I Suck At Math

So I'm lousy at math, but I'm going to run some numbers here. Help me figure out what's wrong.

Over on Paul Thurrott's Supersite Blog on Paul Thurrott's Supersite For Windows, I wrote:

"...there are one billion people using Windows right now, compared to about 25 million on Mac OS X. Do the math."

So I took my own challenge and did the math.

1,000,000,000 Windows users. 88 million copies of Vista shipped (not actually in use, but never mind that). That amounts to 8.8% of Windows users actually using Vista, which first shipped nearly a year ago.

25,000,000 Mac users (again, my numbers). 2 Million copies of Leopard sold in the first 48 hours. That amounts to 8% of Mac users using the newest OS in less than a week.

This can't mean Leopard is more successful than Vista, can it?

No way. That's just not obvious.

Ou My God!

Over on The! Supersite! For! Windows!, I wrote the following:

"George Ou casts a light on a dirty little secret for Microsoft: It's* Windows Media DRM platform was open to the world for a whopping three months. I have just have one question here. What took so long?"

Actually, I already know the answer, but my corporate overlords at The! Supersite! For Windows! won't let me blog about it there. But I have no such restrictions here, so I'll tell you the truth now.

The major labels ignored this problem because they hoped Microsoft's service would pick up some steam. Remember that in his ridiculously self-serving "Thoughts on Music" manifesto, Apple Inc. King For Life Steve Jobs intoned:

"...a key provision of our agreements with the music companies is that if our DRM system is compromised and their music becomes playable on unauthorized devices, we have only a small number of weeks to fix the problem or they can withdraw their entire music catalog from our iTunes store."

My sources at Microsoft tell me that the labels weren't too upset about the breaking of Microsoft's DRM because it would probably mean more people would sign up for the subscription service in order to get "oodles" (their exact word) of free music. They intended to use the rising subscription rates as leverage in their ongoing negotiations with Apple.

Microsoft just waited the required "small number of weeks" to post the fix that they obviously had in hand from almost day one. It's not like these guys can't create a patch. They're not incompetent, after all.

But for some reason, word never got out, and the service never really gained any traction.

Still, you at least know the truth. Microsoft wasn't incompetent, they were just playing it smart.

Obviously.


* Yes, I know that there's no apostrophe in a possessive its. I just don't give a fuck. Obviously.

Meow

Okay, so the new Mac OS is out today after two years and numerous delays.

As I've noted before, this is clearly an incremental update. There's nothing new or revolutionary here. But then, I've said that about every Mac update, except OS X 10.0, which I think I called a trainwreck. Or something.

Honestly, Apple hasn't done anything that hasn't already been done in Windows, UNIX, or some other OS. Their entire history has been one of small, incremental updates:

System 1.0, Finder 1.0
System 1.1, Finder 1.1g
System 2.0, Finder 4.1
System 2.1, Finder 5.0
System 3.0, Finder 5.1
System 3.2, Finder 5.3
System 3.3, Finder 5.4
System 3.4, Finder 6.1
System 4.0, Finder 5.4
System 4.1, Finder 5.5
System Software 5.0
System Software 5.1
System Software 6.0
System Software 6.0.1
System Software 6.0.2
System Software 6.0.3
System Software 6.0.4
System Software 6.0.5
System Software 6.0.6
System Software 6.0.7
System Software 6.0.8
System Software 6.0.8L
System 7.0
System 7.0.1
System 7 Tuner
System 7.1
System 7.1 Pro
System 7.1.2
System 7.1.2
System 7.5
System 7.5.1
System 7.5.2
System 7.5.3
System 7.5.3 Revision 2
System 7.5.3 Revision 2.1
System 7.5.4
System 7.5.5
Mac OS 7.6
Mac OS 7.6.1
System 7.0.1P
System 7.1P1
System 7.1P2
System 7.1P3
System 7.1P4
System 7.1P5
System 7.1P6
Mac OS 8.0
Mac OS 8.1
Mac OS 8.5
Mac OS 8.5.1
Mac OS 8.6
Mac OS 9.0
Mac OS 9.0.2
Mac OS 9.0.3
Mac OS 9.0.4
Mac OS 9.1
Mac OS 9.2
Mac OS 9.2.1
Mac OS 9.2.2
Mac OS X 10.0 (Cheetah)
Mac OS X 10.1 (Puma)
Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar)
Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther)
Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

These were all small, incremental, insignificant evolutionary updates. Which means the Mac hasn't really progressed at all since it was introduced in 1984.

Obviously.

Weary

It's tough to be me.

A few people have asked why I don't update this blog more often. The fact is, it's tough when you're as busy as I am. I have to update Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows, Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows Blog, Paul Thurrott's WinInfo and Paul Thurrott's Internet Nexus daily. On top of that, I have Paul Thurrott's Grass To Cut, Paul Thurrott's xBox to play, and Paul Thurrott's Wife's Mac to maintain.

Like I said, it's tough to be me.

It all leaves precious little time to head over to this secret corner and converse with you folks, particularly since I'm not making any money from this site.

But soon, I may be shutting down the Nexus. After all, I'm only one man (even if I do have unnaturally huge hands). That should give me more time to spend on this site, which is more of a hobby, obviously.

So stay tuned. I'll post my exclusive thoughts on all the latest tech news right here very soon.

And Still Not As Good As A Wii

Mac rumor sites were all abuzz this week at the possibility of Halo developer Bungie splitting off from Microsoft. Apple fanatics took this as a sign that their precious Macs might actually be suitable one day for gaming.

Seriously. That's how these people think.

Of course, this is ridiculous. The Mac as a gaming platform is about as serious as the Wii as a viable competitor to the xBox. But while Microsoft gamers are enjoying Halo 3, here's something for you MacHeads. This was actually featured on the front page of Macworld News. It's almost enough to make me feel sorry for "Mac Gaming Correspondent" (I actually threw up in my mouth a little when I typed that) Peter Cohen. Almost:

MTV Networks’ Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group and Hasbro on Thursday announced the availability of Monopoly: SpongeBob SquarePants Edition and Candy Land: Dora the Explorer Edition, available as downloads via Nick Arcade, and coming to CD later this month.

Sorry, but that's the true state of Mac gaming. Obviously.

Microsoft Wins A Major Award (careful: It's "fragee-lay")

Microsoft finally gets some recognition:

On September 3rd, ISO announced that the Microsoft proposal had not gathered enough support to be accepted as it is. ISO will now review the comments made on the proposal, and make a final decision in February 2008. FFII president Pieter Hintjens explains, "we could never have done this by ourselves. By pushing so hard to get OOXML endorsed, even to the point of loading the standards boards in Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy, and beyond, Microsoft showed to the world how poor their format is. Good standards just don't need that kind of pressure. All together, countries made over ten thousands technical comments, a new world record for an ISO vote. Microsoft made a heroic — and costly — effort to discredit their own proposal, and we're sincerely grateful to them."

The FFII Board says the monopolist can collect its prize of 2,500 Euros, minus the cost of registering the noooxml.org domain, 12 euros.

50,000 people from almost a hundred countries have signed the FFII's petition against OOXML to date. Hintjens concludes, "OOXML is not yet dead, even though it's been seriously discredited. Microsoft has one last chance to fix the design flaws and patent problems, and present a clean proposal next February. We think they will make cosmetic fixes and then push all the harder. It's exactly the worst approach and will alienate many governments, possibly spelling the end of their global office monopoly."

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love the Europeans.

edit: Some people have pointed out that I'm misinterpreting this and it's a bad thing. To the contrary. You people lack my superior analytical skills. All publicity is good publicity, and smart-assed little stunts like this only make Microsoft look good. Obviously.