Posts by Ian Easson
10 posts • joined Thursday 27th September 2012 03:11 GMT
Windows XP was considered a failure when it was first introduced
This is the only thing wrong with your otherwise good post.
It was only 2-3 years after XP came on line that it really began to take off. That was about the time of SP2.
And, let us not forget, Windows XP SP2 (with its total reworking on the security infrastructure of Windows) was in fact a quite new version of Windows, not at all a service pack. Microsoft merely called it a free service pack so that everyone would upgrade to the new, more secure, version of Windows.
Quite Sensible: Don't Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater
There are many reasons to criticize the current patent system in advanced economies.
The knee-jerk reaction is to simply get rid of patents, or, to get rid of them in certain specific areas of innovation (most typically, software).
Regardless of whether or not you agree with Microsoft's latest suggestions, I think that the worst thing that could be done is to eliminate patents altogether, or to eliminate them for certain broad types of innovation.
It's tick-tock all over again
I suspect the best analogy for what Microsoft is doing is Intel's "Tick-Tock" approach.
They release a new version of Windows (and all other software, like Office) in the Fall. Then, a year later, they significantly update it. It's a free "Feature Pack" (as opposed to a "Service Pack" that just fixes bugs).
Then. the next year, two years after the release, they come out with a new release (which, of course, you have to pay to upgrade to).
Simple, and far more oriented to the consumer market than the enterprise market.
Microsoft's "Contoso" is not a fake company
It is designed as an archetype of a major company that uses Microsoft technologies, a hypothetical example. Everyone who knows anything about IT knows this.
To suggest that it is a fictitious company that Microsoft refers to, like the other companies that are referred to in this article, can only be an attempt to slur Microsoft. Readers of this article should understand the motivations (or ignorance) of the author.
Iceland should tell the US to FO
Somebody needs to say it first.
Too high priced?
Surface RT costs $100 less than the comparable 32 GB Ipad, and offers a lot more for the money (like Office).
Get your facts straight.
Re: internet mapping
Those are done for copyright reasons.
Makers of maps almost always include fake items like side roads, etc., so that they can check to see if someone is literally copying their intellectual property.
Supporters of FOSS say patents are evil, but copyrights are fine. The truth is that all things, including all forms of intellectual property, are susceptible to abuse.
Get used to it.
Re: @ mememine69
True, absolutely true.
A politician's reluctant recognition of reality has little if anything to do with their response to it. They are only concerned with political (social/class) power issues, nothing else.
(Speaking as a Canadian!)
Re: They are only less balanced
Carbon plans are overall neutral, by design.
Would you be willing to accept the demise of Homo Sapiens, your own species, simply because in your particular case the carbon balance was slighty against you?
Posted in Google spikes old MS file formats
Those "antique" formats are 90+% of all Office documents
Say what you will about the document formats (IS29500) that Microsoft adopted starting in Office 2007, there is no doubt that 90+% of all existing documents are in the older (binary) formats). These are the formats that Google no longer supports!
Ask yourself: Why???
