What 6 billion could buy you
What 6 billion could buy you
Posted Jan 9, 2006 8:16 UTC (Mon) by jd (guest, #26381)Parent article: Winning the Linux Wars (MCP)
- Microsoft could hire enough mathematicians to produce a complete Z specification of Windows Vista (with all the bits they're missing out of the initial release), formally prove that specification, and then hire enough extra programmers to re-implement the specification from scratch, within a 2-3 year timeframe. This would not only improve stability, but would also eliminate 99.9% of all existing bugs, known or otherwise.
- They could invest all of it in the US educational system, on the grounds that most really good innovators are recent graduates and the existing school system is incapable of producing a high caliber of software engineer. Within 4-5 years, their innovation rate should skyrocket and they'd have gained considerable additional loyalty.
- One year's investment would be enough to build several chip plants from the ground up. The next year's investment would be enough to design a chip with the actual logic of Vista on it, allowing computers to run Windows without using any CPU cycles - massively accelerating Windows, but also making all other OS' look slow because they'd still be running in software.
What does Microsoft do with 6 billion? They seem to file an awful lot of patents, many of which don't seem very useful. If this is something Linux distributors can't do, then how exactly is this a bad thing?
Posted Jan 9, 2006 13:03 UTC (Mon)
by Los__D (guest, #15263)
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You really don't know much about microprocessors, do you?
Posted Jan 9, 2006 16:15 UTC (Mon)
by mikec (guest, #30884)
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However,
b. The reason that "hardware accelerated" OS chips have not appeared is that "Moore's Law" and DV make them obsolete before they could be finished... I don't know if you have noticed, but the clocks rates stopped going up! The barrier to doing hardware accelerated OSes these days is how to know that they actually work...
The "do it in software" mantra is one of captiulation of the verification gods... It cannot be verified prior to shipping, so we leave room to fix it later...
That is not to say that one does not need "programmability", but neither does one need to be able to program that which has not changed in 25 years...
Posted Jan 9, 2006 18:08 UTC (Mon)
by jonabbey (guest, #2736)
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Posted Jan 10, 2006 3:44 UTC (Tue)
by mikec (guest, #30884)
[Link] (1 responses)
Though I should point out that those VC funded startups I mentioned are also subject to the laws of marketing.
Even MS seems to understand the lack of return on their R&D dollars these days - thus the monstrous dividend pacakge.
Speaking for myself, if I had $50B to blow, you can bet I'd be doing some research on the moon, it amazes me that Gates and freinds, given that they are by original vocation computer geeks, aren't the ones doing the things that Branson is doing.
Oh well, I guess I will enjoy the nice warm weather here on Earth...
Posted Jan 12, 2006 12:59 UTC (Thu)
by Zenith (guest, #24899)
[Link]
"One year's investment would be enough to build several chip plants from the ground up. The next year's investment would be enough to design a chip with the actual logic of Vista on it, allowing computers to run Windows without using any CPU cycles - massively accelerating Windows, but also making all other OS' look slow because they'd still be running in software."What 6 billion could buy you
I'll forgive that one point which has its issues - $6B only buys 2 Si plants these days...What 6 billion could buy you
a. It is a good point - WTF do they do with $6B? Compared to the innovation from mere $100's of millions in VC funded startups they appear to be spinning their wheels pretty badly - Losing $100's per unit on a stripped down PC (XBox) hardly qualifies as innovation.
Microsoft has always included 'product and marketing development' in their 'research and development' budgeting, where 'product' means 'the customer and industry's perception of the bits in the box'.What 6 billion could buy you
As with most rants, the question was rhetorical ;-)What 6 billion could buy you
What 6 billion could buy you
Speaking for myself, if I had $50B to blow, you can bet I'd be doing some research on the moon, it amazes me that Gates and freinds, given that they are by original vocation computer geeks, aren't the ones doing the things that Branson is doing.
Well, actually they *are* doing something about it:
http://news.com.com/Geeks+in+space/2100-1026_3-5399507.html
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/SS1_ALLEN_040620.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Allen