Re: Balmer is transforming MS

Citation Needed

$10? I used to read $5 regularly. Did the price go up or is their "guesswork inflation" at work.

Honestly, where did you get this number? I think 10*n where n=global android would be a big number. Is it really that big?

Re: Monkey Dance

For me it was when the Reg noted that he looked like Uncle Fester

Paris: Better looking than Fester for sure!

I took the test and won

When I did the actual coke taste test, I was offerred two small cups. I was with my buddy who was a Pepsi drinker and I am a coke drinker. As luck would have it, the cups we each chose first were our regular brands. I called coke, and he called Pepsi. We were both right and we did not bother with cup number 2.

I cannot recall the exact question we were asked, but I seem to recall it was about differentiation, not preference - but hey, it was a couple of decades ago.

ps: I lived in Atlanta when this was all going down (quite some time after the Coke test)

pps: New Coke was horrid, like Pepsi (which tastes like soap) but worse.

pps: Classic coke isn't as good anymore because they use corn swetener which ruins the tast compared to suger.

ppps: Beer is my preference

Re: good news about Microsoft?

The "Nokia was dying" meme is a US analyst centric piece of BS that can and has been debunked so many times it is boring to relate. Eadon is correct, the post is pure bullshit and kudos to Eadon for calling busllshit where bullshit is in evidence.

Re: Smart Phones Myth

@oolor: Upvoted because I couldn't bring myself to upvote Eadon today (I have done so previously though in another of his rare insightful comments)

Re: Balmer is safe because...

The next man in Ballmer's chair is on a pound to a hiding. Why would BillG put himeself in that position?

Re: Social and COBOL...

SOC7 surely!

Re: Not wanting to cheer on Google, but .........

Hmm, a downvoate:

a) Downvoter doesn't like blondes?

b) Downvoter thinks British politicians are above reproach?

c) Downvoter has a crushon MP Hodge?

d) Other?

Re: Lets get this straight

Why on earth would I want to downvote you?

IIRC the "act of viewing" certain websites is in fact illegal already.

Soon the thought of viewing them will be illegal.

Re: "Irish Sales"

Google might be skating on thin ice here, and the taxation regulations apparently in place might already solve this particular issue, were they to be actually applied.

In accounting, the "recognition" of a sale is a fluid term

Re: Not wanting to cheer on Google, but .........

It would, IMHO, be a mistake to underestimate the intelligence of Paris Hilton. In fact in any reasonable comparison of PH with any living politician, I suspect PH would win hands down, especially in the pulchritude department.

Win7 UI + Win8 OS stack.

During the year of Win8 is coming hype, I tried to find details of the OS changes that were to be included. They were pretty much absent in any detail from the press coverage and from MS themselves.

The UI is not the OS. It is merely one mechanism for interacting with the OS.

I would be perfectly happy with Win8 sporting the Win7 UI. While the Win7 UI is not perfect, it is perfectly usable for anyone familiar with other windowing interfaces for computing.

Developing aggressively demented Win8 *only* versions of programs which form part of the Windows package is the sort of brain dead idea I have come to expect from American management school morons, who for unfathomable reasons seem to think that the "burn all bridges" approach to anything is a viable strategic model.

This will now all come back to haunt MS as they apparently do not even have the option of providing a clean Win7 interface to the the 6.2 OS stack.

This is a shame as it appears at first flush, that Win8 is more efficient & less resource hungry than its predecessor. Win8 is handicapped only by TIFKAM which IMHO should be expunged from the earth's surface at the earliest possible moment.

Re: If Windows 8 is a spork

I just installed Classic Start Menu on a WinServer2012 machine. Now I can find stuff.

TIFKAM is pointless on a server at best. I did not install the OS on this machine, but the default pale blue colour scheme (like the new Windows logo) I seem to have is offensive to my sensibilities and in fact functionally useless.

Try viewing the new whizz-bang Task Manager. Look at the CPU monitor and set it to show kernel times (hint, not on the menu any more, so right click the moving graph).

Compare and contrast with the WinSer2008R2 version.

Tell me, in all honesty. This is an improvement?

Re: Splayd

Indeed, I remember the adverts as a child.

I personally think that it is correctly a "runcible spoon"

Re: Psion Series 5

"Nokias idiot CEO classed them as a burning platform they had a higher market share than the current Apple one "

They had a higher market share than EVERYONE ELSE put together!

Re: of course they believe that

"I think Amazon's archaic design prevents them from doing this and it's easier for them to argue the exact opposite than fix their shit. "

Enter Flexiant. http://www.flexiant.com/flexiant-cloud-orchestrator/

These people think they are going to change the game and together with Telcos, ISPs and whatever seriously dent Amazon's "top of the heap" cloud position.

The quote above might be now put to the test

Re: Android would not have magically saved Nokia

"Nokia was in trouble LONG before Windows Phone or Elop came along."

No, they weren't actually , as any rational reading of their financials and market figures actually shows.

Were NOKIA dysfunctional and less than perfect - hell yes (still are probably) - but in case you have never worked in a mega-corp, this statement is true of them all. What NOKIA were not, was in any sort of objective "trouble"

What NOKIA were, was THE TARGET, and a lot of guns started aiming at them. NOKIA had a longer term plan which had the advantage that it did not leave its users in the lurch and provided an orderly controllable transition path for developers and phone users. Elop killed it and propagated the same myth that you just did. It is just as false now as when Elop gave it credence. The only difference is that when the CEO of a corp burns the entire corporation in writing, it has a knock on effect - in this case plummeting sales and burning of billions of dollars.

Elop didn't have anything personally invested in NOKIA and the years invested in an orderly transition from Symbian to Meego/Maemo. He needed something that was unmistakingly his contribution. That's how big swinging dicks operate. It's about THEM, not the corp. that are charged and paid to manage. Killing everything is a no brainer for a big swinging dick. Getting into bed with MS is a no brainer for an ex MSoftie. Hiring MSofties to key positions is a no brainer for the big swinging dick as he cements his control over the executives. The fact that he owns a shit load of MS stock is a strong indicator that his decision making is clouded by personal interest, so betting NOKIA on the success of WP is also a no brainer.

Finally, you would do well to read about Elop's "glorious" past. Having done so you might be tempted to think he is a Balmer sock puppet - I do.

Re: Nokia cannot hide from their failure

I got an N9 anyway and despite the lack of fart apps, I am immensely satisfied with it.

I guess they are starting to get rarer now. Elop probably had every device not shipped crushed. There were some materials write offs of significant size on the balance sheet for components for phones no longer produced. Buy hey, what's a few hundred million dollars dumped into the chipper if it keeps the strategy to the forefront and everyone "stays on message"?

Elop is an MS tool and one would like to hope that in the future, a smoking gun appears which proves this point and subsequently lands Elop and Balmer in the klink for a long time.

Re: improvements required

"I need the other hand for a mug of tea" - riiiiight, nudge, nudge ... say no more

Re: Let's take Business Categories for $400

Paris: because I don't think she would understand what this means either

See previous post.. Commentards here in general would do well to brush up on what FRAND standards patents are and how they are administered and charged for vis-a-vis specific patents.

The ignorance demonstrated here gets tiring to read.

Bootnote: Your opinion that MS's patents are bogus is not shared by MS themselves, or apparently the companies that pay for them. I have no direct knowledge of them, so I don't have an opinion on the matter. MS may not be the "good boy" in the room, but they are entitled to negotiate whatever they can for their patents with users of said patents.

Re: The sickening stench of The Beast is everywhere

The rules of the game for standards essential patents are different from regular patents, by contractual agreement between the parties. Your comparison is flawed on the basis of this alone.

Re: Finally paying the price

AAPL stock is underpriced now, so it's a good investment for Apple to buy it back - Tim Cook

That is the position of Apple's management and plenty of companies have done this. Apple, being so large and having so much cash means that the $ number is also very large - mind boggling in fact.

Your argument is a false dichotomy, by investing in itself, Apple in no way compromises its R&D ability or financial capability to spend on R&D.

Re: Maybe Samsung know something

"which we seem to be seeing via Foxconn and LG quarterly reports"

You forgot to mention Cirrus Logic.

Characteristic of all these reports is that that they infer something negative about Apple, when no information specific to Apple was announced. There could be many reasons for Cirrus Logic screwing up their inventory. That Foxconn has apparently had quality control issues is a Foxconn issue, and LG's situation can be explained by the forex market alone.

Misquote: "There are two things that are infinite, human stupidity and the universe - and I am unsure about the last one" - AE.

And this pretty much sums up a vast amount of the comments in here - uninformed drivel.

@sleepy

now now sleepy, don't let the facts get in the way of the haters diatribes - their lives would be so meaningless without it.

Re: Really? @dougal83

An inaccurate and moronic comment if ever there was one.

FACT -You can know nothing about sales trends from a share price.

You (and I) can guess that whatever you (we) want, it will still be a guess.

In any case, the declining share price is concern amongst big fund managers, anal-ysts etc, that Apple's exceedingly high margins have been eroded a little. Apple are still clocking in cash at the rate of almost 50 billion a year, so it's not like earnings are any substantive issue.

The anal-ysts also are also fans of the "stupid" argument. Where they equate increasing competition as meaning that the subject of their analysis (Apple) will necessarily be impacted/unable to react/compensate. Their implicit assumption being that Apple management is asleep at the wheel. It is a broken idea, but popular amongst analysts who want their name in the press.

Finally, the anal-ysts seem obsessed with the idea of Apple releasing some iPhone-el-cheapo model not quite understanding (or simply ignoring) what that means for the branding, margins, USP etc. etc.. They then bad mouth Apple for not having done so yet, because they (in their vacuum) think it's a good idea.

My prediction is that it will not happen until Apple have a deal with China Mobile and it will probably be a phone just for that network. <-- Please note, this is what is called a guess.

Re: What gives ANY company the right...

Here is what Google says these days. It used to be far more evil.

"When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps). Some Services may offer you ways to access and remove content that has been provided to that Service. Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services. Make sure you have the necessary rights to grant us this license for any content that you submit to our Services. "

Re: I am tempted away from the Apple to the Android but I like the idea of a closed shop

[citation needed]

Re: Everyone keeps forgetting...

That is not what I wrote.

I merely pointed out a well known characteristic of people in general. People who cannot afford a product that they would in fact like to own, would rather denigrate said product than admit it is out of their price range. Evidence of this human characteristic is writ in very large brushstrokes across The Register forums.

While price != quality, buying high quality cheap stuff is rather difficult and products which are overpriced for the quality they deliver rarely last long in the market. Whether you like it or not, quite a lot of people consider Apple to be high quality kit, and are willing and able to pay for it.

Re: Wow, what amazing insight (sarcasm)

Where is your evidence for those broad assertions (Hint: There isn't any)

Re: It's happening here as well...

casual empiricism at its best*

*worst depending on viewpoint

Re: SAP

My company employs 100+ people. We are in the transport industry.

Don't fucking lecture me about the influence of trade unions on payroll systems. You are a prick and you are clueless.

As other posters have noted, the payroll rules are indeed monstrously complex and there is exactly one group that bears the responsibility for this state of affairs.

Re: The haters mantra

Points well made.

Interestingly, I have an N9 and recently had an iPhone5 flung at me from the office, so I have them both in daily use. Both are excellent pieces of kit.

Personally, I prefer the N9 these days, which is the IOS interface paradigm with some cool features added on. Nokia were headed in the right direction with the Meego interface. There are, however, many more apps available for the iPhone.

I have also noticed two recurring mantra from the technical punditry.

* IOS is antiquated and uncool and no development happening

* Apple will be "forced" to enter the low cost phone market in order to survive.

The pundits are seemingly blind to their own ignorance and logic failures. And that pretty much sums up technical journalism.

Paris: Because it's Friday

Re: @ AC hypocrites

Pete: Repeating the lie that Apple "stole" from Xerox will never make it true. Xerox were compensated and Apple went on the develop what they paid for.

So, the rest of the world haven't called Apple out, as you suggest they could, because there is nothing to call on.

The internet is forever, and there is plenty of documentation that puts your rant in the trashcan where it belongs

Re: No push to upgrade business machines anymore

I have the oldest machine in the office. It's a Dell Precision 390 4GB. It can do everything I ask of it.

Like every other machine in the office we swapped out the old hard disks with Intel 320 SSDs. That made everything sooooo much better. Now we can bypass a whole upgrade cycle. We all run Win7, Win8 is a disaster on wheels.

Money saved is money earned and all that!

Re: No push to upgrade business machines anymore

The "three year cycle", at least in countries I happen to frequent, is based on the taxation legislation, rather than any notion of longevity of the capital equipment (in this case a PC).

Case: I bought an expensive piece of kit for my business. It died a fiery death 13 months later, out of warranty. My attempt to write off the remaining 2/3 of the asset in the second tax year was denied by the tax dept as the depreciation of PCs is fixed by them at 3 years. The fact that it was provably dead and "unfit for purpose" had no effect on their position. I sent it back to the tax dept. with a note that I could not afford the space & storage costs for the next 2 years and that they should 'look after it for me'.

Tax laws are the determining factor, not the product life.

Paris: Fit for purpose to be sure!