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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.

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Computing | 661 comments | Create New Account
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Computing
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, March 30 2013 @ 04:43 PM EDT
> Windows and Office revenue on which Microsoft are
completely dependent and this is the lifeline that they are cutting off.

The game is deeper than that.

PC revenue is decreasing, mainly because desktop and laptop machines that users
currently have are 'good enough'. The tasks done on those machines is reducing,
and will continue to do so, as users buy tablets, smartphones and smartTVs. More
users are also moving to Linux, partly because of Android/Linux and partly
because they already run Firefox/OpenOffice and several others.

Microsoft sees a future of falling revenue. Getting on board with mobile is only
part of the solution, they want to extend their app store to supply _all_
software so that they 1) control the market and 2) take revenue from retailers
and software houses to boost their own.

I expect that MS wants to move entirely to TIFKAM and to a subscription model
for all its software so that it force new versions on users and collect revenue
for doing so.

By forcing TIFKAM only they can eliminate the threat of Firefox and OO, MSOffice
will be the only Office that runs.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

your not alone....
Authored by: dacii on Saturday, March 30 2013 @ 04:48 PM EDT
Your views are shared with others.
I can remember those days. I have been there and I am in a similar position.
The pendulum swings as you well know in many directions. Hang tight and keep
spare hardware in case of the worst. I have. And will always. As if I own the
hardware (at least most of the time), I can get my work done. The small
collection of equipment I keep dates back about 30 years. As time rolls on, I
remove or dispose of the legacy equipment. I hate to see it go, but it served
it's purpose. Heh, which reminds me. Time for spring cleaning. Gota get rid
of some old stuff again. Hmmm, come to think of it, I have been lax or
nostalgic the past couple of years. I suppose some software must go also.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Computing
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 01 2013 @ 12:05 PM EDT
What I see happening there is "the return of the mainframe".

For some reason, the Market, followed by most consumer-individuals, is
deciding that personal computing is a failed experiment.

For specific tasks, use a special-purpose thingie
Like a game console or
a router. For anything social, like writing or photographing, use the
Cloud. Oh, and for your safety, we'll set up Secure boot and CFAA and
such, you don't want to enable child abusers do you.

Individual thinking is not perceived as an asset.

BtW, never was. The anomaly is the period of time between the
Commodore/Apple ][, etc, and now. Tools to allow it will be more
difficult to find.

I just hope they won't be illegal.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Computing
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 01 2013 @ 05:14 PM EDT
I think that most people have been trained by television to
think of the personal computer as an entertainment device.
Sort of Marshall Mcluhan's "the message is the media" thing.
It is only the very minority that actually use a computer
in the sense of a "computer" to solve problems. M$ turned
their OS into a media channel, mainly for entertainment.
What do people do? email, surf the web, FB, and all that.
Rarely anything creative as far as I can tell. I know that
there are people who do creating things, but not most. They
have been trained to just receive and be entertained, not
be creative.

When I was young, there was a lot of DIY books published
along with many magazines that attempted to spark an
interest in being creative. That kind of thing is still
around, but not to the extent it was years ago.

I don't know what will happen when trying to find a working
"computer", one that one can actially write programs on and
for, becomes very difficult. Hopefully I'll be in a state
of mind where I don't care and it will be just a pleasant
memory. But until that time, it may become a tough
problem. I cannot use touch screen devices because they
always misbehave for me. I do a lot of programming for
fun and pleasure and I will always need a real computer.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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