When Microsoft said it withdrew its offer to buy Yahoo earlier this month, many people figured the acquisition dance was far from over - that the withdrawal and the subsequent letter from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to his Yahoo counterpart were nothing more than a move in an ongoing strategic battle. It appears those people were right, as Microsoft just issued a statement regarding Yahoo.
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Member since:2005-07-06
Very impressive indeed.
Just the thing for a quick email... provided of course that the internet connection is picked up straight away.
Wireless networks are pants, but wired networks can also take a few minutes of authentication, so if the router is switched off too, there is no time saving gains to be made by not loading the main OS.
<joking> Next week we will see a version that has a cut down XP installed on it </joking>
Member since:2005-07-24
[q Next week we will see a version that has a cut down XP installed on it [/q]
At a dollar less in price? ;-)
Not this time. Note that these "less is more" machines would not lend themselves to being vehicles for all those demo versions of crap that offset the OS license cost on more conventional machines. Any OS license would cost real money.
Member since:2006-12-05
I just watched that video. From the video:
"No waiting three minutes for your traditional operating system to load, now the Internet is instant."
I'm sorry, but if you wait three minutes for your "traditional operating system" to load, you've got some serious problems with your system. Not counting the BIOS POST, which itself is maybe three seconds or so (not sure, it's normally done by the time my monitor wakes up from sleep mode), my machine running Linux (Zenwalk) takes around 25 *seconds* to load. When it was running Win XP Pro, it tended to be somewhere around 30-32 seconds, 35 max... not much longer. The real kicker? This is an old Gateway from 2001 with a weak (by today's standards) 1.7GHz Pentium 4 and a pathetic 256 megs of RAM.
Sure, it's typical advertisement... but they could at least get their facts straight. But then... maybe they were looking at it from the point of view of someone who shouldn't even have a computer, as they've got so much crap, viruses, malware, you name it, that it *does* take that long. In that case, I would say it's the owner's problem (but thanks to Microsoft for such a poorly-designed OS allowing such crap to get in!).
While I can see the usefulness of Splashtop for some people, I honestly don't see myself ever using it. I'll take a "traditional" OS any day. I go for features, flexibility, expandability, and in general, a *complete*, well-designed desktop environment. To me, Splashtop just looks like a joke. A mildly interesting one and one with potential, but still.
Member since:2005-07-24
That probably covers the majority of their customers. Keep in mind that splashtop solves the virus problem. Those people will still have 5 second boots instead of 3 mintutes or whatever, and they won't be relaying the rest of us spam.
So while Splashtop might not be *for* you, it can still be of substantial benefit to all of us should it become popular. And I'm pretty sure it will. A diskless machine with Splashtop is exactly what my parents need.
Member since:
2005-07-24
Indeed. Imagine this integrated with GMail and Google's office services.
I just watched the video here:
http://www.splashtop.com/
Many, many people would not need a hard drive or other OS, or the expense. (Other's would, of course.) But this looks to be far more significant than Dell's half-hearted Ubuntu preinstalls. Splashtop, its descendants, and other initiatives like it, are going to be *big*. An excellent application of the "less is more" philosophy.
Edited 2008-05-19 14:57 UTC