Bill Gates: Hardware to Be Nearly Free in 10 Years

[MacBytes]

Category: Microsoft
Link: Bill Gates: Hardware to Be Nearly Free in 10 Years (http://www.macbytes.com/link.php?sid=20040330105437)
Posted on MacBytes.com (http://www.macbytes.com)

Approved by Mudbug

[cc bcc]

Windows licence fees is what you should worry about..

[wrldwzrd89]

Category: Microsoft
Link: Bill Gates: Hardware to Be Nearly Free in 10 Years (http://www.macbytes.com/link.php?sid=20040330105437)
Posted on MacBytes.com (http://www.macbytes.com)

Approved by Mudbug
A speech-based interface for Mac OS X, like what is described in the article, would be nifty. I hope Apple beats MS to it, though! Regarding the free hardware point, I have to disagree there. Hardware may be getting more powerful such that the bottleneck is changing, but that will NEVER eliminate the costs to develop that hardware.

[dukemeiser]

Gates also said advances in programing will allow software developers to create applications in less time by using visual representations of the inner workings of software rather than writing lines of programing code.

Don't we already have this right now?

[1macker1]

So I guess Macs will be 500 bucks!!!!

[machan]

so, if you go by the longhorn schedule, we'll actually have all those things in 20 years, right?

[settledown]

i read stuff like this, "6.8 BILLION in research", and I'm like.....forget it. Apple is screwed.

Apple should just JOIN MS. They could be MS's "Lexus, Mercedes" division.

Forgive me.

[mrsebastian]

i read stuff like this, "6.8 BILLION in research", and I'm like.....forget it. Apple is screwed.

Apple should just JOIN MS. They could be MS's "Lexus, Mercedes" division.

Forgive me.

uh, no.

[Longey Nowze]

i read stuff like this, "6.8 BILLION in research", and I'm like.....forget it. Apple is screwed.

Apple should just JOIN MS. They could be MS's "Lexus, Mercedes" division.

Forgive me.

but what are they coming out with? its now how much you invest its how you invest it M$ R&D budget has been much bigger than apple's for a loooooooooooooong time! what improvements and innovations do you see from them?

[A@ron]

but what are they coming out with? its now how much you invest its how you invest it M$ R&D budget has been much bigger than apple's for a loooooooooooooong time! what improvements and innovations do you see from them?

<sarcasm>
The totally anoying use of registration verification and security holes you could drive a mac truck (or email virus) through? Do those count?
</sarcasm>

[nagromme]

Exactly. MS spends a ton of R&D money, but comes up with relatively little that's new and innovative for users. Rather, they come up with new ways to make money. Their two key focus areas seem to be:

1. Copying other companies' innovation. (Frequently Apple.)

2. Fixing bugs and holes in their bloated, flawed products.

MS does amazingly poorly on both counts.

And 10 years? That's just about time for Longhorn! :)

[mrsebastian]

"Microsoft is planning to spend $6.8 billion on research and development in its current business year to June, which Gates said will deliver many advancements in speech and other technology for Microsoft."

i'll tell you what m$, just gimmie the 6.8 and go [bleep] yourself. it's still m$ and you can give me all the speech recognition you want, but i can see it now... [voice command] "open email: free money. authentication, william gates 3"... followed by your peecee's reply, "you've just installed the latest and greatest virus, now with voice command for your convenience!"

[settledown]

ok,ok thank you for bringing me back to reality.....i SO want windows to fail. I had to install a printer on a dell today and my god..........


Curing world hunger is easier.

[1macker1]

U might not know what you doing.
I had to install a printer on a dell today and my god..........


Curing world hunger is easier.

[billyboy]

U might not know what you doing. He was talking about installing a printer, not writing speech recognition software- plugging and playing a printer in shouldnt take much knowledge.

[mrsebastian]

He was talking about installing a printer, not writing speech recognition software- plugging and playing a printer in shouldnt take much knowledge.

maybe m$ should invest that $6.8 billion into being able to plug and play on winblows, so folks won't have to deal with this kinda [bleep].

[solvs]

He was talking about installing a printer, not writing speech recognition software- plugging and playing a printer in shouldnt take much knowledge.

Exactly. You shouldn't have to know how to do it. You should just plug it in and it works. My PC loving friends don't understand that either.

You think Mac users are elitists, try talking to a Linux Guru. :rolleyes:

[JamesDPS]

maybe m$ should invest that $6.8 billion into being able to plug and play on winblows, so folks won't have to deal with this kinda [bleep].

but that would put a bunch of tech support folks (and maybe programmers) out of work. ;) Kind of like how income taxes will never be made simple -- the folks at the IRS and other tax specialists would be out of work, and I imagine that's a pretty big part of the job market... But back to the topic, this is also why people should never fear if it looks like technology is going to replace their job -- the technology itself always generates a lot more work.

[mrsebastian]

...But back to the topic, this is also why people should never fear if it looks like technology is going to replace their job -- the technology itself always generates a lot more work.

you got a darn good point ;)

[macridah]

If hardware goes down in price, then I also hope stupid MS software prices to do (not that i would use it). If anything, I think office has gotten more expensive through the years ... and it's because they have some companies are locked to M$ and they have no choice; they pay whatever M$ wants them to pay.

M$ office is almost $400 bucks, almost the cost of a generic dell. I bet most of the dell cost is the OS. What makes M$ software so expensive is the per user cost ... like for the server or sql server. If i were to start a company, macs and open source software all the way baby. To tell you the truth, appleworks is good enough for most people. Once an aqua openoffice port becomes available, then it's all over.

[Krizoitz]

it may get cheaper but I think it won't get nearly free. R&D costs will still exist, and advancements in technology will mean that new tech will cost more than old tech. Certainly tech we think of now might be dramatically cheaper (like the difference between the origianl 4 function calculator and the current $1 versions that are smaller, better, faster. But we will always be pushing technology to its limits so what we rely on now won't be as important.

[nubero]

i read stuff like this, "6.8 BILLION in research", and I'm like.....forget it. Apple is screwed.


And what did M$ produce in 2003? Windows Server 2003 and Office 2003. If you need 6.3 Billion to develop such bad apps, i'd say M$ is screwed...

And what did Apple do in 2003? The 17" PowerBook, the 12" PowerBook, iSight, 3rd generation iPod, iTunes Music Store, iTunes for Windows, Mac OS X Client AND Server, Final Cut Express... shall I go on?

I don't know what they do with those 6.3 Billion but alot of it gets into the trashcan it seems...

As for what Gates said on Hardware cost... Didn't he also say "640k oughta be enough for everybody" some time ago? :p
And then he comes with a "vision", that in the next ten years, computers will recognize voice...

Wow! :eek: Who would have thought of that? :p

I don't know what makes me sader: Listening to his "visions" or seeing that people actually write down what he says, publish it and then act as if they met the great inventor.


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[billyboy]

And what did M$ produce in 2003? Windows Server 2003 and Office 2003. If you need 6.3 Billion to develop such bad apps, i'd say M$ is screwed...

And what did Apple do in 2003? The 17" PowerBook, the 12" PowerBook, iSight, 3rd generation iPod, iTunes Music Store, iTunes for Windows, Mac OS X Client AND Server, Final Cut Express... shall I go on?



I dont suppose Apple started working on all that on Jan 1st 2003! but yes, when you put it like that, Apple is amazing. Perhaps MS should just pay Apple a billion to do their R&D and distribute the other 5 billion between Mac users who promise not to tell Windows users that plug n play printers are possible.

[mrgreen4242]

I bet most of the dell cost is the OS.

The license for Windows XP Home Edition for a major manufacturer like Dell is roughly $45. I can't recall eactly where I read this, but it was a reliable news type agency. There was a lot of question about this when people started sueing to get $199 back from PC purchases bundled with WinXP, and manfacturers stating that they didn't pay the full $199, but were not able to say how much they do pay based on potential contract violations.

I would be willing to bet that Mac users pay more for the OS than Windows users do. Get what you pay for, dort of thing, I s'pose. (It'd be really hard to quantify how much OSX costs, since it only comes from Apple, and it only comes on systems they produce, and they don't sell it to anyone else. They charge more for upgrades than MS does, but the initial cost of OSX is simply built into the system. I guess the only way to say how much OSX costs is to take the cost of hardware, assembly, shipping, bundled fixed rate software - Appleworks, iLife, etc - and various logistics/support costs, subtract that amount from what the system costs, and then take the remainder and try and estimate out how much of it is profit and how much OSX).

[timmyOtool]

The hardware is cheap or free, but the software cost much more. Probably monthly charges like cable, the functionality is alreadly built into winblows xp. the over all cost for most users will sky rocket because they no longer own the software in the sence that to keep using it you have to keep paying.

[idkew]

didn't billy once say we would never need more than 64mb or RAM or something stupid like that?

[nubero]

didn't billy once say we would never need more than 64mb or RAM or something stupid like that?

640 Kilobyte… that's even more than 64 MB in Bill's eyes :p
But i already wrote that in this thread…

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[idkew]

640 Kilobyte… that's even more than 64 MB in Bill's eyes :p
But i already wrote that in this thread…

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My free Desktop Pictures!
http://homepage.mac.com/nuber

ah- sorry, didn't feel like reading the entire thread. but, as we see, great minds think alike.