

3) The competition have a superior product at a lower price

4) the competitions products are more popular in the mobile space

MS cannot survive in a future where it sells licences for peanuts, if it did, it would face catastrophic losses. But there is not an alternative future that can sustain high licence prices, at least not on consumer kit. Ultimately this is because hardware has become cheap compared to windows licence prices. When the biggest item on the BOM is Windows, then Linux/Android/ChromeOS look extremely tempting, especially when they run faster and last much longer between charges.

Finally, the public abhor metro. So the OEM's are facing a prospect of making products that the public have no appetite for. Worse, they know that they cannot trust MS. MS already copied their tech when it made the Surface, another betrayal they will not forget.

toodle pip and have a prosperous life resplendent with open source operating systems

Stagnation

We're seeing stagnation in the Desktop market but, hey, in the Mobile market, where MS does not rule with an iron fist, people are making money left, right and centre.

A huge problem with the desktop is not just that Windows 8 sucks, it's that the cost of the MS licence is large compared to the cost of the hardware itself. The only way OEM's can offset the costs on consumer machines is by installing crapware, which makes for a deeply unpleasant user experience. Now consumers are using Apple and Android mobile kit, they are seeing that computers don't have to suck! The customer is realising that computers without Windows are computers without pain.

So what does an OEM do? They are making money from mobile so their instinct is to take mobile operating systems and extend them to be dekstop operating systems. Hence ChromeOS. Soon it will dawn on them that ChromeOS and Android are Linux. And, hey, Linux Mint is already the best OS out there. It just needs someone who can fight off MS to market it. If Linux Mint was pre-installed on computers and marketed, in the same way that ChromeOS is marketed, then, hey presto - you will have a reinvigorated Desktop market with higher margins. (No OS licence to pay, and cheaper hardware suffices to run Linux FAST).

This actually already happened once, when netbooks first appeared, then MS reacted by strong-arming OEM's to install XP instead.

The TRAITOR Miguel de Icaza

This guy has been called a traitor to open source, and this rings true to me. He was in bed with MS, and probably still is. He's the Grima Wormtongue of the IT world.

ICAZA FAIL

When you need high performance....

The data professionals choose Linux. This box is another example of this. Furthermore, it's another example of how the TCO of linux is better.

We better get used to Exa being the new "Mega" and "Giga". It seems like "Peta" doesn't sound quite as cool. It sounds like a bunch of ugly, anorexic models that eschew fur.

Increase your RAM using the HARD DISK!

It's the 90's all over again!

Why are new computers often still stuck on 4 gig of RAM? Is it just me or is Moores law of memory quantities installed in PC's far too flat?

It's not just Windows 8 that's killing the deskstop market.

Curious that a social networking site is leading the way.

"Developers working with Android 2.2 and above can now plug straight into Ballmer's big blue cloud"

Assuming that this "cloud" hasn't crashed (again). Better check those certs again, MS!

That MS are now "supporting" Android shows that Android has reached the "Then you win" stage. Would love to have been a fly on the wall of the board when they gave the nod for that! MS needs Android more than Android needs MS, that's for certain. This shows how much the balance of power has shifted towards its nemesis, Google.

AZURE FAIL

Chromebook is doing what Surface was supposed to do...

Wasn't Microsoft's Surface supposed to be a wake-up call to PC manufacturers.

Instead we have the Chromebook appear. Torvalds endorses it - he does not endorse ChromeOS, quite the opposite, but he endorses the Chromebook.

It is difficult to calculate how much this is worth to Google in terms of free advertising. Torvalds prefers the google machine over the surface machine. Yes, I know that Surface is not the same, it's more like a tablet, but not quite a tablet kind of scenario. But that's not the angle I am talking about, it's about flagship products.

MS releases Surface in a blitz of marketing. The media are polite about it, even nice about it in the pro-MS press. But the world cruelly ignores it.

Google releases Chromebook Pixel with much less fanfare. And wham, the greatest active operating system guru endorses it.

The Surface has had no effect on manufacturers except to prove that Windows sucks on tablets / mobile. Whereas the Chromebook will, do doubt, generate a race to create something similar by the usual MS OEM's. When I say, MS OEM's, these guys will be keeping a close eye on the ChromeOS market, you can be sure of that. OEM's are yearning to ditch Windows 8, which, let's face it, is a disaster of Vista-like proportions and is about as popular with people as a filovirus.

The PC makers have displeased Torvalds. Torvalds has pointed out that PC makers are making rubbish, both in terms of hardware and pre-installed software. Torvalds is right. It's 2013 and laptops have not evolved due to the deadening MS monopoly.

WINDOWS LAPTOP FAIL

MS is squeezing the enterprise and channel

Because they CAN.

"This is another classic case of Microsoft moving the goal posts"

Moving the goal posts? No, it's a case of a boa constrictor tightening its coils around it's prey. CALS up 15% last year, licences up between 8 and 400%.

Huge swaiths of the IT industry has made itself dependent on MS and now MS is in an extremely strong position in being able to milk those partnerships. The partners are too locked in to escape.

MS knows the game is up, their bubble has to burst. So what it is doing now is maintaining the bubble for as long as it can. Profits from Office and Windows are falling, and other areas are making increasing losses. The ONLY way MS can keep pulling in huge profits is to screw over the Channel / Enterprise. Once it has screwed them over, eventually the game is up. But until then, Microsoft can make money and it will make money.

I do hope that these channel partners and governments and enterprises built this inevitability into their TCO analysis of choosing Microsoft "solutions".

MS PARTNERS EPIC FAIL

Windows 8 ", it’s certainly not boring" - and that's an immediate FAIL right there. An OS is essentially a set of drivers with a UI that should get out of your way ASAP. People don't visit a search engine to admire the web page. People don't use an OS to admire the "tiles" or whatever craziness is being foisted on us lately.

I like Linux Mint as it has boring UI's for it, but those UI's are also stylish and, well, a pleasure to use. I tried Gnome 3 and - quelle horreur. It's not just MS that has the "let's reinvent something that works fine" disease.

In any case, every time I see screenshots of Windows 8 - I think, Toy. I'm not buying one of *those*!

Then there is the ultrabook sector, this sector has largely failed anyway.

I hope that all CLUELESS f******* polticians out there

who are trying to censor the PB (at the bribings - sorry lobbyings - of the RIAA, MPAA etc) are not dumb enough NOT see the IRONY in this.

POLITICIANS EPIC FAIL

I left Ubuntu...

In favour of the superior Linux Mint before Ubuntu switched to Unity.

Linux mint listens to its users. Umbongo ignores them.

At the danger of appearing modest, Eadon deigns to point out that he is brilliant at predicting the future, uncanny really.

UBUNTU FAIL

Politicians eh?

They'll be taxing death next...

Microsoft begs devs

"Microsoft really wants developers to build apps"

Perhaps if MS didnt go around suing Android manufacturers and getting a patent tax on each unit sold (costs passed directly onto we Android users. Devs prefer Android as a rule.) Maybe if MS didn't stack the ISO standards body to win its OOXML bs standard battle, if they didn't call Linux a cancer and attack open source at every opportunity with FUD, if MS didn't fund SCO 60 million to attack Linux users with charges of $699 per install, if MS didn't threaten Linux with its patents, that it refuses to show, etc.

Perhaps if MS were not demanding secure boot to be swittched on, then making life very difficult for non-MS operating systems, such as Linux, by insisting that MS signing keys are used... Perhaps if MS were not trying to turn the PC into an appliance whereby all other operating systems are locked out (thereby copying Apple, only worse in some respects)... Maybe if MS were to stop playing dirty tricks in general (i.e. sending in Elop to force Nokia to stop developing a Linux-based OS and only make Windows phones, etc etc.)

Maybe if Microsoft were not so downright hostile to open source, and therefore developers, then developers might feel a bit happier to support them. It's called karma.

MS KARMA FAIL

And the "Standard Model" is?

Journalists rarely explain what the Standard Model actually is, probably because they haven't the faintest :-)

Firstly, know that Quantum Mechanics is a generic system of weird physics that describes the minuscule, atomic/subatomic realm. The Standard Model (SM) can be thought of (very loosely speaking) as Quantum Mechanical formulae that describe the nature of subatomic particles and the forces between them. Gravity doesn't fit into the SM, and there are some other loose ends. So physicists are really really keen to improve it. Improving the Standard model is called Beyond Standard Model (BSM) physics.

There exists a BSM idea called Supersymmetry (SUSY) that was all the rage with physicists looking to plug some of the loop ends. A former CERN particle collider - the LEP stuck the knife SUSY. The LHC then killed her completely (though there are a few highly-implausible loopholes left to tidy up).

That's a triumph of experimental physics (as was finding the Higgs) but... if the LHC had seen SUSY then everyone would be having fun with that. Now, with this new D-Meson anomaly, we have something that is BSM. And anything BSM is desperately needed to give physicists more clues as to how nature works at a deeper level.

Nasa is hamstrung by bureaucrasy

No one can get anything done due to health-and-safety type red tape, and other horrific process. That kind of slowness is fairly typical of public sector-like organisations.

Nasa do one thing well - large budget un-manned spaceprobes. That's what they should stick to and leave the manned stuff to the new generation of private explorers, who are leaner and meaner.

As for cuts, why are they cutting the space agency when they can cut a few benefits here and there. There are enough smoking fatties on welfare, let them slim down a bit.

Lock-in city

Here we go! Another over-engineered "solution" designed to lock in your systems and data to a vendor.

Keep things simple. Stick to scalable Linux systems running on generic open source software. You will have a packet. OK it's not always possible, due to existing lock-in, but, if it is not possible, ask yourself why?

Then examine what the cost-benefit of that non-interoperable system is, and if it can be replaced by an open system.

If you switch from proprietary lock-in to open, then that will save you a fortune over time. If one vendor goes tits up (e2e style) or ups their prices (MS style) then you can switch to a different vendor. Yes, you still pay for support, but you are no longer locked in.

That is simply critical to controlling risk and forecasting your business model and IT overheads over 5 years or more.

I remember programming a Bing maps app into a website once. Google maps was deemed relatively expensive, so second-best was chosen. The DRM was a bit of a nuisance.

Times, they be a-changing. Here is a nice open source maps solution for websites solution. http://openlayers.org

Google is now occupying a stupidity niche

We geeks would never buy this kit. But we are techies (as a rule). This slab is aimed at the clueless. Why? Because the clueless is a huge market. Who do you think signs the cheques for MS Office?

I reckon Google are playing 3 games here. First they are filling up some niches in the desltop/laptop market to get a foothold.

Second they are creating a diversion for MS, who likes to copy its competitors. Confuse the enemy!

Thirdly they only have a cloudy OS now, but over time it will become a thicker client, they can gradually add new features, e.g. runs Android apps, etc. and expand into the core Windows market.