|
Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Thursday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week - 12/28/2005 |
|
|
Microsoft’s plans for the
new year ... The PC
industry will be 31 in January. It officially began in January of 1975 with
the introduction of the Altair
Computer kit for $ 397, and today you can buy a complete Dell
computer for $ 299 that has at least a thousand times the capability of that first
pc. Things
have changed in the pc industry, but Microsoft has always been around, and
probably will always be. Microsoft is to the PC industry what IBM was to the
Mainframe Computer industry, the 800 pound gorilla. But where
IBM sold its pc division to China this year and gave up, Microsoft is still
battling to keep it’s #1 position in the
industry with new innovations for next year. We
already know that Microsoft is introducing a new operating system next year,
code named Longhorn, which is already over a year late in it’s
introduction. Operating systems are usually nothing to get excited about. Its reminds me of the scene in the Steve Martin comedy
where’s he’s excited about the new phone books being out. Most
people don’t understand what an operating system is in the first place.
First,
Microsoft is going to announce their own
anti-virus/anti spyware program. They have already released a free beta test
anti-spyware program that is very good and has some very useful utilities. As
usual, they bought an existing smaller company, and they might do the same
with their anti-virus program. Regardless, I am going to recommend that all
my clients immediately switch to whatever Microsoft comes out with. Who best
would know how to protect the Microsoft operating system from viruses, other
than the company that wrote it? I
have completely had it with Norton, McAfee, Panda, and other major antivirus
companies. I recently spent almost 4 hours on the phone with Norton/Symantec
tech support based in India, who didn’t understand or speak English
very well, trying to remove a virus from a client computer. I’m ready to let Microsoft
handle it handle it. The 2nd
new product Microsoft is coming out with is a small business accounting
program, which is different from their Microsoft Money home accounting
program. Obviously
Microsoft smells blood in the water of the pc accounting program world, where
there has never been a clear cut industry leader, and they have released a
free demo of the program – targeted at small businesses with less than
25 employees. This should be interesting. If you remember, the Justice
Department refused to let Microsoft merge with Intuit – the
publisher of Quicken Accounting Products, several years ago. So now Microsoft
is going it alone into a new market. Actually
one of my Christmas presents was from Microsoft – I got it for
answering a survey about Microsoft windows embedded products – which I
didn’t have a clue about – so I just clicked Answer C on all the
questions. They sent me a genuine
Microsoft USB Laptop computer Nightlite.
You plug it into your usb port, and it’s actually a nightlite
for your laptop. Why anyone would need this, I really don’t know. I
didn’t know my laptop was scared of the dark...... For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2005 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522 (509)624-7230 |
|