Microsoft has become environment friendly?
Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer says it is but a US IT services company, Softchoice, disagrees. In a survey by Softchoice of 113,000 desktops from over 400 US organisations, 50 percent of the machines wouldn't be able to meet the basic Vista requirements. This being the case, Tony Roberts, chief executive of Computer Aid International, warned that Vista could lead to a glut of unwanted PCs entering the waste stream as users are forced to upgrade their hardware.
Roberts continued that as many as 10 million PCs may be discarded in the next two years as they are replaced by Vista-compatible hardware.
Meanwhile, the UK's Green Party has also criticised Vista for requiring "more expensive and energy-hungry hardware, passing the cost on to consumers and the environment".
Speaking for the Green Party, Derek Wall stated that: Vista requires more expensive and energy-hungry hardware, passing the cost on to consumers and the environment... This will also further exclude the poor from the latest technology, and impose burdensome costs on small and medium businesses who will be forced to enter another expensive upgrade cycle.
As earlier stated by the British Computer Society, "PCs contain many toxic components, so if they end up in a landfill we are creating a real problem for the future. It can be really easy to pass on the old machine to be reused, and if it's beyond use, to recycle it."
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Microsoft's Chief Exec says Gates's company is thinking green
Monday, February 25, 2008
Microsoft to Open Source: You Win
Microsoft finally admitted defeat to the open source community. This, in a way, is in compliance with the pressures from the European Union. As a result, according to the Web Worker Daily, "Microsoft will be releasing today at MSDN.com over 30,000 pages of API and communication protocol developer information on its major products: Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007; with more info coming by June on Windows Vista (including the .NET Framework), Office 2007 and Office SharePoint 2007."
For more of the report, read here or here.
Monday, February 18, 2008
The Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy — and Their Open Source Alternatives
By Jimmy Atkinson
Not every proprietary program can drive a person crazy, right? Some, like Norton Ghost, are superb tools for anyone to use. But, the fact that these tools are proprietary can drive open source fanatics up a wall. It’s not the price of the software that makes the real difference (although it’s a reason to migrate from one software to another for many people); it’s the idea that proprietary software comes with boundaries that keeps the user experience confined to…well, being the user. That’s enough to drive any developer crazy.
Read more>>>
