Archive for July, 2009

Ballmer Doesn’t Get IT

Published by Robert Pogson July 30th, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

There are reports that Steve Ballmer presented data and made statemets to stock analysts that are quite shocking.

  • That Other OS attach is down 5% year over year last quarter
  • No change versus Apple
  • Effect of lower-priced hardware, -9%
  • “upselling” -4%
  • PC market down 6%

Grand total is -24%… Most of that is M$ not selling what end-users want:

  • smaller
  • cheaper
  • better performing

Where does Ballmer see growth?

  • recovering economy
  • emerging markets and consumers (who will not be offered a choice…)
  • reduction in illegal copies (How?)
  • prices of “7″

News for Ballmer:

  • less is more … Thin clients are about 10% of PCs and netbooks are about 3%
  • people do not want to pay more for a slower OS
  • many PCs 4 or 5 years old work just fine with XP and GNU/Linux
  • emerging markets are extremely price sensitive
  • all over the world, where illegal copies were persued, GNU/Linux grew…

There is no light at the end of the tunnel, Steve.

I find it telling that Ballmer would bother to tell analysts that people do not want netbooks and thin clients. It is like a small boy saying repeatedly that he is not afraid of the dark…

“Nobody believes in thin clients,” Ballmer told analysts, meaning PCs with limited, if any local processing power.”

Tell that to Munich, Extremadura, Tell that to IDC.

- Robert Pogson

Russia Gets It

Published by Robert Pogson July 28th, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Russia is going after OEMs who supply only that other OS on notebook PCs, stifling competition. How about that? Russia gets it that pre-installing that other OS gives it an unfair advantage. It looks as though Russia wants choice of OS to be separated from choice of hardware. If that catches on, it is the end of Wintel. Purchasers of PCs will see something like:

  • OS
    • that other OS Add $100
    • GNU/Linux Add $0
    • MacOS Add $50
    • OpenSolaris Add $0
    • FreeBSD Add $0

M$ has stated they do not require OEMs to install their OS and that they will make sure that purchasers can get a refund for an undesired OS on a PC…

M$ must be ticked.

The case against the companies was initiated on 4th June 2009 for the elements of violating Clause 5 Part 1 Article 11 of the Federal Law «On Protection of Competition». It is suspected that the notebook manufacturers were engaged in concerted actions by pre-installing the operational system of the same vendor on the notebooks sold to consumers who in most cases did not have a possibility to choose and buy the required notebook model without a pre-installed operational system or refuse to use the product tied to their purchase (the operational system of the «Microsoft» Corporation).

see this announcement from FAS

- Robert Pogson

The Superiority of Applications in GNU/Linux

Published by Robert Pogson July 26th, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

I am inspired to write this after reading some tripe on the web about GNU/Linux not making it because of inferior applications.

FIREFOX Superior in every way to IE. It would be difficult to be inferior to an application designed to bring down the house while browsing. FireFox has its share of vulnerabilities but they get fixed promptly. There are plenty of features and one of the most important are the plugins which allow extending the application itself. Everyone can have a different browser while they all call it FireFox. Sweet.

OPENOFFICE.ORG This suite of office applications was superior against the 2003 version and more so with the 2007 version from M$ with the cursed “ribbon” interface, designed to increase mileage of mice and lose newbies. A user of 2003 can switch to OpenOffice.org with very little effort. Moreover, the ability to produce PDF which we have enjoyed for years and other open standards is the icing on the cake.

LYX This one may be unfamiliar to many but it allows one to write a particular style of document while automating many tasks. For writing memos, essays and other documents it is superior to any other word-processor. It very smoothly automates citations/bibliographies and tables of contents.

XMMS Playing audio? This baby will do it all day long just like your CD player used to do it.

VLC, MPLAYER, TOTEM Video? Sure. The field is deep here.

BEAGLE Remember XP reading recursively through folders to find stuff? Beagle does it right by indexing users’ files and searching the resulting index. Smooth, fast. We had this years before Vista attempted poorly the same thing. We also have SWISH-e which is just as powerful but not as easy to use.

INKSCAPE Need some vector graphics for a logo/sign/splash screen/whatever? Inkscape has been doing the job well for years.

GIMP It does everything that Photoshop does for free except the proprietary printing colours. For people living on the web, GIMP will do the job very well. Lots of tools/scripts/extendability. Disney uses a derivative.

AUDACITY/ARDOUR Need to record/edit audio.? These will give lots of tools.

There are thousands of applications in the Debian repositories.

It goes on and on. None of us are expert with everything and do not need proprietary applications for everything. Let the pros pay thousands for their software. The 90% of us that can use our PCs with GNU/Linux to find/create/present/modify information can be happy with the applications in GNU/Linux. Some of these apps are very popular with that other OS, too. What does that say about the argument of the twits?

I guess they either are terminally stupid or deep in the pocket of M$.

- Robert Pogson

The Middle of the End

Published by Robert Pogson July 25th, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

SCOG v World has gone on for six years now. I am sure we are approaching the end now, but it could still be in the middle of a long process. In two days there will be a hearing on motions to convert SCOG from desbtor in Chapter 11 to Chapter 7, liquidation. None of SCOGs delaying tactics seem to be working. There is no pot of gold. Airy rescuers seem to have been paid to make an offer. One wonders why the officers of SCOG do not just pass the hat to get out of bankruptcy. Could it be that they do not want to invest in their own scheme to sue the world?

The judge has ruled that they cannot use litigation-vapours as collateral to argue to get out of Chapter 7. They now have no legs to stand on. Once in the hands of a trustee all motivation to sue should be gone. Suing in a hopelses case is futile. It only remains to be seen what splinters go where. I would like to see Darl and friends go to jail but that will take a while. SCOG should be toast. Who in their right mind would place any value on suits against the world as having enough value to buy? I doubt even M$ thinks that is still worthwhile.

- Robert Pogson

GNU/Linux is the Man!

Published by Robert Pogson July 25th, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

M$ published this data: last quarter client OS revenue is down 29% from a year ago.

IDC published this data: last quarter PC production down 3% from a year ago.

This proves 2009 is the year of GNU/Linux. M$ is finally having to compete on price. It has been a long time since they had to do that. M$ has had to cut the price of XP, folks are not buying licences to Vista and 7 is vapourware for months yet. Benchmarks show that XP is faater than 7 so M$ will have to pry XP from many cold, dead hands. Those who need support may well migrate to GNU/Linux. It may be a similar amount of pain but they can keep their hardware running and save a bundle on licensing. Business has shown a reluctance, well-founded, to adopting the next OS from M$ in its first year so 2010 will be another good year for GNU/Linux. Releasing early and often is a better plan for making migration painless.

- Robert Pogson

It’s Hard to Keep a Good OS Down

Published by Robert Pogson July 21st, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

It has been getting harder to buy a netbook without the M$ tax lately but ACER, who is breathing down Dell’s neck, is selling a full-sized notebook PC for the price of a netbook. That cannot be good for M$. ACER has had huge growth in the face of the economic downturn. The reasons are aggressive sales of netbooks through ISPs, banks, and whomever ACER could enlist. They are passing the field on the curve and will pull away in the straight. ACER has seen that M$ is holding others back.

There are a bunch of reasons newbies will buy a PC with GNU/Linux installed:

  1. price
  2. performance
  3. lack of malware
  4. open standards
  5. software freedom

M$ may be able to FUD about some of these, but when the prices get this low, M$ has nowhere to hide. Dell will have to follow suit. Can the others be far behind?

- Robert Pogson

Tipping Point

Published by Robert Pogson July 21st, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

The City of Edmonton has reached the tipping point. They have realized they have enough staff comfortable with FLOSS to leave M$:
Many IT department staff members are comfortable administrating open-source platforms, Moore says. “There’s already a group of people here in IT who understand that world. But they’ve never been allowed to express their knowledge and understanding, because we’ve been kind of rigid.”

see IT News Canada

There it is. One more obstacle to adoption of GNU/Linux and FLOSS has died of natural causes. The myths are dead.

- Robert Pogson

60% of Business Have no Plans to Switch to 7 in the next 18 Months

Published by Robert Pogson July 13th, 2009 in Uncategorized. 4 Comments

ScriptLogic has done a survey of 1000 firms and found 50% have no plan to migrate to 7 in the next 18 months.

see their survey

Obviously they see no imminent need to migrate as they mostly report lack of manpower/resources as the reason for not migrating. When one sells a useless product, that is highly likely. In the current climate this means many will not be adding seats and they will be sticking with XP. Only about 18% have gone to Vista, BTW. GNU/Linux will look very good by the time they do decide to leave a 10 year old OS riddled with malware. The cost of migration to GNU/Linux for many will be less than the licensing cost of that other OS and the ongoing operating cost will be less too. This is the year of GNU/Linux.

- Robert Pogson

Google

Published by Robert Pogson July 8th, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Google has announced development of a new OS to permit netbooks to use networked apps. They use GNU/Linux for almost everything. No word yet whether GNU/Linux will be at the heart of the new OS.

see what the BBC reports

I see nothing on Google.com yet but the BBC has some rep as a reliable news source.

Android is a contender for the netbooks and phones. This could be a variation for desktops. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: According to PC World, GNU/Linux will be the core of this OS. Good. That will give them a foot up in development. Google will diversify and give name recognition to GNU/Linux.

- Robert Pogson

Currently Under Review – Updated

Published by Robert Pogson July 6th, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

In recent months, the lie that GNU/Linux is marginal on the desktop, about 1%, has been repeated so often that many have come to believe that it is true. Network Application, the source of the data, now posts a message that pages are “currently under review”.

Perhaps the publication of M$’s own figures, many times larger than Network Applications, and the obvious falsehood of Apple’s share have caused Network Applications to rethink their manner of presenting the data. Perhaps they are going to cease claiming an unbiased sample or they may select their sources in a less biased manner. We can only hope and wait.

The problem with telling a lie is that you have to keep on telling the lie and you have to remember all the lies you told or you will be caught out.

Honestly, I do not know that NetApplications has been lying but it is sure that that GNU/Linux has far more than 1% of the desktop globally. I suspect the problem is a US-mainly sample and a heavy leaning to certain business sites. I hope this delay in presenting results for June 2009 means they will revise their methodology to give a more meaningful result. That would be a good thing in the middle of this Year of GNU/Linux.

NetApplications does sell access to regional data. It is possible they wiell make that data available by default to give a less biased picture.

UPDATE The site has “Site Note:  Browser and O/S June stats under review We are investigating some significant variations in browser and operating system statistics. The reports will not be available until we complete our review.”

Let us hope they fix things to shut down some of the nonsense being treated as truth on the web. Netcraft.com reports they are running IIS and some links give a configuration error message.

UPDATE Here it is August 1 and Net Applications has announced weighting by country/web users. I guess that is an improvement. The effect appears to move MacOS down into the world of reality, and not changing GNU/Linux much. That makes sense if you believe GNU/Linux has the same exposure globally. We think that is nonsense. BRIC countries certainly use GNU/Linux more than others. Unfortunately Net Applications now shows that other OS over 90% again. I am sure M$’s fans will be crowing…

- Robert Pogson

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My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.

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