* Posts by Richard Plinston

2608 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Apr 2009

Oracle vs Google redux: Appeals court says APIs CAN TOO be copyrighted

Richard Plinston

Re: And SCO will rise from the dead ...

> then Linux will be subject to SCO royalties

SCO never did buy the copyrights from Novell, that was determined by the courts. Whether there actually are _any_ protectable copyrights in Unix has not been tested. Some versions of Unix were made public domain, some did not qualify under the copyright law of the time, in many cases the copyrights of parts of Unix may be owned by third parties, such as BSD, or individuals who contributed.

Richard Plinston

Re: What Java APIs?

> as long as it for desktop use,

Many years ago there was a clear boundary between computers too heavy and too reliant on mains power to be carried around while being used, and almost useless battery powered devices.

Now there is almost no distinction. Computers that I could put in my pocket may be more powerful than the one that I am writing this on, and could run the same software. My N800 from 2008 runs Linux and I can connect a keyboard - does this make it a 'desktop computer' because I put it on my desk ?

What about laptops or tablets with bluetooth keyboards, or keyboard/covers? Do they count as 'desktops' because they are software compatible ?

Richard Plinston

Re: admin@razorfishsolutions.com.hk

> all the different versions of DOS are also illegal, because they all implement a common access point which is the public API.

And that API was that of DRI's CP/M.

Microsoft hints at smaller Surface

Richard Plinston

Re: As long as it's proper Windows

> an 8.4" or something and still have a useful form factor.

The 10" keyboard/covers would mean no useful reduction.

Ouch... right in the Androids! Google hit by another antitrust sueball

Richard Plinston

Re: @Tom7

> it's that google is telling the the OEM's what the default has to be.

Google is not telling Amazon, which defaults to Bing, nor Nokia whose X Androids use Bing. Many OEMs do exactly as they like and the users can still access Google services (though they may not get them built in and will have to download them).

Having Google as the default does not prevent that being changed to whatever the user wants.

10 PRINT "Happy 50th Birthday, BASIC" : GOTO 10

Richard Plinston

Re: Those were the days (and acronyms)

> Then "a", "b", "c", `c+, c++

There wasn't actually an 'A'. 'B' (the forerunner of 'C') was derived from BCPL: Basic CPL; where Basic was used in the sense of reduced rather than being related to BASIC and CPL was 'Combined Programming Language'. CPL was designed to be a combination of ideas from APL (Atlas Programming language), ACL (Atlas Commercial Language) and others.

Richard Plinston

Re: Horrible Travesty of BASIC

> C was available at the same time as BASIC

Not true. K&K BASIC was 1964 (see article), C was nearly a decade later, initial internal versions were around 1972.

On micros BASIC was around 1975, it wasn't until 1980 that a subset of C was available (Dr.Dobb's Journal May 1980 "A Small C Compiler for the 8080s"). Full C compilers for micros were several years later (Aztec, Lattice).

Richard Plinston

Re: Horrible Travesty of BASIC

> It was a toy language created for writing toy programs on toy computers.

No. It was a toy language created for writing toy programs on MAINFRAMES (using time sharing).

Toy computers did not arrive for another decade or more.

Richard Plinston

Re: "create a BASIC interpreter "

> Actually they didn't. They (BIll Gates and mostly Paul Allen) simply ported Dartmouth BASIC.

It has been claimed that MITS BASIC was a port of a public domain BASIC interpreter that ran on the DEC-10 and for which the source code was available. Certainly it used DEC style syntax. All 8080 development at the time was done on DEC machines until CP/M became available. The 8080 cross compilers were somewhat compatible with DEC-10 assembler so it would not have been difficult to port though the floating-point was quite different, which is why they needed Monte.

http://www.vanwensveen.nl/rants/microsoft/IhateMS_1.html

Windows Phone: Just as well Microsoft bought an Android maker, RIGHT?

Richard Plinston

> whereas Android uses the colander that is Java.

No it doesn't. It uses the Dalvik VM - completely different from the Java VMs. Newer versions of Android can use the ART VM which is also not a Java VM.

Richard Plinston

Re: Microsoft Linux

> ... Xenix. That was one of the xIX platforms I helped target back in the late 80s. The infamous SCO Unix was another and the last member of the trifecta was IBM AIX.

No. SCO 'Unix' was not 'another .. of the trifecta'. Microsoft sold Xenix to SCO who eventually renamed it SCO OpenServer when they updated it to a later release of AT&T.

There was Unixware which was developed by USL and Novell. SCO eventually bought this too and then sold the lot to Caldera who renamed themselves 'The SCO Group' to confuse people (and become infamous).

Richard Plinston

Re: No such luck

> Given the proven track record of WP updates/improvements over the past three years,

The 'proven track record' from MS in mobile is dumping products and replacing them with incompatible ones. Windows Mobile 6.x was dumped, Kin was dumped, Windows Phone 7 was dumped with no upgrade to WP8 and no compatibility. Only now they are replacing the development with one that is almost compatible with Windows RT and 'Metro' on Win8.

> it'll prove that there's no money to be made pursuing this "strategy"

They have said that they may not charge for WP licences, though it seems to be for a limited time and specific markets. That won't make them money either. The 'strategy' is to lock the users into MS services even if that means selling at a loss (which Nokia has been doing for the last few years).

That's right, MICROSOFT is an ANDROID vendor after Nokia gobble

Richard Plinston

Re: non other choice

>>> but it is growing by more than any other OS year on year.

>>According to Nokia itself their sales of Windows Phone for 2014Q1 was less than 2013Q1 and less than 2013Q4.

>They didn't say that the amount sold each quarter was growing. It's quite possible to sell ten million one quarter and nine million the next quarter and still be growing faster than others. What you provided doesn't invalidate the claim at all.

In what way is selling _less_ than the previous quarter (or year on year) represent _growing_ ? Even Nokia acknowledge it as a decline.

While 2013Q4 units may have been more than 2012Q4 and thus growth, that has not continued and there is decline (negative growth) in 2014Q1 compared to 2013Q1 (year on year) and also compared to 2013Q4.

Also FirefoxOS and Jolla's SailfishOS are showing _huge_ growth is sales since last year (when it was zero), far greater growth than WP, so the claim 'more than any other OS' is simply wrong.

In any case the sales of WP increased last year because most were sold at a loss - even taking into account the $billion dollar subsidy from MS. Some people just want a phone, don't care what the OS is, and buy the cheap one. That works for Android too.

Richard Plinston

Re: non other choice

> but it is growing by more than any other OS year on year.

According to Nokia itself their sales of Windows Phone for 2014Q1 was less than 2013Q1 and less than 2013Q4.

"""Nokia writes in the Q1 2014 results:

The year-on-year and sequential declines in discontinued operations net sales in the first quarter 2014 were primarily due to lower Mobile Phones net sales and, to a lesser extent, lower Smart Devices net sales. """

http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/

But _you_ certainly don't want facts to get in the way of your fanaticism.

Richard Plinston

Re: non other choice

> but it is growing by more than any other OS year on year.

In 2007 Microsoft had 40% of the market in what are now called smartphones. Currently they have less than 4%.

Richard Plinston

Re: Tee hee hee hee hee...

> No they didn't. They purchased rights to the Lumia name, not Nokia.

No. You are quite wrong, again. Microsoft have purchased a license to the Nokia name but not Lumia.

"""Microsoft will license the Nokia brand for existing products, and will retain Nokia's Asha brand - used for low-cost devices in emerging markets – although the licensing deal doesn't include the Lumia brand."""

http://www.stuff.tv/microsoft/hello-micro-kia-microsoft-buys-nokias-device-arm/news

""" ... Microsoft announced that it had obtained a 10-year license to use the Nokia name in smartphones as part of its $7.2 billion purchase,"""

http://www.mobileburn.com/22785/news/microsoft-set-to-phase-out-nokia-brand-in-favor-of-yet-to-be-chosen-name

Richard Plinston

Re: Skype Postgres

> I'm sure Microsoft wouldnt leave such a key product on such a poorly supported platform.

"""The new Skype backbone is composed of about 10,000 Linux servers."""

http://www.geek.com/news/microsoft-updates-skype-to-use-secure-linux-servers-instead-of-p2p-supernodes-1487121/

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/skype-what-kind-of-infrastructure-changes-has-microsoft-made/12612

Richard Plinston

Re: nothing new

> Of course, Linux or open software fanbois would have you believe otherwise.

I am not sure what the 'otherwise' would be, perhaps you could explain.

Richard Plinston

Re: history is always repeated.

> IIRC 1.0 could handle only one CPU... and probably only an Intel one too.

Let us compare that to MS-DOS 1.0 and Windows 1.0 then ..

Richard Plinston

> They are one of the bigger contributors to the Linux kernel, mainly for the stuff that makes it work on Hyper-V.

They _were_ 'one of the bigger contributors' for _one_ month and only for Hyper-V stuff.

OnePlus One equals 'killer' new mobe running CyanogenMod

Richard Plinston

Re: Lack of SD + KitKat 4.4 == good idea...?

> It's pretty clear from the Nexus line that Google don't like the idea of SC Card storage.

Removable SD cards usually need to be compatible with other devices, such as Windows PCs or Cameras, and thus must be FAT32 formatted. Internal memory can be ext3 or some other more suitable format. So having a removable SD card slot usually means that Microsoft can extract their patent tax.

It is not that Google does not like external storage, they don't like Microsoft making money on their products.

Leaked pics show EMBIGGENED iPhone 6 screen

Richard Plinston

> Along with a 4inch tablet.

Nokia N770, N800, N810, N900

I still use my N800, it is a nice size.

Microsoft lobs pre-release Windows Phone 8.1 at devs who dare

Richard Plinston

> I think the current UK Windows Phone market share of over 11% ... will continue to grow rapidly ...

Do try and keep up with more current data :-

http://blogs.computerworld.com/windows-phone/23737/windows-phone-share-dips-worlwide-should-microsoft-bet-big-android

"""Overseas, things are worse. In the U.K, its market share in February, 2014 was 10.1%, down from 11.3% the month previous. Back in August, 2013, its market share there was 12%, and it's been on a downward trajectory ever since. In France, things look more dismal. In February it had an 8.3% market share. It was all the way up to 12.9% there in November. In China, things are bad as well. It had a 1% market share in February, slightly up from 0.7% in January, but well under the 3.5% share it had in October, 2013."""

BlackBerry not afraid to throw its mobe biz under a bus, says CEO Chen

Richard Plinston

Re: And now he is back-peddling...

"If I cannot make money on handsets, I will not be in the handset business."

Note the personal pronoun. If he fails to make money then he will be kicked out of the company.

Windows XP is finally DEAD, right? Er, not quite. Here's what to do if you're stuck with it

Richard Plinston

Re: Here's what to do if you're stuck with it

> I think a prominent example given was a CnC machine driven by a custom ISA board;

Exactly. I know one one-man-band machine shop that had a 2nd hand flat-bed machine with a controller running OS/2. It was fixed it a couple of times by clearing the log files that had filled up the hard disk. Last year the OS/2 controller completely failed so the owner had to get a replacement controller (for $20,000 or so) and it runs XP.

Internet is a tool of Satan that destroys belief, study claims

Richard Plinston

"""Using Python scripts"""

The serpent from the tree of knowledge, no doubt.

In three hours, Microsoft gave the Windows-verse everything it needed

Richard Plinston

Re: Took them long enough...

> That pushes the oldest APIs Microsoft still supports back to 1981

MS-DOS 1.x APIs were cloned from CP/M with only minor changes, so make that 1975.

Richard Plinston

Re: None of this changes anything

> As for ACL: There is some support for the older, withdrawn version that can be switched on/used. Under current Windows versions - they are on. Always.

That is because *nix always had a useful permissions system, along with multiple groups, sgid, and multiple file links (hard or symbolic) that could achieve the necessary levels of permissions and restrictions.

Windows never had anything like that so they had to graft on ACLs. Linux can have ACLs but they are an unnecessary complication in most situations. Windows _must_ have ACLs because there is bugger all else.

> (Try porting a Swing based UI to Android,

"""Now though CodenameOne allow you to create mobile apps using not just Java but even Swing. Best of all there's even a free version. """

Or AjaxSwing: http://www.creamtec.com/products/ajaxswing/solutions/java_swing_ui_on_ipad.html

Try porting _anything_ to Windows Phone.

Richard Plinston

Re: Is Universal Windows the equivalent of yet another API?

> I'm confused! It sounds to me as if Microsoft is busy developing yet *another* mini-Windows. A fourth?

Actually that would be the fifth unless we ignore WP7 that was dumped and replaced by the incompatible WP8.

Richard Plinston

Re: Too Little Too Late

> MySQL is on a par to the free version of SQL Server

Except it is not really free. Not only is it time limited but you need to buy CALs for the clients to access it.

"""SQL Server 2014 is available for download today as a 180-day free trial version through Microsoft's TechNet Evaluation Center here."""

PostgreSQL is better.

Windows Phone 8.1: Like WinPho 8, but BETTER

Richard Plinston

Re: Incorrect

> Nokia's devices arm is now back in profit.

Another 'TheVogon unfact' !!

While Nokia as a whole made a profit ...

"""[Nokia] phone business, which reported an adjusted operating loss of 191 million euros in the fourth quarter [2013]"""

Richard Plinston

Re: How will it make money?

> The license fees payable in the other direction overtook the value of the support payments some time ago....

I very much doubt that. Nokia made around 30million WP phones in 2013 - about twice as many as in 2012. One billion divided by 30 million is about $33 per phone.

It may be that $30-$35 is what Microsoft would like to have charged per licence and so it has just become in balance, but 'some time ago' is unlikely because that would have required > $40 per phone.

The problem that Nokia had was that the support payments ended this year and they were losing money already on every phone sold.

Now with 8.1 being free later this year or next year this will have the effect of shutting down WP8 production to save paying MS with the plan to start up again with 8.1 for free plus newer, cheaper, chips so that they might even make money at last.

Of course Nokia won't be paying the tax anyway so could undersell the OEMs. That will please them no end.

Richard Plinston

Re: Incorrect

> That's actually one of its advantages.

That was the marketing talking. When WP7 could only handle single core they said: why would you need dual-core ? Of course WP7 was strictly single-tasking and 'tombstoned' apps in order to start another. The only 'background' tasks were like MS-DOS TSRs.

When WP8 required dual-core they said: 'why would anyone need quad-core'. That was because WP8 did not support quad-core (now apparently it will do with 8.1).

> the lower-specced hardware it can get away with places less demand on the battery

Actually the _reason_ for multiple cores is to cater for idling with less battery demand. ARM chips can turn off the cores when not required and each core (or the last one) can idle at reduced consumption. So instead of using, say, 30% power at idle with a single core, a quad core can run at 30% of one quarter of the full power, or less if it has asymmetric cores.

Newer SoCs can also have lower battery demand than one from 2012 because of having newer manufacturing technology. They often have more functionality in the chip and this can also reduce power demands and, with fewer components in the phone, can save manufacturing cost.

Being stuck on 2 year old designs meant that Nokia had to sell at a loss (even when MS bunged them a billion a year) and hope that volume would increase so that eventually there would be at least break-even. Maybe that will happen. Meanwhile Mozilla has said that the latest chip could make a $25 phone because, basically, it will be a single chip plus a screen.

Being _old_ and lower spec does not make it cheaper.

> There's no intrinsic reason why that should be the case. New chip comes out that MS want to support, they can just as easily allocate engineers as Google can.

Yes there is. Microsoft must do the software for WP. With Android _anyone_ can tune the system to a new SoC. For example: Intel are tuning Android to their newer chips while tuning the chips for Android.

Android, and other Linux based systems, could also run on MIPS based Dragon chips or Intel or indeed any newer architecture.

Richard Plinston

Re: Incorrect

> About half a billion dollars last year I read here I recall.

Given that there were a total of nearly a billion phones sold last year, and more than half of them were Android, then it's not a big deal.

> but making a phone using it is not.

Quite. One of the problems with WP is that it only supports a limited set of specific SoCs, most from 2012. It seems that 8.1 will, later this year, support some additional ones, even some quad core.

Android can support newer SoCs much quicker, these can have more features integrated and thus reduce manufacturing costs, while WP has to wait for Microsoft to catch up.

So far Nokia has been making a loss at selling WP while many Android phone companies are making a profit.

As WinXP death looms, Microsoft releases its operating system SOURCE CODE for free

Richard Plinston

Re: Inspired by cp/m

>>There may be many BASICs but there are only vague similarities between most of them.

> Wrong.

I would suggest that you are rather limited in your knowledge of the many varieties of what are called 'BASIC's. Portability between them is not one of their strengths.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_BASIC_dialects

>>The "most portable programming language" for CP/M (and later MS-DOS) was COBOL,

> Wrong

I am not sure of what you calling 'wrong'. COBOL, at the time, was one of the most portable of languages. In many cases, such as with RM COBOL, it was not even necessary to recompile to move an application between completely different systems, just get the appropriate runtime, it was byte coded.

In the late 70s I used MicroFocus, RM and Microsoft COBOL on CP/M, MP/M, OaSys, DRX and later on MS-DOS, Xenix, Unix and others. Moving code between these was not a problem at all.

>>Tim Paterson worked

> Time Paterson wes making machines running MS BASIC. And by the time BSD started (with Pascal), BASIC was already well entrenched in business.

I suspect that you really meant UCSD Pascal.

SCP made machines, such as the Zebra CP/M and MP/M range, that could run Microsoft COBOL, Microsoft Pascal, and very many other languages.

While there were quite a number of applications written in various BASICs the serious business ones were mostly done in 'commercial BASICs' : Pick BASIC, cBASIC2. It was necessary to rewrite code between these and several other BASICs in common use.

> You shouldn't make such simple mistakes. It will confuse readers who weren't actually there at the time.

You seem to have had a very limited exposure to the range of products available at the time. Just MS-BASIC was it ?

Richard Plinston

Re: Xtree.....

> Please do your homework on what Windows 1 was ... it was a GUI for DOS and not a file manager.

While Windows 1 provided a graphics library that could be built into stand-alone programs or programs to run under Win1, when Windows itself was loaded it was basically a clock, a calculator and a file manager that was similar to, but not as good as, XTree. Both could run programs.

Richard Plinston

Re: Inspired by cp/m

> The $ is pronounced "string", and was a familiar idiom from what was, at the time, the most portable programming language available. Tim had previously worked in this area: the only software available for the hardware he built was a stand-alone (customized) version of that programming language.

You seem to be way off beam.

Tim Paterson worked with 8080/Z80 machines running CP/M, such as the SCP Zebra range.

The "most portable programming language" for CP/M (and later MS-DOS) was COBOL, available since 1978 from Microfocus and Microsoft with RM not far behind. Others available before 1980 were various Pascals, C and SmallC, Fortran, and many incompatible BASICs*.

None of those are why BDOS function 9 requires its output string to be terminated by a '$'.

(you seem to be confusing this with some BASICs marking string variable names with a '$' which was nothing to do with the question or the answer.)

* Note: There may be many BASICs but there are only vague similarities between most of them.

Richard Plinston

Re: It was known for being followed by 2.1 and 2.11

> Novell DOS 7 was waaay better than 6.22 (unless you tried to use the multitasking part, which was rather buggy).

Which was tragic. DRI (which Novell bought to get DR-DOS*) had great multiuser/multitasking back to MP/M in 1978. This went through MP/M-2, MP/M-86, Concurrent-CP/M-86 (1982) to Multiuser-DOS. DR-DOS was derived from the multiuser systems. Initially it was DOS-Plus which retained some multi-tasking then DR-DOS 3.4 and 4 which has source code from Concurrent-DOS. DR-DOS 5 from Multiuser-DOS. DR-DOS 6 added back a task switcher, TaskMax, so you could run multiple programs and switch them with one actually executing at a time.

Novell DOS 7 added multitasking but instead of using DRI's from Multiuser-DOS** they invented their own buggy and poorly performing one.

* When Bill Gates announced a new version of 'MS Advanced Server' (originally an IBM product) he also said that "The next version MS-DOS/Windows might not support Netware". This was to scare users into dropping Novell for MS. Novell responded by buying DRI and announcing that each Novell server would be supplied with DR-DOS for each client. They agreed that MS would support Netware and Novell would drop Novell-DOS.

** I used Multiuser-DOS as a desktop for many years as well as having many clients running it. It could run Windows 3.11 as one (or more) of its tasks, including in 386 mode).

Richard Plinston

Re: Trend?

> This is the one that IBM adopted into MS-DOS 4

IBM wrote this into PC-DOS because most of the OEMs already had this features. I had a machine with Wyse 3.21 that had a 80Mbyte partition. They passed the code back to MS.

"""Compaq DOS 3.31 and Wyse DOS 3.21 both support >32mb disk partitions in the same fashion as DOS 4.x. """

I recall the advertising for MS-DOS 4: "It _finally_ breaks the 32Mb barrier." Like they weren't a couple of years behind the curve.

Richard Plinston

Re: Trend?

> However, disks over 512MB used inefficient 8KiB clusters -

While large clusters may be wasteful when there are many small files they are more efficient when large files are being accessed. I had COBOL applications running on FAT discs (with DR-Multiuser-DOS and similar) using ISAM file systems. These DRI systems, including DR-DOS, allowed the cluster size to be chosen when formatting disks.

Changing the cluster size from 2Kb to 8Kb improved the random access performance three fold.

Primarily this speedup is because the only way to access a particular position in the file is to start at the directory entry and track down the FAT entries until the correct sector is found. The bigger the cluster the fewer FAT entries to be read.

FAT also had no mechanism to have 'sparse' files - another inefficiency compared to a real file system.

Richard Plinston

Re: What was 2.0 really known for?

> The big problem was that some MSDOS commands used / to introduce flags.

They all did. This was copied from CP/M which copied it from DEC's RSTS/E or similar.

Richard Plinston

Version 1.1

While it says v1.1 source it is actually MS-DOS 1.25.

It is alledged that with PC-DOS 1.0 Gary Kildall was able to get it to produce a DRI copyright message. Both SCP and MS were full DRI OEMs and had everthing for CP/M that DRI would provide. SCP for the Zebra range of computers and MS for the Z80 Softcard.

At the time there were 'decompilers with notations' for specific versions of software. While the CP/M BDOS had been written in PL/M the decompiler produced Assembly code. The program had all the comments and notations built in but required the BDOS binary to trigger the output of these to avoid copyright. It is alledged that CP/M 1.3* was decompiled and then put through Intel's 8080 - 8086 translator to be the starting point of QDOS.

When the DRI copyright was demonstrated IBM settled by giving DRI money, rewriting code to replace DRI code, and giving DRI rights to use any mechanism in MS/PC-DOS**. This rewrite was PC-DOS 1.1 and passed back to MS who called it MS-DOS 1.2x.

* 1.3 because that version had a bug in the FCB handling on a file close that existed in MS/PC-DOS 1.x but was fixed in CP/M 1.4.

** This is why DRI was never sued over DOS-Plus and DR-DOS using FAT file file system and other stuff.

Tamil Nadu's XP migration plan: Go Linux like a BOSS

Richard Plinston

Re: TheVogon

> maybe 20% that might need some access to MS software

It is unlikely to be a need to access "MS software" but to legacy applications that only run on [legacy] Windows.

Richard Plinston

Re: They already do for ELA customers.

> A couple of million is still cheaper than new machines or a migration.

But they _still_ need to do new machines _and_ a migration.

Extended support this year means they will pay even more (double) for extended support next year if they don't do a migration, which will likely require new machines, before then.

Nokia: ALL our Windows Phone 8 Lumias will get a cool 8.1 boost

Richard Plinston

> putting it at around 72%

It seems that you didn't read the whole article:

"""the 1,000 people surveryed [sic]"""

"""The survey was carried out in May by TNS, on behalf of Deloitte, among people in the UK between the ages of 16 and 64."""

It may be that the 1000 were in large urban areas. As it was only taken on a restricted age range then it is incompetent to extrapolate to being a figure to use over the whole population.

> but if we're going with marketshare as being 'sales' of SmartPhones

You may find this instructive on the issue.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/09/market-share-smartphones-iphone-android-windows

> I'd certainly suggest that making a statement like "It is unlikely that there are as many as 1million WP phones in the UK." with no clear evidence to support it, would fall into the category of something you /want'/ to be true as opposed to something you /know/ to be true.

While your fanciful speculative "good calculation" claim that there were 4.5 - 5 million was based on: complete ignorance of what the figures represented.

Richard Plinston

> Here in the UK, the market share of Windows Phone is actually just above 10% ... and growing. Given that about 75% of people in the UK have a smartphone, we can probably make a good calculation that the number of Windows Phone users in the UK is between 4.5million and 5million people.

One can see you oozing enthusiasm for the product, almost in a cultist way. Unfortunately you have made several gross errors.

> the market share ... just above 10%

Market share refers to sales over the counter. It will take a couple of years to transform that into a similar figure for ownership.

> Given that about 75% of people in the UK have a smartphone

Completely wrong.

"""Presently around 53% of the UK mobile-using population of 60m has a smartphone,"""

Note that the 60million is the total population. Other estimates are that around 50% of adults have a smartphone. So the total smartphone ownership is likely to be around 20million.

It is unlikely that there are as many as 1million WP phones in the UK.

Richard Plinston

> The sold a lot of 520s because you could buy one without contract for around $70 (less than 45£)

Which is probably less than the manufacturing cost before even adding on the WP licence fee.

Apple: You're a copycat! Samsung: This is really about Google, isn't it?

Richard Plinston

Re: @Martijn Bakker

> If you can point to one case where they've hired outsiders to write their software ...

Applesoft BASIC. They hired Microsoft to implement MS BASIC on Apple II.

Mac Office. Microsoft implemented it for Apple.

Partner firms: Microsoft kept Surface from you for YOUR OWN GOOD

Richard Plinston

> So let's be clear 1/10the number means MS have gained a toe hold in the market

It wasn't 1/10.

"""3.6 million Surface devices globally last year. [..] Apple sold nearly 31 million units of the iPad... in Q4."""

"""Sales of tablet computers surged to 195.4 million last year"""

So that would be less than 1/50.

Sticky Tahr-fy pudding: Ubuntu 14.04 slickest Linux desktop ever

Richard Plinston

Re: A slice off the top

> Of which Firefox gobbles 1¾" -

Try "Side Tabs" add-on.

It save vertical space and the side space can be adjusted.