I totally agree with MacSparky:
I’ve been watching the whole netbook frenzy with a bit of skepticism. Do regular people actually use netbooks or are they just nerd toys? People are now installing OS X on them and I totally get the idea of putting together an ultra portable Mac at a quarter of the price of a MacBook Air, but the tiny keyboards and crappy screens just do nothing for me. The idea of a bluetooth keyboard matched to my iPhone gets me much more excited.
From MacDailyNews: Apple’s real profit growth rate was 49% in 2008
Schwarz writes, “The great Ronald Reagan once said that ‘there are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits to the human capacity for intelligence, imagination, and wonder.’ And so it is for Apple.”
Delish or ick?
Microsoft might have a big ouch a-coming:
Microsoft Corp. would have to come up with as much as $8.5 billion to settle accounts with the customers affected by its 2006 “Vista Capable” marketing program, according to documents unsealed by a federal court.
BTW, I am going to say something in favour of Microsoft here. I had just read that overseas (IIRC) there is some legal movement afoot to disallow Microsoft from even having Internet Explorer come with their operating system. What a load of crap. If people are so misinformed as to the free choices available, too bad for them. We shouldn’t punish success because some people are stupid. If their concern is that people get informed, let these governments use their own money to educate them and not punish Microsoft for being successful. That is ridiculous. What’s next? They can’t put Microsoft Works on their either?
6 prayers have been offered in " give us this day our daily kool-aid "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThe idea of making Microsoft ship an OS without a browser, even one that I often call crappy, is ABSURD.
An OS without a browser is incomplete, this day and age. It’s be like shipping a computer without video capability. It’s necessary.
I know I certainly wouldn’t want OSX to come without Safari and iChat. Or the other 100 utilities/programs it ships with.
It is just so absurd. Following the Psystar case has really opened up my eyes to some of the ridiculous measures that are taken when a company dares to be successful. And now looking back at some of the past and pending Microsoft suits against them, I think they have gotten the shaft some of the time. And all this in the name of “consumer protection” when it is the future consumers that will ultimately be hurt because you’ve hobbled motivation for innovation and success.
Some of the case law I have read that Psystar is using to support their case is just horrendous that I can’t believe we actually have as case law in this country. And one decision piles upon another until even the lawyers and the Judges can’t figure out up from down.
I’d be the last one to defend Microsoft on much of anything, and I wish IE would instantly vanish from the face of the Earth for all the malware scourges it’s visited upon humankind… but I have to agree that trying to force Windows to be sold sans browser is utterly ludicrous.
Does anybody in the EU think beyond Microsoft to see the kind of bad precedent this sets? I mean, are they also asking that Linux systems be sold without a browser?
And have they not checked the browser usage numbers lately? IE is still on a downward trend, people are moving away from IE of their own free will. I don’t see the need to suddenly press this issue yet again.
It is a socialist precedent, and I know the “intentions” may be good, but this is BAD for the consumer. I feel the precise same way about some of the anti-trust regulations in the U.S. though none of them are as draconian as that.
Even though I wouldn’t approve of this either, it would certainly be much better than forcing Microsoft to remove Internet Destroyer. On that box that pops up asking if you would like to make IE your default browser, make them put in a notice that there are other free browser available and have the EU pay for a site that lists them. That is what they would do if they were concerned about consumer education rather than punishing the prosperous.
The alternative you’ve outlined there certainly seems a more sensible approach, and one that could be fairly applied across the board to other operating systems: the first time a user goes to browse the web, the system’s default browser navigates to the EU-sponsored browser choice page for that OS, with download links to install the listed browsers.
Of course, that too could be abused, as there’d no doubt be some kind of gamesmanship regarding whose browsers get to be listed, and in what order, and with what accompanying text… so the solution could still end up becoming a problem of its own.
But for the purposes of educating users about alternative web browsers, that would certainly be a way the EU could go.
True, who gets listed first and all that. Perhaps even just a notification on the pop-up letting the user know that there are other browsers available. Leave it at that. No reason to spoon-feed them. If the concern is that the EU thinks that Microsoft users are ignorant that they can use other browsers, then that would let them know.
There are some industries in the U.S. where there are disclaimers like that such as the hiring of certain agents that earn a fee on a contingency, such as a personal injury attorney. That attorney is not required to give them a list of other attorneys, but to advise them that they are not required to hire that particular attorney.
Leave A Reply