decoration decoration
Stories

GROKLAW
When you want to know more...
decoration
For layout only
Home
Archives
Site Map
Search
About Groklaw
Awards
Legal Research
Timelines
ApplevSamsung
ApplevSamsung p.2
ArchiveExplorer
Autozone
Bilski
Cases
Cast: Lawyers
Comes v. MS
Contracts/Documents
Courts
DRM
Gordon v MS
GPL
Grokdoc
HTML How To
IPI v RH
IV v. Google
Legal Docs
Lodsys
MS Litigations
MSvB&N
News Picks
Novell v. MS
Novell-MS Deal
ODF/OOXML
OOXML Appeals
OraclevGoogle
Patents
ProjectMonterey
Psystar
Quote Database
Red Hat v SCO
Salus Book
SCEA v Hotz
SCO Appeals
SCO Bankruptcy
SCO Financials
SCO Overview
SCO v IBM
SCO v Novell
SCO:Soup2Nuts
SCOsource
Sean Daly
Software Patents
Switch to Linux
Transcripts
Unix Books

Gear

Groklaw Gear

Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.


You won't find me on Facebook


Donate

Donate Paypal


No Legal Advice

The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

Here's Groklaw's comments policy.


What's New

STORIES
No new stories

COMMENTS last 48 hrs
No new comments


Sponsors

Hosting:
hosted by ibiblio

On servers donated to ibiblio by AMD.

Webmaster
I saw a Surface as a prop in a TV drama last night! | 429 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Also - MS is trying it's old "lock-in" tricks with Win8, Win8 hard to learn too...
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 07:51 AM EST
Also - MS is trying it's old "lock-in" tricks with Win8, Win8 hard to
learn too...

There is one estimate that Win8 takes about 6 weeks to learn. Total Cost of
Ownership, when you examine the cost per employee just for the hours of trial
and error training, or formal training programs in-house, then add on the lost
productivity dollars while doing that training. Ouch.

Just imagine that issue in IT departments as to IF they will ever, ever, ever
deploy Win8 ever... (and lose their jobs for doing it)?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Paul Thurrott: Windows 7 was a lie. Netbooks [...] destroyed it from within
Authored by: JamesK on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 08:38 AM EST
Outside of my nephew, who thinks Windows phones are going to take the market
away from Android & iPhone, nobody I know, who has used Windows 8, likes it.
Might not that have something to do with this? Take a look at what happened to
Nokia for more evidence about how popular W8 is.


---
The following program contains immature subject matter.
Viewer discretion is advised.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

I saw a Surface as a prop in a TV drama last night!
Authored by: Gringo_ on Thursday, January 10 2013 @ 07:02 AM EST

It looked so funny. The scene was your typical young, geeky looking computer tech whiz that the crime scene task force depends on to track down leads. He (or just as often, she) has a small office crowded with computer monitors and can access cell phone and credit records in a blink of the eye. Top secret military records take only moments longer.

For displaying locations they seem to love Google Earth type sweeping zooms where the display begins with the entire North American continent and ends up at street level. They often carry tablets these days for quick, on the spot responses, and transfer photos to the on-scene investigators in a blink of the eye.

So I have set the scene. The detective walks into the geek's office and wants a trace on a phone number. The geek has a Microsoft Surface in his hands, and the camera zooms in tight to fill my TV screen with that distinctive Metro interface. That shot lingers just a moment longer than necessary. The geek touches a tile and zooms into some complex data display.

The camera pulls back while the geek and the detective discuss the information just uncovered. Then as if to ensure we really noticed "the latest technology" he was using, the camera zooms in once more on the Surface as the geek exits the app he was using to give us a final full screen view of the Metro UI.

Wow, we are supposed to think I guess, "How cool"! But it was anything but... The colourful kiddy Fischer-Price UI of the Surface tablet was incongruous in the middle of a serious crime drama, but it did offer some comic relief.

I wonder how much Microsoft paid for that product placement? They certainly got the exposure they paid for, but I doubt it will do them any good. Wrong type of show. They should have chosen a comedy.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Netbooks not the only pressure on price
Authored by: ailuromancy on Friday, January 11 2013 @ 03:25 AM EST

Before Netbooks we had small cheap computers (The name had to change along with the downgrade to Intel/Windows instead of ARM/Linux). The small cheap computer got its foot firmly in the door in 2007 (Asus Eee). Part of the reason for the existence of the small cheap computer was the OLPC XO-1 - which sold like (passively cooled) hot cakes in 2006.

The other big thing at that time was Microsoft's Vista (reared its ugly head in late 2006 and foisted on the unwary in early 2007). One of the big advantages of Vista was it required reasonably good (for 2007) 3d hardware. Intel's integrated 3d hardware was on Microsoft's 'too slow for Vista' list. The hammering OEM's took on laptop prices was so bad that they begged and got Microsoft to include inadequate 3d hardware in the Vista compatible list. This lead to some damning reviews that could not have helped raise the price of laptops.

I agree that small cheap computers Netbooks have kept the perceived value of PC's and laptops low, but we should all be grateful to Microsoft and Vista for their outstanding efforts in making laptops a reasonable price. I can understand that Microsoft are no longer keen to carry the torch on this issue. I am happy for them to rest on their laurels while I install Debian on Android and Chrome devices.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Groklaw © Copyright 2003-2013 Pamela Jones.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners.
Comments are owned by the individual posters.

PJ's articles are licensed under a Creative Commons License. ( Details )