Posts by Kiss

Data doesn't lie, but Microsoft's new Power BI prices might make you cry

Corporate ELA negotiation tactic

Just a way for the corporate CIOs to justify why they have to pay more for the MS Enterprise Level Agreement, probably claiming they have increased their discount% (even though they are paying much more).

When you become a slave of a monopoly expect a lashing if you object.

Carlo Cipolla's "Basic Laws of Human Stupidity" categorizes people into four types: intelligent, helpless, bandits, and stupid, with the "helpless" acting against their own interests while benefiting others. MS would be a "bandit" and CIOs "helpless", until they take "intelligent" decisions.

Instant Ump: HP Inc's subscription ink services hiking prices from next month

2025 -- 50% increases happening again

Additional page sets are up by 50% from £1/10 pages to £1.50/10pages, page sets are up between 12.5% and over 20%.

Pages in plan New Plan Price Old Plan Price

10 .....................£1.79 .................£1.49

25 .....................£3.49 .................£2.99

50 .....................£4.49 .................£3.99

100 ...................£6.49 .................£5.49

Troubled French outsourcer Atos finds pot of gold at the end of UK state bank Rainbow

Re: Sad

It's good to know that you understand the details and complexities of NS&I banking systems to pass such an extreme judgement on both parties. .... or do you?

Good news! You'll soon be able to send faxes again with Windows 11 24H2

Re: Faxes?

Well if you think a fax = a secure transmission of an image vs email which is normally insecure, there will always be a use case.

Fax transmission today is digital and fast. It's just that in mainly Western culture we all stopped using faxes when they were still analogue and jumped on the digital email bandwagon, even though it was insecure, so our reference points are probably jaded.

Think of all the effort and complications of getting users to digitally sign a document securely - no proper standards that allow easy use for end users. The same issue with encrypted emails - possible but proven unfeasible in practice.

If faxing does become more popular again (unlikely) we can then expect M$ to make it M$ propriety and will start to charge for it.

I have mixed feelings about moving drivers into the OS - works well in Linux where most drivers are open source, but they will never be open source in Windows, so I would vote against this.

Microsoft admits Outlook crashes, says impact 'mitigated'

Re: Intternationalisation!

I think it's because of the UK, it's a known that normally it's what we don't say is the true meaning of the email and copilot is spinning out of control

About that Windows Installer 'make me admin' security hole. Here's how it's exploited

Cyber security industry

Imagine how small the Cyber security industry would be if no one used Windows OS. Not zero, but enough to make an impression on every IT budget to allow investments in tech that actually improves an organisation's efficiency and competitiveness.

Users rage as Microsoft announces retirement of Office 365 connectors within Teams

Power Automate will be discontinued as well

Once the revenue stream for Power Automate has been maximised (it will go thought various guises of increasing cost versions before that) it too will be discontinued and replaced by the promises of better more secure product. This will not be determined by functionality for the customer but by M$ product lifecycle financial planning. Monopoly Practises 101 - the beast always gets more and more hungry for your money.

OpenAI: 'Impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials'

Legality and Ethics

It is strange that these AI models can't be taught the concept of laws. These are public domain in most countries, so therefore they should be able to demonstrate their compliance when generating output.

Just because one CAN, does not mean one SHOULD. The models should also be taught ethics, and these would need to be aligned to country/culture.

Maybe the models should pass legality and ethical tests before they have the right to operate publicly, just like many other professions. We have laws, whose purposes are to protect our broader societies, we need protection from e.g theft, lies, purposeful propoganda. A lawyer will provide advice based on described circumstances - you don't expect the advice to be illegal, so when you pay for something it should be legal.

Microsoft still prohibits Google or Alibaba from running O365 Windows Apps

The monopoly is just associated with the O365 apps Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Break Microsoft into two with Word/Excel/PowerPoint being the monopolistic weapon into a separate company. This will level the playing field in Hyperscalers, and also break out the ever-increasing O365 application echo system.

How do Anti-malware (e.g. Crowdstrike), MDM (e.g. Airwatch), and collaboration apps (e.g. Slack) compete with O365 that bundle copies of most of these features on top of O365 subscriptions? The IT industry is the loser as innovative companies just get driven out of town and we are left with poor imitations of the innovative thoughts. Where did Intune come from - look to Airwatch, same for MS Defender ATP - look to Crowdstrike, the same for MS Teams look to Slack. The MS policy of starting off with a "free" poor imitation bundled into e.g. E3/E5 with roadmap promises to copy features from the other products is the root of the monopoly.

With the amount being spent on end user device management and Windows applications - who can blame corporates from moving this functionality to MS if they can get a discount on their M$ ELA.

Indian armed forces gives Windows its marching orders, but only for desktop warriors

Re: You can type this nonsence but ...

Hmmm. From an overall Munich city perspective, maybe investing in a significant regional office that generates city income is more important than choosing a desktop OS, so no Windows = no investment. Just a high-level barter is the outcome. No sure this would be legal in many countries, but monopolies will always act ruthlessly whenever possible.

NHS England spends £8M to extend Microsoft deals by a month

Re: Maybe not Linux but Office maybe ditchable

Why is this a custom windows app? If it were a webapp it could probably also be accessed by any mobile device/Tablet etc. Another reason that confirms the costs of dealing with Microsoft as a locked in monopoly.

If the NHS thinks it will pay less for it's Enterprise Level Agreement then it better think again

Chromebook expiration date, repair issues 'bad for people and planet'

Re: Please Stop

Hahaha

One litre water = 1kg

Those brought up with SI just sit back in amazement at how ridiculous imperial measurements are see this link just on length and we don't even talk about area or volume, nevermind acceleration, mass, energy or power.

https://www.theedkins.co.uk/jo/units/length.htm

Benchmark a cloud PC? No way. Just trust us, they work, says Microsoft

Missing the point

The purpose of Azure PCs is to destroy Citrix, VMware and other virtual desktop offerings by undercutting those products so their owners cannot invest any longer and leave the market to M$ to prey upon.

The comments are completely aligned to this strategy. M$ are simply placing doubt in the minds of companies that the better performing products from competitors don't mean anything. Wake up and smell the lilly of death of innovation in virtual desktops.

Microsoft's Copilot AI to pervade the whole 365 suite

What about....

Would it be possible to ask the AI to write an article that when analyzing the generated article again by AI it will summarize the key points you wanted to be interpreted in the first place?

Seems to me to be somewhat redundant or highly useful to influence stupid lazy people, and according to the theory of stupidity there are many more stupid people than you think.

Now Google to shove its answer to ChatGPT into Gmail, Docs, apps via APIs, more

Does it have to work?

So watch this space in AI. If AI fails, MS has an out to blame a 3rd party, Google does not.

MS software does not have to work for MS to be financially successful - this happens in a monopolistic world.

Monopolies remain successful by financially destroying their competition by giving away inferior software for free and copying innovative features from the competition. Once competition is gone you become the world leader and own the market.

Please name an originally innovative product from MS.

BT's Plusnet shows Google how it's done as email woes enter their third day

What has Google got to do with this?

Poor headline or an attempt to associate Google with a failure? I just don't know as the article does nothing to elaborate. Is this a Google badged service like Virgin Media? Please revise article to clarify.

Awkward. At Chrome summit, developer asks: Why should anyone trust Google?

So nothing good ever came from Google?

Unless you own shares in Google, why trust them. Their job is to make money for their shareholders that probably includes your pension fund.

I am tired of negative pointless press like this. We have enough monolopies like Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and Google that limit innovation by intentionally commercially destroying competition. Don't you see that articles like this actually further enforce their power?

What we should promote is competition between the major players to drive new ideas e.g. use Google to fight MS O365 monolopies, MS to fight Chrome etc. Also give a platform to support new small players - they need all the help they can get.

Whining about successful large monopolies helps no one. But then again A-Register needs clickbait to drive revenue for their shareholders. This is the world we live in, so understand it and try to make it a better place.

10 years later, Chrome OS starts to look like a proper OS with hardware diagnostics and the ability to scan documents

Re: Unfortunately we aren't the target market for ChromeOS

Kids will probably will grow up wondering why our generation persisted with an overly complex OS that required experts to maintain Vs just getting work done. They will see a desktop OS just like most of us see firmware and device drivers.

If playing around with an OS is your thing then enjoy doing it, but most users dont care - they just want to open their laptops and start working and not worry about OS updates, malware protection, application updates getting priority before users' work/requests.