As predicted (by yours truly) six years ago, the rise and fall of “on-line data storage” should put the fear into dumb people. It is idiotic to store your company data on somebody else’s computer, no matter what promises they make. But to place it there via the Internet where it is vulnerable to hacks, crashes and plain old-fashioned snooping is pure reverse Darwinism. Read my lips: you have no business telling people on the Internet that your data even exists. If you must, imply you keep it in a manila envelope under the mayor’s door stoop, for Christ’s sake.In another repeat warning, be careful of any software company who’s lingo you do not understand. There is nothing, repeat nothing, about the software business that is new or mysterious. Every aspect has parallels in other industry and can be clearly explained in familiar terms. I know because that is my job. You don’t need “channel strategies”, “transition platforms” or “scale-centrics” if you run a half-decent operation. The software trades are known to report glowing sales records a month before declaring bankruptcy. (One outfit, MIS Group, actually pulled this off by posting notes on their website.) In a Catch 22, new software companies simply cannot have enough experience since they got out of school to back up their grandiose promises.
I find these upstart companies are ever more like cell phone plans. They can't increase your size of the pie, so they want money to slice it up differently even if doing so reveals their lack of hands-on in the business world.
Like many, I too, await the collapse of MicroSoft. Windows 7, the replacement for the disastrous Vista, should appear any time now. Repair shops are already gearing up for the kerschmozzle it will create and more billions will be wasted. It appears some unsuspecting types have not yet figured out that Microsoft intentionally cripples its own software so much that it has been outlawed in Europe. (The main reason is because MS refuses to give out enough information about the system to allow non-MS vendors to write compatible code. Technically, this is also illegal in America, but only technically because MS can afford better lawyers than the government.) I am certain I would feel differently if basic Windows cost a proper $40 instead of $399.99.
My prediction about the single most annoying features of Windows 7 are more gimp features a.k.a. “keyboard shortcuts” that cannot be disabled no how and still no command to move your cursor to the lower right corner of your spreadsheet. In fact, I give them permission to use the F11 and F12 keys, god knows they can’t figure it out on their own. Oddly, I think of MicroSoft whenever I bike near that doggie park over on Dixie & Pembroke. You can smell it a half-mile away. Boy, I’m really packing the pessimism into today’s material.
Wait, I have even more depressing news. Have you seen that TV commercial about the largest private data banks being medical records? They want to unify these into one big pot and you can guess who is behind that. I predict within 6 months of implementation we would begin to hear of citizens arrested for outstanding traffic warrants as they checked in at hospital emergency bleeding to death.
The potential for abuse will be utterly irresistible. Vigilantes argue that people should obey warrants. The counter-argument goes if they choose not to obey, that does not automatically, by itself, make it any business of the medical community. Or of yours. All patriots have a civic duty to protest arbitrary laws and in many cases, yes, that amounts to breaking them. Universal database? It's not like you’ve never bought a stolen newspaper at the intersection or leered at your daughter’s girlfriend.
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