Posts by Sirius Lee

First article I've read on The Register which includes an actual CIO and even though I suspect this will have been a heavily edited article it still sums as "not in your lifetime - especially at Dell".

I really hope The Register will stop with this BYOD campaign. For me it highlights an ignorance of business and corporate governance. What if every other article is by an author who really equally as ignorant about the respective subject matter? Another perspective is that BYOD is just business and that The Register is merely taking someone's shilling. Though I hope not because it propagates a view that is anti-thetical to good corporate governance.

I've another possible explanation

BT introduced Infinity widely during the period. With us they 'offered' Infinity at our existing rate (£13/month for 75MB/s who would refuse?). And I'm sure there are many who thought the same thing.

However come time to renew the contract the price shot up to £28. No thanks. Even worse the service would drop out every few minutes making impossible to watch on-line content. To be fair, if a laptop was under the stairs directly connected it was OK but if it was connected via the new hub's wireless connection it just didn't work. Now, talk about customer service. "Yes your connection is fine". No wasn't not.

So we're with VM now and everything is rosy at the moment.

The Microsoft bashers and IP freetards just can't help themselves. The usual complaint about the existence of IP is when it is used by trolls 'who don't produce anything'. In Microsoft's case, they've been in the mobile phone business for 2 decades and actually produce things - even things to do with mobile devices. And because they've been in the business for years longer than either Apple or Google or Samsung (Samsung used to produce phone to order not on its own account) they've given thought to the software needs of the mobile device and patented them.

So what's the complaint in this article? It seems to be that because Microsoft is not the market leader they are should not allowed to benefit from the patents they applied for and were granted a long time before Google even contemplated a mobile operating system. That because Microsoft has only 5% market share it's years of research into and development of mobile device features it should be denied the legal benefits of its work.

My guess is that the biggest contributor to Microsoft's licensing income is Apple. In my view Apple have been innovative in their marketing but have few technical innovations. From what I can tell Apple innovation appears to be limited to rounded corners. So it gladdens my heart that the fanbois are probably substantial contributors Microsoft's fortunes.

Usual crap arguments

So not only do we have to pay a tax to the BBC luvvies to the detriment of a fairly competitive landscape, they now want to be in higher slots so they can distort the market more completely.

Disclosure: I make no bones about wanting to be rid of the BBC in its current form. Public service broadcasting does have a place but not supported as it is by a specific levy. There are those who do not want adverts, and bully for them. Let's create a BBC that operates a subscription service for those who don't want advert supported content so there is an alternative, commercial option. Then when that choice is priced. Then we'll be able to see if the advert freetards still want to be advert free.

No regional analysis

The article presents no regional analysis except to point out that 88% of activations are in the US. My reasoning processes conclude that Apple remains strong in its home market but desperately poor elsewhere.

This lack of regional analysis is a bit of a theme. In another post I saw today, which essentially bemoaned the 'fragmentation' of Android, there were many statistics but none about the use of devices by region.

Editorial oversight?

A recent edition of El Reg featured two articles:one about Microsoft; one about Google. Both were from your Californian correspondents.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/19/microsoft_q4_2013_earnings/

Microsoft's earnings down on slow Windows sales, Surface RT bust

Has Redmond lost touch with consumers?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/18/google_q2_2013_earnings/

Google exhales another $14bn revenue figure

Mountain View Chocolate Factory continues production of gold bars

Just consider these articles and there titles and sub-titles. Then consider the facts. The post about Microsoft bemoans that Microsoft's earnings are down when in reality they were up: it's just that they were not up as much as someone in 'Yahoo! Finance' thought they should be. Yes, that august body Yahoo! Finance.

Meanwhile, Google are sh**ting gold bars apparently though the reality - even made in the article - is that their earning are up quarter on quarter but down year on year.

Of course it doesn't matter. But it does say something about the The Register that what appear to be misleading articles are being propagated without any correction or comment.

So this article is based on the premise that the august body that is 'Yahoo! Finance' has any clue about what Microsoft should be earning. I'd like that they were earn 100Bn but my preferences don't count. Their numbers were up at a time when they've launched a slew of product in the face of an astoundingly hostile press and their revenue are up. Just not as much as some lard arse in an office someplace wanted to make up. Oh, and that august institution is part of a company headed by a person who used to work for a company that used to see Microsoft as enemy number one (I imagine that title has passed to Samsung now). No scope for bias there then.

It's a bit harsh to say they missed the tablet market. Beside Apple was there a market? Dell tried valiantly with Streak but so did many others. Really, it's an iPad market with some other trying to copy.

Its also a bit harsh on the mobile side. Most phones are bought from the telcos along with a contract. Dell is not a telco. Which other PC vendors have a thriving mobile business?

Yes, they've missed the 'cloud computing' though they have an offering. But besides Amazon, who is making a return on their cloud investments? Microsoft? Google? Oracle? No one. This is a market made by Amazon. They have a good understanding of the needs of their customers just like Apple has a good understanding of theirs.

Privately, Dell can do lots to transform the copy but not if the game is me too.

While few would disagree that stupid interview question are just that, I'd like more detail on the numbers. There is no way some kid with no college education is going to walk into Google and do *anything* meaningful wrt, say, Google Glasses. If they flunked their education because they were coding Java 24x7 or were replacing truant parents may be there will be a role. If they flunked their education because they were playing games all the time, not so much.

Any education tells an interviewer more than just what they know. If they have a good transcript it indicates they are likely to be organized and able to get things done.

But Google isn't the company it used to be. It used to be a geek paradise with projects to change the world. This aspect still exists and I will be astonished if groups involved in these pursuits did anything other than hire the brightest available (and have devious means to select from the pool of candidates).

However a much bigger component of Google is now line management, sales, testing, code maintenance, cleaning, making sure the lights are on in the data centers. That is, all the mundane jobs that every company has to get done. I can see that a college education is not needed for many of these jobs. If these roles are now the majority of hires then an elitist selection policy is not going to be appropriate in the majority of cases though were it was relevant it probably still is.

If not, and Google is now hiring less capable individuals into the creation of future products, this should be disclosed in their 10-K filings with the SEC because it's going to have a medium term impact on the ability of the company to deliver revenues.

I agree with AC @1:52. Plus our experience is that AWS is consistently less expensive. We've been using AWS for about 6 years and always look at the options for saving trying to use Google and Azure but they are not there. At least for us. Because we have been, and are likely to be, long term users we've taken advantage of the substantial discounts available when you commit to a three year deal. It's true you are locked in and can't then take advantage of price reductions but the commitment has saved us a lot of money. We calculate that the upfront cost is paid off after 9 months and that for 27 months we're saving 30%/month.

No advertising warning

Why is there no adverising warning on 'articles' like this? Big Table has been around for years so there can be no concept of Google forging (present tense) anything. It was forged years ago. Revamped maybe. Rebadged, perhaps. And no mention of the key/value based storage service in Azure which has been there since the service was launched.

Stop whining

Ray seems to want to use this example to score political points and its disappointing the Register let him get away with it.

If there is a concern about Arquiva having a monopoly surely the correct thing to do is refer them to the competition commission. If the one in the UK is too cosy with the industry, then the one in Europe.

As that has not been done, presumably there really is no monopoly to whine about or there are no other private companies which believe there is profit to be had installing and maintaining masts in the UK (a prime example of a commodity). So what's a government to do? If providing the operators the cash would result in a bitchfest and there are no other companies that have wanted to invest in infrastructure for the UK how else can the government help get the job done?

And still got a tether

I'm sure it's all very impressive but it will be much more impressive if the tether doesn't have to be there, it has circuitry on-board that allows it to navigate to useful locations autonomously, it can re-fuel, it can carry a useful payload and has the has power to do all these things.

I'm sure it's sufficiently impressive to those in the know but ability to fly has been known for a long time. Equally, high frequency oscillations driving systems are not new. However an efficient and small scale fuel system that has high energy density and is able to be replenished from the environment would be something to write home about. If it's small thing that can sustain flight while tethered not so much, in my opinion.

Really?

With 30 seconds of effort I can see from LinkedIn and the IBM web site that Mario has an advanced degree in Mathematics from CalTech and that he's been working for IBM and Hitachi since 1985 researching error correcting codes and data reliability all that time, for organization for whom this topic is going to be important. Clearly someone who is going to have more that the usual familiarity in the field.

You choose to suggest that the way to understand this paper is to solicit the opinions of your readers rather than, say, calling or writing to Mario directly. I'm inclined to agree with your assessment of your cerebral limitations though perhaps for different reasons.

It'll never happen

The NHS is a collection of unions, some real, some masquerading as professional bodies (BMA, RCN, etc). All unions and guilds know that knowledge is power and sharing knowledge diminishes that power. So I expect a protracted proxy fight over 'privacy' over the coming months and years with every union member involved learning to spout a standardised list of privacy horror stories .

Alan Johnson appears to be in favour

Alan Johnson, Terry Wogan's former postman (oh, and a Home Secretary in the previous Labour government), appeared on This Week yesterday. When this subject came up AJ seemed broadly in favour of the legislation. As a former Union baron and a senior Labour figure maybe his point of view indicates that law enforcement agencies (and just about anyone else who can plausibly claim to be a 'civil servant') will get their way the next time Labour is returned to power.

Do you think show knows...

just how stupid she sound? She's a 'senior politician' complaining that a company, applying the law, is paying too little tax while she, a politician, someone who is able to change the law, fails even to advocate doing so. Hippocracy only hints at the absurdity of Hodge's position.

Of course she's hamstrung because the Labour party has no economic strategy beyond spending more money, money they seem to be planning to shake from some money tree they must have found. If Hodges proposed, say, increasing corporation tax or taxing foreign entities that would be policy which would stand out in the barren waste of Labour economics.

Not quite what Teso said

The big bold print, copying some words from a blog, doesn't really respond to the assertions Teso made. As I recall, Teso claimed he was able to input information into the FMS but made no claims to be flying the plane. Whether that information makes sense to the pilot(s) depends on context. Clearly information that reports they are at ground level when the pilots are clearly able to see they are flying is going to appear to be nonsense. However if the information Teso claims can be input is more subtle might the pilots be unable to determine that it is wrong?

Microsoft has it right

As a director of a far reaching product, his horizons have to be years out. If they are not, he needs to be fired. We're hearing now of stuff (from any tech company) that was conceived, planned, designed and even created years ago. The people running projects at tech companies are making bets on what the future will be like (and living the life so they can check what it will be like). Microsoft failed to play this game well with the phone and they have reaped the consequences.

Those living at the bleeding edge or the heart of a connected city (and paying for it) can't be expected to wait until all the dongles in the boonies have decided catchup. That's not how life works. The Microsoft guy doesn't want to life in Hicksville, West Virginia and not do I.

I certainly don't want Microsoft's planning horizon to accommodate only Hicksville's modem speed connectivity when mine is 70MB/s download and 10MB/s upload (really, that what I have now). I want Microsoft (and others) thinking about new applications that can take advantage of this bandwidth.

OMG

He died of respiratory failure. However that wasn't the cause. The cause was the hand around his throat.

Yes, the right lessons should be learned. To assert that casino banking was not to blame is like asserting that the victim chose to stop breathing. *Of course* there was too much lending but why? Was it because would be home owners coerced banks into lending? Was because SMEs had the banks over a barrel?

No, banks made loans voluntarily. Why did they behave this way? Because the cost of lending was obscured. Banks thought their risk strategies we far better than they were. And who was making these assessments? Who was making the lending part of the bank feel their loans were safe? Yes, the casino part.

In his book Nate Silver estimates that through almost reckless risk management bank misunderstood their risk by as much as 200 times (20,000%). The use of CDOs obscured risk by making it more difficult to calculate. It's a bit like blaming the victim for not breathing just because the hand crushing his windpipe is hidden by a scarf.

It's a little unfair limiting your inclusion of Microsoft to just the .NET stuff. Since the mid-2000 Microsoft has operated the Open Specification Promise (OSP) - Google it - which provides access to specifications for most of their protocols and file formats. No prosecution will ensue from using this information even where covered by patents and even if you want to sell stuff. Sure, features of the Windows kernel and storage formats like FAT are not covered but there's a lot that is.

Straggered by some of the comments

Andrew, I don't often agree with you but on this, I'm right with you.

What is truly staggering are the number of comments genuinely supposing that government regulation of the press - any government regulation of the press - is desirable. That this state of affairs will, in some way, be better. That the legion stories of corruption, not by 'government' but by the *people* that are its members, form the basis of 'fair' control of the media.

Yours, utterly and truly gobsmacked

China adding fire to the Mandiant smoke

The world over we can rely on those in government being a dumb as posts. What moron would provide the appearance of confirmation of a finger-in-the-air story such as the one by Mandiant in such a crude way? Now the world has reason to believe the Mandiant line to be accurate even if it's complete fiction.

Or maybe, Chinese the government employs genii and this is a double-bluff to get focus on some non-descript building labelled by Mandiant while the serious work takes place elsewhere.

Or maybe...

Did Ofcom shoot the govt in the foot?

By allowing EE to proceed with a 4G offering, did the dismal take up by us consumers influence the apparent lack of enthusiasm by bidders?

This is about blob storage not 'AWS' and 'Azure' or 'HP'

IMHO the basis of the study is invalid. But before writing any more, this comment from the report seems relevant:

"In addition, this distribution of file sizes closely matches a well-documented breakdown from a study conducted by University of Wisconsin and Microsoft Research2."

Scope for bias?

This report is not about 'AWS' or 'Azure' (no VM performance, no database performance comparison, no real application stuff). This report is about comparing the blob storages. In the case of AWS, S3. S3 is great but it's primarily static file storage. Plus as a front end it evaluates access policies. If I want performance to store blobs, say as part of a transaction based application, S3 is not my first option and, though maybe I'm wrong, I don't think it wouldn't be the AWS recommendation either, especially for small files.

Oh, and the OP didn't mention that when considering files > 1MB AWS is fastest. 70% of the files in the study were 100K or less. 9.7% were 1M and 22.2% were 10MB. Analysis of files we store in S3 shows that over 90% are more than 1MB. The study referred to looks at files on the PCs of Microsoft employees. Are the file sizes on local PCs representative of the files that will be stored in a blob storage? Not in our experience.

Before choosing AWS we looked at both services and found Azure to be more expensive on a like-for-like basis (insofar as there can be like for like). I admit that read/write performance to S3 was not on the list of things to consider. We use S3 to store and deliver videos and similar. The variability of user experience accessing these file is more likely due the vagaries of the internet than any characteristic of the storage infrastructure. Which, by the way, AWS provides its customers the change to ameliorate by using Cloudfront so the content is delivered from (relatively) local edge points. There's no mention of the impact of edge location services in the report.

Really disappointing

I'm not a user of Opera but it is disappointing they have caved. I can appreciate their difficulty but webkit/chromium is now just another monopoly (and don't give me all that open source crap). Monopolies are monopolies no matter how benign they appear. Sure someone can take the code and do their own thing but as the Opera team has shown, that's really tough. Meanwhile humans will be humans and will politic to control this now more valuable resource (which so far as I can tell is already controlled indirectly by the Apple/Google duopoly).

The use of the Eclipse analogy is unfortunate. As a daily user of both Eclipse and Visual Studio, I much prefer the Microsoft environment. If webkit is to be Eclipse that's really no recommendation. There's no reason to believe Microsoft will throw in the towel so there's at least one mainstream alternative to keep the webkiters somewhat in line.

Good news

I'm a Euro enthusiast but not because it spends money relentlessly. If people want to live in the back of beyond that's their choice and there are consequences. If you are a farmer and want broadband, pay for it. If you can't or don't it means your business is not viable so you need to go do something else. If you are a farm labourer, ditto. Despite chicken little warnings about running out of food, no such thing is going to happen so the mountains and lakes are not appropriate. I agree with 'Richard Jones 1'

Europe is our future, our kids future (think of the kids ;-)). A small nation, no matter how successful in the past, is going to struggle alone in despite the best endeavours of the little Englanders (are you listening, wife?). But Europe is not going to be a viable partner while it is demonstrably irresponsible.

YouView tail wagging the BBC dog?

A beneficiary of the arrangement described in the article seems to be YouView. YouViewers will be able to record on-line content that will not be available to vendors supporting terrestrial broadcasts until later. What are the relevant commercial arrangements? Do other channels such as Virgin Media also get access to the content ahead of the terrestrial broadcast?

Headline touts 'Better looks'

Might have been an idea to have included a screenshot. Even the LO web doesn't include a screenshot, pictures of people and some icons but nothing of the product. Suggests to me there's not a lot of confidence in the UI.

I love articles like this. Financially illiterate. Sure, do the "Investing for Dummies" top line analysis but miss the point. It's great you are going to encourage the price to dip so I can buy more. This time last year the same story: sell Amazon, earnings not there!!! And the stock dropped quite a bit down to ~£190. I bought a ton.

A quick look at the 10-K shows Amazon was investing. It's earnings were down last year because it's purchases of kit rose from $1.7bn to $2.9bn. Good lord, a company actually investing for the future. What a shocker! And the same is true this year. There's no profit because purchases are up from $2.9bn to over $4.5bn. Where's all that kit going? My guess is all those data centers around the world cementing Amazon's position as leader in the cloud computing space.

And consider the awesome financial management that allows an organization to report a tiny loss on sales of $69bn. That loss is 0.05% of its net sales. Oh, and it increased cash generation to over $8bn.

Please, please, sell. Knock that price down some so I can get some more. Please.

Sounds like gripes to me. Another way of looking at Ballmer's behavior is that he's making space at the top for new faces, new ideas. It's the board's job kick out Ballmer and arrange a succession plan. As they don't seem to have done that, presumably they don't think it is necessary.

And by whose measure is it a 'lame duck' board? This is a company which returns billions to shareholder (mainly pension funds) every year. Sure the stock price doesn't move much but that not the way Microsoft are making friends with the finance community (not just Wall St). When you hear the pension funds getting restive then its time to question the board.

And those pension funds do not want a 'Facebook generation' guy at the helm. Microsoft is a vast company that spans the globe. Not only does it make cash for shareholders it make *many billions* for other companies around the world from it Windows and Office and Xbox franchises. Stick some muppet from Facebook up there? No, the shareholders will not love that.

So this article is about a book by a guy with a bunch of complaints who didn't make it. Get over it. He was not up to the task or it was not the right time. Next.

It is a tragic case but...

Just yesterday I was reading an article Swartz wrote in 2007: https://aaronsw.jottit.com/howtoget

In it he describes how he would be obsessive and, after the sale of Reddit to Conde Nast, depressed enough to consider suicide. My immediate impression from reading his own comments is that those closet to him - perhaps those complaining about his treatment by authorities - might have helped him in practical ways long ago. On the other hand, if his comment do indicate underlying psychological problems I could understand if any suggestions to get help were rebuffed.

Your analysis labours the point about Windows 8 shipments to the channel. But that would have been true for Windows 7. So Microsoft appear to be comparing like with like and that's a good thing. If Windows 7 shipments were considered good and those of Windows 8 are the same what, really, is your point?

I'm staggered that there are as many as 100 million downloads from the Microsoft store and your cynicism here is a non-sequiter. If you are an Apple user you have no choice but to use the AppStore. If you are a Windows user, why would you use the Microsoft store at all? Windows 8 is Windows and any app you used to use will work perfectly well - admittedly not as a live tile. I assume the majority of those 100 million must, in fact, be by users of full Windows 8 not RT or Phone. Unless Microsoft are being very quiet about sales there can't be enough users to reach even 100 million.

Absolutely spot on Sir James, but just a minute...

Dyson's comments are largely correct. There is no prospect that web anything will make a reasonable return based in Britain. Anything that is created here will be snapped up in its formative stages by a Facebook, Google or Microsoft making the creators a bit of cash but making no impact on GDP here in the UK.

Where are our Googles, Oracles, Microsofts, Facebooks? They don't exist. They don't exist because there's no investment from funding companies in the UK. There's no investment by funding companies because there's no intellectual property protection in the UK. Many, many commenters here will assert that IP protection for software is not justified and I respect that position. But as an investor I can assure you that without protection, there's no investment and, so, no meaningful revenue generated for UK plc. Instead the ideas which do emerge here are snapped up early by largely US interests where, if they flourish, they will contribute to the US economy.

But don't take my word for it, do the analysis yourself. Consider the few software companies that do exist such as Sage, Misys, etc. and then consider whether their products satisfy a peculiarity of the UK (accounting, law, government systems, etc) or are vendors of more general applications. Most that have anything to do with software are consultancies because selling time is more reliable.

It's not just the UK. This pattern is repeated across Europe for much the same reason. Sure there are vendors meeting local needs or national government favours but beyond SAP are there many independent software companies able to survive internationally?

It's ironic, then, that the home of the intellectual property free zone does not provide much by way of free software. Think of the big open source project (such as apache, linux, open office, android, xen, wikipedia) and consider who are fostering these important projects. Is it some philanthropy in Europe to show how an IP free zone can thrive? No. They are mentored in the US. Sure, Europeans (and people from every other continent) contribute but without the the ability to channel cash to these projects, very often cash from US investors in IP, these projects would fold.

So in Britain IT is almost exclusively 'data processing'. Data processing is important but is a commodity which has long since be shipped off-shore. Instead of generating cash for UK plc it sucks cash and knowledge out of the country. Even where there are IT successes such as ARM (this is a hardware business with does benefit from IP protection) the manufacturing and selling of product and revenue and jobs which accrue from those endeavours are sub-licensed to companies in other countries.

So Dyson is right. In the current framework the government should focus more on manufacturing. However, Sir James, for me your words would have more force if I knew for sure all your manufacturing (and jobs) is here not abroad as I believe at least some of is.

Dirigibles? In a battle field zone?

So the only weakness was not being able to off-load cargo? Slow, large, easily holed (and so downed) by anyone with something little better than a pea-shooter. Seems like a winner.

'Just' 12 light years away

OK, I know it's in the stellar back yard but 'just' makes seem like we could be there by lunchtime. Well, lunchtime in a million or so years. On the plus side, we'd have time to evolve to a reduced gravity environment on the way and time to evolve gravity support structures again as the gravity was turned up on approach supposing anyone could remember why on they were hurtling through inter-stellar space.

Slight bias in this article?

So Google is being a self-promoter by opposing this proposal in Germany but there's no comment on the gain of the beneficiaries of this proposal? So German newspapers have not lobbied for this proposal then?

Presumably commentary in German newspapers is even handed with articles reviewing the benefits to readers and themselves honestly. Mmmm. Does somebody at "Team Register" work for a German newspaper?

The guy is on his way out

Sounds like he kept failing to read the memo including the copy with the amendment saying if he didn't read it his desk would be cleared and drawers emptied.

Whether or not Microsoft has done a good thing with Surface it is at least realizing it needs to do something. This kind of carping must reflect the ingrained thinking in Redmond and of those not finding a chair when the music stopped.

Crime against humanity

Let's suppose there is a grain of truth in the thermogedddon scenario and that in 1000 years we may not be around because the problem of our own making. Is it really sensible to propose the solution is to ensure an effective population correction though mass starvation in the next few decade by turning back the clock to (un)sustainable sources of energy?

No. I'll go so far as to submit that such an argument should grounds for a prosecution for crimes against humanity and that advocates should be in the dock in the Hague.

If someone in a position of responsibility were to propose a similar population correction by, say, nuking half the world or releasing a virus to cause a pandemic they would be thought mad and denounced. But, somehow, these recommendations seem to be tolerated.