Technology Run Amuck

Technology Run Amuck

Brian Lamb, over at C-Span seems to be telling us something. On Friday the 14th he rebroadcast two sessions of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee from July 12, 2005, not once, but twice on C-Span2 and once on C-Span3.

One session was devoted to Digital Television Must-Carry and Multitasking while the other was devoted to Digital Television Household Transition and Spectrum, both fairly technical discussions. Each session was designed to deal with a slightly different aspect of the transition from analog television to digital television.

Brian Lamb was telling us that we've got trouble, my friends, in the good old U.S. of A. He normally doesn't resurrect old broadcasts unless he believes them to be very important. And these were important -- when you take the interests of the broadcast television, the cable companies, the satellite companies and then mix in the Computer and the Internet people, you have a technical jungle that no politician will be able to understand.

I have been pressing for a technology summit, a 9/11 Commission sort of thing, to dig into the Personal Computer and the Internet. After watching the exchange of gobble-de-gook in those sessions, I have come to believe that technical matters can no longer be left to the exclusive control of the participants -- they are just too damn greedy and will play too many technical games with the untrained -- including you and I as consumers.

The Senators seem well intentioned, they want reasonably priced service available to all; however, it won't happen without getting tough with the various interests. For example, I live in an apartment on the northeast corner of the building. I can't see the satellites, so am stuck with cable -- and you can just imagine what they are doing about service and pricing. There is no effective competition. The building used to have a community antenna, but that deteriorated and was removed when they fixed the roof -- not enough usage.

I don't know the answers, but we sure need to talk about it.

Doug Skoglund - skoglund@pdmsb.com

You may use my SAMail to contact me or put a [MYWAY] in the subject line.

Where do we go from here

Following is posted in reaction to post, Wednesday October 12, 2005, at http://minimsft.blogspot.com

Where do we go from here?

I don't work for Microsoft; however, I am a dedicated Windows programmer, with enough experience to know that you need to address the cause of a problem if you wish to solve it. All the things you list are symptoms, or you might call them lower level causes. You must address the ultimate cause if you want to see changes, because he built the monster and only he can change the monster.

Someway or another, we, you insiders and us outsiders must create a religious experience for Mr. Gates -- the sort of thing that can make him take a hard look at what he is doing, or not doing. He must wake up to the fact that Microsoft is on a long, long, downward spiral, a tail-spin, so to speak -- and as anyone that flies, knows, you don't get out of a tail-spin with continued back pressure on the stick. You must use forward pressure, something that seems un-natural at the time.

Microsoft has lost customer trust -- and trust can not be regained by the PR department -- It can only be earned, by how the company treats it's customers, it's vendors and it's employees. When Mr. Gates starts trusting the world and changes behavior -- only then will the world start trusting him and his company.

Microsoft must negotiate a new settlement with the DOJ and the EU -- Unbundle Windows -- Drop XP activation -- Build a secure O/S -- Replace Windows 2000 -- Fire the PR department -- I think that you get the idea.

BTW, I have some software that I believe would give Mr. Gates that religious experience -- http://pdmsb.com.

Good Luck
Doug Skoglund - skoglund@pdmsb.com

You may use my SAMail to contact me or put a [MYWAY] in the subject line.