Posts by thecakeis(not)alie

Intel, Microsoft confess: Meltdown, Spectre may slow your servers

Optional

"AMD does not suffer from this issue only Spectre which can be fixed mitigated by a code recompile to include defensive measures."

Mitigation is not a fix. Mitigation is a bandaid. Don't assist in spreading this lie.

Next Generation Security: No, Dorothy, there is no magic wand

Re: What about backup? Won't someone please think about backup

From the article: The bad guys are still iterating far faster than the antivirus companies can keep up, next-generation or not. The best defence against ransomware is still proper backup software. This is true today and it will be true for all the foreseeable tomorrows.

Also: I didn't mention patch management for three simple reasons:

1) the tools aren't particularly easy to use.

2) They almost always operate on the mentality that "having all the patches is the most important thing", which simply isn't the case because patches often break things, and patch management systems needs to be able to cope with this

3) Microsoft took a great big steaming dump in the middle of the patch management ecosystem. Their new rank madness regarding patches means that if they accidentally break your whole company with a bad patch your choices are to go out of business or remain unpatched. In the real world you can't make Microsoft fix their patches or any of the developers of your other applications adapt to Microsoft's idiocy, so you just get screwed.

So that's why I don't talk about patch management. Patch management is the process of paying money to realize nobody cares about and you're probably doomed. And if you talk about this publicly you get lynched for it.

Yay.

Leaked MS ad video parodies Chrome as surveillance tech

"Great bit of advertising"...

...if you can stand the overwhelming hypocrisy of Microsoft doing the exact same fucking thing as Google.

Excuse me, I have to go uninstall the goddamned Bing Bar, Microsoft included it in the latest Windows updates. Again.

The only difference between Microsoft and Google as regards their commercialisation, monetisation and abuse of my privacy is that I get products and services I actually want from Google. I get ??? from Microsoft in exchange for same.

Fuck 'em both, I say. Firefox with full shields up. You'll have to pry that browser from my cold, dead...

Copyright trolls, biz scum, freetards - it's NOT black and white

Re: Not terribly impressive.

MAFIAA Über Alles.

<Img src="http://illusion.scene360.com/wp-content/themes/sahara-10/submissions/sand_01.jpg">

Why don't the best techies work in the channel?

Re: All those companies are wrong.

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1060/

How to keep your money safe if the euro implodes

@MR C

Come to Canada! There's a strong Greek community out west. Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver...all have great Greek communities. (Though Vancouver are less tolerant of immigrants than Calgary, Calgary is less tolerant than Edmonton.)

If you read The Register, that means you probably fall into the category of "skilled worker." Which means getting into Canada shouldn't be too difficult. I live here in Edmonton, and things went from "there are no jobs whatsoever to be had, anywhere" two years ago to "15 people attempting to headhunt me for 100 different jobs on LinkedIn every week." (To contrast, in September, I was at 4 LinkedIn requests a week. GOGO BOOM TIMES.)

If you are willing to work in the oilfield (three weeks on, one week off,) then there's stupid money...even with oil going below $100. Oilfield IT makes around $75,000 for someone with 5 years experience, $100,000 for someone with 10. (And that's mostly just onsite desk side support, with responsibility for a half dozen servers, 50 clients and some piddly networking gear.)

If you are willing to get a trade ticket, (pipefitters and welders man...damn...) you can add anywhere from $30K more to $150K more without breaking a sweat. Once you get your citizenship, add %25 to any of those figures.

Now, bear in mind that it’s boom time in Alberta/B.C./Saskatchewan right now. Two years from now, we’ll be back down to making $60K for an IT body and ~30% of the tradesmen will be unemployed. That will last for a year, and we’ll go repeat the cycle.

So if you do ever actually consider moving out here, be warned: you have to apply truly Keneysian economics (save during good times so you can weather the bad) at the personal level to survive out here. That said, “surviving” out here means a nice 3 bedroom /w 2000sq ft., two vehicles and full benefits.

We still have ecosystems we haven’t destroyed here, so there are just all sorts of externalisation of costs still going on.

Drop me a line if you want links to relevant infos, or to be put in touch with a local headhunter. Maybe if I throw a few of you euroadmins at them, they’ll get off my back for a while…

Ballmer says 500 MILLION 'users' to 'have' Windows 8 in 2013

Re: Not a snowball chance in Hell

Interesting premise. Would you care to place a wager on the odds of OEM bankruptcy over the next two calendar years?

You know how to reach me, and I wager in scotch. Single malt; speyside or from the highlands.

HP unzips, dangles fat wedge over PC dealers

"The launch of Windows 8, consumerisation and ...the advent of thin and light mobile boxes will provide a tail wind for reseller sales..."

...of Apple products.

Microsoft gets trademark for retail store plans

Good for Microsoft.

I expect to be seeing great things from Microsoft's retail operations. They have a strong and vibrant consumer electronics line that promises to become even better as the kinks in WP7 and Win8 are worked out. They also have the opportunity to do some very good SME demos for cloudy technologies and all-in-one servers that ought to impress, if they can get bodies into the stores.

As much as I like to deride Microsoft for a great many things, they have spent some time earnestly creating some good consumer electronics kit, even if they don’t personally manufacture it all. (They do licence their software, after all…)

Xbox and all of it’s accessories. Phones. PCs & Notebooks. Soon, tablets. Media centers of various kinds, home automation kits, HTPCs,

I choose to see this as a starting point, not an abject failure because they aren’t bigger than Apple in every little thing. Marketed correctly (Aha – and here is Microsoft’s critical failing!) Microsoft does have “good enough” consumer gear to sell.

Trademarking the store only makes sense. It prevents others from ripping off the store once (if?) Microsoft gets enough own-brand recognition that others are wanting to invest time, money and effort into ripping them off. Think about it: Microsoft gear isn’t “Microsoft-branded, sold only by Microsoft.” It’s partner-made stuff.

That means that anyone can set up reseller agreements with all the various manufacturers and resell [i]the exact same equipment.[/i] Thus having a distinctive storefront is really Microsoft’s only way of differentiating themselves in a retail environment without completely cutting all their partners off at the knees.

Worth the effort by MS, IMHO.

HP denies shipping TouchPad tablets with Android

To me it reads more like...

"By insisting that HP live up to the terms of the various open source licences involved, the Open Source Community is damaging its relationship with HP. We reserve the right to modify everything for our own benefit and never give anything back unless we can make an absolute mint off of it. Your desire to own the hardware you purchase is a detriment to HP and its attempts to fleece you for the good of shareholders.”

Ten reasons why you shouldn't buy an iPhone 5

@ThomH

Is that a request?

Microsoft, IBM tussle for tech value runner-up

[quote]In the case of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, the increasing rumblings from both staff and investors might make a further fall in his company's value a factor in his career – and possibly his (forced) retirement.[/quote]

Amen, we can only hope, and good riddance when he's finally gone.

Google gives in: Schmidt to face US antitrust grilling

What the hell are you smoking?

Microsoft is not - I repeat NOT - trying to crush Android. That is the single dumbest thing I have ever heard. Android is a REVENUE SOURCE for Microsoft. When the patent dust settles, they make a clean $15 for each copy sold.

Why would MIcrosoft try to eliminate one of their best earners?

Atlantis blasts off on last shuttle mission

Fair winds, Atlantis

Come home safe.

ANONYMOUS: Behind the mask, inside the Hivemind

Dear Everyone in this thread; re: Matt Bryant

Trolololololololololololololololololol

Seriously, in just one brief scan of this thread, I have spotted 17 logical fallacies posted by that one individual. Either Matt Bryant is the biggest fool on The Register, the second most arrogant and self important commenter - the first has always been jake - or...

...y'all got trolled.

Read these, learn to recognise them, and DON'T FEED THE TROLLS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_repetition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_cause_and_consequence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressed_correlative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_Projection_Fallacy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking_(fallacy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasty_generalization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package-deal_fallacy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotlight_fallacy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignoratio_elenchi#Red_herring

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_window_fallacy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definist_fallacy

Our dear friend the troll has used each and every one of them in this thread.

Moderatrix kisses the Reg goodbye

Moderatrices

Bye Sarah!

All the best in the future. You will unquestionably be missed. And whn life gives you lemons, remember Cave Johnson's advice:

"I don't want your damn lemons! What the hell are these?! Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's gonna burn your house down! WITH THE LEMONS! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that BURNS YOUR HOUSE DOWN!"

It's been a hoot.

Hello, Jude!

You have big shoes to fill. I hope Sarah gave you a "here is how you maintain sanity with these wretches" boot camp. You're going to need it...

AMD trumpets next-gen GPU architecture

Nothing runs crysis

At least not at a consistantly playable framerate. The end sequence even on teh most powerful hardware of today still reveals how absolutely terrible that engine is.

It's so bad you'd almost think it was made by DICE.

DARPA issues call for notions on Starship-for-2111 plan

Americans

Are you still here? How quaint.

Creationists are infiltrating US geology circles

OH LAWD

IT'S GAWD WHAT DUN IT!!!

GAWWWWWWDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111!!1oneoneone

VDI is not the only fruit

Yep, it's a risk!

Especially with the cloud as another means of placing sysadmins “back on the market.” While it is certainly possible that new opportunities will open up elsewhere, I think it might be prudent to learn another skill in addition to systems administration, just in case. Managing your own business – because “consulting” is likely to be where the few remaining systems administration jobs are – and writing are my choices.

Large enterprises will always need systems administrators of some variety…but they will continue to be ever more specialised. Storage administrators, network administrators, even “cloud” administrators. The generalist systems administrator, individuals such as myself who have served the small and medium market for so long, are going to very rapidly become extinct. If we want to stay in IT, we are going to have to form or join a consultancy; provide services not to one organisation, but to many. Their IT is moving into “the cloud,” and they won’t need us around anymore.

“The cloud” is all about efficiency. Google or Amazon don’t need nearly as many sysadmins to run a cloudy infrastructure as a series of small and medium enterprises would to run the same number of systems. No, they will in fact need /developers/. Software development – with an emphasis on systems management – is where the jobs in “the cloud” lie.

So it’s Darwin time. Generalist systems administrators can make their choices:

1) Learn a specialisation and compete mightily for the fairly static number of specialist jobs with all the other generalists who took that route.

2) Be confident in the awesomeness of your own skillset and take on the cutthroat consulting market, hoping to earn and maintain a reputation as “the best.”

3) Shift into development, where the real jobs in IT are.

4) GTFO.

Either way, remote desktop management in all of its various flavours is here to stay. Why? Because it is often the best option for businesses. There is a strong business case for each flavour of VDI you can think of, even as the small business level. I have organisations as small as 25 staffs running VDI implementations…and loving it! Organisations up to 250 staffs run without an in-house systems administrator simply because they can outsource their administration to a consultant like me for a half a bent pittance and outsource the hardware to a cloud broken to ensure they use a “cloud of clouds.”

As sysadmins we can choose to rail against all of this, or we can choose to embrace it. What we cannot do is avoid it. Cloud services – specifically the hybrid cloud which marries up local resources with hosted resources – are inevitable. VDI is a big part of this. I don’t advocate it. I don’t even like it. (Why should I – it’s going to put me out of a job!) I can however recognise the inevitable when I see it.

Apparently, so do many, many other people well above my pay grade. The kinds of people who own the companies putting these technologies into the market. It’s a bit schizophrenic at first blush; why would Intel, Microsoft, Red Hat and these other giants embrace or even push for cloud computing? You’d think that would mean fewer boxes shifted, as technologies like VDI offer higher efficiency when used either locally or in a hosted environment.

The truth of the matter however is that they win either way; Intel is in your datacenter, it’s in Google’s and Amazon’s, and Red Hat is running everyone’s website. Microsoft is providing you your desktop, and they don’t really care where that’s hosted. Cloudy services are good for these players because the easier it is to spawn instances the easier it is to solve business process problems by throwing some compute capacity at it.

We are moving away from the era of solving workplace inefficiencies by refining the sequence of tasks that individuals perform, or increasing training of the end user. We have entered the era of replacing jobs with shell scripts; warm bodies swapped for a rapidly spun up cloudy instance of something-or-other, and either run as a script, or – through technologies like VDI – having that job fulfilled by the lowest wage bidder from home over RDP.

Want to run a company today? You only need square footage if you want to physically manufacture something. All back-office tasks can be done from home using VDI. The meetings and conferences done over Skype. Lower the costs of rent, offload the power and cooling, the computing and the systems administration to a cloudy provider. Heck, you can even go the AMD route and simply outsource your manufacturing too! We can now run multi-million dollar companies entirely as virtual entities, with every single task except “shareholder” contracted out to the lowest bidder.

Makes you think…

Judge blasts Cisco's 'unmitigated gall' in ex-exec's arrest

AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!

Keep the faith, bro.

What is UltraViolet™ and why should you care?

Device limits

Well, back in the bin for this attempt. I own more than 12 devices on my sweet very lonesome.

Unlimited devices or GTFO.

Ballmer: Time up for 'stuck in the past' Microsoft CEO?

$8.5 Billion to finally get rid of Ballmer.

Cheap at twice the price.

Gov urged to extend rural mobe, broadband coverage

"Mobe?"

TWENTY LASHES!

That word is banned around here.

Powerline network radio interference debated in Commons

I think you need to rethink.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few (or the one.)

HOWEVER

The needs of the few (or the one) outweigh the DESIRES of the many.

You don’t deny basic rights to the few (or the one) to enable the luxuries of the many. At least, you don’t in a civilised society…

Israeli couple dub sprog 'Like'

@jake

When I go outside, I do useful things. I establish relationships with other human beings. I expand the circle of skills I have access to. I SOCIAL NETWORK. Then, when I go to plant my garden, I have a guy with a truck, a guy with a masters in botany, a guy with some plants to spare, a guy with access to good fertiliser and a guy who can tell me “were the lines are” so I don’t cut a gas line while I’m digging up my back yard.

(Incidentally, that was last weekend’s exercise.)

I have an idea for you: why don’t you just leave the internet? Actually, quit society all together. You evidently not only dislike people, you believe yourself inimically superior to them. We can never live up to your example, so please, do all of humanity a favour and just don’t remind us of that fact, okay? Leave us to exist in the squalor that is our own existence.

For people who aren’t you, we can only ever be truly good at a few things. For people who aren’t you, we will only ever have limited financial resources to hire others to fill the gaps. For people who aren’t you, we need to social network – in real life and online – to ensure that we have access to the skills we lack. For people who aren’t you, we have friends, family, loved ones and even acquaintances that we care bout, enjoy their company and choose to spend our time with.

For people that aren’t you, there is value in extracting pleasure from life…and we extract that pleasure in ways other than being pompous, arrogant and generally a giant fucking asshole.

So please, take your superior self away. We can’t stand to be reminded of how obviously inferior we are to you. You, who can do all, know all, and have no need of anyone but yourself. You shame us with your presence.

That, and you’re a dick.

Onward, Rocinante!

Ooooo. I'm a "ferocious giant" now! How exquisitely exciting! FE FI FO FUM...

Hmm. Does mixing literature carry the same connotations as mixing metaphors? I’ve lost track. Either way, bonus points to the inestimable Sarah Bee for being far pithier than I. Have to work on that.

In any case, let's all go outside and play with real people. Your windmill has spoken.

"I was trolling all along."

Oh, my apologies for not picking up on that. Obviously I am deficient.

*patpat*

@jake

You've a farm.

*clap, clap, clap*

So we have that.

As it so happens, I've one too. Zombie apocalypse precautions, and all. Lease the land out to a very nice couple and their enormous herds of livestock for $1 a year. (They're friends of the family and manage the land, farmhouse and equipment for me. If they get healthier livestock off land I'm not using, then go for it!) I’ve no use for the land I inherited – yet – and no desire to give up the creature comforts of life until the apocalypse actually arrives.

I’m sure that makes me an inferior creature and all, but…DAMN…I do love those creature comforts. Broadband, video games, cinemas to take the girl to. Gardens and parks, river valleys and theatres. I enjoy long walks down Whyte Ave to watch the people, buy some trinkets and enjoy the antics of a street performer. I enjoy seeing human creativity at work and be reminded that the world is bigger than me, my problems and the things that fill my personal brain.

For some people – most of my province – farming is a way of life. Actually, for most of them, they’ve no way off the farm, so they stay there generation after generation. Usually in some pretty dire poverty. I’ll take the creature comforts of the city life over the (quite litteral) bullshit of the farm any day.

If any when the farm is needed, well…I’ve a full section of land. It’s a nice place to visit, but the hell would I live there voluntarily?

More to the point, why would I go on the internet – you know, that place that’s filled primarily with people who have broadband and live in cities – and then act like a pompous arrogant asshat “because I own a farm?” Really? That’s supposed to impress people ‘round here?

*clap, clap, clap*

Yep, you are a truly stunning example of Homo Sapiens Invictus. I bow before you and your evident superiority.

@jake

Oh, aye. And you're most well adjusted of the bunch, natch.

Uber-libertarian nutter with massive disdain for anyone who doesn't agree with him (the vast majority of the world) uses an internet forum to tell other people they are idiots! Read the shocking exclusive here!

Please.

The world moved on, changed and grew and you didn’t adapt. Get over it. Get over yourself. There are entire generations of people that don’t give a damn what you think, believe that what you espouse is totally outdated. You can scream at "da yoof" to stay off your digital lawn all you want, but honestly dude...it's all deja moo* 'round here.

Andrew O will rail against climate change. Lewis Page will be pragmatic to a fault. Lester Haines will be hilarious and you will demean and degrade anyone who doesn’t agree with your particular flavour of ultra-libertarian values.

There is nothing new under the sun.

*The feeling you've heard this bullshit before.

Google's Egypt hero: Tech biz, keep out of Arab politics

Careful with "insane."

"The idea that an individual has the right to poke into Egyptian politics because they pay taxes in another country is insane" may be accurate, but >40% of Americans will get fantastically angry if you point that out.

Apple to support reps: Don't confirm Mac infections

The rapture will in fact occur on May 21, 2011.

Oh, sorry about the title, I got caught up in the "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" religious dogma and “outright lies” theme that is Apple's public relations. When someone discovers a problem with their Mac, deny, deny, delete threads and deny.

Intel: Windows on ARM won't run 'legacy apps'

"People who don't care about legacy apps will never understand those who do."

"Yeah, but we won't care."

Microsoft waves CentOS club at Red Hat

Um...what?

Microsoft? Give up on pushing the "fat client, fat server, oodles of integrated everything else all interdependent on each other so that you can't escape" model?

Are you MAD?

There is absolutely no way on this earth that Ballmer is capable of even contemplating that. I don’t disagree that this is what Microsoft has to do if they want to survive – let’s face it, how does Windows compete with 16 hour battery life? Still, we’re talking about Ballmer here. BALLMER. Saying Ballmer is about to embrace interoperable software is as (pardon my French) fucking batshit goddamned bonkers bananas as claiming Jobs is about to pioneer an open hardware initiative.

Microsoft is not capable of thinking outside of “lock-in, lock-in, lock-in.” They aren’t capable of thinking outside of “traditional fat clients.” They sure as hell aren’t capable of thinking about heterogeneous environments or interoperability excepting as a method of locking you into their dated fat-client lock-in.

The scorpion will always sting the dog. Because it’s his nature.

Hack attacks on US could spark military action

"All states possess an inherent right to self-defense."

I consider allowing the broadcast of FOX News to be an attack on all nations. More specifically, since FOX OTA broadcasts are receivable in Canadian territory, I do believe we have just cause to defend ourselves. An appropriate and proportional response would be to jam the frequencies used by FOX broadcasting stations near the Canadian border.

The only possible result is a better world.

Don’t leak WikiLeaks: The NDA from hell

@AC re:eh?

Maybe mainstream media wouldn't have touched them. Maybe they would. However, even if you believe that mainstream media wouldn't have touched it, there are far more ethical "internet only" outfits with which to align yourself.

I believe that Cryptome - while not entirely above reproach - is significantly more trustworthy than Wikileaks and certainly more than Assange™. The advantage that Wikileaks has (and had) over Cryptome is notoriety. The very grandstanding, questionable financial and media tactics, and rigid internal hierarchy that I personally deplore are what have set Wikileaks front and center.

Cryptome has had (and continues to have) many very important documents available, many far more important than the US cables that set the world aflame. Cryptome’s lack of showboating however has ensured that when this information made it to the mainstream press, Cryptome was very rarely mentioned as the source. They simply sit quietly in the background and do their job.

Today, should you be choosing to leak documents, not only is Cryptome still around as a more ethical alternative to Wikileaks, but Openleaks is ready to deal with whatever information you have to share.

So whatever you feelings about Wikileaks – good, bad, or indifferent – I do beg to differ with the idea that “there was no other place to go with information the mainstream press wouldn’t touch.” Viable alternatives did and continue to exist for those who wish an alternative venue to ply the information they feel needs to be free.

US Navy produces smart, cheap 6kg fire+forget missile

MIRV

Has nobody here considered the feasibility of using these bastards as a ridiculously imbalanced MIRV system? Picture this: a series of disposable drones flys over the combat area and IDs targets. (Before getting erased by AA.) These are supported by a fleet of AWACS escorted by a set of overpowered air-to-air combat planes scan the target battlefield.

Offshore, a fleet of missile frigates (or freighters with missiles-in-a-box pods?) some several hundred KM away ripple off a few dozen cruise missiles. The cruise missiles get within range of the target battlefield – delivering their payload at supersonic speeds – and then separate the warhead from the propellant stage. The “warhead” is in fact a big old box of 70mm death rockets. With the AWACS providing targeting, we are talking about the ability to erase *hundreds* of targets across a very wide area simultaneously.

Screw taking out a few boats, we are talking about the ability to take a country the size of Libya’s *entire* military out in the first hour or so of combat. All it costs is a few disposable drones, some cruise-missiles in a box and a few pods of 70mm missiles. *Bam.* An entire country rendered unable to mount any serious resistance whatsoever.

Second stage is to simply fill the sky with another round of drones – these ones being the ones you actually want to keep – whose job it is to perform more intensive recon and hunt out remaining pockets of resistance. With 70mm rockets, you can keep this up for weeks – if not months – before you have to land a single warm body.

Now you can pacify an entire country remotely! In all honesty, you probably spend less on the disposable missiles and drones involved in this than you would on the gas to land a traditional force, let alone the salaries to pay them and the gear to equip them.

70mm targeted missiles are a serious game changer. For all the heckling armchair generals will give the idea, we talking about the ability to lay (targeted) waste to entire battlefields for (probably) a tenth the cost in time, money, and lives you would have had to expend without this technology.

Swiss jetwing backpack-birdman flies the Grand Canyon

@Chris W

Nah...but I want him as my wingman!

And that's for picking up chicks IRL, not on t'internets.

@Chris W

I'd argue that anyone willing to jump out of an Aircraft doesn't need any help "pulling the birds." The jetpack, aircraft jumping otherwise being a spectular example of dudeness simply ensures that the birds he's going home with are of the "top notch" variety.

Probably all at once.

Love to see the side-by-side against using "I complain on t'internets" as your bait.

@Chris W

Sore spot?

Sorry dude, but I do vote "jetwing backpack-birdman" as a significantly more awesome hobby that "complaining on t'internets." For that matter, more awesome than most of my hobbies, too.

Using the internet to run down people who do things that are more exciting than anything you undertake is so 1990s. Posting cats was the 2000s. How about we work on something more productive for the 2010s, eh?

@Chris W

His ungraceful falling hobby will get him quite throughly laid. Rightly so. I am sure the women come a running to "my hobby is trolling on t'internets."

Official: Microsoft buys Skype for $8.5bn

@Captain Scarlet

I don't think it's the Linux users who will run, but rather that Microsoft will eventually decide that Skype on Linux doesn't help them cling to their "fat client" business model. One day soon, they are going to come to the realisation that they are sad on the "clinging to an outdated business model" front as the RIAA/MPAA. Then they will "trim the fat," "reorganise" and "adjust the company direction." Which doesn't actually mean what it's supposed to mean.

Instead, it means they will litigate like mad, expend quite literally billions of dollars trying to make using anything that isn’t their outdated business model illegal, flail around and generally piss into the wind for about a decade. Part of this will be pissing away yet more bore billions of dollars to do nothing more than try to thwart other companies whose business models adapted and whose thinking processes aren’t antiquated.

Eventually they’ll spiral the drain quicker and quicker, selling off pieces of themselves and giving huge golden parachutes to their few remaining executives before finally becoming a footnote in a textbook somewhere as the shrivelled carcass is bought by someone else for nothing more than their patent hoard.

Just like so many others in the IT world who couldn’t adapt.

Linux is the EMENY here. They aren’t going to get support from Microsoft. They can promise everything they want, but eventually Skype will be passed off to someone who sees Linux as a direct threat to a business model that should have died half a decade ago, and it will be taken out back and shot.

In case you hadn’t been paying attention, Microsoft is in a “death spiral.” The lynchpin to their entire empire – the integration of Office into absolutely everything – is slowly becoming less and less critical. Their competitors are building “good enough” stacks of products that are not only integrated, they are multi platform, require a tenth the resources and work entirely through a browser.

Microsoft will take a while to die, but – barring a miracle that gets rid of Ballmer – die they will. Companies in death spirals do not offer support for rival platforms.

"Just install Google talk."

****ing Americans. Look outside your borders for once. There's some 6.5 Billion people who don't have that option, thanks...

@Caprain Scarlet

Oh, how delightfully naive. That was just perfect, thank you; I needed a laugh after reading this news.

Google stashes $500m for fines

Illega=evil?

Not always. Google = evil? More often than not, it seems lately...

UK security minister steps down

Could someone explain this to me?

Why are attacks against businesses the government's problem? Surely no intelligent goverment would have infrastructure critical to national security built, owned and operated by the lowest bidder?

So these attcks are the corporate issues. The corporations can pay to deal with them...or wait for the police. Federal government intervention seems like playing favourites. Do private citizens get such intervention?

NASA restores Pluto to league of planets

American Overlords

You'll have to kill me first. I promise I won't make that particularly easy...

Google won't open source fondleslab Android before 'year end'

@Rob Dobs

Welcome to The Register. "Cute names" are part of the site. If you don't like it, there are a large quantity of mundane American outlets to get your news from.

Us, we like The Register exactly how it is, thanks.