Sometimes, the smallest of things can amaze me. I'm a sucker for details, which probably lies at the base of my slightly obsessive-compulsive traits of keeping things organized, tidy, aligned, and neat. It's great to see some companies are suckers for details too. Unless the details just become too insignificant. Note: Sunday Eve Column. Short, this week, though.
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Member since:2005-07-10
"So basically, you are admitting there is little to no innovation in the Linux or Apple worlds?"
My last comment, I promise, but Thom, is this really the level of discussions you want to see on your site? Someone pointing out that lack of competition leads to less innovation surely could have been answered without trolling, couldn't it?
Member since:2005-06-29
My last comment, I promise, but Thom, is this really the level of discussions you want to see on your site? Someone pointing out that lack of competition leads to less innovation surely could have been answered without trolling, couldn't it?
No, that is not trolling Ralph. He says the current situation stiffles innovation-- and yes, less choice indeed should lead to less innovation.
However, I see more than enough innovation in the Apple and Linux worlds. How does that rhyme with the assessment of the current situation the parent poster sketched? Might it just be that this monopoly is far less strangling than many people seem to (or want to) admit? That it is... A perceived monopoly?
Member since:2005-06-29
>What is stopping people from buying a Mac?
I'd say inertia and compatibility issues with existing data which are in proprietary format.
> Where do you draw the line?
I believe the line should be drawn so as to maximize innovation and minimize prices. I believe all we need to achieve that purpose is: first, make closed formats illegal for a product which has a market share higher than X% (where X is decided empirically).
Second, in google's case, prevent defaults, i.e. ensure that the user chooses explicitely which search engine to use, or what antivirus to use, or what firewall to use, or what filemanager to use, and so on. Forcing the customer to choose explicitely is IMHO a reasonable solution to enforce competition and make sure that the best one wins.
I believe such laws would lower prices and speed up innovation, and the only reason why this laws are not made is that Microsoft as a lobby is very powerful. The pressure of lobbies on the parlament is the greatest problem of modern democracies.
Member since:2005-07-06
>What is stopping people from buying a Mac?
I'd say inertia and compatibility issues with existing data which are in proprietary format.
There's Office for Mac, as well as Messenger, IE, WMP,...
Not to mention Virtual PC.
You'll have to find a better excuse. Here's a hint: 'price'.
Member since:2005-07-06
Again, where do you draw the line?
The 'marketing' rebates to the OEMs are across the line. If Dell tries to ship Linux on the desktop MS cuts off millions of dollars of 'rebates' to Dell.
At one point Toshiba (I think it was Toshiba) owned a Linux distribution and Microsoft manipulated their rebates so that they couldn't even put their own software onto their own PCs and make it dual boot.
Build all OEM PCs bare and provide a line item to choose your OS or none at all. To stop manipulations allow the OS to be bought without buying a PC. That way if Dell does something cute like making Windows cost $0.01 IBM can buy 10M copies and stop paying royalties to Microsoft.
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Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces."But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance."According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.
Member since:
2005-06-29
Now it seems to me there is a perfect analogy with Microsoft: Microsoft exploits its current advantage to prevent competitors to regain positions and really challenge its dominant position. And who loses from all this is the customer ( = the public), who gets higher prices and less innovation.
So basically, you are admitting there is little to no innovation in the Linux or Apple worlds? What is stopping from people from buying a Mac?
"Free market" does not mean removing any limitation to what actors can do; it means enforcing competition. Sometimes limitations are the only way to enforce competition.
I agree, but to what extent should this enforcing go? Should it go as far as Microsoft being forced into putting Firefox and RealPlayer on Windows install disks? If so, what about Opera and VLC? Should they be included too? And if so, what about Lynx and Xine? Or should Microsoft just provide you with the NT kernel and let you build up the install by providing options for each section of the OS? Or, should they also ask you if you want to use the Linux kernel instead of NT?
Again, where do you draw the line?