>>> Why would it be a surprise that IBM is more profitable than Apple?
>>
>> Because, last I heard, the company was in severe financial trouble and
>> was close to being liquidated. To go from that to being one of the most
>> profitable companies on Earth is a pretty big turn-around.
>
> "Last you heard" was in the 80s, and you heard wrong.

OK, fair enough. But given that they were once a big name that everybody 
knew and talked about, and now nobody ever mentions their name, it's not 
surprising that I got the impression that they weren't doing so well.

> Survived what? The Exxon Valdez disaster was a mere footnote in their
> history.

One of the worst, most infamous ecological catastrophes in human 
history, and it's a "mere footnote"?? How did it not end their 
existence? How did they not get sued off the face of creation?

> Don't base your financial knowledge on Kevin Costner movies.

There's a movie?

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On 08/06/2011 01:49 PM, Warp wrote:

>    I didn't mean to say that Microsoft has explicitly complained about
> Linux's market share being too large. On the contrary, they (read: Steve
> Ballmer) always remember to proudly proclaim how Windows is the most
> popular OS by a large margin (iow. argument ad populum).
>
>    It's their actions and FUD campaigns against free software in general and
> Linux in particular that give the clear impression that they are worried
> about Linux's market share, especially in large companies, web servers and
> such. They clearly see Linux (rather than, say, Mac OS X) as their worst
> competitor, especially on those markets, and they seem to be quite eager
> to do whatever is necessary to dissuade companies from switching to Linux.

The Halloween Documents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Documents

(Damnit, you have /no idea/ how long it just took me to remember WTF 
those are called!)

Clearly the official line of "we're not worried about Linux at all" is 
untrue. Or at least, it was. (The documents are quite old now.)

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> OK, fair enough. But given that they were once a big name that everybody 
> knew and talked about, and now nobody ever mentions their name, it's not 
> surprising that I got the impression that they weren't doing so well.

  A change in domain (from desktop computers to servers and other such
more "hidden" technological services) doesn't mean they are dying. It just
means they are less visible on shop selves and people's desktops.

> > Survived what? The Exxon Valdez disaster was a mere footnote in their
> > history.

> One of the worst, most infamous ecological catastrophes in human 
> history, and it's a "mere footnote"?? How did it not end their 
> existence?

  Accidents happen. Why should it end the existence of a multi-billion dollar
company?

> How did they not get sued off the face of creation?

  Suing someone for an accident seldom has any significant effect on
anything.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 08/06/2011 02:36 PM, Warp wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> OK, fair enough. But given that they were once a big name that everybody
>> knew and talked about, and now nobody ever mentions their name, it's not
>> surprising that I got the impression that they weren't doing so well.
>
>    A change in domain (from desktop computers to servers and other such
> more "hidden" technological services) doesn't mean they are dying. It just
> means they are less visible on shop selves and people's desktops.

OK, that's fair enough. But I also heard a lot of stuff about how they 
weren't doing so well. That combined with a gradual lack of visibility 
certainly doesn't /look/ very healthy. (As evidenced here, it's not 
conclusive though.)

>> One of the worst, most infamous ecological catastrophes in human
>> history, and it's a "mere footnote"?? How did it not end their
>> existence?
>
>    Accidents happen. Why should it end the existence of a multi-billion dollar
> company?

The way I remember it, it wasn't just an accident. There were serious 
questions of negligence involved.

>    Suing someone for an accident seldom has any significant effect on
> anything.

I guess if people thought that, nobody would get sued...

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> writes:

>> Survived what? The Exxon Valdez disaster was a mere footnote in their
>> history.
>
> One of the worst, most infamous ecological catastrophes in human
> history, and it's a "mere footnote"?? How did it not end their
> existence? How did they not get sued off the face of creation?

Because they figured out how not to pay as much in damages as they were
ordered to.

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On 6/8/2011 5:49, Warp wrote:
> Linux in particular that give the clear impression that they are worried
> about Linux's market share,

OK, fair enough. Yes, I've seen that. Thanks for clarifying.


-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 6/8/2011 6:20, Invisible wrote:
> and now nobody ever mentions their name,

It's on signs on pretty much every street corner here. ;-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 6/8/2011 5:49 AM, Warp wrote:
> Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom>  wrote:
>> On 6/7/2011 3:40, Warp wrote:
>>>     Microsoft, the fourth most profitable company in the world, and they
>>> whine and moan about Linux's market share and how free software is killing
>>> the industry.
>
>> You know, I've never actually seen MS complain about Linux market share.
>> They FUD about GNU licensing and such, and dis the OS and all, but I've
>> never heard them "complain". Can you post a link next time you run across
>> what you're talking about here?
>
>    I didn't mean to say that Microsoft has explicitly complained about
> Linux's market share being too large. On the contrary, they (read: Steve
> Ballmer) always remember to proudly proclaim how Windows is the most
> popular OS by a large margin (iow. argument ad populum).
>
Shouldn't that actually be like "argument ad preinstallum"? lol

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On 6/8/2011 8:32 AM, Neeum Zawan wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  writes:
>
>>> Survived what? The Exxon Valdez disaster was a mere footnote in their
>>> history.
>>
>> One of the worst, most infamous ecological catastrophes in human
>> history, and it's a "mere footnote"?? How did it not end their
>> existence? How did they not get sued off the face of creation?
>
> Because they figured out how not to pay as much in damages as they were
> ordered to.
Which, in most of these cases, means, "As little as possible for the 
court to charge them, without actually doing anything that would keep 
them from making the same mistake again." The Coch brother's companies 
are sued over environmental issues, and fined, on an almost yearly basis 
too, their response is to funnel an equal, or more, money into right 
wing think tanks, to go to congress and babble about how they don't need 
the EPA, and all those damn regulations are unnecessary. Its pretty cost 
effective. Pay a few million in fines, funnel ten million to 
professional liars, and rake in billions from your actual products. They 
probably pay more to take lunch in Paris, by flying there in a private 
jet, than they get charged for the violating anything. Until that 
changes, and companies have to pay real money, that actually damages the 
business... But, seriously, they know they can have problems, and they 
spend more time figuring out how much they can afford to pay out, to 
appear contrite, than they do *actually* developing safety programs, or 
making sure equipment works, or watching out for the possibility that 
their workers are drunk off their asses.

After all, they have half the government on their side, to lie about how 
it really hurt them to pay out a few million, how *unfair* it is to make 
them follow rules, and/or pay 35% taxes, down from nearly 50% in the 
50s, and they should instead only have to pay 25% (then loop hole that 
into 1%, or even 0%). Where have we heard that logic before? Oh, right, 
back when a major insurance company:

1. Bought out the company that determined average costs for medical 
treatment.
2. Had them inflate the costs.
3. Got sued
4. Paid out money to create a new alternate company for that, while 
being allowed to keep their own, they opted to *not* use, so that the 
result was that they *still* used inflated prices.
5. Argued, 20 years later, that it was *unfair* that people had to only 
pay 25% over and above what it actually cost to be treated (based on 
their inflated costs), and no, the insured should be paying 35% of the 
bill. A charge that "originally" was only charged to you *if* the cost 
of the doctor you went to was *higher* than the average cost, nation 
wide, but slowly crept up to 10%, then 15%, then 20%, then 25%, then 
finally, "Oh, congress! Poor us! Its bankrupting us to have to pay 75% 
of the bill!"

Same stupid shit. Don't tax us what they did 50 years ago, and, let us 
charge 100% over what we would have, in the same time period, for a 
service we will turn around and tell people they don't qualify for in 
the first place (not just insurance mind, but everyone from your 
computer maker, to your phone company, to cell companies, etc., all of 
whom want to charge you for shit that was free, or is even more trivial 
to provide now than it was 60 years ago, but which would, "bankrupt 
them", if they didn't charge you extra for every damn little thing, 
while then turning around, and in the same year, getting bloody hundred 
million dollar "tax refunds" from the government, possibly on top of 
free money they already got, as "incentives" to supposedly make things 
cheaper, instead of continually raising the frakking prices on us, and 
charging you if they accidentally left pocket lint in the new shorts you 
bought (an added feature/commodity, don't cha know).

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>>>> Why would it be a surprise that IBM is more profitable than Apple?
>>>
>>> Because, last I heard, the company was in severe financial trouble and
>>> was close to being liquidated. To go from that to being one of the most
>>> profitable companies on Earth is a pretty big turn-around.
>>
>> "Last you heard" was in the 80s, and you heard wrong.
>
> OK, fair enough. But given that they were once a big name that everybody
> knew and talked about, and now nobody ever mentions their name, it's not
> surprising that I got the impression that they weren't doing so well.

They're still a pretty big name.  Just because you haven't heard from 
them doesn't mean no one has.  You've heard of Thinkpad latops, haven't 
you?  They spun off that division 5 years ago because, while it was 
profitable, it wasn't profitable enough...  This means their server 
divisions, application divisions, as well as their service offerings 
were even more succesful.

Every single developped country's government uses IBM mainframes.
Every single bank in the world still uses IBM mainframes.
Every single insurance compnay in the world still uses IBM mainframes.
Every single airline in the world still uses IBM mainframes.
Most of the Fortune 1000 companies have IBM mainframes (Google is 
probably one of the very few exceptions)

Most of the above will have hundreds of P-Series (AIX) servers, AS/400s, 
And intel-based servers made by IBM.  Not to mention use various Tivoli 
monitoring tools, Websphere applications platforms, and in many case, 
Lotus Notes for internal e-mail.

Also, watch this, when you have 15 minutes of spare time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39jtNUGgmd4

>
>> Survived what? The Exxon Valdez disaster was a mere footnote in their
>> history.
>
> One of the worst, most infamous ecological catastrophes in human
> history, and it's a "mere footnote"?? How did it not end their
> existence? How did they not get sued off the face of creation?
>

You've heard of appeals courts?  Exxon has yet to pay a single cent of 
what they were fined, and even when they finally do, it will not harm 
them in the long run.  Their fine has been capped at $507M, which is 
roughly their profits for one week (they made $30B in profits last year).

Oh, and by the way, the Bhopal disaster hadn't killed Union Carbide 
before they were bought out by Dow Chemicals, and last summer's 
Deepwater Horizon tragedy will not kill BP, either.  It's sad, but it's 
the truth.

>> Don't base your financial knowledge on Kevin Costner movies.
>
> There's a movie?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114898/

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