Re: London

"How about something for the North, or Wales for a change?"

I think you'll find that Wales does very nicely out of government with an extra £1.5bn a year out of the Barnett formula. If the assembly choose to spend that on speed cameras and eisitedfodds then that's their choice.

The English regions have more of a case for griping, but even then there's a range of boondoggles.

Re: 'Nokia has started to deliver very attractive products again'

The jury is still out on that, and we'll only know in a year or two's time.

But what if MS see retail buyers as secondary to business users? IN MS shoes, yes I'd want to have something shiney to put in the shops to sell retail, but the real long term value is not through shop sales to individuals, but through getting business users on board. Eat the lunch that RIM used to enjoy, take back business users from Android, sell related services, reduce the corporate traction of other platforms.

Most corporate IT buyers don't care about apps. They want a decent mobility solution based on phone, email, text, maybe IM. A few built in fripperies like mobile internet and navigation are welcome, but third party apps count for nothing. They want t it to be secure, play nicely with the existing IT infrastructure.

A mid to low end smartphone with MS software really ought to do that, and if few retail users buy it, does that matter? I wouldn't buy a WP8 phone, but of far more importance to MS is whether my employers would buy 10,000 of them.

Re: Intelligent electricity smart grid?

"The grid also has to be generating at full capacity all the time, even when the end user isn't using any."

No it doesn't, you just need to have sufficient planning and flexibility to bring power on to match demand, which at the aggregate level is fairly predictable. The bit that runs all the time is baseload, and is (or should be) your cheapest generating assets in marginal cost terms (so nuclear if you've got any). There is the need for some over-provision that runs beyond demand all of the time, because we don't yet have any instant response generating plant, but that's very different to full capacity all of the time.

The smartgrid idea is wildly overblown for its supposed potential, but there is a need for more control as grids build in more adventitious generation (read renewables) that runs when it feels like it, or supplementary sources that may have more or less grid control (eg municipal waste incinerators, spare industrial plant). For $5bn I think the Turks have been sold a pup if this is just about grid management, but don't overlook the possibility that this is 5 cents for smart grid and theft tracking, plus $4,999,999,999.95 for a couple of big gas turbine power stations with the contract heading GE's way.

Re: Doing the same!

"The iPhone .... Nothing fresh, nothing that engages the user and is simply ignoring what customers want (or aren't coming up with new ways that customers thought they'd never need)."

That's what happens when a company becomes an established corporate, rather than a disruptor. Back in 2007 the iPhone was novel and disruptive. The iPad was novel and disruptive. You can only guess whether the rumoured iWatch will be novel and disruptive, although personally I won't be in the queue.

Go back a few further years, and Nokia was clever and disruptive in its own more modest way (eg the 5800 "comes with music" which was almost a cloud based music service before the evil "C" word was even thought up, or the mass of good, functional dumb phones that nobody else seemed to be able to touch). Dell were (in the PC space) once innovative and disruptive - but looks like they'll retreat to being a me too outfit offering enterprise services against HP (themselves once an innovative and disruptive company).

At the moment, I think the "innovative & disruptive" crown belongs to Google, who launch loads of ideas, some great, some rubbish, and drop the ones that don't catch on. History shows that no company holds the crown on an eduring basis, and that very few companies consistently regain that title once they lose it, and that has implications for many of the companies in this space - Blackberry, Apple, Google. Interestingly it probably doesn't much apply to Samsung (HTC, LG or other OEMs) because they don't have much distinctive retail-valuable IP. I love my SGS2, but I don't think there's much that is innovative or disruptive that Samsung added. Whilst that means Samsung will never be as valuable as Apple, it also probably means that their share price can't fall as much as Apple's eventually will.

Re: I want the job

Your analogy and logic are flawed. Every few hundred years the UK has suffered moderately damaging earthquakes, and there's chances of tsunami, or volcanic climate change, but we don't fund people to sit on their backsides pretending to forecast them.

Re: Lucky, lucky customers@ Lee D

"I wouldn't worry myself about it. If the price is right for you, buy. Otherwise, don't. It's a simple rule that holds quite a lot of weight when it comes to your own money."

I'm a free markets man myself, but you have followed the fallacy of the policy makers and regulators, that it's a market and there's choice. My choices for serious modern high speed broadband are VM, or nobody. BT's sluggish upgrade of networks and foot dragging over LLU mean there's nothing they have I'd want to pay for. Likewise, if the only network that gives coverage in your home/work or other personally important locations is EE, then you don't have a choice (and with network sharing the choices will get fewer). Given that both VM, EE, and all other infrastructure businesses have regulatory permissions to do things like occupy spectrum to the exclusion of others, or the rights to go and dig up pavements and sling wires from poles, these are not free markets, there are few suppliers and huge barriers to entry, and VMNO's don't change that fact.

An interesting comparison is energy supply. You find anybody in this country who thinks that is a market and it works, and I'll eat my hat. But the reality is that it is a market, you can switch to anyone of six big suppliers and about thirty smaller ones and have an identical service. The rising costs are common across all suppliers because they have stripped everything out that they can, the underlying wholesale market confronts everybody with similar pricing, and there's no differentiation of price or service because people don't want to pay for those.

I can only vote with my wallet against VM by doing without a service I want. Is it a fair market that VM have a monopoly (or at best duopoly) of residential broadband, underwritten by law, and they can charge what they want to cover stupid M&A games by mega rich twats?

Re: Poor old Barracuda...

"Desktop HDD is the kind of terribly dull name that gives the world of computers a dull image."

Presumably the marketing department was also washed away in the floods. Who says they don't do anything useful?

Re: No luck here

"A Register user who cannot load a custom ROM - SHAME ON YOU."

More like a Reg user who has the sense not to load unsupported firmware of unknown provenance, I'd guess. Or a Reg user who is wise enough not to risk bricking a handset that they don't want to have to pay to replace.

Re: Lucky, lucky customers

"However, in this case there is no change in the competition landscape so there shall be no such scrutiny :("

I know, and that's the flaw in the regime. The bureaucrats who regulate these things foolishly assume that the only thing that affects customers is a change in the competition within an industry, and even then the definition of "public interest" isn't the same as "customer interest".

There's also the question of who the banks are putting the debt in? The taxpayers of the the UK, US (and many other countries) have spent the last five years bailing out banks who lost money lending to (amongst other things) over-geared leveraged buyouts. Clearly bankers don't learn until you break their fingers, so maybe that's where we'd better start.

Re: Yup ..

"A lot, yes, an lots of devices too."

We believe you.

Re: But%20at%20what%20price%3F@El Presidente

That's the price of living life on the cutting edge of science and technology.

Re: Am I the only one

"So, should I try to get into the Nexus then?"

That'll void your warranty, even if you did it in the name of science.

Re: But..

"So are they lying?"

Most people would accept that they have sold "millions" if they've sold 2 million or more. But in marketingspeak, 1,000,001 still counts for the plural.

But even if they'd sold 2 million, how does that compare to Apple and Samsung in the same period?

Re: In the early 60's Labour cancelled the TSR2 in favour of the "customized" F111 variant.

"Only the USN are buying the C, the major issue with it is even its redesigned tailhook only managed 5/8 successes on land, which is basically a unacceptable failure rate. The USN have several other options for a carrier aircraft, including the Super Hornets."

The B is essentially then for small export orders and the modest USMC requirement. I might also ask where (as with the UK) the Spanish and the Italians plan to get the money to buy these hugely expensive toys? A few export orders vulnerable to cancellation won't protect the B. The C however is the core of the proposed capability of the Ford class CVN's, and possibly replacement of the older USN jets on existing carriers. I really can't see cancellation of the C being politically acceptable, particularly as they've just spent almost $40bn on three new catapult equipped carriers for this. The tail hook issue is not something that cannot be overcome, but the continued complexity issues and weight of the B aren't going away either.

The US hasn't faced up to its defence budgetary problems yet. In its perceived need to project force globally and demonstrate technical superiority it isn't going to adopt the Super Hornet as its first line assets, so the F35 will make it into carrier service in one form.

For me, the existence of a third/fourth* US air force in the USMC is another expensive anomally that looks vulnerable. If the military need to reduce the costs of F35, that means cutting one of the three programmes - who do you think has more clout in Washington, the USN, or the USMC plus Spain, Italy, and the UK? Look at what the UK did to the FAA to "reduce costs". In the same hard place, the USMC may be willing to surrender their air corp in return for the USMC's continued existence, and then there's no American customers for the B at all.

I don't know what the outcome will be, but common sense says that the B is the most troublesome, most expensive, and least significant to the US armed forces.

* USAF, USN, USMC, Air National Guard.

Re: Hmm@A J Stiles

That's what I thought you meant. My point was that even if you cancelled the entire defence budget of £40bn, the government would still be spending £80bn a year more than it gets in income (plus £10bn for welfare and foregone employment taxes currently recycled from the defence budget), and even that isn't sustainable.

I agree that we'd save a lot of money if we adopted a Swiss style approach to defence, of simply being able to defend our domestic territory in the British Isles by a very large armed reserve force. Whether that makes sense I'm not sure - we'd have to renounce territorial claims to the Falklands, Antarctica, and any territory that is remote from the UK. We'd have no part in well-intentioned international missions such as Kosovo, Sierra Leone or Libya. We'd have no transport or military skills to contribute to international disaster relief. We'd have no ability to contribute to international missions such as combating piracy off East Africa.

The "little britain" mob would probably like this a lot. On the other hand, is it right to go all pacifist for a country that is easily in the ten largest economies in the world, is hugely influential politically, and deeply involved in global trade? If France and the UK hadn't stuck their necks out over Libya, it would have been another Syria, there would be continued fighting even now, and probably 100,000 civilians dead (as Russia and China have allowed to happen in Syria). I don't anticipate any gratitude from the Libyan people, but surely as one of the world's largest and most advanced economies, there's a time when you have to do the right thing, and part of that is building the capability in advance of the need?

Re: Chocolate Teapot

"Apparently the 4 ? "not very good" Typhoons based in the Falklands, could take out the whole air force of the Spanish colony trying to claim islands as theirs."

The antipathy towards the Typhoon is not that it isn't a good fighter. It is simply that it is incredibly expensive, arrived donkeys years after the mission it was designed for disappeared, and notwithstanding British attempts to fit it for strike roles, was designed from the very beginninng purely as an air superiority fighter. In this role on the Falklands I'd expect it to work a treat, but equally expect that the Argentines would never chance any of their small and antique air force against them.

Re: In the early 60's Labour cancelled the TSR2 in favour of the "customized" F111 variant.

"Could the F35b be the F111 6 decades on?"

Very probably yes. BAES have no monopoly on over-running defence projects, and there's real concern in the US about the whole F35 cost trajectory. As with the Eurofighter in Europe, the US are having to order less than they want to stay within budget, and if the costs continue to spiral then they'll have to ask why they are working on three variants when they only need two. Only the British and the US Marines really want the notably problematic B, so that's most at risk of being canned, or having its capabilities drastically curtailed to reduce costs - perhaps that's a more likely outcome, and we'll end up with something that is both expensive and crap. A bit like our carriers.

Re: Why the love for all the US aircraft?

"NationaI Geographic made a program about the Eurofighter in the Ultimate Factories. You find it on You Tube. Nothing much negative about its performance and quality as a fighter."

You watch and believe NG? Bloody hell.

And then, because NG do a feature on "Ultimate Factories", you think that makes the Eurofighter good as a fighter? And by extension, you reason that military aircraft are much of a muchness, so it must be a good bomber?

You must work for the MoD. Nobody real could be that clueless.

Re: Why the love for all the US aircraft?

"You find that "The Typhoon is a multi-role fighter with maturing air-to-ground capabilities" "

Don't make me laugh. Sellotaping a few bombs on to a fighter certainly fits the words, but it doesn't make it a good idea.

"In 2004, United States Air Force Chief of Staff General John P. Jumper said after flying the Eurofighter, "I have flown all the air force jets. None was as good as the Eurofighter."

In 2004 Jumper was 56 or 57. I doubt he was in much position to take a Eurofighter to the edge of its envelope. Maybe there was somewhere for him to rest his stick?

Re: Lewis misses the point

"Nicely and accurately put - especially as it's exactly the same scenario we faced in 1938-9"

But that's not where we are now. Current and likely future uses for our carriers are simply as mobile bases for participating in "hobby wars" beyond convenient flying distance from the UK. There's not going to be a conventional war with anybody armed with serious amounts of modern kit. And that's why buying the latest, most expensive fighter on the planet makes no sense - as others have already remarked, Ark Royal circa 1970 would be entirely suitable for most of the things that we might want a carrier for.

Re: Awful!@ Frank Bough

"Let's not forget the horror stories of Harriers returning from sorties and having to dump their entire weapons load in the sea before attempting to land."

All carrier aircraft have a maximum landing weight, above which they need to dump fuel and/or ordinance to meet that weight. Nothing special about the Harrier, unless you're comparing it to something with very big wings that can land with a full weapons load, and even then you've got limits to the load on the arrester wire that would be an issue. During all wars featuring carriers returning pilots have often dumped unused weapons, rather than risk crashing on landing for the sake of a few bombs.

In the grand scheme of war, the cost of dumping a few bombs like ths is nothing. Your point about the military benefit of SVTOL aircraft is much more valid.

Re: Why the love for all the US aircraft?

"So for 50% the total outlay, we can have 5 times as many aircraft, which gives us full complements onboard, and oodles of airframes at home for training, so pilots are not squabbling over airframes for flying hours."

And there's more: The casualty rate of SVTOL aircraft appears to be far higher than normal aircraft, which means that a fleet of 40 F35B will very soon be a fleet of 30, pushing the cost/capability further the wrong way.

Re: Awful!

The F111 was ordered because the estimates were cheaper than TSR-2, but none were delivered, because of cost over-runs on the F111 programme. So we cancelled our own advanced project, ordered somebody else's advanced project "off plan", and were then surprised when we couldn't afford that. IIRC there was also a slight problem of foreign exchange as well, in that we simply didn't have the foreign currency to pay the bill at the time.

Re: I didn't realise there was a difference

"Presumably UKIP supporters see an opportunity to get Thales out of the game"

Why? Can Thales be any worse than BAES?

Re: Lewis misses the point

"I thought the problem at Jutland was shells that DID go bang, all of them, at once, along with the battlecruisers containing them...?"

Well two linked problems of defence procurement - inferior armour on Britsh ships of the line, meaning that German shells could set off the magazines with a well placed hit, plus the refusal of the Admiralty to give Beatty proper armour piercing shells, so that when the Royal Navy hit German ships the shells just bounced off (well, in gross approximation at any rate).