Personally I doubt it but it’s out there along with news about SP1 for Vista and SP3 for XP. Have you heard of the new TLD’s with foreign character sets? Listen to this!
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Top level domain character sets
I agree with John, English is the international business language – no English means no international business. Many Chinese companies cannot directly handle their export business because of this so they are forced to go through a trading company. Finding fluent English speaking office workers in China is like finding condom vending machines at the Vatican.
Company web sites in a local language domain character set means these companies automatically get filtered out of the international arena – not good if they intended to export – so no change for the export companies.
For the domestic sales companies using a local language domain character set is great step forward for international business people having these companies filtered out of their searches. Why not?
For NON business web sites in a local language domain character sets makes logical sense – so why not?
Cheers
Non-english character sets would make it even more difficult surfing non-english porn sites. At least on mouse-over the internal pages tend to read in English on the status bar.
Besides, in another seventy-five years or so English speakers will most likely be just another subset of the sounds that humans make. My vote for the next dominant language? A toss-up: Spanish or Chinese. If I had sufficient remaining lifespan Calligraphy would be an interesting study.
It comes to no surprise that Microsoft will not continue with Windows XP service packs after Sp3. This happened with Windows 2000 with the last service pack Sp4. Even still there was a ‘Roll Up 1’ which is the final release of Windows 2000 Sp4 and Win2000 is supported through to 2010. If that can be used as a metre stick WinXP should be supported to at least 2013.
http://tinyurl.com/86v3n
Perhaps WinXP Sp3 will incorporate DX10 for all the gamers out there? 😀
No surprise about Vista Sp1. I think this is normal update from real world feedback not possible through BETA testing.
Cheers
#2 “At least on mouse-over the internal pages tend to read in English on the status bar.”
Only if they use English – that can change.
If you learn Spanish did you know Italian is only a hop away…
Chinese? Speaking is hard enough as standard Mandarin Chinese uses 4 pitched tones to change the meaning of a syllable. An interesting explanation regarding Mandarin Chinese tones can be found here
http://tinyurl.com/89qdr
Traditional Cantonese spoken in HK and south China has 9 tones but now it is 6. (Cantonese what Americans think all Chinese speak, it sounds quite different) See this web for more details.
http://tinyurl.com/ykwj2m
These tones get me in trouble real fast as example in Chinese “Hao Chi” means “Good Food” but it can also mean “Good Shit” by only changing the tone. Opps : /
I would do the Spanish! 😉
Cheers
So who will be the courageous first person to install XP SP3? What will it do – disable XP, leaving a “Buy Vista, sucker!” message on the screen?
I think I’ll wait a while…
#5 Use Norton “Go Back” in stead which images your HDD drive on the go. If you don’t like the results its easy just go back.
I use Go back all the time if I install something that proves to be not what I want. Go back gives you the option to recover any data files your created after the ‘go back’. 😉
Cheers
#7 Right you are…the mother tongue it seems! 🙂
“I see Mandarin as the emerging language”
Never happen – but I can understand why you think that way..
In the 80’s everyone thought that Japanese would be the emerging language…and (fart sound). The Japanese moved to China.
Give China about 10 more years and the shift of manufacturing will already be well on its way to India and I predict Indonesia as well. So Wall Mart will be selling Made in India, less China.
Also in the 70-80’s it was common to see Made in Hong Kong labels – but that has since faded away…but not really the HK companies just moved to China and later to India.
This move is because China is becoming more and more expensive for manufacturing. There are many Chinese companies now looking to India to set up shop. There is a wave that is growing. India is where China was about 15 years ago with manufacturing.
The Chinese currency has appreciated greatly recently and is still going. In 2006 the exchange was about 8.2RMB = 1USD. Now it is 7.5RMB – I predict by 2008 it will be pushing 6.8RMB. Partly because the RMB is pegged to the USD which is weak but mainly the RMB is undervalued. The true value of the RMB my guess is about 6.3RMB. Good for Chinese importers, bad for Chinese exporters.
Indians don’t have the English problems that China has – thanks to the British. So there will be a greater direct export potential than with Chinese companies that have to export via a trading company – as I said before.
Well that’s my take.
Cheers
I cant remember when i got an update last for my xp, and it works fine, i aint getting sp 3 no way, i would be surprised if it did ruin the system, i am sure they want to make xp as bad as vista so it doesnt matter if you switch.
I still think Vista SP1 is only being released to convince corporations and other cautious people it’s OK to upgrade to Vista.
I’d be surprised if there were any significant improvements. I expect to see nothing but the bug fixes that are already available for download and a couple of bells and whistles for show.
Thinking back to the corporate uproar that kept Win98 alive for a few more years, I wonder if the same sort of backlash will happen with XP, which is now reasonably stable?
I also wonder how often Micro$oft can screw their base of corporate customers and still get away with it? Surely they’re going to revolt one of these days?
From all I hear about Vista, if I wanted a computer that didn’t play nice on networks, and had driver and application support issues, I’d go Linux. If they want to do the same thing to xp (the “wrecking it with sp3” conspiracy theory) they can be my guest. (And, no flames, I kid – I run Linux myself – I see Microsoft’s quick phase out of xp as a driver for Linux growth – because xp is the most mature and widely used OS nowadays, and Vista really isn’t ready for prime time – its MS’s first clear failure as an OS – I mean, even ME was just long in the tooth and followed too closely by xp to matter to anyone – but who can buy a new xp licence anymore? Just one, not one hundred)
If the major software producers sold software for Linux, then Microsoft is out. But so long as you can’t get a reasonable priced compiler to make pretty stuff for a Linux GUI, windows is pretty secure.
Language, I would say Spanish as the most capable language, but it will be English, world wide, no matter how hard the French fight it. Even in Quebec where you can be arrested if your a shop owner and put up a sign with English letters larger than the French ones, air traffic controllers still have to use English to direct traffic.
Why English, who peddles the most TV and radio entertainment?
#14 – pedro
I tend to agree with you, although not all corporations are large enough to have Volume License Keys and not all businesses are corporations. If Micro$oft just “switches off” Windows XP, there’s going to be an immense howl of outrage from a lot of businesses, governments and of course, least important of all, individual end-users.
I could be wrong, I know but I think that howl is going to be very, very loud, the bigger corporations are going to start thinking about what you just said and I just wonder if Micro$oft is going to be able to ignore the outrage.
Maybe – maybe not.
#7 Not just Germany – EU, but you are correct there is a lot of German Investment here that I see.
Chinese started creating because of foreign companies opening up factories in China essentially teaching them.
By the time India kicks in China will already be expanding its domestic consumption so it makes sense to manufacture where it is cheaper. This happened to Japan, Taiwan and so on. China pot is big – it takes a longer time for it to boil.
Chinese language dominating the world? Maybe Tattoos and trendy gear but as I said Japanese never took off and that is a hell of a lot easier to learn than Chinese. 😉
Cheers
#14 – MS will simply stop activating XP
How will that stop me from activating XP?
MS isn’t in charge. The Underground is.
Sure, I’ll get around to Vista when DX10 becomes an issue for me. Until then, its a superfluous upgrade and XP is rock solid.
And by the way, my copies are paid for… I hacked them anyway. And I still get updates and no interruption in service.