Your number has no reference...

7000 out of how many? 7K out of 20K, about a 3rd. 7K out of 10K, almost 3/4's. 7K out of 8K that looks like a problem to me that should be resolved by encouraging more American students into the tech world.

Optional Title

Well, I used to like B&N. Looks like Amazon is going to get all of my biz now.

You totaly missed the point...

If you tell a kid to wait, they usually have it figured out before the boring old people get around to showing them anything.

Meh

All they [Microsoft] did was stub their [the criminals] toe.

Switch to Linux already and M$ will go away. And so will the script kiddies.

Software should be free

then there wouldn't be all this mess.

Give it another 10 years

And most all of the interested parties will be dead anyway.

Need a feature...

that calls the cat rude names.

Get job you hippies!

And take a bath!

@Ben Holmes

"...in most enterprises, the cost of redploying to kit, and retraining staff precludes any sort of move to an entirely different platform at all."

I can't count the times I've had a user ask me if/when we are getting any Mac's. The only retraining problems you are going to have are from the Luddites and I classify that as any one born prior to 1978. I fall into that range, but I have The Knack, so new tech doesn't scare the willies out of me.

Speaking of retraining... Most of the users do not care what OS the program runs on. They just care that it runs. If you are referring to retraining them on on the program that just replaced the one that runs on an MS OS, then yes, your are going to have some push back. Now think about that for a minute, especially if you were witness to the 'upgrade' from Office '03 to '07. Did the users flip out because of that fscking Office Ribbon nonsense? Mine sure did. Did that cause us to roll back the changes? No. Are they used to it now? Yes. Would they have been able to handle a change to say Ubuntu running (at that time) Open Office? Maybe. And I say that because the OS change would have been what got there attention more than Open Office. Why? Open Office, at that time, had a similar look and feel that Office '03 did. Most of my users have one or two in there group that can help train the others, so most of the time a change in product, or even a new product, is handled quite well.

You sound like someone that benefits from keeping a company from changing to FOSS by making sure that the CFO/CIO/CTO hears enough FUD to keep the licensing machine rolling.

@ElReg!comments!Pierre

Until your last line I was going to call you a Windows Fanboi, but I see that your a fan of technology and not a particular company.

I've always wanted someone to come and upset MS and Apple's, er, apple cart and I thought Google was going to be the one to do it. Google scares the hell out of me now. Take a company that makes their living from being able to search and deliver relational data to you and then have them develop a hardware/OS platform so that now they are truly in the machine and can tie (if they want to) their customers to their searching and buying habits. Hello Minority Report.

I'm a fan of Linux, I can admit that. I like it because the focus is on the applications and not the OS, per se. Until some brave IT manager can get his company switched to a Linux platform and prove to the rest of the world that they don't need to likes of MS, we will always need to suckle at the MS licensing teat.

@Tony Green

We know there is other stuff going on in the world, we just really don't give a crap. It's all Third World to us.

No! No! NO!

""Yay for clever technical hacks that help users circumvent ossified IT bureaucracy," said one commenter"...

The policies are there for a reason people. We already have to do enough spy/ad/malware removal as it is on machines that are locked down.

Remember Smiley Central? Those cute little e-mail add-ins? They put something in IE that actually broke a web site that was provided by an external vendor. Took forever to convince them that they didn't need to load that crapware.

The companies policy states that termination is possible if you are using the computer against those policies. Maybe Google will give them some money if they get fired.

Title forthcoming

Exactly how do they expect him to pay it from jail? They need to make him work it off doing BOFH work. Morons, the lot of them.

Software patents need to die?

No, it is Micro$oft that needs to die.

Me thinks...

That the acquisitions aren't over. I'll bet that some Seattle based software company might be interested in the database company that acquired/obliterated a decent OS/hardware company...

You had me...

at "Team Conference!"

Anytime the PHB wants a TC, there's always a blood sacrifice needed.

i wish people would learn

The proper terminolgy is 'cracker'. A hacker is not a bad thing, but the stupid media keeps making us look that way because they are to lazy to get their facts straight.

Stop saying USB...

He said that this has been a 7 year quest. I don't know about that side of the pond, but 3G hasn't out long here in the States.

I welcome

our sun-belch particle overlords.

This is a forshadowing of what Microsoft will be someday

At the hands of StevieB. They'll constantly be suing all and sundry that have dumped them to cut their costly license fees to Microsoft for products that are inherently better and give them more control of their servers and workstations.

*Shudder* To much like real life

The bit about the email is to much like what I have to deal with on an almost daily basis. No, you don't need the email from 1998 with a 4 MB attachment in it for a procedure / policy the company no longer uses. Save the fraking document to the file server and delete the email. And don't put it in a PST file either because we aren't going to worry about it when you get a new PC or lose your HDD.

PST files are evil

And all they do is take up space on my server.

People use them to store e-mails from 1991 that have absolutely no relevance to any business purpose they are currently working with. Microsoft should discontinue the stupid thing.

If you need a stand alone e-mail, that's what Outlook Express is for.

Mines the one with the tape library full of tapes with PSTs on them.

Makes me glad

That they don't want PCs any older than three years at the place I'm at. Or I guess I would have to schedule some repair classes with the legume reckoners...

Gimme a break

Looks like the PFY needs a refresher course. Never trust consecutively numbers bills and always have a better excuse/alibi/escape plan.

He should of had the bills in a satchel and suspended from the roof with a remote controlled release.