Intel LaGrande

[dep]

begin  Pam R's  quote:

| Surely what is good for MS is good for the USA, and what is good
| for the USA is just what the rest of the world really really wants?

your predicate assumption is in error, and your conclusion, while 
correct if the rest of the world wanted what was good for it, is 
wrong also.

| But seriously, it will be interesting to see how this pans out over
| the next few years. As I see it the availability of free downloads
| of 'illegal' music & videos is perhaps the main reason that people
| are buying the latest and greatest hardware. If you always have to
| pay for a video then surely it is more sensible to play it on a
| standard DVD player which costs what, $100?, rather than on a $1000
| computer.

interesting, the idea that the reason most people buy computers is so 
that they can engage in illegal activity. you would make a good 
democrat senator!

| So if Palladium and the various acronymic acts of legislation take
| off the computer box manufacturers could face a bleak future, but
| remember that they are located in countries like China and will do
| everything they can to sell product. In their eyes what the
| customer wants is what he gets, a good example of this being the
| effective smashing of DVD regional coding because virtually every
| DVD player you can buy these days is multi-region - because _that_
| is what the customer wants.

computer sales are already *way* down, hence the extremely low 
margins. but there is an additional problem with your reasoning: 
palladium is as if television broadcasts were to be changed such that 
only new and proprietary televisions could receive them. no matter 
how low others price their televisions, if they will no longer be 
good for receiving television signals it will not matter. that is why 
a monopoly confounds the free market; otherwise, your appraisal would 
largely be accurate. this is entirely beside the issue of whether or 
not it is illegal to own one of the old-style televisions.

| What interesting times we live in.

indeed.

-- 
dep

http://www.linuxandmain.com -- outside the box, barely within the 
envelope, and no animated paperclip anywhere.