Microsoft Windows 8 - Page 4 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Air&Road · #46 11-01-2012, 01:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pawoSD

They do with OEM pricing and licensing, especially for businesses. With both Win7 and now with Win8, there was/is a very lucrative and low cost upgrade price available for a number of months. I believe its around $39, which is very reasonable....even if you choose to not actually install it right away.

Often the costs of hanging onto older systems will come back to haunt eventually, in the form of higher costs to painfully transition much later than if it had been properly managed and done steadily all along.

IMHO, the BEST software pricing system was back in the days of Digital Equipment Corporation(DEC) with their VMS operating system and family of applications. They sold the Media and Documentation separately from the licensing and had bundled pricing for the licenses. VMS and DEC, however, started dying in the early nineties.

pawoSD · #47 11-01-2012, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Army

May be one day the penny will drop and people will just pay for hardware and software will become something that is supplied or shared - just think how much development work could have been done to XP if it was open source and legal to do so...

The issue with making something like windows open source is that it then becomes the product of said developer who makes changes to it. Microsoft could not really then be held responsible to support it, and the burden falls to in-house IT and developers, which can lead to knowledge silo's....and that is never good. Also companies buying a closed-source OS know what they are getting, and the support that comes with it or that is available if needed. If everyone was running different distributions and mods of the same OS, interoperability on a large scale and software support on a large scale would become an intense nightmare. Its bad enough as it is!

pawoSD · #48 11-01-2012, 01:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Air&Road

IMHO, the BEST software pricing system was back in the days of Digital Equipment Corporation(DEC) with their VMS operating system and family of applications. They sold the Media and Documentation separately from the licensing and had bundled pricing for the licenses. VMS and DEC, however, started dying in the early nineties.

This is the way things are headed, even in Msoft Land. All cloud based and distributed/migrated licensing on an annual/bi-annual basis.

flainn · #49 11-01-2012, 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Air&Road

IMHO, the BEST software pricing system was back in the days of Digital Equipment Corporation(DEC) with their VMS operating system and family of applications. They sold the Media and Documentation separately from the licensing and had bundled pricing for the licenses. VMS and DEC, however, started dying in the early nineties.

DEC also had one of the most exciting processor architectures seen in a long time -- the Alpha -- which was unfortunately bought by Compaq, then by HP, and then killed.

Air&Road · #50 11-01-2012, 02:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flainn

DEC also had one of the most exciting processor architectures seen in a long time -- the Alpha -- which was unfortunately bought by Compaq, then by HP, and then killed.

You mean it was better than a PDP 8

I cut my teeth on a PDP8 in 1974 and it was nearing the end of its life cycle at that point. It was a 12 bit machine with 4K of core memory and a HUMONGOUS

6MB drive. We used a teletype as a terminal and had to boot it by toggling in the bootstrap routine one instruction at a time. It also had a 144 instruction page structure that was very limiting. I was doing peripheral hardware designs, but had to put together test routines in the machine code.

There's probably more processing power in a toaster these days.

The Alpha was coming in as Bill Gates was in the process of taking over the world.

wildhorsemfg · #51 11-01-2012, 02:14 PM

i only use windows for software that NEEDS it . cad cam and such (windows 7 and 98 is all i use )
90% of the time i use linux mint 9 , or android .

JamesDean · #52 11-01-2012, 02:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wildhorsemfg

i only use windows for software that NEEDS it . cad cam and such (windows 7 and 98 is all i use )
90% of the time i use linux mint 9 , or android .

I've got Ubuntu on two of my machines, one of which is an HTPC. It runs that pretty well. I prefer Windows for day-to-day stuff though.

Stretch · #53 11-01-2012, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pawoSD

The issue with making something like windows open source is that it then becomes the product of said developer who makes changes to it. Microsoft could not really then be held responsible to support it, and the burden falls to in-house IT and developers, which can lead to knowledge silo's....and that is never good. Also companies buying a closed-source OS know what they are getting, and the support that comes with it or that is available if needed. If everyone was running different distributions and mods of the same OS, interoperability on a large scale and software support on a large scale would become an intense nightmare. Its bad enough as it is!

In the extreme case I agree with what you are saying - but - the concept of open source doesn't have to be so scary. It has come a long way in a short space of time - it is now getting to be standardised: People are agreeing to do certain things in a certain way. I think it is growing up and getting better all the time. It isn't so much like the geeky star trek fan that nobody would talk to in the lunch queue anymore!

MTI · #54 11-01-2012, 02:33 PM

Open source software, particularly operating systems, can be tricky items. For modern reference, take Android by Google. When customized by hardware makers like HTC, Samsung, even Motorola (mobile now owned by Google), the different flavors of Android on different devices made app development harder for the software writers, having to deal with both varying software and hardware configurations.

Stretch · #55 11-01-2012, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTI

Open source software, particularly operating systems, can be tricky items. For modern reference, take Android by Google. When customized by hardware makers like HTC, Samsung, even Motorola (mobile now owned by Google), the different flavors of Android on different devices made app development harder for the software writers, having to deal with both varying software and hardware configurations.

That's something I haven't experienced - I have but one mobile phone (how can I cope?) that usually has no battery charge...

...I guess that this kind of "open source" trouble, however, is more to do with faster developing hardware than the software though - is that about right?

Ara T. · #56 11-01-2012, 04:36 PM

lol windows xp. You guys must be masochistic and love those blue screens.

cullennewsom · #57 11-01-2012, 04:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTI

Open source software, particularly operating systems, can be tricky items. For modern reference, take Android by Google. When customized by hardware makers like HTC, Samsung, even Motorola (mobile now owned by Google), the different flavors of Android on different devices made app development harder for the software writers, having to deal with both varying software and hardware configurations.

I guess that explains why there aren't many apps, or games to play on Android phones.

MTI · #58 11-01-2012, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cullennewsom

I guess that explains why there aren't many apps, or games to play on Android phones.

I sense the sarcasm.

Dashboards | Android Developers

cmbdiesel · #59 11-01-2012, 06:39 PM

I believe android will surpass apple OS in the US, mostly because our overweight population will like the names better.

Gimme dat ice cream sandwich....

Brian Carlton · #60 11-01-2012, 06:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pawoSD

Oh its very much factually correct. I work with companies every day who have stuck with old software for years instead of moving along every couple years to a new version with the migration tools that were available each time. Now many are stuck with ancient files and software 5+ versions behind with no direct migration path. Very painful. Often the process is to abandon old files/configurations and slowly start anew in the new environment, wasting a ton of time and productivity. Or worse, creating a hodgepodge of both environments and having things not work productively. If you are a company that for instance, receives cad drawings from customers, and you have software 3-4 versions older than theirs, you will not be able to effectively work with, view, or produce the product for them due to being so far behind in technology. See this happen ALL the time.

And XP is very easily compromised. I would say about 80% of the machines I deal with that end up damaged/infected/needing extensive work are XP, despite an installed supported base that is only about 40-45% XP at this point. Speaks for itself.

No, it's factually incorrect.

Changing the operating system just for the sake of "upgrading" has nothing to do with the applications. Granted, some newer applications will require the later operating system to function, but all of the software that we have utilized is backwards compatible. When the new operating system is finally procured, the latest applications can be procured for it and all of the old data will run perfectly fine on the new system. Whether you are one OS behind or three OS behind is irrelevant.

It's also factually incorrect regarding your statement of "just sad", presumably because you condemn XP for being "damaged/infected/needing extensive work". Are you naive enough to believe that this is a function of the operating system and not the time that the operating system has been in service? Give Windows 7 a few years on a desk and you'll find the exact same issues. You've got a lame argument there utilized by IT people to sell more gear.

You're an individual who makes money off companies by constantly getting them to upgrade for no good reason.............now that, my boy, is sad.