Images of Vasai:
The streets which after midnight served as a cricket playground.
The Vasai fort, an old haunt of mine.
Conquered by the Maratha,Chimaji Appa from the Portuguese who built it. (Above) The Portuguese seal.
Tomb of a Portuguese soldier who died in the war.
The Sea.
Spent many late nights and early mornings here.
Nov 10, 2006
Why Windows is King.
Iam sure all of us must have cribbed about our Windows operating system at one point or the point in our life as a computer user. Also our computing experience wouldn’t have been complete without experiencing the ubiquitous Blue screen of death.
At times like these, we all feel like giving up on Windows and turning to Linux or its various distributions. But we never do. Infact for all the hype and hoopla surrounding Linux, the fact is that while as an operating system it beats Windows hands down ( faster, cheaper , more efficient) but as a desktop system it is no match.
Graphical User Interface:
It is a fact that Linux is difficult to master. For a long time Windows user, it can be quite frustrating to figure it all out. Installing Windows from scratch is much easier than installing Linux from scratch. Installing Windows is always the same whereas the different distributions of Linux have their own installation programs.
Installing Linux on a computer without an OS is much easier than installing it on a machine with an existing OS that you want to preserve. Part of the difficulty in installing Linux is terminology and documentation. The install process is designed by Linux people for Linux people. A Windows-only person is likely to encounter terminology and concepts they are unfamiliar with.
Linux typically provides two GUIs, KDE and Gnome. Linux GUI is optional while the Windows GUI is an integral component of the OS. While advanced users can customize things to their liking, it makes things harder on new users for whom every Linux computer they encounter may look and act differently.
Software/hardware Support:
Walk into any computer store and check out how much Linux compatible software you are able to lay your hands on. The answer will be not that much. Of course lots of Linux compatible software is available on the net, for people who know how to find it, but the average desktop user has neither the time nor the inclination for it.
Working with Windows, one has become so used to the plug and play architecture and inbuilt hardware compatibility that it becomes really frustrating when one encounters these hardware problems with Linux. Dealing with hardware incompatibility is without doubt Linux’s Achilles heel.
Gaming:
Pc gaming has come into its own over the past few years and is a really a big deal for me, and one would guess that so would be the case with most desktop users. This is another area where Linux lags far behind Windows. If you are addicted to playing Quake 4 or Doom 3, I don’t see you switching to Linux just yet.
IP Indemnification:
IP indemnification has come up as a major issue over the past few years. Many vendors have been plagued by problems in this regard with debates raging over how customers should be protected.
The recent deal between Novell and Microsoft has further fuelled rumors that Microsoft is preparing to use this weapon in its competition against Linux.
From all this issues one can safely assume that, given all the problems plaguing Windows Vista, it will still sell like hot cakes when it becomes commercially available early next year.
Cheap Revolution
A cheap revolution is on the horizon in the world of Information Technology, and it promises to radically change the IT business landscape.
The term Cheap Revolution was coined by Rich Karlgaard in Forbes Magazine in 2003. The cheap revolution heralds the era in which the customer will no more depend on the IT giants for his computing needs but will shift to open source software, cheap chips and on demand customized software.
Infact the concept of the cheap revolution is also frequently used to explain the outsourcing business.
When we look at the giants of the IT industry, we find that they are strikingly similar in the business model they follow. Companies like Microsoft, oracle, Cisco, SAP have made their fortunes by selling proprietary hardware/Software /operating systems along with licensing at large margins.
But increasingly they are being challenged by startups offering open source and web based alternatives with on demand customization facilities at a fraction of the cost.
We have examples of operating systems like Ubuntu and OpenBSD, and Salesforce.com whose CRM software is fast catching up with Siebel.
What is even more interesting to note is that these startups are being operated by employees who have worked with these very giants of the IT industry.
Does this spell doom for Microsoft. Maybe.
So how do the IT giants survive this cheap revolution?
1. Improve your product offering faster than anybody else can. This tactic works, generally, only for market leaders with a good brand name, a greased distribution channel and financial might. (Think Intel.) And it works only as long as the market wants the added functionality and is willing to pay for it.
2. Sell fast custom solutions that answer a customer's needs. This is what IBM is doing. IBM has increasingly started tying up with third party providers which give it the flexibility to react quickly to customer demands.
3. Find an unserved market and serve it cheaply.
Nov 3, 2006
India's First Param Vir Chakra :
http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/nov/03spec.htm
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)