Mood:  incredulous

May 25, 2007, 12:01AM EST
Linux Foundation Fires Back at Microsoft

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2007/tc20070525_325967.htm?campaign_id=yhoo

If you earned $34 million a day from Windows and Office, you too would try to spook the market with patent threats

by Jim Zemlin

excerpts

Last week, Microsoft (MSFT) initiated what can only be described as a rather bizarre public-relations campaign in which they alleged that Linux and Open Office may violate hundreds of the software maker's patents. ...the most intriguing aspect of this aggressive maneuver: a glimpse of a threatened giant struggling to keep a grasp on its empire. ...the story really isn't about patents at all—it's about a rational actor trying to protect its privileged position.

In the time it will likely take you to read this article, Microsoft will have made $500,000 in net profit. ...majority of that profit comes from its Windows operating system and Office suite of business software. ...the two product lines most threatened by Linux operating systems and Open Office.

Patent Wars Shortchange Customers
...If you were making $1 billion a month, what would you do? Perhaps engage in rhetoric and hyperbole to generate some old-fashioned FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt)? Just looking at the numbers, it's easy to see that even if the scare campaign merely delays a customer's migration from Windows to Linux by a single day, Microsoft is $34 million dollars better off.

...Microsoft is, above all, a rational actor. ... hesitant to instigate a patent war, as it has too much experience with the downside of such litigation. Just ask Microsoft about its MP3 patent dispute, ...to pay $1.5 billion to Alcatel-Lucent (ALU).

...a patent war guarantees only one sure outcome: The customer loses. Customers want choice and innovation. That's why open-source is winning. ...embrace open-source to bolster competition in the marketplace. Competition will make us all better. Even Microsoft.

Reform the Patent System
The Linux Foundation does believe the current software patent system is problematic. The superpowers have their stockpiles. The trolls have their stashes. Rather than spurring innovation, which is of course the raison d'être of the patent system, today's patent games will divert dollars away from research and development in the U.S. Instead, those dollars will fund innovative activities in countries that have better things to do with their time and money than litigate.

That said, we are also rational actors working within an existing system. Touch one member of the Linux community, and you will have to deal with all of us. Microsoft is not the only—perhaps not even the largest—owner of patents in this area. Individual members of the Linux ecosystem have significant patent portfolios. Industry groups, such as the Open Innovation Network and our own legal programs at the Linux Foundation, aggregate our membership's patents into an arsenal with which to deter predatory patent attacks. With our members' backing, the Linux Foundation also has created a legal fund to defend developers and users of open-source software against malicious attack. We don't expect to but, if needed, we will use this fund to defend Linux.

In 2005, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith called on Congress to reform the patent system for software, stating reforms were needed to curb "abusive litigation." We ... call on Microsoft to work with the Linux ecosystem to restore confidence in the patent system by making sure they are issued only for truly unique, innovative, and novel functions that advance the state of the art.

...stop engaging in FUD campaigns that only serve to undermine confidence in the U.S. intellectual-property system. Instead, please work with us to make the patent system tighter, more reasonable, and efficient for everyone in the software business.

Zemlin is the executive director of the Linux Foundation.

end article

----------------  

Shouldn't that should read "Patent Wars Shortchange (OUR) Customers".

How about "Reform the Patent System (Before These Little Critters Eat Us Alive)"?

May I paraphrase you Mister Zemlin? "Hey Microsoft. Quit yer bitchin' and work on real developments of your own or pay the rightful owners of the ideas instead of trying to cut the corners." Is that what you're saying Mister Linux? Heck. I could write magazine articles. I could talk out of both sides of my butt just as well. Watch:

"Customers want choice and innovation".

Innovation means "alternative applied" doesn't it? Can anyone explain what Microsoft has innovated in the past five years as regards XML based integration that tops what IBM can do in XML web-based systems? And that was what LongHorn was supposed to be and what everyone is screaming to acquire. Why another year? Why another two? Why another day?

If the scare campaign merely delays a customer's migration from Windows to Linux by a single day, Microsoft is $34 million dollars better off.

"If you earned $34 million a day from Windows and Office, you too would try to spook the market with patent threats..." Sure I would but I wouldn't try to steal them... the markets that is.

"...the story really isn't about patents at all—it's about a rational actor trying to protect its privileged position..." Rational? It's rational for a CEO to rant about suing his clients because they might have something "the other guy has"? God forbid! It's then rational for folks to try to ram something through the nearest congressman to stick something to the wall to protect their "apparently" cheating asses? Rational. HA HA. Rational. Now, THAT's rich internet.

"...today's patent games will divert dollars away from research and development in the U.S...." It certainly siphoned $20Billion shareholder dollars from Microsoft treasure pile, didn't it. Did it produce anything? beyond furtive actions and double-speak and opacity.

"Instead, those dollars will fund innovative activities in countries that have better things to do with their time and money than litigate." where patents don't mean squat and if you're there first with the biggest wagon you can take the lion's share even if it was based on someone else's ideas. Wasn't that what started World War I? Wasn't that also what started World War II? Yeah. Great idea. We REALLY want to use the kind of system the "other part of the world" has used way back past the Hapsburg rule when, if your family fortune built a road, you owned the town, by God. At least that's what they SAID God said.

Posted by Portuno Diamo at 8:28 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, 1 June 2007 2:55 AM EDT

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Mood:  a-ok

Hey, check it out. Folks are using a service and nobody's the wiser... well, those using the service are much wiser, but then they actually read what they get. 

By: arthurarnsley
28 May 2007, 12:22 AM EDT
Msg. 186088 of 186093
(This msg. is a reply to 186077 by techlaw.)

Posted by Portuno Diamo at 3:39 AM EDT

Updated: Monday, 28 May 2007 3:42 AM EDT

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Mood:  cool

To all of you (this one's for all those intransigent relatives out there, Benjy) who may be on the fence wrestling with the idea that something as small as VCSY and a few scraps of government issued paper can have such a disrupting effect on the software (and hardware) industry, I offer you one more brick through your window to wake you up.

(for those who don't know; a jar is a zipped file for distributing Java code)

JavaFX: Sun isn't sure about the license

Wait a minute. There’s something wrong here, Sun isn’t even sure about the license for the JavaFX jars. This is definitely more fuel for the “JavaFX isn’t real” crowd. And, the only thing I’m taking away from this discussion is that it is illegal to do anything with JavaFX at the moment. That’s certainly what I take away from the user discussion.

Here is a message to users@openjfx.dev.java.net from Guillaume Pothier from May 22nd. The emphasis is mine, and it’s a question I’ve had myself…

Hi, I would like to know what is the current legal status of JavaFX.
In particular:
- Can I redistribute javafxrt.jar, Filters.jar and swing-layout.jar
with a GPL application? With a commercial application?
- Can I redistribute JavaFXPad?
- Can I distribute a modified version of JavaFXPad? Under which license?

Regards,
g

And the response from Nandini Ramani on users@openjfx.dev.java.net:

Guillaume,
The licensing terms for JavaFX are still under discussion. So, you
cannot redistribute JavaFXPad or any of the jars. I will keep you posted
once we have something in place.

-Nandini

…you don’t introduce The Big Product at The Java Conference without figuring out what license the thing is going to be under. I’m trying to give this technology a chance, but this is insane. They’ve created this “open source community” which isn’t really open or transparent in the least sense of the word. The fact that Sun can’t just tell us what the licensing and redistribution terms for JavaFX are right off the bat should give us some pause.

Add to this the fact that all of the source code has the following header:

/*
* $Id$
*
* Copyright 2007 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
* SUN PROPRIETARY/CONFIDENTIAL. Use is subject to license terms.
*/

Great, so what are those “license terms” again? I’m thinking GPLv2 + Classpath extension. Anyone else have any suggestions for Sun?

Suggestions? Yeah. How about telling Steve Ballmer and the rest of the squid school at Microsoft to swallow the mud and settle with VCSY so Sun can move forward with a legit license for JavaFX... a bogus copy of Emily.

You nitwits.

click

Posted by Portuno Diamo at 2:36 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, 28 May 2007 12:58 PM EDT

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Mood:  accident prone

SOME people say they know a lot more than the rest of us. Always beware of anyone who says "It's always been like this. It will always be like this." Those are the kind of people who will steer you right into one of those moveable icebergs.

Where X86 Architecture Hits the Wall

By Tom Yager

April 17, 2007 11:50AM 

...the weaknesses of the x86 approach to superscalar operation are starting to show. Professional workstation and server buyers who look to x86 systems to replace RISC machines have high expectations that include true parallel operation. In science and technology, creative professions and software development, to name a few, high-end client systems should be able to parallelize their way through heavy-lifting tasks while leaving enough power for real-time foreground interaction.

Likewise, buyers at the high end expect to be able to mix compute-intensive and I/O-intensive server applications, along with multiple virtual machines without sacrificing smooth and balanced operation of all tasks. When these buyers double the number of server CPUs, they expect a server's total performance to rise on a near-linear scale.

If RISC users came to PCs with those expectations, they'd walk away disappointed. While modern x86 server and workstation CPUs are outfitted for parallelization at the core level, PCs' intra-CPU communication, processor support components, memory, peripherals, the host operating system, the VMM (virtual machine monitor), the guest operating system, device drivers, and applications spin a web of interdependencies that, at times, requires that execution or I/O follow a specific path, even if sticking to that path calls for cyclically standing still. The result: You buy more high-end x86 systems than you should have to.

More at URL

What most people do not understand (particularly people who work in an industry [they are easily blinded by career attachment to old ways]) is that what used to be is no more. What will be is not yet readily visible and, as with all disrupted technologies, the adoption spikes catch manufacturers, vendors and users off guard.

Large corporations with preset agendae and large user masses with preset expectations get swept aside if they are not able to adapt rapidly to change.

With Microsoft, the entire software industry is changing around them while they maintain a stoic "wait and see" profile. That sort of management inertia is a common element in the failed business models of the past. The model worked right up to the tipping point in the disruptive wave. After that point, they can't unload product or assets fast enough to prevent the entire mass from rapidly becoming obsolete and worthless.

UPDATE

For more detailing and one of those cutsie air fresheners to hang off your mirror go here: 

http://vcsy.blogspot.com/2007/05/emails-from-edge-tales-from-crypto.html 

References for Your Edification:

RISC compared with CISC = http://cse.stanford.edu/class/sophomore-college/projects-00/risc/risccisc/

RISC: Reduced Instruction Set Computer

CISC: Complex Instruction Set Computer  

From above URL:

"The Overall RISC Advantage
Today, the Intel x86 is arguable the only chip which retains CISC architecture. This is primarily due to advancements in other areas of computer technology. The price of RAM has decreased dramatically. In 1977, 1MB of DRAM cost about $5,000. By 1994, the same amount of memory cost only $6 (when adjusted for inflation). Compiler technology has also become more sophisticated, so that the RISC use of RAM and emphasis on software has become ideal." 

More Update 

Intel: Software needs to heed Moore's Law
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6186765.html 

By Ina Fried, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: May 25, 2007, 12:39 PM PT

SAN FRANCISCO--After years of delivering faster and faster chips that can easily boost the performance of most desktop software, Intel says the free ride is over.

Already, chipmakers like Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are delivering processors that have multiple brains, or cores, rather than single brains that run ever faster. The challenge is that [1] most of today's software isn't built to handle that kind of advance.

"The software has to also start following Moore's law," Intel fellow Shekhar Borkar said, referring to the notion that chips offer roughly double the performance every 18 months to two years. "Software has to double the amount of parallelism that it can support every two years."

Things are better on the server side, where machines are handling multiple simultaneous workloads. [2] Desktop applications can learn some from the way supercomputers and servers have handled things, but another principle, Amdahl's Law, holds that there is only so much parallelism that programs can incorporate before they hit some inherently serial task.

Speaking to a small group of reporters on Friday, Borkar said that there are other options. [3] Applications can handle multiple distinct tasks, and systems can run multiple applications. Programs and systems can also both speculate on what tasks a user might want and use processor performance that way. But what won't work is for the industry to just keep going with business as usual. 

[4]  Microsoft has recently been sounding a similar warning. At last week's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Los Angeles, Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie tried to spur the industry to start addressing the issue.

[5] "We do now face the challenge of figuring out how to move, I'll say, the whole programming ecosystem of personal computing up to a new level where they can reliably construct large-scale applications that are distributed, highly concurrent, and able to utilize all this computing power," Mundie said in an interview there. "That is probably the single most disruptive thing that we will have done in the last 20 or 30 years."

Earlier this week, Microsoft's Ty Carlson said that [6] the next version of Windows will have to be "fundamentally different" to handle the amount of processing cores that will become standard on PCs. Vista, he said, is designed to handle multiple threads, but not the 16 or more that chips will soon be able to handle. [7] And the applications world is even further behind.

[8] "In 10 to 15 years' time we're going to have incredible computing power," Carlson said. "The challenge will be bringing that ecosystem up that knows how to write programs."

But Intel's Borkar said that [9] Microsoft and other large software makers have known this shift is coming and have not moved fast enough.

[10] "They talk; they talk a lot, but they are not doing much about it," he said in an interview following his discussion. [11]"It's a big company (Microsoft) and so there is inertia."

He said that [12] companies need to quickly adjust to the fact they are not going to get the same kind of performance improvements they are used to without retooling the way they do things.

"This is a physical limit," he said, referring to the fact that core chip speed is not increasing.

Despite the concern, Borkar said he is confident that the industry can rise to the challenge. Competition, for one, will spur innovation

[13] "For every software (company) that doesn't buy this, there is another that will look at it as an opportunity," Borkar said.

[14] He pointed to some areas where software has seen progress, such as in gaming. He also identified other areas that might be fruitful. [15] In particular, specific tasks could have their own optimized languages. Networking tasks, for example, could be handled by specific optimized networking code.

Intel has also been releasing more of its own software tools aimed at harnessing multicore performance. Another of [16] Intel's efforts is to work with universities to change the way programming is taught to focus more on parallelism; that way the next generation of developers will have such techniques in the forefront of their minds.

[17] "You start with the universities," Borkar said. "Us old dogs, you cannot teach us new tricks."

My take:

[1] Was Microsoft promising to Intel things Microsoft can not now deliver? Look at Intel articles over the past year. The plans Intel made as detailed back in June 2006 when they sold off their cell phone division were probably based on hopes Vista would be a barnburner. As it is, Vista promises to be the horse (or the bull) locked in the barn afire.

[2] Notice the complaint about parallelism. In other words, Intel is saying 'Hey, we can build the architectures, but, if the software producer (Microsoft is no doubt inferred ) doesn't provide the kind of virtualization and command/data pipeline management needed to make use of the architecture, don't blame us.' Longhorn and the associated XML/Web-based operating capabilities were intended to allow a processing platform to reach out to the inter-connected outside (via intranet or internet) for interoperable resources (other processor sets able to handle parts of the workload- here is where interoperation is no longer a 'play nice' file content but is a 'play along' operational block on the clock [aka deterministic interoperation]). With the cutting of things like WinFS and the elemental technologies that enable applications like WinFS to operate from Longhorn/Vista, the processor is doomed to remain alone... unable to reach out beyond its own proprietary buss structure for help.

[3] The 'Business as usual' comment can arguably be pinned on Microsoft's various rewrites of their operating system from 2004 when advanced capabilities (those that would have allowed x86 processors to reach outside their local processing structure to outside processing capabilities in a virtualized form) were cut from Longhorn (aka Vista) and Microsoft returned to the traditional programming and operating systems they had before their vaunted XML/dynamic languages efforts which apparently failed or were failed. I don't think Intel can be blamed for not knowing how to architect chips. Chip design, engineering and manufacturing per se is not the problem, I think. Management CAN be blamed for taking the word of a software company that's already demonstrated they can't deliver on their promises or projects. That alone will ultimately prove to be the lead weight around the neck of chip maker's swimming upstream efforts.

[4] I'll bet they have. They either can pin the blame on somebody else preventing them from developing the kind of software resources that can virualize, arbitrate and manage processing chip resources or  they will have to take the blame for strangling Intel's future.

[5] Well, we who've been watching what VCSY has been claiming their patents can do (they claim such by describing the architectural structures in their patents) and any nitwit with an eye for architectural processes can see what kind of  "...large-scale applications that are distributed, highly concurrent, and able to utilize all this computing power" may be theorized (and one would then reasonably say deployed) by the VCSY intellectual properties in conjunction with other virtual arbitrated managed and governed technologies such as IBM is able to field.

[6] Good, because Mister Gates and Mister Ballmer have aleady said the next operating system they make will be different... promise. Uhhh... Mister Microsoft, I hate to break it to you but wasn't WinFS/Longhorn/Yukon supposed to be the basis for just that software revolution? Are you telling Intel to just hang on you'll be there eventually? Should they mothball their processing facilities while your campus roller blades around to some sort of viable option beyond Vista and the Windows XP ME 2 aka Vista/Longhorn? Not trying to be ugly but this is getting to be a political and marketing farce and Microsoft appears to be counting on the rest of the technological and investing public to simply not see what VCSY has. No wonder shutting down discussion about VCSY would be such an important goal to certain people possibly representing some of these companies on boards such as RagingBull where most of this speculative information (based on easily googled fact) can be found?

[7] Well, now, just who is to blame for that when Microsoft is late fielding development tools for dynamic virtualized and arbitrated applications? Hmmm?

[8] In 10 to 15 years, Mister Carlson, Intel will be a gaming chip manufacturer and the business world will be running on IBM power architectures and cell processors. The x86 line will be a distant expensive memory if things continue at this rate.

[9] Well well well... after how many paragraphs we FINALLY get up enough nerve to name names and point he finger? Well done, Intel. You've finally bought a clue. How much will it have cost by the time you figure out the secret phrase?

[10] Talk and no action is not cheap. Not cheap at all, is it?

[11] Microsoft certainly doesn't seem to have much inertia when they want to get into advertising to find some way out of the business application quandary they seem to have gotten their Office and Operating System lines into. Money in the right management hands tends to have a fascinating lubricative effect. In the hands of incompetent and intransigent management, money empowers inertia.

[12] Retool? Microsoft has had virtulization and arbitration technology on their shelves since 2004 and beyond. What retooling are we talking about here? Change the engineering teams or change management? Let's have some avocados here, folks, so we can go about making guacamole'.

[13] I believe you are correct, sir.

[14] Your homework, dears, is to figure out for yourself what the nice man is saying here to the world at large. I have said for some time I believe Microsoft is burying the technology they should have fielded in Vista in XBox where it can't be dug out easily (they think).

[15] A core element in VCSY technology is the Very High Level Language Emily which is specifically targeted precisely at providing higher level languages for specific verticals and the term 'verticals' may mean work-tasks at very granular levels just as it may mean 'verticals' in industry disciplines and businesses.

[16] Just what would you teach in those universities? How to program like Jeff Davison and Aubrey McAuley and Luis Valdetaro? Would you mind giving them a bit of credit in your textbooks? Hmmm?

[17] That's right, Mister Borkar. In humane societies, old dogs who are put in a position where they can no longer look after themselves are put up for adoption by someone else or euthanized. Which will it be for Intel's management and staff if they can't convince these mean nasty software companies to step up to their responsibilities and make or buy some healthy dogfood for a change?

As Amdahl's Law points out, all the preprocessing and parallel plumbing in the world won't help you when the software you're running can't arbitrate virtualized operations within a serial stream and can't distribute virtualized and arbitrated functions. 

What do you think, children? Am I being too harsh on Intel? Not any more harsh than analysts will be once the story gets out. We currently have less than 700 people reading this bilge I put out. What will happen when the number is in the thousands and these reader take these writings to experts and those experts agree? What do you think will happen? Better to take care of your own problems than to preach to someone else's family how they should take care of their wayward relatives.

Perhaps the dawning is happening at Intel and it's over a year after Microsoft themselves recognized the problems they would have once long-delayed Longhorn would start using the architectures for real (not just in mock ups and simulations).

PS - Speaking of putting "credit" where credit is due, I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge I probably never would have taken Intel to task for mismanaging expectations and realities in the software they have grown so dependent on were it not for the writings of a poster on Raging Bull VCSY who happens to have worked for Intel at "times in the past". I don't know if that past is "years" ago, "months" ago or mere "days" as someone like a consultant can work for somebody one day and "not" the next. Makes no matter to me. Where ever he may have gained his knowledge, we all owe him a debt of gratitude for opening this doorway on our view of the software/hardware dependencies that govern these two huge industries.

yers truly - portuno 

Posted by Portuno Diamo at 10:28 PM EDT

Updated: Sunday, 27 May 2007 1:25 AM EDT

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Mood:  sharp

Worth reading because it indicates Microsoft is not sitting as pretty as they would appear to want everyone out in the Linux FUD world as they would surely like. Here are excerpts of interest but worth having in the hopper for reference as we move forward.

Did Microsoft get their money's (and reputation's) worth in this deal with Novell? Perhaps not. In fact, they may have tied themselves to a rolling stone headed for a cliff. 

May 26th, 2007

Novell publishes details on its Microsoft patent deal

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 8:43 am Categories: Corporate strategy, Legal, Linux, Novell Tags: Novell Inc., Patent, Agreement, Microsoft Corp., GPLv3, SuSE, Mary Jo Foley

Excerpts: 

More at URL 

This deal between Microsoft and Novell is not as advantageous and ironclad as Microsoft wants everyone to think. 

Posted by Portuno Diamo at 3:58 PM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 26 May 2007 4:12 PM EDT

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Mood:  incredulous

Hokey smokes. If it's not one problem it's another with these people! What now?

PDC R.I.P. Means 'What?'

Joe Wilcox
May 25, 2007 12:06 PM

Jeepers Creepers, Microsoft has unexpectedly canceled its 2007 Professional Developer Conference. "Say what?," you say.

My reaction: PDC cancellation likely foreshadows a delay in Windows Server 2008 release to manufacturing. Microsoft already delayed "Viridian" virtualization software, which is closely tied to Windows Server 2008. It's hardly a stretch to presume, with PDC's cancellation, something is amiss with Windows Server 2008.

With many businesses holding back Office 2007 and Windows Vista deployments for Windows Server 2008, any delay could have far-reaching impact. If there is no server software delay, there is the question of what does the cancellation mean?

For one, the timing is terrible. Apple's developer confernce is just weeks away, where Mac OS X 10.5 will be front and center. Apple's planned release of the operating system is October, the same month as Microsoft's now cancelled developer conference. No doubt, Apple will make hay out of this mess.

We call on developers to tell us what you think of the PDC `07 cancellation. Maybe you are stunned and flabbergasted. Maybe you already were overwhelmed by Office 2007, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista testing—and the change is a relief. Whatever your reaction, please share it. For people that would like to be quoted in a future story on the topic, please offer a link to your Web site with your comment or use our Tips Mailbox, providing your name, profession, company and company e-mail address, with your comments.

Posted by Portuno Diamo at 4:32 AM EDT

Updated: Monday, 28 May 2007 12:49 PM EDT

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Mood:  cool

May 24, 2007
Robert Scoble

Here's an interesting observation from the previously annointed "unoffical blogger for Microsoft" Robert Scoble: "Now that Google, Amazon, Apple, are shipping platforms that are more and more interesting to Microsoft’s developer community Microsoft has to play a different game. One where they can’t keep showing off stuff that never ships. The stakes are going up in the Internet game and Microsoft doesn’t seem to have a good answer to what’s coming next."

	Richard Wade (aka Silent Dick aka Pooky Pie) has demonstrated he has the patience to keep the brick on the gas and the wheel tied to the door handle. Steve Ballmer (aka MuckMuck the Magnificent aka Loud Mouth Leroy) has demonstrated he doesn't know the difference between a radio knob and a brake. We can only hope there's an adult somewhere in the crowd.
Hungry Chicken In Public Relations Disaster		Color me Roadkill

And another fascinating observation from Robert (Bob Bob Bobbin') Scoble:

"The last few PDCs haven’t exactly been huge successes, though. Hailstorm was announced at one and later was killed. Longhorn was announced at another and later was delayed and many things that were shown off were later killed too."

So, what's the potential casualty here this years cancelled PDC would have ruined? Microsoft's reputation? What's the codename for that? "BakedSkunk"? "CrispyCookedChicken"? "WrinkledWinky"? Project "RoomTempTapioca"? Anyone have any good ideas for a codename for this current Microsoft project? Maybe something simple like Project "Avoidance"?

Posted by Portuno Diamo at 1:02 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, 25 May 2007 1:04 PM EDT

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Mood:  quizzical

We've never really talked about hardware in all this discussion about VCSY software. VCSY has only one hardware patent we know of and that's the Cruz fiber optic patent for transmitting moving images through a single fiber. This will provide an untold capability to speed information transport once fleshed out in computers and chips.

But, what of VCSY software patent effect on hardware, particularly computer infrastructure and processing chips?

The power of VCSY taught virtualization and arbitration leading to an effective SaaS platform alone offers a rapidly shifting landscape for chipmakers of any kind as it portends the demise of the Desktop PC domination over business and perhaps consumer hardware at the point of use at a period of large scale obsolescence and upgrade.

The currently recognized SaaS (Software as a Service) and CaaS (Computation as a Service) concepts teach mainframes and large manageable server banks will increasingly be the norm and the families of of existing and new desktop PCs will give way to an increasingly smaller footprint in processing power required, electrical power needs and cost per unit user.

The desktop phenomena took off with the introduction of the IBM Compatible concept a couple decades ago and has steadily increased with no apparent end in sight. Chip makers depended on this incremental growth in processor speed and power demands to forecast their manufacturing expenditures over the coming years. IBM appears poised to reset the technology, bringing the power back from the desktop to the mainframe and server banks, Where Microsoft skunked IBM by foreseeing the dominance of the operating system on individually distributed computers, IBM appears intent on calling the shots this time.

While the traditional chip building industry continued to see the desktop power curve as a road to riches, IBM has concentrated their chip making expertise in processors better able to serve many users on a chip. Along with serving many with fewer hardware units, the IBM strategy appears to have added the ability for software to also control the chip ecology, offering the ability to virtualize the hardware for repurposing on demand and providing a means of controlling the chip infrastructure with software.  This is a fundamental component to IBM's POWER strategy for more efficient and more 'green' computing as scales become more massive.

As IBM learned a long time ago, errors in prediction come back to haunt the unfortunate with a vengeance.

Unlike software manufacturers who can do most of their product building with few physical assets beyond development software and the computers needed to carry out software construction and testing, chip manufacture requires huge outlays in expensive equipment and trained staff in order to produce their products.

Software manufacture is not a very predictable science as is indicated by the many build/rebuild set/reset phases some software houses go through. Take Vista's shipping 'schedules' for instance. Originally slated for shipment in 2004, the delays in bringing out a useful build on Vista challenged the computer chip industry to continually revise their projected schedules to produce articles capable of running the more massive operating system while trying to predict and balance the demands of the hardware production lines which would produce the required desktops and server frames.

Chip manufacture is a science with a bit of mental artistry thrown into the architectural phases of concept and mask cutting. But, after the masks are cut, chip manufacture is predominantly an assembly line production under somewhat predictable guidelines. Things move along at a predictable rate unless outside uncontrolled influences impact that process.

Scheduling those chip shipments to coordinate with new motherboard designs, for instance, is a monumental task often upset by the smallest unforeseen hiccups.

Cause those chips to be somehow tied to the introduction of a new technological paradigm and the artistry in one industry can bring chaos and loss to the assembly line sciences.

Unfortunately for chip manufacturers, software is the most difficult commodity for which to predict shipping cycles. That would not be such a terrible thing if the software is not evolutionary requiring a new set of processing capabilities. But, when a processing chip line is predicted and put in place to accommodate the increased sophistication of software packages such as a 'next generation' operating system, and said OS doesn't make it out the door... the impact is massive on the chip supplier.

In an arena such as x86 processor chips where there are multiple manufacturers (dominant in the industry are Intel and AMD) the competition also shaves the predictables down to who can deliver first with the most and therefore increases the consequential detriments deriving from any product problems from upstream and downstream.

With all that in mind, Vista must have been a real bear for chip makers like Intel and AMD to plan on. As Vista is best used on a 64 bit processor, new fabrication techniques and manufacturing capabilities had to be in place early to produce such products at the same time as the requisite operating system product was to be delivered. Delays in the software manufacturing process may well have been a 'so what?' affair as their was little capital and asset loss... but chip manufacturers were faced with delaying installation on machinery and fabrication suites or mothballing the assets until such units were needed. We will likely never know as most errors are buried in the large manufacturing infrastructures.

In the case of planning for Vista, the original shipment schedules of 2004 slipping into 2005, 2006 and 2007 meant the chip manufacturers had to juggle an increasingly unpredictable schedule with increasing unrecoverable costs to the bottom line.

Even then, when Vista was finally ready to ship, the production pace set by expectations was subject to the whims of buyers who would or would not buy the operating system and the prerequisite hardware necessary to wring out the maximum use of the software product.

Vista has likely been a huge disappointment and a source of consternation and befuddlement for chip suppliers who once foresaw a golden age where every desktop would be replaced to take advantage of incredible OS capabilities... only to find the product was not really ready for prime time (the capabilities of Vista won't be fully realized until the remaining pieces like Longhorn are shipped) and the community of users really didn't need more powerful machines because they didn't need what Vista provided.

As backup for these thoughts, here are a few blurbs from a timely article by Joe Wilcox. The post doesn't tell us anything new. It simply tells us what folks have been saying ever since Vista was released will actually be the new reality for those counting on selling their wares to a hardware hungry crowd who are about to go on a crash diet in their upgrade cycles.

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/vista/some_enterprises_will_delay_new_pcs_for_vista.html

May 23, 2007 6:09 PM

Some Enterprises Will Delay New PCs for Vista

By Joe Wilcox

excerpts:

Enterprises already planning new PC deployments, as part of regular cyclical upgrades, are likely to delay them for 12 months or more because of Windows Vista.

"Corporations were likely to delay the upgrade cycle a year or more," Lao said of In-Stat's finding. "If planning to buy 1,000 machines, I'm still going to buy them, just a little later."

...the findings are good for Microsoft, which is assured of Vista deployments on most new PCs in the current upgrade cycle. The situation could be less rosy for some portions of Microsoft's channel.

Microsoft missed a major corporate upgrade cycle starting in mid 2004 and ending about two years later. This larger number of businesses is unlikely to upgrade to Windows Vista right away.

The In-Stat survey supports my earlier contention that Vista shipped too late. Microsoft needed to get the operating system into the market no later than holiday 2005 to catch the curl.

Consistent with other studies, consumers aren't rushing out to buy new PCs because of Vista.

"The average consumer is looking at a second, third or fourth PC purchase," Lao said. Referring to the survey results, he added: "The motivating factor was 'I need another PC for my kid to use,' not Vista."

Related Posts:

• IT Organizations: Cautious Vista Testing and Deployment, Microsoft Watch, May 8, 2007

• Uh-Oh, Vista! PC Sales Levels are Normal, Microsoft Watch, April 11, 2007

• Vista Missed Its Cue—Now What?, Microsoft Watch, March 23, 2007

• Snapshot: IT Vista Deployment Plans, Microsoft Watch, March 21, 2007

• CIOs: Vista Will Need Heftier Hardware, Microsoft Watch, Dec. 5, 2006

• How New a Day?, Microsoft Watch, Nov. 30, 2006

More at URL

End Article

The evolving consensus appears to say PC sales are normal, meaning any anticipated and planned for increase in business has not materialized. Chip makers in particular are not seeing the inrush expected to justify the money needed to tool up to a new set of processing capabilities.

On top of this sag in expectations versus reality in PC sales, the industry is facing the looming specter of thin client erosion of the desktop market over the period of this coming delay induced wait. Corporations holding out for a more power desktop over the coming months and years will be offered an increasingly viable alternative in less expensive thin desktops with all the processing power and hassles at the other end of the network connection... not at the desktop.

As always the lingering question regarding a performance by Microsoft that put software OEMs, chip makers, hardware builders and IT services in an increasingly uncomfortable position from 2004 onward: Why couldn't they ship something, anything, sooner? Why was Longhorn emasculated so? Why was WinFS demonstrated so enthusiastically up to 2004 only to have planners remove the one component that would have allowed Vista to be used in the current server farm automation scenario even without all the other capabilities and items.

WinFS offered the opportunity to provide the operating system parameters outside the OS for consumption by management personnel and systems and thus provide significant cost saving opportunities for hardware control before that subject was so thoroughly dominated by recent announcements by IBM?

As the evolving SaaS/CaaS scenario unfolds and matures, cutting WinFS may come to be viewed in hindsight as having been the most significant blunder by Microsoft management because it cut Vista's first and most significant deliverable to OEMs at a time when competitors were planning and executing for just such uses.

WinFS could have arguably changed the face of the server farm landscape by providing management systems with ways to increase OS utilization and performance via external systems.

As it stands now, such capabilities will not be available on Microsoft machines for the foreseeable future and the chip makers and OEMs will still be depending on Microsoft making good on shipping what is obviously a very difficult execution for Microsoft.

We shall see.

Posted by Portuno Diamo at 2:11 AM EDT

Updated: Monday, 28 May 2007 12:52 PM EDT

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Mood:  hungry

If you will look at the following few timeline indications, it's fairly easy to see why Microsoft squealed like a stuck pig about how unfair patents were and how everybody else should have to play by the same rules.

There are other indications but apparently one must understand a bit more than how to open a magazine to see: Timeline Vershtinken  

November 18, 2004 Ballmer accuses Linux of violating >258 patents

November 30, 2004 VCSY SiteFlash Patent granted

February 7, 2007 VCSY sends Microsoft cease and desist on  US 6,826,744
[patent granted November 30, 2004]

Fact: Mister Ballmer had an opportunity to know when the VCSY SiteFlash patent would be granted in November of 2004. Mister Ballmer had no way of knowing when he would receive the C&D on the SiteFlash patent in February of 2007. Thus, a little ahead, a little behind. Always the way things go when one has a combination of a little head and a little "but".

May 14th, 2007

Microsoft’s patent claim: Where’s the beef?

Microsoft says free and open source software infringes on 235 of its patents. The real motive for Microsoft's patent volley may be the third version of the General Public License.

and say "hey this is Windows-ish." Is that a patent problem?

Meanwhile, I've read the official Microsoft line but am left with a few outstanding things that make me go hmm.

• Did these execs speak out of turn–or was every last sentence planned?
• What's the motive–there has to be more than the GPL?
• Why bring up all this patent stuff now–especially since Microsoft has no motivation to sue–yet?

Without some real information on these patents that open source is trouncing it's a case of patent he said, she said. Like Adrian Kingsley-Hughes notes though, I'd be surprised if there weren't patent problems. This patent banter is leaving me hungry–much like a condiment sandwich.

Put some roast beef between them buns and it's so good it'll make you slap your granny.

Truth or bull? 

Posted by Portuno Diamo at 1:33 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 24 May 2007 2:25 PM EDT

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