Dennis Byron

We Need a Digital Bill of Rights

Eric

Re: your digital bill of rights idea, the current one does the job just fine, thanks.

When you say "We need..." and then talk about the U.S. election, I assume you are talking about the US and not some "oneworld" idea you have blogged about previously. I'm sorry to see such European Union communalism (seekingalpha.com/artic...) infecting SV. So much for starting a company in your garage and waking up one morning with a 12-meter ocean racer in the Bay.

Specifically you say,

"When the economics of scarcity no longer apply, consumers start to behave differently. They copy and reuse content in unforeseen ways. The pendulum has swung so far that normal consumer behavior has now been criminalized."

That's typical EU blogobull. Taking some one else's digitized intellectual property is no different than sneaking into the movie theater through the fire escape or shoplifting in the video store. I agree it's no big deal. But it's wrong.

As for what Amazon and Apple can do with/to content you purchased and put on their service-delivery device is their prerogative. You affirmatively chose to abide by the Ts&Cs of their service. You didn't buy a product from them; drop their service if you object. You can't screw up regular utilities either with some appliance you purchase.

As for net neutrality, I never heard that anyone was proposing to take away the free flow of information. I thought they just want to offer services that make the flow faster if I want to pay for it. I may be wrong on my understanding of the issue but the current laws would protect me given anything I can think of Verizon or Comcast doing. In fact, the bigger risk is the one that you're proposing: letting the government get too involved.

In your last paragraph, it sounds like you want a "do not email" list. Why do we need to change the bill of rights to do that?

Finally nothing is better protected by the current Bill of Rights than privacy. Got an issue; make a federal case out of it. You don't need a new law to do that. By the way, I assume you are not proposing to go through that awkward constitutional protocol of getting your rights enshrined through an amendment.

Why the Yahoo Deal Must Happen

Thomas, you're a hard man to please if you consider 29% revenue growth "pretty flat." (You are probably talking about share price?)

As for the Google-Apps thing being a work in progress, that's the point. Microsoft is doing that same work (that's what Ozzie was hired for) and is starting at a much higher level of functionality than Google.

- Dennis

Why the Yahoo Deal Must Happen

I believe Microsoft needs Yahoo to get to its services-oriented future more quickly. There are other ways to get there but the $40 billion is money well spent, in that it will allow Microsoft to skip multiple R&D steps, and therefore save time.

But the discussion about Vista's problems and the "browser is the operating system" misdiagnoses the issues Microsoft faces between now and when it gets to its "services-based" future.

I do not have the advantage of having seen the Gartner presentation but I have seen it described three or four different ways on the blogsphere (which leads me to question how all the blogposters could have seen the same presentation).

For starters, "just 6%" sounds pretty good after a year. I am guessing that that means 6% of the XP installed base has upgraded (what else could it mean, since virtually all new PCs shipped since Vista's launch include Vista?). The number will be 18% by the end of 2008, 27% by the end of 2009, and so forth (of remaining active XP desktops, a number that will decline for PC performance reasons not strictly Vista related).
-- Did Gartner say how that rate compares to XP when it came on to the market?
-- It compares pretty well relative to the rate Linux replaced Unix on existing desktops and the rate that Windows itself replaced DOS on existing desktops.

Second, uptake on new desktop operating software is totally dependent on applications taking advantage of the OS. As native Vista apps kick in, Vista upgrades will follow (or, more likely, given performance issues, people will retire their XP-based PCs). This has been the pattern in the IT industry since the beginning. (And I mean the IT industry, not just the PC industry.)

Third, the whole Google-Apps-will-repla... thing doesn't compute on multiple functional levels but just sticking to the operating system discussion, the whole browser as operating system analogy is a server issue, not a desktop OS issue. And if Microsoft has had booming growth so far this year, imagine what's going to happen when Longhorn kicks in next year.

- Dennis