Dennis Byron

Why Should Oracle Even Bother with the EU?

Thanks

You are referring to Oracle's statement, which it issud in response to the EU Statement of Objections adn filed with the SEC. I was trying to get the actual document that the EU gave to Sun but the EU says such documents are not public (but someone--probably SAP--will leak it).

Dennis


On Nov 12 09:11 AM reyito wrote:

> Dennis,
>
> The EU's statement can be found in Oracle's 8-k filing.
>
> Keep up the good work.

Microsoft, Sun Do Well in Open Source Census

The above commenters may not completely understand how the census works. The group conducting the census welcomes information from Mac, BSD, Solaris, and other platforms.

As for Java, I believe it is a prerequisite of even beginning the census so by definition it is on every "machine" scannned.

More information see https://osscensus.org/discover... .

Or just rant away!!

-- Dennis

Microsoft and Competitors Continue to Waste Resources on OOXML

Just to be clear (see my previous posts on this subject), I believe Microsoft is wasting resources on this issue as well. The headline implies I was only criticizing IBM, Sun and so forth.

-- Dennis Byron

Microsoft Continues to Waste Shareholder Value on Standards

Mr. Probst-

I am not sure if you are referring to OpenOffice.org or StarOffice in your statistics but according to a survey OpenOffice.org completed for me shortly before I prepared this post, they had had 116,000,000 copies downloaded from their site over the history of their project-that is over seven years, not in 2 years!

The best ratio I've seen of downloads to production systems is 100:1 (based on MySQL and JBoss reports) so maybe there are 1,160,000 OpenOffice sites. Vs. as you say 70,000,000 instances of Microsoft (MSFT) Office a year.

Both numbers seem high to me but the proportion is probably about right. I don't think Microsoft is too worried about OpenOffice.org.

But of course that is not what I posted about. My complaint is that Microsoft is wasting its shareholder's value spending one nickel on this Sun/IBM ploy.

-- Dennis

-- Dennis

Sun, IBM Continue Open Standards Double-Speak

Dear Charles K:

Thanks for the comment.

No the answer is not in backing up the files but in having access to the application you created the document/file in. Typically, you have a perpetual right to use it. Backing up to .txt or .rtf (which maintains most 1990s-era formating) or an image (in the case of .ppt) is just a prudent way to protect assets. Obviously, you should do this with all software you have licensed. (By the way, there is no need to keep it on your hard drive as one commenter suggests.)

But the bigger issue is that the term Open Standards (always upper case) is double speak, a term created to mean almost the opposite of what is intended. What is a closed standard? All so-called International Open Standards are simply retroactive acknowledgement of the market winner.

Your analysis of Sun (JAVA) and IBM (IBM) as paragons of virtue when it comes to standards and business model are hopefully just indicators that you are young. I envy you for that.

-- Dennis

Sun, IBM Hide Behind "Document Freedom Day" to Attack Microsoft

User 162757--
Sorry, no you are incorrect. "Double-think.. was (not) used to erase and rewrite history." You are thinking of revisionism, of which there is also plenty when it comes to the blogoblatherers' embrace of Sun and IBM.

As I say, "double think" is the manipulation of language as in the meaningless term "Open Standard"--always propagandistically capitalized. Shouldn't all standards be open?

-- Dennis

Sun, IBM Continue Open Standards Double-Speak

To the SeekingAlpha community:

The second and third comments above are typical ad-hominem blogoblather and given the anonymous user names, clearly not part of the SeekingAlpha community. But it is worthwhile to address the comments by the first and fourth anonymous commenters above from an IT investment research perspective--even though they are also probably not from investors.

Let me take the fourth comment first because it requires a very simple response. Yes, I can open up my 20-year-old Word and Excel files because I still have the applications on my PC. I can even open up my 20-year old AlphaWorks documents and spreadsheets for the same reason. I have also saved them in .txt and .rtf so common good backup practice provides plenty of protection. The blogblatherers that surf the web looking for blogposts to attack with any mention of Microsoft, even if as in this case I am criticzing Microsoft, do not understand that users have overtaken them. Maybe that accounts for their frustration.

Psychoanalyzing blogblathering aside, the whole Sun/IBM/front-group argument about legal requirements and Microsoft Office going away is the biggest canard in the current Sun/IBM/front-group campaign against OOXML. Ain't going to happen and even if it did, the applications don't go away.

The first comment above is a little more complex. You can exchange information without "buying Microsoft" in the same backup manner as described in my response to the fourth comment. Microsoft also gives away a PowerPoint reader the way Adobe gives away its .pdf reader. I don't know about a "Word reader" (never needed one) but if they don't, the solution to interoperability without "buying from Microsoft" is simply to save to .pdf (or .html or...)

And yes, IBM/Sun and Microsoft are equivalent when it comes to standards efforts. Unlike blogoblatherers, I don't care about moral equvalence but from an IT investment research perspective, all three of them are wasting shareholder money.

-- Dennis

Dell, Sun Could Suffer As Virtualization Business Picks Up

There are some arithmetic issues in this prediction that I don't get. A "modest contraction" of server growth rate in 2009 is a lot different than no increase in the "server installed base" after 2008. The latter would not be a modest contraction, it would be a catastrophic drop to near zero in absolute number of units shipped.

But it doesn't matter. It sounds like the quote Watson Sr. supposedly made in 1940s: "'I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.' Virtualization has been around since the 1960s and it hasn't caused this effect yet. It is unlikely to start having this effect in 2009. Server virtualization is a SaaS farm play (and a useful form of increased efficiency). But tech analysts should forget "agriculture" and conisder the home.