Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 26th Jan 2009 11:56 UTC
Earlier this month, news got out that the European Commission is charging Microsoft with unlawful competition regarding its bundling of the Internet Explorer web bowser with Windows. At the time, information was scarce, but thanks to Microsoft's quarterly filing at the Securities and Exchange Commission. we now have a little more insight into what the EU might force Microsoft to do.
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Member since:2007-02-17
Europe would sink quicker than the bloody well Titanic did. Let them use Linux and OpenOffice, boy oh boy are they in for a big surprise on both accounts.
Ambit claim without any support.
There are already a significant number of European government and quasi-government departments that run on Linux and OpenOffice.
Example:
http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39155382,00.htm
Member since:2005-07-06
Dave, you sir are a tool
The EU is the worlds biggest market, and if Microsoft did pull Windows and Office out of it, Microsoft would go down the pan in a matter of days.
At the minute Microsoft are on a share buy-back and have already started laying off staff. Things are going downhill for them, and you want them to cut off their biggest cash cow ?
I am just glad you are not in charge of any business I have dealings with.
Member since:2006-01-19
I'd like to see Microsoft just pull Windows and Office from Europe. Europe would sink quicker than the bloody well Titanic did. Let them use Linux and OpenOffice, boy oh boy are they in for a big surprise on both accounts.
No, Microsoft would be in for a big surprise.
Remember the guitar-string maker Ernie Ball? He got raided by MS, which upset him so much, that he made the decision to not have anything to do with Microsoft ever again. He told his IT guys, to transform ALL of his systems within half a year.
Well, they did it, it cost them some effort and pain during the transition, but suddenly they had to spend less money on IT than before. The transition payed off during the first year of fully using the new environment.
And Windows, as well as MS Office are not the big lock-in issues any more.
The major lock-ins are Macros and some applications which don't have an equivalent Linux application.
The average Linux-distro is more than a match for Windows, and OOo is good enough for most Office workers.
If a withdrawal of Windows + MSOffice would be FORCED on the EU, we would reform the IT landscape within the first 3 Months by 90%. The rest would get skipped, because it was not needed anyway, or new Software would be written. After one year everything would work just as well (or bad) as it does now.
Member since:2005-08-18
I'd like to see Microsoft just pull Windows and Office from Europe. Europe would sink quicker than the bloody well Titanic did
Yes, it's a good thing Microsoft is the only manufacturer of Operating Systems. I'm sure it wouldn't at all be a big opportunity for the competition.
If you don't like the rules, you're free to not sell your product in the market.
Of course, it's all pretty moot because Microsoft won't pull anything, Europe is way to big a market to ignore.
Let them use Linux and OpenOffice, boy oh boy are they in for a big surprise on both accounts.
If everyone in Europe would use them then it wouldn't be a problem now, would it.
Apple is far more of a anti competitive p.o.s company that Microsoft imho.
Yes, they're both pretty much assholes.
I agree with you on software patents also.
Member since:2007-02-17
I'd like to see Microsoft just pull Windows and Office from Europe. Europe would sink quicker than the bloody well Titanic did. Let them use Linux and OpenOffice, boy oh boy are they in for a big surprise on both accounts.
Actually, at least one major European political party seems to have reached a conclusion that the use of open-source software could reduce licensing costs and free up the government from being locked into "long-term, monopoly supply situations" (their words). They seem to think it could save them, and hence the taxpayer, a considerable amount of money.
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2235240/tories-nearing-open-sourc...
Possible savings of £600m a year, claims Conservative Party
Perhaps it is Microsoft apologists of whom one could say: "boy oh boy are they in for a big surprise".
Edited 2009-01-29 01:52 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 22:06 UTC
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:45 UTC
"There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International, which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world. AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's just. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many more - these companies might not be breaking any laws, but it's obvious to anyone that what they are doing is scummy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 15:53 UTC
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
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."More News »
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Member since:
2006-12-16
You are mostly correct, although posting what you said in a pro Linux/BSD environment won't win you many friends.
I'd like to see Microsoft just pull Windows and Office from Europe. Europe would sink quicker than the bloody well Titanic did. Let them use Linux and OpenOffice, boy oh boy are they in for a big surprise on both accounts.
Whilst I'm a fan of governments playing a larger role in the software industry, I don't think this is the right way to approach it. Software patents need to be removed to encourage *true* competition, not competition bullied by bigger companies that happen to hold a patent because the USPTO gave it to them on the premise of monetary exchange. Software licences need to be really hammered big time, consumers have almost *no* rights. Responsibility for software must be legislatively enforced. And government agencies must offer documents in open formats. Note that I'm not saying that they must ONLY offer open formats like some Linux nuts would suggest, but they that offer a *variety* of formats to the customer/end user.
I hope Europe has a go at Apple, since it bundles Safari with OS X, and doesn't give you the choice of not installing it. True, with OS X it's easier to get rid of Safari, but for the average user, it's probably messier, since you have to pull crap out of /Applications, /System, /library/preferences, ~/library/preferences etc I suspect. Apple is far more of a anti competitive p.o.s company that Microsoft imho.
Dave