On Tuesday 30 December 2003 06:55 pm, Ken Fuchs wrote:
> Florin wrote:
> >I don't trust any company to put their long term interests above the
> >next couple of quarters "revenue" numbers...
>
> For almost all companies I would agree, but one of the few companies
> that often puts their long term interests above their short term
> interests is Microsoft.  Of course with $40+ billion in cash they can
> afford to invest in their own long term interests.
>
At this point Microsoft is concerned with protecting its cashflow. They've got 
$50+ billion in the bank at last report. That doesn't help the stock price if 
they are generating the revenues people are used to from them.


> As far as Secure Computing and the Secure Internet is concerned:  In my
> opinion, the United States of America is probably the only country that
> will legally mandate Secure Computing and the Secure Internet (at least
> Microsoft's vision of these).  Other countries have no interest in
> supporting Microsoft.
>

Even in the US much of what I've read about "secure computing" has trouble. 
There's the potential for conflicts with various data privacy laws. One of 
the scenarios I read about (I apologize if this has been touched on, I missed 
the beginning of the thread) talks about receiving a file from a 
"blacklisted" copy of Office. Your copy of Office would refuse to open the 
file. The first time this happens in a legal, regulatory, or other 
"emergancy" situation you can bet there will be a lawsuit to undo the 
controls. 

> Sincerely,
>
> Ken Fuchs <kfuchs at winternet.com>


-- 
Jack Ungerleider
jack at jacku.com


_______________________________________________
TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org
https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list