Posts by taxedserf

Why the Linux desktop is the best desktop

For corporates, it's Excel, not Linux, that is the issue

Excel is so deeply embedded into accounting systems that the core of any company IT estate must be Windows, for both workstations and servers. A lot of systems use Excel Add-Ins to bridge securely between Excel and the underlying SQL database, using the gatekeeping security settings of the accounting system to check the user's privileges for which data.

Even without such deep integration with an accounting system, too many functions exist only in Excel (subsequently copied by WPS Office, thankfully) and no-where in the brotherhood of the Open Document formats. Even where a function looks similar, the latter cripple it in ways which Excel does not.

And that is the real killer for the corporates. When they email a spreadsheet to an outside party, for processing, and receive the same spreadsheet back, the underlying mechanics must be congruent. If a non-Excel alternative decides, "Oh, this formula isn't allowed to work with linked workbooks! I'll destroy that formula and replace it with a constant!", then that is an instance of sabotage. What corporate would be foolish enough to take that risk?

And, guess what, Microsoft knows this. Which is why Excel will never likely come out for Linux. Because if it does, Microsoft will see its sales of MS Windows Server and MS 365 tank.

The Open Document Fraternity ought to wake up, but I get the impression they prefer to live the difference.

P-p-p-pick up a Pengwin: Windows Subsystem for Linux boffins talk version 2

The enterprises are fine. It's the lack of usable enterprise end-user software in the Linux environment that is the problem. This is what keeps us enterprises coming back to Windows again and again and again. Even to the point of having to spend real hard money on anti-malware software to counter the shoddy security embedded into Windows' core design.

Google Pay tells Euro users it has ditched UK for Ireland ahead of Brexit

For Google, Brexit makes Eire a golden opportunity

Erm... if a stable business environment is what you seek, then Eire is an odd choice. Something else is up. Brexit is perhaps a catalyst - a golden opportunity, even - but it doesn't smell like a root cause.

Google picked Eire years ago because it was, and always has been, a corrupt, push-over state, offering low(ish) corporation tax rates and a tax treaty with America that ensures America has the lion's share of taxable revenue.... which America duly chooses not to tax (much to the chagrin of the European Union, see http://www.brexit.me.uk/2016/09/european-commission-v-republic-of.html ). Meanwhile, even America has (partially) signed up to the BEPS project, a tax anti-avoidance thing which aims to prevent taxable revenue from simply evaporating into thin air (the taxman's equivalent of nailing jelly to the ceiling).

This is the most likely explanation behind Google's move, so much so that it would very likely still have happened even if if the UK had Brexited with the only issue-literate plan out there - EFTA/EEA as described in Flexcit ( http://www.eureferendum.com/documents/flexcit.pdf ) - or had voted to remain on 23Jun2016. Ironically, in the briefest glimpses of issue-literacy, HMG seems to have thwarted Google's plans (and Eire's not-quite-taxable-revenues and America's we-can-but-won't-taxable-revenues!) by wondering aloud about revenue-based taxation of internet services delivered to UK-based customers. Ouch.

Thinking ahead, has anybody thought about the impact on Eire of Brexit, whether planned or unplanned? (Judging from other comments in this forum, probably not.) From Google's perspective, Brexit will distress Eire considerably, especially if Brexit results in the UK leaving the European Economic Area.

That makes Eire even more attractive to a cabal of American mega-corporations, because the push-over state wouldn't even need pushing: it'll roll over before being asked. The aforementioned "shed on an allotment" will be taken down pronto, probably replaced by a small kennel to comply figuratively with GDPR.

What else has happened to corroborate this story? Well, Merkel popped over to Eire earlier this week to see whether there was another way to thwart Brexit, to stop it from happening and to destroy permanently the pitiful residue of democracy in the UK (to bail out the UK's astonishingly inept political establishment). Merkel learnt that Eire does not want to pay a Eurocent to protect the EU's external land border with a third country. This underlines Google's view that Eire is an already-distressed state that is set to become an even more distressed state.

Oh, and the European Commission keeps on wanting to slap fines on Google. Well, the European Council might have something to say about that. The European Council comprises governments of the EU27. One of whom is... Eire. Ah. And the government of Eire is - and will be - too weak to resist corporatism on its own turf. Eire will be ready to assume the doubled-over position to collect its instructions anally from its corporate masters and influence the European Council away from the fanaticism of the European Commission.

Always attack your enemy on its weakest front, at its weakest point. Google has found Eire's destiny.

Google's timing to re-locate trade from UK to Eire is absolutely immaculate. Google has struck at the iron at its hottest point in time.

Brexit is perhaps a catalyst - a golden opportunity, even - but it doesn't smell like a root cause. QED.