Month: March 2007

Digital Denmark : On Open Document Formats

Posted by DarkJedi – March 29, 2007

The debate is flourishing in Denmark at the moment. The government is about to demand on its offices around the country that only open document formats is to be used. The advantages are clear: Public Documents will not be locked into one vendor or in a format that might become extinct over time, citizens can read documents from the public sector without having to buy a program from a single vendor… or are these advantages really present?

Before talking about standards it is important that I tell a little about the political climate in Denmark these days. There are a lot of political pressure from different sides in this case. Microsoft has its largest development department outside of the U.S. in Vedbæk, Denmark, which means that a lot of jobs is always taken into consideration. Denmark is a country that has come a long way in terms of digital government with public access to documents, social welfare accessibility and other tools in the democracy. A lot of work has already gone into developing standards for interfacing with the public sector in terms of XML schemas, known as the OIOXML standard. Furthermore the public sector is always under ever-more scrutiny to save money and thereby release the massive tax-pressure currently in Denmark (up to around 64%). A lot of pressure groups from various interest groups have also joined in on the debate, as has a large amount of bloggers. Therefore the talks are currently center of a heated debate involving jobs, future aspects, savings, morale and of course money and investments.

There are three standards for documents that might be considered: Open Document Format (ODF), Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) and Portable Document Format (PDF). The current proposal laid out by the government, after a group had looked into the problem, was to choose the following two formats for the public sector: ODF and OOXML. Well, in my opinion three standards should have been into consideration. Let’s take a look at the three standard one at a time:

PDF – This format, constructed and controlled by Adobe for a long time, is now becoming an ISO-certified standard and Adobe is releasing its control over the format to be able to compete with Microsoft’s newly launched PDF-competitor, XPS. Microsoft tried to get Adobe to agree that it should include PDF-support in its newest Office-series, but Adobe would not allow this. The result was that Microsoft came up with XPS, which is more or less a direct copy of PDF, but of course instead of being controlled by a standards body this format is solely controlled by Microsoft. PDF, however, is for some reason not part of the two formats the Danish Government is considering as the public standard currently so I will not look anymore into it at this point. It is important to notice that a large part of the public documents that are made available to citizens of Denmark are in PDF-format currently.

ODF – The open format proposed by the OASIS standards group and has become the first of the document formats in this war of formats to become ISO-certified with a revised version heading for the standards body already. The ODF format can be said to be the only true open format as it is the only format that is solely under complete standard body control. PDF and OOXML is heading this way to, but might not ever archive this status, so ODF is at time of writing the only true open document format. Werther ODF is the right choice depends on a lot of things, however. The debate is fueled by zealous protectors of their views. ODF is mostly supported by the open source community who has run tired of trying to reverse engineer Microsoft’s changing Office formats to support the de facto standards of Word, Excel and Powerpoint. This, however, is not a choice of werther the public sector should run Linux or OpenOffice.org, but what document format it should be forced to use. Some people in this debate seems to think that ODF equal OpenOffice.org, which is a complete mixup of things. This debate should not be a debate as to werther the public sector could switch from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org, or if OpenOffice.org has sufficient features and code maturity or software support to allow a switch of basic Word-users to OpenOffice.org. ODF is a format standard, nothing more. It could, however, be a good investment to start off a future choice to go for ODF, as the road to OpenOffice.org, which is being tested as an alternative to Microsoft’s Office in several parts of the public sector offices currently, would be easier. The choice of Linux seems to be further away, but a vendor-lock in to Microsoft’s Office suite would definitely prevent this. The ODF standard is currently a 600 page long standard, developed on the back of existing standards, such as MathML. It is still not the most advanced standard available, but has a level of features that should make it possible to use as a document standard in most public sector appliances. If the government made the choice that OpenOffice.org should be used/forced in the public sector perhaps the two choices of formats should instead be ODF and PDF, as both are supported directly by OpenOffice.org, but I, personally, recent choosing your format solely on the basis of the software/office-suite you are choosing to run currently. Documents are information that should be available at all times to every user, not to be degraded or outdated or especially not lost in a future change of underlying software. The ODF is pretty easy to implement and use and supplements the OIOXML standard pretty good, so it would be a natural choice. The problem arises when we bring the software suites of choice for the public sector into play. Microsoft’s Office suite is a monopoly in this scene currently in the Danish public sector and Microsoft has repeatedly refused to include support for a format they do not control themselves. This means that the public sector will have to rely on third-party plugins/converters for making their documents available in ODF. Such converters are freely available, but they complicate the process and Microsoft knows this perfectly well. In the long run people will always choose the easy solution. This means that should the government choose both ODF and OOXML, as they are currently proposing, they would in the end acknowledge that OOXML will be the de facto format, like Doc, Xls and the other binary formats from Microsoft has been in the past. It is not without consequences to make such a choice. The cost of switching entirely to ODF, without having OOXML as an allowed alternative, can be expensive at first, but yield a better cost-benefit over time as it opens up to cost-saving choices over time.

OOXML – Most of the discussion for or against the format has essentially been a discussion for or against Microsoft. This is missing the point. It is natural to take into consideration that Microsoft has had a dad history for misusing its monopoly to keep a tight control of its market and to squeeze out competitors, but this should primarily be a discussion on which format is the right one for the job. After taking a good look at the documentation for the OOXML standard two things became quite apparent for me right away: It is not the way you would design a new standard if one were to implement the smartest format. It is simply the closing thing to a binary dump into XML you will see in a format. The documentation is pretty good, but at times missing important parts that would make it impossible to implement without heading back to good, old reverse engineering of Microsoft’s older binary formats. The other thing that I quickly found in the documentation is that it appears to have been made in a hurry. Microsoft was a late comer in this race, only showing interest in “open” standards when ODF was getting interest from certain American states. Suddenly they wanted to offer an “open” alternative. Faster than ever before in the history of Microsoft’s long development archivements they came up with OOXML. Frankly it is nothing more than their latest format wrapped in XML – not innovative and not what you would expect from this market leader in an arena this important. However, Microsoft has a lot of friends in high places and the format apparently ran through ECMA in record time and is now speeding towards ISO certification. Microsoft has done well in this part of the battle. The hype surrounding OOXML is astounding reading over and over again that it is an open standard, when it is apparent to everyone that it still hasn’t archive this status. The name itself is part of the hype Office “Open” XML suggest an open standard. The problem with this hype and especially this debate is that the debate quickly ends up in a discussion on what an open standard is. Is it an open standard if it is almost sufficiently documented, but only one company can implement it, because only one company has implemented the full binary formats of Microsoft’s Office-suite, which is of course Microsoft. Is it a standard if one company controls it and decides its license? I have not problems with OOXML, personally, as long as Microsoft hands over the format completely to a standards body, such as OASIS or ISO. If this happens the format is fine by me – not how I would design a standard, but that’s another story. I guess they have already started on version 1.1 at this point and I guess that we should expect to see a big change if they really wants to make a competitive format. In terms of design ODF is by far the smartest design, compared to OOXML. The problem with politicians is that they do not understand the many issues in this debate. When Microsoft’s marketing department tells them that it is as open a standard as ODF they will believe it, not remembering Microsoft’s history of monopoly misuse. Why is this a problem? Because they miss the larger picture, which will cost in terms of vendor lock-in in the future… My suggestion is that if they choose OOXML they should also make demands on the format and control of it, instead of buying into a simple marketing hype.

Choosing two standards – It isn’t always easy to make a firm choice, especially when a lot of interest groups are involved – as a money in the terms of expenses. IT isn’t a popular area in politics. It is an area where huge savings can be found and investments can yield a good return, but also prove to be a terrible and extremely expensive failure. In Denmark we have had our share of IT projects gone wrong with everything from the IT system, Amanda, that went more than 600 million kroner over budget to failure of the implementation of public medical journals, that ended up in a lot of different systems, that didn’t work as individual systems or interoperated in any way. Neither of these projects contributed to a political climate for making large IT investment anymore in Denmark. We want to be a market leader in terms of IT, but not to make the investments at this point in time. The “safe” choice for the government is to play more than one horse. They have chosen to play ODF, as the only real open format and therefore be able to claim that their public sector is now open and based on accepted standards, but also to allow OOXML to keep the cost down and keep their big time friend, Microsoft, pleased. This will probably mean that Microsoft will end up being a de facto standard again – with a format that has not archived any real standardization. Microsoft has bedded their money right in OOXML. A lot of other countries are currently following the debate and decision in Denmark, as are a lot of interest groups and organisations. Denmark has become the first battle field in the war of formats. This war has not caught big political or public interest, only in certain parts of society. The IT knowledgeable are fighting each other in this war and so are the big companies, like Microsoft, IBM and Sun. For them this is much more than a mere fights of formats, because they know that formats is basis of control. IBM and Sun wants to relieve Microsoft of their control in the Office market and thereby free people of the Office products and on a longer perspective their addictiveness to the Windows platform. Microsoft, however, isn’t about to let a multi-billion revenue stream be reduced without a fight with every mean necessary. Denmark is caught in the middle being a big supporter of Microsoft, but also a spokescountry for democracy, choice and standards. The choice isn’t easy and the proposition made currently proposed by the government is an ill attempt to please all sides at the expense of future choice. It is a good chance to change what needs to changed so that a broader choice will be possible in the future and who knows when this chance will come again? The debate is heated at the moment and both sides tries to yell higher than the other instead of quietly stating their arguments. This is not a debate for or against Microsoft. This is a debate of open standards and choice…

Lock

Microsoft : Security, Hypes and Control…

Posted by DarkJedi – March 22, 2007

The world of information technology is facing its latest revolution, according to Microsoft. It’s latest version of its operating system series, Windows, has arrived. Windows Vista is heralded by Microsoft as being the safest product yet, coming out of Redmond. This is the reason you should throw away your fully working Windows XP and invest good sums of money on getting back onto the Microsoft wagon. The design of Vista is suppose to be built from the ground up with security in mind, but lately questions have appeared around the Internet as to werther Vista is such a safe design. The Register writes that the basic design of Vista’s UAC-system is flawed. Businessweek also says that it expects common users to switch off the security very fast, leaving you with a slow version of XP. If this will happen or not is not easy to predict, but looking at the past it didn’t take users long to simply log in with your Administrator under Windows 2000/XP, so why should it be any different on Vista? Users want easy daily tasks, not slow and annoying systems… But why should the design of UAC help Microsoft’s image as a company that takes security very serious, when it on the other hand doesn’t mind spreading malware through its Messenger service to earn a few advertisement money in a market it has already completely lost to Google?

Is the security of Vista really that bad? Well, if you compared it with other competing operating systems, instead of just previous versions of Windows, it is apparent that Microsoft’s design is still far from the security standard of Linux. This is funny because I personally find Linux’ approach to security easier to use than that of Vista, and it is still better … That’s really good design! The problem with Microsoft is that they simply doesn’t understand the basics of security and therefore creates flawed design. The best example is their latest “security” stunt, Their Anti-virus product, which has quickly proven to be among the worst performers on the market – even in Microsoft’s own test scenarios! The Register also took a look at the security in Vista and in spite of all the hype Microsoft have created around Vista’s security found it to be on par with XP – nothing more… They are selling it for more than it is worth!

In the meantime Microsoft faces a completely different problem on the Vista front. It has long claimed that the reason Vista isn’t selling is because of evil, scurvy pirates, and therefore has enforced its WGA-program heavily – hurting only the legal users in the process, as the illegal once never get caught by Microsoft’s feeble attempts of control. What happens then if you choose to cancel the WGA process? Well, funny enough Microsoft doesn’t think that your personal information should be yours to govern and therefore chooses to send that information to Microsoft anyway… What good does a EULA-signing do if you “agree” to it even if you choose not to? Had any of Microsoft’s competitors had ever been giving the same power Microsoft would be all over them in lawsuits! Imagine being able to get personal information on users directly from their own computers, where they feel safe, no matter if they say that they want to share or not?! This isn’t the only problem with the WGA tool. Another major problem has been the many that has been declared pirates while being perfectly legit customers. These false positives has recently led to a change in the WGA-tool to prevent too many of these cases. The main problem with the WGA-tool is that it only irritates legit customers, as the pirates always have a way of avoiding the check. With all the problems that people are having on Activation it is strange that Microsoft keeps the WGA- and Activation program, when they must know by now that only legit customers are troubled by it … Customers they are having troubling keeping or selling Vista to.

With both security and personal information a major problem in Vista perhaps it is time to take a look at alternatives? Well many parts of the business are already! In the US the FAA is currently going for a mix of Google Apps Enterprise on Linux and Windows XP, instead of Vista. Dell has always had a soft spot for Linux and now they know that their customers has as well, voting Linux as option one and OpenOffice.org as option two if they could choose what Dell should offer. Now Dell offers computers without Windows and allows Linux as a choice! In a time where it can be quite difficult buying a computer without Windows this is refreshing to see. ZDNet also see Linux as Dell’s big chance for coming back in the race against HP, but HP might beat Dell on Linux as well… OpenOffice.org is ready for Dell, and this they have already claimed in a letter to Dell, saying that the two would be a good match!

Suddenly Linux and other open source projects, such as OpenOffice.org, becomes a direct threat to Microsoft’s core business, Windows and Office. Microsoft’s flamboyant masterchief, Steve “Throwing Chairs” Ballmer, isn’t late to respond by proclaiming loudly between the lines that Linux is violating Microsoft’s Intellectual Property (IP). However, in a quick turn of events this might prove a very big backfire for Microsoft as a response was quickly launched that challenges Microsoft to prove this by a deadline or face public humiliation for issuing lies in front of its stockholders as a poor, illegitimate excuse attempt for failing to innovate. The “Show us the code” campaign will add more darkness to the already battered image Microsoft is having of late. The competition from Linux is leaving Microsoft in a situation that must be difficult for a company that is used to having monopoly and not afraid to take full advantage of it. This frustration led a company chief from Microsoft to say that he would rather have people pirating Windows than using Linux – a bit odd when they are intensifying their WGA-program so hard, but Microsoft is a big company and the one hand often doesn’t even know that the body has another hand somewhere. The frustration must be really big at the moment, as it is obvious that Vista is in dire straits in terms of sales, even compared with Windows XP. Why is this important? Because the time between the release of XP and Vista is the longest in the company’s life and therefore you would expect people to be more than ready to replace their system with a more up-to-date version. Hardware, software and technology in general have come a long way since the release of Windows XP, but Vista is apparently not enough “Wauv” for people to upgrade. Of course Steve “Throwing Chairs” Ballmer has a wild claim on this as well, saying that it is because of piracy that Vista is not selling. Well, there is always an excuse ready from mr chairman, but perhaps he should instead take a look at the over-expectations he himself created on Vista. He already admitted that Vista was a bit over-hyped, but who can blame him? There were no reasons to buy Vista: No better security, High Price, No tangible Improvements, Higher System Requirements, DRM everywhere – oh and a shining new interface :)

Many people who bought a new PC with the Vista Capable sticker will also find themselves in trouble when they are faced with the true demands on their newly bought system by Vista. The sticker has proven to be nothing more than a marketing stunt to sell more computers at a time when Microsoft understood little of the demands of their latest creation, Vista. Microsoft seem to be a company in trouble, lacking innovation in their products, both Vista and Live! Microsoft claim to be a great competitor to Google, but they fail on all accounts – failing on innovation and quality! Their customers are waiting for Vista to become ready for primetime. This leaves a window of opportunity that might allow companies such as Apple, where innovation still exists, to gain market share in the operating systems arena. Luckily for Microsoft they are a monopoly and have often before used this when they could not compete on equal terms. It would not be a completely different strategy for Microsoft to use its Office-products on Macintosh as a pressure point.

Customer control is a central strategy for Microsoft. They need to keep customers buying Windows and Office, no matter the cost. When the analysts at Microsoft saw the transition they figured that it would be natural to customers – private individuals as well as public sector areas and coorporations – to upgrade to both Vista and the new Office as soon as it became available. Unfortunately, as I have already described, the sales of Vista has been abysmal and Office might head the same way – a nightmarish scenario for Microsoft. When you are a Microsoft customer and are facing an upgrade of both Windows and Office you can take the time to examine the competition, which is the biggest fear Microsoft has. Vista’s biggest competition is still from Windows XP, but if its customers suddenly was able to escape the claws of Office they would have less trouble exchanging Windows with a competitive operating system. Microsoft knows that its standard for documents in terms of text documents, spreadsheets and presentation slides have become a de facto standard – a standard they control. When they control the standard they control which programs can fulfill the standard and by it can control who can read and write the users documents – documents the user will not want to loose! This is control, this is power!

The problem for Microsoft appeared very late in the development process of Office when they suddenly noticed a competiting format standard, Open Document Format (ODF), gaining support from public sector offices, where people wanted their government to use an open format, not requiring them to buy the Office suite from Microsoft to read public documents. Suddenly Microsoft was facing an ISO-certified competitive document standard not in their control and the prospect of loosing this control over the customer was greater than anything Microsoft has faced for a long time. They were quick to respond. Within an extremely short period of time they announced an alternative to ODF, Microsoft’s “Office Open XML” (OOXML). Like ODF it was based on XML-tags as the describing basis, instead of a binary format. Microsoft knew the importance of getting their own standard as much adopted by accepted standards bodies as well as ODF was in order to be able to push their format in this important war. They forced it, using their influence, through the ECMA and then straight to ISO to get it fast-tracked through JTC-1. At first they met fierce negativity because of their 6000 pages long documentation, that they only allowed 1 month to read (that’s an average of 200 pages of high-tech babble a day!), certain parts of the format, which require the implementer to know how Word97 and Excel95 did their binary hardcodings concerning time-fields and other peculiar parts. All in all it didn’t look anything like a design you would present if you wanted to make a good, versatile design for a document format, but rather an XML-wrapping of the binary formats and the legacy carried within the decades old Office suite. It all boiled down to when is a standard not really a standard. Microsoft has no intention of making a standard that handles control back into the hands of users, thereby giving them freedom of choice. Microsoft has its back against the wall, as states like California and others has already chosen ODF, and they are under dire pressure to add ODF-support in Office, which would give the users the freedom they desperately require – handling over control. Microsoft’s partner in the Linux camp, Novell, is trying to create a bridge that enables both ODF and OOXML in OpenOffice.org. Meanwhile Microsoft battles the JTC-1 opposition to get their format standard accepted as an open standard, apparently forcing their way on the JTC-1 to get fast-tracked. Suddenly the standard behind making standards is set aside to keep control…

Microsoft has learned a lot of this episode. They will probably end up getting people onto their format in the end through political pressure and especially through the use of their monopolistic status, which has always been their favorite strategy. They learned the lesson on standards and formats and the power and control they bring with them. Lately a manager at Microsoft has called for an end to format wars – a nice convenient time to do this in, while at the same time trying to get their latest format attempt, HD Photo, adapted to throw JPEG’s dominance out and take control of this market as well. The battle is ready to start again. Naturally the license for HD Photo says that it must not be used in open source applications – once again freeing users of their freedom to choose… Control is power in this major game of strategy and monopoly!

Microsoft

The Console War : By the numbers!

Posted by DarkJedi – March 2, 2007

The console war is still far from settled, even though the important Christmas season is past us by this time. The numbers of consoles that are selling are simply staggering… There is no question that the Nintendo Wii is the strong leader in this sales, as 50.000 Wiis per day ends up in the hands of happy customers, while the XBox360s are selling 19.800 and the Sony’s PlayStation 3 is not far behind with 19.000 per day. At this point in time Nintendo is the clear leader, selling more than both competitors combined – already at his stage having almost reached half of Microsoft’s lead in sales with their XBox360. The Xbox360 is now past 10.5 million consoles sold, whereas the Wii is close to 5 million. The consoles sales from january seems to continue into february…

Things, however, doesn’t stay static long in this business. Sony is preparing for their European launch in march, while Microsoft is preparing their new revision of the XBox360, which is known as the Black XBox360 – adding HDMI, 120 GB Harddisk and a better and more quiet DVD-drive to their console. The specs will make it surpass that of the PlayStation 3 as a multimedia hub, but they still need to counter the succes of the Wii, which they have already admitted has forced them to rethink their strategy. Meanwhile Sony has run into a massive amount of bad press when they announced that the european version of the PlayStation 3 will not include the Emotion chipset, that emulates PS2-games, and the european version will only emulate PS2-games using software – even with no price reduction to counteract… Simply a more poor machine for the same money! They need to increase the value-perception of the PlayStation 3 and one way to do this is to add a technology people want. That technology is Rumble in the controller, which was a feature loved by fans in the PS2. Sony has recently settled their lawsuit problems with Immersion, and now it probably won’t be long until they announce a new version of the PS3-controller – with rumble – even though they have already claimed that rumble is a last-gen technology to spite competitors who had rumble in their controllers…

Sony’s problems seems to be massive all around. The game publishers are not happy with their game sales on the PlayStation 3 – especially since it is very expensive to develop for the PlayStation 3. This is probably because the PlayStation 3 simply isn’t selling – so there is no real market to sell games to. This is a battle of content and price – and Sony is behind on both! Sony has shipped more than 4 million PlayStation 3’s, but only 1.5 million of those have been sold at this point. While Sony is trying very hard to deny this they simply end up looking comical and in the end the game publishers will feel the lacking impact of the PlayStation 3 on their game sales anyway. This is a very bad circle for Sony, who more than anyone needs hit titles for the PlayStation 3 – but who will make that when the competitors have a much larger market? This could be the beginning of the end for the PlayStation brand – a brand that by itself created a whole new market, which is now a multi-billion dollar market… They simply did too much wrong in the case of the PlayStation 3 – and were too arrogant to admit it and fix it!

Sony, instead, can sit back and watch Nintendo dominate the war well into the 2008, according to analysts… Sony and Microsoft is battling over the hardcore gamers, who only look at specs and content, while Nintendo got the rest with their Wii-concept!

PS3

High Definition : The Latest Contender

Posted by DarkJedi – March 2, 2007

As long as there has been royalties and influence in having control over a format as long will there be format wars… Time and time again has this type of greedy company-backed wars hurt consumers and caused big problems for both content-providers, for consumers and especially for technology, that seems to be standing still while people wait for the verdict on the war. HD DVD versus Blu-Ray is the latest in this series of destructive conflicts, that couldn’t be solved like adults!

The content-providers are waiting eagerly the outcome as they are experiencing dropping DVD sales and need the next-gen format out the door and into the shops, into the consumers home so that they can supply the consumer with the same movies over again in better quality!

Often, however, consumers take a while to adapt a new standard, especially when that standard is not decided yet. The problems inflicted on the consumer who chooses to adapt too early are numerous:

  • 1st Generation players are often not capable of fully supporting the standard
  • Problems with DRM-subsystems are often found after the first batch of players is sold – Even in software players, like CyberLink HD, who is currently having massive problems with DRM in HD content.
  • Region coding is often decided at a late hour, which means that the newly bought player might not have the region-support it needs for 2nd generation titles. The example lately is that HD DVD has only recently announced that they will not enforce Region Coding in their format, even though the first batch of HD DVD players has been out for more than six months.
  • The DRM might suddenly need to be changed when anti-DRM schemes opens the current locks on the player, like AACS is already facing at this point in the HD war.
  • You might end up with an expensive movie-collection in a format that didn’t win the war and therefore is no longer supported by the mainstream production lines or the content-providers…

While the players in this battle of formats continue to improve in the end you are betting a lot of money on an expensive player, that might not support the titles of tomorrow and buying a lot of movies that might be able to play in the player of tomorrow…

In the mean time a third alternative has come into the light of day. Albeit a bit late, but interesting none the less! HD VMD is entering the race for the next-gen DVD format by supplying a cheap alternative to the HD DVD and Blu-Ray alternatives. With prices around 200$ for a player, compared to 500$ for an HD DVD and lately 600$ for a Blu-Ray, this must be said to be a cheap technology. It supports a high read speed that surpasses that of both HD DVD and Blu-Ray and can support from anywhere between 20 GB disc up until 100 GB disc in the future – In summary: The technology is ready enough for HD content. They have started out slow with India and China as their main markets, moving into Eastern Europe, but lately decided to go head to head with the two big formats and are now entering Nassaq and trying out retail in the USA, with the backing of Warner Bros. The breaking poitn for this alternative will surely be how they will use the technology of the HD VMD on the handling of HD content like extra materials, interaction and subtitles. But even more important will be the backing of the content-providers, who desperately needs to get the customers into the next-gen buying frenzy – and the cheaper price level that actually competes almost directly with that of DVD players might just prove to be what the doctor ordered! The technology behind HD VMD is being demonstrated next week in Barcelona, where Dr. Levich will demonstrate how a HD VMD disc can be played in a standard off-the-shelves dvd player. What I find intriguing about the HD VMD, apart from the price, is the speculation that it will also support Open Source codecs, as well as the standard HD codecs, such as VC-1. Werther it will be a contender in the big format war of our day is not easy to predict, but I think the technology at least will be good alternative on the PC drive-side of the business, which might also prove a good entry strategy for the HD VMD format into the real war of delivering HD content on players in consumer’s homes.

I still think that this battle is a battle that will last too long for the disc to become as popular as the CD or the DVD. In the end we are not far off the real technologies like HVD (or their fast-to-market alternative, InPhase), which is where the real revolution lies in terms of durable storage for delivering HD content, if the Internet doesn’t prove to be the next-gen format that HD content will be delivered through in the future… (or their fast-to-market competitor,

TV

Greedy Business ™ : Holding Back The Future!

Posted by DarkJedi – March 1, 2007

Most people like the improvements technology brings to us over time. Most companies are locked in a ever-lasting struggle to come up with new technologies and improvements in order to stay in business. Most of the world unfortunately doesn’t apply when you talk about the four big music labels and the movie industry. In that small part of the world I like to call the Greedy Business ™ rules doesn’t apply anymore. While everyone else knows that there will be a new day tomorrow and therefore prepares for this it is not the case with the Greedy Business ™. This industry instead tries to hold on to a time long gone by now, while their sales flourished and they had complete control of the market… No matter what they themselves believe they cannot hold back the future – it is coming!

The Digital Future is now… Actually it has been here for many years! MP3-files aren’t the newest invetion on the block anymore, neither is the Internet. The coupling between those two should easy have made it into mainstream markets long ago. Instead companies like Napster and KazaA made wonderful search engines and distribution channels that made it incredibly easy to find the music that you wanted. Imagine if one of the big four had done just that: Made a program as easy to use as KazaA or eMule, that allowed you to enter your creditcard information and then to find digital music in MP3 format as easy as typing in a string and clicking download. Then at the end of the month they would send you a mail telling you which songs you have legally bought and therefore own and charge it to your creditcard. They would have made the market explode over a few years. Imagine iTunes-ease coupled with no DRM! If they were even smarter they would use BitTorrent-technologies to distribute to save their bandwidth – a technology they have been fighting for years, like any other peer-2-peer technlogy instead of taking advantage of it.

What are they doing instead? They are offering DRM-infected music and poorly converted videos for a high price! The entire Greedy Business ™ completely missed the picture. They never understood the possibilities of the Internet and they ended up completely failing their digital strategy (once they finally got one!)… Instead of taking advantage of new technologies for reaching new markets they have chosen to try to kill the digital revolution with DRM and expensive products that give consumers much less for their money than the physical product, which has not been innovated the last 20 years!

The problem they are facing now is that in their complete misunderstanding of the digital market they have crippled the market in such a way that now only the pirates can offer what the customer wants to pay for – and they are giving it away for free?! The best example was AllOfMP3, who a offered DRM-free, format-independent choice of music in a shop that was easy to use and with a price tag that people were more than happy to pay! Naturally their prices were too low to make enough profits for an industry such as the Greedy Business ™, but higher prices than that of AllOfMP3 would also have been a big success anyway. This misunderstanding of the customer’s needs leave the consumer in a situation where the only content-provider that can provide what the digital market requires is the pirates!

What does the Greedy Business ™ then do? Examine their markets? Make analysis on what people want or demand? WRONG! They just ensure that law-makers make strict copyright laws that keep people locked in the past by the DMCA, preventing the real revolution of the digital age by preventing the content to enter the digital age. Now they are trying to export the only product they are willing to give away for free: The DMCA! Well, there is always work for lawyers and lobbiest in the greatest “democracy” in the world :)

In the mean time politicians are considering a fair use amendment to the DMCA to allow the consumer of the digital revolution to flourish. Well, naturally the Greedy Business ™ fights this attempt at an amendment with every claw and army of lawyers at their disposal! You wouldn’t want the consumer to be granted freedoms that the Greedy Business ™ has taken away from them, when you want to be able to sell every freedom for large sum of money time and time again, would you?!

While this battle rages on an industry such as the Greedy Business ™ needs to ensure that there is order in the ranks and enough lawsuits going to bring in some cash for this “starving” industry. Therefore they are currently deploying their mafia methods on college students in order to force these digital consumers of tomorrow back into line by what in any other industry would be called extortion! This of course stirrs some outrage, like every other attempt at mafia methods from the Greedy Business ™ has in the past. The time of social networks is now and they are starting to react to the outdated tactics of the Greedy Business ™. Everything from a manifesto against this outdated industry to programs that allows you to avoid ending up buying content from these lost-in-time content-providers.

Then came the rumor that EMI had started talks on allowing MP3-downloads from online music stores … Music without DRM! Of course this was all a publicity stunt and everyone should have known that! Instead of embracing the future they stick to old-school methods like demanding upfront payment from a business that doesn’t have large margins like the Greedy Business ™. Were they ever to give the money back if the sales went up? I would guess not! This is no different than the protection money you loose to your local mafia, but hey, that’s where Greedy Business ™ learned their “trade” in the first place :)

Considering how many analysts are employed in the Greedy Business ™ (which is of course nothing comapred to the armies of lawyers constantly employed by this industry) it is strange that they have never examined what their customers think about DRM. It doesn’t take a long time to find out what the general consensus around the Internet generation is – just search for DRM in Google, Digg, Technorati and so forth… Why haven’t they learned anything about DRM? Not even when Steve Jobs goes out and tries to blame someone else for his vendor lock-in technologies do the Greedy Business ™ see the light! The Greedy Business ™ has simply ended up clutching on to a technology that the customers doesn’t want, and instead of changing a distribution model that hasn’t worked for a decade, like they would in any normal industry or free market, they keep believing that DRM is the new distribution model… Well, guys, let me say it again: A Distribution Model without customers isn’t a Distribution Model – It is a suicide note! … Welcome to the future!

Statue of Liberty

The Gem Engine : Development Update

Posted by DarkJedi – March 1, 2007

For a small update on the The Gem Engine project check out the site!

Gem Header