“Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you.” -Elbert Hubbard (more quotes by Elbert Hubbard, on friendship)
The Register: MS digital rights management scheme cracked [via Slashdot] Yawn, another copy protection scheme cracked. I should dig up an essay I wrote a few months ago about my copy-protected version of Spyro 3. The only long-term effect of copy protection is to ensure that those who defeat it are immortalized.
Salon: Terror cleansing Pop culture stumbled in those first few days after the attacks, but it soon steadied itself and returned to the business of reconfiguring reality.
Winterspeak: Belly of the Beast revisited. I found this insight particularly interesting:
Microsoft’s hungry for growth, so hungry that they want to sell end-to-end business solutions to the small and mid commercial market (this was also the logic behind the Great Plains acquisition). This may indicate that big customers are smart enough to buy best of breed systems from separate vendors and integrate them together, instead of behind beholden to any one company. Small to mid-sized businesses may not be so smart.
I used to work for a company that made ERP business software for a particular mid-size market. We followed Microsoft’s scorched-earth policy with some abstract, intellectual interest, and felt safe in the knowledge that they would never enter our market. I was actually working there when Microsoft announced that they were acquiring Great Plains; none of us knew what to make of the announcement then, and they probably still don’t. Their only saving grace is that maybe — just maybe — their target market is small enough, or niche enough, or backward enough, that Microsoft won’t notice.
§
I am no longer accepting public comments on this post, but you can use this form to contact me privately. (Your message will not be published.)
§
firehose ‧ code ‧ music ‧ planet
© 2001–8 Mark Pilgrim