Microsoft Windows | OzTechNews.com

Windows drops to being only Microsoft’s third biggest cash-cow – the best news the company has ever received

January 22nd, 2012

Aaron Holesgrove

Image representing Microsoft as depicted in Cr...

Image via CrunchBase

You can read all about this recent development in this great article by Mary Jo Foley.

With Windows and Office being Microsoft‘s two biggest businesses the past two decades, it has been constantly said that with both units under attack (and vulnerable to defeat) in the internet era that the company’s impending doom was inevitable.

Well, here’s the funny thing. According to Microsoft’s latest financial records, Windows dropped a bit in income – falling out of the top two business unit spot in terms – and just did its biggest quarter ever.

Even Linus Torvalds thinks Linux is getting too bloated

January 21st, 2012

Aaron Holesgrove

English: Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux ...

Image via Wikipedia

Check out this news item from Fudzilla, reporting on the juicy bits of an interview with the daddy of Linux published in the German newspaper Zeit Online.

Here’s the money shot:

Torvalds moaned that Linux has become “too complex.” He was worried that developers will not be able to find their way through the software. Even subsystems have become very complex and it is heading towards the point where an error that “cannot be evaluated anymore.”

The thing I love about Linus is that he just tells it like it is, no matter what. His comments come shortly after it was said that Linux has now exceeded 15 million lines of code.

Community Response – The silly “Microsoft restricts Linux” argument

January 16th, 2012

OzTechNews Community

Image via Wikipedia

This guest post was written by John Obeto II, the CEO and Chief Technology Officer of Logikworx. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of SmallBizWindows and the Publisher of The Interlocutor, a newsletter devoted to Small and Medium Businesses from a Windows and Microsoft Technologies standpoint.

He is the Executive Vice-Chairman of Coolers Nigeria Limited, and Chairman & Managing Director of Obeto Properties, PLC. He is also the owner of DAGMA/Remix Limited, and a member of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Windows Special Interest Group at Connect, the community of HP Professionals worldwide.

John blogs regularly at AbsolutelyWindows.com.

NOTE: This article was written in response to Aaron Holesgrove’s piece at OzTechNews titled “There is no Windows 8 UEFI controversy and everyone needs to shut up“.

It is very good of Aaron to bring this issue to fore and expose the blatant stupidity behind it.

Unfortunately, the mainstream IT media is still slowly rising from their stupid position over the years where they went ahead with any and all nonsense spoken about Microsoft.

There is no Windows 8 UEFI controversy and everyone needs to shut up

January 16th, 2012

Aaron Holesgrove

Historic Microsoft photo of Paul Allen (left) ...

Image via Wikipedia

For those of you wondering what all the fuss is about:

In late 2011, there was a bit of a stink kicked up about Microsoft‘s new super-fast UEFI secure boot feature in Windows 8 which allows PC manufacturers to finally ditch the traditional BIOS in new PC’s.

(As a side note, Apple have been using EFI in Macs for years now. Windows 7 offered EFI support but PC manufacturers had little incentive to want to care. With the fast boot feature using UEFI, though, they will – hence it’s ‘sudden’ emergence onto the mainstream scene.)

With the way the secure-boot feature has been written, “software freedom” activists have voiced their concerns about how the feature would lock out the ability to dual boot into another OS such as Linux and would therefore constitute foul play. Microsoft have been fairly quiet on this but have put word out there that if people want to dual boot into other OS’s, they’ll be able to. The consensus seems to be that the feature will be difficult to reverse on Intel-based PC’s and that Microsoft are just avoiding discussion of the topic until after Windows 8 ships.

Rating Lenovo’s products at CES – 2 really good products, 2 maddeningly crap ones, the rest mediocre

January 9th, 2012

Aaron Holesgrove

Image via Wikipedia

All I can say is that you can read the headline of this article and say that Lenovo had a pretty typical CES this year as is usually the case. They’ve got a couple of decent ideas but they just aren’t very good at computer design – and that’s a shame.

Let’s take a look at each of their product announcements:

Rating Acer’s products at CES – Some good, mostly ‘meh’

January 9th, 2012

Aaron Holesgrove

Image via Wikipedia

Here’s what I’ll give Acer – you can tell that with the products they have announced today that they are trying to be aggressive. Their products are sporting a unified vision of smart darkened aluminium, they have tried to add a designer flair to their products and they have focused on thin.

Sounds a hell of a lot like another company starting with ‘A’.

As for first impression, most of these new products were sort of boring though. There were a few gems – such as the Acer Aspire S5 ultrabook – but for the most part, these products seem to be Acer’s best work and that their best work is pretty underwhelming.

Let’s run through each of the products one by one:

Rating Acer’s products at CES – Some good, mostly ‘meh’

January 9th, 2012

Aaron Holesgrove

Image via Wikipedia

Here’s what I’ll give Acer – you can tell that with the products they have announced today that they are trying to be aggressive. Their products are sporting a unified vision of smart darkened aluminium, they have tried to add a designer flair to their products and they have focused on thin.

Sounds a hell of a lot like another company starting with ‘A’.

As for first impression, most of these new products were sort of boring though. There were a few gems – such as the Acer Aspire S5 ultrabook – but for the most part, these products seem to be Acer’s best work and that their best work is pretty underwhelming.

Let’s run through each of the products one by one:

Aaron Holesgrove in the media in 2011

January 9th, 2012

Aaron Holesgrove

After doing some reflecting on the past year, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at all the other tech blogs across the internet who had been writing about me in 2011. For a cynic such as myself who is already writing about other people’s articles, I think it only seems fair.

And here’s the interesting part: The list of articles in 2011 that mentioned me is a long one. Let’s take a closer look:

This guy thinks that Eric Schmidt will replace Steve Ballmer as Microsoft’s CEO

January 8th, 2012

Aaron Holesgrove

Image via Wikipedia

Robert X. Cringely is a curious guy. He’s extremely well known in tech circles for the vast amount of blogging he does for various publications and is willing to really put himself out there in terms of what he writes about. John Gruber hates him – which means that I should probably like him – but he’s very erratic and just says weird stuff in his articles for no apparent reason other than what appears to be simply click-through bait.

This article here would be one of those entries to file under the category of “WHAT???”

OzTechNews tech predictions for 2012 – Part 2 of 2

December 31st, 2011

Aaron Holesgrove

: Image via Wikipedia

It’s that time of year again where we look at the hopes and dreams of the IT industry in the new year, crush the rhetoric and break it down into what will actually happen.

I’m not done with my predictions for 2012 yet. After making my first six predictions in part one of this series, there’s more to go. Check out the remainder of my predictions below:

Windows drops to being only Microsoft’s third biggest cash-cow – the best news the company has ever received

Even Linus Torvalds thinks Linux is getting too bloated

Community Response – The silly “Microsoft restricts Linux” argument

There is no Windows 8 UEFI controversy and everyone needs to shut up

Rating Lenovo’s products at CES – 2 really good products, 2 maddeningly crap ones, the rest mediocre

Rating Acer’s products at CES – Some good, mostly ‘meh’

Rating Acer’s products at CES – Some good, mostly ‘meh’

Aaron Holesgrove in the media in 2011

This guy thinks that Eric Schmidt will replace Steve Ballmer as Microsoft’s CEO

OzTechNews tech predictions for 2012 – Part 2 of 2

Advertisement

Discussions

Advertisement

Discussions

Popular Topics