Posts by Richard Plinston

Microsoft founder Paul Allen's money man wants Redmond to break up

Re: R&D and the Aquaduct

> MS May have purchased the QDOS poduct, but it was barely functional and certainly needed a very large amount of bug fixes and development before it was released.

When MS bought DOS from SCP it was _already_ being distributed as SCP-DOS (or 86-DOS) and was sold with SCP's Zebra 8086 S100 boxes.

Certainly it was modified to use MS's FAT file system rather than the CP/M cloned file system.

> It was then IIRC totally re-written from the ground up for the next major release.

It was rewritten by IBM when Gary Kildall demonstrated PC-DOS 1.0 showing a DRI copyright notice that was buried deeply in the code. Both MS and SCP were CP/M OEMs. SCP with their Zebra 8 bit systems and MS with the Z80 Softcard. It has been alleged that SCP decompiled the CP/M BDOS (there were commented decompilers available at that time - see Byte magazine ads) and put the code through Intel's 8-16 bit ASM converter (also available) to arrive at the initial QDOS.

After IBM rewrote PC-DOS as 1.1 it was passed back to MS to create MS-DOS 1.25.

It was rewritten again to make 2.x and to include hard disk support (which had been available for several years on CP/M).

Re: R&D and the Aquaduct

> The NT OS is multi user from the ground up.

That is simply not true. Originally Cutler intended the new NT to be multiuser but Gates had this removed because he wanted to sell a machine to each user and not one copy of Windows for several users.

Later, Citrix (started by Ed Iacobucci of OS/2 fame), added actual multiuser facilities to NT 3.51 by licencing the NT source code. When NT 4 was released MS refused to release the source code to this until Citrix cross licenced their multiuser code and communications protocols back to MS (for free?) so that MS could build TSE.

While NT may have serial reuse with different logins, it is not (apart from Terminal Services) actual multi user (ie multi concurrent users).

Even with Citrix or TSE there are several nasty hacks needed because there is no real separation between the users on one machine.

Re: Oh dear

> while the previous wave of home PCs were very closed systems with little or no interoperability even across succesive models, not upgradable and very little expandable.

You obviously weren't even born then. Many systems from the mid-70s used CP/M, on which MS-DOS was based. There were several CP/M clones such as CDOS, Turbo-DOS. Many machines were based on S100 bus (eg the Altair) and these had swappable and upgradable boards.

Even the Apple II from 1978 could take add-in boards such as the Z80 Softcard that ran CP/M. All CP/M, MP/M and clone machines were interoperable because they could all run the same software.

> And without DOS/Windows, I guess there would have not been any Linux - because the x86 hardware most run it on would not have been so widely available.

Linux, and Unix before it, can run on almost any CPU, it didn't need x86. MS-DOS was forever stuck on 8086/8088 CPUs (or 8086 mode on others) because it could only run in real mode. Granted Windows could switch to 80386 mode.

Linux was the first OS to run on AMDs x86-64 and Intel copy of that, well before Windows got around to it.

I suppose you will claim that it is Windows RT that make ARM CPUs widely available.

> A company that loses the consumer and ends up being an expensive business only player will eventually fail.

I am sure that SAP and Oracle, among many others, are glad they retained their consumer business.

Fed up with Windows? Linux too easy? Get weird, go ALTERNATIVE

Re: @Roo

> Yes, but keep in mind that V7 was a pretty early cut, it was missing a lot of stuff we take for granted like virtual memory, networking etc (all that came later with the BSDs). They would have been facing a choice of System III, BSD or going their own route. My guess is they would have gone BSD route & got licenses with AT&T in the end.

I don't know why you think that guessing is useful.

Microsoft bought AT&T licences to keep it up to current Unix versions:

"""in September 1983. A port to the 68000-based Apple Lisa also existed. At the time, Xenix was based on AT&T's UNIX System III."""

"""Version 2.0 of Xenix was released in 1985 and was based on UNIX System V. """

Re: @Michael Wojcik

> turned out if MS chose to push Xenix instead of fooling about with DOS & Windows. From a commercial perspective I can see why MS chose not to do that - I wouldn't have fancied fighting Bell Labs for the right to sell software I wrote either.

You seem unaware of history.

Microsoft purchased a full license for Unix (edition 7) from AT&T and produced their version of actual Unix for the x86 called Microsoft Xenix. Later when they purchased 86-DOS from SCP as MS-DOS 1.x and added to this to make version 2.x. They added features form Unix/Xenix such as subdirectories, redirection, executable format*, and such and claimed that they had a family of operating systems: MS-DOS for small PCs and Xenix for multiuser systems; with some superficial similarities.

In fact Excel's predecessor: Multiplan came out on Xenix before MS-DOS.

I don't know why you think that MS would have to fight Bell Labs over anything.

Later they sold Xenix to SCO who upgraded it to OpenServer by buying licences for System III and System V.

* MS-DOS 1.x had no subdirectories and stored all files on a diskette in one flat space. It didn't even have CP/M's 'user space' which separated files into up to 8 or 16 separate namespaces. 1.x also only had .COM binary executables which were a flat format similar to CP/M 8bit .COM programs which is not surprising because 86-DOS was a 16bit translation of a decompiled CP/M (with FAT instead of CP/M filesystem). MS-DOS 2.x added .EXE which was a structured format with multi-segment support and fixups, just like Xenix programs.

Re: What happened to...

> VME/B

http://www.fujitsu.com/uk/services/application-services/application-development/vme/

Re: Ahhh, BeOs

> Actually I don't think you can blame BeOS on Microsoft

Actually you can. It was starting to be installed as a dual boot on some Windows machines. Microsoft offered an extra $5 discount for every machine if it was not installed.

They had done the same with Netscape Navigator previously and later threatened removal of 'loyalty' discounts over Linux being installed on Netbooks.

When tens of thousands of machines are being built a few dollars per machine adds up to a significant threat.

'It's a joke!' ... Bill Gates slams Mark Zuckerberg's web-for-the-poor dream

Re: He's Right

> Bill's proposed actions won't benefit him

Yes it will. Bill holds substantial quantities of pharmaceutical shares. By giving away samples he ties this in with local government support for buying products from his companies to continue the treatments, or at least not allowing the cheap unlicensed copies of those drugs.

Google and Samsung bare teeth in battle for LANDFILL ANDROID™

Re: Why Android?

> It was true for the MS 'monopoly' as well. Nobody forced anyone to use Windows or IE.

Yes they did. Microsoft forced the OEMs to use Windows and IE, or more specifically, they forced them, via 'loyalty' discounts, per box pricing, and other means to _not_ use anything else. This made the only things available in retail stores was Windows or Apple (who made their own hardware and OS). Even if you wanted to run Linux you were often forced to buy Windows by lack of availability of alternatives.

> They just came preloaded like Android on mobile phones,

But with phones there used to be a choice in the retail shops or on-line of several OSes. That was deliberately reduced by Microsoft's agreement with Nokia, not by Google.

In many, probably most, cases Google has no contact with the phone maker and they can choose whatever system they want to. They only need to deal with Google if they want to include Google services.

It wasn't threats from Google that killed WebOS, it was more likely that Microsoft extended the 'loyalty' discount threat to HP with WoA and RT.

> and Google in Firefox and Chrome.

The search bar on Firefox contains Yahoo, Bing, Amazon, eBay, DuckDuckGo and others and there is a link to add others and set preferences. Chrome also offers other search engines: Yahoo and Bing or easily add others.

In fact Ubuntu's Firefox defaulted to using Yahoo because Yahoo paid them to do so.

Re: Why Android?

> anyone else holding in excess of 80℅ of ANY market

It wasn't Google that killed off Symbian, Maemo/Meego and Metemi, it was Microsoft via its puppet Elop. It was Microsoft and Nokia that reduced the number of different products in the market leaving the race between two plus BB and WP fighting they way downwards.

OTOH it was Microsoft that killed off DR-DOS first with illegal 'per-box' pricing, then the AARD code, then by bundling MS-DOS and Windows 3.x at the Windows price (actually that was giving MS-DOS away for free to kill off DR-DOS). Then they announced the 'Netware would not be supported by the next DOS/Windows' so Novell bought DRI so that they did have a client OS that supported Netware. They planned to give a copy of DR-DOS with each Netware client licence. MS and Novell settled by MS continuing support for Netware and Novell having to remove DR-DOS from the market.

So DR-DOS died, not because it wasn't wanted, but because MS had engineered that it not be available to be bought.

MS also supported SCO in their attempt to kill Linux, getting SCO $50million funding and also spending $millions in buying Unix licenses from SCO that they didn't need.

It was MS that engineered that the alternatives to WP, and Android, could also not be bought.

Fortunately, Tizen, Jolla, Ubuntu, Firefox OS, and possibly others are becoming available bringing back choice that had been strangled by Microsoft.

Re: Why Android?

> So you for one welcome these creepy new overlords.

First of all I don't see them as 'overlords'. I can easily avoid Google or I can use it. Whereas, for example if I ran Windows 8 I would find it harder to avoid having an MS account or Bing.

>I know noone who's bought Androd, they've bought Samsung, LG, Sony or whoever. Android isn't the driver, the hardware maker is.

Exactly. Google isn't the driver, the hardware makers are. They can build WP, Maemo, Meego, Tizen, or any other (except iOS), or write their own. It happens that their customers buy Android so that is what they make.

This is unlike the Windows OEM where if they made other stuff (DR-DOS, BeOS, NetBooks with Linux, etc) MS 'punishes' them by removing discounts, or per-box pricing, or similar.

> I'm glad too that you consider Google, MS or anyone else holding in excess of 80℅ of ANY market a healthy thing that results in best value for end users.

Did I say that ? No I did not.

> the point has been proven that small policy changes to Google`s algorithm can kill other businesses.

Actually most of the complaints along those lines are where someone manages to manipulate the results in their favor and then complains when Google levels it all out again.

> Are you Eadon?

You can see who I am, are you Richto, the vogon, or AC the shill ?

Re: Why Android?

> has a monopoly on the smartphone ...

Google doesn't have a monopoly on smartphones at all, they do have a small marketshare with Nexus devices. Phone manufacturers are not tied to Google and can use whatever OS they wish to. It happens that the public want to buy various different brands that run Android. These sell alongside other OSes.

> and search industry.

You, and everyone else, can select whatever search engine you prefer. A simple click can select from over a dozen different ones. Those that _choose_ to use Google do so because it has better results.

> By giving away their operating system for free to promote their search platform they are effectively no better than Microsoft in the 90s..

When did Microsoft ever give away an operating system ?

Re: Why Linux?

> You want to run Android apps on Linux, why not do so?

http://www.cnx-software.com/2013/03/01/how-to-run-android-apps-in-linux-with-androvm/

iPad Air not very hot: Apple fanbois SHUN London fondleslab launch

Re: A bit harsh

> By that statement 16-bit processors must fly!

I can tell that for certain operations the 8088 on the original IBM PC (and others) was slower than the 8085 and Z80s.

In particular, byte write operations required the 16 bit word to be fetched, the byte changed and the 16 bit word rewritten (otherwise the 'other' byte on the 16bit bus would be lost) while the 8bit machines just wrote the single byte.

Nokia wins UK patent spat: Quick, let's boot HTC One out of Blighty

Re: This is bloody insane, yet again :-(

> ONLY (and presumably more cheaply as a result) for the US.

They licensed the US patent. The UK patent is the same but has a different number. Each country has an independent patent office and issues patents separately.

Microsoft: Everyone stop running so the fat kid Win RT can catch up

> Here are the facts then. Windows RT was and still is Microsoft's vision for all things mobile.

Consultants were hired to determine why WP7 was not selling well. They reported that the problem was: the UI was 'unfamiliar'. To make it 'the most familiar' interface it was decided to force it down the throats of desktop users until they loved it (or died). Then they would _demand_ it on their mobile devices. It's not working.

> Windows Phone 8 as it exists on Nokia devices was an effort to gain a bigger foothold in the mobile industry. A rather successful one at that.

Microsoft phones once held a 42% share of the market in USA. Since then each iteration has broken compatibility with hardware and software WM6 -> WP7 -> WP8. RT is also not compatible with WP8. Market share worldwide is now only about 3.5%. Nokia WP phones have had a $billion subsidy a year and still run at a loss. Surface took a $900million write down and those models still in the warehouses are now obsolete and will have to take further writedowns.

I am not sure why you think it is 'rather successful'.

Re: Success???

> What matters to them is sales.

No, what matters is profit. Nokia's rise in sales in Europe is in the low priced ranges and these (according to Nokia's reports) are selling at a loss. The price would have to rise about 15% just to stop the loss.

Of course many businesses can sustain losses for a short time in order to gain sales volume but it seems that Nokia had enough of losing money on their phones and were either going to dump them all (ie stop making WP phones) or switch to Android when the current agreement runs out early next year.

MS bought Nokia phones to save face instead of losing their 90% OEM.

Why did Nokia bosses wait so long to pop THAT Lumia tab?

Re: Wrong way round

> 5.6m - 8.8m = + 57% growth in just 3 quarters.

And if you take the last 5 quarters there has been a drop. Even taking 4 quarters (year on year) shows much less growth.

The only reason there is sometimes recovery in the general trend downwards is because the cheap end of the Lumias are being sold at a loss - and effectively they are not even paying the WP licence fees.

> other manufacturers will look to leverage a growing market opportunity.

Not when Microsoft is a direct competitor they won't. How many OEMs are clamoring to share the losses on XBox ?

Re: Nokia saves another MS OS?

> Win32 is a CPU specific API.

Yet Alpha and MIPS versions of NT managed to have the Win32 API. It would be useful if you could point out _anything_ in Win32 that is actually 'CPU specific'.

> The main feature missing is VBA - again which is largely CPU specific

VBA is a high level language. Please indicate _anything_ in that language which is 'CPU specific'.

Re: Only foolish buyers need apply...

> [Win32] Which is a CPU specific API

Completely wrong. NT on Alpha and MIPs had the Win32 API and those are different CPUs (in case you were unaware of that).

> Wrong. Photoshop for ARM is already available - it simply required porting to the new APIs...

No, you are wrong again. 'Photoshop Express' is _not_ Windows Photoshop (Elements,CS) re-compiled or ported to WinRT. It is a completely different, much smaller, product that has a few cut-down features that are similar to the Windows product and a completely different UI.

The point being made was that RT only has a cut-down Win32 API and that is restricted to Microsoft only, thus it is a 'cut-down' OS.

Re: Wrong way round

> Windows Phone is doing quite well thanks to Nokia. 8.8M Lumias were sold last quarter, up from 7.4M in Q2 and 5.6M in Q1.

> So already ~ 35 million a year and growing market share very rapidly....

You may note the trend in those growth figures:

5.6 -> 7.4 +1.8

7.4 -> 8.8 +1.4

8.8 -> ?? +1.0 ?

Apple sold 33.6million phones last quarter. At the growth rate in those figures it will take several years to get to close to that number.

The total market is also increasing so while Nokia's number increase the growth in market share is much less, and only over the last 3 quarters, yes it is back up to 3.5%:

"""For the past 5 quarters Nokia has fit comfortably inside this narrow window - 3.7%, 3.0%, 2.9%, 3.2% and now 3.5%. If you want to be an optimist, you say we've hit the bottom and Nokia is now 'rising'. The realist points out that just 18 months ago - yes 6 quarters ago, Nokia's market share was 6.7% and just 2 years ago it was 14.0%."""

Re: Only foolish buyers need apply...

> Actually, it is. RT is full blown Windows 8.1 - simply recompiled for ARM.....

You are misinformed.

No it isn't. It does not include the full Win32 API - only a cut-down set limited to use by Microsoft only. It does not include the full set of system .dlls that are on x86. Apart from Office RT it will not run 'desktop' applications. Recompiling, say, Photoshop for ARM will not work because the cut-down OS does not support all the functionality of Windows.

Re: Nokia saves another MS OS?

> 1) Why do lots of people complain that Office is far too complicated and no-one uses even a tiny fraction of the functionality, but at the same time that Office on RT isn't nearly functional enough?

Because they are different people: Office is far too complicated for casual users (consumers), and Office RT isn't functional enough for corporate users.

> 2) Why do (usually the same) people think that potential MS Windows RT users will be confused by it not running standard Windows applications ...

Because 'RT' is just another suffix on Windows like 95, 98, NT, XP, 7, 8; and all those ran standard Windows applications. Why would they call it Windows if it can't run Windows applications ?

Also 'Windows xx' (eg XP, 7) and 'Windows xx Pro' both ran Windows applications. So when faced with 'Surface RT' and 'Surface Pro' both running 'Windows something' why would they expect this to be completely different relationship, especially when the sales staff were clueless too.

> when they're perfectly happy that Apple users aren't confused by iOS running on iPhones etc and the fact that their iMac runs Mac OS and can't run iOS apps.

Because OS/X and iOS are different brands. If Apple had built an OS/X tablet and an iOS tablet and called them both iTablet and the OS OS/X and OS/X-RT (like Microsoft did) then users _would_ have been confused.

Also Apple users were brought up with iPod, iPhone and iPad none of which they expected to be like a desktop.

Re: Wrong way round

> Windows Phone hit over 10% UK market share last quarter,

... when the models sold at a loss. It was estimated that prices needed to be 15% higher just to break even on direct costs.

> and Surface doubled it's sales.

... when they dropped the price $150 and took a $900million loss on a now obsolete model.

Re: Nokia saves another MS OS?

> Then you need educating.

You are correct that 'educating' is needed to distinguish between 'Windows xx' (where xx is 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP, 7, 8, ..) and 'Windows RT' because they are completely different things. One major problem is that Microsoft did not adequately provide that 'education' to the general public who were thus mostly confused. Non-techos do not know the difference between Intel and ARM, to them it is like Intel and AMD.

> Think of it as Windows for ARM. A fully blown OS - not a cut down like IOS or Android - but simply recompiled for ARM.

You are confused, or deliberately lying. Windows RT _is_ cut-down, it doesn't have a complete Win32 desktop environment, there is a cut-down one reserved for Microsoft-only. Even Office RT is cut-down with many features not implemented.

It may well be that both Windows have kernel module source code in common, but that does not imply that all of Windows 8 was recompiled to make Windows RT, some modules were left out, some are incomplete.

> And therefore just like the differentiation between previous 32 and 64 bit Windows versions, or Windows for Alpha, MIPs, etc. - it requires applications compiled for that CPU.....

Actually Windows 64 can run 32 bit applications, Alpha could run x86 applications.

While Windows RT does run apps compiled for 'modern' these are not compiled to ARM _or_ x86 but to WinRT CLR.

Re: Only foolish buyers need apply...

> - because iPads and Android tablets are simply re-sized phones.

Actually iOS was initially written for tablets but then used first on phones.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/forstall-talks-ingenuity-ui/

Microsoft has had several incompatible phones systems (WM6.x, WP7, WP8) and then two partially compatible tablet OSes (Windows8, RT) which are different again.

> Windows tablets are full-blown laptops with a different form and different types of input.

Surface Pro may be, though they aren't usable on your lap because it is too awkward with the floppy keyboard connection and the kickstand makes it too long to fit.

But this article is about RT which is _not_ 'full-blown' anything.

> - what about the software you need to actually get some WORK done?

If it is written for Windows it won't work on this tablet.

> So basically Nokia claim they waited so long because they had to wait for Qualcomm to produce a chipset with integrated modem.

No. They had to wait until Microsoft got around to writing the support for more more modern chips.

That was one big problem with WP7. MS has to write for specific SoCs and when WP7 was released it had a very small set that were supported and these were out of date very soon. Eventually WP8 came with support for a completely different set of SoCs, but again those were (and are?) the only ones that can be used.

RT, it seems, will always be behind the curve compared to Apple who can develop hardware and software in step, and Android where makers can do their own development.

Re: Nokia saves another MS OS?

> talked about in terms of what it isn't rather than what it is, what it doesn't do rather than what it does.

That is because everyone knows what 'Windows' does. If they had called it SurfOS there would be no problem, but calling it 'Windows something' meant that expectations were well above its capabilities.

Even Office RT is well below what people expect in 'Office'.

Moto sets out plans for crafty snap-together PODULAR PHONES

Re: So Motorola want to build a large, clunky phone

>The laptop on the other hand has few user replaceable parts (mostly memory and disk, and not always all of those)

In the 90s I had a TI laptop that had a plug in DVD that could be swapped with a floppy drive. The disk was in a slide out tray and could be swapped, additional trays could be bought. The RAM was swappable. The battery could be changed, and it also had PCMI card slots for network, USB, WiFi, modem, etc.

Re: Wow the scope for finger pointing when it doesn't work..

> Quite a lot actually. Microsoft made loads of contributions to Linux for instance.

No. You are wrong again. Microsoft made _one_ set of 'contributions' which were entirely related to supporting their virtual machines.

> Windows Server is also the most scalable NFS 4.1 server on the market with the best clustering features....

That is just marketing crap.

Finally! How to make Android USABLE: Install BlackBerry OS 10.2

Re: Why?

> So? None of that necessarily makes QNX a UNIX clone.

The same can be said of Linux. It can't directly run Unix binaries either.

QNX runs on a Unix like filesystem which is inode based, which VMS does not. VMS's Posix is a conversion layer on top of the OS. In QNX it is native, because QNX is a Unix clone.

Re: Why?

> Linux is a unix clone not origional ...

> QNX the basis of BB10 is an original OS developed for real time applications.

QNX was originally, and still is, a Unix clone.

It is Posix compliant and, on desktops and servers, ran X-windows and much BSD and Unix software.

Pop OS X Mavericks on your Mac for FREE while you have LUNCH

Re: And now the world waits...

> Other software suppliers would call the X/10 the version and the "point somethings" you list as minor or maintenance releases.

Exactly. Windows 7, Server 2008, Server 2012, Windows 8 are "just minor or maintenance releases" to Vista.

Windows 8.1 6.3*

Windows Server 2012 R2 6.3*

Windows 8 6.2

Windows Server 2012 6.2

Windows 7 6.1

Windows Server 2008 R2 6.1

Windows Server 2008 6.0

Windows Vista 6.0

Windows Server 2003 R2 5.2

Windows Server 2003 5.2

Windows XP 64-Bit Edition 5.2

Windows XP 5.1

Windows 2000 5.0

Re: And now the world waits...

> ..for Microsoft to give away Windows and Office for nothing

Most users seem to think that Windows (and sometimes Office) _are_ free because they are on the computer they bought.

With the original IBM PC, or many similar at the time, there was a price list and one had to select the bits required including which OS one wanted.

Re: And now the world waits...

> Apparently so - Windows 8 is already more popular than OS-X.....

Only if your use the term in the sense of 'population' rather than 'well liked'.

LIVE CHAT: You, El Reg, experts chat about Win 8.1 and Surface 2

Re: Surface Pro 2

>> Inexplicably, the Surface Pro 2 comes with 1.2 MP front and rear cameras

> You probably want to stop buying tablets from dodgy Nigerians. Surface Pro 2 has two 720p HD cameras, front and rear-facing.

That's what he said. 720p _IS_ 1.2MP.

Here comes Windows 8.1! Microsoft grits teeth, pushes upgrade to world

Re: Still not enough

> That's WHY so many Windows PCs end up with the desktop totally full of icons...

I recall that when Win95 came out MS claimed that "at last we have got rid of the 'hated' Win3.11 Program Manager*". I disliked having icons on the desktop (and particularly hated the active desktop of Win 98, but so did everyone else). My 'desktop' is covered by my working programs, I don't want to lose sight of those just because I want to start another.

I know some people can't cope with multiple applications. On Win95-Win7 they minimize their current app, select the next with the desktop icon or task bar. Only one Window open at a time. They probably find Win8 OK to use. I have several desktops (I dumped Windows a decade ago) and each with multiple Windows and can easily switch between these or start new ones _without_ going to desktop icons.

* Actually Win3.x worked OK. You could Alt-Tab to PM to start a new task without it taking over the whole screen.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3: Once, twice, three times - a Very Large Phone™

Re: It's inevitable...

> I'm struggling to think of anything useful for that 'feature'

Your admitted inability to think is not a limitation on its usefulness.

Windows Phone 8 INFLATED by Microsoft ... to satisfy lonely phablets

Re: Better late than never

> and in the Sun Spider Java benchmark...

The Sunspider benchmark is _not_ Java. In fact WP won't run Java.

It has nothing to do with Sun, it is Javascript.

Re: FFS, more Qualcomm?

> Wrong, so wrong. It has the same camera as the Pureview 808; which came out before the 1020.

Wrong, so wrong. The 1020 camera has no parts in common with the 808. The 1020 sensor is physically smaller,. the lens is different, the stability is done differently. The software is different. The result is often not as good as the 808's.

In summary the 1020 is, for some, not as good as the 808's. Some other phone cameras are better in many respects, such as Samsung's Zoom with has true optical zoom* and dynamic OIS.

* The 808 and 1020 have digital zoom which reduces the oversampling by using smaller areas of the sensor. With only mild zoom levels it is using a smaller sensor area than the zoom, or indeed other compact cameras and phones.

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Nokia-Lumia-1020-smaller-sensor-camera-than-808-PureView-but-could-capture-the-best-images-of-any-smartphone_id45238

Microsoft: Oh PLEASE, HTC. Who says Windows Phone can't go on an Android mobe? – report

Re: Way to negotiate, MS.

> Hardly - HTC are dying and loosing billions - and have tiny WP market share. Microsoft are offering them a lifeline....

A lifeline made of solid gold lead, as Nokia discovered.

Re: Not going to happen - look what happened to HTC last time.

> No - try 12% in the UK:

From Kantar report:

"""According to its second-quarter figures (PDF), its overall smartphone average selling price (ASP) fell to €157, compared to €191 and €187 in the previous two quarters. """

So, yes, WP may be up to 12% but it has been achieved by selling at a loss (see Nokia's report). They can only dump bargain bin phones for a short time before they either close or sell up. Aha, they sold the business. If MS continues selling at a loss then then the OEMs will complain to, say, the EUC and/or stop making WP.

Down with Unicode! Why 16 bits per character is a right pain in the ASCII

Re: Royal Mail

I noticed as a boy .. a portrait of her Majesty.

When I was a young boy I noticed that it was His Majesty.

Microsoft: Surface is DEAD. Long live the Surface 2!

Re: Nice

> Links please of it did not happen. Last time someone offered Links to WACOM it was either for EXTERNAL tablets. Those work different from the screens.

http://cintiqcompanion.wacom.com/CintiqCompanionHybrid/en/

Re: Nice

> Does xBuntu support

> + WACOM digitizer with pressure support

Yes.

> + Support Handwritting Recognition

Yes.

> + Offers an equivalent to MS Journal, ArtRage V2 or better?

My N800 from several years ago runs Xournal which also runs on any Linux.

> + Offer an equivalent to the MS Speech recognition let alone Dragon Natural?

ViaVoice was available on Linux in the late 90s. There are several systems currently available, some free, some proprietry. Like many, I tried speech on OS/2 a couple of decades ago. It may be useful in a small number of cases but is not generally of much use. For example it was used in meat works back in the early 80s where the boners needed to qualify the carcase but could not touch anything. They probably still do.

+ Supports MIRACast

Android does. Maybe next release for Ubuntu.

Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

> MS did not buy StarOffice (Sun did) nor Corel or Novell and still these Office packages failed

StarOffice is now called OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice and did not fail. In fact they are still alive because they are not in a position where MS could buy them.

Corel and Novell (both owned WP at times) WordPerfect for Windows 'failed' because Microsoft withheld and changed APIs so that WP was not able to compete against the in-house product (see various law suits).

> MS did not buy Interactive or SUN and still those UNIX systems failed

The server market is approx 1/3 each to Unix, Windows and Linux (depending on who and how it is measured) so UNIX hasn't failed.

Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

> Maybe there are too many people who are really afraid eventually MS could return successful in the mobile space as well.

Yes, they are afraid of that. Microsoft's business model is not just to succeed but it is to ensure that any competition fails completely and is wiped out. Many of those afraid have experienced their favourite products being killed by Microsoft's anti-competitive, illegal, and underhand tactics.

Apple may have a walled garden and may not offer its products for others to sell, but it doesn't go around actively killing competition by threatening OEMs, resellers and retailers to only ever selling their products.

For example 'Windows on ARM' seems to have been aimed at OEMs in order to extend the 'loyal discount' control over what products they can make and sell to also include ARM based tablets. It may well have been cheaper for HP to dump WebOS rather than lose the discounts on _every_ MS product.

Fortunately, the failure of RT has removed that threat and HP can now make Android tablets because of that failure. Potentially they could bring back WebOS too, possibly with an Android emulator to enlarge the supply of apps (granted that hasn't worked for Blackberry).

This is why we cheer the failure of Surface, its success would be over the bodies of dead competitors. Its success would (eventually) reduce progress, just as Windows and IE killed off many competitors from the mid 90s for a decade or more.

If Linux had been a company MS would have bought and killed it just like it did for so many others.

(One reason that Apple did not get killed off by MS is that MS was under investigation for anti-competitive practices, and when that was over it was too late).

You may think that killing off competition is a good thing, perhaps because everyone running the same system makes life easier or more rewarding for you. A Ford car dealership may want everyone to buy their brand, but I don't want a Ford, and I don't want Ford buying and killing the brand that I like (granted they don't do that much).

Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

Sorry your math is out. The surface has a 10.1" screen, 20% bigger would be a 12.3" screen. 10.1" to 11" is a 9% increase.

Both the width and height increase. With the same aspect ratio the increase in area is 18.6%

BOOGIE BALLMER: Steve Dirty Dances at tearful Microsoft leaving do

> “We have unbelievable potential in front of us, we have an unbelievable destiny," said a visibly moved Ballmer, reusing a quote from the very first Microsoft staff meeting in 1983.

I think that it comes from much earlier, the 1930s perhaps, and was said, or shouted actually, in German.