Sometimes the comments are better than the video – Balmer not too impressive

by whatcounts
Microsoft CEO hopes to reenter phone market, disputes PC shift
[Via AppleInsider]

At All Things Digital, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer admitted having fallen behind in the mobile business, but expressed a hope of reentering the market with its upcoming products. He also took issue with comments by Steve Jobs on the shift away from PCs.

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You know that your position as a leader of industry is in trouble when a bunch of commenters online provide pithier and more enlightening words than you do. Watch the videos and then read some of the comments.

So, Balmer quotes the proverb, “When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail. Ironic since really all Microsoft has is hammers (Windows and Office), explaining why everything is a PC, even the iPad.

An online riposte by SpamSandwich:

Quote:

Ballmer hammered home his PC centric views by saying, “to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”What does the world look like when you’re a pinhead?

What does the world look like when you’re a pinhead?

Not bad. This one, by BitWrangler, takes it further:

Actually I think this really points to the crux of why Apple has been successful where Microsoft has not. Ballmer is all caught up in the semantics of things, of course an ipad is a computer, of course an iphone is a computer. Steve’s point was that thing sitting on your desk is becoming less and less relevant every day. Plus Ballmer is focused on the tool, vs what the tool can accomplish. He sees tablet form factor PC’s vs devices that solve some set of problems, which is why while Microsoft has been slogging away at tablets for years, they haven’t done squat in that market.

Not only does Microsoft have no taste, they have no vision. Which pretty much explains why they’ve missed the boat on two of the biggest paradigm shifts in technology, the internet and mobile computing. Apple might not be the first to arrive at the ball, but they seem to find a way to become the belle. Microsoft is that rich girl fuming in the corner because they bought all the fashionable clothes and had all the right finishing classes but all the guys are still oogling the girl who is simply genuinely fun to be around and believes in details vs qty.

Sounds like MS pretty much.

The problem MS has is that Apple may now be the prettiest belle of the ball, and Google may be the low rent gal from the other side of the tracks but who cleans up real well (think Cinderella). So where does that place them?

The previous OS wars were between Apple, with an expensive but well-organized system vs. MS, with a cheap, it’ll do approach. Cheap won out. But Apple still survived and made money.

But now, in the mobile realm it is between Apple, with an inexpensive but well-organized system vs. Google, which is s free, it’ll do approach. Free may win out here but Apple will make a lot of money. How will cheap deal with this? Cheap does not beat free. Where will MS fit in here? Particularly when they are behind.

If I want cheap, I have free. If I want well-organized, I have APple. WHy would I pay for a cheap – which costs more than free – unorganized system?

Apple can make money quite well by charging for the OS and getting a fraction of the market. Google can make money by giving away the OS and getting a high fraction of the market. Microsoft can only survive by both charging for their OS AND getting a high fraction of the market. It has to excel at both of the things Apple and Google are trying to do.

I do not think they can do it. Especially after ceding the market to both of them for a year or so. I think MS will be trying to gather the crumbs where Blackberry and HP will be.

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Tracking the Trackers has some interesting points that directly affect the previous post – the one where lawyers from a firm are suing thousands of people in a process that would be called extortion if done by your or me.

Here is what LordJames said on a message thread at Ars Technica:

Here’s some hilarious food for thought, some guys at the University of Washington did a study on how easy it is to frame people for copy write infringement and how common false positives are.

They “were able to generate hundreds of real DMCA takedown notices for computers at the University of Washington that never downloaded nor shared any content whatsoever”.

The best part? They managed to create 9 false positives, with take-down notices, sent to the IP address of printers.

False positives are a big part of what can happen with a P2P network. It would make it a lot easier to quash a subpoena if this point was brought up. Doing a fishing expedition may seem a lot different to the courts with a lot of innocent people caught up in the nets.

People believe that if they have the data to link you to this crime, you have to be guilty. The computers do not lie. But, as shown in the paper, all sorts of innocent devices can get caught up in this P2P network, ones that never downloads any of the relevant information.

Seems to me something like this paper would of real value in court. Or perhaps simply paying a lawyer to write a really good lawyer letter back, citing this paper and others, might simply indicate that you will be more trouble than you are worth.

“Every time someone settles the industry wins, and God kills a kitten. “

by crsan

Handwritten legal filings can’t stop P2P lawsuit juggernaut
[Via Ars Technica]

As we reported this week, the Virginia-based law firm of Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver has filed suit against 14,583 anonymous “John Doe” P2P defendants in the first six months of 2010. The charge: sharing various indie films online without permission. Once a Doe’s identity is revealed by his or her Internet service providers, the lawyers then demand a settlement of between $1,500 and $2,500, or they threaten to seek $150,000 in federal court.

Some users have been fighting back, trying to keep their identities a secret. “Motions to quash” have dribbled into the Washington, DC District Court from around the country, several of them scrawled by hand. Each contains a plea—one goes so far as to say that she is “now throwing myself on the mercy of the courts to have this [subpoena] quash or vactated. [sic]“

Lawyers are rarely involved, and the motions are badly formed, sometimes unsigned, often missing key sections or failing to address basic arguments. They are the response of citizens who find themselves one day suddenly caught up in a federal lawsuit happening in Washington. They are alternately weird, sad, or outraged. What they are not is “effective.”

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The title is from the first comment in this post. This case, which I mentioned the other day, helps explain why people are not too fond of lawyers. The ability to sue thousands of people, expecting them to settle since that is so much cheaper than going to court –even when innocent – and making millions, seems to be of a form with what makes people upset with Wall Street. Money seems more important than what is right.

Court costs make it very likely that, even if innocent, people will simply pay.

And these attempts to quash the subpoena demonstrate just what happens when average people get caught up in this. Even $1500 is going to be a hardship for many of these people.

I think it really should not be possible to sue thousands of people from just a few court filings. Making their expenses a little higher than that might stop this sort of abuse. Is the court really going to be able to handle the load if all these people chose to fight?

Perhaps some lawyers will band some of these people together and put up a fight. Say he got 1000 who paid him $100. With $100,000 he could make it too expensive for these guys to continue. Their game is to get money from people without having to go to court. Increasing their expenses would make them much more likely to find a way to settle or drop the difficult cases.

Fight fire with fire. Maybe set up a Facebook page and use some social media approaches to gather together enough people to put up a fight.

This does not look like an attempt to stop piracy. The way to do that is to find someone who is a suitable target and make a real Federal case out of it. Something that might cause the average person to think twice. This simply looks like they want to go after some people and make a ton of money without having to work too hard proving the people are really guilty.