NASA's TESS mission in distress, Mars Express restart is a success A Guidance and Navigation Control (GNC) issue scuppered last night's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9. Conversely, the European Space Agency (ESA) celebrated a successful restart of the Mars Express orbiter following a software update. TESS is less Scheduled for launch yesterday, the …
This echoes the earlier article today about the projected drop in smartphone sales in Europe.
The basic business model of the high-tech suppliers is screwed. In the reverse of the approach that worked for King Gillette and many others, they sell an expensive bit of kit and then walk away, hoping that when you get pissed off with it you'll buy another one (from them - how likely is that?). This doesn't guarantee a stable cashflow. Microsoft belatedly realised this with Windows and Office - sell it once, and people then expect support and updates free for the next decade. Now they're switching to (expensive) subscriptions, but they have a point.
If hardware manufacturers could work out a product structure which allowing incremental improvement and upgrade they could make a killing - sell the thingy for a reasonable price, but them sell some modular upgrades every year or two, until the customer finally goes for a new base unit after ten years. Steady income!
"Microsoft belatedly realised this with Windows and Office - sell it once, and people then expect support and updates free for the next decade. Now they're switching to (expensive) subscriptions, "
I wouldn't mind paying for Windows annual updates to fix functional/security problems. As long as they were left working as they were - if I decided to stop having updates.
I've stayed with W7 and Office 2010 because of the mess that has been made of W8/10 GUI - and the "phone home" nature of their malware. No forward plan for me on Windows.
they sell an expensive bit of kit and then walk away, hoping that when you get pissed off with it you'll buy another one (from them - how likely is that?). This doesn't guarantee a stable cashflow.
It does if you are Apple. You start with them loving the device, as it is so much better than their N-1 model. Gradually, the performance degrades until they hate the device, and wish they had something better, something N+1. They get it, they are ecstatic about the new shiny, and the process starts over.
They can't jump to a different ecosystem, because everyone else in their circle is using the services provided to interact with each other, and they fear missing out.
PS: Modular phones truly would be dreadful. It has been tried before, clunky and with useless upgrades.
"[...] resumably in the hope that we'll give them money for something else?"
It's called a Faustian pact. They hope to get their money from elsewhere when they sell you.
"Microsoft belatedly realised this with Windows and Office [...] Now they're switching to (expensive) subscriptions"
So far they've skipped the subscription and gone straight for the loss leader. Just continual updates, presumably in the hope that we'll give them money for something else?
I would argue that presumably at some point they will produce a stable and usable OS that doesn't cause grief from an update. Stability is good. Updates the improve the system are good. Updates that break things or BSOD the computer are bad. MS hasn't figured out with Win10 at this point.
Guys.....Windows 10 and Office 365 have been on autopilot for a long time now. Updates without issue, new features occasionally. BSOD's? A distant memory for my from a decade ago. I hate to say it but Microsoft has never been performing better as a company and for the most part "it just works!"
You're being a bit negative about the TESS launch.
spaceX spot a problem, three hours before launch. And they stop the process long before any loading of fuel or liquid oxygen. It's about the time the humans leave the area of the launch pad. How is this a bad thing? Why should the satellite be "nervous"?
Anyone can check the countdown sequence, find out these things. You don't have to watch launches for half a century to have a clue.
Meanwhile the engineers check the details, and decide whether or not you will go to space today. This is thing going right.
Agree with that. When I read the title, I thought the Falcon X had experienced Rapid Unplanned Disassembly, or the satellite had failed to reach orbit. A launch delay is not my conception of distress.
El Reg, please do not trade factual accuracy for a nice rhyming headline.
Meanwhile the engineers check the details, and decide whether or not you will go to space today.
Erm. My mouse pointer/cursor happened to hover over the word details when I read this, causing my brain to read it as toenails.
Now I have this mental image of the checks on the Falcon 9 landing feet, requiring a pedicurist in a white coat.
I think I need another lunchtime gin...
Makers of certain consumer electronics should take note that it is possible to create an update that both extends the life of a device and improves its performance
That as maybe but consumer electronics manufacturers have no incentive to support their old devices.
There's simply no money in it for them.
Yeah, if the hardware only supports one piece of software. ONE. It is easy to improve on a simple architecture. But most consumer devices are now multi-function, loaded with a bunch of bloated third-party apps that each user picks for themselves that get more bloated with each update for "bug fixes, stability, performance improvements, yadda yadda yadda..." Quite impossible to improve performance under such heavy variables, unless the update deletes all third-party apps and restores simplicity. But the users won't bother to find things run better when all their precious apps (and associated data) are gone.
There is, in fact, money in it for them. If I bought an x only to discover, a year later that, despite my x being perfectly physically serviceable, I now needed a shiny new y because the company couldn't be bothered supporting x any more I'd be mildly pissed off and would probably buy a z from some other manufacturer.
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