Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Two months ago, at least seven months before its scheduled release, Microsoft opened up its new operating system Windows Vista, in the form of Beta 2, for public scrutiny, inviting the public to download, test it and provide feedback to the software company.
So many millions took up the offer, that Microsoft eventually decided to charge a nominal fee of US$1.50 for downloads.
Yesterday, reports started appearing about how a preview version of Mac
OS X 10.5 (aka Leopard) is circulating on internet file sharing
networks.
No doubt, some applications developer who was provided with a copy of
the Leopard preview for development purposes at the Apple Worldwide
Developers Conference has been naughty. Also no doubt, if Apple finds
out who was responsible, the company will sue, as is its right, given
that all the developers reportedly signed non-disclosure agreements.
Regardless of the merits or otherwise of Leopard and Vista, the
contrast of the approach to development between the two companies could
not be more stark.
Although Vista is just as much a proprietary operating system as
Leopard, Microsoft has taken a much more collaborative approach to the
development of the product. As it did with previous versions of
Windows, Microsoft has freely made available preview versions in order
to get the user community involved with the debugging process.
On the other hand, Apple, as always, will keep its product tightly
under wraps until launch day. There will be no millions of users
involved with the debugging process - presumably just a dedicated team
of developers in Cupertino and perhaps a few thousand users throughout
the company.
The results of the two differing processes is in fact quite surprising.
One would think that the collaborative approach taken by Microsoft
would produce a more stable, secure, and bug free product. After all,
it has been tested by millions, while the Apple product would have only
undergone a fraction of the testing.
Without prejudging Vista, it is fairly obvious that Windows XP is not
exactly the epitome of stability and security. It would be kind to say
that it is no more stable and certainly not more secure than Mac OS X
10.4.
As the science teacher asked, why is this so? Perhaps Microsoft has
tried too hard to make its operating system all things to all people
and therefore has had to make too many compromises. It certainly has
helped the company sell more software than all the other IT companies
combined but the software itself is loose and buggy.
Apple never makes compromises. Its operating system is designed under
dictatorial rule. You can either take or leave it but it works and it
works well.
Unfortunately for Apple, most people seem to prefer to live under the
open and imperfect system developed by Microsoft than the rule of
dictatorship. Perhaps, Apple's move to the Intel platform will change
that.
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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