In 1992 Nintendo won a lawsuit against Atari and was able to lock-out third-party software vendors from providing games for its gaming systems unless they purchased a key (license). Since then the Holy Grail of gaming, smartphone and now computer system companies was to bring to market systems where they had control of every third-party device and program for that systems. By control, I mean, they get paid an upfront licensing fee, a per-unit sold payment or both.

The market has shifted to the point where all of the available gaming consoles operate that way. Today, if you buy an Xbox 360, Sony PS3, Sony PSP, Nintendo Wii, etc. you’re only going to be able to purchase software and hardware from licensed developers.

Compelling customers to purchase all products and services related to the base product from the original manufacturer is not unique to the computing industry. Through various means everyone from razor manufacturers to auto makers utilize the practice to varying degrees. As companies have discovered they can lock out competition for those add-on sales through technology and the courts it has grown more and more prevalent.

At times the consumer may benefit, at least initially, from this practice. Many manufacturers will price the base item lower than they normally would. Of course, they expect to make more money once the purchaser begins making additional purchases.

In addition, there are some that will argue that the original manufacturer is also the best possible entity for checking add-on products for stability and compatibility. That’s potentially true if that’s really being done. Unfortunately, there’s more than enough evidence to indicate that there really isn’t a lot of stability testing going on before items are released.

So, let’s talk about the downsides; Recently, Sony’s ineptitude at standard network security highlighted a huge issue. If the only place you can purchase software or receive necessary services goes down for any reason the device you have may become little more than a paper weight. What happens to iOS customers if Apple’s App Store or iTunes is brought down for any extended period?

Many of Sony’s PlayStation Network customers recently went without online play for weeks after Sony was unable or unwilling to secure its network. Many of Sony’s customers were angry about the outage and Sony’s lack of care with their personal information; some even brought a class-action lawsuit.

Well, if you can’t hire quality systems security professionals the next best thing is to hire good lawyers. Sony has decided to change their PlayStation Network License to disallow any further class action lawsuits. That type of clause isn’t all that unusual, many companies would rather have all complaints brought against them be heard by arbitrators. Let’s just say that companies don’t lose very often when the Judge owes his income to that company. But, when a company changes their terms and demands all existing customers either accept the new terms or stop using the service it becomes what we lawyer types call a contract of adhesion. That’s a contract where one side has all the bargaining power and the only choice the other side has is to agree or leave.

If you’re purchasing a piece of software and you don’t like the license terms you generally have the right to return the software. While you may be unhappy you really haven’t been hurt financially. But, can that be said for someone who has invested hundreds of dollars in a PlayStation system? If you don’t agree to Sony’s new rules you’re now unable to participate in the service that very well may have been the reason you purchased the system and because the system is closed there’s no other place to procure those types of services.

Okay, so that doesn’t bother you. There are too many class action lawsuits and the network outage wasn’t Sony’s fault anyway…how should they have known there were hackers out there? Let’s walk down the path of closed systems a bit further. As I wrote earlier the primary reason for these types of systems is to increase profits to the company. One of the ways a company makes money is by extending the sales life of products.

During the 1990s Microsoft was found to have acted in an anti-competitive way towards several of its competitors most notably a web browser company called Netscape. Microsoft allegedly engaged in unfair technical hurdles, bundling and sales tactics to slow and block Netscape (and others) from selling their products meant to run on Windows. With a closed system it becomes much easier. If a company comes up with the next big thing to run on your system you either delay approval of the technology until your competing product is improved or don’t approve it at all. They can also force companies to remove features from their product to make them less desirable (Apple recently forced all eBook apps to remove the built-in links to their book stores).

Finally, the tin-hat crowd out there claims an even bigger risk. Corporations can use their control over the system to censor apps and content they find objectionable or promote content they believe to be in their best interest. Few would complain if the capability is used to block child pornography, but what if it is utilized to promote a political agenda that’s favorable to the corporation? Or censor something they find to be unfavorable (Apple recently removed an App that highlighted serious problems with one of their manufacturing partners, Foxconn Technology Group).

The market leader in smartphone OS is currently Google’s Android which is an open system. Google does provide its own market, but competitive stores are also available, including one by Amazon. It’s also relatively easy to install apps from other sources (side loading). Unfortunately, Google really doesn’t have a competitive answer to MacOS or Windows. Chrome OS is available, but the early versions leave much to be desired. Google will have to find a way to provide a platform that works well throughout the computing spectrum or find itself forced out of the operating system market.

I like choice. I like being able to buy my software from a wide variety of vendors. I like that a couple of people working in their garage can still come up with a revolutionary piece of software and be able to distribute it without the current market leader having the right of review and refusal. I believe things are headed in the wrong direction for the consumer and I hope others begin to see the problems we’re facing and make smart choices going forward.

Filed in categories: Android related, Articles, iPhone, iPad, iPod related, Windows Mobile related

Tagged: Android, Desktop, ecosystem, iOS, Mobile, operating system, Windows

Technology Ecosystems – Good for Profits, Bad for Consumers originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 22, 2011 at 11:00 am.

I wish I could say that this was a labor of love for readers, but I recently became so disgusted with the poor performance of my HP laptop, that I was determined to gain some of the spec performance promised me when I bought it. What I wound up with is 3 different operating systems installed on one laptop in one day. What you wind up with is the bottom line, most brief insight into real world performance of these three Microsoft offerings.

Almost exactly a year ago, I purchased a HP DV2715nr laptop. I had just changed employers and turned my beautiful Dell 12.1” back in, and for the first time in over 15 years on the road, I was going to be anchored in an office and would not be receiving a shiny new laptop courtesy of someone else’s hardware budget. Knowing I could not do without a laptop for sofa surfing, I quickly snapped up a good deal on this unit. I wasn’t expecting to play Quake 3 on it, but I did expect it to perform at least as well as my 2 year old Dell had. And I did expect it to at least play the included Vista games. Boy was I wrong.

Machine Specifications

Model Number: DV2715nr

Microprocessor:  1.9 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-58

Microprocessor Cache:  512KB+512KB L2 Cache

Memory:  2048 MB (2 x 1024 MB)

Memory Max:  Up to 4 GB

Video Graphics:  NVIDIA GeForce 7150M

Video Memory:  Up to 799 MB

Hard Drive:  160 GB (5400RPM)

Multimedia Drive:  LightScribe Super Multi 8X DVD±RW with Double Layer Support

Display:  14.1″ WXGA High-Definition BrightView Widescreen Display (1280 x 800)

Fax/Modem:  High speed 56K modem

Network Card:  Integrated 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN

Wireless Connectivity:  802.11b/g WLAN

Sound : Altec Lansing speakers

Keyboard:  101-key compatible & 2 Quick Launch Buttons

Pointing Device:  Touch Pad with On/Off button and dedicated vertical and horizontal Scroll Up/Down 

PC Card: Slots  One ExpressCard 5/4 slot (also supports ExpressCard3/4)  

External Ports:  5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Reader for Secure Digital cards, MultiMedia cards, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, or xD Picture cards, 3 Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0, 2 Headphone out, 1 microphone-in, 1 VGA (15-pin), 1 TV-Out (S-video), 1 RJ-11 (modem)1 RJ -45 (LAN), 1 notebook expansion port 3, 1 IEEE 1394 Firewire (4-pin), 1 Consumer IR

Dimensions;  13.15″ (L) x 9.33″ (W) x 1.02″ (min H) /1.54″ (max H)

Weight:  5.25lbs

Security  Kensington lock

Power-on password

Accepts 3rd party security lock devices 

Power  65W AC Adapter

6-Cell Lithium-Ion battery 

What’s In The Box : WebCam with Integrated Microphone, Mobile Stereo Earbud Headphones (1 pair), HP Mobile Remote Control

Back Story

As you can see, the specs say this thing should be a decent performer, at least a year ago it looked good. The one thing I was looking for in this price range was a decent graphics chipset. I briefly looked into the Geforce 7150m, and from the specs, I should be able to play sim games like Age of Empires, Civilization, or Sim City.

Let me just go ahead and put the ugly truth out there. The specification for the video chipset, 7150m and up to 799 available shared ram, is a lie. Plain and simple. I believe this spec is absolutely 100% intentionally misleading, and HP should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for misleading the consumer, and the frustrated hundreds that I’ve run into on forums and bulletin boards, trying to get this notebook to perform as it should, based on the spec. HP should send everyone who bought this model laptop a brand new notebook that performs, today, without question.

After a year of trying to solve this problem I discovered that this notebook does not have a 7150m graphics chipset, at least per Nvidia spec. What it has is an intentionally crippled and orphan, HP test tube MCP67m. The graphics chip was hard locked by the manufacturer to run at 100mhz memory speed as opposed to the 425mhz spec on the 7150m. The maximum memory you can throw at this thing is 128mb as opposed to the 799mb promised.

So to sum up, this graphics chip is not as promised by HP in writing. It runs at only about 24% of its specified memory speed, and is capable of being allocated only 16% of the shared memory promised. The only reason I can think of as to why they would do this is to help a heat issue. Even at the anemic speed this chipset runs at, this laptop gets blazing hot on the bottom. And the hotter it gets, the slower the system gets.

There is no software trick to unlock this chip, not from Nvidia, HP, or any 3rd party. There is no driver or chip tuner in the world that will make this chip perform as promised. So essentially, what I have in this notebook is the best performing graphics chipset available approximately 10-12 years ago. This thing is so horrible a graphics performer that it struggles to open web browser windows, play video, or even play the chess game that came as a part of Vista. And it was billed as a multimedia performer.

I’m always careful to look at both sides of a piece of hardware from a manufacturer, and be fair. What I have stated about this notebook and HP’s marketing of it may seem harsh and unfair. I assure you it is not, it is simply the truth I have experienced, after hours and hours and countless more hours of investigation into, and work on, the matter.  And although I have been personally affected by it, I stand 100% behind my estimate of it as objective fact.

This is why I spent 10 hours yesterday; installing 3 different operating systems on this notebook, and why the result is something I think is worthy of sharing, and is the basis for this article.

Windows Vista Performance

This laptop came with Vista, I had purchased it at a time when it was the only choice, there were no downgrades to XP available with anyone, and I was anxious to try out the new OS. I’m not going to rehash the whole Vista debacle here, it’s common knowledge that it’s a bloated under-performer. What I did do was delete my existing Vista partition, and install a fresh OEM copy of Vista without all the HP bloatware.

I gained some meager performance from a clean install and lack of HP goodies, but even with the newest driver from Nvidia, (which was just released because until now because they had refused to issue drivers for notebook graphics chips of their making, instead leaving it to the notebook manufacturer) the overall performance gain was minimal, and there was no improvement in the performance of the graphics chip.

This result was not unexpected, so it was off to my trusty XP Pro to save me.

Windows XP Pro Performance

Frustrated at this point, I deleted my Vista partition and re-formatted (I like as clean a start as I can get). Windows XP installed fine but I had to really dig to get the motherboard chipset drivers and graphics driver installed. Once I did, I noticed quite a bit of performance gain. The graphics chip did seem just a tad better, but not much. However, the overall performance of the environment was much better.  The frustrating part of this is that there is no driver I could find to let me get the network card, the wireless network card, or the sound card to operate under XP, even with HP’s own drivers for these components.

I tried several different motherboard chipset drivers, and anything else I could think of to get these components to work under XP to no avail. This process took most of my time yesterday and ended in frustration because I was looking for some real performance gain with XP and streamlined graphics instructions. I was about to chunk my favorite new paperweight out the window when I noticed the DVD I had burned with the Windows 7 beta release OS on it, lying on my desk. I decided to give this a whirl and I figured why not, if it doesn’t work, I’ll throw Ubuntu (per Rob Tillotson’s most excellent suggestion) or HP’s MIE OS on it and see if any of that worked.

Windows 7 Performance

Keep in mind that we’re dealing with an unofficial final product here, so I wasn’t sure what to expect out of this laptop even though I’ve been running it on my desktop since it was released for testing a few months ago, and I’ve been very pleased with it.

The install went beautifully, and every single component was recognized and a driver was installed by the operating system installer. It took only about thirty minutes and performed two Windows Updates. The end result was a freshly popped up desktop with all features working. What I did do, just to be sure, was download the latest nForce chipset driver and Nvidia graphics driver for the notebook. The only stragglers were the SM Bus Driver (a motherboard component) and the driver for the coprocessor. These were remedied by installing the Vista motherboard chipset drivers located on the help and support page from HP for this laptop.

It’s not quite a day old yet, but this laptop is performing better under Windows 7 than either XP or Vista. I’m really amazed at just how well it’s doing. My 3D chess game still isn’t silky smooth, but it’s playable. Windows are flying open, browsing is a sheer joy, and even my graphics editor is performing well. I almost feel like I’ve gotten a new laptop, no thanks to HP.

Conclusion

This isn’t a scientific review complete with charts and graphs or benchmarks; it’s anecdotal evidence, it’s what I’ve experienced firsthand, side by side, in a short amount of time. As I’ve learned from this purchase, (and I SHOULD know what I’m buying) is that real world performance sometimes isn’t the same as what’s on paper. I’m not sure what the engineers or sales executives at HP were thinking when they released this notebook with the written spec they did. I’m not the sharpest crayon in the box, but if I got taken, a lot of other people surely did. The evidence for this is in rants and desperate cries for help all over the Internet.

I do feel good at saying what I think Microsoft has done. And that’s trim the fat from Vista, and make this operating system communicate with hardware in a much better and more direct way than Vista or XP. I was almost laughing when I read recently that Microsoft was hoping Windows 7 would replace XP as the choice for netbook operating systems. I’m not laughing anymore; I can’t wait to try it. I think they’ve got a real winner.

So this isn’t meant to be the torch bearer review for Windows 7 vs. OSX, or any other system. I’m simply suggesting that if you’ve got a system with Vista on it, and are frustrated by it, like I have been with this sheep in wolf’s clothing of mine, try breathing a little new life into it when the Windows 7 official release comes out. The real world gain is definitely perceivable, and you may be surprised by just how much. I was.

Filed in categories: Miscellaneous

Tagged: HP, Windows

Windows XP Pro, Vista, & 7 Performance Comparisons on a HP DV2715nr Notebook originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 20, 2009 at 11:41 am.